Showing posts with label John Bel Edwards. Show all posts
Showing posts with label John Bel Edwards. Show all posts

Tuesday, March 1, 2016

ATTENTION MY FELLOW LOUISIANIANS!

The next time your right-wing family member or former high school classmate posts a status update or tweet about how taxing the rich or increasing workers' wages kills jobs and makes businesses leave the state, I want you to send them this article.

The reason Gov. Dayton was able to radically transform Minnesota's economy into one of the best in the nation is simple arithmetic. Raising taxes on those who can afford to pay more will turn a deficit into a surplus. Raising the minimum wage will increase the median income. And in a state where education is a budget priority and economic growth is one of the highest in the nation, it only makes sense that more businesses would stay.
Here in Louisiana, we can only dream of such actions by the governor and legislature in our state. Our new Gov. John Bel Edwards is trying to lift the state out of the mire after 8 years of plunder by former Gov. Bobby Jindal and a compliant legislature, but he faces resistance from the legislature even in his attempts to fill the budget gap to keep the state functioning this fiscal year. No governor of Loulsiana would dare aim so high as Gov. Dayton, because we all know nothing like that will happen here any time soon.

Note that the headline at Huffington Post indicates Mark Dayton is a billionaire, who cares more about the people of Minnesota than about increasing his billions.

Monday, January 11, 2016

A NEW DAY IN LOUISIANA - GOVERNOR JOHN BEL EDWARDS


Today is Monday, January 11, 2016, and inauguration day for Governor John Bel Edwards. All good wishes and blessings to our new governor and his family.   The other Edwards, Edwin, (no relation) was there on the platform, looking good, along with other previous governors, Kathleen Blanco, Buddy Roemer, and, of course, Bobby Jindal. Bye-bye, Bobby.

I noted that in the oath of office of the newly elected officials, support for the laws of the US Constitution is mentioned before the support of the laws of the Louisiana Constitution, indicating that Louisiana is indeed still part of the United States of America.

Edwards offered hope to citizens of Louisiana after eight dispiriting and depressing years of governorship by Jindal, but he did not mince words about the difficulty of lifting the state out of the morass into which the previous governor and legislature left Louisiana.  I view the members of the previous legislature, with exceptions, of course, as complicit, because Jindal could not have plundered Louisiana without their cooperation.   I hope the next legislature, which includes many Jindal supporters, will be willing to lay aside their differences and cooperate with the new governor to rebuild institutions and programs that were destroyed during Jindal's eight years in office.

As Governor Edwards said:

The breeze of hope that got us here today will also drive a current of change as mighty as the Mississippi. But this river can't flow unless the breeze continues. We must put action before idleness, unity before party, and citizenship before self in order to put Louisiana first.
The text of Edwards' inaugural address may be found here.

Tuesday, November 24, 2015

JOHN BEL EDWARDS (D) ELECTED GOVERNOR OF LOUISIANA


State Rep. John Bel Edwards beat Republican U.S. Sen. David Vitter in Saturday's election, marking a change in the political landscape in the conservative South.

Edwards will be the only Democratic governor in the Deep South, where Republicans dominate politically.

You could almost have predicted the outcome of the race based on the candidates' election night parties. Sen. David Vitter was set up at a hotel near the airport, while John Bel Edwards lodged in the historic Monteleone Hotel in the French Quarter.
NPR's analogy of the choice of hotels for election parties as predictive of the outcome of the election is brilliant.  Goodbye, David Vitter.  Though Vitter will be in the US Senate till January 2016, he said he will not run for another term.  The final count showed Edwards with a 12 percent lead, 56-44.

We are so pleased John Bel Edwards won the election for governor by a large margin, and David Vitter was soundly trounced. Fear-mongering, lying, spying, and running a generally nasty campaign don't always win elections. Edwards will take on an enormous challenge in cleaning up the mess he inherits from Bobby Jindal, beginning with the $1.4 billion budget gap the governor and the Louisiana Legislature will need to address. We wish him the best.

Wednesday, November 11, 2015

LOUISIANA GUBERNATORIAL ELECTION NOT GOING THE WAY VITTER EXPECTED



Louisiana's own Bob Mann writes masterfully in Salon of the race for governor in Louisiana.
Then, a strange thing happened on Vitter’s stroll to the Louisiana governor’s mansion. In the state’s Oct. 24 primary (candidates of all parties run in a so-called “open primary”), Vitter nearly missed the Nov. 21 runoff election. He earned only 23 percent of the vote, trailing his lone Democratic opponent, state Rep. John Bel Edwards, by 17 points.
....

Last Friday, Edwards released an explosive new spot alleging that Vitter missed a Feb. 27, 2001, U.S. House vote honoring slain American soldiers while he waited on a phone call from a prostitute. It was the first time anyone had credibly suggested that Vitter’s prostitution habit in the late 1990s and early 2000s had influenced the performance of his public duties.
Gratingly self-righteous and mean is how I think of Vitter.  As governor of Louisiana, Vitter would be disaster following upon disaster after Jindal's plunder and destruction of state institutions and programs and failure to produce a "balanced" budget that was not based on smoke and mirrors.
Famously thin-skinned and possessed of a nasty temper, Vitter often threatens and bludgeons recalcitrant politicians and reluctant supporters into submission. In the U.S. Senate, he is widely disliked by members of both parties for his quick temper and grating self-righteousness.

Vitter seems to operate by the following, unstated principle: “I’d rather have your fear and respect than your affection.” Vitter would undoubtedly dispute Albert Camus, who famously observed, “Nothing is more despicable than respect based on fear.”
The photo above shows a screen shot from the video of the press conference with Vitter and his wife, Wendy, when he made his confession of a "serious sin" after his phone number was found on the call records of the DC madam, Deborah Jean Palfrey.  The expression on Wendy Vitter's face says volumes more than Vitter himself in his "confession".  Whether or not I decided to stay with my spouse after learning he had been unfaithful, I damned well would not be standing beside him when he makes his confession.

The problem for Vitter is that his approval rating is not much better than Obama’s. Then there is Bobby Jindal, whose tenure as governor has been a disaster. (He’s presided over a fiscal train wreck in recent years and is even less popular in his home state than the much-despised Obama.) Jindal’s travails have undermined the reputation of Republicans as sound stewards of the public till. Although Jindal and Vitter personally despise one another, many voters see them as the state GOP’s most prominent leaders. And because Vitter and Jindal have many of the same policy positions, Jindal is dragging Vitter down.  
While John Bel Edwards' policies are not necessarily the same as mine, he's as honorable man as an elected politician can be, and he's most surely the only kind of Democrat who can possibly be elected in Louisiana.  Not only did I vote for him twice, I sent Edwards two campaign contributions.  I put my money where my mouth is.
He’s never met Obama and has never served in Washington. A West Point graduate and former Army Ranger, he is not soft on crime. Instead, he is the son, grandson and brother of Louisiana sheriffs. The influential Louisiana Sheriffs Association not only endorsed Edwards, a bipartisan group of Republican and Democratic sheriffs cut a TV spot defending him against Vitter’s attacks. 

Edwards is generally conservative. His record with the NRA is impeccable. A devout Catholic, he is pro-life. He opposes Common Core. Vitter calls him a tax-and-spend liberal, but Vitter has indicated that he, too, will raise taxes on Louisiana business to fix the fiscal mess Jindal is leaving behind.
Ouch!  Still, I'll take what I can get, and I didn't even hold my nose when I voted, because the dreadful alternative is David Vitter as governor of Louisiana. 

Here's the Edwards campaign video.



Wham! Pow! Bam!

Deborah Jean Palfrey died of apparent suicide in 2008, after she was convicted of  "racketeering, using the mail for illegal purposes, and money laundering" and faced a sentence of five or six years in prison.

Sunday, November 8, 2015

ELECT JOHN BEL EDWARDS AS THE NEXT GOVERNOR OF LOUISIANA


If you'd like to begin the long process to lift the state out of the abyss in which the Jindal maladministration plunged us, John Bel Edwards is your candidate.

Early voting continues tomorrow, Monday, November 8, 2015 through Saturday, November 14, 2015. If you are registered to vote in Louisiana, please go to your polling place and vote for John Bel Edwards.

If you approve of the last 8 years of governance by plunder and destruction of Louisiana institutions and programs by Bobby Jindal, then vote for David Vitter for more of the same.