Happy New Year! Within two weeks, I hope to announce a new, much more regular system of posts here at Quinhillyer.com — interesting, informative, entertaining. In the meantime, here’s catching up on a month’s worth of writings.

The biggest news recently, both in Louisiana and nationally, has been the flap over House Majority Whip Steve Scalise’s speech way back in 2002 at a hotel also hosting a white supremacist conference. I’ve been in the midst of it. For The Advocate, I explained the context that helps explain what Scalise was doing and why his story is believable. For National Review, I give more background, and blow out of the water the notion that Scalise would knowingly traffic in supremacist garbage. Also for NRO, I describe how the New York Times somehow managed to quote me seeming to say exactly the opposite of what I spent two full columns saying.

ALSO NATIONALLY, on President Obama’s change of policy towards Communist Cuba, I took issue with Sen. Rand Paul’s embrace of the change — but more with his nasty style of going about it, along with his overall foreign policy ignorance, and worse.

On other matters, I had some random thoughts that proved rather provocative. And — this one is important for people to understand — I explain how another Mitt Romney run for the presidency could actually make it easier for an impressive, electable conservative (i.e., not Romney) to actually win the Republican nomination. Hint: It’s in the arithmetic.

IN ALABAMA, I looked at efforts to fight the feds’ truly misguided, ridiculously short red snapper season. I lamented Sen. Jeff Sessions’ loss of his expected chairmanship of the Budget Committee, but found a silver lining.  And, looking ahead to 2105, I explain why Alabama Republicans may not experience entirely smooth sailing.

IN LOUISIANA, I continue to think Bobby Jindal has been a superb governor overall, but that doesn’t mean he should run for president. Meanwhile, the battle in 2015 to be Jindal’s successor, if history offers clues, might produce surprising results. Speaking of campaigns, both Mary Landrieu and Bill Cassidy still owe a few answers on questions left over from their less-than-dramatic race for the U.S. Senate. In the future, though, Louisiana should never again have a post-November runoff, because it really ought to jettison the “open, jungle primary” that makes the state’s elections such anomalies. (I also thanked Mary Landrieu for her service.)

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Again, as I said, this is just an update. Coming soon, a revamp of this site — not of its look, but of its frequency and its operations. Please stay tuned.