The Founders Show

A look at Louisiana politics from Chaplain Hy McEnery and Christopher Tidmore

The Founders Show is a news podcast hosted by Unknown Host, with 0 episodes on record and a Required Pod Score of 80. PitchCentric scores this show on Booking Probability, Listen Score, and live audience signals refreshed every 24 hours.

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  The Founders Show

  Cassidy Played The Fool

  Aug 15, 202654 min

  Hy and Christopher kick off the show talking about flood protection, and the need to build a levee system for South Louisiana similar to the venture global LNG plant has constructed in Plaquemines Parish— 60 feet 129 foot foundations, capable pulling out the entire Gulf. We also need a flood gate and the Chef Pass and the Rigolets. We spend most of the show asking the question again, Cassidy Played the Fool. Christopher at least hoped that Sen. Bill Cassidy received some major financial commitment for his constituents in Louisiana prior to August 8. Otherwise, absent of political trade-off, why would he vote for Donald Trump‘s desperately unqualified personal lawyer Todd Blanche to become Attorney General of the United States? Cassidy cast the tie-breaking vote, 50-49, to confirm Blanche despite his fellow moderate Republican Senators Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska opposing until the end. The Louisiana Senator predicated his support on Blanche reaching a deal with Texas Sen. John Cornyn to nullify the $1.8 billion “Anti-Weaponization Fund” as part of Trump’s settlement with the IRS. Blanche played a key role in creating the fund for Trump allies — including Jan. 6 rioters pardoned by Trump — on Aug. 2. The fact that Cornyn, a former Texas attorney general, was “comfortable” with the deal was important to Cassidy, he said. “What I’m told as regards to the Anti-Weaponization Fund, if you put it in the context of the political environment, the judicial environment, the process you would have to go back through in order to reinstate it, that effectively it’s dead,” Cassidy told Margaret Brennan on CBS’s “Face the Nation.” He went around to justify the vote by noting he had “a lot of positive things to say about Todd Blanche” and “stable leadership” was necessary for the DOJ to do its job.” Then, curiously, Cassidy added in the interview, that he almost voted against Blanche for continuing to grant protection to Trump and his family from IRS probes. “That is wrong — and no American should be targeted by the law, but no American should be above the law. And that, frankly, almost weighed to vote ‘No,’” he confessed to Brennan. If no one is above the law, why would Cassidy support a candidate for the nation’s chief law-enforcement officer who specifically labeled the sitting president and his family ‘as above the law’? More importantly, in the future, what does that say about an independent AG who might have to investigate the executive branch? Bill Cassidy has fallen pray to the promises of the Trump Administration before, only to have his hopes publicly dashed. As a physician, the Louisiana Senator spent most of his professional life championing vaccinations. He received a specific promise from then DHS Secretary-designate Robert F Kennedy Jr. that the current vaccination regime would be respected. Ample evidence existed that RFK would never go back on one of his major political promises, to emasculate required vaccinations in America. That’s exactly what happened less than a week after the Blanche confirmation battle. Donald Trump issued an executive order cutting the number of diseases all children should be vaccinated against from 18 to 11. The order reaffirms the dramatic overhaul to the vaccine schedule that Secretary Kennedy announced this year. (Those changes have been blocked in court.) How many times does Bill Cassidy have to be fooled? At least when he sold his soul to vote for RFK Jr.’s confirmation, he still held out hope that the President might endorse his reelection. After a bruising GOP primary in May, in which Trump’s attacks rendered him into an embarrassing third place, how can Bill Cassidy trust anything that the occupant of the Oval Office says? Even if Cassidy made a deal that we know nothing about, how can he be so obtuse as to believe that Trump will ever honor his word? Bill Cassidy could have gone down in history as a defender of the soul of the Republican Party. He was one of the few senators to vote to convict Trump after his impeachment. He could’ve stood up to the administration on issues where there was true disagreement. He would’ve lost reelection to another Republican, but Cassidy would have kept his honor. In the end, he lost both.

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  The Founders Show

  NOLA Sewerage & Water Board Takeover

  Aug 15, 202654 min

  Hy and Christopher confront many topics in this edition of the show, but we begin by talking about the effective New Orleans takeover of the S&WB. Sewerage & Water Board was created at a time when there was no municipal government, no unitary city government, big enough to construct a major sewer and drainage system. The state created the quasi-independent body as a stopgap in the 19th century, yet the lack of authority the City of New Orleans possessed over it has plagued the agency ever since. Streets often were ripped up that had been just repaired, drainage issues went unheated as there was little local public accountability, and billing remained logical only in a chiaroscuro kind of way. On August 1, 2026, that began to change. Act 938 went into effect Saturday, Aug. 1. This state law gives the New Orleans City Council more control and oversight over the Sewerage and Water Board. Despite press reports that the City now completely “controls” the S&WB, it’s still remains an independent agency. New Orleans has not duplicated the example of Jefferson Parish in putting its drainage, pumping, and sewer systems in the same department of public works along with road repair and infrastructure management. That would be simple and straightforward—and constitutionally difficult, at least so legislator thought because of historic state investment in the agency. Still, the Aug. 6 changes give the council oversight of the agency’s budgets and key contracts and outline communication requirements during emergencies. The City Council also requests the Louisiana Legislative Auditor Michael Waguespack perform an audit of the agency and the Civil Service commission study employee pay. The council is also asking the board, on which Mayor Helena Moreno will soon replace several members, to look into and decide whether to combine the $427,000 executive director position with the $235,000 general superintendent position. The ordinances next go to Moreno’s desk. Her administration helped craft them as well as push for the state law that allowed city leaders to make these changes. Council members have long complained that though they have been the ones people contact when they have issues with S&WB, they didn’t have much control over the state agency. Council President JP Morrell said the council is trying to turn around public opinion of S&WB, which he said was at 14% approval, before a tax millage set to go before voters next year. If the public isn’t convinced to fund the city’s sewerage, water and drainage system, the city will be in trouble, he warned. The measures the council also passed in accordance with the state law include having the board explore meeting in council chambers rather than in a small room at their headquarters. Morrell said he thought this would encourage more public participation at board meetings, adding that over the years, he’s felt the board wasn’t in touch with the public. He said the board didn’t understand how upset people were when S&WB sent them erroneous bills for thousands of dollars, adding the agency had a policy to offer people a discount on the bills rather than forgive them. The council eventually hired a law firm to handle S&WB billing issues.

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  The Founders Show

  Canal St. Dreams, Parade Reductions, Iran War & Fauci Pleads The 5th

  Aug 1, 202654 min

  In second half of this week’s show, Hy and Christopher talk Mardi Gras parade reductions, the curious MAGA reversals on Ukraine as the Iran War (re)intensifies and Dr. Fauci pleads the 5th. But we start off — and spend most of the program - talking about how the Mayor Wants a ‘Renaissance’ on Canal, but we ask “who will provide the vision and money?” Canal Street is New Orleans’ “great white way”, the commercial thoroughfare that defined the psychological identity of the city for more than two centuries— and it is dying. The pun was intentional, as African-Americans were denied entrances to its department stores and offices for much of Canal Street’s history. Nevertheless, the banks along the throughfare’s sides would print currency for the entire nation by 1838. The ten dollar “dix” notes, a language concession to Orleanian Francophones, subsequently would dub the entire south as the “land of the dixies”, as the bank notes would be the main financial means of exchange up and down the Mississippi valley. Canal Street’s office-suites provided the commodities factors for much of the region’s international arbitrage. Its stores featured items unavailable for sale anywhere else. Later, by the turn of the 20th century, Canal Street would boast of the first movie theater, a vitascope hall, along with one of the first jazz performance halls, and numerous more conventional theaters. It was the Broadway before Broadway. Even well to the end of the 20th century, people still met under the clock at DH Holmes, after shopping at Maison Blanche, Kreeger’s, or Gus Mayer. A statue of the eccentric Ignatius Reilly still signifies the fictional character’s wait for his mother to pick him up under the clock to this day, yet that storefront closed decades ago. The interior is a hotel which does not even face Canal Street, and currently, the John Kennedy Toole character would more likely stand in the company of homeless drug addicts than commercial shoppers. Despite two reconstructions of sidewalks as well as many of the physical facades dotting downtown Canal Street, businesses continue to leave and restaurants close as street peddlers and panhandlers fight to replace them. That’s the depredation Mayor Helena Moreno has pledged to reverse. In a press conference on July 28, flanked by stakeholders like retailer Kenny Rubenstein, she called for a “Canal Street Renaissance”, focusing on greater public safety coordination; comprehensive lighting repairs; enhanced code enforcement targeting noncompliant properties; Business and stakeholder engagement to support economic revitalization opportunities; and quality of life improvements. Future Phases plan to center upon Improving pedestrian safety and traffic operations; expanding arts, entertainment, and cultural programming; recruiting new retailers and creating incentives to fill vacant storefronts; coordinated branding and marketing of Canal Street; as well as activating upper-floor residential, hotel, and office spaces. From a policing standpoint, increased patrols have lead NOPD to make 23 narcotics arrests, better parking and traffic enforcement, as well as conducting quality-of-life sweeps along the corridor. Still, legal changes are necessary before much more can begin to shine again. Occupation of the (mostly empty) upper floors of buildings run into city fire code regulations requiring to exits on either side of the building. Single floor walkups (built in a very different era) do not comply, and only massive changes in zoning laws might make a difference. That, of course, does fall under the regulatory purview of the City Council, if it chooses to act. Nevertheless, the Mayor’s other ambitious plans require even greater interventions. The incredible cost of retail operations would likely require. some form of tax inducement funding or TIFs, essentially giving back sales taxes collected to help finance the creation of the store. Massive planning, and likely low interest government subsidize loans, may prove the only way to redevelop the tragic footprint of the one time Hard Rock Hotel disaster as anything which might accentuate the quality of life of Canal Street. Equally, Canal Street does possess the core of an entertainment corridor with the Saenger and the Orpheum, but other wonderful performance spaces like the State Palace Theatre remain shuttered 20 years after Katrina, dwarfing the street’s “Broadway” potential. Huge piles government money to reconstruct, theaters and incentivize shows might be the only way to spark a life performance Renaissance— thanks to Gov. Jeff Landry‘s murder of the live performance tax credit renewal in the last legislative session. An opportunity exists in the blocks of parking lots stretching from Canal Street to the old Big Charity complex. The lower part of Canal near the Claiborne Avenue overpass is plagued by nearly abandoned office buildings and former medical complexes flanking the asphalt-field. However, that footprint possesses one critical remaining historic structure from the Faubourg Ste. Marie, the home of the author Lafcadio Hearn. This classic building set in the middle of the parking lots could easily be transformed into the centerpiece of a reimagined public square leading to the rehabilitated Charity complex. In fact, transferring the entire area to Tulane University might provide the best use of lower Canal. Buy out lot-owner Jim Huger and transform the parking lots into a new university quad with most of Tulane’s biomedical and science-based graduate schools taking up the occupied buildings surrounding the footprint from Canal to Charity. The current medical core of Tulane Avenue could link to the commercial core of Canal Street creating a massive university complex— supporting the pedestrian and retail revitalization closer to the river. Nevertheless, such a project would swallow up money that the City’s empty Treasury cannot fund in the immediate future. The visionary costs may prove less long-term, though, than an acknowledgment that the corporate money-men of the CBD no longer walk to Canal for three martini lunches or shopping excursions. Such a corporate infrastructure no longer exists in downtown New Orleans, so to reimagine the future of Canal Street requires an embrace of an entirely new employment vision. The Moreno Administration’s efforts to improve traffic-signal timing, repair pedestrian crossing signals, analyze loading zones, and repave portions of Canal Street may make the thoroughfare more pedestrian friendly, but it will do little to bring back pedestrians. That will take money and a much bigger vision than trying to return to a commercial past that no longer exists. (And for many African-Americans never existed.) In truth, a fundamental reimagination of the entire down-river CBD may serve as the only means of restoring the attraction of Canal Street, and the question remains if Helena Moreno and her team possess the political will— amidst the many other problems they confront— to TRULY to prioritize a rebirth for New Orleans’ iconic Champs-Élysées.

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  The Founders Show

  Landry Vs. New Orleans Latest, West End & Lake Development, AOC

  Jul 25, 202654 min

  This week, Hy and Christopher take on the rise of AOC’s presidential chances and the socialist takeover of the Democratic Party. Is it a LEFT-WING mirror of MAGA? We also talk about development along Lake Pontchartrain and at West End, as well as Jefferson Parish’s seemingly permanent lack of a bond rating. But most of the show centers around Jeff Landry’s attempt to take over the New Orleans court system, and how any legislative special session hinges on Rep. Stephanie Hilferty. The Lakeview Republican could cast the tiebreaking supermajority vote to change the Orleans courts. On July 22, Gov. Jeff Landry declared that he planned to call the Louisiana Legislature into a special session to take more control of the Orleans Parish court system. His comments came after a grand jury indicted Attorney General Liz Murrill on July 2. While the charges were later dropped, infuriated GOP state leaders still labeled the indictment ‘without basis’ and ‘politically-motivated’. As a result, lawmakers “want to look at ways that they can take more control of the court system in the city of New Orleans,” Landry exclaimed during a press conference at the Governor’s Office of Homeland Security & Emergency Preparedness in Baton Rouge last Wednesday. The controversy came as a result of Landry’s success in his legislative efforts at the beginning of the year to merge the offices of Orleans Criminal District Clerk and Civil District Clerk. Act 15 was written into law at Murrill‘s request, due to the AG’s fear of exonerated felon-turned-activist Calvin Duncan being sworn into his elected post as criminal clerk. The former jailhouse lawyer won 68 percent support from New Orleans voters in the November election, defeating incumbent Darren Lombard, yet Act 15 abolished the Criminal Clerk’s office just days before Duncan would have taken office. Subsequent efforts by the Mayor and New Orleans City Council to appoint him into an interim merged clerkship launched a war of words between the AG and city government. Murrill maintained that Act 15 specified that the criminal clerk’s position had been merged under the auspices of Civil Clerk Chelsey Richard Napoleon. Murrill warned in letters sent to the Mayor, DA, and Councilmembers in May that any efforts to deny Napoleon that merged position violated state’s usurper laws and opened city officials to criminal prosecution. Their reaction to the letters brought about allegations of abuse of power and criminal threats by the AG which eventually led to an 16 indictments of Murrill by local grand jury. Special prosecutor Laurie White later declined to prosecute the eight counts of public intimidation and eight counts of malfeasance in office, yet Murrill replied to the controversy in a written statement, “This case should have NEVER been started because there was NO crime. This outcome will not deter my efforts to get to the bottom of this. The irresponsible and illegal actions that led to this abuse of the criminal justice system need to never happen again.” Murrill later claimed to have “lost faith” with Mayor Helena Moreno and DA Jason Williams as they branded the AG “a criminal”. At nearly the same time, Judge Tarvald Smith of the 19th Judicial District Court in East Baton Rouge Parish blocked Act 748 of the 2026 legislative session that would eliminated three Orleans Parish Criminal District Court judgeships, slashing the judicial bench from 12 to 9. Smith’s ruling offered a temporary reprieve for Judges John Fuller, Simone Levine and Rhonda Goode-Douglas who are slated to lose their seats, leaving open the possibility that each could run for re-election for those seats again. (The period to sign up to be a candidate in judicial races is Aug. 5-7.) Act 748 arose from a bill sponsored by Sen. Jay Morris, R-Monroe which also eliminated four other judgeships from the city’s juvenile and municipal and traffic courts, ostensibly to bring the size of the New Orleans courts in line with parishes of similar population size. The legal challenge centers around the fact that Act 748 did not receive a 2/3 majority of both houses of the legislature as the state constitution requires, Fuller’s attorney Jerome Matthews Jr. contended. The Landry Administration countered that the 1974 Constitution contains special provisions dealing strictly with Orleans Parish and its courts, so a supermajority was “not required”. Now faced with a judge overturning the governor‘s earlier legislative intentions, Landry looks to call a special session—or at least so he contended in a press conference originally called to deal with the potential impact of Tropical Storm Bertha. That’s where the vote of New Orleans’ only elected Republican Rep. Stephanie Hilferty of Lakeview may prove crucial. In a 73-32 partisan breakdown in the 105 member Louisiana House of Representatives, her vote could constitute the 2/3 majority threshold necessary to make permanent changes to the Orleans court systems— from number of judges to operational independence. For Hilferty, such a vote could not come a worse political time as she runs for a term on the Public Service Commission this autumn with extensive Democratic support in the city. Many of her closest supporters, including most of the Orleans political establishment, would instantly turn against her. Refusing to vote for such a gubernatorially-backed court realignment would condemn her to strong permanent opposition from the Landry administration and his allies. Hilferty can only hope that such a special session may not come to pass this fall. Neither Senate President Cameron Henry (R-Metairie) nor speaker House Speaker Phillip DeVillier (R-Eunice) have commented on the potential legislative call.

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  The Founders Show

  Live From NYC: Wounded Warriors Bike Parade and More

  Jul 25, 202654 min

  Hy and Christopher broadcast live from New York City, starting off with attending a bicycle parade for for “wounded warriors” on West Manhattan’s Riverside Drive, and we thank God that there still remains a bipartisan reverence for our veterans, amidst our many ideological divisions. We go on to talk about developments in New York City, from affordable housing to the homeless, and how they extend across America— and to New Orleans in particular. We also highlight the 12th Gonzofest and the writings of Hunter S. Thompson as the famed conference occurs this weekend in the East Village. Christopher moderates two of the Gonzofest panels, and he broadcasts live for his Hunter-Gatherers podcast. Our discussions on New York lead Hy to talk about the guns of Ft Ticonderoga, and how George Washington’s holding action at Brooklyn Heights helped lead to the authorship of the Declaration of Independence.

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