Louisiana Voice

Landry, GOP govs join Trump pledge to shield utility ratepayers from data center costs • Louisiana Illuminator

The LOUISIANA ILLUMINATOR, as it generally does, had a most interesting story today. Among the quotes contained in that story:

[Atty. Gen. Liz] Murrill and [Gov. Squeaky Toy] Landry said during a Wednesday news conference that although the special prosecutor has dropped the charges, it is not enough to prevent accountability for the city leaders Murrill accused of weaponizing the criminal justice system against her.

Maybe it’s just me, but I see (and hear) a lot of irony in Lizzie’s claim of weaponizing the justice system against her.

I mean, after all, she and the Gov. are butt-kissing buddies of Cadet Bonespurs who has pretty much set the standard for weaponization of the justice department against anyone—opposing politicians, prosecutors, journalists, former Olympic athletes, TV personalities, any person of a darker skin than Nehi orange.

“It’s not over,” Murrill said. “You can’t be friends with somebody who wants to put you in jail for 80 years.

See third paragraph.

“Mutual professional courtesy and professional working relationships, absolutely. We have always extended that to the city of New Orleans and its leadership, no matter how bad their decision-making is.” 

That’s an interesting observation for Landry’s sock puppet Murrill to make in light of her reluctance to meet with Mayor Helena Moreno and of her former (and current, it seems) boss’s assertion that N’awlins is no longer so important to the state:

Again, from the Louisiana Illuminator, which has become the GO-TO SOURCE for all things Louisiana, we have Squeaky Toy saying, “Used to be, the saying was, ‘Where goes New Orleans, where goes the state.’ Let me tell you what happened today. That has changed. Where goes Louisiana will determine the fate of New Orleans, okay?”

Perhaps it slipped Squeaky Toy’s mind that the Port of New Orleans ranks 6^th among all U.S. ports by total cargo tonnage.

Maybe he doesn’t realize how much revenue is generated by the Superdome and Smoothie King facilities in terms of sporting events, concerts and conventions or how much is generated by the Sugar Bowl and on those occasions when a Super Bowl or NCAA national championship game is held at the ‘Dome. Haven’t seen any of those events held anywhere else in Louisiana.

It could be he doesn’t remember the financial impact of the New Orleans Mardi Gras of Jazz Fest and other tourist attractions.

I haven’t observed anyone knocking down the doors to attend similar events in Monroe or Shongaloo or Dry Prong and the advantages of the huge datacenters he is so proud of have yet to be determined. If they result in higher electricity rates and water shortages, then I’m not buying what he’s selling.

As for now, I would put the value of the Louisiana Offshoe Oil Port (LOOP) in Port Fourchon, some 58 miles south of New Orleans, over the questionable and as-yet-to-be-determined benefits of those datacenters.

Lizzie, you may have won this round with a little help from your friends at the Louisiana Supreme Court, but as you yourself said, “It’s not over.”

If you are a parent who has never had to enter a family courtroom to do battle with an ex-spouse over the welfare of your children, you are indeed a lucky person.

If you are fortunate to never having been involved in a custody/visitation dispute, you:

• Have never encountered judicial favoritism based solely on who has which attorney;
• Have never been screamed at and/or threatened with jail time—especially when there are no witnesses;
• Have never experienced the use of status conferences as a means to intimidate and coerce you;
• Have never been told you must agree with the judge’s recommendations lest the results will be worse—or you’ve previously held in contempt of court, threatened with jail;
• Seen matters that are by law, supposed to be heard with days continued for months until you are forced to cave in and stipulate to draconian conditions;
• Seen the opposing attorney and not the judge control the pace of litigation;
• Seen an attorney who puts up a good fight suddenly be deemed disqualified, leaving you “lawyerless” at a critical juncture of proceedings;
• Experience certain lawyers appearing before a certain judge never seeming to lose a case;
• Been the subject of a smear campaign by the opposing litigant, not through evidence from the witness stand, but from letters, emails and in status conferences suggesting you are mentally unstable, in need of counseling or therapy or worse, that you are dangerous;
• Seen your case continued month after month with no actual hearing of real evidence;
• Closing the courtroom to isolate and intimidate without the presence of witnesses;
• Seen members of the “in-club” receive efficient (and favorable) service while others, particularly pro se litigants run out of options for representation and treated as pariahs;
• Been involved in a case where procedure is at the whim of he presiding family court judge rather than the Cde of Civil Procedure;
• Had economic leverage used against you through endless counselors, therapists and psychological evaluations;
• Found yourself subjected to the costs of multiple experts and the opposing parent’s attorney fees as yet another form of coercion;
• Experienced endless litigation that further drains your economic resources and which seem to enrich only the attorney;
• Have the court charge exorbitant fees for copies of transcripts ($6.50 per page in East Baton Rouge Parish Family Court, for example) when state statute says the maximum charge should be $1.50 per page.

Louisiana Supreme Court Justice Jeff Hughes said in an EIGHT-PAGE LETTER last December that EBR Family Court was in dire need of reform, adding that a line had been crossed to actual favoritism. He said Family Court HAS BECOME A PLACE not where justice is administered, but a place where “it’s all about the money, not the best interest of the children.”

Retired First Circuit Curt of Appeal Judge James E. Kuhn, appointed by the State Supreme Court to “observe and collect data and information relative to the Family Court,” offered a somewhat different viewpoint in his 35-PAGE REPORT.

While acknowledging that family court was “strained, not broken,” he said judges are exercising proper discretion and that complaints belonged elsewhere.

For example, he said if a litigant believes a ruling is wrong, “the remedy is appeal.”

But Kuhn didn’t take into account that a “litigant” may have already spent his or her life savings in the lower court to no avail because of several factors listed in the foregoing bullet points and enumerated by Hughes.

STATE REP. KATHY EDMONSTON says to let in sunshine “or shut it down. She advocates installing cameras in family court, among other possible solutions.

LouisianaVoice got a dressing down of sorts from one attorney who defended Family Court and Judge Kuhn. But it turned out that attorney was the legal council for the State Supreme Court and was affiliated professionally with the Chief Justice, so we weren’t too bothered with that criticism.

Her admonishments notwithstanding, we’ve seen sufficient evidence to support claims of bias and heavy-handedness on the part of judges from Calcasieu to St. Tammany parishes.

There’s more than a little evidence that judges in family court cases have much to answer for—and it’s even more evident it’s not going happen without a lot of pressure from the public.

I read an interesting quote that does more to define the futility of debating one who is so steeped in their unquestioning dedication to the MAGA myth as to render logic and the ability to think for oneself meaningless than anything else I’ve read or heard:

“It’s fun to talk, but without comprehension and compassion, it’s all just hot gas under a red cap.”

Donald Trump is notorious for letting his alligator mouth overload his jaybird ass and the list of his broken or ignored promises is both long and significant—significant only if you ever took him seriously in the first place.

For example, more than 50 times during the 2024 campaign, he said he would END THE WAR IN UKRAINE  “on day one.” Well, we can read every day how that promise has aged with time.

And who could forget his accusation that Kamala Harris would lead us into war but under his presidency, there would be “no new wars”?

Trump says it’s not a war, it’s a “military operation.” Oh, well then…

Here are a few of his other promises:

• Reduce the cost of gasoline below $2 a gallon;
• Cut the federal budget every year;
• Release Epstein files;
• Create a victim’s compensation fund of “migrant crime” from seized gang assets;
• Ban federal workers from taking jobs at companies they regulated;
• Create deregulated “freedom cities” on federal land;
• Award green cards to those on student visas who graduate from U.S. Colleges;
• Place a 10 percent cap on credit card interest rates;
• Require only paper ballots for elections;
• Cut energy costs by 40 percent in first year;
• Reduce prices for groceries, cars and other consumer items;
• Create “tent cities” to address homelessness;
• Count all votes by election night;
• Abolish the Education Department;
• Finish the border wall;
• End veteran homelessness;
• Leave Social Security and Medicare unchanged;
• Not support a federal abortion ban;
• Construct an Iron Dome-like missile defense system for the U.S.;
• Fill the Strategic Petroleum Reserve “immediately”;
• Create a task force on chronic health problems such as autism, autoimmune disorders and obesity;
• Spare families from in vitro fertilization costs;
• Save TikTok;
• Make interest on car loans tax deductible;
• End taxation on tips;
• End taxation on overtime;
• End taxation on Social Security;
• Enact tax credit for family caregivers;
• Adopt four-year plan to phase out Chinese imports;
• Provide a middle-class, upper-class, lower-class, business-class big tax cut;
• Cut cost of prescription drugs by 1500 percent;
• Claimed and recanted claims about Iran and Strait of Hormuz too many times to count

Surely, with all the promises made, there are some he kept, right?

Right. Here are some of those:

• Release remaining classified and redacted files on JFK assassination;
• Declare national emergency to spur more drilling, pipelines, etc.;
• Signed sweeping pardons for participants in Jan. 6 insurrection of U.S. Capitol;
• Made tax cuts for the wealth permanent;
• Provide record military funding;
• Revoke federal initiatives on DEI;
• Carry out largest domestic deportation operation in U.S. history;
• Halt Chinese purchase of U.S. land;
• Ban trans women from participating in women’s sports;
• Revoke temporary legal status of Haitians;
• Construct National Garden of American Heroes;
• Restore, expand travel ban;
• Empower president to remove federal workers through Schedule F;
• Withdraw from WHO;
• Cut funding for NPR;
• Reinstate military’s transgender ban;
• Designate drug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations;
• Commute sentence of “Silk Road” website operator Ross Ulbricht;
• Leave the Paris Climate Accord.

So, yes, Trump did keep some promises. But while he was issuing pardons to drug lords and rioters and firing federal workers, he was busy ignoring promises like reducing inflation, ending wars and cutting the federal budget.

While eying cuts to Social Security and Medicare, he was generously extending lucrative tax breaks to Billionaires.

And while he kept his promise to cut funding for NPR and to withdraw from the World Health Organization, he conveniently forgot his promise to cut prices of groceries, housing and gasoline.

Gasoline has not dropped below $3 a gallon as he promised, but not to fear; he increased military spending to record levels—all while banning transgenders in the military.

And I almost got through this entire recitation of broken promises without once mentioning the Reflecting Pool and the 250^th U.S. birthday National State Fair debacles or Trump’s profiteering off the presidency to the tune of $2.4 billion even as the rest of us—his detractors and supporters alike—struggled to make it from payday to payday.

Almost.

I have written quite a bit over the past several months about the attacks on public and school libraries by a reactionary conservative outfit calling itself by the somewhat dubious name Citizens for a New Louisiana and its leader, one Michael Lunsford.

I suggest the name of the organization is problematic because it appears the Lafayette-based outfit, supported by the Rapepublican Party elite doesn’t advocate a new Louisiana so much as its efforts are geared to a return of the old Louisiana where minorities and women are relegated to their former status of being effectively barred from the decision-making process considered the exclusive province of White men.

And it’s natural to initiate those efforts by limiting enlightened readership via the censoring of books (for now, at least, though it’s only a matter of time until efforts will be expanded to media in general) and dictating what versions of history may be taught. As for that last part, it’s already started as some lawmakers are openly advocating the expunging of mentions of slavery, Native American genocide, women’s suffrage and labor exploitation from history courses.

Any insurrection must first begin with the control of information and current efforts to rewrite history are no different.

I say all this as a means of introducing a story I stumbled across online. It’s a story of unwavering courage and commitment to one’s principles that are such rare commodities to be found in our elected leaders today on every level—local, state and federal.

It’s a story about a woman I’d never heard of but one everyone should know about and emulate.

KATHLEEN FOLSOM McILWAIN was just a librarian in Pascagoula, Mississippi. She was appointed head librarian of the Jackson County and Pascagoula Library in 1962. At the time she was named, the library had 25,000 volumes and a bookmobile that made 400 stops a month. Today, its system has 260,000 volumes in its eight-library system and ready access to the global digital world of information.

Okay, nothing unusual or unique so far.

But stop and think. It was 1962 and it was in Mississippi and Pascagoula was more than just the birthplace of one Jimmy Buffett; it was a typical Mississippi town where prejudice and white supremacy were the rules of life. Her appointment was the same year that riots broke out at after federal marshals forced Ole Miss to admit James Meredith.

Only two years after that, three civil rights workers, James Chaney, Adrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner, were brutally murdered 150 miles to the north, in Neshoba County.

As one might imagine, Blacks were unwelcome in places normally reserved for Whites. That included public libraries.

Kathleen Folsom McIlwain apparently didn’t get the memo. Without fanfare or drama, she simply opened the library doors to all, believing that libraries were for everyone.

That sounds simple enough but in 1962 Mississippi, there was something called the Mississippi Sovereignty Commission that was eerily reminiscent to George Orwell’s futuristic novel 1984. The commission spied on civil rights activists in much the same manner as ICE monitors suspected illegal immigrants today. The KKK had a nasty habit of burning crosses under the cover of darkness as cowards generally do.

The Sovereignty Commission, which was an official state agency and not some fringe group (Louisiana had one, too), took notice that Blacks were allowed to sit, read and check out books from the Pascagoula Library and it was not happy.

Ms. McIlwain paid a price for her courage. People stopped talking to her. She was harassed and threatened by the Klan. She received hate mail. But she would not back down.

A documentary about her said she was not a civil rights activist nor was she a politician. She was merely a librarian. She didn’t make speeches or lead marches. She simply opened the doors—and kept them open. Her reputation was left in shambles in her hometown. But she never closed those doors.

And she lived to see the Gautier, Ms., Public Library bear the name KATHLEEN McILWAIN PUBLIC LIBRARY OF GAUTIER in her honor.

THAT DOCUMENTARY, by the way, was compiled by two of her great-grandchildren, Ruby Murray and Folsom Berry and it won first place at the Mississippi National History Day competition and was displayed at the Smithsonian Museum—obviously before Donald Trump had the opportunity to erase any semblance of Black history from the Smithsonian.

With everything to lose as a white in a world of white supremacy, she stood tall, showing us courage doesn’t always appear as a revolution. Sometimes, it’s just a librarian who refuses to close doors.

Kinda makes you wonder how Mike Lunsford and his Citizens of a New Louisiana would have reacted had they been dropped into 1962 Pascagoula.