Pajama Pundits

I've seen commercials before that I thought encouraged bad behavior in children, but never one quite as horrible as this one.

It practically leaves me speechless.

Emily Metzgar's dictionary of Louisiana political terms.

While Louisiana is near the bottom of state rankings in many categories, in political shenanigans, we're a national leader. I've heard rumors there are some other states trying to knock us out of the top spot there, so these terms may be useful nationwide.

Examples:

–Campaign: An opportunity for elected officials to rewrite history in the hope that voters aren’t paying attention. A time of selective truth-telling and exceptional creativity during which elected officials endeavor to blend fact with fiction about job performance in pursuit of continued job security. See also rhetoric.

–Children: Second only to “recovery” as justification for action/inaction on a given measure. Particularly effective when exercised in the context of health care, education or poverty.

–Harassment: Distribution of information about an elected official’s voting and attendance records. Circulation of statistics, voting records and other fact-based performance indicators. Viewed by incumbents as unwelcome political speech.

As the saying goes, read the whole thing.

The Washington Post headline is - Louisiana Goes After Federal Billions. What the article doesn't make clear is that it's really hard to tell just how many of the billions the Louisiana delegation (led by Senator Mary Landrieu) is really going after.

After reading parts of the text (pdf, html) and the entire summary (pdf) of S.1765 on Landrieu's site, it is apparent that the summary is misleading and I have to wonder whether that is purposeful. There's little doubt in my mind that the average citizen is going to opt for the 9 page summary over the 440 page text of the bill.

If there hadn't been so many glaring omissions of $ amounts in the summary, it's not likely I would have started digging into the full text either. I'm not a masochist!

The total of all the items in the summary with a $ amount listed in the summary is $241.2 billion. That's a little shy of the Washington Post's estimate of $250 million, which I'm beginning to think may also be an underestimate.

This is the summary of Subtitle A--Department of Defense--Military:

• $743 million for Defense Operation and Maintenance expenses incurred during relief efforts.
• $547 million for the Department of Defense to procure needed equipment.
• Two year increase in the Family Separation Allowance to from $250 to $350, effective 29 August 2005.
• Ensures that all deployments in support of Hurricane Katrina relief efforts shall be credited towards the “mobilization” requirement in the six year deployment cycle policy of the Army National Guard, Air National Guard, and Army Reserve.
• $748 Million for Defense reconstruction of military facilities and family housing in Louisiana.
• $160,000,000 of the Military Construction fund will be directed to the City of New Orleans to implement the proposed “Federal City” initiative.

First, using the amounts listed in the full text, I come up with $762.5 million for the first item.

Add to that the $82.5 million in the full text for the Family Separation allowance and we've got a little over $2.3 billion in this section alone.

But wait! There's more. The summary doesn't include the part about the Navy turning over to either the City of New Orleans or the Port of New Orleans "...all right, title and interest of the U.S. in and to a parcel of real property, including any improvements and facilities thereon, consisting of all acreage at the Naval Support Activity (east bank of the Mississippi)... for the purpose of facilitating the development and expansion of the City or Port Authority."

Even after the damage Katrina caused, this property is bound to have some value. If it's part of the "Federal City" plan, was the plan to turn it over to New Orleans before Katrina hit? It appears that several items besides the $160 million specifically designated to New Orleans for the "Federal City" are designed to facilitate or enhance that project, which was supposed to cost the feds $0 and Louisiana $200 million. Is the state of Louisiana still planning to contribute $200 million to the project?

There's little doubt the military is running up some bills doing law enforcement, search and rescue, and numerous other tasks, and I generally have little problem with funding for the military. In this instance, it appears that the Louisiana delegation is attempting to enhance its existing agreements with the military and possibly grab a few military goodies they didn't already have.

With that, I've got a problem. This is a reconstruction bill, not a new construction bill.

Granted, I'm griping about a measly $2+ billion, a mere drop in the bucket. That's only because I haven't got around to reading the rest of the full text of the bill yet.

UPDATE: Ann Althouse says it's not unlike the way the flood set off looting.

(Transcribed from notes made while reading the latest Scientific American and S.1765 by generator-powered lamp.)

Damn... the Japanese, the U.S., and the European Union are trying to dig a hole to China. That had to be as irresistable to write as all the pithy observations about the spiciness of Louisiana politics.

What the ship Chikyu is designed for is drilling through the earth's crust to the mantle and extracting samples.

This amazing ship carries a drill pipe that is 9.5 kilometers long -- 22 times the height of the Empire State Building and it cost only $540 million to build. For perspective, that's just a little over 2% of what Louisiana's Congressmen and Senators want to rebuild after Katrina, none of which could possibly be called pork, right?

And let this be his campaign slogan:

(via Ace of Spades)

UPDATE: Video here.

UPDATE II: Of course I was laughing when I typed the title to this post, but it's not that bad an idea. Gen. Honore is capable, competent, organized, honest, respected by those who work with him... all perfect opposites of the Louisiana politician. (There may be exceptions. Please put examples in the comments!)

There is a Recall Kathleen Blanco site up. I've requested a petition to sign. Even if ultimately unsuccessful, I think this is a worthwhile effort for at least two reasons:

1. Louisianans have accepted that political corruption is a way of life here. Maybe we have some variation of Stockholm Syndrome.

2. Such a petition could serve as a sort of wake-up call for other public servants in the state, all the way down to dogcatcher. They'd likely hit the snooze button, but with the voters having set the alarm, it's unlikely all of them would toss the clock out the window.

In California, prior to the successful recall of Gov. Gray Davis, only four of more than 107 recall efforts since 1911 qualified for the ballot. We've got to start somewhere.

Another thing we can do is tell our lawmakers we'd like to be able to recall them a little more easily. Of course, they're not going to like that idea, but they might throw a bone or two our way. Mostly Cajun sums up what it currently takes to recall an elected official here:

...the state legislature provided that a recall election requires a petition with hand-written signatures of a THIRD of registered voters, with a separate petition filed in each of Louisiana’s 64 parishes (counties) within 180 days of the filing of the original petition of recall.

I don't know if the statute has been refined by court decisions, but it could use some clarification. At first, it doesn't appear that a petition must be filed in each parish, as the "voting area" for governor is the entire state. Then again, it later says that "The signed and dated petition shall be submitted to the registrar of voters for each parish within the voting area..." Does this mean a third of voters in each parish must sign or that if a third statewide sign, that at least one signature in each parish is required?

The least the legislators could do is clear up what they mean.

The applicable code is here: Louisiana Revised Statutes Title 18. Louisiana Election Code, Chapter 6-C. Recall Elections, § 1300.2. Petition for recall election; campaign finance disclosure.

UPDATE III: There's now another website devoted to the recall of Gov. Blanco - R.E.C.A.L.L.

And let this be his campaign slogan:

(via Ace of Spades)

UPDATE: Video here.

UPDATE II: Of course I was laughing when I typed the title to this post, but it's not that bad an idea. Gen. Honore is capable, competent, organized, honest, respected by those who work with him... all perfect opposites of the Louisiana politician. (There may be exceptions. Please put examples in the comments!)

There is a Recall Kathleen Blanco site up. I've requested a petition to sign. Even if ultimately unsuccessful, I think this is a worthwhile effort for at least two reasons:

1. Louisianans have accepted that political corruption is a way of life here. Maybe we have some variation of Stockholm Syndrome.

2. Such a petition could serve as a sort of wake-up call for other public servants in the state, all the way down to dogcatcher. They'd likely hit the snooze button, but with the voters having set the alarm, it's unlikely all of them would toss the clock out the window.

In California, prior to the successful recall of Gov. Gray Davis, only four of more than 107 recall efforts since 1911 qualified for the ballot. We've got to start somewhere.

Another thing we can do is tell our lawmakers we'd like to be able to recall them a little more easily. Of course, they're not going to like that idea, but they might throw a bone or two our way. Mostly Cajun sums up what it currently takes to recall an elected official here:

...the state legislature provided that a recall election requires a petition with hand-written signatures of a THIRD of registered voters, with a separate petition filed in each of Louisiana’s 64 parishes (counties) within 180 days of the filing of the original petition of recall.

I don't know if the statute has been refined by court decisions, but it could use some clarification. At first, it doesn't appear that a petition must be filed in each parish, as the "voting area" for governor is the entire state. Then again, it later says that "The signed and dated petition shall be submitted to the registrar of voters for each parish within the voting area..." Does this mean a third of voters in each parish must sign or that if a third statewide sign, that at least one signature in each parish is required?

The least the legislators could do is clear up what they mean.

The applicable code is here: Louisiana Revised Statutes Title 18. Louisiana Election Code, Chapter 6-C. Recall Elections, § 1300.2. Petition for recall election; campaign finance disclosure.

UPDATE III: There's now another website devoted to the recall of Gov. Blanco - R.E.C.A.L.L.

No... tell me it ain't so! Not in Louisiana! Not Democrats! Taking dirty tricks into the blogosphere

Eugene Volokh comments on the ongoing spat between the Tangipahoa Parish School Board members and the ACLU.

If only the schools would expend as much energy on making sure every student was thoroughly indoctrinated with mathematic and literacy skills.

This dump truck, headed north on I-220 in Shreveport LA, crossed the median, two lanes of oncoming freeway traffic and both lanes of Junior Place, a residential street, without colliding with another vehicle.

I'm guessing a blow-out on the right front tire as the cause, but I guess I've got a ways to go before I'm a good citizen journalist. I was reluctant to bother the firemen with questions, although I did manage to ask about the driver and was told he was okay.