Alter legal presumption to reduce clergy scandal

Running afoul of legalities, Louisiana’s attempt to bring serial sexual predators to justice may be revived in a different way, as an unfortunate instance of this crime reminds.

This week, Florida authorities on a Texas warrant arrested Anthony Odiong, charging him with illegally possessing child abuse imagery depicting unclothed children. Until last year, for a several years Odiong had been pastor of St. Anthony’s in Luling, in the Archdiocese of New Orleans. Although his home diocese technically is in Africa, Odiong had spent many years in the Diocese of Austin during the time of then-Bishop Gregory Aymond who when assuming the archbishopric of New Orleans eventually transferred Odiong there.

Odiong in 2023 was removed from his position by the Archdiocese apparently on complaints from women about sexual improprieties as well as for financial irregularities attached to his ministry. Since then, he ignored his Nigerian bishop’s call to return and instead holed up in an expensive home in Florida. He complained his removal, which included revoking his ministerial authority, was in response to his complaining that Church policy under Pope Francis was too lenient that validated homosexual liaisons.

Caddo commissioner non-apology shows unfitness

The sickness that has pervaded the political left in recent years that, displaying an authoritarian ethos, declares its opponents as twisted if not evil, a Democrat Caddo Parish Commissioner put on full display in reacting to the unsuccessful assassination of Republican former Pres. Donald Trump this past weekend.

At a rally on Saturday, while making a speech Trump suddenly halted after popping noises rang out and blood appeared running down the right side of his face as Secret Service personnel took him to the ground and huddled over him momentarily, then hauled him off stage. A bullet from nearly 150 yards away had pierced the top of his ear, and others wounded and killed spectators before the would-be assassin was located and shot dead by snipers.

Anybody viewing the incident, whether afterwards from recordings, could tell immediately what had happened. Agents don’t dogpile on their charge and rush him away if they aren’t highly suspicious that bullets are headed his way, and it’s not firecrackers or children’s popguns or a Bidenesque stumble if blood is so visible on the intended target. Two plus two always should equal four, even to student journalists much less to so-called professionals.

LA buffer zone law in some form should prevail

An upcoming Louisiana law will draw a law suit. Whether that will succeed may depend upon the U.S. Supreme Court and the state’s persistence.

This past regular legislative session, lawmakers passed and Republican Gov. Jeff Landry signed HB 173 by GOP state Rep. Bryan Fontenot. The bill creates a new crime, approaching a peace officer lawfully engaged in law enforcement duties, by prohibiting approaching peace officers – most notably, police – within 25 feet of them so long as they legitimately are performing their assigned duties, they warn those encroaching, and the warning is delivered in a manner understood by those encroaching.

The law takes effect at the start of next month. Special interests have declared the law is unconstitutional, which means as soon as they can find – or perhaps engineer – a situation where a person receives such a warning, they will sue on the basis of infringement of First Amendment rights. They argue that such a law prevents public oversight of police actions, stopping observation of potentially illegal behavior by law enforcement.

Authoritarian Monroe Council set for conflict

If the first Monroe City Council meeting of the new term for it and independent Mayor Friday Ellis conveys any indication of the next four years, that would flash plenty of conflict ahead as well as a more authoritarian tack taken by the new Council majority.

In his first term, Ellis didn’t encounter an inordinate amount of resistance to his agenda, despite being only the second white non-Democrat ever elected in the city’s history by an electorate that these days is majority black and Democrat. The two white Republicans on the Council, Doug Harvey and Gretchen Ezernack, almost always supported his initiatives and budgets, and usually on important items he could count on a vote from black Democrats Carday Marshall and/or Kema Dawson. Only black Democrat Juanita Woods consistently opposed him on these.

But in this spring’s elections Marshall and Dawson fell to black Democrats Rodney McFarland and Verbon Muhammad, both of whom essentially ran against the direction Ellis was taking. Their first meeting extended that theme.