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

Conservatives, rest easy: no spoiler scenario

Dude, get some rest.

Recently the invaluable The Hayride’s editor Scott McKay published some musings about next year’s governor’s election. In it, he admitted that he suffered disturbed sleep over the possibility that an outsider non-conservative candidate could win that contest.

He sketched a scenario where somebody not ideologically conservative like wealthy businessman Jim Bernhard – in the past rumored as a candidate for statewide office and who briefly fronted Louisiana’s Democrats – would get in the contest as an independent, use a theme of government dysfunction (part a consequence of the state’s populist history and political culture, part a reflection of events over the past three years where Democrat Gov. John Bel Edwards has insisted on continuing this despite electoral and societal trends heading in the opposite direction) and declare himself the antithesis to that, dump a lot of money in the race, and find a way to win, acing out a conservative.

The Press-Herald column, Jul. 11, 2018

Discretionary spending needs more transparency
http://press-herald.com/discretionary-spending-needs-more-transparency/

Links:
https://www.ktbs.com/news/3investigates/thousands-of-local-taxpayer-dollars-go-to-non-government-groups/article_fb33c398-7bdc-11e8-ae59-3f36305c5ed9.html
https://bloximages.newyork1.vip.townnews.com/ktbs.com/content/tncms/assets/v3/editorial/e/5f/e5f4bfc0-7be4-11e8-b657-673759c09ec7/5b36a7602903c.pdf.pdf
https://bloximages.newyork1.vip.townnews.com/ktbs.com/content/tncms/assets/v3/editorial/1/cb/1cb05e48-7be5-11e8-b322-776c29472438/5b36a78359b23.pdf.pdf
https://bloximages.newyork1.vip.townnews.com/ktbs.com/content/tncms/assets/v3/editorial/2/f6/2f6f1d58-7be5-11e8-a116-d3e0d4d02c5a/5b36a7a0cb896.pdf.pdf

Overspending, overtaxing thwart LA budgeting

To answer the question posed by a recent news article, no, Louisiana’s budget isn’t really sound.

That disagrees with the sentiments of Democrat Gov. John Bel Edwards, who after the Legislature voted to reinstitute for seven years 0.45 percent of sales tax at the beginning of the month – keeping Louisiana’s the highest aggregated in the country – asserted fiscal problems solved now and so he couldn’t wait to start spending on raises and doling out largesse. And that’s the very reason he’s wrong.

Of course, since Edwards promised a permanent resolution where revenues kept up with expenditures but instead he produced a temporary solution that detracts from economic growth – according to Pelican Institute numbers the increase will shave $156 million off the state’s annual gross domestic product and cost over 2,500 jobs – he has to paint stripes on a zebra and call it a horse. Simply, Louisiana’s fiscal structure sets it on auto-pilot that, with politicians’ cooperation, produces eternally spending escalation faster that revenue growth.

Policies, not history, indicate Edwards' fate

My Baton Rouge Advocate colleague got it right, but for the wrong reason.

At the beginning of the month, Mark Ballard wrote a piece arguing that Democrat Gov. John Bel Edwards faces some headwinds in gaining reelection next year. A review of his accomplishments and the numbers certainly bear that out.

Edwards mostly has flopped on his agenda and can tick off only two things of significance achieved in his 30 months: Medicaid expansion and criminal justice reform. At best, the voting public will perceive the former as shooting par. Some have benefitted from that redistribution of wealth, but the extra taxes raised to pay for it and contrasted with the rapidly escalating health insurance costs borne by those paying those additional taxes will resent the burden placed upon them – courtesy of the same law. More likely, in net terms it will cost him votes.

The Advocate column, Jul. 8, 2018

Amoroso's death highlights need for needs better bike safety enforcement in Louisiana 
https://www.theadvocate.com/baton_rouge/opinion/jeff_sadow/article_69c29f26-8053-11e8-909c-8bb1cac58d21.html

Links:
https://www.theadvocate.com/baton_rouge/opinion/our_views/article_5f40c18a-7e0b-11e8-83c3-2f33e2582cf9.html
https://bikeleague.org/sites/default/files/BFS2017_ReportCard_Louisiana.pdf
http://wwwsp.dotd.la.gov/Inside_LaDOTD/Divisions/Multimodal/Highway_Safety/Bicycle_Ped/Pages/MasterPlan.aspx
http://house.louisiana.gov/housefiscal/DOCS_APPBudgetMeetings2016/Dec6_Responses/Department%20of%20Transportation%20and%20Development%20-%20Agency%20Response.pdf
https://stateofobesity.org/adult-obesity/
http://www.legis.la.gov/legis/law.aspx?d=670621
http://www.legis.la.gov/legis/law.aspx?d=88177
http://www.legis.la.gov/legis/law.aspx?d=88178
http://www.legis.la.gov/legis/Law.aspx?d=88028