“Bobby Jindal Enabled Louisiana’s Gun Violence Problem”: Worked To Weaken The State’s Already Lax Gun Control
Governor Bobby Jindal suspended his sputtering presidential campaign on Friday, a day after 59-year-old gunman John Houser killed two people and wounded nine others in a movie theater in Lafayette, Louisiana. “We’re going to do whatever we can to support our community here,” he said on Fox News. “This is a time for us to come together.”
He should do a lot more than that. Louisiana has some of the weakest gun laws and worst gun violence in the nation.
The state doesn’t require background checks on private sales, even for assault weapons; doesn’t require gun owners to register their firearms; and doesn’t have a limit on the number of firearms that can be purchased at one time, according to the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence. As for gun violence, the state has the second-highest gun death rate in the nation, according to an analysis of the latest National Vital Statistics report. Louisiana’s lax oversight also enables firearms trafficking to other states, in which it ranks fifteenth in the nation, and 28 percent of guns wind up in criminals’ hands within two years of sale—almost six points above the national average.
Jindal has worked to weaken the state’s already lax gun control by signing a wave of bills in 2013 and 2014. He broadened the “Stand Your Ground” law to protect shooters who hurt, but don’t kill, someone they feel is threatening. He allowed concealed weapons in places that serve alcohol. He banned public access to the personal information of concealed handgun permit owners. He approved guns in churches. And he allowed Louisianans to apply for lifetime concealed-carry permits.
So don’t expect from Jindal the type of comments that Barack Obama delivered after last month’s massacre in a Charleston, in which the president said, “Now is the time for mourning and for healing. But let’s be clear. At some point, we as a country will have to reckon with the fact that this type of mass violence does not happen in other advanced countries.”
Jindal called Obama’s remarks “completely shameful”—words that more appropriately describe the governor’s own gun policies.
By: Rebecca Leber, The New Republic, July 24, 2015
“Bobby Jindal, Shameful Hypocrite”: Only Answers For Gun Violence Are Hugs, Shrugs And Prayers
In the days after the deadly June shooting spree in Charleston, S.C., in which nine members of that city’s Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church died, Gov. Bobby Jindal attacked President Barack Obama’s calls for stricter gun control laws as “completely shameful.”
Instead of doing something about the proliferation of guns and gun violence, Jindal offered only prayer and hugs. Anything else, he suggested, was inappropriate and overtly political. “Now is the time for prayer, now is the time for healing. As far as the political spectrum, this isn’t the time,” Jindal told reporters after a speech in Iowa, where he had begun his remarks by praying for the victims and their families.
“I think it was completely shameful,” Jindal said of Obama’s call for a national discussion about gun control. “Within 24 hours we’ve got the president trying to score cheap political points.”
Now that people have died in a mass shooting in his state — three dead and six injured at a movie theater in Lafayette on Thursday (July 23) — it was, again, not the time to talk about the problem of gun violence. On Thursday night, Jindal, who happened to be in Baton Rouge on a rare visit to Louisiana, rushed to Lafayette to offer prayers and hugs.
When it comes to doing something about the gun violence that afflicts Louisiana, Jindal also offers shrugs. In Jindal’s world, it’s never the right time to debate gun violence or talk about how government should address the problem. And with a mass shooting almost every week, it will never be time in Jindal’s estimation to talk about it. Only hugs and shrugs.
Jindal’s press secretary on Thursday night accused me of politicizing the situation. Among other things, I had taken to Twitter to suggest that Jindal’s sympathy for the victims and their families was cold comfort to a state for which he had done nothing to make us safer from gun violence. If anyone was politicizing the situation, it was Jindal and the NRA leaders he has shamelessly courted for so long.
On Thursday night, as many people were also praying for the victims and their families as they tucked their kids into bed, they also prayed that these deaths, for once, might not be in vain. Maybe this time, they prayed, political leaders like Jindal might be scandalized enough to do something. Maybe this time, they prayed, we might get more than hugs and prayers.
Jindal had every right – and maybe an obligation – to visit Lafayette, although rushing into the teeth of an active crime scene seemed more a distraction than a help just hours after the shooting. Perhaps he should have gone to the hospitals, instead, which he eventually did.
Jindal and his staff, however, have no right to tell the rest of us to park our First Amendment rights and remain silent about the scandal of gun violence while they remain free to defend their Second Amendment rights by attacking any suggestion of stronger gun control laws as “shameful” and badly timed.
Today is exactly the day we should talk about how to stop the violence. But the reason Jindal doesn’t want to talk about gun violence today – or any other day – is that his record is nothing but support for the NRA’s blood-soaked political agenda.
Jindal has opposed every sensible restriction on gun purchases. He’s slashed mental health services in Louisiana. He’s paraded around the country, filling his Twitter feed with odd photos of himself fondling various firearms.
Back home, meanwhile, his state leads the country in gun violence. And it took a mass shooting 60 miles from the Governor’s Mansion to finally stir him to talk to some of its victims? Jindal didn’t need to drive all the way to Lafayette to do that. Mere miles from where he rests his head on the rare occasion he’s in Baton Rouge, people are dying from gunshots almost every day.
Does Jindal ever go to the mean streets of north Baton Rouge or into the violent neighborhoods of New Orleans? Does he ever look into the sad eyes of kids who’ve lost fathers, mothers, brothers and sisters to gun violence? Where are their hugs?
For every person who’s died in a Louisiana movie theater this year, there are dozens more who’ve perished in street violence, stoked by all manner of events but made possible in almost every case by all-too-easy access to handguns. And Jindal has done nothing to make it the least bit difficult for anyone to get his or her hands on those guns.
At his press conference following the Charleston shootings, Obama did rightly suggest that we do something more than offer just prayers and hugs. “At some point, we as a country will have to reckon with the fact that this type of mass violence does not happen in other advanced countries,” Obama said. “It doesn’t happen in other places with this kind of frequency. And it is in our power to do something about it.”
Like you and me, Obama knows that nothing will happen after the shootings in Charleston, Chattanooga and Lafayette. He knows it for the same reason that you and I know it.
In December 2012, after 20 children died at an elementary school in Sandy Hook, Conn., Jindal – like so many others in his party – offered nothing but prayer. If the gun deaths of 20 innocent children didn’t change our nation’s attitude about the need for tougher gun laws, nothing will.
The nation’s reaction to Sandy Hook is scandalous evidence that we’ve decided that we can live with thousands of guns each year. Sandy Hook proved that when it comes to gun violence, our leaders can only muster the energy and courage for hugs and shrugs.
By: Robert Mann, Manship Chair of Journalism at LSU’s Manship School of Mass Communication; Salon, July 24, 2015; This story was first published on NOLA.com
“Jindal Runs Out Of Options On Marriage Rights”: There Are No Other Courts, No More Appeals
No one seriously expected Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal (R) to celebrate the Supreme Court ruling on marriage equality. On the contrary, the far-right governor, eager to impress conservatives as he hits the presidential campaign trail, was expected to complain bitterly about the civil-rights breakthrough.
But watching the lengths Jindal has gone to while resisting the ruling has been pretty remarkable.
As of late last week, Jindal said he understood what the high court had ruled, but he wasn’t prepared to allow Louisiana to officially recognize same-sex marriages. As recently as yesterday afternoon, the Republican governor still didn’t want to honor the law.
It took a while, but it seems the Jindal administration has officially, literally run out of options. TPM reported this afternoon:
Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal (R) said he would wait for a third and final federal court ruling declaring bans on same-sex marriage unconstitutional before recognizing gay marriages in the state, and Thursday morning a district judge gave him just that.
Thursday, federal District Judge Martin Feldman reversed his previous ruling upholding the state’s gay marriage ban, as reported by The Times-Picuyane…. The order was a procedural motion to address the litigation specific to Louisiana in light of the Supreme Court’s gay marriage decision, which effectively legalized same-sex marriage nationwide Friday.
So, looking back over the last couple of weeks, Jindal effectively said, “Let’s wait to see what the Supreme Court says.” Once the justices endorsed marriage equality, the governor effectively responded, “Well, let’s wait to see what the 5th Circuit says.”
And once the appeals court agreed with the Supreme Court, Jindal was left with, “Well, let’s wait to see what the district court says.”
There are no other courts. There are no more appeals. Jindal will be able to boast to GOP primary voters and caucus goers about resisting as long as he could, but marriage equality now applies to the whole country, including Louisiana, whether the governor likes it or not.
For what it’s worth, let’s not forget that Jindal’s broader reaction to the ruling hasn’t been especially constructive. MSNBC’s Adam Howard reported last weekend:
The Louisiana Republican, who launched a longshot bid for the presidency last week, suggested that the 5-4 ruling, which made same-sex marriage legal throughout the nation, was cause for disbanding the entire Supreme Court.
“The Supreme Court is completely out of control, making laws on their own, and has become a public opinion poll instead of a judicial body,” Jindal said in a statement on Friday. “If we want to save some money, let’s just get rid of the court.”
Republicans routinely like to argue that President Obama has a radical, lawless vision of governing. He’s never suggested, in print or anywhere else, the possible elimination of the Supreme Court itself.
By: Steve Benen, The Maddow Blog, July 2, 2015
“Jindal Generating Between 0% And 1% Support”: Nation’s Least Popular Governor To Seek Presidency
A poll was released in Louisiana about a month ago that showed President Obama’s approval rating in the Pelican State is down to 42%. It didn’t come as too big of a surprise, of course – Louisiana is a deep-red state in the Deep South, and the president lost his re-election bid here by 17 points.
What was surprising, though, was that the same poll found that Obama was four points more popular in Louisiana than Gov. Bobby Jindal (R). Indeed, by some measures, Jindal is the single least popular governor in the United States.
With such ignominy in mind, one might assume the far-right governor would want to run away. Jindal, however, has decided to run for president – yes, of the United States. MSNBC’s Jane C. Timm reported this morning:
Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal is expected to declare his candidacy for president here on Wednesday, which would make him the 13th Republican to get into the race, after years of injecting himself into the national conversation on everything from terrorism in the Middle East to education.
Speaking from Kenner, in the Louisiana district that first elected Jindal to Congress in 2004, Jindal is set to pitch himself as the candidate who can offer a viable Republican alternative to everything from Common Core to Obamacare.
It’s safe to say Jindal, who’s wrapping up his second term this year, faces incredibly long, Pataki-like odds of success. Nearly all recent polling shows the Louisianan generating between 0% and 1% support, putting him roughly last in a crowded GOP field, and effectively guaranteeing that he will not participate in the upcoming Republican primary debates.
And to a very real extent, this is a rare example of political meritocracy working effectively. Candidates for national office aren’t supposed to parlay failure into promotions.
I’ve kept an eye on Jindal for a long while, marveling at his bizarre approach to governing, but I still believe the best summary of the governor’s troubles came just a few months ago.
Campaigning in April in New Hampshire, Jindal offered an amazing explanation for his lack of popularity in his home state.
“[W]hen I was elected to my first term we won in the primaries, something that had never been done before by a non-incumbent. My second election, my re-election, we got the largest percentage of the vote ever, over two-thirds.
“And I’m here to tell you, my popularity has certainly dropped at least 15 to 20 points because we’ve cut government spending, because we took on the teacher unions.
”But we need that kind of leadership in D.C.”
As we talked about at the time, Jindal has an unintentionally amusing take on his own political story. He ran for statewide office, promising voters to pursue a conservative policy agenda, and he won easily. Once in office, Jindal kept his promise, cut spending, and governed as a far-right ideologue.
And according to Jindal, people hated it. According to his own version of events, his constituents – residents of a ruby-red state – saw their governor implement his vision, causing Jindal’s public support to drop “at least” 15 to 20 points.
The people of Louisiana got a chance to see Jindal govern up close, and they concluded that he’s simply awful.
“We need that kind of leadership in D.C.”?
Writing at the American Conservative in February, Rod Dreher reflected a bit on Jindal’s national ambitions. “I keep telling my friends in the national media that if you think Bobby Jindal has a chance in hell of becoming president, send a reporter down to spend a few days in Louisiana, seeing what condition he’s leaving his state in,” Dreher said.
There are plenty of other reasons to question Jindal’s candidacy on the merits – his brazen opportunism, his unprincipled flip-flops, his ugly partisanship, his ridiculous policy positions (“no-go zones” and the like), his needlessly divisive approaches to every culture-war fight he could pick – but it’s probably fair to say these issues won’t matter.
His failed gubernatorial tenure effectively ends the conversation about his national ambitions.
By: Steve Benen, The Madow Blog, June 24, 2015
“Bobby Jindal, Crony Capitalist”: Giving A Whole New Meaning To The Term “Corporate Welfare”
As much as I hate entertainment tax credit programs, and as obsessed as I’ve become with the bottomless well of opportunism known as Bobby Jindal, you’d think I would have guessed at the cash nexus underlying the prize endorsement of the Lousiana governor’s proto-presidential candidacy by Duck Dynasty star Willie Robertson. But afraid it took a report from Bloomberg Politics‘ Margaret Newkirk to get me to see the connection:
Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal, a potential Republican presidential candidate, is trying to close a $1.6 billion budget hole without touching as much as $415,000 per episode in tax breaks that may be due to “Duck Dynasty.”
The A&E television reality show takes part in the nation’s most generous entertainment-tax credit program. Jindal is proposing no changes, arguing that reducing such breaks is tantamount to raising taxes. The state approves enough incentives each year to make up at least $200 million in proposed cuts that led Louisiana State University to say that it may plan for insolvency….
Louisiana, which was the site of the most English-language film productions in the U.S. in 2013, pioneered movie credits, approving the program in 2002. All but 13 states now have such programs, according to Film Production Capital, a New Orleans firm that brokers credits….
Feeding Time Productions LLC, which produces [Duck Dynasty], has submitted expenses for its first four seasons that would qualify it for $11 million in credits once approved, according to state data. That includes $4.6 million for the fourth season, or $415,000 per episode. None have yet been certified.
Louisiana offers movie makers credits for 30 percent of in-state spending and allows them to be sold to brokers.
Film-production companies set up as limited liability companies don’t owe corporate taxes in Louisiana. Most therefore sell their credits to someone that does. They are also allowed to sell them back to the state for 85 cents on the dollar.
That’s right: it’s not enough for Louisiana to let film and TV production companies eliminate their state tax liabilities; the state gives them “transferable” tax credits that can be sold on special markets to companies that do have tax liability, and if that fails the state will buy them back. So this is the corporate version of the “refundable tax credits” poor people get via the EITC.
This makes me kind of ill as an abstract matter, and gives a whole new meaning to the term “corporate welfare.” But it’s especially egregious in a state like Louisiana, with a horrendous budget shortfall, and even violates Jindal’s own principle that cutting back on refundable tax credits (e.g., credits from the business inventory tax) doesn’t violate his no-tax-increase pledge.
I’m not saying Bobby’s taking this inconsistent and politically damaging position strictly out of solicitude for Duck Dynasty; he’s slippery enough that there are usually multiple reasons for every objectionable thing he does. But on the other hand, when Mike Huckabee was going out of his way to pander to the Robertsons in his recent book, he didn’t have tax credits to hand them either, did he?
By: Ed Kilgore, Contributing Writer, Political Animal Blog, The Washington Monthly, May 4, 2015
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