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Former U.S. House Speaker John Boehner sees President-elect Donald Trump as a modern-day Teddy Roosevelt, a populist who wants to do “big things.” The Ohio Republican told WCPO.com in Cincinnati that Trump is similar to Roosevelt, the 26th president, because he’s “another guy who saw himself larger than life.” He said Trump doesn’t want to just “trim around the edges” as president. “If you look at what Teddy Roosevelt did, he came in to do big things,” Boehner said. “I think Donald Trump wants to do big things.” …

Hey, did you know that Teddy once killed a lion? It's true. And they are going to put it on display again soon. People haven't seen this lion for two decades. Hey, did you know that Teddy really loved football? Hey, did you know that Teddy was a really avid outdoorsman? Hey, did you know that Teddy once was giving a speech, someone shot him, and he kept on speaking? Hey, did you know (pick your favorite wholly-divorced-from-governmental-policy-related-trivia and place it here)? I could just imagine if Ronald Reagan had shot a lion. The Washington Compost certainly wouldn't be celebrating...

Does today's trucker and trucking industry owe its entire existence to big government? The answer to that question may very well be yes. Recently, I wrote a post pulling together details about how Teddy used "reaching across the aisle" to undermine any attempt to keep government small, in passing the 1906 Hepburn Act. But what happened after the act passed? Well, it significantly damaged the railroad industry, and some news outlets at the time attributed the economic recession: the Panic of 1907 (whom some also call the "Roosevelt Panic") specifically to the Hepburn Act.(Source) The Panic had multiple causes to...

Have you ever heard the whole story about exactly what it was that ol' Teddy did to get the 'rate bill' - the Hepburn Act, passed in 1906? If I didn't know the details of what I was reading and who was involved, I would swear this story mirrored a similar situation with John McCain rampaging on the floor of the Senate against Tea Party Hobbitses. Yes my friends. All tricks are fair game. Roosevelt threatened to pass the bill with democrat votes in order to undercut his own party, in order to stick the nose of government further into...

All of us know how politicized the Nobel Prize is, but many people falsely believe that it's only been politicized since around the time of Obama, perhaps since the time of Carter. It's been a tool for awarding statists for over a century. Don't forget, Wilson also won a Nobel. On May 5th, 1910, Theodore Roosevelt gave his acceptance speech for receiving his political prize. Here is how Roosevelt began the last paragraph of that speech: Finally, it would be a masterstroke if those great powers honestly bent on peace would form a League of Peace, not only to keep...

EVER since the calling of the First Hague Conference, The Independent and its editor have been urging a League to Enforce Peace as the next great step in the political evolution of the world. Tho the idea of world federation has been the dream of the poets, prophets and philosophers down the ages it is only in recent times that it has been put forward here and there as a practical possibility. In 1905 at the Thirteenth Interparliamentary Conference at Brussels Richard Bartholdt, member of Congress from Missouri and president of the American delegation, presented a plan for consideration that...

Answer: Theodore Roosevelt, President #26. It has been said that Obama has racked up more debt than all previous presidents combined, and the same can nearly be said of Theodore Roosevelt with respect to executive orders. The first 112 years of America : 25 Presidents. The first 25 Presidents : 1262 executive orders. Theodore Roosevelt : 1081 executive orders. Keep in mind, Roosevelt didn't even serve two full terms, he was in for 7.5 years. And yes, many of these executive orders were explicitly to do an end-run around congressional authority, just like Obama does. Just like Obama. In which...

After spending years trying to silence people in the "Vast Right Wing Conspiracy", Hillary Clinton shrieked this little number: I am sick and tired of people who say that if you debate, and you disagree with this administration somehow you're not patriotic and we should stand up and say, we are Americans and we have a right to debate and disagree with any administration. Yes, unfortunately, I had to listen to it. I provided the link, but for the sake of your health you might not want to click and listen to the YouTube clip. Now, onto Dear Leader Teddy's...

On Jaunary 14th, 2014, President Obama declared: "We’re not just going to be waiting for legislation in order to make sure that we’re providing Americans the kind of help they need. I’ve got a pen and I’ve got a phone." Who was the first president armed with a pen and a phone? Who was the first president to issue over 1000 executive orders? Of course, it was America's first dictator. America's first progressive president: Theodore Roosevelt. Who else did you expect? It's nearly always TR at the root of modern executive malfeasance. Now, in addition to issuing over 1000 executive...

US Soldiers Pose with the Bodies of Moro (Muslim) Insurgents, Philippines; circa 1906 On March 7, 1906, US troops under the command of Major General Leonard Wood massacred as many as 1,000 Filipino Muslims, known as Moros, who were taking refuge at Bud Dajo, a volcanic crater on the island of Jolo in the southern Philippines. The First Battle of Bud Dajo, also known as the Bud Dajo Massacre, was a counter insurgency action fought by the United States Army against Moros in March 1906, during the Moro Rebellion phase of the Philippine - American War. After the United States...

The Republican Party of the 1920's swept into power during a financial crisis. Errors in the Fed’s monetary policy in 1919 in kept rates too low to benefit the sale of Victory bonds. The Fed then tightened excessively due to inflation, creating a financial shock and depression from 1920 to 1921. At that time, the Republican Party viewed increasing tariffs as good policy. Thus, during the sixty seventh Congress, the Emergency Tariff Act of 1921 was passed as a temporary measure until a more comprehensive measure could be drafted. Ultimately, Fordney-McCumber passed in 1922, imposing an ad valorem rate of...

Iranian Warships Arrive Near Yemen Comes just days after U.S. announced it would send its own warships A fleet of Iranian warships arrived near the southern coast of Yemen on Wednesday in a move likely to add greater tension in a developing U.S.-Iranian standoff in the region, according Iranian military leaders. Just days after the United States announced it would send its own warships to Yemen in order to prevent Iran from smuggling weapons to terror forces fighting there, a flotilla of Iranian destroyers docked in the same area. Iran’s military moves are likely to increase tensions between the two...

It's a slim little book that had a powerful impact as this country and the rest of the world hovered on the edge of war in 1939: "Mrs. Miniver" by Jan Struther, which began as a collection of short newspaper columns in the Times about the daily life of an English household in suburban London. Then it became a popular novel, and eventually a classic movie (Greer Garson, Walter Pidgeon). The movie was soon recognized by both British and American leaders -- Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill -- as an invaluable aid in mobilizing American opinion in favor of entering...

The “Smithsonian” magazine compiled a list of the “100 most significant Americans,” and to the dismay of his fan base President Obama failed to make the cut. Adding insult to injury, former President George W. Bush made the list. But it gets even better, former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin was also included. The liberal website Raw Story bemoaned the very idea that the Smithsonian Institution “decided that George W. Bush is a more ‘significant’ figure in U.S. history” than the exalted one. Curiously, the only redeeming qualification Raw Story named when mentioning Obama is that he was the country’s first...

"Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure, than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in that grey twilight that knows neither victory nor defeat." "If we stand idly by, if we seek merely swollen, slothful ease and ignoble peace, if we shrink from the hard contests where men must win at hazard of their lives and at the risk of all they hold dear, then the bolder and stronger peoples will pass us by, and will win for themselves the...

If we lose the virile, manly qualities, and sink into a nation of mere hucksters, putting gain over national honor, and subordinating everything to mere ease of life, then we shall indeed reach a condition worse than that of the ancient civilizations in the years of their decay. -Theodore Roosevelt, "The Law of Civilization and Decay", The Forum (January 1897), reprinted in American Ideals (1926), vol. 13 of The Works of Theodore Roosevelt, national ed., chapter 15, pp. 259–60. (From Wikipedia)

Initiative 522 in Washington state gets voted on in the general election in November. It would require MOST items sold in supermarkets to plainly label "May contain GMO products". Opposition has been fierce, as it was in California when a similar initiative was proposed - and lost out. The anti-disclosure people set up a PAC to front the advertising campaign, and refused to say who was what, so a lawsuit was filed. The PAC lost the suit - and was forced to tell who had contributed what. So here you go, folks - These are the businesses who don't want...

Nicaragua has approved plans for a mysterious Hong Kong-based company to build an estimated $40 billion canal across the middle of the country, Luis Manuel Galeano and Michael Weissenstein of The Associated Press report. The waterway, which would have to be roughly three times as long as the 50-mile Panama Canal, would be one of the largest infrastructure projects ever. The plan has some serious detractors: Environmentalists say it would devastate Lake Nicaragua, the country's primary source of fresh water, while shipping experts say that it may be an economically unfeasible power play by China. The company, HK Nicaragua Canal...

The recent border dispute between Costa Rica and Nicaragua is a sign of an ambitious plan by Venezuela, Iran and Nicaragua to create a "Nicaragua Canal" linking the Atlantic and Pacific oceans that would rival the existing Panama Canal. Costa Rica says that last week Nicaraguan troops entered its territory along the San Juan River – the border between the two nations. Nicaragua had been conducting channel deepening work on the river when the incident occurred. Sources in Latin America have told Haaretz that the border incident and the military pressure on Costa Rica, a country without an army, are...