Free Republic

Republicans believe a Supreme Court ruling against ObamaCare this summer would give them leverage to force President Obama to scrap the healthcare law's central pillars. Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.), who is leading the Senate GOP’s response to King v. Burwell, said Republicans will be willing to strike a deal with Obama to ensure that the 7.5 million people who stand to lose their subsidies are protected, at least until the 2016 elections. But in return, they would demand that Obama to do something he has long resisted: nix the employer and individual mandates for insurance coverage. “Is the president going...

On 23 April, an alert neighbor stopped an ongoing crime spree by shooting a burglary suspect in the leg, allowing police to apprehend the suspect.   While the situation is still under investigation, it appears that the shooting was justified, given the facts reported.   From the Lake Charles Police Facebook page: Lake Charles Police responded to a prowler call in the 3700 block of Vanderbilt Street. While on the way to that call, Officers were advised that a shot was fired at the same location. When officers arrived, they discovered that a homeowner had encountered a subject running from a...

William Strength had quite a night. Authorities say the 23-year-old Harvey resident stole an excavator and led Jefferson Parish Sheriff's Office deputies on a drunken chase through parts of the West Bank, plowing over trees and utility poles before sinking the 89-ton machine in the Harvey Canal. No one was injured during the joy ride. But it left behind a path of destruction. "I just would like someone to pay for the damage," said Albert Daigle, 69, whose business, Daigle Towing Services LLC., took the brunt of the rampage.The excavator plowed through the locked, chain-link fence on the side of...

A National Guard reservist has been arrested at the Canadian border in Washington for allegedly trying to aid al-Qaida in a plot to attack a Southland subway. Nicholas Teausant, 20, of Acampo, Calif., was charged Monday with attempting to provide material to support a foregoing terrorist organization, the U.S. District Attorney’s Office said. He made his first appearance in a federal courtroom in Seattle Monday afternoon.

The FBI secretly kept tabs on Nicholas Michael Teausant for six months, having a confidential informant meet with him repeatedly in Stockton at breakfast joints, a park and a flea market as the 20-year-old student allegedly spun his vision of jihad against the United States. Federal court papers say Teausant talked for months of his desire to train fighters in Syria, to bomb the Los Angeles subway system over the New Year’s Day holiday and to spark a civil war that would topple the U.S. government. :snip: In Internet postings quoted in the complaint, as well as conversations Teausant had...

Well wishes have been pouring in to the Slidell Police Department since one of its officers was shot last Friday. But one in particular has hit the mark. On its Facebook page Friday, the department showcased a letter sent from Anderson, Missouri, by a young girl. The girl, Kaeleigh Ash, wrote by hand: "To the officer who got shot. I say a prayer every night for you to get better. Hope you feel better soon." Since the department posted the letter close to 1,100 people have "liked" the girl's heartfelt card. The reserve officer, Sgt. Cliff Laigast, an 8-year veteran...

BATON ROUGE - A trooper was injured and two people died in several crashes involving impaired drivers on Easter morning. In Baton Rouge Parish, troopers say Magen Alicia Hall was nearly double the legal alcohol limit when she allegedly plowed into that back of a trooper's SUV around 2:40 a.m. Sunday. State police say the trooper was already investigating an earlier crash involving a drunk driver on the side of I-12 near LA 3245 and O'Neal lane when 24-year-old Hall crashed into his Tahoe around 2:40 a.m. Sunday. Investigators say both the trooper and the arrested driver from the previous...

Never one to bemoan an increasing amount of options in 22LR, I am pleased to see Savage releasing the Landry Signature Series Rifles. Modeled with input from Troy, Jacob, and Chase Landry (from Swamp People), the Landry series rifles feature a synthetic stock with a transferred gator camouflage pattern.

I occasionally see where rifles are used in crime.  It is rare enough that it is noteworthy.  The reasons are simple and easily understood.  Rifles are much harder to conceal, and criminals do not like to draw attention to themselves.  To rob someone, criminals want compliance; to get compliance, they need to be close.  If you are close, it is much easier to disarm someone who has a rifle than it is someone who is armed with a handgun. I was taught in the Army; a rifle gives you more to grab on to, and more leverage to twist...

Because of the long timelines associated with Gulf of Mexico (GOM) projects, the recent downturn in oil prices is expected to have minimal direct impact on GOM crude oil production through 2016. EIA projects GOM production to reach 1.52 million barrels per day (bbl/d) in 2015 and 1.61 million bbl/d in 2016, or about 16% and 17% of total U.S. crude oil production in those two years, respectively. The forecasted production growth is driven both by new projects and the redevelopment and expansion of older producing fields. Five deepwater projects began in the last three months of 2014: Stone Energy-operated...

New Orleans’s city council has unanimously approved a city-wide smoking ban in all bars and casinos, making it the latest big city to pass such a smoking ban without the courtesy of a popular vote. The ban itself, like the others that came in cities before it, is purported to promote the public welfare. Non-smokers, government officials argue, have the right to have their lungs be unafflicted by dangerous secondhand smoke if they choose to visit or work in any establishment. In the case of New Orleans, teary-eyed city councilman James Gray II read aloud the names of people he...

At about 5:40 a.m. on Tuesday, the 27th of January, a vacationing police officer from Limerick, Ireland, was shot during an armed robbery in New Orleans.  Ireland has a low crime rate, much like most areas in the United States outside of the urban cores.   New Orleans' crime rate is much higher than most of the rest of the United States, so Hanrahan may be forgiven his apparent naiveté in the situation.   Hanrahan met a man who said he knew where they could get a drink at that time of the morning.  He went with a man he...

Billy Gregory is a successful musician and vocalist in New Orleans.  The NOPD is saying that early Friday morning, about 1:15 a.m., the 30th of January, the musician shot a man outside of a night club:  From wgno.com: The NOPD is backing a musician`s claim that he shot a man outside a Marigny nightclub in self-defense. It appears that a 'gutter punk' accosted Gregory.  He drew a legally carried pistol and fired one shot to the chest of one of the 'gutter punks', Nicholas Temper, 23 years of age.  Temper collapsed in a nearby bar after 911 was called.  ...

A raucous manhunt through the Bogue Chitto swamp that included four law enforcement agencies involving boats, canines and officers sloshing through dense woods ended when the man being sought unwittingly knocked on the window of a St. Tammany Parish Sheriff's deputy's pick up truck and asked for a ride early Wednesday (Jan. 28) morning, authorities said. The deputy immediately handcuffed Dennis O'Keefe, 31, who police say was suspected in several thefts and burglaries in St. Tammany and was under investigation by Washington Parish authorities on suspicion of manufacturing and selling methamphetamine. Two women were also arrested in the search, one...

A man was acting in self-defense when he shot a 24-year-old in the chest following a fight outside a Frenchmen Street nightclub Friday morning (Jan. 30), police said. The shooting occurred in the 500 block of Esplanade Avenue about 1:15 a.m., according to records. A 64-year-old man told detectives he was leaving a club in the 1400 block of Decatur Street when he was approached by a woman who complimented him on how he was dressed. Police said the woman's boyfriend, Nicholas Temper, 23, "became enraged," and started arguing with the man, threatening to hurt him and steal his guitar.

Devin Bonilla, the former Louisiana Army National Guardsman who says his combat experience in Iraq caused a stress disorder, was legally sane when authorities say he killed an aspiring rapper in Harvey a year ago, court-appointed doctors have concluded. Their report, which was filed in court Wednesday, contradicts Bonilla's insanity defense and means a trial jury might be asked to sort out conflicting mental health opinions. Bonilla, a 25-year-old Harvey resident, is scheduled to stand trial April 6 on a charge of second-degree murder in the Jan. 18, 2014, killing of Bowie Richard, 21. Richard, who used the stage name...

The first annual OneLife LA, heralded as a celebration of the dignity of every human life from conception to natural death, drew thousands from all over Southern California to downtown Los Angeles. The Jan. 17 event began in the historic La Placita Olvera, where the rapidly growing crowd encircled the gazebo at the plaza’s center. After a prayer from Archbishop José H. Gomez, the assembled crowds began a walk through downtown. They processed along the barricaded route past the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels and ended at Grand Park. OneLife LA posters depicting pregnant women, families, the elderly,...

The man accused of a gas station beating two years ago is expected in court on Monday. Donald Dickerson is facing battery charges after he allegedly beat up a family when they stopped to get gas on Plank Road in May of 2013. Police arrested Dickerson and ticketed two others. They are all accused of punching the family. Dickerson allegedly told the family they were in the "wrong neighborhood" before the attack. According to police, one of the victim suffered a broken eye socket, broken nose, and several lacerations to the face.

Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-La.) said Wednesday that House Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) needs to respond with "more than words" to a controversy over a speech he gave to a white supremacist group in 2002. Jackson Lee, a member of the Congressional Black Caucus, implied that she doubted her fellow Louisiana lawmaker's explanation, that he did not know the views of the European-American Unity and Rights Organization, which was founded by well-known former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke. "This was not 50 years ago, it was 12 years ago, and every member knows what David Duke stands for,...

Another concealed carry failure happened that might have been prevented by open carry.  In this rare event,  a concealed carry weapons (CCW) permit holder was robbed of his defensive firearm.   He was pistol whipped to the head before he could draw, indicating that his attackers did not wish to draw attention with a shot, and/or they did not wish an obvious murder.   It is likely that if the victim had been openly carrying his firearm, the robbers would have chosen less dangerous prey.   From uptownmessenger.com: The victim, a man in his 40s, was near Henry Clay and Coliseum...