If you were so naïve as to think it couldn’t happen here, think again, damnit, and this time open your eyes and ears to what’s going on around you.

If you thought only Ivy Leage colleges were being targeted for Don the Con’s interpretation of subversive, terrorist and dangerous threats, well, wake up and see that it’s come a little closer – this time to the UNIVERSITY OF ALABAMA.

Alireza Doroudi, an Iranian national pursuing a Ph.D. in mechanical engineering, was taken into custody by ICE’s jack-booted Homeland Security Investigations (HIS) and incarcerated in an ICE detention facility in Jena, one of several private prison companies now poised to rake in a fortune in taxpayer money to imprison students and women who have done nothing but exercise the free speech guaranteed to us but now decidedly endangered.

And, of course, the raid and arrest of Doroudi wouldn’t be acceptable unless it occurred as it did at 3 a.m. That’s the best time because the ones detained are likely roused from sleep, confused and disoriented and naturally, out of touch with and unable to reach any legal counsel.

University of Alabama. Hey, folks, that’s just two states over. You know, Louisiana Tech, my old school, is a pretty reputable engineering school and there are a lot of Mideastern students there. I reckon they’d be wise to keep an extremely low profile. Never thought ICE would come to Ruston but you never know…

Come to think of it, LSU has a pretty fair engineering department that is home to quite a few foreign nationals.

We’re in a dark place, folks. Believe it. Private prisons are making a fortune imposing inhumane treatment of powerless detainees, many, like Doroudi, here legally; IMPOTUS is having a heyday rolling over the Bill or Rights like it was last week’s expired Arby’s coupons. Elon Musk, not even an elected official of any sort, is wreaking havoc across the board.

News media are shaking in their shoes, scared s**tless of being sued or having their licenses revoked. Billionaires are looting the federal treasury via generous tax cuts and incentives to which the rest of us have no avenue.

This maniac has already or is seriously talking about:

• Invading Greenland to take it over. Think about that for a moment. Greenland is a sovereign nation and we’re talking about making it our very own Ukraine.
• Ditto Canada and the Panama Canal
• Having his mug carved onto Mount Rushmore along with Jefferson, Washington, Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt. That might spur the furtive purchases of dynamite.
• Running for a third term in stark violation of the Constitution of the United States of America.
• Abandoning NATO, the one thing stopping Russia from running over Europe.
• Taking over the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and installed himself as the center’s board chair. Everything he knows about art is confined to a WWE ring.
• Targeted the Smithsonian Institute to rewrite history and to “Restore Truth and Sanity to American History,” prompting one historian to say, “It reminds you of a fascist state.”

A man recently lamented to my daughter that he is a veteran and that he voted for Trump who is now stripping away veterans’ benefits, causing him anguish, stress and hardship.

My daughter just looked at him and said, “He told you he was going to do that. Weren’t you listening?”

Indeed, weren’t you listening, America?

Want more?

Where do sexual predators go when they get out of jail?

Well, if you’re pedophiles Andrew Tate and little brother Tristan or if you just love to beat up women or

If you’ve fathered a baker’s dozen children by several different women…you seek out Donald Trump for companionship and solace and maybe even a cabinet position or even head up an outfit called DOGE.

I saw an interesting meme today. It said “…You can put our troops’ lives in danger, compromise our national security and violate the Espionage Act. And the government will do nothing.

But if you write an editorial for your school newspaper that Trump doesn’t like, you will be abducted on the street and disappeared.”

Weren’t you listening, America?

Apparently not. Especially not our Republican members of Congress and by extension, our Republican governors and legislators.

The Republicans who have dared challenge or even question Trump’s actions could hold a convention in a phone booth (yesh, remember those things?). Jack Kennedy’s Profiles of Courage has no place in the libraries or our Republican congressmen.

Louisiana Sen. John Kennedy, along with Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, lead the spineless pack. These two, along with Steve Scalise and Gov. Jeff Landry, are an embarrassment to the entire state. Not one shred of courage will you find in the entire lot – combined. They are the very personification of putting party over principles, political survival over country. Remember, it was Johnson who said it mattered not that Hunter Biden was a private citizen but the moment Matt Gaetz resigned from Congress just as a report on his sexual exploits was about to be released, he said that we oughta leave Matt along because he’s a private citizen now.

Weren’t you listening, America?

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I think something may have awakened a slumbering giant.

Absentee politicians might be wise to take heed….

…as well as a certain Trump-wannabe governor

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The latest round of invoices for services has to give one pause to wonder if perhaps the Archdiocese of New Orleans might be more interested in keeping the meter running and continuing to pay a cluster of attorneys and experts in perpetuity rather than just fessing up that it is a den of perversion and simply pay the 550 or so victims of sexual abuse at the hands of priests.

Court filings on March 27 revealed 12 separate vendors consisting of experts or law firms have filed applications for compensation totaling more than two million dollars for the latest billing cycle running from Nov. 1, 2024 through Feb. 28, 2025.

To date, those same 12 experts, insurance financial planners and attorneys have been paid a combined total of slightly more than $20 million in fees and expenses. That’s about $1.67 million each – and the case appears no nearer resolved than ever.

Here is the breakdown on fees, expenses and total paid to-date on the 12 vendors:

• Pachulski Stang Ziehl & Jones – co-counsel for the Official Committee of Unsecured Creditors (claimants): $378,634.50 in fees (for 493.8 hours, average of $766.78 per hour), $31,849.93 in expenses. More than $5.5 million paid so far in fees and expenses.
• Stout Risius Ross (aka The Claro Group) – expert consultant on sexual abuse and expert witness to the committee: $52,951 in fees for 142.6 hours ($371.33 per hour), paid $600,979 so far.
• Rock Creek Advisors – pension financial advisors for the committee: $3,575 for 6.5 hours ($550 per hour).
• Blank Rome – special insurance counsel to the debtor (church): $50,494.92 in fees, paid total of $942,196.52 in fees and $8,947.63 in expenses to date.
• Keegan Linscott & Associates – financial advisor to the debtor: $25,706 in fees and $456.37 in expenses this billing. Total of $399,835.50 in fees and $18,405.87 in expenses previously paid.
• Carr, Riggs & Ingram – Financial advisor for debtor: $93,025 in fees. Total of $945,312 in fees and $2,551.75 in expenses previously paid.
• Jones Walker – legal counsel to debtor: $713.279 in fees and $29,528.95 in expenses this billing date, $11,573,236 in fees and $315,725.90 in expenses already paid.
• Actuarial Value, LLC – actuarial advisor to committee: $11,925 ($750 per hour).
• Stegall, Benton, Melancon & Associates – real estate appraiser/valuation expert to committee: $15,907.6
• Zobrio, Inc. – computer consultant to committee: $1.400.
• Troutman Pepper Locke – co-counsel to the committee: $469,545 in fees and $5,085.67 in expenses
• Berkeley Research Group – financial advisors to the committee: $162,677.50 in fees this billing cycle, nearly $3.1 million paid previously.

The case against the Archdiocese of New Orleans has been ongoing for five years since Archbishop Gregory Aymond placed the nation’s second-oldest Roman Catholic diocese under Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings and the case has been marred by apparent conflicts of interest, legal maneuvering and outright lies and coverups. In the process of all that, the church appears to prefer paying legal and expert fees in order to avert the inevitable: payment of damages to former altar boys who were abused sexually by priests.

The archdiocese has offered a settlement of $62.5 million (bear in mind the church has already paid a third of that amount to lawyers and experts) while the plaintiffs are demanding nearly $1 billion.

All the settlement talks and expenditures by the archdiocese has prompted one court watcher to observe that he sees the priorities of the church as

• Playing the game so that the Judge doesn’t turn on them and will keep the Protective Order in place and the Church secrets (i.e., thecomplicity of the Archbishops and Church Hierarchy in the cover-up)
• Continuing to lie to the Parishioners about just how much of the money that they gave the Church under false pretenses will actually be needed to settle these cases (If settlement is at all possible); and
• Ensuring that the insurers stay at the table while the Church and its lawyers paint the insurers (for the benefit of the Judge) as the bad guys who are the ones guilty of holding up any possibility of settlement.

“As long as these three goals are being met, the Church doesn’t really care how much it costs,” he said.

And, too, remember that despite all this time and the millions raked in by the professionals, the victims have yet to see a dime.

Maybe that’s why they call them professionals.

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Same message for:

Steve Scalise, Mike Johnson, Clay Higgins and Bill Cassidy

(Julia Letlow attended a chamber of commerce event in Bastrop.

I suppose that counts.)

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Weird how this applies to the entire Louisiana Republican delegation

and every other Republican in Congress

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