Louisiana Voice

The inquisition has begun in earnest. And make no mistake, it’s an inquisition of political pragmatism, not of some deep-seated belief in victims’ rights.

If there’s one thing that I detest more than lying for political expediency, it’s hypocrisy on the part of those who would exploit a situation for political capital.

Yesterday I took Gov. John Bel Edwards to task – rightly so, I’m still convinced – for his duplicity in the Ronald Greene matter.

Today, I’m calling out the two-faced Repugnantcans who want to make Ronald Greene an issue for one purpose and one purpose only: to discredit John Bel Edwards. That’s a misplaced motive and smacks of all that’s wrong about politics.

One of those is LSU-Shreveport associate professor Jeff Sadow who this morning called for Edwards’ impeachment. Sadow supposedly teaches political science at LSU-S – except it appears from the university’s most current syllabi there are no political science classes that he actually teaches.

Ronald Greene’s death at the hands of five Louisiana State Troopers has nothing to do with Repugnantcans’ ire. Nor does the administration’s attempted coverup during a reelection campaign other than presenting a golden opportunity for Repugnantcans to make political hay of the issue – or for idle political science professors to spout the party line.

Make no mistake, all the bitching and moaning that House Speaker Clay Schexnayder is doing is grandstanding, pure and simple. It’s opportunism at its worst. He has no more concern for the fate of victims arrested for DWB (Driving While Black) than he and other Repugnantcans have for the disproportionate number of blacks serving life sentences for offenses like possessing $20 WORTH OF POT even as a 47-year-old white Baton Rouge man gets only two years for SEXUALLY ABUSING a 15-year-old girl. Where’s the outrage for that disparity in the law, Mr. All-About-Justice Speaker?

But if the issue happens to put Democrat John Bel Edwards in a bad light, then you’ve never seen such breast-beating, clothes-rending, gnashing of teeth and wringing of hands because of justice gone wrong.

Schexnayder has shown himself to be one of the biggest hypocrites in the legislature when he emerged from a weekend meeting with the State Senate president and Attorney General Jeff Landry to proclaim that Edwards’ inaction in the Greene matter “demonstrates gross misconduct and the highest level of deceit on behalf of the governor and others.”

While he may be correct in saying that, the words carry a pretty empty ring when one considers how quiet Schexnayder was during the four years of the Trump disaster. As a Repugnantcan, he was strangely mute as Trump embarrassed this entire country time after time. Likewise, he remained tight-lipped when Landry put contributor Shane Guidry on the attorney general’s office’s payroll as an “investigator,” or when Landry attempted to INTERFERE with the First Amendment rights of an LSU faculty member, or when it was revealed that Landry was deeply involved in a $17 million scam to hire Mexican welders and pipe fitters, or when Landry joined State Treasurer John Schroder in excluding a financial institution from doing business with the state – a move that could end up costing the state millions of dollars.

Schexnayder remained mum when Landry joined Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s silly (some would say frivolous) lawsuit to challenge the 2020 presidential election results – a lawsuit that fell flat like 59 others challenging the election. Nor did he utter a word of protest when his pal Landry’s FINGERPRINTS  turned up all over that robocall from the Rule of Law Defense Fund (RLDF), the fundraising arm of the Repugnantcan Attorney General Association (RAGA) that said in part, “At 1 p.m., we will march to the Capitol building and call on Congress to stop the steal.” That would be in reference to that little tourism visit to the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

Greene’s mother called on Edwards to resign after news became public about his knowledge of details of Greene’s death. That’s her right. She lost her son and she’s angry. But for legislative Repugnantcans to become embroiled in this particular controversy, given their reticence over other civil rights matters is crass duplicity and Schexnayder’s saying, “What happened to Ronald Greene is inexcusable and should never happen to anyone. His family and the citizens of the state deserve to know the truth” stands out as one of the most insincere utterances of any political hack I’ve ever heard.

If Schexnayder, a Gonzales Repugnantcan, had ever so much as said a single word of criticism of Donald Trump, Clay Higgins, John Kennedy, Steve Scalise, Jeff Landry, or any other idiot Repugnantcan in Congress (Marjorie Taylor Greene, Matt Gaetz, Gym Jordan, Ron Johnson, Madison Cawthorn: pick one), I could give him the benefit of the doubt.

If he had just once stood up in defense of infants after they are born in the same manner as he does for the unborn, I would applaud his criticism of Edwards, a man I voted for twice for governor (actually four times, counting primaries and runoffs). But I’ve yet to hear Schexnayder speak out in support of infant care, early childhood development, pre-K or any of the things indigent children need so desperately. No, they have a right to be born but once they are born, they’re on their own.

If only Schexnayder would be as diligent in working on a solution to Louisiana’s having the highest incarceration rate in the civilized world, I might take his pontificating more seriously. But as yet, I haven’t heard a peep out of him on that issue.

Would he be as dedicated to pulling Louisiana out of the muck of the bottom ranking of states in education, obesity, poverty, income, and health care, then I would love to listen to his ideas.

Until he does, he should just shut the hell up and let those who truly care and those with a reason to criticize Edwards do so.

Political posturing is pretty easy to spot. And it’s always cheap and bawdy.

(As a point of clarification, I use the term Repugnantcan to describe the Greedy Old Patricians (GOP) because I feel many of its members today are truly repugnant. I have earned the right to say this because I spent 33 years as a member of that party and watched it move further and further away from my core beliefs. It is no longer represents a democracy or even a democratic republic, but instead, has become the very symbol of autocracy, and to some extent, Sharia Law.)