A "Glenn Beck Chalkboard" of the JP GOP Establishment

Connecting The Dots Of A Parish Party Run Amok

In the summer of 2023 Brandon Trosclair was running for Secretary of State to reform Louisiana elections. This remains an issue of utmost importance to the state and the nation and yet curiously, Brandon was getting scant traction among the dreaded Republican Establishment. Notably from our own Jefferson GOP Executive Committee who passed him over and instead endorsed the Establishment’s choice, “Clone of Kyle”, Nancy Landry.

Since then, we’ve been digging deeper into the JP GOPe with the time having arrived for our first “Chalkboard” to connect some dots here in the parish. Popularized by the lovable, apocalyptic, Cheeto-faced commentator Glenn Beck, his chalkboards drew connections between individuals and events that undermined the Republic and usually seemed in search of an ultimate villain of some sort.

Glenn Beck searching for Pee-Wee Herman’s missing bicycle.

Upon learning that JPREC had endorsed Nancy Landry, we decided to look deeper and found a slew of other dubious endorsements. For Attorney General the choice was Baton Rouge bully John Stefanski over Liz Murrill. For State Treasurer we were offered Scott McKnight instead of MAGA favorite John Fleming.

Also included in the JPREC endorsements were two of the most unpopular Republicans in the Louisiana Legislature, Joe Stagni and Stephanie Hilferty. The full list of their 2023 endorsements can be found here and you can judge for yourself on the rest. But upon encountering these dodgy decisions it was already clear that something stunk in Jefferson.

So how were these stinker endorsements being made and who was making them? As we discovered, all sorts of Republican ringers besides the elected JPREC members were being roped in from across the parish to cast votes for the committee’s endorsements. A situation so egregious that Judicial candidate Jerry Smith felt compelled to file a lawsuit against the committee and its chairwoman Polly Thomas. For reasons unknown, Mr. Smith dropped the appeal of this case at the Louisiana Supreme Court, however we don’t need a court to tell us that unknown, unnamed, un-elected Republicans are not supposed to be hijacking the parish RPEC endorsements.

But endorsements weren’t the only thing being burglarized by the party bosses. We also discovered that JPREC meetings themselves are CLOSED TO THE PUBLIC. That’s right “Mr. and Mrs. We The People”, get lost! They don’t want you there. From what we can tell, this is a party that doesn’t do voter registrations, doesn’t do voter outreach, doesn’t get out the vote and doesn’t intend to. There’s no party building and definitely no citizen involvement. Most of the voting Republicans in this parish don’t even know JPREC exists. All we’ve really found them to do is make rigged endorsements of entrenched politicians behind closed doors.

NO CITIZENS ALLOWED.

By now it had become clear that there was a swamp to drain in Jefferson Parish and as luck would have it the election for new RPEC and RSCC members was just around the corner on March 23rd, 2024. As you might imagine from all the insider influence to be snatched as a member of this committee, these were very competitive races, which saw 58 candidates vying for 35 seats with at least 7 first-time grassroots candidates running specifically to clean things up. But things would get even dirtier just days before the election with the appearance of the following, now-infamous campaign mailer:

So what’s wrong with this mailer anyway? Clearly it comes from the LAGOP. It says “official ballot” right on there! Well.…… It didn’t come from the LAGOP, it wasn’t an official anything and not only that, there was nothing indicating who paid for it which is a violation of Louisiana Title 18 campaign law. What it was was a deceptive and illegal advertisement designed to trick people into voting for the listed candidates.

So who actually sent it? Let’s pull out the old chalk again and start with the people who benefited. Conveniently enough, we can see that all of them are listed on the mailer. We asked several different individuals listed on this mailer who sent it out and each one of them claimed not to know. Does that add up to you? Well, one thing we know is that the people who sent it know who they endorsed and who they wanted seated on that committee. But do you really figure that none of the candidates knew who spent all that money to get them elected?

The reality is that once the election results came in, 21 of the 35 newly seated members of JPREC had been listed on the deceptive mailer. And of those 21 members, 14 of them were already sitting members of JPREC or had replaced immediate family members on the new committee. This means that 14 of the individuals listed on the mailer (or family) sat on that committee for four years doing absolutely nothing to open the party to the public, to clean up the endorsement process or anything else of note to serve the Republican citizens of Jefferson Parish. These individuals include:

John A. Alario, former state Senate President and Speaker of the House.
Jon A. Gegenheimer, Jefferson Parish Clerk of Court.
Allen Leone Sr., 2024 Landry appointee to the Louisiana Tax Commission.
Joseph Lopinto Jr., father of Jefferson Parish Sheriff Joe Lopinto.
Polly Thomas, State Representative and JPREC Chairwoman.
Frank J. Borne,
Blair C. Constant, former Jefferson Parish Assistant District Attorney.
RayGriffin Jr., former School Board candidate.
Kriss Fairbairn-Fortunato, Jefferson School Board member.
Bradley “Deuce” Bohannan, son of departed Councilwoman Arita Bohannan.
Dominick Impastato, former Parish Councilman.
Sherry K. Willmott,
John Labruzzo Jr., former state Representative, brother of departed member Frank Labruzzo.
Allen Leone, Jr., 5th Justice Court Constable and son of fellow committee member Al Sr.

None of these people have shown any indication that they would open the party, reform the party or develop the party (but you’ll be sure to hear what great patriots they are wherever and whenever they get a chance to talk about themselves). And so it should be clear that unless these people start to reform JPREC, their inclusion on that mailer will be their only true legacy as members.

We’ve connected a bunch of dots and we’re burning through the chalk over here but we’re not done yet. Our Chalkboard is still only half way full, so let’s recharge with a brief salute to our spiritual leader. The sleuthing, truthing chalk-master himself… Mr. Beck!

Are we recharged yet? Great! Because the fish start getting a little bigger now.

From the moment the suspect mailer started hitting mailboxes, people were speculating on where it came from. Being anonymous, we couldn’t simply read of or look up its origin, but we did have a clue or two, starting with the printing company that produced it.

MPRESS. M-Press. https://www.mpressnow.com/
We found the local New Orleans printer who produced the anonymous mailer and as the April 27th Judicial Runoff between Lindsey Valenti and Jackie Maloney started heating up, more and more M-Press mailers started flooding the mailboxes of Jefferson, all of which supported Valenti. We don’t know for certain that the people who manipulated the RPEC election were the same people behind the Valenti campaign, but we know that they used the same printer and that the Valenti campaign seemed to be running little more than a dirt-flinging operation. You will have to be the judge of that yourselves, but here’s a trove of said dirt as represented by the Maloney campaign. For the record, The Jefferson Liberty Journal endorsed Jerry Smith in the Primary and did not make an endorsement in the Runoff.

Here are some examples of the mailers supporting Valenti, all of which came from M-Press via her campaign committee or from GNORPAC.

So what are the true connections between the anonymous mailer, the Valenti campaign, the RPEC candidates, the RPEC leadership and the politicians who endorsed Valenti either independently or as membership dues for “the club”? It’s hard to say exactly, though they seem to have left the people plenty of breadcrumbs.

And what about all the politicians who come up through this system and jam up Baton Rouge in defiance of the will of the people? Something you might have noticed with all of this is that Baton Rouge isn’t too far from Jefferson and Washington isn’t too far from Baton Rouge. It’s really all about who controls the process from the local level up. It’s a process that needs to be controlled by the people and you can certainly have an impact by getting involved.

We might not be ready to put that one big name on the Jefferson chalkboard yet, but you gotta believe Glenn would be proud of this first effort. We sure have plenty of clues and plenty of people to ask plenty of questions. You have to figure someone would know who created that anonymous mailer too, right? The sleek and persuasive design, the elegant red elephant and the bold, distinctive colors and fonts.

Maybe we could just ask this guy?