Category: Gulf Coast Region,

Mississippi suit to cover all who lost voting rights, judge says

On By peanutgallerynhIn American Injustice System,, Domestic Affairs,, Gulf Coast Region,, Race,Leave a comment

The Mississippi Constitution strips the ballot from people convicted of any of 10 felonies, including murder, forgery and bigamy. The attorney general later expanded that list to 22, adding crimes that include timber larceny and carjacking. The plaintiffs argue disenfranchisement violates the U.S. Constitution because it was adopted with the discriminatory intent of keeping African Americans from voting.

…African-Americans make up about 38 percent of Mississippi’s population and 36.5 percent of the state’s registered voters. Youngwood said 59 percent to 60 percent of people convicted of disenfranchising crimes in the state are black.

Some states automatically restore voting rights once someone gets out of prison, while others automatically restore rights once someone completes parole or probation. But Mississippi requires people to go through the arduous process of getting individual bills passed just for them with two-thirds approval by the Legislature, or getting a pardon from the governor.

Mississippi suit to cover all who lost voting rights, judge says

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Supreme Court blocks Louisiana abortion law from taking effect Monday

On By peanutgallerynhIn American Injustice System,, Chick Stuff,, Gulf Coast Region,Leave a comment

Louisiana’s Unsafe Abortion Protection Act has been blocked since its enactment in 2014, it requires a doctor to have admitting privileges at a hospital within 30 miles of the facility where the abortion is performed.

The state argues that the law is necessary to provide a higher level of physician competence, but critics say there is no medical justification for the law and it amounts to a veiled attempt to unlawfully restrict abortion.

In 2017, Judge John deGravelles, of the US District Court for the Middle District of Louisiana, an Obama appointee, struck down the law, saying it would severely limit the number of providers available to perform abortions, result in the closure of clinics and “place added stress” on remaining facilities.

Supreme Court blocks Louisiana abortion law from taking effect Monday – CNNPolitics

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Embattled Florida elections supervisor Brenda Snipes rescinds resignation, vows to fight governor

On By peanutgallerynhIn Domestic Affairs,, Gulf Coast Region,Leave a comment

Scott replaced Snipes with his former general counsel general counsel, Peter Antonacci, to lead the department even though he has no elections experience. Snipes responded by rescinding her previous resignation — and will now be “fighting this to the very end,” her attorney said during a Saturday news conference.

“We believe these actions are malicious,” said Burnadette Norris-Weeks, who said that Broward County voters should be concerned about what Scott is trying to do in the Democratic stronghold by putting in an ally who could oversee the office into the 2020 elections.

Embattled Florida elections supervisor Brenda Snipes rescinds resignation, vows to fight governor – CBS News

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Last election of 2018 gives Democrats cause for hope in 2020 — and despair. Here’s why.

On By peanutgallerynhIn Gulf Coast Region,Leave a comment

In particular, he seems to have benefited from a motivated black electorate. With some ballots still to be counted, turnout for the runoff has met or surpassed its Nov. 6 level in a dozen of the state’s 82 counties. And of those dozen counties, eight are majority-black, mostly in the Delta region, where Espy racked up enormous margins.

Espy’s statewide total was also helped by the suburbs, especially fast-growing DeSoto County, which abuts the Tennessee border and has become a hotspot for Memphis commuters. Here, Espy collected 41 percent of the vote, far better than recent Democratic candidates like Hillary Clinton (31 percent in 2016) and Barack Obama (33 percent in 2012, and 30 percent in 2008).

…[Espy] suffered in many heavily white rural areas, especially in the northeast corner of the state, where Hyde-Smith ran close to — and in a few cases even matched — the levels of support Donald Trump received in 2016.

Last election of 2018 gives Democrats cause for hope in 2020 — and despair. Here’s why.

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Coast Guard orders massive 14-year oil spill to be cleaned up

On By peanutgallerynhIn American Injustice System,, Environment,, Gulf Coast Region,, Money, Class, and Poverty,Leave a comment

The Coast Guard has ordered the company responsible for an oil spill that has been leaking into the Gulf of Mexico for 14 years to clean up the environmental catastrophe or face a $40,000 per day fine.

…Taylor allowed a broken oil platform off the coast of southeast Louisiana to leak an estimated 10,500 gallons to 29,000 gallons of oil per day, five to 13 times larger than the government’s initial estimates.

…Taylor’s oil spill has been a source of concern for some time. The site — Mississippi Canyon-20, which lies south of the Mississippi River delta — took a hit from Hurricane Ivan in 2004. The storm wrecked Taylor’s platform and triggered the massive spill, resulting in years of legal back-and-forth between the company and the Interior Department, which has contended that Taylor has an obligation to fix the oil wells at the site.

…Taylor no longer produces oil and a trust account was established in 2008, which the government required in order to allow the company to decommission its wells. Nine of the 28 wells at the Mississippi delta site have been plugged and Taylor says it can’t reach the others without risking more spillage. The company now wants the rest of the $666 million trust to be returned to it, arguing it has done everything it can, but the Interior Department says Taylor needs to finish plugging the remaining wells.

Coast Guard orders massive 14-year oil spill to be cleaned up – ThinkProgress

Disgusting this was allowed to go on for 14 years. George Bush may not have liked black people but (sadly) BHO didn’t give a flying fuck about the Gulf Coast either.

$40,000 a day is chump change com paired to the long-term costs of cleaning it up. There should be criminal charges filed by this point.

Pluggin nine of twenty-eight well is not even close to “everything it can” do  and it sure as shit doesn’t even get close to resolving the problems the company created by themselves. Make a mess? Clean it up. All up. Completely. Or face much more dire consequences than a fine to a trust fund should be the rule of law.

Everyone saw the French Quarter attack. Few saw the mental health care failures behind it.

On By peanutgallerynhIn American Injustice System,, Gulf Coast Region,, Money, Class, and Poverty,, Science and Stuff,Leave a comment

A review of Paul’s UMC medical records by NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune raised significant questions. Four hours after he was admitted, a doctor wrote that Paul was “having auditory hallucinations” and that he was “a potential threat to himself and other people as well as gravely disabled.” 

This assessment gave the hospital a legal right to involuntarily commit Paul for up to three days for observation and treatment, with the possibility of holding him an additional 12 days following a re-examination by the coroner. And yet doctors still chose to discharge him, just one day later.

Behavioral health experts said this is not uncommon, that people in need of psychiatric treatment are released on a regular basis, a result of the state’s gutting of its mental health care funding and infrastructure.

…Paul is one of hundreds of homeless kids who cycle through Covenant House and other outreach programs every year, Foots said, many suffering from the same mental health disorders as him, some more severe. If the level of care doesn’t improve, and if hospitals continue to turn away people in need because they lack the necessary beds and funding, she fears what happened to Paul and the men he injured could become more commonplace.

“I work with these kids every day and I know they are all very troubled,” Foots said. “I see their mental illness, but they rarely get the help they need. Just like Dejuan. Those damn voices in his head got ahold of him and he just lost it.” 

…He paced frantically while hitting himself and repeating, over and over again, that he needed his medicine. 

Then, as if someone pulled a string, he slumped to the floor near the kitchen. 

Foots knelt down, her face inches from Paul’s, and locked eyes with him. She said he needed to focus, that he was in control of his mind, no one else. Ignore the people in your head, she instructed him. Staff members told Foots to keep her distance. She refused. 

…“The police told me when they got him, ‘At least he’s going to emergency. They’re going to give him some medicine. He’s going to be better and everything is going to be good,’” Foots said. “And that’s what I told Dejuan, but that’s not what happened.”

…Paul was given 10 mg of Zyprexa, an antipsychotic typically prescribed to people with bipolar disorder or schizophrenia. A toxicology screen came back positive for marijuana. Paul confessed that he smoked marijuana every day since he was 15 and that over the past several weeks he had rarely slept more than four hours a night. 

…According to his medical records, Paul told the doctors at UMC he had “racing thoughts about everything and feels stuck in his own head.” If he could get some Vyvanse, a drug prescribed to people with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, he said he would feel “much better and everything would be OK.”

…In this case, however, despite receiving confirmation of Paul’s diagnosis and prior care, UMC doctors refused to give him his medication, his medical records show. There was no explanation provided in the records. 

…Warden Perry Stagg, who was seated nearby, interjected to ask Paul if he had been given his medication at the prison. When Paul said no, that the nurse said they can’t prescribe it, Stagg said they would try to figure out potential substitutes “to get him back where he needs to be.”

Since former Gov. Bobby Jindal gutted the mental health care system, taking care of people like Paul has become part of the prison’s job, Stagg said. 

“Unfortunately, the Department of Corrections has become the de facto mental health hospital for the state,” he said. “We need to get these mental health services back available on the street and try to catch some of these guys before they commit a crime.”

…“I’m an old, conservative Republican, a lock‘em up and throw away the key kind of guy. Until I came to the Department of Corrections and realized that, hey, that’s not always the answer. There are reasons for some of this stuff and some of this stuff can be corrected.”

Everyone saw the French Quarter attack. Few saw the mental health care failures behind it. | NOLA.com

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Second Line Blues: A Brief History of New Orleans Brass

On By peanutgallerynhIn Gulf Coast Region,, Media and Culture,Leave a comment

“Second line bands, the bands that march in the streets, initially was done for funerals,” Allen Toussaint said. “To march real slow on the way to the funeral and cut up on the way back. That’s how you lay the dead away—with a band. You take ‘em on out and you boogie back.”

…Pierre Le Moyne d’Iberville and his younger brother Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne, Sieur de Bienville, (now remembered as Iberville and Bienville) explored the area around the mouth of the Mississippi River, looking for good areas to claim for King Louis XIV. Iberville would found the first permanent French settlement in the Louisiana Territory in 1699, while Bienville established New Orleans in 1718.

“One old writer relates that, with the founding of New Orleans by the brothers Bienville and Iberville, there was a body of soldiers with the explorers and that a trumpet player with the military band died and was buried in the military fashion with music in the funeral procession and at the grave site,” Barker writes.

…While Barker says that other writers recall celebratory funerals by the city’s black population even during slavery, it wasn’t until emancipation in 1865 and the resulting freedoms afforded to black musicians that brass bands really took off.

…As recounted in Jazzmen, a collection of essays on early jazz written in 1939, Bolden played clubs like the Perseverance Hall, The Buzzards, and the Tin Type Hall, where “the music was mean and dirty” and the song lyrics could be confused for today’s strip club anthems.

Isidore, like other trained musicians at the time, looked down on such musicians. Barker writes that he called them “routine” as a slur because they couldn’t read music and therefore had to learn by routine. Of Bolden, Isidore told Barker, “Sure, I heard him. I knew him. He was famous with the ratty people.”

…But that kind of animosity soon fell out of favor. 

These jazz bands also competed with the brass [marching parade] bands for gigs and the rapt attentions of audiences. For the many parades and celebrations thrown by the city’s social clubs and Carnival “krewes,” jazz bands would perform on the flatbeds of horse-drawn carriages and, later, automobiles.

…The New Orleans of the ‘50s and ‘60s, like much of the rest of the country, turned away from jazz and toward R&B, soul, and rock ‘n’ roll. Luminaries of that era, like Toussaint and The Meters, certainly brought parade-style playing to their music. 

…The group was only together from 1970 to 1974, but during that time, Barker took a whole new generation of players under his wing.

The members of that band and the associated circle of players that sprung up around it included Leroy Jones, Branford Marsalis, and Wynton Marsalis—who would become leading lights of a new style of jazz that incorporated the popular music of the day. In the wake of the Fairview Marching Band, former members launched a constellation of brass bands that brought bebop and funk music into the mix.

,,,On Fat Tuesday, some three-hundred years since New Orleans’ first brass funeral, second liners have their choice. Both the traditionally minded Treme Brass Band and Rebirth—whose most famous line is “Do watcha wanna / Smoke marijuana”—will be performing, each group preserving and pushing the tradition forward in their own way.

Second Line Blues: A Brief History of New Orleans Brass | Reverb News

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Ron DeSantis Tells Florida Not To ‘Monkey This Up’ By Electing Andrew Gillum

On By peanutgallerynhIn Gulf Coast Region,, Race,Leave a comment

During an appearance on Fox News with Sandra Smith, DeSantis, who is white, doled out backhanded compliments to Gillum, who is black, calling him “an articulate spokesman.” 

…“The last thing we need to do is to monkey this up by [electing Gillum]” said DeSantis to Smith.

Ron DeSantis Tells Florida Not To ‘Monkey This Up’ By Electing Andrew Gillum | HuffPost

A racist comment two-fer in one interview. Oh my…

John Legend wants Louisiana to remove ‘white supremacy’ from its constitution

On By peanutgallerynhIn American Injustice System,, Gulf Coast Region,, Race,Leave a comment

Voters in Louisiana will be asked in November if they want to amend the state’s constitution to remove the clause that allows non-unanimous jury decisions.

“During Louisiana’s all-white constitutional convention in 1898, delegates passed a series of measures specifically designed to ‘perpetuate the supremacy of the Anglo-Saxon race in Louisiana,'” the piece states. “Non-unanimous juries were one of those measures, and the intent was clear: If the federal Constitution required that African Americans be allowed to serve on juries, the state constitution would make sure that minority votes could be discounted.”

John Legend wants Louisiana to remove ‘white supremacy’ from its constitution

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Video: Louisiana man dies after officers put him in choke hold

On By peanutgallerynhIn American Injustice System,, Gulf Coast Region,Leave a comment

A criminal justice expert says Avoyelles Parish law officers who wrestled a Marksville man off a tractor while serving an arrest warrant last year used too much force, needlessly escalating a confrontation that ended with the man’s death. [They also] acted negligently by failing to administer aid once Armando Frank was unconscious.

…A forensic pathologist hired by the parish had said in a report that manual strangulation was the primary cause of Frank’s death. The video shows Spillman mount the tractor behind Frank and apply a choke hold while another officer tries to pull him down. For a time, Frank is doubled-over while resisting. Officers had to carry Frank to a patrol car after his body went limp.

…“His level of resistance starts out as passive. It doesn’t go to active and aggressive until he’s physically assaulted by these deputies,” Gregory Gilbertson, director of the criminal justice program at Centralia College in Centralia, Washington, said Thursday.

…Gilbertson said Frank’s questions as to what he was being arrested for, and who signed the warrant, were reasonable.

“There’s no exigent circumstance here,” Gilbertson said Thursday. “He’s not attempting to flee, he’s not assaulting anybody, he’s sitting on a tractor and he’s asking reasonable questions they are refusing to answer.”

…The report by Youngsville pathologist Christopher Tape labels the death a homicide for “medicolegal purposes,” noting that officers compromised Frank’s breathing for more than six minutes by placing him in neck holds and pressing him from behind. The report, which relies on an autopsy and body camera video, also notes that officers did not attempt to resuscitate Frank.

…Tape’s review of body camera footage highlights several points at which Frank struggled to breathe — points that Spillman’s narrative and the Sheriff’s Office’s reports do not include. Louisiana State Police also investigated the incident, but State Police spokesman Scott Moreau referred all questions to the Sheriff’s Office, which he said is the lead agency in the investigation.

Spillman’s neck hold on Frank was temporarily interrupted by the errant stun gun strike, Tape notes, at which point Frank could be heard breathing heavily. The struggle continued once Frank was off the tractor, with Frank coughing as he was pressed onto the tractor from behind, according to Tape’s report.

Less than half a minute later, Frank “can be heard to be coughing and gasping,” Tape wrote, and law enforcement continued pressing him against the tractor for another 78 seconds. During this time, Frank said “let me up” three times “in an increasingly deep and strained voice,” Tape wrote, adding that this was Frank’s “last verbal communication.”

Video: Louisiana man dies after officers put him in choke hold; experts disagree on excessive force or not | Crime/Police | theadvocate.com

Until officers of the law are held legally responsible for murders like these there is no law and order.

Mobile moves ahead with Amtrak plans

On By peanutgallerynhIn Gulf Coast Region,, Infrastructure and Transportation,, UncategorizedLeave a comment

Amtrak service left Mobile and the Gulf Coast after Hurricane Katrina damaged tracks in 2005. Louisiana, Mississippi, and Florida have already signed off on bringing the service back.

“It would be a shame to send these grant resources back when we can utilize it to have a shovel-ready plan so the governor can hopefully support what we’re trying to do in the near future,” Manzie said.

Mobile moves ahead with Amtrak plans

Very cool.