With less than a month remaining before the Oct. 22 election, the race between Lt. Gov. Jay Dardenne and Plaquemines Parish President Billy Nungesser, who wants Dardenne’s job, is getting heated as the two trade long-distance barbs. Both men are Republicans and evidently unaware of Ronald Reagan’s “11th Commandment.”
Dardenne has been hammering Nungesser for cancelling appearances at a pair of forums — one on Friday and a second on Monday — that Dardenne attended, telling the Baton Rouge Press Club on Monday, “When you tell somebody in advance, ‘I can’t make it — I have a conflict,’ that’s entirely different from making a commitment like Billy did today and then deciding, ‘I don’t want to go face Jay Dardenne.”
Dardenne has likened Nungesser’s campaign strategy to that of Sen. David Vitter, who is backing Nungesser in the race, accusing Nungesser of dodging one-on-one debates; burdened with the D.C. Madam baggage, Vitter followed a similar tack last year in his successful re-election bid against then-Congressman Charlie Melancon. A handful of Vitter’s staff members are working for the Nungesser campaign.
Citing scheduling conflicts, Nungesser is upping the vitriol, telling The Times-Picayune this week, ““[Dardenne] is a coward and a liar. He will get put in his place.”
Nungesser also released a statement attacking Dardenne’s integrity in response to the Dardenne campaign attempting to make hay out of an unpaid IRS tax lien on one of his businesses — an issue he says grew out of the upheaval of Hurricane Katrina and has long since been resolved:
This entire issue is concerning the filing of W-2 employer forms for one of my companies following Hurricane Katrina. There was some confusion in the filing, but this situation was cleared up years ago and the lien is in the process of being removed by the IRS. This truly shows Jay Dardenne’s complete disregard of the devastation Katrina caused for so many families and businesses in LA. How sad that he would twist the truth for his own personal political gain. But what else should we expect from a lying, career politician that is trying to cover up a record of increased taxes, legislative pay raises and lifetime health benefits for himself and his cronies.
Read more here.
MAY 24 Blogger Robert Mann posts this entry about the Baton Rouge Chamber's recent report on Louisiana's higher education system. It's critical to economic development, and yet our system is facing a "funding crisis" with no way to resolve it, the report says. The Chamber says control of tuition and fees must be returned to the higher ed governing boards.
MAY 24 Here's a NBC33 story about Tyrann Mathieu. He has signed with the Arizona Cardinals, inking a $3 million, four-year deal. He gets a signing bonus of $265K, but gets another, larger bonus if he doesn't get cut from the team for doing drugs. The deal reportedly includes mandatory tests and meetings for the player.
MAY 24 Jarvis DeBerry posts here about the redonkulus rhetoric that would have us believe NOLA is a safe city with a murder problem. Maybe the city's crime stats don't compare with its murder stats because you can't manipulate a murder, he says: a dead body's a dead body. It just doesn't make sense, he says, and his readers agree: a poll asks if they believe the city is safe, and more than 90 percent say no.
MAY 24 Jindal administration officials announced Thursday that the privatization of public health care is going to cost a lot more than they budgeted for, the Advocate reports here. "I'm so surprised," said no one. Anywhere. The cost they're projecting now is more than $1 billion - a lot more than the $626 million budgeted for it. And, it's more than it cost the state to operate those hospitals. So why are we doing this again?
MAY 24 Blogger CB Forgotston ridicules the recent PR campaign by the state GOP in the wake of a legislative auditor's request to both major parties. The GOP (apparently unaware that the Dems got the same request) started yammering about being targeted because it had "killed" a tax increase. CB finds that laughable, but it's also pretty funny that the GOP was comparing this episode to the IRS scandal (Because the President has so much to do with our state auditor. Right?).
MAY 24 Politico details some recent fund-raising efforts by Sen. David Vitter, which have raised the question of his future political plans. This time, it is a $5,000 per head "bayou weekend" that includes "Cajun cooking" and an all-caps "alligator hunt," the story reports. Funds raised go to a super PAC that can spend money to support Vitter in federal or state races, the story points out.
MAY 24 The pink building on Royal in the quarter was sold at a sheriff's sale Thursday, this Picayune story reports. An injunction that would have halted the sale wasn't enforced because the family failed to post a $150,000 bond, the story reports. So the owner of the mortgages on the building bought it, for nearly $7 million. Now the feuding family will have to negotiate with that company to get a lease on the building that has housed their business for close to 60 years.
MAY 23 This post in Louisiana Voice tells us about a bill by a Winnsboro lege that would require all public high school students to take at least one Course Choice online class in order to graduate. (What?) Blogger Tom Aswell says it's a monument to "waste and corruption," especially in light of the problems he's exposed with the program in recent weeks. Idaho had a similar program, but voters removed it by a 2-1 margin, Aswell says.
Most Read
in case you missed it
Subscribe to this comment's feed
In all seriousness, Dumbgesser is just like every politician .... who changes his tune to suit an election. He was a Dardenne supporter until he decided to run against Dardenne so now Dardenne is the Anti-Christ.
There's nothing new to see here.
All the best,
Soop