Lame, retread move against monuments to fail

If you’re going to use a lawyer to keep you out of the slammer, at least have one who pays a bit more attention to the law and somewhat less to proselytizing with weak argumentation.

It turns out a convicted felon in East Feliciana Parish got caught with a handgun in his possession. Often, these cases end up handled by a public defender, but this guy somehow drew the services of Niles Haymer, at present best known for defending his brother Nathan after Southern University fired the latter for activities as band director, now subject of a lawsuit.

This recent headline-grabber overshadows Niles Haymer’s past remonstrations about Confederate monuments here and there across Louisiana. Last year, Haymer posted an article on a website prone to playing with a forced deck full of the race card, in which he decried that so many (actually, only a handful of) courthouses in Louisiana have Confederate memorials of some sort around them. He specifically mentioned trying one of his first cases in East Feliciana Parish and noting its rebel monument.

The Press-Herald column, Jul. 18, 2018

Will the Democrats make gains in Louisiana?
http://press-herald.com/will-the-democrats-make-gains-in-louisiana/

Links:
https://www.theadvocate.com/baton_rouge/opinion/mark_ballard/article_290ec43e-8137-11e8-8177-630f13fd37cb.html
https://voterportal.sos.la.gov/Graphical
http://house.louisiana.gov/H_Reps/H_Reps_ByName.aspx
http://jeffsadow.blogspot.com/2017/10/cultural-change-explains-la-turnout.html

St. George, expansion studies come up short

Just as they did with a study of the financial impact of Medicaid expansion in Louisiana, a pair of researchers threw another gutterball when reviewing projected finances of the planned City of St. George.

Earlier this year, Louisiana State University faculty members James Richardson and Jared Llorens, with another academician, produced a study at the behest of the Gov. John Bel Edwards Administration purporting to show a net economic benefit to expansion. But the analysis completely ignored the cost side and made errors in the revenue picture, both in terms of the data used and not accurately accounting for federal policies.

This produced a misleading picture and, even using its own flawed methodology, would predict in a few years that expansion would serve as a drain on state finances. Of course, rather than sloppiness or bias it’s entirely possible that whatever contract the authors signed with the Edwards Administration limited them in a way, such as in not including costs, that preordained the results casting its policy in a favorable light.

NO losers can't accept valid, rational vote

Losers, get over it.

Ever since public revelation about individuals paid to advocate for an Entergy New Orleans project at City Council meetings, those against it have tried to reverse the decision. That involved building a new natural gas generation plant in the city; opponents wanted that scrapped in favor of increased transmission from outside the city and more emphasis on solar collection by the utility inside city limits.

In February, a Council panel approved of the company’s request. In March, the entire Council ratified that.

The Advocate column, Jul. 15, 2018

Would Louisiana students really fare better at out-of-state schools if we defunded TOPS? 
https://www.theadvocate.com/baton_rouge/opinion/jeff_sadow/article_0ca70258-85ff-11e8-8958-5326744647ae.html

Links:
http://www.theadvocate.com/baton_rouge/news/politics/legislature/article_32cea888-6cf4-11e8-942e-ff06f2ae96e6.html
http://www.theadvocate.com/baton_rouge/news/politics/legislature/article_691aea10-781f-11e8-8977-b794c0d68f3b.html
https://www.osfa.la.gov/tops_Opportunity.html
https://scholarships.ua.edu/types/out-of-state.php
https://financialaid.ua.edu/cost/
http://www.lsu.edu/financialaid/cost/undergraduate_cost.php
http://www.lsu.edu/financialaid/types_of_scholarships/entering_freshman_scholarships/index-1.php
https://www.act.org/content/dam/act/unsecured/documents/P_19_199999_S_S_N00_ACT-GCPR_Louisiana.pdf
https://regents.la.gov/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/2017-TOPS-Annual-Report.pdf
https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d16/tables/dt16_333.90.asp
http://jeffsadow.blogspot.com/2017/08/idea-tops-significantly-keeps-la.html
http://admissions.tamu.edu/freshman/admitted
https://tea.texas.gov/WorkArea/linkit.aspx?LinkIdentifier=id&ItemID=25769807085&libID=25769807088