Louisiana Voice

Have you ever noticed how one seemingly isolated incident seems to spawn a rash of similar such incidents? Take, for instance, the recent series of mechanical failures and mishaps involving Boeing aircraft. Suddenly, it’s almost impossible to turn on the evening news without hearing of yet another plane being diverted because of some issue with a dislodged cowling, door or wheel.

It’s much the same with political issues. Library drag queen shows and inappropriate reading material for juveniles, not even a blip on anyone’s radar all these years, is suddenly a full-blown crisis – because somebody decided it should be.

Who is that somebody? Does anyone really know who lodged the initial complaint that drag queens posed a greater threat to kids than say, a priest or minister shielded by the church?

What has happened, thanks in large part to social media, that scourge of the Internet Age, is that the heretofore most insignificant complaint by someone tucked securely away in some remote bedroom but with access to a computer now gets full attention by everyone.

And by everyone, I mean those with the most Facebook or Twitter followers (I know, they don’t go by their former names anymore, but I’m old school) and politicians mining the landscape for votes.

It’s the same with platitudes that have found their way into the lexicon of elected officials with no real leadership qualities but desperate for an issue that might resonate with the electorate. These are banalities with little or no real meat on the bone but which “sound good” as a hot issue to latch onto. Let’s examine a few:

Drain the swamp. Sounds good, but what are the actual odds of one person taking on the federal bureaucracy and winning? And can you name any one individual who has ever done that. Former Sen. William Proxmire (R-Wisconsin) tried with his monthly “Golden Fleece Award,” but can you point to any such award that had any real lasting effect?

Deep State. See above.

MAGA. It’s just a political slogan that does nothing to address a proposed method of achieving some vague definition of “greatness” that apparently must have slipped away at some point (must’ve been after we recognized that women and minorities had rights and that we owed future generations the inheritance of a clean, livable planet).

Stop the Steal. No fewer than 61 court cases have determined that claims of 2020 election fraud had absolutely no basis in fact with many of those rulings coming from Republican-appointed judges.

Rigged election. See above paragraph.

America First. Sound good until we learn that this catchy slogan (first adopted by an outfit known affectionately as the KKK) doesn’t seem to apply to the American corporations who move their operations overseas in order to avoid taxes and for cheaper labor – at the cost of American jobs.

Witch hunt. Term usually employed by someone under investigation for some nefarious act(s). Term usually employed the loudest when the evidence against them is the most convincing.

Hoax. Dismissive term used when there is no other explanation for those charges being investigated.

Climate hoax. Same as above, except applied exclusively by climate deniers.

Fake news. Consensus favorite of them all. Overworked, abused cop-out. Nothing more need be said of this hackneyed phrase.

Crooked Hillary/Sleepy Joe Biden, etc. Terms employed liberally to denigrate political opponents in lieu of offering any real proposals on issues.

January 6 hostages. See Witch hunt, Hoax, Rigged election and above paragraph. Also known as gaslighting, or trying to convince us we didn’t see what we saw.

Secure the border. Something Native Americans would loved to have done a few centuries ago.

Library drag shows. Already discussed at length but has become a major issue with those who would rather not talk about America’s ill-advised wars, the treatment of disabled veterans returning from those wars, poverty, hunger, the wage disparity between corporate CEOs and American workers or the environment.

Critical race theory/great replacement theory/white nationalism. Interchangeable terms, all intended to instill great fear of minorities in the hearts of white America. Also to discourage or outright forbid the teaching of certain unpleasant elements of American history lest our innocent children be exposed to nasty truths about the root causes of the Civil War or the civil rights struggle for blacks or for women’s suffrage efforts – all fought by certain elite powers who desperately want those unpleasant chapters be expunged from our history.

Woke. Term meaning an awareness of the injustices thrust upon certain segments of society. An otherwise complimentary term turned on its head to mean something evil by those who would turn their backs on human suffering.

Antifa. Not an actual organization, though there are those who would want you to think otherwise. Term actually means “anti-fascist.” Fascism is an issue we actually fought a war against and the world was involved. Literally.

You’re going to be hearing most of these terms ad nauseam in the coming months leading up to the November election. They will be spewed by the trained circus seals who know only what their handlers teach them to say. They know nothing else and do not possess the ability or imagination to think for themselves and to rationalize the contradictions of their clichés

You’d think they’d want to make America great again.

State Rep. Kellee Hennessy Dickerson of Livingston Parish, a former TV news personality who surely knows the value of good photo-op PR, poses with a group of students from Live Oak Middle School on the floor of the Louisiana House. Was it a coincidence that she is wearing an orange prison jumpsuit to remind librarians that she wants to toss them in jail? Talk about cold vindictiveness, she even had the audacity to put this photo on her Facebook page:

State Rep. Kellee Hennessee Dickerson wanted to toss librarians in jail who spend library funds for membership in the American Library Association or who attend any ALA continuing education functions on public funds. But after catching much-deserved heat for advocating jail time for any librarian who used library funds for purposes of strengthening and improving libraries, she has amended out the prison sentence provision the bill originally included. Oh, good. That should make everything okey-dokey.

Her bill, HB 777, was referred to the House Municipal, Parochial and Cultural Affairs Committee which has yet to hear testimony on this lunacy-inspired bill.

In crafting her bill, Dickerson is obviously taking her marching orders from one Michael Lunsford of St. Martinville, head of something called Citizens for a New Louisiana. Lunsford, in an interview, even suggested that the jail stipulation would be removed, which raises the obvious question of did Dickerson not have enough originality beneath her blonde hair to come up with something on her own without coaching from a crackpot such as Lunsford or at least perhaps offer something a little less brittle and a bit more constructive instead of attacking librarians as if they were some sort of criminal enterprise?

But here’s the real kicker: The House Municipal, Parochial and Cultural Affairs Committee which will consider the bill has 19 members, 21 counting ex-official members House Speaker Mike Johnson (no, not that one, but a Republican nonetheless, from Pineville) and Phillip DeVillier, a Republican from Eunice.

Of those 21 members, 11 accounted for the expenditure of $52,807.42 of your taxpayer dollars (wait for it…) mostly on attending 18 out-of-state conferences and meetings in just the past three years. And that figure doesn’t even include registration fees for attending those 18 conferences, some of which cost as much as $500.

Rep. Barbara Freiberg, a Baton Rouge Republican, was the sweepstakes winner, racking up $13,256.89 for taxpayer-funded trips to conferences in Charleston, S.C., Indianapolis, Orlando, Denver and Tampa. She was followed loosely by Rep. Candace Newell, a New Orleans Democrat, who spent $11,078.88 on taxpayer-funded trips to Atlanta, Salt Lake City, Denver, Las Vegas and Indianapolis.

And get this, not only did Louisiana taxpayers pick up the tab for her airfare, registration fees for meetings, hotel lodging, meals and ground transportation, but the 11 committee members were also paid per diem ranging between $168 and $175 per day, depending on the rate for the years that they attending.

And even though the state did not pay for their early arrivals (most arrived for the meetings a day before the events actually began), they still received their per diem payments even though there was no state business to conduct.

All that’s over and above their $16,800 salaries, office rental, office telephone, clerical pay and $175 per diem for each day they are in Baton Rouge.

But yeah, let’s come down hard on those librarians who waste precious state dollars on things like ALA memberships.

Here are the committee’s frequent flyers:

Barbara Freiberg, R-Baton Rouge: $13,256.89

Candace Newell, D- New Orleans: $11,078.88

Rodney Lyons, D-Marrero: $8,709.80C.

C. Denise Marcelle, D-Baton Rouge: $4,725.74

Foy Gadberry, R-Monroe: $3,095.74*

*(Amount does not include $608.40 for a guest, most likely his wife, for whom it’s assumed he paid out of personal funds during his one out-of-state trip to Salt Lake City)

Les Farnum, R-Sulphur: $2,283.40

Patricia Moore, D-Monroe: $2,276.77 (all in-state)

Matthew Willard, D-New Orleans: $2,809.30 (all in-state)

Rashid Young, D-Homer: $332 (for 2 days’ in-state)

Steven Jackson, D-Shreveport: $332 (for 2 days’ in-state)

House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-Pineville, ex-officio member: $3,721.90

But yeah, let’s come down hard on those subversive librarians for wasting precious state dollars on things like ALA memberships.

• When is an LSUS Faculty Senate public meeting not a public meeting?
• Were LSUS Faculty Senate meetings held in secret – and illegally?
• When is it legal to refuse public attendance at a public hearing?
• Did LSUS illegally send hazardous chemicals to be burned at the Clean Harbors Colfax facility? (administrators finally say no three years after being asked, but were they being truthful?)
• Did the LSUS Facility Services Department improperly remove and dispose of moldy materials in the Science Building?
• DID LSUS’s then-Chancellor Larry Clark harass and/or attempt to intimidate the wife of a faculty member with whom Clark had personal issues?
• Did LSUS administrators access outspoken faculty member Dr. Brian Salvatore’s university-owned laptop computer and delete more than 20,000 files?
• Has the First Amendment, which guarantees freedom of speech, been arbitrarily suspended by administrators at LSUS in an effort to fire Salvatore?

The aforementioned allegations, and others, were investigated and each found to have no basis in fact.

But the investigations were conducted internally. In other words, the administration of LSUS investigated itself before Chancellor Robert T. Smith fired off a letter to Salvatore last November informing the 21-year chemistry and physics professor that he was recommending that Salvatore’s employment with the university be terminated. LSU System President William Tate and Provost Helen Taylor were copied with that letter.

The whole affair is eerily reminiscent of the firings of Steven Hatfill who was wrongly implicated in a series of anthrax letters in 2002 and Ivor van Heerden, axed in 2009 after he voiced criticism (correctly, it turned out) over the structural integrity of levees that collapsed during Hurricane Katrina, flooding much of New Orleans. In each case, LSU, rather than stand on principle and display loyalty even to controversial employees, cratered with lightning speed and efficiency under political the intense pressure of losing lucrative federal grants, demonstrating even in the halls of academia, money talks loudest.

I always thought that higher education was synonymous with critical thinking and asking probing questions. Simply put, folks, there’s a disturbing pattern here on the part of LSU.

Foremost among those seven cases cited by attorney Smith is the 1964 landmark US Supreme Court decision New York Times v. Sullivan. That decision resulted from a lawsuit filed by the Montgomery, Alabama, Police Chief L.B. Sullivan over a full-page Times advertisement critical of the Montgomery police during civil rights riots in that city. That decision, considered one of the greatest Supreme Court decisions in US history, said that First Amendment rights can only be forfeited in cases where false statements were made with knowledge that the statement was made with “reckless disregard” to whether it was true or false.

Smith also cited Garcetti v Ceballos, a decision which said, “A state cannot condition public employment on a basis that infringes on the employee’s constitutional[ly] protected interest in freedom of expression.”

In still another case, Kennedy v. Sheriff of East Baton Rouge, the Louisiana Supreme Court cited a need for constitutional privilege to protect “uninhibited, robust and wide-open debate…”

But LSUS, in an apparent attempt to emulate its flagship university in Baton Rouge, appears hell-bent on imposing its own rules and retributions against recalcitrant personnel.

One might say it’s a case of the squeaky wheel getting the shaft.

Each of the allegations against Salvatore are steeped in the First Amendment and Salvatore’s attorney, J. Arthur Smith of Baton Rouge, has been quick to cite no fewer that seven cases which support the right of freedom of speech, even when utterances can upset the status quo. And there can be no doubt that Salvatore has upset the status quo at LSUS – bigly. Space, even on the Internet, does not allow commentary on the flimsy nature of each of those allegations, but we will touch on the most egregious ones.

Salvatore’s sins?

He fought the EPA in its efforts to open burn 16 million pounds of hazardous chemicals at nearby Camp Minden, the site of a major explosion in 2012. Such brazen actions could jeopardize federal grants for the university and we just can’t have that.

When the EPA backed down, the result was the design and construction of a state-of-the-art system to clean-burn and remove the chemicals. The state subsequently awarded the contract to ESI. But when ESI subsequently announced plans to partner with David Madden in efforts to retain the burn system in Minden and to import millions of pounds of additional hazardous chemicals, things got a little dicey, especially when ESI claimed ownership of the system. Gov. John Bel Edwards sided with Salvatore and informed ESI and Madden that the system was owned by the state. Salvatore’s opposition to that arrangement resulted in a letter of complaint from Madden to then-LSU President F. King Alexander. Salvatore said Clark’s attitude toward him was suddenly much cooler and that Salvatore was suddenly shut out from receiving any awards, recognition or promotions and LSUS began a practice of documenting matters that were professionally detrimental to him. He was twice denied so much as even an interview for the position of dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, even though his immediate supervisor had suggested that he apply for the position.

Salvatore later had the audacity to speak out in opposition to the proposed hydraulic fracturing (fracking) in the process of drilling for natural gas near Cross Lake in Caddo Parish. Besides citing accidents that had occurred during fracking in the ArkLaTex area, Salvatore cited the use of hazardous chemicals used as surfactants in fracking that posed a potential danger to water quality. Cross Lake, incidentally, supplies drinking water to Shreveport, the state’s third-largest municipality, a fact that would make any contamination a matter of no small concern. Of course, the oil and gas industry was not thrilled at his opposition – and said so to Clark, who Salvatore said told him that he (Clark) had been told to “go after” Salvatore.

“I believe that my proposed termination is motivated as a response to the exercise of my rights under the First Amendment,” said Salvatore. Gee, you think?

Salvatore and others, including Gen. Russell Honore (US Army Ret.), lobbied unsuccessfully for state and federal regulators to require Clean Harbors to install a safe contained burn system in Colfax.

In January 2020, Salvatore said he learned that the university planned to send hazardous chemicals to Clean Harbors for disposal. Clean Harbors had already been cited for “numerous environmental violations,” Salvatore said so, naturally, he asked Facilities Services Director Art Shilling for assurance that no LSUS chemicals would go to the Clean Harbors facility in Colfax. “But this (assurance) was not done,” he said, adding that no university administrator copied on his email to Shilling ever responded about Salvatore’s concerns.

Three years elapsed following his email to Shilling and other administrators and in March 2023, after having received no response, he posted his concerns on his social media platform. It was only then that he received a response from LSUS Director of Environmental Health & Safety Blake Rodgers on April 4 who claimed (without providing supporting evidence) that no chemicals from LSUS had been burned in Colfax.

Capping things off, a non-public “public” hearing was held earlier this week. As provided under State Civil Service rules, an individual may request that any hearing about that individual shall be held in open, public session if the subject so requests. That’s an ironclad “shall,” not a tenuous maybe.

But LSUS officials, apparently without consulting the legalities (or at least without seeking guidance from lawyers) arbitrarily decided that the meeting was not a public meeting as advertised despite the presence of a few members of the general public who were allowed in for whatever reason.

But when reporters for the Shreveport-Bossier Advocate attempted to enter the hearing on Monday, school Provost and Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs Helen Taylor told wannabe attendees, “This is not a public meeting. Another LSUS employee said “chairs were filled” in the meeting room, that no more chairs could be set up and that standing was not allowed. This despite a head count by reporters that found only 14 audience members and several empty chairs.

Attorney J. Arthur Smith said he is not solicitating clients but that should anyone shut out of the so-called “public” hearing contact him, he would be open to filing an open meetings lawsuit against the university on their behalf.

He did just that a couple of years ago when Southern University arbitrarily decided on a closed-door hearing despite request from four professors being terminated that the hearing be held in open session. Smith won a judgment against Southern on behalf of each of the four professors and a reporter.

As for Salvatore’s case, attorney Smith said “There is a definite line” that can be drawn on free speech. “Right up until the time you hurt someone,” he told the Shreveport-Bossier Advocate. “You cannot defame someone,” he said. “Defamation law says you must act with malice and knowingly state falsities. You must have a reckless disregard for the truth.” Salvatore, he added, did not do that.

As evidence offered by this VIDEO, Salvatore has a large base of support from students and the general public.

Unless Jeff Landry and family stand at full attention at home when the National Anthem is played on TV during a sporting event, he should keep his mouth shut about a team’s remaining in the locker room in last-minute preperations for a game. Just sayin’.

From the rumor mill: Early word is Kim Mulkey is already fed up with our new governor and is seeking the exit door. Might she next pop up in Fayetteville or Knoxville?

Could Jeff Landry’s grandstanding over the National Anthem be the straw that might break the camel’s back. Stay tuned.