What did John Bel know and when did he know it?

And now the fun begins.

Louisiana House Speaker Clay Schexnayder, R-Gonzales, described a recent Associated Press report which revealed that Gov. John Bel Edwards knew about the violent, fatal arrest of a Black man by Louisiana State Police long before the details of the arrest went public “greatly disturbing.” 

Schexnayder said in a written statement that he had talked to Senate President Page Cortez, R-Lafayette, and Attorney General Jeff Landry over the weekend about the report on Edwards, though he didn’t say what the three Republicans might do in response.

Instead, he alluded to a possible legislative investigation or impeachment, saying the Legislature was fully prepared to use its authority to serve as “check and balance to other branches.”

“What happened to Ronald Greene is inexcusable and should never happen to anyone. His family and the citizens of this state deserve to know the truth,” Schexnayder said.

“It’s time to find out who knew what – and when – and hold them accountable,” he said.

Of course, Schexnayder, Cortez and Landry are all pandering hypocrites who have zero interest in preventing police violence or even, I would venture to say, justice for the Greene family.  But the interesting thing about this will be the response from the various Democrats and JBE allies around the state who, in rallying around the Governor, will find themselves on the side of our racist and murderous state police and, by extension, the racist and murderous criminal justice system overall.

Not that most of them will have much of a problem with that.  After all the general consensus among our elite politicos of either party is very much in favor of more unaccountable police violence and a more violent and brutal system of legal punishment overall.  It makes little difference whether that position is arrived at through white supremacy or through an individualist belief that poverty is a personal shame deserving of its consequences, or through fealty to the oligarch class interested in keeping workers disciplined.  It all leads everyone who is anyone in politics and media to just about the same place. 

And so if these Republicans end up going hard after John Bel, the battle lines on either side will be about partisanship rather than anything resembling a moral principle.  Either way, don't expect any of it to alter the regime of state violence most of us are subjected to in Louisiana.