The Buck Starts Here - Presidents, Policies, Hilarious History

We showed up ready to drag Andrew Jackson—and somehow left kinda rooting for the guy.

Before he was torching democracy and flexing executive power like a toddler with a crown, Jackson was a dirt-poor, rage-powered teen orphan with a scar on his face and a grudge against the British.

In this jaw-dropping origin story, Kyle and Eric trace how this scrappy frontier misfit went from bootless brawler to war hero, courtroom enforcer, and surprise national darling.

He lost his whole family, got stabbed in the face, shot in the chest, and still managed to climb the ranks, write a state constitution, and casually steal Florida. Like him or not, the man did not come to play.

Come for the chaos. Stay for the uncomfortable empathy.

🎧 Like what you heard? Don’t just sit there—subscribe, rate, and share The Buck Starts Here!

🖥️ Visit buckstartsherepodcast.com for bonus content, full episodes, and behind-the-scenes chaos.

📬 Have thoughts? Hot takes? Historical grievances? Email us at [email protected]—we’re listening. (Unless you’re defending Buchanan. Then… maybe don’t.)

Music:

Semper Fidelis by Heftone Banjo Orchestra, Free Music Archive, license CC-BY-SA

IMAGES:

Portrait: Jengod, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons

Abolition Poster: Boston Public Library, CC BY 2.0https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Dred Scott:  Schultze, Louis, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Waxhaw, NC map: The original uploader was Seth Ilys at English Wikipedia., CC BY-SA 3.0http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/, via Wikimedia Commons

Brave Boy: published by Currier and Ives, circa 1876, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Rachel Donelson Jackson: Ralph Eleaser Whiteside Earl, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

The Duel: Unidentified illustrator, Public domain, viaWikimedia Commons

Jean Lafitte: anonymous, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

General Jackson: John Wesley Jarvis, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons

Battle of New Orleans: Kurz & Allison., Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Battle of Horseshoe Bend: The New York Public Library,Digital Gallery [1], Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Adams Onis Treaty: Milenioscuro, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Think the Founders shot their shot with the First Five? Please. The back half of the Bill of Rights is where it really gets spicy. Kyle and Eric Mason break down Amendments 6–10—and then hit you with a bonus round so wild it involves smugglers, speedy trials, and a college kid with a C paper who rewrote the Constitution out of pure spite.

We’re talking civil juries, cruel and unusual punishment (hi, bail system), and the Ninth Amendment’s legal version of “don’t tell me what I can’t do.” Oh—and the Tenth? That’s the one that lets your driver’s license work in every state and turned America into a capitalist monster truck. Buckle in. No, actually—don’t. The Founders wouldn’t have wanted that kind of government overreach.

Fife and Drum:

"Loopster" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

The Founding Fathers were wild, opinionated, and absolutely not here for standing armies in their guest rooms—let’s get into it. In this Buck Wild episode of The Buck Starts Here, Kyle and Eric catapult you back to 1791—when powdered wigs were poppin’ and the fear of standing armies was all the rage.

Get ready as we dive into the OG top five amendments—ranging from the freedom of speech (hint: Congress isn’t your modern Twitter) to the quirky art of not quartering drunk soldiers in your guest room. With sass, irreverence, and a whole lot of constitutional nerdery, we break down why the Fifth Amendment remains every stoner’s favorite “I plead the…” moment.

Plus, hear how Madison catches feelings, Franklin fights for an open window, and Eric battles 75 legal words in a single breath like he’s auditioning for a pharmaceutical commercial. If you’re looking for a funny, fiery, and historically smart podcast that explains the Bill of Rights like you’ve never heard before, hit play now!

Hit play, learn what your rights really mean, and maybe stop citing “free speech” in your group texts.

📝 Leave a review, click that follow button, and if you’ve got a hot take, drop it at [email protected].

Website: https://www.buckstartsherepodcast.com/

Because knowing your rights shouldn’t be boring—and we’re here to make sure it never is.

Fife and Drum:

"Loopster" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Unroll your canvas and dip your brush in the tea, friends. Your charmingly chaotic hosts Kyle and Eric are back, and they've summoned fan-favorite Rae Faba - our resident realism vendor - for another trip into the glittery, grimy world of early American portraiture and the messy marriage between art and truth.

We're diving deep into America’s painted past: presidential portraits with side-eye, photography that lied before Photoshop was even a thing, and one German guy who decided George Washington needed some heroic fanfic. Did women row the damn boat? Was that Monroe behind the flag using it as a giant Band-Aid? Is that a duck-banana in the background? Honestly… maybe.

🎨 It’s art history, American myth-making, and full-throttle snark—all in one delicious episode.

🔎 Featuring:
– The most theatrical river crossing in military history– Rae's Jedi holocron (yes, really)
– Why Lincoln’s head got Frankensteined onto someone else’s body
– Shelf-off shenanigans
– And the ultimate historical question: can you trust a painting with icebergs?

👇 Hit play if you love your history messy, your art opinionated, and your hosts wildly underqualified to fact-check America’s most patriotic oil painting.

🖌️ Want more realness, weirdness, and wildly good art? March yourself over to Rae’s lair: https://marshmallowheaddesign.com

🖼️ Drop a comment with your favorite historical painting bomb.
🌐 Visit us at buckstartsherepodcast.com
📸Tag us in your weirdest historical artifacts and shelf flair
💌Rate, review, and send to that friend who still thinks Washington was standing up in that damn boat.

Want a journal? Same. Start with this episode. Email us at [email protected] with the subject line Journal and we'll hook you up.

Fife and Drum:

"Loopster" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

John Quincy Adams: science nerd, policy wonk... almostfunder of a journey to the center of the freaking Earth? Yeah, that happened. Kind of.

This week, Kyle and Eric dig into the gloriously unhinged tale of John Cleves Symmes Jr.—an ex-Army guy turned HollowEarth hype man—who tried to convince Congress that the Earth was basically a cosmic donut. And guess what? It almost worked.

Was JQA secretly into sci-fi? Did Congress take leave of itssenses? Why did the frontier love this guy while Harvard told him to kick rocks? We’ve got conspiracies, crank science, and just enough Manifest Destiny to make it weird.

💌 Send us your fantheories (or geological maps) at [email protected]
🌍Dive deeper at buckstartsherepodcast.com
✅Hit follow, leave a review, and remember—there’s no “the” in our email, and no bottom to this rabbit hole.Fife and Drum:

"Loopster" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 Licensehttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

This one’s got it all: dysentery, white savior complexes, land “purchases” no one understood, and Francis Scott Key playing dictator from D.C. Welcome to Liberia, brought to you by James Monroe and the “philanthropists” ofthe American Colonization Society.

In this bonus episode of Buck Wild, Kyle and Eric rip the powdered wig off the American Colonization Society’s misguided plan to ship freed slaves off to West Africa like that somehow solved racism. (Spoiler: it didn’t.)

We’re talking:

• Sherbro Island: dysentery’s favorite vacation spot

• Monrovia: named for Monroe, because of course it was

• A parade of pro-slavery politicians pretending this wascharity

• And the chef’s kiss cherry on top—Liberia’s first fewdecades being micromanaged by rich white men who’d never set foot there.

It’s tragic, it’s infuriating, and yeah—it’s got jokes.Because if we don’t laugh at history’s worst ideas, we might just scream.

🎧 Smash play on Spotify,Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your fill of historical chaos.
📨Want a free journal? Email [email protected] with thesubject line “Journal.”
🌐 More sass, sources, and bad decisions at buckstartsherepodcast.com

Fife and Drum:

"Loopster" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Gather ‘round and clutch your Constitution, because we’rerewriting the narrative with flair.

This week, we're shining the spotlight on Paul Jennings—James Madison’s enslaved footman, secret memoirist, freedom-funder, and the real MVP behind that whole “Dolley saved the portrait” story. (She didn’t. She sentPaul. Let’s get it right.)

From setting the president’s table to setting the damnrecord straight, Paul lived through wars, whispers, and wig-powdered nonsense—and still had the nerve to fund The Pearl Incident, the largest escape attempt of enslaved people in U.S. history. And oh yeah, he wrote thefirst-ever White House memoir while he was at it. Casual.

We’ve got:
🔥High-seas abolitionist drama
🎨Presidential portrait heists
💥Mob chaos in DC
⚖️A random Millard Fillmore redemption arc??
✨And a butterfly effect that ends with Frederick freaking Douglass showing up to save the day.

So press play and prepare to rage-laugh your way through the side of Madison’s story that textbooks conveniently left out.

💌 Wanna win one of our JQA inspired journals? Email [email protected] with thesubject line: Journal!

🌐 For more delightful presidential drama, head to buckstartsherepodcast.com
📩Need to yell at us or send historical memes? We live for it: [email protected]

🎥 Watch the episode on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCPrOsk_fv1b0nYci9ln-aHw

🎧 Follow, rate, and review or we’re showing up at your house with a framed portrait of Dolleyand a very stern fact-check.

Fife and Drum:

"Loopster" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 Licensehttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Jefferson may have had fast horses and a fancy violin, but in this episode, Kyle and Eric are here to expose the soft-handed myth of the so-called “common man” and hand the mic to someone way more impressive: Benjamin. Freaking. Banneker.

We’re talking clocks made out of wood that ran for 50 years, almanacs so accurate they made 18th-century sailors weep, and abolitionist essays sneakily tucked between tide charts. Oh, and he casually called Jefferson out to his face (well, via letter, but still—savage).

Meanwhile, Jefferson’s biggest accomplishment? The swivel chair. Cute.

Come for the roast, stay for the brilliance. And maybe start questioning who really deserves a spot on Mount Rushmore.

📬 Want a journal? Email us at [email protected] with the subject line “Journal.”
🌐buckstartsherepodcast.com
🎧Tap follow, leave a review, and tell a friend that Jefferson was not the main character.

Fife and Drum:

"Loopster" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

You thought we were done with John Adams? Think again. In this bonus episode, Kyle and Eric mop up the revolutionary tea that didn't make it into Parts I–IV. From Franklin’s naked diplomacy and Adams’ tooth-rotting sweet tooth to Haitian revolutions and rumors of London mistresses, we’re closing out the Adams arc with one final chaotic cannonball.

Get ready for HBO callouts, bathtub chess matches, and the Founding Father who really deserved better PR. Justice for John, y’all.

🎧 Subscribe and never miss an episode!
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Email [email protected] with subject line “journal”
🌐tsppod.com
📸@buckstartsherepodcast

Fife and Drum:

"Loopster" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

We weren’t done with George Washington—not even close. In this bonus episode, we dig up the wild side quests and forgotten facts we missed the first time around.

Meet Lawrence, George’s hot-shot older brother who basically kickstarted the whole “military hero” storyline. Travel with young GW to Barbados (where he caught smallpox and lifelong immunity) and find out why his "wooden teeth” were actually just expensive and disgusting. Oh, and the cherry tree story? Total historical fanfic.

From forced inoculations to the Whiskey Rebellion (spoiler: he pardoned them!), George Washington somehow lives up to the myth. We didn’t believe it either—until now.

🎧 Listen, follow, and leave us a 5-star review on your podcast app of choice! It helps people find the show and feeds our egos. Win-win.

📝 Want to win a “The Buck Starts Here” journal?

Email us at [email protected], subject line Journal. You’ll be entered to win a journal worthy of your deepest Founding Father fanfiction.

Catch up on past episodes at buckstartsherepodcast.com

Watch on YouTube

Fife and Drum:

"Loopster" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/