Free Republic

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. — Virginia Congressman Dave Brat made international headlines in 2014 when he defeated House Majority Leader Eric Cantor in the Republican primary. On Friday, Brat came to the Yellowhammer State to highlight his teamwork with some of Alabama’s most conservative members of Congress.... One of the issues that separated Brat and Cantor the most during the campaign was immigration. Cantor was an outspoken supporter of the Senate’s Gang of 8 bill, which was reviled by immigration hawks. Though the bill was ultimately unsuccessful, his constituents’ displeasure with it resonated strongly at the ballot box the following November. Brat...

Front-runner Donald Trump has surged to a nearly 40 percent lead in the latest Alabama Republican primary poll. From Aug. 29 – Sep. 1, Gravis Marketing asked 1,616 participants, “assuming you had to vote today, which 2016 GOP Candidate would you vote for?” Trump garnered an astonishing 38 percent, effectively matching the percentage received by the other candidates combined (38.8). In the last Alabama poll, Trump was supported by 30 percent of voters, and the real estate mogul’s eight point boost could possibly be attributed to his recent trip to Mobile (38.8). Ben Carson is the only other candidate to...

Black Confederate flag activist says fatal car wreck was no accident: ‘They’re after us’ WRITTEN BY ELIZABETH BESHEARS ON JULY 20, 2015 AT 10:27 AM CDT BIRMINGHAM, Ala. — Anthony Hervey, an Oxford, Mississippi, native and African-American Confederate flag activist died in a car wreck on the way home from a “Save our South” rally in Birmingham, now some are concerned the fatal crash wasn’t an accident. Also in the car at the time of the wreck was Arlene Barnum, who survived with minor injuries, and says the wreck was caused by a silver car which chased them before swerving...

Planned Parenthood Southeast on Friday filed a federal lawsuit over Gov. Robert Bentley’s effort to cut off Medicaid payments to the organization’s Alabama clinics. The organization said Bentley’s effort penalizes low-income women who seek contraceptive and preventative health care services at the clinics. The lawsuit was filed in federal court in Montgomery. It accuses Bentley of violating a federal law that they said requires Medicaid patients to have their choice of provider to receive family planning care. “We’re in court today because each and every patient, and her ability to make her own deeply personal and private health care decisions,...

Led by conservative activist and talk show host Glenn Beck, more than 20,000 people chanting "All Lives Matter" marched the historic civil rights route from Kelly Ingram Park to Birmingham City Hall this morning. "It's about taking our church out in the streets," Beck said. He said marchers came from as far away as China, Dubai and the Netherlands. Actor Chuck Norris, a conservative activist known for his martial arts, action movies and TV show "Walker, Texas Ranger," marched about two rows behind Beck. Alveda King, a niece of civil rights activist the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., marched in...

The Planned Parenthood abortion business has filed a lawsuit against the state of Alabama after Governor Governor Robert Bentley made the decision to yank its taxpayer funding. The state cut Planned Parenthood’s funding after a national scandal involving the abortion company selling the body parts of aborted babies. This is the second Planned Parenthood lawsuit against a state for its decision to revoke taxpayer funding — following a suit against pro-life Louisiana Governro Bobby Jindal after his state canceled a state contract with Planned Parenthood. After Louisiana and other states yanked taxpayer funding, the Obama administration threatened them — but...

Gov. Robert Bentley's wife of 50 years, Dianne, today filed for divorce, saying "their marriage has suffered an irretrievable breakdown," according to court records. The couple, both 72, were married in 1965 and have four children. Alabama's First Lady files for divorce Alabama Governor Robert Bentley's wife, Diane, files for divorce citing "complete incompatibility." The filing cites "complete incompatibility of temperament" and states they have been separated since January. The filing also lists her address as Tuscaloosa and his as Montgomery. "There exists a conflict of personalities which destroys the legitimate aims of matrimony and all possibilities of reconciliation are...

Bible verse bumper stickers affixed to the back of Houston County Sheriff's Office vehicles are in violation of the Establishment Clause of the U.S. Constitution, according to the Freedom from Religion Foundation. In a letter addressed to Houston County Sheriff Donald Valenza, the non-profit group which advocates for the separation of church and state says the decals must be removed because they are paid for by taxpayers and endorse a religious message. "Placing decals that literally quote chapter and verse on Houston County property is a clear endorsement of Christianity, especially when the quote is viewed in its full context,"...

A new report from the Alabama state health department confirms that the Planned Parenthood abortion business failed to report the rapes of a 14-year-old girl who ultimately had two abortions during a four-month time period. This is the latest bad publicity for the abortion company after Planned Parenthood was found in a series of videos to be selling aborted babies and their body parts.The latest report from the Alabama Department of Public Health about the Planned Parenthood abortion clinic in Mobile is dated from November but was only made public on August 13th.There are several major problems, including failure to...

A white police officer in the South who was recently beaten bloody and unconscious by a black suspect now admits he failed to defend himself properly because he was afraid if he used force he would have been accused of racism. This is poignant testimony to the tremendous damage that the racist Black Lives Matter movement has inflicted on the American psyche. Nowadays police all over the country are increasingly reluctant, or in some cases outright unwilling, to perform their duties as law enforcement personnel. They know that government officials, eager to pander to loud, angry lynch mobs in the...

U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, addresses the media in Tuscaloosa. Cruz is set to give the keynote speech at the Tuscaloosa County Republican Party's Lincoln-Reagan Dinner. (Howard Koplowitz)"Welcome to my office," Ted Cruz says to a reporter as he motions to a folding chair seated opposite him in the bowels of Bryant-Denny Stadium in Tuscaloosa. The Republican senator from Texas and 2016 presidential candidate has a few minutes to spare for an interview before giving the keynote address at the Tuscaloosa County Republican Party's Lincoln-Reagan Dinner.The office Cruz hopes to occupy after November 2016 is more spacious and oval than...

(PHOTO-AT-LINK)Donald Trump went to Mobile, Ala., over the weekend, and thousands of people came to hear the Republican frontrunner speak. But the most important thing thing that came out of Trump's appearance was obviously the photo above, taken by Mark Wallheiser, who should immediately be awarded a Pulitzer prize for it. Let's break down this amazing photo person by person. The woman in the pink tank top, holding a baby The look on her face has already launched an Internet phenomenon. Witness this: Thank you, whoever made this pic.twitter.com/NmUCBKAgSD — Akin Unver (@AkinUnver) August 23, 2015 Amazing. Creepy. Creepily amazing....

Other GOP presidential hopefuls are eyeing Alabama. U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz's stop in Tuscaloosa on Tuesday is part of a spate of visits to the state by Republican hopefuls seeking the party's 2016 nomination for president. "We are very, very excited about the kind of traffic we are getting, and we know it is all because of joining the SEC primary. This is unprecedented in the history of our state," Alabama Secretary of State John Merrill said. Alabama lawmakers voted during the 2015 regular session to move up the presidential primary beginning in 2016 from the second Tuesday of March...

Sad Little !Jeb Plane: Bush Super Pac Attempts To Troll Trump, Gives Former Governor A Black Man’s Hand In Mailer. A Super PAC backing former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush for president with more than $100 million is officially embarrassing itself. Just one day after the Bush Super PAC Right to Rise USA flew a tiny plane with a banner attached to the end of it over 2016 GOP frontrunner Donald Trump’s Mobile, Alabama rally, the geniuses backing yet another Bush for president appear to have photoshopped a black man’s hand onto the former Florida governor. -snip- “Moments before Trump was...

Senator Hutchison cool to SpaceX's Falcon 9 launch; concerns remain about Obama NASA policy June 5, 8:25 AMHouston Space News ExaminerMark Whittington Falcon 9 Courtesy NASA The near universal acclaim that SpaceX has acquired for the successful launch of the first Falcon 9 is not shared within the United States Congress, which is still skeptical of many aspects of the Obama space plan, which includes reliance on companies like SpaceX for Earth to Low Earth Orbit transportation. The reaction illustrates for all the technical triumph that SpaceX has accomplished with the Falcon 9 launch, it still faces political problems. Typical...

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump had 30,000 people attend his rally in Mobile, Alabama, on Friday, police said, narrowly edging out Democratic candidate Bernie Sanders for the largest crowd of the 2016 campaign season so far. The much hyped rally was held at Mobile’s Ladd-Peebles Stadium, which hosts the Senior Bowl and the GoDaddy.com Bowl college football games. Trump said his campaign had to switch the location of the event twice after demand for tickets exceeded capacity. Until Trump's event Friday night, the largest crowd at candidate's rally this election cycle was at an event held by Sanders earlier this...

16 Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump declared, “I think flat tax is okay” on Friday’s broadcast of the “Matt Murphy Show” on Birmingham, AL’s WAPI. Trump said, “Who knows taxes better than me?” He continued, “You know, when they talk about fixing the tax, it’s so complicated, that people have to go and use H&R Block to do a $50,000 — a man who makes $50,000 has to spend money –.” Host Matt Murphy then cut in to ask Trump if he supports the fair tax. Trump answered, “Well, I think fair tax is okay. And I think flat tax...

(MOBILE, Ala.) — In what was hyped to be one of the biggest events of the 2016 campaign so far, GOP front-runner Donald Trump held a rally Friday night in Mobile, Alabama in front of 30,000, police confirmed. Trump has now had the largest turn out to a single event during the campaign, beating Democratic presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders’ rally in Portland which drew 28,000.

MOBILE, Ala. — It was immigration, not segregation, that brought some 20,000 southerners — far fewer than predicted — out for Donald Trump on Friday night, but the ghost of George Wallace loomed large. Wallace, an avowed segregationist, was the last presidential candidate to win electoral votes as a third-party candidate. The threat of Trump doing so, propelled by a hardline immigration stance that many have condemned as racist, looms over the Republican Party now as it did over the Democratic Party then, even as the enthusiasm of his following, for once, fell far short of expectations. Wallace carried five...

MOBILE, Alabama (CNN) —Donald Trump brought 30,000 supporters from deep red Alabama to a Friday night pep rally in a football stadium, the latest sign that the Republican front-runner has broad, nationwide strength. The event was previously planned to be held at the nearby Civic Center but was moved to the 43,000-seat Ladd-Peebles Stadium -- a venue normally home to high school football games -- to accommodate the crowd. The City of Mobile confirmed late Friday that 30,000 people attended. "It was one of the greatest events Mobile ever put on aside from Mardi Gras," said Colby Cooper, Mayor Sandy...