Almost all state constitutions tend to become legal dumpster fires. As reported in these pages last week (“Louisiana governor, lawmakers want changes to state constitution”, Catahoula News Booster, May 1, 2024) and as I have complained in this column every year for the last eight, Louisiana’s constitution is a marvel of incompetence and excess. Where are the Thomas Jeffersons and the James Madisons of the world when you need them?

I love my dear home of Louisiana and am often proud of it, but never more so than this past week as Governor Jeff Landry, Attorney General Liz Murrill and Louisiana Superintendent of Education, Cade Brumley, announced that the new Biden Title IX rules are unconstitutional, an overreach of federal law and dangerous for biological females. The rule change formalizes the Biden Department of Education’s redefinition of the meaning of “sex” to include “gender identity.”

On April 25, 2024, the Wall Street Journal reported that, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, the birth rate in America is estimated as of 2023, to be 1.62 children per woman. A birth rate averaging 2.1 children over a woman’s lifetime is necessary to maintain a population at a stable level. The Journal reports that, according to the Centers for Disease Control, the number of births per woman has been below replacement for about 50 years.

From the days of my youth, I recall with great fondness the presidency of President Ronald Reagan. Full disclosure—my brother Tom was working on the White House Staff at the time, and I was attending The Heights Preparatory School in Potomac, Maryland.

SB 234 is Bad for Business By Jay Batt, Finance Chairman of the Louisiana Republican State Central Committee, former New Orleans City Councilman In my life as a public servant, an active member of the Republican State Central Committee and a business owner from New Orleans, cultivating and maintaining a strong business climate and furthering economic development in our state have always been my top priorities. But I fear that some of the misguided legislation I’m seeing this session is anti-free market, pro-big government intrusion, and frankly, bad for business.

Americans have suspected, probably since the early 1980s when the last real 'just the facts' journalism existed at the national level, that there is an overriding liberal bias in national 'media.' We have now, again, had that suspicion confirmed.

As one comment on Facebook put it, “Yes, we need ambulance service, but do we need this?” And the great majority of those commenting on Facebook seemed to think not. The issue at the Police Jury meeting, Monday, April 22, 2024, was a proposal to use an automated system of speed detection and citation.

The Biden chickens are coming home to roost. Crime committed by American squatters is bad enough but due to the Biden Border Invasion we are experiencing both an illegal alien and domestic crime problem with squatting due to disarming and defunding the police, no bail and other Democrat and Biden issues.

A couple of weeks ago, Tuesday, April 2nd, 2024, the Catahoula Parish School Board met to reaffirm its commitment to irrelevance and magical thinking. In Louisiana the local school boards tend to be rubber stamps anyway, but in the rare event that they may do something important, it would be good if they rose to the occasion. And in this particular case, it would not have been a very high rise.

The centerpiece of the Police Jury meeting, Monday, April 8, 2024, was an annual appropriation of $30,000 dedicated to drug abuse abatement resulting from a major class action lawsuit settlement. The case involved pharmacies and distributors including CVS, Johnson & Johnson, Walgreens, and in the case of Louisiana, Walmart, but not Allergan or Teva as in some other states.