~ Mike Johnson, 10 days after the national debt reached $40,000,000,000,000:

https://www.threads.com/@blastbunny88/post/Dct5cnkFFr1/if-universal-healthcare-is-supposed-to-blow-up-the-debt-then-can-conservatives/

Anonymous stories like these occasionally slip through the cracks, but I'm having trouble finding anything firsthand. Are there foreign language social media posts, etc. which describe the conditions there?

Even now, Jimmie Duncan is haunted by the 27 years he spent on death row as a wrongfully convicted man.

He remembers 23-hour solitary confinement. 115-degree heat in the summer, conditions that were so brutal “there were a few times when I got up, I didn’t even know my name.”

The worst of it all was thinking his loved ones could believe he had committed an unspeakable crime. From inside Louisiana’s Angola prison, Duncan said he was helpless as his family fell to pieces: “My brother ended up going from being the region’s No. 1 car salesman to … dying of overdose. He just couldn’t take it. He couldn’t escape being my brother.”

But even now, after his conviction was overturned, Louisiana could force Duncan to go back to prison. The district attorney, who did not respond to our requests for comment, has said in court that he still believes Duncan is guilty and deserves to be executed. He has until June to decide on a retrial, though his term ends in January and he is not running for reelection.

Until then, Duncan’s life remains in limbo, both mentally and financially. 

Read our full investigation with u/propublica_, taken from more than 6 hours of interviews with Duncan: https://www.propublica.org/article/louisiana-angola-death-row-wrongful-conviction-jimmie-duncan

Louisiana’s Top Health Insurance PAC Recipients
According to the Health Insurance Influence Tracker, Louisiana congressional members have received significant campaign contributions from PACs connected to major health insurers and industry lobbying groups. The tracker reports career totals dating back to 2000. Steve Scalise leads Louisiana with $628,000, followed by Bill Cassidy with $324,150 and Mike Johnson with $161,000. The tracker includes contributions from PACs associated with companies and organizations such as Humana, CVS, UnitedHealth, Cigna, Centene, Molina, AHIP, and the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association.

Top 5 totals:
- Republicans = $3.120 million
- Democrats = $3.017 million.

Top 5 Republicans
Mitch McConnell (KY) — $700,300
Brett Guthrie (KY) — $669,000
Steve Scalise (LA) — $628,000
Mike Crapo (ID) — $574,000
John Cornyn (TX) — $548,500

Top 5 Democrats
Steny Hoyer (MD) — $795,300
Frank Pallone (NJ) — $679,900
Chuck Schumer (NY) — $628,250
Richard Neal (MA) — $531,000
Ron Wyden (OR) — $382,500

What’s particularly interesting for Louisiana is that Steve Scalise is the #3 Republican and one of the highest recipients in the entire Congress in this tracker. Bill Cassidy is also fairly high at $324,150.

I just saw a post from a friend up north. She's growing figs. I'm a lifelong Louisiana resident, and when I was growing up in the 60s and 70s, everyone had a fig tree. People shared them with family and neighbors.

Now I don't know anyone who grows them.

My wife and I had a fig tree in the 90s, but the surrounding trees shaded it out over time, and it stopped producing.

I found this video about the Cajun French still spoken in Louisiana's bayous. The families out there have kept the dialect alive for generations but a lot of people think it's fading fast. Anyone here grow up around it?

Hey everyone! Your Italian crabber is here with some pretty different news this time!

What if I told you that blue crabs aren't the only invasive species wreaking havoc here in Italy? This isn't even a brand-new issue since it started well over a decade ago, but I am not sure how well known it is outside of Europe.

They are often called "killer crawfish" around here because they literally eat anything in their path, wipe out native crayfish populations, and burrow deep into riverbanks, completely destroying them!

What do you guys think? Is it time for me to go out, trap a bunch of them, and host a massive Louisiana-style crawfish boil?

As always, thanks for tuning in and following along!

As a young boy in the 1960s, almost every weekend Elbert McGee walked a half-mile with his father through the wooded streets of Roseland to the Tangipahoa River. There, he learned to swim and fish for bass, crappie, and the occasional catfish.

Today, McGee still lives in the home where he was raised. But he no longer makes the 10-minute walk to the river to fish. Instead, he drives three hours to Grand Isle.

That change only came after August 22, 2025, when Smitty’s Supply, an oil facility in the majority-Black town, exploded. The disaster released an estimated 12 million gallons of oily liquid and chemical waste into the river, and painted hundreds of homes, churches, schools, and playgrounds with black oily streaks. 

Within weeks, McGee’s then-15-year-old son, Markel, began having nosebleeds severe enough to make him miss school. A friend who is battling cancer developed a respiratory illness. Neither family has received a definitive answer as to whether those conditions are linked to the blast.

For McGee, who has a combined eight children and grandchildren, and other Roseland parents, the loss of the river has been surpassed by a much more pressing question: What does it mean to be a parent when you cannot stop harm from reaching your children?