LA climate alarmists to take note of report

If you listen to those with a political agenda granted a megaphone by incurious media, before the century ends what part of Louisiana doesn’t get swallowed up by rising seas will scorch under the sun lashed by extreme weather. Fortunately, unfiltered science casts extreme doubt on this.

This week, the Sixth Assessment Report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change came out, just in time to jumpstart a whole new wave of panic for policy-makers meeting later this year to try to lobby for more draconian solutions for a problem greatly exaggerated. Of course, that’s the issue of climate change, and the document that relies far more on adherence to a political agenda than scientific inquiry fits the pattern of its previous editions: cautious evidence of marginal changes hyped into extremism.

Political hacks aside trying to use this to the advantage of their ideological agendas, this tribal response comes from many working in both science and media. So, it wasn’t too difficult for one of Louisiana’s media outlets to find an academician who took cursory note of the conclusions derived for and by policy-makers and extrapolated these to the state. She said at least a six degree temperature rise would buffet the state’s crops and marine life, river flooding would become more common from storms, and sea level rise of four feet would occur unless curtailing drastically the use of fossil fuels with the use of technology.

Edwards surge policy hypocritical, cynical

If you’re going to promote hypocritical policy, don’t pull your punches, even if it contradicts the observable facts.

That’s the mantra the Democrat Gov. John Bel Edwards Administration has employed as Louisiana faces another surge of the Wuhan coronavirus. This challenge appears courtesy of the virus’ delta variant, which is more transmissible, and has taken advantage of the 59 percent of the state’s population not vaccinated.

The population segment being affected disproportionately is healthier, but with record numbers of cases this has led to the same in hospitalizations. This has caused capacity constraints that threaten to move beyond having to delay elective procedures to create space and could begin interfering with treating more critical non-virus-related cases. (But because of the healthier affected population, deaths have not approached record levels.)

Parents must protect kids from Edwards order

Democrat Gov. John Bel Edwards’ face covering mandate reimposition has put parents in a pickle who wish to prevent the child abuse that it advocates

After Republican Atty. Gen. Jeff Landry publicized Louisiana law that allows parents to have students opt out from school vaccination schedules, Edwards doubled down on his insistence that children as young as 5, and his preference that this include children as young as 2, should wear masks in school most of the time. He did so in sending a letter to Superintendent Cade Brumley to remind districts about the content of his latest order, emphasizing the intent was to stop the spread of the virus – despite what public policy studies have concluded on the matter.

Even though the law he mentioned doesn’t cover a mask mandate, Landry released guidance for parents to make written dissent to both masking and vaccination mandates, pointing out deficiencies in mask wearing insofar as affecting transmission of the Wuhan coronavirus. It didn’t go into details, but the latest information specifically relating to children shows they transmit the virus at a far lower rate than do adults, that a comparison of schools with masks mandated and not didn’t show any different in number of virus cases, and that studies conflict on whether requiring masks on children – who get sick from the virus at a tiny fraction of the rate that even vaccinated adults do and are 3.2 times less likely to die from the virus than a person would suffer death from a lightning strike – harms them psychologically and/or physically.

Bossier residents score legislative wins

Lost in all the excitement the Louisiana Legislature’s historic veto session were two significant wins for Bossier Parish brought home by Republican state Sen. Barrow Peacock and GOP state Rep. Dodie Horton.

For years, south Bossier City in particular has agitated for a new Jimmie Davis Bridge, ideally replacing the decades-old two-lane purveyor of traffic with a new four-lane structure. The current bridge can’t be refurbished because federally-protected barn owls refuse to stop nesting on it.

Throughout his decade in office, Peacock, who represents both ends of the bridge, had fought to make the new doubled span a reality. Costing an estimated $125 million, about a fifth of that had been secured for the canceled refurbishing, meaning around $100 million more needed funding.

Democrats' work disincentives to hit LA hard

In Democrats’ headlong rush to bring increased socialism to America, Louisiana looks poised to suffer disproportionately.

Last week, the national jobs report highlighted this effort pointing to Louisiana’s vulnerability. While the national unemployment rate dropped 0.3 percent to 5.4 and nearly a million more jobs came online, the labor force participation rate didn’t move, even as average wages continued climbing, now up 4 percent for the year and stoking inflation. All in all, estimates are that there are 1.2 million more job openings than people willing to work, which has made employers scramble to offer a whole host of nonpecuniary benefits in addition to wage hikes that will further drive up prices to consumers.

Louisiana is even worse off. While the country as a whole still lags on jobs and unemployment with levels lower than when Republican former Pres. Donald Trump took office, the state fell farther and has more slowly come back. Its number of jobs is lower than that of 15 years ago, its labor force participation rate is the lower than that seen at the end of 1989, currently ranking seventh worst among the states, and its unemployment rate remains higher than nine years ago, currently ranking ninth worst. Obviously, the state’s ability to get people working is lagging is even worse than the national economy’s slow response to the policies of Democrat Pres. Joe Biden and the Democrat-controlled Congress.

Required state worker vaccination impractical

If Democrat Gov. John Bel Edwards feels like he can buck political tides additionally on the issue of vaccination requirements for state employees, he’ll have a lot more difficulty imposing his will.

Edwards last week became the first governor on the country, in a largely useless gesture if not harmful to children, to reestablish a face covering mandate in indoor public areas. Days later, as word began to spread that one Wuhan coronavirus vaccine may receive full approval for use in about a month, he floated the idea that he might emulate Democrat Pres. Joe Biden and Democrat New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell who issued orders that their workforces, including contractors, prove vaccination or show proof regularly of negative virus testing.

But as both of these examples reveal, administration of such a mandate poses problems in its failure of specificity that greatly limit a faithful implementation such an the order, as well as raises broader questions of fairness. By way of example, the federal regulations leave undefined a number of important areas, such as obtaining verification of vaccinations or testing, noncompliance penalties, and implementation dates. New Orleans has issued no details at all about administrative issues such as these.

Petty, immature councilors disserving Bossier

Unless some of the clowns part the circus that never leaves Bossier City, better known as its City Council, accept the electorate’s choice of mayor, citizens have a long four years ahead.

This Tuesday’s Council meeting seemed an opportunity to have recede into the background the acrimony evident between three councilors – no party Jeff Darby, Republican David Montgomery, and Democrat Bubba Williams – and Republican Mayor Tommy Chandler. This spring Chandler upset incumbent Lo Walker, the strong ally of Montgomery and Williams often backed by Darby, to win executive control of the city.

Since then, whenever an opportunity has presented itself, those three have taken the lead in obstructing Chandler’s agenda, principally in rejecting his choice of Shane Cheatham as the city’s chief administrative officer, a post that remains unfilled. Joining them has been newcomer and Walker ally Republican Vince Maggio and Republican interim member Scott Irwin, another Walker ally who lost this spring to Cheatham but when Cheatham abjured taking the seat in anticipation of becoming CAO Irwin’s council buddies placed him back in it until mid-October.

Bank on 5 GOP LA congressmen in 2022, beyond

In a couple of weeks the federal government will release 2020 census data, setting states on course for reapportionment. But if as a result you’re a Democrat that begins fantasizing of a Louisiana sending two Democrats rather than one to the U.S. House of Representatives, you might want to stop reading right here.

Because that’s as likely to happen as a child dying of the Wuhan coronavirus. Despite such infinitely small chances, some false cheer along these lines has started circulate. By way of example, one source from the academic left played around with 2019 data used to make population estimates to come up with a map that makes three substantial district-wide changes: it ejects the western-most and eastern-most parishes of Congressional District 5 and extends it south into Baton Rouge while wrapping westward into north and central Shreveport and central Bossier City with its pivot in south Monroe; CD 4 picks up most of those western parishes, what’s left of Shreveport and Bossier City, and northern Monroe and West Monroe; and most of CD 6 shifts into the former eastern-most parishes of CD 4.

This would produce a new CD 5 with a 54 percent black majority as well as have a knock-on effect of lowering the existing CD 2 to 53 percent. The theory then goes both would elect a black Democrat to Congress.

Edwards stuck on stupid with virtue signaling

Yes, Democrat Gov. John Bel Edwards is stuck on stupid. And add prone to hypocritical partisan virtue-signaling as well.

Monday, Edwards reimposed a statewide indoor face covering mandate. He gave the reason as Wuhan coronavirus case counts and hospitalizations climbing to levels rivalling the highest of the pandemic, back at the beginning of the year.

This he did despite the science saying that mask mandates don’t do much to cut down on the infection rate. This occurs through a combination of inherent masking problems, people ignoring these, not enforcing these, and individuals not using masks properly.

Edwards musn't follow stuck on stupid Cantrell

Democrat New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell remains stuck on stupid. Let’s hope Democrat Gov. John Bel Edwards doesn’t join her.

Late last week, Cantrell, facing a reelection attempt this fall, issued an indoor face covering mandate as well as a requirement that city employees and contractor have been vaccinated against the Wuhan coronavirus. This she did, she said, because of increasing case numbers and hospitalizations due in part to the newer, more transmissible delta strain of the virus.

Edwards has said he might follow suit. As of the end of the week, both the number of new cases and hospitalizations were not far from their peaks in January. This differs from what has occurred in most of the rest of the country, and appears to vary with vaccination rates; cases and hospitalizations are considerably lower in places with significantly higher such rates. Another factor hitting Louisiana harder could be its ranking as the least healthy state in the country; under age 70 almost nobody dies from the virus unless they have some kind of co-morbidity.