Free Republic

Jefferson, a member of the gentry of Old Virginia, was always regarded as one of the best and brightest of his generation, a gentleman of the finest intellect, taste, and manners. Although Jefferson loved and was loyal to the Union, he was a Virginian first and an American second; Virginia, Jefferson avowed, was his “country.” This order of allegiance – State over Union, or “Society” over “the State” – was firmly rooted in the Old South. Accordingly, in the emerging conflict between the North and the South, Jefferson sided with his own country. “It is true that we are completely...

LAS VEGAS - A loner who long had struggled financially, Roger Bergendorff told investigators that he found making ricin an "exotic idea." So he researched the deadly toxin online. He bought "The Anarchists Cookbook." He ordered castor bean seeds -- ricin comes from the processed beans' waste -- apparently posing as a fictitious customer: "Roger's Patio and Garden." He donned a mask and gloves, mashed the beans with acetone, dried out the oil and stored the light-colored powder in a polypropylene container. According to a six-page federal complaint released Wednesday, Bergendorff fell ill while keeping a "crude" form of the...

But we have seen Mrs. Palin on the national stage for seven weeks now, and there is little sign that she has the tools, the equipment, the knowledge or the philosophical grounding one hopes for, and expects, in a holder of high office. She is a person of great ambition, but the question remains: What is the purpose of the ambition? She wants to rise, but what for? For seven weeks I've listened to her, trying to understand if she is Bushian or Reaganite—a spender, to speak briefly, whose political decisions seem untethered to a political philosophy, and whose foreign...

I mean no disrespect to the dead, but I take the British view of obituaries, which is to try to capture the true public significance of the person who died, not just his good qualities. The truth about the Rev. Jerry Falwell is that he was a character assassin and hype artist who left little positive impact on the United States-and little negative impact either, for that matter. Besides founding Liberty University, he won’t be remembered as nearly as influential as he’s made out to be. .................. According to lore (and much of the coverage of his death), November, 1980...

Poison Pen: The Unauthorized Biography of Kitty Kelley by George Carpozi Jr. Barricade Books, Incorporated, 1991. 368 pages, illustrated. READER REVIEW Kitty Kelley must have never heard the old aphorism, "don't dish it out, if you can't take it" because this unauthorized biography caused her considerable well publicized consternation. Her response is certainly understandable because the referenced source materials certainly surpass the innuendo and outright sophistry of her books, and the charges against her are severe. From shoplifting to rampant dishonesty (that allegation should cause little surprise among those familiar with her work), to uninhibited sexual hi-jinks, Carpozi throws it...

SECOND US POISON SCARE A second suspected case of the deadly poison ricin is being investigated in the United States. An envelope containing a suspicious powder, addressed to the Republican National Committee and found in a Connecticut post office, is being tested. The letter was discovered hours after a powder which initially tested positive for ricin was found in a US Senate mailroom. Officials in Connecticut said field tests of the powder were inconclusive but all mail associated with the envelope was isolated until laboratory tests were completed. "We are performing a battery of tests for biological and chemical agents,...