Free Republic

I am writing as a general observer of life and society, not as social researcher, intellectual or someone who aspires to be... I'm what you may call, a common man; one with other demands on my time that prevent me from writing an in depth treatise on the subject. But for anybody who does have the time, aptitude and inclination, this I believe would be a great title for a book, identifying the cross-purposes between a despot and useful idiots; a kind of symbiotic social contract... a look at the historical compared to the present. The modern context of course...

Timeless words...written 149 years ago but could have been penned yesterday, but not by the current Imposter-in-Chief: "Insomuch as we know that, by His divine law, nations like individuals are subjected to punishments and chastisements in this world, may we not justly fear that the awful calamity of civil war, which now desolates the land, may be but a punishment, inflicted upon us, for our presumptuous sins, to the needful end of our national reformation as a whole People? We have been the recipients of the choicest bounties of Heaven. We have been preserved, these many years, in peace and...

Abraham Lincoln’s greatest love was politics, but his intellectual passion was for what the 19th century called “political economy” — the way economics and politics intersected in society and government. According to his law partner William Herndon, Lincoln “liked political economy, the study of it,” and Shelby Cullom, who practiced law beside Lincoln in Springfield, Ill. (and later crafted the Interstate Commerce Act of 1887), thought that “theoretically . . . on political economy he was great.” Although Lincoln’s angular, shambling appearance gave him the look of anything but a student of economics — one contemporary said he resembled “a...

The Obama administration said Thursday that its top health official will "exercise her discretion" in enforcing a new health-law requirement, a move that could help McDonald's Corp. and other employers from disrupting their health-care policies for hourly workers. The announcement Thursday followed a report in The Wall Street Journal that McDonald's warned federal regulators it could drop its health-insurance plan for nearly 30,000 restaurant workers unless regulators waive a new requirement of the health overhaul. The requirement, known as the minimum medical loss ratio, concerns the percentage of revenue received from premiums that must be spent on benefits. McDonald's is...

This article gives another perspective on liberals, libertarians and conservatives. The history both Lincoln and Sherman has been written by the victors and beyond reproach. Do we want to restore honor in this country? Can we restore honor by bringing up subjects over 100 years old? Comments are encouraged. Randy's Right aka Randy Dye NC Freedom The American Lenin by L. Neil Smith lneil@lneilsmith.org It’s harder and harder these days to tell a liberal from a conservative — given the former category’s increasingly blatant hostility toward the First Amendment, and the latter’s prissy new disdain for the Second Amendment —...

Barack Obama is America's second wartime president from Illinois. Depictions of the first are, of course, on every penny and $5 bill. The new book, "Obama's Wars" by Bob Woodward, offers troubling contrasts between the way Abraham Lincoln learned to handle a war and President Obama's role in overseeing U.S. efforts in Afghanistan. President Lincoln, whose military experience amounted to a brief and undistinguished appearance in a minor battle against Native Americans, learned about wartime leadership on the job. From the attack on Fort Sumter in 1861 through the Union victories at Vicksburg and Gettysburg in July 1863, he led...

Texas would have to preserve its current education spending levels through 2013 to qualify for more than $830 million in federal aid under a Texas-specific provision signed into law Tuesday by President Barack Obama. The mandate passed the House on Tuesday afternoon as part of a $26 billion jobs protection bill, despite strong opposition from Texas Republicans. Several said the amendment unfairly singled out the state and jeopardized its ability to receive the funds. Gov. Rick Perry said the provision, which applies only to Texas, is unconstitutional because state officials can't guarantee future spending. And only days after Lt. Gov....

PAWTUCKET — It was 150 years ago this month that then-presidential candidate Abraham Lincoln made a train journey from Providence to Woonsocket where he delivered one of his most significant speeches to a crowd of 1,500. On May 15, the Blackstone Valley Tourism Council is making it possible to experience some of the excitement of that historic campaign visit with a special event. The 150th Abraham Lincoln Train Tour will recreate this journey that was made in 1860 by America's 16th president. Participants will ride on an excursion car on the Providence & Worcester Railroad, the same railway line that...

Hi FRiends, I have two brothers who I love very much, they’re young and libertarian Ron Paul supporters, sigh. We get along and I’m hoping that one day they’ll come back to conservatism, but they have bought into a theory that I don’t think makes much sense: Abe Lincoln was a dictator. There are many websites dedicated to this nonsense you can Google "Abe Lincoln dictator" and get some weird stuff, if you want to check it out. I need your help in busting this myth are there any books I can read on this subject to dispel this stuff?...

Had Americans been able to stop obsessing over the color of Barack Obama's skin and instead paid more attention to his cultural identity, maybe he would not be in the White House today. The key to understanding him lies with his identification with his father, and his adoption of a cultural and political mindset rooted in postcolonial Africa. Like many educated intellectuals in postcolonial Africa, Barack Hussein Obama , Sr. was enraged at the transformation of his native land by its colonial conqueror. But instead of embracing the traditional values of his own tribal cultural past, he embraced an imported...

It has always been a mystery how Jacob Zuma, South Africa’s polygamist President, can afford to keep a roof over all those wives and his 20 children. Now taxpayers have the answer. They have unwittingly been picking up a large chunk of the £6 million bill for a series of home improvements, including a helicopter pad and a clinic at his rural home in KwaZulu-Natal. Since the genial Mr Zuma, 67, was forced to admit last year that he had fathered his 20th child with a woman who was neither one of his three wives nor a fiancée, his ostentatious...

North Korea's recent revaluation of its currency (100 old won get you one new won) was done to deal with rampant inflation, and to destroy the rising power of people who have made lots of money in the legalized markets. This is what caused the inflation, as not enough new goods were allowed into the country to absorb all that new wealth. Thus there was inflation, as more money chased fewer goods. This drove up the price of food. In a market economy, farmers could have increased output in response to higher prices. But the government controls farming, and continues...

LEXINGTON, Va. (AP) -- Americans must pay attention to challenges to democracy today just as Abraham Lincoln did by fiercely opposing slavery, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas told a conference on the 16th president's legacy Friday night. "We are part of something far greater than ourselves," Thomas told more than 300 people at Washington and Lee University. Many in Lincoln's time didn't realize the threat that slavery posed to the principles on which the nation was founded, Thomas said. "What a miserable job he had. He wasn't popular," Thomas said, "but he did what was right." Thomas received a standing...

Today is the 146th anniversary of the end of the Battle of Gettysburg. A few months later, as the National Cemetery there was being organized, an invitation was extended to President Lincoln to give "a few appropriate remarks" for the dedication in November, 1863. Lincoln would not be the main speaker, that honor would go to Edward Everett, one of the foremost orators of the day. Everett spoke for almost two hours and, for the most part, his remarks are lost to the ages. Lincoln's "few appropriate remarks" however, are some of the most familiar wods in American History. To...

One of the greatest misconceptions of American history is that the Civil War was fought over slavery. Those who subscribe to this belief see President Abraham Lincoln as the benevolent leader who made unimaginable sacrifices in human blood to wipe out America’s greatest sin. While the human sacrifice is indisputable and the sin was monumental, the war’s purpose was not to free blacks from the shackles of bondage. Rather, the Civil War was fought with one purpose in mind: To preserve the Union at all costs. And, to put it in Lincoln’s terms, with no ifs, ands, or buts. You’d...

PHILADELPHIA – John Sotos has a theory about why Abraham Lincoln was so tall, why he appeared to have lumps on his lips and even why he had gastrointestinal problems. The 16th president, he contends, had a rare genetic disorder — one that would likely have left him dead of cancer within a year had he not been assassinated. And his bid to prove his theory has posed an ethical and scientific dilemma for a small Philadelphia museum in the year that marks the 200th anniversary of Lincoln's birth.

Liberal Fascism, a book by Jonah Goldberg, is a must read for all prophetic seekers of Christ's Second Coming! This book is officially endorsed by The Ignorant Fishermen blog. Liberal Fascism historically documents the outworking, mindset and strategic game plan of the ideological phenomenon of liberal socialistic fascism in both the past and present. This insight is absolutely key to understanding present moods and trends on both a national and global scale. As prophetic events are unfolding right before our eyes, we who know the Lord Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior understand that greater things are at work...

For nearly 150 years, Abraham Lincoln's pocket watch has been rumored to carry a secret message, supposedly written by an Irish immigrant and watchmaker named Jonathan Dillon. Dillon, working in a D.C. watch repair shop in 1861, told family members that he -- by incredible happenstance -- had been repairing Lincoln's watch when news came that Fort Sumter had been attacked in South Carolina. It was the opening salvo of what became the Civil War. Dillon told his children (and, half a century later, a reporter for the New York Times) that he opened the watch's inner workings and scrawled...

IN CONGRESS, JULY 4, 1776 The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation. We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that...

I don't know what they teach in U.S. history classes today. But back in the middle of the last century, when I was in elementary school, there was absolutely no question about how we were to regard Abraham Lincoln. We were taught to feel a reverence bordering on awe for Honest Abe, the Great Emancipator, the eloquent martyr who saved the Republic. We were required to memorize the Gettysburg Address. And if we were lucky enough to join a field trip to our nation's capitol, one of the most significant events was our visit to the Lincoln Memorial. (A few...

September, 1862 This fragment was found and preserved by John Hay, one of President Lincoln's secretaries, who said it was not written to be seen of men." "The will of God prevails. In great contests each party claims to act in accordance with the will of God. Both may be, and one must be, wrong. God cannot be for and against the same thing at the same time. In the present civil war it is quite possible that God's purpose is something different from the purpose of either party -- and yet the human instrumentalities, working just as they do,...

Hartford (WTNH) _ A long forgotten flag was discovered at the Connecticut Historical Society and it dates back to the days of President Abraham Lincoln. Dr. Susan Schoelwer from the Connecticut Historical Society says a handwritten note accompanied the flag inside a simple black box. "You know we have a lot of stuff with a lot of little notes on them. Some of them are true and some of them are not," Susan said. In this case the note claims that the tattered American flag was present at a traumatic event in American history and the hand of a great...

BOSTIC - For a man with "Honest Abe" as his nickname, there are plenty of Abraham Lincoln stories that may be anything but. Lincoln did not compose the Gettysburg Address on the back of an envelope. No one really knows whether the store clerk Lincoln walked six miles to return 3 cents he overcharged. And his wife wasn't a Confederate spy. Now this small town in Western North Carolina is pressing its own claim: Lincoln was a Tar Heel. According to a tale that locals swear is true: The 16th president of the United States wasn't born in Kentucky, as...

Saving the environment is not about protecting the fish and the birds, according to Robert F. Kennedy Jr. It is about protecting the human race. Kennedy, nephew of former President John F. Kennedy, spoke at Western Hall Wednesday as part of Western's theme, "Global Challenges and Personal Responsibility." An award-winning journalist and lawyer, Kennedy spoke about the lackadaisical state of environmental law. He also talked about the roles of corporations with respect to nature and the media's impact on the issue in his presentation. He added that the biggest threat to water resources in America is the Bush administration. According...

IN SEPTEMBER 1862, Union troops were soundly defeated by Confederate forces led by Stonewall Jackson and Robert E. Lee at Manassas Junction, Virginia. The North called it the Second Battle of Bull Run. President Abraham Lincoln's somber mood afterward was recorded in a diary entry by Attorney General Edward Bates, who wrote that Lincoln "seemed wrung by the bitterest anguish--said he felt almost ready to hang himself." Soon afterward Lincoln wrote out a private musing on a small piece of lined paper. He sought to discern the will of God among the cacophony of voices all around him after news...

Today is of course the birthday of America's greatest president, Abraham Lincoln. As a politician and as president, Lincoln was a profound student of the Constitution and constitutional history. Perhaps most important, Lincoln was America's indispensable teacher of the moral ground of political freedom at the exact moment when the country was on the threshold of abandoning what he called its "ancient faith" that all men are created equal. In 1858 Lincoln attained national prominence in the Republican Party as the result of the contest for the Senate seat held by Stephen Douglas. It was Lincoln's losing campaign against Douglas...

Venezuela's Chavez says "gringos go to hell" 7 minutes ago Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez on Sunday told the U.S. government to "go to hell" after it questioned his plan to seek special powers to legislate by decree as part of his self-styled socialist revolution. Chavez, a Cuba ally re-elected by a landslide in December, this month launched a broad campaign to consolidate power by nationalizing key industries, seeking expanded executive powers and pushing for unlimited presidential re-election. A State Department spokesman on Friday said Chavez's reform plans have caused "some concern," describing the proposal allowing presidents to rule by decree...

RUSH: John in Shreveport, Louisiana. Hello. CALLER: Mr. Rush, don't you think you're being a hypocrite when you're not -- when you don't want the Iraqis to decide the problems themselves, especially since Abraham Lincoln took two -- two generals named Lincoln [sic--Grant] and Sherman who were responsible for the deaths of 59,000 southern people? And since you hate Confederate heritage that much, don't you think that we should allow the people of Iraq to decide their own fate? RUSH: (Laughing.) Gee. I hate Confederate heritage? CALLER: No kidding. RUSH: On the basis of what do you say that? CALLER:...

Alexander Litvinenko was poisoned on the direct orders of the Kremlin because of his biting mockery of President Putin, according to a former Soviet spy now living in Britain. Oleg Gordievsky, the most senior KGB agent to defect to Britain, said that the attempt to kill Mr Litvinenko had been state-sponsored. It was carried out by a Russian friend and former colleague who had been recruited secretly in prison by the FSB, the successor to the KGB. The Italian who allegedly put poison in Mr Litvinenko’s sushi “had nothing to do with it”. “Of course it is state-sponsored. He...

WASHINGTON — When Iran's ex-president was having his picture taken with admirers at a gala dinner sponsored by the Council on American-Islamic Relations in northern Virginia, he received an unexpected message from some of his former countrymen. It was a summons to appear at the U.S. District Court of the Southern District of New York in Manhattan.

He is accused of destroying entire villages and killing tens of thousands of men, women and children in the cruelest way, by poison gas and nerve agents, but it was the claim that Kurdish women were raped under his leadership that made former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein fly into an indignant rage on the first day of his new trial for genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity Monday morning. "I can never accept the claim that an Iraqi woman was raped while Saddam is president," the ousted leader shouted, as he slammed the podium before him and pointed defiantly...

Surgeons fought for hours to save Castro's life By Phil Hart in Havana (Filed: 06/08/2006) Doctors at the exclusive Cimeq hospital in western Havana are accustomed to handling the delicate health problems of Cuba's communist elite. It was here last weekend, The Sunday Telegraph has learnt, that they battled for several hours to save the life of the regime's most important patient, Fidel Castro. Unable to stem intestinal bleeding with drugs, the country's top surgeons performed an emergency operation on the veteran leader. To all but a handful of trusted doctors and his closest lieutenants, President Castro's medical condition has...

Henry Winkler won fame on the old "Happy Days" comedy. He played Arthur Herbert Fonzarelli, also know as Fonzie or the Fonz. In real life, Winkler certainly isn't the tough guy he portrayed. He is an ardent liberal who over the years has made campaign contributions to Bill Clinton, Joe Biden, John Kerry and many of the usual suspects. Wednesday night on CNN Headline News' Glenn Beck show he made an appearance to plug his new movie. He was asked by the host: "So now if you saw -- I mean, if you had, you know, a remote control, like...

How Voltaire praised the 'enlightened despot' Catherine the Great Satirist's heartfelt letters to the woman he admired are bought for Russia Nick Paton Walsh in Moscow Friday June 2, 2006 The Guardian They are the heartfelt correspondence from the great acerbic wit of the European Enlightenment to the last Russian empress, in which he praises her authoritarian style and mocks the extravagances of her French counterparts. For years, the letters from Voltaire to Catherine the Great have been hidden away in a private collection - the contents a mystery. But now, courtesy of a Moscow art dealer, they will be...

IRAQ today marked the third anniversary of the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime, with hundreds of Shiites expressing joy at the ouster of the former dictator while the former Sunni elite denounced the presence of US-led foreign troops in the country. Shiites rallying in the capital took a huge poster of Saddam emblazoned with the words "fall of the tyrant" and trampled on it repeatedly, in memory of the toppling of the former ruler's statue in a Baghdad square on April 9, 2003. Chanting slogans in favour of embattled Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari, the demonstrators also marked the anniversary of...

Jay Bennish is a teacher who collects paychecks for teaching Colorado high school students about geography. Here is a sample from one of Bennish’s classes: “Do you see how this economic system [capitalism] is at odds with humanity? At odds with caring and compassion? It is at odds with human rights. Anytime you have a system that’s designed to procure profit, when profit is the bottom motive, money, that means money is going to become more important potentially than what? Safety, human lives, etcetera.” According to Tustin Amole, Public Information Officer for the Cherry Creek School District, the above statement...

Another state you should never visit passes an appalling abortion ban, because they hate youAttention all funky sexy single intelligent women of South Dakota (assuming there are any left): It is time. Pack it up. Strip the bed, box up the cat, load the U-Haul, call your hip friends over in Minneapolis, move out West, or East, or anywhere with a mind-set not stuck like a bloody nail in the moral coffin of 1845. Let this be your clarion call. Get the hell out, right now. Here is why: You state hates you. Your state, apparently run be pallid sexless...

Weston resident Maria Story talks to her mother in Venezuela at least once a day, but the call from Caracas came unusually early Saturday. "My mom called me crying this morning," said the 29-year-old graphic designer, as news spread that Venezuela plans to drastically cut U.S. airline service starting Wednesday. "She is super sad and scared that this might limit the visits she will be able to make to see us." Across South Florida, the Venezuelan community and those doing business with the oil-rich nation reacted with sadness, dismay, anger and concern, with many deriding the flight cuts as yet...

In the opening months of the Civil War, a pro-Southern newspaper editor in the Philadelphia suburb of West Chester was forced to cease publication when an angry mob destroyed his equipment and federal marshals later ordered him to shut down.Did President Abraham Lincoln ultimately issue the directive to stop the newspaper from operating? Neil Dahlstrom, an East Moline native, and Jeffrey Manber examine the question in their new book, “Lincoln’s Wrath: Fierce Mobs, Brilliant Scoundrels and a President’s Mission to Destroy the Press” (Sourcebooks Inc., 356 pages). The book focuses on a little-known figure of the Civil War, John Hodgson,...

ince inaugurating the "Today in Despotism" series earlier this year, TNR Online has chronicled the activities of a number of strongmen. Some are old, some are young; some are religious, some are atheist; some are called "Guide of the First of September Great Revolution of the Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya"; others are called "Supreme Commander of the Korean People's Army, General Secretary of the Workers' Party of Korea, and Chairman of the National Defense Commission of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea." But while countries around the world may have differences, the hopes and dreams of their despotic rulers...

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Saddam Hussein told the judge at his trial Monday that "I am not afraid of execution" during an unruly court session in which the first witness took the stand and testified that the former president's agents carried out random arrests, torture and killings. The outburst was one of several by Saddam or his co-defendants at the trial that also saw a brief walkout by his defense lawyers. At one point, Saddam appeared to threaten the judge, saying: "When the revolution of the heroic Iraq arrives, you will be held accountable." Chief Judge Rizgar Mohammed Amin replied: "This...

While all the anti war cowards were screaming for Bush to cut and run and our willing accomplice main stream media acting like kids in a candy store. I heard someone on talk radio say that during the civil war Lincoln had his media detracters thrown in the bottom of a war ship until the war was over. But I can't find any facts on-line to back it up. Does any one know where I might go to find information on this? I mentioned this to a (left wing co-worker) and he thinks I made it up. I sure would...

HARARE, Zimbabwe - Zimbabwe has backtracked on its refusal to allow the U.N. to help build emergency housing for people whose homes were demolished in a government eviction campaign. U.N. officials in Harare said Thursday that Housing Minister Ignatius Chombo accepted the assistance in a letter earlier this week. Building is to start next week on the first 10 of a proposed 2,500 units. The government had initially refused U.N. offers to provide temporary shelters for families made homeless by a campaign of evictions in May and June, saying it wanted permanent structures. Yasuhiro Ueki, the U.N. spokesman in Harare,...

PRESIDENT Robert Mugabe's government has refused a $30 million UN emergency fund-raising drive to provide food and medicine for Zimbabweans hardest hit by his demolition campaign of urban slums, UN relief officials said today. UN aid agencies presented documents to the government some three weeks ago that would provide assistance to more than 300,000 people, but there was no agreement, according to telephone interviews with aid officials in southern Africa, who spoke on condition of anonymity. "We are continuing to work with the government but we have not gotten their support on the document to date," said Kristen Knutson, a...

Hollywood star Forest Whitaker who is playing Idi Amin in the screen version of the acclaimed novel The Last King of Scotland, says the late Ugandan dictator was no saint, but was not the monster that has been portrayed in the West. In a weekend interview, Whitaker said his research for the role in the film had changed his perception of Amin, whose brutal rule over Uganda between 1971 and 1979 was punctuated by bizarre and often psychopathic behaviour, and the deaths of up to half a million people. "I'm not trying to defend Amin, the Amin I found was...

Bloody past is catching up with Liberian despot By David Blair in Calabar (Filed: 02/07/2005) After impoverishing his country, killing thousands and stealing a fortune, Africa's most notorious fallen tyrant is facing a rising clamour for him to face justice. Charles Taylor, the deposed president of Liberia, benefits from asylum in Nigeria despite being the subject of an Interpol arrest warrant and an indictment on 17 counts of war crimes. Charles Taylor: Africa's most prominent fugitive A life steeped in bloodshed has not prevented Taylor from enjoying Nigeria's official hospitality and a grace-and-favour residence in a government lodge in the...

HILLARY CLINTONSTAHLclinton agitprop machine censors truth about hillary   by Mia T, 6.27.05     All propaganda has to be popular and has to adapt its spiritual level to the perception of the least intelligent of those towards whom it intends to direct itself. Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampfjackboot thugs     Biography lends to death a new terror.................................................................... Oscar Wilde.................................................................................Upstaged, clinton Recycles Tired Canard, Tries New Revisionist Tack.....................     Hypocrisy abounds in this Age of Clinton, a Postmodern Oz rife with constitutional deconstruction and semantic subversion, a virtual surreality polymarked by presidential alleles peccantly misplaced or, in the...

There are ever so many reasons to regret, even to deplore, what Condoleezza Rice did in the Middle East, but there are those of us who yield, however apologetically, to the temptation to say: Never mind! Never mind protocol, tradition, stability, disputational refinements. Just take pleasure in the raw sight. Here is a ... black! ... woman! ... appearing in Saudi Arabia and saying to the princes of the country, as to the strongman of Egypt, that very specific reforms are in order. To begin with, said this slim U.S. Phi Bete occupying the second most august rank in the...

MIDI - JUST THE WAY YOU ARE (about 4/5 of the way down) You fake changing to fool the voters...it is the Clinton game, indeed It's a theme that is...oh, so familiar...it is the strategy you need Yes, you're a leftist...there's no denying...to socialists you are their star You're a phony...we see right through you...we loathe you just the way you are Your health care meetings had been held secretly...for you, that's par for the course You wanted travel office slots so bad...Billy Dale felt your full force Oh, you fake changing to fool voters...you see yourself as a...

On Sept. 22, 1862, Abraham Lincoln gathered his cabinet to tell them he was going to issue the Emancipation Proclamation. He said he had made a solemn vow to the Almighty that if God gave him victory at Antietam, Lincoln would issue the decree. Lincoln's colleagues were stunned. They were not used to his basing policy on promises made to the Lord. They asked him to repeat what he'd just said. Lincoln conceded that "this might seem strange," but "God had decided the question in favor of the slaves." I like to think about this episode when I hear militant...