Free Republic

Jackie Kennedy Onassis would “never have entered the country illegally to become an escort and never would have considered spending a moment with vile trash like Trump,” one critic tweets President Trump sparked angry criticism on Friday, this time by comparing his wife, Melania, to former first lady Jackie Kennedy Onassis during a “Fox & Friends” interview. The president made the comparison while talking about his decision to switch the paint job on Air Force One, which has been around since the early 1960s. “You know the baby blue doesn’t fit with us,” Trump said. “It was Jackie O and...

When Truman took office after Roosevelt's death in April 1945, he knew relatively nothing about the grand strategy of World War II. No one had told him anything about the ongoing atomic bomb project...But for the next seven-plus years, Truman shocked the country. Over the objections of many in his Cabinet, he ordered the dropping of two atomic bombs on Japan. Over the objections of most of the State Department, he recognized the new state of Israel. Over the objections of the Roosevelt holdovers, he broke with wartime ally the Soviet Union and crafted the foundations of Cold War communist...

The 2020 Democratic presidential contenders are going to the dogs — and a turtle. Donald Trump is the first president to forgo an animal companion in the White House since Andrew Johnson in the 1860s, according to the Presidential Pet Museum. Trump has said he'd "feel a little phony" with a dog, but presidents haven't kept just canines — Calvin Coolidge had a bobcat, Teddy Roosevelt had a one-legged rooster, and Thomas Jefferson kept a pair of grizzly bear cubs on the White House lawn. About half of the declared Democratic candidates looking to move into the White House, however,...

Students at Hofstra University are demanding the school remove a Thomas Jefferson statue. The group included other demands as well, including "mandated, comprehensive, cultural competency training.” Students at Hofstra University protested a statue of Thomas Jefferson on Friday at the second annual event, titled “Jefferson Has Gotta Go!” The statue has been the center of controversy on the campus and has been defaced with “DECOLONIZE” and “Black Lives Matter” signs and stickers. According to a media advisory sent by the Jefferson Has Gotta Go (JGG) campaign, the protest was held at Hofstra Breslin Hall. Organizers included “students of Hofstra University,...

A San Francisco school district may remove an 83-year-old mural of President George Washington from, ironically, George Washington High School because it “traumatizes students and community members.” The work of artist Victor Arnautoff, a communist, may no longer be progressive enough for “Fog City.” His 13 panels for the high school, created in 1936, have been deemed problematic by the San Francisco Unified School District. Officials say some the artist’s historical depictions are offensive to Native Americans and blacks. Laura Dudnick, a spokeswoman for the district, told educational watchdog the College Fix via email Thursday that Mr. Arnautoff’s work was...

"The Mueller report makes Trump look vain, ignorant, inept, and astonishingly dishonest." So writes my Washington Examiner colleague Quin Hillyer, never an enthusiast of President Donald Trump. He refers to many passages of the report: one that shows the president ordering his White House counsel to arrange the firing of the special counsel and then ordering the counsel to state in writing he never said that; one suggesting that Trump was dangling pardons to cooperative aides; and others in which Trump vents his rage at the protracted investigation, which eventually, after almost two years, found no evidence that he or...

City of Washington April 4, 1841- An all-wise Providence having removed from this life, William Henry Harrison, late President of the United States, we have thought it our duty, in the recess of Congress, and in the absence of the Vice President from the Seat of Government, to make this afflicting bereavement known to the country, by this declaration, under our hands. He died at the President's House, in this city, this fourth day of April, Anno Domini 1841, at thirty minutes before one o'clock in the morning. The people of the United States, overwhelmed by an event so unexpected...

Barack Obama is going to have to school Katy Tur on the famous sons of all the 57 states . . . If ever there were a famous Virginian, it is George Washington. Born and raised in Virginia, Mount Vernon was, of course, his historic home. Yet somehow, a confused Katy Tur has claimed that Washington was a "native son of New York." Her embarrassing gaffe occurred today on MSNBC, as Tur handed off the MTP Daily hour to Ari Melber and The Beat. ARI MELBER: Hi, Katy. I wanted to wish you a happy Presidents Day. TUR: You know,...

I first met the man who would become America's 41st president in 1968. He was a Houston congressman and I was a young reporter for a local TV and radio station. My first impression was how kind he was to this "kid," who had just moved to Texas from the Washington, D.C., area and was just starting to learn the "language," like "fixing to go" and "y'all." Everyone who worked for George H.W. Bush, or knew him, has a story to tell. I have several. Mr. Bush was a letter writer like none other. I think I have an almost...

It is in no way to insult George H. W. Bush — or any other president, for that matter — to ask whether the retooling of their calendars is an appropriate way for the people of a republic to respond to the death of an elected representative. Tomorrow, the press reports, is to be a “day of mourning” — a day on which the stock market will be closed, on which the federal government will shut down, on which the House of Representatives will begin a week-long break, on which various universities will cancel classes, on which the Postal Service...

Donald Trump and Melania invited to George H. Bush National Cathedral event .....

Abigail Adams, best known for her articulate writing and her involvement in the presidency of her husband, John, is the subject of a yearlong commemoration by the Massachusetts Historical Society that begins Sunday with a walking tour that explores the Adams family’s presence in Boston. “It’s a long walking tour, but it’s a really fun one,” said Nancy Haywood, a lead guide for the two-hour excursion. “It’s a nice way to really explore the city and learn more about this significant family.” The tour, organized by Boston By Foot, runs just two times annually, but this year, with the 200th...

President Donald Trump liked a painting of him having drinks with Abraham Lincoln, Richard Nixon and Teddy Roosevelt so much that he called the artist on the phone and then put a print of it in the White House. Called “The Republican Club,” the print of 10 Republican presidents sitting around a table could be seen briefly in the background of Trump’s interview with “60 Minutes” Sunday, and an image of that moment went viral on social media.

Former presidents are among the wealthiest people in the country. The “poorest” of them, Jimmy Carter, is worth $8 million, placing him near the fabled “one percent” of richest Americans. Bill and Hillary Clinton earned a reported $229 million in the fifteen years after the conclusion of his second term as president. And despite this fantastic wealth, taxpayers subsidize former presidents to the tune of $4 million per year because of an antiquated benefit system.Since 2000, taxpayers have paid out $63 million in benefits and office allowances to the five living former presidents (plus $5 million to President Ford and $4 million...

William & Mary Police are investigating after a statue of James Monroe was graffitied with the words “slave owner” late last month. A crime log the school sent out Monday says a “non-student” was detained for writing on a statue at 1:36 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 29 outside Tucker Hall. University spokeswoman Erin Zagursky said William & Mary Police have identified and spoken to a suspect, but no charges had been sought as of Monday afternoon.

James Madison traveled to Philadelphia in 1787 with Athens on his mind. He had spent the year before the Constitutional Convention reading two trunkfuls of books on the history of failed democracies, sent to him from Paris by Thomas Jefferson. Madison was determined, in drafting the Constitution, to avoid the fate of those “ancient and modern confederacies,” which he believed had succumbed to rule by demagogues and mobs. Madison’s reading convinced him that direct democracies—such as the assembly in Athens, where 6,000 citizens were required for a quorum—unleashed populist passions that overcame the cool, deliberative reason prized above all by...

The White House Blue Room is getting a new old look. Melania Trump has announced the restoration of a collection of furniture made for the White House by Frenchman Pierre-Antoine Bellange. The first lady says a team of curators has spent more than a decade restoring the furniture. The Committee for the Preservation of the White House approved the restoration project. President James Monroe bought the Bellange suite in 1817. Almost all of it had been auctioned off in 1859....

Jimmy Carter must be pleased. He got to surrender his “worst postwar president crown” to Barack Obama, and now with Obama’s recent return to public appearances, Jimmy is hopeful that his award for “worst postwar ex-president” will soon be gone as well. The real question for the rest of us is whether Obama will help or hurt the Dems in November. Carter and Obama are competing in the same category: reactive presidents. In 1976 Carter seemed the antidote to the scandal-plagued Nixon years. The church-going peanut farmer from Georgia appeared to be the principled outsider who could cleanse the stains...

Calvin Coolidge died from heart-failure at his home in Northampton Massachusetts on January 5th 1933 aged 60. In keeping with his wishes there was no state funeral and the ceremonial was kept to a minimum. Following the funeral attended by President Hoover and family representatives of President-Elect Roosevelt, Coolidge was taken back to his native Vermont and laid to rest in the village cemetery of Plymouth Notch next to his beloved son Calvin Jr. who had died in 1924 aged 16 and near his father and mother. To date he is the last president to be buried in a public...