Hello, and welcome to a fabulous New Year of blogging yellowly

Unfortunately this new year is still among the 2020s which, as we all know, are categorically bad. Anyway, I know I've been saying it is time to get the Yellow Blog back into running shape for a while and I know that every time Twitter starts to die, it seems like that is the time to crank it back up over here. But I really do mean it. Maybe this will finally be the thing that does it. 

Twitter CEO Elon Musk has confirmed that the character limit for tweets will increase from 280 to 4,000 characters early next month.

The feature, which was first proposed in December, is one of a number of changes to the social media platform that the tech billionaire plans to roll out over the coming months after purchasing it for $44 billion last October.

The increase in character length will be only the second time in Twitter’s 17-year history that it has changed the limit, having previously boosted the original 140 limit to 280 in 2017.

As the big social media sites have absorbed and siloed off the whole internet over the course of the past decade, so has Twitter eaten up more and more of my blog posts. That's mostly because I am incredibly lazy and it's easy to just tweet a half-baked thought out and let it go. But, when I'm doing it right, a blog post shouldn't be longer than one or two tweets anyway. Ideally, this is where the half-baked thoughts are supposed to go. 

But, also, this is supposed to be where I put stuff that I want to remember later. And a chronological, taggable, searchable web log of annotated bookmarks is far better for that purpose than the increasingly unreliable instant gratification machine currently being dismantled by a chaotic billionaire.  And if the tweet stretches out to blog post length anyway, (I just checked. So far this post isn't even over 2,000 characters.) it might as well be posted over here instead.  So this time, we mean it. We're gonna try and put the stuff that happens this year on the Yellow Blog so that it doesn't all blow by in a confusing haze this time. Besides, 2023 makes 20 years of posting here so we need to have a nice round archival number. 

I think what we'll do for a while is try to get at least one post up every day or so that collects some of those annotated bookmarks I mentioned. There are a couple of drafts of longer form writing that have been lingering for a while which I would like to finish but let's wade back into this a step at a time.

With that in mind, here is today's stuff I wrote down so I might remember it later. 

The Louisiana Democrats will need to find their own loser candidate for governor instead of borrowing a Republican loser

Late last year, there was a parlor game discussion going around trying to parse whether Dem-aligned power brokers and/or centrist establishment media would rally around a Bill Cassidy campaign for Governor in 2023. Cassidy is a "weird dude" and a perpetual darling of the Advocate editorial page. But that's not exactly an unassailable coalition to ride up against the Jeff Landry juggernaut. The last reporting we've seen has Landry wielding a $3 million war chest plus the official endorsement of the state Republican Party and multiple Super PACs all of which multiplies his fundraising capacity many times over. Anyway, Cassidy decided it wasn't worth it. Much better to sit around in the World's Greatest Deliberative Body doing nothing forever than to take on that headache. His fellow Senator John Kennedy (although he theoretically might have posed a stronger challenge to Landry) reached a similar conclusion last week.

When Bill said he wouldn't run, all of that speculation about Democrats and media picking a favorite Republican shifted over to Lt. Governor Billy Nungesser. For a long time it seemed like Billy and Jeff deserved each other.  For example, we know they both have a problem with librarians. Landry is on a typical "anti-woke" crusade to burn them all while Billy is retaliating against them for blowing the whistle on his corruption. Heck, since the day they were elected to their current positions, we've had them neck and neck in a pool to see which of the two would be the first one indicted and whose scandal would be the stupidest.  Maybe this is just a sign of the times, since despite the fact that each has had his share of doozies over this term, neither has yet landed in jail. Guess we should have bet the over.

And like any pair of like alpha dunces vying for the same space, Jeff and Billy clearly do not like each other.  Nungesser hasn't been shy about saying so. In December, Nungesser said that he had to run against Landry if Kennedy didn't because "Jeff is a bad person." That's was after a long summer of scrambling for endorsements and pre-announcing that he was planning to announce a candidacy.  

And yet, today, Billy says, nevermind all that. 

“But the worst pandemic in our lifetime and a series of devastating storms leaves me with unfinished business to bring tourism back to its peak performance, especially for the near 250,000 families who rely on this industry for their livelihoods. For that reason, and after much thought and prayer, I have decided to seek re-election to the Office of Lt. Governor"

Those devastating storms and the pandemic did not happen just this last month, though.  So who knows what really got Billy to back down? The upshot is the Democrats no longer have an easy way to just quietly sit out a Governor's election they had clearly been planning to just quietly sit out.  Can't wait to see what they come up with. They don't seem to be generating a lot of excitement these days, that's for sure. 

Ad-hoc garbage service

This Sunday morning, we were stunned to see a Richard's Disposal truck picking up on our block. Turns out they're dealing with a "backlog" maybe? What is going on here?

In a statement Monday night, Richard said the company is addressing the backlog with 70 additional personnel, pulling from crews in Baton Rouge and Jackson, Miss. Richard said he and the company "look forward to working cooperatively with the city council, mayor and all of city government to address the market conditions and other circumstances that affect timely trash collection,” according to the statement.

The statement did not address the administration's decision to turn over some routes to different contractors. 

Those "other contractors on some routes" is confusing. Apparently the city is juggling the routes that contractually belong to Richards among Waste Pro and IV Waste, the companies who recently took over Metro's territory. Now they're encroaching on Richards bit by bit as well. But it all seems to be happening according more to whim than a comprehensible scheme. 

Richard’s contract expires in March, 2024, though the city can terminate it for cause or "convenience," which essentially means it can be ended at the city's discretion. Officials have previously said they want to rebid the contract this year, but they have not laid out a time frame. 

Asked how long he expects his company to supplement Richard’s, Torres said officials had advised him “to be prepared to do it until they put it out to bid.”

Meanwhile, they're just making it up as they go. And paying a premium for it. 

My FNBC jury duty notice was sadly lost in the mail

 I didn't even get invited to the tailgate party.  Anyway, the trial is kicking off. 

A jury was seated Monday in the federal bank fraud trial of First NBC Bank founder Ashton Ryan, Jr., as lawyers readied for what is expected to be a weekslong trial probing the actions of Ryan, other executives and bank borrowers ahead of the institution's stunning 2017 collapse.

I have said many times there is probably a good book someone could put together centered around this bank collapse that might tell a broad story about the post-Katrina era of New Orleans politics, real estate, education, and non-profit corruption.  I don't really see this trial telling that whole story but... I may have liked to take a look at this list.

Lawyers involved in the case have said the prosecution's witness list initially was between 100 and 200, though it will call far fewer over the next few weeks. Witnesses are likely to include at least some of those who have taken guilty pleas in the case, including Gregory St. Angelo, the bank's former top lawyer.

Speaking of post-Katrina failures and corruption...

This is part of a series the T-P has been running about "changing streets" or some such. I think the idea here is to frame the massive displacement and dispossession New Orleanians have endured as just "inevitable progress" or whatever. But some of this stuff you can't gloss over. 

According to statistics from the New Orleans Data Center, since 2000, the area encompassing the Marigny, Bywater, St. Claude and St. Roch neighborhoods has gone from 61% Black and 32% White to 17% Black and 72% White. The number of households with annual income over $100,000 a year rose from 3% to 19%.

The article trots out familiar apologists CW Cannon and Rich Campanella to sigh and shrug but at least Cashauna Hill is here to point out that these aren't just natural forces at work. They are deliberate policy choices.  

Many of those pushed out crossed St. Claude Avenue, where the process continues today, said Cashauna Hill, executive director of the Louisiana Fair Housing Action Center. 

Hill said population changes and demographic shifts are often inevitable, and said opposing gentrification does not mean opposing investment.

The problem, she said, is that the city’s leaders have consistently favored policies that encourage gentrification — pouring millions into Crescent Park and the Rampart-St. Claude streetcar line and failing to rein in short-term rentals — while neglecting policies that would prevent it — primarily funding affordable housing.

No need to catalog all of the atrocities right now. But I will point out that the City Planning Commission is once again this month rolling out yet another round of STR regulation that looks on track to once again favor wealth over residents.  We'll catch up on that later. But seeing this picture of where our neighborhoods are today, reminded me of this remark from Mitch Landrieu when he took office as mayor. 

In August, when Mayor Landrieu announced his plan for spending New Orleans’ hard-won recovery dollars he warned a famously tradition-bound city that the time had come for change. “It’s especially important that we stop thinking about rebuilding the city we were and start creating the city we want to become,” he said, echoing his inaugural address.

This is the city we chose to become.  

When the "cyberattack" eats your homework

Amazing story from over the weekend. Let's see if we can sum it up in under 4,000 characters. I think we can. 

So, to start with a cop shot a dog. Apparently this was not the first dog this cop shot either. Which is why the owners of the dog that was shot (the second dog) requested the Public Integrity Bureau file on the first shooting as documentation for their lawsuit against the city. The city agreed to hand over the document. Except  WHOOPS it turns out the city cannot actually produce it because it is locked away in the Iron Mountain. 

Document storage company Iron Mountain is withholding hundreds of boxes of files it is storing for the city of New Orleans because of an ongoing financial dispute with Mayor LaToya Cantrell's administration, a City Hall spokesman confirms.

So, according to this report, the city hands over "hundreds of boxes" of public records (which departments and types of records is unknown although clearly NOPD is one) to a private contractor who can, apparently, hold them up for ransom in the (seemingly inevitable) event that the city falls behind on its bill.  That's very interesting! We'd love to know more about that situation. But, WHOOPS guess what. 

But there is no record of a contract to store old paper files for the NOPD or any other department. Iron Mountain’s local administrator, Robert Leamann, spoke to a reporter in early December and declined to provide information about the company’s scope of services for the city. He also said at the time he was unaware of a dispute with the city or the subpoena. After being sent a copy of the court records, he referred subsequent requests for comment to a corporate email address, which did not respond to multiple emails.

The company’s local attorneys, Kellen Matthew and Kathleen Cronin, also failed to respond to emails seeking comment.

Joseph could not say why the city purchasing office could not locate a contract with the company, but noted that all contracts and purchase orders contained in the city's BuySpeed and AFIN databases were lost in a 2019 cyber attack.

Oh man that "cyberattack" sure did a number on public records, huh. Man that is a shame that nobody can get anything from those databases. Unless, somebody... looks it it up and gives it to them... wait.. what? 

What?

Here are Buyspeed purchase orders the city pulled for @misaacstein last year. https://t.co/jffDInLBzN https://t.co/KuGGmE7HWD

— Charles Maldonado (@Maldonado_CB) January 9, 2023

Sometimes the cyber attacks and sometimes it doesn't, I guess. Just a mystery we'll never fully get a grip on. I wonder if it is going to attack those unwritten garbage contracts next.

Keep Doing What You're Doing

Honestly, I have no idea what Saints fans are so upset about this week. They're all ready to fire Dennis Allen after one season as Head Coach even though that one season was the greatest of his entire NFL career to date. In three prior seasons with the Raiders, the dude had never won more than 4 games. This year he won three whole games more than that. That's a 75 percent improvement! 

I'm never clear on what it is Saints fans are really after these days. We already won football in 2009 so there's no need to stress over that anymore. From that point until the time when the brutal criminal enterprise that is the NFL collapses under the weight of its own contradictions,  I just want to see as many interesting things happen as possible. A lot of interesting things happened to the Saints in 2022.  We listed some of them here. Whether those things are "good" or "bad" is really a matter of taste. 

All pro football teams are pretty evenly matched talentwise. Most games are decided according to a combination of dumb luck and which team is the least injured that week. Most of the jawing about whose fault that is or is not is just how fans have fun. NFL fans are basically conspiracy theory hobbyists constructing grand bullshit theories to draw certainties out of what is essentially unknowable. You feel a lot better about it all once you understand this.  Not everybody wins the Superbowl every year. Most teams, in fact, do not! Hopefully fans of the teams who do not don't see this as a complete waste of their time. How sad, that would be if they did. 

Anyway, I can't have strong feelings about Dennis Allen one way or the other.  He seems like a pretty boring middle-management guy. That's probably why he's risen to this particular point of mediocrity.  I definitely don't think the Saints got the most out of their offensive players this year. That seemed like a coaching issue to me. But, again, I'm just spinning theories like anybody else there. Whatever they do, I hope they don't bring those awful black helmets back.  I don't think those helped matters one bit.

Running out the clock

The first thing to understand about this "bi-partisan" stimulus proposal is that it is, in fact, a total cave on the part of the Democratic leadership.   

The top Democratic congressional leaders on Tuesday embraced a $908 billion coronavirus relief framework -- a massive concession meant to prod President Trump and Senate Republicans into accepting a compromise as covid cases spike and the economic recovery shows signs of faltering ahead of the holiday.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) said in a statement that “we believe the bipartisan framework introduced by Senators yesterday should be used as the basis for immediate bipartisan, bicameral negotiations.”

The "framework" would amount to about a third of what the Democrats had been asking for which also was not going to be enough. And, of course, as a "starting point" it is only going to be watered down further from here. McConnell has already rejected this first offer, in fact. 

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has pushed for a smaller deal and it appears unlikely he is poised to support the bipartisan agreement.

He circulated a proposal on Tuesday that offered minimal aid to the jobless, in a sharp break with the bipartisan group that could represent an obstacle to a final deal.McConnell has also delivered an ultimatum, requiring any legislation to immunize businesses from coronavirus-related lawsuits. 

Nothing is written into a bill yet so the details of the "framework" are still fluid, as they say.  But according to this article we know it aims at a $300 per week boost to unemployment benefits matching the now expired emergency stop gap written by Trump after the original $600 provided by the CARES act ran out.  Today we learned another 712,000 new jobless claims were filed this week.  A lot of headlines highlight that the number is "fewer than expected" or down from last week, but as Atrios points out, "Every week since this began has been higher than the peak week of the Great Recession," so what are we really looking at here?  An historically large number of people need help and will continue to need it. $300 is not really help. 

The starting point framework includes $160 billion for state and local governments.  The notion of any state and local aid at all has previously been a non-starter for Republicans so expect that figure to come down.  Our friend, Senator John Kennedy was seen "trashing it" on TV today, in fact.  In any case, the starting figure is not enough.  According to, still incomplete estimates from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities  state budgets are expected to take a hit of at least $194 billion.  This Brookings study figures that state and local revenues will take a hit of well over half a trillion dollars in the next few years.  Obviously we aren't going to get where we need to go from this "starting point." 

Certainly this $160 billion (but likely much less) sop isn't worth trading this for. 

The measure, spearheaded by Senator Joe Manchin III, Democrat of West Virginia, and Senator Susan Collins, Republican of Maine, would restore lapsed federal jobless benefits, providing $300 a week for 18 weeks; would include $288 billion for struggling small businesses, restaurants and theaters and $160 billion for fiscally strapped cities and states; and would create a temporary liability shield for businesses operating amid the pandemic.

"Temporary" or not, there can be no compromise where the US government allows your boss to simply order you to your death with no repercussions. 

Anyway, the punchline to all of this is now that the vaccines are almost ready, the political pressure to do more emergency stimulus will quickly reduce to zero. So Joe Biden can say all he wants about how whatever comes out of the lame duck session is a "first step," come the new Congress, the focus will be on the quickest way to just vaccinate everyone and tell them to get a job. Nevermind that the jobs are half gone and what's left out there is gig-a-fied beyond all recognition. That's the "new normal" all of this has been leading toward all along.  McConnell has run the clock out all year and the bosses have won the pandemic. They're even going to be shielded from future liability. The rest of us will just have to get used to it. 

Update: Well at least somebody gets it. 

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) on Friday announced his opposition to the bipartisan coronavirus relief package gaining momentum in the U.S. Senate, as jockeying intensified among lawmakers eager to cut a deal to provide relief amid renewed signs of economic weakness.

Sanders said he would vote against the $908 billion relief framework that has attracted a flurry of interest from Democrats and Republicans since it was introduced earlier this week. Sanders said he would consider backing it only if it is “significantly” revised. That package, broadly embraced this week by both senior congressional Democrats and more than a half-dozen Republican senators, leaves out some priorities among liberals such as another round of $1,200 stimulus payments.

50 failed states

Former Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke had an op-ed published in the New York Times yesterday.  He says he wants us to run the dang money printer.

States and localities are in desperate need of additional federal intervention before the bulk of the CARES Act funding expires this summer. Budget gaps like the one in New Jersey cannot be closed by austerity alone. Multiply New Jersey’s problems to reflect the experiences of 50 state governments and thousands of local governments and the result, without more help from Congress, could be a significantly worse and protracted recession.

The CARES Act allocated $150 billion to state and local governments. This new aid package must be significantly larger and provide not only assistance for state and local governments but also continued support for the unemployed, investments in public health and aid as needed to stabilize aggregate demand and restore full employment.

As it stands right now, unfortunately, there isn't much to suggest that we're actually going to see the kind of action Bernanke is calling for.  If anything the Trump administration is leaning toward more austerity. Consider the sabotage going on at the Post Office, for example.

The Trump administration has consolidated control over the Postal Service, traditionally an apolitical institution, during the pandemic by making a financial lifeline for the nation’s mail service contingent upon the White House political agenda. President Trump in April called the agency “a joke” and demanded it quadruple package rates before he’d authorize any emergency aid or loans.

The Postal Service’s future needs to be as a low-cost package carrier, industry analysts contend, as parcels make up a growing portion of the agency’s volume and profits, and paper mail volumes continue to decline as coupons and bills increasingly move online. Postal leaders project the agency could run out of money between March and October 2021.

“If this is true, it would be a real concern to customers if service were slowed, especially in light of the fact that the Postal Service may get more rate authority, meaning higher rates, later this year or early next year,” said Art Sackler, manager of the Coalition for a 21st Century Postal Service, an industry group whose members include Amazon, eBay, Hallmark and other commercial mailers.

“This is framing the U.S. Postal Service, a 245-year-old government agency, and comparing it to its competitors that could conceivably go bankrupt,” said Philip Rubio, a professor of history at North Carolina A&T State University and a former postal worker. “Comparing it to U.S. Steel says exactly that ‘We are a business, not service.’ That’s troubling.”

There are no such thing as public services in the hellworld we've built.  Everything that isn't an all-out grift, just isn't viable.  We've already seen the hostility with which conservatives are attacking public education. This week's threatening demands that schools reopen under dangerous circumstances is only the latest round of that particular gaslighting operation.  Yesterday, Senator Kennedy responded to the pleas for the safety of teachers and students from education professionals by inviting them to "kiss my ass."   Meanwhile, Stephanie Grace picked up on another startling comment from the Vice President during his visit yesterday.

And between congratulating the state for having flattened the curve (before it unflattened) and offering the obligatory paean to LSU football (Coach O was in the house), Pence offered this genuinely shocking statement: “We don’t want CDC guidance to be a reason why people don’t reopen their schools.”

Even if the Centers for Disease Control’s guidance suggests they can’t be reopened safely just yet in some places, and under some circumstances? Really, Mr. VP?

Yes, really, according to the administration’s push to get localities to fall in line with President Donald Trump’s insistence that all is basically well, despite an alarming increase in coronavirus cases in Louisiana and many other states. Pence, Education Secretary Betsy DeVos and others said that of course schools would have to be opened safely, but avoided getting into the specifics.

Those specifics, of course, are at the heart of what federal agencies such as the CDC do; assessing risk is a key part of their mission. Does Pence also think we should ignore warnings from the National Hurricane Center if we’d rather not evacuate? Take unproven medications without worrying about side effects? Start smoking, because the Surgeon General can’t tell us what to do?

Apparently, yes, that is precisely the point.  Not only does the Trump administration mean to ignore the advice of CDC, it wants to cut the agency out of the loop entirely.

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration has ordered hospitals to bypass the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and send all Covid-19 patient information to a central database in Washington beginning on Wednesday. The move has alarmed health experts who fear the data will be politicized or withheld from the public.

The new instructions were posted recently in a little-noticed document on the Department of Health and Human Services website. From now on, the department — not the C.D.C. — will collect daily reports about the patients that each hospital is treating, the number of available beds and ventilators, and other information vital to tracking the pandemic.

Under the same sort of logic that brought us, "If we didn’t do any testing we would have very few cases,” we now have, if CDC can't give us any advice, then we won't have to follow it.

Yesterday, John Barry wrote that, as cases spike, we are now facing a "second chance" to get the shutdown right.

During the 1918 influenza pandemic, almost every city closed down much of its activity. Fear and caring for sick family members did the rest; absenteeism even in war industries exceeded 50 percent and eviscerated the economy. Many cities reopened too soon and had to close a second time — sometimes a third time — and faced intense resistance. But lives were saved.

Had we done it right the first time, we’d be operating at near 100 percent now, schools would be preparing for a nearly normal school year, football teams would be preparing to practice — and tens of thousands of Americans would not have died.

But getting the response "right" this time would require our leaders to take seriously their roles as stewards of public health and safety.  It would mean extending public services rather than gutting them. It would mean protecting teachers rather than bullying them. And it would mean listening to doctors rather than silencing them. The Trump administration is doing none of that.

Worst of all, despite Benrnake's plea, the Congress is no nearer to offering the states the support they will need to see their people through the economic consequences of a second shutdown. In fact, this week, Republicans there are demanding even more austerity measures as unemployment benefits are set to expire. All the conditions are in place to leave us with 50 failed states grappling with an even bigger pandemic come the end of the year.  Barry closes out his article about the second chance by writing, "we won't get a third."  But from the looks of things, we're going to have to at least hope there is a chance number two and half in there somewhere.

Here comes the benefits cliff

Full speed ahead into the abyss, I guess.

Hundreds of thousands of Louisianans who’ve lost their jobs during the coronavirus pandemic have continued to receive sizable weekly checks, thanks to a federal $600-a-week boost to the state’s unemployment benefits.

But with the extra aid set to vanish in two and a half weeks — dropping the state’s maximum unemployment insurance benefit from $847 per week to just $247 — scores of workers are bracing for a huge blow to their income and stressing over how to pay bills.

Not sure about that "sizable" bit.  Maybe not the best way to describe the precarity to which these hundreds of thousands of workers in Louisiana have been subjected.  $600 a month with a hard expiration date doesn't sound like anyone's getting any special favors. They got mad at me for pointing this out yesterday but the way we talk about these policies in the media matters.  Working class people are being utterly abused by a saftety-net-in-name-only that is specifically designed to humiliate and intimidate them. It's important to avoid the pretense that they should be grateful for that.  Last month, the Advocate referred to the expanded benefits as "generous." We'll be sure and send Mitch McConnell a thank you card. 

Maybe we are picking at nits. But, as yesterday's story goes on to point out, Republicans in Washington, who are dragging their feet about extending benefits, are explicitly arguing that millions of laid off Americans have it too good right now. 

So far, there’s been little progress in Washington D.C. on a new aid package. Serious talks have yet to begin between the Democrat-controlled House and GOP Senate over possible proposals, and it’s unclear whether Republicans would support another round of expanded unemployment benefits.

Many Republicans have criticized the federal supplement, saying it is too generous and has incentivized many workers to stay home instead of returning to their jobs, since many lower-wage Americans have ended up making more each week than they earned while working full time.

We still don't even know if Congress will approve a new round of one-time relief checks like the ones sent out to many Americans a few months ago.  Back in May, when Sen. John Kennedy was asked about a second stimulus, he told us "People in Hell want ice water."  Well, John, we are in Hell. I mean, people in the Arctic want ice water right now.  And still, whatever relief Americans get looks right now like it will be less than the already insufficient previous round of checks.

Anyway if Republicans really thought the problem with this tenuous allowance is that it is too generous to compete with what people were making at work, then maybe it's time to talk about why more than 30 million Americans currently claiming benefits haven't been afforded a living wage. Of course they don't care about that. It's central to the right wing project that we maintain a large pool of unemployed or underemployed workers who are insecure enough to work for practically nothing when needed. If there's no one holding enough power to force the US Congress toward a different policy then this is fine for them. They are there to protect the bosses. Right now the bosses are winning. There's almost no incentive for anyone on their side to budge.

Up until this this week, I had all but convinced myself maybe there would be just enough fear of the fall elections to get a last minute extension of benefits through.  But I'm starting to see how a second stimulus check might provide just enough political cover to let the UI benefits expire anyway. Forcing people to "just get used to" worsening conditions is too high on the Republican list of priorities. They're not going to just let an opportunity like this pass without a fight. 

Bucking the trend

Looks like we're still doing it.  But in a different direction this time.

About one out of every four workers in New Orleans is without a job because of the coronavirus pandemic and related stay-at-home orders, according to an analysis of unemployment claims by an economics professor.

Baton Rouge has a 21% unemployment rate, the second worst in the state, according to an analysis by Stephen Barnes, an associate professor and director of the University of Louisiana Lafayette’s Blanco Public Policy Center Director. Lafayette had the third-highest rate of any Louisiana metro area at 18.7%.

Those numbers compare to a 15% national unemployment rate reported Friday that analysts say actually is closer to 24% when additional jobless claims and unemployed workers are factored in since the numbers were tallied in mid-April.

The COVID depression is already hitting Louisiana especially hard.  The virus spread more intensely here than in many places.  It has been particularly hard on black and brown people generally.  It has been hard on black and brown people in Louisiana especially where acute poverty and air pollution are exacerbating factors.  We don't necessarily want to shed tears over the depressed demand for oil and gas and tourism given the destructive toll each of those extractive industries has taken on our land, air and spirit.  But they are our two most relied upon sources of jobs and revenue in normal times. They aren't producing much of that now.

So Americans need help. Louisiana, especially needs help. It's time like this when we look to our elected representatives to help us out.  So...   what do our senators think? 

The record $2.2 trillion pandemic bill signed into law March 27 mandated one-time payments of $1,200 for people making up to $75,000 a year, but most of the checks have already been distributed.

The White House and Democrats are signaling support for doing at least one more round of checks.

GOP senators, however, say they aren’t sold yet on the need for a second round, and several said they are strongly opposed to the idea.

“Well people in hell want ice water too,” said Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.), asked about another round of checks. “I mean, everybody has an idea and a bill, usually to spend more money. It’s like a Labor Day mattress sale around here.”

Well, okay, then. Thanks for that.

What do our sheriffs think we should do?

Tangipahoa Parish Sheriff Daniel Edwards has filed a federal lawsuit against the People's Republic of China alleging that the new coronavirus originated in a lab in Hubei province and not in a local market, as most scientists have said.

Edwards, brother of Gov. John Bel Edwards, filed the suit in New Orleans on Friday, and asked the court to certify it as a class action on behalf of all 3,000 sheriffs in the country.

Oh god. Alright well that's just nuts.

What do our legislators think?

Rep. Dodie Horton (R-Haughton) was completely supportive of the measure, though she had a couple of questions for Miguez.

“I’m a healthy person, and I don’t wear a mask because I’m an American, and I can choose. I mean, have you ever known healthy people to be quarantined in the history of our country? Have you ever known our economy to be shut down? I mean, are we in Nazi Germany? Seriously, we should have opened May first!” Horton effused. “But what does this actually do? Will our hair salons and nail salons be able to open immediately if we pass this resolution? And can the Governor just ignore it?”

Nevermind.

Hey what about the mayor?  I know there's a lot on her plate but these garbage truck hoppers asked for help this week.  The temp agency subbed out by Metro Service Group has been putting them in harm's way.

NEW ORLEANS — Several New Orleans sanitation workers are on strike.

The workers, known as hoppers who work with the sanitation department through a group called PeopleReady, are demanding better pay and better protection while picking up trash.

The workers say they are exposed to the coronavirus and other health hazards every day and are not given the proper protective equipment.

The workers also say they should be getting hazard pay.

Metro holds one of the most lucrative contracts in all of city government.  They were also grandfathered in to the city's living wage ordinance which is why they can use day laborers and treat them like this.  Metro is owned by Jimmie Woods who happens to be one of the most influential political donors around.  When there is an election coming, everybody goes to Jimmie's house for the fundraiser.  Woods bought that house, by the way, from the Kailas family (of Hard Rock hotel fame) in 2016 for ten dollars.  So, typically, Woods gets a lot of respect and favor from a lot of important people.

But this thing with the hoppers seems kinda bad. I wonder what will happen this time.

Mayor LaToya Cantrell issued the following statement regarding the protests:

"The City of New Orleans is committed to following the requirements of its contract with Metro Services. Under the terms of the contract, Metro Services was paid over $10.7M in 2019 to provide garbage and recycling collections in their service area. Metro is responsible for providing workers with the necessary items for their safety. This would include masks, gloves, etc.

"We ask that citizens keep their garbage and recycling carts curbside today and, if necessary, until tomorrow. Metro has agreed to continue collections as late as possible today which may be beyond the normal end time of 8:00 p.m. They will resume collections on tomorrow for any remaining areas that may not be collected on today."

Well alright that's pretty encouraging. Just goes to show that.... oh wait.

Now, Livingston Parish work-release inmates are being used to pick up garbage in New Orleans East while the workers are on strike.

The workers on strike are employed by Metro Service Group and the number of them protesting has grown. Metro Service Group primarily services New Orleans East.

So there it is.  25 percent unemployment in New Orleans and rather than just give some day laborers some gloves, we are making prisoners pick up our trash.  The trend has never been so bucked.

We'll never know what happened to Epstein

I mean, sure, that's always been obvious. But when John is free to go around making John type wisecracks about it, that's when you know the thing is hopeless.

The ICE police state makes everyone less free

It's quite a police state we're building for ourselves. We're always trying to hire more cops. The jail is never big enough. We can never point enough cameras at one another.  Why do we accept this?  We are so over-policed and paranoid now that Wildlife and Fisheries rangers will just walk up and ask to see your papers.

A Border Patrol spokeswoman said that U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service agents had summoned officers to arrest Ramirez after spotting him fishing without a license. When pressed for identification, the Border Patrol spokeswoman said, Ramirez had only "foreign citizenship documentation."

A game warden can have someone deported.  Why do we accept that? Just that is bad enough but there is other context, besides. Ramirez was among the workers injured during the collapse of the Hard Rock hotel construction site. 

Besides seeking to compensate Ramirez for his injuries, Gray said, he and his colleagues will oppose his deportation, which he said was set in motion by an arrest that occurred within 24 hours of his "making a statement about the tragic events” at the collapse site to a Spanish-language news network.

Gray said Ramirez’s case illustrates why he believes some workers who know what was happening at the construction site ahead of the collapse are afraid to come forward.

They “fear … being deported or some other retribution by their employers,” Gray said at a news conference in the lobby of Civil District Court. “Just like all Americans, however, they do have the rights that are afforded to us within this courthouse.”

The main contractor on the Hard Rock site was Citadel Builders. According to Open Secrets, Its founder Derek Clark is a serial max donor to Republican federal office holders including Donald Trump and Senator John Kennedy who has been a vocal supporter of Trump's brutal immigration policies.

Can we think of any reason a company like Citadel would support the kind of police environment that keeps their workers in perpetual fear of speaking out about safety issues?  Does that police environment make us all more or less free?  Why do we accept it?

A steak in every pot

The Louisiana legislature is going back into session next week. (Yes, yes, run for your lives, winter is coming, abandon all hope, etc. etc.)  There's a ton of fun stuff to talk about with regard to that but we'll save that for later.  I only bring it up now in order to point us to HB 113 filed by Rep Walt Leger. Here is what that would do. 

Provides that at all regular elections of governor and lieutenant governor, the candidates for such offices shall be elected jointly in such a manner as provided bylaw so that a single vote shall be cast for a candidate for governor and a candidate for lieutenant governor running together.

He wants the Governor and Lt. Governor to run together on one ticket. I'm having trouble seeing the benefit. The Lt. Governor's power is (mostly) limited to oversight of the Department of Culture, Recreation and Tourism. Even in cases when the offices are occupied by rival or ideologically opposed individuals, it would be rare to find them working at cross purposes. It's true the current Lt. Governor has some pretty unsavory ideas about privatizing many functions of our state parks. It's also true that he's been trying to figure out how to put monuments to white supremacy recently removed from view in New Orleans back on public display.   But if Governor Edwards has any strong opposition to any of that, he hasn't bothered to let it be known.  It's generally easy for the the two of them to stay out of each other's way.

At the same time, it's hard to identify much downside to Leger's proposal.  Probably the biggest loss will be to politicians and the.. well.. industry of politics since it effectively takes one prestigious (if ineffectual) statewide elected office off the board. It's one less opportunity for candidates to show they can win a race of that scope. One less chance for staffers, consultants, and other hangers on to make a ton of money helping them do that. Maybe this is a good idea after all.

Both the Governor and Lt. Governor are up for reelection this fall but this bill won't affect any of that.  It's a constitutional amendment and would have to be ratified by popular vote first and there's no time for that before the current cycle. In a way, that sucks for John Bel because imagine the ticket he could put together here.

It’s no secret that Gov. John Bel Edwards and LSU coach Ed Orgeron have a special bromance. They’ve often appeared alongside each other at events promoting Louisiana and LSU.

On Thursday, Orgeron introduced Edwards at a fundraiser for Edwards’ re-election campaign, calling the Democrat incumbent “a man of great character, great integrity.”

Man that is an intimidating prospect. Coach O really knows how to give the people what they want.  

“Let ’em have their cell phones and headsets,” Orgeron said in a recent interview with SB Nation. “Let ’em dress the way they want! Let ’em be who they are, as long as it’s respectful. Don’t put shackles on them. And I know it works. I know it works. I had kids at USC hugging me, crying, when I left. Begging me, ‘Don’t leave.’"

In that same interview, he added that part of being both a good and impactful head coach starts with showing players that you actually care about them.

“Before, I didn’t let them know I cared. I was the D-line coach. You can’t coach a receiver like a D-lineman. I just realized, here are some of the things I’ve got to change. I started writing, and I came to a realization: If I treat these boys like I treat my sons, I think we’re gonna be fine. How do you treat your kids? When my boys come home, I cook ’em a steak.

Vote Edwards/Orgeron and they'll cook you a dang steak!  Nobody wants to run against that.  No wonder John Kennedy is so mad.   

“I don’t want to watch LSU football and have to wonder if the coach is a Democrat or Republican. I’m so angry at this,” U.S. Sen. John Kennedy said during a five-minute diatribe on Baton Rouge radio Friday morning – a day after Orgeron introduced Edwards during a breakfast fundraising event. “It is a horrible mistake to politicize LSU and LSU football. I’m stunned that the candidate would even entertain, much less accept, the endorsement.”

Is that really the problem, John?  Politicizing LSU football?  It's not like that's never been done.  That very same article goes on to point out one recent example.

Former LSU coach Les Miles attended an event in honor of then-Gov. Bobby Jindal’s presidential campaign in 2015 and celebrated at Jindal’s re-election victory party in 2011.

There's also the obvious.  

To generate excitement for LSU, Long’s first step was to quadruple the size of the marching band (from 28 to 125) and develop a first-rate football team. He became the state’s most prominent ‘Tiger fan’ – coaching plays, giving locker room pep talks and personally recruiting top talent for the team. LSU fever swept the state, as reduced tuition and need-based scholarships allowed students from all regions to flock to Baton Rouge to study. 

We could go on and on about Huey, in fact.  His impact on the band alone is legendary.  T. Harry Williams devotes a chapter to Huey and LSU titled "I've Got  A University" emphasizing Long's sense of ownership over the school, the football team, and everything else there.  Also there is this quote from Glenn Jeansonne's less good book, Huey Long: A Political Contradiction that seems to fit here.

Long hired the best football coaches money could buy and then told them how to run the team, although he had never played football himself. He housed gifted players in the Governor's Mansion, where he fattened them up on milkshakes and sirloin steaks.

 Milkshakes and steaks 2019.  Nobody wants to run against that. 

No time to wall off Orleans Parish before Monday

Yeah, well...

President Donald Trump will be in New Orleans on Monday (Jan. 14) for an appearance at the American Farm Bureau Federation’s 100th annual convention. The organization confirmed the president’s visit Wednesday.

Oh good lord why does he need to come here and do those things he does? I have no idea why but I did tune in to watch his TV show the other night.  The back and forth between Trump and the steely gaze of Chuck/Nancy was like sitting through a neighborhood associating meeting where one crank was going on about some cockamamie plan to buy a street from the city and turn into a gated community while the "reasonable" alternative from the rest of the groups was to hire rent-a-cops to run all the kids off.   And people take this insane shit seriously as though it merits actual discussion. Afterward some highly paid talking heads implored the two sides to find a "compromise" between their two very right wing positions. This is the reason I can't watch cable news anymore.

Meanwhile Senators John and Bill have weighed in. Just in case anyone was wondering if they were still bad. They are.

After President Donald Trump's televised Oval Office address last night in which he repeated his call for a physical border wall separating the United States from Mexico, U.S. Sens. Bill Cassidy and John Neely Kennedy reintroduced legislation that would have Americans, not Mexico, paying for its construction.

Also Governor John Bel said yesterday that, while he definitely thinks the shutdown is bad, maybe they could give Trump... like... part of a wall or a wall-like thing or whatever.  Because, at heart, really, "both sides" just want to be cruel to migrants and isn't that what's really important?

Edwards said he personally believes that a combination technique could be used to strengthen border security.

“I support border security and I think a combination of barriers, technology and people ought to be able to get it done," he said. “It just seems to me like there’s enough common interest on both sides, if they would just sit down and discuss it, they’d work their way through it.”

Anyway, now we're gonna have to deal with Trump traffic if we plan on being downtown on Monday. It's already bad enough down there as it is. 

They've already got the Governor they want

John Neely Kennedy spent the past few months flogging one poll that suggested he might beat John Bel Edwards head to head.  Looks like he must have figured that was enough to prove his point.

U.S. Sen. John Kennedy has announced he won't run for governor next year, after toying with a run to unseat Gov. John Bel Edwards for months.

Kennedy, a Republican, said in a news release Monday morning that he wants to remain in the U.S. Senate, where he has served since 2017.

"I love being in the United States Senate," he said in a statement. "It is such an honor to represent the people of Louisiana in the United States Senate. Right now, that’s where I think I can do the most good."

John is going back to D.C. to.. uh... spend more time with his family, by which we mean his fans in the national political press.  We all love a good soundbite, after all.  Either that or he's been promised a committee chairmanship but there's no need pick just one reason. For example, we also have to consider the point that a lot of Republicans seem to be deciding they're fine the Governor they have now.

While Republicans are angling to find an opponent to challenge the reelection of the only Democratic governor in the Deep South, some of the GOP’s biggest names are aligning with Gov. John Bel Edwards. They include a former GOP gubernatorial candidate, two top aides to former Republican Gov. Bobby Jindal and several of the party’s A-List donors. Edwards faces reelection in October 2019.

“The governor was dealt a hard hand to play and he’s done a great job,” said Jay Blossman, of Mandeville. “If he was a far-left, screaming liberal, you’d have a problem … But he’s not. He’s willing to work (with) both sides.”

The former chairman of the Public Service Commission ran as a Republican for governor in 2003 and flirted with a run in 2007. He gave Edwards’ campaign the maximum $5,000 in December 2017. For Blossman, who Edwards appointed in June to the LSU Board of Supervisors, it doesn’t matter who else is in the race.

I like that Ballard includes the bit about Blossman owing his current position to John Bel. Incumbency always comes with a fair amount of patronage advantages. Which is a mild way of saying our system is built on legalized bribery and little else. Remove any question of justice or morality from politics and these contributions are strictly business.

When it comes to awarding contracts and setting regulatory policies, a Louisiana governor generally has more power than chief executives in other states. So, it behooves businessmen to adopt an outlook more practical than partisan when it comes to supporting a gubernatorial candidate, said G. Pearson Cross, a political scientist at the University of Louisiana Lafayette. And sometimes that means spreading contributions across several campaigns.

New Orleans banker and developer Joe Canizaro held an event for the governor in October but texted Thursday that “at this time I do not know who I am going to support.”

Craig Spohn, head of the Cyber Innovation Center in Bossier City, gave Edwards $5,000 but hasn’t made up his mind yet.

“It’s too early. The field hasn’t come into formation,” Spohn said.

All that matters to guys like Joe Canizaro is that whoever is Governor remembers who bought the canapes at the fundraiser when it comes time to decide what to do with the next Charity Hospital type project or who gets the next big sack of free Convention Center money.  When it comes to doling out favors to big money developers or polluters or security contractors  or just looking out for the interests of the right wing business lobby in general, John Bel is as reliable a Republican as anybody.

Of course there's still plenty money to spread around.  So, even if they aren't running an A-lister, the state GOP will still have plenty cash to pass out to ambitious young Republicans who want to pad their resumes staffing for vanity candidates like Eddie Rispone or, I guess, more likely at this point Ralph Abraham. Ralph is supposed to let us know what he's thinking on January 1st. Sharon Hewitt seems to be waiting for a higher power to decide for her.

.@SenJohnKennedy is a strong voice for LA & I’m grateful that he will continue to advocate for us in the #ussenate. I’m still strongly considering a run for Governor & continue to pray for God’s guidance on the best way to serve my community & help turnaround our great state.

— Sharon Hewitt (@sharonhewitt) December 3, 2018

Still, even though today's news seems pretty good for John Bel, he shouldn't just take reelection for granted.  Assuming Kennedy stays out and that Jeff Landry doesn't hop back in, the lack of a big name Republican really only guarantees a chaotic field. And 2019 might still be more chaotic in Louisiana than it seems from here.  Remember last week when Cameron Henry tried to scuttle the revenue estimate simply because oil prices do not always go up? What happens if he and the rest of the radicals controlling the state House decide to manufacture another budget crisis during an election year?  Or what if oil prices really do crash? 

Despite the above-mentioned advantages of incumbency, sitting Governors can and have been taken down during times of uncertainty.  Dave Treen (1983) and Buddy Roemer (1991) were knocked off during oil gluts and recessions. Edwin Edwards (1987) and Kathleen Blanco (2007) were felled or decided not to run in the wake of scandal and disaster.  A little bit of mischief goes a long way in Louisiana.  With no anointed Republican in the field, there could be plenty of room for mischief.

Theoretically this would be a terrific moment to throw a truly leftist candidate into the mix.  But no such person exists in Louisiana, nor does the infrastructure necessary to make such a campaign remotely viable.  So we'll have to content ourselves with watching the Republican B team struggle to get its act together. Even as their supporters tell us, in so many ways, that they already have the Governor they want.

John Kennedy is okay with tear gassing babies

John is supposed to tell us if he's running for Governor this week.

CORRECTION:

Kennedy is gonna say something on Monday.

Update:

Well in light of everything else that's happened, this is kind of a surprise. At least to me now.

U.S. Rep. Ralph Abraham is leaning toward entering the race to challenge Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards in 2019, his spokesman Cole Avery confirmed Thursday (Nov. 29).

Abraham, a Republican from Richland Parish, said as much in an interview with Greg Hilburn with the USA Today Network.

“If I had to make a decision today it would be that I was running,” Abraham told Hilburn.

That, "if I had to decide today.." bit is kind of a hedge but I thought they were clearing the field for John.

Also.. from the USA Today article: 

"I think we all thought John would have given us an answer by now, but he has to make his own decision," Abraham said. "His decision won't have any impact on mine."

Abraham has given himself a Jan. 1 deadline to announce his decision. "I haven't fully made that decision," he said.

So John will say something on Monday and Ralph will throw a party on New Year's Day in case you needed to synchronize your calendars. 

John Kennedy may or may not have a list of foriegn communist spies

I don't know how much of this nonsense to even take seriously anymore. Am I just getting old or are we all getting old?

This will help John make up his mind

Pretty interesting that Jeff Landry is dropping out of the Governor's race now after spending the past few years obviously laying the groundwork to run. He's also publicly prodded other potential Republican candidates to make up their dang minds so he could run with a clear field. Jeff also ran up a bunch of trial balloon issues to see if anything would get him some traction ahead of time. Maybe he wasn't satisfied with the way any of that played out. For example, Landry was among the very few high profile politicians to publicly oppose Amendment 2 this year.  He can't have been happy with that result.

Anyway, from the looks of things, the door is wide open for John Kennedy now if he wants it. (he does) I keep hearing that even though David Vitter is out of public life he still does his fair share of  mentoring behind the scenes. I wonder if he helped to broker this.

Also this means the Democrats have an opportunity to run a hard charging anti-Landry campaign for Attorney General if they can manage to field a candidate.  Given the way they've more or less conceded the open seat races for Treasurer and Secretary of State recently, it's likely they aren't up for it, though.

If only we were better at means testing

You know what might make a problem like this go away?  See if you can guess.

Legislative Auditor Daryl Purpera's office found problems with the agency's infrequent use of wage data from the state labor department to determine eligibility.

The report says since Gov. John Bel Edwards expanded the state's Medicaid program in July 2016, the department has relied on Medicaid recipients to self-report changes in their paychecks in the 12-month period between the initial application for Medicaid and coverage renewal.

Auditors suggested more frequent checks using available state wage data should be used to ensure Medicaid recipients aren't earning more than allowed to qualify. Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and other states do quarterly reviews to check eligibility against income data, the report says.

The report also found errors in the work done by health department caseworkers. In addition, auditors said the agency didn't double-check income information when federal officials determined people who applied for individual marketplace insurance coverage through the Affordable Care Act were instead deemed eligible for the Medicaid expansion program. Those federal officials don't have access to state wage data, the report says.

"Without a sufficient process to determine recipient eligibility, LDH cannot ensure that Medicaid dollars are spent appropriately," Purpera wrote to legislative leaders in the audit.

Imagine if we could just give people health care without a convoluted process for determining whether or not they are eligible. What if... everybody was eligible?  That's crazy talk, though, right?

Universal social programs are based on the principle, as single-payer health care advocate Dr Quentin Young would later put it, of “Everybody in, nobody out.” The goal is to establish a sense of mutual accountability and mutual benefit across society. The method is to enshrine cooperation and solidarity in the institutions by which the state distributes public resources.

Oh hey speaking of crazy talk, Senator Kennedy also has some comments.

Kennedy says: "Actions ought to have consequences. If this was in the private sector, Dr. Gee would have been fired an hour after that report." #lalege #lagov https://t.co/KnGTtiYlPI

— Melinda Deslatte (@MelindaDeslatte) November 14, 2018

John knows that Medicaid operates through private health providers, right? I mean, apart from the contracting and means testing role of the health department, we're very much in the "private sector" already. 

Anyway none of that is his point.  His point is, John is still seriously considering running for Governor next year. We should have his decision in a week or so.

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.

On to 2019

Yeah so the midterms aren't over yet but it's never too early to start watching the next election(s).  At least, that's what the money people do.  And, as we all know, those are the people who determine how these things turn out so let's watch that, I guess.

U.S. Sen. John Kennedy hasn’t yet said that he’ll be a candidate for governor next fall, but some of his fellow Republicans aren’t waiting to line up for him — or against.

First Lane Grigsby, a Baton Rouge businessman and big-time Republican donor, let it be known that he’s not impressed with Kennedy’s brief tenure in Washington. Grigsby told The Advocate’s Mark Ballard that he thinks Louisiana’s junior senator, in office less than two years, isn’t ready for the Governor’s Mansion.

“Louisiana needs leadership, not another politician looking for another lily pad,” said Grigsby, who is backing the only announced Republican challenger to Democratic Gov. John Bel Edwards, fellow contractor Eddie Rispone. “(Kennedy) hasn’t done much yet but appear on Fox News.”

Man, losing the Grigsby primary to Eddie Rispone is a slap in the face, alright. But Kennedy is still signaling he could run.  

Publicly Kennedy has said how much he likes his Senate job. “But, it’s hard to stomach what is happening to Louisiana right now,” Kennedy said in prepared statement. “Private sector job growth is among the lowest in the country. Too many of our kids can’t read their diplomas.”

Armed with an internal poll showing that he could beat Edwards, Kennedy is making the rounds of funders to say he agrees with them that Edwards’ policies are bad for Louisiana’s economic future, then adding that Rispone is largely unknown and can’t beat the Democrat.

Meanwhile rivals like Jeff Landry and his allies have been trying to "clear the field" of formidable candidates and it's looking now like Grigsby is on their side.  So it's with that in mind that we should consider the persistence of the "Kennedy might not run" rumors that float about the subtext of a lot of these stories lately. Is that line coming from Kennedy? Or is it coming from someone trying to discourage him?

Update: It says here that John is going to make up his mind by December 1 so mark your calendars.

Jeff Landry is already on the ballot

We're still over a year away from the election but it's no secret Jeff Landry wants to be Governor.  Last week we found him already trying to elbow other potential Republican candidates out of the race.

With less than 15 months until Election Day and no Republican campaigns launched against Gov. John Bel Edwards' re-election bid, Attorney General Jeff Landry is ramping up the pressure on other potential candidates.

"We're getting into a kind of critical decision-making time. If we're going to have a candidate we need to find one and soon," Landry said in an interview with USA Today Network that was published online Wednesday and during which he expressed his own growing interest in running for governor without announcing his candidacy.

The good news for Jeff is he actually doesn't have to wait until next year to be the only guy on a ballot. He's already there this fall.

Attorney General Jeff Landry, the state's top law enforcement officer, has broken with several conservative leaders and the state Republican Party by not backing a constitutional amendment appearing on the ballot Nov. 6 that would require unanimous juries for convictions in Louisiana.

Landry's political team confirmed that the Republican would prefer to keep the current system -- in which a 10-2 jury verdict can be used to send a person to prison. Only one other state, Oregon, allows convictions by juries that aren't unanimous and Louisiana is the only place where a person can be sent to prison for murder -- which is typically a life sentence -- without a unanimous jury. 

As the lone public figure opposing this measure, Landry has willingly given voters an opportunity to reject him personally in a statewide referendum only a year ahead of the race for governor.  That doesn't seem very smart. But then Jeff Landry often does not seem smart.  On the other hand, his political instincts have served him fairly well so far. So maybe he knows something we don't.

The unanimous verdicts amendment is on your ballot because it passed the legislature with overwhelming bipartisan support earlier this year. The public campaign to make it happen was helped in part by a terrific Advocate series explaining what a shameful aberration Louisiana's current law actually is. We live in one of only two states where a person can be convicted of a felony even if two of twelve jurors disagree with the rest of the panel. More importantly, though, the current law's origins, like so much of our criminal justice system writ large, are rooted in deliberate efforts to promote and maintain a white supremacist racial hierarchy. 

The drafters of the state constitution Louisiana adopted in 1898 said they aimed to “perpetuate the supremacy of the Anglo-Saxon race in Louisiana,” primarily by scrubbing from the rolls nearly all of the roughly 130,000 black people then registered to vote.

But delegates knew they couldn’t simply ban black people from the voting booth or jury service without running afoul of the 14th and 15th amendments. The U.S. Supreme Court had explicitly said so. Instead, the jury laws those delegates drew up allowed for convictions with only nine of 12 jurors agreeing, meaning that if one, two or even three black people made it onto a jury, their votes wouldn’t matter.

These days, 10 votes are required for conviction instead of the original nine, and today’s defenders of split verdicts say Louisiana’s law now stands not for racism but for efficiency, by limiting hung juries and potential retrials.

But the effects are the same, according to an exhaustive, first-of-its-kind analysis by The Advocate.

If I had a dime for every racist/classist policy sold in the name of "efficiency"...  but let's not get sidetracked by that right now. The Advocate series helped educate the public and, it appears, a lot of the legislators since the threshold for passing a constitutional amendment requires a 2/3 vote in both houses.  It was an honest to goodness triumph of that "reach across the aisle" common ground stuff the John Bels of the world love to talk about.

And maybe that's what Landry is upset about. Edwards's reelection strategy is built around the idea that the Governor is Bill Clinton and he is ready to triangulate like it is 1996. For example, on Wednesday, John Bel, whose wife was a public school teacher, had the nerve to appear as a keynote speaker at the  ALEC gathering in New Orleans. ALEC is well known for its hostility to the very concept of public education, not to mention the right of public educators to organize.  Mark Janus was also a featured speaker there. Edwards rarely if ever criticizes President Trump. The two had what looks to have been a cordial meeting this week.

The Edwards camp is embracing a version of the Third Way national electoral strategy articulated in this article by Mitch Landrieu.

"Republicans have chosen the far right, which means that they have ceded a good portion of the middle of the road," said former New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu, who is considering a presidential run. "The Democrats, in my opinion, would make a big mistake if they decide to run a base election and just say, ‘Our base is bigger than your base.'"

This is familiar enough by now.  As long as Democrats are forever following a reasonable twenty paces behind, Republicans can keep marching as far to the right as they want. Sometimes that even works out. Or at least it allows individual Democratic candidates willing to enact a conservative program to win an election here and there.  The net effect ends up dragging the country to some really weird places but professional Democratic political consultants aren't paid to worry about stuff like that.

In the immediate term, though, Jeff Landry might worry a little bit.  What if the old Blue Dog act ends up working for John Bel again? It sort of did last time. There were extenuating circumstances, of course, having to do with his widely reviled opponent but, still, Edwards did technically win that election. And so now is the time for potential challengers to start thinking about ways to negate his strategy.

Basically John Bel plans to run on a record of having weathered the storm. It's true our colleges and hospitals are still underfunded. It's true our tax burden still rests heavily on the shoulders of our poorest residents. But it could have been so much worse if the Governor's reactionary opponents had gotten their way.  Republicans may have thrashed and whined on Facebook and crashed several legislative sessions along the way but John Bel maintained just enough of his nonthreatening kind of indignation to keep the lights on. That's basically the reelection pitch.

Well, that and the occasional reminder that actually he is the most grown up conservative in the room.  Which is what that ALEC appearance was all about.

Edwards' appearance dovetails nicely with the image he is hoping to convey during his re-election campaign: a Democrat who shares conservative values and works well with Republicans. The governor said he was a member of ALEC when he was a state legislator.

One thing John Bel has going for him here, at least, is credibility. He doesn't have to stretch too far to position himself as a conservative. His record is pretty clear.  It's not only about sticking Louisiana with one of the nation's most regressive tax codes for the forseeable future. It's also about signing a "Blue Lives Matter" bill or supporting yet another big ass pipeline through the wetlands or panedering to the right on a host of other matters such as abortion and gun control.

All of which is why it's strange to find the Governor unable to bring himself to give anyone a straight answer on the death penalty

Edwards, who has repeatedly stressed his position of upholding whatever stands in Louisiana law, declined The Advocate's request for an interview on Friday but in a written statement reiterated his focus on what current law says and again did not elaborate on his personal belief on the topic.

Come on, John Bel, just say you want to kill some mothafuckers.   Landry doesn't have any qualms about that. He's even willing to pick a fight with the Pope over it. So it's hardly surprising he's just as willing to exploit Edwards's wavering. John Bel can party with ALEC all weekend if he wants. He can check every box on the right wing vetting list. None of that is likely to get the Kochs off of his back. Just like the Kochs' difference with Landry over unanimous verdicts isn't going to separate them from him.  Dude does them too many favors.

So Landry isn't afraid of the Pope and he isn't afraid of the Kochs either. He might be a bit worried about John Kennedy, though. That's mostly who Landry was needling at with those comments about wanting other candidates to make up their minds about getting in or out.  In truth, it's Landry who is under the most pressure to decide. Jeff's term as Attorney General is concurrent with the Governor's so he actually has to pick which one he wants to run for.  Kennedy doesn't have to give up his Senate seat unless he actually becomes Governor so he's got less to worry about.

Meanwhile, Kennedy is free to sit back and take pot shots at John Bel much the same way Landry is. Just like Jeff, John can call attention to himself by complaining about our recent criminal justice reforms.  Just like Jeff, John can level outlandish and absurd criticisms of immigration enforcement in the City of New Orleans. And since Kennedy can do all of that stuff in a much more.. um.. charismatic rhetoric than what Jeff typically can muster, it presents a problem.  Landry needs to distinguish himself.

And this might explain why he's okay with the risk that comes with being the only critic of a statewide ballot measure on unanimous verdicts.  It's an opportunity for Landry to set himself apart as a hard liner. If the amendment fails, it's an even bigger win for him.  Landry will then have a unique claim on being more in touch with voter sentiment than pretty much everyone who was anyone in Baton Rouge this year.  If it passes, maybe some of us will make fun of him, but the potential reward here is likely well worth that.