Louisiana Voice

By Paul Spillman

SEC Media Days will be held in Tampa this week with head coach Lane Kiffin and LSU slotted for Thursday, the final day of the event. After Media Days there is a one-week, last-minute getaway before players begin reporting for fall camps. Here locally the Tigers are scheduled to report on August 6. LSU kicks off the season with Clemson in a nationally televised night game on September 5.

After a summer unlike any in recent memory most fans will be eager to just get the season started and watch some football but the fireworks aren’t over yet and the band is still on the field. The Senate is pushing to bring the Protect College Sports Act (PCSA) up for a vote before the August recess. Proponents believe they have the 60 votes to pass the legislation against any filibuster and are now finalizing the language in an attempt to win over the SEC and Big Ten conferences.

Both the Big Ten and the SEC, as well as several individual schools including LSU, have objected to the initial bill. Stated objections included language preventing schools from joining power four conferences or moving from one conference to another and provisions capping name, image, and likeness agreements and tying it to revenue sharing. Unstated objections revolve around one issue only: pooling media rights. Neither conference will say it publicly but everything else can be negotiated and compromised on. Pooling media rights cannot.

But Senators are aware of the stance the Big Ten and the SEC have taken and are aware also that even though Notre Dame hasn’t made a public statement their opposition to pooling media rights is absolute. Not addressing that issue in a revised bill would mean bringing it up for a vote with opposition from those schools and would possibly kill the legislation. Even if it did pass with language such that the “power 2” and Notre Dame could be out-voted those schools would exit the NCAA as soon as a vote happened.

Why? SEC teams earned $72.4M each last year from the conference’s media rights agreement, Big Ten schools did even better at $79.9M. Notre Dame cashed in for an estimated $85M. In contrast ACC schools earned an average of $47.1M though the ACC uses a formula that pays some schools more than others. Over in the Big 12 teams earned a paltry $31.7M per school for its media rights. The SEC, the Big Ten, and Notre Dame have a significant advantage over other conferences and schools and simply will not agree to pool media rights and give up that advantage. Anyone who thinks otherwise doesn’t live in the real world.

The dollars involved also touch on why realignment and expansion is an important issue. The old PAC 12 conference no longer exists because it was poorly run and had such a bad media deal USC, UCLA, Oregon, and Washington asked to join the Big Ten. With the collapse of the conference Arizona, Arizona State, Utah, and Colorado joined the Big 12. The ACC adopted Cal and Stanford while Washington State and Oregon State were left without a home. Earlier Texas and Oklahoma had left the Big 12 conference to join the SEC.

Currently Miami, Florida State, Clemson, and North Carolina from the ACC have threatened to leave the conference for greener pastures, though it’s uncertain exactly what greener pastures those schools mean. Over in the Big 12 Texas Tech’s defense of Brendan Sorsby’s injunction after being ruled ineligible earlier this summer for gambling has made the Red Raiders into everyone’s favorite villain, prompting some around Tech to talk about leaving for another conference. Again though, it’s not quite clear who would be inviting Texas Tech to join.

Another issue to be addressed is clarifying language concerning name, image, and likeness deals (NIL), as well as other paid employment opportunities for athletes. Many believe the original bill capped all student athlete compensation at the revenue sharing cap of $20.5M per school, effectively ending NIL deals. According to some reports LSU’s current roster cost the Tigers roughly $40M to assemble this year’s team, which even LSU administrators, donors, and fans agree is not sustainable year over year. But capping total compensation to revenue sharing only would certainly result in multiple lawsuits should the legislation pass with that language.

According to Senators Maria Cantwell and Ted Cruz, the bill’s authors, the bill will be revised to address the concerns of the power 2 conferences, clarify some confusion, and eliminate loopholes. The revised bill will also include language preventing private equity groups from poaching the most heralded brands and starting a “super-conference.” But there may be a fight to include other language not in the original bill from our own lame-duck Senator Bill Cassidy. The PCSA does not address the issue of “employee status” for college athletes. Recognizing athletes as employees would be a major step in earning the NCAA the antitrust exemption it cannot now get from the courts and is begging Congress for. But as has been previously detailed ad nauseam the NCAA simply refuses to do anything. And Bill Cassidy wants to make sure it never will by including language prohibiting athletes from receiving employee status. It’s a controversial issue which won’t win votes by defining it further one way or the other but Cassidy has said he won’t support the bill without it. Including that provision would make the bill nearly impossible to pass in the House.

If no legislation passes SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey has said the conference will consider “Plan B,” which is going it alone. Plan B would also be an option should the legislation pass with language the conference can’t live with. If such a move became necessary it’s debatable whether the Big Ten or Notre Dame would initially join the SEC in breaking away from the NCAA but the lure of even more media dollars would be very tempting. A new organization of the SEC, the Big Ten and Notre Dame would draw a bidding war for media rights that would make current deals seem small potatoes and that would draw the other two conferences and some smaller schools dreaming big like moths to a flame. Men’s basketball and baseball would suffer the most from breaking away but women’s basketball and softball would hardly notice. Other sports are expenses on the athletic budget with little media value and would just have to adapt, which ironically is the biggest concern of proponents of pooling media rights, the very issue that could drive a break away movement.

So stay tuned. The summer isn’t over yet and there may be some more fireworks in the next couple of weeks. After that things will start happening, one way or the other.

If you watched Mar-a-Lard-o Thursday night, you did so on a television network other than ABC or NBC, both of which refused to interrupt regular programming to allow Pedo-president the opportunity to vent and to lay the groundwork for a national emergency declaration in the lead-up to November elections.

Even CBS, owned by Paramount and a now-devoted fan of El Duce, joined the speech late and cut away before it was finished, so pathetic was the whining message of the world’s most powerful crybaby.

Predictably, he is now calling for the revocation of licenses for both ABC and NBC for their refusal to bow down on bended knee to him.

You see, in the face of what is taking shape as another endless Mideast conflict, uncontrolled inflation fueled by rising gas prices, higher costs of groceries, medical care and consumer goods, stagnate wages, murders of innocent people by ICE, looming mobilization of the National Guard’s “Rapid Reaction Force” to seize ballot boxes, Herr Trump chose to address the nation last night about the “stolen 2020 election” that he lost to Joe Biden and to stress the importance of the passage of his strict SAVE voter ID bill despite reports showing there has been scant (as in a fraction of a single percentage point) evidence of voter fraud.

It’s rather curious that he and the Rapepublicans won the 2016 and 2024 elections—and most of the down-ballot elections in 2020—with no outraged cries of election interference by China, Russia or anyone else, but that’s another story for another time.

Last night’s diatribe did two things for Don the Con: It served (he hopes) as yet another distraction from the pesky subject of the Epstein files and it sets the stage for some form of martial law to prevent gains by Democrats in this November’s elections.

He also managed to ignore claims that some countries and their leaders attempted to help him in his elections.

You may be a skeptic and you may pooh-pooh what you consider to be the-sky-is-falling hysterics, but make no mistake: Diaper Don needs to keep the Repugnantcans in control of Congress in order to maintain his control of the national agenda. He needs desperately to keep those Epstein files under wraps and he needs to prevent any criminal investigations into his family’s criminal enterprise that has netted them billions in illicit profits. They—the Grifter-in-Chief, his sons and son-in-law have siphoned off big bucks with their graft and corruption, in his own words, “like no one has ever seen before.”

Putting it bluntly, he makes Nixon look like an Eagle Scout. He makes LBJ look like an amateur at bullying members of Congress.

All the thievery aside, look at his record. In his second term, he has failed on promises to:

• Release the Epstein files;
• Serve as a peace president (no new wars, remember?);
• Deliver a better economy (can you truly say you’re better off than three or four years ago—unless, of course, you’re one of his billionaire allies?);
• Deport only illegal immigrants?
• Put America first (a cruel joke)?
• Remain uninvolved with Project 2025 (you haven’t forgotten that, have you?);
• Provide better healthcare (see measles, cyclosporiasis, etc.);
• Work non-stop (accurate only if you count golf as work);
• End the war in Ukraine within 24 hours;
• Reduce the price of prescription drugs by 1500% to 1900%.

And like his assertion that vandals damaged the Reflecting Pool, his claims of Chinese interference in the 2020 election were made while providing zero evidence.

Louisiana’s junior (soon to be senior) U.S. Sen. John Neely Kennedy is one of three senators The Washington Post says remain undecided on how they will vote on the confirmation of Todd Blanche as Il Duce Trump’s permanent attorney general–or at least as permanent as any of his appointees are, which is to say not so much.

Now just hold on a dad-blamed minute here. How long has The Post had to figure out that Kennedy is a straight-line adherent to the wishes of the bloated self-described genius who knows how to make deals? Ten full years?

Now, I know those writers up in Washington are well-versed in how politics works and how every action, every vote in the Beltway is calculated to render the highest return on political investment and we down here in the backwoods are rubes who just don’t understand the intricacies of how the system works.

They may be correct but one thing we do know down here is this: John Neely Kennedy ain’t about to cross swords with the Agent of Orange. No, siree. Ain’t gonna happen. Why, he’d rather drink weed killer.

The Post said that Sens. John Cornyn of Texas, Thom Tillis of South Carolina and Kennedy asked Blanche “pointed questions” about his record at the Justice Department. POLITICO noted the three have the power to derail Blanche’s nomination.

Well, just to remind you, Cornyn has already lost his reelection bid to one of the worst possible candidates, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, and Tillis has announced his retirement so neither of them really has anything to lose at this point. Either—or both—could conceivably vote no as a parting middle finger to Trump.

But Kennedy? His High School yearbook at Zachary High School, said his ambition to be president of the U.S. That may be a pretty remote career goal at this point but Vanderbilt Boy still wants to be reelected without the bother of being primaried.

Were I a rich man, I would be finding me an online betting service like Kalshi and lay some serious money that Kennedy will toe the Trump line. He’s just that easy to buy. He’s just that sleazy. And weed killer probably doesn’t taste very good anyway.

An online publication, The Lincoln Parish Journal, has done what the older, established Ruston newspaper has yet to do: publish a scathing editorial demanding that the owner and CEO of Allegiance Health Care meet with local citizens and explain what his plans are for the community’s struggling medical facilities.

North Louisiana Medical Center, former Lincoln General Hospital, was at one time a thriving 150-bed facility offering a wide array of medical care for the parish and surrounding rural communities. Today, it still has that 150-bed capacity but has a staff adequate to care for only about 10 patients.

That’s because health care professionals are abandoning NLMC and the affiliated medical clinics for employment at other facilities—in West Monroe, Monroe, and at a new facility being constructed in Ruston by Shreveport’s Willis Knighten Hospital.

NLMC, meanwhile, has suffered equipment failure (including, incredulously, patient call buttons), air conditioning failure that has put needed surgery on hold or forced patients to go elsewhere, supply shortages and the aforementioned exodus of medical professionals.

More recently, the hospital was the subject of a critical report stemming from an inspection by Louisiana Department of Hospital officials which cited a long list of deficiencies and giving the hospital a deadline for making corrections.

Meanwhile, the Lincoln Parish Police Jury just this week approved the creation of a hospital service district to establish “a permanent public entity dedicated to protesting, strengthening and advancing healthcare services to parish residents,” according The Ruston Daily Leader.

Otherwise, The Leader has been somewhat muted in seeking definitive answers from Allegiance’s Rock Bordelon who owns a string of medical facilities throughout the state, mostly in north Louisiana.

No so the upstart Lincoln Parish Journal today published an EDITORIAL under the headline, “Mr. Bordelon, Lincoln Parish Deserves Answers.”

The editorial was at the same time, emphatic in what it was not.

“It is not an attack on the physicians, nurses, therapists, technicians, office personnel or countless other employees who continue to care for patients every day,” many of whom are working “under extraordinarily difficult circumstances.

“This is a leadership issue at the highest level.

“When someone owns the primary hospital and largest physician group in a community, responsibility ultimately rests with that person. Ownership is about more than assets and balance sheets. It carries a responsibility o the people whose lives depend on those institutions.”

“That responsibility belongs to Rock Bordelon.

“Mr. Bordelon, Lincoln Parish residents deserves (sic) to hear directly from you.

“Not through consultants.

“Not through attorneys.

“Not through prepared statements.

“Not through social media comments.

“Directly from you.”

The editorial more or less demanded (not asked) that Bordelon hold a meeting directly with parish residents to lay out his plans for the hospital and related medical care entities.

“The people of Lincoln Parish deserve answers,” it said. “They deserve to know why so many physicians, nurses and employees have left over the past year. They deserve to know what is being done to recruit and retain quality medical professionals. They deserve to know how the deficiencies identified by state inspectors are being addressed. They deserve to know how you intend to restore confidence in these institutions and ensure they provide the level of care this community expects.”

The editorial was signed by publishers Kyle and Judith Roberts and columnist Malcolm Butler.

Would you care to hear a joke? Spoiler alert: it’s a cruel joke and you probably won’t get much of a laugh out of it.

Actually, I guess you might consider it a fox-guarding-the-henhouse kind of practical joke being pulled on Louisiana citizens. But then, there’s not much new about that; we’ve been the butt of these kinds of jokes perpetrated by our elected officials for generations.

Anyway, all that aside, here’s the joke:

Leon Cannizzaro, the former Orleans Parish District Attorney who concealed exculpatory evidence in criminal trials that sent innocent men to prison and who had a nasty habit of serving fack subpoenas on unwitting victims so as to expedite his idea of justice, HAS BEEN APPOINTED to the Louisiana Judiciary Commission, which is charged with conducting investigations of judicial misconduct.

Oh, yeah. That’s a laugh a minute. A scream, a real riot.

Cannizzaro, besides being a political pal of Gov. Jeff “Squeaky Toy” Landry and his sock puppet Attorney General Liz Murrill who just retired from the attorney general’s office last month, is also a former judge of 22 years in his own right before becoming Orleans Parish district attorney for 12 years, from 2008 to 2020.

Of course, it’s just a coincidence that his appointment comes in the wake of a turbulent legislative session during which judges came under withering criticism (and punishing legislation) from Republican legislative leader who said bad judges were not punished enough for incompetence. Anyone else see the irony here?

In my book 101 Wrongful Convictions in Louisiana, Cannizzaro is cited several times for (a) withholding exculpatory evidence in cases where accused were wrongfully convicted and imprisoned, sometimes for decades, when that withheld evidence would’ve helped exonerate them at trial, (b) opposing pardons in the face of overwhelming evidence of innocence years, even decades, after those wrongful convictions, (c) issuing a flurry of FAKE SUBPOENAS which were neither issued nor signed by a judge and (d) jailing crime victims in order to expedite the turnstile system of justice by intimidating reluctant witnesses into cooperating with the DA’s office in criminal investigations.

The bogus subpoenas carried the ominous wording: “A FINE AND IMPRISONMENT MAY BE IMPOSED FOR FAILURE TO OBEY THIS NOTICE.” Problem was, the subpoenaes were not backed by something call law. Pretty serious oversight by a former judge/sitting district attorney. So now, Cannizzaro will sit in judgment of miscreant judges. What’s wrong with this picture?

The issue of the fake subpoenas was SETTLED in October 2021, a year after Cannizzaro left office, and PROF. KATIE SCHWARTZMANN, director of the Tulane Law School’s First Amendment Law Clinic, was appointed as court monitor to oversee that settlement.

For his part, Cannizzaro defended the practice and hotly disputed the terminology “fake subpoenas” by insisting his office was simply giving witnesses “district attorney’s notices, a practice he said dated back to the 1960s.

To-mae-to, to-mah-to. It’s all semantics. Fact is, the word in big, bold, all capital letters says “SUBPOENA” emblazoned across the top of the page, as my friend up in Ruston says, “bigger’n Dallas.”

So, the bottom line, a political ally of Landry and Murrill, who have already evidenced their disdain for the judiciary, and one who concealed evidence favorable to defendants, jailed innocent people and issued fake subpoenas (sorry, but there’s no other term for them) is now charged with ensuring judicial ethics are strictly adhered to.

What could possibly go wrong?