Gov. Bobby Jindal will not participate in a gubernatorial candidate debate with the nine candidates running against him because it won’t be televised statewide.
The Times-Picayune reports that all of Jindal’s nine challengers, none of which have a slim chance of defeating him, have agreed to participate in the Oct. 12 debate sponsored by the Louisiana Association of Educators. Jindal is the only candidate not attending:
Asked about the debate Wednesday, the Republican governor said he didn't know about it. His spokesman, Kyle Plotkin, says the governor's office turned down the invitation because Jindal will only participate in debates that are televised statewide.
Next week's debate isn't planned for TV.
LAE officials say the nine men and women running against Jindal have agreed to participate. None of the challengers have raised enough money to mount a significant challenge to Jindal, who has a multimillion dollar campaign account.
Read more here.
JUNE 17 If anyone ever wonders why Saints fans hate Atlanta with a capital H, here's a good indication. Radio "professionals" at an Atlanta station created an entire segment around making fun of former Saints player Steve Gleason, who is now paralyzed by ALS. Listen, nobody's ever accused DJs of being rocket scientists. But how could someone think it is amusing to pretend to ask a man with a degenerative, fatal disease if he will be alive next week? The DJs have been fired, and are now whining about how gutless their former bosses are. Wow.
JUNE 18 Here's the latest from the Advocate on the fatal hit-and-run accident allegedly involving the president of the Livingston Parish School Board. He's accused by police of hitting a 21-year-old man on a highway early Sunday and driving away. The man died at a hospital later. On Monday, police seized the president's truck and towed it away. But he's available for board meetings: apparently a $500 bond is sufficient for this type of thing over in St. Helena Parish.
JUNE 18 Former broadcast journalist Griffin Scott has posted this plea on his blog for financial assistance from his readers. Scott, who says he was fired after he wrote something fairly innocuous (for Facebook) on his wall, is suing a media giant for his job back. He's framed himself as David going after a bloated media giant, and he's probably not far off.
JUNE 18 Here's a fairly absurd column posted on DIG Magazine about the completely absurd practice of naming killer storms. Tornadoes don't have names. Blizzards don't have names. But hurricanes do, and there's a big process to bestow them, Jacques Cormery writes. He's right about the crazy assemblage of names -- this year, there's everything from Tanya to Humberto -- and his idea that we don't waste good names on killer storms is a good one.
JUNE 17 Political columnist John Maginnis has some advice for Louisiana Republicans: grow up. After the schism that occurred in this past session - fiscal hawks teaming up with Democrats to spank the Republican "majority" and hand Gov. Jindal his, er, aspirations for continued solon control -- they need to figure out how to get along with each other, Maginnis writes.
JUNE 17 Here's the Picayune's obit story for Dorothy 'Miss Dot' Domilise, the lady who made poboys at the uptown restaurant that bears her name. Miss Dot moved to New Orleans during World War II, where she met and married her husband Sam. When she passed away Friday she was 90, and had spent more than 60 of those years working at the restaurant on Annunciation Street.
JUNE 17 This editorial in the Advocate speaks in favor of the consent decrees that have federal judges overseeing police operations and the sheriff's parish prison in New Orleans. Mayor Landrieu and Sheriff Gusman can't get along, so outside forces, like the Inspector General and the judges, are needed to make sure things run right, the editorial opines.
JUNE 18 Here's a post from Manny Schewitz on Forward Progressives that is good for a chuckle. Manny had an epiphany back in November, and is sharing it with us today: he believes that Fox "News" is killing the GOP by pandering to right wing nuts. Now, don't get it twisted: Manny's not broke up about it. He says he enjoys watching the downward spiral with a shot of whiskey and "a schadenfreude chaser."
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Excellent article on our present political culture. Since 94% of our political candidates win who have the most money, why would Governor Jindal "bore" the brain-dead constituents of Louisiana with an "open" debate. He risks exposure as to his dire policies that actually hurt our poor, working poor, middle class and our professional classes. When one can rob the citizens of their future so effortlessly, why stir up the pot?
How does that delightful saying go from the criminal business corporate interest of Louisiana? Oh, Yes! "Ignorance loves bliss!" Keep the citizens poor, stupid, and distracted! It works every time.
Here is what he could have been doing. I quote a "Proposal for Mr. Bobby Jindal" I personally presented to him in 2004 CE:
"Why you? You unite in your person two great intellectual traditions of the Indo-European people dedicated to a knowledge economy: India and France! In Europe for the last seven centuries, 'The army was in Germany, the church in Italy, and knowledge in France.' In India there has been a knowledge economy for thirty-five centuries. The Indians are the global leaders in software code programming for our post-modern global economy. You will be tapping into this brilliant engineering information technology."
"The post-modern model for the Information technology has four knowledge inputs: biological system, information system, community-communications social system & cognitive neuro-scientific system. This is how 40% of our households will draw their financial resources for their human survival in less than twenty years."
At this time, my interest was to have him replace Senator John Breaux. If he could not do that, than "take a very visible role to be the 'knowledge czar' of Louisiana to implement in a coherent manner the global emergent knowledge economy for Louisiana."
He did neither. He has taken us back into ignorance!