Louisiana Voice

Let’s see, the Pedophile President had his real estate school, Trump University, that was a sham that ultimately turned toes-up but not before he had to pay a $25 MILLION SETTLEMENT to attendees he bilked.

Mike Johnson was DEAN OF A LAW SCHOOL that never was. For more than a year, he told donors that the law school, to train Christian attorneys in northwest Louisiana (specifically, Shreveport) was not only achievable, but inevitable. Turned out it wasn’t.

Donald Trump once had a CHARITABLE FOUNDATION that shut down because of irregularities that prompted a lawsuit by the New York Attorney General and which resulted in Trump’s having to pay $2 million in damages.

On average, charitable foundations spend about 75-85 percent of their total revenue ON ACTUAL CHARITABLE ACTIVITIES, with the remainder used for fundraising and management costs. The Better Business Bureau recommends at least 65 percent of funds be used for programs.

Kelly L. Johnson’s foundation, ONWARD CHRISTIAN EDUCATION SERVICES, is a notable deviation from that standard. She is the wife of Louisiana 4^th Congressional District Rep. Mike Johnson, a Republican, who just happens to be the Speaker of the House of Representatives.

A modest foundation in terms of assets, the latest financial statement is for fiscal year 2024, when it spent a whopping 3 percent on actual programs—significantly below the 65 percent recommended by the BBB.

Where, you ask, did the rest of the money go? Well, no one’s sure but the 501(C) (3) foundation’s report shows total expenditures of $55,000, of which $50,000 was paid to its CEO, one Kelly L. Johnson. The remaining four board members received no compensation.

With total expenditures of $55,000, a 3 percent outlay for purposes for which the foundation is established would be $1,650.

The Repugnantcan Party could probably write a user’s manual on the art of grifting.

Headquartered in Bossier City, what is it that Onward Christian Education Services does and where does it get its financial support? For the answer to the first question, it’s domiciled in Bossier City though, oddly enough, the organization is not in good standing with the Louisiana SECRETARY OF STATE for failure to file an annual report.

The answer to the second question is something of a conundrum because while donors are required to be reported to the IRS, public disclosure is not a requirement. Nor is she willing to disclose whether or not her financial supporters also happen to be supporters of her husband’s political campaigns.

Why would that even be an issue if her foundation is in Bossier City? Well, it is and it isn’t. It seems that she has “reoriented” her nonprofit into a ministry focused on female congressional staffers with a “new purpose” of helping “the hundreds of unreached young women” working around Capitol Hill “find purpose, belonging and Christian community,” according to a STORY TUESDAY in The Washington Post. The actual number of those “hundreds of unreached young women” is actually “10 or 11” real clients whom she counsels, she said.

The Post discovered the change in mission and location when a reporter requested recent IRS filings for the group, and found it had not filed legally required disclosures for tax-exempt organizations for two years.

Philip Hackney, a professor at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law who specializes in nonprofit law said he questions whether the foundation serves a political purpose or is an actual charity.

Without proper safeguards, added Davina Hurt, director of the government ethics program at Santa Clara University’s Markkula Center for Applied Ethics, staffers could feel pressured to participate in her counseling and Bible study. She said it would be helpful to know if the speaker’s name gets invoked when invitations are issued and whether attendance reports are ever shared with staffers’ bosses.

“The institutional concern one should have is the power that’s present in those situations,” The Post quoted Hurt as saying. “If you want to advance through the ranks, you will feel pressure to some degree.”

While Kelly Johnson granted an initial interview, she has refused further contact with any reporters.

Both Mike and Kelly Johnson were ordained as Southern Baptist missionaries more than two decades ago, and in 2017, their church in Benton formally ordained Kelly Johnson as a minister. The same year, she was licensed as a pastoral counselor through the National Christian Counselors Association of Sarasota, Florida (not to be confused with the National Association of Christian Counselors of Cypress, Texas), opening a practice at the church. The fee for obtaining a license from the NCCA is $50, plus a $20 renewal fee to keep the license active.

“The NCCA certification/licensing program is not to be identified nor confused with state licensing in any way,” the organization’s website says. “It is intended for a person who wants to practice as a ‘servant of the Church (Body of Christ)’ rather than as an ‘agent of the state.'” In other words, it takes full advantage of the doctrine of separation of church and state on the one hand while advocating for the dissolution of that principle, erasure of the lines separating religion from government, on the other. Kind of like having your cake and eating it.

Onward Christian Education Services was created as a tax-exempt organization in April 2019 to counter what the Johnsons described at the time as cultural attacks against people of faith and the traditional family but the organization initially did not submit any filings to the IRS. In 2022, when Kelly Johnson finally did submit forms for the first three years of operation, she blamed “a communication gap and misunderstanding of the filing requirements” for a nonprofit so closely affiliated with a religious denomination. The organization paid $6,475 in penalties to the Treasury Department.

She said her organization keeps a low profile because of fears for her safety. Likewise, Julianna Parks, an attorney and secretary for the organization’s board, said she thought a story about Onward Christian Education Services was a “bad idea” during a “dangerous time in the country.”

Innocent American citizens being detained by ICE and the victims shot by ICE thugs, as well as news organizations and people being investigated by the Department of Justice would probably agree about those “dangerous times.”

I’m fairly certain this post will bring out the nutcases but let me state unequivocally that I am neither a supporter nor an opponent of Rep. Ilhan Omar but the RAID ON HER HOME  by federal agents on Monday was so transparently politically motivated as to be legitimately frightening to every living American.

If it can happen to a sitting member of Congress, it can damn-well happen to every one of us. Never forget that. The jackbooted secret police in the guise of ICE agents are already in place and the US Department of Justice is led by a modern-day Hermann Goering and the DOJ’s Hilfspolizei is staffed with loyal members of the Sturmabteilung and Schutzstaffel.

If the Republikkkans allow this blatant show of federal power and abuse to stand, then we have truly descended into a full-fledged police state and we all should be fearful. It can happen to any one of us at any time.

History has shown us how appeasement worked for Neville Chamberlain.

We’ve seen masked, unidentified federal thugs shoot people in the street, even run them over in vehicles. We’ve seen children pried from their parents to face deportation alone and frightened with no one to speak for them.

We’ve seen a diapered president suggest that a foreign country annihilate two of our largest cities. That same president has invaded a sovereign nation to our south for no other reason than to seize its petroleum resources. That same president has bombed boats in international waters, killing more than 100 human beings on the unsubstantiated claim that they were drug dealers. Maybe, maybe not. We don’t know. They were never given the chance to defend themselves and no drugs have ever been presented as evidence.

We’ve seen a bloated, egotistical, dementia-addled president fire generals with decades of experience so that they may be replaced with successors with know loyalty to a dictator. Ask yourself why it is so urgent that all those with proven loyalty to our country but not the president personally should be fired. Ask yourself why drones and snipers are needed on Trump’s proposed arch. Ask yourself why he wants voter rolls from every state when the Constitution clearly says that the states themselves are in charge of their own elections.

Ask yourself why he has personally destroyed this country’s economy, bankrupted farmers—only to suddenly strike a deal with Russia for diesel “to help farmers.” Ask yourself why he suddenly declared that Ukraine is somehow responsible for high diesel prices and why he thinks that country needs a new leader.

Ask yourself why he is openly defying court orders so that he can expand a golf course while Americans are struggling to feed their families. Ask yourself why he needs a billion-dollar ballroom (that is not being paid for by private contributions, by the way) while Americans cannot afford gasoline. Ask yourself why he needs a victory arch (which no doubt will bear his name) when Americans cannot bear the burden of rising medical costs.

And while the Nazi Party, Goering and the SS were alluded to earlier, it’s important to recognize the looming presence of the other extreme.

We keep hearing Trump referring to “Dumacrats” as communists (and one of our readers regularly echoes that sentiment by referring to “Dumacommies”) and blasting socialism and communism even as he kisses the asses of Putin, Xi and Kim Jong Un while literally turning his back on longstanding allies.

But again, it’s critical remember history. Some of you, like me, are old enough to remember the Cuban revolution and Castro’s overthrow of Batista in 1959. Castro was hailed as a great reformer and Ed Sullivan even introduced him as an “agrarian reformer.” Castro denied then that he was a communist but we now know better.

Likewise, Pol Pot of Cambodia and Hugo Chavez of Venezuela each denied ties to the communist party only to ultimately emerge as dedicated to the cause. It was advantageous at the time for those dictators to deny, deny, deny.

Fidel, future dictators’ socialist denials went up in smoke.

If you listen closely, you might be able to notice some similarities in denials of communism being tossed around the Beltway by members of Congress, cabinet members and even a certain orange president.

For Americans, it’s far past the time to forget about the NFL and Dancing with the Stars and to start asking serious questions.

Scare tactics? Damn right.

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.