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March 17, 1973: A special evening with country music legend Merle Haggard in the East Room of the White House on St. Patrick's Day, 1973. Includes performances and a reading of a poem Haggard wrote for First Lady Pat Nixon on the occasion of her birthday. The program was filmed and produced by the Naval Photographic Center. The Naval Photographic Center White House Motion Film Unit Collection consists of motion film coverage of selected official activities of President Nixon filmed between 1969 and 1974.

Here’s Merle Haggard doing spot-on impersonations of Marty Robbins, Hank Snow, Buck Owens, and Johnny Cash. If you’re a fan of those great country singers, you’ll enjoy this short clip.

atherine Herridge is joining CBS News as a senior investigative correspondent based in Washington D.C. Herridge has played a critical part of Fox News newsgathering over the past decade and has been a central figure in reporting on D.C. based stories in the past year, namely the Mueller Report and hearings as well as the current Trump-Ukraine scandal that has launched the current impeachment inquiry led by House Democrats. While this will likely be viewed as a significant loss for Fox News news division, her hiring by a network news department such as CBS is a badge of honor for...

Ted Haggard was once one of the most power evangelical leaders in America. New Life Church leader Ted Haggard was once one of America's most charismatic and powerful evangelical leaders, with an audience of more than 30 million people. Ted began counseling foreign dignitaries and consulting on a weekly basis with President George W. Bush. By 2005, Time magazine named him one of the most influential evangelicals in America. But no one—not even his devoted wife, five children and his Colorado Springs, Colorado-based congregation—suspected that Ted was paying an admitted male escort for crystal meth. In November 2006, Mike Jones...

Keith Richards was facing seven years in prison in 1977 for a massive drug bust at his Toronto hotel room. The night before he was sentenced, he headed to Toronto's Interchange Studios and recorded several songs he'd learned from his late friend Gram Parsons. The highlight was "Sing Me Back Home," a ballad Merle Haggard wrote about his time at San Quentin. For our upcoming issue, Richards spoke with Rolling Stone about his appreciation for Haggard, who died earlier this month, who he calls "one of the great country singers of all time and a hell of a guitar player."I...

Merle Haggard has died after a series of recent health struggles. The legendary singer passed away on April 6, 2016, which was also his 79th birthday. Haggard canceled tour dates in December of 2015 after he checked into a hospital and learned he had double pneumonia.

BAKERSFIELD, Calif. - Country music legend, and Oildale native, Merle Haggard has passed away on his birthday. He was 79-years-old.

Ted Haggard, a preacher who stepped down in 2006 from his position as president of the National Association of Evangelicals and pastor of New Life Church in Colorado Springs, Colo., following a sex and drug scandal, recently spoke out about Isaac Hunter’s suicide, an event that took the evangelical world by storm last week. Focusing specifically on the scandals and charges of wrongdoing that have surrounded many famed preachers — himself included — Haggard said that evangelical Christians sometimes fail to properly apply the gospel when dealing with faith leaders who fall from grace. Hunter, the former pastor of Summit...

COLORADO SPRINGS, October 22, 2012, (LifeSiteNews.com) – Ted Haggard, the megachurch leader whose dalliances with a male prostitute toppled him from his church in 2006, has now endorsed same-sex “marriage.” “I don’t think the state has any role dictating or mandating” morality, he said. “Though we would oppose that in our churches, [same-sex weddings] should be allowed by the state.” Haggard, who founded the 14,000-member New Life Church in Colorado Springs, served as president of the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE) until he admitted that he paid male prostitute Mike Jones for sex, used crystal meth, and viewed pornography featuring...

ABC's 'Celebrity Wife Swap' has reportedly lined up two participants: Gary Busey and former New Life Church pastor Ted Haggard. Yep, you read those names right. According to the Colorado Springs Gazette, Haggard and Busey will swap partners ... without the sex of course. The Gazette reports the show will shoot at the GLBT Pride Center in Colorado Springs on Thurs., Sept. 22. Each episode of 'Celebrity Wife Swap' follows two couples as they switch wives for two weeks. For the first week the new wives must live by the manual left by host family. The second week, the new...

The Treachery of the Perverse- by billrandles Wisdom crieth without; she uttereth her voice in the streets:She crieth in the chief place of concourse, in the openings of the gates: in the city she uttereth her words, saying,How long, ye simple ones, will ye love simplicity? and the scorners delight in their scorning, and fools hate knowledge?Turn you at my reproof: behold, I will pour out my spirit unto you, I will make known my words unto you.(Proverbs 1:20-23) As the Proverbs tells us ,Wisdom is crying out in the public concourse. However it is only accessible to those who...

(CNN) -- Ted Haggard, the megachurch pastor and former National Association of Evangelicals chief whose career was undone by a gay prostitution and drugs scandal in 2006, plans to start a new church. Standing in front of his barn, Haggard and his family announced Wednesday that they are starting a church in Colorado Springs, Colorado called Saint James. The church will not be affiliated with any denomination. It will have its first gathering Sunday at the Haggard home.

Ted and Gayle Haggard recently incorporated St. James Church, sited at their home on Old Ranch Road in Colorado Springs, where the couple held two overflowing prayer meetings in November. The Haggards did not return The Post's calls, but Ted Haggard, the deposed founder of the New Life megachurch, told the Gazette newspaper on Tuesday that the incorporation of a new church on April 29 was done for accounting purposes — tracking reimbursement of travel costs as they speak at churches and other venues around the country.

Whatever your view on homosexuality might be as it pertains to Christianity, there's probably one place one wouldn't go to seek clarity on the issue - a Jewish TV host that's in his seventh marriage. However, CNN, the so-called most trusted name in news, had "Larry King Live" host Larry King tackle this issue on his April 23 program in a special broadcast entitled "Can You Be Christian and Gay?" King's special featured recently-out Christian singer Jennifer Knapp, embattled former evangelical preacher Ted Haggard and Horizon Christian Fellowship Senior Pastor Bob Bostford. But it was Bostford, who had previously been...

Mike Huckabee talks to Gayle Haggard, the wife of Pastor Ted Haggard, about her reasons for staying in her marriage after her husbands marital infidelity became public. (there are 2 parts)

By Andrew W. Griffin Red Dirt Report, editor Posted: September 24, 2009 reddirtreporter@gmail.com OKLAHOMA CITY – Despite the fact that the October 1, 2009 issue of Rolling Stone features a cover story on no-talent “actress” Megan Fox, America’s premier corporate-rock magazine Rolling Stone, features a terrific – and very long – story titled “The Fighter: The Life and Times of Merle Haggard.” It’s written by Jason Fine and it’s an epic profile on a true American original and one of the best artists in country music. And while we get the Hag’s history from top to bottom, we also get...

Country music legend Merle Haggard, who is recovering from cancer surgery, has condemned young country stars, insisting they are having hits with all the wrong tunes. The 71-year-old says he hates the songs of country music’’s current crop of leading ladies, with Carrie Underwood topping the list. “Carrie Underwear, or Underwood. I mean, I like her, but where’’s the songs. You have to get past the belly buttons and the videos, Contactmusic quoted Haggard as telling America’’s Globe. He also said country music today is so perfect. Maybe too perfect. “There are no surprises,” he said. “Everything is going to...

ABC has apparently never heard that phrase, "There are two sides to every story." On Feb. 1, "World News Sunday" helped shamed former-pastor Ted Haggard take shots at the Christian conservatives who he says "shunned him." Reporter Dan Harris introduced the piece by qualifying Haggard as a former "insider, a powerful pastor at the highest levels of the Christian conservative movement." Haggard, who made headlines two years ago for getting caught in a gay sex scandal, is now offering advice to the Christian conservative movement; and ABC gave him the megaphone. Here is a portion of Harris' interview with Haggard:

The Trials of Ted Haggard isn’t the hit piece one might suspect of a project directed by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s daughter, filmmaker Alexandra Pelosi. Then again, it’s hard to determine just what Trials truly is. The exasperating documentary, airing tonight on HBO, tracks the disgraced pastor’s life following news he had had a sexual relation with a male prostitute. The documentary’s timing is fortuitous for anyone eager to swat Haggard for his actions. News broke this week of another sex scandal involving the once-mighty pastor....

Former evangelical leader Ted Haggard on the life he hid from his wife, his children and 30 million devoted followers. The gay sex and drug scandal that took him down. In his first television interview since the scandal, Ted talks with Oprah about why he kept secret a part of his life he calls dark and repulsive. "It was the first time that dark area of my life I'd worked so hard to fight against was coming to the surface," he says. "And to say it, and to talk about it, was so shameful and shocking. Even to me." In...