The 2000 presidential election was held on Tuesday, November 7, 2000. The contest was between Republican candidate George W. Bush, who was the incumbent governor of Texas and son of former president George H. W. Bush and Democratic candidate Al Gore, the incumbent vice president, as well as various third-party candidates including the well-known ( Read more... )

Some people consider Warren Harding to be one of the worst presidents ever. I disagree. True, a lot of "scandals" happened on his watch, not because he was personally dishonest, but because he trusted men who were. And sure, he loved the ladies a little too much, and went offside so much that he made Bill Clinton look like a monk. But Harding still ( Read more... )

In 1952, the popular General Dwight D. Eisenhower was elected president, defeating the professorial Illinois Governor Adlai Stevenson by a margin of 442 to 89 in the electoral college. Eisenhower was a popular President in his first term, but showed some vulnerability in his re-election potential after suffering a heart attack near the end of his ( Read more... )

Today is the 134th birthday of President Dwight David Eisenhower. He was born on October 14, 1890. He is one of my favorite Presidents, and the Eisenhower Presidential Center in Abilene, Kansas, is also one of my favorite Presidential Libraries and Museums. I've been there four times (so far).


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In 1916, Democrat Woodrow Wilson was running for re-election as President. Four years previously, he had ended a four election string of White House victories for the Republicans, largely from being the beneficiary of a split in the GOP. Incumbent President William Howard Taft and his predecessor, Theodore Roosevelt split the Republican vote, with ( Read more... )

As has been seen in some of the previous posts in this series, the 2024 Presidential Election will be a very close one and will ultimately be decided in a number of battleground states. Polling data does not show a pattern for any clear winner, and with a month to go in the campaign, the race remains a toss-up.

A number of websites that track ( Read more... )

Today is William Howard Taft's birthday. He was born on September 15, 1857. If he was alive today (as he was in Jason Heller's terrific novel Taft 2012, reviewed here) he would be 167 years old. William Howard Taft, the 27th President of the United States, was born near Cincinnati, Ohio. He is the only person to ever serve both as President and as ( Read more... )

On July 1, 2024, the US Supreme Court released its ruling in the landmark decision of Trump v. United States, in which the Court determined that presidential immunity from criminal prosecution presumptively extends to all of a president's "official acts" and absolute immunity for official acts within an exclusive presidential authority that ( Read more... )

The Supreme Court of the United States didn't always have its first sitting on the first Monday in October, and it didn't always sit in Washington, DC at its current location. The Court held its inaugural session on February 2, 1790, and it convened at the Royal Exchange in New York City. But there were no cases on its docket and it had little ( Read more... )

Aaron Burr served one term as Vice-President of the United States (under President Thomas Jefferson) from 1801 to 1805. When he left the office at the end of his term in 1805, he headed west of the Allegheny Mountains and down the Ohio River Valley into the lands acquired in the Louisiana Purchase. Burr had leased 40,000 acres of land, known as the ( Read more... )