We congratulate Kyle Ardoin on his election Saturday to be Louisiana’s secretary of state. Ardoin’s first job must be to repair the stature of the office. He has his work cut out for him.
Tuesday, December 11, 2018
Two of Baton Rouge’s big problems may be addressed with significant new initiatives approved by voters Saturday.
Monday, December 10, 2018
There aren't enough trees to produce the newsprint required to report on the good works that the faithful Catholic priests and deacons have performed over the same time frame that the sexual abuse by bad priests and deacons have done. It would beh…
Monday, December 10, 2018
Kathleen Blanco isn’t remembered as one of the more compelling public speakers to serve as Louisiana governor, but a stranger dropping into the annual Council for a Better Louisiana meeting last week might have guessed otherwise.
On the day The Advocate had a front page report that explained the BR flood of 2016, Cal Thomas had a column where he agreed with another commentator that the 400-page report was "a pile of crap."
The answer to any and every thing persons find disturbing these days is to pray. A message to pray concerning the matter of abortion was painted on a sign that I saw when driving home from church today. Pray for survivors and those who were killed…
Monday, December 10, 2018
It’s pretty complicated trying to keep track of all the Democrats who may or may not be running for president against Donald Trump in 2020. So here’s one handy tip: The Landrieu watch begins with the Biden watch.
Fair or not, a politician who builds things gets applause for it.
As it was formally announced during the Thanksgiving holiday season, perhaps some missed the huge investment by a Chinese company that is great news for its new home in St. James Parish and for the economy in southeastern Louisiana generally.
Sunday, December 09, 2018
Our U.S. senators, Bill Cassidy and John Kennedy, voted to confirm Kathy Kraninger, the president’s nominee for Director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Given the razor-thin margin of the vote, the senators are responsible for install…
LSU graduate Max Faget deserves a statue in his honor at a prominent place on the LSU campus. At the dawn of the space age, Faget served as NASA's director of engineering and development at the Space Center in Houston. In that role, he was the chi…
Probably most of us like the fact that gas at the pump is cheaper this holiday season, and the president of the United States, always prone to capitalization, calls lower oil prices “a big Tax Cut for America and the World.”
Saturday, December 08, 2018
Announcing the selection of Ghassan Korban as director of the New Orleans Sewerage & Water Board in July, Mayor LaToya Cantrell explained “what it boiled down to.”
Louisiana Senate President John Alario recalls a time when lawmakers huddled on the House floor to resolve budget debates by deciding the price of oil.
For more Walt toons and animations click here.
Saturday, December 08, 2018
There’s a big election on the ballot next year, for Louisiana governor.
Lauren Daigle was born in Lafayette, went to high school in Baton Rouge and is about as Louisiana as it gets. Her flamboyant personality, Cajun accent and raspy, deep, soulful singing voice has propelled her to the top of the Christian music recor…
It’s probably the first and only time Gov. John Bel Edwards will feel gratified that U.S. Sen. John Kennedy marches to the beat of his own drummer.
Friday, December 07, 2018
The climax of the state’s 2018 election cycle has finally been reached, with a runoff statewide for secretary of state and local offices also being settled in different parishes on the Dec. 8 ballot. We have taken a position on critical issues on …
Local economist Loren Scott recently painted a promising forecast for Louisiana, saying the state was poised to regain many of the jobs it lost during the recession. A big reason is a resurgence in the oil and gas sector and anticipated growth in …
Is the weather bad today? Do you have shopping to do? Are you weary and want to just relax around the house today?
The U.S. Senate recently voted 63-37 to debate a resolution ending American military involvement in Yemen. That’s a big change from March when the Senate tabled the motion 44-55. U.S. Sen. Bill Cassidy was among the 14 Republicans voting for the r…
Jobs should be the goal. Thus we must quit taxing the money away from the job-creators (sometimes called the arrogant, filthy rich) and giving it to the temporaries in Washington. (Some are not so temporary).
Louisianans, it turns out, won’t get to vote on whether U.S. Sen. John Kennedy stays in Washington or returns to Baton Rouge as governor.
Thursday, December 06, 2018
Former President George Herbert Walker Bush, who died Saturday at 94, was the last World War II veteran to serve in the highest office in the land. Bush’s passing points to the Greatest Generation’s continuing exit from national life. We’re losing…
For more walt toons and animations click here.
Our community has been dealing too quietly for too long with a growing crisis. For years we have made cuts in mental health stabilization, and as a result, we have taken what should be a health issue and put it on the backs of law enforcement. Thi…
With a few exceptions, secretaries of state are so low-profile that most voters would be pressed to come up with their names. That was surely true of the last person elected to the post in Louisiana, Tom Schedler, at least until his sexual harassm…
We all hate traffic, and we all hate taxes. This completely natural combination can also serve at cross purposes, as addressing East Baton Rouge’s traffic congestion problems will require significant new revenue. We all know it, but sometimes we r…
For decades, candidates from north Louisiana dominated in races for the Governor’s Mansion, but since Edwin W. Edwards broke the string, and with the single exception of Buddy Roemer in a splintered field in 1987, a candidate north of the Intersta…
Give U.S. Rep. Ralph Abraham this much: At least he knows how to be decisive.
Wednesday, December 05, 2018
It’s down on the farm, where Tariff Man — as the president of the United States referred to himself — is having a singularly bad impact on Louisiana’s leading agricultural export to China, soybeans.
While it seems as if conversations regarding the fall 2018 election season seem to be held only among politicians, pundits, and pollsters, we have a bit of unfinished business here in Louisiana. Many have moved on because their candidates of choic…
East Baton Rouge Sheriff Sid Gautreaux estimates that 70 percent of people in the East Baton Rouge Parish Prison have a diagnosed mental health disorder, and that a large number don't need to be in prison.
U.S. Sen. John Kennedy's Nov. 27 letter regarding Chinese students' spying at American universities smacks of late-19th century "Yellow Peril" grandstanding and hyperbole. While it is no secret that certain countries project soft-power in various …
One of the great ideas to come out of the crash in the state’s economy, and thus the crash in its budget, was the notion of the Revenue Estimating Conference.
Tuesday, December 04, 2018
For more walt toons and animations click here.
I was born in St. James Parish when Jim Crow still ruled. Racist laws made sure many black Louisianans were unable to participate in democracy.
When I registered to vote for the first time, as a Republican, the nice lady at the courthouse tried to talk me out of it. For the best of motives: That was more than 40 years ago, when elections were typically decided by Democrats, who were almos…
With apologies to Charles Dickens, Scrooge has been reincarnated in the form of House Speaker Taylor Barras. He sits in his office and sends his Grinch, otherwise known as Appropriations Chair Cameron Henry, to do his dirty work. It is a crying sh…
Louisiana Republican U.S. Sen. John Neely Kennedy has been called slick-talking, folksy and Senator Soundbite. Recently he's earned a couple of new nicknames: Big Tease and Drama Queen.
At various times during his quarter of a century in office, former U.S. Sen. David Vitter was described many ways: A rising star, a thorn in the side of fellow Republicans, lead player in a Washington sex scandal, a comeback kid, the most powerful…
In announcing that he won’t run for governor against John Bel Edwards, Louisiana’s junior U.S. senator, John Kennedy, said he thought he could do the most good by staying where he is.
Monday, December 03, 2018
For more Walt toons and animations click here.
“Hello, I’m calling from the White House Office of The President. May I speak to Walt Handelsman?”
The Advocate’s Nov. 28 analysis of the recent unanimous Supreme Court decision in the St. Tammany Parrish private property rights dispute comes close but misses the mark. The editors, unfortunately, put the emphasis on a frog that does not even li…
In my opinion, The Advocate's criticism of state Rep. Cameron Henry was both unfair and ill-informed. Government spending should not be increased based on "projected additional revenues because of an improving economy" for three reasons.
Ladies and gentlemen, we finally have ourselves a governor’s race. Or more likely, we don’t, at least not much of one.
So what was that, U.S. Sen. John Kennedy’s months-long flirtation with a gubernatorial run not even halfway into his first U.S. Senate term, other than a great big tease?