Congressman Jefferson's Motion Denied

It appears that indicted Louisiana Congressman William (Cold Cash) Jefferson is trying to avoid the inevitable: Standing Trial For Bribery & Corruption Schemes


Yesterday a federal judge rejected his attempt to have his trial moved out of northern Virginia. It appears that the Congressman believes that he stands a better chance of being exonerated if his trial was moved to the District of Columbia in order to draw a largely black jury pool.

As I have said before, Congressman Jefferson erroneously believe that somehow blacks will not listen to the evidence and find him not guilty based on race alone.

Let's get on with the trial, Congressman Jefferson, and stop trying to play a badly dealt race card.

The State of Louisiana has spoken: Just Say No To Corruption

What Is the Army Corps of Engineers trying to hide?

I read a troubling editorial, in the Times Picayune, today regarding allegations against the Army Corps of Engineers. According to the article:

Raymond Seed, a civil engineering professor at University of California-Berkeley, has filed an ethics complaint with the engineering society saying that its leaders and the corps tried to prevent independent teams such as his from gathering critical evidence at the levee failure sites and from speaking out about their findings.

Mr. Seed went on to say that:

1. The corps used its leverage with the group to try to silence differing views.

2. At the corps' request, the engineering trade group appointed an external review panel to provide expert advice to corps investigators who served on the Interagency Performance Evaluation Task Force, known as IPET. The corps paid the group $2 million for that work, a payment Mr. Seed contends is a conflict of interest.

3. The corps reneged on a promise to give his team access to soil samples at the 17th Street Canal and then tried to prevent his team from collecting its own samples. The corps only gave in after another independent research group, Team Louisiana, got the help of Louisiana's attorney general.

4. ASCE officials tried to keep their own review team members, as well as Mr. Seed's group and Team Louisiana, from testifying about their initial findings before Congress.

What is the Army Corp of engineers trying to hide? What role did they play in the levees' failure? We should all take Mr. Seed's complaints seriously and not remain quiet on this issue.

New Orleans' First Inspector General Begins Job With No Office, Staff Or Car

"As inspector general, Cerasoli is charged with investigating waste, fraud and corruption in city government and among those receiving money from the city. He is also expected to propose ways to make local government more efficient and to teach city officials about their ethical responsibilities.

When he was hired, he said he was "very encouraged" by the terms of the ordinance creating the New Orleans inspector general's office.

The ordinance says the inspector general's office will be "operationally independent" of the council, the Ethics Review Board and the mayor's office, meaning none of them can prevent the office from "initiating, carrying out or completing any audit, investigation or review."

The office is promised "access to all records, information, data, reports, plans, projections, matters, contracts, memoranda, correspondence and any other materials" of all city departments, including the council and the mayor's office. It is authorized to subpoena witnesses and records and to require sworn testimony."



We all hope that Mr. Cerasoli can help put an end to political corruption in New Orleans. New Orleans, however, is off to a great start with Stan "Pampy" Barre going to prison soon.