Leftist media fearful of Landry promotion

Scared to death that he will ascend to the state’s top spot in 2023, the Louisiana political left’s long knives have come out for Republican Atty. Gen. Jeff Landry, aided by sympathetic media mouthpieces.

Landry convincingly leads in fundraising for that election cycle over any other sitting official or declared candidate, and it’s a great bet that he hasn’t collected $2 million or so just to run for reelection. As a staunch conservative, he would prove a nightmare to the left that barely hangs onto relevancy in the state currently with only Democrat Gov. John Bel Edwards in the way to thwart reform efforts.

So, liberals look for every opportunity to cast aspersions, any aspersions, onto Landry. By way of example, they’ve snagged a couple of recent issues to serve that purpose.

Spending law to hike costs to LA taxpayers

While national Democrats misnamed the bill the “American Rescue Plan,” in Louisiana it really should bear the moniker the “Louisiana Left Rescue Plan” – to the detriment of Louisiana taxpayers.

This new spending law addresses an economy well on the rebound, throws lots of money to states many of which have done better than expected in the wake of the Wuhan coronavirus pandemic (whose economies suffered largely self-inflicted wounds for political reasons in the first place), and spends less than a dime on the dollar for direct payments combatting the virus. Little needed “rescuing,” much less the bonanza of debt-fueled benefits almost American will receive.

It’s part of a political strategy. Democrats will try to run for reelection by reminding folks about how many goodies they flung their way, distracting from their pursuit, even if it turns out unsuccessfully, of an extreme leftist agenda in Washington. Regardless, the damage already may have been done.

Spending spree to test LA school reforms

The recently-enacted federal spending bill that Democrats barely pushed Congress through won’t help the country economically. But it will pursue a leftist agenda that includes suppressing school choice and accountability to the detriment of Louisiana children.

Less than 10 percent of the money in the new law directly addresses immediate effects imposed by the Wuhan coronavirus pandemic. As for the rest: expansion of unemployment benefits to simulate a universal basic income, check; money to states that increases the more a state taxes and spends and locked down its economy over the past year, check; pension bailouts for unions, check; subsidies to offset the hemorrhaging of socialized health care spending, check; all sorts of progressive pet projects, check.

But perhaps the most insidious part of the spending law, of which schools in Louisiana may garner half of the state's allocation, force-feeds dollars into traditional public schools while discriminating against non-traditional options. Before the bill became law, Louisiana Democrat Gov. John Bel Edwards raised some eyebrows when his recent budget presentation massaged one-time money – use of which he previously characterized as not “honest budgeting” – to include $40 million for education pay raises. This would create a continuing commitment for which future dollars aren’t available, unless taxes rise.

Spending bill to inhibit right-sizing LA govt

National Democrats have done their best to back Louisiana Democrat Gov. John Bel Edwards’ attempts to thwart right-sizing state government with provisions in their recently enacted spending bill.

That new law, which will toss around a half-billion dollars onto the state and its local governments ostensibly to address economic difficulties presented by the Wuhan coronavirus pandemic – even as the large majority of dollars don’t even indirectly address the problem, most of the spending doesn’t occur for at least a year, the economic problems stem from supply attenuated by largely ineffective commercial restrictions that won’t respond to a nightmarishly-large taxpayer- and debt-fueled cash infusion, and states have yet to spend much generated by previous such efforts – carries with it a host of restrictions on the money’s use, geared to keep state and local governments as inflated as possible. Some encourage this policy generally, with others more targeted.

A number of states, Louisiana included, as a response to slower economic growth and higher unemployment in their legislative sessions this year have come up with supply-side responses designed to lower the cost of doing business to increase the supply of jobs and goods and services produced. Other measures attempt to steer money towards pent-up problems. The federal law does its best to sabotage those.

BC incumbents cut police, see more crime

One challenger in Saturday’s city elections in Bossier City wants the public to know that city emperors running for reelection have no clothes on the issue of public safety and crime. And the data back him.

If you can get past the imagery of Republican incumbent Mayor Lo Walker without a stitch on – he’s 87 years old – consider that he and other incumbents running to keep their jobs, including at-large councilors Tim Larkin and David Montgomery and District 1 councilor Scott Irwin, all Republicans, to varying degrees tout the city’s supposedly low crime rate due to their policies. Some publicize endorsements netted from the parish’s chief law enforcement office and another political insider, GOP Sheriff Julian Whittington.

Chris Smith begs to differ. The Republican challenger to Larkin and Montgomery, through flyers and social media, points out some facts inconvenient to that argument. Using data from city financial information and crime data reported to the federal government, he points out that in 2008 the city had 241 police department employees or one for every 259 residents, while in 2019 the number had fallen to 197, or one for every 350 residents. It’s a point Walker challenger Republican Tommy Chandler also makes.

Reluctant Edwards must make LSU do right

Louisiana Democrat Gov. John Bel Edwards did his best Pontius Pilate routine, while a bipartisan group of Louisiana legislators weren’t so dismissive about a history of botched sexual misconduct investigations at Louisiana State University, centered around student-athletes.

Yesterday, a select legislative committee reviewed a report about all of this LSU hastily authorized after adverse media accounts began flowing late last year. The lengthy document details an institution possessing policies unclear about dealing with these matter, if not having the effect of producing a conflict of interest or discouraging plaintiffs with valid concerns; having employees routinely not following that policy even when reasonably clear; receiving repeated reports urging the system to clean up these deficiencies; and permitting occurrence of a number of incidents, with several included for expository purposes illustrating the breakdowns that resulted, that pointed out a number of culpable individuals who in some cases for years acted in ways that they should have known better subverted the goals of minimizing harassment and physical harm as much as possible.

Even if a day late and a dollar short, the system has responded by a pledge to follow the 18 recommendations provided. Beyond institutional error, the report also addressed penalties attached to human mistakes by not addressing these, declaring that discipline was best left to LSU to determine.

Forum shows two GOP BESE contenders in command

The race for Louisiana’s District 4 Board of Elementary and Secondary Education post remains in flux, with only days to go to the election, as to which Republican will win.

Practically speaking, that means the winner will be either businesswoman Shelly McFarland or lawyer Mike Melerine. Others include independent former state Sen. John Milkovich, Republican teacher Cody Whitaker, and Democrat university professor Cassie Williams. They met at an online forum put on by the Bossier Parish School Board.

Fundraising numbers, from about a month ago, can tell much especially concerning low-information contests. Only McFarland and Melerine have raised any substantial money, with him having a small advantage, and in their own funds added more than they have had donated. Additionally, Melerine has picked up several northwest Louisiana elected officials’ endorsements, some of whom also made donations to his campaign. McFarland has scored some dollars from GOP luminaries as well, but from individuals considered more old line than the newer figures behind Melerine.

GOP must corral Edwards on bloated largesse

The stubborn refusal of Louisiana Democrat Gov. John Bel Edwards to follow the science, mirroring other political leaders of his party pursuing ideological goals, is about to receive its payoff. Now, it’s up to the heretofore milquetoast leaders of the Republican Legislature to minimize the damage.

This week, Democrat Pres. Joe Biden looks set to put Americans another $1.9 trillion in hock on a spending bill he alleges necessary to combat immediate economic dislocations from the Wuhan coronavirus pandemic, but which in reality spends a minority of dollars on anything remotely connected to that task, of which most won’t be spent for at least a year, unnecessarily so as the American economy is hardly doing any worse than it was a year, and with any ongoing damage largely self-inflicted. By policy-makers like Edwards, who needlessly keep in place economic restrictions proven overbroad and largely ineffective.

But that’s in order to get the payoff, as in the spending bill in its current form states will receive $350 billion dollars, or more than everything allocated in all measures combined over the last year (“allocated,” because much has yet to be spent; witness the state’s plan to dole out $161 in federal rental assistance just now a year after the pandemic took hold). If proportionally doled out, that means Louisiana would receive over $5 billion – over half the entire general fund revenues for a single year.

On vaccine, Edwards ignores faith's demands

Louisiana Democrat Gov. John Bel Edwards isn’t content with only acting as the state’s top elected official. He also aims to be its Catholic spiritual adviser, even if he has to put his fellow Catholics in a bind on the matter of licit vaccine use.

The same week Edwards announced that the state would receive the newest federal government-approved Wuhan coronavirus vaccine, a one-shot variety from Johnson & Johnson, and that the state would distribute free doses of it over the weekend, among other dioceses across America the Archdiocese of New Orleans, through Archbishop Gregory Aymond, declared this vaccine “morally compromised.” Aymond and others declared it as such because its development relied upon cell lines collected from aborted fetuses several decades ago.

Ongoing debate within the Church’s hierarchy and its commentators explores whether it crossed an ethical line to use such material derived from those cells, but the relevant Church institutions in this case, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, have declared that such vaccines illicit unless they are the only reasonable option in an environment where acquiring or transmitting the virus poses a real threat to the lives of others. Falling into this category are several being used throughout the world although just this one of the three authorized in the U.S. (all of which were tested on the same cell line) was derived that way.

BC incumbents not conservative, but con men

Don’t believe what you read from Bossier City politicians running for reelection, at least their claims of fiscal “conservatism.”

With substantial multiple challenges for the first time in two decades, having to run opposed, all Republicans, are Mayor Lo Walker, at-large Councilors Tim Larkin and David Montgomery, and District 1 Councilor Scott Irwin. As such, the direct mail has been flying through the post promoting their candidacies with assertions about their records.

Excepting Larkin, whose pieces trumpet keeping Bossier City “NUMBER ONE!”, these are replete with references to the deep Christianity of the sender and how he has governed in a fiscally “conservative” manner. While their challengers occasionally use the same language in their fliers, and it’s difficult to look into people’s hearts to assess their religiosity, insofar as fiscal governance has transpired over the past 20 years, the incumbents have records easily assessed – and found wanting relative to their claims.