Louisiana Voice

It apparently takes a real man to take down a 110-pound woman

If you watched Pam “Barbie Doll” Bondi in yesterday’s SENATE HEARINGS, you saw for yourself the arrogance, the deflection, the evasion and the outright lies this administration is capable of.

As the nation moves more and more into the abyss of political and social chaos and ever-closer to authoritarian rule, we are witnessing a weaker and weaker Congress and a compliant Supreme Court, both giving full leeway to a man sliding into the darkness of dementia who has:

• Declared war against American citizens,
• A president who has ordered the murder of foreign nationals in international waters,
• A president who has ordered the shaky indictment of a perceived political enemy while advocating for the jailing of a governor and mayor of a major city,
• A president whose policies are bankrupting farmers and small businesses,
• A president who promised but failed to deliver on numerous campaign promises,
• A president who refused to serve in the military via five medical deferments but who thinks he is qualified to lecture 800 generals and admirals on “warrior ethos,”
• A president who fires any government employee who dares submit an economic report that is not positive to his administration,
• A president who is not beyond bullying TV networks, law firms and universities to obtain the kind of treatment he thinks he deserves, respect that is certainly not earned,
• A president who is desperate to keep the contents of the so-called Epstein file secret, and
• A president who shamelessly lobbies for the Nobel Peace Prize.

And we have Barbie Doll siting before U.S. senators and declaring him to be a “great president.”

Well, lets examine her own past performance that has apparently led her to become the nation’s chief legal officer.

Before TACO Don entered the Republican primaries for the presidential nomination, he was operating a shady outfit called Trump University, aka Trump Wealth Institute, aka Trump Entrepreneur Initiative LLC, down in Florida, ostensibly educating suckers on how to become rich in real estate.

You really want to see how dirty politics can be? Check this out. Back on March 2016, there was this U.S. Senator from Florida named Marco Rubio. In a campaign PRESS RELEASE, he called Trump University “an absolute scam” and offered “facts about pending litigation.”

In August 2013, the Florida Attorney General’s office announced it was contemplating joining a New York lawsuit against Trump University which had been the subject of numerous fraud complaints. About this same time, Bondi, who was running for state attorney general, solicitated a campaign contribution from Trump.

In September 2013, The Donald J. Trump Foundation sent a $25,000 check to a political action committee supporting Bondi. Political contributions by a tax-exempt charitable foundation such as the Donald J. Trump Foundation, by the way, just happen to be a violation of the law.

In October 2013, Bondi’s office announced it would take no action against Trump University.

In 2016, news reports surfaced about details of the donation and the subsequent decision not to investigate. The IRS fined Trump $2500 over the illegal contribution and he personally reimbursed the foundation.

In November 2016, Trump settled the fraud lawsuits (there were at least three) related to Trump University for $25 million. (Remember, Bondi had decided – after that $25,000 donation – not to pursue an investigation. Coincidence?)

In 2017, the Florida Ethics Commission reviewed complaints against Bondi but ruled that while the situation “may raise suspicions,” there was insufficient evidence that she personally violated any state laws (boys and girls, can you say “quid pro quo”?).

So now, Rubio is Trump’s Secretary of State and Barbi Doll Bondi is the U.S. Attorney General, refusing to answer a single direct question from senators.

This, folks, is the nation we’ve become. If the republic survives, it will not be because of Trump, but despite him.

It has come down to this: the only way to combat the cruelty and lawlessness of Donald Trump is to build a united resistance to stand up and say, “You cannot do this,” whether its deploying troops against American cities, cutting medical benefits for the poor and elderly or eliminating things like medical research, grants to educational institutions cutting off aid to food banks and other services vital to the wellbeing of citizens of this country.

One small way to help in that resistance is to help news outlets like LouisianaVoice who attempt to get the truth out to readers, truth that the mainstream media has abandoned in favor of corporate gain over principle. We are small, but we DO NOT SELL OUT to tyrants! CBS, ABC, Fox, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, certain universities and a half-dozen law firms have long since forgotten what it means to place the spotlight’s glare on political corruption – because they have become part of that corruption.

Please help us to continue to deliver the sometimes ugly facts about our elected officials like John N. Kennedy, Bill Cassidy, Mike Johnson, et al, who have forgotten whom they represent. Go to: https://louisianavoice.com/ and scroll down until you find the YELLOW DONATE BUTTON in the right-hand column. Click on that button to make a one-time contribution by credit card.

Thank you for supporting the truth all these years.

What have we become in this country?

That’s not a rhetorical question. It’s a serious inquiry about the conscience and soul of a country that would send masked agents to push a woman  FACE-DOWN ON THE PAVEMENT or to abandon a 13-year-old boy on a street corner.

I mean, is it really necessary to DESTROY PROPERTY by throwing mattresses and busted doors into dumpsters, scattering clothing and food all over apartments, zip-tying children? Is absolutely necessary that these federal thugs wear masks when they assault citizens (and many of their victims are indeed citizens)?

Was it really necessary to employ Black Hawk helicopters? The Department of Homeland Security, the agency ostensibly run by Kristi Noem but in reality, she takes her orders from Stephen Miller, the Naziest of Trump’s Nazis. And those ICE agents? Not one scintilla better than Hitler’s Sturmabteilung.

DHS says they were targeting the Tren de Aragua gang. No actual evidence has ever been provided that would indicate the veracity of that assertion. In other words, they lied through their masks.

Donald Trump says he has declared war on cities governed by Democrats. He called Portland, Oregon, a “war zone” but nothing could be further from the truth. He’s lying through his gold makeup-stained teeth.

Here’s a few examples of Trump’s “law and order”:

• Roderick Johnson, a 67-year-old U.S. citizen, said agents broke through his door and dragged him out in zip ties. Despite his assurances that he was a citizen, he was forced to wait for nearly three hours until they looked him up. His requests to see a search warrant or speak to a lawyer were ignored.
• One woman who was detained had a pending asylum case, meaning she is legally present in the U.S. When she returned to her apartment, it was boarded up, and all her possessions were missing.
• George Retes is a 25-year-old Army veteran. Still, he was detained as he was on his way to work as a security guard. He told the agents that he was an American citizen and that his wallet and identification were in his nearby car. Regardless, he was violently arrested and then held in a jail cell for three days and nights. While incarcerated, he was not allowed to make a phone call, see an attorney, appear before a judge, or take a shower to wash off pepper spray and tear gas that the agents had used. A damned fine way to treat a military veteran.
• Leo Garcia Venegas is an American citizen. That mattered little to Trump’s stormtroopers. He was laying a foundation at a private construction site when agents vaulted a fence and tackled him. When he showed them his Alabama-issued ID, agents dismissed it as fake (wonder where they got that word?). Venegas was handcuffed for an hour and released only after his social security number was verified. But that’s not where his story ended. A month later, Venegas, a construction worker, was working in a home when agents cornered him in the back bedroom and ordered him to leave the house. He again showed his ID and agents again dismissed it as fake. He was marched to the edge of the subdivision development and held for 20 minutes before his release. His detentions were the result of DHS conducting warrantless searches.
• Rafie Ollah Shouhed is a 79-year-old citizen who owns a car wash in the LA area. He was tackled and detained during an ICE raid. He was then detained for 12 hours and denied medical treatment for broken ribs, an injured elbow and post-concussive symptoms of a traumatic brain injury. He is filing suit. Agents claimed Shouhed was impeding a raid at his car was but he was never charged.

Those are only a few of the incidents in which overzealous ICE agents, with no training or qualifications, have attacked and brutalized American citizens. Those two words are worth repeating: American citizens.

ICE, as you may know, is actively recruiting more agents. There are no qualifications, no formal training, no P.O.S.T. (Police Officers Standards and Training) certification

These agents remind me of the types who would kick puppies (or in the case of Kristi Noem, shoot a puppy). They’re the types who would drown kittens just for sport. They’re the types we read about occasionally who get their jollies putting out cigarettes on the bare arms of children. In short, they are not the people one would desire for a next-door neighbor.

They would probably love to live vicariously through Donald Trump, Jr., who gets his thrills severing and displaying the tails of an elephant…

…or a leopard he and/or brother Eric killed:

This, to answer the question I posed in the opening sentence, is what we’ve become and I, for one, am not very proud of that.