Free Republic

FLORENCE- Congressman Parker Griffith held his third town hall meeting Monday night to talk about health care reform. Around 1,200 people fill UNA's Norton Hall to hear what the congressman had to say and to also voice their concerns. "A lot of people are saying, 'oh my gosh' these town hall meetings are getting shrill and maybe not as well mannered as they should be. I like that though. I don't think it should be overly polite when you have something this important to discuss," said Dr. Griffith. He has said time and time again he is not for a...

On August 21, 2009, First Coweta Bank, Newnan, GA was closed by the Georgia Department of Banking and Finance, and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) was named Receiver. No advance notice is given to the public when a financial institution is closed. The FDIC has assembled useful information regarding your relationship with this institution. Besides a checking account, you may have Certificates of Deposit, a car loan, a business checking account, a commercial loan, a Social Security direct deposit, and other relationships with the institution. The FDIC has compiled the following information, which should answer many of your questions...

"State health labs have confirmed 652 cases of influenza in the past four weeks and all of them were the H1N1 strain. Two deaths in Alabama have been linked to the virus since it was first detected in April."

Texas' identity as a solid "red" state is unlikely to change any time soon. According to a new Gallup Poll, 43 percent of Lone Star State residents identify as "conservatives" while just 16 percent identify as "liberals." Thirty-six percent of respondents described themselves as "moderates," in the poll of more than 9,100 Texans. The most conservative state is Alabama, where 49 percent of residents are solidly conservative, followed by Mississippi, Utah and Louisiana. The most liberal state is Massachusetts where 29 percent of people identify as liberal, followed by Vermont, Oregon and Washington. In Washington D.C., 37 percent of respondents...

Crowd estimates for tonight's health care town hall meeting vary. As the event began, a speaker said there were at least 1,000 people in attendance. An aide to U.S. Rep. Spencer Bachus, R-Vestavia Hills, who hosted the meeting, estimated double that number.

There may never be a better time or place to have an encounter with the world's largest fish than right now off the Alabama coast. For the last few weeks, unprecedented numbers of whale sharks have been seen cruising just a few miles off the beach, their broad snouts and tall dorsal fins breaking the surface as they swim lazily along, mouths agape, sucking in plankton.

Tropical Depression 4 developed in the East Gulf of Mexico off the coast of Tampa Bay early Sunday morning. A tropical storm warning has been issued for NW Florida. Tropical Storms Ana and Bill continue to move westward, with Bill gaining some strength overnight. Ana Bill TD4 Ana Forecast Models Bill Forecast Models TD4 Forecast Models Long Range Radar Visible Satellite Image LoopInfrared Satellite Image Loop Visible Image LoopInfrared Image Loop Visible Image LoopInfrared Image Loop WV Satellite Image Loop WV Image Loop WV Image Loop Public Advisory Public Advisory Public Advisory Discussion Discussion Discussion Buoy Data: Western Caribbean                  ...

MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) - Alabama Gov. Bob Riley approved a new tax Friday to help rescue the state's most populous county from a severe budget crisis, a move that should put 1,000 laid-off county workers back to work. Jefferson County residents have faced long lines to conduct business in recent weeks because satellite courthouses closed and other offices cut back hours in the wake of the financial trouble. Jefferson County is home to about 640,000 people and Alabama's largest city, Birmingham. The Republican governor signed two bills into law after a quick special session. One creates an occupational tax for...

CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- Shares of BB&T Corp. rallied Friday on reports it will buy deposits and branches of Colonial BancGroup Inc. in a deal backed by federal regulators to take the struggling lender into receivership. The deal was approved by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. on Thursday night and is expected to be announced later on Friday, The Wall Street Journal reported. "The market is treating it as it was a foregone conclusion here," said Sandler O'Neill & Partners analyst Kevin Fitzsimmons. Shares of BB&T rose $2.26, or 8.8 percent, to $28.06 in afternoon trading Friday, while shares of Colonial...

The potential collapse of Colonial BancGroup poses another hazard to the still-shaky housing market: Mortgages could become even harder to get.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp is taking Colonial BancGroup Inc (CNB.N) into receivership and will sell the struggling lender's branches and deposits to BB&T Corp (BBT.N), Dow Jones said, citing a person familiar with the situation

The Alabama State Banking Board is expected next week to ask Colonial BancGroup to agree to appoint the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. as receiver or conservator for Colonial Bank. Colonial said in a release and in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing Friday morning that it received notice Wednesday from the Alabama board that it would ask for Colonial’s consent in the matter, if and when the state superintendent of banking deems such an appointment to be necessary, at a meeting on Aug. 12.

An empty chamber in a loaded gun saved the life of a Toledo police officer. This, after a man wanted for murder took police on a high-speed chase and an intense shoot-out. "Officer Board came very close to losing his life last night, that's fair to say," said Toledo Police Chief Mike Navarre. Navarre says Sunday night's shoot-out at Dorr and Westwood could have been a lot worse. Four officers walked away from the incident unharmed: Eric Board, Diana Trevino, Charles Leroux and Lieutenant Mark Collins. The suspect, 21-year-old Devon Tyrone Woods, was not so lucky. A three mile high-speed...

Experts : Tanker dual buy sensible Sunday, August 09, 2009 By GEORGE TALBOT Political Editor Forget the money. Forget the politics. The U.S. Air Force could gain a major strategic advantage by splitting its contract for aerial refueling tankers, according to military experts. A proposed "dual buy" would replace the Air Force's existing fleet of KC-135 tankers with two different aircraft, giving greater flexibility to war planners and speeding the retirement of the Eisenhower-era KC-135s, analysts said. Advertisement The compromise would also end a political stalemate between rival bidders Boeing Co. and Northrop Grumman Corp., spreading jobs across a broader...

<p>After months of planning, FR's DC Convention is coming together.</p> <p>Help make history, join in Free Republic's return to DC as a national group and help to herald in another wave of conservative activism Free Republic is famous for!</p> <p>“Reagan is good for business” was Andrew’s introduction to politics. “I was real little, but that’s what my dad used to say.” Andrew Wilkow began his radio career at the college radio station. Conservative leaning politics were always his heart and he expressed his views on the air regularly, much to the anger of his co-workers. “I was basically just anti-P.C. at first.” He broke out of music radio in 2002 when he was given a trial/fill-in slot for Mark Levin on his hometown station, WABC in NYC. “That was huge and that’s when I first met Sean Hannity.” Soon after that he earned a weekend slot then a full time job at an upstate station. I basically did a 300 mile roundtrip every weekend for over 3 years to do both shows. Wilkow’s move to SIRIUS brings his new sound of conservative talk radio to a national audience. To quote Andrew, “Now is the time for the new school of conservative voices with a whole new style and passion – moving to SIRIUS lets me take that style and passion nationwide."</p>

Tonight Bright posted this on his "District Work Schedule" page: 8/6/09 MONTGOMERY, AL - Congressman Bright will be continuing his district work schedule and will be in the River Region on Friday, August 7th. Congressman Bright will be hosting a meet and greet event, as well as two "Congress on Your Corner" to listen to concerns and meet with constituents. That's it. These events are tomorrow. No times. No locations. I detect a new strategy: Have meetings with constituents...without the constituents!

I was lying in my hospital bed in Boston when I got an e-mail from someone making an oblique reference to the arrest of Skip Gates. I thought the writer was mistaken and wrote back saying, “But Skip is in China.” I couldn’t believe there was anything under the sun that would lead to Skip getting arrested—unless it was in China. And even then, what could he have done? Asked an official a tough question about human rights or something? So I did what I always do when I need to reach Skip, who, like me, lives on his BlackBerry....

Cash-Strapped Alabama County Feels Crush of Recession Embroiled in a budget crisis, the largest county in Alabama is slashing services left and right, leading to mass layoffs as well as heightened concerns that public safety could be in jeopardy. Jefferson County has so far closed satellite offices in outlying communities and laid off more than 1,000 employees -- about a quarter of the public workforce... Sheriff Mike Hale, who lost a court battle to block the county commissioners from making the cuts, said public safety is critical in his district... "...we just need a presence on the street..." The budget...

his list is based on responses to a Gallup Poll that asked a cross-section of Americans if religion is an “important part” of their lives. 1. Mississippi 85% 2. Alabama 82% 3. South Carolina 80% 4. Tennessee 79% 5. Louisiana 78% 6. Arkansas 78% 7. Georgia 76% 8. North Carolina 76% 9. Oklahoma 75% 10. Kentucky & Texas (tie) 74% ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ HUMAN EVENTS is the news source President Reagan called his "favorite newspaper" and we still hold high the Reaganesque principles of free enterprise, limited government and, above all, a staunch, unwavering defense of American freedom.

City leaders in Oxford, Ala. have approved the destruction of a 1,500-year-old Native American ceremonial mound and are using the dirt as fill for a new Sam's Club, a retail warehouse store operated by Wal-Mart. A University of Alabama archaeology report commissioned by the city found that the site was historically significant as the largest of several ancient stone and earthen mounds throughout the Choccolocco Valley. But Oxford Mayor Leon Smith -- whose campaign has financial connections to firms involved in the $2.6 million no-bid project -- insists the mound is not man-made and was used only to "send smoke...

<p>On 04 August 2009 the PGR will undertake the delivery of a casket flag from Michael Alan Gare's military honors, completed here in CA, to his daughter in FL. We will transfer the flag from rider to rider like a pony express. We will start on 04 Aug 2009 at 0900 PDT.</p>

Oh my..... BIRMINGHAM, Ala. – The sheriff in Alabama's most populous county may call for the National Guard to help maintain order, a spokesman said Tuesday, after a judge cleared the way for cuts in the sheriff's budget and hopes dimmed for a quick end to a budget crisis. Eek. Jefferson County is the county in Alabama that contains Birmingham; it appears that the Sheriff's Department is going to get hammered now. The county's economic problems stem from a number of bad bets made with..... guess what.... exotic financial instruments sold to the county by.... you guessed it.... big banks....

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. – The sheriff in Alabama's most populous county may call for the National Guard to help maintain order, a spokesman said Tuesday, after a judge cleared the way for cuts in the sheriff's budget and hopes dimmed for a quick end to a budget crisis. Circuit Judge Joseph L. Boohaker ruled that leaders in Jefferson County — now trying to head off a municipal bankruptcy filing of historic proportions — could go ahead with plans to slash $4.1 million from the budget of Sheriff Mike Hale, who had filed a lawsuit that temporarily blocked spending cuts for his...

BIRMINGHAM, Alabama (Reuters) - Alabama's debt-ridden Jefferson County laid off about two-thirds of its 3,600 employees on Monday because of plummeting revenues, a move that will sharply curtail services in areas ranging from roads to courthouses. The cuts are just the latest blow to Jefferson, whose population of 660,000 includes Birmingham, the state's largest city and its economic powerhouse. They come after the county racked up around $4 billion in debt by using exotic financial instruments to fund a revamp of its sewer system. The work force cuts will hit the roads and transportation, revenue and security departments, and cuts...

June 11, 2009. A human being died on this day. Most people say that’s not special, people die every day. This person was shot down while working at the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C. A place that is a living vessel of what hate can do if allowed to fester. Officer Jones was probably targeted first by this racist bigot because he was black. Now Officer Stephen Tyrone Jones’ family has to exist without a father. He has a wife and an eleven year old son. Will this hate now be propagated in the victim, the child? Let us pray...

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (AP) - As a government shutdown loomed, residents of Alabama's most populous county lined up Friday to renew their car registrations and settle their tax bills. By Monday, at least a quarter of the county's 3,600 employees will be on unpaid leave and many county offices will be closed or cutting back hours. The county, with 640,000 residents, has been on the brink of filing the nation's largest municipal bankruptcy for the past year due to a sewer bond fiasco that remains unresolved. Then things got worse: A judge ruled the county's occupational tax is illegal and courts...

MOBILE, Ala. — A Mobile police officer who was involved in an incident where pepper spray and a Taser were used on a deaf and mentally disabled man has been put on administrative duty. Mobile police gave out a statement Wednesday saying the officer's identity was not being released at this time and that the family of 37-year-old Antonio Love has filed a formal complaint with the department. The officer used pepper spray and tasered Love while removing him from a Dollar General store bathroom where employees said he had been for more than an hour. They then discovered Love...

BIRMINGHAM, AL (WSFA) - A car bomb detonated late Wednesday evening near Birmingham. WSFA 12 News' sister station WBRC Fox 6 confirms the explosion in Walker County. Information is limited at this time, but WBRC is setting up a live feed for continued coverage. The explosion happened in the Parrish community of Walker County. A victim was taken to UAB Hospital with serious injuries according to a hospital spokesperson. The victim's name is not being released, but sources confirm it was a male. The Walker County Sheriff's Department, The Parrish Fire and Police departments as well as the State Fire...

MOBILE, Ala. – Police in Mobile, Ala., used pepper spray and a Taser on a deaf, mentally disabled man who they said wouldn't leave a store's bathroom.

WASHINGTON -- Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Mobile, will vote against giving Judge Sonia Sotomayor a seat on the U.S. Supreme Court. In a column published today in the USA Today newspaper, Sessions wrote that he does not believe that Sotomayor "has the deep-rooted convictions necessary to resist the siren call of judicial activism." "She has evoked its mantra too often," he wrote. "As someone who cares deeply about our great heritage of law, I must withhold my consent."

The leading Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee says he will vote against the nomination of Sonia Sotomayor, who may replace pro-abortion Justice David Souter on the Supreme Court. If confirmed, pro-life groups are concerned that Sotomayor would promote abortion on the high court. As several other leading Republicans in the Senate made known last week, Sessions says he can't vote for Sotomayor and cited her penchant for judicial activism. Sessions says he doesn't think she will be able to get away from it should she become a member of the high court. "During three days of careful questioning, Judge...

CONTINGENCY OPERATING SITE MAREZ EAST, Iraq, July 23, 2009 – Army Sgt. 1st Class Hershel L. Mayfield is a Vietnam veteran with 39 years of service. But when he re-enlisted here earlier this month, his mind was on the future and the young people he serves with. Army Sgt. 1st Class Hershel Mayfield, right, receives his re-enlistment certificate from Army Capt. Irvin Morris at Contingency Operating Site Marez East, Iraq, July 7, 2009. Mayfield has served 39 years in the Army, including 37 with the 158th Maintenance Company of the Alabama Army National Guard. U.S. Army photo by Staff Sgt....

SACARMENTO, CA - A national "Tea Party Express" tour (website: www.TeaPartyExpress.org ) will conduct a series of 35 tea party rallies across the country 35 days from now. The "Tea Party Express" will rally Americans to oppose the current policies of higher deficit spending, higher taxes, bailouts and quasi-socialistic government policies. Starting in California on August 28th, the caravan will travel eastward towards its final destination of the massive 9/12/09 Taxpayer March on D.C. The "Tea Party Express" is a project of the Our Country Deserves Better Committee, one of the nation's largest conservative political action committees. What started out...

Republicans have picked up another seat in the Alabama House. Republican businessman Phil Williams defeated Democrat Jenny Askins in a special election for the House District 6 seat in Madison County on Tuesday. Williams carried 60% of the vote and will replace Democratic Rep. Sue Schmitz. She was automatically removed from office after being convicted on federal fraud charges earlier this year. It was the GOP's second legislative victory of the summer in Huntsville. First-time Republican candidate Paul Sanford defeated a Democrat earlier this summer in a special election to replace Parker Griffith, a Democrat who was elected to Congress....

Fifteen states have crossed a painful threshold: 10 percent unemployment. More states, and the nation, likely will follow, one of the biggest dangers to an economic recovery. How consumers behave in the face of rising unemployment will figure prominently in shaping a broader rebound. If they go back into hibernation and sharply cut spending like they did at the end of last year, the recovery could cave in. More likely is that consumers will stay cautious, making for a fragile and slow-moving national economic turnaround, economists said. The Labor Department on Friday said unemployment topped 10 percent in 15 states...

Judge Sonia Sotomayor ended four days of testimony this afternoon with prospects of rapid confirmation to the Supreme Court improved, as a conservative Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee edged toward endorsing her and the panel's ranking Republican said the GOP would not block a vote on her nomination. Shortly before the committee concluded its questioning of Sotomayor, Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), the panel's senior GOP member, told Sotomayor he would "look forward to you getting that vote" by the time the Senate takes its annual summer break, slated to begin Aug. 7.

White House: Like Obama, Surgeon General Nominee Benjamin Pro-Abortion Washington, DC -- White House officials have confirmed that President Barack Obama's nominee for Surgeon General may be a Catholic, but agrees with his pro-abortion position. Regina Benjamin is a well-regarded Alabama physician who has been honored by the Catholic Church for helping poor residents of her state. http://www.LifeNews.com/nat5220.html

Let’s face it….all seemed so innocent yesterday as we saw Regina Benjamin nominated as Surgeon General of the United States by Barack Hussein Obama…here was this rural doctor from Alabama, this champion of non-profit healthcare…a doctor who herself was a victim of Hurricane Katrina. Well folks, what I have found out about our President is this - nothing is innocent and nothing isn’t calculated. It’s all about pieces of a jigsaw puzzle fitting into the finished product and quite frankly, more and more Americans are waking up to the fact that the finished product is uglier than sin. We might...

Republican Phil Williams Claims Victory in House District 6 SpecialBirmingham –Unofficially, Republican Phil Williams claims victory in the House District 6 special election – by a total of 62% to 38% over Democrat Jenny Askins. The HD6 win is the second election in just five weeks that the Alabama Republican Party has picked up a seat in the Legislature. Even more historic is the blow delivered to the over 113 years of Democrat rule in Alabama, as Republicans are within single digits of the majority in the House for the first time since Reconstruction. In the winning effort, the Party...

WASHINGTON – Sen. Jeff Sessions, the Republican equating Sonia Sotomayor's supposed empathy with racial bias, was blocked from the federal bench himself two decades ago for making insensitive remarks about the Ku Klux Klan and the NAACP. The third-term Alabama senator, this week at least, is the face of a party without a clear leader. His role strikes some as hypocritical. But arguably, no one knows more intimately what a political minefield race has been for the GOP. ~SNIP~Sessions is the personification of a party with an overwhelmingly white, Southern, religious membership.

Obama Surgeon General Pick Regina Benjamin Wanted Docs to Learn Abortions Washington, DC -- President Barack Obama named Alabama physician Regina Benjamin as the next Surgeon General of the United States. Benjamin is an African-American doctor who is known for rebuilding her medical clinic after it was destroyed by Hurricane Katrina in 2005, and then ravaged by fire in 2006. However, Benjamin has also urged that future physicians be trained to learn how to perform abortions. See http://www.LifeNews.com/nat5208.html

Regina Benjamin, the youngest doctor and first black woman admitted to the American Medical Association, is President Obama's pick to be surgeon general. ------ snip ------

As the confirmation hearings for President Barack Obama's Supreme Court appointee Sonia Sotomayor are upon us, the left-wing attack machine had to take a few last shots ranking Senate Judiciary Committee Republican Sen. Jeff Session, Ala., and the Republican Party as a whole. MSNBC host Rachel Maddow explained the junior Alabama senator would take over the spot after Sen. Arlen Specter's defection to the Democratic Party on her July 10 program, suggesting his selection to the post was part of some rebranding by the GOP. "Republicans have also decided to have Senator Jeff Sessions lead this battle for them," Maddow...

Another Whale Spotted Near Orange Beach July 9, 2009 - Orange Beach, AL (OBA) - It was another beautiful day on the Alabama Gulf Coast. Local angler Lea Scruggs and his friends Jessica Simpson, Melvin Lowdermilk and Shelby Wolven headed out on Scruggs boat, the Wahooter, for a day of offshore fishing in the Gulf of Mexico. When the Wahooter Fishing Team started out that morning, they didn't expect to have such an exciting tale to tell, especially not another Whale Tale from the Gulf of Mexico story originating from Orange Beach, Alabama.

Police: Robber leaves empty-handed when Hispanic clerk cannot understand demands Thursday, July 09, 2009 By JILLIAN KRAMER Staff Reporter An armed man gave up trying to rob a Hispanic clerk at the Asia Market on Tuesday night when she didn't understand his demands for money, Mobile police said. The clerk, Angelina Geronimo, speaks almost no English. Geronimo, whose husband owns the Asian food store on Azalea Road, was alone when a man, masked by two T-shirts around his head and armed with a handgun, entered about 8:30 p.m., according to police.

The city of Hoover will get $400,000 in federal stimulus money for a landscaping and beautification project at the Interstate 65 and U.S. 31 interchange, city officials learned this week. The project will be paid completely with federal funding from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, according to the Alabama Department of Transportation. The city will not be required to provide any matching funds for the project. Mayor Tony Petelos said news of 100 percent federal funding comes as the city is completing the spruce-up of the Alford Avenue interchange, which is the first Hoover exit on I-65 South and...

Tuesday July 7, 2009 Alabama Attorney General Calls Undercover Video of Planned Parenthood 'Extremely Troubling', Seeks Investigation MONTGOMERY, Alabama, July 7, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Alabama Attorney General Troy King has called a new undercover video released last week showing Planned Parenthood of Alabama apparently breaking state mandatory reporting laws for sexual abuse "extremely troubling" and requested the full recordings. The student-led nonprofit responsible for the recordings, Live Action, immediately sent the full footage, which the Attorney General's office received yesterday. The video shows a Planned Parenthood staffer, identified as "Tanisha," telling a purportedly 14-year-old girl with a 31-year-old "boyfriend"...

July 5, 2009 - Orange Beach, AL (OBA) - The Airborne Fishing Team once again wowed the spectators on the docks at Zeke's Marina - this time with their 132.9 pound Warsaw Grouper. Comments heard on the docks were "Holy Cow, that's a big fish", and "Oh My God".

Today Fort Payne had a nice gathering of concerned citizens come together in heart and mind in defense of America and it's citizens. A wonderful group of locals spoke from about noon to 2pm at the city park (formally known as Union Park). Fort Payne with a population of about 12,000 put together a nice T.E.A. party and had 200 (+/- 50) people attend. It was a pleasant day with a nice breeze to help with the low 90's temperature.

Trieu Duong was killed Thursday afternoon during a robbery at his Fairfield jewelry store. Edward Morsby III was arrested in Virginia and charged with capital murder Perry Cauthen was arrested in southwest Birmingham and charged with capital murder Trieu Duong and his family arrived in the U.S. on the most American of days. It was the Fourth of July. In 1976. And that made it their adopted nation's bicentennial, and a perfect time to embark on the American Dream.