Free Republic

Hundreds of protesters, some of them armed, gathered at Hermann Park Saturday in an attempt to defend the honor of Sam Houston. Carrying Texas and Confederate flags, participants seemed concerned the park's Sam Houston statue might be removed since the historical figure owned slaves. "Erasing history for the sake of political correctness or to make somebody feel better, it's not just stupid — it's dangerous," said David Amad, an organizer of the demonstration.

Members of an Amish community in Kentucky may take their cases to court after being cited for violating an ordinance requiring horses to wear bags to catch their droppings. The Bowling Green Daily News reports 13 members of the Swartzentruber Amish sect in Auburn appeared in court Wednesday and were told their trials will begin August 2 if they can't settle the cases before then. The defendants belong to a conservative sect that rejects motor vehicles and most modern technology and travel by horse-drawn buggies. They believe the bags violate their community's religious standards.

THROOP, N.Y. (AP) -- How hot is it in upstate New York? So hot that horse manure is bursting into flames. The state Department of Environmental Conservation says it received multiple complaints July 5 about the smell and smoke emanating from a burning pile of horse manure at a property in the town of Throop, in the Finger Lakes region 20 miles west of Syracuse.

Floridians have negative feelings about undocumented immigrants, but an overwhelming majority favor policy that would allow such immigrants a path to U.S. citizenship, a new University of Florida Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences survey suggests... Seventy-three percent of survey respondents said they believe undocumented immigrants are a burden on the economy more than an asset, and 58 percent of respondents agreed with the statement “undocumented immigrants reduce the number of good jobs for Americans.” ...85 percent said the government should either allow undocumented immigrants to remain in the U.S. and eventually become citizens or require them to leave and...

Thomas Pickering - the former UN ambassador who along with former Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman Adm. Mike Mullen prepared the Accountability Review Board report on the State Department's handling of the Sept. 11 attack in Benghazi, Libya - says he didn't think it was necessary to interview former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton "because in fact we knew where the responsibility rested." BOB SCHIEFFER: And good morning again. Ambassador Thomas Pickering is the one who led the State Department's investigation into how those Benghazi attacks where handled. Mr. Ambassador, you and I have known one another as you had...

Since summer officially arrived Thursday at 2:06 p.m., it has been anything but summer-like in the weather department. We set a new record low temperature at Avoca on Sunday morning when the mercury dipped to 47 degrees. That beat the previous record set in 1993 by 1 degree. While summer is less than a week old, it has been a cool start to the season so far. Thursday and Sunday saw temperatures in the low 80s, which is average for this time of year. But Friday and Saturday had highs in the low 70s, a crystal-clear blue sky and low...

Southern heritage buffs vow to use the Virginia gubernatorial election as a platform for designating April as Confederate History and Heritage Month. The four candidates have differing views on the Confederacy, an issue that has been debated for years in the commonwealth. "We're not just a few people making a lot of noise," said Brag Bowling, a spokesman for the Sons of Confederate Veterans, the oldest hereditary organization for male descendents of Confederate soldiers. "This is not a racial thing; it is good for Virginia. We're going to keep pushing this until we get it." Each candidate recently shared his...

Hoo-boy. It's a hot time in the old blogtown. The pajamahadeen are firing their virtual bullets into the cyber-air in celebration of CBS anchor Dan Rather's announcement on Tuesday that he was retiring as the top talking face of the network after 24 years. "This has been a simply outstanding month," crowed a poster on http://www.freerepublic.com. "Bush won, Arafat died, we're kicking ass in Fallujah, and now this!" Typically, the above-quoted "Freeper" didn't get that Rather may be down, but he certainly isn't out. When he steps down as front man for The CBS Evening News on March 9, he...