Louisiana Voice

Donald Trump is correct. Fake news abounds; it’s one of the few commodities which has been and likely will never be in short supply

From McCarthyism to weapons of mass destruction to Rush Limbaugh, fake news beats us over the head every single day. Alex Jones’s Media Wars, QAnon lead the pack with their child trafficking via their Wayfair and Pizzagate wild-eyed hogwash.

You can read about these debunked stories HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE, and HERE.

Sadly, our president, that “very stable genius,” has dutifully re-tweeted every one of those conspiracy stories—along with others that question Barack Obama’s birthplace, claim that Obama bugged Trump’s campaign, that Joe Scarborough murdered an aide, that Ted Cruz’s father was somehow linked to the JFK assassination, that windmills cause cancer, that the coronavirus is a “hoax” perpetrated by Democrats and/or China to lessen his reelection chances, and any other bizarre crap he could imagine in his sick, demented mind.

And while he gives credence to these absurdly-contrived fantasies of the right-wing extremists, he is just as quick, or quicker, to label news stories from such sources as The New York Times, The Washington Post, CNN, or other legitimate news services, i.e. “lamestream media” as “fake news.’ And of course, he is, by his own humble admission, smarter than all our intelligence agencies and general combined.

He continues to invoke the “fake news” mantra because it’s a convenient dog whistle to his shrinking base that hangs onto every word as though he was some kind of latter-day savior of mankind.

But there is another “news service” that pops up in my email inbox daily that, while flying under the radar, is nevertheless comical in its own ham-handed way of reporting news intended as favorable to the Tangerine Toddler. I say “a” news service, though there actually are two but they are so near in content and appearance they sometimes seem to be one and the same.

The first is an outfit called Patriot Powered News run by some outfit called JKW Enterprises of Moore, Oklahoma.

One of its dispatches features a headline that says “You Won’t Believe Who’s Calling Obama the Greatest President Ever.” Click on that heading and you’re taken to a one-question “poll” that asks, “Would you vote for a Barack Obama 3^rd term?” and then gives you two choices:

Yes – Barack Obama is a great president and better than the choices we had in 2016, or

No – He was a terrible president and I am happy he is no longer in office.

No third choice like, for instance, “No, I don’t believe a president should serve more than two terms, or a fourth choice that says, “No, the 22^nd Amendment put a limit on how many times a person could be elected president.

Another features this headline: Michelle Finally Snaps: Melania Sent Her Over the ‘Edge.’

But when you click on the headline, you’re taken to a page that’s nothing more than an INFOMERCIAL disguised as a news story hyping some kind of skin care treatment that is supposed to make you “look two decades younger.” It even comes complete with “Before” and “After” photos of Melania.

Some news story.

The other so-called news service, which also is heavily pro-Trump, is little more than an advertising medium for such products as an “Ancient Japanese tonic to melt 3 pounds every 3-5 days,” or a “cheap air cooler (that) takes United States by storm,” or Dr. Ben Carson’s “over the counter memory drug.

That news page also has a headline that hypes a “CBS breaking news story” headlined, “Dr. Phil mourns after tragic news…” but when you click on that headline, you are taken to a story about a “revolutionary product” released by Dr. Phil and Dr. Oz that’s “causing outburst in the health community. And what is this “revolutionary product?”

CBD. Cannabinoid oil.

I guess truth is where you find it, folks, sort of like beauty being in the eye of the beholder.

So, with all disrespect to Alex Jones, QAnon, Limbaugh and Patriot Powered News, I’ll just stick with the lamestream media for my news because as opposed to those just cited, sometimes they get it right.

After all, it was Trump himself who recently said, “What do we have to lose?”

“60Minutes & third place anchor, @NorahODonnell, are doing everything in their power to demean our Country, much to the benefit of the Radical Left Democrats. Tonight they put on yet another Fake “Whistleblower”, a disgruntled employee who supports Dems, fabricates stories, &…spews lies. @60Minutes report was incorrect, which they couldn’t care less about. Fake News! I don’t know this guy, never met him, but don’t like what I see. How can a creep like this show up to work tomorrow & report to @SecAzar, his boss, after trashing him on T.V.?….This whole Whistleblower racket needs to be looked at very closely, it is causing great injustice & harm. I hope you are listening @SenSusanCollins I also hope that Shari Redstone will take a look at her poorly performing gang. She knows how to make things right!”

—Donald Trump tweet following the 60Minutes interview of whistleblower Dr. Rick Bright [Yet another person Trump says he “doesn’t know.”]

“It says nothing about defunding the police.”

—Fox News anchor Chris Wallace, to Donald Trump when Trump lied and said Joe Biden wants to defund the police in a 100-page charter that Biden signed with Bernie Sanders. [Finally! A member of the media calling out Trump—and a Fox News anchor at that! Trump never read 100 pages of anything in his life but nevertheless ordered his staff to fetch the charter so he could prove it to Wallace. They did and he couldn’t—because it’s not in there.]

“The president has said unmistakably that he wants school to reopen. When he says open, he means open and full, kids being able to attend each and every day at their school. The science should not stand in the way of this.”

—White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany. [Sure. Why let science stand in the way?]

“He is going deeper and deeper into a darker and darker place, and he is starting to drive away people who were formerly voters of his.”

—Democratic strategist Steve McMahon, on Donald Trump’s meltdown leading up to the November election.

“I can’t explain Peter Navarro. He’s in a world by himself.”

—Dr. Anthony Fauci, responding to bizarre criticism of him by Director of the Office of Trade and Manufacturing Policy.

“He may be out of the loop and in disfavor with the White House, but it’s clear from the numbers, voters would like Dr. Fauci back on call.”

—Quinnipiac polling analyst Tim Malloy, on poll results showing that 65 percent of Americans trust Fauci.

[The op-ed piece by Navarro] “did not meet USA TODAY’s fact-checking standards” because of factual errors with “several of Navarro’s criticisms of Fauci.” 

USA TODAY editorial page editor Bill Sternberg, on Navarro’s piece that the paper ran on Tuesday.

Sources have informed LouisianaVoice that Landry, one day after announcing that he had tested positive for the coronavirus, dined at an exclusive Baton Rouge restaurant with a gaggle other like-minded coronavirus deniers, possibly exposing them, restaurant employees and other diners.

Brent Littlefield, Landry’s political adviser, denied the report, saying that Landry ate at Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse in Baton Rouge a week ago Wednesday—before he tested positive for the coronavirus.

“It’s all over Twitter that Landry’s trying to murder people,” Littlefield said. “He was at Ruth’s Chris a full week before he tested positive. You can check with the restaurant to confirm that.”

But even then, Landy, who says he is asymptomatic, could have been positive and infecting others, which is sufficiently illustrative of the folly of refusing to wear a mask.

Littlefield often serves as Landry’s spokesperson when bad publicity surfaces. It was Littlefield who labeled as bogus a REPORT about the use of the guest-worker visa program by companies owned by Landry and his brother, Benjamin back in February.

He heads up Littlefield Consulting out of Washington and when you go to his WEB PAGE and click on “Our Work,” a series of ads for candidates pop up. But they’re ads for campaigns way back in 2010—a full decade ago. Apparently he’s been too busy to update his page—or he hasn’t been very busy at all.

An employee of the Ruth’s Chris was unable to confirm Landry’s presence at the restaurant on either night, but said the reservations could have been in someone’s name other than Landry.

Landry was said to have been maskless, as were his companions, Republican members of the Louisiana legislature Wednesday night as they enjoyed their repast at Ruth’s Chris just hours after releasing that nine-page OPINION which said Gov. John Bel Edwards’s executive order mandating the wearing of masks in public.

The order also imposed a limit of 50 persons on indoor/outdoor gatherings and ordered the closing of bars across the state.

Ruth’s Chris has long been a favorite place for politicians and lobbyists to meet to dine and discuss state business.

If there is a bigger political prostitute than John Kennedy, Clay Higgins or Steve Scalise, it would have to be Attorney General Jeff Landry.

Landry has always been a political opportunist who blatantly leans with the political winds. But his July 15 legal opinion, coming as it did just as it was learned that he had tested positive for coronavirus, smacks of the most shameless fealty to the Trump misguided strategy of minimizing the seriousness of the COVID-19 pandemic that has killed nearly 140,000 Americans since Feb. 29.

The opinion attacks the executive order of Gov. John Bel Edwards on three fronts: mandating masks, the 50-person indoor/outdoor gathering limit, and bar closures.

And it went out to seven state representatives and one senator—all of the Republican stripe. What are the odds? The recipients included Reps. Larry Bagley, Stonewall (how appropriate); Rick Edmonds, Baton Rouge; Alan Seabaugh, Shreveport; Charles “Chuck” Owen, Rosepine; Dodie Horton, Haughton; Blaze Miguez, Erath, and Beau Beaullieu, IV, New Iberia, and Sen. Robert Mills, Minden.

Seabaugh and Landry, you may recall from last Thursday’s post, among the 27 Louisiana officials who signed off on Republican operative Grover Norquist’s “No-Tax” pledge. That’s the same Grover Norquist of Americans for Tax Reform who felt every bucket should sit on its own bottom and who helped bleed the Mississippi Choctaw Indian tribe of some $20 million back in 1999 in a fight against an Alabama lottery referendum and who helped torpedo Alabama Democratic Gov. Don Siegelman on trumped-up charges that eventually landed Siegelman in Oakdale’s federal prison.

It’s also the same Grover Norquist who recently received up to $350,000 in federal stimulus money. So much for every bucket sitting on its own bottom and so much for Republican hypocrisy.

From washed-up game show hosts to TV psychologists, the Trump administration has packaged a propaganda campaign built on lies and false hopes. Promises that the virus will simply “mysteriously disappear” or that an effective vaccine will be discovered, mass-produced and administered to everyone in a matter of a few months are no more than a topping of false hopes on campaign rhetoric.

And Jeff Landry has bought a barrel of the Trump Kool-Aid, even as he tested positive for the virus this week. (And by the way, he implied that he “voluntarily” tested in anticipation of this week’s visit by Vice President Mike Pence. Who does he think he’s fooling? That test wasn’t voluntary; everyone who comes in contact with Trump or Pence is required to test for the virus before coming within shouting distance of either one.)

But back to that opinion (which is just that: an opinion. Another attorney might well have a different opinion with the actual law to be decided in court).

The opinion, which you can read HERE, says that Gov. Edwards’s recent mandates issued in an effort to curb the spread of the virus, are unenforceable.

(It’s interesting to note that Landry took the unique action if personally writing the nine-page opinion. Normally, assistant AGs perform the mundane chore of researching and writing opinions for those requesting same. But this was Landry’s opportunity to contradict Edwards, something he absolutely loves to do for no other reason than to espouse the Republican position in opposition to anything suggested by a Democrat governor.)

To understand Landry’s penchant for battling Edwards, one need look no further than Lamar White’s revealing piece in BAYOU BRIEF that examines his motives for (a) bucking Edwards in the governor’s attempt to hold oil and gas companies liable for the destruction of Louisiana’s coastal marshland and (b) Landry’s determined fight to keep from complying from a perfectly legal public records request for copies of communication between Landry’s office and advocates for the oil and gas industry.

Landry is so beholden to the oil and gas industry that he violated all protocol while in Congress by holding up a SIGN during President Obama’s State of the Union address back in 2011 to protest Obama’s moratorium on drilling in the Gulf in the wake of the BP oil spill.

Landry’s DEFENSE? He claimed the woman seeking the records, who resides in Indiana, is not entitled to the records because she is not a citizen of Louisiana. For someone who claims to be all-in on anyone’s right to public records, that’s pretty thin.

But casting aside all considerations for the general welfare of Louisiana’s citizens, Landry manages to rationalize his opposition to any restrictions mandated by Edwards because that’s the Trump way and if nothing else, he knows how to spout the party line.

“…[S]uspending or threatening the business or alcohol permit of any business would likely amount to violation of due process as these permits are recognized property interests protected under the due process clause. It could also result in a “constructive taking” via government regulation,” he wrote.

“In summary, the three provisions of the executive order – the mask mandate, the 50-person indoor/outdoor gathering limit, and the bar closure – are likely unconstitutional and unenforceable,” he wrote. “Although the mask mandate and the 50-person limit may be good recommendations for personal safety, they may not be enforced with financial or criminal penalties. Both businesses acting under color of law as mask police and actual police acting as mask police could face liability if individual civil rights are violated due to the proclamation.”

He may be correct to say the mandates are unenforceable because of the Idiot Factor, which seems to proliferate, coincidentally, in areas of high infection rates.

Edwards issued his response to Landry’s opinion on Wednesday:

“If ever there were a time to put politics aside to govern, it is now when we are in the middle of a public health crisis that affects all Louisianans regardless of their beliefs or political affiliation. I wish Jeff Landry would listen to his own words from March 18 when he stood with me and said extraordinary measures were necessary to protect the people of our state during this COVID-19 crisis, encouraged Louisianans to follow my directives and said he was united with me in protecting the health and safety of the people of our state. I’m not sure what has changed since then, aside from the loss of 3,300 additional lives and more than 80,000 additional Louisianans becoming infected.”

“Louisiana continues to follow guidance from the White House and, just yesterday, I hosted Vice President Mike Pence and members of the federal White House Coronavirus Task Force in Louisiana, which is considered by the federal government to be in the ‘red zone’ for new cases. Vice President Pence said he agreed with the steps I have taken in Louisiana and encouraged our people to wear masks and abide by my reasonable regulations. In fact, on Monday’s White House call with governors, Dr. Deborah Birx, the coordinator of the federal coronavirus response, singled out my actions, including the mask mandate, as a ‘best practice’ for states with rising cases.”

“Last week, Louisiana had 243 new cases per 100,000 people, whereas across the country, the average was only 119 new cases per 100,000 people. We clearly have a COVID-19 problem in Louisiana and I will not let our state go back to a time when we risked being able to provide health care for our people, which also would put our economy in peril, despite what the Attorney General may want.”

I’m all for personal liberties and rights – especially my right not to be exposed to a deadly virus by your ignorance, stubbornness, and arrogance.

Somehow, I have problems following the logic of someone who takes advantage of our laws for his own BENEFIT. Where I come from, that’s called hypocrisy. It’s bad enough that Landry is a fool but even worse, he’s a hypocrite.