PolitiFact Picks Fight With DeSantis For Admiring Calvin Coolidge

December 7th, 2023 12:23 PM

To close out the Wednesday GOP Presidential Debate, the Washington Free Beacon’s Eliana Johnson asked the candidates which former president they would draw inspiration from and for his choice, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis selected Calvin Coolidge. For some reason, PolitiFact decided to fact-check this.

Shame on Us for Abandoning Character

August 2nd, 2023 5:31 PM

Plymouth Notch, VT – One hundred years ago on Aug. 2, President Warren Harding died and Calvin Coolidge became America’s 30th president. The contrast between the two men is stark. While Harding was extremely popular with voters, later revelations doomed his presidency to the bottom rungs. Scandals included paying hush money to cover up extramarital affairs (sound familiar?), an out-of-wedlock…

Sad Trombone: NYT Calls Out WH for Hiding Biden from the News Media

April 23rd, 2023 8:48 PM

In a nearly 1,800-word piece posted Thursday afternoon at The New York Times website (but buried on A-16 of Saturday’s print edition), longtime White House reporter Michael Shear blasted the Biden administration for having “protect[ed]” the President through his first two years in office with only 54 interviews and the fewest press conferences in his first two years since Richard…

The Calvin Coolidge Presidency at the Century Mark

February 21st, 2023 6:05 PM

WASHINGTON – How people understand history largely depends on who writes it and from what perspective. Calvin Coolidge, our 30th president, has received what might be called a raw deal from historians like Arthur Schlesinger Jr. and Henry Steele Commager, among others. They created a caricature of Coolidge that includes blaming him for the Great Depression, which began in 1929, the year after…

The Coolness of Calvin Coolidge

April 19th, 2022 10:37 AM

Washington -- I see that President Calvin Coolidge is in the news, along with his sidekick Warren Gamaliel Harding. Warren was a mediocrity's mediocrity and was long held to be the worst president of modern times. That was until Jimmy Carter became president and then Barack Obama and now Joe Biden. After Joe's term, I think we shall retire the trophy.

Is Liberty Actually Winning?

April 29th, 2021 7:01 PM

Do I live in an alternate universe? The media tell me my side is winning. Salon claims, "We all live in Kochland, the Koch brothers' libertarian utopia." Tucker Carlson says, "Our leadership class remains resolutely libertarian." What? Who? Not President Biden. Biden already spent $1.9 trillion on COVID-19 "recovery" mostly unrelated to COVID. Now, he wants trillions more for an "…

Al Capone Lives!

January 18th, 2018 2:58 PM
“You can get a lot farther with a smile and a gun than you can with just a smile.” This quote has often been attributed to the late Chicago mobster Al Capone, who with his fellow organized crime buddies used extortion as one of their tactics to get what they wanted. Today's modern congressional Democrats have clearly benefited from Capone's example.

Math, History and Tax Reform

October 3rd, 2017 2:14 PM
In school, I liked math the least and history the most. Both can be useful in the coming debate over President Trump's proposed tax reforms. The one thing I learned in math class is that if the formula is wrong, the answer will be wrong. In history class, I learned we are not the first people to occupy the planet and that the experiences of those who came before us can be helpful when considering…

Exploiting the Presidency

May 2nd, 2017 8:42 PM
The headline in the March 5, 1929 edition of the Chicago Tribune read, "Plain Citizen Coolidge Shuts Desk and Quietly Goes Home." Calvin Coolidge would write a newspaper column from Northampton, Massachusetts, for which he presumably was paid a pittance, but other than that he refused to exploit his notoriety or accomplishments as president for money.

NewsBusters Interview: Amity Shlaes on Coolidge, Media, and Neo-Keynes

June 19th, 2013 5:11 PM
The overwhelming dominance that liberal statists have over the media today is one of the biggest obstacles faced by advocates of smaller government. Invariably whenever people try to make reforms to existing systems or eliminate waste, their intentions get distorted and lied about and the reformers’ motives get impugned. Things were not always this way, however. It was not so long ago, in…

WashPost's Drive-by Dismissal of New Coolidge Bio: 100,000 Words About

March 3rd, 2013 3:24 PM

R. Emmett Tyrrell Jr. Column: Amity Shlaes Corrects Some Common Misper

February 21st, 2013 8:15 AM
I am indebted to Amity Shlaes for gently correcting a joke of mine that dates back to July 8, 1972. On that date in the New York Times, I joshed that President Calvin Coolidge "probably spent more time napping than any president in the nation's history" and therefore was a successful president. My joke was a play on an earlier joke by H. L. Mencken, and now Shlaes has corrected both of us. She…

Fixing the Present, Ensuring the Future

July 19th, 2011 3:44 PM
PLYMOUTH NOTCH, Vt. -- If your disgust over America's crushing debt and the irresponsible leaders who refuse to reduce unnecessary spending has reached the fed-up point, there is an easy solution beyond whatever compromise might be reached in the current standoff between President Obama and congressional Republicans. Vote Republican in 2012. But don't vote for just any Republican, rather vote…

What Calvin Coolidge Could Teach President Obama

July 12th, 2011 11:07 AM
"Nothing succeeds like success" -- Alexandre Dumas, 1802-1870 If new millionaires or billionaires were created every time President Obama and his fellow liberals disparage "millionaires and billionaires," there would be far more of them than there are today. And that would be a good thing because it would mean more people are succeeding.