Free Republic

If you’re going to make a documentary film about America’s response to the Holocaust, shouldn’t you at least know how many Jewish refugees were admitted to the United States during those years? Surprisingly, filmmaker Ken Burns appears to be unaware of that basic information—or is for some reason seeking to misrepresent the facts. Burns has announced that his forthcoming film will challenge the “myth” that President Franklin D. Roosevelt abandoned Europe’s Jews. That remarkable assertion flies in the face of the historical record that numerous scholars have thoroughly documented. Nonetheless, in recent interviews, Burns has claimed that during the Roosevelt...

How can one write history so that it seems like a thriller? How does one write a biography without making the subject the centerpiece of the narrative? I have no idea if David Pietrusza asked himself these questions — or this one: How can history be written as a newspaper headline? Call this a biography by indirection. Franklin Delano Roosevelt is defined by competing individuals and movements: Huey Long, Father Coughlan, Al Smith, the Liberty League, Earl Browder and the Communist Party, Dr. Francis Townsend and the Townsend Plan, Norman Thomas and the Socialist Party. They threatened FDR’s majority in...

CNN analyst Van Jones opined that "coming into Labor Day weekend, you are starting to see the beginnings of what could be a blue wave. The disastrous Afghanistan exit, runaway inflation, the growing ineffectiveness of the covid vaccines, and murder rates not seen since the 1990s are just fading memories. Democrat voters will rally to vote for the Party's traditional values—more abortions, more income redistribution, higher taxes, LGBTQ rights, and clean energy. Don't be surprised when you see a bigger Democrat majority in the House and Senate after the votes are counted in November." He went on to dismiss complaints...

“The president has delivered the largest economic recovery plan since Roosevelt, the largest infrastructure plan since Eisenhower, the most judges confirmed since Kennedy, the second largest health care bill since Johnson and the largest climate change bill in history.”

In a 2021 interview with the Stanford Review, Blake Masters was asked for a historical figure he admired. He chose two. The first was George Washington, possibly the best-known military general, slave owner, and president in American history. “I don’t think people realize how much of a boss this guy was,” Masters explained. The second was Lee Kuan Yew. LKY, as he’s often called, was Singapore’s prime minister from 1959 to 1990 and oversaw its economic miracle. He turned the former British colony into a go-go free market paradise. As it grew, Singapore instituted a far-ranging welfare state. The government...

The mood in the U.S. during the rise of Adolf Hitler in Germany could have been personified in Charles Lindbergh, America's aviation hero of those times. An antisemite, he admired German efficiency and felt that America shouldn't waste its resources helping Britain battle the Nazis. Ordinary Americans, too, were focused not on Hitler, but on the domestic economy. The shadow of the Great Depression was looming. Why sacrifice blood and treasure to save Europe? A negotiated peace with Hitler was acceptable. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who took first took office in 1933 and held four terms until his death in...

President Biden predicted that "overturning Roe v. Wade will lead to a cascade of other brutalities inflicted on this country by an out-of-control Supreme Court. Why wouldn't they follow up the cruelty of allowing states to enact laws limiting a mother's right to kill her own baby with a similar atrocity like allowing states to ban gay marriage?" "Look, here's the deal," Biden said. "The logic behind overturning Roe v. Wade is that the 1973 Court lacked the authority to proclaim a nationwide right to abortion. There's nothing in the Constitution authorizing the Court to do that. Likewise, there's nothing...

Biden signs a bill to provide enhanced authority to enter into agreements with the government of Ukraine.

Road to MoscowBill Clinton’s Early Activism from Fulbright to Moscow By Fedora SummaryDuring the 1992 campaign, Bill Clinton’s student protests and Moscow trip generated much controversy, but few answers. While Clinton’s government files from that era seemingly remain unavailable even today, there is at least more information available than in 1992. The public record reveals that Clinton’s social network and views on Vietnam were influenced by a pattern of contact between Communist agents and sympathizers and Clinton’s academic and political associates. This pattern is documented here through an analysis of Clinton’s antiwar activity up through the time he left Oxford...

Chief Justice John Roberts used his year-end report on New Year’s Eve to denounce the threats being made against the Court and its members by Democratic politicians and groups, including threats to pack the Court to force an immediate liberal majority. Roberts referred to such threats as efforts to exercise “inappropriate political influence” on the Court in contravention of our constitutional values and traditions. We have been discussing the ramped up threats from Democratic leaders that the Court will either vote with the liberal justices on key issues or face “consequences,” including court packing. Recently, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D., Mass.),...

Like many people my age (62), I was taught both at home and in school that Franklin Delano Roosevelt was a great president. FDR, I was taught, saved American democracy in the 1930s with the New Deal and led the nation to victory against Hitlerism in the 1940s. That view of FDR was reinforced by many television documentaries and history books. And virtually every poll of historians — including the most recent C-Span poll — places FDR in the top five of all U.S. presidents (usually in third place behind Lincoln and Washington). This is so despite persuasive revisionist historical...

On Friday’s “PBS NewsHour,” New York Times columnist David Brooks stated that Democrats “were right to try to be FDR, try to do something big” with the Build Back Better reconciliation bill. Brooks said that if the new inflation numbers in January show an increase in inflation, that will make passing the bill far more difficult. “Because Joe Manchin’s really concerned about inflation and federal spending boosting that. I think — in retrospect, I think they were right to try to be FDR, try to do something big, there are a lot of problems in this country, and try to...

December 7, 1941. "A date which will live in infamy," President Franklin D. Roosevelt called it. The attack's 80th anniversary is this month. Infamy. Webster's Dictionary defines infamy as: "evil reputation brought about by something grossly criminal, shocking, or brutal." From the U.S. perspective, the Japanese 1941 sneak attack on Pearl Harbor definitely fits that definition. The Japanese elites -- other than Adm. Isoruku Yamamoto -- thought the sneak attack would do two things. The semi-sane bean counters thought it would destroy America's Pacific Ocean fleet and make retribution (counterattack on Japan) impossible, or at least improbable. The total whack-job,...

The most famous words of Franklin Roosevelt, America's longest-serving president, were, "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself." One wonders if any world leader would or could say that today. We live in the Age of Fear. All of my life, I thought love and hate were the two most powerful human emotions. But owing to recent events, I have changed my mind. I now understand that for most people, fear is the strongest emotion. In fact, I've come to realize that it is possible to get people to do anything if you instill enough fear in...

The internment of Japanese Americans during World War II is a well-known dark chapter in American history. What is less known today is how Japanese Americans responded to such injustice at the time. Daniel James Brown’s new book, Facing the Mountain: A True Story of Japanese American Heroes in World War II, fills this gap in our understanding.Before WWII, many first-generation Japanese immigrants in the United States, known as “Issei,” already endured racial discrimination. President Theodore Roosevelt signed the Naturalization Act of 1906, limiting naturalization to someone who was a “white person” or had African nativity and descent. Therefore, Isseis...

Former Vice President Mike Pence during a speech Thursday in New Hampshire blasted the policies of President Joe Biden, observing the president had gone from campaigning “as a moderate” to becoming “the most liberal president since FDR.” Pence delivered his remarks during the Hillsborough County GOP’s annual Lincoln Reagan Dinner, and as he railed against Biden and spoke optimistically about the Republican Party’s future, the former vice president only further added to speculation that he himself could be considering a run for president in 2024. Although Pence did not give any indications of his plans during his comments, he conveyed...

BY AMITY SHLAES President Biden doesn’t want merely to showcase Franklin Roosevelt. He wants to replicate him. As President Roosevelt once did with the New Deal, Biden intends to spend to spur growth, though Biden’s proposals are magnitudes greater. As Roosevelt once did, Biden argues that helping unions helps the worker, and he hopes to undo 27 states’ “Right to Work” option.

Will the fake news media ignore this too? Joe Biden is sending unaccompanied migrant children from Central America to a former Japanese Internment Camp. This is the third camp for unaccompanied children in the state of California so far this year! Press California reported: The Los Angeles County Fairgrounds, one of the places Japanese Americans were held during World War II, will serve as an emergency shelter for unaccompanied children who have crossed the border into the United States, L.A. County has announced. Hilda Solis, chair of the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, said the decision was made after...

In early March, President Joe Biden met with a group of seven historians in the East Room of the White House. One topic of conversation: Franklin Delano Roosevelt and the New Deal. "He'd like to be [FDR]," Axios' Mike Allen reported in an inside account of the meeting. "Biden's presidency has already been transformative, and he has many more giant plans teed up that could make Biden's New Deal the biggest change to governance in our lifetimes." That's a bit over the top -- we don't know what is to come, but in its first 70 days Biden's presidency has...

The flood of people entering America illegally from Mexico is preventing Immigration and Customs Enforcement from properly processing them. The Biden Administration's revival of former President Obama's "catch-and-release" policy has resulted in thousands of immigrants, some of them COVID-positive, being put on buses and sent to towns in various states. Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-NY) admits "it's a mess," but insists "it's Trump's fault. Look, for four years Trump put the clamps on illegal entry with his wall, his 'wait in Mexico' requirement for asylum seekers, and his agreements with the Latin American governments to discourage caravans. President Biden...