Louisiana Voice

Did you happen to read or hear what our ass-clown of a governor said at the Republican National Convention? H really laid it out there for all to see just how backward us rednecks must really be down here on the bayous and in the swamps.

Talking about the attempt on Donald Trump’s life by Thomas Crooks and defending his absurd requirement that all public classrooms display a copy of the Ten Commandments, this genius in psychoanalysis and theology said, “I would submit that maybe if the Ten Commandments were hanging on [Crooks’] wall at the school that he was in, maybe he wouldn’t took (sic) as shot at the president.”

https://lailluminator.com/2024/07/18/landry-ten-commandments/?emci=e30b8e32-d045-ef11-86c3-6045bdd9e096&emdi=010ad11e-d445-ef11-86c3-6045bdd9e096&ceid=372080

Seriously, Landry? You’re going with that? You sound like those evangelicals who are saying that divine intervention kept Trump from being killed while overlooking the fact that that same divine intervention did not prevent an innocent man, Corey Comperatore, from being killed by the same shooter. Wasn’t his life also worth some of that divine intervention?

But back to Landry. Maybe if the idiots attacking school and public libraries would step back and allow kids to read, maybe, just maybe a few other problems might find a solution.

Some of the books being attacked by people like Greg Abbott and Rhonda Sandis include:

Catch-22 – Well, hell, we can’t be allowing these kids to read about the absurdities of war. They are, after all, the cannon fodder of the future for wars we haven’t even thought about yet.

Slaughterhouse-Five – See above.

Of Mice and Men – Now why would we want to enlighten kids about mental illness when we shut down all the mental health treatment facilities under Bobby Jindal? Or bring the problems of migrant farm workers to their attention with all the illegal migrants flooding the country?

Huckleberry Finn – Jeez, that one’s about the warm relationship between a white boy and a black man. Can’t be having that just as we’re trying to return to the wonderful days of Jim Crow now, can we?

The Pentagon Papers – Why on earth would we teach kids about the rotten politics that leads us into so many frightful conflicts just at a time when we’re trying to re-write the history books with videos from Prager-U?

To Kill a Mockingbird – Listen up. We aren’t going to let you read that claptrap just when our guvner is enacting laws that make it more difficult for a wrongfully convicted person to prove his innocence.

Brave New World – Like A Handmaid’s Tale, this is about grooming. Instead of women, it’s children who are being subjected to unlearn emotions and individuality. Let ‘em read that and they might figure out what Project 2025 is about.

But here’s a thought. Perhaps if Landry had read Huckleberry Finn in school, maybe, just maybe, he’d get on a raft and float on down the Mississippi.

But here’s a better thought:

Force Landry and his Repugnantcan buddies to take a long hard gander at the following and then explain to the rest of us how divine intervention allows this to happen?

Divine intervention and the Ten Commandments don’t seem to be helping a lot in these two photos.

In a nutshell, Landry’s childish 15 seconds of fame was just so much gibberish. The utterings of an adolescent who thinks he’s a grownup.

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“For weeks Democrat leaders have been fueling ludicrous hysteria that Donald Trump winning re-election would be the end of democracy in America. Clearly, we’ve seen far left lunatics act on violent rhetoric in the past. This incendiary rhetoric must stop.”

–Louisiana Rep. Steve Scalise, who, it should be remembered, was nearly killed by a lunatic gunman and was saved, ironically, by a black lesbian EMT. Yet, Scalise never condemned gun violence or altered his stance on gay rights.)

“Joe Biden sent the orders. The Republican District Attorney in Butler County, PA, should immediately file charges against Joseph R. Biden for inciting an assassination.”

–US Rep. Mike Collins of Georgia (the same one who loves to post controversial messages on X.)

“Today is not just some isolated incident. The central premise of the Biden campaign is that President Donald Trump is an authoritarian fascist who must be stopped at all costs. That rhetoric led directly to President Trump’s attempted assassination.”                                                       

US Sen. J.D. Vance of Ohio, Trump’s pick as his vice-presidential running mate.

“American Patriots are united behind President Trump. The left will not stop MAGA Nation.”

–US Rep. Clay Higgins (R-Louisiana), apparently of the opinion that patriots and “the left” are mutually exclusive. But then, Higgins is an idiot.

“I mean, when you turn on a late-night show and it’s no longer comedy, it’s a constant 10-minute barrage against a single person. Comparisons with Hitler. That kind of stuff. That needs to stop, too.”

–Scalise again (grab your airsick bags).

Scalise also said there needs to be a “dialing down” of personal attacks.

Oh, really? Let’s turn the clock back to Aug. 9, 2016:

“Hillary wants to abolish, essentially abolish the Second Amendment. If she gets to pick her judges, nothing you can do, folks. Although the Second Amendment, people, maybe there IS, I don’t know.

–None other than candidate Donald J. Trump himself.

And here’s Trump again back on Feb. 1, 2016, when he told rally participants to “beat the hell out of” protesters, and said he’d like to “punch [a protester] in the face,”

Oh, and here’s good ol’ boy Clay Higgins again in 2017, discussing protestors:

“Hunt them, identity them, and kill them. Kill them all. For the sake of all that is good and righteous. Kill them all.”

Here he is again, in a letter to a judge asking for leniency for Jan. 6 rioter Ryan Nichols who was videotaped prior to the attack on the Capitol as saying, “It’s going to be violent and yes, if you are asking, ‘Is Ryan Nichols going to bring violence? Yes, Ryan Nichols is going to bring violence.’”

Higgins wrote to the judge, “I submit to you this letter in support of Ryan Taylor Nichols. He is a man of good character, faith, and core principles.”

Keep in mind, that Higgins loves to tout his experience as a former St. Landry Parish sheriff’s deputy.

And finally, this from Reuters:

“Before the shooting, Trump had not ruled out the possibility of political violence if he loses November’s election. ‘If we don’t win, you know, it depends,’ he said when asked by TIME magazine in April if he expected violence after the 2024 election. He’s also refused to unconditionally accept the results of the upcoming election and warned of a ‘bloodbath’ if he loses.

So, just who is actually guilty of dangerous political rhetoric here? For Scalise, Trump, Higgins, Collins, J.D. Vance or anyone else to have the cajones to invoke the word “violence” or harmful “rhetoric” at this juncture is sheer hypocrisy bordering on psychosis.

Now I’m going to stretch a theory to its breaking point. It’s no big secret that evangelicals form the core of Trump’s support. But let’s examine the practices of some of those evangelicals who call themselves fundamentalists. I warn you, what follows is quite distasteful, but factual.

There are hundreds of homes for troubled youth being run throughout this country by fundamentalists whose version of discipline can only be described as medieval, nothing short of sociopathic torture – and I suggest that these people are among the most ardent Trump supporters.

One of those homes was in Bienville Parish in north Louisiana until it was closed down but the stories coming out of it and other homes like it are sickeningly similar.

In the girls’ homes, the girls, ranging in age from 10 to 18, were/are given two squares of toilet paper for urination and four squares for bowel movements and for their periods. Bathroom tissue was never flushed but discarded in an unlined, unsanitary, malodorous tin can. Offenses that draw draconian punishment may be for not saying “yes, sir” or “yes, ma’am;” for not looking down or away in the presence of boys (in church, because that’s the only time they were ever in the presence of boys); for not memorizing Bible verses, for smiling or for not smiling enough.

Punishments include locking girls in a tiny room with no bathroom breaks (only a can to go in). Sometimes they were even handcuffed to their beds for days on end while taped sermons of the minister who ran the facility were played 24/7. Girls were forced to scrub the same pot over and over until their hands bled. Other punishments included scrubbing their bodies with lye soap until their skin was raw and bleeding; forcing girls to hold soap in their mouths, or forcing them to eat their own vomit if they threw up during exercise. When put on “silence,” sometimes for as long as a month, they were not allowed to speak to anyone other than supervisors and then only when spoken to first.

And of course, there was the corporal punishment administered with a wooden paddle with holes drilled in it to cut down on wind resistance. One girl reported receiving 147 “licks” to their buttocks, legs, backs and arms – administered at full strength by a supervisor. That’s one hundred forty-seven licks, folks. How could anyone be expected to endure such abuse? Some girls were permanently crippled by the beatings.

And the rapes. Let’s not overlook those. Another girl said she was told to go to the office for her punishment. Fully anticipating licks with the board, she was told to raise her dress. She did so and the supervisor, a man, told her to raise her slip. She complied, whereupon she said he pulled her panties down and raped her from behind.

Yet, these barbarians call themselves men and women of God. The “reverends” cart a few of the girls around to area churches to sing and give testimonials. The church members obediently respond by hitting the floor with their knees while reaching for their wallets and purses. Meanwhile, the girls are sexually abused at will by their chaperones.

These people, these so-called Christians represent an admittedly small but vocal and influential sampling of the evangelical mindset: they do not think for themselves; they just yell and shout their zealous devotion and send money – to the preacher or the prophet (more accurately spelled profit) without an independent thought of the consequences.

Sound familiar?

(Editor’s note: These conditions described are not fiction. There have even been recorded deaths of children in these homes or ranches. That’s why I am in the process of writing a book about the physical, mental and sexual abuse of children by administrators and members of the Protestant and Catholic clergy.)

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Tracy Hebert just wants to know exactly what happened on Prien Lake that fateful day. After all, it’s been 19 years since her son was killed in a boating accident there.

Questions also remain unanswered as to why then-Sheriff Tony Mancuso told Mrs. Hebert that the Department of Wildlife and Fisheries (LDWF) worked the accident and the sheriff’s office was not at the scene when two separate documents obtained by LouisianaVoice clearly indicate that “several Calcasieu Parish Sheriff’s Marine units [were] on the scene as well”?

And why did toxicology results reported on July 14 on the victim, 20-year-old Derek Hebert, show traces of cocaine in his system but results on the operator of one of the boats, the son of a prominent Calcasieu Parish attorney who at the time was involved in a campaign for district attorney, were never revealed?

Allie Torres still wonders why officials attempted to place her ex-husband as the driver of one of the boats involved in the accident on May 7, 2005, when he wasn’t even there and was later shot dead by sheriff’s deputies.

Derek Hebert was killed when two boats collided, throwing him into the water where officials said he was struck by a boat propeller. He was with a group of young people who were preparing to celebrate the annual Contraband Days Festival in Lake Charles.

While all the questions deserve answers that have never been forthcoming, the last one is perhaps the most curious of all.

Why would officials place Michael Torres at the scene when his then-wife continues to insist that he was not at the lake, but at his mother’s home at the time? And why did Dan Vamvoras text Allie Torres after the accident to say that he wanted to see that Michael was “taken care of.” He sent several texts, she said, but she did not reply.

Dan Vamvoras was operating one of the boats and his father is Glen Vamvoras, the owner of the boat. The elder Vamvoras was in the middle of an ultimately unsuccessful campaign for election as district attorney for the 14^th Judicial District when Hebert was killed.

Why Torres agreed to admit to being the driver of one of the boats remains a mystery but later, when he was later arrested for DUI, he called upon Glen Vamvoras to make the charges go away, telling Vamvoras, “I committed perjury for you. You owe me,” Allie Torres said.

By June 2020, Michael and Allie Torres were no longer married. On June 20, he appeared at their former home intoxicated and she called the sheriff’s office. Deputies responded, there was a confrontation and deputies shot Michael Torres.

Mrs. Hebert said she attempted to no avail to obtain a copy of the accident report. She said one LDWF agent who was at the scene told her he had never seen such negligence as he did that day.

Moreover, she said she later received an anonymous envelope with 148 photographs, photos she said she’d previously been denied, which she claims “clearly determines he was not struck by a propeller.”

Strangest of all was the settlement Mrs. Hebert received. “My lawyer told me [the settlement] was our only option,” she wrote in an email. “He said that both boats hit my son and we don’t know which one killed him, so we couldn’t hold anybody accountable.”

A retired attorney told LouisianaVoice, “If the attorney advised plaintiff did not have a case because two boats hit at the same time, then he is an idiot. It’s the finder of facts (a jury, if there is one) job to assign percentage of blame to everyone involved. If it’s a tangled mess that has not clear facts, it’s the attorney’s job to come up with a narrative to convince the finder of fact.”

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This is an appeal for a different type of contribution.

I am in the process of gathering information for a book and I need input from anyone who may have experience in or knowledge about the subject matter.

The book will be about child trafficking, particularly as it pertains to both private and church-affiliated homes for troubled youth where hundreds of cases of psychological, physical and sexual abuse have already been documented and in some cases, perpetrators prosecuted.

I also will examine the many cases of sexual abuse by members of both Protestant and Catholic clergy.

I would like to communicate directly with anyone who has personal knowledge of any of these abuses. I particularly want to interview victims but I will also welcome input from those who once worked at these facilities.

This book will be a historical novel, meaning it will be a fictional work but will cite actual events – and in some cases, real names. It is not my intent to embarrass any survivors of abuse, so any victim who comes forward will have the option of remaining anonymous if they so choose.

You may contact me by posting a comment to this post or by emailing me at louisianavoice@outlook.com

I look forward to hearing from you.

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