yesterday, the gannett/alexandria daily town talk published a 'your mail' letter to the editor (see link) by cleco ceo mike madison 'creating the state we deserve.'
mr. madison wrote to tout the success of some mysterious entity called 'blueprint louisiana' of which mr. madison sits upon the steering committee thereof, in influencing the passage of some ethics reform. mr. madison writes, "from our perspective, all four of our ethics recommendations were achieved"
the thing is though, if mr. madison is so high on some ethics and some honesty and some transparency then why hasnt his company: cleco corporation, settled the long running city of alexandria v cleco lawsuit?
quoting from the original petition filed by the city of alexandria, the city alleges that "cleco has manipulated transactions involving purchases of electricity for the city in order to obtain for itself and/or its affiliates revenue and/or benefits having an economic value to which it was otherwise not entitled [here the city gives thirteen instances a.- m.] cleco is required to provide the city with documentation and data to evidence its actions and support its conduct in connection with the performance of its obligations to the city under the agreements. despite the obligation to provide such information and despite the reasonable requests of the city to obtain such information, cleco has either failed or refused to provide such information, or in the alternative, has provided information that is incomplete, inaccurate, misleading and or false..."
thats pretty strong words. the city of alexandria, la. is saying that cleco is a bunch of crooks who operate like an organized crime gang.
so what does cleco do? they promptly move the suit over to federal court before the rethuglican george w. bush appointee, dee drell, who's former? law partner charlie weems is a major financial contributor to and supporter of the current governor piyush "bobby" jindal the very same governor who mr. madison and his blueprint louisiana entity operate in support of.
on a side note, mr. weems and another blueprint louisiana steering committee member, jonathan martin also intersect when mr. martin and mr. weems recently came out in support of the satanic bohemian grover sean o'keefe when he was fired from his job as lsu chancellor. by the way, the late president richard milhous nixon once remarked that bohemian grove was "the most faggy goddamned thing you could ever imagine" [video] but we digress, cos after all we are talking about a bunch of republicans here.
anyway, judge drell instead of setting a trial date so that all this could promptly come out in public, seals everything including the audit and apparently playing into cleco's 'strategery' allows cleco to string the proceedings along for years under the guise of "mediation." this "mediation process" further helps cleco because it demoralizes the citizenry and the city and threatens to bankrupt or severely cripple the city with the associated legal fees so that the city will eventually become exhausted in fighting this suit and settle for peanuts or for nothing at all. yet mr. madison has the audacity to sign his name to a letter in which he claims to stand for and speak for good ethics and good government. only in louisiana!
next mr. madison chooses to pat some local legislators ("reps. andy anders, billy chandler, chris hazel and chris roy, and state sens. eric lafleur and neil riser") on the head "for asking questions, working the issues and boldly casting votes for reform." thats a lie -- they didnt ask any questions, what they did was totally abdicate their duty, their oath of office, to act as a separate and coequal branch of government.
for example, this bunch was either too dumb or they knew better but were too timid which is worse, to see the danger when they all voted for hb41 [senate final passage vote | house final passage vote] a bill now act 23 which
consolidated the adjudication powers of the state ethics board to the governor because it removes those powers from the state ethics board which didnt even file charges in 60% of the cases before it and gives the control to the governor because the administrative law judges are appointed by someone who in turn is appointed by the governor.
now thanks to these legislators own stupidity when they have a little ethics problem, which they will, thanks to the other myriad of ethics laws they passed against themselves, they will have to go to the governor with their hat in their hand and work out some kind of deal with him in order to get him to make a phone call to see that the ethics charges are taken care of. administrative law judge courts are nothing but a kangaroo court and a sham as seen by the administrative law judge court the lafayette consolidated government runs for their redflex redlight scam. see the video of a lafayette/redflex administrative law judge hearing here and also new recording captures tony tramel; others mocking and laughing at lafayette citizens. not surprisingly the lafayette parish consolidated government is another louisiana governmental entity under the control of corrupt republicans.
mr. mike madison thinks this is all just fine and dandy and we guess he does when you consider who controls the governor. it's the corporatocracy made up of corporations like cleco and the plutocracy made up of people like mike madison. in fact, if you look at who is behind the blueprint louisiana group you see its nothing more than a front and a shill/propaganda arm of the corporatocracy/plutocracy.
mr. madison is absolutely correct when he writes they are "creating the state that we deserve" what he doesnt tell you, because he doesnt have to tell you either, seeing that 53.88% of the states voters have already shown themselves to have lousy minds and cant think properly enough to figure it out anyway, is that the "we" aint the common people at all - the "we" is big business and the wealthy.
