Someone is always out to get Billy

Billy Nungesser gave a speech this week where he attempted to frame the latest in what has been a string of FBI inquiries into his various dealings over the years, as politically motivated attempt to keep him out of the Governor's race in 2023. Maybe.  But the article also does a good job of reminding us those federal investigations are a long running feature of Billy's career. 

Nungesser has come across the FBI’s radar before. The agency has in recent years investigated Nungesser’s contracts and public works projects while he was Plaquemines Parish president.

Much like in that case, Nungesser said the new probe is politically motivated.

“I don't know who's behind all this investigation stuff. Is it a PAC? Is it because they don't like my political stance? All I want is the truth,” Nungesser said. “The FBI's got a job to do when they get a complaint. But I've been through this before with people that didn't want to see me be parish president. I only want to do the right thing. But you wonder why people don't run.”

Nungesser’s use of a Lower Pontalba apartment and space in other state buildings in the French Quarter has come under scrutiny before. The former Louisiana State Museum’s interim director, who resigned in protest in 2017, claimed Nungesser was using those assets for his personal benefit. That was around the same time sources told the Advocate the FBI was probing Nungesser’s administration as parish president years earlier.

But just because Billy is paranoid doesn't mean.. yadda yadda yadda.  There really is a fair amount of jostling going on right now for the next election. Republicans are arguing over whether or not to change Louisiana's open primary elections system.  The current theory there is that a closed primary will enforce more ideological discipline and promote more right wing candidates than currently advance to runoffs if one can even imagine such a thing.  Also the conservatives promoting this theory might not even be right about their assumptions, but that's an argument for another time. 

The interesting thing here is that we suddenly live in a world where Billy Nungesser appears to be on the moderate side of an intra-party political disagreement. If nothing else it's a measure of just how far off the map we are.

In 8 days nobody will remember any of this

If we took it seriously, Trump would already have been removed. Instead he's giving a speech in Texas today while everybody keeps arguing over what the most civil, move-forwady, bipartisan response can be. If we took it seriously, the large majority of congressional Republicans would be resigning today.  Don't expect they're going anywhere. 

If we took it seriously, Jeff Landry would resign in disgrace.  Instead he's going to remain a likely candidate for Governor in 2023, in disgrace nonetheless. But still... 

Anyway the point is, in a week they're going to change the subject. Maybe it won't exactly be a thing where nobody remembers this happened. But it will definitely be digested into the regular theater by then.

They don't really care, do you?

Why are they still doing this?

The video Louisiana’s attorney general is promoting says “you don’t need a mask” because “there is a cure” for covid-19–hyrdroxychloroquine, an anti-malaria drug that several recent studies have shown doesn’t work to treat covid. #lalege #lagov https://t.co/94TPKR0Wj0

— Sam Karlin (@samkarlin) July 28, 2020

 
Okay now watch how exhausting this is to even say.  Actually, Jeff, there is not a "cure" for COVID-19 and if there were one we know it would not be hydroxychloroquine.

Hydroxychloroquine as a treatment for coronavirus has "absolutely no benefit" and "proves to be ineffective," Dr. Chris Thomas, a pulmonary and critical care doctor at Our Lady of the Lake Regional Medical Center in Baton Rouge, said in an interview Monday.

Thomas, appearing on WBRP-FM in Baton Rouge, said four randomized, controlled trials have proven that that the once highly touted drug "for sure" doesn't work for hospitalized patients.

But why even bother engaging with it?  None of this is happening in good faith.  So much of the political theater of COVID is, like the conservative culture war tradition it draws upon, is just noise without content.

It is hard to ignore, though.  In fact its persistent dominance of the narrative is a fascinating experiment we're conducting right now.  I think it's supposed to measure the actual degree of separation between governing elites and the actual needs and concerns of the people they govern.

I mean it seems like Brian Kemp must be pandering to.. somebody here. But it can't be the thousands of people whose lives he's endangering.

Washington (CNN) On Wednesday in Georgia, there were almost 4,000 confirmed cases of coronavirus. Almost 2,800 people are hospitalized due to Covid-19, the highest number in the state's ongoing battle against the virus. A total of 37 people died, the highest number of daily deaths since June 25, according to data from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

How did Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp (R) respond to this obvious surge in Covid-19 in his state? By signing an executive order banning cities and counties from mandating that people have to wear a mask when in public.

Kemp's order was defied by Atlanta mayor and cop enthusiast Keisha Lance Bottoms setting up yet a whole news cycle of tedious back-and-forth between the authoritarians who "believe in science" and the other authoritarians who "defend your freedom."  (These, of course, are stupid slogans of performative groupthink and not at all reflective of any genuinely held ideological or ontological belief.  Please do not @ me.)  The skirmish did little to advance the cause of coherent public health policy. But it sure did emphasize the respective brands of the combatants and their acolytes.

Meanwhile in Louisiana, Jeff Landry  issued an opinion that the Governor's recent mask mandate is "likely unconstitutional and unenforceable."

"Although the mask mandate and the 50-person limit may be good recommendations for personal safety, they may not be enforced with financial or criminal penalties," Landry wrote. "Both businesses acting under color of law as mask police and actual police acting as mask police could face liability if individual civil rights are violated due to the proclamation."

What's interesting about Landry's wording here is that it isn't all that different in spirit from the Governor's actual announcement. It was clear that John Bel's purpose was to get everyone on the same page about what to expect of one another as we all struggle to slow the virus down.  This wasn't a rule anyone wanted to have to enforce. He even said as much. 

In a press conference Saturday afternoon, Gov. Edwards said of implementing a state mask mandate that “we know that face masks work, it really is that simple.” Regarding enforcement, he said businesses will have to urge customers to wear them. “If someone refuses to wear a mask, they should be asked to leave. If not, they are trespassing.” He added that “citations will be against businesses for not enforcing mask requirements,” but that “we aren’t going to be out there with a goal to write citations.” 

So Landry is pandering to somebody. But it can't be to people who are afraid of being carted off to gulag because they left their bandana in the car or something.  Because that just isn't happening.

He's certainly not pandering to the scores of essential workers in Louisiana forced into unsafe environments by employers who he says can't be compelled to comply with the mandate. According to a law the Governor just signed, "essential" businesses are shielded from liability if their workers get sick under the conditions the bosses subject them to. Landry is now compounding that by opining that the same bosses could face liability if they make those conditions safer by enforcing a mask policy.

Another interesting fact about Landry's opinion is that it was issued a day after he tested positive for COVID himself. If there's a point to any of this it can't have anything to do with actually protecting people from the virus. Landry is clearly looking past that hazard in service of some other cause. But what is that cause? 

Supposedly Landry's opinion was meant to bolster an effort among Republican legislators to revoke the Governor's emergency order. At the time it was thought they were on the verge of actually doing it. We see here hospital administrators in Baton Rouge were already preparing to deal with the consequences.  See Lamar White's Daily Beast article for more on the Republican coup. It  seems to have been quashed for now but they can keep adding signatures to their petition as long as the emergency order remains in effect. (The Governor extended Phase II again this week until August 28.)

But the quest to show up John Bel is just another sideshow like the continuing Tony Spell follies or whatever Louie Gohmert's problem is.

PLAYBOOK PM: After we reported that @replouiegohmert was positive, we got an email from a Gohmert aide. pic.twitter.com/x31CSOdkLf

— Jake Sherman (@JakeSherman) July 29, 2020

 
Or... good lord..

Bar owner suing @LouisianaGov to overturn coronavirus restrictions is missing court hearing in lawsuit b/c of coronavirus. Background on case: https://t.co/2gfXSDzLsk https://t.co/0f2mIMq7uH

— Bryn Stole (@brynstole) August 5, 2020

The cause being advanced by all of this nonsense is that of the bosses who are winning the pandemic.  While our political leadership fashions a farcical public debate out of obstinate stupidity vs. police-scolding individual behavior, the actual policies they're implementing are throwing millions of people out of work and then denying them benefits. They're obliging those who still have jobs to quietly accept more intrusive and tenuous and unsafe working conditions.  They're allowing people to be evicted from their homes. They're devolving the public schools into a libertarian pay-to-play private tutoring chaos.

The entire social contract is being dismantled right now and we have no avenue of popular response beyond figuring out which bar to call the cops on first. Other than that, good luck getting anyone with any power to listen to anything you have to say anymore.  Just keep watching the circus and hope for the best.

Bollinger ICE raid

Not sure what, exactly, is going on here but the possibility that a company with so many critical ties to the Republican Party in general and to Donald Trump's campaign in particular, might be calling out ICE on its own employees probably needs consideration.

Federal agents staged an extensive search of the Bollinger Shipyards facilities in Lockport on Tuesday as part of an "ongoing federal criminal investigation" led by the Department of Homeland Security and also detained several immigrants in the country illegally at the facility, authorities said.

The operation at the Lafourche Parish shipyard on Tuesday was led by agents from Homeland Security Investigations, the investigative arm of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, according to Bryan Cox, an ICE spokesman. Cox referred additional questions to the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of Louisiana.

U.S. Attorney Peter Strasser declined comment.

Cox said federal agents also arrested 19 "unlawfully present foreign nationals" at the Bollinger Shipyards location. Five of those people were placed in ICE detention while the other 14 were processed and released after being placed into deportation proceedings in federal immigration court, Cox said.

Of course it also says there is an "ongoing federal criminal investigation"  and it's the sort of thing that has ensnared other Republican Party figures in the state already.

Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry, who has railed against loose borders and lax immigration policies during his four years as the state’s top lawman, went into business in 2017 with a Houston labor broker named Marco Pesquera, who had become rich by helping his clients defraud the immigration system to import more than 1,000 Mexican laborers to the Gulf South.

They set out to make millions by winning federal approval to bring in hundreds of skilled Mexican construction workers to help build a massive liquefied natural gas terminal in Cameron Parish.

These are the guys who yell and scream about how we need tough immigration enforcement practices while they themselves are the ones profiting from the exploitation of migrant labor.  You ever wonder if maybe they just like to be able to threaten their workers?