Four years ago I became frustrated with the anti-violence group Silence is Violence because of their excessive patience with Mayor Ray Nagin and Police Chief Warren Riley, two officials who were demonstrably incapable of reducing crime rates in New Orleans. Now, I’m again frustrated with Silence is Violence and their recent call for Mayor Landrieu […]

Don’t you wish you could have joined in one of the poker games Mark St. Pierre held regularly on his party yacht, the Silicon Bayou? Assuming St. Pierre’s card-playing wiles are like his defense strategy against U.S. attorney Jim Letten, a patient gambler could win all kinds of moolah off of him. Just let St. […]

At the Gulf Coast Leadership Summit held in New Orleans on April 19, local businesswoman Leslie Bertucci stood at an audience microphone and passionately explained her story to former Oil Spill Commission Co-Chairman Bob Graham, who listened from the conference room stage. She told him that she was the owner of R&D Enterprises, and that […]

A recent News Star editorial praised Governor Bobby Jindal’s leadership as the state and the Army Corps of Engineers take historic steps to manage the swollen Mississippi River. Titled “Jindal steps up in time of need,” the opinion piece commends our governor’s data-driven, pro-active approach to the situation.  I’ll commend Jindal as well. He’s skilled […]

Last July, I took issue with a dubious airline analogy promoted by foes of the offshore drilling moratorium during BP’s Macondo deepwater oil gusher of 2011. Big Oil apologists repeated the analogy ad nauseam: “We don’t ground all airplanes after one crash, do we?” They hoped to portray the Obama administration’s response to the blowout […]

Former Louisiana Insurance Commissioner Jim Brown hosts a radio talk show on a nationwide network of affiliates. He’s also one of the most widely reprinted political commentators in the Louisiana blogosphere. From the Daily Kingfish to the Louisiana Conservative, from Bayou Buzz to various other outlets around the state, Jim Brown’s columns have received significant […]

Last year Rep. Jeff Arnold, D-Algiers, said, “It is no longer if we get rid of these cameras, it is a matter of when.” He was talking about traffic cameras, and he was right. While his proposal to unplug the cameras stalled in the Legislature in 2010, this year the passage of his bill looks downright […]

For the past seven years at my old blog, I regularly wondered why Osama bin Laden wasn’t already dead and in hell. I’d always believed bin Laden’s liquidation should’ve been a top priority for the United States, if for no other reason than justified vengeance. He deserved to die for the 9/11 attacks and for […]