Podcast appearances and mentions of Richard Nixon

The Washington Roundtable will be back next week. In the meantime, we're pleased to bring you the Season 2 premiere of “Master Plan,” the award-winning investigative podcast from The Lever. In its second season, titled “The Kingmakers,” the host, David Sirota, a former speechwriter for Bernie Sanders and an Oscar-nominated co-writer for “Don't Look Up,” examines the decades-long building of an all-powerful American Presidency. This episode explores how Richard Nixon's secret expansion of the Vietnam War, along with his attempts to seize the power of the purse from Congress sparked a constitutional crisis and a backlash, setting the stage for many of the legal battles that dominate today's political landscape.  We hope you'll enjoy it. For the rest of “Master Plan” 's second season, follow and listen to the show: https://play.megaphone.fm/lzjeitnbt6ikozz2aydzrw Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

We're traveling way back in time to 1971 -- when Richard Nixon was president, the Beatles were newly broken up, and Fiddler on the Roof was one of the biggest movies at the box office. Today in this encore episode, we're revisiting a special edition of What's Making Us Happy, recommending pop culture from the 1970s – including Isaac Hayes' Shaft soundtrack, Carol King's Tapestry, Marvin Gaye's What's Going On, and The Monster at the End of This Book.Looking for more pop culture from the past? Check out these episodes:The American dream according to ‘The Wire,' ‘Apollo 13' and more‘Jaws' is still stuck in our teeth, 50 years later'Shrek' – a weird, flatulent and beloved franchise – turns 25Connect with Pop Culture Happy Hour:Letterboxd / FacebookOur weekly newsletterSupport public media with NPR+ and enjoy perks for over 25 podcasts like this one. This show's perks include bonus episodes and sponsor-free listening. Learn more at plus.npr.org.See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.NPR Privacy Policy

In this episode of the Explaining History Podcast, we are joined by David F. Walbert, a veteran voting rights attorney whose new book, Stealing Elections American Style, traces the long, sordid history of contested and corrupted elections from the mid‑19th century to the present day.David's career spans decades of litigation on voting rights cases, beginning in the early 1970s when he moved to Georgia and discovered that despite the Voting Rights Act, African American representation in elected office was staggeringly low. The problem was not voter registration – Black and white registration was near parity – but structural devices that allowed white majorities to control every election outcome.We explore the origins of the "Southern strategy" – the explicit deal struck by Richard Nixon in 1968 with the white South: electoral votes in exchange for Supreme Court justices hostile to civil rights. That strategy, David argues, is the genesis of the ongoing assault on voting rights, culminating in the 1980 Supreme Court decision that nearly shut down vote dilution cases – and the subsequent effort to amend the Voting Rights Act in 1982.The conversation moves to the stolen election of 1876 – perhaps the most flagrant in American history – where Rutherford B. Hayes was awarded the presidency despite losing the popular vote, through the systematic throwing out of Democratic precincts in Louisiana. The parallels to the present are striking.David also discusses the evolution of voter suppression tactics, the spread of white racist ideology from the South to the North, and the alarming infiltration of election denialists into state and local election apparatuses. He warns that the next close election – particularly in the House and Senate – could be decided not by voters, but by partisan politicians in Congress, a prospect that threatens the very foundation of American democracy.Topics covered:David's career litigating voting rights casesThe Voting Rights Act and its amendmentsThe Southern strategy and its consequencesThe stolen election of 1876 (Tilden vs. Hayes)George W. Bush vs. Al Gore in 2000Trump's attempt to steal the 2020 electionThe infiltration of election denialists into state and local officesThe constitutional power of Congress to judge its own electionsThe threat to the 2028 presidential electionDavid F. Walbert's Stealing Elections American Style is published by Bloomsbury and is available from September 3 in the US and October in the UK. Please consider buying from an independent bookshop or directly from the publisher.If you enjoy the podcast, please consider supporting us – we are migrating from Patreon to Substack. Details in the show notes.Explaining History helps you understand the 20th Century through critical conversations and expert interviews. We connect the past to the present. If you enjoy the show, please subscribe and share.▸ Support the Show & Get Exclusive ContentBecome a Patron: patreon.com/explaininghistory▸ Join the Community & Continue the ConversationFacebook Group: facebook.com/groups/ExplainingHistoryPodcastSubstack: theexplaininghistorypodcast.substack.com▸ Read Articles & Go DeeperWebsite: explaininghistory.org Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Monday, August 17, 2026; 8pm: Tonight, Trump bails on America's South Korean allies and effectively sides with the “Axis of Upheaval.” Plus, Congressman Jamie Raskin on Trump's Justice Department takeover and an attorney general who refuses to be independent. And more than 50 years after Richard Nixon resigned the presidency in disgrace, the striking parallels between Nixon and Donald Trump.   Want more of Chris? Download and follow his podcast, “Why Is This Happening? The Chris Hayes podcast” wherever you get your podcasts.To listen to this show and other MS podcasts without ads, sign up for MS NOW Premium on Apple Podcasts. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

In February 1963, Lee Huebner, a first-year graduate student at Harvard University, attended a meeting of a new moderate Republican group called the Ripon Society. Six years later, after having served as the Ripon Society's national president, he was in the White House as a speechwriter for newly elected President Richard Nixon. Huebner – who was still in his twenties when he joined the new administration – was part of a speechwriting team that included conservatives like Pat Buchanan and William Safire as well as moderates like David Gergen and Ray Price. He stayed in the White House until February 1974, just a few months before Nixon resigned over the Watergate scandal. During his time in the administration, Huebner saw Nixon up close and came to think of him as having almost a split personality, which White House aides referred to as “the good Nixon” and “the bad Nixon”: “There were two sides to him, two very different sides. And I'm sure he was always puzzled himself by how he would reconcile his more mean-spirited, resentful, defensive personality against his gracious and open and thoughtful and brilliant, far-seeing personality.” Huebner's new book, Nixon's Elusive Totality: It Depends on Who Writes the History, describes Nixon's conflicting impulses and how they manifested in his speeches and actions. The book also reproduces some of Nixon's most famous speeches, from his 1952 “Checkers” speech to his final speech to the White House staff as he left the presidency on August 8, 1974. In this podcast interview, Huebner remembers episodes from his time in the White House, describes the conflicts between the moderate and conservative impulses of the administration, and assesses Nixon's key strengths as a speechmaker. He shares his insights into what it takes to be a successful presidential speechwriter, and reflects on how history will remember Nixon, for good and ill. 

WHAT DO 11 U.S. PRESIDENTS, the DALAI LAMA and WHOOPI HAVE in COMMON? by Patrick O'Donnell https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CVG1G21C Patrickinfocus.com He photographed 11 U.S. presidents. But this California photojournalist’s 60-year career was about more than just the leaders of the free world. It was also about the evolution of modern journalism and one photographer’s quest to capture iconic images along the way. Patrick O’Donnell’s journey began in high school, when he caught the photojournalism bug from a master teacher. By college, he was taking pictures for his student newspaper, then working full-time for local papers while still in school. Early assignments included Richard Nixon’s failed California governor bid and Eisenhower’s 1964 Rose Bowl appearance. So began O’Donnell’s front-row view of history. His warm, personal stories take you behind the lens and scenes of inside access chatting confidentially with George H.W. Bush at an event and capturing images of Nixon's resignation day at El Toro marine base. Much more than presidents alone, this memoir follows O’Donnell through adventures covering sports, local events, fairs and entertainers like Kevin Costner and Tony Bennett. We ride along to meet everyone from Dr. “Bee Man” Norm Gary to Groucho Marx feeding grapes to Alice Cooper. The Dalai Lama, Margaret Thatcher and Jerry Brown sprinkle the narrative too. Part journalism passion project, part who's who of 55+ years behind closed doors, this richly illustrated book memorializes an era when newspapers still ruled – before cell phones and digital film crowded out the dark room. Personal, humorous stories make this insider’s chronicle a must-read photo memoir for any news junkie and photography buff.

Drop us a note about the podcast. The most dangerous kind of weakness isn't loud it's quiet: a slow loss of conviction, a slow drift in families, a slow acceptance that someone else will fix what we refuse to face. We open with Romans 1:16–17 and plant a flag where Paul plants it: we're not ashamed of the good news about Christ, because the gospel is God's power to save and the only way we're made right in God's sight, from start to finish, by faith.From there, we bring it home to marriage and the daily life most people actually live. Genesis 2:24–25 isn't sentimental to us; it's structural. A man and a woman becoming one flesh, staying one flesh, and living with honesty instead of shame shapes the health of a home. And the health of homes shapes the strength of a nation. We talk plainly about how many “ways to be wrong” show up in modern marriage advice, and why God's way is the only way that builds something that lasts.We also zoom out to justice, leadership, and the kind of social breakdown that follows when institutions fail to protect the vulnerable. Along the way we touch American Christian heritage, presidential oaths, Richard Nixon's use of Isaiah 2:4, and the original idea behind penitentiaries as places meant to produce penitence and moral reform. The through-line is self-government: a republic can't be held together by force forever, it needs people governed from within by a conscience shaped by God.If this pushes on you, good. Listen, share it with someone who cares about faith, family, and freedom, and leave a review so more people can find the show. What do you think holds a nation together when everything else starts to shake?#RichardNixon#ChristianHeritage #ChristianNationSupport the showThe American Soul Podcasthttps://www.buzzsprout.com/1791934/subscribeCountryside Book Serieshttps://www.amazon.com/Countryside-Book-J-T-Cope-IV-ebook/dp/B00MPIXOB2 America's Christian Heritage Podcasthttps://www.buzzsprout.com/2622483

Los Angeles resident Kamala Harris visited New Orleans to celebrate the charter schools she condemns at home -- and to encourage schoolkids to fight Republicans. Gavin Newsom swerves out of his “moderate” lane and endorses Abdul El-Sayed in the Michigan Senate race. This week in California history: Richard Nixon resigns, Buck Owens is born, and a San Francisco trans activist who sought political asylum in the Netherlands discovers there's no place like home. Music by Metalachi. Email Us:dbahnsen@thebahnsengroup.comwill@calpolicycenter.org Follow Us:@DavidBahnsen@WillSwaim@TheRadioFreeCA Show Notes: David on Capital Record: The Common Good, Pornography, Gambling, and You Will on NPR's Left, Right & Center: The ‘Socialist' Brand Helps Some Democrats…For Now New Orleans students get advice from Kamala Harris at back-to-school rally How New Orleans Turned Around Its Failing Schools Congratulations @AbdulElSayed  Sacramento judge sides with Attorney General Rob Bonta in Prop 39 ballot title lawsuit California's Medi-Cal has a bad case of fraud — and there's only one cure Medicaid Expansion's Growing Improper Enrollment Crisis Have an idea to fix San Francisco? You could win $50 million San Francisco dad questioned by park rangers for teaching his own kids tennis at public court Civil war breaks out in rich, white California town as activists from crime-plagued neighboring city demand it's ‘canceled' Transgender American who fled US admits it was ‘the dumbest thing,' returns home from European asylum center Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

August 9, 2026In 1971, Daniel Ellsberg leaks Pentagon study on decisions made, and lies told to the public, about events in Vietnam, Richard Nixon, worried that enemies would leak information about his own decision making, organized a unit out of the White House to stop leaks, These “plumbers” spied, lied, and set out to wiretap the Washington DC headquarters of the DNC at the Watergate complex, Five men were arrested for ransacking the DNC's files, Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein of the Washington Post broke the story of the White House scheme, The Senate Watergate Committe began nationally televised hearings to investigate, Assistant to the president, Alexander Butterfield, revealed to the commmittee that conversations and phone calls in the Oval Office had been taped since 1971, but Nixon attempted to keep copies from being released to the committee, After Archibald Cox, the special prosecutor, was fired, the new special prosecutor, Leon Jaworski, successfully subpoenaed the tapes, which were damning, In late July 1974, the House Committee on the Judiciary passed three articles of impeachment, An explosive tape was released, showing that Nixon had clearly been central to the cover-up, and a delegation of Republican lawmakers went to the White House to tell Nixon that he must resign or be impeached, He gave a resignation speech that refused to acknowledge any wrongdoing, and his supporters advanced the idea of a “liberal conspiracy” to bring down any Republican president. Watch today's recording here: https://www.youtube.com/live/g9TUa1Rwd6U?si=T8_KKcHQZElhpnZ-Get full, free access to Letters from an American here: https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/subscribeYou can also find me:Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/hcrichardson.bsky.socialInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/heathercoxrichardson/?hl=enFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/heathercoxrichardson/YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@heathercoxrichardson Get full access to Letters from an American at heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/subscribe

Ngày 8/8/1974 Tổng thống Richard Nixon tuyên bố trên truyền hình rằng ông sẽ từ chức Tổng thống Hoa Kỳ, sau khi uy tín chính trị của ông sụp đổ vì vụ bê bối Watergate.

Chuck Todd opens with the Greenland oil expedition, an episode so strange it borders on parody: an American oil company drilling in defiance of another country's laws, with Trump's blessing, and — the detail that breaks the brain — Dr. Phil hired to document the whole thing. It's a fitting overture for a week in which the Senate confirmed Todd Blanche as Attorney General 50-49 at four in the morning before fleeing town for recess, with only Collins and Murkowski defecting. Chuck admits he was wrong; he never thought Blanche would actually get there. What galls him is the surrender it represents. Bill Cassidy's rationale — that Trump "needs someone to tell him no" — is laughable given that Blanche has said outright that the rule of law belongs to Trump and the DOJ won't be independent. John Cornyn's shrug that "there's nothing we can do to rein in the president" is, Chuck argues, the confession of a coward: senators possess the authority and simply refuse to use it, giving away what little leverage they had. The debate has now been reduced to whether the Attorney General is the people's lawyer or the president's. Then takes on the question of why Democratic voters keep rewarding progressives whose politics they don't actually share, and his answer is that half the Democratic electorate did not suddenly become socialist — they're furious about 2024, and specifically about leadership deciding the nominee for them. They didn't dislike Harris; they wanted a choice, and they'd watched the establishment coalesce around Biden in 2020 to produce a presidency that ended with Trump's return. Progressives are the only Democrats willing to say the party screwed up, and voters will give you enormous latitude on the cure if they trust your diagnosis. Chuck illustrates it with a Washington Post story about the Conn brass instrument factory in Ohio, bought by Trump-supporting, tariff-championing investor John Paulson and now closing as production moves offshore — where the disillusioned employees don't plan to vote at all, because they feel the system has failed them for decades. He believes the opening in American politics right now isn't centrism, it's breaking up an establishment that voters believe is more worried about losing donors than losing their votes. He wonders aloud whether the answer is a military leader — he's intrigued by retired General Chris Donahue, essentially Captain America on paper, pushed out by Trump and Hegseth, with credibility across the aisle. Americans are exhausted by being told the other half of the country is the bad guy, they're desperate for honesty and a reboot of a captured government, and the space is wide open for someone to fill it. But Chuck’s closing caution matters: the system is badly screwed up, and that still isn't a reason to burn it all down. Finally, Chuck hops into the ToddCast Time Machine to revisit two different but related events: the signing of the Social Security Act by FDR, and Richard Nixon announcing price and wage controls to combat inflation. Chuck argues that America has always flirted with socialism even if we call it by another name. He also answers listeners questions in the “Ask Chuck” segment. Upgrade your everyday. Go to https://Quince.com/CHUCK for free shipping on your order and 365-day returns. Play ball and swing for the fences on FanDuel, an official partner of the MLB at https://FANDUEL.COM. For free and unbiased Medicare help, dial (980) 734-3985 to speak with my trusted partner, Chapter, or go to askchapter.org/chuck / *Paid Partnership Chapter and its affiliates are not connected with or endorsed by any government entity or the federal Medicare program. Chapter Advisory, LLC represents Medicare Advantage HMO, PPO, and PFFS organizations and stand alone prescription drug plans that have a Medicare contract. Enrollment depends on the plan’s contract renewal. While we have a database of every Medicare plan nationwide and can help you to search among all plans, we have contracts with many but not all plans. As a result, we do not offer every plan available in your area. Currently we represent 50 organizations which offer 18,160 products nationwide. We search and recommend all plans, even those we don’t directly offer. You can contact a licensed Chapter agent to find out the number of products available in your specific area. Please contact Medicare.gov, 1-800-Medicare, or your local State Health Insurance Program (SHIP) to get information on all of your options. Timeline: (Timestamps may vary based on advertisements) 00:00 Chuck Todd’s introduction 00:30 Trump’s crazy Greenland oil adventure 01:15 Trump is just ignoring the laws of another country 01:45 Craziest detail is oil company hired Dr. Phil to document the expedition 02:15 Trump has gone out of his way to alienate European allies 02:45 Oprah gave us Dr. Oz & Dr. Phil… which is not a good thing 06:45 U.S. senate leaves town for recess after passing funding bill 07:15 Todd Blanche is now the confirmed AG for the United States 08:00 Republicans passed none of the things they said are priorities 09:00 GOP has a trifecta and still can’t get anything done 10:00 Was wrong about Blanche, didn’t think he’d actually get confirmed 10:45 Confirmed 50-49, not surprising Collins & Murkowski defected 11:45 Cassidy’s rationale was “Trump needs someone to tell him no” 12:15 Cassidy’s rationale is laughable 13:15 Even Bill Barr had a line he wouldn’t cross with Trump 14:45 The senate gave away what little leverage they have with Trump 16:00 John Cornyn says “there’s nothing we can do to rein in the president” 16:30 These Republicans are cowards, won’t exercise their authority* 17:00 These senators need to do their job 18:00 Blanche said the rule of law belongs to Trump, DOJ won’t be independent 19:00 Debate is now if AG is the people’s lawyer or the president’s lawyer 19:45 If he were alive, Trump would have nominated Roy Cohn 20:30 You don’t want presidents deciding who gets investigated 21:30 Trump got involved with Reflecting Pool vandal case THIS WEEK 22:30 Trump’s entire life has been about wearing people down 23:15 Republicans have politicized DOJ more than any previous admin 23:45 MAGA’s premise is that two wrongs do make a right 24:15 Does anybody in congress understand the constitution? 25:30 Confirming Blanche will cause more public distrust in DOJ 26:30 Founders never wanted the president to determine rule of law 27:00 Senate didn’t get crypto or college sports bill passed before recess 27:45 Republicans claim SAVE act is existential, didn’t pass it 28:45 Why do voters entertain progressives that don’t align with them? 29:15 Half the democratic electorate didn’t suddenly become socialist 30:30 Democratic voters are pissed off, think party messed up in 2024 31:00 Voters are mad leadership decided who the ‘24 nominee would be 31:30 Voters didn’t dislike Harris, but they wanted a choice 32:30 In 2020, the establishment coalesced around Biden 33:15 Biden’s presidency was a failure since it resulted in Trump returning 34:00 Progressives are the only Dems saying the party screwed up 35:30 Like Trump, the progressives are saying leadership is full of shit 36:15 Voters will give you latitude on the cure if they trust your diagnosis 37:00 WaPo story about Conn factory closing & private equity 38:00 Factory is in Ohio, been making brass instruments 38:45 Factory is closing and laying off all the employees 39:30 Conn was bought by John Paulson, Trump supporter who supports tariffs 40:30 Paulson is moving production offshore after arguing against it 42:00 Plant employees were completely disillusioned with politics 43:00 Employees feel like the system has left them down for decades, won’t vote 44:30 Romney’s loss was due to millions of white voters sitting out entirely 45:15 Trump’s appeal brought those voters back into the electorate 47:15 Voters reward candidates that can diagnose & call out their problems 48:00 Trump proved politically dormant voters can be reactivated 48:30 There’s always a third destination for voters… the couch 49:00 If the two parties don’t reform themselves, they risk being replaced 50:15 The opening isn’t centrism, it’s breaking up the establishment 51:15 Politics requires huge amounts of money, results in capture 52:15 Voters believe reps are more worried about losing donors than their vote 53:00 Competence and morality are not the same thing in politics 53:45 Leaders need to admit that they screwed everything up 54:30 Americans are desperate for a reset & are embracing revolutionaries 55:00 A military leader might be exactly what we need in next president 55:45 Intrigued by retired general Chris Donahue & his resume 56:45 Donahue is basically Captain America & was forced out by Trump & Hegseth 58:15 Someone like Donahue could have the credibility across the aisle 59:30 Politics won’t acknowledge failure if they think it helps the other side 1:00:00 Americans are desperate for honesty & morality in politics 1:01:15 It’s exhausting being told the other half of America is the bad guys 1:03:15 Voters want to preserve the Republic, but don’t trust the leadership 1:04:00 Voters want a reboot, and a government that isn’t captured 1:05:00 The political space is waiting for someone to fill this vacuum 1:06:00 The system is screwed up, but we shouldn’t burn it all down 1:11:00 ToddCast Time Machine - Where America embraces socialism 1:12:30 Socialist policies have come from presidents of both parties 1:13:45 FDR signs the Social Security Act - Nixon announces price & wage controls 1:14:45 Americans worry about prosperity, not ideological consistency 1:17:15 Capitalism was being questioned after the Great Depression 1:17:45 FDR wanted to repair, not replace capitalism 1:18:30 Social Security started as a much smaller program than it is today 1:19:15 Congress continued adding to the program over the years 1:21:15 America imposed price & wage controls during WW2 that went beyond Nixon 1:22:00 August 15, 1971 - Nixon announces price & wage controls 1:23:15 Nixon was desperate to stop inflation 1:24:15 Administration announced ceilings on meat prices, caused shortages 1:25:30 The controls were lifted right before the election 1:26:45 We have plenty of socialist policies called by another name 1:27:45 The policies give the sense of individual control 1:28:30 Americans are allergic to government control over their choices 1:29:15 Government under Trump is acquiring stakes in American companies 1:31:00 America has always been more socialist than we like to admit 1:32:45 Ask Chuck 1:33:00 Are college educated Republican voters on the journey leftward? 1:37:00 How should Abdul El-Sayed respond to racist & Islamophobic attacks? 1:45:30 Do candidates on the same ballot create measurable coattails? 1:50:00 Any chance Republicans voted for El-Sayed thinking he’d be easier to beat? 1:53:00 Was Pirro’s dropping of Reflecting Pool case an offramp for Trump? 1:56:00 How does an everyday person help make real political change?See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Chuck Todd opens with the Greenland oil expedition, an episode so strange it borders on parody: an American oil company drilling in defiance of another country's laws, with Trump's blessing, and — the detail that breaks the brain — Dr. Phil hired to document the whole thing. It's a fitting overture for a week in which the Senate confirmed Todd Blanche as Attorney General 50-49 at four in the morning before fleeing town for recess, with only Collins and Murkowski defecting. Chuck admits he was wrong; he never thought Blanche would actually get there. What galls him is the surrender it represents. Bill Cassidy's rationale — that Trump "needs someone to tell him no" — is laughable given that Blanche has said outright that the rule of law belongs to Trump and the DOJ won't be independent. John Cornyn's shrug that "there's nothing we can do to rein in the president" is, Chuck argues, the confession of a coward: senators possess the authority and simply refuse to use it, giving away what little leverage they had. The debate has now been reduced to whether the Attorney General is the people's lawyer or the president's. Then takes on the question of why Democratic voters keep rewarding progressives whose politics they don't actually share, and his answer is that half the Democratic electorate did not suddenly become socialist — they're furious about 2024, and specifically about leadership deciding the nominee for them. They didn't dislike Harris; they wanted a choice, and they'd watched the establishment coalesce around Biden in 2020 to produce a presidency that ended with Trump's return. Progressives are the only Democrats willing to say the party screwed up, and voters will give you enormous latitude on the cure if they trust your diagnosis. Chuck illustrates it with a Washington Post story about the Conn brass instrument factory in Ohio, bought by Trump-supporting, tariff-championing investor John Paulson and now closing as production moves offshore — where the disillusioned employees don't plan to vote at all, because they feel the system has failed them for decades. He believes the opening in American politics right now isn't centrism, it's breaking up an establishment that voters believe is more worried about losing donors than losing their votes. He wonders aloud whether the answer is a military leader — he's intrigued by retired General Chris Donahue, essentially Captain America on paper, pushed out by Trump and Hegseth, with credibility across the aisle. Americans are exhausted by being told the other half of the country is the bad guy, they're desperate for honesty and a reboot of a captured government, and the space is wide open for someone to fill it. But Chuck’s closing caution matters: the system is badly screwed up, and that still isn't a reason to burn it all down. Then, Oscar-nominated documentarian Rory Kennedy joins the Chuck Toddcast to discuss Freefall: A Reckoning for Boeing, her Netflix follow-up to 2022's Downfall premiering August 19th — a film built around the death of whistleblower John Barnett and the current and former employees who came forward after it. Kennedy's central finding is damning in its simplicity: at the end of Downfall, Boeing swore it had learned its lesson and changed its ways. It hadn't. More incidents followed, whistleblowers reached out to tell her conditions had actually gotten worse, and she says she believes Boeing bears responsibility for Barnett's death. Kennedy walks Chuck through the structural rot she sees behind the headlines — a near-total lack of competition, a revolving door between the FAA and the company it's supposed to regulate, a McDonnell Douglas merger that reoriented the entire culture around quarterly earnings instead of engineering excellence, and the decision to leave Seattle in search of a non-union workforce — which matters enormously, she notes, because unions are what give workers real whistleblower protection. Boeing is simultaneously one of the most heavily subsidized companies in American history and, right now, one that isn't being held accountable in any meaningful way. Kennedy is unusually direct about the practical takeaway: she won't fly on a 737 MAX and actively chooses flights on other aircraft, pointing out the counterintuitive reality that older model planes are often the safer bet — a consumer shift that has hit budget airlines hardest. She and Chuck get into the incidents that never made national news, including oxygen masks that failed to work, and she's blunt that the Trump administration hasn't provided anything resembling adequate regulatory oversight while families of the 346 crash victims are still fighting to hold the company responsible. Kennedy sees this fall's elections as a genuine chance to put people in place who care about the flying public, and reflects candidly on how she's feeling about American politics generally — that this administration is making choices that are hurting a lot of people. There's also a lovely detour into Ethel, her documentary about her mother, which she says holds a special place in her heart, plus a look at what she's working on next. Finally, Chuck hops into the ToddCast Time Machine to revisit two different but related events: the signing of the Social Security Act by FDR, and Richard Nixon announcing price and wage controls to combat inflation. Chuck argues that America has always flirted with socialism even if we call it by another name. He also answers listeners questions in the “Ask Chuck” segment. Upgrade your everyday. Go to https://Quince.com/CHUCK for free shipping on your order and 365-day returns. Play ball and swing for the fences on FanDuel, an official partner of the MLB at https://FANDUEL.COM. For free and unbiased Medicare help, dial (980) 734-3985 to speak with my trusted partner, Chapter, or go to askchapter.org/chuck / *Paid Partnership Chapter and its affiliates are not connected with or endorsed by any government entity or the federal Medicare program. Chapter Advisory, LLC represents Medicare Advantage HMO, PPO, and PFFS organizations and stand alone prescription drug plans that have a Medicare contract. Enrollment depends on the plan’s contract renewal. While we have a database of every Medicare plan nationwide and can help you to search among all plans, we have contracts with many but not all plans. As a result, we do not offer every plan available in your area. Currently we represent 50 organizations which offer 18,160 products nationwide. We search and recommend all plans, even those we don’t directly offer. You can contact a licensed Chapter agent to find out the number of products available in your specific area. Please contact Medicare.gov, 1-800-Medicare, or your local State Health Insurance Program (SHIP) to get information on all of your options. Timeline: 00:00 Chuck Todd’s introduction 00:30 Trump’s crazy Greenland oil adventure 01:15 Trump is just ignoring the laws of another country 01:45 Craziest detail is oil company hired Dr. Phil to document the expedition 02:15 Trump has gone out of his way to alienate European allies 02:45 Oprah gave us Dr. Oz & Dr. Phil… which is not a good thing 06:45 U.S. senate leaves town for recess after passing funding bill 07:15 Todd Blanche is now the confirmed AG for the United States 08:00 Republicans passed none of the things they said are priorities 09:00 GOP has a trifecta and still can’t get anything done 10:00 Was wrong about Blanche, didn’t think he’d actually get confirmed 10:45 Confirmed 50-49, not surprising Collins & Murkowski defected 11:45 Cassidy’s rationale was “Trump needs someone to tell him no” 12:15 Cassidy’s rationale is laughable 13:15 Even Bill Barr had a line he wouldn’t cross with Trump 14:45 The senate gave away what little leverage they have with Trump 16:00 John Cornyn says “there’s nothing we can do to rein in the president” 16:30 These Republicans are cowards, won’t exercise their authority* 17:00 These senators need to do their job 18:00 Blanche said the rule of law belongs to Trump, DOJ won’t be independent 19:00 Debate is now if AG is the people’s lawyer or the president’s lawyer 19:45 If he were alive, Trump would have nominated Roy Cohn 20:30 You don’t want presidents deciding who gets investigated 21:30 Trump got involved with Reflecting Pool vandal case THIS WEEK 22:30 Trump’s entire life has been about wearing people down 23:15 Republicans have politicized DOJ more than any previous admin 23:45 MAGA’s premise is that two wrongs do make a right 24:15 Does anybody in congress understand the constitution? 25:30 Confirming Blanche will cause more public distrust in DOJ 26:30 Founders never wanted the president to determine rule of law 27:00 Senate didn’t get crypto or college sports bill passed before recess 27:45 Republicans claim SAVE act is existential, didn’t pass it 28:45 Why do voters entertain progressives that don’t align with them? 29:15 Half the democratic electorate didn’t suddenly become socialist 30:30 Democratic voters are pissed off, think party messed up in 2024 31:00 Voters are mad leadership decided who the ‘24 nominee would be 31:30 Voters didn’t dislike Harris, but they wanted a choice 32:30 In 2020, the establishment coalesced around Biden 33:15 Biden’s presidency was a failure since it resulted in Trump returning 34:00 Progressives are the only Dems saying the party screwed up 35:30 Like Trump, the progressives are saying leadership is full of shit 36:15 Voters will give you latitude on the cure if they trust your diagnosis 37:00 WaPo story about Conn factory closing & private equity 38:00 Factory is in Ohio, been making brass instruments 38:45 Factory is closing and laying off all the employees 39:30 Conn was bought by John Paulson, Trump supporter who supports tariffs 40:30 Paulson is moving production offshore after arguing against it 42:00 Plant employees were completely disillusioned with politics 43:00 Employees feel like the system has left them down for decades, won’t vote 44:30 Romney’s loss was due to millions of white voters sitting out entirely 45:15 Trump’s appeal brought those voters back into the electorate 47:15 Voters reward candidates that can diagnose & call out their problems 48:00 Trump proved politically dormant voters can be reactivated 48:30 There’s always a third destination for voters… the couch 49:00 If the two parties don’t reform themselves, they risk being replaced 50:15 The opening isn’t centrism, it’s breaking up the establishment 51:15 Politics requires huge amounts of money, results in capture 52:15 Voters believe reps are more worried about losing donors than their vote 53:00 Competence and morality are not the same thing in politics 53:45 Leaders need to admit that they screwed everything up 54:30 Americans are desperate for a reset & are embracing revolutionaries 55:00 A military leader might be exactly what we need in next president 55:45 Intrigued by retired general Chris Donahue & his resume 56:45 Donahue is basically Captain America & was forced out by Trump & Hegseth 58:15 Someone like Donahue could have the credibility across the aisle 59:30 Politics won’t acknowledge failure if they think it helps the other side 1:00:00 Americans are desperate for honesty & morality in politics 1:01:15 It’s exhausting being told the other half of America is the bad guys 1:03:15 Voters want to preserve the Republic, but don’t trust the leadership 1:04:00 Voters want a reboot, and a government that isn’t captured 1:05:00 The political space is waiting for someone to fill this vacuum 1:06:00 The system is screwed up, but we shouldn’t burn it all down 1:13:00 Rory Kennedy (Freefall) joins the Chuck ToddCast 1:14:30 Documentary “Ethel” about her mother holds special place in her heart 1:15:30 It became evident that Boeing knew about faulty systems on 737 MAX 1:16:15 Boeing swore they’d change, then more incidents happened 1:17:15 Believe Boeing is responsible for whistleblower John Barnett’s death 1:19:15 Lack of competition is one of the reasons Boeing has been sloppy 1:20:15 There’s a revolving door between the FAA and Boeing 1:22:00 Are Boeing’s problems coming from a single source, or multiple? 1:23:45 Boeing has long been a foundational American company 1:24:30 Parts for Boeing planes come from all over the world 1:26:00 Whistleblowers reached out to say problems had gotten worse 1:27:00 Right now, Boeing isn’t being held accountable 1:27:30 Haven’t seen Boeing make significant changes 1:29:15 Focus on profits and quarterly earnings outweighed safety 1:30:00 Boeing is one of the most subsidized companies in US history 1:31:00 McDonnell-Douglas merger has contributed to Boeing’s downfall 1:33:30 Wouldn’t fly on a 737 MAX and choose flights on other planes 1:36:00 Consumers choosing not to fly on the 737 MAX hurt budget airlines 1:37:00 Older model planes are actually safer 1:38:30 Decision to leave Seattle was to find a non-union workforce 1:39:45 Unions protect workers, give them whistleblower protection 1:41:00 Airbus is a better run company than Boeing 1:42:30 Boeing and Airbus are the only two options 1:44:45 The Trump administration hasn’t provided proper regulation for Boeing 1:45:15 Families of crash victims are still trying to hold Boeing responsible 1:48:15 Elections this fall could put people in place who care about the public 1:49:45 Incidents where the oxygen masks weren’t working 1:51:30 How are you feeling about politics these days? 1:52:00 Administration is making choices that are hurting a lot of people 1:53:30 What projects do you have coming up next? 1:56:00 Had a screening at Boeing with top executives 1:57:15 ToddCast Time Machine - Where America embraces socialism 1:58:45 Socialist policies have come from presidents of both parties 2:00:00 FDR signs the Social Security Act - Nixon announces price & wage controls 2:01:00 Americans worry about prosperity, not ideological consistency 2:03:30 Capitalism was being questioned after the Great Depression 2:04:00 FDR wanted to repair, not replace capitalism 2:04:45 Social Security started as a much smaller program than it is today 2:05:30 Congress continued adding to the program over the years 2:07:30 America imposed price & wage controls during WW2 that went beyond Nixon 2:08:15 August 15, 1971 - Nixon announces price & wage controls 2:09:30 Nixon was desperate to stop inflation 2:10:30 Administration announced ceilings on meat prices, caused shortages 2:11:45 The controls were lifted right before the election 2:13:00 We have plenty of socialist policies called by another name 2:14:00 The policies give the sense of individual control 2:14:45 Americans are allergic to government control over their choices 2:15:30 Government under Trump is acquiring stakes in American companies 2:17:15 America has always been more socialist than we like to admit 2:19:00 Ask Chuck 2:19:15 Are college educated Republican voters on the journey leftward? 2:23:15 How should Abdul El-Sayed respond to racist & Islamophobic attacks? 2:31:45 Do candidates on the same ballot create measurable coattails? 2:36:15 Any chance Republicans voted for El-Sayed thinking he’d be easier to beat? 2:39:15 Was Pirro’s dropping of Reflecting Pool case an offramp for Trump? 2:42:15 How does an everyday person help make real political change?See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

August 8, 2026Just before leaving for a five-week recess, Senate Republicans confirmed Todd Blanche to the post of Attorney General of the US, Some Republicans were enthusiastic, others were more skeptical but said that if they didn't confirm Blanche, Trump would choose someone worse, Fifty two years ago, Republican senators played a very different role when they delivered the news to Richard Nixon that he must resign or be impeached over the Watergate break-in, On August 8, 1974, Nixon spoke to the American people to tell them he was resigning the presidency of the United States.Watch today's recording here: https://www.youtube.com/live/g9TUa1Rwd6U?si=T8_KKcHQZElhpnZ-Get full, free access to Letters from an American here: https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/subscribeYou can also find me:Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/hcrichardson.bsky.socialInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/heathercoxrichardson/?hl=enFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/heathercoxrichardson/YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@heathercoxrichardson Get full access to Letters from an American at heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/subscribe

Former President Richard Nixon joined Meet the Press years after resigning from office on August 9, 1974, after five men were arrested for breaking into the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate complex in Washington, D.C. in June of that year.  The full episode on video is available on MeetThePress.com. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

National Hold hands day. Entertainment from 2022. 2nd atomic bomb dropped on Japan, Richard Nixon resigned ast president, Charles Manson followered committed Helter Skelter. Todays birthdays - Robert Shaw, Wanda Young, Sam Elliott, Melanie Griffith, Whitney Houston, Gillian Anderson, Anna Kendrick. Bernie Mac died.Intro - God did good - Dianna Corcoran https://www.diannacorcoran.com/I want to hold your hand - The BeatlesBreak My Soul - BeyonceThe kind of love we make - Luke CombsBirthdays - In da club - 50 Cent https://www.50cent.com/Don't mess with Bill - The MarvelettesI wanna dance with somebody - Whitney HoustonThe X Files TV themeExit - Mr. Wrong - Christie Lamb https://www.christielamb.com/History & Factoids about today Playlist on SpotifyHistory & Factoids about today webpagecooolmedia.comcountryundergroundradio.comNational Days Puzzles - JulyGrace & Grit Christian Country Radio

National Pickleball day. Entertainment from 1962. Nixon announced his resignation, The Great Train Robbery in England, Mt. Blanc summited for first time. Todays birthdays - Webb Pierce, Mel Tillis, Dustin Hoffman, Connie Stevens, Don Most, Scott Stapp, JC Chasez. Shawn Mendes. Olivia Newton-John died.Intro - God did good - Dianna Corcoran https://www.diannacorcoran.com/Picleball anthem - Eddie & Webby PickleballRoses are Red - Bobby VintonWolverton Mountain - Claude KingBirthdays - In da club - 50 Cent https://www.50cent.com/In the jailhouse now - Webb PierceI aint never - Mel TillisSixteen reasons - Connie StevensHappy Days TV themeHigher - CreedBlowin me up with her love - JC ChasezStitches - Shawn MendesPlease Mr. Please - Olivia Newton- JohnExit - A memory I can't drown - Anthony Price https://anthonypricemusic.com/History & Factoids about today Playlist on SpotifyHistory & Factoids about today webpagecooolmedia.comcountryundergroundradio.comNational Days Puzzles - JulyGrace & Grit Christian Country Radio

President Trump has some of the worst approval ratings of any president in modern history, second only to Richard Nixon the week before he resigned. On this week's On the Media, what the polls say about Americans' perceptions of Trump and his policies. Plus, a look at the polarized propaganda being beamed into Iran.  [01:00] Brooke Gladstone interviews G. Elliott Morris, journalist, statistician, and author of the data-driven news website Strength In Numbers, about public perceptions of President Trump and his policies, and what Trump's historic unpopularity could mean for the upcoming midterm elections.  [19:14] Micah Loewinger speaks with Nancy Scola, a reporter covering tech, policy, and politics, about her recent profile of Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr, tracing his trajectory from “spectrum nerd,” to MAGA insider.  [36:23]  Micah sits down with Nahid Siamdoust, an assistant professor of media and Middle Eastern studies at the University of Texas at Austin, to discuss the state of the Iranian media landscape, and how a newer anti-regime channel, Iran International, is contributing to intense polarization among Iranians around the world.  Further reading / watching: “What's behind Donald Trump's record-low approval rating?” By G. Elliott Morris “How Brendan Carr Became MAGA's Media Watchdog,” by Nancy Scola “Spreading Static,” by Nahid Siamdoust On the Media is supported by listeners like you. Support OTM by donating today (https://pledge.wnyc.org/support/otm). Follow our show on Instagram, Bluesky, TikTok and Facebook @onthemedia, and share your thoughts with us by emailing onthemedia@wnyc.org. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

First and foremost, Andy Luger wants the facts. In regards to police Chief Axel Henry, he has put himself out there in a very large and public way. The guys have some strong opinions about that. Then Andy gives Todd Blanche a HARD NO. Dare we say we'd take Richard Nixon over this administration. Then Andy weighs in on a topic that really doesn't mean anything to him at all - E-Bikes. Chad on the other hand…he's bothered. Andy's more bothered with road construction. Now that's something we all can get behind, no matter our political allegiance.

Richard Nixon was the 37th president of the United States, serving from 1969 until his resignation in 1974. A member of the Republican Party, he is historically significant as the first and only U.S. president to resign from office, a decision prompted by the fallout from the infamous Watergate scandal. Before his presidency, he served as a U.S. Representative and Senator from California, and as the 36th vice president under Dwight D. Eisenhower. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]This is what I picked up surrounding his energies

It's been more than 50 years since President Richard Nixon resigned on August 9th over the Watergate scandal. Jill Wine-Banks, legal analyst, former Watergate special prosecutor, co-host of the podcasts "#Sistersinlaw" and "Just the Facts" and the author of The Watergate Girl: My Fight for Truth and Justice Against a Criminal President (Henry Holt and Co., 2020), reflects on that time versus today and efforts to downplay the crimes of Watergate. Photo: View of US President Richard Nixon (1913 - 1994) talks on the telephone at his desk in the White House's Oval Office, Washington DC, June 23, 1972. Visible behind him are family photos and a bust of Abraham Lincoln. (Photo by the White House Photo Office/PhotoQuest/Getty Images) Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

It's been more than 50 years since President Richard Nixon resigned over the Watergate scandal.  On Today's Show:Jill Wine-Banks, legal analyst, former Watergate special prosecutor, co-host of the podcasts "#Sistersinlaw" and "Just the Facts" and the author of The Watergate Girl: My Fight for Truth and Justice Against a Criminal President (Henry Holt and Co., 2020), reflects on that time and the efforts to downplay the crimes of Watergate. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

In 1971, President Richard Nixon signed the National Cancer Act, transforming cancer research with an unprecedented federal investment and launching what became known as the War on Cancer. The legislation did not emerge from scientific discovery alone. It was the culmination of decades of relentless advocacy by researchers, philanthropists, journalists, and patients who believed cancer demanded the same national commitment that had put astronauts on the Moon.This episode traces the origins of the cancer survivorship movement by returning to a time when cancer was rarely discussed in public, many physicians withheld diagnoses from their patients, and surgery offered few lasting cures. It follows the pioneering work of pathologist Dr. Sidney Farber, whose early chemotherapy research challenged conventional thinking, and Mary Lasker, whose political strategy, fundraising, and public campaigns helped transform cancer from a private tragedy into a national public health priority. Together, they built the coalition that reshaped federal support for oncology research and forever changed the relationship between science, government, and the American public.The story then turns to journalist and breast cancer survivor Rose Kushner, whose refusal to accept the standard one-step radical mastectomy challenged nearly a century of surgical dogma. Working alongside surgeon Dr. Bernard Fisher, Kushner helped bring evidence-based medicine to breast cancer treatment through randomized clinical trials that demonstrated less invasive surgery could achieve equivalent outcomes. Their efforts changed clinical practice, strengthened informed consent, and helped establish the principle that patients should participate in decisions about their own care.The breakthroughs explored in this episode extended far beyond new treatments. They redefined the role of patients in medicine, accelerated clinical research, and laid the foundation for modern cancer survivorship. The movement that followed would not simply help more people live longer. It would change what surviving cancer meant.RELATED LINKSNational Cancer Institute⁠National Cancer Act of 1971⁠American Cancer Society⁠Dana-Farber Cancer Institute⁠National Library of Medicine⁠The New England Journal of Medicine⁠FEEDBACKLike this episode? Rate and review The Cancer Mavericks: A History of Survivorship on your favorite podcast platform. For more information, visit CancerMavericks.com. Please send any questions to podcasts@matthewzachary.com.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Jeff was joined by EPA Region 10 Administrator Emma Pokon. They discuss her background working in Alaska including as commissioner for the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation, how she came to be appointed as Region 10 administrator by President Donald Trump, what her job entails, the role EPA plays in Alaska, why President Richard Nixon created the EPA, what the Sackett decision means for the waters of  the United States, and what the Trump administration is doing different than the Biden administration.  

As Kathy and I toured Richard Nixon's Presidential Library, we learned a more complete picture on this complicated man and time in history. Many believe Watergate wasn't President Nixon's biggest problem; it was the cover up.   Some doubt President Nixon even knew about Watergate before it happened. But his lies and deception made the cover up far more harmful than the Watergate break-in itself, destroying his presidency.  King David knew about sin and cover ... The post The Cover Up appeared first on Unconventional Business Network.

A fifth-grader wrote to President Richard Nixon in 1971 about school desegregation — and got a reply. That girl grew up to build a 40-year career as a litigation paralegal, most recently at Daggett Shuler Attorneys at Law in Winston-Salem, where her work earned her NCAJ's Robbie Price Award at Convention this year. In conversation with host Amber Nimocks, Rana D. Holcomb traces her path from an outspoken kid to a trial-prep specialist who mastered the rules of evidence and court. She also describes decades of volunteer work with Stop Child Abuse Now and family services, the networking that drew her to NCAJ's early paralegal committee, and her advice for paralegals just starting out.

No American or foreign leader has met with as many sitting U.S. presidents as Queen Elizabeth II. Her 70-year reign witnessed the highs and lows of the close and crucial alliance between the United States and the United Kingdom, from the Suez crisis to Brexit. Following the advice of her mentor, Winston Churchill, to “stay close to the Americans,” Queen Elizabeth played an unexpected role behind the scenes that has never been thoroughly explored. Susan Page changes that with her new book The Queen and Her Presidents: The Hidden Hand That Shaped History. Described as “The Crown” meets “The West Wing,” it chronicles the largely unknown story of Queen Elizabeth II's relationship with 13 American presidents, from Harry S. Truman to Donald J. Trump. With that, she changed the world. Veteran political reporter Susan Page goes beyond the image of a staid monarch in colorful hats to reveal a skilled strategist, who, like many powerful women, was routinely underestimated and discounted. She also shows the impact American presidents had on the monarch as she developed from a shy, anxious princess to a powerful and persuasive global leader, and analyzes both the reach and the limits of the “soft power” she wielded. These accounts of the Queen's deft diplomacy provide candid and telling assessments of her partners in the Oval Office as well. What was the reality of the relationship between Donald Trump and Queen Elizabeth? What did the Queen and Barack Obama think about each other? How did she navigate between Ronald Reagan and her own prime minister, Margaret Thatcher? And what about Richard Nixon seeking the Queen's help during Watergate—and even wanting to make her a relative? Join us for a fascinating discussion about an often underestimated figure who played a big role in the history of the United States and Britain. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Gaius and Germanicus: Gaius opens by detailing the "emperor's" use of artificial intelligence to project heroic imagery—such as appearing as George Washington or a revolutionary leader—despite polling lower than Richard Nixon during his resignation. Germanicus counters that the United States has evolved into a "mature emperor system" that lacks the "Augustan model" of restraint. He argues that unlike Rome, which rewarded altruism and excised narcissists like Nero, the American system now elevates narcissistic candidates who are "mentally incontinent" and incapable of good decision-making. He cites the continued proxy war in Ukraine and the conflict with Iran as evidence of a leadership "detached from reality" that refuses to acknowledge strategic defeat. (1)1819

In The Londinium Chronicles, Gaius (John Batchelor) and Germanicus (Michael Vlahos) explore the intersections of Roman history and modern geopolitics.Gaius and Germanicus: Gaius opens by detailing the "emperor's" use of artificial intelligence to project heroic imagery—such as appearing as George Washington or a revolutionary leader—despite polling lower than Richard Nixon during his resignation. Germanicus counters that the United States has evolved into a "mature emperor system" that lacks the "Augustan model" of restraint. He argues that unlike Rome, which rewarded altruism and excised narcissists like Nero, the American system now elevates narcissistic candidates who are "mentally incontinent" and incapable of good decision-making. He cites the continued proxy war in Ukraine and the conflict with Iran as evidence of a leadership "detached from reality" that refuses to acknowledge strategic defeat. (1)1969 KISSINGER AND NIXON  AND HALDEMAN

In Episode 14 of the Noss Gold Treasure, the investigation shifts to the early 1970s as President Richard Nixon positions himself to gain access to the vast fortune hidden inside Victorio Peak. The episode explores a pivotal July 6, 1970 meeting at Nixon's Western White House in San Clemente, California, where geologist Keith Alexander—representing a coalition of treasure hunters known as the "Filthy 50"—met with Nixon and Domestic Affairs Advisor John Ehrlichman. Alexander revealed secret knowledge of 742 gold bars weighing 40 to 50 pounds each (totaling over 3 million troy ounces) stockpiled at White Sands, seeking executive immunity and an official agreement to monetize the gold through the U.S. Mint.Three days after the San Clemente meeting, Ehrlichman dispatched a personal memorandum to Treasury Secretary David M. Kennedy inquiring how the group could legally recover and sell the treasure. On July 17, 1970, Secretary Kennedy responded with an accommodating roadmap, noting that no federal license was required to search for or possess buried treasure, while proposing a 50/50 split with the government based on the prior Fort Huachuca precedent. However, when Kennedy proved too rigid regarding strict regulatory compliance, Nixon replaced him on February 11, 1971, with former Texas Governor John Connally—a close associate of Lyndon B. Johnson and an alleged co-incorporator of the LaRue Corporation, an entity formed in 1967 to manage and launder Victorio Peak gold proceeds.The episode then unpacks one of the most consequential economic maneuvers in modern American history: Nixon's live televised address on Sunday, August 15, 1971, closing the gold window and ending the direct convertibility of U.S. dollars into gold. By dismantling the Bretton Woods monetary system, Nixon eliminated international audits and physical reserve accountability, effectively creating a systemic blind spot where missing national reserves or illicitly extracted military gold could no longer be tracked or audited.Connecting internal White House memorandums, Treasury Department correspondence, corporate records, and Watergate-era disclosures, Episode 14 details how Nixon installed key gatekeepers and altered global monetary policy to set the stage for the massive thefts that followed. From San Clemente to the Oval Office, this episode exposes how presidential authority and monetary policy intersected with the covert plundering of America's most controversial treasure. Join us for this latest episode as we tell the story so well documented by  author John Clarence.

FAN MAIL--We would love YOUR feedback--Send us a Text MessageThey told Richard Nixon his career was over. Then they told him again. He proved them wrong twice and, for a moment, he looked unstoppable. I walk through Nixon's political exile after 1960 and 1962, then his return to win the presidency in 1968 and dominate in 1972. The point isn't nostalgia or hero worship. It's a hard look at how comebacks really happen when political elites rush to declare a leader finished, but the “lunch bucket” voters still show up, still work, and still vote. Along the way, I draw a modern parallel to Donald Trump's 2024 comeback after years of investigations, prosecutions, civil suits, and impeachment fights, and why many Americans see that era through the lens of “lawfare” and institutional trust. To understand the country that produced Nixon's return, we go straight to a defining source: Theodore H. White's Pulitzer-winning The Making of a President 1960. White helped invent modern campaign journalism, writing scenes that capture Kennedy's discipline, Nixon's exhaustion, and the first truly television-driven presidential race where looking presidential mattered as much as sounding presidential. We also lay out the pivotal election sequence of 1960, 1964, 1968, and 1972, including how Barry Goldwater's loss plants seeds that later power Nixon and Reagan. Finally, we face the hinge point: Watergate. I explain why White's series couldn't survive Nixon's resignation, why he turns to Breach of Faith, and where we go next with a deeper Watergate dive through Geoff Shepard's trilogy and the argument that scandals can become tools used against future presidents. Key Points from the Episode:  • Nixon's two political “deaths” and the mechanics of a real comeback  • why the Trump 2024 return fuels comparisons about elites, voters and “lawfare”  • Theodore White's The Making of a President 1960 and what it changed in political journalism  • the first TV-era presidential campaign and why “looking presidential” becomes decisive  • how 1960, 1964, 1968 and 1972 map the conservative movement's rise from Goldwater to Nixon to Reagan  • “order” as a winning message for an exhausted country  • Watergate as the turning point that breaks White's series and reshapes trust in institutions  • preview of the upcoming Geoff Shepard's Watergate trilogy coverage and the claim that scandal becomes a political weapon  Other goodnessAmerica's pivotal election series:  https://www.teammojoacademy.com/mm342-pivotal-tuesdays-series-the-election-of-1968-part-1/https://www.teammojoacademy.com/mm343-pivotal-tuesdays-series-the-election-of-1968-part-2/We are building and have built out a whole library of book briefs, just one pager's five-minute read over at the Mojo Book Academy on Substack, mojoacademy.substack.com.  Keep fighting the good fight!

Chuck Todd opens with the Iran war's arrival on American soil: hackers have hit water systems across multiple states in one of the most serious cyberattacks on U.S. water infrastructure in years and investigators probing an Iranian link. Trump's response tells you everything about the presidency in its current state — he didn't blame the attacker, he blamed the victim, using the hack as an occasion to attack Minnesota Democrats. Chuck’s question hangs over the whole segment: was Trump briefed on the Iranian connection and went after Minnesota anyway? Either way, the first instinct was to find a Democrat to blame, which Chuck calls a kind of polarization disease that leaves a president caring more about his narrative than about American citizens drinking the water. It fits a pattern the episode keeps circling: Jeanine Pirro presented false evidence to a grand jury blaming a former Olympian for damage to the White House reflecting pool, dropped the case when Interior produced documents proving otherwise, and Trump publicly disagreed with dropping it because he still insists it was vandals. Chuck argues negative information never reaches Trump, and people who bring him bad news don't last long — which is how you end up with a president insisting affordability is a Democratic scam Then, Chuck highlights a Wall Street Journal piece that lays out Trump's corruption — roughly $800 million raised through what amounts to an advertised pay-to-play scheme. Anti-corruption is a devastating midterm message sitting right there for Democrats to pick up… then Chuck Schumer rolled out a bill that Chuck calls a piece of garbage: it wouldn't even cover the conduct in the WSJ story, it's likely unconstitutional because it names individuals, and — most absurdly — it creates a new anti-corruption agency inside the executive branch, meaning a corrupt president would appoint its director and seven board members and, per the Supreme Court, could fire them at will. Congress can already do every bit of the oversight the agency would perform and Schumer's answer to executive corruption is to hand the executive more power and write Congress out of its own job. He closes on Michigan and Wisconsin as the clearest signals of where the Democratic Party is headed — Abdul El-Sayed running a movement inside a Senate race with the explicit goal of changing the party, DSA-endorsed Francesca Wong leading in Wisconsin while the establishment fails to coordinate against her — and on the DSA's new call to abolish the Senate, which Senate Democrats pushed back on without ever defending the institution. Chuck defends it himself: the Senate is a feature, not a bug, a brake on political extremism, and the right response to losing an argument is to win it rather than rewrite the rules. Then, Dr. Brian King — the former director of the FDA's Center for Tobacco Products, who was placed on administrative leave in April 2025 as part of the mass HHS layoffs joins the Chuck Toddcast to explain what happens to public health when the agency charged with protecting it gets deliberately dismantled. King walks through the extraordinary progress America made reducing cigarette smoking over decades, and how quickly that's being unwound: the tobacco industry donated millions to Trump's PAC, executives pressured the White House directly, and the payoff has been regulatory capture and mounting pressure on the FDA to bring flavored products back to market. He's clear-eyed rather than absolutist on the science — combustible products are far and away the most harmful, nicotine itself is highly addictive but isn't what's killing people, though it's genuinely not risk-free for the adolescent brain — and he walks Chuck through the comparison to caffeine, the data on whether vaping serves as a gateway back into smoking, and what's actually known about nicotine pouches, where youth usage isn't high but stubbornly isn't declining either. The industry, meanwhile, is spending roughly a million dollars an hour advertising its products while fighting every government action to reduce smoking. The conversation turns to what actually works and what's being abandoned. King argues the two most effective interventions available are reducing nicotine levels in cigarettes and banning menthol, credits Congress for getting the Tobacco Control Act right, and stresses that Congress — not the FDA acting alone — has to be the one to regulate tobacco, which is precisely why sidelining the agency is so damaging. He and Chuck get into the questions nobody in Washington wants to answer: why are cigarettes legal at all, how are sugary alcoholic beverages not treated in the same category, and where did the money from the 1998 master settlement actually go. King is pointed that the MAHA movement, for all its rhetoric about chronic disease, has done nothing prominent on tobacco, and that the FDA is now actively undermining both the science and the law it was built to enforce. His closing warning is the bleakest note of the episode: America is in a public health apocalypse that will take decades to repair, it will be enormously hard to recruit a next generation into the field, the entire world will be harmed by the collapse of American public health infrastructure — and the impacts are only just beginning to show up. Finally, Chuck hops into the ToddCast Time Machine to revisit Watergate and Richard Nixon’s resignation, and answers listeners’ questions in the “Ask Chuck” segment. Play ball and swing for the fences on FanDuel, an official partner of the MLB at https://FANDUEL.COM. Protect your family with life insurance from Ethos. Get up to $3 million in coverage in as little as 10 minutes at https://ethos.com/chuck. Application times may vary. Rates may vary. For free and unbiased Medicare help, dial (980) 734-3985 to speak with my trusted partner, Chapter, or go to askchapter.org/chuck /*Paid Partnership Chapter and its affiliates are not connected with or endorsed by any government entity or the federal Medicare program. Chapter Advisory, LLC represents Medicare Advantage HMO, PPO, and PFFS organizations and stand alone prescription drug plans that have a Medicare contract. Enrollment depends on the plan’s contract renewal. While we have a database of every Medicare plan nationwide and can help you to search among all plans, we have contracts with many but not all plans. As a result, we do not offer every plan available in your area. Currently we represent 50 organizations which offer 18,160 products nationwide. We search and recommend all plans, even those we don’t directly offer. You can contact a licensed Chapter agent to find out the number of products available in your specific area. Please contact Medicare.gov, 1-800-Medicare, or your local State Health Insurance Program (SHIP) to get information on all of your options. Timeline: (Timestamps may vary based on advertisements) 00:00 Chuck Todd’s introduction 06:15 The Iran war has become a global conflict 06:45 Once again Trump issues threats, then walks them back 08:15 War is one of biggest strategic mistakes in decades 09:00 Increased gas prices have cost households additional $560 10:30 CISA warns that Iranian hackers are targeting water infrastructure 11:15 Iran could cause unreliability to the American water supply 13:00 Trump used hacking attacks to blame Minnesota Democrats 13:45 Trump didn’t blame the attacker, he blamed the victim 15:30 Jeanine Pirro blamed former Olympian for damage to reflecting pool 16:00 Dept. of Interior had documents proving otherwise, Pirro dropped case 17:00 Pirro presented false evidence to a grand jury 18:30 Trump publicly disagreed with Pirro dropping case, says it was vandals 19:30 Trump’s staff is shielding him from the truth 21:00 Trump’s lack of understanding reality is terrible for him 21:30 Trump’s low approval is a midterm disaster in the making 23:00 Stephanie Grisham says 85% of negative info is kept from Trump 24:15 People who bring Trump bad news don’t last very long 25:30 Republicans aren’t campaigning like things are going well 26:00 Ken Paxton puts out an affordability agenda, looks like a Dem proposal 27:15 Trump still saying affordability is scam made up by Democrats 28:15 Trump can’t understand the reality of the situation 28:45 Was Trump briefed on Iran hack… then attacked Minnesota anyway? 30:00 Trump’s first instinct was to find a Democrat to blame 30:45 Trump is demented with polarization disease 31:15 Trump cares more about his narrative than American citizens 32:15 Trump is bragging about his grifting an Americans are tired of it 33:15 Anti-Corruption is a massively effective midterm strategy 33:45 Chuck Schumer rolls out a stinker of an anti-corruption bill 34:45 WSJ publishes airtight piece about Trump’s overt corruption 35:45 There’s no buffer or plausible deniability for Trump in the corruption story 36:45 Trump is basically advertising that government is a pay to play scheme 37:45 There’s a list of presidential promises for favors that have been bought 38:15 Trump has raised $800m in pay for play schemes with little accounting 39:00 There is no law outlawing a president from raising unlimited money 39:30 Trump is now the biggest alligator in the swamp 40:15 Schumer’s bill is a piece of garbage, why many senators didn’t sign on 41:45 Jamie Raskin is performing oversight, Schumer wants agency to do it for him 42:30 The bill wouldn’t even cover the corruption outlined by the WSJ story 44:00 The bill is unconstitutional because it names individuals 45:00 Laws can target behavior, not individuals. It’d be thrown out in court 45:45 The agency Schumer proposed would live in the executive branch 46:15 Agency to stop a corrupt president would be staffed by the president?? 47:15 SCOTUS says president can fire the heads of exec branch agencies 48:45 If bill passed, Trump would pick agency head and 7 members of board 49:15 Congress can perform all the oversight the proposed agency would do 50:30 Congress could stop all this corruption if it wanted to 52:00 Schumer’s idea is to hand more power to the executive branch??? 54:30 The plan from congress is to write themselves out of oversight? 57:00 Schumer’s bill will never see the light of day 57:45 Michigan & Wisconsin will show where the Democratic party is headed 59:30 Abdul El-Sayed made clear his goal is to change the Democratic party 1:00:15 His campaign is a movement inside a senate race 1:01:00 Francesca Wong in Wisconsin is frontrunner & endorsed by DSA 1:01:45 Establishment hasn’t coordinated well to stop Wong 1:02:15 Movement politicians are usually right about the future, wrong about present 1:03:30 Sometimes the movement comes first, sometimes the coalition does 1:04:00 DSA has become a force, and is now calling for abolishing the senate 1:05:00 Senate democrats pushed back, but didn’t defend the senate 1:05:45 The senate is a feature, not a bug 1:06:30 The senate is a brake on political extremism 1:07:15 The response is to win the argument, not rewrite the rules 1:08:00 Movement nominees are easier to defeat than governing ones 1:14:15 Brian King (FDA center on tobacco) joins the Chuck ToddCast 1:18:00 We made incredible progress reducing cigarette smoking 1:18:30 Tobacco companies donated and received regulatory capture 1:19:15 Flavored vapes appeal more to kids & are problematic 1:20:45 Trump was pressured by executives from tobacco industry 1:21:30 There were multimillion dollar donations to Trump’s PAC 1:23:00 What’s the actual health data on nicotine outside of smoking? 1:23:30 Combustible products are the most harmful 1:24:00 Nicotine is highly addictive but isn’t causing the harm and deaths 1:24:45 Nicotine can harm the adolescent brain, it’s not risk free 1:25:30 Comparing nicotine vs. caffeine 1:27:15 Vaping typically isn’t a gateway back into smoking 1:28:30 There’s been pressure on FDA to bring back flavored products 1:31:00 $1M dollars an hour is being spent advertising tobacco products 1:31:45 Industry has been fighting all government action to reduce smoking 1:33:15 The FDA has been sidelined in the fight against smoking 1:33:45 Why are cigarettes even legal at all? 1:35:15 Tobacco farmers have transitioned to other crops in other countries 1:37:15 Reducing nicotine levels is highly effective 1:37:45 Outlawing menthol is also highly effective 1:39:30 Congress got it right with the Tobacco Control Act 1:41:15 How are sugary alcoholic beverages not in the same category? 1:42:15 What is age gating technology and how does it work? 1:44:15 Do we have good data on usage for people under 18? 1:46:45 Nicotine pouch usage isn’t high amongst kids, but isn’t going down 1:47:15 What is the data about health impacts from pouches? 1:48:45 Nicotine has a strong stimulant effect, helps with attention 1:49:30 Settlement in ‘98 required tobacco companies to pay costs in perpetuity 1:50:00 States have diverted those funds to other purposes 1:51:00 Did the tobacco industry actually take a hit from the settlement? 1:51:45 If still at FDA, what changes would you implement? 1:52:15 FDA has been undermining the science and the law 1:53:15 Effectiveness of banning indoor smoking 1:54:30 Should preventing underage addictions be the north star? 1:56:45 Congress has to regulate tobacco, FDA can’t do it on its own 1:57:30 MAHA hasn’t done anything prominent on tobacco 1:59:45 Is there litigation that could be pursued here? 2:01:00 We’re in a public health apocalypse, will take decades to repair 2:01:45 It will be hard to recruit people into public health 2:03:30 The entire world will be harmed by collapse of American public health 2:05:15 The impacts are just beginning to show up, will get worse 2:07:00 Toddcast Time Machine - The five days that ended Richard Nixon 2:07:30 Nixon resigned 52 years ago, this week 2:08:15 Why is Nixon the only president that paid a price for his corruption? 2:09:15 We tell the story of Watergate backwards and start with resignation 2:10:30 The June arrests weren’t the beginning of Watergate 2:12:15 We don’t know what Nixon’s operation learned before the arrests 2:14:00 We never got full answer on the missing 18 minutes 2:14:45 Supreme Court stayed in session during summer to oversee Watergate 2:15:15 Smoking gun tape goes public six days after the break-in 2:16:00 Nixon needed 34 votes in the senate to survive, only had 16 2:16:45 Impeachment in the house was a foregone conclusion 2:17:15 Senators didn’t demand he resign, just showed Nixon the numbers 2:20:30 How different would history have looked had Nixon survived? 2:21:15 Ask Chuck 2:21:30 Is presidency becoming more powerful in a way that could outlast Trump 2:24:30 Can the U.S. government create a true unbiased media source? 2:28:15 Would mandatory voting create better political participation? 2:32:45 Would Illinois make for a better early primary state? 2:34:30 Why not hold every primary on the same day? 2:36:45 Personal anecdote about AI job displacement and fearSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Chuck Todd opens with the Iran war's arrival on American soil: hackers have hit water systems across multiple states in one of the most serious cyberattacks on U.S. water infrastructure in years and investigators probing an Iranian link. Trump's response tells you everything about the presidency in its current state — he didn't blame the attacker, he blamed the victim, using the hack as an occasion to attack Minnesota Democrats. Chuck’s question hangs over the whole segment: was Trump briefed on the Iranian connection and went after Minnesota anyway? Either way, the first instinct was to find a Democrat to blame, which Chuck calls a kind of polarization disease that leaves a president caring more about his narrative than about American citizens drinking the water. It fits a pattern the episode keeps circling: Jeanine Pirro presented false evidence to a grand jury blaming a former Olympian for damage to the White House reflecting pool, dropped the case when Interior produced documents proving otherwise, and Trump publicly disagreed with dropping it because he still insists it was vandals. Chuck argues negative information never reaches Trump, and people who bring him bad news don't last long — which is how you end up with a president insisting affordability is a Democratic scam Then, Chuck highlights a Wall Street Journal piece that lays out Trump's corruption — roughly $800 million raised through what amounts to an advertised pay-to-play scheme. Anti-corruption is a devastating midterm message sitting right there for Democrats to pick up… then Chuck Schumer rolled out a bill that Chuck calls a piece of garbage: it wouldn't even cover the conduct in the WSJ story, it's likely unconstitutional because it names individuals, and — most absurdly — it creates a new anti-corruption agency inside the executive branch, meaning a corrupt president would appoint its director and seven board members and, per the Supreme Court, could fire them at will. Congress can already do every bit of the oversight the agency would perform and Schumer's answer to executive corruption is to hand the executive more power and write Congress out of its own job. He closes on Michigan and Wisconsin as the clearest signals of where the Democratic Party is headed — Abdul El-Sayed running a movement inside a Senate race with the explicit goal of changing the party, DSA-endorsed Francesca Wong leading in Wisconsin while the establishment fails to coordinate against her — and on the DSA's new call to abolish the Senate, which Senate Democrats pushed back on without ever defending the institution. Chuck defends it himself: the Senate is a feature, not a bug, a brake on political extremism, and the right response to losing an argument is to win it rather than rewrite the rules. Finally, Chuck hops into the ToddCast Time Machine to revisit Watergate and Richard Nixon’s resignation, and answers listeners’ questions in the “Ask Chuck” segment. Play ball and swing for the fences on FanDuel, an official partner of the MLB at https://FANDUEL.COM. Protect your family with life insurance from Ethos. Get up to $3 million in coverage in as little as 10 minutes at https://ethos.com/chuck. Application times may vary. Rates may vary. For free and unbiased Medicare help, dial (980) 734-3985 to speak with my trusted partner, Chapter, or go to askchapter.org/chuck /*Paid Partnership Chapter and its affiliates are not connected with or endorsed by any government entity or the federal Medicare program. Chapter Advisory, LLC represents Medicare Advantage HMO, PPO, and PFFS organizations and stand alone prescription drug plans that have a Medicare contract. Enrollment depends on the plan’s contract renewal. While we have a database of every Medicare plan nationwide and can help you to search among all plans, we have contracts with many but not all plans. As a result, we do not offer every plan available in your area. Currently we represent 50 organizations which offer 18,160 products nationwide. We search and recommend all plans, even those we don’t directly offer. You can contact a licensed Chapter agent to find out the number of products available in your specific area. Please contact Medicare.gov, 1-800-Medicare, or your local State Health Insurance Program (SHIP) to get information on all of your options. Timeline: (Timestamps may vary based on advertisements) 00:00 Chuck Todd’s introduction 06:15 The Iran war has become a global conflict 06:45 Once again Trump issues threats, then walks them back 08:15 War is one of biggest strategic mistakes in decades 09:00 Increased gas prices have cost households additional $560 10:30 CISA warns that Iranian hackers are targeting water infrastructure 11:15 Iran could cause unreliability to the American water supply 13:00 Trump used hacking attacks to blame Minnesota Democrats 13:45 Trump didn’t blame the attacker, he blamed the victim 15:30 Jeanine Pirro blamed former Olympian for damage to reflecting pool 16:00 Dept. of Interior had documents proving otherwise, Pirro dropped case 17:00 Pirro presented false evidence to a grand jury 18:30 Trump publicly disagreed with Pirro dropping case, says it was vandals 19:30 Trump’s staff is shielding him from the truth 21:00 Trump’s lack of understanding reality is terrible for him 21:30 Trump’s low approval is a midterm disaster in the making 23:00 Stephanie Grisham says 85% of negative info is kept from Trump 24:15 People who bring Trump bad news don’t last very long 25:30 Republicans aren’t campaigning like things are going well 26:00 Ken Paxton puts out an affordability agenda, looks like a Dem proposal 27:15 Trump still saying affordability is scam made up by Democrats 28:15 Trump can’t understand the reality of the situation 28:45 Was Trump briefed on Iran hack… then attacked Minnesota anyway? 30:00 Trump’s first instinct was to find a Democrat to blame 30:45 Trump is demented with polarization disease 31:15 Trump cares more about his narrative than American citizens 32:15 Trump is bragging about his grifting an Americans are tired of it 33:15 Anti-Corruption is a massively effective midterm strategy 33:45 Chuck Schumer rolls out a stinker of an anti-corruption bill 34:45 WSJ publishes airtight piece about Trump’s overt corruption 35:45 There’s no buffer or plausible deniability for Trump in the corruption story 36:45 Trump is basically advertising that government is a pay to play scheme 37:45 There’s a list of presidential promises for favors that have been bought 38:15 Trump has raised $800m in pay for play schemes with little accounting 39:00 There is no law outlawing a president from raising unlimited money 39:30 Trump is now the biggest alligator in the swamp 40:15 Schumer’s bill is a piece of garbage, why many senators didn’t sign on 41:45 Jamie Raskin is performing oversight, Schumer wants agency to do it for him 42:30 The bill wouldn’t even cover the corruption outlined by the WSJ story 44:00 The bill is unconstitutional because it names individuals 45:00 Laws can target behavior, not individuals. It’d be thrown out in court 45:45 The agency Schumer proposed would live in the executive branch 46:15 Agency to stop a corrupt president would be staffed by the president?? 47:15 SCOTUS says president can fire the heads of exec branch agencies 48:45 If bill passed, Trump would pick agency head and 7 members of board 49:15 Congress can perform all the oversight the proposed agency would do 50:30 Congress could stop all this corruption if it wanted to 52:00 Schumer’s idea is to hand more power to the executive branch??? 54:30 The plan from congress is to write themselves out of oversight? 57:00 Schumer’s bill will never see the light of day 57:45 Michigan & Wisconsin will show where the Democratic party is headed 59:30 Abdul El-Sayed made clear his goal is to change the Democratic party 1:00:15 His campaign is a movement inside a senate race 1:01:00 Francesca Wong in Wisconsin is frontrunner & endorsed by DSA 1:01:45 Establishment hasn’t coordinated well to stop Wong 1:02:15 Movement politicians are usually right about the future, wrong about present 1:03:30 Sometimes the movement comes first, sometimes the coalition does 1:04:00 DSA has become a force, and is now calling for abolishing the senate 1:05:00 Senate democrats pushed back, but didn’t defend the senate 1:05:45 The senate is a feature, not a bug 1:06:30 The senate is a brake on political extremism 1:07:15 The response is to win the argument, not rewrite the rules 1:08:00 Movement nominees are easier to defeat than governing ones 1:13:30 Toddcast Time Machine - The five days that ended Richard Nixon 1:14:00 Nixon resigned 52 years ago, this week 1:14:45 Why is Nixon the only president that paid a price for his corruption? 1:15:45 We tell the story of Watergate backwards and start with resignation 1:17:00 The June arrests weren’t the beginning of Watergate 1:18:45 We don’t know what Nixon’s operation learned before the arrests 1:20:30 We never got full answer on the missing 18 minutes 1:21:15 Supreme Court stayed in session during summer to oversee Watergate 1:21:45 Smoking gun tape goes public six days after the break-in 1:22:30 Nixon needed 34 votes in the senate to survive, only had 16 1:23:15 Impeachment in the house was a foregone conclusion 1:23:45 Senators didn’t demand he resign, just showed Nixon the numbers 1:27:00 How different would history have looked had Nixon survived? 1:27:45 Ask Chuck 1:28:00 Is presidency becoming more powerful in a way that could outlast Trump 1:31:00 Can the U.S. government create a true unbiased media source? 1:34:45 Would mandatory voting create better political participation? 1:39:15 Would Illinois make for a better early primary state? 1:41:00 Why not hold every primary on the same day? 1:43:15 Personal anecdote about AI job displacement and fearSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Cold War wasn't fought only with missiles.It was also fought with supermarkets, television cameras, vodka, and a simple paper cup filled with Pepsi.This month, Tracing The Path follows the surprising chain of events that led an American soft drink behind the Iron Curtain—and a Russian vodka into American liquor stores.Along the way you'll discover the forgotten friendship between Russia and the United States, the invention of videotape by Ampex, the famous Kitchen Debate between Richard Nixon and Nikita Khrushchev, the 1959 American National Exhibition in Moscow, and the remarkable business deal that briefly made Pepsi the owner of the world's seventh-largest navy.It's the story of how commerce, technology, and ordinary consumer products accomplished what politics often could not.And why, decades later, Vladimir Putin chose to reverse nearly all of it.

You’re listening to American Ground Radio with Stephen Parr and Louis R. Avallone. This is the full show for July 23, 2026. We open with Texas Democratic Senate candidate James Tallarico's reparations proposal — made at a July 20 campaign event in DeSoto — calling for tuition relief, homeownership grants, and government-funded baby bonds for Black Texans, all in the name of repairing past harms. We walk through everything he left undefined: who qualifies, what the eligibility standard is, where the funding comes from, and what the total cost would be. We also walk through the genealogical reality of a multiracial nation — including the head of the NAACP who discovered she had an ancestor on the Mayflower, and the uncomfortable question of what happens when the same family tree contains both slaveholders and slaves. We make the theological point that a grievance machine with no limiting principle is not a policy. It is a dependency engine. The debt of slavery was paid — Lincoln said so, and the Civil War proved it at a cost of more American lives than any conflict before or since. The answer is not racial accounting. It is equal citizenship, strong families, honest education, safe communities, and a culture that celebrates achievement instead of grievance. In our Top 3, first-time unemployment claims dropped to 187,000 — the lowest level since 1969 under Richard Nixon, coming in 22,000 below the prior week and well under what economists had projected. Fewer layoffs means steadier families. Then a member of Vice President J.D. Vance's Secret Service protective detail was suspended and placed under criminal investigation for allegedly leaking operational security information to the media — specifically complaining about unpredictable travel schedules. A Secret Service agent who can't keep a secret should not be in the Secret Service. And New York City landlords filed a lawsuit against the Mamdani administration's rent freeze — arguing that the Rent Guidelines Board was packed with political allies who then manipulated their own data to justify a two-year freeze on rents for more than a million tenants. We explain what rent freezes actually produce: slumlords, abandoned buildings, and a housing stock that deteriorates because owners cannot raise revenue to maintain it. We also cover two men stabbed in an unprovoked attack on New York City's Upper West Side — the attacker reportedly shouting Allahu Akbar — one victim Asian, one wearing a yarmulke. We note that Mamdani's response to antisemitic violence in his city is to promise to arrest Benjamin Netanyahu. We connect the violence to a broader point: when leadership sets a tone of weakness, confusion, and ideological hate, this is the inevitable result. Our American Mamas Terry Netterville and Kimberly Burleson tackle the question of whether wives say things to their husbands that would devastate them if said in return — and the answer is an unambiguous yes. Terry admits she tells Kevin his hair is dirty, that he can't wear that outfit, and that mowing the lawn is his job — while acknowledging that if Kevin said any of those things to her it would ruin her day. The conversation becomes a warm, funny, and surprisingly insightful look at how different couples absorb criticism differently, why the way you're raised shapes what you can and cannot say to your spouse, and what happens when a wife goes on strike to make everyone appreciate what she does. We discuss Sophie Cunningham of the Indiana Fever — who has gone public in defense of women's sports, saying truth matters, biological sex has consequences in competition, and that protecting the integrity of women's athletics is not hatred of anyone. We make the point she is actually making: you can treat transgender people with dignity and still say that female sports should be reserved for biological women. Those two things are not in conflict. They are the only coherent position. In our Digging Deep segment, Secretary of State Marco Rubio gave what may be the clearest explanation of the Trump Doctrine we have ever heard — summarizing it in one line: Iran says eye for an eye. Trump says a head for an eye. We unpack the game theory behind it — tit for tat with disproportionate response. If you are nice to Trump, he is nice back in equal measure. If you are mean to Trump, he will be worse to you than you could ever possibly imagine. Iran fires on one tanker, the U.S. takes out a port, a tower, and every radar site in reach. Iran fires on two tankers, the U.S. goes on a 12-day bombing campaign eliminating bridges in and out of the country. The mullahs keep acting confused. The reason is they have never seen anything like this from an American president. Rubio also shared that Iran is sending messages through third countries every day begging to make a deal — but every deal they make, they either break or try to renegotiate. They are not ready yet. They will be. We also cover Ted Cruz's prediction that Zoran Mamdani will become the next U.S. senator from New York — replacing Chuck Schumer, who Cruz believes can no longer win a Democratic primary in the state — and that Mamdani is the single most powerful Democrat in America right now. We connect it to AOC leading New Hampshire polling for the 2028 Democratic presidential nomination, and to DSA-backed candidates winning primaries across the country. For our Bright Spot, a new Empire Center for Public Policy survey — conducted in New York, one of the most left-leaning states in the country — found that only 24% of respondents prioritize reducing greenhouse gas emissions over lower energy prices, 63% oppose mandatory home heating electrification, and 60% oppose letting individuals sue oil companies for climate change. The noisy minority demanding zero fossil fuels, electric heat mandates, and climate lawsuits does not represent most Americans — even in New York. That is common sense, and common sense is always a bright spot. We also cover the Houthis attacking two Saudi oil tankers — Iran's last meaningful proxy after Hamas was decimated by Israel and Hezbollah was severely weakened — and make the strategic case that doing the hard thing now makes tomorrow easier. Letting Iran build nuclear weapons capable of reaching Europe would have made tomorrow catastrophically harder. And we close with two-year-old Lucy Moline, who heard that her five-year-old sister Emma needed a bone marrow transplant after a rare disease stopped her bone marrow from producing red blood cells — and volunteered to be the donor because she wanted to be brave and help her sister. The transplant worked. Emma is cured. Is there anything better than sisters? May your pursuit of happiness bring you joy. Listen now wherever you get your podcasts, visit AmericanGroundRadio.com, and join the conversation at 866-AGR-1776!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We're continuing our summer series with an episode about the state of the church, highlighting favorite conversations from The Bulletin archive. Daniel Silliman, Russell Moore, and Mike Cosper discuss trends in Americans' religiosity and spirituality from a 2025 Pew survey. Then, Beth Moore joins the show to talk about the importance of Sunday School for adults, and why small groups may not be meeting the same needs. Finally, church planter and author of the book The Reason for Church Brad Edwards sits down with Mike to talk about why he encouraged his congregation to briefly stop inviting others to church, the danger of viewing church as a vehicle for Christian self-actualization, and why physical participation in the gospel narrative is vital. REFERENCED IN THE SHOW: The Hartford Institute for Religion Research's report on congregational health since the pandemic. GO DEEPER WITH THE BULLETIN: Join the conversation at our Substack. Find us on YouTube. Rate and review the show in your podcast app of choice. ABOUT THE GUESTS: Daniel Silliman is a journalist and a historian. He is the news editor for Christianity Today, the author of a religious biography of Richard Nixon, and a teacher of humanities at Milligan University. Beth Moore is a dynamic teacher whose conferences take her across the globe. She has written numerous best-selling books and Bible studies. She is also the founder and visionary of Living Proof Ministries, based in Houston. Brad Edwards is the lead pastor and church planter of The Table Church in Lafayette, Colorado. He is a regular contributor to Mere Orthodoxy and The Gospel Coalition, and he cohosts the podcast PostEverything. He is Christianity Today's 2025 Book of the Year winner for his book The Reason for Church. ABOUT THE BULLETIN: The Bulletin is a twice-weekly news analysis podcast from Christianity Today, with editor-at-large Russell Moore. Each episode offers commentary on current events and headlining news with a roundtable of premier guests, and shares a Christian perspective on issues that are shaping our world The Bulletin listeners get 25% off CT. Go to https://orderct.com/THEBULLETIN to learn more. “The Bulletin” is a production of Christianity Today Host: Alexa Copeland Associate Producer: Alexa Copeland Editing and Mix: Kevin Morris Graphic Design: Rick Szuecs Music: Dan Phelps Executive Producer: Erik Petrik Senior Producer: Matt Stevens Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Julia Azari, Professor of Political Science at Marquette University, has a new, award-winning[*] book centering on the connection between race and the American presidency, specifically in the reaction to presidents who made progress on the issue of race in the United States. Backlash Presidents: From Transformative to Reactionary Leaders in American History focuses on four different periods in American political history and a number of different presidential administrations including: Abraham Lincoln, Andrew Johnson, Lyndon B. Johnson, Richard M. Nixon, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, Barack Obama and Donald J. Trump. Race and the American presidency are not usually topics that are looped together, and this is also part of the point that Azari is making in the book, since presidents often try to elide racial politics and policy issues. Race is also not usually connected to presidential impeachments, but this is yet another key point that Azari raises, connecting racial progress, the backlash responses, and the subsequent impeachments. In noting these connections, Azari threads examples over time where presidents directly confronted race in American politics, working towards more racial equality, and how these efforts also prompt a backlash response. The key case studies in Backlash Presidents are Abraham Lincoln, the Emancipation Proclamation and the Civil War in the 1860s, Lyndon Johnson's efforts in the 1960s in regard to the Voting Rights Act and the Civil Rights Act, as well as anti-poverty legislation, and finally Barack Obama as the first Black president of the United States, which was both symbolic and structural. Backlash Presidents traces not only the progress made during these administrations, but also the responses that followed in the subsequent administrations. It is these next administrations, of Andrew Johnson, Richard Nixon, and Donald Trump, where each of these presidents were either impeached or were about to be impeached, and how this dynamic pulls together a variety of different threads to help us to understand presidential politics, institutional development, and American political history all in context of the question of race. Azari's research is connected to the idea of political time, but with the important addition of pulling out the problem of race in the United States. Backlash Presidents contributes to our thinking about not only the time and context of presidents and their administrations, but also to thinking about what it is that presidents do to politics itself. Part of this analysis also interrogates populism, positioning these movements within the context of racial backlash, while also building out the understanding of the president's position within his own party, especially during these fraught periods. In each of the key examples, Azari highlights the ways in which Johnson, Nixon, and Trump were outsiders to what was going on inside their parties—in each case the Republican Party at the time—and how these shifting partisan foundations opened up different kinds of vulnerabilities for these presidents. In each of the case studies, there is also the discussion of the role that the U.S. Congress plays, since they are the actors who move towards impeaching and trying the president. Members of the House of Representatives need to move beyond constraints in order to impeach a president, and in these instances, they have concluded that the president is not correct in some basic and meaningful way, that the president is not upholding his oath of office, and is also undermining the forward movement on race and racial equality. Backlash Presidents: From Transformation to Reactionary Leaders in American History is a deeply researched analysis, with important historical context and details to help flesh out the particular time period under consideration. The examination is further complicated and built out with important understandings of party politics in the United States, and how president fits into their political party, or may be seen as an outsider. Racial dynamics in the United States undergirds the entire theory, and helps us see the tensions within partisan politics, presidential politics, and American democracy. Lilly J. Goren is a professor of political science at Carroll University in Waukesha, WI. She is co-host of the New Books in Political Science channel at the New Books Network. She is co-editor of The Politics of the Marvel Cinematic Universe Volume I: The Infinity Saga (University Press of Kansas, 2022), and of The Politics of the Marvel Cinematic Universe Volume II: Into the Multiverse (University Press of Kansas, 2025) as well as co-editor of the award winning book, Women and the White House: Gender, Popular Culture, and Presidential Politics (University Press of Kentucky, 2012). She can be reached @gorenlj.bsky.social [*] The Presidents and Executive Politics Section of the American Political Science Association awarded Backlash Presidents the 2025 Richard E. Neustadt Best Book Award, given for the best book on executive politics published during the year. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

Julia Azari, Professor of Political Science at Marquette University, has a new, award-winning[*] book centering on the connection between race and the American presidency, specifically in the reaction to presidents who made progress on the issue of race in the United States. Backlash Presidents: From Transformative to Reactionary Leaders in American History focuses on four different periods in American political history and a number of different presidential administrations including: Abraham Lincoln, Andrew Johnson, Lyndon B. Johnson, Richard M. Nixon, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, Barack Obama and Donald J. Trump. Race and the American presidency are not usually topics that are looped together, and this is also part of the point that Azari is making in the book, since presidents often try to elide racial politics and policy issues. Race is also not usually connected to presidential impeachments, but this is yet another key point that Azari raises, connecting racial progress, the backlash responses, and the subsequent impeachments. In noting these connections, Azari threads examples over time where presidents directly confronted race in American politics, working towards more racial equality, and how these efforts also prompt a backlash response. The key case studies in Backlash Presidents are Abraham Lincoln, the Emancipation Proclamation and the Civil War in the 1860s, Lyndon Johnson's efforts in the 1960s in regard to the Voting Rights Act and the Civil Rights Act, as well as anti-poverty legislation, and finally Barack Obama as the first Black president of the United States, which was both symbolic and structural. Backlash Presidents traces not only the progress made during these administrations, but also the responses that followed in the subsequent administrations. It is these next administrations, of Andrew Johnson, Richard Nixon, and Donald Trump, where each of these presidents were either impeached or were about to be impeached, and how this dynamic pulls together a variety of different threads to help us to understand presidential politics, institutional development, and American political history all in context of the question of race. Azari's research is connected to the idea of political time, but with the important addition of pulling out the problem of race in the United States. Backlash Presidents contributes to our thinking about not only the time and context of presidents and their administrations, but also to thinking about what it is that presidents do to politics itself. Part of this analysis also interrogates populism, positioning these movements within the context of racial backlash, while also building out the understanding of the president's position within his own party, especially during these fraught periods. In each of the key examples, Azari highlights the ways in which Johnson, Nixon, and Trump were outsiders to what was going on inside their parties—in each case the Republican Party at the time—and how these shifting partisan foundations opened up different kinds of vulnerabilities for these presidents. In each of the case studies, there is also the discussion of the role that the U.S. Congress plays, since they are the actors who move towards impeaching and trying the president. Members of the House of Representatives need to move beyond constraints in order to impeach a president, and in these instances, they have concluded that the president is not correct in some basic and meaningful way, that the president is not upholding his oath of office, and is also undermining the forward movement on race and racial equality. Backlash Presidents: From Transformation to Reactionary Leaders in American History is a deeply researched analysis, with important historical context and details to help flesh out the particular time period under consideration. The examination is further complicated and built out with important understandings of party politics in the United States, and how president fits into their political party, or may be seen as an outsider. Racial dynamics in the United States undergirds the entire theory, and helps us see the tensions within partisan politics, presidential politics, and American democracy. Lilly J. Goren is a professor of political science at Carroll University in Waukesha, WI. She is co-host of the New Books in Political Science channel at the New Books Network. She is co-editor of The Politics of the Marvel Cinematic Universe Volume I: The Infinity Saga (University Press of Kansas, 2022), and of The Politics of the Marvel Cinematic Universe Volume II: Into the Multiverse (University Press of Kansas, 2025) as well as co-editor of the award winning book, Women and the White House: Gender, Popular Culture, and Presidential Politics (University Press of Kentucky, 2012). She can be reached @gorenlj.bsky.social [*] The Presidents and Executive Politics Section of the American Political Science Association awarded Backlash Presidents the 2025 Richard E. Neustadt Best Book Award, given for the best book on executive politics published during the year. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/political-science

MeidasTouch host Ben Meiselas reports on Donald Trump panicking as he gets the worst poll in US history that's even worse than Richard Nixon during Watergate and Meiselas speaks with Congressman Chris Pappas who is running for Senate in New Hampshire against MAGA Republican John Sununu. Pre-order the new book from MeidasTouch, WTF America?!: The Way Out of This Hell and Back to Democracy, today: https://bit.ly/wtfamericayoutube Visit https://meidasplus.com for more! Remember to subscribe to ALL the MeidasTouch Network Podcasts: MeidasTouch: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/meidastouch-podcast Legal AF: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/legal-af MissTrial: https://meidasnews.com/tag/miss-trial The PoliticsGirl Podcast: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-politicsgirl-podcast Cult Conversations: The Influence Continuum with Dr. Steve Hassan: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-influence-continuum-with-dr-steven-hassan The Weekend Show: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-weekend-show The Ken Harbaugh Show: https://meidasnews.com/tag/the-ken-harbaugh-show Majority 54: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/majority-54 On Democracy with FP Wellman: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/on-democracy-with-fpwellman Uncovered: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/maga-uncovered Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On June 5, 1963, President John F. Kennedy and Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson made a highly orchestrated visit to White Sands Missile Range. While the official itinerary claimed the 139-minute stop was merely to witness a missile demonstration and inspect an unpaved desert runway known as the Northrup Strip, the reality was far more secretive. The trip—which required nine months of meticulous preparation—was actually an elaborate cover allowing the President and Vice President to personally inspect the Noss treasure at Victoria Peak, located just a five-minute helicopter ride away.Following this secret inspection, a plan was set in motion to settle the decades-long treasure dispute. By November 1963, Ova Noss was waiting at the prestigious Brown Palace Hotel in Denver for a direct meeting with President Kennedy, arranged by Attorney General Robert Kennedy. The plan was for the President to take control of the treasure and finally ensure the Noss family received a fair share. However, on November 22, the tragic news of JFK's assassination in Dallas shattered those hopes. Watching the fateful broadcast, Ova devastatingly realized that once again, getting close to a settlement had been derailed by murder.Even more chilling than the canceled meeting is the military cover-up that concluded just 24 hours before the assassination. During the summer of 1963, the Museum of New Mexico conducted an authorized excavation at Victoria Peak under strict military control. When the museum's archaeologist drafted a truthful report documenting previous military excavations, secret polygraph tests, and Treasury Department involvement, army officials ordered it to be heavily censored. All incriminating evidence was scrubbed from the record, and the falsified report was finalized on November 21, 1963—exactly one day before Kennedy was killed.This episode unravels the haunting six-month timeline leading up to the JFK assassination and explores the dark questions surrounding the military's actions. The censored scientific report didn't just hide past military thefts; it created the plausible deniability that protected Lyndon B. Johnson's upcoming operations. Tune in to discover how the tragedy in Dallas effectively handed the most powerful office in the world to LBJ, paving the way for him to systematically loot the Victoria Peak treasure using military aircraft over the next decade.

American politics and politicians are decidedly lower-character than they used to be. So, how did we get here? And why have voters seemingly lowered their expectations?The New York Times' David French joins the show to discuss Americans' relationship with low-character politicians like Richard Nixon, Bill Clinton, and Donald Trump, and how our major political parties have handled candidates like Ken Paxton and Graham Platner in 2026.Show notes:David French: The Platner Trap

Steve and the crew are joined by Blaze Media editor in chief Christopher Bedford for the Deace Group roundtable to discuss the legacy of the late Senator Lindsey Graham. The panel also discusses the renaissance the late Richard Nixon has enjoyed in recent years. Hour Two is Feedback Friday. TODAY'S SPONSORS: PATRIOT MOBILE: https://patriotmobile.com/STEVE or call 972-PATRIOT for your FREE MONTH of service Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In 1912, an axe killed all eight people sleeping in a Villisca, Iowa farmhouse, and the two men suspected of it — a traveling preacher and a business rival — both walked free.EPISODE BLOG PAGE (includes sources): https://weirddarkness.com/VilliscaReverendRivalREAD or DOWNLOAD the full transcript of this episode: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/2p84usw4FEATURED STORIES IN THIS EPISODE: Conspiracy theories, while often dark, can also be kind of humorous due to being so outlandishly unbelievable. For example… is the Earth's moon artificial, and actually an extraterrestrial spaceship? We'll look at the strange theory. (Could Our Moon Be An Alien Spaceship?) *** In 1912 one of the most brutal slayings in America took place in the small town of Villisca, Iowa… a murder so brutal that numerous documentaries have been made about it, books have been written, and amateur detectives have poured over the facts and suspects still trying to find out who the murderer was that swung the bloody axe. (The Unsolved Villisca Ax Murders) *** The President of the United States, no matter who is in the position at the time, is always in danger from those who would like to see someone else in office. We'll hear on the news of the assassination attempts that came close, but we more often than not are completely unaware of the attempts and plans that have been thwarted – and some of those attempts to kill a sitting U.S. President have been extremely bizarre. (Bizarre Assassination Attempts on U.S. Presidents) *** Some Biblical accounts seem unbelievable and we tend to dismiss them as fantasies, or dreams of the person writing the events down. But what if some of the strange creatures described in the bible are actually real – but come from another dimension, or even outer space? (Are Extraterrestrials in the Bible?) *** If you are told there is a city that has been built specifically for the dead, you probably think of some ancient culture that worshipped their ancestors. Personally, I think of pyramids in Egypt… but I never would've thought of the suburbs in California, USA. (California's City of the Dead)CHAPTERS & TIME STAMPS (All Times Approximate)…00:00:00.000 = Show Open00:02:33.183 = Could Our Moon Be An Alien Spaceship?00:08:21.362 = The Unsolved Villisca Axe Murders ***00:20:59.742 = California's City of the Dead00:31:12.990 = Are Extraterrestrials in the Bible? ***00:39:47.780 = Bizarre Assassination Attempts on U.S. Presidents00:48:06.915 = Show Close*** = Begins immediately after inserted ad breakLISTEN ON PODCAST APPS: Look for this podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeart Radio, Amazon Music, Pandora, TuneIn Radio, and other podcast apps. Get a list of free listening apps here: https://weirddarkness.com/wdapps*No AI Voices Are Used In The Narration Of This Podcast*SOURCES and RESOURCES:“Could Our Moon Be An Alien Spaceship?” posted at Anomalien.com: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/bdhz5563“The Unsolved Villisca Ax Murders” by Joe Turner for HistoricMysteries.com: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/2p8mnfp6, and from HauntedRoom.com: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/36b6k2h4“California's City of the Dead” by Hugh Landman for Ranker.com's Graveyard Shift:https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/yckrxjzd“Are Extraterrestrials in the Bible?” by Ellen Lloyd for AncientPages.com: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/mr3d8dpk“Bizarre Assassination Attempts on U.S. Presidents” by Richard Stockton for AllThatsInteresting.com: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/26avtuhr(Over time links may become invalid, disappear, or have different content. I always make sure to give authors credit for the material I use whenever possible. If I somehow overlooked doing so for a story, or if a credit is incorrect, please let me know and I will rectify it in these show notes immediately. Some links included above may benefit me financially through qualifying purchases.)WeirdDarkness® is a registered trademark. Copyright ©2026, Weird Darkness.Originally aired: January, 2022This episode of Weird Darkness runs from a Cold War theory that the Moon is a hollow alien spacecraft, through the 1912 Villisca ax murders that left eight people dead in a single Iowa night, into the California cemetery city of Colma where the dead outnumber the living a thousand to one, on to a former NASA engineer's claim that the prophet Ezekiel witnessed a UFO, and closing with some of the strangest attempts ever made on the lives of sitting U.S. presidents.It opens with the Spaceship Moon Theory, proposed in July of 1970 by Soviet Academy of Sciences members Michael Vasin and Alexander Shcherbakov, who argued the Moon is a hollowed-out planetoid engineered by unknown beings and steered into Earth's orbit. Darren walks through the claims stacked behind the idea — the Moon ringing like a bell for more than an hour after the Apollo 12 crew crashed their lunar module into it on November 20th, 1969, craters of wildly different widths that all share the same shallow depth, moon rocks dated older than the Earth itself, and the near-perfect circular orbit that lets the Moon exactly cover the Sun during an eclipse.From there the episode turns to Villisca, Iowa, and the night of June 9th, 1912, when someone entered the home of Josiah and Sarah Moore and killed all six members of the family along with two young house guests, Lena and Ina Stillinger, striking each victim with an axe as they slept. Darren lays out the crime scene that neighbor Mary Peckham and Josiah's brother Ross discovered the next morning — cloth draped over the mirrors, two cigarette butts in the attic, a slab of bacon left beside the Stillinger girls, and a bloody basin in the kitchen — and the suspects who never brought closure, from traveling minister Reverend George Kelly, who spoke of eight dead bodies before the news broke and later gave a confession the court dismissed, to Josiah's embittered business rival Frank Jones. More than a century on, the boarded-up house survives as a museum where investigators report a heaviness on the stairs, drifting fog, and the sound of dripping blood after the 2 a.m. train whistle.Next the show travels to Colma, California, the suburb built for the dead, where roughly 1,600 living residents share the ground with more than 1.5 million graves across 17 cemeteries. Darren traces how San Francisco banned burials in 1900 and evicted its dead, triggering the largest grave relocation in history after the 1906 earthquake, with more than 150,000 bodies hauled south and tens of thousands reburied in mass graves when families wouldn't pay the ten-dollar transfer fee. He points out the famous names resting there — Wyatt Earp, Levi Strauss, William Randolph Hearst, Joe DiMaggio, brain-injury case Phineas Gage, and self-declared Emperor of the United States Joshua Norton — alongside the darker footnotes of looted skeletons, discarded headstones repurposed as gutters and seawalls, and the town's own gallows-humor slogan, "it's great to be alive in Colma."The episode then examines whether extraterrestrials appear in the Bible, centering on the vision of the prophet Ezekiel by the river Chebar and the four winged creatures with human hands, calf-shaped feet, and four faces that rose out of a fiery whirlwind. Darren details how former NASA chief engineer Joseph F. Blumrich, honored in 1972 for his work on the Saturn and Apollo programs, set out to disprove Erich von Däniken's ancient-astronaut claims and instead became convinced, arguing in his book The Spaceships of Ezekiel that the prophet had described a landing spacecraft — rotor blades, fairing housings, landing legs with round footpads, and remote mechanical arms rendered in the only words an ancient man had for them.The episode closes with a run of bizarre presidential assassination attempts, from John Hinckley's 1981 shooting of Ronald Reagan over an obsession with actress Jodie Foster, to the 2013 ricin letters mailed to the Obama White House by a man framing an Elvis impersonator over an online feud, to truck driver Samuel Byck's 1974 plot to hijack a DC-9 and crash it into the White House to kill Richard Nixon. Darren ends on the two women who tried to kill Gerald Ford seventeen days apart in September of 1974 — Manson follower Lynette Fromme, who never chambered a round, and Sarah Jane Moore, whose shot missed by six inches because her replacement revolver's sights were misaligned.

This groundbreaking book chronicles the little-understood evolution of the neoconservative movement—from its birth as a rogue insurgency in the Nixon White House through its ascent to full and controversial control of America's foreign policy in the Bush years. In eye-opening detail, The Forty Years War documents the neocons' four-decade campaign to seize the reins of American foreign policy: the undermining of Richard Nixon's outreach to the Communist bloc nations; the success at halting détente during the Ford and Carter years; the uneasy but effectual alliance with Ronald Reagan; and the determined, and ultimately successful, campaign to overthrow Saddam Hussein—no matter the cost.Drawing upon recently declassified documents, hundreds of hours of interviews, and long-obscured White House tapes, The Forty Years War delves into the political and intellectual development of some of the most fascinating political figures of the last four decades. It describes the complex, three-way relationship of Richard Nixon, Henry Kissinger, and Alexander Haig, and unravels the actions of Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney, and Paul Wolfowitz over the course of seven presidencies. And it reveals the role of the mysterious Pentagon official Fritz Kraemer, a monocle-wearing German expatriate whose unshakable faith in military power, distrust of diplomacy, moralistic faith in American goodness, and warnings against "provocative weakness" made him the hidden geopolitical godfather of the neocon movement. The authors' insights into Kraemer's influence on the neocons—will change the public understanding of the conduct of government in our time.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-opperman-report--1198501/support.

This groundbreaking book chronicles the little-understood evolution of the neoconservative movement—from its birth as a rogue insurgency in the Nixon White House through its ascent to full and controversial control of America's foreign policy in the Bush years. In eye-opening detail, The Forty Years War documents the neocons' four-decade campaign to seize the reins of American foreign policy: the undermining of Richard Nixon's outreach to the Communist bloc nations; the success at halting détente during the Ford and Carter years; the uneasy but effectual alliance with Ronald Reagan; and the determined, and ultimately successful, campaign to overthrow Saddam Hussein—no matter the cost.Drawing upon recently declassified documents, hundreds of hours of interviews, and long-obscured White House tapes, The Forty Years War delves into the political and intellectual development of some of the most fascinating political figures of the last four decades. It describes the complex, three-way relationship of Richard Nixon, Henry Kissinger, and Alexander Haig, and unravels the actions of Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney, and Paul Wolfowitz over the course of seven presidencies. And it reveals the role of the mysterious Pentagon official Fritz Kraemer, a monocle-wearing German expatriate whose unshakable faith in military power, distrust of diplomacy, moralistic faith in American goodness, and warnings against "provocative weakness" made him the hidden geopolitical godfather of the neocon movement. The authors' insights into Kraemer's influence on the neocons—will change the public understanding of the conduct of government in our time.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-opperman-report--1198501/support.

Longtime listeners of The Remnant know well Jonah Goldberg's hatred of the extremist, oligarchic, necromantic political conclaves holding our nation hostage, otherwise known as primaries. Nonetheless, listeners are left with many questions unanswered: How did populists seize the GOP in 2016? What should replace primaries for candidate selection? What will go down in 2028? Will Yuval Levin be on the ticket?  Here to put an end to all speculation is political scientist Seth Masket, who joins Jonah to talk about the Tea Party, Donald Trump's charisma, Bill Clinton as a precursor to Trump, primaries, county-scale politics, party leadership, democratization, conventions, Trump's influence over 2028, the next GOP presidential candidate, J.D. Vance, Richard Nixon, and Ronald Reagan's 11th commandment. Show Notes: —Masket: The Elephants in the Room: How Trump Voters Seized the Party from Republican Leaders —Masket's Substack —Masket: Learning from Loss: The Democrats, 2016–2020 —E. E. Schattschneider: Party Government: American Government in Action  —DisPod at the 92nd Street Y —Remnant on Weberian charisma The Remnant is a production of ⁠The Dispatch⁠, a digital media company covering politics, policy, and culture from a nonpartisan perspective. To access all of The Dispatch's offerings—including the Saturday Ruminant, audio versions of all our articles and newsletters, and Jonah's twice-weekly G-File—⁠click here⁠. Instructions on how to set up your members-only feed can be found here, and if you'd like to remove all ads from your podcast experience, consider becoming a premium Dispatch member ⁠by clicking here⁠.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this episode of Sisters Sidebar, Barb McQuade and Jill Wine-Banks answer listener questions on moving immigration courts to the judicial branch, how to call a constitutional convention, and more. They explain why immigration judges should be independent from the DOJ, discuss the legal effect of pardons on guilt and restitution, push back against attempts to downplay Watergate and rehabilitate Richard Nixon, clarify how a constitutional convention would work under Article V, and strongly advocate for more cameras in courtrooms to increase public trust in the judicial branch.Freshen up your spring wardrobe!  Get the ReSIStance T-Shirt, Mini Tote, and other #SistersInLaw gear at politicon.com/merch! Additional #SistersInLaw Projects#SistersInLaw Main ShowJill's Politicon YouTube Show: Just The FactsKim's Newsletter: The GavelJoyce's new book, Giving Up Is Unforgivable, is now available, and for a limited time, you have the exclusive opportunity to order a signed copy here. Order Barb's new book, The Fix, or her first book, Attack From Within, now in paperback. Add the #Sisters & your other favorite Politicon podcast hosts on BlueskyGet your #SistersInLaw MERCH at politicon.com/merchWEBSITE & TRANSCRIPTEmail: SISTERSINLAW@POLITICON.COM or Thread to @sistersInLaw.podcastGet text updates from #SistersInLaw and Politicon. Mentioned By The #SistersOrder Barb's new book, The Fix, and get tickets for her book tour!Support This Week's Sponsors:IQ Bar:Text SISTERS to 64000 to get 20% off all IQBAR products, plus FREE shipping. Messageand data rates may apply.HomeServe:Join the millions of customers who trust HomeServe. For 50% less your first year, go to HomeServe.com/sistersGet More From The #SistersInLawJoyce Vance: Bluesky | Twitter | University of Alabama Law | Civil Discourse Substack | MSNBC | Author of “Giving Up Is Unforgiveable”Jill Wine-Banks: Bluesky | Twitter | Facebook | Website | Author of The Watergate Girl: My Fight For Truth & Justice Against A Criminal President | Just The Facts YouTubeKimberly Atkins Stohr: Bluesky | Twitter | Boston Globe | WBUR | The Gavel Newsletter | Justice By Design PodcastBarb McQuade: barbaramcquade.com | Bluesky | Twitter | University of Michigan Law | Just Security | MSNBC | Attack From Within: How Disinformation Is Sabotaging America

Geoffrey Wawro, guest author, details how Richard Nixon derailed peace talks in 1968 through Anna Chennault, promising South Vietnamese President Thieu a "better deal" to prevent a "November surprise" for Hubert Humphrey. This move resulted in the war continuing for four more years, costing 28,000 additional American lives for essentially the same peace terms available in 1968. Under Nixon, the 1969 Battle of Hamburger Hill highlighted the continued reliance on the "search and destroy" doctrine despite its heavy costs. Waves of American troops were sent against prepared bunkers for a hill with no strategic value, sparking a domestic outcry led by figures like Ted Kennedy. Furthermore, the segment notes the ineffectiveness of South Vietnamese local militias ("Ruff Puffs"), which were often infiltrated by the Viet Cong and frequently avoided combat despite being heavily armed by the US. The Vietnam War: A Military History(5)

Richard Nixon is making an unlikely comeback online as a new generation looks beyond the memes and starts revisiting one of America's most controversial presidents. In this episode, Newsmax Chief Washington Correspondent James Rosen joins us to discuss newly uncovered testimony that sheds fresh light on Watergate, why Nixon believed he was targeted by a military spy ring, and how the revelations could reshape one of the most debated legacies in modern American history. Get the facts first with Morning Wire.- - -Ep. 2863- - -Wake up with new Morning Wire merch: https://bit.ly/4lIubt3- - -Today's Sponsors:Fundrise - VCX, by Fundrise, gives everyone the opportunity to invest in the next generation of innovation, including the companies leading the AI revolution, space exploration, defense tech, and more. Visit https://getVCX.com for more info.Goldbelly - If you're looking for the perfect way to celebrate America's 250th, go to https://GOLDBELLY.com and get free shipping and 20% off your first order with promo code WIRE- - -Privacy Policy: https://www.dailywire.com/privacymorning wire,morning wire podcast,the morning wire podcast,Georgia Howe,John Bickley,daily wire podcast,podcast,news podcast Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Joanna Coles and Daily Beast executive editor Hugh Dougherty unpack one of the strangest weeks yet inside Trumpworld, from explosive new questions about the president's unusually close relationship with aide Natalie Harp to the bizarre FEMA official who claims he was "teleported" across Georgia. They also break down the MAGA state fair flop, Trump's ongoing obsession with crowd sizes and Washington's reflecting pool, JD Vance's eyebrow-raising embrace of Richard Nixon, and the Supreme Court ruling that could reshape Trump's immigration agenda. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

After waking up in a trash pile under the Francis Scott Key Bridge (his favorite haunt), Jonah Goldberg has walked his dogs, stumbled to his American Enterprise Institute office, and is ready to talk shop. Today Jonah gets into the Hinckley Hilton, Washington police, “Kant,” being late, wokery, the art of canine flatulence expression, Darializa Avila Chevalier, weak parties, the evils of primaries, the free beer party, Iran, J.D. Vance beclowning himself, Richard Nixon, “Me Too Republicans,” and his own car. Show Notes: —The Enlightenment: The Pursuit of Happiness, 1680-1790 —92nd Street NY Dispod —Suicide of the West  —Wednesday G-File —Nixon G-File —Ben Mankiewicz for The Dispatch's The Next 250 —Dispatch Juntos The Remnant is a production of ⁠The Dispatch⁠, a digital media company covering politics, policy, and culture from a nonpartisan perspective. To access all of The Dispatch's offerings—including the Saturday Ruminant, audio versions of all our articles and newsletters, and Jonah's twice-weekly G-File—⁠click here⁠. Instructions on how to set up your members-only feed can be found here, and if you'd like to remove all ads from your podcast experience, consider becoming a premium Dispatch member ⁠by clicking here⁠. Instructions on how to set up your members-only feed can be found here, and if you'd like to remove all ads from your podcast experience, consider becoming a premium Dispatch member ⁠by clicking here⁠. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices