[With the battle over Wal-Mart heating up nation-wide, we're happy to share an article offering a interesting new look on the issue by Facing South/Southern Exposure contributor Jordan Green. Jordan's piece, which appeared in this week's Facing South email newlsetter... More...

The saga surrounding Rep. Charles Taylor (R-NC) and his missing vote against CAFTA is taking some interesting new turns. Taylor continues to insist that he tried to vote against the trade deal, but that his voting card didn't work.That's funny,... More...

Our latest Facing South email newsletter is out, spreading like kudzu to thousands of email inboxes across the world. If you're not already on the list, sign up now using the form to the right. It's free!To give you a... More...

Oil companies will tell you that they're jacking up prices because of tightening supplies. But when it comes time to announce quarterly earnings, they can't stop themselves from revealing the truth and boasting about the billions in profits they're raking... More...

Pundits and advocates are now surveying the CAFTA carnage, and it's not pretty. Tales of brutal arm-twisting and last-minute favors -- especially in the 47-minute period when the House had to suspend debate as GOP leaders "convinced" waverers -- abound.A... More...

Since CAFTA passed the House by just one vote this morning -- 217-215 -- you can point to any one of the "ayes" as the "deciding vote." But as we predicted yesterday, the most gripping drama was in the South,... More...

Eschaton visitors. Make yourself at home. And if you like, sign up (over there to the right) for our free email newsletter offering a progressive take on news, trends and issues in the South.For those who emailed me for more... More...

As Congress gears up for a vote tonight on the Central American Free Trade Agreement -- with Texas Rep. Tom DeLay promising a win -- the heart of the fight is in the U.S. South. As the Raleigh News &... More...

There's been a small flurry of stories lately about skyrocketing pay among corporate execs. The New York Times, for example, recently reported that the average corporate CEO made $9.84 million in 2004. You can find out more about the issue... More...

Across the country this morning, dozens of newspapers -- including, unfortunately, my own Raleigh News & Observer -- were disgraced with an particularly execrable editorial by John Leo. Mostly a re-hash of a piece he peddled in March 2003 (also... More...

In 2004 the Southern Baptist Convention withdrew from the World Baptist Alliance (which it helped to found in 1905), accusing the loose global federation of anti-American bias and (even worse) liberalism. The Louisville Courier-Journal found a few Kentucky Baptists who... More...

Here’s one reason why it’s good that TennCare is at least continuing to cover women with cervical cancer. Most of the 4,000 almost entirely preventable deaths from this condition in the U.S. each year occur in the South. From the... More...

In case you missed it: in this time of shared sacrifice for war, Halliburton announced last Friday (pdf) that subsidiary KBR's quarterly revenues from Government and Infrastructure work increased 284 percent from 2004 to 2005.According to Halliburton executives, "[t]he increase... More...

Left I on the News points us to this surprising quote from a Texan well-liked around the world:"The biggest downside to a war in Iraq is what you could do with that money. What does a war in Iraq cost... More...

One predictable consequence of Tennessee Gov. Phil Bredesen’s deep cuts in the state’s TennCare health insurance program for the poor and uninsured: because the program still covers women with cervical cancer and Tennesseans under 21, a 52-year-old man who recently... More...

Here at Facing South, we haven't commented much on the massive upheavals in the AFL-CIO, which are now playing out in the labor federation's convention in Chicago, starting today. Yesterday, the Change To Win coalition of insurgents, led by Andy... More...

[This week's silver screen coverage from our friend David Fellerath, film critic at the Independent Weekly]The death of William Westmoreland earlier this week was little noted in these days of heat, Karl Rove, heat, John Roberts and more heat. But... More...

What does and doesn't make a political scandal is always fascinating to watch. For the last two generations, the benchmark for public office misdeeds has been Watergate, as evidenced by the fact that "-gate" is attached to every act of... More...

I agree with Max Sawicky and others that Roberts isn't a defeatable nominee for the Supreme Court. Rolling out a laundry list of somewhat conservative positions he took in various cases isn't going to amount to a killer bill of... More...

I have to agree with writers Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St. Clair: the nomination of John Roberts for the Supreme Court has the feeling of an anti-climax.One can sense the confusion reigning among liberal and conservative activists who, after amassing... More...

I'll add to the growing list of eulogies for South Knox Bubba, one of the best Southern bloggers, who "powered down" his popular Tennessee blog this week for reasons still unclear (an email someone claims to have received from SKB... More...

From an exchange during the testimony of Klansman Virgil Griffin at the Greensboro Truth and Reconciliation Commission hearings (unofficially transcribed at Chewie World Order; this excerpt is unedited):Did you ever work in the textile mills?VG: Yes I have. Would you... More...

Maybe somebody else can explain what this gesture is supposed to mean. From the Birmingham News: Alabama’s attorney general said he will wear an electronic monitoring ankle bracelet until state lawmakers pass legislation requiring the devices’ use by those convicted... More...

Pam’s House Blend has the latest on the rapidly emerging favorite for O’Connor’s Supreme Court spot, Edith Brown Clement of the U.S. Court of Appeals in New Orleans. She’s no centrist, but there might be a little discontent on the... More...

From the AP (via the Birmingham News):A volunteer movement that vows to guard America from a wave of illegal immigration has spread from the dusty U.S.-Mexican border to the verdant hollows of Appalachia. At least 40 anti-immigration groups have popped... More...

Immigration enforcers conducted a little sting operation here in North Carolina last week:The 48 immigrants thought they were attending mandatory safety training by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. But it was not until they showed up to the meeting... More...

As I write, the president is jetting towards North Carolina again, this time to fluff up sagging support for CAFTA. What is it with Bush and adjacent Southern states? First it was the sojourn to a remote (read: no protesters)... More...

Other issues get media attention, but the big issue this year in the halls of state government has been "medical malpractice reform." Heeding the marching orders of the business lobby, the National Conference on State Legislatures notes that state-level lawmakers... More...

I blogged recently on how the Greyhound bus line is cutting stops to small towns all across the country, including much of the Southeast. This site has a list of all the known towns to lose their stops so far... More...

As Floridians and other Gulf Coast residents recover from the latest Hurricane Dennis (it took a while for some to recover from the last Hurricane Dennis and its brother Floyd), check out this story from Sean Reilly, Southern Exposure/Facing South... More...

In case you missed this story from Sparta, Tenn., last week:Seven arson fires broke out yesterday in a neighborhood in this small Middle Tennessee town, inflicting heavy damage on two black churches and burning five vacant houses, authorities said.Sparta police... More...

The Texas Senate just cut property taxes by $4.8 billion, a cut similar to a proposal by Gov. Rick Perry and to legislation already passed in the House. According to the Houston Chronicle, All three proposals are designed to cut... More...

Today's Guardian (London) has one of the most damning pieces you'll read about the wholesale looting of billions of dollars in Iraq by U.S. occupation authorities and corporate contractors -- the story almost completely ignored by the U.S. media which... More...

[A warm "howdy" to resident film critic David Fellerath of the Independent Weekly, who reports on this week's movie news.]The summer doldrums are upon us and there are precious opportunities for escape in the multiplexes. Like clockwork, the Monday morning... More...

I'm not sure which is more dubious: that Halliburton has received another $5 billion contract for logistics support in Iraq, despite being under multiple investigations for fraud, overcharges and abuse -- or that the Army didn't feel moved to mention... More...

Progressives in the Raleigh/Durham/Chapel Hill metro area will want to check out this event next week: On Tuesday, July 12 scholar/activist and Institute friend Paul Ortiz will be discussing his much-anticipated book Emancipation Betrayed: The Hidden History of Black Organizing... More...

Given the Bush Administration's inaction on global warming -- his belated acknowledgement this week that human pollution may be a problem notwithstanding -- one has to look for hopeful signs elsewhere that lawmakers take this issue seriously.Fortunately, today's Raleigh News... More...

Think Progress has a short but important post up that goes hand-in-hand with Bill Towe's piece below arguing for a negotiated withdrawal from Iraq:With debate over what to do in Iraq heating up inside the Beltway, it’s important to ask:... More...

Finding a way to end the Iraq war remains one of the biggest question marks on the progressive political landscape. There's a growing realization among progressives that Iraq remains the unsettled issue of the moment -- with the price tag... More...

Facing South and Southern Exposure contributor Sean Reilly has an excellent piece in the Mobile Register about how Republicans are more and more disregarding their own rhetoric about states’ rights. They’re happy to empower the states when their opponents control... More...

As you probably heard, Richard Scrushy was last week found not guilty of criminal charges in the billion-dollar HealthSouth accounting fraud scandal. Scrushy, feeling vindicated, has said he would like to work again at the company he founded. The folks... More...

A big congrats to Al McSurely, local civil rights lawyer and long-time friend of the Institute for Southern Studies, for recently winning the national NAACP's William Robert Ming Advocacy Award, the highest honor given to an attorney by the civil... More...

Another material girl turns to mysticism: Katherine Harris joins Madonna as a Kabbalah enthusiast. From the Orlando Sentinel (via Florida Politics):Four years ago, as the state labored to eradicate citrus canker by destroying trees, officials rejected other disease-fighting techniques, saying... More...

[Like movies? So does our resident film critic, David Fellerath.]Unless you’re a fan of expensive, computer-generated apocalyptic bang-bang, don’t be swayed by the unaccountably positive reviews and hyped-up box office reports on Steven Spielberg’s War of the Worlds.First of all,... More...

For your holiday reading pleasure, here are two of Facing South's favorite pieces for Independence Day:PATRIOTISM'S SECRET HISTORYBy Peter Dreier and Dick FlacksThe Nation, May 16, 2002Many Americans believe that the left is "antipatriotic" (and even anti-American), while the political... More...

Quick activist alert: 12 Tennessee citizens are in the 11th day of a sit-in at Gov. Bredesen's (D) office in Nashville. They have been joined by 50 or more demonstrators outside, protesting Bredesen's proposed deep cuts in the TennCare health... More...