Louisiana Voice

Anyone who knows me is aware that my passion in life is baseball.

Oh, I’ve tried them all: tennis, dirt biking, softball (I was a pitcher, the natural refuge of those lacking in talent), independent league basketball (coaching, not playing), flag football. But I always returned to my first love, baseball.

There’s no game like it. The single hardest thing to do is hit a small sphere thrown at 90 mpg from 60 feet, six inches – with a stick.

I was a terrible player, so I coached a sandlot team that I owned for 10 years. I played only when we were short-handed – like the night in Magnolia, Arkansas, when I found my self in center field and Gene Smith had a no-hitter going in the seventh inning when a fly ball was scorched in my direction. I stumbled in the direction of the missile and just as I looked up, I was blinded by the stadium lights. I threw up my bare left hand to shield my eyes and the ball hit my bare hand and fell into my glove on my right hand for the third out. As we trotted off the field, my left fielder said, “Way to make that routine play look spectacular.” Gene kept his no-hitter until back-to-back singles in the 11^th and guess who misplayed both hits? Guess who let the winning run score on those two errors for a tough 3-2 loss? Yup, yours truly. But I did get my first hit after 28 consecutive strikeouts in that game. God, I love that game despite my own shortcoming, which were many (I like to tell people that except for the fact that I couldn’t hit, couldn’t catch, couldn’t run and couldn’t throw, I could have been really good).

I say all this to say that I’m a baseball purist. I don’t like the idea of starting a runner off on second base in extra innings. I say let ‘em earn their way on base. Could there ever be a game to match the July 2, 1963 matchup between San Francisco’s Juan Marichal and Milwaukee’s Warren Spahn. The game went 16 innings and believe it or not, both pitchers were still around for the finish when Willie Mays hit a walk-off home run off Spahn for a 1-0 win. Over that entire game, Milwaukee had 8 hits and San Francisco 9. Spahn, 42 at the time, struck out only two Giants while 26-year-old Marichal fanned 10 That was a classic that may never be matched.

Pure baseball at its finest.

That’s why I don’t like the rule of limiting a pitcher to two pickoff attempts. Or increasing the size of the bases. Both give unfair advantages to runners. And now they’re talking about allowing a ghost batter to be injected in to hit, even if he’s already in the lineup in a different batting order. That’s not baseball.

But there also is talk of a new League of their Own – a But there also is talk of a new League of their Own – a WOMEN’S PROFESSIONAL BASEBALL LEAGUE.

There are those who call themselves baseball purists who still hate the idea of the designated hitter and who scoff at the very idea of women’s baseball.

I’m not one of them.

I say let ‘em play and I wish them the very best of luck. I don’t remember anyone ever saying that baseball was for men or boys only. LSU women’s basketball coach Kim Mulkey once threatened to sue Dixie Youth Baseball when she was initially blocked from competing with the boys. Dixie Youth backed down and she went on to excel at pitcher, catcher and shortstop.

For those who would never go to a women’s baseball game, I say, fine. Stay home. I don’t really care for NBA basketball, so I don’t go. I’m not a hockey fan, so I don’t attend the games of the Baton Rouge team. Nothing against them or hockey. It’s just not my thing. Baseball is.

And for the women out there who would like to compete in the best game under the sun, I would only say: Go for it. Knock yourself out and have a blast. Life’s too short to worry about the skeptics. If you’re good enough, you’ve earned the right – kind of like a century ago when women decided they’d like to vote.

Jackson Parish Sheriff Andy Brown has confirmed the arrest of one of his deputies for the rape of a juvenile – his own daughter.

Brown is the same sheriff who was CITED last December for having “flouted state-licensing law for juvenile detention facilities.” He also operated two private corporations out of the same address in he Jackson Parish town of Quitman – a towing service which reportedly performed towing services for the sheriff’s department and a Covid testing operation through a clinic called Mercy Medical that was housed in the former parish health unit purchased by the…sheriff’s office.

Shipping containers were purchased by the father of Donovan Shultz, Brown’s number-three person in the sheriff’s office and the agent for Six Point Consultants, the Covid testing corporation. And why did the sheriff’s office need shipping containers? Well, he was going to convert them to house juvenile offenders for about $1.6 million a year until the state YANKED THE CONTRACT almost before the ink was dried on it.

One of the problems was the facility was never licensed to house pre-trial youth. But was just one of the problems. An inspection earlier this year noted 83 VIOLATIONS in the treatment of youth – more than all other youth detention facilities in the state combined. These included poor conditions, physical abuse, chemical restraints, violent environment and a suicide attempt.

Other violations include a lack of educational and mental health services, poor hygiene and basic care, minors reporting they were maced, hit with pepper balls and physically restrained by guards.

A federal lawsuit was filed in 2024 to address the alleged abuses and systemic issues at the facility. Civil rights groups, including Families and Friends of Louisiana’s Incarcerated Children (FFLIC), have opposed the use of an adult jail for minors and issued calls for federal intervention.

But now comes a new round of allegations of a more sordid stripe.

Reports confirmed by Brown indicate there have been the arrest of at least one deputy for having sex with a minor. Another deputy was arrested on an “unspecified warrant. There have been a few of those lately and they appear to be connected to sexual crimes, “possibly in order to keep them from being exposed to the public as sex crimes,” says one source.

That source also said that deputies who get into trouble are usually punished by being sent to the parish prison to work for a period of time “instead of being fired, only to come back once they are back in the sheriff’s good graces.”

Brown confirmed to LouisianaVoice today that deputy Harry Woolridge has been arrested for the “sexual assault of his 14-year-old daughter last year.

He said Woolridge, who joined the sheriff’s office “from the local police department” about two years ago, is presently in the Jackson Parish jail with bond set at $1.5 million. “It’s a tragedy,” Brown said.

The six-term Sheriff Brown, first elected in 2003, makes a base salary of $177,084 per year but additional benefits bump the total amount of remuneration to $280,506, a rather hefty salary for a depressed parish like Jackson. Those benefits include $16,218 for insurance; $46,710 in retirement benefits, $17,709 expense allowance, $18,216 for a vehicle, $592 for his cell phone, $363 for dues and $3,614 for conference travel.

Like the anonymous protester who stood in front of a column of military tanks in Tiananmen Square back in 1989, Sean Charles Dunn, the former Department of Justice employee who hurled a sandwich at federal agent, has become something of a symbol, a rallying point, for the so-called “resistance” to the ever-expanding authoritarian rule of Donald Trump.

The Subway sandwich hit the federal agent in the chest. It was fortunate that he happened to be wearing a bulletproof vest at the time or he might have been severely injured. The response was quick as about 20 heavily-armed agents pounced on the assailant before he could inflict further damage.

Attorney General Pam Bondi immediately FIRED Dunn, saying he would be charged with a felony.

Even as an indignant Bondi vowed full prosecution of the sandwich-throwing threat to democracy, an FBI agent who was charged with joining in the attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, REMAINS GAINFULLY EMPLOYED by the agency. Jared Lane Wise, a former supervisory agent, currently serves as a counselor to Justice Department pardon attorney Ed Martin Jr. Martin was a prominent figure in Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election.

Moreover, Trump has pardoned many of those arrested, convicted and sentenced in connection with events on that day.

So, as you can readily see just by comparing these two incidents, we are no longer a nation of law, we have become and are a nation of who you know. That’s a fact, Jack.

Still not convinced? Try this on for size.

If Mr. Dunn wants to avoid prosecution, all he has to do is write a $25,000 CHECK to Pam Bondi and presto! The charge disappears. It’s that simple, really.

Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) provides us with a handy TIMELINE  of events.

You see, way back in February 2008, before anyone had ever thought of the possibility of TACO Don running for president, Eric Schneiderman, then Florida’s attorney general began getting reports of students being defrauded by the Trump Institute and related entities. On August 1, 2013, Schneiderman had heard enough and filed a lawsuit against Trump for “engaging in persistent fraudulent, illegal and deceptive conduct.”

That same year, Bondi launched her campaign for attorney general and ol’ Yam Tits on September 17, 2013, wrote her a $25,000 campaign check. (By comparison, in Louisiana, where ethics go to die, the maximum allowable contribution in a statewide campaign is $5,000.) Carrying the ethics bit even further, the contribution came from the Trump Foundation. It is illegal for a 501(c)(3) private foundation to make political contributions. To take this ethics question even further, the donation was solicited by Bondi.

The contribution was acknowledged on Oct. 17, 2013. The very next day, October 18, it was announced that 21 of 22 complaints against Trump University had been “weeded out,” leaving only a single complaint against the university.

On January 1, 2014, the Trump Foundation claimed that it had made no donations to political entities, admitting to “clerical errors” nearly four months later.

On June 6, 2016, Bondi’s spokesperson informs Associated Press that Attorney General Bondi was unaware of the 20+ complaints against Trump entities when she solicited the donation.

On June 7, Bondi tells the Tampa Bay Times, “I was never, nor was my office, investigating him (Trump). Never. I would never lie. I would never take money. I’ve been obviously devastated over this.”

Wow. That sounds almost sincere.

Meanwhile, Dunn could probably set up a Go Fund Me account and raise enough money to write Bondi one of those $25,000 checks that she knows nothing about.

You’ve seen him/her at your job and you’ve probably shaken your head and laughed at the pathetic scene of the corporate or bureaucratic butt-kisser who tries to be the first one in the supervisor’s/manager’s/CEO’s office every morning to perform the obligatory suck-up chores. We derisively called that “snorkeling.”

In much the same absurd manner, we are seeing every day the spectacle of members of Congress, political appointees, favor-seekers, college presidents and governors acting out identical roles as they line up to kiss the ring of Clown Prince Donald Trump.

In the end, that ring is going to be one of those water-squirters that only drench the faces of those wretched sycophants, but that’s another story for another day.

I watch with growing amusement or befuddlement – I still haven’t decided which – as people like Mike Johnson, John Kennedy, Julia Letlow, Steve KKK Scalise and Clay Higgins drool all over ol’ Yam Tits in hopes of scoring an invitation to visit Tub-A-Lardo down in Florida.

And, of course, you can add one Jeff Landry to that list (if you hadn’t already).

Each of the aforementioned, along with scores of others, can’t wait to get their cues from Cadet Bone Spurs on what to say and do next to further his ever-changing agenda.

Take Landry, for example. First, he was all for solar energy – until he wasn’t. He wasn’t the moment el-Trumpo decided to eschew solar in favor of the fossil fuel barons.

Then there was the decision to order the National Guard into Washington to restore law and order to a city that ranks 80^th in crime rate among major cities in the U.S. with a violent crime rate of 9.8 per 100,000 population.

So, what was Landry’s reaction to that? Naturally, he’s going to DEPLOY 135 members of the Louisiana Guard to that war zone. After all, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, is it not?

But wait! You want to guess the third-worst violent crime rate in America? It’s in Letlow’s district. It’s MONROE and the violent crime rate in that city is 26.3 per 100,000, more than 2½ times that of D.C.

How about the 10^th highest crime rate? Well, that’s in Alexandria, also in Letlow’s district. Wonder if Landry’s considered dispatching Guard units to those cities to quell the unrest?

At least New Orleans (33^rd highest) and Baton Rouge (49^th) aren’t in her district but are in fact, safely embedded in Democratic districts.

But wait! The city with the 73^rd highest violent crime rate (10.4 per 100,000 population) is Bossier City. That’s not only in House Speaker Mike Johnson’s district, but, egad! It’s his home town!

At least Shreveport (90^th worst) with a violent crime rate of 9.6 per 100,000 is 10 places better than that hellhole D.C. – by .2 of a point.

In terms of HOMICIDES, New Orleans ranks second-highest with 46 per 100,000 (Jackson, Mississippi, is highest with 49 per 100,000) among medium-sized metropolitan areas.

Baton Rouge is fourth-highest in its homicide rate at 23 per 100,000. Both of those, as noted earlier, are in the hands of the Democrats. But coming in at 7^th highest is Jefferson Parish, Louisiana, with a homicide rate of 15 per 100,000. Jefferson is represented by Scalise.

Washington, D.C. homicide rate? Fourth-highest among large metro areas.

So, now that he has gone on record as opposed to crime and willing to call up the Guard to enforce law and order, there’s only one thing left for Landry to do.

He must now dispatch Guard units to New Orleans, Jefferson Parish, Baton Rouge, Monroe, Alexandria, Bossier City and Shreveport.

I mean, all this rampant crime’s gotta stop, even if we have to go all the way to Washington.

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.