More words than I've read total about wrestling anywhere

Jules Bentley stood in line in the rain with some people trying to get Wrestlemania tickets Friday.

Sir Saint, Gumbo the Hound and a few smiling, harlequin-attired stilt-walkers roved through the thinning crowd— and when I say crowd, I mean the five different lines waiting to meet wrestlers. It was dark, it was raining, and everyone not standing in a line had left. The lines weren't moving, because the wrestlers we were waiting to meet hadn't shown up yet.

Meeting the WWE wrestlers was the only activity at this Party that didn't cost a bunch of money. The T-shirts ("I'm Going to Wrestlemania!") started at thirty dollars, the beers at five. "The newspaper said free food and drink," grumbled one of the women behind me in line. For the hungry, there were food trucks. The On-Sale Party was quintessential WWE: a festival the whole point of which was everybody giving WWE money. Even the few non-WWE vendors, like the food trucks, had paid WWE to be there. As the rain intensified, a local band came onstage. They were called Band Camp and played rock music.

A few of the Pelicans Dance Team wandered by. I asked them dumb questions about Pierre— what his favorite foods were, whether he was bothered by the team's Chevron and Shell sponsorships— and the Dance Team very politely responded they couldn't give interviews unless cleared in advance by the office. Band Camp played a Def Leppard cover.

There's more.

Sorry... fixed the formatting

Gone Hollywood

I think Rob Ryan may have gentrified Ms. Mae's, y'all.



Update:

Meanwhile, it's a short week for the Saints. Reid already has a re-cap article up underneath this great big HARBAUGH FACE. Here's the key takeaway:

The Saints have a real defense.

Not the genial, pliant, milquetoasty Gibbsian unit. Not the unsustainable, zero blitz-addled freakshow. Nor the fossilized, obstinate, inordinately complex, red-carpet-to-the-end-zone circus of pain.

No. None of that shit.

In 2013, we're talking about the real deal. Finally.

Courtesy of the shaggy, itinerant Rob Ryan--finding himself long-last at home in New Orleans, Rolling Rocks and 4-2-5's, and on a revenge tour of his own--this Saints' defense is now the differentiating factor in the hazy competitive landscape of the 2013 NFL.

Upperdate:

Here's Ralph Malbrough's column He points out the other big deal about yesterday's game.

The Saints showed the revitalized running game against Dallas wasn't a fluke as they ground out 93 yards on 22 carries against the 49ers top 10 rated rush defense. It wasn't so much the amount of yards or attempts that mattered as much as it made the 49ers respect the Saints running game. The Saints won the battle of the line of scrimmage on offense and defense. In the two previous 49ers match-ups that wasn't the case. The offensive line played its best game of the year and if they can show this consistency on the road I give you permission to start looking for flights to New York on Expedia for February.  

Following the Jets loss, the prevailing attitude among Saints observers was the offensive line was shitty and the only way for it to become less shitty would involve personnel changes next offseason. When they gashed a not very good Dallas defense, we took it as a pleasant aberration.   But seeing them handle the physical 49ers the way they did is another thing altogether.  It's the most encouraging development of the season.

Uppestdate:

Because we are living in the post-literate age of webpaging, here are some cute pictures that tell the story quite well on their own.

Uppesterdate:

Shut up, Ahmad Brooks.

Just be thankful that the NFL's overprotective of the QB rules benefited the Saints.  This means there's no way the league will do anything to strengthen those rules now.

This act is wearing thin

Russell Honore has been talking up some great ideas in the series of appearances he's made over the past several months.

Nearing the end of the meeting, Honore gave a brief overview of ideas for possible legislation next session, which begins in March. Three preliminary ideas presented by the former Joint Task Force Katrina commander and retired army lieutenant general included:

• Barring former industry officials from the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality, or DEQ
• Increasing transparency in the Legislature by forcing lawmakers to recuse themselves from votes when they've received industry campaign contributions.
• Reducing subsidies to the oil, gas and pipeline industries.

There comes a point, though, where we have to wonder about this schtick. 

He said his "Green Army" -- the loosely affiliated environmental activist groups and concerned citizens with which he's been meeting -- will fight "through blood, sweat and tears. We're going to do this."

Really? I mean we all know about the negative effects of oil and gas on our state's politics and environment.  And, sure, we know Honore was an army guy type. (Ray Nagin famously called him a "John Wayne dude.") But do we really have to go around playing like we're in a "Green Army" bleeding and sweating over everything and whatnot?  Can't we just say we're supporting a reform agenda during the coming legislative session since that's actually what we're doing?

The hyperbolic self-aggrandizing pretend language is the sort of thing Jim Letten or Ed Blakely would lay on us.  It's condescending at best and, at worst, indicative of a person who is not sincere in his words. 

Jindal Fatigue

Louisiana's Fifth Congressional District has a new representative this evening.   And it's not Bobby Jindal's preferred candidate, Neil Riser.

Riser, meanwhile, was supported by outgoing congressman Rodney Alexander, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor and the entire GOP contingent of the Louisiana congressional delegation except U.S. Sen. David Vitter. He also raised huge sums for the race and was long seen as the frontrunner, until McAllister started gaining traction just ahead of the October primary.

While some thought the all-Republican runoff would be marked by each candidate running to the far right of ever issue, McAllister took leave of the usual party line during a debate last week by coming out in support of optional Medicaid expansion offered under the Affordable Care Act.

McAllister said he disagreed with Gov. Bobby Jindal's decision not to accept the expansion because of the economic make-up of the 5th District. According to census data, the district is one of the poorest in the nation with nearly 25 percent of its more than 750,000 people living below the poverty line in 2010 and 21 without health insurance.

Last week, President Obama visited the Port of New Orleans where he took a moment to call out Governor Jindal for refusing the Medicaid expansion thus sabotaging health care reform at the expense of Louisiana's most vulnerable residents.   Jindal, then, accused the President of "bullying" him. 

Whether the few voters who turned out in LA-05 tonight were thinking about health reform or they just wanted to show up Jindal is up for debate, but whatever the reason, it's safe to assume the Governor is feeling a little pushed around again.  One supposes Jindal still thinks he can run for President. But the candidates he either supports or stumps for have been on a losing streak.

Depending on your interpretation of this result it could instruct the way state candidates position themselves with regard to the Affordable Care Act next year. Much of this strategy will rest on Obama's ability to weather his current "Obama's Katrina" shitstorm.   Here's an intriguing analysis by Kos of Mary Landrieu's approach.

So enter Sen. Mary Landrieu's fix to this issue (see here and here for details). In short, it would allow people to keep their crappy individual insurance policies, but insurance companies would be unable to keep selling them to new customers, and they'd have to let their customers know why the government considers their policies crap and point them to the exchanges for other options. The idea may not be a home run on the policy side, but Democrats don't have the benefit of perfect policy having botched this thing so badly (from original passage to implementation). But even on the policy, it's not terrible.

But on the politics? Woo-boy it's a winner! Remember, some policies are being cancelled because they are substandard. Some are being cancelled because insurance companies are trying to scam their customers into more expensive plans. In both cases, the problem is the insurance companies.

Right now, the blame is being put on Obama and the Democrats. This bill would turn things around and put the pressure exactly where it belongs: on insurance companies and obstructionist Republicans.

Republicans are acting as if these insurance cancellations are the worst thing since Hitler. Well, put them on the spot: Are they really interested in mitigating the law's unintended injustices (whether real or perceived), or do they merely want to undermine its implementation for sabotage purposes?

We know the answer, of course. Landrieu's bill doesn't have a prayer of passing. Republicans will obstruct it every step of the way. But instead of having Obama taking away your insurance, we'll reverse the equation: It'll now be Republicans defending the ability of insurance companies to cancel those policies.

Heading into 2014, that may be the difference between retaining the political high ground, or facing another 2010. Landrieu's gambit is genius.

I'll admit that's subtle.  Maybe a little too subtle, though. I'm certainly no industry insider but everything I read about what health insurance industry insiders say suggests they get all frowny when you start doing anything that monkeys around with their "risk pool" projections and that this could mean bad things for prices next year.  I suspect a lot of that is bullshit  but then so is the whole conceit that we can keep the insurance companies in the health reform game at all and expect a decent outcome.  But maybe Mary does have a brilliant plan to save herself, if no one else. 

There isn't much to say about the judgeship results.  Pretty much what everyone expected in both races.

The same can be said for the security districts on the ballot, each of which passed and each of which is terrible.  Here's a fun fact, though, about the so-called Twinbrook Security District. The little square of Uptown it encompasses adopted that name from the old New Orleans telephone exchange system.

Decades ago, when telephone companies worried that seven-digit phone numbers would be too difficult to remember, they gave the three-digit “exchanges” memorable names, Friend said. Residences in the area had numbers that started with 891-, 895-, 897- or 899-, and the phone company took the “T” on the 8 and the “W” on the 9 to call the area Twinbrook. Thus, callers in the old days phoning someone at 895-1111 would ask the operator for “Twinbrook 5-1111.”

Those exchanges have been out of use since the 1960s, Friend said, but the Twinbrook name returned just after Hurricane Katrina. When the Baronne Street Neighborhood Association asked the state legislature to authorize a tax district for private security patrols in 2006, they chose the name Twinbrook Security District for the board that would govern the fee collections.

Here is a list of  New Orleans telephone exchanges, if you happen to be interested in such geekery.

This link (could.. possibly) send you to a photo I found on the parallel internet of the now demolished Scheinuk Florist on St. Charles Avenue. Above the front door, the business' phone number is displayed in neon lighting. It includes the TW exchange prefix.

Elections today

I get the feeling the idea behind this round of judicial elections was to first see how low we could possibly get voter turnout to go in the primary, and then try to break that record. But I recommend getting out to vote anyway.  We peons have so little power in this pseudo-democracy as it is, the least we can do is show up at the polls periodically just for the sake of being cranky.

Here's the full slate of stuff on the various ballots via NOLA.com.

In Orleans Parish, you're looking at two yawners of run-offs. One is for Magistrate Judge (the guy who sets your bail bond whenever Serpas hauls you in at a traffic checkpoint or random stop-and-frisk).  The candidates are attorney Mark Vicknair and Councilwoman Cantrell's father-in-law.

The other is for a Traffic Court seat which may not even exist anymore after the next legislative session.

Steven Jupiter and Clint Smith, both campaign newcomers, outlasted six opponents Oct. 19 to force a runoff. Jupiter had a slight lead by winning 23 percent of the vote to Smith's 17 percent, but their rematch will take place on a whole new landscape.

After all, "60 percent of the voters didn't vote for me or Clint," Jupiter said.

Alongside a runoff for magistrate judge in Criminal District Court, the Traffic Court special election sharpens focus on a growing concern over what some officials have called Orleans Parish's bloated judiciary. Mayor Mitch Landrieu this spring failed to convince the Legislature to remove two judgeships from the Juvenile Court's six-member bench, even as he builds a new courthouse with only four courtrooms. And a government watchdog group, the Bureau of Governmental Research, reported that the Judicial Council's own formula for determining a judgeship's efficacy showed New Orleans could do without 25 of its judges.

This seat is regarded as a plum because it allows the judge to collect a six figure salary for "part time" work while continuing to maintain a private law practice.   Regardless of what you may think of that, both of these candidates have some comforting words for voters.

Each candidate says the job of a judge extends out of the courtroom and into the community, and each says he will do whatever he can to educate residents about the law and the dangers and headaches of breaking it.

Both promise to treat each defendant before them with fairness and consideration. Both said the punishment should fit the crime, and that judges should be mindful of financial constraints and the difficulty of skipping work to deal with minor traffic infractions.

Jupiter calls the court’s current practices a “money grab,” with excessive fees, a cattle-call-like system, and little record of where money ends up.

He promises to bring the court into the 21st century, with automated notifications, online ticket payment and video conferencing for witnesses who can’t appear in court.

Smith said he believes the current process for reviewing widely loathed traffic-camera tickets is unfair, and he promises to see what can be done to ensure scofflaws are given a fair shake.

Meanwhile there are a couple of ballot initiatives regarding parcel fees for, among other dubious purposes, empowering Eastover and some part of Uptown calling itself "Twinbrook" to keep paying their private police patrols.  A year ago, WWLTV produced an excellent report on the security district balkanization of New Orleans.  I added some dumb comments at the time. This seems like a good time to review that.

For those of you who do this at the last minute, the Louisiana Secretary of State's website makes it pretty easy to find your polling location. LSU isn't playing today (and their season is over anyway.) So you might as well get out and participate in something sporting this afternoon.  Why not go vote? 

"Obama's Katrina" of the week

This has been an ongoing media meme for several years now.  Why is everyone suddenly up in arms about it this particular time?

I'm not defending it, of course. It's terrible. But it's also very very stale.

Are we really that close to Carnival season?

I thought it was a late one this year.  Also is the guy who played House really enough of a has been D-lister yet to be Bacchus?

Hugh Laurie, who was announced as the super krewe's celebrity king, proclaimed his excitement on Twitter on Thursday.

"I am shirt-bustingly proud to announce that I have been offered the Throne of Bacchus in the next Mardi Gras in New Orleans. Be there!!" he posted to the social media site.

"My reign will be firm but benevolent. Peace and harmony will be upon the land, and the crops will thrive. Please don't get up," he said.

Bonus item: Two more Jefferson Parish parades cancel for 2014. The krewes blame new parade quality regulations but, as we've mentioned before, there's also the anti-suburbanization trend to consider.

The challenge for Thor was that its members tended to drift to New Orleans, Cantrell said. "It just got harder and harder to keep the membership interested in riding in a Metairie krewe," Cantrell said. "You can start a parade in New Orleans and the next year get 600 or 700 members who want the atmosphere of St. Charles" Avenue."

Indeed, the allure of the Uptown parade route was cited by the krewes of Alla and Choctaw for their moves from the West Bank to St. Charles Avenue.

What's being lost here, though, is the idea that a parade is a neighborhood event.  We've already decided to just jam all the Orleans Parish parades down St. Charles Avenue. Now we're even doing that with the suburban krewes.

The proponents of Jefferson's new ordinance say they're opting for "quality over quantity" in their now reduced parade schedule.  If I were Hugh Laurie-esque benevolent ruler of all Carnival, my decree would be that we aim for just the opposite.  Not every happening during the season needs to be a super-krewe.

What if, instead, there were more varied events; 'tit-Rexes and Chewbacchuses and the like in different parts of the city?  Better to have many smaller parades that roll through and enliven various neighborhoods than a limited number of standardized and marginally distinguishable parades along one heavily touristed route.

Update: Multiple routes might come in pretty handy over the next few years anyway.

The crape myrtle trees were the first to go. The king of Carnival could be next.

As part of a plan to improve drainage in Uptown New Orleans, workers this week began cutting down more than two dozen trees along a 10-block stretch of the Napoleon Avenue neutral ground.

The three-year construction project also may result in the rerouting of several Carnival parades in 2015 and 2016, a Police Department spokesman said Thursday.

Sproles for MVP

In Monday's Saints game recap (Yes! One of those happened!) I noted that in every game I've watched Darren Sproles play this year, there's been some point where I drunkenly tweet a bunch of noise about him being the most valuable player on the Saints' offense.  But I can never remember what the specific thing is that's motivating me to say that.

Luckily I am not the only person watching these games.

Serpas Signal

That Rob Ford story reminds us that if you are planning your own crack/oxy/liquor fueled all-night hooker bash this Thursday night, please be advised of the traffic regulations.

The New Orleans Police Department’s Traffic Division will conduct a sobriety checkpoint, in Orleans Parish, on Thursday November 14, 2013, beginning at approximately 9:00 P.M. and will conclude at approximately 5:00 A.M.  Motorists will experience minimal delays and should have the proper documentation available if requested, i.e., proof of insurance, driver’s license, etc.

Drive carefully.

The Silicon Bayou's true captain

Rob Ford

Mayor Rob Ford snorted cocaine, swilled vodka, popped a dose of Oxycontin and partied with an apparent prostitute during an all-night binge last year that raved from his office to a private room in a Toronto bar, Ford staffers and bar employees alleged to police investigating the mayor. 

Ford's greatest regret is never having had the opportunity to work with Greg Meffert or Aaron Bennett.

But how will Rob Ryan get to Ms Mae's?

Quick follow-up to yesterday's post about the SELA work on Napoleon Avenue.  The heavy duty disruption is scheduled to begin in January.

The removal of the trees may be the least of the worries. Starting in January, the project will progress to a different phase of construction that will require more space, which means street parking in the affected areas of Napoleon will be discontinued.

"It will be a little cramped. We make sure at least one of traffic in each direction on Napoleon Avenue will be moving," said Wingate.

This particular section of the Napoleon Avenue SELA project is expected to finish in 2016.

This means two things.  First, the disruption of traffic along Napoleon Avenue will cause a re-routing of most Uptown Carnival parades for at least the next two years.  Maybe someone knows what the plan is for that. I don't yet.

Second, should the Saints manage to get themselves a home playoff game in January, it might be a little tricky for fans get to the after party. 

How much land was destroyed?

Jefferson and Plaquemines Parishes have decided to sue oil and gas companies for damage done to coastal wetlands due to their negligence in defiance of the law.

The parishes each filed their own set of lawsuits covering 28 oilfields in their jurisdictions. The cases are rooted in a 1978 law that created stricter requirements for oil and gas companies over the objections of industry groups. Among the regulations in that law were the duty to maintain the sites being used and “cleared, revegetated, detoxified and otherwise restored as near as practicable to their original condition upon termination of the operations to the maximum extent practicable.”

None of the companies ever filed permits indicating they were restoring those fields.

Should the parishes succeed, the industry would have to pay to restore that damage or provide compensation for the land destroyed. The exact amount of the suit, and the total amount of land involved in the case, are not clear.

And so a fully funded coastal erosion denial campaign was born. 

First they came for the trees

The massive SELA drainage project (proudly preventing Uptown New Orleans from driving in any direction) is finally about to cross St. Charles and move onto lower Napoleon Avenue.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, New Orleans District recently awarded a 38-month contract to provide increased drainage for the Uptown area. The contract includes canal improvements along Napoleon Avenue between Carondelet and Constance Streets. The project, which is part of the Southeast Louisiana Project (SELA), will reduce the risk of damages from a 10-year rainfall event. A 10-year event is basically a rain storm that has a 10% annual probability of occurrence and equates to approximately 9 inches of rain over a 24-hour period for our area.

On September 26, 2013, the Corps awarded a $38 million contract to Boh Bros Construction Co. The contract calls for constructing approximately 3,000 linear feet of a concrete covered box culvert under the neutral ground along Napoleon Avenue from Carondelet Street to Constance Street. The new culvert will parallel an existing box culvert and will tie in to the new culvert under Napoleon Avenue at Carondelet Street and the existing box culvert at Constance Street. A notice to proceed will be issued early October and construction will be completed in the fall of 2016.

The Corps continues to work closely with its partners at the Louisiana Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority and the Sewerage and Water Board of New Orleans on the SELA program. To date, a total of 17 contracts have been awarded in Orleans Parish to date, with work completed on 10 of those projects. All scheduled SELA work in Orleans Parish should be finished in 2018.

Today the crews arrived to prepare the neutral ground for excavation by murdering the crepe myrtle trees that live there.





Having passed that way fairly often for a number of years, I had gotten into the habit of keeping time by those trees.

In the late spring they start to bloom.



By mid summer they are in full blossom.



Their fall foliage becomes a brilliant orange for a brief time.



And adds a rust tone to the avenue by the time winter comes along.



I'm told by people who worry about such things that their flowers can get goo all over your car's paint job if you park under them when this is happening.



During Carnival these trees fill up with a different sort of blossom. I have shockingly few decent photos of this. Here is a close up of a bead tree that fell over last year.



This is a more dramatic example on St. Charles.



Here's what they looked like that one time I saw them in the snow.




And now they're gone. I'm not sure what sort of landscaping is planned for these neutral grounds when the project is finished. Guess we'll have to wait 3-5 years to find out.

Which pimp is best for you?

Ezra Klein:

Twitter is driving less than a tenth of Facebook's traffic -- and it's flattening out.

Yet journalists -- and, quite often, the organizations that employ them -- clearly prefer Twitter. They put enormous effort into building Twitter brands and coming up with Twitter strategies. That's the impression the social-media vendors get and the social-network employees get. It's true for every journalist I know, and it's true for me, too.

The reason, I think, is that Twitter is simply more useful for our jobs. For better or worse, it's where news breaks today. It's also where a lot of real-time reporting happens. The bulk of Robert Costa's shutdown reporting happened on Twitter. For weeks on end, he managed to dominate the top political story in the country in 140-character bursts. As a journalist, if you wanted to stay on top of much of the best reporting you simply have to be on Twitter.

That's not quite it, though.  More important than the sheer number of users, or even Klein's theory about the number of users who are journalists, are the dynamics that exist among users of each network. 

Twitter facilitates sharing and discussion among readers who aren't as connected to one another socially while Facebook just kind of tosses things out into the bloat. People talk to each other on Twitter because they're interested in the same thing at the same time.  People talk to each other on Facebook because they happen to know each other.

On Twitter, what's actually driving the discussion is the content itself. A series of Tweets will say, "Look at this NEWS ITEM everyone is talking about." Maybe a hashtag will develop and bring in even more people.  New connections are created. And those connections are relevant to interest in a common topic.

On Facebook the focus is more on the person talking and who that person happens to know. Your Facebook friend will post something. Everyone who responds will be either a personal acquaintance of (even worse) a relative of that person. They will talk about the person as much as they will the actual topic. As in, "Oh lord THIS DUDE is on about some shit again." If there is conversation, it's limited to a fairly closed circle. It doesn't draw new people in or advance the issue as well.

Twitter's dynamics bring people together around issues. It's more likely to encourage strangers to meet and potentially even act on their common interests.  Facebook does the opposite.  It lets things go in isolated, controlled burns. Nobody follows a hashtag on Facebook.

In many cases, in fact, Facebook convention is more likely to discourage public affairs talk.   Here are 13 million Google search results for "Facebook politics blocker"  It's understandable, of course. Imagine Thanksgiving dinner with your racist drunken uncle.  Now imagine that every time you go on the internet.  So while there are technically more "eyeballs" looking at Facebook, sharing your content there creates a less potent impact than it can via Twitter.

On the other hand, if you work for a media company who doesn't really give a shit what its readers think or how the content it publishes affects the world it reports on, then maybe you really should develop a Facebook-centric social media strategy.  And since that probably describes the large majority of media companies anyway, I suppose that's exactly the direction things are headed.

Might want to dump that Twitter stock you bought last week.

Welcome to the Louisiana "industrial rennaissance"

"The ride has just begun," an annoying media personality opines.

Hope you've got your seat belts fastened and your tray tables up and your phone... well I don't know what you're supposed to do with your phone anymore... but the important thing is that you know how to operate the oxygen mask.

Louisiana’s 17 refineries and two associated chemical plants averaged six accidents per week in 2012, resulting in the release of 2.3 million pounds of pollution, according to a study released Tuesday by the Louisiana Bucket Brigade.

The study was co-sponsored by the Standard Heights Community Association in Baton Rouge, Residents for Air Neutralization of Shreveport, the United Steelworkers, and the Occupational Health and Safety Section of the American Public Health Association.

See no evil

La. Supreme Court upholds ruling against N.O. anti-begging law.

Between 2010 and May, nearly 1,300 people were charged under the law at New Orleans Municipal Court, according to figures provided earlier this year by Court Clerk Chris Sens.

He did not respond to requests last week for updated figures; Municipal Court was closed for Veterans Day on Monday.

After Hunter’s ruling, the city attorney told the Police Department to no longer enforce the ordinance, said Tyler Gamble, a spokesman for Mayor Mitch Landrieu. Gamble said the city is researching how to amend the law to comply with the judge’s decision.

City Councilwoman Susan Guidry, a lawyer, said after Hunter’s ruling in May that there was no evidence the council had ever been informed of the law’s flaws.

Nice touch with that "Guidry, a lawyer," thing they did there.  I can't decide if this means she's saying, "Nobody told me there was a problem here," or, "You can't prove we had any knowledge there was a problem,"  or which of those would be worse.

Of course this isn't the first time Guidry, a lawyer, has had difficulty comprehending First Amendment issues so we shouldn't be too surprised.

On the other hand, maybe she's got a point. Councilmembers seem to left out of all kinds of things lately.

The budget does not, however, include more than $1.5 million in Wisner-funded grants the city usually gives to local charities. As long as the lawsuit is winding through appeals courts, the city doesn’t plan to allocate any Wisner grant money. That could put some of those charities in a bind.

But even if the money were included, Landrieu’s General Counsel Erica Beck said, the council would have no control of it.

“The council has traditionally not appropriated any of that grant money,” Beck told the council. “We’ve received no indication from the judge that we need to change.”

But as blogger Jason Berry recently pointed out, New Orleans Municipal Code appears to give the council control of the fund. In fact, Berry reported, that “check and balance” was central to the city’s argument that the fund should be declared public.

“If there is in fact council oversight,” asked Head, “and there is a check and balance for this government fund, when do I have that council oversight that is part and parcel to that check and balance?”

During her remarks on the Wisner Fund, Head also objected to the process for handing out NOLA for Life grant funds, saying it wasn’t transparent, which led to funds going to charities that lacked proper financial documentation.

Berry adds here that the administration's attempt to have it both ways on the question of city oversight grants the Wisner fund an amorphous "Public-ish-iness" quality.

I watched some of that meeting on TV. My favorite part of the discussion on oversight of the Wisner property was when Jackie Clarkson, a real estate agent, blithely accepted Beck's argument at face value agreeing  that it was basically none of the Council's business.  But unless we can produce "evidence the council had ever been informed" of the city's arguments in the Wisner case, they'll keep pretending not to see them.

Flight night

It was a record setting evening for the Saints in the Dome Sunday. Fans in attendance got to see a franchise best 625 total yards*, an NFL record 40 first downs, and Mark Ingram do.. something, anything. They also got to launch what we're unofficially calling a franchise record number (50,000 - 60,000 by our estimate) of paper airplanes from the terrace thanks to the abundance of materials left over from the Veterans Day "card stunt." You can review the Card Stunt procedures by consulting the above photo. The cards were perfect for folding into gliders which hung in the air and floated softly over long distances.  Kenny Stills caught one for a touchdown.

It isn't hard to anticipate the caveats about this one.  Dallas was missing some key people on defense. Dallas is also not very good in general. Uh oh, the kicker sucks.  The Saints are running out of safeties. The Saints are running out of tight ends. Also linebackers.  And so forth.

But it was still a gratifying experience following upon the previous 4 weeks' angst as it did. We'll take it.

Mark Ingram's night, in fact, captures this spirit well. After seeing him booed for dropping a pass early on, and then watching him go through something of a public breakdown; slamming the ball to the ground, beating himself in the head like a frustrated 5 year old; we couldn't help but wish for something good to happen for him.

Y'all we gotta get Mark Ingram a touchdown tonight. I know he's not very good but I'm starting to feel bad.
— skooks (@skooks) November 11, 2013

And then, true to our intentions, we went out and got that touchdown for him.  And a whole bunch of yards and stuff too.  We delivered it all to his doorstep and sang Christmas carols. It was a touching moment. We did that for him, not because we've suddenly reversed our opinion that he's a mediocre player and a disappointing first round pick, but because he's our mediocre and disappointing first round pick and we don't want him to be sad.

I wanted to find a concise summary of Ingram's night from the paper to quote for you here. But instead I found this badly off-the-mark description James O'Byrne wrote for the TP.

Here's a game ball nobody expected this season. After an incredibly frustrating two years, Ingram broke out with the first 100-yard game by a Saints running back since the second game of last season, gaining 145 yards on 14 carries for a 10.4 yards-per-carry average. It was not a fluke, as Ingram, perhaps for the first time as a Saint, ran with passion and anger, hit his holes hard, made good decisions, protected the ball and didn't go down easily. In a game in which it was clear the Saints wanted to establish a running game, Ingram was dominant in racking up the lion's share of the team's 242 yards rushing.

Apart from the statistics, I don't see how that's in any way accurate. Saints fans have complained about Ingram's lack of productivity, sure. But I don't think anyone has had a problem with his attitude. He appears to try very hard when he has the ball.  Our concern is that he's just not very good.

Look again at B&G Review's breakdown of every Ingram carry during the Atlanta game. 

That week, Bradley was specifically trying to answer the question "Is it the back's fault or the line's fault?" But the analysis captures the essence of what is so disappointing about Ingram.

None of these plays, in isolation, is an indictment of Mark Ingram as a football player. But they are exactly the kinds of plays that Pierre Thomas and Chris Ivory have made in the past. Pierre Thomas can–probably did, I’d bet, during this very game–break that kind of ankle tackle. And, rather than taking that William Moore hit, Chris Ivory probably would have delivered one.

These are standout qualities we’re talking about, and a back who lacks them is not necessarily a bad back. Ingram’s game has no obvious weaknesses. The issue is it has no major strengths, either. He doesn’t have Pierre Thomas’s balance or Chris Ivory’s power or Darren Sproles’s speed.

Former Southern Miss football coach Jeff Bower once said that the difference between the uninspiring running backs he had coached for several seasons during the early-00s and 2006 freshman phenom Damion Fletcher⁴ was that Fletcher took what his blockers gave him but then added more.

There is nothing wrong with taking what the field gives you. Mark Ingram just has trouble taking more.

Ingram seems like a perfectly nice fellow who works very hard at football. He just happens not to be the special player fans hope for when they see "Heisman Trophy Winning First Round Draft Choice."  He runs hard and "angry" when taking on tacklers. He wins a few of those battles but isn't likely to overpower most linebackers one on one.   Even during last night's triumphs, there were moments when he broke into the open field but couldn't come up with the one extra move or stiffarm that might have allowed Pierre Thomas or Chris Ivory to turn a nice gain into a score.

What we did learn last night is that, when the Saints are winning at the line of scrimmage, it's not a bad idea for Mark Ingram to have the football. Not entirely a bad idea anyway.  We learned this because the Saints' offensive line pushed the Cowboys around all night. This could be because they were matched against an injury-depleted (and kinda bad anyway) Dallas defense.  But we prefer to think it's because Jahri Evans's image appeared on this week's ticket.



But whatever the reason, we're glad everything worked out well for Mark Ingram.  Just don't expect to get used to that happening.

Better to focus on the encouraging moments from last night which we do expect to see more of as the year goes on. These things are:

• Darren Sproles doing great things and basically making the offense work.
  
  On several Monday mornings this season, I've flipped back through my Twitter feed to find myself drunkenly proclaiming Sproles the MVP of this offense. But then as the week goes on, I and everyone else end up focusing more on the freakish season Jimmy Graham has been having.  During the course of the games, though, it's Sproles who makes things happen.  The miserable experience without him at the Jets is just a one game sample but it still makes a strong case in his favor.
  
  
  We should note that Sporles did fumble a punt. But, remember, the ball is actually wider than his waist so fielding those can be a little tricky.




• Marques Colston playing more than just a bit role in the passing game.


A healthy, productive Colston becomes essential during the stretch run.  The Saints can't continue their over-reliance on the one-footed Jimmy Graham.  The offense has been productive all season but Sunday night was the first time this year fans have felt like they were watching a classic Sean Payton juggernaut.  Colston's reemergence probably isn't just coincidental there.


Colston makes a lot of these kind of grabs because any one of his fingers is bigger than the whole ball





• An ever brightening Kenny situation.


There's a Kenny on this team who is a Rookie of the Year candidate but it's maybe not the Kenny you expected.  It probably won't happen because he's playing the Devery Henderson Memorial Occasional Bomb Dropper role which means he can disappear for a game or two, but here are Kenny Stills' numbers at this point:

19 receptions 437 yards (5th among all rookies) 23 yards per reception (leads NFL for players over 10 catches) 4 TDs (tied for second among rookies)

Stills also leads all rookies in receptions for 40 yards or greater. If he ends up getting even marginally more involved each week, he's a viable candidate for Rookie of the Year. Certainly, as it is, he's deserving of a mention.


No idea how to describe the physics of this but, hey, whatever gets the job done.





• Saints coaches continuing to drink with fans after hours.


 Deadspin today:


The Wolfman seems to have made a habit out of celebrating home victories with a trip to a New Orleans dive bar. After his Saints beat the Cowboys last night, Ryan was once again spotted in Ms. Mae's, buying rounds for everyone in the house.

As I type these words right now, I am sitting in a coffee shop located one door adjacent to Ms. Mae's where Coach Ryan has manifested before the faithful on multiple occasions this year. I'm wondering if I order a toasted bagel Ryan's face will appear on its surface.
 




• Saints coaches continuing to appear as though they've had a few too many while using Twitter.




A GREAT Vibe in our city tonight!! @LSUfball  tomorrow and @Saints on Sunday Night !! We Have The #1 football fans in the Country!!"WHO DAT"
— Sean Payton (@SeanPayton) November 9, 2013


Shortly after this went out, the price of exclamation points jumped by 50 bucks a share in the markets due to a sudden shortage.





• Saints fans continuing to masquerade as coaches.




That... That's just adorable right there

.

Meanwhile the most horrifying stretch of football scheduling imaginable hits the Saints in the face beginning this week when the 49ers visit.  As always, I'm tempted to post some footage of the 2011 playoff disaster in order to remind us all of the chip we're carrying into this game on our collective shoulders. But I'm omitting that footage out of deference to Varg who will be with us again in the terrace for this game and has made it plain that he doesn't want to look at that shit anymore. Dude better bring his paper airplane game with him, though.



* Not counting playoff games. There's a chart in Reid's post where we see the 2011 offensive output vs Detroit exceeded this (by one yard).

Anticipating trouble

There are two ways to look at Les Miles's tenure as the head football coach at LSU. One is to resign yourself to the idea that one day we'll all look back on this and laugh. The other is to just start laughing now. It's been about 2 years since I decided on the latter, and I haven't regretted a moment of it.  

Tuesday, reporter Kaylee Hartung got to ride to work with Tigers’ coach Les Miles. The two talked about Miles’ daily routine — like what he eats for breakfast (Raisin Bran and fruit) — and this weekend’s matchup against the Crimson Tide. But the two biggest takeaways from the experience were 1) Les Miles doesn’t wear a seat belt, and 2) Les Miles runs red lights.

However, when Hartung confronts Miles about running the light, he denies it, saying he stopped, then anticipated the change.

The downside to this is college football is pretty unforgiving of sustained imperfection.  One or two years with 2 losses or more in a row and you may have consigned your program to a decade or more of irrelevance.  Which is why it's possible to argue that tonight's game... despite the double digit point spread... is a career defining must-win for Les Miles. 

If LSU pulls off an upset of the currently most hated team in America, they've imbued a 2 loss season with national significance. They will have burnished their reputation for general mayhem and kept pace with A&M as a relevant perennial challenger to Alabama in the SEC.   On the other hand, if they lose this one, then suddenly all the talk is about how it's been 2 years since Les Miles' career peak just moments before his perfect team was smushed by Bama in the Superdome last January. Two years is a long time to go as a second tier team with a recruiting class watching you. 

That may sound harsh but that's how college football works.  And it's why LSU fans can at least console themselves with Miles' goofiness.  If you think they're hard on him as it is, try and imagine any other mediocre coach in this situation without his personality to keep the sharks half at bay.

Dealings with Devils

So by now we know what happens to the levee board Governor Jindal appoints when it antagonizes his friends in the energy industries.  But what happens if all these people get involved?

Even as Republican Gov. Bobby Jindal’s administration launched an all-out assault this year against a state agency’s lawsuit accusing energy companies of destroying coastal wetlands, officials in the Republican strongholds of Jefferson and Plaquemines parishes were quietly preparing their own cases aimed at forcing the oil and gas industry to repair the damage it allegedly has done in those areas.

In coming weeks, both parishes’ councils could file their own suits centered around allegations that the industries have taken an enormous toll that can be measured in terms of land that has simply washed away, multiple sources familiar with the cases told The New Orleans Advocate.

This is an interesting development in light of a couple of big headlines last week.  First, The Advocate became the latest publication to tout the expected industrial renaissance coming to Southeast Louisiana thanks to the nationwide boom in hydraulic fracking.

Louisiana is enjoying its biggest industrial boom since the oil bust in the 1980s, and much of the action — tens of billions of dollars of investment — is happening along the 70-mile corridor between New Orleans and Baton Rouge.

The stretch, known mostly for sugarcane fields and plantation homes before the petrochemical industry began to arrive in the 1940s and 1950s, is riding a wave of capital spending powered by natural gas prices that have hit historic lows. Local and state economic development officials say the construction bonanza will likely create tens of thousands of high-paying jobs and generate billions of dollars in tax revenue over the coming decades.

After an entire generation of post-oil bust writing about the heavy price Louisiana paid in economic, environmental, and political terms from it famous Faustian bargain with the petrochemical industry are we really going to uncritically welcome the Devil back to town when he wants to renew the lease?  Apparently so.

Some of the highlights include: Nucor Corp.’s proposed $3.4 billion steel facility in St. James Parish, which could create upwards of 1,250 new jobs; CF Industries Inc.’s $2.1 billion investment at its Ascension Parish complex, which produces nitrogen-based products used by agricultural and industrial markets; and explosives maker Dyno Nobel International’s $850 million ammonia production facility in Jefferson Parish.

Other major projects have been unveiled but are still under review, such as Shell’s proposed $12.5 billion gas-to-liquids facility in Ascension — which would create 740 new jobs paying average salaries of $100,000. In St. Charles Parish, Valero plans to build a $700 million methanol unit at its Norco refinery, allowing it to compress natural gas into liquid to make chemicals and plastics.

This was one of the more disappointing articles we've seen from John Georges's Advocate. Mostly it collected some dubious.. or at least optimistic statistics and projections from the Governor's office, from  GNO Inc., and from LSU economics professor Loren Scott.  GNO Inc., for those who haven't been paying attention, is the Landrieu era vision of a "public-private" Chamber of Commerce. It basically takes all the marketing bullcrap coming out of the business community and backs it with the imprimatur of quasi public office.  Scott, over the years, has been a reliably-wrong-about-stuff media quote machine. He's calling for 44,000 new jobs in the Baton Rouge-New Orleans region over the next two years.  I'm tempted to discount that by at least two thirds on Scott's track record alone.

Also this week, we read that many of these folks had convened in Orlando to talk about ways to develop a better strategy for regional cooperation among government and business elites.

ORLANDO — The frigidity that historically has characterized the relationship between New Orleans and Baton Rouge melted away Sunday as about 170 government, private-sector and nonprofit leaders from both metropolitan areas gathered in Orlando to explore opportunities for collaboration on economic development initiatives.

The 2013 Super Region Canvas, a partnership between the Baton Rouge Area Chamber and Greater New Orleans Inc., is a three-day conference that includes travel between Orlando and Tampa for seminars on how those cities and others in central Florida work together to improve the region’s digital media and health care industries and attack issues such as crime and poor transportation.

Here's who went on the trip. 

The group includes New Orleans Deputy Mayor Andy Kopplin, East Baton Rouge Mayor Kip Holden and Jefferson Parish President John Young. The private sector is represented by developer Roger Ogden, businessman John Georges, who owns The New Orleans Advocate and The Advocate in Baton Rouge, and entrepreneur Damon Burns, among others.

Not to suggest that Geroges's social and business associations have anything at all to do with the way that circle's interests are covered in his paper, but it's a happy coincidence that this piece of boosterism appeared at around the same time as this get-together.

Still, there's no reason to doubt that Louisiana's energy sector will be adding jobs over the next few years. How many jobs are created, what the overall impact this has on the whole economic picture, and just how long the anticipated boom even lasts is all highly disputable, though. 

And, of course, the negative externalities associated with this activity are all well in evidence.

Thanks to the chemical processing infrastructure already in place, this River Parishes corridor has been famous for nearly 30 years as Louisiana's "Cancer Alley." This year the towns of Geismar and Donaldsonville have been treated to spectacular explosions at plants along the chemical corridor.   Ever since last summer the region has been home to the Texas Brine chemical sinkhole which as of this week was still dangerously unstable.

The Advocate article does a terrible job of touching on any of this. Instead we are presented with one line from Anne Rolfes expressing concern that pollution may scare off the tourists. The health and safety of residents, as usual, doesn't seem to enter into anyone's thinking. 

And then there's the catastrophic damage that oil and gas exploration, extraction, processing, and shipping have done to the Louisiana coast over the years. But I suppose if you can deal with the Devil you can also sue him. 

(Plaquemines Council Chairman Byron) Marinovich described the parish’s relationship to the oil and gas industry as “a deal with the devil to get revenue and jobs.” However, he said, with the parish experiencing rapid land loss, and facing the threat of storms like Hurricane Isaac, which swamped Plaquemines without being buffered by wetlands, something must be done.

“If we don’t, we’re not going to be here anymore,” he said.

With the vast profits energy companies have made in the area, Marinovich said, it is their duty to repair the damage they caused.

“They made millions of dollars through the years, billions actually,” he said. “I think they have a civic obligation to come in and do this thing and make us whole again,” he added.

 Or at least you can until the Governor figures out a way to punish you for it.

You know, for like, reasons

This happened to be the year that Bobby Jindal's Coastal Protection Authority happened to take $500,000 out of the Southeast Louisiana Flood Protection Authority's budget.

The cut immediately raised suspicions that it was retaliation for the levee authority’s lawsuit against 97 oil, gas and pipeline companies over damage to coastal marshes. Gov. Bobby Jindal and and Garret Graves, head of the Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority, have condemned the lawsuit. The coastal authority has control over payments to levee boards.

Graves said the Legislature appropriates the funding to his office, not to the individual levee authorities, and his office has discretion on how it is spent. “This is not a requirement; rather the AG’s office has confirmed that it is permissive,” he said in an email.

He added his agency never promises levee boards or districts a specific amount of funding each year, but makes those decisions on an annual basis.

It just happened to be the same year that the SLFPA-East board filed a controversial lawsuit against the oil and gas industry. Shortly after the lawsuit was filed, Jindal's head of the Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority Garret Graves promised there would be political retribution.

"I don't see any scenario where this levee district doesn't get gutted -- or say reformed -- in the next legislative session."

And that's exactly what happened last month when Jindal made his appointments

Jindal had made clear that anyone who supported the suit would not be re-appointed to the nine-member Southeast Louisiana Flood Protection Authority-East.
 
The new members selected by Jindal are lawyer Lambert “Joe” Hassinger Jr. of New Orleans; Jeff Angers of Baton Rouge, president of the Center for Coastal Conservation and former executive director/CEO of the Coastal Conservation Association; and Kelly McHugh of Madisonville, president of a civil engineering and land surveying firm.

Hassinger replaces author and historian John Barry on the board.  Jindal said he would not reappoint Barry, criticizing him for his role in spearheading the SLFPA-E lawsuit against oil and gas companies, seeking money to repair damaged wetlands.  Barry’s term expired earlier this year but the lawsuit emerged over the summer.

So the today's action shouldn't come as too much a surprise.  It seems excessive, of course, not to mention reckless given the SFLPA-E's crucial mission.  But it's not unexpected. Everyone knows what's up by now.

For whatever reason, though, Graves wants to pretend otherwise. Here's what he told The Lens today.

But Graves said the cut was nothing more than part of routine budget decisions as his office struggles to spread limited funds to numerous levee boards across the coast.

“We’re putting a portion of the funds toward other priorities this year,” Graves said via email. “While we will be providing some assistance to the west board, we are also providing funds to the newly-formed Chenier Plain board. We have previously provided startup assistance to St. Mary and may be doing same to Iberia soon too. “

Meanwhile, a judge ruled today that we'll soon find out whether Graves has been emailing a different tune with oil and gas lobbyists.

The state Division of Administration has until Jan. 15 to hand over to a New Orleans environmental activist thousands of emails that Gov. Bobby Jindal’s chief coastal-protection adviser sent and received during an eight-month span, a judge ruled Friday in Baton Rouge.

Anne Rolfes, who filed a public records lawsuit against the division in September, suspects correspondence to and from Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority Chairman Garret Graves from December to August could include discussions between Graves and the energy sector about a flood-protection board’s decision to file a huge lawsuit against dozens of oil and gas companies in July.

It won't change the Jindal administration's pattern of political retribution.  But at least it could blow up a little of the  the condescending denial. 

Deaf ears

A new report from Fed economists basically argues that the absolute worst policy response to the deep recession we've experienced these past 5 years would be... pretty much exactly the austerity policies our representatives are currently pursuing.

There is a tendency to think of a nation’s “aggregate supply,” or potential output, as something that exists outside the realm of influence by short-term economic policy. The economic potential, after all, comes from the education of its people, the richness of its land, the quality of its machines — all things that a central banker can’t do much of anything to influence.

In other words, supply is “exogenous” to a policymaker’s economic model. But that may turn on its head in circumstances like the present. They write:

The implications for monetary policy may differ sharply from what is commonly presumed because much of the supply-side damage could be an endogenous response to weak aggregate demand. If so, then an activist monetary policy may be able to limit the amount of supply-side damage that occurs initially, and potentially may also help to reverse at a later stage such damage as does occur. By themselves, such considerations militate toward a more aggressive stance of policy and help to buttress the case for a highly aggressive policy response to a financial crisis and associated recession.

In other words, when there is weak demand and people remain out of work, the cyclical downturn can become a structural downturn. That means that policymakers should move particularly aggressively to keep that from happening.

Of course when you've reached a point where chronic unemployment still means record profits on Wall Street, why should policymakers do anything at all?  This isn't the precise definition of "structural downturn"but from the point of view of most people, it might as well be.

What, no Jindal quote?

They didn't even think to ask him.

Let it not be said that Republican presidential hopefuls aren't worried about Chris Christie.

The governor barely had time to take a victory lap before potential 2016 contenders rushed to downplay his crushing re-election victory Tuesday night, taking veiled -- but unmistakable -- swipes at the pugnacious New Jerseyan while "congratulating" him.

They went and got quotes from Ted freaking Cruz, even. But nada from Jindal.

Congratulations, also, to Jindal on yet another great job stumping for out of state candidates.

“Bobby Jindal and his political team totally blew it,” harrumphed one advisor for Ken Cuccinelli the morning after a closer-than-expected loss.

Cuccinelli, who narrowly lost last night’s gubernatorial election to Terry McAuliffe, was badly outspent in the days and weeks leading up to the election. The New York Times‘ Jonathan Martin described Cuccinelli’s plight as having been “close to abandoned at the end.” He was. As Politico’s James Hohmann reported, ”The Republican National Committee spent about $3 million on Virginia this year, compared to $9 million in the 2009.” And as the Roanoke Times noted, in 2009, the Chamber of Commerce spent $973,000 on Bob McDonnell, but “[t]his year, the chamber gave Cuccinelli nothing.”

Not even if they roll doubles?

The Lens:

As city leaders debate how much to fund the program meant to reduce the number of pretrial detainees in Orleans Parish Prison, Criminal District Court Judge Julian Parker has handed down an order requiring financial bonds for any defendant set to be tried in his court.

Parker’s order means that every defendant must put up a bond or pay a bail bondsman to get out of jail before trial — including arrestees that the Vera Institute’s pretrial services program rates as low-risk for fleeing or being re-arrested. The only exception is if Parker authorizes it in writing.

The judge’s reasoning, as spelled out in the Oct. 1 order: “There have been several career criminals, dangerous criminals, and/or multiple felony offenders who have been released from custody” on non-financial bonds.

So it's about thinking of the children, or fighting terrorism or something. Or maybe it's just about money.  Specifically, it could be about the money the city budgets for its pre-trial services program which is designed to screen defendants according to flight risk.

The so-called pre-trial services program was created in April with funding from the federal Department of Justice and is run by the Vera Institute of Justice, a New York-based non-profit, with about $200,000 in city funds this year.

Two executives from Vera’s New Orleans office branded the program a success, saying it kept accused non-risk offenders out of the city’s overcrowded prison until they go to trial. That saves the city money, they said.

According to data accompanying today's Lens story, though,  the pre-trial population at Parish Prison has ballooned again in recent months. There's some argument as to why this is happening but it can't help matters that the judges have been asking to defund the pre-trial program in order to bolster the court's own budget. Not to mention their incentive to keep the bail bondsmen busy.

(Councilwoman Susan) Guidry noted that the criminal court receives more than half of a 3 percent fee paid to the sheriff from bail bond underwriters, meaning that judges, like the underwriters, have a financial stake in the bail industry.

“You have to question who is shooting at them, and what their motivation is,” she said.

We keep complaining about the crushing expense as well as the societal costs imposed when we keep locking up more people than we have to.  So why does nearly every arm of our criminal justice system depend on doing just that?

Concentrating poverty

Haven't the champions of urban redevelopment policy been telling us the purpose of bulldozing our housing projects was to create "mixed income" neighborhoods and avoid concentrating the poor? Because that doesn't seem to be what's happening. 

New research shows a steady increase in the extent to which Americans are geographically divided by income. The below charts are from a paper by Kendra Bischoff and Sean Reardon, professors at Cornell and Stanford respectively, on what they refer to as “residential segregation by income.

We're still concentrating the poor. We're just moving them out of the parts of the city we want to sell to our rich friends first. 

They're still gonna hate you

Speaking of the Koch money.  Here's a new ad that hits Mary Landrieu over Obamacare.

The Landrieu spot twice plays a clip of the Louisianan saying of Obamacare, “If I had to vote for the bill again, I would vote for it tomorrow.”

“Tell Sen. Landrieu we deserve better than Obamacare,” the ad continues.

Remember, Mary is already supporting a bill that would basically undermine Obamacare. But they're still going to hate her anyway. Not sure what her play is here. 

Sometimes there really are Koch brothers under your bed

Some might remember this controversial article in Antigravity Magazine back in the spring where Jules Bentley referenced some interesting ties between Koch-funded lobbying firms and think-tanks and various movements to lighten food truck regulations in municipalities across the country.

Looking at the board and staff of the Keep Food Legal group, the major thread tying most of them together is Reason Magazine, the most frequent publisher of Linnekin and other KFL members’ screeds against governmental food-safety regulations. Nick Gillespie, the editor of  Reason, sits on Keep Food Legal’s board. Reason is the mouthpiece of another far-right think-tank, the Milton Friedman-endorsed Reason Foundation, whose particular mania is privatization: the corporate, for-profit takeover of services once provided by government. Of course, Reason is Koch-funded as well and even has one of the Koch brothers as a trustee.

Although Keep Food Legal attempts to put a more fun face on their lobbying efforts than the climate-change-denying wingnuttery of the Reason Foundation, its initiatives include “Opt Out of School Lunch,” which advocates that school lunch programs be discontinued—”Stop fighting for the USDA and the federal government to provide better food,” their website says.

Keep Food Legal, Reason Foundation, The Institute for Justice: these are the Koch-funded anti-regulatory madmen that the New Orleans Food Truck Coalition is in bed with: rich dudes who want to shut down school lunch programs, wingnuts tied to the Cato Institute and ALEC. In fact, at that 2012 Beverage Museum seminar, Linnekin’s presentation not only criticized the “discriminatory regulations” food trucks face but, ALEC-like, provided “a framework within which to consider model food truck regulations.” These are the people who want to rewrite New Orleans’ laws, and this is where the momentum to do so originates.

Whatever your feelings are about food trucks (I like them) the fact that the Kochs would direct their efforts at seemingly minor questions in far flung localities should have at least raised an eyebrow.  A lot of people thought it was ridiculous to even mention.

But then there's this.

Tuesday’s race here is not the only one that has drawn the interest of Americans for Prosperity, which was founded by Charles and David Koch. Local chapters have been involved in property tax fights in Kansas, Ohio and Texas, the group says. 

In January, the group successfully fought an increase in a food and beverage tax in Fremont, Neb. And last spring, it opposed a tax increase in Gahanna, in central Ohio. Voters rejected the tax measure in May, but the City Council has put it back on Tuesday’s ballot. 

Tim Phillips, the national president of Americans for Prosperity, said the organization could have a real effect on local races, where it does not have to deal with all the Washington special interests. 

The main reason “we fight local issue battles is because they result in good policy outcomes, generally promoting economic freedom via less taxes, less government spending,” he said.

When you have all the money, you really can buy all the politics.

"That doesn't work well with the tourists"

Stacy Head wants the dirty people out of the tourists' way.

The French Market Corp. is waiting to receive numbers from the Audubon Institute to determine costs associated with managing the Moonwalk, but Smith said he doesn't expect it to have a significant impact on the corporation's budget.

Councilwoman Stacy Head urged Smith to take an aggressive approach to securing and cleaning the Moonwalk.

"That area has often become a place where people set up mini-camps and sort of live and that doesn't work well with the tourists, especially people with kids who are going to the aquarium," Head said.

Don't they know Bumfest is the economic engine that drives downtown tourism? As NEW ORLEANS WILL says, "MORE VISITORS = MORE VIBRANCY" Why are they trying to kill the vibrancy?

"Why the heck did they try to screw us?"

Because that's what they do.

If Donna had done nothing, she would have ended up spending about $1,000 more a month for insurance than she will now that she went to the marketplace, picked the best plan for her family and accessed tax credits at the heart of the health care reform law.

"The info that we were sent by LifeWise was totally bogus. Why the heck did they try to screw us?" Donna said. "People who are afraid of the ACA should be much more afraid of the insurance companies who will exploit their fear and end up overcharging them."

Donna is not alone.

Across the country, insurance companies have sent misleading letters to consumers, trying to lock them into the companies' own, sometimes more expensive health insurance plans rather than let them shop for insurance and tax credits on the Obamacare marketplaces -- which could lead to people like Donna spending thousands more for insurance than the law intended. In some cases, mentions of the marketplace in those letters are relegated to a mere footnote, which can be easily overlooked.

The entire point of the ACA was to allow us to say we had done "health care reform" but also kept the health insurance industry intact. Seeing how that was the problem in the first place, maybe we should have done something different. 

Kicking you off the internet

We went through about 10 years there where internet communications really did break the distorted top-down daily news narrative presented by commercial media and their partners in the top economic and political castes. Or at least it provided the rest of us a place to refute the official nonsense that made more of a difference than just yelling at the TV used to do.

But it was only a matter of time before the world caught up to that. Eventually "new media" just becomes media. And the attendant power structure moves back in to assert its privileges. And those of us who were briefly allowed to participate are relegated once again to merely consuming.

Mary Landrieu proposes legislation to repeal Obamacare

The politics of this are going to be problematic. Mary might be in real trouble.

"If what she's saying is you can keep your health plan forever if you like it, that basically repeals the market reforms," Jost said. "You're continuing to allow people to buy a defective product. You're segmenting the risk pool again with respect for coverage. Does that mean you can say you'll cover physical health without mental health? Does that mean you don't have to cover maternity coverage? ... The whole idea here is we're trying to create a community -- a system based on mutual aid rather than everybody paying for exactly the care that they are likely to need in the next few moments."

Landrieu's plan could also disrupt the premiums set by insurers because a chunk of their expected customers would no longer be enrolling in the marketplaces. "Mechanically that's very difficult," Jost said. "It basically denies people the community-rating advantages that were the whole reason -- or one of the reasons -- for the law in the first place. ... So you're just moving the problem down the road a bit, but in the meantime it really messes over the insurance companies because they've written their premiums based on knowing who their pool would be, and that's based on knowing what sorts of people would sign up early on."

And that's just what they're spending on the elevator

Landrieu asks state for $100 million to put City Hall, civil courts at Charity

In the meantime, Landrieu’s $100 million request for Charity is only the first step in a complicated process to secure what are known as capital outlay construction funds. The request will ultimately require approval by the state Legislature during its session next year, as well as by Gov. Bobby Jindal.

Landrieu requested $100 million in capital outlay funds for Charity in the 2013 legislative session but got only $13 million. Considering that city officials have put the price tag on a redeveloped Charity building at $300 million, he has a long way to go to obtain all of the money. He hopes to open the redeveloped building by 2018.

Actually will probably need more that $300 million but that doesn't change much.   Also you sure don't see Mitch asking anyone for help funding the firefighters' pensions.

Another reason not to piss off the man

The man sees everything.

The C.I.A. dispatches undercover officers overseas to gather intelligence today roughly the same way spies operated in biblical times. But the N.S.A., born when the long-distance call was a bit exotic, has seen its potential targets explode in number with the advent of personal computers, the Internet and cellphones. Today’s N.S.A. is the Amazon of intelligence agencies, as different from the 1950s agency as that online behemoth is from a mom-and-pop bookstore. It sucks the contents from fiber-optic cables, sits on telephone switches and Internet hubs, digitally burglarizes laptops and plants bugs on smartphones around the globe. 

Mr. Obama and top intelligence officials have defended the agency’s role in preventing terrorist attacks. But as the documents make clear, the focus on counterterrorism is a misleadingly narrow sales pitch for an agency with an almost unlimited agenda. Its scale and aggressiveness are breathtaking.

Pissing off the man

Most of us would expect "terrorism" to involve, roughly, a violent act against innocents, usually with some political motivation at end. But, really, it can mean any act that makes powerful people uncomfortable. Particularly when speech or press is involved.

 British Accuse David Miranda, Glenn Greenwald's Partner, Of 'Terrorism'

WASHINGTON, Nov 1 (Reuters) - British authorities claimed the domestic partner of reporter Glenn Greenwald was involved in "terrorism" when he tried to carry documents from former U.S. intelligence contractor Edward Snowden through a London airport in August, according to police and intelligence documents.

Greenwald's partner, David Miranda, was detained and questioned for nine hours by British authorities at Heathrow on Aug. 18, when he landed there from Berlin to change planes for a flight to Rio De Janeiro, Brazil.

See also:   Alabama Politics Blogger Jailed For Writings On Ex-Governor's Son

On Oct. 4, Riley asked a Shelby County court to hold the Shulers in contempt of court for violating a restraining order -- the court papers served by Lt. DeHart -- that directed them to "cease and desist immediately from publishing ... any defamatory statement about Petitioners, including, but not limited to, any statement that Petitioners had an extramarital affair." (Shuler appears to have represented himself in the case.) By Oct. 22, Shuler anticipated that he might wind up in jail, in a post accusing Riley of having a hand in the court orders issued in the case.

"Jay Murrill, an attorney at Riley's law firm who is representing his boss in the case, appears to have written an order to grant a preliminary injunction and seal the public file, plus an order to hold us in contempt," Shuler wrote. "If granted, the contempt order could subject us to incarceration."

And, of course: Orleans Parish Prison whistleblower who helped expose problems fears for his job

It was that apathy and lack of follow-up that prompted Collins to send NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune the photos of the bloody cell. He was on duty on June 6 when Edward Dean stabbed Brian Ellis. Dean was an inmate tier representative, a position that allowed him to enter Ellis' cell to serve food.


Collins described a weak investigation that didn't go anywhere until after Ellis' mother called. About a week later, Dean was rebooked into the jail on a charge of aggravated battery.


Gusman issued a statement at the time, saying Ellis' wounds were "superficial" and that he was transported to a local hospital "out of an abundance of caution."

On Thursday, Gusman stood behind those characterizations, saying the office "made full disclosure to the news media, the district attorney and all other interested parties" about the incident.


But despite that characterization, the district attorney's office charged Dean with a more serious felony, attempted murder, to which he pleaded guilty earlier this month.


Collins chafed at what he saw as another instance of the sheriff downplaying horrendous violence in the jail. So he sent NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune the photos.


The day after the photos were published, Collins said there was a roll call in which two high-ranking supervisors gave a chilling speech to the deputies. Collins' account was corroborated by another deputy who was present.


"The man is pissed," the supervisors reportedly told the guards. "We have a rat. Somebody is going to pay. You're going to learn that what happens here, stays here. When we catch this person, he will be arrested for malfeasance and go to jail. You're going to be left out on an island by yourself and no one's going to defend you. You will never get another job in law enforcement."

Not exactly sure what the litmus test is for labeling something terrorism, but asking whether or not "the man is pissed" is a pretty good place to start.