Whenever a new administration takes over the White House, a lot of major changes are obviously going to take place. I&#8217;ve covered many of these changes already in the past few weeks, Trump&#8217;s executive orders and so on. But there are also some minor changes that no one really talks about, even though they may have symbolic significance.
In particular, one of the first moves Trump made when he first took office, back in 2017, was to <a href="https://time.com/4649081/andrew-jackson-donald-trump-portrait/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">install</a> a portrait of Andrew Jackson in the Oval Office. Jackson was a war hero who served in both the Revolutionary War and the War of 1812, when he led American troops to a historic victory in New Orleans. Jackson was also a populist who wanted the United States to expand and grow its borders because he believed it would benefit the average American. And so, for four years, Jackson&#8217;s portrait remained in the Oval Office.
Then, the minute he became president, Joe Biden quickly removed the portrait. No one in Biden&#8217;s administration could stand to look at Andrew Jackson. They didn&#8217;t destroy the portrait, however, they apparently just put it in storage. So now, four years later, the game of &#8220;Andrew Jackson tug-of-war&#8221; is continuing. The portrait is officially back.
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🚨 First view of the new Oval Office &#8211; ANDREW JACKSON and ABRAHAM LINCOLN can be spotted on the walls. <a href="https://t.co/4r1j2QWHRM">pic.twitter.com/4r1j2QWHRM</a>
&mdash; Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) <a href="https://twitter.com/EricLDaugh/status/1881429685944635531?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 20, 2025</a></blockquote>
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As you can see from this photo from the Oval Office a couple of weeks ago, Abe Lincoln is on the left, and Jackson is on the right. If you ask a typical Biden supporter about this, they&#8217;ll tell you that this is an outrage, because Andrew Jackson was a slave owner, and on top of that, he wasn&#8217;t exactly a big fan of the Indians. And therefore, he&#8217;s canceled.
That explanation, however, actually misses one of the defining moments of Jackson&#8217;s presidency. A moment that, very soon, could have a lot of relevance for the second Trump term. I am referring to a decision by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1832 which held that the Cherokee Indians were a sovereign nation that had the right to govern themselves, without interference from the states. This was a ruling that threatened to disrupt Jackson&#8217;s plans for American expansion to the West. It was also a major blow to the concept of states&#8217; rights, and it would have significant ramifications for Georgia in particular. Of course, as Jackson saw it, it was also an unlawful ruling. In response to this decision, according to various accounts, Jackson uttered some version of: “[Chief Justice] John Marshall has made his decision; now let him enforce it.&#8221;
In other words, when a court — even the Supreme Court — exceeds the limits of its authority, then there&#8217;s no requirement that anyone follow the court&#8217;s rulings. There&#8217;s certainly no way for the courts to compel the executive branch to do anything. So if a court ever goes rogue, and begins to issue rulings that flagrantly disregard the Constitution — as well as the outcome that a majority of Americans want — that&#8217;s how you deal with it. Jackson set that precedent. A century later, FDR built on that idea. When the courts began striking down his New Deal legislation, he threatened to pack the courts. Very quickly, the Supreme Court backed down and started upholding some of those laws.
<h3><a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/ep-1535-the-matt-walsh-show" target="_blank" rel="noopener">WATCH: The Matt Walsh Show</a></h3>
Depending on who you ask, Andrew Jackson and FDR were either villains or heroes in these stories. Either way, their actions illustrate an important point: In our system of checks and balances, everything depends on legitimacy. If courts are seen as legitimate, then their orders are enforced. If courts are seen as illegitimate, then nothing they do really matters. Donald Trump, as a student of Andrew Jackson, certainly understands that. We can assume judges understand this principle as well.
That&#8217;s why the flood of federal injunctions that have already been issued in Trump&#8217;s second term are best understood as a deliberate provocation by the judiciary. Every other day, an unelected federal judge — usually a Left-wing judge — is issuing a nationwide injunction, barring some aspect of Trump&#8217;s agenda. This is happening so frequently that most people don&#8217;t understand the scale of the problem.
So let me run down a non-exhaustive list of some of these injunctions:
<ul>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">A Biden judge blocked Trump&#8217;s halt on federal grant spending. </li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">A Clinton judge in Massachusetts blocked Trump&#8217;s plan to issue buyouts to federal workers, and also blocked the Trump administration from transferring a trans-identifying man to a man&#8217;s prison facility, where he belongs. </li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">An Obama judge in New York blocked both DOGE and the Treasury secretary himself from accessing internal Treasury records. </li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">A Biden judge in Massachusetts blocked Trump from cutting billions of dollars in fraudulent spending that was earmarked for scientific research, including wasteful overhead, as we discussed yesterday. </li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Another judge in Washington DC, appointed by Trump, halted the suspension of USAID workers, who were spending billions of dollars orchestrating foreign coups and sponsoring transgender theater. </li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">An Obama judge in D.C. ordered Trump to reinstate the head of a Special Counsel office. </li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">A Reagan judge in D.C. blocked prison officials from transferring trans-identifying men to men&#8217;s prisons. </li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Three judges — including Biden, Bush and Reagan judges, in New Hampshire, Washington and Maryland — blocked Trump&#8217;s executive order ending birthright citizenship. </li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">And most recently, a D.C. judge named John Bates issued what may be the single most obviously unconstitutional ruling ever written by a federal judge.</li>
</ul>
Before we get into that last ruling, let&#8217;s take stock of the sheer magnitude of orders listed here, and where they&#8217;re coming from. Without exception, these are judges located in Left-wing jurisdictions. Most of them were appointed by Democrats. And in every case, they&#8217;re unilaterally issuing emergency temporary restraining orders, which are supposed to be an &#8220;extraordinary and drastic remedy,&#8221; according to established legal precedent. If you&#8217;re trying to portray the courts as legitimate, nonpartisan institutions, this simply does not look good. In fact, it&#8217;s a travesty. And it gets much worse when you look at what these rulings are saying. So let&#8217;s go back to the ruling by John Bates.
This ruling prevents the Trump administration from removing content from websites that the Trump administration controls. In fact, the ruling goes further than that, it requires the Trump administration to keep old content from the Biden administration online. That is not an exaggeration. The order, by its own terms, bans the Trump administration from, &#8220;removing or modifying health-related webpages and datasets,&#8221; while also compelling the administration to, &#8220;restore webpages and datasets that they have already removed or modified.&#8221; In other words, an unelected federal judge has just named himself the official web editor of the entire federal government. He&#8217;s saying in effect that the executive branch has no power whatsoever. They can&#8217;t even control what they&#8217;re putting on the internet. Trump, as the president of the United States, and most powerful man in the world, actually doesn&#8217;t even have the power to make alterations to a website.
Specifically, the ruling comes in response to the Trump administration&#8217;s executive order ending gender ideology in the federal government. Pursuant to that order, the administration removed a lot of content from websites that are run by the CDC, HHS, FDA, and so on. Some of that content was related to sex-changes and cross-sex hormones. Some of it included activist research on the risk of suicide among trans-identifying individuals, which of course has been used to justify child castration — instead of treating their obvious mental health condition. Some of the materials had to do with nonsense concepts like &#8220;environmental justice.&#8221; Some of it was about drugs that gay people can take in order to prevent the spread of HIV while they&#8217;re engaging in reckless and dangerous sexual activity. And on and on. Whatever you think of these materials — and you should think they&#8217;re garbage — it&#8217;s clearly within the federal government&#8217;s purview to delete them from their own websites. That is why we have elections.
But Judge Bates disagreed. <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2025/02/11/judge-orders-cdc-websites-restored/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">He ruled</a> that, “By removing long relied upon medical resources without explanation, it is likely that … each agency failed to examine the relevant data and articulate a satisfactory explanation for its action.&#8221; He goes on to say that the administration has violated something called the &#8220;Paperwork Reduction Act,&#8221; which is a law that no one knows anything about, or cares about in any way, shape or form.
There&#8217;s more to the ruling, but let&#8217;s stop there and address this part of it. He&#8217;s saying that there&#8217;s &#8220;no explanation&#8221; for why this content was removed. So apparently we can&#8217;t &#8220;reduce&#8221; this particular &#8220;paperwork.&#8221; This would be a compelling argument if the judge were, say, living in a cave with no internet access, or access to newspapers or other human interaction, for the past decade or so. But everyone else understands exactly why the Trump administration is gutting these websites. As we discussed yesterday, activists have taken over scientific and medical research in this country. They have promoted child butchery and other obviously immoral practices, which the overwhelming majority of Americans reject. Trump ran against all of that and he won a resounding victory. That&#8217;s all the &#8220;explanation&#8221; the federal judge should require.
Then the judge goes on to offer another explanation for his ruling. Again, from <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2025/02/11/judge-orders-cdc-websites-restored/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">the decision</a>: 
<blockquote>If those doctors cannot provide these individuals the care they need (and deserve) within the scheduled and often limited time frame, there is a chance that some individuals will not receive treatment, including for severe, life-threatening conditions.</blockquote>
The judge is now claiming that doctors are reliant on government websites in order to treat their patients. As proof of this, he cites a doctor from Yale who says it now takes her a little longer to prescribe contraception to her patients. Without these websites, she&#8217;s totally clueless. Her medical school training wasn&#8217;t enough; her residency wasn&#8217;t enough; her years of practice weren&#8217;t enough; her access to thousands of research papers isn&#8217;t enough. She needs a small handful of government websites in order to do her job, apparently. Now, if we take this claim literally, of course it means that this doctor is incompetent to practice medicine. Instead, the judge takes it as proof that he needs to dictate what content goes on the internet.
If you go through any of the other 10 million injunctions that judges have filed against Trump so far, you&#8217;ll find that this kind of reasoning — as egregious as it is — is pretty much the norm. Judges are taking anecdotal claims from activists, and they&#8217;re using them to throw up roadblocks in the way of the new administration. And they&#8217;re doing it so that CNN can report that Trump is causing a &#8220;constitutional crisis,&#8221; when in fact the judges are the ones doing that. Watch:
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&gt;&gt; <a href="https://twitter.com/kaitlancollins?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@kaitlancollins</a>: &quot;We are three weeks into the second Trump presidency, three weeks, and tonight, there are warnings that the U.S. is dangerously close to a constitutional crisis.&quot; <a href="https://t.co/PCHCm6MmRf">pic.twitter.com/PCHCm6MmRf</a>
&mdash; Brian Stelter (@brianstelter) <a href="https://twitter.com/brianstelter/status/1889144671231693086?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 11, 2025</a></blockquote>
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As you just heard, there are hints in that reporting that the Trump administration may not comply with some of these orders. Trump himself hasn&#8217;t come out and said that. He&#8217;s apparently weighing his options at this point. But as this continues — which it inevitably will — the Andrew Jackson solution is going to become more and more appealing. And ultimately it will be necessary.
To be very clear about this: There is nothing in the constitution that gives any random federal judge absolute power to override anything the president does or any decision he makes at any time. If a single judge in a place like New Hampshire or Washington can decide that the president can&#8217;t reduce foreign aid, or fire his own employees, or kick men out of women&#8217;s prisons, or even control the content that&#8217;s posted on government websites, then essentially the president has no power at all. That&#8217;s the result the Left obviously wants. And now that the deep state and the career bureaucrats are being terminated, they see the courts as their only hope.
That&#8217;s why Chuck Schumer (D-NY) just spoke on the floor of the Senate, declaring that courts are essentially infallible, and their rulings must always be honored. Watch:
<iframe loading="lazy" title="003 Schumer" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/MwdXu6Ro1d4?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>
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If you remember just a couple of years back, Democrats like Schumer were standing in front of the Supreme Court, threatening individual judges over their rulings. AOC was telling Anderson Cooper that Biden should just ignore Supreme Court rulings — and he did. He admitted that the Court had struck down his plan to cancel student loans, so he just went ahead and implemented it anyway. Now these same Democrats are maintaining that judges should never be questioned, under any circumstances.
The reality of course is somewhere in the middle. Judges are not infallible. They can deliberately and maliciously violate the Constitution, just like anyone else can. And when that happens — when a judicial coup is underway — a response is necessary. We&#8217;re not talking about one or two bad rulings here. We&#8217;re not talking about rulings that block a handful of policy goals or anything like that. We&#8217;re at the point where the president is not being allowed to do anything. He can&#8217;t even edit a website anymore. Left-wing judges are issuing emergency injunctions without even deciding actual cases.
The only way to get us out from under this judicial tyranny is for Trump to disregard these orders and for Congress to impeach the judges responsible for them. Throughout our history, there have only been a handful of times when presidents have needed to consider drastic action like this. The country was clearly better off because Andrew Jackson did it. And now, two centuries later, it&#8217;s equally clear that this country would be better off if the Trump administration followed in Jackson&#8217;s footsteps and dared these judges to enforce these rulings. They couldn&#8217;t do it, obviously. They would complain and issue more injunctions and more opinions. Meanwhile, the rest of us — people who want to see this country improve — will get exactly what we voted for.

TOPSHOT-US-JORDAN-DIPLOMACY-TRUMP-ABDULLAH II

Tyrannical, Power Hungry Judges Attempt To Seize Total Control Of The Government

Abraham Lincoln

Andrew Jackson

Constitution

Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE)

Donald Trump

Federal Government

Judges

Leftists

Matt Walsh

Opinion

President Trump

A <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/missouri" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Missouri</a> county named for <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/andrew-jackson" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Andrew Jackson</a> will remove two statues of the former president despite county residents previously voting to keep the monuments up. 
City officials in Jackson County, Missouri, will remove statues of Jackson outside courthouses in Independence and Kansas City after the Jackson County Legislature <a href="https://fox4kc.com/news/jackson-county-to-remove-andrew-jackson-statues-outside-courthouses/">voted</a> 7-1 to remove the statues. The vote came after the county legislature had previously decided to let residents vote on the fate of the statues in a ballot initiative in November 2020. 
At the ballot initiative, voters in the county voted to keep the statues, with over 72% of county residents <a href="https://ballotpedia.org/Jackson_County,_Missouri,_Question_2,_Removal_of_Andrew_Jackson_Statutes_(November_2020)" target="_blank" rel="noopener">voting against</a> a proposal to remove the statues of Jackson, who was president from 1829-1837. 
“I remain committed in my belief that the statues of a man who owned slaves, caused thousands of Native Americans to die and never stepped foot in our County should be removed from our public facilities,” <a href="https://fox4kc.com/politics/your-local-election-headquarters/jackson-county-residents-vote-to-keep-andrew-jackson-statues-outside-courthouses/">said</a> County Executive Frank White after the November vote. 
The statues of Jackson, who is credited with orchestrating the American victory at the Battle of New Orleans against the British during the War of 1812, were in front of the Jackson County Courthouse in Kansas City and the Historic Truman Courthouse in Independence. 
According to the Jackson County Historical Society, the county was <a href="https://www.jchs.org/history-of-jackson-county#:~:text=Jackson%20County%20was%20organized%20on,minuscule%20settlement%20near%20a%20spring." target="_blank" rel="noopener">organized</a> on December 15, 1826 and named for Jackson, who had been a U.S. senator for Tennessee and was nationally known thanks to the Battle of New Orleans. 
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In 2021, the county added a plaque to the statue that referenced Martin Luther King Jr.
 “This statue of Jackson reminds us we are on a path that, in the immortal words of Martin Luther King Jr., bends towards justice. In turn, we must acknowledge past injustices to help us create a greater nation built upon humane policies to light our way and the way of humanity everywhere,” the plaque <a href="https://fox4kc.com/news/jackson-county-to-remove-andrew-jackson-statues-outside-courthouses/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">read</a>. 
Last month, Legislator Manny Abarca introduced a <a href="https://www.kcur.org/news/2023-06-12/jackson-county-legislator-wants-andrew-jackson-statues-removed-from-kansas-city-area-courthouses#:~:text=%22It%20is%20in%20the%20moral,groups%20or%20proponents%20of%20slavery" target="_blank" rel="noopener">resolution</a> taking aim at Jackson over his ties to slavery and the Trail of Tears. 
&#8220;It is in the moral interest of Jackson County to immediately create separation from these moments in our nation’s history through the removal of statues or monuments associated with them so as to not accidentally bestow honor on individuals who were engaged in the genocide of indigenous groups or proponents of slavery,&#8221; the resolution said. 
The statues have been a target of vandalism in recent years, with some labeling the former president as a racist. After the county legislature’s vote, they will be removed and stored by the city.

Kansas City Cityscapes And City Views

County Named For Andrew Jackson To Remove Monuments To Former President

American History

Missouri

monuments

Statues

U.S.

While each president has had his own approach to the office and has tested the boundaries of his authority in different ways, the tenure of the founding generation was comparatively subdued. Each had their own strengths and weaknesses, but from Washington to Adams to Jefferson to Madison to Monroe and to an Adams again, there was a broad consensus on what the President could and could not do.
That consensus, however, would be challenged by a consummate outsider.
Andrew Jackson was a local high-water mark of presidential power. A rough and tumble man who loathed most of the established political players, Jackson carved a path all his own. Ignoring Washington’s example, Jackson vetoed more legislation than <a href="https://www.senate.gov/legislative/vetoes/vetoCounts.htm">all of his predecessors put together</a>. 
In the case of Worcester v. Georgia, when the Supreme Court ruled that the Cherokee nation had a right to their land under federal treaty and could not be removed, Jackson completely ignored them, <a href="https://www.thirteen.org/wnet/supremecourt/antebellum/history2.html">supposedly saying</a> of the chief justice, &#8220;John Marshall has made his decision, now let him enforce it.&#8221; A move which neatly embodies the watchmen problem — if the man tasked with enforcing the law simply refuses to enforce it, then who enforces the law upon that enforcer?
Few of his successors would match Jackson’s influence until Abraham Lincoln was elected. Often listed first in the pantheon of American legends, few men have been as revered by history and as reviled by their contemporaries as the man who saw the country through the Civil War. 
Lincoln steered the country through an unprecedented crisis and rightly deserves credit for the extraordinary achievement of abolishing slavery, which his predecessors, despite their best efforts, could not match. To do so, however, he became indisputably the most powerful American president up until that point.
Lincoln <a href="https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/lincolns-suspension-of-habeas-corpus-is-challenged" target="_blank" rel="noopener">suspended habeas corpus</a> — he had <a href="https://time.com/5896683/lincoln-civil-war-misinformation/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">dissident newspaper editors jailed</a>, he instituted the nation’s <a href="https://www.irs.gov/newsroom/historical-highlights-of-the-irs" target="_blank" rel="noopener">first income tax</a> (which was not constitutional at the time) and an incredibly unpopular draft. And while the Emancipation Proclamation was undoubtedly a great achievement it was also a massive exercise in executive power that would not have been legally tenable at the time outside the exigencies of war. 
For these reasons, Lincoln was painted by his enemies as a tyrant, and while history remembers him as a liberator this was the reason that “sic semper tyrannis” was cited to defend his murder.
Few of his immediate successors matched Lincoln&#8217;s gravitas or historical impact. His vice president, Andrew Johnson, would scuttle many Republican ambitions for Reconstruction. In retaliation, Congress would take the comparatively rare step of infringing on the president’s powers by passing a law demanding that he could not fire any members of his cabinet without their approval — and then impeaching him when he went ahead and did it anyway. 
The law wouldn’t stand up in court, but Johnson avoided removal from office by a <a href="https://constitutioncenter.org/blog/the-man-whose-impeachment-vote-saved-andrew-johnson" target="_blank" rel="noopener">single vote</a> in the Senate.
For the sake of brevity, I will gloss over the presidents of the late 19th century, who, compared to the heights of Lincoln and Jackson, were relatively weak executives during a period where Congress was largely ascendant.
However, by the 20th century, the presidential trend came back with a vengeance — this was the era of the <a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Imperial_Presidency/ZkxlY4S2iWYC?hl=en&amp;gbpv=1&amp;printsec=frontcover" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Imperial Presidency</a>. While there were comparatively subdued executives such as Calvin Coolidge and Warren G. Harding, there were many more activist executives such as William McKinley, Teddy Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and Lyndon Johnson — each of whom vastly expanded the power of the federal government with military interventions abroad (The Spanish American War, The Roosevelt Corollary, WW1, WW2, Vietnam) and greater economic intervention at home, from trust busting to the New Deal to The Great Society. 
The advent of the permanent income tax and the Federal Reserve at the start of the century gave the federal government far more resources.  And since the day-to-day operation of the federal government is primarily carried out by the executive branch, which the president has unilateral authority over, this naturally multiplied the power of presidency.
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To illustrate this point visually — when the White House complex was first constructed, every cabinet department could fit within it — the Treasury building was directly to the mansion’s east, while the State Department, War Department and the Department of the Navy were headquartered directly to its west. By the 1870s, the west side of the complex was remodeled and transformed into what was the largest office building in the world at the time in order to house those same three departments.
That building still stands as the <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/about-the-white-house/the-grounds/eisenhower-executive-office-building/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Eisenhower Executive Office Building</a>, and as of now it houses some of the president’s office staff.
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The advent of mass media also contributed to the president’s powerful bully pulpit and ability to shape national policy discussions — when communications were slow and congressional districts were smaller and more isolated it was almost impossible for the president to communicate with the entire nation in any timely fashion. 
Improved infrastructure, and later the radio and television, allowed presidents to broadcast their agendas and ideas <a href="https://www.history.com/topics/great-depression/fireside-chats" target="_blank" rel="noopener">directly into the homes of everyday Americans</a>. As the principal figure in the expanding national government, the president naturally received a massive share of media attention.
Increasing American militarism has also increased the relative importance of the presidency — a commander-in-chief is far more consequential in wartime than in peacetime. With American forces deployed in multiple theaters around the globe and with American nuclear assets easily capable of leveling human civilization, the man who controls all that awesome military might is very powerful indeed.
But the expansion of executive power is not merely a consequence of the growth of government as a whole, or the ease of mass communication, or American adventurism overseas; there is another process at work.
Because as mentioned previously, Congress has the exclusive constitutional authority to declare war, and to ratify treaties. The president can execute that war as he sees fit, and negotiate terms for their consideration. The president has broad authority to make snap defensive decisions but by historical logic, most of these overseas operations would require a congressional declaration.
Yet Congress has not formally declared war since <a href="https://www.history.com/news/united-states-official-declarations-war" target="_blank" rel="noopener">1942</a>. It has “authorized military action” since then, but in many circumstances, it has also authorized the president to take such actions without seeking congressional approval — according to the <a href="https://www.history.com/topics/vietnam-war/war-powers-act" target="_blank" rel="noopener">War Powers Act of 1973</a> the president can deploy military forces for up to 60 days without bothering to ask Congress. And even with that broad window, they sometimes have <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna42201792" target="_blank" rel="noopener">neglected to follow up</a> and have continued to deploy forces with zero consequences.
What is going on here?
Well, as the federal government has grown in size and scope the minutiae of day-to-day affairs has expanded well beyond what Congress can manage — regulations formulated by bureaucrats often carry the force of law, as do executive orders from the president. Part of this is practical — rather than working out every legislative detail Congress can give broad authority to an expert regulatory body and allow them general autonomy over how they wield that authority. In other words, the executive branch has become more powerful because the legislature has increasingly delegated legislative powers.
But beyond the pragmatic justification of expediency and expertise, why has Congress given up so much power — when the presumption behind checks and balances is that every constitutional actor would jealously guard their powers against the infringement of the others?
Because institutions do not have incentives — individuals do. Voting one way or the other on any specific regulation might cost a representative support in the next election, lowering their chances for re-election. Foisting the pesky details off to another body may weaken Congress’ relative power, but it serves the ambition of the individual officeholder. On the other hand, executive power is unified — the power of the legislator and the legislature may not be one and the same, but the power of the executive largely is.
While lifelong employees may remain as administrations come and go, and the byzantine nature of our own bureaucracy may make it too difficult for any one man to practically control, in theory, every member of this massive apparatus operates at the pleasure of the president — the amount of power that has been accrued is staggering.
It is difficult to condense centuries of political development in any reasonable time frame without losing some nuance or detail, but the broad strokes are fairly clear.
The president has become the most powerful man in the world. But that was not what the office was intended to be.
And as we commemorate the men who held that office and made it what it is today, we should ponder this: Is the presidency what it should be?

Abraham Lincoln Statue At Lincoln Memorial

A Brief History Of The American Presidency, Part 3: The Expansion Of Executive Power

Presidency

Readers Pass

As the Biden administration ‘speeds up’ efforts to replace Andrew Jackson with Harriet Tubman on the twenty-dollar bill, many conservatives are celebrating the swap. The founder of the Democrat Party replaced by a gun-toting Republican? The libs get owned again, these Republicans muse.
But if the Tubman twenty is such a win for conservatives, why does the Left seem uniformly to support it? ‘Historical ignorance,’ giggle the giddy conservatives. Fair enough. But then why do some conservatives, this author included, oppose it? Why did the Trump administration halt the switch, and why have the Obama and Biden administrations encouraged it? ‘Racism,’ reply the innovators on the Right and Left, at least implicitly and often explicitly. And therein lies the trap of the Tubman twenty-dollar bill.
The campaign to replace Jackson with Tubman has little to do with Tubman or Jackson and everything to do with leftist identity politics. If the campaign sought simply to honor an important abolitionist, the reformers might propose replacing Jackson with John Brown, the nation’s most ardent anti-slavery crusader whom Tubman eulogized as having “done more in dying than 100 men would in living.” But Brown, however revered, would not satisfy the demands of identity politics. If the campaign aimed specifically at recognizing Tubman, reformers might consider giving her some new coin or bill as reformers achieved for Susan B. Anthony in 1979 and Sacagawea in 2000. But a new Tubman denomination would not rid our money of the detested Andrew Jackson.
Harriet Tubman was a courageous and admirable American, as was Andrew Jackson, despite revisionists’ cries to the contrary. But the identity politics-driven demand to replace Jackson with Tubman deprives both of their humanity, reducing them to mere types — Harriet Tubman representing women and “people of color,” Andrew Jackson representing that dread figure: the dead, white man.
Cultural revolutionaries persuade naive conservatives to condemn Jackson by enumerating and often <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/knowles-keep-jackson-20-bill-michael-j-knowles">exaggerating</a> his sins in the same way they have campaigned in recent years to tear down statues of Robert E. Lee. But Lee’s statue topplers did not stop with the Confederate general. Soon enough they began to vandalize monuments to Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, and Grant. Likewise, only the most naive conservative could believe that Jackson’s present-day foes will content themselves with having vanquished the hero of New Orleans. Soon they will demand we debate the propriety of honoring “white supremacists” such as George Washington and Abraham Lincoln on our currency. The cultural revolution will spare no forebear.
‘Who cares?’ ask some conservatives. The Left seems to care quite a lot, perhaps because leftists understand the importance of tradition and symbolism in a polity. While economics-obsessed right-wingers focus on “more important” matters such as tax cuts and occupational licensing reform, leftists focus on the subtler task of ‘<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/12/20/magazine/1619-intro.html">reframing American history.</a>’ What shall it profit a nation to boost GDP and lose its culture? For decades, conservatives have failed even to conserve the ladies’ room in no small part because they have shrugged their shoulders as cultural revolutionaries upended society.
Racism is an offense against human dignity, for which reason conservatives tend to reject it. But leftists do not care, and no amount of performative support for the Tubman Twenty will convince them otherwise. Harriet Tubman lived an impressive life, and we have rightly honored her with memorials in New York and Massachusetts, two national parks, and many other monuments. We may well consider putting Tubman on our money — but not at the cost of erasing and condemning the statesmen who built our country. By indulging such a cynical campaign, we dishonor both Jackson and Tubman but more so ourselves.
The views expressed in this opinion piece are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

Public Hearing In Richmond Held To Consider Removal Of Robert E. Lee Monument

KNOWLES: Keep Tubman Off The $20

Harriet Tubman

Joe Biden

President Joe Biden has had a busy first week, signing a couple dozen executive orders, but he was able to make some time to mull who&#8217;s on the $20 bill.
Biden is working to replace the bill&#8217;s portrait of Andrew Jackson, the seventh president of the United States, with Harriet Tubman, an American abolitionist and political activist who helped run the Underground Railroad that helped slaves get to free states.
The Obama administration first announced a move to replace Jackson in 2016 with a plan to unveil the new bills in 2020, but during the 2016 presidential campaign, former President Donald Trump criticized the plan to replace his political hero on the bill (for his four years in office, Trump had a portrait of Jackson on the Oval Office wall, which has since been removed).
“Andrew Jackson had a great history,” Trump <a class="link rapid-noclick-resp" href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/may/23/trump-delays-putting-harriet-tubman-on-20-bill-outrage" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" data-ylk="slk:said">said</a> in 2016, “and I think it’s very rough when you take somebody off the bill.” He also said putting Tubman on the bill was “pure political correctness.”
Jen Psaki, Biden&#8217;s press secretary, on Monday said, “I was here when we announced that, and it was very exciting, but it hasn’t moved forward yet, which we would have been surprised to learn at the time.&#8221;
“The Treasury Department is taking steps to resume efforts to put Harriet Tubman on the front of the new $20 notes,&#8221; she said. &#8220;It is important that our notes, our money, reflect the history and diversity of our country and Harriet Tubman’s image gracing the new $20 note would certainly reflect that and we are exploring ways to speed up that effort.”
In 2019, then-Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin said the Tubman bills wouldn&#8217;t come out until 2026 at the earliest.
That same year, at a congressional <a class="link rapid-noclick-resp" href="https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/democrats-protest-delay-harriet-tubman-20-bill-congress/story?id=63991394" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" data-ylk="slk:hearing">hearing</a> on the redesign, Democrats criticized Trump’s alleged delay in honoring Tubman. &#8220;We not only honor her because of her gender, we not only honor her because of the color of her skin. We honor her for her character, her character to save and preserve and uphold America’s values,” said House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD).
But last year, Mnuchin said the Trump administration didn&#8217;t delay the new bill, saying the new currency would require the development of anti-counterfeiting technology and a new print process. &#8220;I just want to clarify that we have not changed any of this and this is something in the distant future,&#8221; Mnuchin said, calling reports that he had delayed it a &#8220;myth.&#8221;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
Twenty-dollar bill going from Andrew Jackson to Harriet Tubman — one symbol of difference between Trump and Biden. Proposed new design below: <a href="https://t.co/e6xaukiSJJ">pic.twitter.com/e6xaukiSJJ</a>
&mdash; Michael Beschloss (@BeschlossDC) <a href="https://twitter.com/BeschlossDC/status/1353775377328570371?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 25, 2021</a></blockquote>
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Tubman, a former slave who died in 1913, escaped from slavery and became a &#8220;conductor&#8221; on the Underground Railroad, taking part in 13 rescue missions that freed 70 slaves in Maryland, according to the National Park Service.
The effort to replace Jackson with Tubman became a cause célèbre. &#8220;As a country, it is about time we put our money where our mouth is in the fight to support women,&#8221; said a letter in support of the move, which was signed by Ellen DeGeneres, Katie Couric, Gloria Steinem, and others.
Related: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/treasury-officials-who-worked-under-obama-say-ashe-schow">Treasury Officials Who Worked Under Obama Say Trump Administration Didn’t Delay Harriet Tubman $20 Bill</a>

House Democrats Urge Treasury Secretary Mnuchin To Place Abolitionist Harriet Tubman On New $20 Bill

Biden Working To Replace Andrew Jackson With Harriet Tubman On $20 Bill

President Joe Biden removed a portrait of former President Andrew Jackson from the Oval Office as part of his White House redecoration.
Biden replaced the painting of the seventh president, with whom former President Donald Trump often identified because of his populist platform, with a portrait of Benjamin Franklin.
https://twitter.com/7im/status/1352019219957784576
A few months after becoming president, <a href="https://www.tennessean.com/story/news/politics/2017/03/15/trump-arrives-hermitage-historic-visit-andrew-jacksons-home/99164802/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Trump visited The Hermitage</a>, Jackson&#8217;s homestead in Nashville, Tennessee, where he laid a wreath at his predecessor&#8217;s tomb and honored his legacy with a speech.
https://twitter.com/POTUS45/status/842139935578722304
As presidential historian Jon Meacham <a href="https://time.com/4591408/time-poy-donald-trump-andrew-jackson-jon-meacham/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">wrote</a> for Time Magazine in December 2016:
<blockquote>With Donald Trump’s rise to power as America’s 45th President, those in search of an illuminating analogy have frequently cited the example of the seventh. Steve Bannon, now Trump’s senior White House strategist, has made this explicit, arguing that the Trump revolution is akin to Jackson’s populist insurgency in the 1820s and ’30s. There are, of course, surface similarities. Both movements gained popularity based on freeing the country from established, ossified interests with a promise to return the nation to greatness (in Trump’s formulation) or to Jeffersonian republican simplicity (in Jackson’s). Both startled the existing order (the Clintons and the mainstream media in Trump’s case; John Quincy Adams and Henry Clay in Jackson’s). And both had powerful personalities at the head of the ticket.</blockquote>
Historians often give Jackson a cool-eyed view despite his accomplishments because of his role in the Trail of Tears and the forcible removal of Native Americans from their land.
Jackson even played a role in the unrest that afflicted Washington, D.C., and other cities in the wake of George Floyd&#8217;s death last summer. Rioters attempted to topple a statue of Jackson in Lafayette Park, just across from the White House.
As The Daily Wire <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/breaking-rioters-near-white-house-try-to-tear-down-presidential-statue-set-up-black-house-autonomous-zone" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">reported</a>:
<blockquote>Rioters in Washington, D.C., tried to tear down a statue of former President Andrew Jackson near the White House on Monday while others set up a new “autonomous zone” nearby.
The attack on the Jackson statue comes after rioters have destroyed other presidential statues including statues of <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/watch-rioters-burn-american-flag-on-fire-on-top-of-george-washington-statue-tear-it-down">George Washington</a>, <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/us/portland-protesters-tear-down-racist-statue-thomas-jefferson">Thomas Jefferson</a>, and <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/rioters-in-california-tear-down-statue-of-ulysses-s-grant-he-defeated-the-confederacy-devastated-kkk">Ulysses S. Grant</a>. On Sunday, the American Museum of Natural History in New York City <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/breaking-new-york-city-museum-taking-down-statue-of-president-theodore-roosevelt">announced</a> that they were removing a statue of Theodore Roosevelt.</blockquote>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
Rioters are pulling down the statue of Andrew Jackson in Lafayette Square in DC. 
 <a href="https://t.co/U7XHcQ4sPt">pic.twitter.com/U7XHcQ4sPt</a>
&mdash; Ian Miles Cheong (@stillgray) <a href="https://twitter.com/stillgray/status/1275225850951000065?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 23, 2020</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
After the demonstrators failed, the park was shut down, blocked off, and became the infamous scene of a controversial photo op in which Trump walked through the park to St. John&#8217;s Church to hold a Bible.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
A quick redesign of the Oval Office for President Biden: 
&#8211; Busts of MLK and RFK flank a fireplace in the office. &#8211; Large portrait of FDR &#8211; Paintings of Jefferson and Hamilton &#8211; Clinton’s draps and blue rug <a href="https://twitter.com/AnnieLinskey?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@AnnieLinskey</a> with the details:<a href="https://t.co/ipK3g5OtDZ">https://t.co/ipK3g5OtDZ</a> <a href="https://t.co/1NzNhFHWyE">pic.twitter.com/1NzNhFHWyE</a>
&mdash; Matt Viser (@mviser) <a href="https://twitter.com/mviser/status/1352018552212107269?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 20, 2021</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Among other additions Biden made to the Oval Office decor include busts of Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy; portraits of Alexander Hamilton as well as former Presidents George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, and Franklin D. Roosevelt; and, behind the Resolute Desk, a bust of Cesar Chavez features prominently among pictures of his family.
Related: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/navajo-code-talker-breaks-silence-after-trump-ryan-saavedra" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Navajo Code Talker Breaks Silence After Trump Mocks ‘Pocahontas.’ What He Says Is Amazing.</a>

President Trump Honors Native American Code Talkers At White House

Biden Boots Andrew Jackson From Oval Office

Rioters in Washington, D.C., tried to tear down a statue of former President Andrew Jackson near the White House on Monday while others set up a new &#8220;autonomous zone&#8221; nearby.
The attack on the Jackson statue comes after rioters have destroyed other presidential statues including statues of <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/watch-rioters-burn-american-flag-on-fire-on-top-of-george-washington-statue-tear-it-down">George Washington</a>, <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/us/portland-protesters-tear-down-racist-statue-thomas-jefferson">Thomas Jefferson</a>, and <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/rioters-in-california-tear-down-statue-of-ulysses-s-grant-he-defeated-the-confederacy-devastated-kkk">Ulysses S. Grant</a>. On Sunday, the American Museum of Natural History in New York City <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/breaking-new-york-city-museum-taking-down-statue-of-president-theodore-roosevelt">announced</a> that they were removing a statue of Theodore Roosevelt.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
Rioters are pulling down the statue of Andrew Jackson in Lafayette Square in DC. 
 <a href="https://t.co/U7XHcQ4sPt">pic.twitter.com/U7XHcQ4sPt</a>
&mdash; Ian Miles Cheong (@stillgray) <a href="https://twitter.com/stillgray/status/1275225850951000065?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 23, 2020</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Daily Caller reporter Shelby Talcott was on scene and took video of the rioters trying to destroy the statue as law enforcement officials arrived on scene to stop the destruction of property.
https://twitter.com/ShelbyTalcott/status/1275223794161012739
Not far away from the statue, &#8220;protesters had pushed construction barriers and sections of metal fence into the street in the area to create roadblocks,&#8221; The Washington Post reported. &#8220;Someone had posted a sign spray-painted on plywood: &#8216;BHAZ: Black House Autonomous Zone.'&#8221;
New York Post reporter Ebony Bowden tweeted a video showing the area, writing: &#8220;Looks like another autonomous zone is springing up — this one outside the White House. Protesters are fortifying barricades in what they’re calling &#8216;BHAZ&#8217; &#8211; Black House Autonomous Zone. Wonder how long President Trump will allow this to last on his doorstep.&#8221;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
Looks like another autonomous zone is springing up — this one outside the White House. Protesters are fortifying barricades in what they’re calling “BHAZ” &#8211; Black House Autonomous Zone. Wonder how long President Trump will allow this to last on his doorstep. <a href="https://t.co/60jK7Qj3iM">pic.twitter.com/60jK7Qj3iM</a>
&mdash; Ebony Lewkovitz (@ebonylewkovitz) <a href="https://twitter.com/ebonylewkovitz/status/1275206259503964161?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 22, 2020</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
On Friday, President Donald Trump called out Washington, D.C., Democrat Mayor Muriel Bowser after rioters destroyed a statue of Confederate general Albert Pike in Judiciary Square.
&#8220;The D.C. Police are not doing their job as they watch a statue be ripped down &amp; burn,&#8221; Trump tweeted. &#8220;These people should be immediately arrested. A disgrace to our Country!&#8221;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
The D.C. Police are not doing their job as they watch a statue be ripped down &amp; burn. These people should be immediately arrested. A disgrace to our Country! <a href="https://twitter.com/MayorBowser?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@MayorBowser</a>
&mdash; Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1274182502421315584?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 20, 2020</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Washington Post columnist Henry Olsen wrote on Monday:
<blockquote>The United States’ frenzy of statuary iconoclasm has taken a turn into the theater of the absurd. Knocking down or defacing statues of national founders or heroes not only displays ignorance of history but also assaults the principles of Western civilization that allow for racial progress to continue.
&#8230;
Protesters who tear down statues to brave warriors who fought to more fully implement that principle mock and dishonor the idea that enables us to become a more perfect union. George Washington owned slaves, but he also founded a nation dedicated to the idea whose incompatibility with slavery made its eradication inevitable. Defacing or toppling his monuments dishonors the country. More than any man save Lincoln, Ulysses S. Grant destroyed the Confederacy with his magisterial generalship. As president, he tried to extend the Civil War’s purpose by presiding over the Reconstruction of the South, an effort that was abandoned only after he left office. Toppling his statue — as protesters did in San Francisco, citing a slave whom Grant was gifted and later freed before the war — is ahistorically ludicrous.</blockquote>
Even far-left New York Times columnist Paul Krugman called out what was going on, tweeting: &#8220;As it happens, here&#8217;s the book I started reading a few days ago. I&#8217;ve long been a Grant groupie; he was imperfect, but without him there would have been no emancipation — and he fought the Klan. Leave his statues alone!&#8221;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
As it happens, here&#39;s the book I started reading a few days ago. I&#39;ve long been a Grant groupie; he was imperfect, but without him there would have been no emancipation — and he fought the Klan. Leave his statues alone! <a href="https://t.co/s4l3apyP0D">pic.twitter.com/s4l3apyP0D</a>
&mdash; Paul Krugman (@paulkrugman) <a href="https://twitter.com/paulkrugman/status/1274437641501581319?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 20, 2020</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
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BREAKING: Rioters Near White House Try To Tear Down Presidential Statue, Set Up ‘Black House Autonomous Zone’

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