Free Republic

I am still amazed to write these words: Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. But, that is the reality, 386 years since the first Africans landed at Jamestown, Va.; 142 years since the Emancipation Proclamation; 135 years since the 15th Amendment granting citizenship to blacks; 85 years since the 19th Amendment granting women’s suffrage; 41 years since the Civil Rights Act; and 40 years since the Voting Rights Act. In the month designated for honoring black history, Rice placed an impressive new entry in the record books. No sooner was she in office than the nation’s top diplomat – the first...

Many of you publish heart breaking letters and e-mails from our sons and daughters defending our freedoms on many fronts. Before you do so, please just take a moment to stop and think about what is in what you are about to expose to the world. Please don't identify operational units, future missions, unit movements, or times of movements. When you do you place the lives of our sons and daughters and the lives of others at risk. Remember, we are open to the world. We have our share of lurkers and trolls and loose lips sink ships. Our kids...

NASHVILLE (Billboard) - Country comedy is currently a hot commodity, spawning strong-selling CDs and DVDs and receiving plenty of TV exposure. Among the genre's stars are Jeff Foxworthy (news), Bill Engvall (news), Rodney Carrington, Ron White, Larry the Cable Guy, Cledus T. Judd (news) and T. Bubba Bechtol. The burgeoning popularity of the country comedy genre is succinctly explained by J.P. Williams, head of Parallel Entertainment. The management company handles Foxworthy, Engvall, Larry the Cable Guy and White. "To a large degree, everything in comedy skews to hip-hop, urban and Hispanic," Williams says. "But between Los Angeles and New York...

NEW ORLEANS -- Cajuns have long learned to cope with being stereotyped as backward swamp dwellers, but phrases coined by national news media this week got their, as the caricature would have it, Tabasco-laden blood boiling. The words "Cajun Taliban" and "Ragin' Cajun" were used by ABC Radio and Time magazine in reference to Yasser Esam Hamdi, the second alleged U.S.-born Taliban. Hamdi was born in Baton Rouge to Saudi Arabian parents. "This guy is not a Cajun simply by virtue of being born in Louisiana," said Shane Bernard, a historian and archivist for the McIlhenny Company, which makes Tabasco...