Louisiana Voice

Do U.S. senators Bill Cassidy and John Kennedy represent the best interests of Louisianans or do they reflect the wishes of Agent Orange, aka El Presidente Trump, aka Supreme Threat to the U.S. Constitution?

For that answer we need only scrutinize their votes for confirmation of Trump nominees.

Let’s begin with one of the more controversial ones to come up for Senate confirmation.

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, he of the misuse of social media.You may recall the flap over the use of a personal email server by then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to send and receive classified messages. There was an FBI investigation. The final six paragraphs of then FBI director JAMES COMEY’S STATEMENT on that investigation are key.

That’s because Hegseth committed a SIMILAR FAUX PAS not once, but twice within the span of a few weeks. Now, let’s jump back to his Senate confirmation which was approved by the RAZOR -THIN 51-49 VOTE. Cassidy and Kennedy both voted yea. Had they used the information they already had about Hegseth’s drinking and womanizing proclivities to justify nay votes, the vote would have been 49-51. Had just one of them voted no, it would have been a 50-50 tie. Either way, the nomination of the tragically unfit Hegseth would have failed.

Okay, let’s examine another nominee, one Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. (no relation to Louisiana’s esteemed Foghorn Leghorn (“Nice, Ah say nice girl, but about as sharp as a sack o’ wet mice.”). It would only have taken nay votes by Cassidy and John Kennedy to negate the 52-48 VOTE for a guy who has vowed to investigate FICTIONAL CHEMTRAILS, those white trails that hang suspended in the wake of military jet aircraft. (They’re fictional because they’re not chemical trails – or trails of toxic chemicals being sprayed on unsuspecting Americans – but contrails, or clouds that form when water vapor condenses and freezes around small particles – aerosols – in aircraft exhausts). This guy will be personally responsible for setting medical research back 50 years or more but Cassidy (a physician, no less) and Kennedy each voted for him.

Remember Kristi Noem, former governor of South Dakota who infamously admitted to shooting a dog because it wouldn’t hunt? Well, she’s now our SECRETARY OF HOMELAND SECURITY, thanks to a 59-34 Senate vote. Two of those yea votes came from Cassidy and Kennedy.

And then there’s Tulsi Gabbard, who was confirmed by another close VOTE OF 52-48, despite that mysterious 2017 TRIP TO SYRIA where she met with then-President Bashar al-Assad who, since the overthrow of his corrupt government, hightailed it to safe haven in Russia. Details of her meeting with the tyrant president have never been revealed. Had our two senators but changed their votes from yea to nay, her nomination to this ultra-sensitive position would have been thwarted.

Another nominee who has proven to be more than a little controversial is Trump’s pick for attorney general, Pam Bodi. She was approved with a MORE COMFORTABLE MARGIN OF 54-46, partly on the support of Louisiana’s two senators, who both voted to confirm. To date, she has used the Justice Department to go after universities, attorneys and foreign nationals (with legal residence status) who had the temerity to protest U.S. foreign policy (a right our U.S. Constitution supposedly guarantees, but one which the Trump administration chooses to ignore).

Then there is Linda McMahon, nominated with the express intent of dismantling the agency she was chosen to head (U.S. Department of Education). McMahon’s single qualification for presiding over education is her experience as a professional wrestling promoter (Hulk Hogan, Haystack McCall, Andre the Giant, et al come to mind as ambassadors of this gentlemanly sport, definitely not fixed). Approved by a SENATE VOTE OF 51-45, she has since, under orders from Trump, no doubt, informed Harvard that billions of dollars in federal research grants would not be forthcoming unless Harvard ceased its DEI appointments. This from an administration that bases its entire existence on its own version of DEI, a word Trump can’t spell even if you spot him the D and the E. No problem for Cassidy and John Kennedy, though, who each fell all over themselves in their eagerness to vote yea on McMahon’s appointment.

And as Trump Lapdog in Chief, there’s KASH PATEL, Trump’s nominee for FBI director – a rather odd choice given that Patel, as a major apologist for Agent Orange, has been loudly critical of the FBI as an agent of the so-called “Deep State.” No matter. Patel managed to suck up to Trump by writing a children’s book titled The Plot Against the King, described as “featuring a thinly-veiled Hillary Clinton as the villain going after ‘King Donald’” with Kash playing a wizard who manages to frustrate her plans. Talk about lap dogs…Of course, Cassidy and Kennedy both fell in line and voted thumbs-up on this ultimate lickspittle.

And then there are Lee Zeldin, now head of EPA, THANKS TO A 56-42 SENATE VOTE. (It didn’t take long for the EPA, under his leadership, to launch the MOST EXENSIVE DEREGULATORY ACTION in U.S. history) and former U.S. Sen. Kelly Loeffler, who was approved by a 53-45 vote to be ADMINISTRATOR OF THE SMALL BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION despite revelations that as a new senator back in early 2020, she sold $20 million in stock following a briefing in the weeks leading up to the coronavirus pandemic. Although she was eventually cleared of insider training, the stench of those charges remained. Naturally, Cassidy and Kennedy could be counted on by Trump to obediently toe the line and vote yea for both Zeldin and Loeffler.

Do you see a trend here? Can you see both Cassidy and Kennedy blindly following Republican Party directives and voting for anything – and anyone – their master Trump wants? Can you detect a definitive inclination to do whatever ringmaster Trump commands, benefits to the people of Louisiana be damned?

Ask yourself if you can ever count on these two when the chips are on the table to cast their lot with the people they represent or the party to which they are obviously beholden.

I think, in your heart of hearts, you know the answer.

Congressman Troy A. Carter, Sr. (D-LA), member of the U.S. House Energy and Commerce Committee, issued the following statement:

“The reckless DOGE chainsaw cuts from the Trump/Musk administration are more than just numbers on a spreadsheet — they are a clear and present danger to the people, economy, and environment of Louisiana.

“The ongoing oil spill off Louisiana’s Gulf Coast is rapidly contaminating our marshlands, threatening vital wildlife habitats, and endangering the fisheries that so many Louisiana families depend on. Yet at this critical moment, the federal teams we rely on for rapid response — like NOAA’s Emergency Response Division — have been gutted. Over 1,000 NOAA staff have been laid off or forced into early retirement, including eight from the very unit tasked with addressing oil and chemical spills. We are watching decades of expertise — innumerable years collectively — walk out the door.

“As oil shoots 30 to 40 feet into the air from a well that should have been permanently sealed years ago, we are left scrambling to contain a disaster with fewer people, fewer resources, and fewer answers. This week marks 15 years since the Deepwater Horizon tragedy, and yet here we stand, once again, dangerously unprepared.

“As a Member of Congress representing Louisiana’s 2nd Congressional District and a member of the Energy and Commerce Committee, I will explore every avenue to expose and reverse these short-sighted, penny-wise, pound-foolish policies. We owe it to our communities, our environment, and our future generations to safeguard Louisiana’s coast — before it’s too late.”

Back during my 20 years wasted as a defender of the state fisc via my service (sarcasm) as an Office of Risk Management (ORM) claims adjuster (the worst claims adjuster ever, in my humble estimation). I can only surmise that when our in-house attorney counseled me – with a straight face – on one occasion that I was “the best adjuster on the floor,” it was just his feeble attempt at motivation – or perhaps some sick, inside joke.

That bit of dark humor aside, our job at ORM, as best as I can ascertain, was to babysit legal files, keep a log of communication with defense attorneys (usually some friend of the attorney general, who made the recommendations for assignments) and real-life (as opposed to us, who were usually hired off the street with zero experience) adjusters.

By babysit, I mean that our job was to do nothing official on our files (which, I might add, were too many, in the first place, for one person to manage efficiently) and to pass on eventual recommendations to settle lawsuits over the state’s abysmal state highways only after the defense attorneys, adjusters and expert witnesses (again, usually political contributors to the attorney general or governor) had run the clock out and sucked as much money from the state as reasonably – sometimes unreasonably –  acceptable under the unwritten rules of “just pay the damn bills.”

After settlement, we adjusters were tasked with evaluating the defense attorney on the case and God help adjuster who gave a negative review. We would be ordered to explain in detail why we would do such an evil thing. We would literally be put on trial ourselves, forced to defend our eval. It reached a point with me that I just checked everything as “favorable,” no matter how bad the attorney was, just to avoid the grilling from our own legal counsel.

That is not to say the other side didn’t load up with its own hired guns, particularly the same “experts” who showed up repeatedly on lawsuit after lawsuit to opine just how negligent the state was in every. single. case.

I bring all this up to cite one “expert” in particular – a former employee of the Department of Transportation and Development (DOTD), the named defendant in all highway lawsuits. This guy had gone over to what we not-so-jokingly referred to as the “dark side” by consistently testifying against the state. The regularity of his participation was almost as if he’d never left the DOTD payroll – except, of course, he was now on the other side.

This expert also had his own web page back then that was dedicated to what he quite seriously referred to as “CHEMTRAILS” (chemical trails), those while trails that a lot of jets leave in their wake as they streak across the sky. That page has since been taken down, replaced by his exhausting, 700-page testament to his faith in God, The Complete Deliverance Manual. (He’s also penned books – manuals – on witchcraft deliverance (“a comprehensive guide to receive freedom from witchcraft”), on breaking curses (“an instruction manual on how to break curses”), healing deliverance (a manual to guide in healing and deliverance from diseases”) ( sexual deliverance (“a manual eo assist in deliverance from sexual demons and sins”), on end times deliverance (“a deliverance manual dealing with issues pertaining to the end times”) and others in the same vein.

In reality, though, they’re not chemical trails at all, but CONDENSATION TRAILS (“contrails”), formed when hot humid exhaust from aircraft engines mixes with the cold, moist air at high altitudes, causing water vapor to condense and freeze into ice crystals, creating that white visible trail one sees in the sky.

But you’d never know it by this guy. He willfully and irresponsibly lays claim to the completely debunked myth that what he stubbornly referred to as chemtrails are in reality alternately poisonous bases being released on the citizenry by the guvmint or an insidious plot devised by Democrats to control the weather (thereby shooting down MTG’s Jewish laser beam theory), a conspiracy theory that has prompted NUMEROUS STATES to enact or consider legislation banning them in their respective states.

Seriously, have these people lost their damn minds?

It’s difficult for a rational mind to consider such a possibility unless one arbitrarily decides that the instigators have no families of their own would be exposed to harm by such thing as toxic gases or that control of the weather would not necessarily concentrate on an individual target but instead would inflict damage on a wide swath of America.

But that hasn’t stopped Donald Trump-appointed Secretary of Health and Human Services ROBERT F. KENNEDY, JR. – he who leaves bear carcasses in Central Park and who decapitates deceased whales with a chain saw and transports them home atop his car and who subscribes to the idiotic chemtrail theory to such an extent that he has promised a full-scale investigation of this hoo-haw  theory-crap.

This Kennedy, in start contrast to his father and uncles, is a bona fide nutcase who in bent on destroying America’s healthcare, not improving it.

What’s more, Louisiana’s two U.S. senators VOTED TO CONFIRM his appointment. That’s both, as in Sen. Bill Cassidy, a medical doctor who certainly knew better and Sen. John N. Kennedy (no relation), who, being a RHODES SCHOLAR, damn-well should’ve known better – but then he has brought into a number of half-ass theories when they serve his Trumpian purposes.

And for those diabetics and cancer sufferers, you can take comfort in the knowledge that RFK Jr. was confirmed by the overwhelming vote of 52-48, meaning that if Louisiana’s two supposedly intelligent senators had voted no, the vote would have been 50-50 and RFK Jr.’s confirmation would have failed – as it should have.

But hey! /don’t go dissing (or pissing) on their reputations, no matter how sullied. They’re intelligent men, as to which their professions and academic credentials will testify, and Cassidy is ever-so-desperate to get back in Trump’s good graces that he would vote to confirm Idi Amin or Hitler (because he’s up for reelection next year) while John Kennedy long ago sold his soul to everything Trump, merits or qualifications be damned.

Because these two held the swing votes in their hands, I must conclude that whatever loony tunes theory RFK Jr. may concoct down the road and his methods of dealing with same, Cassidy and Kennedy will be complicit. They will be unable to separate themselves from the consequences for their votes will stick to them like tar as long as RFK Jr. remains at his post.

Cassidy and John N. Kennedy are bound together in history. They’re now joined at the hip. In short, whatever happens down the road, they own it.

Mark that down. Bank it. Most of all, remember where you read it.

(Editor’s note): The following appeared in my email in-box this morning and I was so struck by the heartfelt sincerity of the words below that I decided to post his remarks on LouisianaVoice. His words are a testament to what can be achieved through determination and honest effort – not bullying, false claims or illegal tactics and threats.

Ours is not a perfect world or even a perfect society and the U.S. is certainly no paradise, Shangri-La or fantasyland but it is the best that be found on this planet. As Winston Churchill said, our form of government is the worst there is – “except for every other kind.”

Troy Carter, U.S. Congressman for Louisiana’s Second District, writes not of his election to the U.S. Congress but of his service in the Louisiana House of Representatives. While we still have a lonf way to go in this state and nation to eradicate mistrust and bigotry and while it would be so easy to stress the negative and to dwell on that which is lacking, Carter chooses to focus on the positive of progress made as opposed to the negative of progress still to be made:

When I discovered a photograph of the Louisiana House of Representatives Class of 1932, I was immediately struck by its profound significance — and by the reminder that personal history and public history so often walk hand in hand.

At that time, the Louisiana Legislature was a place reserved exclusively for white men. Jim Crow laws ruled the South, enforcing brutal segregation, denying African Americans access to equal education, fair voting rights, and basic human dignity.

Just two years later, in 1934, my mother was born — into a world where her aspirations would be constrained not by her ability, but by the color of her skin.

She grew up in the shadows of “whites-only” signs, segregated schools, and entrenched systemic injustice.

It was not until 1954, when Brown v. Board of Education challenged the conscience of the nation, that the legal walls of segregation first began to crack — though the true fight for equality would endure for decades to come.

Yet she persevered. Our community persevered.

A generation of mothers, fathers, leaders, and dreamers pressed forward, sustained by the belief that one day the halls of power would reflect the faces, hopes, and aspirations of all Louisianians.

Exactly sixty years after that 1932 photograph was taken — in 1992 — I had the distinct honor of being elected to the Louisiana House of Representatives as a very young man, and as the first African American ever elected from New Orleans’ Algiers community.

Following that milestone, I was blessed to achieve several other firsts:
 • The first African American elected to the New Orleans City Council from Algiers,
 • The first elected from Algiers to the Louisiana State Senate,
 • And ultimately, the first African American to be elected to the United States Congress from the Westbank of New Orleans’ Algiers.

To stand in the same chamber where individuals who looked like my mother and me were once legally barred — and to serve the community that shaped and nurtured me — remains one of the greatest honors of my life.

My mother’s life embodied quiet strength, boundless hope, and unwavering faith.
My election was not mine alone — it was hers as well.

It represented the triumph of faith over fear, perseverance over prejudice, and love over hate.

History lives in the choices we make, the barriers we break, and the dreams we dare to believe are possible.

I will forever be proud to have been part of that living history — and even prouder to continue the work of carrying it forward.

Troy A. Carter, Sr.
United States Congressman
2nd District, Louisiana

Limited time opportunity! Act now before deadline! Time is running out! Limited time before tariffs kick in! No sales tax if you act now! LAST DAY!!

Is that enough hype for you? God, I hope so because there is no tariff or sales tax. The only alternative for me is to get a law license and advertise on a noon TV news cast that contains only fluff and rehashed news only to keep lawyer ads from bumping together: “I AM Louisiana’s supplicating, attorney!” But I don’t have an annoying, silly jingle nor do I hire actors to give faux testimony

A calmer and more rational approach, I think, is to simply say this is the last day for LouisianaVoice’s April fundraiser.

It’s also quieter to say the largest single contribution will receive a first-edition copy of Huey Long’s autobiography, Every Man A King and that all contributions of $50 or more will receive a freee, signed copy of my latest book, 101 Wrongful Convictions in Louisiana. But that’s only if you act today because, unlike some solicitors, the deadline will not be extended.

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