As the Coronavirus Pandemic Spreads, the French Quarter Empties.
Love In The Time Of Coronavirus
The title is a play on Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s classic 1985 novel Love in the Time of Cholera. I read it not long after its English language publication in 1988. It’s one of those books that stays with you. I never expected to be living it myself but here we are.
Garcia Marquez wrote in a style called magic realism, which is a literary cousin to Surrealism. I’m going to indulge in a bit of that style here: weaving in and out of topics in an almost feverish fashion. That’s my excuse if this makes less sense than usual.
As of this writing, New Orleans is one of the hottest COVID-19 hot spots. And it’s going to get worse before it gets better. We have a good hospital infrastructure, but it’s likely to be overwhelmed in the near future. It’s a frustrating situation because there’s little most of us can do to help other than hunker, hunker, hunker.
One person who *is* helping is my friend and fellow Bayou Brief writer, Troy Gilbert. Troy and food writer/lawyer Robert Peyton are trying to help the beleaguered New Orleans restaurant industry hang on and feed first responders during the pandemic by forming the Chef’s Brigade.
There’s a GoFundMe link at the bottom of the second post. Please join me in donating to help our restaurants survive and do what they do best: feed people. CLICK HERE TO DONATE.
After that humanitarian message, we return to our regularly scheduled programming.
Those of us who lived through Hurricane Katrina and the Federal Flood are particularly on edge. The pandemic has punched all our buttons and flashbacks to those traumatic days are increasingly common. My mind is bouncing back and forth between then and now. I’m starting to feel like a character in one of Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s magical realist novels. A boring character, I’m afraid. Obeying the stay at home order is dull but it’s something we all must do. The life you save may be your own. Repeat after me: Better Bored Than Dead.
I started blogging a few months after the levees broke. I didn’t expect to still be writing on the internet 15 years later, but I found my voice. I’m glad that I’m still at it: It’s therapeutic and reduces my anxiety level during this unprecedented crisis. I’d hate to be reduced to venting on social media like some other OG NOLA bloggers. I wish more of them would resume writing. Consider that an invitation, y’all. If you do, I’ll spread the word hither and yon.
My Katrina experience was a relatively mild one. We evacuated and spent six long weeks in exile in Bossier City, Dallas, and Baton Rouge. We were on edge for much of that time. It was alternately tedious and terrifying, which was why we didn’t stay in one place too long.
In those days before social media, we were cut off from the world because our cell phones didn’t work for several weeks. We were reliant on the MSM, which often got things wrong: for example, any part of Uptown New Orleans with large houses was automatically called the Garden District. The lack of information was maddening but we eventually learned that our house had not flooded. That, in turn, led to a bad case of survivor’s guilt. A feeling that will become increasingly common as the current pandemic continues.
Our Katrina exile in Texas is on my mind. We stayed with my favorite cousin who died not long ago. Please indulge me as I engage in some self-quotation:
My cousin was 75 and finally lost a 25 year battle with cancer. Her son moved her to a facility closer to his home to make it easier to visit. Then came the nursing home lockdown. In her bleaker moments, my cousin said the only reason she wanted to live was to see her family. I believe she gave up because of the lockdown. Many elderly New Orleanians died in the first year after Hurricane Katrina and the Federal Flood. Like my cousin, they lost the will to live.”
Unfortunately, there are some who think that the stay home orders should be rescinded and the elderly should “sacrifice” themselves for the economy. It makes me glad that Governors are in charge of managing the crisis. And it makes me gladder still that Eddie Rispone is not our Governor: he might listen to Texas Lt. Governor Dan Patrick and his ilk. John Bel Edwards would never do such a thing.
As you can see, another thing the current crisis has in common with Katrina and the Federal Flood are the insane ideas coming at us from the right as well as ineptitude by the Federal government. George W. Bush at least admitted that he fucked up and tried to make it right albeit belatedly and feebly. The Impeached Insult Comedian never will, and he seems poised to “re-open” the economy, which could kill millions. Heckuva job, Trumpy.
One thing that differentiates the pandemic from the post-Katrina experience is that, by necessity, it’s impossible to have the espirit de corps we had back then; something that I’ve called The Spirit of ’05. Self-isolation is by definition isolating and, much as I hate to contradict the late Warren Zevon, it’s not splendid:
Both Lamar and I have mentioned the late, great Ashley Morris more than once here. Warren Zevon’s music was a passion that Ashley and I shared. As I write this, I’ve been thinking of Ashley’s classic 2005 post Fuck you, you fucking fucks. I’m glad his blog is still online. We need his spirit now more than ever. I wish he were here to cuss out President* Pennywise for not listening to Dr. Fauci and other medical experts. FYYFF.
My original eponymous blog, Adrastos, is no longer fully online. Most of it resides on my hard drive only. I’ve dabbled at restoring it on Word Press, but it’s woefully incomplete. The good news is that I’ve posted some of my best Katrina/Federal Flood related posts at First Draft. Instead of self-quoting, I’m self-linking:
- My account of the day Dr. A and I snuck into New Orleans to check on our house began life as an email to friends, family, and neighbors. It was re-published in 2015 as The Adrastos Wayback Machine; Re-Entry Blues.
- One of my favorite posts involved Dr. A and my attempt to find our friend and handyman, Michel, after the levees broke. It was re-published in 2009 as Letter From New Orleans: Michel.
- In 2006, I wrote a meditation on the state of New Orleans’ recovery using imagery from Charles Dickens and Pink Floyd. It was re-published in 2009 as Letter From New Orleans: Comfortably Numb.
- In anticipatory dread of the 10th Katrinaversary, I wrote one of my most read and commented upon posts ever, Katrinaversary Blues: Of Resilience Tours, Carpetbloggers, & Disaster Tourists.
- On the 13th Katrinaversary, I wrote a piece celebrating The Spirit Of ’05.
I should be sore after patting myself on the back so vigorously. But I am not alone in linking the two greatest disasters of my life as a New Orleanian, so that waltz down memory lane was not strictly an exercise in narcissism. At least I hope not, there’s enough of that coming from the White House. Besides, we all have plenty of time on our hands, so I thought some extra reading material was in order.
The pandemic just hit closer to home: a friend has tested positive for COVID-19. She’d dragged along with what she thought was just the Mardi Gras crud and was not tested until last week. She did the right thing and self-isolated long before she was tested; an example that we should all follow should we catch the 21st Century plague. Thanks, Carolyn. Glad you’re feeling better. She’s living proof that one can survive the virus. Doug MacCash has the details at the Picvocate.
I hope that everyone is taking care of themselves and following the guidelines set forth by Gov. Edwards and Mayor Cantrell. I’ve been critical of both in the past but they’re proving to be good in a crisis, especially the Governor.
A Medical Worker Describes Terrifying Lung Failure From COVID-19 — Even in His Young Patients
According to the most recent estimates (03/21/2020, 9:30 PM CT), Louisiana now reports 763 confirmed cases of COVID-19 and 20 deaths. This report was originally published by ProPublica and is being republished with permission on the Bayou Brief under a Creative Commons license.
As of Friday, Louisiana was reporting 479 confirmed cases of COVID-19, one of the highest numbers in the country. Ten people had died. The majority of cases are in New Orleans, which now has one confirmed case for every 1,000 residents. New Orleans had held Mardi Gras celebrations just two weeks before its first patient, with more than a million revelers on its streets.
I spoke to a respiratory therapist there, whose job is to ensure that patients are breathing well. He works in a medium-sized city hospital’s intensive care unit. (We are withholding his name and employer, as he fears retaliation.) Before the virus came to New Orleans, his days were pretty relaxed, nebulizing patients with asthma, adjusting oxygen tubes that run through the nose or, in the most severe cases, setting up and managing ventilators. His patients were usually older, with chronic health conditions and bad lungs.
Since last week, he’s been running ventilators for the sickest COVID-19 patients. Many are relatively young, in their 40s and 50s, and have minimal, if any, preexisting conditions in their charts. He is overwhelmed, stunned by the manifestation of the infection, both its speed and intensity. The ICU where he works has essentially become a coronavirus unit. He estimates that his hospital has admitted dozens of confirmed or presumptive coronavirus patients. About a third have ended up on ventilators.
His hospital had not prepared for this volume before the virus first appeared. One physician had tried to raise alarms, asking about negative pressure rooms and ventilators. Most staff concluded that he was overreacting. “They thought the media was overhyping it,” the respiratory therapist told me. “In retrospect, he was right to be concerned.”
He spoke to me by phone on Thursday about why, exactly, he has been so alarmed. His account has been condensed and edited for clarity.
“Reading about it in the news, I knew it was going to be bad, but we deal with the flu every year so I was thinking: Well, it’s probably not that much worse than the flu. But seeing patients with COVID-19 completely changed my perspective, and it’s a lot more frightening.”
“I have patients in their early 40s and, yeah, I was kind of shocked. I’m seeing people who look relatively healthy with a minimal health history, and they are completely wiped out, like they’ve been hit by a truck. This is knocking out what should be perfectly fit, healthy people. Patients will be on minimal support, on a little bit of oxygen, and then all of a sudden, they go into complete respiratory arrest, shut down and can’t breathe at all.”
“We have an observation unit in the hospital, and we have been admitting patients that had tested positive or are presumptive positive — these are patients that had been in contact with people who were positive. We go and check vitals on patients every four hours, and some are on a continuous cardiac monitor, so we see that their heart rate has a sudden increase or decrease, or someone goes in and sees that the patient is struggling to breathe or is unresponsive. That seems to be what happens to a lot of these patients: They suddenly become unresponsive or go into respiratory failure.”
“It’s called acute respiratory distress syndrome, ARDS. That means the lungs are filled with fluid. And it’s notable for the way the X-ray looks: The entire lung is basically whited out from fluid. Patients with ARDS are extremely difficult to oxygenate. It has a really high mortality rate, about 40%. The way to manage it is to put a patient on a ventilator. The additional pressure helps the oxygen go into the bloodstream.
“Normally, ARDS is something that happens over time as the lungs get more and more inflamed. But with this virus, it seems like it happens overnight. When you’re healthy, your lung is made up of little balloons. Like a tree is made out of a bunch of little leaves, the lung is made of little air sacs that are called the alveoli. When you breathe in, all of those little air sacs inflate, and they have capillaries in the walls, little blood vessels. The oxygen gets from the air in the lung into the blood so it can be carried around the body.
“Typically with ARDS, the lungs become inflamed. It’s like inflammation anywhere: If you have a burn on your arm, the skin around it turns red from additional blood flow. The body is sending it additional nutrients to heal. The problem is, when that happens in your lungs, fluid and extra blood starts going to the lungs. Viruses can injure cells in the walls of the alveoli, so the fluid leaks into the alveoli. A telltale sign of ARDS in an X-ray is what’s called ‘ground glass opacity,’ like an old-fashioned ground glass privacy window in a shower. And lungs look that way because fluid is white on an X-ray, so the lung looks like white ground glass, or sometimes pure white, because the lung is filled with so much fluid, displacing where the air would normally be.”
“With our coronavirus patients, once they’re on ventilators, most need about the highest settings that we can do. About 90% oxygen, and 16 of PEEP, positive end-expiratory pressure, which keeps the lung inflated. This is nearly as high as I’ve ever seen. The level we’re at means we are running out of options.
“In my experience, this severity of ARDS is usually more typical of someone who has a near drowning experience — they have a bunch of dirty water in their lungs — or people who inhale caustic gas. Especially for it to have such an acute onset like that. I’ve never seen a microorganism or an infectious process cause such acute damage to the lungs so rapidly. That was what really shocked me.”
“It first struck me how different it was when I saw my first coronavirus patient go bad. I was like, Holy shit, this is not the flu. Watching this relatively young guy, gasping for air, pink frothy secretions coming out of his tube and out of his mouth. The ventilator should have been doing the work of breathing but he was still gasping for air, moving his mouth, moving his body, struggling. We had to restrain him. With all the coronavirus patients, we’ve had to restrain them. They really hyperventilate, really struggle to breathe. When you’re in that mindstate of struggling to breathe and delirious with fever, you don’t know when someone is trying to help you, so you’ll try to rip the breathing tube out because you feel it is choking you, but you are drowning.
“When someone has an infection, I’m used to seeing the normal colors you’d associate with it: greens and yellows. The coronavirus patients with ARDS have been having a lot of secretions that are actually pink because they’re filled with blood cells that are leaking into their airways. They are essentially drowning in their own blood and fluids because their lungs are so full. So we’re constantly having to suction out the secretions every time we go into their rooms.”
“Before this, we were all joking. It’s grim humor. If you are exposed to the virus and test positive and go on quarantine, you get paid. We were all joking: I want to get the coronavirus because then I get a paid vacation from work. And once I saw these patients with it, I was like, Holy shit, I do not want to catch this and I don’t want anyone I know to catch this.
“I worked a long stretch of days last week, and I watched it go from this novelty to a serious issue. We had one or two patients at our hospital, and then five to 10 patients, and then 20 patients. Every day, the intensity kept ratcheting up. More patients, and the patients themselves are starting to get sicker and sicker. When it first started, we all had tons of equipment, tons of supplies, and as we started getting more patients, we started to run out. They had to ration supplies. At first we were trying to use one mask per patient. Then it was just: You get one mask for positive patients, another mask for everyone else. And now it’s just: You get one mask.
“I work 12-hour shifts. Right now, we are running about four times the number of ventilators than we normally have going. We have such a large volume of patients, but it’s really hard to find enough people to fill all the shifts. The caregiver-to-patient ratio has gone down, and you can’t spend as much time with each patient, you can’t adjust the vent settings as aggressively because you’re not going into the room as often. And we’re also trying to avoid going into the room as much as possible to reduce infection risk of staff and to conserve personal protective equipment.”
“But we are trying to wean down the settings on the ventilator as much as possible, because you don’t want someone to be on the ventilator longer than they need to be. Your risk of mortality increases every day that you spend on a ventilator. The high pressures from high vent settings is pushing air into the lung and can overinflate those little balloons. They can pop. It can destroy the alveoli. Even if you survive ARDS, although some damage can heal, it can also do long-lasting damage to the lungs. They can get filled up with scar tissue. ARDS can lead to cognitive decline. Some people’s muscles waste away, and it takes them a long time to recover once they come off the ventilator.
“There is a very real possibility that we might run out of ICU beds and at that point I don’t know what happens if patients get sick and need to be intubated and put on a ventilator. Is that person going to die because we don’t have the equipment to keep them alive? What if it goes on for months and dozens of people die because we don’t have the ventilators?
“Hopefully we don’t get there, but if you only have one ventilator, and you have two patients, you’re going to have to go with the one who has a higher likelihood of surviving. And I’m afraid we’ll get to that point. I’ve heard that’s happening in Italy.”
Captain Clay Becomes Emotional When Lafayette’s Tansations Cancels In-Person Job Interviews Due to Global Pandemic
Last Tuesday, the actor G. Clay Higgins of Port Barre, Louisiana recorded a new digital episode in his ongoing “Captain Clay” series, in which a comically aggressive, disgraced former police officer offers his commentary on the catastrophic impact of the Coronavirus global pandemic. Watch it here.
The performance is vintage Captain Clay, who first became a comedic sensation nearly a decade ago when he introduced the character with over-the-top, mealy-mouthed rants satirizing the ubiquitous CrimeStopper videos.
Fans of the series know that Captain Clay was forced to resign from the police force, though Higgins decided to take a risk with the character. In a subsequent season, Higgins made international headlines in an episode in which the emotionally stunted Captain Clay decides to record himself delivering a cringe-worthy lecture on contemporary geopolitics while taking a tour of Auschwitz, the Nazi Concentration Camp in Poland.
In some respects, Higgins’ Captain Clay is similar to the scatological, bigoted egomaniacs portrayed by Sasha Baron Cohen, but Cohen is more careful to maintain levity. There’s nothing necessarily redeemable in Higgins’ Captain Clay. Rather, he has fashioned the character as an archetype of the Trump era: Brutish and belligerent, a vainglorious man whose understanding of American values consists of vapid platitudes about democracy and threats of violence.
In his most recent commentary on the Coronavirus pandemic, Higgins uses Captain Clay to deliver a provocative performance about the kind of thoughtless, indignant, and anti-social absurdity that has become emboldened in the aftermath of Trump’s election.
As state officials scramble to mitigate the spread of the virus and implore residents to stay at home in order to limit exposure, Captain Clay wanders around the parking lot in front of a strip center on Johnston Street in Lafayette, angrily denouncing the state’s governor for hurting small businesses, describing the pandemic in the coded language of racial slurs, and offering a flimsy argument about the Constitution that seemed to be more informed by the Police Academy trilogy than any class in law school.
Then, in an exclamation point at the end, Captain Clay becomes emotional when describing how the business behind him was forced to cancel in-person interviews with four job applicants as a result of the executive actions that placed restrictions on movement and gatherings as Louisiana prepares for a deadly pandemic. Captain Clay was standing in front of Tansations, a bronzing and tanning salon.
In addition to his career as an actor, Clay Higgins is also a Republican member of the United States House of Representatives.
Trying to Prevent Coronavirus From Going Viral
It took most of Monday morning for the “Don’t Be Stupid” disinfectant spray to filter through the halls and committee rooms of Louisiana’s legislature, but by noon it was clear state lawmakers were going to call a halt to their proceedings, at least temporarily.
Just after one in the afternoon, the Governor’s Office announced an update of John Bel Edwards’ prior public health emergency proclamation. Rather than limiting public gatherings to 250 or fewer, the number has been reduced to 50 or fewer, in accordance with the most recent Centers for Disease Control recommendations.
Once the House convened at 3 p.m., a resolution for temporary adjournment, HCR 27 by House Speaker Clay Schexnayder, was introduced, and the rules were suspended to permit immediate consideration.
Rep. Stuart Bishop (R-Lafayette) urged passage of the resolution, saying, “This is a step of caution for this body, for the staff, and for the people of Louisiana.”
But Rep. Phillip Tarver (R-Lake Charles), a freshman lawmaker, objected, saying, “It is our duty as leaders of this state to conduct our business. Adjournment is inappropriate and the wrong message to send to our citizens at this time.”
Louisiana would be sending the same message to its citizens as the states of Georgia, Vermont, and Colorado have done, and that California’s legislature is considering doin this week. By suspending the legislative sessions, they are all hoping to help prevent further viral transmission.
When Louisiana’s House vote was tabulated, it was 100-1 in favor of the resolution. Rep. Tarver was the lone vote against.
The Senate came in at 4 p.m., and it wasn’t long before they addressed HCR 27. It was a first year, first-term lawmaker, Sen. Barry Milligan (R-Shreveport) who handled the Speaker’s resolution.
“We all came here in good faith, without the expectation we would have to take this step,” Milligan said. “It is for the betterment of our families, communities, our members and our staff in the capitol that we adjourn until 11 a.m., March 31st. The House has passed the motion, and I recommend we pass it as well.”
The Senate vote was unanimously in favor, 35-0.
And just before adjournment, Senate President Page Cortez said, “The reason we made this decision is because we have a lot of people to come to this capitol to testify and so on. We also have a lot of people travelling to and from New Orleans to be here. We do have plenty of time to complete the business by June 1st, if we work hard when we come back.”
In between the two chambers being called to order, the governor held a press conference, giving the latest information compiled from the day’s Unified Command Group meeting on the virus epidemic as well as discussing the more stringent restrictions added to the emergency order.
“This is a rapidly evolving and rapidly escalating situation, and so we have significantly ramped up our efforts to slow the spread,” the governor explained. “We had one case one week ago. Now we have one of the highest per capita numbers of cases in the country: 136 cases in 11 parishes. And three Louisiana residents have died.”
Monday afternoon’s tally also includes the first coronavirus case in the capital region, an Ascension Parish individual.
“This is a very serious situation that demands a serious and swift response, because we know this virus spreads easily and swiftly. So tonight, beginning at midnight, we are closing all casinos, bars, movie theaters, gyms and fitness centers.”
Further, the governor said, restaurants will need to close their dining areas, though they are still permitted to do take-out, drive-through and delivery meal orders. Grocery stores and pharmacies will remain open, though they may shorten their business hours.
Acknowledging that these measures might seem extreme to some, the governor also advised that the restrictions might need to be extended for an additional month, as the CDC is now recommending an 8-week hiatus in social engagements in order to keep COVID-19 infections from exploding and overwhelming medical treatment facilities.
Throughout the past week, there had been a few folks spreading gross misinformation, criticizing the responses to the pandemic, and endeavoring to make it political, rather than medical.
Republican Lt. Gov. Billy Nungesser did some Twitter whining after New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell cancelled St. Patrick’s and St. Joseph’s Day events and parades, in an effort to limit spread of the disease. Nungesser, the titular head of state tourism, is a Republican. Cantrell is a Democrat.
Former state Rep. Woody Jenkins, a three-time unsuccessful candidate for U.S. Senate (in 1978, 1980, and 1996) and now chairman of the East Baton Rouge Parish Republican Party, posted to Facebook:
“Folks, we are being fed pure, unadulterated bull you-know-what about the coronavirus!…We need to stop cancelling events, closing schools and businesses, and restricting our lifestyles and our liberties before even worse and more permanent damage is done! We have more deaths by automobile accident in ONE DAY than we have had from the coronavirus since January! Tell the politicians to stop this madness and allow life to return to normal now!”
That was on Saturday morning, March 14, at 5:16 a.m.
Monday evening, Jenkins posted this:
In general, though, it appears the pandemic is forging a truce in the partisan bickering and backbiting that has dominated Louisiana politics for the past four years. For example, U.S. Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA) publicly commended Gov. Edwards for his efforts to slow the spread, tweeting:
And last week, one of the governor’s harshest critics, former state Sen. Conrad Appel, had this to say, via Twitter.
The restrictions aren’t pleasant. For many of Louisiana’s lowest-paid service industry workers, they are utter financial disaster. However, there’s hope these extreme measures may serve to keep the largest possible number of Louisiana residents alive and well throughout this epidemic.
“The fact of the matter is the best we can hope for is a slowdown of transmission, not a halt to it,” Governor Edwards said. “Each of us must do our part. Cook at home. Avoid discretionary travel, social excursions and visits. But be a good neighbor and call your elderly friends and family members to check on them.”
Brilab at 40: A Series About the Con Artists and Campaign Cash That Put Carlos Marcello Behind Bars
First, Listen to the Podcast.
What’s a Brilab?
A year ago, I began recording a series of interviews with Mike Fawer, a boundlessly energetic and inimitable 83-year-old criminal defense attorney in New Orleans. Mike is like the television actor who you never realized was in everything. During his six decades of practicing law, he helped shape the history of his time, defending the powerful and the powerless with the same gusto and zeal. He is the kind of attorney that most law school students hope to become: Principled, passionate about the law, clever, and somehow, most remarkably, still idealistic about our justice system.
I wanted to help Mike get the word out about his memoir, From the Bronx to the Bayou, but more than anything else, perhaps selfishly, I wanted to hear his stories, in his own voice.
Assembling a podcast series has taken more time than I had anticipated, but that was okay. We wanted to do this right. Many of our first recorded conversations had to be re-taped, and I am forever thankful to Ben Collinsworth, who agreed to step in and become our producer. Ben sorted out our meandering conversations and somehow gave them structure.
We deliberately saved the best for the end of the series, and I decided to wait until the legislative session began before giving the green light.
In the next few episodes, we talk about how Mike, working alongside Camille F. Gravel, Jr. (who also makes an appearance in the Brilab case), secured an acquittal for the then-sitting governor of Louisiana, Edwin W. Edwards, in the second of two trials in 1985; we cross over the Pearl River and into a courtroom in Hattiesburg, Mississippi for a conversation about Mike’s defense of Judge Walter Nixon (he’s the Nixon in Nixon v. United States, not the Nixon in United States v. Nixon), and we’re still assembling an episode about the rise and fall of a Louisiana political family dynasty, the Jeffersons, originally of Lake Providence in East Carroll Parish. (Mike was one of the first people U.S. Rep. Bill Jefferson called when the FBI raided his townhome in Virginia and discovered $90,000 in ice-cold cash).
But there was one episode that beguiled us: Brilab.
Mike and I had recorded two separate, hour-long conversations about the investigation and the trial, and it was still difficult to know how to put it together. There were too many moving parts, too many characters, too many twists and too many turns. Ben and I agreed to table it, and at some point, we scrubbed it.
There’s a good chance you’ve never heard of Brilab, a made-up code word that the FBI used for the investigation. The FBI says it’s a combination of the words “bribery” and “labor,” though, despite its etymological creation story, it’s pronounced the same way as the “lab” in Labrador, or, perhaps more appropriately, the same way as the “lab” in “lab experiment.” To be sure, Brilab had almost nothing to do with labor (at least, not in Louisiana) and was, in many ways, an FBI experiment on public corruption.
I mentioned the difficulty we were having with the episode on Brilab to my friend Mitch Rabalais, who I think can be fairly characterized as a Louisiana political history wunderkind. “It’s the biggest case that no one ever talks about,” Mitch implored. “You have to keep the episode in.”
He was right.
And so, I asked Mike, somewhat sheepishly, if we could record another interview.
Importantly, while our focus is the investigations and prosecutions in Louisiana, Brilab was a multi-state sting operation, beginning in California and eventually ensnaring, among others, Billy Clayton, the Speaker of the Texas State House of Representatives. But that is an entirely separate story, a blockbuster in its own right.
Mike and I primarily discuss his representation of Charles Elson “Budgie” Roemer II, father of future Louisiana Gov. Charles Elson “Buddy” Roemer III and, at the time of the FBI sting, the second most powerful official in state government, Commissioner of Administration. While the national attention focused on Carlos Marcello, the state press was far more interested in the accusations that Roemer had accepted a bribe from a corrupt insurance broker in exchange for his help in securing a state contract. But the case against Roemer that the government boasted about in the media wasn’t nearly as convincing as the case they presented in the courtroom.
Yet to the jury, two of the counts against Roemer were convincing enough.
Budgie Roemer passed away in 2012 at the age of 88, and by then, Brilab was already a distant memory, overshadowed by the courtroom drama that subsequently played out in four separate trials against Edwin Edwards.
But my friend Mitch is right: Brilab was, in many ways, a vastly more consequential case than the ones starring the Cajun Prince.
40 years later, it is worth reconsidering, not just because of its legacy or the ways it moved public opinion but also because the entire case was the result of an elaborate, secretive, and absurd plan concocted by an FBI who seemed more interested in myth-making than lawbreaking.
Mike believes that his client, Budgie Roemer, likely would never have been convicted had he been tried separately, but instead, the government sat him alongside Carlos Marcello, a man whose past was rapidly catching up on him and who, not surprisingly, sucked up all of the oxygen in the room. It also didn’t help that Marcello’s lawyer seemed determined to disprove the stereotype of the brilliant consigliere.
I will return to the Brilab case in detail later on, but first, you need to know about the Little Man, a Tunisian-born Sicilian immigrant whose parents named him Calogero, which translates roughly as the “nice old man,” before he was known to the world as Carlos.
Stay tuned.
****
Mike’s book is available for purchase on Amazon in both hard cover and Kindle editions. Find out more about his life and career on his website, www.bronxtothebayou.com
As Trump Declares Emergency Over Coronavirus, Disgraced Former Louisiana DHH Secretary Shares the Stage
“President Trump, LHC Group’s Greenstein Address Nation Amid Coronavirus Pandemic,” gloats the online trade publication HHCN (Home Health Care News), a subsidiary of the cheekily-named Aging Media Network. The headline may have been somewhat hyperbolic, but it’s not entirely inaccurate. During his meandering and occasionally contradictory press conference at the Rose Garden on Friday, Donald Trump briefly ceded the microphone to Bruce Greenstein, who managed to steal some of the spotlight when he politely refused to shake the president’s hand, instead offering an “elbow-bump” (not to be confused with the Obama-era national security scandal resulting from the notorious “terrorist fist jab”).
While Bruce Greenstein may be a name unfamiliar to most Americans, if you ask anyone working in healthcare administration in Louisiana, they’ll likely be able to tell you about the saga of former Department of Health and Hospitals Secretary, Bruce David Greenstein.
The fall and rise of Greenstein, 51, would have been difficult to imagine, only four years ago. At the time, he was reportedly struggling to find steady employment, even in Washington State, where he’d lived before Bobby Jindal poached him from Microsoft and appointed him to run Louisiana’s sprawling healthcare department, the same job that Jindal had when he was only 24.
That said, if there was to be a second act in Greenstein’s career, then it would have been impossible to imagine it occurring anywhere other than Louisiana.
Four years ago, he was confronting the very real possibility of serving time behind bars and staring at nine felony indictments that a special grand jury handed him following an exhaustive 18-month-long investigation into his role, as DHH Secretary, in awarding a lucrative, mega-million dollar contract to his former employer, the Maryland-based company Client Network Services Incorporated, better known by its acronym, CNSI. All nine indictments pertained to allegations that Greenstein had committed perjury in testimony he provided to investigators as well as to the state legislature.
The $200 million contract was for upgrading Louisiana’s system for determining Medicaid eligibility, which had become a necessity following the passage of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. Greenstein, who has always asserted his innocence, had been accused of altering the state’s Request for Proposals in order to advantage CNSI, which, for its part, has adamantly and consistently denied any wrongdoing.
Because of the state’s decision to cancel the proposed agreement with CNSI and to restart a new RFP process, the federal government ultimately provided Louisiana with special permission to continue using its outmoded system while the incoming administration of Gov. John Bel Edwards sorted out the mess they inherited from Jindal.
When the state’s legislative auditor published a report speculating that failures in evaluating Medicaid eligibility may have resulted in widespread fraud, Republican lawmakers attempted to turn the issue into a scandal, notwithstanding the legitimate criticisms about the auditor’s creative methodology and without even a glimmer of recognition that the deficiencies, insofar as they could be known, were entirely a consequence of the delays caused by alleged corruption during the previous administration.
Last year, Republican gubernatorial candidate Eddie Rispone used the issue to justify a baffling and potentially devastating proposal for a complete freeze on Medicaid enrollment, which, according to independent experts, could have resulted in more than 300,000 Louisianians needlessly losing their health insurance.
Prosecutors who had worked on securing the indictments against Greenstein believed they had built a solid case, but, for reasons that have never been explained to the public, in April of 2016, less than four months after former Congressman Jeff Landry took over as Louisiana attorney general, his office decided to drop the case against Greenstein.
We last reported on Greenstein in 2017, shortly after he was named the Trump administration’s new Chief Technology Officer for Health and Human Services. But as is the case with countless other appointees during Trump’s first year in office, Greenstein never moved too far away from the revolving door.
After a year as the CTO of HHS, Greenstein was hired as the newest Executive Vice President of Lafayette, Louisiana’s LHC Group, one of the nation’s three largest in-home senior care providers, where he now earns more than $1.5 million a year, according to documents filed with the SEC. (LHC’s oldest executive is a 75-year-old named W.J. Tauzin, though he’s better known in Louisiana by his nickname, Billy).
Those who know Greenstein personally say that he has been wildly mischaracterized, and there are reasons to believe that the former attorney general’s case against him had been flawed from the very beginning, including, most importantly, the fact that the state ultimately agreed that CNSI had not benefitted any fraudulent actions.
But considering he was asked by the President of the United States to inform the nation on how the in-home senior care industry is responding to a global pandemic, now might be a good time for Jeff Landry to finally explain the reasons he believed the state’s nine-count felony case against Bruce Greenstein fell apart.
Opening Day Signs and Portents
The 2020 regular Session of the Louisiana Legislature convened with all the usual pomp: gavels banging, calling the senators and representatives to order, solemn stating of the purpose for meeting, and even more solemn intoning of prayers to the Almighty to guide their work. The flag was pledged to, presented militarily, and pledged to again, accompanied by more prayers and more polite formalities.
It remains to be seen whether the courtesies are more than merely a required veneer of civility, or whether this opening ceremonial presentation of the colors devolves from being symbolic of unity of purpose into more red versus blue, lawmakers versus governor, Lucy holding the football for Charlie Brown chicanery.
Both the new chamber chieftains, House Speaker Clay Schexnayder and Senate President Page Cortez, have been promising “less friction” when queried about their approach to leadership. Yet those pledges are directed almost exclusively at greasing the wheels of cooperation between the House and Senate, promoting teamwork and coordination within the legislative branch, rather than attempting to compromise with the head of the executive branch, Gov. John Bel Edwards.
In fact, it appears the hostilities initiated by the Republican-dominated legislature toward the Democratic governor have little hope of abatement. One need look only to the 2nd annual “Refusal of the Forecast” to verify that entrenchment along the scorched earth of previous battle lines continues.
Perhaps it was an omen when new Senate President Page Cortez picked up the antique oversized House Speaker’s gavel to call the joint session to order, and broke the hammer’s handle.
In his session opening address to the full Legislature, Edwards expressed optimism while offering a figurative handshake across the table of partisan division.
“Today is not only the start of a new Regular Session. It’s the beginning of a new chapter for Louisiana,” he began. “For myself, I will continue to put Louisiana first and advance priorities that are important to the people of this state. My pledge to you is that I am ready to work with all of you, in good faith, to set aside partisan division and continue to move Louisiana forward.”
The Democratic governor didn’t hesitate to use words well-loved by the Republicans who’ve attempted to blockade him for the last four years, saying “We have the opportunity to improve the lives of Louisiana working families like never before,” and then saying, “I am referring to the budget I proposed based on the most conservative estimate of the Revenue Estimating Conference.”
Neither did Edwards shy away from from pointing out the new leadership’s intransigence over the Revenue Forecast could prevent them from getting their work done in the time allotted, just as their predecessors failed to complete their “one job” more than once during the past four years.
“Until the REC adopts an official forecast, these numbers are merely a proposal. That is why I am urging the REC to adopt a forecast sooner rather than later so that we have as much time as possible this session to develop a responsible budget using real numbers based on the recommendation of our expert economists rather than on hypotheticals.”
The budget bill already being vetted by the House Appropriations Committee, HB 105 – drafted by that committee’s chairman, Rep. Jerome Zeringue (R-Houma) – removed $103-million from the budget proposal submitted by the Governor.
The governor then spoke of the legislation he wants to see pass, generating some applause for raising teacher pay again, with a target of reaching the Southern regional average within this four-year term. He got another smattering of applause when saying he supports a bill setting the state minimum wage at nine dollars next January first, then going up to ten dollars six months later.
The majority of the majority, Republican lawmakers, sat with their arms folded throughout Edwards’ address, only rising to their feet and politely clapping hands when the Governor and First Lady were leaving the House chamber.
Perhaps one way to gauge the hostility level would be looking through the more than 1100 prefiled bills. Several are repeats of previously tried-and-failed strategies to enlarge legislative powers while curbing the authority of the governor. Other proposals can be seen as actual declarations of partisan animus, while other bills would overturn the constitutionally-enacted will of the people of this state.
On the House side, Rep. Rick Edmonds (R-Baton Rouge) – a returning member of the Appropriations Committee, has HB 118. With it he is trying the scheme previous Speaker Taylor Barras repeatedly attempted and failed-to-pass: that is, limiting state appropriations to 98% of the revenue forecast.
Three House members want to change how the state expenditure limit is calculated. The present method, based on Louisiana income growth as computed within the U.S. Consumer Index, is spelled out in the state constitution. HB 464 by “Beau” Beaullieu (R-New Iberia), who won the seat vacated by term-limited Taylor Barras, would let the legislature pick a number, not to exceed 5% growth. Beryl Amedee (R-Houma) and Blake Miguez (R-Erath) would let the legislature choose a number, limited to 6%. Amedee would want that number averaged with the percentage of state population growth, as well.
HB 271 by Rep. Phillip Devillier (R-Eunice) would restrict requesting and granting lines of credit for state projects.
On the Senate side, there are bills to start shifting the proceeds from the “temporary” sales tax into the Transportation Trust Fund (SB 89 by Sen. Barrow Peacock, R-Bossier City), as well as SB 285 by Patrick McMath (R-Covington), which would alter the voter-approved allocations of money from the Transportation Trust Fund.
Former Rep. and Appropriations chair, now Sen. Cameron Henry (R-Metairie) has SB 132. It would require the Joint Legislative Committee on the Budget to vote on any and all state contracts valued at $25-million or more. It adds a step to the process, thus enlarging bureaucracy, while taking authority away from the executive branch’s Division of Administration to give it to the legislative branch.
Sen. Bodi White (R-Central) has a Constitutional Amendment to overturn the governor’s changes to ITEP (SB 187). White is also lead author on SB 356, to tweak the Revenue Estimating Conference meeting dates, language, and rules.
He’s also got a bill that’s decidedly reminiscent of the Jindal administration’s money manipulations. SB 189 would launder the surplus, sending it to the funds designated by the constitution, but then moving the money out into other funds to use it as the legislature sees fit.
These bills, except for the Constitutional Amendments, could still be vetoed by the governor if and after they pass. But the governor has no say-so whatsoever on legislative resolutions. Thus far there are three House Concurrent Resolutions filed that would attempt to thwart the governor’s authority: HCR 4, to change ITEP rules, HCR 6 to create the Joint Medicaid Oversight Committee, and HCR 8 to reduce the expenditure limit for the upcoming fiscal year.
This is my 40th legislative session in 21 years. I suppose you can say I read the session omens by reading bills and the body language of lawmakers, and by feeling for the moods swirling through the air within the Capitol’s chambers, committee rooms and hallways. Legislative leaders laughed somewhat abashedly over the breaking of the gavel, yet I saw it as a concerning sign, especially when, on the first day of the session, the Governor announces the first Louisiana patient has tested positive for corona virus. Meanwhile the House attempts to thwart the governor by working on their own version of the budget– one that strips $103 million from state health programs. It all seems a harbinger of bad juju to come.
Top Donelon Donor Found Guilty of Attempting to Bribe NC Insurance Commissioner
Gregory E. Lindberg, a North Carolina insurance magnate and self-described billionaire, was convicted this morning on political corruption charges after a federal jury determined he had attempted to bribe the state’s Insurance Commissioner, Republican Mike Causey. Lindberg had pledged to contribute $2 million to assist with Causey’s 2020 reelection campaign in exchange for the replacement of a top state regulator overseeing several of Lindberg’s life insurance businesses. Causey, however, had approached the federal government with concerns about Lindberg’s unusual business practices and subsequently agreed to become an informant, secretly recording numerous phone calls and meetings.
The investigation also ensnared state GOP Chair Robin Hayes, who previously pleaded guilty to lying about transferring $250,000 in Lindberg donations to help Causey’s campaign, as well as John Gray, a consultant who was convicted alongside the insurance tycoon. A third associate, John Palermo, was acquitted.
In his home state of North Carolina, Lindberg had been considered one of the most powerful Republican mega-donors. The government’s case against him created a media sensation, and his trial was closely-watched and widely-reported. But North Carolina was not the only place Lindberg had exerted political influence.
We have since uncovered an additional $5,000 Donelon received on December 11, 2017 from the convicted felon through Acquired Development LLC, a company registered to Lindberg’s estate in the Florida Keys (currently on the market for $4.95 million). The very next day, Donelon received another $5,000 from Erie Properties LLC, which shares the same Wyoming-based registering agent as a different company also named Acquired Development LLC.
All told, Donelon has received at least $25,000 from Lindberg, making him one of the Louisiana Insurance Commissioner’s largest contributors. The North Carolina case did not involve Lindberg’s activities in Louisiana, though his “unorthodox” way of doing business had raised red flags well before Donelon accepted campaign money.
Following the Bayou Brief’s reporting, Donelon’s opponent, Tim Temple, called on the commissioner to return the donations, a request Donelon ignored and has still not addressed, according to campaign finance records.
While Lindberg’s requests for favorable regulatory treatment in North Carolina were denied, he had earned a seal of approval in Louisiana. As we previously reported, in 2016, Donelon approved the sale of two insolvent Louisiana life insurance companies, Mothe Life and DLE Life, to Southland National Insurance Company, which was controlled by Lindberg.
Donelon selected Southland from nine companies that had submitted letters of intent to bid on the insolvent companies, according to a transcript of the court hearing that approved the sale.
Those companies were purchased by Lindberg for $100,000, which make his oversized donations to Donelon particularly notable.
“Commissioner Donelon has accepted a lot of money from a man just convicted of trying to bribe another state’s Insurance Commissioner,” said Doug Heller, an insurance expert for Consumer Federation of America. “Not only should Commissioner Donelon turn over all the money from Lindberg and his web of companies, he should also detail all communications with Lindberg and his role in approving the sale of two Louisiana life insurance companies to Lindberg before receiving the campaign contributions. Louisiana consumers have a right to know.”
Reporting by Politico in October 2018 found that only days after Donelon issued the final approval of the sale of Mothe/DLE to Southland, the Florida Office of Insurance Regulation sought to stop Southland from doing business in that state because the company was “financially impaired.” That Florida order was issued on April 1, 2016, just two weeks after Donelon’s Department handed over Mothe/DLE to Southland.
Notably, although Donelon accepted the contributions after already approving the sale of the companies to Lindberg, the Louisiana Commissioner’s endorsement of his business practices, which had raised the concerns of regulators and investigative reporters across the nation, was likely considered very valuable. Indeed, according to government prosecutors, Lindberg’s motive for attempting to bribe North Carolina’s top insurance official had not been related to the approval of any acquisition; rather, it was an effort to receive a “clean bill of health” from regulators, which presumably would provide financial institutions with added confidence in Lindberg’s businesses at a time in which they were under significant scrutiny.
Jim Donelon was reelected to a fourth term in office last year and will soon become the longest-serving insurance commissioner in state history. His campaign was primarily funded by insurance companies, agents, and brokers, who showered the industry’s chief regulator with more than $1 million in contributions. He is currently championing a “tort reform” bill that would likely provide auto insurers with a massive windfall by completely eliminating the state’s collateral source rule. Prior to becoming Insurance Commissioner, Donelon, as a member of the state legislature, had promoted a similar effort, though he cautioned that it would only shift the costs of auto insurance to health insurance. The current effort, while calling itself a “premium reduction” proposal, does not mandate any rate decreases and does not impose any substantive regulations on insurers. Louisiana has remained one of the most expensive states for car insurance for more than 30 years.
Three of Donelon’s four predecessors eventually served time in prison after being convicted on corruption-related charges.
Ode To Elizabeth Warren & Other Strong Women
When I started writing for the Bayou Brief, Lamar told me I could write about whatever struck my fancy. The implicit understanding was that it should have something to do with the Gret Stet of Louisiana, which is a somewhat elastic concept. I’m about to stretch that concept to the breaking point by writing about what’s really on my mind: the departure of Senator Elizabeth Warren from the presidential race. I suppose one could even call me the Rubberband Man…
I have a lifelong affinity for strong and clever women, which is why I begin with a few words about my late mother, Edna Benson Athas. I wrote about her in another context in my holiday column, Now Be Thankful. I’m biased but she was a remarkable woman. She taught me that women could do anything. Among other things, her father was a contractor. As a child. mom would go with him to job sites and learned how to build and fix things, which was unusual for a woman of the “Greatest Generation.” Unfortunately, I take after my father in that regard: I’m so hopelessly unhandy that a drill is a dangerous weapon in my hands. On the other hand, my mom insisted that I become self-reliant by encouraging me to cook, do my own laundry and other household chores. She called it “people’s work, not women’s work.”
My father was a first-generation Greek American raised to believe that a woman’s place was in the home, not fixing it. I recall some clashes when my mom entered the work force; first as a welcome wagon lady, then as a real estate agent. She was good at whatever she did, so there were years where she made more money than my dad. That was a blow to his ego, but he came to accept it and was eventually proud of her success albeit somewhat grudgingly.
That was a long-winded way of saying that, even if I’m a semi-old white dude, I was raised not to have traditional views about women’s role in society. I’ve always been proud of my smart, accomplished, and strong mother. She made me the person I am today, which is why I’m vexed by our country’s ongoing animosity to strong women, especially in the political arena.
That brings me to Senator Professor Elizabeth Warren. I had high hopes when she entered the race. I thought she had the potential to move the country to the left much as Ronald Reagan moved it in the opposite direction in the 1980’s. Here’s what I said while endorsing her candidacy at First Draft:
“Warren checks all the boxes for me. She’s smart, tough, experienced, an excellent speaker, a good retail politician, and, most importantly, she knows *why* she wants to be president and *what* she’ll do if elected. The ability to govern should be higher on the list of things Democrats want from our next nominee.
The Democratic nominee in 2020 must be tough and a fighter. Elizabeth Warren has those qualities as well as an unique ability to explain complex issues in terms that people understand. She’s a Senator who does not speak Senatorese.”
I stand by everything I wrote last June. Warren ran one of the most energetic and inspirational campaigns of my lifetime. She was briefly the frontrunner in the Democratic primary contest until she ran into a wall of sexism and fear. She was also a victim of her own intellectual honesty and academic rigor. While I just used the word victim, Elizabeth Warren never would. She’s a pioneer and pioneers need to be tough and stoical, as she put it after her withdrawal:
“If you say, ‘Yeah, there was sexism in this race,’ everyone says, ‘Whiner!’ If you say, ‘No, there was no sexism,’ about a bazillion women think, ‘What planet do you live on?’”
Senator Professor Warren is not a whiner, but the sexism was obvious. There were a series of scurrilous pieces in the MSM about Warren’s “likeability” which read like they were cut and pasted from 2016 stories about Hillary Clinton. This media laziness is appalling since Warren has always struck me as a warm person with a disarmingly folksy style for a Harvard Law professor. “Nasty women” don’t make pinky promises to little girls, take thousands of selfies, and hug strangers on the campaign trail. Elizabeth Warren did all that and more.
As a man, I’m reluctant to say that I experienced the same pain that so many women felt when Warren ended her campaign. It was described as a gut punch by a friend of mine who now despairs that we’ll ever have a woman president. I understand such dark feelings, but I’m inclined to agree with the former candidate herself who believes it will happen when it happens. Warren is both an optimist and a realist about sexism. We all thought that we’d never have a black president until we did. Timing is everything in life and politics.
Part of Warren’s appeal is that she’s the woman with a plan. Team Warren churned out dozens of policy proposals as the campaign progressed. The MSM has no interest in policy, they’re all about the horse race and gotcha questions. One gotcha question damaged her campaign. When asked how she’d pay for Medicare For All, Warren replied honestly instead of dodging the question; spending weeks trying to explain a complex policy matter to a press corps only interested in snappy soundbites. None of the other candidates who endorsed the concept of Medicare For All was held to such a rigorous standard. Warren believed she owed the public an explanation. While I wish she had finessed the question, I respect her honesty and intellectual rigor.
Fear played an important role in the failure of the Warren campaign. Some Democrats seem to believe that Donald Trump’s victory was almost supernatural instead of a fluke produced by Russian interference and the vagaries of the electoral college. They’ve convinced themselves that a woman cannot defeat President* Pennywise in 2020. I vehemently disagree but I only have one vote, which I will still cast for Elizabeth Warren in the Louisiana primary on April 4th even if it I have to write it in. [The primary has been delayed until June, 20th because of the COVID-19 crisis.]
Some were afraid of Warren’s ideas. Charlie Pierce summed it up quite well:
“Instead, and accepting that sexism and misogyny were marbled throughout everything about the campaign, I think what did her in was her ideas. She committed herself to a campaign specifically to fight political corruption, both the legal and illegal kind. As an adjunct to that, she marshaled her long fight against the power of money in our politics and monopoly in our economy. And, opposed to Bernie Sanders, whose answer to how to wage the fight is always the power of his “movement,” which so far hasn’t been able to break through against Joe Biden, she put out detailed plans on how to do it. That made her much more of a threat to the money power than Sanders, who is easily dismissed as a fringe socialist by the people who buy elections and own the country.”
Democratic voters seem to have opted for the comfort food served up by the former Veep instead of Warren’s detailed policy prescriptions. I get it: people are tired of waking up to the latest idiocy, outrage, and scandal perpetrated by the Impeached Insult Comedian and his henchmen. They want to be proud of their president again. I share that sentiment, but I wish Elizabeth Warren could be that president. As the old saying goes, “wishin’ ain’t gettin’.”
It’s hard out there for smart, strong, and accomplished women. In politics, they’re expected to be perfect. We experienced that in Louisiana in 2014 with Senator Mary Landrieu’s failed attempt to win a fourth term. She wasn’t perfect so many on the left sat on their hands or damned her with faint praise instead of helping to keep her in office. It *was* a Republican year but we wound up stuck with non-entity Double Bill Cassidy as our senator instead of an independent voice. Better a Blue Dog than an empty suit.
As I sat down to write about Senator Professor Warren, I thought of my former Congresswoman, Lindy Boggs. She succeeded her husband Hale in Congress but carved out a unique role for herself in 9 terms in the House. Despite their stylistic differences, Lindy Boggs and Elizabeth Warren had something important in common: they both fought for women’s economic rights. In 1974, Boggs was instrumental in banning gender and marital status discrimination in lending and credit; work that has been cited by Elizabeth Warren.
Lamar can heave a sigh of relief since I was finally able to work Gret Stet politics into this column. I know he shares my affection for and admiration of Elizabeth Warren so it would have been okay in any event.
Whither Warren after leaving the race. Some have suggested that she become Senate Majority Leader, which presupposes a Democratic takeover. I’m uncertain if she’s interested in that job, which is powerful but heavily procedural in nature. Senator Professor Warren is all about substance, not procedure. I think the country would be better served with her as chairperson either of the Banking or HELP (Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions) Committee. The latter gavel was once wielded by Ted Kennedy whose Senate seat Warren occupies. Kennedy leveraged his failed 1980 presidential candidacy to expand his power in the Senate; becoming known as the Lion of the Senate.
Elizabeth Warren: Lioness of the Senate. I like the sound of that.