Data demand negating reckless kid jab mandate

What was a strong case against Louisiana public schools requiring a Wuhan coronavirus vaccine for attendance now has become airtight, requiring the Louisiana Legislature to act in the face of defiance by Democrat Gov. John Bel Edwards.

Late last year, Edwards’ Department of Health proposed adding that to the vaccine schedule, but the House Health and Welfare Committee vetoed that over concerns that procedures weren’t properly followed in the rule’s vetting and this overstepped rule-making boundaries. However, statute provides the governor the power to override when the committee has this power, and he did, thereby making this a required vaccination beginning next school year.

But earlier this month, newly disseminated research revealed the minimal effectiveness of one current vaccine against the dominant strain of the virus for children. This highlights the ever-changing nature of the virus (which is characteristic of coronaviruses) that always will leave attempted vaccines behind the curve, making any such mandate largely useless (with influenza having the same mutative characteristic, this is why no regulation ever has come about to force vaccinations for this involving attendance).

Touchy attitudes impede better BC governance

If the Bossier City Council were a bar, Republican Councilor David Montgomery would be that guy, as he recently reminded on the most inoffensive issue.

Drinking establishments all have one. You know, the barfly that’s always been there for decades, faithfully patronizing the joint. Sometimes he’ll be garrulously good-natured, to the point you wish you could just move on. That’s not so bad. It’s when, all of a sudden, something – a snippet from a nearby television, an overheard conversation, or maybe for no identifiable reason at all – happens that triggers him. Then everybody within earshot gets treated to some kind of harangue equal parts impassioned, inconsistently informed, and embarrassing until he finally runs out of steam, to onlookers’ relief.

The public received such an outburst from Montgomery at last week’s meeting, over the most innocuous of proposed ordinances. It would have prohibited a contractor, affirmed through affidavit, from employing an agent of any kind to land a city job, which mirrors R.S. 38:2224.

Don't dilute LA habitual crime sentencing laws

As pitiable as stories about Louisiana convicts serving long sentences for small crimes might be, legislators would be unwise to unwind laws that allow sentences based on habitual criminal behavior.

Every so often, a media story pops up about how somebody who committed a series of petty crimes, such as stealing hedge clippers, ends up spending decades in the slammer and leads to teeth-gnashing by the usual suspects. Last year, laments abounded for a guy who spent 20 years behind bars as a result of a string of thefts, ending with a couple of shirts. He was freed after an interest group petitioned for his release because his last crime had been reclassified from felony to misdemeanor a decade earlier and this fit Democrat Orleans Parish District Attorney Jason Williams’ vibe.

Naturally, the Angry Left would prefer to undo habitual offender sentencing laws with the latest justification being, naturally enough, that such laws are “racist” because racial minorities disproportionately get hit up this way as a means of systemic control by whitey. That constipated line of thinking even made its way into Louisiana Supreme Court annals when, as one of her last decisions in 2020 before a blessed ushering into retirement, Democrat former Chief Justice Bernette Johnson went on a nonsensical rant dissenting against keeping the hedge clippers guy in the stir.

Lawmakers must pick pro- over anti-child bill

Louisiana legislators have a clear choice between two bills this session: one that protects children from potential irreversible harm and another that invites it.

The pro-children bill comes in the form of HB 570 by Republican state Rep. Gabe Firment. It would ban physical medical interventions to alter the sex of a minor child except where an identifiable physical disorder exists.

Research solidly endorses this view, which specialists term a wait and watch strategy as opposed to the more recent trend of immediate intervention of children even just a few years old. This is warranted because adolescents and earlier, being adolescents/earlier and emotionally immature, often can’t process their feelings well and are swayed unusually by fad and fashion, so they may change their minds on whether they think they ought to feel and behave as a particular sex. It’s difficult to ascertain a precise proportion of children who at one point feel they should have a different sex and subsequently change their minds because of the nature of the subjects studied, the subjectivity involved in measuring such a nebulous concept, and in the political interpretations and biases many researchers insert into their explanation, but perhaps the best baseline comes from Dutch practitioners who pioneered techniques to cause physical changes in youth from one sex to another, who estimate 63 percent of youth over time eventually change their minds.

Reeves makes offer Edwards can't refuse

Last week, Democrat Gov. John Bel Edwards received a stern warning: make any move to throw former Louisiana State Police head Kevin Reeves under the bus and the low-tech, Louisiana version of Republican Pres. Richard Nixon’s White House tapes may emerge publicly – which likely won’t flatter Edwards’ actions regarding the investigation of a black motorist’s death at the hands of the LSP.

The Louisiana Legislature has launched hearings into the incident, where in May, 2019 Ronald Greene died in LSP custody. He led LSP units on a car chase, ending with a minor wreck, only afterwards to be restrained in a dangerous fashion that included a severe beating, whereupon he died while being transported away from the scene.

Plenty of suspicious LSP activity followed, from its telling the Greene family that he had died in an accident despite media reports only hours after the incident relying on the original (now deleted) news release, body camera footage going missing, apparent obstruction of internal investigations that led to firing impartial investigators, suppressing any information about this and, most egregiously and running counter to procedures, erasing text information exchanges among top department officials during the period where the incident would have been discussed. While eventually this all became public knowledge, testimony at the hearings reiterated and expanded upon that.

Don't do this when cancel culture comes calling

In northwest Louisiana cancel culture strikes again, providing another object lesson that confession in response doesn’t necessarily do the soul nor the bottom line good, but only emboldens the mob.

Last week, the Caddo Parish weekly Focus SB/Inquisitor – a combined publication with one half dealing with community events, news, and opinion and the other replete with crime stories and mugshots of the jailed (as the masthead of that side of the paper warns, “If you don’t want it printed, don’t let it happen”) – published an editorial by owner John Settle. Formerly a lawyer, for many years he peppered local media with opinion pieces until purchasing The Inquisitor in 2019 and expanded it from its scandal sheet roots, giving him a chance to blast away through his own print forum. (When the change came, for several months I was employed as an opinion writer by the revamped publication.)

While Settle certainly has his favorites among local politicians, he takes a very uncompromising view on government transparency, with his critical comments at one point leading Bossier City Attorney Charles Jacobs to wish Settle would have an up close and personal encounter with a Zamboni ice-cleaning vehicle. As it turns out, this would have been preferred to what hit him as a result of the recent column, which delivered a laundry list of do’s and don’ts and general advice for councilor candidates in Shreveport’s upcoming elections.

Expected power play won't impact 2023 races

The springing of the expected power play won’t change a thing for Louisiana House and Senate election districts enacted for 2023 elections, and likely for the remainder of the decade.

With the decision by Democrat Gov. John Bel Edwards not to veto special session bills that reapportioned each chamber, this triggered special interests to sue over maps that barely added any majority-minority districts over what exists currently demographically. With an increase in black population statewide to about a third and with the proportion of M/M districts in the upcoming maps in each chamber below 30 percent, the suit alleges this violates the law and calls for injunctive relief in the form of forcing new plans from the Legislature, and if that doesn’t suit them quickly enough then to use the judiciary to write plans to their liking that would add several new M/M districts to each chamber.

The thin case on which this resides asks the federal judiciary to disregard current jurisprudence on redistricting, contrary to the one-sided arguments the plaintiffs make. The sleight of hand they demand, which would represent a sea change in constitutional doctrine on the matter, gives race primacy over all factors in reapportionment where a cohesive minority exists, to the point that courts would define adequate minority representation as roughly the same proportion of M/M districts as that minority population living in the jurisdiction, dismissing all other valuable factors such as maintaining community of interests and compactness that the federal judiciary for decades have backed as inputs to drawing districts.

LA finally free from misguided virus policies

Free at last, Louisianans are free at last – from a shackling not necessary for at least a year-and-a-half, courtesy of how Democrat Gov. John Bel Edwards botched the policy response to the Wuhan coronavirus pandemic, with huge consequences.

At the State of the State address earlier this week, Edwards announced this week the series of emergency declarations he had issued appertaining to the pandemic finally would expire. It became the 41^st state to do so, and not coincidentally all others still with some statewide restrictions Democrats helm as governors.

Which puts Louisiana about 40 states behind where it should have been. The early days of the pandemic two years ago featured a rapidly-spreading virus with little information about it, so understandably taking drastic measures in fearing the worst didn’t seem unreasonable. The theory then was by halting a great deal of interactivity, including most commercial interaction and all schooling, for a few weeks with adequate contact tracing this would isolate transmission enough to cut off spreading.

Edwards speech reflects ignorance, hypocrisy

In his 2022 State of the State speech, Democrat Gov. John Bel Edwards reminded listeners of how after six years in office he has learned nothing about good governance, or even how to pursue public policy that benefits Louisiana instead of spreading the stench of politicized hypocrisy.

In this explanation of his agenda at the start of the Legislature’s regular session, about his only reasonable proposal came in his thoughts about utilizing the non-recurring portion of state funds derived from the debt-driven, inflation-inducing firehose of money coming from a Washington controlled by his party. This he asked to earmark for some major infrastructure items, looming debt to the federal government for coastal restoration, and to replenish the unemployment insurance trust fund to avoid large interest payments.

As for recurring monies, he lapsed into his familiar grasshopper foolishness. He fronted a number of items expanding government, ignoring that the false economy boosting revenues will diminish in short order, that a recent tax reshuffle will reduce general fund dollars available in the future, and that the temporary sales tax hike he instigated will roll off the books not long after he leaves office. Hence, the state can afford little if any in the way of new commitments.

Chavez copying Ellis best to negate Perkins

The entry of Republican Caddo Parish Commissioner Mario Chavez into Shreveport’s mayoral contest likely would be the only way incumbent Democrat Mayor Adrian Perkins doesn’t win reelection – by Chavez not running as a Republican.

Last week, Chavez announced his intention. His makes for the fourth such entrance, joining in challenging Perkins another commissioner, Republican Jim Taliaferro who also ran in 2018, and former city councilor Tom Arceneaux of the GOP.

However, Chavez gave every indication he would eschew his partisan label in this race, even if that party very much is the strong conservative’s natural political home. He wisely would do so, following the Friday Ellis gambit.