Teapot Dome: First Major Presidential Scandal, 1920s

HCR: "In the 1920s, President Warren G. Harding’s secretary of the interior, Albert Fall, went to prison for a year for accepting a $385,000 bribe from oilman Edward L. Doheny in exchange for leases to drill for oil on naval reserve land in Elk Hills and Buena Vista, California, and Teapot Dome, Wyoming. Fall was …

Trump’s Presidential Immunity: Supreme Court Holds Historic Hearing

I share former Rep. Liz Cheney's frustration, even outrage, as she wrote in a NYTimes op-ed, that it appears the Supreme Court will not rule swiftly enough on Donald Trump's immunity claim that he can stand trial before the 2024 election on charges related to January 6, 2021. “It cannot be that a president of …

How Many ‘Illegals’ Has Biden Let Into US? Does US President Have the Authority to Close the Border?

Donald Trump and his supporters assert, falsely, that President Biden has let in between 10 million and 13 million illegal aliens into the country. They also assert falsely that the President has the authority to close the border, and Biden has chosen not to do so. Glenn Kessler of The Washington Post's fact-checker clarified that …

‘The Man in the Arena’: Eloquent Speech By Teddy Roosevelt on Leadership

https://youtu.be/A311CnTjfos?si=RrRp9ERvoSaX0V9j

Biden Kicks Off Election Comeback With Strong State of the Union Address

For much of 2023 and 2024, President Biden has polled behind Donald Trump in key-state opinion polls. His supporters hope that his 2024 State of the Union message on March 7 kicked off a comeback. He attracted a large audience watching it live, 34 million Americans. He is unlikely to get a larger audience until …

Trump Can Remain On Primary Ballots, Supreme Court Rules

Some attorneys interpret the Supreme Court ruling in favor of Donald Trump remaining on the primary ballot to leave open the possibility that Trump could still be barred from a ballot or barred from serving as president if he is convicted of insurrection in a case now pending. If the high court rules by June …

FDR’s Illness in Last Years of His Presidency Pose Lessons for Biden and Trump Campaigns

Franklin Roosevelt's declining health in 1943-45, as reported by the National Park Service, included poor memory and sometimes, disorientation. Yet few would argue in retrospect that the U.S. would have been better off with another president at the helm, and certainly not Thomas Dewey, the stiff and remote Republican governor of NY. The GOP at …

Limits and Extent of Presidential Immunity Is Subject of Trump Case

Can presidents be prosecuted for things they did in office? That was the question before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. Could or should Presidents Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon have been prosecuted for their execution of the Vietnam War? Ronald Reagan for selling arms to Iran in exchange for hostages? Barack …

Jimmy Carter Retrospectives Begin

Jimmy Carter, at 99 has been in hospice since February 2023 and complains good-naturedly that he hasn't figured out how to die yet. But we can figure that his journalistic reckoning is coming as soon as he passes. I have some sympathy for politicians who endure character assassination by hacks. One of the most egregious …

US Presidents Almost Always Make Foreign Policy Mistakes

Every US president in my memory made arguably serious errors in foreign policy and was also blamed for things beyond his control. Here's a list off the top of my head, not meant to be all-inclusive. I just want to identify controversies that could be debated. Might FDR be blamed for the Dresden bombing and for …