Louisiana Voice

Events these days move so quickly that the next sensational headline tends to obliterate the current political scandal. Memories are short, so we move on to the next lurid account of political or sexual chicanery without so much as the blink of an eye.

Anyone even remember how Donald Trump elevated a Miami U.S. attorney to the position of labor secretary after the federal prosecutor approved a plea deal that let serial sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein off the hook with virtually no punishment? Anyone remember that Epstein reached financial settlements with dozens of one-time teenage victims?

Anyone happen to remember that Donald Trump’s name was linked to trips to Epstein’s Island hideaway – along with several other prominent people, including Bill Clinton and England’s Prince Andrew, among others, and that Trump himself was accused of having sexual relations with a 13-year-old girl in Epstein’s presence? Ever really wonder about Epstein’s “suicide”?

For that matter, does anyone recall the name Steven Hoffenberg, the man who, until Bernie Madoff came along, ran the largest Ponzi scheme in history ($450 million)? He was sentenced to 20 years in prison back in the 1990s and upon his release, he (a) got MARRIED (for the third time) in a ceremony conducted in front of Trump Towers where he had lived prior to his arrest, (b) pledged $50 million of his own money in an effort to raise $1 billion on behalf of Trump’s 2016 candidacy, and (c) launched “Christ Card,” a special “Christian” credit card he tried to peddle to some 700,000 U.S. churches.

Hoffenberg died in 2022 and the “Christ Card” appears to have died a quick death as well; we could find no references to any such card today.

He very well might have gotten away with that huge Ponzi scheme a lot longer had it not been for the herculean work of publisher of a tiny weekly newspaper up in Ruston.

The late John Martin Hays, editor/publisher of The Morning Paper, which started out as a tabloid scandal sheet written on an IBM Selectric typewriter was the object of scorn and ridicule when it debuted back in the 1970s, but Hays and wife Susan stuck with it and the paper would up being nominated for a Pulitzer Prize for his work on the Hoffenberg story.

Though much about Trump and his connection to Epstein and Hoffenberg has been forgotten in the crush of stories since then, LouisianaVoice first told you about the connection and Hays’s journalistic expertise five years ago. Thought you might like a refresher. If so, go HERE for the details. Want more? Try this LouisianaVoice STORY from eight years ago, on June 21, 2016 or THIS ONE from just two weeks later, on July 6, 2016.

The headline from The Christian Post jumped out at me this morning.

“Trump tells Christians their ‘religion will be in tatters’ if Biden wins: ‘We answer to God in Heaven'”

Sure, it’s a classic Trumpian scare tactic. But coming from him, that audacious claim literally drips with irony.

And if you are a true person of faith, it would seem to be more than a little blasphemous, perhaps even sacrilegious.

This grotesque utterance, after all, comes from a man who cheated on his pregnant wife with a porn star, sold autographed Bibles, bragged about grabbing women “by the p***y,” cheated students at his “university,” stiffed contractors, bankrupted every business venture he ever launched, stole top-secret government documents and refused to return them, committed bank fraud, lied about the 2020 election (don’t bother trying to rebut that; he lost some 60 challenges in court – some before judges he himself appointed) and God knows what else.

So, the man who never attends church, holds Bibles upside-down for a photo-op and promises “retribution” against all whom he perceives to have harmed him (the true Christian spirit would be forgiveness, would it not?) now invokes the will of the Almighty in wooing the evangelical vote.

What’s even more puzzling is how any person, capable of thinking form himself or herself, could ever fall for such claptrap. How could anyone who proclaims to possess a grain of faith twist their beliefs into rationalizing that this man is their salvation? It literally defies all logic. The man represents every one of the so-called seven deadly sins which a real believer abhors: greed, lust, pride, wrath, envy, gluttony and sloth. To insist on supporting this man, one must first lie to oneself.

Having said that, here’s another headline that caught my attention this morning:

“Paula White says Trump asked her what God thought about his presidential run”

I suppose Rev. White, a florida televangelist, communicates with God on a regular basis on elections. Maybe it’s to learn the odds in order to lay a heavy bet on the outcome of the election – all to benefit her City of Destiny Church, of course.

You see, she is one of Herr Trump’s “spiritual advisors.”

But then, so was Robert Morris, a founding pastor of Gateway Church in Dallas.

Well, he was the pastor until…well, I’ll let this headline from The Guardian explain it:

“Pastor and ex-Trump adviser resigns after admitting to child sexual abuse”

This occurred back in the 1980s and the church learned of it in 1987, it took a mere 37 years for the guilt-ridden Rev. Robert Morris to step down.

The child? She was 12 at the time.

“I don’t care what they write about me as long as they spell my name right.”

That quote, or variations of it, have been attributed to such notables as Mae West, P.T. Barhum and Earl Long. It could just as well apply to Jeff Landry.

Landry knows, or should know, as most personal injury lawsuits say, that his Ten Commandments law isn’t going to fly once it gets into court. It’s in clear conflict with the First Amendment which says Congress “shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…”

The issue of displaying the Ten Commandments has already been firmly established by the courts and good as the commandments are in setting out the rules of society, this law is nothing more than grandstanding by a governor who seems to thrive on publicity – any publicity.

Yes, it’s a law sponsored by a legislator, Rep. Dodie Horton (R-Haughton), and passed by the Louisiana Legislature but make no mistake, this was Landry’s bill all the way. Just as he has signed on to efforts to overturn the 2020 election, it is a typical move that a publicity whore would embrace.

There is one other possible motive: as a reader opined, it could be a smokescreen, a diversion, to obscure 16 other laws concerning public education in Louisiana that our esteemed legislature just passed and Landry eagerly signed into law.

Besides the Ten Commandments law and yet another version of “don’t say gay,” some of the more controversial bills pass included that of Sen. Rick Edmonds (R-Baton Rouge) which created taxpayer-supported vouchers, known as “education savings accounts (ESAs) to pay for students to attend private schools and another that prohibits teachers from asking about a student’s vaccination status.

Simply translated, it transfers public tax dollars from public schools to private schools. That’s a dream come true for all those private schools that popped up back in the 1970s as a frantic effort to avoid desegregation of previously lily-white schools. The law was ballyhooed as a wonderful statute to improve education in Louisiana but it failed to address how local school systems will cope with what is certain to produce a financial shortfall.

And never mind that it was vaccinations that eradicated measles, polio and smallpox; our clown car of lawmakers and our idiot governor don’t want required Covid-19 innoculations while ignoring the fact that 1.2 million Americans died from the virus.

In other words, these are just more examples of the legislature’s tendency to pass kneejerk laws to cater to the prevailing political winds with no thought to the negative effects.

Oh, and speaking of legislators doing their jobs and seeing a task through to the finish, whatever happened to that probing legislative committee’s “investigation” of the Ronald Greene death at the hands of Louisiana State Police? Just askin’.

Squeaky Landry is at it again.

He spoke at a Repugnantcan FUNDRAISER in Nashville last Saturday during which he had this to say:

“I’m going home to sign a bill that places the Ten Commandments in public classrooms,” he said. “And I can’t wait to be sued.”

Can’t wait to be sued? Seriously?

Remember, it was a scant four weeks ago that I PREDICTED that that was exactly what was going to happen, that lawsuits would be filed, not only by the ALCU, but by the various faiths – Catholics, Protestants, Hindus, Islamics and Buddhism each has its own “Commandments” – whose particular version of the Commandments is not the one posted in the classrooms. So, which version will be posted to the exclusion of the other four?

Remember, I also said Landry’s hand-picked attorney general will be awarding contracts to defend the state against any lawsuits, and you can bet the contracts will be going to big donors.

Can’t wait to be sued?

Of course. The hundreds of thousands of dollars necessary to defend the lawsuits won’t be coming out of Squeaky Landry’s pocket. It’ll be coming out of the pockets of you, the taxpayers of the gret stet of Looziana.

That makes it kind of easy for him to be so cavalier as to say he “can’t wait to be sued.”

It’s no real surprise that Jeff Landry would veto HB 423 by State Rep. Michael Melerine (R-Shreveport). He is, after all, an attorney and he did receive considerable support in the form of campaign contributions from trial attorneys across the state.

So, when the legislature passed Melerine’s bill which would have REDUCED PAYOUTS in personal injury cases, it represented the first real chasm between Landry and the Louisiana Association of Business and Industry, which had backed the bill.

But the siren song of bar association political contributions was just too enticing for Landry to turn his back on fellow attorneys.

But the real story is the how and why of the bill’s origin.

Oh, the business has long wanted tort reform to ease the pain of having to open their wallets, of course. And Landry, for the most part, has been sympathetic to the needs of the conservative business interests.

Perhaps that was the reasoning behind Melerine’s filing of the bill. Or could it have been the long list of clients represented by his boss’s law firm.

Melerine is an attorney in the law firm of Seabaugh Sepulvado. The founding partner of the firm is State Sen. Alan Seabaugh (R-Shreveport).

But even more telling is the impressive list of clients represented by Seabaugh Sepulvado, according to the firm’s own Web page:

• The Hanover Insurance Group
• Louisiana Farm Bureau Casualty Insurance Company
• Southern Farm Bureau Casualty Insurance Company
• Texas Farm Bureau Casualty Insurance Company
• Oklahoma Farm Bureau Casualty Insurance Company
• Arkansas Farm Bureau Casualty Insurance Company
• Permanent General Assurance Corporation
• Homesite Home Insurance
• GuideOne Mutual Insurance Company
• GuideOne Specialty Mutual Insurance Company
• Southern United Fire Insurance Company
• Louisiana Restaurant Association
• Indigo Minerals LLC
• NextEra Energy Resources
• EnSight IV Energy Partners LLC
• San Saba Royalty Company LLC
• CNC Oilfield Services LLC
• Barksdale Federal Credit Union
• Century Surety Company
• Norris Ferry Landing HOA
• Air-U Shreveport, LLC.
• Quality Exteriors, Inc.
• Camterra Resources, Inc.
• Retail Merchants Association, Inc.
• Temple Baptist Church of Ruston
• Presbyterian Village Nursing Home of Homer
• Benton United Methodist Church
• Town and Country Nursing Center of Minden
• Shiloh Baptist Church of Shreveport
• Springs of Grace Baptist Church, Shreveport
• Springfield Baptist Church
• Apostolic Faith Tabernacle of Shreveport
• Airline Lawn and Pool
• Scott Welch Homes, L.L.C.
• Andersen Properties, Inc.
• McClelland Properties, Inc.
• South Highlands Athletic Association
• Consolidated Title and Abstract, L.L.C.
• Trinity Development of Shreveport, L.L.C.
• PDR Marketing and Management, L.L.C.
• In The Zone, L.L.C.
• Southern Bliss, L.L.C.

Not that any of these firms, churches or other entities has one shred of negativity, but there is always the possibility of a slip and fall, or some other cause of injury of death or negligence on the part of any one of them, so it’s always good to have capable legal representation – just in case.

At the same time, that splendid list of insurance companies represented by Seabaugh Sepulvado gives us pretty good insight to the real inspiration behind the bill.

Just sayin’…

Oh, and here’s a headline from the Wall Street Journal that should give every homeowner a warm fuzzy:

Insurers Rake In Profits as Customers Pay Soaring Premiums