Low Popahirum, April 30, 2015

LOUISIANA

“Legislation that could rein in the cost of Louisiana’s generous TOPS scholarship program scored a key victory at the State Capitol on Wednesday, despite vocal opposition from Gov. Bobby Jindal.” – Baton Rouge Advocate

“Dubious loans to small-time film companies. A $15 million stake in a Ponzi-scheme like Cayman Islands hedge-fund. Sweetheart deals with shaky small businesses. Pension fund investments are usually bland as vanilla pudding. Not so for the Fire Fighter Pension and Relief Fund. The botched investments are highlighted in New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu’s latest legal assault on the city’s firefighters. The lawsuit claims the firefighters’ past representatives on the board botched the fund’s investment portfolio so badly that they helped hasten the its collapse.” – NOLA.com

Chicken Little has got nothing on King Alexander. The LSU president is shouting from the rooftops that the state financial commitment is crumbling to the ground, the LSU fiscal sky is falling, and he is about to declare ‘academic bankruptcy.’ Academic bankruptcy? I’ve been around and a part of Louisiana state government for some 44 years, and I’ve never heard of the phrase. You can’t even Google it and find any other example.” – Jim Brown

“The Louisiana media loves to write about Gov. Bobby Jindal’s political jet-setting ways. The Advocate has dedicated a small section of its blog to regularly answer the question ‘Where in the world is Gov. Bobby Jindal?’ This after the daily revealed last month in a special report that the governor spent 165 days, or 45 percent of 2014, in other states.” – Jeremy Alford/LAPolitics.com

“A House judiciary committee will hear a bill that ensures victims of sexual assault are not billed for rape exams or other related medical expenses.” – NOLA.com

“Methanex successfully started its Geismar 1 plant in late January and produced 198 million tons of methanol during the first quarter, according to Chief Executive Officer John Floren. The company is also making “excellent progress” on the Geismar 2 plant and expects to begin production late in the first quarter of 2016, Floren said.” – Baton Rouge Advocate

“The allure of tobacco bonds appears to have won over another customer – cash-strapped Louisiana. Gov. Bobby Jindal, a potential GOP presidential candidate, is scrambling to deal with a $1.6 billion hole in his next budget.” – Pro Publica

“Lawmakers on the House tax committee, looking for ways to keep more money in the state treasury, agreed Tuesday to three proposals that would trim Louisiana’s generous film-tax credits, but rejected an effort to eliminate the program entirely.” – Monroe News-Star

“An influential Louisiana lawmaker is pushing a resolution urging LSU to erect a statue on campus in memory of the late LSU basketball icon Peter Press ‘Pistol Pete’ Maravich. Senate President John Alario’s proposal, Senate Concurrent Resolution 63, would ‘urge and request’ the LSU Board of Supervisors to build the statue in front of the basketball arena that bears Maravich’s name. The resolution, introduced Wednesday, doesn’t identify a funding source for the proposed statue.” – Baton Rouge Advocate

“Former LSU offensive lineman La’el Collins will speak to Baton Rouge police after this week’s NFL Draft concerning the murder of a former girlfriend, a BRPD spokesman confirmed Thursday.” – NOLA.com

NATIONAL

“And one way to start moving things back in the right direction is to give every parent in Baltimore a voucher worth $17,329 that they can redeem at any school — public, private or religious — to which they choose to send their child.” – Terence Jeffrey/CNS News

“But court records examined Wednesday by The Baltimore Sun show the case had nothing to do with a car accident or a spine injury. Instead, they are connected to a lawsuit alleging that Gray and his sister were injured by exposure to lead paint.” – Baltimore Sun

“It’s not surprising that a black mother in Baltimore who chased down, cursed and beat her 16-year-old son in the middle of a riot has been called a hero. In this country, when black mothers fulfill stereotypes of mammies, angry and thwarting resistance to a system designed to kill their children, they get praised.” – Stacey Patton/Washington Post

“The instant resort to violence is a hallmark of the underclass, both black and white, and alas once sees it constantly on the streets of America’s major cities. But those of who were raised by responsible parents, and who try to be responsible parents ourselves, understand that it should be the appearance of the parent alone — a parent imbued with moral authority — that puts a stop to bad behavior, not whupping some kid upside the head.” – Michael Walsh/PJ Media

“An unprecedented ethics promise that played a pivotal role in helping Hillary Rodham Clinton win confirmation as secretary of state, soothing senators’ concerns about conflicts of interests with Clinton family charities, was uniformly bypassed by the biggest of the philanthropies involved.” – Boston Globe

“A handful of deep-pocketed donors are reconsidering their gifts to the $2 billion Clinton Foundation amid mounting questions about how it’s spending their money and suggestions of influence peddling, according to donors and others familiar with the foundation’s fundraising.” – POLITICO

“The first response of many people will be to scoff. Everyone knows, even if Senator Sanders himself has delusions, that he will never get enough votes in a general election to become president, even if he somehow managed to win the nomination. Of course, the latter is not likely to occur. No matter how many small donors contribute to his campaign chest, it will never amount to anything close to the huge war chest that Hillary Clinton is amassing.” – Ron Radosh/PJ Media

“The conventional wisdom shared not just by conservatives but many Democrats is that self-described socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) is so unrepresentative of mainstream American political thought that he cannot pose a serious threat to Hillary Clinton. It’s true that the former secretary of state remains the prohibitive favorite to win her party’s nomination in 2016, and there isn’t much evidence beyond the anecdotal that suggests Democrats are uncomfortable anointing her Barack Obama’s chosen successor. That dynamic might change, however, if Sanders runs against Clinton in a manner that former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley has so far refused; seriously and aggressively. He seems inclined to do just that.” – Hot Air

“If you try to shut down public debate, is this a way of ensuring that you win—or an admission that you have already lost?”  – The Federalist

“The present four-year California drought is not novel — even if President Barack Obama and California governor Jerry Brown have blamed it on man-made climate change.” – Victor Davis Hanson/National Review

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