Above, a rare photo of American musical goddess Billie Holiday from a January 1944 performance at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York City, where she shared the stage with vibraphonist Lionel Hampton, whose vibes you see just to her right. Holiday, who was also known as Lady Day, is seen here with two trademark accessories—a flower pinned into her hair, and a cigarette. 

The National Police Gazette hits all bases in this vibrant September 1959 issue, telling us about Billie Holiday’s heroin woes, Carmen Basilio’s feud with Sugar Ray Robinson, Mickey Mantle’s lack of respect from his employers, and Debbie Reynolds' divorce. But we’re focused on the John F. Kennedy article. Just fifty years ago Americans were suspicious enough of Catholics that Kennedy’s opponents were able to exploit his religion during his campaign for president. The far right Aryan Knights are quoted from a press release: The Romanist church organization insolently pretends to temporal authority over various governments and people of the world, including our own United States. The League goes on to claim that Rome wants Catholicism established as America’s state religion, and that those who refuse to conform will be prosecuted or destroyed.

Hmm... The leaders of an overseas religion want to take over America using the President as a Trojan Horse? Why does that ring a bell? Merrill J. Fox, head of the Federal Party, said: “Kennedy is bound to carry his religion over into politics. He does it now, subconsciously. Kennedy wouldn’t be good for our country because he isn’t his own boss.” Interesting, no? These fearmongers are basically forgotten today, consigned to that copious dustbin of history which is home to some of the most odious loudmouths who ever emerged from the woodwork. But at the time these guys made a fine living. And when you revisit some of their laughable assertions, it becomes clear that green—not red, white and blue—was their focus. Put another way, you'll never go broke telling people what to be afraid of. With regard to our current era, there’s an old saying that applies: The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Because people have incredibly short political memories, it seems like a good time to update this piece and be a little less coy about our insinuations. We're writing now in 2018. At the time we wrote the original post there had been three years of suggestions that Barack Obama had a secret muslim agenda directed from somewhere or other in the Middle East, or possibly Africa. These days, now that Obama's stint in the White House has come and gone with no forced conversion in America to sharia law, people will try to pretend the fear campaign never happened, partly because they now know it's embarrassingly stupid to have believed it. But tens of millions of conservative voters did believe it, thanks to a drumbeat heard mainly on far right radio from 2007, through the presidential campaigns, and into the first couple of years of Obama's presidency. As we said, the more things change, the more they stay the same.