Southern Politics

Early Voting Numbers Give Democrats Hope

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Election Analysis – By Glynn Wilson – HARRISBURG, Ark. – Not much is at stake in this election. Only the future of democracy itself. The stakes were so high in 2020 that nearly 63 percent of eligible voters in the United States cast ballots in the election, enough to block Donald Trump from remaining in…

A Political Upset is Brewing from the Grass Roots Up in Rural Arkansas

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By Glynn Wilson – POCAHONTAS, Ark. – With less than two weeks to go before the Nov. 5 election, Democratic operative James Carville of Louisiana acknowledged the “palpable anxiety” out here in the wind of American life on Wednesday in a column in the New York Times. While claiming he is not one to take…

Change is Coming to Harrison, Arkansas, Once Called ‘The Most Racist Town in America’

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By Glynn Wilson – HARRISON, Ark. – It seems fitting to visit Boone County on Indigenous Peoples’ Day, since Native Americans were the earliest inhabitants of the area, beginning with cliff dwellers who lived in caves in the bluffs along the Buffalo and White Rivers. The Osage Sioux were the dominant tribe, along with the…

Arkansas PBS Debate Features Challengers to Incumbent Republican Rick Crawford

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Staff Report – JONESBORO, Ark. – The state Public Television network held a debate on Tuesday between candidates in the First Congressional District in Eastern Arkansas, between the incumbent Republican and challengers from the Democrat and Libertarian parties. The issues included the role and funding for the Federal Emergency Management agency in natural disasters, the…

Actor Wendell Pierce Urges the People of Arkansas to Register and Vote

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By Glynn Wilson – WEST MEMPHIS, Ark. – The actor Wendell Pierce who played the Rev. Hosea Williams in the move “Selma,” trombone player Antoine Batiste in “Treme” and Detective Bunk Moreland in the acclaimed HBO drama series “The Wire,” broke off from traveling the country campaigning for Democrats with Kamala Harris and Tim Walz…

Republican Congressman Rick Crawford Was a No Show at Arkansas State Debate

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Staff Report – JONESBORO, Ark. – Republican Congressman Rick Crawford was a no show Thursday night in his home town televised debate by Arkansas State University Television, as Democrat Rodney Govens and Libertarian Steve Parsons went back and forth on the critical problems facing the people in U.S. House District One and potential solutions for…

Arkansas Republican’s Federal Pay Lawsuit Clears Court Hurdle

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By Glynn Wilson – JONESBORO, Ark. – A federal judge from Indonesia who attended Auburn University and the University of Alabama School of Law and was appointed to the U.S. Court of Federal Claims by Ronald Reagan in 1986, ruled last week that a lawsuit filed by a Republican Congressman from Arkansas against the government…

Biden-Harris Administration Invests $225 Million in Arkansas: The State’s Republican Congressional Delegation Opposed It

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Staff Report – JONESBORO, Ark. – No one thought it could be done. Every president and Congress since the administration of Ronald Reagan has talked about passing a national infrastructure bill to rebuild America’s crumbling roads and bridges and more. They could never agree and get it done. That all changed in 2021, however, when…

Rodney Govens Campaigns for Congress in Hardy, Arkansas: Trump Campaigns for President at the Alabama-Georgia Game in Tuscaloosa

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The Big Picture – By Glynn Wilson – HARDY, Ark. – It takes time to get oriented in a new place as a writer, especially after experiencing nearly catastrophic trauma on the road. But less than two weeks after leaving Maryland and passing through Virginia, West Virginia, a sliver of Missouri and crossing the Mississippi…

U.S. House Seat in Eastern Arkansas On the Line in 2024

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By Glynn Wilson – Now that Vice President Kamala Harris has dispatched Donald Trump in the presidential debate event Tuesday night on ABC, live from Philadelphia – the birthplace of American independence, freedom and democracy – it’s time to think about which party might control the closely divided Congress next year. Related: A Majority of…

Election Deniers Secretly Pushed Rule That Would Make It Easier to Delay Certification of Georgia’s Election Results

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Editor’s Note: In case you haven’t been paying attention, the critical 2024 election is just over two months away. There is good news for Democrats as surveys show a surge in voter enthusiasm since President Joe Biden dropped out and Vice President Kamala Harris took over the campaign, and polls already show her catching Trump…

The Tragedy of North Birmingham, Alabama

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By Max Blau – Graphics by Shane Loeffler – ProPublica By the spring of 2020, the century-old industrial plant on Birmingham’s 35th Avenue was literally falling apart. Chunks of the metal doors fronting several of the 1,800-degree ovens — which heat coal to produce a fuel called coke — had broken off and tumbled to…

Josh Hawley and Marjorie Taylor Greene Juiced Their Fundraising Numbers

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By Isaac Arnsdorf and Derek Willis – Republished from ProPublica – Two of the leading Republican firebrands in Congress touted big fundraising hauls as a show of grassroots support for their high-profile stands against accepting the 2020 election results. But new financial disclosures show that Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga.,…

Alabama Congressman Mo Brooks Compared Biden’s Election to the Start of the Civil War: Now He Wants a Senate Seat?

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Editor’s Note: Originally published by ProPublica. Republished here with permission under a Creative Commons license, with a few minor editorial changes to reflect his official announcement in Huntsville on Monday. By Isaac Arnsdorf Mo Brooks, the Alabama congressman who just launched a campaign for United States Senate, has officially said he condemns the Capitol riot…

Dark Money Group Targets Mo Brooks in Run for Richard Shelby’s U.S. Senate Seat

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By Glynn Wilson – Republican Congressman Mo Brooks of Huntsville, Alabama, was in on inciting the Capitol insurrection Jan. 6 and we’ve already written that he should be investigated for his role in that. Related: The American Public Deserves the Whole Truth: Will All Those Involved in the Capitol Insurrection Be Held Accountable? In the…

Alabama Senator Doug Jones Still in Contention For Biden’s Cabinet as Attorney General

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By Glynn Wilson – Senator Doug Jones of Alabama is still in the running to be picked for President-Elect Joe Biden’s Cabinet, in the Department of Justice perhaps as U.S. Attorney General, according to knowledgable sources in Washington. Jones’ three main advantages are his well established record on civil rights, his long standing personal relationship…

Yellowhammer News in Alabama Lies Again, Slams Senator Doug Jones for Votes

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By Glynn Wilson – Editor and Publisher – WASHINGTON, D.C. — The biased, right-wing conservative Republican fake news site Yellowhammer, considered the Breitbart News of Alabama, is lying about what’s going on in Washington again, slamming U.S. Senator Doug Jones with two weeks to go before the election simply for standing up for “the people”…

White Supremacy Rises as a Political Factor in West North Carolina Congressional Race: A Microcosm of a Nation Divided

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By Glynn Wilson – ASHEVILLE, N.C. — In the Blue Ridge Mountains of Western North Carolina, fall is in the air and the people are starting to pay attention to politics with less than 30 days to go before the election November 3. And just as white supremacy has come to the fore in Donald…

Senator Doug Jones of Alabama Strongly Opposes Voting to Replace Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg This Close to an Election

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By Glynn Wilson – U.S. Senator Doug Jones of Alabama says in no uncertain terms that he does not support voting on a replacement for Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg this close to the 2020 presidential election. “It is a poor reflection of the state of our national politics that, just hours after Justice…

Senator Doug Jones of Alabama Sponsors Bipartisan Bill to Help Combat Suicide by U.S. Veterans

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Staff Report U.S. Senator Doug Jones of Alabama introduced a bipartisan bill on Thursday to help combat suicide among America’s veterans. The bill, which is also cosponsored by Republican Senators Joni Ernst of Iowa and Democrat Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire, would designate one week per year as “Buddy Check Week” to organize outreach events…