The Dictatorship

Planned Parenthood shuts down all operations in Louisiana after 40 years

Published

9 months ago

October 2, 2025

Planned Parenthood shuts down all operations in Louisiana after 40 years

BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — Planned Parenthood on Tuesday shuttered its two clinics in Louisiana over what the organization said were mounting financial and political challenges that made operating in the state no longer possible after more than 40 years.

The closures make Louisiana the most populous of just four states with no Planned Parenthood locations.

The exit underlines the pressures on Planned Parenthood as it warns of wider closures nationwide in the face of Medicaid funding cuts in President Donald Trump’s tax and spending bill. The organization is also halting advocacy work in Louisiana, where the state’s Republican leaders have cheered on the closures.

The closures were “not the result of a lack of need” but rather the outcome of “relentless political assaults that have made it impossible for us to continue operating sustainably in Louisiana,” said Melaney Linton, the president and CEO of Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast.

Supporters have said the closures will have a detrimental impact on Louisiana, where Planned Parenthood has never been licensed to perform abortions in the state but did provide other medical care services to nearly 11,000 patients last year at its Baton Rouge and New Orleans clinics.

Advocates and medical professionals fear that the organization’s departure will further exacerbate reproductive health care in a state that Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data shows already has one of the highest maternal mortality rates in the country. In addition, a March report by the Louisiana Legislative Auditor’s office noted the state’s significant OB-GYN shortage and health care deserts.

Planned Parenthood warns of more closures

Trump’s spending and tax plan instructs the federal government to end Medicaid payments for one year to certain abortion providers. While the organization is seeking to have its funding restored through the courts, Planned Parenthood officials have warned that around one-third of roughly 600 clinics could be forced to close.

Earlier this year, five clinics in California and eight in Iowa and Minnesota shut their doors. In the past week, the Wisconsin affiliate announced that it would stop providing abortion and the Arizona affiliate said it would halt Medicaid-funded services.

Louisiana joins Wyoming, North Dakota and Mississippi as states where the organization is absent.

“This is a win for babies, a win for mothers, and a win for LIFE!” Republican Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry posted on social media Tuesday.

High numbers of Medicaid patients

Planned Parenthood provides a wide range of servicesincluding cancer screenings and sexually transmitted infection testing and treatment. Federal Medicaid money was already not paying for abortion, but affiliates relied on Medicaid to stay afloat.

In Louisiana, a state with one of the nation’s highest poverty rates, 60% of patients at Planned Parenthood clinics used Medicaid. Last year, the clinics in Louisiana provided nearly 30,000 tests for sexually transmitted infections, 14,400 visits for birth control, 1,800 cancer screenings and 655 ultrasounds.

Nearly a decade ago, Jordyn Martin said she turned to Planned Parenthood when she couldn’t afford medical services anywhere else. While at the clinic, a doctor offered Martin a free HIV test. A week later, she was diagnosed with the virus.

“Planned Parenthood saved my life,” said Martin, who went on to volunteer for the organization.

Connecting patients with new providers

Outside of the New Orleans Planned Parenthood clinic Tuesday, several people gathered and brought thank-you notes to the organization that has spent four decades in Louisiana. Inside the building, up until close, staff worked to connect patients with alternative health care providers.

Starting Wednesday, calls to Planned Parenthood numbers in Louisiana will be transferred to the nearest location in Texas or Arkansas.

Michelle Erenberg, the head of a New Orleans-based abortion rights group named LIFT, said people have been contacting her for help to find new clinics. She said it was important to connect people with providers but worries about the strain it will put on clinics that are already short-staffed.

“Whether patients are going to be able to get appointments quickly, or access all of the services that Planned Parenthood provided, is unknown at this point,” she said.

The Dictatorship

Millions drop Obamacare health coverage after subsidies expire and costs rise

Published

2 hours ago

June 29, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Millions drop Obamacare health coverage after subsidies expire and costs rise

Jun. 29, 2026, 2:04 AM EDT

NEW YORK (AP) — About 3 million fewer people in the United States had Affordable Care Acthealth insurance plans in February compared with the same time last year, according to new federal data.

In the reportreleased Friday, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services suggested the 13% drop in enrollment from 22.1 million people in 2025 to 19.2 million this year could be attributed to a federal crackdown on fraudulent or “phantom” enrollment. But health analysts said it was more likely related to the Jan. 1 expiration of federal subsidieswhich caused a surge in plan costs that resulted in many people being unable to pay their premiums.

“We know that real people lost their health insurance coverage,” said Cynthia Cox, a vice president and director of the ACA program at the healthcare research nonprofit KFF, citing survey findings on people who had left their plans. “This coverage loss happened at the same time millions of people faced double or even triple digit increases in their premium payments.”

The new data, compiled in April but showing coverage in February, represents the government’s first official look at how people’s inability to pay their first bills this year affected total enrollment. That is because the figures capture the marketplace after a nonpayment grace period expired.

A federal estimate in Januaryshowed that about 800,000 fewer people had signed up for ACA plans compared with the same time last year, marking the first time in the past four years that enrollment had been down from the previous year at that point in the shopping window.

Cox said KFF expects the total number of people in the government healthcare program to continue to declinethroughout the year, potentially to a low of about 17.5 million. That would be a significant drop for the government’s flagship subsidized health insurance program for working-age people who do not qualify for Medicaid. In recent years, ACA plans have become a popular choice for gig workers, farmers, ranchers, hairstylists and others without health coverage through an employer.

The ACA subsidies that expired this year were at the center of a bitter fight in Congress last fall, with Democrats and some Republicans calling for their renewal. Sharp increases in health costs across ACA and other health insurance programs come as voters in the approaching November elections say affordability is among their top concerns.

The Dictatorship

Rep. Julia Letlow wins Louisiana GOP Senate primary runoff

Published

12 hours ago

June 28, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Rep. Julia Letlow wins Louisiana GOP Senate primary runoff

Jun. 27, 2026, 9:51 PM EDT

Rep. Julia Letlow won Louisiana’s Republican Senate primary runoff Saturday, defeating former Rep. John Fleming.

Her win comes as a victory for President Donald Trump, who has endorsed her repeatedly throughout the race — including before she was even officially running.

Letlow made history in 2021 when she became the first Republican woman to represent Louisiana in Congress. In that special election, she won the seat that her late husband, Luke Letlow, had won prior to dying of complications related to Covid-19 in December 2020.

Letlow had no political experience prior to running for her late husband’s seat. She holds a doctorate in communication from the University of South Florida and worked as an administrator for Tulane University and the University of Louisiana, according to her LinkedIn page. Nonetheless, she won the special election House race with nearly 65% of the vote.

In Congress, she has served on the appropriations and education committees, and has been a reliably MAGA Republican.

Letlow’s win also comes as a rebuke to Fleming, who loaned himself more than $11 million, according to the Federal Election Commission, and tried running for the same seat in 2016 only to finish in fifth place in the nonpartisan primary. (Letlow did not loan her campaign any money, and took in more than $5.35 million compared to Fleming’s more than $12.1 million, FEC filings show.)

Trump has played a key role in the race. In addition to backing Letlow early on, the president also helped tank Republican incumbent Sen. Bill Cassidy’s re-election campaign in last month’s primary, based on the senator’s record of bucking his party and voting in favor of Trump’s second impeachment. In the primaryLetlow earned nearly 45% of the vote, giving her a healthy lead over both Fleming, who received about 28% of the vote, and Cassidy, who earned nearly 25%.

Ahead of Saturday’s runoff, polling showed Letlow and Fleming in a close race, with Letlow retaining a small lead in several polls.

Letlow will now proceed to the November general election to face off against the Democratic nominee, farmer Jamie Davis, who came out on top in tonight’s Democratic primary runoff.

The state has not sent a Democrat to the Senate since 2008, when Mary Landrieu won her last term in office.

Julianne McShane is a breaking news reporter for MS NOW who also covers the politics of abortion and reproductive rights. You can send her tips from a non-work device on Signal at jmcshane.19 or follow her on X or Bluesky.

The Dictatorship

‘Horrifying’: Pulte’s choice for top spy aide stokes fears of Trump vote tampering

Published

12 hours ago

June 28, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

‘Horrifying’: Pulte’s choice for top spy aide stokes fears of Trump vote tampering

Jun. 28, 2026, 1:36 PM EDT

Bill Pulte, the acting director of national intelligencehas stirred fear by choosing as his chief of staff a GOP election lawyer who oversaw a poll watching program that included Jack Posobiec and other conservative conspiracy theorists. The lawyer, Christina Norton, also appears to have no experience working in the intelligence community.

“It is horrifying,” a former senior U.S. intelligence official told MS NOW Saturday. “Not only does Norton have absolutely no background, experience or expertise in national security or intelligence, but her principal qualifications appear to be loyalty to Pulte and an embrace of absurd election-interference conspiracies.”

Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., who has been a vocal critic of Pulte, also raised concerns about election integrity on Sunday while taking shots at the director of national intelligence and the office itself.

“We should eliminate the DNI, and we should eliminate Pulte from the DNI until that happens,” he said on BLN, adding, “I am concerned that we’re gonna continue to cast doubt on elections in November and erode what has been a 250-year tradition of a peaceful transition of power.”

Pulte’s choice of Norton is also likely to increase concerns among Democrats that President Donald Trump intends to use the Office of the Director of National Intelligence to interfere in the midterm elections. Pulte, a loyalist with no intelligence experience, has used his current position as head of federal mortgage agencies to refer political rivals of the president for federal criminal prosecution.

Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., told MS NOW on Sunday that the choice “just confirms” that the “only job qualification is absolute political loyalty and devotion to Donald Trump.” But he expressed faith in the judicial system during an appearance on “The Weekend,” noting that “right now we have federal courts across the land that are rejecting their various attempts to take over the election process. Nine different federal courts have rejected the claim that the president, by executive order, can compel the states in the union to turn over all of their voter lists to Donald Trump and to the White House.”

The New York Times first reported Norton’s appointment.

The former senior intelligence official, who requested anonymity due to concerns of retaliation, told MS NOW the choice also “signals as clearly as could be that Pulte has been put at ODNI to misuse the awesome power of the U.S. intelligence community to interfere in the upcoming midterm elections.”

Norton, reached by MS NOW by telephone, declined to comment and referred questions to an ODNI spokesperson. The spokesperson declined to comment on Norton but defended Pulte’s tenure.

“Acting Director Pulte and his team are focused on carrying out President Trump’s national security priorities while faithfully executing ODNI’s statutory mission,” the spokesperson told MS NOW. “We are leading the Intelligence Community to provide President Trump with elite, apolitical intelligence that keeps America safe.”

Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., appearing on CBS News’ “Face the Nation” Sunday, said his objection to Pulte is “that he used personal information to target a political enemy of the president,” a reference to New York Attorney General Letitia James.

“You should not be using the force of government to crash upon somebody just because the person in charge does not like them or finds them inconvenient. The fact that Bill did that is disqualifying for someone to be the director of national intelligence,” Cassidy said.

Rep. Jim Himes, D-Conn., the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said on Friday that Congress would ensure that the ODNI under Pulte will “report on legitimate foreign threats to elections, not Donald Trump’s imaginary ones.”

Himes warned that, “Trump was explicit when he appointed Bill Pulte to a job he had no qualifications for that he had elections in mind.”

Trump has said in interviews with the news media that he would like to see Pulte shrink the size of the ODNI and investigate election fraud. Pulte’s predecessor, Tulsi Gabbard, participated in investigations in Georgia and Puerto Rico to find proof of Trump’s false claims that the 2020 election was stolen.

Democrats and some former intelligence officials say they worry that Pulte may try to falsely claim that his office has found evidence that foreign governments are secretly funding Democratic candidates in the midterms.

Pulte could falsely claim foreign actors have hacked U.S. voting machines, they say, and altered vote totals in favor of Democrats during the midterms. Or Trump could instruct Pulte to be present if FBI agents seize ballots and election records in November as they did earlier this year in Fulton County, Georgia.

Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., the ranking Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, warned in a statement on Friday that Pulte should not use his position to spread Trump’s false election conspiracy theories.

“The mission of ODNI is to identify and counter foreign threats, not to import election denialism into the Intelligence Community,” Warner said. “Americans have every reason to fear that this administration is once again eroding the wall between our intelligence agencies and domestic elections.”

David Rohde is the senior national security reporter for MS NOW and a two-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting. Previously he was the senior executive editor for national security and law for NBC News.