It’s the first explanation that pops to mind: Someone has kidnapped our governor, who has publicly said he thinks it’s OK to teach Intelligent Design (creationism in a lab coat) alongside evolution in biology class, and replaced him with a politician actually attuned to the fact-based reality the GOP has been slowly and painfully seceding from for two decades.
Yahoo! News’ Liz Goodwin brought to our attention Jindal’s op-ed today in the Wall Street Journal, “The End of Birth-Control Politics,” in which he announces his support for selling oral contraceptives over the counter without a prescription. Again, Gov. Bobby Jindal says he supports selling oral contraceptives over the counter without a prescription. The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, after all, threw its support behind same last month.
But after reading Goodwin’s report — you can’t read Jindal’s actual piece unless you’re a WSJ subscriber — we see that Jindal’s reasonableness is motivated more by political maneuvering than rational thought: “I agree with this opinion, which if embraced by the federal government would take contraception out of the political arena,” he writes. “Democrats have wrongly accused Republicans of being against birth control and against allowing people to use it. That’s hogwash,” Jindal writes. “But Republicans do want to protect those who have religious beliefs that are opposed to contraception.”
So it’s really more about countering the Dems’ charge that the GOP has been waging a “war on women,” which was used so effectively against Republicans in the last election cycle, than it is about sound public health policy. But hey, baby steps...
... written by Greg Foreman , December 17, 2012 - 09:24 am
"We see that Jindal’s reasonableness is motivated more by political maneuvering than rational thought"-what else is new? "BJ" hasn't had a creative thought in his entire term as governor. He has been/is more concerned with pandering to the "feel good" elements of society than stating/bearing the facts of fiscal existence and promulgating revenue generating programs dedicated to keeping the state afloat. It is easier to cut the throat of those needing services, those providing education, medical services and protection than to pass legislation aimed at revenue generation to maintain such services. So, I ask once again, what else is new?
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MAY 17 Here's a column from James Gill, this time in the Advocate. Gill, who has jumped ship from the Picayune, writes about the absurdity of dueling polls in this post. The numbers are so wildly different, it is obvious that both sides are "cooking the books," he writes. In particular, he looks at Sen. Mary Landrieu, and how her recent actions in DC have been received by those polled. Gill's acerbic, amusing prose is a welcome addition to a paper so conservative as to be occasionally lacking in personality.
MAY 17 Blogger Tom Aswell continues delivering bombshells about the state education department and Gov. Jindal's education "reform" efforts. In this post, he reports that students in the Shreveport area have been signed up for a charter school without their knowledge or consent. Most interesting to Aswell is how this Texas-based charter (with ties to GOP types) got the personal student information it has, if the students didn't give it.
MAY 17 This post by JR Ball in the Baton Rouge Business Report is an interesting tongue-in-cheek look at recent Baton Rouge economic development efforts. Among the items he examines is the idea that gaining a Costco makes BR a "world-class city." (Really? All you need is a different brand of Sam's? MK!) This effort, and other recent ones, are all built on the taxpayer's back, with tax zones, tax incentives and tax rebates, Ball writes.
MAY 17 Blogger CB Forgotston is critical of the legislature's reliance on a revenue-estimating committee's decision to include projected tax amnesty income in this year's forecast. That's a problem, CB posts, because the deadline for these people to pay their taxes is June 30, 2014. So when do you think these people who haven't paid taxes in years are going to pay their taxes? Surely not before June 30, and that means the money won't be there for this year's budget, he argues.
MAY 17 Here's an interesting blog out of California by a Hollywood writer, attorney and academic named Brian Alan Lane. He blogs about higher ed, and was a whistle-blower in a scandal over false credentials. In this post, he takes aim at LSU's new top dog, King Alexander. It's convoluted and a little confusing, but it sure makes Alexander a lot more interesting than he was yesterday.
MAY 17 Blogger Robert Mann writes about the LSU Board's refusal to allow Dr. Fred Cerise to testify before the legislature about Gov. Jindal's plan to close down all the state's charity hospitals and dump the poor on the private system. It's hard to imagine anyone more qualified than Cerise to testify about that, so why would anyone try to prevent him doing so? Mann thinks it is because the powers that be aren't interested in hearing any truth about the plan.
MAY 17 This post on the Louisiana Sinkhole Bugle, a blog that notes developments in the Bayou Corne and Jefferson Island salt domes, talks about a proposed expansion of the salt dome storage under Lake Peigneur in Iberia Parish. Residents are working against it for several reasons, including two biggies: the sinkhole disaster in Bayou Corne and the continuing, unexplained bubbling on the surface of the Lake.
MAY 17 NOLA police arrested more people Thursday accused of either being involved in the Mother's Day shooting or hiding the suspect afterward, this Gambit story reports. The NOLA police chief said he suspects the whole thing was gang-related and throws out a challenge to the gangs: he's got informants now, he says, and he knows a lot more than the gangs want him to know. The people who live in the neighborhoods terrorized by gangs are ready to talk, he says.
Is it a crime for citizens to photograph, video, or take notes of a police officer in the line of duty, or a right protected by the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution? Locally, such activity, as witnessed recently, will at the very least result in a night spent behind bars.
David Calhoun and Elizabeth “EB” Brooks are the first two employees of Lafayette Central Park Inc., the nonprofit charged with turning Lafayette Consolidated Government’s 100-acre Johnston Street Horse Farm property into a passive public park. Calhoun was named executive director, and Brooks is director of planning and design.
At Thursday's State of the Economy luncheon, LEDA President and CEO Gregg Gothreaux said PXP has already quietly hired 180 people for its Broussard expansion.
Episcopal School of Acadiana’s Dr. Joshua Caffery, chair of the school’s English Department, is headed to Washington, D.C., and the Library of Congress as the latest winner of the Alan Lomax Fellowship in Folklife Studies.
This year’s Cool Town issue is all about people who are not native to South Louisiana but made a conscious decision to be here, to be among us, to participate in our culture and contribute to it.
A shelved ordinance transferring $200,000 from a northside drainage project to a south Lafayette development may not break any laws, but it stinks to high heaven.
An effort to restore a shuttered dancehall and document other vacant or razed honky-tonks could serve as a model for saving an endangered species of entertainment.
Lafayette’s gene pool has been host to a long line of eccentric characters who have blurred the lines between crazy, genius, disturbed and curiously entertaining.
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So, I ask once again, what else is new?