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Hegseth Revives Old Name of Another Military Base

March 3, 2025 at 4:07 pm EST By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

“Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth continued his efforts to revive the Confederate names of military bases, announcing on Monday that he is re-renaming Fort Moore, whose previous name honored the confederate general Henry Benning,” the New York Times reports.

“The base, which is in Georgia, will again be called Fort Benning.”

“Current law does not let him do that — the military is no longer allowed to name bases after Confederate generals — so Mr. Hegseth has found other military troops with the same last names.”

Filed Under: National Security, Political History

Quote of the Day

February 28, 2025 at 9:02 am EST By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

“Richard Nixon was a different kind of a guy, and he was a tough cookie, and he was very smart. People don’t realize how smart he was, but he made one bad decision. He didn’t fight. I spoke to his family. They say he regretted that until the day he died. He didn’t fight.”

— President Trump, in an interview with The Spectator.

Filed Under: Political History

A Relentless Effort to Remake the Presidency

February 20, 2025 at 9:35 am EST By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

“In just one month in office, President Donald Trump has made it clear that he sees the presidency in starkly different terms from virtually any of his 44 predecessors,” the Washington Post reports.

“He is not the first president to push the bounds of his authority. Andrew Johnson fired a Cabinet secretary in defiance of Congress. Franklin D. Roosevelt tried to pack the Supreme Court. Richard M. Nixon dismissed a prosecutor who threatened his hold on power.”

“But to a degree possibly unprecedented in the country’s nearly 250 years, Trump is barreling through the executive branch with the conviction that it is his to rule alone, no matter the laws Congress has enacted — even if that means destroying agencies, intervening in the justice system or granting enormous authority to a wealthy donor.”

Filed Under: Political History, White House

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FBI Finds Secret JFK Assassination Records

February 10, 2025 at 5:22 pm EST By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

“The FBI just discovered about 2,400 records tied to President Kennedy’s assassination that were never provided to a board tasked with reviewing and disclosing the documents,” Axios reports.

“The still-secret records are contained in 14,000 pages of documents the FBI found in a review triggered by President Trump’s Jan. 23 executive order demanding the release of all JFK assassination records.”

“The discovery — 61 years after Kennedy was killed in Dallas — follows decades of government reluctance to release all documents related to the assassination, which fueled a mountain of conspiracy theories.“

Filed Under: Political History

The Oligarchs Who Came to Regret Supporting Hitler

February 6, 2025 at 12:32 pm EST By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

Timothy Ryback: “They helped him in pursuit of profit. Many ended up in concentration camps.”

Filed Under: Political History

Trump’s Urgent Push to Rewrite History

February 3, 2025 at 8:59 am EST By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

“William McKinley was one of our greatest presidents, ushering in an era of wealth and power. Manifest Destiny was a noble calling worthy of emulation. Handing over the Panama Canal was a folly and a sign of weakness,” the Washington Post reports.

“America’s centuries-long embrace of slavery, while regrettable, was less important than the fact that we ended it. And the assault on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, was a heroic act of collective patriotism, not a violent effort to overturn an election.”

“Those are some of the perspectives President Donald Trump has advanced as he moves in the early days of his second presidency to reframe American history, in parallel with his efforts to reshape the government. In recasting established facts, shading long-accepted truths and endorsing falsehoods, Trump is pushing one big idea: that America is a once-great, uniquely virtuous nation whose past has been betrayed by weak leaders and vicious adversaries.”

Filed Under: Political History, White House

The Most Protectionist President in 100 Years

February 3, 2025 at 6:42 am EST By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

Bloomberg describes President Trump’s tariffs as “the most extensive act of protectionism taken by a U.S. president in almost a century.”

Axios: Trade war begins, as Trump leaves the world guessing.

Filed Under: Political History, White House

How Hitler Dismantled a Democracy in 53 Days

January 25, 2025 at 12:24 pm EST By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

Timothy Ryback: “Ninety-two years ago this month, on Monday morning, January 30, 1933, Adolf Hitler was appointed the 15th chancellor of the Weimar Republic. In one of the most astonishing political transformations in the history of democracy, Hitler set about destroying a constitutional republic through constitutional means.”

“What follows is a step-by-step account of how Hitler systematically disabled and then dismantled his country’s democratic structures and processes in less than two months’ time—specifically, one month, three weeks, two days, eight hours, and 40 minutes. The minutes, as we will see, mattered.”

Filed Under: Political History

Trump to Declassify Assassination Files

January 23, 2025 at 3:55 pm EST By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

President Trump announced that he’ll declassify any remaining files from the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy and civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr, CBS News reports.

He signed an executive order at the White House Thursday.

Filed Under: Political History

Quote of the Day

January 17, 2025 at 8:29 am EST By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

“It’s weird to find solace in the Civil War, or the Great Depression, or the beginning of World War Two, but my whole optimistic temperament depends on saying that we will get through it and emerge stronger.”

— Historian Doris Kearns Goodwin, in an interview with the Financial Times.

Filed Under: Political History

Five Presidents Attend Jimmy Carter’s Funeral

January 9, 2025 at 10:14 am EST By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

“The five living presidents are making a rare simultaneous appearance on Thursday at former President Jimmy Carter’s funeral,” the New York Times reports.

“It is unusual for five living presidents to be together in one place. Before 1991, there was only one other period in United States history, around 1861, when more than five presidents were even alive at the same time.”

Michael Shear: “President-elect Trump has been talking almost nonstop to former President Barack Obama since the two sat down next to each other a few minutes ago. The conversation seems to be mostly one sided, with Obama listening and responding with shorter answers.”

Filed Under: Political History

Nation’s Leaders Will Gather to Honor Jimmy Carter

January 9, 2025 at 7:00 am EST By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

“A weeklong series of tributes to former President Jimmy Carter culminates on Thursday with a solemn state funeral in Washington that will bring together all five of the nation’s living presidents, who will temporarily put down their partisan swords to bid farewell to one of their own,” the New York Times reports.

Playbook: “Whatever your opinion on Carter’s presidency, his widely regarded decency in life is enough in death to briefly unite a divided national capital at odds on any number of issues.”

Filed Under: Political History

Jimmy Carter Lies In State

January 8, 2025 at 7:00 am EST By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

Washington Post: “With a storm just passed and snow blanketing the region, scores of onlookers flanked Pennsylvania Avenue NW, bathed in icy air and waning sunshine, as a military procession escorted the caisson up Capitol Hill from the U.S. Navy Memorial — a mile-long solemn march that recalled a walk of triumph by the 39th president on a similarly cold and bright afternoon nearly half a century ago.”

Filed Under: Political History

Carter to Arrive in Washington for Pomp-Filled Farewell

January 7, 2025 at 7:06 am EST By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

“Former President Jimmy Carter, who disavowed the trappings of the imperial presidency and never gave up his humble Georgia roots, will nonetheless be given an elaborate national send-off starting on Tuesday when he is brought to Washington for three days of tributes,” the New York Times reports.

Filed Under: Political History

Biden Warns Americans Not to Forget the January 6 Attack

January 6, 2025 at 8:17 am EST By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

President Biden warned Americans not to forget the violent attack that took place at the Capitol four years ago, and he accused President-elect Donald Trump and his supporters of trying “to rewrite — even erase — the history of that day,” the New York Times reports.

Wrote Biden, in the Washington Post: “To tell us we didn’t see what we all saw with our own eyes. To dismiss concerns about it as some kind of partisan obsession. To explain it away as a protest that just got out of hand. This is not what happened.”

Filed Under: Political History

How Trump Inverted the Violent History of January 6

January 5, 2025 at 7:58 am EST By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

New York Times: “The president-elect and his allies have spent four years reinventing the Capitol attack — spreading conspiracy theories and weaving a tale of martyrdom to their ultimate political gain.”

Filed Under: Political History

Nazi Ties to Credit Suisse Ran Deeper Than Was Known

January 4, 2025 at 6:43 am EST By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

Wall Street Journal: “A cache of client files stamped ‘American blacklist,’ a designation for those financing or trading with Nazis or Axis partners, was recently found by independent investigators probing Credit Suisse, one of Switzerland’s biggest banks and now part of UBS.”

“The investigators, who studied dusty ledgers and pored over microfilm that hadn’t been part of earlier reviews into the dark chapter, found something else, too: signs of a coverup.”

Filed Under: Political History

Grover Cleveland Did It First

January 1, 2025 at 8:32 am EST By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

Russell Berman: “Until November 5, Cleveland held the distinction of being the only U.S. president to regain the office after voters turned him out: He won the White House in 1884, lost his reelection bid in 1888, and then won again in 1892. Donald Trump matched Cleveland’s achievement by winning last year’s presidential election, robbing him of his exclusive claim to history but also renewing interest in a president whom time has largely forgotten.”

“The two men share little else in common. Cleveland curtailed government corruption, adhered to a restrictive view of presidential authority, and opposed expansionism; Trump flouts ethical norms left and right, chafes at limits to his power, and wants to buy Greenland. Yet their new bond could reshape Cleveland’s legacy.”

Filed Under: Political History

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About Political Wire

goddard-bw-snapshotTaegan Goddard is the founder of Political Wire, one of the earliest and most influential political web sites. He also runs Political Job Hunt, Electoral Vote Map and the Political Dictionary.

Goddard spent more than a decade as managing director and chief operating officer of a prominent investment firm in New York City. Previously, he was a policy adviser to a U.S. Senator and Governor.

Goddard is also co-author of You Won - Now What? (Scribner, 1998), a political management book hailed by prominent journalists and politicians from both parties. In addition, Goddard's essays on politics and public policy have appeared in dozens of newspapers across the country.

Goddard earned degrees from Vassar College and Harvard University. He lives in New York with his wife and three sons.

Goddard is the owner of Goddard Media LLC.

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