Louisiana Voice

“And then there was the question, ‘Will you ever lie to us?’, and I said without hesitation, ‘No’, and I never did, as a woman of faith.”

—Former Trump press secretary Kyleigh McEnany.

“In the past, party elders, party leaders … exploited the crazies in order to win elections and then largely ignored them after the elections,” he said. “What has happened since then is that Trump opened Pandora’s box and let them out. He not only let them out, he affirmed them and provoked them. And so now they’re running wild and they are legitimatizing these delusions.”

—Retired Florida Repugnantcan operative Mac Stipanovich.

The old bureaucratic shuffle appears to have landed the Louisiana Department of Education (LDOE) in trouble with a Baton Rouge district judge.

Anyone who deals with governmental agencies at any level knows all about the familiar dance in which acts, sections and sub-paragraphs are thrown at vendors in rapid succession in order to eliminate from consideration those lacking the political ties in favor of those with the proper connections.

If you believe that’s a little too jaded, you’re invited to take a gander at the current list of state contracts. If you have the patience to wade through the seemingly endless list of contracts, you will notice the same vendors pop up with considerable regularity. You can see for yourself by clicking here:

Perhaps that’s why LDOE terminated an agreement under which a faith-based ministry in St. Landry Parish had been allowed to provide meals to children under the Summer Food Service Program (SFSP) under the auspices of the LDOE’s Division of Nurition Support and the US Department of Agriculture.

In the SFSP, a sponsor – in this case, Restoring God’s Glory Ministries (RGGM) of Eunice – requests to provide meals to children, then agrees to submit a claim for reimbursement for a portion of those meals to LDOE which may decide to approve or deny reimbursement claims or even to terminate the sponsor from participation.

Rules provide the sponsor the opportunity to appeal any adverse agency decisions. In this case, LDOE issued a Notice of Action (NOA) letter to RGGM terminating RGGM’s agreement and also ordered the ministry to repay $116,528 in what LDOE claimed were excessive claims.

RGGM immediately appealed and the matter was assigned to administrative law judge Tyrell “Ty” Manieri (any relation to LSU baseball coach Paul Manieri?) and the administrative hearing was scheduled for Jan. 13, 2021.

The only problem with Manieri’s participation was that he was formerly employed as an attorney for LDOE until his resignation in 2012. Moreover, he revealed that he had a personal relationship with current LDOE counsel Troy Humphrey in that the two played Fantasy Football together and occasionally communicated with each other.

Despite those connections Manieri said that he felt he could be a fair and impartial judge. RGGM on Jan. 11 filed a written motion for more time and for the disqualification of Manieri, claiming that Manieri was biased toward LDOE. That motion, of course, was denied because Fantasy Football or no, Manieri’s friendship with LDOE’s lawyer would have no effect on his decision.

Sure.

So, the Jan. 13 hearing went forward despite RGGM’s not having sufficient time to call witnesses on its behalf.

That prompted 19^th Judicial District Judge Ron Johnson to rule that Manieri’s declaratory judgment to proceed with the Jan. 13 hearing without affording the ministry being afforded the opportunity to subpoena witnesses violated the RGGM’s right of due process.

In negating Manieri’s ruling, Judge Johnson also approved RGGM’s request for injunctive relief enjoining LDOE from seeking to collect the $116,528 from the ministry because LDOE had not established standards to terminate sponsors and to seek reimbursement.

Johnson’s order was signed on March 30 but as late as May 21, Shanna Legier, of the LDOE Division of Nutrition Support, reiterated in an email to RGGM’s Kayla Givs that the ministry had been determined to be “seriously deficient” on Nov. 13, 2020 which she said “would disqualify RGGM from meeting the requirements of being a sponsor.”

With LDOE and Judge Ron Johnson at loggerheads over RGGM’s qualifications, it’s going to be interesting to see how this drama plays out.

Simply saying RGGM is “seriously deficient” isn’t going to be good enough unless LDOE can show some hard evidence to support its position.

Meanwhile, RGGM apparently will not be reimbursed for feeding indigent children under the program.

“Feminism is a socialist, anti-family, political movement that encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism and become lesbians.”

—Pat Robertson

“The Antichrist is probably a Jew alive in Israel today.”

—Pat Robertson

“I have a zero tolerance for sanctimonious morons who try to scare people.”

—Pat Robertson

“It’s easier to fool people than to convince them that they have been fooled.”

“When you lose half of your IQ, you’re only left with “Q”.

—Two observations in response to NBC story about QAnon.

A West Monroe woman is suing Ouachita Parish Sheriff Jay Russell and Deputy Timothy G. Fischer in federal district court after Fischer allegedly entered her home illegally in search of another individual.

Leslie L. Stuart claims in her petition filed in Louisiana’s Western District in Monroe that Fischer, after being told that the person he was looking for, Mark Jones, was not at her home, drew his weapon. When she told Fischer he needed to leave her property, he placed her in handcuffs and placed her in his patrol car.

Fischer later released her from his vehicle but then placed her, while still handcuffed, in her home where she remained cuffed “for a significant period of time” as the deputy entered her home without cause and without a search warrant and “began rummaging about.”

Her lawsuit claims that despite the deputy’s claim that he was look for an individual, he “went through any number of complainant’s personal possession(s) and items, damaging a great many of these items, including a number of ‘collectibles’ that complainant had accumulated over the years.”

She is claiming damages from batter committed on her by Fischer who she claims, along with Sheriff Russell, is also guilty of:

• Deliberate indifference for legal standards in treating suspects;
• Disregard for probable cause, a history of recklessness and disregard for prohibitions against use of unnecessary for[ce];
• Failing to adequately train law enforcement personnel in the proper exercise of their duties and authority, and encouraging and sanctioning improper practices;
• Failure to promulgate proper training policies, practices and procedures to prevent occurrences such as the one which complainant alleges;
• Facilitating, condoning and approving such conduct and turning a blind eye towards same with a deliberate indifference to the effect that said policies, practices and procedure{s} have upon the constitutional rights of person.

Stuart, through her attorney, Lavalle B. Salomon, takes the position that neither Russell nor Fischer may claim qualified immunity because the conduct described in her petition “violates established law and is not objectively reasonable. The sheriff’s representatives used excessive force in their detention and treatment of complainant, who was not a suspect and not a criminal or perpetrator.”

Qualified immunity is a judicially created doctrine that shields government officials from being held personally liable for constitutional violations—like the right to be free from excessive police force —for money damages under federal law so long as the officials did not violate “clearly established” law.

The actions of Russell and his deputy, she claims, “were not related to any legitimate state objective, but were in bad faith, malicious, and with deliberate indifference to complainant’s rights, and with callous and reckless disregard for the same.