Thomas Jefferson

March 4th: A Day Which Will Live In Presidential History!

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March 4th is an historic day, the day every fourth year was the Presidential inauguration date through the inauguration of 1933, and then superseded by the 20th Amendment, which changed the inauguration ceremonies every fourth year to January 20, beginning in 1937.

So March 4, 1789, was the inception of our Constitution, but George Washington was not present in New York City, and was not to arrive until April 30, 57 days late, therefore making his two terms in office short of eight years, being approximately two months less than that!

March 4, 1801, was the inauguration of our first opposition president, with Thomas Jefferson succeeding his election rival, John Adams, who he had served as Vice President, and the beginning of peaceful transition from an “in’ party to an “out” party.

March 4, 1829, was the inauguration of the “people’s President”, Andrew Jackson, who represented the voice of the “common man” of the times.

March 4, 1861, was the inauguration of Abraham Lincoln to his first term, in the midst of a crisis that soon led to the Civil War.

March 4, 1865, was the second inauguration of Abraham Lincoln, about a month before the Civil War ended, and this was the greatest inauguration speech yet devised. And today marks exactly 150 years since that fantastic speech of reconciliation.

March 4, 1905, was the inauguration to an elected term of Theodore Roosevelt, who had succeeded the assassinated William McKinley, and was the first Vice President succeeding to the Presidency who was elected to his own term, and had the greatest popular vote percentage in election history up to that date.

March 4, 1913, was the inauguration of Woodrow Wilson, who would accomplish more domestic reform in his first term than any President before him, and only surpassed by Franklin D. Roosevelt and Lyndon B. Johnson after him.

March 4, 1933, saw the last inauguration on that date, and it was the coming to power of Franklin D. Roosevelt, in the worst days of the Great Depression, and his inauguration speech was the greatest since Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address in 1865.

American Presidents And Wealth Estimates In 2015!

Ronald 2 Comments

An update on the net worth of America’s Presidents, their total wealth at time of death, or for the living Presidents, what it is as of 2015, including inflation as a factor, reveals the following:

John F. Kennedy was the wealthiest President, worth within the range of $125 million to possibly $1 billion!

Due to this uncertain range, George Washington might be the wealthiest at $525 million.

The other Presidents over $100 million in net worth are:

Thomas Jefferson $212 million

Theodore Roosevelt $125 million

Andrew Jackson $119 million

James Madison $101 million

Five Presidents over $50 million up to $98 million include:

Lyndon B. Johnson $98 million

Herbert Hoover $75 million

Franklin D. Roosevelt $60 million

Bill Clinton $55 million

John Tyler $51 million

The next six Presidents are worth between $20 million and $27 million, as follows:

James Monroe $27 million

Martin Van Buren $26 million

Grover Cleveland $25 million

George H. W. Bush $23 million

John Quincy Adams $21 million

George W. Bush $20 million

The next five Presidents are worth $10 million to $19 million, as follows:

John Adams $19 million

Richard Nixon $15 million

Ronald Reagan $13 million

Barack Obama $12 million

James K. Polk $10 million

The next ten Presidents are worth between $2 million and $8 million, as follows:

Dwight D. Eisenhower $8 million

Gerald Ford $7 million

Jimmy Carter $7 million

Zachary Taylor $6 million

William Henry Harrison $5 million

Benjamin Harrison $5 million

Millard Fillmore $4 million

Rutherford Hayes $3 million

William Howard Taft $3 million

Franklin Pierce $2 million

The remaining 11 Presidents are worth between under $1 million up to less than $2 million, in the following order:

William McKinley

Warren G. Harding

James Buchanan onward are each worth less than $1 million downward, with Truman the poorest.

Abraham Lincoln

Andrew Johnson

Ulysses S. Grant

James A. Garfield

Chester Alan Arthur

Woodrow Wilson

Calvin Coolidge

Harry Truman

Many of the early Presidents were landowners and slave owners, and were, therefore, extremely wealthy.

The Presidents of the middle and late 19th century were mostly quite poor, including those who were military generals.

Presidents since 1929 have been generally much wealthier in most cases.

Many Presidents in modern times have become wealthy through speeches and writings.

Bill Clinton has the potential to become of the wealthiest Presidents in American history as time goes by, and more so, if his wife, Hillary Clinton, becomes President! The long term potential for Barack Obama is also for great wealth over his lifetime, leaving office at age 55!

Vice President Joe Biden For A Third Term: A Wonderful Idea!

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Vice President Joe Biden seems likely to have little chance of being the 2016 Democratic Presidential nominee, trying to overcome the vast advantages of Hillary Clinton, and he happens to be very good friends with the former Secretary of State, Senator, and First Lady. They fully trust and respect each other.

No one is better qualified to be President, with Biden’s 44 years of government service by the end of the second Barack Obama term. Joe Biden has been brilliant throughout his career, including stints as Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee and Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and the worst thing one can say about him is that he is prone to silly gaffes, that make him look silly, but have never done any real harm.

Joe Biden comes across as human, a person who can blunder on unimportant matters or utterances, but a man truly genuine and sincere, and easy going and real in the way he deals with everyone he meets.

Joe Biden has been a tremendous asset to Barack Obama, and their relationship is the closest there has been since Jimmy Carter and Walter Mondale bonded in the late 1970s. He has been an important emissary on Capitol Hill, and has done a great deal behind the scenes to try to smooth over differences, and is well liked by everyone, because he is exceptional in dealing with adversaries, as well as friends.

Joe Biden is a national treasure, who should not be retiring, and does not need to in 2016 IF Hillary Clinton, the likely Democratic nominee, decides that keeping Biden on is a major asset to her candidacy and Presidency, which it most certainly would be.

There is no limitation on a Vice President serving a third or more terms, as that is not covered by the 22nd Amendment, which sets limits only on the Presidency. George Clinton served under Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, and John C. Calhoun served under John Quincy Adams and Andrew Jackson, so Joe Biden serving under Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton has a precedent twice in the past.

The nation would be well served if Hillary Clinton would make a deal with Joe Biden now, and that would create the strongest possible Democratic ticket for 2016.

And if something untoward were to happen to Hillary Clinton, there is the most experienced man possible next in line, no matter what his age, to take over the Presidency.

Hopefully, Hillary Clinton will realize the virtues of offering the Vice Presidency to Joe Biden in the next few months, and the deal that is struck will insure the election of the Democrats to the White House in 2016!

New Presidential Poll Of Scholars Of Political Science Changes Rankings Substantially, And Puts Barack Obama 18th!

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A 2014 poll of 162 Political Science scholars, members of the American Political Science Association, is the latest rankings of our 43 Presidents, and it is eye opening.

The top four are the standard four Presidents–Lincoln, Washington, FDR, and TR, no surprises there.

But then the debate begins, with Jefferson, Truman, Ike, Clinton, Jackson, and Wilson finishing out the top ten list.

Truman slips and Jefferson moves up, and Eisenhower reaches the highest he has ever been in a poll.

Andrew Jackson makes it back to the top ten, but should he be in the top ten, considering his entire record in office?

Wilson slips further, to the bottom of the top ten, having gained more critics in recent years on his civil rights and civil liberties record, major issues for Jackson as well, but to put Jackson above Wilson is odd.

But then, Bill Clinton number eight? Really? This is easily the highest Clinton has ever been, and most observers on the outside would think that he is way overrated, by putting him n the top ten.

Reagan and Lyndon B. Johnson follow, both being knocked down a peg from earlier rankings, and then, inexplicably, James Madison ends up 13th, even though his Presidency was far from great, although he was a great man!

Kennedy being rated fourteenth brings him down to a reasonable perch, after having, crazily, been listed as high as sixth in the C Span poll of 2009.

The next four are John Adams, Monroe, George H. W. Bush, and then Barack Obama. How Madison ended up above Monroe is hard to fathom. Bush Senior seems in a fair place, a bit higher than before, and John Adams seems about the right spot.

But Obama, in midstream in 18th place? Recently, he had been ranked 15th, and it seems to this blogger that he should NOT be knocked down, and might be worthy of being above Adams, Monroe and Bush Sr.

The next six, all still above 50 percent in rating are, in order, Polk, Taft, McKinley, JQ Adams, Cleveland, and Ford. It seems to many that Polk and McKinley might be rated higher, while the rest of this group seem in the proper places on the list.

Notice that Jimmy Carter is not in the top 24, which seems surprising, as one would think he would rank near the bottom of this list of 24, but his rating is, apparently, below 50 percent support, the reason he is not rated higher.

And notice neither Nixon nor Bush Jr have any real chance of making this list of 24, basically the top 60 percent of the 43 Presidents, and are unlikely to have a realistic chance of ever reaching that level!

Mitt Romney Fighting History, And Common Sense, By His Stated Plan To Run For President Again!

Ronald 2 Comments

Mitt Romney has a massive ego, a sense of divine direction, a belief in himself as the only person who can move America forward!

What else can explain why the losing Republican Presidential nominee in 2012 is telling his supporters that he intends to run for President once again?

What can Mitt Romney say or do which will change our view of him, a view of a chameleon, with no principles, no convictions, no ethics, except to advance himself, despite being one of the wealthiest people ever to run for President, and having no real need to be President, except he wants to be President!

Mitt Romney is NOT going to be the 2016 GOP nominee, and trying to run to the right of Jeb Bush is a guaranteed lost cause, as there are more than enough true right wingers available, so why should he expect to beat out the likes of Ted Cruz, Rand Paul, Marco Rubio, Mike Huckabee, Rick Santorum, or Rick Perry, among others?

Romney does not even offer the idea of greater experience in public office, as he had the least such experience in American history, with the exception of Woodrow Wilson and Wendell Willkie, who had two years and no years of public government experience, as compared to Romney’s one term as Massachusetts Governor, but eager to run for President even as he just began his Governorship!

Romney has run two Presidential races, and lost one, and the list of Presidents who have lost and then won is small indeed.

It includes Thomas Jefferson, Andrew Jackson, William Henry Harrison, Grover Cleveland, and Richard Nixon.

All five had much more experience in government and or the military (in the case of Jackson and Harrison) than Mitt Romney.

Face the facts: Romney is NOT Thomas Jefferson; Romney is NOT Andrew Jackson; Romney is NOT Grover Cleveland; and most certainly, Romney is NOT Richard Nixon, who had broad experience and expertise. The Harrison comparison does not matter, as Harrison only served one month as President in 1841.

The best thing Mitt Romney could do is continue doing what he does best: making money faster than one can say one-two-three, as he is not going to be able to outlive his failure to run a decent, honest campaign, and he will NOT be the next Richard Nixon!

Dick Cheney: The Most Villainous Vice President In American History, Bar None!

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America has had 47 Vice Presidents, and some of them have been true disasters and villains.

Aaron Burr, Vice President under Thomas Jefferson (1801-1805), tried to steal the Presidential Election of 1800 from his own running mate, Thomas Jefferson. He then proceeded to kill Alexander Hamilton in a totally legal gun duel in 1804. He was then accused of a plot with Spain to take away territories from the United States, was captured, brought to trial for treason, and found not guilty. In his old age, his wife sued him for divorce due to his serial cheating, which she had been unaware of, and left him in poverty.

John C. Calhoun, Vice President under John Quincy Adams (1825-1829) and Andrew Jackson (1829-1833), showed lack of loyalty to Adams, switching support to Jackson, and then threatening to lead South Carolina in seceding from the Union, provoking the Nullification Crisis of 1832-1833.

Schuyler Colfax, first Vice President (1869-1873) under Ulysses S. Grant, was involved in the Credit Mobilier Scandal, and was therefore, forced out as the second term running mate of Grant.

Spiro Agnew, Vice President under Richard Nixon (1969-1973) was a divisive, confrontational Vice President, who was forced to resign in disgrace due to involvement in financial scandal, including taking cash bribes in his years as Baltimore County Executive, Governor of Maryland, and also as Vice President.

And then there was Dick Cheney, who enriched himself through his associations with Haliburton, a company which gained from war profiteering. He helped to promote war in Iraq, knowing full well that the war was based on false pretenses, and he advocated and promoted EIT (Enhanced Interrogation Techniques), meaning torture against detainees said to be involved in terrorist plots against America, including September 11, even though it went against American values of ethics and morality, as well as violation of international law. Cheney has never apologized for his actions or behavior, or had doubts in any form, while enriching himself in a totally corrupt manner. His daughter, Liz Cheney, has become the younger female version of her father; and his wife, Lynne Cheney, has shown herself to be no better.

Meanwhile, many Republicans, including Colin Powell, John McCain, Lindsey Graham and others have condemned the methods and actions of Dick Cheney, and there are calls for him and George W. Bush to be accountable for war crimes, although there is no possibility of them ever facing trial.

Without a doubt, Dick Cheney stands out as the most villainous Vice President in American history bar none!

Is Mitt Romney To Be A Repeat Of Richard Nixon And Ronald Reagan, Having Another Chance To Be President?

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Mitt Romney, the 2012 GOP Presidential nominee, is giving strong hints that he might seek the Presidency again, after failing to win the nomination in 2008, and then losing to Barack Obama in 2012.

Public opinion polls show him leading, mostly based on recognition factor, that having been the nominee two years ago, most Americans know who he is.

But Romney lost, and to believe that a loser for the Presidency has another life defies reality.

Henry Clay and William Jennings Bryan ran three times each for the Presidency, and never won.

Thomas E. Dewey and Adlai Stevenson ran two times each for the Presidency, and never won.

The only first time losers who won the Presidency were Thomas Jefferson, Andrew Jackson and William Henry Harrison, along with Richard Nixon

The only other President in modern times who lost a battle for a nomination and went on to reside in the White House was Ronald Reagan. It is also true that George H. W. Bush tried for the nomination against Reagan in 1980, but the battle was lost early, while Reagan fought to the convention in 1976 against Gerald Ford before he lost a very close race for the nomination.

So forgetting the early Presidents, the only realistic comparison is Romney to Nixon and Reagan.

But Romney is NOT Nixon or Reagan in any comparison.

Nixon had 14 years of federal government experience when he ran the first time for President in 1960, and Reagan had eight years as Governor of California, about one seventh of the nation, while Romney had one lone term as Governor of Massachusetts, and never had real interest in governing, as Nixon and Reagan did.

Nixon was very knowledgeable in how government worked, and Reagan had very strong conservative credentials and principles, and Romney has neither, as he only served as Governor to add on to his business experience.

No matter what one thinks or thought about Nixon and Reagan, we knew we would get what we saw, a man who had real commitment to definite ideas, while Romney is infamous for having no principles or beliefs that he will not change tomorrow if it might advance him.

Face the facts, that no one could possibly accuse Nixon or Reagan of being shallow, of “flip flopping”, of being someone who is a mystery, and of just wanting to be President for the sake of being President.

But that is the basic definition of Mitt Romney!

Conservative Argument That America Is A “Christian Nation” NOT True!

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The right wing loves to say that Americans are a “Christian nation”, but that assertion is NOT true!

It is true that a majority of Americans are born to the Christian faith, whether Catholic or any of the many Protestant sects, or Eastern Orthodox.

But our Founding Fathers, while born Christian, were in many cases skeptics about organized Christianity, and certainly had no mission to promote a church-state combination, a theocracy, as they knew of the turmoil and sufferings of such combinations in European history, including Great Britain, France, the German states, and Czarist Russia, along with the effects of Islam on the Middle East, Asia, and Africa.

Therefore, the Constitution of the United States made clear to keep separation of church and state separate, and there is no statement of America as a “Christian nation” by the Founding Fathers.

There are plenty of statements by many Founding Fathers, including Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, George Washington, John Adams and others that advocated separation of church and state, and a sense of skepticism about organized Christianity being part of government.

We also have evidence that conservative Christian pastors condemned the Constitution after its adoption because of the fact that it was a document which, clearly, was secular in nature, and some called the Constitution an atheistic document, which shows how hard the Founding Fathers had worked to undermine the creation of a theocracy, which would allow persecution of non Christians or non believers in religion itself.

After the Civil War, the right wing Christian pastors tried repeatedly to amend the Constitution to make America a Christian nation and make references to Jesus Christ, but those attempts failed, and the only religious reference that would become normal was to say “In God We Trust” on American coinage.

The deleterious effect of this movement among right wing Christian pastors, however, led to anti Catholic and anti Jewish practices and laws locally, discriminating against the immigration of so called “undesirable” groups.

Additionally, for a long period of time, commerce was limited by “Blue Laws”, which banned economic activities on Sundays, finally overcome about 50 years ago, as if someone does not wish to do shopping or other commerce on the Christian Sabbath, that is their choice, but should not be imposed on others, one of the examples of what happens when theocracy and its narrow mindedness is allowed to take hold.

So America is NOT a “Christian nation”, but rather a nation of a diverse number of religious groups, with a majority of Christian sects, including Catholicism, something the majority Protestants did not wish to acknowledge!

Virginia: The Disgrace Of Bob McDonnell And Eric Cantor!

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Virginia, the home of Patrick Henry and Thomas Jefferson as Governors, has now seen its recent Governor, Bob McDonnell, convicted on multiple charges of abusing the office and accepting bribes from a wealthy businessman.

At the same time, former House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, who lost his party’s nomination in a true shock to many, now is going to Wall Street to use his influence, and make millions of dollars off of his contacts with other legislative members and powerful lobbyists.

Both of these developments are disgraceful, and show that the Republican Party in Virginia is totally corrupt, an embarrassment to a state which has had remarkably little corruption historically, as compared to most other states.

Patrick Henry and Thomas Jefferson would turn over in their graves if they knew how politics has deteriorated from the idealistic times of the Founding Fathers!

200th Anniversary Of British Attack On Washington DC During War Of 1812!

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Today is the 200th Anniversary of the British attack on Washington DC during the War of 1812, one of the three times that our homeland has been directly attacked!

The second was the Japanese attack on the US naval base on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on December 7, 1941, and the third was the attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on September 11, 2001, leading to the war in Afghanistan against Al Qaeda, and the full development of the War on Terror!

The attack on the nation’s capital led to the burning of the White House and the US Capitol, and the fleeing of Congress to Baltimore, and the saving of the George Washington portrait in the White House by servants of President James Madison. The Library of Congress lost its 3,000 volume collection, and later bought the Thomas Jefferson private collection to replace it.

This was a low moment in the War of 1812, but thankfully, the British left DC after 26 hours, and within months, a truce and peace treaty (Treaty of Ghent) was signed, and the war was over. Also, fortunately, a heavy summer thunderstorm helped to put out the fire in the Capital and the White House, and therefore, less damage was done than might have been otherwise!

The thought that our government center had been attacked was hard to accept, and since the terrorists on September 11 intended to attack the Capitol and/or the White House, and only were stopped by the courageous passengers of United Airlines Flight 93, who brought down a plane in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, that horrible situation was prevented, but the attack on the Pentagon, right over the DC line in Virginia was a strong enough warning of the threats that still existed then, and still do today with the growing danger of ISIL (ISIS)!