Free Republic

In the fall of 2006 right after then Sen. Barack Obama announced to Tim Russert on Meet the Press he was seriously considering a run for the nomination of the Democratic Party for president, thousands of reporters, journalists, bloggers and intellectuals flooded book stores for copies of his two books, "Dreams of my Father" and "The Audacity of Hope." For two years they intellectualized about his life story and world view, picked apart every carefully crafted sentence, and marveled at their ability to really get inside the head of this exotic man who might become president. They wrote breathlessly of...

Osama bin Laden's 16-year-old son led a suicide bomb squad sent to kill Pakistan opposition leader Benazir Bhutto, according to her own claims. Before she was assassinated in December the former prime minister claimed she had been warned that four such death teams would try to kill her. And the naming of bin Laden's teenage son, Hamza, could now strengthen claims that he is being groomed as a future leader of the al Qaeda terror group. In 2001, he appeared in a joint Taliban and al Qaeda video of a militant attack on a Pakistan army camp in South Waziristan,...

Fox News host and chief political anchor Bret Baier is working on a book about the waning days of Dwight Eisenhower’s presidency and the beginning of John F. Kennedy’s administration. William Morrow, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers, told The Associated Press on Monday that Baier’s “Three Days in January: Dwight Eisenhower’s Final Mission” would come out in January, around the time the successor to President Barack Obama will be sworn in. …

The author of a book about Hillary Clinton and Vince Foster, the aide whose death in 1993 was ruled a suicide, says Clinton triggered Foster’s death by bullying him unmercifully, calling him out from among his colleagues as a failure. The claim comes from Ronald Kessler, formerly an investigative reporter with the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post, and the author of “The First Family Detail: Secret Service Agents Reveal the Hidden Lives of the Presidents and The Secrets of the FBI.” Kessler wrote about his claim in the London Daily Mail on Thursday. The controversies surrounding Foster’s death...

"Change has come to comics!" Introducing the life-story of Barack Obama in comic book form, following him from infancy through the first 100 days of his administration as the 44th President of the United States of America. Featuring the smash hit, best-selling comic book Biography of Barack Obama that became a media sensation, this volume also collects the follow up series that detailed the historic Obama campaign from the Democratic National Convention through his election to President on November 4th, 2008, and then until the inauguration. The story continues with the most relevant details of his first 100 Days in...

Biography is one way -- often the most vivid way -- in which people understand history. The beautifully written biographies of Franklin Roosevelt that rolled off the presses and rose in the bestseller lists in the 1950s and 1960s created a template in which the New Deal was central to American history. It was the culmination of what happened before the 1930s and the model for what should and would happen next. That model was undermined by the success of four-time Roosevelt voter Ronald Reagan, but the idea that every bigger government is beneficial and inevitable continues to be accepted...

Note the movie is scheduled to be released in April, 2016 (which is subject to change). Almost any details about the movie requires a subscription to IMDBpro. Normally, IMDB is a very good source on Movies. However, it appears this movie is in theatres, and was released yesterday. More information will be available closer to the Release Date. There is a Movie Trailer/Clip at this FACEBOOK URL: https://www.facebook.com/BlessedMotherTeresaOfCalcutta/videos/268489616652815/As time goes on, the location of this movie clip may change.

Were the lungs the seat of wisdom, Fox News host Bill O’Reilly would be wise, but they are not and he is not. So it is not astonishing that he is doubling down on his wager that the truth cannot catch up with him. It has, however, already done so. The prolific O'Reilly has, with his collaborator Martin Dugard, produced five "history" books in five years: Killing Lincoln, Killing Kennedy, Killing Jesus, Killing Patton, and now the best-selling Killing Reagan. Because no one actually killed Reagan, O'Reilly keeps his lucrative series going by postulating that the bullet that struck Reagan...

The Fix has said this before and will say it again. This time with emphasis. The race for the White House is really a long, very expensive and highly consequential ad campaign. What else are candidates doing than trying to convince voters that they have the best ideas, the most ambitiously pragmatic solutions for the country's ills and, of course, the right combination of character, experience and other attributes to do the job well? And when it comes to advertising, social programming (or, if you prefer, stereotypes) and the human id are major parts of what makes consumers believe firmly...

Former American President George HW Bush has publicly criticized Dick Cheney and Donald H Rumsfeld, key members of his son's administration, in a biography due out next week. Mr Cheney, Mr Bush said, built "his own empire" and Mr Rumsfeld "served the president badly," US media report. Mr Bush also called Mr Rumsfeld "an arrogant fellow" with "swagger".

Not Without My Daughter Trailer - Directed by Brian Gilbert and starring Sally Field, Alfred Molina, Sheila Rosenthal, Roshan Seth, Sarah Badel. An American woman, trapped in Islamic Iran by her brutish husband, must find a way to escape with her daughter.

Left: Alfred Hitchcock directing Family Plot inside Grace Cathedral, San Francisco, California, in the summer of 1975 (Photo: Stan Osborne | Wikipedia). Right: The cover of the new biography of Hitchcock, written by Peter Ackroyd. Following hard on the heels of last year’s fascinating Charlie Chaplin, Peter Ackroyd turns his attention to yet another ‘Cockney visionary’ with the publication of Alfred Hitchcock (Chatto & Windus). Hitchcock is one of the most written about directors in the history of cinema, certainly in the English-speaking world. What could be left to say of a man about whom it has all been...

What’s most amazing is that Lincoln later picked Stanton to become his War Secretary after the resignation of Simon Cameron. At the time of his selection Stanton was still an avowed critic of Lincoln. Lincoln was willing to overlook this because of Stanton’s superb managerial skills. As their relationship matured Stanton became one of Lincoln’s warmest admirers. Standing at the foot of Lincoln’s bed as latter died of a gunshot wound to the head, Stanton proclaimed of Lincoln: “Now he be belongs to the ages.” “I claim not to have controlled event,” Lincoln candidly wrote in 1864, “but confess plainly...

Dr. Bryon McClanahan reviews Pryor's work on Lee. He is quite critical and discusses major problems with the book as well as the "trendy" practice by modern historians of "humanizing" (tearing down) American heroes . . .

WASHINGTON — The F.B.I. and Justice Department prosecutors have recommended bringing felony charges against retired Gen. David H. Petraeus for providing classified information to his former mistress while he was director of the C.I.A., officials said, leaving Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. to decide whether to seek an indictment that could send the pre-eminent military officer of his generation to prison. The Justice Department investigation stems from an affair Mr. Petraeus had with Paula Broadwell, an Army Reserve officer who was writing his biography, and focuses on whether he gave her access to his C.I.A. email account and other...

the White House President Barack Obama Home • About the White House • Presidents William J. Clinton During the administration of William Jefferson Clinton, the U.S. enjoyed more peace and economic well being than at any time in its history. He was the first Democratic president since Franklin D. Roosevelt to win a second term. He could point to the lowest unemployment rate in modern times, the lowest inflation in 30 years, the highest home ownership in the country's history, dropping crime rates in many places, and reduced welfare rolls. He proposed the first balanced budget in decades and achieved...

Hate to shill for anything PBS, but apparently a group of libertarian organizations put together this special on the life, times, and thinking of Dr. Walter E, Williams which is making the rounds on PBS and I actually caught tonight in prime time on the Philly outlet. Following Williams from his youth in Philadelphia through his time in the army in the late fifties, the program details his introduction to racial discrimination in the military. He was appalled when he discovered that blacks in the army were given only menial assignments; when his lieutenant ordered him to paint a truck...

IN HINDSIGHT, Joe Paterno wrote, the day after he got fired with a phone call, he wished he had done more. He had not committed a crime, he had not witnessed a crime, he had reported what sounded like a crime to his superiors. The haters jumped all over that sentence, like it was some kind of a confession that the legendary Penn State football coach had somehow enabled Jerry Sandusky to sexually abuse those kids, while he looked the other way. The haters spent a lot less time debating the note he scribbled on a pad before going to...

A short documentary from Rockbridge Academy on the author of America's "Star Spangled Banner". Produced by ADG Creative. Francis Scott KEY American lawyer, author, and amateur poet, from Georgetown, who wrote the lyrics to the United States' national anthem, "The Star-Spangled Banner" Born: on August 01, 1779 in Carroll County, Maryland, USA Died: on January 11, 1843 in Baltimore, Maryland, USA Francis Scott Key was born to Ann Phoebe Penn Dagworthy (Charlton) and Captain John Ross Key at the family plantation Terra Rubra in what was Frederick County and is now Carroll County, Maryland. His father John Ross Key was...

Lynne Cheney has spent decades studying and admiring the nation's fourth president, James Madison. Her new book, "James Madison: A Life Reconsidered" is a labor of political admiration that began five years ago and culminated in a historical journey in which Madison, the father of the Constitution, also becomes a prophet of productive conservatism. ....She considers Madison the prophet of small government. He pushed for a strong central government early in his political career when he served in the early House of Representatives, but he started having some doubts. "Madison began to worry about too strong a government," Cheney told...