Almost 9 years ago, I broke the story about Steve Scalise attending & speaking at a white supremacist conference in 2002. Given the renewed attention, I think it's important to correct a few things the media continues to misreport. (1/25)

cenlamar.com/2014/12/28/hou… The "international" event, held at the Landmark Best Western Hotel in Metairie, was hosted by EURO, the European-American Unity & Rights Organization, a group affiliated with David Duke, arguably the most notorious racist in America at the time.

I’m sure that white privilege and institutional racism and sexism have nothing to do with why our state House Education Committee is currently chaired by a fragile fascist not bright enough to write his own bills. Nearly identical bills have already been filed in Iowa & Idaho.

https://twitter.com/jsodonoghue/status/1378098942727053325

Before I said anything on Twitter about this, I warned @ZackKopplin that he may have to begin planning a comeback tour of Louisiana education committee meetings.

Major props to @lukeobrien for his definitive profile on the ascendance of Ali Alexander, the former Louisiana-based political operative who became a key organizer in the "Stop the Steal" rallies that resulted in the Jan. 6th Capitol Insurrection.

huffpost.com/entry/republic… Luke reached out to me about Ali, who I've covered on @bayoubrief, more than a month ago, & among other things, I mentioned, somewhat off-handedly, that Ali had been Facebook friends with the private account of Louisiana AG Jeff Landry, co-chair of the Rule of Law Defense Fund.

In the waning days of George W. Bush’s second term, he received a letter with an unusual request from his father. The former president asked his son to issue a pardon for the first and only person in Louisiana history to ever serve four terms as governor, Edwin W. Edwards. Edwards had recently celebrated his 81st birthday behind bars, at a federal prison in Oakdale, Louisiana, where he’d been serving part of a 10-year sentence after being found guilty on 17 counts of bribery and extortion of individuals hoping to acquire a casino license.

Earlier this week on @bayoubrief, I profiled Ali Alexander, one of the principal forces behind the "Stop the Steal" events who is perhaps best known for a racist tweet he wrote in 2019 about Kamala Harris not being an "American Black."

bayoubrief.com/2020/11/08/the… I got to know Ali a few years ago, when he had briefly been presenting himself as a mainstream conservative political operative here in Louisiana. At the time, he went by his legal name, Ali Akbar, and worked as the digital director for Jay Dardenne's gubernatorial campaign.

A leaked memo, obtained exclusively by the Bayou Brief, advises GOP legislators to buck Trump White House guidelines and ignore the advice and recommendations of public health experts.

This will be updated with additional information soon.

bayoubrief.com/2020/04/28/exc… Among other things, the memo advises legislators to avoid “trap words” like “death/die,” “politics/political,” “models,” and “hoax.” The very first “trap word” on the list: “Republican.”

U.S. Rep. Ralph Abraham’s pharmacies dispensed nearly 1.5 million doses of opioids in two rural Louisiana towns with a combined population of 6,000 people.

bayoubrief.com/2019/08/28/pha… via @BayouBrief It’s important to also note @DocAbraham’s record on the opioid epidemic, in addition to his total opposition to allowing even the use of medical marijuana for conditions that it has been proven effective at treating.

Cindy Hyde-Smith on voter suppression: "And then they remind me, that there's a lot of liberal folks in those other schools who that maybe we don't want to vote. Maybe we want to make it just a little more difficult. And I think that's a great idea." Nov 2nd in Columbus, MS. Correction: Video WAS taken in Starkville on 11/03, which is what I had initially reported. There was some confusion, because apparently, Sen. Hyde-Smith has a talent for saying things like this often. @GanucheauAdam

1. Two years ago, Wally Pierce and Leslie Turk at Lafayette's The Ind published two reports on @RepClayHiggins' (a.k.a. @CaptClayHiggins) disciplinary file when he was a police officer in Opelousas. But the files were never uploaded in their entirety. Until tonight. Right here. 2. I've decided to publish these files because I think they both tell stories that voters in Louisiana's 3rd District and the American people need to read, unfiltered and directly from the source. But first...

1. Four years ago, during the last Texas gubernatorial race, Wendy Davis ran a commercial of an empty wheelchair, and the narrator spoke about how Greg Abbott has worked against the rights of disabled people. 2. She got criticized for the commercial. But facts were indisputable: Despite the fact that he has a disability and despite his own multi-million dollar legal settlement, Abbott voted to prevent disabled people from suing the state for violating the ADA.