Free Republic

It is a cliché that if we do not study the past we are condemned to repeat it. Almost equally certain, however, is that if there are lessons to be learned from an historical episode, the political class will draw all the wrong ones — and often deliberately so. Far from viewing the past as a potential source of wisdom and insight, political regimes have a habit of employing history as an ideological weapon, to be distorted and manipulated in the service of present-day ambitions. That's what Winston Churchill meant when he described the history of the Soviet Union as...

The real Woodrow Wilson, it turns out, was a far less admirable character than the cardboard hero we learned about in school. In fact, in some ways the boring Midwesterner who succeeded him looks better than him when one compares what the two actually accomplished. Harding famously said he wanted to restore “normalcy” to a nation on the verge of a breakdown at the end of the Great War and set about working to heal the wounds that divided the nation. During the war, Wilson attacked those he called “hyphenated Americans” as disloyal and set about systematically using his power...

Harding Township Manages To Keep Taxes Very Low Because Residents Volunteer, Do Many Things Themselves HARDING TOWNSHIP, N.J. (CBS) ― Across the Hudson River where property taxes are a hot button issue, homeowners in one New Jersey town know how to get more bang for their buck. What's Harding Township's secret? Lawmakers keep those taxes down and residents happy. It's a secret the residents don't want the rest of the state to know about -- how they've managed keep their property taxes down. When you step into Harding Township you feel like you've gone back in time. Horses, farms, barely...

It is a cliché that if we do not study the past we are condemned to repeat it. Almost equally certain, however, is that if there are lessons to be learned from an historical episode, the political class will draw all the wrong ones — and often deliberately so. Far from viewing the past as a potential source of wisdom and insight, political regimes have a habit of employing history as an ideological weapon, to be distorted and manipulated in the service of present-day ambitions. That’s what Winston Churchill meant when he described the history of the Soviet Union as...

Picture this: It is midnight on Nov. 4, 2009. The previous day's elections in Virginia, New York's 23rd congressional district, and New Jersey have all been won by Republicans. Health reform is stalled. The latest employment numbers are still dismaying. President Obama cannot sleep. He paces the halls of the White House and comes upon a portrait of Warren Harding. Since President Obama is nothing if not a receptacle of received understanding, he would probably snort "Harding! What a disaster he was! Cronyism. Laissez-faire economics. Corruption. Incompetence." Well, it's true that Teapot Dome and other scandals engulfed the Harding administration...

Raymond B. Harding, the former vice chairman of the state’s Liberal Party, pleaded guilty Tuesday to a felony related to securities violations under the Martin Act, the latest development in Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo’s investigation of the state pension fund. Mr. Harding had been accused of accepting more than $800,000 that prosecutors say was a reward for doing political favors for the former state comptroller Alan G. Hevesi. Saul Meyer of Aldus Equity, a Dallas-based firm, also pleaded guilty on Friday to a Martin Act felony in the case. Mr. Meyer was a top consultant to pension funds around...

The former chairman of New York’s Liberal Party was charged on Wednesday with accepting more than $800,000 that prosecutors say was a reward for doing political favors for the former state comptroller Alan G. Hevesi. The former chairman, Raymond B. Harding, 74, was also accused of helping to clear an Assembly seat in a Queens district so that Mr. Hevesi’s son, Andrew, could run for it in 2005. Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo said that Mr. Harding, once a close political ally of former Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani and a power broker in state politics, provided “30 years’ worth” of...

Tonya Harding's back and this time she's swinging at President Barack Obama. In an interview on HBO's "Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel," the infamous Oregonian lashes out at Obama for talking about doing a "Tonya Harding" and "knee-capping" on the campaign trail in his fight against then U.S. Sen. Hillary Clinton. "He has this country to think about .¤.¤. and he has to bring me up?" she says bitterly. "Guess what? I get jobs because he used my name on national television." So, strap on your knee pads and have a listen. But be aware there are some Tonyaesque expletives:...

If I had to name the most underrated president in American history, Warren Harding would be at or near the top of my list. Harding is routinely ranked at or near the bottom in presidential ratings by historians and other experts. In Sunday's New York Times, Yale historian Beverly Gage has an interesting article suggesting that Harding may have been the first "black" president in the sense that it is possible that he had a remote black ancestor. Unfortunately, Gage's article about Harding and race relations completely ignores the fact that Harding made a well-known speech advocating full legal equality...

SO today’s the day. The day we discover whether a black man can become president of the USA. But hang on. According to some chroniclers of the times, America has already had a black president. And it happened in 1920 amidst a form of apartheid as unsavoury as anything coming out of South Africa, a time when lynchings were commonplace, when it was hard enough for a black man or woman to vote, let alone get elected to any kind of office. And those who claimed he was black nodded knowingly when Warren Gamaliel Harding became the first president since...

The infallible Washington Times reports that up for sale is one of the most famous scenes of infantilism in the 20th century, "Woodstock." Actually, what is on the block is the late Max Yasgur's New York farm, 38 acres of which were used for the 1969 Woodstock music festival that hagiographers for the "1960s Generation" have ever since boomed as a pivotal event in American history. Such rock singers as Jimi Hendrix and Richie Havens got together before a stupefied crowd of some 500,000 eternal children to sing of peace, and freedom, and mind-numbing substances, even the most feeble of...

Sean Hannity visited Harding University in Searcy, Arkansas. Hannity's lecture included the time he tricked Paul Begala with the quotes John Kerry made supporting invading Iraq. He also spoke about facing the evil of our time in the same way we had to face Hitler. Hannity did many impersonations of Bill Clinton and talked about how the democrats had lost the South. He briefly talked about his disagreements with Repubicans on the issues of over-spending and illegal immigration. His ending statement was that in times of war, we need the right people in power. During Q/A session, most of the...

MARION, May. 31 (UPI) — The alleged love child of U.S. President Warren G. Harding has died, leaving the mystery unsolved as descendents on either side ask to be left alone. Elizabeth Ann Blaesing died last November and her children reportedly tried to keep the death out of the limelight. She was 86.

A new documentary, Giuliani Time, premiers in New York today. Fair and balanced it’s not. Publicity materials trumpet that the film is “certain to bust open the myth of Giuliani” as America’s Mayor that developed after 9/11 and reveal his inner “totalitarian” impulses. (The think tank where I work, the Manhattan Institute, plays a starring, albeit nefarious, role as the shadowy right-wing organization where Giuliani got many of his extremist ideas.) The film’s main indictment charges Giuliani with ushering in policing tactics that led to widespread brutality against minorities. “It’s not Dinkins Time anymore; it’s Giuliani Time” is the taunt...

VANCOUVER, Wash. (AP) -- Tonya Harding tussled in her home with a man she described as her boyfriend, prompting an emergency call by the figure skater-turned-boxer and an arrest of the man. Christopher Nolan was charged with assault and pleaded not guilty Monday. He told deputies Harding threw him down and bit his finger when he said she had too much to drink on Sunday. The 27-year-old Nolan was ordered to stay away from Harding and to avoid alcohol.

New information comes to light in the Lt Harding rape case. http://www.mensnewsdaily.com/archive/r/robbins/2005/robbins082705.htm

From hero to zero: the lessons of President Warren G. Harding Sunday, May 18, 2003 -snip- Harding's disrepair is a lesson on the extent to which history and image become interchangeable and ill serve one another. His predecessor, Woodrow Wilson, allowed a nationwide Red hunt and oversaw the segregation of federal offices. Harding pardoned Eugene V. Debs, the socialist leader Wilson imprisoned, and he gave a speech in Birmingham, Ala., on the need for racial tolerance. Wilson was publicly despised by the time he departed for Valhalla. He now stands astride the history of the last century as a colossus...

Tonya Harding knocked out in Edmonton ring Fallen figure skater pounded by Alberta boxer, 23 EDMONTON (CP) — Tonya Harding's new career as a boxer took a severe beating Friday, along with her face, as she was knocked out by a relatively unknown Alberta boxer. Boxing fans booed the self-styled spitfire shrew of U.S. sports when she entered the ring and leapt to their feet cheering as she was pummeled brutally by 22-year-old Amy Johnson from Edmonton. Harding, 33, of Portland, Ore., was hoping to use Friday's bout as a launching pad for a big money title fight after trading...

“As God is my witness,” I did not want to write about Bill Clinton ever again. But he is a persistent cuss. Like Jack Torrance (Nicholson) said in The Shining, as he used an axe to chop through the door, “Little pigs, little pigs, let me in. Not by the hair of your chinny-chin-chin? Well then I'll huff and I'll puff, and I'll blow your house in.” Is there any doubt, by now, that Clinton (him) is equally persistent? That as long as he has life and breath he will continue to break into the present to upstage all other...

Newsday is reporting that New York’s oldest third party, which was founded by Alex Rose and David Dubinsky on progressive political principles, has closed its doors after 58 years. The Liberal Party, which had lately been more concerned about patronage than ideology, contributed to the elections of Presidents Franklin Roosevelt and John F. Kennedy, Governors Hugh Carey and Mario Cuomo, and Mayors Fiorello LaGuardia and Rudolph Giuliani. Daniel Cantor the executive director of the Working Families Party, which was created as an alternative to the Liberal Party, commented on the fold of the Liberal Party. “For the first thirty years...