Does Billy understand what the word, pardon, means?

 The pig didn't do anything that needs pardoning. 

BATON ROUGE, La. — A baby pig that was rescued after being tossed like a football near a Mardi Gras event in New Orleans was “pardoned” Wednesday and has found a permanent home with a Louisiana lawmaker. The weeks-old little pink critter — dubbed Earl “Piglet” Long, a play on the name of the former 45th governor of Louisiana — was ceremoniously pardoned by Lt. Gov. Billy Nungesser on the Louisiana Capitol steps.

“He will live out his life without any threat of being thrown like a football or being part of jambalaya or boudin in someone's kitchen here in Louisiana,” Nungesser said, referring to two popular dishes that contain sausage. While beads, stuffed animals and hand-decorated souvenirs are frequently catapulted through the air during Carnival Season in Louisiana, pigs are not among those items.

The piglet’s journey to a new home began earlier this month when a bystander noticed men in a park, not far from a Mardi Gras parade, throwing “what appeared to be a mini-football” to one another and laughing, according to the Humane Society of Louisiana.

I mean, clearly, the transgression here is committed by the people abusing the animal. Although, I can't say that's especially pardonable.  Anyway, if anything the pig should have to pardon Billy. Doesn't matter for which offense. Just pick any of them. 

Billy is in trouble again

Billy is always in trouble.

The oversight of Louisiana's nine museums is plagued by lack of leadership, no coherent budget and low morale among employees that may be affecting museum operations, Legislative Auditor Mike Waguespack said Monday morning. The report says the state Office of State Museum has not had a permanent director since 2016.

The review also said the office lacks a comprehensive plan for exhibits and lacks a clear budget for museum programs and exhibits. It said staff reductions totaling 42% since 2009 pose a major challenge for the sites. The Office of State Museum is part of the Department of Culture, Recreation and Tourism, which is led by Lt. Gov. Billy Nungesser.

The auditor's report is available here if you feel like looking through it. 

Also for some background on that vacant director's job, Billy fired the last permanent director. Soon afterward, we had this episode where the consultant then holding the interim position resigned in protest over Nungesser's "pretty strange crap" management. 

Lt. Gov. Billy Nungesser has been using a Lower Pontalba Building apartment and space in other state museum buildings in the French Quarter for his personal benefit and has engaged in a pattern of political interference with the agency's operations, the Louisiana State Museum's interim director said Monday while resigning in protest.

Nungesser’s interference includes attempting to override museum officials and board members who objected to plans to loan U.S. Sen. John Kennedy artworks for his office in Washington, D.C., and threatening to sell museum works of art on eBay to raise funds, said Tim Chester, a museum consultant who took the interim position in October.

“I have never encountered anything like this in the 40 years I’ve worked in the field, ever,” Chester said. “I’ve seen some pretty strange crap come down in museums, but this one takes the cake.”

There's just something about those Pontalba apartments, right? Anyway, a few years later, there was more consulting from another consultant. Their feedback was also bad. 

A 2019 report by the consulting firm Lord Cultural Resources said the current arrangement "creates political interference and tension, makes fundraising a challenge and could risk OSM losing accreditation."

Eventually (inevitably?) the FBI got involved.  In response, Billy implied the investigation was initiated by political opponents like, for example, Jeff Landry, who was expected to face Nungesser in this year's gubernatorial election.  And that's all very plausible. Although, Billy's crystal ball obviously needs a little polishing.  Here's how he saw things playing out at the time.

He also said he doesn’t believe Landry will run for governor, saying “he’s got bigger problems.”

“In an open primary, he can’t win,” Nungesser said. “I always thought John Kennedy gets re-elected and he runs (for governor). And listen, I welcome anyone to run. But let’s run in a fair race and let the people of Louisiana choose. If they close the primary you’re going to get the far right and the far left. And we got enough divisiveness in Baton Rouge.”

A spokesman for Landry declined to comment. A message to the Louisiana Committee for a Conservative Majority was not immediately returned Saturday.

Nungesser’s fiery speech came after FBI agents interviewed one of his staffers as well as legislators in a probe of his office, he said. Nungesser said he didn’t know what the probe was about, but heard it was at least partly related to grants from his office.

He added that investigators have been calling lawmakers and others who stayed at the Lower Pontalba apartments in the French Quarter, which his office operates. He said he doesn’t know whether the FBI or state auditors are looking into that.

“I'm not blaming anyone for that, but it's a coincidence that I haven't seen any polls but everybody tells me, 'They can't beat you for governor if you run in an open primary.' Because I help everybody. And I don't crucify anybody just to make a political grandstand.”

Well, here we are in March 2023 and Kennedy is not running. Landry is running. And Billy, who was told by "everybody" that he was unbeatable is the one with bigger problems now.

Definitely feeling this vibe

I think it's because I'm nearly the same age as Atrios but this throwaway bit about not always having the juice to make a blog post every time something happens does hit home a little. Although I think for me it's less about feeling like I have to have something interesting to say and more about being exhausted that the same things keep happening over and over regardless of what we say about them. 

Still, the reason I put stuff here is so I'll remember what happened... even if the temptation to fade blissfully away into oblivion is stronger every time a new city council trots out yet another draconian ban on neighborhood bars because of a crime panic, to pick one example.  The same stuff keeps happening in cycles. But every time it comes around again, things are one degree shittier than they were the last time. The rent is a bit higher, the land is a bit lower relative to the sea, the cops and cameras are a bit more aggressive, the mayor is a bit stupider and meaner. The usual things, except moreso every time. And no one is coming to help. 

Anyway, for some reason I still have this compulsion to take notes. And so that's what I'm still doing.  For instance, if Billy Nungesser says this and I don't write it down somewhere, how will I know it happened?

At Washington Mardi Gras, @BillyNungesser reiterates that @AGJeffLandry is "not a good person."

"He personally reported me to the FBI three times." #lalege #lagov

— Julie O'Donoghue (@JSODonoghue) January 25, 2023

 

Similarly...

Watch @mayorcantrell defiant response to a reporter's question on allegations she had an affair with the head of her security detail. "accused of sleeping with half the city of New Orleans, both genders and all pronouns. I'm known as Teedy sometimes and Teddy other times." pic.twitter.com/j8QZ8TepV3

— Down For Whatever (@emersonspop) January 25, 2023

I wonder what Billy was threatened with

Until very very recently, Billy Nungesser was very very certain he would be running for governor.  And then all of a sudden he wasn't.  Wonder how that went down?  

I just had the Lt. Governor on, and he didn’t mince words regarding Louis Gurvich of @LAGOP.
“He is a disgrace to the Republican party. He’s a disgrace to Louisiana. He’s a dictator. He ought to resign. He is an embarrassment.”
-@BillyNungesser

— Newell Normand (@NewellWWL) January 19, 2023

Update:

Meanwhile, back in the much less dysfunctional Louisiana Democratic Party, their chairperson is set to launch a (perhaps her own?) campaign... 

NEWS: Team Louisiana PAC has placed a $300K statewide TV buy for a spot featuring Dem Chair Katie Bernhardt, according to AP Marullo, the PAC's underwriter. Ad offers a bit of a cliffhanger in terms of what to expect on Dem side of #LaGov race. Major air time begins Mon. #LaLege pic.twitter.com/PmmT47IdOU

— Jeremy Alford (@LaPoliticsNow) January 20, 2023

That seems super-ethicsy.  Nothing like what the disgraced former chair would have done, I'm sure... 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ad-hoc garbage service

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

My FNBC jury duty notice was sadly lost in the mail

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

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

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

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

Speaking of post-Katrina failures and corruption...

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

This is the city we chose to become.  

When the "cyberattack" eats your homework

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What?

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

— Charles Maldonado (@Maldonado_CB) January 9, 2023

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

Keep Doing What You're Doing

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

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

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

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

Billy Nungesser: Climate pessimist

Plenty of interesting points in this story.  A lot of people in it are mad at Billy. Congressman Garret Graves is mad.  The Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority's Chip Kline is mad. State rep Jerome Zeringue is mad.  I don't really know but it's likely he is exaggerating the impact the Barataria diversion will have on fisheries.  But he's also probably not entirely wrong.  There will be negative impacts. The fact that the CPRA plans for the state to spend millions of dollars mitigating those impacts is itself an acknowledgement of that.  

Frankly, Graves and Kline and Zeringue come off pretty arrogant here. They call Billy a "clown." They smugly accuse him of consulting "palm readers in Jackson Square" and making up "his own facts" that contradict what "scientists and engineers have verified."  But that line only makes sense if we assume Billy is arguing with them over the science.  Instead, this looks more like he is performing a political analysis.  And in that light, he actually has some valid points. For example,

Nungesser relayed many of these complaints to supporters at a meeting at the Covington Country Club late last month. In an impassioned speech, Nungesser said he thinks the diversions were conceived because former Gov. Bobby Jindal thought the innovative projects would help him run for president. Graves was Jindal’s CPRA head at the time.

He told the Covington audience that he got a “standing ovation” in Houma after he “called out Chip Kline,” according to a recording.

“Chip Kline texted me and called me a clown,” Nungesser said. “But I’m a clown that ain’t on the take.”

Okay well we won't go so far as to assume that Billy ain't also "on the take." It's just a possibility that has come up far too often.  We should not even dispute too heavily the notion that he is something of a "clown." But we have no doubt he's correct in suspecting his opponents have unsavory ulterior motives also. And we shouldn't discount his criticism out of hand.  

Besides, there is a certain internal logic to Billy's take on the future of the coast. He's always been pretty cynical in his approach to that. But that doesn't mean he's wrong. I mean, regardless of whether the Barataria plan happens I sure wouldn't bet against this prediction.

 Nungesser, in an interview, said he’s “tired of walking on eggshells about” the plan. He said the money doesn’t belong to Kline: “He’s not Jesus Christ.”

“I don’t care if I get elected to anything ever again. This is the biggest fraud ever pulled over our eyes,” Nungesser said. “There’s nothing to say this diversion will have any impact for 50 years. In 50 years we’re going to be having the Grand Isle fishing rodeo in Baton Rouge.”

Fire and loss prevention department

 Oh no, Billy!

Lt. Gov. Billy Nungesser's Plaquemines Parish home was burglarized Thursday, according to the Plaquemines Parish Sheriff's Office.

The criminals took sports memorabilia and rare coins, WDSU reported. Nungesser said he was in the process of moving during the break-in

The Highway 23 home, located in Point Celeste, was also damaged by a small kitchen fire that occurred during the burglary, according to the Sheriff's Office. 

"We're still investigating, but at this time, it's believed that the fire was unintentional," said Lt. Chaun Domingue, spokesman for the Sheriff's Office.

That sounds bad. I feel bad for Billy. I hope they didn't get his socks. But because of certain circumstances and Billy's status as a person of some prominence, we do have to ask if there's something beyond just simple burglary going on here. We do know, for example, that this wouldn't be the first time something strange happened to collectibles under Billy's supervision. In 2017, he was involved in "some pretty strange crap" along those lines. 

Lt. Gov. Billy Nungesser has been using a Lower Pontalba Building apartment and space in other state museum buildings in the French Quarter for his personal benefit and has engaged in a pattern of political interference with the agency's operations, the Louisiana State Museum's interim director said Monday while resigning in protest.

Nungesser’s interference includes attempting to override museum officials and board members who objected to plans to loan U.S. Sen. John Kennedy artworks for his office in Washington, D.C., and threatening to sell museum works of art on eBay to raise funds, said Tim Chester, a museum consultant who took the interim position in October.

“I have never encountered anything like this in the 40 years I’ve worked in the field, ever,” Chester said. “I’ve seen some pretty strange crap come down in museums, but this one takes the cake.”

We also know that, intentional or otherwise, this would not be the first time a Louisiana politician or political operative suddenly found their home and/or car to have been set on fire. Let's look at a few relatively recent examples. 

In 2009, a political gadfly/consultant type named Brian Welsh was involved in a stunt of a campaign promoting Stormy Daniels as a challenger to then Republican Senator David Vitter. Then his car burned up.  Welsh went on the news to air his suspicions that Vitter's henchmen had it out for him.  A lot of people were skeptical of this. (I was skeptical.) The fire department was also skeptical. 

“It was a fire. The car didn’t explode,” said Public Information Officer Jonathan Pajeaud. An arson investigation is underway and foul play hasn’t been ruled out. But, Pajeaud said, Welsh told firefighters he’d recently gotten electrical work done on his 1996 Audi, and investigators are also looking into that as a possible cause.

Welsh told a local TV news station that police told him they’d never seen anything like it.

But, Pajeaud said, “Car fires here are very common.”

He added that investigators, on average, have a preliminary report in about two weeks. Pajeaud said that, for now, the investigation is being handled solely by the fire department and not by police. The police department has not responded to our questions.

Welsh persisted, however, posting surveillance videos that appear to show someone tampering with his car just before the fire happened. Still, nothing ever came of the investigation.  "Car fires here are very common," after all.

In 2014, Mario Zervignon was consulting for a Public Service Commission campaign challenging Eric Skrmetta when this happened.  

An apparent firebombing ignited a pair of early morning blazes Thursday in Uptown New Orleans, incinerating three vehicles and scorching a house in a startling scene that resembled a war zone. Federal law enforcement officials said they were investigating whether Mario Zervigon, a well-known political fundraiser, had been specifically targeted in the attack.

Flames engulfed Zervigon’s vehicles and quickly spread to his home at the corner of Prytania and Constantinople streets. Eight people escaped the home’s three apartments uninjured, but three cats were believed to have perished in the fire, said Katy Patterson, Zervigon’s wife, who made it out safely with Zervigon and the couple’s two young children.

If the Zervignon case was ever solved, I don't remember seeing it. Maybe someone can clear that up. Casual googling doesn't get me very far today.  The usual pattern with these things is they happen, they look suspicious, we talk about them in the news, and then everyone forgets about them until the next one happens.  Every now and then they solve one, though. In fact, that 2014 story also references a prior incident from 1997 that resulted in a guilty plea.  

Firebombings, while exceedingly rare, are not unprecedented in New Orleans. Thursday’s incident recalled a series of intentional fires beginning in 1997 that targeted Stuart Smith, a vocal opponent of loud music in the French Quarter. Bar owner George Mellen Jr. pleaded guilty in 1999 to hiring an arsonist to toss Molotov cocktails at Smith’s home and vehicle on several occasions.

Here is more detail on that one in case anyone is interested.  There are a lot of old favs in this story.  None of them (including Stuart Smith, even though he was the victim of the attack) comes off looking particularly good.

Smith, a lifelong New Orleans resident who moved to the French Quarter in 1997, blamed the decline on the city's refusal to enforce noise and zoning ordinances.

But city officials said their hands are tied.

"Every time we come up with a resolution, we're sued by one side or another," said Councilman Troy Carter.

Mayor Marc Morial, who had all performers cleared out of Jackson Square when he was married there, has been otherwise reluctant to get involved. "A lot of what the complaining is about really has to do with the comeback of the entire city," Morial said. "The Quarter is not a suburban neighborhood."

The stance by Smith and his allies has at times drawn an aggressive response.

When Smith tried to stop the city from issuing a music license to an outdoor bar around the corner from his 5,000-square-foot home, Molotov cocktails scorched his Mercedes-Benz and rained down on his roof and into his courtyard. His home was not badly damaged.

The bar's owner, George Mellen Jr., and an associate, Richard Jones, pleaded guilty to conspiring to plant firebombs.

Unlike Mellen and Jones, the New Orleans Police officers who murdered Henry Glover and burned his body in a car after Hurricane Katrina did not plead guilty. Their convictions were overturned and they were eventually set free.

In 2015 a vehicle was set on fire near the site of a Planned Parenthood facility under construction.  It was investigated as a suspected arson.  Not sure if anything came of that either. 

Then, in 2016, this happened. 

A Lamborghini found burned to the ground Tuesday belonged to the owner of a Baton Rouge company that last week pulled out of a New Orleans contract to remove Confederate monuments after he had received death threats.

David Mahler’s Lamborghini, worth in excess of $200,000, was parked in the H&O Investments parking lot at 17425 Opportunity Ave., in Baton Rouge when flames were spotted from the air, said Roy Maughan Jr., Mahler’s attorney.

Immediately, we were told, we'd never really know what happened. 

It’s likely investigators will never know how the fire started, though, as the evidence was destroyed in the fire, Tarleton said. He said the department has not ruled anything out.

All that was left of the car was the seat frames, the tires and a heap of melted debris.

Accidental car fires are not unusual, often caused by mechanical issues, he said.

These things just happen all the time. It's pretty amazing when you think about it.  At least we won't go bored puzzling over the stream of unsolvable enigmas we're presented. 

Did anyone ever figure this one out, by the way?

NEW ORLEANS — Someone set two vehicles on fire in a Lakeview neighborhood last week in an explosive moment caught on camera. 

The man fires what appears to be a flare at one of the cars, soaked in gasoline, blowing it and another nearby vehicle up.

According to neighbors, it happened around 2:15 a.m. on July 29. 

That's a strange story, right?  Because of the long history of these, I thought it worth noting at the time that it was really close to qualifying week for the 2019 state legislative and executive elections. But nothing else surfaced in the news to connect back to it.  It did have me looking sideways at some of the fishy goings on in the state house races. But there's no evidence any of it is related. Anyway, it's likely we'll never know. 

Someone is always out to get Billy

Billy Nungesser gave a speech this week where he attempted to frame the latest in what has been a string of FBI inquiries into his various dealings over the years, as politically motivated attempt to keep him out of the Governor's race in 2023. Maybe.  But the article also does a good job of reminding us those federal investigations are a long running feature of Billy's career. 

Nungesser has come across the FBI’s radar before. The agency has in recent years investigated Nungesser’s contracts and public works projects while he was Plaquemines Parish president.

Much like in that case, Nungesser said the new probe is politically motivated.

“I don't know who's behind all this investigation stuff. Is it a PAC? Is it because they don't like my political stance? All I want is the truth,” Nungesser said. “The FBI's got a job to do when they get a complaint. But I've been through this before with people that didn't want to see me be parish president. I only want to do the right thing. But you wonder why people don't run.”

Nungesser’s use of a Lower Pontalba apartment and space in other state buildings in the French Quarter has come under scrutiny before. The former Louisiana State Museum’s interim director, who resigned in protest in 2017, claimed Nungesser was using those assets for his personal benefit. That was around the same time sources told the Advocate the FBI was probing Nungesser’s administration as parish president years earlier.

But just because Billy is paranoid doesn't mean.. yadda yadda yadda.  There really is a fair amount of jostling going on right now for the next election. Republicans are arguing over whether or not to change Louisiana's open primary elections system.  The current theory there is that a closed primary will enforce more ideological discipline and promote more right wing candidates than currently advance to runoffs if one can even imagine such a thing.  Also the conservatives promoting this theory might not even be right about their assumptions, but that's an argument for another time. 

The interesting thing here is that we suddenly live in a world where Billy Nungesser appears to be on the moderate side of an intra-party political disagreement. If nothing else it's a measure of just how far off the map we are.

Billyvision

Let's take a break from our doomscrolling for a minute to visit with Louisiana's tourism promoter-in-chief for a few minutes of that good ol' irrational exuberance.

.@LouisianaLtGov Billy Nungesser says on talk radio this morning that the state will move to phase three in the coming weeks and that “We’re going to have Mardi Gras, we’re going to have football." #lalege #lagov

— Sam Karlin (@samkarlin) July 29, 2020

 

Oh man does that feel good or what. Football and Mardi Gras are back, baby! Because Billy believes in it.  Give us some more of those beautiful visions, Billy.  What other lovely things do you see in the future?

Nungesser, on whether he'll run for governor next cycle: "“We’re going to look at it. Obviously i’m going to consider it.” #lalege #lagov

— Sam Karlin (@samkarlin) July 29, 2020

 

Ohhhhkaaay thanks. This has been refreshing. We'll check back with Captain Optimism later as the need arises.

Billyworld

Nungesser is still trying to privatize the state park system.

Lt. Gov. Billy Nungesser will speak to Northshore residents at a Mandeville community meeting Wednesday, Jan. 8 about a controversial proposal to build a 150-room hotel and conference center on state land next to Fontainebleau State Park.

The St. Tammany Parish Tourist and Convention Commission commissioned a $28,000 feasibility study on the project by Tennessee hospitality consulting firm Pinkowski & Co., which released its findings last summer. The study projected the lodging and conference center would generate almost $2 million annually in cash flow right off the bat if it were to open Jan. 1, 2021  — $1.8 million in 2021 and almost $2.3 million by 2025.

But some residents and local leaders are not sold, citing environmental concerns as well as what some consider a struggling hotel industry in the area. The Clarion Inn & Suites Conference Center in Covington, which was St. Tammany Parish’s largest full-service hotel, closed in May 2019.

Billy's been trying to cut that  Fountainebleau deal for a while now along with various schemes to turn as many state parks as possible into privatized "revenue generators."  At one point he even said he was working out a deal with the mayor to put Confederate monuments back on display in Fontainebleau.  I wonder if we'll hear more about that any time soon.

A steak in every pot

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

There's also the obvious.  

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

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

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

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

Not a lot of moral high ground

At the Legislature this year, we're not supposed to have a huge fight over the budget.  Technically it is a fiscal session but, thanks to painful compromises on sales taxes hammered out during last year's many bruisingly stupid special sessions, lawmakers will not have to solve the kind of budgetary shortfall they've faced in recent years.

And yet, the Republicans have contrived a way to argue about the budget anyway.  Because Taylor Barras has refused to accept  Revenue Estimating Conference projections, there is no official number from which to work.   The Govenor has submitted a budget proposal anyway under the assumption that the REC numbers are reliable whether Barras accepts them or not.  But the lack of agreement opens the door for mischief.  And it's an election year so... well... here it comes.

Anyway, since we're going to be arguing over spending anyway, it would be nice for the Governor if he could claim more of the high ground than he has. But when he's still handing out multi-million dollar "incentives" to global corporations, that makes the job all the more difficult.

Louisiana's new deal with CenturyLink offers the company $17.5 million in tax dollars and strips away penalties if it doesn't meet payroll targets in a continuing, decade-old effort to keep one of Louisiana’s two Fortune 500 headquarters in-state through 2025.

Yeesh. Of course it could always be worse. Check out Billy's idea.

The state has long had a close relationship with CenturyLink, which is based in north Louisiana despite having more global employees — 45,000 — than there are residents in all of Monroe. Last year, Lt. Gov. Billy Nungesser even offered to have CenturyLink sponsor Poverty Point, a deal that would have renamed the historic site Poverty Point, "the World Heritage Site in Louisiana Sponsored by CenturyLink."

And I guess that does strike the right chord for John Bel's reelection campaign. Where do we get our "It could be worse" makes a pretty good bumper stickers?

Billy and the redeemers

Nungesser told a bunch of  "tourism and cultural preservation officials" yesterday that he's going to put all the Jim Crow monuments back on public display soon.  That should go over really well.

I notice here, also, that Billy implies Mayor Cantrell is cooperating with him in this task.   That also should go over really well.  Even so he can't help but show a little ass toward her city even as the negotiations are ongoing.

“I’ve met with her several times. I really believe in my heart she wants it resolved in a way that satisfies -- as much as we can – everyone," he said. The event was hosted by the Robert E. Lee Monumental Association.

Attendees cheered Nungesser’s promise that public input will be taken on all proposals. He said he personally favors building a replica of Lee Circle in Mandeville’s Fontainebleau State Park, which his office oversees.

He says the statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee would be back on top of his pedestal, with his back side facing New Orleans.

So... yeah... that ought to go over super well too.

Maybe somebody can follow up with the mayor on this.  When they do, I hope they would also ask her about the folks in Nungesser's cheering audience.  WWNO doesn't name any of them but describes them as "tourism and preservation officials" so you have to figure there are some prominent individuals among them.  The hosting "R.E. Lee Monumental Association" is listed on the Sec of State's website. Its president is William Mason.  His name does not appear on the organization's website. Nor does anyone else's.  It says here on the membership page that donations and members will remain anonymous.  I don't think Billy's audience was masked, though.  Mardi Gras is over and most of them have put their hoods away..... we think, anyway.

Of course the anonymous donations to the white supremacist organization are tax deductible.  That's in keeping with the standard practice for culture and tourism oriented non-profits in New Orleans.  Take plantation owner, Joe Jaeger's proposed hotel for example.  It says here, Jaeger and his partners want to configure their development as a non-profit also in order to aquire a property tax exemption.  Assessor Erroll Williams is not so keen on that at the moment.

The tourism cabal is also seeking hundreds of millions of dollars in additional rebates and subsidies beyond just the propety tax exemption.

The proposed deal calls for $41 million in upfront cash from the Convention Center, a free 50-year land lease with four optional 10-year extensions, and a 40-year break on property taxes. It also would include complete rebates of a 10 percent hotel-occupancy tax and a 4 percent sales tax on all hotel revenue from sources other than room rentals.

Besides the $330 million value identified by BGR, the proposed plan also calls for other subsidies from the Convention Center: $26 million to perform “site prep” to remediate any hazardous soil and to install utilities on the site, and $20 million to connect the hotel to the Convention Center at Henderson Street

All of this, the wealthiest developers in town insist, is absolutely necessary for them to finance their surefire money making project on some of the most desirable real estate in the city.   If they need that much help, the tourism economy in New Orleans must be in a lot worse shape than they say it is. Either that or they're just not very good businessmen.

Another possibility is that's just how business is done around here. The Advocate points out that the World War II Museum, another of our celebrated tourism and cultural non-profits, is looking to build its own tax-exempt hotel.

Williams said he also isn’t inclined to grant a property tax exemption sought by officials at the National World War II Museum for the hotel they are building across Magazine Street from the museum. The officials say the hotel would be an “educational” facility, according to Williams. No one from the museum was available for comment.

Maybe if they hadn't spent their endowment on the Bollinger Canopy Of Peace they wouldn't have to ask for stuff like this, I dunno.  Anyway, they need more public money now.  And even though Williams is leaning away from giving them more, it isn't clear he's made a final decision yet.

Which is why, as this process goes on, he, and the mayor, may wish to consider the very likely overlapping rosters of individuals involved in the Convention Center project, the World War II Museum, AND the members of Nungesser's audience who cheered when he suggested we could all kiss General Lee's ass for him yesterday.  Can't imagine that's going to win them much favor.  But one never knows. 

Woke Billy's bad ideas

Billy Nungesser spoke to the Baton Rouge press club this week.  Times-Picayune reporter Julia O'Donoghue was there and got a couple of  articles out of it. The first is mildly positive.. if you don't think about it too much.

Republican Lt. Gov. Billy Nungesser said Louisiana should avoid approving laws that restrict the LGBTQ community because it would damage Louisiana’s ability to host major sporting events, such as the Super Bowl and Sugar Bowl, and deter tourists from coming to the state.

“It’s something we should absolutely steer clear of for the greater good of Louisiana,” said Nungesser in response to a question from a reporter at the Baton Rouge Press Club Monday (Jan. 14). The lieutenant governor, who identifies as a conservative, oversees public tourism and marketing funding for Louisiana.

On the one hand, Billy is right.  Louisiana definitely should not enact laws that antagonize, restrict the rights, or impugn the decency of LGBTQ people. That isn't hard to agree with.  On the other hand, Billy seems to have had at least some difficulty getting there since he needs to predicate his moral judgement upon the imperative to make sure tourism magnates don't lose any money. None of this is a question of fundamental justice for Billy. It's just business. Luckily The Market happens to favor the good in this case.

In other cases, though, it does not.

Lt. Gov. Billy Nungesser doesn’t think New Orleans hotel tax revenue should be redirected from state marketing, tourism and sports-related organizations to deal with the city’s drainage issues.

His perspective, which he shared with the Baton Rouge Press Club on Monday (Jan. 14), puts him at odds with Mayor LaToya Cantrell, who is seeking more revenue to make sure the city doesn’t flood as often, but in line with several state level officials, including Gov. John Bel Edwards and Senate President John Alario, the state’s most powerful legislator.

“I don’t think the answer is taking tourism money,” said Nungesser, a Republican whose oversees Louisiana’s public marketing and tourism funding. “I don’t think taking their money solves anything.”

We think "taking their money" to use Billy's less than accurate phrasing, is one way to begin solving the mounting infrastructure crisis that affects all of us. But Billy's big social conscience deflates real fast when it looks like some wealthy hoteliers might not suck up quite as much money quite so quickly.  I mean he's literally worried about not being able to fund a marketing campaign instead of, say, clean water.

Nungesser said other areas have experienced problems after they cut state support for tourism. He specifically mentioned Denver, which he said saw a drop in visitors when it cut down on the money it pumped into advertising and other programs meant to attract tourists.

Pretty sure people will still want to visit New Orleans even after we stop paying the Stephen Perrys of the world half a million dollars to sit around coming up with #FollowYourNOLA hashtags. In Billy's estimation, though, this is a far better use of public funds than... public parks and museums.

He says he wants to get to a point where no tax dollars are used to support state parks and museums. #lalege #lagov https://t.co/OLPD5PeYP4

— Julia O'Donoghue (@JSODonoghue) January 14, 2019

At least we're pretty sure that even after we privatize our state parks for development as luxury resorts or whatever, those resort properties will not have discriminatory bathroom policies.... unless that ends up being better for business, of course.

The Billy Village

The idea of the French Quarter becoming a big theme park is maybe an overused metaphor. It's a reliable way to describe the deleterious effects of tourism and gentrification there and in other neighborhoods.  Those things are very bad, of course. And they do cause the Quarter to be treated like an immersive theater for tourists instead of a place where real people go to work and shop and, yes, still, actually live.

But actually going the whole nine and just making it into a park? That's actually way more complicated a deal than what Billy Nungesser's brain is likely to get a grip on.

Lt. Gov. Billy Nungesser wants to see the French Quarter safer, cleaner and perhaps a little bit more "family friendly." The solution? He proposes turning the historic district into a Louisiana state park.

"If we want to change things, we have to think outside of the box," Nungesser said in an interview Monday (July 30).

Nungesser, who oversees state parks and historical sites in his role as lieutenant governor, said a public designation for the French Quarter would come with its own set of rules, separate from other parks, because of its existing businesses and occupants.

"But we could have a park ranger on every corner and a contract to keep it clean. It would be a focus for me, just like I focus on keeping our state parks safe,"  he said.

Inside Billy's mind: "Hi I'm Billy and I'm the Sheriff this whole territory and all the security and sanitation contracts contained within." But there are so many other matters to consider. How much property has to be acquired or expropriated? Which governmental body has authority over what. What is the role of the Vieux Carre Commission, the French Market Corp., the twenty other non-profits and quasi-governmental boards who have their fingers in the pie down there?  It's a lot of stuff to deal with.

Also, isn't Billy's department out of money anyway?

The lieutenant governor also didn't say that turning the French Quarter into a state park would lead to more funding for public safety or cleanup. Tight state budgets in recent years have resulted in maintenance delays at state park facilities. Before the current state budget was finalized last month, parks were facing possible closure because of a lack of money.

Nungesser has worked to get private financing for state parks, including exploring sponsorships and naming rights.

Don't know about y'all but I for one cannot wait to take a stroll down Maker's Mark Bourbon Street before heading over toThe Gayle and Tom Benson Foundation's Jackson Square presented by Dixie Beer.

Actually, this is all just a scheme by Billy to head off any effort to take down the Jackson statue, isn't it?

John Bel sounds kinda desperate

This is from his speech this afternoon in Lafayette.  Everybody is out of ideas other than the ideas the Republicans have been pushing all along.  John Bel's big idea for the special session is to retain a half penny of the sales tax.  Maybe permanently.

That tax plan is a shift in the governor's position from just a year ago. Edwards had said for months that he did not want to adopt a higher sales tax rate on a permanent basis and would only accepted as a "bridge" to making other changes. In recent months, however, he has become more open to accepting a higher sales tax rate permanently -- an approach Republicans favor.

This is not a compromise most of them are likely to accept.. or even acknowledge, really. Already a glance at the #lalege Twitter tag finds dozens of Republican activists and politicians critizing the Governor's "tax and spend polices."  Amusingly, though, Billy freaking Nungesser (who appeared with the Governor at his event today) is clapping back at some of them. Who knew Billy would turn out to be such a cuck, right?

Meanwhile, the Legislative Black Caucus held a townhall meeting this morning to discuss the special session.  Back in March, they took a particularly hard line against the sales tax. It will be interesting to see if they hold that line in the face of all this (failing) bipartisanship the Governor has become mired in. 

Session gavels in at 4PM.  They have 14 days to figure this stuff out. Or not. 

Whose street?

 LaSalle Street as it runs into what is now called Champions Square.



Six months later it still isn't officially Tom's street even if he does treat it that way.

Guess what?  There is still no contract between the LSED and the City for the use of the 1400 block of LaSalle.  I just confirmed that through a public records request this week.

I wanted to wait until the first Saints first home game to find out if they were actually going to resolve the issue before 10's of thousands of people poured across the property so I could get a clear picture of how Thornton thinks the 1400 block of LaSalle is "overvalued".  

I, myself, slogged across that public street with thousands of other people that day we got our ass kicked by the Patriots.

Clearly, this street is not "public".  Not even close.  Barriers on both ends with police checking bags....it ain't public.  It is now a permanent part of the Champions Square footprint.

As usual, there's a bunch more to that AZ post including a fun Sewerage and Water Board tie in so go read that. But I'd just like to add that the bag check is even more aggressive this year than it has been in the past.  Used to be they'd let you walk in with your cocktail so you could finish it before you went into the Dome and had to subsist on $9 shitty Dixies for the rest of the day. When we got to the checkpoint last week, they made us stop and throw away our Diet Cokes before passing into the Benson Concession Exclusivity Zone.

This week, you may have noticed several prominent Republican blowhards have taken to being very mad online at Tom Benson's state subsidies.  Before they either get too distracted by the next dumb thing or someone points out that they're actually the party of giving state assets away to their very rich friends like Tom and they drop the subject altogether, maybe we could get them to ask for our street back.

Somehow Billy Nungesser is owned

Remember back in April when Billy begged for Trump's attention over monument removal? Totally ignored.  Today, though, Trump is all about some statues. Nobody ever listens to poor Billy. 

Anyway, we've just finished up our course in monument removal here. If America wants to borrow our notes, they are welcome.

"White colleges"

Billy Nungesser, ladies and gents.

NEW ORLEANS -- Lieutenant Governor Billy Nungesser says Mayor Mitch Landrieu is moving too slowly in starting a bid process for governments and non-profits to buy the Confederate monuments the city took down last month.

Nungesser wants to bid on the monuments on behalf of the state and let a committee of university professors decide on where they should go next.

"I believe to take five African-American historians from black colleges and five white historians from white colleges and come together and decide where we can put them that won't be offensive and have historical value, like a battlefield or wherever," Nungesser said.

When asked to clarify what he meant by "white colleges," Nungesser said, "Well, any of the colleges, you know what I'm saying."

Meanwhile, the Legislature just gave billy a license to go ahead and use state museum and parks property for whatever semi-privatized for-profit endeavors he (and his buds) can dream up. Seems like a good idea given the full confidence everyone has in Billy's judgement. Maybe Swamp Molly will think of something.

My most regrettable prediction

Immediately after the 2015 statewide elections I went with this.

Countdown to Jeff Landry's accidental scandal

— skooks (@skooks) November 23, 2015

It seemed reasonable at the time. But how careless do you have to be to overlook the fact that Billy Nungesser is right there. I mean, there's still time but it looks like Billy is the overwhelming favorite now.