Rescuing Bobby Jindal From Media Floodwaters

As I'm sure you've heard, read, or seen by now, Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal delivered a disastrous nationally televised speech in response to President Obama's first address to Congress. In what has become a media feeding frenzy, different aspects of Governor Jindal's speech have been picked apart and for additional comedic value or because it appears as though Jindal made various misleading distortions over the course of his speech. Meanwhile, Jindal's crack communications squad has reacted poorly to the various controversies by struggling to provide basic and consistent explanations to fairly fundamental media queries.

While I believe that there are more consequential lies within the speech delivered on Tuesday, the mainstream media has been particularly nosy about the story Jindal told about his presence in Sheriff Harry Lee's office during Katrina because it appears that the Governor made up the whole thing. His office basically admitted as much but has since changed their story several times since Wednesday. What could have been spun as an inconsequential exaggeration and immediately buried with little egg on the face has instead morphed into a week-long controversy that continues to undermine the governor's basic credibility as a professional.

I became extremely frustrated yesterday by the media's fixation on the Harry Lee lie, especially since I thought that his ridiculous distortion of the state of education in New Orleans, his inexplicable condemnation of volcano monitoring funds, and his hypocritical invocation of the nonexistent funding for a train from Las Vegas to Anaheim were several times more outrageous than the fibs used to embellish a largely tangential story.

But that's how it works. And besides, I've got some major news to break. I have obtained a copy of an alternative speech that Governor Jindal wrote instead of the now infamous McBreyer address. This version was ultimately rejected by Chief of Staff Timmy Teepell and Communications Director Melissa Sellers at the 11th hour. My highly trained show falcons retrieved the speech from dumpsters outside the governor's mansion in Baton Rouge. Much of the speech - congratulating Obama while highlighting his own biography - is the same. The middle part of the speech, however, is drastically different. I've provided the relevant clip from the original transcript and the rejected alternative follows below:

Republicans are ready to work with the new President to provide those solutions. Here in my state of Louisiana, we don't care what party you belong to if you have good ideas to make life better for our people. We need more of that attitude from both Democrats and Republicans in our nation's capital. All of us want our economy to recover and our nation to prosper. So where we agree, Republicans must be the President's strongest partners. And where we disagree, Republicans have a responsibility to be candid and offer better ideas for a path forward.

Today in Washington, some are promising that government will rescue us from the economic storms raging all around us.

Those of us who lived through Hurricane Katrina, we have our doubts.

Let me tell you a story.

During Katrina, I visited Sheriff Harry Lee, a Democrat and a good friend of mine. When I walked into his makeshift office I'd never seen him so angry. He was yelling into the phone: 'Well, I'm the Sheriff and if you don't like it you can come and arrest me!' I asked him: 'Sheriff, what's got you so mad?' He told me that he had put out a call for volunteers to come with their boats to rescue people who were trapped on their rooftops by the floodwaters. The boats were all lined up ready to go - when some bureaucrat showed up and told them they couldn't go out on the water unless they had proof of insurance and registration. I told him, 'Sheriff, that's ridiculous.' And before I knew it, he was yelling into the phone: 'Congressman Jindal is here, and he says you can come and arrest him too!' Harry just told the boaters to ignore the bureaucrats and start rescuing people.

There is a lesson in this experience: The strength of America is not found in our government. It is found in the compassionate hearts and enterprising spirit of our citizens. We are grateful for the support we have received from across the nation for the ongoing recovery efforts. This spirit got Louisiana through the hurricanes - and this spirit will get our nation through the storms we face today.

To solve our current problems, Washington must lead. But the way to lead is not to raise taxes and put more money and power in hands of Washington politicians. The way to lead is by empowering you - the American people. Because we believe that Americans can do anything.

And here is the alternative that got tossed just hours before the cameras went live:

Today in Washington, some are promising that government will rescue us from the economic storms raging all around us. Because of how poorly the last Republican administration went about the business of governing, Americans are intelligently looking to the Obama administration and the federal government for a different approach.

In reality, however, Americans aren't asking for that much. They're asking for a sleek, well-defined government capable of delivering basic services in an efficient, cost-conscious way. Conservatives like me believe that the best way to stimulate the economy is to streamline bloated federal bureaucracies and immediately pass the savings on to small businesses and individual Americans.

But we conservatives also understand why the Republican Party doesn't have your trust and I might have the best understanding of all.

You see, my state, Louisiana, was a tragic casualty of the last Republican administration's failed governance. I voted for the last President because I thought that he and his Congressional partners would halt self-perpetuating federal bureaucracies, cut spending, and pass the savings onto you. Instead, in attempting to untie the constraints of big government, the knot only got bigger and tighter. Instead of small government, what we got was bad government.

My fellow conservatives and I still believe in the strength of the individual and in the ideal of small government but what we must prove is that not only do we believe in effective government but we have a plan for delivering just that.

Let me tell you a story to illustrate my point.

During Hurricane Katrina, the federal government was no where to be found. Local and state bureaucracies were incapable of handling the fallout from the levee failures and the communicative disconnect between local and federal officials contributed to property loss, unnecessary suffering, and even the deaths of patriotic American citizens.

When push came to shove, it was the individual that saved the day. I look at the story of Kimberly Rivers Roberts and her family, the subjects of an academy award nominated documentary. When the flood waters were rising in her neighborhood, she looked after her neighbors as her husband Scott delivered them to high ground on nothing more than an old punching bag that was floating by. Then, she did what so many other patriots from Louisiana have done, she returned home with her family to help rebuild the community.

When you drive through New Orleans or around the areas most badly damaged by Hurricanes Katrina, Rita, Gustav, and Ike, it isn't the government that has come in to rebuild those areas. The real work has been done by individual citizens.

This underscores my commitment to conservative ideals. It is the strength of the American citizen that makes this country great not the size of our government.

But the story also offers a lesson that conservatives around the country must learn as I have - that we must have an efficient federal government and it must effectively deliver on what little it promises.

I opposed the stimulus bill not because I don't believe that the federal government has a role to play in rescuing us from these choppy financial waters. Rather, I opposed the stimulus bill because I believe that the borrow and spend policy is not the most effective way to reinvigorate the marketplace. Instead, by prudently cutting the bloated bureaucracies that contributed to the ineffective response to Hurricane Katrina, we can cut taxes to put money back in the pockets of working families.

I know that it may take time for the Republican party to earn credibility in the eyes of the American public. I know this because my home state and my home district were victimized by our own party's inability to resist the temptations of power. Governors and young congressmen have learned this lesson the hard way. That is why the Republican party is proud to present a new generation of leadership that understands the difference between small government and ineffective government. We will work to keep the Democratic majority honest by standing up for true conservative principles. If we succeed in helping Barack Obama streamline bloated bureaucracies we will have the credibility to argue for the savings to be passed onto you, the individual, instead of spend once more on creating yet another bloated bureaucracy.

...

Wouldn't that have been a way better argument for conservative ideals? Wouldn't that have been a better way to avoid substantive issues? Wouldn't that have avoided days and days of relentless ridicule?

It still distorts history and glosses inconvenient truths but sentences that come from the mouths of Republicans tend to do that - I'm just trying to stay true to the template.

How sad is it that someone who rejects conservative principles can write a better argument in favor of them than Melissa Sellers or Timmy Teepell?


--UPDATE--

Just obtained this email from Timmy Teepell to Ben Smith of Politico:

BS (as in Ben Smith),

Teeps here. You misinterpreted previous emails and phone calls from me and my colleague, the Selldawg. Please disregard and instead check out this liberal blogger BS (as in ?) from WCBF which explains exactly what the governor meant on Tuesday.

X's and O's,

T squared

Good times...

"Liberal Blogger B.S."

A day of lies from the Jindal administration. Must be humiliating for them to have to deal with skeptical media. And the chess game continues.

This is stupid. I'm done talking about this.

Gotta Give It Up

Congressman Cao is slaying these FEMA assholes.

Lookout!

The prolific Wade Henderson of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights endorses James Perry for Mayor of New Orleans...




Leadership little by little.

Question

If Governor Bobby Jindal believes that New Orleans schools have been "reinvented" post-Katrina sufficiently enough that he considers federal stimulus money for education in Louisiana to be wasteful spending but Congressman Joe Cao voted against the stimulus because apparently he believed it didn't include enough for schools, then what are we supposed to believe?

How Many Times Did Jindal Lie?

Yesterday at the bottom of my post recapping Bobby Jindal's national weird-out, I described how the Governor totally distorted his record on education.

Now, TPM Muckraker's Zachary Roth has been looking into whether or not Bobby Jindal's account of meeting with Sheriff Harry Lee during Katrina is a fabrication.

Here is what Jindal said:

During Katrina, I visited Sheriff Harry Lee, a Democrat and a good friend of mine. When I walked into his makeshift office I'd never seen him so angry. He was yelling into the phone: 'Well, I'm the Sheriff and if you don't like it you can come and arrest me!' I asked him: 'Sheriff, what's got you so mad?' He told me that he had put out a call for volunteers to come with their boats to rescue people who were trapped on their rooftops by the floodwaters. The boats were all lined up ready to go - when some bureaucrat showed up and told them they couldn't go out on the water unless they had proof of insurance and registration. I told him, 'Sheriff, that's ridiculous.' And before I knew it, he was yelling into the phone: 'Congressman Jindal is here, and he says you can come and arrest him too!' Harry just told the boaters to ignore the bureaucrats and start rescuing people.

Did Governor Jindal fabricate this story? TPM is has collected evidence indicating that he may have.

Maybe us locals can help figure it out.

Update:

The shellfish tracks another lie from Jindal's speech, the one about what a waste it apparently is to keep an eye on active volcanoes in populated areas.

Cooler Heads Prevail

Fielkow makes the smart decision by choosing to back off the contract veto override vote. Council needs to find ways to compromise and it's not worth it to wedge coalitions on a purely symbolic vote when there is substantive progress to be made on other things, even on the issue of transparency in terms of a possible charter change amendment.

---

I noticed this bit within that article:

Carter said last week that he had received "hate e-mails" because of his failure to vote. He said he missed the vote because of a personal commitment.

For the record, here is the hateful email I sent to Councilman Carter, which was not returned:

Hello Councilman Carter,

My name is Eli Ackerman, I maintain the blog We Could Be Famous. I'm hearing from a lot of readers who are upset that you left today's rancorous Council mtg prematurely. (Especially since Councilwoman Hedge-Morrell stayed to engage in a discourse) Would you please explain why you decided to leave the meeting?

Thanks,

Eli

But then again, he's never returned any of my emails.

Perry on the loose!

But wait! There's more!

James Perry also posted a video in which he tells Bobby Jindal exactly what we think about his treasonous decision to reject $98 million in federal unemployment help for Louisiana residents.




Boom!

It's sad that this is a novelty for a New Orleans public figure.

It has already been picked up by super blog Jack and Jill politics.

James Perry, Leader?

I wanted to say something last week about Council's failure to override Mayor Nagin's veto last week but got caught up in Mardi Gras.

First off, there's been a lot of unfair criticism of Cynthia Hedge-Morrell's decision to abstain from voting. I think she made the right decision. She angered a lot of people by articulating people's mistrust for the good government crowd but I thought it would have been extremely useful as a starting point for negotiating a consensus response from Council to Nagin's executive order.

Part of the reaction derives from people's misunderstanding of what that vote meant. Hedge-Morrell did not kill a transparency law. The proposed ordinance, passed unanimously by Council and vetoed by Nagin would have brought professional services contract advisory committees under the purview of public meetings laws. Nagin circumvented the ordinance entirely by simply abolishing the advisory committees. So when the vetoed ordinance came back to Council for a potential override vote, it was totally worthless.

In my opinion, there was no reason to hold the vote. Hedge-Morrell suggested at City Hall that Council instead focus on discussing the language of a potential charter change - the only means Council has at its disposal to substantively alter the impact of Nagin's executive order. But instead, Fielkow and Clarkson pressed ahead with the vote, posing an unfair political challenge to Councilwoman Hedge-Morrell, who was the only African American willing to sit in on the meeting.

While I don't understand why Councilwoman Cynthia Willard-Lewis had to be in Washington D.C. with the US Conference of Mayors instead of at Council for this debate, at least she has an excused absence.

The person to be disillusioned and angry with is Councilman James Carter. He was at Council chambers when the contentious debate began, only to slink out when things got too hot. It was unforgivable gutlessness. He could have provided a level-head and helped foster a respectful conversation. Instead, Councilman Carter headed for the hills. I believe the best excuse his office mustered to the media was a "previously scheduled appointment" or some nonsense like that.

The disdain he seems to have for his own responsibility is increasingly noticeable and unfortunate. He's a coward.

As soon as Carter abandoned ship, the vote should have been postponed.

-

Meanwhile, in a stunning juxtaposition....

What is all this?

Am I really seeing a New Orleans political figure synthesizing viewpoints to take a stand in the midst of a fiery controversy? Huh?

Go read what James Perry says in Race and Trust in NOLA:

To build trust we need to have information from disinterested sources. We need information that provides clear unbiased data that we can rely on.

In New Orleans there is strong racial mistrust and general mistrust of our elected officials. We can use honesty and transparency to overcome that distrust and create a new basis for working together. Information and data, are key components in building this new trust. When objective data is unavailable, regardless of what the truth is, people revert to historic racial dividing lines. In today’s information age, there is a new opportunity. We can share all data and information and build relationships in much the way that friends do.

In working towards a post-racial New Orleans, sharing data is key. If we all have the common goal of a better City then there is no harm in making information available to everyone. Decisions about contracts should be open, inclusive, and transparent. Transparency and openness provide a base allowing trust to endure even through disagreement and bad reasoning. We need transparency in New Orleans government now. The progress of New Orleans’ racial dialogue depends on it.

This is an interesting way to construct the argument in favor of transparency since a lot of folks have been saying that the whole reason we can't have common sense public meetings and records laws is because of racial mistrust.

-

Certainly the issues last week were extremely frustrating but I'm at least glad that when things finally broke down last Thursday, there was some frank talk (in Council and online) about the racial tension that too often manifests in blood pressure doubling passive aggressiveness.

James Carter's cowardly display was not what we needed. Arnie Fielkow's poorly contrived attempt to symbolically rebuke Mayor Ray Nagin was not what needed.

What we need is leadership that isn't afraid to substantively and publicly tackle the political and racial controversies that hamstring our recovery.

Jindal distorts own record in order to offer nothing to nation

After spending the day celebrating Mardi Gras, I took a peek at Obama's address to Congress and Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal's response for the GOP.

Obama's speech was incredible, especially toward the end. Weaving the 'quitters' thing in from the story about the girl from South Carolina? Just beautiful.



Jindal's speech?

Ouch. He's getting put through the paces in the media for his creepy body language and pipsqueak delivery - and rightly so. He was horrendous. Absolutely awful.

To a certain extent you have to put it in context. I mean, what's the GOP response supposed to be after a 52 minute operatic masterpiece by a popular, pro-active commander-in-chief? No Republican in the nation would have been capable of saying anything remotely inspiring in that situation. Not one. That is a function several things - the GOP personality vacuum, the deserved unpopularity of the GOP brand for their 95% culpability in fostering our current dire circumstances, and the overall GOP strategic vision of opposing every good idea of the new President while offering no alternatives - but certainly you'd expect that the great last hope of the conservative fundamentalists would be able to offer something to the American people. He didn't because he couldn't - he has nothing to offer. Nor does the rest of his party. And it must begin crystallizing for conservatives of all stripes that they're going to have to radically alter their political priorities and target coalitions if they're ever to be seen as fit for national power ever again.

Here is a video of Governor Jindal's speech:




Conservative pundit David Brooks gets this:




But let's truly evaluate the lack of substance by looking at the transcript of the speech itself. It wasn't just the meek voice with which Jindal delivered them, it was the words themselves - and what they mean in juxtaposition to Obama's ambitious plans to make America a greater nation.

Jindal's speech lasts just over 2000 words. He doesn't discuss a single substantive policy until he's about 800 words in. He spends the beginning part of the speech introducing his own personal story as the son of immigrants from India. He makes some feint acknowledgment of the need for bipartisanship. And he inexplicably highlights a generic disposition against "government" by telling the story of the time that Republican President George W. Bush's pathetic administration failed to respond to Hurricane Katrina.

All anecdotes and platitudes that rang hollow.

Then he finally gets into a real-world issue by railing against the recently passed stimulus bill - the one that promises to invest in communities, create jobs, and lower taxes in the midst of an economic crisis. Calling the President's do-something approach "irresponsible," Jindal highlights his "different approach" in Louisiana and tosses out his ideas for repairing our economy.

Since I became governor, we cut more than 250 earmarks from our state budget. And to create jobs for our citizens, we cut taxes six times - including the largest income tax cut in the history of our state. We passed those tax cuts with bipartisan majorities. Republicans and Democrats put aside their differences, and worked together to make sure our people could keep more of what they earn. If it can be done in Baton Rouge, surely it can be done in Washington, DC.

To strengthen our economy, we need urgent action to keep energy prices down. All of us remember what it felt like to pay $4 at the pump - and unless we act now, those prices will return. To stop that from happening, we need to increase conservation ... increase energy efficiency ... increase the use of alternative and renewable fuels ... increase our use of nuclear power - and increase drilling for oil and gas here at home. We believe that Americans can do anything - and if we unleash the innovative spirit of our citizens, we can achieve energy independence.

To strengthen our economy, we also need to address the crisis in health care. Republicans believe in a simple principle: No American should have to worry about losing their health coverage - period. We stand for universal access to affordable health care coverage. We oppose universal government-run health care. Health care decisions should be made by doctors and patients - not by government bureaucrats. We believe Americans can do anything - and if we put aside partisan politics and work together, we can make our system of private medicine affordable and accessible for every one of our citizens.

To strengthen our economy, we also need to make sure every child in America gets the best possible education. After Katrina, we reinvented the New Orleans school system - opening dozens of new charter schools, and creating a new scholarship program that is giving parents the chance to send their children to private or parochial schools of their choice. We believe that, with the proper education, the children of America can do anything. And it should not take a devastating storm to bring this kind of innovation to education in our country.

To strengthen our economy, we must promote confidence in America by ensuring ours is the most ethical and transparent system in the world. In my home state, there used to be saying: At any given time, half of Louisiana is under water - and the other half is under indictment. No one says that anymore. Last year, we passed some of the strongest ethics laws in the nation - and today, Louisiana has turned her back on the corruption of the past. We need to bring transparency to Washington, DC - so we can rid our Capitol of corruption ... and ensure we never see the passage of another trillion dollar spending bill that Congress has not even read and the American people haven't even seen.

First, he highlights some cursory reductions in earmark spending and his deficit-fanning tax cuts. That's fine.

Then he prioritizes an interesting plan to cut energy costs. Whereas Obama wants to invest in weatherization, renewable and alternative energy, and conservation, Bobby Jindal also indicates a willingness to invest in energy independence. The difference is that Barack Obama just passed a stimulus bill - the one that Jindal vehemently opposes - that would specifically invest in renewable energy research and home weatherization programs. Jindal cites the high gas prices that no longer exist due to this crippling recession as evidence that we need to provide more giveaways to oil and gas companies for more offshore drilling.

Next, Jindal addresses healthcare accessibility. This was a big part of Obama's speech. The President has promised that healthcare reform will be a priority for this year, because access to healthcare is a human right and because the rising cost of care is kneecapping small businesses. Jindal is light on the details himself, saying only that he opposes a single-payer state system. While I believe in single-payer myself, it is seemingly certain that the Obama plan for universal healthcare will be a public-private partnership. So not much substance from the GOP here.

Then he highlights his record on education policy - I'll get to this later.

Jindal closes the policy portion of the speech by calling for ethics and transparency in Washington, which is kind of silly given the strident standards that President Obama imposed immediately upon taking office and absolutely dumbfounding given the unabashed corruption epidemic within Bush's Republican administration and the GOP Congress.

The rest of the speech is a half-assed mea culpa for the GOP in which he pledges that his party will regain the trust of the nation.

How about some actual policies and ideas?

--

Here is what Jindal said about education:

To strengthen our economy, we also need to make sure every child in America gets the best possible education. After Katrina, we reinvented the New Orleans school system - opening dozens of new charter schools, and creating a new scholarship program that is giving parents the chance to send their children to private or parochial schools of their choice. We believe that, with the proper education, the children of America can do anything. And it should not take a devastating storm to bring this kind of innovation to education in our country.

This is, simply put, a total distortion of not just of what is going on in New Orleans schools but also his own role in implementing the policies he highlights. He does this all in once sentence somehow.

"We reinvented the New Orleans school system..."

By this I believe he's referring to the effective dissolution of the Orleans Parish School Board and the creation of the state-run Recovery School District to take temporary receivership of public school management in New Orleans after Katrina. For one, the decision was made and implemented before Jindal was governor. In fact, it was former governor Kathleen Blanco who created the RSD, hired Paul Pastorek to head the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education, and brought in Paul Vallas to manage the RSD itself. For two, nobody aside from the cheerleaders from within the system's administration is anywhere close to declaring any kind of victory in what is an ongoing and contentious experiment.

"...opening up dozens of new charter schools..."

It is true that the RSD has outsourced the management of many schools to charter organizations (also under Governor Blanco, not Jindal). But the sentence might be misinterpreted in indicate that the school system in New Orleans is back online. In fact, the long-term RSD plan is to shutter schools.

The reality is that school facilities in New Orleans are in horrible disrepair. While the RSD's facilities master plan will bring some new schools and renovations online within the next few years, GOP opposition to the stimulus actually killed school building money that would have accelerated school facilities construction in New Orleans in a real and measurable way.

The students at George Washington Carver High School in the 9th Ward still attend class in temporary FEMA-issued portable units behind chain-link fences in bright orange uniforms.

Meanwhile, this is the state of the Morris FX Jeff school in Mid City:



This picture is from over a year ago when neighbors organized to get this school repaired by the RSD, but I can assure you that the building looked the same or worse when I walked past it on Saturday on my way to the Endymion parade. This is precisely the type of building that could have been renovated had Jindal and other GOP "leaders" not been so petulant in reaction to a stimulus bill that promised to actually help people and communities around the country. And this wild post-disaster public education experiment is Bobby Jindal's crowning achievement in education policy?

"...new scholarship program..."

This part is true. Some local Democratic legislators sold out and capitulated on a school voucher program that diverts public resources away from needy public schools. But he can this one if he wants.

The bottom line is that I don't think Bobby Jindal wants to spend too much time touting his record on education. I haven't even mentioned his enthusiastic endorsement of teaching creationism in science classes.

--

I've noticed how the GOP stars have been aligning for Bobby Jindal's ascendancy to a roll as a national leader of the Party. But all that was predicated on their belief that he was capable of showing Americans that Republicans had some sort of practical vision, some policy ideas that could maybe resonate down the road when political conditions improve. Looks like they could be heading back to the drawing board on that one.

Back of the line Bobby!

Happy Mardi Gras indeed. What a day!

In other news, Governor Bobby Jindal BOMBED.

And he lied, more on that soon.

See You Wednesday

Oyster did some helpful synthesizing yesterday.

I'm having playtime until after Mardi Gras.

In the mean time I hope the discussion occurring beneath my last post continues.

Oh I did want to say one thing:

Bobby Jindal has committed treason against the residents of this state. He's crazy. It's unfathomable. This is grounds for removal as far as I'm concerned. We're one of the poorest states in the country and he just turned down money that would have gone directly to poor people and had no strings attached. Treason I tell ya!

Depressing

A really disturbing question popped into my head recently and I've really been struggling to find a satisfactory answer.

Given the sober outlook for many of the poorer, lower lying areas of the city over the medium term (10-15 years) in regard to societal basics (economic opportunity, education, housing, health, safety) and fundamental life sustainability (flood protection, subsidence, rising seas), at what point to rational organizations working in the public interest determine that it is more in the interest of disadvantaged New Orleanians to work on subsidizing rescue relocation instead of rebuilding?

Everything I've tried to do in New Orleans from a political standpoint has been predicated on my unwavering belief that it was humanity's moral imperative to rebuild this city while wholly recreating the conservative state institutions and instruments that systemically perpetuate for generational poverty, structural racism, and their associated societal ills.

It was also predicated on my belief that this region is uniquely positioned to capitalize on macro trends that will undoubtedly create economic opportunity around different aspects of the sustainability movement.

But so much and so little has changed.

On the national level, the economic crisis has pushed the obligation to New Orleans further and further away from priority status. Additional infusions of federal capital to the Gulf seem increasingly unlikely given the ideological opposition to federal spending by 90% of our Congressional delegations. The realization of the right of return seems like a pipe dream given the confluence of these and other national and international factors.

On the local level, political discourse in general terms remains largely monopolized by supremacist robber barons and short-sighted machine widgets. The public has little faith in municipal institutions nor is there enough working trust between citizens of different backgrounds to appreciably alter those institutions in the short term. On this front, I have sensed some hard-fought incremental progress.

In other cities, or if this city hadn't experienced such devastating trauma, the incremental change that has occurred over the last 2-3 years would seem monumental.

But the time window New Orleans has in which to make fundamental, perhaps radical change is much much smaller than anywhere else's. We live in a state of political emergency. It may not be right that we should have to prove our right to exist given absolute federal culpability in the disaster that has brought us to this point but unfortunately that's the situation we find ourselves in, isn't it? Especially now after recovery resources have been squandered, stalled, or have otherwise failed to substantially put this city on the road toward short, medium, or long term recovery. Especially now after the national economy has created emergency situations throughout the sunbelt. Especially now as the region's political clout has waned.

I'm sorry that this post is so depressing, especially on such a beautiful sunny day just hours before the Krewe of Muses rolls down St. Charles Avenue. And certainly the morose outlook here is somewhat colored by my personal frustration as a young man searching for stable, fulfilling employment in this time of economic contraction. But I don't think I'm exactly going overboard here.

The fact is that the preconditions for a robust and equitable recovery still remain. But time is running short. Really, really short. Joseph Cao short.

There will be a new Mayor elected one year from now. It's the last best chance to save this city. We have until then to reach out, educate, and organize. The events of this week - the Mayor's politicking and Council's pandering - demonstrate very clearly the uphill climb that remains before honest conversation and evaluation of the city's health can occur in the public domain.

It's too early to pick a Mayoral candidate, but I'm looking for someone that can articulate an optimistic vision for how to maximize the region's advantages without sugarcoating the extremely dire forecast that New Orleans faces if we make no change or only small change.

There's something romantic and courageous about the sinking ship imagery and the unwavering commitment that people have to go down with it, so to speak. But I worry about the people that don't really get a choice in the matter. And I worry about my own transformation from energetic wide-eyed young man to perpetually exhausted and disillusioned curmudgeon.

Transparency and efficiency are not mutually exclusive

Today may have been the first time I ever left City Council chambers with a smile on my face. Sure, the Mayor had just announced a vicious power grab to give himself sole control over the award of professional services contracts. But at least he was there in the flesh to hear public comment.

In spite of all the predetermined pageantry that sought to shield the Mayor from direct criticism, he still got dressed down pretty good.

It's weird because in an objective sense, this has been a horrible week for New Orleans. Mayor Nagin has erected the barricades. If it wasn't clear before, it's perfectly clear now that he has no intention of working with anybody on anything remotely productive for the rest of his term.

The meeting today merely fulfilled a legal requirement associated with the Mayor's new executive order and will take effect in seven days. There was no mystery to that.

Today was just for show in that regard, so it was nice to see the choreography come undone to a certain degree.

Arriving at noon, I was surprised to see that between a third and a half of council chambers was filled with NOPD officers dressed in recently reinstated powder blue. I wasn't entirely sure what the NOPD had to do with open meetings laws and executive orders but I was soon enlightened.

Much of the opening statements from city attorney Penya Moses-Fields and Mayor Nagin focused on their concerns with the recent City Council ordinance requiring the administration to comply with preexisting rules for take-home vehicles.

Of course their rhetoric was the typical "we are focused on recovery and these things get in the way" stuff with which we've become so familiar. But the substantive point was that the ordinance failed to exempt first responders from having to sacrifice their take home cars.

I'm pretty sure the original ordinance from the 80s limited that first attempted to restrict the take-home car fleet already exempted first responders. The IG audit of take home car policy purposely didn't touch the NOPD. Last week's ordinance requiring compliance with the law, therefore, implicitly exempts NOPD and EMT because there is a different law governing take vehicle fleets for first responders. And still, it is likely that the ordinance will be modified to make this explicit since clearly nobody wants to restrict the ability of first responders to get to work, given that NOPD and EMT are always on call.

So this non-issue was puffed up as the main event even though the real reason the meeting was called was to present the executive order banning advisory committees for professional services contracts.

As luck would have it, when the time came for comment, there was a steady stream of city officials and people associated with first responder organizations ready to speak out against the take-home car ordinance, eating up time that would have otherwise been used to discuss the executive order.

You had speakers from Police Association of New Orleans, the Fraternal Order of Police, the Black Association of Police, etc.

Police Chief Riley spoke. So too did CAO Brenda Hatfield and Director of Public Works Robert Mendoza - all about some made up or easily resolvable qualm with the take home car ordinance. This is why the whole place was stocked with uniformed NOPD officers.

Citizen comments (nearly unanimous in opposition) related to the power grab executive order, at the beginning, were interspersed with additional trumped-up outrage related to the peripheral car issue. But toward the end of the meeting, it was one frustrated speaker after another. Brave citizens looked Mayor Nagin in the eye and told him exactly what they saw.

That's why he was so irritated during his closing remarks, when he said how much he was looking forward to leaving office in order to watch candidates struggle to clean up after his own mess.

The Times-Picayune

WWL article, WWL TV report

WWL video of Nagin's closing remarks.

--

Clancy DuBos' separate analysis for WWL was not good. He describes the controversy as representing a clash between the democratic values of 'transparency' and 'efficiency.' He sets up a dialectic between the efficiency of closed-door authority and the inefficiency of transparency. He says that in a Democracy, you have to balance these "competing interests."

However, he fails to understand or articulate the underlying reason why people are fighting so hard for open government at this moment in New Orleans. Folks are not interested in transparency because of the thrill of the democratic process or intellectual curiosity. Certainly an efficient and effective recovery for New Orleans is way more important to me right now than the philosophical purity of a completely open direct democracy.

Rather, the reason the fight for transparency and open government has become consumed this city is because people are trying to figure out why the recovery has been such an inefficient failure to this point. The most poignant moments of citizen indignation came when people wondered why it was nothing was getting fixed, why there are no cranes on the skyline, and why we see so little evidence of the flowing recovery dollars Mayor Nagin continues to promise.

I care about transparency precisely because I care about efficiency and recovery. Quite frankly, I wouldn't mind if Nagin used city money to install a gilded toilet in Greg Meffert's stretch Escalade so long as he'd also crafted a long term vision for regional sustainability, brought home displaced residents, advanced the causes of economic and racial justice, improved city services, and raised our collective quality of life.

Bring me a government that works efficiently to advance the public interest and I'll never say transparency again. Until then, I'll work to find out why the Nagin administration seems to be doing just the opposite.

Cao: New Orleans Shafted!

Given how little we know about precisely how the stimulus will work around the nation, to start making job projections for individual Congressional districts seems silly, more so when one realizes that so much of that the allocation of much of each state's haul is still up for negotiation between governors and legislatures.

So I wouldn't get too indignant about the details of this article in today's Times-Picayune. The problems in New Orleans are so vast that a more direct infusion of federal attention is to be expected, and it is highly unlikely that more stimulus money would have been procured at the cost of special attention later.

Nonetheless, Joe Cao would have you believe that the real reason he voted against the stimulus package was that it didn't include enough jobs for the 2nd Congressional, which does indeed rank last on the Obama administration's estimate of jobs created or saved per district. On Monday, he unveiled this line in an op-ed penned to the Times-Picayune. Yesterday, he was flogging this talking point at a joint event held with Steve Scalise at the Port of New Orleans.

However, we know very well that the jobs per district number is misleading. More useful would be a calculation of jobs per capita or per 100,000 residents. The 2nd Congressional district lost a huge percentage of its population as a result of, well, you know.

But that's not really the important point.

The questions I have are:

Where the hell was Joseph Cao when the stimulus bill was being written?

Was he on the phone daily between the Regional Planning Commission, the Regional Transit Authority, the City of New Orleans, the Recovery School District, the State Department of Transportation and Development, and the Port of New Orleans?

Was he talking to traditional friends of New Orleans in Congress like Majority Whip Jim Clyburn, Judicial Committee Charmian John Conyers, Committee on Education and Labor Chair George Miller, or Chair of the Congressional Black Caucus Barbara Lee?

Was he working with other fiscally conservative moderates who were working on maximizing returns for Louisiana and New Orleans like Rep. Charlie Melancon or Senator Mary Landrieu?

Did he try to leverage his highly coveted vote as a Republicam moderate to try to win extra spending on projects important to his district? The Democrats were bending over backward to try to get some GOP support. Did Joseph Cao try to use that?

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

Cao went the other way. He didn't put the pressure on Democrats to tailor the bill to help his residents.

He got pressured by conservative wing nut Republicans. He's alternatively had Newt Gingrich, Steve Scalise, Eric Cantor, and others whispering into his ears while stepping on his feet.

Take this revelation from the Politico:

He told reporters an hour or two before the vote that he was strongly considering a vote in favor of the stimulus measure after rejecting an earlier version – “At this point, I’m leaning ‘yes,’ but I’m not absolutely certain.” He reasoned that his heavily Democratic district could use the money with many of his constituents still struggling to rebound from Hurricane Katrina.

Beforehand, Cao acknowledged that Republican leaders had put “pressure” on him to oppose the package, and the party’s chief deputy whip, California Rep. Kevin O. McCarthy, stood near Cao during the entire vote.

“They encouraged me to vote ‘no,’ but they understand the needs of my district,” Cao said.

Does Joseph Cao understand the needs of this district?

Something tells me that the deregulation/kill government/fundamentals are strong/let'em drown crowd doesn't understand the needs of this district AT ALL. Nobody representing the leadership of the Republican Party has any credibility to talk about the needs of New Orleans.

So Joe Cao better decide quickly who precisely he's representing.

I'm done. I have implemented transparency.

Most transparent administration EVER!

Most of the Nagin administration's emails from 2008 have been deleted.

Conveniently, he's heading to Washington D.C. tomorrow.

This is one of the more outrageous things to come down the pipeline in some time.

---

More: WWLTV on the issue of public meetings.


Well someone's recovered those emails apparently.

Indeed indeed. Pay attention.

The relevant memo: html or pdf

Someone is mad at the mayor...

Transparent government is sure to be a cornerstone of Council vp Arnie Fielkow's mayoral run and today our current leader provided him with a bit more ammo.

Here are some choice passages from the statement Fielkow released following Nagin's announcement that, in the name of recovery, open government would not come to the city of NO.



"Under the proposed new Executive Order contained in Monday’s Times Picayune back page, and in an effort to avoid the Louisiana Open Meetings laws, the Mayor, instead of embracing enhanced openness and transparency, has taken several steps backwards. The Mayor has returned the city’s professional service contracting process to an era of closed door decision-making. Indeed, if the proposed new Executive Order goes into effect, the only individuals reviewing and consulting on the proposals will be employees appointed directly by the Mayor, namely the CAO, the City Attorney and/or the ORDA Director. Their evaluation of contracts and input to the Mayor may be either verbal or written, thus ensuring that the public, including the Inspector General, will now be totally excluded from the selection process."

"The City Council’s actions two weeks ago ensured that the contracting process would be open and transparent and that the public could be informed and engaged as to how their dollars are being used. Meetings would have been publicly noticed, citizens would have been able to view and participate and minutes of all meetings would have been kept. Sadly, despite the Mayor’s stated intentions to achieve openness and transparency, his current actions contradict his words and negatively affect a citizen base which desperately seeks to have its city government operate in the sunshine."

Kingdom of the Wicked part 1

Did cruelty live in the bones of this late pastel double joined shotgun -or is the world really this evil?
.
This unremarkable double shotgun was demolished yesterday by city contractors after being declared an imminent health threat in danger of collapse. The wrecking ball punctuated a pattern of neglect, and in the sharp tongue of the New Orleans Police Department, "slum conditions."
According to a 2004 police investigation, the son of the house's owner "willfully neglected to provide adequate living accommodations to a 76-year-old female who rented a home from him. The suspect refused to make structural repairs to the home. The home’s interior and exterior had unsanitary conditions and the City of New Orleans’ Health Department declared the residence unfit for human habitation."
Five years and one mama storm later, this house was still unfit, and still inhabited.
In the weeks before the bulldozers arrived, a homeless family had been squatting there, taking shelter inside the house's unsteady walls while they waited for transitional housing to open up. It was probably not a great place to be; on a recent Thursday night, a lone man stood in front of a nearby house, also unlit, waving his arms frantically at passing cars. Finally late last week, the city called Unity of Greater New Orleans , and requested the housing non-profit place the family in some kind of transitional housing. By Monday afternoon, the house was gone, a patch of mud in its place. By evening, the frenzied waver was likely back on site.
While confidentiality rules prevent Unity from providing any information on the family's whereabouts a case worker said today that they, at least temporarily, were staying somewhere more secure than the South Liberty Street house. The organization estimates there are thousands of people living in homes awaiting demolition. The Beck contractor who handled the eviction of the squatters on South Liberty, Justin Augustine, agrees.
"It’s very common that people are living in the structures we are demolishing,” said Augustine told a today.
Imagine spending your days traveling from decrepit house to decrepit house, sometimes finding extreme decay, other times a freshly made bedroll and on occasion, a family that you must evict. Now imagine doing that with relatively little support from the city. Unity, an umbrella of more than 70 social service providers and community organizations, relies on its vast network to point its outreach workers towards the 1619 South Liberty Streets in our midst. Last year it launched a program, "No One Suffers Alone" aimed at moving people from abandoned houses or the streets and into permanent housing that will be paid for with an increased number of supportive housing vouchers the organization is currently asking federal officials to approve. The organization is also advocating for the city to rewrite zoning policies to mandate developers to make a certain percentage of units in all new housing developments available to low to moderate income renters or buyers. The practice, known as "inclusionary zoning," is done in New York City, Washington DC, San Francisco, and other major cities.
But these progressive housing policies alone won't solve the problem of New Orleans' impatient wrecking ball.
Other tools are needed. One the most critical is an active and engaged City Council. District B Councilwoman Stacy Head was able to get three properties back on the tax rolls with a successful sheriff sale on the courthouse steps. Head said the sale netted the city almost $50,000. She plans to spearhead more of the sales in the future.
"Rampant demolition is NOT the answer," Head wrote (the caps are all her) in an email today. "If the properties are salvageable, the city should secure them and code enforcement should push the owners to compliance with codes, to sale or to expropriation."
Wise words. Maybe the next mayor will listen.


credit: Ariella Cohen.
Ariella is a freelance journalist and a contributor to the New Orleans Institute

Hornets Suicide

Today's trade of Tyson Chandler in exchange for the pupu platter indicates not only that the Hornets have given up on the 2009 season but also that the franchise is considering relocation to Vegas or Seattle. The collapsing economy has really hurt the NBA and if you pay attention to the rumors, there could be up to four organizations changing cities within the next 24 months. Outright contraction is also a remote possibility.

For fun?

Mayor Nagin has said that he does not believe additional oversight and accountability is a good thing. He believes it gets in the way of the recovery. Mayor Nagin's position is that New Orleans is amongst the most transparent in the nation as a result of the reforms he's made and therefore, he will not be championing anymore changes that would (further?) open the executive branch to public scrutiny.

Thus, though City Council unanimously approved an ordinance that requires the Mayor to hold in public all committee meetings that evaluate bids on legal, architectural, and engineering contracts, the Mayor has decided to veto the measure.

The following quotes come from this interview with Liz Reyes from the portion in which she asks about the open meetings/public records law at issue.

"Pure politics. Pure politics! That is the biggest misnomer out there. Go look at the records and you look at my administration. It is the most transparent it's ever been. Never before has there been the openness of contracting. Everything is done publicly."

"I think we're as transparent as just about anybody in the country and I challenge them to prove otherwise."

"We'll continue to work with them [Bureau of Governmental Research] to see if we can't get to a better place but that's for the next administration. I'm done. I have implemented transparency."

"There is nothing here of any substance. This is pure politics. Pure politics."

"There's nothing here. It's transparent already."

It would be one thing for the Mayor not to champion additional transparency measures. But to stand in the way of the consensus common-sense reforms passed unanimously by Council is beyond obstructionist.

He's blatantly playing politics because he knows and we all know that Council will soon vote to override the Mayor's veto.

He's openly and proudly standing in the way of recovery.

And since he's "done" opening government to public scrutiny. Perhaps he should resign his office. He seems to think that everything being done by Council represents political grandstanding for next year. He could make that transparent by leaving office now to move up that election timeline.

Moronic Republicans Attack Melancon For Being Useful Congressman

Future Senator Charlie Melancon recently commented on first-class dummy Rush Limbaugh and the second-class dummies on Capital Hill for whom El Rushbo acts as pied-piper. The T-P:

Rep. Charlie Melancon, D-Napoleonville, was saying last week that he can understand why some, including all House Republicans, opposed the giant stimulus package now awaiting President Barack Obama's signature. "What I don't understand are people like Rush Limbaugh saying he hopes this president won't succeed," Melancon said, just before casting the only Louisiana House vote for the nearly $790 billion package of new federal spending and tax cuts. "Because if President Obama fails on the economy, we all fail, and a lot of Americans will continue to suffer."

Rep. Melancon gets it. He sees how this recession threatens the basic well-being of working Americans, recognized how the stimulus bill would benefit Lousiana residents and businesses, and worked to maximize the bill's benefits for the state. Then he voted for it.

--

And then there's Roger Villere, Chairman of the Louisiana GOP. From the same T-P roundup:

Republicans are giving Rep. Charlie Melancon, D-Napoleonville, a hard time about traveling to Europe this weekend with other House members to meet with NATO allies. Louisiana Republican Party Chairman Roger Villere said instead of going on a junket, Melancon should have been in his district explaining why he voted for what Villere labeled a pork-laden stimulus bill. Melancon spokeswoman Robin Winchell said Melancon, who thinks the stimulus bill will help put many unemployed Louisiana residents back to work, believes it's critical to work with European allies to get more support for U.S. military operations in Afghanistan. And with the economic crisis affecting the entire world, Melancon wants to discuss the issue with NATO members in Europe, Winchell said. Melancon's wife, Aleida, will be accompanying Melancon, as will other spouses of House members, but she will be paying her own way, including all meals, Winchell said.

That Villere is trying to paint the stimulus and Melancon's yea vote as a political liability seems questionable given the bill's relative popularity and the emergency needs here in Louisiana, but at least it's somewhat explicable in the context of generic conservative talking points.

What I don't get is why they're also criticizing him for engaging in critical international diplomacy. Where I come from, asking NATO for more support in Afghanistan is a good thing for a Congressman to do. To me, that's supporting our troops.

An example of a foolish trip out of district would be when Steve Scalise went to Alaska to meet with a bunch of oil executives for a photo-op at the same time a Congressional delegation was touring the New Orleans area to examine recovery issues. Wouldn't it have been nice if he'd been around to advocate for the needs of his constituents instead of the impulses of his campaign donors?

Then again, the GOP's got BIG plans:

Nossiter!

The Gamblog has just pointed out that the New York Times has been especially attentive to New Orleans over the past few days. Kevin Allman links this article by Adam Nossiter about day laborers as victims of crime.

I'm glad he did because the article sucks. I see it as an example of Mr. Nossiter's often incendiary and anecdotal perspective on race in New Orleans.

But on the street, these laborers are known as “walking A.T.M.’s.”

Their pockets stuffed with bills, the laborers are vulnerable because of language problems and their status as illegal immigrants. And as Hispanics have become the prey of choice in crumbling neighborhoods here in one of America’s most crime-ridden cities, racial friction between the newcomers and longtime black residents has moved close to the surface.

-

Many bluntly assigned a racial component, saying that it was “los morenos” — their colloquial term for blacks — who were after them. “When we are leaving here after work, we have to go on foot,” Mr. Billado said, speaking through an interpreter. “The blacks are waiting for us. They’ll beat you up. They’ll take your money.”

I don't want to dismiss the tragedy that is the victimization of hardworking New Orleans residents and the plight of undocumented workers in general. Nor do I want to dismiss the notion that there is tension between Latino and African American communities.

But Nossiter seems to cherry-pick quotes and structures his narrative to suit the needs of a predetermined meme - that racial tension has resulted in African Americans preying upon Hispanics.

The anecdotal quotes from victims of crime are given the lede but the causal factors - the high rate of crime generally, African American joblessness and underemployment, the overall vulnerability of undocumented workers, and the fact that African Americans are so often victims of crime themselves - are buried on page 2 or left out entirely.

Furthermore, this article could have been written at any point over the last three years and the issue of the vulnerability of immigrant laborers to robbery in New Orleans has been covered by local and national media.

Nossiter does not break a new item anywhere in the article so I question the choice of subject.

If he wanted to take the pulse of the city, he might want to examine the backlash bubbling up against the NOPD that has been separately emanating from black, white, and brown quarters.

He includes a line about this:

The police, the men said, either ignore their calls, admonish them for being in the country illegally or arrive too late at a crime scene to do any good.

But what could have been useful in another context becomes a throwaway within this article in particular.

-

Did anybody else get a little queasy reading this Nossiter piece? Or am I being a cherry-picker too?

Fear of retaliation

Essential City Business story about a jerk cop and a friend of mine who knows his rights.

Wexler said his first impulse was to file a complaint with the NOPD’s Public Integrity Bureau, but he doubted the independence and effectiveness of the unit. If the police department can’t be trusted to treat citizens with respect, how can it be trusted to investigate allegations of abuse against its own officers, Wexler said.

Even his attorney, Sam Dalton, tried to discourage him from filing a report.

“I’ve seen what happens when people bring complaints,” Dalton said. “The police try to intimidate them from continuing their protests. It’s a very uncomfortable situation. One thing I know is that this officer won’t be punished.”

-

A woman who works in the area at the time of the incident verified Wexler’s account to CityBusiness but refused to provide her name for fear of police retaliation.

What DID ever happen to HIM? (store)

Did anybody else notice this little item from everyone's favorite Saturday T-P politics article?

Among the noteworthy entries on Nagin's 2008 report are three payments totaling $9,500 to EC Advertising of New Orleans for campaign-related work.

The company is owned by Trellis Smith, a City Hall contractor who got caught up last year in an investigation into a city-financed home-remediation program. The controversy centered on the relationship between contractors, including Smith, and Stacey Jackson, the former director of New Orleans Affordable Homeownership.

A probe by the FBI and the inspector general of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development focused on whether contractors -- particularly those with links to Jackson -- did the work at homes for which they were paid a total of about $1.8 million. Neither Smith nor Jackson has been accused of a crime.

Records show Jackson, who quit the agency in June, had a business partnership with Parish-Dubuclet Services Inc., also owned by Smith, which was one of NOAH's two highest-paid contractors. Smith's firm received $320,684 from the program.

Oh HIM! Now I remember.

Satuday's Times-Picayune article indicates that Smith and EC Advertising were paid for campaign work from Mayor Nagin's campaign warchest toychest. EC Advertising gets a lot of business from the city government of New Orleans. For instance, EC Advertising did NOAH's website, when it was operational but not functional. Considering that it's a small firm of just five people, what rules govern potential conflicts of interest that might arise when companies paid to provide municipal services are also paid to do explicitly political work?

NOAH, eh? Blast from the past right?

But wait!

There's more!

On Sunday, David Hammer wrote a fantastic, must-read article about NORA, the agency charged with flipping properties sold to the LRA back into commerce. Hammer highlights a rule change that occurred this fall that requires those that purchase blighted properties via NORA to remediate the blight within 90 days of purchase and have made substantial progress on an agreed development plan within 270 days. With the old rule, inexplicably maintained since before Katrina until this past fall, only requires blight removal within 270 days. Under that system, those that acquired properties through NORA could simply demolish the dilapidated structure and sit on the vacant lot indefinitely. Now, there appears to be a requirement that the landlord put the property back into use - which I thought was the point of NORA all along.

Anyway, another issue then and now was and is enforcement. NORA needs to have the manpower required to do regular inspections.

Observe:

Responding to concerns from developers and its own board of directors, the redevelopment authority's three inspectors and its attorneys and policy analysts recently redoubled efforts to track the properties the agency sold under the pre-Katrina model.

They are trying to get the latest information on hundreds of properties, the vast majority of which are in a swath of the city's midsection stretching from Central City downriver through lower Mid-City, Treme, the 7th Ward and the 9th Ward.

At least one of the untouched properties was bought by Stacey Jackson, who until last summer ran New Orleans Affordable Homeownership, another city-affiliated agency responsible for remediating blight. The FBI is investigating allegations that the agency paid contractors for work that was never performed. Jackson has ties to some of those contractors.

Jackson's own company, TJ Enterprises of New Orleans, purchased the corner property at 2732 Danneel St. and 1937 Washington Ave. from the redevelopment authority in 2005, records show. TJ Enterprises bought other parcels from the authority, too.

Before purchasing them, Jackson was required to give the redevelopment authority a rebuilding plan and sign a purchase agreement giving it the right to take back the property if the blight wasn't cleared in nine months.

On Nov. 18, 2008, almost four years after Jackson bought the property at Danneel and Washington, redevelopment authority inspectors found virtually no work had been done there. On Friday, the yellow corner store-style structure was boarded up.

Jackson's attorney, Eddie Castaing, declined to comment for this report.

Sooooooooooo, I got the old NOAH case on my mind...

And I'm wondering why why why we haven't heard a peep about NOAH from Assistant US Attorney Fred Harper, to whom the investigation has been assigned.

Or from anyone at the IG's office.

wtf?

Let's see some freakin' charges filed.

Seeking, Buffering: GOP strategy @ 48.8 bps

Some interesting leaks this weekend regarding GOP strategy as it relates to stimulus, Obama, and Congressional Democrats.

1. Elana Schor documents GOP triangulation against Pelosi and Reid.

But don't tell Republicans that it's Obama's stimulus plan they're rejecting. GOPers are subtly aiming to capitalize on two very different numbers: the Democratic Congress' sub-30% approval rating and Obama's impressive 64% approval.

"The problem lies squarely with congressional Democrats," House Republican Whip Eric Cantor (R-VA) told reporters after the vote. "My conversation with the president was clear; he said, 'it's the Speaker [Pelosi] and the Leader [Reid] running these chambers, they have the ability to control this process.'"

2. Rep. Cantor is the real leader of the House Republicans these days. He's been considered a rising star for some time and his name was bandied about when John McCain was looking at potential running mates this past summer. Now, as head whip, he's really started to realize his influence on GOP politics. He's BFF with Newt Gingrich and they talk on the phone several times a week about the latest sitcoms and dramas.

You can start to see a new generation of leadership crystallizing around some of the organizing and messaging principles laid out by Newt Gingrich since 2006ish. I've tracked this on and off since the election but it's worth bringing full-circle. Gingrich and Bobby Jindal are clearly cozy and the two employ a very similar rhetoric about "solutions." Gingrich also not-so-quietly supported Michael Steele's campaign for the GOP Chairmanship. And now the Gingrich protege Eric Cantor represents the 'anointed one' in Congress.

Watch those four names very closely: Cantor, Gingrich, Jindal, and Steele. I'm curious to see who else is looking to do business with master Newt.

3. Getting back to point 1, Josh Marshall interprets Elana's digging:

In fact, it even goes deeper than this. As Elana noted yesterday, the plan of the congressional GOP -- to the degree they have one -- is to faux cozy up to Obama and say that they both face a common foe in the Democratic Congress. The idea being that since "Congress" is really unpopular they can run against Congress.

But there's a very big problem with this strategy above and beyond the absurdity of the argument. "Congress" may be really unpopular. And the Democrats now control Congress. But politics is a zero sum game. At the end of the day, in almost every case, you've got to pick a Republican or a Democrat when you vote. And if you look at the numbers, congressional Democrats are pretty popular. And congressional Republicans are extremely unpopular. If you look at the number, the Dems are at about 50% or higher in most recent polls, while the GOP is down in the 30s.

From my armless chair, I trace a lot of this weekend's recalibration as it relates to interpreting GOP strategy to Andrew Sullivan's reaction to overall GOP tactics related to the stimulus vote and the Gregg withdrawal.

Their clear and open intent is to do all they can, however they can, to sabotage the new administration (and the economy to boot). They want failure. Even now. Even after the last eight years. Even in a recession as steeply dangerous as this one.

I think an abundance of disbelief related to Andrew's dark assessment has caused a lot of pundits to convince themselves of a contrived GOP triangulation against Congressional Democrats.

The GOP is really just kind of using a stumble upon strategy, reevaluating their position at the end of every tactically-contrived media cycle.

Maybe they have indeed come up with a medium-term plan to work against Pelosi and Reid in lieu of Obama. But this is most certainly NOT something that the wingnut base is going to endorse.

4. And for all the stories about the death of bipartisanship and the unpatriotic GOP war of insurgency, there's this from Arlen Spector:

"When I came back to the cloak room after coming to the agreement a week ago today," said Specter, "one of my colleagues said, 'Arlen, I'm proud of you.' My Republican colleague said, 'Arlen, I'm proud of you.' I said, 'Are you going to vote with me?' And he said, 'No, I might have a primary.' And I said, 'Well, you know very well I'm going to have a primary.'"

Specter, along with centrist Maine Republican Senators Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe, joined with Democrats last week to move the stimulus bill forward. Specter said he doubted there would be any more Republican votes than those three Friday night.

"I think there are a lot of people in the Republican caucus who are glad to see this action taken without their fingerprints, without their participation," he said.

Specter was asked, How many of your colleagues?

"I think a sizable number," he said. "I think a good part of the caucus agrees with the person I quoted, but I wouldn't want to begin to speculate on numbers."

Now Arlen has a certain way of making a tactical lie seem like refreshing candor but it's worth taking note. I wonder how this changed the printout coming from the Marshall and Sullivan Megapolitics3000 supercomputer.

---

So basically I think that Obama needs to continue doing exactly what he's been doing as far as political strategy is concerned. It's amazing how often I'll read thousands of words from people freaking out left, right, and center and ultimately conclude that Barack Obama's game plan is generally the right way to proceed. Pick the issue, reach out to skeptical parties, make a couple of changes, pass the law.

Late to the party (Cowing to the Party Update)

Update: Uh-oh! Flip-Flop! Cao says no to jobs, schools, roads, and levies for his own district. So much for yesterday's playful explanation of his intention to vote yea on stimulus:

"The GOP leadership, they fully understand my situation and the needs of my district, " [Cao] said.

Scalise, the assistant Republican whip, laughed when asked whether it was his responsibility to keep Cao in line, adding that a few Republican defections are to be expected.

Joked Cao, "Steve Scalise doesn't know kung fu. I know kung fu. He can't whip me."

So just how did Congressman Scalise 'whip' the rookie Cao into dis-understanding the needs of his district?

Does this mean Joseph Cao's honeymoon is over now?

---

Original post

Congressman Cao's noble pledge to vote for the stimulus bill on his second-go-round with the legislation is like sneaking your name onto someone else's gift at an office birthday party after the present has already been opened.

Not an office guy myself, but I'm confident in the analogy.

"I'm voting along what my conscience dictates and the needs of the 2nd Congressional District dictate, even if I were to be the only member of the GOP to vote for the stimulus package, " he said.

"Even though it is going to be a humongous bill, even though we will be in debt for years, I believe that more likely than not, I will vote for it because the 2nd Congressional District needs a stimulus package."

The Times-Picayune's Jonathan Tilove certainly doesn't get in the way of Cao's self-congratulation.

In fact, Cao was totally MIA when this bill was being crafted. He did absolutely nothing to articulate the needs of the district and was not properly engaged with the detailed plans of various municipal and state agencies. He did not leverage his vote to try and get money for schools, roads, public transit, or energy infrastructure. He voted 'no' when it counted, when his vote would have meant something in terms of the structure of the bill. Then, he was in lock-step with his obstructionist, do-nothing, Hooverite brethren.

And it cost the city of New Orleans.

I've been doing a lot of heavy examination behind the scenes of how various state and municipal agencies collaborated with our Congressional delegation, national organizations, and with the Obama transition team. I'm trying to work it all into one big picture but there are many layers. I promise results soon.

Suffice it to say, we could have used some real representation in the House. I'm not sure Bill Jefferson would have been appreciably better but he at least would have tried.

I'm glad to see Cao is voting for the stimulus now but the Congressman from the most devastated city in the nation needs to bring more to work than a lunch box and a 'yea' vote. Legislate, my good man. Legislate.

Jindal Tip-Toes Around Hospital Plans

It's been a pretty interesting 48 hours or so in the ongoing debate over whether to build a new LSU/VA super complex or to rehabilitate Charity. Let's review, shall we?

We shall.

On Wednesday, and Adrastros has a good political take on this, righty pundit John Maginnis wrote a column taking Governor Bobby Jindal to task for his poor leadership, citing a pattern of political cowardice. He sneaks in the LSU/VA controversy as exhibit C toward the bottom of the article:

Jindal also supports LSU's plan for a new teaching hospital in New Orleans, but you wouldn't know it from his silence while preservationists accuse state health-care officials of plotting to destroy a neighborhood alleged to be historic.

Maybe I'm nitpicking, but the neighborhood is not "alleged to be historic." It's a nationally registered historic district as part of the Mid City Historic District. This isn't something that preservationists are just making up or alleging to suit the needs to their argument; the Mid City Historic District was designated way back in 1993. The hospital proposal threatens 145 historic buildings. It's a fact. But either way, it rhetorically reduces the argument against the LSU/VA complex to the aesthetic complaints of those nerdy historians when, in actuality, the opponents of the LSU plan center their arguments on things like fiscal responsibility, transparency, and the city's public health emergency.

Coincidentally or not, Jindal turned around and within 24 hours, was on the tv 'reaffirming his support' for the LSU/VA.

But where some saw certainty, there's actually some surprising equivocation:

He said that renovating Charity is out of the picture.

“My commitment hasn’t changed. Our support hasn’t changed,” Jindal said, adding the only way they'd renovate is “if LSU were all of a sudden to come back and say, ‘you know what, we’ve talked to engineers, we’ve talked to architects, we think we can build a great, modern hospital within the old footprint.’”

“My point is this: I continue to support the fact that we need a modern hospital that is connected to the VA, that’s a home for not only patient care – which is absolutely critical – but graduate medical education and cutting-edge research,” Jindal said.

How very interesting. Jindal reaffirms his support for a robust biomedical district anchored by a modern teaching hospital and pledges his support for the LSU plan. But he does not explicitly rule out the rebuilding of a hospital in Charity. He just says that the decision is up to LSU.

Now why would he say something like that? Why would he even create that daylight?

In fact, world-renown architects and engineers have already evaluated the Charity footprint. RMJM Hillier, the world's 6th largest architecture and design firm, found that the old limestone shell of Charity remains not just structurally sound, but ideal for a "great, modern hospital."

In fact, an objective side-by-side comparison of the LSU proposal and the RMJM Hillier proposal yields a clear conclusion.

New Orleans can have a state-of-the-art biomedical development corridor faster, cheaper, and better based on the Hillier model. By building a state of the art facility in the Charity shell, New Orleans can attract economic development, restore public health infrastructure, and make the Central Business District more robust, all while avoiding the demolition of a historic residential neighborhood.

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LSU has argued that their teaching hospital needs to be connected to the VA. Why? Why do the hospitals need to be connected? Are they sharing facilities?

Not really. In fact, there is no compelling reason why these hospitals need to be directly adjacent instead of two blocks away.

What is it about the Charity building that makes it incongruous with a modern facility?

Nothing. In fact, the RMJM Hillier plan does not plan to preserve Charity's interior or anything about the outdated ward layout. They propose preserving the solid limestone exterior while building an entirely brand-new facility inside.

LSU has never taken the time to properly evaluate the structure of Charity. One of their major claims by LSU is that Charity is unsound structurally because of rusted connectors in the limestone shell of the building.

In fact, RMJM Hillier took a thermal image of the building and found that the building wasn't even constructed with connectors.

And so on and so forth.

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The LSU/VA project will not go forward as currently proposed.

Residents, public health advocates, smart growth planners, preservationists, and civil rights activists will fight this every single step of the way.

LSU does not have the money, LSU does not have the argument, and LSU does not have the right.

And our city doesn't have the time. We can't afford for them to cling to their disproved model when everybody else is willing to compromise with this alternative proposal. We could start building next year instead of next century.

If LSU would just take an honest look at RMJM Hillier's plan or even bother to show up at one of the countless public forums that have been held on the matter to defend their plan, they might have some credibility. But they haven't and they don't.

We can have a state-of-the-art hospital district sometime before the end of next decade if LSU would just reevaluate Charity and admit that rebuilding on that site is the smarter, better, cheaper, and faster way to bring back medical care to New Orleans.

And to me, it looks like Bobby Jindal is willing to support that compromise as soon as LSU gets its own head out of the sand.

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So you tell me who's the obstructionist here?

Is it the diverse partnerships that have already rallied around a compromise proposal?

Or is it really just LSU that can't get its sh*t together?