Presidential Libraries: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)

And the scams continue.   Hugs

SSDI Cuts Upcoming-

October 16, 2025, 1:02 pm

Trump Administration Plans Deep Cuts to Social Security Disability Insurance, Particularly for Older Workers

Despite repeatedly promising not to cut Social Security, the Trump Administration is reportedly preparing a proposed rule that could reduce the share of applicants who qualify for Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) by up to 20 percent, according to an Urban Institute report that cites writing by a former Trump Administration official and interviews with former staff at the Social Security Administration (SSA). This would be the largest cut in SSDI history.

SSDI is an integral part of Social Security. It provides essential benefits to workers who cannot support themselves through earnings due to severe and long-lasting disabilities that significantly impede their ability to work, and it helps to prevent beneficiaries and their families from experiencing poverty.

The rule would make it much more difficult to qualify for both SSDI and Supplemental Security Income (SSI). Because it would dramatically change the eligibility criteria for older applicants, the losses among people over age 50 would be much deeper.

The rule is likely to be the largest-ever cut to Social Security Disability Insurance. A 20 percent cut in the share of applicants who qualify for SSDI would be larger than any previous change to the program. It would be even larger than the Reagan-era disability cuts, which the Reagan Administration was forced to reverse amid fierce opposition from governors, courts, beneficiaries, and advocates. According to an Urban Institute analysis, even a cut half the size of what the Trump Administration is considering would mean 750,000 fewer people would receive SSDI benefits within ten years. In addition to reducing the share of applicants who receive benefits, some current beneficiaries could see their benefits taken away when their eligibility is reviewed.

The rule would particularly hurt older workers. Like the rest of Social Security, SSDI serves largely older people; nearly 80 percent of disabled workers are aged 50 or older. SSDI benefits provide vital support to people whose careers are cut short by severe medical impairments. The rule is expected to target older applicants already determined to have significant medical impairments by discounting the barriers they face due to their age in continuing to do substantial work — despite the law’s requirement that the Social Security Administration (SSA) consider how age, education, and skills might make working harder, in addition to considering health conditions.

It’s already difficult at any age to qualify for disability benefits, given their stringent rules. Research shows applicants whose impairments are not severe enough to qualify for SSDI fare poorly in their attempts to return to work — especially if they’re older. Rejecting more older applicants will cause more hardship for people who would be eligible for benefits under the existing rules.

The rule will likely cause disproportionate harm to people living in the South and Appalachia. Some states have a higher share of people receiving disability benefits, particularly those with more older workers with fewer years of formal education, and who are more likely to have worked in physical jobs like manufacturing or mining. That is true of many Southern and Appalachian states, as well as Maine and the Rust Belt states of Michigan, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. The proposed rule drafted during the first Trump Administration would reportedly change the way SSA considers education as well as age, and because residents of these states are on average older and less educated, these changes will hit them doubly hard.

In addition to cutting Social Security and SSI, the rule would threaten retirement security, access to health care, and other supports. Workers who become disabled and qualify for SSDI are significantly worse off in retirement: they are poorer, experience more hardship, and have lower savings. Disabled workers will fare even worse in retirement if their eligibility for disability benefits is stripped. They would be forced to spend any retirement savings faster and claim their Social Security retirement benefits at a younger age, permanently reducing their — and possibly their family’s — monthly Social Security retirement benefits by up to 30 percent. For hundreds of thousands of older people, this rule would create long-term financial insecurity as they age.

In addition, applicants who do not qualify for disability benefits may face significant challenges accessing health care. SSDI recipients typically receive Medicare 24 months after they begin to receive benefits; if someone no longer qualifies for these benefits, they won’t be able to get Medicare until they turn 65. And, SSI recipients receive Medicaid, so those who lose SSI benefits may also lose Medicaid (particularly in states that have not adopted the Medicaid expansion). Most rejected applicants under the new standard will have very significant medical impairments, and many will struggle to access health care without those benefits — particularly after the steep Medicaid cuts in the Republican megabill.

Finally, restricting eligibility for disability benefits will make it more difficult for rejected applicants to access other key supports, such as food assistance, which has increasingly strict time limits for most non-elderly individuals without younger children who are not receiving disability benefits. New Medicaid work requirements could also pose significant impediments to people who lose disability benefits.

This rule is the latest in a series of harmful actions by the Trump Administration that threaten access to Social Security. This year, the Administration has forced SSA through a radical downsizing that has disrupted services for the largely older and severely disabled people who rely most on the agency, indiscriminately pushing out 7,000 workers in the largest staff cut in SSA’s history. This realignment has resulted in fewer staff serving Social Security applicants and beneficiaries, and huge cuts to staff supporting the agency’s customer service mission. These cuts have been coupled with inexplicable new restrictions — some of which have already been partially rolled back — for how the public can engage with SSA for assistance, creating additional access barriers.

At the same time, the Administration is working to advance changes that would make it harder for hundreds of thousands of eligible people to receive or continue receiving SSI, creating additional red tape for beneficiaries and more work for depleted and overburdened SSA staff.

Israel’s Next Move: Create ‘Six Little Gazas’ In West Bank | Jasper Nathaniel | TMR

The video below is how Israel illegally plans to steal more land in the West Bank from the Palestinians to make a Palestinian state impossible.  Israel is already breaking every thing they were required to do for the ceasefire.  Also Israel has taken 1,500 Palestinian men and boys as hostages and are holding them illegally with no charges.  So where is the world outrage over these hostages?  Hugs

Publisher of the Infinite Jaz Substack, Jasper Nathaniel joins us to discuss Israel’s ongoing annexation of the West Bank. Live-streamed on September 10, 2025

Clips about ICE from The Majority Report

Trump’s Thugs Attempt Suffocation Of Frog Suit ICE Protester

ICE’s Deranged Assault Must End

Trump DOJ Won’t Deny ICE Czar Kept $50K Cash Bribe During Senate Grilling

From Jan Resseger:

Israel: A Society In Denial

This is incredibly disgusting and horrific.  The Israeli media is pushing garbage, lies, and misinformation on the Israeli public.  They don’t believe what other news sources say about starving children or women.   One Israeli man said he was going into the military in two months and hoped to be sent to Gaza to kill the Palestinians.  When asked about the women and children he claimed there were no innocents, that they were all Hamas.  He was asked about kids, little kids and babies his answer were they were either Hamas or terrorists or future terrorists.  Better to kill the babies now rather than them growing up to hurt an Israeli.    Only one couple called for an end to the war.   The others demand Hamas release the hostages.  The surrounding crowd did not believe them when they said that Hamas was willing to return the hostages in exchange for stopping the war but Netanyahu killed the negotiations.  They are as brained washed as Fox viewers and when the truth comes out they will be living in Palestinian land claiming innocence because they willfully did not know of what the military was doing.  Oh well water under the bridge they will claim.   I am seriously anti-Israel’s government and military.  I think they are equal to Hitlers government and supporters.  They need to suffer the same fate.  Following orders doesn’t cut it.  Being Jewish is not a pass for committing genocide.  Never again is for all people or it is not for any people.   Best wishes for all and hugs for those that want them.  

An update on the car and the bathroom, both are going to cost more money.

Hello Everyone.   I hope all are having a grand day.  We had the car taken to a garage to have it repaired.  The engine did seize but the timing chain did not break as we thought.  Ron asked why the engine locked up and the guy couldn’t tell why yet.  It had the correct amount of oil but the anti-freeze which had been full was way down.   The mechanic seem to think the engine block could have cracked.  Either way it would have to be replaced.  The needs a different engine … but new engines for that car are hard to get and the cost has jumped because they are made in Mexico and tRump’s tariffs are jumping up the price.  The good news is after calling a dozen different places the man was able to find an engine for it that had only 5,000 miles on it.   Basically new.  The car it had been in was totaled so he could get it for us for 2 grand.  Ron told him to go ahead.   He will get back to us with the labor cost.  

On the bathroom well all good plans of …   Ron got the pipes in for the water lines both hot and cold also the shower drain, we got the toilet taken off, the new floor put down which due to the tiles no locking heeded to be glued with corners ones being brad nailed, the toilet replaced with a new seal.   All good.  Ron rechecked his measurements and we even set the shower where he wanted it to check the alignment of the water and drain pipes.   We moved the shower back out and Ron built half the wall going across the two bathrooms and which would be the side wall of the shower.  He installed the vent pipe in the wall.   He ran the electric needed for the exhaust fan through the 2x4s.   

Then life got in the way of it being easy.  This morning we moved the shower in front of where it was to go.  Ron had for some reason made the drain pipe far too high from the floor decided to block the shower up so we could slide it back in place and lower it down over the pipe.  We got it blocked up and several times the blocks fell sideways so we scrambled to keep the shower from doing any damage like braking a water pipe.  Then as he got it back nearly to the wall reality made itself clear. 

The shower did not fit between the wall and the water pipes and the shower drain was off center of the hole in the shower itself.   Ron tried so hard to force it to wedge it in place until I reminded him that if he broke the pipes then the floor would have to be taken up and as it was glued that means all new floor tiles.   So we stopped for the day.   Tomorrow we move the shower out of the way and he will need to move the wall.  I hate to take even a couple inches out of the master bathroom but I guess if we have to do it to make getting both bathrooms done, then we do.   Below are the current pictures.  Best wishes for all and hugs for those that want them.  

Pennsylvania restaurant employees say ICE raid left a trail of destruction for the business

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/ice-raids-pittsburgh-mexican-restaurant-emilianos-pennsylvania-rcna224726

More racism.  Plus what does this say about how the Republican Party which is the party that touts themselves as pro business yet in the name of racism they feel free to trash people’s places of business. Notice everyone they detained was working.   Working.  These are not criminals they are productive members of their community.  Their real crime in the current US under Stephen Miller is not being white.  Yes undocumented but how soon will it be before they come for US citizen brown people in their quest for a white ethnostate.   We must stop them now.   Hugs

————————————————————————————————————-

In a social media post, the business said immigration agents left behind a burned kitchen, torn ceiling tiles, broken doors and trashed food.
00:54
 

A local Mexican restaurant chain in Pennsylvania is trying to forge ahead a week after a worksite immigration raid left property damage at two of its storefronts and a workforce afraid to show up to their jobs, according to two employees and a witness who spoke with NBC News.

It all started Aug. 7 when immigration authorities showed up at two Emiliano’s Mexican Restaurant & Bar locations in the Pittsburgh area. As many as 16 workers were detained — nine worked at a location in Gibsonia, a suburb north of Pittsburgh, and seven others worked at another location in the nearby township of Cranberry.

 

In a social media post that same afternoon, which included a video taken by a worker, the business accused agents of storming into its restaurants and leaving “a trail of fear, confusion, and destruction” that included a burned kitchen, torn ceiling tiles, broken doors, a safe cut open by an agent and trashed food. The incident raises questions over the tactics used by authorities at this particular raid.

ice agents federal raid immigration pittsburgh
Immigration authorities conducted a workplace raid on two Emiliano’s Mexican Restaurant & Bar locations on Aug. 7. Courtesy Jaime Martinez

This week, gas plumbers fixed a stove that was damaged during the raid, according to two people working at the restaurant chain. Staffing was also thin at the locations targeted by immigration authorities as employees who witnessed the raid, including those who are U.S. citizens, remain “in shock,” they added. “No one wants to go back, everyone is scared.”

Both workers who spoke with NBC News requested to not be named to protect their family’s privacy because of an ongoing federal investigation in connection with last week’s events.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Pennsylvania declined to clarify what the investigation it is leading is about.

As the immigration arrests were happening last week, someone alerted an emergency response immigration hotline run by Casa San Jose, a local nonprofit that advocates for Latino and immigrant communities.

The organization quickly dispatched about 20 volunteers to both locations to act as legal observers, collect testimonies and provide support to the workers and families affected, according to Jaime Martinez, a community defense organizer at Casa San Jose.

At the Gibsonia location, “the raid actually caused a kitchen fire that agents were unable to extinguish at the beginning, which put people in danger,” Martinez told NBC News on Tuesday.

Employees who spoke to Martinez and his volunteers said the stove was on when agents entered the kitchen because workers were cooking food as they prepared to open the restaurant Thursday morning. The restaurant’s manager warned agents that the open burners were on, but witnesses alleged that agents didn’t do anything until a fire sparked, he said.

The detained employees, who had their arms and ankles shackled, were the ones who directed the agents to find the fire extinguisher and instructed them on how to use it after initially failing to operate it, according to employees who spoke to Martinez and his volunteers.

“By the time the fire department got there, the fire had already been put out with a dry chemical extinguisher, but only after this delay,” Martinez said.

ice agent federal raid immigration pittsburgh masked
As many as 16 workers were detained at two locations in the Pittsburgh region.Courtesy Jaime Martinez

A spokesperson with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement told NBC News in an email Thursday that the “damage to the restaurant, including the small fire, was created by the illegal aliens themselves while they were trying to escape or hide from law enforcement officers.”

According to ICE, the agents showed up at the locations in Gibsonia and Cranberry to execute federal search warrants based on information it got alleging that the restaurants were employing undocumented workers, WPXI, NBC’s affiliate in Pittsburgh, reported. The agency added that the 16 people detained lack legal status and are now in ICE custody, undergoing immigration proceedings.

“But in the process of coming in with that warrant, they also terrorized the community, pointed guns at people and destroyed a local business,” Martinez said.

In response to this, the ICE spokesperson told NBC News, “All agents and officers followed established legal procedures while executing the warrants.”

At the Cranberry location, Casa San Jose volunteers interviewed a worker who described seeing officers come into the restaurant, shouting “police” and pointing their long guns at the employees. One female employee who was in the kitchen said an agent “pointed the gun at her head” while telling her to stop cooking, according to Martinez.

While she was not detained after showing proper documentation, “this lady is now going to have to live with the trauma of having law enforcement point a gun at her head while she was at work,” Martinez said.

Martinez and one of the workers who spoke with NBC News said agents lined up all of the cuffed employees and made them kneel while pointing their weapons at them.

“Agents and officers operated within established law enforcement standards in order to ensure the safety of law enforcement officers, the public and the illegal aliens themselves,” the ICE spokesperson said in response to this allegation.

ice agents federal raid immigration pittsburgh
An ICE spokesperson said agents were also present in June as part of the same investigation.Courtesy Jaime Martinez

Last week was not the first time immigration authorities attempted to detain employees from Emiliano’s Mexican Restaurant & Bar. The ICE spokesperson confirmed to NBC News that a June incident was part of “an investigation that ultimately led to the execution of the warrants” this month.

Martinez said that on a night in June, he got a call on the hotline, reporting unmarked vehicles surrounding a nearby apartment complex. When the volunteer who was dispatched arrived at the area, she noticed the vehicles were parked with their engines still running, in front and behind the restaurant.

According to Martinez, it looked like federal agents inside the vehicles were waiting for workers to come out of the restaurant as it was closing. The vehicles left once TV crews arrived on the scene, he said.

“There were nine people in that restaurant on lockdown,” Martinez said, adding his group doesn’t know the immigration status of those workers since it doesn’t ask people about that as part of its policy. “But you don’t have to be undocumented to be afraid of getting detained.”

Since launching the hotline in March, Casa San Jose has received more than 650 calls reporting more than 100 immigration detentions in the area and has dispatched volunteers in at least 70 instances, according to Martinez.

In the wake of the raids at Emiliano’s Mexican Restaurant and Bar locations, the community came together and collectively donated more than $133,000. The workers who spoke with NBC News said the business plans to use the funds to cover bond expenses, one month worth of salary for each employee detained and repair damage done to the restaurant.

Open Windows & Clay Jones

Historical Vision by Clay Jones

Don’t let fascists rewrite history Read on Substack

The Trump regime sent a letter to the Smithsonian Institution on Tuesday, requesting/demanding a “comprehensive internal review” of eight of its museums to bring the organization in line with Trump’s cultural directives ahead of the country’s 250th anniversary celebrations

The letter reads, This initiative aims to ensure alignment with the President’s directive to celebrate American exceptionalism, remove divisive or partisan narratives, and restore confidence in our shared cultural institutions.

The museums are the National Museum of American History, the National Museum of Natural History, the National Museum of African American History and Culture, the National Museum of the American Indian, the National Air and Space Museum, the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the National Portrait Gallery, and the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden.

What will these reviews determine? That the African American History Museum is too Black? This is more fascism.

The letter also stated, “Within 120 days, museums should begin implementing content corrections where necessary, replacing divisive or ideologically driven language with unifying, historically accurate, and constructive descriptions across placards, wall didactics, digital displays, and other public-facing materials.”

The beatings will continue until morale improves. (snip-you bet there’s MORE)

=====

Lock him up by Ann Telnaes

Crimes against democracy Read on Substack

The news media keep referring to Trump’s law & order agenda, which sets off my irony antenna. How about also mentioning in this coverage that Trump is a convicted felon and seditious ex-president who violated his sacred oath of office?

=====

Deep State Sandwich by Clay Jones

And this is why we can’t have $5-dollar foot longs anymore. Read on Substack

One of the editors who receives my cartoons wrote me today saying that he didn’t understand this cartoon, and would wait for the blog to explain it. Then he followed that with, “Hey, did you hear about the WNBA dildo throwers? Dude…

Anyhoos… Cops in Washington, DC have arrested a man who viciously attacked Border Patrol…with a Subway footlong sandwich. Maybe, if he had just thrown a 6-incher, there wouldn’t have been any ruckus over it, and Pam Bondi would have only charged him with a misdemeanor or would have been given a simple citation.

Baghdad wasn’t filled with violent insurgents until the US military invaded in 2003. It wasn’t long after the occupation of Iraq began that the terrorists showed up to kill Yankee devils, and I’m not talking about the Red Sox. Now, people who wanted to kill Americans didn’t have to travel so far.

W and Cheney promised a quick war, and they were right in that Saddam’s military was defeated in short order, but they ignored us when we told them the real fight would come after. Remember when they claimed we would be “greeted as liberators?” Yeah.

And you can say that cops weren’t being assaulted with sandwiches before Trump ordered the federalization of Washington, DC. Federalizing DC has not been greeted with warmth. It’s been greeted with derision and Subway sandwiches. I hope it wasn’t an Italian BMT. Those are my favorites. Remember the crab salad sub? What happened to those?

On Wednesday night, around 11 p.m., a man approached several Border Patrol officers in Washington, DC, in front of a Subway sandwich shop. Sean Charles Dun, the sandwich guy, reportedly called the heavily armed officers “fucking fascists,” yelling, “I don’t want you in my city!” before hurling a wrapped Subway sandwich at the chest of a Border Patrol cop, which bounced off his riot gear harmlessly. Kash Patel, a joke of an FBI director (this doesn’t help), shared a video of the incident. Dunn was later caught, “I did it. I threw a sandwich.”

The video is hilarious as you watch several cops chase a sandwich-throwing man in a pink shirt down the street. I get the whole chasing thing when they had a free sandwich. Maybe it was chicken teriyaki. You bastard!

Attorney General (ha!), Pam Bondi said, “This is an example of the Deep State we have been up against for seven months as we work to refocus DOJ.” That’s not a joke. She literally tweeted that. J6 was a little harmless protest, and the real danger is these deep-state sandwich fuckers. First, they sex traffic babies out of the basement of a DC pizza parlor, and now they’re throwing sandwiches at federal law enforcement. (snip-but wait, there’s MORE!)

I Read This Substack Every Chance I Get; About Louisiana Culture, History, & Food, & Now Survival

This one’s about trouble for all coastal states, coming from Louisianans.

Louisiana Fights Against Becoming Another Not There No More Statistic by Jerileewei

Terrebonne Parish: Where the Rivers Meets the Sea Read on Substack

CCJC Audio Podcast Episode 00086, Season 2

“It’s not just the land we’re losing. It’s the stories. The way we talk. The smell of the air before a big storm.” — Emile Navarre

Staff meeting at Cajun Chronicles Podcast Corp in New Orleans, with Blind Writer/Editor Emile Navarre and others.
Cajun Chronicles Audio Podcast – Bringing you the heart of Louisiana. Artwork generated with Google Docs Image Maker.

Back from his month long vacation in Chacahoula, Louisiana, Cajun Chronicle Podcast, Writer/Editor, Emile Navarre arrived for our first staff meeting armed with fresh material for a future episode, as soon as Marie Lirette, our Outreach Coordinator can reach out to potential experts on the topic of “Ain’t There No More” – a nation wide trending group talk everywhere these days, as our world changes in ways none of us could have imagined.

Here is his recount of his lifelong story telling to his family’s youngest children:

Emile Navarre in his rocking chair on front porch in Louisiana.
Cajun Chronicles Audio Podcast – Bringing you the heart of Louisiana. Artwork generated with Google Docs Image Maker

“Come closer, chérs,” he said, his voice a low rumble like the last Lafitte skiff shrimping boat of the day heading down the Bayou Lafourche over Galliano or Golden Meadow way. His cane bottom rocking chair seat creaked a steady rhythm against the worn Cedar floorboards as he said that.

The sun, a too warm blanket he could feel, but not see, was sinking somewhere behind the great oak in the yard he will always remember. He ran a hand over the cane of his chair, then rested it on the knee of a boy sitting on the steps below him. He lifted his walking stick and pointed off to the right side. “You see that big fence, hein?

“Or that levee your mamans and pépère have to climb to get home from work at the Bollinger Shipyard, just to get up to the house? We didn’t have such a thing when I was a boy. Back then, my feet knew every dip and bump in this land”.

“From our porch right down that oyster shell road to the bayou where the shrimp jumped so high, you’d swear you could catch them in your mouth, if you were quick.” A ripple of giggles ran through the children.

“Ah, oui,” he chuckled, “I lost a good tooth catching shrimp that way. But the land, it was different. We were like a river family. She’d bring us a big muddy hug every spring, and we’d be happy for it.”

“The floods, they were always a part of life. We’d move our things up high, sing songs, and wait for the water to go down. When it did, Mother Nature would leave behind a gift, a rich, dark mud that made our gardens burst with life. You could feel it in your toes, a soft, giving sponge of sandy soil that told you everything was going to be alright.”

He paused, and the laughter faded, replaced by the chirping of crickets.

“My pépère, he’d sit right here on the back porch with a fishing line tied to his toe, but in his mind, Gaia was always busy with the water. He’d talk about how the Lafourche river was a living thing, always moving, always changing. ‘She builds, and she takes away,‘ he’d say.”

“We knew that. A little bit here, a little bit there. It was a fair trade. But then came the men with the big ideas. They came from places where the land didn’t move so much. They told us we could stop the river’s big hugs. They said we could make a straight line and build high walls, so the water would stay in its place.”

Emile’s voice dropped to a conspiratorial whisper. “The young people, they thought it was wonderful. No more floods! No more moving furniture to the attic! But my pépère, he just shook his head. ‘You can’t trap a wild woman, not for long,’ he said. ‘She will find her way, and she will be angry for it.'”

“And she was,” he said, his hand now clutching his walking stick. “For years, the river was quiet, but our land, she was not. I can’t see it anymore with my eyes, but I felt it with my feet. The soil grew tired, no longer receiving her yearly gift.”

“The ground began to sag, and the bad marsh saltwater, it came closer in to say hello, not from a storm, but like a thief in the night, creeping up through the channels les Américains dug for the oil. They were for the big machines, the big money, but they were also a wound. A wound in the land that never healed.”

He turned his head toward the silent children, his milky blind blue eyes fixed on something only he could see. “Now, this levee you have, it protects you from the river, oui? But it holds the land in a box. It cannot breathe. The land is sick, and the ocean is hungry, taking a football field from our home every hour, the experts say.”

“I hear it in the wind now, not just the storms, but also in the sad whispers of the marsh, of the birds that have no place to land anymore. The land is leaving us, and we are left behind. We traded our river’s muddy hugs for a straight line and some high walls, and now we pay for it. Now, it’s not just the water that takes. It’s the land that gives itself away.”

The porch was silent, a stillness that was heavier than the humid air. The children looked at each other, not understanding all the words, but feeling the weight of them. One of the little girls, her braids tied with pink ribbons, quietly moved her hand to rest on the Emile’s knee as she headed inside for bed.

Emile smiled, his face creasing with a thousand invisible memories. Talking to the breeze, he raised his fist and threatened, “But you know what else my pépère said? He said, ‘As long as we tell the stories, the land is not truly gone.’ So listen, chérs, listen closely to my bedtime stories. Because now, it is your turn to remember.”

Emile Navarre with his horse, once a cattleman always a cattleman.
Cajun Chronicles Audio Podcast – Bringing you the heart of Louisiana. Artwork generated with Google Docs Image Maker

He had felt the last of the children’s light footsteps fade into the dusk, and the porch was still again except for his rocking chair. His head turned to the quiet rustling of the adults lingering on the porch. “You hear my stories, oui?” he said, his voice now lower, rougher.

“You too remember what I said about the river’s gift of mud? We didn’t know it, but we were like a family that had a big, generous table. Rivers brought food, and our land ate it. Every year, she’d get fat and happy. We thought we were so smart, so clever, when we built those high walls.”

“We told Gaia to stop eating for a while, believing for a while that she didn’t need the mud. ‘Don’t worry,’ we said, ‘We’ll protect you from the floods.’ But what we really did was put the food in a box and send it out to sea. Now, the land is starving. You cannot see it in a day, or a year. But that’s happening rapidly.”

“But I feel it in every part of my mind and body. Every year, she gets thinner, weaker. And like a sick old person who can’t stand anymore, Mother Earth’s starting to melt away. The medicine to save her is that very food we cut her off from. But the walls of levees and the canals the Corps of Engineers built? They are so high.”

“How will we get the food back to Louisiana’s coast before she’s gone entirely? That is the story my heart tells me now. And that is the story for you all to worry about. Time’s running out. I’m 75 years young this month. In another 75 years I won’t be here to see that my beloved Louisiane will be added to that dreaded list, “Ain’t Here No More.“


Cajun Chronicles Note: Sediment Starvation: The settlers’ levees and later government agencies built, while protecting their land from floods, also had an unintended consequence that would become a major factor in today’s coastal crisis. By containing the rivers, they prevented the natural flooding that would have deposited sediment into the wetlands.

This sediment was the building block of the delta. Without it, the land began to sink (subsidence) and slowly disappear. The settlers since the 1800s and later colonists were unaware of this long-term process and the vital role of the Mississippi’s and other rivers’ sediment in sustaining the land.

Water’s Takin’ Our Land, Gulf’s Hungry & She Ain’t Slowin’ Down

Cartoon image of Gulf ocean swallowing coastal Louisiana in a lunch box.
Cajun Chronicles Audio Podcast – Bringing you the heart of Louisiana. Artwork generated with Google Docs Image Maker

Louisiana has the highest coastal land loss rate in the United States. Since the 1930s, the state has lost about 2,000 square miles of land. This is a significant amount, roughly the size of the state of Delaware.

Without major intervention, the state of Louisiana is projected to lose an additional 700 to 1,000 square miles of land by the year 2050. This is an area roughly the size of the greater Washington D.C.-Baltimore area.

By the year 2100, the projections are even more dire, with some worst-case scenarios suggesting that up to 3,000 square miles of land could be lost. Some scientists have even warned that the entire remaining 5,800 square miles of Louisiana’s coastal wetlands in the Mississippi River delta could eventually disappear.


A Word of Wisdom:

Our fictional and non-fictional tales are inspired by real Louisiana and New Orleans history, but some details may have been spiced up for a good story. While we’ve respected the truth, a bit of creative license could have been used. Please note that all characters may be based on real people, but their identities in some cases have been Avatar masked for privacy. Others are fictional characters with connections to Louisiana.

As you read, remember history and real life is a complex mix of joy, sorrow, triumph, and tragedy. While we may have (or not) added a bit of fiction, the core message remains, the human spirit’s power to endure, adapt, and overcome.

© Jerilee Wei 2025 All Rights Reserved.