Gov. Edwards strongly defends Louisiana Medicaid expansion, lambasts Attorney General Jeff Landry’s efforts to overturn Obamacare as “reckless.”

Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards

Gov. Edwards appeared before the Baton Rouge Press Club on Monday, January 7, 2019.  Highlights follow:


Edwards defends Medicaid expansion and blasts AG Jeff Landry’s courtroom efforts to overturn Obamacare as “reckless.”


Edwards responds to a question of whether he would support a bill to refund taxes paid by business when those taxes have been declared to be unconstitutional.

Although the normal procedure is to raise one’s hand and hope the speaker (Gov. Edwards in this case) will call upon you, LaTonya Smith Scott, Louisiana AARP’s State Communications Director, made certain that her question was addressed by simply directly posing it without Edwards first acknowledging her.  Let’s take a peek at her question and Gov. Edwards’ response:

Edwards responds to a question for “family care giving” posed by LaTonya Smith Scott, AARP’s State Communications Director

Ms. Scott sat within four feet of Sound Off Louisiana founder Robert Burns, and he and she have exchanged pleasantries at past meetings.  Immediately after the meeting, Burns approached Scott and provided a business card and directed her to the newly-issued website The Choice Is Clear Louisiana.  He even pulled the site up on his iPHONE and drew Scott’s attention to the eighth entry on the site which highlights a past Advocate article stating that AARP accuses Gov. Edwards of breaking a campaign promise of his 2015 election campaign to place emphasis on home health care for seniors vs. being placed in nursing homes.

As Burns was speaking with Scott, Richard Carbo immediately showed up on the scene and interjected himself into the conversation by stating to Scott, “Don’t pay any attention to anything he (Burns) says.  Everything he puts out is junk!”  Burns responded, “Mr. Carbo, that website is comprised almost exclusively of news features published by the mainstream media.”  Carbo then responded, “Yeah, and you’re the only one who would put junk like that out there!”

It looks like Carbo, who has served as Edwards’ press secretary, but effective today, has officially joined his re-election team staff,  is more than a little sensitive to matters which may affect Louisiana’s seniors perception of his boss, Gov. Edwards.  Judging by his reaction to Burns’ interaction with Scott, it would certainly appear that perhaps the Governor’s re-election team, for that matter, may be a tad testy about The Choice Is Clear Louisiana.  Given the site’s intentional near-exclusive reliance of article published by the mainstream media for its content, Carbo must feel all media outlets in Louisiana don’t publish anything but “junk.”  This ought to be a really intriguing campaign year if Carbo’s immature outburst is any guide, and we’ll gladly accept his less-than-flattering commentary about Burns as a compliment and further take great pride and delight in his testiness!


Edwards responds to a question entailing a hypothetical scenario wherein the Revenue Estimating Committee (REC) refuses to recognize additional tax revenue and, should such a scenario arise, if he will push for a tax increase to fund the teacher pay raises he seeks as a top priority for the 2019 Legislative Session.


Edwards responds to a question by Advocate reporter Lanny Keller entailing whether Edwards feels the framework of the Legislature’s House Labor Committee is more amicable to passage of an increase in Louisiana’s minimum wage and whether Edwards has held discussions with the National Federation of Independent Business or “others who have killed the bill in the past?”


Edwards responds to a question regarding whether he will support a bill to roll back sales tax increases sooner than their 7-year life if surpluses arise in Louisiana’s budgets.


Edwards responds to a question by AP reporter Melinda Deslatte entailing whether his view on a bill which permits convicted felons to vote in Louisiana has been impacted by reports that Deslatte cites indicating that as many as 35,000 new voters may be eligible under the new law.


Edwards responds to a question by AP reporter Melinda Deslatte about an anticipated national focus on Louisiana’s Governor’s race this year and that he may be targeted by national Republican groups and funding sources, who Deslatte states view Edwards as an “oddity” in being a Democrat among Southern states surrounded by Republican governors.

Sound Off Louisiana’s Burns held his hand up during the meeting to be called upon, but alas he never was.  Perhaps Mr. Carbo’s exchange after the meeting provides the rationale as to why.

 

CLICK HERE to view Gov. Edwards’ presentation in its entirely (unless of course you may object to viewing material provided by someone who “publishes nothing but junk.”)

 

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Attorney General Jeff Landry hands hard-headed, convicted felon Larry Bankston and pal Gov. John Bel Edwards yet another courtroom body slam, but Bankston, like Gov. Edwards, shows total masochistic propensity in vowing to proceed on to Louisiana Supreme Court.

Former attorney for the Louisiana State Board of Contractors, Convicted Felon Larry S. Bankston

When Attorney General Jeff Landry was first elected in 2015, a number of legal contracts quickly came up for renewal in 2016.  Landry perfunctorily approved many of the contracts with the intent of reviewing them all when they came back up for renewal.

One of those contracts was that of convicted felon and former State Sen. Larry S. Bankston, who was sentenced to 41 months in Federal Prison and ordered to pay a $20,000 fine for his role in agreeing to stonewall a measure in a State Senate Committee which he chaired in order to benefit Fred Goodson.  The FBI recorded Bankston making several incriminating statements on wire taps conducted during the fourth and final term of former Gov. Edwin Washington Edwards, to wit:

09/19/94:

 “I haven’t made a nickel off this, and I wasn’t going to let this get past me.……I don’t want to be your lawyer!  I, being your lawyer, all you can get paid for is your time.  You can’t get compensated adequately as a lawyer.  I can protect you from those guys (Players Casino).  <Upon being asked how Bankston could provide such “protection?”>…….Because of who I am!  There are some other people from Louisiana that (sic) will need to be taken care of as a result of what the (Indian) Chief tells me to do.”

09/30/94:

“We’ll take care of it, everybody who needs to be taken care of.   <Bankston’s response to being told, “We’re going to give you 5%, and you can make the crooked ways straight.”> “And I’ll, I can do that.”

10/31/94:

“I don’t want to be involved with people who f—— tape record people’s phone calls.…..The Chief is in f—— never never land….The thing is going to blow up, and I don’t want to be involved when it blows up.”

12/28/94:

“My wife is about to choke me.  She (Bankston’s wife) said ‘where is all this happening?’  The worst thing about this, Fred (Goodson) is that I’m married to a CPA.  Nothing worse than a CPA for a wife.  I mean she understands….”

Landry became concerned that, with Bankston’s checkered past, he was not an appropriate choice to continue as legal counsel for the Louisiana State Board of Contractors.  He therefore declined to renew Bankston’s legal contract with that Board.  Bankston then filed suit against Landry stating that Landry had to provide reasons for his failure to renew Bankston’s contract.  Landry had little difficulty supplying Bankston with such reasons, to wit:

 

Meanwhile, the Contractor’s Board, which had initially defended trying to maintain Bankston as its attorney (quite likely at the direct behest of Gov. John Bel Edwards) decided it simply wanted to move on.  Accordingly, it hired a well-respected construction law attorney (Kevin Landreneau).  Landry quickly approved Landreneau’s contract.

In addition to Landry supplying the reasons Bankston requested, Landry was also busy in Judge Todd Hernandez’s courtroom fending off Gov. Edwards’ steadfast resolve to maintain language in state contracts forbidding so-called discrimination entailing transgendered folk which dealt almost exclusively with those folk using the public restroom of their choice (i.e. a male who merely “identified” as a female would be free to utilize the ladies room at public facilities).  Sound Off Louisiana‘s Robert Burns attended those courtroom hearings and heard Judge Hernandez state, “It sure seems much of the arguments I’m hearing revolve around bathrooms.”  Landry ultimately prevailed in that case and, importantly, Hernandez ruled that final contract approval authority is vested in the Attorney General and NOT the Governor.  Edwards argued that Landry’s role was merely “ministerial” and that he had no choice but to rubber stamp contracts which Edwards submitted to Landry for approval.

So, with Landry having supplied the reasons for his rejection of Bankston’s contract, the Contractor Board having hired a new attorney, Landry having approved that new attorney, and Hernandez’s ruling that it is Landry, and not Edwards, who has the authority to approve and reject legal contracts, Bankston’s suit against Landry would clearly seem moot, no?  Our good friend Scott McKay, publisher of The Hayride, stated as much in the final paragraph of his excellent feature on the matter to that point.  Let’s repeat his final paragraph just for emphasis:

“So much for the suit, it would seem. But at least it’ll go on until next Friday at which point we’ve got to figure Fields will dismiss it. What else can he do?”

McKay’s excellent assessment notwithstanding, Burns has considerable first-hand experience with both Bankston and Fields (even to the point of arguing a full-blown case pro se with Fields as Judge and Bankston as opposing counsel).  Suffice to say Burns knew from that experience that, with Bankston’s hard head and the fact that Fields’ deployment of common sense simply not being his forte, the suit would not be dismissed as McKay predicted.  What happened instead is Bankston, through his attorney, Mary Olive Pierson, sought to amend his suit.  Meanwhile, Landry filed a Declinatory Exception basically arguing the same common sense McKay espoused above.  In a nutshell, Landry argued the case was in fact now “moot,” (common sense would dictate as much, no?) and therefore Judge Fields lacked subject matter jurisdiction to hear the matter.  As Burns could have easily predicted from his own experience with the tag-team of Fields and Bankston, Fields denied Landry’s exception.  Thereafter, Landry appealed to the First Circuit Court of Appeals.

On Thursday, January 3, 2019, the First Circuit issued its ruling, to wit:

Bankston, continuing to display his infinitely hard head, wasted no time stating, through Pierson, that he’d be appealing the matter to the Louisiana Supreme Court.  Let’s take just a moment to reflect upon the humiliation suffered by Gov. John Bel Edwards during testimony before a U. S. House Committee entailing problematic actions of Bankston just during the brief time he did serve as the Contractor Board attorney during Landry’s tenure.  Here’s that episode:

U. S. Congressman Mark Meadows, R-North Carolina, grills Gov. Edwards on Bankston’s problematic actions as attorney for the Louisiana State Contractor Board

So, apparently demonstrating the ultimate in masochistic propensities, Gov. Edwards and Larry Bankston are prepared to appear once again before the Louisiana Supreme Court and, upon Landry prevailing yet again, that should make the score Landry 5, Edwards 0.  The most frustrating part is that it is our taxpayer dollars that these two buffoons continue to flush right down the toilet on these useless acts of futility!

 

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Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year from Sound Off Louisiana!

Just a brief note to wish all of our loyal subscribers a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, and to say that we look very forward to delivering intirguing Sound Off Louisiana posts in 2019!

 

Sincerely,

Robert Burns, Founder, Sound Off Louisiana

If you would like to be added to our Sound Off Louisiana email list to be notified of future posts, simply go to our home page and scroll to the bottom (mobile devices) or to the top of the right-hand column (desktops).  Supply your email address within the subscribe box.  You’ll then receive an automated email from Word Press, and all you have to do is click on the blue “confirm follow” bar contained within that email, and you’ll begin receiving great posts such as the preceding one above.