Maybe Tanner can name some names

Only a week in but this is already the worst Louisiana Legislature I've ever had to watch.  The characters on display during committee hearings on the tax reform bills yesterday fell into three categories: the ignorant, the bought, and a few who are clearly bewildered and intimidated by the ignorant and the bought.  

But more on all that later. That's not really why I opened up the blogging program this morning. Instead, I just wanted to note this comment from one legislator on how ignorant the ignorant caucus is. 

But given how politicized mask-wearing and even the COVID vaccines have become, lawmakers are unlikely to require students in Louisiana to take the COVID vaccines.

“No, it won’t happen,” said Rep. Tanner Magee of Houma, the second-ranking Republican in the Louisiana House. “The political climate right now with vaccines, just the hysteria around it, won’t allow for any sort of mandate,” he said in an interview.

In distributing the vaccines, he added, “We honestly have some legislators who think that we really are implanting 5G chips into people.” 

I'm not usually into getting anyone to rat on their friends but I'm afraid Tanner is going to have to give us some names there.  Or, at least, get us an idea of how many "some legislators" is so we know the size of what we're dealing with. 

Or maybe he doesn't have to. The Advocate already tried to get a handle on the number of anti-vaxxers in the Capitol last week.  But these numbers and the possible reasons for them are open to interpretation. 

Among 142 lawmakers polled, 98 said they had availed themselves of the jab, while 30 said they have yet to be vaccinated. A handful said they had recently recovered from COVID-19 and plan to take the vaccine soon.

The two most powerful lawmakers – House Speaker Clay Schexnayder, R-Gonzales, and Senate President Page Cortez, R-Lafayette – refused to say whether they had been vaccinated. They joined a dozen other GOP lawmakers who wouldn’t answer the question, with some calling the survey an invasion of privacy.

I think when they say "invasion of privacy," they mean they are vaccinated but are afraid that might hurt them with their constituents. At least, that's what I read between these lines in particular. 

Some political leaders are content to stay out of those conversations. 

"I don't want my constituents to be influenced one way or another by my decision,” said Rep. Jonathan Goudeau, R-Lafayette, who refused to answer whether he had been vaccinated. 

“That’s a private health matter that I wouldn’t want to discuss publicly,” said Rep. Philip Tarver, R-Lake Charles.

And the reason I lean that way is that, typically, the legislators aren't so shy about sharing their weird ideas.  The ones who aren't getting vaccinated seem like they are happy to tell you why.  And... oh man.. let's see some of those. 

Some lawmakers referenced misinformation about the vaccine, which has been particularly potent on social media, in their decision not to get vaccinated.  

Rep. Beryl Amedee, R-Houma, said she was concerned the vaccine could cause spontaneous miscarriages among women — a claim that exploded online in March but was promptly debunked by medical experts as untrue. 

Sen. Mike Fesi, R-Houma, claimed that a family friend died from the vaccine, though a spokesperson for the Louisiana Department of Health said the state has not confirmed any deaths from any of the vaccines administered in Louisiana.

That's only two of the 30 unvaccinated lawmakers running around up in Baton Rouge right now. This article says five of those have already had COVID and think they have natural immunity. That's not really supported by the research which says the vaccines are the more sure way to go. But you can kind of see why a reasonable person might think that at first. What we really need to know is how many of them are spreading pure conspiracy nuttery (and possibly COVID itself, not to mention) like Amedee there.  Maybe Tanner can tell us more.

Lock it up

Since the outbreak of the coronavirus in the US, elected leaders at every level have struggled and failed to agree on an effective and consistent policy response to contain it. Rules promulgated for public gatherings, mask wearing, and business operations have had wide variance from town to town or state to state.  Over the past year, these rules have expanded and contracted again in "phases" shaped not so much by the public health interest as by political pressure from influential wealth holders.  

A mayor might shut down because the cases are spiking but keep inviting tourists to town anyway.  A school board might cave to pressure from bosses to open and deprive parents of an excuse not to come in to work. But if the virus spreads among the school population, officials have plenty of excuses on hand as to why that isn't their fault.

This is the sixth week that the district has reported cases on its website. While there have been new cases each week, officials say they are relatively small numbers and Avegno said new cases don’t appear to come from the classroom. 

“Where we are seeing cases is in gatherings and extracurricular activities outside school. So the slumber party … and we have seen some outbreaks on athletic teams,” she said, noting there hadn’t been athletic outbreaks in the two weeks.

“With teachers, if it’s more than one teacher, it’s if they went out to dinner after school,” Avegno said. “Just like office spread, like in a breakroom. That’s not anything unique to schools.”

Hotel stays, yes. "Slumber parties, no."  Bars and restaurants are open but only the ones that serve the tourists. The more local clientele had better stay home... especially if they happen to be teachers. And this has been the situation in every city and in every state. The resulting chaos has claimed hundreds of thousands more lives than were ever necessary while piling ever greater fortune upon the world's billionaire class. 

Remarkably this situation has only been made worse by the arrival of the vaccines this year.  Policymakers could have taken advantage of the clear "light at the end of the tunnel" offered by vaccination. They could have heeded the advice of most health experts to keep restrictions in place for a few more months until a significant portion of the population was vaccinated.  Instead they quickly shifted into Mission Accomplished mode and loosened the rules around all sorts of activities. It's quite likely that the resulting sense in the public that the pandemic is already over has slowed the pace of vaccinations thus extending the threat further and endangering even more lives. 

Now as the virus seems to be spreading once again, Governors and mayors are even more hesitant than before to take the steps necessary to stop it. Many of them, in fact, are giving up altogether. 

And this spring, many American mayors are explaining their decision to leave office with the same reason: that the pandemic response demanded so much that they could not both campaign and perform their duties; or that the work had become so stressful that their families had recommended that they step away.

“They are just spent,” said Katharine Lusk, executive director of Boston University’s Initiative on Cities, which carries out an annual survey of mayors. Mayors surveyed last summer expressed deep anxiety about the effects of lost tax revenue on their budgets, as they juggled the pandemic, economic recovery and their core responsibilities.

Meanwhile the ones who have decided to stick it out are content to leave it all up to the vaccines and shift the blame for anything that goes wrong to the "personal responsibility" of individuals to take them. Inevitably this will mean more people will die than have to. But that's all part of the political cost/benefit analysis. 

Anyway it's only appropriate now that we're back to doing the bare minimum to protect the public health that the one thing we know we can do about the coronavirus is put it in jail. That is going about how you might expect.

Starting in March of last year, New York Times reporters tracked every known coronavirus case in every correctional setting in the United States, including state and federal prisons, immigrant detention centers, juvenile detention facilities, and county and regional jails.

We measured the pandemic’s excruciating impact on prisoners using records requests and interviews with people from all corners of the system. We spoke with incarcerated people and their families, prison wardens, jailers, prosecutors, defense attorneys and civil rights groups.

A year later, one in three inmates in state prisons are known to have had the virus, the data shows. In federal facilities, at least 39 percent of prisoners are known to have been infected. The true count is most likely higher because of a dearth of testing, but the findings align with reports from The Marshall Project and the Associated Press, U.C.L.A. Law and The COVID Prison Project that track Covid-19 in prisons.

The virus has caused misery and loss in many places, but its destructive power has been felt intensely among the incarcerated, who have been infected at rates several times higher than those of their surrounding communities.

Last week, The Lens reported that only a quarter of the  more than 800 people detained at the Orleans Parish jail have been vaccinated. That is a rate comparable with the city's population at large.  The state prisons are a bit behind.  But, as the same article points out, prison is a particularly dangerous place to be during a pandemic. 

Throughout the pandemic, prisons and jails have been particularly vulnerable to the spread of COVID-19 due to the inability of prisoners to social distance. There have been over 3,000 reported cases of the virus in Louisiana’s prisons, according to data from the DOC, and 36 people have died.

And so you may be thinking all of this should raise the obvious question, why are we still putting so many people in jail? Of course we should be asking that question anyway but especially now, under these circumstances, why are we needlessly endangering more lives?  Well, actually, that question was already asked of the mayor under arguably more dangerous circumstances during the height of the pandemic last year.  Here is what she said.

She has stoutly resisted more recent pressure from advocacy groups urging that police release nonviolent suspects from custody. “You’re worried about criminals catching coronavirus? Tell them to stop breaking the damn law,” snaps Cantrell, a streetwise woman known for her salty tongue.

Yesterday we watched yet another horrific instance of state cruelty in the form of body cam footage of yet another cop murdering yet another Black person for "breaking the damn law" against having an air freshener hanging from a mirror. Do those of us who are worried about that require a similar talking to from a "streetwise salty tongue?" Or is the summary death sentence for minor offense only acceptable when administered by virus instead of by gunshot?

Is it possible to do less with more?

Now that the "Rescue Plan" bill has passed, it's time to pick around in it and see what we've won.  Of particular interest now will be keeping an eye on state and local politicians to see if they continue pushing for austerity budget cuts even though the stimulus specifically provides funds intended to prevent that from happening. This morning the LA Budget Project calls attention to one provision of the bill meant to head some of this off. 

The law also contains an important provision for states receiving the aid: for every dollar that a state government spends on net tax cuts, it will lose a dollar of federal support. As lawmakers gavel into session next month, they will have an opportunity to make long overdue investments in Louisiana’s people, families and communities instead of providing tax cuts to businesses and the wealthy. This provision provides an incentive to do just that.  Nicholas Johnson of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities has the details: 

Cutting state taxes now would repeat a mistake many states made in the wake of the Great Recession: they cut taxes, which harmed families, undermined economic growth, and exacerbated economic inequality and racial injustice. Instead, states should address critical health and economic needs by making investments that can help build antiracist, equitable states. To help them do so, the American Rescue Plan Act includes $195 billion in fiscal aid for state governments (and more for schools and for local, tribal, and territorial governments).

They can't use the one time stimulus payments to create new "fiscal cliffs" made out of tax cuts for rich people.  Republicans in some states are already complaining, of course.  But the truth is there will plenty opportunities in the new law for them to steal whatever they want.  This line, in particular, seems like a just such an opportunity. 

(3) TRANSFER AUTHORITY.—A metropolitan city, nonentitlement unit of local government, or county receiving a payment from funds made available under this section may transfer funds to a private nonprofit organization (as that term is defined in paragraph (17) of section 401 of the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act (42 U.S.C. 11360(17)), a public benefit corporation involved in the transportation of passengers or cargo, or a special-purpose unit of State or local government.

Which suggests that the city of New Orleans, still beset with serious infrastructure challenges, and which has spent the past year threatening layoffs, furloughing workers, and dropping cryptic hints about "shared sacrifice," could still move ahead with its plans to do all of those things while shoveling the federal stimulus funds out the back door to non-profits controlled by the NOLA Business Alliance or Leslie Jacobs, or even Stephen Perry with very little accountability for any of it. Especially interesting thing to watch for just ahead of an election season when people will need paying off.

It's not a competition

What is he trying to win the vaccine Olympics?   This is meaningless. 

When I came into office, you may recall, I set a goal that many of you said was kind of way over the top. I said I intended to get 100 million shots in people’s arms in my first 100 days in office.

Tonight, I can say we’re not only going to meet that goal, we’re going to beat that goal, because we’re actually on track to reach this goal of 100 million shots in arms on my 60th day in office. No other country in the world has done this. None.

We're not going to make ourselves safe until we make everyone safe.  Being better than other countries at meeting some number is irrelevant. Also.... there are reasons that is happening that we really should not be proud of. 

The normal rules of business that protect the profits of vaccine manufacturers will have to be set aside if that is what it takes to ensure everybody is immunised against the coronavirus, according to the director general of the World Health Organization.

Writing in the Guardian, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus says the world needs to be “on a war footing”. Before a key meeting of the World Trade Organization next week on the anniversary of the declaration of the pandemic, he supports a patent waiver that would allow countries to make and sell cheap copies of vaccines that were invented elsewhere.

“We are living through an exceptional moment in history and must rise to the challenge,” he says. “Flexibilities in trade regulations exist for emergencies, and surely a global pandemic which has forced many societies to shut down and caused so much harm to business – both large and small – qualifies. We need to be on a war footing and it’s important to be clear about what is needed.”

Biden mentioned being on a "war footing" during his speech. But by comparing US vaccine performance with the countries hampered by our intellectual property policy, he sounds like he means a war against those countries instead of, you know, the virus.

It's not yet time to be hugged by any neanderthals

Again, I really am having trouble understanding why this is going on right now.  

NEW ORLEANS — The city of New Orleans will move to a Modified Phase-3 COVID order starting this Friday, March 12. The order in Orleans will mirror the state's Phase-3 measures in many ways, but differ in some key ways.

The State of Louisiana will allow full capacity at houses of worship, while Orleans will continue to limit capacity, now it will be 75 percent of capacity with social distancing and mask guidelines required. 

We just need another couple months to get the vax numbers up to something more comfortable.  People should be able to handle that kind of an ask by now.  Opening everything now is specifically the thing these public health experts warned everybody not to do just one week ago. 

But the next few months in the pandemic are critical. Concern is growing over moves by some states to lift restrictions already, while new variants of the virus are on the rise in the U.S. Experts warn that actions taken now risk delaying getting back to some semblance of normal.

Health officials are urging restrictions to remain in place for the final stretch, saying that it will not be much longer before the situation markedly improves, and it does not make sense to lift all restrictions when widespread vaccinations are in sight.   

The President of the United States has characterized the rush to lift restrictions during this final stretch as "neanderthal mentality."  Most experts agree that we can expect to reach herd immunity from COVID when somewhere between 75 and 90 percent of the population has been vaccinated.  The CDC expects that to happen in about three months if we don't do anything stupid right now such as drop the emergency restrictions. 

Thomas Tsai, a researcher at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, said that by summer, “I think we can have a much more, I don’t want to say normal, but at least a 'new normal' summer."

But experts warn that the return to normal could actually be delayed if restrictions are lifted too soon, causing a new spike in cases in the near term.

Tsai likened the current situation to the seventh inning stretch of a baseball game. “Progress has been made; it’s OK to take stock of that,” he said. “How we play the next two innings determines if this is a single game or turns into a doubleheader.”

Sports analogies like that one are flying around this discourse right now.  We've heard it's the 7th inning, or the third quarter, or "maybe the end of halftime at a football game." But really the thing we would like to avoid right now is this. 

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According to this poll, a plurality of voters (34%) would prefer that restrictions remain in place until we reach 75 percent vaccinated and a majority (55%) would like to wait at least until we get 50 percent done. As of yesterday, CDC reports that just under 10 percent of the US population was currently vaccinated.  According to the Louisiana Department of Health, that number for Orleans Parish is 12.33%.  

So what are our local leaders doing with that information?  Well, first of all they are lying about it in their campaign emails.  But also they are throwing open the doors for all sorts of things that we really don't actually need to do right now.. especially with a new round of stimulus on the way.  Some days we really have to wonder if they are even want to end this thing.  In today's Advocate, Will Sutton writes that he wants to get back to hugging people again... but maybe not just yet.  

Yes, it’s true that the crackdowns have hurt us economically. And it’s true that far too many have lost jobs and income, adjusted, gross or otherwise. But I’m still seeing too many people not cooperating, and I’m not comfortable with guessing who out there has been vaccinated and who hasn’t. I know I’ll feel safer with more people fully vaccinated.

Let's take the guesswork anxiety out of this thing. It only takes a few more months.

Can we please just wait another month or so?

This morning I opened Twitter and saw that practically everyone who had fingers to post was posting that they are making appointments right now to get vaccinated. That is a thing that you do very much in fact love to see.  The surge comes as the Governor announces a major expansion of eligibility to those over 16 years old who can claim any of a list of conditions some of which are quite expansive.  For example you can now get a vaccine appointment if you are a smoker or if you are "overweight" as measured by a BMI number that pretty much includes everyone. 

That's great news but it's a little bit sudden given what we had been hearing about vaccine supplies and various plans for "intentional" distribution strategies over the last few weeks. It's enough to cause one to wonder if there's even a bit of panic behind it. 

The expansion comes as Louisiana enters a familiar — and perhaps foreboding — stage of the now year-long pandemic: hospitalizations, deaths and the rate of positive tests have all plateaued after declining from a post-holiday surge. Paired with rising case counts of the more transmissible variant of the virus from the United Kingdom, health officials worry another spike is lurking around the corner.

“We’ve stopped improving, and in every previous instance when that has happened there was another surge,” Edwards said. “We are literally in a race against transmission of the virus —  especially the new variants.”

Why is it, then, that given all of this experience with "foreboding" plateaus and concern about the new variants, that the state and the city are once again rushing to relax precautionary restrictions?

New Orleans officials plan to announce details on eased coronavirus restrictions on Wednesday as cases in the city have slumped in recent weeks. 

"All the numbers are moving in the right direction, and we do anticipate an additional easement of the guidelines," said City Hall spokesperson Beau Tidwell during a press conference Tuesday.

Wait a minute, the governor just got finished saying the numbers had stopped moving in the right direction and plateaued. Which is it?  Anyway, if we really are in a "race against transmission of the virus," doesn't it make sense to keep doing everything we can to keep our opponent  in that race moving as slowly as possible?   Just keep the restrictions where they are until we get more people vaccinated.  It looks like the plan is for that to start happening quickly enough.  We've waited a year. What's a few more months?

Gator blood on Fridays

The oddball Catholicism of New Orleans is so ingrained in the city's routines that it's ironically easy to forget about. I mean, yes, there are many ways in which it is obvious. But most of the time it is like background radiation subtly influencing the events, culture and politics that affect everyone here regardless of one's own personal faith.  

But sometimes it just blows up in great big mushroom plumes. Consider the 2011 funeral of Archbishop Hannan. Thousands of people turned out in the streets to watch a massive procession of marching bands and celebrities and politicians that practically shut down the city.  

People also stood or sat on the ground watching the final farewell to Hannan, who was the most active of the city's archbishops for his 23 years, and remained active during his retirement.

Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu, state and parish lawmakers were among the mourners as was Victoria Kennedy, widow of the late Sen. Edward M. Kennedy. Among the honorary pall bearers were former U.S. Rep. Lindy Boggs and New Orleans Saints owner Tom Benson and Xavier University president Norman C. Francis.

Boggs, 95, said she had been friends with Hannan for many years and said he would have been thrilled with the ceremony.

"When I was a member of congress he came often to Washington," Boggs said. "He would have loved the service today."

Consider Boggs' funeral a few years later in that same Cathedral where the Mayor of New Orleans delivered this performance.

Consider also the peculiar rituals kept by the current mayor in her City Hall office.  In fact, here is a product you can order to celebrate her expression of faith.

There's plenty of other stuff to cite. Real 80s kids out there will remember this deep cut. 

In 2010 there was much rejoicing when the Archbishop granted area communicants this very special Lenten dispensation. 

Catholics abstain from eating meat on Fridays during the time between Ash Wednesday and Easter, but seafood is allowed. Three years ago, when Jim Piculas was trying to settle a debate among his friends about whether gator qualified as seafood, he wrote a letter to the archbishop of New Orleans to ask.

His letter must have been pretty zealous, because not long after he wrote it, he got a response from Archbishop Gregory M. Aymond saying: "Yes, the alligator's considered in the fish family, and I agree with you — God has created a magnificent creature that is important to the state of Louisiana, and it is considered seafood."

Mysteries of the faith continue to abound, however. Because while we see the Archdiocese is willing to indulge the gustatory covetousness of the flock, it turns out this week, that it is less permissive with regard to their means of healing.

The day after the Federal Drug Administration granted emergency-use authorization to a COVID-19 vaccine manufactured by Johnson & Johnson, the Archdiocese of New Orleans issued a statement urging Catholics to choose, if they can, the other two available vaccines.

According to a statement released Sunday morning, the archdiocese instructs Catholics “that the latest vaccine from Janssen/Johnson & Johnson is morally compromised as it uses the abortion-derived cell line in development and production of the vaccine as well as the testing.”

The statement says that the decision to take that vaccine “remains one of individual conscience in consultation with one’s healthcare provider.”

I suppose we should commend the Archdiocese on its refreshingly "pro-choice" approach to the question.  Trouble is, it's not even a question anybody asked.  The Vatican has already told Catholics worldwide that it is "morally acceptable" to take the J&J shot if it is what is offered.  This message is echoed by bishops in Lafayette and Baton Rouge as well as by our very Catholic Governor who had this to say. 

"You do have to weigh this with the common good of ending a pandemic," Edwards said in a Tuesday afternoon press conference. "There's an imperative that we do this. The fastest way to do this is to deploy all of the vaccines and have the uptake of the vaccine be as great as possible. ... I'm encouraging everyone out there to take the first vaccine that is available to them whether it's Pfizer or Moderna or whether its Johnson & Johnson."

So, if you are a practicing Catholic in New Orleans, you have it on very good authority that the life saving medicines on offer do not simultaneously pose any threat to your soul. Instead consider them in the terms Archbishop Aymond used to describe the alligator. These medicines are "magnificent creatures" created for you to use. 

Someday, in fact, the next such.. um.. miracle may be derived from the blessed gator itself!

Chemists in Louisiana found that blood from the American alligator can successfully destroy 23 strains of bacteria, including strains known to be resistant to antibiotics.

In addition, the blood was able to deplete and destroy a significant amount of HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.

Study co-author Lancia Darville at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge believes that peptides—fragments of proteins—within alligator blood help the animals stave off fatal infections.

In which case, we expect, that not only would the Archdiocese approve of such a drug, they would also permit it to be administered during Lent.

Sites vs doses

The state wants to set up a mass vaccination site at the Convention Center. Sounds like a great idea. We've been trying to put that public facility to work for the actual public for so long now. Also there's nothing else going on there right now, anyway. Of course a nice open public vaccination facility isn't much good unless it actually has vaccines to dispense. 

Kanter said the city is prepared to staff the vaccination site itself, working with LCMC Health, which operates six hospitals and urgent care centers in the region. But Kanter said the city "would like some financial reimbursement on it. And the doses would be important to all of us. So, those are the two biggest things."

The Biden administration said it intends to open 100 federal vaccination sites by the end of the month in an effort to speed the immunizations, with the first two locations opened Tuesday in California. But governors and health officials around the country are mixed on the offer because they don't necessarily need more places to administer the vaccine, but simply more doses overall.

Kanter said FEMA has set the distinction that a "pilot site" comes with extra vaccine doses supplied by the federal government, while other federally-supported vaccination sites will not.

If I am reading the current stimulus proposal correctly, I think I see $7.5 billion in federal support for vaccine activities so one would hope the reimbursement issue wouldn't be a problem.  Maybe it has to do with FEMA's procedures.  Anyway the other interesting thing here is the Biden people seem to be measuring their goals in the number of sites open as opposed to the number of doses available which sounds like it could lead to some problems if those things get too far out of sync.

Domino-like effects

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Seeds of Decline "Fights The Futilities" Krewe Du Vieux 2006

So it's come to this

NEW ORLEANS — New Orleans is warning residents that a citywide boil water advisory could occur in the next 24 hours because of water pressure drops caused by freezing water mains under the streets. 

The city is expecting temperatures to be below freezing for about 12 hours, starting at about 3 pm Monday.

Ghassan Korban, the head of the Sewerage & Water Board, said that the utility does not have much of a margin for error with little backup power. 

"Our power and pumping system is vulnerable and (will likely) have challenges," Korban said.

Sounds about right.  Happy Mardi Gras, everybody. Famously, a day of challenges. Like we said the other day, Carnival is a lot of things but most of all it is the time for us to be the most, um, intensely whatever we have been over the past year. And this certainly seems like a way to do that. 

After an explosion last year at one of their main power-generating turbines, S&WB has been operating on a shoestring power budget, with generators picking up the slack. 

This means that if any part of their system gets overloaded and goes down, there could be domino-like effects throughout the city. 

Sure, we remember the turbine explosion almost a year and two months ago.  It kind of put the capper on 2019 which had already featured multiple major street flooding incidents, a city cybersecurity disaster, and a certain hotel collapse downtown* you may have heard about. At the time, we thought that  was a year full of disaster would feel like.  Turned out we didn't know yet. But then a few days later the sewer exploded under the French Quarter and we had a little bit better idea.  

Ha ha I am just kidding.  We actually got a better idea of what a year of disasters was like when the "extreme emergency" of a backed up sewer main under Gentilly was declared immediately after that. Remember that one? No, of course you do not. Because after that came 2020 and... whoo boy. 

Anyway, back to those "domino-like effects" they're worried about now. What do those look like?

One of the most pressing of those is a citywide boil water advisory, which Korban said was more than possible. 

"We are likely to see water mains ... rupture throughout the city," Korban said.

This will likely cause localized boil water advisories and low pressure in various areas throughout the city. 

But if enough pipes freeze, or if a crucial main fails, S&WB could take more drastic preventative measures, such as a citywide advisory. 

Ha ha, of course. 

There still has not been one citywide boil order since the pandemic began

— skooks (@skooks) February 2, 2021

Because if you demand the cosmos answer a riddle, that is what you get. The boil order is now "more than possible" on Mardi Gras day. Also it will be freezing outside and maybe the power will be out.  

And so with little recourse now but to sit and contemplate these mysteries, we have to wonder a little bit if this is happening now because we haven't managed to put our spiritual energies back in balance after the cascading disasters of 2019.  The time for that would have been Carnival 2020. But recall that last year's cleansing rituals were themselves interrupted by bad weather, bad.. vibes.. and the horrifying deaths of two parade goers who were crushed by floats. In fact, if we weren't now trying to figure out how to have Carnival in the "not cancelled but different" circumstances of the pandemic, we would certainly have been arguing over whatever new rules might be in place after 2020.  Would barricading the route be an overreaction?  What about a permanent ban on tandem floats? Come to think of it maybe taking a year off to just eat king cake and decorate houses was the best choice for everyone COVID or no COVID.

In any case, there are multiple years of angst piling up here and no obvious means of venting any of it.  Certainly not before Wednesday comes. But something needs to happen before a domino-like karmic effect happens.  Probably nothing for it now besides focusing on getting people vaccinated.  Assuming that goes off well enough (a lot to assume, I know) then probably Krewe Du Vieux will happen on February 12, 2022.  Circle that on your calendar and keep your fingers crossed.

*Still dealing with the ramifications of that, btw

One toursit was one too many

 That's all it took last year.

Public health officials have largely accepted that last year's Mardi Gras helped make New Orleans an early coronavirus hotspot in the U.S., even if a lack of testing made it hard to be sure.

But a new study that sought to pinpoint how the virus spread through the city has found that 2020 Carnival revelry was responsible for tens of thousands of coronavirus cases, after a single person likely brought it to New Orleans in the weeks before Mardi Gras.

Researchers at the Scripps Research Institute, Tulane University, LSU Health and several other institutions said in a pre-publication report released Monday that the coronavirus probably arrived in New Orleans about two weeks before Fat Tuesday, likely from a person traveling from Texas.

This week everyone is kvetching over the mayor's last minute decision to close French Quarter bars during this Mardi Gras but the fact of the matter is both she and her ostensible critics at New Orleans and Co. have continuously promoted the city as a tourist destination throughout the pandemic while simultaneously blaming the behavior of locals for the spread of the disease.

Even now as the vaccines are finally arriving, we aren't going to get out of this until we agree to shut all of our risky activities down while compensating and protecting the workers affected. Instead we have watched as the political and business leadership have "blatantly ignored" the concerns of those workers over and over again in favor of their bosses' short sighted pursuit of profit. 

Moving the city into and out of tighter "phases" according to whatever direction the line happens to be pointing every few weeks has only fed the cycle of anxiety, trauma, and death.  But apparently that situation is acceptable enough to those with enough wealth and power to benefit that it's all we can expect from decision makers who are clearly beholden to them and not to those they exploit.

More of a shared burden

 Makes sense to me. 

Susan Brooks runs a string of four bars under the Igor’s name as well as Brooks Seahorse Tavern by the Fair Grounds and the legendary Uptown dive The Club Ms. Mae’s, which she bought last summer to preserve a local institution.

She has kept all of them closed since the city’s last rule changes in December, and they will remain closed for now, foregoing even go-cup service.

“It seemed like the responsible thing to do,” said Brooks

However, she said it is demoralizing to watch customers lining up to visit other businesses still continuing under looser restrictions.

“I do wish that it was more of a shared burden, if everybody was doing the same thing we would bend the curve a lot faster and we could all get back to business,” she said.

We could have all agreed at the beginning of this that we'd all get back to business faster by sharing the burden. We could have locked down every lock downable thing and paid everyone to stay home and be safe. We could have preserved just about everyone's job. We could have saved every city and state government from bankruptcy. We could have protected every homeowner and renter from eviction. We chose not to do these things because the bosses and banks and landlords preferred to win the pandemic.  And now look where we are. 

Anyway, we're not going to change tactics now.  It's already clear the new Congress and President aren't going to send us the kind of relief bill that would help us share the burden.  This weekend the city is going right back into its chaotic pattern of shifting rules and blame according to whims and political alliances.  Because local powerbrokers are in position to win the pandemic too. Or at least they will get to pick who shares the burden and who reaps the benefits. 

We could have licked this thing a long time ago. But to do that would have meant truly behaving as though we were all in it together. But no one with the power to make these decisions actually believes that.

Ripe for the picking

The race to stop COVID before the situation becomes much worse is more urgent than ever. We are told there is "no way to sugarcoat" that.  

If the variants alter the virus enough, tests, treatment and vaccines might not work as well, said Straif-Bourgeois. A new variant might be able to slip past antibodies, re-infecting someone who has already had COVID-19. Potentially, such a variant could complicate the path to herd immunity.

“There is no way to sugarcoat this,” said Garry. “It does look like some of the variants may not be as effectively blocked by the vaccine.”

The virus is leveling up. The longer these variants are out there unchecked, the more likely they are to develop into something that beats the vaccine. If those strains become dominant worldwide then we have to start all over. As of right now, we are told the vaccines are still effective against the so-called "UK variant" everyone is worried about.   But also that more infectious and deadlier strain has been detected in New Orleans already. So this is not the time to let up on our mask and distance precautions. It's not the time to pressure the schools to reopen. And it's definitely not the time to be welcoming visitors for Mardi Gras.  This is the time to get some shots into some arms, as they say. 

And for a minute there it seemed like that was indeed the plan.  But then a funny thing happened. 

The Biden administration has told Louisiana officials that shipments of the coronavirus vaccine won’t be increasing much for at least a month, the latest challenge to the state’s effort to ramp up vaccinations.

The revelation that shipments won’t be increasing — which has long been the promise made to states by federal officials — means Louisiana likely won’t be able to hold mass vaccination events anytime soon, Gov. John Bel Edwards said at a press conference Friday.

Vaccine shipments to the state this week and next are expected to remain flat at about 58,000 doses per week, with potentially only a 5% to 10% bump through most of February. Louisiana has received roughly flat shipments of vaccine doses for the past month, Edwards said, amid supply issues that are impacting distribution across the U.S.

Whoops! They took the Trump administration at their word and that turned out to be bullshit. Now the planned ramping up of vaccinations could be delayed by a month or so.  Do we have even that long before things get even more complicated?  Guess we'll find out. 

Either way the "post-pandemic era" is coming.  We might decide to mark its arrival at the time of our successfully containing the virus. Or we could call it when get a certain percentage of the population vaccinated. More than a few people might like to mark it at the end of Joe Biden's first 100 days in office.  It really depends on how soon you might want the checks to stop coming. But wherever we decide the pandemic ends, the conditions it will leave in its wake are setting us up for a cascade of further disasters which we are not likely prepared to mitigate. 

For example, I'm very curious where we decide to define the new level of "structural unemployment."   

The labor market has rebounded somewhat since the initial coronavirus wave in the spring. But of the 22 million jobs that disappeared, nearly 10 million remain lost.

“Compared to then, we are doing better,” said AnnElizabeth Konkel, an economist at the career site Indeed, referring to the spring. “But compared to the pre-Covid era, we still have so far to go.”

Consider that each of the last four recessions has occasioned a deeper and longer lasting period of job loss than its predecessor. The so-called "Great Recession" of 2008 was historically frightening.  Here is a somewhat famous very frightening graph of our declining economic resilience. 

These numbers do not even tell the whole story, of course. Each recession sets off a new exacerbation of precarities as the jobs that comprise each recovery are more exploitative and less secure with fewer hours, benefits. So even as the line eventually goes back up, material conditions continue to worsen. 

To dig ourselves out of that hole we are going to need a more aggressive and determined commitment from the federal government than we have seen in generations.  We will need real support and relief. That should come in the form of monthly payments to make up the income lost during stay-at-home orders. It should include a guarantee that your boss can't expose you to danger and that a landlord or a bank can't kick you out of your home.  We need to rescue our state and municipal governments before they collapse into bankruptcy exposing everyone to more chaos.

Unfortunately, none of the above is Joe Biden's priority. Making Mitch McConnell happy is. 

President-elect Joe Biden will seek a deal with Republicans on another round of Covid-19 relief, rather than attempting to ram a package through without their support, according to two people familiar with the matter.

The approach could mean a smaller initial package that features some priorities favored by Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell. The idea is to forgo using a special budget process that would remove the need to get the support of at least 10 Republicans in the Senate, which will be split 50-50 and under Democratic control only thanks to the vice president’s vote.

Rather than taking the challenges of the pandemic-depression seriously, Biden's first concern is rehabilitating the image of the Republican Party after its leadership instigated a riot at the Capitol intended to disrupt the certification of his own election.  And since delivering justice or even just the hope of a better world isn't as important as making sure he's got a  "strong opposition party" around to do deals with, Joe is opening the negotiations at... one time checks for $1400. 

The stimulus package has a price tag above $1.5 trillion and includes a commitment for $1,400 stimulus checks, according to a source familiar with the proposal, and Biden is expected to commit to partner with private companies to increase the number of Americans getting vaccinated.

A significant portion of the additional financial resources will be dedicated to minority communities. “I think you will see a real emphasis on these underserved communities, where there is a lot of hard work to do,” said another transition official.

We'll examine that "emphasis on underserved communities" more closely when there are more details. But there isn't much reason to believe this is anything beyond the usual noble-sounding framing for unnecessary and counterproductive means testing.  More to the point, after everything that's happened, pushing people to accept $1400 as $2000 if you count the accrued $600 store credit from December is just shitty messaging. Even though we've shoveled trillions of dollars in tax cuts and subsidies for billionaires out the door all year, Joe wants you to know now that he is counting every penny you might get your grubby little hands on. 

The millionaires who comprise the Biden led faction of congressional Democrats may not feel this personally but their performative miserliness put on to please the op-ed writers does more than just insult people. It abandons whole communities to ravaging predators. 

The New Orleans area has earned an unwelcome financial distinction during the coronavirus pandemic: more homeowners here are at risk of losing their homes due to unpaid mortgages than in any other major American city.

More than one-in-ten borrowers in the New Orleans-Metairie metro area are now at least 30 days late with mortgage payments and could be at risk of foreclosure on their properties, according to federal data.

New Orleans was already being hollowed out and gentrified by predatory capital before the pandemic began.  Without drastic action, COVID will surely lead to an exponential expansion of that crisis. 

"Our numbers for folks seeking help with evictions already are through the roof — up 300% since the pandemic started," said Laura Tuggle, executive director of Southeast Louisiana Legal Services, a non-profit legal aid provider for low income Louisianans. "The deluge on mortgages is going to come."

With a relatively high concentration of low-income households, the New Orleans area already had one of the nation's highest mortgage delinquency rates before the pandemic, according to Andy Walden, economist and director of market research at Black Knight, a Jacksonville, Florida, firm that tracks mortgage trends nationwide.

That story is from a few weeks ago. There is a new one in today's paper that further confirms what's happening here. Housing sale prices are up in Orleans Parish by 16% this year.  But those numbers really just show us the rich getting richer.  Meanwhile...

Meanwhile, the broad numbers mask big discrepancies between the upper and lower end of the market, and some of the strains in housing across the area. According to federal data, more than one-in-ten borrowers in the New Orleans-Metairie metro area are at least 30 days late on their mortgage payments, putting them at risk of foreclosure.

About a month ago we wondered what was happening the "large portfolio of foreclosed properties" that had been held by the embattled Bank of Louisiana before the younger generation of management there began selling them off.  We wondered about that specifically because a foreclosure crisis is typically followed up by a wave of vulture capitalism that results in even more intense and damaging wealth consolidation. One can only assume that will get even worse now with so much of the city now ripe for the picking.

So we find ourselves, not only in a desperate race to stop the virus before it mutates beyond our control, but also in a race to protect working class New Orleanians from the ravages of the post-pandemic economy. At the beginning of the year we wrote that policy choices by both the mayor and the assessor indicate they intend to side with the asset speculators over the city's residents. In this month's Antigravity, MACCNO voices similar concerns about the assessor. 

Cutting property taxes for commercial property owners—who tend to be wealthier and whiter than the general population—without a corresponding benefit for commercial tenants, while simultaneously increasing residential property taxes and rent, would be a recipe for displacement and gentrification no matter when it happened. But during a pandemic that has already created economic disaster for musicians, small businesses, artists, and other members of the cultural community, the effects could be especially devastating. Williams himself acknowledges the situation he is creating but avoids responsibility, telling The Advocate he “is not the tax collector,” even though he doesn’t “see how everybody is going to be able to pay their taxes on time.”

Is anyone coming to help? It's not clear that they are. Biden's inaugural speech sounded a lot like a redux of his convention speech. Which is to say he was long on affected empathy for your suffering but short on any will to do anything about it. The "unity" talk even evoked unpleasant Mitch Landrieu "One City One Voice" flashbacks. Yes, of course, bad things are happening to you. Maybe you've lost your job. Maybe you can't pay for health care.  Maybe you are facing eviction. Maybe the planet is on fire and we're facing a future of diminishing prospects for most of us. We know about all of these things and acknowledge that they are bad.  But the one thing we really can't tolerate is any complaints.

So Joe Biden is going to open the schools in 100 days.  If we can't vaccinate people by then and the virus is still out of control, that is too bad. Someone will just find a way to blame the teachers. So New Orleans is open for Carnival visitors.  If cases start to spike because workers were compelled by their bosses to go serve food and drinks to tourists, that is too bad. They mayor will inevitably get on TV and yell at the residents again.  The post-pandemic is coming.  Hopefully it comes sooner than later because lives are at stake in that.  But, in its wake, the fortunes and livelihoods of the vulnerable working class are going to be exposed. And it's highly doubtful they'll find many friends in power willing to do anything about that.

It's about being on TV

Important to remember that these personages who push themselves into public prominence and manage to remain there are not doing that for anyone's benefit but their own. 

Thus, the two Tony Faucis were born: one, the shrewd political operator who has survived six presidential administrations, as Roberts wrote, “an A-list party get in D.C. social circles” who moves “freely between TV green rooms, think-tanks and the city’s tonier salons, mixing easily among both Democrats and Republicans;” the other, the humble man of science, the blunt truth-teller, who couldn’t possibly know or care about the petty striving and mudslinging of the world of smoked-filled rooms. This approach, I suspect, has profited both Fauci and the presidents he has served. His pristine, apolitical reputation lends credibility to the White House during a health crisis, but his appreciation for realpolitik means they can rely on him to appreciate the circumstances when science must take a backseat to politics. “The folks I know who know Fauci tend to respect and/or admire him,” tweeted Nicholas G. Evans, a bioethicist at UMass Lowell. “But no one denies he’s more Game of Thrones than Mr Rogers [sic].”

In another moment of lucidity in May 2020, Trump said of Fauci, “He wants to play all sides of the equation.” I think that’s right. In the past, Fauci has plausibly played all sides to the benefit of the public. His shrewd AIDS advocacy assuaged homophobic politicians, motivated apolitical scientists, and met the demands of activists and patients. In the case of Covid-19, it’s harder to see how Fauci’s machinations have helped anyone — except Anthony Fauci.

The medicine and policy part of the job can always be done without stepping in front of a single TV camera. The being a celebrity part of the job, not so much. And since the being a celebrity part of the job means lending credibility to the most evil and wretched sorts in government, what, ultimately, does that make you?

Maybe this time we could actually try?

The thing to know about the US response to COVID in 2020 is that we did not even try to contain it. The leadership in the Congress and in the Trump Administration were more concerned about ensuring that the bosses and ownership classes in the country profited from the pandemic than they were interested in stopping it. Because of their utter and willful failure to put forth a national plan that would for pay people to stay home and prop up state and local governments during the lockdown, every locality was left to make its own policy dictated by local wealth and power.

Which is why, even in cities like New Orleans where the political leadership has been relatively serious about the threat, the lack of help from the feds has left that - to put it charitably - unfocused leadership vulnerable to pressure from the local bosses and ownership classes. And so even the local COVID restrictions were embedded with favoritism toward local power centers. Tourism business owners were allowed to expose their workers and customers to danger. Charter school boards were allowed to force staff and students into unsafe classrooms. Gayle Benson was allowed to gather crowds in the Superdome. 

We've seen the results of all of that and they have not been good. So, given this experience, what happens when these new COVID variants begin to proliferate? It says here we will have to do "something dramatic."

“I’m very, very concerned that we’ve now gone from a virus that we could control to a virus that we really can’t, unless we do something very dramatic,” said Kristian Andersen, an infectious diseases expert at Scripps Research Institute.

A spike in infections — on top of the existing caseloads — could force hospital leaders to consider how to surge capacity, staff, and resources — and weigh what happens if they have too many patients to care for. It could force schools to close again or delay plans to reopen. The variants are also ramping up the pressure on the country’s sputtering vaccine rollout, to try to protect more people and snuff out transmission before the variants become dominant

Are we prepared to tighten down further? The promise of the vaccine rollout plus general 2020 fatigue strongly suggests we are not. But, as we saw this week, the vaccines aren't quite rolling out as quickly as we had hoped.  So the critical matter now, if we want to handle this correctly,  is that we don't botch the federal relief effort a second time. Unfortunately it looks like we are well on the way to botching it a second time.

Biden is seeking to garner 10 Republican votes for the plan and approve it through "regular order," the usual path for legislation. But it's already running into early Republican opposition ranging from Rep. Kevin Brady, the top Republican on the House Ways and Means Committee, to Sen. Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania, the ranking Republican on the Senate Banking Committee.

"Republicans have made it clear they're not going to go for something of this size," Jim Manley, a former senior Democratic aide and now a political strategist, told Insider. "I can't imagine Republicans going for a package like this that includes minimum wage."

Republicans, of course, do not care who lives and who dies as long as the bosses and owners make out okay. And Joe Biden obviously doesn't care about anything as much as he cares about making Republicans happy.  So here we go again. A whole new chance to get it right and a whole new chance to blow it. Is it too much to ask that we try at least?

Warped Operation Speed

 Looks like that expanded vaccine distribution isn't happening as soon as we thought. 

When Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar announced this week that the federal government would begin releasing coronavirus vaccine doses held in reserve for second shots, no such reserve existed, according to state and federal officials briefed on distribution plans. The Trump administration had already begun shipping out what was available beginning at the end of December, taking second doses directly off the manufacturing line.

Now, health officials across the country who had anticipated their extremely limited vaccine supply as much as doubling beginning next week are confronting the reality that their allocations will not immediately increase, dashing hopes of dramatically expanding eligibility for millions of elderly people and those with high-risk medical conditions. Health officials in some cities and states were informed in recent days about the reality of the situation, while others are still in the dark.

Just yesterday, Louisiana Health Department officials said they were expecting some 58,000 doses in their next shipment as they get ready to ramp up vaccinations.  I wonder if that number is affected by this or if it just means they won't be able to move as quickly as they had hoped.  

They're up to something

Not clear exactly what yet but if you were listening to the press conference on Monday, there were some interesting quotes. 

Cantrell said the move ending the furloughs was the “first step on the city’s road to recovery.” She also indicated that it was also the first step in a larger plan to restructure the city’s workforce.

“We are making this move as a part of a much broader effort to restructure how we use our public servants, our public employees, in the city of New Orleans,” she said. “Everyone needs to have that shared sacrifice and do what it takes to move this city forward. … In the weeks ahead, we will come before you with specifics as it relates to emergency response, business response, community response and organizational changes as it relates to the City of New Orleans.”

They have some idea of how they want to "restructure" and it appears they may be using the emergency response and selective decisions about furloughs to get that implemented.  Kind of an ad-hoc budgeting process depending on how "optimistic" they get from month to month. 

Cantrell said the city was ending some furloughs with additional funds the city is projecting in a more optimistic outlook. If those funds don’t materialize, however, the move could cause layoffs later in the year, she said. 

The additional funds optimistically projected there refer to a possible new round of federal stimulus (which, yes, is exactly what we need but don't hold your breath) also stepped up sales tax collection if we get enough people vaccinated in time for that to help, and property tax collection which... it turns out... is now delayed by... wait for it... to much "optimism."

Waiting on your property tax bill in New Orleans? So is the rest of the city. Blame paperwork problems and overly optimistic city officials for holding up the annual notices telling property owners how much they need to pay.

Tax bills typically go out during the last weeks of December. But because of problems that prevented the certification of the tax rolls, the earliest they could now be sent is this week. None of the issues will change the taxes owed by residents. But City Hall said it will adjust the deadline for payments once the bills are sent out.

According to this, at least part of the problem comes from the way the bills were itemized. Apparently they were prepared in the expectation that the December millage reconfiguration would pass. It did not and so now things need to be revised. Of course the overall revenue doesn't change. So one would think there isn't much optimism/pessimism that comes into play.  Unless you were optimistically hoping to restructure your "emergency response, business response, community response and organizational changes as it relates to the City of New Orleans," and now you have to find an alternative means of accomplishing that.... perhaps through emergency measures. 

But we'll just have to wait and see as far as that goes.  There is one other matter in the story about the tax bills, though, and I'm not sure I understand it exactly.  

One potentially more substantive issue also is holding up the process: a disagreement between the assessor’s office and the Tax Commission about the value of “public service” property in the city, a category that largely encompasses property owned by utilities.

Under state law, those property values are set by the Tax Commission and passed along to local assessors, commission Chairman Lawrence Chehardy said. But in the final version of the tax rolls, the assessed value that the commission put on the total value of those properties is about $65,300 higher than what the assessor’s office estimated, Chehardy said. A meeting is set Wednesday to discuss the discrepancy and try to correct the problem, he said.

One way to read that is the city proposed to charge "public service" property... perhaps belonging to Entergy or maybe Cox or some such... less money than the state Tax Commission expected they should. I don't know if I'm reading that correctly but if I am then, given the assessor's recent tendency to give out tax breaks to large corporations, it's something to watch.

Keeping the Faith 2021

Happy New Year! Pandemic is over now. Congratulations to all who participated. 

(CNN)President-elect Joe Biden received his first dose of the Pfizer and BioNTech coronavirus vaccine on live television Monday afternoon and reassured Americans of the vaccine's safety.

The shot, which Biden received in his left arm, was administered at ChristianaCare's Christiana Hospital in Newark, Delaware, by Tabe Mase, who is a nurse practitioner and the head of employee health services at the hospital, according to the Biden transition team. 

 

"We owe these folks an awful lot," Biden said, thanking those involved in the vaccine's development and distribution and front-line health care workers. 

 

Biden said the Trump administration deserved "some credit" for Operation Warp Speed, the federal government's vaccine program, and their role in making coronavirus vaccinations possible.

Certainly we do love to get up every day and remember to give Trump "some credit" for everything that's gone on this year.  But let's try to remember that.. popular and electoral vote counts notwithstanding... he isn't the only winner. 

The real winners are the bosses. The bosses have won the pandemic.  They actually have been the winners since the very beginning but if you read this website you would have seen us bleating about it many times over already.  We could already see how they were going to win early as March. Before the CARES act even passed it was clear that first shot at a federal response was going to be the one opportunity for a just outcome . And it was just as clear we were well on the way to missing it.  I didn't explicitly use the phrase "bosses are winning the pandemic" until about a month later but anyone could tell what was happening. By May we had the whole picture and it has not changed since. 

Eventually they're just going to make everyone go back to work. The Brennans will send a six foot rabbit to force us there at the point of a sword. Those of us there are even jobs for, that is. Those of us that can be used under whatever temporary and tenuous conditions that are set down. It will happen before anyone is safe from the virus. If there is no further action from congress and the status quo order is already maintained, everything will still be as broken as it is now and we will all be several orders of magnitude poorer for it.  Poorer workers are cheaper workers. When unemployment is high they are more disposable. The conditions that force them to work despite the danger make them easily exploitable. The bosses have won the pandemic.

I don't bring that up to get in a cheap I-told-you-so. If you read this website you also know nothing I can tell you matters.  I just want to point out how obvious all of this has always been even to an idiot blogger who only knows what he reads in John Geroges's newspapers. 

From the moment the pandemic hit, the most likely thing to happen, as has been the case with every of our century's many disasters, was yet another concentration of wealth and power at the very top and a further immiseration and impoverishment of the vast majority.  Jesus I said that too way back in March.  Look, if you are wondering why there has been less and less posting on the yellow blog as this year has gone along it's because fewer and fewer new things have happened as it's gone along.

 Anyway here we are a few days before the end of the year and how is all that going? 

Meanwhile, America’s wealthiest have seen their fortunes soar. The 100 richest people in the U.S. added about $600 billion to their wealth in 2020, enough to send a $2,800 check to every adult in the country. One, Tesla Inc.’s Elon Musk, ended 2020 six times richer than at the beginning of the year.

Individual billionaires getting more billions? Check.  The engines that siphon the billions upward continue to crush and devour everything in their path?  Check on that too. 

“The COVID-19 pandemic has generated record profits for America’s biggest companies, as well as immense wealth for their founders and largest shareholders—but next to nothing for workers. In a report published last month, we found that many of America’s top retail and grocery companies have raked in billions during the pandemic but shared little of that windfall with their frontline workers, who risk their lives each day for wages that are often so low they can’t support a family. This is especially true of Amazon and Walmart, the country’s two largest companies. Together, they have earned an extra $10.7 billion over last year’s profits during (and largely because of) the pandemic—a stunning 56% increase. Despite this surge, we ranked Amazon and Walmart among the least generous of the 13 large retail and grocery companies studied in our report. The two companies could have quadrupled the extra COVID-19 compensation they gave to their workers through their last quarter and still earned more profit than last year.”

Sounds about like mission accomplished, right?  Well, they're almost there.  As I type this right now, I'm watching Mitch McConnell fend off a last minute attempt by Bernie Sanders to tack a one-time $2,000 payment to individuals onto the jumble of giveaways to Wall Street firms and defense contractors that just passed as the (likely final) COVID relief bill.

They wouldn't even be there had our ingeniously unstable President not thrown one last incoherent fit during which he happened to mention that $2,000 is a larger amount than $600. Before Trump opened his mouth, the deal was already closed. Our leading opinion makers were well on their way to lionizing the moonshine sipping centrists who brought it to us and explaining that it was "good enough" the way it was. Who would have thought we might actually miss having Trump around to light random things on fire like this?  Going back to brunch is going to suck. 

Or maybe it doesn't matter. McConnell seems to have the situation well in hand. 

McConnell introduced the parallel pandemic relief bill on Tuesday, S.5085, which would include the $600 to $2,000 increase in checks to individual Americans, but tacks on a repeal of section 230 of the Communications Act of 1996 and funding for a commission to investigate voter fraud. Both of these additions to McConnell's surprise bill are demands which have been made by Trump for months. The Section 230 repeal would pull back protections for internet companies and allow such media companies as Twitter and Facebook to be sued if users feel wronged by messages on the platform.

Aside from maybe Dick Cheney, Mitch McConnell is the most consequential American political figure of the 21st Century.  Over the course of the previous two Presidential administrations, McConnell has completely turned over the federal judiciary. He delivered trillions of dollars in tax cuts for the corporate ruling class.  Now he is leveraging the pandemic to crush workers' rights and bankrupt every state and municipal government which will result in radical austerity nationwide. When future historians write about the dawning of the American neo-feudal age, McConnell will be remembered as a prime architect.

Not to give him too much credit.  I mean being an insider hatchet man for the establishment is always an easier job than trying to protect the disenfranchised.  That's kind of the definition of how power works. McConnell isn't engaging in any dark wizardry. He's just making obvious moves that no one can muster the effort to counter.  It's very easy to muck up something everyone wants by tying it to something else everyone know cannot pass.  State and local governments need relief but McConnell killed that by tying it to liability shields for bosses who callously expose workers to danger during the pandemic. And now he has blocked these one time survival checks by tying them to internet censorship and Trump election conspiracy crap. Being a jerk really isn't that hard as long as you are sufficiently insulated from any consequences.  

So McConnell isn't the definitive US politician of the moment just because he happens to be the guy in position to pull the lever on the machine that feeds the abattoir. It's more the fact that he, or any person who would get to work those controls embodies the universal ethic of the governing class. It's a power that only does one thing. And so anyone who seeks to wield that power necessarily wants to do that thing. Which is another way of saying they're all like this. None of them is here to help.  In fact as I'm continuing to type now, I see the Democrats in the Senate have, in fact, caved on their gambit for the $2000. It looks like they decided it was more important to continue funding the current push for war with Iran.  Here's Joe Biden barely acknowledging the issue while literally turning his back and walking away.  You're not going to get a clearer image of where the Democrats are than that.

Of course, a one time check for $2,000 or even the $2,800 we could have by splitting up the billionaires' profits from this year is still an insult. A just pandemic response policy would pay people to stay home, protect them from their exploitative bosses and rapacious landlords, guarantee treatments and vaccinations are free, and "re-start the economy" through continued fiscal stimulus on the back end.  But we'll never do any of that. All we care about, even at this very late stage of the game, is keeping the military and police state funded while also giving away billions of dollars to rich people. 

WASHINGTON — Tucked away in the 5,593-page spending bill that Congress rushed through on Monday night is a provision that some tax experts call a $200 billion giveaway to the rich.

It involves the tens of thousands of businesses that received loans from the federal government this spring with the promise that the loans would be forgiven, tax free, if they agreed to keep employees on the payroll through the coronavirus pandemic.

But for some businesses and their high-paid accountants, that was not enough. They went to Congress with another request: Not only should the forgiven loans not be taxed as income, but the expenditures used with those loans should be tax deductible.

The truly remarkable thing now is how little it matters that the supply side philosophy guiding such policy has been repeatedly discredited over the course of our 50 year experiment with it. Tax privileges for the one percent do not magically raise revenues. They do not end racial inequality. They do not "create jobs" or raise the general standard of living.  No matter. Our leaders will press on with it as an article of faith. It's the central creed of both parties from Congress all the way down to your local City Council. Giving money to rich people is the reason our electeds are called to service.  The hours are running short on the year now. But real quick, here are a few of our favorite examples of neoliberal gospel preached in 2020. 

Just last week, Governor John Bel proudly announced a plan to give away $3 million in state funds to a company owned by the world's richest man who proposes to "create jobs" paying $32,000 on average.

Besides the access to Interstate 49 and 10, Amazon is eligible for a performance-based grant from Louisiana Economic Development of $3 million. The grant is payable over two years and can offset facility infrastructure costs. The state will also give Amazon access to LED FastStart, the state's workforce training program, which has given 463,000 training hours to more than 29,000 employees since 2008.

In October, with Orleans Parish homeowners still reeling from last year's property tax assessment, and renters facing a wave of evictions as CARES act protections and unemployment benefits ran out, Erroll Williams announced a $42 million tax cut for corporate owners of downtown commercial properties. 

According to data compiled by the Downtown Development District, almost a third of the total cut in commercial sector valuations — or about $90 million — is accounted for by 10 downtown properties, including the cluster of properties at the river end of Canal Street owned by Harrah's New Orleans Casino, a division of Caesars Entertainment of Las Vegas. Harrah's valuations were more than halved to about $15.3 million, which will reduce its property tax bill by an estimated $2.4 million, according to the assessor's office.

Similarly, the Marriott Hotel on Canal, the Sheraton, the Intercontinental, the Crowne Plaza, the Roosevelt and the Ritz-Carlton will see their property taxes halved.

All are owned by national hotel management groups, suggesting that any tax savings will head to corporate coffers outside of the city.

This gift to out of state mega-landlords will be paid for by about a $12 million dollar drop in revenues meant for public schools and services while homeowners and renters will have to pay $30 million more collectively. 

But let's not get too caught up in the distinction between businesses and neighborhoods. Because another thing we learned this year is that the city's official position is that neighborhood ARE businesses. 

“I really want to be thoughtful on the term business, because we were worried that there may be criticism that we only are thinking of businesses. I say business as a very global perspective where neighborhoods are businesses in my mind. People that have never been through this process and want to expand their gate, those individuals, those customers are businesses. So it’s not just ‘hey let’s help big business.’ “

That is New Orleans CAO Gilbert Montano employing a special kind of capitalism-inflected gobbledygook to talk about his plan to reorganize city planning, permitting and land use departments under something called the Office of Business and External Services. The scheme, which Montano describes as a "paradigm shift," would essentially change the mission of these agencies from protecting  public safety and quality of life from the hazards of profit-driven development to assisting the profit-seekers in getting around those protections.  

As if to drive the point home, the person they hired to implement this new vision made his own fortune monetizing the gentrification of New Orleans neighborhoods. 

Bowen’s new position caught the attention of some affordable housing advocates on Monday due to his former job as general manager of Sonder — a San Francisco-based company that has grown to be one of the largest operators of short-term rentals in New Orleans. In the resume he submitted for the job, Bowen claimed that during his tenure at Sonder he “Blitz Scaled the New Orleans market for Sonder from launch to 1,000 apartments (2,500 rooms) in under 36 months.” 

A report from March 2018 by Jane Place Neighborhood Sustainability Initiative, an affordable housing group that opposed the expansion of the legal short-term rental market in the city, found that Sonder had more listings on Airbnb than any other short-term rental operator in the city with 124.

Neighborhoods are businesses.  They are fodder for "blitz-scaled" profits regardless of whether anybody can actually live there.  It probably helps if they don't, in fact. That way they won't need things like public libraries which, incidentally, the city proposed to de-fund in order to pay for Bowen's new neighborhood monetization department. That proposal was killed by voters. But it's only a temporary set-back. It's clear where the city's priorities lie. Eventually they'll get the budget to follow. 

To expect anything different would be to expect a sudden conversion of the entire political class away from its religious belief in trickle-down economics.  But why would that happen when our priests continue to reaffirm their orthodoxy over and over?  As our final example, we have here one of Mayor Cantrell's very first actions in response to the emergency way back in March. She decided to give businesses a tax break. 

Despite worries about the city’s bottom line, Cantrell announced on Tuesday that the city would waive all penalties for late sales tax payments from businesses for the next 60 days. That measure is intended to make sure businesses have the money on hand to keep paying their employees while state and city closures are in place during the height of the outbreak.

What could possibly go wrong? Well they did ask her that. 

Given the strains to the city budget, Cantrell urged those businesses who are remaining open and can pay their sales taxes to do so, to lighten the burden on city government. Asked about concerns that businesses would simply pocket the money, not turning it over to their workers or to the government, Cantrell said she choose to look at the situation from an optimistic perspective.

“I’m not being negative at all and thinking that our businesses or employers will not do the right thing,” Cantrell said. “This is all with the expectation that they’ll do the right thing.”

Don't be "negative." Always keep the faith that doing nice things for those at the top of the ladder will result in nice things for those at the bottom. For ever and ever amen. Anyway, the true believers only need to hold out a bit longer. The sooner we can declare the pandemic over, the sooner we can dismiss any heresy that suggests that poor people have anyone besides themselves to blame. 

The savior is coming in the form of a vaccine... eventually... maybe.

It’s happening all over again. For months, Americans who despaired about the country’s coronavirus-suppression efforts looked desperately to the arrival of a vaccine for a kind of pandemic deliverance. Now that it has arrived, miraculously fast, we are failing utterly to administer it with anything like the urgency the pace of dying requires — and, perhaps most maddeningly, failing in precisely the same way as we did earlier in the year. That is, out of apparent, near-total indifference.

Well, they'll figure it out.  After all, as Joe Biden might say, we gotta give Trump some credit. Just have a little faith.