Louisiana Voice

“But this is a virus that came from China. Something that’s unexpected. Obviously when you’re in the political world, there are those things that you can control, there are those things that you can’t.”

—White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, Sunday on ABC’s This Week. [That’s it? “There are those things that you can control, there are those things that you can’t”? That’s the best Donald Trump’s chief of staff has to offer? He may wish to consult with countries like South Korea, Finland, Norway, Thailand, Iceland and a couple dozen others who seem to have a little better grip on how to handle a pandemic.]

“Citizens are concerned that the Administration has deployed a secret police force, not to investigate crimes but to intimidate individuals it views as political adversaries, and that the use of these tactics will proliferate throughout the country.”

—Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.), who has asked for an investigation into the use of federal troops in Portland.

“It’s hard to see how more weapons in a charged environment will help keep things safer when it seems to do more to escalate situations,”

—Austin, Texas City Council member Jimmy Flannigan, on Donald Trump’s decision to send even more federal storm troopers to Portland in the name of law and order.

“It makes me mad that the company got the money but we are still out of a job.”

—Toimas Garcia, formerly a serve at Buca di Beppo in Albuquerque, of his employer, part of Earl Enterprises of Orlando that received Paycheck Protection Plan SBA (forgivable) SBA loans of up to $54 million but have not re-hired employees. [The Fairmont Grand Del Mar in San Diego, a luxury hotel owned by Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s husband, received $6.4 million but hundreds of its workers remain unemployed and unpaid.]

“About as useful as Jindal’s sand berm.”

—LouisianaVoice reader, comparing Trump’s “indestructible” border wall, which collapsed from the winds of Tropical Storm Hanna, to Bobby Jindal’s brilliant plan (against engineers’ advice) for building sand berms to stem the spread of the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. [The berms disappeared into the Gulf waters, along with tens of thousands of dollars-worth of heavy equipment brought in to construct the berms. How much did that section of wall cost again?]

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“Something terrible, something dangerous — and, yes, something unconstitutional — is happening in Portland, Ore.”

—Ruth Marcus, Washington Post.

“He made a fool out of himself. He wanted to be among the people, so he went into the crowd. And so they knocked the hell out of him, so that was the end of him.”

—Donald Trump, on Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler, in interview with Sean Hannity. {At least he wasn’t hiding in a bunker.]

“We have to study the history of slavery and its role and impact on the development of our country because otherwise we can’t understand our country. As the Founding Fathers said, it was the necessary evil upon which the union was built…”

—U.S. Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), in an interview with the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, July 26, 2020. [And they dare to call it the Party of Lincoln.]

“If chattel slavery…where it was legal to rape, torture, and sell human beings for profit — were a ‘necessary evil,’ …it’s hard to imagine what cannot be justified if it is a means to an end,”

—New York Times reporter Nikole Hannah-Jones, in response to Cotton’s remarks, July 26, 2020. [Karl Rove and Grover Norquist long ago established “the ends justifies the means” as the Republican Party’s political mandate.]

“I just saw our new Trump-Reagan Commemorative Coin Sets and WOW, these coins are beautiful — I took one look and immediately knew that I wanted YOU to have a set.”

—Donald Trump, in true snake-oil salesman fashion, hawking the commemorative “coins” showing him shaking hands with Pres. Ronald Reagan back in 1987 in exchange for a $45 campaign “contribution.”

“We own the likeness of President Reagan and they used his image for the coin without our consent.”

—Reagan Foundation marketing officer Melissa Giller, in a request that the Trump campaign cease selling the coin, July 25, 2020.

“I won’t be able to be in New York to throw out the opening pitch for the Yankees on August 15th.”

–Trump tweet, July 26, at 2:44 p.m. [Those damned bone spurs, don’t you know.]

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“Trump possesses a vacuum-sealed head. Nothing goes in; nothing comes out.”

–Judy Rofe, responding to a Quora question. [“Vacuum-sealed head.” Too good not to include here.]

“I never received information about what happened with my ideas or results. But I did hear the governor say the models were wrong about everything.”

–Thomas Hladish, a University of Florida research scientist whose regular calls with the state health department were terminated on June 29 as Gov. Ron DeSantis effectively sidelined scientists in favor of becoming Trump’s loyal lapdog. [This is the same Gov. Ron DeSantis who said a few weeks ago that Florida’s response to the coronavirus was among the best in the nation.]

Nearly 5,800 Floridians have now died of covid-19, the disease caused by the virus — more deaths than were suffered in combat by Americans in Afghanistan or Iraq after 2001. One out of every 52 Floridians has been infected with the virus. The state’s intensive care units are being pushed to the brink, with some over-capacity. Florida’s unemployment system is overwhelmed, and its tourism industry is a shambles.

—The Washington Post, July 26, 2020.

“If he was more concerned with what the president thought of him, the outcomes are here.”

—Hialeah Mayor Carlos Hernandez, of DeSantis’s preference for gaining Trump’s favor over the welfare of Floridians, July 25, 2020.

“What happened to that judge?”

—Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark), whining over Supreme Court ruling that rejected a Nevada church’s request to block the State of Nevada from enforcing a cap on attendance at religious services.

“John Roberts has abandoned his oath.”

—Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), whining about the same ruling. [It somehow appears from these reactions that conservatives thought they owned the Supreme Court.]

“I have an intern joke and it… nevermind.”

—Monica Lewinsky, with her contribution to a “I have a joke” thread on Twitter, on Friday

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Just in time for the 2020 presidential elections

Martial law. Federal occupation. Storm troopers. Suspension of the First, Third, Fourth, Sixth, Eighth, Ninth, Tenth, and possibly even the Second Amendments.

A bit dramatic? A conspiracy theory? Perhaps. But perhaps not. It certainly can’t be any wilder conspiracy theory than some we’ve already seen espoused by the right-wing kooks: Pizzagate, Wayfair, staged mass shooting at schools with actors playing student victims.

But for a real-life conspiracy, look at what’s already happened in Portland and now Donald Trump is threatening similar actions in Chicago, Detroit, Washington, D.C., Baltimore, Oakland, Philadelphia and Albuquerque and other “lawless” cities run, coincidentally, by Democrats.

And just in time to disrupt the November presidential election. Talk about an October surprise…

Trump, the “law and order” president, reminiscent to the “law and order” Richard Nixon, laments the loss of control over crime run amok in those cities as his justification for sending in the brown shirts. And of course, his 35% base cheers him own like the good Christians they profess to be. I mean, what’s more demonstrative of Christian love and charity for your fellow man than watching unidentified federal agents in unmarked vans cracking heads with batons?

And that’s just for the graffiti-sprayers. God only knows what happens to those who dare commit real crimes.

Kind of ironic, isn’t it, that it was the right-wing conservatives who originally were so terrified of the “jack-booted thugs” who would come to take us away in the middle of the night?

But I digress.

If you think those people in Portland are bad enough to warrant deployment of nameless, faceless storm troopers acting in the name of Trump (make no mistake, this is his show, no one else’s), then let’s compare crime rates of other cities.

We’ll start with Portland since that seems to be the epicenter of the federal crackdown for the time being.

In Portland, you have a horrific violent crime rate of 5.2 per 1,000 population. Shocking. It makes Portland the third least safe city in the entire state of Oregon. No question something needed to be done to bring the thugs under control. I mean, who would want to live in a state’s third most dangerous city?

But then there are all those other lawless cities whose violent crime rates are even higher:

• Albuquerque: 14 per 1,000 population;
• Baltimore: 20.per 1,000;
• Detroit: 21 per 1,000;
• Dallas: 41 per 1,000
• Philadelphia: 51 per 1,000
• Houston: 52 per 1,000
• Washington, DC: 56 per 1,000
• Jackson, Mississippi; 56 per 1,000
• Atlanta: 58 per 1,000;
• Oakland: 75.5

Trump cited most of the above cities by name but there are also these cities, all located in rock-solid red states that also have higher violent crime rates than Portland.:

• Tulsa: 11 per 1,000
• Nashville: 11 per 1,000
• Wichita: 12 per 1,000
• Indianapolis: 13 per 1,000
• Milwaukee: 14 per 1,000
• Little Rock: 14 per 1,000
• Cleveland: 15 per 1,000
• Kansas City, Mo.: 16 per 1,000
• Birmingham: 19 per 1,000
• Memphis: 19 per 1,000

So, will Trump send in the troops to those cities as well? They are, after all, hotbeds of crime when compared to wide-open Portland.

For that matter, there are no fewer than 10 Louisiana cities that could qualify for the unwanted presence of federal “law and order” crackdowns similar to those we’ve seen on television from Portland. That’s because all ten have violent crime rates far exceeding that of the Oregon city.

They are:

• Baton Rouge: 66 violent crimes per 1,000 residents (Louisiana’s most dangerous city and second only to Oakland among the 30 cities listed here);
• Shreveport: 61 per 1,000;
• New Orleans: 59 per 1,000;
• Lake Charles: 56 per 1,000;
• Lafayette: 53 per 1,000;
• Hammond: 40 per 1,000;
• Monroe: 22 per 1,000;
• Crowley: 16 per 1,000;
• Bogalusa: 13 per 1,000
• Natchitoches: 12 per 1,000

Are you ready to see jack-booted thugs tear-gassing your favorite aunt or uncle as they try to vote this November?

That’s what these federal occupation forces are really all about—voter suppression.

With the exception of the smaller of the Louisiana cities, the vast majority of the 30 listed here have Democratic-leaning citizenry, many of whom are African-American. Those are the ones Trump and his Republican enablers like Steve Scalise and Clay Higgins are desperate to keep from voting on Nov. 3^rd.

Forget the “law and order” rhetoric of Trump. That’s a distraction, a diversionary tactic, just as it was with Nixon, who employed it to deflect Americans’ attention from Watergate. Trump likewise wishes more than anything to get people’s minds off the coronavirus pandemic or Russian interference by getting them to focus on some other high-visibility issue. So, like Nixon, he’s creating a “law and order” smokescreen to conceal the real issue of his ineptitude and inability to deal with a crisis—any crisis.

And he’s deploying his storm troopers to make sure we keep our focus where it should be.

And that could well be the “October surprise” of all October surprises.

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“Well, I don’t know what the bankers have said. The Plaza is a very valuable property. Everybody told me, ‘oh, you paid too much, you paid too much,’ now they’re all saying what a great deal he made on the Plaza.”

–Donald Trump, in an interview with Barbara Walters in 1990. [Of course, it ended like so many other Trump business ventures that went south: he ended up taking an $83 million bath on the Plaza Hotel.]

“As we approach the election, again, …who’s to say whether or not these agents could potentially be used to intimidate or otherwise disturb the election process while they’re here?”

–New Mexico Secretary of State Maggie Toulouse Oliver, expressing concerns that Trump’s storm troopers could disrupt the presidential election on Nov. 3. [You know, fascism, third-world dictatorship, and all that stuff that we thought could never happen here—like storm troopers, children in cages, firing inspectors general, that kind of thing.]

“The violent tactics deployed by Donald Trump and his paramilitary forces against peaceful protesters are those of a fascist regime, not a democratic nation. Unless America draws a line in the sand right now, I think we could be staring down the barrel of martial law in the middle of a presidential election.”

—Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden, quoted in The Guardian, July 25, 2020.

“It would be a cold day in hell before I would consent to a unilateral, uninvited intervention in one of my cities.”

—Forer two-term Republican governor of Pennsylvania and the first homeland security secretary. [And of course, Trump responded by calling Ridge a RINO (Republican in Name Only).Insults, slurs and derogatory nicknames seem to be his only way of responding to criticism—as opposed to applying logic and reason to dispute resolution.]

“A key difference between now and before: In 1970, the attorney general was urging restraint. Today, the AG leads the charge.”

—The Washington Post, in an editorial explaining the difference between J. Edgar Hoover’s convincing then-Attorney General John Mitchell to dissuade Nixon from signing the so-called Huston Plan calling for federal troops to restrain domestic unrest 50 years ago, and Attorney General William Barr’s “Operation Legend,” which does just that.

“Plaintiffs’ gambit here—they seek to have the Court enter an emergency injunction based on alleged past encounters involving federal law enforcement officers, but have not demonstrated that similar incidents will take place in the future, much less that these particular plaintiffs will again experience the same alleged conduct by federal law enforcement officers. Because Plaintiffs cannot demonstrate a certainly impending injury, they lack standing to seek injunctive relief.”

–Attorney General William Barr’s response in claiming that the ACLU has no legal standing to request that Trump’s storm troopers be prohibited from beating, gassing or shooting with “impact munitions” reporters to prevent them from recording attacks on Portland citizens. [Nothing to see here, move along (translation: we don’t want witnesses).]

“Only nine states, an electoral Hall of Shame, make you choose between your health and your right to vote, because they don’t count the pandemic as a valid reason to request an absentee ballot. The nine: Connecticut, New York, Indiana, Kentucky, LOUISIANA, Mississippi, South Carolina, Texas and West Virginia.”

Dana Milbank, Washington Post, July 24, 2020.  [Louisiana? With the myopic legislators so gifted with the Clay Higgins demagogic version of justice and democracy that we have in this state, go figure. If it doesn’t benefit their corporate donors, they’re just not interested.]

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