Louisiana Voice

Earl Long regaled in telling the story of a political opponent who slipped and fell into a pig pen. “Somebody passing by saw him and said, ‘You can tell a lot about a person by the company he keeps,’” Earl said. “The pigs got up and left.”

That said, perhaps the members of the East Baton Rouge Republican Women might wish to take their cue from Earl’s parable and avoid the organization’s June luncheon at noon on Tuesday so as not to be seen in the company of one Joe Oltmann lest they be judged by the company they keep (and no, I am not calling the group’s members pigs, so don’t even go there).

As a sidebar to today’s story, I’m told this group is so convinced of voter fraud that they are actively calling upon Secretary of State Kyle Ardoin to push for scrapping electronic voting in Louisiana in favor of paper ballots.  I guess they want Louisiana to be the next “hanging chad” state.

Oltmann will be at Drusilla Seafood to peddle his conspiracy theory that the director of product strategy and security for Dominion Voting Systems somehow, singlehandedly, torpedoed the reelection of one Donald J. Trump by implementing some kind of massive voter fraud.

And while he’s at it, he may wish to expound on any ideas he may have that the Sandy Hook shooting was staged, that the 1969 moon landing was fake or that 9/11 didn’t actually happen or if it did, was an inside job.

Oltmann’s hairbrained election fantasy was quickly picked up by the lunatic-fringe blogosphere and then retweeted by Trump himself on Nov. 18. The following day, Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell, in their best portrayal of Dumb and Dumber disguised as real-life lawyers, further spread Oltmann’s conspiracy B.S.

Oltmann, on Nov. 9, aired on his podcast from Colorado a so-called account of an “Antifa conference call” which Oltmann claimed took place in September during which someone referred to as “Eric… the Dominion guy” boasted of having rigged the election in favor of Joe Biden. Oltmann identified “Eric” as Eric Coomer, calling him a “traitor,” and saying, “We are coming for you and your s***bag company.”

Coomer retaliated with a defamation lawsuit in December, naming Oltmann, the Trump campaign, Giuliani, Powell, One America News Network (OAN), OAN chief White House correspondent Chanel Rion, Newsmax Media, Newsmax contributor Michelle Malkin, The Gateway Pundit website and radio and podcast host Eric Metaxas.

Oltmann most probably will not come under the protection of the landmark New York Times v. Sullivan Supreme Court ruling that partially shields the media from libel when public figures are the subject because, Coomer’s attorney says, his client is not a public figure, but a private individual.

Oltmann, who runs a data business in Denver, is founder of a so-called political “movement” called FEC United. FEC has ties to a paramilitary group called the United American Defense Force. Coomer, subsequent to his initial lawsuit, has since filed a 66-page AMENDED PETITION on the basis of comments and allegations made by Oltmann subsequent to his Nov. 9 posting, most of which involve occasions where Oltmann was a broadcast guess, spreading his claims about the alleged “Antifa conference call.”

Since the election last Nov. 3, nearly 70 lawsuits brought by Trump surrogates have been thrown out of court, yet the kooks persist with their baseless claims of widespread voter fraud that handed the election to Biden.

It should be noted that Christopher Krebs, hired by Trump to oversee election security, went on record to confirm that “the 2020 US election was the safest election in history.”

With Coomer’s attorneys closely monitoring every appearance and utterance of Oltmann, the moderator(s) for Tuesday’s luncheon might be wish to be extra careful of what they say lest they find themselves named as defendants in future amended petitions.

Just sayin’.