Liberty and Justice for All!

That is an old quote from The Gipper himself, Ronald Reagan. And the Louisiana Republicans have dusted that old tired line out to try and convince current Democrats to turn over a new leaf (just like John N. Kennedy did).

Of course there is probably some truth Reagan’s statement. See, the Democratic Party stopped being the party that used the mantra of “states rights” in order to keep black people as second class citizens and started to become the party that fought for civil rights legislation, equality, and liberty.

Reagan, on the other hand, announced the official start to his campaign in Neshoba County Mississippi, the site where three black civil rights activists were murdered in 1964. Reagan campaigned on the “states rights” platform and utilized the “southern strategy” to attract the racists who also felt that the Democratic Party left them too. Since Reagan felt that the place where three black civil rights activists were murdered was the best way to start off his “states rights” campaign then sure, the Democratic Party left him behind … in the dust.
You can see the front and back of the flier (or should I say f-liar) my wife received in the mail today.

Not only does the f-liar have a picture of the Gipper, but it also has one of the Governor himself. It asks Democrats to “join Bobby Jindal in the Republican Party”.

Most noticeable are the prominent Democrats that are pictured on the f-liar. You have Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, Kathleen Blanco and everyone’s favorite Bill Jefferson. Absent is Mary Landrieu (who is likely to win re-election), Mitch Landrieu (who got more votes that Jindal statewide) and other Louisiana Democrats who tend to be a tad bit more Conservative on the issues than those pictured (with the exception of pro-life Blanco whose only difference with Jindal on the pro-life stance is that she has a heart and would allow exceptions for rape and the life of the woman).

The f-liar says what “Democrats Believe In”.

The first lie is that we believe in no new oil exploration. Well, there are 10,000 oil leases that are not being drilled on yet. Seems to me that the Democrats would not have allowed those leases to be opened if they are opposed to new drilling.

The next lie is that Democrats support Amnesty for illegal aliens. The truth is that Democrats in Congress supported a plan that would require any person here illegally to get back in the line and pay a fine for their crime before ever getting a chance at citizenship. Forcing someone to pay a fine does not sound like amnesty to me. Of course, the Louisiana Republican Party and Florist Gump himself forgets that Republicans don’t want illegal immigration to go away because that would mean their corporate buddies would have to hire people at the minimum wage. I would also point out that the plan Democrats supported was called the ________ - Kennedy Fair Plan. Anyone? Anyone? The McCain – Kennedy Fair plan. So if this plan is so called “amnesty” then I guess anyone who supports McCain wants “amnesty” too!

The next lie is that Democrats support tax increases on the middle class. This is, again, untrue. Democrats support eliminating the bush tax cuts for people making $200,000 and above. In fact, here is Obama’s tax plan.You can plainly see that he wouldn’t increase taxes on the middle class.

In fact, when I campaigned for Congress in 2004 I proposed that we give a housing tax credit to everyone and not require it be itemized. Obama supports:

establishing a universal credit for the 10 million homeowners who do not itemize their deductions

Good to see someone else agrees with me. 

They tell the truth about Government run health care. Democrats do support that. Of course, if you want to look at failures in Government run healthcare you only need to look at the tenure of Bobby Jindal and his time as head of the Louisiana Department of Health. During his “leadership”, Louisiana’s health ranking dropped to dead last. But that is just typical of Republicans. They cry about how awful government is and then spend their entire political careers proving it

The f-liar asks “what do you have in common with these Democrats”? Well, if I had to make a flier of my own, it would probably look like this. (Well, actually I would spend a lot more time on it, not do it in paint, and not base it off the old one, but you get the point).

Anyway, it sure seems that the Republicans are scared that they won’t be able to get John “the liberal candidate in the 2004 Senate race” Kennedy to beat Landrieu. I am happy my wife got the f-liar. It was good for a laugh and it is good to see the Republicans wasting money on that garbage.

State Senator Derrick Shepherd was arrested over the weekend for basically trespassing, battery, and theft. Oyster stole most of my thunder on this issue but missed one point that I brought up on Jeff Crouere’s morning show.

Shepherd was arrested at his residence in Stonebridge. The sheriff’s office said there were two women in the house, one of whom appeared to be performing a lap dance on Shepherd, who was on a sofa.

So let me get this straight. Derrick Shepherd, the man who got national attention on the Colbert Report for drafting the legislation to ban people from having low hanging pants, was getting a lap dance? Nice.

Update:  Well, she lied.  While the irony of his getting a lap dance is still valid, it seems that the woman was upset at Derrick Shepherd and instead of just yelling at him, she decided to make up a story to the police. Things like that really tick me off. I remember reading an ex girlfriends cosmo and they had a story in there about false accusations of rape. One third of the women saw no problem with falsely accusing a man of raping them.

Problems like rape and domestic violence are serious problems that are only made worse when people who are not victims make false accusations against others. It not only threatens the accused with possible jail time, it also makes it that much harder for legitimate victims to get justice. This woman deserves to have the book thrown at her.

It is time that the Times Picayune gave credit where credit is due. In it’s recent article (Demos vow to erase state share of levee cost) the Times Picayune reported that Bobby Jindal sponsored the legislation that allowed Louisiana to collect offshore oil royalties. This is factually incorrect. Bobby Jindal did sponsor legislation to get us a share of oil revenues and that bill passed the House. However, the Domenici-Landrieu bill was passed in the Senate, emerged from the conference committee unchanged, was passed by the House (in lieu of Jindal’s legislation) and was signed by the President. It was Mary Landrieu, and not Bobby Jindal, who got us a fairer share of oil revenues.

The Lower Algiers Senior Center is one of those places effected by Jindal’s pulling the plug on “NGO” funding. WWL news tonight had a story that the LASC, as well as other senior centers. They are covered by the New Orleans Council on Aging (a group that falls under the administration). However, the budget to run those centers are based on old figures and the rest of the money comes from the NGO funding that Jindal got rid of with his veto pen.

As citizens, we cannot allow Jindal to get away with this. I understand cutting actual pork. This is NOT pork. If 500 people donated $50 bucks, the LASC could stay open. If everyone in every community where a senior center was being closed down chipped in, we could help keep all of them open.

Send me an email at dan@lj4a.com if you would like to make a pledge of support.

Well la-di-fricken-da! Bobby Jindal set a record by saying no over 250 times on the budget bill via his line item veto. A whole $16 million stricken from the budget of $29.9 Billion. That is 0.05 of 1% of the budget the high and mighty Jindal has saved us from.

But $16 million is a lot of money to you and me. Heck, $130K is a lot to you and me. That is the amount that Jindal got in bundled campaign contributions from Choest. What did Choest get in return for his “generous” contribution? Well, he got a $14 million grant of course!   Kinda makes Jindal’s “fiscal conservative pen” look a little limp now doesn’t it?

Even worse for those who would claim that Jindal’s veto pen was fiscally responsible is that those cuts equate to only 1/3 of the earmarks in the legislation. $39 million remain. Jindal said he would cut NGO (Non-Governmental Organization) funding if it didn’t meet an established criteria. However, it seems that Jindal cut more than that.

But other items _ besides non-government organization funding _ were removed from the budget as well, and lawmakers said they didn’t understand what criteria the governor and his staff used to strip the projects.

Well, the explanation given in the language was that he felt the spending should be funded from “other sources“. However, knowing Jindal, I highly doubt that this was his only criteria. What remains to be seen are at least two questions.

1) How many worthwhile organizations that provide regular services to communities across Louisiana will have to suffer from Jindal’s cuts.

2) How many of these earmarks that got the veto pen belonged to legislators who did not listen to their orders and follow the diktats of the Jindal regime?

C. B. Forgotston seems to think so. I have to somewhat disagree. I don’t think this is a matter of having a clue or not. I think that Jindal believes that if he says something as “fact”, that people will just believe it and the media won’t challenge it.

I wonder why he would get that idea…

Bayou Buzz reports that Jindal vetoed ethics legislation that would have required all elected officials, including Jindal, to disclose if a political appointment was also a campaign contributor.

Jindal supposedly rejected it because he disagreed with a problem with the wording. However, this bill was not just sprung on Jindal. He knew it was coming down the pipe and could have suggested other wording that may have been to his liking. My theory is that the only wording that would have made it to Jindal’s liking would be if it had said “except for the Governor”.

So here was an example of real ethics reform, yet Jindal vetoed it? How much more do people need to see to realize that he really is the person we said he was.

Cross posted at Bobby Jindal is Bad.

The Nation has a must read article about Bobby Jindal called The Jindal Mystique. At first, when you start reading it, you might think “what are you talking about, this sounds like another Jindal fluff piece”. But once you think that this article will just be a “lets praise the wunderkind”, they throw a very refreshing curveball:

Perhaps because the media have fixated on Jindal’s image, rapid rise and sweeping popularity, they have left his voting and policy records largely unexamined.

This is exactly what I have been saying from day one. No real investigative reporting had been done by Jindal by major media outlets whatsoever. I am impressed that Deepa Fernandes not only mentions this but also takes the time to actually discuss his record.

Countless articles have sung the praises of this “wunderkind”–who changed his name from Piyush to Bobby (he was a fan of the youngest boy on The Brady Bunch) and converted from Hinduism to Catholicism–yet few have delved into the “whip smart” governor’s ideology.

Exactly!

Jindal also initiated cuts to the healthcare system that made it much harder for doctors to treat poor patients.

Again, what I have been saying since day one.

The only thing the article is missing is the actual failure of Jindal to bring meaningful ethics reform to Louisiana and that the office of the Governor is the least transparent in the nation. However, there is much more time to write more articles.

Cross posted at the ressurected Jindal is Bad.

That’s right, after all of his grandstanding on how government needs to be more transparent, about how there needs to be increased disclosure and stronger ethics laws in the state of Louisiana… Governor Jindal’s office ranks dead last nationwide when it comes to transparency.

S.B. 363, a bill about the Louisiana Youth Advisory, includes an amendment to exclude any records in Jindal’s hands from the open records law.

Let me repeat this for all the Jindal supporters who still are grasping on to the hope that Jindal is a reform candidate. Bobby Jindal, the person who said:

Today, we embark on the single most important endeavor for the future of Louisiana - bringing comprehensive ethics reform and transparency to our state

will now only have to give you his records if he feels like it. You cannot make a public records request for them. You cannot do anything. Our Governor’s office now operates in secrecy. Of course, remember the words of Jimmy Faircloth on why the Governor needs to operate in secrecy.

… the governor’s office opposed the bill because it would create problems for the governor to freely receive ideas, policy recommendations and communications from legislators and others. He also said it would create problems with investors who want to privately negotiate with the state.

It is really hard to orchastrate bribes in the form of campaign donations when you are under public scrutiny after all.  

So now Jindal has his own propaganda machine, can operate in secret without anyone knowing what he is doing, and has a Press Secretary and the rest of his handlers who will make sure that you cannot even talk to him unless they want you to. This is the exciting change that Bobby Jindal was talking about? Seems to me that the “die hard Jindal supporters” where duped! I wonder when they will finally admit it! Seems one one of them already has. Ironically, Trotsky was one of the biggest Jindal supporters who attacked me constantly (and pathetically so I might add) for daring to challenge Jindal’s sincerity on reform. What is also interesting is that the real Trotsky also started a little magazine called “Pravda”. It all comes full circle.

In another example of Jindal’s hypocrisy, he will allow people in the executive branch to have pay raises while not allowing the legislature to have their pay raises. Does this sound familiar? Of course it does! Jindal has shown many times that the standards he sets for the legislature are not the same standards that he sets for “his branch” of government.

Oyster has called out the “pay raise zealots” and challenged them to stand up on this issue as well. However, from what I heard this morning on WWL on my drive in, I am unsure if that will happen. One caller said how Jindal has only been in office for 6 months and “should be given a chance”. Of course, had nobody taken action and they just gave Jindal “a chance”, he would not have used his veto power on the legislative pay raise either. And while some callers have called in to voice some outrage, you just don’t hear the passion on this issue as you did with the legislators raise. I hope I am wrong and that the people will continue their outrage (even though I don’t expect Jindal to be swayed from giving “his people” raises).