Louisiana Voice

At the risk of becoming redundant, saying the same thing over and over, and repeating myself (a line by Frasier in the Cheers sitcom), I will once more address parish councils’ growing trend of suddenly concerning themselves with the content of local libraries. Whether you patronize your library or not, you should be concerned over the creeping national movement toward censorship being pushed by right-wing conservative Republicans.

The Livingston, St. Tammany, and Bossier Parish Libraries are the latest to come under the scrutiny of parish councils which in at least two cases have apparently violated the state’s dual officeholding law by appointing council members to local library boards.

Bossier Parish was the first to do so and last week St. Tammany followed suit. This week, the Livingston Parish Library Director abruptly RESIGNED in the wake of the parish council’s passage of a ridiculous – and restrictive – RESOLUTION aimed at limiting access to objectionable material by children. These include any books with graphic content (not necessarily sexual) and drag queen shows held by some libraries.

During a meeting of the St. Tammany Council last week, one Fran Smith told the board, “My brother read books like these and hurt me very badly. Do you know how many kids have died because of pedophilia?” I don’t know her personal details, but I do know no book was responsible for any “hurt” done to her by her brother.

I would ask Ms. Smith if she happens to have a hard number on the number of children who have been killed by books versus the number who have been killed by guns. That would be an interesting statistic. I would also ask Ms. Smith just who the PEDOPHILES are who she claims are killing children. For that matter, I’d love to know if she also is advocating control over churches because of SEXUAL ABUSE within the confines of houses of worship? Church pedophilia has been found in the Catholic, Southern Baptist, and Mormon churches, to name just three. To my knowledge, not a single one these offenders is or was a drag queen.

Now, should there be a movement develop toward controlling churches because of sexual abuse, you will hear a howl of protest come up from the right wing evangelicals that will sound like Armageddon itself. And it would be no less vociferous if some effort was initiated to censor parts of the Bible because of violence and genocide (God instructing the Israelites to invade opponents’ villages and to bash babies’ heads on the rocks and rip babies from their mother’s wombs while saving the virgin women for themselves, for example), sex, adultery, and graphic punishment. It’s all in there.

And just to show how things come full circle, I can remember when it was the right-wing conservatives (read: white supremists) who protested the most vehemently when books like Tom Sawyer, Huckleberry Finn, and Little Black Sambo were pulled because of racist content. I guess it really does depend upon whose ox is being gored (for the uninitiated, an expressing implying that the shoe’s on the other foot now) because it is they who are now advocating censorship.

I find it odd that these parish councils are looking to library content as a solution to deplorable roads and bridges that the parish council are charged with maintaining. I find it equally curious that library scrutiny is going to somehow solve chronic flooding conditions in Livingston and St. Tammany parishes.

Why the sudden attention to library content?

Simple: herd mentality. Just as the term “fake news” never seemed to cross anyone’s lips until we got a fake president, the sudden hysteria over library content is being pulled along by the tide of opposition to BLM, CRT, Antifa, and something called wokeism. Marjorie Taylor Greene, for example, plans to INTRODUCE A BILL declaring Antifa a terrorist organization.

Problem is, Antifa does not exist as an organization. There are no members, no headquarters, no mailing address, no letterhead, no nothing. It simply stands for “anti-fascist,” something that the U.S. as a nation proudly stood for in World War II, when many of our military personnel died fighting fascism. So now, MTG wants to declare anti-fascism a terrorist organization. Interesting.

That’s the same mentality we find with this growing hysteria over libraries. Whether you choose to accept it or not, it is a direct attack on the First Amendment that guarantees freedom of expression.

Don’t believe it? Well, just ask Florida State Sen. Jason Brodeur. He has introduced a bill in the Florida Legislature that would require all bloggers who write about any state official to REGISTER WITH THE STATE not once, but every single time a story is posted. At the same time, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis wants to make it infinitely easier to sue reporters and media outlets – in direct contravention to established 1964 law called NEW YORK TIMES v. SULLIVAN.

That might not resonate with many who are disillusioned with the media, but if the news media is ever silenced, that will be the death knell for freedom. It’s true that democracy dies in darkness.

So far, we have two bills submitted for our own upcoming legislative session that deal with library control i.e., censorship.

Reps. Paul Hollis (R-Covington) and Beryl Amedee (R-Houma) have submitted HB 25, which would change library board membership from set terms to service at the pleasure of the parish council.

Sen. Heather Cloud (R-Turkey Creek) has likewise submitted SB 7, which would govern the “access to certain materials in public libraries.”

They are just part of the growing feeding frenzy being stoked by the Republican Party.

It wouldn’t surprise me if a few more bills are thrown into the hopper before the legislature convenes on April 10.

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Here’s yet another example of an incremental step in the steady effort by Republicans to create an authoritarian fascist regime right here in the good ol’ U.S. of A.

Republican Florida State Sen. Jason Brodeur, who bears a striking resemblance to Ted Cruz, has actually proposed a bill that would require bloggers who write about Gov. Ron DeSantis, his cabinet officers and/or members of the Florida legislature to REGISTER WITH THE STATE.

Perhaps it’s appropriate that that kind of control freak would be named Jason.

All that’s missing is the hockey mask.

While exempting the websites of newspapers, the bill would require that bloggers who receive compensation for a given online post about any elected state official register with the Florida Office of Legislative Services or the Commission on Ethics.

Ethics? They got ethics in Florida? When did that happen?

You have got to be kidding, Brodeur. You Republicans have been screaming for years now against any effort to require registration of firearms – even in the aftermath of wholesale slaughter of schoolchildren and minorities.

One of the most ridiculous claims is that you have a God-given right to own assault weapons under the Second Amendment.

I have news for you, bonehead, it ain’t a God-given right. I don’t think God addresses gun rights anywhere in his manual, aka The Bible.

So, where’s your righteous defense of the First Amendment? You know, the one that guaranties freedom of assembly, press, speech, etc. Let’s show a little consistency here.

Brodeur’s bill is absurd and unconstitutional on so many levels it’s difficult to know just where to start. I’ll just say it’s a classic first bold step toward the creation of a fascist state.

“If a blogger posts to a blog about an elected state officer and receives, or will receive, compensation for that post, the blogger must register with the appropriate office … within 5 days after the first [post] by the blogger which mentions an elected state officer,” the BILL READS.

If a blogger posts subsequent stories about elected state officers, the blogger would be required to file monthly reports detailing where, when and by whom the post was published – and the amount of compensation received. Failure to file the required reports could lead to fines.

The proposed bill leaves unanswered the question of how the law would apply to out-of-state bloggers like yours truly?

I have no intention of registering in Florida or anywhere else but what if I write a story and post it here about DeSantis, or any other state official, including Brodeur? I have a few readers in Florida, so I know my posts go there, albeit on a limited basis. But what if they attempt to make me register and I resist?

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Today’s test will consist of a single multiple-choice question.

Is LSU’s Athletic Department:

• a subsidiary of a major academic institution exempted of any real oversight;
• a multi-million-dollar enterprise that places scant emphasis on academics;
• a silent partner with sports betting companies in promoting organized gambling.

The answer, of course, is all three.

That may seem to be a harsh indictment of one of the premier sports programs in the country, but consider this:

An ANALYSIS of graduation rates for the 2012-13 school year at LSU (More recent objective figures were difficult to come by) showed that the overall graduation rate for the school was 64 percent compared to 53 percent for student-athletes.

Report by the Baton Rouge media and news releases by he university tend to put a more positive spin by citing higher rates achieved by men’s swimming and diving, men’s tennis, women’s soccer, women’s golf, and volleyball which led LSU with perfect scores of 100. Other sports with scores of 90 or better included women’s swimming and diving, women’s track and field, baseball, softball, gymnastics, women’s basketball and men’s golf.

But a closer look shows that women’s sports propped up the men in student-athlete graduation rates. The women athletes had a graduation rate of 73 percent compared to a dismal 36 percent for male athletes, primarily football and men’s basketball.

Now we learn, no thanks to Baton Rouge media, that a four-month INVESTIGATION by the Shirley Povich Centers for Sports Journalism and the Howard Center for Investigative Journalism at the University of Maryland has revealed that LSU is one of five major universities are participating in multi-million-dollar CONTRACTS with sports betting companies in an apparent effort to rake in even more money for their programs.

LSU, at least, has been a bit furtive in setting up its 10-year partnership with an outfit called PLAYFLY SPORTS PROPERTIES that currently calls for payments of about $8.5 million to the school. Playfly, headquartered in Berwyn, Pennsylvania. Playfly, in its role as a third-party company, has entered into promotional agreements with sports gambling companies for advertising at school sporting events, raising the question of why LSU is shilling for a gambling casino.

The answer, of course, is money.

In addition to the $8.5 million to be paid LSU by Playfly this year, the school also receives 50 percent of all revenue generated from subscriptions, sponsorships, commercials, vendor agreements, and any other revenue “specific to LSU Gold.

And while both LSU and Playfly will evenly share the operating expenses each year for LSU Gold, LSU’s share is limited to a maximum of $800,000 in any calendar year. That’s against that $8.5 Mil, of course.

Here’s the shame of it all:

The contract between LSU and Playfly went into effect for the 2016-17 fiscal year and runs through 2025-26 and yet, the local media, with notable exception of the Baton Rouge Business Report, has been uber-silent on the agreement, choosing instead to focus on the controversy over the naming of the basketball court in the Maravich Assembly Center. It took an investigative team from Maryland to peer into the specifics of the agreement between universities like LSU and sports gambling companies.

Even as politicians are fretting over the literature available to young impressionable minds in our public libraries, no one seems to be paying attention to the efforts of universities on the make for more and more revenue to inundate thousands of students with a barrage of glamorous advertisements selling them on the potential of big winnings.

And LSU, by climbing in bed with casinos via a third-party contractor, can questionably claim that while the contract with Playfly is a public record, Playfly’s contract with the sports betting company is not. By structuring its agreement in this manner, LSU is attempting to shield its business from the public.

There is a Louisiana Supreme Court decision, however, which could force LSU – or Playfly – to make that agreement public. The case, NEW ORLEANS BULLDOG SOCIETY v. LOUISIANA SOCIETY FOR THE PREVENTION OF CRUELTY TO ANIMALS New Orleans Bulldog Society v. the Louisiana Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, more or less ruled that if public funds are involved, then the record should be made available.

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The saga of Mandy Miller, the former longtime employee of the West Baton Rouge Parish Sheriff’s Office who has admitted to stealing nearly $160,000 from her employer, took a new twist Wednesday when LouisianaVoice learned that she was arrested eight years ago for criminal trespass and battery on an East Baton Rouge Parish sheriff’s deputy.

Miller, who worked for the WBR Sheriff’s Office “FOR DECADES,” was earning $72,000 as a clerk processing traffic tickets for the office when she admitted to the theft from the department.

She also is the president of Advanced Builders, Inc., a company that constructs high-end houses.

Even after she admitted to the theft, Sheriff MIKE CAZES inexplicably kept her on the department’s payroll for about three months.

Cazes, who has announced he will not run for reelection this year, has refused interviews about Miller or his office and he grilled deputies for hours about a suspected leak to media on when Miller would surrender to authorities.

LouisianaVoice on Wednesday obtained a two-page ARREST REPORT completed by EBR Deputy James Jamison which indicated that Miller became confrontational and attacked a deputy after she and a companion had refused to leave the L’auBerge Casino in Baton Rouge in the early morning hours of April 4, 2015.

Miller, who includes 18^th Judicial District Attorney Tony Clayton and Assistant DAs Kristi Jarreau Marbury, and Nedi Alvarez Morgan among her Facebook friends (the 18^th Judicial District includes West Baton Rouge Parish), was in the casino along with companion Natasha Valez. Both had been previously banned from the property and when the two were asked to leave the premises, they refused, the arrest report said.

Jamison wrote in his report that the casino’s security supervisor advised that the two had been asked to leave the casino several weeks earlier and told not to return. The report said that Valez “became irate” when asked again to leave and verbally attacked one of the deputies. Jamison wrote that he asked Valez to calm down whereupon she verbally attacked him, as well, and failed to obey his commands.

When Valez was subsequently handcuffed, Miller got up from her chair and started toward Valez. When a deputy reached for her arm to detain her, she punched him in the chest and attempted to hit him again, but missed. Miller was then also handcuffed.

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