Tag: Presidential History

AUMF–The Long Good-bye

AUMF?

For those that spend more time worrying about what Tater Swifty is doing….AUMF stands for….Authorization for the Use of Military Force…..the power for the president to go to war with consulting Congress.

The US Senate has finally shown a little spine (something I never thought they were capable of doing)….

The Senate voted Wednesday to repeal the resolution that gave a green light for the 2003 invasion of Iraq, an effort to end more than 20 years of authorization for US presidents to use force in that country and return those war powers to Congress, reports the AP. The measure would repeal the 1991 authorization that sanctioned the US-led Gulf War as well. What you need to know:

  • Background. The October 2002 votes to give George W. Bush broad authority for the Iraq invasion were a defining moment for many members of Congress as the country debated whether a military strike was warranted. The US was already at war in Afghanistan, and the Bush administration had drummed up support among members of Congress and the American public for invading Iraq by promoting what turned out to be false intelligence alleging Saddam had weapons of mass destruction. Then-Sen. Joe Biden voted in favor.
  • Background II. Some lawmakers fear the Iraq war powers could be used for purposes Congress never intended. President Trump’s administration cited the 2002 Iraq war resolution as part of its legal justification for a 2020 US drone strike that killed Iranian Gen. Qassim Soleimani, but the two war powers resolutions have otherwise rarely been used as the basis for any presidential action. A separate 2001 authorization for the global war on terror would remain in place under the bill, which President Biden has said he will support.
  • Wednesday’s vote. Senators voted 66-30 in favor of repeal. If passed by the House, the repeal would not be expected to affect any current military deployments. But lawmakers in both parties are increasingly seeking to claw back congressional powers over US military strikes and deployments.
  • Supporters. Supporters, including almost 20 Republican senators, say the repeal is crucial to prevent future abuses and to reinforce that Iraq is now a strategic partner of the United States.
  • Critics. Opponents have raised concerns about recent attacks against US troops in Syria, including a recent drone strike and rocket attack that Iranian-backed militants are thought to have been behind. Biden and his administration have argued that the repeal would not affect any response to Iran. American troops are authorized to protect themselves and respond to attacks, including under Article 2 of the Constitution, which gives the president the authority to protect troops.
  • Prospects. The repeal’s future is less certain in the House, where 49 Republicans joined with Democrats in supporting a similar bill two years ago. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy has suggested he is open to supporting a repeal even though he previously opposed it, but Rep. Michael McCaul of Texas, the Republican chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, has indicated he would like to instead replace it with something else. It is unclear what that would be.
  • Congressional history. The New York Times reports that of the lawmakers who cast a vote for the 2002 Iraq war authorization, just 69 are still in Congress. Roughly half of them voted in favor of authorization. Today, all but 17 are in favor of repeal.
  • Implications. Should the repeal come to pass, “it would also be a crucial first step toward building momentum to tackle more significant and far more complicated endeavors,” such as “replacing the authorization Congress passed in 2001 to start military operations against terrorist groups in Afghanistan after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks,” notes the Times.

The best thing I can say about this issue is….It is about goddamn time!

I guess that makes me a peace-nik….

Peace campaigners cheered Wednesday’s vote by the U.S. Senate to repeal the authorizations for the 1991 and 2003 invasions of Iraq, while calling on the House of Representatives to follow suit.

https://www.commondreams.org/news/aumf-iraq

Enough Said!

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

A Trump Presidential Library

Closing Thought–11Feb21

First of all what is a presidential library?

Presidential Libraries are archives and museums, bringing together the documents and artifacts of a President and his administration and presenting them to the public for study and discussion without regard for political considerations or affiliations. Presidential Libraries and Museums, like their holdings, belong to the American people.

Many Presidential papers and records had been lost, destroyed, sold for profit, or ruined by poor storage conditions. In 1939, President Franklin D. Roosevelt sought a better alternative.

Congress legislated this policy, passing the Presidential Libraries Act in 1955. Through archives, museums, and public programs, Presidential Libraries continue to preserve the documents and artifacts of our Presidents, helping us learn about our nation and our democracy.

In short it is a storage vessel for all the presidential papers and awards and such…..and full owned by the people of the US through the National Archives.

Now that you know what these are the next question will be will Trump build a library?

Since most of his “actions” were Executive Orders so that he could pull an end run on Congress….maybe he will just paper a wall or two with the orders….since he signed few actual laws passed by Congress the library will be a very small place like the man that held the office of president in the last four years.

Then most of his policies were in Tweets then another room with his Tweets reproduced on a wall….

These places are for research and education….so what will be in a Trump library?

Since presidents worry about their legacy…..the library becomes one way to influence and control that legacy.

Presidential libraries are perfect examples of just how far presidents will go to control their own legacies. Since the first one was created in 1941, what were intended to be serious research centers have grown into flashy, partisan temples touting huckster history. Built with undisclosed, unlimited donations, often to sitting presidents, libraries have traditionally been donated to the government after their construction. But even though they are taxpayer-funded and controlled by a federal agency, the private foundations established by former presidents to build the libraries retain outsize influence. The libraries’ whitewashed exhibits are created by presidential boosters; they host political events; their boards are stacked with loyalists; and many of their important historical records may never see the light of day.

The federal government spends about $100 million a year operating, maintaining and improving presidential libraries. But the costs to build and equip them—which have doubled for each successive president in the past 30 years and now run in excess of $500 million—must come from non-federal sources. That’s not a sum one can raise through $25 internet donations; presidential libraries are funded by mega-donors.

Trump does have mega-donors…..but will they come to the rescue of a Trump Library?

Sadly I cannot think of much that will go into a library to preserve Trump’s legacy….if it helps whitewash his legacy then the library would be one or two rooms at most…..or a broom closet with a laptop on a small table.

There has an opinion piece that basically states that there will be NO Trump presidential library….

Every president since FDR has had a presidential library, and Barack Obama is currently working on his version of one to continue the tradition. What about Donald Trump? The Washington Post reported earlier this month that Trump likes the idea of raising $2 billion from his grass-roots supporters and opening one in Florida. But in a lengthy piece at Politico, Anthony Clark—author of a book on presidential libraries—assesses the chances and concludes that a Trump library probably won’t happen. No, it’s not because Trump famously doesn’t spend time reading books—”presidential libraries aren’t that kind of library,” notes Clark—or because of the Jan. 6 Capitol riot. It’s because the process is way more expensive and complicated than you might think, and the particulars don’t seem well suited to Trump.

“If he does build a library, it’s likely Trump would want the legitimacy and imprimatur of the federal government, as a ‘seal of approval’ for his story, told his way,” writes Clark. For that to happen, Trump would have to raise the money, buy the land, have it built, raise hundreds of millions more for maintenance—”and give it, almost unthinkably, to the government.” Trump also could opt to go his own way, outside the National Archives system, as Obama is attempting to do. But the upkeep gets expensive in perpetuity, as the Richard Nixon library (which started independent, then joined the rest) found out. Clark floats the idea that Trump might take a more “Trumpian” route: He could license his name to “a for-profit enterprise—maybe a casino, or a golf course, or a ticketed museum with an attached hotel—to operate as a tourist attraction for the MAGAs and the (morbidly) curious.” (Read the full story

What do you think would be included in a Trump Library?

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Executive Order 9835

I know what you are thinking….what silliness as Trump signed into law before he is thrown from the White House, right?

Well you would be wrong….Trump as of August 2020 issued 200 EOs and he s not the all time record….that would be Clinton with 364……this EO is about 70 years old and was issued by President Harry Truman….

So do you think the Trump was being paranoid when he wanted loyalty from government employees?

In response to public fears and Congressional investigations into communism in the United States, President Harry S. Truman issues an executive decree establishing a sweeping loyalty investigation of federal employees.

As the Cold War began to develop after World War II, fears concerning communist activity in the United States, particularly in the federal government, increased. Congress had already launched investigations of communist influence in Hollywood, and laws banning communists from teaching positions were being instituted in several states. Of most concern to the Truman administration, however, were persistent charges that communists were operating in federal offices. In response to these fears and concerns, Truman issued an executive order on March 21, 1947, which set up a program to check the loyalty of federal employees. In announcing his order, Truman indicated that he expected all federal workers to demonstrate “complete and unswerving loyalty” the United States. Anything less, he declared, “constitutes a threat to our democratic processes.”

https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/truman-orders-loyalty-checks-of-federal-employees

That was Executive Order 9835…..

Read the EO for yourself and see if there is nay difference in 70 years……

Click to access 6Executive-Order-9835.pdf

For more information……https://www.trumanlibrary.gov/library/executive-orders/9835/executive-order-9835

Let us not forget about the Sedition Act of 1918….

The Sedition Act of 1918, enacted during World War I, made it a crime to “willfully utter, print, write, or publish any disloyal, profane, scurrilous, or abusive language about the form of the Government of the United States” or to “willfully urge, incite, or advocate any curtailment of the production” of the things “necessary or essential to the prosecution of the war.” The act, along with other similar federal laws, was used to convict at least 877 people in 1919 and 1920, according to a report by the attorney general. In 1919, the Court heard several important free speech cases — including Debs v. United States and Abrams v. United States — involving the constitutionality of the law. In both cases, the Court upheld the convictions as well as the law.

Read the transcript and then tell me it does not sound familiar.

https://www.thirteen.org/wnet/supremecourt/capitalism/sources_document1.html

Just change a few words here and there and these could have been issued in the 4 years since the election of Donald Trump….

If you read and would like to give your thoughts….I am listening…..(should I have said ‘reading”?)

Ain’t history grand?

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“lego ergo scribo”

Who Was The 6th President Of The United States?

Time for your history lesson…..stuff your teacher did not teach you…..

What do you know about the 6th president? Save your anxiety…..John Quincy Adams.

The first President who was the son of a President, John Quincy Adams in many respects paralleled the career as well as the temperament and viewpoints of his illustrious father. Born in Braintree, Massachusetts, in 1767, he watched the Battle of Bunker Hill from the top of Penn’s Hill above the family farm. As secretary to his father in Europe, he became an accomplished linguist and assiduous diarist.

After graduating from Harvard College, he became a lawyer. At age 26 he was appointed Minister to the Netherlands, then promoted to the Berlin Legation. In 1802 he was elected to the United States Senate. Six years later President Madison appointed him Minister to Russia.

https://www.whitehouse.gov/about-the-white-house/presidents/john-quincy-adams/

That was general info that some will already know….then let’s look deeper…..

Why does it matter what Adams said and did 200 years ago? Because the common misunderstanding of his role contributes to a larger misunderstanding of what U.S. foreign policy has been in the past and should be in the future. Advocates of a sharply curtailed foreign policy often contend that they are simply calling for a reversion to the time-tested American tradition of non-intervention and limited engagement with the world. They argue that Adams is representative of a more realistic statecraft that has been lost amid America’s alleged obsession with projecting its influence and values beyond its borders.

Uncovering the actual legacy of John Quincy Adams might make one think differently.

Restraint and the ‘Actual Legacy’ of John Quincy Adams

To rehash the things that Adams did in his life…..

#1 He served as U.S. Ambassador to several nations

In his mid-twenties, John Quincy Adams wrote a series of articles supporting President George Washington’s policy of keeping U.S. out of the hostilities in Europe which resulted due the French Revolution. In 1793, at the age of 26, Adams was appointed the United States Ambassador to the Netherlands by Washington. Three years later, Washington appointed him Minister to Portugal, and in the year after that, he was appointed Minister to Prussia by President John Adams, his father. In 1809, President James Madison appointed him as the first ever U.S. Ambassador to Russia, and in 1815, he was appointed Minister to Great Britain.

10 Major Accomplishments of John Quincy Adams

Now you know all about a little studied president of the United States…..

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Class Dismissed!

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

They Would Be President

As we start the 2020 election….I thought a historical look into the past might amuse my readers….

When taking history in school we are all taught about those men that were elected as president of the United States……but who were the “also ran”…..or should I say “close but no cigar”?

An interesting question as we wind down to the presidential election for 2020…..and I can throw a little history in there as well…..(life is good)…..

We begin the lesson with Daniel Webster…..

1. Daniel Webster

Webster is a terribly important figure in American history. Secretary of State twice, Webster has been called one of the greatest Senators. He never achieved his ultimate ambition, the presidency, but ironically he turned down two opportunities which would have granted his wish.
In 1840, Webster was offered the vice presidential spot on the Whig ticket, but declined. He had sought the nomination himself, but lost it to William Henry Harrison, who offered him the Secretary of State position. Harrison is famous for having died thirty days after his inauguration, catapulting “His Accidency”, Vice President John Tyler, to the White House. Had Webster accepted Harrison’s offer, he would have been the 10th president, not Tyler.
Webster continued as Secretary of State, negotiating a final and lasting treaty with Britain, but eventually left the Cabinet and returned to the Senate. He sought the Whig nomination for President again in 1848 but was again defeated by a military hero, Zachary Taylor. Taylor, like Harrison before him, offered Webster the Vice Presidency. Webster clearly didn’t think his response through, and had not learned from the past. He turned Taylor down, saying “I do not propose to be buried until I am really dead and in my coffin.” Webster missed out on the presidency again, when Taylor died in 1850 of what was probably gastroenteritis. Instead, Millard Fillmore ascended to office, though he did appoint Webster as Secretary of State again.

The presidency was always Webster’s goal, and he might have achieved it had he been a little less stubborn and ornery. As for what he might have done in office, we can take some inspiration from his achievements in the rest of his public life. Webster was a prominent conservative and determined to preserve the Union as tensions over slavery began to boil. He supported the Compromise of 1850 which did just that, at least for a while. He also advocated, and may have worked towards, stronger relations with Japan. Webster is famed now as a character in a story and play, The Devil and Daniel Webster in which he defends a farmer who sells his soul to the devil, a testament to his famous oratory. If he had been president, his oratory might not have been enough to help him avoid the pitfalls of the office at a very turbulent time.

Read on……https://historyexplosion.wordpress.com/2013/12/22/no-cigar-ten-men-who-narrowly-missed-out-on-the-u-s-presidency/

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Class Dismissed!

I Read, I Wrote, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Medal Of Freedom

Closing Thought–20May19

Personally I think this medal has become nothing more than a reward for political support.

This is the highest civilian award possible…..such recipients as Maya, people who have contributed something to this nation and who does this Beloved Supreme Leader pick to give the award to….Tiger Wood.

I realize that this award in the past has been given to friends and the meg donors to campaigns….that is just wrong on so many levels……just what does architecture have with freedom….art or dance for that matter…and especially sports?

The Medal of Freedom should be given not as some reward for donations or other such nonsense but rather to those that have shown that they put their lives above anything else in pursuit…….wait for it……FREEDOM!

I nominate the students in Colorado……

The student killed in Tuesday’s shooting at STEM School Highlands Ranch in suburban Denver went out a hero. Kendrick Castillo, 18, along with two of his friends, tackled a shooter—seen pulling a gun out of a guitar case—and was shot in the chest, reports NBC News. The sacrifice “[gave] all of us enough time to get underneath our desks, to get ourselves safe, and to run across the room to escape,” another student says. “We’re going to hear about very heroic things that have taken place at the school,” adds Douglas County Sheriff Tony Spurlock, per USA Today. More details emerging:

  • Student suspects: One is identified as Devon Erickson, 18. Spurlock describes a second, initially identified as a male, as a female minor. Denver Channel, however, describes a juvenile suspect in the process of transitioning from female to male. Spurlock says “we originally thought the juvenile was a male by appearance,” but wouldn’t comment on whether the suspect is transgender.
  • The shooting: The pair are accused of firing on two classrooms at the public charter school after passing through an entrance without metal detectors, per the AP. Spurlock says they had a “number of weapons,” including two handguns they weren’t old enough to possess.
  • Capture: Deputies reportedly arrested the suspects within minutes, with no gunfire exchanged, per the AP. Spurlock said one of the suspects was detained by a security guard at the school, attended by more than 1,850 students in kindergarten through grade 12.
    A Columbine link?: Citing multiple sources, Denver Channel reports the motive “went beyond bullying and involved revenge and anger towards others at the school.” Some are questioning whether the shooting was inspired by the 1999 massacre at Columbine High School, just seven miles away. Per the AP, “the answer was not immediately clear.”
    The injured: Eight students aged 15 and older were treated at three hospitals, including one student shot three times. Five had been released by Wednesday morning, while three remained in intensive care.
    The terror: A 8-year-old second-grader tells the New York Times of hearing his first ever gunshot. His mother, speaking for most parents, says, “We’re more messed up than they are.”

These students illustrate what it means to protect freedom…..than some sports figure.

Why did Tiger Wood get the medal?  Why not he is a close friend and a carbon copy of a womanizing douche that gave him the medal.

Trump is not the only one that does this…they ALL do it….it is a reward  not for protecting freedom but rather having an open wallet for the president.

The Medal of Freedom should be held for the highest regard as the military Medal of Honor.

Closing Thought–25Feb19

WE have been bombarded with the possibility the our president might have committed some crime or another…..plus so many of his advisers have been convicted and others are awaiting trial….all that got me to thinking…..how does other presidential administrations stack up against the Trump as far as people and crime?

And now for your history lesson…(damn you knew that was going, right?)

DAMN!  Did you know that GOP administrations are 38 times more criminal than that of the Dems?

38 times!

Republican administrations have vastly more corruption than Democratic administrations. We provide new research on the numbers to make the case.

We compared 28 years each of Democratic and Republican administrations, 1961-2016, five Presidents from each party. During that period Republicans scored eighteen times more individuals and entities indicted, thirty-eight times more convictions, and thirty-nine times more individuals who had prison time.

Given the at least 17 active investigations plaguing President Trump, he is on a path to exceed previous administrations, though the effects of White House obstruction, potential pardons, and the as-yet unknown impact of the GOP’s selection of judges may limit investigations, subpoenas, prosecutions, etc. Of course, as we are comparing equal numbers of Presidents and years in office from the Democratic and Republican parties, the current President is not included.

We’re aware some of our numbers differ from other totals, but we explain our criteria below.

https://rantt.com/gop-admins-had-38-times-more-criminal-convictions-than-democrats-1961-2016/

If we look back at our history then the troubles with the Trump administrations should be nothing of a surprise.

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Class Dismissed!

President That Was Never Elected

Smile!  It is time for the Professor’s Classroom.

I have started a short series on some of our presidents and the story around their rise to the job of president.

Most Americans know that we go to the polls every 4 years to vote for the person we would like to see as the president, the leader of the “Free World”…..but has there ever been a leader that was never elected by the people to serve in that position?

(I will pause here so that the younger members of my reading audience can trot off to the Google button)

That is correct President Gerald Ford was NEVER elected to that position…..he was VP when Nixon had to go on the lam and he rose to the highest office in the land…..

America’s 38th president, Gerald Ford (1913-2006) took office on August 9, 1974, following the resignation of President Richard Nixon (1913-1994), who left the White House in disgrace over the Watergate scandal. Ford became the first unelected president in the nation’s history. A longtime Republican congressman from Michigan, Ford had been appointed vice president less than a year earlier by President Nixon. He is credited with helping to restore public confidence in government after the disillusionment of the Watergate era.

https://www.history.com/topics/us-presidents/gerald-r-ford

In the past Repubs have been hard on Ford’s successor, Jimmy Carter….they have called him weak and ineffective….a position that as a foreign policy wonk do not agree with….but all that aside Repub Gerald Ford was soft on the dictators of this world in his day…..

One expects a certain amount of piety and hypocrisy when retired statesmen give up the ghost, but this doesn’t excuse the astonishing number of omissions and misstatements that have characterized the sickly national farewell to Gerald Ford. One could graze for hours on the great slopes of the massive obituaries and never guess that during his mercifully brief occupation of the White House, this president had:

  1. Disgraced the United States in Iraq and inaugurated a long period of calamitous misjudgment of that country.
  2. Colluded with the Indonesian dictatorship in a gross violation of international law that led to a near-genocide in East Timor.
  3. Delivered a resounding snub to Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn at the time when the Soviet dissident movement was in the greatest need of solidarity.

Read More…….http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/fighting_words/2006/12/our_short_national_nightmare.html

Keep his name in mind when you play Trivial Pursuit or some Bar Game…it should be good for a few points…..

Class Dismissed!

How About An Apology?

Remember that famous blue dress that sank Pres. Clinton?  It was Monica’s dress that she wore when she had the liaisons with Clinton complete with stain and all.

Clinton was impeached and the country went crazy with the crap of division…….but he, Clinton, did not resign instead he stuck it out and the c nation was split along political lines.

After all these years Clinton has finally opened up about the impeachment and the affair…..(I guess he had to if he wanted to sell any books of his new novel)

Bill Clinton did an interview with NBC News to plug the new novel he’s written with James Patterson, but the former president spent a good deal of time instead talking about his old behavior in light of the MeToo movement. In the sometimes testy back-and-forth with Craig Melvin, Clinton defended his decision not to resign amid the Monica Lewinsky scandal and acknowledged that he has not personally apologized to her. Clinton said he has publicly apologized to Lewinsky (NBC played a 1998 clip of him doing so), but not privately. “I’ve never talked to her,” he said when pressed on the point by Melvin. Clinton also said he was correct not to resign. “I think I did the right thing. I defended the Constitution.” Later, Clinton asked Melvin if he thought John F. Kennedy should have resigned and accused the reporter of presenting a biased picture of him.

The AP describes Clinton as “both vague and combative” during the interview. This might be an example of vague: Asked how he “would have approached the accusations differently” today if he were president, Clinton responded, “Well, I don’t think it would be an issue because people would be using the facts instead of the imagined facts. If the facts were the same today, I wouldn’t.” And he seemed to bristle at comparisons to President Trump. “A lot of the facts have been conveniently omitted to make the story work, I think partly because they’re frustrated that they got all these serious allegations against the current occupant of the Oval Office and his voters don’t seem to care.” He added that he doesn’t think Trump has gotten a “pass” on the allegations against him, but Trump “hasn’t gotten anything like the coverage that you would expect.”

As usual Clinton was an arrogant tool…..making myself out as some sort of victim in all this….and he stated that he has not apologized to Monica in person……really?

I expected NO less from Bubba……as usual he thinks he is all that and was right in the way he handled the situation……as usual he is wrong today as he was 25 years ago…..

Monica deserves an apology from Clinton in person …after all the man misused his position for a sexual favor……

The Folly of Wilsonism

A hundred years ago the US was in the process of mobilization of troops to send to Europe and join in the defense of freedom in World War One…..

Wilson had kept the US out of the fighting until he found the proper time to insert the US into the fray.

Wilson was the only president to have a PhD….he was a raging racist and a Democrat……..not many politicians today say that they admire Wilson…..Trump has Jackson, Nixon had Lincoln, Reagan had Coolidge and every Dem has JFK…..but poor Wilson has been left out….even though his actions in WW1 is what lead to the US becoming the world power that it is today.

But American Conservative takes a look at Wilson and his interventionism…..

In the midst of the commotion generated by the U.S. missile strikes against Syria’s Al Shayrat air base on April 6, Rex Tillerson’s statement at Sant’Anna di Stazzema, Italy, received less attention than it deserved. Visiting a memorial to victims of Nazi brutality in World War II, the secretary of state declared: “We rededicate ourselves to holding to account any and all who commit crimes against the innocents anywhere in the world.”

Americans should pause to consider the breathtaking sweep of this statement—particularly in light of President Trump’s missile attacks, launched in response to a chemical-weapons assault attributed to Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad. Tillerson apparently wants the United States to respond anytime noncombatants get targeted anywhere in the world by armies or governments engaged in war.

Not even Woodrow Wilson ever uttered a statement so Wilsonian in tone and breadth. The essence of Wilsonism stems from the 28th president’s discomfort with American overseas actions conducted in behalf of U.S. interests. But humanitarian interests—now that was a crusade worthy of his countrymen. Even before he took America into World War I, as he sought to put himself forward as an interlocutor for peace among the European belligerents, he made clear in sweeping language that he spoke for a moral authority far higher than mere nationalism. “I hope and believe,” he declared, “that I am in effect speaking for liberals and friends of humanity in every nation … I would fain believe that I am speaking for the silent mass of mankind everywhere.”

Source: The Folly of Wilsonism | The American Conservative

Just another of the professor’s mini history lessons…..knowledge is never enough….