NRA hard at work

Louisiana leader in nation's gun violence - little or no gun control measures.

From the Daily Kos

Congratulations have to go out to the NRA for this one. Good work, NRA, your valiant efforts have helped catapult Louisiana into the lead for much-coveted status as "America's Somalia"!

    A new study released last week by the Center for American Progress analyzed 10 key measures of gun violence and found that Louisiana is worst among the 50 states. Included in the report is a 50-state ranking of law enforcement feloniously killed by guns: Louisiana ranks second worst in the nation behind South Dakota.

Good attempt, South Dakota, but you're not really in the overall running here. Both Dakotas can still feel good about themselves, though, since both were highly ranked on the recent corporate-libertarian "freedom" scale, and nothing says "freedom" being able to easily kill police officers. If you want to be a real hellhole of gun violence, though, you'll want to be a conservative-dominated southern state.

So why does the NRA get a special shout out here? Because they went to special efforts to ensure that, in Louisiana, even violent criminals and the seriously mentally ill were still allowed to carry concealed weapons.

    Gun laws in Louisiana prevent the state's law enforcement officers from doing their jobs, and put them at a much greater risk of gun violence. Last November, the state passed an NRA-backed ballot initiative that enshrined gun ownership in the constitution and removed provisions that prohibited certain individuals, such as domestic abusers and the seriously mentally ill, from carrying a concealed weapon. In March, a judge ruled that the amendment outlawed a "state statute forbidding certain felons from possessing firearms," noting that "The courts cannot question the wisdom of fundamental law and frustrate the will of the people."

Many Republicans totally lack compassion

From Carolina Naturally...

Gov. Bobby Jindal's voucher schools are teaching Louisiana kids that most slave owners were kind to their slaves, and that the KKK are civic reformers.

Bobby Jindal's usage of Louisiana as a prop for his 2016 presidential campaign is doing a lot more damage to the state than the rest of the country can ever possibly imagine. However, Jindal isn't just wrecking the state for today. His "school choice" plan is being used by the far right to teach rewritten history and whitewashed racism to the state's children.

Jindal's voucher schools will be free to teach lessons like slave owners were pretty good guys, "A few slave holders were undeniably cruel. Examples of slaves beaten to death were not common, neither were they unknown. The majority of slave holders treated their slaves well."  -United States History for Christian Schools, 2nd ed., Bob Jones University Press, 1991."

Louisiana's kids will also be learning that the KKK is just misunderstood.

In Jindal Land's classrooms, the KKK is really a reform organization that was concerned with morality, "[The Ku Klux] Klan in some areas of the country tried to be a means of reform, fighting the decline in morality and using the symbol of the cross. Klan targets were bootleggers, wife-beaters, and immoral movies. In some communities it achieved a certain respectability as it worked with politicians."  -United States History for Christian Schools, 3rd ed., Bob Jones University Press, 2001

According to Crazy Crawfish's Blog, "Louisiana's state Superintendent of Schools, John White, is aware of these troubling texts being used, as is BESE president, Chas Roemer, but they believe a parent's choice to send their kids to a school (that teaches slavery has gotten a bad rap) is not just OK, but should be defended at any cost. They feel it would be an injustice to interfere in the teachings of voucher schools. . . at least those that teach that ownership of other human beings was not something to be ashamed of, but something to be proud of."

This is the kind of education that Bobby Jindal wants to give to all poor and middle class Louisiana kids, on the taxpayers' dime.

Bobby Jindal is ruining Louisiana today, destroying the state for tomorrow, and he wants to be your next president.

Headzup: Bobby Jindal Rejects Money For State's Unemployed

Senator Vitter To Be Challenged

Senator David Vitter, Republican from Louisiana, caught in the DC madam scandal for paying for sex a little over a year ago, may get challenged in his bid for reelection by an unusual candidate. She's pretty well spoken.