Law of conservation of Jeffs

When you have to dump one horrible booster of racist cops and voter suppression but still need an Attorney General, it only makes sense that you would want one just like him as a replacement.  Ideally you would get one with the same name so you don't have to learn a new thing.

Could Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry be in the running to replace Jeff Sessions, who resigned from his post as U.S. attorney general earlier this week?

Speculation swirled on Thursday -- two days after Sessions submitted his resignation at the president's request -- that Landry may have made it onto the White House's short list of candidates to take the reins as attorney general. At least some close to Landry, who is is president of the National Attorney General Association and on the executive committee of the Republican Attorney General Association, believe he's under consideration, according to multiple sources.

The other choices are Kris Kobach (probably the scariest vote suppression specialist of all) , Chris Christie (famous screamer at teachers)  and, of course, Rudy! so qualitatively speaking, it really doesn't matter which one Trump picks. 

If he does take our Jeff  (please!) though, then that has serious repercussions for next year's Governor's election. Speaking of which, John Kennedy says he's going to make a decision "in the next couple of weeks."  Suddenly having Landry out of the picture would make that easier on him.

Best of intentions

She's always talking about "being intentional." What does that even mean?

There can be no better investment in our future than our children. Our families are the backbone of our city. When we are intentional about the bonds with the children in our community, we all move forward. It’s about we. #CityOfYes pic.twitter.com/y1kuStbUwG

— Mayor LaToya Cantrell (@mayorcantrell) June 18, 2018

I'm especially curious what it might mean to be "intentional about the bonds with the children" since she tweeted this at the same time that Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen were at the Convention Center endorsing the Trump Administration's policy of intentionally separating children from their families and putting them into cages.

Speaking at the opening session of the National Sheriff's Association annual conference, Sessions suggested that people entering the country illegally are endangering children in order to avoid prosecution.

“We cannot and will not encourage people to bring their children, or other children, to the country unlawfully by giving them immunity in the process,” Sessions said.

The attorney general also said that if the country builds a border wall and passes legislation to close some "loopholes," then "we won't face these terrible choices."

The sheriff’s association gave Sessions a lifetime achievement award before his speech, garnering a standing ovation from the crowd at the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center.

Meanwhile, outside, "at least 5 people were detained" as a group of protesters confronted sheriff's deputies who may or may not have been 1) on duty or 2) within their own jurisdiction.

At least five people were detained outside the convention hall Monday morning. Deputies from the St. Charles Parish and St. John the Baptist Parish sheriff’s offices, who were in attendance at the conference, were seen physically restraining protesters.

Some of the protesters were spotted getting intentionally kneed in the back.  Others were intentionally run over by a truck.  I don't know if anyone has asked the mayor for comment yet. But, in light of her concerns about "the bonds with the children in our community," somebody probably should.

Specifically, they should ask her whether or not her office's attitude toward immigration policy differs at all from Mitch Landrieu's. Recall that just six months ago Sessions met with Mitch and Police Chief Michael Harrison to discuss city's practice of sharing information with federal enforcement entities such as ICE.  Sessions came away from that meeting pleased with what he had learned.

"We are pleased that the attorney general and Senator Kennedy have come around to agreeing with the point we have made all along -- New Orleans is not a 'sanctuary city' and the NOPD's policies have maintained consistent compliance ..." Landrieu said in a statement.

Asked for comment after the meeting, Sessions' office issued a statement saying New Orleans "has committed to sharing information with federal law enforcement authorities ..."

Over the course of the last few years, we also learned that Mitch and Harrison used tools like Palantir, private security firms like Trident Response Group,  and a network of surveillance cameras wired in to a 24 hour monitoring center to collect and analyze data which, again, according to Jeff Sessions, they were obviously willing to share with federal enforcement agencies.

Recently, our new mayor along with members of the city council announced a major expansion of that surveillance apparatus involving a highly questionable partnership with yet another unaccountalbe private contractor.  They were very intentional about it.

“Any assistance I can provide from this position I am in, y’all can count me in,” said Banks, who began his first term on the council earlier this month.

(Jason) Williams, who is in his second term, added, “It’s not whether we can afford to do it. It’s that we can’t afford not do it.”

A focal point of the partnership’s $1 million first phase involves plans by Bryan Lagarde’s ProjectNOLA group to install more than 300 street-facing surveillance cameras on places of worship and congregation members’ homes in neighborhoods such as the 7th Ward, Gert Town and Central City, all of which are plagued by drugs and violence.

Today, Willliams co-signed a largely symbolic City Council resolution condemning Sessions's "zero tolerance" immigration policy.

"I will continue to publicly condemn the Trump administration and Attorney General Jeff Sessions' enforcement of their new immigration policy to separate families," said Council President Jason Williams. "Forcibly separating children from parents as a matter of course is inhumane and unnecessary, and as an African American and a descendant of American slaves, this policy is evocative of some of darkest days in this countries young history. This policy is truly self-inflicted wound, and like many we have seen from the current administration, is antithetical to American values and basic humanity."

That sounds pretty good.  But if he's making these statements at the same time he is supporting a dangerous surveillance network that feeds the very beast he's performatively railing against, what do those words really mean?   What does it mean to be "intentional" about protecting families when those intentions don't match up with your actual policy decisions?

Why did Jeff Sessions like us so much?

Back in November, U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions (wow.. not fired yet!) had a private meeting with Mitch in order to resolve some public back and forth (involving Jeff Landry and John Kennedy as well) over New Orleans's status as a so-called "Sanctuary City."

In some ways the meeting raised more questions than it answered. Cedric Richmond was either too busy to be there or Sessions didn't want him there. Sessions and Kennedy implied that the city agreed to notify ICE when undocumented immigrants were arrested and to allow ICE to interview arrestees.  But he mayor's spokespeople denied having agreed to that.  They both seemed to agree that the city was in compliance with... whatever Sessions was asking of them. 

"We are pleased that the attorney general and Senator Kennedy have come around to agreeing with the point we have made all along -- New Orleans is not a 'sanctuary city' and the NOPD's policies have maintained consistent compliance ..." Landrieu said in a statement.

Asked for comment after the meeting, Sessions' office issued a statement saying New Orleans "has committed to sharing information with federal law enforcement authorities ..."

But it was never clear exactly how.  Maybe they showed him Palantir. 

Law enforcement agents routinely use bank, telephone, and internet records for investigations, but the extent to which ICE uses social media is not well known.

One of the agents involved in the hunt responded that they could combine the data with “IP address information back from T-Mobile.” Another agent chimed in to say that the agency had sent the phone company an expedited summons for information.

“I am going to see if our Palantir guy is here to dump the Western Union info in there since I know there is a way to triangulate the area he’s sending money from and narrow down time of day etc,” responded Jen Miller, an ICE agent on the email thread.

Palantir is a controversial data analytics firm co-founded by billionaire investor Peter Thiel. The company, which does business with the military and major intelligence agencies, has contracted with ICE since 2014. As journalist Spencer

Woodman reported last year, the company developed a special system for ICE to access a vast “ecosystem” of data to facilitate immigration officials in both discovering targets and then creating and administering cases against them.

At the time no news organization in New Orleans seemed to know anything about Palantir. Otherwise we imagine they probably would have asked about it, since it's clearly relevant.  But this year, when the city's usage of Palantir finally became a point of public controversy thanks to a national news story, our local papers screamed loudly at us that it was "never a secret." So who can say, really?

Anyway NOPD certainly definitely is not using it or anything like it anymore so it's not worth asking about now, probably.

The day he truly became President

Here is a chilling thought.

With tariffs done, Trump’s sights are now on the Iran deal—and, possibly, the Russia investigation. “The president is finally realizing he is the president,” a former White House official told me. “He’s just making these decisions on his own.”

Which, okay, maybe. But what does it mean? That article talks about the possibility of firing Sessions and replacing him with Scott Pruitt who we can presume will be replaced at E.P.A. with a literal bag of coal. This might be an improvement, actually.

All of that is amusing to a certain degree. But I feel sorry for people whose job it is to parse some sort of strategic policy direction from Trump's constant personnel shuffling.  Currently there's a consensus forming around the notion that making a crusader ideologue Secretary of State, putting the torture lady in charge of CIA, and trying to figure out how to place a crazy war hawk as National Security of Advisor indicates a deliberate rightward shift in foreign policy.  The shoes all fit so maybe. On the other hand it could just be that he's finally coming around to Bolton's mustache.

Anyway, maybe Trump really is starting to feel his oats in the presidenting chair.  Or maybe someone will write the same thing when everybody is fired again in a few months.

Preview of the 2019 Governor's race

Jeff Landry or John Kennedy (probably both will be running):  "New Orleans is a Sanctuary City! It is coddling teh illegals!"

John Bel: "No, it isn't!  Jeff Sessions gave them a certificate. See? We all hate the illegals the same amount."

Jeff and John:  "Jeff Sessions is clearly in jail by now, though"

What did they agree to?

Mitch Landrieu and Chief Michael Harrison had a meeting with Attorney General (for now) Jeff Sessions today about New Orleans's status as a so-called "Sanctuary City." Cedric Richmond was supposed to be there. But something happened that we aren't clear about.

The stage was set Wednesday for continued discord when the mayor's office issued a statement saying there was a dispute over who Sessions and Kennedy would allow to take part in the next morning's meeting. The mayor wanted Congressman Cedric Richmond, NOPD Superintendent Michael Harrison and City Attorney Rebecca Dietz to join him in the discussion. Sessions' office had said Richmond could not attend, and either Harrison or Dietz -- not both -- could join.

According to the mayor's communications, Richmond could not reschedule a conflicting event and did not take part, but Harrison and Dietz joined the mayor.

Both versions of why Cedric wasn't there come from the mayor's office. I guess they can both be true. But it's unclear what happened.  Also unclear, what exactly was agreed to at this meeting. 

"We are pleased that the attorney general and Senator Kennedy have come around to agreeing with the point we have made all along -- New Orleans is not a 'sanctuary city' and the NOPD's policies have maintained consistent compliance ..." Landrieu said in a statement.

Asked for comment after the meeting, Sessions' office issued a statement saying New Orleans "has committed to sharing information with federal law enforcement authorities ..."

One way to interpret this is Mitch and Harrison agreed to rat out to ICE any undocumented immigrants they detain. Another way to see it is Sessions agreed that the terms of the NOPD consent decree dictated their current policy anyway so there is really no way to say they aren't in compliance with the law.

Landrieu and NOPD Superintendent Michael Harrison have repeatedly contended the department's policies adhere to the letter of the law. Harrison has also argued that going any further would risk alienating immigrants in the city, discouraging victims from reporting crimes and making witnesses more reluctant to come forward.

The policy is required by a sweeping federal court consent decree that oversees the police department. The consent decree was negotiated with the Justice Department, but during President Barack Obama's administration.

A federal Justice Department spokesman, Devin O'Malley, indicated that as of Thursday, the agency no longer considers NOPD's policies at odds with federal law.

But it could also be both. They city could be perfectly willing to inform on immigrants to the feds without actually holding them.  That, both sides agreed, is Marlin Gusman's job. Which is a convenient thing for all of them to say because Gusman wasn't there.

Sessions, according to Kennedy, requested the city notify federal immigration agents at least 48 hours before releasing any arrested undocumented immigrants from jail, and also asked that agents be allowed to interview inmates while in custody.

Both those requests appeared to apply to the Orleans Parish jail, a facility run by the independent Orleans Parish Sheriff's Office, which is covered by a separate federal consent decree. Sheriff Marlin Gusman was not included in Thursday's meeting.

And, as the story here strongly implies, Gusman's policy may also be in compliance with the dictates of a consent decree. But that isn't explicitly clear.  Anyway this may or may not get Sessions off the city's back. It probably won't satisfy John Kennedy and Jeff Landry, though.  Not with a Governor's election looming in 2019. Which is a lot closer than you might think.

Gone Guidry

A prescient representation of Councilwoman Susan Guidry on the side of a Chaos float this year


Well this changes things a bit.

After serving two terms representing Uptown, Mid-City and Lakeview on the New Orleans City Council, Susan Guidry said Thursday morning that she plans to retire next year instead of seeking another office in the fall elections.

Guidry is term limited, and had been considering a run for one of the council’s two at-large seats. Instead, she said she will serve out the remainder of her term that ends in May 2018, without running for any office in the Oct. 14 election.

This isn't the first time Guidry has publicly spoken about getting out. But she sounds serious this time. Guidry wasn't a a perfect councilperson but she did some good things. In this brief interview she talks about her work on criminal justice reform. She admits it isn't finished.  But mostly this is a good assessment of what she and others have accomplished. A bit optimistic, I guess. But that's ok. 

Guidry: “I don’t think you could ever stop working on criminal justice reform in this city. I would like to turn my attention to supporting program that are preventative, to provide the 0-5 age group support and parenting. There’s a chance I can do that outside political life. 

“The jail is still a major issue, but I’m very happy with the work being done by Director Maynard. Initially, we walked into office, and [the sheriff] was planning five buildings, with something like 5,000 beds. To have not only put the brakes on the size of the jail, but also to have educated the public about our seriously harmful penchant for over-incarcerating our citizens has been a major accomplishment.

“We ended ‘per diem’ budgeting, so we’re not just looking at how little can one person live on per day. It had the incentive for the jailer to keep people in jail longer than required to be. The consent decree litigation was filed on behalf of inmates, but the city has supported that litigation, and supported the plaintiffs rather than fighting them. That has made all the difference in terms of the progress that we’ve made.”

The Trump era is about to undo a lot of this, especially if the Sessions (?) DOJ drops the consent decrees. So that's one reason to see why Guidry might be burning out a bit.  Of course this also means now is exactly the wrong time to lose a strong reformist voice at the municipal level.  In addition Guidry became a better and better advocate for fair housing policies during her tenure on the council. That may also be missed.

With Guidry out of the way, Helena Moreno would be a clear favorite for the open At-Large seat. Whether or not she would be as strong on these issues as Guidry remains to be seen.

All they care about is being 'Merican

Every top level Trump adviser or cabinet member is somewhere on the scale of criminal-to-supervillain. But it's interesting that the "Resistance" only cares about the "traitor."

Puzder is a sexual abuser who is part of a pro-slavery lobby.

DeVos wants to eliminate public schools. Her brother owns a private army.

Sessions is pretty much a Klansman.

Mnuchin financed Batman vs Superman

But the one that establishment Democrats really want to focus on is the "traitor" so they can all puff up and be super 'Merican about it. Why is this the thing they care about?


It's because their actual constituency is comprised of millionaires and billionaires who care about "stability" and "security" (for themselves and their money anyway) but not so much about basic rights for working people. But you knew that. 

Alternative facts

When they crack down on things they are imagining.

Mr Sessions, a longtime Senator from Alabama who was once deemed too racist to serve as a federal judge, told reporters that the US "has a crime problem".

"I wish the rise that we're seeing in crime in America today were some sort of aberration or a blip," he said.

"My best judgement, having been involved in criminal law enforcement for many years, is that this is a dangerous, permanent trend that puts the health and safety of America at risk," he added.

Mr Trump's and Mr Sessions' claims of permanent, rising crime have consistently been debunked.

Despite a slight rise in crime over the past two years, it has gone down significantly over several decades and is much lower than in the 1980s and 1990s.

Anyway Mitch Landrieu and Sidney Torres think we have to have a 3 am curfew and shove a camera up everyone's butt on Bourbon Street.  So it's hard to guess at who can make the "fact-based" counter-argument here.

John Neely Kennedy is a weird dude

Did the technicians forget to change his tape after the election? He's still spouting this nonsense today during Jeff Sessions' confirmation hearing.

Kennedy managed to work in a line he frequently used during this fall's campaign against Democratic rival Foster Campbell in quizzing Sessions on his views of gun owner rights.

"In Louisiana, senator, we believe that love is the answer, but we also believe that we have the right under the Constitution to own a gun, just in case," Kennedy said. "Could you share with me your thoughts on the Second Amendment?"

Also worth noting...

Reminder that the DNC exerted virtually no effort whatsoever to defeat Kennedy in the Louisiana run-off.

— sick transit, gloria (@samknight1) January 10, 2017

Maybe we'll get lucky and Trump will lock up David Brooks

See, the thing is, whether you are for racism or against racism, the important thing to keep in mind is "both sides do it."

But it’s not only racists who reduce people to a single identity. These days it’s the anti-racists, too. To raise money and mobilize people, advocates play up ethnic categories to an extreme degree. 

David Brooks is writing this the very same week that Trump is introducing us to a National Security Adviser who says "fear of Muslims is rational," an Attorney General who once referred to the NAACP and SCLC as "un-Amercian" and a CIA Director who believes every prominent Islamic leader in America is "potentially complicit" in acts of terrorism.   But, whoah, hey, David Brooks finds it unseemly that anyone would "mobilize people" to fight this stuff.

And so we're all set to turn the ratchet one more time. Far be it for me to minimalize the crisis here  with a bit of context. Unlike Brooks, I am horrified by the situation we find ourselves in. But it's worth thinking about how Trump is less an aberration than part of the longer continuum we've seen throughout the last half century.

Reagan was the first postmodern president; it was under his administration that all depth metaphors finally collapsed, and image and reality first became politically indistinguishable. In other words, he was a moron, brainless and bellicose, something barely sentient. He was fond of telling people—Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir, for instance, or Simon Weisenthal—that he had personally been among the first group of U.S. soldiers to enter Buchenwald. He had not: he spent the war in Culver City, processing footage from the camps as part of the USAAF’s First motion Picture Unit. It didn’t matter; even the Holocaust couldn’t resist being blanketed in mediation. Giving testimony during the Iran-Contra scandal, Reagan read out the stage directions instructing him to lie, picking up his flash cards and announcing that “if the question comes up at the Tower Board meeting, you might want to say that you were surprised.”

When he first entered the White House, Reagan’s advisers presented him with lengthy policy documents. He simply couldn’t understand them, so they started getting him to make decisions (including the decision to procure new intercontinental ballistic missiles) by showing him four-panel cartoons. And it all made perfect sense. In a society where the President is experienced most often as a character on TV, why shouldn’t he be played by a TV personality? There are differences: Reagan was an actor, whose job was to read his lines, while Trump comes out of reality programs—he expects to improvise, and trusts that the editors will snip and splice everything together so that he comes out in the best possible light. The format changes, but the show’s the same.

This is not to say that everything will be fine. That’s another line that liberals are now taking to console themselves: yes, we raised a lot of panic during the election, but there was a similar panic back in 1980, and it wasn’t the end of the world. Maybe Trump will surprise us, maybe he’ll be like Reagan, maybe it’ll be okay. Except that for many people it wasn’t okay, and the world really did end.

You might recall the Democratic Convention this year was littered with Reagan hagiography in a calculated (and we now know failed) attempt by the Clinton campaign to appeal to suburban Republican voters. That's where we were in 2016.  Yesterday's unthinkable monster is today's paragon of nostalgic virtue. It's a familiar script to anyone who has been paying attention.


The pattern is this. A radical authoritarian Republican regime pushes the old "Overton window" rightward. A succeeding Democrat "reaches across the aisle" to adopt what we used to think of as "moderate" positions and that gets redefined as the leftmost boundary. Then the next Republican is even more radically right wing and the cycle continues.


All the while the mainstream political press adopts and "normalizes" the new reality. Which is why David Brooks is here to tell us all that the real problem with white supremacists ascending to the highest offices in the land is that your indignant reaction might upset the fragility of  The Discourse.

Sucks that this finally got as far as actual fascism but what are you gonna do? Reacting, or I guess, caring at all would be "not a good look."