Louisiana made

I just wanted to point out that Trump did not invent this absurd situation.

The Secret Service has vacated its command post inside Trump Tower in Manhattan following a dispute between the government and President Trump’s company over the terms of a lease for the space, according to two people familiar with the discussions.

Previously, the Secret Service had stationed its command post — which houses supervisors and backup agents on standby in case of an emergency — in a Trump Tower unit one floor below the president’s apartment.

Tom Benson did.

For years, the state has been paying Saints and Pelicans owner Tom Benson and his family for 19,000 square feet of Poydras Street office space that has sat empty, even as former Attorney General Buddy Caldwell rented offices for employees elsewhere in the New Orleans area.

With a new governor and attorney general — and with the State Capitol wracked by a historic budget crisis — the state will no longer be paying for a vacant floor in Benson Tower.

Normalizing the expectations

One thing we can say for Trump is that he's doing a fantastic job of pulling the band aid off of Idiot America's understanding of the way its ruling institutions actually work.

Senior White House and Justice Department officials had been working on building a case against Mr. Comey since at least last week, according to administration officials. Attorney General Jeff Sessions had been charged with coming up with reasons to fire him, the officials said.

All the decent folk are shocked shocked. But this is how things always work.  For whatever reason, most people are a-ok with day to day corruption and abuse of power so long as the practitioners are subtle in their manners. 

Ten years ago, New Orleans' first Inspector General introduced himself with the curious remark that the corruption here just wasn't "sophisticated" enough.

“Corruption in other cities is so sophisticated (because of their rules) you wouldn’t find briberies. It’s very unusual you’d find someone passing money in an office somewhere.”

The New New Orleans does much better corruption now. But don't think for a minute that that means less corruption. It's just that as long the graft isn't so stupidly blatant that it embarrasses the comfortable classes, then nobody has to worry their pretty little head about it.

Well the country went and elected Ray Nagin President last year. And now we're having a daily panic over the very basic fact that America has not actually, "Always Been Great."  The danger here isn't so much that we "normalize" the uncouth behavior of the Ogre President. It's more that our capacity for collective self-delusion once again outstrips the opportunity he presents for honest discussion of how fucked up things really are and have been.

He really is Boss Hogg

Lt. Governor Billy Nungesser, the reigning Stupidest Corrupt Person In Louisiana, is in trouble again. This time there's no Iraqi Oil Minister, no eBay scheme, nothing about monuments. Swamp Molly isn't even mentioned.  No, this is actually the worst news for Billy in that it's one big petty graft dump.

The FBI, which investigated Nungesser during his first term as parish president, has shown new interest in a series of contracts and public works projects carried out during his tenure, according to two sources familiar with the matter.

Separately, the cash-strapped parish government has filed a flurry of lawsuits seeking to recoup hundreds of thousands of dollars it says were lost to a "pattern of fraud" and Nungesser's "thirst for absolute power" during his eight years in office, which ended in 2014.

There's Parish resources directed into building a marina he owns. There's little favors done for friends and family. It's usually the little stupid stuff like this that they actually get you on. Ray Nagin is in jail for granite countertops, basically.

But with Billy it always seems like there's so much more. In addition to the stuff we alluded to at the top, there's a Canal Street brothel connection to discuss. But mostly we'd like to see him held to account for the way he sold Plaquemines Parish to energy and chemical companies in order to "save" it. And, of course, he managed to enrich himself along the way. It's easier to go after the petty corruption.  But there's plenty of karma in the balance as well.

When does the book come out?

This FBI agent's allegations about corruption and cronyism permeating the Louisiana criminal justice system from top to bottom are worth taking seriously.  His suggested remedy, on the other hand,  which would involve agents or cops going over the heads of prosecutors to facilitate indictments, probably isn't.  In any case, one does wonder why he would consciously take this step given what he understands about the consequences.

"This letter will anger many powerful people, prosecutors, former prosecutors, defense attorneys, politicians and FBI management," Zummer wrote. "If I am wrong, then urge the Justice Department to prove it. Open up the files and let the American people see for themselves."

"I love fighting corruption in Louisiana," he added. "This is where I belong, but this letter most likely means my time is over here and possibly in the FBI."

Zummer portrayed the letter as a last resort, saying the FBI had gone to extraordinary lengths to silence him.  

"Although this is not the normal procedure to handle this sort of legal issue, the FBI's conduct has left me no choice," the agent wrote. "The victims, witnesses and investigative team should know, and they deserve to have the public know, why this plea agreement (with Morel) was made."

Unless he's got a book deal in the works.  That's got to be it, right?

Free Dollar Bill

Let's get in the wayback machine and revisit the Bill Jefferson follies for a moment.  Today we're going all the way back to 2009 when some of us, learning the specific nature of the charges against ol' Dollar Bill, started to ask what's the big deal.  Or at least, we wanted to know how exactly this was different from the day to day legalized bribery that happens in Washington.

If a Congressman can be convicted for soliciting bribes even if the so-called bribery payments are unrelated to the Congressman's official duties, then doesn't that mean every former Congressperson/Senator who goes to work for a lobbying firm selling his or her influence and connections is guilty of the same thing? If so, how soon can we indict John Breaux, Billy Tauzin.... pretty much all of K Street?

Those other guys continue to enjoy status as respected (and wealthy) former statesmen.  Mary Landrieu has since joined them in the pantheon of (legal, of course) influence peddlers. Bill Jefferson is still in jail.

But this week, a new Supreme Court ruling suggests that maybe he doesn't have to be. 

Both had those dramatic details that make a corruption case scintillating to the media and the public. For (former Virginia Governor Bob) McDonnell, it was a Rolex watch and a Ferrari ride. For Jefferson, it was the $90,000 the FBI found in his freezer.

But the true parallels lie in what McDonnell and Jefferson were doing that attracted the scrutiny of federal prosecutors. Neither McDonnell nor Jefferson was writing legislation or changing laws or issuing orders in exchange for gifts or money.

They were peddling their influence.

The court ruled in the McDonnell case that selling an "official act" can be illegal. But, according to the opinion written by Chief Justice John Roberts, it "must involve a formal exercise of governmental power that is similar in nature to a lawsuit before a court, a determination before an agency, or a hearing before a committee."

That would seem to narrow the definition most people have of what constitutes public corruption and bribery and raise doubts about whether Jefferson's efforts to broker deals for a company were, in fact, an "official act."

They experts interviewed for the article suggest that the McDonnell decision is sufficiently narrow to keep Jefferson in prison. But the principle in play here seems even murkier than it did in 2009. If the Court isn't going to put McDonnell much less Breaux or Landrieu in jail, why are Bill Jefferson and Ray Nagin, even, there right now?

We were washed clean

Yeah I know it's not worth reacting to every stupid NOLA travel piece that comes around anymore. There are so many now it's hardly worth bothering to keep up. An especially vapid one from Vogue got passed around this week. Go find it if you're really desperate. 

This isn't to say they don't do harm. They do. They promote New Orleans as a luxury for and by moneyed assholes. And the frequency at which these advertisements are produced only reinforces that notion. That has real life consequences for us poors living here now in terms of things like the cost of food and housing, and public services. It also affects our general relevance in local politics as our civic leaders tend to prize the needs and opinions of visitors over our own.  

And, of course, they like to be flattered by the narrative many of these pieces are still propagating about how Katrina saved us from "corruption."

Given the new demographics—and the fact that Katrina managed to blow apart such entrenched institutions as a corrupt city hall and an outdated levee board—the pre-Katrina culinary scene now seems insular and narrow. 

Aren't we all grateful for that.

Sophisticating up the corruption

About eight years ago, the city of New Orleans hired Robert Cerasoli as its first Inspector General.  It was one of the many highlights of the heady post-Katrina Era of Ethics.  Reform-minded crusaders had "corruption" on the run.  People were still reading the headlines about Jim Letten rather than the comments. Ed Blakely was the butt-kicking savior we'd all been waiting for. Other folks were gonna clean up the city by consolidating the assessor's office and privatizing the school board. Bobby Jindal was a Dragonslaying Knight in Shining Armor.  It was pretty funny... or maybe you had to be there.

One punch line that really grabbed me from that time was Cerasoli's observation that corruption in New Orleans was different from other cities in that it was not as "sophisticated."

Cerasoli said he is shocked the city has nothing in place to prevent corruption in awarding city contracts. The inspector general’s role is to prevent and detect corrupt and unethical practices in city government, Cerasoli said.

“It’s real simple. There should never be one person who decides who should get a contract,” Cerasoli said. “Corruption in other cities is so sophisticated (because of their rules) you wouldn’t find briberies. It’s very unusual you’d find someone passing money in an office somewhere.”

I made a lot of fun out of that. In retrospect it probably wasn't fair to Cerasoli to lump him in with the phony reformers who defined his moment.  He wasn't anywhere as bad as the rest of the class.  Even so, he'd be happy to know we did manage to sophisticate up the corruption in New Orleans.

D’Juan Hernandez, a New Orleans attorney and businessman, spent less than a year as head of a struggling local charter school called Milestone Academy.

But he managed at least one significant accomplishment before resigning last month: racking up $13,000 worth of expenses on a school credit card, including $4,000 in payments to Tulane University, which his daughter attends, and $500 for plane tickets to Florida, where his family vacationed.

On the night of the Zulu Ball — his daughter was a maid in Zulu’s court — he racked up a $687 bill at Sweet Lorraine’s Jazz Club on St. Claude Avenue. Other big-ticket items included a $224 bill at the Smith & Wollensky restaurant in Miami Beach, Florida, and hundreds of dollars on upgrades to first-class flights.

Tessa Jackson, president of the nonprofit board that governs Milestone, says Hernandez obtained an American Express card in the school’s name without getting approval from the board.

Well, ok, so just charging a bunch of personal stuff on the school credit card is probably still the stupid kind of corruption. But it's a charter school so that at least makes it reformed stupid corruption which is sort of in the ballpark.  

But we really have figured out how to do the fancy kind too.  What do you think all these entrepreneurs are here for in the first place?

This can't be all there is to it

Not defending any of it but I don't see how Chris Christie's petty vindictiveness is any sort of departure from the sort of behavior you see from political office holders any day of the week. Hell, Bobby Jindal pulls four of these stunts every day before breakfast.

Furthermore I can't even decide if making one guy answer for these abuses amounts to progress or if it means we're letting everyone else off by pretending Christie is somehow abnormal.  Anyway, Jon Stewart is not impressed.

The Daily Show
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Dragonslaying

Bobby Jindal Campaign  "War on Corruption" campaign ad from 2007:



"We can't tolerate corruption. We can't tolerate incompetence."

Except when we do.

The Kailas family, one of the metro area’s biggest landowners and developers. They have been close with Jindal through southeast Louisiana’s small Indian community for decades. The family has contributed tens of thousands of dollars to Jindal’s campaigns over the years, including office space and supplies for his victory parties.

The governor’s office said it launched an internal investigation when we broke the story last year, but apparently dropped it after Mark Maier, the consultant who partnered with Lago on the rental program, wrote a note absolving Lago of any wrongdoing. The HUD IG, however, kept working the case and the U.S. Attorney’s Office filed charges under seal in late June.

I think, maybe, the dragon won this round. 

De La Salle High illuminati

This week's Gambit cover story (not yet online.... also not really a story so much as a series of blurbs from the staff) is one of those, Are You A Native Or A Transplant gimmicks that transplants tend to be so over-sensitive about.

Unsurprisingly, the "Where'd you go to high school?" issue comes up. But this has kind of fallen into the realm of the cliche' lately. It's one of many myths we still like to tell each other about New Orleans that doesn't quite reflect reality.

When it did exist, the high school question was a quirky means of making small talk with strangers.  New Orleans is an overgrown small town and most of us are socially separated by two to four degrees at most. Beginning a conversation with, "Where'd you go to high school" used to be a pretty reliable key to figuring out how you might know a new person or which people you know in common with them.

People still try to do this, of course.  But they're less likely to try and figure you out by way of your high school because, for one thing, the school system in New Orleans has been in such flux that it's no longer the static identifier it once was and, for another, post-Katrina times have brought such an influx of people from other cities that it wouldn't matter anyway.  If you're new to town, you're much more likely to hear someone warn you you'll be asked about your high school than you are to have the question put to you in earnest.

So I was all set to write that nobody actually cares about where you went to high school anymore. But then here's an Advocate feature on incoming U.S. Attorney Ken Polite where we learn,

He was born to teenage parents and raised, early on, in the Calliope and Lafitte housing projects of New Orleans and then in the Lower 9th Ward. He went on to become the first African-American valedictorian of De La Salle High School in New Orleans before going to Harvard University.

Polite's accomplishment there is noteworthy in and of itself, of course. But there's something else about this that's pretty remarkable. Jim Letten, the man Polite is replacing, is also a De La Salle grad.  As is Orleans Parish District Attorney Leon Cannizaro. As is Senator David Vitter whose (somewhat whiny) decision to not object to Polite's nomination has cleared the way for his appointment. The school clearly holds some mystical "Skull & Bones" type influence over the local criminal justice apparatus.

Cedric Richmond went to Ben Franklin. But he supports Polite anyway. In particular he supports Polite's stated intention to beef up his office's focus on prosecuting street crime even if this means a drop-off in the emphasis on public corruption. At least, Vitter strongly implied that it might mean that. Richmond disagrees but also takes the argument a step further.

“The last time I checked, public corruption didn’t kill a damn person in the city of New Orleans,” Richmond said. “Having 200-plus murders is absolutely unnecessary. And if the senator doesn’t have that concern, then that’s his problem.”

Please don't take this as a defense of David Vitter's catty remarks. But Richmond's statement here is not exactly true.  Public corruption can and does at the very least endanger lives. It can lead to the subversion of environmental protections, flood control structures, as well as the delivery of services that directly impact the lives and health of citizens.

Oh and sometimes public corruption just shoots people and burns their bodies in a car behind the levee.

But Richmond is telling us, in kind of a New Orleans way, that we shouldn't focus on that stuff because we're too busy fighting the war on terror, or something like that anyway. New Orleanians may not ask each other where they went to high school anymore but they're probably not as worn out on wanting to know who is stealing what from them. Or, at the very least, that question does still retain its relevance.

Memories

Harkening back, yet again, to the heady days of our "rock star" former Mayor. 

Ever since the July day when Mayor Ray Nagin announced that 84 arrest warrants had been issued in a massive campaign against public corruption, New Orleans has been a changed city. The simple fact that such a thing could take place in the town called the Big Easy is a signal of change in itself. But even more striking has been the way Nagin's efforts have been embraced by the public.

The arrest warrants arose from an investigation of the city's car inspection and taxi licensing bureaus that Nagin launched shortly after taking office in May, and they were just the beginning. In the months since, his administration has dismantled the city's Utilities Bureau, announced that it had found graft in contracting and revealed extensive fraud in federal housing contracts. In addition, the acting U.S. attorney in New Orleans announced late in August that the FBI is two years into an ongoing probe of graft in city hall. "Everyone's settling in for two or three years of probes," says one local reporter.

The "massive campaign against public corruption" turned out to be a joke.  The immediate effect at the time was a number of cab drivers, themselves little more than more victims of the mess at the taxicab bureau, were arrested and frog marched for TV cameras. Nagin was cheered as a hero.

After that nothing happened. Before retiring, DA Harry Connick declared much of what Nagin's crackdown had yielded to be unprosecutable garbage.

By late last week, Connick had refused charges against all but eight city workers out of nearly 100 cabbies and municipal employees arrested in the mayor's corruption probe arrests in July. "The courts have actually agreed with Connick on issues of probable cause for those arrests, but his decision is unpopular," (criminologist Peter) Scharf says.

Political pollster Ed Renwick concurs: "He has reasons for not prosecuting those cases -- but with the public, it's gone over like a ton of bricks."

Connick not only refused the charges, he called on the mayor, the police chief and the media to apologize for the arrests, which were televised and announced in advance by The Times-Picayune.

"For [Nagin] to lead the public to believe that the police gave us good evidence is grossly unfair, and this is what he has done," Connick says.

In response, Nagin continued to demagogue welcoming the arrival of "a new DA and a fresh perspective."  In time, New Orleanians would render a different judgment on Eddie Jordan's "perspective." At the time, though, Nagin's comment allowed Connick to get in one particularly prescient parting shot.

Responding to Nagin's comments, Connick says, "I consider that to be insulting because it questions my integrity. ... I think he's become involved in something and he's, in fact, over his head. This is new to him, and I don't think he knows what to do."

Yesterday's arraignment of Nagin was mostly a distraction; an occasion for the same local press that cheered Nagin's bogus taxicab bureau crackdown to come out and gawk at him now.  Still there's a certain symmetry to appreciate in watching Nagin take the same sort of walk of shame he had himself subjected those cab drivers to for his own cynical purposes.  At least that's what I thought about when I watched this video.

Not unique but well-branded

Every time Jim Letten rides his white horse into City Hall and produces another "bad guy" for everyone to throw tomatoes at, a predictable event occurs on talk radio, on the editorial page, on Twitter, etc, where we all take turns slamming New Orleans' "unique culture of corruption".  It's everyone's go-to excuse to beat up on their neighbors or to talk about why we don't deserve the nice things the people who live in the supposedly less backward places have. 

Funny thing, though.  Those other places are really no better than us.

TRENTON, N.J. - FBI agents on Thursday raided City Hall in New Jersey's capital, a day after searching the home of the city's embattled mayor, his brother and a campaign donor.

The FBI said they had a search warrant for several offices but declined to be more specific. About a dozen FBI vehicles were parked outside City Hall, and some city employees were milling around outside but none could say which offices had been targeted.

Mayor Tony Mack, 46, on Wednesday denied wrongdoing after the FBI spent the overnight hours searching his home, and the homes of his brother, Ralphiel Mack, and businessman Joseph Giorgianni, a campaign donor who is a convicted sex offender.

The Democratic mayor's first two years in office have been punctuated by accusations of reckless spending, cronyism and mismanagement.

For some reason, though, New Orleans does have a slight edge on the rest of the country for impotently despising itself.  We have a knack for using public corruption as an excuse to deny each other services while at the same time promoting a myth that this excuse is something endemic to our culture that will never really change. It's sort of a permanent artificial barrier to progress. But hey it's great sport and it keeps Letten on TV.. and, of course... keeps the brand out there.

Does this mean we have to wait a while before Volume II of "Katrina's Secrets" comes out?

Merry Christmas four or five years too late, everyone.

A federal grand jury is investigating whether city vendors gave former New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin gratuities ranging from plane tickets to materials and equipment for his family's granite-countertop business and also helped the firm land an exclusive installation deal with a retailing giant while Nagin was in office, according to several sources close to the probe. The federal probe is zeroing in on Nagin along three parallel tracks: luxury travel and home maintenance provided by city technology vendors; a granite countertop installation contract that Nagin's family company got from The Home Depot; and the possibility that at least two businesses with City Hall dealings arranged for the delivery of free equipment or materials to the Nagin family's now-defunct firm.

For a long time I wasn't among those who thought Nagin was ever really going to be in the federal crosshairs. But that was before the Aaron Bennett stuff came out and it started to look like they had someone willing to talk a lot. Anyway read through the issues being pursued now and you'll find it touches nearly everything everyone Nagin ever accused of "hurting this recovery" by asking questions ever complained about.

But what I keep coming back to is this. Back while all these crimes were being committed was about the time we were reading the T-P squee all over the Pampy Barre trial and digging after whatever bones they thought Marc Morial might have left buried somewhere. But all that damage had already been done. And now Nagin's damage is done too. If Nagin does get indicted, I'm sure we'll all get a big kick out of it. Perhaps, if we're lucky, he'll elect to defend himself via his popular Twitter feed.

But while all that ghoulish business it going on, I do hope someone pays a little attention to the damage currently being done. Either way it's hard to see the pattern being interrupted any time soon.

Update: Dambala is right. Somebody owes him a drink.... at the very least. But more importantly, and in keeping with my point here, I'm interested in seeing the new snake countdown.

Year of the Dragonslayer

Latest on Jindal's push to privatize the State Office of Group Benefits.

Now comes word that if Morgan Keegan, which is being paid $150,000 to determine the financial value of OGB, will rake in a bonus of up to $750,000 more if OGB is subsequently privatized.

Commissioner of Administration Paul Rainwater promised that Morgan Keegan, which contributed $1,000 to Jindal’s 2007 election campaign, will provide “unbiased advice” in its efforts to help market OGB.

In what is becoming an all-too-familiar refrain, OGB board Chairman James H. Lee attempted to obtain a copy of the Morgan Keegan contract from the administration in November but was told it was not finalized.

The contract, however, was signed by Morgan Keegan’s managing director on Oct. 31 and an OGB representative on Nov. 2.

We've been following the OGB story for some time. It's fairly typical of Jindal's use of the privatization rubric to pretend his destructive and inefficient brand of cronyism is actually some sort of "good government" program. This also describes the Medicaid reform that went into effect yesterday as well as his plan to "gut public education."

And so, just for laughs, let's have another look at how Times-Picayune editorial cartoonist heralded the advent of the reign of our champion.



How's that workin' out for ya?

Update: Link fixed. Sorry

This week's first mystery

Sunday's Times-Picayune offered an entertaining look at businessman Aaron Bennett and his central role in what could be several investigations into local and federal corruption charges.

Bennett could be a fountainhead for investigators because he has held so many public contracts with different government entities -- with the city of New Orleans, Louis Armstrong International Airport, New Orleans public schools, the St. Bernard Parish port, Plaquemines Parish, the Plaquemines Parish Sheriff's Office, the Army Corps of Engineers.

If you've been picking up some of the hints over at AZ about Bennett in recent months, you shouldn't be too too surprised by this stuff although even Dambala seems a little taken aback by how up front Bennett is about everything. Despite being a key point of embarkation along numerous avenues of investigation, let's just say Aaron Bennett isn't particularly keen on keeping a low profile.

Which is why, of all the dirty secrets hinted at or just plainly stated by and about Bennett in this article, it's curious that this one small piece of information has been withheld.

About a month before he was charged last week with bribing Plaquemines Parish Sheriff Jiff Hingle -- but well after it had become obvious that federal authorities were targeting him -- businessman Aaron Bennett welcomed a reporter into his sparsely appointed but spacious penthouse apartment in the Warehouse District, which he bought from a former Saints player.

Whose condo did Bennett buy? As recently as last week, I was told that Reggie Bush's place was still on the market so it can't be him. I think Scott Fujita used to live downtown but it's unsettling for most of us to imagine America's Favorite Ex-Saint lowering himself to conduct business with Bennett. It actually sounds like the sort of thing we'd expect from Kevin Houser although I'm not sure he ever lived in a downtown condo.

No, if I had to bet just based on what little knowledge I do have, I'd say Bennett bought his condo from Jeremy Shockey. It's the nearest transaction that makes any sense on the general sleaze exchange.

Busy afternoon

Here go read Matt Taibbi's new article about the SEC's memory hole.

That, it now appears, is exactly how the Securities and Exchange Commission has been treating the Wall Street criminals who cratered the global economy a few years back. For the past two decades, according to a whistle-blower at the SEC who recently came forward to Congress, the agency has been systematically destroying records of its preliminary investigations once they are closed. By whitewashing the files of some of the nation's worst financial criminals, the SEC has kept an entire generation of federal investigators in the dark about past inquiries into insider trading, fraud and market manipulation against companies like Goldman Sachs, Deutsche Bank and AIG. With a few strokes of the keyboard, the evidence gathered during thousands of investigations – "18,000 ... including Madoff," as one high-ranking SEC official put it during a panicked meeting about the destruction – has apparently disappeared forever into the wormhole of history.

Shock Doctrining Civil Service

1) Corrupt pols contract out numerous city services in order to avoid Civil Service rules and direct more and more unaccountable money to cronies.

2) Inevitably, a bunch of people go to jail.

3) New administration claims the only way to fix this problem is to get rid of the pretense of having civil service rules in the first place.

Am I getting that right?

The Duck Hunter

From today's T-P

Neither Pierson nor federal prosecutors identified the landfill owner who paid off Mouton, and court records mention only "co-conspirator A." But other public documents suggest it is Fred Heebe or his stepfather, Jim Ward, owners of the River Birch landfill in Waggaman. Neither has been charged with a crime.

In court records, Mouton said he met co-conspirator A in 1996 during an overnight duck-hunting fundraiser "for a former Louisiana governor." That was the year Mike Foster, elected in 1995, succeeded Edwin Edwards as governor.

"Shortly thereafter, co-conspirator A contacted Mouton and offered to pay Mouton $2,000 a month and, in exchange, Mouton agreed to provide co-conspirator A with insider political information and access to the governor," the court records say.

Mouton didn't register as a lobbyist for his co-conspirator, however.

For what it's worth, most of us would need only the words highlighted in red to identify the former governor in question. There were times during the Foster administration when it was widely assumed that duck hunting was the governor's primary occupation. Buddy Diliberto, who was miffed at Foster's lack of attentiveness to the then very serious question of keeping the Saints in New Orleans, had taken to referring to him as "The Duck Hunter" derisively on the air.

Pass the popcorn

Somehow I missed the Fradella story.

Go see AZ for the roundup.

Partitioned Public Education

Caste-based segregation of the school system has always been what the charter movement was all about. Anyone who tells you different is either blind or an asshole.

House Bill 421 by Rep. Steve Carter, R-Baton Rouge, would allow corporations to secure spots on charter governing boards and reserve student enrollment slots for children of employees. To qualify, a corporation would have to donate the parcel on which the school is built, donate an existing building for the school's use or pay for major renovations to an existing school building. The corporation could lay claim to up to half of the enrollment spaces in the school and control up to 50 percent of the seats of the governing board. The measure includes a caveat that the bill could not be used to displace students who are already enrolled.

The committee's 12-2 vote sends the bill, which Gov. Bobby Jindal supports, to the House floor.

Good God the thing passed committee 12-2. Of course we already knew most of the slots in the Louisiana Legislature are wholly owned corporate property. I guess they're just applying that model to the schools.