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Democracy
as practiced in the United States, is a representative form of Democracy consisting of the Federal Government (including the Executive, Legislative and Judicial Branches), along with the federation of 50 state governments (including local governments).

See also "Politics" for a better understanding of the Election process.
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Democracy Pictured: Great Seal of the United States Federal Government
Democracy, or democratic government, is "a system of government in which all the people of a state or polity ... are involved in making decisions about its affairs, typically by voting to elect representatives to a parliament or similar assembly", as defined by the Oxford English Dictionary.

Democracy is further defined as (a:) "government by the people; especially : rule of the majority (b:) "a government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised by them directly or indirectly through a system of representation usually involving periodically held free elections."

According to political scientist Larry Diamond, it consists of four key elements: (a) A political system for choosing and replacing the government through free and fair elections; (b) The active participation of the people, as citizens, in politics and civic life; (c) Protection of the human rights of all citizens, and (d) A rule of law, in which the laws and procedures apply equally to all citizens.
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Democracy contrasts with forms of government where power is either held by an individual, as in an absolute monarchy, or where power is held by a small number of individuals, as in an oligarchy. Nevertheless, these oppositions, inherited from Greek philosophy, are now ambiguous because contemporary governments have mixed democratic, oligarchic, and monarchic elements. Karl Popper defined democracy in contrast to dictatorship or tyranny, thus focusing on opportunities for the people to control their leaders and to oust them without the need for a revolution.

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United States Constitution and its List of Amendments
YouTube Video of Ronald Reagan "We the People"
Pictured: Separation of Powers in accordance with the U.S. Constitution

Click here to view the List of Constitutional Amendments of the United States.

The United States Constitution is the supreme law of the United States of America. The Constitution, originally comprising seven articles, delineates the national frame of government.

Its first three articles entrench the doctrine of the separation of powers, whereby the federal government is divided into three branches: the legislative, consisting of:
Articles Four, Five and Six entrench concepts of federalism, describing the rights and responsibilities of state governments and of the states in relationship to the federal government. 

Article Seven establishes the procedure subsequently used by the thirteen States to ratify it.

Since the Constitution came into force in 1789, it has been amended twenty-seven times to meet the changing needs of a nation now profoundly different from the eighteenth-century world in which its creators lived.

In general, the first ten amendments, known collectively as the Bill of Rights, offer specific protections of individual liberty and justice and place restrictions on the powers of government. The majority of the seventeen later amendments expand individual civil rights protections.

Others address issues related to federal authority or modify government processes and procedures. Amendments to the United States Constitution, unlike ones made to many constitutions worldwide, are appended to the end of the document. All four pages of the original U.S. Constitution are written on parchment.

According to the United States Senate: "The Constitution's first three words--We the People—affirm that the government of the United States exists to serve its citizens. For over two centuries the Constitution has remained in force because its framers wisely separated and balanced governmental powers to safeguard the interests of majority rule and minority rights, of liberty and equality, and of the federal and state governments."
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The first constitution of its kind, adopted by the people's representatives for an expansive nation, it is interpreted, supplemented, and implemented by a large body of constitutional law, and has influenced the constitutions of other nations.

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Forms of Democracy
YouTube Video: Ronald Reagan - Strength of Democracy "believe in our capacity to perform great deeds"
Pictured Below: The United States of America is a Democracy

Types of democracy refers to kinds of governments or social structures which allow people to participate equally, either directly or indirectly.

Direct Democracies:

A direct democracy or pure democracy is a type of democracy where the people govern directly. It requires wide participation of citizens in politics. Athenian democracy or classical democracy refers to a direct democracy developed in ancient times in the Greek city-state of Athens.

A popular democracy is a type of direct democracy based on referendums and other devices of empowerment and concretization of popular will.

An industrial democracy is an arrangement which involves workers making decisions, sharing responsibility and authority in the workplace (see also workplace)

Representative Democracies:
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A representative democracy is an indirect democracy where sovereignty is held by the people's representatives.
Types of representative democracy include:
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  • Electoral democracy – type of representative democracy based on election, on electoral vote, as modern occidental or liberal democracies.
  • Dominant-party system – democratic party system where only one political party can realistically become the government, by itself or in a coalition government.
  • Parliamentary democracy – democratic system of government where the executive branch of a parliamentary government is typically a cabinet, and headed by a prime minister who is considered the head of government.
    • Westminster democracy – parliamentary system of government modeled after that of the United Kingdom system.
  • Presidential democracy – democratic system of government where a head of government is also head of state and leads an executive branch that is separate from the legislative branch.
    • Jacksonian democracy – a variant of presidential democracy popularized by U.S. President Andrew Jackson which promoted the strength of the executive branch and the Presidency at the expense of Congressional power.
  • Soviet democracy or Council democracy – form of democracy where the workers of a locality elect recallable representatives into organs of power called soviets (councils.) The local soviets elect the members of regional soviets who go on to elect higher soviets.
  • Totalitarian democracy – a system of government in which lawfully elected representatives maintain the integrity of a nation state whose citizens, while granted the right to vote, have little or no participation in the decision-making process of the government.

A demarchy has people randomly selected from the citizenry through sortition to either act as general governmental representatives or to make decisions in specific areas of governance (defense, environment, etc.).

A non-partisan democracy is system of representative government or organization such that universal and periodic elections (by secret ballot) take place without reference to political parties.

​An organic or authoritarian democracy is a democracy where the ruler holds a considerable amount of power, but their rule benefits the people. The term was first used by supporters of Bonapartism.

Types of Democracy based on location:

A bioregional democracy matches geopolitical divisions to natural ecological regions.

A cellular democracy, developed by Georgist libertarian economist Fred E. Foldvary, uses a multi-level bottom-up structure based on either small neighborhood governmental districts or contractual communities.

A workplace democracy refers to the application of democracy to the workplace (see also industrial democracy).

Types of Democracy based on level of freedom:

A liberal democracy is a representative democracy with protection for individual liberty and property by rule of law. In contrast, a defensive democracy limits some rights and freedoms in order to protect the institutions of the democracy.

Types of Democracy based on Religion:
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A religious democracy is a form of government where the values of a particular religion have an effect on the laws and rules, often when most of the population is a member of the religion, such as:
Other Types of Democracy:

Types of democracy include:
  • Anticipatory democracy – relies on some degree of disciplined and usually market-informed anticipation of the future, to guide major decisions.
  • Associationalism, or Associative Democracy – emphasis on freedom via voluntary and democratically self-governing associations.
  • Adversialism, or Adversial Democracy – with an emphasis on freedom based on adversial relationships between individuals and groups as best expressed in democratic judicial systems.
  • Bourgeois democracy – Some Marxists, Communists, Socialists and Left-wing anarchists refer to liberal democracy as bourgeois democracy, alleging that ultimately politicians fight only for the rights of the bourgeoisie.
  • Consensus democracy – rule based on consensus rather than traditional majority rule.
  • Constitutional democracy – governed by a constitution.
  • Delegative democracy – a form of democratic control whereby voting power is vested in self-selected delegates, rather than elected representatives.
  • Deliberative democracy – in which authentic deliberation, not only voting, is central to legitimate decision making. It adopts elements of both consensus decision-making and majority rule.
  • Democratic centralism – organizational method where members of a political party discuss and debate matters of policy and direction and after the decision is made by majority vote, all members are expected to follow that decision in public.
  • Democratic dictatorship (also known as democratur)
  • Democratic republic – republic which has democracy through elected representatives
  • Economic democracy – theory of democracy involving people having access to subsistence, or equity in living standards.
  • Ethnic democracy – coined to describe democracy in China.
  • Grassroots democracy – emphasizes trust in small decentralized units at the municipal government level, possibly using urban secession to establish the formal legal authority to make decisions made at this local level binding.
  • Guided democracy – is a form of democratic government with increased autocracy where citizens exercise their political rights without meaningfully affecting the government's policies, motives, and goals.
  • Interactive democracy – proposed form of democracy utilizing information technology to allow citizens to propose new policies, "second" proposals and vote on the resulting laws (that are refined by Parliament) in a referendum.
  • Jeffersonian democracy – named after American statesman Thomas Jefferson, who believed in equality of political opportunity (for male citizens), and opposed to privilege, aristocracy and corruption.
  • Market democracy – another name for democratic capitalism, an economic ideology based on a tripartite arrangement of a market-based economy based predominantly on economic incentives through free markets, a democratic polity and a liberal moral-cultural system which encourages pluralism.
  • Multiparty democracy – two-party system requires voters to align themselves in large blocs, sometimes so large that they cannot agree on any overarching principles.
  • New Democracy – Maoist concept based on Mao Zedong's "Bloc of Four Classes" theory in post-revolutionary China.
  • Participatory democracy – involves more lay citizen participation in decision making and offers greater political representation than traditional representative democracy, e.g., wider control of proxies given to representatives by those who get directly involved and actually participate.
  • People's democracy – multi-class rule in which the proletariat dominates.
  • Radical democracy – type of democracy that focuses on the importance of nurturing and tolerating difference and dissent in decision-making processes.
  • Semi-direct democracy – representative democracy with instruments, elements, and/or features of direct democracy.
  • Sociocracy – democratic system of governance based on consent decision making, circle organization, and double-linked representation.

See also:







​​Government of the United States including both the Federal Government and the individual State Governments as well as their Local Governments
YouTube Video History in Five: Abraham Lincoln and the Emancipation Proclamation* 
​* --Courtesy of  Simon & Schuster
Pictured Below: Political system of the United States

The United States is a federal republic in which the President of the United States, United States Congress, and United States federal courts share powers reserved to the national government. At the same time, the federal government shares sovereignty with the state governments.

The executive branch is headed by the President and is formally independent of both the legislature and the judiciary. The cabinet serves as advisers to the President. They include the Vice President and heads of the executive departments.

Legislative power is vested in the two chambers of Congress, the Senate and the House of Representatives.

The judicial branch (or judiciary), composed of the Supreme Court and lower federal courts, exercises judicial power (or judiciary). The judiciary's function is to interpret the United States Constitution and federal laws and regulations. This includes resolving disputes between the executive and legislative branches. The federal government's layout is explained in the Constitution.

Two political parties, the Democratic Party and the Republican Party, have dominated American politics since the American Civil War, although there are also smaller parties like the Libertarian Party, the Green Party, and the Constitution Party.
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There are major differences between the political system of the United States and that of most other developed democracies. These include greater power in the upper house of the legislature, a wider scope of power held by the Supreme Court, the separation of powers between the legislature and the executive, and the dominance of only two main parties.

Third parties have less political influence in the United States than in other developed country democracies; this is because of a combination of stringent historic controls. These controls take shape in the form of state and federal laws, informal media prohibitions, and winner-take-all elections, and include ballot access issues and exclusive debate rules.

This multiplicity of jurisdictions reflects the country's history. The federal government was created by the states, which as colonies were established separately and governed themselves independently of the others. Units of local government were created by the colonies to efficiently carry out various state functions. As the country expanded, it admitted new states modeled on the existing ones.

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The Federal Government:

​The government of the United States of America is the federal government of the republic of fifty states that constitute the United States, as well as one capital district, and several other territories.

The federal government is composed of three distinct branches: legislative, executive, and judicial, whose powers are vested by the U.S. Constitution in the Congress, the President, and the federal courts, including the Supreme Court, respectively. The powers and duties of these branches are further defined by acts of Congress, including the creation of executive departments and courts inferior to the Supreme Court.

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State Governments:

State governments of the United States include the governments of the original 13 states and the governments of the remaining 37 which were admitted to the United States as authorized under Article IV, Section 3, of the Constitution of the United States.

While state governments within the United States may enact their own laws and prosecute crimes pursuant thereto, they are not sovereign in the Westphalian sense in international law*. 

*-- In that latter which says that each State has sovereignty over its territory and domestic affairs, to the exclusion of all external powers, on the principle of non-interference in another State's domestic affairs, and that each State (no matter how large or small) is equal in international law. 

Additionally, the member states of the United States do not possess international legal sovereignty, meaning that they are not recognized by other sovereign States such as, for example, France, Germany or the United Kingdom, nor do they possess full interdependence sovereignty.

The idea of "dual sovereignty" or "separate sovereigns" is derived from the 10th Amendment to the Constitution, which states that "the powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."

Structured in accordance with state law (including state constitutions and state statutes), state governments share the same structural model as the federal system, with three branches of government--executive, legislative, and judicial.

The governments of the 13 colonies that formed the original union under the Constitution trace their history back to the royal charters which established them during the era of colonialism.

Most of the other states admitted to the union after the original 13 have been formed within territories of the United States (that is, land under the sovereignty of the federal government but not part of any state) that were organized by an act or resolution of the United States Congress, subject to the Congress' plenary powers under the territorial clause of Article IV, sec. 3, of the U.S. Constitution. Notable exceptions are Texas, California and Hawaii, which were sovereign nations before joining the union.

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Local government in the United States:

Local government in the United States refers to governmental jurisdictions below the level of the state. Most states have at least two tiers of local government: counties and municipalities.

In some states, counties are divided into townships. There are several different types of jurisdictions at the municipal level, including the city, town, borough, and village. The types and nature of these municipal entities varies from state to state.

Many rural areas and even some suburban areas of many states have no municipal government below the county level. In other places consolidated city–county jurisdictions exist, in which city and county functions are managed by a single municipal government. In some New England states, towns are the primary unit of local government and counties have no governmental function but exist in a purely perfunctory capacity (e.g. for census data).

In addition to general purpose local governments, there may be local or regional special-purpose local governments, such as school districts and districts for fire protection, sanitary sewer service, public transportation, public libraries, or water resource management. Such special purpose districts often encompass areas in multiple municipalities. As of 2012, using the Census Bureau's definition, there were 89,055 local government units in the United States.

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Democracy Index for all Countries
YouTube Video: Threats to democracy in the Trump era by the Brookings Institution
Pictured below: The Economist Intelligence Unit Democracy Index map for 2017. Bluer colors represent more democratic countries as reported by the company courtesy of Goemon - Own work, derived from File:BlankMap-World-Microstates.svg, CC BY-SA 4.0.

The Democracy Index is an index compiled by the UK-based company the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) that intends to measure the state of democracy in 167 countries, of which 166 are sovereign states and 165 are UN member states.

The index was first produced in 2006, with updates for 2008, 2010 and the following years since then. The index is based on 60 indicators grouped in five different categories measuring pluralism, civil liberties and political culture.

In addition to a numeric score and a ranking, the index categorises countries as one of four regime types: 
  1. full democracies, 
  2. flawed democracies, 
  3. hybrid regimes 
  4. and authoritarian regimes.

Method:

As described in the report, the democracy index is a weighted average based on the answers of 60 questions, each one with either two or three permitted alternative answers.

Most answers are "experts' assessments"; the report does not indicate what kinds of experts, nor their number, nor whether the experts are employees of the Economist Intelligence Unit or independent scholars, nor the nationalities of the experts.

Some answers are provided by public-opinion surveys from the respective countries. In the case of countries for which survey results are missing, survey results for similar countries and expert assessments are used in order to fill in gaps.

The questions are distributed in the five categories: electoral process and pluralism, civil liberties, functioning of government, political participation, and political culture. Each answer is translated to a mark, either 0 or 1, or for the three-answer alternative questions, 0.5.

With the exceptions mentioned below, the sums are added within each category, multiplied by ten, and divided by the total number of questions within the category. There are a few modifying dependencies, which are explained much more precisely than the main rule procedures.

In a few cases, an answer yielding zero for one question voids another question; e.g., if the elections for the national legislature and head of government are not considered free (question 1), then the next question, "Are elections... fair?" is not considered, but automatically marked zero.

Likewise, there are a few questions considered so important that a low score on them yields a penalty on the total score sum for their respective categories, namely:
  1. "Whether national elections are free and fair";
  2. "The security of voters";
  3. "The influence of foreign powers on government";
  4. "The capability of the civil servants to implement policies".

The five category indices, which are listed in the report, are then averaged to find the Democracy Index for a given country. Finally, the Democracy Index, rounded to two decimals, decides the regime type classification of the country.

The report discusses other indices of democracy, as defined e.g. by Freedom House, and argues for some of the choices made by the team from the Economist Intelligence Unit. In this comparison, a higher emphasis has been put on the public opinion and attitudes, as measured by surveys, but on the other hand, economic living standard has not been weighted as one criterion of democracy (as seemingly some other investigators have done).
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The report is widely cited in the international press as well as in peer reviewed academic journals.

Classification Definitions:

​Full democracies are nations where civil liberties and basic political freedoms are not only respected, but also reinforced by a political culture conducive to the thriving of democratic principles. These nations have a valid system of governmental checks and balances, independent judiciary whose decisions are enforced, governments that function adequately, and media that is diverse and independent. These nations have only limited problems in democratic functioning.
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Flawed democracies are nations where elections are fair and free and basic civil liberties are honored but may have issues (e.g. media freedom infringement). Nonetheless, these nations have significant faults in other democratic aspects, including underdeveloped political culture, low levels of participation in politics, and issues in the functioning of governance.

Hybrid regimes are nations where consequential irregularities exist in elections regularly preventing them from being fair and free. These nations commonly have governments that apply pressure on political opponents, non independent judiciaries, and have widespread corruption, harassment and pressure placed on the media, anemic rule of law, and more pronounced faults than flawed democracies in the realms of underdeveloped political culture, low levels of participation in politics, and issues in the functioning of governance.

Authoritarian regimes are nations where political pluralism has vanished or is extremely limited. These nations are often absolute monarchies or dictatorships, may have some conventional institutions of democracy but with meager significance, infringements and abuses of civil liberties are commonplace, elections (if they take place) are not fair and free, the media is often state-owned or controlled by groups associated with the ruling regime, the judiciary is not independent, and they are characterised by the presence of omnipresent censorship and suppression of governmental criticism.

Recent Changes:

In 2016, the United States was downgraded from a full democracy to a flawed democracy; its score, which had been experiencing a persistent downward trend, crossed the threshold from 8.05 in 2015 to 7.98 in 2016.

The report states that this was not due only to the election of Donald Trump, but was caused by other factors as well — dating back to the late 1960s — that led to his election.

The 2017 Democracy index registered the worst year for global democracy since 2010–11 in the aftermath of the global economic and financial crisis. 89 countries experienced a decline in their total score compared with 2016, more than three times as many as the countries that recorded an improvement.

Asia was the worst performing region overall, while Venezuela was downgraded from a "hybrid regime" to an "authoritarian regime" and Armenia was upgraded from an "authoritarian regime" to a "hybrid regime".

Australia (ranked 8th) and Taiwan (ranked 33rd) both legalized gay marriage in 2017.

In China, Xi Jinping, General Secretary of the Communist Party of China, further entrenched his power by writing his theoretical contribution to the Chinese Communist Party’s ideology, dubbed “Xi Jinping Thought”, into the party’s constitution.

Moldova was downgraded from a “flawed democracy” to a “hybrid regime” as a result of problematic elections. By contrast, Armenia moved from the authoritarian category to a “hybrid regime” as a result of constitutional changes that shifted power from the presidency to parliament.

Click on any of the following blue hyprlinks for more about the Democracy Index:





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Federal Judicial Branch: Supreme Court, including: YouTube Video: Stephen Works Out with Ruth Bader Ginsberg*
*  -- The Late Show with Stephen Colbert
Pictured below: The Roberts Court (April 2017–July 2018):
Click here for a List of Supreme Court Justices by Time in Office.

The Supreme Court of the United States (sometimes colloquially referred to by the acronym SCOTUS) is the highest federal court of the United States.

Established pursuant to Article Three of the United States Constitution in 1789, it has ultimate (and largely discretionary) appellate jurisdiction over all federal courts and state court cases, involving issues of federal law plus original jurisdiction over a small range of cases.

In the legal system of the United States, the Supreme Court is generally the final interpreter of federal law including the United States Constitution, but it may act only within the context of a case in which it has jurisdiction. The Court may decide cases having political overtones, but does not have power to decide nonjusticiable political questions, and its enforcement arm is in the executive rather than judicial branch of government.

According to federal statute, the Court normally consists of the Chief Justice of the United States and eight associate justices who are nominated by the President and confirmed by the Senate. Once appointed, justices have lifetime tenure unless they resign, retire, or are removed after impeachment.

In modern discourse, the justices are often categorized as having conservative, moderate, or liberal philosophies of law and of judicial interpretation. Each justice has one vote, and while a far greater number of cases in recent history have been decided unanimously, decisions in cases of the highest profile have often come down to just one single vote, thereby exposing the justices' ideological beliefs that track with those philosophical or political categories. The Court meets in the Supreme Court Building in Washington, D.C.

​Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about the Supreme Court of the United States:​​







Presidents of the United States Featuring Presidents in Office Starting in 1950 and through Today, including Each President's Historical Ranking as well as Approval Ratings
YouTube Video: "Obama out:" President Barack Obama's hilarious final White House correspondents' dinner speech
​Pictured: Presidents and terms served and beginning in 1950 from Top Left to Bottom Right:
Harry S. Truman (1945-1953), Dwight D. Eisenhower (1953-1961), John F. Kennedy (1961-1963), Lyndon B. Johnson, (1963-1969),
Richard M. Nixon (1969-1974), Gerald Ford (1974-1977), Jimmy Carter (1977-1981), Ronald Reagan (1981-1989),
George H. W. Bush (1989-1993), Bill Clinton (1993-2001), George W. Bush (2001-2009), and Barack Obama (2009-2017)
The President of the United States of America (POTUS) is the elected head of state and head of government of the United States. The president leads the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces.

The President of the United States is considered one of the world's most powerful people, leading the world's only contemporary superpower.

The role includes being the commander-in-chief of the world's most expensive military with the largest nuclear arsenal and leading the nation with the largest economy by real and nominal GDP. The office of the president holds significant hard and soft power both in the United States and abroad.

Article II of the U.S. Constitution vests the executive power of the United States in the president. The power includes:
  • execution of federal law,
  • alongside the responsibility of appointing federal executive, diplomatic, regulatory and judicial officers,
  • and concluding treaties with foreign powers with the advice and consent of the Senate.

The president is further empowered to grant federal pardons and reprieves, and to convene and adjourn either or both houses of Congress under extraordinary circumstances.

The president is largely responsible for dictating the legislative agenda of the party to which the president is enrolled. The president also directs the foreign and domestic policy of the United States. 

Since the founding of the United States, the power of the president and the federal government has grown substantially.

The president is indirectly elected by the people through the Electoral College to a four-year term, and is one of only two nationally elected federal officers, the other being the Vice President of the United States.

The Twenty-second Amendment, adopted in 1951, prohibits anyone from ever being elected to the presidency for a third full term. It also prohibits a person from being elected to the presidency more than once if that person previously had served as president, or acting president, for more than two years of another person's term as president.

In all, 43 individuals have served 44 presidencies (counting Cleveland's two non-consecutive terms separately) spanning 56 full four-year terms.

On January 20, 2009, Barack Obama became the 44th and current president. On November 6, 2012, he was re-elected and is currently serving the 57th term. The next presidential election is scheduled to take place on November 8, 2016; on January 20, 2017, the newly elected president will take office.

Approval Ratings by President:

In the United States, presidential job approval ratings were introduced by George Gallup in the late 1930s (probably 1937) to gauge public support for the President of the United States during his term. An approval rating is a percentage determined by a polling which indicates the percentage of respondents to an opinion poll who approve of a particular person or program.

Typically, an approval rating is given to a political figure based on responses to a poll in which a sample of people are asked whether they approve or disapprove of that particular political figure. A typical question might ask: "Do you approve or disapprove of the way Barack Obama is handling his job as President?" 

​Like most surveys that predict public opinion, the approval rating is subjective. Many unscientific approval rating systems exist that skew popular opinion. However, the approval rating is generally accepted as a statistically valid indicator of the comparative changes in the popular US mood regarding a president.

For a historical comparison of approval ratings, click here

For further amplification about the Office of the President, click on any of the following:​​






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Harry S. Truman (1945-1953)
YouTube Video: President Harry S. Truman fires General Douglas MacArthur
Pictured: Truman holding newspaper that incorrectly predicted Truman's loss to Republican Thomas E. Dewey
Harry S. Truman (May 8, 1884 – December 26, 1972) was an American politician who served as the 33rd President of the United States (1945–53), coming to office on the death of Franklin Roosevelt in the last months of World War II.

He is known for launching the Marshall Plan to rebuild the economy of Western Europe, for leading the Cold War against Soviet communism through the Truman doctrine and NATO, and for engaging in a stalemate in the Korean War.

In domestic affairs, he was a moderate Democrat whose liberal proposals were a continuation of Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal, but the Conservative-dominated Congress blocked most of them. He used presidential authority to mandate equal treatment for blacks in the military and put civil rights on the national political agenda.

Truman served as a United States Senator from Missouri (1935–45) and briefly as Vice President (1945) before he succeeded to the presidency on April 12, 1945 upon the death of Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Truman presided over an unexpected surge in economic prosperity as America sought readjustment after long years of depression and war. His political coalition was based on the white South, labor unions, farmers, ethnic groups, and traditional Democrats across the North. Truman rallied them to win elected in his own right in 1948.

Truman was born in Lamar, Missouri, and spent most of his youth on his family's 600-acre farm near Independence. In the last months of World War I, he served in combat in France as an artillery officer with his National Guard unit. After the war, he briefly owned a haberdashery in Kansas City, Missouri, and joined the Democratic Party and the political machine of Tom Pendergast.

Truman was first elected to public office as a county official in 1922, and then as a U.S. Senator in 1934. He gained national prominence as chairman of the Truman Committee, formed in March 1941, which exposed waste, fraud, and corruption in Federal Government wartime contracts.

Germany surrendered on Truman's birthday, just a few weeks after he assumed the presidency, but the war with Imperial Japan raged on and was expected to last at least another year. Truman approved the use of atomic weaponry to end the fighting and to spare the tens of thousands of American lives that would inevitably be lost in the planned invasion of Japan and Japanese held islands in the Pacific. Although this decision remains debated to this day, it is one of the principal factors that forced Japan's immediate and unconditional surrender.

Truman's presidency was a turning point in foreign affairs, as the United States engaged in an internationalist foreign policy and renounced isolationism. Truman helped found the United Nations in 1945, issued the Truman Doctrine in 1947 to contain Communism, and got the $13 billion Marshall Plan enacted to rebuild Western Europe.

The Soviet Union, a wartime ally, became a peacetime enemy in the Cold War. Truman oversaw the Berlin Airlift of 1948 and the creation of NATO in 1949. He was unable to stop Communists from taking over China.

When communist North Korea invaded South Korea in 1950, he sent U.S. troops and gained UN approval for the Korean War. After initial successes in Korea, however, the UN forces were thrown back by Chinese intervention, and the conflict was stalemated throughout the final years of Truman's presidency.

On domestic issues, bills endorsed by Truman often faced opposition from a conservative Congress dominated by the Southern legislators, but his administration was able to successfully guide the American economy through the post-war economic challenges.

Truman maintained that civil rights were a moral priority, and in 1948 submitted the first comprehensive civil rights legislation and issued Executive Orders to start racial integration in the military and federal agencies.

Allegations were raised of corruption in the Truman administration, linked to certain cabinet members and senior White House staff, and this became a central campaign issue in the 1952 presidential election and helped account for the win by Republican Dwight D. Eisenhower.

In a surprise comparable to the 2016 election, he won reelection in 1948 and his success has often been invoked by later underdogs. Popular and scholarly assessments of Truman's presidency initially were unfavorable but became more positive since the 1960s.

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Dwight D. Eisenhower (1953-1961)
YouTube Video Eisenhower warns us of the military industrial complex.
Pictured: LEFT: as Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force*; RIGHT: as President of the United States.
* -- Eisenhower's command led the successful coalition of military forces responsible for winning World War II on two fronts: Europe against Nazi Germany, and Japan.
The presidency of Dwight D. Eisenhower, from 1953 to 1961, was a Republican interlude during the Fifth Party System, following 20 years of Democratic control of the White House.

It was a period of peace and prosperity, and interparty cooperation, even as the world was polarized by the Cold War.

His main legacy was the Interstate Highway System. He sent the Army to Arkansas to enforce court orders regarding racial integration, created NASA, and made the space race against the Soviet Union a high priority.

He emphasized advanced technology to keep down the expense of a large military manpower. He supported the conservative fiscal and taxation policies of the Taft Republicans.

Ike, as he was popularly known, expanded the Social Security program but otherwise did not try to change the surviving "New Deal" welfare programs. A self-described "progressive conservative," President Eisenhower warned against the military-industrial complex. He is consistently ranked by scholars and political historians as one of the ten greatest American presidents.

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​John F. Kennedy (1961-1963)Pictured: President John F. Kennedy LEFT: Official Portrait; RIGHT: In motorcade in Ireland
John Fitzgerald "Jack" Kennedy (May 29, 1917 – November 22, 1963), commonly referred to by his initials JFK, was an American politician who served as the 35th President of the United States from January 1961 until his assassination in November 1963.

The Cuban Missile Crisis, the Bay of Pigs Invasion, the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, the establishment of the Peace Corps, developments in the Space Race, the building of the Berlin Wall, the Trade Expansion Act to lower tariffs, and the Civil Rights Movement all took place during his presidency.

A member of the Democratic Party, his New Frontier domestic program was largely enacted as a memorial to him after his death. Kennedy also established the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1963.

Kennedy's time in office was marked by high tensions with Communist states. He increased the number of American military advisers in South Vietnam by a factor of 18 over Eisenhower.

In Cuba, a failed attempt was made at the Bay of Pigs to overthrow the country's dictator Fidel Castro in April 1961. He subsequently rejected plans by the Joint Chiefs of Staff to orchestrate false-flag attacks on American soil in order to gain public approval for a war against Cuba.

In October 1962, it was discovered Soviet ballistic missiles had been deployed in Cuba; the resulting period of unease, termed the Cuban Missile Crisis, is seen by many historians as the closest the human race has ever come to nuclear war between nuclear armed belligerents.

After military service in the United States Naval Reserve in World War II, Kennedy represented Massachusetts's 11th congressional district in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1947 to 1953.

He was elected subsequently to the U.S. Senate and served as the junior Senator from Massachusetts from 1953 until 1960. Kennedy defeated Vice President, and Republican candidate, Richard Nixon in the 1960 U.S. Presidential Election. At age 43, he became the youngest elected president and the second-youngest president (after Theodore Roosevelt, who was 42 when he became president after the assassination of William McKinley).

Kennedy was also the first person born in the 20th century to serve as president. To date, Kennedy has been the only Roman Catholic president and the only president to have won a Pulitzer Prize (for his biography Profiles in Courage).

Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas, on November 22, 1963. Lee Harvey Oswald was arrested that afternoon and determined to have fired shots that hit the President from a sixth floor window of the Texas School Book Depository. Dallas nightclub owner Jack Ruby fatally shot Oswald two days later in a jail corridor.

The FBI and the Warren Commission officially concluded that Oswald was the lone assassin, but its report was sharply criticized. The United States House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) agreed that Oswald fired the shots that killed the president, but also concluded that Kennedy was likely assassinated as the result of a conspiracy.

The majority of Americans alive at the time of the assassination (52% to 29%), and continuing through 2013 (61% to 30%), believed that there was a conspiracy and that Oswald was not the only shooter.

Since the 1960s, information concerning Kennedy's private life has come to light, including his health problems and allegations of infidelity. Kennedy continues to rank highly in historians' polls of U.S. presidents and with the general public. His average approval rating of 70% is the highest of any president in Gallup's history of systematically measuring job approval.

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Lyndon B. Johnson (1963-1969)
YouTube Video: President Lyndon B. Johnson Announcing "The Great Society"
Lyndon Baines Johnson (August 27, 1908 – January 22, 1973), often referred to as LBJ, was an American politician who served as the 36th President of the United States from 1963 to 1969, assuming the office after serving as the 37th Vice President of the United States under President John F. Kennedy, from 1961 to 1963.

Johnson was a Democrat from Texas, who served as a United States Representative from 1937 to 1949 and as a United States Senator from 1949 to 1961. He spent six years as Senate Majority Leader, two as Senate Minority Leader, and two as Senate Majority Whip.

Johnson ran for the Democratic nomination in the 1960 presidential election. Although unsuccessful, he was chosen by Senator John F. Kennedy of Massachusetts to be his running mate. They went on to win a close election over Richard Nixon and Henry Cabot Lodge. Johnson was sworn in as Vice President on January 20, 1961.

Two years and ten months later, on November 22, 1963, Johnson succeeded Kennedy as President following the latter's assassination. He ran for a full term in the 1964 election, winning by a landslide over Republican opponent Arizona Senator Barry Goldwater. He is one of only four people who have served as President, Vice President, Senator, and Representative.

Johnson was renowned for his domineering, sometimes abrasive, personality and the "Johnson treatment"—his aggressive coercion of powerful politicians to advance legislation.
Johnson designed the "Great Society" legislation upholding civil rights, public broadcasting, Medicare, Medicaid, aid to education, the arts, urban and rural development, public services, and his "War on Poverty".

​Assisted in part by a growing economy, the War on Poverty helped millions of Americans rise above the poverty line during Johnson's presidency. Civil rights bills signed by Johnson banned racial discrimination in public facilities, interstate commerce, the workplace, and housing; and the Voting Rights Act banned certain requirements in southern states used to disenfranchise African Americans.

With the passage of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, the country's immigration system was reformed and all racial origin quotas were removed (replaced by national origin quotas).

Johnson escalated American involvement in the Vietnam War. In 1964, Congress passed the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, which granted Johnson the power to use military force in Southeast Asia without having to ask for an official declaration of war.

The number of American military personnel in Vietnam increased dramatically, from 16,000 advisors in non-combat roles in 1963, to 550,000 in early 1968, many in combat roles. American casualties soared and the peace process bogged down. Growing unease with the war stimulated a large, angry antiwar movement based especially on university campuses in the U.S. and abroad.

Johnson faced further troubles when summer riots broke out in most major cities after 1965, and crime rates soared, as his opponents raised demands for "law and order" policies. While he began his presidency with widespread approval, support for Johnson declined as the public became upset with both the war and the growing violence at home.

In 1968, the Democratic Party factionalized as antiwar elements denounced Johnson; he ended his bid for renomination after a disappointing finish in the New Hampshire primary.

Republican Richard Nixon was elected to succeed him, as the New Deal coalition that had dominated presidential politics for 36 years collapsed. After he left office in January 1969, Johnson returned to his Texas ranch where he died of a heart attack at age 64 on January 22, 1973.

Historians argue that Johnson's presidency marked the peak of modern liberalism in the United States after the New Deal era. Johnson is ranked favorably by some historians because of his domestic policies and the passage of many major laws, affecting civil rights, gun control, wilderness preservation, and Social Security.

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​Richard M. Nixon (1969-1973)
YouTube Video: Richard M. Nixon Compilation
Richard Milhous Nixon (January 9, 1913 – April 22, 1994) was an American politician who served as the 37th President of the United States from 1969 until 1974, when he became the only U.S. president to resign from office.

He had previously served as a U.S. Representative and Senator from California and as the 36th Vice President of the United States from 1953 to 1961 under the Presidency of Dwight D. Eisenhower.

Nixon was born in Yorba Linda, California. After completing his undergraduate studies at Whittier College, he graduated from Duke University School of Law in 1937 and returned to California to practice law. He and his wife Pat moved to Washington in 1942 to work for the federal government.

He subsequently served on active duty in the U.S. Navy Reserve during World War II. Nixon was elected to the House of Representatives in 1946 and to the Senate in 1950. His pursuit of the Hiss Case established his reputation as a leading anti-communist, and elevated him to national prominence.

He was the running mate of Dwight D. Eisenhower, the Republican Party presidential nominee in the 1952 election. Nixon served for eight years as vice president. He waged an unsuccessful presidential campaign in 1960, narrowly losing to John F. Kennedy, and lost a race for Governor of California to Pat Brown in 1962.

In 1968, he ran for the presidency again and was elected by defeating Incumbent Vice President Hubert Humphrey.

Nixon ended American involvement in the war in Vietnam in 1973 and brought the American POWs home, and ended the military draft. 

Nixon's visit to the People's Republic of China in 1972 opened diplomatic relations between the two nations, and he initiated détente and the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty with the Soviet Union the same year.

His administration generally transferred power from Washington to the states. He imposed wage and price controls for a period of ninety days, enforced desegregation of Southern schools and established the Environmental Protection Agency. Nixon also presided over the Apollo 11 moon landing, which signaled the end of the moon race. He was reelected in one of the largest electoral landslides in U.S. history in 1972, when he defeated George McGovern.

The year 1973 saw an Arab oil embargo, gasoline rationing, and a continuing series of revelations about the Watergate scandal. The scandal escalated, costing Nixon much of his political support, and on August 9, 1974, he resigned in the face of almost certain impeachment and removal from office.

After his resignation, he was issued a pardon by his successor, Gerald Ford.

In retirement, Nixon's work writing several books and undertaking of many foreign trips helped to rehabilitate his image. He suffered a debilitating stroke on April 18, 1994, and died four days later at the age of 81.

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​Gerald Ford (1973-1977)
YouTube Video: President Gerald Ford - Remarks in Helsinki (1975)*
* -- Ford's address to Brezhnev and other European leaders at the controversial Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe. After the particularly difficult conference, Ford speaks forcefully of the "deep devotion of the American people and their government to human rights and fundamental freedoms."
Gerald Rudolph Ford, Jr. (born Leslie Lynch King, Jr.; July 14, 1913 – December 26, 2006) was an American politician who served as the 38th President of the United States from 1974 to 1977.

Prior to this he was the 40th Vice President of the United States, serving from 1973 until President Richard Nixon's resignation in 1974. He was the first person appointed to the vice presidency under the terms of the 25th Amendment, following the resignation of Vice President Spiro Agnew on October 10, 1973.

Becoming president upon Richard Nixon's departure on August 9, 1974, he claimed the distinction as the first and to date only person to have served as both Vice President and President of the United States without being elected to either office.

Before ascending to the vice presidency, Ford served 25 years as U.S. Representative from Michigan's 5th congressional district, the final nine of them as the House Minority Leader.

As President, Ford signed the Helsinki Accords, marking a move toward détente in the Cold War.

With the conquest of South Vietnam by North Vietnam nine months into his presidency, U.S. involvement in Vietnam essentially ended.

Domestically, Ford presided over the worst economy in the four decades since the Great Depression, with growing inflation and a recession during his tenure.

One of his more controversial acts was to grant a presidential pardon to President Richard Nixon for his role in the Watergate scandal.

During Ford's presidency, foreign policy was characterized in procedural terms by the increased role Congress began to play, and by the corresponding curb on the powers of the President. In the Republican presidential primary campaign of 1976, Ford defeated then-former California Governor Ronald Reagan for the Republican nomination. He narrowly lost the presidential election to the Democratic challenger, then-former Georgia Governor Jimmy Carter, on November 2.

Following his years as President, Ford remained active in the Republican Party. After experiencing health problems, he died in his home on December 26, 2006. Ford lived longer than any other U.S. president, 93 years and 165 days, while his 895-day presidency remains the shortest term of all presidents who did not die in office.

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Jimmy Carter (1977-1981)
YouTube Video: Jimmy Carter - Mini Biography
James Earl "Jimmy" Carter Jr. (born October 1, 1924) is an American politician who served as the 39th President of the United States from 1977 to 1981. In 2002, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his work with the Carter Center.

Carter, a Democrat raised in rural Georgia, was a peanut farmer who served two terms as a Georgia State Senator, from 1963 to 1967, and one as the Governor of Georgia, from 1971 to 1975. He was elected President in 1976, defeating incumbent President Gerald Ford in a relatively close election; the Electoral College margin of 57 votes was the closest at that time since 1916.

On his second day in office, Carter pardoned all evaders of the Vietnam War drafts.

During Carter's term as President, two new cabinet-level departments, the Department of Energy and the Department of Education were established. He established a national energy policy that included conservation, price control, and new technology.

In foreign affairs, Carter pursued the Camp David Accords, the Panama Canal Treaties, the second round of Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT II), and the return of the Panama Canal Zone to Panama.

On the economic front he confronted persistent "stagflation", a combination of high inflation, high unemployment and slow growth. The end of his presidential tenure was marked by the 1979–1981 Iran hostage crisis, the 1979 energy crisis, the Three Mile Island nuclear accident, and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.

In response to the Soviet move he ended détente, escalated the Cold War, and led the international boycott of the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow.

By 1980, Carter's popularity had eroded such that, running for re-election that year, he was challenged by Senator Ted Kennedy in the Democratic Party's primaries for the presidential nomination, marking the most recent Democratic primary in which an incumbent faced serious opposition.

Carter won the 1980 primary with 51.13% of the vote (all incumbent candidates since have won at least 72.8% of their party's primary votes) but lost the general election in an electoral landslide to Republican nominee Ronald Reagan, who won 44 of 50 states.

His presidency has drawn medium-low responses from historians, with many considering him to have brought greater accomplishment with his post-presidency work. He set up the Carter Center in 1982 as his base for advancing human rights. He has also traveled extensively to conduct peace negotiations, observe elections, and advance disease prevention and eradication in developing nations.

Additionally, Carter is a key figure in the Habitat for Humanity project. He has been the longest-retired president in American history since September 2012, when he surpassed Herbert Hoover, he is also the first president to witness the 40th anniversary of his election.

Regarding current political views, he has criticized some of Israel's actions and policies in regards to the Israeli–Palestinian conflict and has advocated for a two-state solution. He has vigorously opposed the Supreme Court's decision in Citizens United v. FEC to strike down McCain-Feingold limits on campaign spending by corporations and unions, saying that the U.S. is "no longer a functioning democracy" and now has a system of "unlimited political bribery."

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Ronald Reagan (1981-1989)
YouTube Video: Ronald Reagan: "Mr. Gorbachev, Tear Down This Wall!"
Pictured: Ronald Reagan as LEFT: Actor; RIGHT: President of the United States
Ronald Wilson Reagan (February 6, 1911 – June 5, 2004) was an American politician and actor who was the 40th President of the United States, from 1981 to 1989. Before his presidency, he was the 33rd Governor of California, from 1967 to 1975, after a career as a Hollywood actor and union leader.

Raised in a poor family in small towns of northern Illinois, Ronald Reagan graduated from Eureka College in 1932 and worked as a sports announcer on several regional radio stations.

After moving to Hollywood in 1937, he became an actor and starred in a few major productions. Reagan was twice elected President of the Screen Actors Guild, the labor union for actors, where he worked to root out Communist influence. In the 1950s, he moved into television and was a motivational speaker at General Electric factories.

Having been a lifelong Democrat, his views changed. He became a conservative and in 1962 switched to the Republican Party. In 1964, Reagan's speech, "A Time for Choosing", in support of Barry Goldwater's floundering presidential campaign, earned him national attention as a new conservative spokesman. Building a network of supporters, he was elected Governor of California in 1966.

As governor, Reagan raised taxes, turned a state budget deficit to a surplus, challenged the protesters at the University of California, ordered National Guard troops in during a period of protest movements in 1969, and was re-elected in 1970.

He twice ran unsuccessfully for the Republican nomination for the U.S. presidency in 1968 and 1976; four years later, he easily won the nomination outright, going on to be elected the second oldest President, defeating incumbent Jimmy Carter in 1980.

Entering the presidency in 1981, Reagan implemented sweeping new political and economic initiatives. His supply-side economic policies, dubbed "Reaganomics", advocated tax rate reduction to spur economic growth, control of the money supply to curb inflation, economic deregulation, and reduction in government spending.

In his first term he survived an assassination attempt, spurred the War on Drugs, and fought public sector labor. Over his two terms, his economic policies saw a reduction of inflation from 12.5% to 4.4%, and an average annual growth of real GDP of 3.4%; while Reagan did enact cuts in domestic discretionary spending, increased military spending contributed to increased federal outlays overall, even after adjustment for inflation.

During his re-election bid, Reagan campaigned on the notion that it was "Morning in America", winning a landslide in 1984 with the largest electoral college victory in history. Foreign affairs dominated his second term, including ending of the Cold War, the bombing of Libya, and the Iran–Contra affair.

Publicly describing the Soviet Union as an "evil empire", he transitioned Cold War policy from détente to rollback, by escalating an arms race with the USSR while engaging in talks with Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev, which culminated in the INF Treaty, shrinking both countries' nuclear arsenals. During his famous speech at the Brandenburg Gate, President Reagan challenged Gorbachev to "tear down this wall!". Five months after the end of his term, the Berlin Wall fell, and on December 26, 1991, nearly three years after he left office, the Soviet Union collapsed.

Leaving office in 1989, Reagan held an approval rating of sixty-eight percent, matching those of Franklin D. Roosevelt, and later Bill Clinton, as the highest ratings for departing presidents in the modern era.

He was the first president since Dwight D. Eisenhower to serve two full terms, after a succession of five prior presidents failed to do so.

While having planned an active post-presidency, in 1994 Reagan disclosed his diagnosis with Alzheimer's disease earlier that year, appearing publicly for the last time at the funeral of Richard Nixon; he died ten years later in 2004 at the age of 93.

An icon among Republicans, he is viewed favorably in historian rankings of U.S. presidents, and his tenure constituted a realignment toward conservative policies in the United States.

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​George H.W. Bush (1989-1993)
YouTube Video: President George H. W. Bush Announces War Against Iraq (January 16 1991)
George Herbert Walker Bush (born June 12, 1924) is an American politician who was the 41st President of the United States from 1989 to 1993 and the 43rd Vice President of the United States from 1981 to 1989.

A member of the U.S. Republican Party, he was previously a congressman, ambassador, and Director of Central Intelligence.

Since 2000, Bush is often referred to as "George H. W. Bush", "Bush 41", "Bush the Elder", or "George Bush Sr." to distinguish him from his eldest son, George W. Bush, who became the 43rd President of the United States. Prior to his son's presidency, he was simply referred to as George Bush or President Bush.

Bush was born in Milton, Massachusetts, to Prescott Bush and Dorothy Walker Bush. Following the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, Bush postponed college, enlisted in the U.S. Navy on his 18th birthday, and became the youngest aviator in the U.S. Navy at the time. He served until the end of the war, then attended Yale University. Graduating in 1948, he moved his family to West Texas and entered the oil business, becoming a millionaire by the age of 40.

Bush became involved in politics soon after founding his own oil company, serving as a member of the House of Representatives and Director of Central Intelligence, among other positions. He failed to win the Republican nomination for President in 1980, but was chosen as a running mate by party nominee Ronald Reagan, and the two were elected. During his tenure, Bush headed administration task forces on deregulation and fighting the "War on Drugs".

In 1988, Bush ran a successful campaign to succeed Reagan as President, defeating Democratic opponent Michael Dukakis. 

Foreign policy drove the Bush presidency: military operations were conducted in Panama and the Persian Gulf; the Berlin Wall fell in 1989, and the Soviet Union dissolved two years later.


Domestically, Bush reneged on a 1988 campaign promise and, after a struggle with Congress, signed an increase in taxes that Congress had passed. In the wake of a weak recovery from an economic recession, along with continuing budget deficits and the controversy over his appointment of Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court, he lost the 1992 presidential election to Democrat Bill Clinton.

Bush left office in 1993. His presidential library was dedicated in 1997, and he has been active—often alongside Bill Clinton—in various humanitarian activities.

Besides being the 43rd president (2001–09), his son George also served as the 46th Governor of Texas (1995–2000) and is one of only two presidents—the other being John Quincy Adams—to be the son of a former president.

His second son, Jeb Bush, served as the 43rd Governor of Florida (1999–2007) and made an unsuccessful run for the Republican Party nomination for the office in 2016. In September 2016, Bush made headlines by joining a group of Republicans who opposed the GOP nominee for President, Donald Trump by announcing his intent to vote for former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

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Bill Clinton (1993-2001)
YouTube Video: President Clinton’s Balanced Budget Announcement
William Jefferson "Bill" Clinton (born William Jefferson Blythe III; August 19, 1946) is an American politician who served as the 42nd President of the United States from 1993 to 2001. Clinton was Governor of Arkansas from 1979 to 1981 and 1983 to 1992, and Arkansas Attorney General from 1977 to 1979. A member of the Democratic Party, ideologically Clinton was a New Democrat, and many of his policies reflected a centrist "Third Way" political philosophy.

Clinton was born and raised in Arkansas and is an alumnus of Georgetown University, where he was a member of Kappa Kappa Psi and the Phi Beta Kappa Society and earned a Rhodes Scholarship to attend the University of Oxford.

Clinton is married to Hillary Clinton, who served as United States Secretary of State from 2009 to 2013, who was a Senator from New York from 2001 to 2009, and who was the Democratic nominee for President of the United States in 2016.

Both Clintons earned law degrees from Yale Law School, where they met and began dating. As Governor of Arkansas, Clinton overhauled the state's education system, and served as chairman of the National Governors Association.

Clinton was elected President in 1992, defeating incumbent George H. W. Bush. At age 46, Clinton was the third-youngest president, and the first from the Baby Boomer generation. Clinton presided over the longest period of peacetime economic expansion in American history, and signed into law the North American Free Trade Agreement. After failing to pass national health care reform, the Democratic House was ousted when the Republican Party won control of the Congress in 1994, for the first time in 40 years.

Two years later, in 1996, Clinton became the first Democrat since Franklin D. Roosevelt to be elected to a second term. Clinton passed welfare reform and the State Children's Health Insurance Program, providing health coverage for millions of children.

In 1998, Clinton was impeached by the House of Representatives for perjury before a grand jury and obstruction of justice during a lawsuit against him, both related to a scandal involving White House (and later Department of Defense) employee Monica Lewinsky. Clinton was acquitted by the U.S. Senate in 1999, and served his complete term of office.

The Congressional Budget Office reported a budget surplus between the years 1998 and 2000, the last three years of Clinton's presidency. In foreign policy, Clinton ordered U.S. military intervention in the Bosnia and Kosovo wars, signed the Iraq Liberation Act in opposition to Saddam Hussein, and participated in the 2000 Camp David Summit to advance the Israeli–Palestinian peace process.

Clinton left office with the highest end-of-office approval rating of any U.S. President since World War II.

Since then, Clinton has been involved in public speaking and humanitarian work. Clinton created the William J. Clinton Foundation to address international causes, such as the prevention of AIDS and global warming.

In 2004, Clinton published his autobiography My Life. Clinton has remained active in politics by campaigning for Democratic candidates, including his wife's campaigns for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2008 and 2016, and Barack Obama's presidential campaigns in 2008 and 2012.

In 2009, Clinton was named the United Nations Special Envoy to Haiti, and after the 2010 Haiti earthquake, Clinton teamed with George W. Bush to form the Clinton Bush Haiti Fund. Since leaving office, Clinton has been rated highly in public opinion polls of U.S. Presidents.

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​George W. Bush (2001-2009)
YouTube Video: The legacy of President George W. Bush*
*-​Presidential Historian Douglas Brinkley recounts the highs and lows of the presidency of George W. Bush (CNN)
​The presidency of George W. Bush began on January 20, 2001 at noon Eastern Standard Time, when George W. Bush was inaugurated as the 43rd President of the United States, and ended on January 20, 2009. The oldest son of former president George H. W. Bush, he was elected president in 2000, and became the second U.S. president whose father had held the same office, succeeding John Quincy Adams.

After two recounts, then-Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Al Gore filed a lawsuit for a third. The Supreme Court's highly controversial decision in Bush v. Gore resolved the dispute. The Florida Secretary of State certified Bush as the winner of Florida. The state's 25 electoral votes gave Bush 271 electoral votes, enough to defeat Gore. Bush was re-elected in 2004 defeating Democratic candidate and United States Senator from Massachusetts John Kerry.

​As president, Bush pushed through a $1.3 trillion tax cut program and the No Child Left Behind Act, and also pushed for socially conservative efforts, such as the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act and faith-based welfare initiatives.

Nearly 8 million people immigrated to the United States in 2000 –2005; nearly half entered illegally. During his two terms, the United States lost over six million manufacturing jobs, about one third of the total at the end of the Clinton Administration.

After the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, Bush declared a global War on Terrorism and, in October 2001, ordered an invasion of Afghanistan to overthrow the Taliban, destroy Al-Qaeda, and to capture Osama bin Laden. In March 2003, Bush received a mandate from the U.S. Congress to lead an invasion of Iraq, asserting that Iraq was in violation of UN Security Council Resolution 1441.

Bush also initiated an AIDS program that committed $15 billion to combat AIDS over five years. His record as a humanitarian included helping enroll as many as 29 million of Africa's poorest children in schools.

On his second full day in office, Bush reinstated the Mexico City Policy; this policy required any non-governmental organization receiving US Government funding to refrain from performing or promoting abortion services in other countries.

Running as a self-styled "war president" in the midst of the Iraq War, Bush won re-election in 2004, as his campaign against Senator John Kerry was successful despite controversy over Bush's prosecution of the Iraq War and his handling of the economy.

His second term was highlighted by several free trade agreements, the Energy Policy Act of 2005 alongside a strong push for offshore and domestic drilling, the nominations of Supreme Court Justices John G. Roberts and Samuel Alito, a push for Social Security and immigration reform, his administration's response to Hurricane Katrina, a surge of troops in Iraq, which was followed by a drop in violence, and several different economic initiatives aimed at preventing a banking system collapse, stopping foreclosures, and stimulating the economy during the recession.

The approval ratings of George W. Bush have, at different points in time, run the gamut from high to all-time record low. Bush began his presidency with ratings near 50%. In the time of national crisis following the September 11 attacks, polls showed approval ratings of greater than 85%, peaking in one October 2001 poll at 92%, and a steady 80–90% approval for about four months after the attacks.

Afterward, his ratings steadily declined as the economy suffered and the Iraq War initiated by his administration continued. By early 2006, his average rating was averaging below 40%, and in July 2008, a poll indicated a near all-time low of 22%. Upon leaving office the final poll recorded his approval rating as 19%, a record low for any U.S. President.

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Barack Obama (2009-2017)
YouTube Video: Video of President Obama on the Death of Osama Bin Laden
​The presidency of Barack Obama began at noon EST on January 20, 2009, when Barack Obama became the 44th President of the United States.

Obama, a Democrat, was a United States Senator from Illinois at the time of his victory over Republican Senator John McCain of Arizona in the 2008 presidential election. Obama is the first African American president, the first non-white president, and the first to have been born in Hawaii. His running mate, Senator Joe Biden of Delaware, took office as Vice President on the same day.

Obama's first-term actions addressed the global financial crisis and included a major stimulus package, a partial extension of the Bush tax cuts, legislation to reform health care, a major financial regulation reform bill, and the end of a major US military presence in Iraq.

Obama also appointed Supreme Court Justices Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor, the latter of whom became the first Hispanic American on the Supreme Court. Democrats controlled both houses of Congress until Republicans won a majority in the House of Representatives in the 2010 elections. Following the elections, Obama and Congressional Republicans engaged in a protracted stand-off over government spending levels and the debt ceiling.

Obama won election to a second term in 2012, making him the seventeenth person to win two presidential elections. In his second term, Obama took steps to combat climate change, signing a major international climate agreement and an executive order to limit carbon emissions.

Obama also presided over the implementation of the Affordable Care Act and other legislation passed in his first term, and he negotiated rapprochements with Iran and Cuba.

The number of American soldiers in Afghanistan fell dramatically during Obama's second term, though the United States currently plans to leave soldiers in Afghanistan until at least 2017.

Republicans took control of the Senate after the 2014 elections, and Obama continued to grapple with Congressional Republicans over government spending, immigration, judicial nominations, and other issues.

Obama's presidency is scheduled to end with the inauguration of Republican President-elect Donald Trump on January 20, 2017.

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Standing Rules of the United States Senate, including the Filibuster Pictured below: "Mitch McConnell Rejects President Trump's Suggestion to End Filibuster" (Time magazine)
​The Standing Rules of the Senate are the parliamentary procedures adopted by the United States Senate that govern its procedure. The Senate's power to establish rules derives from Article One, Section 5 of the United States Constitution: "Each House may determine the rules of its proceedings..."

There are currently forty-four rules, with the latest revision having been adopted on January 24, 2013. (The Legislative Transparency and Accountability Act of 2006 lobbying reform bill introduced a 44th rule on earmarks). The stricter rules are often waived by unanimous consent.

The Constitution provides that a majority of the Senate constitutes a quorum to do business. Under the rules and customs of the Senate, a quorum is always assumed to be present unless a quorum call explicitly demonstrates otherwise.

Any senator may request a quorum call by "suggesting the absence of a quorum"; a clerk then calls the roll of the Senate and notes which members are present. In practice, senators almost always request quorum calls not to establish the presence of a quorum, but to temporarily delay proceedings without having to adjourn the session.

Such a delay may serve one of many purposes; often, it allows Senate leaders to negotiate compromises off the floor or to allow senators time to come to the Senate floor to make speeches without having to constantly be present in the chamber while waiting for the opportunity. Once the need for a delay has ended, any senator may request unanimous consent to rescind the quorum call.

During debates, senators may speak only if called upon by the presiding officer. The presiding officer is, however, required to recognize the first senator who rises to speak. Thus, the presiding officer has little control over the course of debate. Customarily, the majority leader and minority leader are accorded priority during debates, even if another senator rises first.

All speeches must be addressed to the presiding officer, using the words "Mr. President" or "Madam President." Only the presiding officer may be directly addressed in speeches; other members must be referred to in the third person. In most cases, senators refer to each other not by name, but by state, using forms such as "the senior senator from Virginia" or "the junior senator from California."

There are very few restrictions on the content of speeches; there is no requirement that speeches be germane to the matter before the Senate.

The Standing Rules of the United States Senate provide that no senator may make more than two speeches on a motion or bill on the same legislative day. (A legislative day begins when the Senate convenes and ends when it adjourns; hence, it does not necessarily coincide with the calendar day.)

The length of these speeches is not limited by the rules; thus, in most cases, senators may speak for as long as they please. Often, the Senate adopts unanimous consent agreements imposing time limits. In other cases (for example, for the budget process), limits are imposed by statute. In general, however, the right to unlimited debate is preserved.

The filibuster is an obstructionary tactic (see next topic below used to defeat bills and motions by prolonging debate indefinitely. A filibuster may entail, but does not actually require, long speeches, dilatory motions, and an extensive series of proposed amendments. The longest filibuster speech in the history of the Senate was delivered by Strom Thurmond, who spoke for over twenty-four hours in an unsuccessful attempt to block the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1957.

The Senate may end a filibuster by invoking cloture. In most cases, cloture requires the support of three-fifths of the Senate; however, if the matter before the Senate involves changing the rules of the body, a two-thirds majority is required. Cloture is invoked very rarely, particularly because bipartisan support is usually necessary to obtain the required supermajority. If the Senate does invoke cloture, debate does not end immediately; instead, further debate is limited to thirty additional hours unless increased by another three-fifths vote.

When debate concludes, the motion in question is put to a vote. In many cases, the Senate votes by voice vote; the presiding officer puts the question, and Members respond either "Aye!" (in favor of the motion) or "No!" (against the motion). The presiding officer then announces the result of the voice vote. Any senator, however, may challenge the presiding officer's assessment and request a recorded vote. The request may be granted only if it is seconded by one-fifth of the senators present.

In practice, however, senators second requests for recorded votes as a matter of courtesy. When a recorded vote is held, the clerk calls the roll of the Senate in alphabetical order; each senator responds when their name is called. Senators who miss the roll call may still cast a vote as long as the recorded vote remains open. The vote is closed at the discretion of the presiding officer but must remain open for a minimum of fifteen minutes. If the vote is tied, the Vice President, if present, is entitled to a casting vote. If the Vice President is not present, however, the motion is resolved in the negative.

On occasion, the Senate may go into what is called a secret or closed session. During a closed session, the chamber doors are closed and the galleries are completely cleared of anyone not sworn to secrecy, not instructed in the rules of the closed session, or not essential to the session.

Closed sessions are quite rare and are usually held only under certain circumstances in which the Senate is discussing sensitive subject matter, such as information critical to national security, private communications from the President, or discussions of Senate deliberations during impeachment trials. Any Senator has the right to call a closed session as long as the motion is seconded.

Budget bills are governed under a special rule process called "Reconciliation" that disallows filibusters. Reconciliation was devised in 1974 but came into use in the early 1980s.

The Rules by number:

The Standing Rules of the Senate detail the rules of order of the United States Senate. The latest version was adopted on April 27, 2000 and comprises the following 43 rules.

The Legislative Transparency and Accountability Act of 2006 introduced a 44th rule on earmarks.
  1. SR Rule I: Appointment of a Senator to the Chair
  2. SR Rule II: Presentation of Credentials and Questions of Privilege
  3. SR Rule III: Oaths
  4. SR Rule IV: Commencement of Daily Sessions
  5. SR Rule V: Suspension and Amendment of the Rules
  6. SR Rule VI: Quorum - Absent Senators May Be Sent For
  7. SR Rule VII: Morning Business
  8. SR Rule VIII: Order of Business
  9. SR Rule IX: Messages
  10. SR Rule X: Special Orders
  11. SR Rule XI: Papers - Withdrawal, Printing, Reading of, and Reference
  12. SR Rule XII: Voting Procedure
  13. SR Rule XIII: Reconsideration
  14. SR Rule XIV: Joint Resolutions, and Preambles Thereto
  15. SR Rule XV: Amendments and Resolutions
  16. SR Rule XVI: Appropriations and Amendments to General Appropriation Bills
  17. SR Rule XVII: Reference to Committees; Motions to Discharge; Reports of Committees; and Hearings Available
  18. SR Rule XVIII: Business Continued from Session to Session
  19. SR Rule XIX: Debate
  20. SR Rule XX: Questions for Order
  21. SR Rule XXI: Session with Closed Doors
  22. SR Rule XXII: Precedence of Motions
  23. SR Rule XXIII: Privilege of the Floor
  24. SR Rule XXIV: Appointments of Committee
  25. SR Rule XXV: Standing Committees
  26. SR Rule XXVI: Committee Procedure
  27. SR Rule XXVII: Committee Staff
  28. SR Rule XXVIII: Conference Committees; Reports; Open Meetings
  29. SR Rule XXIX: Executive Sessions
  30. SR Rule XXX: Executive Session - Proceedings on Treaties
  31. SR Rule XXXI: Executive Session - Proceedings on Nominations
  32. SR Rule XXXII: The President Furnished with Copies of Record Executive Sessions
  33. SR Rule XXXIII: Senate Chamber - Senate Wing of the Capitol
  34. SR Rule XXXIV: Public Financial Disclosure
  35. SR Rule XXXV: Gifts
  36. SR Rule XXXVI: Outside Earned Income
  37. SR Rule XXXVII: Conflict of Interest
  38. SR Rule XXXVIII: Prohibition of Unofficial Office Accounts
  39. SR Rule XXXIX: Foreign Travel
  40. SR Rule XL: Franking Privilege and Radio and Television Studios
  41. SR Rule XLI: Political Fund Activity; Definitions
  42. SR Rule XLII: Employment Practices
  43. SR Rule XLIII: Representation by Members
  44. SR Rule XLIV: Congressionally Directed Spending and Related Items

See also: ___________________________________________________________________________

Filibuster in the United States Senate:

​Filibuster is a tactic used in the United States Senate to prevent a measure from being brought to a vote by means of obstruction. The most common form occurs when one or more senators attempt to delay or block a vote on a bill by extending debate on the measure.

The Senate rules permit a senator, or a series of senators, to speak for as long as they wish, and on any topic they choose, unless "three-fifths of the Senators duly chosen and sworn" (currently 60 out of 100) vote to bring the debate to a close by invoking cloture under Senate Rule XXII.

The ability to block a measure through extended debate was an inadvertent side effect of an 1806 rule change, and was infrequently used during much of the 19th and 20th centuries. In 1970, the Senate adopted a "two-track" procedure to prevent filibusters from stopping all other Senate business.

The minority then felt politically safer in threatening filibusters more regularly, which became normalized over time to the point that 60 votes are now required to end debate on nearly every controversial legislative item. As a result, "the contemporary Senate has morphed into a 60-vote institution — the new normal for approving measures or matters — a fundamental transformation from earlier years."

Efforts to limit the practice include laws that explicitly limit the time for Senate debate, notably the Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act of 1974 that created the budget reconciliation process. Changes in 2013 and 2017 now require only a simple majority to invoke cloture on nominations, although most legislation still requires 60 votes.

One or more senators may still occasionally hold the floor for an extended period, sometimes without the advance knowledge of the Senate leadership. However, these "filibusters" usually result only in brief delays and do not determine outcomes, since the Senate's ability to act ultimately depends upon whether there are sufficient votes to invoke cloture and proceed to a final vote on passage.

However, such brief delays can be politically relevant when exercised shortly before a major deadline (such as avoiding a government shutdown) or before a Senate recess.

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