Louisiana Voice

“I’m speaking today as a physician who happens to be a doctor.”

—US Sen. Bill Cassidy, July 14, 2020. […and Louisiana’s other US senator speaks as the Tangerine Toddler’s sycophant who happens to be a tRump suck-up.]

Editor’s note: Inasmuch as the tRump White House is releasing what it smirkingly refers to as erroneous statements about the coronavirus by Dr. Anthony Fauci, it seems only appropriate to return the favor for the Tangerine Toddler:

Jan. 23: “We have it totally under control.”

Feb. 2: “We pretty much shut it down.”

Feb. 10: “Looks like by April, you know, in theory, when it gets a little warmer, it miraculously goes away.”

Feb. 14: “We have a very small number of people in the country, right now, with it. It’s like around 12.

Feb. 24: “The Coronavirus is very much under control in the USA. We are in contact with everyone and all relevant countries. CDC & World Health have been working hard and very smart. Stock Market starting to look very good to me!”

Mar. 9: “The Fake News Media and their partner, the Democrat Party, is doing everything within its semi-considerable power (it used to be greater!) to inflame the CoronaVirus situation, far beyond what the facts would warrant. Surgeon General, ‘The risk is low to the average American.’”

Mar. 10: “We’re prepared, and we’re doing a great job with it. And it will go away. Just stay calm. It will go away.”

Mar. 13: “I don’t take any responsibility at all.”

Mar. 15: “This is a very contagious virus. It’s incredible. But it’s something that we have tremendous control over.”

Mar. 16: “I’d rate it (hit handling of the pandemic) a 10,”

Mar. 17: “I felt it was a pandemic long before it was called a pandemic.”

 ‘We’re asking everyone to work at home, if possible, postpone unnecessary travel, and limit social gatherings to no more than 10 people.”

May 5: “I think they’re starting to feel good now. The country’s opening again. We saved millions of lives, I think.”

July 1: “We’re going to be very good with the coronavirus” and “at some point that’s going to sort of just disappear.”

July 8: “In Germany, Denmark, Norway, Sweden and many other countries, SCHOOLS ARE OPEN WITH NO PROBLEMS. The Dems think it would be bad for them politically if U.S. schools open before the November Election, but is important for the children & families. May cut off funding if not open!”

July 14: “Think of this, if we didn’t do testing, instead of testing over 40 million people, if we did half the testing we would have half the cases,”

As Trump expressed his optimism over defeating coronavirus, even giving himself a grade of A+, the US has gone from its first confirmed case on Jan. 19 to the first death on Feb. 26 to more than 136,000 dead in less than five months.

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Sixty-three thousand Louisiana entities received $8 billion in federal stimulus loans under the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP).

That figured included up to $10 million for a pair of New Orleans schools represented by a former New Orleans city official who resigned after having misdirected nearly half-a-million dollars in public funding to family members a decade ago.

Among those receiving the forgivable loans from the Small Business Administration were:

• A major daily newspaper;
• A company with a $10 million state contract through the federal HUD/CDBG program;
• Two national accounting firm with no fewer than a dozen state contracts between them;
• A couple of Louisiana rural electric cooperatives;
• Scores of auto dealerships;
• Television stations in two of the state’s largest cities;
• The LSU Foundation;
• Car washes;
• Restaurants;
• Medical offices and hospitals.

But what jumped off the 180 pages of state recipients were the 225 or so churches and the 90 law firms which, between them reaped between $176 million and $308 million.

I have long contended that the primary purpose of local TV newscasts is to keep the lawyer ads from bumping together—and often even that doesn’t work as we are subjected to successive ads from different personal injury lawyers, principally from New Orleans attorney Morris Bart and Baton Rouge lawyer Gordon McKernan. Both advertise extensively statewide.

Each also received SBA loans of between $2 million and $5 million.

Not that they were only recipients of big money, however. Taylor Porter Brooks & Phillips of Baton Rouge also received between $2 million and $5 million despite holding 10 contracts for legal work for the State of Louisiana totaling more than $2.8 million.

Chaffe McCall of New Orleans has at least one contract with the state for $450,000 but still got a loan of between $1 million and $2 million.

But all of those paled in comparison to Adams and Reese of New Orleans which got between $5 million and $10 million. That firm also has state contracts totaling more than $600,000.

Valluzzo Companies of Baton Rouge also got between $5 million and $10 million. Valluzzo operates 78 McDonald’s restaurants in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama.

Southwest Louisiana Electric Membership Corp. of Lafayette, one of the two electric cooperatives, received between $5 million and $10 million even though its billings for electric power continued unabated throughout the mandated shutdown. The other electric cooperative, Dixie Electric of Central, received a more modest loan of $350,000 to $1 million.

Other recipients of loans of between $5 million and $10 million were Collegiate Academies and Firstline Schools, both of New Orleans. Both are also linked to former New Orleans Deputy Mayor Greg St. Etienne.

St. Etienne, a former bank executive, was listed as a director of Collegiate Academies, according to Louisiana Secretary of State corporate records which also listed him as treasurer of Firstline Schools.

In 2010, St. Etienne, one of six deputy mayors in Mayor Mitch Landrieu’s administration, RESIGNED after a state audit revealed how he directed more than $400,000 in taxpayer-subsidized low-interest loans to his family members while serving as head of a nonprofit organization.

Still, it was the churches that seemed to elbow their way to the front of the line for the government largesse—the same government upon which they heap such condemnation when there are ideological conflicts—that caught the eye.

The breakdown for the churches revealed at least:

• One (Jimmy Swaggart’s Family Life Center) that received between $2 million and $5 million;
• Eight that got between $2 million and $5 million;
• 90 that received between $1 million and $2 million;
• 51 that got between $350,000 and $1 million;
• 75 approved for between $150,000 and $350,000

The attorney breakdown:

• One (Adams and Reese) that received between $5 million and $10 million;
• 13 that got between $2 million and $5 million;
• Two approved for $1 million to $2 million;
• 17 that got between $350,000 and $1 million;
• 57 that received between $150,000 and $350,000

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“The most outrageous lies are the ones about Covid 19. Everyone is lying. The CDC, Media, Democrats, our Doctors, not all but most , [sic] that we are told to trust. I think it’s all about the election and keeping the economy from coming back, which is about the election. I’m sick of it.”

—Chuck Woolery, erstwhile host of Love Connection, now apparently practicing medicine. [Trump, as on those many other occasions when he is unable to string together a cogent sentence on his own, retweeted “Dr.” Woolerh’s July 12 tweet.

“[T}his is not a major threat for the people in the U.S., and this is not something that the citizens of the U.S. right now should be worried about.”

—Dr. Anthony Fauci, on January 21, 2020. [The Trump White House is using this, among other statements by Fauci during the earliest days of the coronavirus outbreak, to discredit him for no other reason than he disagrees with Herr Trump. It’s a classic Trump tactic.]

“I can’t make an accurate prediction, but it is going to be very disturbing, I will guarantee you that, because when you have an outbreak in one part of the country, even though in other parts of the country they are doing well, they are vulnerable.”

—Dr. Fauci, July 13, 2020. [The glaring difference between Fauci and Trump is the former readily admits that accurate predictions are impossible and that he is not infallible, while the latter bases his opinions on the tweet of a washed-up TV game show host.]

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“The mood is like probably what it felt like when you were on the Titanic. These cowardly Republicans in the Senate and House know Trump’s going to get destroyed in November but they’re tied to him and they’re gonna go down with him and they have no choice, and I think they realize that.”

—Former Congressman Joe Walsh, once a strong supporter of Donald Trump.

“Trump is a troll. And like all trolls, he is never funny and he never laughs; he only crows or jeers. And scarily, he doesn’t just talk in crude, witless insults – he actually thinks in them. His mind is a simple bot-like algorithm of petty prejudices and knee-jerk nastiness…In fact, if Frankenstein decided to make a monster assembled entirely from human flaws – he would make a Trump.”

—British writer Nate White.

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“We have to be prepared for Trump losing.”

–Fox News Neo-Nazi fan favorite Laura Ingraham, who reportedly has her white supremacist eye on Rush Limbaugh’s microphone, should the world’s number-one bigot become unable to continue because of his cancer. [Is it just me, or does that sound a bit morbid?]

“[N]o other American has spent more time, energy and (taxpayer) resources trying to cancel dissent and enforce submission than Trump.”

–Columnist Catherine Rampell, July 4, 2020. [Could there possibly be a cause-and-effect relationship between these two quotes? Just sayin’…]

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