All purpose news and politics thread part VI: This Is Not The Time For Posing

[Jack Dracula]

How does he own 9/11? I thought his response was actually pretty measured, all things considered.

I remember him reaching out and making efforts to demonstrate that they were only after extremist Muslims, for example, whereas Trump threw out his China virus BS.

Bush ignored the intelligence reports left by the Clinton admin regarding the probability of a major attack on US soil by Osama Bin Laden.

[KNIGHT OF THE LAKE]

How does he own 9/11? I thought his response was actually pretty measured, all things considered.

I remember him reaching out and making efforts to demonstrate that they were only after extremist Muslims, for example, whereas Trump threw out his China virus BS.

I mean aside from not taking any of the intel on Bin Laden seriously. 9/11 never happens under Clinton. Clinton had Bin Laden as a priority and pretty much anyone in intelligence at the time has corroborated that

[Jack Dracula]

Donald Rumsfeld has died at 88.

Cheney and Rumsfeld were directly responsible for the down-sizing and privatization of the military during both the Bush administrations. They set things up so their industrial contractor buddies would make a lot of money on the next war the US got into and by a miraculous coincidence they were both in the administration that got us into the next two wars. Funny how stuff works out sometimes.

He won’t be missed.

[worstblogever]

Donald Rumsfeld has died at 88.

He can have a chat in the afterlife with all the troops that he got killed in Iraq for considering body armor to be something they didn't need.

[worstblogever]

Up in Washington state, we have another live one from the GQP... Republiqan state legislator Jim Walsh was going around the capitol wearing a yellow star of David to compare himself to a Holocaust victim because he had to obey vaccination mandates.

[Tami]

Up in Washington state, we have another live one from the GQP... Republiqan state legislator Jim Walsh was going around the capitol wearing a yellow star of David to compare himself to a Holocaust victim because he had to obey vaccination mandates.

Again?!? I thought that was an old trick.

[Mister Mets]

That still puts W middle of the pack.

Even your most ardently liberal historians are keeping W in the bottom middle.

Bush had some bright spots whereas Trump has ZERO things you can point to that he made better.

I suspect the most ardently liberal historians have W lower, even if he now averages at bottom middle.

One major thing Bush did was his work on global AIDS prevention.

https://www.vox.com/2015/7/8/8894019...-w-bush-pepfar

The verbal agreement seems like it was only given so that Cosby wouldn't perjure himself under oath in a civil trial.

So, WTF? Pleading the 5th doesn't work in civil

You can't be made to incriminate yourself in a civil trial, although a negative inference can be drawn against you.

At the very least, it shows which kind of “privilege” greases the system more. Why else do you think “generational wealth” comes up often in “social justice” discourse?

The legal argument that worked for Cosby's lawyers also works for other defendants.

That's part of the way the legal system works. The lawyers afforded by the rich make legal arguments that could later be used by other Americans.

[BeastieRunner]

I suspect the most ardently liberal historians have W lower, even if he now averages at bottom middle.

One major thing Bush did was his work on global AIDS prevention.

https://www.vox.com/2015/7/8/8894019...-w-bush-pepfar

The bottom quartile has people that caused genocide, a stock market crash, a civil war, an expansion of slavery, the creation of Jim Crow laws, amongst other terrible things. There's also one that had the shortest presidency of all time. A lot of the bottom quartile POTUS make W look not so bad.

In the latest C-SPAN (2021) survey of historians, I found it interesting that Obama is now in the top 10 and Reagan is back in the top 10, at #9. Trump did Ronald a lot of favors when you think about it.

W appears to be settling around the number 30 spot, in the third quartile. And I think that is where he should be.

[Tami]

Latest First Nations discovery reveals 182 unmarked graves at Canada school

A First Nations community in western Canada has discovered the remains of nearly 200 people on the grounds of a former residential school, adding to the growing tally of unmarked graves across the country.

The Lower Kootenay Band said on Wednesday that ground-penetrating radar had revealed 182 human remains at St Eugene’s Mission residential school, near the city of Cranbrook, British Columbia. Some of the remains were buried in shallow graves only three and four feet deep.

“It is believed that the remains of these 182 souls are from the member Bands of the Ktunaxa Nation, neighbouring First Nations communities and the community of ?Aq’am,” the Lower Kootenay band said in a statement.

From the 19th century until the 1990s, more than 150,000 Indigenous children were forced to attend state-funded schools in an campaign to forcibly assimilate them into Canadian society. Abuse was rife at the schools where thousands of children died of disease, neglect and other causes.

The discovery at St Eugene’s adds to the growing list of unmarked graves. Last week, the Cowessess First Nation in Saskatchewan announced the discovery of 751 possible unmarked graves. Last month, the Tk’emlúps te Secwe̓pemc announced they had found 215 unmarked graves, most of which are believed to be children.

Many survivors of the school say that their trauma was compounded by Canada’s failure to face up to what they have known for years: that countless friends and relatives died at the institutions which were supposed to be caring for them.

“People are finally listening to us. And I’m glad that they’re finding them and taking care of what needs to be taken care of,” said Jack Kruger, who, in 1956 was taken from his family and transported by train and cattle truck to St Eugene’s. He was six years old at the time.

“As they uncover more graves at other sites, I’ll have to relive it all over again. I don’t anticipate that I’ll stop having nightmares or pain for the next two years. The next two years, you’re going to find many, many, many, many more graves.”

[WestPhillyPunisher]

My Mt. Suckmore since 2018 has been Andrew Johnson, James Buchanan, Donald Trump, and I dunno for the 4th ... either Harding, Pierce, or Hoover. Maybe Nixon.

I'd make Nixon the fourth. Until Trump came along, no president had committed so many crimes while in office as Tricky Dick.

[BeastieRunner]

I'd make Nixon the fourth. Until Trump came along, no president had committed so many crimes while in office as Tricky Dick.

Teapot Dome was WAAAAY worse than anything Nixon did. And that is just the beginning of the scandals for Harding. The thing with Harding was all this came to the open AFTER he left ... which starting with Nixon and on through Trump ... I don't think you could do things like Watergate, Teapot Dome, etc. without it becoming public. I think technology has gotten to a point that it is really hard to suppress that kind of scandal. For example, see Gaetz. That is SOP for your post-FDR GOP and sadly, a lot of Dems. But now you get caught so easily.

I often debate between Harding and Nixon as my 4th ... and it usually comes down to senseless war vs. crazy bribery scheme. Today I would lean towards Harding but tomorrow ... It could be Nixon. Sometimes I remember Hoovervilles and go with Herbert.

Both are worthy of the hall of shame.

Speaking of Teapot, in 2019 it was looking like Trump was doing the same thing, got caught, and had to end it.

Can't even bribe people correctly.

The legacy of the Trump self-own.

[Hellion]

So the Onion wins for delivering the most appropriate and blistering headline announcing Rumsfeld's death:

https://www.theonion.com/weapon-of-m...-88-1847205911

[KNIGHT OF THE LAKE]

The bottom quartile has people that caused genocide, a stock market crash, a civil war, an expansion of slavery, the creation of Jim Crow laws, amongst other terrible things. There's also one that had the shortest presidency of all time. A lot of the bottom quartile POTUS make W look not so bad.

In the latest C-SPAN (2021) survey of historians, I found it interesting that Obama is now in the top 10 and Reagan is back in the top 10, at #9. Trump did Ronald a lot of favors when you think about it.

W appears to be settling around the number 30 spot, in the third quartile. And I think that is where he should be.

As far as Bush goes you could easily say the Iraq is the worst foreign policy mistake we ever made and it undoubtedly has surpassed Vietnam at this point, 9/11 was the biggest terrorist attack on the mainland, and the recession was the worst economic crash since the Great Depression. Those are 3 huge blunders that are near impossible not view as some of the biggest modern failures of a President ever. Those are never going to age well. I wouldn't put him last. But he's easily a bottom 10 (imo 5 or 6). The big question is how do balance modern influence vs the earliest era where Presidents significantly shaped the country at points? It's much harder for a current President to change the course of history the way someone could when the country was still forming.

Still I think it's near impossible to rank the last 5 or so Presidents fairly in the same sense you would rank the others. Even now we are finally reckoning with how much of an impact Reagan actually had on the political apparatus in this counrty in the decades since him. In the last century FDR is the only President besides Reagan who had that much of a pure impact on that front.

Obama is really tough to rank too. His big strengths are going to be the recovery after the recession and the ACA, but who knows how those evolve and morph over the next few decades. Aside from that, most of his big accomplishments were sadly executive orders that Trump stripped away. He also didn't get out of the wars and has the drone strikes on his resume. Bill Clinton used to be viewed as a massive success after George W Bush and now his esteem has significantly fallen 20 years later.

[KNIGHT OF THE LAKE]

Teapot Dome was WAAAAY worse than anything Nixon did. And that is just the beginning of the scandals for Harding. The thing with Harding was all this came to the open AFTER he left ... which starting with Nixon and on through Trump ... I don't think you could do things like Watergate, Teapot Dome, etc. without it becoming public. I think technology has gotten to a point that it is really hard to suppress that kind of scandal. For example, see Gaetz. That is SOP for your post-FDR GOP and sadly, a lot of Dems. But now you get caught so easily.

I often debate between Harding and Nixon as my 4th ... and it usually comes down to senseless war vs. crazy bribery scheme. Today I would lean towards Harding but tomorrow ... It could be Nixon. Sometimes I remember Hoovervilles and go with Herbert.

Both are worthy of the hall of shame.

Speaking of Teapot, in 2019 it was looking like Trump was doing the same thing, got caught, and had to end it.

Can't even bribe people correctly.

The legacy of the Trump self-own.

Thing with Nixon was that he was actually a pretty effective President. Corrupt as **** and made some big mistakes. But on a purely executive level he was a good leader and got some positive things done. His detente strategy was amazing for relations with the Soviets and China, he established the EPA and was very strong on energy policy trying to make us self sufficient, he established OSHA, for better or worse he did get us out of Vietnam like he campaigned on.

I won't say that abolves his sins, but it keeps him away from the Presidents who have nothing but disaster.

[BeastieRunner]

As far as Bush goes you could easily say the Iraq is the worst foreign policy mistake we ever made and it undoubtedly has surpassed Vietnam at this point, 9/11 was the biggest terrorist attack on the mainland, and the recession was the worst economic crash since the Great Depression. Those are 3 huge blunders that are near impossible not view as some of the biggest modern failures of a President ever. Those are never going to age well. I wouldn't put him last. But he's easily a bottom 10 (imo 5 or 6). The big question is how do balance modern influence vs the earliest era where Presidents significantly shaped the country at points? It's much harder for a current President to change the course of history the way someone could when the country was still forming.

Still I think it's near impossible to rank the last 5 or so Presidents fairly in the same sense you would rank the others. Even now we are finally reckoning with how much of an impact Reagan actually had on the political apparatus in this counrty in the decades since him. In the last century FDR is the only President besides Reagan who had that much of a pure impact on that front.

Obama is really tough to rank too. His big strengths are going to be the recovery after the recession and the ACA, but who knows how those evolve and morph over the next few decades. Aside from that, most of his big accomplishments were sadly executive orders that Trump stripped away. He also didn't get out of the wars and has the drone strikes on his resume. Bill Clinton used to be viewed as a massive success after George W Bush and now his esteem has significantly fallen 20 years later.

Clinton is settling around 19-20. I think that is fair given his other issues. A LOT of hard right GenX Americans are starting to see his economic policies would've been nice to keep around. Even the Boomers are softening and wondering what Gore would've been like ... Clinton is aging well. They are also having a hard time arguing against the debt that Clinton didn't add to. In fact, from 1980 on, Clinton added the least amount to our national debt. Watch him get on the $20 in another 20-30 years, LOL!

You make good points on W but still ... Jackson relocated and killed people within our own borders ... Obama and Trump didn't end the Iraq war either. 9/11 or something like it was probably going to happen regardless of who was POTUS. And Trump's pre-Pandemic economic slide I think has softened the blow of Bush's recession, just like W's recession softened the blow of HW's ... that soften the blow of the last Republican's recession ... and so on. And a lot of liberal and conservative Presidential historians say W's biggest problems were who he was surrounded by, names like Cheney and Rumsfield are thrown out as bad influences.

Nobody's perfect. There is a good chance W falls into the bottom 4th in another election or 2 anyway. I think Obama and his legacy will be fine. He gets Biden and Biden's successor as a win and that hasn't happened to a modern POTUS since Ronald.