Friday, October 4, 2024

The Kingfish is dead. Long live the Kingfish.

During his brief but extraordinary life, Huey P. Long inspired and enraged, fundamentally reshaping how politics would be defined in his home state for generations. Today, more than 85 years after his death, disagreement about whether this epochal event was an assassination or an accident carries with it assumptions about class and privilege, questions about loyalty versus duty, and competing claims over whom we should entrust to tell historical truths.

The Final Days of the Indefatigable Huey P. Long, Jr.

During the last week of his life, Huey P. Long celebrated the high-life in Manhattan, signed a book deal in Pennsylvania, campaigned like a country preacher in Oklahoma, and commanded Louisiana from his 24th floor private apartment inside of the state Capitol.

Holes in the Story: Huey P. Long, Carl Weiss, and the American Spectacle of Conspiracy

Featuring exclusive, previously unreleased photographs and reports that have been either buried with time or kept hidden from the public, this sweeping conclusion to the Bayou Brief's trilogy on the assassination of Huey P. Long unpacks a conspiracy theory that has persisted for more than 86 years and challenges the portrayals of his alleged assassin, Dr. Carl A. Weiss, Sr., as an innocent victim of a corrupt cover-up.

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Our Disappearing Coast

These Last Days of Now: A Virtual Gallery

In their exhibition hosted at Good Children Gallery, Julie Dermanksy and Michel Varisco offer a glimpse of a world slipping beneath a rising tide caused by a warming planet.

A Trio of Trump Appointees Give Louisiana a Game-Changing Victory in Coastal Damages Suit Against Big Oil

In a terse, five-page opinion, a three-judge panel of the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit reject Big Oil's last ditch effort at avoiding accountability in state court.

As a Divided Committee Advances Bill to Neuter Coastal Lawsuits Against Big Oil, a GOP Legislator Urges the Public to “Raise Hell”

After eight years of legal wrangling, as six coastal parishes stand on the brink of unlocking billions to repair the environmental damages allegedly caused by illegal and largely unpermitted activities of Big Oil, the state legislature considers a bill that would strike down the lawsuits and throw out a breakthrough $100 million settlement already negotiated with one of the companies involved.

Clementine's Hunters: A Five-Part Series

Clementine’s Hunters: Prologue

Three decades after her death at the age of 101, Clementine Hunter is now considered one of the most important folk artists in American history. In this multi-part investigative series, the Bayou Brief explores the life and legacy of Louisiana's most consequential painter and the ways in which her work has been both rightfully celebrated and criminally exploited since her death.

Clementine’s Hunters: Chapter 1 | In Her Own Words

The iconic American folk artist Clementine Hunter conducted a series of oral interviews in the 1970s. For the first time ever, a transcript of one of those interviews is being made available to the public on the Bayou Brief, courtesy of LSUA's Sue Eakin Archives.

Jeff Landry Reports His Campaign Spent Over $120K for Alligator Hunting Tags. There’s Just One Problem.

Before he won his first election, a campaign for Louisiana's Third Congressional District in 2010, Jeff Landry's claim to fame was his victory, ten years prior, in the Breaux Bridge Crawfish Festival's 36th annual Crawfish Eating Competition. Landry, now in his second term as Louisiana attorney general, had a...

The Brazen Cajun

Louisiana's attorney general is now considered a leading contender in the 2023 governor's race, but while his record of intransigent and pugilistic partisanship may have made him into a force among the far-right, it also threatens to undermine his credibility with an electorate that scrutinizes gubernatorial candidates far more extensively than the electorate that shows up during federal elections. In this sweeping review of Landry's career in politics, we consider the issues most likely to dominate any discussion about whether he is qualified to lead one of the most diverse and most economically disadvantaged states in the nation.

How Louisiana Republicans Trumpeted the Big Lie: Gen. Mayhem

Clay Higgins may have been Louisiana's first "Trumpian" politician, but Landry was its first Tea Party radical.

How Louisiana Republicans Trumpeted the Big Lie: Rousing a Reckoning

As the U.S. Senate soon considers whether or not to convict former President Donald Trump for inciting the Jan. 6 insurrection at the Capitol, we consider the complicity of his most ardent and influential supporters in Louisiana, a state that played a critical part in fomenting outrage by propagating the Big Lie. This is the first in a three-part series.

“The Stupidest Lawyer in the United States.”

In an attempt to defend President Trump on Twitter, Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry reveals a profound ignorance of the law, humiliating himself and generating a torrent of ridicule from more than 15,000 people.

Court Rejects Landry’s Attempted Power Grab of Red River Waterway Commission

A sense of entitlement does not mean a person is, in fact, entitled.

The Merchant of Vengeance

“If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you poison us, do we not die? And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge?” Act 3, Scene 1

Jeff Landry Has Something To Hide

Recently, a conservative judge didn't buy Jeff Landry's defense that state public records laws only apply to state residents. However, the judge awarded the plaintiff nothing except legal fees. The Bayou Brief attended the court hearing and then obtained a trove of documents that tell the full story.

The Landry Coalition: Why Jeff Landry Is Now The Most Vulnerable Incumbent in Louisiana

Landry led a legal challenge that may result in tens of millions of Americans and potentially over a million Louisianians losing their health insurance, but he is not the only elected official in the state who should be held accountable.

Louisiana AG Jeff Landry and top aide float conspiracy theory about “deep state bureaucrats.”

Landry and Murrill are the first public officials to apply the term to an entirely ministerial accounting procedure or to suggest that career civil servants at the Department of Health and Human Services are somehow actively involved in this conspiracy. 

Sui Generis: Our Best Stories About Louisiana, the Land and Her People

How Louisiana Republicans Trumpeted the Big Lie: Gen. Mayhem

Clay Higgins may have been Louisiana's first "Trumpian" politician, but Landry was its first Tea Party radical.

David Duke: Grandfather of the Alt-Right

How a racist teenager at LSU became the most influential white nationalist in the country and nearly the most powerful man in Louisiana.

“Combat in the Courtroom” Episode One: The Murder Trial of Aaron Mintz

In what was the most sensational case in New Orleans in thirty years and the first-ever trial to earn wall-to-wall coverage on local television news, Mike Fawer became an overnight celebrity and the city’s most sought-after criminal defense attorney as he represented a prominent furniture dealer charged with murdering his wife.

The Godfather Trilogy

Calogero Minacore and the Making of Carlos Marcello

Part One of the Bayou Brief's Godfather Trilogy

Carlos Marcello and the Making of a Mafia Myth

“I am not in no racket. I am not in no organized crime.” - Carlos Marcello

The American Saga of Carlos Marcello

The final chapter of the Bayou Brief's "Godfather Trilogy" about the life of Carlos Marcello.

RANKING THE BEST OF LOUISIANA FILM & MUSIC

Louisiana Tunes: The Top 50* Songs About the Gret Stet

* Technically, 59 songs, but what’s wrong with a little lagniappe?

Set in Louisiana: Top 40 Movies, 1938- Present

I'm back with a non-Carnival related piece. It is, however, inspired by the theme of this year's Bacchus parade: Starring Louisiana. It was their best theme in years and...

—The Photojournalism of J.S. Makkos—

The Scoundrel: Clay Higgins Turned in His Badge, Twice, Before Campaigning for Congress as a Celebrity Cop.

Clay Higgins rose to power by telling a story about personal redemption, but his former boss, the sheriff of St. Landry Parish, now claims he would have never given him a second chance in law enforcement if he'd known what really happened before Higgins resigned from the police force in Opelousas.

Captain of the Militia

During his two years in Congress, Rep. Clay Higgins has continually championed violent, anti-government extremists. As he seeks reelection, Louisianians can no longer afford to look the other way.
Presented by the Bayou Brief, with host Frederick D. Bell.