Barry M. Mitnick

Trump put a portrait of Andrew Jackson in the Oval Office when he was president. Oliver Contreras-Pool/Getty Images

Trump wasn’t the first president to try to politicize the civil service – which remains at risk of returning to Jackson’s ‘spoils system’

For decades, presidents beginning with Andrew Jackson routinely replaced large swaths of the government workforce, often requiring them to pay fees to political parties in exchange for their jobs.
Would you buy medicine from this man? Carol M. Highsmith/Wikimedia Commons

Why do people believe con artists?

People everywhere have always had a sweet tooth for the unreal, enthralled by what should be taken as too good to be true. Why do people ignore the obvious and believe the bizarre?

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