Louisiana Voice

This agency is in the process of giving up on protecting people. It’s much more interested, at least the leadership is, in protecting the regulated community.”

—Christopher Sellers, professor of environmental history at Stonybrook University, on the Trump administration’s dismantling of environmental protections.

I feel like I’m living in a reality TV show. Trump, he’s a clown.”

—Trisha Amato, an Ohio laid-off General Motors worker and 2016 Trump supporter who has lost both her job and health insurance, on her disappointment at Trump’s failure to keep her GM plant open despite the plant’s receiving $50 million in subsidies (talk about welfare cheats) for its promise to remain open until 2027.

Why isn’t (sic) the media covering Biden’s corruption? It’s the biggest and most credible story anywhere in the world.”

—Donald Trump, in one of dozens of email pitches received daily from him, his family, and other Republicans by yours truly [Perhaps it’s because the media are (and media is plural, you bonehead) too damned busy covering the most corrupt president in history.]

That’s the whole point of Q. It puts concepts out there, but it’s also about ‘do your own research ’cause I’m too lazy to tell you what to think.’ Though they pretend to care about children, in reality, QAnon doesn’t. They just care about portraying a specific group as part of this child-trafficking ring.”

—Marc-André Argentino, who has studied QAnon extensively, speaking of QAnon’s vase unfounded conspiracy theories, including one that says Democrats eat babies.

Actual quote from Trump in Wisconsin: ‘If Joe Biden gets in the radical left will shut down Wisconsin timber production forever. You know, they don’t want to let you touch a tree. If you happen to touch a tree, they want to put you in jail for the rest of your life.’”

—Tweet by Daniel Dale. [Anyone know what Trump was talking about? Anyone?]

NOT A TRUMP QUOTE, but it should be (with apologies to Cavin & Hobbes):

“They say winning isn’t everything, and I’ve decided to take their word for it.”

An open letter to Members of The Congressional Black Caucus and other Members troubled by the lack of transparency and justice by grand juries examining the abuse of power and excessive use of force by police:

While at Georgetown Law School (1969-1971) I worked for Congressman Allard Lowenstein (D-NY, 1969-1971) to organize Congressional hearings on the excessive use of force by police and the National Guard; I was a U.S. Capitol Hill Policeman for a few weeks before clerking at DOJ in the Criminal Section of the Civil Rights Division investigating the excessive use of force.

As Alabama’s Attorney General (1987-1991), I advocated for victims’ families to have the right to be present or have a lawyer present in a grand jury.

Use of excessive force by police resulting in death of black citizens is not unusual, yet holding police accountable is.

How to ensure a measure of justice for families of victims of the excessive use of force by police? The answer is simple and so is the solution.

Police and prosecutors too often view themselves as wearing the same jersey-playing on the same team. Prosecutors protect police. Because of a Supreme Court decision in 1976 (Imbler v Pachman) and the Federal Tort Claims Act provided by Congress, prosecutors have ABSOLUTE immunity from civil liability, so they can act with impunity. Prosecutors can present false evidence or withhold exculpatory evidence from grand juries in order to get an indictment…or not.

Grand juries are a secret proceeding so prosecutors have free reign. There’s no judge or lawyer for the victim’s family present. 

So, how best to ensure justice in a grand jury?

First, allow the victim’s family to have a lawyer present in the grand jury as a check on truth. We know Prosecutors only tell the grand jurors what the prosecutors want them to hear.

Secondly, to voir dire (to question) the jurors. Currently no one ensures racially balanced, neutral jurors in a grand jury setting. (For all we know, some of Breonna Taylor’s grand jurors might have had relatives in law enforcement or members of the KKK.)

Third, the “victim’s” lawyer would ensure that all evidence is presented. They could object to evidence or testimony proposed by the government and offer evidence or testimony for the victim. Such issues would be decided by a judge, the same as in a civil deposition. If this “due process” safeguard is important where monetary damages are at stake in a civil proceeding, surely this due process safeguard should be in place where someone’s life is at issue.  

Finally, while not identifying members of the grand jury, the family member’s lawyer would make a public report of what transpired. A well-informed public, strengthens public faith in our justice system and in our democracy. 

Holding police accountable will not only provide a measure of justice, it will also help curtail the excessive use of force.

Respectfully submitted.

Don Siegelman

Governor of Alabama, 1999-2003

Lt. Governor, 1995-1999

Attorney General, 1987-1991

Secretary of State, 1979-1987

(Editor’s note: Don Siegelman wrote the letter above from his personal experience with the judicial system as it can be manipulated when someone like Karl Rove is pulling the strings. The the efforts of Rove, a judge who later was forced to resign after beating his wife, and a Republican U.S. Attorney set Siegelman up as he was preparing to run again for the office of Alabama governor. He was convicted on a single count in a trial that violated all the norms of a fair and just system and served his sentence at the federal facility in Oakdale, Louisiana. For further information, read Siegelman’s BOOK, Stealing Our Democracy: How the Political Assassination of a Governor Threatens Our Nation.)

Over the past four years, President Trump’s policies and investments in science and technology ensure America stands ready to solve today’s most pressing challenges and that our workforce is prepared for tomorrow’s innovations. For years to come, these achievements will guarantee the United States remains the world’s leader in research, discovery and the advancement of industries that will shape our future.”

—Ivanka Trump, writing in the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy Report, which listed Trump’s accomplishments, including “ending the Covid-19 pandemic.” [Oh, well then…]

It is part of the price of leadership of this great and free nation to be the target of clever satirists. You have given the gift of laughter to our people. May we never grow so somber or self-important that we fail to appreciate the humor in our lives.”

—Lyndon Johnson, in a letter to the Smothers Brothers after being parodied by them on numerous occasions. [Say what you want about LBJ – he was crude, his Vietnam War was a disaster – he showed more class with that one quote than Trump could ever hope to show in a lifetime.]

The reason we were able to do what we did in 2016, 2018 and 2020 is because we had the majority.”

—Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. [And yet, that same majority was unable – or unwilling – to provide relief to those who have lost jobs because of the coronavirus. Says something about you, Mitch.]

The Republican majority is lighting its credibility on fire. … The next time the American people give Democrats a majority in this chamber, you will have forfeited the right to tell us how to run that majority.”

—Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, on how the worm can turn should the Democrats gain control of the Senate next week. [Republicans have demonstrated that when they are the majority, they forget the meaning of compromise.]

In a significant shift since 2000, the GOP has taken to demonizing and encouraging violence against its opponents, adopting attitudes and tactics comparable to ruling nationalist parties in Hungary, India, Poland and Turkey.”

—Conclusion of a new study conducted by the V-Dem Institute of the University of Gothenburg in Sweden, as reported in The Guardian.

We fear that Attorney General Barr intends to use the DOJ’s vast law enforcement powers to undermine our most fundamental democratic value: free and fair elections. Given Attorney General Barr’s demonstrated willingness to use the Department to help President Trump politically, the media and the public should view any election-related activity by the DOJ—including any announcement or findings related to the Durham investigation—with appropriate skepticism.”

—Letter signed by more than 1,000 former Justice Department employees worried about possible election day interference by the Trump administration.

NOT A TRUMP QUOTE, but it should be (with apologies to Cavin & Hobbes):

“This one’s tricky. You have to use imaginary numbers, like eleventeen …”

Judge Randall Bethancourt just can’t seem to help popping up in news reports on the 32^nd Judicial District Court in Terrebonne Parish. And that’s not necessarily good.

First, there was that embarrassing STORY  three years ago when Bethancourt signed an illegal search warrant over a blog post critical of then-Sheriff Jerry Larpenter in which the blogger’s home was raided by the sheriff’s department and all the computers in the household – including those of the blogger’s children – were confiscated.

It took a federal judge about a nanosecond to dress Bethancourt and Larpenter down and to give them a verbal lesson on the First Amendment that guarantees freedom of speech. The blogger’s resulting lawsuit cost Larpenter’s office about a quarter of a million dollars to settle.

Now, a Terrebonne Parish attorney who is challenging Bethancourt’s reelection bid in next Tuesday’s election is claiming that Parish President Gordon Dove and others are paying voters up to $150 to vote for Bethancourt, up substantially from the $5 fee paid voters back in the days of Earl Long.

Dove, of course, denies the allegations and defies the alligators but the one-time chairman of the House Committee on Natural Resources and Environment has had his own problems with the law in the past. His Dual Trucking Co. was CITED  by the Montana Department of Environmental Equality for dumping oilfield radioactive waste from the nearby Bakken Oilfield back in 2014. (You may have seen the irony of the chairman of the House Committee on Natural Resources and Environment being cited for dumping radioactive waste.)

That wasn’t the only incident, though. Vacco Marine, Inc., a company owned by Dove, was the subject of several investigations, negative reports, citations, and compliance orders by and from the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) over a period of several years, records show.

Also in 2014, while presiding over a meeting of the Natural Resources Committee, he joined 12 other members in passing an amendment to SB 469 that made the prohibition against suing oil companies for damages to the state’s wetlands and marshes retroactive.

So much for looking out for the environment.

But back to Bethancourt.

His honor has found himself embroiled in a couple of volatile controversies – besides the vote-buying claim – heading into next Tuesday’s election. Neither has any direct link to the election but either or both could figure in the outcome.

One is a bitter dispute between grandparents and son over the grandparents’ visitation rights to their grandson, a dispute that has gone into litigation in which resulting legal fees and fines have reportedly bankrupted the child’s parents. Caught in the middle is a seven-year-old child who has been the victim of this tug of war for four years now with no end in sight.

The other involves accusations that Bethancourt falsified court records in a separate case to show that a defendant was brought before a magistrate after his arrest when he was not.

Without more intimate familiarization with the details of the cases and charges of vote-buying, it’s impossible to provide a full-blown, detailed account of events in the 32^nd JDC. But knowing what we do know about Larpenter, Gordon Dove, and Bethancourt’s willingness to sign that illegal search warrant back in 2017 (and the resultant settlement by Larpenter with the subject of that raid), suffice it to say Terrebonne Parish is a unique parish, politically speaking, where elected officials have long operated as a law unto themselves and where just about anything goes.

Like storms out on the Gulf, corrupt politicians were accepted as a fact of life in Louisiana 75 years ago and little has changed in Terrebonne in the ensuing decades.

And people generally deserve the kind of government they elect.

“[T]hese are people that believe ‘Lord of the Rings’ is a documentary. And the fact that we’re trying to appeal to them is just ridiculous. [I]f we’re looking at misinformation to pander to a subset of voters, I think we’ve lost our way.”

—U.S. Rep. Denver Riggleman (R-VA), slamming members of his own party who buy into the conspiracy theories promoted by QAanon.

Amy Coney Barrett, confirmed. Happy Birthday, Hillary Clinton!

—Tweet from the House Judiciary Republicans following confirmation of Barrett to the Supreme Court. [Nothing quite like a sore winner.]

All this focus on Clinton has me concerned she won’t win the 2020 election. Smart of the GOP to troll her childishly about the new justice in a stolen seat who’s going to take our health insurance away during a deadly pandemic. It’s almost as good as their 2018 election strategy.

—Tweet from Walter Shaub.

Imagine an entire political party having the emotional intelligence of a petty six-year-old who didn’t get invited to a birthday party – oh, wait, I didn’t have to imagine.

—Tweet by Amanda Webster.

As someone who was a Republican when it was a principles-based party, I am repulsed by its current juvenilism. Why don’t you all grow up?

—Tweet by Steve Metz.

“One thing we’ve seen in a lot of the Black community, which is mostly Democrat, is that President Trump’s policies are the policies that can help people break out of the problems that they’re complaining about. But he can’t want them to be successful more than they want to be successful.”

—Jared Kushner, aka Ken Doll, on Fox & Friends. [Nothing like invoking a time-worn stereotype to reap votes for the president who “has done more for Blacks than any president except (maybe) Lincoln” and who is “the least racist person in the room.”]

The president should be focused on the economy and moving the country forward and making sure his team working on the vaccine has every asset possible. The president has a tendency to always make it about him, and this is one story where he should let others take the spotlight.”

—Republican fundraiser Dan Eberhart.

NOT A TRUMP QUOTE, but it should be (with apologies to Cavin & Hobbes):

“I’m not dumb. I just have a command of thoroughly wrong information.”