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WASHINGTON -- The Justice Department is investigating whether Guantanamo Bay detainees charged with roles in the Sept. 11 attacks were improperly given photos of CIA officers or contractors, according to a person familiar with the investigation. The investigation, headed by the Justice Department's counterespionage chief, John Dion, is trying to determine if military lawyers defending the detainees divulged classified information or compromised covert CIA officers, according to the person, who was not authorized to discuss the investigation and spoke only on condition of anonymity. It is a violation of federal law to identify CIA covert personnel, and it is a...

It seems John Quincy Adams was way ahead of his time. The sixth U.S. president was fond of making one-line-a-day entries in his diary. A student visiting his archives noticed how similar those entries are to today's Twitter updates, which are limited to 140 characters. Starting Wednesday, the Massachusetts Historical Society will tweet daily doses of Adams' trip to Russia as U.S. minister 200 years ago. The tweets — taken verbatim from his diary — will include his favorite reads, memorable meals, weather and the daily drama of months at sea.

John Adams Said :Ideology = an organized collection of seductive hopes and wishes ,a systematic way of going wrong with confidence.

John Adans: Yesterday, the greatest question was decided which ever was debated in America; and a greater perhaps never was, nor will be, decided among men. A resolution was passed without one dissenting colony, "that these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent States." ...

In a letter to his wife Abigail, John Adams told her of the actions of the Continental Congress on July 2, 1776. "The second day of July, 1776 [the actual day the Declaration was signed], will be the most memorable epoch in the history of America. I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated by succeeding generations as the great anniversary Festival. It ought to be commemorated, as the Day of Deliverance, by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with pomp and parade, with shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires and illuminations,...

Frequently Asked Dead Presidents Questions Which Two Presidents Died On The Same Day?? I don't know why (maybe it's on a lesson plan for schools around the country) but this little question with a quick answer (and one that is quickly found in any ready reference) has been asked of me so often that I finally decided to list the answer here. The answer is John Adams (second President) and Thomas Jefferson (third President). These two men died on the same day. But that's not all; read on....The question with an even more interesting answer is, "On which day did...

Excerpt from John Adams' famous letter of July 3, 1776, in which he wrote to his wife Abigail what his thoughts were about celebrating the Fourth of July: "I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated, by succeeding Generations, as the great anniversary Festival. It ought to be commemorated, as the Day of Deliverance by solemn Acts of Devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with Pomp and Parade, with Shews, Games, Sports, Guns, Bells, Bonfires and Illuminations from one End of this Continent to the other from this Time forward forever more. You will think...

Very interesting. When men were men and women, women No corrections made. "I have a great Deal of Leisure, which I chiefly employ in Scribbling, that my Mind may not stand still or run back like my Fortune." John Adams, Letter to Abigail Adams, 29 June 1774, (third letter written on that date) From Adams Family Papers, Massachusetts Historical Society. March 1 1780 My Dearest Friend I had scarcly closed my packet to you when I received your Letters dated Ferrol [John to Abigail, 11 December 1779 ( L17791212ja)] and Corunna [John to Abigail, 16 December 1779] . I am...

Last week Obama told the planet on his Dixie Chick America Sucks Euro-Tour that ol’ bigheaded America is not and has never been a Christian nation. I believe he said that right after he bowed and curtsied to the Saudi King and told the French that the US has been stuck-up meanies to their jealous and ungrateful Euro-socialist cousins. Damn you, Yankee doodle dandies. America’s not a Christian nation? Well, it’s not a Hindu, Buddhist, Muslim (yet) or Tai Chi nation. I know Barack is auguring for the USA to become an Obamanation, but heretofore from what I’ve read regarding...

John Adams was always one to take a stand and be counted. With his reputation for scrupulous honesty, Adams had been elected a delegate to the First Continental Congress in 1774, and to the second one in 1776. It was at the second one that he found some of his fellow delegates undecided about naming a commanding officer for a proposed Continental Army. Adams (1735-1826) believed it was time for decisive action and for them "to declare themselves for or against something," he said to his cousin Samuel Adams. "I am determined this morning to make a direct motion that...

CHARLESTON, W.Va. (WSAZ) -- Kanawha County Superintendent Ron Duerring will not discuss the disciplinary action taken against the John Adams Middle School teachers who allegedly left three students alone at a Braxton County rest stop. Duerring calls it a "personnel matter." Pete Thaw, a member of the Kanawha County School Board, tells WSAZ.com that he's heard there was action taken against the teachers, but the school board has not been informed on how the superintendent handled it. Thaw also says he doesn't know why the superintendent will not release the information. He says he believes the public deserves to know....

John Adams Prophecy on the Constitution and Morality February 17, 2009 BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: This is Joe in Allentown, Pennsylvania. Great to have you here, sir. Thank you. CALLER: Hi, Rush. How you doing? RUSH: Just well, just fine. CALLER: Hey, Rush, I wonder if you remember me from over a year ago. I called you in '07 complaining about George Bush, and I likened him to our Jimmy Carter in the Republican Party. I was just really complaining about his support for Specter, and now I'm just so angry to see what we have today with Specter supporting...

John Witherspoon was not only a Founding Father, but in his roles as preacher and professor he taught and influenced many of the great men of the Founding era.On November 15, 1794, a 72-year-old Presbyterian preacher lay dying on his farm near Princeton, New Jersey. In some ways he may have welcomed death. His wife had died five years earlier, and for over two years he had been blind, so his associates had to lead him into the pulpit, where he still preached with his usual earnestness and perhaps with more than his usual solemnity and animation. Even though his...

What was the American Revolution? The American Revolution was one of the great turning points in the history of mankind. It marked the beginning of the end of slavery, led to the founding of the first large and stable republic in history, and inspired the establishment of governments based on the natural rights of man all over the world. In the minds of most Americans, the American War for Independence began on April 19, 1775, when shots were fired on Lexington Green. John Adams said, however, that our War for Independence was not the real American Revolution. That, he said,...

John Adams, one of the most revered living classical composers, has claimed that he is blacklisted in his native America and is being followed by the security services. The 61-year-old musician has accused the United States of being in the grip of a political and moral panic and has complained that he is now grilled by airport immigration officers whenever he flies home because of his controversial reputation.

THE NEW YORK TIMES VS. HELMS, PART 529,876July 9, 2008 Last Friday, on the Fourth of July, the great American patriot Jesse Helms passed away. John Adams and Thomas Jefferson also went to their great reward on Independence Day, so this is further proof of God. Helms is now the second great American patriot I've always wanted to meet and never will, at least in this lifetime. The only other one is the magnificent Reagan aide Lyn Nofziger. (Wikipedia quote: "I sometimes lie awake at night trying to think of something funny that Richard Nixon said.") After a week of...

Name your three top American Revolution Heroes

A Nation of Men and Not Laws: The Leftist Perversion of American Thought By: Rob Shepherd (Mr. Shepherd is a first-year law student at Quinnipiac School of Law and the former three-term Treasurer of the Club; he doesn’t like hippies) As National Review's Richard Brookheiser noted in his most recent work, answering what the Founding Fathers would think of our modern nation is largely left up to interpretation. Thus, while some may claim that issues such as the abortion or drug legalization run contrary to the goals of our nation's founders, this assertion is left up to debate. What is...

Based on David McCullough's 2001 best-selling book, "John Adams," the HBO 7-part mini-series starring Paul Giamatti as John Adams and Laura Linney as Abigail Adams is as important for the message that it sends as it is for the history it conveys. Beginning with young attorney Adams's defense of the British soldiers on trial for the Boston Massacre (for whom he won an acquittal), the story follows the political career and personal life of Adams as he becomes a key member of the Continental Congress, editor/co-drafter of the Declaration of Independence, minister to France and England, vice president, then president....

But I have been listening to all of the attempts that people are making to bring Obama down -- and, by the way, these attempts are not so much to destroy him or harm him in the Democrat primary because it isn't going to happen. So we're looking at the general election in terms of Obama. This weekend, I ran into some Republicans who were for Obama. They know full-fledged he's a liberal. They don't care. They like his personality. So when you tell 'em about William Ayers, they don't care. When you tell 'em about Jeremiah Wright (and they...

I don't know about you, but I'm amazed - amazed at the courage, fortitude and strength of our Founding Fathers. They put their lives on the line for an untested and abstract concept called America, not knowing if it would succeed or fail. We owe them everything. Sometimes I think we have squandered our inheritance. What are your thoughts?

HBO's Crabby Abby "..My Wife who had always encouraged and animated me, in all antecedent dangers and perplexities, did not fail me on this Occasion..." -- John Adams, Autobiography, on the news of his leaving for France. Memo to Laura Linney, HBO: Abigail Adams was smart, well-read, loving, devout, and certainly forthright. She was not, however, a peevish, brooding feminist bore. America's Second First Lady, at the outset, is quite capable of speaking for herself; you can read everything she ever wrote here, but somehow you get the feeling Ms. Linney's shooting schedule didn't allow for a reading light in...

Exchange: HBO's 'John Adams' (Part 3) Two scholars of early U.S. history debate the high-profile miniseries with its writer. John Patrick Diggins, Kirk Ellis, and Steven Waldman , The New Republic Published: Monday, March 24, 2008 HBO's seven-part miniseries, John Adams, based on David McCullough's Pulitzer Prize-winning book about America's second president, premiered last weekend. The New Republic asked historian John Patrick Diggins and author Steven Waldman to critique the series. Click here to see their discussion of Parts 1 and 2. This week, Kirk Ellis, the series' writer and co-executive producer, will be joining the discussion. Below, Waldman kicks...

HBO miniseries on "John Adams" demonstrates early form of vaccination for smallpox For many who watched Sunday night's airing of "John Adams," the new HBO series, one scene seemed almost barbaric: A doctor makes incisions with a lancet in the arms of Abigail Adams and her children and places smallpox material directly into the wounds. Abigail Adams believed that you could protect healthy people by injecting them with a deadly disease. Wouldn't that be just as dangerous as hanging around with the infected soldiers shown in the movie? No, Abigail knew what she was doing when she insisted that her...

Thanks to the marketing power of HBO, John Adams is no longer the forgotten American revolutionary — at least for a week. Adams feared his role would be neglected. Thomas Jefferson got all the credit for writing the Declaration of Independence, even though Adams was on that committee and had suggested that Jefferson draft it, since he was a better writer and a Virginian. (Adams wanted some geographic diversity to bind the southern colonies with New England in a common cause.) For the same geopolitical reason, Adams proposed that George Washington of Virginia command the Continental Army. Adams also worked...

When John Adams begins acting like a pompous windbag, his wife, Abigail, reproaches him with a single word. John Adams on hbo.com “Ambition,” Abigail warns, when Adams tells her that he will get a lot of attention if he defends British soldiers in the Boston Massacre trial. “Vanity” is what she says to steer her husband away from what she calls “ostentatious erudition.” “Casting,” she might have told the producers of this new seven-part HBO mini-series, which begins on Sunday evening with a double episode. John Adams is the weakest part of “John Adams.” Based on David McCullough’s biography of...

When Hollywood's movie-makers and docu-dramatists get their hands on American history, accuracy, reality and truth often are tortured beyond recognition. But starting at 8 p.m. Sunday, March 16, HBO Films will be delivering the seven-part, nine-hour mini-series "John Adams."

When Hollywood's movie-makers and docu-dramatists get their hands on American history, accuracy, reality and truth often are tortured beyond recognition. But starting at 8 p.m. Sunday, March 16, HBO Films will be delivering the seven-part, nine-hour mini-series "John Adams." ... it is by all accounts a high-quality, historically accurate and meticulously faithful adaptation of super-historian David McCullough's blockbuster 2001 book of the same name. I talked to McCullough about the making of the HBO series Tuesday by phone from his home in West Tisbury, Mass.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- The U.S. Mint is hoping that Martin Van Buren and Millard Fillmore can do what Susan B. Anthony and Sacagawea couldn't - get Americans to use dollar coins. The Mint on Monday revealed the design of the new U.S. $1 coin, which will be issued in a series that will eventually include the faces of each U.S. president. It will release four new presidential dollars each year, starting with George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison in 2007.

I think that we need history as much as we need bread or water or love. To make the point, I want to discuss a single human being and why we should know him. And the first thing I want to say about him is that he is an example of the transforming miracle of education. When he and others wrote in the Declaration of Independence about “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,” what they meant by “happiness” wasn't longer vacations or more material goods. They were talking about the enlargement of the human experience through the life of...

NEW YORK, Aug. 22 (UPI) -- New York-based Home Box Office is looking to cast "Deadwood" star Paul Giamatti as the second U.S. President John Adams in a miniseries to begin in January. Giamatti, best known for his role as the wine-loving schoolteacher in "Sideways," will play the founding father in a seven-episode series produced by Tom Hanks, the New York Post reported Giamatti begins as the young Adams, a Harvard-educated lawyer who identified with the patriots' cause and became involved in the Revolutionary War. "John Adams" is being filmed in Virginia with several scenes shot at the College of...

Critics of higher education who say American colleges do not prepare students for life after graduation may be way off base: Among federal judges, the problem may be that they do try to apply their education to the post-graduate day jobs that they hold. “At a seminar for federal judges in Kansas City, one of the more conservative judges said, ‘Isn’t it a shame that people don’t know the five rights in the first amendment,’” historian John Kaminski remembered in a recent forum at the Cato Institute. “One of the more activist judges said, ‘Five rights, I’ve been giving 25...

On this July Fourth, our Independence Day, let us consider patriotism. And let us first consider what patriotism is not. Patriotism is not a flag-burning amendment. It is not a lapel pin. It is not red, white and blue bunting on a political platform. It is not the property of any politician or political party. It is not associated with a particular strategy in Iraq. And while these rituals are admirable ways of expressing affinity for our nation, patriotism is not the Pledge of Allegiance or the national anthem. Uniquely among nations, the United States was founded on principles so...

On the morning of July 4, 1826, the leading residents of Quincy, Mass., and Charlottesville, Va., began their last celebration of the nation’s birth – and their last day on Earth. They faced eternity as friends. High on his small mountain in the foothills of the Blue Ridge, the master of Monticello lay asleep. Throughout the spring, Thomas Jefferson had become increasingly feeble. By mid-June, the daily horseback rides were over. In Quincy, John Adams’ health had also declined during the late winter and spring. On sunny days, he was able to take short carriage rides, but even they had...

We keep coming back to cover commercially published historian David McCullough for a reason: Unlike his academic counterparts, he actually has something to say. “Many people today are saying that we should be teaching morals in our schools,” McCullough himself said in a lecture earlier this year at Hillsdale College. “They could find support in the closing line of this section of the Commonwealth Constitution, which speaks of the necessity ‘to countenance and inculcate the principles of humanity and general benevolence, public and private charity, industry and frugality, honesty and punctuality in their dealings, sincerity, good humor, and all social...

 David McCullough was born in 1933 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and was educated there and at Yale University. Author of 1776, John Adams, Truman, Brave Companions, The Path Between the Seas, Mornings on Horseback, The Great Bridge and The Johnstown Flood, he has twice received the Pulitzer Prize and twice the National Book Award, as well as the Francis Parkman Prize and the Los Angeles Times Book Award. The following is adapted from a public lecture delivered at Hillsdale College on March 31, 2006, during Mr. McCullough's one-week residency at the College to teach a class on “Leadership and the History...

The biggest issue freedom loving people have with joining the Libertarian Party has to do with the lack of success in electing Libertarian candidates to public office. One of the chief reasons few Libertarians are elected to office has to do with the very nature of our party. Libertarians are united by a dedication to principals of freedom and respect for individuals and an opposition to those who would initiate force or fraud to have others do their will. Liberty is the gift our party wishes to share with the whole community. We don’t seek to put one group of...

John Adams, the second president of the United States, was brilliant, argumentative, sometimes irascible. Abigail Adams was a savvy observer of the tumultuous political scene, not afraid to speak her mind in an age when women were excluded from politics. Together they forged one of the greatest partnerships in American history. In the tradition of its award-winning Presidents series, American Experience's John & Abigail Adams chronicles both an inspiring political marriage and the birth of a nation. "The Adams story provides a strikingly intimate look inside a marriage of true companions," says writer-producer Elizabeth Deane (Reconstruction: The Second Civil War,...

 News Analysis: Countdown to the Firing of SJC JudgesHomosexual Marriage Will End Quickly Only Because of John AdamsBy MassNews Staff             Homosexual marriage will be ended quickly in Massachusetts this year only because our second President, John Adams, wrote our Constitution in 1780 and included a provision for citizens to “remove” tyrannical judges immediately.             The Speaker of the House in 2005, Sal DiMasi (D-Boston), knows all about this (unlike most Reps and Senators).  An astute, crafty veteran, a survivor and a practicing trial lawyer, DiMasi has agreed to follow our Constitution and allow a vote of his 160 Representatives even though...

  We have none other than John Adams, our second president, to thank for a definitive, and prophetic, quote on the proper way to celebrate Independence Day:The second day of July, 1776, will be the most memorable epoch in the history of America. I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated by succeeding generations as the great anniversary festival. It ought to be commemorated as the day of deliverance, by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with pomp and parade, with shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires and illuminations, from one...

John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, the second and third presidents of the United States, respectively, die on this day, the 50th anniversary of the adoption of the Declaration of Independence. Both men had been central in the drafting of the historic document; Jefferson had authored it, and Adams, who was known as the "colossus of the debate," served on the drafting committee and had argued eloquently for the declaration's passage. After July 4, 1776, Adams traveled to France as a diplomat, where he proved instrumental in winning French support for the Patriot cause, and Jefferson returned to Virginia, where he...

What does the Fourth of July mean to contemporary Americans? For many it means a day off from work and little more. To others it means an opportunity to "party," roast hot dogs, drink beer and watch fireworks. But to the Founders of our nation, it meant far more. Upon the completion of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, Samuel Adams, known as the "Father of the American Revolution" said, "We have this day restored the Sovereign to Whom all men ought to be obedient. He reigns in Heaven and from the rising to the setting of the sun,...

PRESIDENTIAL NEWS OF THE DAY: President Bush is spending the weekend at Camp David. He will travel to Morganstown, West Virginia, on Monday to participate in 4th of July celebrations there. The First Lady has been away from Washington recently. However, she will be traveling with the President to Europe this coming week. Our beloved Dubya will mark his 59th birthday on July 6. HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MR. PRESIDENT! And a rousing HAPPY 229TH BIRTHDAY to our great nation. Laura Bush to visit Tanzania 2005-07-01 07:09:58 By Guardian Reporter US First Lady Laura Bush will visit Tanzania later this month. She...

Boulder, Colo. Founding a democracy, rather like living in a democracy, can be very tough on friendship. John Adams and Thomas Jefferson began as friends. The tensions and frictions of the early Republic took care of that. Then, after years of silence between them, a mutual friend persuaded them to write to each other. In 1812, they launched into a correspondence that continued until it was ended by their deaths. That ending point was on their minds and drove their correspondence. As Mr. Adams wrote Mr. Jefferson, "You and I ought not to die, before we have explained ourselves to...

Misquoting Our Founding Fathers    TO THE SOURCE How many times have your heard that "Our founding fathers were not Christians! They were deists!"? It is an absurd assertion. It conjures up images of clandestine gatherings in Philadelphia's Independence Hall where one by one Washington and Jefferson and Adams et al swear allegiance to some obscure deist creed and pledge to set America on the course of eradicating Biblical belief from all corners of the land. Sure some of our nation's founders were deists. Consider the grumpy pamphleteer Thomas Paine in The Age of Reason: "I do not believe in...

All proposed remedies for the disease of judicial tyranny rely on Congress to administer the medicine. As the Senate has once again demonstrated, relying on Congress for anything is just plain hopeless. Much is made of the "collegiality" of the Senate. You know what they mean by collegiality. It's how the state Democratic chairman of Nebraska gets turned into a federal judge by a 100-0 vote in the U.S. Senate--in time for him to nullify a referendum in which 70% of the voters in the state amended their constitution to defend marriage. But hey, if some judge somewhere says you...

Is the US still at war? Fighting as vague a conflict as the war on terror is hard, polarizing citizens and rendering difficult Washington's decisions about civil liberties at home. Washington is also preoccupied with sustaining its alliance with London. The US is aware that Britain may eventually opt for the Eurosphere over the Anglosphere. But these tensions are not new, as James Grant points out in a new biography of John Adams, America's second president. Compare the Adams presidency to the current one and several truths emerge. The first is that quasi-wars split electorates more sharply than traditional wars....

John Adams must have been spinning in his grave while attorneys for the city of New London Development Corporation explained to the U.S. Supreme Court why Susette Kelo's home should be taken by the government and resold to another private owner. John Adams believed: "The moment the idea is admitted into society that property is not as sacred as the laws of God, and that there is no force of law and public justice to protect it, anarchy and tyranny commence. Property must be secured or liberty cannot exist." In New London, Conn., the idea of "sacred" private property has...

I was doing reasearch this evening for a debate tournament I am participating in a couple of weeks when I came upon this quote: "Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other." -John Adams It seems to me this just nails the aclu argument about separation of church and state. Here we have a founding father stating that the constitution does not work if the people are not moral and religious. It seems to me we should be using this quote much more often in debates with...

It was a contest of titans: John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, two heroes of the Revolutionary era, once intimate friends, now icy antagonists locked in a fierce battle for the future of the United States. The election of 1800 was a thunderous clash of a campaign that climaxed in a deadlock in the Electoral College and led to a crisis in which the young republic teetered on the edge of collapse. Adams vs. Jefferson is a gripping account of a true turning point in American history, a dramatic struggle between two parties with profoundly different visions of how the nation...