Louisiana Voice

Let’s face it, U.S. Sen. John N. Kennedy just ain’t too good at figgurin.’

Back in 1999 (that’s 26 years ago if you’re using Kennedy math), when he first ran for Louisiana state treasurer, the then-secretary of the Department of Revenue boasted in a TV ad that during his tenure as the head of the Revenue Department, costs to small businesses had decreased by about 150 percent.

Of course, most people who have even a passing familiarity with numbers know that when you reduce anything by 100 percent, you’re at baseline zero. Ergo, while it’s possible to increase something like say, expenses to small businesses, by just about any percentage, it is impossible to reduce said number by more than 100 percent – unless we decide to start paying some sort of freaky bonuses to businesses.

When his 1999 campaign was informed of that gaffe, the ad was quickly pulled but it couldn’t erase the fact that this was the guy who wanted to be in charge of the state’s finances.

Fast forward to 2025 and we find that ol’ weed killer-drinker still hasn’t boned up on his math.

Oh, he’s skilled at grabbing TV camera face time with his homilies and aw-shucks Will Rogers wannabe word salad. Truth is, he reminds me more of actor Pat Buttram, who played Mr. Haney on Green Acres, than a latter-day Will Rogers.

“Mr. Douglas…” (Pat Buttram as Mr. Haney on Green Acres)

But a reader forwarded me a story from THE SHREVEPORT TIMES. the former Ewing family publication (which did a first-rate job in its investigation of the JIM LESLIE MURDER 50 years ago only to be subsequently sold in 1976 to Gannett which promptly gutted the newsroom staff and left the paper a shell of its former self).

The Times story’s hook was particularly interesting in that it illustrated that Kennedy hasn’t taken any remedial math courses in the past quarter-century.

The story said that last Tuesday (June 3) “Secretary of Education Linda McMahon tested (sic) before the Senate on behalf of Trump’s 2026 budget.”

Okay, with McMahon, a wrestling promoter, you have a disaster-in-waiting, but let’s not dwell on her lack of qualification for now but instead, focus on the exchange between her and Kennedy.

When McMahon confirmed to Kennedy that the government spent about $1.58 billion per year for the past ten years on a program to encourage low-income kids to attend college, the junior senator from Louisiana did some quick computing in that Foghorn Leghorn head of his and said (aloud, so everyone could hear), “So, that’s over a trillion dollars that we’ve spent on this program.”

Oblivious to his error, Kennedy then went on to imply that colleges and universities have been stealing that grant money from the government for their own purposes. McMahon likewise failed to catch Kennedy’s inflated number but Sen John Reed (D-Rhode Island) did.

“I’m not a great mathematician, but I think you were talking about a trillion dollars? I believe $1.5 billion times 10 is $15 billion, and that’s a little bit off from a trillion dollars,” The Times quoted Reed a saying.

McMahon then said that the budget actually cuts $1.2 billion, to which Reed said, “Well that would be $12 billion, not a trillion dollars.”

Oh, did I mention that for 16 years, Kennedy was in charge of the state’s finances?

You just can’t make this kind of stuff up.

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“It’s better to be silent and appear dumb than to speak and remove all doubt” is a familiar quote often attributed to Abraham Lincoln. Then, there is the Mark Twain version, ‘It’s better to keep your mouth shut and let people think you are a fool than to open it and remove all doubt.’

It really just depends on which source one prefers but here’s the kicker: No one really knows the exact origin of the quote, but boy is it relevant today!

The examples abound.

Take Cadet Bonespurs, for example. He actually said to German Chancellor Friedrich Merz that June 6 (D-Day) “WAS NOT A PLEASANT DAY FOR YOU.”

Bear in mind, if you will, that the man who uttered that nonsense is the supposed leader of the most powerful nation on Earth. But Merz replied, “In the long run, Mr. President, this was the liberation of my country from a Nazi dictator.” Merz – 1, Tub-A-Lardo – 0 (or 15-love, if you’re scoring in tennis).

That’s (liberating a nation from Nazi influence, that is) something that Agent Orange appears incapable of accomplishing in this country.

Here’s another: David Richardson, the acting head (and acting is a generous description) of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), now claims (or at least his mouthpiece does) that he was “joking” when he allowed that he DID NOT KNOW there was a hurricane season which those of us along the Gulf (of Mexico) coast know all too well runs from June 1 through Nov. 30 every year.

With no background in crisis management, he appears about as qualified as another notorious head of FEMA, Michael D. Brown who came to the agency from his previous post as a rules enforcer for the INTERNATIONAL ARABIAN HORSE ASSOCIATION. Brown had been appointed by another Repugnantcan president, Geore W. (“You’re doing a heckuva job, Brownie”) Bush and quickly turned the management of the Hurricane Katrina aftermath into its own disaster, though by no means a “natural” one.

It was Brown, you may remember, who whined that he needed to find a DOG-SITTER even as tens of thousands of Katrina victims were going without shelter, food or water.

And now we have the most recent outbreak of foot-in-mouth disease.

U.S. Rep. MARY MILLER (R-Illinois) induced nearly everyone’s gag reflex when she crammed her foot into her mouth all the way to her kneecap (at least) by posting (and then quickly correcting and finally deleting altogether) her criticism of permitting Giani Singh, a Sikh Granthi from southern New Jersey to deliver the Hous’s morning prayer.

First of all, this judgmental “Christian” incorrectly identified Singh as a Muslim before someone must have enlightened her about the difference between the Sikh and Islamic faiths and she corrected her blunder with yet another blunder before then deleting her post altogether (oops! Too late, you’re already made a complete ass of yourself, Mary).

She also erroneously claimed in her post that “America was founded as a Christian nation…” before saying she found it “deeply troubling” and said that the opening prayer by someone of that faith offering the opening prayer “should never have been allowed.”

Somewhere in the Bible is something about letting the one without sin cast the first stone (John 8:7, to be precise) but the tolerance practiced by many of the evangelical right these days isn’t so easily recognized or acknowledged these days. So much for the Golden Rule.

It’s just this kind of “Christian tolerance” that led to the 2012 MASSACRE of seven Sikh worshipers who were gunned down by a white supremacist in a Sikh temple has they held Sunday religious services in Wisconsin in 2012.

But here’s a novel idea that I believe would go a long way to ease the tensions and strife that seems to have a strangle-hold on America, especially among our elected leaders:

If you can’t justify your thoughts and beliefs, if you can back up your words with facts and data and if your words don’t result in a productive exchange of ideas, then by all means, KEEP YOUR MOUTH SHUT AND YOUR JUDGMENTS TO YOURSELF.

(And yes, that goes for yours truly, as well. I’m not exempt to letting my alligator mouth overload my jaybird butt and neither are most of you. We could all benefit from toning down the rhetoric.)

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Today, I caught an interesting story on The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit online news publication that partners with Pro Publica and more than a dozen other similar state publication, a story that, it seems, was picked up by no other news organizations in Louisiana – except LouisianaVoice.

The Texas legislature has for the second time pulled millions of dollars in STATE FUNDING for child identification kids meant to help find missing kids but actually proved ineffective.

So, why is that relative to Louisiana?

Well, two years ago, LOUISIANA VOICE had a story about how then-Attorney General and gubernatorial candidate Jeff Landry got sucked in on the program.

Fooled long with Landry were savvy Texas political honchos Gov. Greg Abbott, Attorney General Ken Paxton, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz (Repugnantcans one and all), along with the Louisiana Sheriffs Association, Ochsner Health, Our Lady of the Lake Health and American Electric Power (which services customers in 11 states, including Louisiana and Texas).

But wait. It seems that if you failed to get your free kit, courtesy of one of the above sponsors of the program, you can still order a 25-pack kit from AMAZON for a mere $79.95. Or you can order them from the VFW for considerably less.

The Louisiana Sheriffs Association was so sold on the kits’ value that it held a PRESS CONFERENCE at which the kits were hawked with Landry and a host of Louisiana sheriffs looking on as if the dude in the black cowboy hat produced added credibility. Just for good measure, Landry also weighed in with his two cents’ worth which, as it has turned out, may not have really been worth even that much.

But all was not as it appeared to be, according to this 2023 story that was a collaborative venture of THE TEXAS TRIBUNE AND PROPUBLICA.

Two years before that, Landry convinced the Republican Attorneys General Association (RAGA) to set up a cash for influence nonprofit operation by selling member attorneys general and their staff access to corporate funders.

THE NATIONAL CHILD IDENTIFICATION PROGRAM was initially linked to the RAGA nonprofit and supposed to provide $100,000 in funding but never did.

Even though the Louisiana program was established with an array of corporate sponsors and did not receive any taxpayer funding as did Texas, it is still worth noting that our governor could be taken in so easily by an organization set up ostensibly to protect vulnerable children.

It’s understandable how well-meaning corporate CEOs, looking for a high-profile cause, could be so fooled but Landry was the state’s chief legal officer at the time and was supposedly dedicated to fighting fraud.

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I’ve come up with what I believe is the perfect formula for the Democratic Party to rally the nation around its cause and to rid the country of those ‘ME TOO” Republicans from the nation’s political landscape.

It’s simple, really. All they have to do is find the most inane, nonsensical issue, put it out there on some social media platform for the lowest of the IQ to absorb. Rinse. Repeat. Rinse. Repeat.

That’s all it takes. Just look at the catch-phrases picked up by MAGA: fake news, witch hunt, DEI, deep state, drain the swamp, alternative facts, hoax and the latest, Make America Healthy Again (MAHA). Instantly, as if on cue (and who’s to say they weren’t?), his ardent admirers begin to chant the latest as if they’d shared an epiphany in the same instant and stumbled upon the Holy Grail itself.

The latest examples, brought down to the local level, are bills that poppled up in this year’s legislative session in Baton Rouge, inspired by brain-worm, dead-bear-planting, whale-decapitating, sewage-swimming Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

State Sen. Patrick McMath (R-Covington) is about to see his SENATE BILL 14 become law. Funny how that really was never an issue before – until, that is, Kennedy and Agent Orange’s pick for surgeon general, holistic doctor and wellness influencer Casey Means rolled out the bandwagon for all the little MAGHATS to climb aboard.

Speaking of which, here’s a suggestion for an event to hold in conjunction with Trump’s June 14 birthday parade to be held in his honor:

The other bill gives credence (gasp!) to Marjorie Taylor-Greene, the Georgia congressperson who remains convinced that Jewish laser beams start California forest fires and that Democrats are actually controlling the weather.

State Sen. Michael “Big Mike” Fesi (R-Houma) is such a devotee to the absurd claim that he is pushing his SENATE BILL 46 which would prohibit such nefarious behavior on the part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). That nonsense actually passed the Senate vote by 35-0 with four senators opting to go fishing that day and miss such a crucial vote. One of the four absentees was none other than McMath who was apparently in consultation with Kennedy and Means. Once both those subjects became issues for Kennedy, all the little MAGHATS couldn’t wait to make it their very own. Funny how that works.

Now if the Democrats would just start pounding opponents with zippy nicknames, hell, the Repugnantcans (see how easy that is?) wouldn’t stand a chance.

I mean, just look how the term TACO is making Trump and his sycophants squirm and fidget. The reaction is both hysterically hilarious and hilariously hysterical. Vice President J.D. Vance, with nothing better to do, has come out SWINGING AT DEMOCRATS for daring to park a Taco truck outside Republican headquarters. (Better take a look, J.D., it could be a Tesla Taco Truck:

Of course, Crock-A-Lardo‘s feathers are ruffled and he has surrogate J.D. Vance screaming “Fowl.”

This is the same J.D. Vance, mind you, who nine years ago called Trump an “idiot” and even compared his future boss to ADOLF HITLER. But, yeah, a taco truck in front of GOP headquarters is a cheap shot and the Dems should be ashamed of themselves.

Really? Let’s look at some of the shots fired by Cadet Bone Spurs at some of his opponents. With most, it will be unnecessary to clarify whom he is referring to, so we won’t bother with the obvious ones:

• Crooked Joe; Joe Hiden; Sleepy Joe, Slow Joe.
• Low Energy Jeb.
• Alfred E. Neuman (Pete Buttigieg).
• Coco Chow (Elaine Chao, Mitch McConnell’s wife).
• Low IQ War Hawk (Liz Cheney)
• Crazy Hillary; Crooked Hillary; Lyin’ Hillary.
• Slimbeball James Comey.
• Lyin’ Tec (Cruz).
• Ron DeSanctimonious.
• Al Frankenstein.
• Birdbrain (Nikki Haley).
• Little Marco.
• Pencil Neck (Adam Schiff)

You get the picture. (Although I do like the names he gave to DeSantis and Schiff. They’re pretty funny.)

So, the obvious strategy here is to manufacture dubious issues, keep up the drumbeat no matter what the fact-checkers say, hurl epithets right and left and then scream bloody murder when someone hits you with a zinger like TACO Don.

Come to think of it, my solution sounds a lot like Louisiana politics – like when Edwin Edwards kissed opponent Puggy Moity on the cheek after Moity had implied that Edwards was gay or when one of Earl Long’s opponents was hospitalized after a car wreck and Long said he went to the hospital to check on him because “if he dies, they might put somebody good in the race who’d beat both of us,” or when, in 1991, when Edwards was in a runoff with David Duke, bumper stickers cropped up all over the state that said, “Vote for the crook; it’s important.”

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Whenever I hear TACO Don respond to a reporter’s uncomfortable question with yet another of his predictable accusations of nastiness, I can’t help but be reminded of DORIS PACKER, a largely forgotten actress from an old CBS sitcom from the late 1950s and early ‘60s (yeah, that’s how old I am).

Doris Parker had the recurring role of the mother of millionaire playboy Chatsworth Osborne Jr. on the old Many Lives of Dobie Gillis show that ran from September 1959 to June 1963 on CBS.

Mrs. Osborne often referred to her son, Dobie’s nemesis, as “SUCH A NASTY BOY” in her snobbish tone that told the world that she was far superior to the lesser beings whom she was forced to tolerate.

Fast forward 65 years and we have members of the fourth estate questioning Herr Führer about his latest nickname. As you listen, close your eyes and picture in your mind’s eye Mrs. Osborne and even those of the younger set who have never heard of Dobie Gillis can HEAR THE RESEMBLANCE.

The only unresolved question that keeps us from actually believing in reincarnation is what (or who) in some parallel universe could Trump possibly be superior to in intellect?

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