Low Popahirum, April 24, 2015

LOUISIANA

“As lawmakers wrap up week two of the fiscal session, their efforts to steer the budget bus keep hitting curbs. Now they’re starting to exhibit some road rage.” – WRKF

“Political contributors to Louisiana Attorney General Buddy Caldwell have billed taxpayers more than $13.2 million in legal fees, representing the state in Deepwater Horizon litigation that has not gone to trial yet.” – Louisiana Record

“Unions might whine that this bill would put some sort of special burden on them, but the truth is just the opposite: All it would do would be to stop giving them a particular advantage enjoyed by no other organization. The state conducts paycheck withholding on behalf of no other private group — no charity, no civic organization such as Rotary or Kiwanis, nor even any benefit organization such as the American Association of Retired Persons. Why should unions be any different?” – Quin Hillyer/New Orleans Advocate

“Louisiana Economic Development Secretary Stephen Moret was peppered with questions by members of the Senate Finance Committee today and offered them a mini-preview of several upcoming issues in the session. Asked about proposed legislation to limit the movie tax credit program, Moret said lawmakers should be open to change but willing to protect an important economic engine.” – Baton Rouge Advocate

“‘I’ve told the Legislature that I will veto the budget if it is balanced using revenues from tax increases,’ he told reporters during a briefing in his State Capitol office Thursday. The remarks are among his firmest statements yet in the fight over how to address Louisiana’s looming $1.6 billion funding shortfall in the coming year.” – Baton Rouge Advocate

“Though Louisiana’s four leading candidates for governor differed in style and specifics at the latest gubernatorial forum, they agreed in substance more often than not on how to address the state’s most pressing problems.” – Baton Rouge Business Report

“In a preview of how nasty this race could get, Dardenne took several shots at Vitter, who has more money than the other candidates and is seen as the early frontrunner.” – NOLA.com

“If there’s just one lesson state lawmakers might take away from the legislative session that began last week, that is it’s hard to have fun when you don’t have any money. It’s even tougher when your prospects of putting your hands on some greenbacks are very limited.” – Sam Hanna/Ouachita Citizen

“How can Louisiana resolve its $1.6 billion budget shortfall and drive more money into higher education? Well, one way is to ask students to pay more for college and graduate school.” – NOLA.com

David won the game between two Goliaths. Danny Zardon, a pinch hitter who lost his starting job earlier this season, hit a walk-off single down the third base line, and top-ranked LSU beat No. 2 Texas A&M 4-3 on Thursday night at an electric Alex Box Stadium.” – Baton Rouge Advocate

NATIONAL

“Oh, she’ll stop running all right; over on Twitter (@dkahanerules) I’ve been asking folks to get their office-pool bets down on Hillary!’s Last Day as a Candidate. But she won’t start answering until, like any cornered crook, she’s forced to in a court of law. If she leaves now, the MSM will do its Ivy League-Rhodes Scholar best do protect her and her husband, allowing them to keep most of their money in exchange for disappearing from the public eye. (Oddly enough, that is the exact same deal the FDR administration offered Clinton’s mentor, Madden, to get him to “retire” to Hot Springs in 1935.) If not, all bets are off. Because oxpeckers don’t just clean up big animals — they take them down, too:” – Michael Walsh/PJ Media

“But who is that anodyne, generic Democrat for whom they can shelve the ethically challenged, marble-mouthed former First Lady? There is the problem, and there is the dilemma the Democrats find themselves in as Schweizer’s shot reverberates through the countryside.” – Scott McKay/American Spectator

“The Clintons’ charitable initiatives were a kind of quasi-government run by themselves, which was staffed by their own loyalists and made up the rules as it went along. Their experience running the actual government, with its formal accountability and disclosure, went reasonably well. Their experience running their own privatized mini-state has been a fiasco.” – Johnathan Chait/The New Yorker

“One thing about these stories is that they demonstrate the mainstream media have spent the Obama years resolutely not doing their jobs—which means that Hillary Clinton has not actually been vetted the way, say, every major Republican in the race has been. (Marco Rubio and Jeb Bush have been the subject of intense scrutiny from Florida media, Scott Walker from Wisconsin media, Chris Christie from New York-area media, Rick Perry and Ted Cruz from Texas media, Bobby Jindal by Louisiana media, and so on.) This story—the story of the Clinton Foundation overall— has been hiding in plain sight from 2010 onward. Thus, Democratic voters who like her and believe she is the best person for them are operating on the basis of incomplete information owing to a systematic lack of scrutiny by a media largely unwilling (consciously and unconsciously) to do the deep digging into Obama administration troubles—especially during the first term, when such digging might have served the interests of Republicans in 2012.” – John Podhoretz/Commentary

“House Speaker John Boehner said in an interview published Thursday that the House of Representatives may subpoena Hillary Clinton’s personal e-mail server if she does not turn it over to be examined by an independent third party.” – Fox News

“The Democratic national chairman and the Democratic national platform say that abortions are permissible beyond that time. If reporters can ask Republicans all over the country whether they share the view of a past Republican Missouri Senate nominee, shouldn’t they be able to ask Democrats all over the country whether they share the view of the national Democratic party’s chair and platform?” – Michael Barone/National Review

“Do senators have a duty to defer to the president’s choices simply because the nominee has an impressive resume? Or do they take oaths to uphold the Constitution? There’s little doubt that Lynch has the professional credentials necessary for the job, but a nominee for Justice Department’s top position disqualifies herself when she can’t, for ideological reasons (or won’t, for partisan ones) concede that there is a single genuine limitation on presidential power. The role of Congress is to check the executive branch, not expand its reach.” – The Federalist

Global warming hasn’t happened as fast as expected, according to a new study based on 1,000 years of temperature records. The research claims that natural variability in surface temperatures over the course of a decade can account for increases and dips in warming rates.”

“It’s only April, but 2015 may be remembered as the year the term ‘transgender’ fully entered mainstream consciousness.” – CNN

“However, the point to note is not that two white students were asked to leave the event, but rather that this was a safe space and that we as a newsroom, as a campus and as a society are not as knowledgeable as we should be about what these spaces mean.” – Huffington Post

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