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A beautiful day in Dallas - fair skies, temps in the high 60s - thousands of people came out to witness something that is so uniquely American that I'm not certain it survives translation into other languages. The dedication of a Presidential library is not a regular or usual event. There are only 13 such libraries in the Presidential library system. The first was Franklin Delano Roosevelt; the most recent is George W. Bush. Other private or non-profit organizations house the collected papers and memorabilia from previous Presidents but now the process is more systematized. The way these work -...

Ordinarily, the news that a long overdue memorial to an historic American leader has been put on hold still again would come as a disappointment. But if you've seen the innocuous design for an Eisenhower memorial in the nation's capitol, the news may come as a relief -- and a welcome opportunity to start all over and try to get it right this time. Innocuous doesn't begin to cover the emptiness, the blahness, the pomp meaninglessness of Frank Gehry's design for this "monument" that is the opposite of monumental. It's just a few saplings around what looks like an...

President Barack Obama is charismatic and inspiring, but he won office too early in his career, and he is a victim of his own success. Sweeping into office with majorities in the Senate and House, Obama quickly passed a Democrats-only stimulus package that didn't deliver as promised. Then he signed a health care package that increased the burden of health care on private employers and failed to attract a single GOP vote. Obama's Affordable Care Act helped unseat moderate and other Democrats who had voted for the package, handing the House to Republicans. Suddenly, Obama had to work across the...

At a time when there seems to be a lack of heroes, especially in the Presidency during the last decades, the biography of Dwight D. (Ike) Eisenhower is a reminder of the pride Americans felt for the General, the man and the country.

WASHINGTON -- By the end of this year, responsibility for security in about half of Iraq's 18 provinces will have been shifted from U.S. to Iraqi forces, a senior American military officer said Friday. Brig. Gen. Kurt A. Cichowski, deputy chief of strategy and plans for the U.S. military command headquarters in Baghdad, said the shift is part of a broad "road map" worked out by U.S. and Iraqi officials. Speaking to reporters at the Pentagon by video teleconference from Iraq, Cichowski said there is no firm timeline for transferring provincial security responsibility to the Iraqis. "While we have a...

Courtesy of C-SPAN (they do have some uses), here are some great, well-organized resources FReepers can use to keep informed, as well as to research and post information: TV / RADIO / WEBSITES / WEBLOGS NEWSPAPERS / MAGAZINES WHITE HOUSE / EXECUTIVE BRANCH RESOURCES CONGRESSIONAL RESOURCES JUDICIARY RESOURCES STATE / LOCAL GOVERNMENT RESOURCES THINK TANK / PAC / POLICY ORGANIZATIONS RESOURCES (RNC, DNC, and huge list of others) INTERNATIONAL GOVERNMENT RESOURCES (British Parliament and more) WAR WITH IRAQ RESOURCES AMERICAN PRESIDENTS