Free Republic

A new poll, this one by Talk Business and Politics/Hendrix College, puts Tom Cotton’s lead over Mark Pryor at 48-41. The survey included more than 2,000 likely voters and was taken after the last week’s Cotton-Pryor debate (as I understand it, there will be no more debates between the two). The margin of error is plus or minus 2.2 percent. According to Dr. Jay Barth of Hendrix College, the survey shows that both Cotton and Pryor have locked up the support of their respective Party faithful. However, “Cotton has a strong advantage among the state’s voters who term themselves Independents...

Arkansas Democratic Sen. Mark Pryor argued that the federal government’s desegregation of Arkansas’s largest public school in 1957 was an “unwilling invasion” that took “a local problem out of the local authorities’ hands” and led to deep suspicions of democracy in the state, according to a copy of his college thesis obtained by the Washington Free Beacon. Written in 1985, the 30-page paper—which also suggested that the state’s Democratic Party was hindering economic progress, and attributed policies such as welfare and the Equal Rights Amendment to “wild-eyed liberals”—could add to Pryor’s difficulties as he fights to protect his seat from...

Ozark Regional Health in Arkansas is under lockdown because it has a patient that may have the Ebola virus. The lockdown went into effect on Thursday afternoon. The hospital in Clinton is checking one patient for the virus due to the patient’s travel history.

Conservative filmmaker James O’Keefe released his latest startling video this week, offering evidence that Arkansas Democrat U.S. Sen. Mark Pryor has been lying to his constituents about his position on marriage. Ahead of next month’s election, the lawmaker has reiterated his ostensible support of traditional marriage as he battles a tough conservative Republican opponent. According to the footage published by O’Keefe’s Project Veritas, however, Pryor’s true feelings on the matter are much different. Speaking to the chairperson of a pro-gay Arkansas Young Democrats organization, an undercover investigator posing as a homosexual potential campaign donor expressed his “misgivings” about Pryor regarding his stated...

Fortunately for the GOP, there are six races that lean toward Republicans: Alaska, Arkansas, Georgia, Iowa, Kentucky and Louisiana. We’ll refer to these states as the “Maroon 6” (because maroon is somewhere between red and purple). In each Maroon 6 state, the Republican candidate has a 65 percent to 75 percent chance of winning, according to the FiveThirtyEight forecast.

Latinos' furor with red-state Senate Dems escalated this week when the grassroots advocacy group Presente Action began running radio ads against Sen. Kay Hagan (D-N.C.), targeting her push against executive action on immigration. The Spanish-language ads will air for a week on two stations and tells listeners: "Senator Hagan voted with the most anti-immigrant senators in Congress in support of the continued deportations of our community." Hagan, locked in one of the most competitive Senate races this cycle, has for months publicly resisted Obama moving unilaterally on immigration and that has earned her the wrath of groups like Presente -...

"This is not a coffee and donut shop," Jan Morgan, owner of the Gun Cave Indoor Shooting Range in Hot Springs, Ark., wrote in an online post last month. "This is a live fire indoor shooting range ... Why would I want to rent or sell a gun and hand ammunition to someone who aligns himself with a religion that commands him to kill me?" Morgan, who says she has "read and studied" the Koran thoroughly, found "109 verses commanding hate, murder and terror against all human beings who refuse to submit or convert to Islam." ... Morgan claims that...

As I was having my morning coffee and chicory, I couldn’t help but smile reading Jonathan Martin’s piece on former President Clinton’s recent appearance in Arkansas on behalf of incumbent Sen. Mark Pryor, who is facing a tough race for reelection. As one ages, it can sometimes have the effect where you become less certain about things than you might have been as a younger person. There is one thing I am certain of, however: Bill Clinton yesterday was probably the happiest man in the United States. Start with the fact that he is now a grandfather, and combine it...

The America's Challenge Gas Balloon Race was founded by the Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta in 1995 due to the vision and efforts of Mark Sullivan, former Balloon Fiesta President and recipient of the Montgolfier Diplome (one of ballooning's highest honors), who saw the need for America to be identified with the world's most prestigious ballooning sport. The America’s Challenge Gas Balloon Race is modeled after the Coupe Aeronautique Gordon Bennett, but it differs from the older event in allowing balloons from all countries, without limits on the number of entries from each. The team that travels the longest distance wins.

CONWAY, Ark. - Former President Bill Clinton urged voters in his home state Monday not to use the midterm election as a protest against the White House, as he toured the state to help Democrats' efforts to prevent a GOP takeover in Arkansas. Clinton kicked off a series of rallies in Arkansas on Monday, praising Democratic candidates in close races for U.S. Senate, House and governor as people willing to work with both parties for the good of the state. He also criticized Republicans' efforts to tie Democrats to President Barack Obama, who lost Arkansas in the 2008 and 2012...

LITTLE ROCK, ARK. Democratic gubernatorial hopeful Mike Ross has unveiled a plan aimed at ensuring equal pay for women in the workplace. Ross was joined Friday by his wife, daughter and current first lady Ginger Beebe to announce his proposal, which calls for strengthening state law to prevent retaliation against workers who discuss their wages with colleagues. Ross also promised to publish an annual report about pay inequalities. He called his proposals bipartisan and says he's confident he could gain Republican support. The former congressman used Friday's event to promote policies that he says would benefit women and girls —...

If you or anyone you know would like to get involved in defeating liberalism in Arkansas, visit the group AR Women Speak website. You can also email Joanne Filiatreau at mrsphilly@sbcglobal.net. You can even make some money in some of the activism. http://womenspeakoutpac.com/ https://pryortooextreme.com/ https://www.facebook.com/WomenSpeakOutAR

Former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin will speak at the Values Voters Summit next week in Washington, D.C. http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2014/09/19/Sarah-Palin-to-Speak-at-Values-Voter-Summit

In 1949, Harvard political scientist V. O. Key Jr. declared in his book Southern Politics in State and Nation that in Arkansas “we have the one-party system in its most undefiled and undiluted form.” Other Southern states, nearly as Democratic in those days as Arkansas, gradually became Republican. Arkansas didn’t. One-party Democratic rule in the state lasted another 60 years. It was an amazing Democratic run that didn’t end until 2010. Now Arkansas has emerged as one of the most reliably Republican states in the country. And if Republican Tom Cotton defeats Democratic senator Mark Pryor in November and Republican Asa...

Jim Geragthy, acclaimed author and National Review’s chief campaign analyst, has been grousing about the lack of quality polling in key Senate races this year. His frustration is well-founded. So yesterday must have felt like Christmas in September for Jim and political junkies everywhere, as two pollsters released a deluge of surveys covering the most contested races in the country. In light of the results, I’d expect that national Republicans are kicking off the week with an extra spring in their step, as well. We were leaked an advance copy of last week’s much-anticipated Politico/GWU Battleground poll, which was packed...

(RNS) Arkansas State is removing a Christian cross decal from the back of its football helmets after a complaint that it violated separation of church and state, the university said Wednesday (Sept. 10). Athletics director Terry Mohajir said he wanted to fight the decision because the decal was intended to honor former player Markel Owens and equipment manager Barry Weyer, who both died this year. However, Mohajir said he had little choice but to follow advice from the university’s legal counsel to remove or modify the symbol. “My job is to support our players and our coaches in their expression...

To finish up the weekend on a bit of a positive note, polling groups around the nation are starting to shift their models from registered voters to likely voters as the days until November shrink. One in particular will be of interest and it’s in the highly contested state of Arkansas. We always thought Mark Pryor was in trouble, but he has been holding on in the polls surprisingly well. This week, the NBC/Marist poll, which previously showed Pryor in a fairly solid position, has taken a big turn and Tom Cotton (who did an interview for Hot Air...

It should not be said that the sight of rank-and-file police officers in combat gear is a sign of our times. But those were the images beamed afar from Ferguson, Missouri, a town of 21,135 located beyond the borders of St. Louis, in the aftermath of the shooting of Michael Brown, an unarmed black teenager soon to begin the fall term at Vatterott College, by Darren Wilson, a white police officer. As civil unrest escalated, the police force in Ferguson unveiled an array of weaponry, including Mine Resistant Ambush Protectant Vehicles, which are heavily armed trucks, and a Long Range...

WEST MEMPHIS, Ark. — After financial losses, fire and special tax passed to support it, Crittenden Regional Hospital is closing. The hospital is no longer admitting people and will close September 7. We are told clinics located within the hospital are looking for alternatives. In a statement, CEO Gene Cashman said, ‘With counsel from national health care consulting firms and the passage of a county-wide sales tax, we had identified a long-term strategic plan that had set our organization on a path to improvement. This summer’s fire and the subsequent shut-down derailed that plan’s success.”

Arkansas—No sign announces the purpose of this little storefront. It's a Democratic Party field office. Democrats aren't advertising this office and 39 others; their locations are a closely guarded secret. Arkansas is home to one of the nation's most intense Senate races. Democrat Mark Pryor and GOP Rep. Tom Cotton. Democrats have mounted an ambitious organizing effort of technology intensive on-the-ground engagement. The Republicans don't have an office in Pine Bluff. They have 11 offices open across Arkansas. They've recruited "hundreds" of volunteers, and the RNC has had staff here for almost a year. "We clearly have the largest mobilization...