KTBS in
Louisiana reports the following:
In his book, "Leadership and Crisis," Governor Bobby Jindal [Republican] doesn't mince words when it comes to the federal government's response to the BP oil spill, calling it "lackadaisical almost from the start." He blames the lack of boom needed to protect Louisiana's shoreline on rigid rules and regulations, and the government's refusal to relax requirements even in time of crisis. Jindal says it was reminiscent of Hurricane Katrina. It was contentious from the start. Government officials, he says, were more worried about procedure than outcomes. He points to the moratorium on all gulf drilling as an example. Estimates are the moratorium has cost Louisiana between 8,000 - 12,000 jobs. The economic impact of that is still out; but the governor says some of the rigs rented for up to half-a-million dollars a day, rents that included taxes to the state.
See the local news page here. Meanwhile, the governor's facing a long-shot recall prospect, spearheaded by Ronnie Caesar, a Ph.D student in public policy at a university in Louisiana. KTBS reports: "With less than a year until the next governor's race, a petition has been filed to recall Governor Bobby Jindal. The petitioner, Ronnie Ceasar of Opelousas, filed the documents Wednesday afternoon with the Secretary of State's Office. Ceasar says he's fed up with cuts to Louisiana's higher education and health care. "Has anyone done an impact study to see what these cuts are going to do to the poor, the disenfranchised," said Ceasar."
See the KTBS webpage on this story, here. User-reader comments on the page are interesting to foreigners of Louisiana. The other day, a State Representative Damon Baldone [
Democrat] published a letter in a New York newspaper, while Jindal was there fundraising and promoting a book. The Representative said this: “We haven’t seen much of Jindal back home [...] First, he spent months jetting around the country campaigning for other politicians. Now, he’s back on the road promoting his book and raising money. ... Clearly, personal political aspirations are more important to him than the reality we face here in Louisiana. Our people are facing the largest budget deficits in recent memory — a crisis measured in the billions, not just the hundreds of millions.”
See the news story on this issue here. See also:
Bobby Jindal: The Transformational Story of a Brown-skinned, Die-hard Conservative in the Deep South
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Bobby Jindal
. Last week, a Washington Post opinion was blogged: "No Labels = No Content", by Jennifer Rubin. Rubin said this: The group is comprised of a lot of midterm losers (oops, mustn't label) and retirees. And while they decry name-calling, Avalon immediately denounced partisan loyalty as "cowardly." (Do these non-labelers put a dollar in the jar every time they use a label?) It turns out it's hard to operate without labels. "We're going to call ourselves the radical center, the people who care about results, not rhetoric," said former congressman Tom Davis. "Radical" and "center," Mr. Davis? For shame. The group says it has raised $1 million already. That suggests that people will spend their money on anything, or rather nothing. Really, why is disbanding "labeling" a virtue? It's a con job, really to demean those who have strongly held beliefs for which they rigorously advocate. That is, after all, what small "d" democracy is all about. So as for me, I'll stick to candor, truth in advertising and robust debate.. View that WP post here. Below is the launch video for the movement, which can be found on YouTube.
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