Louisiana Voice

The saga of Mandy Miller, the former longtime employee of the West Baton Rouge Parish Sheriff’s Office who has admitted to stealing nearly $160,000 from her employer, took a new twist Wednesday when LouisianaVoice learned that she was arrested eight years ago for criminal trespass and battery on an East Baton Rouge Parish sheriff’s deputy.

Miller, who worked for the WBR Sheriff’s Office “FOR DECADES,” was earning $72,000 as a clerk processing traffic tickets for the office when she admitted to the theft from the department.

She also is the president of Advanced Builders, Inc., a company that constructs high-end houses.

Even after she admitted to the theft, Sheriff MIKE CAZES inexplicably kept her on the department’s payroll for about three months.

Cazes, who has announced he will not run for reelection this year, has refused interviews about Miller or his office and he grilled deputies for hours about a suspected leak to media on when Miller would surrender to authorities.

LouisianaVoice on Wednesday obtained a two-page ARREST REPORT completed by EBR Deputy James Jamison which indicated that Miller became confrontational and attacked a deputy after she and a companion had refused to leave the L’auBerge Casino in Baton Rouge in the early morning hours of April 4, 2015.

Miller, who includes 18^th Judicial District Attorney Tony Clayton and Assistant DAs Kristi Jarreau Marbury, and Nedi Alvarez Morgan among her Facebook friends (the 18^th Judicial District includes West Baton Rouge Parish), was in the casino along with companion Natasha Valez. Both had been previously banned from the property and when the two were asked to leave the premises, they refused, the arrest report said.

Jamison wrote in his report that the casino’s security supervisor advised that the two had been asked to leave the casino several weeks earlier and told not to return. The report said that Valez “became irate” when asked again to leave and verbally attacked one of the deputies. Jamison wrote that he asked Valez to calm down whereupon she verbally attacked him, as well, and failed to obey his commands.

When Valez was subsequently handcuffed, Miller got up from her chair and started toward Valez. When a deputy reached for her arm to detain her, she punched him in the chest and attempted to hit him again, but missed. Miller was then also handcuffed.

Has Southeastern Louisiana University’s computer system been hacked or did the entire system simply crash?

No one really knows because the administration of SLU, the state’s third-largest public university, has been strangely quiet on the disruption, which has thrown the entire campus into a state of chaos.

The school’s wi-fi, card dorm key readers, Moodle, LeonET, email, and all other SLU computer systems went down around 2:30 p.m. on Friday and stayed down through the weekend and into Monday.

Because of the outage, students were unable to complete assignments, unlock the doors to their dorm rooms, access or send emails, or do laundry. Other campus activities were affected as well, including admission to all athletic events.

The only word from the administration consisted of a couple of announcements saying that the school was “working to restore all systems” on a “significant cybersecurity incident,” but there was no official explanation as to what caused the outage.

Meanwhile, with midterm exams fast approaching, students expressed their dissatisfaction with the lack of communication from the administration. “If there are answers out there,” said one student, “we students aren’t getting them because our emails aren’t working.”

Scott Adams, the creator of the comic strip Dilbert, has created a firestorm of criticism and in so doing, boxed himself into a certain financial hit when he made the blanket referral to blacks as a “hate group” and suggested that whites “stay the hell away” from African Americans.

The outrage was justified and the reaction was swift as newspapers DROPPED THE POPULAR STRIP. Among those canceling Dilbert were the Washington Post, Cleveland Plain Dealer, and the USA Today network of newspapers.

Adams’ comments were reprehensible and certainly not representative of what a free society should be about.

But while I do not agree for a nano-second with what he said, I have to say I believe the media’s dropping his strip was also not what this country should be about. And to feel and say otherwise would be inconsistent with the position I staked out long ago.

I’ve been writing for weeks now about the insane, neo-fascist efforts to censor books in the state’s public and school libraries. My opposition is anchored in the belief that the First Amendment guarantees, among other things, freedom of the press sans censorship. Period. That freedom is sacrosanct.

That belief is in no way indicative to what I would choose to read. If it’s objectionable to me, I simply don’t read it. If it’s inappropriate, I don’t purchase it or check it out. Period.

Along with that freedom of the press is the guaranteed right, as an American, to read whatever I choose to read, be it a book by Sean Hannity or Karl Marx. Just so you know, I would not read either on a bet, but I demand – and have – the right to do so.

It was 50 years ago, when I wrote for the Baton Rouge State-Times, that our sister paper, the Morning Advocate, relegated Doonesbury to the editorial page because of its political content. Other papers just flat-out refused to carry the strip, despite its brilliant topical observations and Garry Trudeau’s unique ability to inject biting humor into the political landscape in a manner evocative of Mark Twain or Will Rogers.

Today, a true artist named Darrin Bell has an equally observant and funny strip called Candorville that features black characters. To date, far too few newspapers carry this outstanding strip. I fear that in today’s atmosphere of censorship and rewrites of classic books and watering down of history and civics classes, some indignant, self-appointed literature cop is going to take a swipe at Candorville and Bell will be forced to publish some bland, vanilla version of Candorville or find another line of work.

In case you haven’t noticed, a lot of talented editorial cartoonists have retired rather than face the constant scrutiny of editors fearful of antagonizing the wrong political power brokers.

The solution to Adams’ racist tirade is, if it offends you, just don’t read his strip. But to put a muzzle on him just because we don’t agree with him does not measure up to the standards of our Constitution.

There should always be freedom to hold open dialogue on any subject without fear of censorship.

The Livingston Parish Council is the latest to knuckle under to the HYSTERIA being spread by those who would impose their version of decency and appropriateness while inflicting a potentially lethal blow to the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

These are, of course, the same individuals who somehow hold the Second Amendment up as some sort of sacrosanct right, a beacon of liberty somehow etched in stone.

The Livingston council is the latest to cave to the wishes of the likes of Ron DeSantis and Jeff Landry in deciding what books shall be made available to impressionable children in public libraries.

Strange, I can’t recall a single incident of a library book killing anyone, which is more than I can say about the ease with which anyone may obtain an AR-15 and go on a shooting spree at some random school, shopping center, or night club.

The danger that literature poses to our children has somehow crept into the mindset of the Republican Party as a campaign issue more critical than say, deregulation of railroads, banks, and Wall Street (we do remember the failure of all those banks in 1988, don’t we?) and certainly more important than the wholesale slaughter of school children, Asians, gays, and anyone else who gets in the way of some demented nutcase.

Of course, the Republicans are quick to point out that it’s not a gun problem, but a MENTAL HEALTH issue. That being the case, then someone please explain why BOBBY JINDAL, Texas Gov. GREG ABBOTT, former Florida Gov. RICK SCOTT, and Republicans in Congress CUT FUNDING for mental health treatment? (Isn’t it ironic that upon leaving office, Jindal enhanced his personal bottom line by JOINING THE BOARD of a company that thrived financially on Medicaid revenue?).

So, as a diversionary tactic, library books are being made the villains in the never-ending struggle to force everyone to comply with some arbitrary code of decency by allowing a faceless few to decide what we are allowed to read – or more accurately, what our children are allowed to read.

It just seems to me that that’s a decision that should be left to parents, not to some bureaucratic body that answers to no one. It comes down to the question of just who will be the person or persons to make the final decision on what is and what is appropriate?

When we cede that responsibility over to government, isn’t that contrary to what the “less government” Republicans have been advocating all this time? After all, they’re the ones carping about “woke” this and “woke” that when in reality, it’s the Republicans who are actually the “woke” advocates in this equation.

I mean, after all, it was a Republican legislator in Missouri who introduced a bill that would have forbade female legislators to appear on the House floor with arms bared. So much for the women’s right to bare arms.

And Marjorie Taylor Greene, who wants a “national divorce” of red and blue states with the added stipulation that anyone from a blue state who moves to a red state will not be allowed to vote for five years – but without the same proviso for a red state citizen moving to a blue state.

So, bottom line, whether it’s in Congress, a state legislature, or a parish council, it’s all about control.

It doesn’t matter to these people that the kiddos can access porn on their home computers or on their cellphones. It doesn’t matter that they can take “inappropriate” pictures on their phones and send them to friends of the opposite sex.

Nor does it matter that there is a book chock-full of violence, adultery, genocide, disgusting practices and other “inappropriate” material for kids that is on the back of every pew in every church in every parish in Louisiana.

As just one example, read Ezekiel 23:20-21 carefully and slowly. Then go to Solomon and read chapters 1, 4, 7:7-8, and chapter 8, verse 10. Read aloud, slowly and deliberately and then tell me if that is “appropriate” for children.

You see, folks, this isn’t about decency. It’s about control – control of what we read, who can and cannot vote, who can marry, where we can live and go to school, and even what the news media may REPORT.

And that, folks, is the very definition of FASCISM.

Marjorie Taylor Greene is the living embodiment of why cousins should never marry.

The woman would flunk an IQ test.

She is the quintessential dumb blonde joke.

She not only resembles, but could well be, the missing link.

She’s proof that you can’t buy class. In her case, she can’t even rent it.

She’s the one person in Congress who can make Clay Higgins seem intelligent and KKK Scalise appear tolerant and broad-minded.

She was a train wreck long before East Palestine, Ohio, and every bit as toxic.

Unfortunately, she’s got lots of company with the likes of Josh Hawley, Matt Gaetz, Gym Jordan, George Santos, Lauren Boebert, Ron Johnson, John Kennedy, Rick Scott, and the aforementioned Scalise and Higgins. Even Kari Lake, though a failed candidate for Arizona governor, keeps up with the denial drumbeat. And of course, there’s Ron DeSantis lurking on the sidelines.

You would almost think that Jim Jones was alive and dispensing Kool-Aid to Republicans in Congress these days.

And before anyone goes there, I want to say that I’m very much aware that there are good Republicans out there. Some are in my family and I would never discourage them from following their consciences. By the same token, I know of Democrats who have served time for their misdeeds or resigned in disgrace.

I also know if you go back 50 years to the Nixon administration, you will find far, far more federal indictments and prison sentences in the five Republican administrations than you will in the four Democratic administrations. The BREAKDOWN in indictments during that time is 335 to three.

But in my nearly 80 years, I have never seen such a concentration of evil, ignorance, and downright incompetence as exists in today’s Republican Party. It’s as if there were an epidemic of malevolence turned loose on an astonishingly large number of members of the former Party of Lincoln.

But back to MTG. This mouth-breathing, Qanon-loving moron unbelievably suggested this week that America needs a “national divorce” that would separate the country by red states and blue states. “Everyone I talk to says this,” she tweeted.

Now, I don’t know who this so-called “everyone” is but I suspect it’s the same as the “many people” who communicate with the former guy on certain issues. In other circles, they are referred to as “imaginary friends,” or, “ghost employees.”

She says Democrats are putting “America last,” but to suggest a “national divorce” would seem to be to be accomplishing just that. She is all for just trashing the Constitution which created this country. That, by the way, is the same Constitution that the NRA falls back on in defending the proliferation of the country’s gun culture. But that’s another story.

Regardless, she obviously hasn’t thought this all the way through. For instance, what criteria will be used to determine red and blue states? In her own state of Georgia, nine of 14 House members are Republican but both US senators are Democrats. And Biden defeated Trump in that state. So, is Georgia red or blue? Oh, the governor’s Republican? Okay, the governor of Louisiana is a Democrat but five of six House members and both senators are Republican. MTG also didn’t take into consideration that the political winds shift and what is blue today could well be red next year – and vice versa. In short, her call for a “national divorce” is little more than the ramblings of an unhinged idiot.

She claims to be opposed to the so-called “woke” culture. But just who is attempting to re-write history books – and even certain math books? Who is doing everything possible to censor which books public libraries may offer? Who is it who introduced a bill in the Missouri legislature that would ban women’s right to bare arms? Who proposes a “don’t say gay” policy for an entire state? Those would be Republicans, one and all.

MTG’s latest rant ranks right up there with her Jewish space lasers and a few other of her nit-witted conspiracy theories. She’s an idiot, pure and simple. And she was reelected easily just four months ago. Go figure. I guess it’s the same mentality as expressed by a reader in response to one of my criticisms of Higgins: as long as he votes conservative, nothing else matters.

That’s it in a nutshell. Other things, like morals, intellect, compassion, honesty, and fairness don’t matter. Just vote conservative.

And now, you can add the name of Alaska State Rep. David Eastman to the list of Republican lunatics.

If it’s humanly possible for anyone to surpass MTG or Boebert on the dumb-ass meter, this man did it, in spades.

The Alaska legislator actually SAID during a House Judiciary Committee hearing on adverse childhood experiences that there might be economic benefits in cases where child abuse was fatal.

Here’s the actual quote: “It can be argued, periodically, that it’s actually a cost savings because that child is not going to need any of those government services that they might otherwise be entitled to receive and need based on growing up in this type of environment.”

That prompted Tervor Storrs, president and CEO of the Alaska Children’s Trust, to ask, “Can you say that again? Did you say ‘a benefit for society’?”

That was too much, even for Alaska’s House of Representatives, which has a 21-16 Republican majority. By an overwhelming 35-1 vote, Eastman was censured with his colleagues calling his remarks “despicable,” “atrocious,” and “indefensible.”

Now I’m certain that Eastman, who calls himself pro-life, was not suggesting that abused children be allowed to die. But what I’m equally certain of is that so many of these elected Republicans are so narrowly focused in their perception of reality that they actually allow the stupid to spill out of their mouths in the belief that they’re actually being practical and productive.

Whatever, Eastman’s callous remark, had it been made on the national stage, would have far overshadowed MTG’s divorce proclamation. Unfortunately, both statements, along with those of most of the others I’ve named here, are fast becoming the daily norm for the Republican Party.

We used to call that putting the mouth in motion before the brain was in gear.

A former co-worker described it as “letting your alligator mouth overload your jaybird ass.”