Free Republic

Former New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin, the colorful and controversial spokesman for the city after the devastating Hurricane Katrina in 2005, is under investigation by federal authorities, a source with direct knowledge of the probe said. The source told Reuters on Friday that several people linked to Nagin or the New Orleans city administration during his two terms as mayor ending in 2010 were cooperating with the U.S. Justice Department and the FBI ... Nagin, who is black, was criticized for racial divisiveness after Katrina for urging residents to rebuild a "chocolate New Orleans,"

A federal grand jury is investigating whether city vendors gave former New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin gratuities ranging from plane tickets to materials and equipment for his family's granite-countertop business and also helped the firm land an exclusive installation deal with a retailing giant while Nagin was in office, according to several sources close to the probe. The federal probe is zeroing in on Nagin along three parallel tracks: luxury travel and home maintenance provided by city technology vendors; a granite countertop installation contract that Nagin's family company got from The Home Depot; and the possibility that at least two...

Most of Southern Louisiana is currently covered by rain showers that are headed eastward to New Orleans. The concern should be that by the end of the game tonight severe weather may be over the Superdome. With all the probable drinking and celebrating, this may make for a bad combination. It will not be Chamber of Commerce weather for this event. This weather was on the Texas border this morning, and has been moving Eastward all day...

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — When the Federal Emergency Management Agency mailed out 83,000 debt notices this year to victims of Hurricane Katrina and other 2005 storms, one of the letters showed up in David Bellinger's mailbox. Bellinger, who is blind, needed a friend to read it and break the news that FEMA wants him to pay back more than $3,200 in federal aid he received after Katrina.

(CNN) -- A Louisiana lawmaker wants the National Guard to patrol the streets of New Orleans after a toddler who was four days shy of her second birthday was shot and killed in a drive-by. "She was out here as a innocent bystander. She's dead now," said Rufus Ruck, the child's cousin. Keira Holmes Gordon was gunned down in a double shooting at the B. W. Cooper Housing development on Sunday. She was one of two people hit when gunmen from two separate cars opened fire on a man who was standing nearby. According to police, the man ran into...

The Occupy Nola movement left their camp at Duncan Plaza Sunday, but only for a brief moment. Protesters brought their fight to the home of the city's top man, Mayor Mitch Landrieu. This comes after the New Orleans Police Department cleared out their camp earlier in the week. Today, they stood outside of Mayor Landrieu's home with a list of demands. They want charges of a Delgado College student who was arrested at the camp dropped immediately. Plus, protesters want their rights to be respected by Chief Ronal Serpas. But the demands don't end there. The movement is fighting to...

Mayor Mitch Landrieu and other city leaders deemed the sweep of Duncan Plaza and eviction of protestors a success Tuesday morning, just hours after New Orleans police disbanded the high-profile encampment. In a move that had been forecast for days, dozens of officers fanned out across the public square in an early morning operation, forcing out more than a hundred people, some of whom were homeless, and others who identified with the "Occupy NOLA" movement.Landrieu, speaking at a City Hall news conference, said he thought the police sweep was "well-timed and well-organized." One person was arrested, while dozens of others...

A federal grand jury today indicted former Jefferson Parish President Aaron Broussard on charges of manipulating the parish payroll to boost his ex-wife's salary. Also charged were Karen Parker, who divorced Broussard in October 2009, and former Parish Attorney Tom Wilkinson as part of a sweeping, two-year investigation of the parish government under Broussard's watch. The indictments come nine months after the trio received letters from prosecutors suggesting they could be charged with crimes. Broussard had resigned in January 2010, Parker was fired a month later and Wilkinson quit a month after that. The charges are wire fraud and conspiracy...

The Orleans Parish Coroner's Office says a man found dead in a tent at the Occupy New Orleans camp in Duncan Plaza across from City Hall was homeless and died of complications from prolonged alcohol use. While others in the campground knew him only by nicknames like "Old School" and "Curley," coroner's investigator John Gagliano identified the man as Ronald Howell, a 53-year-old homeless man from Kansas. A town in Kansas had not yet been determined. Detectives suspect Howell's body may have been in the tent for two days before it was discovered Tuesday.

NEW ORLEANS (AP) - First lady Michelle Obama led toddlers at a New Orleans daycare center in calisthenics and read them a book about a mouse that eats green peas, bidding to get America's children eating better and exercising more. Obama stretched, jumped and marched in place before reading to the children who gathered in a classroom with their parents and teachers at the Royal Castle Child Development Center. The center focuses on preschoolers from families with moderate and low incomes.

A shooting on Bourbon, at St. Louis Street, in the French Quarter about 12:30 a.m. injured seven people and killed a 25-year-old man. All of the victims were caught in the crossfire when two people began to shoot at each other in a crowd of costumed revelers celebrating Halloween, police said.

WASHINGTON -- Michelle Obama will be raising campaign cash for President Barack Obama's 2012 re-election campaign at a $5,000-a-plate New Orleans fund-raiser on Nov. 1. The luncheon, hosted by actor Wendell Pierce, star on HBO's "Treme," will be held at the New Orleans Audubon Place home of Jill and Avie Glazer. Avie Glazer is part of a family that owns the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and the Manchester United soccer team in England. Jill Glazer is on the board of Tulane University.

‘Kill the cops!’ shout reported during ‘Occupy New Orleans’ protest By James Plummer - The Daily Caller 12:42 AM 10/07/2011 ADVERTISEMENT NEW ORLEANS – The “Occupy Wall Street” movement came to the Big Easy on Thursday, but its expression of varied and often clashing political messages quickly turned difficult. As about 500 New Orleans protesters marched, complete with a small brass band, from Orleans Parish Prison to the Federal Reserve and then inside City Hall, one activist told The Daily Caller she heard shouts of “Kill the cops!” With tensions running high between police and protesters outside the prison, marcher...

<p>Several hundred people displeased with the current economic and political climate marched from Mid-City to Lafayette Square today, carrying signs and chanting as part of a movement to protest corporate power that began three weeks ago in New York City. Occupy New Orleans, one of more than 80 local spinoff protests from the Occupy Wall Street demonstration, is loosely organized and does not represent a single philosophy or desire.</p>

A group of protesters calling themselves "Occupy New Orleans" will march across the city today before setting up an "encampment" at Duncan Plaza across from City Hall where some say they plan to live for months. Inspired by the "Occupy Wall Street" protests, which began in New York City three weeks ago and have since spread to at least 80 other cities, the group is demonstrating against what it sees as the disproportionate power wielded by corporations and the rich."I feel that corporate money in politics has completely removed the voice of the people," said David Ludman, 32, who plans...

An indication of what you go through if you live in New Orleans and wish to express your political views in graphic form. Reily’s been threatened, he had an urban radio station gin up protestors outside of his house, he’s had Herman Cain yard signs stolen and now he’s got a left-wing fascist city councilwoman trying to stop him from expressing his first amendment rights.

The U.S. Department of Justice announced Friday that those law enforcement officers who barred pedestrians from crossing the Crescent City Connection in the hectic days after Hurricane Katrina will not face federal prosecution. After a review of Louisiana Attorney General Charles Foti's investigation into the incident, the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division found the bridge had been blocked for public safety reasons and that there was no sufficient evidence to prove that the officers intentionally broke the law.U.S. Attorney Jim Letten agreed, and the case was closed. "This is not a commentary on what should have happened or how people...

BATON ROUGE - Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals Secretary Bruce D. Greenstein has issued a cease and desist order to the Gentilly Medical Clinic for Women, requiring the facility, which has been repeatedly cited for health and safety violations since January 2010 and has been under two license revocations, to immediately halt operations. "The repeated violations of Gentilly Medical Center demand action," said DHH Secretary Bruce D. Greenstein. "I assure the public that as long as these facilities are under my watch, I will hold them accountable and use every tool available to make sure Louisianians are not put...

NEW ORLEANS -- YouTube video of a New Orleans police officer allegedly driving recklessly on an I-10 entrance ramp surfaced Wednesday. The officer's driving privileges have been suspended pending the outcome of the investigation. This amateur video shows a car assigned to 4th District NOPD Officer Brad Glaudi swerving and driving below the speed limit. Seconds later, it hits the guardrail while entering the interstate. 4th District Commander Heather Kouts is well aware of the footage, emailed to Channel 4 on Wednesday. She said the incident is under investigation. "The Public Integrity Bureau is handling an investigation into allegations that...

Marsh Fires And Smoke Push New Orleans Into A State Of Emergency Robert Johnson Aug. 31, 2011, 8:52 AM Image: AP A second swamp fire outside New Orleans has filled the city with smoke, prompting Mayor Mitch Landrieu to declare an emergency and call in the National Guard. According to The Washington Post, the smoke that's been hazing downtown for days is getting worse and to contain the blaze, the four helicopters dropping water will be joined by five more Wednesday. The National Weather Service reports haze from the fire is reported as far west as Baton Rouge and its...

On the eve of Hurricane Irene making landfall, CBS News turned to disgraced former new Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin and referred to him as an "expert." Nagin used the opportunity to plug his "self-published" book.

New Orleans police officials announced minutes ago that they have booked a a 22-year veteran of the Police Department with 215 counts of injuring public records and a single count of malfeasance in office. Glenn Gross, who works in the NOPD's information technology department, was writing bogus tickets for seat-belt violations, allowing him to collect extra pay, Superintendent Ronal Serpas said. The department received a federal grant in June that pays for overtime for officers who enforce seat-belt laws. Rather than doing the work and writing up motorists who had violated the law, Gross, 44, wrote tickets to phantom motorists,...

In one of his last ceremonial duties as the Naval Support Activity’s final commanding officer, Capt. Brian Harrison encased the service’s blue flag in a sock-like sleeve Friday morning, bringing to a close a 110-year naval presence in the Crescent City and an end to his three-year tour as skipper of the installation he knew as a child growing up in Algiers. As a Marine Corps band ensemble played “Auld Lang Syne,’’ a Navy color guard carrying that flag solemnly marched away. And shortly afterward, Lt. Col. Todd Ford and Sgt. Maj. Chris Bloebaum, commanding officer and the highest-ranking of...

A federal jury in New Orleans on Friday handed down all guilty verdicts on 25 counts in the infamous Danziger Bridge shooting case, in which current and former New Orleans police officers were charged with civil rights violations, conspiracy charges, and weapons charges in the shooting deaths of unarmed civilians following Hurricane Katrina. In the infamous debacle in the chaotic days after the 2005 storm, police allegedly opened fire on a group that was crossing the bridge out of town, then lied after the fact, saying they had been fired upon and planting a gun on one of the victims....

The Danziger Bridge trial is coming to a close. Both sides have finished presenting their closing arguments, and after the judge gives the jury their final instructions today, they’ll start deliberating sometime this afternoon. The prosecution and the defense have spent the last 5 weeks developing two different versions of what happened on the bridge that Sunday morning. Whose version the jury believes will determine whether the five officers on trial end up guilty or not. While the jury deliberates, here’s a look at those two versions, starting with the prosecution’s. According to the prosecution, this all started on a...

Inci Akpinar, the vice president of a company called Atlas Texas Construction & Trading, sat down with an official from the Louisiana Department of Education a little more than a year ago and made him an offer. As the state official, Folwell Dunbar, recalled in a memo to department colleagues, Akpinar flattered him with "a number of compliments" before getting to the point: "I have twenty-five thousand dollars to fix this problem: twenty thousand for you and five for me." At the time, Dunbar was investigating numerous complaints against Abramson Science & Technology Charter School in eastern New Orleans, which...

A New Orleans police officer shot and killed an armed man on Bourbon Street early Sunday morning after the man fired shots at bouncers from a nearby club and at the officer. Justin Schaubert, 25, of New Iberia, died of multiple gunshot wounds in the 500 block of Bourbon, said John Gagliano, chief investigator in the Orleans Parish coroner's office.

NEW ORLEANS -- Rick Perry delivered an unapologetically socially conservative speech before a friendly crowd here. “We need to stop apologizing for celebrating life,” the Republican Texas governor bellowed at the Republican Leadership Conference in a finger-pointing, finger-wagging and, at times, bombastic, speech. “Stop apologizing” for wanting to stem the tide of the “entitlement mindset,” he boasted. “Our opponents on the left are never going to like us, so let’s stop trying to curry favor with them,” he said, before imploring the crowd to “stand up. Let’s speak with pride about our values. Let’s stop this American downward spiral.” He...

It’s about as unscientific as you can get, but the Rick Perry 2012 button is a hot item at the Republican Leadership Conference in New Orleans, where several major presidential contenders are fighting to win the who-is-most-conservative contest. Perry, who is still just “thinking” about a run for the White House, doesn’t get here until Saturday. He’s got a book signing event scheduled in the morning and will speak to the gathering in the afternoon. In the meantime, the button contest at the conference is well under way. At the Buttons by Design booth at the Hilton New Orleans Riverside...

As Mississippi River recedes, flood warning lifted for New Orleans By John Pope, The Times-Picayune Based on a drop in the level of the swollen Mississippi River, the National Weather Service on Friday canceled its weeks-long flood warning for New Orleans and points downriver. Despite this development for south Louisiana, the weather service’s flood warning remains in effect for points upriver, including Baton Rouge, where levee seepage has led the state Office of Transportation and Development to close River Road’s southbound lane from North Third Street to State Capitol Drive. In New Orleans, the river’s flood stage is 17 feet,...

BATON ROUGE - Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals Secretary Bruce D. Greenstein Wednesday issued a license revocation for Gentilly Medical Clinic for Women and ordered the abortion facility to immediately cease performing abortions after an investigation found repeat violations that posed significant health and safety risks to clients. The Gentilly abortion facility is currently appealing a separate license revocation action instituted by the Department in January 2010. That action was based on a determination of the facility's substantial failure to comply with the minimum standards for licensure of abortion clinics. The immediate suspension came under a new law signed...

Like little kids, we all experience a happy rush, a delighted thrill, when going to play at an amusement park. Yet when an amusement park is abandoned and an eerie silence settles over the rusty and crusty decay, the setting seems to twist the atmosphere of enthusiastic excitement into a suffocating blanket of dread. The place takes on creepy vibes and freaks people out. In 2005, Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans and ripped the heart of fun and the amusement out of this park. Almost six years later, Six Flags in New Orleans is unnaturally silent, no lines and no...

The Army Corps of Engineers begins diverting water to a flood plain, a move that will slowly swamp farmland and small towns to relieve pressure on levees protecting New Orleans and Baton Rouge. Reporting from New Orleans— In a last-ditch move to relieve stress on levees burdened by Mississippi River floodwaters, the Army Corps of Engineers on Saturday opened a spillway to gradually inundate a major floodplain for only the second time in nearly 40 years, funneling water over farmland and small communities to save New Orleans and Baton Rouge, La., from inundations. At 3 p.m. CDT, a large crane...

If the Morganza Floodway is not opened to funnel 300,000 cubic feet per second of water from the Mississippi River into the Atchafalaya River basin, the additional water could cause levees to fail along the river from Morganza to Plaquemines Parish, including all of the New Orleans area, resulting in as much as 25 feet of floodwater, according to a map provided to state officials by the Army Corps of Engineers on Tuesday.

A COLONEL'S CAREER LOST FOR $65 - WHY DID ROBERT PETIT SELF-DESTRUCT? - MARINE COMMANDER OF 24TH EXPEDITIONARY UNIT AT CAMP LEJEUNE FOUND GUILTY OF SHOP- LIFTING AT LOCAL WAL-MART - CAUGHT HIDING PRINTER INK CARTRIDGES AND STP OIL TREATMENT BOTTLE UNDER JACKET - GETS 96 HOURS OF "COMMUNITY SERVICE" FROM SYMPATHETIC JUDGE - RELIEVED OF COMMAND BY MARINE CORPS - ENLISTED AS GRUNT BACK IN 1978 - KLEPTOMANIAC? - TIME TO RETIRE © 2011 MilitaryCorruption.com This is a sad story all around. One of those that cause you to scratch your head and wonder WHY? Why would a respected...

NEW ORLEANS — Former New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin is releasing a memoir in June about his experiences dealing with Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and its aftermath. He sent an e-mail and Twitter notes Tuesday about the book, "Katrina’s Secrets: Storms after the Storm." Nagin’s press release says the book will be released June 8 "via Amazon" and will discuss "institutional issues of race and class that secretly conspired to control and slow down the recovery."

A woman shot a man, who later died, after he walked into her Carrollton-area house Tuesday night and pulled a handgun on her and her three children, police said.The 30-year-old woman and her three children were in their house in the 1700 block of Cambronne Street when Melvin Plummer, 21, of Marrero walked inside about 7 p.m., said officer Garry Flot, a New Orleans Police Department spokesman.Plummer pulled a gun out, but the woman pulled out one of her own and fired at Plummer, hitting him several times. Paramedics rushed Plummer to Interim LSU Public Hospital where he was pronounced...

Emulsified oil, oil mousse and tar balls from an unknown source were washing up on beaches from Grand Isle to West Timbalier Island along the Gulf of Mexico, a stretch of about 30 miles, and it was still heading west Monday afternoon, a Louisiana official said. The state is testing the material to see if it matches oil from last April's BP Deepwater Horizon disaster. Oil spill response workers under the direction of the U.S. Coast Guard and state officials were scrambling to block more of the material from coming ashore. ES&H Corp. has been hired to oversee the cleanup....

Notice the difference between the character of the Japanese people under extreme stress patiently waiting for relief vs. the unemployable welfare recipients and their unemployable offspring looting everything in sight in New Orleans during the Katrina aftermath...look at what entitlements has fostered in this country...scum!

VIDEO

NEW ORLEANS – A gunman opened fire on teenagers attending a party in a New Orleans bar and fled, killing an 18-year-old man and wounding four other teens, police said Sunday.

You've got to wonder what David Osborne, the consultant brought in to analyze operations at City Hall in New Orleans, would have seen if there were still a shopping mall next door. Osborne, a former adviser to former Vice President Al Gore who has helped dozens of cities streamline their operations, said that the dysfunction on Perdido Street stands alone. No other place in the country compares. Mayor Mitch Landrieu, he said, "inherited the least competent city government I'd ever seen in this country and the most corrupt -- a really tough experience. I just haven't run into this level...

An attorney for former Jefferson Parish President Aaron Broussard said Wednesday he received a target letter describing charges that the federal government is pursuing against his client. Julian Murray said the letter, delivered to his Metairie office, lists wire fraud, a conspiracy charge and a third charge relating to misuse of federal money. Broussard's ex-wife, Karen Parker, also received a target letter, her attorney, David Courcelle, confirmed. Some of the allegations against Broussard involve Parker's employment as a paralegal for the parish. Coming 15 months into the FBI's inquiry into Jefferson Parish political corruption, the letters represents official notice that...

Saying the interest of justice would be served by granting a new trial, a state judge has tossed out a Metairie's woman conviction of murdering her newborn girl two years ago by placing the baby in Lake Pontchartrain in Kenner.Ciara Craig, 23, faced a mandatory life sentence in prison after a jury convicted her of second-degree murder, based largely on a forensic pathologist's opinion that the child was born alive and drowned in the lake on Feb. 10, 2009.Craig, who hid the pregnancy, has said she secretly gave birth in her grandmother's Bunche Village home and the child was stillborn...

For a decade now U.S. city planners have obsessively pursued college graduates, adopting policies to make their cities more like dense hot spots such as New York, to which the "brains" allegedly flock. But in the past 10 years "hip and cool" places like New York have suffered high levels of domestic outmigration. Some boosters rationalize this by saying the U.S. is undergoing a "bipolar migration"--an argument recently laid out by Derek Thompson in The Atlantic. On the one hand the smart "brains" head for cool, coastal cities like New York and Boston, while "families" and "feet"--a term that seems...

A New Orleans pizza delivery man is still having trouble seeing after a robber threw bleach in his eyes last week in an effort to steal a pie he ordered.That's the scene a police report paints of the events that led to the arrest of Terrence "Baby Tee" Alexis. New Orleans police were led to 19-year-old Alexis through several sources, the report said. Officers arrested him Friday at the 2nd District police station in the 4300 block of Magazine Street and jailed him on charges of simple robbery and second-degree battery.Last Thursday about 2:30 p.m., the Domino's Pizza delivery man,...

Decorated U.S. Army veteran Lars Stiaes was just beginning to collect the fruits of his sacrifice.After serving a tour of duty in Afghanistan that ended when he was injured about a year ago, the 22-year-old New Orleans man came home to study marketing and live in the dorms at the University of New Orleans. He used his military benefits to pay for his housing and education, his family said. But Wednesday evening, someone dashed his hopes for the future. A person botched an attempt to rob Stiaes and fatally shot him instead, relatives said.Stiaes was wounded about 8 p.m. near...

Do you remember our last event? The 2010 Southern Republican Leadership Conference was spectacular … Sarah Palin, Newt Gingrich, Sean Hannity, Rick Santorum, Mike Pence, Ron Paul, Haley Barbour, Rick Perry, our own incredible Governor Bobby Jindal and many more. Vendor booths … book signings … media outlets from around the world. Then there were those vintage "only-in-Louisiana" parties with music, dancing, corn and crab bisque, oysters, shrimp and jambalaya. In 2011, we're inviting the whole country! Hence the name: Republican Leadership Conference … AND … Reagan Centennial Celebration.

The Battle of New Orleans had made Andrew Jackson a national hero overnight. But mere early accomplishments can never fill the void that exists in a lost man's soul. Besides, the humble general had more sense than the editors of Laissez Faire Books concerning the ultimate cause for his victory, acknowledging to a friend, "It appears that the unerring hand of Providence shielded my men from the shower of balls, bombs, and rockets, when every ball and bomb from our guns carried with them a mission of death." Andrew Jackson was better known for his attendance at duels than at...

Like so many other things in history, the further back that they are, the more we take them for granted. In this case, it would be a mistake to not reflect upon this 196th Anniversary of the "Battle of New Orleans" and the fact that it could be referred to as the United States' "Agincourt". The British military intent in the "War of 1812" was to emasculate their former North American Colonies by shutting off their abilities to trade with the rest of the world. The British were flush from completing the defeat of Napoleon and had the experienced and...