Free Republic

President Bush favored cap and trade, one of this former speechwriters claims in a new book. In fact, Matt Latimer writes in "Speechless," the President actually ENDORSED the policy in a speech, but no one in the press could figure out what he meant. Cap-and-trade, which would put a limit on businesses' carbon emissions, barely passed the House this year but has yet to make headway in the Senate. Most Republicans are vocally opposed to it.

In his new book, "Barack and Michelle: Portrait of an American Marriage," Best-selling celebrity journalist, Christopher Andersen, has blown a huge hole in the Obama genius myth without intending to do so. Relying on inside sources, quite possibly Michelle Obama herself, Andersen describes how Dreams came to be published -- just as I had envisioned it in my articles on the authorship of Dreams.  With the deadline pressing, Michelle recommended that Barack seek advice from "his friend and Hyde Park neighbor Bill Ayers." To flesh out his family history, Obama had taped interviews with various family members. Andersen writes, "These...

Confirming the literary detective work of WND columnist Jack Cashill prior to the 2008 election, author Christopher Andersen says in a newly released book that former domestic terrorist William Ayers helped Barack Obama write the president's highly acclaimed memoir "Dreams from My Father."

I have always put the people who said that domestic terrorist Bill Ayers helped to write President Obama's book Dreams From My Father in the same category as "truthers." I was wrong and I apologize. In the new book, "Barack and Michelle: Portrait of an American Marriage,Journalist Christopher Andersen has blown a huge hole in the story that Obama wrote the book alone. Relying on inside sources Andersen describes how "Dreams" came to be published. Anderson says that Obama had a bad case of writers block and after three years decided that he could not honor deliver the book and...

Here is video of Sean Hannity talking about some surprising details from the marriage of Barack and Michelle Obama. He talked with the author of a new book, "Barack and Michelle," written by Christopher Andersen. The author claims it was Michelle Obama who came up with Obama's campaign slogan, "Yes We Can." She also vetoed Hillary Clinton as Vice-President. Andersen says William Ayers helped Obama with his book, with the writing style even being very similar to Ayers' writing. He also says Rev. Jeremiah Wright was very close to the Obamas, with Michelle especially in "awe" of him. She was...

# 1 ABSALOM, ABSALOM! by WILLIAM FAULKNER (1936) (120 votes) A profound exploration of race and all its attendant complexities. Faulkner’s rendering of the Southern “class” struggle through the life of one figure, Thomas Sutpen, makes Absalom, Absalom! the only serious rival to Melville’s Moby-Dick as the great American novel. —Richard King # 2 ALL THE KING’S MEN by ROBERT PENN WARREN (1946) (80 votes) Robert Penn Warren’s book is an unqualified masterpiece. It is all-encompassing and eclipses everything else on the list. One could make a reasonable case for its being the greatest American novel ever written. Seemingly nothing...

I believe the book just came out this month and I wanted to see if anyone on here had picked it up to read it- hopefully I posted this question in the correct forum. Curious in particular to see if it really covered Tillman's life or was an anti-war piece. I enjoyed "Into Thin Air" but I am concerned when people with little or no military experience/exposure write about the military. Thoughts? Reviews?

Michelle Obama put the final nail in the coffin in the idea of Hillary Clinton becoming her husband's vice-presidential nominee, according to a new book. Author Christopher Andersen reported that Mrs Obama favoured Joe Biden, the president's eventual choice. "Do you really want Bill and Hillary just down the hall from you in the White House?" she reportedly told her husband. "Could you live with that?" Mr Obama later thought of the masterstroke of appointing the woman he narrowly defeated as his secretary of state. According to the New York Daily News , Mrs Obama was "fascinated" by the choice...

This is a story about a nearly 100-year-old book, bound in red leather, which has spent the last quarter century secreted away in a bank vault in Switzerland. The book is big and heavy and its spine is etched with gold letters that say “Liber Novus,” which is Latin for “New Book.” Its pages are made from thick cream-colored parchment and filled with paintings of otherworldly creatures and handwritten dialogues with gods and devils. If you didn’t know the book’s vintage, you might confuse it for a lost medieval tome. (See article for details) ###

Bob Bennett has a challenge for those who reject The Book of Mormon as a fanciful work of fiction...In a new book, Leap of Faith: Confronting the Origins of The Book of Mormon, the lifelong Mormon and grandson of a church prophet, argues that the foundational book of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints cannot be dismissed so easily. SNIP ...Terryl Givens, a Mormon and a professor of literature and religion at the University of Richmond, notes that The Book of Mormon has not undergone much if any scrutiny by scholars outside the faith. "The story of its...

Author Joel Rosenberg spoke tonight at the Family Research Council’s Values Voter Summit in Washington D.C. Rosenberg is the author of several best-selling fiction novels about intrigue in the Middle East (I’ve read all but the last one) and several non-fiction books about the Middle East. Rush Limbaugh highly recommends Rosenberg’s works, and his first fiction book (The Last Jihad) was somewhat prescient of the Iraq War. His father is Jewish and his mother is Gentile, by the way, and by his writings he seems to be a genuine Christian…with a LOT of knowledge of Jewish history. Rosenberg said these...

Below is an excerpt from the book "1,001 Things They Won't Tell You," which was published in May 2009 and highlights popular columns from SmartMoney's long-running "10 Things" feature.

Expectations among book retailers are high as Glenn Beck's newest book, Arguing with Idiots: How to Stop Small Minds and Big Government is expected to hit book shelves on Tuesday. The pre-release sales of Beck's newest endevour has remained within the top 50 best sellers on amazon.com for the past three weeks and just prior to release is the 3rd ranked book on Amazon and is currently ranked #7 in company sales by Barnes & Noble. Beck's Arguing with Idiots: How to Stop Small Minds and Big Government is released on the heels of...

New Book Debunks Human-Chimp Similarity by Brian Thomas, M.S.* Evolutionary science repeatedly declares that chimps and humans are 98 percent genetically identical, which is then taken as solid evidence that mankind evolved from an apelike ancestor. But a former BBC producer’s new book has found reasons to emphasize research that is often overlooked by evolutionary advocates—scientific results that reveal the uniqueness of man. In Not a Chimp: The hunt to find the genes that make us human, which was reviewed in New Scientist magazine, evolutionist Jeremy Taylor investigated not only the genetic distinctions between humans and apes, but also the...

SAN FRANCISCO: The latest novel from “Da Vinci Code” author Dan Brown, “The Lost Symbol,” broke one-day sales records, its publisher and booksellers said. Readers snapped up over one million hardcover copies across the US, Canada and the UK after it was released on Tuesday, said publisher Knopf Doubleday, a division of Random House. “We are seeing historic, record-breaking sales across all types of our accounts in North America for ‘The Lost Symbol,” said Sonny Mehta, editor-in-chief of Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, a division of Random House. Amazon.com, the world’s largest online retailer, called the book its bestselling first-day adult...

Dan Brown has done it again. In 2003, "The Da Vinci" code author released the must-read novel of the year. Six years later, his sequel "The Lost Symbol" sold more than one million copies in the U.S., Canada and the U.K. on its first day, shattering sales records in adult fiction books and forcing the publisher to rush-print an additional 600,000 copies to meet the demand.

BRAVO ZULU Travis McGee / Matt Bracken Enemies Foreign and Domestic Domestic Enemies Foreign Enemies and Traitors It just DOESN'T get any better than this!!!

Is there a politician George W. Bush ever liked? Not according to former Dubya speech writer Matt Latimer. In his forthcoming memoir, "Speech Less: Tales of a White House Survivor," Latimer says the former Prez dissed pretty much everyone in Washington - including Barack Obama. "He came in one day to rehearse a speech, fuming," Latimer writes. "'This is a dangerous world,'" he said for no apparent reason, "and this cat [Obama] isn't remotely qualified to handle it. This guy has no clue, I promise you." GQ's October issue has a sneak peek at the book - out Sept. 22...

President George W. Bush's former speechwriter Matt Latimer reveals that Bush considered Barack Obama unfit for the White House and predicted that vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin would be a disaster for the GOP. "After one of Obama's blistering speeches against the administration, the president had a very human reaction: He was ticked off," Latimer writes in his forthcoming book, "Speech-Less: Tales of a White House Survivor," which has been excerpted in the October issue of GQ. "He came in one day to rehearse a speech, fuming. 'This is a dangerous world,' he said for no apparent reason, 'and this...

New Book Claims George W Bush Said Barack Obama 'Has No Clue' George W Bush believed Barack Obama was "a cat" who "has no clue", dismissed Sarah Palin as a nonentity and insulted Hillary Clinton's posterior, according to a new account of life in the White House under the former president. Alex Spillius in Washington 15 Sep 2009 George W Bush believed Barack Obama was "a cat" who "has no clue", according to a new book. For all his politeness in public, Mr Bush is alleged to have privately mocked fellow big name politicians, claims his former speech writer Matt...

Without ever having been reviewed by either the New York Times or the Washington Post, Mark Levin’s Liberty and Tyranny: A Conservative Manifesto has now sold one million copies, according to its publisher, Threshold Editions. Levin is a nationally syndicated radio host, president of the Landmark Legal Foundation, and served as chief of staff to Atty. Gen. Ed Meese in the Reagan Justice Department. Liberty and Tyranny has been riding high on non-fiction bestseller lists ever since it was released in late March. It debuted at No. 1 on the New York Times best seller list and has remained in...

IN PURSUIT OF LIBERTY: COMING OF AGE IN THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION By Emmy E. Werner Potomac Books, $17.95, 190 pages Reviewed by James Srodes Too often books about children are written in an infantile voice as if the audience is somehow unable to read adult themes unless the prose is watered down. Happily, the book at hand is a compelling history that is both clearly written and a riveting experience for both adults and young people who are interested in Revolutionary War history from a different perspective. The story of young people, even children, in our War for Independence has...

PRIMARY school students have been banned from reading the teen cult classic Twilight books because they are too racy and contradict religious beliefs. Librarians have stripped the books from shelves in some junior schools because they believe the content is too sexual and goes against religious beliefs. They even have asked parents not to let kids bring their own copies of Stephenie Meyer's smash hit novels _ which explore the stormy love affair between a teenage girl and a vampire _ to school. Santa Sabina College at Strathfield was so concerned about the Twilight craze that teachers ran a seminar...

UNrealistic by: Sarah Carlsruh, September 11, 2009 The Heritage Foundation recently hosted a book release for ConUNdrum: The Limits of the UN and the Search for Alternatives. Is the United Nations more trouble than it is worth? According to editor Brett Schaefer, it might well be, but it sure isn’t going anywhere. Consequently this book is not about whether or not the UN should exist. It’s about how the UN can be made better and, failing that, when to use it versus when to give it a wide berth. As Heritage Foundation President Edwin J. Feulner said, it’s about “what...

He enraged America's religious right with his portrayal of God as a senile old man in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and now Philip Pullman is set to court more Christian controversy – this time with a novel about "the Scoundrel Christ". The book will provide a new account of the life of Jesus, challenging the gospels and arguing that the version in the New Testament was shaped by the apostle Paul. "By the time the gospels were being written, Paul had already begun to transform the story of Jesus into something altogether new and extraordinary, and some of his...

Chapter titled "Guns, God and More" - pp. 219-222. Sunstein states his view that the 2nd Amendment does not guarantee an individual right to keep and bear arms.

“Kings,” Louis XIV once observed, “should enjoy giving pleasure” and when it came to the fairer sex, he obeyed this precept zealously and often. “They’re all good enough for him, provided they’re women,” his sister-in-law remarked, “peasants, gardeners’ daughters, chambermaids, ladies of quality”; women of every stripe benefited from the Sun King’s sexual largesse. Neither the bonds of matrimony (to the sad, neglected Marie-Thérèse of Spain) nor the intrigues of his “official” mistresses (one of whom, Athénaïs de Montespan, wasn’t above spreading the rumor that a particular rival had scabs all over her body) could deter him from sharing the...

I have just finished reading William R. Forstchen's new novel One Second After. Briefly, it is about the instantaneous breakdown of American way of life as the result of an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) which disables the nation's electrical grid as well as all sophisticated electrical components in cars (they stop), planes (they crash), telecomunications of every sort, etc. leaving the population in a world similar to that of the Eighteenth Century. Shortages of every variety create societal strains, chaos, death and destruction in a matter of weeks and months. Forstchen's book (with a forward written by Newt Gingrich), while fiction,...

What makes an economy tick? What makes it grow? In 1890, Japan's average income was only somewhat higher than Mexico's and lower than Argentina's. Yet a century later -- despite the devastation left by World War II -- Japan's average income was nearly three times as great as Mexico's, more than twice as great as Argentina's and only modestly lower than that of the United States. From the late 19th century to the end of the 20th, Japan's economy managed to grow twice as fast as Britain's. How does a nation do that? Japan is not alone. In the early...

The biggest problem with the Book of Mormon is that it exists, says Sen. Bob Bennett...The Republican senator from Utah is the author of "Leap of Faith," which was recently released by Deseret Book...Bennett didn't like the way the Book of Mormon was represented in media coverage leading up to the 2002 Winter Olympics... "The tenor of the articles that kind of started me on this was that no one of any intelligence could believe the incredibly outlandish story about angels and gold plates, that any person with the slightest bit of education would reject this out of hand," he...

Daily Newser Dave Saltonstall gets an advance copy of Ted Kennedy's posthumously-released memoir "True Compass" -- in which the Massachusetts senator used the platform to defend his inexplicable decision to abandon Mary Jo Kopechne after his car plunged off the bridge. Among the other revelations: A nine-year-old Teddy hid under the bunk at a private school in the Bronx because he was afraid of being sexually abused by the dorm master -- and the senator claims he was cajoled into cheating on a Spanish test at Harvard by a buddy and didn't hatch the scheme that resulted in his expulsion....

WASHINGTON – Sen. Edward M. Kennedy said in a new book that he was not romantically involved with young Mary Jo Kopechne and that he never escaped the despair he felt after she died in the 1969 car crash that has been seared into the national consciousness as "Chappaquiddick." He acknowledged that he enjoyed women and drink — sometimes too much so — but said reports of wild Kennedy excesses were exaggerated. Yet it was the specter of Chappaquiddick that Edward Kennedy, the youngest brother, never could shake. "That night on Chappaquiddick Island ended in a horrible tragedy that haunts...

puma08.comSept. 2, 2009Remember, the Dept. of Education expects your kids to read books on the life of Barack Obama before the monumental speech on September 8th, well here’s a look at two of the books that shall be used: The first book is aptly titled: Barack Obama: Son of Promise, Child of Hope and here is the description, direct from the Publisher’s Website: Ever since Barack Obama was young, Hope has lived inside him. From the beaches of Hawaii to the streets of Chicago, from the jungles of Indonesia to the plains of Kenya, he has held on to Hope....

- Catholicism.org - http://catholicism.org - Book Review: Discovering a Lost Heritage: The Catholic Origins of AmericaPosted By Eleonore Villarrubia On August 28, 2009 @ 2:24 pm In Articles, Book Reviews, Catholic America, History | 2 Comments So, you think you know your American history? Well, this little gem of a book, a Catholic history of our country, will probably leave you quivering, both with shock at your lack of knowledge of some of the “true facts” of our past and with indignation that this information is not taught in American schools and is absent from standard textbooks. Why, you ask,...

As the Health Care Reform Town Hall meetings and Tea Parties heat up and the August Congressional summer session winds down, conservatives finally have a play book to help them gain traction on the slippery slope to socialism that they feel this country appears to be heading. “Rules for Conservative Radicals,” written by Michael Patrick Leahy (www.michaelpatrickleahy.com) takes the Alinsky viewpoints expressed in “Rules for Radicals,” and puts a moral, ethical, conservative spin on them.

Ed and Lois Smart tell the harrowing tale of the search for their abducted daughter Elizabeth. She'd been taken from her bed in her own home one night and as the Smart family suffered the insults of a community the Salt Lake Police blew this case so bad that Elizabeth suffered many more months for their dereliction of investigative duty.

Description - snippet - quote: "Perfect Enemy provides unbiased and accurate information to acquaint our law enforcement officers and Homeland Security officials with the Islamist mindset and threat. Knowing our adversaries is a fundamental first step in defeating their violent intentions and ensuring our survival, peace, and safety."

Editor’s note: Get the whole story of the Left’s love affair with Castro in Jamie Glazov’s new book, “United in Hate: The Left’s Romance With Tyranny and Terror.” The Left’s romance with tyranny and terror continues. This time it is Democrat Rep. Diane Watson picking up the torch for the fellow travelers, lavishing praise on Fidel Castro. Watson, evidently, is still riding the wave of ecstasy she experienced upon prostrating herself before Castro on her political pilgrimage to the dictator’s slave camp in April, 2009. Now, in a recent town hall meeting on health care, she’s touching base with the...

The editor of The New York Times Book Review and the paper's "Week in Review" section, Sam Tanenhaus is the biographer of Whittaker Chambers and is at work on the life of William F. Buckley Jr. In a new, short book, The Death of Conservatism, he argues that the right needs to find its footing for the good of the country. In an e-mail exchange with Jon Meacham, Tanenhaus reflected on the book's themes. Excerpts:

Yale has run up the white flag to terrorism. ... American universities have no problem questioning the most cherished Western values and American cultural norms. At times, the ivory tower seems to relish flouting propriety, self-righteously proclaiming that the mission of higher education is to push the boundaries of convention and defending their acts in the name of academic freedom. We are certain that if a book raised the ire of conservatives, Christians, gun owners or other politically incorrect members of society, Yale would double down on whatever made the work controversial. However, for whatever reason, whether financial motives or...

This month's Freeper Reading Club (now over 100 members) discussion is about Ralph Ellison's "Invisible Man." As I stated when assigning this book, as soon as you think you know where this book is heading, it completely changes directions and surprises you. Upon re-reading "Invisible Man" it seems apparent to me that Joseph Heller, author of "Catch-22," must have read this book since much of the surreal absurdity in "Invisible Man" was reflected in his own acclaimed book years later. As we saw in "Invisible Man," nobody really saw the man (never named) as he really was. To them he...

Joseph Kennedy and the Jews By Edward Renehan, Jr. (Mr. Renehan's most recent book is The Kennedys at War, 1937-1945, published in April 2002 by Doubleday.) Arriving at London in early 1938, newly-appointed U.S. Ambassador Joseph P. Kennedy took up quickly with another transplanted American. Viscountess Nancy Witcher Langhorne Astor assured Kennedy early in their friendship that he should not be put off by her pronounced and proud anti-Catholicism. "I'm glad you are smart enough not to take my [views] personally," she wrote. Astor pointed out that she had a number of Roman Catholic friends - G.K. Chesterton among them...

Need recommendations for a Reading List for a Liberal to learn about Conservative values and positions on issues.

I've read all I need to read of Saul Alinsky's Rules for Radicals. It's a cute book, in the same manner in which a ferral cat at a distance is cute until it gets closer and you see the froth dripping from its mouth and the odd stare in its eyes, when the limp you thought was a war wound from living in the woods turns out to be a unscathed rear leg it is dragging because its synapses ain't firing like they used to. Your conclusion is immediate and without emotion: Everyone and everything will be better if you...

One superb innovation of recent times is the readers' review section on Amazon.com. Here ordinary people get to voice their opinions, acting as cultural watchdogs to shield their fellow book lovers from duds. Certain individuals have built quite a reputation for themselves online, their aperçus vying with the phoned-in ruminations of the snooty, burned-out hacks who masquerade as professionals at our top magazines and papers. Of course, some reviewers can get a bit coarse and personal in the rough-and-tumble world of Internet interfacials, but for the most part these gifted amateurs inject a much-needed breath of fresh air into the...

The US president arrived with his family on Sunday for a week-long break on the picturesque Massachusetts island of Martha's Vineyard in which he hopes to devote his time to golf and his family. However, he may also have his head down in a book for much of the time after the White House revealed he had taken five titles to read at the secluded private estate where they are staying. It was not clear who had chosen the books but they cover the gamut of worthier tomes on history and the environment to crime novels. In total, the five...

Ron Paul supporters have organized a Book bomb with the intention of getting his latest book to #1 on Amazon.com sales rank. The link contains no referer code. In the post-meltdown world, it is irresponsible, ineffective, and ultimately useless to have a serious economic debate without considering and challenging the role of the Federal Reserve. Most people think of the Fed as an indispensable institution without which the country's economy could not properly function. But in END THE FED, Ron Paul draws on American history, economics, and fascinating stories from his own long political life to argue that the Fed...

Dr. Bass became head of the Body Farm at the University of Tennessee. There dead bodies are studied, rates of decay and other nasty stuff, to help solve crimes, identify the long dead or just so people like myself can read some really interesting stuff about it. Not for the squeamish.

Ridge Changes Tune On Terror Alert LevelsPITTSBURGH (KDKA) ― Click to enlarge1 of 1 Tom Ridge (File) Alex Wong/Getty Images Close numSlides of totalImages Former Pennsylvania Governor and Homeland Security Chief Tom Ridge is calling out former colleagues in the Bush Administration, suggesting they tried to play politics with the terror alert level. The charge comes in a book due out next month. Ridge claims other members of the Cabinet pressured him to raise the terror alert level shortly before the 2004 Presidential election. He says Attorney General John Ashcroft and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld pressed him to support increasing...

American conservatism Overdoing it Aug 20th 2009 From The Economist print edition The Death of Conservatism. By Sam Tanenhaus. Random House; 144 pages; $17. Buy from Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk THE recent implosion of the conservative movement is one of the great puzzles of American political history. Four years ago the Republican Party was in charge of the White House and both chambers of Congress. Today the party is locked out of power in Washington entirely, confused about its future and dominated by its know-nothing fringe. Is Bill O’Reilly conservatism’s mortician? Sam Tanenhaus, the editor of the New York Times Book Review,...