Barack Obama's retrospective job approval rating is 63%.

Courtesy of Gallup: 

Barack Obama's legacy appears to be on the right track, as 63% of Americans in hindsight say they approve of the way he handled his job. Gallup's first measure of Obama's retrospective job approval rating places him behind only John Kennedy and Ronald Reagan among the 10 most recent presidents. Richard Nixon is rated worst today for how he handled his job, with 28% approving.

Actually whoever typed this up made a mistake as George H. Bush is also rated higher than Obama by a point, which I find unacceptable.

I am also not pleased to see Jimmy Carter so far down the list, and Reagan at the top, as I do not believe this factually represents their contributions to this country.

I will say I fully expect that Obama's rating will only rise in the years to come, and that I would not be surprised if at some point he gave Ronnie a run for his money.

Top DEA official to quit, cites Donald Trump's lack of respect for the law.

Courtesy of MSN: 

The acting head of the Drug Enforcement Administration will resign at the end of the week, according to law enforcement officials, who said he had become convinced that President Trump had little respect for the law. 

The official, Chuck Rosenberg, who twice served as chief of staff to the former F.B.I. director James B. Comey and remains a close confidant, had grown disillusioned with Mr. Trump. The president fired Mr. Comey in May, and then in July told law enforcement officers “please don’t be too nice” when handling crime suspects. 

Mr. Rosenberg forcefully rejected Mr. Trump’s comment, sending an email to all D.E.A. employees at the time to tell them that they should not mistreat suspects.

“We must earn and keep the public trust and continue to hold ourselves to the very highest standards,” Mr. Rosenberg wrote in the internal email. “Ours is an honorable profession and, so, we will always act honorably.”

I actually don't see how any government official with any ethics can continue to work under Donald Trump. 

I know that some probably see themselves as a necessary bulwark to resist the corruption that is spreading throughout the federal government, but I think they will ultimately find themselves corrupted as well or fired for not being team players.

Donald Trump did not get elected to drain any swamp. That was him projecting the fact that he was planning to install a swamp of his own design.

I would be surprised if by the end of this first four years, assuming he makes it that long, that the number of indicted Trump Administration officials will rival the number indicted, convicted, or subjected to a criminal investigation during the Reagan Administration.

That number by the way was 138.

Donald Trump has the lowest approval ratings of any other president elected since World War 2.

Courtesy of Gallup:

Donald Trump averaged 41% job approval during his first quarter as president, 14 percentage points lower than any other president in Gallup's polling history. Bill Clinton had the previous low mark of 55%. The average first-quarter rating among post-World War II presidents elected to their first term is 61%, with John Kennedy's 74% the highest.

You know I so want to celebrate this, but the fact is that this asshole represents all of us now so unfortunately this is also a reflection on the entire country. 

God I hate Vladimir Putin right now.

Gotta love this.

Big orange crybaby.

President Obama's second term approval ratings now higher than Ronald Reagan's second term approval ratings. Take that GOP!

Courtesy of WaPo: 

Pollster.com's Charles Franklin was a little ahead of the curve Sunday morning when he pointed out that President Obama's approval rating right now is among the highest Election-Day approval ratings in recent history.

Why is that ahead of the curve? Because on Monday, fewer than 24 hours before polls open across the United States, Gallup reported that Obama's daily approval rating had hit 56 percent. That's a figure that he'd been around at the end of October, but had otherwise only hit or exceeded on seven days since August 2009. 

Franklin tracked recent survey results by party to evaluate Obama's approval, finding that, at 52.1 percent on average, he's viewed more positively now than Ronald Reagan was at the end of his second term, but not as positively as was Bill Clinton at the end of his.

That's right President Obama, the man that Donald Trump claims is THE worst President ever, is polling at a whopping 56%. And that puts him just barely behind our LAST Democratic President, Bill Clinton.

Remember THIS is the administration that Donald Trump wants to save us from seeing go to a "third term," this is the swamp he wants to "drain." and this is the wrong direction that he wants to steer this country away from.

In short Donald Trump wants to toss us a lifeline and drag us from our comforting, relaxing, soothing bubble bath.

Which brings me to one of my many pet peeves.

During this campaign season I have seen a parade of half witted Trump surrogates saying that the people do not trust the government, and that the government is broken, and that Americans want to "take back this country," and it seems that NOT ONE of the journalists interviewing them ever takes the time to correct that BS.

Yes it is true that many Americans believe that the government is "broken."

But they are NOT talking about the Executive branch of government, they are talking about the Legislative branch of government.

In other words they are talking about the Senate and the House of Representatives, both of which have essentially ground to a halt. (They cannot even do something simple like confirm a Supreme Court nominee.)

And which party has the majority in both of those places?

That's right, the Republicans.

So essentially the Republican presidential campaign has been running on the promise to fix the branch of government THEIR party broke, by replacing the person in charge of the branch of government that is actually working well.

How in the fuck does that work?

No if the voters really want to "fix" the government, "drain" the swamp, and "take back" their country they want to vote every one of those obstructionist GOP assholes out of office and replace them with idealistic, hopeful Democrats who know how government is supposed to work and will make sure that it does.

And THAT should have been the central message of the Hillary Clinton campaign in my opinion.

"Government is only broken when you don't know how to make it work. Vote for Hillary Clinton and a Democratic Senate and House, and we will show you how to get it running like a clock."

Do you think that is too long for a bumper sticker?

The daughter of Ronald Reagan speaks out about Donald Trump's careless language.

Courtesy of ABC News: 

In a Facebook post directed at the Republican presidential candidate, President Ronald Reagan's daughter blasted Donald's Trump's "glib and horrifying comment" on the Second Amendment. 

"I am the daughter of a man who was shot by someone who got his inspiration from a movie," the post by Patti Davis begins, referring to the 1981 assassination attempt on Reagan by John Hinckley Jr.

Remember this is the daughter of Saint Ronnie.

And even though she is seen by many as a liberal I am sure that her words hit home for a lot of the older more establishment Republicans still struggling with the decision of whether to support Donald Trump or not in the general.

And if that were not enough to sway them, there is also this piece in the Dallas Observer comparing the mood of the country to the one that existed in Texas when JFK was shot.

Donald Trump thinks he can incite violence and then deflect criticism by saying that he was just kidding or being sarcastic, but once a bullet fires from a gun to take a life there are is simply no taking that back.

In attempt to honor the memory of Nancy Reagan, Hillary Clinton angers LGBT community.

Hillary Clinton: The Reagans, particularly Nancy, helped start "a national conversation" about HIV and AIDS. https://t.co/7sZp8X53fb

— MSNBC (@MSNBC) March 11, 2016

Courtesy of The Intercept:  

Clinton’s telling of HIV/AIDS history doesn’t align with the facts. President Reagan waited seven years to address the HIV/AIDS crisis, even as thousands of Americans died from the disease. Dr. C. Everett Koop, the administration’s surgeon general, said the president dragged his feet on the issue “because transmission of AIDS was understood to be primarily in the homosexual population and in those who abused intravenous drugs.” Koop said their position was that AIDS victims were “only getting what they justly deserve.” 

In 1985 the Reagans’ friend Rock Hudson, then dying of AIDS, traveled to Paris in a desperate attempt to be treated by a French military doctor. As BuzzFeed’s Chris Geidner reported last year, Hudson’s publicist sent the Reagan White House a telegram begging for help in getting Hudson moved to a French military hospital where the doctor could treat him. Nancy Reagan personally saw and rejected the request. 

Nancy Reagan may have played a role in encouraging her husband to push for more funding for AIDS research, which Congress did appropriate. However, says Kevin Cathcart, executive director of Lambda Legal, “Shameful is not even strong enough a word for the record of the Reagan administration on this. Did she try and fail, or not try very hard? I really don’t know.”

Later of course Hillary walked this back a little, but not before handing Bernie Sanders plenty of ammunition for future debates, and angering many in the gay community:

Hillary Clinton’s statement on her comments about the Reagans' record on HIV and AIDS: pic.twitter.com/RtIs0zpJfk

— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) March 11, 2016

It is understandable that Hillary feels that she must say something positive about a fellow former First Lady, but you would think that she would have at least one gay staff member who she could have run this statement past that would have told her not to say it.

Or for that matter ANYBODY who is aware of the history of the Reagan's abysmal record on fighting HIV/AIDS.

These are the kinds of unforced errors that have bedeviled Hillary in the past and she really needs to tighten things up to keep them from happening moving forward. 

Nancy Reagan passes away.

Courtesy of NBC News:

Nancy Reagan, one of the most high-profile and influential first ladies of the 20th century, has died, according to a spokeswoman with the Reagan Library. She was 94. 

The cause of death was congestive heart failure, according to her rep Joanne Drake. "Mrs. Reagan will be buried at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, California, next to her husband, Ronald Wilson Reagan, who died on June 5, 2004," Drake wrote in a statement.

I actually have a lot of conflicted feelings about Nancy Reagan.

On the one hand she was married to, and  helped enable, a President who I think helped to delay progress in this country at least twenty years or more.

She was also the spokesperson for that stupid "Just Say No" anti-drug campaign that was not only ineffective but which set the stage for the zero tolerance drug policies of the Reagan administration and the war on drugs that we are still waging on minorities to this day.

Nancy also consulted an astrologer to help set the President's agenda, which is a fairly frightening idea, but then again it probably was no worse than allowing Reagan's ultra conservative advisers help set it.

Yep all in all I have pretty mixed feelings about the passing of Nancy Reagan.

The same cannot be said for those who have deified Ronald Regan, such as our own northern necrophiliac Sarah Palin:

See right over there is where you can go fuck yourself for endorsing Trump.

Rest In Peace, Nancy Davis Reagan. Thank you for your service, and for sharing your life with America as you helped inspire our nation to believe we could be that shining city on a hill. God bless your legacy. - Sarah Palin 

Damn, she is so predictable sometimes.

As if she has not pissed all over Reagan's memory by endorsing Donald Trump in this election cycle.

In fact has anybody considered that Trump's inevitable nomination might be what finally killed the 94  year old? I sure wouldn't count that out.

Sarah Palin just crapped all over Ronald Reagan's legacy.

Courtesy of Gawker:  

Last night, the National Geographic Channel kicked off its six-episode series Generation X, an uncommonly sharp talking-head recap show that explores various cultural events and phenomena that helped shape the generation after the Baby Boomers. The War on Drugs, specifically how it targeted crack in the ‘80s and was made tangible in the “Just Say No” campaign, was among the topics on last night’s premiere. The segment featured commentary from Senator Cory Booker, journalist Alison Stewart, and none other than Sarah Palin, who pointed out the impracticality of the campaign spearheaded by Nancy Reagan: 

My, how easy it would be to sit your child down and say, “Just say no.” It’s not that easy. Great intentions, though!

Now a couple of things here. 

First off Palin just disagreed with a policy of the Reagan Administration, and in GOP circles that is tantamount to egging the Vatican.

Actually I take that back, it's worse.

Secondly isn't sitting her children down and teaching them to just say "no" EXACTLY how Palin taught her kids about sex education?

And by the way that "Just Say No" program worked out about as well as Nancy Reagan's "Just Say No" program.

So at this point we have to start asking ourselves, "Is Sarah Palin really a Republican anymore?"

After all she is backing the guy who is not only attacking the RNC, but also attacking George W. Bush, and threatening to run as a third party candidate.

And now she has the temerity to actually second guess the legacy of the great god of the GOP, Ronald Reagan.

Yep, things are about to get even uglier.

Popcorn anyone?

So the Republicans tried to delay the release of Americans held in Iran until it was in their best interests politically? Really?

Courtesy of Tasnim News Agency: 

Secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council (SNSC) Ali Shamkhani said a recent prisoner exchange between Iran and the US went ahead as planned despite calls by Republicans for a delay until US presidential elections. 

“In the course of the talks for exchanging prisoners, the Republican rivals of the current US administration who claim to be humanitarians and advocates of human rights sent a message telling us not to release these people (American prisoners) and continue this process (of talks) until the eve of US presidential elections,” Shamkhani said Thursday in an address to a rally held in the central city of Yazd to mark the 37th anniversary of the 1979 Islamic Revolution’s victory. 

“However” he said “we acted upon our independent resolve and moved the process forward.”

Now of course the Republicans are going to dismiss this as mere propaganda, and usually that would be a reasonable charge to make.

If in fact this was not standard operating procedure for the GOP.

Courtesy of Truthout:  

Behind Carter's back, the Reagan campaign worked out a deal with the leader of Iran's radical faction - Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khomeini - to keep the hostages in captivity until after the 1980 Presidential election. 

This was nothing short of treason. The Reagan campaign's secret negotiations with Khomeini - the so-called "October Surprise" - sabotaged Carter and Bani-Sadr's attempts to free the hostages. And as Bani-Sadr told The Christian Science Monitor in March of this year, they most certainly "tipped the results of the [1980] election in Reagan's favor." 

Not surprisingly, Iran released the hostages on January 20, 1981, at the exact moment Ronald Reagan was sworn into office.

So do I think that at the same time the Republicans were criticizing President Obama for not getting the prisoners released BEFORE he signed the nuclear deal with Iran, they were also working behind the scenes to keep those men in prison even longer until it could help them politically?

Oh hell yeah!

New book called "The American President" on Ronald Reagan: "No one had ever entered the White House so grossly ill informed."

Courtesy of Salon:

In all fields of public affairs—from diplomacy to the economy—the president stunned Washington policymakers by how little basic information he commanded. His mind, said the well-disposed Peggy Noonan, was “barren terrain.” Speaking of one far-ranging discussion on the MX missile, the Indiana congressman Lee Hamilton, an authority on national defense, reported, “Reagan’s only contribution throughout the entire hour and a half was to interrupt somewhere at midpoint to tell us he’d watched a movie the night before, and he gave us the plot from War Games.” The president “cut ribbons and made speeches. He did these things beautifully,” Congressman Jim Wright of Texas acknowledged. “But he never knew frijoles from pralines about the substantive facts of issues.” Some thought him to be not only ignorant but, in the word of a former CIA director, “stupid.” Clark Clifford called the president an “amiable dunce,” and the usually restrained columnist David Broder wrote, “The task of watering the arid desert between Reagan’s ears is a challenging one for his aides.” 

No Democratic adversary would ever constitute as great a peril to the president’s political future, his advisers concluded, as Reagan did himself. Therefore, they protected him by severely restricting situations where he might blurt out a fantasy. His staff, one study reported, wrapped him “in excelsior,” while “keeping the press at shouting distance or beyond.” In his first year as president, he held only six news conferences—fewest ever in the modern era. Aides also prepared scores of cue cards, so that he would know how to greet visitors and respond to interviewers. His secretary of the treasury and later chief of staff said of the president: “Every moment of every public appearance was scheduled, every word scripted, every place where Reagan was expected to stand was chalked with toe marks.” Those manipulations, he added, seemed customary to Reagan, for “he had been learning his lines, composing his facial expressions, hitting his toe marks for half a century.” Each night, before turning in, he took comfort in a shooting schedule for the next day’s television- focused events that was laid out for him at his bedside, just as it had been in Hollywood. 

His White House staff found it difficult, often impossible, to get him to stir himself to follow even this rudimentary routine. When he was expected to read briefing papers, he lazed on a couch watching old movies. On the day before a summit meeting with world leaders about the future of the economy, he was given a briefing book. The next morning, his chief of staff asked him why he had not even opened it. “Well, Jim,” the president explained, “The Sound of Music was on last night.”

The rest of the Salon article is just as damning as the excerpt up above and of course it simply reinforces what most of us who lived through the Reagan presidency already know to be true.

In fact Reagan was essentially the perfect Republican president. An empty vessel that the conservative puppet masters could use to put forth their message, and implement their policies, in the most amiable way possible.

After all even Ronald Reagan's detractors were often charmed by the man.

And if you think about it the GOP has been looking for a similar standard bearer ever since.

We all know that George W. Bush was at least as ignorant and easily manipulated as Reagan, and I have little doubt that Mitt Romney seemed to them the perfect mannequin to voice the policies that were fed to him by the real power behind the office.

I would think that John McCain would be less likely to play ball, but then they had Sarah Palin waiting in the wings didn't they?

Anybody else just get a cold chill run up their back?

Gee if only I could figure out the difference.

Just a little something to keep at the ready for that Thanksgiving conversation with your conservative family members.

Courtesy of Vox:  

President George W. Bush inherited 4.2 percent unemployment in January 2001. That rate had grown to 7.8 percent when he left office eight years later and hit 8.3 percent in the first full month of Obama's presidency. 

The quick rise and dramatic fall of the unemployment rate during the Obama years is unusual. In the past 50 years, there's only been one other president — Ronald Reagan — who saw a bigger swing between high and low unemployment during his terms in office. 

(Under Reagan, unemployment peaked at 10.8 percent in December 1982. By his final full month as president, it had fallen to 5.3 percent.)

So the takeaway is that President Obama cleaned up the mess left by the LAST guy the Republicans  managed to put in office, and that he is sort of like Ronald Reagan, only better.

Sounds like the makings of a good old fashioned Thanksgiving fistfight to me.

On Friday night's Real Time Bill Maher calls out Republicans over their terrible choice in heroes.

Courtesy of Politicususa:  

Maher asked Republicans, “If these better than the rest of us real Americans really do exist, how come when they find one, they turn out to be a creep? Either you’re a terrible judge of character, or there’s nobody home at the good people house.” 

The Real Time host ran down the list. Kim Davis turns out to be everything Republicans hate. Cliven Bundy is a racist. George Zimmerman is an angry racist who keeps getting in trouble with the police. Joe The Plumber was a totally fabricated lie.

Of course Maher saved his most scathing remarks for sister molester and Ashley Madison customer Josh Duggar:

"Josh traded on his family’s image to work as a lobbyist for the ultra-conservative Family Research Council, and all of the Republican presidential candidates wanted a picture with him. Until it turned out, he had two Ashley Madison accounts, had paid for rough sex with porn stars and had molested his sisters."

Of course to that list we could also add the tragically stupid Sarah Palin, the Blinded by the Bible Ben Carson, and of course the incredibly ego-maniacal Donald Trump.

In fact one would be hard pressed to think of a single conservative icon who was not completely phony, as well as a tragically flawed human being.

Yes and to that list I would also add Republican hero Ronald Reagan. Who not only raised taxes, and granted amnesty to millions of undocumented immigrants, but also resided over one of the most corrupt administrations in recent memory.

Stephen Colbert beautifully schools Ted Cruz about Ronald Reagan's legacy.

Courtesy of HuffPo: 

"Late Show" host Stephen Colbert confronted GOP presidential candidate Ted Cruz over the legacy of Ronald Reagan on Monday night, pointing out that the former president was less conservative than Cruz and others often suggest. 

“Reagan raised taxes. Reagan actually had an amnesty program for illegal immigrants. Neither of those things would allow Reagan to be nominated today," Colbert said, drawing cheers from his audience. "So to what level can you truly emulate Ronald Reagan?" 

When Cruz deflected, Colbert pressed him on the specifics. 

"Raising taxes and amnesty for illegal immigrants," Colbert said. "Could you agree with Reagan on those two things?" 

"No, of course not," the senator from Texas admitted, but added that Reagan signed the largest tax cut in history. 

Did Rafael just dis the Republican's most sacred icon?

Yes, I think he did.

Later Colbert corrected Cruz about Reagan's tax policies and asked him if he would be willing to compromise with the other side. Cruz gave a typically evasive non-answer.

Cruz, like most conservatives, has no real understanding of who Ronald Reagan was, or what happened during his presidency. 

Colbert also, on the subject of gay marriage, had to explain to Cruz that marriage is not mentioned in the Constitution.

Nice to see that moving to CBS has not dulled Colbert's edge when conducting interviews. He is still usually more well informed than his guests and ready to call them out on their BS.

Sarah Palin accuses Liberals of rewriting history. Seriously?

I have actually already dealt with the above graphic last month using actual comments from Palin's own Facebook page.

Let's see what else she has.

Courtesy of Revisionist history poster girl Sarah Palin's Facebook page: 

Liberals are famous for conveniently rewriting their history. Just take a look at some of the photos below for a few of their most blatant examples, including the lie that they were always for gay marriage and against racism. 

Here Palin offers the graphic up above, as well as a purposeful misrepresentation of a Margaret Sanger quote, and one each showing that President Obama and Hillary Clinton's opinion on gay marriage has evolved.  Oooh, shocking!

The false history teaching that liberals opposed slavery, wanted women to vote, exclusively led the civil rights movements is all Orwellian talk (Orwellian talk?), for the truth is the opposite. It's been the party of Lincoln and Reagan on the side of justice in each of those issues. (Actually the Republican party of Lincoln, was vastly different than the Republican party of Ronald Reagan.) We led the fight against slavery and for women's suffrage, and with Martin Luther King, Jr. we fought against racism and for peace. (Well it looks like somebody needs a history lesson, and it sure as hell isn't the liberals.) Meanwhile the Left still celebrates their strange icons including KKK leader Sen. Robert Byrd, the anti-American terrorist bomber Bill Ayers, and the violently racist eugenicist Margaret Sanger, plus others on the opposite side of righteous justice. 

Please add your own examples of leftwing hypocrisy in the comment section below and never hesitate holding the intolerant, judgmental types accountable for their hypocrisy. (Well we should all look forward to reading those poorly researched gems from her followers. However if the pattern holds from the last time there will actually be more comments that refute her point of view rather than add to it.) When you let them get away with ignoring facts and stomping out your voice you become nothing more than lemmings cowardly led over the cliff. America is better than that. Stiffen your spine, call them out, do not retreat. 

- Sarah Palin

Take that liberals!!!

Yes stiffen your spine and learn actual history, not the stuff that certain people, say in Texas for example, are trying to teach you in order to hide the truth.

I could not agree more.

As I mention above this is a retread of an older post, that Palin seems to have repurposed in order to have some content for her Facebook page.

Which of course has become much more important since it is now her sole method of getting attention from her supporters and the media.

Unfortunately for her this is an extraordinary weak attempt to attack liberals, and even a school child could poke holes in it without even breaking a sweat.

Sometimes Ronald Reagan got it just right.

Source

And yet there are numerous religious conservatives today who simply cannot accept this simple truth.

Sometimes I think certain people treat Ronald Reagan like they do the Bible. Pick and choose the portions they like, use that to defend their personal prejudices, and ignore anything that might undermine their faith in the sources  inerrancy.

Ronald Reagan's Benghazi was the equivalent of sixty Benghazis.

Courtesy of Pensito Review: 

Jon Ponder | Jun 1, 2015 Left: The U.S. peacekeepers' command center and barracks before the explosion; right: Service members pick through the rubble following the Beirut bombing Oct. 23, 1983. This year marks the 30th anniversary of the bombing that resulted in 220 Marine deaths. (U.S. Marine Corps photo courtesy of the United States Marine Corps History Division) Left: The U.S. peacekeepers’ command center and barracks before the explosion; right: Service members pick through the rubble following the Beirut bombing Oct. 23, 1983. (Photo from the United States Marine Corps History Division) In 1982, seven years into the Lebanese Civil War, Pres. Ronald Reagan ordered 2,400 Marines into Beirut as part of an international peacekeeping mission. As peacekeepers, the Marines operated under rules of engagement that prohibited them from firing their weapons unless they’d been fired upon first — and even then they could only respond with the same type of weapon that had been fired at them. 

There were other restrictions. Violence in the city was so bad that they were confined to their base at the Beirut airport. Eventually, the entire American force, which also included Army and Navy personnel, moved into a large, modern office building that had been repurposed to house their command center as well as living quarters. (The building is referred to in many accounts as the “Marine barracks.”) And yet the gates to the facility were ordered to remain open at all times, and the sentries who manned the gates were to be unarmed. 

In Washington, Reagan ignored warnings from his senior advisers that he’d put American troops in harm’s way. 

“They had no mission but to sit at the airport,” Reagan Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger recalled years later, according to a Fox News report, “which is just like sitting in a bull’s-eye. I begged the president at least to pull them back and put them back on their transports as a more defensible position.” 

On Oct. 23, 1983, at 6:20 a.m., the inevitable happened. A suicide bomber drove a truck into the compound through the open gate, plowed through a scrim of concertina wire, pulled up into the building and detonated his bomb. The blast was the equivalent of 12,000 pounds of dynamite. It ignited the largest non-nuclear explosion since World War II, flattening the building and killing 220 Marines, 18 Navy personnel and three Army soldiers.

220 Marines, 18 Navy personnel, and three Army soldiers. Compared to four dead in the Benghazi attack. 

And as for ignoring warnings, well the Obama administration had been asked for more security which Congress had voted against, while Reagan's own Defense Secretary was begging him to protect the troops and he did nothing.

I am posting this as a public service for all of you to use the next time that some conservative asshole suggests that President Obama, or Hillary Clinton, are culpable in the deaths of four Americans in Benghazi.

You can certainly argue with them on the facts, or instead simply say "Maybe, but at least they did not stand by and watch 241 servicemen die in giant fireball."

Robert Reich explains that we strengthen the middle class by strengthening unions.

Courtesy of Robert Reich.org: 

 One big reason America was far more equal in the 1950s and 1960s than now is unions were stronger then. That gave workers bargaining power to get a fair share of the economy’s gains – and unions helped improve wages and working conditions for everyone. 

But as union membership has weakened – from more than a third of all private-sector workers belonging unions in the 1950s to fewer than 7 percent today – the bargaining power of average workers has all but disappeared. 

In fact, the decline of the American middle class mirrors almost exactly the decline of American labor union membership. 

I think Professor Reich is one of my favorite sources for learning about politics and economics in this country.

And I am really jealous of his ability to illustrate his lessons while he speaks.

The conservatives in this country have been attempting to bust the unions since the first day workers organized in this country, it is shameful how successful they have been since Ronald Reagan set the standard back in the 1980's.

Republican presidential candidates struggle to name the greatest President still living. (Spoiler alert: They usually defer to a dead one whose initials are RR.)

Saint Ronnie

Courtesy of CNN: 

It's a simple question, but one that stops Republican presidential hopefuls in their tracks: Who do you think is the greatest president alive today? 

CNN posed the question to several White House contenders gathered here recently at the Freedom Summit, a daylong conference with conservative activists ahead of next year's primary in this crucial early-primary state. 

"Obviously the greatest president of my lifetime is Ronald Reagan," said Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal. 

"I'll leave that to the people to decide," said Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, which is his guaranteed go-to line for questions he doesn't want to answer. "Certainly the greatest president of recent generations was Ronald Reagan." 

"I was a big fan, a very big fan of Ronald Reagan," real estate mogul Donald Trump said. 

Ronald Reagan, as you might recall, has been dead for 11 years.

So the LAST great American President as far as the Republicans are concerned has been out of office since 1988?

They do realize that their party has held office twelve years in total since then don't they?

The reporter, Chris Moody, goes on to explain why he thinks that these GOP presidential hopefuls find this question so challenging:  

They can't say Jimmy Carter, whose presidency is synonymous in GOP circles as weakness, or President Barack Obama, a man whose legacy they all have spent years trying to vanquish. Bill Clinton is a Democrat and the husband of Democratic presidential frontrunner Hillary Clinton -- so he's out. 

That leaves the two Republicans: George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush, father and brother, respectively, of Jeb Bush, the former governor of Florida who is preparing his own bid for the Republican nomination. And an endorsement for a Bush could be construed as affirmation for Jeb Bush by proxy. 

They also know that if you say George W. Bush is the greatest living president, well, then you're on camera saying you think George W. Bush is the greatest living president, and Democrats will have a field day.

Wow! That is a conundrum for them, isn't it?

Gee maybe they should try to run somebody in the future that they can someday identify as the greatest still living President of their lifetime.

It of course that won't be any of these pinheads, but you know maybe someday.