Court backs Landry, deals alarmist Edwards blow

It’s another win for the rule of law in America aided by Republican Atty. Gen. Jeff Landry and a major blow to Democrat Gov. John Bel Edwards’ climate alarmism policy.

Thursday, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in West Virginia v. Environmental Protection Agency that any extensive attempts for the EPA to regulate the entire power-producing sector of America would have to have a particular and clear Congressional grant. Specifically, it didn’t have the authority to impose a cap-and-trade regime on states designed to force a shift to renewable energy sources from those based on fossil fuels.

Absent that grant as is the case, the EPA can’t issue sweeping rules, as encapsulated in a plan initially forwarded by the Democrat Pres. Barack Obama Administration that the Democrat Pres. Joe Biden Administration wished in large part to continue, that constrain power production on the basis of carbon emissions. Landry, not long after taking office and along with officials from 15 other states joined West Virginia on the winning side, commented on how the outcome correctly placed the power to regulate in the hands of Congress rather than bureaucracy.

Chavez choices to cost him conservative votes

Assuming it’s behind his choice of (no) labels to run for mayor of Shreveport, perhaps Caddo Commissioner Mario Chavez is taking the Friday Ellis strategy a bit too far and certainly too ineptly.

Chavez, until recently a Republican and local party official, declared his run for the office by asserting he would run without a partisan label. This emulated the Monroe no party mayor, who despite backing from local GOP elites (and the spouse of a Republican state elected official) eschewed a label. Facing an electorate about five-eighths black and dominated by Democrats, he knocked off a long-time incumbent from that party by stressing his business credentials and critiquing the incumbent’s record.

However, for Chavez the dynamics differ somewhat than just refusing to call himself a Republican in the hopes of adding non-Republicans disgruntled with the ethical and policy missteps of Democrat incumbent Mayor Adrian Perkins to Republicans attracted by his conservative voting record on the Commission – until recently. For to prevent too many conservatives from sticking with Republican candidate Tom Arceneaux – Ellis didn’t have to face any quality GOP challenger – Chavez must continue to demonstrate conservative credentials that his Commission work puts on display.

Some ideologues defeated, others warming up

Checkmate on wealthy special interests trying to subvert democracy has come in one Louisiana controversy, but an even more consequential one is just beginning that may cause even greater needless taxpayer, and certainly human, expense.

Tuesday, the U.S. Supreme Court stayed preliminary injunctions issued by U.S. Middle District Louisiana Judge Shelly Dick on case orders that would force the state, contrary to the output of its democratic processes, to draw two majority-minority congressional districts as a result of decennial reapportionment from 2020 census data. Dick’s opinion, which strayed far from existing jurisprudence, had set up for her as early as Wednesday to impose a two M/M plan onto the state for elections this fall.

Instead, the 6-3 Court ruling put everything on hold until it resolves Merrill v. Milligan, an Alabama case that presents largely the same issues of how prominent a role race must play in reapportionment. There, in a state with about a quarter black population, late last year its Legislature drew only one M/M district of seven, and in February the Court enjoined a lower court ruling tossing that out, saying it needed time to vet thoroughly the issue that meant the enacted map would be used in 2022 elections, being as time was too short given the upcoming election schedule.

Gannett quitting opinion caused by its leftism

Since you’re reading this, you obviously aren’t in the opinion-free zone now increasingly the case for Gannett Corporation newspapers.

Quietly, the 250-or-so-strong newspaper chain has had its individual outlets drop opinion columns over the past several months. A directive went out earlier this year discouraging the running of regular opinion columns and preached that if papers do continue to venture into opinion that these should focus on local issues. It said internal research indicated reader dissatisfaction with eternal arguments over certain subjects, an inability to move to common ground, and irritation to the point that, despite being the least read section of the typical paper, views expressed on opinion pages former subscribers often cited as their reason to bolt.

Nationally, its outlets have begun scaling back entire editorial sections to run as little as weekly. In Louisiana, a review of opinion pages for its several outlets shows the disappearance of all but the occasional guest posting seldom on a national issue, with no regulars except for the leftist wildcatter Jeremy Alford who writes about state politics and syndicates across both newspaper/magazine and television platforms, and its Capitol news reporter (and at the Shreveport Times – where I wrote a weekly column a quarter-century ago before I was told I irritated too many powers that be and was given the boot – a former student of mine on the left is allowed to put it out there every couple of weeks or so).

LA set to enjoy abortion-free environment

It took only about a half-century, but my first foray into political activism finally paid off.

In the spring of 1973, of which the exact date escapes me, as our family did occasionally we visited one of our hometown Alvin’s very few sit-down dinner restaurants. While we waited on the food – the only Mexican restaurant in town at the time – our mother pulled out some information culled from one of the Catholic-oriented magazines to which we subscribed, which contained sample verbiage for a letter to any of several listed addresses of various elected officials concerning the recent Roe v. Wade U.S. Supreme Court decision.

This ruling, which using smoke and mirrors concocted a substantive due process argument creating a constitutional right essentially under any circumstance to abort humans – at that time technical reasoning lost upon a pair of ten-year-olds that wouldn’t be grasped for several more years – upset her deeply. While the bulk of her 15-year nursing career (before our time), mostly in what then was called the Public Health Service in some of its hospitals and after receiving her B.S. then in the Air Force, was spent as a surgical nurse or ward supervisor, she also had a stint in what today would be called a neo-natal unit. She did really well with newborns and loved to take care of them, a desire that manifested in her enduring three miscarriages before hitting the jackpot with a two-for-one payoff.