Category: Louisiana

Justice Thomas Concurs

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The reaction of Democrats to the Supreme Court’s decision in Louisiana v. Callais reminded me of General Sherman who, in proposing his 1864 “March to the Sea,” vowed the he would “make Georgia howl.”

On TV and social media Wednesday, the howling from Democrats was deranged and incessant. From a conservative perspective, these reactions were as delicious as the “Tears of Unfathomable Sadness.” If ever anyone deserved to be miserable, certainly the Democratic Party does.

Among those vindicated by Wednesday’s ruling was my friend Professor Carol Swain, who had famously warned in the early 1990s that racial Gerrymandering — seeking to maximize the number of majority-black districts, in order to send more black representatives to Congress — would undermine the Democratic majority in the House of Representatives because, in the process, it would create majority white districts that favored Republicans. Swain’s warning was not heeded by Democrats, and when she was proven correct by the 1994 midterm landslide for Republicans, liberals never forgave her for being right.

The unhinged rage of Democrats after the Callais decision could be (or at least should be) silenced simply by posting the map of Louisiana’s 2nd and 6th districts, which was what brought the case to the Supreme Court.

It is an insult to defend such a map by shouting “RAAAAACISM” at anyone who criticizes it, which is the essence of the Democrats’ reaction. One wonders whether they are (a) so ignorant they don’t understand the law and the Constitution, or (b) so dishonest they think they can frighten people with their feigned outrage and false claims. Surely someone will add, (c) embrace the healing power of “and,” e.g., Chuck Schumer.

If any living man can be considered an authority on racism and Jim Crow, permit me to suggest that it’s not the Jew from Brooklyn, but rather the black man from Chatham County, Georgia:

This Court should never have interpreted [Section 2] of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 to effectively give racial groups “an entitlement to roughly proportional representation.” … By doing so, the Court led legislatures and courts to “systematically divid[e] the country into electoral districts along racial lines.” Holder v. Hall, 512 U. S. 874, 905 (1994) (THOMAS, J., concurring in judgment). “Blacks [we]re drawn into ‘black districts’ and given ‘black representatives’; Hispanics [were] drawn into Hispanic districts and given ‘Hispanic representatives’; and so on.” Ibid. That interpretation rendered [Section 2] “repugnant to any nation that strives for the ideal of a color-blind Constitution.” Id., at 905–906. Today’s decision should largely put an end to this “disastrous misadventure” in voting-rights jurisprudence. Id., at 893.
As I explained more than 30 years ago, I would go further and hold that [Section 2] of the Voting Rights Act does not regulate districting at all. See id., at 922–923. The relevant text prohibits States from imposing or applying a “voting qualification,” “prerequisite to voting,” or “standard, practice, or procedure,” in a manner that results in a denial or abridgement of the right to vote based on race. … How States draw district lines does not fall within any of those three categories. Holder, 512 U. S., at 922–923 (opinion of THOMAS, J.); Allen v. Milligan, 599 U. S. 1, 46 (2023) (THOMAS, J., dissenting). The words in [Section 2] instead “reach only ‘enactments that regulate citizens’ access to the ballot or the processes for counting a ballot’; they ‘do not include a State’s . . . choice of one districting scheme over another.’” Ibid. (quoting Holder, 512 U. S., at 945 (opinion of THOMAS, J.)). Therefore, no [Section 2] challenge to districting should ever succeed.

It’s not really complicated, you see. Why is it that what is so obvious to Justice Thomas should be incomprehensible to Senator Schumer?



 

Terrorism on Bourbon Street

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It was nearly 4 in the morning on New Year’s Day, but crowds of people were still celebrating on Bourbon Street in New Orleans, because celebrating until dawn is what you do when you’re in New Orleans, unless the reason you’re in New Orleans is to kill people:

The suspect accused of plowing a pickup truck through a crowd on Bourbon Street in New Orleans, killing 15 and injuring at least 30 on New Year’s Day, is named Shamsud-Din Jabbar, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
The FBI also confirmed that Jabbar, whose identity was first reported by Nola.com, is 42 years old and that he was carrying an Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) flag in the vehicle.
The FBI said in a statement:

The subject has been identified as 42-year-old Shamsud-Din Jabbar, a U.S. citizen from Texas. He was driving a Ford pickup truck, which appears to have been rented, and we are working to confirm how the subject came into possession of the vehicle.
An ISIS flag was located in the vehicle, and the FBI is working to determine the subject’s potential associations and affiliations with terrorist organizations.
Weapons and a potential IED were located in the subject’s vehicle. Other potential IEDs were also located in the French Quarter. The FBI’s special agent bomb technicians are working with our law enforcement partners to determine if any of these devices are viable, and they will work to render those devices safe.

The agency said it was investigating the attack as an act of terrorism, and are “aggressively running down all leads to identify any possible associates of the subject.”

When I woke up Wednesday morning and first heard about this incident, I did not immediately think “terrorism.” My office TV was tuned to ESPN, however, and as noon approached, the announcers mentioned that players in town for the Sugar Bowl (between Notre Dame and Georgia) had been locked down in their hotel rooms. My thought: “Whoa!” You don’t do that because of some random case of road rage. Eventually, the game that had been scheduled for 8 p.m. ET New Year’s Day got rescheduled for 4 p.m. ET today. The reason for extra precaution soon became obvious: First, the guy’s Muslim-sounding name and flying the ISIS flag. Second, the use of explosive devices, and third, the reports that Jabbar apparently had accomplices in his crime: “We do not believe that Jabbar was solely responsible, . . . We are aggressively running down every lead including those of his known associates.”

Perhaps another reason they postponed the Sugar Bowl is that the FBI needed time to see if there was any connection between Jabbar’s deadly attack and the car-bomb attack at the Trump resort in Las Vegas, which happened just a few hours later and was committed by a former Green Beret who was stationed at Fort Bragg in approximately the same time-frame as Jabbar. Both of these guys being military veterans, and both striking on the same day? Both using electric vehicles rented through the same online app? Maybe just a coincidence, but maybe not.



 

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Republicans Score ‘Major Victory’ as Trump-Backed Landry Wins in Louisiana

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WDSU-TV in New Orleans reports:

Attorney General Jeff Landry, a Republican backed by former President Donald Trump, has won the Louisiana governor’s race, holding off a crowded field of candidates. The win is a major victory for the GOP as they reclaim the governor’s mansion for the first time in eight years.

Louisiana has a so-called “jungle primary,” with all candidates from every party, and this usually results in a run-off to decide the election because no candidate gets a majority, but Landry got 52% to win outright. His nearest Democratic rival got 26%, while four other GOP candidates split 13% of the votes between them. In other words, this was at least a 2-to-1 GOP landslide. What do you think this suggests for 2024? Perhaps it’s merely a local election that signifies nothing as a nationwide trend, but we’ll wait and see what happens in Kentucky next month.



 

Crazy People Are Dangerous

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When Hurricane Ida slammed into Louisiana, everybody was impacted, but the demented and deranged were incapable of coping:

A 65-year-old Kenner resident who had been committed to the hospital more than a dozen times for mental health issues was identified Thursday as the woman shot to death by a Jefferson Parish deputy sheriff after she hurled racist slurs at a water main repair crew in Metairie and twice tried to run over another deputy with her car.
The death of Anne Schilly illustrates how the grueling conditions left behind by Hurricane Ida can strain those who are living with mental illness, said Jefferson’s coroner, Dr. Gerry Cvitanovich.
Jefferson was still saddled with widespread power and water outages on Thursday, four days after a fierce Hurricane Ida roared ashore, exacerbating the extreme temperatures that are typical this time of year. Gasoline was also in precariously short supply, keeping most businesses closed and government services such as garbage collection slow to come online.
“This place right now is not the place for” people with mental health issues, said Cvitanovich, whose office handles mental health commitments along with death examinations. “If you have the opportunity to get these people out, please do so. The resources here are not good for them. It is a dangerous situation.”
Exact details about why Schilly had been involuntarily committed weren’t available Thursday. But Cvitanovich estimated she had been committed 15 to 20 times.
The Sheriff’s Office was also familiar with her, though it wasn’t immediately clear how many times deputies had encountered her and what the outcomes of those interactions were.
A woman identifying herself as Schilly’s daugther said that in addition to mental illness, her mother had long struggled with alcohol addiction and the death of her husband.
Schilly drove up to parish workers repairing a damaged water main in the 6400 block of Park Manor Drive on Wednesday. She began yelling that they were “f—-g n—-s” who needed to go back to their countries, according to video recorded by an eyewitness and shared with The Times-Picayune.
The workers flagged down deputies and reported the harassment. The deputies spoke with Schilly while she was still in her BMW sport-utility vehicle. . . .

OK, stop right there! How the heck is this deranged woman driving a BMW? There is something deeply wrong in this world, when I’m driving a battered old Nissan while a dangerous lunatic who ought to be in a mental institution is driving a luxury SUV. But never mind that . . .

A video recorded by the witness showed Schilly pointing at the workers, again calling them racist names and demanding that deputies arrest them.
One of the deputies was wearing street clothes, while another wore a uniform. Both seemed to try to get her to calm down and leave, but she ultimately rolled her window up and sped off, hitting and dragging the plainclothes deputy down the street while he had a hand on her car.
The deputies chased her by car for almost a mile to Veterans Memorial Boulevard and Lisa Drive, where she encountered a traffic jam. She hit the same deputy a second time after he stepped in front of her vehicle. At that point, the other deputy fired his duty pistol several times, striking and killing her.
Sheriff Joe Lopinto said it’s always difficult when deputies must fire their weapons to protect their own lives. But he said his officer acted justifiably, and there was no excuse for Schilly to behave the way she did.

It’s probably wrong for me to say I’m glad they shot her, but it’s very important, from a “social justice” perspective, that cops kill white people when they do things that they’d get shot for if they were black. We can’t have “white privilege” protecting crazy people, especially the ones who try to run over cops while driving BMWs.




 

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Methamphetamine and White Supremacy

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What are your feelings about methamphetamine? How about fentanyl? Crack cocaine? What does the phrase “drop the knife” mean to you?

The reason I asked these questions has to do with (a) the guy who shot a cop in Daytona Beach and (b) a certain Instagram “influencer.”

You see, after George Floyd’s death last year produced riots in major cities, every bimbo with an Instagram account seemed to decide that she and her followers needed to have a “conversation” about white supremacy. And I don’t want to single out the one particular influencer whose post I happened to be looking at last night that triggered my reaction, because it doesn’t really matter — they all did it.

So never mind who it was that wrote that particular post about her need to reflect deeply on how she had benefitted from white supremacy, and what she needed to change to avoid inflicting harm in the future. It’s irrelevant, because if you read one of them, you’ve read them all. And now, with school boards across the country erupting in debates over Critical Race Theory, this insipid nonsense has become a national issue.

WHITE SUPREMACY DIDN’T KILL GEORGE FLOYD!

There is zero evidence — none whatsoever — that the cops who arrested George Floyd were motivated by racial bias. And despite the murder conviction of Derek Chauvin, it remains a fact that George Floyd had three times the lethal level of fentanyl in his system. Floyd refused to get in the back of the police car, claiming he couldn’t breathe and was claustrophobic, and was clearly on his way to dying of an overdose before the cops put him on the pavement to await arrival of an ambulance.

So if some fashionista feels the need to engage in self-flagellation over her (perhaps imaginary) benefits of “white supremacy,” I can’t stop her from making a fool of herself on Instagram, but such ostentatious racial guilt trips have nothing to do with the death of George Floyd.

This absurd non sequitur — a black guy died, so every white person must publicly proclaim their complicity in his death — never made sense to me, perhaps because I was taught that facts and logic matter, but I guess facts and logic are now racist. If an Instagram influencer who lives in the suburbs of Houston, Texas, can blame herself because a black man died in Minneapolis, what else is she to blame for? I mean, if “white supremacy” is such a powerful force as to make people responsible for things that happen 1,200 miles away, then why limit this cosmic power of magical Caucasian complicity to George Floyd’s death?

So a guy dies of a fentanyl overdose, and this obligates a white woman in Texas who has never even been to Minneapolis to castigate herself for having benefitted from “white supremacy,” and I’m thinking: What about a methamphetamine overdose in Louisiana? But this Instagram influencer didn’t even notice the death of Trayford Pellerin, who died from methamphetamine and 11 bullets. But mainly it was the bullets.

You probably never heard of Trayford Pellerin, because by the time he got shot by cops in LaFayette, Louisiana, CNN and the rest of the liberal media had already established the narrative, and his case didn’t have the kind of video the networks needed to depict him as a martyr.

The only reason I became aware of the Pellerin case is because the guy who shot the cop in Daytona Beach was associated with the NFAC, a black radical militia that showed up in LaFayette last year to protest Pellerin’s death. Imagine a couple hundred black guys in combat gear carrying AR-15s showing up to march in your community, and then ask yourself: What the hell happened to inspire this craziness?

Well, Trayford Pellerin was a criminal. He had been arrested for domestic violence and dealing drugs, among other things, and in 2014 was sentenced to five years in prison for being a felon in possession of a firearm. On the evening of August 21 last year, Pellerin was in a convenience store behaving “erratically,” and walked out of the store brandishing a knife. Police got three separate 911 calls about Pellerin, and bodycam video shows the first police officer on the scene following Pellerin on foot as he crossed a major highway, knife in hand. On the video, you hear the officer radioing the suspect’s location, saying that he had fired a taser but that it had no effect on the suspect. Then, as Pellerin approaches another convenience store, more police show up, lights flashing and sirens wailing. The police repeatedly tell Pellerin to drop the knife — 13 times — but he doesn’t and instead moves to enter the other convenience store, at which point multiple officers open fire.

A toxicology report found that Pellerin had “methamphetamine in his system, registering 2,800 nanograms per milliliter. [District Attorney Don] Landry said users with a level of 200-300 nanograms per milliliter are known to exhibit ‘violent and irrational behavior,’ also including ‘restlessness, confusion and hallucinations.’ The amount of meth in Pellerin’s system, said Landry, has been reported in addicts who take up to 1,000 milligrams of meth daily.” The dude was wired.

So here you have a convicted felon, out of his mind on meth, waving around a knife on a public street and yet — and yet! — some people wanted to protest against the cops shooting him? Has the world gone mad? When did America turn into a coast-to-coast psychiatric ward?

Look, I don’t know where you come from, but where I come from, meth heads didn’t have a constitutional right to wave knives around.

Maybe instead of Instagram influencers publicly humiliating themselves by confessing their complicity in white supremacy, or teaching public school kids Critical Race Theory, we should be having a conversation about what happens when convicted felons get hold of drugs and weapons. And maybe teach kids that when a cop points a gun at you and says “drop the knife,” that’s not merely a suggestion. Just sayin’ . . .




 

Stupid Is as Stupid Does

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From Louisiana comes this tale of young criminal masterminds:

Two people are accused of committing murder during an armed robbery in Ouachita Parish. According to court documents, it happened on Brown Street in Richwood on July 29, 2020.
Louisiana State Police say they were notified of an alleged homicide around 5 p.m. that same day. LSP stopped a speeding car on La. Highway 17 in Franklin Parish.
The driver was identified as Michael Dewayne Mitchell Jr., 18. During the stop, police say they noticed the smell of marijuana. They say Mitchell admitted to smoking marijuana and a search of the vehicle was conducted.
It was then that police found the body of a man in the trunk. The victim was identified as Michael Robinson Jr., 23, of Monroe.
Police say Mitchell then confessed to taking part in an armed robbery which resulted in the victim’s death.
Records state that he implicated another man, Cameron Powe, 19, saying the two of them robbed the victim in Richwood. Powe is accused of shooting the victim during the robbery, killing him.
According to police, Mitchell said they then loaded the body into the victim’s vehicle and planned to leave the victim and the vehicle at a site in the Winnsboro area. Mitchell was stopped before he could get there.

You know, when I highlight stories like this, I hesitate to point out the obvious lesson, for fear that I might be giving criminals advice on how better to get away with felonies. But then I rememember that these idiots are probably illiterate, so there is no harm in saying this: If you murder somebody and you load the victim’s body in the trunk of the car so you can dump it, obey the speed limit on your way to the dump site.

Also, don’t smoke weed on your way to dump the body.

These amateurs just never learn . . .

(Hat-tip: Kirby McCain on Twitter.)




 

Police: Transgender Prostitute Murdered in Louisiana Motel by Tattooed Ex-Convict

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Police say Darrell ‘Amia Tyrae’ Berryman (left) was shot by Dedrick Butler (right).

WBRZ-TV reports:

Police have arrested a man accused of shooting and killing a transgender prostitute at a Baton Rouge motel earlier this week.
According to the Baton Rouge Police Department, the shooting happened shortly after 1 a.m. at the Shades Motel on Airline Highway. There, police found 28-year-old Darrel Berryman dead from a gunshot. In the arrest records, police say Berryman was a “transvestite” working as a prostitute out of the motel room.
Through witness accounts and surveillance video, investigators learned that the suspected shooter, 22-year-old Dedrick Butler, had entered Berryman’s motel room just after 1 a.m. Monday. Police say a friend of Berryman then arrived at the motel but hid after he heard a gunshot come from inside the room. Butler was then seen on surveillance video, leaving the room and taking off in his vehicle.
While investigating the victim’s phone, police found recent messages from Butler. Officers were then able to track down Butler’s vehicle and take him into custody.
During questioning, Butler admitted to going into the motel room armed with a gun at the time of the shooting. However, he denies that he’s the one who shot Berryman.
Butler was booked into the East Baton Rouge Parish Prison on charges of second-degree murder, possession of a firearm by a convicted felon and possessing a weapon with an obliterated serial number.

Was this an attempted robbery? Prostituting at cheap motels is dangerous, and this doesn’t seem like a “hate crime,” and yet . . .

Transgender Woman Shot Dead in Motel Is 7th
Killed in U.S. This Year, Rights Advocates Say
. . . Between 25 to 28 transgender people were reported killed in the United States last year, the highest number in at least a decade, according to a report by the Human Rights Campaign and the Trans People of Color Coalition. The violence disproportionately affects transgender women of color. . . .
NeVaa White, a friend, told Mic that Ms. Tyrae had been out since at least 2009, and had a close community of friends. “She made family with her peers in the L.G.B.T. community of Baton Rouge,” Ms. White said, adding that Ms. Tyrae didn’t have an easy life, and that she “was taken away in the very manner she feared.”
Statistics on homicides of transgender people are difficult to compile and are not officially available because the federal government does not collect data based on gender identity. In addition, transgender homicide victims are often identified by the police using the names and genders they were assigned at birth, a practice known as misgendering.

Was “Ms. Tyrae” killed by “misgendering” or by bullet wounds? Pretty sure it was the latter, and there’s no apparent political angle to this crime, but in the Trump era, the New York Times cannot pass up an opportunity to imply that “hate” was somehow to blame.

 

Illegal Alien Hermes Rivera Charged With Raping 10-Year-Old Louisiana Girl

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Did Obama’s executive order amnesty make this crime possible?

A man living in Kenner has been charged with three counts of aggravated rape against a 10-year-old girl after the victim was seen in a video claiming they “made love,” police said.
The mother of the girl found the cell phone video on Thursday, April 16, 2015. It was recorded by her daughter. On it, the victim alleged that she and her mother’s boyfriend had “made love” three times.
After confronting her daughter, police said the 10-year-old victim told her mother it happened in their bedroom.
25-year-old Hermes Rivera admitted to police that he had sex with the victim three times between March and April 3, 2015.
Rivera remains in custody. At the writing of this report, no bond had been set.
Police said Rivera is an undocumented immigrant.

(Hat-tip: @exposeliberals on Twitter.) In her 2002 book Invasion, Michelle Malkin called attention to the fact that our broken immigration system means America is importing criminals (and terrorists) from all over the world. Those warnings have gone unheeded by the political elite in both parties, and advocates of multiculturalism wish us to ignore the kind of “culture” immigrants are bringing with them:

The legal age of heterosexual consent in Mexico is 12. . . .
Mexican men have a reputation for leering and worse at little girls, which shouldn`t surprise us, since sex with children is socially acceptable in Mexico. Fifteen-year-old girls have a ceremony called a Quinceañera which announces their availability to become wives, mothers and girlfriends. In America, children of that age are expected to complete three more years of high school, to be followed hopefully by a college education. But in Mexico, young girls are considered available, according to law and custom.
A 2005 news report from North Carolina found that “Culture might be factor in sexual abuse” . . . referring to Hispanic men`s propensity to prey upon little girls. . . .
An example: Mexican Diego Lopez-Mendez pleaded guilty to sexual assault on a 10-year-old girl in West Virginia, with a not-uncommon excuse that child sex is normal among his people.
“In the pueblo where I grew up girls are usually married by 13 years old. … I was unaware of the nature of the offense or that it was a bad crime”, said Lopez through the translator. . . .

You can read the rest of that 2007 report at VDare.com, which has been condemned as a “hate” site simply because they report facts and analyze news about immigration without a liberal bias. We live in an age where truth is “hate” and the news media are part of a dishonest partisan propaganda campaign to promote policies that amount to importing criminals and Democrat voters — but I repeat myself.