Podcasts about thomas dewey

In today's episode we look at all the people and plans it took to create the United Service Organization (USO). While there was enormous planning and smart people, it wouldn't be what it is without a trumpet player from Chicago. We cross paths with General Pershing, Glenn Miller, m&ms, Thomas Dewey, Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, and little guy from England named Lesley Townes Hope.

These days I find myself in a pensive, troubled state, very much in need of the kind of consolation that only music can provide. A number of years ago, I published a pair of episodes featuring the sublime Margaret Price performing music of mourning and consolation. Today's episode presents an expanded and refurbished version of the second of those episodes, in a program composed entirely of art song, moving through a sequence of emotions surrounding loss. Composers include Johannes Brahms, Giuseppe Verdi, Robert Schumann, Enrique Granados, Franz Schubert, Grace Williams, Sergei Rachmaninov, Felix Mendelssohn, Philip Cannon, Hugo Wolf, Alban Berg, Maurice Ravel, Franz Liszt, Peter Cornelius, and Richard Strauss, and collaborating pianists and conductors include Claudio Abbado, Wolfgang Sawallisch, Cyprien Katsaris, Geoffrey Parsons, and Neville Marriner, as well as frequent collaborators James Lockhart and Thomas Dewey. A thorough traversal of the song repertoire by one of the supreme recitalists of the late 20th Century. Countermelody is a podcast devoted to the glory and the power of the human voice raised in song. Singer and vocal aficionado Daniel Gundlach explores great singers of the past and present focusing in particular on those who are less well-remembered today than they should be. Daniel's lifetime in music as a professional countertenor, pianist, vocal coach, voice teacher, and journalist yields an exciting array of anecdotes, impressions, and “inside stories.” At Countermelody's core is the celebration of great singers of all stripes, their instruments, and the connection they make to the words they sing. By clicking on the following link (https://linktr.ee/CountermelodyPodcast) you can find the dedicated Countermelody website which contains additional content including artist photos and episode setlists. The link will also take you to Countermelody's Patreon page, where you can pledge your monthly or yearly support at whatever level you can afford.

[Initially Released 11/07/23]Patrick Ruffini, pollster at Echelon Strategies, returns to talk about his new book PARTY OF THE PEOPLE - on the transition of the Republican Party from being dominated by wealthy, suburban white voters to a more blue-collar and increasingly-multi-racial coalition. In this conversation, Patrick lays out the data behind these shifts, what is driving the GOP's new-found success with blue-collar voters, why this movement came as a surprise to many, the balance of economic vs. cultural priorities, how Latino/AAPI/Black voters are increasingly persuadable audiences in elections, and expectations as to how these shifts will continue to define American politics for the foreseeable future.IN THIS EPISODEPatrick lays out the core thesis of Party of the People...Patrick's favorite data points that illustrate the changing face of the GOP...Patrick's take on the role of "educational attainment" in changing voting patterns...Patrick gives a quick tutorial on when and how Democrats have historically been the party of working-class Americans...How flawed 2012 exit polls have contributed to shifting party coalitions more than a decade later...Patrick's take on how the "In This House..." yard signs unwittingly speak to tensions within the Democratic coalition...Economic vs cultural drivers of voter behavior...Missteps and missed GOP opportunities from the trifecta control of government in 2017 and 2018...Mining recent data among Hispanic voters...What Patrick learned about border communities on a trip to the Rio Grande Valley...Why Lester Chang is important...Why Black voter behavior has been more stable than Latino and Asian voters...Patrick's take on the growing segment of biracial and multi-racial Americans...The impact of free trade and foreign policy on changing partisan coalitions...What Patrick learned in the process of writing his first book...AND 7:3 coalitional splits, anti-globalization sentiments, Joe Biden, blurbs, Brexit, George W. Bush, census buckets, charts and data, Hillary Clinton, Nate Cohn, Thomas Dewey, Tom Edsall, Ryan Enos, existential demographic crisis, fading historical patterns, faint echoes, frontier mentalities, the Great Recession, the green transition, Hamiltonian tendencies, illiberal populism, instinctive hawks, Andrew Jackson, jettisoning first principles, Chryl Laird, majority popular tendencies, mercantile progress, the New Deal, Barack Obama, Mike Podhorzer, Ronald Reagan, the Republican autopsy, rivalrous groups, Mitt Romney, sheepskin effects, David Shor, social taboos, Starr County, Steadfast Democrats, Harry Truman, Donald Trump, the UAW, Ismail White, white phenomenons....& more!

Hej, w związku ze zbliżającymi się wyborami prezydenckimi w Stanach Zjednoczonych postanowiłem poruszyć dwa wątki z najnowszej historii tego kraju. Dwukrotnie bowiem na przestrzeni 50 lat po wojnie doszło do niezwykle ciekawych pojedynków w walce o Biały Dom. Oba przypadki były jednak nieco inne. W 1948 roku Harry Truman był niemal pewny porażki. Wszystkie sondaże wskazywały, że kolejnym prezydentem USA zostanie Thomas Dewey, czyli kandydat Republikanów. Nie było ani jednego eksperta, który na dzień przed głosowaniem wskazałby ciągle urzędującego przywódcę Stanów Zjednoczonych jako zwycięzcę w wyborach. Tymczasem... wygrał i to nawet nie minimalną liczbą głosów. Do drugiego niezwykle interesującego starcia doszło 50 lat później, gdy George W. Bush rywalizował o fotel prezydencki z wiceprezydentem Alem Gorem. Niemal do ostatniej chwili nie było jasne kto zwycięży. Sondaże potwierdziły się wyborczej nocy. Stacje telewizyjne bazujące na exit pollach początkowo wskazały, że to Republikanin będzie kolejnym prezydentem. Jednak w ciągu kolejnych godzin okazało się, iż przewaga Busha nad konkurentem sukcesywnie maleje, szczególnie jeśli weźmie się pod uwagę głosowanie na Florydzie dysponującej 25 głosami elektorskimi. W ciągu kolejnych tygodni gra toczyła się o absolutnie każdy głos ponieważ różnice między kandydatami były minimalne. Jeżeli jesteście ciekawi w jaki sposób zakończyły się wybory w 2000 roku zapraszam Was do zapoznania się z najnowszym odcinkiem serii Powojnie.

Send a Message to the TeamDon and Chris explore what would have happened if one of the most famous incorrect newspaper headlines had actually been true, and Thomas Dewey had won the 1948 US presidential election.Panel:Don, ChrisYou can follow and interact with A Fork In Time on….Discord: https://discord.com/invite/xhZEmZMKFSFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/aforkintimeTwitter: @AFITPodcastOur YouTube ChannelIf you enjoy the podcast and want to support it financially, you can help by:Supporting us monthly via Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/aforkintime....or, make a one-time donation via Podfan to A Fork In TimeWebsite: www.aforkintimepodcast.comE-Mail: aforkintimepodcast@gmail.comTheme Music: Conquer by Shane Ivers - https://www.silvermansound.comSupport the show

We're covering The Undertaker's earliest days as a tag team specialist and his debut for a major wrestling company on an all new Talking Taker! Join wrestling superfans Alex Doriot and Travis White on their encyclopedic exploration digging up The Dead Man as we take the time-traveling hearse back to WCW in early 1990 and Mean Mark Callous's short-lived run as part of The New Skyscrapers alongside Dangerous Danny Spivey. It's a brief run of less than 10 televised matches, but it's an incredibly important and formative run in Taker's career including the origins of his relationship with ol' Peanuthead himself Teddy Long and his first exposure to his future finishing move. We're breaking down every one of those televised matches against some of the most ridiculous jobbers you've ever seen and culminating with a couple of wild brawls with the greatest tag team of all tiz-iiiiime, The Road Warriors! Along the way we lose our minds laughing at the likes of Zan Panzer, The Galaxians, Agent Steele, ridiculous commentary from Kevin Sullivan and Terry Funk, incredible haiku poetry from Hawk, Gordon Solie's resemblance to Harry Caray, Dan Spivey's college football credentials and JR's obsession with them, The Flying Wallendas, the brotherhood of the traveling mask, deadly elementary school chairs, Thomas Dewey, 10 items or less lines, the Wild Thing Rap, and the embarrassment that was The Masked Skyscraper.    All that and we've got another month's worth of Undertaker sightings to discuss including a big interview on Busted Open and some highlights from Six Feet Under. Plus Alex shares about his experience watching Smackdown live from a suite and meeting up with a Pod Street Krew member in real life! Download, enjoy, and Taker Easy!    Show your P.S.K. Pride with our brand new double-sided Pod Street Krew shirt over at TeePublic.com!    Stay connected with our Creature Community by following us on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook!   Subscribe to Travis's YouTube channel to stay connected and hear brand new music - also available on Spotify and Apple Music!    Be sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel and check out our collection of figure unboxings, vlogs, video podcasts, and more!  

[This blog will always be free to read, but it's also how I pay my bills. If you have suggestions or feedback on how I can earn your paid subscription, shoot me an email: cmclymer@gmail.com. And yes, I am available for Pride Month speaking engagements. And if all this is too big a commitment, I'm always thankful for a simple cup of coffee.]This past weekend, I was invited to deliver the keynote speech at the Bonneville County Democratic Party's annual Truman Dinner in Idaho Falls, Idaho. It was my first time visiting the Gem State, and I was captivated by both the gorgeous scenery and the warmth of Idahoans. When I was invited to the Truman Dinner a few months ago by Chairwoman Miranda Marquit, I accepted immediately. And I'll tell you why.Idaho is a deeply conservative state. It has not gone for a Democratic presidential candidate since 1964; that year, Lyndon B. Johnson, despite trouncing Barry Goldwater—winning 44 states (and D.C.), 486 electoral votes, 61 percent of the popular vote—won Idaho by less than two percent.Idaho has not elected a Democrat to the U.S. Senate since 1974, a Democratic governor since 1990, and with the exception of a single term served by Mr. Walt Minnick in the 111th Congress (2009-2011), it has not otherwise elected a Democrat to the U.S. House since 1994.Idaho is among those states that actually increased their support for Trump from 2016 to 2020, despite his loss to President Biden.Abortion was formally banned in the state two months after the Supreme Court's Dobbs ruling (except in cases of rape, incest, and the life of the mother during the first trimester), and LGBTQ rights in the state are abysmal, although public polling of Idahoans illustrates a more complicated picture (about 70 percent of Idahoans support LGBTQ non-discrimination laws).So, yes, it is accurate to say that Idaho is deeply conservative.But I spent the entire weekend with Idaho Democrats, and I found myself in awe of their dedication, kindness, and unyielding pride in Democratic values. They did not feel sorry for themselves. They did not make excuses. They had no time for pity.I was in the company of so many wonderful people who get up every day and fight the good fight for their families, their neighbors, and their state. I wish that so many Democrats living in solidly progressive areas of this country had a tenth of the courage and commitment demonstrated by the Democrats I met in Idaho.I am so tired of some Democrats living in solid blue parts of the country looking down their noses at folks putting in the work in conservative swaths of our nation, questioning their sanity in living where they do, as though uprooting one's family from the only home they've ever known is a feasible option for most people.The unflappable worth ethic of these Idaho Democrats reminded me of how proud I am to be a progressive from Texas and how much I bristle when someone who lives in a solidly blue state condescends to Democrats living in conservative areas.Anyway, the full remarks of my speech are below, and if you would be so kind, I highly encourage donating to the Bonneville County Democratic Party. Please help them build the future of Democratic politics in the state.FULL REMARKSGood evening!My name is Charlotte Clymer, and I am proud to be a member of the Democratic Party.It's an honor to join y'all tonight. When your chair Miranda Marquit extended an invitation to me a few months ago, I immediately agreed. You see, I've never been to Idaho, and every person I've ever met from Idaho has said to me: “Oh, don't come here. You'd hate it. Nothing to see at all. No gorgeous scenery. No nature. It's so boring. And tell your friends not to come here, either!”Idaho is a wonderfully kept secret. So, I knew I had to come for that reason, alone.But I also accepted the Chairwoman's invitation because I know what it's like to be a proud Democrat in an area of the country where Democrats aren't so plentiful. Because let's face it: I know that there are a lot of folks in this county, maybe even some folks in this room, who look at me and only see a trans woman, a progressive trans woman, who has flown in from Washington, D.C.What could I possibly know about what it's like to live in a conservative area? What could I possibly know about having a lot of conservative friends and neighbors and constantly being in spaces with people who are not gonna see the world as I do?This is what I call box thinking. It's become one of the biggest problems for our country: this relentless need to place everyone we know in a box and call it a day. There are a lot of folks who live their lives believing there are only two boxes and you need to belong to only one of those two boxes and it had better be their box.And if you chose to place me in a box before getting to know me, you'd miss out on a lot.You'd never find out that I served in the U.S. Army for six years and I am very proud of my service. You'd never find out that my Christian faith is one of the most important things to me and that I go to church every Sunday. You'd never find out that I'm very proud to be from the South, that I come from two lines of family raised in the South. You'd never find out that I played high school football, that I grew up around firearms, that I was raised on country music, and I am proud of all these aspects of who I am.I know what it's like to be from a part of the country that people living in more progressive areas look at and say: “Oh gosh, I'm so sorry,” as though I've just told them my dog died.Actually, that's not entirely true. If I told them my dog had died, they would probably have asked about South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem's whereabouts.But it's true. We live in a nation of people who insist that there are only two boxes. And I'm not just talking about people on the right. I'm talking about people on the far-left, too. So much of the far-left can't stand me because I defy their box theory. They believe that I, as a trans woman, am not supposed to be proud of our military, that I am not supposed to go to church, that I am not supposed to disagree with them.That's the thing they still don't realize. The brutal truth is that the far-right and far-left have one thing in common: they both live in fear of talking with a reasonable adult who disagrees with them.Well, folks, here's my message to them: this country is a whole lot damn bigger than two boxes.I have not come this far in life to allow myself to be defined by strangers who are scared of reasonable disagreement. Who I am is between me and God, and no one else gets a say in that.And this goes for geography, too. I'm from the great state of Texas, and if all you knew about Texas were our state's political leadership and their incessant irresponsibility and selfishness and cruelty—if that's all you knew about Texas—you probably wouldn't want to visit.But you see, I'm very proud to be from Texas, probably for the same reasons that all of you here are proud to be from Idaho. And you should be. Because this is home. This is where you first learned about community. It's where you first understood what it means to live alongside others and take care of your neighbors and work hard to ensure that no one gets left behind.It hasn't surprised me one bit to find out that folks in Idaho are kind, hardworking, empathetic, and resilient. And I think that goes double for Idaho Democrats. It takes guts to walk up to door after door and knock on it, knowing that the person behind that door is more than likely going to be resistant to your message, knowing that you're going to have to do the thankless work of communicating a vision of solidarity and progress with your neighbor, who may have been fed a lot of disinformation and hateful propaganda.I hope you'll hear what I'm saying: it takes courage to be an outspoken Democrat in a place where few exist, but more than that, in states like Idaho and Texas, it takes courage to swallow your pride and meet people where they are and get them to see how the Democratic Party has their best interests at mind. It takes courage to do the hard and necessary work of constantly extending a hand to folks who don't agree with you on most things.But it is necessary. It is absolutely necessary. You are doing the work that needs to be done, and thank god for that.I think it's quite appropriate that we're gathered this evening at a dinner named for a president who understood, better than most presidential candidates of the 20th century, what it means to be the underdog.Harry Truman was not supposed to win the 1948 presidential election. The winner that year was supposed to be New York Governor Thomas E. Dewey, who was very popular with his base and very charismatic. Of the 500 newspapers in the country at that time, nearly 80 percent endorsed Dewey. One famous pundit said two months before Election Day that the race was basically over.Most of that campaign can be summed up this way: the press thought Dewey was going to win, the pollsters and pundits thought Dewey was going to win, and Dewey thought Dewey was going to win. In fact, even President Truman's closest aides and his wife Bess privately thought Dewey was likely to win. So, it was clear that Dewey was going to win. It seems the only person who thought Truman could win was Truman.You see, President Truman was an incredibly capable commander-in-chief. He had successfully led the United States out of World War II and began the process of rebuilding Europe. He had common sense and stood up for working class families. He was a great chief executive.But he wasn't flashy. Many folks didn't find him very exciting. Around this time that year, in mid-May, his approval rating was 36 percent. He was challenged by people in his own party. He was doubted by the press. There were some folks who openly wondered if it wouldn't be a bad idea for Mr. Truman to drop out of the race and give another Democrat a shot.There were third party candidates like vicious racist Strom Thurmond, who threatened to take votes from President Truman and weaken him against Dewey.And meanwhile, Thomas Dewey was saying nothing much at all. He wasn't articulating any new or interesting policy ideas. He wasn't laying out a vision for all Americans. He was pandering to his base and playing it safe otherwise.So, an incumbent who's a great leader but isn't considered very exciting, a challenger who isn't saying anything new but is considered by many to be charismatic, a bunch of third party clowns mucking up the process, and a political press that seems to be asleep at the wheel.Does any of this sound familiar?President Truman went on aggressive whistle stop tours of the country, giving speeches at train stations all over, hammering the GOP and Dewey, refusing to back down, refusing to give up, and absolutely certain he was gonna win.I want to read you a quote from a speech President Truman delivered by radio in St. Paul, Minnesota about three weeks before the election:“Republicans approve of the American farmer, but they are willing to help him go broke. They stand four-square for the American home--but not for housing. They are strong for labor--but they are stronger for restricting labor's rights. They favor minimum wage--the smaller the minimum wage the better. They endorse educational opportunity for all--but they won't spend money for teachers or for schools. They think modern medical care and hospitals are fine--for people who can afford them. ...They think the American standard of living is a fine thing--so long as it doesn't spread to all the people. And they admire the Government of the United States so much that they would like to buy it.”You could take that quote and put it in a speech by President Biden now, and you wouldn't miss a beat. Mr. Truman didn't play it safe. He didn't hesitate to fight for his values. He didn't try to pander to zealots and clowns. He was a warrior for democracy and working families.Three weeks after that speech, President Truman won. The pundits were apoplectic. All night, radio announcers told the public that Truman's lead in the national vote was temporary. There's no way he could win. Political reporters said he couldn't win, so how could this happen?The day after the election, President Truman held up the front page of the Chicago Tribune that had been printed and distributed erroneously, with that iconic headline in big bold letters:DEWEY DEFEATS TRUMANAnd he didn't just win. He got two million more votes than Dewey and trounced him in the Electoral College.I want to be very clear about something tonight. If you walk away with anything from this event, I want you to walk away with this: Joe Biden is going to be reelected President of the United States. We are gonna win in November. And it's not just because our party has ideas that actually help working class families. It's not just because President Biden's policies have saved our economy. It's not just because Republicans don't have any new ideas or new solutions.No, here's why President Biden is going to win: because he trusts the American people to understand what's at stake.We don't want to live in a country where any elected official believes he's above the law and should be treated like a king. We don't want to live in a country where the state gets to decide what women do with their bodies. We don't want to live in a country where politicians get to tell parents what health care they're allowed to provide their children. We don't want to live in a country where the richest people still get unfair tax breaks while working families struggle to provide for their children. We don't want to live in a country where those in power turn their backs on the labor movement and working class families.We don't want to live in a country in which life-saving and comprehensive health care is only accessible to those earning six figures or more.That's it. That's all that matters. And the leadership of the Republican Party lives every day in fear that more and more working families are gonna realize that.The polls don't matter. Listen, y'all, I've been following politics all my life and working in politics for most of my career, and I can tell you beyond the shadow of a doubt that polls don't worry me.What did the pollsters say in 2018? That Democrats were right to be anxious. What happened? Democrats took back control of Congress in an enormously embarrassing defeat for Trump.What did the pollsters say in 2020? That Democrats were headed for a catastrophic defeat at the polls. What happened? President Biden was elected, and Democrats took back control of Congress.What did the pollsters say in 2022? Do y'all remember? They said a “red wave” was coming and Democrats were about to be wiped out in Congress. What happened? President Biden had the best midterms performance of any first term Democratic president in six decades. The red wave turned out to be a red trickle.Folks, I say again: there is no doubt in my mind that we are going to win in November. President Biden and Vice President Harris will be reelected, we will take back the House, and you know what? I'm feeling cautiously optimistic that we'll hold the Senate, too.And when this all happens, the pundits and pollsters will make excuses like they always do. And the Republican Party will make excuses like they always do. And the press will make excuses like they always do.Let it be known right now: the Democratic Party ain't got time for excuses.There are working families to support, homeless veterans to house, minimum wage workers to be helped, children to be fed and educated, and a country, a proud country, to believe in.That starts right here in places like Bonneville County. It starts in places like my home state of Texas. It starts in the places in this country most in need of building bridges by folks like yourselves who are doing that thankless work because it needs to be done.I am grateful for you, and I want you to know there are Democrats all across this country who are grateful for you.Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, for your hospitality. Have a wonderful evening.Charlotte's Web Thoughts is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to Charlotte's Web Thoughts at charlotteclymer.substack.com/subscribe

Lucky Luciano's conviction sits atop a rising wave of public panic about the seeping influence of crime and corruption on American life.  It's a perception that's been mythologised in Hollywood retellings about the mob for decades. The idea of an all-powerful mafia served Thomas Dewey's professional ambitions well too, but how much of it was actually true? The Godmother is produced by Novel for iHeartPodcasts. For more from Novel visit novel.audioSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Welcome to the Instant Trivia podcast episode 1107, where we ask the best trivia on the Internet. Round 1. Category: Da Or Ba Or Dee. With Da" Or "Ba" Or "Dee in quotes 1: When Santa gives these creatures P.T.O. in the summer, some travel up to 800 miles for grazing grounds. reindeer. 2: It's the last name of a film character played by both Gary Cooper and Adam Sandler. Deeds. 3: Its name origin is African but this instrument is now widely associated with the music of Latin America. marimba. 4: It's a word describing motorcyclist Bud Ekins, or the name of a Marvel hero. daredevil. 5: Herb Caen referred to San Francisco as this place "by-the-Bay". Baghdad. Round 2. Category: Sports Films 1: Sylvester Stallone was inspired to write this film after seeing underdog Chuck Wepner take on Muhammad Ali. Rocky. 2: In "Knute Rockne: All American", this actor delivered the famous deathbed line "Win one for the Gipper". Ronald Reagan. 3: This 1981 film about 2 participants in the 1924 Olympics ran off with 4 Oscars including Best Picture. Chariots of Fire. 4: Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins struck up a romance after meeting on the set of this baseball flick. Bull Durham. 5: This 1977 film featured Paul Newman as aging hockey coach Reggie Dunlop. Slap Shot. Round 3. Category: Home States 1: Butch Cassidy,Roseanne,Donny Osmond. Utah. 2: Robert Motherwell,Kurt Cobain,Bill Gates. Washington. 3: Thomas Dewey,Henry Ford,Madonna. Michigan. 4: Dana Carvey,Evel Knievel,Jeannette Rankin. Montana. 5: Amelia Earhart,Edgar Lee Masters,Dennis Hopper. Kansas. Round 4. Category: 7, 8 Or 9 1: Number of Snow White's height-challenged housemates. 7. 2: The one that starts with 2 vowels. 8. 3: In the famous Christmas poem, Santa's sleigh is pulled by this many tiny reindeer. 8. 4: Number of classic "Ancient Wonders" that included the Colossus of Rhodes. 7. 5: Some people compare happiness to being on this number cloud. 9. Round 5. Category: As A Young Man 1: …He covered the Boer War for the Morning Post, got captured, escaped and became a national hero. Winston Churchill. 2: …as a pre-teen this "Le Nozze di Figaro" composer wrote a one-act German singspiel. Mozart. 3: …he was tutored by Aristotle and then beat Darius III at Issus. Alexander the Great. 4: …in the 1300s B.C. he made Thebes Egypt's capital and changed his name to honor Amon. Tutankhamon. 5: …he ran his brother's senatorial campaign, then investigated Hoffa and the Teamsters. Bobby Kennedy. Thanks for listening! Come back tomorrow for more exciting trivia!Special thanks to https://blog.feedspot.com/trivia_podcasts/ AI Voices used

While Eunice learns the letter of the law, her neighbors in Harlem are surviving by breaking it, and the mob's power over nearly every facet of New York life grows stronger.  New Yorkers are looking for a crusader, and in Thomas Dewey they find one. He's New York's newest mob-busting special prosecutor, and he finds himself in need of a certain plucky young attorney, with a deep knowledge of the Harlem community. The Godmother is produced by Novel for iHeartPodcasts. For more from Novel visit novel.audioSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is a conversation with former mobster now mafia historian Louis Ferrante about his intriguing new book BORGATA: RISE OF EMPIRE. The former “chop shop” small time thug now erudite Ferrante is like a cross between Sonny Corleone & Niall Ferguson. Essential viewing/listening. Transcript below.AK (00:18): Hello everybody. It is Tuesday, January the second, 2024. We're in a new year, but old themes. Last year we did several shows on the Mafia, one with the historian Paul Moses on the what he calls, at least the true story of the immigrant cops who fought the rise of the Mafiaa. He had a new book out called Appropriately Enough, the Italian Squad, another with an interesting writer, Matt Beck, the Life We Choose about a series of conversations he had with a Mafiaa member called William Big Belly Delia. He talked about not just Donald Trump and Michael Jackson, but also Jimmy Hoffer, and we're going one better in 2024 rather than writing or talking to people who have spoken to people in the Mafiaa. We have a man, Louis Ferrante, who once upon a time was a member of the Mafia. And since become a very successful writer, the author of many books, bestselling books, including particular Mob Rules, what the Mafia Can Teach the Legitimate Businessman. It was a huge hit. And he has a new book out. It's a history of the Mafia, the Borgata Trilogy, volume one, rise of Empire. It came out in November of last year in the uk, and it's out this week in the US. Louis Ferrante is joining us from his home in Sarasota on the Gulf Coast of Florida. Louis, before we went live, you told me it's very nice in Florida.Louis Ferrante (02:01): Florida's beautiful, the Sunshine State, a lot of sun. I need sun. I grew up in New York, and the winters are dark and dreary, and London's a beautiful place too. I like the people in London, but once again, the weather's not the best part.AK (02:17): Dreary. Yeah, I'm talking to actually from California. So Louis, when you fly out and you get on a plane, you happen to sit next to someone and you get into conversation and they ask you what career you have or had, what would you say?Louis Ferrante (02:31): I'd tell 'em a hijacker if I'm on a plane.AK (02:36): And what do they do?Louis Ferrante (02:38): They look for the attendant or they go to the bathroom? No, I mean, I was a truck hijacker, a little different from a plain hijacker, but I tell them I'm a writer and a television host, which is the truth. I'm a bestselling author. My books have been translated into 2020 languages, and I hosted a show for Discovery Channel.AK (03:04): It's a good trade being a writer. But did you always intend to be one, or how did you go from being, as you say, a truck hijacker, someone who knows the Mafia, the American Mafia to actually writing about it.Louis Ferrante (03:21): I faced the rest of my life in prison, and I was lucky to get out of it with a 13 year sentence. I was represented at the time by the civil rights attorney, William Kunstler, who was very instrumental in, yeah, he helped Martin Luther King, Malcolm X. He went in to negotiate with the convicts during the Attica riots, and he defended me, and I was able to get a plea of 13 years without cooperating against anyone, and I didn't have to go to trial and possibly get the rest of my life sentenced to rest of my life in prison. And while I was there, I started to think through my life and eventually I picked up my first book, fell in Love with books, became an avid reader, and at some point or another I was reading a book a day, and that's what made my time go. And I started to teach myself how to write by reading all the great authors and taking notes as to how Leo Tolstoy begins and ends a chapter, how Dostoevsky Begins and Ends a plot, how Charlotte Bronte introduces a character, et cetera, et cetera. And that's how I taught myself how to write. And by the time I came home from prison, I was ready to be a writer. And my last book, Mob Rules was an international bestseller in 20 languages. And my current book will hopefully get picked up in a lot of languages as well. And it's a trilogy.AK (04:42): Yeah, it's already been picked up by the Germans. You imply that in prison, you were a meticulous reader. Is meticulousness something that's prized within the mafia? Was that one of your skills?Louis Ferrante (05:00): Skills? Yeah, I mean, I was a heist guy. I ran a crew of heist guys, heist and hijackings, and you need to know what you're doing and everything's, you got to cross your T's and dot your i's make sure that everybody knows their role. Make sure that you need a well-oiled machine when you're going to do a heist or a hijack in one mistake. And everybody's lives are at stake, including innocent people. Something I might regret now, but something that was just a fact then. But we wanted to get away with it. We wanted the money. I wasn't thinking about people's lives back then. I was thinking about money and we wanted to get away with it, and you need to know what you're doing and everybody needs to know what they're doing. And I was a big planner. I would make drawings, I would go over everything with everyone. I would do mock runs to the highway to make sure we had an escape route, a backup escape route. I made sure we had backup guys in place. I never just pulled the trigger too fast. At one point, I was picked up by the feds in California where you are. We were in San Francisco and we were looking to hit an armored car, and the feds swooped in on us and grabbed us the day before we were going to hit that armored car. And it was a crucial thing. I was one guy short, and the reason why we waited was I was waiting for an extra guy to come from New York so that he could make sure we had enough guys on the heist. But yeah, so I guess I was meticulous in that sense. I was ignorant and naive in a million other ways, but I was meticulous in that sense.AK (06:27): Yeah, you should come back, Louis. It's much easier to do your heist these days. I don't know if there are any police left in South Africa. Yeah,Louis Ferrante (06:34): I don't know if anyone would care anymore.AK (06:36): Yeah, you'd probably be encouraged. Lots of films and books about how young kids get into the mafia. There's The Godfather, of course, & the Irishmen. How did you get into it?Louis Ferrante (06:48):  If you start committing big enough crimes, they'll find you. And that's what happens. Once I started hijacking trucks, I ran an auto crime, a chop shop. I supplied car parts to auto collision shops for a long time when I was a kid, stole cars, chopped them up and sold them to a shop. That little operation started out with just a few car thieves, me and my friends, and eventually grew into, as I said, a chop shop. And then at some point, once we started hijacking,AK (07:18): What is a chop shop?Louis Ferrante (07:22): Chop shop is you have a shop where you steal a car, you get an order from a collision shop. So a collision shop, for example, has, let's say they got a Mercedes and they got to spend $30,000 in parts because it's a hundred thousand dollars car and the car's wrecked, so they need 30,000 in parts. They might tell us, look, we'll give you five grand, can you get us all the parts? And then they'll put the stolen parts on the customer's car and sell them back the repaired car. So we would get paid then to go out, steal the car, try to get the same color so they wouldn't even have to paint it, but if you had to, you paint it. It's not always easy to match colors, but we would steal the car, chop it up, give them the parts they needed, and then dump the skeleton somewhere in the beginning we dumped it in the woods. And then at some point or another, we started renting. Back then you could lease a building under a phony name and then just abandon the building when you were done with it. I don't think you could get away with that. Nowadays there's too many identifications and stuff required, and people are hip at things like that, but back then you could even fly. When I told you I went to California to knock off an armor car, we flew under different names. Pre 9/11, you just booked an airline ticket under any name. I just picked the name out of the phone book. Just get on a plane.AK (08:35): Those were the days. You mentioned your bestselling book, Mob Rules, what the Mafia can Teach the Legitimate Businessman. There's a sort of cliche, Louis, I'm sure you've heard it a thousand times, that had you been born into the New York or Boston upper classes, you would've ended up at Harvard Business School and made a million dollars that way, is what you were doing. Is that a form of innovation and in some ways equivalent to what kids are taught at Stanford or Harvard Business School these days to think and be meticulous and accomplish what they set out to do?Louis Ferrante (09:19): Yeah, I don't know if they're taught any more to think. I don't know what an Ivy League upbringing is like, so it would be unimaginable for me to even,AK (09:33): But you've met those types.Louis Ferrante (09:36): Oh, all day long. Yeah, all day long. Some of them can't tie their shoes. I mean, just can't fix a flat. I was with a doctor once who got a flat and didn't know what to do, had no idea where the jack was, where to even begin. If I wasn't with him, he would've sat on the side of the road probably for the rest of his life until he died of starvation. So yeah, I would rather grow up and have to learn how to do things yourself.AK (10:01): Where did you grow up? What town?Louis Ferrante (10:03): In Queens? Yeah. I grew up in Queens and one of the five boroughs in New York, lower New York. The lower borough.AK (10:08): Yeah. My son lives there now.Louis Ferrante (10:10): Does he really? What part?AK (10:13): On the border with Brooklyn.Louis Ferrante (10:17): Oh, okay. They're building it up. It's probably up.AK (10:20): Yeah. It's much more fashionable now than it, I'm sure it used to be.Louis Ferrante (10:23): Yeah. I mean, I was in a lower income section of Queens, middle to lower income, so it wasn't all that, but a lot of people now, they've bought up a lot of big real estate in Brooklyn, and I guess they're moving to Queens now too.AK (10:37): Did your family know what you were doing? How old were you when you started your chop shop?Louis Ferrante (10:42): I was in high school when I was running the chop shop, so I kept it from them as best I can. I remember the first time I came home with a tagged car. A tagged car would be if, let's say I bought a wrecked vehicle, let's say a wrecked Cadillac, and I bought the completely, it was totaled out. So you pick up the wreck for a couple hundred bucks. Nobody wants it, but it's got a clean title. If you have a clean title, you don't have to go to motor vehicle and go through an inspection at that time. I don't know if things have changed. Now, this is many years ago. So if you bought a wrecked car, you had a clean title, you could then go out and steal a car, pop a couple of the tags off, for example, the VIN number in the dashboard, pop that tag off, put it on your stolen car, and then drive that as if it's yours. If you get pulled over by a cop, usually the cops just checked the dashboard tag. They never went through the rest of the car unless it was auto crime, which was something different. They'd have to be looking for you. So I came home with a beautiful brand new El Dorado, and I remember my mother was heartbroken. She came out on the porch and looked at it and said, you're killing me. You're breaking my heart.AK (11:48): Right, because she knew what you were doing.Louis Ferrante (11:50): Yeah, of course. How would I afford that car? I didn't have a job. So I tried to tell her that my friend who I work at the Body shop for part-time, he gave me the car and he's going to let me pay it off, but she wasn't buying it. She came from a family who was crooked, although she was law abiding. She was hip to the streets in a way, and she knew something was wrong. And she said, you're breaking my heart. And I never forgot that I did break her heart. She eventually died in my arms. And when I was young, she died at 47. I was 19, turning 20, and I went off the deep end after that. But to this day, I regret that she had to go through that and no, did I admit it to her? No. Did I tell her? But she, no, she knew she was hip.AK (12:33): Louis, talk to me about why you've written this history. Is it bound up with your own history? I mean, much of this history, this first volume is set in the 19th, late 19th, early 20th century when of course you weren't around. But is this a very personal narrative or have you tried to step back and write about the history of the mafia as an objective historian?Louis Ferrante (13:18): Both. And so first answer, I'll answer that question and tell you how the book came about. I do try to be as objective as possible. I don't want anybody to believe that I'm inserting myself where I don't belong. I want to tell a real history. And Publishers Weekly gave me a rave review saying that I did not rest on my own experiences alone.AK (13:40): You didn't threaten them, did you?Louis Ferrante (13:42): No, I did not. No, I didn't hang anybody out of a window or anything. No. And then handed them a pen and said, you know what to do? No, I didn't. Basically, they just said it was Well-researched all my notes. My source notes are in the back years, years reading articles, books. But what I was able to bring to the table from my own insights was I have an extra sense that most people wouldn't have. Being I was a criminal when I read something, I know if it was true or if it wasn't. I know if the writer has been, they don't, usually a writer wouldn't intentionally mislead the reader, but sometimes writers themselves are misled and they may get information, and because they don't know the world or the culture, the subculture, they write the wrong story. And a lot of times I'd be in jail when I was reading history, biographies, science philosophy. I would hear other guys, mob guys reading mob books, and you would hear a lot of guys blurting out b******t never happened, who wrote this crap? And when I finally started to do my own research, I realized that I came across a lot of things that were untrue, and I was able to decipher that stuff for the reader, which I think is interesting. I debunked a lot of old mafia myths that have been around for decades about leading Mafia figures. And I would explain to the reader, this is why it could have never happened. I don't want the reader to just take my word. I want the reader to have confidence in me as a writer to know that this is why this could never have happened. So time and again, I do that. To go back to your original question is where the book came from, how it came about. It wasn't something I really thought about. I was invited to Mob Rules, as we mentioned, was an international bestseller. And I was invited to Sicily by the German media conglomerate at Axel Springer, and it was a retreat for editors in Argento, Sicily. And I was seated next to an older man who happened to be there, and his name was George. And him and I hit it off. He was in his nineties, but a very young nineties, sharp as nails. And we talked all evening, and at the end of the evening, he said, I would like to publish the next book. And it turned out to be Lord George Denfeld, one of the biggest of the 20th century. And the next day we had lunch in Argento overlooking the ruins with Lord George and his charming wife, lady Annabelle. And Lady Annabelle had some priceless input as well, which persuaded me to write the book, what turned down to morphed into a trilogy. Originally, I was contracted to write a book, but I said, you can't squeeze all this into a book. There's too much here. It has to be stretched out. And I probably could have wrote 10 volumes, but I ended up writing a trilogy, and that's how the book came about. Lord George, as I understand it, he had a reputation of connecting writers with subjects, and I was the last one he had personally did that with before he unfortunately passed away.AK (16:39): Louis, if you were to write a history of the Mafia itself, would that begin in Sicily? There's a very strong Sicilian quality, but the mafia existed throughout Italy, of course. Is there something about the Sicilian Mafiaa and the history of the American mafia that are inseparable?Louis Ferrante (18:23): There is, as I pointed out in the early chapters of the book, I dug deep into how the mafia was formed inside the Sicilian womb, and it did indeed start in Sicily and then spread throughout the peninsula up and down the peninsula of Italy. But it was born in Sicily, and it had a lot to do with socioeconomic reasons, culture, family tradition, as I point out all these things in the book. And there was also, I point out a strong Arab influence in Western Sicily, which is interesting because Sicily was invaded by so many different people's over the course of centuries, whether it be the Spanish, the French, the Austrians, and the Arabs at some point. So the Arabs had a strong, I believe, where it developed in Western Sicily for the most part, in places like Palermo and Argento and Casa Lama del Gulfo, there was a strong Arab influence there, which is still present, still prevalent in a lot of places in the architecture and stuff, in words, in people's names, et cetera. So I was able to trace the history deep into Sicily and how it started in America was during the Southern Italian mass exodus wave into the United States after slavery was abolished in the United States in the 1860s. That came on around the same time when the unification of Italy occurred in Europe. And Sicilians were not happy with the unification of Italy being sort of absorbed by Italy proper. And they felt like a lot of Sicilians felt like it was just the newest conqueror, the newest ruler, no different from the bans in France or whoever else was there. So they were like, Hey, you know what? We're not happy with this. And there was a lot of poverty. And when America abolished slavery, we needed labor. We needed cheap labor quick because we no longer had slave labor in the United States. And at that point, we started looking around and there were plenty of poor people in Europe, and we invited them, and they came here in droves, and the mafia rode in on those boats. A lot of them, and I go to detail, I go very, very close detail throughout the early chapters of how exactly that happened. And I'm also very, very careful to point out that most Italian-Americans came here to work hard and to make a new life for themselves and their children and grandchildren, and had nothing to do with the mafia and never committed crimes. But the unfortunate circumstance, the unfortunate byproduct of that mass immigrant wave was the Italian criminals that came with them. A lot of them were fugitives from justice in Sicily, and they planted new flags here in American cities throughout the country, in metropolitan areas. At one point or another. There were just as many Mafia families as there were metropolitan areas across the United States. There was one in every metropolitan area, and then the strongest one survived and went on sort of like Arnold Toby's Darwinian theory of how empires are built, the strong survive. It was the same thing with a lot of these.AK (21:27): Why was it that the Mafia, that the Sicilian Mafia became so dominant, and there were many immigrants from Naples and other parts of mainland southern Italy. What is it about the Southern Sicilian, and is it different in its principles organization, morality or lack of morality from the Neapolitan Mafia, for example?Louis Ferrante (21:51): Yeah. Well, the Neapolitan Mafia was the Kimora. I had done a documentary for the History Channel about them very different from the Italian Sicilian, the Sicilian Mafia in Sicily. A lot of these other mafias from Calabria, from Naples, and even there were a few in northern Italy, very weak. None of them had that sort of Sicilian, the Sicilians. They had something very special on that island. It was an island different throughout up and down the peninsula of Italy. You had city states throughout the Renaissance and stuff. So they were all very, I'm still asked, her father was from Naples, and her mother was from Sicily. So I have two grandparents on my mother's side from Naples and Sicily. And my father's, both parents were from Bari, all from southern Italy. But I'm still asked by people who are Italian American, where are you from? And they sort of connect with you a lot faster if you're from the same place they were from. So you can only imagine back then how territorial Italy was and how people really responded to people like themselves. So at that time, Sicily was an island away from even all those city states, and they were really, really isolated, and they really, really relied on themselves. And throughout history, there were always weak central governments in Sicily, no matter who ruled Sicily, they really never cared about the Sicilian people and implementing any positive changes, whether social changes or institutional changes. They just wanted to pretty much rape Sicily of whatever agrarian products they could get off the island. So most of the time, the Sicilian people relied on themselves, and that went a lot into it as well. And it was a patriarchal society, which in some cases comes from the Arab influence in Sicily.AK (23:33): Are you presenting then the Sicilian Mafia as a resistance, organizational resistance to colonialism of one kind?Louis Ferrante (23:41): Believe it or not, at one point they were. Now, I know that they evolved or devolved extremely quickly into something much more treacherous and less upstanding than that. But I do make the argument that in the very beginning, they were indeed just that in my book, even the word I trace, for the first time, people were, historians were sort of in agreement that it came from an Arabic word, but they threw out a half a dozen different Arabic words that it might've come from one meaning a cave dweller, another one meaning a proud horse, and all kinds of different words from the Arabic language, I was able to trace the word mafia. Those of us in the West who are familiar with the siege of Khartoum, where the Victorian general Gordo, the British General Gordo,, was sent to sort of hold off against the Muslim guy who sort took control and launched this rebellion and said, I am the sort of the prophet. I am the prophet incarnate. And he was sort of like a rebellious character against the status quo all throughout the world, throughout the east and the Middle East. And in this particular case, when the Arabs were pushed into the western region of Sicily, after the unification of Italy, the modest regime was known as the Media, which was one letter away from Mafia. So I left it, look, I'm not an etymologist, but I left it to future historians to debate this. And I make a cogent argument that this is where it came from, my quote, encyclopedia Britannica. I quote people who were on the scene at the time, I quote history books, et cetera, to make this argument. And I do believe it came from that particular word.AK (25:29): As I said, Louis, we've done lots of shows on the mafia infiltration, the response of the police, but is the reason why the Mafia became so powerful and perhaps remained so powerful in the United States because it's a country with a tradition of weak central government, of federal government, of government that isn't for the most part, very effective or efficient. So in other words, was there something, and you have to be careful using this word as a historian, but was there a degree of inevitability about the mafia's rise to power in late 19th century America?Louis Ferrante (26:12): It's a great question, and the answer is yes. There was a Sicilian mobster, and I don't recall his name, but he said, why in the world can anybody think why? When Sicilians left Sicily for New life in America, and a lot of them landed in South America, central America, a lot of them landed in North Africa. They went everywhere. Sicilians were scattered everywhere. But why only in America did the American Mafia, did the Mafia really take root as it did? And that goes to our system, which is we have always had a very corrupt system. And I traced that it was very easily manipulated by mobsters who really learned how to bribe politicians and law enforcement officials during prohibition. And that was a prime time because during prohibition, which took place the roaring twenties into 1930, we had people in America who wanted to drink and were told by their government, you're not allowed. And so the people as a whole didn't agree with this. So they were really, really suddenly the mafiaa who wanted to provide them with liquor, with alcohol and supplying the demand for alcohol weren't seen as these animals anymore. These killers, these beat bad guys, they were all of a sudden these romantic sexy figures who were giving the United States, the people of the country, alcohol when they desperately wanted it. And that's when the mafia began to corrupt a lot of politicians and political machines. And the influence ran throughout law enforcement agencies and that deep influence they had during prohibition, basically, once prohibition was repealed and Americans could drink again, the mafia kept a lot of those deep corrupt alliances that they had made, and they moved on to use them for gambling and stuff, to open up casinos, to have a casino, to have a casino. So a lot of why the mafia was able to prosper here in America had a lot to do with the easily corruptible local governments. And at that point, there wasn't an overarching federal government who could come in and say, Hey, you've been all corrupted. We'll take over from here. We know you're all bought and paid for by the Mafiaa here in your local town. So here the federal government's going to move in with j Edgar Hoover's, FBI, et cetera, et cetera. That didn't happen.AK (28:44): Yeah. And of course, j Edgar Hoover's, FBI began in some ways as a response, not always a particularly effective one to prohibition. To what extent the book covers legendary figures and legendary mafia figures like Lucky Luciano & many others. To what extent do these kind of guys capture the spirit of a violent independent 19th century America?Louis Ferrante (29:16): They do and don't. By the time we get to Luciano and Genovese and Costello, they're sort of this newer generation of American mobsters. So the first generation with these sort of old mustache, peats, grease balls, all the derogatory names that they were called in this country, they were sort of like off the boat, Italians. That was the first generation. Then there was the second generation that were more American, and they weren't as clannish as the Sicilians were. They understood that if they were going to prosper in America, they needed to form these diverse relationships with Jews, with blacks, with Irish. They needed to really, if they were going to get somewhere, they basically came up with the plan that they were going to, Hey, we're going to keep this thing of ours, this thing of ours, this our thing, La Cosa Nostra. We're going to keep that to ourselves.Nobody's allowed entry into this secret organization that we have, but let's deal with everyone. We're not going to get anywhere if we stay to ourselves. And they made alliances with everyone across the country. And that was the key. And that was sort of like that second generation, even though Costello and Luciano came to the country when they were eight or nine years old, they may as well have been born here. They were just as good as Americans, just as good as American born citizens. They were a second generation of this. And they did away with the old ones, the old clannish Mafiosos, who felt like, no, we have to defend ourselves. We have to stick with ourselves. We have to continue to live amongst ourselves, and we can't trust the Irish. We can't trust the blacks or the Jews. This second generation of Italian-Americans said, no, we can trust them and we're going to, and we're going to deal with them.And for example, Frank Costello not only partnered with a million Jews in business, but he married a Jew. So he had a Jewish family. And at one point or another, Al Capone in Chicago, his guy Jake, greasy Thumb Gik was his best friend. He was a Jew. And when somebody had bragged that he made this little Jew greasy thumbs wine, Capone was beside himself, and he went looking for the guy, and he unloaded a revolver in his face and murdered him because Capone wasn't going to allow that to happen. He says, Jew or Italian, it doesn't matter if you're my friend, I protect you, I defend you. So these relationships really started by that sort of next generation of Italian American mobsters. And by my generation, I mean, I had a hijacking heist crew. The two of the toughest guys in my crew were Jews, and they were treated the same as any other Italian. We were all from the same neighborhood. We all grew.AK (31:50): It extend to race as well? I mean, in The Godfather, we all remember the explicit racism of many of the fictional figures were black Americans, African-Americans, were they as welcome as Jewish Americans?Louis Ferrante (32:08): Yes. Now, even in my time you had at one time, I said, for example, mobsters weren't going to go, oh, that African American owes me money. Let's go over there and pay him a visit. Obviously, the lingo would be that N owes me money. Let's go over there and pay him a visit. And the N would refer to us as a grease ball or whop a Guinea. So the words that we used back then would be considered racist today. But were we racist? And what were the Italians or the blacks racist against each other? Absolutely not. The only color we all saw was green. And that was it. And I point out in my book, they made a strong alliance, Lucky Luciano Luciano did with Bumpy Johnson. Bumpy Johnson, when they took over the policy racket in Harlem, they needed to smooth things over with the blacks because the black was a huge population in Harlem blacks. So Luciano struck a deal with Bumpy Johnson, where Bumpy Johnson was going to pretty much handle any black problems in Harlem and deal directly with Luciano. And bumpy Johnson's wife wrote a memoir years later that praised Luciano and said that him and my husband were best friends. And it was a real legitimate friendship. It wasn't just business. They had a real friendship. So all that racism they try to make, that's all television now because it sells. But for the most part, yeah, the talk, you told jokes about each other. You called each other what would be considered horrible names now, but were we really racist toward each other? Absolutely not. People will say Italians. And the Mafia hated gays. The Genovese family ran all the gay clubs in Greenwich Village. They controlled all the gay clubs.AK (33:53): How about women? We did a show last year on female drug gang leaders in Latin America. There aren't that many women in your narrative, are there?Louis Ferrante (34:03): No. I mean, if you want to say misogynistic, then I have to agree. Yeah. Not racist, but misogynistic. The Italian, theAK (34:09):Women in all the movies, the women are at home cooking the past, and the men are out killing each otherLouis Ferrante (34:14): Yeah, go home and cook. No Italian man wants his wife buttoned into his business. So I have to concede that point. I won't give in on racism because it wasn't there. But I will give in on misogynistic outlook toward women.AK (34:27): And I don't necessarily mean that critically. One way. The other narrative, Louis, which of course is most clearly articulated in the Godfather, the movies, the Godfather, maybe even Godfather three, is that the mafia began in a sort of communal way, reasonably decently, even if there was a great deal of violence, and it went really badly wrong with drugs. And of course, that was the foundation of the narrative in The Godfather, the cause of all the bloodshed. Is there any truth in that? There is tell you that veto Corleone in the Godfather wasn't a bad guy, and then it all went wrong when his family got in the drug business.Louis Ferrante (35:07): Yes, there definitely is a direct correlation between the movie and real life and the movie, whether Putto, I believe Mario Puzo, who was the author that they based the movie on, but either Puzo or Francis Ford Coppola adopted it from a real life story, which was Frank Costello. Frank Costello was the acting boss when Lucky Luciano went to jail and then was deported. And when Costello was boss, he was dead set against drugs. He did not want his Borgata dealing drugs because he felt that he had all these big political leaders in Tammany Hall who did everything that they could do for the mob to keep them out of jail, to help them with things. They had judges, they put judges in. They chose the head of Tammany, who in turn helped choose the mayor of New York slash the governor. And then obviously through the governor, Franklin Delano Roosevelt started out in New York and ended up being the president. So it's no telling how high you could go. Well, Costello said, if we continue to deal drugs, these political alliances are going to run away from us. They're not going to, this is something the American people do not like. They're fine with alcohol. They wanted alcohol. We gave it to them. They're fine with gambling. If the United States prohibits gambling and we allow them to gamble, that's fine. The people have no problem with that. They feel like we're providing them with a desire that they have. Even Luciano ran a chain of bordellos. That's an ointment for the hard up. That's fine. But obviously it's human slavery.AK (36:40): can I quote you on that ointment for the hard up?Louis Ferrante (36:44): Well, that's what, yeah, it basically was. It was like an outlet for social frustration maybe. Obviously. Obviously it's woman trafficking. It's disgusting. However, however, Luciano really didn't have a direct connection to it, but it was taking place, but it wasn't thought of by the American people, I should say, as the worst thing in the world.AK (37:10): I mean, the way the Godfather presents it is that this was the argument I think Sonny Cordone made with his father is that if we don't do it, someone else will. There's going to be other groups who do it. Was there any truth to that?Louis Ferrante (37:24): Yes. Yes. And everyone uses that argument today. There are still mobsters who sell drugs and say, if I don't do it, somebody else will. Somebody's got to do it. And me, myself, I never went near drugs. I had an uncle who was a drug addict. He was a heroin addict. And my mother from when me and my sister were little kids, she would beg us, please don't ever do drugs. Please don't ever do drugs. Don't put us through this hell that your uncle put us through. And we never did. I never did it, and I wouldn't sell it. I wouldn't call that curse down upon another person's family. I was dead set against it, but some people did. I knew people who sold drugs. I was in jail with a million different people who sold drugs. I don't think a lot of them sat down and really, really thought deeply about the consequences that could have with regard to mothers crying for the rest of their lives. And some kid dropped dead on his bed because he OD'ed or some, yeah, IAK: Excuse the Dimwittedness of this one. Louis, you've mentioned the word “Borgata” a couple of times. You might define it. Why did you title your book “Borgata”?Louis Ferrante (38:37): Borgata is what we called a crime family is the Borgata or the Broga, we would say, and it's a slang for a crime family. We wouldn't say we belong to a crime family. We wouldn't say we belong to the Mafiaa. We would say, I'm in so-and-So's Borgata or Borgata, and a Borgata. In the Italian definition of the word, it stems from the Latin burial. It's sort of like a poorer neighborhood of Italians would be a Borgata. A poorer community of Italians would be considered a Borgata. And that became, somehow, it became the name of a crime family, which is a little bit of a community. And obviously they don't start off super well off, or they wouldn't be committing crimes. People typically aren't born into wealth and commit crimes. So whoever the name came to mean, a crime family, that's what it means. And nobody had ever used it for a book before. So I figured, what the hell? It's perfect. So I went with the Borgata trilogy.AK (39:32): Well, I hope in this trilogy we're going to get to have you on at least two more shows for volume two and three. You end in the sixties, of course, in The Godfather, there were a wonderful moment in Godfather two, filmed in Cuba. Cuba was central. You make Cuba an important place in this narrative. Why'd you end in the sixties? Did something happen? Did something profoundly change?Louis Ferrante (39:58): Yes. There's a major shift that occurs in 1960 from the beginning of Borgata volume one until the end of Borgata volume one, there really isn't any concerted effort to destroy the Mafia. Thomas Dewey, who went on to become the Governor of New York and eventually ran as the Republican candidate for President against FDR, he did take a shot at locking up some gangsters in New York, but there was never really a concerted effort by the institutions of law enforcement to go after the mob. When Bobby Kennedy, when John f Kennedy's elected president in 1960, or begins his term in 1960, he appoints Bobby Kennedy, his younger brother, the Attorney General of the United States. And Bobby always had a thing against the mafia. He had started out in the McClellan Committee where he went after Jimmy Hoffa, and he went after other gangsters and called them to testify. And he was incensed that they took the Fifth Amendment all the time, and he didn't like that they would hide behind the Fifth, how dare them. And he swore he would go after them one day. And when John F. Kennedy becomes president, and Bobby is appointed Attorney General of the United States, he now suddenly has all of the Justice Department's, 30,000 employees under his control, treasury, I-R-S-I-N-S-F-B-I, et cetera, et cetera.AK (41:18): Although Bobby Kennedy used to call j Edgar Hoover, j Edna Hoover. He never seemed to listen very much to what Bobby Kennedy said.Louis Ferrante (41:27): No, he demeaned Hoover to, I mean, beyond what we would even consider. I mean, our standards today, forget it. They'd cancel Bobby Kennedy in a minute. But he was horrible to Hoover. And Hoover hated him. But Hoover did not. Hoover was dragged into the fight kicking and screaming. Hoover knew that if you made a concerted effort to destroy the mob, a lot of those mobsters, their backgrounds led to Congress led to congressmen, politicians, senator,AK (42:00): And of course, Hoover wonderful new biography, Al Prize winning biography. I'm sure you've read it. He was more interested, I think, in racial divisions in America. He might've been slightly sympathetic to the Mafia because they were white.Louis Ferrante (42:15): Yeah, I mean, he probably was at some point or another, he used the Mafiaa to uncover, I don't know if you're familiar with when those three civil rights workers were killed down in Mississippi.  Johnson put tremendous pressure on Hoover to crack the case, and Hoover probably got dragged into the fray kicking and screaming. I'm sure he didn't want to go after that. He was not deferential to blacks at all, Hoover. But he knew that that's what Johnson wanted. And the public wanted to know who these people were that killed these three civil rights workers, two whites and one black. And Hoover called one of his FBI informants down south and told them, here's the KK guy. The agents told, not Hoover himself, but Hoover's agents told this mob guy, here's the KKK guy. We believe the KKK guy we believe had something to do with it. You could beat it out of him if you want. Go for it. And this guy did. And then they dug up the bodies and they cracked the case. But Hoover, Hoover didn't like Italians, but he didn't go after them. And of course he didn't like blacks. Hoover was old school, very conservative in his views. Yeah. I mean, he was a man of his own time, but he was only concerned with groups trying to advocate the destruction of the United States. He was big on communists. He did not like communists Obviously, blacks and Italians weren't trying to overthrow the United States, but groups for the most part, like communist groups…AK (43:50): Right. His obsession with anti-Communist. And finally, Louis ending in the sixties, of course, in the sixties, America descended into a great deal of political violence, and particularly the assassinations of John F. Kennedy, of Bobby Kennedy, of Martin Luther King, many others. Lots of stories. And I'm sure you covered this in the book about Mafia involvement in one kind of assassination or another in the sixties, is in an odd ironic way at the end of this first volume, did America and the mafia kind of come together? Are they increasingly inseparable in the 1960s in the public use of violence of one kind or another?Louis Ferrante (44:31): That's a great question. I guess they've always remained, there's some sort of inseparability between them. But yeah, America became a very violent place.AK (44:44): Always was, but politically much more violent in the sixties.Louis Ferrante (44:48): Correct. I mean, we didn't have assassinations like we did. There's still a song. I heard it the other day. Where's my old friend, Johnny Martin, Luther King, John and Bobby, they died. Where are they? I forget the lyrics of the song, but it was made on the heels of that violence, and it still plays on the radio today. Where's my old friend Johnny? I think it is. But yeah, I mean, America became a violent place. I do believe that the mafia had something to do directly with John f Kennedy's. I present tremendous evidence in volume two of the Borgata Trilogy, trilogy. They had something to, andAK (45:24): That book's not out yet, right? Louis?Louis Ferrante (45:25): It's not out yet. But they did have something to do with his murder. And I also believe at some point or another, I intend to write a book about the Mafia's involvement with Martin Luther King's murder as well. I do believe there was a mafia informant who had something to do with Martin Luther King's murder as well. And I think if Hoover's hands aren't dirty in each of those cases, he definitely had his head in the sand and he heard things that he chose to ignore. And I think that that was the type of person, Hoover was where if I want a certain outcome and I just didn't see it or didn't hear it, it's like if you have a neighbor whose dog's been crapping on your lawn for the last 10 years, and then somebody beats up the neighbor, maybe you didn't see it. Maybe you looked the other way when it happened. I don't know. Maybe you get the outcome you wanted. So that could be what happened with Hoover.AK (46:19): Final question. I got to ask you this. We will get more next time you come on the show with volume two, talking about JFK and all that. What about you grew up in Queens? What about, you know who, I'm not sure if you've ever met him or come across him, but there's a mafia quality in the way, maybe a wannabe mafiaa quality to your fellow queens in New Yorker?Louis Ferrante (46:43): I never met him. I will say a lot of people have accused him of his construction business and the buildings that went up in New York having some type of mafia involvement. But I will say this, I know for a fact all of the buildings that went up in New York had some sort of mafia involvement. So you couldn't operate as a building developer in New York, especially back then, without having to deal with the mafia controlled unions without having to deal with the mafia controlled construction companies without having to deal with the mafia controlled concrete companies. There was something the mafia had, which was called the Concrete Club. And any bid over a million dollars, which would be any bid for a skyscraper, was controlled by the mafia. They let any bids under a million, they let them go, but anything over a million, they wanted to control. My friend, my former friend, I haven't seen him in years, I did time with him also. Tommy Rizzo supplied the rebar for the Trade Center. He was a Colombo gangster, Colombo family mobster. The guy who was supposed to fireproof the supports in the trade center was a Gambino family mobster. And the Port Authority cleared him of any wrongdoing when the towers fell. But I mean, these are mobsters who have all these contracts in New York and all these building developers to some extent have to deal with them. Now, usually there's a GC on the job, a general contractor, and at some point or another way below, someone like him or someone like somebody, his associates in that industry, somewhere down there, there's someone dealing with the cash envelopes under the table and stuff. But I don't think it ever rises to the height of himself or people like him in the developing industry. I think they're much bigger. They go to the parties. If he has a flamboyant nature, that's a completely different thing. But I mean, as far as incriminating something that he may have done incriminating, I don't believe so. I believe it was done lower, much lower than him. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit keenon.substack.com/subscribe

“If you don't have anything nice to say, come and sit here by me,” is one of the best snarky-isms ever uttered. But who said it? Dorothy Parker? Joan Crawford? Lady Buzzkill? Hear the full story, and learn what in the world Teddy Roosevelt, Nellie Taft, and Thomas Dewey have to do with it all! Listen and learn! Wisdom Wednesday Encore!This show is part of the Spreaker Prime Network, if you are interested in advertising on this podcast, contact us at https://www.spreaker.com/show/5455565/advertisement

Patrick Ruffini, pollster at Echelon Strategies, returns to talk about his new book (released today, 11/7/23) PARTY OF THE PEOPLE - on the transition of the Republican Party from being dominated by wealthy, suburban white voters to a more blue-collar and increasingly-multi-racial coalition. In this conversation, Patrick lays out the data behind these shifts, what is driving the GOP's new-found success with blue-collar voters, why this movement came as a surprise to many, the balance of economic vs. cultural priorities, how Latino/AAPI/Black voters are increasingly persuadable audiences in elections, and expecations as to how these shifts will continue to define American politics for the forseeable future.IN THIS EPISODEPatrick lays out the core thesis of Party of the People...Patrick's favorite data points that illustrate the changing face of the GOP...Patrick's take on the role of "educational attainment" in changing voting patterns...Patrick gives a quick tutorial on when and how Democrats have historically been the party of working-class Americans...How flawed 2012 exit polls have contributed to shifting party coalitions more than a decade later...Patrick's take on how the "In This House..." yard signs unwittingly speak to tensions within the Democratic coalition...Economic vs cultural drivers of voter behavior...Missteps and missed GOP opportunities from the trifecta control of government in 2017 and 2018...Mining recent data among Hispanic voters...What Patrick learned about border communities on a trip to the Rio Grande Valley...Why Lester Chang is important...Why Black voter behavior has been more stable than Latino and Asian voters...Patrick's take on the growing segment of biracial and multi-racial Americans...The impact of free trade and foreign policy on changing partisan coalitions...What Patrick learned in the process of writing his first book...AND 7:3 coalitional splits, anti-globalization sentiments, Joe Biden, blurbs, Brexit, George W. Bush, census buckets, charts and data, Hillary Clinton, Nate Cohn, Thomas Dewey, Tom Edsall, Ryan Enos, existential demographic crisis, fading historical patterns, faint echoes, frontier mentalities, the Great Recession, the green transition, Hamiltonian tendencies, illiberal populism, instinctive hawks, Andrew Jackson, jettisoning first principles, Chryl Laird, majority popular tendencies, mercantile progress, the New Deal, Barack Obama, Mike Podhorzer, Ronald Reagan, the Republican autopsy, rivalrous groups, Mitt Romney, sheepskin effects, David Shor, social taboos, Starr County, Steadfast Democrats, Harry Truman, Donald Trump, the UAW, Ismail White, white phenomenons....& more!

On this day in 1948, the Chicago Tribune wrongly declared Thomas Dewey the winner of the previous day's presidential election.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Many know Hubert Humphrey as a man whose public life ended in disgrace—as the man who lost his bearings during the Vietnam War and then lost the presidency to Richard Nixon. But decades before the Vietnam War or his presidential run, Humphrey was known as a trailblazing statesman who electrified the nation through an impassioned speech in support of civil rights at the July 1948 Democratic National Convention. Urging the delegates to “get out of the shadow of state's rights and walk forthrightly into the bright sunshine of human rights,” Humphrey—then a 37-yearold mayor of Minneapolis—put everything on the line, rhetorically and politically, to move the party and the country forward. To the surprise of many, including Humphrey himself, the democratic delegates adopted a meaningful civil rights plank. With no choice but to run on it, President Truman desegregated the armed forces and soon thereafter won reelection against the frontrunner Thomas Dewey, a victory due in part to an unprecedented surge of Black voters. Published on the 75th anniversary of that pivotal 1948 speech, Samuel G. Freedman's July 2023 Into the Bright Sunshine examines the politician's early career, when his efforts to promote racial justice not only transformed the Democratic Party but the nation as well. Freedman explores the journey of Humphrey's life from a remote, all-white hamlet in South Dakota to the mayoralty of Minneapolis as he tackles its notorious racism and anti-Semitism to his role as a national champion of multiracial democracy. His allies in that struggle include a Black newspaper publisher, a Jewish attorney, and a professor who had fled Nazi Germany. And his adversaries are the white supremacists, Christian Nationalists, and America Firsters of mid-century America—one of whom tries to assassinate him. Celebrating one of the overlooked landmarks of civil rights history, Freedman illuminates the early life and enduring legacy of the man who helped bring it about. Samuel G. Freedman is an award-winning author, journalist, and educator. He has been a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award and has won the National Jewish Book Award and the New York Public Library's Helen Bernstein Award. His columns for the New York Times about education and religion have received national prizes. He is a professor at Columbia University, and has been named the nation's Outstanding Journalism Educator by the Society of Professional Journalists. For more information on the book click HERE --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/steve-richards/support

From one of the country's most distinguished journalists, a revisionist and riveting look at the American politician whom history has judged a loser, yet who played a key part in the greatest social movement of the 20th century. During one sweltering week in July 1948, the Democratic Party gathered in Philadelphia for its national convention. The most pressing and controversial issue facing the delegates was not whom to nominate for president -the incumbent, Harry Truman, was the presumptive candidate -but whether the Democrats would finally embrace the cause of civil rights and embed it in their official platform. Even under Franklin Roosevelt, the party had dodged the issue in order to keep a bloc of Southern segregationists-the so-called Dixiecrats-in the New Deal coalition. On the convention's final day, Hubert Humphrey, just 37 and the relatively obscure mayor of the midsized city of Minneapolis, ascended the podium. Defying Truman's own desire to occupy the middle ground, Humphrey urged the delegates to "get out of the shadow of state's rights and walk forthrightly into the bright sunshine of human rights." Humphrey's speech put everything on the line, rhetorically and politically, to move the party, and the country, forward. To the surprise of many, including Humphrey himself, the delegates voted to adopt a meaningful civil-rights plank. With no choice but to run on it, Truman seized the opportunity it offered, desegregating the armed forces and in November upsetting the frontrunner Thomas Dewey, a victory due in part to an unprecedented surge of Black voters. The outcome of that week in July 1948-which marks its 75th anniversary as this book is published-shapes American politics to this day. And it was in turned shaped by Humphrey. His journey to that pivotal speech runs from a remote, all-white hamlet in South Dakota to the mayoralty of Minneapolis as he tackles its notorious racism and anti-Semitism to his role as a national champion of multiracial democracy. His allies in that struggle include a Black newspaper publisher, a Jewish attorney, and a professor who had fled Nazi Germany. And his adversaries are the white supremacists, Christian Nationalists, and America Firsters of mid-century America - one of whom tries to assassinate him. Into the Bright Sunshine: Young Hubert Humphrey and the Fight for Civil Rights (Oxford UP, 2023) is a book that celebrates one of the overlooked landmarks of civil rights history, and illuminates the early life and enduring legacy of the man who helped bring it about. Samuel G. Freedman is an award-winning professor, columnist, and author of nine acclaimed books. Freedman was a staff reporter for The New York Times from 1981 through 1987. From 2004 through 2008, he wrote the paper's "On Education" column, winning first prize in the Education Writers Association's annual competition in 2005. From 2006 through 2016, Freedman wrote the "On Religion" column, receiving the Goldziher Prize for Journalists in 2017 for a series of columns about Muslim-Americans that had been published over the preceding six years. As a professor of journalism at Columbia University, Freedman has been named the nation's outstanding journalism educator by the Society of Professional Journalists and received Columbia's coveted Presidential Award for Outstanding Teaching. Connor Christensen is a graduate student at the University of Chicago, pursuing both an MPP at the Harris School of Public Policy and an MA at the Center for Middle Eastern Studies. He welcomes collaboration, so feel free to reach out on LinkedIn or at his email, ctchristensen@uchicago.edu. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/african-american-studies

From one of the country's most distinguished journalists, a revisionist and riveting look at the American politician whom history has judged a loser, yet who played a key part in the greatest social movement of the 20th century. During one sweltering week in July 1948, the Democratic Party gathered in Philadelphia for its national convention. The most pressing and controversial issue facing the delegates was not whom to nominate for president -the incumbent, Harry Truman, was the presumptive candidate -but whether the Democrats would finally embrace the cause of civil rights and embed it in their official platform. Even under Franklin Roosevelt, the party had dodged the issue in order to keep a bloc of Southern segregationists-the so-called Dixiecrats-in the New Deal coalition. On the convention's final day, Hubert Humphrey, just 37 and the relatively obscure mayor of the midsized city of Minneapolis, ascended the podium. Defying Truman's own desire to occupy the middle ground, Humphrey urged the delegates to "get out of the shadow of state's rights and walk forthrightly into the bright sunshine of human rights." Humphrey's speech put everything on the line, rhetorically and politically, to move the party, and the country, forward. To the surprise of many, including Humphrey himself, the delegates voted to adopt a meaningful civil-rights plank. With no choice but to run on it, Truman seized the opportunity it offered, desegregating the armed forces and in November upsetting the frontrunner Thomas Dewey, a victory due in part to an unprecedented surge of Black voters. The outcome of that week in July 1948-which marks its 75th anniversary as this book is published-shapes American politics to this day. And it was in turned shaped by Humphrey. His journey to that pivotal speech runs from a remote, all-white hamlet in South Dakota to the mayoralty of Minneapolis as he tackles its notorious racism and anti-Semitism to his role as a national champion of multiracial democracy. His allies in that struggle include a Black newspaper publisher, a Jewish attorney, and a professor who had fled Nazi Germany. And his adversaries are the white supremacists, Christian Nationalists, and America Firsters of mid-century America - one of whom tries to assassinate him. Into the Bright Sunshine: Young Hubert Humphrey and the Fight for Civil Rights (Oxford UP, 2023) is a book that celebrates one of the overlooked landmarks of civil rights history, and illuminates the early life and enduring legacy of the man who helped bring it about. Samuel G. Freedman is an award-winning professor, columnist, and author of nine acclaimed books. Freedman was a staff reporter for The New York Times from 1981 through 1987. From 2004 through 2008, he wrote the paper's "On Education" column, winning first prize in the Education Writers Association's annual competition in 2005. From 2006 through 2016, Freedman wrote the "On Religion" column, receiving the Goldziher Prize for Journalists in 2017 for a series of columns about Muslim-Americans that had been published over the preceding six years. As a professor of journalism at Columbia University, Freedman has been named the nation's outstanding journalism educator by the Society of Professional Journalists and received Columbia's coveted Presidential Award for Outstanding Teaching. Connor Christensen is a graduate student at the University of Chicago, pursuing both an MPP at the Harris School of Public Policy and an MA at the Center for Middle Eastern Studies. He welcomes collaboration, so feel free to reach out on LinkedIn or at his email, ctchristensen@uchicago.edu. 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

From one of the country's most distinguished journalists, a revisionist and riveting look at the American politician whom history has judged a loser, yet who played a key part in the greatest social movement of the 20th century. During one sweltering week in July 1948, the Democratic Party gathered in Philadelphia for its national convention. The most pressing and controversial issue facing the delegates was not whom to nominate for president -the incumbent, Harry Truman, was the presumptive candidate -but whether the Democrats would finally embrace the cause of civil rights and embed it in their official platform. Even under Franklin Roosevelt, the party had dodged the issue in order to keep a bloc of Southern segregationists-the so-called Dixiecrats-in the New Deal coalition. On the convention's final day, Hubert Humphrey, just 37 and the relatively obscure mayor of the midsized city of Minneapolis, ascended the podium. Defying Truman's own desire to occupy the middle ground, Humphrey urged the delegates to "get out of the shadow of state's rights and walk forthrightly into the bright sunshine of human rights." Humphrey's speech put everything on the line, rhetorically and politically, to move the party, and the country, forward. To the surprise of many, including Humphrey himself, the delegates voted to adopt a meaningful civil-rights plank. With no choice but to run on it, Truman seized the opportunity it offered, desegregating the armed forces and in November upsetting the frontrunner Thomas Dewey, a victory due in part to an unprecedented surge of Black voters. The outcome of that week in July 1948-which marks its 75th anniversary as this book is published-shapes American politics to this day. And it was in turned shaped by Humphrey. His journey to that pivotal speech runs from a remote, all-white hamlet in South Dakota to the mayoralty of Minneapolis as he tackles its notorious racism and anti-Semitism to his role as a national champion of multiracial democracy. His allies in that struggle include a Black newspaper publisher, a Jewish attorney, and a professor who had fled Nazi Germany. And his adversaries are the white supremacists, Christian Nationalists, and America Firsters of mid-century America - one of whom tries to assassinate him. Into the Bright Sunshine: Young Hubert Humphrey and the Fight for Civil Rights (Oxford UP, 2023) is a book that celebrates one of the overlooked landmarks of civil rights history, and illuminates the early life and enduring legacy of the man who helped bring it about. Samuel G. Freedman is an award-winning professor, columnist, and author of nine acclaimed books. Freedman was a staff reporter for The New York Times from 1981 through 1987. From 2004 through 2008, he wrote the paper's "On Education" column, winning first prize in the Education Writers Association's annual competition in 2005. From 2006 through 2016, Freedman wrote the "On Religion" column, receiving the Goldziher Prize for Journalists in 2017 for a series of columns about Muslim-Americans that had been published over the preceding six years. As a professor of journalism at Columbia University, Freedman has been named the nation's outstanding journalism educator by the Society of Professional Journalists and received Columbia's coveted Presidential Award for Outstanding Teaching. Connor Christensen is a graduate student at the University of Chicago, pursuing both an MPP at the Harris School of Public Policy and an MA at the Center for Middle Eastern Studies. He welcomes collaboration, so feel free to reach out on LinkedIn or at his email, ctchristensen@uchicago.edu. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/history

From one of the country's most distinguished journalists, a revisionist and riveting look at the American politician whom history has judged a loser, yet who played a key part in the greatest social movement of the 20th century. During one sweltering week in July 1948, the Democratic Party gathered in Philadelphia for its national convention. The most pressing and controversial issue facing the delegates was not whom to nominate for president -the incumbent, Harry Truman, was the presumptive candidate -but whether the Democrats would finally embrace the cause of civil rights and embed it in their official platform. Even under Franklin Roosevelt, the party had dodged the issue in order to keep a bloc of Southern segregationists-the so-called Dixiecrats-in the New Deal coalition. On the convention's final day, Hubert Humphrey, just 37 and the relatively obscure mayor of the midsized city of Minneapolis, ascended the podium. Defying Truman's own desire to occupy the middle ground, Humphrey urged the delegates to "get out of the shadow of state's rights and walk forthrightly into the bright sunshine of human rights." Humphrey's speech put everything on the line, rhetorically and politically, to move the party, and the country, forward. To the surprise of many, including Humphrey himself, the delegates voted to adopt a meaningful civil-rights plank. With no choice but to run on it, Truman seized the opportunity it offered, desegregating the armed forces and in November upsetting the frontrunner Thomas Dewey, a victory due in part to an unprecedented surge of Black voters. The outcome of that week in July 1948-which marks its 75th anniversary as this book is published-shapes American politics to this day. And it was in turned shaped by Humphrey. His journey to that pivotal speech runs from a remote, all-white hamlet in South Dakota to the mayoralty of Minneapolis as he tackles its notorious racism and anti-Semitism to his role as a national champion of multiracial democracy. His allies in that struggle include a Black newspaper publisher, a Jewish attorney, and a professor who had fled Nazi Germany. And his adversaries are the white supremacists, Christian Nationalists, and America Firsters of mid-century America - one of whom tries to assassinate him. Into the Bright Sunshine: Young Hubert Humphrey and the Fight for Civil Rights (Oxford UP, 2023) is a book that celebrates one of the overlooked landmarks of civil rights history, and illuminates the early life and enduring legacy of the man who helped bring it about. Samuel G. Freedman is an award-winning professor, columnist, and author of nine acclaimed books. Freedman was a staff reporter for The New York Times from 1981 through 1987. From 2004 through 2008, he wrote the paper's "On Education" column, winning first prize in the Education Writers Association's annual competition in 2005. From 2006 through 2016, Freedman wrote the "On Religion" column, receiving the Goldziher Prize for Journalists in 2017 for a series of columns about Muslim-Americans that had been published over the preceding six years. As a professor of journalism at Columbia University, Freedman has been named the nation's outstanding journalism educator by the Society of Professional Journalists and received Columbia's coveted Presidential Award for Outstanding Teaching. Connor Christensen is a graduate student at the University of Chicago, pursuing both an MPP at the Harris School of Public Policy and an MA at the Center for Middle Eastern Studies. He welcomes collaboration, so feel free to reach out on LinkedIn or at his email, ctchristensen@uchicago.edu. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/political-science

From one of the country's most distinguished journalists, a revisionist and riveting look at the American politician whom history has judged a loser, yet who played a key part in the greatest social movement of the 20th century. During one sweltering week in July 1948, the Democratic Party gathered in Philadelphia for its national convention. The most pressing and controversial issue facing the delegates was not whom to nominate for president -the incumbent, Harry Truman, was the presumptive candidate -but whether the Democrats would finally embrace the cause of civil rights and embed it in their official platform. Even under Franklin Roosevelt, the party had dodged the issue in order to keep a bloc of Southern segregationists-the so-called Dixiecrats-in the New Deal coalition. On the convention's final day, Hubert Humphrey, just 37 and the relatively obscure mayor of the midsized city of Minneapolis, ascended the podium. Defying Truman's own desire to occupy the middle ground, Humphrey urged the delegates to "get out of the shadow of state's rights and walk forthrightly into the bright sunshine of human rights." Humphrey's speech put everything on the line, rhetorically and politically, to move the party, and the country, forward. To the surprise of many, including Humphrey himself, the delegates voted to adopt a meaningful civil-rights plank. With no choice but to run on it, Truman seized the opportunity it offered, desegregating the armed forces and in November upsetting the frontrunner Thomas Dewey, a victory due in part to an unprecedented surge of Black voters. The outcome of that week in July 1948-which marks its 75th anniversary as this book is published-shapes American politics to this day. And it was in turned shaped by Humphrey. His journey to that pivotal speech runs from a remote, all-white hamlet in South Dakota to the mayoralty of Minneapolis as he tackles its notorious racism and anti-Semitism to his role as a national champion of multiracial democracy. His allies in that struggle include a Black newspaper publisher, a Jewish attorney, and a professor who had fled Nazi Germany. And his adversaries are the white supremacists, Christian Nationalists, and America Firsters of mid-century America - one of whom tries to assassinate him. Into the Bright Sunshine: Young Hubert Humphrey and the Fight for Civil Rights (Oxford UP, 2023) is a book that celebrates one of the overlooked landmarks of civil rights history, and illuminates the early life and enduring legacy of the man who helped bring it about. Samuel G. Freedman is an award-winning professor, columnist, and author of nine acclaimed books. Freedman was a staff reporter for The New York Times from 1981 through 1987. From 2004 through 2008, he wrote the paper's "On Education" column, winning first prize in the Education Writers Association's annual competition in 2005. From 2006 through 2016, Freedman wrote the "On Religion" column, receiving the Goldziher Prize for Journalists in 2017 for a series of columns about Muslim-Americans that had been published over the preceding six years. As a professor of journalism at Columbia University, Freedman has been named the nation's outstanding journalism educator by the Society of Professional Journalists and received Columbia's coveted Presidential Award for Outstanding Teaching. Connor Christensen is a graduate student at the University of Chicago, pursuing both an MPP at the Harris School of Public Policy and an MA at the Center for Middle Eastern Studies. He welcomes collaboration, so feel free to reach out on LinkedIn or at his email, ctchristensen@uchicago.edu. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/biography

From one of the country's most distinguished journalists, a revisionist and riveting look at the American politician whom history has judged a loser, yet who played a key part in the greatest social movement of the 20th century. During one sweltering week in July 1948, the Democratic Party gathered in Philadelphia for its national convention. The most pressing and controversial issue facing the delegates was not whom to nominate for president -the incumbent, Harry Truman, was the presumptive candidate -but whether the Democrats would finally embrace the cause of civil rights and embed it in their official platform. Even under Franklin Roosevelt, the party had dodged the issue in order to keep a bloc of Southern segregationists-the so-called Dixiecrats-in the New Deal coalition. On the convention's final day, Hubert Humphrey, just 37 and the relatively obscure mayor of the midsized city of Minneapolis, ascended the podium. Defying Truman's own desire to occupy the middle ground, Humphrey urged the delegates to "get out of the shadow of state's rights and walk forthrightly into the bright sunshine of human rights." Humphrey's speech put everything on the line, rhetorically and politically, to move the party, and the country, forward. To the surprise of many, including Humphrey himself, the delegates voted to adopt a meaningful civil-rights plank. With no choice but to run on it, Truman seized the opportunity it offered, desegregating the armed forces and in November upsetting the frontrunner Thomas Dewey, a victory due in part to an unprecedented surge of Black voters. The outcome of that week in July 1948-which marks its 75th anniversary as this book is published-shapes American politics to this day. And it was in turned shaped by Humphrey. His journey to that pivotal speech runs from a remote, all-white hamlet in South Dakota to the mayoralty of Minneapolis as he tackles its notorious racism and anti-Semitism to his role as a national champion of multiracial democracy. His allies in that struggle include a Black newspaper publisher, a Jewish attorney, and a professor who had fled Nazi Germany. And his adversaries are the white supremacists, Christian Nationalists, and America Firsters of mid-century America - one of whom tries to assassinate him. Into the Bright Sunshine: Young Hubert Humphrey and the Fight for Civil Rights (Oxford UP, 2023) is a book that celebrates one of the overlooked landmarks of civil rights history, and illuminates the early life and enduring legacy of the man who helped bring it about. Samuel G. Freedman is an award-winning professor, columnist, and author of nine acclaimed books. Freedman was a staff reporter for The New York Times from 1981 through 1987. From 2004 through 2008, he wrote the paper's "On Education" column, winning first prize in the Education Writers Association's annual competition in 2005. From 2006 through 2016, Freedman wrote the "On Religion" column, receiving the Goldziher Prize for Journalists in 2017 for a series of columns about Muslim-Americans that had been published over the preceding six years. As a professor of journalism at Columbia University, Freedman has been named the nation's outstanding journalism educator by the Society of Professional Journalists and received Columbia's coveted Presidential Award for Outstanding Teaching. Connor Christensen is a graduate student at the University of Chicago, pursuing both an MPP at the Harris School of Public Policy and an MA at the Center for Middle Eastern Studies. He welcomes collaboration, so feel free to reach out on LinkedIn or at his email, ctchristensen@uchicago.edu. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/american-studies

From one of the country's most distinguished journalists, a revisionist and riveting look at the American politician whom history has judged a loser, yet who played a key part in the greatest social movement of the 20th century. During one sweltering week in July 1948, the Democratic Party gathered in Philadelphia for its national convention. The most pressing and controversial issue facing the delegates was not whom to nominate for president -the incumbent, Harry Truman, was the presumptive candidate -but whether the Democrats would finally embrace the cause of civil rights and embed it in their official platform. Even under Franklin Roosevelt, the party had dodged the issue in order to keep a bloc of Southern segregationists-the so-called Dixiecrats-in the New Deal coalition. On the convention's final day, Hubert Humphrey, just 37 and the relatively obscure mayor of the midsized city of Minneapolis, ascended the podium. Defying Truman's own desire to occupy the middle ground, Humphrey urged the delegates to "get out of the shadow of state's rights and walk forthrightly into the bright sunshine of human rights." Humphrey's speech put everything on the line, rhetorically and politically, to move the party, and the country, forward. To the surprise of many, including Humphrey himself, the delegates voted to adopt a meaningful civil-rights plank. With no choice but to run on it, Truman seized the opportunity it offered, desegregating the armed forces and in November upsetting the frontrunner Thomas Dewey, a victory due in part to an unprecedented surge of Black voters. The outcome of that week in July 1948-which marks its 75th anniversary as this book is published-shapes American politics to this day. And it was in turned shaped by Humphrey. His journey to that pivotal speech runs from a remote, all-white hamlet in South Dakota to the mayoralty of Minneapolis as he tackles its notorious racism and anti-Semitism to his role as a national champion of multiracial democracy. His allies in that struggle include a Black newspaper publisher, a Jewish attorney, and a professor who had fled Nazi Germany. And his adversaries are the white supremacists, Christian Nationalists, and America Firsters of mid-century America - one of whom tries to assassinate him. Into the Bright Sunshine: Young Hubert Humphrey and the Fight for Civil Rights (Oxford UP, 2023) is a book that celebrates one of the overlooked landmarks of civil rights history, and illuminates the early life and enduring legacy of the man who helped bring it about. Samuel G. Freedman is an award-winning professor, columnist, and author of nine acclaimed books. Freedman was a staff reporter for The New York Times from 1981 through 1987. From 2004 through 2008, he wrote the paper's "On Education" column, winning first prize in the Education Writers Association's annual competition in 2005. From 2006 through 2016, Freedman wrote the "On Religion" column, receiving the Goldziher Prize for Journalists in 2017 for a series of columns about Muslim-Americans that had been published over the preceding six years. As a professor of journalism at Columbia University, Freedman has been named the nation's outstanding journalism educator by the Society of Professional Journalists and received Columbia's coveted Presidential Award for Outstanding Teaching. Connor Christensen is a graduate student at the University of Chicago, pursuing both an MPP at the Harris School of Public Policy and an MA at the Center for Middle Eastern Studies. He welcomes collaboration, so feel free to reach out on LinkedIn or at his email, ctchristensen@uchicago.edu. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/law

From one of the country's most distinguished journalists, a revisionist and riveting look at the American politician whom history has judged a loser, yet who played a key part in the greatest social movement of the 20th century. During one sweltering week in July 1948, the Democratic Party gathered in Philadelphia for its national convention. The most pressing and controversial issue facing the delegates was not whom to nominate for president -the incumbent, Harry Truman, was the presumptive candidate -but whether the Democrats would finally embrace the cause of civil rights and embed it in their official platform. Even under Franklin Roosevelt, the party had dodged the issue in order to keep a bloc of Southern segregationists-the so-called Dixiecrats-in the New Deal coalition. On the convention's final day, Hubert Humphrey, just 37 and the relatively obscure mayor of the midsized city of Minneapolis, ascended the podium. Defying Truman's own desire to occupy the middle ground, Humphrey urged the delegates to "get out of the shadow of state's rights and walk forthrightly into the bright sunshine of human rights." Humphrey's speech put everything on the line, rhetorically and politically, to move the party, and the country, forward. To the surprise of many, including Humphrey himself, the delegates voted to adopt a meaningful civil-rights plank. With no choice but to run on it, Truman seized the opportunity it offered, desegregating the armed forces and in November upsetting the frontrunner Thomas Dewey, a victory due in part to an unprecedented surge of Black voters. The outcome of that week in July 1948-which marks its 75th anniversary as this book is published-shapes American politics to this day. And it was in turned shaped by Humphrey. His journey to that pivotal speech runs from a remote, all-white hamlet in South Dakota to the mayoralty of Minneapolis as he tackles its notorious racism and anti-Semitism to his role as a national champion of multiracial democracy. His allies in that struggle include a Black newspaper publisher, a Jewish attorney, and a professor who had fled Nazi Germany. And his adversaries are the white supremacists, Christian Nationalists, and America Firsters of mid-century America - one of whom tries to assassinate him. Into the Bright Sunshine: Young Hubert Humphrey and the Fight for Civil Rights (Oxford UP, 2023) is a book that celebrates one of the overlooked landmarks of civil rights history, and illuminates the early life and enduring legacy of the man who helped bring it about. Samuel G. Freedman is an award-winning professor, columnist, and author of nine acclaimed books. Freedman was a staff reporter for The New York Times from 1981 through 1987. From 2004 through 2008, he wrote the paper's "On Education" column, winning first prize in the Education Writers Association's annual competition in 2005. From 2006 through 2016, Freedman wrote the "On Religion" column, receiving the Goldziher Prize for Journalists in 2017 for a series of columns about Muslim-Americans that had been published over the preceding six years. As a professor of journalism at Columbia University, Freedman has been named the nation's outstanding journalism educator by the Society of Professional Journalists and received Columbia's coveted Presidential Award for Outstanding Teaching. Connor Christensen is a graduate student at the University of Chicago, pursuing both an MPP at the Harris School of Public Policy and an MA at the Center for Middle Eastern Studies. He welcomes collaboration, so feel free to reach out on LinkedIn or at his email, ctchristensen@uchicago.edu. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

From one of the country's most distinguished journalists, a revisionist and riveting look at the American politician whom history has judged a loser, yet who played a key part in the greatest social movement of the 20th century. During one sweltering week in July 1948, the Democratic Party gathered in Philadelphia for its national convention. The most pressing and controversial issue facing the delegates was not whom to nominate for president -the incumbent, Harry Truman, was the presumptive candidate -but whether the Democrats would finally embrace the cause of civil rights and embed it in their official platform. Even under Franklin Roosevelt, the party had dodged the issue in order to keep a bloc of Southern segregationists-the so-called Dixiecrats-in the New Deal coalition. On the convention's final day, Hubert Humphrey, just 37 and the relatively obscure mayor of the midsized city of Minneapolis, ascended the podium. Defying Truman's own desire to occupy the middle ground, Humphrey urged the delegates to "get out of the shadow of state's rights and walk forthrightly into the bright sunshine of human rights." Humphrey's speech put everything on the line, rhetorically and politically, to move the party, and the country, forward. To the surprise of many, including Humphrey himself, the delegates voted to adopt a meaningful civil-rights plank. With no choice but to run on it, Truman seized the opportunity it offered, desegregating the armed forces and in November upsetting the frontrunner Thomas Dewey, a victory due in part to an unprecedented surge of Black voters. The outcome of that week in July 1948-which marks its 75th anniversary as this book is published-shapes American politics to this day. And it was in turned shaped by Humphrey. His journey to that pivotal speech runs from a remote, all-white hamlet in South Dakota to the mayoralty of Minneapolis as he tackles its notorious racism and anti-Semitism to his role as a national champion of multiracial democracy. His allies in that struggle include a Black newspaper publisher, a Jewish attorney, and a professor who had fled Nazi Germany. And his adversaries are the white supremacists, Christian Nationalists, and America Firsters of mid-century America - one of whom tries to assassinate him. Into the Bright Sunshine: Young Hubert Humphrey and the Fight for Civil Rights (Oxford UP, 2023) is a book that celebrates one of the overlooked landmarks of civil rights history, and illuminates the early life and enduring legacy of the man who helped bring it about. Samuel G. Freedman is an award-winning professor, columnist, and author of nine acclaimed books. Freedman was a staff reporter for The New York Times from 1981 through 1987. From 2004 through 2008, he wrote the paper's "On Education" column, winning first prize in the Education Writers Association's annual competition in 2005. From 2006 through 2016, Freedman wrote the "On Religion" column, receiving the Goldziher Prize for Journalists in 2017 for a series of columns about Muslim-Americans that had been published over the preceding six years. As a professor of journalism at Columbia University, Freedman has been named the nation's outstanding journalism educator by the Society of Professional Journalists and received Columbia's coveted Presidential Award for Outstanding Teaching. Connor Christensen is a graduate student at the University of Chicago, pursuing both an MPP at the Harris School of Public Policy and an MA at the Center for Middle Eastern Studies. He welcomes collaboration, so feel free to reach out on LinkedIn or at his email, ctchristensen@uchicago.edu. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

From one of the country's most distinguished journalists, a revisionist and riveting look at the American politician whom history has judged a loser, yet who played a key part in the greatest social movement of the 20th century. During one sweltering week in July 1948, the Democratic Party gathered in Philadelphia for its national convention. The most pressing and controversial issue facing the delegates was not whom to nominate for president -the incumbent, Harry Truman, was the presumptive candidate -but whether the Democrats would finally embrace the cause of civil rights and embed it in their official platform. Even under Franklin Roosevelt, the party had dodged the issue in order to keep a bloc of Southern segregationists-the so-called Dixiecrats-in the New Deal coalition. On the convention's final day, Hubert Humphrey, just 37 and the relatively obscure mayor of the midsized city of Minneapolis, ascended the podium. Defying Truman's own desire to occupy the middle ground, Humphrey urged the delegates to "get out of the shadow of state's rights and walk forthrightly into the bright sunshine of human rights." Humphrey's speech put everything on the line, rhetorically and politically, to move the party, and the country, forward. To the surprise of many, including Humphrey himself, the delegates voted to adopt a meaningful civil-rights plank. With no choice but to run on it, Truman seized the opportunity it offered, desegregating the armed forces and in November upsetting the frontrunner Thomas Dewey, a victory due in part to an unprecedented surge of Black voters. The outcome of that week in July 1948-which marks its 75th anniversary as this book is published-shapes American politics to this day. And it was in turned shaped by Humphrey. His journey to that pivotal speech runs from a remote, all-white hamlet in South Dakota to the mayoralty of Minneapolis as he tackles its notorious racism and anti-Semitism to his role as a national champion of multiracial democracy. His allies in that struggle include a Black newspaper publisher, a Jewish attorney, and a professor who had fled Nazi Germany. And his adversaries are the white supremacists, Christian Nationalists, and America Firsters of mid-century America - one of whom tries to assassinate him. Into the Bright Sunshine: Young Hubert Humphrey and the Fight for Civil Rights (Oxford UP, 2023) is a book that celebrates one of the overlooked landmarks of civil rights history, and illuminates the early life and enduring legacy of the man who helped bring it about. Samuel G. Freedman is an award-winning professor, columnist, and author of nine acclaimed books. Freedman was a staff reporter for The New York Times from 1981 through 1987. From 2004 through 2008, he wrote the paper's "On Education" column, winning first prize in the Education Writers Association's annual competition in 2005. From 2006 through 2016, Freedman wrote the "On Religion" column, receiving the Goldziher Prize for Journalists in 2017 for a series of columns about Muslim-Americans that had been published over the preceding six years. As a professor of journalism at Columbia University, Freedman has been named the nation's outstanding journalism educator by the Society of Professional Journalists and received Columbia's coveted Presidential Award for Outstanding Teaching. Connor Christensen is a graduate student at the University of Chicago, pursuing both an MPP at the Harris School of Public Policy and an MA at the Center for Middle Eastern Studies. He welcomes collaboration, so feel free to reach out on LinkedIn or at his email, ctchristensen@uchicago.edu.

In Part II of EVEN THE LOSERS, we now take the three Walks of Futility of the multi-losers of the 20th century: Mr. Thought-He-Won (Thomas Dewey), Mr. Knew-He-Was-Gonna-Lose (Adlai Stevenson), and Mr. Mighta-Won-If-He-Wasn't-Nuts (H. Ross Perot). Props for running, but time to have fun with the results. ENJOY!This BONUS episode was Produced, Written, and Performed by:Gina BuccolaSandy BykowskiJoseph FedorkoSylvia MannPaul MoultonPatrick J. ReillyAnd Tommy SpearsThis Episode's Historians: Dr. Chelsea Denault, and James McRaeOriginal Music written and performed by Throop McClergAudio production by Joseph FedorkoSound effects procured at Freesound.orgDB Comedy Logo Designed by Adam L. HarlettELECTABLES logo and Presidential Caricatures by Dan PolitoTHE ELECTABLES concept was created by Patrick J. Reilly.CAST LISTDEWEY OPEN – Written by Paul Moulton            DR. NAIR - Tommy            PATRICK – PatrickDUMPY'S DINER – Written by Paul Moulton            ANNOUNCER – Joe            DUMPY - Patrick            MINNIE - Sandy            DEWEY – PaulTHE PRINCESS AND THE POLITICIAN – Written by Paul Moulton            PRINCESS – Sandy            POLITICIAN - PaulSTEVENSON OPEN – Written by Paul Moulton            DR. NAIR - Tommy            JOE – JoeTHE COMEDIC STYLINGS OF ADLAI STEVENSON – Written by Joseph Fedorko            FOLKIE - Sandy            EMCEE - Tommy            ADLAI – Joe            HECKLER – PaulPEROT OPEN – Written by Paul Moulton            DR. NAIR - Tommy            SYLVIA – SylviaTEXARKANA HELLO! – Written By Joseph Fedorko            PEROT – Patrick            WENDY – Sylvia               LARRY - JoeContributions to DB Comedy are graciously accepted by going to the DB COMEDY donation page at https://fundraising.fracturedatlas.org/db-comedy, who is the nonprofit fiscal sponsor of DB COMEDY. Donations are tax-deductible to the fullest extent allowed by law.For more information on DB Comedy and THE ELECTABLES, visit DB Comedy's host page on Simplecast.com. Follow us on Facebook at DB Comedy or Democracy Burlesque, and listen to us on the Trident Network.Thanks for listening! Thanks for downloading! Don't forget to subscribe and don't forget to like!!

Last time we spoke about the battle of Komandorski islands. Admirals Kinkaid and McMorris began a naval blockade of Attu and Kiska putting the IJN in a terrible bind. They could either give up the Aleutians, or they would have to reinforce them, either of which came at huge costs. Admiral Hosogaya had no choice but to try and breach the allied blockade to get the much needed reinforcements to the frozen islands. Hosogaya's fleet was superior in numbers and firepower to that of McMorris when they fatefully met in the frigid northern seas. Yet by a stroke of luck, a single man fired a High Explosive shell during the heat of battle causing Hosogaya to make a terrible blunder. Under the impression allied airpower was about to attack them, Hosogaya backed off, losing the chance to claim a major victory. And today we are going to venture, behind the desk so to speak.  This episode is the Pacific Military Conference: MacArthur vs King Welcome to the Pacific War Podcast Week by Week, I am your dutiful host Craig Watson. But, before we start I want to also remind you this podcast is only made possible through the efforts of Kings and Generals over at Youtube. Perhaps you want to learn more about world war two? Kings and Generals have an assortment of episodes on world war two and much more  so go give them a look over on Youtube. So please subscribe to Kings and Generals over at Youtube and to continue helping us produce this content please check out www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. If you are still hungry for some more history related content, over on my channel, the Pacific War Channel you can find a few videos all the way from the Opium Wars of the 1800's until the end of the Pacific War in 1945.  Now before we jump into the real war of the Pacific, General Douglas MacArthur vs Admiral Ernest King, I first want to jump over the good old CBI theater. Interesting to mention I recently did a livestream, gaming with a friend of mine, answering some audience questions from you dear old audience members and others from my Youtube channel and Fall and Rise of China Podcast. One guy asked me “how important was the CBI theater?” and it really got me thinking on the spot. Honestly when Americans talk about the Pacific War, two things immediately come to mind, naval battles and island warfare. China gets overshadowed despite literally being the lionshare of fighting against the Japanese, I mean hell they kept like 30+ divisions in China out of 50 or so. But even more than that you hardly hear about Burma or India, they are always the quote en quote benchwarmers compared to lets say your Guadalcanal's or Iwo Jima's. As I said to the audience member on the livestream, its hard to quantify something, but honestly tossing %'s around you could argue the CBI was a hard 50-60% of the war effort, because it did the most important thing necessary to win a way, it drained Japan of men/resources. So lets jump into it a bit shall we? So the last time we were talking about the disastrous First Arakan Campaign. The British launched their offensive and saw heavy resistance at Rathedaung and Donbaik. General Irwin continuously made blunders. When Wavell made an inspection of the battlefields later on he commented how Irwin's forces had “fought in penny packets”. Basically what he was getting out with this little jab, was unlike conventional battles, take for example the famous battle of Alamein. Instead this offensive consisted of hundreds of chance encounters, dozens of disparate set piece clashes, hand-to-hand conflicts, frontal attacks, ambushes, desperate defenses, bombing raids, all of which had been minutely chronicled, but the details of them were quite the mystery. General Slim when asked described it all ‘as an epic that ran across great stretches of wild country; one day its focal point was a hill named on no map; next a miserable unpronounceable village a hundred miles away. Columns, brigades, divisions, marched and counter-marched, met in bloody clashes and reeled apart, weaving a confused pattern hard to unreal”.  Now the beginning of the first arakan offensive seemed to go well. Despite the logistical nightmares, Lloyd enjoyed the advantages of both air superiority and numerical superiority. But the Japanese built their defenses knowing full well what was coming to hit them. The Japanese made no attempt to hold onto the lines between Maungdaw and Buthidaung, nor resist the British forces at Kyauktaw. Lloyd began sending optimistic reports, such as on Christmas Day when the enemy pulled out of Ratheduang. And so the British continued along the peninsula until they came a few miles north of a point of Donbaik, sitting on the coast of the Bay of Bengal. It was here, General Koga had dug in and waited for his enemy. It was to be here, after showcasing the Japanese superior jungle fighting tactics, their roadblocks and amphibious hooks, that they would unleash a new unsuspecting weapon, that of the bunker. General Slim described it as such “‘For the first time we had come up against the Japanese “bunkers” – from now on to be so familiar to us. This was a small strong-point made usually of heavy logs with four to five feet of earth, and so camouflaged in the jungle that it could not be picked out at even fifty yards without prolonged searching. These bunkers held garrisons varying from five to twenty men, plentifully supplied with medium and light machine guns.' The bunkers were impervious to field guns and medium bombs. They also had crossing fire lanes, thus for one force to attack a bunker they would be fired upon by 2 more. The redoubt at Donbaik was situated alongside a “chaung”, which was a natural anti-tank position, having steep sides up to 9 feet high up on the bunkers. On January 7th of 1943, the forces got their first taste of these defenses and were tossed back with heavy casualties. For days a pattern emerged of men throwing themselves at the bunkers, only to be butchered. It was so bad, both Wavell and Irwin were forced to come visit Llyod on the 10th, just to tell him “you must take Donbaik at all cost”. And so Llyod asked for tanks, and he was given them. But to Slims horror the man only asked for one troop of them, prompting Slim to object stating “the more you use the fewer you lose”. His argument was sound and simple, if you were going to utilize tanks, you tried to do so en masse to overwhelm, otherwise the resources would be vulnerable and most likely lost. His objections were tossed aside, and half a squadron of tanks, merely 8 hit the bunkers. The british attacks were beaten off all he same. Now Koga knew he had to fight off the enemy until at least the end of march to receive some decent reinforcements. Thus he determined to hold out; he needed to perform a counterattack. Meanwhile his counterpart Irwin was determined that overwhelming infantry numbers on narrow fronts could achieve victory. And as one contemporary analysis called it “an idea rich in casualties”. Koga brought up the bulk of his 55th division to Akyab and on March 7th the 213th regiment attacked the Kaladan Valley, driving away the V force. Then the 112th regiment attacked the 123rd and 55th Indian brigades north of Rathedaung who were forced to pull back to Zedidaung. This left the 47 indian brigade trapped at the Hwitze bridgehead and the Japanese carried out wide outflanking maneuvers and infiltration attacks against the British lines. In response Irwin tried to toss another assault against Donbaik, which had just been further reinforced by Koga. On March 18th, the 6th brigade of Brigadier Ronald Cavendish launched a front attack on a very narrow front, despite multiple advice given by other commanders stating he should try to outflank the Japanese along the mountain crest. His force made little progress and suffered heavy casualties for their efforts. Meanwhile the 213th regiment secured the eastern side of the Mayu river and the 112th regiment was preparing to cross it. In early March Irwin was doing something aside from tossing his men into a meatgrinder, he began covering his ass. Sensing defeat was staring him in the face, in his desperation he tried to coopt his hated rival, General Slim into sharing some of his blame to come. He sent Slim to Maungdaw to see Lloyd and report on the situation there. When Slim asked him if this meant he was now in operational control, Irwin said absolutely not, he just wanted Slim's assessment of the situation over there. Irwin did however add in, that Slim might gain operational control in the future, but only when Irwin said so and even in that case, Irwin would be retaining administrative control. Well Slim found the Lloyds men's morale was at an all time low. He advised Lloyd to abandon the idiotic frontal assaults and instead to try and flank the enemy through the jungles. Lloyd argued that was too unfeasible and because of Irwins ordered overruled Slim. Thus Slim returned to Irwin with a useless report. Up until this point Wavell pretty much had no idea what was going on. He continued to urge action from Irwin, so Irwin ordered action from Lloyd and the result was just more disaster. By March 20th Wavell, Irwin and Lloyd all accepted they would have to withdraw the forces to the Maundaw-Buthidaung line. Wavell was livid at his subordinates writing “It seemed to me to show a complete lack of imagination, and was neither one thing nor the other. An attack in real depth with determined soldiers like the 6th Brigade would, I am sure, have accomplished something, though it has cost us casualties. But to use one battalion at a time, and that usually only deploying one company, seems to me to be poor tactics. With the Japanese in a pocket like that, I cannot believe that a plan could not have been made to eat them up; it looked to me like practically ideal for covering machine gun and mortar fire from a flank.” On the night of the 24th, the 112th regiment crossed the Mayu river, marched along narrows paths and jungle to get to the crest of the supposedly impassable Mayu range. The following days say lines of communications to Kyaukpandu severed, the enemy captured the mountain crest near Atet Nanra on the 39th and in response to this Lloyd sent the 47th and 6th brigades to retreat west before they were encircled. This of course was in contradiction to direct ordered he had received to wait until the monsoon season had broke before pulling out. Thus Irwin was forced to countermand Lloyd's order. Wavell was livid over his insubordination blundering of things and sought to toss Lloyd under the bus. Thus Irwin was discreetly told to sack Lloyd, and before doing so he took direct command of the 14th indian division.  Lloyd was replaced by Major General C.E.N Lomax who was promptly ordered to carrying on doing the exact same things Lloyd had done. The 26th Indian division and Lomax were sent to bolster the peninsula, Lomax was going to assume command of all the Arakan forces when he got there, but until then Irwin had to run the show. Koga was not letting up of course and the 112th regiment managed to build a roadblock north of Indian village b April 3rd, successfully cutting the lines of communication of the 47th and 6th brigades. Simultaneously the 143rd regiment burst into the area advancing northwards up the Mayu River valley. The Japanese were soon infiltrating British positions at Indin village and overran the HQ of the 6th brigade capturing its commander, Cavendish in the process. However one of Cavendishes last orders before being grabbed was for the British artillery to open fire on Indian, which they did, taking the Japanese completely by surprise. It caused significant casualties on the Japanese, but also the British, killing Cavendish in the end. With the 47th brigade practically annihilated by Koga's forces, Irwin began to launch himself into a frenzy of blame-shifting. He argued the brigade, not his own tactical ideas, was alone to blame and yet again he tried to drag Slim into the mess. This time he told Slim to hold himself in readiness to take over operational control and to move his HQ to Chittagong. But again Irwin reminded him he would not have administrative control of operations nor operational direction until Irwin said so. Slim met with Irwin in Calcutta on April 5th, having been recalled from leave in the small hours, something Irwin did often to him. That evening he dined with Lloyd at the Bengal Club and heard his side of the story, which the man remarkably told without any bitterness of his shabby treatment. After this Slim had a meeting with Lomax at Chittagong. The 6th brigade narrowly escaped annihilation by retreating along a beach road and the 47th brigade avoided the same by destroying their own heavy equipment, broke out into small parties and ran for their lives cross-country to the beach, thus ceasing to be a fighting force.   Following that initial catastrophe, Lomax and Slim devised a stratagem for catching Koga's men in a box along the Mayu peninsula. The box would involve 6 battalion, 2 on the ridges of the Mayu hills, 2 along the mayu river and 2 on the hills due south of the Maungdaw-Buthidaung road. The idea was that the Japanese would be bound to utilize the tunnels on a disused railway track, dismantled for years. They would be led into a box on their way to the tunnels and then the lid of the box would be shut by a force of brigade strength. It was in many ways an attempt to replicate Hannibals famous victory at the battle of Cannae, every generals dream since ancient times. Lomax and Slim were going to used their tired and greatly demoralized men to carry out a scheme of geometrical perfection. But that is all for this week at the CBI theater.   Now as we all know, during the Pacific War General MacArthur and Admiral King both laid out their own plans for the drive towards Japan. This led to a compromise plan that held 3 phases: Phase 1 was to seize Guadalcanal; phase 2 was to drive up the central solomons and New Guinea; lastly phase 3 was to neutralize Rabaul. Now as much as MacArthur and King hated another, they both understood Rabaul was a crucial lynchpin for both their plans. Working together did not always go so well as you might imagine. Take for example Admiral Halsey who continuously found himself in the middle. At one point in early February  he was forced to go meet MacArthur to request reinforcements, because Operation KE made the allies think a major offensive was on its way. MacArthur argued that his heavy bombers were too few and that he could not promise much support as he believed an impending offensive was about to be launched in his own area. Now Halsey was one of the few men, a Navy man no less, that MacArthur did not hate, so if he was going to jerk him around, you can tell he was being difficult to work with. All of these difficulties emphasized the two services and two area commands needed to better coordinate. And thus a conference was called to hammer out the fine details of how they would all play nice together.   Now meeting all in person was not feasible so the commanders sent their representatives to Washington to present their plans. On March 12th, the Pacific Military conference was held with representatives from each Pacific area command: Lt-General George Kenney, Major General Richard Sutherland and Brigadier-General Stephen Chamberlin represented MacArthurs Southwest command; Lt-General Millard Harmon, Major-General Nathan Twining, Captain Miles Browning and Brigadier-Genreal De Witt Peck represented Halsey's south pacific command; Lt-General Delos Emmons, Rear-admiral Raymond Spruance, Brigader-General Leonard Boyd and Captain Forrest Sherman represented Nimitz Central Pacific command.   Now small side note here, since MacArthur could not make this conference I still wanted to toss my good old 2 cents at the man. While all of this was going on, Richard Sutherland had been sent on another mission to Washington by MacArthur. Richard sutherland was sent to meet Arthur Vandenburg, a senior Republican senator. They met informally at the home of Clare Booth Luce, a strongly anti-Roosevelt republican. She was also the wife of Henry Luce, the man in control of the Time-Life media conglomerate. The purpose of the meeting was to discern how much republican support MacArthur could expect if he ran for President in 1944. Vandenburg was onboard for it and a month later MacArthur would send another aid over bearing a note to the senator stating “I am most grateful to you for your complete attitude of friendship. I can only hope that I can someday reciprocate”.   Vandenburg and his allies  drafted MacArthur for the republican nomination as MacArthur met with his public relations staff, better called his court. One of his court members, Colonel Lloyd Lehrbas was disgusted by open discussions of MacArthur winning the presidency and running the war from washington. Lehrbas was a former newspaper editor who now reviewed press releases in MacArthur's name. MacArthur kept the man on his staff specifically because of his media connections. Vandenburg found strong support for MacArthur amongst the arch-conservatives. The republican party was going to nominate two candidates: Wendell Wilkie and Thomas Dewey, but Vandenburg was trying to sneak MacArthur in as a third. However there was a specific group of republicans who adamantly opposed MacArthur's nomination, veterans who had served under him during the Pacific War and before. Vandenburg tried to get a better picture by sending representatives to canvas the troops in the Pacific theater for their thoughts. The consistent response was overly negative about MacArthur.   In early 1944, a private conversation between MacArthur and Congressman Arthur Miller of Nebraska was leaked to the public. It revealed MacArthurs plot behind the scenes to run for presidency and this forced MacArthur to back pedal heavily. On April 30th of 1944 his staff released a statement from MacArthur stating  “I request that no action be taken that would link my name in any way with the nomination. I do not covet it nor would I accept it”. Yeah, MacArthur would try two more times to run. But anyways now that you know that little tid bit information on my favorite figure lets carry on.   The Pacific Military conference lasted until march 28th, conducted under the supervision of the joint staff planners, headed by Rear-Admiral Charles Cooke and Major-General Albert Wedemeyer. Now MacArthur's team came to the conference with a plan in hand, codenamed Elkon. Elkon was a town in Maryland, a famous destination for quick marriages, and the operation was to be a two-pronged offensive. It called for the seizure of the New Britain, New Ireland and New Guinea area which would be based on phase 2 and 3 of the July 2 directive. That being the two approaches heading for Rabaul: one proceeding along the northern coast of New Guinea and the other through the Solomons. This ambitious plan called for first seizing airfields on the Huon Peninsula and New Georgia, then air bases on New Britain and Bougainville, then the seizure of Kavieng and finally Rabaul would be isolated enough to be invaded.   The first week of the conference became a arm-wrestling match between Sutherland and the other join chiefs, especially General Marshall who squabled over the details of Elkton. Admiral King and the navy were quite hostile to the plan, but rather shocking to some, William Bull Halsey was a large supporter of MacArthurs plan. Halsey's team argued the plan did not overstretch their resources and in fact Halsey was finding working with MacArthur was enormously benefiting the Pacific War effort. Halsye and MacArthur were a lethal combo, but King was hard pressed because the truth was they simply did not have the necessary resources for MacArthur's plan. So as you can imagine compromises were made. Macarthurs initial calculations for the plan to work required 12 and ⅔ divisions and 30 air groups for the southwest pacific area, while 10 divisions and 15 air groups were needed in Hasleys south area.    The joint chiefs responded by asking what the pacific representatives thought they could accomplish in 1943 with the best reinforcements washington could deliver. Sutherland and Halsey's team agreed task two: taking northeastern New Guinea, Madang-Salamua-Huon gulf triangle, Bougainville, New Georgia, Cape Gloucester and New Britain could be taken, but they would probably run out of resources to take Rabaul. The joint chiefs said to forget about Rabaul for the time being and focus on taking the Bismarck Archipelago. MacArthur began writing from Brisbane he thought this idea to be a huge mistake “We are already committed to the campaign in New Guinea….If at the same time we enter upon a convergent attack on the New Georgia group, we have committed our entire strength without assurance of accomplishment of either objective.” This led Hasley to agree to wait for his attack on New Georgia until MacArthur had achieved his objectives of taking the islands of Kiriwina, Woodlark and the Trobriand islands. When proposed back to the joint chiefs, to everyone's amazement King accepted the revised Elkon plan with little compliant. The final directive went out on March 28th, officially canceling the 3 stage drive to rabaul. Instead the objectives for 1943 would be first Woodlark and Kiriwina, then the Madang-Salamaua-Finschhafen triangle and New Britain, and finally the Solomons + southern Bougainville. For the first time in the Pacific war, there was an agreed-to strategy for winning in the southwest pacific. In the mind of MacArthur, who you can imagine was only thinking about the Philippines, he had achieved his plan to direct the war where he wanted it and he had a surprising naval ally in Bull Halsey. The Elkon plan would eventually be called operation Cartwheel   I would like to take this time to remind you all that this podcast is only made possible through the efforts of Kings and Generals over at Youtube. Please go subscribe to Kings and Generals over at Youtube and to continue helping us produce this content please check out www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. If you are still hungry after that, give my personal channel a look over at The Pacific War Channel at Youtube, it would mean a lot to me. Operation Cartwheel was greenlit and it showcased MacArthur could under extremely rare circumstances, make peace with his true enemy during the Pacific War, the United States Navy. Yes MacArthur would be able to direct the war, at least for a bit, to where he wanted it, the Philippines.

Congressman David Price served 34 years representing North Carolina's Research Triangle, leaving the House just this January. Beyond his time as an institution in the House, he's lived a remarkable political life...present on the Washington Mall during the MLK "I Have A Dream" speech...a Senate staffer witnessing key civil rights votes in the mid 1960s...a leading political scientist at Duke University...a Democratic Party leader who helped devise the primary reforms now known as "super delegates"...and an influential House member who's served across parts of five decades in the House and been a witness to - and a part of - some of the most important political moments of the past half century.IN THIS EPISODE...Growing up in the unique political culture of small-town East Tennessee...The Civil Rights Movement inspires an awakening for public service...Memories of being on The Mall during the March on Washington and the MLK "I Have A Dream" Speech...His time as a Senate staffer during the critical 1964 vote to break the filibuster on civil rights... How he merged teaching Political Science at Duke with activity in real-world politics...His time in state party leadership and as part of The Hunt Commission reforming the Democratic Presidential Primary process...The political skill and legacy of North Carolina Governor Jim Hunt...North Carolina's legacy as a progressive Southern state...Remembering the 1984 Senate "race of the century" of Jesse Helms vs. Jim Hunt...His path to running and winning his first race for Congress in 1986...Memories of his first few terms in the House...The story of his loss in the 1994 GOP wave and comeback win in 1996...His thoughts on the legacy of the Newt Gingrich Revolution of the 1990s...His proudest accomplishments from 30+ years in the House...The toughest two votes he took...His analysis on the leadership success of Speaker Nancy Pelosi...The closest Congressman Price came to a statewide race...The advice he gives to new House members...His current work and focuses in his post-House career...AND Lamar Alexander, Howard Baker, Bob Bartlett, Joe Biden, Jack Brooks, C-Span after hours, cabals, Tom Carper, Chapel Hill, church suppers, Joe Clark, Bill Clinton, Jim Clyburn, committee barons, the Confederate Cause, the Contract with America, Harold Cooley, Thomas Dewey, John Dingell, down-home types, Clair Engle, existential questions, Bill Ford, the Gang of Eight, Albert Gore Sr., Jerry Grinstein, Phil Hart, Helms' proteges, Hope VI, Steny Hoyer, inherited Republicanism, inner clubs, the Iran Nuclear Agreement, Jacob Javits, Warren Magnuson, Mars Hill, Kevin McCarthy, the McGovern Commission, metal aprons, Bob Michel, midterm effects, moral suasion, Morehead Scholarships, Mountain Republicans, Ed Muskie, Bill Nelson, Barack Obama, PLEOs, peer pressure, pep talks, Mike Pertschuk, the Political Science Caucus, Edward Pugh, Ronald Reagan, Dan Rostenkowski, rump conventions, Terry Sanford, the Sanford School of Public Policy, Saul Shorr, shouting matches on the House floor, sit-ins, Sputnik, Freddy St. Germain, super-delegates, talk radio, the Tea Party, Donald Trump, turbulent townhall meetings, turnaround artists, Jamie Whitten, Jim Wright, Yale Divinity School, yeoman farmers & more!

Welcome to Owosso, Michigan, "Home of the Shocker!" Originally inhabited by the Chippewa, the first Europeans moved to the area in 1819.  The town was incorporated in 1859 and named after a Chippewa chief named Wasso.  The town is located in central Michigan about 90 miles from Detroit and is the largest town in Shiawassee County.  The town's motto, "Home of the Shocker," could only be found on the town's Wikipedia page and offers no explanation.  It is unlikely to be a reference to the hand gesture or the town's official motto.  The Wikipedia entry is more likely to be the work of a Wikipedia vandal. Perhaps the fake motto is a tip of the hat to the Mel Schacher who was born in Owosso.  Schacher is the bassist for Grand Funk Railroad, an American rock band from the late 60s and 70s.  The town has been the home of a number of other notable people including failed Presidential candidate Thomas Dewey, jazz keyboardist Scott Kinsey, psychologist Leann Birch, and author James Oliver Curwood.  We hope you enjoy our trip to Owosso! 

If Alexander The Great Hadn't Died, He Might Have Conquered Europe, Circumnavigated Africa, and Built His Own Silk Road“And Alexander wept, seeing as he had no more worlds to conquer.” That's a quote from Hans Gruber in Die Hard, which is a very convoluted paraphrase from Plutarch's essay collection “Moralia.” Despite the questionable sourcing, there's plenty of truth in that unattributed quote from Mr. Gruber. Alexander the Great's death at 323 BC in Babylon marked the end of the most consequential military campaign in antiquity. He left behind an empire that stretched from Greece to India, planted the seeds of the Silk Road, and made Greek an international language across Eurasia, all in 13 short years. He became and remained the biggest celebrity in the ancient world, probably only replaced by Jesus a few centuries into the Christian era. But what if he had not died as a young man? What if he had lived years or decades more? How much more influence could he have had? We have clues about Alexander's plans for the future – and they come from Greek chroniclers Diodorus and Arrian, writing centuries after his death. They include conquering the Mediterranean coast all the way to the Pillars of Hercules (Rock of Gibraltar), building a tomb for his father Philp that would be as large as the Great Pyramid of Giza, and transplanting populations from Greece to Persia and vice versa to unite his domains through intermarriage.To explore this hypothetical scenario is Anthony Everitt, author of “Alexander the Great: His Life and Mysterious Death.” We look at the life of the most influential person in the ancient world, and explore the ramifications of his life having even more influence.Links for Show Notes:Continue listening to History Unplugged:Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3Ysc7ZgSpotify: https://spoti.fi/3j0QRJyParthenon: https://www.parthenonpodcast.com/history-unplugged-podcastDiscover more episodes of History Unplugged: Lost Airmen: The Epic Rescue of WWII U.S. Bomber Crews Stranded in the Yugoslavian Mountains: https://apple.co/3Weu5wr / https://spoti.fi/3HunolzThe Way that Lincoln Financed the Civil War Led to Transcontinental Railroads, Public Colleges, the Homestead Act, and Income Tax: https://apple.co/3iVtpxs / https://spoti.fi/3iYxtx6After Custer's Last Stand, Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse Fought an Impossible Battle To Preserve the Sioux Nation: https://apple.co/3uKbc8F / https://spoti.fi/3BvFLTk Almost President: Stephen Douglas, Thomas Dewey, and Other Failed Candidates That Would've Altered History Most by Winning: https://apple.co/3hgdVDZ / https://spoti.fi/3FlO2ujNo Supply Chain Was More Complicated Than the Allies' During WW2. How Did They Maintain It?: https://apple.co/3VWxHmT / https://spoti.fi/3iYuJ2w

If Alexander The Great Hadn't Died, He Might Have Conquered Europe, Circumnavigated Africa, and Built His Own Silk Road Continue listening to History Unplugged:Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3Ysc7Zg Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3j0QRJyParthenon: https://www.parthenonpodcast.com/history-unplugged-podcast Discover more episodes of History Unplugged: Lost Airmen: The Epic Rescue of WWII U.S. Bomber Crews Stranded in the Yugoslavian Mountains: https://apple.co/3Weu5wr / https://spoti.fi/3HunolzThe Way that Lincoln Financed the Civil War Led to Transcontinental Railroads, Public Colleges, the Homestead Act, and Income Tax:https://apple.co/3iVtpxs / https://spoti.fi/3iYxtx6After Custer's Last Stand, Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse Fought an Impossible Battle To Preserve the Sioux Nation: https://apple.co/3uKbc8F / https://spoti.fi/3BvFLTk Almost President: Stephen Douglas, Thomas Dewey, and Other Failed Candidates That Would've Altered History Most by Winning:https://apple.co/3hgdVDZ / https://spoti.fi/3FlO2ujNo Supply Chain Was More Complicated Than the Allies' During WW2. How Did They Maintain It?: https://apple.co/3VWxHmT / https://spoti.fi/3iYuJ2w If Alexander The Great Hadn't Died, He Might Have Conquered Europe, Circumnavigated Africa, and Built His Own Silk Road “And Alexander wept, seeing as he had no more worlds to conquer.” That's a quote from Hans Gruber in Die Hard, which is a very convoluted paraphrase from Plutarch's essay collection “Moralia.” Despite the questionable sourcing, there's plenty of truth in that unattributed quote from Mr. Gruber. Alexander the Great's death at 323 BC in Babylon marked the end of the most consequential military campaign in antiquity. He left behind an empire that stretched from Greece to India, planted the seeds of the Silk Road, and made Greek an international language across Eurasia, all in 13 short years. He became and remained the biggest celebrity in the ancient world, probably only replaced by Jesus a few centuries into the Christian era. But what if he had not died as a young man? What if he had lived years or decades more? How much more influence could he have had? We have clues about Alexander's plans for the future – and they come from Greek chroniclers Diodorus and Arrian, writing centuries after his death. They include conquering the Mediterranean coast all the way to the Pillars of Hercules (Rock of Gibraltar), building a tomb for his father Philp that would be as large as the Great Pyramid of Giza, and transplanting populations from Greece to Persia and vice versa to unite his domains through intermarriage. To explore this hypothetical scenario is Anthony Everitt, author of “Alexander the Great: His Life and Mysterious Death.” We look at the life of the most influential person in the ancient world, and explore the ramifications of his life having even more influence.

If Alexander The Great Hadn't Died, He Might Have Conquered Europe, Circumnavigated Africa, and Built His Own Silk Road Continue listening to History Unplugged:Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3Ysc7Zg Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3j0QRJyParthenon: https://www.parthenonpodcast.com/history-unplugged-podcast Discover more episodes of History Unplugged: Lost Airmen: The Epic Rescue of WWII U.S. Bomber Crews Stranded in the Yugoslavian Mountains: https://apple.co/3Weu5wr / https://spoti.fi/3HunolzThe Way that Lincoln Financed the Civil War Led to Transcontinental Railroads, Public Colleges, the Homestead Act, and Income Tax:https://apple.co/3iVtpxs / https://spoti.fi/3iYxtx6After Custer's Last Stand, Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse Fought an Impossible Battle To Preserve the Sioux Nation: https://apple.co/3uKbc8F / https://spoti.fi/3BvFLTk Almost President: Stephen Douglas, Thomas Dewey, and Other Failed Candidates That Would've Altered History Most by Winning:https://apple.co/3hgdVDZ / https://spoti.fi/3FlO2ujNo Supply Chain Was More Complicated Than the Allies' During WW2. How Did They Maintain It?: https://apple.co/3VWxHmT / https://spoti.fi/3iYuJ2w If Alexander The Great Hadn't Died, He Might Have Conquered Europe, Circumnavigated Africa, and Built His Own Silk Road “And Alexander wept, seeing as he had no more worlds to conquer.” That's a quote from Hans Gruber in Die Hard, which is a very convoluted paraphrase from Plutarch's essay collection “Moralia.” Despite the questionable sourcing, there's plenty of truth in that unattributed quote from Mr. Gruber. Alexander the Great's death at 323 BC in Babylon marked the end of the most consequential military campaign in antiquity. He left behind an empire that stretched from Greece to India, planted the seeds of the Silk Road, and made Greek an international language across Eurasia, all in 13 short years. He became and remained the biggest celebrity in the ancient world, probably only replaced by Jesus a few centuries into the Christian era. But what if he had not died as a young man? What if he had lived years or decades more? How much more influence could he have had? We have clues about Alexander's plans for the future – and they come from Greek chroniclers Diodorus and Arrian, writing centuries after his death. They include conquering the Mediterranean coast all the way to the Pillars of Hercules (Rock of Gibraltar), building a tomb for his father Philp that would be as large as the Great Pyramid of Giza, and transplanting populations from Greece to Persia and vice versa to unite his domains through intermarriage. To explore this hypothetical scenario is Anthony Everitt, author of “Alexander the Great: His Life and Mysterious Death.” We look at the life of the most influential person in the ancient world, and explore the ramifications of his life having even more influence.

If Alexander The Great Hadn't Died, He Might Have Conquered Europe, Circumnavigated Africa, and Built His Own Silk Road“And Alexander wept, seeing as he had no more worlds to conquer.” That's a quote from Hans Gruber in Die Hard, which is a very convoluted paraphrase from Plutarch's essay collection “Moralia.” Despite the questionable sourcing, there's plenty of truth in that unattributed quote from Mr. Gruber. Alexander the Great's death at 323 BC in Babylon marked the end of the most consequential military campaign in antiquity. He left behind an empire that stretched from Greece to India, planted the seeds of the Silk Road, and made Greek an international language across Eurasia, all in 13 short years. He became and remained the biggest celebrity in the ancient world, probably only replaced by Jesus a few centuries into the Christian era. But what if he had not died as a young man? What if he had lived years or decades more? How much more influence could he have had? We have clues about Alexander's plans for the future – and they come from Greek chroniclers Diodorus and Arrian, writing centuries after his death. They include conquering the Mediterranean coast all the way to the Pillars of Hercules (Rock of Gibraltar), building a tomb for his father Philp that would be as large as the Great Pyramid of Giza, and transplanting populations from Greece to Persia and vice versa to unite his domains through intermarriage.To explore this hypothetical scenario is Anthony Everitt, author of “Alexander the Great: His Life and Mysterious Death.” We look at the life of the most influential person in the ancient world, and explore the ramifications of his life having even more influence.Links for Show Notes:Continue listening to History Unplugged:Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3Ysc7ZgSpotify: https://spoti.fi/3j0QRJyParthenon: https://www.parthenonpodcast.com/history-unplugged-podcastDiscover more episodes of History Unplugged: Lost Airmen: The Epic Rescue of WWII U.S. Bomber Crews Stranded in the Yugoslavian Mountains: https://apple.co/3Weu5wr / https://spoti.fi/3HunolzThe Way that Lincoln Financed the Civil War Led to Transcontinental Railroads, Public Colleges, the Homestead Act, and Income Tax: https://apple.co/3iVtpxs / https://spoti.fi/3iYxtx6After Custer's Last Stand, Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse Fought an Impossible Battle To Preserve the Sioux Nation: https://apple.co/3uKbc8F / https://spoti.fi/3BvFLTk Almost President: Stephen Douglas, Thomas Dewey, and Other Failed Candidates That Would've Altered History Most by Winning: https://apple.co/3hgdVDZ / https://spoti.fi/3FlO2ujNo Supply Chain Was More Complicated Than the Allies' During WW2. How Did They Maintain It?: https://apple.co/3VWxHmT / https://spoti.fi/3iYuJ2w

On Tuesday November 2nd, 1948 The United States held its forty-first presidential election. If you'd tuned into the results early in the evening, you'd have been convinced that the pre-election polls were correct and Thomas Dewey would become the next president. You'd have been wrong. Dewey ran a low-risk campaign. His advisers believed all he had to do to win was avoid major mistakes. So Dewey spoke in platitudes, avoided controversial issues, and was vague on what he planned to do as president. But, many republicans disliked Dewey, feeling he was too cold and stiff, and surprisingly against outlawing the Communist Party. Believing he had nothing to lose, Harry Truman ran a feisty campaign. He ridiculed Dewey's platitudes, and claimed Communists were rooting for a GOP victory to ensure another Great Depression. Energizing traditional Democrats, as well as Catholic and Jewish voters, Truman also fared surprisingly well with Midwestern farmers. When it was all over, Harry Truman's victory was considered one of the greatest election upsets in American history, garnering 303 electoral votes to Thomas Dewey's 189. With simultaneous success in the 1948 congressional elections, the Democrats also regained control of both the House and Senate, which they lost in 1946.

At 5PM Mutual's most famous program, The Shadow signed on. The show was in its eleventh season on the air in 1948. Andre Baruch handled emcee duties while Grace Matthews played Margo Lane. Bret Morrison was Lamont Cranston. Halloween's episode was called “Murder By A Corpse.” This season's Shadow rating was 13.2. It was Mutual's highest-rated show. As night descended on New York on October 31st, temperatures dropped into the upper 40s and an eerie fog rolled in. Police were ready for mischief as children went trick or treating. The Halloween tradition was still seen by many as an act of begging and vandalism. In response, members of the Madison Square Boys Club paraded through the Lower East Side carrying a banner that read "American Boys Don't Beg.” Politically, Progressive Henry Wallace was making a dent in Harry Truman's campaign. On Election Day, Truman still carried the City, collecting 1.6 million votes to Dewey's 1.1 million, but Henry Wallace received over four-hundred thousand votes. It's this split that allowed Thomas Dewey to narrowly win New York state by sixty-thousand votes, giving the republicans forty-seven important electorates. At home, the Mutual Broadcasting System's prime time programming featured news and music, but at 7PM literature's most famous detective—Sherlock Holmes—took to the air from WOR. Sherlock Holmes peaked on radio between 1939 and 1946 with Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce playing Holmes and Watson. They made over a dozen films and their rating climbed to 14.1 in 1942 on NBC. The next year, the entire cast moved to the Mutual Broadcasting System. Petri wine sponsored the series. Famed radio character actor Harry Bartel became the announcer. They remained on Mutual for three seasons until Holmes left for ABC. Basil Rathbone stayed with Mutual to star in a new series called Scotland Yard. Nigel Bruce still played Watson while Tom Conway became Holmes. When the Semler Company discontinued sponsorship in the spring of 1947, ABC canceled the show. That summer Clipper Craft Clothing signed to pay the bills. The program moved back to Mutual with John Stanley as Holmes and Alfred Shirley as Watson. By Halloween 1948 it was airing Sundays at 7PM. As radio audiences changed, Holmes and Watson couldn't keep up. That Spring Mutual canceled the series. ABC revived it for one final season before the last version of an American Sherlock Holmes series departed the air.

The 1948 DNC convened in July with President Truman's approval rating as low as 32%. Northern Democrats pushed for a strong civil rights platform, which the President was in favor of. Conservative southern Dems were opposed. Moderates feared voter alienation. When the convention adopted the civil rights plank in a close vote, Southern Dems walked out and split off, nominating Strom Thurmond for President. They became known as Dixiecrats, hoping to force a contingency in the House of Representatives, extracting concessions from either Truman or Republican nominee Thomas Dewey. The post-war strikes didn't end. On October 26th the Radio Writers Guild struck for fair wages and for RWG guideline adherence by ad agencies. Their focus was the coming new medium: Television. Negotiations would continue into 1949. On Halloween 1948, the Presidential election was on everyone's mind. The night before, Thomas Dewey ended his campaign at Madison Square Garden. He'd run against FDR in 1944, losing, but received 46% of the popular vote. After President Roosevelt passed away, there were many who felt Dewey made a better post-war choice than Harry Truman. In the 1946 New York Gubernatorial election, Dewey won by nearly 700,000 votes, the most in New York history to that point. Tuesday, November 2nd was the 41st U.S. presidential election in history. Truman was a massive underdog with South Carolina's Governor Strom Thurmond opposing on the Dixiecrat ticket, and another FDR VP, Henry Wallace as the Progressive Party nominee. Meanwhile in the Middle East, The Arab-Israeli war raged on. Fighting started the previous November. It ramped after Palestine was officially dissolved, and Israel declared Independence on May 14th. Count Bernadotte of Visborg was assassinated in September by four members of Lehi, a Jewish Zionist group. One of whom—Yitzhak Shamir would go on to be the Seventh Prime Minister of Israel. Operation Hiram ended on Halloween with Israeli forces claiming to have complete control of Galilee. The fighting would continue into 1949. The Cold War was growing, with Americans investigating potential communist cells within the government, fearing the world could split into two distinct groups: those who supported democracy, and those who supported totalitarianism.

Ann Lewis has had a legendary career as a Democratic strategist...from her time as Communications Director in the Clinton White House...as a Senior Advisor to Hillary Clinton's 2000 Senate run and both 08 & 16 Presidentials...to her time as a Senate Chief of Staff and working at institutions like Planned Parenthood, the DNC, ADA, & more. In this conversation...Ann talks growing up in New Jersey in the shadow of the Hudson County Democratic machine, key moments in her career path as a woman in politics in the 1970s and 80s, intersecting with Bill and Hillary Clinton in the 80s, her work in both the Clinton White House and Clinton campaigns for 20+ years, and her best practices for smart communication strategies.IN THIS EPISODE…Ann grows up in New Jersey in a family who instilled in her the importance of politics…Ann's early political memories of Harry Truman's upset win in 1948…Ann talks the Hudson County, NJ political machine of her youth…A political light-bulb goes off for Ann when canvassing for JFK…Ann talks the challenges of working up the political ladder as a woman in the 1970s and 80s…Ann goes deep on the her time working for Hillary Clinton's 2000 Senate race…Ann on the importance of Americans for Democratic Action…Ann talks her time as campaign manager and Chief of Staff for Senator Barbara Mikulski…Ann first crosses path with Bill & Hillary Clinton in the early 1980s…Ann gets to know then-First Lady Hillary Clinton in 1994…Ann gets pulled into the 1996 Clinton Presidential…Ann's time as Communication Directions in the White House, including during the Clinton Impeachment saga…Ann's communications best practices…Ann's involvement in the '08 and '16 Hillary Clinton Presidentials…Ann talks Bill Clinton's legendary retail skills and Hillary Clinton's intellect…Ann talks growing up with her brother, and fellow legendary political figure, Congressman Barney Frank…Ann's advice to the next generation of political operatives…AND Aunt Fanny, the Baltimore Museum of Art, basement offices, battlefield promotions, Bayonne, blankety-blank campaigns, George H.W. Bush, chattering classes, childish bullies, the Clinton Library, cocktail parties, the Colossus of Rhodes, Democratic Majority for Israel, Thomas Dewey, Bob Dole, Facebook, Fells Point, flaming parachutes, Boss Hague, the George Washington Bridge, Newt Gingrich, Rudy Giuliani, Margaret Hague, Jesse Helms, Harold Ickes, Jewish Women for Hillary, Junior Advisors, John Kennedy, Rick Lazio, Nita Lowey, Chuck Manatt, Mac Mathias, moderate ethnics, Pat Moynihan, the New York Post, Richard Nixon, NOW, one-and-a-half computers, Norm Ornstein, George Pataki, Planned Parenthood, Charlie Rangel, Joe Rauh, Walter Reuther, Eleanor Roosevelt, Adlai Stevenson, sturdy women, third wives, tugboats, the Unpleasantness, upstate winegrowers, Henry Wallace, Anne Wexler, Maggie Williams, the Women's Political Caucus & more!

When Robert Draper of the New York Times recently asked Rose Sperry, a state committeewoman for Arizona's G.O.P., to name the first Republican leader she ever admired, she immediately mentioned former Wisconsin senator Joe McCarthy. “I grew up during the time that Joe McCarthy was doing his talking,” Sperry said. “I was young, but I was listening. If he were here today, I would say, ‘Get him in there as president!'”I also grew up during the time Joe McCarthy was “doing his talking,” and I was young and listening, too. But I would not want Joe McCarthy to be president. Neither, let me add, did my father. Ed Reich called himself a liberal Republican, in the days when such creatures still existed. He voted for Thomas Dewey in 1948 (cancelling my mother's vote for Harry Truman), and then for Dwight Eisenhower in 1952 and 1956 (cancelling my mother's votes for Adlai Stevenson), and he thought highly of New York State's Republican governor, Nelson Rockefeller, and its Republican senator, Jacob Javits — neither of whom would last a second in today's G.O.P.But Ed Reich could not abide bullies and he detested Joe McCarthy. My father thought that anyone who had to bully someone else to feel good about himself was despicable. Bullying led to antisemitism and antisemitism had led to the holocaust. In 1947, Ed Reich moved us from Scranton to a little village in the country some sixty miles north of New York City, called South Salem, so as to be within equal driving distance of his two women's clothing stores, in Norwalk, Connecticut, and Peekskill, New York. Soon after we arrived, a delegation of older men from the village came by to inform us that South Salem was a “Christian community” and we were not welcome there. That was the day my father decided we'd stay put in South Salem. “I'll show those b******s,” he said. Senator Joseph McCarthy had a special place in Ed Reich's pantheon of evil bullies. McCarthy didn't just attack those he claimed were members of the Communist Party. He did it with malice. McCarthy's crusade against “subversives” extended into the mainstream of America and American politics, as he ridiculed the “pitiful squealing” of “those egg-sucking phony liberals” who “would hold sacrosanct those Communists and queers.” Every time McCarthy's image came across the six-inch screen on the Magnavox television in our living room, my father would shout “son of a B***H” so loudly it made me shudder. In Many are the Crimes: McCarthyism in America, historian Ellen Wolf Schrecker describes a movement that “punished thousands of law-abiding Americans and scared millions more into silence, destroying much of the left and seriously narrowing the political spectrum.” McCarthyism was the byproduct of the Republican Party's postwar effort to eradicate the New Deal by linking it to communism. The G.O.P. portrayed the midterm election of 1946 as a “battle between Republicanism and communism.” The Republican National Committee chairman claimed that the federal bureaucracy was filled with “pink puppets.” According to John Nichols, in The Fight for the Soul of the Democratic Party, Southern segregationist Democrats joined the red-baiting rhetoric. Mississippi senator Theodore Bilbo, a Klansman who had filibustered to block anti-lynching legislation, described multiracial labor unions' advocacy for civil rights as the work of “northern communists.” Representative John Elliott Rankin, a fiercely racist and antisemitic Mississippi Democrat who helped establish the House Un-American Activities Committee as a standing congressional committee, called the CIO's Southern organizing campaign “a communist plot” and charged that it would lead to more Black voting rights. “We're asleep at the switch,” he warned. “They're taking over this country; we've got to stop them if we want this country.”The backlash was successful. In the 1946 midterms, Democrats lost control of both the Senate and the House. Wisconsin ended its era of progressive Republican La Follettes and sent Joe McCarthy to the Senate. California replaced New Dealer Jerry Voorhis with a young Republican lawyer who had already figured out how to use red-baiting as a political tool. His name was Richard Nixon. In December 1946, at the founding convention of the Progressive Citizens of America, FDR's former vice president, Henry Wallace, saw the red scare for what it was — a tool of the most powerful economic forces in America. “We shall … repel all the attacks of the plutocrats and monopolists who will brand us as Reds,” he said. If it is traitorous to believe in peace — we are traitors. If it is communistic to believe in prosperity for all — we are communists. If it is unAmerican to believe in freedom from monopolistic dictation — we are unAmerican. We are more American than the neo-Fascists who attack us. The more we are attacked the more likely we are to succeed, provided we are ready and willing to counterattack.But there was no counterattack. The red scare continued to gain ground, encouraged by J. Edgar Hoover, the first director of the F.B.I. Soon after the release of Frank Capra's loving ode to America, “It's a Wonderful Life” in January 1947, the F.B.I. (using a report by an ad-hoc group that included Fountainhead writer and future Trump pin-up girl Ayn Rand) warned that the movie represented “rather obvious attempts to discredit bankers by casting Lionel Barrymore as a ‘scrooge-type' so that he would be the most hated man in the picture.” The movie “deliberately maligned the upper class, attempting to show the people who had money were mean and despicable characters. This … is a common trick used by Communists.” The F.B.I. report compared “It's a Wonderful Life” to a Soviet film, and alleged that Frank Capra was “associated with left-wing groups” and that screenwriters Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett were “very close to known Communists.”President Truman succumbed to the mounting anti-communist hysteria. On March 21, 1947 he signed Executive Order 9835, the Loyalty Order that ushered in loyalty oaths and background checks, and created the Attorney General's List of Subversive Organizations. Yet the progressive left remained silent. As the 1950 election approached, a Times headline announced that the “Left is Silent in Campaign.” Even the American Civil Liberties Union, whose roots lay in the first Red Scare of the World War I era, was reluctant to take the lead in opposing the threat to civil liberties in the second Red Scare of the 1950s. California Representative Helen Gahagan Douglas, dubbed the “Pink Lady” for her supposed communist sympathies, tried for the Senate in 1950. She survived a bitter primary battle only to be beaten in November by red-bater Richard Nixon. On June 9, 1954, I sat at my father's side on our living room couch, watching the Army-McCarthy hearings. McCarthy had accused the U.S. Army of having poor security at a top-secret facility. Joseph Welch, a private attorney, was representing the Army. McCarthy charged that one of Welch's young staff attorneys was a communist. “Son of a B***H,” my father shouted.As McCarthy continued his attack on Welch's staff attorney, Welch broke in, “Until this moment, Senator, I think I never really gauged your cruelty or your recklessness.”I was spellbound. McCarthy didn't stop. “Son of a B***H,” Ed Reich shouted ten times more loudly. The earth shook. At this point, Welch demanded that McCarthy listen to him. “Let us not assassinate this lad further, Senator,” he said. “You have done enough. Have you no sense of decency?” Almost overnight, as the Senate Historical Office recounts, “McCarthy's immense national popularity evaporated. Censured by his Senate colleagues, ostracized by his party and ignored by the press, McCarthy died three years later, 48 years old and a broken man.”***During the Army-McCarthy hearings, McCarthy's chief counsel was Roy Cohn. Cohn had gained prominence as the Department of Justice attorney who successfully prosecuted Julius and Ethel Rosenberg for espionage, leading to their execution in 1953. The Rosenberg trial had brought the 24-year-old Cohn to the attention of J. Edgar Hoover, who convinced McCarthy to hire Cohn as chief counsel for McCarthy's Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, where Cohn became known for his aggressive questioning of suspected communists. My father thought Roy Cohn almost as despicable as Joe McCarthy. After McCarthy's downfall, Cohn proved useful to a young New York real estate developer named Donald Trump who was then undertaking several large construction projects in Manhattan and needed a fixer and mentor. Cohn filled both roles. Fred Trump had got his son's career started by bringing him into the family business of middle-class rentals in Brooklyn and Queens. Cohn established Donald in Manhattan, introducing him to New York's social and political elite, and defending him against a growing list of enemies.In 1973, the Justice Department accused Trump of violating the Fair Housing Act of 1968 in thirty-nine of his properties, alleging that Trump quoted different rental terms and conditions to prospective tenants based on their race, and made false “no vacancy” statements to Black people seeking to rent. Representing Trump, Roy Cohn filed a countersuit against the government for $100 million, asserting that the charges were “irresponsible and baseless.” Although the countersuit was unsuccessful, Trump settled the charges out of court in 1975, asserting he was satisfied that the agreement did not “compel the Trump organization to accept persons on welfare as tenants unless as qualified as any other tenant.” Three years later, when the Trump Organization was again in court, this time for violating terms of the 1975 settlement, Cohn called the charges “nothing more than a rehash of complaints by a couple of planted malcontents.” Trump denied the charges. Cohn was also involved in the construction of Trump Tower, helping secure concrete during a city-wide Teamster strike through a union leader linked to a mob boss. At about this time, Cohn introduced Trump to another of Cohn's clients, Rupert Murdoch. During Ronald Reagan's 1980 presidential campaign, Cohn helped a young Roger Stone arrange for John Anderson to be nominated by New York's Liberal Party, thereby splitting the state's opposition to Reagan and allowing Reagan to carry the state with 46 percent of the vote. Stone later recounted that Cohn gave him a suitcase to be dropped off at the office of a lawyer influential in Liberal Party circles. Speaking after the statute of limitations for bribery had expired, Stone said, “I paid his law firm. Legal fees. I don't know what he did for the money, but whatever it was, the Liberal Party reached its right conclusion out of a matter of principle.”In 1986, Cohn was disbarred by the New York State Bar for unethical conduct after attempting to defraud a dying client by forcing the client to sign a will amendment leaving Cohn his fortune. (Cohn died five weeks later from AIDS-related complications.)In his first and best-known book, “The Art of the Deal,” Trump distinguished between integrity and loyalty — and made clear he preferred loyalty. Trump compared Roy Cohn to “all the hundreds of ‘respectable' guys who make careers out of boasting about their uncompromising integrity but have absolutely no loyalty ... What I liked most about Roy Cohn was that he would do just the opposite.” This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit robertreich.substack.com/subscribe

On this episode of Our American Stories, Anne Clare tells the story of a nurse who served in the Philippines during World War II, and shares the experience that she and others like her went through after the Japanese invasion there. Genevieve Church, the third "Goat Lady of San Francisco", is executive director of City Grazing. She shares about how this sustainable land management and fire prevention non-profit organization came to be. At the start of the 1948 election cycle, President Truman was down and out in the polls. His opponent, Thomas Dewey, turned down an invitation to appear at the National Plowing Match in Dexter, Iowa. Truman would instead go and eventually win the state and another term in office. Support the show (https://www.ouramericanstories.com/donate)   Time Codes: 00:00 - The WWII Nurses who Cared for their Fellow POWs 10:00 - City Grazing: The Landscape Management Company Powered by Goats 35:00 - How the National Plowing Match in Iowa Won Truman the ElectionSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In the spring of 1950, network radio revenue was falling for the first time since 1933. There were now over twenty-six-hundred AM and FM stations vying for advertising dollars. The US also spent the first ten months of 1949 in a recession while TV was becoming a serious threat to both prime time Network Radio and Hollywood films. Over a hundred TV stations were on the air, and radio's top fifty program ratings were down thirty-percent in just two years since the record high of 1947-48. Only The Lux Radio Theater and Jack Benny had ratings higher than twenty. Meanwhile, the TV networks reported a combined income of more than twenty-nine-million dollars. The world was changing too. The U.S. was on the brink of war with Korea. During the week of March 26th, Wisconsin junior senator Joseph McCarthy named five ​​U.S. State Department employees as potential Communists. The senator's actions placed him firmly in the crosshairs of Edward R. Murrow. Two-time Republican Presidential nominee Thomas Dewey was relegated to voice of reason. It would be four years before McCarthyism came to an end while Cold War fears continued to escalate. That Spring, with both science-fiction and UFOs en vogue, multiple shows focused on flying saucers within individual episode plots. On March 26th, 1950 The Red Skelton Show presented “Flying Saucers.” One of the co-stars was famed radio character actress Lurene Tuttle. Skelton was airing over CBS Sunday nights at 8:30PM eastern time. His March rating was 15.6, but his season number was 13.5. It was 14th overall, but down seven points from two years prior. On March 29th, RCA made their first color television demonstration. Their system would eventually be accepted by the FCC and would become the standard for broadcasting.The next fall Skelton took his show into TV where it would air until 1971.

World War II is ending, and the American Century is ready to go - but before we do, there's the matter of the last guy who brung us there: the plain-spoken piano player from the Show-Me State who worked up through a political machine and avoided the Klan to drop the bomb(s), pulled off one of the all-time upsets (or was it?!) and put us on the road in Southeast Asia. It's Harry S. Truman! (Now listen or he'll have Margaret sing to you - and do you really want THAT?!)This episode's sketches were Written, Produced, and Performed by:Gina BuccolaSandy BykowskiJoseph FedorkoSylvia MannPaul MoultonPatrick J. ReillyAnd Tommy SpearsThis Episode's Historians: Dr. Chelsea Denault and James McRaeOriginal Music written and performed by Throop McClergAudio production by Joseph FedorkoSound effects procured at Freesound.orgDB Comedy Logo Designed by Adam L. HarlettELECTABLES logo and Presidential Caricatures by Dan PolitoTHE ELECTABLES concept was created by Patrick J. Reilly.CAST AND CREDITS COLD OPEN – Written by Paul Moulton            Dr. Nair: Tommy            Paul - PaulTRUMAN ON THE LAMM – Written by Paul Moulton            Lamm - Paul            Truman – TommyUNITE AGAINST THE COLLECTIVE – Written by Paul Moulton            Narrator - Joe            Old Man Rected – Patrick            Mark Sissom – Tommy            Nurse Lizzie Faire - SandyRINGY DINGY – Written by Joseph Fedorko            Operator – Gina            Caller – Patrick            Second Caller - Paul TRUMAN PRESIDENTIAL WAX MUSEUM – Written by Patrick J. Reilly            Curator – Sandy              Trump - Joe Contributions to DB Comedy are graciously accepted by going to the DB COMEDY donation page at https://fundraising.fracturedatlas.org/db-comedy, the nonprofit fiscal sponsor of DB COMEDY. Donations are tax-deductible to the fullest extent allowed by law.For more information on DB Comedy and THE ELECTABLES, visit DB Comedy's web site, dbcomedy.com, or DB Comedy's host page on Simplecast.com. Follow us on Facebook at DB Comedy. Join us on The Trident Network, and listen to us on World Perspectives Radio Chicago, on Live365.com and Hard Lens Media!Thanks for listening! Thanks for downloading! Don't forget to subscribe! And don't forget to like!!

Fue en la Convención Nacional del Partido Republicano de 1944 celebrada en Chicago, que el gobernador de Nueva York, Thomas Dewey siendo candidato presidencial republicano, compartió su apoyo a la idea de establecer un estado judío en Palestina. Su apoyo a un estado judío capturó la atención de los sionistas en Palestina y más notablemente de los judíos estadounidenses. En 1943 el rabino Abba Hillel Silver había fundado el Consejo de Emergencia Sionista de Estados Unidos (AZEC), que se convirtió en el brazo político del sionismo estadounidense. Sabía que Franklin D. Roosevelt, el actual presidente de los Estados Unidos, era ambivalente sobre el apoyo a un estado judío en Palestina. Para asegurar el apoyo de la Casa Blanca a un estado judío, Silver reconoció que necesitaba el apoyo de los partidos republicano y demócrata. Trabajó en estrecha colaboración con el gobernador republicano Thomas Dewey de Nueva York con este fin. Siguiendo el precedente republicano, la Convención Nacional Demócrata respaldó la inmigración judía sin restricciones a Palestina y, en última instancia, el establecimiento de un estado judío en Palestina.

Dozens of American leaders captured their party's nomination for the presidency but never reached the Oval Office. How would history have changed if they had won? If Abraham Lincoln had lost to Stephen Douglas, a pro-slavery Democrat, in 1860, then Emancipation would be the last thing on his mind during the Civil War. If Richard Nixon had defeated JFK in 1960, then the Cuban Missile Crisis, Bay of Pigs Invasion, and Space Race could have also turned out very differently. To explore these counterfactuals is today's guest Peter Shea, author of the book In the Arena: A History of American Presidential Hopefuls. We discuss the rise, early career, campaign, and later achievements of historical giants like Aaron Burr and Henry Clay, up through modern candidates to get insight into what it's like to run for one of the most powerful positions in the world – and come up short.In a speech Theodore Roosevelt gave after losing the 1912 presidential election, he assigned ultimate credit “to the man who is actually in the arena…who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”

On this episode of Our American Stories, Roger tells the story of his stepson, Saje Hellstern, and how a tumor was found in his brain but, that it didn't stop him from running and finishing his races. Ken Austin shares how he grew from a humble farm boy with insecurities into the man who would established the 2nd largest dental equipment manufacturing company in the world. Rod Stanley of the Dexter Museum tells the story of how President Truman won the state of Iowa and another term in office after his opponent, Thomas Dewey, turned down an invitation to appear at the National Plowing Match in Dexter, Iowa in 1948. Support the show (https://www.ouramericanstories.com/donate)   Time Codes: 00:00 - The Winner Who Always Finished Last 12:30 - From Farm Boy to Founder 37:00 - The Day President Truman Came to Town See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Dems in 2022 or the battle between the center and left.....and the left is winning.....Judge Brown will get in but I think that they are starting to worry so they attacking the questions.......My AT post about what is a woman........Thomas Dewey (1902-61).......Elvis joined the US Army on this day in 1958..... and other stories........ Check our blog.........and follow our friend Carlos Guedes..............  

Very few Americans have had the impact on public policy as has Joseph Califano. Though his parents only graduated high school, he went to Harvard Law  and by age 30 was working at high levels of the John F. Kennedy Administration - and shortly after was the top domestic White House aide to Lyndon Johnson. In this conversation, he talks his meteoric rise through the Kennedy / Johnson years, seeing first-hand as the LBJ “Johnson Treatment” built the Great Society, the toll that Vietnam took on President Johnson, & his work as HEW Cabinet Secretary under President Carter to start a national anti-smoking campaign that's had immeasurable benefits to public health in the US. This is a great conversation with a true American Dream success story and political dynamo.IN THIS EPISODE…Growing up as an Italian-American kid in the era of Franklin Roosevelt…How a working class Brooklyn kid makes it to Harvard Law…Why he left a lucrative private law firm to enter the Kennedy Administration…He talks working in the early days of the Kennedy Administration with Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara…Memories from meetings with President Kennedy…Early impressions working up and close and personal with President Johnson…Why LBJ sequenced the 1964 Civil Rights Act ahead of other Great Society programs…Secretary Califano goes in depth describing “The Johnson Treatment”…Memories from the White House on the night Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated…The “race against expectations” that informed much of LBJ's time in office…Secretary Califano talks the difficulty in passing Fair Housing legislation…The role that Lady Bird Johnson played in helping making President Johnson more effective…The connection between Secretary Califano's son and safety caps on medicine bottles…Reflecting on a political misfire as President Johnson missed an opportunity to appoint a new Supreme Court Chief Justice…The toll that the Vietnam War took on President Johnson…President Johnson's courageous early foray for gun safety laws…The last conversation he had with President Johnson after he left office…His time in the Carter Cabinet as Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare…Why Democrats couldn't secure universal healthcare during the Democratic trifecta of the late 1970s…How he came to spearhead a national anti-smoking campaign…AND the AMA, Carolyn Agger, Brooklyn Prep, McGeorge Bundy, George Christian, Sterling Cottrell, Thomas Dewey, Everett Dirksen, Dwight Eisenhower, Abe Fortas, Gerald Ford, William Fulbright, the Harvard Law Review, the Hirshhorn Museum, Holy Cross, IBM, the JAG Corps, Lady Bird Johnson, Robert Kennedy, leak central, Russell Long, Mike Mansfield, Harry Middleton, Bill Moyers, John McGillicuddy, Harry McPherson, Richard Nixon, Dick Ottinger, PS 182, Claiborne Pell, Jake Pickle, a revolving son of a bitch, the Subversive Activity Control Board, Al Smith, sugar in gas tanks, Jack Valenti, Cyrus Vance, Earl Warren, Watts riots…& more!

Today in honor of Women's History Month and the people of Ukraine, I present a compendium of eight different Liedersängerinnen singing Franz Schubert's song cycle Winterreise, set to poems by Wilhelm Müller. When I am in despair, I turn to Schubert, who, even in such a bleak piece as Winterreise, offers incomparable insight and empathy into our shared humanity. Though it is often held that this is a cycle that should sung exclusively by men, these eight women put the lie to that faulty premise. Featured singers are Lois Marshall, Brigitte Fassbaender, Lotte Lehmann, Elena Gerhardt, Christa Ludwig, Margaret Price, Mitsuko Shirai, and Alice Coote. Pianists are Paul Ulanowsky, Erik Werba, James Levine, Hartmut Höll, Julius Drake, Coenraad Bos, Aribert Reimann, Wolfram Rieger, Anton Kuerti, and Thomas Dewey. This is an episode that I have been planning for some time, and with so many people forced to take precarious and life-threatening winter journeys, there was no time like the present than to share this music, and these singers, with you. Warning: This is at least a six-hanky episode! Countermelody is a podcast devoted to the glory and the power of the human voice raised in song. Singer and vocal aficionado Daniel Gundlach explores great singers of the past and present focusing in particular on those who are less well-remembered today than they should be. Daniel's lifetime in music as a professional countertenor, pianist, vocal coach, voice teacher, and journalist yields an exciting array of anecdotes, impressions, and “inside stories.” At Countermelody's core is the celebration of great singers of all stripes, their instruments, and the connection they make to the words they sing. By clicking on the following link (https://linktr.ee/CountermelodyPodcast) you can find the dedicated Countermelody website which contains additional content including artist photos and episode setlists. The link will also take you to Countermelody's Patreon page, where you can pledge your monthly support at whatever level you can afford. Bonus episodes available exclusively to Patreon supporters are currently available and further bonus content including interviews and livestreams is planned for the upcoming season.

We bring in some big guns because Aaron has lost his voice: Jessica and Carolyn rejoin the program to talk about wedding planning and whether it's better to lead with the stick or the carrot as we muse on whether the charismatic militant Aaron Burr or the aloof, but organized Thomas Dewey would serve better in that role.   You can support the show at pronoiatheater.com/store, paypal.me/pronoiatheater or venmo: @pronoia.   Reach out at contact@pronoiatheater.com

Willowbrook state school was established in 1947 as a school for the, “mentally and physically defective and feeble minded” according to NY State governor at the time, Thomas Dewey. This school became the largest institution in the US yet gave way to the most deplorable living conditions. The students were left naked, sitting in their own feces and urine, abused and neglected. This real American horror story gave way to the FX Network series, American Horror Story, Asylum. This state school, once uncovered for its atrocities, became the College of Staten Island located in one of the 5 boroughs of NY City. Despite its beautiful sprawling campus, tunnels still lurk underneath this campus where gurneys, sheets and wall shackles still remain. This episode, although creepy, sheds light on how the mentally ill and disabled were treated then. Although we have come a long way, there still needs to be tremendous change in how the mentally ill and disabled are treated today. If you or a loved one suffers from mental illness or a physical disability and you are unsure of resources or their rights, please visit www.usa.gov/disability-rights for more information. --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app

Welcome to the Instant Trivia podcast episode 227, where we ask the best trivia on the Internet. Round 1. Category: States' Former Governors 1: Lurleen Wallace, 1967-1968. Alabama. 2: George W. P. Hunt and Bruce Babbit. Arizona. 3: Tom Ridge, 1995-2001. Pennsylvania. 4: Thomas Dewey, 1943-1954. New York. 5: Henry Lee and Fitzhugh Lee. Virginia. Round 2. Category: All "Set" 1: In summer, when this happens just after 8 p.m. in Los Angeles, it happens after 11:30 p.m. in Anchorage. sunset. 2: Species of this small monkey include the common, buffy tufted-ear and pygmy. a marmoset. 3: It can be a useful quality, or any item of value that is owned. an asset. 4: Hebrew for "assembly", it's the parliament of Israel. the Knesset. 5: An element that balances another, or a type of printing that takes ink from plate to blanket to paper. offset. Round 3. Category: Team Sports 1: In football's shotgun formation, this player stands several yards behind the center to take the snap. Quarterback. 2: In this sport it may be a foul to hold either the ball or an opponent's head underwater. Water polo. 3: It's said this game using little padding originated when a schoolboy grabbed a soccer ball and ran. Rugby. 4: Hockey's Colorado Avalanche once played for this city, birthplace of their star Patrick Roy. Quebec City. 5: Using a frisbee and combining football and other games, it's the "last" word in team sports. Ultimate frisbee. Round 4. Category: The Adventures Of Sherlock Holmes 1: That's right, guv, the first Holmes story was this "scarlet" one. A Study in Scarlet. 2: Holmes goes to see a man about a dog in this 1902 novel about a deadly legend. The Hound of the Baskervilles. 3: If you ever needed his services, all the mates knew this was Sherlock's London address. 221B Baker Street. 4: Conan Doyle did this to Holmes in "The Final Problem", but the public outcry caused him to change his mind. Killed him off. 5: If events would come a cropper, this Scotland Yard inspector would seek out Holmes for help. Inspector Lestrade. Round 5. Category: Here's Waldo 1: Waldo was the nephew of this nearsighted cartoon character and helped keep him out of trouble. Mr. Magoo. 2: Named after the screenwriter of "Midnight Cowboy", the Waldo Salt award is given by this Park City, Utah film fest. Sundance. 3: On the quirky TV series "Twin Peaks", a pet bird named Waldo of this talkative species ends up mysteriously dead. a myna bird. 4: In a 1975 film this actor was just great as "The Great Waldo Pepper". Robert Redford. 5: This tough-guy actor's last film role was as Police Commissioner Waldo in 1981's "Ragtime". (James) Cagney. Thanks for listening! Come back tomorrow for more exciting trivia!

Thanks for joining us for the second and final part of the Eunice Carter story. When we left off in Part 1, Carter's unprecedented rise to a seemingly unimaginable role on Thomas Dewey's team of criminal prosecutors made her a household name across America. Now, Carter's courage and tenacity will be tested as she takes on the most dangerous mob boss in the country. Despite being surrounded by an entire team of brilliant legal minds, it will be Carter's intuition and intelligence that Dewey will need most of all if they are to stop the underworld from continuing its reign of terror across New York City.So sit back and enjoy the conclusion of today's episode, New York City Prosecutor, Eunice Hunton Carter.  

Brian Lamb talks with historian Richard Norton Smith about Thomas Dewey, Herbert Hoover, and Harvard University.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Happy Podcast Friday!!!   Like/Follow/Subscribe: YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCR2CskLAfB6OvN9Xbdlp3Iw?view_as=subscriber Twitter: https://twitter.com/GabinoGrhymes Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/shortstorybingo/   Visit our SPONSORS!   - Extra Terrestrial Media: https://extratmedia.com - Their typical client might want to film a music video, record an audio single, or get a drone shot of their business/home. They have a range of services to help any artists' need. Visit the website and schedule a FREE 30 minute consultation today!    - LIBRO.FM: Visit https://libro.fm/ and make the switch from Audible today. Our listeners receive a special two audiobooks for one when you enter, STORYBINGO at check out!   - JAWZRSIZE: Visit https://jawzrsize.com/ and at checkout enter STORYBINGO for 60% off your whole order!   This is part three of our three part series of the formation of the modern day mafia as Lucky Luciano and Meyer Lansky formed it. Today, we read again as part of our series on Lucky Luciano and Meyer Lanksy from, "The Mafia: Encyclopedia Second Edition" by Carl Sifakis. The SS Normandie was a French cruise ship that was taken out of fleet by way of arson in 1942. A cruise liner that was being converted to a warship was under US control at the time as it was at port in New York City while France was being occupied by Germany. Because of the conflict the US Navy seized the ship and took over to create an aircraft carrier as to not allow this back into the hands of the Germans. At 1,029 feet long and 119 feet wide this was not going to go unnoticed when Lucky Luciano and Frank Anastasia put together the coup to bring the cruise ship down. After the boat capsized, Thomas Dewey yielded to Lucky Luciano and releasing him from his 30-50 year prison term in thanks for keeping the ports safeguarded.    The Five points gang saw many graduates but none as infamous as Al Capone and Lucky Luciano. Paul Kelly was last to be the figure head of the once infamous regime. The gang began to dissolve in the 1920's, but it was not before bringing into power one of the most central figure heads the modern day mafia has ever seen, Charles "Lucky" Luciano.   Thank you to our supporters, we worked hard to bring this to you. We hope you ENJOY this new episode of Short...Story...Bingo!    Please like, share, rate, comment, and subscribe! It really helps.   #RandomTwitterFollowerShoutOut @saltyblockboi   Get the book here: https://www.betterworldbooks.com/product/detail/the-mafia-encyclopedia-second-edition-0816038570?utm_medium=onr_paidshopping&utm_source=google   PLEASE email me ALL stories you want heard, comments, sh*t talking, or anything else you want mentioned, to shortstorybingo@gmail.com

Many are comparing the 2020 campaign to the 2016 election. But Michael feels there may be more similarities between Donald Trump's defense of the White House and "Give 'Em Hell" Harry Truman's uphill battle as an incumbent in 1948 against prohibitive favorite Thomas Dewey.

Las elecciones estadounidenses de 1948 enfrentaban al candidato demócrata, Harry S. Truman, contra el republicano Thomas Dewey. El 3 de noviembre de 1948, el periódico Chicago Tribune dio por vencedor a Dewey antes de conocer el resultado real

Las elecciones estadounidenses de 1948 enfrentaban al candidato demócrata, Harry S. Truman, contra el republicano Thomas Dewey. El 3 de noviembre de 1948, el periódico Chicago Tribune dio por vencedor a Dewey antes de conocer el resultado real

"Dewey defeats Truman" era il titolo della vergogna del Chicago Tribune la mattina del 3 novembre 1948. Il repubblicano Thomas Dewey, davanti in tutti i sondaggi e in tutte le previsioni per la Casa Bianca, venne infatti sconfitto a sorpresa dal presidente uscente, il democratico Harry Truman. Negli anni '80, uno scandalo sessuale arrestò le velleità presidenziali di Gary Hart, senatore democratico del Colorado che abbandonò la politica dopo essere stato al centro di una storia d'amore con una donna più giovane di lui che fece indignare l'opinione pubblica americana. Nel 2004, Howard Dean bruciò la sua candidatura per via di uno "scherzo" di un microfono. Tutte queste storie hanno in comune una cosa soltanto: il fallimento. A volte è dietro l'angolo, altre ce l'abbiamo davanti tutto il tempo e nessuno lo vede, come nel caso di Hillary Clinton nel 2016. Joe Biden avrà la stessa fortuna?

Há alguns acontecimentos na história que parecem fadados a acontecer, que é só questão de tempo até que aquilo se concretize, mas que no fim não acontecem. Na política brasileira, existe a presidência de Tancredo Neves e o caso clássico de Fernando Henrique Cardoso posando para fotógrafos sentado na cadeira de prefeito de São Paulo dias antes da eleição de 1985, tamanha era sua confiança. Quando Jânio Quadros levou, declarou à imprensa: "gostaria que os senhores testemunhassem que estou desinfetando esta poltrona porque nádegas indevidas a usaram". Na política internacional, o melhor exemplo é a esperada vitória do candidato republicano Thomas Dewey sobre o democrata Harry Truman pela Casa Branca em 1948. Truman não só levou como posou com um jornal que adiantava sua derrota, em uma das cenas mais clássicas do jogo político global. No esporte, a vitória do Brasil na Copa do Mundo de 1982, o Cavaliers perder do Warriors na final da NBA em 2016 e o rebaixamento do Fluminense no Brasileirão de 2009. (mais…)

As his party votes for a new leader how will Shinzo Abe be remembered? What were some of the successes and failures of the longest serving prime Minister in Japanese history? Should some Australian universities consider merging? Consolidation may offer a better long-term path to sustainability. Can we compare this US election campaign, with Donald Trump and Joe Biden, with the 1948 campaign of Harry Truman and Thomas Dewey? Can you hear any birds singing right now? Do you think that people in the ancient world heard the same kinds of birds in the same kind of numbers that we do today?

As his party votes for a new leader how will Shinzo Abe be remembered? What were some of the successes and failures of the longest serving prime Minister in Japanese history? Should some Australian universities consider merging? Consolidation may offer a better long-term path to sustainability. Can we compare this US election campaign, with Donald Trump and Joe Biden, with the 1948 campaign of Harry Truman and Thomas Dewey? Can you hear any birds singing right now? Do you think that people in the ancient world heard the same kinds of birds in the same kind of numbers that we do today?

In this first of 2 episodes about Lucky Luciano, Gary tells a story about Lucky Luciano and the Dannemora priest. In 1936, the politically ambitious mob busting special prosecutor Thomas Dewey obtained a guilty verdict... The post Lucky Luciano and the Dannemora Priest appeared first on Gangland Wire.

In this episode, we explore ALL of the losers of the 5th Period in American Politics (1932-1968), Alf Landon, Wendell Willkie, Thomas Dewey, Adlai Stevenson, Strom Thurmond, Henry Wallace and Barry Goldwater, and find out where they rank among the losers of all American history.  We also talk about some notable other losers of the era: Henry Breckinridge, Cactus Jack Garner, Estes Kefauver, Averell Harriman, Bob Taft, Douglas MacArthur, Nelson Rockefeller and the classic perennial candidate of them all, Harold Stassen.   

The December 26th, 1947 blizzard which struck the eastern seaboard of the U.S. saw, In New York, 25.8 inches of snow fall in less than twenty-four hours. It was the worst storm since the Great Blizzard of 1888. Ocean liners were unable to move. Railroad stations were filled with stranded people. Importing and exporting out of New York ground to a halt, and the Nation’s reliance on truck transportation was immediately evident. A fuel strike ensued. By the morning of December 31st, many people had gone without some combination of a newspaper, fresh bread, milk, fuel, or coal for almost a week. Fire officials declared it a state of emergency. Mayor O’Dwyer took the first available plane home from his holiday vacation in southern California. The radio industry was struck as well. On January 1st, James C. Petrillo, president of the American Federation of Musicians, instituted a nationwide ban on music recording. The ban was aimed at a provision in the Taft-Hartley Act which criminalized a union's collection of money from members for services that are not performed or not to be performed. It made the AFM's Unemployed Musicians slush fund illegal. To make matters worse, week-over-week consumer inflation was reaching highs not seen in modern U.S. history. As President Truman began his full-scale re-election bid, his National approval rating sat at 32%. New York’s Republican governor Thomas Dewey was positioning himself as the most serious challenger for the Presidency. While in the south, Strom Thurmond was moving towards running on what would come to be known as a “Dixiecrat” ticket.

Louis “Lepke” Buchalter was a 1930s New York City racketeer. Authorities believed Albert Anastasia appointed him to run his Murder, Inc., enforcement squad. Crime buster Thomas Dewey will set his sights in Lepke as an... The post The execution of Louis Lepke Buchalter appeared first on Gangland Wire.

“If you don’t have anything nice to say, come and sit here by me,” is one of the best snarky-isms ever uttered. But who said it? Dorothy Parker? Joan Crawford? Lady Buzzkill? Hear the full story and learn what in the world Teddy Roosevelt, Nellie Taft, and Thomas Dewey have to do with it all? Listen and learn!

Author and columnist Anthony Musso returns to the RadioRotary microphones to discuss volume 2 of his Hidden Treasures of the Hudson Valley, a treasury of 55 sites in the 8-country mid-Hudson region. Here are a few of the sites covered: The Beekman Arms, oldest continuing restaurant; the world’s largest church pipe organ at the Cadet Chapel at West Point; St. Thomas Episcopal Church in Amenia, with two Tiffany windows; Troutbeck, where the NAACP was founded; Dapplemere Farm, the home of presidential candidate Thomas Dewey; the Elephant Hotel, where the American circus got its start; and Harvest Homestead Farm, the secret distillery run by gangster Dutch Schultz. Each of the sites is illustrated with contemporary photography and the essential information about locations, hours, and entrance fees (if any—most are free) is provided in the book. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/radiorotary/support

Dutch Schultz continues his feud with Vincent "Mad Dog" Coll. The reign of violence puts the mafia in a delicate position when it gains the attention of an ambitious new prosecutor named Thomas Dewey.  His friends dwindling as he betrays and kills them, and the mob unable to cope with his recklessness, Schultz finds himself into dangerous territory that ultimately leads to his downfall.  This episode is sponsored by Hims, Zip Recruiter, and Dollar Shave Club.  Music is by Kevin MacLeod and FreeSFX.co.uk.

In this episode we discuss the biggest surprise in American politics since Harry Truman beat Thomas Dewey for the Presidency in 1948. Segment #1 – Donald Trump Shocked the World and Got It Done Why did Donald Trump win? Were there changes to voter turnout compared to 2012? Was Donald Trump the reason the Republicans held onto the US Senate? Segment #2 What Does the Democrat Party do to Regroup? Who is now the head of the Democrat Party? What are their chances of rebounding in 2018? Are there silver linings for the Democrats that are not apparent yet? Segment #3 Thoughts About What the GOP Stands for Moving Forward Is it Trump’s Party? Where do moderate Republicans go? How should Republicans position themselves in future primaries?

Join us as we discuss... Harry Truman is losing popularity, Thomas Dewey takes the world by storm, Everyone, including Truman, things Truman will lose but he doesn't,  and more! ______________________________ Support the show! Use this link to do your shopping on Amazon. It won't cost you a penny more and it will help us out!  ElectionCollege.com/Amazon ________________________ Be sure to subscribe to the show! Leave us a review on iTunes - It really helps us out! Facebook  |  Twitter  | Instagram ________________________ Election College is recorded using Audacity and produced with help from the BossJock for iPad App. ________________________ Get a free month of Audible and a free audiobook to keep at ElectionCollege.com/Audible ________________________ Get $10 free from Canva at ElectionCollege.com/Canva! ________________________ Make sure you sign up for our newsletter for news, resources, freebies, and more! ElectionCollege.com/Newsletter ________________________ Music from: http://www.bensound.com/royalty-free-music ________________________ Some links in these show notes are affiliate links that could monetarily benefit Election College, but cost you nothing extra. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices