Free Republic

Back in September, Texas residents Vicki Bergquist and wife Jeanette LeBlanc were visiting family in Louisiana. They went crabbing with friends and family on the coast, picking up a sack of raw oysters in a market in Westwego. It wasn't long after when LeBlanc's health rapidly declined, CBS affiliate KLFY reports. The couple's friend Karen Bowers says she and LeBlanc shucked and ate about two dozen raw oysters. "About 36 hours later she started having extreme respiratory distress, had a rash on her legs and everything," Bergquist said. "An allergic reaction of sorts, that's what I would call it. That's...

Griffith didn’t know how this kidnapping would end. He says Miles acted inappropriately with Lili when he used to live next door. He said one time Lili stayed the night in Miles’ trailer, but Miles said she just fell asleep. “He knew my daughter for one day or something like that and then they’re hugging,” explains Griffith. He believes Miles was stalking his daughter, which is how he ended up living with her, her mother and half-sister at their Round Rock duplex...Griffith knows Miles’ plan could’ve ended in disaster. “Because he always said, ‘I have nothing to lose, this will...

NEW ORLEANS (WVUE) - An Alabama fan attending the Sugar Bowl lost her RV after it caught fire Monday morning near the Superdome. The fire started around 11 a.m. and temporarily closed traffic near the Intersection of Poydras and South Claiborne. The New Orleans Fire Department arrived on scene and quickly extinguished the flames. No one was injured, and the fan said despite the loss of her RV she will still be attending the game. The fan did not want to be identified, but issued an on-the-record statement of "Roll Tide."

Attorney General Jeff Landry is urging a federal appeals court to reverse an order that is preventing the implementation of President Donald Trump's executive order regulating so-called "sanctuary cities," arguing that such immigrant-friendly jurisdictions "undermine the rule of law and deprive law enforcement of the tools necessary to enforce the law effectively." "We have seen too many crimes occur against our own State’s citizens due to sanctuary city policies; which is why I have been actively fighting back against these policies since taking office," Landry, a Republican, said in a news release announcing that he had joined 10 other attorneys...

Guillory calculates the average SNAP benefit of $270.22 monthly will go down $6.50 to $263.72. “But at the same time the client will be receiving about $20 more per month from their other program benefits,” Guillory said. “Overall they’re better off. Their income has to go up for their SNAP benefits to go down.”... SNAP cost the federal government $71 billion in 2016. Of that amount about $1.4 billion was spent in Louisiana. About a quarter of all Louisiana households receive food stamps.

Former Obama deputy national security advisor Ben Rhodes mused about the deaths of top Republicans on Twitter Thursday before being scolded by GOP Rep. Steve Scalise of Louisiana, who was severely injured in the June Congressional baseball practice shooting.

A civil rights activist is suing Fox News and network host Jeanine Pirro, alleging that she made "false and defamatory statements" about him while discussing the Black Lives Matter movement. DeRay Mckesson, one of the movement's leaders, said that Pirro defamed him when she claimed during a "Fox & Friends" segment that he directed protesters to commit violence against police officers, according to The Baltimore Sun. The lawsuit centers around remarks Pirro made on Sept. 29 while discussing the dismissal of a lawsuit filed by a police officer who was injured during protests in Baton Rouge, La. "Pirro's statements are untrue and further a...

Designated one of the eleven most endangered historic places by the National Trust for Historic Preservation, the Delta Queen sits rotting on a dock in Houma, La. This despite the fact that its owners have pledged to invest more than $10 million in repairs and upgrades as soon as both houses of Congress act. But a push in Congress seeking to restore this last overnight, passenger steamboat to service faces strong cross currents. A lobbying campaign by the U.S. Coast Guard and one of the 90-year-old Delta Queen’s potential competitors, American Cruise Line owner Charles Robertson, has kept the “exemption”...

A Louisiana private investigator pleaded guilty on Monday to misusing Donald Trump’s Social Security number in repeated attempts to access the president’s federal tax information before his election last year. Jordan Hamlett, 32, faces a maximum sentence of five years in prison and a $250,000 fine following his guilty plea in federal court. Authorities have said Hamlett failed in his attempts to get Trump’s tax information through a U.S. Department of Education financial aid website. Trump has refused to release his tax returns, bucking an American tradition honored by every president since Jimmy Carter.

Court officials say a senior federal judge in Louisiana has died, days before he was to preside over the trial of a private investigator accused of trying to get Donald Trump's tax returns illegally during the presidential campaign.

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — More than a dozen states banded together Monday to ask the U.S. Supreme Court to block a California law requiring any eggs sold there to come from hens that have space to stretch out in their cages. In a lawsuit filed directly to the high court, the states allege that California's law has cost consumers nationwide up to $350 million annually because of higher egg prices since it took effect in 2015. The lawsuit argues that California's requirements violate the U.S. Constitution's interstate commerce clause and are pre-empted by federal law. A federal appeals court...

Rep. Kathleen Rice (D-N.Y.) tore into House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi for her comments on NBC's "Meet the Press" earlier this week, saying Pelosi "ceded the moral high ground," by praising Rep. John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.) amid sexual misconduct allegations. “I think that her comments on Sunday set women back and — quite frankly, our party back — decades,” Rice told reporters Wednesday, according to Politico. “I think that we ceded the moral high ground on Sunday when our leader said on ‘Meet the Press’ that John Conyers was an icon and we don’t even know who these women are,...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Some of Democratic U.S. Representative John Conyers’ colleagues in the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) are pressing the 88-year-old lawmaker to resign amid sexual harassment allegations against him, two senior House Democratic aides said on Tuesday.The aides, who asked not to be identified, did not say how many lawmakers were involved in the effort but confirmed a report by CNN that it was underway.

Several members of the Congressional Black Caucus are speaking with Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., a founding member of the group, about resigning in an effort to salvage his legacy after sexual misconduct allegations, according to a report Tuesday.“There is a feeling among some of our members that we need to protect his legacy," one Democratic staffer told CNN. The members of the caucus who are pushing for Conyers' resignation were not named in the report.Conyers, who has been in the House of Representatives for over 50 years, was a founding member of the Congressional Black Caucus and a leader in...

WASHINGTON — U.S. Rep. Jim Clyburn could find himself in hot water. A flippant response the Columbia Democrat made to reporters while walking in the Capitol is drawing the ire of many. When asked about sexual harassment allegations against colleague Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.), Clyburn seemed to suggest elected officials should be held to a different standard than other public figures. In a video posted on Twitter, the 77-year-old Clyburn is walking to an elevator with Congressional Black Caucus chairman Cedric Richmond (D-La.), when asked “Other men in other industries have faced similar accusations … and gotten out of the...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - When Republicans tried to repeal and replace Obamacare over the summer, they acted like “a bunch of free range chickens", said Republican Senator John Kennedy. "Everybody was upset, tired, mad, people drawing lines in the dirt." Not this time. Republican leader Mitch McConnell and the rest of his party's Senate leadership brought party members into line this week and finally won passage of a sweeping tax overhaul early on Saturday. Late arm-twisting and deal-sweeteners for wavering lawmakers allowed them to push through legislation that aims to slash corporate taxes and cut personal taxes.

Louisiana Sen. John Kennedy said he will support 5th Circuit Court of Appeals nominee Kyle Duncan, amid mounting criticism of Kennedy's hesitation from conservatives in his home state and Washington. The Republican leveraged longstanding Senate traditions to slow Duncan's nomination to the federal appeals court based in New Orleans. He cited concerns with the nomination process leading to Duncan's selection and the paperwork submitted to Congress regarding the nomination as prompting his hesitation. The Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing on Duncan's nomination Wednesday, where Kennedy vocalized his grievances. Influential conservatives responded immediately by questioning his loyalty to "President Trump...

Full title...................Congressman With Cash In His Freezer Released From Prison Because The Bar For Corruption Is Higher Now....................Former Louisiana Rep. William Jefferson was released from prison after serving less than half of his 13-year sentence, due to a Supreme Court ruling that increased the prosecutorial threshold for corruption charges. U.S. District Judge T.S. Ellis III re-sentenced Jefferson, a former Democratic lawmaker, to time served Friday morning after vacating Jefferson’s last remaining conviction, according to The Washington Post. Ellis first sentenced Jefferson in 2009 on corruption charges, but was compelled to reduce the 13-year sentence due to the high court’s reinterpretation...

We didn’t go there, did we? I mean seriously? Did Rep. James Clyburn (D-SC), the third ranking member of the House Democratic Caucus, pretty much insinuate that the accusations against Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) shouldn’t be believed because the accusers are white? Conyers is under fire for sexual misconduct. In 2015, he settled a sexual harassment claim to the tune of $27,000 in taxpayer money. Melanie Sloan, a Washington lawyer, claimed to be the subject of verbal abuse by Conyers, even walking into his office to have the Michigan Democrat half-dressed. She has not alleged any sexual harassment, but Deanna...

The racial dynamics of the sexual harassment allegations against Congress' longest-serving member are causing division within the Democratic Party. [Snip] Some have noted that the response to Conyers, who many consider a civil rights icon, seem harsher than how party leaders have responded to other Democrats facing allegations. The congressman's attorney told CNN that Pelosi has to "explain what the discernible difference between Congressman Conyers and Sen. Al Franken is." Conyers's district is predominantly black and includes large portions of Detroit. Franken, who has been accused of sexual misconduct by at least five women, represents constituents in Minnesota who are...