Free Republic

Published on Aug 12, 2014 Al Sharpton called for transparency in the Michael Brown police shooting case. He said he knows people are angry but urged them to throw their arms up instead of turning to violence. (Aug 12, 2014)

With a long statewide election season just complete, another – the one with the biggest ballot of them all – looms on the horizon in 2015. And while most state government incumbents elected statewide have confirmed they’ll be running for re-election to their current offices, some could have challengers – from outside or possibly inside their own party. (SNIP) Rumors have abounded for some time about various Republicans challenging Reeves, who is expected to seek re-election. The talk now is centered around second-term Secretary of State Delbert Hosemann as a potential challenger to Reeves. When asked about Hosemann’s election plans,...

JACKSON, Miss. — A federal judge has overturned Mississippi's ban on same-sex marriage, but he is putting his order on hold for two weeks so the state can appeal. U.S. District Judge Carlton Reeves issued a preliminary injunction Tuesday. State attorneys have already said they will ask the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to block Reeves' order....

The state Supreme Court in Mississippi, where same-sex marriage is not recognized, will hear arguments Jan. 21, 2015, from a woman who has asked the state to recognize her gay marriage so that she can be granted a divorce. Lauren Czekala-Chatham and Dana Ann Melancon, who married in California in 2008, cannot be granted a divorce in Mississippi due to the state's constitution and statutes, DeSoto County Chancery Judge Mitchell Lundy Jr. ruled last year. "All same sex Mississippi couples lack a right to have their marriage recognized by the state regardless of whether newly arrived here, having lived here...

JACKSON, Miss.–It was a conference call with former Gov. Haley Barbour’s lobbying firm after last week’s election, where Politico reports Barbour referred to President Obama’s issues as “tar babies”, a term some consider racially insensitive since it refers to tar babies in Joel Chandler Harris’ “Uncle Remus” stories. Those stories were made into the movies “Song of the South” by Disney, which has since made people angry with what many perceive to be black stereotypes. Some consider Barbour to be a stereotype himself, when talking about Mississippians with a thick accent and conservative politics. Barbour said in the call that...

Kior, Inc., the Houston-area biofuels maker that hoped to tap new technology to produce clean energy, filed for bankruptcy Sunday. The company listed $58.3 million in assets along with $261.3 million debts in its filing in the federal bankruptcy court in Delaware, where the company is incorporated. The company was at one-time considered a leader in the development of what’s known as cellulosic fuel — gasoline and diesel that is made from inedible plant material like woodchips and grass clippings. Though other biofuels are made from plants — ethanol, for example, is made from corn or sugarcane — cellulosic fuels...

Unless the Better Schools, Better Jobs folks badly miscounted the number of signatures they gathered, their initiative to require eventual full funding of the Mississippi Adequate Education program will be on the ballot in November 2015. The Adequate Education Program, of course, is the funding formula that determines the amount of money each local school district is supposed to get from the state to support basic operations, such as salaries and maintenance. The poorer the school district, the larger its percentage of state funds is. The Better Schools, Better Jobs group was formed because since it was fully enacted in...

DESOTO COUNTY, MS (WMC) - You might expect to find an army in DeSoto County ... an army of drones, that is. A Southaven man has an army of hand-crafted drones, all controlled from inside of his customized command center. Estes built drones that provide infrared thermal imaging; they also detect human movement inside of a home or car. And what he is doing is legal. "You can do good things with this, or you can do bad things with this," Estes acknowledged. Estes wrote letters to the Federal Aviation Administration about his drone capabilities. Right now, the FAA requires...

(VIDEO-AT-LINK)Liberal MSNBC contributor Jimmy Williams said the “old white people” in the South who vote Republican are “going to die someday” and hopefully usher in a new era of Democratic rule in the region. Host Krystal Ball, a former failed Democratic congressional candidate, asked Williams whether white Southerners should just be written off by the party, but Williams said never, saying that since they are “for people” and Republicans aren’t, they would eventually win the day. “Mitt Romney only won South Carolina with 53 [percent], John McCain with 52,” he said. “That’s a changing South. Those old white people? They’re...

JACKSON, Miss. —Mississippi Republican Thad Cochran has won a seventh term in the U.S. Senate. Unofficial results show the 76-year-old incumbent defeated two challengers Tuesday -- Democratic former Congressman Travis Childers and Reform Party candidate Shawn O'Hara.

Governor Steve Beshear says Kentucky risks running off the “progressive path” it’s on if voters give the GOP a majority of state House seats. Beshear made the comments in Barren County Thursday. Democrats currently hold a 54-to-46 advantage in the chamber, but Republicans have made a major push to win control of the House for the first time in more than 90 years. To help Democratic incumbents, Beshear has been on the road this week, announcing funding for infrastructure projects in districts where these members are facing competitive challenges by Republican candidates. Beshear said if the GOP does gain control...

Marathon Petroleum says it's assessing options for the future of the largest mainland US oil conduit- the 1.2 M/bd Capline pipeline. In recent years, the pipeline, which runs from St. James, Louisiana (the delivery hub for Light Louisiana Sweet crude) to Patoka, Illinois, has seen sharp declines in shipping volumes as midwestern refiners access the growing supply of Bakken and Canadian crude to replace expensive imports via Capline. Crude flows through the US have effectively reversed as less expensive US (primarily Bakken) and Canadian production pushes out imports delivered to the US Gulf coast. Several reversals and newly-built pipelines now...

In September, Travis Childers, Mississippi's Democratic candidate for the U.S. Senate, completed a survey about immigration. Childers' stance has consistently been anti-immigration, so his opposing amnesty for "dreamers," young people whose parents brought them into this country without authorization when they were too young to object, is no surprise. #What angers Democrats is the questionnaire's source: The Federation for American Immigration Reform, known as FAIR. The questions are: 1. Will you oppose or support legislation that would grant any form of work authorization to illegal aliens? 2. Will you oppose or support legislation that would increase the overall number of...

Laurel, MS -- Republican Chris McDaniel issued a statement today in the wake of the Supreme Court's dismissal of his motion to appeal. "Republicans in Mississippi are still left wanting for justice after June's Republican primary was decided by more than 40,000 Democrats," McDaniel said. "Worse yet, the courts refused even to hear our challenge," McDaniel said. "When we launched this campaign over a year ago, we committed to fight to the very end, and many conservatives showed a great deal of courage in standing up with us," he continued. "And the fight to save our republic is only just...

No news article to post-- the only article so far is in the Clarion-Ledger, which we can't post. But the Mississippi Supreme Court affirmed the lower court ruling that Chris McDaniel's challenge to Thad Cochran's primary win was filed too late. The Court's decision is here.

An addendum to Ed’s post this morning. Per WaPo, it’s not just the forensic evidence that’s backing Wilson up. [M]ore than a half-dozen unnamed black witnesses have provided testimony to a St. Louis County grand jury that supports Wilson’s account of events of Aug. 9, according to several people familiar with the investigation who spoke with The Washington Post.Some of the physical evidence — including blood spatter analysis, shell casings and ballistics tests — also supports Wilson’s account of the shooting, the Post sources said, which cast Brown as an aggressor who threatened the officer’s life. The sources spoke...

MOBILE, Ala. (WALA) – Mobile Fire-Rescue is taking a woman to USA Medical Center. She earlier came to the Mobile County Health Department, showing some symptoms associated with Ebola. The woman said she has family members who had been to Africa.

I’m not exactly sure what the reasoning is, here. It’s not because the race isn’t competitive. It is – or, more accurately, it could be. Jeanne Sheehan is ahead of Scott Brown by 6.5 points in the current RCP average, sure. But she’s also under 50% in the aggregate polling, which is the usual rule of thumb for an incumbent in trouble. This is the sort of situation where throwing some advertisting cash into the mix could really come in handy. Of course, it’s a little late for that now – back in May the Democrats blocked out about $1...

A new poll shows Democratic challenger Travis Childers gaining on Sen. Thad Cochran less than a month before the Nov. 4 general election. The New York Times/CBS/YouGov poll taken Sept. 20 through Oct. 1 shows Cochran leading 41 percent to 30 percent. A similar poll taken Aug. 18 through Sept. 2 had Cochran with a 40 percent to 25 percent advantage. According to the New York Times The Upshot: The YouGov online surveys are being used to supplement, not replace, the Times’s traditional telephone polls. The Times/CBS News poll uses a different methodology for its political and social surveys; they...

A trio of big-hearted doctors is helping 3-year-old Victoria Wilcher, the Mississippi girl who was mauled by her grandfather’s pitbulls and then thrust into the national spotlight when her family was accused of perpetrating a hoax at a local KFC. The doctors come from three states and are donating their efforts to reconstruct the face of Victoria, who lost an eye in the attack earlier this year. A Florida doctor made Victoria a prosthetic eye, a local physician reconstructed the girl’s eyelid and a Las Vegas plastic surgeon has signed on to perform a series of operations that could continue...