RSS Feed

Historic Abbeville has received an exciting opportunity to strengthen its identity and future growth. Abbeville Main Street has been awarded a Louisiana Main Street Technical Support Grant to develop a comprehensive branding strategy for the community which aligns with Abbeville’s Strategic Plan.
Branding is more than just a logo or slogan. It tells a story of who we are as a community-our history, culture, tradition and the qualities that make Abbeville memorable. A strong brand helps visitors understand what makes our city unique while also strengthening local pride and encouraging economic development.
Abbeville is rich in culture, heritage, and hospitality. From our historic downtown and local businesses to our festivals, cuisine, and traditions, our community has a story worth sharing. This branding initiative will help capture that story and present it in a way that supports tourism, local business growth and community pride.
A key part of this process will be community input. Residents and business owners, and community leaders will all have opportunities to share their ideas about what makes Abbeville unique. What words describe our town best? What experiences should visitors remember? What traditions should be highlighted? These perspectives will help shape a brand that truly reflects the heart of our community.
Over the coming weeks, Abbeville Main Street will share ways for the public to participate. including surveys and in person interviews. Everyone is encouraged to take part and help shape how Abbeville presents itself to the region and beyond. Watch for upcoming announcements on how you can participate. For more information you can email the Main Street office, abbevillemainstreet@cityofabbeville.net or call 337-652-2239.

Almost 40 days into another partial government shutdown and Congress is no closer fully funding the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and so instead appear poised to fund all parts of the department except for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), which would be further funded in another budget reconciliation bill similar to the 2025 One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which gave about three years of funding to ICE and the U.S. Customs and Border Patrol.
That might be best to be hoped for, even after there have been four Islamist terror attacks on U.S. soil in Austin, Texas, New York City, Norfolk, Va. and a synagogue in Dearborn, Mich. since the war in Iran began amid the government shutdown. And after two pilots died at a congested LaGuardia Airport in New York City as Transportation Security Administration are short-handed as they continue working without pay, with long security lines increasingly delaying flights everywhere.
Also unfunded is DHS’ explicit counterterrorism mission, and also the Coast Guard, the Secret Service and the Federal Emergency Management Agency. None of it has moved Democrats, who refuse to provide cloture on a DHS appropriations bill.
Even with the domestic death toll mounting during the war and shutdown, none of it has impacted Congressional Democrats politically at all. They remain ahead in the generic Congressional ballot polls, leading 156 out of 175 such polls taken this cycle, or 89 percent. Republicans have led just 10, or 5.7 percent. The rest were tied.
In fact, during the last shutdown and this one, Democrats’ lead in the generic ballot has widened. They simply are not paying a political price, even as airports were ground to halts twice in less than a year.
And so they simply see no downside to continuing their demands that ICE funding be separated from the rest of DHS after the tragic deaths of Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minnesota at the hands of the ICE and Border Patrol officers they were obstructing — and so Senate Republicans are going to give Senate Democrats what they want — which is a way to get everything funded without them having to vote for all of it.
This was the inevitable outcome of separating DHS funding from the rest of the government. There were still three consolidated minibuses: 1) H.R. 6938 that funded the Department of Commerce, the Department of Justice, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), the National Science Foundation, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers civil works projects, the Department of Energy, the Department of the Interior, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Forest Service and the Indian Health Service; 2) H.R. 7148 that funded the Department of Defense, the Department of Labor, the Department of Health and Human Services, the Department of Education, the Department of Transportation, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the Department of the Treasury, the Executive Office of the President, the judiciary, the District of Columbia, the Department of State and related programs, the administration and oversight of foreign assistance programs, bilateral economic assistance, international security assistance, multilateral assistance and export and investment assistance; and 3) H.R. 5371 that funded the Department of Agriculture, the legislative Branch, military construction and the Department of Veterans Affairs.
Only DHS was excluded, and so the current procedure being agreed to, without passage of an additional reconciliation bill — which is up in the air — for the moment, effectively allows Democrats to drain the additional funds that the One Big Beautiful Bill Act that were going to ICE and Border Patrol, about $140 billion. Now, about $28 billion of the extra funds they had added to the One Big Beautiful Bill Act: $10 billion for ICE and $18 billion for Border Patrol will be drained.
Democrats apparently never intend to fund ICE again, especially if they win the House and/or Senate in 2026, which for them is just a waste of money anyway, they don’t want to really deport any illegal aliens. For Congressional Republicans, then, with the midterms bearing down and there but one more budget reconciliation bill to pass, the move now must become to get the rest of the President’s agenda fully funded, likely for the remainder of his term.
Whatever else the President needed to complete his mission in Washington, D.C. to make America great again — Republicans had better stick it in that bill, including fully funding ICE through 2028.

Robert Romano is the Executive Director of Americans for Limited Government.

The body of prison inmate and convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein was discovered on the morning of August 10, 2019, in the Metropolitan Correctional Center (MCC) in Manhattan.
Despite U.S. Attorney General Bill Barr quickly ruling the questionable death a suicide, there have been continuing suspicions that Epstein was murdered.
As the release of his extensive files demonstrated, Jeffrey Epstein was extremely connected throughout the world. There were many powerful people with a motivation to kill him so that their involvement in his illegal activities would not be revealed.
One person who does not believe Epstein committed suicide is famed forensic pathologist Dr. Michael Baden, former Chief Medical Examiner in New York City. Baden has performed more than 20,000 autopsies in his storied career. He said, “The autopsy findings are much more consistent with a crushing injury caused by homicidal strangulation than caused by hanging by suicide.”
Recently, in the trove of Epstein documents released by the Department of Justice, video was discovered from the Metropolitan Correctional Center. In the corner of video footage, a blurry “orange blob” is seen going up the stairs to Epstein’s floor at 10:39 p.m. August 9, 2019.
The FBI speculated that the image could have shown an inmate or a correctional officer, but no definitive answer has ever been provided. Instead, the image could have been the murderer accessing the stairwell to kill Epstein. No one knows for sure because the video cameras outside of Epstein’s cell were conveniently not working.
However, video from the nearby “officer station of the ninth floor L tier wing” was included within the massive release of Epstein files. According to reporters Gabrielle Fahmy and Shane Galvin of the New York Post, this station was just “a short set of stairs” away from Epstein’s cell.
The video from 3:15 a.m. on the morning of August 10, 2019 shows the MCC prison guards assigned to Epstein, Tova Noel and Michael Thomas. Instead of checking on Epstein and the other inmates every 30 minutes as was required, the guards were sleeping, surfing the Internet, “writing on a piece of paper, walking back and forth and talking on the phone.”
Along with searching online for furniture, Noel made several searches for the “latest on Epstein in jail.” The last search occurred just minutes before his body was discovered.
Noel and Thomas falsified records to indicate that Epstein’s cell was checked. They were fired for “misconduct and poor job performance,” but criminal charges against them were dropped.
One issue that must be investigated are new reports that Noel made 12 questionable cash deposits from April 2018 to July 30, 2019, just ten days before Epstein’s body was found. The last deposit of $5,000 was the largest amount and the overall total was $11,880.
Possibly these cash deposits helped Noel purchase a “$62,000 2019 Land Rover Range Rover,” which is an expensive vehicle considering the average salary for a MCC prison guard was $52,481 in 2019.
It should also be noted that Noel moved to the “Special Housing Unit,” which included Epstein’s cell on July 7, 2019, “just weeks before his death.”
Hopefully, these issues will be examined thoroughly by House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-KY) and his colleagues. Comer said that Noel has been called to testify before his committee on Thursday, March 26. He said if she does not appear, “I’ll subpoena her.”
Another problem is how the case was managed by the Department of Justice, which transferred the Epstein death investigation to the Office of Inspector General, which lacked “prosecutorial powers.” Unfortunately, this transfer prevented “the examination of Epstein’s death as a murder.”
According to an investigation by The Miami Herald, “As a result his cell was never considered a possible crime scene that would, under normal circumstances, be examined by experienced criminal and forensic experts who would take fingerprints, blood samples, and other evidence. One thing that got lost…was that the piece of fabric that Epstein allegedly used to hang himself was never identified.”
We are also learning that there were bags of evidence destroyed in the days after Epstein’s death. An analysis by The Miami Herald revealed there were “people shredding documents” in the immediate aftermath of Epstein’s death. It is unknown what was in the “bags” of documents, but it was reported to be “unusual volumes of materials.”
One correctional officer reported to the FBI that he had “never seen” so many “bags of shredded documents…put in the dumpster at the rear gate” of the prison.
What was in those “bags” of documents? Additionally, there is no video, no hanging noose, no prison guards performing their duties, mysterious Internet searches, questionable payments, and ample motivation to kill Epstein.
Also, the world’s most renowned forensic pathologist believes Epstein was murdered. Yet, if Americans do not believe the official “suicide” narrative, we are labeled “conspiracy theorists.”
This case has been poorly administered from the beginning. It is not a “hoax,” it is now the story with unending questions. However, the first one that needs to be answered is “Who killed Jeffrey Epstein?”

Jeff Crouere is a native New Orleanian and is the President and General Manager of WGSO Radio, a political columnist, the author of America’s Last Chance, and provides regular commentaries on the Jeff Crouere YouTube channel and at Crouere.net. For more information, email him at jcrouere@gmail.com.

These recipes are easy yet holiday notable. None require major preparation or special ingredients. Easter is just a week away. How time flys!

ASPARAGUS AND MUSHROOMS

A special treat
A great side for any day
Only 38 calories and 4 grams of carbs

INGREDIENTS

-1 bunch fresh asparagus
-1/2 pound fresh mushrooms
-2 tsp olive oil
-Seasoning to taste
-2 sprigs fresh rosemary, minced

MISE EN PLACE

-Preheat oven to 450 degrees.
-Lightly grease a baking tray with nonstick oil.
- Place asparagus and mushrooms in a bowl.
-Drizzle with olive oil, then season with salt, pepper, and rosemary if you are using it. I don’t usually cook with rosemary. It’s probably one of those things that we describe as “not a seasoning my mom ever used.”
-Toss well.
-Lay vegetables on the prepared tray in an even layer.
-Roast in oven until asparagus is tender, about 25 minutes.

SQUASH WITH BACON

An old favorite
Faster than fast

INGREDIENTS

-3 or 4 crock neck or yellow squash, sliced into circles
-3 or 4 slices of bacon
-1/2 chopped onion, optional
-Black pepper to taste

MISE EN PLACE

-Cut each slice of bacon into 4 pieces.
-Spray Dutch oven with cooking spray.
-Cook bacon until it releases fat.
-Include onions now if using. Cook for about 4 or 5 minutes until softened.
-Add squash and cook until tender, probably less than 10 or 15 minutes depending on your preference.
Southern Living just sent out an email with numerous ways to prepare yellow squash. All of them looked delicious to me, but I really love squash. One of the recipes called for yellow squash and zucchini mixed and sautéed with onions. You may want to try this.

LEMON PIE FILLING CAKE COBBLER

Delicious
Easy for a busy holiday

INGREDIENTS

-1 box yellow cake mix
-2 cans lemon pie filling
-1/2 cup melted butter, salted or unsalted
I use whatever I have on hand.

MISE EN PLACE

-Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
-Spray a 9x13” ceramic* baking dish with baking or cooking spray.
-Melt 1/2 cup butter in a microwave safe bowl. Set it aside.
-Pour 2 can pie filling in the prepared dish.
-Spread it evenly with a spatula or spoon.
-Mix cake mix and butter in a medium bowl.**
-Spread it over the lemon filling.
-Bake for 35 to 40 minutes or until cake layer gets a deep golden color.
-The filling should just start bubbling.
-Take care not to overcook the cake once you notice the filling has started bubbling.
*Glass or ceramic baking dishes are perfect for baking cake cobblers. Metallic dishes can turn the cake part too dark too soon before the fruit underneath sets.
If you’d like a double dose of lemon in this dessert, go for the lemon cake mix. White cake mix will also work.
**When I first made these cobbler cakes (referred to as dump cakes, a name I don’t like) I would sprinkle the cake mix over the fruit, then drizzle the melted butter on top. I was not successful getting the butter evenly across the top. Mixing the butter and cake mix together makes the topping bake evenly. One of my favorites is a fig cobbler cake, but fig preserves are hard to come by these days.

MINI MOCHA OREO PARFAITS

Perfect single serving dessert
Oreo lover’s delight

INGREDIENTS

-10 Double Stuff Oreos, crushed
-16-oz Extra Creamy Cool Whip
-3 Tbsp Cold coffee
-1 (5.9 oz) Chocolate Instant Pudding
-12 (4 oz) glass or plastic cups

MISE EN PLACE

-Start with thick bottom layer of crushed cookies pressed with a spoon to flatten.
-Fold cold coffee into Cool Whip and spread over crumbled cookies.
-Add layer of pudding and top with final layer of whipped cream.
-Garnish with cookies. For Easter, a chocolate egg or other candy can be used.
You may want to make a one-bowl treat in an attractive trifle dish, which is less work.
Just layer the above ingredients in a trifle bowl.

I have a great spring resolution for you. Practice saying “No!” If you feel overworked or under appreciated, realize that you can just say “No.” You don’t have to raise your voice, nor hesitate. When you realize it’s time to have a break, stand in front of your mirror and say “No.” Repeat until you are satisfied with your tone of voice and facial expression. You will be ready to say “No, I can’t manage that right now.” By the way, you can say “No” to resolutions.

Boo and I are off to Macon, Georgia, via an overnight in Pass Christian, with our travel companions, Nikki and Gerrod. Friday night we are attending a Joe Banamasso concert with back stage passes. Look him up; he’s actually famous. Home again Sunday getting ready for Easter and our granddaughter Shelby’s wedding.

Jusqu’a la semaine prochaine!

billielandry@iosinces.com