I am one of those people who will actually watch those boring, boring, hearings on C-SPAN that most of us flip right on past while watching TV, and this past week I've been watching one of the longer events the channel broadcasts...but it's been far from boring.
The Coast Guard and what used to be the MMS were in Houston looking into what caused the Gulf oil spill and they're taking testimony from representatives of the involved parties...and let me tell you, this is more than just an accident inquiry-it's also a warm-up for the lawsuits that are surely going to follow.
§9(k) was created to award capital funds to public housing authorities affected by natural disasters. In the last several years, however, Congress has not allocated funds for disaster relief under § 9(k), which effectively bars Gulf Coast public housing authorities from accessing FEMA grant money when there is a pre-existing account at HUD.
Congressman Cazayoux stated:
"As we have seen too often, the biggest obstacle that Gulf Coast residents face is not the will to rebuild; it is red tape from the federal government. My bill provides a common-sense fix to HUD that improves FEMA's ability to directly assist public housing authorities trying to rebuild affordable and quality housing for those who need it. This measure is an important step in the long-term recovery of Louisiana and Mississippi."
Now before all y'all conservatives go crazy about a Democrat bashing the red tape of government ... this fits in quite well with the idea that most Democrats share that government ought to be efficient. It's not so much that it ought to be small, but efficient. For historical examples of this belief within the Democratic Party, I point y'all to then- Senator Harry Truman's "Truman Committee" during World War II, which saved American taxpayers some $15 billion in wasteful spending during the war.
Could you imagine the Bush Administration allowing a subcommittee of Congress to challenge the billing practices of KBR or Halliburton? If you can, I have a bridge in Brooklyn I'd like to sell ... please contact me.
And one more thing ... this is Congressman Cazayoux's first bill in the House, and it deals with helping people in a positive way. We elected another Congressman the same day to fill out the remainder of Governor PBJ's term - Congressman Scalise.
Pray tell, what was Congressman Scalise's first bill about? A resolution to express support for the designation of National D-Day Remembrance Day. That's all fine and dandy, but when you've got folks in your district struggling to rebuild their lives and their homes after Katrina, shouldn't your priority be to help make it easier for them to do so?
(Still pertinent ... and it explains why this matters, notwithstanding the commentators' opinion that the LA Democratic Party mishandled the ad. - promoted by ryan)
By now, we have all seen the Louisiana Democratic Party's controversial commercial regarding candidate Bobby Jindal's published essays and letters on religion and religious conversion.
Not surprisingly, the Louisiana Republican Party and the Jindal campaign have responded with varying degrees of outrage. Jindal and his lawyers are actually attempting to pressure television companies from running these commercials, arguing the commercials are "defamatory."
First (and this may be a surprise), I do have a problem with this particular television commercial-- not because of its subject matter but because of the way it attempts to reduce an entire body of work by Jindal into a series of explosive sound bites, all aimed to upset and/or anger North Louisiana Protestants.
The commercial begins by stating, "Most Americans believe we should respect one another's religion. But not Bobby Jindal." Then, it flashes a few choice quotes from Jindal's writings as a way of "backing up" this argument. The commercial specifically targets Protestants in North and Central Louisiana and focuses almost exclusively on an essay Jindal published when he was Secretary of Health and Hospitals in Louisiana, an important fact that I believe should have been included in this commercial.
Contrary to Mr. Jindal's response, this commercial is not defamatory. Anyone who has read Mr. Jindal's work recognizes his belief in the exclusive power and authority of the Catholic Church. They also recognize when arguing for the Catholic Church, Mr. Jindal criticizes the beliefs and the authority of any other Christian denomination, particularly those founded after Luther's Reformation.
Mr. Jindal is totally within his rights to write and publish essays concerning his religious beliefs.
But the Louisiana Democratic Party is also totally within their right to call attention to the published writings of any candidate for office, regardless of subject or content. As pointecoupeedemocrat has pointed out on numerous occasions, candidate Jindal has begun preaching in front of Pentecostal and Baptist congregations. When one reads his published work, it is hard to understand how Jindal can reconcile the political need to address these congregations with his own publicly-expressed religious beliefs.
Here is how the commercial should have appeared, in my opinion:
