NEW ORLEANS — Workers at a Louisiana fertilizer factory are the latest, uh, let’s say, “beneficiaries” of the war we keep winning in Iran; ICE detained an immigrant at the New Orleans airport who, for a change, really is one of the worst of the worst.; and the Secretary of War may be getting ready to push the envelope of the “Peter Principle.”

Things are happening so fast it’s easy to let one story distract you from others, so, here again, is a Q&A to help you spot what you might have missed this past week.

Q: Is Donald Trump’s declaration that Lake Ontario is now “Lake America” a farcical attempt to distract us from the war in Iran, now entering its seventh month, or is it meant to divert our attention from the economic pain inflicted on us by starting a needless tariff war with an ally?

A: Neither. The “Lake America” ploy was meant to distract us from his low approval ratings, now stuck in the low 30s. The Canadian tariffs were meant to distract us from the Iran war.

Q: The Iran war, which Trump said would last five or six weeks, and which we keep winning while doing a sterling job of keeping the Strait of Hormuz totally open with a few exceptions, is so popular that it’s being held over for its seventh big month. How is it helping you folks in Louisiana?

A: Just as an example, thanks to the Iran war, more than 200 employees at two Mosaic Co. plants in St. James Parish are getting some much needed and well-deserved time off.

According to The Times-Picayune:

Mosaic Co. is laying off 206 employees as it idles fertilizer production at two plants in St. James Parish, citing a dramatic increase in the price of sulfur — which industry analysts said has been driven up by the war with Iran.

Enjoy your break, folks! Take a trip, if you can afford airfare.

Q: Speaking of air travel, did ICE detain a high-profile immigrant at Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport last week?

A: Yes. British commentator Milo Yiannopoulos was arrested in New Orleans and deported for being in the country illegally.

Some background from The Associated Press:

Yiannopoulos rose to fame in the early 2010s as an incendiary writer for the conservative website Breitbart News. He resigned in 2017 after a video of him endorsing pedophilia resurfaced online. He later apologized for the remarks and said he himself was a victim of sexual assault as a minor.

Q: Wait. The administration deported a Trump-backer accused of endorsing pedophilia?

A: I know. It seems kind of off-brand, considering the whole Epstein saga.

But, rest assured, ICE is still in the business of harassing non-icky people, like Heriberto (Eddie) Reyes-Ochoas. According to The Times-Picayune, Reyes-Ochoas is being detained in Natchez, Mississippi, after a traffic accident on the Gulf Coast leading to two misdemeanor charges. The report said Reyes-Ochoas, 34, has lived in the area for 20 years and that he and his wife are expecting their first child.

From the Times-Pic:

Catherine Cool, his wife, said Reyes-Ochoas entered the United States when he was 14 and is “not trying to hide the fact that he came in illegally.”

But “we have essentially followed the rules as in what is required of us to do from the government,” she said. “We’ve been trying to do the right thing.” The couple has been married for 12 years.

Q: Has the administration’s ramped up deportation effort distracted us from other dispiriting news?

A: Perhaps the Iran war’s drain on our military weaponry and concerns that it hurts our ability to defend against potential threats posed by China and Russia.

The Wall Street Journal is among the outlets chronicling the problem:

The cuts have been so deep that the U.S. inventories in Europe of PAC-3 Patriot air defense interceptors and Atacms surface-to-surface missiles are deemed to be “beyond critical,” some of the officials said.

This comes amid reporting by the WSJ and The New York Times about leadership vacuums at the Pentagon under Pete Hegseth.

From the Times:

A series of firings and feuds initiated by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has left the Army essentially rudderless as it struggles to deal with the threat posed by cheap, deadly drones and missiles that have pounded U.S. bases in the Middle East.

Q: How as Hegseth responded to the chaos?

A: According to NBC News, he has been talking about running for president, which would be a splendid example of what I now like to call “The Pete Principle.”

Q: Don’t you mean the “Peter Principle”?

A: No. The “Peter Principle” holds that people are promoted to their level of incompetence. The “Pete Principle” holds that sometimes people get promoted waaaaay beyond their regular level of incompetence. (See Trump, Donald.)

Q: What does Hegseth say about the NBC story?

A: He calls it “100% false.”

So, I’m betting he runs.

NEW ORLEANS — A faint, fading spray-painted “X” remains visible on the brick front of a house a few blocks from where I live. I walk my dog past it several times a week.

Buildings around here were marked with an X after government officials completed searches for survivors and bodies following Hurricane Katrina. Most of the marks have faded away or been painted over but that one remains.

And that’s OK. I don’t think of Katrina that much anymore and I don’t care to. But occasional memories are inescapable and can hold lessons.

Note that in the New Orleans area, the Katrina disaster — damage in the billions of dollars, hundreds of thousands of lives upended and scarred, hundreds of deaths — was largely man-made.

Flood walls that were supposed to protect the city were found to have been flawed in design and construction. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which was supposed to protect us, had let us down.

This year, I am taking the anniversary of Katrina as a reminder that we all need to be watching the people who run our major institutions — governmental and corporate — closely.

Case in point: We Louisiana residents who depend on Entergy for our electricity are being assured by Entergy and by state officials that Meta’s $50 billion power-gobbling data center being developed up in Richland Parish will not drive up our rates. Entergy argues, according to New Orleans CityBusiness, that the project will likely save us money. But the same article notes that the Alliance for Affordable Energy has doubts about the rosy predictions.

Meanwhile, the Louisiana Public Service Commission, whose members are supposed to be looking out for our interest, recently voted to override a judge’s recommendation that Meta be required to provide details on how many jobs the center will create and how much electricity it will use.

From the nola.com report:

The vote comes as Meta’s data center continues to draw concerns from advocacy groups and some residents, especially over its impact on electricity rates and secrecy in negotiations. A host of state officials signed nondisclosure agreements with Meta and Louisiana Economic Development to keep negotiations over the deal secret. None of the PSC members signed an NDA, though the secretary of the PSC, Brandon Frey, signed one with LED (Louisiana Economic Development) records show.

None of this government-approved secrecy inspires confidence. Nor does the agreement Rep. Julia Letlow signed with a Meta shell company. As discussed here last week, she was found not only to have signed a 2024 agreement to keep quiet about the project, but also to have failed to timely report later stock trades involving Meta. At best that sounds like a betrayal of her constituents’ right to know what’s happening in their district. At worst, it stinks of possible insider trading.

The rampant secrecy, and worries about effects on our power bills, aren’t the only concerns. Another: Although AI is here to stay, the boom in AI investment is seen by many as unsustainable. What happens to the data centers if the AI boom goes bust?

From a November article on information week.com:

“I wouldn’t expect widespread abandonment, but we will see delays, scope reductions and ownership changes,” said Shishir Shrivastava, practice director at TEKsystems Global Services.

Here’s hoping the economic boom the data centers are bringing to parts of rural America works out well for all involved and that we really do see lower electricity costs.

But I’m feeling a little cynical as I walk past that fading X.

I can’t help it. I expect to be disappointed.

AND SPEAKING OF IMPENDING DISAPPOINTMENTS

Bets Investments on the Kalshi gambling prediction market site put the chance of Dr. Heidi Overton being confirmed this year as the head of the Food and Drug Administration at about 35%, at this writing.

Why are the odds so low? Because the chairman of the powerful Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions committee has raised strong concerns about her lack of managerial experience. He also said this about her support of the Trump administration’s recent call for changes to early childhood vaccination schedules, according to Friday’s edition of The Times-Picayune:

“Dr. Overton’s active role in last week’s nonsensical vaccine executive order calls into question her commitment to standing up for sound science and protecting children’s health. That alone is almost disqualifying.”

Since the committee chairman’s approval is vital to Overton’s nomination advancing you might actually think that 35% is kind of high. Why would more than a third of those “investing” in the question of Overton’s nomination say she’ll be approved by Dec. 1.

Well if the word “almost” in the above quote didn’t give it away, the chairman is Louisiana’s Sen. Bill Cassidy. As a physician Dr. Cassidy is a champion of vaccination. As a politician, Sen. Cassidy is a champion of vacillation.

Cassidy, as we all know, caved on anti-vaxxer Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s nomination to be health secretary and on the nomination of Todd Blanche to be attorney general.

So bets, er, “purchases” of “yes” positions on the question of Overton’s confirmation might actually be a sound investment.

(Thank God for sharp-eyed readers! This post has been corrected to show that the Meta data center is expected to be a $50 billion development. Not merely $50 million.)

When I was employed, I had a 401(k) retirement savings plan that picked investments for me based on my age and target retirement date.

When I retired, I turned things over to a financial advisor because, again, I don’t know much about investing.

This is all to say that I do, indeed, think Rep. Julia Letlow’s spokesperson’s explanations about her stock trades — the trades we all are learning about thanks in large part to work by the Gulf States Newsroom — are plausible.

But I’m really having trouble believing them.

Call me a cynic, but I think there’s something not quite right when a member of Congress signs a non-disclosure agreement about a major commercial development in the works for her district and later makes stock trades including shares of companies with interests in that development and then somehow fails to report those trades within deadlines required by a federal law.

That law’s purpose, by the way, is plain in its title: the Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge Act of 2012.

WHAT DID SHE KNOW AND WHEN DID SHE KNOW IT?

Thanks to the Gulf States Newsroom, we now know Letlow signed a non-disclosure agreement with a shell company for Meta in June of 2024. It gave her access to details about a $50 million data center planned for north Louisiana and required her to keep that information confidential.

As reported by the GSN’s Drew Hawkins:

Letlow spokesperson Matt Smith told the GSN that Letlow did not direct the trades or know that they were happening.

Again, this is plausible.

THE COMPANY SHE KEEPS

But given that one of Letlow’s heroes is Donald Trump — whom she has, reportedly, called the greatest president in the nation’s history — one could be forgiven for thinking that the whole non-disclosure/stock trade thing stinks of insider trading.

Because, among the denizens of MAGAland, insider trading apparently isn’t a bad thing. Witness the recent rollout of a new service from Trump’s Truth Social media site. It gives those willing to pay premium prices early access to posts on U.S. policy.

“The new subscription service rolled out earlier this month is charging Wall Street firms as much as $100,000 a month to trade off the market-moving posts before others,” according to a recent story by The Associated Press.

As that story notes, some people don’t think this is ethical or legal. And some groups are suing to stop it.

Again, from the AP:

I have trouble fathoming it even now. But none of this should come as any surprise to anyone who has been following the political life of the founder of Trump University and the Trump Foundation charity. This Truth Social scam premium product is just another example of policies and practices that appear meant to enrich or aid the Trumps or their fellow rich people.

(For the latest example, read all about how the Department of the Treasury is ending requirements for U.S. businesses to report who owns them, while deleting information already collected. David Frum has a thorough analysis in The Atlantic.)

WHO CARES?

But back to Letlow. Did she do anything wrong? It’s a safe bet that the Trump Justice Department, now officially headed by Trump’s “former” personal lawyer, isn’t going to investigate, nor will there be any congressional probe with both chambers dominated by loyal Trump Republicans.

Will voters care as Letlow runs for the U.S. Senate (with Trump’s strong endorsement) against Democrat Jamie Davis?

Nancy Pelosi’s legacy was certainly tarnished by her and her husband’s acquisition of wealth during her years in the House, where she resisted bans on stock trading. But the issue didn’t sink her politically.

Letlow’s signing of the non-disclosure agreement adds a new wrinkle to the issue in Louisiana. Davis is sure to make noise about it all. Now, the question is whether the secret agreement, the trades and the later reporting of them — combined with the never-ending Iran war and other aspects of Trump’s flailing presidency — will quiet the MAGA fervor that helped Trump carry Louisiana three times.

STILL WITH ME?

Politicians do a lot of outrageous things. We don’t have to exaggerate them or make them up. But outrage drives a lot of the internet these days. So things get exaggerated and/or made up. And Gene Weingarten has an excellent example here in a post that even Donald Trump could love.

NEW ORLEANS — Let’s begin with a few words from Bill Cassidy.

“It’s as if somebody sued themselves, agreed upon a settlement with themselves, and that’s going to be funded by the rest of us. There’s no legal precedent for this.”

That was Cassidy in May, describing Donald Trump’s “settlement” of a lawsuit he filed against an agency he oversees as president — a settlement setting up a fund that could have compensated Jan. 6 rioters while granting Trump broad immunity over tax matters.

“I can tell you,” Cassidy continued, “the voters don’t like that, or if they like it, maybe they’re in on it. I’m not in on it.”

Todd Blanche was, of course, in on it. And he may still be in on it, even though the settlement is supposed to be dead. Sorta, kinda.

Blanche, of course, is the guy who who recently identified himself as Trump’s lawyer before quickly uncorrecting himself to say he used to be Trump’s lawyer. I guess his roles as acting attorney general and advocate for Donald Trump are so intertwined that even Blanche was confused.

But, let’s hear again from Bill Cassidy.

“I’ve got to be convinced that he is an attorney general who just happens to have once been President Trump’s personal attorney, as opposed to President Trump’s personal attorney who is now the attorney general. I think there’s a big difference between the two,” Cassidy said last Wednesday on Sirius XM, (as reported by Mediaite). He added: “I am very concerned about so-called lawfare — people being prosecuted not for a valid reason beyond somebody in high office being angry at them.”

So, there you have it. As of Wednesday it was pretty clear that Cassidy couldn’t possibly vote to confirm the acting attorney general who is overseeing a justice department that is trying to prosecute James Comey for posting a photograph of shells on a beach. He couldn’t seriously consider confirming the acting attorney general who is running a department that had to drop ludicrous vandalism charges against a former Olympian who was unlucky enough to be close to the Lincoln Memorial reflecting pool/algae farm at the wrong time.

He couldn’t possibly vote for Trump’s “former” personal attorney.

Except, he did.

Why? Is he still hoping to salvage some kind of political future in Louisiana, where he burned his bridges with Democrats by voting for RFK Jr. and with MAGA by voting convict Trump on impeachment articles related to the Jan. 6 insurrection? Is he afraid be might become the object of a Trump-Blanche lawfare probe if he doesn’t play along.

Or, does he really think he made the right choice?

“The choice is not between perfection and Mr. Blanche,” Cassidy said, according to The New York Times. “It is between Mr. Blanche and another acting attorney general who may not run the department effectively under President Trump.”

That’s from statements Cassidy gave to the media about his vote for Blanche. He explains his vote as the best means of protecting the nation from Trump’s excesses.

In fact, it looks like Blanche got from Cassidy something Cassidy never was able to get out of Trump. An endorsement.

Voting for Blanche isn’t the worst mistake Cassidy has made as a senator. Except for the symbolism, it might not even be all that consequential. Blanche was already acting AG and might have continued in that role for a long time. And, it doesn’t look like either Congress or the courts are interested in reining in Trump’s view of presidential power — over Justice Department matters and elsewhere — that Trump and his cohorts are pushing.

If you need a reminder of Cassidy’s biggest blunder — politically and medically — take a look at another vote he rationalized as an attempt to work with someone whose policies could hold horrible consequences.

Again, here’s Bill Cassidy, United States senator and longtime physician and champion of vaccines.

“After seeing patients die from vaccine preventable diseases, I dedicated much of my time to vaccine research and immunization programs. Personally witnessing the safety monitoring, and the effectiveness of immunization. Put simply, vaccines save lives.”

That’s from a statement made by Dr./Sen. Cassidy in February 2025. Unfortunately, it was followed by this:

“Mr. Kennedy and the administration committed that he and I will have an unprecedentedly close collaborative working relationship if he is confirmed. We will meet or speak multiple times a month. This collaboration will allow us to work well together and therefore to be more effective.”

Inevitably, came this from Dr. Cassidy a few months later, after the U.S. health department canceled nearly a half billion dollars in funding for mRNA vaccine development.

“It is unfortunate that the Secretary just canceled a half a billion worth of work, wasting the money which is already invested,” Cassidy said. “He has also conceded to China an important technology needed to combat cancer and infectious disease.”

What’s unfortunate is that Bill Cassidy didn’t listen often enough to Bill Cassidy — last year, when he voted to confirm Kennedy, or this past week, when he voted to confirm Blanche.

— Todd Blanche, acting U.S. attorney general and “former” personal attorney for Donald Trump, on May 18, 2026.

NEW ORLEANS — Todd Blanche, still hoping to become a real, live Senate-confirmed attorney general instead of just an “acting” AG, announced last night that he’s formally abandoning the Trump administration $1.8 billion fund that was designed, purportedly, to compensate people who have been targeted for unjust criminal prosecution by political enemies.

At first blush, that might be seen as yet another slap in the face for David Hearn, the Olympic canoeist bum-rushed into court on phony charges that he vandalized the Lincoln Memorial reflecting pool.

But, of course, Hearn would never have seen a penny from the pot of money that was, really, a slush fund for people willing to do dirty work for Donald Trump.

SLIMING DAVID HEARN

It was clear from the beginning that Hearn was innocent, and that he was caught up in Trump’s desperate desire to show that his slimy (literally) reflecting pool upgrade was disintegrating because of vandals and not shoddy work done under a no-bid contract.

But it became much clearer when Jeanine Pirro — the U.S. attorney for D.C., former Fox News personality and soon-to-be latest woman thrown under the bus by Donald Trump — announced the dropping of charges on Friday.

Pirro’s office cited “botched work” on the reflecting pool project and sought to put blame on the Interior Department for not providing full information to investigators before charges were brought against Hearn.

(For a fine analysis of why Pirro had no choice but to drop charges, and, incidentally, a reminder of why this nation needs Cecily Strong, I recommend you read Gene Weingarten’s piece on the dismissal in his Substack column The Gene Pool.)

HOPING NOBODY WILL NOTICE

Reporters call big news released on a Friday evening — like the dropping of the charges against Hearn —a “Friday night dump.” That means it had likely been held onto and then dumped out in an end-of-week announcement when, the belief goes, people are beginning their weekend and paying less attention to the news.

Well, please pay attention.

The abuse that the Trump administration rained down on Hearn might not be as serious as, say, the gunning down of Alex Pretti or Renee Good or the dropping of bombs on school children in an ill-advised war.

But it’s pretty damn serious. And it’s the type of abuse that could be coming to a red-state city near you. We’ve seen rumblings of it here in Louisiana.

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MAGA MANTRA: NEVER OWN UP TO MISTAKES

That there is no evidence that Hearn vandalized the reflecting pool — that there is no evidence of vandalism of the reflecting pool — does not bother Trump.

Politicians generally don’t like to admit mistakes. Trump never admits mistakes and doesn’t like it when is minions admit mistakes

“I don’t know what she was thinking,” Trump wrote in a social media rant against Pirro.

Well, I’d bet she was thinking she could be disbarred for threatening an innocent man with up to 10 years in prison without any evidence that he did anything wrong. And she might also be wondering if she’ll be able to get a TV gig again if Trump fires her.

MEANWHILE, HERE IN THE BIG EASY

As my tens of thousands several dozen regular readers know, I often try to relate what’s going on nationally to something happening here in New Orleans or the state of Louisiana.

Well, the abuse of an innocent man by a ruthless, power-hungry administration unrestrained by morals and bent on proving its right at all costs has me thinking again, about Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill and Gov. Jeff Landry (both MAGA allies), exonerated convict-turned successful attorney Calvin Duncan, and the Republican-dominated Louisiana Legislature.

Duncan was overwhelmingly elected last fall as clerk for New Orleans’ criminal court system. This happened despite Murrill’s insistence that he wasn’t truly exonerated. (He was.)

So, the Legislature did away with his job before he could take office. And, when the New Orleans City Council took steps to try to hold a new election, instead of just challenging the move in court, Murrill declared that the council members, the district attorney and the mayor were risking being removed from office and replace by people of Landry’s choosing.

Nothing came of Murrill’s threats, but the complications — including an ill-timed, later abandoned and legally dubious indictment of Murrill by a local grand jury — have not been good for New Orleans or the state, which depend on each other in myriad ways. But that’s what happens when Trump-sized power and ego are involved. Theater wins. Government and the taxpayers lose.

STILL WITH ME?

If you’re trying to sort out all of the allegations politically blood-thirsty Republicans are lodging against Anthony Fauci and the implications of the release of his personal diary, I have some recommended reading.

Peggy Noonan is pretty hard on Fauci here.

Adam Kinzinger has what I believe is more fair appraisal here

I am in full agreement with Josh Moon here in the Alabama Political Reporter.

—Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill, in an interview published July 24 by The Times-Picayune

NEW ORLEANS — Now that Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill has had the experience of facing dubious criminal charges, you’d think she would be a little more sympathetic to New Orleans.

After all, people here voted overwhelmingly to make Calvin Duncan — who spent nearly 30 years in prison after a wrongful conviction — the clerk of our criminal court system. And city officials tried their best to make sure he was able to serve.

But, Murrill isn’t sounding sympathetic at all.

“You can’t be friends with someone who wants to put you in jail for 80 years,” Murrill, who has no sense of irony, said at a news conference last week after city officials successfully urged that criminal charges against her be dropped.

MORE THAN ONE WAY TO STEAL AN ELECTION

Duncan was wrongly convicted of murder in 1981 and spent nearly 30 years in prison while learning the law behind bars and fighting his conviction.

He eventually won his freedom, earned a law degree and ran for clerk of criminal court to help make sure the system worked for others convicted unjustly. Remember that point.

He got 68 percent of the vote despite public attacks from, among others, Murrill, who said he had not been exonerated when he clearly had been.

But after the November election, and before Duncan could take office, the Republican dominated Louisiana Legislature passed a bill eliminating the job of New Orleans’ criminal clerk of court and shifting that office’s duties to that of another elective position, the clerk of civil court.

Jeff Landry — Louisiana’s governor, Donald Trump’s emissary to Greenland and Murrill’s political ally — eagerly signed the bill.

Suddenly, the votes of 38,681 New Orleans residents didn’t count any more.

It was all apparently legal but it kind of felt like a theft.

THE CITY COUNCIL ACTS

Duncan and others challenged the legislative action in court. Meanwhile, the New Orleans City Council took a different approach.

Reasoning that the new law effectively created a new, unfilled office, they voted to call an election to fill it and appointed a former judge to fill the post in the interim.

The clerk of civil court, not wanting to lose her job and face a new election, challenged that action in court. Duncan would eventually lose in a 4-3 decision at the state Supreme Court. But not before …

A COUP UNDER COLOR OF LAW?

Murrill went a step farther. She fired off letters telling Mayor Helena Moreno, five council members and District Attorney Jason Williams, telling them they could lose their elected positions and be replaced by appointees of Landry if they went forward with their plan. She also told the former judge, Calvin Johnson, he could face prison time were he to assume the interim clerk’s position.

Murrill’s letter was a muscle flex meant to scare the council off a reasonable interpretation of the new law that she didn’t like. Perhaps more importantly, it was her chance to take part in a time-honored pastime at the Capitol: bashing New Orleans to score political points.

There was also an odor of racism, with Murrill, part of the white Republican power structure at the Capitol threatening action that could remove from elective office five members of the City Council (four of them Black) Mayor Helena Moreno (Hispanic) and District Attorney Jason Williams (Black).

Clearly, the issues were being sorted out in court. There was no need for Murrill to threaten what would effectively be a bloodless coup under color of law that would give Landry control of the city council and the mayor’s office.

TABLES TURNED

Did Murrill’s letters amount to a criminal attempt to intimidate? Apparently, a grand jury in New Orleans thought so.

When I read about how that grand jury indicted Murrill on 16 felony counts, I have to admit I laughed out loud with righteous vengeful glee was a little concerned.

For one thing, grand jury indictments are supposed to be returned in open court and reporters were shut out. One reporter and an attorney were handcuffed, according to The Times-Picayune.

That doesn’t inspire confidence.

And it’s not clear what or who prompted the grand jury to act.

What has become clear is that the escalating fight isn’t good for New Orleans. Moreno, who inherited a financial mess when she took office, canceled a request to the state bond commission for the city to be allowed to issue $110 million in bonds to help with the recovery.

“I made the decision to withdraw our application before next week’s Bond Commission meeting because it had become clear that denial was imminent,” Moreno said in a statement, adding, “we are hearing warnings that some state leaders may pursue separate efforts to target the City’s finances ….”

The special prosecutor appointed to pursue the case against Murrill dropped the charges — at the request of city officials who apparently hope to tamp down the controversy.

Escalation continues, however. Murrill is demanding state and federal investigations into how the indictment happened.

In an interview with The Times-Picayune last week Murrill described the case as a malicious prosecution and said she wants to make sure others aren’t falsely prosecuted.

Does that sound familiar?

Who knew Blanche, Donald Trump’s nominee to be U.S. Attorney General, would step right into it during last week’s Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearings?

“Are you and President Trump friends?” Louisiana Sen. John Kennedy asked.

“I’m his lawyer,” Blanche replied before quickly un-correcting himself by adding, “was his lawyer.”

Well, at least we can say that Kennedy didn’t give Blanche the questions ahead of time. But, otherwise, he did all he could to help Trump and Blanche out.

“No fair-minded person could conclude that you’re not qualified,” Kennedy said during his roughly 11 minutes of promoting Blanche’s nomination questioning Blanche, who currently is acting AG.

Kennedy also threw in some gratuitous insults toward Lori Lightfoot, the former Chicago mayor who is also a former federal prosecutor. Lightfoot was, according to the Chicago Sun-Times, one of hundreds of former Justice Department employees who signed on to a letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee opposing Blanche’s Senate confirmation.

Kennedy seemed to relish attacking Lightfoot’s record of work for police accountability and pointing to her lopsided loss for re-election as mayor in 2023.

But Lightfoot has fallen into relative obscurity since then. So, it’s not entirely clear why he took up valuable time that was, supposedly meant to edify senators and the public about Blanche’s fitness for office by, instead, insulting Lightfoot with gems like, “Would you put her even in charge of a ham sandwich?”

Or, maybe it is clear. Maybe Kennedy just wanted to change the subject.

Because, in fact, a fair-minded person who looks at Blanche’s past might indeed question whether Blanche is ethically qualified to head up the U.S. Department of Justice.

Should the “former” lawyer for an old pal of Jeffrey Epstein be put in charge of the Justice Department after, in the eyes of Epstein’s survivors, mishandling the release of millions of documents related to the late sex trafficker?

Should the “former” lawyer for a longtime New York businessman convicted on 34 felony counts related to hush-money paid to a porn star be in charge of the Justice Department?

Do we really want the Justice Department to be headed up by the “former” lawyer for the president who, while out of office, stored classified documents in a bathroom at his Florida resort like crates of Costco toilet paper?

Surely it looks like there might be some conflicts of interest involved when the president’s “former” personal lawyer is put in charge of a Justice Department that now is targeting the people who prosecuted or investigated that president.

And when that lawyer, who “used to” represent Donald Trump, defends Trump’s glaringly self-serving legal “settlement” giving Trump broad immunity from investigation over tax matters while setting up a $1.8 billion fund to compensate “victims” of Biden era prosecution — well, gee, it seems like maybe that ought to raise some questions about that lawyer’s real agenda.

The ex-Justice Department employees who signed that letter that seems to have so rankled Kennedy put it this way (again, according to the Sun-Times):

“Would-be job applicants need to believe the Justice Department lives up to the virtue in its name. And instead of exhibiting fealty to the president, the Attorney General must heed John Adams’ admonition that our republic remains a ‘government of laws, not of men,’ … For the sake of the institution where we once proudly served, we urge you to reject Todd Blanche’s nomination.”

It just seems that Blanche might have Donald Trump’s best interest at heart and, maybe not necessarily the cause of justice.

You could have no more intellect than a ham sandwich and still see that.

NEW ORLEANS —Other than excessive baggage fees, the one thing that really gripes me about modern air travel is the constant, needless delays caused by the last-minute discovery that your aircraft lacks up-to-date antimissile capabilities.

This even happens to Donald Trump, who had to change planes in Turkey this past week because the Secret Service determined that the brand new Air Force One, which is a newly retrofitted, luxurious Boeing 747-8 that was a bribe gift to Trump from the government of Qatar, might not be able to fend off attacks from vicious enemies such as the Islamic Republic of Japan.

This may be a surprise to you because there is so much going on in the world these days that you may not even be aware that there is an Islamic Republic of Japan, or that the president’s new plane has turned out to be the 21st Century aviation equivalent of the Edsel. (For those of you too young to remember, the Edsel was a mid-20th Century Ford Motor Company automobile that failed to sell, largely because of poor market research, a grill that bore an uncomfortable resemblance to a toilet seat, and its glaring lack of antimissile capabilities.)

So, to help you catch up, here’s a roundup of a few recent issues and news stories you might have missed, presented in a helpful Q&A format.

Q: How has Trump responded to hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars being spent to insufficiently retrofit his new airplane?

A: By ordering a full investigation of how the public found out about it and subpoenaing several reporters at The New York Times.

Q: Why was Trump in Turkey last week?

A: For a meeting of NATO leaders, who outlined billions in new defense spending, aimed at placating Trump.

Q: How did Trump respond?

A: By renewing a threat to seize Greenland, which is a territory of a NATO ally that — and I’m sticking my neck out with a prediction here — will soon be known as the Islamic Republic of Denmark.

Trump also castigated NATO allies for not giving him support for his war in Iran. That’s the war he did not tell them about until he launched it, and which we have already won many times, although the Iranians don’t seem to have realized this yet, given that control of the Strait of Hormuz is still being contested. And that in Iran and neighboring Turkey is considered so unsafe that Trump had to ditch his ride on Payoff Airlines the new Air Force One for an older Air Force One model.

Q: Has Trump responded with his usual vengeful glee at the fact Democrat Graham Platner has exited Maine’s U.S. Senate race due to a credible rape allegation?

A: No. This time he took the high road and questioned the veracity of the victim.

Q: Is ICE, under the new leadership of Secretary of Homeland Security Markwayne Mullin, and border czar Tom Homan, continuing the never-ending quest to arrest, detain an deport the “worst of the worst” immigrant criminals in the U.S.?

A: Yes. If by arresting, detaining and deporting the worst of the worst you mean fatally shooting a Mexican national who has no criminal record, raised a family while living and working in the U.S. for over 30 years, was mistaken for someone else wanted by ICE and accused, with no evidence and in the face of conflicting witness statements, of “weaponizing his vehicle.

Q: How have authorities reacted to the deaths of 17 Mexicans who have died in ICE custody in the United States, and to the slaying of the above-mentioned decades-long U.S. resident, Lorenzo Salgado Araujo.

A: Authorities have called for criminal investigations and charges. Authorities in Mexico, that is. In the U.S., Homan reacted by swiftly and forthrightly condemning the media.

Q: Why did Donald Trump call FIFA president Gianni Infantino this month?

A: Purportedly, to complain about a “red card” suspension of a U.S. soccer player during World Cup competition. But, possibly to distract from growing furor over financial disclosure reports showing that he and his family amassed great wealth during his first year back in office, including, as reported by Reuters: “more than $1.4 billion in income from his family’s crypto ventures last year, showing how Trump now derives most of his income from digital assets that have benefited from his policies …”

Q: Shouldn’t the Justice Department be looking into conflicts of interest involving the president?

A: It probably should. But Justice Department lawyers are very busy these days making sure they can stave off disciplinary proceedings. As evidenced by Monday’s developments in Trump’s recent lawsuit against the IRS.

As you may recall, Trump, the head of the executive branch, sued an executive branch agency, the IRS, for $10 billion, over a contractor’s leak of some of his tax returns. Then he reached a settlement via another executive branch agency, the Justice Department -- run, now, by his “former” personal attorney. That settlement gives him broad immunity from investigation or prosecution over tax matters and establishes a nearly $1.8 billion fund to compensate people Trump says were unfairly targeted by the Biden administration, such as the Jan. 6 Capitol rioters and (and presumably Hunter Biden…it could happen.)

As reported Monday afternoon by The New York Times, a federal judge in Florida has come to the perhaps obvious conclusion that the lawsuit was an improper exercise in self-dealing. She didn’t stop there: “In the order, the judge, Kathleen M. Williams, also referred the lawyer who brought Mr. Trump’s case against the I.R.S. to the Florida bar for potential disciplinary proceedings. Judge Williams added that she would forward her decision to the New York bar, which is already investigating the acting attorney general, Todd Blanche.”

So, it appears that Justice lawyers looking into graft at the White House isn’t on the horizon.

But my mind, lately, has been on Tom Joad and Terry Malloy.

I have often joked, that if I were running things in Washington, I’d herd all the Republicans into one large screening room and force them to watch John Ford’s 1940 adaptation of John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath, while all of the Democrats are tied to their seats in a similar room, viewing Elia Kazan’s 1954 classic On the Waterfront.

This has been my whimsical solution for trying to bridge the nation’s ever-widening divisions: Republicans, forced to reckon with the pain of good people manipulated by faceless tycoons, soulless corporations, heartless banks and menacing goons with badges. Democrats, forced to witness silence and cowardice feeding the rot and murderous corruption of an American labor union (filmed against the still-controversial backdrop of Kazan’s decision to testify before the anti-communist House Committee on Un-American Activities).

I am against neither free enterprise nor organized labor. I made a decent living for nearly 50 years working in the media business*, and I benefited in those years from union-negotiated contracts. My retirement is built to a great extent on investments in U.S. businesses, a union-negotiated pension and what, it could be argued, is a democratic socialist government program known as Social Security.

In other words, I’m an American shaped by the great, often flawed, unavoidably corruptible and sometimes corrupt institutions that shape all of us; an American with the duty to look for ways to address the flaws and corruption while benefiting from the institutions.

In my screening room fantasy, the movies are followed by a civilized discussion (remember, I said it’s a fantasy) involving both sides. People on opposing sides would politely ask questions of each other and themselves.

In the latest version of the dream, those questions include:

What is it that enough Americans in enough states have seen of the Democrats that makes them want to put someone as openly corrupt, cruel and inept as Donald Trump in the White House?

What is it about Republican dominance that is moving a growing number of Americans to vote for Democrats as radical as Darializa Avila Chevalier, praiser of Marxist leaders, who said once said she’d use the U.S. flag as a mere hand towel?

Can we reach out to each other and find consensus on the issues that divide a nation that overflows a continent and that is inhabited by 350 million people of diverse backgrounds?

Alas, this is, again, a fantasy.

And, fittingly, I guess, the two heroes I’m thinking about this Independence Day are fictional. But I believe in their hope, courage and perseverance:

— Tom Joad’s dawning belief that whatever happens as he flees the authorities after a deadly fight with a strike-buster, something of him will always survive. (“Wherever there’s a fight so hungry people can eat, I‘ll be there,” he says in dialogue faithful to what Steinbeck wrote in the novel. “Wherever there’s a cop beatin’ up a guy, I’ll be there.”)

— Terry Malloy, savagely beaten, barely able to walk, but undefeated as he hobbles onto the wharf to bust union boss Johnny Friendly’s hold on the workers.

Perhaps not fitting images for the Fourth of July. But important ones to keep in mind after the fireworks and Sousa marches have died down.

STILL WITH ME?

I can’t say I agree with everything in this Wall Street Journal opinion piece by Gerard Baker, but he touches on some familiar frustrations.

An excerpt:

“Few things could induce me to vote for another four years of the sort of Republicanism we are enduring now. But one of them is definitely the alternative of Islamist-friendly, open-the-borders, defund-the-police, kill-the-billionaires socialists running the country.”

Some of Baker’s characterizations are overwrought. He’s already set to unfairly cast all Democrats as extremists in the vein of Darializa Avila Chevalier. But I often share his frustrations with the choices afforded us in the current two-party system.

*Most of my career was spent working for The Associated Press. While AP is a not-for-profit cooperative, it is owned by, and distributes its content to its members, including profit-making news organizations.

But, no. After winning the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate on Saturday, and thus becoming the prohibitive favorite to win the Senate seat in the fall, Letlow decided to go with what got her this far in the race: insipid flattery.

Donald Trump, Letlow said, is “the greatest president this country has ever had,” according to The Times-Picayune.

Upon hearing or reading this, your first impulse might be to invoke Washington, Jefferson, Adams, Lincoln or FDR.

But Letlow wouldn’t really have to go that far back in history to find presidents who surpass Trump.

Letlow, 45, grew up as Ronald Reagan helped teeter the Soviet Union and as George H.W. Bush guided us through the end of the Cold War — while also becoming the last president to enter a war in the Middle East with a clear objective and exit strategy.

Letlow is certainly old enough to remember that Bill Clinton left office with a budget surplus.

And, Letlow was well into adulthood as Barack Obama steered us out of a financial crisis and won health coverage for millions.

I’m not arguing that any of them will be labeled as great presidents in the judgment of historians. Just that the ethically and intellectually challenged winner of the FIFA Peace Prize is obviously far from great and doesn’t compare well with any of them.

But, Letlow knew, and knows, that Trump’s endorsement is still gold in a deep red, Deep South state where his popularity is, inexplicably, as resilient as inflation.

And she appears to know that if you keep him and his supporters high enough on their favorite drugs, flattery and loyalty, they will gleefully overlook past departures from the party line.

Letlow’s opponents, early in the campaign, began calling her out for her well documented, enthusiastic (and fully defensible) support of DEI initiatives. Evidence included a video of her August 2020 job interview for the presidency of the University of Louisiana at Monroe, during which she lamented the lack of diversity at ULM, touched on “amazing work” in DEI initiatives she’d witnessed during visits to eight other colleges, and called for formation of a ULM Division of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion.

That interview happened only months before she left ULM and entered the House. Yet, this is how she explained the issue away in a TV interview early this year:

“I saw it firsthand when I worked at the university,” she said. “DEI was presented to us as something that would help people achieve the American dream. When I quickly witnessed that it was hijacked by the radical left and turned into indoctrination and actually holding people down, I spent the past five years in Congress fighting against it.”

Quickly witnessed? She’d been at the university on and off in some capacity for over a decade? When did “the radical left” pull off this heist of what had only months earlier been “amazing work”?

Doesn’t matter. Trump and his followers are perfectly OK with facial nonsense. Some of them even believe it.

Note the dispiriting remarks of a Letlow voter interviewed Saturday by the AP:

“Trump’s lady all the way,” said Barbara Dufrene, 67, of Marrero. She added that she knew little about Letlow but was counting on the president to lower her healthcare costs and increase her social safety net. “I always vote whatever Trump wants.”

That was a day after The Wall Street Journal reported:

Nearly four million people who signed up for Affordable Care Act plans this year have already dropped their coverage after the loss of subsidies resulted in sharply higher costs.

It’s not like Letlow blazed a new trail. She was just retracing the footsteps of the man she helped Trump oust from the Senate in the May primary, incumbent Bill Cassidy.

Cassidy was the challenger 12 years ago in a similarly substance-free campaign best remembered for his repeatedly telling voters that then-incumbent Mary Landrieu voted with then-President Barack Obama 97 percent of the time.

You could argue that Cassidy was defeated in May because he crossed Trump, voting, conscientiously, for a Senate conviction after the House impeached Trump over the Jan. 6 Capitol riot in 2021.

But consider the possibility — admittedly, this is counterintuitive — that Cassidy didn’t cross Trump often enough. Cassidy and other Republicans who have largely said or done little or nothing about his political self-dealing, racist immigration policies, lies, crackpot vanity projects, extra-judicial killings at sea, and policy missteps have only enabled his takeover of the party and his ability to continue mowing down intra-party opposition.

And, so, the party, and the nation are stuck for now with the tragicomedy of an administration symbolized by a swampy reflecting pool in front of the Lincoln Memorial and a ceasefire that isn’t really a ceasefire in the Middle East.

Play up to a bully for too long and you might never be able to successfully stand up to him.

Cassidy found that out. Letlow will, too, if she ever reaches a point where her conscience (assuming she has one) moves her to oppose Trump.

STILL WITH ME?

Please take time to read Ron Fournier’s assessment of coverage of the Iran war.

Past presidents have only talked about dealing with Iran’s nuclear program, the shrimper said on NPR, but Trump is “the only one that’s had the balls to do it.”

I’d heard this argument before (sometimes using other anatomical symbols of courage like “guts” or “stomach”) and there are a few problems with it.

Problem No. 1: It ignores the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, which was a multilateral deal negotiated by the Obama administration to rein in Iran’s nuclear ambitions.

In case you haven’t noticed, the ol’ JCPOA is looking better and better these days. If 45 hadn’t ripped it up six years ago, 47 might not be dealing with the biggest blunder of his second presidency.

Problem No. 2: It really doesn’t take balls for a powerful 79-year-old man to send young people to war or to drop bombs. Bombs that might degrade an enemy’s ability to attack us or our allies. Or that might hit a school full of children.

Problem No. 3 — the main problem here — is that the argument puts too much emphasis on “balls” and not enough on brains.

Ascending to the presidency takes intelligence. Usually. But, if we’ve learned one thing from the Trump presidencies, intelligence is not a given.

Not that being smart guarantees success. Smart people got us involved in Vietnam. George W. Bush peopled his presidency with politically savvy, smart, experienced government veterans who got us bogged down in Iraq. (Which, by the way, Donald Trump, in 2016, aggressively argued was a stupid decision.)

But now we’ve got an abject lesson in how not being smart is even worse. There may have been broad disagreement about whether the war should have been launched, but less than four months later, across the political spectrum there is broad agreement that things are worse now. Conservative columnist Bret Stephens, an early supporter of the war, said Trump has betrayed Iranians hoping to shed a repressive government (see today’s The Wall Street Journal for the latest on this) and is well on his way to betraying Israel.

“The worst betrayal, however, is of Americans who supported the war — not only neocons like me but also most of Trump’s MAGA base — because we believed that Iran, which has waged a 47-year war against us, posed an increasingly intolerable threat to our security and vital interests,” Stephens wrote in The New York Times. “This cease-fire neither ends nor eases that threat; it hardens and magnifies it.”

Stephens, a strong advocate for Israel, is among conservatives who made the case for military action against Iran. Perhaps they were right, or they would have been right if that action had been planned and undertaken by someone who consulted allies instead of alienating them, someone who didn’t further alienate them by excoriating them for not helping him clean up his mess, someone who listened to generals when they said an attack on Iran might just result in the closure of the Strait of Hormuz.

Someone with brains.

“Reagan is rolling over in his grave,” lame duck Louisiana Sen. Bill Cassidy, newly free to say what he really thinks after finishing third in the Republican Senate primary, wrote on X. “Iran’s nuclear ambitions were not curbed, and they have learned that threatening the Strait of Hormuz works and will undoubtedly leverage it in the future. Now, Iran gets to build brand-new infrastructure under this deal.”

Unfortunately, Cassidy is a rarity among Louisiana politicians.

Rep. Julia Letlow, the Republican who currently appears to be most likely to succeed Cassidy, remains in fawning mode. “I trust President Trump to ensure that any agreement protects American interests, supports our allies and leaves Iran with no path to a nuclear weapon,” she said in a story in The Times-Picayune.

State Treasurer John Fleming, running hard to defeat Letlow in Saturday’s primary runoff, acknowledged having a question or two about the deal but also proved he can fawn with the best of them.

“He said that if they don’t do what they’re supposed to do, he’ll bomb the hell out of them,” Fleming said. “With Trump staying on Iran, there will be much less loss of life in the Middle East, and we’ll have a permanent good outcome. We cannot allow them to have nuclear weapons.”

At least Sen. John Kennedy, a safe Republican incumbent, acknowledged doubts about the agreement. But, his response was largely deferential to Trump. And John Lennon.

“We ought to give peace a chance,” he said multiple times on the Senate floor.

No sign among any of them of willingness for Congress to assert itself in its role as a check on presidential power, its responsibility to decide when we should be at war, its power of the purse.

Surely they have the brains to do it. What are they lacking?

Or at least they have been. But this year, many conscientious Maine voters face a dilemma a lot of us here in Louisiana— at least those of us of a certain age — faced 35 years ago.

Maine has Collins v. Platner this fall. In 1991, we had Duke v. Edwards, aka “The Race From Hell.”

Different, but the same

To be clear, I’m not suggesting that either incumbent Sen. Susan Collins, the Republican in this fall’s Maine race, nor Graham Platner, the oyster-farmer turned populist Democrat, carry the same baggage as David Duke, the neo-Nazi and ex-Klansman who wound up in Louisiana’s 1991 gubernatorial runoff with Edwin Edwards. Nor has either been accused of the type of long-term self-dealing that eventually led to prison for Edwards, who had spent much of his third term as governor fighting federal indictments and who was making a comeback in ’91.

But, there are parallels in that, in both cases — Louisiana in 1991 and Maine now — the choices were unsavory.

And, yet, easy.

In ’91, I needed no coercion to obey the infamous and ubiquitous bumper sticker: “Vote for the crook. It’s important.”

It would have been nice if Edwards had stayed in private life. But he didn’t. In a wide open 1991 race he and Duke each had enough narrow-but-deep populist appeal to wind up in a runoff. At that point, I readily chose Edwards over Duke.

Were I a Maine voter I would need no coercion to
vote for the person least likely to enable the incompetence and corruption of Trump — that person being Platner.

The good old days

But I do wish Platner were not the Democrats’ nominee. I pine for the days when a budding political campaign would be sunk by the candidate’s having, say, once gotten a Nazi-themed tattoo, having been accused by ex-girlfriends of physical abuse and having been caught exchanging sexual messages with women other than his wife.

I wish Platner had not run. I wish Janet Mills was Maine’s Democratic nominee for Senate.

I wish that, once the scandals started popping, Platner had acknowledged them and valorously bowed out of the Democratic primary. I hope that more scandals don’t erupt before the November election. Or, if Platner wins, after.

I also hope, very strongly, that Collins loses.

True, she has stood up to Trump at times, but not often enough. I doubt victory would make her any bolder. And I know it would likely mean continued control of the Senate by a feckless GOP that has remained loyal to Trump despite a litany of outrages including threats to a NATO ally, a war in Iran he seems to have started simply because he could, higher inflation, a cruel and racist immigration policy, homicidal smothering of dissent and flagrant self-dealing.

Let’s hope that Platner wins, that his victory helps put Democrats in control of the Senate, that there are no more skeletons ready to rattle out of his closet, that his behavior from here on out is circumspect and that his political career proves good for the people of Maine.

And redemptive for Platner.

Then comes last week’s news that the Trump administration is dismantling an ocean monitoring system deemed critical to climate and ocean research.

Cutting into climate and ocean research seems contraindicated these days. But Donald Trump, after all, is a person of many contradictions. He gets involved in a sticky war in the Middle East after saying he wouldn’t. He says he’s dropping prices while pursuing tariff and war polices that are propping up prices. He says he’s going after the “worst of the worst” criminal immigrants as federal agents harass and detain people without serious criminal records.

Now, after years of claiming climate change is a “hoax,” he starts undoing research mechanisms that, arguably, he should want to keep in place if he wants to prove it’s a hoax. Of course, more research might add to the evidence of human-caused climate change and that might interfere with the administration’s efforts to kill green energy and make sure we’re using plenty of oil.

Oil, the stuff that’s rising in price because of the war he said he wouldn’t get us into. The one that we keep winning. And that will be over any minute now. Because we keep winning it.

This is all very on-brand for Trump, whose public relations philosophy can be summed up as: If you can’t shoot the messenger, defund it.

Trump supporters on right-wing social media (I put on hip boots and wade in occasionally) say climate scientists are alarmists. There’s been a meme circulating for months attacking news organizations for supposedly over-hyping environmental activist Greta Thunberg, while ignoring climate scientist Judith Curry, who calls climate change theory a hoax.

Except, she doesn’t. Curry is beloved by the MAGA right because she has strong credentials and disagrees with her peers. But it’s important to note that there is more nuance to her opinions than the right claims.

From a post on FactCheck.org:

“I have never said that climate change is a hoax,” Curry told us in an email. “The earth’s climate has been changing for the past 4.6 billion years.”

“Climate change is a geological fact. What is causing the change for the past century is a different issue. Humans are contributing to the recent climate change, but there has also been natural climate variability/change,” Curry said.

Her arguments could be interpreted as evidence of the need for continued research and analysis, which the Trump administration abhors.

Fortunately, other nations are stepping up.

According to The Associated Press:

“With underwater drones and ocean-focused satellites, the EU is expanding its monitoring network of Earth’s seas as climate change fuels heat waves and stronger storms and the Trump administration plans severe cuts to a similar system in the United States.”

Will the research make a difference here in New Orleans, where natural subsidence, rising seas, the corralling of the Mississippi River by levees, and years of oil and gas industry damage to wetlands all contribute to what looks like a bleak future?

CNN reports:

The region has “crossed the point of no return,” the paper’s authors wrote, adding New Orleans “may well be surrounded by the Gulf of Mexico before the end of this century.”

I’d like to think robust research and a cohesive effort, involving the state and federal governments might change that scenario for future generations of New Orleanians. But, neither the state nor the federal government give me much reason for optimism.

What I don’t understand and don’t like at all is the apparent acceptance of this state of affairs by the editorial board of my city’s daily newspaper.

Flipping through Thursday’s edition of The Times-Picayune-The New Orleans Advocate, I was stunned to see this headline on the editorial page:

“Julia Letlow for U.S. Senate.”

Not, for the Republican nomination for the U.S. Senate. For the U.S. Senate. (The online version of the editorial, with a somewhat different headline is here.)

Never mind that Letlow, currently a House member from northeast Louisiana, hasn’t yet secured her party’s nomination. Never mind that she still has to defeat state Treasurer John Fleming.

Never mind that her Democratic opponent hasn’t been determined yet.

Never mind that Thursday was May 28 and that the general election takes place Nov. 3.

Yes, Letlow, appears likely to win the June 27 Republican primary runoff against John Fleming, based on the strength of her showing in the May 16 primary and her endorsement from Donald Trump.

And, yes, it appears unlikely that either of the Democrats running in their party’s runoff — northeast Louisiana farmer Jamie Davis or New Orleans business owner Gary Crockett — will reverse the party’s fortunes. They are, after all, largely unknowns.

But it’s the job of news outlets, like, say, The Times-Picayune, to at least help us get a chance to know them.

A major newspaper should let the primary process play out, let the candidates debate, provide in-depth coverage of the candidates and let the electorate at large make some assessments before its editorial board endorses a candidate. Particularly, a candidate who has yet to win the nomination. A candidate whose chief political strengths so far seem to be political malleability (witness her abrupt and unconvincing turnaround on the issue of diversity, equity and inclusion in higher education) and cabinet-level obsequiousness toward Trump.

Yet, five months before the general election, the T-P knows what it wants. And that, apparently, is to prematurely endorse the likely winner.

“Looking at the entire field, Democrat and Republican, we believe that U.S. Rep. Julia Letlow makes the best case that she is prepared to make an immediate impact in the Senate, as she has throughout her career.”

For the record, Letlow’s story of personal resilience should be acknowledged. Her late husband, Luke Letlow, won the north Louisiana congressional seat she now holds but died of COVID-19 before taking office. She ran for the seat soon after and won it, representing her district since 2021.

She is the mother of two small children and her example of personal courage in the face of tragedy should be admired.

But her public embrace of Trumpism bespeaks political opportunism and cynicism.

Is she better than Fleming? Worse?

Hard to tell. When it comes to competing for support of Trump voters the two are in a fast race to the bottom. Both, for example, fully embrace the the “anti-weaponization fund,” that $1.8 billion pot of taxpayer money established to “settle” a frivolous lawsuit Trump filed against his own administration. It’s obvious purpose is to reward political cronies who have run afoul of the law. It may be the most nakedly venal scheme a nakedly venal president has yet done.

Surely, the editorial board of the T-P would want to at least listen a little harder to what the Democratic candidate, whoever he turns out to be, has to say on that or other issues before making an endorsement this far ahead of November. Perhaps, the board should at least consider not endorsing a candidate so apparently enamored of Trump’s self-dealing and failed policies.

“There are a few chapters yet to be written before Louisiana voters make their final decision known,” Thursday’s editorial stated. “The move to party primaries this election cycle means that the electorate has multiple chances to weigh in. We are hopeful that voters will see the process through to the end.”

That sounds nice but it rings hollow when the endorsement comes before the final slate of candidates is set and when that endorsement is so easily and glibly given to the candidate of the party in power.

The editorial board should have taken its own advice.

STICKING WITH THE PAPER

I often get upset with people who threaten to cancel their subscription to this or that news outlet over a headline, or editorial or even a story they didn’t like. I usually think that’s counterproductive.

When I saw Thursday’s editorial I almost reversed that position. It’s not that they endorsed a MAGA candidate. Although that’s bad. It’s that they made the decision so early and, apparently, easily.

I am sticking with the paper, however. I still have friends there. I admire the work they do. And I take to heart the note at the end of Thursday’s editorial: “No reporters or editors in The Times-Picayune newsroom or its Washington Bureau participated in any way in the endorsement.”

Would Cassidy, if he were still a candidate, have confronted it and denounced it head-on? Would he have caved in to political pressures and supported it, like he did when he abandoned his principles and duties as a physician and senator to help put Bobby Kennedy Jr. in charge of the nation’s health? Or would he, in hopes he might somehow salvage his job AND salve his own conscience, have pushed into new frontiers of equivocation? Like the time he reacted to Trump’s racist online post about the Obamas by thanking him for taking it down.

We’ll never know. Cassidy, who voted to convict Trump on impeachment charges in 2021 and was never forgiven for it, was knocked out of contention in the May 16 primary. He’s free now to buck Trump and he’s doing it, by among other things, opposing the most blatant act of self-dealing Trump has yet attempted.

In case you’ve forgotten about the grift in question:

Trump, the head of the executive branch, sued an executive branch agency, the IRS, for $10 billion, over a contractor’s leak of some of his tax returns (showing among other things that he paid zero federal income taxes in 2020). Then he reached a settlement via another executive branch agency, the Justice Department -- run, now, by his “former” personal attorney. That settlement gives him broad immunity from investigation or prosecution over tax matters and establishes a nearly $1.8 billion fund to compensate people Trump says were unfairly targeted by the government. Like, say, the people who attacked the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

Even as his poll numbers plummet, Trump has proven he still holds a tight grip on the GOP base, having recently defeated those he believes are disloyal, like Cassidy, in key congressional primaries.

But losing can be a freeing thing. And Cassidy is now free to say and vote however he wants.

“It’s as if somebody sued themselves, agreed upon a settlement with themselves, and that’s going to be funded by the rest of us. There’s no legal precedent for this,” Cassidy told reporters in a phone call this past week, according to nola.com. “I can tell you: The voters don’t like that, or if they like it, maybe they’re in on it. I’m not in on it.”

Unfortunately, the two remaining candidates for the GOP nomination in the Senate race apparently think the voters — in on it or not — are just fine with it.

When asked about the $1.8 billion fund, they did what all good MAGA lackeys do. They attacked Joe Biden.

Fleming referenced allegations about Biden family wrongdoing in Ukraine, according to Nola.com.

As for Letlow: “The Biden administration weaponized the Department of Justice against political opponents,” she said.

It makes you wonder whether former Democratic Sen. Robert Menendez of New Jersey or Hunter Biden might have the chutzpah to apply for some of the compensation funding, given that they were convicted by prosecutors from the “weaponized” Biden Justice Department.

I’m sure they’d get full and fair consideration from Trump and Attorney General Todd Blanche.

The good news in all of this is that the two Democrats vying for their party’s Senate nomination in the June 27 primary runoff in Louisiana are pointing out the corruption and wastefulness of the Trump slush fund.

Jamie Davis had several ideas on how $1.8 billion could be better spent; things like flood protection, rural hospitals and helping farmers hurt by Trump’s tariffs, according to Nola.com. In that same story, Gary Crockett also said the money would be better spent on other things, criticizing the slush fund as “money meant for a grifter.”

The bad news is that the Democratic candidate, whether it’s Davis or Crockett, appears unlikely to loosen the GOP grip on Louisiana. Perhaps time, continued war, escalating prices and blatant self-dealing will change some minds in the coming months.

And yet, it’s not the only scary thing happening in Louisiana politics these days.

SCARY: THE SENATE PRIMARY

We can console ourselves regarding the Senate race, knowing that Sen. Bill Cassidy deserved what he got for having tried to placate the implacable Donald Trump.

Cassidy paid a price for having voted “guilty” when Trump was impeached in 2021 over the Jan. 6 Capitol riot. His attempts to make up for that once Trump regained power last year have been embarrassing and dangerous. He voted to confirm all of Trump’s cabinet picks, including the dubiously qualified Pete Hegseth, Tulsi Gabbard, Kash Patel, Pam Bondi.

And, of course, there was a key vote to make anti-vax zealot Robert F. Kennedy Jr. the new heath secretary, a move that Cassidy, a physician and a strong vaccine advocate, had to know was wrong.

Still, I was among the “no-party” voters who cast a vote for Cassidy.

Why?

SCARIER: FROM BAD TO, ARGUABLY, WORSE

Cassidy was REALLY bad but at least his conscience sometimes showed signs of a faint pulse.

U.S. Rep. Julia Letlow of Monroe, and state Treasurer John Fleming (a physician and former congressman from northwest Louisiana) ousted Cassidy in Saturday’s Republican primary and will face each other in a June 27 runoff.

Fleming served in multiple roles in the first Trump administration and wasn’t the least bothered by the attempted insurrection. His MAGA bona fides are unassailable.

Letlow, who served in academia before winning her House seat in 2021, has what must be an annoying blot on her record for MAGA enthusiasts: a warm, enthusiastic and convincing embrace of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion programs that she suddenly discovered weren’t her cup of tea once she moved from academia to elective politics. Her disavowals have not been very convincing, but she’s shown a Cassidy-like ability to abandon a principled stance. Thus, she has Trump’s endorsement.

The winner of the runoff is all but certain to win the November election against a Democratic opponent (soybean farmer Jamie Davis or New Orleans business owner Gary Crockett are in the Democratic runoff).

So, our current Trump-appeasing U.S. senator will be replaced in the next Congress by someone even more likely to appease Trump and even less afflicted by conscience over things like, say, a thoroughly politicized justice department run by Trump’s personal lawyer, an undeclared war, federal agents’ shooting of protesters in the streets … I could go on but I want to address something that has me even more concerned, and it has nothing to do with the primary.

SCARIEST: LIZ MURRILL’S FASCISTIC MAGA FLEX

In last year’s New Orleans elections, Calvin Duncan was elected to be the clerk of New Orleans’ criminal court system.

Duncan has a remarkable story. Unjustly convicted of murder in 1981, he spent nearly three decades in prison, learned the law while behind bars and eventually won his freedom. He earned a law degree. He ran for clerk of criminal court to help make sure the system worked for others convicted unjustly.

He got 68% of the vote, which must have really rankled state Attorney General Liz Murrill. She had publicly attacked his claim that he was exonerated – even though he was, clearly, exonerated.

This year, before Duncan could take office, the Legislature passed, and GOP Gov. Jeff Landry eagerly signed, a bill eliminating the job of New Orleans’ criminal clerk of court and shifting that office’s duties to that of another elective position, the clerk of civil court.

The City Council, with the support of the mayor and the district attorney, interpreted the new law as, essentially, creating a new position for which there is now a vacancy – one that Duncan could run to fill. The council named an interim clerk to fill what they see as the new, vacant office and planned for a new election. Murrill says there is no vacancy and that the elected civil court clerk holds the job.

Litigation has resulted, of course. Chelsey Richard Napoleon, a Black woman who was elected civil court clerk, is kind of caught in the middle here and understandably, objects to the council’s action. The state Supreme Court has put a hold on the changes, keeping Napoleon in place while it prepares to hear arguments.

All that is to be expected. What was unexpected: Murrill firing off a series of totally unnecessary letters threatening supporters of the council action with removal from office and replacement by the governor under an obscure law that could also mean prison for the interim clerk.

Murrill implied that the city officials might violate any court orders blocking their action. There had been no sign that they would. Threatening to use an obscure law to replace them and jail their designee was, to say the very least, overkill.

To sum up:

Members of the white Republican power structure in Baton Rouge saw Duncan — a Black man whose exoneration on a decades-old criminal charge drew attention to faults in the criminal justice system — overwhelmingly elected to a powerful office in predominantly Black New Orleans. They pushed a bill through the Legislature ( to eliminate Duncan’s job.

Five members of the City Council (four of them Black) took action, with the support of Mayor Helena Moreno (Hispanic) and District Attorney Jason Williams (Black), that could allow Duncan to win the post again.

The council members were told by Murrill, according to her press release, that they should “immediately rescind” their action and that Moreno and Williams should “retract any support for the attempted usurpation.”

In other words, sit down and shut up. Which has a familiar sound to anyone who watched recent hearings on congressional redistricting. These are the actions of a younger generation of MAGA bullies — who will outlive and outlast Donald Trump — flexing their authoritarian muscle.

And that’s scary.

I will post something Sunday on my thoughts about the results of today’s Louisiana GOP primary for U.S. Senate. Meanwhile, here’s my latest opinion piece about the race for MS NOW:

https://www.ms.now/opinion/bill-cassidy-louisiana-senate-trump-impeachment

And here’s my earlier post on why I am holding my nose and voting for Cassidy:

Robert Mann isn’t sold on the idea of supporting Cassidy, who reached out to him as he noted here:

Something Like the Truth: By Robert Mann

Is Bill Cassidy the real liberal in the US Senate race?

Something Like the Truth runs on reader support. I don’t have a corporate sponsor. I don’t run ads. If you read regularly and find value here, the best way to keep me going is to upgrade to a paid subscription. For the price of a latte each month ($5), you’ll keep getting posts that help you understand Louisiana and US politics…

Read more

5 months ago · 40 likes · 32 comments · Robert Mann

And, on a completely different note, here is one of my favorite posts from the last few days. Adam Kinzinger’s note on why the MAGA boosters who sought the tar and feathering of Hunter and Joe Biden are suddenly silent about, even sanguine with, the Trump family’s conflicts of interest.

Adam Kinzinger

Hypocrisy Is the Point

Video discussion for paid subscribers follows article…

Read more

4 months ago · 1059 likes · 162 comments · Adam Kinzinger

With so many outrages developments, it’s easy to bog down on one disgrace story and let it distract you from others.

So, once again, here’s a partial rundown presented in (what I hope is) a helpful Q&A format:

Q: Is there still a ceasefire in the U.S. war against Iran?

A: If by ceasefire you mean the actual ceasing of firing, well, no.

If by ceasefire you mean firing at each other while the government insists there is still a ceasefire, and while various media reports describe said ceasefire as “strained” or “fragile,” then, yes.

Q: Based on previous statements by Donald Trump, this war, which we’ve won several times now, should be over. How has Trump sought to assure the nation that he’s got everything under control?

A: By taking a motorcade trip to inspect work on the Reflecting Pool at the Lincoln Memorial. He is having the pool painted a soothing, tranquil blue color in order to give it the YMCA lap pool atmosphere that Lincoln, as we all remember from our high school history lessons, so admired.

Q: Should Trump be so obsessively focused on painting the Reflecting Pool when the nation is tied up in a wa… uh… fragile ceasefire?

A: Gee! As it happens, Rachel Scott of ABC News asked that very thing Thursday and Trump, responded with typical presidential dignity …

Q: Uh-oh.

A: … respectfully telling her, “It’s such a stupid question you ask” and calling her a “horror show,” among other disparagements.

Q: Speaking of respect, did a white Louisiana state senator call the executive director of the state Democratic Party, who is Black, “boy”?

A: It’ not entireley clear. However, it should be noted, for background that state Sen. Jay Morris, pushed a bill during the current legislative session that knocked Calvin Duncan — a Black man, exonerated former prisoner and underdog politician in New Orleans — out of office after he received 68% of the vote for the post of clerk of criminal court. Also, legislation Morris handled before a committee last week, prompted by a Supreme Court ruling, will likely lead to Black people, one-third of the state’s population, being under-represented, again, in the state congressional delegation.

At the end of his committee testimony, Morris clearly told Black opponents, “Y’all need to shut up” as he left the witness table. Available recordings picked that up. But, amid the noise, he cannot be heard calling state Democratic Party Executive Director Dadrius Lanus “boy.”

Lanus says he did.

Morris says he didn’t. So the question here is whether he said the quiet part out loud.

Q: Did the Trump administration finally release a trove of “never before seen files” on Friday?

A: Yes.

Q: What do those files tell us about Jeffrey Epstein?

A: Nothing. The files contained information on decades of possible UFO sightings.

Q: What did we learn about UFOs from the files?

A: About as much as we learned about Jeffrey Epstein.

According to NBC News:

“Many of the declassified videos consist of grainy U.S. military footage from infrared sensors, and the release included a slew of mostly indiscernible photos showing points of light or dark and unusually shaped objects.”

Q: Speaking of unusually shaped objects, was a 22-foot-tall, gold-leaf-covered bronze statue of Donald Trump unveiled Wednesday at the Trump National Doral golf course in Miami?

A: Yes. According to The Daily Beast, which also references earlier reporting from The New York Times:

“The 22-foot structure reportedly cost $450,000 and was funded by a group of crypto investors, who commissioned the Trump likeness as part of a promotional campaign for their memecoin, $PATRIOT.”

Q: Doesn’t that smack of the kind of idolatry that would upset Trump’s conservative Christian followers?

A: Actually, it kind of smacks of influence peddling. But don’t worry about the idolatry part. Mark Burns, an evangelical pastor who led the unveiling ceremony said, according to The Daily Beast, that it was “blasphemy” to compare the statue to the golden calf from the of Exodus.

Q: Well, at least these Trump vanity projects like the giant statue and Trump’s new White House ballroom aren’t being funded by taxpayers. Right?

A: Not so fast. Senate Republicans have included $1 billion in a funding bill for security measures at Trump’s ballroom. Axios reports, however, that the proposal is running into opposition among House Republicans.

Q: Won’t a fight over funding draw more attention to the fact that Trump promised the new ballroom wouldn’t cost taxpayers anything?

A: Never mind that. The Pentagon says additional UFO files are on the way.

Q: Really!?!

A: Yes, according to NBC the Pentagon said more UFO files will be added to a website as more distractions are needed “on a rolling basis.”

Louisiana’s current congressional district map, the one the court voted 6-3 to eviscerate, is not really a racial gerrymander. Or, at least, it’s not a racial gerrymander nearly so much as it is a political gerrymander — an instrument of political protectionism and vengeance pushed by a governor aligned with the retribution wing of the Republican Party.

THE SLASH

District 6 in the newly voided map looks like someone took a knife to the state and made a diagonal slash. It ties together pockets of Black population from northwest, central and southeast Louisiana. It was drawn up while the state was still under court pressure to create a second minority district, to better reflect Louisiana’s racial makeup (a.k.a the good ol’ days).

And it did indeed play into arguments that the state couldn’t really draw up a sensible mostly Black district because the Black population of Louisiana was too geographically spread out.

IT DIDN’T HAVE TO BE THAT WAY

Lost in much of the debate back in 2022 was the fact that proponents of more reasonable and fair Black representation in Congress had proposed sensible maps with carefully considered, compact districts. Proposals included, for instance, a new mostly Black, 5th District. Like the current, mostly white 5th District, the proposed district was bordered on the north by Arkansas. It encompassed northeastern parishes along or near the Mississippi line and made the same sharp eastern turn that the state’s border makes at West Feliciana Parish.

It was a simple, compact and sensibly drawn district that remedied the unfairness of having one third of the state’s population represented by one sixth of the state’s U.S. House delegation.

But sensible and fair don’t get a lot of consideration these days.

PROTECT AND AVENGE

While sensible and fair, the map would have scrambled districts for incumbent Republicans. And Gov. Jeff Landry wanted to protect GOP allies in the delegation.

Except for one.

The map he pushed — the current, freshly killed one that makes Louisiana’s congressional district map look like a Freddy Krueger victim — aligned with court mandates for a new mostly Black district while effectively eliminating incumbent Republican Rep. Garret Graves’ chance at re-election. Graves had backed a Republican opponent of Landry in the last governor’s race.

If you want to make an argument against racial gerrymandering, an argument that creating a second Black-majority district requires ill-advised linking of geographically and culturally diverse parts of the state, you could easily point to the Landry-backed map (which Landry eventually decided NOT to defend in court after Graves was defeated and the Supreme Court appeared poised to gut the VRA).

But, if you want to make an argument for fairness, the unused maps show that Louisiana’s Black population wasn’t so dispersed that a sensible map couldn’t be drawn. That lends weight to the argument that, for years, Louisiana had purposely divided up its Black vote.

WHAT NEXT?

Should proponents of fairness push such a map again in the Legislature? Yes.

It will be defeated, of course. And the Supreme Court majority opinion written by Justice Samuel Alito appears to shut the door on the argument that the state has to draw a racially fair map just because it can. (In the farcical world of national politics, gerrymandering to protect a historically disadvantaged group of voters is forbidden but partisan gerrymandering to further empower the already powerful is OK.)

But, for history’s sake, let’s make our lawmakers go on the record as opposing the idea of racial fairness.

ANY HOPE?

To be clear, the demise of the Voting Rights Act is not good. But I’m going to go out on a limb here and say current predictions of disaster may be a little overwrought and premature. Maybe.

Why? Because I remember back in the 1990s when Louisiana state Rep. Peppi Bruneau, a white Republican, and state Rep. Sherman Copelin, a Black Democrat, worked together on reapportionment maps after the 1990 census.

God knows the two were not allies. But their purposes aligned. Copelin wanted to create more predominantly Black districts. Bruneau wanted more white, mostly Republican districts to bolster the GOP’s growing power in a state that was once almost monolithically Democratic.

In a 2022 article in The Advocate, political writer Tyler Bridges noted the case to be made for the argument that packing more Black voters together into mostly Black districts diminished chances for white Democrats to get elected and contributed to polarization of the electorate.

We can only hope now that the decimation of the Voting Rights Act will lead to the creation of new alliances, perhaps diminishing polarization, perhaps blunting the power of the rabid right.

STILL WITH ME?

I firmly believe that the incompetence and buffoonery of the Trump administration is so overwhelming, with new outrages happening daily, that the electorate is becoming inured to it all.

The website Tangle is providing a much-needed wake-up call . And it’s providing it without a paywall.

It’s a breakdown of the staggering ethical abuses and self-dealing of the president.

In case you’re not familiar with Tangle, it’s a news site where the editors do a deft daily wrap-up of current news, with links to commentary from left and right. There is a free newsletter and more in-depth coverage behind a paywall, but, again, they’ve dropped the paywall for this one.

An excerpt from editor Isaac Saul:

“…There’s so much news, and so many allegations about Trump that it becomes easy to tune it all out (both for his supporters and critics). News fatigue is real, and when we consume the news we are often fed content from organizations and individuals that share our politics.

“But, to state it plainly: After reviewing the evidence of the first 15 months of President Trump’s second term, I believe the president is profiting off the office and making foreign policy decisions based on business interests to a level we’ve never seen or even conceived of before, and apparently nothing is being done to stop it.”

—5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Leslie Southwick.

NEW ORLEANS — How did this get so complicated?

The First Amendment to the United States Constitution says, among other things, that the government can’t establish a religion or keep people from practicing their chosen religion freely.

The first of the Ten Commandments reads ( in the versions favored by the Texas and Louisiana legislatures): “I AM the Lord thy God. Thou shalt have no other gods before me.”

Obviously, a law requiring that the commandments, especially Commandment No. 1, be displayed in every school classroom runs afoul of the Constitution, especially Amendment No. 1.

But things get complicated and silly when lawyers and politicians get involved. And, so, after a lot of legislative debates and lawsuits and court hearings, we now have a bare majority of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals (nine of 17) saying the Texas law is perfectly OK. The same court, by the way, has allowed the somewhat different, but similar Louisiana law (please see “Camouflaging the Commandments”) to proceed although it hasn’t issued a final ruling.

The legal reasoning in the Texas ruling can get kind of complicated but, at the risk of oversimplifying:

SWEET HOME ALABAMA

The majority says a Supreme Court decision in 2022, which allowed an Alabama public high school coach to pray on the football field after games, wiped out a lot of old Supreme Court precedents regarding matters of government and religion, essentially raising the bar for what constitutes an unconstitutional “establishment” of religion.

Judge Stuart Kyle Duncan wrote for the majority that the test is whether the law violates what the founding fathers would have considered “establishment.” In the founding era, he wrote in a 53-page lead opinion, “merely displaying religious text in a classroom” would not coerce students “in the way that founding-era establishments coerced dissenters” with fines, taxes or other punishments.

NOT SO FAST, KYLE

The minority said the majority is over its skis, reading way too much into the Alabama decision, which governed the coach’s private prayer.

Supreme Court precedent still prohibits even “subtle” religious coercion in public schools, Judge Irma Ramirez wrote in the lead dissent.

A BIPARTISAN MINORITY

It’s worth noting here that the 5th Circuit is considered the most conservative of the federal appeals courts. Twelve of it’s 17 full-time judges were nominated by Republican presidents. Six of those, including Duncan, were nominated by Donald Trump.

But only nine of the 12 agreed that the Texas law is constitutional. Although there were multiple dissents and not everyone agreed on every point, three of the Republican-nominated judges largely sided with Ramirez and other Democrat-nominated judges.

WE INTERRUPT THIS LEGAL JARGON WITH SOME COMMON SENSE

Judge Leslie Southwick, nominated to the court by George W. Bush, wrote a strong dissent. It was rooted in law and jurisprudence, of course, but began with a nod to common sense.

“What is not part of my dissent is a rejection of the importance of searching for faith,” Southwick wrote. “Religion, though, is a matter of the mind and the heart. Faith cannot flourish when it is forced.”

Southwick then went on to note in part of his 14-page dissent that the Supreme Court, in its ruling allowing a coach’s private post-game prayer on the football field (when nobody — including any student — was required to join him), had not reversed precedent that forbade, say, broadcasting prayers over public address systems.

“To my eyes and ears, if a prayer heard but ignored can be coercive, then the posting of explicitly religious text in a place where it can be seen in every classroom is more coercive,” Southwick wrote.

IT AIN’T OVER ‘TILL IT’S OVER

Next stop for the Texas law (and by extension the Louisiana law) is the Supreme Court.

Both laws are blatant attempts to get around the First Amendment in order to curry favor with the religious right’s chronic voters — the rights of students and families who have alternate, or no, religious beliefs be damned.

“Texas’s installment of the King James Version of the Ten Commandments in every classroom harms impressionable students and deprives parents of their fundamental right to govern their children’s religious upbringing,” 5th Circuit Judge Stephen Higginson wrote in another dissent accompanying those of Ramirez and Southwick.

He’s right.

Let’s hope the Supreme Court recognizes the Texas and Louisiana laws for what they are — cynical and unconstitutional attempts at political pandering.

STILL WITH ME?

I need to note here the passing of a journalism hero.

Jack Thornell died this past week at the age of 86. Our careers at The Associated Press overlapped only briefly but I knew him by his work and from the awe-inspired stories of his colleagues. He captured some of the most important and historic images of the civil rights era, at times risking his life.

Read more about him here and take a look at a compilation of some of his work, here.

I got to know Jack a bit after I retired in January of 2025, during every-two-week get-togethers of old AP and UPI hands at a Cafe du Monde in suburban New Orleans. I’m going to miss our conversations. My condolences to his partner, Patricia, and his family and friends.