Bobby Jindal
Wednesday, May 16, 2012
Guy who famously wanted to drown government in bathtub endorses Jindal for VP
Posted by Kevin Allman on Wed, May 16, 2012 at 2:30 PM
- GAGE SKIDMORE
- Grover Norquist at the at Conservative Political Action Conference.
Politico has Norquist's essay:
Romney would do well to have a wing man who can astutely explain the flaws in President Barack Obama’s policies and lay out the GOP’s innovative, pro-growth alternatives. There are many attractive prospects out there, but Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal can do not just all that, he has already implemented the sort of bold reforms at the state level that are now desperately needed at the federal level.
Last week, the Associated Press reported Louisiana's budget deficit is now $220 million.
Wednesday, May 9, 2012
Obama endorses same-sex marriage
Posted by Kevin Allman on Wed, May 9, 2012 at 2:41 PM
"I have to tell you that over the course of several years as I have talked to friends and family and neighbors when I think about members of my own staff who are in incredibly committed monogamous relationships, same-sex relationships, who are raising kids together, when I think about those soldiers or airmen or marines or sailors who are out there fighting on my behalf and yet feel constrained, even now that Don't Ask Don't Tell is gone, because they are not able to commit themselves in a marriage, at a certain point I’ve just concluded that for me personally it is important for me to go ahead and affirm that I think same sex couples should be able to get married."
On Sunday's Meet the Press, Vice President Joe Biden also expressed his support of both same-sex marriage and the sitcom Will and Grace.
In 2004, Louisiana voted to amend its Constitution to explicitly say marriage is "the union of one man and one woman." — a position consistently echoed by Republican Gov. Bobby Jindal. Other leading Republicans, including former First Lady Laura Bush and former Vice President Dick Cheney, have spoken in support of same-sex marriage.
Earlier this year, at the winter meeting of the U.S. Conference of Mayors, more than 80 mayors of U.S. cities signed the Freedom to Marry pledge in support of same-sex marriage rights. Democratic Mayor Mitch Landrieu was not among them. Asked by Gambit's Alex Woodward whether Landrieu supported same-sex marriage, administration spokesman Ryan Berni said Landrieu supported civil unions, but would not elaborate on Freedom to Marry.
Monday, April 23, 2012
InTrade dubious on Jindal
Posted by Kevin Allman on Mon, Apr 23, 2012 at 3:59 PM
InTrade, the online speculation site, has a prediction market underway offering odds on who will be the vice-presidential pick of presumptive GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney. Tops at the moment: Ohio Sen. Rob Portman and Fla. Sen. Marco Rubio, both trending around 18 percent. From there, the field drops sharply — N.J. Gov. Chris Christie is in third, at 10 percent.
Where's Gov. Bobby Jindal? Somewhere at the bottom of the "legit" pack at 2.6 percent. Good thing he's said he's not interested in the job — this time around, at least.
Friday, April 20, 2012
Bobby and the Big Apple
Posted by Kevin Allman on Fri, Apr 20, 2012 at 4:10 PM
How did the 45-minute speech (before dinner!) go? Take it away, Reid Pillifant of Capital New York:
Some people liked it."Bobby Jindal is inspirational," said Carl Paladino, the party's last gubernatorial nominee, after the speech. "He's rocking."
Others seemed less inspired. As the speech wore on, Jindal's applause lines drew less and less of a response, and tables broke out into their own visible side conversations, while Jindal joked about how the vacuums used to clean up after the Deepwater Horizon spill were the same ones used to empty "port-o-potties after a football game on a Friday night."
Dinner waited in the wings until he finished, right around the 45-minute mark.
"I can assure you that I will speak shorter than our prior speakers, because the food is here," said State Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos when he finally took to the podium, to laughs and cheers.
$5,000 may seem steep for dinner, but then again, it's dinner in New York. Heck, even in the East Village, two measly pounds of crawfish will put you back $30. But you don't get a copy of Leadership in Crisis with the mudbugs.
EDITED TO ADD: Charles Maldonado points out this account of the evening from Newsday. After reading it, it sounds like Jindal went on too long, which is excusable, and that the hosts were breathtakingly rude, which is not:And, after a dinner break and Jindal’s departure, the next two speakers made pointed references. “I’m going to speak a little shorter than the prior speaker,” Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos (R-Rockville Centre) said -- generating applause. “My father gave me some great advice, too,” Assembly Minority Leader Brian Kolb (R-Canandaigua), said referring to a part of Jindal’s speech. “Be brief and be gone.” Jindal’s team placed copies of his book, “Leadership and Crisis,” on the chairs throughout the Sheraton ballroom. Afterward, some New York Republicans joked about trying to give their copy away.
Thursday, April 19, 2012
The oil disaster, two years later: seafood, human health in jeopardy
Posted by Alex Woodward on Thu, Apr 19, 2012 at 1:15 PM
Two long, essential reads spell out the still burning impact of the BP oil disaster, two years after the Deepwater Horizon rig explosion killed 11 men and sent millions of gallons of oil and chemicals into the Gulf of Mexico for months.
For Al Jazeera, Dahr Jamail looks at crustacean and fish populations in the Gulf and makes disturbing finds — seafood with tumors, lesions and deformities.
A statement to Al Jazeera from Gov. Bobby Jindal's office reads, "Gulf seafood has consistently tested lower than the safety thresholds established by the FDA for the levels of oil and dispersant contamination that would pose a risk to human health. ... Louisiana seafood continues to go through extensive testing to ensure that seafood is safe for human consumption. More than 3,000 composite samples of seafood, sediment and water have been tested in Louisiana since the start of the spill."
Except those thresholds are far lower than the amounts consumed in Louisiana. The FDA guidelines represent a national average, not a regional one.
Wednesday, April 18, 2012
Jindal outed as supporting Crowe's segregation bill
Posted by Clancy DuBos on Wed, Apr 18, 2012 at 12:41 AM
For several weeks now I’ve been calling out Gov. Bobby Jindal to take a stand on the controversial “discrimination” bill filed by Sen. A.G. Crowe of St. Tammany. Crowe’s SB 217 would bar state agencies from protecting classes of people who are not already protected under state law. Jindal finally showed his hand — quietly — in the Senate debate of Crowe’s bill on Tuesday. Aides to the governor passed out notes to senators asking them to support Crowe’s bill.
“Please support SB 217,” the note from “Office of the Governor” read. “This bill provides relative to discrimination regarding certain public contracts including the limitation of categories for nondiscrimination purposes.”
After an hour of debate, senators voted instead to return the bill to the calendar, which defers but does not kill the measure. It could come back up at any time. Still, returning the bill to the calendar marks one of the few times this session that Jindal did not get his way with lawmakers. I doubt that will hurt him nearly as much as the national publicity that is certain to come if he tries to “go national” after this.
Friday, April 6, 2012
George Will: Jindal for VP
Posted by Kevin Allman on Fri, Apr 6, 2012 at 3:47 PM
Citing what he sees as President Barack Obama’s “intellectual sociopathy — his often breezy and sometimes loutish indifference to truth,” venerable Washington Post columnist and Sunday-morning talking head George F. Will suggested today that presumptive GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney should look at Gov. Bobby Jindal to round out the Republican ticket.
“Romney’s running mate should have intellectual firepower, born of immersion in policy complexities, sufficient to refute Obama’s meretricious claims and derelictions of duty,” Will wrote, suggesting Jindal and Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wisc., would be good picks for the veep slot. “Romney’s choice of running mate should promise something Washington now lacks — adult supervision,” Will concluded. (A commenter riposted: “As a Democrat, I would love to see either Ryan or Jindal on the ticket.”)
Despite his widespread fundraising around the country, Jindal has repeatedly said he has no designs on any position on the GOP ticket — at least, not in 2012.
Tuesday, April 3, 2012
Press release: Mental health clinic faces closure, blames new Medicaid billing system
Posted by Charles Maldonado on Tue, Apr 3, 2012 at 2:55 PM
I interviewed Michael and Cecilia McNeil — CEO and COO/CFO, respectively, of the Guidance Center in Chalmette — a few weeks ago for our story about ongoing operating issues with Clinical Advisor. Clinical Advisor, you may remember, is the new web-based Medicaid database and claims processing software provided to mental health rehabilitation centers throughout Louisiana by state contractor Magellan Health Services, the company coordinating the Louisiana Behavioral Health Partnership.
The McNeils said that between an inability to process claims — for which they received an advance payment from the company — and new state rules prohibiting billing for phone services, they were losing money and having to cut back.
"As of last Saturday, we've cancelled paid time off, holiday pay, licensure supervision [paying for staff member licensure training]," he says. "And effective the end of this month, our health insurance and life insurance policies will be canceled. ..."The clients we serve now have a better safety net than our employees."
Today, they're informing us, they face imminent closure, which they claim is a direct result of the new Medicaid system. Read their press release after the jump.
Friday, March 30, 2012
Legal analyis finds Jindal-backed state pension changes are likely unconstitutional
Posted by Charles Maldonado on Fri, Mar 30, 2012 at 1:59 PM
Via Louisiana Voice
A legal analysis of Gov. Bobby Jindal's state employee pension overhauls, commissioned by the Louisiana Legislative Auditor, has found that, if passed, the bills are likely to be challenged in court and that the challengers are likely to win.
From the report:
The challenges would most likely allege violations under: (1) Article X, § 29 of the Louisiana Constitution, which protects public pension benefits, (2) the Contract Clause within both the Louisiana and U.S. Constitutions (claiming contract impairment due to diminished benefits); (3) the Takings Clause of both the Louisiana and U.S. Constitutions (for divesting public employee benefits without just compensation); (4) the Due Process Clauses of both the Louisiana Constitution'* and the Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution (for depriving employees' of property rights without dueprocess); and (5) 42 U.S.C. § 1983 against public officials for enforcing unconstitutional laws.
Tom Aswell of Louisiana Voice highlights this quote further down in the report:
The former notion that pension benefits were a voluntary gift from the employer (and thus subject to revision or termination at the employer's sole discretion) has since yielded to an understanding that pension benefits comprise an essential component of public employee compensation and that public employees have a significant contractual interest in these benefits.
Jindal's "reform" plan aims to increase retirement age to 67 from 55, raise employee contributions by three percent, change the formula now used to calculate retirement pay (lowering the pay in most cases) and merge the Louisiana School Employees' Retirement System with the Teachers' Retirement System of Louisiana.
Read the full analysis by Dallas-based law firm Strasburger and Price here (39 page PDF): 00028CB2.pdf
‘Reforms’ in need of reform
Posted by Clancy DuBos on Fri, Mar 30, 2012 at 1:50 PM
After four years of touting ethics “reforms” that were largely window dressing, Gov. Bobby Jindal finally acknowledges that his “gold standard” needs some polishing. Jindal is backing a handful of bills in the current legislative session to tweak the 2008 changes that he rammed through a special session with little opposition and even less thoughtful analysis.
Most of Jindal’s bills are good ideas, but some of them, typically, don’t go far enough. State Rep. Tim Burns, R-Mandeville, is handling Jindal’s proposals via House Bills 942, 950 and 955.
The Public Affairs Research Council of Louisiana (PAR), which has been a leading advocate of reform for decades, recently published a 36-page analysis of the state’s ethics and campaign finance laws. PAR makes more than a dozen recommendations that Jindal and lawmakers should heed. It’s not light reading, but the study’s focus goes to the heart of governmental integrity. PAR’s suggestions include:
• Clearly define the authority of the state Board of Ethics and the Ethics Adjudicatory Board. This problem was created by Jindal’s 2008 “reforms.”
The governor effectively gutted the ethics board in ’08 by shifting its “adjudicatory” authority to administrative law judges (ALJs) who answer to a Jindal appointee. Before those changes, the ethics board functioned as investigator, prosecutor, judge and jury. Now the ALJs are the judges and the ethics board is the prosecutor. That’s fine, but the lines of authority and jurisdiction are fuzzy — especially in cases involving campaign finance law violations.
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