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BATON ROUGE -- Attorney General James "Buddy" Caldwell plans to switch his party affiliation from Democrat to Republican this week, according to multiple sources who spoke on condition of anonymity. Caldwell, who is up for re-election this year, becomes the latest in a long line of conservative Louisiana Democrats to leave the party. His departure will leave U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu as the lone Democratic statewide elected official. As recently as 2004, Democrats held both Louisiana's U.S. Senate seats, as well as six of the seven statewide constitutional offices. First elected in 2007, Caldwell was the only Democrat to join...

Louisiana Attorney General Buddy Caldwell is back in the national spotlight for the second time this year, capturing headlines across the nation. Caldwell, a Democrat, is garnering his latest bevy of headlines over his decision to join a group of Republicans in suing the federal government over elements of the national health care overhaul signed into law last week.

As Louisiana’s attorney general, I am duty-bound by my oath of office to pursue a request by the governor of the state of Louisiana for legal assistance, so long as it has substantial legal merit. To save Louisiana the potential expense of filing a separate lawsuit regarding the federal health-care legislation, it was my decision to sign-on to Florida’s well-drafted action at minimal cost to Louisiana and accomplish the same legal purpose. According to state Department of Health and Hospitals Secretary Alan Levine, a substantial financial burden is imposed on Louisiana by this legislation. According to Secretary Levine, there is...

This book has been forty-six years in the writing. The first version was written when I was twelve years old, the second when I was twenty-two, the third when I was twenty-six, and all through those years work did not cease on this book. The last version began five years ago. It was impossible to complete, as the other versions were impossible to complete, until my husband and I visited the Holy Land in 1956, and until my husband could give me the information for the last third of the book, and other assistance. From my early childhood Lucanus,...

(Video) National Review intern Lucy Morrow Caldwell tells Will Cain that SC Governor Mark Sanford "is acting like a 15-year-old teenybopper" and a "17-year-old girl". Watch here: http://tv.nationalreview.com/offthepage/post/?q=YTY3MDZmYmNlMzYyYzBlMGUzOWZkMGMwNGE3OWM5MzM=

BAGHDAD — The plan to bring security to Baghdad has not been a failure, but Coalition and Iraqi officials are going to refineit, the Multinational Force Iraq spokesman said during an interview Oct. 20. Maj. Gen. William B. Caldwell IV said any time the military puts a plan in play “you are constantly reassessing andreevaluating it. That’s what we’ve been doing since the beginning.” He said the Coalition is working with a new Iraqi ministerial group to make adjustments to the plan, and that MNF-Icommander, Gen. George W. Casey Jr. does this in a more informal way with Prime Minister...

WASHINGTON — The reconciliation plan announced by Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki Oct. 2 enables Iraqi citizens from all political groups to hold their security forces responsible and to take responsibility for creating peace and tolerance within their own neighborhoods, a U.S. military spokesman in Baghdad said Oct. 4. U.S. Army Maj. Gen. William Caldwell, Multi-National Force – Iraq spokesman, said in a news conference that the plan calling for the creation of joint committees throughout Baghdad, made up of clerics, tribal sheiks, representatives from all political blocs, and the armed forces, is aimed at ending internal battles that were...

The fierce public debate over killing human embryos to create lines of embryonic stem cells is over; tout fini; THE END. It was buried with a stake thrust through its heart by a study published in the world’s most prestigious science magazine, Nature. Trust the media: “Stem Cells Created With No Harm to Human Embryos” (Washington Post) “In New Method for Stem Cells, Viable Embryos” (New York Times) “Embryos Spared in Stem Cell Creation” (USA Today) "“Stem Cell Advance Spares Embryos” (L.A. Times) On second thought, don’t trust the media. In fact none of the 16 embryos involved in the...

WASHINGTON, Aug. 14, 2006 – The ongoing effort to secure Baghdad is an evolution, and solutions must be long-term, the spokesman for Multinational Force Iraq told reporters in Baghdad today. “Abating the extremists in the capital will neither be easy nor rapid,” Army Maj. Gen. William Caldwell said of progress in Operation Together Forward. “Challenges will ensue, but efforts will march forward block by block.” A variety of activities are occurring in Baghdad, with Iraqi and coalition forces working together to help quell violence and build stability, Caldwell said. Caldwell cited some of the statistics that reflect Operation Together Forward’s...

San Diego Union-Tribune Message to Hanoi: Human rights matter By Robert J. Caldwell June 12, 2005 President Bush, meet Li Thi Hong Lien. You may not recall her name but pressure from your administration helped get her released from prison in Vietnam on April 28. Ms. Lien's "crime" was being a Mennonite, a devout Christian denomination harshly suppressed by the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. Compass Direct Li Thi Hong Lien, a resident of the former Saigon, after being rearrested and interrogated because of her Christian faith. During almost a year of imprisonment, this 21-year old Sunday school teacher was so...

In his speech George W. Bush positioned himself up as a reformer and his opponent as a hidebound traditionalist.New YorkGEORGE BUSH'S acceptance speech managed not to be the high point of the Republican convention. Whether worn out by emotions or let down by the music arrangers or late for a party, most of the attendees didn't hang around. They were out on the streets of New York 10 minutes after the balloons stopped dropping. Was it the speech's fault? Probably not. Few will remember it two weeks from now (although one line about Ground Zero--"Here buildings fell and here a...

BostonSOME PARENTS probably had visions of incontinence on long family car trips when Alexandra Kerry promised Thursday night that, should her father become president, our children will be able to "control their own bodies." But if the reference went over the heads of confused Middle Americans, abortion advocates had no trouble recognizing it as a bone thrown their way by the Democratic campaign. Kerry's own challenge to President Bush--"Let's never misuse for political purposes the most precious document in American history, the Constitution of the United States"--will have been received in living rooms across the nation as an insistence that...

IstanbulTHERE WERE PLENTY of flashy cocktail dresses at the NATO summit reception hosted by Turkey's foreign minister Abdullah Gül last month. There were plenty of headscarves, too--and the most conservative of these belonged to Gül's wife. Hers was a festive, modern, maroon version of what the Turks call a turban, tucked tight under the chin and bisecting the forehead to hide all hair. The cocktail-dress women were joking and cavorting with the wimple women. Mrs. Gül posed cheerily for photos with European and American friends. There are few societies in which the veil and the cocktail dress coexist for long....

Spain's problem with terrorism is Europe's: It does not want to defend itself.MadridBETWEEN MARCH 11, when terrorists linked to al Qaeda killed 191 Spanish commuters with bomb attacks on four trains, and March 14, when Spanish voters shocked the world by removing José-María Aznar's pro-war Popular party (PP) from power and electing the Socialist (PSOE) candidate José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, the world's attention was riveted on Spain. But soon dozens were arrested, and on April 3 another 7, believed to be the ringleaders, killed themselves with a bomb when their apartment in the Madrid suburb of Leganés was surrounded by...

Under the pungent headline, Brain Dead Democrats, Charles Krauthammer offers his analysis of the recent election--last Tuesday, remember? He must be mainly right because he advances along a line similar to one set by me here in these Conning Towers. MMTU and Anne Couter's revenge. The spectacle of the television talking heads and the Democratic operatives, Carville, McAuliffe, and Begala among them, discussing only the marketing of candidates, election tactics, without for a moment considering ideas, was revealing and amusing. Where did we go wrong, they cried, ostensibly seeking answers (and a paddle). But the one answer they could not...