That is all I can disclose until we vet this past our legal team. We should have something up tomorrow morning on the Katrina “Who Dat” Judge.
sop
Day: June 23, 2010
It was inevitable and now it is official. Oil has been spotted in the Mississippi Sound.
This explains all the cleanup crews on the beach today at Broad Avenue which is literally blocks from my Slab. Geoff Pender at the Sun Herald files the report.
Speaking of Geoff, we shot a few spit balls at him a few months back. He is normally the political columnist for the paper and he does good work. With newspapers cut to the bone in response to post financial crash business realities, Geoff has pitched in on the news side of the house and his reporting on the spill has been very professional.
Recently we’ve shot a few spitballs at Boss Hogg and his side kick Barney Fife but the respectable version of the sentiments we’ve expressed are best expressed by Geoff in a piece that was virtually ignored off the coast here in Mississippi. Geoff speaks for the Slabbed Nation in terms of the political stakes and is well worth the read.
Finally I’ll add Mississippi’s barrier islands are free from development except for a historic civil war fort and a low impact boardwalk across Ship Island for beach goers and the many naturalists which use the Island’s natural beauty in their artwork. As our friend Rob Young at Western Carolina University found out coastal Mississippians are conservationists by nature and we treasure the bounty and bio diversity of our marshes, river estuaries, islands and the open water. Here at Slabbed we’ll be taking screw ups like those highlighted in the previous post personally and trust me when I say no one should wish that on themselves.
sop
The failure is complete: This is what has happened on Grand Isle Louisiana.
The sorry sad fact is the politicians are as much to blame as BP. In Jefferson Parish a political hack named Deano Bonano is in charge of this and he is sponsored by crooked local politicians. Throw in some worthless contractors including our old friends at Worley Catastrophe and an oil company with an open checkbook and the clusterfuck is complete.
To our adjusting friend. Shoot me an email. earning04 @ gmail.com
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7RPrtxFa5R4]
Vlogger Unslabbed submits the slabbed teaser
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BXyMhLS3BcM]
Obama to appeal "who dat' Judge" Feldman's ruling – POTUS v Katrina's don't-know-wind-from-water 5th Circuit "who dem" BP-stock-owning judges
“We will immediately appeal to the 5th circuit the president strongly believes as the Department of Interior and the Department of Justice argued yesterday that continuing to drill at these depths without knowing what happened does not make any sense and… potentially puts the safety of those on the rigs and the environment in the Gulf at a danger that the president does not believe we can afford right now,” said spokesman Robert Gibbs during Tuesday’s briefing.
Y’all come on down, Mr. President, and sample some of Judge Edith’s home cooking.
The chief judge is one Edith Jones, who received international notoriety a few years back when she ruled that a fellow named Calvin Burdine, convicted of murder and sentenced to death row, received a fair trial even though his court appointed lawyer slept through a good bit of the trial. A sleeping attorney didn’t’ seem to bother Jones, who wrote in upholding the conviction that “we cannot determine whether the defense counsel slept during a critical stage of Burdine’s trial.” So, according to Jones, it’s OK to nap a bit during a trial if you are representing a defendant who could be (and in this case was) given the death penalty. Just pick and choose when you doze off.
Jones was nominated by President Reagan and joined the Court in 1985. SLABBED examined the “absurdity of Judge Jones’ reasoning” a year ago; so no one should be surprised to see BP stock listed in her financial disclosure report (shown below). Continue reading “Obama to appeal "who dat' Judge" Feldman's ruling – POTUS v Katrina's don't-know-wind-from-water 5th Circuit "who dem" BP-stock-owning judges”
Slabbed covers the coverage of the story we broke to the world on Katrina's "Who Dat" Judge Martin Feldman.
I’ve received quite the education in the workings of the media since Katrina and never cease to be amazed how those that supposedly see things as they are (ie journalists) over PR spin are impacted by the same cognitive biases that afflict the rest of us mere mortals. Since we broke the news contained on Judge Martin Feldman’s 2008 financial disclosure form regarding his affinity for oil related stocks, the media have woven that facet into most every report on Feldman’s ruling yesterday blocking President Obama’s drilling moratorium. Simply put it appears results oriented Judge Feldman has a huge conflict of interest here, one that his backers will not be able to wish away and sweep under the carpet New Orleans style.
Normally one would expect the best reporting on this would come from the local media outlets and indeed some have done a masterful job covering this story. Sadly, the regions premiere newspaper The Times Picayune has chosen to circle the wagons around Judge Feldman and break out the pom poms rather than explore how Feldman’s ruling is now tainted. Becky Mowbray, a fine journalist who has done some fantastic reporting on the scams insurers employed to dump their wind claim obligations on the National Flood Insurance Program and whose work we have featured on stabbed more times than I can count took a journalistic leave of absence in favor of pom poms and it is with her story we begin:
A federal judge in New Orleans blocked the Obama administration’s moratorium on deepwater drilling Tuesday, prohibiting the government from enforcing the six-month drilling ban announced just weeks after the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon rig that many in Louisiana fear will be economically devastating. Continue reading “Slabbed covers the coverage of the story we broke to the world on Katrina's "Who Dat" Judge Martin Feldman.”
Jefferson Parish District Attorney Paul Connick, Jr.: A mantle of malfeasance. A guest post by Whitmergate.
When DA Paul Connick, Jr. was asked whether or not his private law firm of Connick and Connick, being allowed to continue to receive millions of dollars of taxpayers’ money now that he was DA of JP, was a conflict he was quoted as saying:
“My job is to follow the evidence…I will not be influenced or deterred from doing my job as District Attorney by any client or anything to do with the private law firm…….. “
Really? And yes he offered up a toilet paper opinion from the morally bankrupt Louisiana Ethics Committee (so named at that time) that opined Connick’s moonlighting is OK. I continue to find it truly disconcerting, if not downright disgusting, that so many of these elected and appointed officials need to be told by someone else that’s it’s legal to do something that is ethically and morally wrong. Continue reading “Jefferson Parish District Attorney Paul Connick, Jr.: A mantle of malfeasance. A guest post by Whitmergate.”
Billy Nungesser's name surfaces in the Canal Street Madam's black book.
We were leaked Nungesser’s name over the weekend after we reignited the conversation about the contents of the infamous Canal Street Madam black book. I am very happy to see Miss Maier speak out publicly on this. Jay Vice at WWL 870 has the story. (H/T Whitmergate):
Jeanette Maier, the so-called “canal street madam,” says that her brothel serviced Billy Nungesser Jr., president of Plaquemines Parish before he was a political figure.
Maier claimed today in an interview with WWL that Nungesser visited her establishment in the 1980s, and that his father, a long-time political figure, had to pay Nungesser’s $10,000 tab at the brothel. Continue reading “Billy Nungesser's name surfaces in the Canal Street Madam's black book.”