Louisiana Voice

Jason St. Pierre and Kelly Becnel might want to brush up on their Scripture instead of cherry-picking verses to use against a straight-A student next time.

St. Pierre, the principal at Walker High School in Livingston Parish seems to have taken it upon himself to act as the morality police – even for events that take place away from the school campus.

Granted, a school cannot be a democracy. Chaos would ensue if students were allowed to make administrative and instructional decisions. But neither can a school be a theocracy. It says so right there in our Constitution – that part about the separation of church and state.

And when a school principal is allowed to discipline a teenager over a dance at an event away from the school, that principal has overstepped his authority by a lot.

Seventeen-year-old Kaylee Timonet was enjoying herself, along with several friends to a deejay during a party following the Walker High School homecoming recently. The deejay videotaped Kaylee dancing and laughing and posted it online.

St. Pierre called Kaylee into his office three days later to inform her that he was revoking her title as student government president and that he no longer would follow through on his promised assistance in obtaining her college scholarships. Additionally, she was being ruled ineligible for student of the year honors.

All because, in St. Pierre’s judgment, she wasn’t “living in the Lord’s way.”

Problem is, a lot of people claim to know the “Lord’s way” but in truth, have no concept of true Christianity or compassion. It reminds me of a line uttered by George Burns in the movie Oh God! Way back in the dark ages of the 1970s when he said preachers had long since quit preaching His word.

St. Pierre had the audacity to print out Bible verses, highlighting certain ones for Kaylee. In other words, attempting to force-feed religion to the student.

Where I come from, that’s called grooming, something the evangelicals are supposedly so vehemently opposed to. I suppose that, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder.

So, though I am a layman in the truest sense of the word, I want to take this opportunity to suggest a few Bible verses for St. Pierre to read and digest:

I will begin with the obvious one that comes to mind:

• Matthew 7:1 and Luke 6:37. “Judge not, that you be not judged.”
• John 8:7. “Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone.”
• Matthew 7:3. “Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but don’t consider the beam that is in your own eye?”

For that matter, I wonder if St. Pierre likes bacon? Does he mix the fabrics of his clothing? Does they like catfish, blackened alligator? Cut his hair? Ever sold any land or worked on the Sabbath? Mistreated foreigners?

All sinful, according to the Good Book.

Just a few things he might want to consider before getting all up in a student’s personal life.

Here’s a scary thought: Steve “KKK” Scalise once described himself as “David Duke without the baggage.”

Oh, wow. Just wow. Now Scalise has announced his intention of seeking the Speaker of the House office just vacated by Kevin McCarthy, thanks to the House’s reigning idiot poster child (there are so many to choose from) Matt “Is that your little daughter?” Gaetz. The sheer irony is that Scalise appears to be the lesser of the two indisputably horrible choices for the job, his ties to past white supremacy rallies notwithstanding.

Here’s another scary thought: The other announced candidate for the post: Ohio’s Gym Jordan, who inexcusably chose to look the other way at SEXUAL ABUSES of male wrestlers while a coach at Ohio State University. Jordan is almost – but not quite – as stupid as Alabama Sen./former football coach/Florida resident Tommy Tuberville, who seemed to be a bit CONFUSED on the three branches of government. That Jordan sounds like Daffy Duck on helium should make it at least entertaining should he prevail over Scalise for the speakership.

Here’s the scariest thought, however: There is nothing anywhere that says the speaker must be a member of the House. Theoretically, you or I could be appointed – or worst scenario of all, a guy named Donald Trump, Gawd help us all, Tiny Tim. Could you imagine him as third in line for the presidency? And with an investigation, albeit a anemically weak one, ongoing into the possible impeaching of Joe Biden…talk about a real-life circus with clowns and seltzer bottles!

A reader sent me a recap of The New York Times summation of the current situation. Our reader wrote:

Imagine if you were a foreign leader surveying the political chaos in the United States:

• For the first time in history, a party has just fired its own speaker of the House in the middle of a term.
• In the Senate, one of the two party leaders, who’s 81 years old, has twice recently frozen in public, unable to speak.
• A Supreme Court justice has allowed wealthy political donors to finance a lavish lifestyle for him and his wife (and that same justice’s wife urged officials to overturn the 2020 election result based on lies.
• A likely nominee in the upcoming presidential election is facing four criminal trials and regularly speaks in apocalyptic terms about the country’s future.
• That nominee is essentially tied in the polls with an 80-year-old president who many voters worry is too old to serve a second terms.

If you were an ally of the U.S., you’d have to be worried. If you were an enemy, you’d have to pleased.

Nothing would surprise us if either of these scenarios occurs. The lunatics in Congress and their blindly loyal followers have absolutely no sense of irony. Otherwise, it seems the party that once considered itself the mortal enemy of socialism and communism (remember “Better Dead than Red”?) wouldn’t be cozying up to a guy named Putin.

As a classic example of how the right-wing Republicans can overlook obvious irony, there was a post in today’s Hayride. The post was about a State Senate race up in the Shreveport-Bossier area of the state.

The Hayride’s latest CONSPIRACY THEORY is that someone in the post office up there is trying to torpedo the campaign of current State Rep. Alan Seabaugh by neglecting to distribute his mailers while flooding mailboxes with those of his opponent, former Northwestern State University basketball coach Mike McConathy.

The real story, however, is not the absurd idea that the U.S. Postal Service would somehow have a dog in this hunt but the Hayride’s disparaging of McConathy’s qualifications.

Personally, I have no clue as to either candidate’s qualifications, Seabaugh’s 12 years in the House notwithstanding. I do know that he is term-limited from running for representative again so, the obvious solution to hanging onto power is to just move across the spacious foyer of the State Capitol to the Senate chamber for another 12 years. (Francis Thompson of Delhi has mastered the art of hanging around since 1975 in that manner.)

The kicker, though, the real chuckle, came down in the post when McConathy was described as “a complete cipher as a political candidate.”

Huh? A complete cipher? But there was more. “He’s demonstrated absolutely zero command of public policy. He’s struggled to take any position at all on any issue of note…”

This from a medium that openly supports candidates like Gym Jordan, Matt Gaetz, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Lauren “Family Values-Family Jewels” Boebert, and the aforementioned Tuberville, none of whom has shown much in the way of legislative acuity. Nor have they demonstrated an abundance of what the old folks used to call good old horse sense.

Of course, The Hayride has every right to voice its opinion and I would never infringe on that right (Rhonda Santis might be another story, however, as, on a whim, he just might). It’s just that I could not pass up the opportunity to make my own observations on that post.

No one in Baton Rouge would ever question any claim that LSU could more easily do a Cajun two-step around the law without fear of punishment than the ordinary individual or business enterprise. That’s just the way it is where football rules supreme over all other considerations, a mentality that spills over into virtually all facets of university life.

So, when LSU was recently SANCTIONED by U.S. District Judge Scott Johnson over the wiping of university cellphone text messages in connection with a SEXUAL MISCONDUCT lawsuit, it raised more than a few eyebrows around town.

Gee, the thinking must’ve been, if they can sanction a sacred cow like LSU, they can go after a former president. No one’s immune.

Well, almost no one.

We’re still waiting for official action to be taken against Louisiana State Police for the WIPING of several cellphones that possibly contained evidence relevant to the agency’s attempted coverup of the beating death of Ronald Greene at the hands of rogue state troopers in May 2019.

Just a reminder: the destruction of evidence in a criminal investigation is a felony.

Oh, they went through the motions, all right. In April 2022, it was announced by several officials jostling to get in front of the parade that the (ahem) State INSPECTOR GENERAL’s Office  (gasp) would take over the investigation into the erased state police cellphones.

That oughta do it. The Louisiana Inspector General’s Office. That’s like asking Barney Fife to investigate the Taliban or to find D.B. Cooper.

It’s like the Denham Springs police officer who, while investigating a 4 a.m. burglary attempt of my wife’s car a few years ago, declared while observing the vehicle from about eight feet away, “I don’t see any fingerprints,” even though I’m pretty sure my and my wife’s fingerprints were all over the damn door handle and the steering wheel.

It’s been 18 months since we learned of the wiped LSP cellphones and still we have no report by the IG. It’s been nearly 4 ½ years since Greene was killed and all we have is the wholesale DISMISSAL of charges against troopers by a north Louisiana judge. Oh, excuse me. We do have the RETIREMENT of the LSP’s second in command Doug Cain and his boss, KEVIN REEVES, also stepped down – with full pensions.

But no IG report on the wiped LSP phones.

A special legislative committee was thrown together in a dramatic show of lawmakers’ concern for the rights of a black man. With all due indignant pomp appropriate for the occasion, the committee was charged with investigating Greene’s death.

The committee held a few highly publicized hearings, took no formal action, issued no report and predictably, DIED A QUIET DEATH.

So, there you have it. LSP, a dysfunctional agency, is allowed to slink off into the sunset without ever giving an explanation of why potential evidence was allowed to be destroyed even as the courts furtively quash charges against troopers run amok.

Only in Louisiana, folks. Only in Louisiana.

For those of you who claim to support our troops and law enforcement, the near shutdown of government services could have been especially significant.

You may want to remember the names of Clay Higgins and Mike Johnson during the 2024 voting. They are two of six members of the Louisiana House of Representatives delegation. While members Garret Graves, Julia Letlow, Steve Scalise and Troy Carter all voted in favor of the last-minute bill to avert the shutdown, Johnson and Higgins each voted against passage of the emergency measure.

Not only could about 2 million active-duty servicemembers be required to continue working with no paycheck, but certain law enforcement activities would cease entirely. There are a lot of military personnel who live in Johnson’s district and Higgins likes to boast of his experience as a cop. Seems a bit ironic — and hypocritical — that they would vote against those interests.

That was the very real threat facing America if the right-wing Republican push for a shutdown had occurred at midnight Saturday. And it still could happen because the temporary funding bill passed at the 11^th hour (Congress seems to favor working that way) only provides temporary funding of government for 45 days, or until Nov. 17.

After that, who knows? It could still happen in much the same manner as the shutdown orchestrated by Newt Gingrich in 1995 or the Donald Trump paralyzing shutdown of 2018-2019.

Should that happen, mail delivery could come to a halt, and we could see a significant slowdown in social security and Medicare/Medicaid complaint resolutions, Special Supplemental Nutrition Program meals for women, infants and children (WIC). Food pantries and food banks would be overrun (again) as federal employees from law enforcement to health care workers would find themselves without paychecks.

Air travel could be adversely impacted because of a shortage of air traffic controllers and TSA lines could become bogged down if screeners begin staying home because of no paychecks.

Had Speaker Kevin McCarthy not cratered, thus infuriating the MAGA-right wingnuts, we would have seen an ugly repeat of the disruption of our lives on a scale similar to ’95 and 2018-19. For those of us with short memories, it would’ve been a jolting reminder.

The likes of Matt Gaetz, Boebert and MJT wouldn’t really care: their staff members would keep working – without pay, of course. But federal and state joint task force efforts to stop drug and human trafficking would come to an abrupt halt, as would anti-terrorist investigations.

Federal disaster assistance (remember those fires, the earthquakes, hurricanes, drought, and the occasional tornado? Those are all disasters where the federal government steps in to help victims.) would come to a screeching halt.

But that’s still okay. Johnson and Higgins preferred a shutdown over sanity.

Jeff Landry wants it both ways.

Problem is, perception is everything and the perception, his double-speak notwithstanding, is that he is simultaneously suing a state agency and appointing the assistant attorney general wo will defend that agency.

That doesn’t quite pass the conflict-of-interest smell test.

Moreover, he penned a letter to another Baton Rouge lawyer earlier this week in which he put his long-standing character of non-professionalism on vivid display,

Of course, he probably thought the contents of that letter would remain shrouded in secrecy like a few other shadowy activities:

• The hiring the daughter of a third-place opponent in 2015 primary election to the AG’s FRAUD SECTION despite her past conviction and suspended prison sentence on three counts of … credit card fraud,
• The hiring Harvey Gulf executive Shane Guidry as a “special agent/investigator,” who in turn appointed Landry to the Harvey Gulf Board at a salary of between $50,000 and $100,000, a move that the New Orleans Metropolitan Crime Commission called “A PRETTY CLEAR CONFLICT” since state law forbids work outside the AG’s office.
• His pet project for FINDING MISSING CHILDREN turned out to be a scheme concocted by a grifter that drew support from a number of heavy-hitting Texas politicos as well as Landry. While attracting influential support, the program didn’t actually find any missing children.
• He was part of a $17 million scam to hire MEXICAN WELDERS and pipefitters under H-2B visa rules through three companies owned by him and his brother, Ben Landry.

So, as you can see by the above examples, our attorney general-governor wannabe is not above twisting and distorting the rules governing his office so it should come as no surprise that has set his office up as both plaintiff and defendant in a lawsuit against Gov. John Bel Edwards and the State Pardon Board in an effort to stop capital clemency hearings requested by Edwards.

And when Baton Rouge attorney J. Arthur Smith, III had the temerity to to suggest that Landry might have a conflict of interest in serving in both capacities, Landry’s response was a few light years from being professional.

Landry opened his two-page letter by saying, “Your letter indicating that a conflict exists calls into question your competency as a lawyer.”

You mean competency like sitting on the Harvey Gulf board? Like hiring a convicted felon (for fraud, no less) to your office’s fraud division as payback for her mother’s endorsement? Or maybe owning a company that supplied foreign workers to a contractor for a large pipeline project?

Ever heard of the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau? CFPB is a federal agency charged with protecting consumers from predatory lending and banking practices. In July, 26 Republican attorneys general signed a PETITION asking the U.S. Supreme Court to allow them to intervene on behalf of lenders who were suing to ABOLISH CFPB. Guess who one of those attorneys general was? I’ll save you the intrigue: Jeff Landry.

For that answer, you may wish to check the rankings of the 32 states that still offer little or no regulation of predatory lenders. Just as an example, one who borrows $500 in LOUISIANA  from one of these lenders can expect to be required to repay a total of $935 after just four months. That’s an annual percentage rate of 405 percent, 7^th highest of the 32 states. (Idaho borrowers would be called upon to repay a total of $1,500 on that $500, an annual percentage rate of 652 percent, highest of the 32 states.)

And Landry is one of the 26 attorneys general who wants abolish the only agency standing between lenders and these plunderers. Does that sound like a candidate who really has the best interest of Louisianans at heart?

But back to that Sept. 26 letter. Landry goes to great pains to explain how the Louisiana Constitution dictates that he (a) is suing the board to enforce the state’s open meetings laws because he said the board hired Smith’s firm illegally (without a vote and without the hiring being on the board’s meeting agenda) and (b) the ethical rules for private law firms “are not necessarily applicable to the Attorney General’s Office.”

Otherwise, he said, “every employee, department, and appointed or elected official in state government could raise a potential conflict if it ever received legal services from the Attorney General.”

“There is no constitutional or statutory mandate for the Attorney General’s Office to represent the board,” Landry wrote. “As a courtesy, there has been a longstanding practice of the Attorney General providing an Assistant Attorney General to provide general advice and legal representation as needed.”

Consider his solicitor general, Liz Murrill, who is seeking his job now that he’s trying to move across the lake to the Capitol. The Baton Rouge law firm Taylor Porter currently has several contracts with the state totaling $865,000. Her husband, John Murrill, is a partner in the firm.

Smith was terminated after only one day of defending the pardon board and replaced by Joshua Force of the New Orleans firm Sher Garner Cahill Richter Klein & Hilbert.

And while the choice of contract attorneys to serve as assistant attorneys general is the responsibility of the attorney general, it’s somewhat interesting to note that Sher Garner has made $10,500 in campaign contributions to Landry in 2015 and 2020 and currently has four state contracts worth $790,000, including two with the attorney general’s office valued at $270,000.

So apparently, ethics and conflicts of interest, like beauty, are in the eyes of the beholder and Landry is quickly becoming beholden to a lot of special interests that appear to call his ethics into question.