Taylor Circle

Last week we moved a step closer to removing symbols of the city's legacy of white supremacy from its streets and public spaces. The committee charged with coming up with new things to call all of this stuff published its list of suggestions.  There are still a lot of things that need to happen before any of this becomes official, but the results so far are pretty good compared to what we expected. This could have ended up as a slapdash of bland cliches thrown together by tourism marketers. And maybe some of that is still evident but, mostly, this list has real depth. Rather than focus solely on entertainers, it highlights figures who fought for civil rights and escaped or defied slavery. Remember the purpose of this exercise in the first place was to counter a century's worth of damage inflicted by Jim Crow era propaganda. This list does fit that aim.  Heck, Mama D is on there. Who woulda thought?

Of course, it would fit that aim even better if the commissioners had taken our advice and renamed the traffic roundabout formerly known as Lee Circle for Dorothy Mae Taylor.  According to this, they did at least try. 

Commissioners initially considered naming Lee Circle for Dorothy Mae Taylor, the City Council member who was instrumental in desegregating Mardi Gras parades. But that plan failed to get enough votes from the commission. A proposal for Jazz Circle or Music Circle also was rejected.

“I definitely respect us trying to get a win for everyone by going with something generic but the whole purpose of forming this commission was to right wrongs and to acknowledge harm,” Commissioner Gia Hamilton said. “ I personally feel like it would be against my own personal beliefs to vote on something that’s generic.”

Before settling on (Leah) Chase, some commissioners sought to include Taylor as well and name the circle after both women jointly. That effort didn’t gain traction, either.

Nothing wrong with Leah Chase, to be clear. She belongs on this list somewhere. But it would make more sense to honor her in the Sixth or Seventh Ward neighborhoods her memory is best associated with.  Uptown was Dorothy Mae's territory. There really should be a statue of her scowling down at Rex as he passes around the circle every year (well... in the years to follow 2021, that is.) 

Anyway, despite our best efforts, and until  the"Chase Circle" designation is approved, it seems for now that the more appropriate Taylor to name it after is Phyllis.  After all she does own, or control, most of the property there. 

When Circle Bar co-owner Dave Clements arrived for an Oct. 8 meeting at the office of the bar’s landlord, prominent philanthropist and energy company executive Phyllis M. Taylor, he didn’t expect the dramatic good news/bad news dynamic that was about to play out.

The good news: Taylor would cancel the Circle Bar’s rent for the remainder of the year, and not seek back rent dating to March, when the coronavirus pandemic forced the storied Lee Circle bar/music venue to close. That gesture saved the Circle Bar, already cash-strapped before the pandemic, nearly $70,000.

The bad news: The bar would be required to start paying rent again in January, and its lease would not be extended past December 2021.

Taylor, whose fortune derives from a company responsible for one of the largest - and longest running - oil spills in US history, owns, through various companies and LLCs, the Circle Bar, the parking lot next door, and the office building across the way. She also purchased the property for and funded construction of the Greater New Orleans Foundation's massive "Center For Philanthropy" building that sits diametrically across the Circle from the bar.  

Given this information plus the fact that the "philanthropic" non-profit industrial complex completely dominates not only our economy but our entire system of government in 21st Century New Orleans,  it only makes sense that this be reflected in the nomenclature.

As for the New Orleans of the 20th Century, well, that is mostly gone now. Its old landmarks are dying away one after the other this year.  Oh well, goodbye to all that. Can't wait to find out all the exciting entrepreneurial ventures Gayle Benson is going to fund during the post-COVID phase of late capitalism. So much free real estate out there all of a sudden.

Brand worth more than the beer

I don't know if they've actually been selling much beer.  Does anyone drink Dixie? It's basically just a worse and more expensive Budweiser.  And why bother with any of that when there is plenty of Miller Lite to be had?  Anyway now that they're retiring the one thing that gets them any attention, they're going to squeeze as much cash out of it as they can. 

Sales of T-shirts, baseball caps, glasses, tin signs, dog bandannas and everything else emblazoned with the Dixie Beer logo spiked over the weekend, after owner Gayle Benson announced that the brew would be rebranded.

“There were people walking out with shopping bags full,” said Jim Birch, general manager of the souvenir shop at the New Orleans East brewery.

After that they're selling Not-Dixie. Which is what any of several local microbreweries is doing already.  So how sustainable is that?

 

Self made tyrants

From the Advocate's obit of Blaine Kern this morning.

What Popeyes kingpin Al Copeland was to chicken, Kern was to Carnival: a brash, shameless character who came from nothing, launched an unconventional Big Easy empire, and lived unapologetically large and loud as a result.

Ah yes the myth of the "self-made" man. 

Carnival was traditionally the province of the city's Uptown elite. Kern, of German and Italian descent, had been born on the wrong side of the Mississippi River. But his artistic and sales skills afforded him access to Carnival's inner circle. Once there, he aimed to make a difference.

"When I started out, if you were Jewish, black, Irish, Italian, you couldn’t get in these clubs,” he said in 2018. “You had to be a WASP. It was crazy. It was a different world.”

"Once there, he aimed to make a difference."  Did he really, though?  Or was he just in the right place to be useful to an expanding class of business elites at just the right time and make a lot of money in the process?  The Carnival club hierarchy may be more complex, diverse, even, than it once was, but its royalty, so to speak, is still very much a manifestation of wealth and status. Kern may have "come from nothing" but it was only so he and his heirs could arrive in the company of the same owners, bosses, and real estate speculators who profit from the very poverty from which Kern was fortunate enough to emerge. What is the good in that? What difference is made?

It's interesting how often figures like Copeland and Kern, having grown up among poverty and racial exclusion, resolve not to take down these systems of oppression but instead to weasel their way into the oppressing class. 

Tom Benson was another example. There's also some news today about one of his several late in life local brand rescue projects.  

New Orleans has been hoisting Dixie beer for more than a century. Soon, that beer and the company behind it will have a new name.

In a statement released today, Gayle Benson, owner of Dixie Brewery and the city’s Saints and Pelicans franchises said her company will change the Dixie name. The new name for Dixie has not yet been decided, but it will be chosen with feedback from the local community, Benson said.

Poor Gayle. Saddled with this nostalgia product that she now has to reinvent.  Guess the new beer will have to be a "self-made" brand.

Noblesse oblige

Oh look Gayle is helping.

New Orleans Saints and Pelicans owner Gayle Benson will be donating $1 million to create the Gayle Benson Community Assistance Fund in response to the coronavirus pandemic, the teams announced in a joint statement on Monday afternoon.

In addition to the $1 million, Benson is also starting the Arena Assistance Fund for those impacted by the NBA season's suspension. All wages for Pelicans' employees who work on gamedays will be guaranteed for all the remaining postponed games, the statement read.

Gayle was shamed into action with regard to Arena employees after a 19 year old basketball player who works for her made headlines by pledging to cover their salaries for a month. Her $1 million donation to the "community assistance fund" is, frankly, nothing.

Maybe this shit will finally wake folks up to the fact we cant be dependent on charity from rich ass people? Gayle donated $1M, there are 80k service industry workers. Each one gets $12.50.

— Bernie Babe (@larryweltt) March 16, 2020

It is, of course, meant to seed a larger amount to be collected and managed by the Greater New Orleans Foundation. And the gatekeepers of our city's philanthropy networks will have specific preferences as to how the money is distributed.

The beneficiaries of this fund will be nonprofits working to support those in the service and hospitality industry, among other nonprofit groups.

None of this is sufficient to meet the crisis at hand.  All this does is prop up the failed state of oligarchs and unaccountable non-profits that have subsumed the remnants of our privatized social safety net. All of that is going to have to be upended in favor of much more drastic wholesale action to reorient the entire world economy.

Or we could continue to do the bare minimum where our choices are bounded by the limits of what keeps the rich in power. Probably it will be that. 

WASHINGTON — President Trump told a group of governors on Monday morning that they should not wait for the federal government to fill the growing demand for respirators needed to treat people with coronavirus.

“Respirators, ventilators, all of the equipment — try getting it yourselves,” Mr. Trump told the governors during the conference call, a recording of which was shared with The New York Times. “We will be backing you, but try getting it yourselves. Point of sales, much better, much more direct if you can get it yourself.”

As long as we reward Gayle Benson's noblesse oblige with fawning praise, that is the best we can hope for.

You might even say they went marching in

Again, this is all very much on brand for Bensonworld.

But attorneys for an alleged clergy abuse victim allege in new court filings that hundreds of emails currently under seal show the NFL franchise's higher-ups helped determine who should be included on the list, going “beyond public relations.”

The attorneys also assert that the available email exchanges show it was the Saints who went to the archdiocese first and offered their services — rather than the other way around.

The new motion, filed Thursday, purports those services included pitching “favorable stories” about the archdiocese and Archbishop Gregory Aymond to local news outlets, as well as drawing in other unspecified influential community members to help manage “the fallout” from the sex abuse crisis.

This wouldn't surprise anyone who understands the way upper crust New Orleans club stuff works. It's a broad circle of entertainers, cultural non-profits,  business jerks, tourism profiteers, media companies, political cronies, bankers and "philanthropists" who keep themselves enriched and perpetually in power at expense of the city's poor and working classes. And the key to keeping it all running is they always have each other's backs.

So, for example, because Gayle Benson puts time and money into supporting cultural non-profits like WYES, the folks there are happy to promote her various endeavors as well.  Similarly, when Gayle's and Greg Bensel's friends at the Archdiocese need a little logistical support in the PR department, of course they are happy to oblige. 

Update: I kind of think this story from this afternoon belongs in a post about the club of plutocrats who run everything. I'll explain but first, here is the story.

NEW ORLEANS, La. (WVUE) - As taxes begin to be filed for another year, the Internal Revenue Service is still trying to collect a hefty sum from New Orleans’ top-elected official.

Liens filed by the IRS show Mayor LaToya Cantrell and her husband, Jason, owe more than $95,000 in taxes. Federal tax liens have been placed on the couple for eight of the last nine tax years (2010-2015, 2017-2018).

The latest lien was filed on January 28 on the home owned by LaToya and Jason Cantrell. The IRS claims the married couple owes income taxes from 2018 totaling $19,406.99.

When I saw this my first thought was, oh of course, now that it is somewhat popular to go after the mayor in the press a little bit, they are going to pile on.  It's different now than it was before Cantrell was elected when a story on this same issue appeared in The Lens but was downplayed by most of the press herd as a political matter during election season.

But put all that aside for a second and notice this particular detail from the Lens story.

In an interview, LaToya Cantrell did not dispute that she and her husband had underpaid the IRS. However, she said, the IRS should have received it after she refinanced her house in 2013, before the agency placed the lien on her house.

Cantrell blamed the outstanding debt on a bank error by her mortgage lender, First NBC Bank.

I'm pretty sure it was only The Lens who mentioned that much.  Nobody really tried to put it in context, though. Well, almost nobody. 

What did Gayle know and when did she know it?

It's hard to imagine a Benson scandal that could be any more Benson than this.

The New Orleans Saints are going to court to keep the public from seeing hundreds of emails that allegedly show team executives doing public relations damage control for the area's Roman Catholic archdiocese to help it contain the fallout from a burgeoning sexual abuse crisis.

Attorneys for about two dozen men suing the church say in court filings that the 276 documents they obtained through discovery show that the NFL team, whose owner is devoutly Catholic, aided the Archdiocese of New Orleans in its “pattern and practice of concealing its crimes.”

Don't really know what they knew and what they might have helped to cover up.  I don't suppose anyone in the Saints organization is a mandated reporter or anything like that.  If there is anything incriminating in the emails, I'm sure it will come out in Gayle's mental competency hearing.

There is an alternate universe where the Saints have advanced to the Super Bowl and this story is breaking and Roger Goodell is convening emergency meetings to get the Saints disqualified from the game.  Also in this universe Antonio Brown is on the roster.

So, you know, just be happy you live on this, the best of all possible timelines.

Getting a lot of buy-in

The John Bel Edwards re-election campaign continues to take shape.

In recent weeks we've seen John Bel strike a deal to steer hundreds of millions of dollars toward highly questionable Superdome renovations. Among the planned changes are the destruction of much-loved stadium exit ramps and the addition of a  "natural lighting" source which many of us believe would ruin the atmosphere in there.  At the state bond commission meeting where the funds for this were approved, the commission deferred a decision on $7 million for affordable housing in New Orleans because they had too many questions.

But the important thing for John Bel is that he's satisfied the state's most high profile billionaire and the criminal sports entertainment empire she represents. That's not just good campaign "optics." It's how you pay off powerful potential allies to make sure they stay that way.

Speaking of which, we also find that John Bel has handed a massive state "energy services" contract to serial disaster profiteer Jim Bernhard.  The benefits to the state in this privatization deal are murky and debatable. The immediate political benefit to John Bel for entering into it is easier to figure out.

Bernhard Energy Solutions partnered with the HVAC company Johnson Controls at the request of the Edwards administration after both firms submitted proposals to the state. Bernhard Energy Solutions is one of several companies controlled by Bernhard Capital Partners, a private equity firm run by former Shaw Group chief executive and Democratic Party official Jim Bernhard, who was floated as a potential candidate for governor before ruling it out last year.

And then there is the strange case of John Bel's handling of the state's Medicaid contracts. This year the Governor decided to cut out Aetna and Louisiana Healthcare Connections and hand their shares of the $8 million pie over to Humana.  While I still haven't seen any reporting that points us to exactly why that choice makes political sense for the Governor (it does seem to have upset Cedric Richmond) there must be some reason. The companies who lose out on the deal seem to think so, for what that's worth.

A Louisiana state health department evaluator fell asleep during the sales pitch for one of the companies trying to land a state contract worth billions.

At least that’s the way Kendra Case, the chief operating officer at Louisiana Healthcare Connections Inc., recalled the June 24 meeting in a sworn affidavit presented as proof that the state had gamed the competition to keep them from winning one of the lucrative “managed care” contracts.

The point is, as election time rolls around, John Bel is doing the most to attract a lot of buy-in from some powerful players around the state.  Which is why this shouldn't come as much of a surprise to anybody.

Jim Ward and Fred Heebe, the owners of the River Birch landfill in Waggaman whose prodigious political donations were at the center of a sweeping, four-year federal criminal probe that eventually imploded without any charges being filed, have re-established themselves as a dominant force in Louisiana king-making.

Ward, Heebe and other landfill executives are some of the largest financial backers of the effort to reelect Gov. John Bel Edwards even as they gird for a civil trial that will air long-standing accusations that some of their earlier political donations constituted bribes — in particular, a batch of checks they gave to disgraced New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin, who sits in prison on unrelated corruption charges.

New Horizons USA PAC, a political group formed by Dominick Fazzio, the longtime chief financial officer at River Birch, has donated at least $200,000 to Gumbo PAC, an organization that is expected to play a crucial role in Edwards’ reelection bid. That tied New Horizons for the title of largest in-state donor to Gumbo since Edwards took office.

 Nothing untoward there, for sure.

"Caretaker of incredible assets"

That's really great. Good one, Gayle.

For now, Benson said she will stick with the status quo, though as someone who sees herself less an “owner” and more “a caretaker of incredible assets”, she plans to address the issue at the league’s upcoming summer meetings in order to be as inclusive as possible.

“As with any word, phrase or expression, interpretations can be perceived differently,” she said in a statement. “That is in many ways why diversity, inclusion and openness is so important to companies and society. As with any expression, my intention and the intentions of the organization I am responsible for is never to be insensitive or insulting.

The "insulting" thing is that we are asked to maintain billionaires through massive public investments in subsidies and infrastructure creating profits that accrue to them. Brand them however you like.

Bensonville

The king is dead. Long live the queen. 

New Orleans Saints and Pelicans owner Gayle Benson is purchasing the Hyatt Regency Hotel near the Mercedes-Benz Superdome, adding another piece of marquee downtown real estate to the growing portfolio of Benson-controlled buildings in the area.

The deal, which is set to close Friday, puts the Hyatt in local hands for the first time in its 43-year history and follows a multimillion-dollar renovation of the hotel that began in 2010. The terms of the deal were not disclosed, but comparable recent hotel sales suggest the purchase price could be around $300 million.

Benson is buying the hotel along with two partners, longtime local developer Darryl Berger, whose interests via the Berger Co. include the Windsor Court, Omni Royal and Omni Riverfront hotels, and New Jersey-based hotel asset management firm Fulcrum Hospitality.

"My late husband Tom believed in reinvesting in our community, and that philosophy has made our city a better place," Benson said in a statement announcing the transaction. "Our investment in the Hyatt will continue that legacy."

She's got a point.  What better way to honor Tom's legacy than to buy something that.. for a brief time after Katrina, at least... had a big sign at the top of its tower that said, "YAT" 



Okay so technically it said, "Yatt." Don't spoil it.

Meanwhile, this must mean it's time to update the old NOligarchs map of downtown New Orleans. Let's see, Bensonville just needs to add a little notch there to acquire the Hyatt.  There we go. All better.



Actually the map needs a bit more work than that. These territories are far more overlapping than we can hope to represent in this crude rendering.  It doesn't consider figures like Darryl Berger who, in addition to partnering with Gayle on the Hyatt also is in on Jaeger's proposed convention center hotel as well as numerous properties all over the landscape.   Jaeger, meanwhile, is an investor, along with Barry Kern, in the project to demolish the vacant Times-Picayune building and replace it with a golf arcade. This venture is the cornerstone of what we have labeled Kernworld.

All of which is to say this map isn't a true tool for examining the way the major developers have carved up the city's most valuable real estate so much as it is a piece of conceptual art.  It could be more than that but I think we need to apply for a grant first.  The least we can do for now is extend Torreszonia to reflect Sidney's recent Frenchmen Street acquisitions. The rest of it will have to live as an unfinished project for now.

Anyway congratulations to Gayle. So, hey, as a person with a major interest in the Superdome and now also with the hotel/motel taxes that fund its upkeep, does she just write the check directly to herself now?

Gayle is woke now

So here is something you don't see every day.  Roger Goodell was at Orleans Parish Debtor's Prison Magistrate Court yesterday watching the mayor's father in law work. 

Saints players Benjamin Watson and Demario Davis watched as Magistrate Judge Harry Cantrell set $1,500 bail for a disabled man accused of cocaine possession.

Afterward, one observer said it was impossible to hear the clink of the defendants' metal shackles without thinking of slavery. Goodell agreed.

“I was just overwhelmed with sadness,” Watson said. “Their lives are never going to be the same, whether they’re guilty or innocent.”

The indelible image of a powerful sports executive mixing with the poor and desperate came courtesy of the Players Coalition. NFL players created the social justice organization last year in the wake of protests by Colin Kaepernick and other players who refused to stand during the national anthem in response to police killings of black people.

The Players Coalition organized a daylong symposium Tuesday on the criminal justice system at the Orleans Public Defenders office that was also attended by Saints owner Gayle Benson and defensive end Cam Jordan.

It's hard to gauge whether or not this sort of thing is ultimately more helpful or harmful at least as it regards figures like Gayle and Roger.  The only reason they're there in the first place is because players like Watson and Davis joined a protest movement that caused their bosses a  big PR problem.  On the one hand, it's good that someone did this to them. On the other hand, now the bosses can turn it into an opportunity to buy themselves some woke cred.

Meanwhile, Benson made an impromptu offer of office space in Benson Tower to Syrita Steib-Martin, the executive director of Operation Restoration, which helps women and girls re-entering society after prison stints.

Gayle shouldn't be allowed to get off so easily.  Keep in mind the office space she's so graciously offered here only comes to her via a corrupt deal the state entered into with her late husband.  Nothing Gayle Benson donates to anything should have passed through her hands in the first place. Until we're talking about re-appropriating the Bensons' hoarded wealth for public redistribution, every "gift" from Gayle should be considered an insult.

Also I'm looking for information in this story about how the court plans to adjust its practices in order to get into compliance with this ruling and not finding any. 

For eight hours, Goodell listened attentively — sometimes interjecting questions — as defense attorneys and formerly incarcerated people spoke. In the day’s first session, Orleans Parish Chief Public Defender Derwyn Bunton explained the plethora of bail fees and court costs that defendants pay to help support the city's criminal justice system.

Federal judges recently declared that “user pays” system to be unconstitutional because the state judges who set fines and fees cannot be impartial when their own budget is at stake. After watching the bail hearings, Davis agreed.

“The judge didn’t let anybody off on no bail,” he said. “The judge has a conflict of interest, because he has to get the people in his office paid.”

For the present moment, it looks like it's business as usual over there. 

Can't take your wage theft with you

Which, I guess, for Tom Benson, is a good thing.  What does he care about $400,000 now?

The New Orleans Saints violated federal labor law by failing to pay overtime wages to the former personal assistant of late owner Tom Benson, according to an NFL arbitrator who has ordered the team to cough up nearly $400,000.

The arbitrator ordered the Saints to pay $100,000 in unpaid overtime to the ex-aide, Rodney Henry, as well as a fee of about $105,000 that his contract guaranteed him if he was dismissed by someone other than Benson.

Arbitrator Harold Henderson also tacked on another nearly $190,000 to cover Henry’s attorneys’ fees, capping off a legal battle that began three years ago when Henry was fired and concluded Wednesday, documents obtained by The Advocate show.

Henderson had previously rejected Henry’s claims that he had been fired from his post in retaliation for, among other things, complaining to a superior that Benson’s wife, Gayle, had made racially derogatory comments about him while on the clock

The best part of this is where Gayle claimed it didn't matter what she may have called Henry on account of the fact that she really isn't liable for anything that happens. 

For example, responding to questions on whether she might have had the influence to get Henry fired, Gayle Benson replied: “I did not work for the Saints organization. … People in the Saints organization – I don’t have any power here. I’m Mrs. Benson. I’m married to my husband, and that’s it. The employees aren’t going to listen to me.”

That portrayal contrasts with Tom Benson’s public statements that Gayle Benson had long been taking “an active part” and “working with” the leaders of his sports franchises, as she prepared to inherit control of his billion-dollar business empire after he cut his daughter and grandchildren from a previous marriage out of his life.

 I guess she lost that Mrs. immunity when death did them part?

Anyway, hey, training camp opened today!

Gayle Benson Attends Basketball Game

What a fantastic accomplishment for Gayle. It makes us all proud. It's nice, also that the games are so convenient to the very important work of finishing Tom's dumb branding project.

Benson has been meeting with winemakers in California between watching her Pelicans take on the Golden State Warriors in the second round of the NBA playoffs and plans to release a Cabernet and Chardonnay this fall. She is currently finalizing the plans for release and checking on future vintages.

“Mr. Benson always wanted to be in the wine business and had a passion for it,” teams spokesman Greg Bensel said. “He decided to make it a reality in 2014. It’s a true labor of love. He would be proud of the schedule that Mrs. Benson is keeping, that is for sure.”

Tom "had a passion," for wine making.  Almost makes it sound like Tom was out picking the grapes overseeing production and coming up with just the right blend and whatnot.  That's how Trump did his, right?

It would be nice if Gayle could do something useful and figure out a way to make her team's playoff games more accessible to local fans. Nobody even has that basic cable package anymore.  (Don't worry. The industry has a plan to suck you back in.) And 2018 seems to be the year when the telecoms figured out how to make sure you aren't sharing passwords to stream stuff.  I sure hope the Pels bounce back tonight.  Please tweet me the score if you can.

Peace in our time

Well, not fully. But the Bensons are halfway there.

Three days before Saints and Pelicans owner Tom Benson was scheduled to be privately questioned by his estranged daughter Renee’s attorneys, he and Renee reached a settlement Friday afternoon in their year-old battle over control of a family trust fund in Texas, according to an attorney in the case.

Terms of the settlement are confidential, said Bennett Stahl, a San Antonio attorney who represented Renee Benson in the dispute. But he said the agreement renders a scheduled Feb. 1 trial moot.

The trust fund dispute is separate from the controversy over the sports teams succession but getting this half settled at least suggests that the time of uncertainty is coming to an end.  At the same time, though, it suggests that Team Rita-Renee might have a stronger hand than people are giving them credit for.  Look how they bullied their way into this settlement. 

Friday’s settlement came a little more than a month after Benson offered to resign as the trust’s steward as long as a neutral party was appointed to that role. It also came after Hardberger and Bayern issued a report to Rickhoff saying they did not believe the trust owed Benson any money.

Rickhoff had recently ordered Tom Benson to face questioning by Renee Benson’s attorneys in San Antonio. The questioning originally was supposed to have started by Thursday of this week, but that was postponed to Monday.

Friday’s agreement makes Monday’s deposition unnecessary.

Benson’s side objected to his being questioned by his daughter’s attorneys, and mediation talks didn’t begin until shortly before Rickhoff handed down his order.

Even though a judge has already determined that Benson is "mentally competent" to run his affairs, he doesn't actually want to have to put that... um.. competence on display during court proceedings.  As long as Team Rita can threaten to make that happen, they've got a fighting chance.

Meanwhile, for those of you still looking to take down Bronze Tom, you may now direct your lobbying efforts toward Former Governor Meemaw.  

QOTD

Gayle Benson:

Tom Benson's former personal assistant, Rodney Henry, says Benson's wife repeatedly harassed him on the job and made racially derogatory remarks before having him kicked out of the Saints organization, according to a court filing Tuesday (Jan. 19).

Henry in 2014 heard Gayle Benson say, "I hate that black son of a bitch and am going to get rid of him," according to the filing, among other incidents described in the lawsuit.

Hollywood South movie pitch

It's a reboot of "Harvey" only, instead of Jimmy Stewart, we get Tom Benson to star as Elwood Dowd. Renee Benson and Rita Leblanc are Vita and Myrtle Mae.

Tom Benson’s daughter and grandchildren were prepared to take the witness stand Tuesday and argue that their 87-year-old family patriarch is too enfeebled to make decisions about his business empire anymore.

Renee Benson and her children, Ryan and Rita LeBlanc, have not been looking forward to this day, but they are doing what they feel is in the best interest of their family, said their lawyer, Randy Smith.

“They’ve been involved in these businesses since they were teenagers. ... The whole situation is hard,” Smith told reporters Tuesday morning, at the beginning of the second day of Benson’s mental competency trial. “I think a lot of people have gone through seeing a loved one who gets older and needs to be properly protected.”

Renee Benson spent much of the morning session Tuesday on the witness stand. After emerging for a break during a break in her testimony, her daughter and a lawyer quickly ushered her into a restroom generally reserved for the courthouse’s jury pool instead of one that was being used by the general public, including the trial’s participants.

Gayle, of course, is the 8 foot rabbit only Tom can see. 

We may never learn exactly how crazy Tom Benson is

It's going to be a state secret, or something.

The courtroom will be closed to the public when lawyers for Saints and Pelicans owner Tom Benson and his daughter and grandchildren vie for control of Louisiana's largest personal fortune.

At a hearing Tuesday (May 19) in Orleans Parish Civil District Court, Judge Kern Reese ruled in favor of a motion from Benson's legal team to seal all hearings in the case -- including a trial slated for next month that will determine whether the 87-year-old billionaire or his estranged daughter and grandchildren get control of the two sports franchises.

Strange, though, that despite the fact that she's (currently) next in line as owner of the Saints and Pelicans, everyone is fine with letting Gayle walk around publicly demonstrating exactly how nuts she is. 

Life imitates art.. or vice/versa

This is a float from this year's Knights of Chaos parade. The brawling figures depicted are our friends Gayle Benson and Rita Benson Leblanc.



This is a story form today's Times-Picayune/NOLA.com thingy.

The pregame encounter occurred in front of dozens of friends and guests of the Bensons and quickly escalated after Rita Benson LeBlanc, whom sources described as the aggressor, approached Gayle Benson.

At one point, the two sources who witnessed the incident said, Rita Benson LeBlanc, then 37, grabbed Gayle Benson by both shoulders and shook the then-67-year-old repeatedly during a confrontation that lasted several minutes.

"She (Rita) was shaking her (Gayle) to emphasize her point and to be heard," said one of the sources who was in the suite and witnessed the incident. "It was pretty ugly.

"I remember the pyrotechnics going off in the stadium (during pregame player introductions) and thinking fireworks were also going off in the suite."

David Vitter is Team Gayle

Good to know

Gayle and Tom Benson both gave to the @DavidVitter super PAC. #LaGov pic.twitter.com/QBxwj34ngm
— Julia O'Donoghue (@JSODonoghue) February 19, 2015

Here's the rest of Vitter's PAC financials.

The Tom Benson legal and medical full employment program

So here's a joke. How many doctors and lawyers does it take to make sure Tom Benson's light bulb is screwed in all the way?

Um.. well it's a lot.

Three different physicians will evaluate Tom Benson’s mental health to see if he is still fit to make business decisions about the Saints, Pelicans and other assets in his business empire, a judge ordered Tuesday.

Benson, feuding with the relatives he has decided to cut out of his succession plans, was resisting the idea of an independent evaluation. He said he was willing to meet privately with Civil District Court Judge Kern Reese, but he argued that a psychiatric exam was too intrusive.

Of course Team Rita wanted to have Benson's brain dissected and checked by a team of specialists for post-concussion syndrome or something like that.  Benson's people preferred the test be limited to a brief recitation of the 5 times table. So they reached a compromise of sorts.

Reese did reject the particular evaluation called for by psychiatrist Ted Bloch III, who was proposed by Benson’s estranged relatives. The judge said that exam would be too invasive — it involved performing extensive questioning, blood work and neuropsychological testing over the course of several days.

Instead, Reese said that Benson would undergo a standard exam used in these types of cases. Bloch and two other physicians — one chosen by Benson’s lawyers and another chosen jointly by that doctor and Bloch — will have until March 13 to complete their reports. The three-physician team must be assembled by Feb. 25, Reese said.

What they're going to do is put Benson to a series of problems and see how he scores.

He might, for example, be asked to measure the volume of liquid contained in a small draft beer at the Smoothie King Center and then subtract that amount from the volume in a large size.  (The answer will surprise you!)

Another question available to the evaluators involves Benson's understanding of Vatican protocol.

There's also a reflex test where the doctor plays the Superdome third down siren and, if Benson flinches at all, he's already doing better than the Saints' defense.

For Benson's sake, I hope there isn't a written portion on the test. He'll have a hard time getting his Apple IIc or whatever he used to type this letter in the exam room.

Anyway, we're headed into the heavy duty half of parade season and I'm riding Sunday so I decided this year I would make some specialty throws.



See they're reversible, just like Benson's estate.  But either way you choose to wear them, they're sure to be a weight around everyone's neck.