Bobby Jindal’s Exclusive Club

As Jindal continues his delusional national quest to earn a spot as a presidential candidate it is important for voters to give him the recognition he deserves as a member of an exclusive GOP candidates club.  He is a proud member of what some refer to as the “Most Hated Governors Club.”  Other honorary members include Scott Walker, and Chris Christie.  Polls show all are rejected by their state residents.

Recent polls also show that Bobby is so despised by Louisianans that if the election were held today, and Hillary Clinton was the opposition, she would carry deep red Louisiana.   Bobby Jindal couldn’t ever deliver his home state for the Republicans.  Of course Bobby ‘s excuse for this catastrophic reality is that he had to make some unpopular decisions when he cut the fat at the state level reducing the state budget by over 26%, as he recently bragged on national news.

 

However, Bobby must be in need of some Common Core math because according to the Cato Institute which just published a report on state governors’ fiscal spending habits, that 26% number is substantially exaggerated.  Most of the money that Bobby claims as evidence of his reduction in the size of our state budget came from the drying up of Katrina federal funds which had little to do with Jindal’s frugality.

But let’s give credit where credit is due.  After the Katrina funds adjustment, the Cato Institute did give Jindal credit for an actual 7% reduction in state spending.  And he is the only GOP governor competing for a presidential nod that did this.  Of course these results mainly came about through draconian cuts to health care and education funding while at the same time increasing the costs for outside legal and consultants’ contracts.  This behavior was coupled with inaction with regard to reducing tax breaks for favored businesses and special interest entities.  Jindal deserves an ‘F’ for his failure to reduce any of these costs. 

Sadly, part of being a good politician is the ability to self-promote by distorting the facts and Bobby Jindal ranks right up there with the best of them; and he needs to, because he is running almost dead last. 

Covert agenda: Divert attention, hide the mess

History is too important to be denied.

You’ve got to give it to the mayor of New Orleans and the City Council; they know how to work the crowd.

Mitch Landrieu governs a city with dilapidated infrastructures that rival those of some third world countries, and has the distinction of having the 4^th highest murder rate in the U.S. for 2014.  His city is on course to break that record for this year.  What a pickle for a mayor.  To deflect the heat, in 2014, Landrieu and the City Council got the citizens of their fine city focused upon the dangers of second hand cigarette smoke on employees in casinos and bars, and began their health campaign to eliminate that evil.  The city council and Landrieu spent months debating this issue.
 

Finally, the issue was settled.  The ban was put into effect in early 2015 and the realities of the city; the crime rate, bad streets, the inadequate sewerage system, and the ever increasing homeless population took center stage once again. 

Landrieu and the Council needed another diversion fast, an even bigger one than the smoking ban.  Suddenly a horrendous racial-hate crime at a church occurred, giving Landrieu yet another opportunity for a reality-deflection. 

In response he proposed the removal of four prominent southern heritage monuments from the city that he claimed pays homage to a despicable time in our country’s history. 

Landrieu was successful, public outcry swelled and has progressed to an endorsement of his plan by the city’s Historic District Landmark Commission.

So far the proposal has served as quite a successful diversion tactic.  The crime rate and the other third world conditions in New Orleans have almost completely dropped off the radar; beneficial not only for Landrieu  but also for the New Orleans Convention and Business Bureau along with the state tourism bureau.

The reality is, in the past, there have been several southern racial-hate crimes involving confederate symbols in our country, some involving the same church as the latest one; yet no previous outcry in New Orleans to bury the statues.  Apparently their timing wasn’t quite right from Landrieu’s view point.

The really sad part about all this façade of political correctness is the fact that the mob mentality doesn’t even understand that the statue that received the most vocalization for its removal, Robert E. Lee, at Lee’s Circle, honors  a man who was quite an outstanding Southern general sympathetic to the abolishment of slavery.   Professor Milton Pressley enlightened my ignorance of this fact along with some other distinguished accomplishments of Lee.

In fact, Lee was opposed to slavery, and freed his inherited slaves.  After the war he stated, “I am rejoiced that slavery is abolished.”   He also served as president of the college later to become Washington and Lee University in Virginia.  He was nationally respected as evidenced by his appearances on two U.S. postage stamps and his selection for inclusion in the Hall of Fame for Great Americans.

Professor Pressley's most interesting fact included the notion that if this cleansing of all remnants of the confederacy is truly to be successful we’ll have to ditch the name ‘Tigers’ from LSU, for that was a nickname for many military troops from our state during the Civil War.

My suggestion for this newest Mitch Landrieu diversion tactic is to leave history alone and better educate the public by placing plaques on the monuments explaining why each is a part of it.  History is important, for those who do not remember the past will end up making the same mistakes in the future.

Mayor Mitch Landrieu needs to deal with his failed policies of the past and clean up the mess in New Orleans.

Who is presidential material?

We’re off to the races.  Two debates were held Thursday to familiarize the American people with how each of the Republican candidates would lead our country.  After this first round of debates, I was left with a rather scary feeling that we may be facing this next presidential election with no one suitable to lead this country.

On the left it is obvious that Hillary Clinton will emerge as one of the choices.  While Clinton possesses what President Obama has always been accused of lacking, namely, job related experience; she certainly raises questions of presidential material by her aloofness and untrustworthiness coupled with ties to the Bill Clinton baggage.

On the right we have a cadre of candidates who have decided to hang their presidential qualifications on the ‘undoing syndrome.’ In the debates, each vowed to undo the proposed nuclear agreement with Iran, the Common Core Standards, and the Affordable Care Act, known as Obamacare.  Also they vowed to stop Mexican immigrants from crossing the border.  And let’s not forget the latest buzz topic, the defunding of the Planned Parenthood Program.

The solution to the Iran deal was to tear it up.  The solution for the Common Core Standards was to let the states develop their own (Louisiana royally failed at that), and the solution for the Affordable Care Act was to repeal all aspects.  However, while all these ideas pandered to the hot topics of today, I left the debates with emptiness because no viable alternatives were offered to these problems that our country faces. 

After the Iran deal is torn up, what is the alternative to preventing Iran from developing nuclear bomb capabilities?   Once Obamacare is repealed, it’s unclear if and how these candidates  would replace it.  The Republican Party has yet to formulate their own plan to rally behind 5 years after The Affordable Care Act was passed by Congress.

Where was the proposed alternative to Planned Parenthood which is the leading providers of high-quality, affordable health care for over 5 million women, men, and young people world–wide? Do we simply cut off these services?

Although the Mexicans were singled out in the debate as the source of the illegal immigration problem, it was obvious that only one candidate really understood it, for in fact, as he correctly pointed out, immigrants from other countries such as Honduras, Nicaragua, and Guatemala, comprise the largest number of undocumented immigrants crossing the border, not the Mexicans. 

Obviously, with so many candidates time did not allow them to explain their solutions to the pressing problems facing our country.  But no one even stated they had viable replacement solutions after all the ‘undoing.’

 

Hope more substance emerges from the next debate, because right now things aren’t looking very promising for either party’s candidates.