Politics still reigns in Edwards virus policy

Need still another confirmation that politics, rather than science, drives the Wuhan coronavirus pandemic policy-making of Louisiana Democrat Gov. John Bel Edwards? Just check out confirmation of the worst kept secret – that he would issue relaxations to rules issued about the virus prior to Sep. 11.

Today, Edwards signaled that the state would move into Phase 3. According to federal government guidelines – which in the past Edwards claims he follows along with closed-door advice he asserts he receives from the White House Coronavirus Task Force –the only restriction left for individuals in lower-risk populations is they “should consider minimizing time spent in crowded environments.” As for businesses, they can resume “unrestricted staffing of worksites,” but specifically for places such sit-down dining restaurants, movie theaters, sporting venues, and places of worship these can operate under “limited” physical distancing protocols (as opposed to “moderate” or “strict” requirements in Phase 2). Even more specifically, gyms can remain open if they adhere to standard sanitation protocols and bars may operate with increased standing room occupancy, where applicable.

At the very least, this means every kind of business can open, although with mild capacity restrictions, including bars which Edwards has kept shut unless they served more food than drinks and/or had a video poker license. Whether Edwards will match action to words remains doubtful, indicated by his announcement saying tomorrow details would be forthcoming – as well they should since his orders expire tomorrow – except that the face covering requirement in public would continue.

Large, redistributive LA govt harms poor

More evidence has surfaced that shows Louisiana’s Robin Hood and excessive tax policies continue to punish its poorest citizens.

The notion of improving the lives of the poor through hefty and progressive taxation has become an article of faith of the political left – the more and taken from the wealthier, the more that can be shoveled to the poorer regardless of the very imperfect mechanisms in place to ensure that this redistribution creates long-term increased wealth among its recipients. However, while America’s federal government as a whole has the most progressive income tax regime of all economically developed countries, and thus the most progressive system since unlike most other countries it doesn’t have a national sales tax – which unless manipulated by exceptions is very regressive – its states typically are the opposite. The leftist Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy ranks only a few states as having progressive state tax codes, with Louisiana ranked 14^th least progressive in its latest study on the topic.

In fact, unusually when compared to other economically developed countries where progressive taxation typically varies inversely with the size of government (measured by the proportion of wealth taken in taxes), among U.S. states it’s the opposite. A study from the conservative American Enterprise Institute argues that economic issue preferences among elected policy-makers cause this; even though more progressivity creates additional economic costs such as reduced development and population loss, in states which elect more officials with more liberal economic preferences they are willing to countenance this tradeoff.

Change LA disaster laws to improve response

A report and a lawsuit bring up a trenchant question for Louisiana policy-makers: how does government best protect both the health and safety of the public and yet prevent itself from encroaching on their liberties or unjustifiably interfering with their lives and livelihoods?

The Pelican Institute recently reviewed how Louisiana government deals with public health crises. Undoubtedly prompted by Democrat Gov. John Bel Edwards’ policies addressing the Wuhan coronavirus pandemic, the effort evaluates state law governing the issue and makes suggestions for improvement.

Edwards has faced criticism for policy on this that seems to rely more on arbitrariness than science that has led the state to ring up some of the worst indicators related to the pandemic while having some of the most restrictive rules. But, as the report notes, the reigning jurisprudence on government police powers gives officials wide latitude over restrictions placed upon commercial activity and personal behavior as long as those rules don’t interfere with individual liberties, where a much more stringent standard applies.

Data invalidate LA police racism insinuation

Louisianans, don’t be fooled by the latest attempt to mutate fiction into fact in a long-running battle to shape public policy around a presumption of “systemic racism.”

Especially this being an election year, mainstream media and their liberal political allies have intensified their old habit of flogging this idea when able to find an incident they can shape to support it. Recently, this has come in the form of black crime suspects dying incident to arrests with white police officers involved. Reporting that has sensationalized such events in Louisiana spurred policy-makers invested in the narrative to succeed in formation of a legislative panel to address policing.

Meeting last week, legislators heard from proponents of the narrative. A functionary from the Louisiana branch of the American Civil Liberties Union, Advocacy Director Chris Klein, testified that in state blacks represent 53 percent of those killed by police even though they comprise 32 percent of the state's population. “There are some trends that are not in dispute," he said. “There are very real trends that create stark disparities in Louisiana.”

Confessions of a conservative LA columnist

At The Hayride, Dan Fagan posted a piece about his reasons for quitting his columnist spot at the Baton Rouge Advocate. In it, he brings up issues about writing conservative pieces in today’s mainstream media, and more specifically at the Advocate, which deserve fuller investigation and explanation.

I preceded and overlapped Fagan there, writing a column from 2015-19, and observed some of what he did. In general, Dan (with whom I’ve never had a chance to correspond, although at one point one of my pieces made reference to one of his) recounts that he felt suppressed, had to edit columns to tone down their conservative content, and even had some outright rejected. He further perceives the Advocate editorial staff (past and present) as having an unreflective liberal bias largely with a readership to match.

Since the later 1990s, I have served as a paid opinion columnist for a number of Louisiana newspapers, both large and small, and that experience along with knowledge of the industry through my academic studies has led to some conclusions that should interest anybody who wants to understand why the stuff that appears on opinion pages does, especially as it relates to conservative content. My experience with the Advocate largely reflects these.

Arguments for more mail ballots obliterated

The next time someone complains that relaxing Louisiana’s mail-in ballot rules won’t damage election integrity, you know they’re either ignorant or want to steal elections.

That’s the only conclusion drawable from a devastating piece that ran last week in the New York Post. It drew from remarks made by an anonymous New Jersey Democrat veteran political operative, whose pedigree the staff authenticated, who made it chillingly clear how easy and undetectable was committing voting fraud.

Mail-in ballots provide much fertile ground for fraud, he explained. Tricks he and others have used include:

Bossier City needs 21st century transparency

How difficult is it for government to make a link and upload a document? Apparently too hard for the biggest small town in America, Bossier City.

Yesterday, its City Council plowed through another semi-monthly session in usual fashion. This means it operates like a rubber stamp, verifying a compliant made by 2021 Council at-large candidate Chris Smith about a lack of transparency. Typically, meetings have less in the way of information and discussion than those of Red China’s governing organ the State Council, with terse statements of actions at hand, rarely any discussion of these, and rarer still anything but unanimous votes. In fact, in 2020 the average regular meeting has lasted under 45 minutes, in large part because few had any public comment and from the machine gun nature of how ordinances and resolutions were dispensed with.

On this occasion, one such item on the agenda that appeared a few days before on the city website that it also delivers from a mailing list to which citizens may subscribe, #10 under New Business, was this:

Ahistorically, Edwards can't control his party

Besides being an outlier in Louisiana statewide elective office – the only Democrat – Gov. John Bel Edwards also is an outlier compared to other past governors – he has no control over his own state party.

Louisiana, for a variety of reasons, has the weakest state major political parties of any in the country. Part of that comes from the historical dominance that governors can exert informally, blessed by a political culture that too intensely conceptualizes its chief executive as a man on horseback that keeps order and dispenses or withholds resources. In the past, governors have loomed large over their parties, determining their leadership and directing their resources.

But not Edwards. The party had serious reservations about his ability to win when he set off in 2014 to capture the office. Famously, among others, the party chairwoman state Sen. Karen Carter Peterson had gone to him and asked him to withdraw in favor of throwing their support behind a Republican they thought could defeat Republican Sen. David Vitter. Of course the party revved up support for him when he did well in the general election, signaling a runoff victory where it  became his mouthpiece afterwards, but Peterson and other party officials like recently-departed executive director Stephen Handwerk had their own independent bases of support.

Justified warning upsets Lafayette protesters

Republican Lafayette Mayor-President Josh Guillory might overstate his case a bit, but he has the right idea to counsel against nonprofit organizations in sheltering Hurricane Laura evacuees as long as selfish protesters take to the streets of the city-parish.

Guillory sent notice to area nonprofits asking that they hold up with shelter establishment in the wake of the storm’s strike last Thursday, While the Lafayette area received just a glancing blow, to the southwest major property damage occurred, displacing many and likely for some time. As justification, Guillory noted protest activity stemming from the police shooting of Trayford Pellerin, who ten days ago brandished a knife a convenience store. He exited, with Lafayette police in tow, walked half a mile to another store, and made set to enter it, ignoring multiple times police instructions to desist and two unsuccessful Taser attempts. Apparently fearing Pellerin would attack people inside the second store, police open fire when he attempted to enter, killing him.

Since then, protests have popped up around Lafayette, without any reported acts of violence. But Guillory noted the potential for it to occur, and therefore he could not guarantee the safety of an influx of refugees. This didn’t mean that organizations couldn’t take people in, just that the city gave notice that they might be at risk. For that, some of those invested in protesting cried foul (with one particularly uneducated complainer saying Guillory wanted to instill “fear” into people from coming together to exercise their “second amendment” rights; rather than promote gunplay, she probably meant to refer to the right to assemble peacefully under the First Amendment).

LA school district illegally censors expression

Just as you can’t stop students participating in athletic events from insulting the flag, you can’t censor their artistic expression that doesn’t disrupt a school’s educational mission or promotes vulgarity or illegal drug use, a Louisiana school district needs to learn.

The Washington Parish School District finds itself mired in controversy over the issue. Apparently, by custom at its Pine Junior/Senior High School seniors have designated parking spots where they may have painted whatever isn’t negative, rude, or offensive in language, pictures, or symbols.

Senior Ned Thomas had a representation painted of Republican Pres. Donald Trump from mid-waist-up, with the nation’s chief executive wearing a suit and tie, stars and stripes bandana, sunglasses with stars on one lens and stripes on another, and overall looking serene. Not long afterwards, he was informed that the picture was too “political” and the district had it painted over.