After exposure, expect more pugnacious Edwards

That Democrat Gov. John Bel Edwards for more than two years deliberately misled the public and legislators concerning the death of black motorist Ronald Greene, even as early on it might have served his 2019 reelection campaign this also explains his general behavior since and signals what may come on an important issue.

With last week’s revelations that almost immediately after Greene’s death Edwards knew he died not in an accident but while in Louisiana State Police custody, it became clear Edwards had engaged in a pattern of deceit. Despite being inconceivable that Edwards didn’t know inappropriate use of force was the primary cause of Greene’s death as the incident triggered media reports, various investigations, and personnel actions by the LSP of which he would have been aware, he continued asserting the fiction through public fora and to lawmakers even until recently.

Knowing this makes Edwards’ actions since May 10, 2019 much more understandable. Strategic inaction on his part right after the incident when in the midst of a bruising campaign, if not a deliberate effort to keep himself ignorant of developments as the initial LSP story quickly became challenged and began to unravel prevented publicity adding to alleged sporadic LSP misconduct against blacks on his watch that critics could highlight as a failing of his tenure.

Edwards' Greene case comments strain credulity

In his Checkers Speech that doubled as a news conference, Democrat Gov. John Bel Edwards tap-danced and misdirected, straining credulity to convince the public that he hasn’t done the same regarding his actions associated with a needless death at the hands of the Louisiana State Police.

In the nearly hour-long session comparable to a dentist’s visit for Edwards, he tried to explain away an Associated Press article that showed he knew immediately about the events surrounding the death of black motorist Ronald Greene in LSP custody but whose few statements about it, added to his inaction in addressing clear signs that the LSP wasn’t forthcoming about that death, created and sustained for a lengthy period the impression that there wasn’t LSP misconduct associated with it. His defense rested largely on unprovable assertions and suspension of disbelief.

Not that he spent even a majority of his remarks actually addressing the piece. Much of the time he rhetorically built straw men and traversed blind alleys. He kept insisting there was no evidence that he “obstructed” justice or engaged in a “coverup,” but no politician, news media or widely-read blog site ever accused him of that. What appeared in this space is typical of what was disseminated: by his actions and inactions that allowed a narrative that Greene died in a crash that omitted the savage treatment Greene received in custody, he misled in a way that served to impede oversight and investigation of the incident, at least initially for political purposes.

NW LA epicenter of new mapping controversies

The initial reapportioned maps for Congress and the Louisiana state Senate have been filed for the special session for that purpose, and northwest Louisiana has become ground zero for conflict over potential changes for each.

For Congress, not much would change. Because of population loss, the existing District 4 and 5 will edge a bit more south, and marginal boundary changes accrue to the remainder. These come from a couple of bills, which don’t differ much, filed by the Republican leadership of the Senate and House.

These will prevail over alternatives fronted by Senate Democrats not only because of the large GOP majorities in each chamber, but also because those plans have serious questions concerning their constitutionality since they draw districts with race as the predominant factor, both featuring a meandering majority-minority district that slices off black population from five metropolitan areas, in the process splitting four among two and Baton Rouge among three districts (they also have wider population variances than the courts might accept).

Impeach Edwards for misleading on Greene death

We now know what he knew and when he knew it. And that makes appropriate the impeachment, conviction, and removal from office of Democrat Gov. John Bel Edwards.

Several times this space (most recently), as well as its author over the airwaves, has asked what did Edwards know about the events leading to the death of black motorist Ronald Greene. Courtesy of an Associated Press investigation, the answer is almost immediately and enough.

Greene died after a high-speed chase by Louisiana State Police ended with a low-impact crash, whereupon troopers apprehended him from the vehicle, constricted him by restraint, and, as an impartial autopsy (in lieu of one influenced by misinformation provided by the LSP) revealed, beat him to death. That was in the early morning hours of May 10, 2019, when Edwards was a half-year out from trying to win reelection.

BC should embrace SporTran Barksdale extension

After a “listening session” earlier this month about extending SporTran service into south Bossier City, recent agendas of the City Council suggest it and Republican Mayor Tommy Chandler will let the matter drop. If so, they should rethink that decision.

Late last year, SporTran announced it would create a new route essentially lengthening bus access from the Barksdale Air Force Base main entrance south along Barksdale Blvd. all the way to a turnaround at Parkway High School. At present, routes that traipse though the city allow riders to stop as far east as Louisiana Downs, just north of Interstate 220 at Airline Dr. and Benton Rd., and westerly to Old Bossier City/East Bank/Louisiana Boardwalk, traversing all the main arteries. The routes also connect through downtown Shreveport, the outskirts of Shreveport’s Stoner Hill and Highland neighborhoods, and along Kings Highway and Shreveport-Barksdale Highway.

Adding the proposed Barksdale Blvd. route would allow southern city residents to access seamlessly all of these endpoints in Bossier City, as well as major employers, government agencies, and health care facilities close to the routes in Shreveport (if in a somewhat time-consuming manner). It also could allow for Shreveporters and Bossier Citians north of Barksdale AFB to come into south Bossier City, mainly for employment purposes, and for southern residents easier access to area amenities such as shopping.

Woke EPA engages LA in Biden fossil fuel war

What can a woke Environmental Protection Agency do? Louisiana is a canary in the coal mine on that account.

Last November, agency Administrator Michael Regan undertook a self-styled “Journey to Justice” tour of several locations in and around Louisiana in proximity to industrial sites, focusing on communities typically poorer and nonwhite. The name echoes the “environmental racism” concept adopted by the political left that maintains this injustice occurs when pollution policy differentially detrimentally impacts, including unintentionally, communities disproportionately composed of racial minorities. That notion neatly adheres to the prevailing neo-racist ethos on the left that American institutions of all kinds are systemically racist and that to provide evidence otherwise is itself an act of racism.

Regan’s trip, among other actions, signaled a return to politicization of the EPA towards much more heavy-handed and politically-driven administration. This departs from the agency under Republican former Pres. Donald Trump, where it instituted deregulation of needless government oversight that, if anything, improved outcomes, as witnessed by its building on the long-term decline in air pollution. Unfortunately, the EPA under Democrat Pres. Joe Biden already has started to reverse these gains, one of which Louisiana GOP Sen. John Kennedy and others protested this week that for no good reason would harm disproportionately Louisiana industry.

Advocate scribe promotes fake GOP hypocrisy

Legacy media love to foment “gotcha” stories, especially when involving conservative elected officials – no matter how disingenuous and dishonest such reporting must be, as the Baton Rouge Advocate’s Mark Ballard demonstrated recently.

The leftists that dominate the media’s ranks as stock in trade attempt to foist a false double-standard when evaluating liberals and conservatives. Sometimes it’s praising the former while condemning the latter for similar actions, even when the balance of evidence weighs greater on the validity of the latter’s actions. A current example involves widespread media condemnation, accompanied by authoritative pronouncements decrying anything other than adopting this conclusion as untrue, of the idea often forwarded by Republican that 2020 elections had more than non-trivial infirmities associated with them, yet great credibility is granted to the proposition with nary a shred of proof that the same Republicans now threaten to “steal” elections later this year. Indeed, the media uncritically parrot Democrat assertions that it is “dangerous” to question the integrity of a past election with identifiable problems, yet without recognizing any irony attached to it think it laudatory to use the same adjective concerning an election that hasn’t even happened.

Ballard provided another type of example, where media allege conservatives argue for one thing, but then happily accept and promote the other. He used this tactic when discussing the reaction of some Louisiana congressional Republicans to projects announced spun off from the Infrastructure and Investment Jobs Act, which all but Sen. Bill Cassidy voted against. Their promoting this spending Ballard implies denotes hypocrisy because they rejected the bill.

Edwards stumping for imprudent new spending

While less offensive than previous efforts, the fiscal year 2023 budget proposed by Democrat Gov. John Bel Edwards is one where he still talks out of both sides of his mouth.

Much more money than expected even a year ago as a consequence of uncertainties over the Wuhan coronavirus will come rolling in, adding to extra cash from last and, projected so far, this budgetary year. By the Constitution and statute, as well as federal law attached to grants, much has to go towards specific non-recurring uses.

The $1.384 billion extra coming from the federal government sensibly will have $550 million going towards replenishing the state’s unemployment trust fund with the federal government so as to avoid interest charges, and the remainder will go to major transportation and local water and sewerage systems (although $25 million to upgrade rail service between Baton Rouge and New Orleans for faster passenger travel does nothing if the state doesn’t subsidize future such travel, which it shouldn’t). Of the just under $700 million in surplus FY21 money, it also has largely wise spending plans attached to it; after taking out the required $175 million towards the Budgetary Stabilization Fund and $70 million towards defeasance of the unfunded accrued liability due for payoff in 2029, highways, coastal restoration, and deferred maintenance get the rest.

Mostly incremental LA reapportionment to start

Louisiana’s Legislature in a special session of three weeks’ maximum length embarks upon reapportionment next week, likely producing little change except perhaps with its judicial districts.

By the next set of elections, this fall, lawmakers intend to have redrawn boundaries for the U.S. House of Representatives, both legislative chambers, the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education, the Public Service Commission, and the State Supreme Court. Legislators have travelled the state the past few months soliciting input about how the new maps should look.

The most high-profile suggestions have come from a collection of politically far left interest groups, whose universal theme maintains that additional majority-minority districts that would end up favoring Democrats should come to fruition – one more for each of Congress and BESE, and several more for each chamber of the Legislature, on the basis that in overall state population the proportion of whites declined 2.9 percent to just over 60 percent while that of blacks rose 1.1 percent to about a third. However, the plans they champion run into constitutional problems because they use race as the dominant criterion to do this, which the U.S. Supreme Court has rejected where it allows race at most as one of several criteria that may be employed.

Left's district maps for Legislature go too far

A motley krewe of left-wing interest groups once more has injected itself into Louisiana’s reapportionment process – and once more betrays a transparent political agenda attempting to set the stage to maximize its quest for power.

Headed by the state chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, this time the groups weigh in on the Legislature’s future district plans. They already have done so for the U.S. House of Representatives and the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education, stumping for an additional majority-minority district for each.

Each of these previous proposals has constitutional problems. Jurisprudence allows using race as a criterion to draw lines if (1) a minority racial group is sufficiently large and geographically compact to constitute a majority in a single-member district; (2) the group is politically cohesive; and (3) bloc voting by a white majority must usually defeat the minority group’s preferred candidate. The groups make somewhat inflated claims in order to demonstrate satisfaction of these criteria, but even conceding race should play some role in map-making, jurisprudence also is such that race cannot be the dominant criterion absent unusual circumstances, which in their House and BESE maps they violate (additionally, in the case of BESE they attempt to use a judicial standard rejected by the courts.)