Louisiana Voice

On Saturday, I wrote about a member of the Livingston Parish Council invoking the term “radical left” in the ongoing debate over the First Amendment. According to ERIN SANDEFUR, those who dare defend the Livingston Parish Library are members of that so-called “radical left.”

But in the spirit of fairness, it’s only proper that we pay proper homage to the “Logical Right.” (It would be perfect alliteration to say “logical left” and “radical right,” and there are certainly those who would express it that way).

The “logical right” is currently weighing in on the devastating fires out in Los Angeles, and not in a sympathetic way, I might add.

Donald Felon Trump, for example, wrote on his Truth Social site, “The fires are still raging in L.A. The incompetent pols have no idea how to put them out.”

Would that be in contrast to the stellar manner in which you responded to the Covid pandemic, Mr. Frump?

What would you suggest Mr. “only I can fix it”? You may toss rolls of paper towels to hurricane victims in Puerto Rico, but try that right now in Los Angeles and they’d most likely only provide more fuel for the fires.

The felon/president-elect loves to sit back on his fat ass and point fingers of blame at everyone but himself, a trait that is fast becoming the trademark of the entire “logical right,” as we shall see in a bit.

The not-so-funny thing is that he’s been wrong on every ACCUSATION he’s made. That’s. Every. Single. One.

But the “logical right” isn’t satisfied with letting Mr. Blowjangles carry the water alone. There’s just too much political hay to be harvested here. And one thing they’re great at is piling on.

Take U.S. Rep. WARREN DAVIDSON for example. The Ohio congressman suggested on Faux Network Friday that federal disaster relief should be withheld from California unless the state reforms its forestry management practices.

You have to wonder what his position was on federal aid to East Palestine, Ohio, after those 53 train cars loaded with toxic chemicals derailed there on Feb. 2, 2023, resulting in considerable environmental damage.

Here’s how better forestry management practices can be accomplished, Congressman: make it rain. Rep. Majorie Taylor Greene, the Mouth of the South, has already gone on record as proclaiming that some vague “they” is capable of CONTROLLING THE WEATHER, so you’d think “they” would be sure to allow more liquid sunshine there since the last significant rainfall of 0.13 inch last May 5. But again, to be fair, MTG was talking about hurricanes in the southern states when she said that so, let’s just keep things in perspective here.

And of course, Rep. Davidson would probably want to withhold hurricane relies from all those vulnerable Southern states until they do something about weather management.

Maybe they should consult MTG about that.

But then again, maybe not. All those Southern states are red states, making them members of the “logical right.” We can’t be punishing them now, can we? Let’s direct all our wrath, criticism and armchair quarterbacking to blue states.

The Livingston Parish Library controversy continues to fester, thanks to the influence of outsiders who apparently consider the local folks too dense to grasp an issue as basic as the First Amendment and so feel they must do our thinking for us.

And apparently, there are certain Livingston Parish leaders who willingly and eagerly drink that Kool-Aid, even to the point of attacking a good and decent person like Amanda Jones whose one sin was to speak up against censorship and book banning.

All that aside, the Livingston Parish Council, in a 5-4 vote on Thursday removed every member of the parish library board, though two of the members were promptly reappointed.

The latest brouhaha arose after the now former library board gutted the parish library BUDGET, cutting or reducing several key programs, even down to slicing funds for building maintenance.

One of the most puzzling comments to come out of Thursday’s three-hour meeting was uttered by council member Erin Sandefur who said with a straight face, “In no way was the budget cut to defund or harm the library in any way.”

Funny she should say that when the original library board shakeup did not occur until one Michael Lundsford of Lafayette and his organization, Citizens for a New Louisiana, stuck their noses into the machinations of the local library and deemed all things inappropriate.

That would seem to indicate that there is an element of leadership that doesn’t lead at all, but merely parrots the platitudes and banalities of others so often that we get an echo chamber of “witch hunts,” “fake news,” “stop the steal,” “drain the swamp” and of course, “MAGA.”

Show me just one of the catch-phrases being bandied around that wasn’t first spoon-fed to the masses.

But Sandefur went a step farther, saying, “There’s been propaganda and untruth stated in public that is the radical left way…”

Wait. What? Radical left?

Lady, let me give you a quick history lesson about the “radical left.”

The “radical left,” as you call it, pulled this country out of an awful depression after a Republican president put us there in the first place.

The “radical left” is responsible for the 40-hour work week.

The “radical left” is responsible for paid vacation for workers.

The “radical left,” largely through the efforts of organized labor, is responsible for your having medical and retirement benefits.

The “radical left” is responsible for our being able to count on Social Security and Medicare in our golden years.

The “radical left” is responsible for the implementation of workplace safety regulations.

The “radical left” is responsible for worker’s compensation to help you survive if you’re injured on the job.

The “radical left” is responsible for the inspection of food to ensure you won’t be serving spoiled or diseased meat to your family.

And Ms. Sandefur, if you remember nothing else, remember this: the “radical left” is responsible for women’s suffrage, which gave women the right to vote which in turn led directly to your being able to seek and win the seat on the Livingston Parish Council which you now hold.

So, what can we thank the “right” for?

Basically, we can thank the “right” for continuing to lavish tax breaks on the corporations and the very rich individuals so that the middle class can bear the burden of taxation and so that we can continue to complain about “welfare queens.”

We can thank the “right” for elimination of the Fairness Doctrine, which opened the doors to idiots like Sean Hannity and Tucker Carlson.

We can thank the “right” for wave after wave of deregulation which led directly to the 2008 collapse of several major Wall Street banks, subprime mortgages, predatory lending, etc.

We can thank the “right” for the ever-increasing income disparity between the very wealthy and those who actually produce that wealth, the workers.

Worst of all, we will most probably one day be able to thank the “right” for the complete erosion of rights and benefits that will be systematically yanked from our grasp, leaving a “right” ruling oligarchy.

And, if we study our history, perhaps one day we’ll look back and ask, “Did all this really start over a library?”

(Full disclosure: To put my rant into proper perspective, it might be useful to know that I spent more than 40 years as a Republican, voting for such candidates as Goldwater, Nixon, Reagan, Ford and the first Bush. It was a governor named Jindal and a clown named Limbaugh who pushed me away from the “radical right.”)

It’s literally been years, no, decades, in the making but it finally passed in a Congress that seemed so divided that nothing could, other than finger-pointing and sham investigations, ever be accomplished.

But occasionally, they get it right, even if it takes a while.

Even Foghorn Leghorn Kennedy and Clay Higgins were on board for this one. It doesn’t get any more bipartisan than to see Higgins, Mike Johnson, Steve Scalise and Troy Carter vote alike on the same issue.

I am, of course, talking about House Resolution 82 that has been kicking around for years without ever being brought up for a vote despite at one time having enough co-sponsors to override a presidential veto should it have been necessary.

Passage of the bill will repeal both the Windfall Elimination Provision (WEP) and the Government Pension Offset (GPO). The WEP, enacted in 1983, reduced Social Security benefits of workers who received government pensions not covered by Social Security. The GPO, enacted in 1977, reduced benefits for spouses, widows and widowers whose spouses received public sector pensions.

H.R. 82’s passage is of a monumental for Louisiana’s state employees who also worked in the private sector and for school teachers whose spouses likewise worked in the private sector and paid into Social Security.

State employees who also logged time in the private sector heretofore were penalized by an offset to their Social Security benefits. With the passage of H.R. 82, that will no longer be the case.

Teachers, school bus drivers and cafeteria workers were perhaps the most penalized of all. A school employee whose spouse who paid into Social Security while working in the private sector for decades, was ineligible to draw survivor benefits upon the spouse’s death. That, too, has now changed for the better.

Louisiana’s senior U.S. Sen., Bill Cassidy, said his former high school civics teacher was unjustly penalized because she spent her life as a public school teacher. “When her husband, who had worked at an Exxon refinery, passed away…her Social Security was cut to a fraction because she had worked in the public sector as a teacher,” he said, adding that she would have received better benefits in retirement “if she had never worked at all.”

Passage of the bill will increase benefits for more than 70,000 people in Louisiana and for more than 2 million Americans overall.

H.R. 82 was first introduced in 2005 and even though a number of House members signed on as co-sponsors sufficient to override any potential presidential veto, the bill inexplicably was never brought to a House floor vote, leading many observers to believe it was all just for show.

The bill passed overwhelmingly in the House, by a 327-75 vote on Nov. 12 and likewise passed the Senate on Dec. 20 by a 76-20 vote.

The Retired State Employees Association (RESA) and the Louisiana Retired Teachers Association (LRTA) have been lobbying for years for passage of H.R. 82.

LRTA Executive Director Rodney Watson specifically cited U.S. Rep. Garret Graves for helping the resolution’s passage, saying, “This epic two-year journey was championed by Congressman Garrett (sic) Graves whom we owe a tremendous debt of gratitude!

“I want to thank Janis Hernandez (LRTA Federal Legislative Chair) for her relentless efforts at participating and keeping the ball rolling on this project. We have shared many day and night, weekday and weekend conversations on reacting to a political volleyball that could have killed this bill at any point during the legislative process.”

Watson said that during his 10 years as executive director of LRTA, “we have moved from state resolutions, to proposed statute that gained little steam, to a full-blown bipartisan effort that will finally compensate millions of Americans who have suffered financially for years.”

He said that last-minute “shenanigans” to tack amendments onto the bill “that would have slowed the process to kill it, failed. Attaching H.R. 82 in its original form to the budget bill at the last minute was an act of genius and could have easily failed if it had not been for the bipartisan support built by the advocacy of our membership and organizations nationwide.”

Frank Jobert, legislative affairs director for the Retired State Employees Association (RSEA), was equally appreciative of the bill’s final passage after what he described as a 30-year effort.

“First of all, on behalf of RSEA and myself, congratulations to all government employees/retirees, who will finally receive the Social Security benefits they earned and deserve. Passage of H.R. 82 by Rep. Garret Graves, (R-District 6-LA) author of the “Social Security Fairness Act of 2023,” was long overdue and was a complete team effort. No one individual can take credit for the success of this bill, as it was a totally united group throughout the state of Louisiana. The bill is expected to be signed at 9:00 AM CST by President Biden on Monday, January 6, 2025 at The White House.

“The entire Louisiana Congressional Delegation (House and Senate): the leadership, House Speaker Mike Johnson, Rep. Steve Scalise (House Majority Leader) unanimously voted for passage of HR 82. We were also encouraged by the leadership of Speaker Pro Temp, Rep. Mike Johnson, (District 27-Pineville) who organized and coordinated the Louisiana Retirement Systems and Retiree Associations throughout Louisiana and the rest of the United States. 

 “It was a battle that began approximately 30 years ago (my first exposure to the problem was in 1994 as a member of the LASERS Board of Trustees). It seemed that every year for the last 30 years, someone from Louisiana or one of the other states would introduce legislation to repeal the WEP and/or GPO. We were led to believe that the legislation would never pass because of the cost to the Social Security System. But I was always encouraged by the fact that it was bi-partisan legislation that impacted about 15 states, some of which were large and very populated states, such as, California, Texas, Ohio, Massachusetts, and of course, Louisiana, etc.

“I never gave up hope that we would get some relief at some point, whether partial of full repeal. In spite of “failure” year after year, we never said NEVER. The stars were finally aligned this last session of the 118th Congress and with the help of Senate President Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and the aforementioned Louisiana Senate and House delegations, and bipartisan (Democrat and Republican), we crossed the finish line with a victory. Hopefully, our Louisiana government employees and/or retirees will see relief and the added benefits to their Social Security checks in the not-too-distant future!

“Thanks again to all who participated in this democratic process, we fought the good fight and are now victorious!!”