Free Republic

A 26-year-old man was shot dead with his own gun after he sexually assaulted a woman at school construction site in the Bywater, New Orleans police said Friday. The shooter, a man who was not identified, disarmed the woman's attacker and opened fire around 9:30 p.m. Thursday.

A south Louisiana lingerie store has posted on its front door to indicate it accepts most credit cards, including the Electronic Benefits Transfer (EBT) card. Kiss My Lingerie, in Gonzales, sells adult specialty items. The store moved into the Magnolia Shopping Center on South Burnside Avenue a few years ago. However, accepting the EBT payment is something that happened eight months ago, according to the owner. The owner went on to say the store accepts every form of payment and does not discriminate against customers. A woman who works near the store and asked not to be identified said in...

There are many ways to measure 30 years, but for Glenn Ford, the yardstick is simple. "My sons -- when I left -- was babies. Now they grown men with babies," he said, speaking as a free man for the first time in nearly three decades. Ford, Louisiana's longest-serving death row prisoner, walked free Tuesday after spending nearly 30 years behind bars for a murder he did not commit. "My mind's going all kinds of directions, but it feels good," Ford, 64, told reporters outside the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola, according to CNN affiliate WAFB.

Democratic control of the U.S. Senate – already tenuous as a result of retirements and stiff Republican challenges – has become even more perilous as a result of recent events in Colorado. In what amounts to a game of trading places, Weld County District Attorney Ken Buck, a Republican who intended to challenge incumbent Sen. Mark Udall (D-Colo.) in the November election, dropped out of the race to run for the congressional seat currently held by Rep. Cory Gardner (R-Colo.). Gardner, in turn, jumped into the Senate race, providing Colorado Republicans with a significantly better chance of capturing Udall’s seat....

Col. Rob Maness, a conservative candidate for U.S. Senate in Louisiana, said incumbent Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-LA) should be defeated for supporting Obamacare and President Barack Obama's recent nominee to the Justice Department who voluntarily defended infamous cop-killer Mumia Abu-Jamal.

Louisiana and a national left-leaning political group may be headed to court over a Baton Rouge area billboard that criticizes Gov. Bobby Jindal. Lt. Gov. Jay Dardenne sent a cease-and-desist order to MoveOn on Thursday, asking the advocacy organization to take down a billboard along Interstate 10 that parodies Louisiana’s “Pick your Passion” tourism slogan. The billboard, which mentions Jindal by name, is critical of the governor and legislators’ decision not to expand the state Medicaid program under federal health care reform. “LOU!SIANA Pick your passion! But hope you don’t love your health. Gov. Jindal’s denying Medicaid to 242,000 people,”...

Louisiana state police are investigating the death Victor White, III, 22, who allegedly shot and killed himself while handcuffed in the back of a patrol car, reports The Advocate. White was allegedly involved in an altercation and when deputies responded to the call they claim to have found illegal drugs on him which lead to his arrest. White was in handcuffs with his hands behind his back when he was killed, allegedly by his own gun — which conveniently wasn’t found during the search that led to his arrest. Read more below from The Advocate: Once at the sheriff’s office,...

This was the flag of slave holding states in the United States that seceded in 1861, causing Civil War. Today the symbol is used by the Ku Klux Klan, Neo-Nazi groups, and other organizations who are hostile to African-Americans. For the last several decades, protests have continued, demanding that this flag not be displayed in public places. Many people were greatly disturbed to see that the Confederate Flag is now being displayed, not in the United States, but in Kiev, the capital city of Ukraine. Larry Holmes, a civil rights activist in New York City, explained why the flag is...

“Barack Obama’s agenda has been awful for the American Family… and Senator Landrieu supports that agenda 97% of the time,” Congressman Bill Cassidy (LA 06) told Lincoln Parish News Online (LPNO) in an interview earlier today in Ruston. That remark was in response to the question of why he is running for for the U. S. Senate, and against incumbent Mary Landrieu. Cassidy said that agenda has hurt Americans because it has “taken (away) their choice of healthcare,” and is “hurting their ability to get a good job with good benefits.” He added, “If she wins, the Senate continues to...

Wisconsin Republican seeks to restore racial categories, empower Holder DOJ Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner (R., Wisc.) told constituents at Wisconsin town halls that voting-rights legislation he is sponsoring does not exclude white voters from the protection of the Voting Rights Act. Sensenbrenner also says he is proud to work with the ACLU and far-left groups to pass the legislation that would resurrect Attorney General Eric Holder’s powers to block state election laws such as voter ID or citizenship verification. In a video from Project Veritas founder James O’Keefe, Sensenbrenner also accused Texas and Georgia Republicans of trying to stop minorities from...

The familiar Washington narrative on the scrum for the U.S. Senate has been rinsed, recycled and delivered once again: Republicans are primed to pick up the six seats necessary to capture control of the upper chamber. The midterm atmosphere sure looks ripe, the polling appears favorable but, as it did in 2010 and 2012, the most competitive batch of races will likely come down to candidate quality. It’s the key component that stifled GOP chances before, and could very well again. .... .... A closer look at the most competitive contests demonstrates why a Senate majority in 2014 is again...

February 26, 2014 EPA Officials Obstructed Fraud Investigation Blocked probe of senior official who cost taxpayers nearly $900,000 CJ Ciaramella Several Environmental Protection Agency employees obstructed an investigation into the mismanagement that allowed a senior EPA official to bilk taxpayers for nearly $900,000, the EPA Inspector General said in a letter to Sen. David Vitter (R., La.) released Wednesday.EPA employees threatened Inspector General investigators, refused to cooperate, and handed out non-disclosure agreements to other employees to keep them from being interviewed, EPA Inspector General Arthur Elkins Jr. wrote in response to a request for information by Vitter on the case.“Over...

When Erlin Gomez saw police officers in front of his apartment complex on the afternoon of Sept. 11, 2013, he parked his car and considered his options. Gomez suspected the cluster of cops and unmarked cars blocking the gate to the heavily Latino complex was a checkpoint, designed to catch undocumented immigrants. In Jefferson Parish, a county just outside New Orleans, such encounters with local police and federal immigration agents had become common, according to Gomez and many in the growing immigrant community. But Gomez, a 28-year-old undocumented immigrant from Honduras who arrived in Louisiana in 2006, had to take...

The GOP’s probability of taking over the United States Senate increased dramatically Wednesday with the entry of Rep. Cory Gardner into the race against incumbent Obamacare enthusiast Senator Mark Udall in Colorado. 1. West Virginia: Rep. Shelley Moore Capito v. no one. Jay Rockefeller quit after Capito got into the race. She will win, going away. 2. South Dakota: Former Governor Mike Rounds in South Dakota v. no one in South Dakota This is a mortal lock for the popular Rounds. 3. Arkansas: Rep. Tom Cotton v. the hapless legacy senator Mark Pryor in Ark Pryor won his seat because...

A war of words between the governors of Connecticut and Louisiana continued Tuesday, a day after a heated exchange in Washington over raising minimum wage. Governors Dannel Malloy and possible candidate for president Bobby Jindal were supposed to be attending a bipartisan meeting with President Barack Obama. However, Jindal, a Republican, gave his opinion of the meeting to reporters on the White House lawn. "This president and the White House seems to be waving the white flag of surrender," Jindal said. Malloy responded, "Until a few moments ago we were going down a pretty cooperative road," he said. "I don't...

Baton Rouge, La. — Mary Landrieu is Louisiana political royalty, but her reign as the state’s senior senator may come to an end this fall. Like California’s Jerry Brown, New York’s Andrew Cuomo, and Arkansas’s Mark Pryor, Landrieu was born into Democratic politics. Her father, Moon Landrieu, served eight years as mayor of New Orleans before he became Jimmy Carter’s secretary of housing and urban development. Her younger brother Mitch was reelected as mayor of the Big Easy in February. Landrieu is now facing a reelection battle of her own, and it will be the most difficult of her career....

WASHINGTON — The nation’s governors emerged from a meeting with President Barack Obama on Monday claiming harmony, only to immediately break into an on-camera partisan feud in front of the West Wing. Republican Gov. Bobby Jindal lashed out first, saying if Obama were serious about growing the economy he would approve the Keystone XL pipeline project and take other executive actions.

WASHINGTON — The explosive politics of health care have divided the nation, but America's governors, Republicans and Democrats alike, suggest that President Barack Obama's health care overhaul is here to stay. While governors from Connecticut to Louisiana sparred on Sunday over how best to improve the nation's economy, governors of both parties shared a far more pragmatic outlook on the controversial program known as "Obamacare" as millions of their constituents begin to be covered. "We're just trying to make the best of a bad situation," Republican Gov. Terry Branstad, of Iowa, who calls the health care law "unaffordable and unsustainable,"...

**SNIP** Midterm elections are often a reflection of the approval rating of the incumbent president and now President Obama stands at 42.8%. And elections in the 6th year of a PresidentÂ’s term are usually not good for the incumbentÂ’s party. To make things even worse for Democrats, the issues of a weak economy and Obamacare make November look bleak for Harry Reid and his Senate Democratic cohorts. â—¾Alaska, Mark Begich â—¾Arkansas, Mark Pryor â—¾Louisiana, Mary Landrieu â—¾Michigan, Open Seat (liberal Democrat Carl Levin retiring) â—¾Montana, John Walsh â—¾North Carolina, Kay Hagan â—¾South Dakota, being vacated by retiring Democrat Tim Johnson...

Democrat Mary Landrieu’s quest for a fourth Senate term will turn on whether she can attract just enough support from independents and Republicans to win in this increasingly conservative state. The daughter and sister of New Orleans mayors, that’s been Landrieu’s re-election strategy since 2002, when her donors included a Baton Rouge physician named Bill Cassidy—now her Republican challenger in this year’s midterm elections. Replicating that winning formula could depend on what matters more to voters: Landrieu’s growing ability to help Louisiana’s oil and gas industry through her recent promotion to chairwoman of the Senate Energy and National Resources Committee...