Free Republic

Rural white people, as a group, now pose four interconnected threats to the fate of the United States’ pluralist, constitutional democracy.Rural white voters have long enjoyed outsize power in American politics. They have inflated voting power in the U.S. Senate, the U.S. House and the Electoral College. Although there is no uniform definition of “rural,” and even federal agencies cannot agree on a single standard, roughly 20% of Americans live in rural communities, according to the Census Bureau’s definition. And three-quarters of them – or approximately 15% of the U.S. population – are white. Since the rise of Jacksonian democracy...

“We could tell there were some horrific assaults going on in that house,” said Chief Paul Nelson. An arrest warrant provided new details about the alleged torture of two women that included waterboarding, two-hour long beatings, and forced sex. One of the women, 29-year-old Rebecca Schaller, was found dead inside the home on January 28. When officers responded to the home at 715 Pierce, they said none of the eight adults or six children at the home seemed concerned Rebecca was lying dead on a bedroom couch.

In response to a petition objecting to his hiring at Texas Tech University, former U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said while the petition's creator is "entitled to his opinion" he "respectfully" disagrees with it. The petition opposing Texas Tech Chancellor Kent Hance's acquisition of Gonzales as a teacher, recruiter and guest speaker was signed by 70 Tech professors as of Monday, said petition creator Walter Schaller, a Tech philosophy professor. Gonzales will teach a political science class of 15 students entitled "Contemporary Issues in the Executive Branch" and help recruit and retain minority students beginning Aug. 1, Hance announced in...