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Contact information: Washington, D.C. Office: 2113 Rayburn House Office Building, District of Columbia 20515-1802 Phone: (202) 225-6636 Fax: (202) 225-1988 New Orleans Office: (more district offices) 4640 South Carrollton Avenue, Suite 120 New Orleans, Louisiana 70119 Phone: (504) 483-2325 Fax: (504) 483-7944 New Orleans Office: 4640 South Carrollton Avenue, Suite 120 New Orleans, Louisiana 70119 Phone: (504) 483-2325Fax: (504) 483-7944 web contact formIt would be appropriate to let him know how much we appreciate his vote. Not for the value of the vote, but because he gave the Dhims cover to say that it was "bipartisan."

THE REPUBLICAN THAT VOTED WITH OBAMA-PELOSI-REID AND THE REST OF THE DEMOCRAT COMMUNIST PARTY * Posted by gary on November 8, 2009 at 1:44am in General, Uncategorized Town Hall * Add as Friend View Discussions JUST LIKE COMMUNIST VIETNAM HE CAST HIS VOTE WITH THE AMERICAN COMMUNIST A Prized Republican on the Ropes Joseph Cao was hailed six months ago as the future of the GOP. Yesterday, he voted to rebuke Joe Wilson. Can the most endangered Republican in the House survive? By Benjamin Sarlin. As he made his way to the podium to give his health-care speech last Wednesday—a...

NEW ORLEANS – State investigators raided ACORN offices on Friday, taking away computer hard drives and documents as part of a probe into alleged embezzlement and tax fraud when the organization's national headquarters was based in New Orleans."This is an investigation of everything — ACORN, the national organization, the local organization and all of its affiliated entities, specifically as it relates to any potential violations of Louisiana law," Assistant Attorney General David Caldwell said.ACORN staff on the scene declined to comment, but an attorney for the group said in a statement the raid was prompted by allegations that former ACORN...

Attorney General Buddy Caldwell has served a search warrant at the ACORN office at 2609 Canal Street, according to Tammi Arender Herring, a spokeswoman with the office. Investigators in khaki pants and polo shirts loaded several dozen computers and other electronic items into an SUV. They are also carrying records out of the building on handcarts. The large office building sits at the corner of Dorgenois and Canal. ACORN staffers were given no notice that a search would be conducted today, Herring said. "They have been extremely cooperative," she said. Early last month, Caldwell's office issued subpoenas for records from...

In a fast-breaking development comes word that agents of the Attorney’s General office in Louisiana have raided ACORN’s offices in New Orleans. ACORN’s New Orleans was, for decades, the headquarters of the national community organizing association. News of the raid comes from Marcel Reid and her colleagues at ACORN 8, an association of former ACORN leaders and board members. Many of the individuals involved with ACORN 8 were fired from ACORN for demanding a forensic audit following an embezzlement scandal involving Dale Rathke, brother of ACORN co-founder Wade Rathke. Check back her for more details, as well as a statement...

In a fast-breaking development comes word that agents of the Attorney’s General office in Louisiana have raided ACORN’s offices in New Orleans. ACORN’s New Orleans was, for decades, the headquarters of the national community organizing association. News of the raid comes from Marcel Reid and her colleagues at ACORN 8, an association of former ACORN leaders and board members. Many of the individuals involved with ACORN 8 were fired from ACORN for demanding a forensic audit following an embezzlement scandal involving Dale Rathke, brother of ACORN co-founder Wade Rathke. . Update: Big Government has contacted the Louisiana Attorney’s General office....

Note: The following text is a quote: Three Louisiana individuals sentenced for transporting illegal aliens Defendants Part of Large Scale Operation to Transport Illegal Aliens LAKE CHARLES, La. - Members of a large scale illegal alien transportation operation based in Sulphur, La., were sentenced in federal court yesterday following an investigation by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents. U. S. District Judge Patricia Minaldi sentenced Carolyn Joyce Metcalf, 62, to 30 months in prison, followed by three years supervised release; Terri Lynn Fields, 41, to 27 months in prison, followed by three years supervised release; and Jean Morgan Vincent,...

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Former Louisiana Gov. Dave Treen, who became the state's first Republican governor since Reconstruction when he was elected in 1979 but lost a re-election bid to the flamboyant Democrat Edwin Edwards four years later, has died at age 81. Treen's son, David C. Treen Jr., said Treen died early Thursday of complications from a respiratory illness at East Jefferson General Hospital in a New Orleans suburb. Funeral arrangements were not complete.

A Food and Drug Administration decision to impose draconian new rules on oysters harvested from the Gulf of Mexico could wreck Louisiana's $300 million-a-year industry and restrict the diets of raw oyster lovers here and elsewhere for most of the year -- all in a misguided effort to prevent a serious but rare health threat. The FDA announced guidelines, to go into effect in 2011, that would require all Gulf oysters harvested from April through October to undergo a sterilization process before they can be sold. That could double or even triple the cost of Louisiana oysters for consumers and...

New Orleans not only faces a $68 million budget shortfall for 2010. City government is running more than $30 million in the red this year, due in large part to a sharp drop in sales tax revenue, officials said Wednesday. Earlier optimistic assessments that huge post-Katrina investments in New Orleans would insulate the city from the worst effects of a national recession have proved wrong, city economist Jerome Lomba told the city's Revenue Estimating Conference. City sales tax revenue for 2009, projected last fall to total $157 million, is now expected to fall $23 million short of that amount, in...

At the small warehouse tucked away in the back side of the French Quarter, the shuckers at P&J Oyster Co. have arrived before daybreak for 133 years. Their in-shell and shucked oysters have been on the menus of generations of restaurateurs, from oysters on the halfshell at Acme Oyster House and Casemento’s to the seafood gumbo at Dickie Brennan’s Steakhouse. In less than two years, the tradition could become obsolete for seven months out of the year, based on newly announced oyster guidelines from the Food and Drug Administration. In an effort to reduce cases of a rare, but potentially...

Last week, longtime of head of ACORN's Louisiana branch, Beth Butler, was summarily fired from ACORN by a directive that came straight from ACORN's chief organizer, Bertha Lewis. According to a source with knowledge of the situation, this had to do with an internal struggle over where the power center would be, near Louisiana or in New York. At the time, I speculated that Butler, the common law wife of Wade Rathke, would join him at Community Organizations International. I was wrong. Several Louisiana ACORN leaders, including the recently ousted state leader, are expected to announce today that they have...

WASHINGTON -- Louisiana Republicans are joining their GOP congressional colleagues in urging President Barack Obama to act quickly on his top commander's request for up to 40,000 more troops in Afghanistan. But the two Democrats in the delegation -- Sen. Mary Landrieu and Rep. Charlie Melancon -- said it's most important the president make the right decision on the conflicting assessments offered by military experts, including differing views by members of his administration. Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the top U.S. commander, says a substantial troop increase is needed to combat a growing Taliban insurgency. But others, including Vice President Joe Biden,...

For more than a decade, Stephen Bradberry has served in various roles for ACORN's New Orleans operations, but none of them -- perhaps with the notable exception of picking up the pieces after Hurricane Katrina -- involved the obvious challenges of his new role as a temporary administrator of the state community action network. That's the assignment ACORN National President Maude Hurd handed to him after the national board voted over the weekend to take over the Louisiana operation as part of an ongoing rift between the parent organization and the leaders of its one-time home base. Bradberry, who came...

As he returns to New Orleans today after a six-day junket in Cuba, Mayor Ray Nagin almost certainly will face questions about the latest addition to his collection of controversial comments. Nagin told The Associated Press on Tuesday that he thinks Cuba's repressive regime does "a much better job" than U.S. officials of identifying citizen needs and deploying resources in the face of hurricanes, which routinely batter the Caribbean nation. Though Hurricanes Gustav, Ike and Paloma all struck the island last year, only seven Cubans were killed, in part because authorities use soldiers to close highways and enforce evacuations. Harking...

A Kenner restaurant owner was caught on video setting fire to a competitor's restaurant one block away, police said Tuesday. Mae Fong, 74, of 2225 Florida Ave. in Kenner, will be booked with arson of Young's Garden Chinese Restaurant at 2039 Williams Blvd. Fong's Chinese & Cantonese Restaurant is at 2101 Williams Blvd., just across 21st Street from Young's.Fong was caught on video surveillance approaching Young's on Oct. 2 after 3 a.m., about the time a liquid accelerant was used to start the fire, Police Chief Steve Caraway said. The video was "extremely valuable" in solving the crime, Caraway said....

The Archdiocese of New Orleans and its charitable arm, Catholic Charities, said Tuesday they will pay $5.182 million to an undisclosed number of adults who claimed that years ago as children they were beaten, berated and sexually molested at two Catholic orphanages that were supposed to shelter them because their families were in disarray. The archdiocese announced a package settlement of 20 lawsuits, most of them filed by adults alleging that in the 1950s and 1960s they were abused at Madonna Manor and nearby Hope Haven on the West Bank. "I hope these mediations and negotiations will bring some peace...

BATON ROUGE -- Louisiana's top health care official blasted the leading Democratic health care proposal in Congress on Tuesday, saying it carves out special favors for states represented by powerful legislators while ignoring the financial calamity facing less fortunate states. Health and Hospitals Secretary Alan Levine said the Senate bill authored by Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., includes language that would exempt select states from having to share in the cost of adding new people to their Medicaid rolls. But the bill includes nothing to help Louisiana avoid a Medicaid shortfall caused in part by the overheated post-Katrina economy....

As the health care debate raged on across the country, U.S. Rep. Steve Scalise continued to attack proposals supported by President Barack Obama at a town hall event held Monday in Slidell, pushing instead an alternative bill to end frivolous medical lawsuits and create health care competition across state lines. "I oppose this bill," he said to applause from the more than 200 who attended the event at Slidell Junior High School. "I strongly think we need to make reforms to health care in this country but I think we need to be very careful to fix the things that...

Ratcheting up the hostilities between ACORN's national leadership and the Louisiana chapter of the community action network, the parent organization voted this weekend to take over the local division and install a national employee to succeed the longtime local boss who was fired last week. Yet local ACORN leaders, including the recently deposed Beth Butler, say they are nearing completion of a long-planned separation from the national organization, setting up shop in new offices but under the same name. The competing moves are the latest developments in an ongoing power struggle between the national entity and its original chapter, and...

A small but important group of workers at the Audubon Zoo has voted to join the Teamsters union. Audubon's zookeepers voted 17-14 to join Teamsters Local 270. Despite the close vote, the zoo's management has decided not to challenge the election results, and the union will now be certified as the workers' official bargaining agent. Zookeepers work directly with the animals in exhibits such as the Asian domain and primate center, but their ranks do not include animal curators, who are considered part of management. Audubon has a total staff of about 600, including 450 full-time workers. The Teamsters represent...

A Louisiana judge, Keith Bardwell, from the Tangipahoa parish is yet another symptom that racism is still a problem in America in 2009, despite the election of the first African-American President. Justice of the peace Bardwell is now in the middle of a growing controversy, likely to end his career, after refusing to give a marriage license to an interracial couple. Barwell said he denied the license “out of concern for the couple’s future children.” Bardwell insists that he is not a racist, and that he has a lot of Black friends that he “welcome to his house, and even...

NEW ORLEANS ― Ray Nagin will become the first mayor in 50 years to make an official visit to Cuba when the leader of New Orleans travels there with a delegation of officials for a disaster preparedness exchange. New Orleans is serving as a living laboratory for techniques on emergency preparedness and response, including implementing plans that include assistance for residents who are unable to leave the city. During Gustav in 2008, the city helped more than 18,000 residents evacuate as the hurricane approached. The tour is scheduled to meet with the Latin American Medical Centers for Disasters and will...

Making his first visit to Louisiana since becoming the nation's 44th chief executive, President Barack Obama told a spirited crowd at the University of New Orleans on Thursday that he will help build a stronger Gulf Coast than the one Hurricane Katrina and broken levees wrecked four years ago. "I promise you this -- whether it's me coming down here or my Cabinet or other members of my administration -- we will not forget about New Orleans," Obama said. "We are going to keep on working. . . . Together, we will rebuild this region, and we will build it...

A Louisiana justice of the peace said he refused to issue a marriage license to an interracial couple out of concern for any children the couple might have. Keith Bardwell, justice of the peace in Tangipahoa Parish, says it is his experience that most interracial marriages do not last long. "I'm not a racist. I just don't believe in mixing the races that way," Bardwell told the Associated Press on Thursday. "I have piles and piles of black friends. They come to my home, I marry them, they use my bathroom. I treat them just like everyone else." Bardwell said...

HAMMOND, La. (AP) - A Louisiana justice of the peace said he refused to issue a marriage license to an interracial couple out of concern for any children the couple might have. Keith Bardwell, justice of the peace in Tangipahoa Parish, says it is his experience that most interracial marriages do not last long. Neither Bardwell nor the couple immediately returned phone calls from The Associated Press. But Bardwell told the Daily Star of Hammond that he was not a racist. "I do ceremonies for black couples right here in my house," Bardwell said. "My main concern is for the...

WASHINGTON -- President Barack Obama will be in New Orleans today, making his first post-inauguration visit to a city and region desperate to impress upon him both the long strides made since Hurricane Katrina and the daunting challenges yet ahead in housing, education, health care, levee protection and coastal restoration. The stopover will clock in at three hours and 45 minutes, enough time to visit the only school to reopen in the Lower 9th Ward since Katrina, conduct a town hall at the University of New Orleans, and grab a to-go order from Dooky Chase. "I know he likes gumbo,...

In Norway they may think that President Barack Obama has a great knack for peace, but around here his forte seems to be stirring up strife. New Orleans is mad because Obama's visit tomorrow will be little more than a whistlestop. The Mississippi Gulf Coast is mad because New Orleans gets all the attention, such as it is, while the lingering effects of Katrina over there are ignored. And from southwest Louisiana comes the cry, "What about Rita, Gustav and Ike? The president really needs to take a look at Cameron Parish." Obama is also being denounced for an apparent...

[Louisiana] Attorney General Buddy Caldwell's office and the state inspector general are investigating a Louisiana police pension fund. Caldwell's office on Monday confirmed the joint investigation of the Municipal Police Employees' Retirement System, but wouldn't provide any further details. "The investigation is in the early stages, and that is all we can say at this point," Caldwell spokeswoman Jennifer Roche said in an e-mail. The retirement system, called MPERS, had been criticized in recent years for investing in golf courses that never turned a profit. The system owns two northwest Louisiana golf courses and had invested in a Texas luxury...

Just as criminal justice officials in New Orleans started to take note of a remarkable stretch -- two weeks and counting without a murder -- a homicide call crackled over police radios. New Orleans' murder total ticked up by one Monday afternoon when a 22-year-old man was killed after a triple shooting in the Desire neighborhood. The violent death brings the number of homicides in the city to at least 150 this year, closing out the longest murder-free stretch -- 15 days. The last time [New Orleans Police Department] detectives were called to a murder scene was Sept. 27, when...

WASHINGTON -- President Obama will visit the Martin Luther King Jr. Charter School in the Lower 9th Ward and then hold a town hall meeting at the University of New Orleans Lakefront Campus on Thursday, the White House announced Sunday evening. With the announcement, the contours of the president's first visit to New Orleans since taking office appear complete. Local officials, including Sens. Mary Landrieu, D-La., and David Vitter, R-La., had protested Obama's original plan for only one stop, the town hall, on his New Orleans trip. Obama will fly in on Air Force One on Thursday morning, visit the...

Beth Butler, the longtime executive director of Lousiana ACORN, was terminated by the organization's national leadership today, just two days after local ACORN leaders ripped President Barack Obama's planned itinerary for a trip to New Orleans this week. The criticism of the Obama itinerary was actually voiced by Vanessa Gueringer, an unpaid volunteer who heads ACORN's Lower 9th Ward chapter. "I'm thrilled that he's coming," Gueringer said Saturday. "But," she added, in remarks aimed at the president, "we want to see that change that you ran your platform on. We want to see the hope that symbolized your campaign in...

Many states have ways to look up the businesses, organizations and people with whom the state does business. Illinois has such a service on the Secretary of State's website. In Illinois there is a way to search the folks the state does business with on a page titled Corporate/LLC Search / Certificate of Good Standing. There you can input the name of a corporation or LLC and find out the address of its offices, its registered manager's name, etc. Sadly, this feature is not easy to use. The problem is you have to know the actual name of the corporation...

BATON ROUGE -- Gov. Bobby Jindal traveled to a Houston suburb Thursday night to raise money for his 2011 re-election campaign, according to his staff. The event in Katy, Texas, continued a string of out-of-state fundraisers for Jindal, who has traveled from coast to coast collecting money despite having no announced opponents. Jindal also has raised money for Republican political candidates.

WASHINGTON - The White House set the date Thursday, announcing that President Obama's long-awaited visit to New Orleans to assess the progress of the city's recovery four years after Hurricane Katrina, will be Oct. 15. But a brief White House memo to members of the Louisiana congressional delegation, alerting them "that the President will be traveling to New Orleans on Thursday, October 15 for a town hall," irked both Sens. Mary Landrieu, D-La., and David Vitter, R-La., who suggested that if that is the extent of the president's visit, it is not enough. "The president's administration has achieved some truly...

This past Sunday, I was in the small town (population: 12,000) of Eunice, Louisiana with my wife visiting with her parents. We went to church and to our surprise, Governor Bobby Jindal was slated to speak. Why were we surprised? Well, the church (Christian non-denominational) has an average attendance of only about 50 each Sunday. Surely the Governor has bigger fish to fry than speaking to a group of 50 small town folks, right? But, there he was. I was able to shake hands with him and we discussed the weather. He kept thanking us for having him. Could not...

The state's [Louisiana's] Department of Vital Statistics cannot be forced to provide a birth certificate listing two men as the parents of of a Louisiana-born boy adopted by a gay couple in New York, a lawyer with the state's attorney general argued Wednesday morning to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Kyle Duncan, head of the attorney general's appellate division, argued before a three-judge panel that because Louisiana law does not allow an unmarried couple to jointly adopt a child, the state registrar cannot be forced to recognize an out-of-state adoption of that sort in a new birth certificate....

A conservative Texas preacher who defied the Internal Revenue Service by endorsing Sen. John McCain from his pulpit last year sketched a vision of Washington in the hands of socialist ideologues determined to wreck the Constitution and undermine "our Judeo-Christian heritage," because "what's best for America is socialism." In 52 minutes of razor wire rhetoric, the Rev. Stephen Broden, a black pastor from Dallas, drew at least six standing ovations from a mixed but predominantly white audience gathered by the Greater New Orleans Tea Party. Quoting from the Bible, the Declaration of Independence and conservative authors like Francis Schaeffer, Broden...

$5 Million Embezzlement Report 'Completely False,' ACORN CEO Says In a speech to the National Press Club, ACORN CEO Bertha Lewis called embezzlement allegations "completely false" and defended the group's management and mission. FOXNews.com Tuesday, October 06, 2009 ACORN's embattled CEO emphatically disputed on Tuesday a report by the organization's board of directors that $5 million was embezzled from the group, calling it "completely false." Bertha Lewis said the $5 million figure came from two former "disgruntled" directors who had since been voted off the organization's board. Lewis spoke after the internal review by ACORN's board was revealed to have...

BATON ROUGE, La. -- An internal review by ACORN's board of directors found that $5 million was embezzled from the community organization, far more than the previously reported amount of $1 million, according to documents released Monday. The new amount was reported in a subpoena from the investigation by Louisiana Attorney General Buddy Caldwell, The (New Orleans) Times-Picayune reported. It is unclear if the money was taken from state, federal or private funds, according to the subpoena. ACORN Chief Executive Officer Bertha Lewis said the new embezzlement allegation is "completely false." She said she would comment further after she and...

Every now and then, you stumble upon a town that's gotten everything right—great coffee, food with character, shop owners with purpose. These 10 spots have it all, in perfectly small doses.

WASHINGTON -- An ethics watchdog group is asking the office that oversees Louisiana's lawyers to investigate whether Sen. David Vitter, R-La., should be disciplined for his 2007 admission of a "very serious sin" after his phone number appeared on a list compiled by a Washington prostitution ring. Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington said its filing is related to Vitter's recent request for a Justice Department investigation into ACORN, the community activist group with headquarters in New Orleans. Staffers in four ACORN offices around the country have been caught in a video sting giving advice to a couple pretending...

WASHINGTON -- President Barack Obama will visit New Orleans in mid-October to see firsthand the progress made since Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. The news of the presidential visit came as Obama signed an executive order Tuesday extending the Office of the Federal Coordinator for Gulf Coast Recovery and Rebuilding for six months, through April 1. The White House also said that to improve disaster recovery efforts nationally, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and Housing and Urban Development Secretary Shaun Donovan will lead a six-month effort to examine lessons learned during previous disaster recovery efforts and determine areas for improved collaboration...

Almost nine months into 2009, at least 219 New Orleanians have attempted to take their own lives; 47 of them have succeeded. The number and rate of suicides is higher than in previous years and approaches twice the national rate.

In the latest Forbes magazine ranking of the Best States for Business, Louisiana jumped five spots from 49th in 2008 to 44th in 2009. Forbes ranked Louisiana 50th in 2006, and 49th in 2007 and 2008. The ranking evaluates the 50 states on six different categories, including business costs, labor supply, regulatory environment, economic climate, growth prospects and quality of life. Louisiana's improved standing was the result of significant jumps in three categories. Louisiana's growth prospects ranking moved up from 17th to eighth in the nation. This category reflects expectations for the state's future performance in job growth, income growth...

Two contracts are fully executed and a third is in the approval and signing stage between the city of New Orleans and ACORN. While Congress voted and Governor Jindal issued an executive order cutting ACORN off from future funding, Anthony Faciane says the city had "discussions" about ACORN contracts, but will honor them. Faciane, Deputy for Neighborhood Stabilization for the city says, "I would like to assure everyone that the Affordable Housing staff, the In-take staff and the Construction staff of the Office of Community Development will monitor all aspects of these programs before any payments are made to the...

ACORN CEO Bertha Lewis told Fox News' Chris Wallace on Sunday that her group "absolutely pays its taxes." Not true: The IRS and Louisiana's taxmen have imposed nearly $2 million in liens against ACORN for failing to fork over taxes at its New Orleans national headquarters. The IRS recently filed a $548,000 lien against the group, and Louisiana state tax officials have slapped $334,000 in liens on ACORN since last October. Evidence that ACORN ignored its tax obligations may be less exciting than its branch offices' eagerness to help a self-professed pimp break multiple laws, or the voter-registration fraud for...

ACORN, a social justice organization with roots in [New Orleans], battles a string of scandals. The announcement stuck to a wall outside the entrance to ACORN's local office in the 2600 block of Canal Street quietly signals the trouble afoot. In English and Spanish, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now tells walk-up clients that ACORN's housing office has shut itself down for two weeks to immerse itself "in an intensive training program." The sign is a symptom of a tumultuous week in the history of a controversial poor people's social justice movement -- one founded by a New...

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BATON ROUGE - Governor Bobby Jindal has issued an executive order cutting off current and future state funding to ACORN following a series of incidents captured on videotape and the subpoena of documents from the group’s national headquarters in New Orleans by the state attorney general's office. The executive order states that, “ACORN’s actions make clear that financial involvement with ACORN is contrary to the public policy of the State of Louisiana and the best interests of its citizens.” The order prohibits all state agencies from entering into future contracts with ACORN or its subsidiaries and directs the agencies to...