Louisiana Voice

The Atlantic, along with The Guardian, is an excellent publication that is both informative and credible.

The Guardian, of course, is a British publication that often beats American news sources to good stories. A case in point is the outstanding series of stories on the sexual abuse saga involving the New Orleans Archdiocese. Domestic media, other than The New Orleans and Baton Rouge Advocate, have barely touched on the story.

The Atlantic’s stories generally are much longer and more detailed than other outlets and case in point is yesterday’s 9200-word essay by writer Anne Applebalm on ways in which Maga is “making the world safe for corruption.”

If you scroll down to page 14 of Applebalm’s piece, she even goes into some detail of how our very own Jeff Landry contributes to the disaster that is the Trump administration.

As Trump’s “special envoy” to Greenland, a title she notes carries no recognition from Denmark, he blew into Greenland’s capital of Nuuk last May to “make a bunch of friends.”

The number-one rule for both comics and politicians (am I being redundant here?) is to know your audience. Comics don’t, for example, roll into Austin, Texas, and make crude jokes about Willie Nelson (as one comic friend learned the hard way). And it was, I believe, Lyndon Johnson who once said, “If you can’t come into a room and tell right away who is for you and who is against you, you have no business in politics.”

Landry, obviously, had not done his homework in advance, having gushed on X to Trump beforehand, “It’s an honor to serve you in this volunteer position to make Greenland a part of the U.S.,” apparently overlooking the fact that folks in Greenland and Denmark are literate and can read. To say the least, offense was taken.

Applebalm wrote, “Upon his arrival, Landry changed into camouflage pants, as if he were preparing for combat. He attended a business conference to which he had not been invited.”

Then, in perhaps the biggest faux pas, he “tried to hand out MAGA hats, without much success.”

What a doofus.

Applebalm continued, “Although Louisiana is near the bottom of all U.S. health-care rankings, and although Greenland has full access to a state-funded national health service, Landry brought a doctor who seemed to be there to discuss Greenlandic health care. On the day after Landry’s departure, Greenlanders staged a large protest outside the new U.S. consulate, which they had dubbed ‘Trump Tower.’ After returning home, Landry nevertheless told Fox News that the people he had met ‘want more U.S. involvement in Greenland.’”

That sounds eerily like something Trump would say and along with it being so blatantly untrue, it’s downright embarrassing. Hey, Guv, which “people” told you that? Can you be specific? Didn’t think so.

This a governor, folks, who has pulled off what I thought was impossible: he makes Bobby Jindal look palatable.

This is a guy, I not remind you, who was elected in 2023 by a whopping 18 percent of the state’s 3 million eligible voters and thinks he had a mandate.

Apparently, that “mandate” includes the proliferation of nondisclosure agreements that state and local elected and appointed officials in every one of the state’s 64 parishes were told by Landry to sign.

I have long bitched and moaned about the existence of nondisclosure agreements in lawsuits settled by the state in which taxpayer money is expended to settle claims against the state. This is our money and we have a right to know how much is involved and to whom. Proponents of the practice claim it’s to discourage future claimants from rolling the dice for a similar payoff. That may be, but it doesn’t change the fact that it’s our money and we have a right to know how it’s spent.

But now, Landry has taken NDAs to an all-new level and is figuratively, if not literally, papering the state with the documents that serve the dual purpose of shielding the public from knowing what is going on and the politicians from accountability. Of course, there is proprietary information and there are ways in which to protect that but blank NDAs are not the answer.

And just to show we aren’t ignoring Louisiana’s chief legal official, Attorney General Liz Murrill, there’s also a story in today’s Washington Post in which a federal judge has ruled the ICE was in violation of the U.S. Constitution when they delivered a warning notice to a man in Rochester, New York, over a critical email he had sent to Department of Homeland Security acting director Todd Lyons. The notice, delivered to the man’s home, indicated he risked he might be prosecuted if he continued to engage in political speech.

That action by ICE was reminiscent of Murrill’s silly LETTER last May to the New Orleans mayor, district attorney and city council members warning them they could be jailed for the cardinal sin of disagreeing with her and her boss, Landry, over the removal of a duly-elected clerk of court in Orleans Parish.

But back to Applebalm’s essay and Landry’s claim of local support for more U.S. involvement in Greenland.

Danish politician Julie Rademacher told Applebalm that the night after Landry’s visit, she had gone to a bar in Nuuk where she saw people openly carrying guns—something she said she’d never seen before. “Greenlanders knew that envoys from a predatory foreign power were circulating among them, seeking minerals, money, attention, regime change,” Applebalm wrote.

“They are destroying the trust and the respect in society, in institutions, but also in people,” Rademacher told her.

Kinda makes you understand why Landry prefers NDAs after all.