While Louisianans are helping meet America’s and the world’s energy needs, while we maintain what will soon be the most important and extremely vital port in the nation on the Mississippi River in the Greater New Orleans area, while we supply seafood and sugar to the nation, we are arguably the most exposed to weather catastrophes tied to hurricanes and flooding in general. And yes, climate change almost certainly is making these risks worse.

Louisianians need more federal support to protect their homes via flood mitigation through the FEMA program, to include grants for raising homes.

I would also submit to Congress a path to grants or tax breaks to encourage and help our residents replace their current roofs with fortified roofs.

As a state, we need to endeavor to mitigate our exposure to flooding and high winds, and our future construction projects need to seek housing on higher grounds or buildings built higher. Our construction needs to be more hurricane proof.

I would seek to ensure our transition to less damage by bringing in federal assistance to help us help ourselves.

World conditions and capitalism specifically are going to forever require us individually and as a society to respond to change. Today, in the U.S., many people would probably benefit from technical, 2-year degrees over 4-year diplomas. To help our citizens, young or older, respond to these challenges, I want to make financial support available for that training. Time and again we hear employers complain about not being able to find trained personnel. Our assistance in these areas will support our citizens' efforts to live their best lives while growing Louisiana's economy, as we transition to clean energy and natural gas.

On a bi-partisan level I believe the American people want term limits for Congress and the Supreme Court.

When the founders of our nation drew up the Constitution, they likely were not anticipating office incumbents living so long they could affect more than one generation.

I would propose a limit of 4 terms for U.S. Senators and 6 terms for Representatives.

At the same time, I would seek to increase the congressional term periods from 2 years to 4 years, thereby moving that office out of the current situation where members of Congress are perpetually running for re-election.

I would also seek to term limit Supreme Court justices to 25 years.

On these issues, all existing members of Congress and Supreme Court Justices would be grandfathered out of these new term limits because, pragmatically, it would be much harder to get current members of Congress to support these measures if they were applied to themselves.

There is a key reason why I consider this measure to be so important, I believe too many Americans think that they cannot affect government.

I want our citizens to understand that they are the key to our nation’s success, and their voice is important.

Coming together to create an amendment would go far in proving this fact to ourselves.

Scientifically, it is a fact that human-caused, carbon energy-based use is expediting the warming of our atmosphere, which is causing substantial challenges to our planet, our ecology and to Louisianians way of life.

We should be transitioning to carbon-free and less-carbon heavy energy sources.

Texas, which shares our history of oil production, is now the nation’s largest carbon-free energy producer in the nation.

Louisiana is moving to construct wind turbines and is already establishing solar farms.

Louisiana is already a large exporter of liquified natural gas out of Lake Charles and will soon be doing the same in Plaquemines Parish.

While natural gas is obviously not as carbon-free as wind or solar power, its use emits 50% less carbon than coal use and 30% less than oil.

As the world economy seeks growth, especially with developing nations, natural gas presents an opportunity to tone down carbon use, and Louisiana is ready to contribute to that transition.

People around the world seek more prosperity.

I support Louisiana’s part in this development.

The largest challenges facing China, Russia and Japan are their declining populations.

China is forecasted to lose more than half of its population by the end of the century.

Japan has been losing people since 2008.

Russia is slated to lose population, too, as is Europe despite many immigrants entering that continent.

Capitalism generally performs best with a growing population, and the only reason the United States’ population is slated to grow will be because of immigrants entering the country.

We need an immigration program that seeks to create a viable border control plan while formalizing a process to include processing people, over time, into pathways for citizenship. Creating more citizens means creating more individuals, who are further invested in our nation, who are taxpayers, and who are contributing to our social security system.

Right now, our governor is sending Louisiana National Guard troops to the Texas border to stop people from crossing the border.

Meanwhile, Louisiana is the number two state in the country for population loss.

We need a growing number of people who want to be Louisianians. We need entry-level employees.

We need younger people coming in who may one day purchase our homes.

Remember this, before anyone ever heard of Texas, the Spanish, after the Indigenous Americans, were first setting foot in our future state.

The name Gonzales is Spanish.

Marrero is Spanish.

They’re also Louisiana names. 

We have a history with that culture, and it nests nicely with our current culture.

All Americans are concerned about our national debt.

Currently, we are approaching $35 trillion dollars of debt.

Over recent decades, it is clear both parties are responsible for the large debt, each for its own reasons.

I am ready to make hard decisions for lowering spending, when we can do so, and based on reasonable bi-partisan efforts, however, those efforts need to include opportunities to make cuts in all areas.

We need to keep in mind that our country vastly outspends every other country on defense.

Accordingly, defense spending should also be on the table for cuts.

Furthermore, we should look at the tax breaks for the richest people in our nation.

Are they paying their fair share for their access to the infrastructure, programs, services and people to which our country gives them?

I think that achieving a rewrite of the 2nd Amendment would be a good bit harder than an amendment for term limits for Congress and the Supreme Court.

However, because of the broad, imprecise language of the 2nd Amendment, unless we address the 2nd Amendment itself, we cannot expect any real agreement or finality about the freedom to own and possess weapons, or parameters for gun safety.

It is evident that our country appreciates and practices its collective rights to own guns.

The U.S. population represents a little over 4% of the world’s and owns 46% of the world’s guns.

At the same time, there is strong, bi-partisan support for some gun safety measures.

Time and time again, we are seeing courts strike down gun laws created by communities.

Unless we go to the source of this matter, the 2nd Amendment, we cannot achieve what I think are some reasonable opportunities to lower our gun violence levels.

One more thing, after horrible gunfire incidents, we often hear politicians state that an individual’s mental illness led to the horrible event.

I agree, and believe we need to ensure people have reasonable access to mental health support.

While I believe that life begins at conception and science is continuing to prove this matter by successfully saving the lives of prematurely born babies at earlier and earlier ages, I also firmly believe that women should have the right to some point in the pregnancy to decide if they want to have a child.

Therefore, I would support a ban on abortions after 21 weeks, but only with the broadest of language to allow for abortions after that period if the pregnancy were a risk to the mother’s health, or if the fetus’ chance of survival were minimal.

There cannot be enough ways to count how bad the 2025 Presidential Transition Project (If Donald Trump is re-elected) or Project 2025 will be for our country.

Every serious person in this country should be researching this initiative.

To just name 5 items on its agenda, the plan calls for:

1. Partisan control of the Department of Justice, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Department of Commerce, Federal Communications Commission, Federal Trade Commission, and dismantling the Department of Homeland Security (under which is the National Flood Insurance Program).

2. It proposes reclassifying tens of thousands of federal civil services workers in the Executive Department as political appointees that would allow them to be replaced by the incoming President.

3. Abolish the Department of Education.

4. Cut climate research and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (The people who track hurricanes).

5. Cut Medicare and Medicaid and explicitly reject abortion as health care.

I abjectly reject the 2025 Presidential Transition Project and believe many people on a winning Donald Trump administration would be trying to enact it.  Further, I would question Congressman Scalise concerning his stance on Project 2025.

There may be no harder area on which to arrive at an equitable solution than the Israeli/Palestinian struggle.

Both sides have committed war crimes, and war crimes are never acceptable as retaliation for the other side’s atrocities.

I would call for the immediate cessation of fighting and especially the indiscriminate killing of civilians through the firing of indirect weapons (mortars, artillery, non-smart aerial bombing).

I would also seek the quickest opportunity to emplace United Nations forces as a buffer between the two sides.

I was stationed in the Army in Germany, when the Berlin Wall came down. 

I saw the East Germans flood across the border into freedom.

We celebrated that moment.

I have a question for us.

I have a question for the Russian people.

Why didn’t Russia join NATO?

I expect my position here will be met with the most skepticism, however, I believe there is a real opportunity for our country to achieve a strategic victory, if we can gain lasting peace with Russia.

The fact of the matter is that China is Russia’s greatest threat.

They share a 2,600-mile border.

They have a long history of tension, and numerous times China was forced to cede land to the Russians.

China is a growing threat to Russia, economically and politically in Central Asia, and Chinese citizens maintain a strong presence in Eastern Russia.

There is little reason for the West to have a conflict with Russia, and I think that we can achieve a quick peace with the Russian people while maintaining a political relationship with Ukraine.

And I believe that we can, if Russia is ready for it, join Russia as an ally.

If we could achieve this end, and I need to point out, not by surrendering to Russian aggression, imagine the federal dollars saved or able to be redirected to our people in so many fruitful ways.

The Grand Old Party has its roots standing tall in the face of unfairness and lies.

One of my heroes, President Lincoln, endeavored in a maelstrom of diverging values and intentions to hold the nation together.

I challenge anyone desiring or holding this office to maintain the same standards on important factors that underly the health of our nation including:

1. Was the 2020 Presidential election conducted fairly?

   • The 2020 Presidential election was conducted fairly. We lost. We needed a better candidate.

2. Is human-caused climate change a reality with which we need to engage?

   • Humans are affecting the planet to the point that we are expediting a general global warming, which is the gist of the climate changes we are experiencing. Humans can and are taking positive measures to reduce and maybe, in the future, reverse our damage.

3. What is your position on Project 2025?

   • As noted before, I stand staunchly against any aspect of Project 2025.

I am here to promote the truth and to work with it, not to encourage lies, conspiracies or to placate someone’s false ideas.  Louisiana deserves a leader representative who will work with our citizens to face the many challenges we are and will be facing.  I believe I am that person.