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

2 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

a month 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.

But there he was, touring devastated New Orleans neighborhoods in March of 2006, months following the levee failures and catastrophic floods of Hurricane Katrina, providing what hope and comfort he could.

I saw courage in that. And, despite my agnosticism and my disdain for some of the renowned evangelist’s public pronouncements, I admired him for it.

Much as one might try to avoid conflict with racist relatives at Thanksgiving, I allowed myself to look past Graham’s well-known homophobia, and the antisemitism that had been uncloaked a few years earlier with the release of a batch of Nixon tapes.

And my conditional admiration extended to his son, Franklin, who accompanied the elder Graham during that trip to my stricken city.

Billy Graham is long dead now. And so is any inkling of admiration I had for his son.

It’s amusing to watch the MAGA faithful embrace the Trump administration’s affronts to people of faith.

J.D. Vance suggesting that the pope — the pope! — should be more careful about expounding on theology was laughable. Then, there was Pete Hegseth’s prayer that was essentially a Bible verse as re-imagined and juiced up by Hollywood icon Quentin Tarantino. Did Hegseth realize it was originally delivered by a gangster’s hit man as a prelude to murder in Pulp Fiction?

Graham, trying his best to explain away Donald Trump’s portraying himself as either Christ or a Christ-like healer, isn’t funny. It’s sad. As sad as Trump later claiming he thought the image portrayed him as a physician.

“There were no spiritual references,” Graham says in a post on X about the picture, which shows Trump in flowing raiment holding a sun-like ball of supernal light in his left hand while his right hand touches a bedridden hospital patient’s head (from which radiate more beams of light) as a nearby woman presses her hands together in prayer, her eyes cast toward Trump.

Nothing spiritual there. That’s exactly how my doctors do it.

“He is the most pro-Christian, pro-life president in my lifetime, and he doesn’t shy away from it,” Graham adds.

Debatable.

Even if you are among the single-issue fanatics who strive unendingly to put medically safe abortion out of reach for women who aren’t rich, it would be a stretch to to say Trump is “the most pro-life president.” George W. Bush, for instance, put John Roberts and Samuel Alito — author of the opinion reversing Roe v. Wade — on the court and limited embryonic stem cell research.

But, really, I don’t know any definition or metric by which a person can be described as “pro-life” who, for instance:

—oversees the extrajudicial killings of alleged drug dealers at sea.

—launches an unprovoked war that has killed an estimated 4,000 people so far, including hundreds of children.

—threatens to wipe out an entire civilization, genocide being pretty much incompatible with life.

GETTING THEIR STORIES STRAIGHT

By the way, Trump said the media were being ridiculous with suggestions that the image was a purposeful attempt to portray him as Christ.

But he hadn’t coordinated his story with Vance. Vance went on Fox News and said the whole thing was a joke.

“I think the president was posting a joke, and of course, he took it down because he recognized a lot of people weren’t understanding his humor in that case,” Vance said.

IN OTHER NON-LIFE AFFIRMING NEWS

It’s also being reported that the administration has killed an $11 million contract that helps Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of Miami fund shelters and care for migrant children who come into the country without adults.

Now, as tempting as it is to accuse the administration of cutting the funding because of Trump’s disagreements with the pope, the administration makes a credible argument that the decision was made earlier because of low shelter use.

So, it wasn’t vengeance. It was just short -sightedness.

Archbishop Thomas Wenski said, according to The Hill, that numbers are low now, but that doesn’t mean they will stay that way.

“We look around our neighborhood and we see the situation in Cuba, continuing situation in Haiti and places of Central America and certainly, it would be prudent to be prepared to protect the best interests of children that might arrive here unaccompanied.”

JUST BE THANKFUL

In his post on X, Graham said that he hopes the pope and Trump can meet soon, “and that the Pope would have the opportunity to thank the President for his efforts to protect religious liberty for Catholics and people of all faiths.”

OK. Sure. And while he’s thanking Trump, maybe Leo could put in a good word for Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of Miami.

STILL WITH ME?

I want to recommend a couple of recent posts by Louisiana-based Substack friends of mine. Robert Mann has been keeping readers up to date with what we should be wary of at the Louisiana Legislature, including a bill that would, in effect, criminalize poverty.

And, this, from Cheryl Gerber, on what happened that time she started talking to one of those people we are often pretending not to notice.

Also, for a necessary but dispiriting look at the inner workings of the Supreme Court, take a look The New York Times’ recent story on the origins of the “shadow docket” and Ron Fournier’s analysis of the Times’ exhaustive work.

(This post has been updated to fix a couple of typos.)

Thanks for reading! Please like, share, comment and/or restrack and subscribe for free!

But, remember, we shouldn’t let the current headlines blot out memories of the old outrages (i.e. the farce that was DOGE, blaming air crashes on DEI, threatening to take Greenland from a NATO ally by force, the deaths of Renee Good and Alex Pretti).

And, while you’re probably all caught up in celebrating the pending re-opening of the Strait of Hormuz, which I’m sure will happen any minute now and without a hitch, don’t overlook other ongoing affronts to peace and democracy right here on the home front:

… TILL ICE DO US PART

Here in Louisiana, new Army bride Annie Ramos is sporting the latest in authoritarian attire, an ankle monitor, courtesy of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. She was fitted after five days of detention in Basile, Louisiana, for the crimes of being brought into the country when she was less than 2 years old and showing up at the U.S. Army’s Fort Polk, Louisiana, base with her husband to arrange for military housing.

While at the base, according to The New York Times, which broke the story, she was asked about her immigration status. She and her husband, Sgt. Matthew Blank, explained that they had hired a lawyer and begun the process of getting legal status.

Then?

“She was held in a room until three ICE agents arrived and transported her in shackles to a privately run detention center in Basile, La., which holds hundreds of women,” according to the NYT.

The story spread to other media and the resulting uproar led to her release — with said ankle monitor — while she and her husband fight her possible deportation.

So to sum up, this woman who was detained for five days and now wears an ankle monitor while fighting deportation is a near life-long U.S. resident with no criminal record. She is months away from earning a degree in biochemistry and newly married to an Army sergeant who enlisted more than five years ago.

Or, in ICE-speak, “The worst of the worst.”

I CAN NEVER GET THIS STRAIGHT: IS IT INTERNED OR INTERRED?

At least 13 people have died in ICE custody this year; 46 since Donald Trump’s second term began, according to an analysis of ICE reports by The New York Times. Three of those deaths have occurred at Camp East Montana in El Paso, Texas, according to The Associated Press, which recently reported about unsafe conditions at the lockup.

MAYBE THEY WERE BINGE-WATCHING ‘COPS’

Alfredo A. Aljorna, a Venezuelan immigrant, would have been lucky if he’d just gotten detention. He was shot in Minneapolis after fleeing from agents. An ICE agent claimed he fired a defensive shot after he was attacked and beaten with a shovel and a broom.

The ICE agent, wouldn’t you know, wasn’t being truthful. Video of the January incident established that. But it took a while for the felony charges facing Aljorna (who survived the shooting) and his housemate to be dropped.

And it shouldn’t have taken so much time, based on Times reporting in a story from this past Monday.

“The federal government had access to the video within hours of the Jan. 14 shooting,” the Times story said. “Yet prosecutors did not watch the footage until nearly three weeks after they filed charges against the two men.”

OTHER ITEMS OF INTEREST, IF YOU’RE STILL WITH ME:

NOT SO HOT

A beleaguered Donald Trump says that upon his return to power we went from a disastrous economy under Joe Biden to being the world’s “hottest country.”

Perhaps you know instinctively, from the heft of your bills, that that’s not true. And this analysis, belying both GOP and Democratic rhetoric, illustrates why. It may be a bit dated, however, in light of the latest inflation figures and gasoline prices.

SCARFACE

Every once in a while, and more frequently as you get older, you get a little reminder of your mortality, or at least your vulnerability.

I see a dermatologist twice a year because I tend to develop keratoses — little lesions on my face and scalp that, left untreated, can turn into skin cancer. Last month, the doctor noticed a tiny spot in that ever-deepening fold of skin to the left of my nose. It was so small that I hadn’t noticed it.

It turned out to be basal cell carcinoma — a skin cancer that rarely metastasizes but can grow and cause various complications with surrounding tissues or nerves or blood vessels.

I had it removed during an outpatient procedure this week and I now walk around with a bandage next to my nose that, while it’s not really the same, makes me think of Jack Nicholson in Chinatown whenever I look in the mirror.

My wife is paying meticulous attention to the changing of bandages and overall wound care but I expect there will be a little scarring. I also expect it to be pretty well hidden by that miracle of old age — wrinkles. Even better, the surgery has a 99% cure rate.

It’s my second experience with basal cell carcinoma. I had a growth removed from my chest a few years ago.

The lesson here, simply put, is that it’s a good idea to get periodic exams from a dermatologist.

NEW ORLEANS — Louisiana’s U.S. Senate race in a nutshell:

Three virtual unknowns are running in the May 16 Democratic primary. Barring some hugely unexpected development, the winner will lose to the winner of the Republican primary.

In the Republican primary, also on May 16, an incumbent senator, Bill Cassidy, who voted to convict Donald Trump on impeachment charges after the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, now acts like he’s Trump’s biggest ally. He is being challenged by Rep. Julia Letlow, who once enthusiastically embraced diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives on college campuses but now has Trump’s endorsement and says she believes that DEI stinks.

Cassidy, Letlow and another top Republican, state Treasurer John Fleming are unabashedly courting Louisiana’s pro-Trump vote despite Trump’s myriad failures — moral, political and economic (gasoline up about one-third in the past month, thanks to an ill-advised war, for instance).

But Cassidy and Letlow stand out for their political contortions.

Cassidy is a physician who touts the value of science and the life-saving importance of vaccines. Yet, in apparent hopes of currying favor with Trump and Trump’s voters, he cast a key vote last year to confirm Bobby Kennedy Jr. — perhaps the nation’s most prominent anti-vaccine fanatic — as health secretary.

“Now, Mr. Kennedy and the administration reached out seeking to reassure me regarding their commitment to protecting the public health benefit of vaccination,” Cassidy said in a speech about his decision to vote for Kennedy.

“To this end, Mr. Kennedy and the administration committed that he and I will have an unprecedentedly close collaborative working relationship if he is confirmed.”

But, trusting the administration and voting for RFK Jr. haven’t worked out all that well for Cassidy, practically or politically.

The New York Times outlined just how shaky the “collaborative working relationship” is in a November story, noting, among other things, Kennedy’s cancellation of $500 million in funding for the development of mRNA vaccines.

POLITICO reported in February that, despite the vote to confirm Kennedy, the health secretary’s followers are out to defeat Cassidy.

And, of course, Trump spurned Cassidy and endorsed Letlow in January.

Nevertheless, when Cassidy isn’t attacking Letlow in his campaign ads, he’s casting himself as a Trump ally. “Everything costs more these days,” begins one ad. “But Bill Cassidy and Donald Trump are working to change that.”

And speaking of insults to our intelligence. …

In case you haven’t heard by now, a video has surfaced of Letlow being interviewed when she was vying for the presidency of her alma mater, the University of Louisiana at Monroe. (She didn’t get the job.) About 40 minutes into that 2020 video, a questioner notes that ULM enrollment is 67% female, while men make up 63% of tenured faculty. Letlow is asked how she would address the issue.

Letlow’s answer is forthright and clear. ULM, she says, needs “a division of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, with leadership that goes all the way to the top, with a full staff.”

She makes a sensible, coherent argument for DEI measures.

“If you have a person around the table that is cognizant and fighting for diversity equity and inclusion, before any decision is made for the university, that’s how you change, that’s how you recruit more faculty,” she said, adding “You avoid groupthink when you have more diverse voices at the table.”

Did she mean it? Was she just saying that in hopes of winning the ULM presidency?

Well, let’s just assume she meant it then, and she changed her mind. Fairly abruptly.

According to nola.com and other outlets, she told a Baton Rouge TV station on March 21, while evidence of her past DEI advocacy was growing, that there’s no way she’s “woke.”

“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.”

It’s not clear exactly when she believes the “radical left” supposedly took the wheel.

By 2020, when she told interviewers that she’d seen “amazing work” at other universities to address diversity issues, she had two degrees from ULM. She had worked at ULM since 2014 and had risen to become the executive assistant to the president for community outreach.

What has changed since Letlow’s call for a DEI division at ULM in 2020?

What has changed since Cassidy’s vote to convict Trump in 2021?

Just the political winds. DEI hasn’t been hijacked by the “radical left.” It’s been machine-gunned by the MAGA right. In the Republican Party, diversity is out, and groupthink, for now, is in.

AND NOW, THIS, IN HONOR OF DIVERSE VIEWPOINTS:

You will never catch me saying Donald Trump has “courage,” as The Wall Street Journal editorial board does here. But if you want to understand some of the thinking among those who believe military intervention against Iran was necessary, the editorial is worth reading.

(This post has been edited to cull some extraneous words and insert some dropped ones.)

Q: Donald Trump says we’ve already won the war in Iran. Why are we still fighting?

A: Apparently, there’s a bonus round.

Also, The Associated Press reports that some of our Gulf allies are pressing to keep us fighting to fully weaken the government in Tehran. Which, of course, we’ve defeated.

On the other hand, The Wall Street Journal, reported late Monday that Trump is so anxious to end military operations in less than six weeks that he is considering stopping the fighting even if the Strait of Hormuz remains closed.

So start thinking again about that electric car.

Q: OK. But, are there other important stories the war is drawing our attention from?

A: Well, millions of people in cities and towns across the nation took part in anti-Trump protests known as “No Kings” rallies on Saturday.

Q: Did you go to the No Kings rally in New Orleans?

A: No. Because I was preparing to attend a dinner where my longtime friend and former mentor John Hill of Gannett News Service was being inducted into the Louisiana Political Museum and Hall of Fame.

Also, I attended two earlier rallies and I have yet to receive one red cent from that cheap bastard George Soros.

Q: How has Trump responded to accusations that he behaves like a king?

A: By arranging to have his image emblazoned on both sides of a new $1 coin, design drafts for which were released in October, and with plans announced earlier this month for the U.S. Mint to issue a gold commemorative coin bearing his likeness.

Q: A gold coin? Is this why Louisiana’s own Mike Johnson, speaker of the U.S. House, says we are “in a new golden era in America”?

A: Apparently. Unless he was referring to continued inflation, gasoline nearing $4 per gallon, slumping stock prices, farmers squeezed by tariffs, and chaos at U.S. airports.

Q: Will the gold commemorative coin contain a likeness of Trump leaning on the Resolute Desk and scowling like an old man who wants the kids to get off his lawn?

A: Yes. And speaking of his mug shots: It was reported last week that former special prosecutor Jack Smith, whose secret records case against Trump was torpedoed by a Trump-appointed federal judge, had uncovered evidence that documents Trump took and concealed at his Florida club when he left office in 2021 may have dealt with his personal business interests. Also, there was evidence that after leaving office he showed a classified map to passengers on his private plane.

Q: How did the White House respond to this news.

A: Predictably, they said Jack Smith was “deranged.”

Q: What other news has been overshadowed by the war in Iran?

A: Well, it probably should be noted that the Trump administration, according to The Associated Press, has settled, for $1.2 million, a lawsuit filed by former Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn. Flynn had pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about his conversations with a Russian diplomat. Flynn later withdrew that plea and claimed he was maliciously prosecuted. He was pardoned by Trump. He filed a $50 million lawsuit in 2023 against the Justice Department. The department had urged dismissal of the suit when Joe Biden was president. Under Trump’s attorney general, Pam Bondi, it’s being settled for a seven-figure sum.

Q: Could this be seen as Trump rewarding a loyal ally with $1.2 million in taxpayer money?

A: That would be a cold, cynical interpretation of what happened.

And, yes.

Former AP political reporter Ron Fournier discussed the matter in a recent Substack post.

OTHER STUFF:

In a post last week I discussed my plans, as a lifelong no-party voter, for the upcoming closed Republican primary in the U.S. Senate race. I also lamented that Louisiana’s open, non-partisan election system was being messed with. Now, says Stephanie Grace at Nola.com, the closed primary’s days already may be numbered.

Also, ALcom columnist Kyle Whitmire wrote a great column last week describing how Alabama U.S. Sen. Tommy Tuberville, now running for governor, has perfected the art of saying something racist then recoiling in mock resentment when someone accuses him of being racist.

Yep. It’s National Piercing Day, which is an actual thing, according to the National Day Calendar, and which — as you no doubt know — is the day we celebrate the piercing of ears, noses, eyebrows, navels and other body parts while debating hot topics such as what to do with your navel piercing if you get pregnant.

As if that’s not enough, May 16 is also — and this is, arguably, more important — an election day here in Louisiana. Election days are especially exciting this year because the state is bringing back the “closed” party primary system for some of its most important races, although, to keep us on our toes, we remain under the “open” primary system for many other races.

This means May 16 is a day I’ll be doing something I never thought I would ever do.

I am planning to vote in the Republican primary for U.S. Senate. For one of the three leading candidates. Each of whom I oppose.

To understand how I got here, some history could be helpful:

Way back in the 1970s, our governor was Edwin Edwards, a quick-witted, gifted campaigner, a Democrat, who dominated state politics for a quarter of a century and then served several years in prison for corruption after his fourth term.

Louisiana is solid red now but, back in the ‘70s, Democrats ran the state. And if you wanted to have a real say in who the next governor was going to be, you registered as a Democrat and voted in the Democratic primary. The winner of that primary was certain to win the general election over the Republican.

In the 1971 primary, Edwards led a field of 17 candidates after an exhausting campaign. But he didn’t get a majority of the vote, so he had to beat J. Bennett Johnston in a hard-fought runoff. Then, he had to beat Republican David Treen in the general election in early 1972.

“I’ll be damned if I’m going to have to run three times ever again!” Edwards said ahead of the ’72 election, according to political analyst Ron Faucheux, who recalled the conversation in a 2024 column for The Advocate.

Edwards persuaded lawmakers to adopt an open election system, with every candidate running on the same ballot, regardless of party.

It wasn’t a perfect system. It resulted in the wide-open 12-candidate “Race from Hell” in 1991, which ended up with a runoff pitting the famously shady Edwards against the famously fascist David Duke.

But, while Edwards’ motivation in adopting the open election system in the ‘70s was self-serving, it could be argued that the result was more and better democracy. Independent-minded voters, no matter what their party leanings and no matter what party bosses wanted, could vote for their favorite candidate. It may have contributed to more people registering to vote as Republicans, and more Republicans running for and winning office. And it was a system that saw two Democratic governors elected after Republicans had become dominant.

It worked out pretty well for a half century. So, naturally, MAGA Republicans messed with it.

Gov. Jeff Landry, early in his term, pushed lawmakers for a closed party primary system. Lawmakers in the GOP-dominated legislature agreed to place elections for the U.S. House, U.S. Senate, the Louisiana Supreme Court, the Public Service Commission, and the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education under the closed primary system.

With Donald Trump dominating the party, closed primaries will likely help the Trumpiest candidates win Republican nominations, fending off candidates who might have appealed to more moderate voters and anti-Trump Republicans. Closed primaries also likely hurt incumbent Bill Cassidy, who once, apparently to his great regret, did something conscientious and honorable in voting to convict Trump on impeachment charges after the 2021 Capitol riots.

But, it should be noted that the system isn’t totally closed. Some call it “semi-closed” because “no-party” voters can choose to vote in either the Republican or the Democratic primary.

Which brings us to: me.

I have never registered to vote as a member of a political party. Not when I was young and leaned Republican, casting votes for Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush. Not when I was was older and more progressive.

When the general election rolls around in November, I will vote for whoever wins the Democratic primary on May 16 — there are three candidates none of whom you are likely to have heard of.

But, the winner of the Republican primary on May 16 will almost certainly win the general election. So, I am planning to vote in the GOP primary.

Who will I vote for?

Cassidy has been trying desperately to reattach himself to Trump’s coattails. A physician, he has gone so low as to essentially ignore his own medical expertise and judgement while voting to confirm Robert Kennedy Jr. to be the nation’s health secretary.

Trump rewarded Cassidy by endorsing Rep. Julia Letlow for the Senate seat.

Cassidy’s ads attempting to cast Letlow as a “Nancy Pelosi liberal” are laughable. His sycophancy toward Trump is humiliating. But so are Letlow’s and fellow GOP candidate John Fleming’s.

That vote to convict Trump and the criticism of Kennedy (although too little too late) are the tie-breakers here. I’ll vote to make Cassidy the GOP nominee in the desperate, perhaps delusional hope that he, as the likely winner of the general election, will stand up to Trump in the next Congress.

STILL WITH ME?

If you need to know more about how the new primary system works ahead of the May 16 election, it’s explained on the Louisiana Secretary of State’s website.

Here’s hoping you decide to vote on May 16. And happy National Piercing Day to all who celebrate.

With businesses unable to get visas to bring in the usual crews of foreign workers, some plants have been idled.

Foreign workers are needed because there’s a market for frozen crawfish meat on the East Coast, according to Agriculture Commissioner Mike Strain. And farmers who raise crawfish count on that market in addition to the sale of live crawfish for boils here at home.

One predictable reaction to the news — one that I see often from Trump supporters whenever the issue of foreign workers arises — is that the processors should hire U.S. citizens and pay better wages to attract them.

It sounds like a good argument but the issue isn’t that simple.

“Those jobs are offered to any American first. And these are not minimum wage jobs,” Strain told a House committee on March 3.

The work is hard, messy and requires skill gained through experience. As one processor told a Louisiana TV station, local American workers often lack the skill, reliability or interest.

And how much does a crawfish peeler earn?

“They will make anywhere from $18 to $22 an hour,” Strain said.

No, folks don’t get rich peeling crawfish. But they can make three times the current federal minimum wage if they know what they’re doing.

CHANGING CHANNELS:

Remember when Donald Trump’s Federal Communications chairman and mobster mimicker Brandon Carr implied that ABC affiliates’ licenses might be in jeopardy if the network didn’t muzzle Jimmy Kimmel? The network famously yanked Kimmel off the air, then returned him amid a fan uproar that threatened other businesses of its parent, Disney.

But not all of the stations were on board, right away. Right-leaning Nexstar, owner of more than 200 stations, held off on allowing its ABC affiliates air Kimmel’s return, although the company eventually relented.

On Thursday, the Trump-friendly FCC approved a merger of Nexstar and rival Tegna.

According to The Times of San Diego: “With the Tegna acquisition, Nexstar will own 265 full-power television stations in 44 states and the District of Columbia. The combined company will have stations in nine of the top 10 markets, and in 41 of the top 50 markets. That accounts for 80% of U.S. television-viewing households.”

Here in New Orlean Nexstar owns WGNO and WUPL, although it has reportedly agreed to divest WUPL. Tegna owns WWL-TV.

WWL and WGNO each have news operations. The merger almost certainly means a less competitive news market here. Never good.

Might it also mean a more, say, Trump-compliant market?

Again, from The Times of San Diego: “According to OpenSecrets.org, a research group that tracks money in U.S. politics, Nexstar has a history of contributing to both Republican and Democrat candidates.

“But a clue as to how it will handle local political coverage may be indicated by a memorandum to KUSI and Fox 5 employees in February. Susan Tully, senior vice president for local content development, told employees to use President Trump’s new name for the Gulf of Mexico.”

There is some hope, however. Attorneys general in eight states have filed a lawsuit to block the merger, as has DirecTV.

“The lawsuits make similar arguments that the deal will lead to higher prices for consumers and stifle local journalism,” The Associated Press reported.

STILL WITH ME?

Many of my thousands of several dozen subscribers may, or may not, have noticed that I’ve not been posting regularly as of late. There have been numerous personal reasons (nothing serious) along with the aforementioned work for MS NOW. I’m planning, now to get back to more regular twice-weekly postings. I hope you’ll keep reading.

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That’s the war against savage immigrant drug smugglers, vicious human traffickers and other dangerous foreign invaders. The worst of the worst. People like, say, Estefany Rodriguez Florez, who was arrested in Tennessee after facing assault accusations … no, wait, that was an ICE agent in Cincinnati. Rodriguez was arrested Wednesday after …reporting.

Rodriguez is a journalist with the Spanish-language news outlet Nashville Noticias. She has said she came to the U.S. after receiving death threats in her native Colombia, where she covered government agencies, crime and corruption, according to multiple news outlets.

By all accounts, she entered the country legally, has a valid work permit, and has pending applications for asylum and (because her husband is a U.S. citizen) a green card. She has no criminal record. But, her tourist visa has expired.

“A pending green card application and work authorization does NOT give someone legal status to be in our country,” a Department of Homeland Security spokesperson told CNN.

So, obviously, it’s a high priority to snatch her from her husband and child and keep her locked up before rushing her back to her home country, where instead of merely being unceremoniously jailed she faces the possibility of being killed.

The Trump administration keeps saying it’s going after “the worst of the worst” violent criminals in its immigration crackdown. If you go to the Department of Homeland Security website (where as of Sunday, Cruella de Vil Kristi Noem was still listed as secretary), you can find page after page picturing all the bad people ICE is taking credit for having nabbed. You won’t find them touting the arrests of the many people without criminal records who are being detained and/or deported.

You won’t find Estefany Rodriguez’s picture on that “Worst of the Worst” page. You won’t find an explanation as to why (according to The New York Times) federal agents tricked out in tactical gear, driving multiple unmarked cars, followed Rodriguez and her husband as they drove to the gym, surrounding her Nashville Noticias work car when they parked. Or any plausible reason why she had to be detained. Or whether her detention had anything to do with the fact that — and I’m sure this is just a coincidence — one day earlier, she’d been reporting on immigration arrests in Tennessee.

By the way, speaking of the worst of the worst, perhaps DHS and ICE need to take a harder look within their own agencies. Take a look at this Associated Press story from last month about agents facing investigations for assaults, sex abuse and bribery. The accompanying video involving the DUI arrest of an ICE agent in Florida is rather chilling. Listen when he threatens to check one deputy’s immigration status.

“I’ll run him once I get out of here and if he’s not legit, ooh, he’s taking a ride back to Haiti,” the agent says.

STILL WITH ME?

There are all kinds of reasons to feel uneasy or even angry about us getting into a war in the Middle East, not the least of which is that the two nations attacking Iran are led by two men, Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu, who list “to stay out of prison” among their top reasons for seeking and clinging to power. But defense expert Eliot Cohen cautions in The Atlantic that nobody should be claiming they know how well or badly things are going to turn out — and the final accounting will likely be years in the making.

Meanwhile, no matter how the war turns out, there’s no escaping that Congress should have been involved in the decision to go to war, whether they wanted to be or not. Historian Robert Mann addresses it in a recent post in his “Something Like the Truth,” harking back to his book on the subject.

“Now that Trump has taken us to war in Iran with almost no public debate—and certainly no input from Congress—the next Congress must enact reforms to ensure that no president ever takes the country to war again without congressional approval,” writes Mann.

Once again, we’ve come through a week jam-packed with so much news — did I mention a brand new war? — that it’s hard to sort it all out. So, here again is one deranged observer’s take, packaged in a helpful Q&A format:

___

Q: Are the attacks on Iran an attempt to distract attention from unreleased Epstein files related to so-far uncorroborated allegations against Donald Trump?

A: No. The attack was undertaken to bring down a despotic regime and prevent Iran from reviving its nuclear program, which was obliterated last summer.

Q: Doesn’t obliterate mean “to remove from existence : destroy utterly all trace, indication, or significance of”?

A: Not anymore.

Q: Was Iran Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei killed? Or was he obliterated?

A: Fortunately, he was killed. If he’d just been obliterated we’d have to attack him again in a few months.

Q: Has the buildup to war distracted Congress from the Epstein case and the missing files regarding serious allegations against Donald Trump?

A: Not at all.

Q: How has Congress responded?

A: They deposed Bill and Hillary Clinton.

Q: Since we’re on the topic of bold moves to safeguard our national security, did the U.S. military on Thursday use a laser to shoot down a drone that turned out to belong to U.S. Customs and Border Protection?

A: Yes.

Q: Was the drone obliterated?

A: Presumably. But what does that even mean now?

Q: What did this distract us from?

A: Customs and Border Protection’s failure to coordinate with the Federal Aviation Administration when it deployed an anti-laser drone two weeks earlier, leading the FAA to shut down air space over El Paso for several hours.

Q: How did members of Congress react to the shooting down of the CBP’s drone.

A: Their heads exploded.

Q: REALLY?

A: Unfortunately, nNo.

But two Democratic members of key House committees issued a joint statement in which they said (metaphorically, I presume), “Our heads are exploding over the news.”

Q: If their heads had really exploded, that would have been one hell of a distraction, wouldn’t it?

A: Yeah, it would have drawn even more attention from the Trump administration’s ramping up detention of immigrant families, “holding many children well beyond the 20-day limit set by longstanding court order,” according to The Associated Press, at compounds like the Dilley Immigration Processing Center at Laredo, Texas.

Q: Hmm. That sounds like child abuse, which reminds me — did the closed-door depositions of the Clintons divert attention away from news that the publicly available Epstein files lack complete information on allegations against Donald Trump?

A: No. In a way it kind of amplified the story.

Q: No wonder he started a war! What else are they distracting us from?

A: Perhaps from the Republicans’ flailing attempts to pass a bill that would, among other things, require proof of citizenship to register to vote and require states to share voter information with the Department of Homeland Security. The bill is seen by opponents as: a solution in search of a problem, since voting by non-citizens is rare; a means of making it harder for some Americans to register to vote, since some citizens lack the necessary documentation; a step toward unconstitutional federalization of elections.

Q: Will the bill pass?

A: Almost certainly not, because of complicated Senate rules.

Q: Could you explain those rules?

A: No. Nobody can.

Q: Why are Republicans still pushing the bill so hard?

A: Perhaps to divert attention from the fact that they, as members of the government branch granted constitutional power to declare war, have responded by rolling over on their backs with their paws in the air and their bellies exposed.

No, wait, that’s how my dogs show submission. Republican members of Congress — like my two U.S. Senators, Bill Cassidy and John Kennedy — have responded by issuing bold statements that forthrightly ignore their responsibilities.

“Khamenei chose war. He paid with his life,” Kennedy (R-Dodge City) said in a pithy social media post crackling with evasiveness sagacity.

Cassidy, who’s used to being passed over by Trump these days, ignored Trump’s passing over Congress.

Still, in what could almost be mistaken for a smidgen of courage, he kinda sorta hedged a little by using the word “presumably,” as in: “The President’s decision to attack Iran presumably was based upon a clear and present danger to the United States, and a planned execution that does not put the United States in a forever war.”

Like I said, a bold move from the guy who really, really thought seriously about possibly, maybe not voting to confirm Dr. Nick Riviera Bobby Kennedy Jr. as the nation’s health secretary.

Q: Did you watch the State of the Union Address, which was the longest in history?

A: No. I’d rather have the measles. And, thanks to Bobby Kennedy Jr., there’s a much better chance of that happening now!

Q: Is your faith in American democracy shaken by all of these developments?

A: It’s damn near obliterated

BUT SERIOUSLY FOLKS:

I hold with those who, while we are glad to see the despotic ruler of Iran removed, believe the attack is a mistake that’s going to cost the U.S. dearly, and that a major preemptive attack such as the one launched this weekend requires congressional approval. There are a variety of other views among people who are much smarter and better educated in the history, culture and government of the region than I. So, in the interest of constructive dialogue, I’m linking to conservative columnist Bret Stephens’ case in favor of the attack here.

Now, I begin easing back into my twice-weekly pontifications litany of keen observations by sharing a Facebook entry I posted a year ago. (For more on the topic, please see “I’m from the government and I’m not really here to help,” and “On second-class citizenship.”)

Since I’m running this without updates or revisions, I’ll say here that things have gotten a little better here in New Orleans since this was written, but they have gotten much worse elsewhere. As you read on, please say a little prayer or think a good thought for the friends and families of Renee Good and Alex Pretti.

ON OUR ANNIVERSARY (Originally posted on Facebook, Feb. 15, 2024):

Ordinarily, Feb. 15 is the day Angie and I celebrate our wedding anniversary, with me telling her, jokingly, “Remember the Maine.” Now, “Remember the Maine” has given way to “Remember your passport card.”

The background, for those who don’t know or remember:

We didn’t realize it at the time, but when we wed on Feb. 15, 1998, we were, coincidentally, getting married on the 100th anniversary of an explosion in Havana that destroyed the USS Maine — a blast that was blamed by many at the time on Spain, adding to fervor for war.

That war happened and when it was over, Spain had lost and Puerto Rico — where Angie was born in 1960 — eventually became U.S. territory. Puerto Ricans were made citizens in 1917. They have fought for the U.S. in WWI and every war since. Angie’s stepfather and father were both in the U.S. military. Several of her uncles served. One, who served in WWII and Korea, had a Purple Heart. Another was a career military officer who settled in Alabama and helped Angie decide where to go to college on the mainland. Hence, if that explosion hadn’t happened, Angie and I might never have met, much less gotten married on the centennial.

Now, among the casualties of our new administration’s blunderbuss approach to reform, is our peace of mind. Angie has never lost her Spanish accent. She shops from time to time at markets that cater to Central Americans and converses in Spanish with local contractors working on projects in the neighborhood. Could she be swept up by overreaching enforcement simply for being in a certain place at at certain time, with a certain accent? For having slightly darker skin than me?

Farfetched? I thought so, too. But then there was that Telemundo report of a woman and child detained after they were heard speaking Spanish in Milwaukee, despite their protests that they were Puerto Rican. Admittedly, ICE denies the report and Telemundo relied on a single anonymous source, weakening credibility. But there was also Newark Mayor Ras Baraka telling reporters about a U.S. military veteran who “suffered the indignity of having the legitimacy of his military documentation questioned” during a raid on a seafood restaurant. The veteran was the Puerto Rican manager of the restaurant’s warehouse, according to Axios. The restaurant’s owner said agents told him they were looking checking ID’s, including passports. “Who walks around with a passport?” the owner asked.

Well, now, my wife walks around with a passport card. That, presumably, will save her from being detained if ICE raids the local Latin market or a worksite. But it won’t diminish the indignity if she, a native-born U.S. citizen, born to native born U.S. citizens, has to “show her papers.”

That may be a small thing to you. It’s not to us.

We had been looking forward to a visit from a cousin of Angie’s who had been planning a spring flight. She’s decided not to come. She doesn’t want to deal with the possible hassles. I can’t blame her.

I’d like to think that even some of my friends and family who voted for Donald Trump might be at least a little troubled at one or more of the current initiatives — none of which, by the way, appear to address stubborn inflation: An immigration policy purportedly aimed at drug dealers and hardened criminals but that also sweeps up harmless, productive workers and lifelong U.S. residents while harassing U.S. citizens; the dismantling — by the world’s richest man — of an agency providing food and medicine to the world’s poorest people; an abrupt cutoff of medical research to places like the University of Alabama at Birmingham.

If you want reform and spending control but you think, just maybe, the current approach is inappropriate or unconstitutional or dangerous, perhaps write your representatives and senators and ask them to maybe tap the brakes.

Meanwhile, allow me to wish my incredible wife a happy 27th anniversary. I love you Angie. And remember …your passport card.

Yep. As of Saturday afternoon, it was still there.

Yes, even the race-baiters at the White House had the sense to eventually take down from Donald Trump’s social media feed a picture of former President Barack Obama and his wife, a post that employed one of America’s oldest, most offensive racist tropes. It was gone by Friday afternoon.

Still up, however, as of Saturday afternoon, right at the top of his Facebook page, was Sen. Bill Cassidy’s miserable attempt to address it without hurting anybody’s feelings:

“Thank you to President Trump for taking down the post about the Obamas. He made significant inroads with his outreach in the African American community which we need to continue. His post sent the wrong message despite how it may have been originally intended.”

“DESPITE HOW IT MAY HAVE BEEN ORIGINALLY INTENDED”?!?

As far as I can tell, our other U.S. senator, Speck Rhodes … Sorry. I meant to say John Kennedy (R-Hooterville) … has been silent on this, in keeping with his focus on more pressing concerns. Like making sure nobody hurts those poor, defenseless ICE agents who yank disabled people out of cars and shoot protesters to death.

Cassidy’s breaking of my great state’s senatorial silence on the issue is somehow worse. It draws more attention to Cassidy’s humiliating attempt to straddle the fence between MAGA cultists and the reasonable Republicans and no-party voters (like me) who might just consider holding their noses and voting for him in the upcoming GOP primary. It also intensifies the light on the near total moral collapse of the party of Lincoln, Eisenhower and Reagan; a party I was once comfortable voting for, in part because it once had prominent members who were brave enough to face the possible political consequences of demanding accountability from, say, Richard Nixon.

Is it too much to ask that our leaders consider the possibility that you can still identify with your party’s policy aims — reasonable immigration reform, smaller government, balanced budgets and all the other things Republicans at least used to be for — and still condemn blatant, obscene, infantile and racist posts by the head of their party?

I guess it is.

STILL WITH ME?

Robert Mann says some of the same stuff I’m saying, only better, here.

Meanwhle, I’m not planning on posting much in the next week or so. Got wedding anniversary, wife’s birthday and Mardi Gras coming up. Will kick the celebrations off, of course, by watching the SUPER BOWL HALFTIME SHOW with Bad Bunny, to see if any of my work trying to learn Spanish has paid off. (Duolingo says it’s not promising.)

“(W)hat kind of law enforcement department gives criminal illegal aliens guns and badges?”

The answer: A law enforcement department that depends on the internet background checking system administered by the, uh…let’s see here … ah! the Department of Homeland Security.

This is all about a guy named Larry Temah, who, according to nola.com, is a native of Cameroon who applied to be a part of the long-understaffed police department here in New Orleans.

If you read the news release from DHS, which includes McLaughlin’s question, you might think the NOPD just grabbed Temah off the street, stuck a gun in his hand and made him a sharpshooter on the SWAT team, without regard to his being a dangerous criminal illegal alien. (IMPORTANT UPDATE: NOPD says in a Wednesday statement that Temah “was not issued a service weapon and was not in possession of a firearm at the time of his arrest. He was early in academy training and had not completed the program.”)

In fact, there remains no evidence that Temah has a criminal record, at least not one that would make him one of the “worst of the worst” violent thugs DHS says it’s going after. There is, however, an accusation that, after coming to the United States legally on a visitor visa, Temah commited fraud and his application for legal residency was denied. He also was ordered removed from the country, and, according to DHS, missed three immigration hearings.

So, no, Larry Temah was not a good candidate to be a cop.

But, keep in mind that the DHS news release about Larry Temah comes from the same people who:

— told us Renee Good, the woman shot to death in Minneapolis by federal agents was a domestic terrorist.

— told us Alex Pretti was brandishing a gun before he was shot to death by federal agents in Minneapolis.

Now, they are telling us in a news release that New Orleans is a dangerous “sanctuary city” where the police department willingly hired and armed Temah, who was a week away from police academy graduation.

What that release left out:

“The New Orleans Police Department verified Mr. Temah’s employment eligibility through ICE’s E-Verify system prior to hiring and was never notified of any ICE detainer,” said an NOPD news release, issued after the DHS statement.

According to documents on the government’s E-Verify website, E-Verify is administered by the Social Security Administration and United States Citizenship and Immigration Services, part of DHS. The site also assures us that E-Verify “electronically confirms an employee’s information against millions of government records and provides results within as little as three to five seconds.”

Apparently, there are still a few bugs in the system.

Even as DHS was denigrating New Orleans this week, congressional Democrats were holding a hearing in Washington about the very real abuses by federal agents in Minneapolis. According to NBC, Renee Good’s brothers testified.

“Others who spoke at the event included Marimar Martinez, who was shot five times by a Border Patrol agent in Chicago, Aliya Rahman, a Minneapolis resident who said she was dragged out of her car by immigration agents, and Martin Daniel Rascon, a U.S. citizen whose car was fired on by agents in San Bernardino, California,” the network reported.

All of this raises the question: What kind of law enforcement agency gives badges and guns to masked thugs like the ones creating misery in Minneapolis?

MEANWHILE: $75 MILLION WORTH OF IRONY IN ONE QUOTE:

Everyone should do what they can to protect our individual rights. Never take them for granted. Because in the end, no matter where we come from, we are bound by the same humanity. —a certain Slovenian immigrant, quoted Tuesday in The New York Times review of the craven money-making vanity project incisive documentary Melania, on which Amazon reportedly spent $75 million for rights and promotion and which — and I cannot emphasize this enough — was absolutely NOT a bribe.

(This post has been updated to fix an embarrassing grammar goof in the secondary headline — thanks for the catch Robert Moore — and to note the NOPD’s latest statement contradicting the DHS claim that Temah had been issued a weapon.)

***

Q: Was the indictment and arrest of reporter Don Lemon meant to intimidate journalists? Or, was it meant as a distraction from the latest release of more Epstein files, which include troubling references to Donald Trump?

A: The release of more Epstein files was meant to distract the public from attempts to intimidate journalists by arresting Don Lemon. The removal of Greg Bovino as the leader of chaotic, violent immigration enforcement efforts in Minnesota was meant to distract us from the release of more Epstein files.

Q: There are reports that Donald Trump is considering military action in Iran in the coming days. What is this meant to distract us from?

A: The chaotic, violent immigration enforcement efforts in Minnesota.

Q: Speaking of Minnesota, what exactly is Don Lemon accused of doing there?

A: Lemon is accused of taking part in a disruptive demonstration at a Minneapolis church where opponents of the Trump administration’s chaotic, violent immigration enforcement said the pastor was an ICE agent.

Q: Did Lemon try to hide his alleged role in the demonstration?

A: Yes. He carried the protest on his livestream show, which nobody ever watches.

Q: What else did he do?

A: According to the indictment, Lemon “stood close to the pastor” and “peppered him with questions.”

Q: That sounds brutal!

A: There were no reports of injuries.

Q: What did this distract us from?

A: Melania.

Q: You mean Donald Trump’s wife?

A: No, I mean the documentary about Donald Trump’s wife for which Amazon reportedly spent $75 million in licensing and promotion costs that were absolutely in no way, shape or form anything remotely resembling a bribe of any kind.

Q: Have you seen the film yet?

A: I’d rather watch snakes molt. Or Don Lemon’s livestream.

Q: Was the glitzy premier of Melania a distraction from anything?

A: Bad reviews.

Also, perhaps, this past week’s news that ICE agents recently detained a Cameroon native who was accepted as a recruit by the New Orleans Police Department after getting a clean criminal background check.

Q: Who should be more embarrassed? ICE for detaining a man with an apparently clean criminal background, despite the claim that they are going after hardened criminals? Or the New Orleans Police Department, for accepting a recruit subject to deportation?

A: It’s a draw.

I hope this has been helpful.

STILL WITH ME?

Anyone who’s been reading my bloviations over the past few months knows that I’ve participated in a couple of No Kings protests, but that I’ve been troubled with some of the anti-Zionist messaging. Thus, I listened with interest to the latest episode of Firing Line on PBS, where Margaret Hoover interviewed Israeli activist Noa Tishby. I recommend it.