CAO battle lost, Cheatham might still win war

This week witnessed another chapter of The Empire vs. Republican Bossier City Mayor Tommy Chandler with a minor defeat for the latter, but from that might bring a much bigger win for reform in the future.

Having originally selected Republican Shane Cheatham as his chief administrative officer, who knocked off long-time Republican incumbent City Councilor Scott Irwin this spring that also saw Chandler defeat four-time incumbent Republican Lo Walker, that nomination never even came to a vote. With Cheatham having resigned his School Board seat and turned down the council win, Council graybeards no party Jeff Darby, Republican Jeff Free, the GOP’s David Montgomery, and Democrat Bubba Williams conspired with newcomer and theirs and Walker’s ally Republican Vince Maggio to put Irwin back in temporarily. Then they didn’t provide a second to a motion by GOP newcomer Chris Smith – Chandler’s only friend on the Council so far – to appoint Cheatham.

It was a rookie/outsider mistake to give away a sure Council supporter in this fashion by Chandler asking and Cheatham accepting, and Chandler hung in with his choice for a couple of months. But he finally had to bow to the reality of the intractability of Council Pres. Williams, who publicly gave vague reasons why he wouldn’t support Cheatham, and the other graybeards plus new bootlicker Maggio, and thus nominated Amanda Nottingham for the post.

Cassidy increasingly alienated from Louisianans

Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy continues to give a graphic representation of what happens when you stay in Washington too long.

It seems incredible to think that the Cassidy of a year ago running for reelection and the one on display today are the same person. Then, Cassidy was a GOP Pres. Donald Trump and Senate party loyalist, voting with Trump about 89 percent of the time (higher that predicted by a model used by one political forecasting and commentary website), rated about 83 on the American Conservative Union’s scorecard, and enthusiastically backed party positions such as the ascension of Amy Coney Barrett to the U.S. Supreme Court. In the campaign he sounded all the right conservative themes and cruised to victory.

However, within that ACU rating should have signaled a warning to conservatives. It notes his weakest area was on budget and fiscal policy, where according to it he voted more often for liberal policies. And that became starker not long after Cassidy concluded that Trump had lost his reelection attempt and he became an early backer of an unnecessary spending bill just as his first term ended.

Landry tragedy review brings needed neutrality

Fortunately, Hurricane Ida cost only a few Louisianans their lives. Unfortunately, the circumstances behind most of these deaths leaves uncomfortable as yet unanswered questions that could lead to the Governor’s Mansion.

During the storm, six nursing home clients died in a warehouse in Independence. Seven facilities in the southeastern part of the state, operated by Baton Rouge businessman Bob Dean, in advance of Ida disgorged over 800 clients into the building also owned by Dean. That site had met with Department of Health approval; all group homes in the state (as well as individuals served in waiver programs) must have on file an approved evacuation plan. In fact, LDH reviewed and reaffirmed that plan prior to the evacuations.

However, LDH now claims the facilities didn’t follow the plan. And according to Republican Atty. Gen. Jeff Landry, employees there turned away LDH representatives wishing to survey the place – an action that prompted Landry to open an investigation of the entire operation.

Politics explains media's LA disaster coverage

Sixteen years to the day Hurricane Katrina struck Louisiana, Hurricane Ida did the same. But over a week later, political reaction to it has been vastly different because of political agendas.

The storms differed only in strength and location. Ida was the stronger of the two and landed west of New Orleans, while Katrina made landfall to the city’s east. Potentially, this made Ida mor destructive not only because of its strength, but because a hurricane’s rotation in this part of the world makes its northeastern quadrant the most damaging.

Ida did plenty of damage, tearing through a number of communities with extensive damage or complete destruction of most structures that, at this point, looks to take months for life to get back anywhere close to normal for affected individuals. Katrina caused this on a much lesser scale, but infamously supplied s storm surge that knocked out some area levees, with most of the ensuing flooding affecting New Orleans (and Jefferson Parish) and claiming far more lives.

LA crypto mining: less methane, more wealth

Atypically, the Democrat Gov. John Bel Edwards has a chance to get something right, and it has to do with cryptocurrency.

Bitcoin and the many other varieties of this currency, which comes into being through computer algorithms and has no physical manifestation, slowly but surely are gaining acceptance as stores of value for commercial transactions. Their creation processes involve performing extensive calculations on computers, typically barebones setups linked by the dozens if not hundreds or even thousands.

This generates energy demands in two ways: providing the electricity to run the computers and to cool them as the process generates tremendous heat. In fact, mining a typical unit of bitcoin (trading currently around $50,000) for one rig (exclusive of cooling) takes the equivalent 53 days of power for the average US household, or at the average U.S. price per kilowatt about $200.