Free Republic

Guess which state has the highest poverty rate in the country? Not Mississippi, New Mexico, or West Virginia, but California, where nearly one out of five residents is poor. That's according to the Census Bureau's Supplemental Poverty Measure, which factors in the cost of housing, food, utilities and clothing, and which includes noncash government assistance as a form of income.

Does anyone in or nearby Mississippi know if a conservative challenger is rising to kick out that pro-amnesty RINO scum Roger Wicker for the 2018 Senate race? If not, I'll make the case here on why it's so urgent to Cantorize this backstabbing quisling sellout to the conservative cause and American people. As reminder, Wicker was one of the GOPe RINO traitors who voted for that treasonous 2013 Obama comprehensive immigration reform bill that would have amnestied 20 million illegals and flooded the USA with job-killing h1b visas and Muslim refugees. I just got back from a long run of...

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Supreme Court declined Monday to take up a legal battle over a Mississippi law that allows state employees and private businesses to deny services to LGBT people based on religious objections. Signed into law in 2016 in response to the Supreme Court's gay marriage ruling, it allows county clerks to avoid issuing marriage licenses to gay couples and protects businesses from lawsuits if they refuse to serve LGBT customers. The law was immediately challenged. But lower courts, without ruling on the merits of the law, said those suing could not show that they would be harmed...

The Supreme Court on Monday refused to hear two cases challenging a Mississippi law that allows businesses and government employees to deny services to LGBT people based on their religious beliefs. The court’s refusal to hear the case leaves intact the law, known as H.B. 1523, that says the state government will not take any discriminatory action against persons who don’t believe in same-sex marriage, homosexuality and transgenderism. LGBT rights groups called the law the “worst in the nation” and the Supreme Court’s decision a “missed opportunity.” “The Court’s inaction today means that LGBTQ Mississippians will continue to face harassment...

A Mississippi mother of two has been arrested for allegedly sending text messages claiming that she choked her baby with a phone charger and left her in a wooded area. Deputies arrested Santangela Turner, 26, of Laurel, after she allegedly sent photos of herself using a white cord to strangle her three-month-old daughter’s neck and of the infant with a knife aimed at her neck, the Daily Mail reported. The woman threatened to harm the infant in one of the text messages and added a photo of the baby with a cord wrapped around her neck, according to the Jones...

Back in November, Sen. Orrin G. Hatch, the 83-year-old Republican from Utah, was at the helm when the Senate's massive tax bill came through the Finance Committee. But Hatch also deputized four younger Republicans on the panel to serve as de facto co-chairmen over various parts of the legislation. This week, with a compromise bill marching toward final passage in both chambers, the House will take the unusual step of voting first - because a pair of senators, Thad Cochran, R-Miss., and John McCain, R-Ariz., are recuperating from, respectively, non-melanoma skin surgery and the side effects of cancer treatments. Hatch's...

Several players from Ole Miss made a trip to Michigan to visit with Jim Harbaugh and the Wolverine football program this past weekend. After the events of the last few weeks – Matt Luke hired as coach, the NCAA sanctions handed down, players stating that they wanted to transfer, etc – I wanted to dig into what all is happening. As I was putting information together for this story, it was announced that Lee Tyner is resigning from his post. On December 7th, I read an article by Brad Logan at Gridiron now, titled “Ole Miss Must Defend Itself –...

The Mississippi Supreme Court heard arguments last week about whether a boy born to a lesbian couple should be legally considered the biological son of his mother's female partner. Because of the nature of the child’s conception and the relationship of the adults in his life, the story is complicated. The two women who were “married” chose to have a child that would be conceived in one of them via anonymous sperm donation. The boy is now six years old. His mother’s “ex-spouse,” who helped raise the child from birth, sought to be recognized as a biological parent when the...

Reps. John Lewis (D-GA) and Bennie Thompson (D-MS) announced they will no longer be attending the opening of the Mississippi Civil Rights Museum on Saturday because President Trump will be there. The two African American congressmen issued a joint statement about their decision, arguing Trump’s presence ‘disrespects’ the efforts of Mississippi’s black civil rights leaders. "Trump’s attendance and his hurtful policies are an insult to the people portrayed in this civil rights museum. The struggles represented in this museum exemplify the truth of what really happened in Mississippi. President Trump’s disparaging comments about women, the disabled, immigrants and National Football...

Reps. John Lewis (D-Ga.) announced Thursday he won’t attend the opening of the Mississippi Civil Rights Museum on Saturday because President Trump will be there. “President Trump’s attendance and his hurtful policies are an insult to the people portrayed in this civil rights museum," Lewis said in a joint statement with Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.). Lewis and Thompson cited Trump’s past comments about women, immigrants and NFL players who have protested during the national anthem before games, saying his remarks "disrespect the efforts" of civil rights leaders. Lewis had previously said he was reconsidering whether to attend after the White...

The NAACP on Tuesday announced opposition to President Trump attending the opening of the Mississippi Civil Rights Museum this weekend, saying he has created a "racially hostile climate." [Snip] Amos Brown, an NAACP board member and Jackson native, called Trump’s planned appearance "an insult." Trump has repeatedly faced backlash for making inflammatory statements about minority groups and sparked controversy after the deadly white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Va., for saying that "both sides" were to blame. He has been harshly critical of NFL players who kneel during the national anthem to protest racial inequality, and feuded with the father of...

The Arleigh Burke-class guided missile destroyer USS Fitzgerald (DDG 62) has been loaded aboard the heavy lift transport vessel Transshelf and begin her journey to Pascagoula, Mississippi for further repairs. Fitzgerald departed Fleet Activities (FLEACT) Yokosuka under tow on November 24 begin the heavy lift process in deep water.

One week after Hurricane Katrina made landfall in August 2005, President George W. Bush consulted with his team of crisis advisers and inundated the Gulf Coast with cheap, illegal alien labor. Bush’s August decision to lift the Davis-Bacon wage law made it very easy for contractors to hire cheap labor. Mike Chertoff, the secretary of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), quickly suspended sanctions on the employers who did hire illegal aliens. The result was another flood – this time not of water, but of illegal aliens, 30,000 of which came to the Gulf Coast to take cleanup and blue-collar...

Mississippi U.S. Senator Roger Wicker continues his effort to get as much distance as possible from his abysmal voting record by attaching himself to President Donald Trump and distancing himself from Mitch McConnell. Meanwhile, Wicker’s campaign surrogates in the state, who have repeatedly attacked Mississippi conservatives, are struggling to find footing as talk of a primary challenge from Senator Chris McDaniel ramps up. Wicker’s effort to reinvent himself in time for campaign season is looking more and more like a case of ‘too little too late’. Focusing on isolating the votes of their favored candidates in order to spin their...

Stan Ethredge had monitored the deer for years. He owns hundreds of acres and watched from his deer cameras as the deer’s antlers grew six points about four years ago. They were normal size and shape then. This season, when it came back, its antlers had changed. They were a mass of twisted tines and knobby bases. Ethredge decided to hunt it. "As soon as I got the crosshairs on him, I shot," Ethredge told the Clarion-Ledger. "He's eluded me for years, so I didn't want to let him get away. I shot him as soon as I got the...

A school in Mississippi is dropping its connection to the American Confederacy's only president, Jefferson Davis, and renaming itself after President Barack Obama. Davis International Baccalaureate Elementary School in Jackson will be renamed Barack Obama Magnet IB following a vote. The move, which when approved will come into force in the next academic year, was proposed by parents and approved by a majority of students, parents, faculty and staff members. Ninety-eight percent of the students who attend the school are African-American.

JACKSON, Miss. - A Mississippi school is shedding the name of the Confederacy's only president and will instead be named for the first African-American president of the United States. Davis International Baccalaureate Elementary School in Jackson was named decades ago for Jefferson Davis. In a move proposed by parents, the school with 98 percent African-American enrollment will be renamed for Barack Obama in the next academic year. The PTA president announced the planned change at a school board meeting Tuesday.

“Jefferson Davis, although infamous in his own right, would probably not be too happy about a diverse school promoting the education of the very individuals he fought to keep enslaved being named after him,” Davis Magnet IB PTA President Janelle Jefferson told the board. Jefferson said the school, where 98 percent students are black, wanted to rename the campus after Obama “to reflect a person who fully represents ideals and public stances consistent with what we want our children to believe about themselves.”

The University of Mississippi is replacing a Confederate statue on campus which was damaged by a pickup truck last month. Now, students are outraged after learning that the Confederate statue on the Oxford campus will be rebuilt. Ole Miss student groups are coming together to protest the forthcoming restoration. The University of Mississippi NAACP chapter released a statement in collaboration with the Students Against Social Injustice (SASI) in which they lambasted Ole Miss for their decision to fix the damaged statue instead of retiring the controversial artwork. “The repair and continued display of this monument by the University of Mississippi...

Mississippi Sen. Thad Cochran is continuing to grapple with a urinary tract infection that has delayed a planned return to Washington, his office announced on Monday. The GOP veteran, 79, has been absent from Washington for a month. Cochran’s chief of staff, Brad White, made the announcement in a statement issued by Cochran’s office. White said Cochran’s wife told him late Saturday that the infection had returned. His office had said last week that Cochran would return to work on Monday. […] Cochran’s health has been the subject of speculation in Washington, fueled by his extended absence and tweets by...