Louisiana Voice

I grew up in a Baptist Church in Ruston although I later joined the Methodist Church. In both denominations, I was repeatedly told that Christianity was love of one another and that our faith was based on the Ten Commandments and the teachings of Christ.

Nowhere in all those Sunday School sessions and sermons have I ever heard a Christian advocate violence by man as a solution to violence. Romans 12:19 says, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, saith the Lord” Never have I heard someone who calls himself a Christian suggest that we “purge the land,” or call for “wholesale internment and mass incarceration,” or “re-education” of anyone in the name of “decency.”

Until now.

And of all people, it was a member of the Denham Springs City Council, a man responsible for representation of all the people – not just those with whom he agrees.

Council member Robert Poole, a staunch Methodist, posted just such a message on his Facebook page on Aug. 11 in response to a Black Lives Matter rally in support of more than 100 persons who were arrested following rioting in Chicago that caused $60 million in property damage.

Yes, rioters and looters should be arrested and prosecuted. No one questions that. Joe Biden said as much yesterday when he said “Rioting is not protesting. Looting is not protesting. Setting fires is not protesting. . . . It’s lawlessness, plain and simple, and those who do it should be prosecuted. Violence will not bring change; it’ll only bring destruction. It’s wrong in every way. I look at this violence and I see lives and communities and the dreams of small businesses being destroyed.”

That is the responsible approach by a public official to addressing anarchy and chaos.

Instead, this is what council member Robert Poole had to say about it:

Re-education?

Really, Mr. Poole?

You might wish to refer back to your history courses to determine the origin of that term.

The Soviet GULAGS,  the creation of Joseph Stalin whom you might remember as a ruthless dictator. The gulag was a system of imprisonment and forced labor of anyone who even so much as uttered a critical word about the communist regime. Of course, the gulags were publicly referred to as “re-education” centers.

The XINJIANG RE-EDUCATION CAMPS were no different in communist China. Officially called vocational education and training centers by the Chinese Communist Party and the government of the People’s Republic of China, they were nothing else but internment camps operated by the Chinese Communist Party where up to three million prisoners – Muslims and Christians alike – were held for the stated purpose of countering “extremism and terrorism.” Sound familiar, Mr. Poole?

Mr. Poole wants to “purge the land for the sake of decency.” But whose definition of “decency” is he going to employ in carrying out this self-appointed mission? Like Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart’s statement on obscenity, perhaps Mr. Poole can’t define decency but he knows it when he sees it.

“Wholesale internment and mass incarceration”? Like dictators in Third World countries are wont to do? Like Castro’s Cuba in 1960? “Assimilate into peaceful society or you are GONE.” Wow. So, just shut up and agree with whatever I do, or leave. No freedom of speech, no protests of wrongdoing, and the ultimate endgame: no freedom of the press.

And finally, “God HATES those who spread strife among the brethren.” Well, it’s nice to know that Mr. Poole, who incidentally, attends the same church as I, knows so much about Proverbs 10:12, which says, “Hatred stirs up strife but love covers all sins.”

But to tell the truth, after reading Mr. Poole’s Facebook post, I have to wonder who is spreading the message of hate here?

There’s another Proverbs verse that I think is relevant: Proverbs 4:23 says, “Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.”

I do know this: What he’s preaching isn’t the same Christianity I was taught.

Medice, cura te ipsum (Lat. “Physician, heal thyself”).

(63 Days)

“We’ve arrived at a moment in this campaign that we all knew . . . we’d get to — the moment when Donald Trump would be so desperate, he’d do anything to hold on to power.”

—Joe Biden, speaking in Pittsburgh on Monday.

“[T]he more chaos and anarchy and vandalism and violence reigns, the better it is [for the president].”

—None other than departing Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway. [For once, not presenting an “alternative fact.”}

“Rioting is not protesting. Looting is not protesting. Setting fires is not protesting. . . . It’s lawlessness, plain and simple, and those who do it should be prosecuted. Violence will not bring change; it’ll only bring destruction. It’s wrong in every way. I look at this violence and I see lives and communities and the dreams of small businesses being destroyed. Donald Trump looks at this violence and he sees a political lifeline.”

—Joe Biden, again speaking in Pittsburgh on Monday. [The voice of reason would condemn violence on either side. That’s what Biden has done.]

“And Trump? Invited at a news conference Monday evening to condemn violence by his supporters, he declined. [C]alm won’t come unless and until the American president acts like a human being — not a cornered animal.”

—Dana Milbank, The Washington Post, Aug. 31, 2020.

“[Y]ou have right-wing extremists coming in trying to take advantage of the cover of the protests to carry out these violent acts and they are trying to start a race war.”

—Elizabeth Neumann, who recently resigned from her high-level post in Trump’s Department of Homeland Security.

 “the crime and violence that today afflicts our nation will soon come to an end. Beginning on January 20, 2017, safety will be restored.”

—Candidate Donald Trump at the Republican Convention in Cleveland, in 2016. [Four years since he said that, and 3 years and 7 months since Jan. 20, 2017. To paraphrase Ronald Reagan, are we better off today than we were four years ago in terms of violence and anarchy? I think you can check that box NO.]

In case anyone’s still interested, the shenanigans of the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeal and 4^th Judicial District Court (Ouachita and Morehouse parishes) are still occurring unabated in what more resembles some Third World dictatorship than respected systems of justice in north Louisiana.

And in case you’re not interested….you damned well should be. From the Louisiana Supreme Court all the way down to local judicial systems, abusive activities could – and should – warrant closer scrutiny.

Let’s begin with a review of the 4^th JDC and the court’s law clerk Allyson Campbell who is not only employed by the court but, it would certainly appear, protected. This is the same district court that FILED SUIT against the Ouachita Citizen newspaper over the publication’s request for public records in the Campbell matter.

Now, according to a recent story in the Citizen, a special appointed judge has granted a protective order that will seal all testimony or evidence revealed in a lawsuit filed by a Monroe businessman who claims Campbell concealed or destroyed documents pertaining to a separate lawsuit he filed against his former business partner.

(The second part of this story can be seen HERE.

Stanley Palowsky, III, in his lawsuit against Allison, also named five 4^th JDC judges as defendants – Fred Amman, Wilson Rambo, Carl Sharp, Stephens Winters and Benjamin “Ben” Jones (not retired) for conspiring with Campbell to cover up her alleged activity, including using 52 writ applications from Palowsky’s lawsuit as an end table in her office.

Campbell worked as a part-time columnist for the Monroe News-Star.

Campbell is also the daughter of George Campbell, an executive with Regions bank. George Campbell is in turn married to the daughter of influential Monroe attorney Billy Boles. Allyson Campbell also is the sister of Catherine Creed of the Monroe personal injury law firm of Creed and Creed. Christian Creed, Campbell’s brother-in-law, contributed $5,000 to the 2015 campaign of Attorney General Jeff Landry, $40,000 to Gov. John Bel Edwards and $46,000 to the Democrat political action committee Gumbo PAC.

In a small town like Monroe, that’s a lot of cash floating around which quickly translates to a lot of political clout. Predictably, Landry’s office backed off its investigation of Allison.

Now here’s where it really gets weird.

Lawrence Pettiette, of the Shreveport law firm of Pettiette Armand Dunkelman, who served as a “special assistant attorney general” under contract to Jeff Landry’s office in matters involving state agencies.

All that’s well and good, but Pettiette also just happens to represent Campbell.

But wait. Pettiette, it seems, also represents Hanh Williams in the succession of Shreveport oilman Fred L. Houston. Williams had “assisted” Houston in some of his financial matters before his death in 2008. The 1^st Judicial Court in Caddo Parish subsequently found Ms. Williams LIABLE for $1.1 million damages for breach of duty to the trust of Houston. The court also determined that she was liable to the Houston estate for $460,605. Pettiette seems to be the common denominator in several complicated – and controversial – cases.

And just to make sure the waters are sufficiently muddied, Williams had been in a long-term relationship with Henry Brown, chief judge of the 2^nd Circuit Court of Appeal. Brown was barred from the courthouse by the Louisiana Supreme Court and retired a few days later. Trina Chu, who clerked for the disgraced Brown, was ARRESTED for copying documents from the Houston file that was under review by the 2^nd Circuit, and sending them to her friend Williams, who, incidentally, sold her house to Brown.

Confused enough? Wait. There’s more. While charges are pending against Chu for theft of intellectual property and trespass against state computers, she is nevertheless a candidate for a seat on the 2^nd Circuit Court of Appeal.

Meanwhile, back to Brown. He is accused of judicial activism and for failure to recuse himself in a case where he had a multi-million-dollar verdict for a Mangham contractor OVERTURNED.

The contractor, JEFF MERCER, had won a unanimous jury award of $20 million against the Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development after Mercer convinced the jury that he had been the target of shakedowns, extortion, and discrimination while performing highway construction work for the state in north Louisiana (in Louisiana? I’m stunned!).

As if the foregoing were not enough, consider this story written by the late investigative reporter Ken Booth back in 2016 about a judge’s careless OVERSIGHT that freed a child predator.

So, maybe we should be paying a little more attention to our judicial candidates.

64 Days (if we can hold this country together that long)

“These are not my words. I have lost my ability to speak, but not my agency or my thoughts. You and your team have doctored my words for your own political gain.”

—ALS victim Ady Barkan, responding to a video produced by Rep. Steve Scalise which altered his electronically assisted voice in an interview to make it appear that Joe Biden supported defunding the police. [This is a particularly reprehensible, despicable and unethical tactic – even for someone as reprehensible, despicable and unethical as Steve Scalise. To understand what “defunding the police” actually means, read Saturday’s post on LouisianaVoice.]

“We must not become a country at war with ourselves; a country that accepts the killing of fellow Americans who do not agree with you; a country that vows vengeance toward one another.” 

—Joe Biden, on the escalating violence in Portland, Oregon and Kenosha, Wisconsin.

“The only people to blame for the violence and riots in our streets are liberal politicians and their incompetent policies that have failed to get control of these destructive situations. This President has condemned violence in all its forms.”

—White House spokesman Judd Deere. [No, Mr. Deere, he most certainly has not “condemned violence in all its forms.” In fact, quite the opposite is the case; he has encouraged it from suggesting that the 2^nd Amendment take care of Hillary to encouraging his faithful to “beat the hell” out of a protester at one of his rallies to calling white supremacists “very fine people.”. Please don’t take us for fools, Mr. Deere. There is plenty of blame to go around – from robo cops to looters to white supremacists who infiltrate protest groups to vigilantes to the Tucker Carlsons of the world all the way up to the White House steps and its occupant who dog whistles his fringe element faithful to action.]

“Four years ago, when the United States was in the eighth year of an economic expansion and enjoying a time of relative peace and prosperity, Donald Trump saw only carnage. ’Our convention occurs at a moment of crisis for our nation,’ he told the 2016 Republican National Convention in Cleveland, describing a nation full of ‘death, destruction. . . and weakness.’ Now, America actually is in crisis: a world’s worst 177,000 dead from the pandemic, nearly 6 million infected, 6 million net jobs lost during Trump’s presidency, nearly $7 trillion added to the debt, and racial violence in the streets.

“Back in 1980, when presidential candidate Ronald Reagan asked his famous question, ‘Are you better off than you were four years ago?’ he said, ‘If all of the unemployed today were in a single line allowing two feet for each of them, that line would reach from New York City to Los Angeles, California.’ If we made a similar line today of all those on some type of unemployment relief, that line would cross the country five times. Trump can’t ask Americans whether they are better off than when he took over because we all know the answer. The best he can do is pretend everything is hunky-dory, and hope people fall for it.”

 — Dana Milbank, Washington Post, Aug. 27, 2020.

“The big backlash going on in Portland cannot be unexpected after 95 days of watching and incompetent Mayor admit that he has no idea what he is doing. The people of Portland won’t put up with no safety any longer. The Mayor is a FOOL. Bring in the National Guard! Our great National Guard could solve these problems in less than 1 hour. Local authorities must ask before it is too late. People of Portland, and other Democrat run cities, are disgusted with Schumer, Pelosi, and [their] local ‘leaders.’ They want Law & Order!”

—Donald Trump tweet following fatal shooting in clash between BLM protesters and pro-Trump supporters in Portland, Oregon, Aug. 30, 2020.

“We don’t need your politics of division and demagoguery. Portlanders are onto you. We have already seen your reckless disregard for human life in your bumbling response to the COVID pandemic. And we know you’ve reached the conclusion that images of violence or vandalism are your only ticket to reelection.”

—Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler, in response to Trump’s tweet rants, Aug. 30, 2020.

“Congressional oversight of intelligence activities now faces a historic crisis. Intelligence agencies have a legal obligation to keep Congress informed of their activities.”

—Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), acting chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, on Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe’s announcement that the intelligence community will scale back in-person congressional briefings on election security. [A cynic might say the move is just another attempt by Trump to divert attention away from election interference – or worse, to conceal it.]

“I fear that we are witnessing the end of American democracy.”

—Harvard psychologist Joshua Greene.