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Taxes and wars go hand in hand. And as much as our current partisan politics suggest otherwise, it wasn't a Democratic U.S. president that ushered in the income tax. It was a Republican president - Honest Abe! And later, it was during another Republican president's term that the income tax became permanent - William Taft. The irony of it is that the poor masses and the progressive middle class pushed for the income tax to get the rich to pay their fair share. Now, the poor and the middle American families seem to shoulder most of the income tax burden.
In this interview, I discuss the following with my guest scholar:
►British taxes on American colonies - justified or not?
►"No Taxation Without Representation"
►Shays' Rebellion - America's first uprising against taxes
►Hamilton's controversial plan for America's debt
►How the federal government paid for itself all those years before the income tax
►How the Civil War changed tariffs and taxes
►Why the U.S. Supreme Court struck down income taxes
►Why the masses pushed for an income tax amendment - did we do this to ourselves!
►How WWI and WWII affected tariffs and income taxes
►Capitalism and Correlation between lower taxes and higher economic activity and investment
🚩About My 3rd Guest Scholar:
🚩Other Mentioned Interviews:
►Dr. Barry Eichengreen: Do Democracies Demand More Debt? | S3E32
►Mr. Roger Lowenstein: Putin's Russia and the Confederacy During the Civil War | S2E14
🚩About the Image:
Photo by Jon Tyson on Unsplash.
🚩Adel Aali
host & producer
☑️Where to find my program:
Home:https://historybehindnews.com
Spotify:🎧https://bit.ly/HbN-Podcast-Spotify
Apple:🎧https://bit.ly/HbN-Podcast-Apple
YouTube:▶️https://bit.ly/HbN-YT-Sub
Adel on Facebook and X.com
Support:
Click here and join our other supporters in thenews peeler community. Thank you.
🎵 attribution, links and license for thetheme music in this podcast: The Success by Keys of Moon | https://soundcloud.com/keysofmoon Music promoted by https://www.free-stock-music.com. Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0): https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Scholars in Your Inbox?
167 scholars and counting! So don't miss HbN guest scholars’ weekly takes on the history behind our news.
"Crisis of Historical Subjectivity" - my guest, Dr. Namhee Lee, used this phrase to describe the Korean people's experience of 'failed history' and their collective effort to overcome that past. This is the story of "disguised employees" - South Korea's intellectuals who left high-paying jobs to instead work on the factory floor with the aim of bringing about democratic change.
🚩About My 167th Guest:
Dr. Namhee Lee is a professor UCLA's Department of Asian Languages & Cultures in UCLA.
She is the author of the following books:
🚩Other Mentioned Interviews:
►How Japan Works - The "most important bilateral relationship in the world, bar none." | S5E11
►Debunking How China Kept Its Prices Low | S4E19
🚩About the Image:
South Korea's flag. Image by Chickenonline from Pixabay.
🚩Adel Aali
host & producer
☑️Where to find my program:
Home:https://historybehindnews.com
Spotify:🎧https://bit.ly/HbN-Podcast-Spotify
Apple:🎧https://bit.ly/HbN-Podcast-Apple
YouTube:▶️https://bit.ly/HbN-YT-Sub
Adel on Facebook and X.com
Support:
Click here and join our other supporters in thenews peeler community. Thank you.
🎵 attribution, links and license for thetheme music in this podcast: The Success by Keys of Moon | https://soundcloud.com/keysofmoon Music promoted by https://www.free-stock-music.com. Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0): https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Scholars in Your Inbox?
163 scholars and counting! So don't miss HbN guest scholars’ weekly takes on the history behind our news.
I start this interview with a super simple question: where is the Arctic?
As it turns out, the answer may not be so simple. In fact, it's a serious question that invokes geopolitical conflicts that seem to be undermining the "exceptionalism" of the Arctic.
►In this interview, I discuss the following with Dr. Troy Bouffard:
🚩About My 166th Guest:
Dr. Bouffard is a professor of Arctic Security at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, a Research Fellow with the United States Military Academy, Modern War Institute (West Point), and a non-resident Research Fellow at the Centre for Defence and Security Studies in University of Manitoba. Dr. Bouffard served in the U.S. Army (ret., E-8 Master Sergeant) and is a Former Congressional Fellow, Arctic Advisor to U.S. Senator Lisa Murkowski. You can learn more about him, visit his UAF CBSM & UAF CASR webpages.
🚩Other Mentioned Interviews:
►Greenland: Geopolitics & World Powers
►Canada-U.S. Relations
► History of US Air Force - Pentagon Unveils B-21 Raider, A New Stealth Bomber
🚩About the Image:
Map of the Arctic: United States (Alaska), Denmark (Greenland), Canada, Russia, Norway, Finland, Sweden and Iceland. By University of Texas Libraries, Texas University at Austin, Public Domain.
🚩Adel Aali
host & producer
☑️Where to find my program:
Home:https://historybehindnews.com
Spotify:🎧https://bit.ly/HbN-Podcast-Spotify
Apple:🎧https://bit.ly/HbN-Podcast-Apple
YouTube:▶️https://bit.ly/HbN-YT-Sub
Adel on Facebook and X.com
Support:
Click here and join our other supporters in thenews peeler community. Thank you.
🎵 attribution, links and license for thetheme music in this podcast: The Success by Keys of Moon | https://soundcloud.com/keysofmoon Music promoted by https://www.free-stock-music.com. Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0): https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Scholars in Your Inbox?
163 scholars and counting! So don't miss HbN guest scholars’ weekly takes on the history behind our news.
Pres. Trump is not the first U.S. president to have strained relations with America's courts, including our Highest Court - the Supreme Court of the United States. In fact, more than one U.S. president has openly expressed his personal animosity toward one or more Justices of the U.S. Supreme Court.
In this interview, I discuss the following with Dr. Barbara Perry:
►Our Founding Years:
-U.S. Constitution, Washington & Adams
-Jefferson and Chief Justice Marshall (that malignity!)
-Marbury v. Madison (you learned about this case in high school)
►The Jackson Era:
-Jackson & Marshall
-Jackson & Chief Justice Taney
►The Civil War:
-Lincoln & Taney
►The New Deal:
-FDR & Court-packing (The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse)
►Watergate:
-Nixon and his tapes
►The Trump Era:
-historical perspective to what's happening now
►The Miller Center:
-its mission and activities
►The White House Historical Association:
-its mission and activities
🚩About My Guest:
Dr. Barbara Perry is the 165th guest scholar of my two podcast programs. She is the J. Wilson Newman Professor of Governance and co-director of the Presidential Oral History Program at the Miller Center, which is affiliated with the University of Virginia. She has authored or edited 17 books on presidents, First Ladies, the Kennedy family, the Supreme Court, and civil rights and civil liberties. She has conducted more than 140 interviews for the Presidential Oral History Projects of (1) George H. W. Bush, (2) George W. Bush, and (3) Barack Obama. She has also participated in the Bill Clinton interviews.
Dr. Perry directs the Edward Kennedy Oral History Project; and co-directs the Hillary Rodham Clinton Oral History Project. She served as a U.S. Supreme Court fellow and has worked for both Republican and Democratic members of the U.S. Senate. She now serves on (1) the board of directors of the White House Historical Association, (2) the board of trustees of the Supreme Court Historical Society, (3) the advisory board of the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library Foundation, and (4) the board of the Friends of the John F. Kennedy National Historic Site.
🚩Other Mentioned Interviews:
►An Immigration Power Not Used By Any President - Until Pres. Trump!
Listen to my podcast interview with Prof. Adam Cox, coauthor of "The President and Immigration Law": https://bit.ly/HbN-S5E17-POTUS-ImmigrationLaw
🚩Adel Aali
host & producer
☑️Where to find my program:
Home:https://historybehindnews.com
Spotify:🎧https://bit.ly/HbN-Podcast-Spotify
Apple:🎧https://bit.ly/HbN-Podcast-Apple
YouTube:▶️https://bit.ly/HbN-YT-Sub
Adel on Facebook and X.com
Support:
Click here and join our other supporters in thenews peeler community. Thank you.
🎵 attribution, links and license for thetheme music in this podcast: The Success by Keys of Moon | https://soundcloud.com/keysofmoon Music promoted by https://www.free-stock-music.com. Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0): https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Scholars in Your Inbox?
163 scholars and counting! So don't miss HbN guest scholars’ weekly takes on the history behind our news.
Chairman Powell gave a much anticipated press conference this week.
Did you know that most developed countries had central banks before we did? If so, then how did our financial system function? And did you know, that for much of our history, we've hated big banks (some still do)? If that's the case, then how was the Fed created?
This is a story that takes us from the Founding of our Republic to 1913, the year in which the Fed was created through secrecy and via subterfuge.
🚩About My Guest:
Roger Lowenstein reported for The Wall Street Journal for more than a decade. Since then, he has written several New York Times bestsellers about different important personalities and periods in the economic and financial history of the United States. His books include the following:
His books include the following:
🚩Adel Aali
host & producer
☑️Where to find my program:
Home:https://historybehindnews.com
Spotify:🎧https://bit.ly/HbN-Podcast-Spotify
Apple:🎧https://bit.ly/HbN-Podcast-Apple
YouTube:▶️https://bit.ly/HbN-YT-Sub
Adel on Facebook and X.com
Support:
Click here and join our other supporters in thenews peeler community. Thank you.
🎵 attribution, links and license for thetheme music in this podcast: The Success by Keys of Moon | https://soundcloud.com/keysofmoon Music promoted by https://www.free-stock-music.com. Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0): https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Scholars in Your Inbox?
163 scholars and counting! So don't miss HbN guest scholars’ weekly takes on the history behind our news.
Immigration Exceptionalism!
►Is there something about immigration law and policies that distinguishes it from all other legal issues and policy matters?
►Does the Constitution carve out an exception for immigration law? And if so, what is that exception?
►As for the title of this podcast, what power has Pres. Trump used that no other U.S. president has previously exercised?
🚩About My Guest:
🚩Other Mentioned Interviews:
►Prof. Deep Gulasekaram, S3E22: Who can regulate immigration, states or D.C.? In this interview, we discuss Prof. Gulasekaram's book The New Immigration Federalism.
►Prof. Jennifer Chacon, S3E18: Do immigrants commit more crimes than native-born Americans? And what are sanctuary cities?
🚩Adel Aali
host & producer
☑️Where to find my program:
Home:https://historybehindnews.com
Spotify:🎧https://bit.ly/HbN-Podcast-Spotify
Apple:🎧https://bit.ly/HbN-Podcast-Apple
YouTube:▶️https://bit.ly/HbN-YT-Sub
Adel on Facebook and X.com
Support:
Click here and join our other supporters in thenews peeler community. Thank you.
🎵 attribution, links and license for thetheme music in this podcast: The Success by Keys of Moon | https://soundcloud.com/keysofmoon Music promoted by https://www.free-stock-music.com. Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0): https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Scholars in Your Inbox?
163 scholars and counting! So don't miss HbN guest scholars’ weekly takes on the history behind our news.
Pres. Trump admires Pres. Polk and Pres. McKinley - two presidents who expanded America's territories in an age when territorial expansion was a measure of national success.
In this interview, my guest compares Pres. Trump with Pres. Polk and Pres. McKinley. He also explains Manifest Destiny, and indulges my questions about what I term 'America's Manifest Destiny 2.0'.
Mr. Merry also talks about America's Men of Destiny. So I ask him this:
Is Pres. Trump a Man of Destiny?
🚩About My Guest:
🚩Image attribution:
From left to right... all Public Domain images
►Pres. James Polk
►Pres. Donald Trump
►Pres. Theodore Roosevelt
►Pres. William McKinley
🚩Adel Aali
host & producer
☑️Where to find my program:
Home:https://historybehindnews.com
Spotify:🎧https://bit.ly/HbN-Podcast-Spotify
Apple:🎧https://bit.ly/HbN-Podcast-Apple
YouTube:▶️https://bit.ly/HbN-YT-Sub
Adel on Facebook and X.com
Support:
Click here and join our other supporters in thenews peeler community. Thank you.
🎵 attribution, links and license for thetheme music in this podcast: The Success by Keys of Moon | https://soundcloud.com/keysofmoon Music promoted by https://www.free-stock-music.com. Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0): https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Scholars in Your Inbox?
150 scholars and counting! So don't miss HbN guest scholars’ weekly takes on the history behind our news.
Do you think Russia would have dared to attack Ukraine when Ukraine had the third largest nuclear arsenal? And why is there a picture of President Zelensky hanging on the side of an overpass in Tehran, Iran? And no, this episode is neither about Ukraine nor about Iran. This is my take about America and American assurances.
🚩Related interviews
🎧Finlandization of Ukraine and Finland's wars withRussia/USSR: https://bit.ly/HbN-S2E22-Finland
🎧U.S.-Iran failed diplomacy: https://bit.ly/HbN-S2E25s-IranUSDiplomacy
🎧Pres. Trump's Iran sanctions https://bit.ly/UME-YT-S1E39-IranSanctions
►NYT article mentioned in this episode:
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/04/world/middleeast/iran-conservatives-zarif-pezeshkian.html
🚩Adel Aali
host & producer
☑️Where to find my program:
Home:https://historybehindnews.com
Spotify:🎧https://bit.ly/HbN-Podcast-Spotify
Apple:🎧https://bit.ly/HbN-Podcast-Apple
YouTube:▶️https://bit.ly/HbN-YT-Sub
Adel on Facebook and X.com
🚩About Images:
1. Iran's flag by Chickenonline from Pixabay.From https://pixabay.com/illustrations/iran-flag-middle-east-grunge-1151139/
2. President Trump's image by Daniel Torok - Official 2025 portrait on https://www.whitehouse.gov/administration/Alsoposted at https://x.com/dto_rok/status/1879759515534729564,Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=158023996
3. By President Of Ukraine from Україна - President Volodymyr Zelenskyy took part in the festivities marking the 9th anniversary of the National Guard of Ukraine.,CC0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=130714218
Support:
Click here and join our other supporters in the news peeler community. Thank you.
🎵 attribution, links and license for thetheme music in this podcast: The Success by Keys of Moon | https://soundcloud.com/keysofmoon Music promoted by https://www.free-stock-music.com. Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0): https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Scholars in Your Inbox?
160 scholars and counting! So don't miss HbN guest scholars’ weekly takes on the history behind our news.
Elon Musk is different than prior American business tycoons. Arguably, he is more powerful. More poignantly, as my guest argues, he is less dedicated to democracy, and that makes him frighteningly more dangerous.
In this interview, I discuss the following with my guest scholar:
►Who was Andrew Carnegie?
►How was he similar to Musk?
►How was Carnegie - once the richest man in the world - different than Musk?
►What was Carnegie's political relationship with Washington and his outlook for America?
►Who was William Randolph Hearst?
►How was his promotional reach bigger than Musk's?
►Was Hearst a Nazi?
►How was Hearst's relationship with politics and Washington different than Musk's?
►How did Hearst finally get into trouble with the people?
►Who was Joseph P. Kennedy?
►How did he make his money? In what aspects was he similar to Musk?
►Was Kennedy a Nazi sympathizer?
►How was Kennedy's relationship with FDR different than Musk's relationship with Pres. Trump?
🚩About My Guest:My guest is Dr. David Nasaw, a distinguished professor of History at the CUNY Graduate Center. He has authored many books, including the following that we discuss in this interview
🚩Other Mentioned Interviews:
🎧 S4E22: Here is my interview with Prof. Lawrence Lessig about Elon Musk, Dark Money in our politics, and Super PACs.
🚩Image attribution:
►Center: United States Air Force Academy, Colorado. -- Tesla Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk poses for a photograph with U.S. Air Force Academy Cadets in Mitchell Hall during a tour hosted by Superintendent Lt. Gen. Richard Clark on April 7, 2022. Musk met with Academy senior leadership and delivered remarks to a crowd of cadets and faculty. (U.S. Air Force photo by Justin R. Pacheco). Public Domain.
►Left: Andrew Carnegie. By Harris & Ewing, photographer - Library of Congress Catalog. Public Domain.
►Center: Joseph P. Kennedy, Sr., when he was the United States Ambassador to Great Britain. Public Domain
►Right: William Randolph Hearst. By Anonymous. Public Domain
🚩Adel Aali
host & producer
☑️Where to find my program:
Home:https://historybehindnews.com
Spotify:🎧https://bit.ly/HbN-Podcast-Spotify
Apple:🎧https://bit.ly/HbN-Podcast-Apple
YouTube:▶️https://bit.ly/HbN-YT-Sub
Adel on Facebook and X.com
Support:
Click here and join our other supporters in thenews peeler community. Thank you.
🎵 attribution, links and license for thetheme music in this podcast: The Success by Keys of Moon | https://soundcloud.com/keysofmoon Music promoted by https://www.free-stock-music.com. Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0): https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Scholars in Your Inbox?
150 scholars and counting! So don't miss HbN guest scholars’ weekly takes on the history behind our news.
Did you know that Helmut Kohl, the German Chancellor (1982-99), implemented a planto deport Turkish immigrant back to Türkiye?
This is the History of Immigration & Far-right Politics in Germany.
Mr. Elon Musk & Vice Pres. JD Vance have endorsed the AfD - Germany's anti-immigrant, Islamophobic, far-right party. And although the AfD commands 20% of the German vote, other parties refuse to form a coalition government with it.
In this interview, I discuss the following with my guest:
►Germany's economic headwinds and growing budget challenges
►the rise of the AfD in German elections
►Why is the AfD being investigated by German authorities?
►What is JAfD?
►How Germany's unification was more like an acquisition than a merger
►For Germans, does the Berlin Wall still exist?
►Roots of racism in East Germany compared to West Germany
►Was the post-WWII de-Nazification a success?
►What is PEGIDA?
►Which ethnic groups commit the most crime in Germany?
►Who is Gerhard Rex Lauck?
►How did America export Nazi propaganda back to Germany?
►What is Ausländer?
►What was Helmut Kohl's plan for exporting Turks?
►Why were Turks called "guest" workers?
►What is Almanci?
🚩About My Guest:
My guest is Dr. Michelle Lynn Kahn, a Professor of Modern European History at the University of Richmond. She is the author of Foreign in Two Homelands: Racism, Return Migration, and Turkish-German History, a book that we discuss in this interview, along with her article "The American Influence on German Neo-Nazism: An Entangled History of Hate, 1970s–1990s: The Journal of Holocaust Research: Vol 35 , No 2 - Get Access".
Her second and upcoming book project investigates the transatlantic connections between German and American neo-Nazis from the fall of the Third Reich through the reunification of divided Germany and the rise of the Internet era.
Dr. Kahn has received many grants and awards, including the 2019 Fritz Stern Dissertation Prize of the German Historical Institute. She was a Guest Scholar at the University of Cologne and serves on the Editorial Board of The New Fascism Syllabus.
You can watch my interview with her at our YouTube channel:
https://bit.ly/HbN-YT-S5E9-Germany
🚩Other Mentioned Interviews:
🎧 S5EA: Is America Making Germany's Past Mistakes?
🚩Image attribution:
Image of German flag by Chickenonline from Pixabay
🚩Adel Aali
host & producer
☑️Where to find my program:
Home:https://historybehindnews.com
Spotify:🎧https://bit.ly/HbN-Podcast-Spotify
Apple:🎧https://bit.ly/HbN-Podcast-Apple
YouTube:▶️https://bit.ly/HbN-YT-Sub
Adel on Facebook and X.com
Click here and join our other supporters in thenews peeler community. Thank you.
🎵 attribution, links and license for thetheme music in this podcast: The Success by Keys of Moon | https://soundcloud.com/keysofmoon Music promoted by https://www.free-stock-music.com. Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0): https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Scholars in Your Inbox?
150 scholars and counting! So don't miss HbN guest scholars’ weekly takes on the history behind our news.
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