Free Republic

For five decades of Saturdays, Jerry's Barber Shop has been a center of Arkansas politics, servicing receding hairlines for governors, legislators and judges alongside the voters who elect and reject them. "I know how to make a politician tell the truth," owner Jerry Hood says, "put a razor to his neck." That joke never fails. On this Saturday morning, Hood's audience consists of two fellow barbers and four customers, including me – and the crowd guffaws while I blindly scribble quotes in a notepad beneath my barber's smock. I've ordered a Number 1 buzz cut. "People are sick and tired...

(Reuters) - The Arkansas Supreme Court on Friday halted the issuing of marriage licenses to same-sex couples in the first and only state in the U.S. South to allow gay marriage. About 500 gay and lesbian couples have married since a state judge last week overturned the Arkansas ban on same-sex unions. The state attorney general's office had requested the stay to stop counties from issuing licenses and also appealed the decision that struck down the state's gay marriage ban. The Supreme Court issued the stay in a brief, unsigned order, without elaborating on its reasoning. Pulaski County Circuit Judge...

Arkansas now a Toss-up It’s become clear over the past few months that Sen. Mark Pryor (D-AR), despite the increasing Republican lean of his state, has been holding his own, or better, against Rep. Tom Cotton (R, AR-4). Several positive polls for the incumbent, including a too-optimistic 11-point lead from NBC/Marist earlier this week, moved the HuffPost Pollster average in the race to 45.2% Pryor, 42.7% Cotton. Democrats are defending seven Senate seats in states that Mitt Romney won in 2012. In three of these races — Montana, South Dakota and West Virginia — we perceive a clear Republican edge,...

At the start of the 2014 election cycle, Mark Pryor's future in the Senate was widely considered as dead as the raccoons at the Gillett Coon Supper, an annual fundraiser and gathering spot for Arkansas pols. ....... A series of Pryor television ads focus on Medicare and Social Security, hitting his opponent for supporting Paul Ryan’s budget proposal, which would alter the structure of the programs and increase the eligibility age. It’s a well-worn strategy used by Democrats in states and districts across the country and designed to portray their adversaries as extreme. But there are a couple of particular...

Former President Bill Clinton says his wife works out daily and is “still quicker than I am” when it comes to mental acuity, denying an assertion that a fall in 2012 left Hillary Clinton sicker than she’s admitted. “If she has brain damage, I must be in really bad shape because she’s still quicker than I am,” he said. “There’s nothing to it.”

The Faulkner County Republican Party held a debate for the Arkansas 2nd Congressional District in Conway. The Candidates were State Representative Ann Clemmer, Colonel Conrad Reynolds, and Businessman French Hill. The last question in the debate was about immigration and was directed to French Hill. Hill was given 3 minutes for drawing the question, while the other 2 candidates were given a 1 minute response. The question regarding immigration and the responses of all 3 candidates is in this video.

Democrats in three top southern Senate races are holding their own — and even running ahead in a few cases — against Republicans in a new poll out Monday. A new series of NBC News/Marist polls show Democrats in Arkansas, Kentucky and Georgia are running even or ahead of their GOP opponents.

While some lawmakers have questions about what happened before or after the 2012 bombing of the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya, Rep. Tom Cotton said he wants to know what President Barack Obama was doing during the attack. "As a former soldier myself, I particularly want to know what happened during the attacks. Why didn't the president send reinforcements from Tripoli, or from our fleet in the Mediterranean Sea, or even from Italy?" the Arkansas Republican said Monday on "Fox & Friends." While conceding that support forces "might not have reached Benghazi in time," Cotton said, "You just don't know...

A new poll of registered voters in Arkansas shows Democratic sentaor Mark Pryor leading his Republican challenger, Tom Cotton, by 11 points. Pryor receives 51 percent support,

More than a dozen same-sex marriage licenses were issued for the first time in a Bible Belt state Saturday after a state judge declared Arkansas' voter-approved ban on gay wedding to be unconstitutional. About 50 couples had lined up at the courthouse in Eureka Springs in Carroll County, Arkansas, Saturday morning seeking licenses, according to Reuters. But Carroll County Deputy Clerk Jane Osborn told The Associated Press that 15 licenses were issued Saturday. On Friday, Pulaski County Circuit Judge Chris Piazza struck down the state's ban on same-sex marriage, saying it violated equal protection provisions of the U.S. Constitution. "This...

Two women were married on a sidewalk outside a county courthouse in Arkansas on Saturday, breaking a barrier that state voters put in place with a constitutional amendment 10 years ago. A day after Pulaski County Circuit Judge Chris Piazza said the ban was “an unconstitutional attempt to narrow the definition of equality,” Kristin Seaton, 27, and Jennifer Rambo, 26, exchanged vows at an impromptu ceremony, officiated by a woman in a rainbow-colored dress.The couple had spent the night in their Ford Focus after traveling to Eureka Springs from their home at Fort Smith, and was the first of about...

About 10 gay couples are lined up outside of a county courthouse in northwest Arkansas a day after a judge ruled that the state's same-sex marriage ban was unconstitutional. It isn't clear whether any same-sex marriage licenses will be issued Saturday, because couples must find a clerk willing to do so. Pulaski County Circuit Judge Chris Piazza ruled Friday that Arkansas' 2004 voter-approved amendment to the state constitution violates the rights of gay couples.

It’s something she says she will hold on to forever. A victim of the April 27 Arkansas tornado had the moment to send one final text to his mother before the deadly storm claimed his life. “First he said mama, I’m so scared,” Regina Wood, Jeffrey Hunter’s mom, told KFTA-TV. ”He knew how bad it was, these say it’s going to be a direct hit.” All she could do was comfort him and tell him everything would be okay. It wouldn’t.

The SPLC says they identified Star City teacher Philip Holthoff as posting racist comments on the site under a pseudonym, "David Lee Saxon." "I teach social studies in a public high school and I am racially conscious," wrote poster David Lee Saxon. The SPLC says they were able to identify Holthoff's connection to the website by a donation. "Mr. Holthoff gave money on April 20th to the site so we were taking a closer look at him and that's how he came up as a donor on Stormfront," said Heidi Beirich of the SPLC. Beirich says she reached out to...

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), who spoke Saturday at the Maine Republican Convention, was the big winner in the party’s straw poll. Paul took 26 percent of the vote, to 14 percent for the second-place finisher, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas). With 690 ballots cast at the convention in Bangor, the order of finish was: Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.): 176 Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas): 98 Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker: 70 Dr. Ben Carson: 62 New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie: 60 Jeb Bush: 57 Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.): 37 Mike Huckabee: 28 Condoleezza Rice: 26

URGENT - IMMEDIATE BROADCAST REQUESTED TORNADO WATCH NUMBER 100 NWS STORM PREDICTION CENTER NORMAN OK 335 PM CDT SUN APR 27 2014 THE NWS STORM PREDICTION CENTER HAS ISSUED A * TORNADO WATCH FOR PORTIONS OF SOUTHWEST AND CENTRAL ARKANSAS EXTREME SOUTHEAST OKLAHOMA * EFFECTIVE THIS SUNDAY AFTERNOON AND EVENING FROM 335 PM UNTIL 1100 PM CDT. ...THIS IS A PARTICULARLY DANGEROUS SITUATION... * PRIMARY THREATS INCLUDE... NUMEROUS TORNADOES EXPECTED WITH A FEW INTENSE TORNADOES LIKELY WIDESPREAD LARGE HAIL AND ISOLATED VERY LARGE HAIL EVENTS TO 2.5 INCHES IN DIAMETER LIKELY SCATTERED DAMAGING WINDS AND ISOLATED SIGNIFICANT GUSTS TO...

A national organization is launching a three-year, $8.5 million campaign to promote LGBT equality and push for new legal protections in three Southern states dominated by conservative politics and religion and known for resistance to change: Alabama, Arkansas and Mississippi. Decades after groups used boycotts, marches, sit-ins, pickets and mass rallies to end legalized racial segregation and push for equal protection for blacks, the Washington-based Human Rights Campaign is planning a new kind of civil rights movement. It’s one based on using chats and front-porch visits between relatives and friends to foster an environment more welcoming toward people of all...

An Arkansas judge struck down the state’s new voter ID law on Thursday, saying it violates the state constitution by adding a requirement that voters must meet before casting a ballot. Pulaski County Circuit Judge Tim Fox voided the measure in a lawsuit over the way absentee ballots are handled under the law. A separate lawsuit had been filed last week directly challenging the law, which requires voters to show photo identification before casting a ballot. The law “is declared void and unenforceable,” Fox wrote in the ruling.

Republicans need to win six Senate seats to take control of the upper chamber, and most scenarios for victory include the Southern seats up for grabs. A poll out today from the New York Times and the Kaiser Family Foundation suggests that may be tougher than first thought. Mark Pryor, considered to be one of the most vulnerable incumbents in the midterms, has a ten-point lead over his Republican challenger, Rep. Tom Cotton: The survey underscores a favorable political environment over all for Republicans in Kentucky, North Carolina, Louisiana and Arkansas — states President Obama lost in 2012 and where...

While maybe not the political “gaffe of the year,” Sen. Mark Pryor’s (D-AR) remark that his Republican challenger's military service gives him a “sense of entitlement” is certainly up there. Hence why Rep. Tom Cotton (R-AR) -- who is indeed running to unseat Sen. Pryor -- is now actively campaigning off his opponent’s verbal missteps. If for no other reason, this spot is effective because (as Matt Lewis also notes) it reminds voters that Pryor actually said that. And that’s important to emphasize. I’ve never served in the armed services, of course, but I’m fairly certain one does not return...