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Join Louis R. Avallone and Stephen Parr on American Ground Radio - Louisiana Edition as they delve deep into the heartbeat of Louisiana, serving up a gumbo of local and...
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Join Louis R. Avallone and Stephen Parr on American Ground Radio - Louisiana Edition as they delve deep into the heartbeat of Louisiana, serving up a gumbo of local and statewide news, and political opinion to boot.
Whether you're in NOLA or Natchitoches, Minden or Moss Bluff, grab a seat and savor not just the spicy Louisiana politics, but also the company of friends and family that make this place we call home.
show less
Whether you're in NOLA or Natchitoches, Minden or Moss Bluff, grab a seat and savor not just the spicy Louisiana politics, but also the company of friends and family that make this place we call home.
Episodes & Posts
Episodes
Posts
Transcribed
4 SEP 2026 · You're listening to American Ground Radio with Louis R. Avallone and Stephen Parr. This is the full show for September 3, 2026.
We open by digging into Bossier Parish's new ordinance making it a crime to use a restroom that doesn't match one's biological sex in parish-owned buildings, walking through the penalties, how it builds on Louisiana's 2024 Women's Safety and Protection Act, and why we think giving law enforcement a real enforcement tool is worth it.
From there we hit our Top 3 things you need to know: the SEC suing LSU over its recruitment of former NFL players, the town of Homer, Louisiana halting payments on an unconstitutional water meter contract after Attorney General Liz Murrill stepped in, and two former St. Tammany Parish elementary school principals pleading guilty to failing to report child abuse.
We talk LSU football ahead of the Clemson home opener and Lane Kiffin's Death Valley debut as head coach, including the swirling allegations from an upcoming book about his past off-field conduct at Alabama, and what it means for the university if any of it turns out to be true. We Dig Deep into a legislative audit finding dozens of Louisiana's roughly 500 state boards and commissions are dormant, inactive, or exist only on paper, and what that says about political patronage in state government.
We break down the new gold Trump dollar coin marking America's 250th anniversary, debate whether Rahm Emanuel's comment about wanting to hit Hasan Piker with a two-by-four was a legitimate call to violence or just a figurative jab, and react to Maria Bartiromo's abrupt departure from Fox News after more than a decade. We play a quick game guessing the states with the highest and lowest overall tax burden per capita, and close out talking about the Trump administration's unprecedented level of media access and JD Vance's praise for outgoing Press Secretary Caroline Leavitt.
Listen now wherever you get your podcasts, visit AmericanGroundRadio.com, and join the conversation at 866-AGR-1776.
Transcribed
3 SEP 2026 · You're listening to American Ground Radio with Louis R. Avallone and Stephen Parr. This is the full show for September 2, 2026.
We start by breaking down Louisiana joining a Federal Trade Commission lawsuit against Amazon, along with 22 other states, alleging the company rigged its advertising auctions with a fake bidder to drive up prices for the 500,000 small and medium-sized businesses that advertise on its platform, and we walk through how that cost ultimately trickles down to consumers.
In our Top 3, we cover the resignation of the lead prosecutor on the East Baton Rouge Parish corruption probe, the state of Louisiana moving to take over the finances of the town of Cullen after it fell more than $332,000 in debt, and Medicaid provider Healthy Blue's exit from the Louisiana market, which will force nearly 300,000 customers to switch plans.
We dig into the controversy over LSU adding former NFL players and fifth-year transfers to its roster under Lane Kiffin, arguing college football has become a full-fledged farm league for the NFL, and we contrast Colin Kaepernick's new memoir and victimhood narrative with Tim Tebow's post-NFL path of faith and charity work.
We say what to a gripping House committee moment where Marcus Coleman, father of a girl severely injured by an illegal immigrant driver, confronted Democrats over their handling of Delilah's Law, a bill that would bar states from issuing driver's licenses to illegal aliens.
We also push back on director Maggie Gyllenhaal's complaints about too few female directors in Hollywood, arguing merit and audience approval, not quotas, should decide who gets to direct, before running down a WalletHub survey on the best and worst U.S. cities to retire in, noting the best-ranked cities skew heavily Republican and the worst skew heavily Democrat.
We close by taking aim at Texas Senate candidate James Talarico, dubbed "Talafrico," over his push to dismantle capitalism, making the case that capitalism remains history's fastest path from poverty to prosperity while socialism has failed everywhere it's been tried.
Listen now wherever you get your podcasts, visit AmericanGroundRadio.com, and join the conversation at 866-AGR-1776.
Transcribed
2 SEP 2026 · You're listening to American Ground Radio with Louis R. Avallone and Stephen Parr. This is the full show for September 1, 2026.
We open by digging into what college football has become, using LSU's addition of Daquan Wright — released from the Cleveland Browns' preseason roster just days before enrolling at LSU — to ask whether "student-athlete" still means anything, why Louisiana taxpayers keep subsidizing money-losing college programs, and what Clemson coach Dabo Sweeney had to say about it.
From there we run through the top things you need to know: Louisiana Congressman Clay Higgins refusing to vote for Senate-passed bills over the SAVE Act standoff, New Orleans turning down federal Model Cities grant money rather than cooperate with ICE and crack down on homeless encampments, and Ascension Parish phasing out its emergency sirens in favor of digital alerts through the Everbridge app.
We dig into Louisiana's move to allow higher-ethanol gasoline blends, weighing the state's push for cheaper fuel against the corrosion risks to older engines, before turning to the corruption case against East Baton Rouge Superintendent Lamont Cole, who sat down for his first interview since being indicted on bribery, money laundering, and malfeasance charges tied to COVID relief contracts.
We call out Rosie O'Donnell's viral comparison of the U.S. to fascist regimes and her claims about ICE detention facilities, and we break down President Trump's blunt response to a reporter's question about using nuclear weapons against Iran, walking through why Iran's military — navy, air force, and all — is already effectively defeated. We also mark 25 years since 9/11 with new data showing more than 57,000 certified 9/11-related cancer cases among survivors and responders.
We play a preseason college football ranking game working through the AP Top 10 and the top-grossing programs nationally, and we close by looking at how far the Democratic Party has drifted on socialism, from 86 House Democrats backing an anti-socialism resolution last year to just eight doing so this time around.
Listen now wherever you get your podcasts, visit AmericanGroundRadio.com, and join the conversation at 866-AGR-1776.
Transcribed
1 SEP 2026 · You're listening to American Ground Radio with Louis R. Avallone and Stephen Parr. This is the full show for August 31, 2026.
We open with a close look at the case of State Rep. Michael Mallory, whose car ended up in a ditch in Bossier Parish after what may have been a medical emergency, and we dig into the bodycam details, the missing blood draw, and whether an elected official was given a level of deference an ordinary citizen wouldn't have received in the same circumstances.
We run through the Top 3 things you need to know: the family of a New Orleans teen who died urban exploring in an abandoned plaza tower says they're preparing to sue, Governor Jeff Landry has tapped State Rep. Mark Wright to head the Louisiana DOTD's Office of Multimodal Commerce, and a former Doerun, Louisiana mayor convicted of sex with a minor will not get a harsher sentence despite an acknowledged judicial error.
We turn to a string of violent incidents in Times Square under Mayor Mamdani, including a woman who stabbed multiple people at random before being shot by police, and we talk about what it means for a city's sense of safety, and for the officers who have to make split-second calls. We break down why the U.S.-Canada trade deal collapsed, unpacking Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick's on-record comments and the political calculations tied to upcoming provincial elections in Quebec, British Columbia, and Alberta.
For Say What, we look at Rahm Emanuel's new insistence that Democratic Socialists aren't really part of the Democratic Party, and whether that holds up against the party's own recent history. We also play a quick geography game on America's biggest export and import partners, and close by talking about the Dallas Stars dropping Pride Night in favor of a new "Hockey Unites Us" theme.
Listen now wherever you get your podcasts, visit AmericanGroundRadio.com, and join the conversation at 866-AGR-1776.
31 AUG 2026 · You're listening to American Ground Radio with Louis R. Avallone and Stephen Parr. This is the full show for August 28,2026.
We open by digging into the detention of conservative commentator Milo Yiannopoulos, arrested by ICE in New Orleans after overstaying his visa and missing an immigration hearing, and we make the case that enforcing the law evenly, even against a high-profile conservative, is exactly how it should work. We run through our Top 3, covering the Louisiana GOP's unprecedented dual endorsement in the CD6 congressional race, their endorsement of Misty Cordell in CD5, and more on Yiannopoulos's detention.
We phone LA GOP Chairman Derek Babcock to get the full story behind the dueling endorsements and how the party's decades-old endorsement process may need updating. We talk about Jelly Roll walking back comments after hosting Jimmy Kimmel's show, and why we think Dolly Parton, Kenny Chesney, and the late Johnny Carson had it right by staying out of politics as entertainers. Say What brings us Senator John Fetterman's comments to Greta Van Susteren about the Democratic Party's leftward drift, plus a poll showing Fetterman is more popular with Pennsylvania Republicans than their own senator. We poke fun at the NFL's end zone slogans and debate whether messages like "End Racism" actually accomplish anything, then break down the Center Square Voters' Voice poll on the top issues heading into this fall's election, led by inflation and the economy. We close with an update on Iran's collapsing economy, its outreach to Qatar, and the underreported story of U.S. Navy escorts moving hundreds of millions of barrels of oil safely through the Strait of Hormuz.
Listen now wherever you get your podcasts, visit AmericanGroundRadio.com, and join the conversation at 866-AGR-1776.
Transcribed
28 AUG 2026 · You're listening to American Ground Radio with Louis R. Avallone and Stephen Parr. This is the full show for August 27, 2026.
We open by noting the eerie coincidence of Tropical Storm Dolly forming in the Atlantic just 48 hours after Dolly Parton's passing, before turning to a report that FEMA workers skipped homes displaying pro-Trump signage during Hurricane Milton recovery efforts, and why political affiliation should never factor into disaster relief.
We get to our Top 3 things you need to know: Louisiana Judge Stephen Terrell's disqualification from re-election after failing to file his taxes for three straight years, fiscal administrator David Greer's decision to stay on longer in Homer, Louisiana, to finish reconstructing the city's financial records, and Sportran's new autonomous vehicle pilot program coming to Shreveport bus routes.
We dig deep into the Louisiana Board of Regents' $500,000 investment aimed at addressing "food insecurity" among college students, questioning whether the vague terminology is stretching the definition of hunger and whether existing resources like SNAP benefits and community food banks would serve students better than a new state program. We also break down President Trump's executive order renaming Lake Ontario to "Lake America," and run through the ten largest lakes in the country for good measure.
We're joined by Center Square reporter Adam Herbets, who walks us through his investigation into a leaked 2024 memo showing more than 20 Democratic attorneys general coordinating plans to sue a second Trump administration months before the election even happened, and the stonewalling tactics several states have used to block public records requests on the matter.
We also cover a leaked memo from the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation instructing staff not to refer to 9/11 as a terrorist attack, and a report that short-staffing among air traffic controllers contributed to a runway collision between an Air Canada flight and a fire truck.
Listen now wherever you get your podcasts, visit AmericanGroundRadio.com, and join the conversation at 866-AGR-1776.
Transcribed
27 AUG 2026 · You're listening to American Ground Radio with Louis R. Avalone and Stephen Parr. This is the full show for August 26, 2026.
We start by digging into a wild Caddo Parish Commission saga: a judge ruled that seven Democratic commissioners didn't violate the state's Open Meetings Law when they quietly drafted and circulated a proclamation welcoming Bernie Sanders to Shreveport without ever holding a vote or an open meeting, and Attorney General Liz Murrill is now fighting a nearly $245,000 legal-fee order tied to her lawsuit over it. From there we hit the Top 3: Louisiana is set to collect $180 million from Meta over child-safety allegations, a New Orleans teacher is asking the Supreme Court to strike down Louisiana's Ten Commandments classroom law, and Sportran is expanding bus service into West Shreveport.
We also dig into a report that Louisiana's private-sector workers log the longest average work week in the country, and push back on the idea that it points to unfair wages rather than a strong blue-collar work ethic. Digging Deep looks at the murder of Nicholas Dent in New Orleans, allegedly at the hands of a man who had five outstanding felony warrants that were never served, and questions why NOPD never picked him up. We turn to the Secret Service next, where several employees have lost their security clearances amid an investigation into leaks about President Trump's secretive departure from Turkey.
In Say What, we share Justice Clarence Thomas's conversation with Senator Ted Cruz on individual liberty and personal responsibility. Then we reflect on intrinsic motivation through the lens of Dolly Parton and Phil Collins, both of whom kept creating long after fame and fortune stopped being the point, before playing a quick game about America's top theme parks, where Dolly's own Dollywood holds its own against Disney and Universal. We close by weighing in on Jelly Roll's monologue jabs at President Trump while guest-hosting Jimmy Kimmel.
Listen now wherever you get your podcasts, visit AmericanGroundRadio.com, and join the conversation at 866-AGR-1776.
Transcribed
26 AUG 2026 · You're listening to American Ground Radio with Louis R. Avallone and Stephen Parr. This is the full show for August 25, 2026.
We kick things off pushing back on Louisiana pessimism, pointing to the wave of billion-dollar investment pouring into the state under Governor Jeff Landry, from a steel mill in Ascension Parish to data centers in northwest Louisiana, and now the headline announcement: SpaceX's $100 billion Starbase Louisiana, set to become the largest spaceport in the world near Pecan Island in Vermilion Parish.
In our Top 3, we cover the SpaceX Starbase Louisiana announcement in detail, a Iberville Parish jury awarding Louisiana Supreme Court Justice Jeff Hughes $300,000 in a defamation suit against The Advocate, and the Caddo Parish Commission's push for a $70 million sports complex headed to the November ballot.
In Digging Deep, we get into the messy Louisiana GOP endorsement fight in CD6 between Blake Miguez and Rick Edmonds, the tension between Governor Landry and Miguez, and how Landry's relationships with President Trump, Speaker Mike Johnson, and Steve Scalise helped land the Starbase deal along with the new legislative incentives that made it possible.
We debate President Trump's floated idea of renaming Lake Ontario "Lake America" amid the trade standoff with Canada, and whether that's consistent with his renaming of the Gulf of America.
Our Say What segment honors Dolly Parton, who passed away this week at 80, with a look back at some of her most memorable quotes on resilience, identity, and staying true to yourself.
We also revisit the fight between New York City's government-run grocery stores and immigrant-owned bodegas, play a quick trivia round on which U.S. cities have the most (and fastest-growing) tech job markets, and close with concerns over reports of Canadian officials allegedly coordinating with congressional Democrats to undermine the administration's trade negotiations.
Transcribed
25 AUG 2026 · You're listening to American Ground Radio with Louis R. Avallone and Stephen Parr.
We open with a hard look at Louisiana's criminal justice bottleneck, sparked by a viral social media post about a repeat offender in Caddo Parish who saw most of his charges dropped. We argue the real issue isn't lenient plea deals but a system without enough jail beds, courtrooms, judges, and prosecutors to keep pace with the volume of crime, and we push for a more honest statewide conversation about capacity rather than just outcomes. From there we hit the top three things you need to know: the Fifth Circuit hearing Louisiana's challenge to mail-order abortion pills, State Senator Blake Miguez earning the Louisiana GOP's endorsement for the newly redrawn 6th Congressional District amid pushback from rival candidates, and Shreveport running out of fluoride for its water supply due to a global shortage tied to the conflict in the Middle East.
We dig deeper into the CD6 endorsement controversy, questioning whether the state party's process was fair after State Senator Rick Edmonds claimed he had more central committee votes than Miguez but still lost the party's backing, and we debate when party endorsements in primaries are appropriate versus when they undermine the will of the voters. We Dig Deep into Louisiana's new physical education standards requiring fitness assessments starting in kindergarten, and swap stories about recess, dodgeball, and the golden age of Parachute Day.
We cover the WNBA's decision to bar former NBA players Enes Kanter Freedom and Royce White from the 2027 draft after they said they identify as women, arguing the league has opened itself up to real legal exposure by rejecting their sincerity rather than defining what makes someone eligible as a woman in the first place. We break down Florida Senate nominee Angie Nixon's attempt to distance herself from her Democratic Socialists of America roots in a new interview, and debate exactly who she's lying to: the base that nominated her or the general election voters she now needs. We revisit the Freedom 250 Indy car race through the streets of D.C., making the case that a little national audacity is worth the road closures and the cost. We play a numbers game on which states saw the highest and lowest job growth in 2025, with red states dominating the top of the list. We close with a lighthearted jab at Jared Kushner's meeting with House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, debating what it does or doesn't signal about the balance of power on Capitol Hill.
Listen now wherever you get your podcasts, visit AmericanGroundRadio.com, and join the conversation at 866-AGR-1776.
Transcribed
24 AUG 2026 · You're listening to American Ground Radio with Louis R. Avallone and Stephen Parr. This is the full show for August 21, 2026.
We open with good news out of New Orleans: the Louisiana National Guard is wrapping up its eight-month deployment by August 31st, a withdrawal made possible by violent crime dropping to near-historic lows, with murders nearly cut in half since 2022. We compare New Orleans' success to similar Guard deployments in Memphis and D.C. versus the stalled effort in Chicago, and we debate whether Mayor Helena Moreno is quietly relieved to see the Guard go. We move into the top three things you need to know: the Guard's confirmed departure date, an ICE officer arrested in St. Tammany Parish for breaking into his ex-girlfriend's apartment, and a third round of pay stipends approved for Bossier Parish teachers and support staff.
We dig into New Orleans' sanitation department paying private contractors to service nearly 5,000 addresses the city itself has already flagged as retired, duplicate, or ineligible, a waste uncovered only because the Louisiana Legislative Auditor got involved after the city borrowed money from the state. We go Digging Deep on the growing gap between what Louisiana reimburses parishes for housing state inmates and what it actually costs, using Caddo and Washington Parish as case studies, and we argue the state's failure to build a new prison since 1991 is driving overcrowding and cost-shifting onto local sheriffs.
We cover the Supreme Court's decision, authored by Chief Justice Roberts, allowing construction to continue on the White House's $400 million ballroom project, and we make the case that the underlying controversy was really about the secure bunker beneath it. In our Say What segment, we play a clip of California Governor Gavin Newsom encouraging residents to sign up for Trump accounts, and we take the rare opportunity to credit him for setting politics aside on this one issue. We break down the Trump administration's decision to end Temporary Protected Status for Haitian nationals and begin repatriation flights, framing it as a matter of fairness to immigrants who followed the legal process. We play a lighthearted guessing game on which states have the most professional sports franchises, with California topping the list. We close by criticizing a wave of New York City Council proposals, including a $30 minimum wage, an elephant ban, and mandated sick leave for sick pets, arguing the city is ignoring its real problems in favor of symbolic legislation.
Listen now wherever you get your podcasts, visit AmericanGroundRadio.com, and join the conversation at 866-AGR-1776.
Join Louis R. Avallone and Stephen Parr on American Ground Radio - Louisiana Edition as they delve deep into the heartbeat of Louisiana, serving up a gumbo of local and...
show more
Join Louis R. Avallone and Stephen Parr on American Ground Radio - Louisiana Edition as they delve deep into the heartbeat of Louisiana, serving up a gumbo of local and statewide news, and political opinion to boot.
Whether you're in NOLA or Natchitoches, Minden or Moss Bluff, grab a seat and savor not just the spicy Louisiana politics, but also the company of friends and family that make this place we call home.
show less
Whether you're in NOLA or Natchitoches, Minden or Moss Bluff, grab a seat and savor not just the spicy Louisiana politics, but also the company of friends and family that make this place we call home.
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