Free Republic

Former First Lady Michelle Obama has advice for young women starting their careers: Don’t try to dismantle a broken system until you have clout that commands authority. Sadly, that means waiting until you’re older and established in your career to make those changes. Her new book chronicles the evolution of her personal style as First Lady and after leaving the White House. Specifically, the book delves into how fashion played a key role in establishing Obama’s credibility—a rubric all professional women are judged by, sadly. In her talk with Cooper, Obama reflected on how fashion choices are more consequential for...

3,000 Jewish children vanished from the face of Nazi-occupied Europe. They weren't deported. They weren't found in concentration camps. They simply evaporated. And the most unlikely place on earth became the perfect hiding spot: a small Protestant village in the heart of occupied France, where pastors and farmers transformed their homes, barns, and schools into underground sanctuaries. But here's the detail that will make you question everything you know about World War II. These children weren't hidden in secret basements or distant forests. They walked the streets. They attended classes. They played in public squares. And the Nazis, with all...

"The purpose of this volume is to tell the story of Cicero's life, and at the same time to set forth from his writings a presentation of the concluding age of the Roman Republic, and to record the disastrous but not inglorious failure of the last Free State of the ancient world. So far as may be, I propose to let Cicero himself to speak to my readers."

Letter Concerning Toleration by John Locke was originally published in 1689. Its initial publication was in Latin, though it was immediately translated into other languages. In this "letter" addressed to an anonymous "Honored Sir" (actually Locke's close friend Philip von Limborch, who published it without Locke's knowledge) Locke argues for a new understanding of the relationship between religion and government. One of the founders of Empiricism, Locke develops a philosophy that is contrary to the one expressed by Thomas Hobbes in Leviathan, primarily because it supports toleration for various Christian denominations. Locke's work appeared amidst a fear that Catholicism might...

DEAD MEN'S DUST. You don't buy poetry. (Neither do I.) Why? You cannot afford it? Bosh! you spend Editions de luxe on a thirsty friend. You can buy any one of the poetry bunch For the price you pay for a business lunch. Don't you suppose that a hungry head, Like an empty stomach, ought to be fed? Looking into myself, I find this true, So I hardly can figure it false in you.

Engineering school taught us to write code. It never taught us to write. Now writing is the whole job. I went to engineering school at the University of Virginia. I appreciated the education. The engineering program is rigorous. I learned differential equations, thermodynamics, signal processing, data structures, and enough physics to respect what I didn’t understand. (And, I barely made it through.) I now wish I had majored in English if you’d told me that thirty years ago, I would have laughed at you, and then gone back to failing an electromagnetics exam. You know what I didn’t learn? How...

Len Deighton, the British author who brought a documentary-style realism to the spy genre in 1960s Cold War thrillers like “The Ipcress File” and “Funeral in Berlin,” the film versions of which helped make Michael Caine an international star, died on Sunday at his home in Guernsey, one of the Channel Islands between England and France. He was 97. His death was confirmed by Russell Clark, the family’s lawyer. Unlike the impossibly suave, action-oriented Bond or George Smiley, John le Carré’s dumpy, cerebral, upper-class spy hero, Mr. Deighton’s central character is self-consciously proletarian, with a jaded, frequently hostile attitude toward...

13 March 2026 7:54 PM Today the Ides of March survives as a powerful historical metaphor. What was once simply a day for settling debts and observing rituals became one of the most famous dates in historyFew dates in history carry the dramatic weight of the Ides of March. Falling on March 15, the phrase is forever tied to political intrigue, betrayal and the assassination of one of ancient Rome’s most powerful leaders, Julius Caesar. In the Roman calendar, the term “Ides” referred simply to the middle of the month. While the Ides fell on the 13th day in most...

Kamala Harris is cutting California loose from her book tour, cancelling the remainder of her currently scheduled stops in the state. On Tuesday, the former presidential candidate pulled out of book tour stops for her memoir “107 Days” in Sacramento, San Diego and Anaheim. The appearances had been scheduled for next month. Ticketing company Ticketmaster refunded ticketholders and explained that the cancellations of “A Conversation with Kamala Harris” were due to a “scheduling conflict.” Harris’ last event had been in Oakland on March 3. She remains scheduled for an event in Denver, Colorado, on April 2, but her subsequent stops...

California legislators have grilled the state’s top librarian about huge sums of money tied to a statewide literacy program linked to country music legend Dolly Parton that are missing. And it’s the kids who may suffer. Greg Lucas, the state’s top librarian, has been accused of failing to account for almost $650,000 related to Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library during, a literacy initiative meant to deliver free books to young children across the state. “You don’t have receipts requested six times. You don’t have bank statements requested six times from this committee,” Republican State Sen. Shannon Grove said during a budget...

He was regarded as one of Germany's most influential contemporary philosophers. Jürgen Habermas has now died in the Bavarian town of Starnberg, aged 95.One of Germany's most influential postwar philosophers Jürgen Habermas died at the age of 96 on Saturday, according to his publishing house, Suhrkamp. Habermas' work on communication, rationality and sociology made him one of the most important contemporary German philosophers and a leading figure at the Frankfurt School, besides Marxist thinkers like Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer. The philosopher made an international name for himself for reworking the famous "Critical Theory" developed by Adorno and Horkheimer, a...

Monday marked the 32nd anniversary of the passing of Charles Bukowski from leukemia at age 73. Considering the life he lived, it is remarkable he lived as long as he did. Bukowski, whose rough but strangely captivating visage was best described by Paul Ciotti as “a sandblasted face, warts on his eyelids and a dominating nose that looks as if it was assembled in a junkyard,” was an author who defined outsider American literature in the 1960s and 1970s. Unlike his wholesome contemporaries, Ray Bradbury and E. B. White, Bukowski was a notorious womanizer with an aura of stale aftershave,...

Today I am happy to announce the release of the very short audio for Thomas Jefferson's interesting letter "A Dialog between the Head and Heart", which reaches just past 30 minutes long. Yes, it is a very short recording, but this one is a little different than most others I work on. This recording is a compilation; that is, there are three voices present that are seemingly talking to each other in a way. One of the recordings in this I recorded. This does not signal my triumphant return to the microphone though. I wish. I still have a very...

Jill Biden is giving her perspective from a since-demolished part of the White House, with the former first lady penning a memoir called “View From the East Wing.” In the book, announced Wednesday, Biden will share “her White House experiences for the first time, in her own words,” publisher Gallery Books said. “She reflects on the Biden presidency and its impact on her family. She brings you behind the scenes, from Camp David to Air Force One, from grading papers in the Rose Garden to witnessing the abrupt end of her husband’s bid for reelection,” the publisher said in promotional...

KANSAS CITY, Mo. – Some of the documents that helped shape the United States are temporarily leaving Washington, D.C., ahead of America’s 250th anniversary, giving many Americans a rare chance to see them in person. The "Freedom Plane National Tour: Documents That Forged a Nation" – launched by The National Archives – is bringing founding-era records out of the nation’s capital and into communities across the country. The nationwide tour kicked off Friday at the National World War I Museum and Memorial in Kansas City, where visitors can walk through a specially prepared exhibit room to see several historic documents...

Selections from The Camp of the Saints revisit a dystopian warning about mass migration, cultural collapse, and the West’s moral paralysis—one that many readers now see as uncomfortably prophetic. The following selections come from Ethan Rundell’s new translation of The Camp of the Saints (Vauban Books, 2025), a 1973 dystopian novel about a mass migration from the developing world to Europe that triggers political paralysis, moral collapse, and the unraveling of Western civilization, and whose warnings have lost none of their force. The first passage is from the “Big Other,” Raspail’s preface to the 2011 edition of the book. It...

A Fort Worth federal jury got a closer look Tuesday at the alleged "antifa" materials the government says motivated what it's calling a coordinated attack on an immigration detention center July 4. FBI investigators walked the jury Tuesday through “zines,” or homemade booklets, pamphlets, posters and other items they found in the homes and cars of several people on trial. Anti-fascism, anarchy, the abolition of ICE and police, opposition to Israel, noise demonstrations, direct action and animal rights were common messages found throughout the material. A Fort Worth federal jury got a closer look Tuesday at the alleged "antifa" materials...

I've only just begun...and I just have to say this is a "must read" especially this year! Not a quick read, but compelling, and a fabulous detailed history that none should ignore. Prof. Turley is thorough and thoughtful. We are going through troubling times these days, and back before the ratification of our Constitution, there was much turmoil right here while the people worked on forming a system of government. Fabulously done! I have many other things to do, but I can't put it down. So...I guess I'm reading for a while.

Does any one remember a post from many years ago that fits this description. The Setting: A man is in his study/living room at night, reading by lamplight. * The Visitor: A man appears suddenly. He is gaunt, weary, and dressed in strange or rugged clothing. He reveals he is a descendant of the man he is visiting. * The Warning: He describes a total collapse of American civilization. He explains that there is a way to stop it, but it requires a specific, seemingly mundane change in the present. * The Cryptic Ending: In the final moments, the visitor...

In Nevil Shute's 1957 novel On the Beach there's a scene set in the "Pastoral Club" in Melbourne – a fictional combination of the real-life Australian Club and Melbourne Club, relics of the country's "more British than Britain" men's social clubs. John Osborne, a scientist, is visiting with Peter Holmes, a lieutenant in the Australian navy, and they encounter John's great-uncle, Sir Douglas Froude, a commander of the country's army during the last war. The old man tells the two younger men that "three years ago my doctor told me that if I didn't stop drinking the club port he...