Unheralded

CLAY JENKINSON: The Future In Context — Herbert Hoover: The Last Of The Hands-Off Presidents

This is another in an occasional series of articles by Clay Jenkinson on some of the less well-known presidents of the United States. The temporary centrality in our public conversations of America’s wild and burgeoning national debt seems like a good time to look back on the one-term presidency of Herbert Hoover (1874-1964). Hoover’s four years in the White House (1929-1933) are the least …


Unheralded

JIM FUGLIE: View From The Prairie — A Victory For The Bad Lands

I know, I’ve written about this legal battle in this space before, but it’s such good news — for now, at least — that I just can’t quit sharing it. Below is an article that appears in the June issue of Dakota Country magazine, on the newstands and in the mail right now. By the way, if you aren’t a …


CLAY JENKINSON: Future In Context — Supreme Court Packing: A Bad Way To Get Even (Or Ahead)

Recent talk among some Democrats about expanding the number of U.S. Supreme Court justices has caused enormous consternation among Republicans but also among many mainstream Democrats and conservative political commentators. The impulse to increase the number of justices is a partisan Democrat response to the refusal by Mitch McConnell and Republican senators to confirm (or even vet) President Obama’s Supreme …

CLAY JENKINSON: Future In Context — Can The Left Reclaim Populism With Biden As The Modern FDR?

Author Thomas Frank is an unapologetic liberal and populist. Those characteristics shape his writing and worldview. He finds promise in the country’s original populists, who adopted the term in 1891 and who were protesting “unbearable debt, monopoly and corruption … forcing the country to acknowledge that ordinary Americans who were just as worthy as bankers or railroad barons were being …

CLAY JENKINSON: Future In Context — The Presidency: From Rocky Transitions To Electoral Delays

At the time I write this, the day before the 2020 presidential election, we don’t know whether Donald Trump will be a one-term president or whether he will be elected to a second term. Trump has repeatedly declared that he may not accept the election results if he is defeated. If he loses, it is hard to imagine a smooth …

CLAY JENKINSON: Future In Context — What Happens When A Sitting President Is Stricken?

We all woke up Friday to the news that the president and first lady had tested positive for COVID-19. In a year of wild and enormously disruptive events, things just got crazier. Just what the president’s health crisis will mean for the election, and for a nation fighting its way through several profound challenges, is unclear. It is too early …

RON SCHALOW: Cramer Mimics Trump — Lies Like a Pro

It’s been quite an effing darn protracted loopy eon since “quick-draw” Kevin Cramer pushed all of  his chips onto the fuzzy orange rectangle. Except for the one he ate. It was an odd casino. He’ll tell you that they were communion wafers. KC is religious, he’ll casually mention it, 3,000 times. But they were Cool Ranch Doritos, the most narcotic …

JIM FUGLIE: View From The Prairie — Have Courage And Faith

Today, for the 44th or 45th time (you do the math — I was an English major), Americans woke up with a different president than the one they awakened with the day before. I’ve lived during the terms of 13 of them, about a third, depending on who’s counting. I can actually remember 12 of them; I was 5 when Gen. …