LOUISIANA

“Students at New Orleans charter schools show more academic growth than their peers in conventional schools, according to a new study from Stanford University. There were 41 cities in the study, and New Orleans charters’ results were among the strongest.” – NOLA.com

“Lionel Rainey gave an impassioned one-hour interview defending the proposed City of St. George on Podcast225 this week.” – Baton Rouge Advocate

“Public Service Commissioner Foster Campbell wants his name off a motion by the PSC to block a class action suit returning designated funds it believes the Louisiana Legislature took illegally from the PSC to the companies who paid the fees.” – Monroe News Star

“Despite Mike Pence and Asa Hutchinson folding like cheap suits, not everyone has given up on the cause of religious freedom. Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal is hitting the problem head on. A bill called the Marriage and Conscience Act is now working its way through the Louisiana legislature and Jindal has said he will sign it. This bill is a significant and welcome departure from the weak sauce passed in Indiana and Arkansas which merely give (or in the case of Indiana, gave) private citizens the ability to use religious conscience as a defense in a private lawsuit of the type homosexual fascists have been employing against Christians in Colorado, New Mexico, and other places.” – RedState

“Louisiana politics is starting to feel like a game of dominoes lately. We’ve got a governor who’s presumably running for president, a senator who’s definitely running for governor and, now, the beginnings of a race for senator. That’s one way to read a couple of otherwise unrelated recent developments.” – Stephanie Grace/Baton Rouge Advocate

“The biggest round of applause from an audience of about 600 at a gathering of Christian conservatives in Mount Pleasant on Thursday night was awarded to Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal.” – Des Moines Register

“On Thursday, former Destrehan High School teacher Shelley Dufresne made a plea deal to avoid jail time in St. Charles Parish. She pleaded guilty to obscenity instead of the original charge of carnal knowledge of a juvenile.” – WAFB

“Louisiana is facing a $1.6 billion budget shortfall. The funding gap is so large that state officials have warned they won’t be able to conduct their usual Advanced Placement tests and other types of assessments in schools next year. Some public colleges and universities might have to close and, until recently, the secretary of state’s office was saying it wouldn’t have enough money to run the presidential primary next spring.” – NOLA.com

“Unlike western states struggling with drought and water shortages, Louisiana’s main fight with water has been focused on how to keep it from flooding places. That picture is changing, though, and at the request of the Louisiana Water Resources Commission, the state is working toward the development of a statewide comprehensive water plan.” – Baton Rouge Advocate

“Bouie feels that it would make more sense for the PSC to regulate cable companies the way they do other utility companies. He says this would allow a state agency to advocate on behalf of Louisiana residents.” – WWL-AM

NATIONAL

“Stay away, Rev. Al. That was the message from the family of South Carolina police shooting victim Walter Scott to the civil rights activist Thursday two days before the funeral for the slain father of four.” – NY Daily News

“Obama imagines that this deal will bring Iran in from the cold, tempering its territorial ambitions and ideological radicalism. But this defies logic: With sanctions lifted, its economy booming and tens of billions injected into its treasury, why would Iran curb rather than expand its relentless drive for regional dominance?”- Charles Krauthammer/Washington Post

“Earlier today, Khamenei broke his silence on the supposed ‘framework’ the Obama administration has been trumpeting as the basis for a nuclear accord. Khamenei’s speech pulled the rug out from underneath the administration.” – Thomas Joscelyn/Weekly Standard

“Iranian dictator Ali Khamenei said in a speech on Thursday that he has neither endorsed nor rejected the basic framework for an agreement on Tehran’s nuclear program, which had been reported as agreed upon by both the P5+1 world powers and the Iranian regime.” – Breitbart

“This is stunning in its duplicity. Not only is Obama keeping Congress in the dark about the negotiations but it is deliberately lying to Congress as it pushes to finalize the agreement.” – RedState

“By now, we know the basic ingredients of a typical skirmish in Culture War 4.0. It goes something like this: a) a leftist claque starts loudly pushing the “correct” Culture War position onto b) a field previously considered fun, innocuous, apolitical, purely personal, or recreational, and c) accusing anyone who opposes them of being a racist, sexist, bigot who relies on oppressive “privilege” to push everyone else down, while these claims are d) backed up by a biased press that swallows the line of attack uncritically and repeats it.” – Ed Driscoll/PJ Media

“Such ‘efforts’ most definitely include Kansas’s new law. Planned Parenthood, a key Democratic party backer, is already considering a legal challenge to the law. The Democratic party of the United States maintains that literally tearing an unborn child limb from limb is a private decision between women and their doctors.” – National Review

“We understand that Secretary of State John Kerry placed a frantic call to Iranian Foreign Affairs Minister Mohammad Zarif yesterday after the Supreme Leader’s speech on the occasion of National Nuclear Technology Day. According to the partial transcript provided to us, the conversation went down like this:” – Power Line

“Twenty-four hours before coming face to face with Cuban President Raul Castro, President Obama on Thursday continued to extend an olive branch from Washington to Havana — but analysts say there are real questions about whether Mr. Castro truly is interested in friendly relations with the U.S.” – Washington Times

“After being bombarded with threats last week for their traditionally Christian stance on marriage, Memories Pizza was forced to close. Yesterday, they reopened their doors with over $800,000 dollars in the bank.” – Legal Insurrection