Free Republic

Among the multitudes that America used to contain were Whittaker Chambers and Arthur Schlesinger Jr. A few months ago I happened to reread both Chambers’ autobiography Witness and Schlesinger’s Journals 1952-2000 one after the other. These two men are of different generations: Chambers lived from 1901 to 1961 and Schlesinger 1917 to 2007. They are of completely different temperaments, milieus, politics, and tastes. But there are some fascinating overlaps that have some bearing on the difficult passage we are traversing today as a nation.

“For the first time since President Richard M. Nixon’s divisive ‘Southern strategy’ that sent whites to the Republican Party and blacks to the Democrats …” began a New York Times story last week. Thus has one of the big lies of U.S. political history morphed into a cliche — that Richard Nixon used racist politics to steal the South from a Democratic Party battling heroically for civil rights. A brief stroll through Bruce Bartlett’s “Wrong on Race: The Democratic Party’s Buried Past” might better enlighten us. Where Teddy Roosevelt invited Booker T. Washington to dinner, Woodrow Wilson re-segregated the U.S....

A few months ago, I had dinner with a journalist who knows President Obama somewhat well and admires him in several respects. He told me something that didn’t particularly surprise me – but which was useful to have confirmed. This person’ said Obama is enormously thin-skinned, he remembers and keeps track of negative things said and written about him, and he is a person filled with many more grievances and resentments than one might imagine. He feels sorry for himself – and he is inclined to lash out, in his own emotionally contained way, at even slight criticisms. I was...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TivVcfSBVSM

Sorry, not taking Wikipedia as a source. Nor are spurious "conspiracy theory" comments welcomed. It's an honest question. Answers should cite primary sources and such primary sources should cite date and type of audit. I also expand this question to include all US stores, where the gold is owned by the US. Answers must distinguish between "holding" and "ownership", the question is to ownership! I note that a great failing of our times is that people do not know how to keep books anymore, and even less how to audit. Too many make assumptions, or give a cheap pass to...

“The new rules will cover all financial institutions, including those not now covered by any pay rules because they are not receiving federal bailout money.” — Administration Seeks Increase in Oversight of Executive Pay, NY Times, March 21, 2009 [emphasis added] Under the Obama administration theory of never letting a good crisis go to waste, it looks like PBO is planning to exploit popular outrage over the AIG bonuses to impose compensation limits not merely on employees of firms receiving bailout funds, but on those of all financial institutions. This is nothing less than wage controls. And of course we...

I hope Mark Felt and his family get the big payoff they want, but they've already hurt their chances by ignoring his famous advice as Deep Throat. They didn't follow the money. They didn't appreciate how seriously we journalists take our ethical standards. We are bound by the sacred vow we make to our sources: if the information you give us turns out to be profitable, we will keep the money. Mr. Felt's family tried profiting from his revelation, but the news cartel held firm. People and Vanity Fair both rejected the family's overtures and held to their policy of...