Liberty and Justice for All!

Karen Carter is going to have a press conference today to respond to attacks made by “Believe In Louisiana“, Jindal’s own personal propaganda service All Children Matter. (Update from Cheron Brylski corrected who was paying for the ad. Believe in Louisiana is still a problem though).

Believe in Louisiana states:

All contributions and expenditures will be publicly disclosed. Believe in Louisiana knows that complete transparency is very important to us, just as it should be in government.

I wonder when that will happen. I won’t be holding my breath. Of course, the existence of Believe in Louisiana is to distort the actual record and make people believe that Jindal’s reforms are meaningful and will bring positive change to our state.  

When I can find audio of the ad that is being run against Carter I will post it here. I am sure it will be filled with half truths if Carter is actually doing things against the wishes of Republicans (especially Jindal). This would be a refreshing change for Carter, especially since she backed Jim Tucker for Speaker previously.

Ironically, I got this message from the “Krewe of Truth” mailing list by Cheron Brylski. Cheron is reported to have said:

“Bobby Jindal is striking a chord with Democrats. They’re saying, ‘I love Bobby Jindal and I am so glad he’s our governor’,”

She also calls Jindal “Louisiana’s last hope” and states “There is also an overwhelming pride about having a minority governor,”. Yet she is critical of Jindal’s home-schooled homeboy Timmy Teepell by stating, “The ads were supposedly ordered by Teepell to “punish” the Speaker Pro Tem for opposing the Administration’s voucher bill”.

I wonder if Brylski will continue to hold Jindal in such high esteem after his propaganda outlet attacked Karen Carter  even though his chief of staff is supposedly calling for retribution. Or will she just put the blame on Teepell only?

Update: I crossed out some of the information that was corrected on the Krewe Of Truth website. Even though it is a group from outside Louisiana pushing for the legislation and calling for Carter to support it, Krewe of Truth is still claiming that Teepell called for the ads as political retribution.

Update 2: Oyster followed the money and found some interesting information about “All Children Matter”. It is a must read.  

Bobby Jindal has continued his push for vouchers scholarships. Even if you like vouchers (which I don’t) here is the problem with this plan. From the article:

Rep. Austin Badon, D-New Orleans, who will be the floor leader on the proposal, said the program would likely provide $5,300 to $5,500 scholarships for a couple thousand city public school students whose families likely could not otherwise afford private schools.

Tuition for Sacred Heart: $10,600. How is a voucher scholarship going to help someone attend this school?

Oh, Badon gives an answer to that in the article:

“Otherwise, they could just stay in public schools for free,” he said.

So let me get this straight. The schools are failing so Jindal and others want the kids to get vouchers scholarships to have better educational opportunities. And the solution to question on what happens if the voucher scholarship doesn’t cover the cost is to just leave them in the (failing) school? Am I the only one who sees the problem here?

 Jindal spokeswoman, Melissa Sellers, stated:

Educational scholarships work to ensure that no child is stuck in their local failing school without any other opportunity for success.

Only if the voucher scholarship covers the full cost of tuition. And then even if the voucher scholarship covers the cost of tuition, what if the school doesn’t accepts them? What then? Because of the issues of cost and rejection, we really should just work on making the public schools better. These voucherscholarship programs just admit defeat. Is Jindal just really willing to give up and surrender when it comes to our children?

There is also the issue of why should government funds be used to pay for non-public school tuition. A vast majority of the schools in this area are religious in nature. What if the parents don’t want their kids to have a religious education (or an education at a particular religious school)? What school choice would they have? Or is Jindal only worried about the kids who would go to those non-public schools and not the others.

Now Jindal wants to give people tax breaks if they send their children to non-public schools. Isn’t that just a backdoor voucher?  

How about this. Instead of trying to help people leave public schools, let’s work to make public schools in Louisiana the best public schools in the nation.

If you want to give “tax breaks” to people, let’s give it to all people and not just to people whose children attend n0n-public schools.