Louisiana Voice

There are a number of truisms out there we should all be aware of and adhere to:

• Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned;
• Never get between a mama bear and her cub;
• Being a mother is learning about strengths you didn’t know you had and dealing with fears you didn’t know existed;
• A mother’s love is the fuel that enables a normal human being to do the impossible;
• A fiercely protective mother channels her strength into every challenge she faces;
• When it comes to her children, a mother will move mountains and face storms;
• In the eyes of a mother lies a fire that rivals the fiercest warrior.

If you don’t believe every single one of the above statements are true, you’ve never met Katherine Ragland.

Ragland has had virtually every conceivable order of Baton Rouge Family Court thrown against her and she keeps coming back.

Why? It’s simple. Not only has she been on the receiving end of fines, court costs, exorbitant costs for purchases of court documents necessary to support her case, even jail time, but most of all, she keeps fighting because as of today (Tuesday, Oct.20), it has been 529 days since she has been allowed to see her children.

It’s not because she has a drug problem (she doesn’t) or that she has been arrested for some crime (she hasn’t) or that she has abused her children physically, psychologically or sexually (she hasn’t). It’s because family court judges have a built-in bias against certain people who come before their court simply because of which attorneys are representing whom.

This is a problem LouisianaVoice has addressed in previous posts yet nothing gets done.

Did a family court judge award full custody to an abusive father? Mom says yes, that judge refused to view photos

If you’ve never experienced EBR Family Court version of ‘justice,’ consider yourself lucky, but nonetheless beware

St. Tammany court neglects to inform father of his visitation rights even as he continued to pay child support for 11 years

Ragland knows how each of these people feel. She’s borne the brunt of a dizzying array of decisions by Baton Rouge Family Court that have kept her and her children separated.

But she hasn’t stopped fighting despite the impossible burden of fines, paying $200 per hour for court-ordered supervision and a series of vague answers from judges who refuse to examine evidence, hear testimony or consider all the facts.

But despite defeat after defeat, she has not given up.

She has most recently taken the bold step of taking her case to Gov. Jeff Landry, Attorney General Liz Murrill, advocacy organizations, the press, the state’s congressional delegation and every member of the Louisiana Legislature in the form of the following letter and illustration and court transcript excerpt and accompanying illustration:

As of October 20, 2026, I have not seen my children for 529 days. I am asking you to review the attached illustrated transcript excerpt and take action concerning the treatment of children and parents in East Baton Rouge Family Court and Family Courts throughout the state of Louisiana that I allege are maximizing Family Court litigation for extreme profit.

For more than six years, court-imposed restrictions have controlled whether I can see my children. Those restrictions were imposed based on my ex-husband’s false allegations of abuse. The alleged abuse was never reported or investigated, and no one ever interviewed my children or myself. One period without an in-person visit lasted almost three years in spite of my efforts. After limited supervised visits resumed, the supervisor’s extraordinary rate of $200 per hour became unaffordable. My requests for an affordable replacement have been followed by prolonged proceedings while my children and I remain separated.

“Just Thrown Away?” shows me repeatedly asking whether I will get to see my children if the court does not appoint another supervisor. The exchange illustrates how a request to make existing visitation possible can leave a parent without an answer while the separation continues. (September 26, 2025 transcript, pp. 48–49.)

The illustration is satire. The quoted dialogue comes from the court transcript, with page references provided. This is one example from a much larger record of proceedings, financial demands, prolonged separation, and unsuccessful efforts to obtain meaningful accountability.

I am requesting legislative oversight and enforceable safeguards, independent review of the reported misconduct, assistance securing substantive federal review of the civil-rights concerns, and investigative reporting. I ask Louisiana Family Forum and the other recipients to help bring this record before people who will act to protect children and parents.

Please acknowledge receipt and identify who will review these materials and what action your office, organization, or newsroom will take. I can provide the underlying transcripts, minutes, orders, correspondence, and complaints.

My children’s childhood is passing while this remains unresolved. Every additional day of separation is time we can never recover.

For lagniappe, let’s also thrown in this illustration from one of Ragland’s earlier hearings. In this one, the judge had other things on her mind than the administration of justice.

You won’t read this in The Hayride, but it turns out there’s quite a bit more to the story of Tommy Teepell than just his lame—and amateurishly foolhardy—effort to engage Abdul El-Sayed in a DEBATE on the candidate’s home turf earlier this month.

Social media has been rather active on the subject and now we learn that Tommy, son of political consultant Timmy Teepell and his political consulting firm which was on the payroll of one Bobby Jindal—to the tune of $250,000—to, among other things, to provide hecklers in El-Sayed rallies like some variant of Dick Tuck, the erstwhile pain in the butt Richard Nixon in his earlier campaigns.

Yep, that’s correct. Bobby Jindal, who took Louisiana to the brink of disaster by closing mental health treatment centers, escalating the costs of college tuition so as to be out of reach for many Louisianans and lavishing tax breaks on corporations and the wealthy, is back as a black-ops political operative.

Tommy’s daddy, Timmy Teepell, architect of Jindal’s successful gubernatorial campaigns and his not-so-successful 2016 eye-blinkingly brief campaign for the Republican presidential nomination (as in less than 1 percent of the vote in the Iowa caucuses), is list as the principal in BREAKTHROUGH LLC.

Strangely enough, Breakthrough LLC shares the same address (5800 One Perkins Place Drive, Suite 8B) as AMERICA NEXT, which just happens to be Jindal’s very own DARK MONEY PAC.

This month alone, America Next paid Breakthrough $250,000 for influencer marketing in opposition to El-Sayed.

It also paid for services recently in the Kansas governor’s race on behalf of Philip Sarnacki who lost the Republican primary to Ty Masterson. Coincidentally, Tommy Teepell was Sarnacki’s campaign’s political director.

Breakthrough also served in Josh Hawley’s campaigns in Missouri but the real eyebrow-raiser after Iman Dashti, a Republican influencer who had heckled El-Sayed at a town hall meeting, was stupid enough to post on social media that Jindal’s dark money group, America Next, was offering to pay young Republicans $200 to harass El-Sayed at events.

The results of the confrontation between young Teepell and El-Sayed at that town hall meeting earlier this month might give Jindal pause to wonder if Tommy gave him his full $200 worth before meekly exiting the event to the jeers of the pro-El-Sayed crowd.

The entire episode should serve as a gentle reminder that old Repugnantcans don’t die—and they don’t necessarily fade away. And they sure as hell aren’t above dirty tricks and underhanded tactics.

Both political parties are fully capable of misdirection and subterfuge but it is the Repugnantcans who would have us believe they are the party of purity, family values (despite more than ample evidence of sexual chicanery), and wholesomeness.

Some things just never go away, like those lawyer tv ads on the noon news and the equally timeworn GMC ads that run virtually every commercial break.

And of course, the same can be said for some people. Stephen Miller, who just keeps popping up even as other Trump appointees are fired for conducting their own side hustles or for lying about their credentials.

Remember Timmy Teepell, the architect of all things Louisiana during the disastrous Jindal administration?

Well, not him, exactly, but his progeny, Tommy, is out there trying to make a name for himself. And boy, did he ever succeed.

The name would be delusional.

Apparently, working in Sen. Josh Hawley’s campaign while carrying the Teepell name went to his head when it should’ve gone to his feet–as in walking away from a confrontation quickly.

He recently attempted to crash a campaign appearance by Abdul El-Sayed in Caro, Michigan. It didn’t go well for him.

‘Tommy’ from viral El-Sayed video is former Sen. Hawley staffer with Christian nationalist ties

He was there to ambush El-Sayed by challenging his loyalty to the U.S. Constitution over his Islamic faith but El-Sayed was more than up to the task and Teepell ended up leaving the packed town hall meeting with his proverbial tail between his legs as several in the crowd chanted, “Bye-bye.”

First of all, as any stand-up comic knows, the first rule is to read the room. The room in this case was a heavily El-Sayed partisan one. The second might be to know your opponent and your subject matter in a debate and to be prepared. He struck out on both.

That’s what happens when you send a boy to do a man’s job.

Maybe he can come back to Louisiana and work in another campaign, say Jeff Landry or Mike Johnson, where he’d be more at home.

Okay, I’m gonna go out on a limb here and say since Diaper Don has now taken it upon himself to LIFT SANCTIONS against Russia, we can only assume he is pro-communist after all the rhetoric said he was not. Actions, after all, do speak louder than words.

By lifting sanctions “in the national interests” (without saying what “interests” were involved), we have to wonder what that means for Ukraine, yet another of our allies on which we, through Trump and a milquetoast Congress, have turned out backs.

His decision supposedly will allow for freer flow of diesel but it would be more interesting to see what investments relative to the decision the Trump family may have made in the meantime. (I would be willing to bet just about any of his executive decisions only enriches the Trumps.)

But now for the real zinger. If the Pedophile President does anything in the interest of Russia, he is aiding and abetting communism and Russia’s war against Ukraine and Republikkkan members of Congress, by their silence, are acquiescing.

That includes Speaker Mike Johnson, Sens. John N. Kennedy and Bill Cassidy, and Reps. Julia Letlow Steve Scalise and Clay Higgins.

To them I say: if I’m wrong, then DO YOUR FREAKING JOB! You weren’t elected to stand mutely by why an idiot sells the entire country down the drain. You—each one of you—are communists by extension if you do not act RIGHT NOW.

It’s really that simple.