LOUISIANA

“Gov. Bobby Jindal has signed next year’s budget, along with the package of tax changes to balance the spending plan without steep reductions to public health care and colleges.” – Lake Charles American Press

“Beginning in 2016, Louisiana high school students will have to demonstrate the same knowledge about American government that is required to become a U.S. citizen.” – Shreveport Times

“The manhunt for the escapee police say killed New Orleans Police Officer Daryle Holloway, ended when a rookie officer spotted Travis Boys as he boarded a bus in the Lower 9th Ward, his broken handcuffs still on his wrists.” – NOLA.com

“LSU athletes are constantly drilled with a message of accountability and responsibility, LSU Athletic Director Joe Alleva said Monday, which is why Alleva finds himself ‘very disappointed‘ when athletes get in trouble with the law.” – Baton Rouge Advocate

“Gov. Bobby Jindal has struck down a provision prohibiting Louisiana State Police from paying for his security detail during campaign events less than a week ahead of his likely presidential campaign announcement.” – NOLA.com

” Doctors who perform abortions in Louisiana will testify with a screen hiding them from spectators as a federal judge hears a challenge to Louisiana’s law requiring them to be able to admit patients to a hospital within 30 miles.” – Lake Charles American Press

“A Republican state representative from Lafayette, Robideaux faced a choice during the just-concluded legislative session that, in simplistic terms, could lead him to be labeled as a tax-and-spend politician or as the savior of the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. The label mattered because Robideaux is running for Lafayette city-parish president.” – Baton Rouge Advocate

“After more than two and a half years on the market, Paula Pennington de la Bretonne’s estate at 11001 Highland Road has sold for $6 million.” – Baton Rouge Business Report

“Author Tim Parrish, an LSU alumnus raised in Baton Rouge, said in a New York Daily News guest column Sunday that he ‘grew up a Southern racist,’ ‘learned how to hate at home and at church’ and ‘drank from the same poisonous well as Dylann Roof.'” – Baton Rouge Advocate

“LSU Vice Chancellor and Director of Athletics Joe Alleva announced Saturday that Chris Blair, currently the ‘Voice’ of Georgia Southern University Athletics, has been named as the next ‘Voice of the Tigers’ beginning with the 2016 LSU baseball season.” – LSUSports.net

NATIONAL

“Dylann Storm Roof’s stated aim was to divide the nation, but despite the best efforts of Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton, he was unable to do so. Largely thanks to the victims’ families, this may well instead be a signature unifying event for a nation, nearly on a par with 9/11.” – PJ Media

“As I’ve gotten older, I’ve increasingly had the experience of saying things that would have been considered pieties in the liberal catechism when I was young—and which now will get you labeled as a howling reactionary.” – Robert Tracinski/The Federalist

“Even so, I think this has less to do with anti-Cruz bias than it does with bias in the gun-rights debate. If all you wanted to do was comment negatively on Cruz, you could do that in various simpler ways. Publish a photo of him taken at a moment when his face was contorted while speaking. Or publish one taken at an impassioned moment in his remarks, when he’s more apt to look angry and unfriendly. Going the extra mile to get the gun in the frame of the photo during what was, in fact, a speech about Second Amendment rights was probably the photographer’s way of making a comment about gun control.” – Hot Air

“The short version is: the US government seizes a portion of the raisin crop each year in order to keep prices up (they typically either sell the raisins for below market value*, or stick ‘em in school lunches, or things like that). Problem is, the Fifth Amendment says that you can’t do that without paying the property owners… and the raisin owners finally complained (took ‘em decades to do it, mind you).” – RedState

“Throughout the prolonged showdown between Greece and its creditors, the Obama administration has largely sat on the sidelines, issuing the occasional warning about the potential economic impact of a default. But with Greece now on the verge of bankruptcy, the US is also beginning to worry about the political fallout from a deeper crisis and the potential for Russia to gain increased influence over a Nato member.” – Financial Times

“Despite pledges by Hillary Clinton to combat money in politics, her campaign’s top lawyer was a key figure in a fight that allowed wealthy individuals to drastically increase the amount of money they could give to party committees.” – Washington Free Beacon

“The main criticism of a flat tax is that it is, well, flat. The middle-class guy and the billionaire would pay at the same rate, 14.5 percent. But actually that’s not true, for the marginal rate (the tax on the last dollar of income) is flat but the effective tax rate (the percentage of income taxed away) most certainly is not. Using Senator Paul’s proposed tax plan, a family of four earning $50,000 would pay no taxes at all. One earning $60,000, would pay $1450, or 2.4 percent of income. A family earning $100,000 would pay $7250, or 7.2 percent of income. At $1 million, the tax would be $137,750 or 13.8 percent of income.” – Commentary

“St. Catherine’s College at Cambridge University has decreed that men can wear skirts at formal dinners, following a campaign by a transgender-rights activist student.” – Breitbart

“Pope Francis strongly condemned those involved in the weapons industry, saying they are hypocrites and can’t call themselves Christian.” – Washington Examiner

“Trump is a sort of action star for the sedentary, a boardroom gladiator, and that is what makes him so successful as a reality-television freak.” – Kevin Williamson/National Review