A look at the history of child labor and attempts, mostly unsuccessful for decades, at child labor restrictions.  From 2014.  

Trump's loss and the ensuing court fight is getting the news. There were a few other historical things to note about the election.

He's the President that is on the bottom of most lists.  But why?  And is it fair?  What did he think about his place in history?  We talk about POTUS 15 and look at the events of the run-up to the American Civil War, and we hear...

a bit about Trump's ex-Presidency and Other Things

We know that on May 4th, 1970, fifty years ago, four students were killed by the National Guard at Kent State in Ohio.  What is not always known is everything that happened after that.  Opinion wasn't universally with the slain students, the...

Both Blaine and McKinley dodge possible challenges to their Presidential hopes from military generals.  But in different ways.

We discuss the tight election that elected the first Democratic President in 25 years and some comparisons and contrasts to the current election.  A President's umbrella, salutes for his "big foot," chain-armor clad parades, and the importance of...

'The public and the public papers have been much occupied lately in placing us in a point of opposition to each other. ' So wrote Jefferson to Adams about the 1796 Presidential Election, America's first with two candidates with true campaigns. ...

A candidate who didn't run for President.  A candidate who ran, but didn't know he was running.  A candidate who didn't want to run, but had no choice.  A candidate who ran without seeming to run, and a candidate who ran but died before...

Abraham Lincoln running against...Sam Houston? It is not a far-fetched idea that Abraham Lincoln might have faced Texas hero Sam Houston in the election of 1860, as he  was under serious consideration to be one of the candidates in what became a...

Jimmy Carter's speechwriter said "We were 30 points up, but unfortunately we had to campaign."  A tight race turns to a veritable battle of gaffes between two newbie Presidential candidates.  A surprise challenger and an unelected...

Truman's high-tech train, Dewey's We Go High optimism and the defeat that made him cling to it, Truman's risky calling of a Session of Congress and how it went badly for him in a few ways, and Dewey's decision to get angry, unfortunately first at an...

After the four TV debates between Richard Nixon and John F. Kennedy in 1960, there was talk of a fifth.  That talk didn't result in another TV debate, but did provide one more campaign issue for a very tight election, and developed a new thing -...

From James Blaine's fainting spell days before Republicans chose a candidate, to Washington's extreme flu scare, to the SARS epidemic and a look at the Ever-So-Prescient Defoe's Journal of a Plague Year, Health and Sickness and Politics.

When an obscure lawyer won a party's nomination for President in a surprise convention choice, he used his platform to take on a hate group. 

The death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg has brought forth a week of mourning but also politics over the Supreme Court.  We discuss the history behind election-year appointments, most notably 1968 and we look at the thorny issue of Court-Packing. ...

The 1880 election was close, with Democrats and Republicans seeking an advantage in its waning days when a letter hits a major city newspaper purporting to be in the hand of a candidate.  It is a letter that could turn the election.  With...

From belt buckles to town-hall meetings, to letting the veeps debate, a history of debate negotiations.

A bit about an obscure procedure that can mean everything, from a 2011 episode.

Usually a choice at the top of the ticket helps. But sometimes it doesn't. Bruce goes into his Top 10 Worst VP Picks.

Why do people spend so much time watching the news? Bruce Carlson is interviewed by David, Brad at the IP...Frequently Podcast (hah)   We discuss current events in the context of historical ones. Also, reverse virtue signaling.   If...

A bit of an American political story about politics, corn, common sense.  

Separating truth from lore about what is perhaps the most important moment of American Independence, along with authors Bob Drury and Tom Clavin.  A very different Valley Forge emerges than the one in the textbooks.  An integrated army of...

Eagle Claw, popularly known as Desert One, was the unsuccessful attempt to rescue hostages in Iran in 1980, hostages that had been held since the storming of the embassy in 1979.  Replaying two previous podcasts on the topic, we look at the...

High political stakes, secret plots, Plug Uglies armed with sharp awls to help 'convince' voters... Baltimore in the 1850's was a fearsome place where politics and gangs were hard to separate.  Yet it was the connecting stop for new Presidents...