Free Republic

DAPHNE, Ala.- After several days of the most intense scrutiny he's faced as a presidential candidate, Ted Cruz took the stage here on Saturday and delivered a fiery performance to a crowd of more than 1,300 cheering fans, aiming to put a turbulent week behind him.He roared threats to ISIL. He cracked jokes with the talkative audience members. And he received a big assist from Jeff Sessions, among the party's staunchest immigration hardliners and, the 2016 contender suggested, a possible secretary of homeland security in a Cruz administration."One of the things you've been hearing about is criticism of Ted and...

A southwest Virginia lawmaker has filed a bill that would allow a Confederate battle flag to again be displayed on state-issued license plates. Senator Charles W. Carrico Sr. told the Richmond Times-Dispatch that his constituents believe Gov. Terry McAuliffe went too far when he moved to have the plates phased out. The Grayson County Republican says he represents his district "first and foremost." ...

Riveria Beach renamed Old Dixie Highway in honor of [Hussein] Obama during a ceremony on Thursday, a change that city officials say will help move the community past its segregated history. It is the second road in Palm Beach County to be named in honor of [Hussein], county officials said. Two years ago, Pahokee in western Palm Beach County renamed East First Street to Barack Obama Boulevard. A crowd cheered as a crew lowered the Old Dixie Highway street sign in Riviera Beach and raised one bearing the [Hussein's] name...

When Governor Nikki Haley – in the wake of the shooting that claimed the lives of nine churchgoers in Charleston – called for the removal of the Confederate battle flag from the South Carolina State Capitol, it marked a significant shift. Across the South, symbols of the Confederacy have been taken off of store shelves and monuments to Confederate generals and leaders are being taken down even in 300-year-old cities like New Orleans. In one city in the Deep South, the name chosen to replace Old Dixie Highway, as WPTV reports, is a sign of the extent of the cultural...

Names and flags have been removed from statehouses and street signs across the US, but at the stone-etched Georgia monument, no one is able to claim victory Exactly a century ago this holiday weekend, more than a dozen men climbed to the top of a mountain outside Atlanta, pulled on white hoods and lit a 16ft, kerosene-soaked wooden cross. It marked the rebirth of Ku Klux Klan, and Stone Mountain became the Klan’s spiritual home.

After a student filed a “bias report” accusing a student with a Confederate flag sticker on his laptop of racism, Framingham State University officials offered offended students counseling.“We recognize that bias incidents are upsetting for the entire campus community, but especially for the target(s) and witness(es) of these incidents,” wrote Sean Huddleston, the Massachusetts-based school’s chief diversity and inclusion officer, in a campus-wide email published in part by FSU campus newspaper The Gatepost. “It is strongly suggested that anyone impacted by a bias incident find someone to speak with.”In his email, Huddleston assured students “symbols such as these are not condoned...

In an undated handout photo, a plaque at the Trump National Golf Club in Sterling, Va., commemorates a stretch of the Potomac as the “River of Blood” due to casualties there during the Civil War. Between the 14th hole and the 15th tee of one of the club's two courses, Mr. Trump installed a flagpole on a stone pedestal overlooking the Potomac, to which he affixed a plaque purportedly designating "The River of Blood." "Many great American soldiers, both of the North and South, died at this spot," the inscription reads. "The casualties were so great that the water would...

Did Hillary Clinton put on a southern accent on campaign stop in Memphis? Some critics claim she changed her voice Hillary Clinton has been accused of putting on a southern accent during a campaign stop in Memphis. During a speech at LeMoyne-Owen College earlier this week, some people claimed the Democratic presidential candidate's voice had something of a southern twang. Clinton has faced similar accusations in the past, most notably during speeches in Alabama and South Carolina.

LOUISVILLE, Miss. — In single strokes after the massacre of nine black churchgoers in Charleston in June, Confederate battle flags were taken from statehouse grounds in South Carolina and Alabama, pulled from shelves at major retailers like Walmart and declared unwelcome, if to (limited effect), at Nascar races. What happened so swiftly elsewhere is not so simple in Mississippi. The Confederate battle flag is not simply flying in one hotly disputed spot at the State Capitol but occupying the upper left corner of the state flag, which has been flying since 1894. (And as recently as 2001), Mississippians voted by...

SALT LAKE CITY -- A fight outside a Salt Lake City hotel early Sunday morning could possibly be investigated as a hate crime, authorities said Monday. Cell phone video captured a black man throw a punch at a Caucasian man who knocked him out. The fight was over an argument about a Confederate Flag decal on a truck parked at the Red Lion Hotel. The truck belonged to Kelly Leeper’s friend. Leeper was in town for the Garth Brooks concert. On Sunday, he said looked out the window of his room at the Red Lion and saw a group of...

Attorneys for an Albemarle County-based civil liberties advocacy group are challenging the Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles’ order to revoke specialty commemorative license plates bearing the Confederate battle flag. The Rutherford Institute’s legal counsel filed a petition Wednesday in Brunswick County Circuit Court asking for a review and reversal of the divisive ruling to recall the plates issued to 1,600 members of the state’s division of the Sons of Confederate Veterans. Gov. Terry McAuliffe called for the change earlier this year when the flag fell into controversy following a racially motivated shooting in June at a South Carolina church, calling...

BRUNSWICK, Maine — Bowdoin College will no longer bestow the Jefferson Davis Award, after the college’s board of trustees voted to approve President Clayton Rose’s proposal to end the practice. The annual cash award to a student of government and legal studies who excels in constitutional law was named for the Confederate president. It was established in 1972 with an endowed gift from the United Daughters of the Confederacy, according to a news release from the college. In 1858, Davis received an honorary degree from Bowdoin College.

Kevin Collier, a commander of the Stonewall Camp of the Sons of Confederate Veterans, has had enough. The Suffolk, Virginia, resident told WAVY-TV he got a warning letter last month indicating he had until Oct. 4 to ditch his Confederate flag license plate in favor of a new tag from the Department of Motor Vehicles. It’s now a misdemeanor to drive with Confederate flag plates in Virginia — Gov. Terry McAuliffe, a Democrat, pushed for the ban amid furor over the symbol and its connection to the June shooting massacre in an historic black church in Charleston, South Carolina, the...

Virginia has banned driving with a license plate that depicts the Confederate flag — but some in the state are resisting. Around 1,600 Virginians with state-issued Confederate flag plates received a letter last month from the DMV saying they had until October 4 to swap them out for new ones that don’t show the flag. Only 187 people have so far complied. One man who has not is Kevin Collier.“Next thing you know, they’re going to say you can’t wear blue on Monday … or you can’t wear yellow on Thursday,” Collier, who is active with the Sons of Confederate...

Maryland is likely to begin recalling Maryland license plates with images of the Confederate flag this fall after a federal judge agreed on Thursday to lift a 1997 injunction that prevented the state from taking the specialty plates out of circulation. U.S. District Judge Marvin J. Garbis issued an order that allows Attorney General Brian Frosh (D) to lift the injunction. “I look forward to the day when these plates are not longer on the road,” Frosh said in a statement. “This flag is a painful symbol that divides us, conjuring images of hate and subjugation. It has not place...

STONE MOUNTAIN, Ga. — State officials have confirmed that a monument to celebrate Martin Luther King Jr. will be built “above and beyond” the monument that celebrate the heroes of the Confederacy on the gigantic rock at Stone Mountain Park. According the Associated Press and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal has signed off on the project. Park officials said that an elevated tower — featuring a replica of the Liberty Bell — would celebrate the single line in the civil rights martyr’s 1963 “I Have a Dream” speech that makes reference to the 825-foot-tall hunk of granite: “Let...

A Michigan man employed at the Hillsdale Bob Evans plant was fired after refusing to remove a Confederate flag from his truck, the Hillsdale Daily News reports. According to the man, his bosses at the plant forced him to remove it after receiving a single anonymous complaint. Angela Payne, a spokeswoman for the restaurant chain, told NBC24 that the flag was “offensive to many… customers and employees.” The employee, Wesley Rogers, was told two weeks ago to remove the flag but refused, resulting in his termination. “They said they were doing their best to follow up on a complaint,” Rogers...

On a warm day in August, a couple dozen people gathered for an afternoon picnic at Shawnee Mission Park. Under the shade of a shelter surrounded by leafy green trees, two men cooked burgers and brats on a charcoal grill next to a row of tables topped with red plastic tablecloths and a summery spread of sliced watermelon, barbecue-flavored potato chips and sopapilla cheesecake. The weather would have been perfect if not for occasional gusts of wind that whipped through the grove and threatened to topple the three flags fixed to portable poles next to the dessert table: an American...

A Confederate flag advocacy group is rallying Saturday in Albert Lea for the reinstatement of the Hartland volunteer firefighter suspended in July for flying a Confederate flag on a department truck during a parade. The firefighter, Brian Nielson, didn't respond to interview requests. He previously told media he was protesting "political correctness" and the censuring of the flag. There was a national push for removing the flag from public locations after the Charleston, S.C., shooting. Nielson said he doesn't support slavery nor racism and has since apologized to both cities. But he said he would fly the flag again, though...

A trio of students has been suspended from school after one of them brought a Confederate battle flag to campus.