"Beyond punishment"

Jason Williams was sworn in as DA today. We are, as always, prepared to be disappointed in how he actually plans to translate his rhetoric into practice.  But he does know the rhetoric well. 

Williams says he will end the use of Louisiana’s stringent habitual offender laws, never transfer juveniles to adult court and become much pickier about charging cases for prosecution. Underscoring his new approach, his large transition team includes many liberal policy advocates and former colleagues in the defense bar.

"Being more selective about prosecutions will allow us to focus on the crimes that matter most to all of us. We’ve got to go beyond punishment and invest in our community," Williams said in his inauguration speech.

Again, we'll see if those words carry any sort of commitment. We already expect the increase in crime commensurate with worsening economic conditions during the pandemic will lead to new political pressures on every politician to "get tough." That's especially likely to be worse during a municipal election year. 

Speaking of which, the timing of Jason's resignation from City Council means there will not be an additional election just to fill his seat. 

Monday also brought some clarity regarding Williams’ now vacant at-large seat on the City Council. Tyronne Walker, Williams former campaign manager and transition director, said that his resignation of the seat was effective Monday at 11 a.m., meaning his seat will be filled by an appointment by members of the City Council. If he had decided to resign any earlier, there would have been more than a year left in his term. Under city law, that means the seat would have been required to be filled by a special election.

On Monday morning about an hour before the ceremony began, Walker told The Lens that Williams had not recommended an interim candidate for the council to consider. Council President Helena Moreno on Monday announced the opening of applications for the post.

So.. you know.. if you're looking for a job...

Con d'etat

The reason I don't think of it as a coup attempt is because there was no actual unachievable path to holding power in its wake. Certainly not one that Trump was capable of designing and seeing through. That would have required him to actually focus and do work for a minute which he does not do. 

That isn't to say that he would not have accepted the results of the coup had there actually been one. He definitely would have. But the thing to get about Trump is he isn't actually the person who does anything.  In his mind, he's just watching all of this on TV the way you and I are. In real life, he's a con man who lives off of whatever the suckers in the downline end up bringing him. That isn't how you run a coup. This was more like multi-level militia marketing. 

Anyway here's David Roth. 

So of course Trump didn’t have a plan for losing the election. He expected that the people working under him—that is, the entire United States government—would find a way to stop the election that he’d lost from becoming official when he gave that order, but he had no sense of how that might work beyond them just somehow doing it. He promised evidence that would show he was right and then told other people to find it. It never came, but at some point he just started acting as if it had been delivered and denied, and began talking about how unfair that was.

It was a miserable time, would be a shame to see it end

Ordinarily, preparing to watch your team in a playoff game is a confrontation with mortality.  By this point you know your heroes well. You've learned their strengths and weaknesses. You know their endearing qualities and their annoying faults.  You've seen them endure setbacks and overcome obstacles.  A playoff season is a successful season by most measures so by and large they've done well. You like your team by this point. You've lived an entire journey with them. And now it could all come to a sudden end. So when the day comes that it can all end forever, naturally the question arises, what was it all about?

What was the 2020 Saints season all about? Should it even have happened in the first place? Did it? There were so few witnesses. We've long argued that live pro sports is a kind of civic exercise. It builds community and solidarity among the masses around shared passions, symbols and experiences. It inspires creative and elaborate cultural expression.   Like any entertainment, it offers diversion and comic relief from daily drudgery.  But among such entertainments sports is uniquely populist. Its energy, its sense of authenticity derives from the presence of a crowd.  

But there have been no crowds this year. Despite Gayle Benson's reckless and selfish desire to gather one, and despite the mayor's bending over backward to accommodate her while yelling at you for having Christmas with your family.  Despite Sean Payton's extremely coach-brained scheme to quarantine 50,000 people, there will only be about 3,000 brave but deluded Saints fans in attendance for today's possible concluding event. Even if we set aside the guilt and anxiety that would come with being among that audience during a pandemic, it's not anything like the immersive, cathartic experience of a full Superdome. The risk of being there is real. The benefit is non-existent. 

Again, that's been the case all season, so what have we been doing?  Well we've all been watching on TV and trying, in our increasingly spare leisure when we can allow ourselves to put aside the burning world around us and enjoy something, to connect with something like the experience we remember. And it's in there somewhere.  It's underneath a hundred layers of dissociation and confusion and a laugh track of fake crowd noise, but somewhere in there we can see our guys. There's something of this thing we're all invested in. We still care about that. It's just that, like a lot of things, that's been harder to feel this year.  It could end today.  A whole epoch of it could end, in fact. That's still a shame, right?

No, they still are not doing a coup

Big fun for the cosplayers at the Capitol today. Looks like the cops let the other cops dressed up like..uh.. vikings or something run wild inside the building for a while.  The President put out a video telling them they are all "special people."  The other President is on TV right now complaining about broken windows. Nobody knows when the cops will finally ask the other cops to leave. Maybe they will spend the night there. Who knows?

Overall, I gotta say, not great.  But, despite the breathless hype-slobber coming out of the usual suspects at cable news, it's not a "coup."  It's more like, well like this.

It’s a coup in their minds but not in real life. The United States government cannot be sacked by a mob of angry white dudes. If the police or the military wanted to flex and end this right now, they could. They’ve decided to let them blow off steam

— Keeanga-Yamahtta T. (@KeeangaYamahtta) January 6, 2021

It is a shocking display of double standards, the rot of the GOP, and the utter racism of American police and those who direct them. This is desperation, not an actual plan to take power. it’s frightening and appalling, but I don’t think the US govt is abt to collapse.

— Keeanga-Yamahtta T. (@KeeangaYamahtta) January 6, 2021

Trust me, we are still living under the same shitty undemocratic and racist regime of increasingly authoritarian oligarchy.  Today's LARP will not interrupt that.  If anything, it can only make it.. more of what it already is. Looking around Twitter and TV the only possible acceptable policy response will come in the form of an expansion of police powers and a crackdown on political organizing.  Not a crackdown on the kind of people who made the riot happen, of course, but there will definitely be some cracking down. Probably on leftist and Black Lives Matter groups first. You know.. usual suspects.   Hilariously, but predictably, some of the loudest voices already calling for such a thing are emanating from ostensibly "left of center" actors.  It's always amusing to see what brings the inner cop out in certain people.

Anyway, rest assured, your government is not overthrown. It remains in full possession of its power and glory fully poised to once again meet the moment of crisis by punching  down and left.

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.

No, they aren't doing a coup

Republicans are not "doing a coup" today. They are just setting the premise for the next four years of obstructionist behavior.  The ceremonial hooting, hollering, marching, and LARP counter-programming going on in D.C. while Congress receives the electoral votes from the states, is the opening bit in the opposition party strategy.  Even as they technically cede office, they are saying that they don't actually have to recognize the legitimacy of the incoming government.  Materially, that is as bad for you and me as if they were in fact doing a coup which of course is why they don't have to do one.  They don't have to do anything at all, really, besides be rude and raise money for two years before they take the Congress back. This morning, Democrats are already celebrating their victories in Georgia by talking about the things they aren't even going to try to do in the meantime.  In other words, the strategy works. Nothing will fundamentally change.

It's also important to say that this is the exact same strategy Republicans always employ whenever it is their team's turn to be out of power for a while. To believe any of it is new one would have to have no memory of the conspiracy stuff Rush Limbaugh's listeners regularly wallowed in during the Clinton years. And, supposing, some are too young and precious for that, surely they can reference the rolling boil of  birtherism and "secret Muslim" theory and whatever the hell was on Glenn Beck's dry erase board throughout the Obama years, right?  Right?  Like that just happened. Does anyone remember any single thing that ever happens?

Maybe it doesn't matter. All that matters is what can hold attention right now. And we can make that whatever we like as long as there is money to be made from pushing it out there. Cable news is going to wring the "coup" story line for all it is worth. It's great sensational #content. It keeps the folks watching and worrying and arguing about nonsense.  Nothing makes advertisers happier than that; perfectly alienated and insecure consumers at full attention.  But it distorts the reality of what is happening in unhelpful ways. And that sucks because, again, what is happening is actually very bad. 

We're not getting anything out of this deal.  What we want. What we need the Democrats to do for us during this fleeting moment when they hold a little bit of power is, at the very least, address the emergency seriously.  We need them to distribute the vaccine with some competence. We need them to pass a new stimulus that bails out the bankrupt municipal and state governments before everything collapses.  We need them to cancel rent.  We need them to pay people to stay home and be safe until the pandemic is over. 

But we aren't getting any of that.  Instead we are getting... "a new era of bipartisanship"

Of course he did:

Sen. JOE MANCHIN (https://t.co/cGSSO03KHm.) called for the results to usher in a “new era of bipartisanship.”

— Doug Henwood (@DougHenwood) January 6, 2021

Which, looking at D.C. today, we can count on to mean, Republicans refusing to participate in anything constructive on the grounds that  "*wink wink* the government is illegitimate" while the governing party refuses to even try to do anything without them. All of this bodes ill. But it's not a coup that poses the danger.  It's the same continuity of government for and by the ruling classes we've been experiencing forever.

Choose your own impropriety

You can get mad at John Bel for appointing his nephew to the UL Board of Supervisors or not. It's up to you.  It's not technically an ethics violation of any sort. 

The UL System governs nine colleges and universities, including Southeastern Louisiana University, the University of New Orleans and the University of Louisiana at Lafayette.

Stevens, the son of the governor's sister Alice, is a graduate of SLU.

The governor's selection would not run afoul of the state code of government ethics against nepotism -- preference for relatives in hiring.

The ban generally applies to members of a government official's immediate family, including children, the spouses of the children, brothers and sisters, the spouses of the officials' brothers and sisters, his or her parents and his or her spouse.

Anyway, it could have been worse.  A year ago John Bel tried to appoint Jim Bernhard to the LSU Board. Bernhard declined. Which seemed to make some sense at the time simply because we could assume it was a case of overkill.  After all Edwards had already awarded Bernhard's new company a lucrative contract to privatize energy systems at state buildings. Seems like more than enough repayment the Governor could offer Bernhard for the gentlemanly favor of deciding not run against him in 2019. 

Bernhard Energy Solutions partnered with the HVAC company Johnson Controls at the request of the Edwards administration after both firms submitted proposals to the state. Bernhard Energy Solutions is one of several companies controlled by Bernhard Capital Partners, a private equity firm run by former Shaw Group chief executive and Democratic Party official Jim Bernhard, who was floated as a potential candidate for governor before ruling it out last year.

But it turns out Bernhard didn't turn the LSU board position down out of contentedness. He was actually angling to grab another deal for his company. 

Since then, the competition over the massive contract — which several board members described as having a value of $855 million over decades — has grown increasingly fierce. Five Board of Supervisors members told The Times-Picayune and The Advocate that LSU staffers have tried to steer them toward the Canadian company, Enwave, which offered a less expensive deal but may also lack a necessary license to do the work.

Bernhard, however, wields immense political power and ties to LSU and its football program, and board members said that’s made him a controversial choice for the contract. He seems to want the deal badly: In fact, he turned down an invitation from Gov. John Bel Edwards to serve on the Board of Supervisors that would have prevented him from getting the energy contract. Meanwhile, Bernhard Energy Solutions has partnered with Johnson Controls Inc. for similar projects, creating a new entity called LA Energy Partners. And they also formed a subsidiary called Tiger Energy Partners specifically to vie for the LSU contract.

So which is it worse for John Bel to appoint his law partner/nephew to a higher ed board position? Or is it worse that he and LSU continue doing business with this guy?  

Even without serving on the board, Bernhard has cast a long shadow over LSU. As LSU police investigated allegations two years ago that LSU football wide receiver Drake Davis had abused his girlfriend, several witnesses in the case told police that they feared coming forward because they feared retribution from Davis’ powerful adoptive father — Bernhard. Bernhard has said he did not threaten any retaliation in the case.

Bernhard also touted in a 2015 news release that a cogeneration plant his companies built on LSU’s campus “continues to help reduce LSU’s energy expenses by millions of dollars annually.” But LSU attorneys said the opposite in 2006, when the university and Bernhard Mechanical sued one another over the plant.

LSU claimed the cogeneration system meant to save money actually increased the university’s utility bill by more than $2 million a year. LSU attorneys said then that Bernhard had promised energy savings totaling between $7 million and $44 million over 20 years.

“Since the cogeneration system began operation in late December 2004, the cost of operating the system has exceeded by more than $2 million what the same energy would have cost LSU had the new system not been built,” LSU’s attorneys alleged.

Who knows? The Ethics Board doesn't offer much guidance either way.