Browsing: Politics

A Brief History    On April 20, 1818, accused British murderer Abraham Thornton was set free after his accuser refused to fight him in a “trial by combat.”  Digging Deeper Thornton had walked a girl home from a dance, and the next day the girl was found drowned in a pit.  Thornton was charged with murder but was acquitted at trial.  This is where things begin to get a bit different from the American idea of due process.  As was his right based on an archaic English law, the brother of the dead girl, however, insisted that Thornton be retried.   Thornton, however, invoked another medieval English law…

A Brief History On April 2, 1917, just a few months after being reelected President of the United States on a platform of “He kept us out of war,” Woodrow Wilson asked Congress to declare war on Germany, proving that you cannot believe a word a politician says. Digging Deeper Wilson, more or less the “peace candidate” who had initially resisted involvement in World War I, had been the President of Princeton University and the Governor of New Jersey prior to being elected President of the United States in 1912.  To this day, Wilson remains the only American president to have earned a…

A Brief History On March 16, 1988, Marine Lieutenant Colonel (Lt. Col.) Oliver North and National Security Adviser Vice Admiral John Poindexter were indicted on charges of conspiracy to defraud the U.S. government.  Despite legislation specifically prohibiting the aiding of the “Contra” rebels in Nicaragua (the Boland Amendment to the 1982 Appropriations Bill), North had masterminded a shell game of maneuvering funds in order to finance them. Digging Deeper As if blatant disregard for the law was not bad enough, part of the conspiracy that became known as the Iran-Contra Affair included selling weapons to Iran to fund the Contras and possibly to…

A Brief History On March 6, 1975, entranced Americans were glued to their television sets to watch the first mass public showing of the infamous “Zapruder Film” that depicted the assassination of President John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963. Digging Deeper The 8mm film is by far the most complete and definitive of the photographic records of the assassination, and it is in color!  Obviously, the Secret Service was eager to get their hands on any film of the event and did so, having 3 prints made, returning one to Abraham Zapruder, a Russian-born Jewish tailor who had filmed the murder…

A Brief History On March 4, 1917, the U.S. Congress welcomed its first female U.S. Representative (congresswoman) when Jeanette Rankin of Montana joined the exclusive group.  Rankin went on to serve 2 terms in Congress, both terms being during the world wars.   She had been one of only 50 to oppose U.S. entry into the First World War in 1917 and was the only representative who voted against American involvement in the Second World War in 1941. Digging Deeper Not surprisingly, Rankin, who was a Republican, was a pacifist and campaigned against U.S. involvement in any war.  She had been an advocate for women’s suffrage and…