CenLamar | Est. 2006

Less than 24 hours after Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal announced the formation of a presidential exploratory committee, a state house committee, in a 10-2 vote, effectively killed the only bill he had expressly endorsed during the current legislative session. The bill had nothing to do with closing the state’s $1.6 billion budget shortfall or improving higher education. It didn’t concern Louisiana’s rapidly shrinking coastline and health care system. Instead, HB 707, the so-called “Religion and Conscience Act,” was ostensibly designed to codify, arguably redundantly, state and private-sector discrimination against gay and lesbian citizens, all under the cynical guise of religious…

Two days ago, when the one and only Ragin Cajun, James Carville, was in the middle of a passionate, 30-minute long commencement address at LSU’s Manship School of Communication, Gov, Bobby Jindal was in Iowa, taping the latest edition of “Iowa Press.” Carville implored students, parents, faculty members, and everyone within earshot (including those, like me, who watched the speech live on the web) to redouble their commitment to LSU and the American public education system, tracing its origins all the way back to John Adams and Thomas Jefferson and reminding the audience that it was our most famous and…

If signed into law, HB 771, a bill authored and proposed by Louisiana’s newest and most controversial state legislator, could provide tens of millions of dollars in taxpayer incentives to subsidize the construction of large-scale theme parks by tax-exempt churches and religious organizations.  It’s an outrageous proposal, and what’s even more outrageous, the legislator behind the effort is suing the State of Kentucky for millions of dollars after it pulled the plug on new earth creationist Ken Ham’s ostentatious and delusional Noah’s Ark theme park. *** Newly-minted Louisiana State Rep. Mike Johnson has deservedly earned an enormous amount of state and…