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.

Gator Season

We very much regret to inform that Jeff Landry does indeed still want to be Governor.

Looks like @JeffLandry is launching his gubernatorial bid at his big annual gator hunt fundraiser. #lagov pic.twitter.com/d1yhxDxMkj

— Sam Karlin (@samkarlin) September 9, 2022

The Landry gator hunt is one of the biggest and grossest political bribery and money laundering festivals in Louisiana. It's also a violation of, at least the spirit, of Wildlife and Fisheries hunting permit rules and campaign finance rules at the same time.  Pretty good preview of what we're in for over the course of the Governor Landry administration.

Oh good now I have more time to write something

Thank god they finally put this out before early voting ends.  I want to write a big thing about the Governor's election but I haven't had the time to finish it yet.  Here is a pretty good tl;dr from these people.

The consequences of these elections will be dire regardless of who sits in the Governor’s office. But if that person is Eddie Rispone, the scope of the disaster would be magnified immensely.  Rispone’s program constitutes an all-out assault on Louisiana’s poor and working classes for the exclusive benefit of its wealthiest.

There's more in there to pick through on the legislative races and ballot propositions and stuff. But as it regards the marquee race, what else is there to say?

Meanwhile, thank god B&G Review published this before the Saints came back from the bye week.  I've also got a long-ish draft about football but there's plenty enough good stuff is here.  That post is about the "Hero's Journey of Sean Payton" (sort of).  But I've got a different hero in mind this season.  Let's find out if I ever get around to writing it out.

In sum, I am terrible with deadlines.  But that's part of the fun. 

It's all riding on this

By now we're all aware that Donald Trump is going to be at the Alabama-LSU game in a desperate attempt to locate at least one sports venue in America that might not boo the shit out of him. Forget the CFP rankings. This "Game Of The Century" of the week has much higher stakes riding on it.

During early voting this week, everyone is talking about the way Louisiana gubernatorial candidate Eddie Rispone has based his entire campaign message on his enthusiasm for all things Trump. It's interesting, then, to see Trump show up now as a guest of honor at an Alabama home game. There are already whispers all over the internet about Rispone's Atlanta Falcons fandom. What does it say that his favorite President stans for Bama? 

But let's also not lose sight of the fact that Coach O has endorsed John Bel Edwards. The result of this game could be the key to everything.

Will Eddie Rispone "tort reform" Hard Rock victims out of their fair share?

The city says the demolition, clean up, and recovery operations following the Hard Rock hotel collapse have cost something on the order of  $400,000 per day. That's bound to be a sensitive issue, particularly now that we are heavy into budget season. The mayor assures us, though, that we're going to make sure we're covered.

The presence of police, firefighters and other city workers on the site has been costing taxpayers about $400,000 a day Cantrell said Monday, pledging that those costs would be recouped once the “responsible party” for the disaster is found.

“We’re making sure every step of the way the liability is with the responsible party, and that is not with the city of New Orleans,” Cantrell said.

Determining responsible parties is going to be critical in this case because, unlike many of the disasters we are used to around here, this one won't draw any help from FEMA. The city has also set up a "resource center" at  the Main Library for workers and business owners who were affected by the disruption.  Also there is an intake survey for businesses to fill out online here. Presumably, even the "disrespectful" businesses are allowed to do this.

Despite a week-and-a-half-long interruption to daily life at one of the city’s busiest intersections, Cantrell said displaced residents and many business owners have shown patience. But she also said some businesses had been "downright disrespectful" and impatient in the face of closures and evacuations. She didn't name any of them.

Inevitably all of this is headed to court where the city and various other aggrieved parties will look to hold Hard Rock, the developer Mohan Kailas, and the primary contractor Citadel Builders accountable for damages.  Multiple lawsuits have already been filed.  Because Citadel and its subcontractors had been in the practice of misclassifying workers, many victims and families may not be eligible for healthcare or worker's comp benefits.   In the absence of federal disaster relief, legal action is likely the only recourse for everyone.

Meanwhile, the statewide election is into its runoff stage. Republicans are on the verge of capturing legislative supermajorities and possibly the Governor's office. One of the animating issues for them this year has been "tort reform."

Oil and gas isn’t the only business sector trying to attribute Louisiana’s problems to trial lawyers The Louisiana Association of Business and Industry has long been engaged in demonizing trial lawyers as the bane of Louisiana business, while they’ve waged a campaign for “civil justice reform”, as they’re now calling it. LABI has long been the primary financial backer of Louisiana Lawsuit Abuse Watch, which claims to be “a citizen watchdog group dedicated to stopping lawsuit abuse that threatens local businesses and jobs.”

The remaining Republican candidate for Governor happens to own a large construction industry firm himself.  He has some pretty strong opinions about the rights of injured workers and governments to sue companies who have caused them injury. 

Rispone, who compared himself to President Donald Trump, pointed to Louisiana’s natural resources, including oil and gas, that he said should be bringing the state jobs.

“Lawsuit abuse is killing thousands of jobs,” Rispone said. “You know that better than anybody.”

The soon to be governing power in the State of Louisiana defines the only available path to remuneration for disrupted small businesses, compensation for depleted public finances, justice for injured workers, and reparations for a despoiled environment as "lawsuit abuse" and wants it obliterated. 

Once this radical faction is in office, will it move to obstruct justice for the Hard Rock victims? If so, who will speak out for them? Don't count on the Advocate editorial board.  In its endorsement of John Bel Edwards, the paper offered a few issues on which it continues to disagree with him.

There are, after all, many problems to solve, and we haven’t always agreed with the governor’s approach to the state’s underlying challenges. Louisiana needs a governor who supports tort reform and will stand up to trial lawyers and teacher unions. Lawsuits against energy companies put our state at a disadvantage when it comes to attracting investment.

Once the dust blown about by a building collapsed by criminal capitalism has settled, and the damage incurred by its several victims endures, don't expect much sympathy from the local media monopoly. Not when there is still "investment" to attract and unions to crush, anyway.  

Election guides you will not need

You don't really have to listen to this one. I think the big takeaway from it is Varg is tempted to vote for Billy Nungesser for some reason.




This afternoon around 1pm I was voter number 160 in my uptown precinct. That's on pace for a fairly moderate turnout in an election of this size.

Anyway, before I head out to gawk at the sign wavers and whatnot for a while, I'd like to draw your attention to this Mark Ballard column from waaaaay back in July. We visit Democratic Party headquarters for a look at the inspiring strategy under development.

Robert Johnson of Marksville, chairman of the House's Democratic caucus, was in basement offices poring over demographic analytics trying to figure out how the Democrats and moderates can maintain a large enough minority in the 2019 elections to keep a seat at the table.

Johnson’s goal is to keep 39 of the House seats Democratic, “and maybe pick up two or three more.” He’s using the same strategy developed by John Bel Edwards when the governor was head of the House Democratic caucus.

“We’re hyper-localizing our races,” Johnson said. That means Democratic candidates in districts outside of secure urban areas will jettison some of the national party platforms — pushing instead anti-abortion and gun rights viewpoints — while reminding voters of their support for local institutions that employ local constituents.

Always with the bold ideas.  Louisiana Democrats are running on a platform of anti-choice, pro-gun, and very very pro whoever owns the nearest chemical plant oil refinery... or, perhaps, steel mill.  Voters like to hear about how their political leaders are out there fighting for them. The goal, again quite bold, is to not lose quite as many seats as they might lose in order for the results to be considered catastrophic. 

Come to find out, a few months later, they're on the brink of catastrophe.

The current breakdown in the House is 61 Republicans, 39 Democrats and five no-party members. In the Senate it's 25 Republicans and 14 Democrats.

“We want a more conservative voice in both chambers,” Gurvich said.

Republican pickups seem certain because, as they have done each election cycle over the past 20 years, they will likely win seats held by white Democrats in rural areas who are facing term limits or leaving office for other reasons. Those areas have been gradually swinging to the GOP.

Three rural white Democrats are leaving the House because of term limits. They are Reps. Bernard LeBas, of Ville Platte; Robert Johnson, of Marksville; and Dorothy Sue Hill, of Dry Creek.

“Those are three key seats that the Democrats need to hold onto,” Pinsonat said. “Democrats have been decimated in rural areas.”

If Republicans can gain a veto-proof majority in the legislature, they will have rendered an already mild John Bel completely irrelevant. This is one reason they've barely even bothered to run viable candidates for Governor this year.  Instead they've been pouring effort and money into these legislative seats.  Because the key races in play are outside of the New Orleans area, this means that our votes today (including our vote for Governor when you think about it) are more or less irrelevant to the main struggle going on for the future direction of state government.  So enjoy that.

That doesn't mean there aren't plenty other petty struggles going on you might pay attention to.  Thanks to term limits, there are an usually high number of open seats up for grabs.  Each one brings its own interesting dynamic.  Here are a few of the more interesting ones. I'm just going to link to you to the extremely comprehensive DSA guide for the in-depth look at each.

In District 98 (way uptown) Neil Abramson is termed out. (Frown emoji) Whoever wins this will definitely be in the "New Neil" mode, though, so look forward to being frustrated by this person for years to come.

In District 91 (less way uptown) they're trying to replace Walt Leger. By all rights this ought to be a runoff between Mandie Landry, the candidate with strongest labor backing and Carling Dinkler, the most obvious "business conservative" candidate who can't get away with officially running as a Republican. BUT thanks to the rapid gentrification of this district plus the support of the Landrieus, it's possible Dinkler could take it in the primary.

In District 99 (Ninth Ward, mostly) we've got an interesting turf battle between Cedric Richmond ally Adonis Expose' and BOLD-attached Candace Newell.  Newell is Jay Banks's niece, by the way.  Which means that Banks, who was King of Zulu in 2016 is arrayed here against Expose' who was King of Zulu in 2017.  Neat.

District 97  dividing line is between extremely pro-charter school candidates (Ethan Ashley, Durrell Laurent) and somewhat less pro-charter candidates (Eugene Green and Ben Willard).  Green appears to be more or less a Cedric Richmond cipher. (There's one of these in every race, by the way)

Anyway, those are the most interesting legislative races locally.  Another thing to pay attention to is this Jefferson Parish third council district. It's a pivotal seat on the council and there are a ton of candidates who, individually, bring pretty strong political bases with them. Derrick Shepherd is running against Byron Lee, for example. That's pretty interesting in its own right. The darkhorse here is Jedidiah Jackson. It's a difficult race to handicap but I think he's got a shot at this runoff.  

More later, probably.  Try not to get too down about the dismal prospects of everything today.

Y'all we gotta elect a governor, I guess

Obviously I have tons and tons of notes and bookmarked links and takes takes takes on the Governor's election plus many of the local races as well. But that is going to have to wait until later.  As usual, I don't like telling people who to vote for because, again, as usual all of the candidates are bad.   Probably I'll post some useless horse race predictions or some such.  Meanwhile, I think this document says a lot of what I might have.  At least, as far as the Governor's race goes, anyway.

Oh and the constitutional amendments are mostly bad.  I'm going to vote against the first three for sure.  Number 4 is kind of an either/or. The stated purpose of it is affordable housing. But the actual question before voters is about allowing the city to grant tax breaks to developers and landlords.  That might not be a complete disaster depending on the rules that govern whatever actual policies the city formulates using this new discretion.

For example, the city might tie a tax exemption to stipulations on maximum rents in Central City.  OR it might just subsidize luxury condos downtown in exchange for token contributions to a "housing fund" targeted in New Orleans East. There are a lot of possibilities.  But that all comes down the road in city planning meetings, at city council, in backrooms with the mayor's staff, etc. All we're doing here is deciding whether or not we want to have arguments with those people about this stuff in the future.  Maybe we do.  But, given the whole history of everything ever, we aren't likely to win those arguments.

On the political points scoreboard, the thing is just as much a tossup.  On the one hand, the mayor is for it.  On the other, BGR is against it. When "both sides" are bad, you can't go wrong voting against either of them.

And that's a pretty good theme for this whole election slate, really.  Most everything on the ballot is bad. Go vote against as many of those people as you can.

"Slow, complicated death"

I don't think anyone has gotten to the bottom of the Bayou Steel closure yet. Governor John Bel sounds very certain that the Trump tariffs are the main cause.  There might be some truth to that claim but we don't have the information we need to assess it thoroughly.  Early reports about the closure (and the Governor's comments) suggested that Bayou's business depended heavily on the availability of imported scrap metal.  But in days since, that assertion hasn't been satisfactorily flushed out.

That doesn't mean the tariff isn't a catalyst. But the scrap metal supply line might be an oversimplification of how.   We read here that steel producers have suffered under the tariff due to the resulting "uncertainty."

The imposition of section 232 tariffs in March 2018 -- 25% on most steel imports and 10% on aluminum -- was supposed to protect domestic producers from cheap imports from China and elsewhere, but the main effect on the market has been to raise the sense of uncertainty, which has been seen mostly in declining inventories by steel-trading middlemen who account for the bulk of the steel market.

Anyway, the mechanics of the tariff's role here are still not very well defined. That's particularly true in the case of Bayou Steel where the company's ownership is being deliberately coy about the closure in what looks like a strategy to avoid compensating workers for the suddenness of their job loss.  Why the Governor isn't being more aggressive on that front, we do not know.  One would think standing up for laid off workers would be a higher political priority than issuing disputable statements about the Trump tariffs. He may be on the right track with the latter course, but it's a much more confusing public fight to pick than just standing up for workers in crisis.

At least the Trump ogres, in their response to John Bel, actually identify the vulture capitalist private equity firm that has been picking the company apart this whole time.  Of course, they say it like that's a good thing.

Bayou Steel folded like a cheap tent under the weight of a leveraged buyout by Wall Street vultures picking the carcass of a highly inefficient and antiquated plant.

That's a Trump Administration spokesperson telling us basically that American jobs deserve to be zorched by Wall Street and the Governor hasn't said a word against that because he too believes all things must bow to the "efficiency" of the market.  If only we would get rid of Trump and his "D.C. style politics" we get back to the bi-partisan work of handing out huge state subsidies to heavy industry.  That's how the economy is supposed to work, right? John Bel seems to think so.  His opponents definitely think so too. Their only real beef with him is they would prefer to be the person handing out the favors themselves.

This guy also seems to think so.

Jeff Sands, an investor who specializes in rescuing midsized companies near collapse, said he had tried contacting Black Diamond officials last week, including Stephen Deckoff, the firm's co-founder and managing principal, as well as the lawyer handling the bankruptcy, Christopher Ward, of Polsinelli PC in Delaware, who said initially on Monday that he couldn't remember exchanging emails with Sands.

But even he isn't that optimistic.

Sands said that since the company is now in bankruptcy proceedings, he feels the prospect of keeping it going has dimmed.

"I’m cynical," he said. "It will likely just die a slow, complicated death.

"We’ll follow and bid but the odds of it happening quick enough to keep the customers, workforce and vendors is slim."

So that's cheerful. Even in the best case scenario Sands, or an investor like him, moves in to "rescue" Bayou Steel, probably through a regimen of job and benefit cuts plus a renewed package of state tax exemptions.  The alternative is slow, complicated death, though so, what would we prefer?

We're not one-at-a-timin' here we're mass communicatin'

Retail politics is dead: Nobody goes outside to do any old timey campaigning anymore. Everything is all about buying a bunch of Facebook ads now.

Unless it isn't:  Turns out, John Bel Edwards is going around to all these churches and festivals and doing old timey campaing stuff for months and months.

What's funny about that first article is, despite its premise, there's plenty of reporting in there about candidates doing the regular backslapping with the folks on the festival circuit. But we're told they're doing it less than they used to and instead they, especially the Republicans, are relying more on TV ads and social media than they had in the past.

It's easy to make the mistake that this is all a natural consequence of advancing communications technology.  But I think that needs to be interrogated a bit further.  Yes, social media has changed the delivery system, but the actual leap in emphasis from in-person campaigning to electronic mass propaganda arrived a couple generations ago with the advent of TV and radio.  Pop culture critics have famously been lamenting its effect on politics since at least the Nixon/Kennedy debates.  And, while it is true that internet enabled media reaches more people than it did, say, a decade ago, a lot of people were online back then too.   (This stupid stupid Yellow Blog has been in publication since 2003!) We haven't suddenly woken up to a new era in political media this year.  Something else is going on.

A host of political action committees for various interests are pouring millions of dollars into the state to sway the outcome. Contributions given directly to candidates are limited by law. But Super PACs and political foundations are allowed to raise unlimited sums of money. Though the Super PACs can't coordinate directly with the campaigns, they do advocate, often harshly, on behalf of their favored candidates' causes and against those of their opponents.

Edwards, who is seeking re-election, faces two Republicans – U.S. Rep. Ralph Abraham, of Alto, and Baton Rouge millionaire contractor Eddie Rispone – in the Oct. 12 open primary. If no candidate wins more than 50% of the ballots, the top two vote-getters will meet again in a November runoff.

Two major players in the fall campaigns are the Republican Governors Association, through its Right Direction PAC, and the Democratic Governors Association, which has already funneled at least half a million dollars into a Super PAC affiliated with the incumbent governor.

Some of the organizations involved, often called "dark money groups," are not required to disclose their donors — and don't — making it unclear who exactly is paying to influence the election.

This isn't the first Louisiana Governor's race of the post-Citizen's United era.  But this year's contest does seem to be attracting more "dark money" than ever before.  The article referenced above is from qualifying week. It names some PACs that were around last time along with a couple of newer ones. Since then we've learned about a few more. It doesn't give us any numbers on Lane Grigsby's Truth In Politics PAC. We do know Lane is close with Eddie Rispone, though.  Anyway, it's not really how much money is aligned with each candidate we're concerned with right now but rather how it tends to get deployed.

PAC money doesn't help get your candidate out among the folks as easily as it gets a message out over the wires. Which is why it feels to some as though the campaigns have moved off of the fairgrounds and onto Facebook. Which is why when the Republicans "brought out the big guns" a lot of the fire came in the form of tweets from the President and an appearance from his son at an event designed to be amplified over Facebook. Trump Sr. will also appear at a rally on Friday. But, again, even that is really intended for a TV and social media audience.

But, sometimes, as the second story linked at the top of this post indicates, that is not always the case. There we find John Bel the Democratic Governor out and about doing the one-at-a-time business.

For months, just as he did four years ago, Edwards has been making stops throughout Louisiana that are aimed specifically at black voters. In late July, he visited four black churches over two days in Lafayette and attended a banquet celebrating Lloyd Joiner Jr.’s 40th year as the pastor at Progressive Baptist Church also in Lafayette.

“People respected the fact that he was engaged,” said state Sen. Gerald Boudreaux, D-Lafayette, who accompanied him at some of the stops.

On Aug. 11, Edwards visited True Vine Baptist Church in Alexandria, accompanied by Mayor Hall, and then three other black churches.

On Aug. 18, Edwards visited four black churches in Monroe accompanied by state Rep. Katrina Jackson, D-Monroe.

On Aug. 31, he and state Rep. Dustin Miller, D-Opelousas, played the rub-board alongside Nathan & the Zydeco Cha Chas at the Southwest Louisiana Zydeco Music Festival before a large African-American crowd.

Accompanied by state Rep. Kenny Cox, D-Mansfield, Edwards stopped in Natchitoches on Sept. 12 to speak to 25-30 African-American ministers and to a predominately black crowd at the Ben D. Johnson Educational Center.

Two days earlier, he attended a dinner for the NAACP’s Shreveport chapter.

On Sept. 29, Edwards attended Gloryland Baptist Church accompanied by East Baton Rouge Metro Councilwoman Erika Green.

Along the way, Edwards has stopped at popular black-owned restaurants – Laura’s 2 Next Generation in Lafayette, the Legacy Café in Natchitoches, Pamela’s Bayou in a Bowl in Alexandria and Dooky Chase’s in New Orleans.

Meanwhile Lane Grigsby the Republican megadonor is trying to move the same constituency but using a different tactic.

Aside from Truth in Politics’ ad, Grigsby is also looking for other ways to stop Edwards from winning reelection. Last month, he gave $100,000 to a political organization called Movement for Change that is running ads on a host of African American radio stations throughout the state in support of Omar Dantzler, the only black candidate in the race. Dantzler, of Hammond, is also the only other Democrat in the race besides Edwards, though he is far less known and is polling in the low single digits.

One is out pressing flesh to try and counter what the other can do by just pressing a button. Wonder which will be enough? Watch John Bel's margin of 50% vs Dantzler's numbers on Saturday to find out.

Rock bottom Ralph

This is what is has come to for Ralph.  Laffer curve shit.

Abraham has not outlined a specific tax plan, but he has called for eliminating the state’s franchise tax and inventory tax, as well as generally lowering corporate income taxes and sales taxes and creating a flat personal income tax.

At the same time, he promises to boost spending on roads, bridges and education, and vows to avoid the “death by 1,000 cuts” endured under former Gov. Bobby Jindal. That has drawn fire from Democratic Gov. John Bel Edwards, who argues Abraham's plan doesn't add up.

To reconcile those two positions, Abraham says the economic activity generated from cutting taxes would result in more revenue coming into the state coffers, or in other words, that the tax cuts would pay for themselves.

How thoroughly boring. Ralph is just trolling the absolute rock bottom level of recycled Republican claptrap policy now.  This article is just about as plain as anyone can be in saying this isn't even worth entertaining anymore.

Critics of such arguments also point to Kansas, which under former Gov. Sam Brownback conducted what he dubbed an “experiment” that involved eliminating state income taxes for owners of pass-through businesses, eliminating its top tax bracket and cutting rates. Job figures fell well short of Brownback’s promises, and a bipartisan coalition of lawmakers later overrode a Brownback veto to reverse the tax cuts after repeated budget shortfalls, according to the Kansas City Star.

The notorious Kansas "experiment" itself happened long after the "voodoo economics" theories it was based on had long since been discredited.  In his campaign materials, Ralph describes himself as a "country doctor."  Apparently his medical license is inactive, though. Maybe he meant witch doctor.  

Vote often

So you can vote early this week if you are an early voting person. I'm not one but I don't have a good reason for that. I vote on Election Day because that feels more like we're participating in something. It's like going out to see a parade or a football game. It's a big event and we're all doing it together. That's what democracy is all about, right?  Besides, we all know the best politics is the big loud superficial spectacle kind. At least that is how I feel about it.  Anyway, it looks like more and more people are different from me. The first day of early voting Saturday set records for turnout.

There is a very long ballot this time because it is a statewide legislative election. People might want to do a little reading up in advance. If that's you then there are a few places I can recommend.

1) Pick up an Antigravity Magazine at your local corner store or coffee shop. The "Harm Reduction" guide there is very good and funny and helpful. It's not online yet but probably will be tomorrow. If you're looking for the physical copy, probably the Gambit will be on the rack beside it. Leave that where it is.  All of their recommendations are absolute trash this year. I don't know how much of that to attribute to the continuing Geroges-ization of all local media (It's getting real bad! Remind me to say more about this later) or just the fact that Gambit endorsements have always been kind of bad.  This seems worse than usual, though.

2) The PAR guide to the amendments is always useful. It doesn't take sides (I am voting no on all four but you may disagree) but it gives detailed arguments for and against each one.

3) And finally there is this one which I think I linked to already but here it is again. It says here, 

More than 20 DSA members contributed to the research, writing, editing, and design of this project, among us service industry workers, social workers, secretaries, educators, attorneys, students, and professional organizers. Collectively we have brought our experience and knowledge about the way government systems and elected representatives affect our lives in material ways. 

That sounds like a lot of work. Probably should at least give it the courtesy of a glance-over.. even if the serious political reporters don't have the time

Clearly, Donald Trump is out to crush the Rispone campaign

Prominent Republican donor and fundraiser Lane Grigsby has some kind of IRS problem on his hands.

The U.S. Department of Justice is suing Cajun Industries founder and Chairman Emeritus Lane Grigsby and his wife for more than $750,000 for an income tax refund the government says the Grisbys were not entitled to receive.

According to a lawsuit filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Louisiana, the refund was issued for the 2013 tax year and was based on more than $1.34 million in research and development tax credits Cajun claimed for the year.

Grigsby is a close associate of Gubernatorial candidate Eddie Rispone. In fact, you might say he's been with the Rispone campaign from the beginning. 

Rispone said he entered the race after not being able to sleep at night. A devout Catholic, he believes God was waking up to tell him to run against Edwards. He and Grigsby had a tough time finding someone to take on Edwards. Grigsby said they had been approaching potential candidates for two years, and they couldn’t find someone they considered a worthy challenger. So Rispone decided to run himself.

Turns out the Lord works in mysterious ways, though.  If it really is He who inspired Eddie to run in the first place, then why strike at his closest friend and ally at this critical moment? Unless, of course, the test issues not from God but perhaps instead from The Enemy. 

Grigsby suggests the IRS is overreaching and that he may be targeted because of his outspoken, conservative political views, noting that other partners in his business also received the R&D credits for 2013 and haven’t gotten any push back for it.

“It’s typical of the way our government abuses its citizens,” he says. “I know the IRS has been used against other conservative people. I know other people who got this same credit and theirs was allowed. Why was mine stopped? Why me? Maybe because I do raise my mouth a little too loud.”

I dunno, Lane, maybe those of us called to do the Lord's work might think to go about it with a little more humility.  In any case are we sure we want to be out here implying that the Trump Administration is under the influence of Satanic forces.  We're not saying you're necessarily off track in that case, but it does seem like a radical departure from the campaign strategy thus far.

Business as usual

John Bel Edwards is likely to be reelected because he "embraces" the petrochemical industry and because the Republicans aren't really trying to beat him. They are trying to win supermajorities in the legislature, though. And they will at least come close to doing that.  There are very serious consequences for Louisiana in both of those outcomes.

But we keep reading that this is a "policy barren" campaign where no one bothers to even go outside and talk to anybody.  This means either that the money power dominates the state to such a degreee now that politics is entirely irrelevant or that there is a tremendous power vacuum waiting to be exploited. Not sure which is worse.

In the public health department

Let's see what day was this?  It was a long weekend and I have no idea what I did with most of it.  Was it Friday?  I think it was Friday.  Anyway I went to see Tim Faust speak at Garden District Book Shop.  The book he's promoting is called Health Justice Now: Single Payer and What Comes Next.  I'm sure it's very good. I did buy a copy but it's at the bottom of a pile quite similar to if not worse than this one from the middle of the summer. I'll get there eventually.  If you've seen, read or heard any of Faust's work advocating for a better health care system than the nightmare we live and die at the hands of today, then, well, this talk was very much like that.

In his talk, Faust says the US is "the most dangerous place to be sick the most dangerous place to be poor, the most dangerous place to be black or brown, the most dangerous place to be disabled, the most dangerous place to be queer..." There is a mutually reinforcing relationship between poverty and illness. The so-called "health-wealth gap" in the United States adds up to a 20 year difference in life expectancy between the richest and poorest. All of these states of precariousness are direct reflections of an unjust health system. 

By that, he means the US health care delivery apparatus is fraught with such waste and unfair distribution that the negative health outcomes compound upon each other. "In the US all prices are fake," says Faust. The costs of primary and preventative care are grossly inflated as large corporate providers force smaller health clinics out of business in order to charge hospital rates for everything. And, of course, insurance companies can only profit by denying patients care when they need it. 

Unjust wealth allocation leads to unequal health outcomes in all sorts of ways.  Faust travels all over the country talking to people about health care and gave a few examples. In Houston the prisons have become warehouses for people with untreated mental illness. In Memphis environmental racism has led to a situation where black children die at 20 times the rate of white children.  When Indiana Governor Mike Pence inhibited needle exchange programs during the height of an opioid crisis, it  resulted in "one of the biggest HIV outbreaks in decades."  These are all essentially questions of resource allocation.

The day after I saw Faust talk, I read in the Advocate that the state has finally responded to public pressure at least to the point of agreeing to study the effect of the Denka neoprene plant on cancer rates in St. John Parish. As we know, the State of Louisiana subsidizes the proliferation of plants like Denka to the tune of billions of dollars each year.  Poor Louisianians are subsidizing the profits of the petrochemical industry with their very bodies.

The US spends over $3.6 trillion annually on health care. According to Faust at least 1/3 of that is "waste." It would cost approximately 10 percent less to implement a single payer system. And the savings can be applied to giving people better housing, better transit, better food access, a fairer criminal justice system etc. all of which support better health outcomes.  So the fight for health justice really is at the center of a struggle for a radical societal overhaul.  Efforts to combat the problem at the margins via schemes like Obamacare or Medicaid as we know it are not good enough. It is in Faust's words a question of giving people "insurance or emancipation."

Which is why the expansion of Medicaid under Obamacare that John Bel Edwards' reelection campaign touts as a major accomplishment doesn't get us where we want to go. In Louisiana, Medicaid is privatized. And the MCO contracts, in addition to just being inefficient means of shoveling money to for-profit insurers and providers, amount to one of the biggest slices of political patronage a Governor can hand out. This year, the dispute over those contracts has left over half a million Medicaid patients in a wholly unnecessary state of uncertainty just as the start of open enrollment for next year looms. 


Finally, Faust fielded a few skeptical questions from audience members about whether or not a single payer system would garner support from doctors, some of whom, at least, might find certain aspects of their practices less profitable. But, while that isn't really true for most doctors,  the question did remind me that a professional association of Louisiana doctors has endorsed Ralph Abraham for Governor.

The Louisiana Medical PAC hasn't issued an endorsement in the most recent governor's races, but jumped at the chance to endorse one of their own.

“It’s been a number of years since we decided to take a position in the governor’s race, but we have one of our own running,"  Dr. Robert Bass, chairman of the PAC, said in a statement. "We believe that physicians supporting physicians is important, and when you have a candidate like Dr. Abraham, it’s very easy to make this decision.

"Dr. Abraham has a wealth of knowledge that is critical to helping Louisiana improve healthcare outcomes."

That's interesting. As it happens, this week the Bayou Brief provides us with an example of one health outcome Dr. Abraham has used his "wealth of knowledge" to bring about.

“Opioids—mainly synthetic opioids (other than methadone)—are currently the main driver of drug overdose deaths,” states the CDC. “Opioids were involved in 47,600 overdose deaths in 2017. A staggering 67.8% of all drug overdose deaths are due to opioids, and while nationwide these numbers have declined, Louisiana is one of a handful of states in which deaths from opioid overdoses have increased.

During the past year, overdose deaths went up by 4.7% in Louisiana.

“Louisiana also ranks among the top 10 states with the most opioid prescriptions written per capita, according to its state’s lawsuit against 17 companies, including Purdue Pharma,” according to a report published yesterday by APG Wisconsin. “Since 2007, the state has spent at least $677 million ‘for treatment of opioid use and dependence.’”

During the seven-year timeframe, Abraham’s pharmacy in Winnsboro doubled the number of opioids it dispensed to patients; opioid prescriptions filled at his pharmacy in Mangham, which is located near his former medical clinic, surged a staggering 67%.

In Mangham (2017 population: 638), Abraham’s pharmacy supplied enough opioid medication to provide every man, woman, and child 6.1 doses every year (or 43 pills in total) for seven consecutive years; his pharmacy in Winnsboro (2017 population: 4,652) could have provided every resident 4.4 doses per year (or 31 in total). (Note: Annual doses per person were based on Census estimates, not the most recent American Community Survey).

If a single payer system focused on health justice for all means a less profitable pill pushing scheme for Dr. Feelgood that's just something we are going to have risk.

John Bel is healing the blind

That's pretty impressive, right?

Edwards began airing a campaign commercial on Tuesday in which people described how they benefited from Edwards’ decision to expand Medicaid to the working poor. “I can see,” said one man, who was identified as suffering from glaucoma.

One thing you can't say about John Bel Edwards is that he's broken his major campaign promises. No, he never promised to lay his divine hands on the sick and the frail. But he did promise to accept the Medicaid expansion and that has had tangible benefits for people. Of course, he's also using the MCO contracts as political patronage. But he never promised to undo Bobby Jindal's privatization scheme. And, as we all know, nothing about this is adequate compared with the universal health care system some of your less terrible Presidential candidates are pushing for at the moment.  But that's really beyond the scope of what your John Bel Edwardses are going to tackle for you.  Medicaid expansion and a teacher pay raise were the main things the Governor said he'd deliver in 2015 and here he is running for reelection a perfect 2 for 2.  This doesn't mean we don't have many many complaints. It's easy enough to scroll through those.  But, usually, when you deliver on the specific things you said you would deliver on, it bodes well for your chances of being reelected.

That's what Shane Guidry seems to think, anyway.

One prominent Jefferson Parish Republican donor, Shane Guidry, said he is sitting out the governor’s race this time. Four years ago, his company, Harvey Gulf, donated $150,000 to Gumbo PAC, which supported Edwards over Vitter.

“I don’t think he can be beaten,” Guidry said of the governor.

And he's far from the only big money donor the Governor has successfully courted.. or at least mollified..  so he's probably right. All the conventional signs point to a reelected John Bel.  A few weeks ago, Stephanie Grace reminded us that a lot of Republicans are resigned to that fact as well. For example, John N Kennedy may be publicly urging President Trump to come down and speak at a rally for whichever of the C-list GOP contenders might make the runoff. But if John really was that gung-ho about the chances, he probably would have run himself. Remember also that Steve Scalise and Jeff Landry have made the same calculation.  Of course,  from a national perspective, it does stick in the party's craw that the Governor of a deep south "red" state is (kind of) a Democrat. And maybe things will change once/if we end up with a runoff.  But, for now, it looks like a wait and see situation. The Republicans aren't running their first stringers out there.

Instead they've fielded these guys.

That's Congressman Ralph Abraham on the right and multi-millionaire construction magnate weirdo Eddie Ripsone on the left.  Or maybe it's the other way around. Nobody knows, actually.  It says here there are three debates scheduled for primary season where, one would expect, the two of them would be required to appear in the same place at the same time.  We'll see how that works out.

Supposedly we should have an easier time telling them apart once their campaign "messages" start to get out.  But so far, that hasn't helped.  Rispone made a bit of a splash a month ago with a newspaper ad (that John Georges for some reason agreed to print) and a TV spot promising he can be every bit as racist, cruel, and intolerant as Donald Trump. 

Rispone's ad also represents the latest diatribe from the Rispone campaign on immigration, which has traditionally not been a campaign issue in a state where only 4% of residents are foreign born, and even fewer are unauthorized. Last week, Rispone's campaign put out a newspaper ad that said if elected, "Louisiana will stand with President Trump" to "build the wall," and called New Orleans a "sanctuary city." The ad also said he would not "put up with ANTIFA lawlessness," referring to the left-wing activists, or "tolerate replacing the American flag at government buildings with Mexican ones," an apparent reference to an Aurora, Colorado immigration detention facility. 

In the TV ad, Rispone says, "as governor, I will work with President Trump to protect our constitutional rights, to ban sanctuary cities, and end taxpayer benefits for illegal immigrants in Louisiana."

All of which, Abraham was all too happy to match. In an ad released last week, Ralph says he is a big Trump guy too.  Which he proves by also saying something incredibly stupid.

BATON ROUGE, La. — Republican candidate for Louisiana governor Ralph Abraham has released a new TV ad that takes aim at abortion rights and the transgender community as he works to draw attention for his campaign. In the 30-second spot launched Thursday, the three-term congressman looks directly into the camera to establish what he calls "the truth."

The conservative hits several points in quick succession, declaring that "life begins at conception," taxes are too high and he supports President Donald Trump.

With a chuckle, he wraps up with a swipe at the LGBTQ community: "And as a doctor, I can assure you there are only two genders."

Ralph went on to clarify this week that he was only talking about "lawsuits" and that we should understand he does not have a "discriminatory bone" in his body which, as a medical doctor, Abraham should be able to identify.  I think it's connected to the racism bone somehow.

One item of note from that Tyler Bridges story  worth keeping an eye on. Tonight Abraham is holding a fundraiser hosted by Joe Canizaro who is a co-chair of the Trump Louisiana campaign.  Karl Rove is supposed to be there. So it's not like the Republicans aren't keeping an eye on things.  But for now it's safe to say they're viewing the race as a bit of a... Long Shot?

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.

Some of the ends are coming aloose

Just last week, we noted that John Bel was gearing up for reelection by paying off Gayle Benson with a sweetheart deal for Superdome renovations right before he paid off Jim Bernhard with this Energy Partners/Johnson Controls deal. So far so good.

But the largest contracts let by the state are with the managed care firms who administer the state's privatized Medicaid program. Altogether these contracts total something close to $8 billion. The current deals were negotiated during the Jindal administration (that process was not without its controversies) and were kept in place by John Bel even after the state accepted the Medicaid expansion.

Those contracts are up for renewal now and, for whatever reason... just ahead of election time... John Bel has decided to shake things up a bit. The new deal brings the number of contractors down from five to four. It also replaces another of the existing companies.  Humana has been cut in while Aetna and Louisiana Healthcare Connections are out. Which means we have to ask who is John Bel paying off here and what is their relationship with Humana? 

We don't know the answer to that yet. But we do know LHCC has a friend in Cedric Richmond's orbit.

U.S. Rep. Cedric Richmond, D-New Orleans, penned a letter Friday to Edwards raising concerns about the decision to drop Louisiana Healthcare Connections from the state’s managed care system. He warned of lost jobs in his district and said 84,000 of his constituents receive health care through LHC’s network, raising the possibility of patients losing access to their providers with the change.

Today LHCC and Aetna have filed some sort of appeal.  And a joint legislative committee will begin considering the new contracts sometime in September. Again, right in the middle of election season. Can't imagine anybody there would be up to making any mischief for any reason.

Tying up the loose ends

Let's see here, John Bel has got Gayle Benson paid off before election time.  Now who else is still out there?

Louisiana will enter into a complex agreement that could lead to the widespread privatization of energy systems at state agencies and universities throughout the state, after lawmakers reviewed the deal for a final time Tuesday.

Gov. John Bel Edwards' administration struck the deal with LA Energy Partners, a joint venture between Johnson Controls Inc. and Bernhard Energy Solutions, one of several companies controlled by Baton Rouge businessman Jim Bernhard.

The company will lease chiller systems at the Shaw Center for the Arts, a state-owned building in downtown Baton Rouge, from the state for $3 million over 20 years. The state will then buy back the chilled water — used to cool the building — for $6 million. The firm will also make energy upgrades at 31 state buildings, including the State Capitol, Governor’s Mansion and state Supreme Court building, in exchange for $54 million.

Aside from the cash, LA Energy Partners will also make money selling the extra chilled water to other companies, who use it to cool their commercial buildings, in downtown Baton Rouge.

Oh yeah. Well, thank goodness they got that wrapped up. Can't imagine a single thing that could go wrong with that, no sireee.