Free Republic

NASHVILLE, Tenn. – The Peterbilt plant in Madison is shutting down for good on Tuesday. The truck manufacturer is consolidating production with its other plant in north Texas, leaving about 390 Tennessee workers out of a job. The plan temporary shut down in February, when Plant manager Larry Vessels told News 2 the plant would not resume production until the economy improves. Hourly workers at the plant had been locked out since June 2008 because of a labor dispute.

The hopes of black America ride on his shoulders. But the outcome's way up in the air. I am a black man born in 1954, the year of Brown v. Board of Education. Fleeing the abuses of Jim Crow, my parents moved from South Carolina to Washington, D.C., later that decade. Tales of racial oppression and racial resistance were staples of conversation in our household. My father often spoke of watching Thurgood Marshall argue the case ( Rice v. Elmore) that invalidated the rule permitting only whites to vote in South Carolina's Democratic primary. Memories of that story played a...

(CNN) -- Kicking off a week-long push seen as outreach to independent and Democratic voters in crucial swing states, John McCain on Monday will deliver a speech outlining his vision for combating global warming. "We stand warned by serious and credible scientists across the world that time is short and the dangers are great," McCain will say in Portland, Oregon, according to prepared remarks. "The most relevant question now is whether our own government is equal to the challenge." McCain's commitment to fight global warming puts him at odds with some Republicans in Congress and with the Bush administration, which...