Louisiana Voice

“In mid-December I sent you a report documenting the gross inflation of the high school performance scores. The department covered up the inflation by intentionally mislabeling an important column of data in the initial public release of the scores.”

—Grayson teacher Herb Bassett, testifying before the Senate Education Committee on Wednesday that his research of Department of Education (DOE) data “revealed deceit, distortion, manipulation of scores and data suppression.”

“I haven’t heard anything about that but I will certainly look into it.”

—Board of Elementary and Secondary Education (BESE) President Chas Roemer, when called to the witness table by the committee to answer questions about Bassett’s charges.

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Administration insiders confide that Tim Barfield, executive counsel and Revenue secretary-designate Tim Barfield is “in over his head” and has been removed from Gov. Jindal’s struggling tax swap team.

That might seem like a demotion for a man who has been on the job for only six months. But considering the fact that the waters of Jindal’s state tax structure overhaul have been circling the drain for weeks and are now starting to make that familiar gurgling sound, even an involuntary separation from the Jindal tax team could be looked upon as a blessing.

The governor has seen one political ally after another break with him on his ever-changing tax plan, including the heretofore compliant House Speaker Chuck Kleckley, R-Lake Charles who put the Ways and Means Committee hearing on the tax plan on hold until House staffers complete an analysis that would give legislators a better handle on how much money the Jindal plan would raise.

The once friendly Louisiana Association of Business and Industry (LABI) also walked away from Jindal, whom the organization has traditionally supported.

Ernst & Young, the consulting firm hired by Jindal to perform an economic analysis of his tax plan even said the proposed tax swap, which would abolish the state income tax in favor of increased sales taxes, was a bad idea.

Making matters worse, Jindal recently upped the ante from the previous 5.88 percent sales tax to 6.25 percent, leaving observers scratching their heads over the administration’s inability to articulate any real plan.

On Wednesday, April 3, an emissary from the governor’s office showed up at the Department of Revenue (LDR) to demand new reports and numbers on revenue collections, saying the information was needed by the start of the session.

LDR staffers have been grinding away at the database in an attempt to comply with the governor’s ultimatum to somehow manufacture the numbers necessary to placate the legislature.

Meanwhile, Team Jindal, through Believe in Louisiana, the 527 non-profit organization founded by Baton Rouge Business Report Publisher Rolfe McCollister to solicit funds to advance the Jindal agenda, has made a half-million dollar media buy to initiate a slick TV ad campaign in support of the tax plan.

Many of the names of the big money men behind Jindal show up as Believe in Louisiana donors and the organization, unfettered by campaign donation limits, has pulled in individual contributions as large as $225,000, swelling its coffers to well over a million dollars.

“I don’t know why they’re throwing good money after that dog,” said one Democratic leader of the ad campaign.

Barfield, who previously served as labor secretary and as Jindal’s executive Counsel before leaving to work for home health provider Amedisys.

In order to lure Barfield away from Amedisys, Jindal added the title of executive counsel and gave him a combined salary of $250,000, more than double the $124,000 paid his predecessor, Cynthia Bridges.

Until Friday, he had been Jindal’s point man on the tax proposal, but Jindal could not have been happy two weeks ago when Barfield testified before the House Ways and Means Committee that the proposed tax swap would shift about $500 million in taxes to businesses, a statement that helped galvanize the business community against the tax swap.

At that time, he was still talking about a 5.88 percent state sales tax. Jindal has since bumped that up to 6.25 percent.

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ANNOUNCING A NEW LOUISIANAVOICE CONTEST:

Some of our readers may remember way back in January when LouisianaVoice launched a little contest to name the road to the Assumption Parish sinkhole. Because of other stories that broke in quick succession, we somehow managed to forget to name a winner.

It’s not that we had this called to our attention by our oversight committee; we’re really not that organized. It’s simply that we’re conducting another contest and someone told us we need to declare a winner of the Bayou Corne access road contest first.

There were some great entries and many were quite original and there were a few duplications. But for pure originality, we have to go with Bectrob and her entry: Don Ho Road. She chose that name because of the “Tiny Bubbles” in Bayou Corne (Tiny Bubbles being the late Hawaiian singer’s theme song).

Bectrob has been contacted to provide an address where we can send 25 of our bumper stickers.

Now for our next contest:

As many Louisianans know, Gov. Bobby Jindal has made it quite clear that he intends to see that all schools rated “D” and “F” are turned over to charter operations in an effort to improve those schools’ performances.

Without going into the merits (or lack thereof) of the grading system utilized in determining those grades, we thought it most interesting to see this week that Jindal’s approval rating had dipped below that of President Obama in Louisiana, according to results of a poll conducted by Southern Media Research.

For a decidedly Red State like Louisiana, that should be doubly embarrassing for Jindal, whose approval rating among women voters has gone into a free fall.

That poll was based on the results of 600 interviews.

NOLA.com, however, is conducting its own online poll and the results show that 88.19 percent of the 966 responses give Jindal a grade of “D” or “F.”

The breakdown thus far is 757 (78.36 percent) gave him an “F” and 95 (9.83 percent) awarded him a “D.” Only 41 (4.24 percent) give him an “A,” and just 43 (4.45 percent) give him a “B.” The remaining 30 (3.11 percent) give him a ho-hum “C.”

That’s pretty much in line with the 9 percent who voted for him in that C-PAC poll in Washington a couple of weeks ago, tying him for 8th place with Sarah Palin in the conservative Republicans’ choice for the 2016 president nomination.

So now, applying Jindal’s own criteria to his latest poll numbers, it appears that he’s out and we’re going to have to appoint a charter governor for Louisiana to replace the current failing administration.

But who to get? Hmm, that’s a tough question. Perhaps some graduate of a five-week crash course offered by Govern for America or the Ely Board Academy which, we’re told, offers a six-weekend course over a 10-month period to qualify to serve as governor. Either way, the incoming governor would not be held accountable and would not have to be certified. That’s a radical departure from the norm, for anyone can readily see that Jindal is certainly certifiable.

The only fair way is to do it the way the Department of Education does it: take applications from those wishing to apply for the position of charter governor.

We will restrict the candidates to characters of popular movies and television shows. Here are a few candidates we’ve come up with provide you with a little inspiration:

• Carl Spackler (Bill Murray’s character in the movie Caddyshack);

• Randall Patrick McMurphy (Jack Nicholson, in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest);

• Barney Fife (though, in truth, the Don Knotts character from The Andy Griffith Show, on the few occasions he wore his serge suit on the show, was both spiffier and beefier than Jindal);

• Vinny Gambini (Joe Pesci, in My Cousin Vinny);

• Travis Bickle (Robert De Niro, in Taxi Driver);

• Capt. Clarence Oveur (Peter Graves, in Airplane!—in deference to a very good friend of ours);

• Gov. William J. Lepetomane (Mel Brooks, in Blazing Saddles);

• Felix Unger (Jack Lemmon, in the movie version of The Odd Couple or Tony Randall, in the TV series);

• Col. Frank Burns (Robert Duvall, in the movie version of M*A*S*H or Larry Linville, from the TV series);

• Police Chief Marge Gunderson (Frances McDormand, in Fargo);

• Eunice Burns (Madeline Kahn, in What’s Up Doc?);

• The Warden (Strother Martin, in Cool Hand Luke—He was never given a name in the movie);

• Gov. Willie Stark (Broderick Crawford, in All the King’s Men—the thinly disguised story of Huey Long);

• Edith Bunker (Jean Stapleton, in All in the Family);

• John “Bluto” Blutarsky (John Belushi, in Animal House);

• Clark Griswold (Chevy Chase, in National Lampoon’s Family Vacation).

As bonus points, we will even accept nominations for a movie or TV show that best epitomizes or exemplifies the Jindal administration.

Some ideas to get you started:

• Plan Nine from Outer Space (The consensus worst movie ever made: aka the Jindal tax plan);

• Terror of Tiny Town (You just have to see this one to draw the obvious comparison);

• Ishtar (See Plan Nine);

• Waterworld (aka Fishtar; See Plan Nine and Ishtar);

• Gilligan’s Island (Stranded, marooned, lost, hopeless; all apt terms, but who would play Ginger?)

• Green Acres (The only intelligent character on the show was Arnold the Pig, but we can’t find anyone in the administration with the IQ to play his part);

• Little Big Man (Included only by virtue of the title).

So get those nominations in. The winner gets 20 very special Jindal business cards that are certain to be a hit at any gathering of state employees.

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State political blogs LouisianaVoice and Something Like the Truth were among 97 political blogs named as best in the nation this week by The Fix, the news blog of the Washington Post.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/2013/03/05/the-fixs-best-state-based-political-blogs-list-is-here/

“After weeks of combing through, literally, thousands of nominations we are ready to unveil the Fix’s 2013 list of the best state-based political blogs,” The Fix said in making its announcement. “In many states we got so many nominations that we had to name more than one blog as best. In three states—Alaska, Hawaii and West Virginia—we got no nominations.”

The Fix, in releasing its list, said all the winning blogs were nominated by Fix readers. “Many of them are partisan—on both sides—and it should go without saying that we don’t endorse the opinions expressed in them,” it said, adding that it eliminated blogs “that regularly publish potentially offensive content.”

Something Like the Truth is an insightful blog hosted by Robert Mann, a journalist and political historian. He holds the Manship Chair at the Manship School of Mass Communication at LSU and is director of the school’s Reilly Center for Media & Public Affairs.

He is the author of outstanding histories of the U.S. civil rights movement, the Vietnam War and his most recent book, Daisy Petals and Mushroom Clouds: LBJ, Barry Goldwater and the Ad that Changed American Politics, was named by the Washington Post as one of the best political books of 2011.

Mann, who spent more than 20 years working for U.S. Sens. Russell Long, J. Bennett Johnston and James Breaux and as communications director for former Gov. Kathleen Blanco, is often critical of the policies of Gov. Bobby Jindal.

“I’m keeping the phone lines open so I don’t miss Gov. Jindal’s congratulatory call,” he quipped. “But let me quickly say that I’m gratified that mine and Tom’s efforts to shine some light on Jindal’s misrule are catching the eyes of the national media.”

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