A federal judge refused to order a halt to construction on Bayou Bridge. This isn't the end of the case but there's little reason to expect success. At least that's what the judge says.
Dick said the plaintiffs correctly noted that they didn’t have to
“win the case” at this stage. But the judge said she couldn’t justify
the “extraordinary remedy” of a temporary restraining order because she
isn’t convinced it’s “substantially likely” the groups will “prevail on
the merits” of the case.
Energy Transfer Partners spokeswoman Alexis Daniel said in an email
Tuesday that “construction activities” began in the basin earlier this
month.
Yesterday a letter appeared in the Advocate laying out some of the lawsuit's complaints. Among those, the Corps of Engineers' faulty adherence to its own permitting procedure.
The Corps must also analyze and address the cumulative impacts of a
proposed project. Cumulative impacts are the result of any past,
present, or future actions that are reasonably certain to occur. Such
effects “can result from individually minor but collectively significant
actions taking place over a period of time.”
Leaving spoil banks
in place after completion of pipeline construction is a violation of
permits issued by the Corps. However, the Corps has failed to enforce
such permits; allowing pipeline companies to leave these spoil banks in
place for years or decades, to the considerable detriment of the Basin’s
ecology. Given budget cuts to all agencies, I’ll speculate there isn’t
funding to enforce the law. Permit cost needs to be high enough to pay
for verification of compliance. And failure to comply should carry a
penalty big enough so it’s cheaper to comply than not.
But, as the judge points out, the Corps tends to get a lot of leeway.
Judge Dick, however, said she reviewed the Corps’ 92-page
environmental assessment and “cannot find that the Corps was arbitrary
and capricious” in its review.
“Simply having an opposing opinion, or disagreeing with the
mitigation plans imposed, is insufficient to establish a substantial
likelihood of success on the merits, especially in light of the high
deference that the law requires the Court to afford the Corps,” she
wrote.
But the proceedings opened a window into the disparate rule books
governing the State Police and the New Orleans Police Department. The
NOPD is subject to a strict federal consent decree that forbids racial
profiling and allows officers to make investigatory stops only when they
have "reasonable suspicion that a person has been, is, or is about to
be engaged in the commission of a crime."
The State Police began patrolling the French Quarter
on a regular basis in 2014 following a high-profile shooting on Bourbon
Street that killed one woman and wounded nine people. Since then,
troopers have assisted the NOPD in seizing weapons and drugs and
investigated a host of other crimes at a time when the NOPD has
struggled to recruit new officers.
"We were never told not to do
our job," Edmonson said in a recent deposition. City officials, he
added, "clearly knew what we brought to the table" when they requested
assistance patrolling the French Quarter.
There is an expectation right now that the NOPD consent decree may be coming to an end soon. At which time they can go back to doing their own bullying and harassing of citizens without consequence and the State Police "assistance" is likely to end.
They don't really care if the state is solvent or not. They do care about making sure their wealthiest patrons don't have to pay taxes. And they love using any resulting crisis as an excuse to slash Medicaid benefits.
The new company will
be independent and "free from profit-making incentives and constraints."
The businesses said the new venture's initial focus would be on
technology that provides "simplified, high-quality and transparent"
care.
It was not clear if the ultimate goal
involves expanding the ambitious project beyond Amazon, Berkshire or
JPMorgan. However, JPMorgan's Dimon said Tuesday that, "our goal is to
create solutions that benefit our U.S. employees, their families and,
potentially, all Americans."
Less than two weeks after a damning report from federal monitors called the New Orleans jail “critically unsafe,” the lockup’s court-appointed administrator has resigned.
U.S. District Judge Lance Africk said Monday he had accepted the resignation of Gary Maynard, who has run the jail’s day-to-day operations as compliance director since October 2016. Africk said he has appointed Darnley R. Hodge, who currently serves as a jail monitor, as acting director effective Feb. 19.
Next man up, right? Can't wait for Gusman (who has been largely sidelined during this period) to launch his, "See? This really is a hard job" reelection campaign.
Criminal charges could be filed at the conclusion of the operation, NOPD Superintendent Michael Harrison said.
But as of yet, there are no charges of human trafficking - the ostensible cause for the crack-down - and police have not made public any evidence of such activity. Harrison said police are continuing to investigate that angle of the operation.
"Continuing to investigate" someone to pin a wholesale closure of all the strip clubs in the Quarter on. We'll get back to you when we pick one.
Carnival season kicks into high gear this weekend, with more than two dozen parades set to roll in the New Orleans area. So the big question is: will the weather cooperate?
According
to the National Weather Service, the first half of the week should stay
dry in New Orleans, but a cold front moving into the area on Thursday
could bring rain back into the forecast for the weekend. On Friday, showers are more likely early in the day, with a break in rain chances possible late Friday and Saturday, the National Weather Service said. However,
moisture is expected to return again on Saturday night into Sunday. On
Monday morning, the Weather Service said that Sunday will bring the
biggest chance of rain, with showers likely during the day.
The forecast can certainly change. We learned this Saturday night when, through what we can only assume was spiritual intervention, a day of thunderstorms and "flash flood warnings" gave way to balmy temperatures and a light fog. Suddenly, improbably, there it was; the ideal atmosphere for a parade in the Quarter.
We should have known it would happen this way. There's no way the same universe that allowed Stefon Diggs to take a playoff win away from the Saints was also going to rain out Krewe Du Vieux during the Tricentennial Mardi Gras. This is merely an absurd existence we are living through, not a deliberately cruel one. It's important to remember that.
To help celebrate the city's 300th, KDV enlisted geographer, New Orleans know-it-all dude (and one time Rising Tide keynote speaker) Richard Campanella as its King. Here he is trying to throw to the balconies.
For his latest NOLA.com column, Campanella published a "virtual tour" of the parade route. If you're reading this right now, you probably know KDV pretty well. But, for the sake of covering all of our bases, here is Campanella's introductory description from that article.
Krewe du Vieux, which rolls
Saturday, Jan. 27, at 6:30 p.m., is best known for its ribald satire of
public figures and current events. But in its structural form and route
geography (small mule-drawn floats on old, narrow streets packed with
revelers), the parade is something of a throwback to 19th-century
Carnival.
The KDV format and ethos is among the purest exemplars of the creative disorder and subversion of social and political norms that is central to the spirit of Carnival. Predictably, this spirit is always in tension with the established social and political hierarchy which seeks to assert itself in various ways during the season as well. Sometimes this tension contributes to the pageant. For example, this is the time when local blue bloods present their debutantes to society. To do this, they style themselves as royalty presiding over elaborate balls where the city's elite are expected to literally line up and bow to them to the undying amusement of everyone.
There are also ways in which the exertion of elite privilege detracts from the celebration. Think about the discrepancy in parade fees charged to neighborhood level parading groups vs. what the larger, wealthier krewes are expected to pay. Or the present effort to limit the number of individual bands and marching groups who appear in parades. Here, by the way, is a photo of the balcony Campanella was throwing to in the previous one. It's a little blurry but the sign says, "Marching Clubs Matter."
And these are only a few of the thousand ways the more organic aspects of Carnival tend to be repressed by the city's bias toward the tourism industry and the security state.
For Carnival season, city cameras are also being installed along the
Uptown, Mid-City and West Bank parade routes, Miller said. Those cameras
may be moved later to other locations, he said.
In total, there
will be about 70 cameras watching the 8th District, which includes the
French Quarter and Central Business District, and about a dozen
locations with cameras along the parade routes, Miller said.
The
flashing lights on the new cameras are intended to make sure the devices
are visible to residents who have requested cameras in their
neighborhoods and also to discourage crime in those areas, Miller said.
The lights haven’t gone smoothly at all locations.
Speaking of LaToya, here's another terrific case of elite pressure working against the subversive Carnival instinct. It looks like incoming mayor's relationship with the business class folks who run the Krewe of Muses is crimping that parade's traditional aspiration toward satire.
The all-female Krewe of Muses is one of the Carnival organizations
that use their parades to satirize and poke fun at politicians and other
celebrities.
It appears, however, that the city's first woman mayor is getting a pass this year.
The
group announced Friday that Mayor-elect LaToya Cantrell will in fact be
the krewe's Honorary Muse for the 2018 parade. She will lead the
procession on Feb. 8, riding in the "shoe float," a 17-foot-tall,
fiber-optic-encrusted red pump.
This is dereliction of duty. At least come up with a way to make it fun for people. I mean, don't get me wrong, I am definitely now on a quest to catch a shoe from LaToya this year. But what if they came up with a way to make it more interesting.
For example, check out this float the St. Tammany Sheriff's Office rolled in the Krewe of Poseidon over the weekend. It is designed to collect beads from the crowd for the purpose of turning them over to a local charity for recycling. You can "donate" your beads to the cause by throwing them at targets on the side of the truck. But, as an extra incentive for the crowd, a gigantic likeness of Sheriff Randy Smith is riding on the front of the float for people to throw at as well much the way attendees at Bacchus enjoy throwing back at King Kong. (By the way, Bacchus is upping their ape game this year, it seems.)
But since the Muses have an actual live LaToya Cantrell available, it seems like they've missed an opportunity to do some fundraising themselves. How much trouble would it have been to put LaToya on the Bathing Muses float rigged up as a dunking booth? Not a single strand of beads would have found its way into a storm drain that night. Oh well. Nothing is guaranteed to go perfectly. Not even the weather.
"Be safe" seems to be the No. 1 way to say goodbye in #Nola. People really take care of each other here. Also, have learned no one walks on the street after dark.
Yuan's tweet happened over 24 hours ago so it's already been through the full cycle of NOLA outrage by now. A bunch of people got mad. And then a bunch of other people got mad that those people got mad. And then the two or three possible jokes that could be made out of it got blurted simultaneously by 10,000 internet users. Finally, everybody stroked their chins and sighed before retreating to their corners. Because one of the obvious jokes is directly applicable to evening Carnival events, there's a second wave coming once the parades start, so be ready for that. In the meantime, just try and "be safe."
Gambit's take in that article supposes the comment might have made tourism officials nervous. But I have to wonder about that. After all, we've already seen the city is pushing harder than ever this year to get people off the streets as early as possible. One wonders if they really want you out there at all.
Krewes are being asked to limit the number of walking groups that lead
off their parades or are interspersed between floats. Officials are
asking that parades start with no more than a dozen groups — marching
bands, dance troupes and unique organizations like the Rolling Elvi
— before the first float, with one group following each float after
that.
Not to re-hash an earlier complaint, but the marching clubs and bands aren't what's slowing the parades down. Most delays have to do with broken down floats. And when multiple parades have to follow one another along a single route, a break down in one parade puts everybody behind schedule. But the city's action doesn't address any of that. Instead they're going after these smaller groups who, with their low-barrier for entry and penchant for creativity are among the best vectors for lower and middle class local residents to participate in what is ostensibly still their city's celebration of itself. Each year it seems like the elites in charge give less and less of a damn about any of that, though.
As I'm typing this, we're currently biting our nails over the forecast for Saturday's Krewe Du Vieux. It looks pretty bad. I've seen some jokes that maybe the theme is tempting fate a bit.
But I'm also sitting here wondering how much trouble it would be to just move it back one day to Sunday night if they had to. Lots of parades have make-up dates. And KDV happens early enough in the calendar that it wouldn't conflict with anything the next day. It's possible that a postponement would be inconvenient for the membership. But it's also worth asking if the city isn't interested in accommodating what is essentially a big marching club. If they're choosing not to help, why is that?
Anyway, the odds are we're all gonna get a little soggy on Saturday night. That's a bummer. But it's only the beginning and there's plenty more to come. Let's try and keep the big fat security state (Security State Gras) from harshing our buzz too much. Here are a few items to get us in the swing of things.
It's an early Mardi Gras this year. There won't be another one this early until 2024. That means there will be some chilly nights. But it also tends to make for lighter and less "Spring Breaky" crowds. Some people prefer that. Some don't. I've never had a preference for either an early or late season. But I would very much prefer that Carnival remain a "moveable feast." There is some speculation that it may not. There's an element of mystery that comes with a holiday pegged to the lunar cycle. It would be a shame to lose that.
Because Mardi Gras is so early this year, everybody is rushing to get their king cakes in now. You'd think the short season would make for fewer and less baroque elaborations on the king cake theme but The Advocate is on a mission to prove you wrong. Ian McNulty has already sampled a doberge king cake, a crawfish king cake, even a beer king cake among several other exotic examples. Meanwhile, NOLA.com alerts us to a style of king cake ice cream we were not previously aware of.
Traditional Rock-n-Sake Sushi King Cake comes standard filled with snow
crab and cream cheese pressed with sushi rice as the "dough" with
assorted toppings of avocado, tuna, spicy tuna, fresh salmon,
yellowtail, lemon zest, yuzu tobiko, wasabi tobiko, rainbow sprouts,
crunchy tempura flakes, jalapenos, green onions, thin slices of lime,
smelt roe, dots of sriracha, eel sauce, spicy mayo, chili-sesame oil,
ponzu, and voodoo sauces.
"Sushi King Cake" is a pretty good hook. But, really, it's just a big roll shaped into an oval. It sounds perfectly edible. Speaking of which, I find I am 2 for 2 in getting stuck with the baby this year the latest incident coming about just this Thursday.
Maybe the short season really is a good thing.
Finally, no king cake discussion would be complete without our annual look at the market for king cake flavored vodka. It appears to be crashing badly this season. Where once there were three brands available at most outlets, there is now only the bottom shelf Taaka in stock at Rouses. And they are having trouble giving even that away. The price opened at $7.39 on January 11.
And is now all the way down to $6.99 as of January 23.
Also coming back, the Jefferson Parish "Family Gras" (literally Fat Family) for those parents who still believe, even in 2018, that the city is some sort of hellish no-go zone for children. Don't get me wrong. As always, I encourage everyone to do their part to spread the festivities out across as wide a geographical range as possible. It's just JP's marketing implication that theirs is the only "family friendly" setting that gets annoying. But, hey, they do have Oates. Nobody can deny that.
Aside from leaves, mud and sundry sludge, there's one festive item
that cleaning crews sucking out thousands of storm drains in New Orleans
have found in droves recently.
Mardi Gras beads. Tons of them.
Specifically: 93,000 pounds on a five-block stretch of St. Charles Avenue downtown.
Is that a lot? It sounds like a lot. The five-block stretch referenced here is between Lee Circle and Poydras Street which isn't too surprising. It's the point in the route where float riders are prone to suddenly realize they have bought too many beads and begin to furiously dump them overboard in a panic. It's also where spectators are the most confined into the high rise scaffolding seen here which results in a fair amount of unrecoverable spillage into the street.
Here is some new instructional artwork I noticed on Napoleon Avenue this week. Maybe the alligator will help people be more conscientious in the future.
Meanwhile, it's time to get out and practice walking in the streets so we know what to do after it gets dark. Here we see the KDV sub-Krewe of Underwear doing just that last weekend in the Marigny.
Needs work, maybe.
And here is the Singleton Charter School Marching Band stomping around the neighborhood Wednesday afternoon.
Three dancers interviewed since the raids said they are skeptical of
law enforcement's commitment to protecting workers in the French
Quarter, saying the NOPD's officers in the raid treated dancers like
they were criminals. The state Office of Alcohol and Tobacco Control has
not announced any charges or released any records following the raids,
saying they will make the illegal activity they documented public Feb.
6.
That's when the four clubs -- Rick's Sporting Saloon, Dixie Divas,
Temptations and Scores -- are due for a hearing on the emergency
suspensions of their business licenses. An additional four clubs, Rick's
Cabaret, Hunk Oasis, Larry Flynt's Hustler Barely Legal and Stiletto's,
were served with emergency suspensions on Thursday (Jan. 25).
We're running up on to the heart of Carnival season. It's a bad time for all these people to be missing work. There's apparently going to be a march next Friday to protest the raids. Maybe catch that after Oshun passes.
It remains unclear how the agreements would be enforced. Shachat said she didn’t know of any penalty clause in the documents.
The New Orleans Advocate requested the exact language used in the agreements but did not receive a copy Thursday.
Follow up question. Karen, have you read them? Somebody is probably going to... um... disclose the language to the media sooner or later. Seems silly to have people sign something that doesn't actually hold them to anything. It's not like these are fake subpoenas, right?
The new thing that happened in the credit card saga is they got the State Supreme Court to appoint an ad-hoc judge who will now decide whether or not the Orleans Parish judges need to recuse themselves. In other words, very little happened.
In any case, let's not hold our breaths for much to come of this. That isn't to say that there's nothing to it. It's just that this "investigation" isn't going to come near anything of any substance. For one thing, the credit card abuse isn't just a LaToya story. It's more one of those "everybody does it" type of bad practices which should probably be ended. But, in order to do that, you have to turn over everybody's apple cart and our political elites like their apples. Also Jeff Landry really is just out to get LaToya for crass political purposes here so he's not interested in doing any of that the right way.
I've mentioned previously (Linking back to my own blog a lot today. Sorry.) that a potential investigation into Cantrell's finances could be one thread into the wider FNBC scandal which would be a ton of fun to pull on. But, again, we run into the apple cart problem combined with the Attorney General's lack of sincerity and, well, just don't expect any of this to go anywhere. There are too many people with too much to lose by talking.
New Orleans mayor-elect LaToya Cantrell
has obtained non-disclosure agreements from members of her transition
advisory team and will also collect them from committee members she's
appointed to help shape city policy ahead of her inauguration in May,
her team announced this week.
The non-disclosure agreements will prohibit transition advisors and
the committee members from communicating about what occurs during
closed-door meetings during the three-month period before she takes
office. The move represents an unusual effort to keep discussions and
decisions about Cantrell's leadership plans, which will include
personnel hires, shielded from the general public.
Totally normal move toward kicking off an open an honest city administration. Nobody can talk to the public about what's going on. Ever.
Karen Carvin, a spokeswoman for Cantrell's transition, said that the
non-disclosure agreements will be structured differently depending on
the position. The members of the transition advisory team, a group of 18
people announced early this month, have signed non-disclosure
agreements "in perpetuity," meaning they can never discuss advice or
discussions with the mayor-elect.
This was the "grass-roots" mayoral campaign, right? I swear I read that a bunch of times during the election. Maybe I'm wrong. But I thought grass-rootsiness was all about keeping the public informed and participating in the process. You know who we should ask about this? LaToya Cantrell.
“It’s critical to have a transition office, and I’m happy to announce
that our team will be housed in my alma mater, Xavier University,”
Cantrell said. “I’ve always embraced keeping the public not only
informed, but also participating in the process, so the transition will
be transparent with a robust website, frequent updates from social media
and traditional media, and public meetings. As I often spoke about
during my campaign, professional development and partnerships are part
of the foundation for effective governing, and this week I am attending a
Harvard conference for newly-elected mayors.”
Also, are "robust website" jokes a little too 2012 by now? Ok, nevermind that. It seems like the public face of the transition is in disagreement with its actual policies. Good luck getting anybody from the team to explain it publicly, though! I mean other than Karen Carvin. Apparently she's just there to tell jokes.
Although non-disclosure agreements are typically in place to make a
process more opaque to outsiders, Carvin said Cantrell's staff felt they
were part of "an effort to have as much transparency within the
process."
"It's not to hide anything; it's to give people the opportunity to
talk freely and openly," Carvin said. "The whole idea is to allow people
the freedom to be brutally honest about their assessment of various
departments and each area they're looking at. They are going to be
having people interview people who have contracts with the city, and
they want them to feel free to be open and transparent about their view
of where things stand."
In order to achieve transparency, we must maintain air tight secrecy. Why?
"There is a lot of information that some people may want to share that's
of a confidential or a controversial nature," Carvin added, saying, "I
think the public will understand and accept that."
Because if there is one thing the public loves, it's elected
representatives who make sure to protect them from having to know about things "of a controversial nature" that relate to the public's business. Things are going brilliantly.
Interestingly, one way around these non-disclosure agreements might be a subpoena from, say, the Attorney General's office. But, like we said at the beginning here, that isn't likely to happen. Besides, it's an imperfect remedy for all sorts of reasons. The public would like to be privy to as much of the public business of setting up a mayoral office as possible, not just whatever bits Jeff Landry is interested in.
At the same time, if you were interested in keeping a lazy non-criminal inquiry like Landry's off of your back, one good way to frustrate the flow of information would be to make everybody sign an NDA. In which case it's possible we have Landry's meddling to thank for inspiring this situation too.
Three candidates for the seat — Kenny Bordes, Royce Duplessis and
Danil Faust — fielded questions Wednesday night from the Alliance for
Good Government about how they believe the budget crisis should be
resolved. (A fourth candidate, Eldon Anderson, did not attend.) All
three said that the state needs to re-examine its tax exemptions in an
effort to raise more revenue this year, and stave off the proposed cuts.
Duplessis, a private energy attorney and former chair of the City
Planning Commission, said he would start by re-examining revenue
opportunities by way of tax exemptions, ensuring that the state is
getting a proper return on each of those investments.
“Simply saying we’re going to cut is not the answer,” Duplessis said,
emphasizing that not even the governor wants to pass the budget he
himself proposed.
Faust, a French Quarter bartender, said that such tax exemptions cost
the state $3 billion in 2005 but have grown to represent $8 billion in
lost revenue now, with some going to firms that do not even have
employees. Instead of relying so heavily on personal income taxes that
hurt workers, the state should derive more of its tax from property and
industry, he said.
“You have a lot of companies that can work through these loopholes and get rebates,” Faust said.
Bordes's answer was slightly different in that he brought up a potential call for a constitutional convention to solve the problem. It all depends on the details, yadda yadda, but, we've mentioned before, that has the potential to create more problems than it solves.
I think this phrase is meant to reassure people. See, the state's 6 billion dollar offer to Amazon isn't all that alarming. These are just the "off-the-shelf" bribes we hand out to everybody.
The figure, which Louisiana Economic Development revealed publicly
for the first time Tuesday in response to a records request from The
Advocate, consisted almost entirely of off-the-shelf benefits the state
regularly offers to qualifying businesses, though not typically of that
magnitude.
In its proposal, dubbed "Project Pearl" by LED
officials, the state pitched Amazon on five locations — three in New
Orleans and two in the New Orleans area, although officials were willing
to look farther afield.
Of course a lot of the stuff we keep on that shelf is pretty bad already. We saw some of it in the highly questionable deal that is expected to bring DXC to New Orleans. It also comes at a time when the Governor and Legislature are preparing to sort out just how badly they're going to ask the state's poor to sacrifice in terms of schools, hospitals, and sales taxes so that they can continue subsidizing the profits of some of the world's largest corporations.
What's worse, though, is that the "Project Pearl" formed for this pitch now becomes the template for the next package offered up in the next such sweepstakes. New Orleans didn't "win" this round, which kind of feels like dodging a bullet, all things considered.
Amazon has turned Seattle, its current headquarters, into a
21st-century exemplar of income inequality. Living in the Pacific
Northwest’s largest city is a beautiful thing for a worker with the
skill set to slip effortlessly into a high-tech job. For everyone else,
Seattle now features all the disturbing traits of any place that rewards
knowledge workers at the top of the food chain and flushes away just
about everyone else: from astronomical housing costs that have long
since displaced middle- and lower- income people to punishing commutes
for everyone who has to move in and out of the city.
Amazon’s arrival is bound to accelerate the displacement of people of
more modest means and send the cost of living in the “lucky” victor
soaring. The New York and Washington metro areas, already two of most
expensive places to live in the United States, would become even more
unaffordable for the average worker. (There are actually 15 “cities,”
not 20, competing. New York and Newark constitute one mega-city; while
Washington, D.C., Montgomery County, Maryland, and Northern Virginia are
effectively another single metropolitan area—whether local leaders like
it or not.)
But clearly this is all well within the deliberate scope of the policy goal. State and local political leaders are set on exacerbating the already gross inequalities at work in New Orleans. It's hard to remember a time when this was not the case. It certainly has been the thrust of the post-Katrina era. And the "shelf" full of instruments for funding these schemes off the backs of the poorest people is getting more and more sophisticated.
What made Culotta decide to leave St. Charles Avenue?
"We own that building and somebody made us an offer," he said.
According to public records, a company owned by businessman John
Georges bought the St. Charles Avenue property for $1.3 million in June
2017.
Georges owns a lot of things so it's one more to throw on the pile. This is a block down from his shiny new Advocate headquarters. Gonna make his own little corridor.
Matt Rota, policy director with the Gulf Restoration Network, raised questions about whether DEQ should play a role in regulating the financial transactions on which the trading program would be based.
"And there's the big question of why," Rota said. "Why has this come up? What are the specific pollution issues that caused us to look at this?"
Because it's a fantastic businees opportunity, probably. Not only does it allow polluters to buy their way out of their responsibility to, you know, stop dumping poison into the water, but it also sets up a nifty secondary market for the credits. This moring I sort of asked what we might call the new currency "mined" from Louisiana pollution and got what I thought was a clever answer.
Whoever handles these financial instruments stands to make some money.
Sarah Mack, president of Tierra Resources, which is already creating wetlands to earn credits for sequestering carbon, with the credits bought and sold on a private market, said the department also needs to carefully review the infrastructure that will be required to run that market.
In her case, the project is co-sponsored by the Entergy Corporation, Comite Resources, and The Climate Trust, which are combining to voluntarily reduce carbon emissions blamed for global warming. The companies participate in one of several national and worldwide voluntary carbon credit trading banks.
Ha ha, yeah, that works very well. But, hey, how much more exciting would it be if the State of Louisiana were the regulatory authority? The great thing about Louisiana is we see an ongoing disaster like the criminal despoiling of our environment and immediately start looking for ways to parlay that into financial fraud.
I'd like to keep following this story as it develops, but really, we should just skip to the end where everybody goes to jail.
The Bayou Bridge Pipeline has begun construction in Louisiana, the company building it announced Wednesday.
The
Atchafalaya Levee Board gave its approval last week, and the Coastal
Protection and Restoration Authority has issued a letter of no
objection, though environmental groups are trying to hold up
construction in court.
"We
are excited to be able to conclude the more than 2 year permitting and
have begun construction activities," Energy Transfer Partners
spokeswoman Alexis Daniel wrote in a Wednesday morning email to The
Advocate. The company is the majority shareholder of Bayou Bridge LLC.
Technically speaking, they do have permission. At least they have permits from the state Department of Natural Resources and the Army Corps of Engineers to go to work. However there are still court challenges to those permits pending. Here is a closer look at those. I'm especially interested in a suit filed by the Center for Constitutional Rights and the Louisiana Bucket Brigade which seeks release of the Governor's communications.
And on January 16, the center filed suit on behalf of the Louisiana Bucket Brigade, 350.org New Orleans, and the Atchafalaya Basinkeeper, asking for Bayou Bridge LLC
to turn over records relating to the company’s use of eminent domain,
and for the governor’s office to release its communications with private
entities involved with the project.
“Instead of calling for an Environmental Impact Statement throughout the
months-long controversy about the pipeline, Louisiana Governor John Bel
Edwards has repeated the company’s talking points,” Ann Rolfes, founder
of the Louisiana Bucket Brigade, pointed out. She expressed her
disappointment in a politician who claimed to champion the environment
in an editorial published by NOLA.com.
“After 68 days of waiting [for the public
records], the governor’s office sent me a laughable total of seven pages
of irrelevant correspondence,” Rolfes said, prompting her organization
to sue in order to compel a release of these records.
Louisiana’s governor hasn’t been shy about his support for the pipeline. Despite the controversies around the project, he told the Baton Rouge Advocate that “another pipeline traversing the Atchafalaya Basin wasn’t going to keep him up at night.
We know John Bel loves oil companies and all. But wouldn't it be fun to read him telling them just how much in his own words?
I don't put too much stock in this but, for what it's worth, there is chatter among the law talking people that Wendy isn't actually all that bad compared to David. Guess we'll find out soon enough.
President Donald Trump has nominated the wife of former U.S. Sen. David Vitter to serve as a federal judge in New Orleans.
The White House on Tuesday announced Wendy Vitter’s nomination for a
seat on the bench in the Eastern District of Louisiana. Trump also
nominated Robert Summerhays to serve as a federal judge in the Western
District of Louisiana.
Louisiana’s Republican senators, Bill Cassidy and John Kennedy,
praised the nominations. Federal district judges must be confirmed by
the Senate.
Wendy Vitter is general counsel for the Archdiocese of New Orleans,
and previously worked as a prosecutor for the district attorney’s office
in New Orleans.
He also suggested some items that Edwards said he expected Republicans
would put forth, including a transparency website to track spending,
implementing work requirements and/or copays for able-bodied adults on
Medicaid and implementing new spending caps. Edwards has said he doesn't
oppose those measures, but they could cost the state initially on the
front-end, rather than saving money immediately.
This is year three of a legislative strategy based on giving Republicans everything they want and hoping they will be ashamed of that. They won't be. Especially when it will be so easy to blame the Governor if anyone objects.
A waitress at Rick's who asked to remain anonymous said in a
statement provided by Rutherford that during the raid, officers
potentially put employees at risk by reading out their full names in
front of customers as the workers provided their identification.
Also,
the group of officers involved in the operation included only one
woman, meaning male officers stood guard in the dressing room as the
women changed, despite loud protests from the women, the waitress said.
Drug-sniffing dogs were brought along during the
operation, and officers made several derogatory references suggesting
all the dancers were drug users, the waitress said. She said two women
were arrested at the club, one for having an outstanding warrant and
another on an allegation of disturbing the peace.
The
investigation is the largest of its type in New Orleans since Operation:
Trick or Treat, which shut down a half-dozen clubs accused of allowing
drug sales and prostitution in 2015. Some of those clubs reopened after
signing agreements with the ATC requiring them to install surveillance
cameras, hire outside security firms and make other changes.
This round of raids is one of a series of items enumerated in the mayor's French Quarter "security" plan. Some of these include the bollards recently installed on Bourbon Street, a recent feint at closing down the bars at 3 AM, and, of course, the "surveillance ordinance" currently under consideration by City Council. Reading through the security plan one quickly comes to see it as more of a tourism marketing document about amenities and "branding" strategies. The crack down on the strip clubs emanates from language like this.
(Covenant House Director Jim) Kelly’s targeting of the strip clubs is just part of the national Covenant House’s longstanding fight against sex work, from internet advertisements today to street prostitution
in the 1970s. Covenant House founder Father Bruce Ritter saw his work
as getting youth off the streets and out of the sex trade, at first by
getting them into his apartment. Ritter was later forced out of the organization when several men he had taken off the streets said he had paid them for sex, reports which an internal review confirmed had long been known to the organization. Kelly himself has been with Covenant House since the 1980s,
and founded the New Orleans branch of the agency. As the issue of sex
trafficking has gained in national prominence (in part due to the
national Covenant House’s campaigning), Kelly and Covenant House New Orleans have re-positioned themselves as trafficking experts. Covenant House New Orleans touts
its role in serving people they say have been trafficked or forced into
the sex trade, and who are “turning [their] life around.”
Kelly's agitation and propaganda campaign is funded by a $900,000 Department of Justice grant and he works in "partnership" various local and federal law enforcement arms. So that's a lot of official money and police power behind an agit-prop campaign directed by a religious crusader with the help of... one of the many many Landrieus afoot.
“We ended up looking at whether we could do something we thought was really simple,” Landrieu told In Justice Today.
“Raise the age of those who can dance in strip clubs to 21.” Landrieu,
dean of the Loyola University law school and sister of former New
Orleans mayor Mitch Landrieu, said working with Covenant House was her
introduction to the issue of trafficking. “These women don’t even
initially recognize sometimes what they were involved in,” Landrieu
said. She admitted that “every woman who goes and works in a strip club
is not trafficked,” but claimed that the clubs are “a gateway or a
pathway [to trafficking] for women.”
That's Madeleine Landrieu, by the way. The article doesn't include her first name which is an unfortunate mistake given the way that clan proliferates. It also refers to "former New Orleans mayor" Mitch which is only sort of true at the moment. RIP copy editors. But in a media landscape where the T-P is running full features and a month of editorials in support of these kooks then why even bother to sweat the small stuff anymore?
"There's not a single cut that we will propose that we want to
implement," Edwards, a Democrat, told The Advocate editorial board on
Friday. "We don't want those cuts made."
Near
elimination of the popular Taylor Opportunity Program for Students
college scholarships, defunding safety net hospitals and layoffs are
among some of the most drastic measures that Edwards will reveal.
"It's stark," he said.
Edwards
said he hopes that it emphasizes the urgency of addressing the "fiscal
cliff" the state faces when temporary tax measures, including a sales
tax hike, expire July 1.
The Legislature has had several opportunities to avoid this situation in recent years but a conservative caucus has refused to take on the fiscal reforms necessary to put the state on a more sound footing. Thanks to this fiscal cliff situation, they've helped conjure through their own stubbornness, Republicans now have a choice of either dramatically reversing course now or running in next year's elections against "The Governor Who Killed TOPS" as they will undoubtedly frame it.
It's the same set of incentives that has worked against the Governor in every session since he's been in office so it's difficult to imagine how it will go any different this time. Once again his only recourse is to make threaten to make the Legislature work during Mardi Gras, which he will probably have to do this year anyway.
Edwards wants to call a special session in February, before the
regular session begins March 12, to address the budget. Lawmakers cannot
take up most revenue measures in even-numbered years.
"I'm not going to have a special session for the sake of having one," he said.
I have an uncomfortable relationship with protest marches. On the one hand, I believe democracy does better when people make themselves seen and heard. By meeting in the streets at big events, the immiserated can show each other they are not isolated. They demonstrate their commitment by going outside together to disrupt daily routines. They confirm to themselves and to others that they and their urgent concerns matter. They can be a critical first step toward meaningful political action.
On the other hand, I don't think people are nearly as modest as they ought to be in general. There's a kind of performative self-righteousness at work at these events, righteous as the cause itself may be. There's a line somewhere between necessary expression of grievance against power and look at us and how good.. how much better than so and so.. we are. And it's not an easy line to keep track of. Shit is fucked up. People ought to go out in the street and agitate against that. But they should also take care to do so as anonymously as is practical. It's a tricky thing to reconcile. The fact that millions of people turned out is essential. The fact that you, specifically, were there is actually kind of annoying.
So whenever I go out to see one of these, I'm both encouraged and appalled at the same time. I try to get a sense of how many and what sorts of people are there. I want to hear what the speakers have to say. But as I'm counting heads, I can't help but wonder at each. There's a difference between wanting to see people take action and the brazen self aggrandizement of those who have said, I will be a person who acts. Who do people think they are? Maybe it would be better if there were a way for people to attend these things anonymously. Ideally we could show up and be counted but somehow also be invisible.
Probably something like 1000 to 1500 in Duncan Plaza. Small beans compared to the next day's Women's March turnout but fantastic for a weekday afternoon, especially on a day with so much... um.. stuff going on.
More than 1,000 people marched from City Hall after a rally that
galvanized more than 100 Louisiana grassroots organizations,
including BreakOUT!, Stand With Dignity, Congress of Day Laborers, the
NAACP, hospitality workers, faith leaders, environmental justice groups
and several locally based civil rights groups. The event — coordinated
with Take 'Em Down NOLA and New Orleans Workers Group — follows the
groups' growing presence in citywide activism, from calls to remove
Confederate monuments and "all symbols of white supremacy" to support
for affordable housing, criminal justice reform, workers' rights and
health care, and explicit warnings against fascism, demagoguery and
racism throughout the 2016 election.
I remember thinking at the time that maintaining the momentum of that weekend would be a test for all of these groups. And it has been. But many of the people at last year's marches went on to win some victories in 2017. Or, at least, they have spent the year fighting some good fights.
It would have been nice to see some of this capacity mature to a point where it could have been a factor in the recent municipal elections. The timing just wasn't right for that, though. Because of this, the incoming mayor and council are products of the same old out of touch political establishment that existed before the crisis time began. That's a shame.
But doing the politics is about more than getting all worked up to vote against some terrible candidates every so often. There will be time for that again eventually. In the meantime, though, there will be plenty of other stuff to worry about as the past year has well demonstrated. Some of that might even involve getting out and marching in the street again. But that hardly seems appropriate during Mardi Gras so maybe we should hold off for a while.
Last week, the Winter Council deferred hearings on a controversial ordinance modifying the rules around obtaining and maintaining ABO permits. The law had became known colloquially as a "surveillance ordinance" because of one especially scary provision which would require businesses to install NOPD monitored security cameras. It is primarily the controversy over this matter which has brought about the deferral.
But there's a lot more than just the cameras involved. Even without the surveillance measure, the ordinance furthers the move to shut down certain kinds of neighborhood corner bars, groceries, and music venues which has gathered
momentum in the post-Katrina years. The Louisiana Restaurant Association identifies some of these concerns in a recent T-P article.
So, as we already mentioned, we're starting to suspect the surveillance provision may have been thrown in as a distraction, or at least as a bargaining chip with which to buy off further opposition. Eventually they're going to pass something. Having the fight over the cameras now only serves to make whatever they do pass look like reasonable compromise. Or to put that in LaToya Cantrell's verbiage, they will say they "listened to the community" and figured out how to "find balance." Balance being a still very shitty crackdown on ABO permits.
Cantrell, who was previously quoted by WWLTV beaming over the NOPD facility meant for monitoring the proposed cameras, has been less vocally supportive as of late. Her most recent comment, issued through a spokesperson, defers the matter entirely.
David Winkler-Schmit, a spokesman for Councilwoman LaToya Cantrell, the
mayor-elect, offered no objections to putting off the surveillance and
strip club proposals. He said Cantrell deferred to Landrieu on his
surveillance plan and to Councilwoman Nadine Ramsey on the strip club
issue because Bourbon Street is in her district.
Way to show some leadership on a controversial issue, Madam Mayor.
Eventually she'll have to take some sort of position. When that happens, it's not difficult to imagine her falling back on her familiar appeal to "balance" we've been listening to her make for years now. If the new ordinance passes, who determines which bars need to be shut down in order to find the balance? Well, that will be LaToya, of course.
The ordinance contains an emergency suspension provision, allowing the
mayor, the police chief or the ABO Board chairman the ability to suspend
a permit. That suspension would occur if any of those three people
believe the operation "endangers the health, safety and welfare of the
community."
And how will Mayor LaToya unilaterally determine which businesses "endanger the health, safety and welfare of the community?" I'm willing to bet it won't be any of the businesses currently paying rent to her contributors.
With an inmate death rate four times the national average, the New
Orleans jail is “critically unsafe” and staffing is “critically
inadequate," according to a withering report released Thursday by
federal monitors.
The report finds that conditions have actually
improved “marginally” since the last report from the court-appointed
watchdogs 10 months ago. Yet page after page of the lengthy report
details how monitors found entire units left unguarded on unannounced
visits and discovered during reviews of medical logs that hundreds of
alarming incidents had gone unreported.
Inmates on mental health
watch manage to ingest pills or attempt suicide by hanging, and fights
often erupt as guards leave their posts for lunch, the report found.
Meanwhile, 44 percent of jail employees were fired or quit their jobs in
2017.
The
jail administration led by Orleans Parish Sheriff Marlin Gusman and
compliance director Gary Maynard is living in a state of denial or
ignorance, the report finds.
Yeah that's bad. What's remarkable about the state of the jail four years into a federally directed reform program and a over a year into the Maynard experiment is that some basic sounding things aren't getting done. For example, this sounds like someone just needs to make a spreadsheet at least.
The Sheriff’s Office files reports on suicides, riots and fights, yet
it has failed to analyze them in a systemic way that might prevent
future incidents. The jail has not conducted an annual review of jail
guards’ use of force that is required by the consent judgment.
Although
recent Sheriff’s Office reports have minimized the number of
inmate-on-inmate and inmate-on-staff attacks, the report says that such
incidents remain rampant, occurring at a rate that indicates “an
unacceptable and dangerous environment” in the jail.
The monitor's report also lists unreported or mishandled incidents of violence or contraband, inadequate mental health services, as well as insufficient and inadequate staffing in general. You can see where this is going.
Even after an inmate’s hanging death in May, and the high-profile
hanging death of a 15-year-old inmate in 2016, the jail’s precautions
against self-harm are weak. Guards have not been tested on suicide
prevention training, a tool to cut down nooses was missing in five of
six control pods, and nurses were not keeping an eye on inmates on
suicide watch during a recent tour, the report said.
Of course there are larger underlying systemic problems at work here besides just proper prison administration. We arrest too many people. We criminalize too many behaviors. We're leaving more and more people behind in general and shoving them into our crappy jail. But that's all beyond the scope of the federal monitors' purview. What they are able to tell us, though, is you don't want to go to jail in New Orleans. It's not a pleasant place to be even on the days when there is potable water.
While Williams, Councilwoman and Mayor-elect LaToya Cantrell and
others issued a statement Friday defending their actions, Williams on
Wednesday called for reconsideration of the issue, saying that he was
not aware of the boycott movement or its mission when the council voted.
He
said it was a mistake for the council to introduce and vote on the
unadvertised measure at the end of a nearly six-hour meeting, as doing
so did not give people enough time to voice their opinions.
Landrieu,
who said he hadn't seen the document before the council's vote, quickly
denounced it last week, saying it was "ill-advised, gratuitous and does
not reflect the policy of the city of New Orleans."
For starters, I really hate it when they lie like this. Jason Williams clearly knows what the BDS movement is. When he finds it convenient to pretend not to, he's just insulting a voting public he presumes to be stupid.
Here is a link that should pull up video of the discussion. Williams gives a long talk where he reads the resolution out loud and goes on to compare it with similar divestment campaigns such as the movement against South African Apartheid. After that there were three public comments on behalf of the resolution all of which specifically referenced Palestinian rights. Councilmembers knew what they were voting on. Or, at least Jason did.
The only reason he or any of them would want to walk this back now is because one or more contractors who do business with the city expressed concern about the implications of having their investments scrutinized for human rights violations. It's worth asking who those people might be.
People are gonna have jokes at the ready, I guess. But, no, that's not the reason. The reason is they found more willing marks elsewhere with bigger ransoms to pay.
Some state and local governments have made public the details of the
financial incentives they are dangling. Boston's offer includes $75
million for affordable housing for Amazon employees and others. Before
he left office Tuesday, Republican Gov. Chris Christie approved a
measure backed by Democrats to allow New Jersey to offer up to $5
billion to Amazon. Newark also proposes to give Amazon $2 billion in tax
breaks, although the city has yet to release its application to the AP.
But
many of the state and local governments competing for the headquarters
have refused to disclose the tax breaks or other financial incentives
they offered. Of the 20 finalists, 13 including New York, Chicago, and
Miami declined requests from the AP to release their applications while
other requests were still pending. Applications from Columbus, Denver,
Los Angeles and Raleigh, North Carolina, were submitted by outside
groups not typically bound by the same disclosure rules.
It has been reported that Chicago is actually offering to give all the tax money collected from Amazon employees back to the company. In other words, Amazon will tax its own workers' paychecks. Fresno's proposal takes that a step further and actually incorporates Amazon executives into city government.
Submitted by Fresno Mayor Lee Brand, the proposal would place 85
percent of every tax dollar generated by Amazon into a so-called "Amazon
Community Fund," which would be administered by a city committee along
with Amazon executives. In essence, Amazon would be able to dictate were
all that tax money goes, whether it be worker housing, public
transportation to get Amazon employees to work, or parks and bike paths
for the exercise and leisure of Amazon workers.
“Rather than the money disappearing into a civic black
hole, Amazon would have a say on where it will go,” Fresno's economic
development director Larry Westerlund told the LA Times.
“Not for the fire department on the fringe of town, but to enhance
their own investment in Fresno.” This isn't good for those who live on
the fringes of town, but not to worry: The agreement would only last for
the next 100 years.
So, no, the fact that New Orleans didn't make the cut doesn't have anything to do with Sewerage and Water Board. That is, unless Amazon were getting into the water privatization business which we're pretty sure they aren't... yet.
Louisiana colleges were hammered by cuts over the last decade. The state
spends $700 million less annually on its public colleges than it did in
2008.
The Governor's budget proposal comes out tomorrow. The Legislature may or may not be going into special session soon. You're going to hear a lot from Republicans about how the problem is "too much spending." What they will mean by that is $700 million out of higher ed wasn't enough for their liking.
New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu and Jefferson Parish President Mike
Yenni are updating citizens about public services during the ongoing
hard freeze conditions.
Landrieu asked residents to limit their water use and prepare for an
"extended and precautionary" boil water advisory. The threat of pipes
freezing is expected to diminish significantly once temperatures exceed
32 degrees Thursday afternoon, so anyone running a trickle of water can
shut off that faucet.
This is going to be a little bit different from the usual drill. They're going to have to wait until the pressure normalizes before they can start the (usually) 24 hour process of testing and clearing the water. And they won't get to that point until all the pipes thaw and the leaks can be discovered. One assumes this means the new leaks and not the existing problems causing an estimated 40 percent loss of water flow on a daily basis. The sudden burst of newly spurting water this afternoon will be known as the Tricentennial Fountain. Bring your camera so you can preserve the memory of this symbol of our resilience.
The spectacle was too much for Kennedy, a freshman who already has made a
name for himself on Capitol Hill by frequently opining on events of the
day with folksy and witty one-liners. In his Wednesday comments, he
compared the Senate’s recent nastiness to the notoriously sensational
daytime television program “The Jerry Springer Show,” and facetiously
posited that it was impairing intergalactic relations.
“That’s why the aliens won’t talk to us,” Kennedy told reporters. “They look at all of this stuff, and they go, ‘These people ― they’re 13-year olds"
He continued: “I’m talking about private meetings, so-and-so said this, and no, he didn’t say that, and you’re a liar. The whole junior high cafeteria syndrome.”
He added: “You know ― here’s a newsflash to you: Sometimes, people swear, okay?”
Didn't really need any input from the shithole planets anyway, right?
Leaving that aside, it's interesting that Kennedy gets credit in this story for is down-to-earth folksy exasperation with nasty Washington even as he appears to be defending the President's nasty remarks. "Sometimes people swear," he says. Which is fine. Swearing really isn't even the issue with the brutal, stupid, and racist immigration policy Trump had employed the swear to articulate. Anyway, Kennedy's problem is with critics of Trump's rhetorci who may or may not agree with the policy. Either way, John isn't staking out a superior position. He gets credit for the superior pose, regardless.
U.S. Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., is also using Scott's visit as an
opportunity to criticize Edwards. Kennedy, who is considering running
against Edwards for governor, sent the following message out on Twitter:
"Gov. Edward's tax increases are driving companies and industries out of
Louisiana so much so that other governors are taking notice. Louisiana
needs a competitive business environment so we can grow more jobs and
the economy."
In other words, don't expect the Homesick Folksy John act to go away any time soon.
This one appears to be freeze-related so maybe we shouldn't sigh so loudly. Unless it's something freeze-related but preventable for reasons we don't know about yet which is always possible given the history here.
Some sort of weather irregularity had us holed up in the house with... well.. with pretty much all the regular conveniences, actually. Throughout the duration of the emergency, we still had power (unlike many) we still had heat (again,unlike many of those without power or shelter) we still had water, (unlike many others) What we didn't have for most of the time, though, was internet which sure as hell made it feel like nothing else was working.
In any event it meant we weren't working. With roads shut down everywhere and "New Orleans cut off from all sides," nobody was going anywhere. Menckles had planned to work from home but frozen internet tubes took care of that. Instead we just, you know, went outside.. for very brief bits at a time.. and goofed around.
Winter weather and whether or not it is bad turned out to be one of Alli's topics on the latest (appropriately named as ever) Hunkerdowncast which finally got uploaded once the internet pipes thawed a bit.
I want to tell some jokes about yesterday too. I know we were all trying to cheer each other up last night when the thing happened. That was a great game. The Saints did everything you could have asked to see. They basically had the thing won. Until they didn't. Football is weird that way. For all its supposed precision, its baroque strategy, its faux military style of preparation, for all the physical effort of its execution, its results are often the product of random accidents.
Personally, I think that is the source of its (and most sports') appeal. As fans or participants, we immerse ourselves in the complex mechanics of the event. But it's the prospect of seeing those mechanics overturned by fate that really draws us in. There is where we find the passion, the humanity, and above all, the humor that we're really buying in for. There is a kind of hope in the sudden overturn of expectations. Even when these reversals go against "our side" on some level, we all know they are what we came to see.
We tried to tell each other that last night at our viewing parties and on the Twitternets and such. We did okay. Today is a little more sad. But only because we're more sober now and working our way through the aftermath. This afternoon, we drove by a season-ending merchandise clearance and got a little misty eyed.
