Republican Presidents

Three Longest Economic Expansions Since World War II Under Democratic Presidents Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson

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A fact often not acknowledged is that the three longest economic expansions in American history took place under Democratic Presidents.

The longest was under President Bill Clinton, with the expansion beginning under Republican George H. W. Bush in March 1991, but the expansion lasting until March 2001, a total of 120 months or 10 years, so the vast majority under Clinton.

The second longest is from 2009 to the present, nearly nine years recovery from the Great Recession, begun in late 2009 under Barack Obama, and continuing under Donald Trump.

Obama came into the worst economic situation since Franklin D. Roosevelt, succeeding Herbert Hoover at the worst moments of the Great Depression in 1933.

Donald Trump loves to brag how great the economy has been under him, without giving credit to his predecessor for the nearly seven and a half years of economic expansion that preceded Trump taking the oath, arguably the best inheritance ever in American history.

The third longest expansion was from 1961 to 1969, 106 months, which has just been surpassed now in 2018. It began under John F. Kennedy in February 1961, continued all the way through the term of Lyndon B. Johnson, and ended in December 1969 under Republican Richard Nixon.

Add the fact that nine of the last ten economic recessions occurred under Republican Presidents Dwight D. Eisenhower, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, George H. W. Bush, and George W. Bush, and it is clear the nation has benefited much greater economically from Democratic administrations than from Republican administrations.

Republican Presidential Administrations From Richard Nixon To Donald Trump: Indictments, Convictions, Prison Time, Plus Warren G. Harding And Ulysses S. Grant

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We are in the midst of the most corrupt series of Presidential scandals in American history in the 15 months of the Trump Administration.

An investigation of Presidential scandals since Richard Nixon left office demonstrates the following:

Under Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter, there were no serious, protracted scandals of note.

Under Ronald Reagan, there were serious scandals that led to 26 indictments, 16 convictions, and 8 sent to prison–most outstanding being the Iran Contra Affair, which led to indictments of the Secretary of Defense, the head of the Central Intelligence Agency, two National Security Advisers, Deputy Chief of Staff, as well as criminal prosecution or resignation of the head of the Environmental Protection Agency, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

Under George H. W. Bush, he gave pardons to a number of people convicted under Reagan, and some wondered if the President was covering his own rear end, and potential involvement in the Iran Contra Scandal in particular.

Under Bill Clinton, while there were a lot of investigations under Republican Congresses after 1995, and the President was impeached in regards to the sex scandals with Paula Jones and Monica Lewinsky, there were no serious scandals that led to any indictments or convictions.

Under George W. Bush, there were a lot of scandals, leading to 16 indictments, 16 convictions and 9 sent to prison, and many people working for Bush resigned rather than testify in many investigations. There were many abuses centered around the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and in the promotion of national security, and led to resignation of Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez, Lewis “Scooter” Libby who was the aide to Vice President Dick Cheney, and White House Adviser Karl Rove among others.

Under Barack Obama, there were no serious violations of the law or scandals, despite many investigations by Republican Congressional committees, including Hillary Clinton after the Benghazi Libya attack on the US Embassy by Muslim extremists.

When one adds the massive scandals under Richard Nixon, and now Donald Trump, it is clear that under Republican administrations, corruption and abuses have been widespread, although not under Gerald Ford, and that the three Democratic Presidents, despite much criticism, had no serious scandals on the level of Nixon, Reagan, Bush 2 and now Trump!

And when one goes back to earlier scandals under Warren G. Harding in the 1920s and Ulysses S. Grant in the 1870s, both Republican Presidents, it only adds to the image and reality of Republicans presiding over scandalous times, as well as nine of the last ten economic downturns since 1953, along with the Great Depression under Herbert Hoover after 1929!

Tariffs And Republican Depressions: Benjamin Harrison, Herbert Hoover, Now Donald Trump?

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Protective tariffs made sense in the time of Alexander Hamilton and the time of Henry Clay.

But in the late 19th century, big business corporations were able to create higher tariffs that were detrimental to the American worker, consumer, and economy, with the assistance of the corrupt Republican Party of the period.

In 1890, under Republican President Benjamin Harrison, we saw the passage of the McKinley Tariff, named after the future President, and it undermined the economy and contributed to the disastrous Panic of 1893, which affected the nation until 1898.

In 1930, months after the Stock Market Crash, Republican President Herbert Hoover, ignoring the pleas of hundreds of economists, signed the Smoot-Hawley Tariff, which caused a great worsening of the developing Great Depression.

As the decades went by, most Republicans and intelligent Democrats realized that high tariffs were not good, and free trade agreements developed in the 1990s.

Some far left liberals and some far right conservatives joined forces to fight this, and now Donald Trump has declared the inception of “Tariff Wars”, which will bring down the American economy, harm consumers and farmers, and cause unemployment to rise.

Trump is alienating the whole world–including China, Canada, Mexico, the European Union, and more–and instead will destroy the economic lives of millions of his own supporters, if he is not stopped from his crazy, lunatic actions!

Assuming we cannot stop what he is doing, the Republicans will suffer a blood bath, that will put the Republican Party in the dustbin of history.

It is time for Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell and the Republicans in Congress to show some “cajones”, and turn against Trump before he totally destroys the nation economically, and takes unto World War III against North Korea, who would be helped by China, and Iran, who would be helped by Russia.

Theodore Roosevelt To Barack Obama, And The Antiquities Act Of 1906, Now Under Threat From Donald Trump

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Theodore Roosevelt, the greatest environmental and conservation President, promoted the passage of the Antiquities Act of 1906, and since then, 16 Presidents have designated a grand total of 157 National Monuments and National Parks.

Four Republican Presidents added no national monuments or national parks—Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan, and George H. W. Bush, although Nixon is seen as a great environmental President with his Secretary of the Interior Walter Hickel, and the signing into law of the Environmental Protection Agency in 1970, and the first declared Earth Day on April 22, 1970.

Under Theodore Roosevelt, a total of 18 monuments or parks were added, including Devils Tower National Monument, Petrified Forest National Park, Muir Woods National Monument, Grand Canyon National Park, and Olympic National Park.

William Howard Taft added 10 national monuments and national parks, including Navajo National Monument and Zion National Park.

Woodrow Wilson added 13 national monuments and national parks, including Dinosaur National Monument, Acadia National Park, and Casa Grande Ruins National Monument.

Warren G. Harding added 8 national monuments and national parks, including Great Basin National Park, Aztec Ruins National Monument, and Bryce Canyon National Park.

Calvin Coolidge added 13 national monuments and national parks, including Carlsbad Caverns National Park, Statue Of Liberty National Monument, Fort Pulaski National Monument, Castillo de San Marcos National Monument, Natchez Trace National Scenic Trail, and Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve.

Herbert Hoover added 9 national monuments and national parks, including Arches National Park, Portion Of White River National Forest, Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve, Grand Canyon National Park (extension), White Sands National Monument, and Death Valley National Park.

Franklin D. Roosevelt added 13 national monuments and national parks, including Dry Tortugas National Park, Joshua Tree National Park, Zion National Park (extension), and Grant Teton National Park.

Harry Truman added just 1 national monument and national park, Effigy Mounds National Monument.

Dwight D. Eisenhower added just 2 national monuments and national parks, Thomas Edison National Historical Park, and Chesapeake and Ohio Canal National Historical Park.

John F. Kennedy added just 2 national monuments and national parks, including Russell Cave National Monument, and Buck Island Reef National Monument.

Lyndon B. Johnson added just 2 national monuments and national parks, an extension again of Grand Canyon National Park, and Portion of Tongrass National Forest.

Jimmy Carter added 15 national monuments and national parks in just one term as President, a reason why Carter is seen as one of the top three conservation oriented Presidents, alongside TR and Nixon. Among those monuments and forests Carter added were Denali National Park in Alaska, Gates of the Arctic National Park and Preserve, and Yukon Flats National Wildlife Refuge.

Bill Clinton added the grant total of 19 national monuments and national parks, including Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, California Coastal National Monument, Grand Canyon-Parashant National Monument, Portion of Sequoia National Forest, President Lincoln and Soldier’s Home National Monument, Sonoran Desert National Monument, Virgin Islands Coral Reef National Monument, and Governors Island National Monument.

George W. Bush added 6 national monuments and national parks, including African Burial Ground National Monument, World War II Valor in the Pacific National Monument, and Pacific Remote Islands National Monument.

Finally, Barack Obama added the grand total of 29 national monuments and national parks, far more than runners up Bill Clinton, Theodore Roosevelt, Jimmy Carter, Woodrow Wilson, Calvin Coolidge, and Franklin D. Roosevelt. These included Fort Monroe National Monument, Cesar E. Chavez National Monument, San Juan Islands National Monument, Rio Grande del Norte National Monument, Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad National Historical Park, San Gabriel Mountains National Monument, Stonewall National Monument, Bears Ears National Monument, Birmingham Civil Rights National Monument, Freedom Riders National Monument, and Reconstruction Era National Monument.

US, Due To Ignorance And Stupidity Of Donald Trump, Only Nation Against Paris Climate Agreement, As Nicaragua And Syria Sign Agreement

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The United States, under President Donald Trump, is the laughing stock of the world, as our country is now the only one that has broken with the Paris Climate Agreement, negotiated in 2016. and agreed to by President Barack Obama.

As part of his war on anything connected with Barack Obama, and accepting the corruption and ignorance of Environmental Protection Agency head Scott Pruitt and Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke, Donald Trump has decided that there is no global warming or climate change crisis even though 97 percent of all scientists see the crisis, and we are seeing the results of global warming and climate change in our country, as well as worldwide.

Rather than plan for the future, Trump is embracing the coal and oil industry and the long term damage they are perpetrating, and insuring massive long range problems for America internally and on the world scene, with our nation’s head in the sand, repudiating scientific fact. and believing only in prayer as the solution.

When Nicaragua and Syria embrace such an agreement, particularly Syria in the midst of a seven year civil war, it just shows how low our prestige and standing as a nation, and supposedly the leader of the world, has fallen.

The long term damage that can be expected, is alarming, and it will help to condemn Donald Trump in history, but somehow, one gets the feeling that Trump is not concerned about that, but rather, simply, total destruction of all of good work of the federal government and Republican and Democratic Presidents for the past century from Theodore Roosevelt onward.

The Republican Party Agenda In 2017: Destroy Obama Legacy And New Deal And Great Society, And Ignore Trump Abuse Of Power

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The Republican Party of 2017 is hellbent on destroying entirely the Barack Obama legacy, and all political, social, and economic reforms of the New Deal of Franklin D. Roosevelt and the Great Society of Lyndon B. Johnson, along with other reforms even by Republican Presidents Dwight D. Eisenhower, Richard Nixon, George H. W. Bush, and George W. Bush, and Democrats Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton.

They are willing to cope with the insanity of Donald Trump, willing to ignore the abuse of power by the 45th President, and in the process, undermine civil liberties, civil rights, labor rights, women’s rights, consumer rights, protection of the environment, and the rights and protection of the disabled, elderly, and poor among our population.

In the past, the Republican Party was the conservative mainstream in American politics, but now the most mean spirited, nasty, uncaring elements have held sway over the party apparatus, and no longer care what public opinion polls indicate, that there is strong, vehement opposition to going back to the America of the Gilded Age and the 1920s, and in so doing, destroy all progress, and put America further behind more advanced nations in Europe, as well as Canada, Australia, and New Zealand worldwide.

Donald Trump’s Alternate Reality And Inability To Tell The Truth Undermining America Today And In The Future

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Donald Trump is clearly a very sick man, mentally unbalanced, and unable to see reality or tell the truth about anything.

We are living through a nightmare, that every morning, we wake up, and want to imagine it is over, but it is NOT over, and after 45 days in the White House, we are living through a tumultuous time which is undermining any possibility of unity, or optimism about the future.

Trump lives in an alternate reality, and is the LIAR IN CHIEF, and anyone with any common sense, can clearly notice that his behavior is far outside the norm, and that he stands out as the worst possible example of Presidential leadership.

Many observers seem to think that somehow Trump can make it through a four year term, but this author and blogger does not see it that way, and believes that if he were to do so, this nation would be so damaged in domestic and foreign policy, that it would take many decades to recover.

Why, oh why, did this nightmare have to occur, and undermine all of the progress in the past century and more under both Democratic and Republican Presidents?

All progressives have to commit themselves to active efforts to end this nightmare by stopping their divisive tactics, as with the Democratic National Chairman election, where some came out of the situation disgruntled.

The fact that Tom Perez asked Keith Ellison to be his deputy should be the first example of cooperation among progressives for the future, or else, progressivism is doomed long term.

Republican Presidential Nominees And Presidents, And Their Running Mates: No Love Lost, Historically!

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It is clear from the study of history and news coverage over the past half century that Republican Presidential candidate and even Republican Presidents have NOT been enamored with their Vice Presidential running mates or Vice Presidents.

We go back to Richard Nixon and Spiro Agnew as the first example, with Nixon using Agnew to attack the news media and Democrats in the midterm 1970 Congressional elections, but having little personal regard for him, and unwilling to come to his support when Agnew was revealed to be engaged in corruption, which would force his resignation in October 1973.

Then, Nixon selected Gerald Ford as his Vice Presidential replacement more on the idea that he felt that Ford, while well liked in Congress, would not be seen by opposition Democrats as all that competent to replace Nixon during the impeachment crisis of 1973-1974.

Gerald Ford seems to have really admired and felt comfortable with Nelson Rockefeller as his Vice President under the 25th Amendment, but agreed to drop him from the ticket in 1976 to please conservatives, led by Ronald Reagan, and to select Senator Bob Dole of Kansas as his replacement.

Ronald Reagan may have utilized George H. W. Bush’s expertise, but had little personal regard for Bush, and the Bushes were never invited to dinner at the White House during the eight years of their association.

Bush certainly had little faith and trust in Dan Quayle during his Presidency, and the nation knew it, and worried about the incompetence of Quayle.

Bob Dole’s selection of Jack Kemp in 1996 to be his running mate as Vice President certainly was not as a result of friendship or warmth, and they seemed an ill fit, often disagreeing during the campaign.

George W. Bush selected Dick Cheney in 2000 due to his vast experience, and allowed himself to be dominated in the first term, but their association soured dramatically in the second term.

John McCain seems to have been forced to select Sarah Palin in 2008, and Palin helped to undermine McCain, but McCain continues to defend Palin even today, although it seems clear how uncomfortable he is when answering questions about Palin.

The Mitt Romney-Paul Ryan connection in 2012 seems also not to have been one of great warmth and friendship.

And Mike Pence is squirming a lot as Vice Presidential running mate for Donald Trump, seeing Trump contradict him openly and making clear his lack of regard for Pence, including being upset that Pence performed better in his debate with Tim Kaine, than Trump did with Hillary Clinton in their three Presidential debates.

Beginning Of Rise Of Sanity? John Kasich Rises In New Hampshire Polls, And Is Endorsed By The Boston Globe!

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Could it be that Republican voters in New Hampshire are starting to show some sanity?

The latest public opinion polls show a steady rise by Ohio Governor John Kasich, easily the most experienced, most qualified, and most sane and stable of the Republican Presidential field.

Understand that this blogger is not saying he is about to vote for John Kasich in the election this fall.

But were a Republican to win the White House, he could not live with any feeling of peace with any other GOP Presidential nominee.

Kasich is the best the Republicans have to offer, and he is a mainstream conservative, with faults like all candidates, but also a sense of how to govern, with his 18 years in the House of Representatives, and being Chair of the Budget Committee for many years.  And now the Boston Globe has endorsed him.

And despite issues and objections, Kasich has been one of the few Republican governors that has not been totally outrageous and disgraceful!

Ohio is still the crucial state for Republican Presidential nominees, and Kasich would have a good chance to win his home state, and maybe, therefore, win the Presidency.

Remember that EVERY elected Republican President (all but Gerald Ford) has won Ohio!

 

Activist Vs. Passive Presidents, 1901 To The Present

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There have been 19 Presidents since the accession of Theodore Roosevelt to the Presidency in 1901, upon the assassination of William McKinley.

Some have been activists, hard workers, dynamos, who saw the Presidency as a position that required constant attention, and avoided much vacation time, but even when on vacation, these activist Presidents were always working and alert to changing events.

Among the 19 modern Presidents, the following 11 Presidents would qualify as part of the activist category:

Theodore Roosevelt

Woodrow Wilson

Franklin D. Roosevelt

Harry Truman

John F. Kennedy

Lyndon B. Johnson

Richard Nixon

Jimmy Carter

George H. W. Bush

Bill Clinton

Barack Obama

The other 8 Presidents since 1901 were much more passive, avoided work, were quite frankly lazy, and took lots of vacation time, often were not alert to changing events, and delegated authority to others:

William Howard Taft

Warren G. Harding

Calvin Coolidge

Herbert Hoover

Dwight D. Eisenhower

Gerald Ford

Ronald Reagan

George W. Bush

Note that all eight passive Presidents were Republicans, while only Theodore Roosevelt, Richard Nixon and George H. W. Bush were activist Republicans, joining the 8 Democratic Presidents in that category!

Also, note that the eleven activist Presidents all were highly intelligent and curious about the world around them, while the eight passive Presidents were generally less naturally intelligent, with the exceptions of William Howard Taft and Herbert Hoover, both highly intellectual and accomplished, although both were seen as unsuccessful in office, and defeated for reelection!