As Haiti struggles to pull itself together, French finance minister Christine Lagarde is pushing to expedite a cancellation of hundreds of millions of dollars in Haitian government debt. Haitian historian Alex von Tunzelmann said, “For all of the 19th century and most of the 20th century, Haiti was unable to develop normally” because of crushing debt. […]
Author Archives: The Editors
Supreme Court ruling permits more direct corporate influence on elections
The Supreme Court on Thursday struck down decades of campaign finance law in a controversial 5-4 decision. Ruling that Congress cannot limit the political speech of corporations and labor unions, the Court overturned precedents established by prior courts in 1990 and 2007. The decision renders moot many of the laws governing outside spending established by […]
Race to the punch line: The home stretch
In about two weeks, New Orleans will vote for a new mayor. Wednesday night, WWL-TV released independent poll numbers that provide a glimpse into what the final results might be after polls close Feb. 6. Mitch Landrieu has a commanding lead, with 45 percent of the vote and polled first among all demographic groups including […]
Will Nagin steamroll City Council on disaster recovery spending?
Whether or not you’ve been following the insider chatter about the lack of oversight of Disaster Community Development Block Grant money, Ariella Cohen’s piece at The Lens and with WVUE is a must read. The Nagin administration has chosen to put the disaster-recovery money in the operating budget, essentially giving the council less control over […]
Troy Henry's "cheesy" tribute to MLK
Update: Uh oh! The Henry campaign has already scrubbed the Web version of the ad. Is it still on the radio or did they pull that too? Troy Henry has a new web video and radio ad that uses the voice and image of the Rev. Martin Luther King. Henry ties his personal success in […]
NORA's $30 million award not quite for blight
Photo by Karen Gadbois A highly touted $30 million federal grant to the New Orleans Redevelopment Authority arrived with some confusion about how it will be used. A nola.com headline announced that NORA got the money “to fight blight.” Meanwhile language on the Web site of the granting agency, the U.S. Housing and Urban Development […]
Thoughts on the Perry campaign, continued
A reader comments on the Perry campaign: “As a young white pseudo-lib I attended a couple of weakly organized events publicized only on Facebook. I donated money and offered to volunteer. This began some 9 months ago. I hesitate to make the comparison — in part because I find Perry’s invocation of Obama a little […]
Troy Henry at Enron
Mayoral hopeful Troy Henry has stressed his executive experience to differentiate himself from his rivals. Indeed, Troy Henry has spent his career climbing the ranks in the private sector. He spent more than a decade at IBM before joining Enron, where he was promoted to vice president of Enron Energy Services in January 2001. Enron […]
Judge sympathetic, but dismisses complaint about housing money shifted to port
A federal judge in Mississippi this month rejected a complaint from housing advocates who were upset that millions of dollars marked for poor residents displaced by Hurricane Katrina had been diverted to rebuild a coastal port. And given the persistent – but unproven – contention that Louisiana has enough low-income housing, it’s not inconceivable that […]
The politics of affordable housing: are solutions a problem?
With a new Mayor and City Council on the way, is anyone out there taking the affordable housing issue seriously? Save for housing advocates like mayoral candidate James Perry, former executive director of the Greater New Orleans Fair Housing Center, few other candidates have released a cursory statement acknowledging the report. The affordable housing crisis […]