#Edmund Muskie

[politicaldilfs]

Maine Governor DILFs

Paul LePage, Clinton Clauson, Edmund Muskie, Angus King, John Baldacci, John R. McKernan Jr., Robert Haskell, James B. Longley, John H. Reed, Joseph E. Brennan, Burton M. Cross, Kenneth M. Curtis

[wanderingmind867]

I don't know if this is readable (since i got it by screenshotting the comic) but this was one of the special things at the back of the masterwork: a magazine put together limericks for every candidate in 1976 election, and then endorsed Howard the Duck.

[halligan-elysium]

The 1972 failure...?

Okay guys here's how McGovern can still win

[oldshowbiz]

1972.

Paul Anka for Edmund Muskie.

[rjzimmerman]

This article tells me that either (a) the law clerks who worked for the US Supreme Court justices when they were developing their new case law about the Clean Air Act did a lousy job on researching Congressional intention or (b) the law clerks did their jobs but the justices (primarily Alito, Gorsuch, Roberts, Kavanaugh and Thomas) decided to ignore the clerk's work and memos. Most likely a combination of the two.

Excerpt from this story from Inside Climate News:

Among the many obstacles to enacting federal limits on climate pollution, none has been more daunting than the Supreme Court. That is where the Obama administration’s efforts to regulate power plant emissions met their demise and where the Biden administration’s attempts will no doubt land.

A forthcoming study seeks to inform how courts consider challenges to these regulations by establishing once and for all that the lawmakers who shaped the Clean Air Act in 1970 knew scientists considered carbon dioxide an air pollutant, and that these elected officials were intent on limiting its emissions.

The research, expected to be published next week in the journal Ecology Law Quarterly, delves deep into congressional archives to uncover what it calls a “wide-ranging and largely forgotten conversation between leading scientists, high-level administrators at federal agencies, members of Congress” and senior staff under Presidents Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon. That conversation detailed what had become the widely accepted science showing that carbon dioxide pollution from fossil fuels was accumulating in the atmosphere and would eventually warm the global climate.

The findings could have important implications in light of a legal doctrine the Supreme Court established when it struck down the Obama administration’s power plant rules, said Naomi Oreskes, a history of science professor at Harvard University and the study’s lead author. That so-called “major questions” doctrine asserted that when courts hear challenges to regulations with broad economic and political implications, they ought to consider lawmakers’ original intent and the broader context in which legislation was passed.

“The Supreme Court has implied that there’s no way that the Clean Air Act could really have been intended to apply to carbon dioxide because Congress just didn’t really know about this issue at that time,” Oreskes said. “We think that our evidence shows that that is false.”

The work began in 2013 after Oreskes arrived at Harvard, she said, when a call from a colleague prompted the question of what Congress knew about climate science in the 1960s as it was developing Clean Air Act legislation. She had already co-authored the book Merchants of Doubt, about the efforts of industry-funded scientists to cast doubt about the risks of tobacco and global warming, and was familiar with the work of scientists studying climate change in the 1950s. “What I didn’t know,” she said, “was how much they had communicated that, particularly to Congress.”

Oreskes hired a researcher to start looking and what they both found surprised her. The evidence they uncovered includes articles cataloged by the staff of the act’s chief architect, proceedings of scientific conferences attended by members of Congress and correspondence with constituents and scientific advisers to Johnson and Nixon. The material included documents pertaining not only to environmental champions but also other prominent members of Congress.

“These were people really at the center of power,” Oreskes said.

When Sen. Edmund Muskie, a Maine Democrat, introduced the Clean Air Act of 1970, he warned his colleagues that unchecked air pollution would continue to “threaten irreversible atmospheric and climatic changes.” The new research shows that his staff had collected reports establishing the science behind his statement. He and other senators had attended a 1966 conference featuring discussion of carbon dioxide as a pollutant. At that conference, Wisconsin Sen. Gaylord Nelson warned about carbon dioxide pollution from fossil fuel combustion, which he said “is believed to have drastic effects on climate.”

The paper also cites a 1969 letter to Sen. Henry “Scoop” Jackson of Washington from a constituent who had watched the poet Allen Ginsberg warning of melting polar ice caps and widespread global flooding on the Merv Griffin Show. The constituent was skeptical of the message, called Ginsberg “one of America’s premier kooks” and sought a correction of the record from the senator: “After all, quite a few million people watch this show, people of widely varying degrees of intelligence, and the possibility of this sort of charge—even from an Allen Ginsberg—being accepted even in part, is dangerous.”

Jackson then sent the letter to presidential science advisor Lee DuBridge, who responded by detailing the latest science, which showed that while there was uncertainty about the effects of increased levels of carbon dioxide, the greenhouse gas effect was real and a product of fossil fuel combustion.

“We just felt that strengthens the argument that this is not some little siloed scientific thing,” Oreskes said of the episode. “It’s not just a few geeky experts.”

[deadpresidents]

What do you mean when you said Carter faced a "historically weak group of challengers" in 76?

Quite simply, Jimmy Carter got lucky when it came to his opposition for the Democratic Presidential nomination in 1976 because the biggest potential Democratic candidates chose not to run that year.

It's difficult now to understand how little-known Carter was when he decided to run for President in 1976. He had served a single term as Governor of Georgia and had almost zero national name recognition. So, he was very fortunate that the biggest names in the Democratic Party decided against running for various reasons. Chappaquiddick was still too fresh for Ted Kennedy to make his long-awaited bid for the White House that year. George McGovern had lost one of the biggest landslides in American history to Richard Nixon four years earlier. Senator Edmund Muskie of Maine and New York City Mayor John Lindsay were much bigger names than Carter, but also decided against running. Former Vice President Hubert H. Humphrey considered jumping in the race for months, but ultimately decided against it, probably because he was dying of cancer. If any of those five Democrats had been in the race, they almost certainly would have been favored over Carter.

It's not fair to suggest that luck alone elected Carter. He ran an excellent campaign, and he was the first Democrat to jump in the race, so he gave himself plenty of time to introduce himself to the country -- which was necessary because, again, nobody outside of Georgia knew who he was! And his timing worked out perfectly because as the more-and-more potential heavyweight Democratic contenders decided against running, Carter was seen as an honest and appealing outsider who could bring a fresh approach to Washington.

But the field of candidates who did eventually seek the Democratic nomination in 1976 is so weak that a lot of people today probably don't even know who most of them were. I mean, one of the candidates who went into the 1976 Democratic National Convention was the notorious racist and Alabama Governor George C. Wallace! The best-known of Carter's 1976 Democratic opponents was Jerry Brown, who was in his first term as Governor of California and just 38 years old at the time, and he started to gain some real momentum in the campaign. However, Brown jumped in the race way too late and didn't have enough time to capture enough delegates before the Convention.

Other than Brown and Wallace, though, Carter's main opponents for the Democratic nomination in 1976 were Arizona Congressman Mo Udall, Senator Frank Church of Idaho, Senator Henry "Scoop" Jackson of Washington, Senator Birch Bayh of Indiana, anti-abortion advocate Ellen McCormack, former Senator Fred R. Harris of Oklahoma, and Governor Milton Shapp of Pennsylvania. If I told you I made up six of those people, would you be shocked? But I didn't! That was the Democratic field in 1976!

[47burlm]

Portland Light Head Cape Elizabeth Maine

In Maine we have a saying that “there’s no point in speaking unless you can improve on silence”. – Edmund Muskie

[unofficialbob]

yes actually... i had things to say about edmund muskie.

What did you say about him, if you don't mind me asking...

[forgottentristan]

Sacrifice | Tristan & Eithne

The air tasted differently here in the woods, he'd swear it. Caught high up amidst the wind-swept peaks of Stafford, there he took in the crash of waves, the babbling flow of sweet streams, but here: here was tilled earth and volunteering mushrooms; leaves that, golden at the crest of autumn, wafted lazily to the ground. The air was crisp and salty there; here it was musky and warm, and Tristan found...He found rather liked it.

There had been little enough of warmth in Kolchis, saving the great Flame which roared at the center of the temple, its marble columns turning everyday to green as lichen bit away at them. That and the near-dead tree, whose mostly bare branches raked the sky like gnarled fingers, and whose few unsweapt gold-and-crimson leaves laid down a bed upon the cool marble at this very time of year: those were the only traces of warmth in the stone city where he had begun his life. But Astaira -- all of Astaira -- was entirely different. All was an embrace, but no place, he found: no place was that so very true as it was here in Malconaire.

Above him, a throng of bright-colored birds twittered merrily amongst the green canopy that arced cheerfully across the road, while squirrels skittered from branch to branch, each chirping one to the other as he passed by far below. Yes, the woods were teaming with life, even where they were their thinnest, at the borders of Malconaire. The deeper when drove into the forest, the thicker it grew, till he had heard some Astairan folk tell that the Old Forest at the center of the woods, was indeed the heart of all the world, but what, precisely, that meant, Tristan could only guess. No doubt, he thought with a kind of wry consider, flexing his shoulders as he rode, Godfrey would know. But Tristan did not care to ask.

The castle itself rose graceful, half-sprouting itself from the very earth around it, its stone a fine complement to the great tree that arced elegantly amongst its battlements and through its high rooves. The entry, itself, was at once a humble and an elegant portal: a simple yet broad doubledoor, flanked by two trees seemingly grown amongst its very stones, and crowned with a crescent clerestory window.

Today, these great doors were, he found, flung wide, the Lady Valentina standing just ouside of them, apparently scolding the servant, Cillian, whose expression did not flag in its cheek for all the lady's redresses. Yet, Tristan watched both expressions change at his approach, Valentina's turning from sour to smiles, and Cillian's the opposite way. Dismounting, Tristan smirked to himself as he faced his horse, but managed only to show general friendliness as he turned once more to face them.

"Cillian, take Sir Tristan's horse."

The servant said nothing, only seizing up the reins and treating Tristan to a rather hard stare, a thing Tristan greeted only with thanks.

"Sir Tristan," began Lady Valentina, voice rather pointedly cheerful. "I don't suppose your delightful nephew, His Imperial Highness, Prince Edmund, is behind you. It has, I think, been some days since we've had the pleasure of his company, and we do so long to see him again. All my young ladies, you know, spend all their time sighing their hearts away in his absence, now that dear Prince Arthur has quite abandoned us, don't you know?"

Tristan shook his head. "I'm sure, my lady, His Imperial Highness will return in time."

Valentina's eyes lit. "Oh? Prince Arthur?" she exclaimed, eyes brightening into delight.

Tristan cleared his throat, the oft-played chorus of Jeanie Morrison rattling in his head. "That--that I cannot say."

"Ah," Valentina smiled valiantly through her obvious disappointment, and Tristan was seized with the irrepressible suspicion that his own nephew was more a consolation prize, just now, to Valentina's way of thinking. "Well," she said, entwining her arm with Tristan's. "I daresay our dear Prince Edmund will prove more gallant than his elder brother, and shall not long disappoint us, hm? Between you and I, you know, Sir Tristan, I must say I've always preferred his company."

Tristan just managed to turn his laugh into a cough.

"Something in the...in the light of his eyes, you know. That's integrity."

Tristan arched his brows. "A look? That's integrity, my lady?"

Valentina tittered. "Oh, dear me, Sir Tristan, you must pardon a simple lady's way of speaking. I mean only...integrity shines in his eyes."

"I see," said his uncle. "I daresay in His Imperial Highness' case, you are correct, but I should hesitate, Your Ladyship, in always comprehending goodness in beholding the mere appearance of it."

"Oh, Sir Tristan," laughed Valentina. "How very wise you are! I daresay I can see where our darling prince gets it!"

Tristan looked at her long, and shook his head. It felt quite heavy, suddenly, a weighty crown supportedly only by tender throat. "I am not wise, Your Ladyship. Only wary, as is my calling. But if its wisdom you wish, I daresay my nephew cannot hasten here soon enough."

"Oh, you are so good, Sir Tristan! Then...you shall recommend us in our longing to see him?"

"I shall...convey your wishes to Prince Edmund, when next I see him." He had little doubt Valentina's entreaties wouldn't much appeal to his nephew, though doubtless the lad would still find his way to Malconaire soon enough despite her. The knight bit his lip to hide a smile and did not say so. "I've little doubt, in truth, that he's already planning a venture here just as soon as he can manage it. But, Your Ladyship is far too kind to pay such attentions to me when there's doubtless much to do to be ready for the happy event."

Immediately, Valentina's face hardened, only softened by the thinnest veneer of politeness. "Yes...my poor son is quite set upon the wedding coming quite soon."

He swallowed hard, past the hollow thing which still rasped somewhere at his heart. It had done so since he'd heard the news, scraping cold and cruel at his bones. He'd half-wished to hear it contradicted. But he'd not expected it. Still, he felt heaviness like a mantel. He pressed disappointment aside. None of that. Not now. If this was to bring Eithne happiness, then he wished nothing less for her. Still, Tristan wondered what Valentina considered to be quite soon, its spectral hand looming across the future like a waste.

"If you would be so good, my lady, I will detain you no further than to request that you might point out where I can find Lady Eithne? I have already expressed my congratulations to Lord Cassimir, but I must give all my best to the lady, herself."

Her face twitched, and Valentina quickly looked away. "Yes," she sniffed, gesturing vaguely with her handkerchief in hand. "I believe I last saw her heading that way, in the general direction of the Old Forest. Perhaps if you are quick you may catch her before the trees devour her altogether."

If Tristan wasn't mistaken, there was a touch of wistfulness to her tone. His thanks, when he gave them, were consequently stiff, and he began his march. Fortunately, it did not take him terribly long to find her, but now that he saw her, he hardly knew where to begin.

Eithne was everything she ought to be: something he'd thought, before meeting her, quite beyond the ambition of mere mortals. A true lady of her stature, after all, ought to be impossibly kind and gracious, gentle yet strong, giving and firm, unfailingly patient. A veritable saint in the guise of mortal garb. Yet, she managed all this and more with an easy smile, blue eyes twinkling like brilliant pools of clear water. Indeed, he could not fault Lord Cassimir for wanting her: only for claiming her when he did not deserve her.

Yet, Eithne had accepted him, and his well wishes were as genuine as any could ever be: to her, above all others, belonged only good. If the god was good, she would have it, and nothing more to trouble her.

The sun shone through the glade, dancing in pale dapples through the bower of leaves overhead as Tristan approached her, navigating the high grasses as they waved. He was struck, suddenly, with the notion that she was no much a part of Malconaire, that he did not think he could picture the place at all without her. They were right, indeed, to say that the heart of the world was the Old Forest, Tristan thought forcefully, then: they were right to say it so long as Lady Eithne stood there. For what else could be Malconaire's heart, than Eithne, herself?

"Lady Eithne," he began, as he approached, at last allowing his smile its freedom. "I'm glad to have found you. Malconaire feels lonely, I confess, when I do not see you here." A pause. God, he'd said too much, implied too great an ache...it would not do. "Your stepmother would, I think, attribute that to a...power of the blood," he teased softly. "But I don't pretend to understand such things. I only know you are...a part of this place."

He was beyond this, now: the formalities of his form more Varmont than Malconaire, after the years threaded togetherof their friendship, yet they were his safe harbor. How could he, feeling as he did, dispense with the security that came with such forms? No, familiarity was undeserved for him. He'd seen too much, done too much, but Eithne? Eithne was all things goodness. He did not deserve to so much as kiss her hem.

Yet, she was a balm, all the same. He quite forgot the heft of his head as she turned and looked at him, eyes brilliant as the sky above, cheeks round and rosy as apples, her lips warm and soft as petals. Yet, such descriptions did her no justice. The power of her eyes wasn't to be put down as something so untouchable, nor the warmth of her cheeks and her lips so remote as that: he felt her power thumping in his breast. Singing in his head. He'd do better, he thought, to compare her to the forest around her: radiant and fresh and achingly beautiful.

Yet...yet, despite her smile...there was something beneath it, something that wasn't any excitement he'd ever known. His breath was gone; his gut clenched. Something was worn taut in her, as if she'd opened her mouth and inhaled all the world's sadness, keeping it trapped just behind her teeth. He studied her, gaze sharpening on her own. Surely...surely, he was misreading her, but his fist clenched at his side, notwithstanding.

But he was late in coming -- he ought to have come when first he'd heard but...somehow he could not. He'd known he'd need to be composed to face her, it was the greatest kindness he could offer her, but it'd taken some doing. She was not to be the lamb: she was too precious. But perhaps she'd go to the altar, happy, after all, and that was, indeed, what he wanted for her, what he prayed she'd have. But it was not what he thought he saw in her, now, though he did not dare say so. Perhaps this would be the last occasion he might be alone with her, for he could not imagine Cassimir should wish to be parted from her ever again, once they were wed. No, no sadness now: now was a moment for cheer, for hope. All their lives spread before them, and none could say what they might hold, but now -- now he was with her. And that was enough for him.

Looking down a pace, he closed the gap between them before he found her eyes again, offering a soft smile. "I've heard your news, my lady." He swallowed hard. He offered a gentle smile, despite himself, and, gingerly, his hand to take if she chose. "I've come to wish you joy."

[douxlen]

The Little-Known Group That Pioneered Watergate’s Dirty Tricks—and Changed American Politics

New Post has been published on https://douxle.com/2024/08/10/the-little-known-group-that-pioneered-watergates-dirty-tricks-and-changed-american-politics/

The Little-Known Group That Pioneered Watergate’s Dirty Tricks—and Changed American Politics

Fifty years ago, on Aug. 8, 1974, President Richard Nixon told a national television audience that he would resign the following day. Nixon’s announcement, while historic, was not unexpected. Investigations into his role in the bungled Watergate break-in two years earlier had revealed a pattern of abuses of power—with shocking details of break-ins and dirty tricks captivating the nation during the televised Senate Watergate Committee hearings in the summer of 1973. 

Members of Nixon’s staff had confessed to an array of covert unethical (and sometimes illegal) tactics they had used to ensure the president’s reelection in 1972. A member of the Committee to Re-Elect the President (CREEP), Donald Segretti, was open about his work of sabotaging the campaigns of Democratic candidates by disseminating false information. Testifying before the Watergate Committee on Oct. 3, 1973, he admitted that he had undertaken “political tricks” and espionage on behalf of Nixon’s campaign, including creating fake committees and printing propaganda, to foil the campaigns of Democratic candidates such as Senator Edmund Muskie. 

And Segretti was clear about when and where he had learned these tricks: as a college student at the University of Southern California, where he had been part of a political association known as Trojans for Representative Government—a group that ended up producing a bunch of Nixon staffers who participated in the Watergate scandal.

While presidential elections have been marred by mudslinging since the early Republic, these USC alums deployed a particular type of dirty tricks: what became known as “ratf–king,” or the use of unscrupulous tactics to interfere with the campaigns of opponents. The tactics pioneered by members of Trojans for Representative Government and later CREEP set a precedent for the sort of organized political sabotage that has become commonplace today in a digital world, especially for Republicans.

The story of Trojans for Representative Government is rooted in USC student politics. Beginning in 1931, a fraternity, Theta Nu Epsilon, dominated USC student politics for decades. In 1948, several students formed their own opposition party, Free Greeks, which later changed its name to Trojans for Representative Government. Their goal was to usurp Theta Nu Epsilon as the leading political organization on campus by positioning itself as a voice for all students. They tried to draw a contrast with their opponents, who they charged were solely interested in serving the interests of their fraternity members. The group quickly became the starting point for the careers of several California politicians, such as California State Assembly Speaker Jess Unruh, who graduated in 1948.

Read More: What Watergate Experts Think About the Jan. 6 Hearings

In the early 1960s, TRG became an anti-establishment party that used trickery to win elections. USC journalism professor Fred Coonradt stated in an interview that both Theta Nu Epsilon and Trojans for Representative Government historically engaged in illegal activities ranging from stuffing ballot boxes or dropping acid into them to ransacking campaign headquarters and bribing candidates to withdraw from elections. Future California Assembly Leader Walter Karabian, the student body president in 1959, recalled how Ronald Ziegler and Dwight Chapin—two future Nixon aides—falsely accused him of being a member of a secret society as part of a campaign to make him appear elitist. In 1960, Segretti, Chapin, and Ziegler, according to Coonradt, helped orchestrate a major student government election victory for TRG over Theta Nu Epsilon after several recent defeats.

In the end, for members of TRG like Chapin, the USC elections taught them how to excel at dirty campaign tactics — and how to get away with them with few consequences.

Chapin met Nixon during his third year at USC. A year later, H.R. Halderman recruited Chapin to work on Nixon’s 1962 unsuccessful California gubernatorial campaign, and Chapin brought Segretti, and Ziegler along. Chapin quickly rose to prominence within Nixon’s inner circle. Soon, dozens of former TRG members joined Nixon’s staff. In addition to hailing from the West Coast and sharing a sense of loyalty to Nixon, they found Nixon’s brand of anti-establishment conservatism appealing.

Nixon, in turn, handpicked several of them, including Ziegler, Chapin, Gordon Strachan, and Herbert Porter, to serve in prominent positions in his administration. He especially liked that they shared his humble West Coast roots and didn’t come from the inner circles of Ivy League universities or other elite east coast schools.

The ties between the Nixon Administration and TRG became public on Oct. 15, 1972, when Washington Post reporters Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward, in their investigation of Segretti’s career, revealed that he was one of several members of Nixon’s staff who had been members of TRG during their time at USC between 1961 and 1963. The reporting duo identified Segretti, a former attorney with the Treasury Department, as a contact person for hiring operatives for the Committee to Re-Elect the President (CREEP) — which, like TRG where he got his start, aimed to sabotage political opponents.

One of the most famous instances of CREEP resorting to these dirty tricks was their fabrication of the “Canuck letter” that ruined Muskie’s presidential campaign in the 1972 New Hampshire primary by falsely implying that he was biased against the state’s sizable population of voters of French-Canadian descent. 

In the weeks that followed Woodward and Bernstein’s initial article, several California newspapers covered the shady history of Trojans for Representative Government, and its connection to GOP elected officials. In a Los Angeles Times piece, reporter Bella Stumbo interviewed several USC faculty, including Coonradt, to explore the machinations of secret societies like Trojans for Representative Government and Theta Nu Epsilon, and to figure out why USC student politics were so raucous. Coonradt, who had advised USC’s student newspaper the Daily Trojan since 1948, told Stumbo that student government elections at USC had long mirrored the amoral tactics lately made infamous by the Nixon Administration. In his words: “Every year at USC is a Watergate.”

This reporting put Trojans for Representative Government in the national spotlight as Americans learned about how its dirty tricks had set the table for the Watergate scandal.

In the half century since Watergate, TRG disbanded, and its operations have fallen out of American political memory. Yet the group’s tactics lived on. Roger Ailes, the onetime Nixon strategist who founded Fox News, built upon these strategies with the concept of the orchestra-pit theory: shocking headlines will garner more attention—whether true or not—than balanced and reliable reporting. In the decades after Watergate, Republican strategists like Ailes continued to embrace these sorts of bruising tactics, though without breaking the law like CREEP did.

Read More: The True Story Behind Starz’s Watergate Series Gaslit

Most notable among them was Lee Atwater, who ran George H.W. Bush’s 1988 campaign, which famously tied Democratic candidate Michael Dukakis to the ACLU, which Bush labelled a “subversive organization.” More famously, Atwater viciously scapegoated Dukakis for the actions of convicted murder William Horton, setting a damaging precedent for race-baiting in American politics. While a political group separate from the Bush campaign ran the famous “Weekend Passes” ad featuring Horton’s mugshot, Atwater capitalized on its success to skewer Dukakis on crime.

The practice of political sabotage received renewed attention during the 2016 campaign and the Trump Administration. Trump associate Roger Stone had once been a member of Nixon’s staff, although he refused to identify with the “USC mafia” of Segretti and Chapin, and he readily resurrected Nixonian tactics on behalf of Trump. In March 2024, the New Republic reported that State Bar Court of California Judge Yvette Roland recommended that Trump’s former attorney, John Eastman, be disbarred for his unethical behavior in trying to overturn the 2020 election, asserting that Eastman’s misconduct exceeded Segretti’s own behavior during the Watergate scandal.

The term ratf–king itself has even made a comeback during the 2024 election cycle. Last year, an advisor to Trump told Rolling Stone magazine that they viewed primary candidate Vivek Ramaswamy as a “total ratf–k” against candidate Ron DeSantis, and were offering him secret support to tank the latter’s campaign against Trump.

The story of Trojans for Representative Government provided a historical grounding for the dirty election tactics we live with today. Although TRG proved short-lived, their Machiavellian philosophy of winning elections by any means necessary has become a hallmark of the Republican Party under Trump. That ethos is likely to shape the 2024 campaign.

Jonathan van Harmelen is a 20th century U.S. political historian. He writes about California political history and Asian American history, and his work has been featured in TIME, the New York Times, and the Los Angeles Review of Books. He is finishing a book on the role of Congress in the wartime incarceration of Japanese Americans.

Made by History takes readers beyond the headlines with articles written and edited by professional historians. Learn more about Made by History at TIME here. Opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of TIME editors.

[sa7abnews]

The Little-Known Group That Pioneered Watergate’s Dirty Tricks—and Changed American Politics

New Post has been published on https://sa7ab.info/2024/08/09/the-little-known-group-that-pioneered-watergates-dirty-tricks-and-changed-american-politics/

The Little-Known Group That Pioneered Watergate’s Dirty Tricks—and Changed American Politics

Fifty years ago, on Aug. 8, 1974, President Richard Nixon told a national television audience that he would resign the following day. Nixon’s announcement, while historic, was not unexpected. Investigations into his role in the bungled Watergate break-in two years earlier had revealed a pattern of abuses of power—with shocking details of break-ins and dirty tricks captivating the nation during the televised Senate Watergate Committee hearings in the summer of 1973. 

Members of Nixon’s staff had confessed to an array of covert unethical (and sometimes illegal) tactics they had used to ensure the president’s reelection in 1972. A member of the Committee to Re-Elect the President (CREEP), Donald Segretti, was open about his work of sabotaging the campaigns of Democratic candidates by disseminating false information. Testifying before the Watergate Committee on Oct. 3, 1973, he admitted that he had undertaken “political tricks” and espionage on behalf of Nixon’s campaign, including creating fake committees and printing propaganda, to foil the campaigns of Democratic candidates such as Senator Edmund Muskie. 

And Segretti was clear about when and where he had learned these tricks: as a college student at the University of Southern California, where he had been part of a political association known as Trojans for Representative Government—a group that ended up producing a bunch of Nixon staffers who participated in the Watergate scandal.

While presidential elections have been marred by mudslinging since the early Republic, these USC alums deployed a particular type of dirty tricks: what became known as “ratf–king,” or the use of unscrupulous tactics to interfere with the campaigns of opponents. The tactics pioneered by members of Trojans for Representative Government and later CREEP set a precedent for the sort of organized political sabotage that has become commonplace today in a digital world, especially for Republicans.

The story of Trojans for Representative Government is rooted in USC student politics. Beginning in 1931, a fraternity, Theta Nu Epsilon, dominated USC student politics for decades. In 1948, several students formed their own opposition party, Free Greeks, which later changed its name to Trojans for Representative Government. Their goal was to usurp Theta Nu Epsilon as the leading political organization on campus by positioning itself as a voice for all students. They tried to draw a contrast with their opponents, who they charged were solely interested in serving the interests of their fraternity members. The group quickly became the starting point for the careers of several California politicians, such as California State Assembly Speaker Jess Unruh, who graduated in 1948.

Read More: What Watergate Experts Think About the Jan. 6 Hearings

In the early 1960s, TRG became an anti-establishment party that used trickery to win elections. USC journalism professor Fred Coonradt stated in an interview that both Theta Nu Epsilon and Trojans for Representative Government historically engaged in illegal activities ranging from stuffing ballot boxes or dropping acid into them to ransacking campaign headquarters and bribing candidates to withdraw from elections. Future California Assembly Leader Walter Karabian, the student body president in 1959, recalled how Ronald Ziegler and Dwight Chapin—two future Nixon aides—falsely accused him of being a member of a secret society as part of a campaign to make him appear elitist. In 1960, Segretti, Chapin, and Ziegler, according to Coonradt, helped orchestrate a major student government election victory for TRG over Theta Nu Epsilon after several recent defeats.

In the end, for members of TRG like Chapin, the USC elections taught them how to excel at dirty campaign tactics — and how to get away with them with few consequences.

Chapin met Nixon during his third year at USC. A year later, H.R. Halderman recruited Chapin to work on Nixon’s 1962 unsuccessful California gubernatorial campaign, and Chapin brought Segretti, and Ziegler along. Chapin quickly rose to prominence within Nixon’s inner circle. Soon, dozens of former TRG members joined Nixon’s staff. In addition to hailing from the West Coast and sharing a sense of loyalty to Nixon, they found Nixon’s brand of anti-establishment conservatism appealing.

Nixon, in turn, handpicked several of them, including Ziegler, Chapin, Gordon Strachan, and Herbert Porter, to serve in prominent positions in his administration. He especially liked that they shared his humble West Coast roots and didn’t come from the inner circles of Ivy League universities or other elite east coast schools.

The ties between the Nixon Administration and TRG became public on Oct. 15, 1972, when Washington Post reporters Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward, in their investigation of Segretti’s career, revealed that he was one of several members of Nixon’s staff who had been members of TRG during their time at USC between 1961 and 1963. The reporting duo identified Segretti, a former attorney with the Treasury Department, as a contact person for hiring operatives for the Committee to Re-Elect the President (CREEP) — which, like TRG where he got his start, aimed to sabotage political opponents.

One of the most famous instances of CREEP resorting to these dirty tricks was their fabrication of the “Canuck letter” that ruined Muskie’s presidential campaign in the 1972 New Hampshire primary by falsely implying that he was biased against the state’s sizable population of voters of French-Canadian descent. 

In the weeks that followed Woodward and Bernstein’s initial article, several California newspapers covered the shady history of Trojans for Representative Government, and its connection to GOP elected officials. In a Los Angeles Times piece, reporter Bella Stumbo interviewed several USC faculty, including Coonradt, to explore the machinations of secret societies like Trojans for Representative Government and Theta Nu Epsilon, and to figure out why USC student politics were so raucous. Coonradt, who had advised USC’s student newspaper the Daily Trojan since 1948, told Stumbo that student government elections at USC had long mirrored the amoral tactics lately made infamous by the Nixon Administration. In his words: “Every year at USC is a Watergate.”

This reporting put Trojans for Representative Government in the national spotlight as Americans learned about how its dirty tricks had set the table for the Watergate scandal.

In the half century since Watergate, TRG disbanded, and its operations have fallen out of American political memory. Yet the group’s tactics lived on. Roger Ailes, the onetime Nixon strategist who founded Fox News, built upon these strategies with the concept of the orchestra-pit theory: shocking headlines will garner more attention—whether true or not—than balanced and reliable reporting. In the decades after Watergate, Republican strategists like Ailes continued to embrace these sorts of bruising tactics, though without breaking the law like CREEP did.

Read More: The True Story Behind Starz’s Watergate Series Gaslit

Most notable among them was Lee Atwater, who ran George H.W. Bush’s 1988 campaign, which famously tied Democratic candidate Michael Dukakis to the ACLU, which Bush labelled a “subversive organization.” More famously, Atwater viciously scapegoated Dukakis for the actions of convicted murder William Horton, setting a damaging precedent for race-baiting in American politics. While a political group separate from the Bush campaign ran the famous “Weekend Passes” ad featuring Horton’s mugshot, Atwater capitalized on its success to skewer Dukakis on crime.

The practice of political sabotage received renewed attention during the 2016 campaign and the Trump Administration. Trump associate Roger Stone had once been a member of Nixon’s staff, although he refused to identify with the “USC mafia” of Segretti and Chapin, and he readily resurrected Nixonian tactics on behalf of Trump. In March 2024, the New Republic reported that State Bar Court of California Judge Yvette Roland recommended that Trump’s former attorney, John Eastman, be disbarred for his unethical behavior in trying to overturn the 2020 election, asserting that Eastman’s misconduct exceeded Segretti’s own behavior during the Watergate scandal.

The term ratf–king itself has even made a comeback during the 2024 election cycle. Last year, an advisor to Trump told Rolling Stone magazine that they viewed primary candidate Vivek Ramaswamy as a “total ratf–k” against candidate Ron DeSantis, and were offering him secret support to tank the latter’s campaign against Trump.

The story of Trojans for Representative Government provided a historical grounding for the dirty election tactics we live with today. Although TRG proved short-lived, their Machiavellian philosophy of winning elections by any means necessary has become a hallmark of the Republican Party under Trump. That ethos is likely to shape the 2024 campaign.

Jonathan van Harmelen is a 20th century U.S. political historian. He writes about California political history and Asian American history, and his work has been featured in TIME, the New York Times, and the Los Angeles Review of Books. He is finishing a book on the role of Congress in the wartime incarceration of Japanese Americans.

Made by History takes readers beyond the headlines with articles written and edited by professional historians. Learn more about Made by History at TIME here. Opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of TIME editors.

[brookstonalmanac]

Birthdays 3.28

Beer Birthdays

Frederick Pabst (1836)

August Anheuser Busch, Jr. (1899)

Jaromír Vejvoda (1902)

Five Favorite Birthdays

Ken Howard; actor (1944)

Mike Newell; film director (1943)

Raphael; artist (1483)

Julia Stiles; actor (1981)

Vince Vaughn; actor (1970)

Famous Birthdays

Nelson Algren; writer (1901)

Freddie Bartholomew; actor (1924)

Fra Bartolommeo; artist (1475)

Dirk Bogarde; actor (1920)

Zbigniew Brzezinski; National Security Advisor (1928)

Eric Dixon; jazz saxophonist (1930)

Conchita Ferrell; actor (1943)

Nick Frost; actor (1972)

Lady Gaga; singer (1986)

Maxim Gorky; Russian writer (1868)

Cheryl "Salt" James; pop singer (1966)

Thad Jones; jazz trumpeter (1923)

Mario Vargas Llosa; Peruvian writer (1936)

Frank Lovejoy; actor (1912)

Charlie McCoy; harmonica player (1941)

Reba McEntire; country singer (1954)

Edmund Muskie; politician (1914)

Marlin Perkins; Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom host (1905)

Rudolf Serkin; pianist (1903)

Paul Whiteman; bandleader (1890)

Dianne Wiest; actor (1948)

[diamondisunmemeable]

I've been reading about Edmund Muskie as of late

Needless to say, I hate Nixon even more now

[wanderingmind867]

My US Voting Record:

I made this with the help of wikipedia, google and posts like voting guides which I found online.

Note: I would have been a Monarchist during the Revolutionary War, but I'd probably still vote if living in America (No matter how displeased the revolution made me, I'd probably still always be willing to vote). But to show my dissatisfaction, every vote until 1824 is a protest vote:

1788: Nobody (I refuse to vote for George Washington). Maybe a write in protest vote for King George III?

1792: Nobody (I refuse to vote for George Washington). Maybe a write in protest vote for King George III?

1796: Maybe a write in protest vote for King George III?

1800: Maybe a write in protest vote for King George III?

1804: Maybe a write in protest vote for King George III?

1808: Maybe a write in protest vote for King George III?

1812: Protest Vote for King George III (I can't vote for anyone after the War of 1812 got started)

1816: Protest Vote for King George III (again, I don't know if I'd be able to forgive anyone after the War of 1812)

1820: Protest Vote for King George IV (I can't support Monroe after he helped fight 1812 against Canada and the British).

1824: Henry Clay/Nathan Sanford

1824 Contingent: John Quincy Adams

1828: John Quincy Adams/Richard Rush

1832: Henry Clay/John Sergeant

1836: Daniel Webster/Francis Granger or William Henry Harrison/Francis Granger

1840: William Henry Harrison/John Tyler

1844: Henry Clay/Theodore Frelinghuysen

1848: Martin Van Buren/Charles F. Adams

1852: John P. Hale/George W. Julian

1856: John C. Frémont/William L. Dayton

1860: Abraham Lincoln/Hannibal Hamlin

1864: Abraham Lincoln/Andrew Johnson

1868: Ulysses S. Grant/Schuyler Colfax

1872: Horace Greeley/Benjamin Gratz Brown

1876: Samuel Tilden/Thomas A. Hendricks

1880: James A. Garfield/Chester A. Arthur

1884: Grover Cleveland/Thomas A. Hendricks

1888: Benjamin Harrison/Levi P. Morton

1892: James B. Weaver/James G. Field

1896: William Jennings Bryan/Thomas E. Watson

1900: William Jennings Bryan/Adlai Stevenson I

1904: Eugene V. Debs/Benjamin Hanford

1908: William Jennings Bryan/John Kern

1912: Eugene V. Debs/Emil Seidel

1916: Allan L. Benson/George R. Kirkpatrick

1920: Eugene V. Debs/Seymour Stedman

1924: Robert M. LaFollette/Burton K. Wheeler

1928: Al Smith/Joseph T. Robinson (although Herbert Hoover and Charles Curtis aren't bad either. I might've been a prohibitionist then, considering I hate the taste of alcohol. But Smith opposed lynching. So he gets my vote).

1932: Norman Thomas/James H. Maurer

1936: Norman Thomas/George A. Nelson

1940: Norman Thomas/Maynard Krueger

1944: Norman Thomas/Darlington Hoopes

1948: Henry A. Wallace/Glen H. Taylor

1952: Adlai Stevenson II/John Sparkman

1956: Adlai Stevenson II/Estes Kefauver

1960: Richard Nixon/Henry Cabot Lodge Jr. (Solely because I hate JFK)

1964: Lyndon B. Johnson/Hubert Humphrey

1968: Hubert Humphrey/Edmund Muskie

1972: George McGovern/Sargent Shriver (although I still really like Thomas Eagleton as VP)

1976: Gerald Ford/Bob Dole

1980: Jimmy Carter/Walter Mondale

1984: Walter Mondale/Geraldine Ferraro

1988: Willa Kenoyer/Ron Ehrenreich (I hear Michael Dukakis went to high school with the guy who founded the Judge Rotenberg Centre, which is a terrible place. So I can't vote for Dukakis. Can't take a chance on him with that history).

1992: Ross Perot/James Stockdale

1996: Ross Perot/Pat Choate

2000: Ralph Nader/Winona Laduke

2004: Ralph Nader/Peter Camejo

2008: Ralph Nader/Matt Gonzalez

2012: Barack Obama/Joe Biden (Beginning in 2012, I'd probably start voting for Democrats more often because I felt I had no choice. But I'm still a bit unhappy with them. Haven't been since 1988 or 1992).

2016: Gloria La Riva/Eugene Puryear

2020: Joe Biden/Kamala Harris (My heart says Howie Hawkins/Angela Walker, however).

[tomsiebert]

Senator Edmund Muskie of Maine was forced to quit the 1972 presidential race because he shed a tear in a New Hampshire snowstorm. #WaybackWednesday

[blackmagicspecialist786-blog]

Bernard Kalb, Veteran Foreign Correspondent, Is Dead at 100

Bernard Kalb, a veteran journalist of CBS, NBC and The New York Times who also had a brief but unsatisfying move into the government in the role of an official State Department spokesman, died on Sunday in the home he shared with his wife at North Bethesda, Md. He was 100. The cause of loss of life was reported by daughter Claudia Kalb, who said his health had deteriorated following an injury on January. 2. Through his long tenure on the air In his many years on television, Mr. Kalb's booming voice with his thick eyebrows, a hefty grin and an impressive command of detail were a hit with many viewers. He covered revolutions, wars and diplomatic breakthroughs which signalled the closing of Cold War. He was a reporter in The Times from 1946 to 1962, then for CBS in the following 18 years (during which he worked with Marvin, his older brother Marvin who was on the diplomat front) as well as for the network's State Department correspondent from 1980 until 1985. After that, for two decades, he was as a State Department official in the Reagan administration's State Department -- a period that was a contentious one. As an CBS reporter in 1972, Kalb was a correspondent for CBS in 1972. Kalb accompanied President Richard M. Nixon during the trip to China which proved to be an important step in improving relations between the two countries. He also took nearly every overseas trip along with Henry A. Kissinger, Cyrus R. Vance, Edmund S. Muskie, Alexander M. Haig Jr. and George P. Shultz during their respective terms in the post of secretary of state. "You have a sense of being something of an eyewitness to the evolutions and eruptions of the decades since World War II," Mr. Kalb stated in November 1984, when the president Ronald Reagan announced his appointment as the assistant secretary of state in charge of public affairs. This was the first time journalist who was a part of for the State Department became its spokesman. However, Mr. Kalb quit in October 1986 over what he termed an "reported disinformation program" -however, he was unable to affirming its existence implemented by the administration to defame and against the Libyan chief Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi. The Washington Post reported that the program was designed to create false information in the press regarding rebels within the country against Colonel Qaddafi and American military plans to attack Libya. When asked regarding the resignation of Mr. Kalb's resignation the former president. Reagan said, "No one on our side has been lying to anyone." "My resignation does not endow me with sudden freedom to act on what may be or not be secret and what can be classified or what cannot be classified," Mr. Kalb said. However, he said "You face a choice -- as an American, as a spokesman, as a journalist -- whether to allow oneself to be absorbed in the ranks of silence, whether to vanish into unopposed acquiescence or to enter a modest dissent." Bernard Kalb was born in Manhattan on February. 4th, 1922. his parents, Max and Bella (Portnoy) Kalb were immigrantshis father was originally from Poland as well as his mom, who was born in the present-day Ukraine. The family relocated from Poland to Washington Heights when Bernard was aged a teenager. His father was primarily tailor in the garment district but in the evenings he worked as a tailor at dry cleaning located in Washington Heights that his mother was the manager during the day. After having graduated from City College of New York in 1942 the young Mr. Kalb served for two years in the Army most of which was spent working for a newspaper that was published in an Quonset cabin within the Aleutian Islands of Alaska. His editor was Sergeant. Dashiell Hammett, who was the creator of the detective novel "The Maltese Falcon" and "The Thin Man." In 1946 In 1946, Kalb joined The Times in 1946. Kalb joined The Times. He started writing on behalf of the station WQXR which was at the time owned by The Times company. He later wrote for the newspaper. He was a reporter for the metropolitan area and was a reporter for his coverage of the United Nations before being sent to Southeast Asia as a correspondent. The first assignment he had overseas, which was in the latter half of 1955, was to join Adm. Richard E. Byrd in a trip to Antarctica. He once joked that some days , his toughest job was coming up with a variety of variations on"ice. "ice." It was more difficult to cover his defense of the presidency of the president Sukarno in Indonesia. In 1958 the journalist. Kalb was arrested and briefly detained following his revelation that Soviet-built planes were supplied for Indonesia's military. Indonesian military. The arrest provoked protests from Western journalists and he was eventually released. After the departure of The Times in 1962, Mr. Kalb joined CBS as reporter for Hong Kong. He was frequently sent to the area to report on events of the Vietnam War, and he was the on-scene reporter for CBS for a one-hour documentary in 1964 that warned about the possibility that this war not likely to be over in the near future. A few years later, he was awarded the Overseas Press Club Award for an op-ed on the Vietcong. Relocating back to America United States in 1970, Mr. Kalb became Washington anchorman for the "CBS Morning News." In 1975, he joined with his brother in the diplomatic field and, five years later, they both joined NBC. Bernard Kalb covered the State Department until he was appointed its spokesperson in the year 1985. Alongside his daughter Claudia in addition to his daughter Claudia. Kalb is survived by his brother, and the wife of his 64-year marriage, Phyllis (Bernstein) Kalb as well as three other daughters: Tanah, Marina and Sarinah Kalb with nine grandchildren as well as four stepgrandchildren. From 1991 to 1992 In 1992, the late Mr. Kalb was the moderator of the weekly CNN program "Reliable Sources," which examined the objectivity of the media in its coverage and also interviewed broadcast and print journalists. He continued to lecture on the subject of journalism and foreign affairs throughout his 90s, and was even featured as a panelist occasionally for "The Kalb Report," which is a live telecast of talks presented by his father at the Washington National Press Club. In a street in Romania in 2004 a child offered the name of Mr. Kalb a souvenir for $16: a pair of Soviet-era binoculars that were etched by red stars, hammers, and sickles as well as the crossed Kalashnikov rifles. A few days later Mr. Kalb was in a hotel room in Athens with his wife. In the far distance there was the Parthenon. With just a short time before they needed to travel to the airport The Kalbs gazed through their binoculars, observing from afar the symbol of democracy. "The Cold War had come to the rescue, finally producing a scrap of redeeming value," Mr. Kalb wrote in an article for The Times. "R.I.P., Cold War. It wouldn't be possible without you." Dennis Hevesi, a former author of obituaries at The Times, died in 2017. Alex Traub contributed reporting.   Read the full article