Liberty and Justice for All!

This makes the last entry look amateur.

A late entry this year.

When John Alario last ran for the Louisiana State Senate as a Democrat, the Louisiana GOP sent out a flyer that stated:

 If you care at all about ending corruption in our state then we need your help!
The Republican Party is launching a massive effort to remove one of the most corrupt politicians our state has ever seen. . . John Alario. For more than thirty years, he has controlled the mechanics of our state government with a liberal, iron-fist. And now term limits have forced him out of the House and he running for a State Senate seat.

Bobby Jindal has now endorsed Alario to be President of the Senate.

I have no words.

Look at where the Louisiana Democratic Party was in 2004. We had a Democratic Governor. We had two Democratic Senators. We had a Democratic Lt. Governor. We had a Democratic Attorney General. The party controlled the legislature. What went wrong?

One of those Democratic Senators, the senior one, decided to not run for reelection. David Vitter ran and could run on the sentiment that he would support the incumbent President George W. Bush. This was a blow to the state party but it was not the turning point.

The turning point was the LA-01 election. LA-01 has always been a conservative district. It would have been hard for any of the candidates, myself included, to have defeated Bobby Jindal. So the Democratic Party decided to stay out of that race. But to me, that was the beginning of the end. By doing so, they not only allowed Bobby Jindal to win without a fight, but it allowed him to spin his version of the story on many issues without any sort of challenge to his claims. It also allowed him to take the funds he should have spent in Louisiana and spread it around the country to gain whatever influence he could. As such, he was elected president of his freshman class.

Building on his 2004 victory, the State Democratic Party (knowing that Bobby Jindal would likely be running for Governor again in 2007) chose to again sit out of this election. This allowed Bobby Jindal to establish more lies like the one that he secured more funds from offshore oil revenues (Landrieu’s bill was the one that did that) and that he supported ethics (he voted to weaken House ethics standards during the Tom Delay scandal). But even more than that, Bobby Jindal was able to do something else. Since the Democratic Party refused to force Jindal to spend money within the district he was running in, he was able to spend money statewide to “fund raise”.

Why do I put “fund raise” in quotes? Well, he sent out fliers to request money from around the State of Louisiana using the platform of “ethics reform” as the reason why Bobby Jindal should be re-elected. He was basically establishing himself statewide to position himself for his run for Governor on a platform of ethics reform. His own campaign even stated that he was running from Kentwood to Ruston and everywhere in between. Well, most of the area between Kentwood and Ruston are not in LA-01.

Now comes 2007. Bobby Jindal runs for governor, having 2 election cycles of media coverage with no Democratic Party challenge to his claims. Basically, people believed everything Bobby Jindal had to say when it came to his past. So there was no reason for the voters to doubt him because the Louisiana Democratic Party just sat back and let Jindal establish his story as being the truth.

Then came the big gaffe of the election for the Democratic Party. They attacked Bobby Jindal and his religious writings. Now, the Democratic Party could very well have hit a home run with the website and commercials. However, they didn’t even accurately state what Jindal wrote in his writings. This allowed Jindal to claim what the party was saying was untrue and then run advertisements stating that he was a “Born Again Christian” in North Louisiana (even though he is a Catholic).

Now, not only has the Louisiana Democratic Party enabled Jindal to establish the narrative, it also discredited itself with the “Jindal on Religion” ad. Jindal had all the political capital and was able to cash in. Other state offices fell to Republicans. Both houses fell to the Republican party via election victories or party switches.

So, how does the Louisiana Democratic Party turn itself around? Well, it cannot do so operating in the way that it has been operating, that is for sure. Some fixes I see include:

• Do a better job fighting the rhetoric. Challenge every false claim by Jindal and others.
• Help out all candidates who qualify as a Democrat. Give them access to the voter list without question.
• Invite all candidates who qualify as Democrats to all endorsement meetings.
• Do not desperately support just anyone because they have a D behind their name. Many Democrats fell in line behind Hollis because she declared early. But she was just a Jindal-lite.
  We are Democrats for a reason. Democrats and independents need a reason to vote for the candidates representing our party. Does that mean we oppose candidates who are not perfect? Absolutely not. But there has to be a point where the candidate is just too conservative.
• Work on improving get out the vote measures and implement precinct captains in every single precinct in this state. I know for a fact that we do not do that now. Why? Because I do not know who mine is.

This is not an exhaustive list. There is much more that can be done to help improve the state. But it is pretty much safe to say that if we havn’t hit bottom we are fairly close. It is time to start moving back up.

Her main platform is that of Foster Campbell in 2007, that of an oil and gas pass-through tax that would replace all existing taxes on the books. It would fund the state well beyond the current budgets and could do things like fix infrastructure and plug unfunded liabilities.

Niki has worked in the private sector on the technology side of government and she has also worked as an advocate for victims of sexual violence in government helping to not only reform but to educate those in law enforcement on how to better deal with cases of sexual violence.

In the gubernatorial debate, she outshone her opposition with confidence, intelligence and a wealth of knowledge on a wide variety of issues. On the issue of drug testing people on welfare, the popular comment on stage was to test the legislators first. Niki, instead, suggested that we work on fixing the problems of poverty and our insanely high incarceration rate in this state.

Many progressives have chosen to back Tara Hollis. But Mrs. Hollis is no progressive. Mrs. Hollis sounds more like Jindal-lite. Many of the bad ideas with none of the experience working with government. Mrs. Hollis supports our existing anti-choice laws signed by our governor. She supports allowing creationism to be taught in public schools. She supports firearms on our college campuses. She supports medical malpractice caps.

Niki Bird Papazoglakis gives us the best chance to win. She is the candidate who I believe is most likely to be able to go toe to toe with Jindal in a debate and come out victorious. She earned my vote, I hope she earns yours as well.

Which candidate for governor:

•     supports archaic anti-woman / anti-choice laws
•     supports the teaching of creationism in science classrooms
•     supports limiting patients’ access to the courts and caps insurance companies liability
•     supports allowing guns on school campuses

Sound like Bobby Jindal?  It’s Tara Hollis.  She’s not a progressive, she shares Governor Jindal’s bad ideas, and she lacks the experience needed to lead Louisiana.

This is my intellectual property…

I designed it in 2007. It may not be a difficult piece of graphic design. However, that doesn’t make it any less mine. I have used it on cafepress.com for four years to try and earn a profit. I may not have sold a lot of shirts or bumper stickers, but that doesn’t give anyone else permission to use it without my consent.

Unfortunately, some people seem to not respect intellectual property. I have recently written a press release about how the Tara Hollis campaign page on Facebook has been advertised using this very image that I created. The image has been used without permission or compensation. The campaign first claimed to have stopped using the image at my request. However, later the campaign claimed to not know about the image in  the first place. Of course, one must ask how one would take down an image that one knew nothing about. It seems to me that the Tara Hollis campaign is being dishonest. If they cannot be trusted to respect the intellectual property rights of the people of Louisiana, how can they be trusted to fix the ethical problems that Governor Jindal has left us with?

Jindal touts job creation as major issue in campaign.

Bobby Jindal claims in his campaign commercial that in this bad economy that he has managed to bring a certain number of jobs to this state. It has been pointed out that he has played “fast and loose” with those numbers.

But in the first article linked to, the Jindal Administration would ignore some very important things. They would have you believe that the problems in Louisiana are based on national issues (i.e. Obama) and not statewide issues.

However,  what they don’t want you to know is that the unemployment rate should be higher than what it is now. This is not to say that Jindal did a good job and that is why it would otherwise be higher. It is because Jindal rejected the unemployment benefit extension. By doing so, he made sure that Louisiana citizens fell out of the unemployment system early (and as such would not be counted in the rate). Jindal doesn’t care that Louisiana families suffer because he failed to increase those benefits in a bad economy. All he cares about is that he can claim a lower rate than anyone else and the bought and paid for media, i.e. the presstitutes, won’t question him on why. Don’t let him get away with it. Spread the word!

Who is that guy or that girl? Well, it is the person who thinks “The media is right, Jindal is going to win, so it doesn’t matter and I will just stay home”.

Just think to yourself how many people are in Louisiana who are unhappy with Jindal because he eliminated transparency on his office, has failed our children with failing education grades, has failed our healthcare with our dead last health rankings and who has failed this state in many other ways. Imagine if all of them just believed the “presstitutes” lie that you need money to win and just sat home on election day and voted for the status quo with the no vote. Now, imagine all of them coming out and deciding that they are not going to be that person who just allowed Bobby Jindal to walk right in for a 2nd term without voicing your displeasure.

Do you want to be in the group of people voted for Bobby Jindal by staying home and not voting? Or do you want to be in the group who just took a few minutes out of their day to let Bobby Jindal know that they are not happy and that you are not one of his supporters.

While you make up your mind, I hope you will consider checking out http://www.nikibirdforgov.com/ .

The wars about Sarah Palin and her revisionist version of history are heating up even more. In case you happened to missed it, this is what she said about the famous Paul Revere midnight ride.

 He who warned uh, the British that they weren’t gonna be takin’ away our arms, uh by ringing those bells, and um, makin’ sure as he’s riding his horse through town to send those warning shots and bells that we were going to be sure and we were going to be free, and we were going to be armed

Of course, this is wrong. But the Palin supporters flocked to the wikipedia page about Paul Revere to try and edit history to make their hero seem correct.  People are actually trying to defend the idea that she might be correct. What is unfortunate is even some “liberal” scholars are making statements that suggest that she might have gotten lucky by getting some of it right. A Boston University professor said:

 “Basically when Paul Revere was stopped by the British, he did say to them, ‘Look, there is a mobilization going on that you’ll be confronting,’ and the British are aware as they’re marching down the countryside, they hear church bells ringing — she was right about that — and warning shots being fired. That’s accurate

Just so we can all be clear, here is a link to the letter that Paul Revere wrote about his ride and his capture.  Yes, it correct that Paul Revere when captured did tell the British about the resistance that they might be seeing. But Revere never said anything about the British taking their arms. And the most important nugget that is being left out by those trying to give Palin any benefit of the doubt is that Palin said that the PURPOSE of the ride was to warn the British that they would not take their weapons and that they would be free. That is absolutely and 100% incorrect. The PURPOSE of the ride was to warn Hancock and Adams about the British troop movements and that they might be in danger. So Palin is still wrong. This, of course, won’t stop her apologists from trying to claim otherwise. But this is why it is very important to counter all of this misinformation with the truth.