Has Jeff Landry resigned yet?

No of course not. It's not even certain from this story that anyone with any jurisdiction over his firms' alleged visa and contractor fraud scams is actually investigating.  Meanwhile, Jeff is continuing to live his best life.

On Tuesday, Landry posted a photo to personal Twitter and Facebook accounts that shows him smiling inside the lodge at Yellowstone Club, a private Montana ski resort frequented by celebrities and business magnates. Landry was sitting at a table adorned with strings of colored beads; the resort was putting on an “Aprés Ski” party for Mardi Gras that day.

A day earlier, a message for Louisianans was posted on Landry’s official Twitter page, encouraging people rebuilding after storms to read an attached booklet “to help protect yourself from becoming a victim of fraud & #scams!”

Attached was a tip sheet with 11 pointers to avoid getting swindled. Tip #2 includes this advice: “Make sure the contractor is licensed through the Louisiana Licensing Board for Contractors.”

It's finally happening

We all knew there would come a day... 

COVINGTON, La. — Live samples of the Coronavirus have officially arrived to the Northshore, where researchers at Tulane's Primate Center will try to find solutions to the virus.

"This is a global health crisis," Dr. Skip Bohm, Chief Veterinary Medical Officer at Tulane National Primate Research Center.

Researches are working to tackle it. A live sample of the Coronavirus was brought to the primate center Wednesday.

This is truly excellent news.  Can't imagine a thing ever going wrong up at the Tulane monkey farm. 

Super Polluters

Louisiana based chemical facilities are charting well.

The "Breath to the People" report analyzed the latest batch of self-reported industrial pollution emissions data from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's 2018 Toxics Release Inventory. The report ranked the worst emitters by giving extra weight to the most toxic chemicals released. The analysis focused on plants within a mile of populations of at least 250 people.

In Louisiana, the Sasol Chemicals complex in Lake Charles ranked No. 2 nationally in the listing of the top 100 so-called “super polluters,” while the BASF Corp. and Shell Chemical complexes in Geismar were also in the top six.

Ranked third and sixth, respectively, the BASF and Shell facilities are located in Ascension Parish, a few miles from Dutchtown High School, the state's largest high school by student population, and the parish government-owned multiuse complex Lamar-Dixon Expo Center.

It will probably come as no surprise that each of these "super polluters" receives a generous subsidy via the state's Industrial Tax Exemption Program. Those subsidies are expected to keep rolling on in.   The ITE for BASF's recently announced expansion will cost Ascension Parish schools $43 million over the next 10 years. Shell's Geismar expansion will cost the same parish over $100 million.  Sasol was approved for an additional $10.1 million exemption last year.

Also not terribly surprising, but at least disappointing, is the Governor's decision to roll back some of the discretion he recently granted local government taxing authorities  to reject ITEs that fall under their jurisdiction.

The move tilts the Industrial Tax Exemption Program, or ITEP, back toward the state, four years after Edwards overhauled the program to give locals a vote for the first time. The Board of Commerce and Industry, which for decades approved nearly every exemption request that it voted on, can override the vote of locals if the locals reject an exemption for reasons that “conflict” with the state board’s rules.

The board voted to pass the resolution despite fierce opposition from activists and over the objection of three of 24 board members. Together Louisiana, a grassroots group that has pushed for more stringent standards for ITEP, inundated board members with emails and spoke out against the change at Friday’s meeting.

“This is a move backwards in the reform efforts that we have worked on together,” said Together Louisiana organizer Edgar Cage. “We urge you not to approve this resolution.”

Edwards’ administration said the move would only apply to instances where local officials have “rules” or standards that are at odds with the state’s rules. But virtually all standards adopted locally are different from the state’s rules, and the resolution doesn’t spell out which ones are being targeted.

Basically this means that a local city council or school board can still reject an ITE. But the state can step back in and void the rejection. John Bel isn't taking away their right to say no, he's just ensuring that it won't mean anything.

Meanwhile the new legislature is going into session in a couple of weeks. Baton Rouge State Senator Bodi White has filed a bill that would amend the state constitution to remove John Bel's or any future Governor's authority to interpret the ITEP rules one way or the other.  Presumably this would allow the legislature to void local control over these exemptions altogether thereby clearing the way for Louisiana's "super polluters" to benefit from our support indefinitely. So, you know, big things to look forward to.

The sharing is always fairest for the tourism moguls

The Convention Center has got to love this plan for settling its dispute with RTA.  It's one of those "compromises" where they don't actually have to give anything up.

The single biggest funding source for the RTA, which provides public transportation in Orleans Parish, is a citywide one-cent sales tax that brought in $83 million in 2018, according to the agency’s most recent state audit. But the RTA only kept $7 million out of the roughly $14 million that the tax generated from hotel room sales.

A 20-year old legal settlement has forced the RTA to fork over roughly half of its hotel tax revenue to tourism industry entities — mainly the Convention Center and the New Orleans Tourism Marketing Corporation, or NOTMC, a public body that markets New Orleans to out-of-town tourists.

The Convention Center’s deal would allow the RTA to keep roughly 75 percent of the annual funding instead of 50 percent. The Convention Center’s collections would stay roughly the same. The NOTMC, whose board recently voted to change its makeup and its mission, would stop receiving any of the money.

It’s unclear where Mayor LaToya Cantrell stands on the proposal. Her office did not respond to requests for comment.

Keep in mind this is a proposal created by the Convention Center (which the Lens apparently had to fight to get a copy of) so let's consider it a starting point for negotiation. But this thing where "fair share" actually means the tourism industry gets to keep doing whatever it wants while city agencies collect whatever scraps happen to be laying around (in this case, the carcass of a now defunct NOTMC) seems to be a pattern. So I'm not optimistic.

Ashes

There is so much I want to say about this year's Mardi Gras. I had intended two or three posts to follow up on this one during the week. But, as is often the case, there was too much happening. So now there will have to be a long incoherent post with all of it at once. But later.

Fat Tuesday afternoon we took one last walk around the neighborhood before settling in to declare this difficult Carnival officially over. Within the space of the few blocks that we walked we passed by these two landmark sites.

This is Handa Wanda's on Dryades Street.




It hosts Mardi Gras Indian practices for Uptown tribes throughout the year and, along with the Sportsman's Corner on the same block, is a center of activity on Fat Tuesday. It sits next to a vacant lot where the famed H&R bar once stood before it burned down in 2001.  Here is a snapshot I took of the H&R's burnt out shell four years later on Mardi Gras Day 2005.



Just a few blocks away from Handa Wanda, we walked by a tent erected this season on the lot where the Morris-Downman house once stood on St. Charles Avenue. 




The tent was once again this year the site of Rex's annual toast to friends and club members gathered there. It's a tradition stretching back several decades right up until the Downman house burned down just prior to the parade season last year.  Here is a photo from last year of the Rex toast in front of the burnt out shell of the house.



Each of these sites had been an iconic headquarters of New Orleans Carnival tradition as practiced by different social classes.  Each site has been catastrophically reduced to ash. And still on this Tuesday the traditions and rituals practiced there continued to persist. This is no guarantee that either will go on forever, of course. Folkways are created, reshaped or destroyed by social and political influences in the same way that buildings are subject to burn, decay, or collapse under physical forces. Perhaps we'll explore some of that in more detail when we have time to look back at the social, political, and physical forces that shaped this year's season. But for now, I think the cycle of ashes to ashes and what might endure beyond it is a good thought to end it on. Some people might even say it is the whole point of the thing.

Congratulations, Entergy!

Highest profit in almost 10 years. Nice going, guys. We are all so proud. And hey why stop there? In the true plucky spirit of capitalism, these heroes are pressing ahead in pursuit of every last dollar they can collect from New Orleans rate payers. The City Council may have them stymied momentarily but we'll see how it plays out in court.

Entergy has agreed to lower its prices for providing electricity and gas in the city to the levels the council approved in November while Entergy's lawsuit against those prices plays out in court.

Entergy had asked a Civil District Court judge to keep an older set of prices intact while its court case dragged on, but it struck a deal with the council this month to let the new prices take effect.

Those prices mean most east bank customers will pay about $3 less per month, at least for now.

It is important to remember that, over the course of this extended confrontation with Entergy, the Council has had no help whatsoever from Mayor Cantrell. She has intervened on Entergy's behalf at several points in the process most recently arguing in favor of higher rates in exchange for a one time $75 million kickback to Sewerage and Water Board. It's a scheme that benefits nobody but Entergy in the long run. But it appeals to LaToya because it solves her short run problem of squeezing more money out of the city's poor and working class population instead of actually forcing corporate malefactors like Entergy to put in their true "fair share."

Apparently the mayor is not done trading favors with Entergy to the detriment of the public well being either. This week we learn that she is pushing a deal made possible by the Trump tax cuts that will allow Entergy to install 146 new surveillance cameras along Canal and Poydras Streets. [STANDARD OBLIGATORY ORWELL TRIGGER WARNING]

The pilot program fits into a larger effort by the city government to introduce so-called “smart cities” technologies to New Orleans. “Smart cities” is an umbrella term with varying definitions, but implementing a smart cities program often includes ramping up the use of data-gathering technologies to inform and enhance the delivery of public services.

Similar programs have caused privacy concerns in other cities building up this type of technology, ranging from Wi-Fi kiosks in New York City that track user’s movements to “smart trash cans” in London that were scraping data from the phones of passing pedestrians. In New Orleans, the push for smart cities technology has mostly come from the City Council, but the pilot project now before the council was led by the Cantrell administration.

The money for the pilot project would come from Entergy New Orleans. Specifically, the funds are the result of the 2017 federal Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which lowered Entergy New Orleans’ federal corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 21 percent, resulting in an estimated $50 million in savings.

Through an agreement approved by the City Council, the bulk of that money was earmarked for energy efficiency programing and bill credits for customers. But a small portion, $3.2 million, was reserved for the Smart Cities pilot.

“This is money that New Orleans ratepayers have spent already,” said Logan Burke, executive director for the Alliance for Affordable Energy, in an interview with The Lens. “That’s not a gift from shareholders or a gift from Entergy. That’s our money. And so those dollars should be spent doing one of two things: reducing bills or making the system more reliable. … I fail to see how surveillance cameras fall within Entergy’s franchise.”

Who is looking out for you when Entergy is turns its windfall into even greater profits by boosting your rates? Nobody. Not the mayor anyway.  She's more interested in keeping an eye on you. With Entergy's help. And your money.

Has Jeff Landry resigned yet?

Can't imagine anyone would have the nerve to keep showing up and claiming to be the top law enforcement agent in the state in light of this sort of thing.

Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry, who has railed against loose borders and lax immigration policies during his four years as the state’s top lawman, went into business in 2017 with a Houston labor broker named Marco Pesquera, who had become rich by helping his clients defraud the immigration system to import more than 1,000 Mexican laborers to the Gulf South.

They set out to make millions by winning federal approval to bring in hundreds of skilled Mexican construction workers to help build a massive liquefied natural gas terminal in Cameron Parish.

The Cameron LNG plant is subsidized by one of the largest Industrial Tax Exemptions in the state, by the way.  Landry isn't just profiting from a scheme to traffic exploited Mexican workers and drive down wages in Louisiana. He's also indirectly helping Cameron rip off the state in the process.

Anyway this story broke almost a week ago now. At the time it seemed pretty obvious what ought to happen next. 

Labor unions that have been left out of major construction projects in southwest Louisiana are blasting Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry after The Times-Picayune |The Advocate reported Friday that companies owned by Landry or his brother brought in hundreds of Mexican workers to handle the jobs instead.

“He needs to resign,” said Dennis Miller, who represents Laborers Local 99 in Louisiana and Mississippi. “You have a guy who represents Louisiana, supposed to represent the people to uplift our state, and doing something like this … It’s just unacceptable.”

I know time kind of feels stopped right now in the middle of Mardi Gras and all but there should have been enough time for this to have gotten done by now. 

Massive wealth redistribution

Bloomberg has so much to give. And there are so many needs.

This transactional, corrupt favor-trading is as unacceptable as anything we see in Trump’s Washington. It’s abetted by an orgy of spending unseen in modern political history, a corporate-run, corporate-marketed Potemkin village of a campaign (where the talking points are so road-tested they’re plagiarized). Bloomberg has perfected an unrebutted, unsoiled image outside the primary fray (“I'm not running against the other Democratic candidates,” he has said at his canned, catered events, “I'm running to beat Donald Trump”). It calls to mind television networks’ unfiltered broadcasts of Trump’s speeches in 2016, only Bloomberg, unlike Trump, is paying for the time. And unsurprisingly it works; corporations use advertising for a reason. At the same time that he’s deluging the airwaves with his own dollars, he’s also leaning on his pals in the plutocracy to starve competitors seeking big-money dollars. He’s paying Instagram influencers to say nice things about him, and paying meme-makers to boost his image. Fake social-media content to cultivate support? Mike will get it done.

I'm still trying to get a bead on how many of the sudden Bloomberg employees are just in it for the cash windfall. You hear the occasional  anecdote about this or that person who is getting the $6,000 a month and the free computer from Mike but is actually out knocking on doors for Warren or whatever.  But you have to figure that can't be most of them, right?

Anyway we'll know more when the mayoral endorsements come rolling in.  A few have already but there are some we're watching with particular interest.

In spring 2018, the Jackson mayor held a town hall with Sanders before the Vermont senator announced his intentions to again seek the presidency.

Although Lumumba has not signaled whether he will make an endorsement, several Bloomberg staffers have ties to the capital city’s mayor.

Mardi Gras Guide Vol 1: State of Unreadiness

Temporary netting protects freshly painted trees along the recently landscaped Napoleon Avenue neutral ground ahead of this weekend's parades

I'm not ready. I mean, I am basically prepared in that I've been going through usual motions of getting things in order around here. I've done some mild house cleaning. Sunday we did what we figure will be the last big laundry load until Ash Wednesday. We've taken household inventory and made trips to Wal-Mart and Rouses to stock up on the basics. We've made sure there are enough paper plates, towels and cleaning supplies. Then there are the staple coping drugs like coffee, aspirin, and pepto... fresh eggs to scramble on particularly hung over mornings. I think we've got what we need there. That much of the punch list is complete today but I'm still not ready.

Carnival is moving into high gear this weekend but many of us are having a hard time catching the spirit. Tripping the light fantastic and such is no easy trick when there is so much dark energy out there to contend with. The city is in a rotten mood.  There are several reasons for this.  Anxiety bleeds into our day to day from the Presidential election, of course, but that's likely the case everywhere that Tuesday is just Tuesday.  It doesn't help matters here but it's nothing we couldn't handle on its own.  If all politics really is local, anyway, then you should be able to say the same thing for angst. So what is it that's clouding the mood?  Let's consider a few items.

On the first day of Carnival 2020, the Advocate ran this attention-getting feature on the growing anxiety of Lakeview residents over what they claim is a sharp rise in vehicle burglaries in recent years. The headlining number is a 57% increase in reported car break-ins from 2018 to 2019.  I think those statistics could use further scrutiny, though. I'm sure we've talked about this many times on this here Yellow Blog, but crime statistics are often as much a reflection of public perception and police recording techniques as they are an actual gauge on the rate of incidents.  Police simply deciding to focus on a particular type of crime can increase the number of recorded incidents. They may also take steps to promote public awareness of certain kinds of crimes thus encouraging people to report more frequently.  If the public, for whatever reason, be it police activity, or media emphasis, just gets the feeling that it's a little more crimey out there, it can generate a feedback loop. Heightened fear of crime leads to more "awareness" leads to more police reports, leads to higher stats, leads to heightened fear of crime.  Here is a very good recent Citations Needed podcast describing the ways new technological trends in surveillance like Amazon's Ring doorbell camera and so-called "snitch" apps like Nextdoor work to supercharge the feedback loop even further.

All of these may be factors in the recent Lakeview hysteria. That came to a head just a few days after the Advocate feature on the "jump in break-ins" ran when NOPD responded to a report of teenagers pulling on car door handles by sending out a SWAT team in full tactical gear. In the resulting confrontation one cop even ended up firing his gun at the unarmed teens. The incident then led to a further crackdown at Juvenile Court where a new policy holds children arrested more than once in jail until they see a judge. The judges announced the policy change with a chilling statement saying their aim is to "rid the community of youth who pose a danger.” The Advocate's newest worst columnist, Will Sutton, capped the week off by publicly thanking the trigger happy police and the paranoid residents who called them.

Since then, matters have only gotten worse. Councilmembers have pledged to apply more "data-driven" policing. The DA is charging one of the teens as an adult. Lakeview residents gathered to yell at everyone and demand even more police and more aggressive tactics. The politics of this is only likely to get worse. I'm half-expecting a future mayoral candidate to promise a border wall at City Park Avenue. Meanwhile, researchers tell us, in order to effectively reduce violence, we would be better served to spend our time addressing our city's intolerable inequalities. But just seeing that situation described reminds us of yet another source of the general anxiety.

Sonita Singh, an associate professor of behavioral and community health at LSU School of Public Health, described New Orleans as “a landscape of inequalities,” which stem from historical and institutional practices and policies that have segregated the city by race and economics. The geography of those inequalities mirror maps showing the concentration of murders.

Transportation, education and access to jobs and training are less accessible in neighborhoods that see the most violent crime, Singh said. Employed people surviving on an inadequate wage, what Singh called “hamster wheeling,” is also common in places like the 9th Ward, 7th Ward and parts of New Orleans East.

New Orleans’ citywide average household income was $67,224 as of 2017, according to The Data Center, a local research nonprofit. In Little Woods, a neighborhood in New Orleans East that saw a large share of murders last year, the average household income was about $40,800. Nearby Plum Orchard’s average household income was $32,900. In the 7th Ward, a neighborhood that perhaps had highest concentration of murders in 2019, the average household income was $33,205.

“In New Orleans, people can work themselves to the bone and still not be outside the poverty rate,” Singh said.

Like I said, the city is in a rotten mood.  It has good reason to be. 

That extends to the city's firefighters who enter this parade season in a fight with the mayor over a whole host of labor issues but mostly centered on the hardships imposed on them by understaffing and forced overtime. The city has pushed back by cancelling vacation time and, this week, pulling fire trucks from this season's Carnival parades which seems unsafe. Also it seems self-defeating since it comes just a few days after Mayor Cantrell promised that the dispute would have no effect on Mardi Gras at all.  Earlier in the week, the mayor's communications staff released a video of her saying that Mardi Gras would be covered and the cancelled vacations and overtime would amount to a "win win" for the city. Is this what she meant? Also how does she figure?

Perhaps for these reasons, or perhaps just for the sake of growing the police state in general, the feds have designated this year's Carnival a "Level 2 Special Event."  According to this DHS document that means we can expect "some level federal interagency support," on the streets during the season. This is different from a Level 1 Special Event where we would be getting "extensive" federal interagency support. What does that means in practice?   Heck if I know. Just be careful who you sell your huckabucks to if you have an unlicensed cart this year. You never know who is watching.


The "Trashformers" collecting recyclable items from parade goers during Krewe Delusion 

For that matter, you might also want to watch where you put your plastic bags out there.

The “prohibited throws” section was updated to prohibit parade riders from thowing: “single use plastic bags meant for throw packaging or paper streamers, or paper products that do not biodegrade when wet, or empty single-use plastic bags. Any package containing bulk throws, including but not limited to doubloons, beads, cups, trinkets, or toys shall be handed to parade attendees and shall not be thrown or tossed. Bulk throws shall be removed from any plastic packaging before being thrown or tossed.” This was proposed to help battle litter along the route, as well as alleviate the possibility of parade participants slipping on the plastic.

This is... kind of stupid.  If we want to be charitable, we can say that it comes from good intentions. It's probably a good thing on balance that people have become more conscientious about the environmental impact of "single use plastic" and the like. And it's only natural that they might examine their own perceived influence on its proliferation.  In truth, though, this is not a problem that can be fixed by subjecting individual consumption habits to strict law enforcement. If the city was really interested in limiting single use plastics, they wouldn't be handing out half a million dollars in tax exemptions to a plastic bag factory. But why worry about that when you can just performatively punish individuals behaviors?  It might not solve anything but it gets you far more "credit" from a PR perspective. And that's what this is all about anyway. That and just general antipathy.  At her pre-Mardi Gras press conference the mayor said the plastic bag policy was about "showing love," which is what she always says when she is ready to hit someone with a hammer.

On the bright side, the new ordinances appear to be more serious than ever about discouraging people from crowding the neutral ground with ladders and tents and couches and such. We'll report back later on how that goes over the first weekend's parades.  I know this website has been home to the annual ladder harangue for well over a decade now. But I've also long contended that there would be far less call for official hardassery if the city would allow the parades to spread back out across the various neighborhoods and take some of the pressure off of Uptown. Which is why we were pleased last weekend to see that the new Krewe of Nefertiti parade was such a success.

West, who graduated from nearby Abramson High School, said the parade was a sort of reunion.

“This is wonderful,” he said. “We’re seeing everybody we grew up with ... and their kids. We’re still here.”

Referring to the displacement of much of the East's population after the devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina in 2005, he said, “You think everybody moved to Houston, but they’re here.

People in East New Orleans went outside and talked to their neighbors out in the street. That's what this is supposed to be all about. Good for them.  Let's keep that going.

I still don't feel like I'm ready.  We tried to get into the spirit early this year by making the trek across to town to see Chewbacchus for the first time in almost a decade.



Mainly the reason we did this was because, for the first time in a while, we could. A shuffle in the schedule moved Chewbacchus two weeks ahead in the calendar so that it no longer runs opposite any Uptown parades. The last one of these we saw was way back in 2012 when it was still an Uptown parade itself. After it moved across town we didn't see the point.  Anyway, during its time as a Bywater event, Chewbacchus has grown immensely in popularity but also in controversy. Often it has been seen as a symbol of the rapid gentrification and bland commercialized hip aesthetic associated with that neighborhood in the 2010s. (Please see Jules Bentley's "Farewell to the Flesh: Notes on a Cybernetic Carnival" for the definitive explication of this take.) I have to say, though, upon examining this phenomenon in person, it is nothing quite as interesting as that. For the most part it was just fans of various "nerd culture" type intellectual properties out doing cosplay with their children.



I suppose some people really enjoy that. And I guess I can see why some people never will. But the experience is nowhere near as impressive as its gushing fans would have you believe nor as sinister as its detractors would argue. It's really just a little nerd parade. Fine, if you like that sort of thing.  But I had gone to Chewbacchus hoping to see something really cool or something that might make me really mad. Instead I came away not feeling much of anything.  Maybe I just wasn't ready.

Meanwhile literally looming over everything is the sarcophagus of a collapsed Hard Rock hotel building that sits right in the middle of downtown. Originally the project's owners were hoping to have the hotel completed and open in time for Mardi Gras. Now the plan is to implode the structure sometime before Jazzfest. More than anything else, the air of hostility and mistrust between the city, the mayor, and the contractors responsible for the disaster is the main factor the city's rotten mood this Carnival season. Its physical presence can't be ignored as several parades have had to bend their routes in order to avoid it. It has a spiritual gravity as well so strong that it resists even the carnivalesque parody and gallows humor that might otherwise seem a perfect fit for the situation. It's a rare occasion where our own sarcasm seems to have failed us.

Krewe du Vieux gave that their best shot last week when the sub-krewe Comatose put together this impressive-looking "Soft Rock" hotel float.



From all appearances, their hearts were in the right place. But also it is hard not to cringe at this, "Rest In Peace, Amigo" message on the back. Racial problematics aside, just the tone of the thing is off.  If you are going to satirize something as serious as this, you have to lean in harder than this.  There is a way to be funny but it also has to be a little bit angry. A joke about a tragedy needs to achieve catharsis or else it will fail horribly.  This reads more as, "Sorry you died, LOL" and it just feels uncomfortable.



There was a rumor circulating last weekend that mayor tried to have the float removed or at least mellowed in some way. The city ended up forcing KDV to move its ball out of Studio Be at the last minute due to potential safety violations.  This has some people whispering that the mayor was retaliating.  It's hard to know what to believe about that. KDV members often paint themselves as politically motivated victims with little or no evidence. On the other hand, this mayor does have a habit of taking every single thing that happens as a personal affront of some kind so anything is possible. MacCash tells us here that the more mundane explanation is far more likely.  That sounds right to me but who knows.  Anyway the problem with this float is that it is already too mellow which is what makes it seem more insensitive than its intention.

Krewe Delusion was a little better with this "Hard Rock The Boat" theme.



It invokes the idea of righteous anger and there's a little pun in there. It's not overwhelmingly clever, though.  And it still doesn't feel like we're saying what needs to be said. Not that I know what that is, exactly.  But I do hope I will know it when I see it this year.  I hope I'm ready to know.

Won't somebody think of the brand

Hard Rock International is upset about the collapse..... of its reputation.

In a letter sent Wednesday to Cantrell, the casino, hotel and restaurant company took particular umbrage at protesters who have called for boycotting its properties. It threatened legal action for damage to its brand.

"As we have shared privately and publicly, we appreciate the leadership and compassion you have demonstrated," Hard Rock Chief Operating Officer Jon Lucas wrote in the letter. "But four months have passed since the building at 1031 Canal St. collapsed; the resulting tragedy has devastated our community, its residents and tarnished its image around the world."

Cantrell fired back Thursday, accusing the company of failing to assist the city in the months after the disaster.

"Fear of damage to their brand has finally prompted Hard Rock’s corporate leadership to engage with this crisis, four full months after the tragedy," Cantrell spokesman Beau Tidwell said in an email. "Shame would be far more appropriate."

We don't say this often but Cantrell and her team have this one one hundred percent correct. It's refreshing to see them push back against a major corporate entity with real estate interests for a change.  

Of course Hard Rock isn't among the parties here who have made major contributions to the mayor and her political organizations.  The local contractors have done that.  And she is still defending them.

City officials have said they expect the building to be imploded sometime in March. On Wednesday, Cantrell said delays in the demolition have been exacerbated by criticism of the developers that have caused concerns among contractors.

Anyway Hard Rock also threatens, in their letter, to sue over "reputation damage to our name."  Sounds helpful. 

Just remember to keep a list

The Bloomberg phenomenon is fascinating.  Rarely are we presented with such a perfect opportunity, not only to observe the depth and breadth of the moral rot within the professional political class, but also to see so many of the sellouts clearly identify themselves.  Many of your local professional Democrats are amoral grifters who don't give a shit about the problems of poor and working class people or whatever the Democrats still half-assedly claim their brand to be about. They're just in it to suck as much money as can be had out of the process.  And, sure, you know, "everyone's gotta eat." But maybe we can find a better meal ticket than the guy who literally doesn't want people to be able to eat.

Anyway, like I said, the "Bloomberg Effect" may sound at first like a reason to despair but it is actually an opportunity. Every dirtbag who takes his money is telling you something essential about who they are. Make sure you remember to take down their names.

The Bloomberg Louisiana team includes Richard Carbo, who just ran Gov. John Bel Edwards’ re-election campaign; Ryan Berni, a longtime aide to former New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu; and Bill Rouselle, a long-time strategist who worked on campaigns for Edwards and New Orleans Mayor Latoya Cantrell, among others.

Bloomberg, 77, is a billionaire and former mayor of New York City. He's been running an aggressive, TV-driven campaign for the Democratic nomination.

Carbo will lead the campaign’s efforts in Louisiana as state director.

Bloomberg’s Louisiana operations will include 5 regional offices and more than 20 staffers.

"We are building the most robust presidential campaign operation in the state's history with a team that has a proven track record of helping Democrats win in Louisiana,” Berni said in a statement.

Other members of the team include: Telley Savalas Madina, Organizing Director; Kia Bickham, Political Director; Micah Cormier, Communications Director; Tyler Walker, Digital Director; Emilie Tenenbaum, Operations Director.

Today at the Hard Rock hearings

Actually this isn't even the controversial inquiry we've been promised into the causes of the building collapse.  There's no date set for that yet.  In the meantime, though, City Council heard presentations from labor representatives Wednesday on what they would like from a long sought after "responsible bidder ordinance" meant to rein in some of the worst contractor abuses in the construction industry.... of which there are many.

Workers rights' groups said safety mishaps, rampant in New Orleans' construction industry, were exposed anew when the Hard Rock's top floors collapsed without warning Oct. 12, killing three people and injuring dozens more.

They described an environment where general contractors can blame construction mistakes on subcontractors and avoid being penalized by the city. They said construction firms also routinely misclassify their workers as independent contractors, in order to avoid or reduce insurance and workers compensation expenses.

"These contractors that keep blatantly violating the law, they get on the next job and the next job and the next job," said Greater New Orleans AFL-CIO President Robert "Tiger" Hammond III. 

We aren't exactly holding our breath waiting for the city to pass the new rules, though.  There was no action taken at this hearing and there is a quote from Cyndi Nguyen saying, "This needs to be done correctly," which the article places in context of council also wanting input from "other interested parties" which we read to mean the contractors themselves.

Also this was curious. 

Though the rules are being weighed in light of the Hard Rock debacle, they would apply only to developers seeking public financing, not those involved in private deals like the Hard Rock.  

Was Hard Rock 100% privately financed? No PILOT? No historic tax credit? Nothing?  Developer tax incentives are such common practice downtown that this would surprise me if it's true. But then if the Advocate fact checked it, it's probably good so.. okay. Still, in that case, that isn't a good threshold if it's going to render the law unenforceable. These rules should apply to anyone just wanting a safety permit.

Meanwhile, the mayor is still mad anyone is even asking these questions at all. It's messing with the plan to blow up the site and clear the land while the developers can maybe still profit from it. 

"The cost (of the implosion) has risen because of the public display," Cantrell told reporters. "And we also had a couple (contractors) back out. And that's what we were warning about."

A City Hall spokesman said later that Cantrell "was referencing negotiations between the (Hard Rock's) owners and a private contractor regarding the anticipated controlled implosion." She was also speaking, he said, about "the demolition contractor’s ability to secure insurance for the demolition, and the cost of that insurance."

What happens in the boardroom

The last time we saw Jeff Arnold he was finishing out his term in the legislature while hatching this harebrained scheme to create his own parish by Brexiting Algiers and the West Bank of Jefferson Parish.  Thankfully for a lot of people, Jeff's Wanklandia Parish failed in committee. It wasn't the best news for Arnold, though, since his other gig as a VP of "Governmental Affairs" at FNBC bank was quickly coming to an unhappy end as well.

But don't worry too much about Jeff. There's always someone who can use a good lobbyist with state level experience. One such someone is the Association of Louisiana Electric Cooperatives who scooped up Arnold in 2018.  What are electric cooperatives?  Well here is an Advocate article we noticed today that explains it in a few paragraphs. 

Rural co-ops were begun during the New Deal after shareholder-owned utilities refused to extend service into rural areas. The federal government in the 1930s established a way that the users of the electricity would own the utility.

Eleven rural cooperatives provide power to about a million customers in Louisiana at rates that reimburse expenses without including a profit. Investor-owned utilities, like Entergy Corp., make and sell electricity, charging their customers their expenses plus a profit.

That doesn't sound so bad. Co-ops aren't technically public utilities but they are meant to operate in the spirit of the collective interest. Plus they are overseen by the Public Service Commission in case they ever get out of line.  So, really, they shouldn't need a corporate lobbyist like Jeff Arnold around to defend them unless... oh... wait... 

After discovering that some of the mostly part-time co-op board members were making high salaries and taking lavish trips, the PSC with unusual unanimity for such a fractious board clamped down with an April 2019 order that dictated term limits for board members, determined what constituted a quorum for making decisions, and other restrictions.

So the PSC did have to step in and correct the co-op boards for abusing the trust placed in them by the public.  And that is why the co-ops pay Jeff Arnold the big bucks.  It is so he can advise them when they to court to get off the hook.

The co-ops never argued that the PSC has no right to regulate. But that regulation, under state law, involves only rates charged and services rendered, such as the cost of buying and transmitting electricity, as well as dictating where that power can be sold, Arnold said.

“What the regulators did with their order was reach into the board room and basically tell a private corporation how to govern itself,” Arnold said. “The boardroom is the property of the owners and they choose how many board members, and say what the terms of their jobs are.”

The co-ops are intended to provide an essential public service for its communal owners. They aren't intended to enrich any private entity or individual. But, what happens in the boardroom stays in the boardroom, I guess.  Anyway, the judge ruled in favor of the privateers.

That's great news for them and for Arnold because bigger things are on the horizon. Earlier this week, we learned that the state is considering ways the co-ops can get into the broadband business through the use of federal grant funds. Now that the court has ruled in favor of the grifting board members, it looks like some folks might want to start browsing Tripadvisor again.  Just make sure they stay in the boardroom when they do.

Toxic Gulf

This development probably doesn't surprise many but a new study says the BP Horizon oil spill (which is about to turn 10 years old, holy shit) was worse for the health of the Gulf Mexico than previously thought.

“The impact of the oil’s toxicity is larger than previously assumed,” said Igal Berenshtein, a University of Miami marine scientist and the study’s lead author. "It's important to account for the toxicity that's invisible and also the three-dimensional nature of the (oil) plume, and our study does that."

He estimates the extent may be 30% larger than 2010 satellite imagery indicated. The imagery was widely accepted by the public and scientists as showing the spill’s reach, but a growing body of field data collected just after the spill indicates the oil had a much larger footprint. Berenshtein and the study’s other scientists combined data from water, seafloor and beach sampling, fish toxicity studies and oil transport models to track oil invisible to satellites.

Hey! There's a new Hampshire

I suppose that since I made a guess at how Iowa would go I should do the same thing for New Hampshire.  Making guesses is always a bad idea, of course, because you almost never get it right. And then everyone else who is also an idiot who did not get it right can plainly see that you are an idiot who is not getting it right.

What I did not get right about Iowa was, although, like everyone else on the planet, I've been expecting Biden to crater, I didn't think he would do that right away. I've also been pretty clear that I don't believe there's any way in hell the Democrats are going to let Bernie Sanders be their nominee so I'm thoroughly expecting them to fuck him over in any way possible. However I also did not expect that to happen right away.  But both of those things happened and now here we are!

So it's all happening so fast.  Before now the name of the game has been, what happens to all the party insiders after the inevitable Biden collapse? But I think at this point the answer is obvious. They've all been pre-bought by Bloomberg.  Assuming that Sanders doesn't stumble too badly in the months ahead, and assuming the Democrats can't hop on any of the other horses in the race and make them happen, we're more than likely headed for a brokered convention where Bloomberg would theoretically have the greatest advantage.  Would the Democrats really nominate him, though?  Boy would that ever be a hoot.

Anyway, the way it sounds watching the cable news is that Bernie is having a harder time in New Hampshire than he was supposed to.  Let's assume it doesn't go too poorly for him, though. Here is a reasonable assumption


Bernie: 25
Pete: 22
Amy: 15
Liz: 12
Joe: 10

Could be an early end of the line for Biden there. Maybe after this, Bloomberg can hire the remaining 15 percent of professional Democrats he isn't paying already. 

Dig a deeper hole

The headline here says they're going to spend a ton of money dredging the Mississippi River in order to accommodate deeper draft vessels. The lede makes sure to let us know that Steve Scalise helped. But I wonder if maybe this last bit is really the bigger story.

The Army Corps of Engineers will spend $85.35 million this year to begin deepening parts of the Mississippi River navigation channel between Baton Rouge and the river's mouth to 50 feet, 5 feet deeper than at present, House Minority Whip Steve Scalise, R-Jefferson, announced Monday.

And President Donald Trump's proposed fiscal year 2021 budget, also released Monday, includes another $45.7 million for the dredging project, but no money for the long-discussed new lock on the Industrial Canal or the "Morganza to the Gulf" levee project.

They're usually so proud when they chip off even a little bit of funding for Morganza. And since that is actually supposed to be a flood control project, you'd think we'd make a bigger deal out of it not happening this year. Does the Corps even do flood control anymore? This says they're taking a $1.7 billion overall cut in Trump's budget proposal.  They're going to need a bigger federal commitment than that if they want to get this 50 year plan to raise the New Orleans levee protection system up and running before the sea swallows us all.

As for the lock, Ninth Ward residents have been dreading/pushing back against the project for years raising questions about its very necessity as well as its impact on their neighborhoods.  I would have thought the pause on that would have been the headline here. But we do have to make sure Steve Scalise looks good first.

Who will investigate the investigators?

So here is an interesting timeline to consider. Ken Polite's independent investigation into improprieties at the city Safety and Permits office that may be associated with the Hard Rock collapse was launched by the city well before the Hard Rock collapse actually happened. We know the Inspector General and the feds were already looking into Safety and Permits themselves so the Polite investigation is probably the city's attempt to at least convey the appearance of a desire to suss out improper behavior.

We knew all of this already.   Or at least we thought we knew that much about a week ago when a Cantrell spokesman told us this.

"Kenneth Polite's law firm, Morgan Lewis, was engaged by the city several months ago to assist with our internal investigation into the Safety and Permits department," Tidwell said by text. "This investigation began prior to the Hard Rock collapse."

So, okay. I guess. This information about the Polite thing only came out because the Cantrell people were upset about City Council threatening to launch its own investigation in the wake of public protests against the city's handling of all of this so far. Anyway today they're saying something different. 

There also remain questions about the timeline and the legal basis of Polite's contract.

When Polite’s hiring was first reported last week, Cantrell spokesman Beau Tidwell confirmed the news by saying the investigation predated the Hard Rock collapse in mid-October. Polite, however, was not hired until last week.

Polite's investigation has been going on for months and months before Polite was actually hired. What?  What on earth is going on?

The contract was entered into outside of normal procurement procedures, under an executive order that allows such actions in “emergency situations.”

A memo justifying that exemption specifically refers to “Hard Rock collapse legal services” in its subject line, though the body of the document justifies the decision based on the need to “promptly investigate” the allegations of bribery in Safety and Permits.

Okay so the Polite's firm "was engaged by the city for several months" but was never officially hired because they didn't want to go through the standard bidding procedure in order to hire him. (Should add here that there have been numerous rumblings about logjams in city procurement stretching back before the cyberattack severely borked everything so this actually isn't very surprising.)  When they finally did hire him, they used the "emergency" declaration in order to ret-con the end run around the rules they were already doing. As they say here, the Hard Rock language only appears in the contract to "expedite" matters.

LeBeouf said the Hard Rock reference was made to expedite the process but that the collapse is not the focus of Polite's investigation.

But here is the thing.  Polite had been working for the city for several months before the collapse. And his hiring wasn't "expedited" until several months after it.  Why, after all that time, was there a sudden need to be expeditious?

Well, remember, the Polite thing did not even become public knowledge until late last month. The reason that happened was because the mayor's people were outraged at the idea that City Council wanted to hold its own hearings.  Why, we asked? Because that might interfere with ongoing investigations, they said.

"The New Orleans City Council is not accountable and have no authority as it relates to investigating Hard Rock,” Cantrell said. “So, I would say, ‘If you can’t help, don’t hurt. Don’t hurt the investigations that are ongoing right now.’”

Which investigations?  Oh you know the secret one Polite has been doing ever since... whoops!

And that is why they had to hurry up and finally officially hire Polite this week. It also explains why Cantrell got as mad as she did about the photographs of the exposed body of a victim of the building collapse after a tarp fell away from the site last month.  If that tarp doesn't fall down, then there are no photos. If the photos aren't shared on social media, then there is no protest. If there is no protest, then there is no City Council hearing. If there's no City Council hearing, then nobody ever finds out about any of this.

I mean we already know the Inspector General wasn't going to say anything about it.  He says today that he was aware of the Polite situation but didn't have any problem with it. That's kind of a strange view to take when your specific job as an IG is to be a stickler about city administration following proper procedures and stuff.

Danger! Exploding real estate

It looks like the on again, off again, proposal to move City Hall over to the Municpal Auditorium site is trying to be on again.

Mayor LaToya Cantrell is taking the first steps toward perhaps converting Municipal Auditorium into New Orleans’ next City Hall.

Several previous mayors have talked about moving city government out of the building on Perdido Street that it has occupied since the late 1950s. The possibility of a move was given new support last fall, when a study commissioned by the Cantrell administration found the current building was in serious disrepair and not well configured for the current and future needs of the city’s government.

And with $41 million in FEMA funds on the table for renovating Municipal Auditorium, administration officials are homing in on it as their future home.

As far as I can tell that $41 million in FEMA funds has been and continues to be the main motivation for keeping the Auditorium on the list of potential sites. By all accounts, the difficulty of renovating the building, the lack of space, and probable opposition from the surrounding neighborhood all seem to be factors working against it.  The only positive argument for it in my mind is the old line Carnival Krewes who used to stage their balls in the Auditorium still view it as a kind of holy ground. Permanently desecrating their monument with city offices does hold a certain symbolic appeal.

The other thing that's happening is they are running out of options. The long rumored Charity Hospital option favored by Mitch Landrieu came off the board late last year when we handed most of that over to Sonder.  Also I see the VA building mentioned as one alternative in that T-P article. I may be misremembering this but I believe I heard that suggested as one possible desitnation for the soon-to-be-displaced Ozanam Inn.* The defunct Naval Support Station property has also been mentioned in the past but there are multiple problems with that including the fact that it's so out of the way for most people.  Generally one would think that a City Hall should be centrally located and accessible to transit.

I say "would think" that because Jay Banks has other ideas.

Banks said his first choice would be to move City Hall — along with the Sewerage  Water Board offices and Civil District Court — to a campus in New Orleans East, where their employees could provide an economic shot in the arm for the area.

Would it "provide an economic shot in the arm," though?  How? This seems highly doubtful.  Maybe Jay can produce some research.  Or, more likely, he's just making stuff up. Worse than that, he is making stuff up from out of a brain conditioned to make decisions about public services and land use based primarily on speculative ideas about real estate values.

For example,

Then there’s the possibility the city could recoup some of its costs by selling the property that now houses City Hall and Civil District Court, taking advantage of a real estate boom in the Central Business District.

Have we not heard enough about things going "boom" downtown lately? Maybe it's time to back off of that for a while.

* Update: Well now we know where Ozanam Inn is going so that's something.  Still no word on what's supposed to happen to the building they're vacating, though.

Bag fine recycling

Earlier this week Cantrell Administration officials appeared before City Council where they all commiserated with one another over the millions of dollars in costs incurred as a result of the Cyberattack and Hard Rock disaster.  So far it looks like the costs of computer boo boos will be (barely) covered by emergency funds and insurance. The Hard Rock costs will likely become a protracted legal and political dispute.

Estimated costs from the the Hard Rock collapse came to $11.7 million by the end of 2019. That includes about $4.8 million in costs and lost revenue for the Regional Transit Authority, which had to reroute its buses around the disaster site.

But Montaño told the council that the city plans to get the bulk of the costs for both incidents reimbursed through their cybersecurity insurance, the Hard Rock developers’ insurance and, if necessary, through litigation with the Hard Rock developers if the insurance payments don’t cover everything.

“This will at some point will be handled by a court,” Montaño said. “The city should not bear those costs and we have no plan to bear those costs.”

Montaño went on to say that he is "confident and secure we do maintain a healthy fund balance" even though he seemed pretty fuzzy on the details of that.  He must not be too too confident, though, because he also told City Council he was "going to be cautious" and delay "major expenditures" until after summertime.

That sounds prudent, I guess.

Anyway, I know this is what you might call a different pot of money, but it does look strange for the Council to then turn around that same week and hand a half million dollars in tax breaks over to a plastic bag factory.

The New Orleans City Council on Thursday approved two five-year Industrial Tax Exemptions for a new factory in eastern New Orleans that will produce plastic packaging. The exempted property is worth $7 million, and the city stands to lose out on $435,634 in tax revenue over the first five years of the exemptions as a result of the vote, according to a presentation by Tracey Jackson, the Industrial Tax Exemption administrator for Mayor LaToya Cantrell’s Office of Community Development.

We should point out one detail the Lens story doesn't mention explicitly, but the T-PAdvocate does.  This is the first ITE approved by the city under its new wage and job requirements. Although, it looks like the plastic company may have gamed the rules a bit.

Still, the Iriapak deal has irked critics of the tax breaks, who argued that one of Iriapak's subsidy applications didn't meet the city's jobs requirements.

Iriapak actually submitted two applications for the tax exemptions. Its first application was for a $5 million investment, which represented its 80% stake in the project. The second application represents $2 million that an affiliated real estate partner is investing in the project. That firm, Iriapak RE, owns a 20% stake.

Together New Orleans, a group that has long criticized ITEP tax exemptions, argued that the investment partner should be required to meet the city's jobs rules for the construction jobs it is financing. For those and other reasons, the group urged a denial.

That argument found supporters in council members Helena Moreno and Jared Brossett. Both voted against the application.

The larger concern, though, is happy to hand out large corporate tax exemptions during a time of fiscal uncertainty. This is going on even while the city continues to nickel and dime ordinary people playing keep away with ill gotten traffic ticket money, for example.

For another example, we read here that the float riders may be fined up to $500 for tossing plastic bags into the crowd this parade season. Maybe they should just forward those citations to Iriapak so the city can recover its funds.

The dorm rooms will be well branded

The City Council approved Wisznia's bowling alley barracks thing. That's bad enough. What's worse is we find Councilman Jay Banks, as well as one housing advocacy group willing to go along with the pretense that $1400 for a dorm room* is anything other than an insult. 

Andreanecia Morris, executive director of the advocacy group HousingNola, has supported the project since its inception. She said that while the housing need in New Orleans is most acute among its poorest residents, rising housing costs also have hit professions such as teachers, hospitality workers and paralegals.

"We need those people's needs met, too," she said, noting that her support for Two Saints is contingent on it actually serving those people.

Ha ha, no. No this isn't going to help any of those people. But hey thanks for your "contingent" support.  I'm sure they'll feel real bad if you have to withdraw it. 

*A last minute proviso "sets aside" 20 of the 218 dorm rooms at $700. But as Cashauna Hill implies here, we all know that doesn't serve any purpose beyond tokenism.

The Louisiana Fair Housing Action Center had opposed the development, with Executive Director Cashauna Hill writing to City Council members to say projects like Two Saints risked being empty gestures by developers while doing little to address the city's lack of affordable housing.

"In a moment when nearly everyone agrees that New Orleans is in the midst of an affordability crisis, it is important to be precise about 'affordability,' so that the word doesn't become a branding tool devoid of meaning," Hill wrote.

The politics grifter industrial complex

All of these "bugs" are features. It's how an entire class of politically oriented professional/managerial types sustain themselves.  And it isn't just a quirk of the Democratic Party or the Republican Party or the national politics grifter industrial complex.  It's not something that you just see on the cable news that operates at a great remove from you. It's here in your city fucking your shit up too. The rot in the national political expression is a function of the local level corruption from which the national parties are built.  And that's what we've been describing here in New Orleans for... well.. for a very long time now.

This McGowan person and the various Obama/Hillaryites who circled in and around her company are no different from the cast of amoral crooks circling in and around the halls of power in your home town.  The game is exactly the same.  Make yourself rich pretending your for-profit service or app or whatever can or should replace basic social welfare functions. 

Unlike most digital strategists, her operation is what the IRS classifies as a 501(c)(4) nonprofit — meaning a majority of its funds must be used to promote “social welfare.” And yet, Acronym has a web of for-profit companies beneath it: a campaign consulting firm (Lockwood Strategy), a political tech company with a peer-to-peer texting product (Shadow) and a media company investing in local left-leaning outlets (FWIW Media). In the works is an apparel arm (Rogue Swag) that would be the first major liberal answer to conservative companies that skirt campaign finance laws by selling politically branded clothing over Facebook and elsewhere — spreading political messaging without having to report the spending.

It means the nonprofit Acronym is able to raise money, invest in for-profit companies to advance progressive aims and then return any profits back into its mission. “People don’t understand why I am creating a model that I can’t get very rich off of. Because I don’t own the companies; the (c)(4) does,” she says. And that’s a huge threat to political consultants’ bank accounts

The emphasis in that quote is mine because it is horseshit as anyone who understands how money laundering works can see.

[Update: For more on how the money laundering works, see Pareene here.]

But to return to the point, this isn't a new phenomenon. It isn't an aberration.  It's how things are done in the age of neoliberalism.  LaToya Cantrell expressed this quite emphatically to her supporters on election night 2017. 

 "I’m not talking now about taking from the rich and giving to the poor and all that kind of crap," Cantrell said at a victory speech Saturday night. "What I’m talking about is creating balance so everyone feels like they’re winners.

We can't tax rich people and use the money to provide basic public services anymore.  Instead we leave it to "entrepreneurs" to flatter "philanthropists" into funding a series of amusements, and shiny things that we pretend will mitigate the social ills caused by the lack of those services. The important people make more money that way. Especially when we subsidize the process through public-private partnerships.

As long as "everyone feels like they're winners," the con can perpetuate itself.  An associate of Irvin Mayfield once described this as "volunteer entrepreneurism."  We've described that in as much detail as we could muster quite a few times. Here is the one I'm thinking of currently.  It is the dominant ideology that is currently eroding your democracy. And the erosion begins here in your backyard.

Fair Unshared

One of the problems with going through an everybody-mad-at-the-mayor phase is it emboldens this sort of behavior from the local satraps.

The Downtown Development District board has rejected a deal to transfer $2.5 million of its annual tax revenue to the City of New Orleans, saying the agency won't sign the agreement unless it retains oversight to ensure the money is used to fix the drainage system in its area.

At issue is part of the deal agreed to last year by Gov. John Bel Edwards, Mayor LaToya Cantrell and leaders of the city's hospitality industry, under which City Hall received $50 million up front and a promise of another $26 million a year to help pay for long-overdue repairs to the city's crumbling infrastructure.

We thought they'd made a deal but, as it turns out, now they think they don't have to so they are backing out. 

The way the funds will be spent has proved a particularly thorny issue, said Bill Hines, a DDD commissioner and its secretary.

During the board's meeting late Tuesday, he said that he and other members have been inundated with calls and letters from residents, small business owners and the corporations that own hotels and skyscrapers in the area, many of them objecting to the deal.

It wasn't an especially good deal to begin with but at least it was something.  It turns out it doesn't take much to remind the skyscraper owners just how entitled they actually are. I mean, who is in charge of this city anyway? The elected government or the landlords? 

In a better world, the DDD wouldn't exist at all.  But as long as we are allowing Bill Hines and Frank Stewart and company to collect their own taxes for shoo-ing homeless people off of their porches and stuff, we probably should get at least some of that kicked back for basic city services, right?

Classic Leon

Cannizzaro's kids got a dressing down from the Fifth Circuit today over their use of so called "fake subpoenas."

On Wednesday, Alford argued that even if the so-called “DA subpoenas” — phony documents that falsely threatened their recipients with jail time for failing to comply — may have been deceptive, legally invalid and improper, prosecutors were using them to bring critical, and often uncooperative, witnesses in to talk about ongoing criminal cases.

“The object of that document is to get the witness into the office to discuss the prosecution,” he said.

“Are you saying that this is somehow noble because they were trying to talk to witnesses?” Judge Jennifer Elrod asked. “What’s the classic role of the prosecutor? Creating fake documents, that’s not the classic role. Coercing people to come in for interviews when you don’t have the authority to do that, that’s not the classic task of the prosecutor.”

Or maybe it is. The do love intimidating people. 

Back on Bill's bullshit

An item of some local interest appeared in last night's State of the Union address.

WASHINGTON — U.S. Sen. Bill Cassidy's hoping his paid family leave proposal will get a boost from President Donald Trump after Tuesday's State of the Union address.

During Trump’s address, he called on Congress to pass the Advancing Support for Working Families Act that Cassidy, R-Baton Rouge, has taken a lead role in sponsoring.

“Forty million American families have an average $2,200 extra thanks to our child tax credit,” Trump said.

As this article goes on to point out, though Bill's proposal is so bad it can barely even be considered a "tax credit."  It's an advance that you can borrow against an existing tax credit.

Under Cassidy’s plan, parents could borrow against future benefits from the federal Child Tax Credit that was doubled under the 2018 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. New parents would qualify for a $5,000 advance on the credit when a child is born or adopted. For the following 10 years, those parents would be eligible for a $1,500 Child Tax Credit, instead of the $2,000 credit otherwise allowed.

Bill is just telling people they have to use their own future money in order to partially cover present expenses. But it's the present expenses that new parents actually need to mitigate.  Bill's idea is no help at all there. If anything it is an impediment to actual progress.

Further, this proposal comes at a time of existing bipartisan support for more generous and comprehensive family leave policies. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) and Rep. Rosa DeLaura (D-Conn.) have introduced a competing, bipartisan plan with hundreds of cosponsors in the House and Senate.

The Family and Medical Insurance Leave Act (FAMILY) would guarantee “up to 12 weeks of paid leave each year. . .and for self-care or the care of a seriously ill family member. It would pool small contributions from employees and employers,” Chun-Hoon wrote in the Arizona Capitol Times, noting that this bill is modeled off of existing legislation in eight states and the District of Columbia.

Contrary to the Cassidy-Sinema plan, existing state legislation and the FAMILY Act ensure that low-income workers get their full paychecks during leave and can keep their jobs when they are ready to return.

Bill's bill isn't the only family leave bill. It isn't even the only "bi-partisan" family leave bill.  But it is the one Trump chose to highlight.  Why? Maybe Bill just has that certain sort of genius that Trump favors.

This is what happens when you have no friends.

They let you put up a huge sign at your DC fundraiser with Washington misspelled.

Someone get this man a dictionary and a map of the city where he pretends to work. pic.twitter.com/6kBViTsDMJ

— Antoine Pierce for U.S. Senate (@AntoinePierce) February 5, 2020

   

Shadow government

I guess the first thing we need to dispense with is the notion that somebody "hacked" the Iowa results in order to change the number of votes or something.  Nobody is claiming that. The only places I've seen that argument appear, in fact, have been accusations of "conspiracy theory" coming from Dem Party hacks offering bad faith misrepresentations of what critics are actually saying. Don't listen to those people.

Here is what critics are actually saying about what's going on.

The Iowa State Democratic Party decided it would be a good idea to have caucus results reported via an app created by a secretive fly-by-night vendor named (apparently for the sole purpose of being hilarious) Shadow Inc.  This is a failure of basic integrity in that it follows an all too commonplace practice of handing out services contracts to consultants and cronies of various party insiders.  Which is to say it is a symbol of the very corruption that under-girds the party and which the Sanders campaign is running to dismantle in the first place.

State campaign finance records indicate the Iowa Democratic Party paid Shadow, a tech company that joined with Acronym last year, more than $60,000 for “website development” over two installments in November and December of last year. A Democratic source with knowledge of the process said those payments were for the app that caucus site leaders were supposed to use to upload the results at their locales.

Gerard Niemira, a veteran of Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign, is the head of Shadow. He previously served as chief technology officer and chief operating officer of Acronym, according to his LinkedIn page. In 2019, David Plouffe, one of the chief architects of President Barack Obama’s wins, joined the board of advisers for Acronym.

The introduction of Shadow's "bullshit" app is also a failure of basic competence in that it presented scores of caucus leaders with an unnecessary, unvetted, unsecure tool many of them were likely unprepared to use.

Reports suggest that the app was engineered in just the past two months. According to cybersecurity consultants and academics interviewed by the Times, the app was not tested at statewide scale or vetted by the Department of Homeland Security’s cybersecurity agency. And even if the app was working just fine, reports suggest the roll out of the tool was bungled, to the point where those tasked with reporting via the app weren’t trained to know how to use it.

Most importantly, it is a failure of democracy because when the results are released (and again nobody is claiming or has claimed that the results will be anything but accurate) that result will then be tainted in the public's mind by the chaos created by the app. Ironically what's likely to happen going forward is when we do hear complaints about the accuracy of the results themselves they will come from the same *Russiagate* bleating centrist hacks currently accusing critics of spreading conspiracy theory.

In fact, one would be forgiven for thinking this is exactly what is being encouraged. As of this writing, the party has, for some reason, decided to publicize 62% of the caucus results and then pause there for a news cycle or two. At present, those results show Pete Buttigieg in what is loosely interpreted to be "the lead" although he does, in fact, trail if we count the popular vote. Anyway, it's been just enough time for several rounds of "Gee Whiz Mayor Pete is strong" takes to make their way around the cable news circuit.  If at some point in the coming hours (days?) we learn that Bernie has actually finished first, it just makes everything look that much more uncertain.


This is unfortunate because, in all honesty, it doesn't matter that much what the delegate count coming out of Iowa is. The only reason anybody pays any attention to what happens there at all is because it is the state that goes first. The only reason that is even significant is because, once upon a time, Jimmy Carter convinced everybody that a media narrative about "momentum" was more important than the substance of how many delegates were won from a small electorate not particularly representative of the country at large. In other words, the whole point of Iowa is tone setting and perception management. Otherwise nobody would give a shit.

And now, thanks to this clusterfuck, the likely winner of the caucus (Bernie) is denied the prize typically granted to the winner via the standard punditry. Instead that goes, a little bit to Pete, but mostly to chaos. So, you know, good for them.  The good news for Sanders is, his campaign isn't really about impressing pundits and generating narratives. Instead it will head to New Hampshire now where it has a strong showing in most polls and, of course, a teeming grass roots movement as fired up now as ever.

And then it's on to Nevada where they're trying to figure out the next cool caucus app now. Can't wait to see what they come up with.

Oh also how is Joe Biden doing? Has he dropped out yet?

Horse race season

Time to let the candidates loose and see how they actually run.  I'll spare you my harangue about how and why they're not going to let Bernie get the nomination. (For now, anyway. There is plenty time left for that.)  But today is not a a day for it. Instead let's play the stupid pundit game and place some bets on Iowa.  Here's what I've got.

Bernie 28
Biden 23
Warren 20
Pete 16

That way there is plenty of room for all the cable news talkers to pick whichever candidate they like and declare that person the "real winner."