Murdered Gulf

BP really got away with one.  Who woulda thought, right? 

Published in the journal PLOS One in June, Montagna’s full analysis of his 10-year-old samples showed damage to seafloor organisms stretching across at least 124 square miles. That’s nearly two times larger than the 66-square-mile footprint described in the abbreviated report Montagna turned over for the disaster’s Natural Resource Damage Assessment.

The NRDA process helped determine how much BP owed for the harm done to marine organisms, from the little mud-dwelling creatures Montagna studied to the dead dolphins and oil-drenched pelicans that washed up on Louisiana’s shores. In April 2016, the case was settled for $8.8 billion. It was both the largest environmental settlement in the nation’s history and the biggest infusion of cash for restoration purposes the state had ever seen.

But it might have been larger had the full scope of the damage been known.

“BP got a good deal by settling early,” Montagna said.

How did they get away with it? Well one thing they did was exercise control over the scope of the research that eventually determined their liability. 

Keeping watch over every step was a BP representative.

“He asked a lot of questions, and was with us 24-7,” she said.

Company officials carefully documented each sample’s chain of custody.

“BP didn’t want anybody spiking the samples with oil,” Montagna said.

BP and Montagna “had many difficult conversations” over how to conduct the sampling. BP wanted a narrow focus, concentrating the sampling close to the well. Montagna wanted to travel farther afield, gathering cores from a wider area. Montagna won out on the scope, but not on which samples to analyze for the damage assessment. On that count, BP got its way, zooming the focus on the 58 samples taken closest to the well.

The company used that tighter scope to its advantage. In a statement in 2013, BP said the 58 samples “confirm that potential injury to the deep sea soft sediment ecosystem was limited to a small area in the immediate vicinity of the Macondo well-head.”

BP required all the samples to be kept in a locked cage in a secure, air-conditioned storage room. That is, until the settlement was reached.

“There was zero interest the next day,” Montagna said. “No one cared.”

As for the lasting environmental damage done to the sea floor, we're still learning about how bad it really is.  But, well, it's bad. 

Montagna says plenty of evidence is waiting quietly at the bottom of the Gulf. Recent check-ins by other scientists have revealed little improvement since 2010. Slow to degrade thanks to the deep sea’s cold, dark and sterile conditions, the oil remains nearly as potent as the day it soaked into the mud and formed black pools on the seafloor.

“There’s been almost zero recovery, and it’ll likely stay that way for a long, long time,” Montagna said.

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?

What could we do differently that would be better?

In a word, everything.

In mid-April, Representative Ilhan Omar introduced legislation to cancel rents and mortgages for the duration of the public health crisis. The legislation would also offer financial relief to tenants and small landlords, and establish a fund to finance the purchase of private rental housing by local governments, public housing authorities, nonprofits, and community land trusts.

In addition to its legislative cosponsors, the bill has been endorsed by over three dozen community and labor organizations.

A statement on Omar’s website emphasizes that “due to layoffs and mass unemployment, renters and mortgage holders are accruing mountains of debt, despite many not having a steady income for the foreseeable future. We must take bold action now that extends the same financial assistance and protections to our struggling citizens as has been offered to profit-driven corporations.”

Unlike many of the mitigation proposals advanced by other lawmakers, Omar’s bill not only addresses the cause of the current eviction crisis, but lays out a path to eliminating housing insecurity and ensuring housing as a right. That’s exactly the right approach. Unless we cancel rent and mortgage obligations during the pandemic and enact policies to guarantee housing for all, we will be placing the burden of the coronavirus pandemic on those who can least afford it.

Don't really see anyone advocating for that sort of land use policy locally.  Maybe ask the nearest "founding entrepreneur" what they think. 

It's going great

Everybody fired. Everybody being more than previously reported.

Recent news analyses have sketched out a dire picture of the scope of the jobless crisis in Louisiana and the extent of the expected damage that the state’s economy as the federal boost to unemployment benefits lapses.

But the true picture is actually worse than some of those reports have outlined. For instance, a Sunday story in The Times-Picayune | The New Orleans Advocate noted that more than 313,000 laid-off Louisianans had filed for state unemployment benefits as of July 18, the most recent data for which the state provided complete data. But that figure didn’t include the thousands of freelancers, independent contractors and so-called “gig” workers thrown out of jobs by the coronavirus crisis.

That latter group includes more than 152,000 out-of-work Louisianans who, although not normally covered by the unemployment insurance system, have been able to file for jobless benefits under a special federal expansion of the program to address the massive job losses during the pandemic.

Oh boy.  That's just Louisiana, of course. But this story cites a Brookings report that says New Orleans will be the third "hardest hit" metro in the country by the looming benefits expiration. On the other hand, the rest of the country is... well, it's not going so great there either. 

The number of Americans filing new claims for state unemployment benefits totaled 1.43 million last week, the Labor Department reported Thursday.

It was the 19th straight week that the tally exceeded one million, an unheard-of figure before the coronavirus pandemic. And it was the second weekly increase in a row after nearly four months of declines, a sign of how the rebound in cases has undercut the economy’s nascent recovery. Claims for the previous week totaled 1.42 million.

For those of you who are among the ever-dwindling number of still employed persons, let's try an exercise.  Please raise your hand if you have been obligated out of fear or lack of options to keep going in to work during the pandemic while becoming more frightened and demoralized with news of each death or of the rate of spread.

Okay well if your hand is up, Mitch McConnell says your boss should sue you now. 

The most obnoxious provision of the GOP proposal is one that shifts the liability in COVID cases from the employer to employee. This provision allows employers to sue employees or their representatives for bringing a claim for a COVID infection and offering to settle out of court.

Most specifically, the measure mentions "demand letters." These are communications to a prospective defendant setting forth the facts of the claim, evidence assembled by the plaintiff, a reckoning of the potential damages and a statement of how much the plaintiff would accept to make the case go away. Here's a sample letter published by the San Francisco law firm Rouda Feder Tietjen & McGuinn.

These documents are often designed as an opening brief in a negotiation; since neither side in an injury case really wants to go to trial, they make sense. The GOP bill would make anyone offering to settle, either through a demand letter or otherwise, liable to be sued for damages if the case they're making is "meritless." That's another term that's undefined in the measure.

Unlike the limitation on damages elsewhere in the bill, by the way, the punitive damages that can be awarded to employers bringing these lawsuits aren't capped.

The measure also gives the attorney general the right to bring his own lawsuit in such cases. As a result, Kennerly observes, Atty. Gen. William Barr would get the right "to sue unions, labor activists, lawyers, doctors — everyone involved in coronavirus claims."

Congress is choosing to send millions of people off of a cliff right now because 1) Republicans are openly hostile to everyone except the bosses and millionaires and 2) Democrats are running an election campaign based on the hope that they can get away doing nothing if everyone is miserable enough, because they just might blame the Republicans for it.

The first of the month is coming. (There's one every month!) But this time we're going in while deliberately cutting off everyone's income. Also the federal evictions moratorium is expiring and the courts are open.. or are they?

Billyvision

Let's take a break from our doomscrolling for a minute to visit with Louisiana's tourism promoter-in-chief for a few minutes of that good ol' irrational exuberance.

.@LouisianaLtGov Billy Nungesser says on talk radio this morning that the state will move to phase three in the coming weeks and that “We’re going to have Mardi Gras, we’re going to have football." #lalege #lagov

— Sam Karlin (@samkarlin) July 29, 2020

 

Oh man does that feel good or what. Football and Mardi Gras are back, baby! Because Billy believes in it.  Give us some more of those beautiful visions, Billy.  What other lovely things do you see in the future?

Nungesser, on whether he'll run for governor next cycle: "“We’re going to look at it. Obviously i’m going to consider it.” #lalege #lagov

— Sam Karlin (@samkarlin) July 29, 2020

 

Ohhhhkaaay thanks. This has been refreshing. We'll check back with Captain Optimism later as the need arises.

Hygiene theater

Here we have another direct consequence of there being no national good faith strategy to contain the virus and support people in the process.  Every state, every municipality, every school system, every individual business is left to figure the entire thing out for itself. And within that, is a chaos of fifty million isolated power relationships between owners and workers that drives the decision-making in a decidedly unsafe, or at least insincere, direction.

To some American companies and Florida men, COVID-19 is apparently a war that will be won through antimicrobial blasting, to ensure that pathogens are banished from every square inch of America’s surface area.

But what if this is all just a huge waste of time?

In May, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention updated its guidelines to clarify that while COVID-19 spreads easily among speakers and sneezers in close encounters, touching a surface “isn’t thought to be the main way the virus spreads.” Other scientists have reached a more forceful conclusion. “Surface transmission of COVID-19 is not justified at all by the science,” Emanuel Goldman, a microbiology professor at Rutgers New Jersey Medical School, told me. He also emphasized the primacy of airborne person-to-person transmission.

There is a historical echo here. After 9/11, physical security became a national obsession, especially in airports, where the Transportation Security Administration patted down the crotches of innumerable grandmothers for possible explosives. My colleague Jim Fallows repeatedly referred to this wasteful bonanza as “security theater.”

COVID-19 has reawakened America’s spirit of misdirected anxiety, inspiring businesses and families to obsess over risk-reduction rituals that make us feel safer but don’t actually do much to reduce risk—even as more dangerous activities are still allowed. This is hygiene theater.

A lot of this originates with institutions desperate to come up with and present evidence that they are Doing Something, even if that thing they are doing turns out to be nonsense. A nonsensical policy can have remarkable staying power even after it is discredited. And, like we said, on top of that is a host of actors with suddenly empowered to move on agendas that might have been problematic before.

Looking forward to this 2004 Senate campaign the Louisiana Democrats are running

Shreveport mayor Adrian Perkins qualified last week to run for Senate. Several observers were immediately and simultaneously impressed with his "sterling resume"

In running against Cassidy, @AdrianDPerkins will be first big-name Democrat to get into #lasen race. Other Dem challengers across country have raised big $$ to run against GOP incumbents. We'll see if Perkins can do same. He has sterling resume, but it's safe Repub seat #lagov

— Tyler Bridges (@tegbridges) July 22, 2020

It was immediately predicted that he would "excite" Democrats

I'll be more blunt about the Senate race. @BillCassidy has drawn an opponent that Democrats can take seriously in Shreveport Mayor Adrian Perkins. West Point/Harvard grad who is young and Black? Tough for him to win, but he'll excite the Dems. #lasen https://t.co/Hiz6affazU

— Julie O'Donoghue (@JSODonoghue) July 22, 2020

Because, apparently, the things that most excite and "compel" Democrats are Ivy League credentials and being a troop.

Shreveport mayor Adrian Perkins--former class president at West Point and student body president at Harvard Law--will challenge U.S. Sen. Bill Cassidy (R). Pretty compelling story. Could be an interesting race if he can raise some money. #lalege #lasen https://t.co/hgKET0rJIS

— Sam Karlin (@samkarlin) July 22, 2020

 

At least that seemed to be the script everyone was reading from.  Uncanny?  Maybe. Maybe not. I mean, they did tell us who emailed it to them.

Perkins picks up two @JohnBelEdwards alumni, Kia Bickham and @micahjcormier, along with a few Gumbo PAC alumni, for his team, per release. #lalege #lasen

— Sam Karlin (@samkarlin) July 22, 2020

 

Can he win?  Well, reading between the lines here, it doesn't seem likely that is even the point.  See, while the Senate very well may be in play this year, the pros who run the Democratic Party juggernaut do not really expect Louisiana to be a part of that.  BUT since there's likely to be a ton of money flowing their way this fall, it's a good idea to throw as many vessels for receiving and then distributing that money down to professional campaign staff into the mix as possible.  And when Democrats need a placeholder-money sponge to fit into a race like that, well, meritocratic-neoliberal-millitary is the type they prefer.

But, hey don't take it from me...

We need a new generation of leadership in Washington. Looking forward to working with @PerkinsforLA. https://t.co/hfCatBCUkE

— Amy McGrath (@AmyMcGrathKY) July 22, 2020

 

It's good to see @PerkinsforLA stepping forward to run for Senate. His perspective as a mayor on the front lines of leadership (plus as a veteran, and one of a new generation of dynamic Black elected leaders) is more timely than ever. https://t.co/y6Ef6Rh1Fm

— Pete Buttigieg (@PeteButtigieg) July 23, 2020

Sounds very exciting and compelling, right?  Can't you just imagine him facing down some Republican nonsense in the Senate right now?  Wouldn't you like to see a guy like that stand up and ask Mitch McConnell or Tom Cotton if they have "no sense of decency sir?"   What if he had been there on the Senate floor during this term? What might that have looked like?

On Aug. 29th, Sens. Chuck Grassley and Diane Feistein received a letter from eight recent or current members of Harvard Law’s Black Law Student Association (BLSA), including Shreveport mayoral candidate Adrian Perkins, in support of Judge Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination to the United States Supreme Court.

The Bayou Brief contacted Perkins, both directly and through his campaign, and, as of the time of publication, has yet to receive a response.

The letter praises Kavanaugh, a staunchly pro-life conservative who is now confronting credible allegations of sexual assault, for meeting with African-American students in March and providing them “his insights and advice” on how to secure a judicial clerkship. “The students who have signed below write to express appreciation for the Judge’s enthusiasm on this issue and hope that his efforts will be taken into consideration,” the letter reads.

Oh dear.

Well, to contextualize this a bit, the young Harvard men are often asked to sign letters like this on behalf of fellow Harvard men seeking advancement in various arenas.  It's a think Harvard men are expected to do for one another.  And at the time of this letter, the sexual assault allegations against Kavanaugh were not widely known so it's probable that Perkins just signed the thing because that's part of what it means to be in the club of Harvard men. Kavanaugh had shared with them some of his own "insights and advice" on how to get ahead themselves and so they would want to pay it back in whatever way they can.

Does that make signing your name to a letter supporting the installation of a right wing ideologue to the Supreme Court any better?  Probably if you are the sort of Democrat who is "excited" by a resume like Perkins's it does.  Not really sure who else it is supposed to impress, though.