Tag: Senator Mary Landrieu

Get on the wire to every squadron around the world………

Attention politicians that did not read the Biggert-Waters Flood Insurance Reform Act of 2012 before voting for it.

Federal flood insurance reform demands a renaissance of reason ~ Steve and Peggy Nicosia

Here is what you don’t hear in the mainstream media outlets like the New York Times:

(3) 40 percent of premium dollars going to the NFIP and private insurance companies for program administration, (4) adjusters who wrongly attribute wind damage to the flood program, and (5) 40 percent of federally backed mortgages required to carry insurance do not carry it — have led to premium increases of up to 3,000 percent and much more. Policies now costing $500 can increase to more than $20,000 when rates are fully phased in because structures are deemed out of compliance by Biggert-Waters.

True NFIP reform means clearing the rats off the money, not bankrupting your own people so insurance companies based in Illinois can make a fortune. And that’s the bottom line……..

Gee, here’s a shocker…….

Stephanie Grace: Little common ground on Common Core

Unlike many such gatherings, the format was designed to produce light, not heat. It was hosted by two reliable conservatives, state Reps. Kirk Talbot and Nick Lorusso, who are not often the targets of the sort of ideological fervor swirling around the issue. Supporters on the panel were informative and respectful of audience concerns, and did as well as anyone could to answer questions, debunk myths and explain what Common Core does, and does not, mandate. Opponents were given equal time.

And none of that seemed to make a bit of difference.

It appears the populace refuses to be patted on the heads and go away quietly when it comes to Common Core, which has generated considerable grassroots opposition. The mainstream media pundits paint opponents of Common Core as unreasonable ideologues. The impression I get is folks are tired of throwing more money into the education money pit for the sake of the new political education buzzword du jour, especially when they see insiders lined up to take full financial advantage. Mary Landrieu’s past history in this specific area is particularly odoriferous.

So gee, a few politicos found out the public doesn’t trust them and that even extends to the reputed good guys like Nick Lorusso. This is not a surprise to me because I am solidly a skeptic and on far more than Common Core.  Judging from the emails coming in to Slabbed Central from select members of the Jefferson Parish business community I am far from alone.

Biggert-Waters NFIP Disaster Update: Our politicians thus far unable to reverse the damage from their earlier votes….

So far the two state senatorial delegation of Mary Landrieu, David Vitter, Thad Cochran and Roger Wicker are striking out on delaying the massive NFIP rate increases coming down the pike. Per this Bruce Alpert piece, Senator Landrieu is now seeking a one year delay in the massive rate hikes coming for those that participate in the National Flood Insurance Program. A few days later, Alpert covered a letter the area’s congressional delegation sent to FEMA asking for administrative relief.

The troubled Flood Insurance program is billions of dollars in debt and the Biggert-Waters Act, designed as it was by the Insurance Industry for the sole benefit of the insurance industry guarantees that the billions of dollars in wind claims private insurers such as State Farm dumped on the NFIP after Hurricane Katrina will be repaid by the NFIP ratepayers instead of the large companies that socialized their contractual obligations under their insurance policies that dumped them on the US Treasury. Unfortunately the people of this area were sold out to the insurance industry by our own politicians, who now claim ignorance of the impacts of the bill upon which they voted Aye.

In related news Alpert checked in yesterday with a report on the FEMA pilot program on adjusting flood maps to give credit for locally built, non-accredited levees.  This seems a risky proposition to me due to the fact ongoing maintenance of these systems has been historically neglected plus filling in marshlands for development is bad for the environment. What this area needs is smarter development that does not impact or alter the floodplain, not more levees.

Cedric Richmond now sez he was detached from reality when he voted to raise your flood insurance premiums through the roof

Welp folks, here comes ol’ C-Note trying to explain away his vote to raise your flood insurance rates through the roof. You newbies need to know it was Jason at American Zombie’s coverage of Richmond’s associations with certain 501(c)3’s that gave rise to the term “conprofit” locally. Richmond, with the help of the local MSM, was able to duck accounting for what Jason found. That was yesterday’s news.

In today’s news NOLA’s Bruce Alpert reports on the crash of burn of Mary Landrieu’s publicity stunt on the coming, massive NFIP rate hikes and lordie be if C-Note doesn’t speak:

Richmond said sometimes the “reality” of legislation isn’t apparent when Congress passes a bill. That’s the case, he said, with the 2012 flood insurance measure.

“If we don’t change the law, reality is going to set in and people are going to lose their homes,” Richmond said.

I read that as saying Richmond is admitting to being out of touch with “reality”.  And as we learned with the levee failures associated with Hurricane Katrina, factoring them into the risk calculation for premium purposes has a severe downside so you gotta wonder who is gonna get stuck subsidizing the premiums of those living the illusion of protection afforded by imperfect flood protection systems, whose previous failure have been so well documented?

This NFIP thang is a complex critter and I submit letting the insurance industry write Biggert-Waters was a terrible mistake that is now being compounded by grandstanding politicians attempting to create cover for their earlier vote.

Local politicians grandstanding NFIP rate hikes: The BS is getting deep

So yesterday all the local politicos that voted to drastically raise your flood insurance rates took turns grandstanding on twitter pretending to represent the people that elected them. Senator Mary Landrieu was particularly disgusting IMHO

Fact is insurance companies dumped their wind coverage obligations on the NFIP and our elected leaders opted to stick the bill for such on the little people. Now that reality is sinking in every last one of them would rather forget their original votes. Slabbed has not. Did Mary Landrieu vote to drastically raise your flood insurance rates? You betcha she did. They all did in fact.

File this one under not snookered again.

Yes Virginia, these new age Coastie politicians are rotten to the core.

Gulf Live file photo of politician Michael Janus

If memory serves Michael Janus and our fluffer Congressman are lifelong associates:

Michael Janus, a man who Congressman Steven Palazzo described as a “close friend of my family for years” was formally named Palazzo’s chief of staff on Thursday.

The families that politic together thieve together as well:

‘Oversights’ disclosed in $3M BP grant ~ Mary Perez

“The six council members knew nothing of the agreement until after the grant was received,” said city attorney W. Fred Hornsby III. The council could have chosen not to pay Maxwell-Walker, he said, but agreed to give the firm the standard 6 percent finder’s fee of $180,000 for the grant.

The payment to Maxwell-Walker was not discussed in an open council meeting, only in executive session, Janus said.

Rather than putting a resolution for payment on the budget, it was added to the Dec. 20, 2011, docket of claims with the city’s other bills.

And then there are the obvious conflicts of interest. D’Iberville Mayor Quave works at DMR and is paying his former boss’ son. Janus, the City Manager is in business with Scott Walker via JaWa Investments LLC, a name I thought funny considering the jabberwalk BS involved in terming all this a mere “oversight”. Continue reading “Yes Virginia, these new age Coastie politicians are rotten to the core.”

Jim Letten resignation fallout: “Hold on to your wallets. The crime families are back in business”

“Be careful not to mistake insecurity and inadequacy for humility!
Humility has nothing to do with the insecure and inadequate!
Just like arrogance has nothing to do with greatness!” ~ C. JoyBell C.

“Arrogance diminishes wisdom” ~ Arabian proverb

OK folks I know some of y’all must be scratching your heads at the post title and my choice of quotes that frame this post but bear with me.  First off for all my peeps in the TeeVee media I watched most of the coverage last night.  Lee Zurik over at Fox 8 and Chick Foret at Channel 4 get attaboys, Zurik because it looks like he is trying to think outside the box on Letten’s replacement and Chick Foret for his brutal, yet accurate assessment of how the axe came down on Jim Letten.  I viewed this as a business decision and once people began to say, accurately IMHO, that Letten did not know about the online activities of Jan Mann, Sal Perricone and a rumored 2 other DoJ employees such was a clear sign he was a figurative dead man walking.  And while I’m certain feelings are running high at Team Letten right now I think Mr. Letten would be the first person to say that entering the chop shop is the proper last act in these circumstances.

So if Letten is penitent then we must look elsewhere for the arrogance so now we examine a small snippet from Gordon Russell and John Simerman’s comprehensive Jim Letten resignation story for NOLA.com:

Because of civil service protection afforded to federal prosecutors, neither Letten nor his superiors was likely able to fire Mann immediately, according to lawyers familiar with federal rules. “If she wants to hunker down, she can,” said former U.S. Attorney Harry Rosenberg. “He cannot summarily fire her.”

This is a clear reference to the local rumor mill on Mann. Unlike Sal Perricone, who fell on his sword quickly, Jan Mann stayed on refusing to resign until yesterday when the issue was forced via the forced resignation of her boss. Rumor holds the big guy himself asked Mann to man up and leave. The same rumor said Mann made like Nancy Reagan and just said no.  If that is true and I think there is at least a kernel of truth in the rumor so everyone should now understand the lead off quotes I chose this morning.

This brings me to former US Attorney Harry Rosenberg’s last quote in the story I linked above: Continue reading “Jim Letten resignation fallout: “Hold on to your wallets. The crime families are back in business””

Miss Piggy is concerned about Jim Letten’s office: A “playing on the internet” update.

Louisiana Senator Mary Landrieu

She is very concerned about the latest scandal to hit Jim Letten’s office according to John Simerman at NOLA Media Group, who posted a comprehensive update about the budding Fred Heebe SLAPP suit against Jan Mann saga.  The whole story is well worth the read but this snippet leads me to believe there is gonna be a fight:

Mann this week circulated a memo via email to all office employees in which she neither admitted nor denied the allegations, but apologized for the distraction the situation was causing. In it, she also underscored her intention to fight Heebe’s claims and stay in her post, according to people familiar with the memo.

At this point I’ll admit I wondered how much campaign cash Fred Heebe has stuffed into the pockets of both Landrieu and Diaper David Vitter because you know it is a bunch, so if I may be so bold as to suggest that Mann’s family pool their money and hold fundraisers for Landrieu and Vitter like BP did after the oil spill both may be more pliable in dealing with this matter.

Meantime that Times Picayune story from last month about Letten’s job being safe no matter who won the election?