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BATON ROUGE, LA (WAFB) - The National Weather Service in New Orleans has issued a winter weather advisory for portions of southeast Louisiana and extreme southern Mississippi, including the Capital area. The advisory will be in effect from 6 p.m. Friday until 6 a.m. Saturday. A wintry mix of rain and snow is expected to develop across the Metro Baton Rouge area, the Florida parishes and southwest Mississippi by Friday evening. Forecasters said the combination is expected to change to all snow early Friday night. They added the snow will continue through the early morning hours of Saturday before ending....

RUSH: I didn't know this stuff was going on out there, I just was advised of it -- and we're going to treat you to it as you and I listen to it perhaps for the first time together, depending on whether or not you watch PMSNBC. The other day, I guess it was Monday, I opened this program by saying, "That might be the most expensive prostitute in the history of prostitutes," regarding the $300 million payoff from Dingy Harry to Mary Landrieu to get her vote to open debate on the health care bill. So on MSNBC during...

Landrieu bashed for ‘backroom’ vote dealingBy GERARD SHIELDS Advocate Washington bureau Published: Nov 24, 2009 - Page: 1A WASHINGTON — They’re calling it the Louisiana Purchase. State and national Republicans on Monday continued bashing U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., for voting to allow debate to begin on the Senate health-care bill while securing up to $300 million to insure the state’s poor. “Mary Landrieu had an opportunity to kill this legislation,” said Roger Villere, state Republican Party chairman. “This was the vote that mattered.” Landrieu’s “aye” Saturday was crucial to moving the Democrat’s health-care measure along in the U.S. Senate....

BATON ROUGE, LA (WAFB) - Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-LA, has been in the spotlight since her vote Saturday, allowing debate to begin on the national healthcare bill. Included in the deal, Landrieu secured as much as $300 million for Louisiana's Medicaid program, something she said Gov. Bobby Jindal asked for, leaving him in a sticky situation. "It is the number one request of my governor, who is a Republican," Landrieu said Saturday on the Senate floor. She told her fellow senators she is proud of the move she made Saturday. She voted to allow debate on the national healthcare bill...

You scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours. That’s the way it’s always worked in Washington, so the news that Mary Landrieu will hold a fundraiser in New Orleans for Senator Harry Reid comes as no surprise. Reid procured a substantial dose of cash to Landrieu’s Louisiana in exchange for her crucial “moderate” vote. Senator Mary Landrieu from Louisiana garnered a lot of attention before the healthcare vote last night as to whether she would or wouldn’t vote yes to send the monstrosity of a bill to the floor for debate. After rumors of a $100 million dollar bribe by Senator...

Dear Senator Mary Landrieu, In the words of Ricky Ricardo, you got some splainin’ to do. This state is clearly against this health care bill and you voted to move it forward despite the overwhelming wishes of your constituents. Avoiding your constituents can not continue to be your response. Reserving and filling the front four rows with people who are obviously for the health care bill at a town hall only serves as an indication that you are more interested in advancing this agenda than serving your constituents. Don’t hide from your constituents over this Thanksgiving break, don’t stay in...

MOBILE, Ala. -- Action movie star Steven Seagal is best known in these parts for having played the cook who thwarted a terrorist plot in the 1992 thriller "Under Siege," which was filmed here aboard the battleship USS Alabama. But these days he has another assignment. For almost 20 years, Seagal has been working as a fully commissioned reserve deputy with the Jefferson Parish Sheriff's Office in Louisiana. His law enforcement work is chronicled in a "Steven Seagal Lawman," an upcoming A&E reality TV show that will premiere on the cable channel at 9 p.m. CST Dec. 2. A&E is...

Senator Harry Reid, who drafted the bill, cannot pass it without the support of Louisiana’s Mary Landrieu. How much does it cost? According to the Congressional Budget Office: $100 million.

am told the section applies to exactly one state: Louisiana, the home of moderate Democrat Mary Landrieu, who has been playing hard to get on the health care bill. In other words, the bill spends two pages describing would could be written with a single world: Louisiana. (This may also help explain why the bill is long.) Senator Harry Reid, who drafted the bill, cannot pass it without the support of Louisiana’s Mary Landrieu. How much does it cost? According to the Congressional Budget Office: $100 million.

White voters led defeat of bond issue Mayor-President Kip Holden’s proposed $901 million capital improvement tax package failed Saturday because of a lopsided “no” vote in suburban, predominantly white areas of East Baton Rouge Parish, according to an analysis of precinct vote totals. Voter turnout was substantially higher in predominantly white precincts, and the votes tended to be a reverse of those cast in predominantly African-American precincts, where the tax package enjoyed its strongest support. “The suburban vote was really strong, and really lopsided,” said Wayne Parent, an LSU political science professor. The tax package failed with 64 percent of...

A giant combination of sales and property taxes -almost a billion dollars - is going down in flames tonight in East Baton Rouge Parish, Louisiana. Our friends at the Baton Rouge Tea Party led the charge to defeat this boondoggle. Congratulations are due. Here is their website. http://www.batonrougeteaparty.net/Default.aspx Here is today's news story about the vote. http://www.2theadvocate.com/news/70085962.html

Jail For Corruption. William Jefferson was sentenced today for quite a few federal offenses. Among them bribery. He’s most famous for having the freezer with $90,000 in cash inside. According to Politico: Jefferson’s sentence was the harshest ever handed out to a former lawmaker, but Justice Department officials said Jefferson warranted such a severe sanction due to the unprecedented scale of his corruption. Jefferson appeared in court Friday afternoon in a black suit and a red tie, with his five daughters, his wife and his brother. Jefferson did not speak at his sentencing, and his attorney Robert Trout says he...

Two suspects have been arrested in the death of Paige DeJean, the 7-year-old girl killed by a stray bullet that ripped through the wall of her River Ridge apartment, authorities said today. Andre Preston, 21, 428 Webster St., Kenner, and Roger Chairs, 21, 728 Filmore St., River Ridge, were booked overnight with first-degree murder, Jefferson Parish Sheriff Newell Normand said. Chairs was arrested at home, Preston at a Kenner motel.They were identified as suspects from neighborhood tips and investigation by Sheriff's Office detectives. "The death of Paige created pause in the community," Normand said. "I'm glad the community stepped up...

Seven-year-old Paige DeJean called her daddy every Sunday to keep him updated about school, her friends and just how much she has missed him since he deployed to the Middle East in June with his Louisiana Army National Guard unit.But on Sunday, instead of a bubbly conversation with his little girl, Staff Sgt. Henry DeJean received a call from her mother with the devastating news that Paige had been killed, shot by a stray bullet as she slept in her River Ridge apartment. "He was thinking it was his daughter calling him. He had no idea somebody was calling him...

The likelihood of outrage seems inevitable this year in college football: The BCS controversy, which even President Obama has issued proclamations about, seems ready to explode, since six undefeated teams - two from minor conferences - survive with only three games left in the season. Two conferences, Mountain West and Western Athletic (WAC) are excluded from automatic participation in the BCS, and must compete for one of two wildcard teams, and both still have undefeated teams. But should a team which has gone undefeated and unchallenged take a slot from Alabama or Florida, which are likely to also go undefeated......

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...