SilenceIsViolence, the Social Aid and Pleasure Club Task Force, and the Dumaine Street Gang Social and Pleasure Club will lead a “Walk for Peace” this evening through the streets of Treme. The event starts at 6 p.m., and is intended as a kickoff to the 4^th of July weekend, celebrating culture and community strength. Organizers are asking that participants meet at the intersection of North Robertson and Dumaine streets, and the walk will follow a circular route through the Treme, ending at the intersection of North Robertson and St. Philip streets. Following the walk, the Rebirth Brass Band will perform at Tuba Fats Park.

     For more information, call Tamara Jackson (453-1155), or Kendra Reade (722-0908).  

BY ALLEN M. JOHNSON JR.

Gov. Bobby Jindal’s veto of state funding for New Orleans Adolescent Hospital (NOAH) has put pressure on fellow Republican U.S. Rep. Anh “Joseph” Cao to address the projected Sept. 1 closing of the mental health facility.

One day after Jindal’s June 30 veto of $14.2 million for NOAH, activists passed out leaflets at a Mid-City health care fair — hosted by Cao –- urging the congressman to support keeping the 35-bed hospital Uptown.

Cao said that he asked Jindal Administration officials if NOAH could remain in New Orleans if $4.5 million in federal funds could be found to plug the state funding shortfall for NOAH (which the governor put at $5.8 million). “They did not make a commitment,” Cao said of state health officials.

The congressman added that earlier in the week he asked a City Park “roundtable” of area hospital executives if they could accommodate more mental health beds. However, the executives replied that mental health beds are too costly for private facilities to maintain because of a lack of federal Medicaid reimbursements, Cao said. “Children’s Hospital has space for 16 additional beds for mental health,” the congressman added, but the nonprofit would need $1 million for the expansion.

In his veto message, Jindal said NOAH costs twice as much to operate as other state inpatient facilities. The governor said the consolidation of NOAH and transfer of its beds to the state Southeast Louisiana Hospital at Mandeville would result in $9.1 million in savings and no loss of patient services, while providing “community-based mental health services” in New Orleans.

Critics fear that transportation of mental patients across Lake Pontchartrain will pose a financial hardship on local governments, hospital emergency rooms and visiting family members. A legislative override of Jindal’s veto is widely viewed as unlikely. — Allen M. Johnson Jr.

Statement from City Council vice president Arnie Fielkow:

“I am truly frustrated with Governor Bobby Jindal’s decision to apply a line item veto to $14.2 million in funds dedicated by the Legislature to the New Orleans Adolescent Hospital - one of the last vestiges of mental health facilities in Orleans Parish.

“Governor Jindal must know what this veto will mean for those New Orleans-area citizens in need of hospitalization: the reduction of in-patient beds by another 35 for a total loss of 231 in-patient beds since Hurricane Katrina; that parents, guardians and/or significant others will be forced to commute 40 miles to see and assist in the assessment and treatment of their loved ones; and there will be zero public sector facilities in New Orleans to provide comprehensive inpatient and outpatient services for children and adolescents.

“I beseech Gov. Jindal and Department of Health and Hospital Secretary Alan Levine to reconsider this critical decision. I heartily thank all legislators who voted against the closure and who voted in favor of additional funding to keep this crucial facility open. Various groups have requested, and I have accepted, to sponsor a forum for advocates to appeal to legislators to override Governor Jindal’s veto. The meeting will be held on July 14, from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m., in the City Council Chamber.“

Gov. Bobby Jindal line-item vetoes funding for New Orleans Adolescent Hospital, the city’s largest in-patient mental health facility.

Department of Health and Hospitals secretary Alan Levine explains why this is a good thing

For once it’s not Louisiana caught up in statewide scandal. Let’s look at what happened today in the other Gret Stets of America ….

• DATELINE MINNESOTA! As David Winkler-Schmit noted earlier, the proper term for former comedian-talk show host Al Franken is now Senator Al Franken. Update: Franken’s challenger, Norm Coleman, has conceded.

• DATELINE S. CAROLINA! For those who thought South Carolina governor Mark Sanford was (R-TooMuchInformationville) in his tear-soaked confession, wait till you get a load of this:

The governor said he “never crossed the ultimate line” with anyone but Maria Belen Chapur, the Argentine at the center of a scandal that has derailed his once-promising political career….

During an emotional interview at his Statehouse office with The Associated Press on Tuesday, Sanford said Chapur is his soul mate but he’s trying to fall back in love with his wife.

And this:

In early 2009, after Jenny Sanford discovered the affair, the couple went into counseling. She has told The Associated Press that he asked her several times to visit the mistress and she refused.

Awk-ward. And Sanford’s now gone from (R-TooMuchInformationville) to (R-FunnyFarmMaterial).

• DATELINE ALASKA! Much will be made about “It Came From Wasilla,” the profile of Sarah Palin in the upcoming issue of Vanity Fair (now available online for pre-publication mastication).

That’s got to cheese off the poor editors at Runners World magazine, who must’ve thought they had an Alaskan gubernatorial scoop with their own Palin interview in the new issue. But Runners World has something the Vanity Fair story doesn’t, and that’s this:

News reports are starting to come out that the Minnesota Supreme Court has declared Al Franken the winner over incumbent Norm Coleman in Minnesota’s legally-contested U.S. Senate race.

THE EVIL EYE!

What’s this about?

As the summer begins, White House watchers have spotted a new look by President Obama: The Evil Eye!

Staffers have joked about the menacing glance, which comes when the president meets with world leaders who are not aligned with his progressive view.

White House photographers have captured the “evil eye” in recent weeks, during sessions with German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Colombia’s Alvaro Uribev.

Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi got hit with the commander’s malocchio last week in the Oval office.

And at least one White House reporter has been on the receiving end of the daggers during a press conference.

Developing…

Remember, this is developing … so check back with the Weekly World News Drudge later in the day for further terrifying updates.

Last week a New Orleans City Council committee approved an ordinance to pay for longer police shifts during the summer months, but it didn’t seem to consider the accountability standards for violent crime Councilwoman Shelley Midura had written about only a week prior to the meeting. In May, during another City Council meeting, New Orleans Police Superintendent Warren Riley became angry when Midura had floated the idea of withholding police overtime until NOPD brass layout its strategies for battling violent crime.

     Maybe it’s time to look at how other cities are dealing with it. In Cincinnati, cops are using the Ceasefire method, which was developed by anthropologist David Kennedy. In its June 22 issue, The New Yorker contained a well-researched article by John Seabrook about Ceasefire’s success in Cincinnati as well as in many other American cities, and how the program uses a combination of academics, social workers, cops and former criminals to stop the violence. Here’s an abstract of the article. If you want to read the whole story, you’ll have to buy a copy of the magazine, visit your local library, or peruse the Internet for more information.

This year’s legislative session went swimmingly for Gov. Bobby Jindal, but for many others it was a drowning pool. Here’s our annual recap of “Da Winnas and Da Loozas” of the annual session:

DA WINNAS

1. Gov. Bobby Jindal — The governor rammed through his “transparency” bill (which critics say actually reduces transparency in the governor’s office), got the budget more or less as he presented it, killed any and all tax increases, and kept lawmakers from raiding his economic development mega-fund. His few losses seem almost insignificant by comparison, such as his failure to secure repeal of the motorcycle helmet requirement. If there was a major setback, it was the failure of a proposed constitutional amendment designed to give legislators and the governor more flexibility to cut budgets in times of fiscal hardship.

2. Saints owner Tom Benson — The new Saints deal eliminates the team’s direct subsidy, but it gives Benson something almost as good: a nice building downtown with the state paying above-market rent as a tenant … and $85 million in Superdome renovations.

Read the rest of this entry »

Sen. David Vitter’s wasting no time swatting at a potential challenger — and using the possibility of that challenge as the center of a fundraising appeal.

The news that Rep. Charlie Melancon may decide to challenge Vitter for his Senate seat in 2010 is only a week old, but already Vitter is sending his own supporters fundraising appeals in which he calls Melancon “Obama’s close ally” and warning of the possibility of a “filibuster-proof, unchecked power in the U.S. Senate that would force their radical agenda upon us all.

“But I am standing in the way of that,”

Vitter concludes, reassuringly.