States are sovereign entities in their own right and have the unquestioned authority to repel an invasion in their states, made even more critically necessary when the federal government has so abjectly failed in its responsibility to safeguard the nation's borders.

Help is on the way! What a wonderful concept of safety and life, especially when we are in a desperate situation, perhaps fighting for our lives. Well, that is soon to be just a cliché for the residents of Catahoula Parish. Beginning Thursday, February 15, 2024, Catahoula Parish will no longer have ambulance service.

This is a column about local politics and not my personal life. Since my life is somewhat less exciting than a turnip patch, you are probably grateful for that. However, I’m making an exception this week because the two, my personal life and politics, collided on my kitchen floor. There, on the helpful instruction of the 911 operator, I had lowered my unconscious wife to keep her from choking to death in case she vomited while down and out like a light.

I found it interesting to read this week that Wall Street investors are “conceding that former President Donald Trump will likely win the GOP primary for the 2024 presidential race.” (The Epoch Times, Jack Phillips, 1/24/2024). These remarks were made just before Trump won the New Hampshire primary. He also won Iowa earlier this month with strong support from his working class and middle-class base which has not been diminished in their support by the politically motivated law-fare being waged against him.

Former Police Jury president Harold Sones said he doesn’t really like the idea, but I was so taken by his mention of the possibility that I forgot to ask him what his objection might be. I’m talking about an emergency services tax district that would combine the financing and administration of both fire protection and ambulance service. You can decide what you think about the idea of restructuring how we provide for both ambulances and volunteer fire protection.

Our federal government has been out of control for decades. Agencies like the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and a number of others have not been simply implementing the legislation and policy the U.S. Congress and president have agreed to and enacted into law. Rather, these massive, unaccountable agencies have been making law themselves. That is an unquestionable violation of our principle of representative government and our Separation of Powers doctrine.

Apparently, the meeting that I thought the Police Jury announced on January 8th, 2024, was not intended to be a public meeting. I understood, and wrote in these pages twice, that the general public along with other Catahoula Parish government officials would assemble in the auditorium of the Harrisonburg High School to discuss ambulance service. However, after being corrected by two members of the Police Jury, I learn that if such a meeting takes place, the public is not invited.

So-called DIE (Diversity, Inclusion, Equity) initiatives are being challenged and opposed. As noted in the Wall Street Journal, “Texas became the second state, after Florida, to ban DIE initiatives at publicly funded colleges and universities. Texas A&M University had already announced in the fall that it closed its DIE office and reassigned the team’s staff members.” (WSJ, R. Smith, and L. Weber, 1-4-24).

There has been and seems still to remain some question concerning the role and identity of the Police Jury. Most recently, say in the last year or so, there has appeared to be more than a little reluctance to take on the very difficult question of ambulance service in the parish. I suggest that this is a question of two vital issues: first, the safety and health, even survival, of residents in the parish, and, second, defining the place of the Police Jury in our polity, or form of government.

DHS Secretary bizarrely links crisis to “climate change” U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Shreveport- LA) and numerous other House Republicans recently traveled to the Texas border town of Eagle Pass, at which border patrol officials record more than 4,000 contacts with illegal immigrants daily.