Free Republic

Democratic strategist James Carville said Tuesday on MSNBC’s “The Beat” that President Donald Trump’s poll numbers are going to get worse. During an appearance on Fox News, political analyst Karl Rove said, “When it comes to the economy, this is where it’s a little trickier, and this is where his numbers have gone south.” Carville said, “So I watch Karl, and he’s exactly right. When you’ve seen a lot of polls like Karl has in his career or I’ve seen or it’s worse than you think when you look at, you know, sometimes you look at a poll and you...

Stepin Fetchit was an American film actor who became the very first African-American film actor to earn a million dollars in Hollywood. He made his name in an era when the black people were dominated by the whites in the industry. He was also the first ever black actor to receive featured screen credit in a film, which reflects the harsh reality of the industry that time. He was initially signed by the Fox Pictures, then dropped by them, and then re-signed. He acted in over 40 films between 1927 and 1939, a time when contracts for black actors were...

The book blames foreign subversives for ideas long rooted in American life.Prequel: An American Fight Against Fascism, by Rachel Maddow, Crown, 416 pages, $32"American democracy itself was under attack from enemies within and without," Rachel Maddow writes in Prequel: An American Fight Against Fascism. If you're not sure whether she is speaking of the past or the present, that's because she wants to conflate the two. Prequel is a deeply flawed and deceptively framed history of right-wing radicalism in the United States on the eve of American entry into World War II. Maddow's treatment of this well-worn topic draws principally...

The mystery of the Hindenburg disaster, the destruction of the largest aircraft ever constructed by mankind, on May 6, 1937, in Manchester Township, New Jersey has baffled scientists for decades. The airship Hindenburg was nearing the end of a three-day voyage across the Atlantic Ocean from Frankfurt, Germany before it went up in flames. Merely watching the gigantic airship making its way across the skies was a newsworthy spectacle, and onlookers and news crews gathered to watch the 800-foot-long behemoth touch down. Suddenly and horrifyingly, in less than half minute, it was all over. Flames erupted from the airship’s skin,...

An Indiana judge on Wednesday dismissed a lawsuit filed by a relative of famed 1930s gangster John Dillinger seeking to dig up his body to confirm it is actually him. In a tan-walled Marion County courtroom, Superior Court Judge Timothy Oakes entertained arguments from the Crown Hill Cemetery, where Dillinger’s body is buried, which claimed that it has a right under state law to deny the exhumation of any body. The fight over digging up Dillinger’s remains came after the gangster’s nephew Michael Thompson filed a lawsuit in August claiming the cemetery is wrongfully preventing him from exhuming the body...

The University of Central Oklahoma’s (UCO) W. Roger Webb Forensic Science Institute, in collaboration with the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum, is using its nationally ranked expertise to solve a mystery involving one of the nation’s most notorious outlaws. Through a donation, the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum received a purse believed to belong to Bonnie Parker of the infamous Bonnie and Clyde duo, who committed dozens of robberies and burglaries while running from law enforcement between 1932 and 1934. While the purse, which is stamped with Parker’s name and features what is presumed to be a single...

These Pre-Code movies bring the hard-working actress of the Great Depression to our current one.Victoria Wilson’s biography of Barbara Stanwyck is titled Steel-True; if Stanwyck was all steely integrity, her friend and occasional co-star, Joan Blondell (1906-79), might have been likened to gleaming brass. As a comedian, entertainer, and dramatic actor, Blondell mirrored Stanwyck’s independence, especially during the Pre-Code cinema era of the early 1930s. The Criterion Channel offers a baker’s dozen of Blondell’s films, released from 1931-34. These are brief, fast flicks — Big City Blues (1931), for example, is just over an hour long. They can be consumed...

A recent road trip convinced this traveler that the radio airwaves are saturated these days with self-proclaimed experts who are espousing more solutions to our economic woes than there are problems. A recent visit to the Will Rogers Center in Claremore, Okla., convinced this observer that what this country needs is not another talk show host, but instead, someone with the character, integrity and sense of humor of Rogers. Some say that Rogers invented talk radio and at the peak of his career could lay claim to several million daily listeners. His commentaries were never cruel and were based on...

American men in their 30s today are worse off financially than their fathers' generation, a reversal from just a decade ago, when sons generally were better off than their fathers, a new study finds. The study, the first in a series on economic mobility undertaken by several prominent think tanks, also says the typical American family's income has lagged far behind productivity growth since 2000, a departure from most of the post-World War II period. The findings suggest "the up escalator that has historically ensured that each generation would do better than the last may not be working very well,"...

Many people often speak of the "dangers" of capitalism - unsafe working conditions, little kids working, too many hours in a week, low wages, monotonous work, no health care. This is really the big argument against laissez-faire. They may not say it, but frankly, its what it is. Even George Orwell was big into this. Now, I know that government intereference and poverty truly caused all of this, not businesses. I would like some more specific information, and wondering if you guys could help me out - specifically, historical information (1920s and 1930s). Now, it is obvious why such conditions...

The two well-dressed strangers were extremely polite. They entered the Falls Beverage Shoppe late one evening in July 1934, sat at a table and ordered hamburgers and beer. ``What town is this, please?'' one of the men inquired as waitress Wilda Work brought their sandwiches. She told him Cuyahoga Falls. The clock was ticking toward midnight, and the guests were in high spirits at the tavern at 2052 Front St. The older gentleman, a dark-haired fellow in his early 30s, flirted with the married waitress and tried to get her to loosen up a bit. ``Why don't you smile?'' he...