Free Republic

The last of the Louisiana state election numbers are in and it's not pretty for the Democrats. Not only does its moderate Democratic governor, John Bel Edwards, face a runoff as noted here, the state Senate has taken a supermajority. And a whole bunch of key state offices went squarely to Republicans. Funny how the press isn't covering this much. But Guy Benson at Townhall is, and he found a Democratic Party "decimated": Among statewide office-holders, the incumbent GOP Lieutenant Governor (68 percent), Attorney General (66 percent), Treasurer (60 percent, and Agricultural Commissioner (58 percent) were all re-elected without the...

Senator Mary Landrieu (D-LA) voted for Senator Joe Manchin's (D-WV) failed gun control bill in April 2013 and is endorsed by gun control proponent Michael Bloomberg, but she is claiming pro-gun status in her bid for a fourth term in the Senate. According to the Shreveport Times, Landrieu's campaign is trying to put distance between the Senator and her gun control vote by pointing to other votes she "cast favoring gun ownership."

Something You Didn't Know About Louisiana (Ilenos, Canary Islands) Intersurf.com Gilbert C. Din/Sidney Villere ISLENOS, CANARY ISLANDS The archipelago of the Canaries consists of seven main islands, having a total area of less than 6 percent of the size of Louisiana, lying about sixty-five miles west of Morocco in Northern Africa. They were formed as a result of volcanic activity. It is a rugged, mountainous terrain, and plains are almost nonexistent. Lack of water is a serious problem. The westernmost islands receive the most rain, while the two islands closest to the Sahara Desert and lower in elevation have some...

I’d left Wyoming a few days earlier, I wound up in Bossier Parrish, Louisiana. I don’t know why, it just happened. It was ten PM and I was riding my Triumph down the “Strip” of Bossier City. The area that kept the uncivilized out of the “nicer” area of town. I spotted a diner that seemed to have a good crowd; it stood to reason, they might have decent food, so I pulled my bike in to the parking lot and walked in hoping for a decent meal. The reason it had such a big crowd was that it was...

Swamp People on History ChannelSprawling over a million-acre swath of southern Louisiana, the Atchafalaya River Basin is the largest swamp in the United States and one of the country's most ecologically varied regions. Its wetlands, bayous and marshes are home to 300 species of birds, 90 species of fish and shellfish and 54 species of reptiles and amphibians, including the great American alligator. It owes much of its haunting and mysterious beauty to the towering, moss-draped bald cypress trees that thrive in its swamp waters. For hundreds of years, the Basin's human dwellers—from the Native Americans who harvested its timber...

South Carolina Senate candidate Alvin Greene may be campaigning on a proposal to revive the economy with his own line of action figures — but the Republicans have again headed off the Democrats in a key test of private-sector innovation. That's right: Even before a minor-league baseball team in South Carolina jury-rigged a line of Alvin Greene dolls, former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin had debuted in the form of a voice-enabled keychain, called, sensibly enough, Sarah Palin in Your Pocket. The gadget is actually the latest in a line of novelty chains that debuted back in 1997. That year, New...

Cajuns Seek Remains of Guerrilla Leader By CAIN BURDEAU Associated Press Writer Wed Jun 1,12:42 PM ET NEW ORLEANS - For Louisiana's Cajuns, Joseph Broussard dit Beausoleil was their Che Guevara, their Thomas Jefferson, their Moses. But the gravesite of the 18th-century guerrilla fighter has long been a mystery. Now, historians and archaeologists — some of them descendants of the Acadian leader — are hoping to find his bones. The search is part of an Acadian renaissance movement that has sprung up since the 1960s to honor the music, art, language and customs of Louisiana's Cajun people, the Acadians' direct...

The big chill freezing relations between the US and France has reached America's most Gallic city, New Orleans, otherwise known as the Big Easy. A statue of Joan of Arc gazes at the Mississippi and the French Quarter is still festooned with tricolours and fleur de lys flags but the malaise afflicting the two nations has even spread to the bicentennial celebration of their common past. A lavish exhibition marking one of the most important events in their joint history, the Louisiana Purchase, is drawing large crowds but its organisers at one stage feared that bad feeling over Iraq would...

ISLENOS, CANARY ISLANDS The archipelago of the Canaries consists of seven main islands, having a total area of less than 6 percent of the size of Louisiana, lying about sixty-five miles west of Morocco in Northern Africa. They were formed as a result of volcanic activity. It is a rugged, mountainous terrain, and plains are almost nonexistent. Lack of water is a serious problem. The westernmost islands receive the most rain, while the two islands closest to the Sahara Desert and lower in elevation have some deserts. The higher elevations on some of the western islands have pleasant temperatures, and...

Cajuns have long learned to cope with being stereotyped as backward swamp dwellers, but phrases coined by national news media this week got their, as the caricature would have it, Tabasco-laden blood boiling. The words "Cajun Taliban" and "Ragin' Cajun" were used by ABC Radio and Time magazine in reference to Yasser Esam Hamdi, the second alleged U.S.-born Taliban. Hamdi was born in Baton Rouge to Saudi Arabian parents. "This guy is not a Cajun simply by virtue of being born in Louisiana," said Shane Bernard, a historian and archivist for the McIlhenny Company, which makes Tabasco sauce. "Cajuns are...