Free Republic

Time is running out for the legislatures in Arizona, California, Indiana, Mississippi and Pennsylvania to solve budget gaps. The last time Indiana missed its deadline for passing a budget and had to shut down the government was during the Civil War. But on Monday... Indiana is one of five states -- along with Arizona, California, Mississippi and Pennsylvania -- bracing for possible shutdowns this week as time runs out for lawmakers to close billion-dollar gaps in their fiscal 2010 budgets. Of the 46 states whose fiscal year ends today, 32 did not have budgets passed and approved by their governors...

Gov. Haley Barbour (R-Miss.) says he would be "very surprised" if he ended up running for president. He is in his second term as governor and became the head of the Republican Governors Association after South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford stepped down following his admission of an extramarital affair. On CBS's "Face the Nation," Gov. Barbour said that the $787 billion fiscal stimulus package passed earlier this year is "far too expensive." The Obama administration argues that it will save or create 3.5 million jobs over two years.

BEDFORD – The Republican party needs to rebuild itself from the bottom up, said Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour last night before addressing a gathering at a New Hampshire State Republican Committee reception. "You're in the White House for eight or 12 years, you become a top-down party, I don't care if these are Republicans or Democrats. When you get out, you're liberated to rebuild your party from the bottom up," he told reporters before a reception at at C.R. Sparks, which was closed to the press. Barbour assumed chairmanship of the Republican Governors Association yesterday, following South Carolina Gov. Mark...

Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour has assumed the chairmanship of the Republican Governors Association, CNN has learned. Barbour immediately takes over as head of the national Republican campaign organization following South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford’s announcement he was leaving the post. Sanford acknowledged Wednesday that he had an extramarital affair with a woman in Argentina. “The news revealed today hurts all of us who have gotten to know Governor Sanford over the years and so it is with regret that the RGA accepted Governor Sanford’s resignation as chairman,” Barbour said in a statement obtained by CNN that will be distributed Wednesday...

Southern barbecue is a must-have item on the set of “Live with Regis and Kelly” — after Brad Orrison finished taping his segment for today’s morning show, two smoked pork shoulders disappeared off the set. Orrison, his sister, Brooke Orrison Lewis and brother, Brett, were in New York for the taping of the show’s grilling contest, “Live’s Ultimate Hometown Grill Off” Wednesday and showed host Regis Philbin and his wife, Joy, (subbing for a vacationing Kelly Ripa) how he makes pulled pork sandwiches at The Shed BBQ and Blues Joint near Ocean Springs. “After it was over and the...

OCEAN SPRINGS — Little is known about whale sharks or why they come to the northern part of the Gulf by the hundreds in June and July, within 30 miles of the Coast. But they do. And biologists from USM’s Gulf Coast Research Lab took what they do know about the giant, docile animals from the data they have collected and went whale shark hunting last week. They were successful beyond their wildest expectations, placing satellite tags on three and measuring and documenting several more. Shark biologist Eric Hoffmayer and research assistant Jennifer McKinney, along with a German videographer...

KABUL, June 16, 2009 – The first Afghan officer to train in the United States in nearly 50 years earned his silver Air Force wings in a June 12 ceremony at Columbus Air Force Base, Miss. Col. Roger Watkins, 14th Flying Training Wing commander, presented pilot wings to Lt. Faiz Mohammed Ramaki upon his completion of the Aviation Leadership Program there. The USAF Aviation Leadership Program is a scholarship for USAF flying training that includes English language training, 25 hours of flight screening in a civil aircraft, such as a Cessna 172, 335 academic and ground training hours and about...

JACKSON, Miss. | If the Republican Party is in danger of being marginalized as a conservative, white-male Southern enclave, is Haley Barbour - the longtime Washington power broker and current Mississippi governor - the best person to turn things around? Many rank-and-file Republicans and party leaders say yes as the 61-year-old Mr. Barbour prepares to ramp up his national profile this month with back-to-back trips to the early presidential voting states of Iowa and New Hampshire. Mr. Barbour will headline fundraisers in both states but says the visits are part of his duties as incoming chairman of the Republican Governors...

Not that long ago, owning a metropolitan newspaper guaranteed a seat at the civic table, immediate respectability and, given that many papers were near-monopolies, a press practically capable of printing money. Now it seems that the dollar that buys you a copy on a newsstand may buy you the whole organization behind it. And it doesn’t help that the last three big sales involving metropolitan newspapers — the Tribune Company, the Philadelphia papers and The Star-Tribune in Minneapolis — all ended in bankruptcy. It appears that The Boston Globe may be put in play by its owner, The New York...

JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — If the Republican Party is in danger of being marginalized as a conservative, white male Southern enclave, is Haley Barbour — the longtime Washington power broker and current Mississippi governor — the best person to turn things around? Many rank-and-file Republicans and party leaders say yes, as the 61-year-old Barbour prepares to ramp up his national profile this month with back-to-back trips to the early presidential voting states of Iowa and New Hampshire. Barbour will headline fundraisers in both states, but says the visits are part of his duties as incoming chairman of the Republican Governors...

I'm not sure about posting Fox/AP, so I'll leave this blank.

ABERDEEN, Miss. (AP) - An Olive Branch man who admitted making threats against President George W. Bush has been sentenced to 18 months in federal prison. U.S. District Judge Sharon Aycock sentenced Neal Allan Thomas on Thursday after he pleaded guilty in January to a charge of threatening Bush on the Internet site MySpace.com. After the 21-year-old's attorney cited a psychiatric report showing his client has mental problems, the judge recommended a medical facility where Thomas could get treatment while being held. Thomas was indicted Sept. 18, 2008, after someone turned him into the Secret Service.

BILOXI — A VH1 reality show contestant was arrested in Biloxi over the weekend while at the Beau Rivage for its monthly Fan Jam. “Tough Love” contestant Taylor Royce, aka Kelly Jean Stasilli of Scottsdale, Ariz., was booked Saturday on charges of resisting arrest and disturbing the peace at the casino resort. Assistant Police Chief Rodney McGilvary said police were called around 4:30 a.m. after a man complained he had loaned her his cell phone and she wouldn’t give it back. “She acted like a fool and was intoxicated and resisting arrest,” McGilvary said. Police didn’t charge her with...

BILOXI, Miss. — The price of electricity and fuel could rise sharply and economic growth could be stifled in the Southeast and elsewhere in the U.S. under tax proposals now pending in Washington, Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour said Monday. At the opening of an energy conference sponsored by the Southern Growth Policies Board, the second-term Republican said cap-and-trade proposals on carbon emissions being pushed by President Barack Obama's administration would drive up the average Mississippi residential power bill by as much as 50 percent. Barbour also said proposed federal taxes on energy production would drive up the cost of gasoline,...

The Federal Emergency Management Agency said Wednesday that it would allow hurricane victims on the Gulf Coast still living in government-supplied trailers to buy their temporary homes for as little as $1. The government will also provide $50 million to help other trailer residents, whose homes were destroyed by hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005, move into rental or public housing. The assistance comes just days after the official start of the 2009 hurricane season and one month after FEMA announced that it was ending the temporary housing program it started in the aftermath of Katrina. The more than 3,400...

In an effort to put the lingering image of a failed government response to Hurricane Katrina to rest, the Obama Administration moved Wednesday to get about 5,000 Gulf Coast residents out of FEMA trailers through $50 million in housing vouchers and, for those interested, a chance to buy a trailer for as little as $1. A joint plan announced by the Federal Energy Management Agency and the Department of Housing and Urban Development would make the $50 million in newly appropriated money available on a priority basis to low-income Gulf Coast residents of Mississippi and Louisiana. There will also be...

STENNIS SPACE CENTER — A massive steel structure jutting into the sky not far from Interstate 10 is sending the world a message: NASA is taking the next step in hurtling humans back to the moon. Structural work was recently finished on the giant A-3 test stand. Now, things are moving further along in the construction phase. In April, Steel Erector Inc., of Lafayette, La., put the final steel beam on top of the towering test stand and bolted the beam in place, bearing the signatures of project team members. “We’re now 235 feet closer to going back to...

This is a proposed ballot initiative. The WST group is working with a couple of state legislators to get this on the ballot in the next state wide election. There will be a petition drive required. I'm sure all of you will be more than happy to pass the petition around for signatures. --------------------South Mississippi We Surround ThemWe, the People, of the State of Mississippi, being citizens of the United States, having witnessed the usurpation of our rights by the Federal Government, which were endowed to us by our Creator and the diminishment of the freedoms guaranteed to us by...

Antonio Adams (left) and Walter Pruitt, who rescued two young girls from a partially submerged vehicle Tuesday. Eye-witnesses say a 12-year-old was driving the vehicle when it plunged into a canal on Bartlett Street in Laurel. Thirty-seven-year-old Jermaine Broach of Laurel was arrested and charged with public drunkenness, hit and run, no insurance and contributing to the delinquency of a minor in relation to Tuesday’s automobile accident involving two minors. Broach was a passenger in a vehicle that was driven by Shante Nicole Wilson, 12, before it plunged over an embankment and flipped into a canal with swift flowing...

Interpreting the Constitution is a favorite American pastime. Differing opinions on just one sentence fill libraries to overflowing, and land legal cases in appeals courts and supreme courts from coast to coast.The Ninth and Tenth Amendments in particular are the basis for numerous "soap box" issues, precisely because their language is opaque and widely open to interpretation. Neither grants or denies specific powers; both provide instructions for how to read and interpret the rest of the document. The Ninth Amendment reads: The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by...

Brazilian students transit during training at the Naval Small Craft Instruction and Technical Training School. STENNIS SPACE CENTER — Twenty members of the Brazilian Federal Police have been training at the Naval Small Craft Instruction and Technical Training School in Hancock County for the past nine weeks. The school trains international security forces in high-level riverine and littoral-craft operations and small-craft maintenance. Officials said the school usually runs 10 courses simultaneously for international security forces of up to 20 countries but focused all of its attention on the waterborne instructor course for the Brazilians. “The reason NAVSCIATTS exists is...

About now, high-school seniors everywhere slip into a glorious sort of limbo. Waiting out the final weeks of the school year, they begin rightfully to revel in the shared thrill of moving on. It is no different in south-central Georgia’s Montgomery County, made up of a few small towns set between fields of wire grass and sweet onion. The music is turned up. Homework languishes. The future looms large. But for the 54 students in the class of 2009 at Montgomery County High School, so, too, does the past. On May 1 — a balmy Friday evening — the white...

2012 Watch: Barbour to N.H. @ 1:46 pm by Jeremy P. Jacobs A day after we learned the Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour (R) is heading to Iowa at the end of June, we find out that he also plans to head to New Hampshire. Barbour will headline an event for the New Hampshire Republican Party on June 24, one day before he's in Iowa. There shouldn't be any doubt that Barbour is at least considering a run in 2012.

PASCAGOULA, Miss. - The first African-American Navy Admiral had a very fitting tribute Saturday. He had a ship named in his honor. The USS Gravely, a guided missile destroyer, was christened Saturday morning in Pascagoula. With one swing the U.S.S. Gravely entered the service of the U.S. Navy. His widow, Alma Bernice Gravely described the moment. " You use two hands and you go right where you're said to hit it." Alma Gravely acted as sponsor for the christening. Her husband, Vice Admiral Samuel Lee Gravely , broke through every color barrier as he rose in the ranks of...

Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour will headline a Republican Party of Iowa fundraiser in late June, fueling speculation the wildly-popular two-term governor may indeed have ambitions for higher officer. Barbour, 61, will be ineligible to seek another term as governor in 2012, but refuses to speak to his political future, saying only that “You can look for me not to run for re-election.” He will undoubtedly dismiss the candidate-type activity as inconsequential, as spreading the Republican Gospel, but no politician finds themselves in Iowa — the launch pad of every dark horse candidacy — by pure coincidence. Considered a highly effective...

Jason Talley and his two traveling companions had no plans of making a stop in Jones County when they were arrested by Jones County Sheriff deputies on May 14. Now Talley and his friends are going to make a planned trip to the area. This time, Talley and other crew members of motorhomediaries.com, are coming to the area to film a documentary. No date has been set for the week-long visit. “We have been traveling now for six weeks,” Talley said in a phone interview. “We have 60 videos on YouTube that documents our experiences. “It’s ironic to have these...

JACKSON, Miss. -- Seven cases of swine flu have been confirmed in Mississippi. Health officials say the new cases are in Lamar and Jackson counties. Through Wednesday there have been four cases reported in Harrison County, two in Lamar County and one in Jackson County. Health officials say an earlier reported case in Forrest County actually was in Lamar County.

Governors across the country are clamoring for a piece of the stimulus, eager to avoid laying off state employees, hoping to put their unemployed citizens back to work and trying to avoid widespread furloughs as budgets bleed red ink. They know that their citizens want to keep libraries open, teachers in the classroom, cops on the beat and firefighters ready to protect people and property. Except in the South. Southern governors--Bobby Jindal of Louisiana, Mark Sanford of South Carolina, Haley Barbour of Mississippi--have been pressing the case that the federal stimulus bill is a mistake; they argue the emerging Republican...

PHOENIX (AP) - Sixty thousand people are expected to attend the National Rifle Association's annual convention that starts Friday in Phoenix. Organizers say the 3-day event is a celebration of America's Second Amendment rights and a gathering point for opponents of efforts to limit those rights. Friday's speakers include Sen. John McCain, Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour and Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer.

Since the Supreme Court's notorious 2005 decision in Kelo v. City of New London, which allowed that municipality to seize private property on behalf of the Pfizer Corporation, 43 states have passed laws protecting property rights against Kelo-style eminent domain abuse. Mississippi is not one of those states. But that nearly changed in March 2009 when the Mississippi legislature voted overwhelmingly in support of a proposed law which would have guaranteed that "the right of eminent domain shall not be exercised for the purpose of taking or damaging privately owned real property for private development or for a private purpose;...

Jose Humberto Gonzalez Jose Humberto Gonzalez, the human resources manager for Howard Industries, Inc., was in federal court Thursday to hear the court’s 25 indictments against him. The indictment does not place any blame on the company. Gonzalez was charged with 25 counts of conspiracy and employee verification fraud following an August 2008 ICE raid at the Laurel plant and Ellisville headquarters of Howard Industries, Inc. He made his initial appearance before United States Magistrate Judge Michael T. Parker at the United States Federal Courthouse in Hattiesburg. If Gonzalez is convicted, he could face a maximum of five years...

Frank Melton, the mayor of Mississippi's largest city, died early Thursday, two days after losing a primary re-election bid and days before he was set to stand trial on federal civil rights charges. He was 60. (snip) Trial had been set to start Monday for Melton and a former bodyguard, who each faced two federal civil rights charges related to a sledgehammer attack on a duplex on Aug. 26, 2006, that Melton considered a crackhouse. (snip) He became a fixture in poor neighborhoods, where he would talk to youngsters about personal accountability and hard work. He tried to broker a...

The mayor of Mississippi's largest city died early Thursday, less than two days after losing a re-election bid in a contentious Democratic primary that came a week before his second federal trial.

Mississippi State Representative Jim Evans (D) unleashed a racial tirade this week on his political "analysis" of the upcoming Jackson mayoral election in this week's Jackson Advocate (on newsstands now!). Rep. Evans is Chair of the Constitution Committee under House Speaker Billy McCoy (D). Evans is also husband to Sara O'Reilly-Evans, who is currently the City Attorney in Jackson under Mayor Frank Melton. Evans talks of "cuffes" and "coons" when referring to black politicians that cowtow to "the man" (he is black, by the way). He talks of many of our city leaders as white supremacists and robber barons. For...

Dr. Andrew Weist, a professor from the University of Southern Mississippi, and Vy Dao and Celina Tran discuss the film, ‘Journey from the Fall,’ and Weist’s book about the era, 'Vietnam’s Forgotten Army.’ The local Vietnamese community commemorated Black April on Friday night at the Biloxi Community Center to mark the events of April 30, 1975, with a screening of an independent film “Journey from the Fall.” This week marked the 34th year after the fall of Saigon and is a dark day in the history for the people of Vietnam. Organizers said they wanted to commemorate the event...

PASCAGOULA — A woman, awakened by the sound of someone removing the screen from her bedroom window, got out of her bed at 1 a.m. Friday, walked to her son’s room and quietly woke him. “She said, ‘Snigg get up,’” the son said in an interview later Friday morning. “I got up, grabbed my gun and went to the corner there by her room,” he said, standing at the door of the apartment, on the bottom floor of the last in a row of Spanish-style buildings in the Granada Apartments on Chicot Road. It was dark in the apartment, but...

Javorous Darnell Tims, 20 PASCAGOULA — A woman, awakened by the sound of someone removing the screen from her bedroom window, got out of her bed at 1 a.m. Friday, walked to her son’s room and quietly woke him. “She said, ‘Snigg get up,’” the son said in an interview later Friday morning. “I got up, grabbed my gun and went to the corner there by her room,” he said, standing at the door of the apartment, on the bottom floor of the last in a row of Spanish-style buildings in the Granada Apartments on Chicot Road. It was...

It's been said that conservatism has different meanings for different people. It may not be textbook, but without a whole lot of navel gazing, here's what it means to me and what Free Republic is all about: In a word, Freedom! In two words, Preserving Freedom. In a handful of words as stated by our Founding Fathers, to secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our posterity! America was founded on the proposition that all men are created equal by God and that our unalienable rights to Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness are granted directly by God...

Nobody can sell any ammunition after June 30, 2009. It has already started: 'Ammunition Accountability' Legislation. Remember how Obama said that he wasn't going to take your guns? Well, it seems that his allies in the anti-gun world have no problem with taking your ammo! The bill that is being pushed in 18 states (including Illinois and Indiana) requires all ammunition to be encoded by the manufacturer, a data base of all ammunition sales. So, they will know how much you buy and what calibers. Nobody can sell any ammunition after June 30, 2009 unless the ammunition is coded. Any...

Do not believe the nattering nabobs of negativity. The Nationwide Tax Day TEA Party/Tax Revolt was a huge success!! What we need now is MORE and LOUDER!! Obama has no clue. Being confronted by millions of fed-up citizens is new to him. He never expected the otherwise docile American people to rise up against his wannabe Marxist/fascist totalitarian regime. He's now lashing out at us through the Dept of Homeland Security as if We the People are his enemy. Well, we are! And he now knows it. And he's scared witless!! And the media has been reduced to the speechless,...

Congratulations FReepers and Patriots! According to Henchster's ongoing tallies, we've surpassed 750,000 participants in our nationwide Tax Day TEA Party/Tax Revolt! Woo hoo!! All 50 states fully engaged! Over 600 cities represented and reports still coming in! Huge turnout, huge SUCCESS!! Elected officials take note: DO NOT TREAD ON ME!! Tyranny, usurpation, corruption, overreaching, big spending, high taxing will no longer be tolerated! We the people are FED-UP and we're not going to take it anymore! Ignore us at your own peril! All Congressional seats, all elected offices throughout the land at risk! Revolution is in the air!!

MOBILE, Ala. -- A Mississippi woman not only survived being shot in the head but made herself some tea afterward. Officials said the 47-year-old woman was still hospitalized on Friday after being wounded by her husband. He fatally shot himself. But the woman was expected to recover fully. The sheriff of Jackson County, Miss., Mike Byrd, said the woman's husband shot her early Tuesday in a home. A witness called sheriff's deputies, who arrived to find the woman talking and coherent. The sheriff said she made herself some tea and offered a deputy something to drink before being rushed to...

If the Obama administration has taken flak for suggesting that conservative groups might be home to domestic terrorists, it looks like some House Democrat leaders are willing to go even further: But in an interview on Fox TV in San Francisco, Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) chalked up the GOP grass-roots effort as “AstroTurf.” “This initiative is funded by the high end; we call it AstroTurf, it's not really a grass-roots movement. It's AstroTurf by some of the wealthiest people in America to keep the focus on tax cuts for the rich instead of for the great middle class,” Pelosi said....

The Jones County Sheriff’s Department now has scientific proof that the suspect wanted in the recent sexual assault near Ovett is the same person that has raped at least four other women since 2005. “We were waiting on the results and they came in,” Sheriff Alex Hodge said. So far, there have been five sexual assaults in Jones County linked to the suspect: two in 2005, two in 2007, and one in 2009. According to The Meridian Star, the Laurel Leader-Call’s sister newspaper, a sixth rape is also linked to the same suspect. That involved the suspect sexually assaulting...

It was a beautiful afternoon on the Mississippi Gulf Coast. Nearly 2,000 "right wing extremists", otherwise known as Patriots, joined in a movement to exercise their right of free speech. We gathered at the Gulfport Sportsplex, a super nice facility with soccer fields, baseball diamonds and huge water slides. The Gulfport event was one of about 6 in the state. The Jackson event had about 2,000 attend also. I haven't heard from from my contacts at the other events. Reports will follow as info is available. There were a number of speakers who covered several issues including taxes, spending, too...

After the 2010 census has been held, the number of seats held by each state in the U.S. House of Representatives will change. The National Conference of State Legislatures recently estimated what the 2010 reapportionment will mean for each state. Eight states are expected to lose one seat each, in the U.S. House and in the Electoral College. They are Iowa, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. States that will gain will be Texas (3 seats), and one each for Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Nevada and Utah. If the bill now pending in Congress to expand the...

town in Mississippi may hear soon from a religious liberty legal group. The town under a microscope is Greenwood, Mississippi. Mat Staver with Liberty Counsel and Liberty University explains what has transpired. "Greenwood officials have denied the use of city hall as a venue for the upcoming taxpayers' protest," he says, "[and they] relied on a 1963 ordinance that was designed back then to literally stifle civil rights marches and other protests."

At this time discrete Tornadic supercells developing over TN into MS...these will sweep east into AL/TN and GA later for once everything is coming together to maximize the potential strong tornadoes very possible..MODERATE risk out..waiting for update live updates from stormchasers and meteorologists CLICK HERE

Please join us Wed., April 15, 2009 at 4:00 pm at the DeSoto County, MS Courthouse. If you are against the runaway wasteful government spending of trillions of dollars and BIG GOVERNMENT getting bigger, join the protest This event is being organized by Danny Williams, CPA - Williams, Pitts and Beard CPA firm is a non-partisan protest against wasteful government spending.

JACKSON, Miss. — Thanh Nguyen will soon give up the cramped travel trailer that's been her home for more than four years, pack her belongings into an old Toyota Corolla and rely on the kindness of others for a place to live. She has no choice: The government is taking back the trailer. "I'm going to pack everything I have in a car and go to my friends' houses and move on and on until I find something I can afford," the Vietnamese immigrant said through a translator. "It's for however long they allow me to stay." Nguyen is one...