The Roving Reporter :Out of office, Jindal looms over Louisiana budget crisis

By Melinda Deslatte, Associated Press

BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — Bobby Jindal left the governor's office nearly two months ago, but his legacy permeates a special legislative session aimed at digging Louisiana out of deep financial troubles.
Louisiana's worst budget crisis in nearly 30 years is threatening public colleges with cuts that could shutter campuses mid-semester and putting health care services for the poor and disabled at risk of elimination.
State leaders blame the Republican former governor for creating — and hiding — many of those woes.

Jindal, burnishing his fiscal conservative credentials for his failed presidential campaign, refused to hike taxes or approve any action that even resembled a tax hike, including trimming expensive business tax credits, even amid an economic downturn. So, TV's bearded men of "Duck Dynasty" got millions in film tax credit subsidies, while tuition skyrocketed for college students at campuses struggling with deep state financing cuts.
 

Criticism of Jindal is bipartisan and widespread, with irritated lawmakers left sifting through the highly-unpopular choices of raising taxes or taking a hatchet to higher education and government services. They're considering enacting tax bills Jindal vetoed and stripping a fake tax credit created to protect Jindal's anti-tax record.
 

Legislators are hearing that cuts described by the Jindal administration as "efficiencies" actually went much deeper, striking at services. They've learned about borrowing practices that increased state debts and about threats to Louisiana's cash flow because it spent down reserves.
"We've been living in a fictional world for the last eight years," said Jay Dardenne, a Republican who served as lieutenant governor under Jindal and is now chief financial adviser to Gov. John Bel Edwards, a Democrat who inherited the problems.
Edwards called the special session to try to stabilize Louisiana's budget. He also suggested he is revealing the true depth of the problems Jindal hid.
"It's time for fiscal responsibility in this state. No more smoke and mirrors," Edwards said.

The state has to close an estimated $900 million shortfall in its $25 billion budget by June 30, a gap that shrank as Edwards and lawmakers slashed spending and tapped into patchwork financing. Next year's shortfall tops $2 billion.
Negotiations continue between Edwards and the majority Republican legislature over tax hikes to fill the gaps. But there's little disagreement about the problems' origins.
Guarding his anti-tax record, Jindal balanced the budget with short-term fixes: selling state property and raiding savings accounts. As the assets disappeared or promised savings didn't pan out, budget gaps appeared. The oil price slump worsened the problems.
"The previous administration focused more on spending money that didn't exist, which is why we're in the situation we're in now," said House Appropriations Chairman Cameron Henry, a Republican.

Jindal and his former chief political adviser did not return calls for comment. But before he exited office, Jindal defended his financial management, saying he chose to grow the private sector rather than the government. He wanted even deeper cuts but faced legislative resistance, he said.
"I think the approach we took was absolutely right," Jindal said in December. "We held the line on taxes. We were willing to cut government."

Lawmakers went along at the time, rather than buck Jindal in a state with a powerful governor who can retaliate by eliminating local construction projects and strip items from the budget with a line-item veto. No lawmakers defend Jindal now that he's gone.
The budget instability prompted one national credit rating agency to downgrade Louisiana last month. State officials worry more blows could follow.
"You can't spend more taxpayer money than you take in for seven years in a row and not expect a downgrade to your credit rating," said Treasurer John Kennedy, a Republican.

Other expenses are surfacing:
Costs skyrocketed for outside attorneys Jindal used to defend his policies rather than government lawyers. A recent audit said Jindal's borrowing maneuvers to generate quick cash will cost Louisiana as much as $231 million over decades. Outsourcing programs that helped cut state payroll — a point Jindal touted in his campaign — have created problems.
"Privatization does not save us money. In some cases, it costs us money," Henry said.

With Jindal gone, lawmakers have started chipping away at his policies. The first bill to gain House passage was aimed squarely at him.
The measure, awaiting Senate approval, would scrap a much-maligned tax credit Jindal pushed ahead of his White House bid to comply with a no-tax pledge he made to anti-tax activist Grover Norquist's organization.
The complex credit didn't raise money or cut taxes. It just gave Jindal cover to say he kept his pledge. Lawmakers grudgingly passed it rather than risk steep cuts to colleges.

Presidential Bid Down the Crapper

Jindal’s failed White House bid was marked by his struggle to clearly define an identity as a candidate. Voters were left confused as to exactly who Jindal was and what he stood for. Although Jindal delivered an energetic response to the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill, he faced criticism, including from fellow conservatives, for his handling of state budget shortfalls. That saga created a perception that the well being of Louisiana took a back seat to the governor’s national political aspirations.
In June, Louisiana’s largest daily newspaper published a letter from a Baton Rouge resident that accused Jindal of being mercurial: “Can you trust someone who is so changeable? While I think that anybody has the right to change his/her mind, Jindal has made a career out of adapting his thinking according to the changing direction of political winds.”
A failed governor and a failed presidential candidate. Not a truly successful career. I wonder where Jindal will pop up next.


The Roving Reporter ..... G

Mercury's pencil lead crust

  Nasa's Mercury Messenger spacecraft orbited the innermost planet between 2011 and 2015

The planet Mercury may once have been encased in an outer shell of graphite, the same material used as pencil lead. The surface of the innermost planet is unusually dark, and scientists now think they know why.

Scientists analyzing data from NASA's Mercury Messenger spacecraft now think this mystery darkening agent is carbon in the form of graphite. This graphite may be a relic of the planet's primordial crust, which was later covered up by volcanism.
The findings are published in the journal Nature Geoscience.

Patrick Peplowski from the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Maryland and colleagues analyzed measurements of the darkest parts of Mercury's surface taken by Messenger at the end of its mission.
They found that the darkest "stuff" on Mercury had a carbon-rich composition and that it was associated with large impact craters. According to the team, this association is consistent with the dark material coming from deeper within the planet and being exposed when space rocks gouged it out.
Like Earth's Moon and the other inner planets, Mercury likely had a global magma ocean when it was young and the surface was very hot.
"As this magma ocean cooled and minerals began to crystallize, minerals that solidified would all sink with the exception of graphite, which would have been buoyant and would have accumulated as the original crust of Mercury," said Rachel Klima, also from APL.
But this primordial crust was obscured by later volcanism and other geological processes.
Some of this carbon-rich material would then have been mixed into the overlying rocks to cause  the global darkening of Mercury's surface.
"If we've really identified the remains of Mercury's original crust, then understanding its properties provides a means for understanding Mercury's earliest history," Patrick Peplowski explained.
So kids, Mercury is a giant pencil point. Now we just have to find a giant eraser.

Mexican President Pena Nieto compares Trump to Hitler

    Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto ruled out paying for a wall between the US and Mexico

Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto has compared the rhetoric of US Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump to that of German Nazi leader Adolf Hitler.

In an interview with Mexican daily Excelsior, he called Mr Trump's rhetoric "strident".
He added that "that's how [Italian fascist leader] Mussolini got in, that's how Hitler got in".
The Mexican leader also said that Mr Trump had hurt US-Mexico relations.
Donald Trump has said that if he is elected he will build a wall along the US-Mexico border to keep migrants from crossing into the US illegally.

The Republican candidate has also insisted that Mexico would pay for the border wall, which President Pena Nieto dismissed out of hand.
He said there was "no scenario" under which Mexico would ever pay for such a wall.
Mr Trump, who has made the fight against illegal immigration the main plank of his campaign, outraged Mexicans last June when he called undocumented Mexican migrants "criminals" and "rapists".

'Ominous situations'

President Pena Nieto said Mr Trump offered "very easy, simple solutions to problems that are obviously not that easy to solve".

         Masks of Donald Trump became a bestseller during Halloween in Mexico, where he is deeply unpopular

"And there have been episodes in human history, unfortunately, where these expressions of this strident rhetoric have only led to very ominous situations in the history of humanity," he said.
"That's how Mussolini got in, that's how Hitler got in, they took advantage of a situation, a problem perhaps, which humanity was going through at the time, after an economic crisis," he added.
President Pena Nieto, who had up until now avoided commenting on Mr Trump's candidacy, insisted he would be "absolutely respectful" of the US political process.
His predecessors in office, however, have been more outspoken.
Former President Vicente Fox used an expletive on live television when he said Mexico would not pay for the border wall proposed by Mr Trump.
Felipe Calderon, who governed from 2006 to 2012, also dismissed the idea saying: "Mexican people, we are not going to pay any single cent for such a stupid wall!"

The Roving Reporter :Former First Lady Nancy Reagan dies at 94

       Nancy Reagan, the former actress who was fiercely protective of husband Ronald Reagan through a Hollywood career, eight years in the White House, an assassination attempt and her husband's Alzheimer's disease, died on Sunday at age 94, the Reagan library said.
Michael Reagan said on Twitter he was saddened by his stepmother's death. "She is once again with the man she loved," he wrote.
      Reagan became one of the most influential first ladies in U.S. history during her Republican husband's presidency from 1981 to 1989.
Her husband, who affectionately called her "Mommy" while she called him "Ronnie," died in 2004 after a long struggle with Alzheimer's, the progressive brain disorder that destroys memory.
      As Nancy Davis, she was a Hollywood actress during the 1940s and 1950s and married Reagan, a prominent film actor, in 1952. She then served as first lady of California during her husband's stint as California governor from 1967 to 1975 before moving into the White House after his decisive victory over incumbent Democratic President Jimmy Carter in 1980.
      Her most publicized project as first lady was the "Just Say No" anti-drug campaign. After her husband developed Alzheimer's disease, she became an advocate for discovering a cure.
She was diminutive and publicly soft spoken but Nancy Reagan's strong will, high-tone tastes and clout with her husband made her a controversial figure during his presidency.
      As Reagan's wife, political partner and adviser, she became one of America's most potent first ladies, alongside the likes of Franklin Roosevelt's wife, Eleanor, Woodrow Wilson's wife, Edith, and Bill Clinton's wife, Hillary.
      "I see the first lady as another means to keep a president from becoming isolated," she said in 1985. "I talk to people. They tell me things. And if something is about to become a problem, I'm not above calling a staff person and asking about it. I'm a woman who loves her husband and I make no apologies for looking out for his personal and political welfare."
      Tiny and frail in her later years, Reagan devoted her time to caring for her ailing husband at their home in Los Angeles' exclusive Bel Air enclave. She was always a stickler for protocol and detail and stoically presided over the former president's weeklong funeral and celebration of his life in June 2004.
                                                   'I FORGOT TO DUCK':
      One of her most trying times as first lady came when John Hinckley stepped out of a crowd outside a Washington hotel on March 30, 1981, and fired six shots toward the president, striking him in the chest. A .22-caliber bullet punctured his lung and nearly entered his heart.
"Honey, I forgot to duck," he told her at the hospital.
      Some critics lambasted Nancy Reagan as a meddlesome "dragon lady," derided her anti-drug campaign and ridiculed her for consulting an astrologer to schedule presidential events.
President Reagan called this view of his wife "despicable fiction," saying in 1987: "The idea that she is involved in governmental decisions and so forth and all of this, and being a kind of dragon lady - there is nothing to that."
      The reputation was established during Reagan's time as California governor and followed her to Washington. She was first accused of being a vacuous spendthrift interested chiefly in renovating and buying new china for the White House, lavish entertaining, her designer wardrobe and the like, then portrayed as a cunning manipulator of policy and people.
      Advocates of the latter view saw her influence as virtually unlimited in such matters as the dumping of presidential advisers, efforts to get a nuclear arms accord with the Soviet Union and her husband's decision to seek a second term in 1984.
      Some Reagan-watchers said reports of Mrs. Reagan's influence were exaggerated and that it was merely the protective concern of a loving wife.
      She frequently clashed with President Reagan's chief of staff, Donald Regan, who lambasted her in a 1988 "tell-all" book after he was ousted from the White House during the chaos of the Iran-Contra scandal in 1987. Regan disclosed that she had used astrology to decide the timing of presidential speeches and trips, and even her husband's 1985 cancer surgery.
       "Virtually every move and decision the Reagans made during my time as White House chief of staff was cleared in advance by a woman in San Francisco who drew up horoscopes to make certain that the planets were in a favorable alignment for the enterprise," Regan wrote.
James Baker, who served as White House chief of staff during Reagan's first term, took a different view, telling PBS in 2011: "If there was one person who was indispensable to Ronald Reagan's political success, it was Nancy Reagan."
       Nancy Reagan acknowledged she had the ear of her husband.
"In most good marriages that I know of, the woman is her husband's closest friend and adviser," she wrote in her 1989 memoir, "My Turn." "... But however the first lady fits in, she t she'll let him know what she thinks. I always did that for Ronnie and I always will."
Ronald Reagan was known for penning innumerable letters to his wife. In one, he stated: "I more than love you, I'm not whole without you. You are life itself to me. When you are gone I'm waiting for you to return so I can start living again."has a unique and important role to play in looking after her husband. And it's only natural tha
                                              'RONNIE'S LONG JOURNEY':
      The former president's Alzheimer's struggle made Mrs. Reagan a campaigner for broader human embryonic stem cell research, a stand that put her at odds with many Republicans.
"Ronnie's long journey has finally taken him to a distant place where I can no longer reach him. Because of this, I'm determined to do whatever I can to save other families from this pain," she said before his death in 2004.
      Some critics dismissed her "Just Say No" efforts as simplistic but she became America's most visible anti-drug crusader at a time when the crack cocaine epidemic was raging.
In 1988, she addressed the U.N. General Assembly, saying the United States must do more with tougher law enforcement and anti-drug education efforts and should stop blaming the poor nations that produce most of the narcotics used by Americans.
      "We will not get anywhere if we place a heavier burden of action on foreign governments than on America's own mayors, judges and legislators. You see, the cocaine cartel does not begin in Medellin, Colombia. It begins in the streets of New York, Miami, Los Angeles and every American city where crack is bought and sold," she told the General Assembly.
Mrs. Reagan had her left breast surgically removed in October 1987 after a cancerous tumor was discovered.
      She was born Anne Frances Robbins into a crumbling marriage in New York on July 6, 1921. Her car-salesman father deserted the family soon after, and her mother, actress Edith Luckett Robbins, resumed her show business career two years later.
       In 1929, her mother married Loyal Davis, a neurosurgeon. Nancy came to adore him, even taking his name, and the doctor was believed to have had considerable influence on his eventual son-in-law's shift from Democrat to Republican years later.
After graduation from elite Smith College, she worked as a nurse's aide, then began a stage career in New York. Starting in 1949, she had an eight-year career in films including one - "Hellcats of the Navy" (1957) - co-starring with Ronald Reagan.
She often took supporting roles but had starring roles like one in the 1953 B-movie "Donovan's Brain" about a scientist who kept the brain of a dead millionaire alive in a tank.
Ronald Reagan divorced another actress, Jane Wyman, in 1948. They had a daughter, Maureen, and adopted a son, Michael.
       At the time, Ronald Reagan headed the Screen Actors Guild. Davis was stunned when an industry newspaper published a list of communist sympathizers and her name was included (it turned out to be a reference to another actress of the same name). She sought out her future husband for assistance.
      During the early years of the Cold War, Hollywood blacklisted - refused to employ - numerous people accused of holding communist views, ruining many careers and lives.
Ronald and Nancy Reagan got married in 1952 and had two children together - Patti Davis, an actress, and Ron Jr., who pursued careers in ballet and television.

(Reporting by Will Dunham in Washington; Additional reporting by Megan Cassella; Editing by Bill Trott, Diane Craft and Jeffrey Benkoe)

The Roving Reporter              G .

The Roving Reporter UPDATE :Police investigate knife found at O.J. Simpson's onetime LA home

 LOS ANGELES, March 4 (Reuters) -
 Police said on Friday they were examining a knife purportedly found at the former home of O.J. Simpson, the onetime football star acquitted of stabbing to death his ex-wife and her friend in the "Trial of the Century" two decades ago.
Forensic investigators were conducting DNA tests on the blade, which was recently turned over to the Los Angeles Police Department by a retired motorcycle officer, Lieutenant Andrew Neiman told reporters at a news conference.
EARLIER: Police are reportedly investigating newly uncovered evidence in O.J. Simpson murder case
Neiman said the officer told investigators he was given the knife by a construction worker, who in turn claimed to have found it on Simpson's property in the Brentwood neighborhood of Los Angeles when the house was being torn down in 1998.
Simpson's former wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend Ronald Goldman were stabbed to death on June 12, 1994, at her condominium a few miles away.
The murder weapon had not been recovered at the time of his sensational trial, which was carried live on major television networks in the United States and transfixed much of the nation.

Key players in trial:
A medical examiner testified for the prosecution at the time that Brown Simpson and Goldman were likely slain with a single-bladed, six-inch knife.
Police declined to elaborate on the timeline of when the knife was recovered but Neiman said it was possible that "the whole story is bogus from the get-go."
He also would not name the retired police officer or speculate on why the weapon had been given to police only in the past two months.
"We still don't know if that is an accurate account of how this item came into our possession," Neiman said, adding: "If you are the individual that provided that knife (to the police officer) we would love to have you contact our Robbery Homicide Division."
Authorities have not described the knife but the celebrity website TMZ reported it was a kind of folding knife typically used in hunting and fishing.

NBC News, citing unnamed law enforcement officials, reported that it was a smaller, relatively inexpensive utility-style blade typically carried by construction workers or other laborers and inconsistent with it being the murder weapon.
Legal experts said Simpson could not be put on trial for the murders again because of the doctrine of double jeopardy.
"There really are no exceptions. Once somebody has been found not guilty of a crime, he cannot be charged with that crime again, under any circumstances," said University of Southern California law professor Michael Brennan, a former criminal defense attorney. "O.J. could confess to the crimes and he couldn't be charged again."
Marcia Clark, the lead prosecutor in the trial, told Entertainment Tonight in an interview she was pleased police were taking the find seriously, even if it was unlikely to lead to a new charges.
"The likelihood of any prosecution stemming from this evidence is very, very slim," she said. "But we have to find out what this means, what the truth of this is."
Clark also said she believed it was possible that DNA evidence could be lifted from the blade that could shed light on the case.

Simpson was found liable for the deaths of Nicole Brown Simpson and Goldman by a civil court jury in 1997 and ordered to pay $33.5 million in damages to the victims' families, a judgment that has remained largely unfulfilled.
He was convicted in Las Vegas in 2008 of kidnapping and robbery in a bungled attempt to recover memorabilia from his storied football career and was sentenced to a prison term of up to 33 years.

Highlighting the enduring fascination the case holds for the American public, there were roughly 150 tweets per minute about O.J. Simpson on Friday, according to social media analytics firm Zoomph.
Reports about the knife surfaced just as a popular new FX cable television drama series, "The People v. O.J. Simpson," chronicling the trial, is airing. (Reporting by Eric M. Johnson in Chicago, Jill Serjeant in New York, Brendan O'Brien in Milwaukee and Steve Gorman and Dan Whitcomb in Los Angeles; Writing by Dan Whitcomb; Editing by Bill Rigby and James Dalgleish)

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The Roving Reporter :LA police recover knife found buried at OJ Simpson's former estate

A knife found buried under O.J. Simpson’s former Los Angeles estate where he lived at the time of the murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman is undergoing forensic testing, Fox News confirmed Friday.

TMZ reports a construction worker found the blood-stained knife years ago and gave it to an off-duty cop who kept it in his home before finally turning it over to police in January. TMZ did not specify when the knife was found, but reported that it may have been around the time the home was destroyed in 1998.

"It is being treated as we would treat all evidence," LAPD Capt. Andy Neiman said Friday. He added that police were "quite shocked" to learn about the knife after so many years.
 

 O.J. Simpson and Nicole Brown Simpson pose at the premiere of the Naked Gun 33 1/3, in which O.J. starred, on March 16/ 1994 in Los Angeles, California.

Simpson's property was in the Brentwood section of LA. In 1995, a jury found him not guilty of murder after the so-called "Trial of the Century" dominated the media for months. Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman, her friend, were found stabbed to death in June of 1994.

In 1997, a jury found Simpson civilly liable for the slayings. He's now imprisoned in Nevada on a robbery-kidnap conviction.

Law enforcement sources told TMZ the blade is a folding Buck knife. It's now being tested for hair and DNA after it was handed over the LAPD’s Robbery and Homicide Division.

"We discovered it and our investigators immediately followed up on it," Neiman added. Simpson likely cannot be prosecuted again for the stabbings because of constitutional protections against being charged for the same crime twice, or double-jeopardy.

Cops who saw the weapon reportedly said it appeared to have blood residue on it, but it’s extremely rusted and stained, requiring further testing.

A member of Simpson's legal "dream team" in his murder trial called the find "ridiculous." Attorney Carl Douglas told the Los Angeles Times, "It's amazing how the world cannot move on from this case!"

The cop who kept the knife, an officer assigned to the traffic division, was off-duty at the time and never alerted higher-ups to the discovery, TMZ reported.

In late January the cop reportedly contacted a friend in the homicide division and told him he was getting the knife framed for his wall.

According to TMZ, the cop even asked his friend to get the department’s record number for the Simpson-Goldman murder case so he could engrave it in the frame. He was forced to surrender the knife to LAPD when the friend told superiors.

Sources told TMZ authorities are keeping their investigation top secret and under wraps, even loading the case into a computer system outside the official case file.

The Roving Reporter                  G.

Twilight

TWILIGHT

Shadows overtake the day and evening steals the light away.

I see the maple leaves are falling and the dahlias gently die.
I too am on the threshold of the twilight of my life;

The gloaming, the brief hour between sundown and the night.

Have I been compassionate; have I been fair ?  Did I do more harm or good?
Did I love them beyond measure, hold them as closely as I should?
Will they think of me and smile; remember fondly, happy days,

Or recall with melancholy, every frown and wounding phrase?

I see the ivy's overgrown and the sunflowers gone to seed.

The  roses, speckled brown, fight for space among the weeds.

I know that I did not fulfill my loved ones' every need.

I can't turn back the clock, erase mistakes and try again,

But there's still time to draw them nearer, embrace their dreams, 

To make amends.

As for my dreams, well, some came true and some have flown.

I am not sorry. I cannot  truly miss what I have never known.

And if now and then, for just a heartbeat, I sigh, I am not sad,

I see a humming bird among the bluebells and think, life is not so bad.

I did tolerably well and squarely faced my own ordeals.
So, I continue on my journey to find what wisdom it reveals.

And as I cross the threshold of the twilight of my life,

 I do not fear the coming of the everlasting night.