Louisiana Voice

In case you are one of those who continues to cling to the belief that Republicans are for “good government,” “transparency,” and some “gold standard” of ethics, you might want to consider actions Jeff Landry has taken to hide the homeless from the prying eyes of football fans during next Sunday’s Super Bowl.

You’ll notice that I said “hide,” not “solve” the growing problem of homelessness in every major city in America. That’s because he’d rather throw $17.5 million at a politically-connected firm to serve as a band-aid for a cancer rather than make any serious effort to actually address the problem.

Of course, this is the governor, who after getting in trouble with the State Ethics Board, moved to solve that problem by simply taking over the board. More on that later, but first let’s look at his actions in eradicating homelessness in New Orleans.

Actually, I can make it easy for you by providing this link to THE GUARDIAN which just today published a lengthy story about that very issue, though some expanding is necessary.

The Guardian alluded to a political connection between Landry and the company that received a no-bid $17.5 million contract to herd homeless individuals into an unheated warehouse, but it did so without explaining what that specific connection was.

An outfit called Workforce Group initially estimated that it would take about $16 million to run the warehouse for 90 days but later revised that estimate upward to $17.5 million. No problem, even though that amount is about what a year’s rent on a one-bedroom apartment for 1,177 people (about 80 percent of New Orleans’ unhoused population).

Never mind that the warehouse has been described as unsafe for human habitation by a representative of a New Orleans city council member who noted that the building had no flooring, no insulated walls, was open with no heating. Of course, Landry might argue that they were living on the street anyway, so what’s the difference? The difference is the state wasn’t throwing $17.5 mil at political cronies to allow them live on the street.

Never mind that there were no bids on the contract; just declare an emergency and never mind that the $17.5 million price tag was about twice what one leading agency was already spending to alleviate homelessness.

Look, let’s be reasonable here. As long as visitors to the Super Bowl are unable to see homeless people wandering around, the problem really doesn’t exist, right? It’s kind of like when your car engine makes a funny noise, you turn the radio volume up so you can’t hear it. Of if the check engine light comes on, just cover it with a piece of tape – that’ll fix it.

Anyway, the contract to relocate the homeless people want to a company called Workforce Group, which is cleverly tucked away as a subsidiary of the Lemoine Co., a Lafayette corporation run by brothers Lenny and Tim Lemoine. The Lemoines are quite generous in making political contributions to Louisiana Republicans. The brothers’ nephew, Seth Lemoine, just happens to be the stepson of former gubernatorial candidate Eddie Rispone. Rispone was a major supporter of Landry in the 2023 governor’s race and each of the Lemoines contributed to Landry’s campaign and to other Republican candidates.

There’s an app adage for that: one hand washes the other – and boy, do those hands need washing.

Landry, throughout his political career, has left a long trail of questionable maneuvers and insider deals – hell, while attorney general he once sued someone for seeking a public record – so it should come as no surprise that he has continued that tradition now that he’s governor. I suppose in the game of Louisiana politics, it’s expected but just we shouldn’t expect him to be so obvious about it; at least make some effort toward honesty and integrity.

It apparently wasn’t enough that he slammed the door on public records by pushing legislation that removed the penalties for non-compliance, but he also made that brazen move to commandeer the ethics board by making his own APPOINTMENTS, including the chairman, even as he fought the board over his own ethics violations.

Then, in January, we learned that that same ethics board for seven months kept PERSONAL FINANCIAL DISCLOSURE FORMS of five of Landry’s top staff members from the ethics board’s web site even though under state law, the records are supposed to be public. The purpose of requiring the publication of the records is to hold public officials accountable and to guard against public servants enriching themselves through their government jobs – and gosh, we know that doesn’t happen.

Maybe it’s just me, but it somehow doesn’t seem right that any official with matters pending before any board would have authority to appoint any of its members. Seems to me that’d be like a defendant in a trial being able to appoint the judge and jury.

But then again, maybe that’s just Louisiana politics.

There’s an interesting story in today’s New York Times that quotes our junior senator as basically saying he doesn’t give a rat’s patootie about what any of his constituents think; he’s just going to allow himself to be sucked up into the Trump vortex until his brain, like that of IMPOTUS, is nothing but mush.

In fact, John N. Kennedy is already so far along that path that he long ago reached the point of no return.

Kennedy long ago – even before fellow senator Bill Cassidy’s shameful but at the same time, shameless, thumbs-up on yesterday’s confirmation hearing on Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as Secretary of Health – sold his soul to IMPOTUS.

He’s in so deep that he now actually believes he answers to no one other than the ringmaster of Washington’s three-ring circus.

What he doesn’t seem to understand is that politics is like a clock’s pendulum; it swings both ways. Right now, it’s at full-tilt right swing but one day, when the infatuation with this orange blowhard is past, it’ll swing back. A quick look at history will affirm that theory.

One day when Mrs. Putin has exited the White House and America comes to its senses, people like Kennedy, Mike Johnson and Clay Higgins will be footnotes, unworthy of serious study.

Think about it. What have they said or done, really? Clay Higgins froths at the mouth a lot. Mike Johnson has a porn app to monitor his son and vice-versa and Kennedy is Foghorn Leghorn reincarnated. Kennedy is full of platitudes and cliches that contribute nothing to serious debate and now, he’s even insulted all of us with his observation on Trump’s efforts to dismantle the federal government, starting with USAID when he said:

“To my friends who are upset, I would say with respect, you know, call somebody who cares. They better get used to this. It’s USAID today. It’s going to be Department of Education tomorrow.”

Seems to me he’s actually trying to take credit for what billionaire – and unelected – Elon Musk is doing. It also appears that he’s forgotten where he came from – Zachary – but let’s allow that to pass and concentrate on Kennedy’s Bronx cheer message: “Call somebody who cares.”

That’s about a crass as an elected official can get. If someone decides to run against this buffoon in six years, it would be wise to plaster TV ads with clips of Kennedy uttering those ignoble words.

“Call somebody who cares.”

LouisianaVoice, in an exclusive report, can report why Donald Trump is so vehemently opposed to DEI in the staffing of federal agencies.

It turns out that IMPOTUS is simply unable to spell DEI, even if you spot him the D and the E.

It’s as if there is some kind of mad competition to see who can sacrifice principles the fastest, to be the most subservient to Col. Bonespurs

From Sens. John Kennedy and Bill Cassidy to House Speaker Mike Johnson to Clay Higgins and Steve Scalise to Jeff Landry to President William Tate and the SLU Bored of Stupidvisors, the competition to curry favor with a man who has no conscience, no moral compass, no compassion for anyone or anything, is white-hot (with a growing emphasis on the word “white,” if you catch my drift).

ABC News capitulated on Trump’s lawsuit against the network, settling out of court when a news organization with any self-respect left would have fought the frivolous lawsuit to the bitter end. Same with Mark Zuckerberg, whose Meta also settled another lawsuit with trump for $25 million and CNN meekly shoved Jim Acosta out the door.

So, thanks to Cassidy, who is more afraid of losing his job than his dignity, we’re probably going to get a certified worm-brained, whale-chopping conspiracist for Secretary of Health – a man who knows absolutely zilch about health care.

And though he’s been relatively quiet as of late – a trait he rarely exemplifies – John Kennedy long ago tossed any hint of self-respect to the curb in favor of guaranteeing himself a job in America’s most exclusive club by consistently kissing the emperor’s ring, the best interests of his constituents back in Louisiana be damned.

And now State Treasurer John Fleming, the good doctor/UPS store/Subway sandwich shop/payday loan entrepreneur and erstwhile U.S. Representative from Minden has voiced his intentions to run against Cassidy next year. I guess Cassidy’s vote of approval of Robert F. Kennedy for Secretary of Health just wasn’t quite enough to overcome his vote in favor of conviction in the ol’ Trumper’s second impeachment trial.

It’s bad enough that Fleming pulled down more than $5 million in 2008, the year he was first elected, but he did so while refusing to contribute to the health care of most of his 500 employees. The precious few who did qualify were forced to pay a $3,300 deductible.

Fleming was critical of LouisianaVoice about a decade ago for what he perceived as our position of favoring “redistribution of wealth.” We responded that the only “redistribution of wealth” we were able to document was the upward flow of wealth to Wall Street, pharmaceutical companies and big oil and gas. It was at that point that Fleming did what he does best: he blocked us from further correspondence on Facebook. So much for public discourse and accountability to the electorate.

We also wrote about his payday loan company. Payday loan companies, which, by the way, our wonderful legislature has refused to rein in, feed on low-income, unsophisticated citizens by charging impossibly high interest rates that only perpetuate the problem of recurring, increasingly high debt for those struggling to survive. (That same legislature has exacerbated the problem by repeatedly refusing to increase the minimum wage in Louisiana.)

When I wrote about his payday loan operations and his refusal to provide decent health insurance for his employees, his public relations flak at the time demanded a retraction to the part about his payday loan company which the mouthpiece said was a corporation set up solely for Fleming’s employees (read: their pay was so abysmal that they were forced to borrow money from the boss at obscenely high interest rates). We responded at the time that we would be happy to print a retraction if (a) he could prove the story was untrue and (b) he would reveal to us how many medical malpractice lawsuits had been filed against Fleming’s medical practice.

I never heard from him again.

So now, LSU, most likely at the behest of Landry, has sent two professors at the Ole War Skule’s law school packing because they supposedly said nasty things about Trump and Landry. (Criticism and insults seem to be a one-way street in that respect.)

And LSU President William Tate, at $750,000 per year (with incentives that could double that number) ain’t about to step in to defend the First Amendment on behalf of his professors. No Siree, they’re on their own. I got mine, too bad about yours.

A state district judge did, however, intervene and ordered law professor Ken Levy reinstated but the First Circuit Court of Appeal reversed that on technical grounds which of course means the lawyers on each side will continue to rake in fees as the dispute winds its way up the food chain to the Louisiana State Supreme Court.

All things considered, the political scene in Louisiana today so far outstrips the shenanigans of previous administrations as to make Huey, Earl and Edwin look like reformers.

With the clown car we have running around this state, why do we even need a Super Bowl for entertainment?

For years, the Archdiocese of New Orleans turned a blind eye to the sexual abuse of some 550 children by Catholic priests and now the archdiocese and its leader, Archbishop Gregory Aymond appear to wants to victimize 400,000 hungry and needy residents in 23 Louisiana parishes.

About the same time that the controversy was erupting over the fate of the CEO and three board members of Second Harvest Food Bank, enterprising reporters from New Orleans broke a separate story about how the New Orleans Saints and New Orleans Pelicans became embroiled in apparent attempts to edit a list of priests credibly accused of abuse.

In an abrupt purge, Aymond last week fired the longtime head of Second Harvest Food Bank and three members of the organization’s board of directors – all because Second Harvest CEO Natalie Jayroe refused to pony up as much as $16 million toward the settlement of the class-action sex abuse lawsuit against the archdiocese on behalf of those victims.

The fly in the ointment is a provision is the agreement with national partners like Feeding America. Feeding America and similar organizations provide much of the funding for Second Harvest and their agreements specifically prohibit their grants from being used for anything other than addressing hunger – certainly not to held settle a massive lawsuit to which Second Harvest is not a party.

Aymond seems bent on avoiding the sell-off of any church property in attempts to wiggle out of the litigation. He once assured affiliates that apostolates (individual Catholic churches, schools and ministries within the archdiocese) that they would not be imposed upon to contribute any funds toward settlements. That quickly changed when Aymond dropped a letter on the apostolates that informed them that they would have to bear some of the cost for the priests’ sins.

Obviously, absent a fire sale of assets, that wasn’t enough and Aymond then attempted to dip into the charitable funds of Second Harvest and Second Harvest said nope. Aymond then axed Jayroe and board members Chairman Bert Wilson, Vice-Chairman Kristen Albertson and Past Chair Nick Karl.

Wilson didn’t take the move lying down. He issued a press release that called out Aymond for “months of increasingly aggressive pressure” on Second Harvest to kick in as much as $16 million towards settlement. He said that Jayroe flat-out refused to redirect donor funds intended for the sole purpose of helping to alleviate hunger in south Louisiana.

Aymond’s action was such an affront to decency and tactfulness that several major donors to Second Harvest opened expressed their disgust and one, a well-known attorney, even hinted at seeking a refund of his million-dollar donation.

Morris Bart gave the million dollars in 2022 and Second Harvest’s board promptly named its new volunteer center for Bart and his wife, Cathy Kanter Bart. Mrs. Bart, incidentally, formerly served on the Second Harvest board.

But now, Bart has retained an attorney to explore avenues to get his donation refunded should the church use any of his donation toward settling the sex abuse claims.

The litigation against the Archdiocese of New Orleans over sex abuse by its priests has been ongoing for five years and to date, the only ones to see a dime are defense attorneys, experts and other professionals – all while the victims wait…and wait.

The archdiocese owns about a billion dollars in property, stocks, precious metal and other items that it wants desperately to hang onto, even if it means raiding the food pantry of south Louisiana’s indigent.

It just seems that an organization like the Archdiocese of New Orleans, as the local face of the Roman Catholic Church, would take a step back and think about the Christianity that it professes to adhere to and act, for once, in the best interest of those who have been harmed by that very organization.