Corruption

From WDSU

From the Associated Press and WAFB: Defense attorneys listed the Republican senator among potential witnesses Monday as jury selection began in the case against Deborah Palfrey.

As reported by the box last month, Governor Bobby Jindal put $14 million in state dollars behind Hornets co-owner Gary Chouest’s planned expansion of the shipyard at the Port of Terrebonne, leaving many legislators scratching their heads and crying foul over the anemic support for the Napoleon Avenue Terminal.

Now courtesy of the Advocate, the rationale for such treatment is becoming clear as we learn what $135,250 in campaign contributions will buy you from the Jindal administration. 

Chris Tidmore over at the Bayou Buzz takes a look at a provision called the “Travel Act” which deals with mail and interstate travel in promoting crimes such as gambling, narcotics distribution and - you guessed it - prostitution. Tidmore reckons that, with the Travel Act’s ten-year statute of limitations, Senator Vitter is still open for potential prosecution under that law.

Rumors are swirling that the Chief Justice of the Louisiana Supreme Court, Pascal Calogero, may be about to resign because of accusations of corruption. Read more

After enduring two weeks of obvious comparisons and renewed calls from Conservatives and Democrats alike for his resignation, Senator David Vitter faces yet another date with Destiny (the real kind, not the lap dancer) on April 7th when jury selection begins in the trial of Deborah Jeane Palfrey, the alleged DC Madam. That’s when we’ll likely know if Louisiana’s “stain” of a Senator will be called to testify. More from the T-P.

As the Shreveport Times reports, even as local governments take steps to change the way bowl game and concert tickets are given away, the Jindal administrations maintains that it will continue with its policy of giving away free tickets to lawmakers and others. Have ethics reforms meant to do away with favors and patronage effectively turned the Governor into the only game in town?

What do you do when you’re fending off calls from members of your own party for you to resign from the U.S Senate? If you’re David Vitter you take a nice taxpayer expensed trip to Afghanistan. Lucky for David, the bombshells over there just blow up in the road and not in Hustler Magazine. From KALB.

From the Independent Weekly: Scott Jordan, the reporter who found himself on the phone with Senator David Vitter last week, updates his report on the Senator’s “you say hooker, I say immigration” defense of why he remains in office after Eliot Spitzer’s exit from the New York Governor’s mansion.

Also, Chris Tidmore in the Bayou Buzz, on why he put his Republican reputation on the line, and continues to do so, over the Vitter scandal.

On the heels of an editorial in last Sunday’s Gambit Weekly calling on Senator David Vitter to follow in the footsteps of disgraced New York Governor Eliot Spitzer and resign, state Democratic Party Chair Chris Whittington employed some of the harshest language to date. Calling Vitter “a stain on our state’s attempt to demonstrate that we have changed our ways” Whittington challenges Vitter to “stand up, be a man and resign like Governor Spitzer.”

Whittington’s full statement available here courtesy of the Bayou Buzz.