According to the most recent poll of social science experts Donald Trump is deemed the worst president in history, while Barack Obama climbs into the top ten.

Courtesy of the New York Times: 

James Buchanan, who was at the helm as the United States careened into civil war, was dislodged from his position as our nation’s worst president by our current president, Trump. 

His Oval Office predecessor, Barack Obama, shot into the Top 10, up from 18th in the previous survey. 

The biggest declines were for Bill Clinton, arguably the result of contemporary scorn for his treatment of women, and Andrew Jackson, for evolving attitudes on his treatment of Native Americans.

This poll is quite prestigious, as it elicits opinions from scholars who specialize in presidential history. 

Barack Obama is now ranked as the 8th greatest president in American history, which is a rank I always knew he would attain, but certainly thought it would take longer than one year.

The only Presidents ranked higher than Obama are Lincoln, Washington, Franklin D Roosevelt, Teddy Roosevelt, Jefferson, Truman, and Eisenhower. (Bill Clinton sits at 13 currently.)

Hard to argue with those rankings, and Obama even beat out Reagan for that eighth spot, which you just KNOW is going to drive the conservatives out of their minds.

As will the fact that their current party leader is ranked dead last.

And not by a little bit either, Trump is behind former last place holder James Buchanan by three whole points.

Hell even George W. Bush is in the top 30. Well actually to be honest he's number 30.

But still a hell of a lot better than sitting dead last. 

Donald Trump VS History.

I imagine in Trump's mind he believes he will go down in history as one of the greatest presidents ever.

But I know that history has other ideas.

Just the fact that he has to be mentioned in the history books at all should serve as a lesson to future generations, about the fragility of American democracy.

Two South Carolina politicians want to erect a monument honoring African Americans who fought for the Confederacy. Problem is there weren't any.

Bill Chumley and Mike Burns, two Republicans lawmakers who clearly slept right through history class.

Courtesy of The State:  

Two South Carolina lawmakers want to erect a monument on the State House grounds to African-Americans who served the state as Confederate soldiers. But records show the state never accepted nor recognized armed African-American soldiers during the Civil War. 

“In all my years of research, I can say I have seen no documentation of black South Carolina soldiers fighting for the Confederacy,” said Walter Edgar, who for 32 years was director of the University of South Carolina’s Institute for Southern Studies and is author of “South Carolina: A History.” 

“In fact, when secession came, the state turned down free (blacks) who wanted to volunteer because they didn’t want armed persons of color,” he said. 

Pension records gleaned from the S.C. Department of History and Archives show no black Confederate soldiers received payment for combat service. And of the more than 300 blacks who did receive pensions after they were allowed in 1923, all served as body servants or cooks, the records show.

Confederate law prohibited blacks from bearing arms in the war, records show, until that edict was repealed in 1865 at the very end of the conflict.

Did you just slap your forehead in disbelief at how ignorant these two individuals are? Because I certainly did.  

Yes I am sure the line was quite long for black folks anxious to join the army fighting to preserve slavery, because damn they loved them some slavery.

This is why education is so damn important.

It helps to prevent the creation of more ignorant Republicans.

Something to remember.

Source

That is what a competent and historically significant presidency looks like. 

Happy Saturnalia!

I actually typically have no problem wishing people a Merry Christmas.

But since Trump decided to brag about bringing Christmas back, I simply had to defy that orange tinted, anus mouthed, POS.

Besides of course Saturnalia was the true holiday before those uptight Christians hijacked it in order to spread their capitalist religion around the world.

And it might never have taken off quite as well if Clement Clarke Moore had not written that poem in 1823, and Coca Cola had not altered the look of St. Nick from this rather grim looking fellow...

....into this jolly elf.

Oh well, stolen celebrations, reinvented historical figures, evil capitalist underpinnings, what does it really matter if we are celebrating with loved ones and taking this opportunity to share our bounty
with the less fortunate?

I love this holiday, and hope that you and yours have a wonderful day. 

Poll shows that 59% of Americans believe this is the lowest point in US history that they can remember.

Courtesy of Vox: 

The APA has been conducting its Stress in America poll every year since 2007, and the latest one finds that 63 percent of Americans say the future of the country is a very significant source of stress in their lives. 

Even more tellingly, 59 percent said this is the “lowest point in our nation’s history that they can remember.” And this sentiment transcended generations: A majority of baby boomers, Gen X-ers, millennials, and adults over the age of 72 felt it.

I am definitely part of this 59%.

Even 911, which rocked me to my core, at least later left me feeling that we could overcome anything.

Right now there is just a feeling of hopelessness and helplessness.

The only thing that brightens my outlook is the knowledge that the Mueller investigation exists and the hope that it will eventually lead to an end to all this. 

42% of Americans think that Donald Trump will go down in history as one of the worst presidents ever.

Courtesy of the Marist Poll: 

Americans have low expectations for the administration of President Donald Trump. In fact, few U.S. residents think President Trump’s tenure will be remembered as a positive one. Nearly six in ten Americans, 58%, believe Mr. Trump will be remembered as either one of the worst presidents in the nation’s history, 42%, or a below average leader, 16%. About one in five, 19%, think he will be considered an average president. Just 18% say Trump will be thought of as either an above average president, 11%, or one of the best presidents in U.S. history, 7%. 

“Deep into his first year as president, Donald Trump’s less than stellar approval rating has lowered expectations about how history will judge him,” says Dr. Lee M. Miringoff, Director of The Marist College Institute for Public Opinion. “For history to treat him kinder, he will have to up his game.” 

Not surprisingly, opinions fall along party lines. 88% of Democrats, including 70% who assert Trump will be remembered as one of the worst U.S. presidents, believe the president’s legacy will be tarnished. Even among the president’s own party, there is an overwhelming assertion that President Trump will not end up on the right side of history. Fewer than half of the GOP, 48%, say President Trump will be remembered as either one of the best, 22%, or as an above average, 26%, president. An additional 31% of Republicans think Trump’s legacy will be an average one. Among independents, 60% say President Trump will be recalled as either a below average leader, 18%, or one of the worst presidents to occupy the Oval Office, 42%.

I feel like we should file this under "Duh Ralph!"

I think it is a given that Trump will redefine terrible when it comes to presidents.

I only wonder if it will also be one of the shortest presidencies in history?

And now for something completely different. The History of the World: Every Year.

This is why I now say that we are all Africans.

Because that is literally where we ALL came from.

I just watched this and let it wash over me.

My only complaint is that it all moves so fast after we get into the CE, though I appreciate how it all fades to black after 2016.

You know, when the Anti-Christ was elected.

New poll shows Donald Trump's approval rating as even lower than the last poll, but probably better than the next poll.

I don't do numbers, is that bad?

Courtesy of Gallup:

President Donald Trump's job approval rating in Gallup Daily tracking is at 34% for the three-day period from Friday through Sunday -- by one point the lowest of his administration so far. 

It is difficult to pinpoint the precise cause of the new low rating, but the changes were apparent on Friday, with his day-by-day ratings near 34% across Saturday and Sunday as well. Trump has consistently been in the news over the past week, including the continued focus on North Korea, even while taking a working vacation at one of his golf properties in New Jersey. The events in Charlottesville, Virginia, that resulted in the deaths of a 32-year-old woman and two Virginia State Police officers dominated news coverage on Saturday and Sunday. Trump's prior three-day low reading was 35%, registered March 26-28. 

From a broader perspective, Trump's rating of 36% for the week ending Aug. 13 was also by one point his lowest on a weekly basis. The president has talked in recent days about doing well with his "base," but Republicans' latest weekly approval rating of 79% was the lowest from his own partisans so far, dropping from the previous week's 82%. Democrats gave Trump a 7% job approval rating last week, while the reading for independents was at 29%. This is the first time independents' weekly approval rating for Trump has dropped below 30%.

If someone were selling stock options on Donald Trump right now you could buy about a dozen shares with whatever change you could find under your sofa cushions.

Gallup goes on to say that Trump's approval ratings are not the lowest in presidential history, but since this is only a little way into his first term I think we know that they will be breaking all records in the very near future.

It's official, Barack Obama will go down as one of the most consequential presidents in US history.

Courtesy of Vox: 

The utter failure of Paul Ryan, Mitch McConnell, and Donald Trump to pass a bill rolling back the Affordable Care Act makes one thing perfectly clear: love him or hate him, Barack Obama is one of the most consequential presidents in American history — and that he will be a particularly towering figure in the history of American progressivism. 

He signed into law a comprehensive national health insurance bill, a goal that had eluded progressive presidents for a century — and built it strong enough to withstand assaults from the Supreme Court and avoid repeal from a Republican administration. He got surprisingly tough reforms to Wall Street passed as well, not to mention a stimulus package that both blunted the recession and transformed education and energy policy. 

He's put in place the toughest climate rules in American history and signed a major international climate accord. He opened the US to Cuba for the first time in more than half a century, and reached a peaceful settlement to the nuclear standoff with Iran. 

You can celebrate or bemoan these accomplishments. Liberals hail them as moves toward a social democratic welfare state and a foreign policy more skeptical of military intervention; conservatives critique Obama's efforts to expand regulation and the government's reach, and accuse him of abdicating America's role as world hegemon. 

But no one can deny that the changes Obama has wrought are enormous in scale.

Even if Trump manages to roll back some of this progress, and yes he is trying with all of his might, it will still be noted that Obama achieved those goals, and pushed his country forward.

And let's face it many of these changes, even if Trump stalls them, will likely continue forward once he is out of office.

Plus the existence of a Trump presidency will just allow historians to note how important the presidency that came before was in keeping the country whole during such a turbulent time.

If any face is going to someday be featured on Mt. Rushmore it is most likely this one.

And yes, WITH the sunglasses included.

I'll just leave this here.

Imma just drop this little nugget of truth right here @realDonaldTrump. My prediction is that these numbers are going to grow bigly soon. pic.twitter.com/ZhxpW9qVC3

— 🖕🏻Aunt Crabby 🖕🏻 (@DearAuntCrabby) July 15, 2017

I keep hearing that the Democrats need to come up with a reason for Americans to vote for their candidates.

I can't think of a reason they wouldn't.

We actually get things done, we make things better, and we do it without breaking the law.

The other day Morning Joe presented a video montage of Trump lies that would be jaw dropping if it represented any other politician.

Courtesy of Raw Story:

A “Morning Joe” panel examined President Donald Trump’s lie-filled rally in Iowa, where his supporters cheered each falsehood and jeered when he attacked the media. 

Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Jon Meacham compared the display to former President Richard Nixon’s lies during the Watergate scandal, but he said Trump’s rally was even more like something seen in a totalitarian regime like Nazi Germany or fascist Italy. 

“Even now, in regimes like North Korea, where the dear leader speaks and we’re all supposed to salute, that what the dear leader says has to be followed, whether it’s associated with reality or not, whether it’s grounded in reality or not,” Meacham said. 

The segment opened with a video montage of Trump’s falsehoods, which the panel fact-checked against previous reporting, and Meacham said the president’s lies undermined some of America’s founding principles.

 I really don't watch Morning Joe anymore so I missed this when it was first broadcast. 

However after I watched the video I was shocked, and knew I had to share it here.

I mean we all know that Trump lies like some people take a breath, but this is amazing even by those standards.

It is like he is allergic to the truth and his followers seem to think the only truth tumble from his tangerine tinted maw.

Every day I wake up saying I will not be shocked by what Donald Trump does, and every day I am wrong.

Donald Trump has historical marker on his golf course commemorating a Civil War battle which never happened.

You can't make this stuff up: Trump commemorated at his Virginia golf course a Civil War battle that never happened https://t.co/Wzfz7REjK8 pic.twitter.com/KelWs1Q71t

— Justin Miller (@justinjm1) May 2, 2017

Courtesy of Raw Story: 

“Many great American soldiers, both of the North and South, died at this spot,” reads the inscription a faux historical marker on the course of the Trump National Golf Club, according to the New York Times. “The casualties were so great that the water would turn red and thus became known as ‘The River of Blood.’ ”

The battle never happened. “No. Uh-uh. No way,” Richard Gillespie, the executive director of the Mosby Heritage Area Association told the New York Times. “Nothing like that ever happened there.” 

When Trump was informed by the New York Times that three different local historians had said as much, Trump replied, “How would they know that? Were they there?

Well, I think this helps to explain why Donald Trump believed that a slave owning ex-president who had been dead for sixteen years could have stopped the Civil War. 

So much stupid.

That time when an actual sitting US president asked why the Civil War had to happen. update!

Don't know much about history
Don't know much biology
Don't know much about a science book,
Don't know much about the french I took

Courtesy of The Hill:

President Trump during an interview that airs Monday questioned why the country had a Civil War and suggested former President Andrew Jackson could have prevented it had he served later. 

"I mean had Andrew Jackson been a little bit later you wouldn't have had the Civil War. He was a very tough person, but he had a big heart," Trump said during an interview with the Washington Examiner's Salena Zito. 

"He was really angry that he saw what was happening with regard to the Civil War, he said, 'There's no reason for this.'" 

Jackson, the nation's seventh president, died in 1845. The Civil War began in 1861. 

The president further questioned why the country could not have solved the Civil War. 

"People don't realize, you know, the Civil War, if you think about it, why?" Trump said during the edition of "Main Street Meets the Beltway" scheduled to air on SiriusXM. 

"People don't ask that question, but why was there the Civil War? Why could that one not have been worked out?"

.......?

You ever read something that your mind refuses to accept that you just read?

And if you have, how often is it usually a quote from Donald Trump?

Fortunately while my mind was drawing a blank, Chelsea Clinton came up with an actual answer.

1 word answer: Slavery. Longer: When Andrew Jackson died in 1845 (16 yrs before the Civil War began), he owned 150 men, women and children. https://t.co/Icg6puG2JZ

— Chelsea Clinton (@ChelseaClinton) May 1, 2017

Yeah, that's essentially the answer.

Mother Jones found a real live historian to weigh in who suggested that perhaps Trump should step down from office until he can be educated past his current fourth grade elementary school level, and is brought up to speed on American history.

His final words were "God help us."

I am of course not a religious man, but I certainly understand the sentiment.

I swear that every day Donald Trump says something that becomes the new most shocking thing I have every heard come out of the mouth of a US president.

Update: It appears Trump is trying to do a little damage control.

President Andrew Jackson, who died 16 years before the Civil War started, saw it coming and was angry. Would never have let it happen!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 2, 2017

Continues to demonstrate a crippling lack of knowledge about American history.

It is WAY too early in the morning to be face palming.

So I go to Target for one hour and while I was gone the Trump admin apparently decided that Hitler didn't have gas chambers? 😩 pic.twitter.com/MkbPgpogQu

— Sarah Kendzior (@sarahkendzior) April 11, 2017

Glenn Beck and phony historian David Barton are charging $375 to teach college age students fake American history.

"I guarantee you the professors at college will have the wrong answer."

If ever there were a statement that should send you running and screaming away from this "offer" it is that one.

Here is more courtesy of The Friendly Atheist:  

We spend our mornings in a classroom-like setting and each afternoon we dig through online resources as well as our unique, original library. We will delve into topics such as:

• A Biblical Worldview 
• The Truth in History 
• America’s Godly Heritage 
• Early Education in America 
• How the Bible Influenced America 
• American Exceptionalism 
• God and the Constitution 
• Reclaiming the Land 

We will research our Founding Fathers, discovering their accomplishments, families, and faith, giving individual presentations at the end of each week. This is a specialized training for 18-25 year old.

We tend to give Glenn Beck a pass sometimes these days because he is an outspoken critic of Donald Trump.

However we need to remember that he is essentially just a shyster selling a damaged bill of goods just like Sarah Palin and even Trump himself.

And only thing that keeps him from being really dangerous is that fewer and fewer people are paying any attention to him.

New HUD Secretary, and apparent idiot savant, Ben Carson claims that slaves were really just immigrants who came here to "pursue prosperity and happiness."

Courtesy of CNN: 

Ben Carson appeared to liken slaves to immigrants who choose to come to the United States while addressing employees at the Department of Housing and Urban Development Monday.

"There were other immigrants who came in the bottom of slave ships, who worked even longer, even harder, for less, but they too had a dream that one day their sons, daughters, grandsons, granddaughters, great grandsons, great granddaughters might pursue prosperity and happiness in this land," said Carson, who is black. 

"And do you know of all the nations in the world, this one, the United States of America, is the only one big enough and great enough to allow all those people to realize their dream. And this is our opportunity to enhance that dream," he added.

Yep those silly old African immigrants all chained together for safety who came to this country to pursue their dreams of not being whipped to death or raped by their white masters.

Actor Samuel L. Jackson responded quickly on Twitter.

OK!! Ben Carson....I can't! Immigrants ? In the bottom of SLAVE SHIPS??!! MUTHAFUKKA PLEASE!!!#dickheadedtom

— Samuel L. Jackson (@SamuelLJackson) March 6, 2017

Later Carson tried to walk his remarks back:

I’m proud of the courage and perseverance of Black Americans and their incomprehensible struggle from slavery to freedom. I’m proud that our ancestors overcame the evil and repression that we know as slavery. 

The slave narrative and immigrant narrative are two entirely different experiences. Slaves were ripped from their families and their homes and forced against their will after being sold into slavery by slave traders. 

The Immigrants made the choice to come to America. They saw this country as a land of opportunity. In contrast, slaves were forced here against their will and lost all their opportunities. We continue to live with that legacy. 

The two experiences should never be intertwined, nor forgotten, as we demand the necessary progress towards an America that's inclusive and provides access to equal opportunity for all. 

We should revel in the fact that although we got here through different routes, we have many things in common now that should unite us in our mission to have a land where there is liberty and justice for all. 

Dr. Ben Carson 
Secretary of HUD 

Nice try. However this is response cobbled together for damage control, while the initial statements were just off of the top of Carson's pointy head.

Which one do we think more accurately portrays his way of thinking?

Oh yeah, and there is also this.

Ben Carson is also the guy who once compared Obamacare to slavery. I'm starting to think he may not understand the word "slavery." https://t.co/82PJcUC7Vg

— Keith Boykin (@keithboykin) March 6, 2017

Carson also famously suggested that the Egyptian pyramids were used to store grain, so his understanding of history in general seems to be suspect.

And these are the people who are now in charge of our country.

Perhaps the most fitting Carl Sagan quote for these times.

“One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we’ve been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We’re no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It’s simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves, that we’ve been taken. Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back.” 

 Yes. it's legit.

Sarah Palin has a ghostwriter type up a post on her daughter's blog mocking the Women's March. Well of course she did.

Courtesy of Bristol's ghostwritten blog: 

Feminists say they are all about “strength,” yet they’re always playing victim – it’s embarrassing and it’s setting women back decades!  (If anybody wants to see who set women back decades, just take a look at this former politician.)

If today’s “feminists” only knew what real feminism is, maybe they could relax a little. Maybe be less angry; find a bit of joy in life. Feminism was founded by independent, hard working, capable women that were making a way in the world without whining, relying on government or anyone else. 

(Okay THIS is what happens when people skip history class or their mothers do not do an adequate job of teaching them about the progress that women have made in this country.)


A few serious questions for the feminists who marched last weekend: 

1. What rights do we as American women not have? We can’t vote? We can’t bear arms? We can’t go to school? We can’t work? We don’t have freedom of speech? We have every single opportunity in this great country that anyone else has. (The "everybody else" are men, and they do not typically have to worry about unwanted pregnancies, spousal abuse, and being paid less than the opposite gender.) Wake me when you start marching in the Islamic countries that murder women for showing more than their eyes in public. (Oh yes, did you hear? Suddenly the conservatives are concerned with how women are treated in Islamic countries.)

2. What are you trying to prove by dressing up like “pussies”? 

I’m embarrassed to be a woman in a generation like this. As a middle class working mom – wife – and independent woman – this is completely asinine. I’m telling you, dressing like a giant vagina and holding signs that say things like “Do my periods scare you?” is doing NOTHING to help women, and a LOT to hurt them. (Actually the march is only the beginning of an organizing effort that has already inspired 500 women to learn how to run for political office.)


3. What if the tables were turned? 

Can you imagine if men dressed as giant dicks? Wore penis hats? And held signs like “don’t assume I cook?” .. feminists would freak out and claim they’d been harassed, no doubt. 
  
(Please, men already dress like dicks. Hasn't she seen this guy?)

I can’t even believe the world we live in. My parents raised me to work hard, not to ever expect any handouts in life – and to treat people with respect – which is how I am raising my children. 

(Says a blog post written FOR the person whose name is at the top, by a writer hired by that same parent she credits with teaching about hard work and not taking hand outs.)

Our generation is screaming for “tolerance and equality” and “love for all” while still mocking our President for things like his hair – and igniting violence from uninformed – out of touch – celebrities like Madonna (“I’ve thought about blowing up the White House”), and screaming that someone else MUST provide them “free birth control.”

This ghostwriter's lack of knowledge about the history of feminism should be astounding to all of us, but in fact it is actually the norm these days.

The conservatives have put a lot of effort into mythologizing the actual feminist movement to suggest that it was started by hairy legged, bra burning, lesbians, and that REAL women should want no part of it.

After all who would make them a sandwich if every woman felt empowered?

In the meantime while Palin's ghostwriter attacks women for standing up to a misogynist asshole, that same misogynist asshole just reinstated a Reagan era abortion restriction.

What Sarah, Bristol, and this poor woman who I assume was paid to write this ignorant screed fail to understand is that things are about to get much, much worse for women, and those protesters that she so flippantly attacked were bravely standing up like the heroes we desperately need for HER rights whether she understands or appreciates them or not.

Just like the women at the beginning of the feminist movement did well over a hundred years ago.

Man who escaped Nazi Germany warns that much of what he saw there is happening here today.

Courtesy of Know.Org:

A call to action: 

I was born in Munich, Germany, in 1920. I lived there during the rise of the Nazi Party and left for the U.S.A. in 1938. 

The main elements of the Nazi regime were the suppression of dissent, the purging of the dissenters and undesirables, the persecution of communists, Jews and homosexuals and the ideal of the Aryans as the master race. 

The policies started immediately after Hitler came to power, at first out of sight but escalated gradually, leading to the Second World War and the Holocaust. Meanwhile most Germans were lulled into complacency by all sorts of wonderful projects and benefits. 

What we see now in our country is very similar to the early days of the Nazi rule in Germany: 

The Neo-Nazis and the KKK have become more prominent and get recognition in the press. We are all familiar with Trump's remarks against all Muslims and all Mexicans. But there has not been anything as alarming as the appointment of Steve Bannon as Trump's chief strategist. Bannon has, apparently, made anti-Semitic remarks for years, has recently condemned Muslims and Jews, and he and Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, the pick as national security advisor, advocate the political and cultural superiority of the white race. At the same time Trump is trying to control the press. 

Thus the entire Nazi ideology is in place already in and around the new government. How far will it get? We can hope that our government of checks and balances will be more resistant than the Weimar Republic was. Don't count on it. 

We have to counter this trend toward Fascism in every way we can. Being alert to all manifestations in word and action. Alerting our representatives and urging them to act. Writing to newspapers. Making our friends aware. Demonstrating when appropriate. 

 Franz W. Wassermann, M.D.

You know one of the rules for political writing is no Hitler comparisons. 

However I think we are long past that being considered hyperbolic or unreasonable.

Donald Trump seems to have taken this country to a new time and place, but perhaps most concerning is that in Germany they would recognize it as an old time and place.