Leftist crackup preparing to plague NO misses diagnosis

The nervous breakdown of the political left has come to Louisiana, courtesy of a planned copycat march/sit-in/camp out/exercise in futility in New Orleans along the lines of the “Occupy Wall Street” mob.

Like its point of origin, whose members have set up shop around the environs of the financial center of the world in New York, this “Occupy New Orleans” bunch appears to be just as disoriented, clueless, and anti-intellectual as the original and its other knockoffs. Let’s hope that this screed of self-indulgence doesn’t turn as racist and destructive of other peoples’ livelihood as some of the others.

One question is how long the voluntarily unemployed, the lazy, and the aging hippies that typically comprise these groups can last if they get this thing in the Central Business District started and keep it going. If they can stand ditching the products of the capitalist system, such as their laptops, digital recorders, cell phones, and the like and actually live in hovels, where will these spoiled children of affluence, if not from their parents, get money to keep it up? In New York, professional trendy progressive groups are donating and collecting money on behalf of the juvenilia, as are labor unions through in-kind infrastructural aid such as organizers and supplying their members as reinforcements. Will similar kind of aid come to the New Orleans rabble?

Another is whether it will have any policy impact, even the most miniscule. In this version, it plans to camp basically across the street from the Federal Reserve Bank branch in New Orleans, one of the branches of the Atlanta District in order to protest ever-chimerical “corporate greed.” Just how situating this in a relative financial backwater compared to the entire world of finance will achieve their ill-defined, nebulous goals no doubt escapes not just anybody who can rub two brain cells together, but also the protesters themselves.

Workers in downtown New Orleans – actual contributors to and producers of benefits society enjoys, unlike the extended summer breakers scheduled to encamp in Lafayette Square – probably for the most part will ignore the spectacle, although some might get a kick out of the roadshow, like when the circus comes through town. In fact, they should see them as an objects pity, due to the self-deceived failing to have the knowledge, intelligence, or wisdom to understand the biggest impediment to however they define “economic justice” is not a system that maximizes the opportunity to contribute to the well-being of all who put forth effort, but is elites in Washington who use government to intervene inappropriately in that system while spouting the same platitudes issued forth by these skulls full of mush ready to descend on New Orleans like locusts.

No joke, naming deal gets Jindal, taxpayers off hook

I guess the joke finally has run its course upon the Louisiana Superdome finally getting naming rights sold, sparing the state and the Gov. Bobby Jindal Administration some small embarrassment and enriching taxpayers.

Some years ago I wrote a satirical piece on the issue. For many years, the state had been trying to sell the naming rights to the facility for some extra revenue. Throughout this period, the state also was paying a subsidy to the New Orleans Saints essentially to keep them in town by defraying operating losses. In that post, I imagined that the state was going to rename the Superdome the Super Bowl, which would bring in extra tax revenues because the National Football League would have to hold the genuine Super Bowl game there every year and invite the Saints. As I observed then, “it’s probably the only way [the Saints] ever will play in the Super Bowl.”

But about the time the real-life Saints cancelled that statement by their win in Super Bowl XLIV, the Jindal Administration was renegotiating the long-standing subsidy deal that had been costing at its conclusion $23 million a year.

Political intrusions on land-use choices unwelcome

Prior to state elections taking the forefront, in Shreveport a series of questions have arisen concerning the political ramifications of normally dull concepts such as corridors, access roads, and state-local relations. Their answers may indicate more attention being paid to political rather than economic and quality-of-life concerns.

Louisiana State Highway 3132, colloquially known as the Inner Loop, presently runs south through Shreveport and Caddo Parish from Interstate 20 ending at Flournoy-Lucas Road, or State Highway 523. (See here for a map.) The general idea held by policy-makers of all governments both state and local was that this road would continue curving to the southeast until it intersected State Highway 1 north of the Port of Caddo-Bossier, or would follow an alternative conception routing it farther south in the hopes of intersecting whatever manifestation of Interstate 69 appears in the next decade and thence to the Port, but either option would continue it from the present intersection.

It also illustrates a complex mix of governmental authority because of the nature of American intrastate governmental relationships.

Hannan's choices showed proper nexus of faith, politics

Particularly wonderfully about the life of Roman Catholic the Most Rev. Archbishop Philip Hannan, he lived long enough to see his beloved Church return to an increased emphasis on the eternal and transcendent and provided a beacon to do so when dealing with the political world.

Hannan, who served as the Archdiocese of New Orleans’ leader for nearly a quarter century, was installed just as the American Church began sliding towards infatuation, still not entirely ended, with the trendy and secular. Yet Hannan, in his pastoral mission, never let what by the 1970s and 1980s had become overemphasis on pursuing a social gospel among many in the Church interfere with living the actual Gospels.

As such in the world of politics, he bore invaluable witness to verities when other Catholics became distracted.

Amusing, but minor candidate wackiness degrades debate

With the likelihood that any of the challengers to Gov. Bobby Jindal could defeat his reelection less than that of the Earth reversing its rotation and its axis of rotation shifting to east-west, since these marginal candidates that in any other contest with more substantial candidates would be ignored almost totally can find much more spotlight, expect their oddities to emerge into full view. Take, for instance, the ranting of one Adroniki “Niki Bird” Papazoglakis.

The social worker running as a Democrat sees a politicized vendetta against her because her nonprofit group, after being considered last month to land a $5,000 stipend to produce a speaker for a seminar sponsored by the state’s Department of Children and Family Services in January, recently was told none would be forthcoming, after she had qualified to run. The unmarried and childless pending graduate degree holder worked as the policy director of the group and was informed budget constraints nixed the offer.

That may be true, but the department additionally stated that the group lacked the proper qualifications to get the award in any event. And, legally, Papazoglakis’ filing for office may have alerted department officials that she disqualified her agency from any kind of participation, as the state ethics code bars that kind of relationship of state government with an elected official who is a principal with an organization receiving such a payment – which, yes, if the Earth’s tilt and spin changed, she could be by early next year.

Blueprint LA's second try may bear more fruit than first

Blueprint Louisiana seems to have learned from its mistakes in 2007, and appear to have made the group more relevant in these upcoming elections, even as it missed an opportunity to increase accountability of some politicians.

The group, which best may be described as pro-reform with an eye on efficient use of government revenues, formed previous to the last election with detailed policy recommendations and invited those running for state office to pledge to follow the agenda. While some candidates accepted, others, particularly the most high-profile, abstained, even though some articulated issue preferences very similar to the group’s. And of some who accepted, a cursory glance at their past records in office made outside observers dubious of these pledges.

Both of these aspects damaged the credibility of the group and so more than being a driver for policy change it ended up as a passenger.

Only Jindal can send right message with Alario rejection

As a grassroots movement begins to gain steam to prevent the naming of state Sen. John Alario, assured of reelection, any hope that this succeeds may rest upon intervention by Gov. Bobby Jindal.

Technically, jockeying for the position only begins officially after elections to the Legislature which likely will end in November, because only then will all Senate members be known with certainty, but unofficially it has gone on for months with Alario emerging as the frontrunner. He is not without qualification, having served as Speaker of the House when in that body over two decades ago, is considered quite knowledgeable given he is completing is 40^th year of elected legislative service, and, as the chamber has trended more conservatively in producing what appears to be a sure Republican majority for next term, so has Alario increasingly been voting in a more conservative direction, which now makes him on the issues a slightly moderate conservative.

But public detractors point out that placing Alario in this position signals acquiescence to displaying an image of the state that runs against the grain of the promise of Louisiana government as efficient and not ethically challenged.

Little competition only delays Caddo flag issue reckoning

Lost in all the excitement about elections qualifications two weeks ago, the Louisiana Supreme Court issued a ruling which may have an impact on the mostly-sleepy, if sparsely-contested, Caddo Parish Commission races next month.

In the middle of that period, the Court ruled on the appeal to overturn the sentence of a convicted murderer because the (Third) Confederate (Battle) Flag flies next to the parish courthouse. Appellants, among other things, argued that having that symbol near the courthouse primed jurors, of whom 11 were white, to levy a verdict of guilty and capital sentence (hence the appeal bypassing the Second Circuit Court of Appeals).

Writing for the unanimous majority, Chief Justice Catherine Kimball affirmed what had been noted in this space previously, that the burden of proof to demonstrate swaying of juror opinions by the flag legally was considerably higher than offered by the defense, which during the trial raised no objections to the flag’s placement.

To please allies, Obama seeks rule change to cost jobs

It turns out that Louisiana has become ground zero of a legal tussle the outcome of which could either promote liberty or empower special interests at the expense of overall economic well-being.

A lawsuit filed by affected businesses of a pending change in the H2-B visa program got postponed last week in federal district court in Alexandria. The change, spurred by a court in Pennsylvania last year, would increase substantially wages of the approximately 66,000 visa holders, who are seasonal workers the employers of which demonstrate there are not enough able and qualified U.S. workers available for the position, and that employing foreign workers will not adversely affect the wages and working conditions of similarly employed U.S. workers.

Just before the Pres. Barack Obama Administration came into power, the Department of Labor issued new guidelines for the hiring and payment of these individuals, subsequently legally challenged by a collection of interest groups with their major contention that the new rules made it too easy to hire foreign workers at the expense of American workers, because they worked at lower (but at or above minimum) wages.

Candidate behavior suggests coming LA lt. gov. change

Lt. Gov. Jay Dardenne cannot feel too inspired about his chances to retain his post, given the direction his campaign rhetoric has headed. At the same time, his opponent Plaquemines Parish Pres. Billy Nungesser has adopted a strategy more indicative of an incumbent than challenger – a status possibly earned given information in the most recent campaign finance reports.

While Dardenne’s past campaigns focused on outlining his qualifications and ideas for (as boring and inconsequential as they are) the jobs for which he ran, increasingly the tone of this one has evolved into criticism of Nungesser and his endorsers. The latest came when, informed by the media about the campaign reporting figures due yesterday showing Nungesser had loaned his campaign a half-million dollars, bringing his total self-loan to $1 million, Dardenne termed that as “an attempt to buy the office,” and proclaimed, as he has never lent himself money for statewide runs, that “my support has always been from people across the state who believe in what I stand for,” through their donations.

But, interestingly, if that is the metric by which Dardenne measures the worth of a candidacy, Nungesser trumps him. In the latest reporting period, Dardenne raised $266,575, while Nungesser in that period topped him by over six figures with $383,155.