Louisiana Voice

Oklahoma Superintendent of Instruction Ryan Walters

He’s Stephen Miller with hair.

So much for Ryan Walters’s good points, his attributes as leader of Oklahoma’s public instruction, so now let’s move on to the negatives.

Miller wannabe Walters has come up with a 50-question certification examination to be given teaching applicants in the Sooner State. But wait. The questionnaire, designed to gauge only whether or not potential teachers’ political views pass muster, is only to be administered to applicants from California and New York.

The test, being called by Walters as the “AMERICA FIRST” (sound familiar?) certification is designed to ensure that teachers from the two largest blue states “are not coming into our classrooms and indoctrinating kids.”

This from a superintendent who has mandated that the Bible shall be taught in every single public-school classroom in the state.

Nothing against the Bible, mind you, but there might well be Jewish kids, Islamic and Hindu children who might take offense at that. Or maybe even a few isolated agnostic and atheist children whose parents might not want them “indoctrinated.”

But that aside, what makes this clown of a superintendent think that he can (a) revive the loyalty oaths of the 1940s, 50s and 60s or that he can (b) arbitrarily single out just two of the 50 states for such scrutiny? What about Minnesota or Massachusetts? Those are pretty blue states, too. Shoot, why not Texas? That state appears to have some pretty cockeyed leaders in the governor’s and attorney general’s offices. And can a governor who shoots a puppy be truly a red-blooded, apple pie-loving American?

But unfortunately, this is the mentality that has been passed down to members of Congress, governors and now even educators by the world’s biggest ass-clown who happens to occupy the Oval Office.

This is Kim Jong-un logic at its very best: if dear leader deems it should be so, then let’s all run out into the streets to enforce his will.

It’s not like it hasn’t been tried already. Remember the Red Scare of the good ol’ McCarthy days? You may not, depending upon your age, but I do. I remember back in high school having to sit through a showing of “Operation Abolition,” the propaganda film of the House Un-American Activities Committee. Churches even proudly showed the film to their congregations.

It’s no coincidence that the only state ranked lower in education than Oklahoma is New Mexico, a reader writes. Nor is it a coincidence that The Christian Nationalism being implemented at warp speed by Walters comes directly from Project 2025. And, it’s no coincidence that teacher burnout is high, teacher retention low, teacher shortage is high.

The really scary part? States like Texas, Louisiana, Idaho, and Florida are in competition to see who can be the runner-up, that same person asserts. It’s hard to argue with him.

It’s not too late to stem the tide of this foolishness, but here’s what’s going to have to occur in order to accomplish that: People are going to have to show some backbone and simply refuse to knuckle under to this authoritarian trend. It was done once and it can be done again – but at a price.

Just crack open a history book or log onto Google and do a little research. You’ll find that such people as Charlie Chaplin, Orson Welles, Burgess Meredith, Lena Horne, Arthur Miller, Pete Seeger, Gypsy Rose Lee, Leonard Bernstein, Dorothy Parker, Burl Ives, Judy Holliday, Artie Shaw, Dashiell Hammett, Lloyd Bridges and the folk singing group The Weavers were all BLACKLISTED. Why? Not because they were subversives but because they simply refused to sign LOYALTY OATHS.

Oh, some of them attended Communist Party meetings and a couple even joined the party, but so what? The biggest friend the Communist Party of Russia has at the moment is the U.S. Republican Party. Deny that if you may, but facts are facts.

Actors and musicians weren’t the only ones affected by blacklisting. Ten left-leaning SCREENWRITERS AND DIRECTORS were actually cited for contempt by HUAC. They were Alvah, Bessie, Herbert, Biberman, Lester Cole, Edward Dmyytryk, Ring Lardner, Jr., John Howard Lawson, Albert Maltz, Samuel Ornitz, Adrian Scott and Dalton Trumbo. Only when Trumbo was given full credit for such movies as Exodus, Spartacus and Roman Holiday did the Hollywood blacklist come to a close.

I am a recovering Republican (Ugh!) of some 35-40 years when the party actually stood for something – right up until the Jindal accident. But I’ll be damned if anyone is going to make me sign a loyalty oath. I served my country in the military, something that Cadet Bone Spurs never did – nor did a single member of his family, going back several generations. I don’t need to prove my loyalty to anyone.

And just so you know, loyalty oaths and RED SCARE are synonymous with McCARTHYISM, which carries the same stigmatism as Trumpism.

If courtroom drama is your thing, then clear your calendar and plan to spend a few days in 1^st Judicial District Court up in Caddo Parish (if, indeed, the matter ever goes to trial, which I doubt) to drop in on Case No. 657648A, William Lunn v. Nexstar Media dba KTAL, Daniel and Jacquelyn Jovic.

It’s not a murder trial, armed robbery or even a felony, for that matter – just a good old defamation of character libel type of case that, had the results not ended a bright career in television news, would be on a comedic level of the movie ANCHORMAN: THE LEGEND OF RON BURGUNDY.

I mean, the entire episode is almost a parody of what local television news has become: a burlesque show of local crime reports peppered by the exponentially-growing number of loud, obnoxious personal injury attorney ads.

But first, let’s set the stage. Nexstar Media Group is a $5.4 billion company with 13,000 employees and 201 stations nationwide, including a handful in Louisiana (Baton Rouge, Shreveport, two in New Orleans, three in Lafayette). Those 201 stations reach 70 percent of U.S. households.

KTAL, a co-defendant, is Nexstar’s Shreveport affiliate and the husband and wife team of Daniel and Jacquelyn Jovic work for KTAL News. The plaintiff in this matter, William Lunn, formerly worked for KTAL competitor KTBS-TV. Are you starting to see a picture emerge here? No? Then let me bring it into better focus.

For years, Lunn and the Jovics were direct competitors in the Shreveport/Bossier market with KTAL’s Jovic-led newscasts generally relegated to the hind mammary gland behind both KTBS (ABC) and CBS-affiliate KSLA. The Jovics were co-anchors at NBC affiliate KTAL and Lunn was anchor for KTBS.

Then, on May 27, 2024, Lunn used his mobile device to log into the social media platform Tinder, which for the uninitiated, is an online dating app “used by millions of adult Americans,” according to Lunn’s petition, which goes further to explicitly point out that he used his real name, a real photo and “reflected that he was a single man…looking to meet women.”

Now, as unsavory as that might seem to some, bear in mind that he is a grown-ass single man and that, in and of itself, is not illegal.

That same day, a woman claiming to be 19-year-old “Jasmine” expressed an interest in the 54-year-old Lunn. “Jasmine” subsequently “initiated a sexually-explicit exchange,” the petition says. Again, distasteful perhaps, but no laws violated.

Unbeknownst to Lunn, there was no “Jasmine” and the original text in which she claimed to be 19 was edited to change her age to 16. Lest anyone doubt that claim, there is a method whereby one may edit a text message but it’s only within a narrow window, time-wise. In this case, a screen shot of Lunn’s cellphone clearly shows that the age 19 was indeed edited to 16.

Two days later, on May 19, “Jasmine” gave Lunn an address in Shreveport and suggested that they meet “at her home.” Once there, he was led into the house by a woman he believed to be “Jasmine.”

Instead, once inside, he was “immediately surrounded by three men” later identified as Antonio Coleman, Kataurio Grigsby and Cameron Kennon “and was beaten and robbed of his belongings.”

He somehow managed to escape and call 911. He then waited and told his story to Shreveport police: that he was there to meet a woman he had met online. Police questioned Coleman, who lived at the address “Jasmine” had given Lunn, and Laura Robinson, the woman Lunn had thought to be “Jasmine” who had lured him into the house.

During the entire investigation, Lunn sat in the back of a police squad car with the door open and his hands free from any restraints. He was never arrested and a police corporal retrieved his phone, keys, credit cards and driver’s license from the assailants. Lunn voluntarily showed the officer the messages on his phone and gave the phone to investigating police to perform a forensic analysis. It was only at that point, Lunn says, that he saw that the age 19 had been edited to read 16.

Lunn was not prohibited from leaving the scene and in fact, did not leave. He was “not ticketed, admonished or charged with any crime” and immediately reported the events to his family, friends and employer,” his petition asserts.

Enter Ron Burgundy Daniel Jovic. On Saturday, June 1, Jovic sent a text to a police department source inquiring as to whether Lunn was caught “with a 14-year-old girl and ran from the police.”

On June 3, police told Jovic that the investigation was ongoing but that Lunn had not run from authorities and that no arrests had been made (emphasis added). Jovic and a camera crew then embarked on a quest to find and interview Coleman, Grigsby and Kennon, who claimed to be “child predator hunters” supported by local authorities and that they had “caught” 10 men over the past three weeks through their vigilante efforts.

And here is where it gets really dicey.

“Defendants, led by Jovic, suspended all critical analysis, assessment, and logic in service of an unbelievable story from three young men who had admitted to deception and criminal activity,” the lawsuit says. “Upon information and belief, Jovic did not challenge the source, report on the existence of an edited text message, or contact the local authorities to determine the credibility of any of these claims. Instead, he rushed to the newsroom to edit and package the hit piece (in mere hours) to take out a longtime competitor.”

The story was aired on KTAL by the husband-wife news anchor team of Daniel and Jacquelyn Jovic. “With gusto, the Jovics led the 10 p.m. news with the rushed. reckless, false, and defamatory story about Lunn. The Newscast featured footage interviewing three men, Coleman, Grigsby, and Kennon, who admitted that they had committed crimes in attacking Lunn,” according to the petition.

Daniel Jovic, in his unbridled enthusiasm over his “exclusive,” even texted his police corporal friend, giving him a heads-up: “Hey Corporal: watch at 10 pm.”

That 10 p.m. newscast began with the Jovics tag-teaming the introduction to the “blockbuster” story:

DAN: Tonight, we are sharing an explosive report claiming a local news anchor, who also served as the organization’s news director. is the subject of an on-going investigation by Shreveport police. Good evening, I’m Dan Jovic.

JACQUE: And I’m Jacque Jovic. The investigation was sparked due to the efforts of three local men who say they’ve made it their mission to catch men trying to have sex with underage girls.

Then, two of Jovic’s depicted “heroes,” Coleman and Grigsby, the self-described vigilantes, were subsequently arrested “for nearly identical, brutal and violent crimes inflicted on other victims…on dating apps who were lured, beaten and robbed.”

Somehow, Jovic’s story had “Jasmine” going from a 16-year-old minor to a 14-year-old and finally in the story that aired, a 15-year-old. And just to throw in the TV theatrics we’ve become all too accustomed to with local news Jovic capped his “scoop” with sprinkles by staging a video recording of himself as he called Lunn’s cell phone for comment. “Jovic’s false representations were undermined by his personal knowledge that Lunn’s cellphone was in (Shreveport Police Department) custody and that Lunn could not answer the call,” the petition pointed out.

It would be bad enough had KTAL been the only news outlet to run the story, but it ran in The Guardian, The New York Post, Yahoo, MSN, Fox 26 in Houston (with more than 615,000 YouTube subscribers), The Daily Mail (2.8 million followers), on X (22 million followers, Facebook, Instagram, KEEL Radio in Shreveport, Nexstar affiliate stations WKRG (covering Mobile, Alabama and Pensacola, Florida), KTVE in Monroe and KPEL in Lafayette.

Lunn, meanwhile, resigned his long-held position at KTBS and currently works for a moving company.

KTAL has apparently found itself between the proverbial rock and hard place. On the one hand, KTAL has dug in its heels by proclaiming that it stands by its story. On the other hand, word is the station has “marginalized” the husband and wife team, whatever that might imply, because to fire them outright would be tantamount to an admission of liability on Nexstar’s part.

Ah, television journalism at its best. Where’s Les Nessman when you need him?

From The Seal and the Tsar, posted Saturday by blogger Jojo:

“What happened in Anchorage … wasn’t a summit, it wasn’t diplomacy, and it sure as hell wasn’t leadership. It was a spectacle. A freak show of power inverted — the President of the United States turned into a clapping seal

“Meanwhile, NPR reported that guests at the Hotel Captain Cook — where American officials were staying — found a State Department memo with sensitive details about the Trump-Putin meeting sitting on the public printer. Classified strategy, abandoned between a Sudoku puzzle and someone’s boarding pass. Our national security, treated like lost-and-found at a La Quinta Inn.

“This is what capitulation looks like. It was grotesque pageantry: a Dollar Store dictator parade.

“Contrast that with what came before us. The Greatest Generation crossed oceans to liberate strangers they’d never met. They stormed the beaches at Normandy, where boys fresh out of high school drowned under machine-gun fire to crack open the gates of freedom. They clawed their way up the black sands of Iwo Jima, where men bled out clutching photographs of wives they’d never see again. They froze and starved through the Battle of the Bulge, surrounded, outnumbered, and still refusing to yield an inch to fascism’s advance. They fought and died with no certainty of victory, but with absolute certainty that democracy was worth the risk.

“The orange idiot said, in all seriousness, that he was “heading back to the United States” from Alaska.”

The announcement that Our Lady of the Lake (OLOL) Medical Center in Baton Rouge is planning to pay $50 million for the naming rights to the proposed new LSU basketball arena is getting some pushback, as it should.

One Baton Rouge resident, in a letter to The Baton Rouge Advocate, noted, “It’s fascinating how fast the money comes out when it’s about stadium exposure, yet when patients lose coverage, there’s suddenly a budget crunch.”

But when taken in context, the trend toward nonprofits pouring money into naming rights, the OLOL proposal, it turns out, isn’t a outlier; it’s a flipping trend, as the LOUISIANA ILLUMINATOR informed us back on Aug. 1.

It turns out, however, that the LSU facility isn’t the only proposed expenditure by the Franciscan-run hospital system in Louisiana. Just an hour’s drive to the west, we find that OLOL sister institution, Our Lady of Lourdes Regional Medical Center has committed a cool $15 million (over a 15-year period) for the planned renovation and naming rights to University of Louisiana-Lafayette’s new Ragin’ Cajuns football stadium, complete with loge boxes and club seats (some no doubt designated of medical center board members) that is scheduled to open in a couple of weeks.

And get this: less than two years ago, Our Lady of the Lourdes was ostensibly so strapped that it sent out a notice that it was shutting down its fitness center for older adults.

That decision prompted a letter of protest by New Iberia attorney Donald Akers, a letter that was also signed by 11 other attorneys, educators and doctors.

That same Baton Rouge resident also wrote that “Funding luxury amenities at a college basketball arene while people are being dropped from Medicaid isn’t just tone-deaf – it’s morally bankrupt. And doing so under the banner of a religious institution? That’s the kicker.

His isn’t the only push-back, of course. The nonprofit hospital themselves are RESISTING EFFORTS at oversight, oversight that has shown in a 2022 report that found that most nonprofit hospital systems failed to spend as much on their communities as they received in tax breaks and that fully half of hospitals spend only 1.4 percent of total expenses on CHARITY CARE.

In 2022, for another example, LSU announced that OLOL had committed a whopping $85 million which will “solely and directly support world-class care for all of LSU’s STUDENT-ATHLETESin the decade ahead. At the same time, OLOL did pledge a like amount to support a Student Health Center at the university, bring the total commitment to $170 million.

And while that’s all well and good, it’s still a head-scratcher to try and understand how an institution can claim a nonprofit status and yet have all that money lying around for the benefit of a chosen few.

Well, let’s compare. While we don’t have access to the organizational summary for OLOL, we do know that Our Lady of the Lourdes has 391 beds and that its total revenue for 2023 was $577.7 million against total expenses of $525.1 million for that same year for a “nonprofit” difference of $52.6 million in net income.

OLOL’s 2023 INCOME for its 1,020 beds was $1.68 billion (with a “B”) against expenses of $1.59 billion, for a “nonprofit” difference of a cool $90 million. To the lay person, it’s pretty difficult to see the nonprofit in either institution, especially after one takes a close look at an itemized bill after a hospital stay. Better yet, take a gander at your medical insurance premiums. All that money being spent to promote sporting events has to come from somewhere.

This whole mentality of jumping in to pour millions into sports programs is part of an overall system that is out of whack, to say the least.

Just today (Aug. 17), The Washington Post ran a lengthy story (sorry, I’m unable to link it here because it’s a paywall) noting that the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) is a nonprofit with an annual net income of $1.3 billion from the sale of television rights, advertising, tickets, merchandise and membership dues (think Tiger Athletic Foundation). And that’s over and above expenses.

Get this. This year is the first year of a broadcast and marketing rights contract with CBS for an eye-popping $8.375 billion to go with an eight-year contract with ESPN for another $920 million. In 2022, the then-Power Five collegiate athletic conferences generated more than $3.5 billion in combined revenue and the College Football Playoffs pumped in another $1.3 billion.

And it’s all nonprofit. Oh, the IRS has attempted to tax broadcast rights or sponsorships of college bowl games but Congress, in its infinite wisdom and rare show of unity, exempted sponsorships.

So, the show goes on as more and more nonprofit health care systems and hospital groups fall over each other in a mad rush to slap their names on sports venues in California, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, New York, North Carolina, Pennsysvania, Tennessee and, of course, Louisiana – even as the nation is staring down the barrel of a health-care crisis.

This isn’t an advocacy for socialized medicine (though some countries have had a successful track record with that), but rather, it’s a question of where is the sense of responsibility to the community as a whole, the marginally-served, as opposed to the privileged few?

Just how is the pasting of the OLOL brand on a basketball arena or Our Lady of the Lourdes on a football stadium going to provide health care to those in need but who cannot afford it, to those who lose their Medicaid coverage, as that reader correctly point out?

This spike could be caused by two things: Tarriffs, of course, is one. The other might well be the lack of labor to harvest your veggies. That, too, drives costs.