good lawd! we are so screwed in this election. its like fate has chosen the absolute two worst candidates to run for the highest court in the state.
the candidates, a couple of rino's and the louisiana democratic party couldnt even recruit one judge or lawyer to at least give the rest of us who refuse to vote for either one a choice? why again, is chris whittington still its chairman?
even more disappointing than that -- not one 'other' ran.
this means that these two are the best that the entire legal community in the 4th supreme court district has to offer their fellow louisianans for supreme court associate justice candidates. shame on the lawyers and a double-dose of shame on the heads of all the lawyers who love the constitution and freedom and knew that they would have made a good supreme court justice and didnt run.====
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anyway, this is the video from around 10 am on 30 september 2009, the rino marcus clark met with a panel of questioners at the monroe news star newspaper office.
back at the end of april we were eager to read judge clark's announcement. in it though what made us suspicious of his republican bona-fides was the part where judge clark sexed up his participation in something {like he does a couple of times in the video) called the louisiana drug asset forfeiture law.
we thought 'asset forfeiture' was something rather dubious for an authentic republican to be bragging over having a hand in -- you know since republicans claim they are opposed to enlarging government and lowering taxes -- yet are the first ones to to steal your money in higher taxes and more fees. they cant wait to steal your freedoms either with junk law and junk laws. its no different in judge clark's case.
judge clark says that he is the co-author of the legislation as well as the 1989 constitutional amendment which made asset forfeiture all "legal."
why then, we wonder, didnt any of the reporters do their homework on the story ( it only took seconds to copy and paste "louisiana asset forfeiture law" into a search engine and return with a couple of hours worth of reading about...yep... how corrupt the louisiana drug asset forfeiture law is and how does judge clark account for that; being a republican and its coauthor and all?
for instance they must know that dateline nbc conducted a yearlong investigation into louisiana's drug asset forfeiture law scam and how it really works --- nbc dedicated the entire 03 january 1997 program to it.
the dateline reporter, john larson, won several prestigious awards, including an emmy for investigative journalism for his documentary report titled probable cause an investigation into louisiana police. mr. larson still prominently displays this from his official bio
we havent been able to locate any video clips of that show but there are many transcripts and first person accounts online of people who seen it.
like:excerpt:
"The people have this belief that before the state can do something to you it has to prove that you committed a crime, but under the forfeiture law, that's not the case. . . . [I]t's guilty until proven innocent.
What happens now is, without ever having to prove anything, they can take it. Now it's up to you to come and get it.
They don't have to prove [that they found drugs]. They have to prove what they call probable cause. Well, probable cause is precious little, trust me." Government critics predict that the Prohibition laws will never change, since police have too much money to gain.
"Each year in this one jurisdiction where we are right now, it's about $3 million." ~ Tom Lorenzi an attorney for many asset forfeiture victims.Tourist Alert: Louisiana Revenuers Part 1 by Leon Felkinsexcerpt:
The show starts off with Stone Phillips, one of the more tolerable of the TV Talking Heads, providing this disturbing introduction:
"Imagine a place where Police stop you in your car for no apparent reason and interrogate you. They may seize your property, your money, your car, strip search you and throw you in jail.
And you've done nothing wrong. If this sounds like a foreign dictatorship or some Orwellian nightmare, it's not. It's happened right here in America." (Well Stone, you need to get out more often.
Actually, when I heard this introduction, the first place I thought of was the USA, where this practice has become a routine practice since the start of the "Drug War" hustle.)excerpt:
The Dateline episode, originally broadcast on January 3, 1997, did not go unnoticed by the Louisiana politicians. On January 5, the Baton Rouge Advocate ran the articles, "Foster to review drug forfeiture laws" on January 5, 1997 and "I-10 drug searches," on February 9, 1997.
Foster is Mike Foster, the current governor of Louisiana. (Much of the initial reaction of the state to this expose is documented in the NDSN online essay, "Louisiana Law Enforcement Stops Innocent Motorists and Seizes Their Property, Reports NBC's 'Dateline'".)
The Dateline episode brought out several aspects of Louisiana's approach to private asset forfeiture that doesn't look all that wholesome when exposed to the light of public review: excerpt:
The 45-minute program focused on cases in which motorists were stopped, arrested, and had their property seized without evidence of drugs in their car.
The program said most of the misconduct occurred along Interstate 10 in Jefferson Davis and Cameron parishes in southwestern Louisiana, and that out-of state travelers, particularly minorities, were usually targeted.
Hidden cameras used to record searches and seizures showed police officers stopping the TV crew for "violations" they did not commit and asking crew members how much money they had.
"Dateline" reporter John Larson spent more than a year researching abuses of the state's drug forfeiture law.Asset Forfeiture: Unconstitutional Property Theft by our Governments by Leon Felkinslouisianans knowing full well to reside in the most corrupt state in the nation vote anyway to amend article 1 section 4 of their constitution by adding a subsection d to it, to give law enforcement and the the courts dark immense new powers, over your affairs and property:Which Party will Protect our Constitutional Rights?
excerpt:
Neither (at least, neither of the two major parties)! There has been a string of private property seizure laws passed since 1970. Some of these forfeiture laws were passed when the Republicans were in the Presidency and the Democrats were in control of Congress.
Some were passed when a Democrat was president and Republicans held the congress. The fact is, there is little interest by either party in restoring our rights or in complying with the Constitution.D) But the following property may be forfeited and disposed of in a civil proceeding, as provided by law: contraband drugs; property derived in whole or in part from contraband drugs; property used in the distribution, transfer, sale, felony possession, manufacture, or transportation of contraband drugs; property furnished or intended to be furnished in exchange for contraband drugs; property used or intended to be used to facilitate any of the above conduct; or other property because the above-described property has been rendered unavailable. ~ CA #4 ACT 840 / SB 52
one of the effects of which, is that now the state can take an inanimate object to court and get a judgment against it. how retarded is that!
all this was done in 1989. the state legislature website only goes back to 1997; we know from the elections division website that the constitutional amendment which is what they used as the enabling act was from SB 52 that became ACT 840. but since its from 1989, SB 52 is not available online.
the leges passed the drug asset forfeiture statute law simultaneously with the constitutional amendment enabling act legislation and they all came into force at the same time, 01 january 1990. the statutes upon which to carry out the constitutional amendment were from ACT 375 of 1989 which became R.S. 40:2601 so far we cant find out if it started out as a house or senate bill, who authored and coauthored it, voted for it etc. the videos of the committees meeting and floors debate arent available either.
R.S. 40:2601 words and phrases like this:Any of the following conduct gives rise to forfeiture
(1) An act or omission punishable by confinement for more than one year under R.S. 40:961 et seq [uniform controlled dangerous substance law]. whether or not there is a prosecution or conviction related to the act or omission. ~ R.S. 40:2603
and all this junk was coauthored by marcus clark and he brags on it at every opportunity?!?
well we knew then that we wouldnt be voting for this rino. its the principle of the thing.
oh yeah, one other thing we noticed in clark's 27 april announcement was how he pulled the typical rethuglican trick -- mention god. all rethuglicans have to give a shout-out to 'my man god.'
trouble is they never tell us which god of theirs it is they are honoring. we know it cant be the most high god, who sent his only begotten son jesus christ to save the world, because they do the exact opposite of everything jesus teaches; this asset forfeiture scam, in one way or another breaks all 10 commandments as well as jesus' two great commandments.
if louisiana had honest government, instead of a pack of criminals, after they saw how the cops were using this law to turn themselves into hi-tech highwaymen, the first thing they would have done in that 1997 session would have been to place the constitutional amendment back before the people giving them the opportunity to repeal it.
what they did in 1997 was make some minor changes [HB 1839 ACT 1334 by stephen j. windhorst a republican naturally, who then went on to get his own cushy judgeship in the 24th jdc at gretna] and the law is still in force.
judge clark brags that the monroe court he's on has the 3rd highest asset forfeiture rate in the state. ya dont say.
what they did was get a cop to help write a law for the cops to give them power to steal your "assets" and the only standard is -- it's their word against yours.
marcus clark is clearly a usurper. he is an enemy of freedom, the constitution and everything our founders and forebears stood and fought for.
this new legal doctrine he helped foist on the people, is one thats totally alien to america. it opens the door for the legislature and their crime gangs to eventually be able to craft laws to steal your property with at their whim.====jimmy faircloth appearance on moon griffon
link to audio page
on 01 september 2009, candidate for louisiana supreme court district #4, republican jimmy faircloth, appeared on the moon griffon radio program.
at the outset, mr. faircloth and mr. griffon payed lip-service to something that monroe attorney paul hurd had said the week before about the candidates need to get out before the citizenry and come clean about themselves by answering questions.
moon griffon then proceeded to not ask any relevant questions. imagine that.
and no one was permitted to phone in -- despite mr. faircloth's appearance spanning two segments.[length 17:25]. that was disappointing because we wanted to listen for anyone phoning in with a question about mainnet or the 24 may 2008 times-picayune story about it.
mr. griffon's 4th question did deal with mr. faircloth's association with gambling and the coushattas indians. mr. faircloth talked some about his representation of the coushattas, but griffon missed several golden opportunities to follow up with questions about mainnet.
why wont the media ask mr. faircloth any questions about mainnet? or whatever happened with the provost, umphrey lawsuit against mr. faircloth and his law firm? in that suit the plaintiff's allege that mr. faircloth stole their clients away, that he "improperly solicited" the tribe while "maligning and denigrating" provost, umphrey and other law firms, that mr. faircloth is 'unethical' & 'unscrupulous' that suit stemmed from mr. faircloth's association with the coushattas indians and their casino biz as well .
the second segment was devoted to mr. faircloth's explaining away his eviscerating the state ethic's law under the guise of "ethics reform," by changing the wording of the definition of the violation from "any substantial evidence" to "clear and convincing evidence."
it was pretty smooth the way he worked in the bit about his opponent being found unethical under the new ethics law: "moon i'am running against a candidate in this race, who was found to have violated the code of judicial ethics by 'clear and convincing evidence'"
