Free Republic

Friday on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson heralded President Joe Biden’s speech in Philadelphia the night earlier as an “urgent wartime address.” According to Robinson, it was “significant” that Biden called out his predecessor and “MAGA Republicans. “The speech last night to me sounded like a president delivering a wartime address,” he said. “And indeed, Joe Biden sees this as a battle for the soul of our country. It’s a battle for the preservation of our democracy. To me, the significant thing was, yes, he called out Donald Trump — but he also called out the MAGA...

An Ellington mother is upset after her son, who suffers from autism, was denied access to the swimming pool at a country club because he requires a flotation vest. Cristin Millen told Eyewitness News her 8-year-old son, Aiden Robert, was denied access to the Ellington Ridge Country Club. According to Millen, she signed up for a membership at Ellington Ridge Country Club and told them that Aiden Robert had autism and was required to wear a life jacket. Millen said she asked officials at the country club to check to make sure that was OK. When her husband Kevin called...

To call Edward Kennedy “Duke” Ellington inimitable is to actually downplay his mythic role in world culture, as no American figure — be he from the realm of jazz or any other musical idiom — has ever matched his spectacular and ceaseless creativity. Born 114 years ago this week, Ellington was a composer, arranger, bandleader and pianist whose omnivorous talent saw little let up from his artistic maturity in the late 1920s until his death in May of 1974. There was no one remotely like him during his lifetime and there has been no one to challenge his status since....

The Louisiana House swung Republican Friday with state Rep. Noble Ellington’s defection from the Democratic Party. The move has both political and historical significance. “For the first time since Reconstruction, Republicans have a majority in the House of Representatives,” said House Speaker Jim Tucker, R-Terrytown. “I’m very happy about that,” he said. Like legislatures across the nation, Louisiana’s Legislature is increasingly becoming Republican. Recent defections from the Democratic ranks in Louisiana include state Rep. Fred Mills, state Sen. John Alario, state Sen. John Smith, state Rep. Walker Hines and state Rep. Simone Champagne. Ellington’s switch gave Republicans the additional member...

ELLINGTON FIELD, Texas -- More than 100 tons of relief supplies have left this airfield for hurricane-affected Gulf Coast areas via CH-47 Chinook helicopters since Sept. 24. The airfield, which is the central hub for Texas relief operations, is home to the 147th Fighter Wing and its fleet of F-16 Fighting Falcon jets. Wing leaders asked the 136th Airlift Wing at Fort Worth, Texas, to support operations. The Fort Worth wing’s tanker airlift control element has been controlling the airflow to and from the airfield since it opened the day Hurricane Rita passed. And the 136th Aerial Port Squadron has...

HOUSTON (AP) - House Majority Leader Tom DeLay is urging the Department of Homeland Security to locate a regional office at Ellington Field - a move the facility's supporters believe could save it from the next round of military base closures. Ellington Field, which opened in 1917, is home of the Texas Air National Guard's 147th Fighter Wing, the Coast Guard Air Station Houston and the Texas Army National Guard. In a recent letter to Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, DeLay asked that one of the department's nine planned regional offices be located at Ellington, Houston's only military defense installation....