Free Republic

Tuesday marks the 200th anniversary of the birth of Charles Dickens — the great 19th century English novelist who gave us stories of pathos and comedy, and colorful portraits of the people of London, from the poor in the back streets, to the rich in the parks and avenues. Lots of Dickens' phrases — like "Bah humbug" and "God bless us, every one!" — have slipped into our minds and our memories. And along with the words, the characters, too — from hungry orphan Oliver Twist to sweet and lonely little Nell to cruel Mr. Murdstone. "After Shakespeare, Dickens is...

She always called him “Mr. President” — not Jack. He refused to kiss her on the lips when they made love. But Mimi Alford, a White House intern from New Jersey, was smitten nonetheless. She was in the midst of an 18-month affair with the most powerful man in the world, sharing not only John F. Kennedy’s bed but also some of his darkest and most intimate moments. In her explosive new tell-all, “Once Upon a Secret: My Affair with President John F. Kennedy and Its Aftermath,” Alford, now a 69-year-old grandmother and retired New York City church administrator, sets...

Gibbs Shares ‘Regret’ for Explosive Michelle Obama Spat Former White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said he regrets losing his cool during an explosive 2010 White House staff meeting, in which he reportedly shouted profanities about the first lady. Gibbs downplayed the blowup, reported in a new book by New York Times correspondent Jodi Kantor, saying in a written statement today, “in any high-pressure work environment there are occasional arguments and disagreements and that is certainly true of the White House. I regret speaking in anger and regret that this disagreement became so public.” The incident followed reports that Michelle...

Jerry Sandusky's book, 'Touched,' helped police investigation into alleged sex crimesBy SARA GANIM, The Patriot-News Published: Sunday, January 08, 2012, 12:01 AM The investigation of Jerry Sandusky took three years. And it took Sandusky himself — through the pages of his autobiography, “Touched” — to help police find Victims 3, 4, 5 and 7. At the end of 2009, police had spent almost a year trying to corroborate claims by a single boy — a 17-year-old Clinton County teen later known as Victim 1 — who had alleged years of sexual abuse by Penn State’s legendary defensive coach. Only one...

The joys of Christmas do not include coping with crowds at shopping malls or wracking your brains trying to figure out what to get as a gift for someone who already seems to have everything. Books are a way out of both situations. You don't even have to go to a bookstore, with books so readily available on-line. As for the person who seems to have everything, newly published books are among the things they probably don't always have. One of the most enjoyable new books I read this year was a biography titled "Stan Musial: An American Life"...

FOR 30 years, Ronald Reagan’s breaking of the federal air traffic controller strike has often been seen as a turning point in United States history, the moment when labor unions began an inexorable decline and when political conservatism came of age. The columnist George Will celebrated the defeated strike as a sign that years of liberal permissiveness had ended. “In a sense,” he wrote, “the ’60s ended in August 1981.” A kind of myth has arisen — that the Reagan administration had this all planned, that it lured the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization, or Patco, into a trap so...

Many actors have breathed life into a memorable or even iconic role but only a few are capable of reconstructing an archetype. In "Maverick" and then again "The Rockford Files," James Garner stepped into two of TV's most calcified genres — the western and the detective series — and set a new standard that others have been chasing down since...

JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES and Friedrich Hayek. The names conjure opposing poles of thought about making economic policy: Keynes is often held up as the flag bearer of vigorous government intervention in the markets, while Hayek is regarded as the champion of laissez-faire capitalism. What these men actually thought — about the economy and each other — is more complicated, as Nicholas Wapshott demonstrates in “Keynes Hayek: The Clash That Defined Modern Economics” (W. W. Norton, $28.95). This lively book explores one of the most pressing economic questions of our time: To what extent should government intervene in markets? And in...

(Full Title) FDR Goes to War: How Expanded Executive Power, Spiraling National Debt, and Restricted Civil Liberties Shaped Wartime America Release Date:October 11, 2011 Reviews:"FDR Goes to War is a page-turning tour de force -- and a scholarly one, at that -- of the politics and economics of America's involvement in WWII. Be prepared to rethink much of what you think you know about FDR, the war, and the post-Depression U.S. economy." --Don Bordreaux, Chairman of the Department of Economics at George Mason University "In New Deal or Raw Deal? Burt Folsom exposed FDR's failed policies during the Great Depression....

Joe McGinniss complained to lefty blog Firedoglake yesterday that almost everyone is canceling interviews in which he was to have discussed his book, The Rogue: Searching for the Real Sarah Palin: Terry Gross [of NPR's Fresh Air] has declined to have me on her show. As have all other NPR shows. My fifteen seconds as part of a report on All Things Considered is all I get from NPR. I’m told they are scared of losing more federal funding if right wing Congresspeople complain that they are “promoting” my book. FYI, both Morning Joe and Keith Olbermann had me booked for...

officials have been busy compiling lists of what they say are a stunning number of basic factual errors. An administration official sent along a partial list under the headline "The Suskind Book Game: 'Too Big to Fact Check?'" From the list of alleged errors: "1.) Suskind wrote that Larry Summers needed Senate confirmation to lead the National Economic Council. 2.) Suskind wrote that Secretary Geithner served as 'Chairman' of the New York Fed. 3.) Suskind wrote that Gene Sperling served as 'an assistant Treasury Secretary.' 4.) Suskind wrote that Geithner had 'never been an undersecretary' at Treasury. 5.) Suskind wrote...

WASHINGTON—The alleged liaison between Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings entered a new phase upon the release of an updated scholarly report at the National Press Club on Sept. 1. The “Jefferson-Hemings Controversy: Report of the Scholars Commission” seeks to overturn the widely held belief that the author of the Declaration of Independence and third president of the United States had an affair with one of his slaves, Sally Hemings, and was the father of one or more of her children. The liaison has gained acceptance and notoriety in popular culture. In February 2000, “Sally Hemings: An American Scandal” was shown...

Former Secretary of State Colin Powell on Sunday dismissed as "cheap shots" the criticism leveled at him and others in Vice President Dick Cheney's memoir. It was the latest volley in a clash that stretches back to their first years in the George W. Bush administration.

Here he comes... Dick Cheney offers no regrets about his controversial role as one of America’s most influential vice presidents or his 40-year career. 'This is not an apology tour. It's the book of a proud conservative. He's not looking to kiss and make up with the NEW YORK TIMES set, or for that matter, some of his former Bush administration colleagues,' declares a source close to Cheney. MORE

Love for Ayn Rand goes unrequited. Libertarians love her, but she rejected them as "emotional hippies of the right." Conservatives love her, but she opposed Ronald Reagan, saying, "His likeliest motive for entering the Presidential race is power lust." Right-leaning Christians love her, but she was an atheist, an abortion supporter and a champion of the anti-Christian ideal that selfishness is a virtue. She also called religion a "sign of a psychological weakness." Her fans -- including Republican Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, talk radio's Rush Limbaugh and Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas -- would be crushed to learn she...

...But there was never anything silly, nor light-hearted, nor casual, about Barack Obama's efforts to keep the public's eyes from the basic facts of his life, from birth to his candidacy for president. On the contrary, this opacity is a deliberate policy. Why? The presumptive answer, absent testimony from those involved, is to ensure that real facts interfere as little as possible with the image and narrative that he and his associates have carefully crafted for him. Distinguishing between reality and that narrative would require above all a skeptical attitude, sure to be characterized by Democrats and the media in...

Republicans, including Sarah Palin and Rudy Giuliani, made a "strategic blunder" by making a joke of Barack Obama's work as a community organizer, Newt Gingrich says in a new book about the radical ACORN group. It was "not helpful" for Palin and Giuliani to mock community organizing in their speeches at the 2008 Republican National Convention, Gingrich tells investigative reporter Matthew Vadum in his new book, Subversion Inc. The GOP's mockery "trivialized Obama and Obama is not a trivial person," Gingrich said in an exclusive interview with Vadum featured in the book:

Foreward By Newt Gingrich – August 2010 I wish this book had never needed to be written. It almost came too late. America is recklessly accelerating toward economic disaster. Fed Up! may be the last warning sign to the danger that lies ahead. Rick Perry, Texas governor for the past decade, is uniquely qualified to offer a firsthand perspective on why the United States—the most successful civilization in human history—is being threatened with economic collapse. First Principles Faith, freedom, and free enterprise are the pillars of a strong, safe, prosperous society. Rick knows that when these principles are protected, America...

Tim Tebow Book “Through My Eyes� Shares Family’s Pro-Life Story by Steven Ertelt | LifeNews.com | 6/6/11 11:47 AMTim Tebow has become a star within pro-life circles — and for good reason. The popular Denver Broncos quarterback and former college football superstar and his family have become leading pro-life spokespeople thanks to their story.By now, most people are familiar with Tebow — who made his Christian faith the basis for his football success and who has inspired a generation of young people with his morals and values. Those values came in part because of the story Americans know almost...

An article on Esquire magazine’s website, claiming that the publisher of Jerome Corsi’s new book about President Obama’s birth certificate is pulling it from bookstores, may have been written as a parody, but not everyone is laughing. The Esquire story, written by Mark Warren, spread across the Internet moments after being posted on the magazine’s website Wednesday morning. Esquire has said it was a joke and Warren told TheDC he has no regrets about posting it. “He is an execrable piece of ****,” Warren said of Corsi.

In an especially well-timed release this week, Richard Miniter’s MASTERMIND: The Many Faces of the 9/11 Architect, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed reveals Mohammed’s rise to the top of Al Qaeda and his planning of the jihadist attacks on America in 2001. More than that, though, Miniter’s book includes shocking new disclosures about how the US treats its detainees. Miniter tells Big Peace: I was stunned to learn while researching Mastermind that Guantanamo detainees succeeded in convincing prison officials to no longer raise the American flag anywhere they could see it. Each morning on every U.S. military base around the world, the...

Advance praise for ‘The Quotable Rogue: The Ideals of Sarah Palin In Her Own Words’ 10:01 AM 04/22/2011 ADVERTISEMENT “The Quotable Rogue� is set for publication in June. Following are some of the excellent blurbs that will appear in the book: “If you learned everything you knew about American politics from Matt Lewis, you’d be in pretty good shape. I should know, since I practically do.“ – Tucker Carlson, Co-Founder and Editor-in-Chief of The Daily Caller“Matt Lewis is a conservative provocateur and has an easy way of making complicated issues understandable and leaving the DC jargon off the table. Matt’s...

Here’s a marketing question I thought I’d never ask: Would you think that a critically panned, low-budget movie, with a virtually unknown director and cast, could catapult a more than 50 year-old book near the top of the Amazon bestseller list? Well, exactly that appears to be happening with the movie adaptation of Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged.

Ronald Reagan and the so-called Reagan Revolution have come under the critical hammer of scholars for some time now. But the black nationalist Malcolm X - now called a civil rights leader, though he never was one - is finally beginning to achieve such position under the scholarly microscope. The reason that this is only happening nearly 50 years after his assassination is simple: Those bullying and ruthlessly maudlin ideologues who for so long preferred posturing to thought began to die off and the people victimized by them and other kinds of hustlers for decades are now beginning to grow...

Father Jonathan Morris discusses with Don Imus his latest book, "God Wants You Happy: From Self-Help to God's Help."

Whatever your response to the movie, know that there is no substitute for reading the Ayn Rand novel. (Also see: "Mr. Galt Goes to Washington.") Hearing about the new Atlas Shrugged movie, I thought back to my first encounter with Ayn Rand’s epic novel. When I read Atlas Shrugged, I was captivated. There were complicated romantic relationships, alliances and treachery, heroes who overcame obstacles, villains who tried to stop them, and an intriguing question that seemed to be behind it all: “Who is John Galt?� And yet, it was unlike anything I had ever read before. My response was far...

Hi everyone! It's time again for my "What Are You Reading?" thread. As you know, I consider Freepers to be among the more well-read of those of us on the Internet. I like to find out what all of you are reading these days. It can be anything...a technical journal, a NY Times best seller, a classic work of fiction, a trashy pulp novel. In short, it can be anything. However, please do not defile this thread by posting "I'm reading this thread". it became really unfunny a long time ago. I'll start. I'm about 15% of the way thru...

Just two months shy of his fourth birthday, Colton Burpo, the son of an evangelical pastor in Imperial, Neb., was rushed into emergency surgery with a burst appendix. He woke up with an astonishing story: He had died and gone to heaven, where he met his great-grandfather; the biblical figure Samson; John the Baptist; and Jesus, who had eyes that “were just sort of a sea-blue and they seemed to sparkle,” Colton, now 11 years old, recalled. Colton's father, Todd, has turned the boy’s experience into a 163-page book, “Heaven Is for Real,” which has become a sleeper paperback hit...

Bob Woodward is “flat-out disgusted” with Donald Rumsfeld’s memoir. “Rumsfeld's memoir is one big clean-up job, a brazen effort to shift blame to others -- including President Bush -- distort history, ignore the record or simply avoid discussing matters that cannot be airbrushed away,” Woodward writes on Tom Ricks’s Best Defense blog. “It is a travesty, and I think the rewrite job won't wash.”

Our guest today is Stanley Kurtz, a Senior Fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center and a contributing editor for National Review Online. He has also written for National Review, The Weekly Standard, The Wall Street Journal, Policy Review, and Commentary. He is the author of the new book, Radical-in-Chief: Barack Obama and the Untold Story of American Socialism. See Part 1 of the interview below:

Despite the family feud that has unfolded over the past few days between Ron Reagan and his half-brother Michael, Nancy Reagan said she is very proud of her son for writing his new book "My Father at 100." “She was worried about me. She said ‘Are you alright?’ I said ‘Yeah mom, I’m fine... but they are going to ask me what you think of the book. So what should I say to them,’” Ron Reagan said on “GMA.” “And she said, ‘You tell them that I’ve read it, I loved it, it made me cry and I’m very proud...

AMERICA BY HEART: REFLECTIONS ON FAMILY, FAITH AND FLAG Sarah Palin has read the writings of such intellectual giants as Milton Friedman, Alexis de Tocqueville and Whittaker Chambers and such historical leaders as Abraham Lincoln, John F. Kennedy, Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher.In "America by Heart: Reflections on Family, Faith and the Flag," she cites the published letters between John and Abigail Adams in this nation's infancy as well as the speech of Calvin Coolidge (probably one of America's most underrated presidents) on the occasion of this nation's 150th birthday.Beyond that, the 2008 Republican vice-presidential nominee - recently in USA...

Oprah Winfrey has chosen a pair of Charles Dickens classics, "A Tale of Two Cities" and "Great Expectations," as the latest selections for her popular book club. Winfrey said on Monday's episode of "The Oprah Winfrey Show" she has never read Dickens before. She said, "It's the best of times, readers," and called the books timeless classics.

Because Savage is unafraid – sadly, an uncommon trait even among today's leading conservatives – he is able to frame his worldview in terms that better capture the essence of what we're up against. For example, in Chapter 9 ("School Daze: Eliminating the Propaganda Ministry"), Savage calls it what it is. The current level of disinformation and misinformation coming out of the White House is not unlike the kind found in totalitarian regimes. Quoting Woody Allen, Savage reveals the depths to which our leftist citizens have sunk: "It would be good … if (Obama) could be dictator for a few...

Last Monday, cartoonist and columnist Ted Rall told MSNBC’s Dylan Ratigan that the revolution is nigh. “A war is coming,” Rall warned. “Are you going to fight back? Will you do whatever it takes, including taking up arms?” Rall was promoting his new book, “The Anti-American Manifesto,” and if you think his questions seem a little over the top, you’re likely one of “them” — a group Rall defines as “reactionary, stupid, overpaid, greedy, shortsighted, explicative, power-mad, abusive politicians and corporate executives.” The “Anti-American Manifesto” is a relentless and unfiltered condemnation of the corrupt capitalist husk currently known as the...

It's the book that changed America. And it isn't often that a book -- any book, even a popular, bestselling book like Mark Levin's Liberty and Tyranny: A Conservative Manifesto -- can be said to have changed the course of American politics and history. The phenomenon is rare, extremely rare, usually taking both the country and even the author by surprise. Yet Levin's book has done just that, saluted by Minnesota Republican Congresswoman Michele Bachmann in an exclusive talk with The American Spectator as "providing [the] intellectual balance and foundation" of the Tea Party movement. A movement that stands triumphant...

**Exclusive** **Must Credit** "It was a simple question, 'Can you remember the last day you didn't have a drink?'" So begins President George W. Bush in the opening chapter ["Quitting"] from the most anticipated book of the season, the DRUDGE REPORT can reveal. With DECISION POINTS, set for release November 9, Bush pulls back the curtain with a strikingly personal work that takes very few shots at his critics. The former president even stays clear of Obama! ** From 911's "Day of Fire" to "Katrina" to "Financial Crisis", Bush explains how he returned to his faith, time and time again....

No link just headlines. Could this be the October Surprise?

In an interview on NBC's "Today Show" this morning, former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice admitted she doesn't miss the pressures of her former job, adding that now, when she hears breaking news, she doesn't "have to do anything about it." "It's nice to be out of the pressure-cooker, frankly," she acknowledged to "Today" host Meredith Veiera. Rice, who was on "Today" to promote her new memoir, "Condoleezza Rice: A Memoir of My Extraordinary, Ordinary Family and Me," spoke about her childhood in Birmingham, Alabama, and defended some of the more controversial foreign policy initiatives from the Bush administration. "History...

I was just curious if you wouldn't mind giving your opinion(s) on which new book by which author Jason Lewis or Dr. Michael Savage(on at the same time) I should read. The books are called Power Divided is Power Checked and Trickle-up Poverty.

Defining 'New Labour,' defending the Iraq war, getting to know George W. Bush. It is now painfully obvious that Tony Blair—the man who led Britain for a decade, who transformed the country's dully orthodox Labour Party into dashing, moderate "New Labour," who faced down parliamentary opponents with brio and eloquently defended the invasion of Iraq—is no longer much of a hero in his own country. Indeed, he is intensely disliked, not least for his loyalty to the "freedom agenda"—the idea that, after 9/11, Western democracies had a duty to face down tyrants like Saddam Hussein and end the threat they...

"People often think that because I'm cheap, I don't really enjoy life. In fact, it's just the opposite. Because I don't need to spend a lot of money to enjoy life, I don't need to spend a lot of time getting a lot of money," Yeager explains on his website. In his book, The Cheapskate Next Door, Yeager shows readers how to live happily below their means. He reveals the 16 key attitudes about money – and life – that allow the cheapskates next door to live happy, comfortable, debt-free lives while spending only a fraction of what most Americans...

Over the past decade, “neocon” has become an all-purpose term of abuse among critics of the right. Yet few of these critics appear to realize that from the beginning there have been two very different branches of neoconservative thinking. The first aimed to bring sober, dispassionate analysis and a skeptical temper to questions of domestic policy; the second specialized in devising cogent, often highly polemical arguments in favor of a militarily aggressive foreign policy. The first exercised its greatest political influence during the 1990s with Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani’s crime-fighting policies and the 1996 Welfare Reform Act. The second peaked...

"...All readers will be moved by this honest, riveting, and exceedingly well-written story of frustration and hope, sin and redemption..." --Notre Dame's Father Richard P. McBrien, from the book's jacket cover. "As I was leaving [Pope John Paul II] suddenly asked me out of thin air: ‘How old are you now?’ When I replied ‘Seventy-one,’ he did not look me in the eye but, with bowed head and expressionless face gave a low, indistinct grumble. I interpreted it...as a way of saying, ‘I guess I still have to tolerate you for four more years’ --Archbishop Weakland, after his last...

President Barack Obama has said, "I believe in American exceptionalism just as I suspect that the Brits believe in British exceptionalism, and the Greeks in Greek exceptionalism." Others would certainly agree that each nation has a unique history, but that misunderstands the concept of American exceptionalism: It means that this nation of pioneers and immigrants is different from the European countries built by people who stayed home and emphasized security. Some say the United States has had a blessed existence, others a charmed life, but for two centuries (except for that little incident called the Civil War) we haven't had...

Czarist America Bethany Stotts, July 1, 2010 At Accuracy in Academia’s June 21 Author’s Night Ken Blackwell and Ken Klukowski discussed the premises of their book The Blueprint: Obama’s Plan to Subvert the Constitution and Build an Imperial Presidency. “That is a very provocative title,” noted Blackwell, the former Ohio Secretary of State. The book does not, he cautioned, say that President Barack Obama is a “tyrant” or “evil,” but that his actions have undermined the principles of the U.S. Constitution and that “…Team Obama is determined to change the balance of power achieved through the separations of power and...

"The Petrine aspect perhaps appears nowhere more clearly than in Paul" Hans Urs von Balthasar on Peter and Paul | From The Office of Peter and the Structure of the Church The bursting of all comprehensible models in the constellation around Jesus can become most perplexing to human reason. Take the seeming contradiction introduced by the call of Paul to an apostolate that ranks with that of the Twelve. He has to fight hard for it, all the more so because his vision of the Risen One, which makes him and his mission coequal with the first witnesses, is of...

"Robot Hearts" is a well-written compilation of online dating adventures, the good, the bad and the ugly. My own story-"We Did It!"- is included in this collection and it may well be the only one with a happy ending.

Dutch Country Educational Drama Malcolm A. Kline, June 22, 2010 Call it a mystery with a moral but first-time novelist John DeFrank delivers both with stunning success in Condemned to Freedom, set in a public school in the Pennsylvania Dutch Country. It should be noted that in this case Freedom is both the name of the fictional town and county the book takes place in as well as an allegorical reference to the responsibility that goes with the state of being. It is a milieu DeFrank knows well, having spent three decades plus as a teacher/counselor/administrator in the Lebanon County...

The Life of Buckley Bethany Stotts, June 21, 2010 At Accuracy in Academia’s June 14 Author’s night, Heritage Foundation scholar Lee Edwards described the late William F. Buckley Jr. as the St. Paul of the conservative movement. The founder of National Review, Buckley Jr. was a devout Catholic. Buckley “could almost be called in some sense the patron saint of the tea party movement,” which supports limited government, is anti-establishment, and “love[s] to stick a finger in the eye of the Republican party, and the Democratic party…and all organized parties,” argued Edwards, author of William F. Buckley, Jr.: The Maker...