Rep. Charles
Boustany’s campaign for the U.S. Senate slid closer to desperation mode in
its reaction to reaction over sketchy claims about the candidate’s personal
comportment.
It all began a week ago when advance copies of a
book came out about past murders of prostitutes in Jefferson Davis Parish. The story
has hung around for nearly three years but the author for the book added
new material alleging that Boustany had received services from prostitutes. No
credible sources have come forward to substantiate this claim.
Also it seems an aide for Boustany worked at a
motel frequented by the prostitutes. The campaign denied prior knowledge of
that about the aide and he left his post after the allegations surfaced.
Never forget that politicians seldom win their elections
because of intelligence. New Orleans provides us a perfect recent example of
enacting do-nothing policy based upon ignorance and lack of logic.
This week Mayor Mitch Landrieu signed
into law an ordinance that requires reporting of stolen firearms, bans handguns
and other dangerous weapons these from city recreational facilities, and
creates a crime of “negligent carrying” of a concealed firearm, triggered when
somebody is placed in “reasonable apprehension” of its discharge or is carried
in a way that also causes this discomfort by someone else. State law already
covers the last and the ban in parks extends current limitations, although
questionably given state
law regarding preemption. In other words, these provisions do next to nothing
relative to what already exists, and would have no impact on crime as criminals
will not have legal handguns in the first place and will brandish them anyway
in commission of crime.
But it’s the reporting requirement, within 48
hours of discovery of theft, that causes the real head-scratching. The thinking
behind it appears to be this prevents unscrupulous owners from selling weapons
to criminals and then by asserting past theft of these disclaiming any responsibility
for aiding in commission of a crime if the weapons turn up at the scene.
Just as natural as Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards
wanting to raise taxes, so are complaints
about the federal government’s role and response to natural disasters such
as the flooding inundating the Baton Rouge region last month. It helps to
understand just what obligations it should have in order to gauge what should happen.
As immediate rescue gives way to recovery, some
state elected officials have begun lamenting what they see as slow federal
government action. Even Democrat Edwards, knowing that any criticism reflects
upon a Democrat Pres. Barack Obama
administration, has begun cautious chiding of the pace of the Federal Emergency
Management Administration and the American
Red Cross, contracted with the federal government to provide relief
activities. A few others, mostly mayors of affected municipalities, have joined
him and voiced trepidation that Congress
will not move fast enough nor sufficiently far enough to repair matters.
Herein lies the confusion. Up until the hurricane
disasters of 2005, the ethos of government responsibility for acts of nature
never included the notion that government should make people whole. Instead, it
would provide transitory assistance for individuals and long-term aid to
rebuild public infrastructure, but people would have to rely upon their own
good sense to live lifestyles that anticipated the odd tragedy here or there
and thusly to husband resources to compensate if and when that time came.
Maybe I should rename this blog from “Between the
Lines” to a phrase out of the James Bond ouevre
“Tomorrow’s
News Today.” Because that’s what it suggested around two-and-a-half years
ago concerning shenanigans going on within the justice of the peace system in
Louisiana.
That piece
focused mainly on the activities of Tony Thomassie, former constable for the
Jefferson Parish Second Justice Court, who for nearly 30 years racked up
enormous fees for apparently doing not a lot of work. But the way the system
works, where a constable serves a justice of the peace – Louisiana’s small
claims court – a JP has to sign orders and make judgments to generate
revenue-raising opportunities for constables, although some parishes like
Jefferson additionally pay their JPs and constables a set salary.
In the last years of Thomassie’s reign, who in
2014 was voted out of office after reports of his high take-home pay and
frequent sighting in bars in and around Marrero surfaced, Patrick DeJean held
the JP office in that district. The two tangoed to produce regularly
six-figure-plus annual revenues, even as other districts in urban areas, some
with much larger populations, came in with revenues only a fraction of that
size.
Keep the grains of salt handy when evaluating a recent
report
claiming to tie in last month’s heavy
rains in the Baton Rouge area that caused extensive flooding to significant anthropogenic
climate change. If you don’t believe me, that’s the judgment coming from the
report itself.
These researchers, including some who have peddled
the hypothesis in various forms for many years, came together to issue a “rapid
attribution study” that alleges the odds of a “50-year” storm in reality have
dropped to more like occurring every 30 years because of man-made global
warming. Intended for publication in a scientific journal, this kind of submission,
in the authors’ words, “arises from the current intense public discussion that
results from the significant societal impacts of this particular event” reporting
results recently after an extreme event may enhance the societal understanding
of climate change and extreme weather, and provide often requested information
for management decisions following the event.”
In other words, don’t let a crisis go to waste:
appropriate it as fodder to advance the data- and theoretically-challenged
man-made global warming crusade. Even if this effort really cannot do that: as
the authors note, “specific scientific statements for the event as observed in
south Louisiana cannot be made based on general assessments of the connection
of global warming and extreme rainfall.”
A new report adds impetus to the idea that Louisiana
can save money by rearranging resources in correctional policy.
Last week my column
for The Advocate noted how greater
reliance upon private operation of state prisons could save the state money,
contrary to the budgetary decision this year that cut reimbursement to private
operators. By doing that, those operators need no longer provide rehabilitative
and treatment programs, on par with local facilities holding state prisoners
that receive the same $24.39 per day per inmate. About half of all state
prisoners at any given time serve time in a local facility, but fewer than half
of those institutions provide this kind of programming standard in state
lockups.
The value of such programs a recent audit
from the Louisiana Legislative Auditor emphasized, which said that a
comparative study with other states showed increased usage of these could save
an unknown amount of money by reducing recidivism generally, but specifically an
expanded re-entry program would save $14 million annually. Currently the state
pays for nine regional centers to provide the 100-hour course as well as
funding other for some other local initiatives.
North Louisiana’s hopes of sending one of its own
to Washington to serve as a U.S. Senator for the first time in two decades
looks increasingly dim, according to the latest
poll of that contest.
A joint effort between the website The Hayride and
Remington Research found Republican state Treasurer John Kennedy leading the field with 27
percent, with north Louisiana’s Public Service Commissioner Democrat Foster Campbell a distant 11
points behind, followed closely by Republican Rep. Charles Boustany and lawyer and
former statewide candidate Democrat Caroline
Fayard. Northwest Louisiana Rep. John Fleming, 2014 Senate
candidate Rob Maness, and white supremacist
and 1990 Senate candidate David Duke,
all Republicans, lag around each other in the middle single digits.
The race’s future jumps out from these numbers: it’s
Kennedy’s to lose. As things stand, only those in double-digit territory as of
now have a chance to join him in the runoff, and the dynamics show they have
little chance of defeating him. The poll’s only heads-up match with him and
Campbell showed him over 50 percent with Campbell garnering barely half of the
remaining electorate. As for the others, another indicator shows they would have
great difficulty in eating into Kennedy’s current support: he pulls in higher support
than any of them across all of Republicans, Democrats, and independents.
If you make a bluff, you don’t need to fold at the
first hint of trouble. Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries Secretary
Charlie Melancon seems to know that as he continues
to place obstacles in the way of giving the state’s citizens more control
over one of its natural resources in the hopes of winning the hand.
H.R.
3094 by Republican Rep. Garret Graves
would transfer authority to manage red snapper from the federal government to a
consortium of states. Until earlier this year, every state stakeholder of
Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas supported the bill, which
they called necessary to ensure more vigorous and inclusive management of the
species.
Then Democrat Gov. John Bel Edwards
took office and named Melancon, a former Democrat congressman and lobbyist who
runs in the same political circles as Edwards, to head up the agency. The
secretary runs it administratively while the gubernatorial-appointed Wildlife
and Fisheries Commission makes policy – which voted to support the bill that
Edwards and Melancon then proceeded to announce opposition to it.
