Free Republic

Each year, on August 10th, we celebrate the birthday of the man who loved poetry, dogs and fishing (not necessarily in that order). We have a fun-filled author event, live musical entertainment, Happy Birthday Herbie cakes, our world-famous "Herbert Sherbert" punch, Herbie trivia contest (all the answers are available in the Herbert Hoover fun facts posted throughout the bookshop on his birthday) and our own Herbie shrine loaded with Herbert Hoover memorabilia and our private collection of Hoover books for guests to peruse.

Short Pants’ Short Memory Swift-boat THIS.by Steve Finefrock Michael Kinsley is wearing his intellectual short pants again, in his essay on Swiftboating. Wishing upon wishes for a ‘clean’ campaign of purity, he asserts, “Swift-boat is shorthand for the brilliant, despicable Republican campaign strategy in 2004 that turned John Kerry's honorable service in Vietnam into a negative factor in his campaign. The phrase has become more broadly the term for a particular category of campaign tactics and has even become a verb. To ‘swift-boat’ somebody is to use these tactics against him or her.� Kinsley is not stupid, nor ignorant, but...

A CONSERVATIVE PRESIDENT who is deeply unpopular with Americans. A country facing profound economic and security challenges. New technologies upending old media. A cohort of new immigrants and a bulging generation of young people ready to transform the political calculus. 2008? No, 1932, the tail end of the Hoover administration. And you know how that one turned out. FDR and his fellow progressives took on the challenges of their day and built the domestic programs and international institutions that ushered in an era of unrivaled prosperity and stability. They used a new medium—radio—to reach citizens, and fashioned a new majority...

The Great Depression was the worst economic slump ever in U.S. history, and one which spread to virtually all of the industrialized world. The depression began in late 1929 and lasted for about a decade. Many factors played a role in bringing about the depression; however, the main cause for the Great Depression was the combination of the greatly unequal distribution of wealth throughout the 1920's, and the extensive stock market speculation that took place during the latter part that same decade. The maldistribution of wealth in the 1920's existed on many levels. Money was distributed disparately between the rich...

If government wishes to alleviate, rather than aggravate, a depression, its only valid course is laissez-faire — to leave the economy alone. Only if there is no interference, direct or threatened, with prices, wage rates, and business liquidation will the necessary adjustment proceed with smooth dispatch. Any propping up of shaky positions postpones liquidation and aggravates unsound conditions. Propping up wage rates creates mass unemployment, and bolstering prices perpetuates and creates unsold surpluses. Moreover, a drastic cut in the government budget — both in taxes and expenditures — will of itself speed adjustment by changing social choice toward more saving...

A Polish worker has come up with an unusual excuse after being caught in the act with a vacuum cleaner. # How About That: More weird news from around the world The building contractor claimed he was cleaning his underpants with Henry Hoover when he was found naked and on his knees in a hospital's staff canteen. A stunned security guard stumbled onto the man in the middle of a compromising act with the cleaner, which has a large smiley face painted on its front and a hose protruding from its "nose". According to the Sun, the contractor was supposed...

Furthermore, the International News Service reported in Berlin (March 8, 1938) that: For the first time in his career, Reichsfuehrer Adolph Hitler today heard from an American statesman a forthright denunciation of Nazism as a practical and enduring force in world affairs. The detractor, speaking straight from the shoulder, was Herbert Clark Hoover, thirty-first president of the United States, who spent 40 minutes in private with the Fuehrer... The piece also noted that: Without mincing words, Hoover bluntly informed Hitler that the United States will never become reconciled to understanding or even having the slightest tolerance for Nazism as a...

Herbert Hoover and Media by: Jeremy Hempel, February 04, 2008 President Herbert Hoover (1929-1933) had some encouraging words for discouraged citizens plagued by today’s one-sided approach to media. A Republican who rose from son of a blacksmith to become the president of the Unites States, his administration faced the Great Depression. The former president warned of the dangers that a mass communication system controlled by one way of thinking would sway the nation into “untruth”. The 31st president wrote to the book The Challenge to Liberty in 1934 saying: “Bureaucracy has already developed a vast ramifying propaganda subtly designed to...

WASHINGTON - Former FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover had a plan to suspend the rules against illegal detention and arrest up to 12,000 Americans he suspected of being disloyal, according to a newly declassified document. Hoover sent his plan to the White House on July 7, 1950, less than two weeks after the Korean War began. But there is no evidence to suggest that President Truman or any subsequent president approved any part of Hoover's proposal to house suspect Americans in military and federal prisons. Hoover had wanted Truman to declare the mass arrests necessary to "protect the country against...

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks advanced on Friday, sending the benchmark S&P 500 index (^SPX - News) to a record as a solid employment report rekindled optimism about the outlook for growth and profits. The prospect of continued strength in the economy boosted a broad range of equity sectors, including technology, basic materials, industrials, financials and consumer-oriented plays, such as retailers. Pharmaceutical shares also showed strength, with shares of Merck & Co (NYSE:MRK - News) among the top advancers in both the Dow and the S&P 500. "The unemployment report was a good report," said Stephen Carl, principal and head...

A stranger stood at the gate of Hell And the Devil himself had answered the bell He looked him over from head to toe And said “My friend, I’d like to know What you have done in the line of sin To entitle you to come within?” Then Franklin D. with his usual guile Stepped forth and flashed his toothy smile. “When I took over in ’33, A nation’s faith was mine”, said he “I promised this and I promised that, And I calmed them down with a fireside chat. I spent their money on fishing trips And I fished...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Consumer prices rose less than expected in June, bringing inflation outside of food and energy over the past 12 months to its lowest in more than three years, government data showed on Tuesday. Other data showed that personal spending rose by the smallest amount since September, and was unchanged after adjustment for inflation. The data reinforced a view that tame inflationary pressures will allow the Federal Reserve to keep interest rates on hold at 5.25 percent for the time being, although markets are still expecting the central bank to start cutting rates by year end. The 0.1...

NEW YORK (AP) -- The Dow Jones industrial average swept past 14,000 for the first time Tuesday following a relatively mild inflation report and a wave of generally upbeat earnings reports. The stock market's best-known indicator crossed 14,000 in the first half-hour of trading, rising to 14,002.60 and having taken just 57 trading days to make the trip from 13,000. Stocks have risen fairly steadily since the spring amid a continuum of buyout news and evidence that despite higher fuel prices and the ongoing problems in the housing market and mortgage lending industry, consumers are spending and companies remain optimistic...

The Hoover Institution at Stanford University has just posted a 15-minute interview with Republican presidential almost-candidate Fred Thompson by Peter Robinson, a Fellow at the Hoover Institution, on Google Video. It's a nice serious counterpoint to Thompson's appearance on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno last night. Robinson speaks with Fred Thompson about his candidacy for President of the Unites States and delves into the key issues facing America today, the politics of running for president, and the source of Thompson's conservative views. Turns out that Thompson is a movement conservative, inspired to become active in politics by the founder...

157,000 jobs added in May; U.S. unemployment rate steady at 4.5 percent

The nation's manufacturing sector showed surprising strength in April, growing at a faster-than-expected pace and pushing up prices for fuel, metals and corn-based products, a trade group said Tuesday. The Institute for Supply Management, based in Tempe, Ariz., said its manufacturing index registered 54.7, above the March reading of 50.9 and Wall Street's expectation of 51. It was the highest reading in 11 months, when it also registered 54.7. A reading above 50 indicates growth for the sector, while a reading below 50 indicates contraction. A sharp spike in the prices paid index fueled ongoing concerns over inflation and interest...

The British double agent Dusko Popov, who reputedly inspired Ian Fleming’s creation of James Bond, was approached by the Germans to become their spy. Popov did so, but reported everything he did to the British. When the Germans sent Popov to set up a large spy ring in the U.S., he was asked to gather some very provocative information for the Japanese. The Japanese request, called the "Japanese questionnaire," involved a lot of extremely specific information about Hawaii and Pearl Harbor. British Intelligence and Popov came to the conclusion in August of 1941 that the Japanese were preparing an invasion...

YUGOSLAVIA: FASCIST PROPAGANDA IN AMERICAN UNIVERSITIES TODAY William Dorich I personally took great exception to this unbridled racism since I lost 17 of my relatives during the Holocaust who were burned to death in a Serbian Orthodox church in the village of Vojnic in 1942 by Croatians and their Nazi Catholic priests. I lost the last 5 relatives of my name during Operation Storm in August of 1995 when 200,000 Serbs were "ethnically cleansed" from Croatia. My relatives were too old and too sick to flee. They were found a month later with their throats slit. Dateline 23rd February 2007...

Shortly after Thanksgiving I had dinner in California with Ronald Reagan's best biographer, Lou Cannon. Like many historians these days, we discussed whether George W. Bush is, conceivably, the worst U.S. president ever. Cannon bristled at the idea. Bush has two more years to leave his mark, he argued. What if there is a news flash that U.S. Special Forces have killed Osama bin Laden or that North Korea has renounced its nuclear program? What if a decade from now Iraq is a democracy and a statue of Bush is erected on Firdaus Square where that famously toppled one of...

Thursday October 12, 4:40 pm ET By , AP Business Writer Dow Ends Up 96 to Close at Record High of 11,948 on Earnings Optimism; Nasdaq Gains 38 NEW YORK (AP) -- The Dow Jones industrial average broke through 11,900 to close at a record high Thursday, boosted by optimism over the health of corporate earnings. According to preliminary calculations, the Dow Jones industrial average rose 95.57, or 0.81 percent, to 11,947.70. The previous record close from Tuesday was 11,867.17. The index's gain marked its fifth record close in two weeks. The intraday high set Thursday was 11,959.63, eclipsing an...

Led by a turnaround in manufacturing, the number of jobs in the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre region hit its highest mark since the current method for counting jobs was created in 1990. Nonfarm jobs in the metropolitan statistical area hit 265,500, about 3,600 more than last year. As more Scranton/Wilkes-Barre residents found work, the region’s jobless rate fell four-tenths of a percentage point to a seasonally adjusted 5.1 percent in June, according to the state Department of Labor and Industry. Despite the decline in the area’s jobless rate, it remained greater than the state rate of 4.7 percent — also a 16-year record...

He was called the best stick-and-rudder pilot alive by legendary World War II Gen. Jimmy Doolittle. And legendary test pilot Chuck Yeager said Bob Hoover's the best pure pilot he ever met. But that's not what people want to talk to Hoover about when they meet him. They want to hear the story of how he stole that Fochwolf 190 fighter plane from the German airfield at the end of World War II after escaping from the Stalag Luft 1 POW camp, flying to freedom in Holland after 16 months in captivity. It's the stuff legends are made of, and...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Commerce Department reports that orders for big-ticket manufactured goods, propelled by strong demand for commercial aircraft, posted a 2.6 percent February increase. Orders to U.S. factories for big-ticket manufactured goods rose in February by the largest amount in three months, propelled by soaring demand for civilian aircraft. The Commerce Department reported that durable goods orders increased by 2.6 percent last month, double the gain that economists had been expecting. The strength was concentrated in a huge 52.5 percent increase in orders for commercial aircraft, which reflected a rebound after a 70.1 percent drop in January aircraft...

$10 million spent annually by district for classroom subs... Driven by parental concerns about teacher absenteeism, the Chicago Public Schools for the first time will start scrutinizing schools with high numbers of teachers taking sick days. On any given school day in Chicago, an average of 1,500 teachers, about 6 percent of the teaching staff, call in sick or take a personal day, according to a Tribune analysis of teacher payroll records. The absentee rate is highest on Fridays, when an average of 1,800 teachers don't show... For each of the last six school years, Chicago teachers missed an average...

San Francisco seems an unlikely home for the man who in 1962 first proposed the privatization of Social Security. Asked why he dwells in liberalism's den, Milton Friedman, 92, the Nobel laureate economist and father of modern conservatism, didn't skip a beat. "Not much competition here," he quipped. Friedman is considered perhaps the most influential economist... It was Friedman who in 1962, with the publication of "Capitalism and Freedom," first proposed the abolition of Social Security, not because it was going bankrupt, but because he considered it immoral. Friedman calls Social Security, created by President Franklin Roosevelt in 1935, a...

WASHINGTON — U.S. employers added a smaller-than-forecast 193,000 new jobs in January but job growth in each of the five prior months was pushed up as part of a broader annual revision of the data, a government report on Friday showed. In addition, the Labor Department report showed the January unemployment rate dropped to a 4-1/2-year low 4.7 percent from 4.9 percent in December. The last time the rate was lower was in July 2001 when it was at 4.6 percent. Snip....

WASHINGTON -- Orders to American factories for big-ticket manufactured goods posted a third consecutive increase in December, closing out a record year for the nation's factories. The Commerce Department reported that orders for durable goods rose by 1.3 percent in December to $228.1 billion as demand for military aircraft, machinery and autos all posted strong gains.

At first, this attorney-cum-supercop only wanted to make America safer, but in short order, this bureaucrat re-enacted every Machiavellian nightmare while transforming a backwater investigative office into the free world’s most effective police force. He became the closest thing America has ever known to an emperor and managed to die before his empire came crashing down around him. The tragedy of his life can be seen in his contradictions: a gay man who persecuted homosexuals; his undeniable love of country getting consumed by his thirst for power; his desire to enforce the law giving way to his paranoid domestic-espionage activities...

On Halloween night, crusty conservative Judge Laurence H. Silberman had a scary tale to tell fellow right wingers gathered for dinner at Washington's University Club. He told in more detail than ever before how J. Edgar Hoover as FBI director ''allowed -- even offered -- the bureau to be used by presidents for nakedly political purposes.'' He called for the director's name to be removed from the FBI's J. Edgar Hoover Building in Washington. ''In my view,'' Silberman said, ''it is as if the Defense Department were named for Aaron Burr. Liberals and conservatives should unite to support legislation to...

Stocks Climb As Consumer Confidence Rises Tuesday November 29, 10:28 am ET By Christopher Wang, AP Business Writer Stocks Climb As Consumer Confidence Rises; Strong Online Holiday Sales Pace Gains in Tech Sector NEW YORK (AP) -- Wall Street went back to its winning ways Tuesday after two new reports showed a jump in U.S. factory orders and a sharp rebound in consumer confidence. An upswing in online holiday shopping paced gains in the technology sector. Stocks bounced back from Monday's losses after the Commerce Department said orders for big-ticket manufactured goods grew 3.4 percent in October, with increased demand...

Washington - "For God's sake, are you blind?," a woman shouts at the head of the federal emergency management agency (FEMA), Michael Brown. "You're patting each other on the back, while people here are dying." The woman is not a victim of Hurricane Katrina. She is a reporter with US television network MSNBC "Katrinagate" is the term being used by the media to describe the biggest challenge facing the political establishment in the US since the Watergate affair in the 1970s toppled Richard Nixon. Not for decades has there been such merciless questioning of the president and his administration by...

Manteo Booksellers' Annual Herbert Hoover Celebration Each year, on August 10th, we celebrate the birthday of the man who loved poetry, dogs and fishing (not necessarily in that order). We have a fun-filled author event, live musical entertainment, Happy Birthday Herbie cakes, our world-famous "Herbert Sherbert" punch, Herbie trivia contest (all the answers are available in the Herbert Hoover fun facts posted throughout the bookshop on his birthday) and our own Herbie shrine loaded with Herbert Hoover memorabilia and our private collection of Hoover books for guests to peruse

It was not only Republicans that Johnson targeted with the FBI. He must have been obsessed with the Kennedy political threat because he used the bureau to determine whether officials in his administration were too close to Robert Kennedy after Kennedy left the administration. Some of Johnson's suspicions of the Kennedys were rather amusing. He became convinced that the Washington Star was secretly owned by the Kennedy family and that is why he received less favorable coverage from the Star than from the Post. He insisted that Hoover unearth those connections. Hoover plaintively tried to explain that the Star was...

June Industrial Production Roars Ahead07.15.2005, 09:38 AM Industrial production roared ahead in June at the fastest pace in 16 months, with half of the gain attributed to a big increase in output at the nation's utilities, reflecting the onset of hot weather. The Federal Reserve reported that industrial output increased 0.9 percent in June, three times faster than the 0.3 percent rise in May. The good performance provided further evidence that the nation's factories, mines and utilities have rebounded from a spring slowdown. Meanwhile, the Labor Department provided a second dose of good news on inflation, reporting that prices at...

Who knew that all those years we were watching men in gray felt hats on The FBI catching the bad guys, their agency was really a house divided between, as it turns out, Mr. Gray and Mr. Felt? Now we are being treated to the spectacle of a public joust between these two gentlemen. Mr. Gray is saying that he was never really a louse but that louse Felt was leaking to make him look like a louse. Mr. Felt says that he may have been a louse but only because that louse Gray was lousing things up and to...

The Latest Press Release The Conference Board’s Consumer Confidence Index Rises in June June 28, 2005 The Conference Board’s Consumer Confidence Index, which had increased in May, improved further in June. The Index now stands at 105.8 (1985=100), up from 103.1 in May. The Present Situation Index increased to 120.7 from 117.8. The Expectations Index rose to 95.8 from 93.4 last month. The Consumer Confidence Survey is based on a representative sample of 5,000 U.S. households. The monthly survey is conducted for The Conference Board by TNS NFO. TNS NFO is one of the TNS group of companies (LSE: TNN)....

It seems only civilized that every expiring political secret should get a decent burial.... ...So why did many Deep Throat researchers -- especially insiders -- reject the idea of Mr. Felt? Because much information that Deep Throat provided was a matter less of specific facts about the Watergate investigation than about the nature of the Nixon White House. Deep Throat talked about the clockwork craziness the White House had become, about the sound of Nixon angry and the character of individuals involved in the cover-up. These insights were presented with the certainty of personal experience. But they were not within...

WASHINGTON -- Mark Felt, finally revealed as the "Deep Throat" who divulged the Watergate scandal, is wearing the hero's laurel 32 years later. But that designation comes across as peculiar to those of us who lived through the turbulent times. Felt deserves praise for breaking the rules as FBI associate director, providing Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein of the Washington Post the guidance to determine whether they were on the correct path in uncovering the machinations of President Nixon. However, Felt was considered by reformers at the FBI to be part of the problem rather than the solution. He was...

Think Rushmore President Bush needs to carve out his place in history. BY THOMAS SOWELL Friday, January 7, 2005 12:01 a.m. Now that President Bush has twice gotten himself to the White House, the question is whether he wants to try for Mount Rushmore. One of the luxuries of a second term is an opportunity to think about the long run, not simply for one's own "legacy," but for the future of the nation as a whole. Even during his first term, George W. Bush's long-run strategic view, exemplified by the war on terrorism, contrasted sharply with former President Bill...

t has been said politicians are people who realize you can’t fool all of the people all of the time, but who are nevertheless willing to give it a try. And try they do. Their weapon of choice is the promise they know they cannot keep. If John Kerry should lose next week’s presidential election, it won’t be for a lack of trying — or promising. Senators Kerry and Edwards have promised the American people virtually everything except nicer weather, whiter teeth, and fewer box-office bombs starring Ben Affleck. Earlier this month John Edwards went so far as to promise...

...[S]tart with the Kerry claim that this is the "worst economy since Hoover." Hoover was in office in October 1929, when the stock market crashed and the Great Depression began. The unemployment rate, at a time when very few families had two earners and there was a much smaller safety net, reached almost 25% by 1933; indeed, it was still 15% under FDR in 1939. The current unemployment rate is 5.4%.... [T]he Hoover comparison is bizarre. In 1980, President Carter's last year, the unemployment rate was well over 7% while the contemporaneous inflation rate was over 12%, a misery index...

...To date, President Bush hasn't suffered the kind of political harm that Carter did from his ineffectual handling of the Iran hostage crisis. The main reason: Despite widespread misgivings over the way the postwar is going, voters have by and large accepted the administration's contention that going after Saddam Hussein was an integral part of the War on Terror. Which, of course, explains Kerry's "wrong war, wrong time, wrong place" argument: He's trying to convince the public that Iraq was an unwise diversion from the genuine War on Terror, which he believes should be limited to Osama bin Laden and...

THE ROLE OF GOVERNMENT IN EDUCATION by Milton Friedman The general trend in our times toward increasing intervention by the state in economic affairs has led to a concentration of attention and dispute on the areas where new intervention is proposed and to an acceptance of whatever intervention has so far occurred as natural and unchangeable. The current pause, perhaps reversal, in the trend toward collectivism offers an opportunity to reexamine the existing activities of government and to make a fresh assessment of the activities that are and those that are not justified. This paper attempts such a re-examination for...

Sent the following email to Mr. O'Reilly a few minutes ago.I was surprised that you made a reference on this evening's program to the late J. Edgar Hoover wearing a dress. Even your friends at the New York Times know better than that. On June 25, 1998, the Times printed a retraction: "Editors' Note An art review in Weekend on May 22 about the exhibition 'Police Pictures: The Photograph as Evidence' at the Grey Art Gallery in Greenwich Village discussed the inherent fascination of such photos and how the viewer's subjectivity makes them unreliable as evidence. In discussing a publicity...

WEST BRANCH (AP) — Democrats say it repeatedly: George W. Bush is the first president since Herbert Hoover to lose jobs on his watch. When they hear that or related claims about the Depression-era president, the folks in West Branch wince. "They've dug up poor Mr. Hoover again and tried to turn him into the boogeyman of the campaign," said Tim Walch, director of the Herbert Hoover Presidential Library and Museum.

Mention the name Hoover to most Americans and they think you are talking about either a vacuum cleaner, the late F.B.I. chief or a big dam. When Democrats dredge up memories of President Herbert Hoover, the great depression, and the 1929 stock market crash, barely seven percent responding to a National Annenberg Election Survey knew what they were talking about. And when Republicans try to score points with patriotic voters by linking Senator John Kerry with his fellow anti-Vietnam war comrade Jane Fonda, hardly any among those polled had any idea of what they were talking about. To 20 percent...

Thomas Jefferson died on July 4, 1826, at the age of 83. John Adams died the same day, and he was just a few months short of his 91st birthday. Other long-lived Presidents are James Madison, who lived to be 85, Harry Truman who lived to be 88, and Herbert Hoover who died at the age of 90. President Gerald Ford is still going on strong, and will turn 91 this year. But Ronald Reagan holds the record of longest-lived President, as he is now 93. It is amazing how Reagan managed to remain in great physical shape throughout his...

Dean Staffer Layoffs Sign of Worst Economy since Hoover Washingmachine Post Wednesday, February 4, 2004; Page A1 www.washingmachinepost.com EDITORIAL As they await the results of the next upcoming primaries, the Democrats should take a lesson from the nation's central bankers. Out on the campaign trail, we see more signs of what the fair and balanced news networks such as ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, correctly refer to as “the jobless recovery”. “Five more layoffs”, said economist and expert from Washington D.C. University Fred Diamond. “This time it’s staffers from the Dean campaign.” Economists agree, and the news media reports. “Now it’s...

<p>Peace, in setting presidential reputations, far outranks its brother prosperity. I didn't realize how completely war and peace define our presidents until I was asked to think about their economic leadership.</p> <p>Our OpinionJournal.com1 and the Federalist Society sponsored a new rating of the presidents, and in June an expanded print version will be published in collaboration with Simon & Schuster. I was asked to join William Bennett, Richard Brookhiser, Robert Dallek and others in contributing. Asked about leadership on economic policy, I couldn't find much.</p>

As outgoing Gov. Gray Davis and Gov.-elect Arnold Schwarzenegger prepare to meet Thursday in the Capitol, the transfer of power has already started and the new face of Sacramento is beginning to take shape. Republican think tanks and former Gov. Pete Wilson are back in vogue, along with GOP legislators and their aides. Schwarzenegger's auditor-in-chief Donna Arduin is camped out on the second floor of the Legislative Office Building and has received regular budget briefings from the finance department. And the incoming administration is already contemplating a new location for the Capitol's cramped pressroom to make way for TV stations...