Free Republic

How can one write history so that it seems like a thriller? How does one write a biography without making the subject the centerpiece of the narrative? I have no idea if David Pietrusza asked himself these questions — or this one: How can history be written as a newspaper headline? Call this a biography by indirection. Franklin Delano Roosevelt is defined by competing individuals and movements: Huey Long, Father Coughlan, Al Smith, the Liberty League, Earl Browder and the Communist Party, Dr. Francis Townsend and the Townsend Plan, Norman Thomas and the Socialist Party. They threatened FDR’s majority in...

New Orleans and the state government prepared to go to war over control of the city in the summer of 1934. At 10 o'clock one Monday night that July, as Sen. Huey Long sat in his suite atop the Roosevelt Hotel, National Guardsmen under his control broke down the doors of the registrar of voters office across Lafayette Square from City Hall. The heavily armed forces searched and surrounded the building. Snipers trained their guns on the office of Mayor T. Semmes Walmsley, a former political ally of Long who was now his bitter adversary. A tense standoff ensued. Long,...

So what's the difference between the leading contenders for the country's presidential nomination this sad election year? In the middle of still another rambling kumsitz billed as a "debate," something Huey P. Long once said came to mind. The senator, governor, incipient fascist and all-around demagogue out of Louisiana was the Donald Trump of his time, only with a homespun vocabulary and a lot more class. He didn't have The Donald's money but he was loaded with mother wit and folk knowledge, and he knew how to talk person-to-person instead of long distance at great staged rallies. The Kingfish had...

So what's the difference between the leading contenders -- for now -- for the Democratic presidential nomination? The lead could change any day or even hour, but in the middle of last Tuesday evening's rambling kumsitz of a debate that seemed to go on even longer than it did, something Huey P. Long once said came to mind. The late great Huey Pierce Long Jr. of Louisiana had it all figured out long ago. Back in his heyday, namely the 1930s, Senator/Governor Long would tell a story about a traveling salesman who offered two varieties of a popular patent medicine:...

New Orleans It’s amazing how we become inured to the ridiculous, even when it is abusive and preposterous. That’s my cut on Glenn Beck and his ranting, especially when he evokes me as anti-christ and revolutionary. Over the last couple of years, whenever I would mention the absurdity of it all, too often it would end up on Beck’s show on another whiteboard of whackiness, so I followed Huey Long’s old dictum that there is no real defense for a public attack and let it all run off of me like water off a duck’s back. When I flew into...

Huey Long: Now in the third year of his administration, we find more of our people unemployed than at any other time. We find our houses empty and our people hungry, many of them half-clothed and many of them not clothed at all. Mr. Hopkins announced twenty-two millions on the dole, a new high-water mark in that particular sum, a few weeks ago. We find not only the people going further into debt, but that the United States is going further into debt. The states are going further into debt, and the cities and towns are even going into bankruptcy....

Fiery populist Rep. Alan Grayson of Florida is in the news for reporting death threats and comparing the rightwing to Nazis who burned the Reichstag. But another comparison from the 1930s may be more apt, at least visually. Grayson has taken to wearing orchid-colored shirts like the "Kingfish" Huey P. Long, the legendary Louisiana populist assassinated in 1935.

Harvard Law School’s answer to Huey Long unmasked himself during a joint session of Congress two days ago. At the State of the Union address on Wednesday President Obama conducted himself like a chest-beating Latin American caudillo when he took the unprecented unusual step of dressing down the black robed Supreme Court justices seated in front of him. Interrupted by obnoxious Democratic cheers, America’s first socialist president tried to intimidate the high court that had the nerve to defy him. “With all due deference to separation of powers last week the Supreme Court reversed a century of law that I...

I've cobbled together some excerpts about Huey Long that may demonstrate where America is heading as a result of Obama's populist politics...read more Expect nothing less than these great results under Obama's populism. Simply put, the ends are inevitable. History proves that. Liberals love to point to Long's policies and tell you how great they were. What they won't do, however, is point you to the long-term results of those policies. They simply won't. It is far better for them to maintain their demented view of a failed utopia than to acknowledge reality.

April 02, 2009, 4:00 a.m. Obama, the Other Huey LongThe president is more like the Depression era’s populist Louisiana governor than like FDR. By Michael G. Franc The “Obama as FDR” meme emerged immediately after the elections. The November 20 issue of The Economist noted, in an article critical of the comparison: Washington is currently buzzing with talk of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Members of Mr. Obama’s inner circle are reading up on FDR’s first 100 days. No political conversation is complete without a knowing reference to the squire of Hyde Park. Both Time (on the cover) and the New...

John McCain once referred to Barack Obama's upcoming presidency as the second term of Jimmy Carter.  Obama has provided plenty of support for this observation.  However, as this seemingly endless campaign progressed, and as domestic issues prevailed over those of foreign policy, it has become more accurate to say that Obama's election is the first term of the Huey Long administration. Huey Long was Louisiana's wonder boy; a talented demagogue who regularly appealed to the basest instincts of voters.  The Kingfish, as he was known in Louisiana, managed to be elected in 1918 to Louisiana's powerful Railroad Commission at the...

It seems that Senator Joe Biden wants to question other people’s patriotism. In order to manage this remarkable volte-face, The Good Senator has redefined the term in an interesting fashion. It seems paying income taxes is the highest form of patriotism. I always have abided by the law. Doing so is good citizenship and smart self-preservation. But is it patriotism? Not so much. This is particularly true in the case of taxation. However, Biden just can’t help flapping his gums and burning through the CO2 offsets. The man is a menace to the art of public speaking."We want to take...

Since the days of Huey Long, the scent of corruption has clung to Louisiana state politics. Wednesday, August 25, 2004 Alan Sayre / Associated Press : [[[ "Gov. Kathleen Blanco doesn't like the idea of calling New Jersey "Louisiana North," such as The Wall Street Journal did in a recent headline to go with a story about corruption in the northeastern state.... Louisiana's reputation has suffered over the past few years, especially in the case of former Gov. Edwin Edwards, who is now serving a 10-year prison sentence for extorting riverboat casino license applicants. The state's bawdy political reputation dates...

I'm looking for a photo of the assassination site of Huey Long. Specifically, does anyone have a picture they may have taken of the location inside the state capitol building there in Baton Rouge? I am reading a book about the assassination but it doesn't contain any photographs.

BATON ROUGE -- Former Gov. Huey Long enhanced his reputation as Louisiana's most dominant historical figure by returning to life Monday on his 111th birthday as an animated and bitingly polemical bronze sculpture at the Old State Capitol. The new $250,000 permanent exhibit, called "Huey Long Live! The Kingfish Speaks," is a lively lesson in history about an individual some have called an "incubus" upon the state and others have honored as a champion of the poor. Though it is unlikely to end the controversy over whether Long did more harm than good during his reign as governor and senator...

Okay, time to discuss the latest book assignment from the Freeper Reading Club: All The King's Men by Robert Penn Warren. The next Freeper Reading Club assignment is Heart Of Darkness by Joseph Conrad. Discussion for that book will be July 12.

Gubernatorial hopeful Bobby Jindal was in Minden Friday for the sixth time during his campaign run. Prior to attending a rally in his honor at the Minden Civic Center, Jindal stopped by the Minden Press-Herald for a question and answer session. The questions address the largest areas of concern facing the state as well as criticisms about Jindal's age and other concerns voiced by those opposing the 32-year-old Republican. Question: Why do you consider yourself to be a good leader? Jindal: There are a couple of things; I think the fact that I have a proven track record of solving...

<p>BATON ROUGE - When people remember Russell Long, they remember the twinkle in his eye, his sense of humor - and his respectful use of power to benefit Louisiana.</p> <p>Long, 84, died at his adopted home of Washington, D.C., Friday night, the last of a family dynasty that was one of Louisiana's most powerful for more than 50 years, from the time his father, the legendary Huey "Kingfish" Long became governor in 1928 until Russell Long opted not to run for governor of Louisiana in 1987.</p>