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Cathcon
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« Reply #1075 on: March 24, 2012, 11:24:37 AM »
« edited: March 24, 2012, 01:33:12 PM by Cathcon »

The Confederation Continues

In 1786, a group including John Hancock, Patrick Henry, Samuel Adams, John Jay, George Washington, and a few youngsters including Alexander Hamilton and James Madison, meeting in Pennsylvania, produced a constitution to save the Confederation. Amending the Articles of Confederation, they produce a modified plan that leaves states with a large amount of autonomy but leaves the federal government in control of interestate commerce, foreign policy, and a number of other key points. Combined with certain compromises made in 1787, the agreement is ratified, and in 1787, the first of the new elections to the Congress are held.

1. George Washington (Virginia) March 4th, 1788-March 4th, 1789
2. John Hancock (Massachusetts) March 4th, 1789-March 4th, 1790
3. Patrick Henry (Virginia) March 4th, 1790-March 4th, 1791
4. John Adams (Massachusetts) March 4th, 1791-March 4th, 1792
5. John Jay (New York) March 4th, 1792-March 4th, 1793
6. Thomas Jefferson (Virginia) March 4th, 1793-March 4th, 1794
7. Samuel Adams (Massachustts) March 4th, 1794-March 4th, 1795

8. Oliver Ellsworth (Connecticut) March 4th, 1795-March 4th, 1796
9. Aaron Burr (New York) March 4th, 1796-March 4th, 1797
10. Alexander Hamilton (New York) March 4th, 1797-March 4th, 1797)
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Pingvin
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« Reply #1076 on: March 24, 2012, 12:33:01 PM »

A Moderate America
John B. Anderson (R-IL) 1981-1989
Paul Simon (D-IL) 1989-1993
Ross Perot (I-TX) 1993-1997
John McCain (R-AZ) 1997-2005
Joe Lieberman (D-CT) 2005-2009
Mitt Romney (R-MA) 2009-2017
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TNF
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« Reply #1077 on: March 25, 2012, 12:18:03 AM »
« Edited: March 25, 2012, 10:16:35 PM by TNF »

Johnsonian Democracy

36. Lyndon B. Johnson (Democratic): 1963-1969
37. Hubert H. Humphrey (Democratic): 1969-1977

38. Howard Baker (Republican): 1977-1981
39. Henry M. Jackson (Democratic): 1981-1989
40. Daniel Patrick Moynihan (Democratic): 1989-1997

41. Colin Powell (Republican): 1997-2005
42. Joseph I. Lieberman (Democratic): 2005-2013
43. Mitt Romney (Republican): 2013-

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20RP12
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« Reply #1078 on: March 25, 2012, 10:21:33 AM »

A Paultard's Dream

41. Ronald E. Paul (Libertarian-TX) 1989-1997
42. Dennis J. Kucinich (American Left Alliance-OH) 1997-2001
43. Maurice Robert "Mike" Gravel (American Left Alliance-AK) 2001-2009
44. Randal Howard "Rand" Paul (Liberty Party-KY) 2009-2017

41. Incumbent President Ronald Reagan (R) dies just 3 weeks before the race, Republicans decide not to run a candidate, and endorse Ron Paul. Following the election of President Paul, the Republican Party merges with the Libertarian Party to create the Liberty Party, while the Democratic Party merges with the Green Party to create the American Left Alliance.

42. Was President Paul's Vice President from 1993-1997. The previous Vice President, Barry Goldwater Jr., announced that he would retire from politics. President Paul chose Ohio Governor Dennis Kucinich as his running mate, and won decisively. Vice President Kucinich sought the Presidency and chose Alaska Senator Mike Gravel as his running mate, he won with 57% of the vote.

43. After President Kucinich announced he would not seek re-election, Vice President Gravel immediately announced his candidacy. He faced a reasonably difficult primary from Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, but won. Vice President Gravel chose Sanders as his running mate and won with 58% of the vote in 2000, but won with only 50% of the vote in 2004.

44. President Rand Paul was the first son of a former President ever elected to the same office. His father, former President Ron Paul, died 3 days after his inauguration. His Vice President for both terms was Utah Senator Mike Lee.
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H.E. VOLODYMYR ZELENKSYY
Alfred F. Jones
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« Reply #1079 on: March 25, 2012, 12:05:00 PM »

President Kucinich is a Paultard's dream? Also, don't forget Quincy!
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TNF
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« Reply #1080 on: March 25, 2012, 10:20:56 PM »

California Uber Alles

39. Jimmy Carter (Democratic): 1977-1985
40. Jerry Brown (Democratic): 1985-1993

41. Pete Wilson (Republican): 1993-2001
42. Diane Feinstein (Democratic): 2001-2009
43. Arnold Schwarzenegger (Republican): 2009-
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20RP12
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« Reply #1081 on: March 26, 2012, 05:18:43 AM »

President Kucinich is a Paultard's dream? Also, don't forget Quincy!

A lot of Paultards like him Tongue Including me Tongue
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Captain Chaos
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« Reply #1082 on: March 26, 2012, 07:06:55 AM »

California Uber Alles

39. Jimmy Carter (Democratic): 1977-1985
40. Jerry Brown (Democratic): 1985-1993

41. Pete Wilson (Republican): 1993-2001
42. Diane Feinstein (Democratic): 2001-2009
43. Arnold Schwarzenegger (Republican): 2009-

Schwarzenegger was born in Austria. He is constitutionally barred from running for President because he was not born in the USA.
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TNF
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« Reply #1083 on: March 26, 2012, 07:59:46 AM »

California Uber Alles

39. Jimmy Carter (Democratic): 1977-1985
40. Jerry Brown (Democratic): 1985-1993

41. Pete Wilson (Republican): 1993-2001
42. Diane Feinstein (Democratic): 2001-2009
43. Arnold Schwarzenegger (Republican): 2009-

Schwarzenegger was born in Austria. He is constitutionally barred from running for President because he was not born in the USA.

Constitutional amendment Tongue
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Earthling
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« Reply #1084 on: March 26, 2012, 08:15:18 AM »

1861 - 1865: 16. Abraham Lincoln (Republican/ National Union)*
1865 - 1871: 17. Andrew Johnson (National Union)**
1871 - 1873: 18. Edmund Ross (National Union)
1873 - 1881: 19. Ulysses S. Grant (Republican)
1881 - 1885: 20. Samuel Tilden (Democratic) ***
1885 - 1889: 21. James G. Blaine (Republican)
1889 - 1897: 22. Grover Cleveland (Democratic)
1897 - 1901: 23. Robert T. Lincoln (Republican) *
1901 - 1909: 24. William McKinley (Republican)
1909 - 1913: 25. Elihu Root (Republican)
1913 - 1921: 26. Theodore Roosevelt (Democratic)
1921 - 1925: 27. Frank Orren Lowden (Republican) ***
1925 - 1933: 28. Charles Evans Hughes (Republican)
1933 - 1941: 29. Herbert Hoover (Democratic)
1941 - 1949: 30. Franklin D. Roosevelt (Democratic)
1949 - 1953: 31. Robert Taft (Republican) **
1953 - 1961: 32. Earl Warren (Republican)
1961 - 1963: 33. Lyndon B. Johnson(Democratic) *
1963 - 1973: 34. John F. Kennedy (Democratic)
1973 - 1977: 35. Gerald Ford (Republican) ***
1977 - 1981: 36. Ronald Reagan (Republican)
1981 - 1989: 37. Walter Mondale (Democratic)
1989 - 1997: 38. George Bush (Republican)
1997 - 2001: 39. Al Gore (Democratic)
2001 - 2001: 40. John McCain (Republican) *
2001 - 2009: 41. Elizabeth Dole (Republican)
2009 - now:   42. Bill Clinton(Democratic)

* Assassinated
** Died of natural causes
*** Retired after one term
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Captain Chaos
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« Reply #1085 on: March 26, 2012, 07:43:22 PM »
« Edited: March 26, 2012, 07:46:06 PM by Captain Chaos »

California Uber Alles

39. Jimmy Carter (Democratic): 1977-1985
40. Jerry Brown (Democratic): 1985-1993

41. Pete Wilson (Republican): 1993-2001
42. Diane Feinstein (Democratic): 2001-2009
43. Arnold Schwarzenegger (Republican): 2009-


Schwarzenegger was born in Austria. He is constitutionally barred from running for President because he was not born in the USA.

Constitutional amendment Tongue

When? You didn't mention that.
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Jerseyrules
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« Reply #1086 on: March 26, 2012, 11:30:21 PM »

The Confederation Continues

In 1786, a group including John Hancock, Patrick Henry, Samuel Adams, John Jay, George Washington, and a few youngsters including Alexander Hamilton and James Madison, meeting in Pennsylvania, produced a constitution to save the Confederation. Amending the Articles of Confederation, they produce a modified plan that leaves states with a large amount of autonomy but leaves the federal government in control of interestate commerce, foreign policy, and a number of other key points. Combined with certain compromises made in 1787, the agreement is ratified, and in 1787, the first of the new elections to the Congress are held.

1. George Washington (Virginia) March 4th, 1788-March 4th, 1789
2. John Hancock (Massachusetts) March 4th, 1789-March 4th, 1790
3. Patrick Henry (Virginia) March 4th, 1790-March 4th, 1791
4. John Adams (Massachusetts) March 4th, 1791-March 4th, 1792
5. John Jay (New York) March 4th, 1792-March 4th, 1793
6. Thomas Jefferson (Virginia) March 4th, 1793-March 4th, 1794
7. Samuel Adams (Massachustts) March 4th, 1794-March 4th, 1795

8. Oliver Ellsworth (Connecticut) March 4th, 1795-March 4th, 1796
9. Aaron Burr (New York) March 4th, 1796-March 4th, 1797
10. Alexander Hamilton (New York) March 4th, 1797-March 4th, 1797)

Sounds like a good TL Wink
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Jerseyrules
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« Reply #1087 on: March 26, 2012, 11:41:27 PM »

List of Mayors of New York City:

Ed Koch (D): 1979-1993*
Rudolph Giuliani (R): 1994-2005**
Howard Stern (Independent-Libertarian): 2006-2009***
Bob Turner (R): 2010-Present****

* Koch narrowly survives a bitter primary against fellow Democrat David Dinkins
** Giuliani given third term in the wake of 9/11, term limits repealed
*** Stern runs on change from past two mayors, promising to serve only one term.  After a sex scandal comes out against his only real competition, Congressman Anthony Weiner, the polls tighten, and Stern is elected in a major upset, promising to legalize Marajuana and other "soft drugs" and eliminate the "fascist police tactics" of the Giuliani administration
**** While crime continued to drop during Stern's time in office, the citizens of New York realize that it is too early to legalize drugs of any kind in the city, and Turner is elected in a landslide on a law and order campaign.
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20RP12
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« Reply #1088 on: March 27, 2012, 08:14:21 AM »

Howard Stern (Independent-Libertarian): 2006-2009

Woooooooooo!
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TNF
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« Reply #1089 on: March 27, 2012, 10:42:11 AM »

No 9/11

Presidents of the United States:
43. George W. Bush (Republican): 2001-2005
44. Hillary Rodham Clinton (Democratic): 2005-2013

Vice Presidents of the United States:
46. Dick Cheney (Republican): 2001-2005
47. John Edwards (Democratic): 2005-2013

Speakers of the United States House of Representatives:
59. Dennis Hastert (Republican): 1999-2003
60. Dick Gephardt (Democratic): 2003-2007
61. Nancy Pelosi (Democratic): 2007-2011
62. John Boehner (Republican): 2011-present

United States Senate Majority Leaders:
Tom Daschle (Democratic): 2001-2011
Harry Reid (Democratic): 2011-present


Defeated Presidential Tickets, 2000-2008
2000: Al Gore / Joe Lieberman (Democratic)
2004: George W. Bush / Dick Cheney (Republican)
2008: John McCain / Charlie Crist (Republican)


The leading candidate for the Republican nomination in 2012 is former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, while the Democrats are divided between Vice President Edwards, former House Speaker Gephardt, Senator Sherrod Brown, and Representative Dennis Kucinich.
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« Reply #1090 on: April 07, 2012, 09:57:15 PM »
« Edited: April 07, 2012, 10:06:06 PM by Rooney »

Between the Fountain of Abundance and the Court of Lilies- No McKinley Assassination

25) William McKinley/ Garret Hobart (R): 1897-1899
                                               Theodore Roosevelt (R): 1901-1902

                                Vacant: 1902-1905
26) William C. Whitney/Richard Olney (D): 1905-1906
27) Richard Olney/Vacant (D): 1906-1909
28) Elihu Root/Joseph B. Foraker (R): 1909-1913
29) John Albert Johnson/ Thomas E. Watson (D): 1913-1921
30) Gifford Pinchot/Calvin Coolidge (R): 1921-1929
31) Calvin Coolidge/Dwight Morrow (R): 1929-1931
                                                  Vacant: 1932
32) William Richards Castle, Jr. / Vacant (R): 1932-1933
33) Arthur Harry Moore/John W. Martin (D): 1933-1937
34) Gifford Pinchot/William Borah (R): 1937-1940
                                                 Vacant: 1940-1941
35) Arthur Vandenberg/Bruce Barton (R): 1941-1945
36) Joseph P. Kennedy, Sr./Carl Hayden (D): 1945-1953
37) Carl Hayden/Jimmie Davis (D): 1953-1957
38) Everett M. Dirksen/Sherman Adams (R): 1957-1959
                                       Vacant 1959-1961
                                       Leverett Saltonstall (R): 1961-1965
39) Pierre Salinger/Julius Krug (D): 1965-1967
40) Julius Krug/Carl E. Sanders (D): 1967-1969
41) Carl E. Sanders/Phillip A. Hart (D): 1969-1973
42) Ronald W. Reagan/Elly M. Peterson (R): 1973-1978
43) Elly M. Peterson/Howard Baker (R): 1978-1985
44) Robert McFarlane/Gordon Humphrey (R): 1985-1989
45) Sam Waterston/Dick Gephardt (D): 1989-1997
46) Jack Kemp/John Ensign (R): 1997-2001
47) Robert Redford/Martin Frost (D): 2001-2009
48) Anthony Muñoz /Jim Gilmore (R): 2009-Present (April 2012)

25. President William McKinley while on one of his many nationwide tours, traveled to the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York, in September 1901. While in the shaking hands in the Temple Of Music by the Tower of Light between the Fountain of Abundance and the Court of Lilies anarchist Leon Czolgosz attempted to assassinate the president with a cleverly concealed pistol. However, an African-American James “Big Ben” Parker eyed the gun in a loose bandage and tackled the Michigan born anarchist before his deed could be carried out. Parker was hailed as a national hero and President McKinley left Buffalo more popular than ever.

The second term of William “Big Bill” McKinley was not an easy one for the nation. When news was leaked that the attempted assassin was an anarchist with a foreign name a new era of “Know Nothing”-ism took hold over the country.  Former Governor of the Philippines William Howard Taft is named the new U.S. Attorney General and, as a good bureaucrat, dutifully begins the “Taft Raids.” Lists of “reds” are released to the press and thousands of Americans are arrested in what becomes known as the “Red Scare of 1901.” The most famous anarchists/reds arrested are Emma Goldman, Sherwood Anderson, George Tucker, Bill Haywood, Eugene Debs, Job Harriman and Upton Sinclair. The arrests were highly controversial and lead to international outcry. The arrests continued into spring 1902 before the McKinley Administration ended them.

The war against the Philippines continued in force under McKinley. The brutal crackdown was continued. Terror came to the American homeland when on March 16, 1902, Pilipino nationals fired on the U.S. Senate as it was conducting a quorum call. Vice-President Roosevelt, who had happened to be overseeing the legislative body, was one of the five casualties of the attack. A bullet entered TR’s left-lung and he would pass away by the morning of March 17th, 1901. The Hero of Kettle Hill was mourned around the nation as a fallen hero. The war in the Philippines was expanded and the McKinley Administration Okayed concentration camps for Pilipino rebels. The resistance to these camps only created a more bloody resistance to the American occupation. By 1904 the United States was involved in fighting a guerilla resistance with no end in sight.  

26. In the 1904 election the Democrats nominated the Cleveland Democratic ticket of former Secretary of the Navy William C. Whitney (who survived an illness in early 1904) and former Secretary of State Richard Olney. Whitney ran on a peace platform which contrasted with the “Stay the Course” message of the Republican nominee Senator Nelson Aldrich of Rhode Island. President Whitney would only serve in the Executive Office from March 4th, 1905, to January 17th, 1906, but he began the long road to peace and independence for the Philippines. He would die in office of a stroke. One of the only decisions made by President Whitney was naming “Hail Colombia” as the U.S. national anthem. The popular tune was beloved across the country and both houses of Congress approved of the National Anthem Act of 1905 by unanimous margins.                
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« Reply #1091 on: April 07, 2012, 09:57:50 PM »
« Edited: April 07, 2012, 10:04:03 PM by Rooney »

27. President Richard Olney assumed the office following the unexpected death of President Whitney. A reluctant president, Olney was not a popular president with labor due to his defense of the suppression of the Pullman Strike as Cleveland’s Attorney General, so as president he championed the controversial Berryhill Labor Act which allowed industrial professions to legally ban unionization of labor. This laew was overturned in Davis v. Humboldt (1928). Other domestic policies of President Olney include singing the Bullion Act of 1907 formalizing only the gold as the standard U.S. payment for foreign loans and bonds and the Taliaferro Tariff, which eliminated the Dingley Tariff and lowered foreign rates to 27%.

President Olney is best remembered for ending the American war in the Philippines. President Olney sent former Secretary of the Treasury Charles S. Fairchild and journalist Edwin Godkin to the Philippines to work out a treaty of peace and gradual independence for the unruly American territory. The Fairchild Proviso of 1908 (also known as the Peace Policy) established that the Philippines was granted independence in 1910 and that, to cater to American interests, the United States would intervene militarily if the islands were ever attacked. This last caveat was added to deter Germany or Japan from meddling in the affairs of the new republic. President Olney did not stand for reelection in 1908.

28. President Elihu Root was elected the 28th United States President after a bitter 1908 campaign against New York Governor William Randolph Hearst, the controversial Democratic nominee who had only been governor of the Empire State since 1905. President Root oversaw a mildly progressive administration in the mold of President McKinley. He continued the Idol of Ohio’s trust busting activities and signing the Hedge Tariff, which repealed the Taliaferro Tariff and hiked tariff rates to 67%, a move which is seen as on the precipitating factors of the Panic of 1910. President Root signed the Federal Reserves Act of 1912 hoping that the new central bank could cure investor’s fears over the immediate future. This act failed to stabilize markets and President Root was defeated for reelection in 1912.

29. President John Albert Johnson, a former Minnesota governor, was elected the 29th President of the United States defeating incumbent Republican President Elihu Root by a wide margin. President Johnson, who almost died following a botched operation in September 1909, was known as the Great Amender. During his eight year in the Executive Mansion the president proved to be instrumental in the passage of five amendments to the U.S. Constitution: the 16th (Outlawing lynching, held as Constitutional by Ridger v. Cochran, 1920), 17th (Prohibiting government purchase of lands of private usage), 18th (Establishing the direct election of U.S. senators), 19th (Allowing government expenditures on internal improvements, held as Constitutional in Virginia v. Carman, 1919) and 20th (Establishing the legality of a central bank).

In the realm of foreign affairs Johnson was instrumental in keeping the United States out of the Great War (1914-1916). Believed by many to favor the German cause, the Thompson Imbroglio of 1914 greatly harmed his foreign policy. In that embarrassing episode American Ambassador to Germany David Eugene Thompson assured German Foreign Minister Gottlieb von Jagow that the U.S. had, “no quarrel with the German Empire.” This set off a firestorm in Europe and the United States, but the comment was never taken back by President Johnson. It is generally agreed upon by historians that the Thompson Imbroglio dampened the fears of U.S. entry into the war which German Chancellor Theobald von Bethmann-Hollweg fostered and encouraged him to okay a complete submarine campaign against English commerce. This unrestricted submarine warfare on English commerce mirrored the results of the Sir Arthur Conan Doyle novel Danger: The Nordic nation used submarines to starve the people of England into a Carthagian peace.

Following his reelection in 1916 against Indiana Senator Charles Fairbanks, the Republican nominee, President Johnson began his best remembered progressive reforms: creating a progressive tax code and environmentalism. As president he set aside more land for national parks than even Presidents Ulysses Grant, Benjamin Harrison, William McKinley or Elihu Root. Johnson left office extremely popular and is remembered as one of the greatest chief executives.

30. President Gifford Pinchot was elected by a wide margin in 1920 over Vice-President Thomas E. Watson, the lack-luster Democratic nominee. President Pinchot is known as the “Father of Modern Progressive Republicanism.” Under his New Federalism the United States government became active in the daily lives of citizens and in the affairs of the globe. “The time of exclusiveness is now past,” President Pinchot liked to tell the nation, homage to a saying of the late President McKinley. President Pinchot’s administration was friendly to labor, proponents of bimetallism and those favoring an income tax. While the Income Tax Amendment failed three times during his eight years in office, Pinchot was able to sign the Graduated Tax Act of 1922 which generally established the same idea.

In 1924 President Pinchot was reelected by a landslide over New York Governor Al Smith, a Democrat in the mold of President Johnson. In his second term he led the United States into the World Court and the Association of the Americas. Pinchot was instrumental in bringing about an end to the Mexican Civil War in 1925 and ending the upheaval in Haiti and Nicaragua. The Pinchot Doctrine of 1925 established that the Association of the Americas, under U.S. leadership, would intervene in civil unrest throughout the Americas to restore order. This doctrine proved to be too difficult to uphold as civil unrest in Central and South America became the norm in the 1930s.

In economic affairs President Pinchot reintroduced bimetallism in the United States for the first time since the McKinley Administration. In 1928 the U.S. senate rejected American entry into the Belfast Agreement, which would have placed American bullion into the European Bank. International bimetallism, one of the major dreams of President McKinley, was now a dead dream.

Despite his high popularity and his belief that he had more work to do, President Pinchot honored the unofficial two-term limit and refused to run for the office in 1928. When he left office on March 4th, 1929, the staff at The Nation supposedly collectively wept.

31. President Calvin Coolidge, who served eight years as Vice-President under President Pinchot, was elected in 1928 over Democratic nominee Governor Al Smith, the 1924 nominee. President Coolidge served as a cool, conservative president. He appointed anti-inflationist to sit on the Federal Reserve’s Board of Governors and withdrew American forces from Nicaragua and Bolivia, where they had been placed under the Pinchot Doctrine.

Coolidge emerged as the most visible president yet due to his utilization of radio and newsreels. The president became a beloved figure due to the work of his press secretary, adman Bruce Barton. Barton, who would later serve as Vice-President of the United States, made sure to sell the president on his dry one-liners and loveable penny pincher image. This was the first “packaging of a president” since the days of Abraham Lincoln and Americans ate it up like cotton candy at a state fair.

In the year 1930 a real estate bubble built up by cheap credit during the Pinchot tenure popped due to the contractionary fiscal policies of President Coolidge. Tens of thousands of Americans lost their homes which were assured to them under the unsustainable American Home Program oversaw by Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover. Unsustainable mortgages became toxic assets that banks throughout the United States rejected leading to a banking collapse not seen in the United States since the Panic of 1893. Secretary Hoover resigned his position and was replaced with industrialist Henry Ford, who took the position of Secretary of Commerce on a salary of $1 a day and only until the crisis ended. The Great Panic of 1930 began a decade long economic downturn remembered by monetary historians as “The Lost Decade.”  

In 1930 Vice-President Dwight Murrow (a classmate of Coolidge’s at Amherst College) made sure that his son in law, famed aviator Charles Lindbergh, was present at the lighting of the first National Christmas Tree. Within a year Vice-President Murrow would be dead and there was no legal process to name a new vice-president. President Coolidge was not the man to buck tradition so he soldiered on without a rather useless appendix.  In January 1932, however, President Coolidge was found collapsed on the floor in his White House bedroom bathroom by First Lady Grace Goodhue Coolidge. The president with no veep had died of a heart attack.

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« Reply #1092 on: April 07, 2012, 09:59:07 PM »
« Edited: April 07, 2012, 10:04:33 PM by Rooney »

32. Under the Succession Act of 1886 Secretary of State William Richards Castle, Jr., became the 32nd President of the United States. After a period of mourning for the loss of President Coolidge with intensity not seen since the passing of Lincoln, legal questions arose over the fitness of President Castle. Castle was born in the Kingdom of Hawaii, not an American territory. Castle’s father was an official in the Hawaiian government and born in Honolulu in 1849, long before the islands became an American territory. A bipartisan committee in the Senate urged President Castle to resign his post and allow Secretary of the Treasury Hamilton Fish II (born in Putnam County, NY) to assume to office of president. President Castle refused to yield and a major legal battle began. In April 1932 a U.S. district court ruled that President Castle had title to the presidency because Hawaii was a U.S. territory, establishing him as a citizen of the United States. Opponents appealed to the Supreme Court, but the Republican majority high court would not hear the argument.

Due to the fact that President Castle was viewed as an illegitimate leader by a strong minority of the country his tenure in office was not productive. Democratic Speaker of the House John Nance Garner emerged as the most powerful man in Washington, D.C., leading a reactionary revolution that was rejected by many Democrats and embraced by a solid majority of Republicans. Most notable of the shift in ideology was the Sanford Crisis in October 1932. When American businessman Rufert Sanford was kidnapped by Cuban rebels in Santiago de Cuba Democrats (who were traditionally viewed as isolationists) called for intervention to free the capitalist while Republicans (who were traditionally viewed as interventionists) urged caution. President Castle sided with the Democrats and failed in his attempt to persuade Speaker Garner to okay a mission to Cuba to rescue Sanford. “What if an American is killed in Cuba? Should we not intervene?” the president asked the speaker. “Well,” Garner supposedly responded, “I guess it would depend on what American is killed.” The Association of the Americas would peacefully free Sanford and five other American hostages on Christmas Eve 1932.

President Castle attempted to change the national anthem to “The Star Spangled Banner” in 1932, but the move was met with anger from both sides of the aisle in Congress. While newspapers erroneously stated that the song was “sung to the tune of an Irish drinking song” the song had no real place in Americana outside of Baltimore, Maryland. President Castle gave a speech on July 4, 1932, to the Hannah Caldwell Branch of the Daughters of the American Revolution proclaiming that opposition to his plan was, “The work of Anglophiles in the Senate.” The president would lose this argument as he lost every other argument in his short presidency. The story of The Star Spangled Banner Controversy of 1932 would live on in the 1986 Stephen Sondheim musical comedy Another National Anthem with the talented Jerry Orbach playing the role of President Castle.    

33. President Andrew Harry Moore was elected the 33rd President of the United States by a landslide in 1932, defeating Republican Secretary of the Treasury Hamilton Fish II. President Moore was the first man ever directly elected from the United States Senate to the Executive Mansion. The main matter of business was the Great Panic of 1930. President Moore embraced inflationary policies such as lowering interest rates and increasing the discount window for Federal Reserves cash. These loose monetary policies, coupled with wide tax cuts for the top 10% earners in the country, slowed the recession but did not produce the economic growth hoped by the administration. In 1935 the Reconstruction Finance Corporation (RFC) was established to offer cheap federal government loans to cash strapped state and local governments to encourage investment. By 1936 the Moore Administration raised taxes on the wealthiest citizens to keep the budget balanced and failed in its attempt to remove the United States from the gold standard (as Britain had done in 1933).

34. President Gifford Pinchot returned back to the Executive Mansion in 1936 following his landslide victory over President A. Harry Moore. Despite hopes from the American left that Pinchot would preside as he did in the 1920s this was not to be. President Pinchot’s third term is remembered as a conservative (even reactionary) four-year period in American history. His presidency focused on ending the Great Panic of the 1930s. He tackled this by repealing the gold standard (his most progressive reform), repealing the 1935 tax increases of the Moore Administration. These inflationary policies are credited with being the pushes needed to hook the United States out of the abyss of recession.

The Peace Agreement with the Philippines would bear bitter fruit when in 1937 the Republic of the Philippines joined with China in resisting the expansionist Japanese. President Pinchot originally intended to do nothing, after all the Philippines had openly entered the war and their sovereignty was not threatened. When Manila was bombed by Japanese long range bombers in 1939 they appealed to the United States for aid. Threatened with the possibility of war with Great Britain if the nation declared war on Japan (due to the Anglo-Japanese Naval Alliance which was still in tack due to the failure of the Washington Naval Conference in 1921) President Pinchot instead opened up a Lend-Lease Program with the Philippines sending them Douglas B-18 bombers and Lockheed P-38 Lightning air vessels. Pinchot also did not enforce the Neutrality Act of 1934 barring American air servicemen from volunteering for the Filipino Army. Amazingly this middle of the road approach kept the United States out of the Second Sino-Japanese War despite the fact that it was waged from 1931-1943.

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« Reply #1093 on: April 07, 2012, 09:59:37 PM »
« Edited: April 07, 2012, 10:05:04 PM by Rooney »

35. President Arthur Vandenberg was elected in 1940 over Virginia Governor James Hubert Price, the dark horse Democratic nominee who was selected as a compromise choice at the contentious Democratic Convention in Chicago. Vandenberg, on the other hand, was the overwhelming favorite for the Republican nomination and was easily nominated on the first ballot leading a unified party to the White House. President Vandenberg spent most of his presidency fighting the forces trying to get hi involved in the Second Sino-Japanese War. The Allied Forces (China, the Philippines and the Russian Federation) were engaged in a losing cause against the British-Japanese Alliance. Agents for the Allied Forces (especially Chinese First Lady Soong May-ling) made repeated visits to the U.S. Capital to lobby for war. Secretary of State John Foster Dulles made a great issue out of the “China Lobby” and its sway over members of both parties. In 1942 Senator Robert Lafollette, Jr. (Republican-WI) headed up the “China Investigations” which brought to light to real sway of Madame Chiang over many American lawmakers.

With the American economy finally out of the Lost Decade of the 1930s President Vandenberg introduced conservative reforms to the U.S. tax code. He attempted to repeal the Graduated Tax Act of 1932 by not signing a new version of the bill but his veto was overridden. The president also supported protective tariffs for the auto and steel industries but these measures also met with failure. President Vandenberg was forced to run for reelection with several Treasury Department and tax officials under indictment for their close ties to organized crime syndicates in East St. Louis and Baltimore. The president was innocent of all charges but the taint of the “Baltimore Ring” left the Vandenberg Administration, already devoid of major success, wanting in the eyes of most voters.  

36. President Joseph Patrick Kennedy, Senior, was elected the 36th President of the United States over incumbent President Arthur Vandenberg. President Kennedy had been the youngest bank president in American history and had made his fortune in the film business, both in Los Angeles and Havana. Following a brief stint as Ambassador to Cuba under President Moore (March 1936 to March 1937) Kennedy was elected Governor of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts in 1940. The businessman and entrepreneurial prodigy was probably the most accomplished man to enter the Executive Mansion since Thomas Jefferson. President Kennedy began his term in office with an international crisis. The German Kaiserreich and the Russian Federation went to war over Polish frontiers in January 1937. The Russo-German War did not become a continent wide struggle like the Great War of 1914-1916, remaining isolated to Eastern Europe and the two major players. This is in spite of the fact that Russia was also involved in a war in the Pacific against Japan and Great Britain. President Kennedy rejected calls to back the Russians in the war to weaken the expanding German international economy. In fact, the Kennedy Administration is remembered for eight years of spending isolation in terms of foreign affairs.

In terms of the domestic economy President Kennedy became known as “President Veto.” He rejected progressive reforms to the economy and infrastructure updates that were supported by both parties in Congress. “We need not reform but rest,” the president stated in his veto of the Civil Rights and Voting Act of 1944. This controversial veto was not overridden by the Republican majority in Congress and solidified Kennedy as a conservative and reactionary icon. After his presidency Kennedy advised his children to steer clear of politics. “It’s full of assholes, rats and Jews like Hollywood,” Kennedy writes to his oldest son Joe the day before he leaves office, “Unlike Hollywood, these assholes, rats and Jews all think that they are saving the world.” His sons heed the advice of their father and go off to Hollywood. Joe, Jack and Bobby Kennedy all will become Hollywood actors, directors or producers leading to the Kennedy Acting Family Dynasty. Joe and Jack Kennedy will win the biggest accolades from Hollywood for the Boston mob picture The Departed (1963) where the two play brothers, one who enters the Boston-Irish mob and the other who becomes a cop. Teddy Kennedy is drafted in 1955 to play quarterback for the Detroit Lions.

37. President Carl Hayden became the first vice-president directly elected to the presidency since Martin van Buren. Running with the high tide of “Kennedy Prosperity” at his back Vice-President Hayden and his running-mate former Louisiana Governor “Singing Jimmie” Davis outpaced the Republican ticket of California Governor Earl Warren and South Dakota Senator Karl Mundt. President Hayden’s administration began on a sour note with the defeated Russian Republic, having been defeated by Germany in Russo-German War and an alliance of Japan and Great Britain in Sino-Japanese, collapsing into economic upheaval. Russia, as the owner of some 15% of the world’s gold reserves, would prove to be a stumbling block for the international economy and lead to the Recession of 1953. The recession was a stubborn one and President Hayden rejected ideas from both sides of the isle which included any mention of “economic stimulus.” The president followed the lead of Presidents Coolidge and Kennedy, supporting tax cuts, sound currency and free trade. The greatest triumph of the Hayden Administration is widely seen as the signing of the Voter Registration Act of 1955. This act, while not a voting rights act, is cited as important to suffrage because it allowed for voting rights suits to take precedent in state and district courts. It was due to this law that the case of Martin v. Georgia (1958) was heard by the Supreme Court and the 7-2 decision by the Court opened suffrage to people of all races.

38. President Everett McKinley Dirksen and New Hampshire Governor Sherman Adams defeated incumbent President Carl Hayden and Vice-President Jimmie Davis in the 1956 presidential race. The sour economy and shaky foreign picture proved to be the undoing for the Arizonan. President Dirksen oversaw eight years of steady progressive change in the United States. This was fully unexpected because the oratorical Illinoisan was elected on a platform which was not different from the 1952 Republican document. In his first term Dirksen signed progressive immigration laws which began a steady path to citizenship for undocumented workers, founded the Social Security Trust Fund, began a policy of naval modernization and introduced the first serious civil rights act (the Civil Rights Act of 1959) since the 1940s. “It is not an understatement to state that President Dirksen has been the biggest reforming president since the Pinchot Administration in the early 20th Century,” opined The Nation in January 1960. All did not go perfectly for the Dirksen Administration in the first term, however, as Vice-President Sherman Adams was charged with accepting bribes as Governor of New Hampshire. Adams at first argued that the charges had no bearing on his current office, but by October 1959, with the administration facing reelection, Adams resigned in order to not harm, “The reelection of a great man and leader, Everett Dirksen.”

While the Democratic ticket of Senate Majority Leader Lyndon Johnson and Iowa Governor Herschel C. Loveless attempted to make political hay out of the Adams Scandal, their attacks failed to make any traction. President Everett Dirksen and Senator Leverett Saltonstall (“Everett and Leverett”) easily won election in 1960. Dirksen’s second term was not as successful as his first term. In 1961 a Japanese civilian airliner was shot down over Mexico leading to a near war between the two nations. Secretary of State Christian Herter was able to bring about a peaceful ending to the crisis but the Japanese Diet, sensing that the Americans showed a bias towards their southern neighbor, forced an unpopular trade treaty through the Senate to ensure peace. Dirksen’s removal of the United States from the international gold market also brought jeers and led to a steep economic downturn from 1963-1965.
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« Reply #1094 on: April 07, 2012, 10:00:12 PM »
« Edited: April 07, 2012, 10:05:33 PM by Rooney »

39. President Pierre Salinger was elected to the nation’s highest office in the land in 1964. He had served as a San Francisco TV producer before being elected to the U.S. Senate in 1958 over incumbent Senator Richard M. Nixon. Senator Salinger was a dark horse candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination but was able to form an effective Western coalition against Texas Senator Lyndon Johnson and Minnesota Senator Hubert Humphrey and win the nomination in a narrow first ballot victory at the DNC in Jersey City, New Jersey. Senator Salinger and Wisconsin Congressman Julius Krug managed to narrowly defeat the Republican ticket of New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller and North Dakota Senator John E. Davis. The Salinger Administration was forced to play a careful balancing act between liberal Western and conservative Southern Democrats and it proved tricky to maneuver the political tightrope. The repeal of the Japanese Trade Treaty in 1966 was popular with the United States but led to a trade war between the U.S. and Japan that would last until the 1980s. The German Spring from April to June 1966 led to a destabilization of international currency markets when liberal Berlin college students instituted the overthrow of Kaiser Wilhelm III and the ending of the “strong monarch” parliamentary system in that nation. Fear soon gripped Europe when left-winged uprisings targeted reactionary governments in Portugal, France, Austria-Hungary, Ireland and Russia (where right-wing elements emerged victorious from the civil war) and this, in turn, led markets to suffer. By 1968, however, the “Spring Uprisings” had calmed down and economic stasis was returned to.

Following a successful reelection over Republican rivals Ohio Governor James Rhodes and Connecticut Governor Frank Zeller, President Salinger introduced his multifaceted New Roles Program. This government package was to be the biggest overhaul in government action in decades. It included Universal Single Payer Health Care, Medicaid for children, a national highway program and a revamping of the federal government bureaucracy. None of this was to come to be as the gales of August took the president’s life. On August 29, 1967, while shaking hands with supporters after a health care rally in Los Angeles, three bullets penetrated the skull, left-shoulder and spinal cord of President Salinger. He would die instantly. The man arrested for the crime was Robert Morales, a disgruntled FBI agent and former Justice Department official. However, historians and conspiracy theorists still debate to this day who was really behind the assassination of the popular president.

40. President Julius Krug took office in the late afternoon of August 29, 1967, at his home in Watertown, Wisconsin. “Our nation faces a nightmare,” President Krug tells the people of America that night, “This nightmare, however grim and bleak, cannot destroy the pride we had in President Salinger or the hopes he had for all of us.” The speech is widely applauded around the world. President Krug named Georgia Governor Carl Sanders as vice-president in compliance with 22nd Amendment, appeasing liberals and southerners. “I want to be a uniter, not a divider,” President Krug tells CBS’s Dan Rather in November 1967 and does not introduce all the parts of the late President Salinger’s New Roles plan. President Krug is able to pass the Highway Act of 1968 and the Children’s Medical Assistance Act of 1968 but did not act on the rest of the package. A former labor leader, President Krug dedicates much of his two-years in office to using the Oval Office as a mediation desk between labor and management. In the 1968 Miner’s Strike in Appalachia Krug personally works out a deal which benefits labor. One of the notable defeats which the Krug Administration suffered was at the hands of U.S. Steel when the steel conglomerate successfully sued the government over price fixing (Anderson v. Clark, 1968). President Krug declined to seek another term citing his declining health. In 1970 President Krug passed away.

41. President Carl Sanders followed in the footsteps of Van Buren and Hayden by using the vice-presidency as a stepping stone to the White House. Sanders and Michigan Senator Phillip Hart trounced their Republican rivals, former Secretary of Defense Maxwell Taylor and West Virginia Senator Cecil H. Underwood, and kept the donkey in the Oval Office for another four years. President Sanders declared in his inaugural address, “Our dedication to civil rights must be absolute.” Sander’s controversial Civil Rights Package, unveiled in 1969, included not just racial civil rights but also gender and economic rights. The package included a Civil Rights Act which mandated private facilities to serve everyone, an Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) to protect women from discrimination and an Economic Bill of Rights. This bill of rights mandated a living wage adjusted for inflation, a right to employment, a right to a home and Universal Health Care. The payment mechanism was a throwback to populism: a removal of United States currency from the gold standard, an Income Tax Amendment and a restoral of the Graduated Tax Act. President Sanders was demonized by the Republicans as a “socialist” and his own southern and eastern Democratic base as “a utopian.” President Sanders declared that he had won “political capital” in the 1968 election and, “I intend on spending it.” Sanders spent his capital, but proved to not be thrifty with it. A coalition of Republicans and Western Democrats passed the Civil Rights Act of 1970, but his other goals were not enacted. The Equal Rights and Income Tax Amendments were defeated in the Senate and the Greenback Act of 1970 was killed in committee. By 1972 Sanders had made only enemies in Washington, D.C., but declared he would run for reelection to vindicate his progressive legislative agenda. After fighting off a stiff challenge from Alabama Governor George Wallace in the Democratic primary, Sanders was defeated by a landslide for reelection carrying only five states.
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« Reply #1095 on: April 07, 2012, 10:01:00 PM »

42. President Ronald Reagan was elected by a landslide over unpopular incumbent President Sanders. Governor Reagan and Michigan Senator Elly Peterson, the first woman to become vice-president, were swept into office in a Republican landslide year. The Reagan Administration dedicated itself to “fixing the government mess both at home and abroad.” Reagan began his term with a heavy-handed tax cut aimed at the richest 1% of Americans. This stimulus would be credited by economists for bringing about an economic boom in the 1970s and early 1980s. In terms of foreign affairs the Reagan Administration is credited, or faulted, for the largest military buildup since the McKinley years. The administration justified this build-up by pointing to the Empire of Japan and its own military buildup. “The centralization of the military state of the Eastern Empire constitutes a clear and present danger for all Western peoples,” President Reagan tells fundamentalist Christian supporters at a Miami, Florida, luncheon in 1973.  Neoconservative intellectuals in the administration used the opportunity to use the “Eastern specter” to ramp up national security spending. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, in the infamous “Cross of Iron” speech, declared that the U.S. needed to, “Form an alliance against the rising threat from a nation intent on hanging on civilization by a cross of iron.” The Reagan Administration effectively ended the Anglo-Japanese Alliance with the Washington Treaty, signed by British Prime Minister Enoch Powell and Secretary of State Alexander Haig. The administration’s foreign policy began the “Era of Cold Feelings” between the U.S. and Japan which would last for two decades.

Reagan and Peterson were reelected in 1976 in a 49-state landslide, easily outpacing the Democratic team of Illinois Governor Adlai Stevenson III and former Secretary of the Interior James Exxon of Nebraska. Reagan’s second term was plagued by the National Loan Scandal. Secretary of the Treasury Bill Simon was impeached for malfeasance due to the fact that he offered no-bid contracts to Chinese construction firms and used a dummy corporation (National Loan) to funnel Chinese money to Korean rebels resisting Japanese occupation. President Reagan announced to the nation that he had “nothing, I repeat nothing, to do with the media created circus known as ‘National Loan.’” Black Thursday on Wall Street in November 1977, which led to the collapse of the nation’s largest mall owner and chemical company, did not help the president. While the Wall Street collapse was easily corrected, the collapse led to questioning of the president’s economic vision. On the day before Thanksgiving 1978, a few weeks after the Democrats won a landslide in the midterm elections, unemployed chemical worker Raymond Lee Harvey opened fire on Reagan as he was leaving a conservative function. Five bullets were fired; one penetrated the president’s left lung. The president was rushed to George Washington University Hospital and doctors worked around the clock for three days to save the life of the president. Despite all of the care, President Ronald Wilson Reagan died on November 25, 1978, at the age of 67. His funeral, arranged by First Lady Jane Wyman-Reagan, was a massive affair modeled after the funeral of Abraham Lincoln, one of four presidents to fall to an assassin’s bullet.

43. President Elly M. Peterson took the oath of office at the Blair House on November 25, 1978. She was the first woman to become President of the United States. “This is a terrible way to make history,” President Peterson commented at her first press conference. After naming Tennessee Senator Howard Baker as vice-president, President Peterson announced that, “This is President Reagan’s term and I will govern the way he would have.” This statement was certainly true for her first two-years in office. Despite her record as a moderate-to-liberal Republican, President Peterson oversaw a continuation of the Conservative Counterrevolution of Reagan. The president butted heads repeatedly with the Democratic senate over fiscal matters and foreign affairs.

In 1980 President Peterson and Vice-President Baker were comfortably reelected over the Democratic team of Idaho Senator Frank Church and Massachusetts Congressman Sam Waterston. President Peterson’s full-term in office was quite different from her first two-years in office. Starting with the 1981 Colson v. Texas decision overturning abortion prohibitions across the U.S. President Peterson showed that she was a very different animal from “The Gipper.” The Peterson Administration angered Supply-Side advocates by removing Art Laffer as Chairman of the Board of Economic Advisors. The president also incurred in the ire of neoconservative advisors by ceding control of the League of the Americas to El Salvador President Óscar Romero, a hero of left-leaners. In 1982 the administration announced its support of the revamped Equal Rights Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and President Peterson signed the McCann Firearms Act outlawing the sale of armor-piercing bullets and semi-automatic weapons in the U.S. for a period of eight years. These two acts led the right-wing of the Republican Party to rebel against President Peterson in the midterm elections, leading to the strange political situation where the Republicans maintained control of the House of Representatives but Speaker of the House Phil Crane of Illinois was opposed to the president of his own party. Considering the fact that she was very unpopular with her own base, President Peterson bowed out of the 1984 presidential election.

44. President Robert “Bud” McFarlane was a dark-horse candidate for the Republican nomination when he announced for the highest office in February 1983. McFarlane served as Undersecretary of Defense from 1973-1975 and National Security Advisor from 1975-1981 in the Reagan and Peterson Administrations. At a meeting of prominent neoconservative Republicans in Arlington, Virginia, in November 1982 several candidates for the open GOP presidential nod were discussed including former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and former Secretary of State Alexander Haig. In the end, Congressman Dick Cheney proved to be the deciding factor in the cabal throwing their support behind the almost unknown McFarlane. McFarlane was considered to be the least scandal tarred of the candidates. In the GOP Primary against Vice-President Baker, Senator Bob Dole of Kansas, Delaware Governor Pete DuPont and others McFarlane was able to put together an effective primary coalition of angry Reaganites, disaffected national security voters and “moral” voters to win the needed delegates for nomination by June 1984. McFarlane and New Hampshire Senator Gordon Humphrey narrowly staved off the Democratic team of former Ohio Governor John Gilligan and New Jersey Senator Frank Lautenberg.

The McFarlane Administration sought a return to the “Golden Days” of the Reagan Administration. Old Reagan cabinet officials found themselves back in their old jobs and old laws were reintroduced to the Democratic controlled Congress. The two defining issues of the McFarlane Administration involved the ongoing “Eastern Tension” with Japan.  The first issue was the “Boxing Disaster” in 1985 when Japanese welterweight champion Harima Onizuka killed former American welterweight champion Stan Crandall in an exhibition match in Tokyo. The refusal of the Japanese Sporting Minister to issue a formal apology for the fatality led to the withdrawal of the American ambassador to Tokyo. The second major foreign issue in the administration was the USS Whitney incident in the Yellow Sea. Americans aboard the aircraft carrier apprehended and detained five Japanese Navy personnel and accused them of spying on the American vessel. The detained personnel were sent to a prison in Harbin, a city located in the American ally nation of China. Japanese Prime Minister Takema demanded the release of the personnel and threatened an invasion of China to free them. The standstill ended when Chinese Ambassador Jim Leach traveled to Kyoto, without the permission of the U.S. government, and arranged for a peaceful release of the Japanese naval personnel. Ambassador Leach was prosecuted under the Logan Act for conducting foreign diplomacy without the support of the government and was found guilty. He would serve two years in prison.

The McFarlane Administration proved to be a polarizing and divisive government in terms of domestic affairs. The administration spend what little political capital it had on a failed Right to Life Amendment and the unpopular Protection of Marriage Act which specifically denied marital benefits to same-sex partnerships. Fish v. Simmons (1991) overturned the law as unconstitutional. Attorney General Fred Thompson resigned from the cabinet to argue the government’s case in Gun Owners of America (GOA) v. U.S. (1987), the administration’s legal argument against the McCann Firearms Act. The court ruled in favor of the administration but the repeal of the popular law alienated McFarlane from independent and women voters. In the 1988 GOP Primary, President McFarlane easily dispatched of former Vice-President Baker but was overwhelmingly defeated in the general election winning just nine states. In his retirement, McFarlane has lived like a hermit and rarely gives interviews. His autobiography In Defense of My Country was defined by New York Times book critic Ray Bradbury as, “The most defensive presidential memoirs since Mr. Buchanan’s Administration of the Eve of the Rebellion.”

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« Reply #1096 on: April 07, 2012, 10:01:40 PM »

45. President Sam Waterston, the Governor of Massachusetts and the 1980 Democratic Vice-Presidential nominee, was elected by a landslide over incumbent President Bud McFarlane in the 1988 election with House Majority Leader Dick Gephardt as his running-mate. Waterston, who entertained the idea of being an actor before deciding on attending law school, was a gifted communicator who wanted to be the “Healer-in-Chief” following the divisive McFarlane Administration. In terms of foreign affairs President Waterston aimed to heal divisions with Japan. He named former Connecticut Governor George Herbert Walker Bush, who had lived in Japan in the 1960s working as an international stockbroker, as Secretary of State. Ignoring his biggest donors, Waterston appointed UC-Berkley Japanese Studies Chairman Richard Tokito, PhD., as the American Ambassador to Tokyo. On February 14, 1989, Bush and Tokito met with the Prime Minister and Emperor of Japan, presenting them with a “Reset Button.” However, the word “reset”, spelled with Japanese characters, actually spelled the word “vomit.” The Japanese leadership accepted the “Vomit Button” with words of thanks. “Let is vomit out the hatred in our souls,” the Prime Minister told Secretary Bush, “So that we may have better feelings in the future, feelings of health between our two nations.” The Waterston Administration strove to end the cold war with Japan but stopped short of signing a new free trade agreement with the Eastern nation. In terms of domestic affairs the first term of Waterston has been deemed “The Second Term of Peterson” with the president enacting moderate policies which appealed more to dissatisfied Republicans than the Waterston’s own liberal base.

In 1992 President Waterston won a landslide reelection over the Republican ticket of Tennessee Senator Fred Thompson and former Florida Governor Bob Martinez. His second term was far more progressive I terms of fiscal and social policies. The Omnibus Healthcare Reform Act of 1993 passed easily in a Democratic Congress but was challenged by Republican lawyers due to one stipulation: that all Americans purchase healthcare under an individual mandate and that a state health insurance company be established to ensure “fair pricing” for those Americans who cannot afford health insurance. Former U.S. Solicitor General Charles Colson took on U.S. Solicitor General Sonia Sotomayor in State of Alabama, et.al. v. U.S. Health Insurance Provider, Inc. (1995) and won. The national insurance company was closed down but the individual mandate was upheld as constitutional under the commerce clause. Other issues handled in the Omnibus Healthcare Reform Act of 1993, such as protection for policy holders with preexisting conditions, proved popular and still are in affect to this day. 

The year 1994 was a tough year for the administration. President Waterston fumbled in foreign affairs when he sent condolences to the Japanese government upon the death of boxing champion Harima Onizuka in a plane crash, despite the fact that the Japanese had never issued an apology or a condolence for the death of boxer Stan Crandall at the hands of Onizuka. This foreign policy blunder opened the president up to a barrage of Republican attacks in an election year. In March 1994 the President’s National Director of Physical Fitness Richard “The Iceman” Kuklinski, a former star for the Philadelphia Flyers, was indicted by a grand jury for money laundering and misappropriation of government funds. The scandal was played up by the media along with the woes of several Democratic congressmen to emphasize a “Culture of Corruption” in Washington, D.C. While President Waterston was innocent of any corruption, the scandals in government harmed his popularity and the Republican Party won a landslide victory in the midterm elections. The remainder of President Waterston’s term saw him take a swing back to the right by signing the McCain Military Restructuring Act which increased the size of the military substantially and Okaying a collection of corporate subsidies. The Waterston Administration ended with high approvals.

46. President Jack F. Kemp was a former Congressman turned Governor of New York. In the 1996 Republican Primary Governor Kemp was able to bridge the gap between moderate and neoconservative Republicans and easily outpaced Wyoming Senator Dick Cheney and former Tennessee Governor Lamar Alexander in the primaries. Governor Kemp and Nevada Congressman John Ensign led the Republican Party to a smashing victory over Democratic Vice-President Dick Gephardt and Minnesota Governor Mark Dayton. The Kemp Administration oversaw a sharp-pivot to the right in terms of economic and foreign policy. The administration reintroduced the nation to the gold standard in 1997 and tried to limit the power of the Federal Reserves to print money. His administration also enacted the massive Gramm Tax Act of 1998 which cut the tax rate for the wealthiest 1% to all-time lows, thus introducing the nation to both inflationary and contractionary economic solutions. The economy responded sourly to these changes and by Fall 1998 the nation was in a deep recession.

On October 20, 1999, a bomb exploded in the lobby of the American Embassy in Baghdad, Persia. This terrorist attack killed 215-Americans and was pinned on the head of Persian dictator Saddam Hussein. “Operation Odyssey Dawn” started on November 1, 1999, with American and Saudi Arabian planes dropping bombs on the city of Baghdad. These attacks were universally protested against by world governments and the Muslim League in Islamabad removed Saudi Arabia from membership. Making matters even worse the League instituted an oil embargo on any nation supporting the United States in a war where no solid proof could be found linking Hussein to the 10/20/1999 attacks. President Kemp declared that he would not stop the bombings until Hussein resigned from office. On December 30, 1999, an American bombing raid killed Hussein and his daughters Raghad and Rana Hussein. Uday Hussein, Saddam’s 35-year old son, took the reins of Persia and invited Amnesty International to see the ruins of Baghdad. The report which was released in February 2000 painted the U.S. in a negative light and, coupled with the fact that two women were killed along with Saddam, destroyed the idea of Operation Odyssey Dawn as a “just conflict.” On April 1, 2000, Secretary of Defense John McCain announced that the operation was over, not President Kemp who faced low approval ratings.

Adding to the misery of the president was the fact that Vice-President Ensign was investigated for receiving services from Deborah Jeane Palfrey, the D.C. Madam. An investigation led by Congressman David Vitter, a fellow Republican, into a money laundering scheme amongst Washington lobbyists led to the unearthing of the madam’s records. The vice-president’s name was among the 45 other politicians who had names on the list, including New York Congressman Elliot Spitzer and South Carolina Senator Mark Sanford. Vice-President Ensign refused to resign and was able to survive a Senate investigation.

Facing a 31% approval rating in March 1999 President Kemp announced he would not run for reelection. Secretary of Defense John McCain ran in his stead but was defeated in the Republican Primary because he was seen as too close to the unpopular administration.
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« Reply #1097 on: April 07, 2012, 10:02:10 PM »

47. President Robert Redford was elected president in 2000 by a wide-margin with Texas Congressman Martin Frost as his running-mate. Frost, a former actor and governor of California, was an easy winner in the Democratic Primary and easily bested the Republican ticket of Michigan Governor John Engler and New York Congressman Rick Lazio. Redford utilized his natural charisma and speaking ability to put forward liberal and progressive thoughts in the campaign, allowing for him to lead what historians refer to as the “Redford Revolution.”

President Redford was a dyed-in-the-wool liberal who was not afraid to fight for social justice, ecological and progressive causes. Unlike the center-left Waterston Administration, The Redford Administration immediately began fighting for left-winged change. The Democratic landslide in 2000 allowed the Redford government to pass a new tax code which erased the Gramm tax cuts, enact tough new environmental regulations under a new Environmental Protection Agency (the EPA), enact a National Health Service (NHS), placed America once again on a fiat money system and passed an amendment to the Constitution creating a national income tax for the first time since the American Civil War. “These last three years,” wrote The New Republic in 2004, “Would have been called a ‘crazy dream’ during the Waterston years.” The Redford Revolution proved to be a popular movement and the president was easily reelected in 2004 over the Republican team of Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum and Alaska Governor Frank Murkowski, winning 46-states.

The second term of President Redford was aimed at his plans to introduce a “New World Order.” Presidents since McKinley had dreamed of a “world community of states to discuss the hopes and dreams of the brotherhood of man” but this goal was never acted upon. On January 1, 2006, the European Union, the League of Americas and the Muslim League signed an agreement to speak in Geneva, Switzerland, about the idea of a United Nations Organization. These internationalist overtures by President Redford alienated many Americans who were accustomed to the ideal of “splendid isolation.” By 2008 the Geneva Group failed to produce a workable plan and the idea of a United Nations died before birth.

In terms of social policy in the second term, President Redford fought for “marriage equality”- meaning the official recognition of homosexual unions nationwide. He twice vetoed renewals of the Defense of Marriage Act and successfully pushed through Congress the National Civil Unions Act of 2006 which granted full marital benefits for all homosexual couples. The law was upheld in Gurts v. Texas (2007).

By 2006 radical progressive change began to wear thin on the American people and the Republican Party won control over the House of Representatives, effectively stalling the Redford Administration’s agenda for 2007-2009. The administration remained popular and President Redford left office with a 57% approval rating.

48. President Anthony Muñoz, the Governor of Arizona and a former NFL star, was elected in 2008 as a moderate Republican. The 2008 Republican Primary opened with Virginia Senator George Allen emerging as the early front-runner. Governor Muñoz was a dark-horse who caught on as the “Stop Allen” candidate, emerging against former New York Governor George Pataki and Missouri Senator Kit Bond to take up the mantle. Following a huge win on Super Tuesday, Governor Muñoz was able to wrap up the GOP nomination by April 2008. Selecting former Virginia Governor Jim Gilmore as his running-mate to appease Allen supporters, Muñoz ran an excellent campaign to edge out Democrats Wisconsin Senator Russ Feingold and Colorado Governor Diana DeGette.

The Muñoz Administration took the reins from the fiery progressive President Redford and did not embrace a reactionary policy. The NHS has survived under the Republican government with trimming waste from the program taking precedence over ending the popular system in Republican orthodoxy. President Muñoz enacted a targeted “middle class” tax cut and failed to return the U.S. to a gold standard.

In May 2011 the U.S. air force engaged in bombing raids over Libya to support a pro-democracy movement in the area which resulted in the emergence of a U.S. ally in Northern Africa. The military action helped the approval ratings of President Muñoz. In November 2011, Vice-President Gilmore announced that he would not seek a second-term and President Muñoz named Florida Governor Charlie Crist as his running-mate in the 2012 election. The Democrats are currently embroiled in a vicious primary between former Colorado Governor and 2008 VP nominee Diana DeGette, the choice of Redford Democrats, and New York Senator Lawrence O’Donnell, President Waterston’s former Chief of Staff. President Muñoz is expected to win reelection against either challenger.   
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NHI
Junior Chimp
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« Reply #1098 on: April 08, 2012, 10:31:40 AM »

37. Robert F. Kennedy: 1969-1973
38. Ronald Reagan: 1973-1981
39. Walter Mondale: 1981-1989
40. Robert Dole: 1989-1993
41. Mario Cuomo: 1993-2001
42. Bill Clinton: 2001-2009
43. John McCain: 2009-2013
44. Andrew Cuomo: 2013-2021
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Stand With Israel. Crush Hamas
Ray Goldfield
Junior Chimp
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« Reply #1099 on: April 08, 2012, 03:14:05 PM »

No Ross Perot:

41. George Herbert Walker Bush - 1989-1997
42. Al Gore - 1997-2005
43. Rudy Giuliani - 2005-2013
44. Jeb Bush - 2013-2017
45. Andrew Cuomo - 2017-2025

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