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"One in five American adults - 22% - believe that any state or region has the right to "peaceably secede from the United States and become an independent republic," a new Middlebury Institute/Zogby International telephone poll shows." "Broken down by race, the highest percentage agreeing with the right to secede was among Hispanics (43%) and African-Americans (40%). Among white respondents, 17% said states or regions should have the right to peaceably secede." "Politically, liberal thinkers were much more likely to favor the right to secession for states and regions, as 32% of mainline liberals agreed with the concept. Among the...

South Africa's governing African National Congress President Jacob Zuma says he is shocked and embarrassed about white poverty in the country and the issue must not be ignored. Mr Zuma was speaking after visiting Bethlehem near Pretoria where white families live without running water or electricity. A report by the charity, Helping Hand, says the number of homeless white people in South Africa has increased by 58 per cent in the last six years. Mr Zuma says the high level of black poverty does not mean white people do not suffer too. "Poverty is one of the leading challenges in...

ABC News' Jan Simmonds reports: Republican vice presidential prospect Gov. Mark Sanford, R-S.C., told reporters today that removing the Confederate flag from the grounds of South Carolina's Statehouse would not be a priority during his final years in office.

THE interim between the primaries and the parties’ nominating conventions is, according to ancient writ, a fertile period for presidential campaigns to talk about how they plan to expand the political map in the fall. This year is no different. Barack Obama’s strategists are suggesting that the first African-American presidential nominee of a major political party can parlay increased turnout among black voters into a string of victories in the South. Given that roughly half of all African-Americans live in the 11 former Confederate states, the idea seems intuitive enough. It’s also wrong. Prying Southern electoral votes away from the...

THE interim between the primaries and the parties’ nominating conventions is, according to ancient writ, a fertile period for presidential campaigns to talk about how they plan to expand the political map in the fall. This year is no different. Barack Obama’s strategists are suggesting that the first African-American presidential nominee of a major political party can parlay increased turnout among black voters into a string of victories in the South. Given that roughly half of all African-Americans live in the 11 former Confederate states, the idea seems intuitive enough. It’s also wrong. Prying Southern electoral votes away from the...

This is Carolina Day, the 232nd anniversary of the Battle of Fort Sullivan. If you are not a native of South Carolinian (and possibly even if you are), you likely have never heard of Fort Sullivan and the significance of this day. Most American school children have heard stirring stories of the battles of Concord Bridge and Lexington Green, relatively minor skirmishes fought by the Minutemen of Revolutionary lore. These were fought in April 1775, and at Concord Bridge was fired the "shot heard 'round the world." But it was at an unfinished, palmetto-log fort on Sullivan's Island where the...

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said on Saturday that an armed encounter between Venezuelan soldiers and unidentified armed fighters occurred along the Venezuela-Colombia border during which one person was killed

WASHINGTON (AP) - The number of Hispanics in the United States rose by 1.4 million over a year's time to 45.5 million as of last July, with the most rapid increases in the South. The continuing growth could increase their influence, and this election year has focused more attention on how much the Hispanic population is increasing. Nine of the top 10 states with the highest growth rates in their populations were in the South, according to new census data released Thursday. South Carolina topped the list with an 8.7 percent increase, gaining 13,569 Hispanics, according to an analysis of...

The South Carolina Senate is discussing a compromise on illegal immigration. The Senate is now talking about attaching the compromise to a second House bill. That would bypass procedural hurdles and could put the measure before the House for a simple majority vote later this week. Seven illegal immigrants were busted in July of 2007 at the BMW plant in Greer. Immigration investigators raided the plant, and says the illegals used stolen identities to get their jobs. One was even using the identity of a nine-year-old boy. They were not BMW employees, they worked for a contractor for BMW....

Here is the link

While the eyes of the political world were focused on Pennsylvania last week, I played hooky for a day at the invitation of the Lee County Library and bumped into a story as revealing in its way as the latest round in the struggle between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. Among other things, it explains why John McCain found it useful to spend last week touring poverty-stricken areas in the South, where Republicans rarely go. On the same day that Pennsylvanians gave Clinton a victory that still left unclear who will eventually be the Democratic nominee, voters in Mississippi's 1st...

In the summer of 1863, Robert E. Lee led an ill-advised incursion into Pennsylvania. His army was defeated at Gettysburg, and thence afterward Lee beat a fighting retreat until the South lost the Civil War. One hundred and forty-five years later, the South--or what has become the South-Southwest--has won another kind of Civil War. It has transformed the sensibility of the country. It is setting the agenda for our political, social and religious mores--in Pennsylvania and everywhere else. This thought, which has been recurring to me regularly over the years as I've watched the Southernization of our national politics at...

Is American history still taught in our schools? Do young people know about men like Father Emmeran Bliemel, O.S.B. who was the first American Chaplain to die on the battlefield? Bliemel was killed during the War Between the States Battle of Jonesboro, Georgia on August 31, 1864. As Chaplain of the 10th Tennessee Regiment, Bliemel courageously and unselfishly ministered to the spiritual needs of his Confederate Comrades, both under fire and behind the lines. Let me tell you about the "Heroes of the South" who are affectionately remembered during "Confederate History and Heritage Month" in April. Proclamations will be signed...

Spam at heart of South Pacific obesity crisis By Nick Squires In Sydney Last Updated: 12:32pm GMT 11/02/2008 It was lampooned by Monty Python and spurned by British shoppers, but Spam is fuelling a "raging epidemic" of diabetes, strokes and heart disease among the previously lithe inhabitants of the South Pacific. Another of Britain's colonial culinary legacies - corned beef - is also being blamed for a rise in obesity-related illnesses in countries once known for muscled warriors and slim-hipped maidens. Many islanders drive to the local shop to buy tins of spam Countries across the region - many of...

At first, rescuers thought it was a doll. Then it moved. In a grassy pasture strewn with toys, splintered lumber and bricks tossed by the tornado's widespread wrath, 11-month old Kyson Stowell was lying face down in the mud, 150 yards from where his home once stood. "It looked like a baby doll," said David Harmon, a firefighter who had already combed the field once looking for survivors. Then he checked for a pulse. "He was laying there motionless ... and he took a breath of air and started crying." The field had already been combed once for survivors, and...

Death and Damage From Tornadoes Published: 2/6/08, 9:26 AM EDT (AP) - State-by-state look at deaths and damage caused by a string of tornadoes that tore across the South: ALABAMA: At least four people killed in northern Alabama. An apparent tornado damaged eight homes in Walker County, and a pregnant woman suffered a broken arm when a trailer home was tossed by the winds, according to the county's emergency management director. ___ ARKANSAS: At least 13 people killed, including parents and their 11-year-old daughter in Atkins, about 60 miles northwest of Little Rock. Their home took a "direct hit" from...

Huckabee top in Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Missouri, Minesota, Oclahoma, Tennessee, West Virginia, etc.+ !!! ------------------ People and Value-powered Governor Mike Huckabee apparently does even BETTER than initially expected ! (And despite unprecedented Censorship, even at many Internet Fora, and despite huge amounts of Money spend by his competitors)... - Huck is given 1st in Alabama (with 34% reporting) - 1st in Arkansas - 1st in Georgia (with 61% reporting) - 1st in Missouri (with 23% reporting) - 1st in West Virginia (100% reporting, OK) - Tied in Minnesota, neck to neck with Romney, McCain following closely. - Tied in Oclahoma,...

It was a routine e-mail from the boss sent to congratulate a junior prosecutor in Houston, Tex., who had won manslaughter convictions against an intoxicated driver. "He convicted Mr. Sosa of a double intoxication manslaughter, got a weak jury to give him 12 years in each, and then convinced Judge Wallace to stack the sentences," Harris County assistant district attorney Mike Trent wrote in an office-wide memo. Then came the odd part: "He overcame a subversively good defence by Matt Hennessey that had some Canadians on the jury feeling sorry for the defendant and forced them to do the right...

In early voting states such as Iowa and New Hampshire, campaigns use rallies and personal appearances to get votes. Now, the nominating races have moved to bigger states, including much of the South. Candidates here rely on endorsements from powerful politicians and preachers. It is a tradition that has evolved since the 1960s to garner support among poor blacks who look to their preachers for both spiritual and political guidance. And it is the way Mrs. Clinton, like countless Democratic politicians before her, is running her campaign in South Carolina. Mr. Obama, in contrast, is trying something many observers say...

http://fredfile.fred08.com/blog/2008/video-post-debate-reaction/

Behind the Scenes in Myrtle Beach (Pre-Debate) http://blip.tv/file/591283

South Asia hit by food shortages Women buy flour in Karachi - many have gone without People across South Asia are struggling to cope with a severe shortage of affordable wheat and rice. There have been queues outside Pakistani shops in towns around the country, and flour prices have shot up. Wheat flour is a staple foodstuff in Pakistan, where rotis or unleavened bread are eaten with almost every meal. Last week Afghanistan appealed for foreign help to combat a wheat shortage while Bangladesh recently warned it faced a crisis over rice supplies. Global wheat prices are at record highs....

Lopez: If Thompson’s apparent third-place showing sticks, does that give him new life in South Carolina? Dawson: Each candidate has something to be encouraged about after tonight including Fred Thompson. Iowa doesn’t have the make-or-break history that our State’s primary enjoys, and I believe Thompson is one of a number of Republican presidential hopefuls who can move forward tonight with confidence.

The rumor that Fred Thompson will quit the Republican presidential race if he finishes poorly in Iowa is not only false: it rises to the level of a political dirty trick aimed at reducing Thompson-backers’ turnout in tonight’s Iowa caucuses. The story, which began as a rumor and caught fire as a result of a piece in today’s Politico, said that Thompson was likely to quit after Iowa if he did poorly there, and might endorse Sen. John McCain before next week’s New Hampshire primary. The article painted a glum, almost resigned mood among Thompson’s inner circle. Thompson and his...

Nations agree S American highway The three leaders hailed the deal as a boost to trade The presidents of Brazil, Bolivia and Chile have agreed to build a highway by 2009 that will link the Atlantic and Pacific coasts of South America. Much of the route is already paved but the leaders agreed to invest a further $600m (£300m) to complete the road. The highway is to run from Santos in Brazil to Arica and Iquique in Chile. The meeting in the Bolivian city of La Paz was seen as a chance to improve strained ties between Bolivia and Chile...

Cannot be posted due to copyright issues: http://www.clarionledger.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2007712090318

OCALA, Fla. -- Wesley Snipes claims a central Florida county is too racist to allow the black actor to get a fair trial on tax evasion charges. In a motion filed this week in U.S. District Court, Snipes' lawyer Robert Bernhoft argued that the U.S. Attorney's Office willfully selected the Marion County seat of Ocala as the site of the trial because prosecutors "deliberately chose the most racially discriminatory venue available to the government with the best possibility of an all-white southern jury where Snipes has never resided." Snipes' motion filed Monday seeks to have the charges dismissed or moved...

When word began circulating in Republican circles last spring that former Tennessee Sen. Fred Thompson was considering a run for the presidency, the reaction ranged from relief the party had finally found a suitable standard - bearer to squeals of delight about the actor/politician and his resemblance to former President Ronald Reagan. It was arguably the high mark of the campaign thus far. Thompson seemed to squander the summer as he considered his run and raised fewer campaign dollars than hoped. Once he hit the campaign trail, he was forced to acknowledge ignorance about some local issues when stumping across...

Atlanta - The plight of the South's school-reform movement now hangs on kids from families that make less than $36,000 a year. For the first time in 40 years, two new studies show, more than half of public school students in the South are eligible for free or reduced lunch – a watershed moment in a 15-year wealth slide that comes amid resurging racial and economic inequalities in the former Confederacy. The rise is part of a nationwide surge: Low-income students now represent 12 percentage points more of the student body than in 1990. In response, schools from the Delta's...

<p>For generations, American elites from the North have treated the South as a benighted land of knaves, fools, and charlatans, a proper subject of scorn and satire and certainly not a region to be admired or emulated. They are comically wrong.</p>

Bobby Jindal won tonight. I may live in Georgia now, but I'm Louisianian through and through. This is historic. No one has ever won a gubernatorial primary outright in Louisiana until tonight. I cannot really express what this means to me. It's like how the exiled English felt when Mary I died and Elizabeth was crowned. It was safe to go home again. If you don't live in Louisiana, you have no clue what it is like. You may think you do, but you don't. You make think your state sucks, but it doesn't really compared to Louisiana. Louisiana sucks...

Republican presidential candidate John McCain said Wednesday the Senate should apologize for slavery and segregation, calling them “dark chapters in our history.” McCain said he would support a planned resolution by fellow Republican Sen. Sam Brownback, who is also seeking the presidency, to apologize for racist laws, some of which ended more than a century ago. “They were federal policies,” Brownback told the Boston Globe on Monday. “They were wrong. The only way for us to move forward . . . is at the end of the day acknowledging those, taking ownership for it, and asking for forgiveness.” McCain agreed...

In a first, brief swing through metro Atlanta Thursday, presidential candidate Fred Thompson will press the hot button issue of illegal immigration (continued)

KISSIMMEE -- Nelson Winbush rotates a miniature flag holder he keeps on his mantel, imagining how the banners would appear in a Civil War battle. The Stars and Bars, he explains, looked too much like the Union flag to prevent friendly fire. The Confederacy responded by fashioning the distinctive Southern Cross -- better known as the rebel flag. Winbush, 78, is a retired assistant principal with a master's degree, a thoughtful man whose world view developed from listening to his grandfather's stories about serving the South in the "War Between the States." His grandfather's casket was draped with a Confederate...

LA PAZ, Bolivia - Vilified by world leaders wary of his nuclear ambitions, Iran's president is turning to South American leftists who are embracing him as an energy and trade partner and counterweight to U.S. influence. On the heels of a U.N. General Assembly appearance in which he said Iran will ignore demands by "arrogant powers" to curb its nuclear program, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was headed to Bolivia on Thursday to establish first-time diplomatic relations with the Andean nation.

Few parts of the world are as loved and loathed with the intensity that is felt for the American South. Thanks to a long line of contributions to the popular culture from Gone with the Wind to Borat, via Deliverance, Dixie, the great muggy swath of the southeastern United States, from Washington DC to Texas, has a firm grip on the imagination of Americans and foreigners alike. To its detractors it is a terrifying and contemptible land full of racist rednecks, Bible-toting hypocrites and downtrodden blacks. To those of a more romantic disposition, and certainly to most of its inhabitants,...

Farms seizure warning in South Africa By Mike Pflanz in Nairobi Last Updated: 2:30am BST 17/09/2007 Farmers in South Africa have been warned that they could have their land taken from them unless they stop "abusive" policies towards workers. Most highly productive farmland in South Africa is still in the hands of white farmers. While the government has enacted a "restitution" policy of handing plots to blacks under a willing buyer, willing seller system, critics have said progress has been too slow. While the situation is far from that witnessed in neighbouring Zimbabwe, tensions have soared recently over alleged illegal...

The South is today, for so many people, a symbol of lynch law, slavery, benightedness, and masked riders in the night. Like the American West, it has become a Hollywood fable bearing little resemblance to the place it was and barely, in spots, still is. The other night I was listening to Ode to Billy Joe, Bobby Gentry’s song of bleak rural poverty near Tupelo not all that long ago. To many, such ballads make no sense or seem whiney and self-pitying. No. It’s how things were. I saw the tag end of it. The rural South, like the West...

Fred Thompson's entry into the Republican presidential field is expected to trigger a political tug-of-war in Georgia, with Savannahians on both ends of the rope. Thompson's exploratory campaign representatives say the former U.S. senator from Tennessee will formally announce his candidacy next Thursday. That sets the stage for a showdown between him and former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani, the nationwide GOP frontrunner in most polls. Appealing to conservatives lukewarm about other candidates, Thompson surged ahead of Giuliani last spring in Georgia and some other states. He and Giuliani are running first or second in most states. Dozens of elected...

'Biggest diamond ever' is found in South Africa By Sebastien Berger in Johannesburg Last Updated: 8:48pm BST 28/08/2007 It is either the greatest diamond find in history, or a case of fool's gold. The diamond claim was met with scepticism South Africa's diamond industry was surprised by reports that a small mining firm had found a stone estimated at 7,000 carats, twice the size of the Cullinan diamond, the largest ever found. Gems cut from the 3,106-carat Cullinan, including the Great Star of Africa, became part of the Crown Jewels after it was found in Gauteng Province in 1905. But...

On a recent sunny weekend in the usually sleepy town of Craponne-sur-Arzon, American flags festooned the streets, country music blared amid the sidewalk cafés, and hundreds of people milled about in cowboy hats or even top-to-toe Wild West get-ups. Dozens of folks turned local squares in this town in the Haute-Loire region of southern France into impromptu, western-style dance floors. The catalyst for all this was the annual Country Rendez-Vous, a three-day festival of country-western music and bluegrass that takes place here each summer in late July. Over the past two decades, country and western festivals have sprung up in...

Race tension resurfaces in South Africa By Sebastien Berger in Potchefstroom Last Updated: 1:26am BST 15/08/2007 A statue of a bearded Boer trekker gazes sternly across Potchefstroom, a South African university town named after the man who brought the settlers to the area in 1838. But to the chagrin of the Afrikaners who are Andries Potgieter's descendants, the ANC-controlled city council yesterday renamed it Tlokwe after the original inhabitants of the region. It is the latest in a series of renamings which have provoked vandalism and death threats in Potchefstroom, exposing the racial tensions that still exist in South Africa...

Meteorologists of the Russian Ministry of Emergency Situations predict a high probability of tornado in the south of Russia August 1-6. A number of measures are being taken to prevent victims amongst the camping wild.

Carolina State Symbols: Tar Heels, Palmettos -- and Seminarians Further evidencing the rise of the Southern states as American Catholicism's boomtown, Bishop Robert Baker of Charleston will ordain six new priests tomorrow night -- the largest crop for South Carolina's lone diocese (Catholic pop. 176,000) since 1956. Due to the large number of candidates, the ordination Mass is being held in a convention center in the state capital of Columbia. In May, the historic local church (founded in 1820) welcomed 22 new permanent deacons; since 1990, its Catholic presence has more than doubled, now comprising 4% of the general...

My Fellow Freepers, I request your prayers on a life-changing decision. Within the next couple of weeks, my wife and I will be moving from Chicago, Illinois to Greenville, South Carolina. We have both worked for more than a decade at our current jobs, she as a techer and I as a Laboratory Technician. It is difficult for us, but we feel that God is pushing us to do this. Among other reasons, we have family in South Carolina - nearly all of the family. My mother-in-law has had one knee replacement, and it is only a matter of time...

The July 18, 2007 headline in the New York Times proclaimed, “In Mississippi, Ruling Is Seen as Racial Split.” The story, by Adam Nossiter, told of a June 8 ruling by District Judge W. Allen Pepper, Jr. of the Northern District of Mississippi. In a suit brought by black Democrats, Judge Pepper ruled that the State of Mississippi must require all voters to register by party, bringing to an end the practice of moderate-conservative voters supporting centrist Democrats in state and local primaries, while voting for Republicans and against liberal Democrats in national elections. As the Times explains, “Black leaders…want...

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney made a stop at Spartanburg's Beacon Drive-In shortly after noon Thursday, summarizing his presidential platform, taking friendly (and a few not-so-friendly) questions from the audience, and attacking three Democratic presidential hopefuls. About 250 people - including the media and campaign staff - crammed into the Beacon's Panther Room for Romney's sixth visit to Spartanburg since early 2005. June Bond, a local GOP activist and a county organizer for the Romney camp, welcomed the candidate and his wife, Ann, as a "family of faith." Bond said she pledged her support to Romney about two years ago:...

JACKSON, Miss. (AP) - Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama made a brief stop at a Jackson, Mississippi, soul food restaurant last night. He grabbed a to-go order of peach cobbler before being whisked off to a fundraising event. About 35 people packed the black leather booths and bar stools beneath the pictures of Martin Luther King Junior and Bob Marley. Obama spent about 15 minutes shaking hands and greeting people. At one point, the candidate belted out a few bars of the blues standard "Misty Blue" with Dorothy Moore, the Jackson singer who made the tune famous in the 1970s....

PENSACOLA BEACH, Fla. - Souvenir shops lining this sugary white Panhandle beach display Confederate flag beach towels, window decals and T-shirts. Hooters and other bars fly POW-MIA, Marine and Navy flags and cater to the sailors and Marines from the nearby base. Vacationing Southern families usually fill the hotels and condominiums in this slice of paradise long nicknamed "The Redneck Riviera." But every Memorial Day they mostly stay away as this town becomes more like trendy Miami Beach — 700 miles and a world away. Starting in the mid-1980s, gay men from New Orleans and other nearby cities began gathering...

A millionaire couple accused of keeping two Indonesian women as slaves were held in jail on Thursday amid new allegations that the women's relatives were threatened and offered bribes to make the case go away. Varsha Mahender Sabhnani and her husband, Mahender Murlidhar Sabhnani, who operate a worldwide perfume business out of their Long Island home, pleaded not guilty at their arraignment on federal slavery charges. Prosecutors have called the allegations "truly a case of modern-day slavery." "The defendants operated a torture house," Assistant U.S. Attorney Mark Lesko told the judge, who put the Sabhnanis' bail request on hold until...