Free Republic

With Mary Landrieu’s ignominious exit, the Democrats will have lost their last senator in the Deep South. And that’s a good thing. They should write it off—because they don’t need it. I don’t remember a much sadder sight in domestic politics in my lifetime than that of Mary Landrieu schlumpfing around these last few weeks trying to save a Senate seat that was obviously lost. It was like witnessing the last two weeks of the life of a blind and toothless dog you knew the vet was just itching to destroy. I know that sounds mean about her, but I...

Michael Tomasky is not content to argue, in the wake of Mary Landrieu's defeat, that Democrats should write off the South as politically unfriendly territory.  In his Daily Beast item of today, Tomasky goes to great lengths to trash the region in the ugliest of terms. "Reactionary, prejudice-infested, fetid, reject[ing] nearly everything that’s good about this country, just one big nuclear waste site of choleric, and extremely racialized, resentment," is how Tomasky slurs most of the South, saying "almost the entire region" is as he describes it.  Remind us now, Michael: just who's "choleric?" Tomasky then has the temerity to shed a...

The values that are pre-eminent for Republican Party voters are probably freedom, independence, autonomy, limited government and self-reliance, and a strong belief in the powers of capitalism and a free market,” Cross said. “We see them in the South: the calls or less government, the call for people to take personal responsibility, the inveighing against the dependent class.” And in Louisiana and other energy-producing states, he said, the perceived antipathy of national Democrats for the oil and gas industry helps swell Republican ranks. “We’re looking at something more than just a bad year,” said Charlie Cook, the Shreveport native who...

By BILL BARROW Associated Press October 9, 2014 ATLANTA (AP) -- With the walloping Republicans gave Democrats in the midterm elections, the GOP stands one Louisiana Senate runoff away from completely controlling Southern politics from the Carolinas to Texas. Only a handful of Democrats hold statewide office in the rest of the Old Confederacy. The results put Southern Republicans at the forefront in Washington - from Senate Majority Leader-in-waiting Mitch McConnell of Kentucky to a host of new committee chairmen. Those leaders and the rank-and-file behind them will set the Capitol Hill agenda and continue molding the GOP's identity heading...

(VIDEO-AT-LINK)Louisiana Democrat Sen. Mary Landrieu said Thursday that the issue of race is a major reason that President Barack Obama has struggled politically in Southern states. “I'll be very, very honest with you. The South has not always been the friendliest place for African-Americans,” Landrieu told NBC News in an interview. “It's been a difficult time for the president to present himself in a very positive light as a leader." Noting that the South is “more of a conservative place,” she added that women have also faced challenges in “presenting ourselves.” The comment prompted a fiery response from Louisiana Republican...

An “extremely rare” Civil War-era photograph of the enslaved woman who helped save Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee's Virginia home has been obtained by the National Park Service after a volunteer spotted the image on eBay. The previously unknown photograph depicts Selina Gray, the head housekeeper to Lee and his family, along with two girls thought to be her daughters. The photograph was unveiled Thursday at the Arlington House plantation overlooking the nation's capital that was home to Lee and dozens of slaves before the Civil War. An inscription on the back of the image reads "Gen Lees Slaves Arlington...

What happened to those days when it was cool for bands to play Dixie at both Northern and Southern schools while students cheered and waved Confederate flags?

I'm just curious who is ashamed of the Stars and Bars. I was born and raised in the south and this flag always gave me comfort and identity. I slept with it over my bed during my youth. What about you? Today if you even mention it, it's like a fart in church. I say, where are the true southern men?!

Mary Baxter Gresham was 42 when her invalid son, LeRoy, died in June 1865. She had already lost two infant children and had just lived through the upheaval of the Civil War in Macon, Ga. But when 17-year-old LeRoy, know as “Loy,” died on June 18 in the house where he was born, she was devastated. “God has tried me often and in many ways but never has my heart been so wrung as now,” she wrote to her sister, Sallie, on July 12. “And yet the trial had so much mercy mixed with it that my soul swells within...

Years ago, a decade ago, an old friend emailed me a classic Southern news story. It went down straight. Neat. Like a shot of Early Times. The story came out of the Mobile Press-Register in Alabama back when it was still a daily. That newspaper has since been reduced to a fragment of its old self, and now puts out a print edition only three days a week. The oldest paper in that state, the Press Register or one of its predecessors had been publishing daily since the early 1800s. The same thing happened, briefly, to Louisiana's fabled Times-Picayune...

Miss Rutherford lived during a time when people were closer and the pace was slower! “Miss Rutherford writes often about the Confederacy, and Southern traditions, and was overall a champion of all things Southern. While her writings may not be politically correct in today’s world, they are an important look into her era and document views and events from someone who lived through them and knew people who did.”---Kenneth H. Thomas, Jr., Genealogy Columnist, The Atlanta Journal and Constitution

I don’t believe it’s a stretch to say that the South is the most misunderstood region in the United States. Everywhere I go (even sometimes here in the South!) I run into misconceptions about this area. I’m proud of the region I call home, and I wish everybody could know the South that I’ve experienced my whole life. So I’m glad to get the chance to clear up some of the stereotypes and generalizations. Here are the ten things that everybody gets wrong about the South.10. White Southerners Still Haven’t Gotten Over The Civil War. There’s a notion that we...

MYRTLE BEACH, S.C. (AP) — Myrtle Beach police say three people have been shot and killed and another person injured at a motel in the popular resort city. MYRTLE BEACH, S.C. (AP) — Three people were killed and a fourth person was wounded in a shooting at an oceanfront motel in Myrtle Beach, one of South Carolina's most popular tourist destinations. The shootings took place around 11 p.m. Saturday in front of crowds of tourists at the Bermuda Sands Motel along the beach's new boardwalk, Myrtle Beach Police Capt. David Knipes said.

“If you see some Middle Eastern guy come in, you don’t have to be so worried about that”by Gina Cassini | Top Right NewsThe same FBI that ignored Russian and Saudi intelligence warnings about the Tsarnaev brothers -- the Boston Marathon jihadists -- and refused to question anyone at their radical mosque, is now visiting a gun store near you to target...conservatives!That's right, according to a new report, FBI counterterrorism agents are visiting gun shops in South Carolina to investigate “suspicious purchases” made by people who talk about “big government.”

Full Title: "Finally, Someone Acts Like An Adult: District Attorney Drops Charges Against Bullied Teen Who Recorded His Tormentors" South Fayette School in Pennsylvania, along with a complicit criminal justice system, recently made headlines with its groundbreaking anti-bullying program, which apparently deters bullying by punishing bullied students. Here's a short recap: A bullied student used an iPad to make an audio recording of other students abusing him. He brought this to school administration who a) called in a police officer (after being advised by its legal team that this might be a violation of the state's wiretapping law) and b)...

I’m a Southern boy (that’s Southern, with a capital ‘S’). My parents are Southern by birth. So were my grandparents. I was born in the South, I live in the South. My blood probably resembles gravy more than it does blood and I’m quite sure my breath smells like fried chicken. I’ll be the first to admit the ‘South’ is different. We’re not the Mid-West, Eastern Seaboard or the West Coast. We’re another country. For that matter, we’re another world. The best example I can think of to demonstrate this fact is the horoscope. Every newspaper in the country publishes...

Often you need to hit bottom before you can start working your way back up. We Southern Democrats are basically at that point. With control of only two of 22 legislative bodies, three of 11 governors’ mansions and precious few other statewide offices, Southern Democrats are an endangered species indeed. In 1969, Republican strategist Kevin Phillips argued that the South was “shaping up as the pillar of a national conservative party.” He was half right: Although Democrats have made great strides elsewhere, between 1992 and 2012 Republicans won the governorships and legislatures of all but two Southern states. The last...

Thousands of Atlanta students stranded all night long in their schools were reunited with their parents Wednesday, while rescuers rushed to deliver blankets, food, gas and a ride home to countless shivering motorists stopped cold by a storm that paralyzed the business capital of the South with less than 3 inches of snow. The result was gridlock on freeways that are jammed even on normal days. Countless vehicles were stranded and many of them abandoned. Officials said 239 children spent Tuesday night aboard school buses; thousands of others stayed overnight in their schools. One woman's 12-mile commute home took 16...

[Video] Fox News’ Bob Beckel Calls NRA’s Colion Noir “A Punk” Over His MLK Day Gun Rights Video January 22 2014 by Dan Cannon Share This Post First off, Colion Noir got featured on Fox News’ The Five. Bravo man. You know you’re doing something right when you get the mainstream media’s panties in a wad. If you aren’t aware, Noir made a video on Martin Luther King Jr Day for the NRA News in his role as an NRA News Contributor. The video focused on the fact that MLK saw the need for firearms for self defense and even...

In Latin America, hot tamales are as ubiquitous as the sandwich. This holds true in, of all places, the Mississippi Delta. Better known for its association with cotton and catfish, the Mississippi Delta has a fascinating relationship with tamales. In restaurants, on street corners, and in kitchens throughout the Delta, this very old and time-consuming culinary tradition remains vibrant. But how and when were hot tamales introduced to what has been called “the most Southern place on earth”? And why have they stayed? There are as many answers to those questions as there are tamale recipes. Oral history interviews with...