BOBBY JINDAL, FRIVOLOUS LAWSUITS, CHASING RAINBOWS

In a move certain to bolster his national standing with conservatives, Republican Gov. Bobby Jindal sued the Obama administration Wednesday, hoping to strike a blow against the controversial Common Core education standards and raising his profile as he builds a likely presidential campaign.
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"The federal government has hijacked and destroyed the Common Core initiative," Jindal said in a statement. "Common Core is the latest effort by big government disciples to strip away state rights and put Washington, D.C., in control of everything."

Jindal, the governor who is always in campaign mode, filed a lawsuit against the Obama administration that will be paid for with the tax money of Louisiana citizens.  The governor lost two earlier suits in state courts to stop Common Core, so now it's on to federal court in another grandstanding, frivolous lawsuit at the expense of the people of the state.

When the Louisiana education board embraced the standards in 2010, Jindal supported them, saying they would help students prepare for college and careers. He reversed course earlier this year, calling the standards an effort by the Obama administration to meddle in state education policy.

The governor was for the standards before he was against them.  Neither the Louisiana Legislature, nor the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education, nor State Superintendent of Education John White want to discontinue the use of Common Core standards, for which the teachers and students have been preparing for four years, with the first tests due in the spring of 2015.   Does Jindal ever give a thought to the teachers and students who operate under conditions of uncertainty because of his own personal ambition?  As blogger LouisianaVoice said, Jindal is a 100% absentee governor.  All his activities have to do with his fantasy of winning the Republican nomination for president, or at the very least vice-president, and then moving on to win election to higher office.

Neal McCluskey, of the libertarian-leaning Cato Institute's Center for Educational Freedom, said he doesn't expect the lawsuit to be successful, even though he agrees with its premise.
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"They've definitely got a steep hill to climb on this lawsuit," McCluskey said.

Exactly, but why would Jindal care?  It's our money.

JINDAL ON THE SUSPENSION OF PHIL ROBERTSON FROM "DUCK DYNASTY"

Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal (R) rushed to the defense of "Duck Dynasty" star Phil Robertson after he was suspended from the reality show by A&E Wednesday for a series of remarks he made about gays and non-Christians in an interview with GQ Magazine.
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“Phil Robertson and his family are great citizens of the State of Louisiana. The politically correct crowd is tolerant of all viewpoints, except those they disagree with...."

Here's our governor with more mutterings that seemingly pass out of his lips before filtering through his Rhodes Scholar brain.

Please forgive me for never having heard of "Duck Dynasty" and not knowing who the hell Phil Robertson was before the brouhaha. When I say I seldom watch TV, I speak truth. Plus, few people exist who know less about pop culture and celebs than I do, but anyway here's our guv for ya.

Jindal appears to be reinforcing his anti-gay creds, because he plans to run for president and hopes for Tea Party support.  It seems to me that Jindal will say almost anything if it will gain him political advantage, but he may truly believe the words he spoke in defense of Robertson.  If the governor was smart, he'd know he has no chance of becoming president or vice-president, but he chooses to live in fantasy land.

LOUISIANA WILL LOSE OVER 1 BILLION BY REFUSING TO IMPLEMENT MEDICAID EXPANSION

States not expanding Medicaid under Obamacare will be collectively lose more than $35 billion in federal funds in 2022 alone, according to a new report from the Commonwealth Fund.
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The Commonwealth Fund further explained the study's methodology as follows:

Federal funds that pay for state Medicaid programs are raised through federal general revenue collection—taxes paid by residents in all states—whether or not they participate in the program. Therefore, taxpayers in states not participating in the Medicaid expansion will bear a share of the overall cost, without benefitting from the program. Glied and Ma estimated the net loss of federal funds to states that do not expand Medicaid by using projected federal Medicaid spending in each state and calculating the federal Medicaid-related taxes paid by each state.

According to Healthrender, Louisiana stands to lose 1.566 billion dollars.  That's billions lost to the state budget that is often in arrears and requires last minute cuts in programs and institutions that have already been cut to the bone.

Almost certainly people in Louisiana will die from treatable diseases and conditions because of the lack of health insurance, either because treatment was started too late, or because treatment was inadequate.

So far as I can make out, Jindal refuses the money for the sake of furthering his political ambitions on the national scene.  He has campaigned around the country since he first assumed the office of governor in Louisiana.  His extensive travels for political purposes leave him little time in the state which he governs so incompetently.  Even so, Jindal has managed to destroy or maim multiple institutions and programs that took decades to build and will require generations to recover if the people of Louisiana ever have the will to elect governors who will build up rather than destroy.    

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.