Louisiana Voice

Well, it’s October and that means it is fundraising time, a time that LouisianaVoice comes begging ever-so-meekly for your support.

If you like posts like the one beneath this solicitation, I invite you to support LouisianaVoice with your contribution which, unlike those of Donald Trump, does not contain a sneaky notice that it will be a recurring contribution. IT WON’T. It’s one time – at least until April.

We’re not one of those Internet news services that routinely holds fundraisers for mega bucks for huge reporting staffs. We’re not nearly that big. That’s why we hold only two fundraisers per year – October an April. And we don’t come at you crying out for $100,000 or some such to keep the lights on.

We have a much smaller staff (one) and we’re leaner than the others. We set our goal rather low ($7,500 total) pay expenses (gasoline, Internet, news source subscriptions, public records, etc.).

And this month we’re trying to put a little more zest into our drive by offering book, books and more books in return for your generosity.

We have an anonymous patron who has donated two collectors’ books to be awarded.

First up is an original copy of Huey Long’s Every Man A King, published in 1933 by the National Book Co. of New Orleans, worth at least $100 and it’s to be awarded who contributes the largest amount to our fundraiser by October 31.

Next, we have a copy of Leo Honeycutt’s biography of Edwin Edwards, signed by both the later governor and the author. It will be awarded on a lottery basis to someone who contributes $100 or more.

Then, we have a copy of my book The Mission for anyone who gives $50 – $99. The Mission, at the printer’s as this is written, is about a NASA crew sent on a mission around the sun in earth’s orbit, but in the opposite direction. They unexpectedly discover a sister planet on the far side of the sun orbiting in the same path and at the same speed as earth – so that they never see each other. But this planet is more advanced by several centuries – or it was – until their America equivalent elected a despot who promptly plunged the entire nation and the world into chaos, war and ruin with his corrupt policies.

The NASA crew returns to earth acutely aware of their next mission: to prevent the same thing from happening to the U.S.

There are two ways for you to contribute. You may click on the yellow, oval BUTTON to the right of this post and pay by credit card or you may mail a check to Tom Aswell, 107 North College Street West, Denham Springs, Louisiana 70726. (Please note that checks should be made out to Tom Aswell NOT LouisianaVoice because I inadvertently set the account up that way.

Please provide your mailing address if you want a book.

Incest is not normally a subject that’s broached in polite circles, especially as it might involve members of the clergy.

But incestuous would seem to be the appropriate description of the mess that is the sexual abuse litigation in the New Orleans Catholic Archdiocese – especially as it pertains to all the legal eagles involved, both directly and peripherally.

In case you’ve been living under a rock, some 550 claimants have now come forward to accuse more than 80 priests of sexual abuse of children just in the New Orleans Archdiocese. Those numbers do not account for the suspected high number of cases that go unreported. Nor do they even come close to the number of sexual abuse allegations that have swept through the Catholic Church from Boston to San Diego, from Alaska to Florida.

But for this post, I’m going to focus only on the New Orleans Archdiocese, second oldest archdiocese in America.

Rather than agree on compensation for the victims, whose demand is now $1 billion (an average of about $1.8 million per claimant), the archdiocese offered $62.5 million (about $113,600 each), putting the two sides nearly $940 million apart, the archdiocese would rather spend some $41 million on legal and professional fees to fight the claims.

And it’s those fees that have caught the attention of observers and which have produced at least one legal filing objecting to some of the legal fees paid by the archdiocese.

It should be worth noting that in May 2020 the archdiocese declared bankruptcy even though it currently has real estate holdings worth something north of $1 billion. Archbishop Gregory Aymond, in filing the bankruptcy petition, notified the Vatican that the archdiocese’s legal exposure did not exceed $7.5 million and that the costs would be borne by the church’s administrative offices and not the apostolates (individual Catholic churches, schools and ministries within the archdiocese). But with legal and professional fees alone already surpassing $41 million – and counting – Aymond reversed his position and in a letter to area churches, informed them that the apostolates would have to bear some of the cost of resolving the litigation after all. He immediately attempted to shift the blame for the burgeoning costs by claiming that expenses to defend the lawsuit far exceeded the predictions of New Orleans law firm Walker Jones, which is representing the archdiocese in the ongoing legal battles.

And, as Shakespeare said in Hamlet, “There’s the rub” and you’ll probably need a program to keep up with the players.

• Eastern District of Louisiana Bankruptcy Judge Meredith Grabill quite possibly owes her job to Eastern District Judge Wendy Vitter, wife of former US Sen. David Vitter and, prior to her appointment by Donald Trump to a federal judgeship, worked as legal counsel for – wait for it – the Archdiocese of New Orleans.
• The current archdiocese general counsel? That would be Susan Zeringue, wife of Jones Walker partner Wayne Zeringue.
• Grabill, by the way, succeeded Elizabeth Magner as a bankruptcy judge. Magner is a former Bankruptcy Section partner of another big New Orleans firm, Lemle & Kelleher. She is married to former federal prosecutor and now Jones Walker partner Michael Magner.
• Then there’s Eastern District Chief Judge, Sarah Vance, who is married to Jones Walker Bankruptcy Section Co-Chair Patrick Vance. He shares the co-chair position with Mark Mintz who is actually the lawyer representing the archdiocese in the bankruptcy case. Mintz once taught a course with Grabill.
• And just to add a little spice to this legal stew, the husband-and-wife team of Wayne Zeringue (Jones Walker partner) and Susan Zeringue (legal counsel for the New Orleans Archdiocese) each actually billed the archdiocese for communicating about the litigation – with each other. Wayne, for instance, billed 11.8 hours at $400 per hour in what one observer said amounted to “pillow talk” between spouses.

Soren Gisleson, of Herman, Katz, Gisleson & Cain, is the attorney representing abuse victims who filed a formal objection to many of the fees of Jones Walker, which had an astounding 54 attorneys who have billed the archdiocese for legal work, some at rates as high as $490 per hour. “Sexual abuse survivors have waited more than four years to find a fair resolution while Jones Walker takes as much as it can at their expense,” Gisleson said.

The real indication of just how far the archdiocese is willing to go in order to deny justice for the victims can be found in the controversy swirling around the legislature’s 2021 passage of R.S.9:280.9, the so-called look-back statute which gave plaintiffs additional time in which to file claims. Aymond’s publicly expressed agreement is to not  fight the so-called look-back statute but there was strong lobbying against passage of the bill and once passed, the Diocese of Lafayette, which is part of the Archdiocese of New Orleans, challenged the look-back window in court which was ultimately upheld by the Louisiana Supreme Court. The Diocese of Lafayette had a dog in the hunt because of Aymond’s reversal on the apostolates’ being on the hook for a part of any payout.

And despite Aymond’s saying before the Supreme Court’s decision that he was never opposed to the look-back window and that the archdiocese would contribute the same amount of funds toward a settlement regardless of the court’s ruling, Jones Walker continued to bill (57.2 hours, or $21,640) on prescription-related issues, according to Gisleson.

UP NEXT: A look at an individual case in the Diocese of Lafayette and how characterizing each archdiocese as a separate entity unto itself protects the Vatican from liability is considered by at least one authority to be a form of corporate fraud.

ON DECK: Think Catholic priests have the market cornered on child abuse? Think again. The Southern Baptist Convention has its own skeletons it would very much like to keep closeted and the Mormons are not exactly lily-pure.

People of Louisiana’s 3^rd Congressional District, take notice.

Clay Higgins just voted for a government shutdown.

Every other member of Louisiana’s congressional delegation voted to keep government operating.

Higgins did not.

H.R. 9747, which provided for the continuation through Dec. 20 of appropriations and authorities contained in the 12 regular appropriation acts for 2024 and for additional funding for the Medicare Improvement Fund, and extend the authorization of several health and veteran programs. 

Democrat Troy Carter voted in favor. So did Julia Letlow and Garret Graves. Even Steve Scalise and Speaker Mike Johnson voted in favor.

But Clay Higgins voted no.

Clay Higgins voted against all his elderly constituents in Southwest Louisiana.

Clay Higgins voted against veterans, including those living in his district.

Clay Higgins voted against funding other health benefits for his constituents.

Troy Carter, Julia Letlow, Garret Graves, Steve Scalise and Mike Johnson voted in favor of continuing those appropriations.

Residents of the following parishes:

• Acadia
• Calcasieu
• Cameron, Iberia
• Jefferson Davis
• Lafayette
• St. Martin
• St. Mary
• Vermilion

Clay Higgins doesn’t care one whit about you or your problems. His failure to procure relief for hurricane victims in his district is evidence enough of that sad fact.

In terms of intellectual acuity, Clay Higgins is probably best described as Louisiana’s answer to Tommy Tuberville.

Just when you might think Louisiana couldn’t look any worse after Sen. John Kennedy’s asinine insults of MAYA BERRY, founder of the Arab American Institute during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing…

But wait.

Not to be upstaged by his fellow Repugnantcan (and this time I use a variation of the word repugnant as a serious description), Louisiana’s 3^rd Congressional District clown CLAY HIGGINS posted on X that Haiti was the “nastiest country in the western hemisphere” and that migrants from Haiti, most of whom are in the U.S. quite legally, should “get their ass out of our country.”

Such a stupid, callous remark fully qualifies Higgins as a genuine, KKK-type a**hole.

Yes, I know, it goes against my principles to use vulgarities but in this case, Higgins has truly earned it.

Higgins posted his demented rant after the Associated Press reported that the leader of a nonprofit that represents the Haitian community has invoked a private citizen right to file charges against the Orange Miscarriage Donald Trump and his running mate JD Vance who Higgins mistakenly – and a tad prematurely – referred to as VP.

“Damned if they don’t feel all sophisticated now, filing charges against our President and VP,” he wrote on X. “All these thugs better get their mind right and their ass out of our country before January 20.”

The good congressman apparently is unaware that it’s not “our country” unless you happen to be a member of the Cherokee, Apache, Comanche, Cree, Navajo or some other Native American tribe. I also suspect that they would be more than happy of we would all get our asses out of “their country.”

How the people of his district can continue to elect this bigot is beyond me. He is a stain on the entire state, a state that, with the likes of Kennedy, Steve Scalise and Jeff Landry, doesn’t need any help in that regard.

This oatmeal-for-brains later deleted his post, apparently realizing what a total jerk he is, but likely not nearly that enlightened. The real reason was probably the backlash he received from such an idiotic post.

Perhaps he should pay attention to those most affected. The Ohio capital’s newspaper, A Columbus Dispatch headline said Vance “took Ohio to a slimy new low with lie about immigrants.”

Higgins is so full of crap that he’s probably the reason we ran out of toilet paper during the pandemic.

Of course, it’s not the first time he has made a complete fool of himself. Far from it. Remember when he misrepresented his law enforcement creds during the 2019 TESTIMONY of former Trump fixer Micheal Cohen?

And when he first ran for office (after washing out as a small-town police officer and a St. Landry Parish deputy sheriff before catching on as an officer in Lafayette) he made a Trumpian (read: insincere) PROMISE to finally pay more than a decade worth of delinquent CHILD SUPPORT (more than $100,000). Like Trump, he made the promise on X and again like Trump, he never came through on that empty promise.

But hey, there really isn’t much difference between the two. Trump boinks porn stars as his wife gives birth to their son and even gets himself convicted of sexual assault. Higgins, at the same time, apparently was trying to contrive illicit methods to enrich himself once ensconced in office.

In the days prior to his first (runoff) victory, Higgins was taped by ex-wife ROSEMARY ROTHKAMM-HAMBRICE as they discussed his delinquent child support payments. “…I really don’t know how much we should talk about this on the phone,” Higgins said. “I’m just learning really about campaign laws and s**t, but there’s going to be a lot of money floating around…”(emphasis mine)

Don’t just take my word that Higgins is a racist scumbag. Here’s what 2^nd District Congressman Troy Carter had to say about Higgins’s narrow-minded, neo-Nazi remarks:

“I am appalled by the racist and reprehensible remarks made by Rep. Clay Higgins about the Haitian people. We all owe each other better than this, but as elected officials we should hold ourselves to an even higher standard. We have a solemn responsibility to represent and respect all races of people. Hate-filled rhetoric like this is not just offensive—it is dangerous. It incites division, perpetuates harmful stereotypes, and undermines the core values of our democracy.”

Come to think of it, Higgins kinda reminds me of Kennedy – but without the tact, charm and warmth of our junior senator.

Now we’re going to see up close and personal just how dedicated Jeff Landry is to his Repugnantcan philosophy which generally boils down to smaller guvmint and fewer services – along with all those voting rights, LGBQ rights, women’s rights and overall civil rights curtailments and/or outright abolitions, of course.

You see, the state has just been awarded $124.3 in (gasp) federal funding from the Federal (jeez, there’s that word again) Emergency Management Agency’s (FEMA) Flood Mitigation Assistance Program.

Holy federal welfare, Batman! Aren’t we supposed to be reducing the scope of federal government and concentrating more on states’ rights – and even cutting state services? How’re we gonna square that up with our fellow Repugnantcans like Rhonda Santis, Marco Rubio, Greg Abbott, et al?

Worst of all (read: this is hard to swallow), the announcement of the award was made not by Garret Graves of Steve Scalise, but a Democrat (oh, the humanity!), U.S. Rep. Troy Carter of Louisiana’s 2^nd Congressional District.

Worst of all, the National Flood Insurance Reform Act was signed into law by a Democrat, Bill Clinton, in 1994. Lord, what further political catastrophe awaits us?

Here is the complete text of Carter’s announcement:

WASHINGTON, D.C.– Today, Congressman Troy A. Carter, Sr. (D-LA) announced $124,319,367 in funding from the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s (FEMA) Flood Mitigation Assistance Program to support 13 projects throughout LA-02. The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, which Congressman Carter helped craft and voted for, greatly increased funding for the Flood Mitigation Assistance Program.

“The Flood Mitigation Assistance Program has been a game-changer for Louisiana, providing critical funding to help communities build resilience against devastating flood disasters,” said Rep. Carter. “With nearly $125 million allocated for 13 projects in my district, including efforts to elevate 132 flood-prone homes in St. John the Baptist Parish, the program is making significant strides in protecting both lives and property. By focusing on disadvantaged communities and targeting localized flood risks, the FMA is not only reducing future flood damage, but also ensuring that vulnerable Louisianians can continue to live where we call home.”

Background

LA-02 will receive nearly $125 million in funding for 13 projects, including:

The Flood Mitigation Assistance (FMA) grant program is a competitive program that provides funding to states, federally recognized Tribal governments, U.S. territories, and local governments. Since the National Flood Insurance Reform Act of 1994 was signed into law, FMA funds have been used for projects that reduce or eliminate the risk of repetitive flood damage to buildings insured by the National Flood Insurance Program.

Flood Mitigation Assistance competitive selections focus on reducing or eliminating the risk of repetitive flood damage to buildings and structures insured by the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP).

Learn more about Louisiana’s projects here.

We have every confidence that Landry will stick to his rightwing guns and reject such wasteful expenditures as flood control for six parishes and two of the state’s largest cities. To do otherwise would be … (wait for it) … hypocritical.