#Inauguration of Andrew Johnson

[deadpresidents]

"Johnson is an insolent, drunken brute in comparison with which Caligula's horse was respectable."

-- Senator Charles Sumner (R-Massachusetts) on President Andrew Johnson

[thebreakfastgenie]

A United States president has left office before completing his term nine times. Four deaths from natural causes, four assassinations, and one resignation.

John Tyler assumed the presidency after William Henry Harrison died shortly after inauguration, but was not re-elected four years later, so he was only elected to the vice presidency.

Millard Fillmore assumed the presidency after Zachary Taylor died, but was not re-elected so he was only elected to the vice presidency.

Andrew Johnson assumed the presidency after Abraham Lincoln was assassinated, but was not re-elected so he was only elected to the vice presidency.

Chester Arthur assumed the presidency after James Garfield was assassinated, but was not re-elected so he was only elected to the vice presidency.

Theodore Roosevelt assumed the presidency after William McKinley was assassinated and was later elected to another term.

Calvin Coolidge assumed the presidency after Warren G. Harding died and was later elected to another term.

Harry Truman assumed the presidency after Franklin D. Roosevelt died and was later elected to another term.

Lyndon Johnson assumed the presidency after John F. Kennedy was assassinated and was later elected to another term.

Gerald Ford assumed the presidency after Richard Nixon resigned and was not re-elected. Ford was also never elected vice president, he was appointed to the position after Nixon's previous vice president, Spiro Agnew, resigned.

Four presidents were elected vice president but not president and one was never elected to either.

[odinsblog]

The Supreme Court is trying to drag America backwards to “Separate but Equal”

President Andrew Johnson vetoed the nation’s inaugural Civil Rights legislation because, in his view, it discriminated against white people and privileged Black people. The Civil Rights Act of 1866 (which Congress enacted over the veto) bestowed citizenship upon all persons — except for certain American Indians — born in the United States and endowed all persons with the same rights as white people in terms of issuing contracts, owning property, suing or being sued or serving as witnesses. This law was proposed because the Supreme Court had ruled in Dred Scott v. Sanford that African Americans, free or enslaved, were ineligible as a matter of race for federal citizenship, and because many states had barred African Americans from enjoying even the most rudimentary civil rights.

Johnson vetoed the act in part because the citizenship provision would immediately make citizens of native-born Black people while European-born immigrants had to wait several years to qualify for citizenship via naturalization (which was then open only to white people). According to Johnson, this amounted to “a discrimination against large numbers of intelligent, worthy and patriotic foreigners, and in favor of the Negro, to whom, after long years of bondage, the avenues to freedom and intelligence have just now been suddenly opened.” Johnson similarly opposed the provision in the act affording federal protection to civil rights, charging that it made possible “discriminating protection to colored persons.”

A key defect of the Civil Rights Act, according to Johnson, was that it established “for the security of the colored race safeguards which go infinitely beyond any that the general government has ever provided for the white race. In fact, the distinction of race and color is by the bill made to operate in favor of the colored and against the white race.” Johnson opposed as well the 14th Amendment, which decreed that states offer to all persons equal protection of the laws, a provision which he also saw as a wrongful venture in racial favoritism aimed at assisting the undeserving Negro.

In 1875, Congress enacted legislation that prohibited racial discrimination in the provision of public accommodations. Eight years later, in a judgment invalidating that provision, the Supreme Court disapprovingly lectured the Black plaintiffs, declaring that “when a man has emerged from slavery, and by the aid of beneficent legislation has shaken off the inseparable concomitants of that state, there must be some stage in the progress of his elevation when he takes the rank of a mere citizen and ceases to be the special favorite of the laws.”

In 1941, President Franklin D. Roosevelt promulgated Executive Order 8802, which prohibited racial discrimination in the employment of workers in defense industries and established the Fair Employment Practices Commission to carry out the order. Assailing the order, Representative Jamie Whitten, a Mississippi segregationist, complained that it would not so much prevent unfairness as “discriminate in favor of the Negro” — this at a time when anti-Black discrimination across the social landscape was blatant, rife and to a large extent, fully lawful.

Segregationist Southerners were not the only ones who railed against antidiscrimination laws on the grounds that they constituted illegitimate preferences for African Americans. In 1945, the New York City administrator Robert Moses inveighed against pioneering municipal antidiscrimination legislation in employment and college admissions. Displaying more anger at the distant prospect of racial quotas than the immediate reality of racial exclusions, Moses maintained that antidiscrimination measures would “mean the end of honest competition, and the death knell of selection and advancement on the basis of talent.”

Liberals, too, have attacked measures they deemed to constitute illicit racial preferencing on behalf of Black people. When the Congress of Racial Equality, or CORE, proposed “compensatory” hiring in the early 1960s — selection schemes that would give an edge to Black people on account of past victimization and the lingering disabilities caused by historical mistreatment — many liberals resisted. Asked about CORE’s demands, President John F. Kennedy remarked that he did not think that society “can undo the past” and that it was a mistake “to begin to assign quotas on the basis of religion, or race, or color, or nationality.”

Kennedy’s comment that it would be a mistake “to begin” to assign quotas reflects a recurring misimpression that racial politics “begins” when those who have been marginalized make demands for equitable treatment.

When Kennedy spoke, unwritten but effective quotas had long existed that enabled white men to monopolize huge portions of the most influential and coveted positions in society. Yet it was only when facing protests against monopolization that he was moved to deplore status-based quotas.

This same dynamic has been recurrent in subsequent decades: Every major policy seeking to advance the position of Black people has been opposed on the grounds that it was race conscious, racially discriminatory, racially preferential and thus socially toxic. That racial affirmative action in university admissions and elsewhere has survived for so long is remarkable, given the powerful forces arrayed against it.

(continue reading)

[strictlyfavorites]

(From Left to Right) Outgoing Vice President Hannibal Hamlin, Incoming Vice President Andrew Johnson, and President Abraham Lincoln seated next to each other during Lincoln’s second inauguration, 1865

[demospectator]

San Francisco Chinatown men with queues, c. 1900. Photographer unknown (from the Pat Hathaway archives).

When San Francisco Criminalized Hairstyle

In a time where hairstyles such as dreadlocks and cornrows have often become a cultural battleground, emblematic of personal expression and cultural identity, the echoes of the San Francisco Queue Ordinance still resonate. As a former staffer in the halls of the US Senate, I recall my boss's assertion during my inaugural week—a proclamation that "there are no new issues." I realized then and now that the often obscure legislation, rooted in different times, can cast a shadow on contemporary debates, illustrating pertinent struggles for autonomy and acceptance within minority communities.

In California, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors passed the Queue Ordinance in 1873. The was law intended to force prisoners in San Francisco, California to have their hair cut within an inch of the scalp. It affected Han Chinese prisoners in particular, as it meant they would have their queue, a waist-long, braided pigtail, cut off. The proposal passed by a narrow margin through the San Francisco Board of Supervisors in 1873. The ordinance was immediately vetoed by Mayor William Alvord. In his veto, the mayor stated that “this order, though general in its terms, in substance and effect, is a special and degrading punishment inflicted upon the Chinese residents for slight offenses and solely by reason of their alienage and race.”

“Shaving, Cleansing and Scraping heads in a Basement Barber-shop,” June 6,1879, from the Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper.

An identical version of the law was enacted in 1876 and signed by a different Mayor Andrew Bryant. This set the stage for a federal case when a Chinese immigrant named Ho Ah Kow was arrested for living space violations under the city’s Cubic Air ordinance. Unable or unwilling to pay the fine for the violations, he was jailed. His jailers removed his queue during his incarceration.

Ho sued then Sheriff Nunan for damages, claiming that the "Pigtail Ordinance" caused him irreparable harm.

On June 14, 1879, trial in a case about what the New York Times would later describe as “this childish attempt on the part of a community to persecute a race, in defiance of the Constitution and the laws” began in a San Francisco federal court, presided over by United States Supreme Court Justice Stephen Johnson Field. On July 7, 1879, Justice Stephen Johnson Field — in spite of heated criticism from the general public and lampooning in the press — found in favor of the plaintiff.

Field’s decision held that it was not within the powers of the Board of Supervisors to set such a discriminatory law and that the ordinance was, in fact, unconstitutional. In particular, he cited the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution which guarantees equal protection under the law to all persons within its jurisdiction. See Ho Ah Kow v. Nunan, 12 Fed. Cas. 252 (1879).

Nine days later, the New York Times reported Justice Field’s decision and the unusual “case in which the Constitution of the United States is invoked to defend a subject of the Emperor in China, temporarily residing in this country,” noting that “the cutting of the hair, otherwise, the cue, of the Chinese prisoner was not done to promote discipline or health. It was done to add torture to his confinement.”

The New York Times’ editors presciently observed the constitutional significance of the successful challenge to San Francisco’s Queue Ordinance, beyond the “cruel and unusual punishment” it inflicted, as follows:

"But, what is of more importance, the court held, in this case, that the whole spirit of the ordinance was in the violation of the Constitution and laws of the United States. It was intended only for the Chinese of San Francisco. ... And in our country hostile and discriminating legislation by a State against any persons of any class, creed, or nation, in whatever form it may be expressed, is forbidden by the fourteenth amendment of the Constitution.”

The district court’s decision was rendered seven years before, and served as precedent for, the landmark SCOTUS decision in Yick Wo v. Hopkins 118 U.S. 363 (citing Ah Kow v. Nunan).

Little is known about the fate of the plaintiff, Ah Kow. He was awarded $10,000 in damages. He undoubtedly had to wait a very long time before even contemplating a return to the motherland ruled by the Qing emperor.

In ensuing years, reform movements in China had begun demanding its removal as a badge of fealty, along with foot-binding and a change in constitutional government. In February 6, 1896, The San Francisco Call newspaper reported that the city’s Chinese residents were expressing concerns that wearing the queue as sign of loyalty to a foreign government could preclude native-born, Chinese San Franciscans from voting. More significant, The Call reported, “[t]here are about 500 voters in Chinatown now, . . . and before election day the Chinatown politicians expect to carry no less than 1000 in their vest pockets. At the last gubernatoral [sic] election 400 votes cast either way would have changed the result.”

Following the establishment of the Republic of China in 1912, Chinese American men gradually abandoned the traditional Qing-era queue, as part of a symbolic departure from the Manchu-dominated imperial rule. The queue, which had been enforced during the Qing Dynasty as a sign of submission, became a powerful visual representation of resistance against the old regime. In the early 20th century, as Chinese Americans' abandonment of the queue not only symbolized their alignment with modernity and progressive ideals in China but also a desire to integrate into the American sociopolitical landscape. This shift reflected not only a break from a past in which hairstyle had been weaponized against the community but also a conscious effort to redefine identity in the context of a new era.

------------------------

Text of the Ho Ah Kow v. Nunan decision may be read here.

[princesscatherinemiddleton]

The Princess of Wales' Year in Review: March

March 1st - The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge visited Wales and carried out a number of engagements. They started their day at Pant Farm, before visiting Abergavenny Market. Later, the couple visited the Hwb Torfaen before finally planting a tree at Blaenavon World Heritage Centre for The Queen’s Green Canopy

March 3rd - The Duchess of Cambridge, Patron of the Royal Foundation of The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, held a Centre for Early Childhood Meeting at Kensington Palace. On the same day, the Duchess of Cornwall's Reading Room released a post sharing Catherine's top five children's books: The Owl Who Was Afraid of the Dark, Stig of the Dump, Charlotte's Web, the Katie Morag series, and Feelings

March 8th - The Duchess of Cambridge, Patron of the Royal Foundation of The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, held a Centre for Early Childhood Meeting at Kensington Palace

March 9th - The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, Patrons of the Royal Foundation of The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, received Lord Hague. That afternoon, William and Catherine visited the Ukrainian Cultural Centre

March 14th - The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge attended the Commonwealth Observation Day service at Westminster Abbey

March 17th - The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge presented shamrocks to the Irish Guards on St Patrick's Day

March 19th - On behalf of HM Queen Elizabeth II in her Platinum Jubilee year, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge departed from Royal Air Force Brize Norton for Belize, arriving at Philip S W Goldson International Airport. Later, the couple met with Juan Antonio Briceño (the Prime Minister of Belize) and Rossana Briceño (his wife)

March 20th - William and Catherine visited Che’il Mayan Chocolate Factory, before attending a festival of Garifuna culture at Hopkins Football Square. Later, the couple met marine conservation experts at Hopkins Dock

March 21st - The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge visited Caracol Natural Monument Reservation. Later, they attended a training session of the British Army Training Support Unit Belize in the Chiquibul Forest. That evening, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge attended a Reception to mark The Queen’s Platinum Jubilee at Cahal Pech ruins

March 22nd - The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge departed from Philip S W Goldson International Airport, and arrived at Kingston Norman Manley International Airport, where they were met by - amongst others - Kamina Johnson Smith (Representative of the Prime Minister of Jamaica). After that, Wiliam and Catherine met with the Governor-General of Jamaica and Lady Allen at King’s House. Finally, they attended a Sports and Cultural Event at Trench Town Culture Yard

March 23rd - William and Catherine met with Andrew Holness (Prime Minister of Jamaica). The couple - in their role as joint Patrons of the Royal Foundation of The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge - visited Shortwood Teachers’ College, where Catherine gave a speech. Later, they visited Spanish Town Hospital, before visiting the Caribbean Military Technical Training Institute. Finally, the Cambridges attended a dinner to mark The Queen’s Platinum Jubilee given by the Governor-General of Jamaica

March 24th - The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge attended the Commissioning Parade for the inaugural Initial Officer Training Programme at the Caribbean Military Academy. They then departed Norman Manley International Airport before arriving at Lynden Pindling International Airport, where they were greeted by Sir Cornelius Smith (Governor-General of the Bahamas). William and Catherine later visited Philip Davis (Prime Minister of the Bahamas) and his wife

March 25th - The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge visited Sybil Strachan School, where Catherine gave a speech. They then attended a celebration for key workers at the Garden of Remembrance, before visiting Parliament Square. William and Catherine then participated in a Platinum Jubilee Sailing Regatta, before attending a reception at the Baha Mar Hotel to mark The Queen’s Platinum Jubilee

March 26th - The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge visited Daystar Church, before unveiling a memorial at Memorial Garden, to commemorate those who lost their lives in Hurricane Dorian. William and Catherine later visited a beach area in Abaco to meet local stall holders. The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge visited Grand Bahama Children’s Home. Before finally, in their roles as joint Patrons of the Royal Foundation of The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, visiting Coral Vita, winners of the 2021 Earthshot Prize. The couple departed Lynden Pindling International Airport for the UK that evening

March 27th - The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge arrived at Royal Air Force Brize Norton

March 29th - The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, along with Prince George and Princess Charlotte, attended the Service of Thanksgiving for The Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, at Westminster Abbey

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Drew Sheneman, The Star-Ledger

* * * * *

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

AUG 20, 2023

Various constitutional lawyers have been weighing in lately on whether former president Donald Trump and others who participated in the effort to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election are disqualified from holding office under the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution. The third section of that amendment, ratified in 1868, reads: 

“No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.”

On August 14 an article forthcoming from the University of Pennsylvania Law Review by William Baude of the University of Chicago Law School and Michael S. Paulsen of the University of St. Thomas School of Law became available as a preprint. It argued that the third section of the Fourteenth Amendment is still in effect (countering arguments that it applied only to the Civil War era secessionists), that it is self-executing (meaning the disqualification of certain people is automatic, much as age limits or residency requirements are), and that Trump and others who participated in trying to steal the 2020 presidential election are disqualified from holding office.

This paper was a big deal because while liberal thinkers have been making this argument for a while now, Baude and Paulsen are associated with the legal doctrine of originalism, an approach to the law that insists the Constitution should be understood as those who wrote its different parts understood them. That theory gained traction on the right in the 1980s as a way to push back against what its adherents called “judicial activism,” by which they meant the Supreme Court’s use of the law, especially the Fourteenth Amendment, to expand the rights of minorities and women. One of the key institutions engaged in this pushback was the Federalist Society, and both Baude and Paulson are associated with it. 

Now the two have made a 126-page originalist case that the Fourteenth Amendment prohibits Trump from running for president. Their interpretation is undoubtedly correct. But that interpretation has even larger implications than they claim.

Moderate Republicans—not “Radical Republicans,” by the way, which was a slur pinned on the Civil War era party by southern-sympathizing Democrats—wrote the text of the Fourteenth Amendment at a specific time for a specific reason that speaks directly to our own era. 

When John Wilkes Booth assassinated President Abraham Lincoln in April 1865, Congress was not in session. It had adjourned on the morning of Lincoln’s second inauguration in early March, after beavering away all night to finish up the session’s business, and congressmen had begun their long journeys home where they would stay until the new session began in December. 

Lincoln’s death handed control of the country for more than seven months to his vice president, Andrew Johnson, a former Democrat who wanted to restore the nation to what it had been before the war, minus the institution of slavery that he believed concentrated wealth and power among a small elite. Johnson refused to call Congress back into session while he worked alone to restore the prewar system, dominated by Democrats, as quickly as he could. 

In May, Johnson announced that all former Confederates except for high-ranking political or military officers or anyone worth more than $20,000 (about $400,000 today) would be given amnesty as soon as they took an oath of loyalty to the United States. He pardoned all but about 1,500 of that elite excluded group by December 1865.

Johnson required that southern states change their state constitutions by ratifying the Thirteenth Amendment prohibiting enslavement except as punishment for a crime, nullifying the ordinances of secession, and repudiating the Confederate war debts. Delegates did so, grudgingly and with some wiggling, and then went on to pass the Black Codes, laws designed to keep Black Americans subservient to their white neighbors. 

Under those new state constitutions and racist legal codes, southern states elected new senators and representatives to Congress. Voters put back into national office the very same men who had driven the rebellion, including its vice president, Alexander Stephens, whom the Georgia legislature reelected to the U.S. Senate. When Congress reconvened in December 1865, Johnson cheerily told them he had reconstructed the country without their help.

It looked as if the country was right back to where it had been in 1860, with legal slavery ended but a racial system that looked much like it already reestablished in the South. And since the 1870 census would count Black Americans as whole people for the first time, southern congressmen would have more power than before. 

But when the southern state delegations elected under Johnson’s plan arrived in Washington, D.C., to be seated, Republicans turned them away. They rejected the idea that after four years, 600,000 casualties, and more than $5 billion, the country should be ruled by men like Stephens, who insisted that American democracy meant that power resided not in the federal government but in the states, where a small, wealthy minority could insulate itself from the majority rule that controlled Congress. 

In state government a minority could control who could vote and the information to which those voters had access, removing concerns that voters would challenge their wealth or power. White southerners embraced the idea of “popular sovereignty” and “states’ rights,” arguing that any attempt of Congress to enforce majority rule was an attack on democracy.

But President LIncoln and the Republicans reestablished the idea of majority rule, using the federal government to enforce the principle of human equality outlined by the Declaration of Independence. 

And that’s where the Fourteenth Amendment came in. When Johnson tried to restore the former Confederates to power after the Civil War, Americans wrote into the Constitution that anyone born or naturalized in the U.S. was a citizen, and then they established that states must treat all citizens equally before the law, thus taking away the legal basis for the Black Codes and giving the federal government power to enforce equality in the states. They also made sure that anyone who rebels against the federal government can’t make or enforce the nation’s laws. 

Republicans in the 1860s would certainly have believed the Fourteenth Amendment covered Trump’s attempt to overturn the results of a presidential election. More, though, that amendment sought to establish, once and for all, the supremacy of the federal government over those who wanted to solidify their power in the states, where they could impose the will of a minority. That concept speaks directly to today’s Republicans.

In The Atlantic today, two prominent legal scholars from opposite sides of the political spectrum, former federal judge J. Michael Luttig and emeritus professor of constitutional law at Harvard Law School Laurence H. Tribe, applauded the Baude-Paulsen article and suggested that the American people should support the “faithful application and enforcement of their Constitution.” 

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

[idance2silence]

We need an otome game of the first 50 United States of America presidents. Hamilton but worse. Omg 😲 they 💃 are 💕all 👀 stuck 😳 in 🕑 time 😵 together 😏 type vibe. Two Grover Clevelands who are hallucinating each other. George Washington talking to Trump. Willian Harrison being a zombie (he died 31 days into his inauguration) and the chrisitan/catholic presidents are trying to holy water the man or exorcise him or whatever. The heroine protecting Obama because the rest think he's a slave or are just racist. Both the father Bush and the son Bush trying to romance the heroine and its beyond creepy. Truman, the atomic bomb guy, talking to the generals Andrew Johnson and Ulysses Grant. Imagine the Roosevelts interaction with Regan. Jefferson bitch slapping Lyndon Johnson. There's just so much potential to this nightmare. Hell it'd even make a great anime.

It'd be a billion times funnier if the protagonist is an autistic lesbian with a history hyperfixation and the others just think she's some kind of tsundere or somthing. They all try to romance her and she's doing all kinds of genius science stuff to break the time loop. Maybe it'd be funnier if she was a straight simp who loved the presidents until she met them or somthing so she's falling out of love and is desperately trying to undo the device she made so she could finally be their true love or whatever. But the misogyny and woman are property is a ruse awakening. I'm not sure which is funnier. Think the Republicans of 2023 who romanticise the founding fathers actually have to meet them and survive them and escape.

This is utter cringe. It'd be an incredible game or show to watch though. Absolute nightmare. The shipping wars worse than Hamilton. I want it. How do we get this disaster into reality it'd be wild.

[vanvelding]

The deal with Trump's prosecution is that, sure, a US President has never been indicted before. But then, a US President has never denied losing an election before. A US President has never initiated and lost dozens of court cases alleging election fraud. A US President has never plotted to administratively prevent the confirmation of his successor. A US President has not refused to attend their successor's inauguration since Andrew Johnson in 1869.

Maybe in the delusion that he had not lost, Trump felt justified in conspiring to thwart the the transfer of power which was based on, in his view, a lie.

Some combination of stubbornness, incuriosity, and convenient belief allowed him to believe he had not lost but he did lose. He lost fairly. He had several chances to bring forth evidence to contest that broadly-accepted and universally-upheld election result, and he failed.

Without establishing the illegitimacy of the election, when he tried to thwart it, he committed a crime. A lot of crimes.

[deadpresidents]

Was Trump's assassination attempt the first time people other than the president were also killed or hurt?

No, it definitely was not the first time. There have been a number of additional victims during Presidential assassinations or assassination attempts throughout American history.

Here are the incidents where someone other than the President was wounded in an assassination attempt on Presidents or Presidential candidates:

•April 14, 1865, Washington, D.C. At the same time that John Wilkes Booth was shooting Abraham Lincoln at Ford's Theatre, Booth's fellow conspirator, Lewis Powell, attacked Secretary of State William H. Seward at Seward's home in Washington. Seward had been injured earlier that month in a carriage accident and was bedridden from his injuries, and Powell viciously stabbed the Secretary of State after forcing his way into Seward's home by pretending to deliver medicine. Powell also attacked two of Seward's sons, a male nurse from the Army who was helping to care for Seward, and a messenger from the State Department. Another Booth conspirator, George Azterodt, was supposed to kill Vice President Andrew Johnson at the same time that Lincoln and Seward were being attacked in an attempt to decapitate the senior leadership of the Union government, but Azterodt lost his nerve and got drunk instead. A total of five people were wounded at the Seward home as part of the Booth conspiracy, but Lincoln was the only person who was killed.

•February 15, 1933, Miami, Florida Just 17 days before his first inauguration, President-elect Franklin D. Roosevelt was the target of an assassination attempt in Miami's Bayfront Park. Giuseppe Zangara fired five shots at Roosevelt as FDR was speaking from an open car. Roosevelt was not injured, but all five bullets hit people in the crowd, including Chicago Mayor Anton Cermak who was in the car with FDR. Roosevelt may have been saved by a woman in the crowd who hit Zangara's arm with her purse as she noticed he was aiming his gun at the President-elect and caused him to shoot wildly. Mayor Cermak was gravely wounded and immediately rushed to a Miami hospital where he died about two weeks later.

•November 1, 1950, Blair House, Washington, D.C. From 1949-1952, the White House was being extensively renovated with the interior being almost completely gutted and reconstructed. President Harry S. Truman and his family moved into Blair House, a Presidential guest house across the street from the White House that is normally used for visiting VIPs, for 3 1/2 years. On November 1, 1950 two Puerto Rican nationalists, Griselio Torresola and Oscar Collazo, tried to shoot their way into Blair House and attempt to kill President Truman, who was upstairs (reportedly napping) at the time. A wild shootout ensued on Pennsylvania Avenue, leaving White House Police Officer Leslie Coffelt and Torresola dead, and Collazo and two other White House Police Officers wounded.

•November 22, 1963, Dallas, Texas Texas Governor John Connally was severely wounded after being shot while riding in the open limousine with President John F. Kennedy when JFK was assassinated.

•June 5, 1968, Ambassador Hotel, Los Angeles, California When he finished delivering a victory speech after winning California's Democratic Presidential primary, Senator Robert F. Kennedy of New York was shot several times while walking through the kitchen of the Ambassador Hotel. While RFK was mortally wounded and would die a little over a day later, five other people were also wounded in the shooting.

•May 15, 1972, Laurel, Maryland Segregationist Alabama Governor George Wallace was paralyzed from the waist down after being shot by Arthur Bremer at a campaign rally when he was running for the Democratic Presidential nomination. Three bystanders were also wounded in the shooting, but survived.

•September 22, 1975, San Francisco, California A taxi driver in San Francisco was wounded when Sara Jane Moore attempted to shoot President Gerald Ford as he left the St. Francis Hotel. Moore's first shot missed the President by several inches and the second shot, which hit the taxi driver, was altered when a Vietnam veteran in the crowd named Oliver Sipple grabbed her arm as she was firing. Just 17 days earlier and 90 miles away, Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme, a member of the Charles Manson family, had tried to shoot President Ford as he walked through Capitol Park in Sacramento but nobody was injured.

•March 30, 1981, Washington, D.C. President Ronald Reagan was shot and seriously wounded by as he left the Washington Hilton after giving a speech. Three other people were wounded in the shooting, including White House Press Secretary James Brady who was shot in the head and partially paralyzed, Washington D.C. Police Office Thomas Delahanty, and Secret Service agent Tim McCarthy. Video of the assassination attempt shows that when the shots were fired, McCarthy turned and made himself a bigger target in order to shield the President with his own body. President Reagan was struck by a bullet that ricocheted off of the Presidential limousine.

[brookstonalmanac]

Events 2.24

484 – King Huneric of the Vandals replaces Nicene bishops with Arian ones, and banishes some to Corsica. 1303 – The English are defeated at the Battle of Roslin, in the First War of Scottish Independence. 1386 – King Charles III of Naples and Hungary is assassinated at Buda. 1525 – A Spanish-Austrian army defeats a French army at the Battle of Pavia. 1527 – Coronation of Ferdinand I as the king of Bohemia in Prague. 1538 – Treaty of Nagyvárad between Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand I and King John Zápolya of Hungary and Croatia. 1582 – With the papal bull Inter gravissimas, Pope Gregory XIII announces the Gregorian calendar. 1597 – The last battle of the Cudgel War takes place on the Santavuori Hill in Ilmajoki, Ostrobothnia. 1607 – L'Orfeo by Claudio Monteverdi, one of the first works recognized as an opera, receives its première performance. 1711 – Rinaldo by George Frideric Handel, the first Italian opera written for the London stage, is premièred. 1739 – Battle of Karnal: The army of Iranian ruler Nader Shah defeats the forces of the Mughal emperor of India, Muhammad Shah. 1803 – In Marbury v. Madison, the Supreme Court of the United States establishes the principle of judicial review. 1809 – London's Drury Lane Theatre burns to the ground, leaving its owner, Irish writer and politician Richard Brinsley Sheridan, destitute. 1821 – Final stage of the Mexican War of Independence from Spain with Plan of Iguala. 1822 – The first Swaminarayan temple in the world, Shri Swaminarayan Mandir, Ahmedabad, is inaugurated. 1826 – The signing of the Treaty of Yandabo marks the end of the First Anglo-Burmese War. 1831 – The Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek, the first removal treaty in accordance with the Indian Removal Act, is proclaimed. The Choctaws in Mississippi cede land east of the river in exchange for payment and land in the West. 1848 – King Louis-Philippe of France abdicates the throne. 1854 – A Penny Red with perforations becomes the first perforated postage stamp to be officially issued for distribution. 1863 – Arizona is organized as a United States territory. 1868 – Andrew Johnson becomes the first President of the United States to be impeached by the United States House of Representatives. He is later acquitted in the Senate. 1875 – The SS Gothenburg hits the Great Barrier Reef and sinks off the Australian east coast, killing approximately 100, including a number of high-profile civil servants and dignitaries. 1876 – The stage première of Peer Gynt, a play by Henrik Ibsen with incidental music by Edvard Grieg, takes place in Christiania (Oslo), Norway. 1881 – China and Russia sign the Sino-Russian Ili Treaty. 1895 – Revolution breaks out in Baire, a town near Santiago de Cuba, beginning the Cuban War of Independence; the war ends along with the Spanish–American War in 1898. 1916 – The Governor-General of Korea establishes a clinic called Jahyewon in Sorokdo to segregate Hansen's disease patients. 1917 – World War I: The U.S. ambassador Walter Hines Page to the United Kingdom is given the Zimmermann Telegram, in which Germany pledges to ensure the return of New Mexico, Texas, and Arizona to Mexico if Mexico declares war on the United States. 1918 – Estonian Declaration of Independence. 1920 – Nancy Astor becomes the first woman to speak in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom following her election as a Member of Parliament (MP) three months earlier. 1920 – The Nazi Party (NSDAP) was founded by Adolf Hitler in the Hofbräuhaus beer hall in Munich, Germany 1942 – Seven hundred ninety-one[22] Romanian Jewish refugees and crew members are killed after the MV Struma is torpedoed by the Soviet Navy.[ 1942 – The Battle of Los Angeles: A false alarm led to an anti-aircraft barrage that lasted into the early hours of February 25. 1945 – Egyptian Premier Ahmad Mahir Pasha is killed in Parliament after reading a decree. 1946 – Colonel Juan Perón, founder of the political movement that became known as Peronism, is elected to his first term as President of Argentina. 1949 – The Armistice Agreements are signed, to formally end the hostilities of the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. 1967 – Cultural Revolution: Zhang Chunqiao announces the dissolution of the Shanghai People's Commune, replacing its local government with a revolutionary committee. 1968 – Vietnam War: The Tet Offensive is halted; South Vietnamese forces led by Ngo Quang Truong recapture the citadel of Hué. 1971 – The All India Forward Bloc holds an emergency central committee meeting after its chairman, Hemantha Kumar Bose, is killed three days earlier. P.K. Mookiah Thevar is appointed as the new chairman. 1976 – The 1976 constitution of Cuba is formally proclaimed. 1978 – The Yuba County Five disappear in California. Four of their bodies are found four months later. 1981 – The 6.7 Ms Gulf of Corinth earthquake affected Central Greece with a maximum Mercalli intensity of VIII (Severe). Twenty-two people were killed, 400 were injured, and damage totaled $812 million. 1983 – A special commission of the United States Congress condemns the Japanese American internment during World War II. 1984 – Tyrone Mitchell perpetrates the 49th Street Elementary School shooting in Los Angeles, killing two children and injuring 12 more. 1989 – United Airlines Flight 811, bound for New Zealand from Honolulu, rips open during flight, blowing nine passengers out of the business-class section. 1991 – Gulf War: Ground troops cross the Saudi Arabian border and enter Iraq, thus beginning the ground phase of the war. 1996 – Two civilian airplanes operated by the Miami-based group Brothers to the Rescue are shot down in international waters by the Cuban Air Force. 1999 – China Southwest Airlines Flight 4509, a Tupolev Tu-154 aircraft, crashes on approach to Wenzhou Longwan International Airport in Wenzhou, Zhejiang, China. All 61 people on board are killed. 2004 – The 6.3 Mw Al Hoceima earthquake strikes northern Morocco with a maximum Mercalli intensity of IX (Violent). At least 628 people are killed, 926 are injured, and up to 15,000 are displaced. 2006 – Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo declares Proclamation 1017 placing the country in a state of emergency in attempt to subdue a possible military coup. 2007 – Japan launches its fourth spy satellite, stepping up its ability to monitor potential threats such as North Korea. 2008 – Fidel Castro retires as the President of Cuba and the Council of Ministers after 32 years. He remains as head of the Communist Party for another three years. 2015 – A Metrolink train derails in Oxnard, California following a collision with a truck, leaving more than 30 injured. 2016 – Tara Air Flight 193, a de Havilland Canada DHC-6 Twin Otter aircraft, crashed, with 23 fatalities, in Solighopte, Myagdi District, Dhaulagiri Zone, while en route from Pokhara Airport to Jomsom Airport. 2020 – Mahathir Mohamad resigns as Prime Minister of Malaysia following an attempt to replace the Pakatan Harapan government, which triggered the 2020-2022 Malaysian political crisis. 2022 – Days after recognising Donetsk and Luhansk as independent states, Russian president Vladimir Putin orders a full scale invasion of Ukraine.

[hackernewsrobot]

Andrew Johnson's drunk vice-presidential inaugural address

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Johnson%27s_drunk_vice-presidential_inaugural_address

[grison-in-space]

What I enjoy about this is that we actually do have an incredibly accessible list of the presidential rankings made by political historians and scholars. Both C-SPAN and the Siena College Institute send out periodic surveys to US history scholars asking them to rank all extant US presidents in terms of best and worst, among other criteria, starting in 1983. There have of course also been other polls of US History scholars in terms of presidential rankings, stretching all the way back to 1948. Wikipedia, bless its heart, has a lovely archive of the results that is helpfully color coded by quartile, so you can see the patterns for any given president easily over time.

TL, DR:

None of these motherfuckers come close to the worst US president if you ask the people who develop, curate, and maintain our historical knowledge. For that, you generally see four (recently five) people jockeying for place:

Andrew Johnson, famously the first president to be impeached, took over for Lincoln after Lincoln was assassinated. Unfortunately, Lincoln chose the man more for his ability to try and clutch at some sense of American unity than for either his leadership skills or his decency, and Johnson spent his entire tenure as President trying to let the recently-cowed ex-Confederate Southern states have full rights reinstated and trying to undermine Reconstruction. Congress was not impressed.

Franklin Pierce, a northern Democrat who served two presidents before Lincoln, and who was pretty sure that the best way to achieve national unity over the increasingly violent and unstable American conflict over slavery was to try and strangle the burgeoning abolitionist movement in in its cradle. Pierce's greatest hits included the Kansas-Nebraska Act (which nullified the Missouri Compromise that had previously been holding things together), aggressively enforcing the Fugitive Slave Act, and dying miserable and alone of liver cirrhosis.

James Buchanan, the guy immediately before Lincoln and after Pierce. You may be noticing a trend here. Buchanan was also a Northern Democrat who was real cozy with the Southern wing of his party, in part because the Whigs had recently imploded and the opposition were still trying to sort themselves out. Buchanan was a career politician whose primary goal was winning personal power and juicy awards to pass out to his friends, and his instincts for conflict resolution between South and North were astonishingly poor: he is responsible for the Dred Scott ruling that briefly held that free states had to respect the slave status of slaves who were brought within their boundaries, attempted to welcome Kansas into the union as a slave state, and generally pissed everyone off even more than they already were.

William Henry Harrison, who distinguished himself in 1841 by standing out in the rain to deliver a speech on the event of his inauguration, catching pneumonia, and dying 31 days into his term. No one had really formalized what happens if the President up and snuffs it yet, so this threw the young nation into a bit of a tizzy and motivated some firm discussion on the order of succession.

and, of course, the fifth addition to this august company, Donald Trump, who has scored in four surveys since taking office: three times out of 44 candidates coming in at 44, 42, and 41, and most recently in the Biden years cruising in at 43 out of 45.

There. You're fucking welcome. By the way, FDR is consistently rated in the top 3, the only person besides Lincoln to consistently wind up there who isn't a Founding Father. Wilson's star has been badly falling of late as more people pay attention to the power seizing, authoritarian decisions he made and the sheer power of his absolutely staggering racism; he actually is noted on the CNN poll as the single president for whom the estimation of "did he advocate for justice for all?" has fallen 17 ranks in the past 20 years. LBJ generally comes in at high second quartile but has risen some over time. And Nixon is generally cited as a president who did many, many things, some of which are phenomenally good and some of which are phenomenally bad; he usually comes in at the bottom of the third quartile or the top of the fourth.

Reagan is somewhat polarizing depending, I suspect, on whose scholars are being asked. But he was ranked quite poorly until 1996 and is once more falling, so one has to wonder at what time the cult of Reagan rose sufficiently high to capture the academy. I rather suspect he will drop precipitously in the next thirty years. He's still not in the same company as the people whose actions have literally been kicking off civil war, but he ain't great either.

[superdrivel]

Fresh off the presses of Wikipedia this week:

Bottom-tier vice president shenanigans, literal drunk history.

[world-of-wales]

─ •✧ WILLIAM'S YEAR IN REVIEW : MARCH ✧• ─

1 March - William and Catherine carried out engagements in Wales to mark St. David's Day. They started their day out by visiting Pant Farm in Llanvetherine before being received by Her Majesty's Lord-Lieutenant of Gwent (Brigadier Robert Aitken). They later visited Abergavenny Market and Hwb Torfaen in Blaenavon. Subsequently William and Catherine planted a tree for The Queen's Green Canopy at Blaenavon World Heritage Centre.

2 March - William held a Meeting for the Earthshot Prize.

8 March - He received Mr. Alastair Martin (Secretary of the Duchy of Cornwall).

9 March - William and Catherine received the Lord Hague of Richmond (Chairman). Later in the afternoon they visited the Ukrainian Cultural Centre in London where they were recieved by the Ambassador of Ukraine (His Excellency Mr. Vadym Prystaiko).

11 March - William received received the High Commissioners of Belize, Jamaica and the Commonwealth of the Bahamas (Her Excellency Mrs. Therese Rath, His Excellency Mr. Seth George Ramocan, His Excellency Mr. Ellison Greenslade) at Kensington Palace.

14 March - William and Catherine attended the Commonwealth Service at Westminster Abbey. William later appeared in a video segment during the BAFTA Film Awards.

16 March - William attended a Trustees' Meeting for the Royal Foundation via video link.

17 March - William and Catherine attended the 1st Battalion Irish Guards' St. Patrick's Day Parade in Aldershot.

19 March - William and Catherine kicked off their Platinum Jubilee Tour of the Caribbean as they arrived at the Philip S.W. Goldson International Airport in Belize where they were recieved by the Governor-General of Belize (Her Excellency Ms. Froyla Tzalam). They later met the Hon. Juan Antonio Briceño (Prime Minister of Belize) and Mrs. Rossana Briceño at the Laing Building in Belize City.

20 March - The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge visited Che'il Mayan Chocolate Factory in Stann Creek. They later attended a festival of Garifuna culture and met marine conservation experts in Hopkins. William and Catherine also spent time diving at South Water Caye above the Belize Barrier Reef.

21 March - They visited Caracol Natural Monument Reservation and attended a training session of the British Army Training Support Unit Belize (BATSUB) in the Chiquibul Forest. Afterwards William held an Investiture at the San Ignacio Hotel. The Duke and Duchess attended a Reception to mark The Queen's Platinum Jubilee at Cahal Pech ruins where they were received by the Governor-General of Belize (Her Excellency Ms. Froyla Tzalam).

22 March - William and Catherine released photographs and videos of them scuba diving over the Belize Barrier Reef before departing Belize. They arrived in Jamaica for the next leg of their tour and were received by the British High Commissioner to Jamaica (Her Excellency Ms. Judith Slater) and Senator the Hon. Kamina Johnson Smith (Representative of the Prime Minister of Jamaica) at Kingston Norman Manley International Airport upon arrival. Afterwards they met Governor-General of Jamaica and Lady Allen at King's House and attended a Sports and Cultural Event at Trench Town Culture Yard.

23 March - The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge met the Hon. Andrew Holness MP (Prime Minister of Jamaica) at 1 Devon Road, Kingston. Afterwards they visited Shortwood Teachers' College and Spanish Town Hospital. Subsequently, Willliam and Catherine visited the Caribbean Military Technical Training Institute before attending a Reception Dinner to mark the Platinum Jubilee hosted by the Governor-General of Jamaica (the Most Hon. Sir Patrick Allen) at King's House.

24 March - William and Catherine attended the Commissioning Parade for the inaugural Initial Officer Training Programme at the Caribbean Military Academy before departing Norman Manley International Airport for the Bahamas where upon arrival at Lynden Pindling International Airport in Belize City they were recieved by the Governor-General of the Commonwealth of the Bahamas (Sir Cornelius Smith). Afterwards The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge met the Rt. Hon. Philip Davis, MP (Prime Minister of the Commonwealth of the Bahamas) and Mrs. Davis at Sir Cecil Wallace Whitfield Centre in Nassau.

25 March - William and Catherine visited Sybil Strachan School and attended a Celebration for key workers for their work during the pandemic, at the Garden of Remembrance. They subsequently visited Parliament Square and took part in a Platinum Jubilee Sailing Regatta at Montagu Beach in the afternoon. Afterwards they attended a Reception at the Baha Mar Hotel hosted by the Governor-General of the Commonwealth of the Bahamas (Sir Cornelius Smith) to mark The Queen's Platinum Jubilee.

26 March - On their final day while on tour of the Caribbean, William and Catherine visited Daystar Church in Abaco. Afterwards they unveiled a Memorial at Memorial Garden, Abaco to commemorate those who lost their lives in Hurricane Dorian before visiting a beach area in Abaco to meet local stall holders. William and Catherine then visited Grand Bahama Children's Home and Coral Vita (Winners, 2021 Earthshot Prize to Preserve our Oceans) in Grand Bahamas for their final two stops on their tour. In the evening they departed Lynden Pindling International Airport for the United Kingdom in the evening.

27 March - William and Catherine arrived at the Royal Air Force Brize Norton from the Bahamas after wrapping up their Caribbean tour.

29 March - William attended the Service of Thanksgiving for The Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh at Westminster Abbey along with Catherine and their eldest children Prince George and Princess Charlotte.

[contemplatingoutlander]

They’re saying aloud what they once whispered behind closed doors. Back in 2016, when he was a Republican congressman but not yet House speaker, Kevin McCarthy said in a private meeting with GOP leaders, “There’s two people, I think, Putin pays: [Representative Dana] Rohrabacher and Trump … swear to God.” (Rohrabacher, once dubbed “Putin’s favorite congressman,” lost his seat in 2018.)

McCarthy, confronted with the leaked audio in 2017, claimed it was a joke. But anyone paying attention to how Russian intelligence services run influence operations—which I do, as a former CIA officer—knows it is anything but. It raises a legitimate, and deadly serious, question: Have Russian operatives paid any Republican officials?

Consider the news last week that authorities in several European countries had uncovered a vast corruption network, in which European politicians were paid to spread anti-Ukraine and pro-Russia propaganda. The network...was orchestrated by pro-Russia Ukrainian oligarch Viktor Medvedchuk. Politicians from Germany, France, Poland, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Hungary were allegedly paid directly with cash or through cryptocurrency exchanges. [...] It is naïve to think the same pattern does not exist in the United States, given the ample evidence of coordinated pro-Russian talking points from several Republican politicians. Just this week, Marjorie Taylor Greene spoke to Steve Bannon about Ukraine’s persecution of Christians, which is a Kremlin talking point aimed at boosting the pro-Moscow wing of Ukraine’s Orthodox Church. The U.S. should be spending money on the border with Mexico, not on Ukraine aid? That’s a Kremlin talking point. Russia invaded Ukraine to defend itself against an expanding NATO? That’s a Kremlin talking point. Call for a cease-fire, and give Russia Crimea and eastern Ukraine? That’s a Kremlin talking point.

While we cannot say for sure if any Republican officials are on the Russian payroll in ways similar to their European counterparts, we can be sure that they’ve been approached. As the director of national intelligence wrote in 2021, Russian intelligence operatives and their proxies “sought to use prominent US persons and media conduits to launder their narratives to US officials and audiences. These Russian proxies met with and provided materials to Trump administration-linked US persons to advocate for formal investigations; hired a US firm to petition US officials; and attempted to make contact with several senior US officials. They also made contact with established US media figures.”

As for payments, we’ve seen a disturbing pattern. In 2017, Andrew Intrater donated $250,000 to Trump’s inauguration fund and, a few months later, donated $35,000 to Trump’s reelection campaign. Intrater is a cousin of Viktor Vekselberg, a Russian oligarch who was sanctioned by the U.S. in 2018 for his connections to Putin. We know that oligarchs play an integral role in funding Russian influence operations. One oligarch revealed to special counsel Robert Mueller that Putin held quarterly meetings with his oligarchs to discuss strategic spending.

In 2018, a Texas-based firm donated money to House Speaker Mike Johnson. That firm is 88 percent owned by three Russians. And last week, we learned that Trump Media received loans from a Russian bank to help the company stay afloat before it went public and at a time when no U.S. bank would lend to Trump.

Any donations that might have been made through anonymous LLCs to PACs—perhaps with attached quid pro quos—are likely to remain opaque, due to the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision. [...]  Among the entities promoted by the Voice of Europe propaganda network was Hungary’s Center for Fundamental Rights, which “considers preserving national identity, sovereignty, and Judeo-Christian social traditions as its primary mission.” CFR is funded by the government of Viktor Orbán and has twice organized a conference in Budapest for the Conservative Political Action Committee, which helps shape policy on the American right. The Heritage Foundation—which has spearheaded Project 2025, the authoritarian blueprint for a future Republican administration—has become increasingly cozy with Hungary, and even hosted Orbán privately last month. It is quite possible, perhaps even likely, that some people who are on the Russian payroll were at the Heritage event, their role to influence and build support for pro-Russian policies.

[emphasis added]

The short answer is yes. So is the long answer.