A Liberal Lives In Wisconsin

     Woodrow Wilson had the most successful first two years of just about any presidency. He laid out his New Freedom domestic agenda and achieved it in its entirety. The Clayton Antitrust Act and Federal Trade Commission Act? Done. The Revenue Act? Done. The Adamson Act? Done. Another achievement: the Federal Reserve Act, the focus of today's anniversary. Establishing the eight-hour workday, enacting new antitrust legislation, pummeling the tariff to establish an income tax on the rich, granting women the vote, guiding the United States through World War I, providing aid to farmers, proposing the League of Nations, and acquiring the U.S. Virgin Islands while granting autonomy to Cuba and the Philippines would have been enough to earn Wilson a top spot among presidents, but he also established America's modern banking system.      Introduced by Carter Glass on August 29th, 1913, passed by the House on September 18th, and passed by the Senate on December 18t...

       Between 2014 and 2017, with the help of the Holy See and the government of Canada, Barack Obama was able to restore relations with Cuba while also continuing to develop America's relationship with Vietnam and becoming the first sitting president to visit Myanmar and Laos.       Known as the "Cuban Thaw," this process was announced by Obama and Cuban President Raúl Castro on December 17th, 2014. It resulted in the reopening of American embassies in Cuba and vice-versa, the lifting of travel and banking restrictions, the removal of Cuba from the State Sponsors of Terrorism List, and Obama becoming the first president to visit Cuba since the Cold War.      While Trump attempted to reverse these policies, he was largely unsuccessful, and America continues to improve its relationships with countries it once opposed during the Cold War.

       On December 15th, 1963, President Lyndon B. Johnson, in office for less than a month in the wake of the assassination of his predecessor, John F. Kennedy, signed his first major bill into law: the Clean Air Act. 60 years ago today, the law built upon a decade of research by setting the first requirements for controlling air pollution. The need for data and enforcement led to the founding of the EPA in 1970. The Act would later be amended in 1965 to establish regulations for automobile emissions and again in 1990 to make further progress.      Also noteworthy is that the law was the first that allowed citizens to file civil suits in response to corporate violations of regulations. This power has since been used thousands of times by local citizens and environmental groups to check pollution and threats facing endangered species and habitat; litigation is now one of the pillars of the environmental movement.