For Want of A Sandwich - A Franz Ferdinand Lives Wikibox TL
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Frank Anthony Keating II (born in St. Louis, MO, on February 10, 1944) in as American politician and attorney who served as the 48th President of the United States from 2001 to 2005. A member of the Conservative Party, he had previously been the 21st Governor of Oklahoma from 1995 to 2000 and Representative for Oklahoma’s 1st district from 1983 to 1993. He is also the second Roman Catholic to have occupied the Oval Office, after Al Smith (1933-1941).
Moving with his family to Tulsa, Oklahoma before he was six months old, Keating graduated from Cascia Hall Preparatory School, Georgetown University (B.A. in history) and the University of Oklahoma College of Law (J.D.) before serving as an agent for the Federal Agency for Counter-Terrorism on the West Coast and moving back to Tulsa to become an assistant district attorney. Elected to the Oklahoma House of Representatives as a Conservative in 1973, he was elected to the Oklahoma Senate, serving from 1975 to 1983 as its majority leader. In 1982, he was elected as Representative for the First district of Oklahoma, succeeding fellow Conservative Jim Hewgley, Jr. ; he would serve in the House of Representatives from 1983 to 1993 before retiring, serving in the Committees for National Security and Judiciary ; he was mentioned several times as a candidate for Attorney General in a prospective Conservative administration from 1989 to 2001.
After two years of private life, Keating received the Conservative nomination for Governor of Oklahoma, tantamount for election in a solid Orange state ; he defeated Republican nominee Jack Mildren and Progressive nominee Bernice Shedrick in a year of Conservative landslide ; he would-be reelected in a landslide in 1998. As Governor, Keating would focus on education, growth, environment and tax cuts, earning a nationwide image as a “compassionate conservative”, winning approval from all three major parties, all while positioning himself as a critic of the Gore and Weld administrations.
As such, Frank Keating announced his run for the Conservative nomination in August 1999 from Tulsa, Oklahoma, running as a centrist candidate ; since the days of the Robertson presidency and the surprise upset of William Weld in 1996, the Conservatives had lost three elections in a row and the impopularity of the Republican administration meant that the hour seemed at end. In spite of stemming from a small state, Keating quickly won the support of moderate Conservatives, cruising through a crowded field that divided the dominionist, integralist and nationalist wings ; Indiana Senator Dan Quayle was the last major opponent to concede after the Conservative Super Tuesday and Keating chose long-term Senator Zell Miller from Georgia as his running mate.
In the general election, Keating campaigned on a promise of restoring America’s economic preponderance in the world, that was being undermined by China, along with focusing on education, war on drugs and the environment, stressing that the Conservatives wouldn’t necessarily destroy the better achievements of the other administrations; it was a stretch from the approach of the outgoing Weld administration, that was bent into destroying the big government, and the platform of the Progressive candidate, Governor of California Tom Hayden, who would promise to restore the social welfare achievements of the McGovern era along with portraying Keating as a “new Alfalfa Bill Murray, the Pyrist from 1936”. In the general election, Frank Keating would prove that he had convinced the independent and centrist voters, winning with 39.8 % of the popular vote, defeating soundly both Hayden and Weld.
The Keating administration, inaugurated on January, 20 2001, was the first of the new century and the first Conservative administration in twelve years. The selection of a cabinet would reflect the moderate approach of Keating, choosing his political model, former Governor of New York Jack Kemp as Secretary of State and like-minded Conservatives like Joe Lieberman, Marc Racicot and Chuck Hagel for the Departments of Treasury, Justice and National Security Advisor ; Keating would also stress the main focuses of his administration by recruiting Republican wunderkind Mitt Romney to head the Department of Commerce and Business, former Mayor of Boston Raymond Flynn for the Department of Education and also reached to the GOP by recruiting Pennsylvania Governor Tom Ridge to be his Drug Czar ; former presidential candidate Kent Hance, designated to represent the United States in Philadelphia, would synthetize the other Conservatives’ reaction to the cabinet, saying that “I agree with the President’s decision for a multi-party administration, but he should have opened it to the Conservatives”.
On the domestic front, his hand tied by both a Progressive majority in Congress and the Balanced Budget Amendment passed during the Weld administration, the Keating administration adopted a bipartisan approach, wanting to ameliorate the Conservative’s image since the days of Pat Robertson, focusing on education, child protection and healthcare reform. President Keating managed to increase spending on secondary education, apprenticeship, and promoted vast offers of federal scholarships and school vouchers, stressing the importance of a stronger American educational system for the near future, while nudging Ivy League colleges and universities into accepting more students from underprivileged backgrounds. The Child Protection Act was passed in 2002, increasing legal penalties against child abuse, sexual but also physical, and raising to 25 years the statute of limitations in cases of pedophilia and incest ; the most famous consequence of the law was the resignation and incarceration of Conservative Representative from Illinois Dennis Hastert in 2008, following the 2006 revelations of child molestation committed by the Representative during his years as a high school wrestling coach. The Keating administration’s tries at lessening the income tax and the burden of the welfare system upon the budget were blocked due to Progressive action ; one of the downsides of the Keating administration was also the indefinite postponement of the American manned mission to Mars, due to the failure of the 1999 launch, German success in 2003 and also to help to relieve the federal budget ; the Ares program would only be resurrected during the Edwards presidency, ending with a successful American landing in 2013. On the other side, the 2003 coronavirus epidemic in Asia convinced him to have the United States prepare for a nationwide response to a global pandemic, that would be regularly updated before coming at hand in 2020.
On the international side, Keating more or less continued the isolationist and America First approach of the Weld administration, focusing his efforts upon global nuclear disarmament (the Vesoul Incident in 2001 only helped Keating to promote his agenda) and the Havana Treaty Organization, such as integrating the new states of former Canada, such as helping to arbitrate in the Newfoundland Crisis (2003-2004), convincing Borealia to adopt the US dollar as its currency (2002) ending American military involvement in Mexico (2003), formally relinquishing control of the Panama Canal to Panama (2002) and trying to convince Bolivia to renounce their nationalizations program. Out of America, the Keating administration focused on increasing their trade relations to help strengthen the United States’ position in the world economy, as China undertook the US as the world’s first economy ; such investments could be seen in Scotland, Liberia, Kongo and Russia. In other international matters, the US adopted a more backseat approach, such as during the Berlin Conference on Iran (2004). If President Keating enjoyed cordial relations with German Chancellor Peer Steinbrück, his confrontational approach on China was more tenuous, on trade issues but even on military matters, after a US Air Force surveillance aircraft has been shot down above Thailand on April 1 2001, resulting in a small diplomatic incident. But the international issue on which President Keating was most lauded was his welcoming of Muslim refugees from Bharatavarsha and Philippines, for which he was heavily criticized inside the Conservative Party ; in a speech from the Los Angeles International Airport on May 1 2003, President Keating, surrounded by refugees hailing from Sindh, replied that “I am an American, a Catholic and a Conservative, in that order ; for these three reasons, I can not refuse help for people discriminated for their religious beliefs”.
But the most controversial issue during the Keating Administration was the increasing of the War on Drugs. Tying it to his education policies, saying that “the future of our children also come through liberating them from the evils of addiction”, he unsuccessfully tried to repeal the legalization of cannabis that had been achieved during the Weld administration, instead focusing on military commitments against drugs cartels in Southeast Asia and Mexico, maintaining a military presence on the US-Mexican border after the ending of military occupation in Mexico by 2003. He also created a row inside the Havana Treaty Organization by calling President of Colombia Pablo Escobar “a secret drug kingpin”. The War on Drugs, led by Tom Ridge, deliberately increased the law penalties for drug possession and trade, increasing the US carceral population by a threefold, a so-called war that wasn’t without smudges, as evidenced by the April 2004 revelation by CBS News of prisoner abuse by federal agents in prison facilities in Texas and California, that included torture, rape, physical and sexual abuse of drug offenders. The approach of the Keating administration of drug trafficking was considered less radical than against terrorism, such as the shooting rampage of Neo-Doriotist terrorist John Allen Williams in Washington D.C. on October 3 2002, that resulted in 17 deaths, and the smallpox terror attack in the New York-Idlewild International Airport in New York City, on October 3 2003, a bacteriological attack perpetrated from the Kahanist terorrist group Jewish Task Force, that resulted in more than 160 dead and more than 2500 infected with the disease. The culprits were sentenced to death penalty but the general impression was that “under President Keating, it’s more prejudiceable to carry an ounce of cocaine than to send smallpox through air ducts in an airport”.
In spite of Conservative loss during the 2002 midterms, President Keating began his campaign for re-election in 2004 with an approval rating superior to 50 %, and seemed that he would win a second term thanks to his bipartisan approach. Criticized on the left for his War on Drugs, he was also denounced by the right due to his moderation, the lack of true Conservatives policies and his dovish foreign policy ; he thus had to deal with a primary challenge from Governor of Missouri Rush Limbaugh, which he managed to defeat after the Wisconsin primary. Promising to accelerate his reforms for education and tax cuts and re-asserting moral values, Keating could easily fend off the lackluster campaign from the Republican nominee, Michigan Senator Charles Menem.... But he couldn’t deal with the populist and overtaking campaign from the Progressives, finally united under South Carolina Senator John Edwards, that would replicate Keating’s 2000 approach to the independent voters. In November 2004, Frank Keating came a close second to Edwards, only losing by 0.2 %, but graciously conceded. During his lame duck term, President Frank Keating oversaw the American relief efforts after the Indian Ocean tsunami and finished to mount a federal emergency plan in case of a massive pandemic outbreak, that would be re-adapted with the Wuchang pneumonia in 2020.
In spite of a call to draft former President Keating back for the 2008 presidential election, the former President has since lived in retirement between Washington, D.C. and Tulsa, advocating for education reform and development for the Havana Treaty Organization ; if the Brownback administration didn’t consulted him much, former President Keating was the official US representative to John XXIV’s papal inauguration in 2012, honoring the American Pope. His son Chip serves as Lieutenant Governor of Oklahoma since 2015.
Russell Dana Feingold (born March 2, 1953 in Janesville, Wisconsin) is an American politician who serves as the 52nd and current President of the United States. A member of the Progressive Party, he previously served as an United States Senator for the State of Wisconsin from 1987 to 2016.
Born in Janesville, Wisconsin, to a Jewish family of Russian and Galician descent, Russ Feingold volunteered in 1972 for the presidential campaign of George McGovern. After graduating from Joseph A. Craig High School, Feingold attended the University of Wisconsin-Madison, graduating in 1975 with a Bachelor of Arts, later obtaining a second Bachelor of Arts from Magdalen College, at the University of Oxford, that he attended on a Rhodes Scholarship. Upon his return, Feingold received his J.D. from Harvard Law School.
After working as a private attorney, Feingold won his first electoral office, serving as a Progressive from 1983 to 1987 in the Wisconsin Senate, representing the 27th District. In 1987, a chance to rise to a national level arose : with the sudden death of Senator Wilbur J. Cohen, Governor Bronson La Follette appointed himself to the vacant seat, a controversial move as the Governor, son of President Robert La Follette, Jr., had been under an ethics investigation. La Follette had hoped that the special election scheduled for November would be a mere formality, given the status of Wisconsin as a Progressive stronghold, save for State Senator Feingold’s candidacy. In spite of his poor name recognition, La Follette managed to ride on his pledge to rely on Wisconsin citizens for most of his contributions, his pledge to eliminate the deficit and make cuts in the defense budget and his travel to each of Wisconsin’s 72 counties. On 8 September 1987, the day of the Progressive primary, Feingold managed to defeat incumbent Senator La Follette in a major upset, scoring 59,67 % ; Feingold would went on to win the election by a strong 52,6 %, and would win re-election in 1992, 1998, 2004 and 2010. He would also serve as Senator with Bronson La Follette, who won on his own right in 1988.
In the Senate, Feingold would gain a reputation as a Progressive firebrand, not hesitating to criticize Presidents Gore and Edwards, even going so far as being the only Progressive senator to vote against a motion to dismiss’s Congress’s impeachment case against President John Edwards (even if he ultimately voted against conviction on all charges), pushing for a stronger welfare state, reparations for African and Native Americans, GRSM rights, fight against climate change, reinforcement of the Havana Organization, calling for abolition of the death penalty, the War on Drugs and stronger taxes on the wealthiest Americans, along with campaign finance reform and gun control.
Due to his strong liberal credentials, Feingold was frequently mentioned as a prospective presidential candidate, and would have certainly be appointed to Robert Reich’s cabinet had he been elected in 2008. After withdrawing before the Iowa caucuses in 2004, due to bad press generated by his second divorce and declining to run in 2012, Feingold’s posture was, in 2016, a longshot, who was eyeing his sixth mandate in the Senate, already 63 in a context where younger candidates could prevail. Nevertheless, Feingold declared his candidacy for President in late 2015, promising to have an amendment on limitations for campaign funding passed, to reduce income and wealth inequality, to vote laws against climate change, to abolish death penalty and to disband massive Internetz corporations.
Described as a long shot, with his Jewish confession and his three marriages as inconvenients, Feingold nevertheless portrayed himself as a elder statesman, appealing to the rural Progressive voters, far from the urban image of Progressive leaders, managing to raise 20 million dollars in January 2016,with an average donation of 27 dollars, showing his grassroots support. In a famous presidential debate, Feingold would be accused of being too old for a young nation. He quipped “I remember the times of McGovern, when the world looked up on America. Isn’t it time to make us great again?” In spite of a disappointing third place in the Iowa caucus, Feingold managed to win the New Hampshire primary and then the Super Tuesday, becoming the Progressive candidate. He picked his past competitor, Governor Julian Castro of Texas, as his running mate. Benefitting from 8 years of Conservative fatigue, Russ Feingold would win the presidential election on November, 8 2016, defeating Conservative Alex Johnson and Republican Mike Lee, becoming the first Jewish American President of the United States.
After appointing a “dream liberal” cabinet, Feingold would push towards campaign reform, introducing the 34th Amendment, allowing limits on the use of corporate and union money to fund political candidates, in order to limit “the heaviness of money in politics” : the 34th Amendment was ratified on March 27, 2019. The Feingold Administration also the extension of antitrust laws to the so-called “Internetz Bigs”, resulting in the break-up of billionaire high tech companies, while the GRSM Civil Rights Act was extended to trans people in 2017. In 2019, the Supreme Court outlawed death penalty on a federal level, as per Feingold’s demands, considering it “cruel and unusual punishment” under the 8th Amendment. In 2020, the Police Reform Act was passed to combat police misconduct, excessive force and racial bias, requiring police departments to share data with the Department of Justice and outlawing vigilante activities. Feingold’s first term was also marred by terrorist attacks aimed at the GRSM and Jewish communities. He appointed to the Supreme Court Justices Kamala Harris (2018), J. Paul Oetken (2022) and Lucy Koh (2022).
The end of Feingold’s first term was of course marked by the Wuchang Pneumonia pandemic. Following in the Executive Health Counter-Measures adopted by the Keating Administration after the SRAS pandemic, Feingold reacted by implementing strict quarantine measures for all foreign visitors, closing effectively all borders for the United States, including with the Havana Organization, and imposing lockdowns in major cities, along with encouraging companies to apply for partial unemployment for their employees and working from home. If the US economy would shrink by 10 % in 2020, Feingold’s measures allowed the Wuchang Pneumonia never to exceed a 15 per 1000 cases, an impressive fact due to the United States’ size. Russ Feingold would also devolve 2 billion dollars to have the 2020 presidential election delayed over a whole week and to guarantee postal voting, making it compulsory in the most populated states and even online and verified voting taking place in major cities. An attempt to make the Bayer vaccine compulsory in the United States was defeated in Congress, while martial law was imposed in several cities in the West Coast to stop anti-Chinese pogroms.
In spite of a massive popular backlash against these measures, Russ Feingold and his Vice President, Julian Castro, would benefit from huge approval ratings riding in the 2020 presidential election, along with a fragmented Conservative Party : Feingold won re-election on November, 3 2020, after a week of voting, defeating Conservative Artur Davis, independent Kanye West and Republican Mike Cox by 48,1 %, the first Progressive winning re-election since Al Gore in 1992.
Feingold’s second term was marked by the strong recovery of the United States economy, allowed by the virtual elimination of Chinese competition and a 1,000-billion dollars Stimulus Package turned towards helping small companies to recover and preparing America to develop its future economy, with mass investments towards the modernization of the train and power grid systems, along with the Future Energy Act marking 2050 as the threshold for an almost carbon-free economy in the country, along with the outlawing of fossil fuel for cars and heating. Although dubbed unrealistic, Feingold’s plan was hailed by ecology experts throughout the world. On 6 January 2021, Feingold was victim of an assassination attempt perpetrated by neo-pyrist veteran Ashli Babbitt, managing to be unscathed in the attack. As of 2022, Feingold’s plans are focused on his “Green Society” plans, also eyeing gun reform should the 2022 midterms be in his favor.
Internationally, Feingold’s terms was marked by the Nicaragua Canal dirty bomb attack in 2018, along with the United States intervention in Venezuela, while Peru and Hispaniola were expelled from the Havana Organization. Feingold was regularly criticized for his lack of will to intervene in Hispaniola or Peru. Feingold has been considered an isolationist by foreign policy experts, due to his policies during the Wuchang Pneumonia pandemic and his push for renewable energy, marking the lack of interest in the Middle East. His policies align towards China ; during a state visit in 2019 in Germany, Feingold was reportedly shocked by some DVP deputies in the Reichstag turning their back on him during his speech, an avowed antisemitic move.
Feingold was married to Sue Levine from 1977 to 1986, then to Mary Speeschneider from 1991 to 2005. In 2013, he married Christine Ferdinand, a fellow from his Oxford days, who served as First Lady during his administration.
Richard “Dick” Bruce Cheney (Lincoln, NE January 30, 1941 - Washington, D.C., June 16 1988) was an American politician, serving as the Representative for Wyoming’s at-large district from 1973 to his death, as Conservative House Leader from 1979 to his death and Speaker of the United States House of Representatives from 1981 to 1983.
Born in Nebraska, Cheney went on to live in Casper, Wyoming during his childhood, before attending, and dropping out from Yale University. Earning a Bachelor of Arts and Master of Arts from the University of Wyoming, then a Ph. D. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Cheney had been first drawn to the Republican Party but came on to better identify with the nascent Conservative Party and its majors figures, Representative John Ashbrook and Senator Scoop Jackson. As Wyoming had remained Republican but didn’t recognize itself in the increasingly moderated GOP, Dick Cheney decided to run as the Conservative candidate for Wyoming’s only seat in the House of Representatives in the 1972 election, defeating incumbent Democrat Edgar Herschler in a year of Progressive landslide. The Conservatives would went on to win Wyoming’s governorship and both Senate seats by 1978.
In the House, Cheney affirmed himself, in spite of being a freshman, as an unofficial whip to John Ashbrook’s Conservatives, standing as a fierce opponent of the McGovern administration and convincing remaining Dixiecrats to merge with the Conservative Party ; with the 1978 Conservative landslide, as Ashbrook was preparing his long-shot and eventually victorious presidential campaign, Conservative House Leader James G. Martin felt overwhelmed ; as Ashbrook’s hatchet man, Cheney managed to manoeuver his way into becoming the Conservative Leader in the House, managing to convince his fellow congressmen to back Ashbrook, convincing him to choose Senator Pat Robertson as his running mate ; with the Conservative majority in the House in 1980, Dick Cheney would become the first Conservative Speaker in the history of the United States, a term that he would only hold in the 97th Congress, as defections and Republican gains in the 1982 midterms gave way to a renewed Republican majority.
As House Leader during the Ashbrook and Robertson administrations, Cheney was one of the most outspoken supporters of the Conservative presidency, even if he was many times at odds with Robertson’s dominionist positions. Even if pointed as a pyrist boogeyman by his opponents, Cheney was more of the mold of Scoop Jackson, as a “Junker Conservative”, bent on militarism and economic nationalism, adopting a strong stance against Panama and the West Indies Federation along with being one of the most hawkish proponents of the Mindanao War.
As the Progressive landslide in 1986 prevented any chance for the Conservatives to regain full control of the House, and expected as a presidential candidate in a future election, the 47-years-old Cheney announced in early 1988 that he would relinquish his seat in the House in favor of running for the Senate, as fellow Conservative Malcolm Wallop was retiring after two terms. Nevertheless, after a heated argument in the US House Committee on Armed Services, of which Cheney was a Ranking member, the former Speaker was brought down by a heart attack in the corridors of Congress on June 16 1988, dying before reaching the hospital. Succeeded by Craig L. Thomas (later US Senator) for Wyoming’s at-large seat and Trent Lott as House Leader, Cheney’s memory was hailed by his fellows, from all three sides of the aisle, as an extremely able leader and an American patriot.
After his demise, his widow Lynne Cheney (née Vincent) announced that she would replace her late husband in the run for Senator, going on to win the election, serving from 1989 to 2019 as the United States Senator for Wyoming, being re-elected in 1994, 2000, 2006 and 2012 by large margins ; she was succeeded by their daughter Liz in the 2018 election, also as a Conservative, serving to this day ; she had previously served as the Secretary of Commerce and Business during President Sam Brownback’s second term, after serving as a congressional aide to her mother. The couple’s other daughter, Mary, doesn’t serve in politics, choosing to live a private life with her spouse.
Charles Saul Menem (Dearborn, MI 2 July 1930 - Bethesda, MD 14 February 2021) was an American lawyer and politician. A member of the Republican Party, he served as the 41st Governor of Michigan from 1975 to 1983 and as Senator for the same state, serving from 1983 to his death. He also ran for President of the United States, running in the Republican primaries in 1988, 1996 and 2004, running as the Republican presidential nominee in the latter.
Charles S. Menem was born to Arab immigrants to Michigan ; his parents had first moved from Syria to Argentina in the 1910s, before the First Argentine Civil War allowed them to relocate to the United States as war refugees. The only Arab American to serve in the Senate, Menem practiced Sunni Islam in his youth before converting to Episcopalianism. Graduating from Michigan State University and Harvard, he returned to Detroit to work as a corporate lawyer for Ford.
Close to then Governor George W. Romney, Menem joined the Republican party, rising as state chairman in 1973 ; in the days where working-class Michigan was a battlefield state between Progressives and Republicans, Menem ran for the 1974 Republican nomination for Governor, securing it and going on to defeat, in a grassroots campaign, incumbent Progressive Governor Sander Levin.
A rising star of the Republican Party, Menem managed to build as Governor a strong minorities-blue and white collar coalition, in the days preceding the 1983 economic crisis, when the automobile industry was still thriving. Easily re-elected in 1978, his eccentricities (renovating the gubernatorial mansion and adorning it with a golf course, a small zoo, servants, a barber and even a buffoon) earned him a strong popularity, along with his populist speeches and his fiscally conservative policies. Menem grew increasingly interested in Objectivist theories stemming from Russia and their adaptation to the American ethos as libertarianism. As he completed his second gubernatorial term, Menem looked forward to grabbing Walter Reuther’s longheld seat in the Senate in the 1982 midterms ; Reuther died before election day, and Menem went on to defeat his own pick for remplacement, Secretary of State Richard H. Austin. Menem would hold his Senate seat for almost forty years.
As Senator, Menem was re-elected in 1988, 1994, 2000, 2006, 2012 and 2018, being re-elected with comfortable margins in an increasingly Progressive state, the closest contests being in 1994, after the heavily publicized divorce of Menem from his first wife (he would later marry a former Miss America contestant) and in 2006, after his quixotic presidential campaign. Menem was socially moderate and was well-known for his association with lobbyists, with many of his opponents accusing him of outright nepotism and corruption (in spite of many federal investigations, none of these were proven true). Nationally, he became a leader of the libertarian wing of the GOP, associating himself with the Koch brothers, Senator Barry Goldwater, Jr. and like-minded lawmakers, promising a better distribution of wealth under such a system, vehemently criticizing big government and contributing to the success of these theories within the Republicans, who were back in the 1980s trying to reinvent themselves as credible alternatives to both Progressives and Conservatives.
Nationally, Menem dreamt of installing himself into the White House (one of the motivations, he admitted, to his religious conversion), and was mentioned as a prospective candidate as early as 1980 ; he threw his hat in the ring for the first time in 1988, when Libertarians were still a minority within the GOP, abandoning after a poor result in the New Hampshire primary to his main rival, Ohio Governor Jack Chirac ; in 1996, Menem announced his candidacy, before withdrawing weeks before the Iowa caucus, in order to help his fellow Libertarian, Massachusetts Governor William Weld, clinch the nomination. The calculation proved right, as Weld went on to become candidate and, in a huge upset, President. Senator Menem then pressured the President-Elect into awarding him the Department of State or of Treasury ; Weld didn’t return his calls, seeing that a like-minded Senator in a swing state would be a better asset in the upper house than as another addition to his cabinet of rivals. The Weld Administration would only last four years and Menem would remain for more than twenty years, but Menem bore such a grudge against Weld that he publically criticized the first Republican administration in more than two decades.
In 2004, Menem finally won the presidential nomination, managing to defeat his main competitor, former Vice President John Kasich ; Charles S. Menem selected retired General Wesley Clark as his running mate and campaigned on a platform of returned purchasing power and massive derugation. Nevertheless, at 74, Menem was not the same firebrand that he was in the 80s, and his populist campaigning style didn’t appealed to Republican voters in New England and the Southwest, where they mostly present. Running against a popular incumbent such as Frank Keating, the old Senator was also no match to his colleague John Edwards’ modern and hopeful campaign, and General Clark proved to be a poor running mate. Accused by the left to be an authoritarian and incompetent lawmaker devoted to the lobbyists, and by the right of being a Republican in name only, a womanizer and a crypto-Muslim, Menem fared poorly in the debates and ended the election as a distant third, falling to 21,6 %.
It appeared that Carlos Menem would soon retire ; after a strong challenge in the 2006 election from Progressive candidate Alma Wheeler Smith, Menem would survive two more elections, before passing away at 90, after an urinary infection that had led him to an induced coma. Governor of Michigan Dan Kildee is mandated by law to organize a special election during the year 2021 to fill Menem’s term up to 2024, and the longheld Republican seat seems to be an easy Progressive pick.
Jacinda Kate Laurell Ardern (born Salt Lake City, UT July 26, 1980) is an American politician who served as the U. S. Representative for Arizona’s 7th district from 2017 to 2023. She is a member of the Progressive Party.
Born to a Mormon family that immigrated from New Zealand (today Aotearoa) to Utah in the 1950s, Ardern grew up in Salt Lake City, Utah and Phoenix, Arizona, where her father worked as a police officer. Joining the Progressive Party at the age of 17, she attended the University of Phoenix, graduating in 2001 with a BA in politics and public relations. She worked in New York City, volunteering at a soup kitchen and worked on a worker’s rights campaign, before leaving to Washington where she worked as an aide to Senator Tom Udall before settling in Phoenix, Arizona.
In 2011, Ardern was elected to the Arizona House of Representatives, representing the 16th district from 2011 to 2013 and the 27th from 2013 to 2014, she resigned to run for the Progressive nomination to Arizona’s 7th district, in order to succeed outgoing Representative Ed Pastor, who was retiring. Encompassing much of inner Phoenix in an election that saw the Progressives take back control of both Houses, Ardern was elected to a wide majority to represent the 7th District, beginning as a freshwoman on January 3, 2015.
A member of the Committees on Natural Resources and Oversight and Reformed, Ardern became over the course of her four terms a wide-recognized name in U.S. politics, belonging to the left wing of the Progressive Party, campaigning for the 34th Amendment and the modification of the 13th, GRSM equality, drugs decriminalization while also serving his first term while pregnant with her only child, a daughter who was born in June 2018. Her staunch support of the Health Emergency Powers Act during the Wuchang Pneumonia Pandemic made her a darling of the Feingold administration, hinting at a national future, while her support of the Muslim community after the 2019 Phoenix shootings, seeing her wearing an islamic veil, made international headlines, while growing resent from the LDS Church, from which she had grown distant in later life.
After hinting at a primary challenge directed against Senator Gabrielle Giffords, Ardern announced her candidacy for the 2022 Arizona gubernatorial election, challenging incumbent Republican Governor Jeff Flake. Seen as a tossup in spite of dire Progressive outlook, due to Flake’s poor ratings, the race was seen as winnable for all three major parties. Clinching the Progressive nomination with a resounding 73 %, Ardern was able to lead a fierce fight against Governor Flake and the Conservative candidate, Steve Gaynor, winning the debates. On election day, November 8, she was able to make a close second to Flake’s 40,3 %, winning 39,7 %, well past Gaynor’s 20 %. In the runoff on December 6, 2022, she was unable to defeat Flake, losing 51,4 to 48,6 %. In Arizona, the Progressives also lost their seat in the Senate that same year.
Even if Ardern’s name since losing the Arizona gubernatorial race and leaving Congress has been touted for the 2026 election and for running against Senator J. D. Hayworth in 2024, she has repeatedly reiterated her plans to concentrate on her personal life and retire from politics.
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Joe Biden (born Joseph Robinette Biden III, February 3 1969-30 May 2015) was the 70th Governor of Delaware, serving as a Republican from his first election on January 20 2009 and serving after being re-elected in 2012 and until his death on 30 May 2015.
The son of Wilmington attorney Joseph R. Biden and Neillia Hunter, Biden's life was stricken by tragedy when both his parents and his sister were killed in a car accident on Demceber, 18 1972 ; the future Governor was raised by his paternal grandparents in Delaware and benefitted from the scholarship programs enacted by the McGovern Administration. He graduated from the University of Pennsylvania and Syracuse, working as a lawyer and serving in the Delaware National Guard from 2002.
Inspired by his late father's interest in public service, Joe Biden ran in the 2008 election as a Republican for Governor of Delaware : as the Grand Old Party remains strong in the small state, Biden easily won election in his first bid for elective office ; easily re-elected in 2012, Biden was seen as one of the fresh faces of the Republican Party, as his personal history, his military service, his moderate insight and his good gestion as Governor saw him fit to be a presidential candidate in either 2016 or 2020, and one of the few Republican officials who could actually get a shot at the White House. Nevertheless, his national ambitions were broken by brain cancer, diagnosed in 2013, that would kill him on May 2015, as he was hoping to be in remission and eyeing the 2016 election. The Governor was publicly eulogized by his peers accross the nation.
His brother Hunter Biden was United States Ambassador to Russia from 2017 to 2019.
Willis Haviland Carrier (Angola, NY November 26, 1876 - New York City, NY October 7, 1950) was an American engineer, best known for inventing modern air conditiong, founding Carrier Corporation in 1915, a company still existing to this day and specialized in the manufacture and distribution of HVAC systems.
Earning a Master of Engineering from Cornell University, Carrier invented the first electrical air conditioning unit in 1902, receiving a patent in 1906 and creating the Carrier Air Condition Company of America in 1908 as a subsidiary of the Buffalo Forge Company, becoming its own entity in 1915. In spite of the Great Depression, the Carrier Company's prospects were excellent, thanks to innovation and demand from the United States government, mostly during the occupation of Mexico. Even the World War wouldn't impede the residential and commercial use of air conditioning, managing to gain new ground in Europe and Africa, thanks to the exile of the German forces in Sub-Saharan Africa, making the demand for air conditioning wide. Carrier would die a billionnaire and Carrier is still one of the leading worldwide companies and Willis Carrier is named among the most influential engineers of the 20th Century.
As one historian put it, "Willis Carrier gave the South an industrial future, allowed the Europeans to continue colonization until the 1970s, gave rein the Japanese and the Australians to fight each other in the jungle, would have made India a democracy and prepared us for climate change".
Bob Dylan (born Robert Allen Zimmerman in Duluth, MN, May 24 1941 - died near Woodstock, NY July, 29 1966) was an American singer-songwriter. Often regarded as one of the greatest songwriters of all time, Dylan, in spite of having tragically passed away at 25 and having only been active for four years following his self-titled debut album in 1962, has been one of the most celebrated figures in American folk and swing music, with his songs “Blowin’ in the Wind”, “The Times They Are a-Changin’”, “Like A Rolling Stone”, “Desolation Row” becoming anthems for the civil rights and antiwar movements, becoming a defining figure of the protest song and an inspiration for the burgeoning alternate culture.
Born in a Jewish family in Minnesota, Dylan had a passion for music from a young age and dropped out from the University of Minnesota in 1960, making his way to New York City to begin his career in clubs and meet his idol, Woody Guthrie (then seriously ill, but that Dylan would ironically precede in death), winning critical praise before signing on with Columbia Records. In only 8 albums (“Bob Dylan”, 1962 ; “The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan”, 1963; “The Times They Are a-Changin’”, 1964 ; “Another Side of Bob Dylan”, 1964; “Subterranean Homesick Blues”, 1965 ; “Highway 61 Revisited”, 1965 ; “Blonde on Blonde”, 1966 ; “Last Words”, 1968, posthumous), Bob Dylan became an iconic songwriter of American folk swing and blues, exploring different styles (to the dismay of some of his fans, with the use of electric guitar), modernizing underlying themes of Americana and incorporating a range of political, social, philosophical and literary influences, embodying a new meaning for the protest song in a politically charged era : he would participate, along with Joan Baez, in the fight for civil rights and against the Havana Organization. Topping the charts with his songs, his tours abroad being documented (such as “Don’t Look Back”, by D. A. Pennebaker, chronicling his tour of Germany and his confrontation to the corseted and antisemtic society), Dylan had become a household name at 25.
After the birth of his son Jesse (now a director) and the release of “Blonde on Blonde”, Dylan, who had been exhausted by his tours and experimented on drugs, was killed in the crash of his motorcycle near his home in Woodstock, New York. The ambulance came too late and had to pronounce the singer dead upon arrival.
In spite of his early death, Bob Dylan is still widely recognized as a major name of the American ‘60s and a defining artist in songwriting and protest song, still widely remembered as of 2022. Ranked high in numerous lists of best songwriters and singers, his songs are still widely used for pacifist rallies and are still the focus of studies ; he remains one of the defining spirits of the 1960s. “Had Dylan lived, he would have pushed for a revolution in 1968” famously said fellow singer and activist John Lennon.
Hubert Horatio Humphrey, Jr. (born May, 27 1911 in Wallace, SD - died January, 13 1978 in Waverly, MN) was an American pharmacist best known for being the first to synthesize, ingest and learn of the psychedelic effects of lysergic acid diethelymide (LSD), better known as lysergacid and the Euphoria psychedelic drug. He also participated to the naming and synthesizing of psilocybin and psilocin. His efforts, along with his promotion for the medicinal use of the drug, allowed him to win the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 1960 and the Scheele Award in 1966.
Born to Hubert Horatio Humphrey, Sr., a licensed pharmacist, and Ragnild Kristine Sannes, a Norwegian immigrant, Humphrey spent his youth in Doland, South Dakota, where his father had a drugstore. In the late 1920s, a severe economic downturn hit Doland, forcing the Humphreys to leave to the large town of Huron, SD ; as the Great Depression worsened, Humphrey took on a full pharmacy course in the Capitol College of Pharmacy in Denver, Colorado : first wishing to support the familial store, Humphrey saw his father declare bankruptcy while he was away, forcing him to take a job as a lab assistant at Johnson & Johnson, in Chicago, Illinois. A skilled pharmacist and a fruitful manager, Humphrey climbed the ladder in spite of his relatively small qualification, even if, by his account, “he felt quite miserable there”.
While working on squill and fungus ergot to purify and synthesize active constituents, Humphrey was able to first synthesize LSD on November, 16 1936. Accidentally dripping a very small amount of the substance into his beer at lunch two days later, Humphrey began to experience slow and gradual changes in his perception, before returning home on the L Train, with his reaction alternating between anxiety and enjoyment. The day of November, 18 1936 would remain known as “Ride Day” for all Euphoria users and Humphrey had discovered what he immediately deemed as an efficient psychiatric tool.
Mass produced during the World War for treatment of shell shock by Allied veterans, LSD would be commercialized as Euphoria by Johnson & Johnson and become a staple of culture, as evidenced by his influence on swing, dissident and hipster artists in Europe and America aline. Humphrey himself rejected this recreational use but lobbied in favor of a more widespread use for mental health and against depression, himself continuing to ingest microdoses throughout his life. He also lobbied for depenalization of non-addictive recreational drugs such as cannabis.
The Nobel Committee acknowledged the successful contribution of Humphrey to mental treatment along with the positive effects of the drug on veterans, awarding him with the supreme distinction in Medicine. The use of lysergic acid under medical supervision was authorized by Congress in 1966 in the United States, even if unchecked production and consumption is still a punishable offense as of 2023.
Married to Muriel Buck, a bookkeeper of Huron, SD, in 1934, Humphrey had four children and was a lifelong supporter of the Progressive Party. Artists using Euphoria launched a mock draft-in campaign of Hubert Humphrey for President in 1952, 1960, 1968 and 1972, under the false slogan of “amnesty, abortion and acid” ; Humphrey responded with humour to these shenanigans but was said to have actually considered a legitimate presidential run in 1968.
Still working for Johnson & Johnson in Minneapolis, MN, as head of pharmaceutical research, Humphrey was diagnosed with terminal bladder cancer. He would pass away on January, 13 1978, in is home in Waverly, MN. His funeral was attended by tens of thousands, notably by President George McGovern himself, Progressive politicians, prominent psychiatrists and a large part of America’s cultural class, acknowledging the deep influence of his accidental discovery on culture, even if Humphrey remained vilified by conservative circles.