Free Republic

PRINCETON, NJ -- Mississippi remains the most conservative state in the union, and, along with Utah, Wyoming, and Alabama, is one of four states with 50% or more of its population identifying as conservative. At the other end of the ideological spectrum, 40% District of Columbia residents and 30% of Massachusetts residents identify as liberal; all other states have a liberal population of 26% or less.

The story of the South is one for the ages. It is the story of elegance and tradition trampled upon by ‘progress.’ It is the story of an agricultural economy uprooted by northern industrialism. It is the story of a cultural and political rollercoaster. For our purposes, I will focus on the latter – the political evolution of the Southern electorate. Southern culture, at its core, has always been ruled by conservative instincts. Historian Russell Kirk documents the height of the conservative intellectual experience in one chapter of The Conservative Mind. Kirk demonstrates the vibrant conservative attitudes held by southern...

GREENVILLE, S.C. – In the geographic heart of the Republican Party, the contest for the allegiance of Southern conservatives in the 2012 race is as wide open as ever. Of all the prizes still up for grabs in the GOP presidential primary, few are as desirable as the support of the South. Republican presidential nominations have traditionally been forged here – in South Carolina, especially – and any successful challenger to Mitt Romney would likely have to dominate among heavily conservative, evangelical Southern voters. Yet the only candidate this cycle who seemed to have a shot at locking down the...

A black college student has won the fight to keep a Confederate flag in his dorm room after school officials initially told him to take it down. “It’s not racist for me,” Thomas, a Georgia native, said in the video. “All it is is a symbol that I see as a sign of respect, and people don’t want to see it that way.”

South Carolina sheriff urges women to carry gunsAP – 6 mins ago SPARTANBURG, S.C. (AP) — A South Carolina sheriff is urging women to get concealed weapons permits and carry guns to protect themselves. Spartanburg County Sheriff Chuck Wright made the suggestion Monday while discussing the arrest of a suspect in an attempted rape last weekend. Wright suggests that women carry a .45-caliber weapon because he says they wouldn't have to be accurate, just close to the target.

After Florida's decision to leap-frog the RNC sanctioned primary calendar last week and set their new date on January 31st, South Carolina has decided over the weekend to hold their presidential primary election on January 21, 2012.

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama says he backs immigration reform, announcing last month an initiative to ease deportation policies, but he has sent home more than 1 million illegal immigrants in 2 1/2 years — on pace to deport more in one term than George W. Bush did in two. The Obama administration had deported about 1.06 million as of Sept. 12, against 1.57 million in Bush's two full presidential terms. This seeming contradiction between rhetoric and reality is a key element of debate over U.S. immigration policy, and stakes are high for 2012's presidential election as Obama faces criticism...

After nearly half of the servers for a South Korean bank crashed one day in April, investigators here found evidence indicating that they were dealing with a new kind of attack from an old rival: North Korea. South Korean officials said that 30 million customers of the Nonghyup agricultural bank were unable to use ATMs or online services for several days and that key data were destroyed, making it the most serious of a series of incidents in recent months. But even more troubling was the prospect that a belligerent neighbor had acquired the tools to disrupt one of the...

“I will work every day to make Washington, DC as inconsquential in your life as I can,” says Rick Perry as he announces for president. Well, there it is. The 2012 race in a nutshell—”America is not broken. Washington D.C. is broken,” as Perry said, in contrast to Barack Obama’s continuing insistence that government must somehow lead the way out of the economic doldrums with infrastructure banks and payroll tax cuts and extending unemployment insurance. If the dividing line between Republicans and Democrats is that Democrats want, in some sense, to direct America from Washington, Republicans believe the United States...

Residents and the legislative leadership in South Carolina without a doubt don’t want anything to do with Big Labor’s oppressive tactics. Workers in South Carolina’s new Boeing plant recently booted out union bosses and legislators created a business climate to land the production of the big 787 Dreamliner for years to come.However, according to the Daily Caller, local representatives from the International Association of Machinists (IAM) won’t leave the Palmetto State. Anthony Riedel of the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation told The Daily Caller in an interview that workers have been told that if they unionize, IAM leadership...

It will never happen, but if you’re wondering what that proposed state of “South California” would look like, geographically and politically . . . Those blue counties have about 13 million people, which would make it the country’s fifth most populous state, behind Texas, New York, Florida, and what’s left of California. It would have roughly 20 congressional districts and 22 electoral votes. It would also be heavily Republican. Again, it will never happen; Congress and the state legislature would have to agree . . . but I wonder how many Republicans will dream of taking 22 electoral votes out...

A century and a half after the opening shots of the U.S. Civil War, nearly four in 10 Southerners say they still sympathize with the Confederacy.

It is almost clockwork: As a new presidential election cycle winds around, the early primary state of South Carolina provides a defining issue for Americans and candidates to chew over. Whether it’s a debate about where the Confederate battle flag should fly — or the “real” meaning of secession — the nation’s most stubborn state can be a tar pit for the incautious politician. Thus, almost to the day that South Carolina commemorated the 150th anniversary of the first shot of the Civil War, the federal government lobbed a grenade into the Palmetto State, challenging a private industry’s right to...

1861 - Colonel Robert E. Lee resigned from the U.S. Army. Two days earlier he had been offered command of the Union army.

Black Americans are leaving northern states and relocating in the south, US census data show. Blacks are not just leaving Michigan, as one would expect. They are leaving New York and Illinois and the two major cities therein: New York City and Chicago. The New York Times reports that those leaving tend to be "younger and better educated." Walter Mead has a long post today on what this reversal of "the great migration" means for the "Big Blue" model of Democratic Party governance. Here's an excerpt: "The failure of blue social policy to create an environment which works for Blacks...

The Census Bureau last week released county and city populations for the last of the 50 states from the 2010 Census last week, ahead of schedule. Behind the columns of numbers are many vivid stories of how our nation has been changing -- and some lessons for public policy, as well. Geographically, our population is moving to the south and west, to the point that the center of the nation's population has moved to Texas County, Missouri. That sounds like the familiar story of people moving from the Snow Belt to the Sun Belt, but that's not exactly what's happening....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YWa76N5B1_0

The world's largest neutrino telescope – made from a giant cube of ice at the South Pole – aimed at detecting subatomic particles traveling near the speed of light has been completed, researchers announced today (Dec. 20). http://www.livescience.com/environment/south-pole-neutrino-observatory-construction-finished-101220.html

The Egyptian revolution has huge implications for Israel, the U.S. and what is left of the Free World. Excerpts from a statement by Blade Nzimande, General Secretary South African Communist Party. In a column by George Galloway analyzing the Tunisian and Egyptian developments in the British ‘Morning Star’ – the daily newspaper of our sister party, the Communist Party of Britain – reference is made to Lenin’s apt observations about revolutions: “There are decades when nothing happens, and weeks when decades happen”

Reporting from Atlanta — For Democrats, Ashley Bell was the kind of comer that a party builds a future on: A young African American lawyer, he served as president of the College Democrats of America, advised presidential candidate John Edwards and spoke at the 2004 Democratic National Convention in Boston. But after his party's midterm beat-down in November, Bell, a commissioner in northern Georgia's Hall County, jumped ship. He joined the Republicans. Bell, 30, said he had serious issues with the healthcare law and believed that conservative "blue dog" Democrats in Congress who shared his values had been bullied into...

Columbia, S.C. (AP) - A South Carolina proposal would prevent the state's courts from enforcing foreign law, including Islamic Sharia law, though Muslim advocates say it could essentially ban religion from mundane matters such as weddings and even burials. The bill makes no reference to a specific religion or country, though its sponsors acknowledge they worry about the ultraconservative tenets of Sharia law, or Islamic religious law. At least 13 states have introduced similar measures this year, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Sen. Mike Fair, a Greenville Republican who is the bill's main sponsor, said there was...

Oliver Stone defends film ‘South of the Border'Published: Sunday, January 30, 2011 1:22 PM PST **SNIP** “He's an honest man,” Stone said of Chavez on Thursday. “I sense no corruption in him.” But Stone has been accused of filming Chavez with a sympathetic lens, offering odd adulation to the Venezuelan leader, ignoring the president's worldwide reputation as a power-mad dictator and censorship bully. It's a sharp contrast to what Stone's heard of his past work-that biopics on Richard Nixon and George W. Bush were too harsh on the right wing. [Clarification: It was Stone who made the remark: Comparing Bush...

For Democrats in the South, the most ominous part of a disastrous year may not be what happened on Election Day but what has happened in the weeks since. After suffering a historic rout — in which nearly every white Deep South Democrat in the U.S. House was defeated and Republicans took over or gained seats in legislatures across the region — the party’s ranks in Dixie have thinned even further. In Georgia, Louisiana and Alabama, Democratic state legislators have become Republicans, concluding that there is no future in the party that once dominated the so-called Solid South. That the...

A frustrated North Korea is lashing out again, this time with a deadly volley of artillery aimed at reminding rival South Korea — and the world — that it will not be ignored. The barrage of shots fired Tuesday at a South Korean island lying within sight of its shores did not come out of nowhere. For weeks, North Korea has been angling for credit for reaching out to the U.S. and South Korea, and has warned that the cool response would come at a cost. The destruction that set homes ablaze, sent civilians fleeing for underground shelters and killed...

North Korea threatens continued strikes on South Breaking News: President Lee meets in bunker; witness tells TV channel fire on island burning out of control By Agencies Smoke rises from South Korean Yeonpyeong Island after being hit by dozens of artillery shells fired by North Korea November 23, 2010. Several South Korean civilians and soldiers were wounded and many others were being evacuated to bunkers on Tuesday, a Seoul television reported. The island is located near the western maritime border between the two Koreas, 11 km (7 miles) from the North and about 115 km (71 miles) northwest of Seoul....

The White House is strongly condemning North Korea's artillery attack against the South Korean island of Yeonpyeong. In a statement released before dawn Tuesday, Press Secretary Robert Gibbs calls on North Korea to "halt its belligerent action." He says the United States is "firmly committed" to South Korea's defense, and to the "maintenance of regional peace and stability."

North Korea fired artillery barrages onto a South Korean island near their disputed border Tuesday, setting buildings alight and prompting South Korea to return fire and scramble fighter jets. At least one South Korean marine was killed and 13 wounded, the military said. The skirmish came amid high tension over North Korea's claim that it has a new uranium enrichment facility and just six weeks after North Korean leader Kim Jong Il unveiled his youngest son Kim Jong Un as his heir apparent. One South Korean marine was killed, three were seriously wounded and 10 slightly wounded, a Joint Chiefs...

(Reuters) - North Korea on Tuesday fired dozens of artillery shells at a South Korean island, setting buildings on fire and prompting a return fire by the South, Seoul's military and media reports said.

PIERRE, S.D. (KTIV) - Saying "voters want change", South Dakota State senator-elect Eldon Nygaard, of Vermillion, has made a change, too. He's now a Republican. Nygaard served in the South Dakota House from 2006 to 2010 as a Democrat. But, in a statement, Nygaard said he believes he can better-serve his constituents in Pierre as a Republican. "I firmly believe that I can represent my District's needs in Pierre more effectively as a member of the Republican Party. My past four years in the House have been marked by a bi-partisan approach to working for my district and the people...

The white Southern Democrat...is sliding nearer to extinction. ...The carnage...was...brutal in the Deep South, where...one white Democrat survived across Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia and South Carolina. SNIP "Right now in most of Dixie it is culturally unacceptable to be a Democrat...," said Dave...Saunders, a campaign strategist... SNIP Democrats...lost at least 19 Southern House members and...senator Blanche Lincoln...the most conservative Democrats...four-term Rep. Jim Marshall of Georgia and 10-term Rep. Gene Taylor of Mississippi couldn't withstand the wave. It also snared ...veterans...John Spratt of South Carolina,... 14-term chairman of the House Budget Committee, and 14-term Rep. Rick Boucher of Virginia. When the...

Activists seek to oust GOP legislative leadersBy John O’Connor Updated: Tuesday, Oct. 26, 2010 07:02 AM COLUMBIA - Conservative activists are stepping up their efforts to oust legislative leadership, launching a petition drive to replace the House speaker and change Senate rules for seniority-based chairmen. The effort raises questions about where Republican gubernatorial candidate Nikki Haley's allegiances lie -- with the insurgents with whom she is politically aligned or with legislative leadership with whom she has pledged to work? The focus of the conservative activists is House Speaker Bobby Harrell, R-Charleston, Senate Finance Chairman Hugh Leatherman, R-Florence, and the State...

Desmond Tutu says by bringing int'l artists to perform, TA Opera House "advances Israel's fallacious claim to being a 'civilized democracy.'" Talkbacks (23) Cape Town's renowned opera troupe has rejected a call from retired Anglican Archbishop Desmond Tutu to cancel a performance in Israel scheduled next month. The opera's managing director Michael Williams said in a statement Wednesday that the opera would not take a political position and cut cultural ties with Israel or the Palestinian territory. Tutu, who earned a Nobel Prize for his peaceful opposition to apartheid, urged Cape Town's renowned opera troupe not to tour Israel until...

CHATTANOOGA, Tenn.—The Republican Party is poised in the coming election to remove the vestiges of Democratic control from state governments in the heart of the South. In Tennessee, South Carolina, Georgia and Alabama, the GOP appears likely to win every state elected office as well as take or strengthen control over legislatures. Republican sweeps in these states would give the party control over the redrawing of congressional districts after the 2010 census, and enhance its ability to raise funds and campaign for Republican candidates in the 2012 races. White conservative voters in the South have been turning to the GOP...

The Republican Party is set to defeat Democrats in the upcoming state governments in the heart of the South and will completely dominate the election this time. It is expected that the Republicans will win in Tennessee, South Carolina, Georgia and Alabama and will win every state elected office. If the Republican manages to win these states, they would get the power to redraw the congressional districts after the 2010 census. It will allow the Republicans to raise more funds and launch aggressive campaign for the Republican candidates in the 2012 races. White conservative voters in the South are set...

Shortly after 10 o'clock on a crisp Saturday morning two weeks ago, 75 folks solemnly clutching small American flags and digital cameras assembled in a grove of young pines at a modest farm in the Zion community, tucked into in the soft hills west of downtown Rockingham. Their objective was to honor five forgotten Union soldiers who died in a skirmish only days before the end of the Civil War. Until now, the solders' remains have lain in hand-dug graves marked only by small piles of white stones for 145 years, their identities unknown. The event, sponsored by the Richmond...

The American flag, which Robert E. Lee had defended as a soldier, flew at half mast in Lexington, Virginia.

Sometimes these blasphemy death threats come from crankish jihadi sympathizers who’d never have the stones to actually do anything about it. And sometimes they don’t. The Virginia man who warned on a radical Islamic website that the creators of the cartoon series “South Park” will be targeted for death for their caricature of the Prophet Muhammad has been arrested on charges that he provided material support to the terrorist organization Al Shabab, federal officials said Wednesday. Zachary Adam Chesser, aka Abu Talhah Al-Amrikee, admitted to federal agents that he attempted on two occasions to travel to Somalia to join Al...

When stories are told about African poverty, race often seems to play a large part. Based in Senegal, Reuters photographer Finbarr O'Reilly (previously featured here for his work in DR Congo) traveled to South Africa earlier this year and visited one of a growing number of squatter camps populated mostly by Afrikaners - white South Africans - to document their stories and help show that, despite the fact that impoverished blacks in the region far outnumber whites, poverty is a human issue, not necessarily racial. O'Reilly: "While most white South Africans still enjoy lives of privilege and relative wealth, the...

"This is Gregg Hall, founder of True Reporting On Gulf Oil Spill - Please pass this page on to everyone you know who wants the most real and true information as it happens."

Video producer was on one of six vessels involved in raid PORTLAND, Maine — A Maine video producer recalled hearing shots amid the chaos that broke out as Israeli troops raided the aid flotilla he was on that was attempting to break Israel’s blockade of Gaza. Scott Hamann of South Portland arrived in Maine late Friday night, five days after the flotilla was intercepted by Israeli troops, resulting in the deaths of nine pro-Palestinian activists. In a phone interview with The Associated Press, Hamann said troops that landed on the boat he was on fired high-powered paintball guns and threw...

An earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 7.2 rattled the South Pacific island nation of Vanuatu early Friday, briefly triggering a tsunami watch for the region, officials said. There were no immediate reports of damage. The U.S. Geological Survey said the quake struck just after 4 a.m. local time and was centered 300 miles (485 kilometers) northwest of the capital, Port Vila, at a depth of 22 miles (36 kilometers). The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center in Hawaii issued a tsunami warning for Vanuatu, Solomon Islands and New Caledonia, but canceled the alert about an hour later. The center's duty geophysicist...

South Korea deploys troops in border zone to ‘punish’ North Friday, May 28, 2010 By Iftikhar Gilani PANMUNJEOM: An eerie tension is building up on the border between South and North Koreas as the South is amassing troops to take punitive action against the communist North. The tension is also threatening future of Kaeseong, a joint industrial zone, which has often been touted as a model for Pakistan and India to build cooperative relationship along the Line of Control (LoC). The tension runs high after a North Korean submarine torpedoed a 1,200-tonne South Korean ship, killing over 50 sailors. It...

All 169 people on board were feared killed when a passenger plane overshot the runway in southern India and crashed early Saturday, an official said.

I would also remind any Conservative that America is in the hole it is today because we have forgotten so much of our history. We are right to demand that our representatives remember the founding documents, we are right to demand these documents be taught in school. Again, how is studying the Confederacy any less important? Is not the essential question right now, on so many issues, NOT States rights? And what was the fight from 1861-65 over again? Yes, States rights.

The veiled threats against the Comedy Central show's creators should be taken very seriously. 'South Park" is hilarious, right? Not any more. Last week, Zachary Adam Chesser—a 20-year-old Muslim convert who now goes by the name Abu Talhah Al-Amrikee—posted a warning on the Web site RevolutionMuslim.com following the 200th episode of the show on Comedy Central. The episode, which trotted out many celebrities the show has previously satirized, also "featured" the Prophet Muhammad: He was heard once from within a U-Haul truck and a second time from inside a bear costume.

Baltimore Sun: It's not even that the terrorists have won, it's that wannabe terrorists have won. A group called Revolution Muslim, which by most accounts seems less a terrorist cell than, metaphorically speaking, a couple of guys living in their parents' basements, managed to scare Comedy Central this week into censoring South Park for mocking their religion, or rather, the ban in some quarters of depictions of the prophet Muhammed. The Anti-Defamation League, which has tracked the New York-based Revolution Muslim, says the group has no more than about a dozen members, is known mainly for spouting anti-Semitism, handing...

(CNN) -- Based on the hundreds of e-mails, Facebook comments and Tweets I've read in response to my denunciation of Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell's decision to honor Confederates for their involvement in the Civil War -- which was based on the desire to continue slavery -- the one consistent thing that supporters of the proclamation offer up as a defense is that these individuals were fighting for what they believed in and defending their homeland. In criticizing me for saying that celebrating the Confederates was akin to honoring Nazi soldiers for killing of Jews during the Holocaust, Rob Wagner said,...

A big anniversary is drawing extra tourists to the battlefields of Appomattox. One hundred and forty-five years ago Friday, General Robert E. Lee surrendered the Confederacy at Appomattox, bringing the Civil War to an end. Crowds gathered to re-live the historic moment at the Appomattox National Historic Site. Actors are playing the part of townspeople to help visitors understand what the area was like in the 1860's. Friday's events have attracted visitors from across the U.S. Some drove from as far away as Oregon and California. "We had about 400 people out here on Thursday. It was nice. Don't know...

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich exhorted an audience of Republican faithful to stop President Barack Obama's "secular socialist machine" by winning the fall congressional elections and ultimately repealing the Democrats' centerpiece health care legislation. Gingrich spoke Thursday on the opening night of the Southern Republican Leadership Conference at the Hilton Riverside in New Orleans. A one-time history professor with a doctorate degree from Tulane, Gingrich rejected any claim to bipartisanship, calling the country's political split the most serious conflict since the years leading up to the Civil War. "The most radical president in American history has now thrown down the...

The South is rising again. Before I go any further, let me clarify. Sadly, too many in our country possess the superficial and ignorant perception that the only impetus behind southern secession was to perpetuate the abhorrent practice of slavery. Therefore, when they hear such a phrase, their kneejerk reaction tells them this must be about race. I assure you, it’s not. When the North invaded the South during the 1860s, it was to deny the southern states the ultimate expression of their sovereignty – the ability to withdraw from a union they had voluntarily joined. Interestingly, secession was a...