Louisiana Voice

For starters, Media Bias, a web service that evaluates online media for bias, accuracy and credibility, has this to say about The Hayride, Louisiana’s leading conservative news blog:

“Overall, we rate The Hayride as Far-Right biased and Questionable based on the promotion of conspiracy theories, pseudoscience, failed fact checks, a lack of transparency, and poor sourcing. In general, The Hayride holds far-right biased and often promotes conspiracy theories and pseudoscience to advance their editorial positions.”

To support its rating, Media Bias noted the following failed fact checks:

• Donald Trump wrote in “The Art of the Deal” that if you tell people a lie three times, they will believe it. – False
• A photograph depicts the arrival of 10,000 Syrian refugees in New Orleans in November 2015. – False
• Jeffrey Epstein’s private banker dead by ‘suicide,’ model scout MIA – False

The critique went on to say, “During Covid-19, they made false claims, such as claiming that masks harm the healthy. They don’t. They also promoted the false stolen election narrative citing the 2000 Mules Documentary, which has been thoroughly debunked.”

This is not an attempt to pick a fight with The Hayride, but is simply cited as a means to set the table for what must be one of the most far-fetched, hallucination-induced posts—even by Hayride standards—by some guest columnist identified only as Lindman (no first name provided—and I don’t blame him) that I have been able to slog through.

In today’s (Oct. 12) post, Lindman laments the politics of the Norwegian Nobel Committee and heaps shame on it for not awarding the Peace Prize to the person “who did the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, the reduction of standing armies, and the promotion of peace congresses.”

Any guesses as to whom he is referring with that sweeping description? No? Well, let me clarify further, courtesy of Lindman, who goes on to say:

“President Donald Trump settled eight wars and came close to ending or settling two more. He secured the return of every Israeli hostage—including the final 28, both living and dead—along with hundreds of others from countries across the world. He captured the violent dictator who had run Venezuela. He stopped the Islamic Republic of Iran, the number one state sponsor of terror, from obtaining a nuclear weapon. Those are measurable outcomes. Families were reunited. Fighting stopped. A brutal regime lost its leader. A nuclear threshold was pushed back. Leadership produced those results.”

But why should I continue to quote Lindman? You can read the entire mishmash by going here:

LINDMAN: Leadership Delivers Peace. The Nobel Committee Prefers Politics.

It’s almost as if he ripped a page from The Borowitz Report.

Trump Seeks to Avoid Losing in Texas by Returning it to Mexico.

It would be ridiculous enough if this was the only such story in The Hayride. But it isn’t.

Just last week, on Oct. 7, in fact, there was another post—this one about a SNAFU by a member of the Livingston Parish Council in providing a candidate for district attorney copies of checks paid to a Hammond law firm which served as legal counsel to the parish council.

ROBICHEAUX: Something Smells in the Livingston Parish District Attorney’s Office

Without going into a lot of detail, the gist of the story was tsk-tsking the Moody Law Firm for serving as paid legal counsel for the parish while simultaneously its attorneys were serving as assistant district attorneys.

While that may well be a questionable practice, it’s important to note The Hayride conveniently overlooked a similar practice by its favorite governor during the time he served as Louisiana Attorney General and which continues with his successor.

Current Attorney General Liz Murrill was the top assistant to Jeff Landry during Landry’s tenure as AG and during that time and continuing today, Murrill’s husband, John Murrill, was—and is—a partner in the firm of Taylor Porter, which has contracts with the AG’s office.

The Louisiana Supreme Court ruled that it was okay for Taylor Porter to represent the state and the AG’s office in capital cases. The firm’s representation of the state would not seem very different from the Moody firm representing Livingston Parish.

Somehow, The Hayride missed that similarity.

Louisiana has once again caught the eye of The Guardian, an international news organization—but as usual, not in a good way.

Christopher Paul, a Republican, is the only remaining candidate for police chief of the village of Elizabeth in Allen Parish after his opponent was forced to drop out of the race by his employer.

Paul is apparently destined to become the village’s next police chief despite on major blemish on his record.

He is presently out on bond following his arrest on charges of raping two 13-year-old girls in 2005 and 2006.

Man accused of child rape set to become police chief in small Louisiana town | Louisiana | The Guardian

The Louisiana Secretary of State’s Office has confirmed Paul is eligible to hold office unless he is subsequently convicted of a felony. If he is convicted, it would prevent him from taking office when the new chief’s term begins on Jan. 1.

Paul, 46, officially qualified to run on Aug. 6 and was arrested a month later, on Sept. 8, by the Allen Parish Sheriff’s Office. He is presently out on $60,000 bail.

His former opponent, Zachary LaCaze, is a civilian employee at Fort Polk. He said he called a federal hotline for Hatch Act questions prior to qualifying and was told he could run for the job provided he did not declare a party affiliation but subsequently learned other candidates must also be no party. Paul is running as a Republican.

“As much as I love being a police officer and as much as I wanted to be your chief of police, I have a responsibility to my family. My full-time job is what provides for my wife and son, and I cannot take that away from them, So, as much as it hurts me, I have to step away from this election.” LaCaze said. He added about Paul’s winning by default, “I have a lot of concerns if it happens, but it’s out of my hands.”

Another British publication, the DAILY MAIL, noted that Paul’s uncontested candidacy has sparked outrage on social media. “Nobody in Elizabeth wants to become chief?” asked one writer. “Whoever runs against this guy would probably win.”

Another wrote, “You cannot tell me that there is absolutely no one else to take this job! These people don’t make any sense. Why put this individual in that position and when he goes to prison for RAPE they will have to fill the position with someone else.”

“He should withdraw from the race,” said a third user. “He knows he’s not wanted in Elizabeth.”

One other writer was even more blunt. “Idiot should drop out,” he wrote.

Elizabeth Mayor Mandy Leo Green pointed out correctly, “Charges are allegations, not a conviction. The candidate in question has been arrested and charged, but has not been convicted of any crime. Under the law, anyone accused of a crime is presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. This is an important part of our justice system.”

Meanwhile, the village council has approved a Dec. 12 special election on a proposition to make the police chief position one by appointment rather than by election though it remains unclear when that would take effect if approved by voters.

Paul has declined to comment on his arrest but indicated he has no intentions to withdraw despite a call for him to step down by the Youth Peace & Justice Foundation, a national nonprofit organization established to prevent violence against children.

So, Pete Hegseth wants to sink to the level of arguably the worst barbarians on the face of the earth.

While he didn’t have far to go to achieve that dubious recognition, his announcement that he intends to livestream the execution of convicted killer Nidal Hasan is a new low—even for him.

Hasan is the US Army psychiatrist who shot and killed 13 Americans at Ft. Hood, Texas, in 2009, and is slated for execution by firing squad. The announcement has been met with WIDESPREAD CONDEMNATION.

But what Hegseth obviously does not understand is that executions are not a spectator sport.

To suggest otherwise is to put the secretary of defense in the same box with Isis terrorists who behead American citizens. Both are heinous acts, albeit firing squads would seem to more humane than beheadings—the word “humane” being a wholly relative term.

We already knew that Hegseth was an unqualified, headline-seeking narcissistic fool. There was no further need for him to prove his point.

We’re supposed to be a civilized nation. Livestreaming an execution, no matter how horrific the original crime, is the very antithesis of what we stand for in America. Instead, it is sadistic to the extreme. Suggesting, much less declaring, that it be livestreamed is morbidly ghoulish and has no place in our society. To reiterate our point, it is not entertainment in any context. It simply puts us on the same level with uncivilized bloodthirsty terrorists.

Just remember one key fact that should not be ignored. The announcement that it will be available for all to watch via the Internet was made by a man with an oversized tattoo of a Nazi Iron Cross emblazoned on his chest.

We started October with our twice-yearly fundraiser that was originally scheduled to run for the entire month but a story I spotted online Thursday has prompted an about-face for our own fundraising efforts in favor of a far more noble cause.

There’s a 26-year-old poet in Phoenix, Arizona who has been working pretty much on his own to help house and FEED THE HOMELESS in the Phoenix area and if you have not yet but intended to make a contribution to LouisianaVoice, I humbly implore you to consider instead making a contribution to his nonprofit, AZ HUGS.

I don’t know if Austin Davis is a Democrat, a Republican or whatever, whether he’s a Christin, Jew, atheist or agnostic or even Muslim. It does not matter. What does matter is what he is doing on his own time, through his own unselfish efforts transcends anything any Bible-thumping evangelical is doing for the benefit of his fellow man.

What he is doing in humanitarian charity so far exceeds our work with this blog as to not even merit a comparison.

At a time when ICE is detaining innocent people (including many Americans citizens), shooting people and generally pulling off flawless impersonations of Nazi gestapo, Davis is quietly going about the business of assisting homeless children, families who have had a wage earner laid off from a job and single moms who have been evicted. These are Americans no different from the Okies John Steinbeck wrote about—desperate, hungry people who only want to get a job and feed their families. Others are mentally ill with nowhere to go because Republicans have cut spending for programs for them.

Sure, there are the drug addicts. That’s to be expected. But is it better to deny all so that some drug abuser does not benefit or is it better to help as many as possible innocents in the knowledge that some undeserving individual may also benefit?

Or is just better to look the other way while our political leaders continue to lavish corporate welfare in the form of generous tax breaks on the uber-rich who in turn refuse to make eye contact with the beggar on the street?

To paraphrase Joshua 24:15 (the evangelicals hate it when you throw Bible verses in their faces), “…as for me and my house…” we choose to help the less fortunate.

So, if you can find it in your heart to do so, go HERE and help this idealistic young man in his efforts to spread a little true Christian spirit where it is best applied.

Another verse: Mathhew 25:40: “…when you did it to one of the least of these my brothers and sisters, you were doing it to me.”