Henry Clay

Nancy Pelosi Greatest Woman In American Political History, And Among Top Few Speakers Of The House!

Ronald Leave a comment

California Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi, former Speaker of the House (2007-2011) and (2019-2023) has announced her retirement at the end of the present term in 2026, after nearly 40 years in the House of Representatives.

There is no way that anyone can deny that Nancy Pelosi is the greatest woman in American political history for anyone elected, as only a few First Ladies (Eleanor Roosevelt, Hillary Clinton, Michelle Obama) even come close in influence, and also Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg would be in that category.

Clearly, Pelosi is the best, by far, Speaker of the House in modern times, with only Sam Rayburn, Thomas “Tip” O’Neill, and Henry Clay competing with her for the greatest of all time.

Those three Speakers served 17, 10, and 10 years, respectively, as Speaker, while Pelosi served 8 years.

Her impact was massive, as she helped bring about the Affordable Care Act under Barack Obama, and resisted Donald Trump and his authoritarian impulses in his first term in the White House, and is still actively working against Trump’s dangerous moves in the first year of his second term. Also, she promoted the first gun violence prevention legislation since the early 1990s, during the Presidency of Joe Biden.

Pelosi was subjected to direct threat by the Insurrectionists on January 6, 2021 at the US Capitol, and the hateful rhetoric of Trump helped incite the attack on her husband in 2022.

Pelosi showed great courage and determination in the face of constant attacks by the opposition party in the House of Representatives over her two decade leadership of her party.

She was a master strategist, and had the respect of her caucus, which she was able to lead with great skill.

Not bad for a woman who had five children and did not enter politics until her mid 40s, a true model for women who wished to pursue public service.

The fact that Donald Trump continues to condemn Pelosi even now, says legions about the character of both Pelosi and Trump.

At the same time, the last six Republican Speakers since 1995–Newt Gingrich, Dennis Hastert, John Boehner, Paul Ryan, Kevin McCarthy, and now Mike Johnson, have been steadily getting more outrageously horrendous with each new Speakership!

While Pelosi will go down in history as among the greatest Speakers and Congressional leaders of all time, Donald Trump is assuredly, more every day that passes, adding to the reality of being the WORST President, by far, in American history.

It is causing reconsideration of James Buchanan, Andrew Johnson, and Franklin Pierce, the others Presidents, all around the Pre Civil and Civil War period, who have been rated as the worst Presidents of American history!

The Great, Prominent Speakers Of The House Of Representatives In History

Ronald 4 Comments

At a time of chaos and anarchy over the issue of the Speakership of the House of Representatives, it is instructive to examine the history of that office, which has had 55 individuals filling that role.

A small number of Speakers of the House of Representatives have made history, and are seen as exceptional.

The longest serving Speaker was Sam Rayburn of Texas, who held that position for 17 years, only ended by his death in 1961.

Henry Clay of Kentucky, arguably the greatest Presidential candidate who did not win the Presidency in all of US history, served a total of 10.5 years as Speaker of the House.

Thomas (Tip) O’Neill of Massachusetts was third longest serving, 10 years from the mid 1970s to the mid 1980s.

John W. McCormack of Massachusetts served 9 years in the 1960s, followed by Nancy Pelosi, who served 8 years from 2007-2011 and 2019-2023.

Dennis Hastert of Illinois, later disgraced by conviction on sex charges, is the longest serving Republican Speaker, serving a few days less than Pelosi, but still about 8 years at the end of the 20th and early 21st century.

Champ Clark of Missouri served about 7 years in the 1910s and Carl Albert of Oklahoma served about 6 years in the 1970s, followed by slightly less service in days by Joseph Cannon of Illinois, often called the “Czar” of the House because of his great authority that was tamed by “revolution” in House rules in 1910, and by Tom Foley of Washington State in the 1990s.

So about 87 years out of the total of 234 years of the history of the House of Representatives were served by these 10 individuals, with the other 45 serving a total of 147 years among them.

Kevin McCarthy’s 9 month tenure made him the third shortest serving Speaker, only more than Michael Kerr who died in office in 1875, and Theodore Pomeroy, who served one day in 1869.

From The Greatest Modern Speaker Of The House To A Total Disaster In The Making!

Ronald Leave a comment

Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi (2007-2011) and (2019-2023) will go down as the greatest modern Speaker of the House, with so much accomplished under her leadership particularly in the first two years of the Barack Obama Presidency (the 111th Congress), and the first two years of the Joe Biden Presidency (the 117th Congress).

The only other Speakers of the previous 20th century who would rank on her level of greatness would be Sam Rayburn (1940-1947, 1949-1953, 1955-1961), and Thomas “Tip” O’Neill (1977-1987).

When Pelosi gives up the gavel on January 3, 2023, she will have been the fifth longest serving Speaker of the 54 individuals who have held that office, only outdone by Rayburn, Henry Clay, O’Neill, and John W. McCormack.

Now, sadly, a Republican will take over the Speakership of the 118th Congress, most likely Kevin McCarthy of California, who is a unmitigated disaster, totally subservient to the evil 45th President, Donald Trump, who is a Fascist authoritarian demagogue, who still threatens the survival of American democracy.

Presidential Losers Who Ran Again, And Donald Trump!

admin 3 Comments

It has been reported that a former Trump advisor is planning to convince Donald Trump NOT to run again in 2024.

According to the report, this person has, or will tell Trump, that he would not wish to be a two time loser for the Presidency, amidst the belief that Trump’s ego could not handle that idea.

Former two time Democratic Presidential nominee Adlai Stevenson (1952, 1956) is mentioned as the example of the most recent two time nominee who lost twice for the White House.

One would think that this advisor would have more knowledge than just mentioning Stevenson, as five other Presidential candidates lost either twice or three times.

These include Republican Thomas E. Dewey (1944, 1948); Democrat William Jennings Bryan (1896, 1900, 1908); and Whig Henry Clay (1824, 1832, 1844), along with Democrat Martin Van Buren (elected in 1836 but losing in 1840, and 1848 (Free Soil Party), and Federalist Charles C. Pinckney (1804, 1808).

All six of these two or three time losers had real credentials and validity, unlike Donald Trump, who will go down as the worst or near worst President in American history!

But also, Andrew Jackson lost the Presidency in 1824, but won in 1828 and 1832, and William Henry Harrison lost in 1836 but won in 1840.

Also, there is the example of Richard Nixon, who lost in 1960, but came back successfully in 1968 and 1972.

And finally, there is Grover Cleveland, elected in 1884, but losing reelection in the Electoral College in 1888, and yet coming back to a second nonconsecutive term in the White House in 1892!

Nancy Pelosi Will Be Ranked One Of All Time Greatest Speakers Of The House, As Well As Most Powerful Woman In American History

Ronald Leave a comment

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi is assured a ranking as one of the all time greatest Speakers of the House, as well as the most powerful woman in American history.

She will rank in the category of Sam Rayburn, Thomas “Tip” O’Neill, Henry Clay, John W. McCormack, Nicholas Longworth, Champ Clark, Thomas Reed, Thomas Foley, James K. Polk, and Joseph Cannon. She is already 11th longest serving, and if she remains as Speaker through 2022, her planned date for retirement, she will be 5th longest serving, only behind Sam Rayburn, Henry Clay, Thomas “Tip” O’Neill, and John W. McCormack.

At the age of 79, with her birthday being March 26, she will become the oldest Speaker in American history on February 5, 2020, when she surpasses Sam Rayburn, who died 51 days before his 80th birthday. So she will reach 80 in March, very alert, competent, and totally in charge, and President Donald Trump is very much afraid of her, like he has never been of any other woman.

Understand that Nancy Pelosi is the most powerful woman in American history in her position, two heartbeats away from the Presidency. The highest ranking women otherwise have been multiple Secretaries of State–Madeleine Albright, Condoleezza Rice, and Hillary Clinton, all four heartbeats away from the Presidency. There has also been four Supreme Court Justices—Sandra Day O’Connor, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sonia Sotomayor, and Elena Kagan. Additionally, there were two prospective Vice Presidents–Geraldine Ferraro and Sarah Palin. But that is the list, a short list, and only Nancy Pelosi has reached the pinnacle of power, and at a time of a challenge of a corrupt President, who would love to have absolute power, but has been stopped dead in his tracks by the woman from San Francisco!

Nancy Pelosi Right To Demand Fair Impeachment Trial, But Mitch McConnell Has Control, So Trial May Be Delayed

Ronald Leave a comment

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi is delaying the sending of the two impeachment articles against Donald Trump to the Senate, due to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s plans to stage a phony trial, without any witnesses or evidence.

So it is a game of the powerful woman leader of the lower house of Congress against the powerful male leader of the US Senate.

The result may be an extended delay in the commencement of the trial, but as Pelosi has said, Donald Trump has still been impeached, only the third such case in American history, and nothing will delete that as part of his legacy, and eventually in his obituary.

Trump has been denounced and condemned as a law breaker, and this insures that he will go down as a Presidential failure and disaster, at the bottom of the list of Presidents for all time, unlikely to rise above any other President on the list.

Nancy Pelosi, the most powerful woman in American history, will go down as one of the greatest Speakers in the history of the House of Representatives, alongside Sam Rayburn, Thomas “Tip” O’Neill, and Henry Clay.

And Mitch McConnell will go down as one of the worst Senate Majority Leaders, who refused to move the nomination of Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court in 2016, refusing even a hearing; who has been a total lackey to Donald Trump, and with his wife Elaine Chao being Secretary of Transportation under Trump; and who has sat on nearly 400 pieces of legislation passed by the House of Representatives in 2019, as the Senate becomes totally ineffective as a legislative body.

Hopefully, the state of Kentucky, where his public opinion ratings are the lowest of any Senator, will defeat him and retire him in November 2020 when he comes up for reelection after 36 years in the upper chamber.

In Defense Of Joe Biden: Some Extremist Progressives Are Trying To Neutralize Him For No Good Reason Other Than His Electability

Ronald 3 Comments

Former Vice President Joe Biden is not a perfect person, by any means.

Neither is any other potential Democratic Presidential nominee for 2020.

But Joe Biden is NOT a sexual harasser or a sexual assaulter, and to compare him to our President, or a multitude of other public men who ARE such, is outrageous!

Joe Biden is a decent, honorable, genuine, sincere public servant, who has devoted his entire life to public service, and has had more years and variety of experiences of any modern public figure, more than Lyndon B. Johnson or Henry Clay or Daniel Webster.

Biden has made mistakes in his judgment on legislation, and has, at times, been embarrassing in his public utterances, but he is not mean spirited, not desirous of dividing people, not overly materialistic as most politicians are.

In the mind of this blogger and scholar, he is the man in public life I have most admired for his life story and commitments to the public good, since the death of Hubert H. Humphrey forty one years ago.

He will go down in history as a great United States Senator, a great Vice President, and as a great human being.

And yet, there are those extremists on the left of the Democratic Party who are trying to destroy his reputation, and his potential to be the Democratic nominee for President, even though he is one of the most likely potential nominees who can retire Donald Trump, the extreme opposite of what Biden is and represents.

This should not be allowed to happen, and instead, let the voters decide the future of Joe Biden, not preposterous accusations that have no substance!

Losing Presidential Candidates Who Should Have Been President: Henry Clay, Charles Evans Hughes, Hubert Humphrey

Ronald 2 Comments

When one looks back in American history at losing Presidential candidates who should have been President in their times, three names stand out:

Henry Clay of Kentucky, 1824, 1832, 1844

Charles Evans Hughes of New York, 1916

Hubert Humphrey of Minnesota, 1968

All three of these Presidential candidates were exceptional public servants.

Henry Clay was the most important legislator of the first half of the 19th century, known as the Great Compromiser, for his promotion of the Missouri Compromise of 1820, the Compromise Tariff of 1833, and the Compromise of 1850. He was the youngest Speaker of the House of Representatives, Secretary of State, and also served a number of terms in the US Senate. He stood for a stronger national government, in the Alexander Hamilton model, and had a great impact on many others including Abraham Lincoln, who became a Whig Party member due to the influence of Clay on him.

Charles Evans Hughes was the progressive Republican Governor of New York, in the Robert LaFollette-Wisconsin model in the early 20th century, served as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, resigned to run for President against Woodrow Wilson in the closest electoral vote election since 1876, and third closest electoral vote election of all time, and then went on to be Secretary of State. Finally, he became Chief Justice of the Supreme Court in the 1930s, the New Deal era.

Hubert Humphrey was the Democratic Senator from Minnesota, a leading liberal figure, who had been Mayor of Minneapolis before going to the Senate. He was seen as a premier liberal in Congress, responsible for many of the ideas that became the Great Society. He was Vice President under Lyndon B. Johnson, unhappy in that position and forced to support the Vietnam War in speeches, which undermined his Presidential campaign in 1968 against Richard Nixon. He came back to the Senate after his Presidential defeat, and sadly died at the young age of 66 in 1978.

If these three losing Presidential candidates had won, the history of the United States would have been vastly different.

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

Ronald 1 Comment

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.

Lying In State And Honor At The US Capitol Rotunda In American History

Ronald Leave a comment

The Reverend Billy Graham is lying in state and honor at the US Capitol Rotunda in Washington, DC today.

This is a rare event, and Graham is only the fourth private person outside of government to be so honored, along with Civil Rights Icon Rosa Parks in 2005, and two police officers who defended the Capitol from a gunman in 1998.

The list of government figures who have been so honored include 11 Presidents; 10 Senators; Soldiers of the various wars of America in the 20th century; and a few other military and government figures.

Henry Clay 1852
Abraham Lincoln 1865
Thaddeus Stevens 1868
Charles Sumner 1874
Henry Wilson 1875
James A. Garfield 1881
John A Logan 1886
William McKinley 1901
Pierre Charles L’Enfant 1909
George Dewey 1917
Unknown Soldiers of World War I 1921
Warren G. Harding 1923
William Howard Taft 1930
John Joseph Pershing 1948
Robert A. Taft 1953
Unknown Soldiers of World War II and the Korean War 1958
John F. Kennedy 1963
Douglas MacArthur 1964
Herbert Clark Hoover 1964
Dwight D. Eisenhower 1969
Everett McKinley Dirksen 1969
J. Edgar Hoover 1972
Lyndon Baines Johnson 1973
Hubert H. Humphrey 1978
Unknown Soldier Of the Vietnam Conflict 1984
Claude Denson Pepper 1989
Jacob Joseph Chestnut and John Michael Gibson (US Capitol Police Officers)
Ronald Wilson Reagan 2004
Rosa Parks 2005
Gerald R. Ford, Jr. 2006-2007
Daniel K. Inouye 2012

Additionally, Salmon P. Chase 1873 in the Senate chamber; Samuel Hooper 1875 in the House chamber; also Thurgood Marshall in 1993, Warren Burger in 1995, and Antonin Scalia in 2016 at the US Supreme Court; as well as Commerce Secretary Ron Brown at the Commerce Department in 1996.