[Rhodes22-list] Bill Effros is this true?

[benonvelvetelvis at theskinnyonbenny.com]

All of that's true, and Louisiana has a history of corruption that goes back at
least a hundred years, but things have been changing.

Ray Nagin fired something like 50% of the NOPD when he was elected.  The crime
rate is way down.  Edwin Edwards is in prison.  So are a lot of his buddies --
both elected and appointed.  I can't imagine how two other states rank higher.

The current governor is just inept rather than corrupt.  She seems like a really
nice lady and all, but she's totally unprepared and incapable of handling the
current situation.  I'm not sure how many people would be able to handle this,
but she's not one of them.

An interesting side note:  you NFL fans might remember that there was some
controversy that led to Eddie Debartelo (spelling?) being ousted as primary owner
of the 49ers.  His offense was giving a kickback to Edwards in order to get a
floating casino license in Louisiana.  Not his finest moment.







On Mon, 19 Sep 2005 08:43 , ed kroposki <ekroposki at charter.net> sent:

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>Why we couldn't save the people of New Orleans 
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>The New York Daily News, Sept. 4, 2005 
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>In the late 1990s, the state's school systems ranked dead last in the nation
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>in the number of computers per student (1 per 88), and Louisiana has the
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>nation's second-highest percentage of adults who never finished high school.
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>By the state's own measure, 47% of the public schools in New Orleans rank as
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>"academically unacceptable." 
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>These government failures are not merely a matter of incompetence. Louisiana
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>and New Orleans have a long, well-known reputation for corruption: as former
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>congressman Billy Tauzin once put it, "half of Louisiana is under water and
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>the other half is under indictment." 
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>That's putting it mildly. Adjusted for population size, the state ranks
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>third in the number of elected officials convicted of crimes (Mississippi is
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>No. 1). Recent scandals include the conviction of 14 state  judges and an
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>FBI raid on the business and personal files of a Louisiana congressman. 
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>In 1991, a notoriously corrupt Democrat named Edwin Edwards ran for governor
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>against Republican David Duke, a former head of the Ku Klux Klan. Edwards,
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>whose winning campaign included bumper stickers saying "Elect the Crook," is
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>currently serving a 10-year prison sentence for taking bribes from casino
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>owners. Duke recently completed his own prison term for tax fraud. 
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>The rot included the New Orleans Police Department, which in the 1990s had
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>the dubious distinction of being the nation's most corrupt police force and
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>the least effective: the city had the highest murder rate in America. More
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>than 50 officers were eventually convicted of crimes including murder, rape
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>and robbery; two are currently on Death Row. 
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>Ten billion dollars are about to pass into the sticky hands of politicians
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>in the No. 1 and No. 3 most corrupt states in America.  Worried about
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>looting?  You ain't seen nothing yet
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