Kansas is nothing more than a symbol here, so never mind the vagarancies of Kansas per se. Maybe there is something to the thesis of What’s the Matter With Kansas, but the corallary question is: What’s up with Massachusetts? (and Massachusetts is, like Kansas, nothing more than a symbol.)

First, flip the “blue and red” that’s been drummed into your head. Only recently has the news media decided to designate the Democrats as “blue” and the Republicans as “red”. In the case of the maps, stolen from http://uselectionatlas.org, the red is Democrat and the blue is Republican.

The electoral map for 1896. McKinnley is the classic model for corporate whore president; William Jennings Bryan is the avowed “populist.”:

The electoral map for 2000. Bush v. Gore.:

And, just for the hell of it, the electoral map for 1936:

And the electoral map for 1972:

April 17, 1952
President Truman indicated today that he believed he or any United States President had the theoretical power to seize newspapers and radio stations to protect the national welfare in war or great emergency.

But a White House spokesman quickly added that it was “absolutely unlikely” anything of that nature ever would have to be done.

Mr. Truman’s view, given at a news conference, startled some of the editors here for the annual meeting of the American Society of Newspaper Editors.

Controversy has boiled over the President’s seizure of the steel mills. One of the visiting editors asked the President: “If it is proper under your inherent powers to seize the steel mills, can you in your opinion seize the newspapers and the radio stations?”

Mr. Truman replied that under similar circumstances the President the President had to do whatever he believed was best for the country.

[…]
Several of the editors, many of whom attended the press conference, did not believe the President actually meant he had power to take over radio stations and newspapers.

Anthony F. Jones, president of Newspaper Editors and editor of the Syracuse (NY) Hearld-Journal, said: “What I thought the President meant was that he has the power to take over steel. It would be putting words in his mouth to say anything else.”

But Walter M. Harrison of Oklahoma City, former president of the society, said: “I think he meant he could take over the papers, radio, and everything else. If that isn’t on the edge of totalitarianism, I don’t know what is.”

April 18, 1952

The White House minimized today President Truman’s remark yesterday implying that he had the power to seize newspapers and radio stations in an emergency.

Joseph Short, White House press secretary, was asked for clarification or amplification of Mr. Truman’s answer to a question at his news conference.

“It was a purely academic and hypothetical question and there is no amplification or comment to it,” Mr. Short said.

A reporter then said that some editors, members of the American Society of Newspaper Editors, seemed to interpret Mr. Truman’s reply as affirmative.

“You can quote them on it,” Mr. Short retorted.

……..
April 18, 1952
The directors of the Maryland Press Association approved today a resolution calling for a “new amendment to the Constitution providing safeguard against the exercise of dictatorial power by the President of the United States.”

The action was taken, the resolution stated, because the President “has intimated publicly that he believes he has the inherent power to seize property, whether it be a public utility, an industry, or the press.

January 19, 1957
The path followed by President Truman during his Administration and now by President Eisenhower in the censorship of news “is a road that can be used toward dictatorship,” Norman E. Issacs, managing editor of the Louisville Courier – Journal and Times said here tonight.

He spoke on “America’s Iron Curtain” before 500 persons at the Rockdale Avenue Temple’s 133rd annual dinnver. Mr. Issacs said that neither Mr. Truman nor Mr. Eisenhower were “dictatorial types” but that under their Administration there had been forged “the ideal tools for the use of an unscrupulous man or group of men.”

Mr. Issacs is a former president of the Associated Press Managing Editors Association and served as national chairman of the organization’s Freedom of Information Committee.

On the Federal, state, and local levels, governmental executives are taking the people toward abondonment of free institutions and the acceptance of secret institutions, Mr. Issacs said.

….

The Socialists joined with the moderate conservative People’s Party and the communists in a coalition of anti-fascist parties in the provisional government following World War Two. The three-party coalition lasted until the communists left in 1947 (the year Arnold was born), following the 1945 election which won them only four seats, to their great disappointment. The socialists won 76 and the conservatives 85.

In the 1949 election, the voters rewarded the communists’ shift into opposition by giving them one extra seat, for a total of five. The real opposition was the new right-wing party which won 16 seats against the socialists’ 67 and the People’s Party’s 77. A “unite-the-right” coalition would have had a majority of 21, but the People’s Party chose to maintain the grand coalition. Closet socialists?

From 1947 until 1966 Austria was governed by the coalition of the Socialist and People’s parties. The People’s Party supplied all the federal chancellors (heads of government) until 1970. Following the Soviet invasion of next-door Hungary in 1956, in the 1959 Austrian election the communists fell off the radar screen, never to return to Parliament.

The coalition government broke down in October 1965 because of a budget dispute that eventually forced the resignation of Chancellor Joseph Klaus. However, his party gained an absolute majority in the national elections of March 1966, allowing Klaus to form the first People’s Party government in the Second Republic without the socialists. […]

Well, there WERE people in Austria in 1966 […] who considered Austria socialist because they considered the moderate conservative Austrian Peoples’ Party socialist. Those people were supporters of the Freedom Party that spawned Joerg Haider. In the 1966 election they got 5.4% of the vote, while the Peoples’ Party got 48.4% and the real socialists got 42.6%. (The other 3.6% got no seats, giving the Peoples’ Party an absolute majority.)

[…] the perspective of 5.4% of the population of Austria, I think one could fairly and objectively call that an extremist viewpoint.

I forgot to add “The first two leaders of the Freedom Party were respectively a former member of Chancellor Arthur Seyss-Inquart’s post-Anschluss (unity) Nazi cabinet of 1938 and an ex-SS officer.”

…
Thank you, Wilf Day. (Yes, I deleted all references to the most famous Austrian American politician, for my own purposes.)

A Usenet search through old posts related to John Kerry shows that Kerry was amongst the conspiracy theorist’s “good guys”, largely due to Kerry’s perchant of actually exposing real honest-to-gosh conspiracies. (It ceases to be a ‘conspiracy theory’ when it indeed turns out to be a ‘conspiracy fact’.)

To this day, Michael Ruppert will say that Kerry “took these things as far as someone in power could take it.”

During the nomination process, Kerry, having to come up with a line to attract the Democratic primary voter, did allude to these things — taking on Richard Nixon and taking on Ronald Reagan. It tended to come across as defensive and a bit too much of a reinvention for someone selling himself as the “responsible one”, thus he ultimately backed up to “Did you hear that I served in Vietnam?”

So, what do we get from Kerry, that appears to have receded into the background likely never to be seen again as Kerry aims to become the monster of powerful interests that he once fought against?

Start with the testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, APRIL 22, 1971.

Jump on over to Iran Contra.

When you hear Oliver North hold forth against John Kerry, keep this in mind: with him, it really is personal.

His notebooks, later obtained by Congress, were peppered with notations of concern about Kerry, his staff, and their freelance investigation. On April 18, 1986, North wrote: “Sen. Kerry trying to get evidence linking RR [Ronald Reagan] to La Penca,” the location of an attempted assassination attempt against a contra leader by hardliners in the movement.

Then, seemingly out of nowhere, he busted the Bank of Credit and Commerce International.. Years before money laundering became a centerpiece of antiterrorist efforts…

… which was a blow to powerful bi-partisan interests… and, if you read carefully as to who used the bank and to what purpose, which brings out the tinfoil hat-wearer in all of us.

Of course, this begs the question: what have you done for me lately? And would you transfer these moments into a John Kerry administration? (Some innovation and “other ways of handling problems” would do wonders to a “War on Terror”.)

At the Million Man March on October 17, 1995; Louis Farrakhan saideth this:

Abraham Lincoln, when he saw this great divide, he pondered a solution of separation. Abraham Lincoln said he never was in favor of our being jurors or having equal status with the Whites of this nation. Abraham Lincoln said that if there were to be a superior or inferior, he would rather the superior position be assigned to the White race. There, in the middle of this mall is the Washington Monument, 555 feet high. But if we put a one in front of that 555 feet, we get 1555, the year that our first fathers landed on the shores of Jamestown, Virginia as slaves.

Abraham Lincoln, the sixteenth president. Thomas Jefferson, the third president, and 16 and three make 19 again. What is so deep about this number 19? Why are we standing on the Capitol steps today? That number 19 — when you have a nine you have a womb that is pregnant. And when you have a one standing by the nine, it means that there’s something secret that has to be unfolded.

And he said thiseth:

The first four letters of the word form the foundation; “a-t-o-n”. . . “a-ton”, “a-ton”. Since this obelisk in front of us is representative of Egypt. In the 18th dynasty, a Pharaoh named Akhenaton, was the first man of this history period to destroy the pantheon of many gods and bring the people to the worship of one god. And that one god was symboled by a sun disk with 19 rays coming out of that sun with hands holding the Egyptian Ankh – the cross of life. A-ton. The name for the one god in ancient Egypt. A- ton, the one god. 19 rays. Look at your scripture.

You’re dead, Black man. But if you believe in the god who created this sun of truth and of light with 19 rays, meaning he’s pregnant with God’s spirit, God’s life, God’s wisdom. Abraham Lincoln’s statue, 19 feet high, 19 feet wide. Jefferson, 19 feet high, 16 (OFF-MIKE) and the third president, 19. Standing on the steps of the Capitol, in the light of the sun. Offering life to a people who are dead.

Hope that clears some things up.

It’s kind of silly to think, but just about every presidential nominee for the opposing major party was seriously given a shot to win the thing.

It’s bizarre to think about, but moving into the 1936 election, this was what the “chattering classes” were working with:

The Literary Digest poll indicated that the majority of the people were opposed to the New Deal. The National Association of Manufacturers, the national Chamber of Commerce, and that supposedly influential association of the wealthy, the American Liberty League, stood opposed to the admiriistration. According to a Du Pont Company statistician, the President’s family life was considered offensive by large numbers of Americans, as was the sharpness and” amorality” of his advisers; the New Deal waemployed had not received jobs despite Roosevelt’s promises. Moreover, the statistician said, women did not like the abandonment of prohibition without safeguards for the young, and the majority of adults were beginning to tire of Roosevelt’s affected voice and manners.

And, of course, the nation’s most respected pollster predicted that Al Landon would defeat Franklin Roosevelt handily. As it turns out, Al Landon did in fact win big amongst that sector in the population who owned phones or automobiles, which was was where the Literary Digest got their registery of voters from.

Here the geniuses are, reporting their poll results.

Literary Digest went out of the polling business after that. Gallup, which managed to predict that Roosevelt would win — though their results still look absurdly pro-Landon — became the new most respected polling outfit.

Twelve year later, Gallup would botch the Harry Truman – Thomas Dewey result. They quit polling two weeks before the election. Harry Truman’s entire campaign was uphill in the polls, so they just failed to notice the late Harry Truman surge, and assumed from their very first poll result between Truman and Dewey that the election would end that way.

The publisher of Literary Digest would laugh at Gallup, because it was the only opportunity he had to laugh.

Abraham Lincoln was never a sure bet in his re-election bid — in his nomination or in the actual election. Franklin D. Roosevelt was not a sure bet against Thomas Dewey in 1944.

Those are the classic examples of “not jumping horses in mid-stream”, something that Americans have a proud history of doing. (wait a minute and it’ll jump you to the right entry… July 30th.)

Some polling snapshots shown here.

Carter was ahead of Reagan on Labor Day, though the fact that he was pretty far below the “50” threshold fortells his doomed situation. But, the editorials all reported a close race. The candidates who came closest to “pulling a Truman”: Gerald Ford and Hubert Humphrey… 12 and 11 points down, probably the paper trail from those campaigns held those campaigns to be doomed. The two candidates who tried to claim that mantle, but looked ridiculous doing so: George Bush and Bob Dole… theoretically, if a couple of things had gone right for those candidates, one of them might have won. (In Bush I’s case, things went right for him in 1988: he faced Michael Dukakis!)

McGovern, Mondale, Goldwater, and Dole (though Dole was in at least a position to be humoured) never really had a chance. Perhaps a better candidate would have pulled something off a more respectable showing. For example, it’s a testamont to the pure cynicism of the Democratic Party Hierarchy that they pulled Mondale to victory over Gary Hart in the nomination battle… Gary Hart would’ve still lost, but it would at least have not been so goddamned embarrassing… a candidate that doesn’t even have the noble purpose of Goldwater and McGovern facing their same electoral fate… which is something of a double whammy.

Judging from the phrases that direct people to this blog (and the blog has had a huge jump in “hits”), and because of a trend I’ve noticed over the several months whenever a political figure gets his/her fifteen minutes of fame, I feel it is my duty to provide the researchers and curiosity-seekers with answers to various questions.

Zell Miller is not a member of Skull and Bones.
Bill Clinton is not a member of Skull and Bones.
Al Gore is not a member of Skull and Bones.
Lyndon Larouche is not a member of Skull and Bones.
Alan Keyes is not a member of Skull and Bones.
Barack Obama is not a member of Skull and Bones.
Steve Forbes is not a member of Skull and Bones.
Richard Perle is not a member of Skull and Bones.
Dick Cheney is not a member of Skull and Bones.
Ralph Nader is not a member of Skull and Bones.
George Pataki is not a member of Skull and Bones.
Howard Dean is not a member of Skull and Bones.
Ronald Reagan is not a member of Skull and Bones.
John Edwards is not a member of Skull and Bones.
Gerald Ford is not a member of Skull and Bones.
Jimmy Carter is not a member of Skull and Bones.
David Brooks is not a member of Skull and Bones.
Neither of George Bush’s daughters are members of Skull and Bones.
Iraq does not have Skull and Bones on their new flag.
Michael Moore is not a member of Skull and Bones.
Jeb Bush is not a member of Skull and Bones.
Karl Rove is not a member of Skull and Bones.
Sean Hannity is not a member of Skull and Bones.
Walter Mondale is not a member of Skull and Bones.
David Frum is not a member of Skull and Bones.

Just to be on the safe side:
Gordon Allen Pross is not a member of Skull and Bones.
Clyde Lewis is not a member of Skull and Bones.
Jed Smock is not a member of Skull and Bones.

A good rule of thumb to keep in mind is that if a person did not attend Yale University, he (or, starting with the 90s, she) cannot be a member of Skull and Bones. This is not to say that these individuals might not have met with or worked with, above, or under, or be manipulated / influenced by members of Skull and Bones, and this does not mean that these individuals necessarily aren’t members of other organizations of renown (the Council of Foriegn Relations or the Trilateral Commission, for example).

On the other hand:
John Kerry is a member of Skull and Bones.
George Bush is a member of Skull and Bones.
George W Bush is a member of Skull and Bones.
Henry Morgenthau is a member of Skull and Bones.
Gary Trudeau is a member of Skull and Bones.
Percy Rockafellar is a member of Skull and Bones. Nelson Rockafellar isn’t.
William Russell is a member of Skull and Bones.
William Howard Taft is a member of Skull and Bones.

I do not know where the aliens fit in with Skull and Bones. Nor do I know how John F Kennedy fought Skull and Bones. This is how the Skull and Bones killed Kennedy, allegedly.

An attempted full listing of Skull and Bones members is started here… we have A, B, and C. A more complete list is found here.

And, I’ll have to get back to you with the answer to the question for the number of bones that are in a baby’s skull.