La. La. Land - DOE has a double standard

Thursday's Blogs from the Bog!

Thursday's Blogs from the Bog!

• Civil rights suit: DOE has a double (racial) standard

  MAY 15 The state Department of Education is closing down black schools for poor performance, and giving similarly situated white schools a pass, a civil rights lawsuit alleges. The Picayune is reporting here that the suit was filed by local activists. If this suit is allowed to proceed, it could open up the entire "school improvement" process to scrutiny. Look out!

• Fracking "compromise"? Not so much

  MAY 15 The company that wants to do some fracking in St. Tammany Parish has offered a "compromise" that those citizens concerned about the project don't feel is a compromise at all, WVUE reports in this post.

• Aswell: Jindal out of control with wacky list of cuts

  MAY 15 Bobby Jindal hasn't been a poster boy for responsible governance over the past six years, but he's really out of control now, blogger Tom Aswell says in this post. Now his "amateur" staff are proposing a list of crazy cuts to deal with the state's very serious money troubles, Aswell reports. "To say this administration is delusional is to be overly kind," he says.

• Landrieu-Dardenne squabble over tourism

  MAY 15 Lt. Gov. Jay Dardenne and NOLA Mayor Mitch Landrieu are squabbling over tourism, columnist John Maginnis tells us in this post. Who cares? Well, if you don't want David Vitter as your next governor you might want to pay attention, because these are probably the two other choices you will have. They both can claim experience in tourism, but they're disagreeing over a tax. (A Republican and a Democrat fighting over a tax. Whodathunkit?)

• Lamar on Bobby's "ham-fisted" speech

  MAY 15 Bobby Jindal was hoping people would pay attention to his speech at Liberty University, but this post by blogger Lamar White Jr. probably is not what he had in mind. Lamar calls the speech "the most bizarre and sanctimonious" he's ever heard from the governor, but honestly the best part is the comment on this post. It's a hoot.

• Report: NOLA stinks at reporting rapes

  MAY 15 NOLA police just can't seem to figure out how to report and investigate sexual crimes. The Inspector General is blasting the PD in a new report, the NOLA Defender blog posts here. The problems resulted in rapes being under-reported, both to the FBI and to the public, the report found.

• The real problems in EBR schools

  MAY 15 Most folks agree the EBR school system is just a mess, but few agree on why. Blogger Mike Deshotels gives us his opinion on the source of the problems in this post.

• Mitch facing big bills, Clancy says

  MAY 15 Columnist Clancy DuBos writes about the tough row that Mitch Landrieu has to hoe. The NOLA Mayor is now facing big bills for consent decrees and pension suits that have long been put off by previous mayors, DuBos says. In the midst of the city's recovery from Katrina, those bills are now coming due, he writes.