Louisiana Voice

So Louisiana’s Sen. John N. Kennedy SPOKE SATURDAY to a gaggle of Iowa conservatives saying that yes, inflation is being caused by the U.S.-Iran war but that he sees an end to the hostilities within six months. Sounds like he’s been drinking the Trump Kool-Aid rather than weed killer.

Nice to know. Interesting, though, that he acknowledged it is a “war” as opposed to what J.D. “hands off, that’s my sofa” Vance says it is not a war.

But back to Kennedy.

He was the keynote speaker for the Iowa Faith and Freedom Coalition’s annual fall fundraiser in Des Moines and he was speaking in support of U.S. Rep. Ashley Hinson’s senatorial campaign.

But here’s the thing I find puzzling. He appeared to speak in Iowa while he is now in day 3,171 of never having held a town hall meeting with Louisiana constituents, the ones who finally put him in the Senate after twice before having sought–and failed–to get elected to the office.

For that matter, Kennedy has had some difficulty through the years deciding just what he wanted to do when he grew up. He’s also run for the office of attorney general and eventually ran—and was elected state treasurer—after proclaiming in campaign ads that as secretary of the Office of State Revenue (yet another of the posts listed on his resume), he reduced the paperwork for small business by 150 percent. That was perhaps a precursor to Trump Math whereby prescription drug prices were reduced “1600 percent.”

After finally being elected senator (the third time was the charm) by proclaiming he’d “rather drink weed killer” than offend Trump, he has managed to avoid meeting those who took him to the dance for 8.7 years. But he manages to find time to dispense his homilies on the good conservatives in Iowa.

Do you think he could possibly be positioning himself…? Nah, couldn’t be. Yet his Zachary High School yearbook listed his ambition as to one day become POTUS (that’s President of the U.S. as opposed to the current occupant whose POTUS means Pedophile of the U.S.).

Stranger things have happened. Case in point, the Sultan of Mar-a-Lardo.

Speaking of absentee representation, there’s Rep. Julia Letlow. On average, members of Congress miss about 1 to 3 percent of votes during their tenure. Letlow, in her nearly seven years in the House, has already missed 10 percent of votes. But, hey, insider trading takes time.

And remember how Trump ridiculed Joe Biden in 2020 for not campaigning, for “holing up” because of the Covid-19 pandemic? Well, there’s no pandemic, but Julia Letlow is nowhere to be found.

She did debate opponent John Fleming—one time—in the Republican primary earlier this year, a debate that observers agree was won by Fleming. But just over a month out from the Nov. 3 election, she has managed to adroitly duck out on debating Democrat Jamie Davis.

Davis, for his part, believes that’s because Letlow is a party to one of those nondisclosure agreements that are getting so much negative publicity of late.

Hers was in connection to the Meta data center being built in her district in Richland Parish.

Readers like Goose will accuse Davis and any of his supporters of being “dumacrat commies,” as is anyone else with whom he disagrees. But Goose, of course, doesn’t know the Constitution from constipation so there’s that.

But anyone who has met or listened to Davis will understand that he knows the issues, he feels the same pain we do at the gas pump or the grocery store. He’s a farmer and an experienced public servant. Unlike Trump, who doesn’t feel—or care about—the effects of inflation, Davis understands because he’s been there.

But you’d never know it from Letlow, who simply refuses to debate Davis.

And folks, if you’re afraid to debate, afraid to address the issues, afraid to explain your position (or your insider trading), afraid to face the voters, then you don’t deserve my vote.

That goes for John N. Kennedy or Julia Letlow.

Northern Louisiana Medical Center (NLMC) may have “ended” its diversion of patients to neighboring facilities last Friday, but an insider says the Ruston hospital and its parent company, Allegiance Healthcare, are far from out of the proverbial woods.

Patients had been diverted to nearby hospitals recently because of a shortage of equipment at NLMC but that situation, while eased somewhat, is by no means alleviated. A source inside the hospital said there is scant equipment to care for more than a handful of patients at a time and should the number of patients exceed the availability of equipment, patients will again have to be diverted to other facilities.

Meanwhile, LouisianaVoice has obtained some numbers relating to the Ruston 130-bed hospital which are unofficial. A source familiar with negotiations said Allegiance Healthcare CEO Rock Bordelon recently rejected a $16 million offer from the Lincoln Parish Police Jury to purchase the hospital.

That same source said Allegiance and Bordelon paid “around $7 million for the hospital but that seems to be extremely low considering Allegiance purchased the hospital from Community Health Systems which has been selling off properties across the Southeast for considerably higher amounts:

• Plateau Medical Center in Oak Hill, West Virginia: $92 million;
• Lake Norman Regional Medical Center in Mooresville, N.C., and Davis Regional Medical Center in Statesville, N.C.: a combined $320 million;
• Three Florida hospitals in Bravera, Crystal River and Spring Hill, to Tampa General Hospital for about $290 million
• Medical Center of South Arkansas in El Dorado was also sold by CHS to a nonprofit organization for an undisclosed amount.

The same source said NLMC currently has outstanding vendor debt that “could be as much as $10 million to $20 million.” That figure was unconfirmed but Bordelon does, in fact, have IRS tax liens against him for about $14 million for having failed to submit tax withholdings from employees.

“I got a first-hand look at the inside of a broken-down facility,” the source, who wished to remain anonymous, said. “It brought tears to my eyes. I remember when the hallways would have visitors, physical therapists and nurses ambulating patients. Instead, what I found was a ghost town.”

The Atlantic, along with The Guardian, is an excellent publication that is both informative and credible.

The Guardian, of course, is a British publication that often beats American news sources to good stories. A case in point is the outstanding series of stories on the sexual abuse saga involving the New Orleans Archdiocese. Domestic media, other than The New Orleans and Baton Rouge Advocate, have barely touched on the story.

The Atlantic’s stories generally are much longer and more detailed than other outlets and case in point is yesterday’s 9200-word essay by writer Anne Applebalm on ways in which Maga is “making the world safe for corruption.”

If you scroll down to page 14 of Applebalm’s piece, she even goes into some detail of how our very own Jeff Landry contributes to the disaster that is the Trump administration.

As Trump’s “special envoy” to Greenland, a title she notes carries no recognition from Denmark, he blew into Greenland’s capital of Nuuk last May to “make a bunch of friends.”

The number-one rule for both comics and politicians (am I being redundant here?) is to know your audience. Comics don’t, for example, roll into Austin, Texas, and make crude jokes about Willie Nelson (as one comic friend learned the hard way). And it was, I believe, Lyndon Johnson who once said, “If you can’t come into a room and tell right away who is for you and who is against you, you have no business in politics.”

Landry, obviously, had not done his homework in advance, having gushed on X to Trump beforehand, “It’s an honor to serve you in this volunteer position to make Greenland a part of the U.S.,” apparently overlooking the fact that folks in Greenland and Denmark are literate and can read. To say the least, offense was taken.

Applebalm wrote, “Upon his arrival, Landry changed into camouflage pants, as if he were preparing for combat. He attended a business conference to which he had not been invited.”

Then, in perhaps the biggest faux pas, he “tried to hand out MAGA hats, without much success.”

What a doofus.

Applebalm continued, “Although Louisiana is near the bottom of all U.S. health-care rankings, and although Greenland has full access to a state-funded national health service, Landry brought a doctor who seemed to be there to discuss Greenlandic health care. On the day after Landry’s departure, Greenlanders staged a large protest outside the new U.S. consulate, which they had dubbed ‘Trump Tower.’ After returning home, Landry nevertheless told Fox News that the people he had met ‘want more U.S. involvement in Greenland.’”

That sounds eerily like something Trump would say and along with it being so blatantly untrue, it’s downright embarrassing. Hey, Guv, which “people” told you that? Can you be specific? Didn’t think so.

This a governor, folks, who has pulled off what I thought was impossible: he makes Bobby Jindal look palatable.

This is a guy, I not remind you, who was elected in 2023 by a whopping 18 percent of the state’s 3 million eligible voters and thinks he had a mandate.

Apparently, that “mandate” includes the proliferation of nondisclosure agreements that state and local elected and appointed officials in every one of the state’s 64 parishes were told by Landry to sign.

I have long bitched and moaned about the existence of nondisclosure agreements in lawsuits settled by the state in which taxpayer money is expended to settle claims against the state. This is our money and we have a right to know how much is involved and to whom. Proponents of the practice claim it’s to discourage future claimants from rolling the dice for a similar payoff. That may be, but it doesn’t change the fact that it’s our money and we have a right to know how it’s spent.

But now, Landry has taken NDAs to an all-new level and is figuratively, if not literally, papering the state with the documents that serve the dual purpose of shielding the public from knowing what is going on and the politicians from accountability. Of course, there is proprietary information and there are ways in which to protect that but blank NDAs are not the answer.

And just to show we aren’t ignoring Louisiana’s chief legal official, Attorney General Liz Murrill, there’s also a story in today’s Washington Post in which a federal judge has ruled the ICE was in violation of the U.S. Constitution when they delivered a warning notice to a man in Rochester, New York, over a critical email he had sent to Department of Homeland Security acting director Todd Lyons. The notice, delivered to the man’s home, indicated he risked he might be prosecuted if he continued to engage in political speech.

That action by ICE was reminiscent of Murrill’s silly LETTER last May to the New Orleans mayor, district attorney and city council members warning them they could be jailed for the cardinal sin of disagreeing with her and her boss, Landry, over the removal of a duly-elected clerk of court in Orleans Parish.

But back to Applebalm’s essay and Landry’s claim of local support for more U.S. involvement in Greenland.

Danish politician Julie Rademacher told Applebalm that the night after Landry’s visit, she had gone to a bar in Nuuk where she saw people openly carrying guns—something she said she’d never seen before. “Greenlanders knew that envoys from a predatory foreign power were circulating among them, seeking minerals, money, attention, regime change,” Applebalm wrote.

“They are destroying the trust and the respect in society, in institutions, but also in people,” Rademacher told her.

Kinda makes you understand why Landry prefers NDAs after all.