Louisiana Voice

There have been countless pundits, including yours truly, who have compared Donald Trump to Hitler. Many of those comparisons, sadly, are accurate.

But one doesn’t have to go all the way back to 1934 when President Hindenburg died and Hitler combined the offices of president and chancellor into one.

Nor is it necessary to look to events in Germany to get an idea of how one charismatic person possessing fiery rhetoric can whip an entire country into a frenzy with lies and deceit.

A much shorter trip, both in terms of time and distance is all that is needed to understand that Trump is following a well-worn path to power that was blazed by despots before him.

Take a trip back to 1959 and just 90 miles from the southernmost point in the U.S. and you have Fidel Castro and his Cuban revolution that deposed Fulgencio Batista.

Under Batista, Cuba was corrupt to the core, to be sure. The American Mafia controlled the island’s casinos and hotels and native Cubans slaved their lives away on U.S. corporation-owned sugar plantations for scant pay.

Castro set out to change that with the backing of many powerful figures in Washington. President Eisenhower and his Vice President Richard were not among them, however. When Castro visited Washington, Ike conveniently went golfing in Georgia (sound familiar?), leaving Nixon to meet with the revolutionary leader. They agreed on precious little.

Still, Castro had at least the tacit support of much of the U.S., including the CIA which secretly gave financial support to Castro’s efforts early on. Ironically, it would be the CIA that later tried unsuccessfully (several times) to have him assassinated and even sponsored the fiasco that would become known as the Bay of Pigs invasion.

He even appeared on the ED SULLIVAN SHOW and the film clip was seen by 50 million people as Sullivan interviewed Castro only hours before his triumphant entrance into Havana to seize power. In that interview, Sullivan called Castro not a revolutionist, but an “agrarian reformer.”

Few knew at the time that Soviet troops were already training Castro’s men.

The first indication of Castro’s real intent was his signing into law in May 1959 the first law of the Cuban Revolution, the Agrarian Reform Law which

• Banned all foreign ownership of land;
• Confiscated land holdings of more than 1,000 acres;
• Created a state agricultural sector to control about a third of the country’s farmland.

Soon after ascending to full power, he announced to the world that he was a Marxist and in 1962 the world came to the brink of all-out war with the Soviet Union during the Cuban Missile Crisis

The second Agrarian Reform Law, enacted in October 1963, centralized state control of the country’s agricultural sector.

So, we can see that Castro literally charmed the U.S. into thinking his only goal was to kick out the corruption of the Mafia and U.S. corporations who were getting rich off destitute Cubans, his real agenda was to establish a Soviet satellite in the Western Hemisphere.

He used guile, deceit and outright lies to achieve his goals and only then did he show his true hand. By then, it was too late.

It’s a lesson we should consider carefully before November 5.

After all, we’ve already seen how cozy Trump is with Putin

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LouisianaVoice is in its October fund drive and your support is vital to our continuing to bring you stories about political corruption, chicanery and miscreant behavior. LouisianaVoice has broken several exclusive stories in our nearly 14 years of existence, the oldest continuous political blog in Louisiana.

With the disturbing trend of the administration of Gov. Jeff Landry and the Louisiana Legislature to make public records ever more difficult to obtain, our work will become more difficult. But LouisianaVoice is determined to continue its fight to make government and public officials accountable.

LouisianaVoice was the only news source in the entire state of Louisiana that saw through the scheme of Bobby Jindal to discredit former head of the Louisiana Office of Alcohol and Tobacco Control Murphy Painter. Every other medium simply assumed Painter was guilty of malfeasance; LouisianaVoice early on said he was being set up by Jindal. And we were right.

LouisianaVoice broke the story of the legislative attempt to illegally increase the retirement of former State Police Superintendent Mike Edmonson. Because of our story, the ruse was discovered in time to prevent it from happening.

LouisianaVoice told you how the Jindal administration was involved in the questionable purchase of a Monroe hotel building by political supporters. We were the only news source to reveal how a Jindal and Republican donor attempted to get local courts and probation officers to refer offenders to his residential training facility and how that same individual wound up on the LSU Board of Supervisors.

LouisianaVoice kept you abreast of developments in the controversial move to privatize prisons and state hospitals and LouisianaVoice was there to remind you of how teachers died in the Sandy Hook shooting soon after Jindal told the Louisiana Association of Business and Industry that the only justification for some teachers’ existence was their “ability to breathe.”

And LouisianaVoice published several stories about individual sheriffs’ offices in the state, including Terrebonne, St. Tammany, and Iberia, among others. None of those sheriffs have sent us Christmas cards.

LouisianaVoice told the tragic story of how certain DOTD employees attempted to extort money and materials from a subcontractor and then, when DOTD refused to pay him, he was forced to shut down his company.

This is what we do. We attempt to shine lights into the darkest recesses of state and local government to let you know what your elected officials are up to. They’re not too fond of us but you have a right to know what they’re doing.

If you like what LouisianaVoice does, we invite you to support us. There is no subscription fee for LouisianaVoice because I want our information to be available to everyone. We don’t accept advertising because I don’t want anyone to think they can buy us. So, the only financial support we receive is from your generous contributions – and we come with hat in hand only twice a year – in October and April.

For this month, we’re trying to make it a bit more appealing to support us. The most generous donor will receive an original copy of Huey Long’s autobiography Every Man A King, published in 1933 by the now defunct National Book Co. of New Orleans. Leo Honeycutt’s biography of Edwin Edwards will be awarded on a lottery basis with everyone who contributes $100 or more eligible for the drawing. The book is signed by both Honeycutt and Edwards. Finally, a signed copy of my latest book, The Mission, will go to everyone who gives $50 or more. Because of the book’s ending, it should be explained in advance that it was originally written in 2018 as an e-book, long before recent events, but its ending reads like current news.

You may send a check to Tom Aswell, 107 North College Street West, Denham Springs, LA 70726 or you may contribute by credit card by clicking on the YELLOW BUTTON to the right of this post and following directions. Whichever method you choose, please know that I deeply appreciate your support.  

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Why are there 39 separate bankruptcy cases filed by Catholic dioceses and archdioceses across the U.S.?

The obvious answer is that there are 39 separate Catholic dioceses and archdioceses involved in litigation involving accusations of sexual abuse of children. (The New Orleans Archdiocese is even under investigation for child sex trafficking.)

Given the obvious fact that sexual abuse claims in the Roman Catholic Church are so widespread, why then hasn’t some effort been made to consolidate all 39 defendants into one gigantic landmark lawsuit?

And if 24 of these cases have already been concluded (leaving 15, including New Orleans, still open and scores of lawyers still being paid), why couldn’t they all have been settled under the larger umbrella of the entire Roman Catholic organization with the defense streamlined with the same attorneys and experts to cut costs?

After all, the church is the church is the church, is it not?

Well, that’s an over-simplification so, not exactly. You see, just as New Orleans Archbishop Gregory Aymond initially informed area Catholic churches, schools and other ministries that they would not be subject to any legal exposure only to later reverse himself and inform the apostolates that they would, after all, be required to chip in significantly to any settlement, so, too, is the Catholic Church structured worldwide in such a way that each archdiocese is considered to be a separate entity unto itself.

Bankruptcy is intended to serve as a shield, not a sword, according to PNC BANK N.A. v WILSON, a 2017 case decided by an Illinois court. The Yost Legal Group of Baltimore, Maryland., says on its Web page, “…[C]ourts are very clear that bankruptcy is a shield, not a sword.” This is discussed in greater detail by Linda E. Coco of the BARRY UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF LAW in Orlando, Florida.

A one-time attorney who no longer practices said he sees the New Orleans Archdiocese bankruptcy filing as something of “a deliberate preplanned litigation strategy,” a “master plan” by the church to defend clergy abuse cases in the U.S. on a nationwide basis.

“The Vatican enjoys sovereign immunity, according to a December 2021 decision by the European Court of Human Rights” in Strasbourg, France, he said. “However, the United States is not a signatory to the Human Rights Treaty because only members of the Council of Europe are eligible to be a party to the treaty. The U.S. is merely an observer state to the council.

In 2010, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in JOHN DOE v HOLY SEE that the Vatican could not invoke the provisions of the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act to seek dismissal of a sexual abuse claim involving a pedophile priest.

The New Orleans Archdiocese alone owns property (directly or indirectly) valued at more than $2.1 billion and the other 38 dioceses and archdioceses, along with the Vatican itself, have holdings of inestimable value and every effort is being expended to protect those assets at the expense of more than 500 claimants just in the New Orleans case. And the best way to protect the Vatican itself from exposure is to insist that each diocese and archdiocese is an island unto itself and not its brother’s keeper.

And does anyone believe for one moment that the Catholic Church, with its worldwide operations and its headquarters in Rome, will be amenable to conforming to the whims of the Eastern District Bankruptcy Court’s appointed “restructuring” experts?

Or is it beyond the realm to wonder if the appointment of restructuring experts might be an indication of some hidden agenda by individuals whose personal interests may be at loggerheads with the Catholic laity and those who wish to see justice for the victims and punishment of the wrongdoers?

That is precisely why the former attorney alluded to earlier believes that the New Orleans Archdiocese bankruptcy case “should be disqualified on grounds of fraud, CORPORATE VEIL PIERCING and ALTER EGO STATUS or to compel what bankruptcy law calls SUBSTANTIVE CONSOLIDATION.”

Piercing the corporate veil is a legal term that gives a court the power to hold an entity’s shareholders or directors personally liable for the organization’s debts or actions. This means that the organization loses the limited liability protection and that their personal assets can be used to pay off obligations.

Alter ego is a legal doctrine whereby the court may find that an organization lacks a separate identity from an individual or principal. The court applies this rule to ignore the corporate status of a group of stockholders, officers, and directors of a corporation with respect to their limited liability. In this case, it would be the church hierarchy instead of a corporate board.

Substantive consolidation is a bankruptcy procedure that allows a court to combine the assets and liabilities of multiple entities into one. This is done to treat the entities as if they were a single entity, and to make distributions to creditors under a plan of reorganization or liquidation. This would appear to be what the Catholic Church most wants to avoid because of the potentially far-reaching repercussions.

NEXT UP: Think Catholic priests have the market cornered on child abuse? Think again. The Southern Baptist Convention has its own skeletons it would very much like to keep closeted and the Mormons are not exactly lily-pure.

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Well, I’m back at the ol’ keyboard after four unscheduled days in residence in the hospital after my potassium levels went off the charts but the good folks at Ochsner got everything back to normal and I’m now home and feeling fine.

I just want to remind you that LouisianaVoice is in its October fund drive and your support is vital to our continuing to bring you stories about political corruption, chicanery and miscreant behavior. LouisianaVoice has broken several exclusive stories in our nearly 14 years of existence, the oldest continuous political blog in Louisiana.

Remember how LouisianaVoice predicted (accurately) that the legislative committee investigation of the Ronald Greene killing by Louisiana State Police would fizzle out? Or how state employees got “teagued” in the Jindal administration if they dared voice a dissenting opinion and how we predicted a rerun of the Jindal years (only worse) with Jeff Landry? And then there were our stories about beatings and deaths in private prisons and how judges in Monroe and even Jeff Landry, when he was attorney general, sued people because they had the nerve to request public records? Ever wonder what certain public officials might be hiding? Like the details behind the state’s purchase of a hotel in Monroe or the manner in which Jindal attempted to railroad Murphy Painter only to end up having to pay Painter’s attorneys?

That’s what we do every day at LouisianaVoice.

We have a limited budget because (a) we don’t charge a subscription fee or accept advertising and (b) we hold only two fundraisers per year – October and April. We ask only that you contribute what you feel you can afford although this month we are running a special promotion. The one who makes the most generous contributon will get an original copy of Huey Long’s autobiography Every Man A King, published by the now-defunct National Book Co. of New Orleans.

And a lottery drawing will be held for everyone contributing $100 or more with the winner getting a copy of Leo Honeycutt’s biography of Edwin Edwards. The book is signed by both the author and the late governor.

Finally, everyone contributing $50 or more will receive a signed copy of my newest book, The Mission. First published as an e-book six years ago, it’s partly science-fiction and political and is relevant to our current political climate in this country. I emphasize that it was first published six years ago, so the book’s ending is related in no way to recent events (that’s all I’m saying).

(You can view illustrations of the book covers by scrolling down to our Oct. 1 post.)

You may mail a check to Tom Aswell, 107 North College Street West, Denham Springs, Louisiana 70726 or you may pay by credit card by clicking on the yellow DONATE button to the right of this post.

As always, any support you can provide our efforts to bring you stories others ignore is greatly appreciated.

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This past week I had occasion to catch Lawrence O’Donnell on MSNBC, which was unusual in itself. You see, I cut the cable some time back because I objected to the idea that I could not pick and choose which channels I wished to subscribe to, but the cable company could, and they charge far too much for the quality of TV programming.

But because I had an unscheduled stay in a Baton Rouge hospital and because I was bored, I turned the TV on and caught O’Donnell and what he said really resonated with me when I reflected on the state of our political representation.

O’Donnell was talking about how Liz Cheney passed the test of putting country over politics when she chose to swim against the current of today’s Republican Party. Put another way, she chose patriotism over party in leading the hearings about the January 6 insurrection – and let’s be honest about it: it was precisely that and not a peaceful tour of the Capitol. She knew that by co-chairing that committee, she was effectively ending her political career in the Republican Party. Yet, she chose country over party, principles over a certain career in politics.

But when O’Donnell started talking about passing the test of country over politics, it started me to mentally clicking off the names of all those who have failed that test so miserably and of those who have met – and passed – the test.

Mitt Romney, Adam Kinzinger, Dick Cheney, James Lankford (who is credited with negotiating a bipartisan border compromise that Trump and Mike Johnson killed) and a handful of other Republican members of the House and Senate have passed the test.

Sadly, most others have not. Mitch McConnell famously said during Obama’s first term of office that his goal was to make Obama a one-term president by blocking any of his programs. Period. Never mind the merits of any Obama proposal, he was against it on principle. Funny word, principle from a man who is devoid of same. Further evidence can be readily seen in the ham-handed manner in which he torpedoed not one, but two Supreme Court appointments by Obama.

Then there is Gym Jordan, who never saw a conspiracy he didn’t like.

But closer to home, we have our own charlatans in Congress who seem to know no depths to which they are not willing to stoop to hold on to their jobs, country be damned.

Where to start? Oh, where indeed?

I guess I’d have to start with Mike Johnson, the evangelical who long ago sold his soul in return for he House speakership. And to whom was his soul auctioned to? None other than the devil himself, one Donald Trump. Now entrenched in his seat of pseudo-power (we do know who the real power is, do we not?), its politics over country. Every. Single. Time.

John Kennedy. Oh, Lordy me, what better example could you hold up as a shining example of a political whore? He sells himself as some sort of caricature of Will Rogers when he can be better described as the love child of Droopy Dog and Foghorn Leghorn – but most certainly not one who would put country before party, or statesmanship before cheap grandstanding schtick.

And as for Clay Higgins, all I can say about him is he has no moral compass whatever. He just mouths off whatever pops out of that cavernously empty head of his. His utterances generally have no context or relevance to anything. And if anyone – anyone – knows of any legislation that he has introduced, please so advise. I’d love to know.

Steve Scalise is another one who fails the test. Whatever it takes for him to do or say in order to remain in office, to hold on to any vestige of power and prestige, he’s up for it. Check his voting record. It speaks for itself on the question of whether he comes down on the side of politics or country.

So, the next time you hear a member of Congress pontificate on some pending bill, ask yourself how their position squares up with what’s best for the country and why they feel that way. Then ask yourself what their motivation might be for those convictions.

Instead of liking or disliking the way they comb their hair or the slick answers they give in sound their bites, ask yourself if they pass the test.

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