"Suspicions grew"

Stacey Jackson pleaded guilty Wednesday to accepting kickbacks from contractors her non-profit hired to do remediation work that was never actually performed on flood damaged homes after Katrina.

Jackson, 47, was the focus of prosecutors' five-year investigation of the New Orleans Affordable Homeownership program, the troubled non-profit that she ran as its executive director. She eventually became another black eye for Nagin, whom a jury convicted of 20 corruption charges in February. He is scheduled to be sentenced July 9.

NOAH wasn't only "another black eye for Nagin" amid the various instances of corruption for which he was prosecuted. (Nagin wasn't charged with anything relating to NOAH anyway.)  It was the moment at which the local press.. and possibly federal investigators.. started to take these kinds of allegations against the Nagin administration seriously.

It's remarkably difficult to put yourself back in that time even now but back in 2007-2008 the conventional wisdom communicated through the daily news about Nagin was still wrapped up in his image as an innovative, reforming, businessman... an image the Times-Picayune had invested much in crafting and selling to voters in 2002.

Ray Nagin was a largely unknown businessman who was polling at 2 percent in his campaign for mayor before The Times-Picayune editorial board, of which I was and am a member, endorsed his candidacy. The endorsement, which was printed earlier than usual, helped give the erstwhile long shot some legitimacy.

The already revised history tells us the turning point came when Nagin delivered his stupid (but also overblown and misunderstood)  "Chocolate City" speech on MLK Day in 2006.   And it's true that this was a political turning point for Nagin.  It signaled a new and more populist reelection strategy as Nagin surely knew many of his moneyed, white backers "some people Uptown" were about to abandon him. But the press was considerably slower to turn on him.

And by "turn on him" I mean give credence to the mounting evidence that the phony they created out of whole cloth was... well.. a phony.

But, as the story says here, "suspicions grew."

Federal agents stormed NOAH's offices in August 2008 as suspicions grew that little to no work had been done at hundreds of properties assigned to the agency. What followed led to guilty pleas from four contractors, including Jackson's cousin, Richard Hall. Hall stood accused of stealing $117,000 from NOAH while performing few of the house repairs he was hired to do. He admitted his guilt in 2012, but he did not admit kicking cash back to Jackson.

How and when did the suspicions grow?  Not relevant to the story, apparently.  But for fun,  let's check the other paper to see if they know.

Jackson’s crimes were committed while she was serving as director of New Orleans Affordable Homeownership, a city-supported nonprofit program that Nagin made the centerpiece of an anti-blight campaign.

The agency hired private companies to gut and board up some of the tens of thousands of properties damaged in Katrina and its aftermath. Media reports at the time revealed that many of the properties the city had paid to remediate in fact got little or no attention and remained in shockingly bad condition.

Rather than acknowledging the problems in the city-administered grant program, Nagin reacted angrily toward the news media as critical stories unspooled, a move that did lasting damage to his relationship with the public. His image was tarnished further by the fact that his brother-in-law, Cedric Smith, was a leading contractor for NOAH, although Smith never was charged with any wrongdoing.

"Media reports at the time" likely refers to the WWLTV's investigation of NOAH.  Lee Zurik in particular seemed to get under the Mayor's skin. It was to WWL cameras that Nagin made his famous "cold cocking" threat.  Zurik deserves the credit he's received for picking up and running with this story. It's the story that made his reputation as an investigative journalist; one he still trades on today.

But Zurik didn't "break" the NOAH story.  Then-amateur investigator Karen Gadbois did. The WWLTV series became a collaboration between Zurik and Karen and a few researchers working with her Nagin would later deride as "council sponsored college students turned spies." (scroll down to page 7 of this PDF)



Karen would go on to jump into professionalism herself and found The Lens which still sort of does some spying despite appearing to be out of money lately. (Must have lost that council sponsorship. You can help with that.)

It's a shame, though, that the critical role she and her associated "dangerous people of the internet," as Advocate publisher John Georges calls them, played in the unraveling of the Ray Nagin myth seems to have been written out of the official history.

Update: Turns out NOLA Defender credited Karen Gadbois. Good on them. 

Compelling circumstances

Yesterday the media company known clumsily as NOLA.com/The Times-Picayune, having been denied a request for appeal, complied with a judge's order to turn over account information about two frequent commenters on its website.

“Nola.com/The Times-Picayune is committed to the idea that the constitutional rights of Internet users, including the First Amendment right to speak anonymously, should be carefully safeguarded, and that the identity of those who choose to speak anonymously should be revealed only in the most compelling of circumstances,” Lori Mince, the paper’s attorney, said in a prepared statement.

The T-P's position in this matter is laudable in principle. Although it has been pointed out elsewhere that they've been less than consistent on this point.  Right now, it seems, they're committed to objecting to having to rat out their... users? sources? content providers?.. whatever you call a newspaper commenter... to a judge. But they're being forced to do that anyway under "compelling circumstances."

In this case the compelling circumstance is that lawyers representing Stacey Jackson think that one or both of these commenters might have been a federal prosecutor publicly disparaging Ms. Jackson while they were in the process of bringing charges against her.

Many will recall Jackson was head of  the New Orleans Affordable Homeownership agency. 

The NOAH program erupted into scandal in the summer of 2008, when information emerged that many of the homes the quasi-city agency had paid to gut or board up had in fact received no attention. The scandal galvanized citizens frustrated with the city's halting recovery.

Much of their ire was aimed at Nagin, who had championed the NOAH program as a way of propping up overwhelmed nonprofits that had been providing gutting services. Nagin initially reacted defensively, holding a memorable news conference in which he blasted the reporting of Lee Zurik, then with WWL-TV and now with WVUE-TV, and accused him of impeding the city's recovery.

But the real center of the scandal was Stacey Jackson, who was NOAH's executive director and had close ties to several of the program's favored contractors.

Whether or not it ends up becoming the means by which more prosecutorial misconduct is exposed, the NOAH scandal is already a memorable event in the city's political history. Not only was it a major turning point in Nagin's relationship with the media but it also helped launch Karen Gadbois's career in investigative journalism and thus is a major reason we have The Lens today. 

Fewer will recall that Jackson was also part owner of a men's designer underwear shop called "The Him Store" but somehow that fact has become less significant with the passage of time.

Anyway, as we were saying, according to Jackson's lawyers, there is compelling reason to believe that forcing the T-P to turn over information about these anonymous commenters will lead to their being positively identified as federal prosecutors.

Whether they will ever be unmasked, however, is not clear, despite Thursday’s developments.

Keith Marszalek, Nola.com’s director of digital operations, did not respond to an emailed question Thursday about what information the website keeps on its commenters. And whether the identities of “aircheck” and “jammer1954” are even knowable may depend on how hard the two have tried to cover their tracks, experts say.

Or not.  But hey let's err on the side of suppressing free speech and a free press anyway just in case.

On the list that counts

Stacey Jackson indicted. Probably just under the statute of limitations wire, although maybe not.

The NOAH episode erupted in the summer of 2008, at a time of mounting public frustration with Nagin’s leadership of the city’s recovery. For many, the scandal epitomized Nagin’s fecklessness – the city was mired in blight, and a key city program aimed at ameliorating the problem appeared to be, at least, in part a sham.

The story was uncovered by blogger Karen Gadbois and television reporter Lee Zurik, who discovered that NOAH was paying contractors to gut and board blighted houses, but that in many cases the work wasn’t being done.

Nagin angrily denounced the reporting, referring disparagingly to “amateur investigators,” but federal authorities soon opened a probe and began carting documents out of NOAH’s offices. The agency, technically a nonprofit funded by City Hall, was essentially mothballed weeks later.

Those were fun times. 

Popcorn

5 charged with theft in NOAH house-gutting scandal

It also emerged that a number of the contractors working in the program had close business or personal ties to Stacey Jackson, executive director of NOAH at the time. NOAH, which is now defunct, was a quasi-city agency.

Regarding Jackson's business ties to NOAH contractors, I think the specialty underwear store was my favorite.


Getting to watch the indictments come in now is far more entertaining than seeing the whole series of events that led to them fictionalized for the benefit of snooty HBO audiences across America. Hell, knowing what we know about the way "Hollywood South" works, maybe we'll live long enough to see Treme producers indicted too.

Lifeboats: A week in Naginville

Eli has a made a cute joke this morning. In case you missed the context, at the end of the day yesterday, the City announced that it was suing six contractors it found to have kept insufficient records of a little more than $200,000.00 paid to them through NOAH. (If you need more NOAH context at this point, I really don't have the time.)

However, according to Eli, the amount the city is seeking to recover here is a small fraction of the amount of money not accounted for by NOAH and NOAH contractors... although he admits, "the records kept on the city's end were so atrocious, I just don't see any real way to evaluate who did what and who got paid for what." But, regardless of the actual amount of money in dispute, it remains a reasonable assumption that the city is not likely to be investigating itself in good faith.

Eli suggests that the timing of this announcement is calculated to draw attention away from yesterday's embarrassing judgment in which the Mayor and the City Attorney were found in “flagrant violation of the law they have sworn to uphold” when they stonewalled WWLTV's public records requests and even went so far as to "lose" a year's worth of emails relevant to those requests. Which brings us back to Eli's cute little joke. The kid writes,

We've just witnessed the Mayor voluntarily putting NOAH back into the news to deflect attention from his various other controversies.

He's in such bad shape that he's looking to NOAH for a lifeboat.

Now, personally, I think it would have been funnier if he had called it a "life-ark" but maybe not. (Also, I'm a little shaky on the concept of using a boat to "deflect" something. Not that that wouldn't work provided that one raised the "lifeboat"... which I am assuming is a dingy or canoe or something... over one's head. But surely a boat is more commonly used as a means of escape than defense.) Plus I don't think it's a correct read to say that Nagin is "putting NOAH back into the news" since it's likely that the disputed records... which we may actually see before this is all over with... could be NOAH-related (although I'd bet the crime camera issue may also be a heavy topic there). But the "lifeboat" strategy (despite the complexity of the metaphor) is probably dead-on. In fact, over the past week, the Mayor has managed to deploy a veritable flotilla of "lifeboats" with which he has... um... deflected criticism on several fronts. Observe.

Boat 1: Early last week, we were treated to the seemingly embarrassing news for the administration that Sanitation Director Veronica White had inappropriately released three years worth of email communications to and from City Council members.

I say "seemingly embarrassing" because, at the time, one was tempted to think 1) White seems to have ignored her responsibility to forward public records requests to the City Attorney's office and 2) WTF, Why are the Council's emails come by so easily while the Mayor's remain out of reach? But if that's all you got from the episode, then you had missed the boat... so to speak. As it turned out, the release of the Council emails ended up working in the Mayor's favor. It allowed him to convincingly reprise his politically comfortable role as the victim of overzealous, racially motivated critcs.

Although this was later revised to include all council members, the initial accounts of the email release stated that only emails belonging to the white councilpersons had been made available. Framing the story in this way immediately opened the records controversy to scrutiny under the racial lens. Highlighting the Council's 4-3 white majority, as well as its frequent moments of friction with Veronica White (As the T-P is fond of printing repeatedly and I think not without humor, "White is black") effectively cast the Council as the "White" participant in a suddenly highly subjective discussion over what should be simple facts. Once the council sued to prevent their emails from being released, we were fast on our way to a "transparency-for-some-but-not-for-me" type of argument in which they had compromised their own credibility.

By the end of the week, Jarvis DeBerry described defenders of either the Council or the Mayor as inattentive to "principle".

Can't decide if you're a person of principle or just another run-of-the-mill partisan hack? Here's an easy test: Did you take one position when WWL-TV sought Mayor Ray Nagin's e-mails and the opposite position when lawyer Tracie Washington was handed over e-mails from the white members of the New Orleans City Council?

Did you insist that Nagin's the target of a witch hunt but argue that those council members deserve every bit of scrutiny they get? Did you say that Nagin should have turned over his e-mails but that the council members are good folks and ought to be left alone? No matter which position you took regarding Nagin, if it doesn't jibe with the position you have toward the council, you're not to be listened to.

Now I think that's a bit simplistic. Technically speaking, those aren't exactly the two positions available for a person to take on the situation. One could say, for example, that the disappearance of the mayor's emails is suspicious AND that the circumstances by which the council's emails were produced are just as suspicious and still argue that all of these public documents should be available for public scrutiny. But, by this point, the boat has sailed. Days before the Mayor was set to receive a stern judgment regarding the disappearance of his emails, the counter-argument that a double-standard was being applied was already afloat.

Boat 2: In a lesser noticed flare-up last week, City Buisness published a rather weak hit piece in the finest Dragonslaying tradition which accused the Mayor's office of "expenditures other government officials generally consider unusual and inappropriate." I won't dwell on it too much except to point you to the Mayor's response here. What's more interesting to me is that a competing (and equally silly) report on the City Council's travel expenses was released the very same week reintroducing the comparison narrative.

Boat 3: On the same day that the Council email thing blew up, the Inspector General's office released a long-awaited report on alleged waste associated with the City's notoriously ineffective and ill-conceived crime camera program. You can read the whole report here if you like... or at least read the executive summary here. But to truly explore the depths of this chicanery, you should be reading Dambala. Suffice to say, there's a lot going on there and this report certainly merits wider discussion. But it didn't ripple very far upon impact thanks to the timing of the its release.

Plus, the Mayor made sure to further disturb the waters during this remarkable appearance on WVUE.




Eli transcribes key bits here and provides analysis. I'd like to piggy back off of Eli's work here and quote a bit from his transcription as I think it is an exemplary sample of Nagin at his best.

The best part (if one can even choose) is toward the end when he discusses the crime camera investigation.


Kim Holden: Let's switch gears a little bit -

Ray Nagin: (interrupting): Really?

Holden: Another controversy involving the crime cameras -

Nagin: (agitated interruption): Controversy?

Holden: - That came up this week. The IG report blasting your office for basically failing to hold the contractors accountable for the work they did, way too much money being spent on this, and the fact that maintenance costs are going to be astronomical from this point on. At some point do you say let's just abandon this whole project?

Nagin: I wouldn't do that. I mean, you know, one of the things I want to remind the public is that this is something that we pioneered. This was a research and development kind of project that the city of New Orleans really hadn't done. And when you do research and development and you pioneer things, you know, you're going to have some issues. I want to tell you I was just in Washington and Mayor Daley came up to me and he said, "look, I like these crime cameras that you guys are doing in New Orleans. They're cheaper than hiring more police officers and we're going to do them in a big way in Chicago."

Now, have we had issues? Absolutely. It's been well documented. We started to look at it back in August and make some changes. The gentleman who was in running the department is no longer in charge of that, no longer in charge of contracting, and we're cleaning this up. We have had some issues and we are going to do better.

There's a lot more in the passage and that interview so be sure to watch the whole thing. [Spoilers] Nagin goes on to take a hilarious swipe at the IG, "The IG? I mean, I'm happy to see that the IG has produced another report. It's the second one in eighteen months, so that's a good thing". And I'm always pleased to see anyone go after a twat like Raphael Goyeneche, "Well, Raphael is not really a crime expert so, I mean, you have to take what he says with a grain of salt." [/Spoilers]

But please do watch the video and then tell me if you agree with Eli's characterization of Nagin's second interruption as "agitated". I'd believe "mocking" or perhaps "smug" even, but I don't think Nagin is agitated there. I think he's quite comfortable. He knows his interviewers aren't in his league and he's all too happy to mock and intimidate them. I know we all have a lot of fun shaking our heads at his erratic behavior, but believe me when I say this. Years from now, when Ray Nagin is long gone, he's going to be remembered as one of the all-time masters.

Regardless of what you think about the mayor's willingness to address facts or even make sense, in this interview he DID manage to needle and intimidate his questioners in a way that left the casual impression that (1) he knew what he was talking about and they didn't and (2) that he is the victim of ulterior motives on the part of his critics. The man is a genius at this. Plus it works because... statements (1) and (2) are true to some degree. It's kind of beautiful to watch, actually.

And it's not the first time. Nagin does this all the time. Here is a classic Nagin moment I noted during one of the several massively entertaining Mayoral debates in 2006.

The classic moment of the campaign came later when Rev. Tom Watson challenged Nagin to explain his "double talk" meaning his tendency to contradict his own statements depending upon the make up (race) of his audience. Watson admonished Nagin not to "apologize for being a black man." Watson also challenged Nagin's assertion that the state is "holding up" reconstruction funds and let fly at Nagin with all of the fire and brimstone he could muster here declaring, "Ray Nagin is the problem! Ray you are lying! You are a liar!" At one point in this exchange Watson actually used the words "I rebuke you." Nagin's response to all of this was even better. During the reverend's tirade Nagin affected to bless Watson making the sign of the cross and shouting, "Pastor! God bless you!"

Nagin is a master at capitalizing on the shrill ridiculousness of his indignant accusers regardless of whose side the facts are on. He meets overwrought righteous pomposity with cool sarcasm. Stylistically, at least, he's always got a point and you almost find yourself rooting for him. Almost.

Oh by the way, that Mayor Daley story? Total bullshit... but who can keep up?

There's a way to combat Nagin's antics, but it takes patience, perspective, and a decent sense of humor... qualities in chronic short supply amongst the Dragonslaying crowd who, unfortunately, seem to be on the right side of most of this. (Here's a quick hint. I love Schroeder but typing, "SUBPOENA THE HARD DRIVES!!!" in all caps like that? Not helping. I wondered for a minute if he was spoofing a NOLA.com comment. Go read his post anyway. He's absolutely right.)

Meanwhile Nagin's boat deflection strategy seems to be paying off for him in the public relations department. Case in point: Amidst all of this, it was revealed this week that the City has been sitting on millions of dollars in HUD funding despite its massive deficit of affordable housing. WWL dispatched its ace reporter Lee Zurik whose report basically nailed Ed Blakely to the wall for offering the amazing explanation that "The contractors were not able to spend (the HUD money)." Ordinarily, a story like this is big news. Ordinarily, it's the sort of thing that makes all the talk shows. Some blogger gives it a nickname. And then we all spend the next three months ripping on it. But this made almost no waves at all. It showed up on WCBF but otherwise got drowned out by all the other nonsense. Can we say it got caught in the wake of one of the Mayor's lifeboats?

"It was an unusual statement for a federal prosecutor"

Nossiter in yesterday's NYT story on NOAH

The scandal has dominated headlines and television news reports here for weeks. Mayor C. Ray Nagin at first angrily denied that there were problems at the nonprofit agency, the New Orleans Affordable Homeownership Corporation, created in 1989 and known as NOAH. Last Thursday, however, Mr. Nagin, summoned to appear before the City Council, acknowledged for the first time that there were “discrepancies” in the agency’s records and said some houses supposedly worked on had in fact not been.

The next day, the United States attorney here, Jim Letten, said a federal investigation into NOAH was under way. It was an unusual statement for a federal prosecutor. Mr. Letten made it, he said in a brief interview Monday, because he thought it would have “value in terms of public confidence,” a remark underscoring the weakened level of public trust in municipal undertakings here.

The remark also underscored the fact that US Attorney is every bit as political an office as... say Mayor of New Orleans.

Somebody found the office key

Feds begin sweep of NOAH offices

The T-P reporter seems uncertain as to who the people showing up at the NOAH offices today actually are only reluctantly taking their word for it here.

Officials arriving just before 10 a.m. at NOAH offices near City Hall, on the 10th floor of an office building at 1340 Poydras St., declined to speak in detail to a reporter, as one of them said simply that "we're guests" at the offices. But they appeared to be carrying out a subpoena issued last week as part of a federal inquiry that includes the FBI and Department of Housing and Urban Development.

Two of the investigators, as they wheeled a dolly into the office, said they were with HUD's Office of Inspector General. At least 14 total investigators are on the scene this morning, including a few wearing blue jackets with the FBI insignia.

But really these guys could be anyone.


T-P photo

Looks to me like one bouncer from Coyote Ugly, three guys from the local appliance store and, of course, the "Can you hear me now?" guy showed up to deliver a washing machine but what do I know?

Jornalism!*

Chris Rose has finally lent his considerable talents to the ongoing explication of the NOAH scandal by investigating The Him Store in person.

The Him Store and its quality product lines were previously discussed here as well as here.

*Apologies to Atrios

Update: And in a tangentially related matter...

More numbers

The city is asking for a total of $103,517 back from 19 contractors it says cannot justify the amounts paid to them by NOAH. As we said last week, if these figures reflect the largest amount of money lost through the NOAH, then the Mayor and the city have a legitimate argument that they are being unfairly persecuted for political reasons.

Of course, the real serious discrepancy that isn't given much attention here is this. This remediation program was originally conceived as a $15 million program to help poor and elderly homeowners recover their property. As we all know by now, the majority of that budget did not actualize as properties were left untouched or improperly demolished or just not even considered for the program. The fact that only about $2 million was actually spent reflects the real failure of NOAH. Be it the result of incompetence, indifference or thievery (and very petty theivery at that if the city's numbers are correct) the failure to follow through on a service like this represents an enormous breach of faith.

He ran Cox Cable

Gill, in an otherwise excellent column, writes:

Nagin ran for office as a non-politician, but surely this is not how he used to run a business. He must have had more respect for investors' money than he does for ours.

A couple of years ago, Schroeder described the Mayor's experience "running a business" in a YRHT comment that still sticks out in my mind.

How tough a "business executive" do you have to be to work for a massive monopoly that just collects checks for a ridiculously overpriced service?

It's bad enough that certain corners of our political discourse are still corrupted by the cult of "running government like a business". But even that fairy tale doesn't apply to someone whose business world claim to fame is figure-heading a quasi-public monopoly.

Update: See Schroeder's post today for... well the same point among other things.

Numbers

According to the Mayor, we're talking about 46 properties that may have been improperly billed.

If they end up being able to claim that they're being nailed to the wall over what amounts to errors and small change, then they'll get to make their critics look like a bunch of hyperventilating Dragonslayers. And if their claims about those numbers are anything close to accurate, then they would be correct in framing it this way.

It's Kabuki time

Sometimes it's difficult to decide what's worse about a scandal like NOAH. Is it the fact that an opportunity for the city to do some good work for the poor and elderly was thrown away for the sake of petty cronyism? Or is it that now we have to watch all the council clowns spend the rest of the century wagging their holier-than-thou fingers at it? I go back and forth on this.

Question of the day

S.H.:

How is it that Matt McBride had the data to support this article and the Office of Recovery Managment is still grappling with this issue?

That "other angle" we've been hearing about

T-P's Gordon Russell let's us in on it.

Stacey Jackson, the embattled former director of a city-financed program aimed at easing blight, bought four blighted properties herself through another city program two years ago but has done little or nothing to get them back into commerce.

Just last month, a company controlled by Jackson and her sister sold one of the four properties, an empty double lot at 1925-31 Sixth St., to a charity group that has been praised by City Hall and others for building new homes for first-time buyers in Central City.

The charity, Jericho Road Episcopal Housing Initiative, paid Jackson's company $20,000 for the land, three times what Jackson paid for it in 2006. As it happens, Jericho Road had been trying to get control of the land back then, but lost out to Jackson.

In fact, Jericho Road thought it had the property in 2006, having been awarded it by City Hall under a program designed to give nonprofit groups land adjudicated to the city because of unpaid taxes. But as the Jericho Road was trying to clear title to the Sixth Street property, the group learned the land was unavailable because Jackson had already staked a claim on it with the New Orleans Redevelopment Authority, according to Brad Powers, Jericho Road's executive director.

This is... very bad. What we're seeing now is that this is about more than just a good idea like the NOAH remediation program being wasted by incompetence and petty thievery. This is a tangible manifestation of the long held fear that this entire recovery effort would be an exercise in Disaster Capitalism; An insulting shell game where the mechanisms designed to bring relief to the abused become investment opportunities for the well- connected. Throughout these post-flood years Mayor Nagin has spoken to us of "economic buffets" and "exploding pies". I think we're starting to get a glimpse inside of some of the chaffing dishes.

Oh my goodness

Nagin says the "list that counts" is no longer the "list that counts"

About halfway through we get this:

Zurik: Have you heard of S&A Constrction?

Nagin: No.

Zurik: Cedric Smith owns that company (Cedric Smith is Nagin's brother-in-law)

Nagin: Okay

Zurik: They were the 4th highest paid contractor. Is there any conflict in your mind or anything like that?

Nagin: Not that I'm aware of. I mean...uh... as long as he's a registered contractor I don't see any problem.

Zurik: He's not registered with the State licensing board.

Nagin: If he needed a State license he should get it.

You can still count me as surprised if this turns into real trouble for Nagin personally. Politically it's going to get nastier and nastier.... and I'm afraid ultimately sadder and sadder.

Update: More on the long and varied business of being a brother-in-law at Moldy City.

Meanwhile, Adrastos points out that even as the T-P reports on the NOAH story, it basically still can't help but applaud Nagin for handling his brother-in-law so well.

Nagin is not in any trouble

Stacey Jackson is getting nailed... but Nagin has been too useful an idiot to the current Federal administration. Their (highly politicized) Justice Dept will leave him alone.

We have a new leader

In the NOAH post title pun sweepstakes

"Bambooty"

The NOAH story has officially made the crossing from the ridiculous to the sublime. That crossing being a bridge made of "environmentally friendly" bamboo, no doubt. The latest WCBF anyalysis (read googling) of NOAH contractors makes the following fascinating connection:

NOAH --> Parish-Dubuclet Services Inc. --> Trellis Smith --> EC Advertising --> Stacey Jackson.

That's former NOAH director (and, for a time, keeper of the sacred office keys) Stacey Jackson is a business partner of NOAH contractor Trellis Smith. Okay. Fine. Most of us would expect as much in a small town like this. A lot of people in and out of government services in any municipality know a lot of the same people and these people all network and go into business together. It's nothing new. Sometimes it looks bad but in reality it only IS bad if the government services in such people's charge are neglected in favor of furthering their private businesses. A lot of Dragonslaying types get so excited that they miss this point but proximity of persons is hardly anything to get all disturbed over.

What is disturbing is another business relationship between Smith and Jackson that E has dug up. The Him Store is a.. um... purveyor of high-end designer underwear for men. According to this Gambit feature (cleverly titled "Bambooty"), among the products offered at The Him Store is a new line of undergarmet made partially from... bamboo. We are told that the benefits of bamboo-based underwear include the following:

In addition to being a natural deodorizer, bamboo-made fabric wins points with environmentalists for its sustainability. It renews quickly, sucks in greenhouse gasses and releases oxygen.

Imagine encountering Al Gore in the street and being able to make an under any other circumstance obscene gesture and say to him, "I got yer global warming solution right here, Gore!" Or you could go to parties and say things like "Who wants to check my carbon footprint?" People would love you. Trust me on this.

E also points out that The Him Store offers franchising opportunities. That's right. You too could become a business partner with politically connected folks. Maybe some day You Could Be Famous too. It seems like now is as good a time as any to get in on the bamboo-based designer undergarmet business. With the Saints season soon to be underway, we're certain that Misters Bush and Shockey would make great potential spokespersons. Shockey, for one, can be seen on this morning's T-P sports page modeling a similarly douchey pair of fashionably manufactured faux cut-offs... for the discerning white trash man of leisure. As for Bush... well who wouldn't want to be sporting the latest in new-age undies when going through one's daily Fre Flo Do routine?

It's a dream house!

At $390,000 you'd almost call it a steal... or you'd say something is being stolen.

Update: The story has been picked up by Gambit reporter-blogger David Winkler-Schmit. Also WCBF has more on the list of 10 contractors involved in the remediations.

Intrepid Independent Investigator E

Or IIIE. Something is brewing over at WCBF. Go encourage or help the little fella if you can.