"BEEFED UP" BOBBY

I’m a congenital pessimist, so don’t give me too much credit for drawing attention to this pending debacle-cum-comic-relief. Instead, all praise should go to National Review’s Eliana Johnson, who reported Monday evening that a source “close to” Jindal was willing to confirm that the “slight” governor “has gained 13 pounds over the past few months” because he’s “looking to beef up” now that the 2016 campaign is “on the horizon.”
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To understand why the Jindal camp’s decision to share this little scooplet is so phenomenally bizarre and foreboding, rather than simply silly and weird, you need to keep in mind just how much of a disaster his tenure as Louisiana governor has been.

Finally a national publication focuses on the maladministration of Jindal, who governed, untrammeled by the Louisiana Legislature, according to Tea Party philosophy.  The legislature is complicit in every way, because they allowed Jindal to have his way in all his policies except the sales tax proposal.  Jindal's legacy in Louisiana will be the destruction of worthy institutions and programs due to budget cuts and privatizing and a budget nightmare that will be left to the next governor to untangle.

It is beyond laughable that Jindal thinks he will revive his campaign for president by gaining weight.  I have not once heard a Louisiana citizen criticize Jindal because he's not "beefed up" enough.  Keep in mind that though the people of Louisiana don't like him now, he was reelected to a second term by a landslide.

THAT'S OUR BOBBY

Funding for the disabled and arts programs fell out of the $25 billion state spending plan Friday with the stroke of Gov. Bobby Jindal’s veto pen.

The governor deleted $4 million aimed at whittling down a waiting list for home-based services for the developmentally disabled. Parents of disabled children pleaded with legislators during the session to shorten the list. Some could wait 10 years before receiving services.
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After issuing the vetoes, the governor flew to California for Republican National Committee meetings.

Jindal also stripped money for children’s clinics, family violence programs and an organization that helps the disabled become more independent through technological tools.

Do your dirty work and run, Guvna.  You don't want to be in Louisiana, anyway.  The trail of wreckage you leave behind is so ugly that maybe even you don't want to look.  What's next once your term is up?  Since you have your eyes on a prize on the national scene, why not now?  Is there a powerful Republican out there who will make you an offer you can't refuse right at this moment?  Not every governor completes her/his term.  Take Sarah Palin.  I'm sure a good many people in Alaska thought, "Take Sarah Palin.  Please!" 

QUOTE OF THE DAY - LOUISIANA STATE SENATOR J. P. MORRELL

"We cannot cut our way to excellence."

Someone in Louisiana had to say it. Thank you, Sen. Morrell (D-New Orleans).

WHY IS SHE SMILING?

Kristy Nichols

The Jindal administration kicked off a months-long state budget debate Friday by presenting a $24.7 billion budget that relies on the finalization of contracts involving public hospitals, property sales and other unresolved issues.

College tuition will increase, many parents will be required to make a co-payment for their children to receive therapy for developmental delays and the elderly no longer will get help receiving free prescription drugs.

“We’re proud of this budget even though this budget certainly has been a challenge,” Commissioner of Administration Kristy Nichols told members of the Joint Legislative Committee on the Budget.

Ms Nichols is smiling because she says the Jindal administration presented a balanced budget to the Louisiana Legislature and the people of the state.  Nevermind that the budget includes one-time revenues that will not be available in future years.  Fiscal hawks in the legislature are upset about the use of the funds for programs that go beyond the coming fiscal year.

Nevermind that Jindal will turn over care of the poor to private hospitals, which he says will save money for the state, although all the contracts have not yet been signed, even as the administration phases out the operations of public hospitals.  Who will treat the poor and low-income people in Louisiana if the contracts are not completed? 

Several thousand state government workers could be out of a job....More than $1 million would be saved by no longer helping the elderly apply for free medicine through pharmaceutical company programs.

And what will be the consequences of the budget of which Ms Nichols is so proud?  Will the economy of the state grow in leaps and bounds?  Will unemployment numbers drop despite the thousands of state workers thrown into the ranks of the unemployed?  Where will the people who have lost their jobs find work in the weak economy?

What if the elderly can't afford their medications?  Too bad for them if they expect help from the state.

I hope the legislators keep in mind that Jindal's approval rating is at 37%.  The governor will veto any legislation that raises taxes, should such laws make it through the legislative process, and the chances of a legislative override are nil.  So what is a legislator to do?

THIS MAN WANTS TO BE YOUR PRESIDENT

From the Advocate:

In Baton Rouge, Gov. Bobby Jindal’s latest round of state budget cuts are forcing shelter director Audrey Wascome to contemplate cutting the number of beds for battered women and children by a third.

The reductions will hit shelters for domestic violence victims across the state, including the Metropolitan Center for Women and Children in the New Orleans area. The Metropolitan Center’s executive director, Dale Standifer, said Thursday the cuts will erode funding for an emergency shelter that gives women a place to sleep when they have nowhere else to go.
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Funding for family violence prevention and intervention programs was cut by $998,413, a 16 percent reduction in total dollars through the contracts the state holds with shelters and other domestic violence prevention providers.

Other reductions impacted hospice services, health care providers, dental benefits for pregnant women and contract services for the poor, the mentally ill and the drug-addicted.

Jindal wants to put the women and children in hotel rooms, but Wascome says there is no money to pay for hotel rooms.  Right now she turns away women and children every day, because the shelters are full, and she may have to reduce the number of beds in the because of budget cuts.  Why is it so often the most vulnerable who must suffer?

For 2010, the Violence Policy Center ranked Louisiana fourth in the nation in the number of women murdered by men in single victim-single offender homicides.  Between Jan. 1, 2010, and Oct. 31, 2012, domestic violence was blamed for the deaths of nearly 200 people across Louisiana, according to the Louisiana Coalition Against Domestic Violence. 

Bobby Jindal is the very soul of "compassionate conservatism", and he wishes to share his concept of "compassion" with the entire country. He wants to be in charge of the country so much that he travels frequently to promote his own cause and phones in his orders to his staff in Louisiana.

Jindal declines requests for interviews or commentary from the local media, because he wants to be a star on the national stage, and coverage by the media in Louisiana will not further his national ambitions.  The locals know too much and might ask embarrassing questions.

JINDAL'S BUDGET CUTS PROGRAMS FOR THE MOST FRAGILE

Bobby Jindal, governor of the State of Louisiana, who lusts for a role in national politics, discovered (Oops!) another hole in the state budget. Oh! What to do?  Here's Bobby's list of programs which will be cut:

Among the deepest cuts were at the state Department of Health and Hospitals and the state Department of Children and Family Services.

Doctors, hospitals, mentally ill patients, pregnant women and dying patients will be affected by the state’s financial problems.

State Sen. Sharon Broome, D-Baton Rouge, complained that the reductions affect departments that deal with the state’s most fragile residents. “I hope we can see these reductions with faces on them,” she told Nichols.

Faces?  Does the governor see human faces?  Would Jindal recognize a human face if he saw one?

Other reductions include:

• Contract reductions for health care providers who help the poor, the mentally ill and the drug-addicted.
• A 1 percent cut in the rate that doctors and hospitals are paid by the state to care for the poor.
• The elimination of dental benefits for pregnant women relying on the state for health care.
• Possibly laying off 63 state government workers.

Jindal is the man who wants to be president or vice-president of the US, or, if that doesn't happen, he wants a big job in Washington DC to have the power to mess up the country in the same way he's wrecked the state he "governs".  He spends much of his time traveling around the country drumming up support, ignoring our wreck of a state, except to dash home from time to time to cut the budgets of state agencies.  (For all I know, Jindal may cut the budget from afar, because he is not forthcoming with the local media about his out-of-state travels.)  When the national media portray Jindal as a rising star in the "new" Republican Party, beware.  The policies Jindal trumpets on the national scene are the same old Republican policies that advantage the rich at the expense of the poor and the middle class disguised by clever, manipulative words.  Jindal is the consummate flim-flam man.

DASTARDLY DEEDS

The Jindal administration is preparing to roll out about $860 million in cuts to the government’s insurance program that delivers health care to Louisiana’s poor — the result of newly authorized federal Medicaid funding reductions critics call disastrous.

Major health care providers said Friday they are preparing for something they know cannot be good for them or the poor, elderly and disabled once the funds are stripped from the $7.7 billion Medicaid program.

One association that provides community services to the developmentally disabled is already calling for a special legislative session to generate revenues to offset more cuts in the fiscal year that began Sunday.

Another association executive wondered whether the state could still have a viable program that meets federal Medicaid “access to care” requirements.

Jindal will have his balanced budget on the backs of the poor, the ill, the disabled, the suffering, because we can never, ever raise taxes on the rich.  In fact, we can never raise taxes on anyone.
  
But wait!  Jindal has a plan, which has not yet been announced.  What will it be?  Stretchers in the streets to save hospital costs?  Will the administration close down the primary care clinics, so that the poor will have to wait until they are so sick that they go to the emergency room, and the state and the rest of us will pay for care that's far more costly than primary care in a clinic?

“There’s not a lot of good choices,” said state Senate Health and Welfare chairman David Heitmeier, D-New Orleans, who said discussions can begin once the plan is laid out.

“It’s going to be devastating. There’s no way to sugar- coat it,” said Louisiana House Health and Welfare Committee Chairman Scott Simon, R-Abita Springs.
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Louisiana State Medical Society Executive Vice President Jeff Williams said whatever the administration comes up with is going to have to be system-wide and a systemic change.

Williams said a provision in the federal law that requires reimbursement rates to physicians and other providers to be sufficient enough to ensure Medicaid patients have the same access to health care as a private-pay patient.

Whatever the proposed plan, it will not solve the looming catastrophe that will result from the severe budget cuts in state Medicaid services.  Perhaps Jindal counts on supernatural help to solve the state's budget problems, as he did in his university days when he performed an exorcism on his friend.

Note: You have to pay to read the entire article on the exorcism, but you get the idea from the first page.

COME NOW, JOHN!

Yesterday, as I sat down in to watch a little TV, what should appear on the screen but the sight of John Boehner giving the commencement speech at Catholic University. What!!! John Boehner who, if he had his way, would cut programs that serve the poor to the bone. Why was he chosen as the commencement speaker?

Then, as I watched, he took his hankie out of his pocket and wiped his nose. Oh well, his nose was running. What else could he do? No wait! He's crying - again! Boehner went on to speak tearily of difficult times in his political career and how he always prayed to do God's will, and that he prayed to the Blessed Mother when he was asked to resume leadership of the House, and she didn't exactly answer him, but Coach Grant did, and that was pretty damned close, except he didn't say "damned" in the commencement address.

Does Boehner ever shed a tear at the thought of the poor whose difficult lives will be worsened if he is successful in getting his policies into law? Please!

Watch the video at Mediaite.

UPDATE: From the National Catholic Reporter:

A group of prominent Catholic academics have signed a letter to Speaker of the House John Boehner, on the occasion of his forthcoming commencement address at the Catholic University of America. I will provide commentary later today, but the letter really speaks for itself, respectfully, clearly and in a way to challenge the Speaker to consider his policies. The letter will be delivered to Boehner's office personally by some of the signatories tomorrow morning.

A brief excerpt from the letter:

Mr. Speaker, your voting record is at variance from one of the Church’s most ancient moral teachings. From the apostles to the present, the Magisterium of the Church has insisted that those in power are morally obliged to preference the needs of the poor. Your record in support of legislation to address the desperate needs of the poor is among the worst in Congress. This fundamental concern should have great urgency for Catholic policy makers. Yet, even now, you work in opposition to it.

Read the entire letter at the link above. It's good, and its list of signatories is impressive.

I AM SO PROUD OF MY LEGISLATORS AND MY PRESIDENT (NOT!)

From TPM:

About that budget deal...

One of the hardest hit institutions is the Environmental Protection Agency, whose power Republicans have sought to curtail in recent years through a variety of legislative means. The agency will receive $1.6 billion less in funding than current levels, a 16 percent drop....
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In addition to programs protecting the environment, programs aimed at boosting energy efficiency for power plants and transportation also were major targets.
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Health care funding was a heavy target for the GOP, who secured just over $1 billion in cuts to programs preventing the spread of HIV/AIDS and other diseases, $600 million cuts to community health care centers, and $78 million to research on health care costs. Funding for health co-ops created under the Democrats' health care law was zeroed out.
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Nonetheless, spending on education and other social programs made up a large portion of cuts -- Labor, Health, Education and related agencies were slashed by $5.5 billion with 55 programs eliminated.
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Science research, which President Obama has touted as crucial to American competitiveness, was on the chopping block: National Science Foundation saw a $43 million cut in its research funding from its current levels but a major $444 million cut from the President's initial request.
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Defense was not cut from current levels, instead increasing by $5 billion. FEMA first responder funding was cut by $786 million. Contributions to the U.N. and international organizations were cut by $377 million.

Read the rest and weep. We see what their priorities are.

Just the other day I received in the mail requests for contributions from President Obama for the kick-off of his 2012 campaign for president and from the Democratic National Committee. Hey, guys, I don't think so.

QUESTION OF THE DAY

Why is it that in discussions and negotiations within Congress and with the administration on balancing the budget and where cuts will be made so little attention is given to the cost in lives and treasure of the several wars in which the US is presently engaged?