Louisiana Voice

Okay, folks, it’s October and you know what that means.

Yep. Time for our second of two fundraisers per year. We come to you only in April and October as opposed to some news blogs who issue appeals on a monthly basis.

LouisianaVoice has no paywall because we want all to have access to our posts. Likewise, we do not accept advertising other than Cavalier House Books whose owner was kind enough to set up this blob in the beginning (though occasionally unauthorized ads are tacked on by our platform provider). That’s because I don’t want to be beholden to any entity. Independence is foremost.

Any financial support comes from your generosity and that is precisely why we try not to abuse the privilege. Twice a year is sufficient. I’m not in this as a livelihood; I’m simply attempting to provide a service to keep readers informed of what our public servants are up to at any given time. But realistically, there are modest expenses that have to me met to achieve that purpose.

That is why I write about furtive agreements to locate a data center in Livingston Parish, about bone-headed senators attempting to blindside a witness with bad information (see below); about evangelicals who will turn their backs on the less fortunate in order to support a tyrant; about sheriffs who believe they are laws unto themselves and about the attempted takeover—and destruction—of our public libraries by those who would impose their own brand of morals and standards on the rest of us.

If you agree with these principles, I invite you to contribute what you’re comfortable with giving. Your contribution will not be blessed nor do I promise you will be rewarded many times over for planting your seed of faith. I simply pledge I will continue to do my best to expose corruption, malfeasance, violations of public trust and hypocrisy on the part of elected and appointed officials.

To contribute, click HERE and scroll down to the YELLOW RECTANGLE labeled “Keep Us Independent,” (it’s to the right of this post) and follow the instructions to contribute by credit card or you may mail a check (you still do those?) to Tom Aswell, 107 North College St. West, Denham Springs, LA. 70726.

As always, your support, no matter how large or how small, is greatly and sincerely appreciated.

Sens. Eric Schmitt (R-Mo.), John N. Kennedy (R-LA)

…Because like as not, this will be the result:

The late John Hays would’ve had a field day with these Life Surge guys.

For those of you who haven’t read my previous posts about John, he was a hard-drinking, chain-smoking, crude person who could be blunt to the point of cruelty and was notoriously unschooled in the professional field of journalism in which we “trained” journalists take so much (more often than not, underserved) pride.

He was also the scourge of con men, Ponzi scheme artisans who preyed on uninformed, innocent victims, many of them senior citizens, literally striking fear in the hearts of those who cheat people out of their life’s savings with false promises and visions of riches.

If you think I’m making John Hays out to be some kind of hero, you’re correct. That’s just what he was.

And though we operated as competitors for a time, he was my friend.

John, a native of Ruston, moved back home from San Antonio in the early 1970s, had a falling out with the local newspaper publisher (for whom I worked) over local political issues and out of spite, started his own paper, called appropriately the Morning Paper, in his kitchen that ultimately grew into a free circulation weekly of about 40,000 or so.

He died in August 2014, leaving a powerful legacy behind—as chronicled in this 1993 NEW YORK TIMES feature.

Perhaps Wesley Harris said better than I when he PENNED AN ARTILE about John for the Lincoln Parish Journal back in June.

The reason I invoke his name yet again is because of a recent spate of negative stories about Life Surge, a so-called Christian investment scheme that has a lot of big names behind it and which targets the Christian community for money, lots of it.

Well, shucks, there’s nothing new about “prosperity Christianity” trolling for money now, is there?

Except this one has a trio of local names near and dear to the hearts of citizens of Ruston in particular and north Louisiana in general and one can only imagine what havoc John could’ve inflicted on this scheme.

Those of us with good memories knew that when he was alive, shysters had better tread carefully when in the environs of north-central Louisiana. That was John Hays territory.

Anyway, for Life Surge, the latest get-rich-quick scheme, three of its high-profile “celebrity” spokespersons are Willie Robertson (son of the late Duck Dynasty Commander Phil Robertson, erstwhile Louisiana Tech quarterback until he was unseated by upstart Terry Bradshaw), wife Korie and the couple’s daughter, Sadie Robertson. Sadie, by the way, was a contestant on Dancing with the Stars and sang on the Duck Dynasty’s Christmas album, titled, appropriately, Duck the Halls.

The Robertson clan, sans Phil, still maintains West Monroe as its headquarters and Willie, Korie and Sadie are featured as “influential voices in faith and finance” at a series of one-day seminars across the U.S., touted as an “unforgettable experience with world-class speakers, visionary entrepreneurs, best-selling authors and renowned worship artists—all united to help you surge your life God’s way. (“worship artists”? Seriously?). It’s also heralded as “a one-day life-changing event—to steward your faith, finances & future.” Life Surge – Surge Your Life God’s Way!

Besides the Robertsons, also linked to Life Surge are Heisman Trophy winner Tim Tebow, actor Kelsey Grammer, comedian Jeff Foxworthy, actress Patricia Heaton, former New Orleans Saints quarterback Derek Carr, former baseball player David Ortiz, quarterback Russell Wilson, neurosurgeon and former HUD Secretary Ben Carson, Fox network hostess Elisabeth Hasselbeck, Joe Montana, Magic Johnson Boston Celtics coach Joe Mazzulla and megachurch pastor Craig Groeschel, among dozens of others.

Tebow, Mazzulla and Groeschel have since attempted to disassociate (or in Tebow’s words, “pausing”) themselves with the organization after it was accused of pressuring attendees to invest tens of thousands of dollars in real estate and stock courses.

Why? Perhaps this story in Mother Jones last Thursday (Sept. 24) had something to do with their decisions:

The Gospel of High Yields: Inside Tim Tebow’s Favorite Wealth Seminar – Mother Jones

Kiera Butler wrote about attending a seminar in Atlanta last May at which Tebow was the keynote speaker. The former University of Florida quarterback told the attendees, who Butler said numbered in the thousands, to follow.

Check out this link to Butler’s interview on this podcast VIDEO about Life Surge.

The cost to attend one of these seminars? Just $20. Of course, when you have upwards of 5,000 in attendance, the money starts to gets serious before the curtain ever goes up. But wait. There’s more. For $97, one can enroll in “SurgeU.” That’s a series of courses that promise to “surge our resources and influence through real estate and trade—for Kingdom impact,” Butler wrote, adding that the concept of “Kingdom Impact” means the more money you make, the more good works you can do.

The cost of that package is a tad more: $10,000 to $40,000 and if you want to enroll but don’t have the money to do so, organizers will happily hook you up with a third-party lender.

Life Surge CEO Jeremy Nosek denied that the organization trains its representatives to pressure attendees into borrowing or incurring debt they cannot afford. In fact, Butler wrote, large screens behind the speakers during the Atlanta event carried the periodic warning that investing in Life Surge products carried risk and that “any income or earnings shared examples are not intended to represent typical or guaranteed results for the average customer. Results vary widely and you should assume that the average person may earn little to no money or could potentially lose money.” That’s a standard disclaimer in all investment brochures and advertisements.

As P.T. Barnum told us long ago, however, it’s not difficult to find suckers investors. In 2025, Life Surge boasted, 117,000 people attended the one-day events scattered all over the country.

Karen Neal, a 61-year-old former Life Surge customer, told Butler. “…[I]t’s like, do they know what’s happening to some of these people that are getting into this?”

A Life Surge employee Butler spoke with, who requested anonymity, echoed the same sentiment: Why would Christian celebrities lend their brand to the company at all? “You’ve heard all about the people who are losing thousands and thousands of dollars [who] are being asked to cash in their 401Ks and piggyback credit cards in order to pay for these classes,” the employee said. “It just doesn’t seem like something a good Christian motivational speaker or pastor would want to be a part of.”

But the speakers could be doing so with a motivation of their own.

Butler wrote that Athlete Speakers, a speakers’ bureau estimated that motivational speakers can go for fees as high as $100,000 a pop. Tebow spoke at 10 such seminars per year in 22024 and 2025 and was on track to speak to 20 this year before hitting the pause button.

LouisianaVoice has no estimate of how often the Robertson trio speaks or at how many seminars but you have to figure it’s sufficient to feather a duck’s nest pretty comfortably.

We surely could use a John Hays today.

Every now and then, some elected official does/says something to astoundingly stupid that we of the loyal opposition view it as a gift.

Such was the case yesterday when Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-Missouri) thought he had caught former special counsel Jack Smith in a “gotcha” moment—and on national television yet.

It was enough of a blunder that Schmitt’s stupidity eclipsed that of fellow Missourian Josh Hawley, he of the wind-sprint through the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2001 in an effort to escape all those “tourists” meandering through the hallways and into the offices of elected officials.

Schmitt, grilling Smith in hearings before the Senate Judiciary Committee, accused the witness of being a “dirt bag” and of committing perjury by denying he was in attendance at an Atlanta Hawks NBA game on Feb. 3, 2024, thus implying Smith had met secretly with Fulton County district attorney Fani Willis and her associate Nathan Wade in some sort of conspiracy to persecute one Donald Trump.

Schmitt, in typical kneejerk Repugnantcan fashion, had apparently confused the Atlanta Hawks with the Iowa Haweyes, a collegiate team, which was playing on that same date…in Maryland. Smith was at that game to see Caitlin Clark play.

Well, hell. That’s understandable. Honest mistake. I once purchased what I thought were tickets for a Cardinal baseball game in St. Louis only to learn I’d bought tickets to an Oriole game in Baltimore. Both birds, right? Kidding. I love baseball but have never been to a game in St. Louis or Baltimore. Just trying to make a point about the insanity of these Repugnantcan who thought they had Smith caught in a lie only to expose their own lack of diligence.

When corrected by Sen. Amy Klbucher (D-Minnesota), Schmitt ranted that she was “trying to rehabilitate the witness” when by all appearances, it was Schmitt who needed rehabilitation.

Columnist Heather Cox Richardson was quick to point out when a witness lies before a congressional committee, he can be prosecuted for perjury but senators and representatives enjoy special immunity to such penalties when their lies are uttered as part of the public proceedings. It’s almost as if the law doesn’t apply to them.

The Washington Post uncharacteristically used the gaffe to poke fun at Schmitt in appropriate basketball vernacular, saying the senator “thought he had a slam dunk but it was an air ball.”

Schmitt, of course, attempted to minimize the significance of his attempted ambush gone awry, saying, “Here’s the thing, my job is to ask the question, and if that’s what his answer is, that’s what his answer is.”

That, Senator, is pretty lame, about as lame as the comments posted by conservative commentator Benny Johnson and Fox News host Sean Hannity, both of whom claimed Smith had perjured himself during his testimony. Both their comments were soon taken down when it became apparent it was Schmitt, not Smith, who’d made a fool of himself—and by extension, Johnson and Hannity.

And almost too good to be true, you know who Schmitt’s wing man was at the hearing? Take a look at the photo below and see if you recognize anyone.

Sometimes you just have to wonder about Jeff Landry.

On the one hand, he’s conducting alligator hunt fundraisers with the likes of Donald Trump, Jr., and FBI Director Kash Patel.

On the other, he’s scheduled to participate in a program ostensibly being held to “strengthen families” and to help children “experience safety, stability and lifelong belonging,” an event being hosted by a Baton Rouge church accused five years ago of abusing children with “fight nights,” and “boot camps” where kids were pushed to their physical limits until they vomited or soiled themselves.

Louisiana megachurch accused of abuse at former leadership program

Moreover, participants who were Black or suspected of being gay were taunted with racist and homophobic slurs and female interns were body-shamed.

Students at Baton Rouge Bethany Church’s Christian leadership training program were even blamed for the cancer death of the wife of the youth pastor in charge of the program because they didn’t pray “hard enough” for her recovery.

Let’s pause at this point and acknowledge that this post is going to infuriate some people, mostly of the evangelical stripe, but I’m willing to endure that. I’m also willing to question the wisdom of the governor of the state lending his name and office and the office of the Department of Children and Family Services to an event held by any organization found to be committing such atrocities against children in the name of all that’s holy.

It isn’t as if DCFS hasn’t enough problems of its own without the stigma of sponsoring an event at a church already tainted with past abuse problems. Louisiana DCFS agency vows overhaul after WDSU investigation – WDSU

The Louisiana legislature earlier this year averted the outright closure of the agency when State Sen. Regina Barrow (D-Baton Rouge) authored a bill to do just that. Barrow has long been a major critic of DCFS because injuries and deaths involving children entrusted to the agency. Louisiana lawmakers call for more oversight, but not closure of Children and Family Services • Louisiana Illuminator

A state audit released last May cited DCFS for a number of shortcomings, including issues with foster care payments and federal reporting requirements. Audit uncovers issues in Louisiana DCFS operations

Still, as the cliché goes, the show must go on, even in the aftermath of negative publicity surrounding a “boot camp”—since discontinued—built specifically to condition teenagers for the ministry by employing physically and psychologically challenging exercises.

Bethany recently posted on its website the banner headline, “Save the date: DCFS bringing Louisiana’s faith leaders together for ‘Hope Starts Here’ event.”

SAVE THE DATE: DCFS bringing Louisiana’s faith leaders together for ‘Hope Starts Here’ event – Louisiana Department of Children & Family Services

Participants listed for the event included DCFS Secretary Rebecca Harris, Landry, Focus on the Family President Jim Daly, Louisiana Family Forum’s Gene Mills, pastors, legislators and other “faith-community partners.”

The program will be held at Bethany Church’s South Baton Rouge Campus on Honore Lane on Wednesday, Oct. 7 from 10 a.m. to 1:45 p.m.

Bethany made national news in 2021 when several news agencies reported on the so-called “220i” leadership program that ran from 2005 to 2013 at a cost of $5,000 per participant, not including food, travel or living expenses, and which had as many as 7,000 participants over the life of the program.

“The name ‘220’ came from Galatians 2:20, which we all had to memorize during the boot camps,” said one former intern who attended the program in 2007 to 2008 “The emphasis of the verse was placed on ‘It is no longer I who lives.’ The verse was misinterpreted to control us and our will. In 220i, there is a lowercase ‘i’ to denote that we are not worthy of being called uppercase ‘I’, that we did not exist anymore. It was like self-flagellation. This ideology set us up for mind control.”

This church program is accused of abusing teens with extreme ‘boot camps,’ ‘fight nights’ and shame

“You only could graduate [from the internship] at 10 months if they deemed that you were submitted and loyal enough to them,” she said. “You also were required to go through an exit interview with them, during which time [220i Director and youth pastor] Joel, [wife] Amie or his youth staff pastors would tell you what God’s plans were for you upon leaving.”

The former intern, who referred to herself simply as “Claire,” said upon completing the program, the church attempted to dissuade her from enrolling in college, telling her college was “not God’s plan for you. They spoke to us as if they were God,” she said.

The interns were also made to participate in marathon prayer sessions at night, particularly in 2007 and 2008, when Amy Stockstill (Joel’s first wife) was battling cancer. Former intern Bridget Linville said they were made to take part in “24-hour prayer nights” for her recovery and when she died, they were blamed.

“’You guys didn’t have enough faith for her to be healed,’” Linville recalled having been told. “Looking back now, they were all hurting and they were taking it out on us.”

Joel Stockstill eventually remarried. His second wife, also named Amie but spelled differently, would “police our clothing, our hair, or makeup, even our weight,” a former intern identified only as Emerson, said.

“Every week, she checked our BMI, and if you were above a certain BMI, you got called out publicly and put on restricted diets. There are girls still suffering from eating disorders because of this,” she said.

Amie Stockstill would tell female interns being fat “meant that you had sin in your life,” Claire said. She also forced Black interns to “succumb to whiteness” by relaxing their hair and “conforming to white beauty standards.”

Both Joel and Amie Stockstill took a special interest in interns’ personal lives, the former interns said. “There was a scheduled ‘date night,’ and you had to go on a date or you were shamed and called in for discipline,” Claire said. “After the dates, the girls were interrogated by Amie and the boys were interrogated by Joel to assess whether or not we had ‘sinned’ or been tempted while on the dates.”

Bethany lead pastor Jonathan Stockstill, after national media published interns’ allegations, posted an apology on his Facebook page in April 2021 for what he termed “painful experiences” many of the teenagers endured. “It’s obvious to me now and to the current leadership at Bethany Church that we significantly missed the mark in that program in many ways,” he wrote.

“I see it as damage control,” said Gume Laurel, 34, a Texan who took part in the 10-month program in 2007 and 2008. “It looks like he’s trying to shift the blame and say, ‘The leadership at the time.’ He was ‘the leadership’ at the time.”

Joel Stockstill has never issued an apology and currently runs Surge Ministries which at one time was affiliated with Bethany but since has been separated into its own program. Surge Ministries describes itself as “focusing on global church planting and community development initiatives and was established to train and support indigenous pastors in establishing new churches worldwide.

Bethany Church, founded in Baker, Louisiana, in 1963, has approximately 8,000 members on four Louisiana campuses and also operates Bethany College, a non-accredited college in Baker which is affiliated with Southeastern University in Lakeland, Florida. Southeastern is a Christian university which is accredited and is the largest Assemblies of God educational institution in the U.S.

Bethany moved its main campus from Baker to Baton Rouge following the flood of 2016, which heavily damaged the original building. Its three giant crosses alongside I-10 in Baton Rouge, symbolic of the cruxifiction of Christ and two thieves, are a familiar landmark to residents of southeastearn Louisiana.

Critics maintain participation by Landry and DCFS in the Oct. 7 “Hope Starts Here” program blurs the lines between the Constitutionally-mandated separation of state and church.