Louisiana Voice

LouisianaVoice may well be a small voice in the wilderness compared to ProPublica, The Guardian and several other major sources. But a chorus of small voices can contribute to a groundswell of public opinion when they all do what the mainstream media will not do in presenting the facts to readers thirsty for knowledge about what their government is up to.

Like the story below this post, the chichanery of your public officials often go unreported with the usual perfunctory explanations and comments that say and reveal little of the real story – unless there is someone like LouisianaVoice to give you some of the background information.

As one of our readers recently said, quite accurately, I might add: “We need in this country today, the kinds of massive protests we had during the Vietnam era. These large, sustained demonstrations received national attention and gained broad public support. Silent acquiescence, like we have today, only allows the MAGA regime to achieve its diabolical aims far too quickly. We are at a turning point.”

A large, sustained demonstration is precisely what this country is now begging for. That’s the only way those in Congress – especially six Repugnantcans from Louisiana – will ever get the message that what they are allowing by their timid silence is detrimental to their constituents and those constituents are simply not going to accept that sort of representation any longer.

That is what we’re about at LouisianaVoice. We’re small. But so were most revolutions when they first started. To continue our effort with the intensity that is necessary, we need your support now more than ever.

Please go to HERE and scroll down to the YELLOW DONATE BUTTON to make a one-time contribution via credit card.

As always, your generosity is greatly and sincerely appreciated.

Picture this:

Two football teams are playing an important game. Suddenly, the coach of Team A takes it upon himself to pull the quarterback, the star running back and the top receiver for Team B.

Wait. What? How can the coach of Team A pull players for Team B off the field?

Or, say LSU baseball coach Jay Johnson is headed into an important series with another team for a super-regional championship when suddenly, the other team’s coach says LSU’s best pitcher and its best hitter cannot play.

Sounds crazy. But that’s exactly what has happened between two Louisiana officials, Secretary of State Nancy Landry and Attorney General Liz Murrill.

Murrill, you see, has, in effect, PULLED THE STARTERS for Landry’s team who were all set to square away on a high-stakes legal battle by firing all of Landry’s outside legal counsel which pretty much upends the betting odds on this game’s outcome.

The game is an ongoing effort by the state (with Murrill acting on behalf of the state) to throw out a key section of the Voting Rights Act, a provision once supported but now opposed by Murrill and her puppet master, Jeff Landry. Murrill’s legal counsel, State Solicitor General Benjamin Aguinaga, is set to argue LOUISIANA v CALLAIS before the U.S. Supreme Court on Oct. 15.

Should Murrill prevail, the Louisiana Legislature would redraw Louisiana’s congressional districts – again.

If that happens, yet another redistricting could result in the loss of one – or both – black seats currently held by Troy Carter (2^nd District) and Cleo Fields (6^th District) – gerrymandering the way Trump intended, in other words.

Landry, meanwhile, has submitted her own brief in which she says she has always opposed the Legislature’s 2024 decision – that’s the one that had the full support of Landry/Murrill – to create a second black-majority congressional seat that Fields subsequently won.

Murrill now says that Landry challenged her (Murrill’s) authority prior to the scheduled U.S. Supreme Court hearing to invalidate Section 2 of the 1965 Voting Rights Act signed by Lyndon Johnson.

Murrill obviously didn’t like her chances, being opposed by Landry and all. And it’s fair certain the Supreme Court justices might wonder why the state’s attorney general was being opposed from within her own administration – and party.

So, the obvious thing to do was to fire Landry’s attorneys. What better way to enhance your own legal position?

As a point of clarity, the hiring of outside legal counsel by state agencies is normally done with the concurrence of the attorney general’s office. Up to now, that’s been pretty much routine, kind of like kicking an extra point or throwing an 0-2 pitch in the dirt to see of the batter will chase it. In fact, in my 20 years at the Office of Risk Management, where we hired attorneys or appointed AG attorneys literally on a daily basis, I cannot recall a single instance in which the AG failed or refused to concur on an attorney appointment. Nor can I remember in those 20 years a single time when an attorney was fired – though I could name quite a few attorneys whom I considered inept who should’ve been canned.

But the rules have changed since the hordes of Repugnantcans seized the reins of power and began putting Project 2025 into play on a widescale basis, from Washington to the state houses. And it’s especially true when they see that the position they’ve staked out might be challenged – whether by a news agency, a public official, a university or a late-night talk show comedian.

Headline in today’s Washington Post:

Trump plan would limit Social Security disability benefits for older Americans

Lowlights from the story:

The Trump administration is preparing a plan that will make it harder for older Americans to qualify for Social Security disability payments, part of an overhaul of the federal safety net for poor, older and disabled people that could result in hundreds of thousands of people losing benefits, according to people familiar with the plans.

It is unclear exactly how many Americans could lose access to disability benefits under the proposed rule changes. Jack Smalligan, senior policy fellow at the Urban Institute and a former Office of Management and Budget official through five administrations, wrote in a recent paper that if the proposed rule reduced eligibility for the disability program by 10 percent, 750,000 fewer people would receive benefits for all or part of the next decade. In addition, 80,000 fewer widows and children would receive benefits due to the loss in eligibility of a spouse or parent.

People familiar with the proposed changes said they are a priority of People familiar with the proposed changes said they are a priority of RUSSELL VOUGHT, author of Project 2025, now director of the Office of Management and Budget, who sought during Trump’s first term to update the disability rolls through executive action. At the start of Trump’s second term, the White House budget office urged former acting commissioner Leland Dudek to pursue rule changes shortly after he took office.

Senate Finance Committee ranking Democrat Ron Wyden (Oregon) argued that the rule change is just the first step in broader Republican plans to cut Social Security.

“This is Phase One of the Republican campaign to force Americans to work into old age to access their earned Social Security benefits, and represents the largest cut to disability insurance in American history,” Wyden said in a statement to The Post. “Americans with disabilities have worked and paid into Social Security just like everybody else, and they do not deserve the indignity of more bureaucratic water torture to get what they paid for.”

Okay, I’m getting reports from readers that they are unable to make a contribution to LouisianaVoice because there is no YELLOW DONATE BUTTON on their copy of our postings.

If you are experiencing a similar problem, it’s most likely because you get your posts via email messages. The donate button is indeed missing on those, I’ve learned.

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That should bring up our main page which will contain the YELLOW DONATE BUTTON (to the right of this post). Click on it to make your one-time contribution by credit card.

We don’t come to you often (just twice a year). LouisianaVoice is free to all and I sincerely want to keep it that way. I also do not accept advertising other than Cavalier House Books, an independent book store in Denham Springs that I wholeheartedly support. Their ad is free because in addition to wanting you to have free access to our stories, I also support and encourage reading because it’s important.

As always, I sincerely appreciate your support.

The headline screams: “DHS and TSA expose targeting of political opponents by former Biden Administration officials, refers case to Congress & Justice Department.”

Overlooking the grammatical error of failing to make the subject and verb agree, a closer look at the Sept. 30 story reveals it comes as a PRESS RELEASE from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and not from any recognized news organization.

In other words, it’s pure horse hocky. Coming as it does from this current administration which possesses absolutely zero credibility, it carries about as much authenticity as something from QAnon, Sinclair Broadcasting Group, Fox News or Newsmax.

At first blush, it ranks right up there with Pizzagate, Haitians eating your dogs and cats, the Obama birther conspiracy or Trump’s more recent hawking of something called a Medbed that’s supposed to cure every known affliction known to man, including bring the dead back life.

You only have to scroll down to the paragraph that says that “under Secretary Noem’s direction,” TSA and DHS:

• Referred this matter to the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division and to Congress for further investigation. 
• Removed a total of five senior leaders from their positions who betrayed the trust of the American people. This includes the Executive Assistant Administrator for Operations Support and the Deputy Assistant Administrator for Intelligence and Analysis. 
• Are working with policymakers on Capitol Hill on legislative authorities to ensure these kinds of abuses do not happen again. 
• Are updating internal standard operating procedures and policies to ensure greater oversight. 
• Are reorganizing TSA’s Intelligence & Analysis office to hold senior officials accountable and provide greater oversight on watchlisting operations. 

Obviously, I do not know the specifics of the charges. That’s most likely because there are no specifics – just the usual scattergun allegations of Trump against enemies real and imagined. This release, if you read it carefully, is classic, straight from the Cadet Bonespurs playbook.

I’m willing to put up good money that this goes exactly nowhere, much like the pending indictment against James Comey. It’s a distraction, pure and simple, to draw our attention away from infinitely more embarrassing issues – like maybe the Epstein files. Or maybe to divert attention from the econony so crippled by TACO Don’s tariffs.

Of course, Trump’s maidservants Mike Johnson, J.D. Vance, John N. Kennedy and Laura Loomer will pounce on this with relish at the opportunity to dump on Biden.

Instead of creating the bang it was intended to do, this will end in a whimper.

Guaranteed.