Free Republic

Before World War II, red-brick textile mills that processed cotton and wove it into cloth were all over the southern United States, dotting the Carolinas, Georgia and Alabama. But in the last 50 years, automation, free trade agreements and competition from countries like China whittled down the historic industry until it was almost gone. Now some textile jobs are coming back, but on much different terms. As the New York Times reported Sunday, some Chinese manufacturers are setting up shop in the United States, after finding it cheaper to produce their goods in the American South than in China.

When Superstorm Sandy slammed into New York and New Jersey last fall, it sent massive floods through the streets of coastal towns and cities across the Northeast, turning areas like Toms River, N.J., into something like a war zone. But nearly a year later, residents there and in many other coastal communities across the U.S. face a potentially far more devastating menace: a nationwide revamp of flood insurance rates, forcing premiums that were once around $500 per year into the $5,000-, $10,000- and even $20,000-a-year range and higher. "The adverse effect of [this] would be more devastating than Hurricane Katrina,"...

George Orwell's "Animal Farm" introduced the absurd proposition that "all animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others." Now comes a small utility district in Texas to challenge a situation in which Congress treats some American states as more equal than others. The utility district, which argued its case before the Supreme Court Wednesday, is right. In Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, Congress required nine mostly Southern states, along with parts of seven others, to ask permission (or "preclearance") from the Justice Department whenever they make even the slightest change in any election...