Republican lawmakers, who voted to impeach or convict President Donald J. Trump, earned rebukes from their home states – a new trend of holding GOP legislators accountable for their actions in Washington.
“Wrong vote, Sen. Burr,” Tweeted former congressman Mark Warner. “I am running to replace Richard Burr because North Carolina needs a true conservative champion as their next senator.”
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Hurricane Zeta slammed into storm-weary Louisiana on Wednesday with New Orleans squarely in its path, pelting homes and businesses with rain and howling winds, knocking out power to thousands and threatening to push up to 9 feet of sea water inland in a Gulf Coast region already pounded by multiple storms this year.
Roads were flooded near the coast, where forecasters said Zeta made landfall around Terrebone Bay near Cocodrie, an unincorporated fishing village at the end of a highway with a marine laboratory but few if any full-time residents.
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The day after Hurricane Delta blew through besieged southern Louisiana, residents started the routine again: dodging overturned cars, trudging through knee-deep water to flooded homes with ruined floors and no power, and pledging to rebuild after the storm.
Delta made landfall Friday evening near the coastal Louisiana town of Creole with top winds of 100 mph (155 kph). It then moved over Lake Charles, a city where Hurricane Laura damaged nearly every home and building in late August. No deaths had been reported as of Saturday afternoon, but officials said people were not out of danger.
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The Louisiana coastline devastated by Hurricane Laura began a long and gloomy recovery Friday as hundreds of thousands of people still without water and power confronted the possibility that basic services may not return for weeks or even longer. The number of dead climbed to at least 14.
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One of the strongest hurricanes ever to strike the U.S., Laura barreled across Louisiana on Thursday, shearing off roofs, killing at least six people and maintaining ferocious strength while carving a destructive path hundreds of miles inland.
A full assessment of the damage wrought by the Category 4 system was likely to take days. But despite a trail of demolished buildings, entire neighborhoods left in ruins and more than 875,000 people without power, a sense of relief prevailed that Laura was not the annihilating menace forecasters had feared.
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Tropical Storm Cristobal weakened into a depression early Monday after inundating coastal Louisiana and ginning up dangerous weather along most of the U.S. Gulf Coast, sending waves crashing over Mississippi beaches, swamping parts of an Alabama island town and spawning a tornado in Florida.
Heavy rainfall and a storm surge continued posing a threat across a wide area of the coast after Cristobal made landfall Sunday afternoon packing 50-mph (85-kph) winds between the mouth of the Mississippi River and the since-evacuated barrier island resort community of Grand Isle.
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All three of Minnesota’s Republican members of Congress along with Rep. Collin Peterson (D-MN-07) joined more than 200 of their colleagues in asking the U.S. Supreme Court Thursday to “reconsider” Roe v. Wade.
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U.S. Sens. Gary Peters (D-MI) and John Kennedy (R-LA) applauded Senate passage of their bipartisan resolution designating Sept. 11-17 as Patriot Week.
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by Mary Margaret Olohan The Louisiana House of Representatives passed a bill Wednesday banning abortions after the child’s heartbeat can be detected. The bill overwhelmingly passed the Louisiana House of Representative with a vote of 79-23 and would “prohibit the abortion of an unborn human being with a detectable heartbeat,” according to CNN. The House rejected an amendment to the bill Wednesday that would have made an exception for abortions in cases of rape or incest, NBC reports. The Louisiana Senate also approved the bill and added amendments requiring ultrasounds and making an exception for “medically futile” pregnancies. Democratic Gov. John Bel Edwards, who has described himself as a “pro-life candidate” has said he will sign the bill into law. However, the ban will only go into effect if the Mississippi heartbeat bill passes the federal appeals court. Obama appointed Judge Carlton Reeves blocked the Mississippi abortion bill Friday. “As I prepare to sign this bill, I call on the overwhelming bipartisan majority of legislators who voted for it to join me in continuing to build a better Louisiana that cares for the least among us and provides more opportunity for everyone,” Edwards said in a statement on Wednesday…
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by Todd DeFeo Legalizing sports wagering in Ohio could generate $7 million in tax revenue for the state in the first year, a number that could increase to $9 million in the second year. That is on top of $1.3 million in license fees in the first year of operations, and between $300,000 and $500,000 in license fees in subsequent years, according to an estimate from the Legislative Budget Office. House Bill 194 would grant the Ohio Lottery Commission the authority to allow sports gaming in Ohio and effectively bring into the open an existing industry. The move has attracted some of the biggest names in the industry – including Penn National Gaming and MGM Resorts International – to push legislators to proceed with the initiative. “Illegal sports wagering has continued to flourish across all mediums – in person, over the Internet, and most recently through sophisticated mobile applications,” Ayesha Molino, senior vice president of federal government affairs for MGM Resorts International, said in testimony to the House Finance Committee. “Ohio residents currently have convenient access to illegal, unregulated mobile sports wagering sites,” Molino said. “But they lack a legal, properly regulated alternative. And restricting a legal mobile market will not compel people…
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by Kevin Daley The Supreme Court declined to review three cases relating to Republican efforts to defund Planned Parenthood at the state level Monday, over a vigorous dissent from Justice Clarence Thomas. The dissent was significant because it indicates that Justice Brett Kavanaugh sided with the high court’s liberal wing to deny review of a lower court decision that favored the nation’s largest abortion provider. “So what explains the Court’s refusal to do its job here?,” Thomas wrote. “I suspect it has something to do with the fact that some respondents in these cases are named ‘Planned Parenthood.’” “Some tenuous connection to a politically fraught issue does not justify abdicating our judicial duty,” Thomas added. “If anything, neutrally applying the law is all the more important when political issues are in the background.” [Read Justice Thomas’ dissent] Justices Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch joined the Thomas dissent, meaning there were three votes in favor of taking the case. Since four votes are needed for the Supreme Court to take up a case, the opinion indicates that Chief Justice John Roberts and Kavanaugh joined with the four liberals to deny review. This move could indicate that Roberts and Kavanaugh are…
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by Jason Hopkins ST. MARTINVILLE, La. — Deep in Louisiana’s Atchafalaya Basin, the largest swamp in the United States, a group of protesters has seemingly stopped at nothing to scuttle completion of a legal pipeline. The construction project in question, the Bayou Bridge Pipeline, is an 163-mile crude oil pipeline that extends across southern Louisiana. The pipeline will carry up to 480,000 barrels off crude oil a day when completed — taking a lot of oil off more hazardous means of transportation, such as road and train lines. Despite the pipeline being overwhelmingly welcomed by locals and Louisiana politicians across the partisan spectrum, construction efforts have attracted an inordinate amount of pushback from national environmental groups. Organizations such as Sierra Club, EarthJustice, Waterkeeper Alliance and others have continually tried to torpedo the pipeline with lawsuits. However, it’s the opposition happening outside the courtroom that is attracting some of the most extreme elements against Bayou Bridge. Groups such as Louisiana Bucket Brigade and 350 New Orleans have assembled protests at construction sites, temporarily preventing employees from working. The most active group on the ground is L’eau Est La Vie (French for “water is life”), a traveling camp within the Atchafalaya Basin that…
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A federal appeals court just ruled that states that hand out TV and film credits — as Tennessee does — can prosecute people who lie or mislead to get those corporate welfare benefits. Tennessee gave out millions of dollars in incentives to the fictionalized TV drama “Nashville” and more than $300,000 in incentives to the Robin Williams film “Boulevard.” That movie, filmed in Nashville in 2013, was about a man who starts a relationship with a male prostitute. According to Bloomberg, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit ruled film and TV tax credits are property and thus subject to federal mail and wire fraud laws. That means states can better monitor fraud involving TV and film tax credits. The case, United States vs. Hoffman, involved film and TV tax credits in Louisiana. The court ruled “the fraudulent issuance of those credits would deplete the state treasury, meaning Louisiana had a property interest in the tax credits and could prosecute for fraud in relation thereto,” according to Bloomberg. Members of the Beacon Center of Tennessee, a Nashville-based free market think tank, have spoken out against those tax credits for years. Beacon spokesman Mark Cunningham told The Tennessee Star…
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The statue of the unnamed Confederate soldier has stood since 1909 in front of the courthouse in Louisiana’s East Feliciana Parish, hands resting on his rifle looking down on the flow of lawyers, jurors and defendants going into the white columned building. Ronnie Anderson, an African-American man charged with possession of a firearm by a convicted felon, illegal possession of a stolen firearm, and speeding, was one such defendant and the statue gave him cause for concern. “It’s just intimidating to walk into a courthouse that’s supposed to be a place of equality, fair justice and to see this monument that made me feel like … I don’t stand a chance,” Anderson said. Anderson wants his case to be moved to another parish without such a memorial; his motion to change venue argues he can’t get a fair trial in the same place where a “symbol of oppression and racial intolerance” stands. Confederate flags and monuments – long a part of the Southern landscape – have come under renewed scrutiny following the 2015 shooting by Dylann Roof of nine black churchgoers in South Carolina and the 2017 deadly white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. Supporters say the statues are a…
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by Will Racke Louisiana’s ongoing budget battle received national attention last week, when the office of Gov. John Bel Edwards sent letters to thousands of elderly and disabled Medicaid recipients, warning spending cuts proposed by Republican lawmakers could result in the cancellation of critical health programs — including funding for nursing homes and long-term care. News of the letters, mailed Thursday to 37,000 people, was picked up by several national media outlets, including CBS News, Huffington Post and CNN, which ran a story under: “Tens of thousands of Louisiana residents could face eviction from nursing and group homes.” The Edwards administration sent the ominous notices in response to a balanced budget Republicans in Louisiana’s House advanced in April, which slashed state Medicaid funding. Republicans reacted furiously, saying Edwards was interfering with the budget process and using the sick and elderly as political pawns. [ RELATED: Louisiana Democrats Threaten To Evict Nursing Home Residents ] The decision to send the letters as lawmakers were working through the budget process was an “unprecedented, irresponsible political move,” Republican state Rep. Lance Harris said. “It’s an unnecessary political scare tactic done to intimidate and frighten the most vulnerable into believing they will be kicked out on the street if…
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A coalition of a dozen states led by Texas asked the U.S. Supreme Court to lift lower court injunctions forbidding enforcement of President Donald Trump’s proclamation on enhanced vetting, the latest iteration of his travel ban. Federal courts in Hawaii and Maryland issued orders enjoining the proclamation in October. The proclamation was issued at the conclusion…
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Though statistically at only number 24, LSU played toe-to-toe with No. 2 Alabama last week but lacked explosive plays at quarterback in a 24-10 road loss, a game in which coach Ed Orgeron lifted senior starter Danny Etling for freshman Myles Brennan in the fourth quarter in an attempt to ignite the offense. When LSU…
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Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards has vetoed a bipartisan bill that sought to protect controversial speakers on college campuses. The bill, which passed overwhelmingly in the state legislature, was a response to protests by college students across the country against speakers they viewed as offensive, many of them conservatives. Some protests have turned violent, such as one at Middlebury College in Vermont. The legislation would have asked colleges to establish disciplinary measures to punish hecklers and violent protesters, reports WORLD magazine. The Democratic governor said June 27 that the legislation was “unnecessary and overly burdensome” and would “only frustrate the goals it purports to achieve,” according to The Times-Picayune. But free speech advocates said his veto was shortsighted because it ignores the “hecklers veto.” The bill passed by the legislature was “significantly watered-down” compared to an earlier version that called for stiffer penalties for disrupting speakers, according to the The Times-Picayune. The bill was sponsored by House Republican Caucus Chairman Lance Harris of Alexandria, who said he modeled his proposal after an Arizona law that passed last year. Republicans in several other states have proposed similar measures.
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The Hayride is reporting that the effort to increase the gas tax in the state of Louisiana has failed in the State’s House of Representatives: We heard this morning from several people in the know that at last night’s meeting of the Louisiana House Republican Delegation, Rep. Steve Carter admitted to the members that HB 632, the gas tax increase bill he’s been trying to drag across the finish line for this entire legislative session, simply does not have the 70 votes required for passage on the House floor. And shortly thereafter, the Louisiana Association of General Contractors, which had been attempting to rally support for Carter’s gas tax bill, threw in the towel on the gas tax. That association’s CEO Ken Naquin said as much in an e-mail to AGC’s membership… From: Ken Naquin Sent: Wednesday, May 31, 2017 10:27 AM To: LAGC Subject: Fuel Tax Bill Dead for Session To: LAGC Highway Division Members Ladies and Gentlemen: Yes, the tag line is correct. Rep. Steve Carter will address the House floor today and hang HB 632 up, on the calendar. As of late last night, after an exhaustive full floor lobby, we can only garner 60 yes votes,…
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If it seems like every other State in the Union has either raised their fuel tax – or is working on it – it’s because they are. A full 21 states’ legislatures have proposed raising the gas tax, and more of those proposals have been successful than not. California and Tennessee consumers will see a sharp increase in prices at the pump thanks to increased taxes; while South Carolina’s governor just spared his constituency by vetoing a gas tax hike. Louisiana is up next, with a vote Tuesday in the powerful Ways and Means Committee which will determine the fate of a years-long battle to raise the gas tax there. Americans for Prosperity (AFP), whose Tennessee state group opposed the gas tax in Tennessee, is sponsoring a “Day at the Capitol” through its Louisiana state group. Activists are called to gather Tuesday, May 16 in Baton Rouge from 9 a.m. to 12 p.m. at the Ways and Means Committee room. The hearing begins at 9:30 a.m. The Hayride reports: There are 19 members of the House Ways And Means Committee – 12 Republicans and seven Democrats. HB 632 by Rep. Steve Carter, which is the gas tax bill, has eight…
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