WaPo article: Police secretly monitored New Orleans with facial recognition cameras
Also there just happens to be a state law that goes into effect tomorrow that threatens all state employees (including law enforcement) with jail time for ignoring federal immigration orders. Like, idk, refusing to hand over access to your city's real time facial recognition tracking surveillance.
It was literally made to target the sheriff bc of the federal consent decree saying local police don't deal with immigration matters. Small government's biggest supporters at the state level have decided that it's necessary to help the federal government enforce immigration orders on the city.
Orleans sheriff to stick with immigration policy in spite of new state law
Watched the entire fucking criminal justice meeting on June 30th. Here is probably the most relevant clip of the whole 4ish hours: https://www.reddit.com/r/NewOrleans/comments/1lolxh5/clip_of_lesli_harris_asking_the_right_questions/
Finally this article came out July 10th and one of the council members said exactly why a promise from the police didn't address the real issue.
New Orleans councilmember against facial recognition expansion
Welp, guess what today is? Tried to watch the criminal justice meeting, but there is nothing scheduled.
I have no fucking idea what is actually happening with the proposal. Or if we will even hear anything before the vote. Or if we're just supposed to pretend none of this is happening?
I'm assuming they're still voting on it August 7th? Maybe? Given how little public opinion seems to matter at the city, state, and federal level in 2025 compared to corporate money, maybe we're just supposed to pretend this was never a thing that happened.
Yeah, its been pretty disgusting watching the worst people in the state working overtime to fuck up society. We've been trying to get folks in our friend and activist circles to attend these meetings in person when we can do it. But obviously they schedule them at random times, cancel discussion when too many people are there, don't announce reschedules, and so on. It's scummy, antidemocratic tactics and I'm not sure what we're supposed to do to counter them.
I mean is anybody even running against any of the seats. I think there was some kind of council candidate forum today but of course didn't know about it until it was too late.
All of the mayor stuff has been so oddly advertised and scheduled even though Reddit has turned into more of an advertisement platform than a form of social media. You would think that would be a benefit to keeping people informed about when this stuff is scheduled, but it all seems like mainly just more of the same old bought and paid for BS drowns out everything else. Encouraging people to join other platforms like this one would help.
With the new laws going into effect tomorrow, I don't have much hope of people publicly speaking out against Landry anytime soon, but spreading information online when you can and telling people by word of mouth is always helpful.
I also wish the Dems would get off their ass and go ahead and announce who, if anybody is running as a dem for Cassidy's seat. It's not good I'm already aware of 3 different Republicans and not a single dem. I heard JBE might run but he wants to wait until October to give a definite answer.
That's really the only way I see any of this changing. Find dems that are at least not paid by Russia/Broligarchy money to replace one or both Senate seats. Try to get as many local seats filled with people that aren't Landry cronies, and obviously get Landry out ASAP.
This all assumes that the new DOGE voter database maintenance system doesn't accidentally purge everyone and we can still vote. I think that is definitely a concern, but I also think the best way to fight the new right now that they're destroying the country from the top down is to use the strategy they used to gain power, and put more effort into getting people elected from the bottom up.
I hate to say this, but given that voter fraud is a genuine concern, try to unite behind whatever candidate is A. the least corrupt and B. has the best chance of actually winning to avoid vote splitting, even if it's not your ideal candidate.
I realize that sucks, but we're basically already in an oligarchy. If there are scraps of democracy left we have to be strategic about holding on to them, and it's a lot harder to convincingly rig an election if you have a strong showing of public support for one candidate.
C. The earlier you get word of a good candidate out to the public, the more time it gives you to build up knowledge about them. I would prefer less money determining who runs a successful campaign for any elected position in this state and country, but if you're going to compete with a pile of endless money and information control, you have to take the time to build name recognition some other way like through community organizing.