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As a work of presidential prose, James Buchanan’s inaugural address on March 4, 1857, is widely considered one of the most forgettable ever given by an American leader. As The New York Times put it dryly at the time: “Little if any impression has been made by the inaugural.” Still, it would not take long for Buchanan’s unimpressive inauguration to become one of the most significant in history. For one thing, it was the first to be photographed. It was also the first inaugural given after the creation of the Republican Party, the last before secession and ultimately the last...

Former Secretary of State John Kerry responded Wednesday night to the explosive New York Times op-ed alleging a “quiet resistance” inside the Trump administration actively working to thwart the president’s agenda. “It scares the hell out of me,” Mr. Kerry told comedian Stephen Colbert on “The Late Show.” “First of all, there is a reassurance,” he added. “It means that for James Buchanan, he’s no longer the worst president.” A senior Trump administration official who was granted anonymity by The Times penned an op-ed Wednesday claiming to be part of a group of individuals “working diligently from within” to sabotage...

Behind the Headlines by Justin RaimondoAntiwar.com April 8, 2002 WHO'S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA POSTREL?Post-9/11: Who speaks for libertarianism – the Old Right or the Neocon Clones? A note from the author: I apologize, in advance, for the sheer length of this column, but since it addresses the sell-out of basic libertarian principles by people and institutions who purport to speak in its name, I thought it important to address these questions thoroughly, with extensive quotations from those I name. Too bad, in attacking Antiwar.com, these pathetic losers didn't do the same – but then what can one expect from craven...

Last year, Duke University History Professor Nancy MacLean became one of the country’s best-known academics for her book Democracy in Chains. That is not, however, to say that her book was so praiseworthy that it made her famous. Quite the opposite—Democracy in Chains was excoriated by academic critics for its blatantly dishonest attack on the thinking and indeed the character of the late James M. Buchanan, the 1986 Nobel Prize winner in economics. MacLean sought to depict Buchanan as a closet racist whose intellectual breakthrough of what is now called “public choice” theory was actually meant to help segregationists ward...

Duke University historian Nancy MacLean, not content to do slap and tickle histories, has gone on to trivialize a malady that afflicts millions. "Nancy MacLean, the Duke University historian who wrote Democracy in Chains, the deeply conspiratorial and much-criticized biography of public choice economist James Buchanan, told an audience in New York last week that Buchanan and other early leaders of the limited-government movement 'seem to be on the autism spectrum,'" Robby Soave reports on Reason.com. "According to MacLean, there is a connection between autism and libertarianism, and that connection is not feeling 'solidarity or empathy,' and having 'kind of...

Rod Thomson Republicans lost a seat big in the Florida Legislature Tuesday that carries ridiculously outsized implications — because everything since November 2016 is DefCon 1 Armageddon for Democrats. In this era of The Woman and #MeToo, the race pitted a female Democrat against a male Republican in a fairly even district. Republican James Buchanan, son of Congressman Vern Buchanan lost to liberal Democrat lawyer Margaret Good. The House District covers northern Sarasota County, including the Democrat-dominated City of Sarasota, and has flipped between Republican and Democrat over the years. Most recently it was held by a Republican who chose...

Columnist Charles Krauthammer compared President Obama’s handling of the war on terror to James Buchanan before the Civil War on Monday’s “O’Reilly Factor” on the Fox News Channel.

Based on historical patterns, the next president is likely to be a GenXer. This is not good news for the many baby boomers running, or thinking about running, in 2016. When voters decide it is time to move the presidency on to the next generation, they keep electing presidents in that next generation, or they go on to the one that follows. They do not go back. Bill Clinton and George W. Bush were from the baby boomer generation. Barack Obama is from the Gen X generation (those born 1961 to 1981). If the pattern holds, the next president will...

This installment continues by exposing how James Buchanan worked diligently to spread and defend slavery. Democrat President James Buchanan supported the Compromise of 1850 which required the repeal of the Missouri Compromise, forbidding the spread of slavery west of Missouri. He condemned Republican David Wilmot’s bill, known as The Wilmot Proviso, which would have forbidden the expansion of slavery to territory gained in the Mexican War. The Wilmot Proviso was defeated by Southern Democrats. Buchanan was an author of the Ostend Manifesto. The Ostend Manifesto urged the annexation of Cuba by force and expansion of slavery into the territory. This...

The story of the Democrats (available in its entirety free see details below) continues by exposing how Democrat James Buchanan helped insure America would be plunged into a Civil War and the evidence that he was our first Gay president. James Buchanan 1857 to 1861 Among the pre-Civil War Democrat Presidents, perhaps the worst and most disastrous to America was James Buchanan, a Pennsylvanian who is widely thought of as America’s first gay President. [25] Buchanan, a member of both the Jackson and the Pierce Administrations, was sufficiently light in the loafers to have been regularly referred to as Mrs....

. August 6, 2014 Newt Gingrich : Obama, Buchanan, and Baldwin -- The Cost of Rejecting Reality ===================================================== President Obama is in serious danger of joining a select group of disastrous leaders who put their people and their country in desperate circumstances that cost lives and risked ruinous defeat. Almost everywhere you look around the world, the situation is worse for the United States and worse for freedom than when President Obama took office—in many cases catastrophically so. There isn’t much sign that he recognizes this or is particularly concerned. Iraq is the most obvious (and potentially most dangerous) example....

Outspoken gay former Congressman Barney Frank was in San Francisco this week and told a gathering of the Commonwealth Club that while he won’t consider a presidential run, he predicted the U.S. could have a gay president in 20 years. Frank, a Massachusetts Democrat, has never shied from speaking his mind, and he held forth on a wide range of topics during an interview with gay radio reporter Scott Shafer of KQED. The audience of over 500 people, including former Ambassador James C. Hormel and his partner, Michael Nguyen, gave Frank a standing ovation as he stepped to the stage....

On front page of website, no registration required.Shockingly, neither Carter nor the present occupant of the White House are choices...

After making its way through the state Senate's Judiciary and Education Committees over the last month, a bill that would require schools to incorporate information on LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) Americans into their curricula passed by 23-14 on the Senate floor Thursday. The measure, which goes to the Assembly next, addresses high bullying rates of LGBT youth and the absence of LGBT Americans from official accounts of history in school curricula. It would expand on existing laws that require instructional materials to include accurate portrayals of the role and contribution of culturally and racially diverse groups. That list,...

Today, the U.S. Treasury released a $1 coin commemorating former President James Buchanan. And people aren't happy about it. To understand why, some background is helpful. In 2007, thanks to a bill promoted by then-Senator John Sununu of New Hampshire, the Treasury began minting $1 coins with the likenesses of former Presidents, starting with George Washington. The coins -- which have been appearing ever since, featuring a new President every three months -- are meant to improve use and circulation of America's dollar coins, which are often seen as an awkward misfit among currency, neither fish nor fowl. Sununu's initiative...

Barack Obama is the dumbest president...EVER. That is a reasonable conclusion once you've assessed the first nineteen months of his presidency and compared it to the definition of intelligence put together by researchers in the field. Although the mainstream media have spent the last two years proclaiming Obama "super-smart" or, as Newsweek put it, "sort of God" in stature and brilliance, the 44th president of the United States is poised to surpass our 15th president, James Buchanan. Jr., as the White House occupant who has made the dumbest moves while in office. With two years left, he is on the...

Federalism and Individual Sovereignty James M. Buchanan I have been both surprised and disturbed by two sources of opposition to efforts to move toward federalist structures in which political authority is divided between levels of government. I refer, first, to the opposition in Europe, mainly in Britain, to movements toward effective European federalism. Second, I refer to the successful agitation that blocked the proposed Conference of the States in the United States in 1995. What is disturbing about these sources of opposition to the very idea of political federalism is that both emerge from groups that are identified variously to...

Lord, Keep our Troops forever in Your care Give them victory over the enemy... Grant them a safe and swift return... Bless those who mourn the lost. . FReepers from the Foxhole join in prayer for all those serving their country at this time. .................................................................. .................... ........................................... U.S. Military History, Current Events and Veterans Issues Where Duty, Honor and Countryare acknowledged, affirmed and commemorated. Our Mission: The FReeper Foxhole is dedicated to Veterans of our Nation's military forces and to others who are affected in their relationships with Veterans. In the FReeper Foxhole, Veterans or their family members should...