Free Republic

EDITOR'S NOTE: For the last half of the twentieth century, Antony Flew (1923-2010) was the world's most famous atheist. Long before Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, and Sam Harris began taking swipes at religion, Flew was the preeminent spokesman for unbelief.However in 2004, he shocked the world by announcing he had come to believe in God. While never embracing Christianity—Flew only believed in the deistic, Aristotelian conception of God—he became one of the most high-profile and surprising atheist converts. In 2007, he recounted his conversion in a book titled There is a God: How the World's Most Notorious Atheist Changed His...

A few weeks ago Mitt Romney spoke at a college commencement exercise and encouraged the graduates to marry early and have a lot of children. He used the words “quiver full” taken from the Old Testament.The comment was unremarkable, particularly for a Mormon to make. They are known for marrying early and having quivers full of children. Contra the contraceptive culture, even among Evangelicals, the notion of a quiver full from the Psalms is gathering steam among orthodox believers.Here is what he said, “You only live one life. Don’t spend it in safe, shallow water. Launch into the deep. If...

Add another one to the man's list of prudent business decisions. As relates to his previously documented loathing of Fox News, it's now known that the late Steve Jobs backed up his harsh words by wisely withholding Apple's advertising dollars, according to an upcoming book about the 2012 presidential campaign. The book's author, Jonathan Alter, a Bloomberg political columnist and contributor to MSNBC, tells of Jobs "personally ordering that Apple ads be removed from Fox News," according to a blog post in the New York Times over the weekend. Alter's book, "The Center Holds: Obama and His Enemies," is scheduled...

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On April 12, 1945, my grandfather approached me as I played outside and asked where my mother was. He looked stricken, and so I quickly followed him inside and heard him say words that made my mother burst into tears: President Roosevelt had died. My mother’s grief and panic were so palpable — her brother was fighting in the Pacific, her brother-in-law was fighting in Europe — that it scared me. In our house, FDR was not merely the President. He was a god. He is a god no more. His New Deal is no longer solely credited with ending...

Franklin Roosevelt enjoyed the overwhelming support of American Jews during his presidency, and the reasons are clear. In his three-plus terms from 1933 to 1945, he led the war against Hitler, supported a Jewish homeland in Palestine... Starting in the 1960s, a flood of books appeared with self-evident titles like “No Haven for the Oppressed” and “While Six Million Died.” But the most influential account by far was David S. Wyman’s “Abandonment of the Jews,” published in 1984. Wyman considered numerous parties responsible for America’s tepid response to the Holocaust, including a badly divided Jewish community, a nest of virulent...

Today it is more clear than ever why Niles doubted FDR genuinely supported Zionism. President Barack Obama has spoken of his deep admiration for Franklin Delano Roosevelt and his desire to emulate FDR’s leadership style. But in the wake of the discovery of new documents detailing FDR’s behind-the-scenes coldness regarding the creation of a Jewish state, many Israelis will be hoping that sentiment does not extend to Roosevelt’s views on Zionism.

Historian Rafael Medoff says Franklin Delano Roosevelt failed to take relatively simple measures that would have saved significant numbers of Jews during the Holocaust, because his vision for America only encompassed having a small number of Jews. “In his private, unguarded moments, FDR repeatedly made unfriendly remarks about Jews, especially his belief that Jews were overrepresented in many professions and exercised too much influence and control on society,” Medoff told The Daily Caller in an email about his new book, “FDR and the Holocaust: A Breach of Faith.” “This prejudice helped shape his overall vision of what America should look...

While the familiar caricature was in many ways apt, Margaret Thatcher also had a softer side, discovers Michael Deacon, reviewing Gillian Shephard's The Real Iron Lady. Margaret Thatcher, writes Sir John Major, has been “buried under myths”. And the myths heap higher with every passing year. So overpowering are the myths that today she divides opinion at least as strongly as she did in power. By both Right and Left she has been warped into caricature, the embodiment either of all political good, or of all political evil. To those who worship her, she was a tax-slashing Boadicea; to those...

'She is remembered as a profligate shrew who drove her husband to drink before going insane, but according to a new book, that is not an accurate portrait of Zelda Fitzgerald. In fact, it's a 'persistent, damning mischaracterisation that needs undoing' says author, Therese Anne Fowler, who argues that not only was the spoiled wife of Great Gatsby author, F. Scott Fitzgerald sane, she was also devoted to her husband. Fowler, who began Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald wondering whether she really wanted to spend a year in the company of a 'hyperactive madwoman', says she soon discovered that...

The Shroud of Turin continues to spark intense theological debate. While one side believes that the cloth is nothing more than a medieval forgery, the other contends that the x-ray-like image imprinted on it was supernaturally created during Jesus Christ’s resurrection. In the past, claims that it was the work of a renaissance artist, an optical illusion or, as mentioned, a legitimate, faith-inspired phenomenon have abounded. Without a doubt, the cloth has confounded supporters and detractors, alike, for decades. Now, “The Mystery of the Shroud,” a book that examines new chemical and mechanical tests that were more recently conducted on...

It was one of the many paradoxes of the Thatcher era in the UK that when it came to accusations of disloyalty and betrayal, the British Conservatives invariably reserved their ire for the trade unions or other representatives of the labour movement. The real traitors were, of course, members of the upper classes: the Cambridge Five spied for the Soviet Union and all acquired positions of privilege and prestige within the Establishment; and those who favoured Hitler and were most vocal in their support for a peace deal after the declaration of war were aristocrats and members of the Royal...

"Inauguration Day or Judgment Day?"In the early morning hours of Jan. 21, the day President Obama is scheduled to be inaugurated, the Presidential Inaugural Prayer Breakfast will be sounding a powerful warning to Washington, D.C., to – in the words of its keynote speaker – turn from its prideful ways or face the judgment of God. Rabbi Jonathan Cahn, the controversial author of “The Harbinger” – the startling New York Times bestseller that claims the U.S. is receiving the same divine warnings ancient Israel once did … and following the same path to destruction – has been chosen to deliver...

A remarkable book titled "Gifted Hands" tells the personal story of Benjamin Carson, a black kid from the Detroit ghetto who went on to become a renowned neurosurgeon. At one time young Ben Carson had the lowest grades in his middle school class, and was the butt of teasing by his white classmates. Worse yet, he himself believed that he was just not smart enough to do the work. Fortunately for him, his mother, whose own education went no further than the third grade, insisted that he was smart. She cut off the television set and made him and his...

Democratic movements in the Middle East have the potential to mobilize a pan-Arab public both on local issues and transnational issues such as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, argues Professor Marc Lynch in his book The Arab Uprising. Focusing largely on the events unfolding in 2011, Professor Lynch hails Al-Jazeera as a singular force pushing for mobilization across nation-state boundaries, while criticizing it as pushing, in the later stages, too much of Qatar’s foreign policy over its alleged reputation for unbiased news reporting. “Al-Jazeera has become a major weapon in Qatar’s arsenal, allowing that tiny state to play an outsized role in...

Writers are sometimes stern and cold at heart—introverts who escape into their own solitary world, away from outward distractions that would somehow muddle their extraordinary work. Other times, writers just need a friend. And while they say that a dog is a man's best friend, these writers each found solace in another four-legged companion.

Both Egypt and Tunisia have looked to Turkey’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) as a model for the Arab Spring in their own states. In his recent book, Spring Fever: The Illusion of Islamic Democracy, Andrew C. McCarthy condemns this outlook as “perverse.” “It is perverse to regard the Islamist AKP as a ‘model for the Arab Spring,’” he argues. “The main lesson of the Arab Spring is that the mirage of Islam as a moderating force hospitable to democratic transformation exists solely in our own minds, for our own consumption.” McCarthy goes into depth about the changes in Turkey...

In Afghanistan, farmers grow poppy for opium, which is later processed into heroin and, ultimately, sold as heroin on the black market. How, when the Quran defines drugs as “the filth of Satan’s handiwork,” does the Islamic populace in Afghanistan justify growing this illicit crop? For one thing, the sale, but not consumption, of opium is acceptable to the locals because it is supposedly consumed by the West–by infidels–and thus furthers the war on them, outlines Gretchen Peters in her book Seeds of Terror: How Drugs, Thugs, and Crime Are Reshaping the Afghan War. Peters has worked for the Associated...

It’s been nearly a year since the death of Osama bin Laden, and the American public has become accustomed to hearing about an al Qaeda no longer under his leadership, be it in Yemen, Mali, or elsewhere. However, even while bin Laden was in hiding, al Qaeda was dominated by his micromanagement skills, whether it was the decision not to institute Anwar al-Awlaki head of Al Qaeda in the Arab Peninsula (AQAP) or suggestions on how to avoid drone strikes. In his book, Manhunt: The Ten-Year Search for Bin Laden from 9/11 to Abbottabad, Peter L. Bergen argues that al...

The American Left and the Islamists work together to sabotage American, spreading their social justice (or sharia) values in a way that is inimical to American values, argues Andrew C. McCarthy in his book The Grand Jihad. For the hard left, social justice translates into Marxism and communism. For the Islamist, social justice leads to implementing Sharia and an Islamic state. These two are natural partners, he argues, because of their pursuit of “power” and opposition to American liberties. (McCarthy’s newest book is Spring Fever: The Illusion of Islamic Democracy.) A riveting tale of Islam in America and abroad, in...

For Immediate Release 2/13/2013 There is substantial interest in creating a film adaptation of the Terry Lakin Story, "OFFICER'S OATH." This is a poignant, heroic story that must not be forgotten, or falsely relegated to the "conspiracy theory" chapter in the annals of our national history. Terry knowingly sacrificed his military career, endured a court-martial, and ultimately spent nearly half a year in Leavenworth Prison simply for standing up for the Constitution he pledged to uphold and defend. His story is detailed in the book "An Officer's Oath," which is recommended reading for anybody who reveres this country and the...

My new book, "Dear Father, Dear Son," talks about the No. 1 social problem in America -- children growing up without fathers. In 1965, Daniel Patrick Moynihan wrote "The Negro Family: A Case for National Action." At the time, 25 percent of blacks were born outside of wedlock, a number that the future Democratic senator from New York said was catastrophic to the black community. Moynihan wrote: "A community that allows a large number of young men to grow up in broken homes, dominated by women, never acquiring any stable relationship to male authority, never acquiring any rational expectations...

"900-year-old Catholic prophecy says successor will be 'Peter the Roman'"Although a Roman Catholic pope had not stepped down in nearly 600 years, the startling resignation of Pope Benedict XVI was predicted by the co-authors of a book published last spring about a medieval prophecy that the next pontiff will be the last. In “Petrus Romanus: The Final Pope is Here,” co-authors Tom Horn and Cris Putnam examine St. Malachy’s “Prophecy of the Popes,” said to be based on his prophetic vision of the next 112 popes, beginning with Pope Celestine II, who died in 1144. Malachy presented a description of...

Encore presentation - Rick talks with Rabbi Jonathan Cahn about his NY Times best selling book "The Harbinger: The Ancient Mystery that holds the secret of America's future." Streaming Audio LinkDownloadabel MP3 File Link

Can Whitey Bulger blame his own raging case of Obama Derangement Syndrome rather than a tabby cat for his 2011 capture? That’s the suggestion in a bombshell new biography, “Whitey: The Life of America’s Most Notorious Mob Boss,” by veteran Boston reporters Dick Lehr and Gerard O’Neill. When Whitey and moll Catherine Greig had been living in Santa Monica, Calif., as “Mr. and Mrs. Charlie Gasko,” Greig became close to Icelandic model Anna Bjornsdottir, bonding over the care of a stray cat. Whitey often joined them outside their apartment building. But, Lehr and O’Neill write, Bjornsdottir and Whitey never spoke...

Brandon Webb, a former Navy SEAL, and Jack Murphy, a former Green Beret, reveal the new claims in their book EXCLUSIVE: David Petraeus was brought down after betrayal by vengeful CIA agents and his own bodyguards who made sure his affair was exposed, claims new book 'Benghazi: The Definitive Report' Petraeus was humiliated after a 'palace coup' by high-level intelligence officers who did not like the way he was running the CIA, authors say The book also claims that Petraeus and Ambassador Chris Stevens were caught off guard by Benghazi consulate attack because they weren't briefed about on-going U.S. military...

A Special Note: This book is so powerful, I recently left my company to become a filmmaker to insure this story is told the world over. SMEARED will be coming to a movie theater near you in the Fall of 2014. Then to Netflix, DVD and finally, with God’s divine will, into every classroom in every school in America. Please read my 250 word book review, below. The truth of our nation’s amazing birth must always be known. I pray you’ll soon appreciate how SMEARED will be used to effectively bypass our failing schools, corrupted news media and Hollywood’s mostly...

Never mind looking for a good man, says the author of a hot, new book being released this week – good women are the ones who are hard to find.

Last June, a pulp-fiction thriller was published in Paris under the title “Le Chemin de Damas.” Its lurid green-and-black cover featured a busty woman clutching a pistol, and its plot included the requisite car chases, explosions and sexual conquests. Unlike most paperbacks, though, this one attracted the attention of intelligence officers and diplomats on three continents. Set in the midst of Syria’s civil war, the book offered vivid character sketches of that country’s embattled ruler, Bashar al-Assad, and his brother Maher, along with several little-known lieutenants and allies. It detailed a botched coup attempt secretly supported by the American and...

His Eminence and Hizzoner, by John Cardinal O'Connor and Mayor Edward I. KochJune 1989 New York City, N.Y., Feb 1, 2013 / 07:02 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Cardinal Timothy Dolan and Cardinal Edward Egan responded to the death of New York City Mayor Ed Koch with praise for the Jewish official's collaboration and friendship with Catholics. “He will have special place in my prayers, and in those of the Catholic community he loved and worked closely with, this weekend,� said Cardinal Dolan, who has been Archbishop of New York since 2009. Cardinal Dolan said that as a young priest in...

On Tuesday, David Freddoso, author of Spin Masters, How the Media Ignored the Real News and Helped Reelect Barack Obama, joined the hosts of Fox & Friends to discuss pro-Democratic media bias in 2012 and beyond. The author detailed the case against the media in this interview and in a recent column for the New York Post in which he quotes a political scientist who attributes much of the nation’s support for Democratic politicians to the pro-Democratic coverage of politics in the mainstream media. Without that biased media, the author and the political scientist say, the nation’s voting patterns would...

Every once in a while, someone of note questions or denies the classic Christian belief of a literal hell with eternal, conscious suffering. Then a debate rages and becomes personal between representatives of various perspectives on the issue... Hell is real and terrible. It is eternal. There is no possibility of amnesty or reprieve. Daniel says that some of the dead will be resurrected “to shame and everlasting contempt.” Jesus says, “Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. . . . And these will go away into eternal punishment.” Paul tells...

Agenda 21 - Glenn Beck, Harriet Parke, 2012 Book Review: Glenn Beck's Agenda 21 The New American 11 December 2012 Picture yourself living in a small cell in a tightly packed set of compounds divided from the rest of the world by a fence. Your every action is monitored. Your nourishment and water are carefully rationed and given only at designated times. The color of your uniform identifies your occupation. No you are not in prison, but rather the citizen of an all-powerful Republic that has replaced what was once the United States. This fenced set of compounds, located somewhere...

Two videos at link. Badass military heroism: Medal of Honor Recipient Dakota Meyer's Into the Fire is this generation's To Hell and Back. Into the Fire A Firsthand Account of the Most Extraordinary Battle in the Afghan War By Dakota Meyer and Bing West Random House, $27, 239 pp. Does this sound familiar? 1. A group of Americans on a diplomatic mission to reach out to Muslims are pinned down by al-Qaeda and come under overwhelming fire. 2. They repeatedly call for support fire missions, which are denied because they cannot absolutely guarantee no civilians are in the area. 3....

Shadowbosses: Government Unions Control America and Rob Taxpayers Blind - Mallory Factor Book Review: Shadowbosses by Mallory Factor and Elizabeth Factor Forbes.com 8/26/2012

True origins of institution had little to do with racism Jon Hubbard, a Republican member of the Arkansas House of Representatives, has a book, titled “Letters to the Editor: Confessions of a Frustrated Conservative.” Among its statements for which Hubbard has been criticized and disavowed by the Republican Party is, “The institution of slavery that the black race has long believed to be an abomination upon its people may actually have been a blessing in disguise. The blacks who could endure those conditions and circumstances would someday be rewarded with citizenship in the greatest nation ever established upon the face...

Enter Stella Paul, author of the newly published gem of an e-book entitled What I Miss About America. Stella's pithy sayings capture the angst of Americans who are angry and terrified at what Obama has wrought. Each of her pointed observations begins with What I Miss About America and include simple nuggets of truth. The words "Executive Order" not bringing on a panic attack The American Dream wasn't Food Stamps and Disability. A government that doesn't push junk science, junk bonds, and TSA agents who touch your junk A president whose background isn't more closely guarded than the formula for...

Books about the history of Harlem have long fascinated me — my favorite being "When Harlem Was in Vogue" by David Levering Lewis. However, a more recent book, titled simply "Harlem" by Jonathan Gill, presents a more comprehensive history — going all the way back to the time when the Dutch were the first settlers of New York, and named that area for the city of Haarlem in the Netherlands. Most of us today think of Harlem as a black community, but it was not that for most of its 400-year history. John James Audubon, famed for his studies of...

Joe Paterno had to be prodded by his family to read the grand jury report regarding Jerry Sandusky and did not understand some of its graphic terminology, according to a new book. The book, Paterno by Joe Posnanski, was purchased Friday by the Associated Press in advance of its release next week. In the book, Posnanski describes a scene at Paterno's home, two days after Sandusky had been charged with child sex abuse last November. Paterno's family and a close adviser were trying to explain to the Penn State coach that there was a growing sentiment Paterno must have known...

For President Barack Obama, it’s now personal. A new book cites Obama aides saying the president has a “genuine disdain” for Mitt Romney. “One factor made the 2012 grind bearable and at times even fun for Obama: he began campaign preparations feeling neutral about Romney, but like the former governor’s GOP opponents in 2008 and 2012, he quickly developed a genuine disdain for the man,” author Glenn Thrush writes in the soon-to-be released e-book “Obama’s Last Stand.” Thrush — a reporter for Politico, which published book excerpts Sunday – writes that Obama’s feelings for Romney are different from how he...

David Maraniss, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Barack Obama: The Story, is getting testy. And it is not hard to understand why. The Washington Post diva spent the last four years on his career book, released it in the heart of a heated re-election season, got the kind of exposure a Kardashian would envy, and now finds the book heading for the remainder racks weeks after its release. Oy vey! As of this writing, the book ranks 1,696 on Amazon's bestseller list. By contrast, Edward Klein's unfriendly Obama tome, The Amateur, has outsold just every book this summer not centered on...

Interested in some ideas for a very basic basic primer to provide some foundation for a new college conservative going on a road trip...nothing too involved--just an easy-to-read basic first book that will provide basic information on politics, culture, economy from a conservative (or limited government libertarian) viewpoint.

In an otherwise routine speech in May, 1992, Vice-President Dan Quayle criticized Murphy Brown, the TV character played by Candice Bergen, for bearing an out-of-wedlock child, emphasizing that it “ignored the importance of fathers.” He was subsequently skewered by the elitists of the cultural left. How, they asked, could he make such a big deal about a fictional character? The culture warriors insisted that there was nothing wrong with a woman having a child that she would raise alone. Of course, the left always believed that Quayle was an idiot, so they abruptly dismissed his comments as idiotic. That lack...

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: Let's see. David Maraniss. David Maraniss has this book on Obama, and he's upset. Maraniss is not happy over how the right wing is using his book. What Maraniss is doing -- and I don't think he realizes it because he's angry at what's happening. He's angry at the reaction to his book. What he's doing is pointing out all the things in Obama's autobiographies which are not true. He talked about Obama's great basketball talents in high school yesterday that Obama wrote about in his book. It turns out he wasn't a special player. Maraniss is...

.... Three new books, each by authors favorably disposed to Obama, attempt to explain the declining arc of his presidency.... Taken together, these books offer a sense of what the president’s champions and defenders think has gone wrong, with Scheiber and Corn in particular beginning to suggest how liberals will rationalize Obama’s first term should his failures prove fatal to his securing a second. First, these supporters of the president accuse him of the same sin they themselves committed: expecting too much from Barack Obama.... A third problem plaguing Obama, in the views of all three authors, is that the...

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: I watched something fascinating last night. You know, my brother has got a book out. The name of the book is The Great Destroyer. And it is a compendium of virtually everything Obama has done and said that gives away who he is and what's ahead and in store for us if he's reelected. David was to appear on Hannity last night, which he did. But Hannity led off with a focus group from somewhere in Wisconsin with Frank Luntz. And I watched that with my mouth wide open. Did you see that? Any of you see...

Not all campaign books are treated equally. Just look at Edward Klein and J.H. Hatfield. Klein, of course, is the author of the new book "The Amateur: Barack Obama in the White House." Hatfield, now dead and forgotten, wrote a book about George W. Bush, "Fortunate Son," during the 2000 presidential contest. Klein's book, which debuted in early May, has been mostly ignored by large media organizations (although not by the book-buying public, which has put it at the top of next week's best-seller list). Hatfield's book, on the other hand, rocked a presidential campaign -- before crashing and burning...

Edward Klein's new book on Barack Obama, The Amateur: Barack Obama in the White House, is a withering portrayal of a radical adrift, in over his head, drowning in his own incompetency -- while being weighed down by a small circle of "advisers" who are compounding the problem of the Amateur in the White House. Klein's book begins with a talisman-like quote uttered by Barack Obama when his recently appointed Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner tried to boost Obama's ego by telling him, "Your legacy is going to be preventing the second Great Depression." To which Barack Obama responded, "That's not...

Despite the constant, incessant, pervasive portrayal by the media, schools, and cultural and political elites, that blacks are the eternal victims and white people are unregenerate racist oppressors, there is evidence that the indoctrination and brainwashing have failed. More and more Americans, including young Americans, are just not buying the victimology fairy-tale — not any more.

Mary Pinchot Meyer Book Suggests JFK Did LSD, Assassinated by CIABy Brittney R. Villalva, Christian Post Reporter April 23, 2012|9:22 am The most recent book to come out concerning former president John F. Kennedy revolves mostly around his mistress, Mary Pinchot. The new conspiracy theory suggests that JFK and his mistress were both murdered by the CIA. Mary Pinchot was shot and killed execution style on Oct. 12, 1964 in broad daylight. The man originally suspected of killing her was eventually released due to eyewitness testimony, and the murder has since remained unsolved. In his new book titled "Mary's Mosaic:...