https://www.wwltv.com/article/news/investigations/trump-touts-10000-checks-for-louisiana-data-center-neighbors-residents-say-they-got-none/289-83e68dfd-d016-4c63-abc6-e32513cd67c2

A claim from President Trump about $10,000 payments to people near a Louisiana data center has left residents and state officials with questions.

In a TV interview Monday in Detroit, President Donald Trump touted $10,000 checks going to “everybody living in the community” around a Louisiana data center.

One problem: Louisiana’s economic development agency and the people living next to the state’s largest data center project don’t know anything about it.

“So, we had a community in Louisiana and they were really, you know, opposed (to the data center) and everything else,” Trump said. “All of a sudden, they got paid $10,000. Everybody living in the community got a check for $10,000, and everybody loved it. They said, ‘Where do we do our next data center?’”

Trump made the comment to former New Orleans journalist Roop Raj during a live interview on Fox2 Detroit.

Emma Wagner, spokesperson for Louisiana Economic Development, the agency that has brokered large data center projects in the state, said she isn’t aware of any direct payments to residents living near those projects.

“If there were $10,000 payments, I’d be shouting it from the rooftops,” she said.

Wagner said she can’t be sure what the president was talking about but assumed he was thinking of bonuses of up to $50,000 paid to Richland Parish public school teachers as a result of the increased sales taxes collected there during the construction of Meta’s largest data center there, in the tiny community of Holly Ridge.

Two Holly Ridge residents who have spoken out against the massive Hyperion data center encroaching on their community, Tatiana Thompson and Diane Cobb, told WWL they have not received any direct payments from Meta or anyone else because of the project.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for a clarification of what Trump was talking about.

Raj was asking Trump about data center projects in Michigan, where Mike Rogers, the Republican nominee in a razor-tight US Senate race, has called for a 1-year moratorium on new data centers. When Trump mentioned the purported payments in Louisiana, Raj pointed out, “In Saline (Mich.), they’re not getting paid.”

Trump correctly noted that taxes are going down in communities where the data center projects are being built. As WWL has reported in Richland Parish, about 7,500 construction workers and tradespeople have come to the area, and business in neighboring towns is booming. And in West Feliciana Parish, construction of the new Hut 8 data center has brought a 10% increase in sales tax revenues, allowing the parish to cut tax rates for local residents and businesses.

Trump also talked about power concerns at large data centers and took credit for forcing the tech companies to generate their own power.

“The data centers, because of what I did … they make their own electricity,” he told Raj. “So, we don’t take from the electricity, we give it back. The excess capacity, they put it back into the grid.”

In Louisiana, Wagner said Meta and other data center companies, in order to get millions in tax incentives, have to agree to protect ratepayers from taking on the costs of new power projects. That’s been a point of contention with the Meta project as Entergy Louisiana seeks approval to build over 5 gigawatts of new power plants to supply the Hyperion site.

Entergy said its 20-year agreement with Meta could bring $4 billion in savings to other Louisiana electric customers, but it has kept most of the details of the deal secret and opponents are concerned about some of the $20 billion in costs for new infrastructure being passed on to ratepayers.

This is why you vote them out

They’re breaking all of us with this cruelty

And we are
Paying for these concentration camps and paying for their crimes . We are funding the biggest authoritarian most
Corrupt criminal gang of evil
Clowns on the planet

This year’s statewide ballot measures are written, on average, at a graduate-school reading level, according to a new report.

The readability of 2026’s ballot questions — which ask voters to weigh in on issues as varied as abortion, property taxes, voter ID and firearms — varies by state, political data tracking nonprofit Ballotpedia found in its newest Ballot Measure Readability Report.

The report analyzes the level of education voters would need to understand the titles and summaries of the measures put before them. Because ballot measures are often lengthy and full of legal language, states write shorter titles to be published on the ballot for voters to read.

Many of this year’s ballot measures don’t include summaries to supplement the titles. And many voters don’t read beyond a measure’s title before deciding how to vote, Ballotpedia researchers note.

This year, 164 measures have been or will be on the ballot across 40 states. The titles average a reading level requiring 17 years of education, which corresponds to a first-year graduate student. The summaries average a reading level requiring 15 years of education. About 42% of the U.S. adult population ages 25-54 have a bachelor’s degree or higher, according to the most recently available data from the U.S. Census Bureau.

Title readability ranges from a fifth-grade level for an Idaho question asking voters to choose an official state gun to a 48th-grade level for a Colorado constitutional amendment that would establish a right to hunt and fish, Ballotpedia found. No formal education level corresponds to a 48th-grade level, but that rating indicates an extremely advanced language structure.

“The most significant factor driving readability differences isn’t the type or topic of the ballot measure, but which state it’s in,” said Ryan Byrne, managing editor of Ballotpedia’s ballots team, in a statement.

Kentucky, Massachusetts and Tennessee had the lowest average title readability grade level, at 10 years of education, while Colorado had the highest at 33 years, followed by Hawaii at 31 years and Nevada at 26, according to the report.

Research has found voters are more likely to skip ballot questions that have more complex language.

About half of states have enacted laws designed to make ballot measure language easier to read. Earlier this year, Maryland enacted a law requiring ballot questions to be written in plain and clear language. Last year, Arkansas required ballot titles to be written at no more than an eighth-grade level.

But still, the average readability score for state ballot measures since 2017, when Ballotpedia began tracking it, is about 18 years of education, or the equivalent of a second-year graduate student.

This year, Kansas had the longest ballot question title, at 927 words for a constitutional amendment that would have authorized the election of state Supreme Court justices and abolished an existing nominating commission. Voters defeated it in August.

Alaska will have the shortest title, at just five words, for a measure to amend state law to allow only U.S. citizens to vote in elections.

Ballotpedia uses two formulas to calculate readability, which includes looking at the number of syllables, words and sentences in a text.

Readability scores for each of the 164 ballot measures this year can be found in Ballotpedia’s report.

https://lailluminator.com/2026/10/26/election-monitors/

An unspecified number of election monitors from the U.S. Department of Justice will be sent to Louisiana for the Nov. 3 election, but an agency spokesman said the deployment is nothing out of the ordinary and similar to measures it has taken for decades in previous elections.

A spokesman for the Louisiana Secretary of State said Friday its officials were “indirectly informed” the DOJ will send election monitors to certain jurisdictions, but the state has not received any official notice of its plans or the parishes where they will be stationed.

When asked to confirm its plans, an unnamed Justice Department representative responded via email Friday that the agency will have monitors in all 50 states. U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche has previously said roughly 1,000 monitors are being sent across the country, adding that his agency routinely sends out these workers for elections.

“All monitors must meet the same legal and ethical requirements, including that they not interfere with the voting process,” a DOJ spokesperson said in an email to the Illuminator. “Every monitor has the same role: observe for potential violations of federal law and report concerns to the Department, which the Department will review after Election Day and act where appropriate.”

Some states have provided more information on DOJ monitoring plans for the Nov. 3 election.

In Michigan, Attorney General Dana Nessel issued a news release Thursday that said the DOJ sent notices to communities in the state that federal monitors would be sent to their polling places on Election Day. They include Detroit, East Lansing, Flint, Grand Rapids and Lansing.

Federal monitors are also being sent to three Oklahoma counties, including the two most populous, according to its state election board.

Salt Lake County in Utah has learned federal monitors will be present on Election Day. Lt. Gov. Diedre Henderson said she expects more but hasn’t learned details of where they will be deployed.

Henderson is among GOP state elections officials who have not met the Trump administration’s demand to provide their voter data.

Election monitors’ duties include ensuring that polling places are in compliance with federal laws such as the Voting Rights Act and measures that ensure access for the elderly and disabled.

The Trump administration’s every move ahead of Election Day is drawing scrutiny as the president has spent months strongly suggesting the federal government take over elections from states, which goes against what’s laid out in Article 1, Section 4 of the U.S. Constitution.

WIthout any supporting evidence, Trump continues to claim the 2020 presidential election was “rigged” against him that Democrats will cheat in the midterm elections to take control from Republicans in the U.S. House and Senate.

Courtrooms have become the Trump administration’s most frequent forum to take on state election officials, including some Republicans who have rejected his demands to turn over voter rolls to ensure noncitizens don’t cast ballots.

Louisiana was the first state to use a new voter list maintenance database from the U.S. Department of Government Efficiency, providing Secretary of State Nancy Landry with information to check voters’ immigration status. Landry, a Republican, confirmed in January detailed information on Louisiana voters would be provided to the Department of Justice. She said state officials determined they had to comply with the DOJ’s request, The Times-Picayune reported.

The Trump administration has continued to pursue legal action heading up to the Nov. 3 election as polls show Republican candidates losing ground in congressional races.

Earlier this month, the DOJ sued California to block some 20,000 ballots that the feds claimed were mailed to noncitizens. And on Thursday, the administration filed a lawsuit against Alaska in the event that a Democrat wins its U.S. Senate race.

European and Mediterranean dock workers, joined by other unions across the globe, have called for strikes, protests and other solidarity actions on October 30th against the Gazan genocide, austerity and attacks on immigrants to help forge the world we want.

The hubs of this international day of action are the port cities of the world of which more than 100 such cities have already pledged to join. New Orleans is in the ranks of these ports.

New Orleans October 30th Action
Protest/Rally
4:00pm Friday, October 30th 2026
Location: Napoleon Avenue and Tchoupitoulas
Sponsors include:
World Federation of Trade Unions
National Action Coalition
Stand Up For Democracy
Socialist Horizon

Up the ramp, up the steps, through the doors, down the hall, all the way to the polling site!

You all voted for this

Three time losers

The government (Louisiana Public Service Commission) decides this, and you can vote on it this year!

Entergy's own staff has said that we're on the hook for $3.85B for this one plant alone, if everything goes according to plan. Entergy has been caught literally writing the rules that commissioners are passing. They have been caught trying to pay 6x the 2024 cost for a 22 year old power plant, and put it directly on our bills.

I'm a licensed chemical engineer who consulted for the LPSC. I'm furious with the waste and corruption I saw, so I quit that role to run for it. I'm refusing utility campaign contributions (my opponent is a career politician who has taken 45% of her money from utilities).

Vote Chris Justin for Public Service Commissioner on Nov 3rd!

Candidate and Amendment recommendations from the Louisiana Citizen Advocacy Group. Every recommendation is based on what best serves Louisiana citizens instead of big special interests or politicians. Vote smart on 11-3.

https://www.lacag.org/constitutional-amendments-2026

https://www.lacag.org/candidate-endorsements-2026

Found out recently that Aubrey Avocado’s partner works for a company that builds data center infrastructure and micro power grids for rich people (among doing other terrible things like carbon capture)
It’s pretty hypocritical and honestly discredits her entire platform in my opinion

Also just found out that Lindsay “Rubia” Garcia is a white woman? Why is she playing up the nickname given to her by the salsa community and her husbands last name to be perceived as a woman of color? Like I guess it’s a good strategy to play into the hands of the LA dem influencers for endorsements but it seems pretty shady

And I am a liberal blue dot dem so this is not coming from across party lines

Davis is closing the gap as he bids to be Louisiana’s first Black U.S. Senator since Reconstruction, leaving Letlow without the sure victory Republicans had hoped for. ‘This is not going to be a slam dunk,’ a pollster warns.

It is election season!

I mean wow just wow how much more nonsense is laundry going to pull before he is out.

Wake up