Sunday, February 06, 2011

Ronnie at One-Hundred



I am proud to say that I am not one of the many who foolishly succumbed to the phenomena I used to refer to as "Ronniemania". I was never naive enough to fall for that cheap "aw shucks" persona that the guy exuded like the smell of horseshit. And for the life of me I've never been able to understand this country's dysfunctional love affair with this corrupt and feeble-minded old fool. At a time in his life when he should have been tucked snugly away in an assisted living program somewhere, being spoon-fed oatmeal, Ronald Reagan was living in the Executive Mansion. Having made myself clear on this subject however, I might as well come clean:

I voted for Ronal
d Reagan in 1980.

This is not to imply that thirty years ago (Great googly moogly! Where has the time gone!) I was ideologically in tune with Reagan and that in subseq
uent years I have seen the light. The sad, pathetic truth of the matter is that on the evening of Tuesday, November 4, 1980 I got so falling-down intoxicated, I voted for the man just as a joke. A failed, "B" movie actor in the White House? That ought to be good for a nice, long chuckle, I thought. When I was twenty-two I took nothing seriously. Three decades later, I'm not laughing.

On that ominous night, I was a cub reporter for a community radio station that has since been Clear Channeled out of existence, W-ALL of Middletown, NY. I had been assigned the task of covering the Republicans. But by the time I arrived at their headquarters at six PM, the results were a foregone conclusion and the place was empty. They had all skipped out of town to celebrate "this great victory for the American people" at the Waldorf Astoria in New York City. I had no other choice but to walk across the street
with my recording gear in hand to the restaurant where the Democrats were holding what can only be described as the political equivalent of an Irish wake. I was more than happy to participate in their joyful, drunken mourning. At exactly 8:45 PM, with fifteen minutes left before the polls closed, I staggered one/tenth of a mile to the Town Hall and voted. It was in that condition that I cast my precious ballot for the likes of Ronald Reagan. Four years later I was alert enough to vote for Walter Mondale. I've been stone-cold sober every Election Day since.

Mother
s Against Drunk Voters. Does such an organization even exist? It should, you know. It really should.

The economic catastrophe that we are now faced with may be laid directly at Reagan's grave. Thirty years of Reaganomics - which in some ways were aided and abetted by Bill Clinton - have resulted in the decimation of a country that used to be a nice place in which to live. And here's the dirty little secret that, as far as I can tell, no one is talking about: The type of vigorous reinvestment in this country's infrastructure that is now so desperately needed - the kind initiate
d by Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal in the nineteen-thirties - is now practically impossible because of the debt we owe - much of it to Communist China. Here's another nasty little fact that everyone is ignoring: That debt is more than likely insurmountable. Isn't that a hoot?

He to
ld us that government wasn't the answer to our problems - it was the problem. He told us that instead of improving the government we should shrink it down to the size where, in the words of Grover Norquist, "it could be drowned in the bathtub". He told us that the tax cuts he planned for a class of people who already had more money than they knew what to do with would "trickle down" to the rest of us. His rival for the 1980 Republican nomination, George H-Dubya Bush, called it "voodoo economics". It was one of the few accurate things ever uttered by the senior Bush. I'm impressed.

Tax cuts for the rich and inflated spending on the military industrial complex. Reagan promised his clueless countrymen and women that he would do both while simultaneously balancing the budget. It never happened - or at least the balanced budget part never did. Today your country is in economic ruins. You can thank der gipper. The damage that this dirty old dingbat did to this once-great nation is so immense it will never be accurately assessed - it is incalculable.

And see the debt how big it's grown
but friends it hasn't been too long it wasn't big
In early nineteen eighty-one
the debt that's now a redwood tree was just a twig
And Nixon I miss you,
and I'm feeling blue
I've lost all of my senses
I'm nostalgic for you....

-To be sung to the tune of Bobby Goldsboro's maudlin classic, "Honey"

And in spite of all this, most of the American people, including some of us smart enough to know better (ATTENTION: CHRIS MATTHEWS) are still blind to his damaged legacy. A few months ago on the Morning Joe program I was shocked as I watched the distinguished historian Douglas Brinkley refer to Reagan as one of our "great" presidents - right up there with Lincoln and the two Roosevelts. If someone as smart as Brinkley doesn't get it, it's unlikely that most of the rest of us will be "getting it" any time soon.

There is at least one segment of our society where Ronald Reagan's poll numbers are in the single digits - among black people of course. How can that possibly be? That was a rhetorical question in case you were wondering.

Ronald Reagan was the most vehemently racist president since Woodrow Wilson. This is not merely my opinion, this is a fact that cannot be contested. It can be proven by a cursory examination of a quarter century of the man's misdeeds.

When Reagan was first vomited onto America's political stage in 1964, it was as a spokesman for Barry Goldwater's presidential campaign of that year. His two main talking points (aside from Medicaid and Medicare - or as he called them "socialized medicine") were Lyndon Johnson's proposed voting and civil rights acts. Reagan's subliminal message to the American people in 1964 was that he was against equal rights for all Americans.

Fast forward to the day in 1980 when he announced his candidacy for the presidency. Of all the thousands of places in the nation where he could have made that announcement, he chose Philadelphia - and I am not referring to the city of brotherly love where the Declaration of Independence was signed in 1776 - I am referring to a tiny stain on the map called Philadelphia, Mississippi; the town whose ONLY claim to fame was the brutal murder of three civil rights workers sixteen years earlier. Reagan couldn't overtly wage an "anti-nigger" campaign. He had to be a lot more subtle than that. If there was one thing that Ronnie and his henchmen were good at, it was subtlety. Without actually coming out and saying it, Reagan let the bigots know that Jim Crow would be given the red carpet treatment in his White House. It was an extension of Nixon's 1968 Southern Strategy - and it worked like a rancid breeze.

At this moment in history our previous president's popularity is as low as any ex-president since Herbert Hoover left office in 1933. This is as it should be. But why all the teary-eyed nostalgia for Reagan? People need to understand that everything George W. Bush did to us, Ronald Reagan tried to do to us - and would have done to us had his party controlled both house of congress. Fortunately that never happened. For eight long years people like Tip O'Neil and Ted Kennedy were able to keep much of Reagan's domestic craziness in check. I really miss those two.

As I said on this site a couple of years ago, what needs to be remembered is that Ronald Reagan was essentially a mask, with a twinkle in its eye and a fine Irish smile. Remove that mask and what is revealed is the twisted, hideous smirk of George W. Bush. That is the real face of the so-called "Reagan Revolution".

On February 6, 1911, one-hundred years ago today, Ronald Wilson Reagan was born in Tampico, Illinois. Unlike most of the country however, I won't be spending this day looking back on his presidency with any degree of nostalgia - trust me. I'm not celebrating the life of Ronald Reagan. I hold the hideous old bastard in complete and utter contempt.
Tom Degan
tomdegan@frontiernet.net

SUGGESTED READING:

The Acting President
by Bob Schieffer

AFTERTHOUGHT, 2/7/11:

This link was sent to me by a reader named Henry (Thank you, Henry!) It is a very good assessment of Reagan's awful legacy. It was published by a website that takes the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth very seriously. Here's a link:


http://www.liberalslikechrist.org/about/Reagan.html
And still we canonize him. Incredible.

To view more recent postings on this hideous site, please go to the following link:

"The Rant" by Tom Degan

Shameful, commie propaganda. there oughtta be a law! There will be soon I'm sure.

109 Comments:

At 6:25 AM, Anonymous boltok said...

HAPPY BIRTHDAY RON!!!

A little chronology:

Time for Choosing
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qXBswFfh6AY

CHANGE:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hpPt7xGx4Xo

Reagan V Donalson:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WaqMwCJ_m3E

Moscow State University:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1lutYGxMWeA&feature=related

 
At 8:20 AM, Blogger Jefferson's Guardian said...

Ronald Reagan was the "official" beginning of the takeover of the U.S. government by corporatism. It all started sliding downhill from that January 1981 date when he took the oath of office.

Around that time, real wages in this country started flattening and haven't recovered since. Our manufacturing infrastructure, with good-paying union jobs that were the source of much of the envy of the rest of the world, started dwindling in earnest -- helped by Reagan, the biggest union-buster of them all.

Our national debt started exploding under Reagan, becoming unmanageable and more pronounced with each subsequent presidency, until now when Tea Party proponents, with no sense of history, and obviously even less memory, lambaste the current president for a litany of excesses and grievances that began with the man they idolize to this day.

Ignorance is truly the source of the national malaise we feel right now. Unfortunately, given the right's myopic vision, and their unquestioning adherents all seemingly having their television tuners all stuck on Fox News, it seems the false gods of consumerism and "unfettered free markets" will eventually be the demise of us all.

(By the way, Boltok, until you take the initiative to learn some basic HTML and provide hyperlinks, I refuse to copy-and-paste your cited web addresses into my browser. I hope all of Tom's loyal readers feel the same way.)

 
At 8:23 AM, Anonymous boltok said...

JG
I always though the liberals were inherantly lazy. I underestimated how so.

 
At 8:41 AM, Anonymous Will Shirley said...

Boltok, I was wondering if you consider your snarky quips to be a sign of cleverness? Are your friends standing around giving high fives over your latest insult to your fellow citizens? I consider myself to fairly conservative, in the true sense of the word, but people like you insist I am a liberal because I do not hate others like you do, whereas I consider them to be liberal because they are so free with their advice on all matters, even the ones they clearly have no knowledge about. I save my venom for real enemies of democracy like the corporatists who run the country and who have saddled us with trillions of dollars owed to the Communists. I wonder if you could please expound on your opinion of us owing that much money, borrowed by both parties, to our avowed enemies the Communist Party of China? As a conservative I am appalled at the very concept of letting the Commies grip us by the short hair, yet that is what President Cheney did to us!

Do you actually have political opinions or do you just enjoy insulting people? Most of your posts have the intellectual level of a 12 year old boy in a boring wedding who sticks his tongue out at the minister. Seriously, take some time to actually explain how you expect America to ever pay our 14 trillion dollar debt without selling off California and Hawaii to the Communists? Blow them off? As in default on our loans? Yes, that would be possible, but it would be suicide as a civilised nation. We could sell all our nukes but that wouldn't touch the size of the debt. Come on, bury the cheap insults and say something interesting about this problem, if you can. We all know you hate people you consider to be liberals, you have established this over many posts, but I have not seen anything constructive from you, ever.

I am 60 years old and I have been in riots in Berkeley, maced and beaten, I always vote for the person, not the party and I feel we should pay our way while taking care of our fallen fellow citizens as any civilized country does. You seem to have done nothing but bitch that other people are not as cruel and ignorant as you seem to be. Prove me wrong, say something constructive or well-informed. I'd like to read something from you with depth and insight, something other than "Nyah, Nyah, yer a stinky liberal!"

 
At 10:21 AM, Blogger Jefferson's Guardian said...

Boltok, you said...

"I always though [sic] the liberals were inherantly [sic] lazy. I underestimated how so."

It would seem the laziness stems from your end, sir, and your total lack of basic "netiquette" to enhance readability (and enjoyment). But this doesn't surprise me, for you're only exhibiting the typical narcissistic and selfish behavior that's characteristic of most of your clan.

And what's the deal with your incessant spelling miscues? Do you know how to use spell-check? It appears not. Perhaps you might take the advice of Abraham Lincoln, who observed, it is "better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt."

 
At 10:42 AM, Blogger Nance said...

When you develop your ideas and philosophies about life in an idealized past and hone them on a Hollywood sound stage, you get some screwy ideas about America.

We've tried this experiment enough times now: Shirley Temple Black, Sonny Bono, Fred Gandy, Ronnie Reagan, Ah-nold, Fred Thompson. No matter where they started out as individuals, they wound up in the land of make-believe. They have to be out of touch with where the rest of us wind up.

 
At 10:54 AM, Blogger Leslie Parsley said...

Here are five myths about the Gipper. Boltok, you might want to take a look at it - if you can read, which is up for debate since you can't write.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/story/2011/02/04/ST2011020403674.html?hpid=topnews

Even NPT is jumping on the band wagon with an entire year devoted to that senile grade D actor.

 
At 10:58 AM, Anonymous beatrix said...

Ronnie Reagan-the start of the EVIL EMPIRE.
I just watched Aaron Sorkin on CBS Sunday Morning news who basically said he was sick of the glorification of "dumbness" in the country. I couldn't agree more, and a population that feels it owes a debt of gratitude to one of the country's "greatest" presidents, Ron Reagan is as dumb as it gets.

 
At 11:01 AM, Anonymous Browns44 said...

"When you develop your ideas and philosophies about life in an idealized past and hone them on a Hollywood sound stage, you get some screwy ideas about America."

I feel the same way about former professors whose educational foot print is locked up from public view, whose next job was a "community organizer"and who did not finished their elected term of office.

 
At 12:04 PM, Anonymous boltok said...

JG/BS

If you wish to implore others not to view some of the great political speeches of all time, just say it. And while you are at it, decry the few media sources that don't transmit the liberal talking points (those evil corporate transmissions).

Please provide me a guide to etiquette for blogs whose author and commenters refer to a Supreme Court member as a house N and use other debasing and expletive filled “rants”. I’m sure that guide will include a technical section describing how to create hyperlinks, so the lazy, inebriated or handicapped reader/commenter need not highlight, copy, paste and then press enter.

If someone asked me the probability of Mr. Shirley having been belted over the THC container on his shoulders at Berkeley during the 60's, I would have guessed 100%.

Sorry for being snarky.

 
At 12:46 PM, Anonymous boltok said...

Not to digress on the 100th birthday of one of the greatest American Preisdents, but I thought I'd share an editorial from former Clintonite turned T-Partier. Heartfelt apology for no hyperlink.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/eac8f61c-2979-11e0-bb9b-00144feab49a.html

 
At 1:10 PM, Blogger Raymond Bally said...

Hi Tom, Great post regarding Ronnie RayGuns!

 
At 2:21 PM, Blogger Lydia said...

Tom! I just found my political soulmate! Oh, how I loathed the man. Loathed then, still do (although W softened the hatred just a wee bit for me during his administration).

I never voted for Reagan. But I drank a lot then and, as a result, I lived with my mother in the mid-80s while I transitioned into being a human being. She hated Reagan too, but not as much as I (until this moment I didn't know there was another like me). When her TV was on and Ronnie came on screen if I was anywhere nearby I would stand close to the tube facing away from it, and position my clothes in order to bareass Reagan. I was a wild and crazy "kid"...

Some shocking info about the debt here that is sickening. Thank you for the extra candle on the birthday cake of this day to illuminate the truth.

 
At 2:53 PM, Blogger Unknown said...

Dear Tom,

"There you go again"! You can't rain on our parade, pal. Here at the Reagan Library (east) we'll be celebrating the Gipper's centennial all night.

Stop by for some cake and ice cream!

Best regards
Your Bro-in-law

 
At 3:08 PM, Blogger Nomi said...

I was in high school when RR was first elected, and he was one of the first people whose glittering example taught me that age does NOT always bring wisdom.
There is not one thing about his time in office that I will celebrate.
~

It turns out today is also the birthday of Bob Marley and Francois Truffaut (sorry I am not spelling the latter correctly), two artists who made real contributions, were, of course, controversial, and died young.

 
At 3:44 PM, Blogger Tom Degan said...

Hi, Dr. Jack!

This is one subject that my beloved brother-in-law and I have never agreed upon, folks. Still he's a great fellow and a great doctor.

Cheers!

 
At 4:15 PM, Anonymous sharon in nh said...

I sometimes think that a long memory is a curse. (apologies to George Santayana.) I tried very hard to block out the Reagan and Bush I (essentially Reagan's third term) years. I shut off the television whenever he came on (just as I did with Bush II, until I finally had to cancel my cable subscription). I kept telling myself that we would get through this, that in 4 years there would be another election. (Just as I got through the Bush II years.)

Thank you, Tom, for stating the truth. The United States, former democratic superpower, owes Communist China a debt that can never be repaid, and the seeds of our destruction were sown in November 1980. I still don't understand how it happened, but I suspect it was thanks to a masterful manipulation of the mass media, plus the southern strategy that was pioneered by Nixon. In fact, if Nixon had been as telegenic as Reagan, the beginning of the end might have started 8 years sooner.

I celebrated my 60th birthday last month. I don't want to learn Chinese. But the current high school generation will have to. Meanwhile, that same corporate media tries to distract us with fears about the possibility of democracy in the Middle East.

 
At 5:07 PM, Blogger jurassicpork said...

In my retrospective, I suggest in lieu of a minute of silence, a minute of piss and think about Reagan's grave when we whiz.

It's really the very least we can do for the Gipper.

 
At 6:41 PM, Blogger charles moore said...

Tom, well spoken. I was not taken with Reagan then and time has done nothing to change my mind. He was a complete and total failure as a president, surpassed only by George W. and the sad thing is how so many who were hurt most by his actions seem to idolize him.

I think Nance makes a good point that politicians from Hollywood have a difficult time separating reality form a movie script.

 
At 7:03 PM, Blogger Tom Degan said...

Hello, Charles. There are too many times to count when the gipper confused Hollywood fiction with reality.

Then there was the time he told an interviewer that he was part of a film crew when Auschwitz was was liberated. The only problem with that little story was the documented fact that Ronald Reagan never left California during the entire duration of the war. He was in uniform alright, but he was assigned to the Hal Roach lot, making Army training films. Also there at the same time were the little Rascals.

I wonder if he got high with Buckwheat and Porky....

 
At 7:13 PM, Blogger Modusoperandi said...

boltok:
* I notice that in that last link Reagan is reading off a teleprompter.
* To post links in a goodly format, enter them as [a href="www.website.com"]appropriate description[/a]
(replace the left brackets with left arrows and the right brackets with right arrows)
* And while I'm not one to point out the poor spelling another Firefox has a built in spell checker. It helpses me. When I'm typing it even underlines every word I use that's awesome! True story.

"Not to digress on the 100th birthday of one of the greatest American Preisdents, but I thought I'd share an editorial from former Clintonite turned T-Partier. Heartfelt apology for no hyperlink."
If memory serves, Rubin was one of the Big Brains behind the repeal of Glass-Steagall.
Second, Rubin's a Wall Street insider, not a Tea Partier. Goldman-Sachs and Citigroup are not angry white retirees holding "Obama medicine man" placards while seated, wheezing, in lawn chairs.
While any mention of the Deficit Commission (who's decided that Saving America would be best served by making grandma eat catfood) makes my Spidey-Sense tingle, most of what Rubin said isn't what an asshole would say. This leads me to conclude that either you didn't read it or you didn't read it thoroughly.

Browns44 "I feel the same way about former professors whose educational foot print is locked up from public view, whose next job was a 'community organizer' and who did not finished their elected term of office."
Now you're just being ridiculous. Sarah Palin was neither a professor nor a community organizer.
...
Wait. Holy shit. You mean Obama...who "did not finish [his] elected term of office" because he'd just won the friggin' election.

 
At 8:46 PM, Blogger hankstone said...

A little reminder of the true "character" of the administration of the man about whom a book called "When Character Was King" was written.
"http://www.liberalslikechrist.org/about/Reagan.html

 
At 9:17 PM, Blogger Citizen Sane said...

A detailed, well-documented piece today on SC highlights all the atrocities Ronnie Ray-gun enabled and actively facilitated.
Check it out here.

Not quite the wholesome image his rabid, brain-dead repug fan base has constructed in their hopelessly muddled minds...

 
At 7:21 AM, Anonymous boltok said...

MO
You have a spidey sense? So, your another one of the Zentai superheros that comment here.

I will try to employ advanced html in the future based on your guidance.

I didn't label Rubin an asshole but you are correct about his past. The interesting thing is he is a democrat opening his mouth about our impossible financial condition, made much worse in the last three years. Off the top of my head, if you deduct the Obama years and debt boarded from Fannie and Freddie, the national debt would probably be around 8 trillion. That ball park is probably correct. You are correct on Rubin's past, but he also represents the money behind the liberal movement. Obama and his people have the liberal Wall Street banks and hedge funds top on his list as look toward 2012. That is why I find Rubin's editorial interesting, the rats are starting to jump from the debt ship they created.

On teleprompters, many have used them and they are not inherently wrong, but most do not use them 100% of the time. President Jug Ears uses a teleprompter more than 99% of the time based on my calculations. When Jug Ears can command the attention of a 6th grade class without a teleprompter, let me know.

 
At 10:46 AM, Blogger Ellis D., Esq. said...

I just wish Hinckley had been a better shot !!! I guess he wasn't CIA trained like Chapman.....

 
At 11:06 AM, Blogger Modusoperandi said...

boltok "I will try to employ advanced html in the future based on your guidance."
It can't be "advanced". This is because I barely even know that much about codey, um, stuff.

"The interesting thing is he is a democrat opening his mouth about our impossible financial condition, made much worse in the last three years."
{citation needed} on that last bit (you know, in comparison to whatever meme the GOP is pushing about what they would've done instead. The last I remember was that their version of the Stimulus was much smaller and was mostly tax cuts).

"Off the top of my head, if you deduct the Obama years and debt boarded from Fannie and Freddie, the national debt would probably be around 8 trillion. That ball park is probably correct."
Your math is shit. It was $10.7 trillion at the end of 2008. Also, a bunch of the extra is structural, pre-exists the Obama administration, and can't reasonably be cut, because it would be contractionary, or can't be politically cut, because the GOP loves those Bush-era "temporary" tax cuts (at least those for the top 2%) so much that they held the unemployed hostage to keep them. (here's a link illustrating that point, that I have provided before, that you didn't read then, and that you won't read now. This is because you simply don't care what the facts actually are).

"You are correct on Rubin's past, but he also represents the money behind the liberal movement."
Wrong! It's, in part, the money behind both movements. You can't lose if you bankroll both sides.
Also, Obama raised a foolish sum in individual contributions via interwebs (money that he won't get nearly as much of precisely because he's not the liberal he's accused of).

"Obama and his people have the liberal Wall Street banks and hedge funds top on his list as look toward 2012."
The what Wall Street banks? Since when is the relentless push for unregulated trade a liberal thing? Since when is "socialism for the rich, dog-eat-dog for everyone else" a liberal thing?

"That is why I find Rubin's editorial interesting, the rats are starting to jump from the debt ship they created."
Ahhh, so that's why Obama started the Deficit Commission, to hide the fact that he's a liberal by readying the nation for belt tightening! (note: wealthy exempt).
That sneaky sneak!

"On teleprompters, many have used them and they are not inherently wrong, but most do not use them 100% of the time. President Jug Ears uses a teleprompter more than 99% of the time based on my calculations. When Jug Ears can command the attention of a 6th grade class without a teleprompter, let me know."
Do the House Republicans count? See "Obama in the lion's den", a link that I provided for you the last time you said essentially the same damn thing that you will again ignore, because smearing what passes for the Left in Washington is more important to you than being intellectually honest.
You know, you should find someone else to accuse liberals of sloth. I can't help but feel as though I'm the only one in this dialogue who's putting any thought into it. I'm stuck in half a conversation. Worse, I'm stuck debunking the same damn points again and again.

I hate to be rude, even after you've consistently argued in bad faith and poisoned the conversation with poorly thought out points that are trivially easy to debunk, but if there is something you should get, it's bent.

 
At 12:53 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

JG said:

"Ronald Reagan was the "official" beginning of the takeover of the U.S. government by corporatism. It all started sliding downhill from that January 1981 date when he took the oath of office."

You need to stop smoking pot when you post JG.

"Around that time, real wages in this country started flattening and haven't recovered since. Our manufacturing infrastructure, with good-paying union jobs that were the source of much of the envy of the rest of the world, started dwindling in earnest -- helped by Reagan, the biggest union-buster of them all."

So do you also believe in the Messiah's "Sputnik Vision" of High Speed Rails? Obama believe 80% of Americans can be serviced by High Speed Rails. What a big joke to believe that. To have High Speed Rail service for 80% of Americans would require the train to be stopping so frequently that it would no longer be high speed rail service. Adding new track would take forever and be so expensive, and it would never pay for itself.

Who would High Speed Rail service benefit? It would mostly benefit the UNIONS who do not give a flying f*ck about cost overruns. It would also benefit the DemocRats who would get Union campaign contributions and Union votes. Did the unions care about the cost overruns of the Big Dig? Do the unions care about AMTRAK losing billions yearly? Would the unions care about the cost overruns of High Speed Rail projects?

Thank you Gov. Christy for killing the ARC Train project and for going after America's biggest and most corrupt monopoly, the Teacher's Union.

 
At 1:38 PM, Blogger LCS said...

Reagan, the single worst president in history besides G.W. Bush. Good riddance!

 
At 2:53 PM, Anonymous Tony S. said...

An excellent summary of the Reagan years.

 
At 3:43 PM, Anonymous Browns44 said...

MO details, details.

 
At 6:27 PM, Anonymous TeaPartyTim said...

"Reagan, the single worst president in history besides G.W. Bush. Good riddance!"

I'm sure Jimmy Carter is near the top in history for you Code Pink Commies!

At least Ronald Reagan was able to produce a US birth certificate and did not seal his records.

Ain't no doubt about it this a Code Pink blog.

 
At 6:59 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

"phenomena" is pluaral. When one is speaking of one of those, it is "phenomenON".

 
At 7:02 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

boltok said...
JG
I always though the liberals were inherantly lazy. I underestimated how so.
_____

It can only be laziness that explains your nonstadard "grammar".

Get it through your feel-good delusion: Reagan picked your pocket -- and yet got you to blame the "Liberals". The FOUNDERS were Liberals, fool. And we call them FOUNDERS becasue they FOUNDED gov'ts. And they FOUNDED gov'ts becasue they were PRO-gov't.

So Reagan comes out against the Founders and their gov't, and suckers like you fall all over yourselves to praise his anti-Americaism -- all because he prmised tax cuts to the wealthy class. Of which class YOU ARE NOT A MEMBER.

 
At 7:07 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Spending trillions on poverty and yet there is no improvement in poverty.

Spending hundreds of billions on education and yet there is no improvement in test scores.

Pouring good money after bad, that is what we code pink liberals really like!

The parasites feeding off the taxpayer money are the only ones who benefit.

 
At 7:11 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Not to digress on the 100th birthday of one of the greatest American Preisdents, but I thought I'd share an editorial from former Clintonite turned T-Partier. Heartfelt apology for no hyperlink.
_____

The Founders -- we called them FOUNDERS becasue they FOUNDED gov'ts -- were pro-gov't. Reagan was anti-gov't. 'Nuff said, except to make the connection between White America supremacist Tim McVeigh and the disease Reaganitis.

 
At 7:14 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

What is our mission?

CODEPINK is a women-initiated grassroots peace and social justice movement working to end the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, stop new wars, and redirect our resources into healthcare, education, green jobs and other life-affirming activities. CODEPINK rejects foreign policies based on domination and aggression, and instead calls for policies based on diplomacy, compassion and a commitment to international law. With an emphasis on joy and humor, CODEPINK women and men seek to activate, amplify and inspire a community of peacemakers through creative campaigns and a commitment to non-violence.

 
At 7:33 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

TeaPartyTim said...
. . . .

I'm sure Jimmy Carter is near the top in history for you Code Pink Commies!
_____

Yep! We USians who actually believe in the rule of law, beginning with Constitution and its 14th Amendment guarantee of equality for all sure are "Commie"-ists -- tho those who substitute name-callings for facts-based thought.
_____

At least Ronald Reagan was able to produce a US birth certificate
_____

As has President Obama -- which he had to do at least 50 times in order to get on the ballot as candidate for President.

But facts -- facts and law . . . those are trumped by hatred of a person who has the gall to be President While Black.
_____

and did not seal his records.
_____

To which records do you refer? The sealed records of Reagan as undercover FBI informant turning in personal enemies, and "Liberals," as being instead "Comie"-ist, because they dared exercise their First Amendment rights differently than tyrants such as Reagan would have it?

Such an irony for the supreme hypocrite: informing on those he viewed as "anti-gov't," while his view was that the gov't founded by the Founders "isn't the solution, it is the problem".

"This is the country of those three great rights: freedom of conscience, freedom of speech, and the wisdom never to exercise either of them." -- Mark Twain.

 
At 7:39 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Billie Carter would have been a better President than Jimmy!

 
At 8:10 PM, Blogger RedStateFred said...

Happy belated 100th birthday Ronnie Reagan!

You made me feel like an American again after that big spending spineless Sandinista suckup Jimmy Carter!

 
At 8:20 PM, Blogger LCS said...

All you right wingers are a bunch of clueless morons. And you teabaggers are fascist pigs.

 
At 10:09 PM, Anonymous Browns44 said...

Laneman,
Tom said to play nice, to be kind to each other. If you want to vent, I suggest you go to Ed Schultz's website and post your vents there.

Thanks for all the love!

 
At 1:11 AM, Blogger Modusoperandi said...

Browns44 "MO details, details."
You're just as bad as boltok.

 
At 7:06 AM, Anonymous boltok said...

The problem with smaller government to all these whining liberals is simple. They are in most cases losers in life, largely by choice, who blame society for their station and at the same time feel entitled to the belongings of others.

Their answer is to create and maintain a massive government which dishes money out to "industries" and programs from which they can benefit. No size is too big, even if it bankrupts the entire country. They cry like crack babies when anyone threatens to take a thread out of their safety blanket.

The author, after trillions disappear into ponzi programs set up by the left, blames Reagan for a lack of infrastructure. How many trillions did Jug Ears just spend on shovel ready projects? Remarkable.

Ronald Reagan was easily the finest president of the 20th century. Calvin Coolidge a close 2nd.

One of Reagan's many great moments:

PATCO

 
At 7:10 AM, Blogger Tom Degan said...

The gospel according to boltok:

Liberals "are in most cases losers in life, largely by choice...."

Examples, please.

 
At 7:33 AM, Anonymous boltok said...

Just start with education. This is both a parenting and initiative problem.

I know many successful people and many less so. Of those who need an inordinate amount of assistance, the issue was not resources, it was choice.

Given the choice between any hobby and concentrating on school, the hobbies win 100% of the time. When time comes to identify something productive to do, the job does not pay "enough" even if the entry job can lead to bigger things.

OR

When given an opportunity to do something productive, the average american will "not feel like it."

It far easier to party, get stoned, chase concerts, play basketball, watch tv, play video games, sleep, sun, etc. etc.

Also the mentality is that any buseinss that hires one these aspiring americans, it is the corporation that is robbing the person of his valuable time. Thus, said business, must offer middle class wages, retirement at 40, health care for him/her and family till death.

This is all just a typical example of the american condition.

The majority of the most successful people I know are successful because they focus on being productive and are not afraid to work for it. Many had no family resource. They don't look for placating excuses when things dont work out. They persevere and move on.

As an example, I love football. I have worked through half of the Superbowls in the last 20 years because I had something important on the following Monday. You will never hear me bitch about it.

I could go on but this comment addresses the spirit of the argument.

 
At 7:38 AM, Blogger Tom Degan said...

So only conservatives have a work ethic? Have another sip, friend.

By the way, I have never watched a Super Bowl in my entire life. I always had something more important to do. I want you to tell me: What the hell does that prove? Honestly.

 
At 10:09 AM, Blogger Ellis D., Esq. said...

boltok.....if you are trying to say that you have your priorities straight that's a very lame comment. See liberals have their priorities straight too.....food and shelter for the needy, job opportunities for those HERE in Amerika, ending the pollution that will destroy the planet and stopping the greedy, unscrupulous conservatives from succeeding in their evil plan(s) !!!

 
At 11:02 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Ellis, you are duped my friend. Clinton signed NAFTA. Clinton lowered tariffs. Check out your nearest US trade deficit chart and see when it was that the trade deficit really took off. Clinton was a classical free global trade champion – and he had a lot of Dem support (not all). He sold a lot of his liberal supporters out. You “liberals” have been, at best, divided on providing jobs for Americans (if you look at what they do, not what they say). Your liberal friends in DC are populists to the electorate and give a lot of lip service - but typically very friendly to the multinational corporate lobby. They are historically weak in protecting our sovereignty, protecting our culture and protecting our economy. They fancy themselves diplomats to the world and are historically easily duped by despots, often doing US policy “end-runs” to unilaterally deal with our enemies. Keep your protectionist beliefs, fine, but quit acting like the liberals are on your side in the matter. The world is their domain, not the US.

 
At 12:08 PM, Blogger Ellis D., Esq. said...

Harley I never have considered ANY member of the establishment as being MY definition of liberal. REAL liberals reject capitalism outright and if they don't they are the ones who have been duped. See liberty and capitalism don't work well together and never will. This is why a RESOURCE BASED economy is necessary. Individual freedom is only possible when basic human needs are provided for without the cut-throat competition that capitalism creates. Otherwise only the rich have freedom.....bought and paid for with our sweat and blood !!

 
At 12:11 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Best Blog around: http://lamecherry.blogspot.com/

 
At 12:24 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Tom,

Boltek is referring to is something called a "work ethic." Citizens of a society are responsible to learn a skill so that they produce what other members of society wish to consume. This means spending more time improving oneself by education, self study, etc. than having a good time: smoking pot, playing video games, listening to Led Zeppelin (finefroghair, i used to listen to them when i was a TEENAGER), watching excessive TV.

A block of people should not just be given a raise above the CPI (like UNIONS), when their is no corresponding increase in productivity. Their income should be directly related to what they produce. NEA (National Endowment for the Arts) people somehow believe they should be paid to be "an artist" even if there is no demand for the garbage they produce.

The code pinker above who talked about the 14th amendment and "equality for all" believes we should all cross the finish line in the economic race of life holding hands and then having a coca-cola and singing the old coca-cola song. Conservatives believe that the start of the race should be as equal as possible and the outcome of the race depends on a "work ethic."

 
At 12:26 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

The Lowdown

 
At 12:57 PM, Blogger Ellis D., Esq. said...

Funny but the " work ethic " being referred to here in practice turns out to be quite unethical !! The start of the " race " is NOT equal and as the " race " is run the rules are modified or changed to favor those in the lead. Those unlucky folks not born into privilege are left further and further in the dust as the inequality of wealth increases. Don't confuse work ethic with ruthless greed !!!

 
At 1:06 PM, Blogger Tom Degan said...

EVERYBODY SING!

I'd like to teach the world to sing
In perfect harmony....

It's the real thing (Coke is)
In the back of your mind (Coca Cola)
What the world needs to find....

Never mind.

 
At 1:18 PM, Blogger finefroghair said...

Ignorance is bliss but it it also dangerous anyone who thinks Reagan was a great President is truly ignorant and at the same time they are extremely dangerous. Oh the horrors of a complicit fourth estate, a neutered education system, and Fox Noise. No amount of contrary evidence can persuade a Reaganite of the nefarious nature of their worthless idol. Luckily most followers of this blog can discern bullshit from fact and we know all to well the legacy bestowed upon us by this senile, insipid, degenerate, corporate, whore.

 
At 2:02 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Fine Frog Hair, well, include Time magazine in your paranoid rants, Obama too.

 
At 4:11 PM, Blogger finefroghair said...

boy these anonymous posters show their stupidity with every key stroke I wonder if they even read they just type drivel any how I'm paranoid but at least I know what a complicit 4th estate means

 
At 7:29 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Ellis D

Funny but the " work ethic " being referred to here in practice turns out to be quite unethical !! The start of the " race " is NOT equal and as the " race " is run the rules are modified or changed to favor those in the lead. Those unlucky folks not born into privilege are left further and further in the dust as the inequality of wealth increases. Don't confuse work ethic with ruthless greed !!!

LOL.

Obama had NOTHING at the start of the race. He was raised with an average standard of living. He is Black and became President.

Clarence Thomas was raised with an average standard of living. He is Black and made the SCOTUS.

Racism will always exist to some degree between different peoples. But lets stop pretending that blacks are still being lynched as in the 60s.


FineFrogHair

How old are you? Do you still smoke pot while you listen to Led Zeppelin like I did as a teenager? I really liked "Good Times, Bad Times" and Heartbreaker.

 
At 10:20 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Ellis - I see the problem. Your definition of liberal is not actually a liberal. Liberals do not dismiss capitalism. They tend to lean towards a more state-involved form of capitalism as well as a form of capitalism with a larger degree of redistribution. But, they don't dismiss capitalism as you believe we all should. Also, to say capitalists are all exploitive and greedy is like saying all socialists are Marxist/Leninist. It's simplistic and it's not true.

Finally, your statement "when basic human needs are provided for..." is telling. Note the passivity in how needs are met. They are just "provided for" - how nice. The worst social constructs this world has known were started by utopians like yourself. A fundamental misunderstanding of human nature is highly destructive.

 
At 12:44 AM, Blogger Modusoperandi said...

Harley A. "Ellis, you are duped my friend. Clinton...etc."
Kudos to you, sir. If you would like to refute any other GOP positions, feel free. (Apparently all we need to do to get you to argue against the GOP is to have the Dems "triangulate" their policies)

"Ellis - I see the problem. Your definition of liberal is not actually a liberal."
What, haven't you heard that we don't even get along with ourselves? I mean, even Catholics, Mormons and Protestants can get along long enough to stick it to the gays, but the Left can't even make in the door before the arguments break out.
Damn us and our irascibility!

Anonymous "LOL. Obama had NOTHING... Clarence Thomas was raised with an average..."
Only one of those is trying to pull the ladder up after himself. Thomas is against the Affirmative Action that helped get him in the class in the first place (he still had to work to stay there). He's also against the plain reading of the 14th (despite the Equal Protection clause stating clearly that it applies to "all persons...", etc).

"Racism will always exist to some degree between different peoples."
You're making our point for us. If racism will always exist, then the field will always be tipped against them, there will always be a need to tilt it back some to counteract the push on the other edge.

"But lets stop pretending that blacks are still being lynched as in the 60s."
We're pretending what now?

 
At 9:29 AM, Blogger Ellis D., Esq. said...

Harley, we have discussed this before....I refuse to believe that human beings are inherently evil. Negative behavior is a result of mistreatment by those in control. Once that ball gets rolling the outcome becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy which is then used as proof of the premise. Treat people fairly and they will act ethically, otherwise you reap what you sow. See it is simple !! All you need is LOVE !!!

 
At 9:59 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Ellis - So, I guess you’ve not been given an adequate chance? Thus, your statement about wishing the gunman who shot Reagan had been a better shot? Your belief in human nature does not pass even a cursory “smell” test. (And, by the way, I say and do unsavory things myself – I’m not passing judgment on you)

And, why would you say that about poor Mr. Reagan. Obviously, he hadn’t had the right chance in life to live out his inherent goodness, right? You shouldn’t be angry at ANYONE – you should pity everyone for not having had the proper surrounding, nurturing, or economic freedom to achieve the inherent goodness that lies within.

Also, by your construct, those who are born with the economic freedom and opportunities should end up the most righteous among us. But, as you’ll probably agree, it is often quite the opposite. Can you see the internal inconsistencies in your position? I’m not trying to pick on you or be ugly. I find this issue to be of utmost fundamental importance. I’ve always said (though not a socialist) that, if man loved God and his neighbor perfectly, I’d have no issue with socialism – it would work just fine.

 
At 10:06 AM, Blogger LCS said...

Here's an idea, how about a pay ethic? American workers are the most productive workers in the world and their productivity has steadily risen in the last 30 years. Yet average pay has remained stagnant for the last 30 years. American workers work longer hours and take less vacation time than any other industrialized nation. Yet the benefits of all that productivity and the benefits of free trade, deregulation, increased efficiency have all gone to the investor class and the corporations. American workers don't have a problem with a work ethic. Employers have a problem with a pay ethic. They don't want to pay decent wages so they offshore jobs to third world cesspools, they don't want to pay taxes so they offshore their assets to foreign tax havens. NAFTA was supported by conservative democrats and all republicans. All conservatives have championed free trade, deregulation, and tax cuts. Because they don't want to pay. They don't want to pay wages or taxes. Conservatives are all about cheap labor. The cheaper the better and if the workers complain then insult them by calling them lazy, and selfish.

 
At 10:34 AM, Blogger Ellis D., Esq. said...

Harley I see the problem here. It is ENLIGHTENED people who are inherently good. Reagan was far from enlightened. I have had plenty of opportunity in my life, I don't post here because I'm concerned about myself. I post here out of concern for those who do not have opportunity, for those whom the social contract has failed. When the consideration for the social contract fails our society becomes quite one sided. Wages in Amerika are a joke. A full time worker being paid the pittance minimum wage will not earn enough in 52 weeks to reach the poverty level. But I guess that's okay, huh ?? So as long as the big boss man can afford a McMansion all is well....

 
At 1:04 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Ellis D., Esq.

Will you admit the Trillions spent on the War on Poverty have been a poor investment?

Or has the problem been with poverty that we should have spent more, like 1000xTrillions?

Should we let the government just create jobs where people don't produce anything? If they don't produce anything why not just pay them to sit in their government subsidized air-conditioned apartment with Satellite Big Screen TV, computer with Internet access with a standard of living far better than most people of a few generations ago?

 
At 1:44 PM, Blogger Tom Degan said...

"Will you admit the Trillions spent on the War on Poverty have been a poor investment?"

I ask you: What is the worst investment - the war on poverty or the military industrial complex?

I suspect our anonymous friend has been watching a little too much Fox Noise. Because of Johnson's program, poverty in this country went from 23% to about 12%. It continued to go down until 1981, the year Saint Ronnie was inaugurated. It's been going up ever since. I'm sure that's just a coincidence though.

 
At 1:49 PM, Blogger Ellis D., Esq. said...

Throwing money at a problem in this corrupt society has little effect on the alleviating the root causes of the problem. I do not and have not advocated " handouts " as a solution to poverty. That type of assistance should be short term and used to keep people alive. Seems to me the only jobs our government creates these days are in the military. Which brings me to my next point....THAT is where trillions of dollars are mis-spent. By conning people into believing our national security is at risk the establishment is able to spend obscene amounts of money on things that go boom. Talk about nonproductive expenditures ??? How about we invest those trillions in an education system that serves to educate and enlighten as opposed to brainwash and bewilder ?? With cooperation instead of competition most if not all of our societal ills can be minimized if not eliminated. Everyone on Earth has an equal right to exist. Where it goes wrong is when some folks believe they are more worthy or more important than others. Those lucky enough to be born smarter, stronger or wealthier than others have an ethical obligation to assist those less fortunate. So check your ego at the door and get to work !!

 
At 3:05 PM, Anonymous Michelle said...

God, I hope you cannot reproduce. You are such a moron. Drunk and voting? Not even a funny story..how pathetic. You aren't funny and you suck as a serious writer...so...I just think you have so very little going on.................

 
At 3:14 PM, Blogger Tom Degan said...

As the great Jack Benny would have said:

WELL!!!

 
At 3:55 PM, Anonymous boltok said...

On Education:
A little research project if you dont understand my previous post. I have recently review the list of graduates from masters and phd science program over the past three years from a Northeast state univeristy. The list had probably around 80 people +/-. How many Americans you might wonder. Only 10 were clearly American. The rest were Indian or Asian of such descent. That is one side of the spectrum.

I also have spent time in my old home town recently. All the local jobs that high school students used to do are now being done by hispanic people. Thank god for hispanics in America. Seriously, they are the only people willing to do a job that may soil one's hands.

Anywho. American's don't get their hands dirty and they aren't graduating with technical skills. So who is to blame when the rest of the planet eats our lunch. And why aim you redistributive animus at those American's actually doing it right?

 
At 4:25 PM, Blogger Ellis D., Esq. said...

boltok.....did you ever consider that your native hometown folks KNOW the minimum wage paid by these employers is insulting and borders on slave labor ?? Yeah people who are lucky to be here in the first place ( be it legally or illegally ) will take whatever pittance they are offered, live 15 people in a room and eat beans and rice everyday while sending most of their meager earnings home to a place where it provides enough for their families to survive. These folks have even less say in our government than the politically powerless Amerikans. Maybe if these desperate folks weren't so quick to work for beggars pay employers would be forced to pay a more realistic living wage ??

 
At 7:10 PM, Blogger RedStateFred said...

I just want to thank Ronnie Reagan for his investment in the military and his part in the collapse of the Soviet Union!

I love you Ronnie!

 
At 7:22 PM, Blogger RedStateFred said...

Hey Tom,

I saw your statistics on the "War on Poverty". Could you also show us statistics for the financial shape of Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid? Will they also be so rosey? LOL Tom.

When the government does Enron style accounting it is not a crime.

I bet your ancestors, just like the NYTimes, thought the Soviet Union was the way to organize society back in the early 1900s.

Fred

 
At 10:21 PM, Anonymous Browns44 said...

Just got to jump into this discussion that with rare exception, has not sunk to the level one finds on Special Ed Schultz's blog. You can post here with out going under a lot of hate by those who disagree.

1. Manufacturing, when all things are equal like the performance of labor, will go the the cheapest labor source that can do the job. You can scream, picket, boycott vote liberal, vote conservative, be pro union or anti union. It will not change that basic rule.

2. There will always be someone or some place that can do the job as well as you can for lower wages.

3. The fewer workers available in a job market, the more workers will get paid for their work, regardless of the type of work or the skills needed.

Knowing that the above rules, why would the "progressives" and labor unions not support removal of the 13 million "undocumented" workers currently in our country? If for no other reason than to decrease the number of unemployed citizens and increase their wages?

 
At 9:42 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

This progressive rally was caught on tape, we see liberals vitriolics against women, we see how they truly treat blacks, biggest racists around are the liberals.

 
At 9:52 AM, Blogger Tom Degan said...

Caught on tape, huh? Then I'm sure it's on You Tube. A link if you will be so kind.

I'm not going to hold my breath waiting.

 
At 10:49 AM, Blogger LCS said...

If you're going to have open borders for capitol, jobs, and factories, then you should have open borders for workers. If you want to restrict immigration in the name of protecting jobs, then a country has a right to restrict capitol, and job flow in the name of protecting its workers and industries and economy. To say you should not restrict employers where to get workers so they can get the cheapest labor, but then say you should restrict workers so they cannot get better jobs is the typical mantra of the cheap labor conservative.

"There will always be someone or some place that can do the job as well as you can for lower wages." Which is why cheap labor conservatives love free trade. Freedom to send jobs to the lowest wage havens in the world. This is how cheap labor conservatives like it, slavery for workers and freedom for capitol.

 
At 11:14 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Not sure what rally the anon was talking about, but could be talking about this. Sorry, don’t know how to make it a hot link..

http://biggovernment.com/chartsock/2011/02/03/white-political-ralliers-call-for-lynching-of-black-justice-sorry-msm-no-tea-in-this-blend/

 
At 11:21 AM, Blogger Ellis D., Esq. said...

Of course undocumented workers should be removed from the workforce DUH !!! Such workers serve to lower the wages paid to the people who actually belong here as well as to dilute society and make it more difficult to organize the people to fight the evil establishment. I don't see why anyone who really cares about Amerika and its citizens would be against providing more opportunity for the people who belong here. By the way....a global society is an insane idea. People live together better in SMALLER groups. Creating this so called global economy will eventually serve to decrease the standard of living in Amerika as we see in process now. Our sovereignty should be put to use to improve OUR standard of living here in Amerika and not for imperialistic conquest.

 
At 11:21 AM, Blogger Tom Degan said...

Thank you for that, Harley. It came out hot on this end.

All the best,

tom

 
At 11:28 AM, Blogger Tom Degan said...

Saw the video. A few crazies in the crowd - not on the stage though. It's interesting that all they could come up with was less than four minutes and four people - out of how many hours and people possibly?

Next....

 
At 11:46 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Laneman –

Two realities you must get. One, it is a global economy. Two - you cannot force your policies on the global economy. Try to be as protectionist as you want but it just won’t work. The global free market is not merely a philosophy – it is a reality. And one the world has embraced – look at all of the huge sovereign wealth funds out there today – these are huge capital machines operating globally – and ones created by formerly socialist regimes. The cat is out of the bag – free markets grow economies, no matter how much political freedom that society enjoys. You can pretend that America can hunker down and keep our capital at home. I hate to burst your bubble, but investing in American manufacturing is not a great bet for the world right now. There are better alternatives out there and they couldn’t care less whether we prosper or not. In fact, ~billion of them hope we die. Our youngsters need to pull their heads out, turn Facebook off, unplug the iPod and wake up. I fear they aren’t paying attention and no one is teaching them the reality that faces us.

By the way, Ellis, I don’t disagree. Smaller groups might be better, but I don’t see us changing that anytime soon.

 
At 12:51 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

http://biggovernment.com/chartsock/2011/02/03/white-political-ralliers-call-for-lynching-of-black-justice-sorry-msm-no-tea-in-this-blend/

i think Tom Degan was present in disguise. -)

it truly is amazing how far liberals and the liberal media will fabricate racism by the teabaggers even when NO video has captured the racism.

here code pinkers have been caught on video behaving in a racist manner that is truly disgusting and would cause MLK turn over in his grave but the liberal media decides to put its head in the sand.

liberalism is truly a horrible disease.

 
At 1:34 PM, Anonymous boltok said...

Esquire,
$7.25 is slave labor for a high school kid or someone with no significant marketable skills. Is it better to have more people doing nothing that to debase them with a job with some structure, responsiblity and income? $7 an hour was real money to me when I was in high school. In fact, I had no problem working for less. I recall the local fast food joint advertising pay in the double digits. I suppose there is no American labor available in a period of 20% unemployment at such a punitive wage.

Problem still remains in this country. $7.25 is too low, but don't ask me to learn something productive. Let the Asians do both of those things. Guess who is going to own whom?

 
At 2:20 PM, Blogger Ellis D., Esq. said...

boltok......most high school age kids live at home with their parents and do not depend on their paychecks to cover rent, food, utilities, TAXES and the ever-declining recreational activities Amerikans so cherish. Try making 7 or 8 dollars an hour with no benefits and support a family. If we can't put a ceiling on income let's at least raise the floor. Since capitalism is greed driven anything that lowers the take of those who feel entitled to be pigs and hoard more than they need is frowned upon by the establishment. My point is that generosity in compensation is missing in Amerika ( except for those Wall Streeters who have stolen so much they need to spread it around the top to keep things status quo ). Put some heat on those assholes and see how fast they turn on each other !! So maybe if employers were forced to pay a living wage of say $20 per hour and only made a reasonable profit instead of an obscene profit the landscape might change for the average worker spinning his/her wheels to survive while being pushed back economically each year !!

 
At 3:33 PM, Blogger Twilight said...

I'm a reader of yours, but this is my first comment, Mr. D.

I read your Reagan piece, then our local newspaper today (in deepest Oklahoma) carried an article about Reagan. That one is interesting in that it shows how much further right Republican thinking has moved since Reagan.
But it does indicate some decent things he did.

Article is by Dick Polman and on line too -

Link

http://www.bnd.com/2011/02/07/1581781/idolatry-of-ronald-reagan-doesnt.html#

I'm a relative newcomer to the USA (from England) Am now a US Citizen, married to a 'Murican, arrived in 2004, and a European style socialist.

I have no personal knowledge of Reagan's doings apart from what British TV dished out back then. Only thing I recall is thinking that he was a better deal than we had in the horrendous Maggie Thatcher.

It struck me how differently Reagan can be presented, while using only facts (I hope!)

 
At 4:14 PM, Anonymous Browns44 said...

@ Laneman,
You miss the point I am making in your headlong drive to bash conservatives or corporations.

What I am saying is very simple, let's enforce the current immigration laws on our books, see how that impacts the unemployment levels and the average wage before we start talking talking about anything else. That's it plan and simple.

 
At 4:40 PM, Blogger Darlene said...

*One last word(s) on the Republican hero, Ronnie Reagan. Do you remember his rant against the welfare queen driving a caddie? Turned out to be pure fiction; as did his story of the WWII hero pilot. (That guy was a character in a movie but Ronnie thought he was a real living man.) I think he was suffering from dementia before he took office and his son hints at that in his book.

It blows my mind that all of these things are well known and yet he is revered. I note that the Iran-Contra scandal is conveniently missing from his biography by the adoring Republican crowd.

R. R. was about as intelligent as my dog. I take that back; I won't insult my dog. He was, as one wag labeled him, an amiable dunce.

If you don't think Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and their buddies were running the store then, you just haven't been paying attention. And of course, R. R. was also guided by Astrology, thanks to Nancy.

The thing he is always lauded for is ending the cold war. Turns out that's fiction, too. Saying, "Mr. Gorbachv take down this wall." was a great sound bite, but had nothing to do with the collapse of the Soviet Empire. They were in the process of disintegration before R.R. entered the White House. It just happened on his watch.

The Republicans are not content to name a airport and numerous other buildings after him. I think they won't be happy until the White House is called the Ronald Reagan House.

The best role he ever played was acting as a president.

 
At 6:31 PM, Blogger RedStateFred said...

http://www.miseryindex.us/

The misery index was initiated by economist Arthur Okun, an adviser to President Lyndon Johnson in the 1960's. It is simply the unemployment rate added to the inflation rate. It is assumed that both a higher rate of unemployment and a worsening of inflation both create economic and social costs for a country. A combination of rising inflation and more people out of work implies a deterioration in economic performance and a rise in the misery index.

The worst score for the misery index was 20.76 by Jimmy Carter in 1980. I guess, according to Tom Degan, this was also the time of the lowest poverty level thanks to the "War on Poverty"!

Thank you Ronnie Reagan for greatly reducing the misery index when you became President!

 
At 6:59 PM, Blogger Tom Degan said...

Thank you for the comment, Twilight! Please comment often. The more the merrier, as they say. And thank you for the link!

All the best,

Tom Degan

"Heavenly shades of night are falling. It's twilight time."

 
At 7:13 PM, Blogger Michael Stivic said...

Workers of the World Unite!

Tom, before you go to sleep tonight, sing with me:

I'd like to buy the world a home
And furnish it with love
Grow apple trees and honey bees
And snow white turtle doves

(Chorus)
I'd like to teach the world to sing
In perfect harmony
I'd like to buy the world a Coke
And keep it company
That's the real thing

(Repeat Chorus)

(Chorus 2)
What the world wants today
Is the real thing

(Repeat Chorus 2)

The Song Version

I'd Like to Teach the World to Sing (In Perfect Harmony)

I'd like to build the world a home
And furnish it with love
Grow apple trees and honey bees
And snow white turtle doves

I'd like to teach the world to sing
In perfect harmony
I'd like to hold it in my arms
And keep it company

I'd like to see the world for once
All standing hand in hand
And hear them echo through the hills
For peace throughout the land

 
At 7:25 PM, Blogger Tom Degan said...

Thank you for that, Michael.

Let's all join hands. What the heck!

Tom

 
At 8:30 PM, Blogger Modusoperandi said...

RedStateFred "The worst score for the misery index was 20.76 by Jimmy Carter in 1980. I guess, according to Tom Degan, this was also the time of the lowest poverty level thanks to the War on Poverty'!"
Does not follow. It's not the "War on Unemployment" or the "War on Inflation". While inflation hurts poverty, it's not poverty, and unemployment isn't poverty if it's temporary unemployment (or if there's a sufficient cushion).
If you want to run numbers, actual poverty was relatively flat across the 70's (hovering between 11-13%), even with the economical "malaise" and two oil shocks. Actual poverty took a jump (up to 15%) in the first half of the Reagan administration and only fell (down to 13%) by the end.
(citation: Why Americans Hate Welfare, pg 20).

 
At 9:13 PM, Blogger LCS said...

Harley A.

I get the two realities. One, it is a global economy by design of the corporatist elite. So why not design an economy more friendly to working people? Because it is the corporatists who have the power. Two maybe I cannot force my policies on the global economy but the cheap labor corporatists and wealthy elites are forcing their policies on the global economy. I guess that's okay? I do not agree that world has universally embraced globalized free trade economy and free markets do not grow all economies. It certainly did not grow our economy.We should invest in our workers and economy. Nations have a right and even a duty to protect their economies by regulated trade instead of unregulated free trade. China is protectionist and their economy is doing good. If you are going to globalize trade and capitol, then why not also globalize labor standards, consumer protections, environmental standards, and they should be at the highest standards.

I agree that the youngsters need to lift their heads from their Facebook, Twitter, unplug the xBox, iPod and wake up. I also fear they and many others are not paying attention and need to be taught what's going on. Plus they need to get outside more and connect with the environment!

@Browns44
I agree :). I have no problems with enforcing the current immigration laws on our books. It is better than wasting time passing additional legislation that only has the effect of looking good and making people feel like something is being done. I believe that employers do not want current immigration laws enforced. Because they benefit from the cheap labor and they don't want to change that! Part of enforcing the current laws includes the going the employers who are ripping us all off by their actions.

 
At 11:01 PM, Blogger Modusoperandi said...

Laneman "Part of enforcing the current laws includes the going the employers who are ripping us all off by their actions."
Like this.

 
At 6:47 AM, Anonymous boltok said...

BTW: All of this discussion is moot, the Deity has a plan. We will, imminently, be Winning the Future. No need to worry about work ethic and education. No need for minimum wage because we will all be rich. I wonder why we don't accept this. I guess people just love to banter. Recovery Summer, no I mean Recovery Spring is upon us.

 
At 8:12 AM, Anonymous Browns44 said...

Thank You Laneman!! Yes, enforcement of the laws on the books is what needs to be done. Regardless of the effect it has on those who hope to gain politically by ignoring them or by creating a"special class" of citizen, or the company's who hire illegals for cheaper labor. If the law is not obeyed, then the criminal must be punished.
P.S. Ignore Modusoperandi, he is the poster behind the green curtain.

 
At 12:34 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Ellis D, Laneman, Tom D.

Did you know Karl Marx's family lived in poverty because he had no "work ethic?"

Rather than finding steady work to support his family, he chose to write fiction and beg for handouts.

 
At 1:10 PM, Blogger Tom Degan said...

Yes, anonymous, most of us, I think, are aware of Karl Marx's peculiarities and character flaws.

Your point?

 
At 5:54 PM, Blogger Modusoperandi said...

Anonymous' point was that Ayn Rand died alone.

 
At 7:33 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Modusoperandi, Laneman, Ellis D

Your hero Karl Marx was a bum who did not have any "family values" like finding any kind of work to support his family so that they didn't have to live in poverty. If he was born 100 years later he probably would have been on welfare.

 
At 8:20 PM, Blogger Jefferson's Guardian said...

Modusoperandi said:

"Anonymous' point was that Ayn Rand died alone."

Yeah, but not before grabbing all the Social Security and Medicare benefits when she could...

So much for the virtues of capitalism, eh? ;-)

 
At 5:57 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Modusoperandi is a PUTZ!

 
At 6:00 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

putz/ˈpəts/
Noun: A stupid or worthless person.
Verb: Engage in inconsequential or unproductive activity: "too much putzing around".

 
At 8:16 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Am I wrong to assume that Rand had paid her social security and medicare taxes, so she received a benefit that she had paid for?

 
At 3:38 PM, Blogger Beth said...

Also never a fan of Ronnie Raygun.

 
At 4:59 PM, Blogger Modusoperandi said...

Anonymous, no you're not wrong. If memory serves, she said that the only people who can take from those programs are those that are against them. And she was for smoking because it symbolized Man's taming of fire, or some nonsense. Then she was surprised that she got cancer, because her logic had been flawless.
The irony of Objectivism is that if everybody practiced it, its inventor would have died untreated and homeless. Same for [modern] Republicanism. See what I did there? You thought it was going in one direction, then whoosh, I bring it all the way around.

 
At 3:00 PM, Anonymous Gypsy Bob said...

Can anyone answer this: Who actually ran the country and made the Presidential decisions during Reagan's 2nd term when he developed active Alzheimers?

I guess he can't be blamed for forgetting to put the money he borrowed back in the SS Trust Fund.

If nothing else Ron was certainly a Precedent setting President.

 
At 3:05 PM, Blogger Tom Degan said...

Good question, Gypsy Bob!

That's one I've been trying to figure out for decades!

Donald Regan?
James Baker?
George H. Dubya Bush?
Nancy?

We'll know someday.

 

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