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STRAIN: An Open Letter To The People Of Louisiana
Written on 26 May, 2012 at 9:54 By: Agriculture Commissioner Mike Strain in High Popalorum, Louisiana
Of late, there has been a great deal of discussion in reference to the budget of the state. Accordingly, a number of different viewpoints have been expressed. I write to you today to ask for support as we move forward... (Continue reading)
Evaluating New Options Requires Savvy Educational Consumers
Louisiana’s new statewide voucher program offers our most vulnerable families an enormous opportunity, true cause for celebration. The program will enable more than 5,000 students from low-income and working-class families to escape under-performing schools and attend private or parochial schools... (Continue reading)
Don’t Ever Try To Pull Rank On A State Trooper If You’re Pulled Over For DWI
That’s a lesson former state Rep. Bobby Badon (D-Carencro), who used to hold the seat our buddy Stephen Ortego now has, learned the hard way a couple of years ago. Badon was pulled over by a state trooper on his... (Continue reading)
HB 865 And Why Sausage Making Is Pretty Compared To Politics
The Louisiana House takes up HB 865 today. The fix is already in and the bill will pass. This bill will rubber stamp the massive expansion of funding for crony capitalism bus system in Baton Rouge. Together Baton Rouge’s hand-picked... (Continue reading)
About Lanny Keller’s Slapdown Of Joyce Haynes…
…it’s pretty rare to see the Baton Rouge Advocate, which by the grace of the Fates is about to emerge as the state’s pre-eminent daily paper thanks to Newhouse’s decision to chop the Times-Picayune down to a thrice-weekly publication, take... (Continue reading)
There Are Some Costs To The Reforms Being Passed This Session
You can’t sit through committee hearings at the state Capitol from week to week and not feel compassion for those whose lives may be changed by the decisions made by their governor and members of the Legislature. The overriding concerns,... (Continue reading)
Schools In The Voucher Program And How To Get Your Kid In…
As promised by the Louisiana Department of Education, the list of schools participating in the Student Scholarships for Educational Excellence Program (SSEEP), or school voucher program, has been released to coincide with applications being accepted, which started today. Here are the... (Continue reading)
VIDEO: Louisiana’s Among The Toughest States In The Country In Which To Work
At least when it comes to the licensing requirements we impose on people trying to earn a living. Some 71 professions require a license in the Bayou State, the most in the country. The Institute of Justice has more –... (Continue reading)
Abramson’s Bill For Bullied Legislators…
As legislators struggle with competing anti-bullying bills to sort out the best way to fight Louisiana’s War Against Wedgies, Rep. Neil Abramson, D-New Orleans, is working to protect the unsung browbeaten among us—members of the Louisiana House of Representatives. It’s... (Continue reading)
What Is It With These Train Addicts, Anyway?
Here we thought the dumb idea of building a rail line from Baton Rouge to New Orleans with our tax dollars had been killed. But in this day and age one thing definitely seems true; the worse an idea is,... (Continue reading)
So, How’s That Retirement Reform Package Going?
One done, one close to the finish line and five to go. That is the status of Gov. Bobby Jindal’s retirement reform package with just over two weeks remaining in the Legislature’s regular session that ends June 4. Two of... (Continue reading)
Erasing A Bad Legacy
Last February, Louisiana’s Department of Natural Resources issued a report to the Legislature which focused on several issues, but mainly on the timely remediation of contamination of the state’s oilfield sites. That report tracked the history of “legacy lawsuits” which... (Continue reading)
RISER: I Believe in Protecting Louisiana’s Right to Keep and Bear Arms
If Louisiana already has a provision in its Constitution protecting the right to keep and bear arms, why is the Louisiana legislature considering an amendment to replace it? That’s a good question, and it has a very good answer. The... (Continue reading)
HB 822 Passes The House, And Now The Budget Really Is A Mess
The final vote was 63-38, which is less than the 2/3rds vote you’re supposed to have to include one-time money in the state budget. But since the bill was HB 822 rather than HB 1, apparently it doesn’t matter since... (Continue reading)
KENNEDY VIDEO: Louisiana Has Plenty Of Money, And No Priorities
In case the Jindal administration thought they were driving him off with that rather comprehensive rebuke on Tuesday, they didn’t. This time, though, Kennedy’s focusing on the general rather than the specific…... (Continue reading)
Karen Carter Peterson Forces Vulnerable Democrats To Walk The Obamacare Plank
Thanks to their new party chairman, three of the most vulnerable Louisiana Democrat Senators are now on record in support of the most unpopular legislation in a generation, Obamacare. This legislation is likely to be one of many gifts that... (Continue reading)
ANOTHER ROUND: House Fiscal Hawks Take Aim At Rainwater In Fiery Retort
Yesterday we saw some haymakers being landed in the state’s budget battle, as state treasurer John Kennedy unloaded on Commissioner of Administration Paul Rainwater in a letter accusing him of “scaring” the higher education and health care communities about budget... (Continue reading)
UPDATED, MORE VIDEO: Bill To Drug-Test Welfare Recipients Wins Big In House
The vote was 65-26 on the floor. We had a sizable writeup on this when it came out of committee last week, and we’ll have some interesting video from the House floor debate later tonight as an update to this... (Continue reading)
It Was A Mistake To Help Jonathan Perry Win A Senate Seat
Mea culpa. We publicized the District 26 special election race in early 2011 often, and advocated strongly that Perry get as much support from the state’s conservatives as possible, as at the time the race was going to determine whether... (Continue reading)
How Deep A Hole Are The Louisiana Democrats Going To Dig For Themselves?
C’mon, Louisiana Democrats, you are making this too easy. It’s always fun picking on you guys, but we still need two viable political parties in Louisiana if for no other reason than to keep Republicans—many of who used to Democrats—honest.... (Continue reading)
Quote of the day
Quote Of The Day, May 25, 2012
“What happened here was the accumulated karmic backlash of forty years’ worth of Establishment Democrats telling the Activist Left that they were the vanguard of, and spokesmen for, a broad American populist movement. For the longest time, such lies were simply an accepted part of the public policy debate; mostly because the country had no yardstick by which to judge the Left’s turnout and activities.“But then came the Tea Parties — which showed people what a real American populist movement looks like, and what it can do — and its success stung the Activist Left at the exact moment that Scott Walker came along and not unreasonably decided that if he was elected on a platform of doing certain things, he had best start doing them. This infuriated the Left, but not as much as the refusal of Walker and the WI GOP to go weak-kneed at the first sign of push-back. So… the recall movement was born!
“And… fizzled. The Left should have cut their losses when Prosser demonstrated that drum circles and illegal indoor camping in the Rotunda didn’t translate into votes… and they definitely should have cut their losses when the first wave of recalls didn’t live up to the hype. But they didn’t, and now the people of Wisconsin are increasingly demonstrating that they’re tired of all of this – and they’re not blaming the Republicans, either. Such a shame, but that’s what you get whe- hey! The bacon’s fully cooked.”
- Moe Lane