Do the orcas know about this?

Jeff Landry spent his Fourth of July weekend in Bermuda this year.  He sent back a video to tell us about it. 

While standing on the deck of a friend’s yacht last week in Bermuda, Gov. Jeff Landry praised a new Louisiana tax break on boat purchases in a short video he shared to social media.

“Louisiana’s been known as a sportsman’s paradise, but it’s not always treated our sportsmen friendly,” Landry said in the recording posted July 3. 

“This year, we made Louisiana sportsman-friendly by capping the amount of taxes you pay when you buy you a new boat or register your boat in Louisiana,” the governor said as the wake of the multimillion-dollar vessel churned behind him. 

What the governor didn’t mention is the tax break, which took effect July 1, only applies to boats worth $200,000 or more.

The yacht owner hosting Landry, Shane Guidry, is the governor’s close friend, political adviser and top campaign donor. Guidry told the Illuminator he personally suggested the tax break for luxury boats to the governor. 

“I recommended to him a year ago that he should look at them,” he said in a phone interview from the 82-foot Viking yacht he took to Bermuda this month. 

The cool stuff that Landry does with and for his friend Shane is kind of a regular feature in the news now.  Still, this story is worth the little peek into Guidry's boating lifestyle. 

Guidry appears to spare no expense when it comes to his yachts and isn’t shy about showing them off on social media. 

The Team Harvey Fishing Instagram account includes several glamour reels of the 82-foot Viking yacht, which was completed for his team in early June.

One post from June highlights tissue boxes and blankets from luxury fashion brands Hermes and Louis Vuitton decorating the boat’s cabin. Another pans to an ottoman, custom-made for the yacht with Himalayan crocodile skin, according to the post caption. The material is famous because it is used in Hermes’ opulent Birkin bags, which sell for over $50,000. 

Team Harvey Fishing posts are tagged with hashtags like #luxuryyacht #luxurylifestyle #yachtieworld #luxuryliving and #yachtinglife.

#yachtieworld is my favorite.

Time to start coasting

As hurricane season kicks into high gear, and the future of emergency response hangs in doubt, let's check in on Jeff Landry's levee board. 

Gov. Jeff Landry has appointed two new board members to the New Orleans area's flood protection authority, which has been in turmoil after four members resigned in protest over changes pushed by Landry earlier this year. 

One of the appointments is raising fresh questions over whether the most-qualified candidates are being chosen -- a key goal of reforms following Hurricane Katrina.

The two new members are Gregory Marsiglia, a New Orleans attorney, and Peter Vicari, a general contractor from Gonzales who owns a classic car auction business, according to his application materials. Vicari is a business associate of Landry’s handpicked board president, Roy Carubba, who described Vicari as a “very good friend.” 

That's nice that they're all good friends.  But this board performs a vital oversight function.  After Katrina, professionalizing the levee boards became a top priority.  20 years later, Landry's efforts to undo those reforms have already come under scrutiny.  And now, in light of recent reports about levee subsidence, one would think that flood control would be a top priority. Hopefully Landry's friends are taking their roles seriously. 

Vicari described himself as a lifelong resident of the West Bank, who had worked in construction projects “big and small” throughout the New Orleans region.

“I'm at a point in life where I can start coasting and I'm willing to give myself to service,” he said. Vicari said he had nearly forgotten that he had even applied for the position when he got an email notifying him that he had been chosen. 

Sounds good.

NORD privatization pilot?

Laura Rodrigue somehow got someone to earmark funds in a bill for UNO facilities upgrades for a "youth sports program" of some sort. 

Under UNO's transfer into the LSU system, which Gov. Jeff Landry is expected to sign into law this week, lawmakers in New Orleans' legislative delegation secured millions of dollars for debt payments and deferred facility maintenance at the financially-troubled university.

At the same time, Landry, acting at the urging of attorney Laura Rodrigue, a longtime ally of the governor's and other conservative leaders, secured $1.95 million to stand up the recreation programs at UNO — apparently without the knowledge of members of New Orleans' legislative delegation, who said this week that they knew nothing about the plan.

There aren't a ton of details about how the program will run. Immediately concerning is the focus on facilities specifically at UNO rather than on upgrading parks and playgrounds throughout the city. You would think that would be a priority given the way Rodrigue has been demagoguing over the state of NORD facilities recently. 

Meanwhile, this program is farmed out to a private non-profit called 18th Ward  that has already done some contracting with NORD. I see some familiar social and political adjacent swells on its board.  Also this story highlights Rodrigue's involvement as well as that of the conservative business political formation known as the "NOLA Coalition." Boysie Bollinger seems to have endorsed it. Greg Rusovich is here too. All of your favs. Who doesn't seem to have been included on the memo, though, is anyone elected by the voters of Orleans Parish to represent their interests in municipal affairs and city services... like public recreation, for example.  

All of which is why Ashonta Wyatt's suspicion voiced at the end of the article seems like a fair diagnosis. 

Others in the community view the plan as a concerted effort to privatize public recreation.

“Anytime you see programming popping up that mirrors programming already in existence, you have to ask yourself why you're trying to reinvent a wheel when you can just pour the resources to shore up the parks and recreation that already exists?” community activist and former New Orleans elementary school principal Ashonta Wyatt said this week on local radio station WBOK.

Who gets the money, then?

Jeff Landry took another step today toward throwing the state's biggest coastal restoration project into the trash.

Gov. Jeff Landry's administration has ordered a 90-day pause on work on Louisiana's biggest-ever coastal project, the controversial Mid-Barataria Sediment Diversion, arguing the state cannot afford the more than $3 billion plan and stressing that it must be smaller in scale.

The decision, confirmed by the state's coastal officials, halts nearly all work related to the project, which has been planned and studied for years and broke ground in August 2023 on the west bank of Plaquemines Parish near Ironton. Funds related to the 2010 BP oil spill are intended to pay for it, but state coastal officials say rising costs mean Louisiana will be on the hook for hundreds of millions of dollars, if not more.

The story goes on to say that there are contingency funds available through NOAA (which *probably* still exists?) to cover some increases in costs, although not increases in costs that directly result from the Governor sabotaging the project with delays.  There's also the possibility of another $744 million from Chevron if that judgment holds up on appeal. But if Landry isn't interested in spending the BP money on the coastal projects it was intended for, then it's unlikely he will apply that appropriately either.  

Which raises the question, what does the Governor intend to do with this money, if anything? It's also possible he's holding those funds and these projects for hostage pending another go at his tax reforms that just failed at the ballot box.  But who knows. 

Circle of Trust

The Louisiana Democratic Party is constitutionally incapable of simply taking the win against Jeff Landry's constitutional amendments. They're much more focused on belittling the various community groups who did the actual work of delivering that win for them.

BATON ROUGE -- Louisiana Democratic Party Chair Randal Gaines Thursday called voters’ defeat of all four constitutional amendments backed by Gov. Jeff Landry “a defining moment in Louisiana politics” and attempted to take credit for the display of bipartisan opposition.

“What was determinative was, in my opinion, the messaging of the party,” Gaines told Gambit following a press conference at the party’s headquarters. “Because the activist groups don't have those relationships.”

Gaines went on to claim that’s because “they're not necessarily within a circle of trust of our Louisiana voters. The party is."

It's unclear what Gaines’ belief is based on. Democrats have had increasing difficulty in even fielding a candidate in local and state level races for the last decade, leaving many Republican state legislators to run unopposed for years. The party also lost the statewide election in 2023 badly, handing control of all levels of government to Republicans and leading many Democrats to call for totally rebuilding the party.

Remember Randal Gaines is only the party chair now because of the many failures alluded to in that last paragraph which were presided over by his predecessor. But, because the change in leadership was forced on the party by some of the activist groups Gaines is chiding here, the party is never going to forgive them for speaking out of turn. There's no "trust" left with the voters at all. The only circles in evidence come in the form of zeroes that show up on statewide Democratic ballot lines instead of viable candidates. 

A post-mortem analysis by the Times-Picayune shows several factors behind the demise of Landry's amendments including organized opposition from religious conservatives concerned about taxation of church activities as well as from a coalition of progressive groups detailed here. 

The progressive groups say each of them started out opposing individual amendments, but they ended up joining forces to oppose all four.

“We realized early on that if we got everybody under the same umbrella and had the same messaging, we could be more effective,” said Drew Prestridge, who handled communications for notothemall.org

Added Peter Robins-Brown, executive director of Louisiana Progress: “It all came together to create a pretty overwhelming chorus.”

His group opposed Amendment 1, fearing it would allow the selection of unelected judges by conservative lawmakers to supersede the power of elected progressive judges in big cities. It also opposed Amendment 3, which would have allowed more children to be jailed in adult prisons.

Invest in Louisiana, a Baton Rouge-based group, focused on the anti-Amendment 2 message.

Taking the lead in opposing Amendment 3 was a recently created coalition called the Liberty and Dignity Campaign, led by Kristen Rome of the Louisiana Center for Children’s Rights, Sarah Omojola of the Vera Institute of Justice and Ashley Shelton of the Power Coalition for Equity and Justice.

Gaines's "messaging of the party" isn't even discussed. 

It's understandable that party brass would feel a little bit left out given the size of the victory they slept through.  What it came down to, especially with regard to the absurdly byzantine Amendment 2, is voters correctly perceived that they were being bullshitted by the Landry camp. Shockingly, people don't like to be condescended and lied to. Even the voters who are normally your political allies will turn on you for it.

Jeff Landry, not being particularly known for his humility or his smarts, is having a hard time learning that lesson.  In response to the election results, he chose more condescension saying in a statement that voters are "conditioned for failure." He also has resorted to more outlandish lies with "Soros" insinuations drawn straight from the stupidest corners of the conspiracy forums. 

However, as we noted here, the Governor and his allies are preparing to try again, likely with more brute force; holding more of the state budget hostage, and possibly finding new ways to purge the voter rolls. It remains to be seen how much comfort Randall Gaines' "circle of trust" will be for anyone in the way of that.

Gangster state

David Dayen writes here that the tariffs are really sanctions, in once sense against the entire rest of the world, but most critically against every business and ngo in the country. And, in that way also, they are a demand for ransom. 

I’ve really only seen Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) understand this, that this is just a loyalty test for virtually every business in the nation, a universal attempt to gather protection money. It’s no different than using the leverage of government funding to force universities and law firms into submission. These economic sanctions force businesses to supplicate. “One by one, every industry or company will need to pledge loyalty to Trump in order to get sanctions relief,” Murphy writes. That’s correct, and it could come in the form of campaign support, corporate governance changes, or just raw cash. Anything is possible.

So this policy is an open invitation for corruption, yes. Where you sit in relationship to Trump, what donations you gave and what endorsements you’ve made, will dictate your level of success. America is now a country where proximity to the king matters above any other business strategy. As Tim Wu writes, companies so dependent on government treatment don’t innovate because they don’t have to. Their government relations departments rise well beyond their research and development departments. And as there are only so many favors to dish out, they trend the country toward oligarchy.

Not too different from the crude demand for patronage you find in any given local municipal budget dispute, really.

Similarly, the tariff gambit can be seen as a version of what Republicans have been doing in red states (and repeatedly in Louisiana) where they try to raise sales taxes in order to "pay for" big cuts to (or outright elimination of) progressive income taxes.  And, you know, sometimes, if the person running that scam is particularly clumsy about it, they might fail... at first.  

But the beauty of being the party that holds all the power is you can always try again. 

Louisiana legislators might put portions of a constitutional amendment overhauling state budget and tax policies back on the ballot, even after voters overwhelmingly rejected the wide-ranging proposal in Saturday’s election. 

On Monday, Rep. Julie Emerson, R-Carencro, said she was already working on drafts of new constitutional amendments that would make some of the same budget and tax changes in the failed Amendment 2 from Saturday. 

“I think you will definitely see some of this reborn in the session,” Emerson said in an interview, later adding, “I think it is just how we package it, and how many instruments we have with it.”

And if you follow the Trump plan for this, you try again while applying pressure. 

Gov. Jeff Landry has enacted a hiring freeze for the executive branch of state government in an effort to save $20 million ahead of a projected state budget shortfall. 

The governor signed an executive order Wednesday that pauses hiring for state government departments and agencies under the governor’s control. The order does not apply to Louisiana’s judicial or legislative branches, according to Landry’s press secretary Elizabeth Crochet.

“To ensure the long-term fiscal health of Louisiana and protect essential services for our most vulnerable citizens, we must take decisive action now to address revenue shortfalls,” Landry said in a written statement. “By implementing a temporary hiring freeze, we will reign in spending, saving an annualized $20 million. This is a necessary step to give the Legislature more options, to prevent deeper cuts to health care and education, and to safeguard the future of our state.”

The wannabees at work

The really insidious thing about the DOGE phenomenon, wherein a team of hooligans under the direction of a hostile plutocrat wreak havoc on the basic physical and social infrastructure that makes life possible for most Americans, is that.. in addition to this... the movement spawns hundreds of immitators in state and local governments accross the country.

Last month we noted that Jeff Landry has formed a DOGEesque committee to attack state services. At last notice, they were writing a report. A week ago, we learned that St. Tammany Parish is getting a DOGE committee of its own. With the New Orleans municipal elections right around the corner, it also looks like Pres Kabacoff is having his own Project 2025 drawn up. (Let's keep an eye on that one, yes?)  In January, we caught this profile of Jeff Landry advisor/patron and Harvey Gulf President Shane Guidry where he explicitly compared himself and his role in the administration to that of Elon Musk. 

Today we find Guidry behind a move by Landry to dismantle South Louisiana's flood protection. After Katrina, a grass roots movement of residents succeeded in taking corrupt and negligent levee boards out of the hands of political cronies, de-emphasizing their police powers, and professionalizing their core flood risk management function. This week, three board members resigned in protest of Landry's attempts to reverse those reforms.  They addressed their resignation letters to Guidry. 

The letter was signed jointly by board members Roy Arrigo, Thomas Fierke, and William Settoon. It is addressed not to Roy Carubba, the president of the board, but to Shane Guidry, Landry’s informal adviser in New Orleans, who is not on the levee authority’s board but has been overseeing reforms at the agency.

It alleges the agency's new leadership had diminished “morale, readiness and focus on flood protection.”

Guidry thanked the departing board members for their service. He also stressed that, under his guidance, the agency was “moving in a better direction to make sure that all flood control assets are maintained properly, which they haven’t been, and working properly, which they haven’t been,” though neither Guidry nor Carubba has provided any evidence that the city’s flood control infrastructure is faulty.

And now we're getting wild unsubstantiated assertions about what does and doesn't work from unofficial administrators of dubious legal authority.  Our wannabe DOGEs are rounding into form.

Jeff Landry is an asshole

 Pass it on. 

The Public Service Commission on Wednesday removed commissioner Davante Lewis as its vice chairman after he called Gov. Jeff Landry an "a**hole" on social media. 

On a 3-2 vote, the commission chose to replace Lewis with Commissioner Eric Skrmetta in that role on the board. The vote followed public comment from a line of people arguing the move violated Lewis' right to free speech.

How thin is the Governor's skin? I mean asshole is not even that out of bounds.  The WBRZ version of the story doesn't even censor it. 

BATON ROUGE — The Public Service Commission voted to remove Davante Lewis as vice-chairman at a Wednesday morning meeting after Lewis called Gov. Jeff Landry an "asshole" on social media last week. 

The commission voted 3-2 to remove Lewis and named commission member Eric Skrmetta vice-chair.

Of course there is also the possibility that this is about a little bit more than just hurt feelings.  It might, for example, have more to do with protecting Entergy and Meta from public oversight than with people using rude words.  

Two environmental and consumer protection groups are challenging Entergy's plan to power a massive AI data center for Meta, Facebook's parent company, in northeast Louisiana. 

 The Alliance for Affordable Energy and the Union of Concerned Scientists have filed a motion asking the state's utility regulators to deny Entergy's request to build three gas power plants at a cost of over $3 billion until it follows standard procedure. If the regulators side with the advocacy groups, Entergy would have to scrap the proposal in its current form and resubmit it after proving the gas plants are the best option available.

The regulator being appealed to here, of course, is the Public Service Commission. And the ousted co-chair seems to have a different approach to the issue than the person who will replace him... on behalf of the Governor's hurt feelings, of course.  

PSC commissioner Davante Lewis said that it was too early to comment on the motion, but that the filing raises questions that the commission should look into.

"Having a review process is important to ensure we are building generation that is needed that is also the most cost-efficient," Lewis said.

Eric Skrmetta, another commissioner, similarly declined to comment on the motion specifically, but said that he believed the concerns over fast tracking the process or massive power needs to be unfounded.

There's no law anymore

He who saves his Country does not violate any Law.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 15, 2025

There are four constitutional amendments that will appear on your March 29 ballot in Louisiana. They're all very bad.  

One of them would allow the legislator to create something called a "business court." In practice, that will likely mean the state can take civil matters out of the hands of locally elected judges and move them into more corporate friendly venues whose scope is defined by the legislature. 

One of them would allow the legislature to greatly broaden the list of crimes for which children under 17 could be sent to adult prison. 

And another one would step up the timeline for special elections to fill judicial vacancies. 

There's no good reason to support any of these. But one, in particular, turns out to be such a mess that a lawsuit has been filed to take it off of the ballot.  Tyler Bridges explains.

During a two-week special session in November, Landry and the Legislature reduced income taxes, abolished the corporate franchise tax, raised the sales tax and kept tax credits used by film productions and developers of historic buildings, albeit at lower spending levels.

The net savings would disproportionately benefit the wealthy and big companies, who, Landry said, would use the money to invest in Louisiana and grow the state’s economy.

At Landry’s behest, the Legislature also passed House Bill 7, which in 115 pages authorized a series of other changes to the constitution if approved by voters on March 29.

The lawsuit says the 91-word question is hopelessly complicated.

“There is no person in the State of Louisiana – including the legislators who passed HB7 – who understands all of the proposed changes to the constitution,” the lawsuit says. “The voters, however, are to be asked to vote on the proposed changes.”

The lawsuit also says the 91 words include only the sweeteners in the proposed amendment – language aimed at drawing favorable votes.

“None of the unappealing changes are included,” it says. “The ballot language is all dessert, no vegetables.”

That article goes on to explain that even the "dessert" part of the menu is misleading.  For example, the ballot language implies that voters would be enacting a teacher pay raise. But what the amendment actually does is pay down a certain amount of debt on the teachers' retirement system to free up enough money to extend a one time stipend for another year. 

The rest of the amendment is incredibly complicated. It lowers income taxes on high earners. It adds a cap to mandatory spending on education and health care. It eliminates the so-called "rainy day fund." It also makes several convoluted changes to multiple taxation rules at once. It really is a lot to put to voters in one ballot item. 

But is it legal? Well that's going to be up to the judges, isn't it. So anyway, about those judges... 

The Louisiana Supreme Court is about to receive a second new member, following a series of moves orchestrated by Gov. Jeff Landry, who has reshaped the court more than any governor in decades.

Cade Cole, an attorney, former prosecutor and tax judge in Lake Charles, will join the court next month after winning election to an open seat because no one opposed him.

The seat for Cole opened up after Landry paved the way for then-Justice Jimmy Genovese to resign from the Supreme Court last year to become president of Northwestern State University.

John Michael Guidry, who had been the chief judge on the Baton Rouge court of appeal, became the other new justice in January after winning his election unopposed.

The seat for Guidry opened up after Landry got the state Legislature to redraw the Supreme Court district boundaries last year in a way that favored a Black Democrat for an open seat that Guidry would ultimately occupy.

Because the map Landry pushed now has two Democrats – Piper Griffin from New Orleans is the other Democrat besides Guidry – the other five districts favor the election of White conservatives in the coming years.

Landry has sought to undermine the influence of Chief Justice John Weimer, a maverick who is a no-party registered voter without a clear ideological line.

Anyway, there's more background on how Landry is working to re-shape the courts in that article.  Suffice to say, though, it's going to become more difficult to appeal his legislative shenanigans there in the future. 

The wannabees

The only thing worse than what Elon is doing to the federal government right now are his pathetic emulators sprinkled across the states... including your very own.

Landry was inspired to create the commission by the federal Department of Government Efficiency headed by billionaire business owner Elon Musk.

“I think we in Louisiana are facing some of the same issues that President Trump is facing with his DOGE,” Hodges said. “We are very aware that the voters who elected us are demanding quick action. And we intend to deliver.”

State legislators, speaking privately, said they believe Landry created the commission to placate conservatives unhappy that they had to vote for a sales tax increase in November and that Landry has made no serious attempts as governor to reduce the state government spending that lawmakers control.

Conservatives are also miffed that Landry vetoed a high-profile bill that supporters said would reduce payouts to car accident victims and their trial attorneys.

Landry issued the executive order creating the government efficiency group on Dec. 12.

“In Louisiana, we always strive to have a government that is of, by, and for the people,” he said in a statement that day. “A government that runs efficiently and effectively is a government that best serves her people.”

His executive order called for Orlando to serve as its chair. Orlando made a fortune by owning an offshore supply company that he sold several years ago. He is a neighbor of Landry’s in Broussard and frequently accompanies the governor on fishing trips.

As far as anyone can tell they aren't monkeying around in the treasury just yet. The state does have an independently elected treasurer so it's not as simple a matter. (The state treasurer is ultra-MAGA sandwich magnate John Fleming, though, so it's not much of an improvement on the situation.)  Anyway, according to Bridges, this commission is just writing up a report for now. It is due at the end of the year. 

 

Camp Bernhard

I've had less time to be annoying online lately. That should change soon. But 2025 has been a monster already. Not only because the world seems to be on fire in various ways but also because of a series of personal crises.  Hopefully that gets dealt with soon enough.  

Even so, it's hard to know what there is to say anymore. Nobody has to work very hard to explain the cruelty and corruption that happens every day.  It's all so blatantly on the table now. I'm not even going to say anything here. Just putting the relevant bits in bold for you.

As part of a sweeping effort to spruce up New Orleans before the Super Bowl on Feb. 9, Gov. Jeff Landry said Monday his administration will begin clearing homeless encampments downtown, moving some residents to a Gentilly warehouse miles away and others to undisclosed locations out of state.

The 70,000-square-foot shelter is expected to open by Wednesday, when state authorities plan to begin relocating those living on the streets around the Caesars Superdome, French Quarter, I-10 and US 90. Notices were being posted at some encampments on Monday, warning that failure to move to the new shelter “may result in enforcement action or legal proceedings.” The notices indicate that transportation and storage will be provided.

The warehouse, located at 5601 France Road, will serve as a temporary shelter and can accommodate 200 people, according to a proposal by Workforce Group, the company that Gov. Jeff Landry’s administration has tapped to operate the facility.

The building is owned by the Port of New Orleans and sits along the Industrial Canal across from Pontchartrain Park, far from the city's tourist-laden core. It will be subleased to the state for at least two months at an estimated cost of $11.4 million, with a possible one-month extension that would increase the price tag to $16.2, according to budget documents. That time frame ensures the shelter will be operational through Mardi Gras on March 4, another massive tourist draw. 

Okay I will say one thing to move the story forward. Many have pointed out that the state could spend 16 million dollars on the same people and probably get them all housed or well on the path to being housed. Instead they are putting them in a concentration camp. Are they doing that because they think its efficient? Probably not. Or they doing it because "the cruelty is the point"?  Maybe.  Is there some other reason as well? Well, see...

Baton Rouge-based Workforce Group is a disaster recovery firm that helps state and local officials with federal grants, data management, staffing and insurance claims, according to its website. Workforce Group is owned by The Lemoine Company, a Lafayette firm backed by Bernhard Capital Partners.

Yes, that Bernhard Capital. 

Hooverism

 A few months ago I posted some notes on a couple of semi-recent books, one of which was Ages of American Capitalism by Jonathan Levy.  One of the main takeaways from that book for me was the extent to which Herbert Hoover's ideology of the "associational state" continues to dominate the policy program of both political parties to this very day.  What that entails at its essence is: 1) an accession to the holders of concentrated wealth and their perogative to decide how capital should be allocated. 2) hoping that those decisions will sometimes accrue to the greater good if our elected representatives in government ask nicely.  Here's the same quote I pulled the last time I brought this up. 

On the telephone and at two White House conferences, the president personally pleaded with the corporate executives of the largest, most regulated industries to increase capital investment expenditures. In 1930 railroads and utilities obliged. Yet everywhere else, especially in residential construction, fixed investment kept falling. Hoover recognized that during the 1920s, corporate profits had run ahead of wages, and he believed that high wages would stabilize spending, a good thing. “The first shock,” he declared, “must fall on profits and not wages.” Whether because of Hoover’s promptings or not, the nation’s largest employers agreed not to slash wages, even as they continued to fire their less desirable employees, a pattern that would persist. Proudly, Hoover said the agreements were, “not a dictation or interference by the government with business.” Rather they were the result of “a request from the government that you co-operate in prudent measure to solve a national problem.” The president boasted, “This is a far cry from the arbitrary and dog-eat-dog attitude of the business world of some thirty for forty years ago.” Hoover believed his “associational state” transcended the Jacksonian sphering of public and private, state, and market, which under the banner of equal commercial opportunity, had withered state action throughout the Age of Capital. But he drew one line in the sand. He would not coerce capitalists to invest. 

To make the point about how little things have changed, I highlighted this statement from Joe Biden  shortly after Hurricane Ida. Biden publicly asked insurers and utitlity companies to please not exploit their policy holders and ratepayers in the wake of the disater.  

“I’m calling on the insurance companies at this critical moment. Don’t hide behind the fine print and technicality. Do your job. Keep your commitment to your communities you insure,” he continued. “Do the right thing. Pay your policy holders what you owe them to cover the cost of temporary housing in the midst of a natural disaster. Help those in need. That’s what all of us need to do.” 

Biden also expressed that, throughout the week, he’d expressed that same message to local officials and utility and energy company representatives during virtual meetings.

Like Hoover, however, Biden did not take any extraordinary steps to compel them.  

The reason I bring this up again today is because we read in this morning's news that a "frustrated" Governor Jeff Landry is taking a similar approach with Louisiana's out of control insurance rates. 

Landry, a Republican who took office in January, has convened lawmakers for three special sessions – on redistricting, crime and taxes – but hasn’t convened one for the insurance crisis.

In an interview, Landry said he’s open to holding another special session on insurance, but he has not seen a package of bills that would fix the problem. He called on insurers to offer up solutions that would lead to savings for homeowners.

The article goes on to point out that there are things the state could do in a legislative session to take on the problem. The easiest and least radical of these would be requiring insurers to discount homeowners who take advantage of a state subsidized fortified roof program.  (Those roof grants could be bolstered as well.) Alli pointed out last week that coastal Alabama's success at controlling insurance costs (relative to the rest of the Gulf South) is at least partially attributable to its fortified roof program. 

But so far, Landry would prefer that insurers "offer up solutions" themselves.  He does sound mad, though. 

Landry said he’s miffed that the package of bills pushed by the insurance industry that he signed in the spring hasn’t brought relief yet.

“I feel completely frustrated,” Landry said. “It leads me to believe the things the insurance companies told the commissioner of insurance, told the lawmakers, don’t seem to be coming to fruition.”

He means the package of bills that he himself signed at a high profile press event this spring.  The explicit purpose of those laws was to give insurance companies more power to raise rates and drop coverage without penalty. Could anyone have predicted this program would not produce fantastic results for Louisiana residents?  The Governor sure didn't.  Now he says he's miffed. Maybe someone should do something. Not him, though. Someone.  

While Temple supported bills to limit insurance companies’ exposure to lawsuits, Landry, who has support from prominent members of the trial bar, said insurers wouldn’t get sued if they didn’t delay and fight claims made by homeowners. And the governor said he’s open to a federal solution to the insurance crisis, given the global nature of the business that ties Louisiana premiums to reinsurers in London and Bermuda.

Gonna have to wait until we hear back from President Musk on that one.  In the meantime, we'll go back to asking the insurers to come up with solutions for us.  Maybe if we get them a nice Christmas card or something. 

Political problems

That's one way of putting it. 

Gov. Jeff Landry’s ambitious plan to overhaul Louisiana’s tax structure has largely been pared down to a more modest goal – cutting state income taxes.

 
Lawmakers are working on a way to make sure the state can pay for that desired tax reduction while not having to make damaging cuts to areas such as health care and higher education.

The paring down was part of the plan, though.

The idea here was always solely about affecting a massive shift in tax burden from the richest (corporate and high income taxpayers) to the poorest (people who pay sales taxes on every day essentials.) The feint at lessening the blow by cutting out special exemptions and tax credits was a ploy to establish buy-in to the scheme as various lobbying groups mobilized to save their own privileges. Mission accomplished. 

This week, the Senate declined to fully roll back some of the state’s expensive business incentive programs, such as its movie and television tax credits and historic preservation tax breaks that collectively cost the state hundreds of millions of dollars annually.

A plan to eliminate a state inventory tax credit, which covers taxes businesses pay to local governments, has been delayed until 2026, and a proposal to increase a tax on heavy machinery and equipment used by industrial employers has also been scrapped.

And now we're back to where Landry and Richard Nelson always planned for us to be. Legislators will approve a higher sales tax than their own bill originally targeted vs. the prospect of more cuts to health care and higher ed. A win-win for them despite the conventional reporting that posits it could lead to "political problems." 

If he doesn’t find a way to make up for that money, Landry runs the risk of revisiting the same political problems that plagued former Gov. Bobby Jindal.

Jindal also cut income taxes without replacing the lost revenue or finding a permanent way to cut government spending. His policy led to chronic budget problems for years and made the former governor deeply unpopular when he left office.

Bobby Jindal left office after having steamrolled to a second term and launching an ambitious (although comically hubristic) Presidential campaign. You could say he was unpopular, but he never seemed to notice that. He seems to be living well. More to the point, the income tax cut Jindal pushed through (quite similar in nature to the one Landry is proposing now) set the stage for budget cuts and the currently regressive taxation regime that are core elements of the Republican ideological project.

And now they are about to build on that. If those are "political problems" they're not "plaguing" Jindal or Landry so much as they are Louisiana's poor and working classes instead.

Who was this for?

The entire reason there even is a Mike VII in the first place is because, when Mike VI passed on, the school had to make some firm public commitments to treating any future tigers humanely.

To this point, LSU has drawn a hard line against involving Mike VII into Tiger Stadium. In September, LSU veterinary school spokeswoman Ginger Guttner said the institution “is not in discussions to bring Mike to any games this season.” 

Mike VII, an 8-year-old Bengal-Siberian tiger that became LSU’s official mascot in 2017, has never attended a football game. Previous Mikes have been placed in a trailer and taken to the sidelines of Tiger Stadium, and some have even traveled to away games. The university announced it would stop the tradition when it adopted Mike VII as a cub.

And they have done that. The tiger enclosure on LSU's campus is very much along the lines of what you might find in any reputable zoo exhibit.  Mike has room to move about and swim and relax in the open. If you at least accept that there will be a tiger in captivity there (and, yes, I understand that many will not, which is fine) then it's reassuring to know that he's being well cared for rather than paraded around like a circus animal. There's nothing in your "tradition" that demands you do anything different.

Shockingly, it turns out this reasonable position is shared by an overwhelming majority of LSU football fans. 

In The Advocate's online poll, which was an unscientific survey, 90% of respondents believed a tiger should not have returned to Tiger Stadium. Nine percent supported bringing back the animal, and 1% felt indifferent. About 1,500 people participated.

“As somebody who grew up with the memory of what it used to be, it kind of sterilized that memory a little bit,” said Justin Giglio, an LSU graduate who lives in Prairieville. “That wasn't what I enjoyed about what it used to be. The part of me that does agree with maybe we shouldn't be doing this to a tiger anymore, that feeling was definitely maximized. I felt bad for Omar.”

We felt bad for Omar, the tiger being lugged around the field in a cage.  And we felt a little bit bad for Mike VII too. The Governor's stunt, cry as he might about "respecting tradition," can only be seen as a direct slap to the face of our very good kitty.  Both of these tigers, and the entire LSU alumni (a community to which Jeff Landry does not, in fact, belong) deserved better.

Animals in the news

Congratulations to Scrim. Far and away the number one local hero of 2024. 

Zoning, code enforcement, permitting and other prosaic municipal matters could wait. The first order of business at Thursday’s City Council meeting was to acknowledge the civic contributions of a runaway dog named Scrim, who became a furry New Orleans folk hero.

As Council Vice President JP Morrell put it, Scrim “really did exemplify the resilience that is New Orleans.”

The good feelings didn't last too long, though, as councilmembers almost immediately broke into a territorial dispute over bragging rights. 

Lesli Harris laughingly said that “this is like one of my most exciting council days ever,” before she laid claim to Scrim as “the official mascot of District B.”

District A Council Member Joe Giarrusso, however, immediately contended that Scrim’s territory had extended into his jurisdiction as well.

We're gonna have to see his voter ID. Or, failing that, maybe his "municipal ID."

This article also says the dog was presented with, " a framed proclamation and a sack of dog goodies."  When I bust out of jail and take two bullets while out on the lam for 6 months, City Council better give me a dang medal.

Anyway, everybody loves Scrim. We even dedicated our Jack-O-Lantern this year in his honor. Look at this good boy.

 

Meanwhile, turning our attention the wild animal kingdom, the New Orleans menagerie of oligarchs has been (slightly) rearranged.

Michael Sawaya, the president of the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center, will succeed Ron Forman as president and CEO of the Audubon Nature Institute, New Orleans’ cherished collection of parks, museums and environmental attractions.

A 40-year-veteran of the hospitality industry, Sawaya, 64, was chosen as Audubon’s new leader on Wednesday by the Audubon Nature Institute board of directors. His selection follows a six-month search that attracted nearly 500 candidates from around the country.

They went on a nationwide safari to find the heir to Ron Forman's grift. What are the odds that the guy they were looking for was here all along!

And, hey, look at the price they got.  

In his new role, which begins Jan. 1, Sawaya will earn $525,000 a year in salary and benefits, according to Audubon officials. That’s far less than Forman’s $800,000 annual compensation package but more than the nearly $433,000 Sawaya made at the Convention Center in 2023, according to a legislative audit.

The "non-profit" zoo that is heavily subsidized with public funds will now be paying its CEO only half a million dollars instead of nearly a million.  Personally, I still hope they feed them all to Valerio.

Finally,  speaking of big cats ,in order to get around being shitty to one tiger, Governor Landry is forcing LSU to go out and get a whole burner tiger. Unsurprisingly the source is disreputable.

The owner of a live Bengal tiger slated to appear at the LSU-Alabama game Saturday has a history of having his big cats escape as the result of employee errors. 

The university and Gov. Jeff Landry’s office won’t say who would be responsible for any accidents involving Omar Bradley, a 1.5-year-old tiger that’s being transported from Florida for the game. Landry and Surgeon General Ralph Abraham have pushed to return a live mascot to the sidelines of Tiger Stadium.    

After the Illuminator confirmed that a live tiger will appear in Baton Rouge at the LSU-Alabama game on Saturday, WBRZ reported that the tiger is being supplied by Mitchel Kalmanson, who has a long history of federal citations for mistreating animals.

Sounds pretty exciting. Can't wait to see how that goes. It's good of Governor Landry to take time away from his busy work throwing more children in jail and making poor people pay higher taxes to focus on this. Are we sure he knows what he's doing, though?  

Landry’s initial request was for LSU to bring its own live tiger mascot, Mike VII, to games. Previous tigers have attended LSU football games, most recently Mike VI in 2015. LSU announced it was discontinuing this tradition when it adopted Mike VII in 2017 out of humane concerns. 

Landry did not attend LSU but claims to be a lifelong LSU football fan. 

“Our hope is that maybe we can get this tiger to roar a couple of times, and that’ll indicate how many touchdowns we’ll have, and it’ll be more than Alabama,” Landry said Friday in an interview with Fox News. 

Previous Mikes have been provoked to roaring by beating on his cage and taunting from the costumed Mike the Tiger mascot, a practice LSU discontinued.

Who is this for? Which piece of shit Landry donor is pushing this hard to bring back an animal cruelty ritual we all finally moved past a decade ago? Even if you buy into this far enough to be all, "yay the tradition is back!" and are totally cool with the cruelty of it, how do you not still see it as a slap in the face to our beautiful boy Mike VII?

We'll see if the cheer squad wants to be involved in all that this time around.  If not, maybe the Governor could get in the cage and try poking the tiger with a stick or something. 

How a bill becomes a law

Yeah sure, the legislature gets together and argues and writes some stuff up, passes something, or maybe doesn't pass anything. It doesn't matter. What really happens is Jeff Landry says such and such thing is a law so he gets to act like it is a law and therefore, it is one. 

Landry complained that public records had been “weaponized to stifle deliberative speech.” His Republican allies in the Legislature moved to carve out a “deliberative process” exemption to allow government officials to have candid conversations with one another about proposed laws and regulations without fear that those communications could become public.

Even as Landry campaigned for the change to the law – which legislators nixed amid public outcry – he already was citing “deliberative process” and “executive privilege” exemptions to deny some records to members of the public. His administration cited those exemptions even though neither of those phrases currently appear in Louisiana’s public records statute.

A review of Landry’s first five months as governor shows that in nearly a quarter of all public-records requests his office fielded, his attorneys withheld records by citing deliberative process or executive privilege. The documents they withheld for those reasons included records related to Landry’s attempts to expand the death penalty, records dealing with the Louisiana National Guard’s deployment to Mexico and records related to Landry’s travel.

Getting the feeling this is going to be sad 4 years. Lots of hand wringing about the Governor's bad behavior but little or no accountability for any of it.

Selling the public

Judge Morgan is making noises like she's finally ready to release NOPD from the consent decree. 

The prospect of reduced monitoring, on the way to ending oversight, came into focus this week. U.S. District Judge Susie Morgan, who has tracked the reforms since their start, heard a positive report on officer bias, then bluntly requested a plan to launch the NOPD into a two-year "sustainment" phase under the 2012 reform pact known as a consent decree.

"We need to begin putting the framework in place," she said Wednesday.

I don't know enough about their "officer bias" metrics to speak with much authority. Having said that, it's clearly all bullshit that can mean whatever they want it to mean whenever they want it to mean that.  Anyway if NOPD says they're doing a better job, there are reasons to remain skeptical.  

For example, we know the consent decree places limits on high speed chases that pose an unreasonable danger to life and property such as this one that killed two teens in 2019. And yet just this week we saw officers racing through Uptown in pursuit of suspects. And in a separate incident only a few days later, an NOPD officer crashed into a utility pole on St. Charles Avenue knocking out power for approximately 1000 residents. In what way is this progress?

We can look also at the several law enforcement agencies currently operating in New Orleans outside of the federal mandates. This week the 5th Circuit is hearing a case about two private patrol officers who held a teenager at gunpoint after he asked them for help looking for his lost dog. And, of course, many concerns remain about the newly installed State Troop NOLA.

U.S. District Judge Susie Morgan, who oversees reforms to the New Orleans Police Department under a consent decree, has expressed concern over the new troop’s role in the city and LSP’s transparency about it, though she has no direct say over how troopers operate within city limits.

Landry insisted Tuesday that officials had consulted with the U.S. Justice Department and the FBI regarding its activities and that troopers in New Orleans have acted “in the most professional manner.”

The Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division has been investigating the LSP to assess whether it uses excessive force or engages in racially discriminatory policing in the wake of the 2019 death of Ronald Greene.

All of which leads us to ask: if we have clear examples of police with no oversight behaving badly in New Orleans right now, why would we want to operate NOPD with no restrictions as well? The only answer we can come up with is politics. Morgan is a federal judge and certainly doesn't have to jump whenever the local electeds say jump. But, after a while, even the least credible bullying, like the Governor calling for her impeachment, starts to get the point across. Likely there is additional pressure from all business and political leaders in all corners wanting to get this all wrapped up now that the "Summer of Superbowl" is here.

The way the T-P writes it, you'd think the whole thing is just one big marketing challenge, anyway.

The contrast in tone, tenor and verbiage — optimism in the courtroom among deputy police chiefs, Morgan and the monitors, while community voices drip with skepticism — suggests a challenge in selling the public on the idea that the NOPD is ready to police itself.

"We want Black people to be acknowledged, because it was Black people who were maimed and murdered, who got the consent decree put in place," said Alicia Plummer, vice president of the New Orleans East Business Association.

"Who is speaking for us?...The police and federal monitors, they're in cahoots together."

Is NOPD "ready to police itself?" Not anywhere near as important as, "can we sell the public on the idea?"

"Government approved protest"

 The best kind of protest, as everyone knows.

House Bill 127, sponsored by Rep. Mike Bayham, R-Chalmette, received final House concurrence in a 83-15 vote. The measure is now pending approval from Gov. Jeff Landry, who has called for harsh punishments against protestors. 

The proposal expands a state criminal statute that outlaws obstruction of a highway, road, railway, airport runway or navigable waterway by adding a conspiracy component.

Under current law, the crime is considered a misdemeanor punishable with a $250 fine, six months in prison or both. It applies to anyone who physically performs an act, such as protesting or placing an obstacle on a street, that makes it harder for vehicles to pass.

Bayham’s bill increases the fine to $750 for the misdemeanor act of obstructing a road. It adds a new provision to specifically go after protest organizers by applying the statute to anyone who conspires or assists others in a demonstration that blocks or slows down traffic. 

There was no debate ahead of final passage for the bill on the House floor Tuesday.

In a previous floor debate, Bayham said his bill would still allow people to lawfully assemble for a government-approved protest, and he added it would protect public safety by preventing protests from slowing down emergency vehicles.

I dunno. All this seems bad to me.  Can't really say what to do about it. All the options appear to have become illegal. 

The larger context of all of this is we're entering a period of greater austerity. This will be on a level not recently experienced by the middle class American kids who were raised to think they had some sort of stake in the greater societal project and therefore a credible say in how it is directed. But the line separating the circle of people who matter from the larger number of people who do not is being drawn in tighter than it has been in a long while.  You can't ask this many previously comfortable people to go quietly into that. The only way to enforce it is through stepping up the capacity for state surveillance and state violence.   

Didn't happen overnight, I know. For a while, it was possible to paper over the erosion of the social infrastructure by buying off strategically significant segments of the population with pretty stories and hollow treats. But we're getting the part where there's enough pain deliberately dealt out to enough people that we have to change the strategy from carrots to sticks. And so that's where we are.

Mayor Hecht

It's an appointed position, apparently

Landry's office said Wednesday that the details and title of the role were still being worked out and they expect to make a formal announcement on June 5 at a press conference in New Orleans when the governor will detail the state's Super Bowl efforts.

But Landry spokesperson Kate Kelly said Wednesday that Hecht will primarily be concerned with coordinating the disparate state and city organizations to ensure that a "punch list" of tasks like road and sidewalk repairs, lighting upgrades, and homeless mitigation efforts are addressed.

The Governor just hands over responsibility for municipal services and "homeless mitigation" (?) to the business lobby sometimes. You know, in the case of emergencies. Like when the Superbowl is happening.  

Not to put too fine a point on it but...

 They're messing with you. 

GOP donors Lane Grigsby and Boysie Bollinger aren't concerned about the restrictions placed on the constitutional convention in the enabling legislation passed by the House.

They don't think they're enforceable, per @LaPoliticsNow. #lalege #lagov pic.twitter.com/yUoG9J87nC

— Julie O'Donoghue (@JSODonoghue) May 10, 2024