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PoliGAF 2017 |OT3| 13 Treasons Why

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GrapeApes

Member
It looks like instead of letting Trump tweet during the comey stuff they left it up to his son lol
Trump probably mad about that. This is the first time I'm hearing of it. Trump's supposed to be a counterpuncher. His son didn't get press as far as I can tell. Trump would be getting a lot of coverage if he tweeted during the hearing. Instead we get some lame lawyer response and the coverage focused only on Comey. The next time something big like this happens Trump's gonna be Trump.
 

dramatis

Member
What's Romney's stance on Utah's monuments?

What Utah's Canyon Country Can Tell Us About Trump's Monuments Review
A looming decision on whether to abolish or shrink the Bears Ears National Monument in Utah should provide an early signal of how the Trump administration will deal with a long list of public lands issues.

For roughly a month and a half, Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke has had 27 national monuments under his microscope, reviewing the protected status of these vast expanses of land (and, in some cases, water) at the prompting of an April executive order by President Trump.

The idea, according to the order, is to assure each of these areas is appropriately designated under the 1906 Antiquities Act, a law that gives the president the authority to establish national monuments ... with a few caveats. Namely, they must include "historic landmarks" or "other objects of historic or scientific interest," and they must not exceed "the smallest area" necessary for their upkeep.
So, what is the benefit or harm of having a national monument in your neighborhood?

According to Headwaters Economics, a Montana-based think tank that crunched the data on jobs and the economy around 17 of the national monuments under review, the effect is anywhere from nothing to a modest net positive.

Chris Mehl, the group's policy director, says that from 2001 to 2015 overall jobs in the communities around Grand Staircase, in particular, increased by 24 percent and personal income overall grew by 32 percent.
Commissioners in rural Garfield County, Utah, have long seen it differently.

In 2015, they passed a resolution declaring a state of emergency, saying the monument had all but wiped out the natural resource-based economy in the area. They cited a remarkable 67 percent drop in enrollment at Escalante High School since the monument was designated, while other schools have suffered similar drops.

"We see markers that don't indicate a healthy economy," says Matthew Anderson of the Sutherland Institute, a Utah-based free market think tank. He argues that Headwaters' study doesn't tell the whole story.
NPR nicely put in a bunch of gorgeous pictures.
 

Ryuuroden

Member
Worst President is and will remain Buchanan, who saw disaster coming and sat on his hands because he kind of agreed with the disaster-bringers.

Trump's presidency could have led down such a dark road, but his crisis would have been external rather than internal (like if he had led the breakup of NATO and the EU by working with May, Wilders, and Le Pen).

He could easily break into my top 5 (Buchanan, Andrew Johnson, Hoover, Harding, and Hayes) but it would be hard for Trump to get past Hoover unless he tanks the economy, and hard to get past Johnson and Buchanan unless he started a world war.

We've had some *bad* presidents before.

Of course i'm lenient on Nixon because he was actually good at his job even if he was a terrible person.

Reminding me that a record 8 presidents came from Ohio and somehow they were all terrible and/or died in office/assassinated. How the hell do you go 0 for 8?
 

Vimes

Member
If fucking high schools can have 20,000 seat football stadiums, I'd like to think the United States could figure out to build a building with 5,000 seats for representatives.

galactic-senate.jpeg


EDIT: beaten by two pages I see, ggwp
 
Nixon is such an odd case ideologically. He veered to the right to get elected, using the "law and order" dog whistle to appeal to southern racists, and, as a previous poster mentioned, sabotaged the peace talks. But he governed as a moderate, giving us affirmative action and the EPA, supporting the New Deal programs, and even toying with the idea of a universal basic income. If not for Watergate, his domestic record would be pretty highly regarded, despite his being a shitty person.

Fun fact of the day: Jimmy Carter opposed segregation but ran a racist dog whistle campaign in the Georgia gubernatorial election. Even good people can be corrupted by politics and opportunism.
 

Ogodei

Member
For the counter-record, my top 5 presidents are: Lyndon Johnson, Abraham Lincoln, Franklin Roosevelt, Theodore Roosevelt, and George Washington.
 
In the OT thread asking why Presidents dont have an exam, some people got onto me for blaming the American people for Trump rather than blaming the systems we have in place that allowed him to get voted in.

Am i looking at this the wrong way?

Not really. Sure we have some shitty systems but in the end its the people to blame. They probably have friends/family that are shitty people and voted trump and just dont want to admit they are bad people. Anyone who could look at trump and think he would be good for this country is a lost cause.
 
Not really. Sure we have some shitty systems but in the end its the people to blame. They probably have friends/family that are shitty people and voted trump and just dont want to admit they are bad people. Anyone who could look at trump and think he would be good for this country is a lost cause.

Yep. My parents and grandparents have always been ardent Democrats and eagerly voted for Hillary, but in the past they've defended their racist, sexist relatives: "They just have different opinions," "They didn't know any better," "They can vote how they want." This election - along with all the hate it's exposed - has changed their outlook. They still won't criticize their relatives openly but have no problem blaming racism and white supremacy for this mess. Not as good as telling the redneck cousins and evangelical aunts just to fuck off, but tacit criticism represents a step in the right direction.
 
Best.

1. Lincoln
2. Washington
3. LBJ
4. FDR

5. Obama

Worst:

1. Andrew Johnson
2. Jackson
3. W. Bush
4. Trump
5. Buchanan (our only gay president :((((((((((( )

Finally, I'm not the only guy who likes LBJ more than FDR.

FDR was great for his hard hitting stances against the Nazis and the America First movement, but I love how LBJ was so in favor of the Civil Rights movement that we was willing to use every dirty trick there was to get the important stuff done.

Honestly though I think Trump is gonna be worse than Bush Jr for a few reasons:

1) While the bullshit reasons Bush gave for going into Iraq were both inexcusable and led to wasting time and resources when we were there, I think there is a good argument to be made that we were gonna be involved in Iraq by 2012/2013 due to the Arab Spring.

2) Bush was still actively supporting NATO and helping new nations get into NATO

3) Bush's attempt at immigration reform didn't involve dehumanizing immigrants the way the far-right does.

4) Bush was mostly shitty, but there are still minor decent things he did whereas so far president Trump has literally done NOTHING good.

Don't get me wrong. Bush Jr was still a bad president overall, but at least I can think of a few objectively decent things he did as president. I literally cannot think of anything objectively decent that Trump has done. Literally every time Trump has had a chance to make something worse he always is actively doing everything he can to make it worse. Oh what's that Comey is doing his job? Lets fire him. Oh what's that the White House gives grants to African American universities? Lets try to end that. Oh we have a meals on wheels program? Lets actively defund that. Oh we have a state department for maintaining relationships with our allies that both parties acknowledge is very important? Lets fucking ruin it.
 
Bush literally spread fake news so he could invade a country in a disastrous war that has destabilized the post-Cold War order and cost hundreds of thousands of lives directly and much more when the opportunity cost is factored in. Trump is pure evil but he has nothing like that under his belt yet.
 

Ecotic

Member
People want to ascribe it to free trade and offshoring these days, but Bush's tenure caused the dramatic collapse of public faith in institutions, never to recover.
 
Bush literally spread fake news so he could invade a country in a disastrous war that has destabilized the post-Cold War order and cost hundreds of thousands of lives directly and much more when the opportunity cost is factored in. Trump is pure evil but he has nothing like that under his belt yet.

I get that. That's why I still say he's a bad president. But:

1) Trump and his team made the issue of fake news much MUCH worse. Bush was more an issue of slanted news and propaganda. With Trump the issue has become LITERAL fake news and an outright rejection of real news.

2) Like I said, there is a very good argument to be made that we were gonna be involved in Iraq anyway due to the Arab Spring. Obviously fuck Bush for making up bullshit reasons for going into Iraq and then making us waste resources looking for nonexistent WMDs and nonexistent connections to Al-Qaeda (instead of focusing on helping Iraq rebuild into a secular democracy).

3) Trump's rejections of refugees, ramped up deportations, and encouragement of white supremacists have already led to people dying and we are only 5-6 months into his presidency.

4) The AHCA is going to kill thousands of people.
 
I get that. That's why I still say he's a bad president. But:

1) Trump and his team made the issue of fake news much MUCH worse. Bush was more an issue of slanted news and propaganda. With Trump the issue has become LITERAL fake news.
why do you think people have trouble trusting mainstream sources

2) Like I said, there is a very good argument to be made that we were gonna be involved in Iraq anyway due to the Arab Spring. Obviously fuck Bush for making up bullshit reasons for going into Iraq and then making us waste resources looking for nonexistent WMDs and nonexistent connections to Al-Qaeda (instead of focusing on helping Iraq rebuild into a secular democracy).
do you think that a) the Arab Spring just happens in a vacuum b) we are obligated to go into Iraq to make it a secular democracy c) international law and norms are meaningless and should be ignored by the United States because it can?

3) Trump's rejections of refugees, ramped up deportations, and encouragement of white supremacists have already led to people dying and we are only 5-6 months into his presidency.
How many of those people would be refugees if it wasn't for Bush's foreign policy?

Look I'm sure when Mattis and King Salman convince Trump invading Iran is a good idea he'll hit that "worse than Bush" status but until Trump has the sort of bodycount that Bush created Bush remains worse.
 
I really don't see how anyone can possibly top Lincoln for 1. It's a testament to how awesome LBJ was that Vietnam doesn't knock him out of top 5 or 6. I also tend to think that Teddy is always massively underrated. I would probably have it

Lincoln
Washington
FDR
Teddy
LBJ
Obama

Washington is sort of a cop out because his pre presidency work gets factored in. If judging on presidency alone I think he is probably 4.
If not for Vietnam LBJ would be 3

The vast majority of presidents have been awful-mediocre though.
 

kirblar

Member
http://voxeu.org/article/flexicurity-danish-labour-market-model-great-recession

Good article on why Denmark's had very low unemployment. Employer flexibility + strong social safety net + strong incentives to go back to work = lots of happy businesses and workers. (This first part is really important w/ what Macron is attempting to fix)
Danish institutions: A triangle

The employment protection constitutes the first corner of the triangle. For firms in Denmark, it is relatively easy to shed employees. Not only notice periods and severance payments are limited, also procedural inconveniences are limited. The employment protection legislation index of the OECD for regular contracts is only 1.5. The Netherlands and Germany, countries with employment protection legislation, have an index of 2.7 and 2.9 respectively. The underlying reason for the low employment protection can be found in the economic structure. Of old, there are many small firms for which it is burdensome and costly to have strict employment protection.

The social safety net forms the second corner of the triangle. The safety net consists of unemployment insurance and social assistance. Unemployment insurance is voluntary and half of Danish workers participate in one of these insurance funds. The unemployment-insurance funds are subsidised and on the margin fully when unemployment increases (unless at very low levels). At first sight, the unemployment benefit seems to be quite generous, namely 90% of the previous wage. However, there is a maximum of €2,000 per month. Normally, the Danish unemployment insurance is characterised as generous, but this is true for low-income groups only. The maximum duration during the recession is 4 years (from 2011 onwards 2 years) and people are only eligible by working at least 6 months within the last 36 months. After the unemployment insurance period, employees can apply for social assistance. Eligibility depends on age, marital status, and is also means-tested.

Activation policies accomplish the third corner of the triangle. The high unemployment benefit reduces search incentives. A high level of activation is therefore essential to combat moral hazard and maintain search incentives. Especially young unemployed workers receive an activation offer quickly; within three months after becoming unemployed. An important characteristic of the Danish activation policy is that the activation increases with the duration in unemployment. There is also interdependence with the social safety net. Before the unemployment benefit ends, the activation is intensified in terms of full-time activation. The activation itself can be offered in many forms - from short counselling and assessment programmes to job training and wage-subsidised jobs.
---------------
why do you think people have trouble trusting mainstream sources
Because people aren't good at critical analysis? Including journalists? Instead many just turn to stuff that reinforces their biases. If I, a 18yo college freshman, could see that Iraq was trumped up bullshit, but so many could not, it strongly implies people are sort of systemically awful at this.
 
why do you think people have trouble trusting mainstream sources

If you think it's due to how they handled the Bush admin, I disagree. What's happened is that conservatives have gotten to the point where they literally refuse to read or watch news that says facts they don't like (where as liberals are shown to consume a much more moderated mix of stuff).

It also was made worse by the fact that in a desperate attempt to get Fox New's audience, you had CNN doing more and more CNN Crossfire panel bullshit where they have "both sides" for fucking everything.

do you think that a) the Arab Spring just happens in a vacuum b) we are obligated to go into Iraq to make it a secular democracy c) international law and norms are meaningless and should be ignored by the United States because it can?

a) I think that the Arab Spring was something that was bubbling up there for decades because for too long nations there only had secular dictatorships and theocracies as options. And the reason that I say Iraq would have been part of that Arab Spring is they had a secular dictatorship too.

b) I don't think we should LIE about why we are going into a nation (like Bush did), but seeing how long Turkey managed to remain a secular democracy I would say that there is absolutely benefit to turning middle eastern nations into secular democracies. Now as to OBLIGATION? Obviously we were not obligated in 2003, but I would say that around 2011-2013 it was pretty damn obvious that the people were saying that they wanted democracy and for that reason I think we had somewhat of an obligation to actually help them achieve that rather than just take out the leader and then ditch them (in the case of Libya) or make some bullshit statement about some "red line" to try to avoid getting involved (in the case of Syria).

c) The international laws thing doesn't make sense because I'm pretty sure we had international backing when it came to getting involved in Libya.

And just so I am clear. I'm not justifying getting involved in Iraq in 2003. I am saying that due to events that happened by 2011 we probably would have already started to get involved in Iraq by now.

How many of those people would be refugees if it wasn't for Bush's foreign policy?

Probably a pretty high number still considering that most of the refugees are the result of dictators suppressing the Arab Spring protests that happened due to factors that had been bubbling up for decades.

Look I'm sure when Mattis and King Salman convince Trump invading Iran is a good idea he'll hit that "worse than Bush" status but until Trump has the sort of bodycount that Bush created Bush remains worse.

No, instead Trump will hit that bodycount just from passing the AHCA.
 

K-Marx

Banned
http://voxeu.org/article/flexicurity-danish-labour-market-model-great-recession

Good article on why Denmark's had very low unemployment. Employer flexibility + strong social safety net + strong incentives to go back to work = lots of happy businesses and workers. (This first part is really important w/ what Macron is attempting to fix)

---------------

Because people aren't good at critical analysis? Including journalists? Instead many just turn to stuff that reinforces their biases. If I, a 18yo college freshman, could see that Iraq was trumped up bullshit, but so many could not, it strongly implies people are sort of systemically awful at this.

Hopefully labor shuts the country down like when Hollande and sarko attempted the same thing.
 

kirblar

Member
If you think it's due to how they handled the Bush admin, I disagree. What's happened is that conservatives have gotten to the point where they literally refuse to read or watch news that says facts they don't like (where as liberals are shown to consume a much more moderated mix of stuff).
This behavior very much exists on the left, just in a smaller proportion. (see: TYT) Supporting Xenophobia and keeping the "other down" while supporting strong social safety nets for yourself is unfortunately not an uncommon set of policy beliefs either, as we've seen a lot in both the US and UK.
Hopefully labor shuts the country down like when Hollande and sarko attempted the same thing.
Oh no, the horror of an employer being able to fire employees!
 

K-Marx

Banned
Oh no, the horror of an employer being able to fire employees!

You should always be able to fire an employee if it's related to job performance.

But not because a female subordinate rebuffed your sexual advances, or because they refused to engage in predatory and immoral business practices ("we can't afford to pay you any OT this week but we'd really appreciate it if you would be team player and come in tomorrow and work an extra shift off the clock") or if simply because you don't like that they're gay.

At will employment is a travesty that completely undermines all civil and labor rights in the workplace.
 

kirblar

Member
You should always be able to fire an employee if it's related to job performance.

Not because a female subordinate rebuffed your sexual advances, or because they refused to engage in predatory and immoral behavior ("we can't afford to pay you any OT this week but we'd really appreciate it if you would be team player and come in tomorrow and work an extra shift off the clock") or if because they don't like gay or black people.

At will employment is a travesty that completely undermines all civil and labor rights in the workplace.
I do not disagree with your first two paragraphs.

The issue is that in France, proving it's a valid reason and not an invalid reason is currently pretty insane. If you make it too difficult/costly to hire OR fire people, you will end up with serious issues in your labor pool. In the US, we face similar issues due to health care being linked to employment.
 
You should always be able to fire an employee if it's related to job performance.

But not because a female subordinate rebuffed your sexual advances, or because they refused to engage in predatory and immoral business practices ("we can't afford to pay you any OT this week but we'd really appreciate it if you would be team player and come in tomorrow and work an extra shift off the clock") or if simply because you don't like that they're gay.

At will employment is a travesty that completely undermines all civil and labor rights in the workplace.

Have you read the article on the French labor market to which Kirblar alludes? In France, even firing an employee for incompetence can lead to prolonged court cases and massive settlements. Employers therefore tend to be cagey about hiring and firing people, creating an ossified labor market that prevents young people from obtaining gainful, secure employment. It needs reform.

To respond to your second point, Macron has declared no intention to abolish anti-discrimination laws or basic workplace protections. Your concerns seem a bit irrelevant, at least in the context of French labor relations. Now, if we discussed the US, I'd agree with you, but even with these reforms, France will still be much friendlier toward labor than the US.

EDIT: Beaten because I tried to sound all erudite and use such fancy words as "ossified."
 
D

Deleted member 231381

Unconfirmed Member
So is the Anglosphere ready for the Trump/Johnson dream team, then?
 
Trump sucks, but he's basically a do-nothing.

Not enough Reagan in these lists, Reagan was the flowering of the worst of Nixon's evils and set the stage for many of the worst aspects of Bush's tenure. Fuck Reagan.
 

K-Marx

Banned
Have you read the article on the French labor market to which Kirblar alludes? In France, even firing an employee for incompetence can lead to prolonged court cases and massive settlements. Employers therefore tend to be cagey about hiring and firing people, creating an ossified labor market that prevents young people from obtaining gainful, secure employment. It needs reform.

Yes I did read it. And it sounded exactly like the same language and talking points used by heritage and other U.S. conservative advocacy groups when they're railing against what few labor protections we have here in America.

I work in the public sector in a blue state (unless Dayton's successor blows it next year which in case I plan on moving ASAP) and enjoy many protections negotiated by my union that are virtually non-existent in the private sector. People still come and go all the time. I've seen plenty of co-workers fired for being lazy or incompetent pieces of shit.

To respond to your second point, Macron has declared no intention to abolish anti-discrimination laws or basic workplace protections. Your concerns seem a bit irrelevant, at least in the context of French labor relations. Now, if we discussed the US, I'd agree with you, but even with these reforms, France will still be much friendlier toward labor than the US.

But do you not see how at-will employment undermines such protections? The whole anecdote about being fired for refusing to work off the clock wasn't something I pulled out of thin air, its actually happened to me before. Fortunately it was at a part-time job during my college years so it wasn't a huge blow to my life at the time, but someone who is really struggling can easily be coerced into putting up with such garbage because they can't afford to lose their job. My younger sister who just started her first 'career' job out of college recently confessed to me that she's being sexual harassed by a co-worker but that she's too afraid to say anything to management out of fear of retaliation. How is that acceptable at all?

Giving the employer 100% of the power creates a completely toxic enviroment.

Should you not be able to fire people because your company is not doing well?

Of course lay-offs are necessary and reasonable. Letting someone go because its due to performance (ether their own or the business) =/= discriminatory and retaliatory firings.
 

Y2Kev

TLG Fan Caretaker Est. 2009
It doesn't sound to me like France's high unemployment is all due to concern over retaliatory firings...
 

kirblar

Member
France. Is. Not. America.

The policy solutions needed to address France's issues are not the same ones needed to address America's, because the two countries have very different levels of unemployment, very different social safety nets, etc.

They're in very different spots on the economic X, Y and Z axis, and to optimize outcomes, they require different actions. Using America as your baseline instead of considering the actual country you're proposing changes to will cause you to very badly miss the mark when looking elsewhere.

Our issues here are primarily to do w/ a lack of social safety nets, a need to reform the EITC and similar programs, and Health Insurance being employment-based.

Of these problems, only the activation issue could potentially be similar between our two countries. It being "too hard" to fire someone is not an actual issue in modern-day America, but it absolutely is there.

This is the reason "THE ANSWER IS ALWAYS TAX CUTS" is terrible, as is "THE ANSWER IS ALWAYS MORE REGULATION". Sometimes it is, and sometimes it's not. The world is complicated!
 

The Technomancer

card-carrying scientician
Yes I did read it. And it sounded exactly like the same language and talking points used by heritage and other U.S. conservative advocacy groups when they're railing against what few labor protections we have here in America.

I work in the public sector in a blue state (unless Dayton's successor blows it next year which in case I plan on moving ASAP) and enjoy many protections negotiated by my union that are virtually non-existent in the private sector. People still come and go all the time. I've seen plenty of co-workers fired for being lazy or incompetent pieces of shit.
I mean, the problem of young people being locked out of the labor market as that piece describes gels with what some friends from France tell me. It's a very different sort of problem. Comparing it to the US doesn't make a lot of sense
 

Dan

No longer boycotting the Wolfenstein franchise
Jeff Sessions will testify before the Senate Intelligence Committee on Tuesday; not sure if that's public or private though:

DB_TClvXUAALUG_.jpg
Why can't Sessions do both? He deserves to get grilled on his budget priorities, too.
 
I hope it's public so that Democrats can make him squirm trying to justify the DoJ's decision to argue that Trump can violate the emoluments clause.
 

benjipwns

Banned
The vast majority of presidents have been awful-mediocre though.
shhh

A more accurate and nearly non-debatable top tier and bottom tier looks like this, in office order not ranking:
George Washington
Martin Van Buren
John Tyler (possibly best)
Rutherford B. Hayes
Grover Cleveland (possibly best)
Warren G. Harding

James K. Polk
Woodrow Wilson (worst)
Lyndon B. Johnson
Ronald Reagan
George W. Bush
Barack HUSSEIN Obama

In office order, Jefferson, Madison, Lincoln, FDR, Truman, Kennedy, and Nixon were all bad to potentially terrible presidents who regularly get props from know nothing propagandists masquerading as "intellectuals" who subscribe to Great Man theory and other ignorance like mass slaughter or enforced rationing being "good policy."

Also in office order, Q. Adams, Arthur, Coolidge, Eisenhower, Carter and Clinton were all good to not really actively harmful.

The rest were average harmful to bad.

Some CounterSchlesinger Presidential Ranking Works:
Presidential Leadership: Rating the Best and the Worst in the White House (Wall Street Journal Book) - The overall thesis part isn't as good as the individual chapters as they enlisted a writer to try and make a case that each President was a good leader in some way, then they do a regular historian style partisan listing that's less interesting.
The Spoils of War: Greed, Power, and the Conflicts That Made Our Greatest Presidents - Focuses on six case studies (Washington, Madison, Lincoln, FDR, LBJ v. GWB, JFK v. Obama), but includes in the final chapter a ranking of the Presidents based on the economic growth during their term and number of Americans per capita killed in armed conflict.
Rating Presidential Performance by Richard Vedder and Lowell Gallaway - They rated solely on inflation and change in federal share of GDP, obviously flawed, but amusing for sending Reagan crashing to the bottom five despite his conservative mythology on the economy and for being the only presidential ranking to ever put Andrew Johnson at the top.
Recarving Rushmore: Ranking the Presidents on Peace, Prosperity, and Liberty - A near unimpeachable take other than its silly scoring system that plays favorites against evidence along with the poor quality of the associated chapters for each President. Just as an example, it has the same blind spot for LBJ by focusing on legislative accomplishments with minor flaws in his middle-range liberty score but not scoring him down severely for instituting slavery for his accurately evaluated pretend peace and prosperity.

A so terrible you should check it out from a library or something recent CounterSchlesinger Presidential Ranking Work:
The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Presidents, Part 2: From Wilson to Obama -
”Steven Hayward thinks presidents should be graded on their loyalty to their oath of office. Why, it's just crazy enough to work!"
--Jonah Goldberg

Government scholar Steven Hayward is ready to debunk some of the biggest presidential myths Americans believe are facts.

In Politically Incorrect Guide to the Presidents, Part 2, he traces the legacy of each president from Wilson to Obama and along the way reveals truths most Americans never heard.

JFK was assassinated by a Communist. FDR had the right to run against Hoover. Wilson openly criticized the Constitution. Barack Obama wanted to include Hiroshima and Nagasaki on his world apology tour, but the Japanese government said no thanks. And the 2000 election did, in fact, reach the correct outcome. Uncover new revelations about each President and prepare yourself for an unvarnished look at the truth.

My copy and pasted comments from elsewhere:
benjipwns said:
As noted in the quote, he grades each President on how well they follow the Constitution, see if you notice a pattern.
Wilson: F
Harding: B+
Coolidge: A+
Hoover: C-

Now I appreciate the Harding love as much as any fan of indisputable facts, but it starts to go off the rails there. See Coolidge gets a higher grade because he mentions the Constitution more even though the author savages his lone Supreme Court pick, while Hoover gets a pass on his record (including his Court picks being called essentially enablers of fascism) because ten years later he came out against FDR? How is this system working?

Roosevelt: F
Truman: C+
Eisenhower: C+
Kennedy: C-

Now the system is totally falling apart. Truman is called out as a vicious tyrant who stacked the Supreme Court with Communists and Eisenhower destroying the nation by appointing Earl Warren allowing abortion to murder trillions of lives and criminals to have legal rights and JFK a horrible womanizer who allowed Communists to secretly run his government but hey, pretty alright because they opposed Soviet Communism and Truman is actually a hero because of this despite what the left wants you to believe? But Constitution...?

Johnson: F
Nixon: C+
Ford: C+
Carter: F

The Nixon chapter is entirely about how he was a secret lieberal with the EPA and garbage like that, also he could have won Vietnam but the left undermined him with the phony Watergate scandal, also he and Ford were Communist sympathizers by buying into detente but he appointed great justices while Ford appointed Stevens who eats babies, so same passing grade! Then for Carter, he acknowledges that Carter did not appoint a Supreme Court Justice but:
He deserves an F grade for his respect and defense of the Constitution, nonetheless, for an unusual reason: his unprecedented and outrageous behavior as an ex-president. Carter does not seem to understand that the nation has only one president at a time.
WHAT ARE WE EVEN DOING AT THIS POINT BOOK

From here on the book doesn't even try to do any kind of history and just attacks the socialist war on our Constitution which mandates the death penalty and outlaws abortion.
Reagan: A-
Bush: B
Clinton: F
Bush: B+
For his vigorous defense of the president's constitutional power to defend the nation against the threat of terrorism ... Bush deserves a top grade for presidential performance.
Obama: F-
President Obama's performance on foreign policy was curious, ironic, and hypocritical ... Obama embraced nearly all of [Bush's policies]; and in some cases he aggressively expanded Bush policies.
...
But still underneath the surface, Obama gave off every indication ... that he wished to diminish American influence and reduce America's capacity as a world leader.
...
It is questionable whether deep down Obama's primary allegiance was to the United States

Overall, I score this book's Constitutional Grade based on this:
In an off-the-cuff comment, Obama derided [Scott] Brown by saying, "Anybody can buy a truck." This dismissal of the iconic conveyance of so many working Americans no doubt comes naturally to Prius-driving elites in Cambridge and Hyde Park, but it showed Obama's remoteness from the real lives of most working Americans.
 
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