Free Republic

“If these people are radicalized and they don’t support the United States and they are disloyal to the United States as a matter of principle, fine. It’s their right, and it’s our right and obligation to segregate them from the normal community for the duration of the conflict.”Thus spoke retired General Wesley Clark, a former Democratic Party presidential candidate, in an interview on MSNBC this past Friday.Back in 2004, Clark, the former supreme allied commander of NATO, was harshly critical of what he considered the Bush administration's excessive response to the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center towers...

Call me old-fashioned, but one thing I am always thankful for every Thanksgiving is the blessing of not having Franklin Delano Roosevelt in the White House. After all, of all the heroes of the American progressive movement, few have quite the record of sins as FDR. The man routinely celebrated in the halls of academia was guilty of Japanese internment camps, stealing Americans' gold, prolonging the Great Depression, and establishing a number of Federal agencies that continue to haunt the American economy today. But perhaps one of the most absurd examples of Roosevelt’s Presidential arrogance was his attempt in 1939...

So the latest round of sheer nuttiness from the mainstream media? The idea that President-elect Trump intends to resurrect the infamous and quite decidedly racist “internment camps” established for Japanese-American citizens in 1942. How did this start? It started last week on FNC’s The Kelly File during a segment with Trump surrogate and former Navy Seal Carl Higbie (whom I know). Kelly cited this story from Reuters: “Immigration hardliner says Trump preparing plans for wall, mulling Muslim registry” The story goes on to say that Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach informs Trump advisers “had discussed drafting a proposal for...

During the 1930s, the wish of the world's politicians to "plan" other men's lives was strong and, by unhappy coincidence, so was their power to do so. The urge to "educate and uplift" their fellow (if lesser) man into a state more agreeable to their theories beat brightly in every progressive heart from Moscow and Berlin to London and Washington D.C. SNIP Like an unwanted pregnancy, Arthurdale was not conceived in an atmosphere of calm, deliberate reflection. Much like circa-1914 Russia, cursed with an ass for a leader when she required a lion, circa-1933 America was cursed with public servants...

They called each other “darling,” “dear one” and “heart.” They told each other “je t’aime” and “j’adore,” and wrote more than 3,000 letters to one another. “All day I’ve thought of you . . . Oh! I want to put my arms around you, I ache to hold you close,” the normally reserved Eleanor Roosevelt wrote in March 1933 to her beloved. No, not her husband, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, but a brilliant, bourbon-drinking, cigarette-smoking Associated Press reporter named Lorena Hickok, or Hick. Their romance is at the center of Susan Quinn’s engrossing double biography, “Eleanor and Hick: The Love...

Coming off of the Woodrow Wilson years, the Democrat Party was the de-facto Progressive Party in the United States. Theodore Roosevelt's efforts had failed, and the GOP remained as having some constitutional elements in it. With the rise of Calvin Coolidge and the roaring 20's coupled with a reduction in government that makes most of us jealous, progressivism was looking like it was permanently eliminated. Technically, it was. In order to ensure its own survival, progressivism had to lie and say it was something else. That chosen title was "liberalism". Most of the time, when you and I think about...

Harold M. Ickes never forgets a favor, especially if he's the one who did the favor. So the veteran political operative made sure that, when the time was right, he alone would call Garry Shay, former chairman of the Los Angeles County Democratic Party... And once Ickes started calling, he didn't stop until Shay said the words Ickes wanted to hear -- that he would support Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York at the Democratic National Convention in Denver in August... the man in charge of Clinton's feverish effort to lock up superdelegates is Ickes, whose enthusiasm for...

Cannot be posted due to copyright issues: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/the-veteran-adviser-who-wont-let-hillary-give-up-824591.html

Today, June 5th, is the anniversary of the birth of John Maynard Keynes, once upon a time the great foe of the gold standard. Today also, coincidentally, happens to be the anniversary of the date celebrated of FDR’s “taking America off the gold standard.” These events are not mere historical curios. The current presidential campaign, and underlying political climate, shows we are finally, maybe definitively, emerging from the academic economists’ anathema on the gold standard... ...Trump, the presumptive GOP presidential nominee, is on record as strongly appreciating the gold standard... ...The “interwar gold standard” in fact was a barbarous relic....

Prior to the election of AmericaÂ’s longest serving socialist president, our money was backed by gold. Anyone holding our paper currency could demand to exchange it for gold at a set price. In 1913, the gold standard was officially made part of the Federal Reserve and the price of gold was fixed at $20.67 per ounce. The same law mandated that the Federal Reserve kept enough gold on hand to equal 40% of the currency issued at the time.On March 4, 1933, Franklin Delano Roosevelt was sworn into office for the first time. The day after his inauguration, Roosevelt closed...

“The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration.” – The 16th Amendment, Ratified 1913 The birth of the income tax! Prior to 1913, the constitutionally limited responsibilities of the federal government were generally covered by import tariffs. Occasionally, temporary taxes were imposed to pay for wars, but were to be apportioned by the states and could not be direct, personal taxes, according to the Constitution in Article I, sections 2 and 9. W. Cleon Skousen wrote a very...

On January, 20, 2017, President Hillary Clinton might just become a reality. With her face set in the tight unpleasant grimace that is the closest she can come to smiling, she will take the oath of office on a bible, her Alinsky thesis or an Eleanor Roosevelt Ouija board vowing to “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."

It would be amusing, were it not so pathetic—as the cliché goes—to watch the pundit class attempt to explain the rise of Donald Trump. No doubt, Trump is populist, but these analysts fail to recognize one very basic fact: Trump is a pissed-off rich guy financing his own populist campaign, and, as such, there has never been anyone like him in American history. Comparisons to Hitler, even acknowledging the dictator's initial (and very short-lived) populist approach, conveniently omit that it was the Nazis who violently broke up demonstrations—just as the anti-Trump forces are doing today. Full marks if you recognize...

The New Deal’s executor held many positions similar to those of to one Donald J. Trump. ________________________________________________ Imagine a U.S. president who is bombastic, egotistical, and just a little racist. He worries opening the borders will mean an influx of undesirables. He implements capricious executive orders, and seems more concerned with his own power than with the Constitution. He’s often called a fascist by people who know what the term means. No, I’m not talking about Donald Trump. I’m talking about Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Debate raged last December about whether President Trump would be a fascist. Steve Horwitz and Martin...

Anyone have strong enough stomach and information junkie brain to dare watch with me?

The president has nominated attorney J. Mark McWatters for the bank board. However, Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.), chairman of the Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs, has said he's "in no hurry" to hold a hearing or a vote on the nomination. Other pending confirmations take precedence, he said.The last of the 2015 lobbying reports are in, and the top corporate spender turns out to have been the Boeing Company, at $21.9 million. Not coincidentally, the aerospace giant also outranks thousands of other firms in profiting from the subsidies doled out by the Export-Import Bank. Last year, Boeing benefitted...

America, if you don't stop all this obsession with Bubba's pee-pee and start focusing your short attention span onto Hillary's HEALTH and the question of who will be her Vice-presidential pick--you know, the person who will really rule you for eight more years?--then you've been dead so long, you don't even stink anymore. Franklin Delano Roosevelt's physical weakness due to polio was stifled in the press, but it was well know to the domestic ruling class and to hostile world leaders. Stalin was well aware of FDR's physical weakness, and whether or not Stalin used it to manipulate FDR, hundreds...

Over a year ago, I went looking for a book--any book--on the 1932 presidential election. In case you haven't noticed, I'm a bit of sucker for books about presidential elections. (Imagine my dilemma: I despise Karl Rove, yet he's got new book out about the 1896 election!) I couldn't find anything other than something that looked rather amateurish and plenty of court history about the New Deal. I wanted something that dealt in detail with the campaign, especially FDR's messaging. Not having found anything good, imagine my joy when I saw that my favorite campaign historian, David Pietrusza had a...

One thing is clear as we watch candidates from both major political parties scramble for the presidential prize in 2016—the stakes are very high. And national security issues are finally getting the kind of attention they always warrant in this dangerous world. Many candidates for the highest office in the land—and most of those who make it to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue—tend to prefer talking about their "domestic vision."  Bill Clinton's mantra, "It's the economy, stupid," comes to mind. But they eventually find themselves facing issues of war and national security, whether they like it or not. It's just a guess,...

If any groups should be given priority for entry to the United States from the Middle East, it is Christians and Jews, especially women and children, who are targeted for extermination by Isis and other Arab groups in the Middle East Donald Trump’s proposal to TEMPORARILY prevent Muslims from coming to the USA at this time is more liberal than the approach of Franklin D. Roosevelt and the other prevailing “liberals” of his era, as well as later self-proclaimed “liberals” and “progressives.” Franklin D. Roosevelt and his fellow “liberals” interned Japanese Americans who were already in this country. The Trump...