Louisiana Voice

If you’re considering shipping a package by UPS, here’s a word of advice:

Don’t.

Or should you have the opportunity to choose your shipping choice if you are scheduled to receive a package:

Don’t, for the love of God, choose UPS.

I should know better. A few years back, I ordered a portable greenhouse in which to grow tomatoes year-round. I checked the tracking after it was several days late only to learn that it was “delivered.”

Not to me. A further check revealed that it had mistakenly been sent to some lucky person in East Texas.

To whom? I asked the UPS folks. We can’t tell you, they said, against policy.

“I spent $700 on that greenhouse. I have a right to know who I bought it for,” I said.

Nope. Can’t do it, they said. I never learned who the person was who received my greenhouse. And while I did get a full refund, the experience should’ve left a bad-enough taste in my mouth. But fool me once, shame on you…

But there’s one more bit of advice I’d like to pass along.

The most important advice of all if you do happen to get saddled with UPS, don’t – under any circumstances – call the company’s 800 number to check on your package.

Here’s why.

I went on line to order one of those nice walk-behind grass trimmers (photo below).

I received an email confirmation that the trimmer would be delivered on Monday (May 12).

Monday at 3:16 p.m. a UPS delivery truck pulls up and stops in front of my house. I’m in the front yard at the time so I wait for the trimmer to be unloaded.

Nothing happens.

Finally, I ask the driver if he has a large package for me.

He walks around inside the van, checks a clipboard and finally says, “It was loaded onto he wrong truck.”

“What?”

“Happens all the time. They’ll probably deliver it later today.” He gets back behind the wheel and drives away without ever leaving any kind of package.

Later today didn’t happen and when I checked the tracking periodically, it always told me it was “out for delivery.”

Cool. I’ll wait. But a little after 8:30, growing anxious, I checked tracking again and lo and behold, I’m told the package was being returned to sender.

Again, WHAT?

When I clicked on the box for details, I get a tracking history that told me that at a delivery was attempted at 8 p.m. but another entry at 7:58 p.m. – two minutes earlier – said, “Package is returning to seller because recipient did not accept it” and that I would receive a full refund.

Again, WHAT THE HOLY HELL?! I was home the entire evening and no delivery was attempted at 8 p.m. – just that one confused driver who stopped by briefly at 3:16 p.m.

I also noticed that at 6:41 a.m. on Saturday (May 10), the “Package arrived at carrier facility.”

So, I go online seeking the location, hours of operation and phone number of the “carrier facility” (I suppose that’s a fancy term for distribution warehouse) in Baton Rouge.

I discovered that there a couple of dozen (or so) locations for UPS facilities in Baton Rouge but the one I’m looking for is apparently on Airline Highway in Baton Rouge and is open until 10 p.m. Good, I’ll give them a call and find out why my package is being returned.

Except, to my dismay, I find that every single UPS facility in Baton Rouge – and apparently every single one in North America – has the same 800 number. That’s pretty off-putting in itself. But undeterred, I plunge ahead and called the number.

I get recordings and punch in all the correct numbers on my phone’s keypad and confirm the tracking number and the recording tells me the package is being returned to sender. I knew that; I wanted to know why, so I ask to speak to a representative. I was forced to repeat that request three or four times before the recording decided to make me someone else’s problem and transferred me to a representative – in Calcutta.

To say his English was fractured would be an understatement but despite the difficulties in understanding him, I managed to convey my displeasure at the turn of events.

At which point, he said the package was being returned because recipient did not accept delivery.

“A damned lie!” I said as calmly as I could, which my wife says was not calm at all.

After some back and forth, he finally said he would change the obvious error (error my gluteus maximus, somebody flat-out lied about attempting a second delivery). I again tried to convince him that no one ever attempted a second delivery.

No problem, he assured me. The package would be delivered the next day (Tuesday) and I would get a confirmation text on my phone in the next hour or so.

Well, suffice it to say, no confirmation text ever came through and come Tuesday night, still no package. So, Wednesday morning, hands trembling, voice cracking and with great trepidation, I called that 800 number again.

After going around and around with that AI robot, I finally was transferred to a live representative – this time, I think, in Bombay.

He starts in with that second delivery refusal nonsense again but I stopped him. “Don’t try to tell me about a second delivery attempt because there was no second delivery attempt. Ever.”

“The package is being returned to sender because recipient…”

“Don’t! I told you there was no second attempt!”

He put me on hold for what seemed like a very long time but was actually about five minutes before he returned to tell me that the delivery attempts had gone to the wrong address.

“Wrong address?” I thundered.

Yes, recipient refused delivery on second…”

“Wait. What? You just said it went to the wrong address but now we’re back on my refusing delivery. Listen to me carefully. There was no second delivery attempt. Ever.”

“Please hold while I check.”

I thought he’d just put me on hold to check already but what the hell. Okay.

He came back to explain that after the second delivery attempt was refused, the package was being returned to the sender.”

A tad exasperated by this point, I again attempted to explain there was no bloody second delivery attempt because I was home the entire evening and no one from UPS drove down our street other that that one befuddled driver at 3:16 p.m. I implored, beseeched, pleaded, begged and cajoled him, maybe even while sobbing a little, not to ever tell me again that I refused delivery on a second attempt.

“Please hold while I check.”

Sigh.

Eventually, he returned, though for the life of me, I don’t know why. I would have “lost” the phone connection long ago. But this time, he then tells me the package was being returned because of insufficient address on the package.

Good thing I wasn’t drinking coffee when he said that or I’d have spit it out all over my keyboard.

“They didn’t seem to have an insufficient address when the first UPS truck showed up at my house at 3:16 p.m. on Monday,” I sputtered. “They found me then so why couldn’t they find me later? You’ve now given me no fewer than four separate reasons why my package is being returned: First it was loaded onto the wrong truck; then I refused delivery; then it went to the wrong address and finally, the package had an insufficient address…”

“Yes, that is correct.”

At that point, I terminated the conversation with a verb and a pronoun with a vow to myself to never use UPS again as long as I could have any control over matters.

Here is the tracking record for the package from the date is was shipped by the seller on Thursday, May 8, until it was returned, ostensibly because I refused delivery (which I never did):

Shipped with UPS

Tracking ID: (redacted so Elon Musk can’t access it)

The same order status information that UPS Customer Service associates can access:

Tuesday, May 13

8:00 PM

Delivery attempted.

Baton Rouge, LA US

7:58 PM

Package is returning to seller because recipient did not accept it.

Baton Rouge, LA US

9:33 AM

Package is out for delivery.

Baton Rouge, LA US

Monday, May 12

3:16 PM

Delivery attempted.

Baton Rouge, LA US

9:19 AM

Package is out for delivery.

Baton Rouge, LA US

Saturday, May 10

6:41 AM

Package arrived at a carrier facility.

Baton Rouge, LA US

3:40 AM

Package arrived at a carrier facility.

Lake Charles, LA US

3:40 AM

Package left the carrier facility.

Lake Charles, LA US

1:45 AM

Package arrived at a carrier facility.

Lake Charles, LA US

Friday, May 9

10:42 PM

Package left the carrier facility.

Houston, TX US

2:29 PM

Package arrived at a carrier facility.

Houston, TX US

Thursday, May 8

11:47 AM

Package arrived at a carrier facility.

Houston, TX US

Package left the shipper facility

A New Orleans reader sent the following letter that was posted on FB, supposedly by a school superintendent, in response to Tub-A-Lardo Trump and his secretary of education demanding that school districts gut equity programs:

Secretary of Education and WWE faux-wrestling promoter, Linda McMahon, and the Trump administration gave schools 10 days to gut their equity programs or lose funding. One superintendent responded with a letter so clear, so bold, and so unapologetically righteous, it deserves to be read in full.

April 8, 2025

To Whom It May (Unfortunately) Concern at the U.S. Department of Education:

Thank you for your April 3 memorandum, which I read several times — not because it was legally persuasive, but because I kept checking to see if it was satire. Alas, it appears you are serious.

You’ve asked me, as superintendent of a public school district, to sign a “certification” declaring that we are not violating federal civil rights law — by, apparently, acknowledging that civil rights issues still exist. You cite Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, then proceed to argue that offering targeted support to historically marginalized students is somehow discriminatory.

That’s not just legally incoherent — it’s a philosophical Möbius strip of bad faith.

Let me see if I understand your logic:

• If we acknowledge racial disparities, that’s racism.
• If we help English learners catch up, that’s favoritism.
• If we give a disabled child a reading aide, we’re denying someone else the chance to struggle equally.
• And if we train teachers to understand bias, we’re indoctrinating them — but if we train them to ignore it, we’re “restoring neutrality”?

How convenient that your sudden concern for “equal treatment” seems to apply only when it’s used to silence conversations about race, identity, or inequality.

Let’s talk about our English learners. Would you like us to stop offering translation services during parent-teacher conferences? Should we cancel bilingual support staff to avoid the appearance of “special treatment”? Or would you prefer we just teach all content in English and hope for the best, since acknowledging linguistic barriers now counts as discrimination?

And while we’re at it — what’s your official stance on IEPs? Because last I checked, individualized education plans intentionally give students with disabilities extra support.

Should we start removing accommodations to avoid offending the able-bodied majority? Maybe cancel occupational therapy altogether so no one feels left out?

If a student with a learning disability receives extended time on a test, should we now give everyone extended time, even if they don’t need it? Just to keep the playing field sufficiently flat and unthinking?

Your letter paints equity as a threat. But equity is not the threat. It’s the antidote to decades of failure. Equity is what ensures all students have a fair shot. Equity is what makes it possible for a child with a speech impediment to present at the science fair. It’s what helps the nonverbal kindergartner use an AAC device. It’s what gets the newcomer from Ukraine the ESL support she needs without being left behind.

And let’s not skip past the most insulting part of your directive — the ten-day deadline. A national directive sent to thousands of districts with the subtlety of a ransom note, demanding signatures within a week and a half or else you’ll cut funding that supports… wait for it… low-income students, disabled students, and English learners.

Brilliant. Just brilliant. A moral victory for bullies and bureaucrats everywhere.

So no, we will not be signing your “certification.”

We are not interested in joining your theater of compliance.

We are not interested in gutting equity programs that serve actual children in exchange for your political approval.

We are not interested in abandoning our legal, ethical, and educational responsibilities to satisfy your fear of facts.

We are interested in teaching the truth.

We are interested in honoring our students’ identities.

We are interested in building a school system where no child is invisible, and no teacher is punished for caring too much.

And yes — we are prepared to fight this. In the courts. In the press. In the community. In Congress, if need be.

Because this district will not be remembered as the one that folded under pressure.

We will be remembered as the one that stood its ground — not for politics, but for kids.

Sincerely,

District Superintendent

Still Teaching. Still Caring. Still Not Signing.

(I do not know if this is a real response or the creative work of a very clever person, and I do not care. I am posting it either way because I can absolutely validate the perspective.)

At least one member of Louisiana’s congressional delegation is doing his job.

U.S. Rep. Troy A. Carter, Sr. (D-LA) continued doing the job he was elected to do (as opposed to doing the what a hack reality show host and the world’s richest man want) in a 36-hour-long Energy and Commerce Committee business meeting debating the Republican partisan budget reconciliation bill. Under this plan, Republicans will impose $715 billion in Medicaid cuts.

Carter invited Katie, Coye, Connor and Cooper Corkern from Louisiana to join him as an example of a local family who will be devastated by these Medicaid cuts. Connor John Corkern was born 18 years ago with a congenital brain malformation. His parents were shocked at the news of his diagnosis as his mother Katie’s pregnancy was uneventful.

At just six weeks old, Connor’s parents were told that his brain malformation was so significant that he would need one on one care for all aspects of his life. He was blind, developmentally delayed, had poor muscle tone, was fed through a tube, had numerous types of seizures every day, had an underdeveloped pituitary gland, needed hormone replacement medications, had an immune deficiency disorder, and was nonverbal. Coye, a Louisiana law enforcement officer, and Katie, a Special Education Teacher, spent much of their time with Connor at Children’s Hospital in New Orleans as their son’s seizures and illnesses turned into life-threatening events.

After nearly a decade of being on a waiting list for a home and community-based disability waiver, Connor was given an emergency New Opportunities Waiver (NOW) in 2015. The NOW waiver afforded them Medicaid despite their income, and with that came help in caring for Connor at his own home with his parents and two brothers. Connor’s skilled nurse has been with him for 10 years now. She cares for Connor while his parents work. Connor has also had wonderful direct support professionals who assist him in the evenings while his parents bring his brothers to and from extracurricular activities and events.

When Connor was first diagnosed, his physicians warned his parents that his life was extremely fragile and there was a high chance he would not survive childhood.  On May 7, 2025, Connor graduated from high school with his peers.

“We’re here because the Republican Majority is attempting to do exactly what they promised: rip people’s health care away from them,” said Carter.“Under this plan, Republicans will impose drastic Medicaid cuts–which will result in millions of Americans losing their health care, destroy our hospitals and close the nursing homes our parents and grandparents rely upon while blowing-up states’ budgets, including Louisiana’s.

These cuts will put the elderly, the disabled, and our children at risk – all so they can give trillions of dollars in tax breaks to billionaires and large corporations. Simply put- this is cruel, inhumane and wrong.

“Connor’s story is an example of why Medicaid is so important for countless families across the United States. Republicans need to know that these cuts are not just numbers on paper, these are decisions with real-life consequences that will hurt our people. Medicaid plays a crucial role in providing life-saving care to millions of Americans and Louisianians, and it’s essential that we continue to support and strengthen this program – not make it harder for people to access care.

Let’s make it easier for children, like Connor, and their families to access these critical services made possible through Medicaid, not harder. Connor’s story could be any family’s story. The story of our family should not be written in a genetic lottery. Every family is precious.”

View video from Tuesday’s meeting HERE, HERE and HERE and below are a couple of photos from the family’s time in Washington.

Now, the question of the day is: where the holy hell are Republicans Julia Letlow, Steve KKK Scalise, Mike “I’m proud to have a porn monitoring app on my phone” Johnson and Super Cop (as in public information officer) Clay Higgins and fellow Democrat Cleo Fields while Carter was doing his job?

A story by Julie O’Donoghue in the Louisiana Illuminator last Tuesday caught my eye.

Actually, it was her opening paragraph, or as we call it in the trade, the lede, that got my attention – which is, after all, the purpose of a lede: to grab the reader’s attention.

“Louisiana lawmakers,” O’Donoghue wrote, “are quickly moving legislation that would dramatically expand the types of gifts elected officials and government employees could receive while doing their jobs.”

Boiling it down even further, it was the phrase “quickly moving” that sent up the red flags and set off bells and whistles. That’s “quickly moving,” as in too quickly. Those bills that legislators push so strongly and seek quick passage for are generally what are referred to as “snakes,” as in something to be killed.

The sneak amendment that Sen. Neil Riser pushed through on the very last day of the 2014 legislative session that would’ve given then-State Police Superintendent Mike Edmonson a generous bump in his retirement of something on the level of an additional $23,000 or $43,000 per year (depending on whom you asked) comes to mind. That amendment passed but was later thrown out when then-Sen. DAN CLAITOR of Baton Rouge filed suit to rescind the increase.

Actually, there are two such bills that address much the same issue: ethics.

Both bills were submitted by Republicans and if you haven’t noticed, it’s the Republicans who pretend to claim the high moral ground: family values, responsible spending and ethics. Yet, it seems to be Republicans who most often get caught committing sexual hanky-panky (of course, there are Democrats who stray as well, but the scales tip decidedly to the right), who increase the federal deficit and who seem to be constantly trying to weaken the state’s ethics and campaign finance laws (see Govs. Bobby Jindal and Jeff Landry).

There are HOUSE BILL 596 by Rep. Mark Wright (R-Covington) which generally eliminates campaign reporting laws, and HB 674 by Rep. Beau Beaullieu (R-New Iberia), which pretty much guts ethics laws.

So you can make your own determination as to what they say, here are the actual copies of HB 596 and HB 674 in their entirety. The full House was SUFFICIENTLY SATISFIED to pass the bill by a UNANIMOUS 96-0 VOTE with eight members not voting. It now goes to the Senate for consideration.

Now throw in HB 160 by Rep. Kellee Dickerson (R-Denham Springs), and you have the perfect Republican ethics trifecta.

Wright’s bill was originally scheduled to be heard by the House and Governmental Affairs Committee last Wednesday but was not brought up for consideration. HB 674 is pending before that same committee.

Dickerson did present her bill to the H&GA Committee – if you want to call it that. You’ll need to scroll to the 16-MINUTE MARK of the nearly three-hour committee meeting to see for yourself.

For a former TV news personality, she was terribly ill-at-ease, fumbling with her notes far too much at the outset. She eventually got around to calling HB 160 a “strong bill to make a strong difference,” but made her pitch in an embarrassingly weak manner, filled with vague, unsubstantiated claims. It’s no wonder the committee never even voted on her bill.

Basically, what HB 160 would do would be to prohibit anonymous complaints to the State Ethics Board, instead allowing the accused to face his or her accuser. It would not only require that a complaint be made in writing, but that the complainant would be required to file the complaint “in person with the Board at the offices of the ethics administration.” There would be monetary penalties in the form of legal fees for any complainant who “knowingly and willfully files a false ethics complaint.”

Okay, no problem with assessing attorney fees against someone who files a trivial complaint for the wrong reasons, but to require face-to-face confrontation when an employee may wish to file a complaint against a supervisor whom he believes to be in violation of ethics laws only invites retribution. Moreover, requiring a complainant in say, Shreveport, to journey all the way to Baton Rouge is a bit burdensome.

Now, compare red state Louisiana’s 17-year trend toward weakened ethics laws (dating to the onset of Bobby Jindal’s first term as governor in 2008) with that of blue state Maryland (seven of its last nine governors were/are Democrats)  which has just enacted TOUGH NEW ETHICS LAWS in response to the ethical lapses of former Gov. Larry Hogan, a (ahem) Republican.

It’s almost as though there’s this big mural being painted to illustrate more precisely just which party is only pretending to represent morality and virtue.

On Friday, The Atlantic moved a story into my email inbox that bore the headline, “TYRE NICHOLS AND THE END OF POLICE REFORM.”

What followed was a 960-word essay by writer David Graham about the now-defunct special Memphis police squad that called itself SCORPION (apparently members deemed it such an elite force that it deserved no less than the use of all caps in its name) which literally beat Nichols, an unarmed black man, to death.

The five officers apparently considered themselves so immune from responsibility that they carried out their brutality – in full view of SkyCop a Memphis surveillance camera – in the confidence that they would not be held accountable.

Turns out they were partially correct. Though they were fired soon enough and their SORPION union disbanded, three of the officers walked after their acquittal earlier in the week. Two others had already pleaded guilty to lesser charges.

Now, The Atlantic is one of the last great American publications and Graham certainly possesses greater street creds than most writers plying their trade these days. But calling the Memphis travesty the “end of police reform”?

I’m afraid that ship sailed long before the Nichols killing – right here in Louisiana, in fact – in places like Union Parish. And Baton Rouge. And Ouachita Parish. And Franklin Parish.

In fact, LouisianaVoice has published some 175 stories about State Police misconduct all over Louisiana – from Monroe to Houma, from Lake Charles to New Orleans and most of which went not only unpunished, but was covered up in elaborate efforts to shield miscreant officers. And those don’t even include the sheriffs featured in my book, Louisiana’s Rogue Sheriffs: A Culture of Corruption, which exposed sheriffs who ran drugs and prostitution, routinely beat prisoners for entertainment, sanctioned killings, enriched themselves unethically and harassed citizens.

Those include:

The acquittal of State Trooper Jacob Brown for the 2019 beating of AARON BOWMAN, an African American that left Bowman, of Monroe with a broken jaw, broken ribs and a gash to his head. He struck Bowman 18 times with his flashlight and between 2015 and 2021, the year he resigned, he was involved in 23 use of force incidents, 19 of which targeted black people, according to the Associated Press. In 2024, he applied for more than $210,000 in legal fees he said the state owed him as the cost of his defense.

The 2020 beating of ANTONIO HARRIS, a black man, in Franklin Parish by three State Troopers, including Jacob Brown, also implicated in the beating of Bowman above, and Dakota DeMoss, one of several State Troopers involved in the beating of Ronald Greene in May of 2019.

Brown was also captured on video slamming DeShawn Washington against the hood of a police cruiser during a 2019 traffic stop. An Associated Press INVESTIGATION revealed a pattern of concealing beatings at the hands of State Police.

Bowman and Harris were lucky. They survived their beatings. Greene did not. Officers told Greene’s mother that he died as the result of an accident when his car collided with a tree but the damage to his car was only minor and a body cam video that surfaced much later (after officers initially said there was no video) showed him pleading for his life as cops piled on.

When an investigation into the lies and coverup of events surrounding Greene’s death and widespread cheating at the State Police Academy, rather than investigate the events themselves, State Police brass PORED THEIR EFFORTS into trying to determine the SOURCE OF INFORMATION LEAKS.

Trooper KORY YORK, who had faced the most serious charges of the five officers indicted in the case after video showed him dragging Greene by his ankle shackles, pleaded no contest to misdemeanor batter and received only a year’s probation, was allowed to retire and to qualify for his pension of nearly $83,000 per year. Two other troopers involved in the Greene beating death, Dakota DeMoss and John Peters, had their charges of obstruction of justice dismissed. Despite the beating and tasing death of Greene, those were the only charges against DeMoss and Peters.

As if the attempts at covering up their misdeeds were not enough, the Special Legislative Committee to Inquire into the Circumstances and Investigation of the Death of Ronald Greene held one or two perfunctory hearings and then QUIETLY FADED AWAY, more or less confirming the contention by LouisianaVoice that it never really intended to delve too deeply into the issue in the first place.

And then there’s the so-called “BRAVE CAVE” warehouse operated by Baton Rouge Police Department’s “Street Crimes Unit.” Eerily reminiscent of the Memphis PD’s SCORPION outfit, local cops would take suspects to the warehouse where as many as 1,000 suspects were strip searched and even beaten. Like SCORPION, BRPD’s Street Crimes Unit has been disbanded.

All of which brings us full circle back to that headline in The Atlantic. The “End of Police Reform,” it seems, occurred well before the acquittals of those three Memphis cops. And the argument could be made that that ending took place right here in Louisiana.