CenLamar | Est. 2006

Yesterday, less than 24 hours after Moody’s downgraded its credit rating, panicked investors withdrew their backing of $114.5 million in bonds for Louisiana State University. It is hard to blame them: Louisiana is currently grappling with a $1.6 billion budget shortfall, the result of years of fiscal mismanagement and astonishing negligence, and thus far, Gov. Bobby Jindal and the stubbornly pliant Republican super-majority in the legislature continue to be in complete denial. The state’s flagship university is imminently imperiled. Its newly-minted president, F. King Alexander, is, prudently, preparing to file for academic exigency, the equivalent of bankruptcy, in order to…

A few weeks ago, on the coat tails of The Advocate‘s request, I sent Thomas Enright, Bobby Jindal’s executive counsel, an identical public records request: I also wanted any and all e-mails Gov. Jindal had sent and received on his account, the same demand he had made of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Yesterday, more than two weeks later, Mr. Enright denied my request, as well as the requests from The Advocate and the Associated Press. Here’s my response: Dear Mr. Enright, With all due respect, your legal analysis and the justifications provided for failing to disclose responsive, historical public records are…

A few years ago, after a nationwide search, a group of fundamentalist Muslim leaders, formally known as Answers in Islam, finally picked the location for the development of a $150 million Quran Museum, complete with a full-scale replica of the Kaaba and the Ajyad Fortress in Mecca, Saudi Arabia. They had been seriously contemplating building the facility in Dearborn, Michigan or Yorba Linda, California on a pristine plot of land overlooking the Richard M. Nixon Presidential Library, but when a friend advised them to reach out to Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal and Economic Development Director Steven Moret, they were immediately…