John Bel Edwards: Last News

Tune in to "Tucker Carlson Tonight," Tuesday at 8pm ET for Tucker's interview with Tulsi Gabbard. Fox News contributor Raymond Arroyo said Tuesday it's bad news for the Democratic Party that former Rep.Tulsi Gabbard announced she's exiting the party. Arroyo said on "Outnumbered" that this shows there is no "fully functional Democratic Party today." RAYMOND ARROYO: I thought of Ronald Reagan, Elon Musk -- from time gone by and now – saying they didn't leave the party, the party left them.

a ban on transgender athletes last year.The most prominent of the bills is a measure to ban transgender youth from accessing gender-affirming treatments meant to treat gender dysphoria, including puberty blockers, hormones, or surgical interventions, the latter of which are rarely performed on minors.The ban on gender-affirming care appeared to be dead last month after Sen. Fred Mills (R-New Iberia, the chairman of the Senate Health and Welfare Committee, voted with Democrats to reject the bill when it came before the committee.  Mills said that his decision had been heavily influenced by a 2022 Louisiana Health Department study on gender-affirming health care.It found that no gender-affirming surgical procedures had been performed on any minors enrolled in Medicaid in the state between 2017 and 2021, and that hormone and puberty blockers were rarely prescribed to transgender-identifying minors in Louisiana during that same period. National conservative pundits — who have deemed opposition to LGBTQ visibility, transgender rights, and “wokeness” as essential to their party’s brand — were outraged at Mills’ defection, and promised political retribution.Mills’ fellow Republicans caved to pressure from those voices to revive the bill.Senators then used a rare procedural maneuver to recommit the bill to a different committee, allowing it to pass on a 29-10 vote, reports the Associated Press.The bill now heads back to the House, which previously overwhelmingly approved the ban on gender-affirming care.

only state in the Deep South that does not expressly prohibit doctors from recommending gender-affirming treatments for transgender youth.Louisiana’s bill failed in a vote in the state Senate Health and Welfare Committee when Sen. Fred Mills (R-New Iberia), the committee chairman and a pharmacist by trade, voted to defer the bill rather than pass it out of committee.Mills said his decision was heavily influenced by a 2022 Louisiana Health Department study on gender-affirming health care, which found that no gender-affirming surgical procedures had been performed on any minors enrolled in Medicaid in the state between 2017 and 2021.Instances in which medications, such as hormones or puberty blockers, were prescribed to transgender minors were also exceedingly rare, according to the report.Mills said he trusts physicians more than legislators to make medical decisions in a patient’s best interests.“I always in my heart of hearts have believed that a [medical] decision should be made by a patient and a physician,” he said, according to The Hill.Had it passed, the bill would have barred healthcare professionals from prescribing gender-affirming treatments to minors, or referring minor patients to places where they could obtain such treatments.

If Britney Spears fans have their way, there will soon be nearly three dozen statues of the singer all around her home state of Louisiana! In the wake of George Floyd‘s death and the strong presence of the Black Lives Matter movement, one supporter of the 38-year-old “…Baby One More Time” crooner started a petition on Change.org to replace all the Confederate statues with statues of her and it has already reached a total of 14,000 signatures – just 1,000 away from its goal of 15,000.