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Former Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco has died following a long battle with cancer, sources say. She was 76. In a statement, the family said, “Governor Kathleen Babineaux Blanco peacefully passed away on August 18, 2019 at St. Joseph’s Hospice Carpenter House in Lafayette, Louisiana, surrounded by her beloved husband Raymond, her children and family." The 54th governor of Louisiana was the first woman elected governor of the state. Born in New Iberia, Blanco spent 20 years in public office before becoming governor in 2004, including five years in the

One of Hillary Clinton’s closest advisers told her that Barack Obama should use a deadly hurricane to boost his re-election campaign, a proposal that she agreed to pass on to the White House, a new tranche of emails reveals. Blair and Clinton transcripts reveal global concerns of two buddies Read more Sidney Blumenthal, a longtime friend of the Clintons, sent a memo in 2012 presenting a strategy for turning Hurricane Isaac to the Democrats’ political advantage by contrasting it with President George W Bush’s handling of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans.

....Obama returns to an outwardly thriving New Orleans Thursday to mark strides 10 years after Hurricane Katrina. But underneath the visible recovery lie persistent racial and economic inequities that haven't receded.... ...according to one analysis, African-American households in the city earn more than 50% less than their white counterparts -- well above the national average. Those barometers of racial inequality aren't unique to New Orleans, and haven't dampened the city's enthusiasm for what has otherwise been a steady recovery that includes new construction, jobs and visitors. But the now-chronic gaps between rich and poor, and whites and blacks, were poised...

IRS disgrace, Lois Lerner once held a position at the Federal Election Commission. She was helpful to Senate candidate Dick Durbin (Dem-Ill). Lerner used her FEC position to help save Durbin’s US Senate seat back in 1996. Lerner used her govt position and tax dollars to conduct a bogus inquisition into Durbin's opponent for alleged election law violations....creating a shady charge against Durbin's opponent. And it worked. Dicky triumphed and was returned to the Senate. Fast forward to 2014---Dicky Durbin's running again---considered a shoo-in. But he should start worrying. As far back as 2008, at the presidential debate in Nashville,...

CARACAS — Two employees of the US embassy in Venezuela were shot and wounded early Tuesday in the capital Caracas, in a murky incident that local media and a police source said took place at a strip club. "We can confirm that two members of the US embassy in Caracas were injured during an incident early this morning," State Department spokesman Patrick Ventrell told reporters in Washington. "Medical staff inform us that their injuries are not life-threatening," he added, noting that they were hurt at "some sort of a social spot" but without specifying the venue or nature of their...

Griselda Blanco, the drug kingpin known for her blood-soaked style of street vengeance during Miami’s “cocaine cowboys” era of the ’70s and ’80s, was shot to death in Medellin by a motorcycle-riding assassin Monday.

*snip* The Katrina chapter expresses Bush's clear frustration with then-Governor Kathleen Blanco, who refused to federalize the National Guard for the incident. “I did not need the federalization of the Guard because that would've taken police powers away from the National Guard. And goodness knows, we needed that,” she said. Bush said on Oprah, “I said to the governor, give me the authority to send in federal troops. By law, the president cannot send federal troops to conduct law enforcement without a declaration of insurrection." An insurrection declaration would've given the military police powers. “He didn't discuss that with me....

Lauer to Laura Bush: Is It 'Painful' to Be in New Orleans, Since So Much Blame Is Laid At Your Husband's Feet? Today co-anchor Matt Lauer traveled to New Orleans, on Friday, to mark the fifth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina and interviewed the likes of former New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin, former FEMA Director Mike Brown, current Democratic Mayor Mitch Landrieu and Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal, but saved any sort of direct shots at George W. Bush for his interview with Laura Bush.

Jose Ezequiel Galicia Gonzalez, an alleged member of the Zetas criminal organization, was in federal court Wednesday for a competency hearing after he tried to kill himself with plastic cutlery. According to testimony given before U.S. Magistrate Judge Felix Recio, Galicia used either a plastic knife or a plastic spoon to cut his wrists and then slit his throat. According to defense attorney Reynaldo Cantu, Galicia almost succeeded and ended up in intensive care. Cantu stated that Galicia might suffer from a mental disease or defect and requested a psychiatric evaluation. Galicia will be evaluated by a court-appointed psychiatrist on...

Weeks after Hurricane Katrina slammed New Orleans and worsened the medical plight of the city's poor, then-Gov. Kathleen Blanco said the publicly run Charity Hospital would not reopen, even though the military had scrubbed the building to medical-ready standards, the retired Army general who oversaw the work said. In a recent interview with The Associated Press, Lt. Gen. Russel Honore said Blanco told him in late September 2005 the 20-story building that served the region's poor residents would not reopen. "'Ma'am, we got the hospital clean, my people report ... if you want to use it,'" Honore recalled telling Blanco....

NEW ORLEANS (AP) -- Weeks after Hurricane Katrina slammed New Orleans and worsened the medical plight of the city's poor, then-Gov. Kathleen Blanco said the publicly run Charity Hospital would not reopen, even though the military had scrubbed the building to medical-ready standards, the retired Army general who oversaw the work said. In a recent interview with The Associated Press, Lt. Gen. Russel Honore said Blanco told him in late September 2005 the 20-story building that served the region's poor residents would not reopen. "'Ma'am, we got the hospital clean, my people report ... if you want to use it,'"...

Classy.

One can’t reflect upon the recent changing of the guard in Washington, without recalling the previous one. And in this instance, one can’t judge the previous guard without bringing up Hurricane Katrina.

While former Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco is making the most of her time out of office delivering speeches and writing a book, there's more trouble brewing for her back in the capital. From today's New Orleans Times-Picayune: In the final weeks of Gov. Kathleen Blanco's administration, state officials quietly increased the size of the Road Home management contract from $756 million to $912 million, rewarding a contractor the Legislature wanted to fire, auditors questioned and thousands of homeowner applicants cursed. The Blanco administration never told the public about the 25 percent compensation increase for ICF International that was added to...

Blanco asked to battle Vitter By PATRICK COURREGES Advocate Acadiana bureau Published: Feb 2, 2008 LAFAYETTE — Former Gov. Kathleen Blanco said this week, among the many things on her post-governorship schedule, she’s been fielding phone calls from people asking her about a 2010 run for the U.S. Senate seat held by U.S. Sen. David Vitter, R-La. Blanco, a Democrat, chose not to run for a second term for governor in 2007 and turned over the reins of state government to Republican Gov. Bobby Jindal in January. She said that she’s been enjoying herself in the weeks since Jindal took...

BATON ROUGE -- If Bobby Jindal is searching for a way to define his inauguration today as Louisiana governor, he might choose "Great Expectations." He's said as much himself. On the campaign trail and since, he's promised to make Louisiana, a state known nationally for its colorful and corrupt political icons, "the gold standard for ethics." Embracing victory in the Oct. 20 primary, he declared a "fresh start" for a state often derided -- sometimes by candidate Jindal -- as an underachiever and even an embarrassment in many national comparisons. Although he concentrated his campaign efforts in northern Louisiana, he...

Departing Louisiana Governor Defends Her Record By ED ANDERSON   Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco listens to President Bush during a post-Katrina news conference on Sept. 12, 2005. (Photo by David Grunfeld)     BATON ROUGE, La. — Kathleen Babineaux Blanco, who saw Louisiana through two monster hurricanes in 2005 only to see her own political career take a hit in their aftermath, turns the Governor's Mansion over to Republican successor Bobby Jindal on Jan. 14, but she says she will not fade away nor go very far.The Democratic governor, whose four-year tenure will always be bound to the state's darkest...

BATON ROUGE - As the California wildfires continued to rage Thursday, so too did the political feud between President Bush and Gov. Kathleen Blanco that has smoldered since the federal government's slow response to Hurricane Katrina. The latest flare-up came when Bush, while touring the California disaster area, took an apparent swipe at Blanco's post-Katrina leadership as he complimented California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. "It makes a significant difference when you have somebody in the statehouse willing to take the lead," Bush said, according to the Associated Press. The president's statement, coming from a White House that seems determined to avoid...

Bobby Jindal, who was elected governor of Louisiana last Saturday, may not be a freak of unnatural Louisiana politics, but he's an unsoiled anomaly. The temptations of office, which flower in abundance along the bayous, lie still ahead. That's the cynical view, but one widely held in Louisiana, a state battered by nature (most recently Hurricane Katrina), and human nature (the examples never end). "Corruption in Louisiana," a one-time agent in charge of the FBI office in New Orleans once said, is "epidemic, endemic and entrenched." Graft three ways, as it might appear on the menu at a Chinese takeout....

Unable to withstand the fallout from two Katrina-related prosecutions, Attorney General Charles Foti narrowly missed a runoff that will leave the former Orleans criminal sheriff out of public life for the first time in three decades. Foti fell short of second place in a three-man field, with Republican Royal Alexander, a Shreveport lawyer, emerging to face primary leader James "Buddy" Caldwell, a Democrat and longtime district attorney from Tallulah. The two will meet in a battle sure to be vitriolic, judging from the increasingly caustic tone of the campaign leading up to Saturday's vote. Another longtime statewide official, Agriculture Commissioner...