Free Republic

For a long time I wasn't sure how I felt about this war, but when the illustrious Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., said, "this war is lost," everything became very clear. This war is different than anything America has ever had to face. We are not fighting just an enemy, but pure hate. They want us dead - Democrats, Republicans, whatever. If you don't believe in their belief of Allah, we are to die. 9/11 was not the first attack on the U.S.; it was the fifth, and the second attack on U.S. soil. I am thankful we have a strong...

This is what Ronald Reagan said and did when, in 1980, the Ku Klux Klan offered him its endorsement. [Picture of Reagan, words denouncing the Ku Klux Klan added] "I said that I have no tolerance for what the Klan represents, and would have nothing to do with any groups of that type. ...I firmly believe that there is no room for partisanship on this question. Democrats and Republicans alike must be resolute in disassociating ourselves from any group or individual whose political philosophy consists only of racial or religious intolerance, whose arguments are supported only by intimidation or threats...

It is time again for the Margaret Sanger at the Ku Klux Klan Rally Art Contest. This year's contest will highlight the 80th Anniversary of Margaret Sanger's speech to the the women's branch of the Silver Lake Ku Klux Klan. In her own 1938 autobiography, Margaret Sanger An Autobiography (1971 reprint by Dover Publications, Inc. of the 1938 original published by W.W. Norton & Company) Sanger indicates at pages 366-367 that the she got along quite well with members of a New Jersey branch of the Ku Klux Klan at her 1926 speech, eventually getting a "dozen invitations to speak...

West Virginia GOP senatorial candidate John Raese slapped back at Senator Robert Byrd’s reference to Raese’s deceased father in a West Virginia public television profile which aired Thursday night. In a transcript of the program obtained by the Raese campaign Thursday afternoon, Byrd says, “(Raese’s) father was my friend. I think his father would have been … somewhat ashamed. His father would be supporting me today I feel if he were alive.” Raese fired back, saying, “It is Senator Byrd who should be ashamed for smearing my father – and my family by extension – when he knows my father...

Gubernatorial candidate and professional wiseacre Kinky Friedman was accused Wednesday of making another racially offensive remark _ this time in a year-old interview in which he said sexual predators should be thrown in prison and forced to "listen to a Negro talking to himself." The independent candidate already was under fire for referring to Hurricane Katrina evacuees in Texas "crackheads and thugs." ... The Fort Worth Star-Telegram and the Houston Chronicle have reported on an interview with Friedman that aired on CNBC last year in which the country singer and comedian was asked what to do with sexual predators. "Throw...

About 30 Ku Klux Klan members proclaimed hatred for blacks, Jews, gays and Latinos as they stood behind barricades at the Civil War battlefield where Abraham Lincoln delivered the Gettysburg Address. Gordon Young of the World Knights of the Ku Klux Klan also called Saturday for the U.S. to pull its troops out of Iraq and use them to patrol the Mexican border to stop illegal immigration. The World Knights obtained a permit in July for the two-hour demonstration. The National Park Service granted it under the group's First Amendment rights to free speech.

The planned new grave for a Catholic priest killed 85 years ago in downtown Birmingham has been dug next to St. Paul's Cathedral. The Rev. James E. Coyle, who became pastor of St. Paul's Cathedral in 1904, was shot to death on the porch of the rectory, the priest's house, on Aug. 11, 1921. He is buried at Elmwood Cemetery. The Rev. Richard Donohoe, current pastor of the cathedral, plans to seek Vatican approval for moving Coyle's remains. "It would make his grave more visible and accessible to the people, for reflection on his cause for being declared a martyr...

The National Park Service granted a request by the Ku Klux Klan to rally and protest near the spot where a failed offensive by the Confederacy turned the tide of the Battle of Gettysburg. Gordon Young of the World Knights of the Ku Klux Klan obtained the permit Wednesday for about 100 people to participate in a Sept. 2 event on the lawn of the Cyclorama Center at Gettysburg National Military Park, near the site of Pickett's Charge. The purpose, according to the permit, will be to oppose the Iraq war and speak on "white unity between the North and...

In 1898, one of the most shameful episodes in American political history occurred. Today called a coup d'etat, it is the only known case in the United States in which a municipal government was overthrown by violence. On May 31, 2006, the state of North Carolina issued a report on this event, which took place in the city of Wilmington. The story begins in the aftermath of the Civil War. During Reconstruction, the federal government guaranteed voting rights for blacks in the South, most of whom became Republicans. This led to the election of many blacks and Republicans to federal...

SHARPSBURG, Md. — A Ku Klux Klan group plans to hold a rally June 10 on the grounds of the Antietam National Battlefield, site of the bloodiest one-day clash of the Civil War, an organizer and a park official said...

Information Asymmetries: Our book "Freakonomics" includes a chapter titled "How Is the Ku Klux Klan Like a Group of Real-Estate Agents?" This chapter was our effort to bring to life the economic concept known as information asymmetry, a state wherein one party to a transaction has better information than another party... [snip] But the Klan was not the hero of our story. The hero was a man named Stetson Kennedy, a white Floridian from an old-line family who from an early age sought to assail racial and social injustices. Out of all of his crusades - for unionism, voting rights...

White Supremacist Wants To Bankrupt N.Y. TownPOSTED: 6:22 pm EST November 19, 2005 KINGSTON, N.Y. -- A white supremacist radio talk-show host said he wants to bankrupt the city of Kingston, N.Y. Hal Turner organized a rally Saturday that drew about 50 supporters, 100 counter demonstrators -- and as many as 200 police officers. Turner invited the Ku Klux Klan and similar groups to help protest recent attacks on white students by black students at Kingston High School. Police have said the attacks were not motivated by race. Turner figures the city would have to pay $100,000 in overtime for...

Nearly four months after the Senate's most influential Democrat, former majority leader Robert Byrd, defended the Ku Klux Klan in his autobiography, Byrd has yet to offer an apology - and fellow Democrats have not asked him to make one. "Robert C. Byrd: Child of the Appalachian Coalfields" hit bookstores in June - and featured Byrd's firsthand account of his days as an up-and-coming member of the nation's most notorious anti-black terrorist group. According to the eight-term West Virginia Democrat, the Klan he remembers was "a fraternal group of elites – doctors, lawyers, clergy, judges and other 'upstanding' people." At...

His early ads betray a sense of vulnerabilityIt is barely August and already the ad war for the U.S. Senate campaign has begun. The election isn't until November. Wait. I just checked my calendar. That's November 2006. Holy cow. A full 15 months before the election, the eight-term senator feels compelled to run ads to offset last week's ads by the National Republican Senatorial Committee. The eyes of television sales managers across the state just lit up. Anyone want to help me open a Maserati dealership? Not since Jay Rockefeller spent $12 million to get to the Senate 21 years...

MORGANTOWN, W.Va. - The Ku Klux Klan is the central paradox of Robert C. Byrd's life — "an extraordinarily foolish mistake" that has haunted him for 40 years but the very thing that launched one of the longest careers in the U.S. Senate. "It has emerged throughout my life to haunt and embarrass me, and has taught me in a very graphic way what one major mistake can do to one's life, career and reputation," the West Virginia Democrat says in an autobiography being released Monday. "I displayed very bad judgment, due to immaturity and a lack of seasoned reasoning."...

CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. -- A Ku Klux Klansman helped build seven pipe bombs that a federal informant told him would be rigged to vehicles used by Haitians and Hispanics, a federal agent testified Friday at a detention hearing. Videotapes of meetings between the informant and Daniel Schertz, 27, showed them making the bombs and discussing how they would be used, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives agent Lorin Coppock testified.

A new Islamic advocacy group in Boca Raton is under scrutiny for its ties to William W. Baker, a former chairman of the neo-Nazi political party of presidential candidate David Duke who was run out of town last year when he attempted to speak at Florida Atlantic University. Local Jewish and civic leaders said Friday they were alarmed that the Assadiq Islamic Education Foundation, whose headquarters are listed at 831 E. Palmetto Park Road in Boca, had invited Baker back to Boca as featured speaker at an April 30 banquet at the Boca Marriott. Invited by Muslim students to speak...

In the oddest political pairing in memory, the Senate's lone African-American member, Barack Obama, has become the number one campaigner for the Senate's only ex-Ku Klux Klansman, Sen. Robert Byrd. Working with MoveOn.org in March, Obama singlehandedly helped Byrd raise more money for his reelection fight next year than the one-time segregationist had ever raised before. In a letter to MoveOn members, the rising Democratic Party star praised the one-time night-rider as a man of principle: "In 2006, Senator Byrd will be the target of Republicans because he stands up for what he believes," Obama insisted. "Will you join me...

MASON, Mich. — A planned auction of Ku Klux Klan items was canceled Saturday after fliers encouraging KKK membership were distributed in the community where the event was to be held. Residents in Mason, a Lansing suburb where civil rights leader Malcolm X lived for a time, awoke to find the fliers in front of their homes on Saturday. The fliers did not mention Sunday's auction, but the Ole Gray Nash Auction House in Howell canceled the event regardless. "We don't believe [the fliers were] actually authentic, but someone went to a lot of trouble," said Becky Hinz, an auction...

In her 1938 autobiography, Margaret Sanger discusses her keynote address at a Silver Lake Ku Klux Klan Rally. In honor of this event, the Margaret Sanger Blogspot this year launched our 1st Annual Margaret Sanger at the Ku Klux Klan Rally Art Contest. This year's winner is Registered from Freerepublic.com. Congratulations, Registered: