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.

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.

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.

DAVID VITTER IS STILL AFRAID

Louisiana Tech University hosted a debate among the four major candidates for governor Thursday night — one of the few televised debates Republican U.S. Sen. David Vitter has agreed to participate in ahead of the Oct. 24 election.

But there were no students in the crowd to see it — no crowd at all, actually. The debate had no live audience, a point that Vitter’s opponents, Democratic state Rep. John Bel Edwards and Republicans Lt. Gov. Jay Dardenne and Public Service Commissioner Scott Angelle, each labeled “ridiculous” and “disturbing.”
....

Following the debate, Angelle, Edwards and Dardenne met with reporters, but Vitter did not.

All three speculated that Vitter’s campaign was behind the lack of live audience and media viewing room.

Actually, I would like to move on from the discussion of the prostitution scandal, which the great majority of the voters in the state already know about, and address the many other reasons why Vitter would be a disaster as governor, but he himself continues to emphasize “family values” in his public appearances. During the debate, Vitter said he believes in “faith, family, education, and hard work”, thus reminding people of his “serious sin” against his family.

The present governor, Bobby Jindal, is possibly the least accessible and transparent in the history of the state. Will Vitter's fear of questions and comments about his past lead him to isolate himself from the media and the citizens of Louisiana in the same way as Jindal? Louisiana does not need another governor in hiding.

"WHO IS MY NEIGHBOR?"

Read Rmj's latest post at Adventus on the words of the new guvna of Alabama, Robert Bentley, as to who are his "brothers and sisters".