Displaying items by tag: Mitch Landrieu

In a political party devoid of young leaders, some are speculating that Mitch Landrieu, the Mayor of New Orleans, must be a prime presidential candidate for 2020. He was mentioned along with about a dozen other presidential prospects in a New York Times article. This national publicity for Landrieu follows his interview on Rachel Maddow’s MSNBC program discussing his crusade to remove four Confederate monuments in New Orleans.

 The irony is that the city of New Orleans is in the process of destroying history while getting ready to celebrate its’ tri-centennial next year. A city known for priceless architecture and monuments is becoming less interesting, all because of the politically correct aspirations of a liberal Democrat Mayor, Mitch Landrieu. 

New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu is strutting around the city touting his “new clothes,” the culmination of his highly publicized Confederate monument removal process. While this master of distraction focuses on destroying history, his city is becoming more and more violent every day. Will someone in the media or on the City Council call out his utter nakedness?

The Confederate monument removal frenzy has now spread from New Orleans to Lafayette, Louisiana. A monument dedicated to Confederate General “Alfred” Mouton should be removed, according to activists with the group Move the Mindset. A member of the group, Frank Crocco, says that he agrees with New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu that Confederate statues “don’t represent the community anymore.” 

It has been almost two years since New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu used a tragedy in South Carolina to advocate for the removal of four Confederate monuments in his city.

Much has been written about the impact of the confederate monument issue and the defeat of the recent New Orleans millage for police and firemen.
The argument goes like this—Mitch Landrieu is unpopular among whites in New Orleans especially due to his recent actions in trying to remove the confederate statues, such as Robert E. Lee, at Lee Circle.

At City Council chambers yesterday, Tulane Professor and Dean of the School of Continuing Studies Richard Marksbury perfectly captured the absurdity of the effort to remove Confederate monuments in New Orleans. He pointed out that using the “poorly written,” “ill-conceived,” and “dangerous” city nuisance ordinance, the statue of Andrew Jackson, at the heart of Jackson Square, the most iconic spot in New Orleans and the most photographed site in the Gulf South, should be removed.

In New Orleans, 2015 ended just as it began, with a plethora of violence. There were 165 murders in New Orleans last year, a 10% increase from 2014. Other violent crime categories, such as armed robbery, rape and carjacking increased as well. In fact, crime researcher Jeff Asher noted that in each of the last 74 days of 2015 at least one armed robbery or carjacking occurred.   

You would think (and hope) that once the New Orleans City Council had voted to declare the Confederate monuments, including that of Robert E Lee (located at Lee Circle), to be public nuisances, the issue would be put into cold storage along with the statues themselves.

Yesterday, in the “City that Care Forgot,” City of New Orleans leaders showed they cared very little for their history, but cared a great deal for political correctness. 

In a 6-1 vote, City Council members passed an ordinance supported by Mayor Mitch Landrieu to declare four historic Confederate monuments “nuisances” and remove them from the city landscape.  It was a big political victory for Landrieu who created this controversy after the murder of Charleston African Americans by a racist white maniac.