Free Republic

UNC Changes Health Insurance Over AbortionPosted: 7:36 AM Aug 13, 2010 The University of North Carolina will let students remove coverage for elective abortions from their university-sponsored health insurance after a national group complained about the coverage. UNC system President Erskine Bowles on Thursday directed a student insurance company to contact students who have bought a policy this fall and give them the chance to opt out of that coverage. Students for Life of America started a petition drive this week demanding the UNC Board of Governors remove the abortion provision. Group President Kristan Hawkins said students shouldn't be required...

NAACP Head Banned From NC's Largest School SystemPOSTED: 8:32 am EDT July 15, 2010 RALEIGH -- Four civil rights activists arrested for protesting what they call a decision to resegregate North Carolina's largest school district have been barred from school property. The News & Observer reported Thursday that Wake County school officials have warned the four protesters they will face legal action if they step on school property without permission. The warning targets state NAACP president Rev. William Barber, Duke University historian Tim Tyson, and two others arrested June 15 on accusations they disrupted a school board meeting. Barber planned...

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The operator of a South Carolina toll highway sought bankruptcy protection on Thursday in a rare filing by a municipal entity under Chapter 9 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code.Connector 2000 Association Inc filed for protection with the U.S. bankruptcy court in Spartanburg, South Carolina, with more than $200 million of bonds outstanding, court records showed.The nonprofit had been set up in 1996 by the South Carolina Department of Transportation to operate the 16 mile "Southern Connector" toll road in Greenville County, and build an extension to South Carolina Highway 153, records showed.Revenue, however, fell short of...

Alvin Greene, a relative unknown, surprised everyone in South Carolina on Tuesday night by winning the chance to face Sen. Jim DeMint, a Republican, this fall with a victory over state lawmaker Vick Rawl in the Democratic primary. The Democrats elected this guy in a primary election and now, not wanting to admit that the Democrat voters really are that gullible, they are asking him to step down, as if a mistake were made. Now that’s laughable! South Carolina Democratic Party Chair Carol Fowler on Wednesday asked Greene to withdraw from the race for U.S. Senate because he supposedly showed...

South Carolina U.S. Congressional Candidate Katherine Jenerette on Fox Business' America's Nightly Scoreboard with David Asman. Friday May 28 and again Monday May 31, 2010. Tune in Monday on Memorial Day at 7:00pm Eastern time to watch Katherine Jenerette on FOX Business’ America’s Nightly Scoreboard with David Asman. As part of an episode-long salute to veterans, David Asman kicked off the May 28 edition of Fox Business’ America’s Nightly Scoreboard by hosting four veterans who are running for Congress – South Carolina’s Katherine Jenerette, Florida’s Allen West, Michigan’s Brian Rooney, and Adam Kinzinger from Illinois .Asman describerd them as a “refreshing voice...

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico -- U.S. authorities have charged a man with attempting to board a flight from Puerto Rico with weapons including a stun gun, a switchblade knife and four box cutters. ~ snip ~ Pol was scheduled to take a JetBlue flight to Boston when he was arrested on Monday. In addition to the knives agents found pepper spray and a flight simulator program in his luggage.

Every year, when spring rolls around, you can count on numerous articles in the mainstream media, and elsewhere, reviling the Confederacy, and so-called Neo-Confederates, the Confederate Battle flag, Proclamations of Confederate History Month, etc, etc, … ad infinitum. It never fails that Southerners are branded as slavers over and over, and readers are told how vile, and nasty, and ignorant, and just plain E V I L we Southerners are. Most of the ruminations by these writers and commentators are just plain garbage not backed up by REAL history but underwritten by revisionist history. In plain English -- it is...

"Casual visitors learn nothing about the true character of the mountaineers, nor can anyone be trusted to portray them if he holds a brief either for or against this people." Horace Kephart, Our Southern Mountaineers (1913). The images in this article are taken from various public domain sources. The descriptions are from the writings of Kephart, who lived in a cabin on the North Carolina side of the Great Smoky Mountains from 1904 until 1907 and who had a good eye for the folkways and a fine ear for the dialect of the Backcountry folk of this place and time.

The mountains of western North Carolina are rugged and their settlements were relatively isolated from the rest of the state for many decades. With the establishment of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, the mountaineers' settlements and their cabins and other buildings were largely destroyed. The vintage monochrome photographs in this article depict the Oconaluftee Mountain Farm Museum buildings and other vintage log cabins of the North Carolina Smokies.

In an article entitled: “Unions Now Starting Their Own Political Party,” Warner Todd Huston, at the Canada Free Press, says the following: “Apparently the Democrats in North Carolina aren’t sufficiently leftist enough for the Service Employees International Union (SEIU). It appears that the SEIU, one of the largest and most powerful public employees unions in the nation, don’t have their hand deep enough in the taxpayer’s pockets so it is starting its own political party in the Tar Heel State, by passing the Democrats altogether.” You may read the entire article HERE. SEIU’s Political party is called “North Carolina First.”...

After the U.S. House's historic vote Sunday night passing the health care reform bill, South Carolina Attorney General Henry McMaster issued the following statement: "The health care legislation Congress passed tonight is an assault against the Constitution of the United States. It contains various provisions and federal mandates that are clearly unconstitutional and must not be allowed to stand. A legal challenge by the States appears to be the only hope of protecting the American people from this unprecedented attack on our system of government. The key question involved is whether personal freedom, state sovereignty and constitutional law will survive...

Whether it's textiles in the Carolinas, paper in New England or steel in the Midwest, most industrial cities and mill towns "are on pins and needles," says Donald Schunk, an economist at Coastal Carolina University. "Day to day, week to week, any manufacturing facility seems vulnerable. People don't know if they'll be there." I could post endless pics of NE Ohio, and they'd look exactly like the one in this photo. In fact, at first I thought it was Niles or Youngstown, Ohio. Read more at floppingaces.net...

All of that came crashing down early Saturday morning when Starks, a 19-year-old from Atlanta, was arrested and charged with armed robbery, first-degree burglary, kidnapping and possession of a firearm during the commission of a violent crime — charges that could result in a lengthy prison term if Starks is found guilty. The victim in the case is one of Starks' own coaches at The Citadel, assistant coach Joshua Harpe of West Ashley. A police affidavit states Starks pointed "a handgun (semiauto) at the victim, struck him once in the head with the handgun and ordered him back into (the)...

A comment made by a South Carolina Republican Congressional candidate about U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has Palmetto politicos buzzing, particularly after many perceived the comment as a threat of physical violence against the powerful Washington “leader.” The controversy began when Katherine Jenerette, one of nine Republicans running for the S.C. First Congressional District seat being vacated by Rep. Henry Brown (RINO- Hanahan), commented on a FITS post earlier this week. “I’m used to fighting to get things done and to get things done right,” Jenerette wrote. “I don’t pull any punches and I can take a punch and will...

Another to Watch: Katherine Jenerette for Congress (SC-1) A lot of congressional candidates have made the rounds here at the CPAC bloggers lounge – some decent, some nutty, some with a chance, some with no chance in hell. Of those – a few have really impressed me – and we can add Katherine Jenerette of South Carolina to that list. Jenerette, a veteran and paratrooper in the Army Reserve, has a tough race in the GOP Primary to succeed retiring Rep. Henry Brown. Among her opponents are Paul Thurmond,  the youngest son of Strom Thurmond, and and Caroll Campbell III, the son of former...

North Carolina public high schools are trying to erase all early U.S. history from the curriculum, ranging from the Founding Fathers to Abraham Lincoln and the Civil War--in exchange for things like environmental issues...

He may be the president who governed during the Civil War, freeing the slaves, but under a new curriculum proposal for North Carolina high schools, U.S. history would begin years after President Lincoln, with the presidency of Rutherford B. Hayes in 1877.

The Wildcats (19-1, 4-1 Southeastern Conference) moved atop the rankings this week for the first time since 2003. They were cautioned by no less a fan than President Barack Obama earlier Tuesday to keep their focus and play with the same passion that brought them to the top. The president or Kentucky didn't count on Downey, the SEC's leading scorer to break the 30-point mark for the fourth time in six league games for South Carolina (12-8, 3-3). "This is what happens when you have young guys who think we're are going to win at the last minutes of the...

President Obama's 0-fer streak continues. What began as a thank-you call for Haitian relief efforts to the top-ranked Kentucky Wildcats became the latest example of the Obama Kiss of Death. Obama and the Wildcats participated on the phone call Tuesday afternoon in Columbia, S.C., where Kentucky was to play South Carolina on Tuesday night. link Final Score, South Carolina 68 Kentucky 62.

South Carolina: Flood gates open for Charleston congressional seat By Hastings Wyman Southern Political Report January 13, 2010 — At least 18 politicians have expressed interest, to one degree or another, in running for the seat in Congress that will be vacated next year by five-term US Rep. Henry Brown (R), 74, in South Carolina’s 1st District (Charleston, etc.). “It has thrown things completely wide open,” says Charleston attorney Waring Howe, a former Democratic National Committeeman, noting that “Now more candidates will jump in, including some elected officials.” Most of the potential candidates are Republicans, reflecting the district’s GOP voting...