Free Republic

Introductory Remarks: On December 7, 1941, U.S. military installations at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii were attacked by the Imperial Japanese Navy. Could this tragic event that resulted in over 3,000 Americans killed and injured in a single two-hour attack have been averted? After 16 years of uncovering documents through the Freedom of Information Act, journalist and historian Robert Stinnett charges in his book, Day of Deceit, that U.S. government leaders at the highest level not only knew that a Japanese attack was imminent, but that they had deliberately engaged in policies intended to provoke the attack, in order to draw...

...My thinking in times past is that it was amazing our country could be in such a mess when we have all these supposedly smart people running the show. More recently I have come to the conclusion that things are what they are because of, not in spite of, the geniuses inhabiting the White House and the halls of Congress. We've all seen people with degrees in everything from rocket science to brain surgery who couldn't balance their checkbook or change a flat tire. What we're lacking in Washington is plain old everyday horse sense. If you, Mister or Missus...

A letter written by the first US President, George Washington, has sold at auction for $3.2m (£1.9m). The sale, at Christie's in New York, was a record for a letter written by Washington. The four-page letter was written in 1787 to the president's nephew, Bushrod Washington, and urges adoption of the country's new constitution. A partially written poem by Edgar Allan Poe sold for $830,500 - a record for a 19th Century literary manuscript. 'Power of the people' Christie's said the Washington letter had been owned by descendants of Bushrod Washington for more than 100 years. The buyer was not...

An impassioned letter penned by George Washington in 1787 about the strengths of the newly written U.S. Constitution was sold at auction in New York on Friday for a record price of $3.2 million. Christie's had estimated that the letter, written from Mount Vernon, could fetch up to $2.5 million at auction, but some experts doubted it would bring that much in the poor economy. The previous auction record for a Washington document was set in 2002, when one of his military reports fetched $834,500, the auction house said. The letter's "hammer" price Friday was $2.8 million, but the buyer's...

Here is a list of 2012 candidates. Generally, I am dwelling on the negatives as this is what is going to limit them in their ability to win but will mention any unique positives. Please share your thoughts on these or any other potential candidates. Romney - Romneycare is an albatross. He is a Mormon which impacts appeal. Is popular in Michigan due to his father. Sometimes comes across like a used car salesman. Is probably more conservative than his record and gets a bad rap due to his need to make compromises to get elected in The People's Republic....

In the mid-1960’s President Lyndon Baines Johnson agonized throughout his White House years about the War in Vietnam. Like Mr. Obama, he was pursuing an ambitious, controversial, and expensive social agenda, which included Medicare and Medicaid, two of the three programs that currently are bankrupting the country.

Recently, the new head of the National Endowment for the Arts, Rocco Landesman, gushed that "if you accept the premise, and I do, that the United States is the most powerful country in the world, then Barack Obama is the most powerful writer since Julius Caesar." He skipped right over Calvin Coolidge.

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...

CBS News Early Show

CHARLOTTESVILLE -- More than 200 years after they were written, about 5,000 previously unpublished documents of the founders of the United States -- including Thomas Jefferson, John Adams and James Madison -- are now available to the public at no cost. The Documents Compass group of the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities at the University of Virginia has spent much of the past year proofreading and transcribing thousands of pages of letters and other papers. The documents are available online for free at the University of Virginia Press' digital imprint called Rotunda. "It's an exciting project," said Penelope Kaiserlian, director...

General Thanksgiving, By the PRESIDENT of the United States of America, A PROCLAMATION. WHEREAS it is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the Providence of Almighty God---to obey his will --- to be grateful for his benefits---and humbly to implore His protection and favour; And whereas both Houses have, by their joint committee, requested me " to recommend to the people of the United States, a DAY OF PUBLICK THANSGIVING and PRAYER, to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many and signal favors of Almighty God, especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to establish a form...

Proclamation - Thanksgiving Day, 1863October 3, 1863 BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA A PROCLAMATION The year that is drawing toward its close has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added which are of so extraordinary a nature that they can not fail to penetrate and soften even the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever-watchful providence of Almighty God. In the midst of a civil war...

Whereas it is the duty of all Nations to acknowledge the providence of almighty God, to obey his will, to be grateful for his benefits, and humbly to implore his protection and favor - and Whereas both Houses of Congress have by their joint Committee requested me "to recommend to the People of the United States a day of public thanksgiving and prayer to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many signal favors of Almighty God, especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to establish a form of government for their safety and happiness. Now therefore I do...

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...

WHEREAS it is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey His will, to be grateful for His benefits, and humbly to implore His protection and favour; and Whereas both Houfes of Congress have, by their joint committee, requefted me "to recommend to the people of the United States a DAY OF PUBLICK THANSGIVING and PRAYER, to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many and signal favors of Almighty God, especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to eftablifh a form of government for their safety and happiness:" NOW THEREFORE, I do...

George Washington's 1789 Thanksgiving Proclamation Whereas it is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey His will, to be grateful for His benefits, and humbly to implore His protection and favor; and Whereas both Houses of Congress have, by their joint committee, requested me to "recommend to the people of the United States a day of public thanksgiving and prayer, to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many and signal favors of Almighty God, especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to establish a form of government for their safety and...

It was 46 years ago today, November 22, 1963, that President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas. Here are a series of videos that bring back the events of the day, beginning with the coverage by Walter Cronkite and a local Dallas TV Station. The final two videos are from the extremely graphic Zapruder film showing the assassination itself . . . (VIDEOS)

Any new theories? Where do you stand on the old theories? Is the Warren Report conclusion (for all the flaws in its investigation) beginning to worm its way into your heart? Did the assassination change your life? Did it (and successive assassinations) change your vision of America? Your vision of the world? Or is it irrelevant that there’s still doubt warranted (pun intended). Irrelevant in toto? (the Latin word, not Dorothy’s dog). I’ve been thinking about Oswald. I think he fired shots that day. I can’t be sure he was alone, although I haven’t been convinced by any of the...

President and Mrs. Bush served our country with honor and dignity and remain committed to improving our nation and the world through the George W. Bush Presidential Center. The Center will be located on the campus of Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas, a rising national university in a major metropolitan city in the heartland of America. The George W. Bush Presidential Center uniquely integrates the records of a national archive, the thematic exhibits of a presidential museum, and the intellectual capital of a research-based policy institute to advance ideas based on the core principles of the Bush Presidency: freedom,...

Forensic investigators have been called in to solve one of the greatest mysteries of US presidential history by discovering what exactly Richard Nixon knew about the Watergate break-in. Thirty-five years after Nixon was forced to become the only US president to resign, government investigators remain determined to find out the extent of knowledge of the raid on the Democratic National Committee's offices in Washington. Investigators appointed by the US National Archives are to analyse notes taken by the White House chief of staff HR Haldeman at a meeting with the late president just three days after Nixon campaign members were...

All right, so both Richard Nixon and Barack Hussein Obama went to China. But when it comes to comparing the presidents’ visits – and their leadership and foreign policy skills in general – Nixon trumps Obama hands down. Let’s begin with what is perhaps the least important but symbolic: Nixon and Obama’s trips to The Great Wall. Nixon’s political finesse was sharply refined, even if the liberal press often refused to give him his due. What did he say upon visiting The Wall in 1972? Something that doesn’t sound so sharp – “I think you would have to conclude this...

As America debates whether to send tens of thousands more troops to Afghanistan, in the ninth year of a war for ends we cannot discern, a riveting new history recalls times when Americans fought for vital national interests. "A Country of Vast Designs: James K. Polk, the Mexican War, and the Conquest of the American Continent" is Robert Merry's brilliant biography and history of that time. Merry goes far toward righting the injustice done by historians who have denied this great man his place in the pantheon of presidents, because they believe "Jimmy Polk's War" to have been a war...

The media gave President Obama credit during the campaign for promising not to raise taxes on the middle class. He was on the trail in New Hampshire when he made a "firm pledge" not to raise taxes on any family "making less than $250,000 a year." Obama is doing his best to break that promise, but the network news media haven't bothered to report it. On Nov. 6 when he endorsed the tax increase-laden health care reform bill that the House of Representatives passed on Nov. 7, Obama violated his pledge.

Years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, former U.S. Secretary of State George Shultz and former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev were sitting in a backyard near Stanford, where Shultz was teaching. The two men discussed what they thought was the turning point in ending the Cold War. Gorbachev said it was two leaders — he and President Ronald Reagan — sitting in a room together, talking. Shultz said it was Reagan’s decision to show military might in 1983 by sending missiles to West Germany. “The strength we put on display was never used,” Shultz said. “Strength works hand in...

In 1909, in the great state of Illinois, school teachers one February day were directed to spend at least half the school day in public exercises, patriotic music, and recitations of sayings, verses, and speeches to mark the centennial birthday of a great hero. At the end of it all, they were to have their students face in the direction of Springfield and chant in unison the following: “A blend of mirth and sadness, smiles and tears; “A quaint knight errant of the pioneers; “A homely hero, born of star and sod; “A Peasant Prince, a masterpiece of God.” Who...

A topic I first raised in March rings ever more true!In March I wrote: "Is Obama the New Nixon? How long before full White House involvement in enemies list and attack politics is revealed?" At the time, their primary target was Rush Limbaugh. Since then, they have expanded their field of fire considerably. Anyone who has a policy disagreement with Obama, even a fellow Democrat, can be targeted for destruction by this White House. Is the Real Obama a Uniter or a Divider?Readers may recall these words from Obama's inaugural address: "We gather because we have chosen hope over fear,...

Former Secret Service agent opens window into private lives of presidents October 14th, 2009 Jamie Weinstein In his In the President’s Secret Service: Behind the Scenes with Agents in the Line of Fire and the Presidents they Protect, journalist Ronald Kessler gives us a peek inside the intimate lives of our presidents. Through interviews with over 100 secret service agents from the past and present—dating all the way back to John F. Kennedy—Kessler paints a picture of what our presidents are like when no one is looking. They're always watching. We learn from the agents Kessler interviews that John F....

Is there anything left to be said—or seen—when it comes to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy? Just you wait. JFK: 3 Shots That Changed America, a two-part, four-hour special airing on History [Sunday, October 11, 9/8c and Monday, October 12, 9/8c] takes viewers back to November 22, 1963 and tells the story via a timeline using only archival news footage, much of which will be new even to assassination buffs. There is no narration (sorry, Peter Coyote). There are no talking heads. The project’s exec producers Nicole Rittenmeyer and Seth Skundrick used a similar technique in last year’s...

Former president and World II naval aviator George H.W. Bush has been honored by some of his neighbors in Kennebunkport. The group unveiled a Navy anchor and a plaque acquired as a way to thank Bush for his service as president and for being a good neighbor.

-Ronald Reagan Eureka College -George H. W. Bush Yale University -George W. Bush Yale University Harvard Business School - Bill Clinton Georgetown University University of Oxford (Rhodes Scholar) Yale Law School -Barack Obama Occidental College (transferred to Columbia University) Columbia University Harvard Law School

In a recent radio interview, Senator John McCain (R-Ariz.) was asked to respond to former President Jimmy Carter’s accusation that a lot of the opposition to the President Obama’s health care bill was rooted in racism. The Senator rejected the racism allegation and characterized Carter as “the worst president of the 20th Century.” Of course, in order to present a balanced perspective, as is his wont, McCain added that in his opinion, “President Barack Obama is, so far, the second best president of the 21st century.”

Abraham Lincoln's Religious Beliefs By Eldon Smith -- Sunday, February 11, 1996 Bible Reading At that same hour Jesus rejoiced in the Holy Spirit and said, "I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and the intelligent and have revealed them to infants; yes, Father, for such was your gracious will. All things have been handed over to me by my Father; and no one knows who the Son is except the Father, or who the Father is except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal...

What I wrote last year about candidate Barack Obama -- that to win he had to be seen as "the least-aggrieved black man in America" -- may be even more relevant now. To lead this diverse and fractious nation effectively, the president has to negotiate racial issues with delicacy, caution and tact. He has to give even his most vocal critics the benefit of the doubt. But I don't. So I can say in plain language that Jimmy Carter was right in essence, but wrong in degree. It seems clear to me that some -- but not "an overwhelming portion,"...

CNN anchor Wolf Blitzer did not look so happy as he competed with actress Dana Delany and comedian Andy Richter in a round of “Celebrity Jeopardy.� The photo shows the scores at the end of the first two rounds. For “Final Jeopardy,� Alex Trebek was nice and wiped out that nasty negative number, credited him with $1,000 and Wolf nailed that final answer with the correct question.

One of the biggest myths about the great depression is that FDR's NEW Deal and the related government intervention and public works projects got us out of the Great Depression. The truth is that the New Deal did not work. Instead of creating growth in the private sector, it created government growth that squeezed out the private sector. Of course, the number one public golf course in the country Bethpage Black (where the US Open played this year) was a was a New Deal Federal works project, but that only cures MY depression, it did little for the country. As...

Next up, Grover Cleveland. Get a load of this letter he wrote to a young man seeking a government job. And this guy was a Democrat. EXECUTIVE MANSION ALBANY February 4, 1885 MY DEAR YOUNG FRIEND I cannot attempt to answer all the letters addressed to me by those both old and young who ask for places But if you are the boy I think you are your letter is based upon a claim to help your mother and others who are partly dependent upon your exertions I judge from what you write that you now have a situation in...

President Reagan marked the beginning of American Education Week and spoke to school students in the East Room of the White House. He talked about the foundations of American government, the values of democracy, and the regard for the United States held by other countries. He also answered questions from the students. The event was telecast in several classrooms throughout the country.

I found some interesting facts about Chester Alan Arthur, who served as President in 1881-85, succeeding to the office after the assassination of James Garfield. Arthur's father was an Irishman who moved to Canada. There, he eloped with an American woman from Vermont. Canada and Ireland were, at the time, under the government of the United Kingdom. The couple had several children, including Chester. The father did not become a naturalized American citizen until long after Chester's birth. During the 1880 presidential campaign, Democrats hired Wall Street lawyer Arthur P. Hinman to investigate Arthur's background. Hinman released his findings to...

When then President Bill Clinton spoke at former President Richard Nixon’s funeral, he suggested that the “day of judging President Nixon on anything less than his entire life and career come to a close.” The speaker had no clue at the time how much he would need that kind of big-picture graciousness later on, but these sentiments are common on such occasions. Having been a member of the clergy for 32 years, it has been my duty to officiate memorial services, comforting mourners while doing my best to eulogize the deceased. The word eulogy is rooted in scripture, most often...

Bill Clinton was famous for the creative way he kept score. Both George Bushes would speed-golf through 18 holes as if they had to beat the clock, not the course. And President Obama? Long, slow rounds. A lot of time hunting for balls in the woods. All dished up with a dollop of trash-talking. The First Golfer brought his duffer’s game to Martha’s Vineyard this week. By Thursday, Mr. Obama had logged three golf games in four days, appearing at one island course after another. He spent five hours on Monday afternoon playing 18 holes at the Farm Neck Golf...

No presidency is ever without its fair share of criticism, but some presidents seem to stir up more controversy than others. So, who are the 6 most controversial presidents? That is a hard question to answer, and this list is by no means definitive. That brings us to the first President on this list, which may surprise some.

  Once, when asked his philosophy, Franklin Roosevelt answered simply, "I am a Christian and a Democrat."   As always with Roosevelt, there was more to it than that. He was not just a Christian, but a Protestant, an Episcopalian, a descendant of Huguenot and Yankee New Englanders on his mother's side. And he was not just a Democrat, but a New York Democrat, whose leaders and most faithful voters were overwhelmingly Catholic, especially Irish Catholic. There was a tension, always, between this Protestant patrician and his Catholic party, a tension that this congenial country squire and shrewd politician...

I ran across this on vox and with amnesty coming up for dicussion when congress comes back, I thought I'd post it. A Quote by President Theodore Roosevelt... Aug 19, 2009 at 12:07 PM 1 comment Share Where to begin... It is always difficult to start one of these. I mean, what the hell do you put in a blog? What should you put in a blog, is probably a better question. Answer? I will figure that out later. For now, I'll post a quote from former-President of the United States, Theodore 'Teddy' Roosevelt. One that I believe to be...

Third parties on the left need to drop their individual agendas and work towards unity in order to create a real progressive party. Obama has been a corporatist through and through on all the major issues that matter. And most of the left in the US, from the labor movement to the environmentalist movement to the anti-war movement, has to date remained glumly quiescent as Obama has sold them out on each of their key issues. Bill Clinton was the worst thing to happen to the Democratic Party and to progressives since that racist warmonger Woodrow Wilson won the presidency...

FAIRFIELD, Vt. — Finding the "birthplace" of President Chester A. Arthur is easy: Turn left at Town Hall and its Chester A. Arthur Conference Room, go past Chester's Bakery and turn right on Chester A. Arthur Road. Nearly five miles up the winding two-lane country road, past rolling hills and dairy farms, is the tiny Chester A. Arthur Historic Site, proclaiming the spot where the nation's 21st president was born in a cottage. Or was he?

In the 8 o'clock hour, Pacific Time, today, Lee Rodgers will interview Ronald Kessler, New York Times best selling author about his new book "In the President's Secret Service" Behind the scenes with agents in the line of fire and the presidents they protect. Should be a very interesting interview. KSFO radio

Richard Nixon is long gone, buried with so many secrets detailing the chaotic end of a flawed presidency. But in Palm Beach, an 85-year-old retired general has more knowledge of what transpired in Nixon's final days in office than any other man alive. One of the nation's most unceremonious moments occurred 35 years ago Sunday, when - for the only time in U.S. history - a president relinquished his power. No man had a better look at the unraveling of a president than Alexander Haig, the White House's chief of staff who helped orchestrate Nixon's removal from power. Haig, who...

Here is video of President Richard Nixon discussing his final day as President, and then announcing his resignation as President of the United States on August 8, 1974, 35 years ago today. The video is from an interview Frank Gannon did with Nixon in 1983, and gives some of the personal feeling of what that day was like for Nixon. Nixon resigned after months of controversy regarding his cover-up of the Watergate break-in conducted by a group of Nixon operatives known as "the Plumbers." The Watergate Building housed the Democrat National Committee headquarters. Upon learning of the break-in, Nixon sought...

Jimmy Carter was the "least likeable" president, Ronald Kessler reveals in his new book about the Secret Service that chronicles the agency’s activities guarding every president from Kennedy to Obama. "In the President's Secret Service: Behind the Scenes With Agents in the Line of Fire and the Presidents They Protect," already an Amazon.com best-seller since its publication on Tuesday, features startling disclosures about the presidents and their families. Newsmax Chief Washington Correspondent Kessler, the first journalist to penetrate the wall of secrecy that surrounds the U.S. Secret Service, based his book on interviews with more than 100 current and former...

Former US president John F. Kennedy had an affair with a Swedish flight attendant, according to a new book based on interviews with current and former Secret Service agents. According to ex-agent Robert Lutz, President Kennedy took a liking to a Swedish Pan Am Flight attendant who was riding on the press pool airplane which typically follows US presidents while they travel. While Lutz, who was assigned to the press plane, had initially planned to ask the good looking Swede out for dinner, members of the Secret Service detail assigned to President Kennedy told Lutz to back off. “She’s part...