#46 President Joe Biden
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"Hunter, can you get me one of those ice cream cones with the white sprinkles on top that we like so much?"
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Seemed like the logical place to post this. RIP, President Carter. He did some good things later in life - buillding houses and stuff.0 -
shecky said:
Seemed like the logical place to post this. RIP, President Carter. He did some good things later in life - buillding houses and stuff.Conventional wisdom holds that Jimmy Carter was a failure as a president, redeemed only by his philanthropy and efforts to promote democracy in his post-presidential years. This is palpably wrong. Carter’s accomplishments at home and abroad were more extensive and longer lasting than those of almost all modern presidents.
Carter, who died Sunday at age 100, became president when the American people were seeking an outsider to remove the stain on the presidency from the Watergate scandals, putting together an improbable coalition of Black people, conservative Whites in the rural South, and traditional Democrats in the industrial Northeast and Midwest. He cemented his tireless campaign with a simple pledge to voters: “I will never lie to you” — a promise he kept.
Carter helped restore trust in the presidency through ethics reforms more relevant today than ever before. He established the Senior Executive Service and insulated civil service workers against political pressure. He slowed the revolving door for departing officials and placed independent inspectors general in every department. The Office of Special Counsel originated with his legislation to investigate possible wrongdoing by high-level officials. And he extended ethical standards to the private sector through the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, barring corporations from bribing foreign officials to obtain contracts. With Walter Mondale, he created the modern vice presidency as a fully engaged partnership.
In terms of legislative achievements, independent presidential studies rank Carter’s among the top of modern administrations. Carter dramatically expanded all major education programs, established the departments of Education and Energy, put the United States on the path to greater energy security from OPEC (the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries), deregulated and transformed our entire air and ground transportation system and communications industries, placed consumer advocates in major regulatory agencies, and added more land to the national park system than all presidents together since Theodore Roosevelt. This first president from the Deep South since Reconstruction championed civil rights and appointed more women, Black Americans and Jews to senior administration positions and judgeships than all 38 of his predecessors combined.
But his most lasting accomplishments were in foreign affairs. Carter’s signature achievement, reached over 13 agonizing days and nights, was the Camp David Accords between Israel and Egypt. They led to a peace treaty he personally negotiated, which provided security to Israel after five wars with Egypt, anchored America’s Middle East policy for 40 years and formed the basis for his Nobel Peace Prize.
Carter put human rights at the center of his foreign policy to such a degree that no future president has been able to ignore it. This stance put Moscow on the ideological defensive during the Cold War against dissident groups such as Solidarity in Poland and the Soviet Jewish and democratic movements within the Soviet Union.
Carter’s policy toward the Soviet Union combined soft and hard power. He concluded a nuclear arms treaty with Moscow that, while never ratified by the Senate, significantly decreased the number of nuclear weapons on both sides and was nevertheless honored by President Ronald Reagan and the Soviets. He increased defense spending after Vietnam and green-lit every major new weapons systems Reagan later deployed against the Soviets, including persuading reluctant European governments to accept nuclear missiles on their soil, which Mikhail Gorbachev later cited as a significant factor in the Soviet demise. And he established formal diplomatic relations with China.
Even Carter’s sharpest critics admit that he acted decisively against the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan with a grain embargo, draft registration, a boycott of the Moscow Olympics and arming mujahideen fighters. Wary of a Soviet thrust toward Middle Eastern oil routes, he promulgated a “Carter Doctrine,” assuring Persian Gulf nations that any attempt to block passage would be met with American military force.
And while conservatives scorned Carter for withholding arms from Latin American dictators as part of his human rights policy, he helped democratic movements come to power in the region after he left office, which — together with his most difficult battle with the Senate, the Panama Canal treaties — began a new day in relations with neighbors south of our border.
Given all this, why is Carter’s presidency remembered so harshly? It is due in part to his unorthodox approach to the presidency. He believed he could park politics at the Oval Office door and procure another term by concentrating on doing the “right thing,” forgetting that a president must be politician in chief. He failed to carefully build coalitions with interest groups and members of Congress through personal contact, small favors and outright horse-trading — all of which he abhorred.
Continues.......
Opinion | Stuart Eizenstat: History views Carter’s legacy all wrong - The Washington Post
09/15/1998 & 09/16/1998, Mansfield, MA; 08/29/00 08/30/00, Mansfield, MA; 07/02/03, 07/03/03, Mansfield, MA; 09/28/04, 09/29/04, Boston, MA; 09/22/05, Halifax, NS; 05/24/06, 05/25/06, Boston, MA; 07/22/06, 07/23/06, Gorge, WA; 06/27/2008, Hartford; 06/28/08, 06/30/08, Mansfield; 08/18/2009, O2, London, UK; 10/30/09, 10/31/09, Philadelphia, PA; 05/15/10, Hartford, CT; 05/17/10, Boston, MA; 05/20/10, 05/21/10, NY, NY; 06/22/10, Dublin, IRE; 06/23/10, Northern Ireland; 09/03/11, 09/04/11, Alpine Valley, WI; 09/11/11, 09/12/11, Toronto, Ont; 09/14/11, Ottawa, Ont; 09/15/11, Hamilton, Ont; 07/02/2012, Prague, Czech Republic; 07/04/2012 & 07/05/2012, Berlin, Germany; 07/07/2012, Stockholm, Sweden; 09/30/2012, Missoula, MT; 07/16/2013, London, Ont; 07/19/2013, Chicago, IL; 10/15/2013 & 10/16/2013, Worcester, MA; 10/21/2013 & 10/22/2013, Philadelphia, PA; 10/25/2013, Hartford, CT; 11/29/2013, Portland, OR; 11/30/2013, Spokane, WA; 12/04/2013, Vancouver, BC; 12/06/2013, Seattle, WA; 10/03/2014, St. Louis. MO; 10/22/2014, Denver, CO; 10/26/2015, New York, NY; 04/23/2016, New Orleans, LA; 04/28/2016 & 04/29/2016, Philadelphia, PA; 05/01/2016 & 05/02/2016, New York, NY; 05/08/2016, Ottawa, Ont.; 05/10/2016 & 05/12/2016, Toronto, Ont.; 08/05/2016 & 08/07/2016, Boston, MA; 08/20/2016 & 08/22/2016, Chicago, IL; 07/01/2018, Prague, Czech Republic; 07/03/2018, Krakow, Poland; 07/05/2018, Berlin, Germany; 09/02/2018 & 09/04/2018, Boston, MA; 09/08/2022, Toronto, Ont; 09/11/2022, New York, NY; 09/14/2022, Camden, NJ; 09/02/2023, St. Paul, MN; 05/04/2024 & 05/06/2024, Vancouver, BC; 05/10/2024, Portland, OR;
Libtardaplorable©. And proud of it.
Brilliantati©0 -
I’m not going to argue that he was either great or terrible president. He’s closest to “inconsequential”. But he was a very good man and role model.0
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The Bidens wore masks outside the house but took them off to go inside for a photo.
Can't make this shit up!
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shecky said:
The Bidens wore masks outside the house but took them off to go inside for a photo.
Can't make this shit up!Just got done watching our shit-for-brains President attempt to say some niceties about the passing of Jimmy Carter, you wana talk about cringeworthy…holy hell!!0 -
lindamarie73 said:shecky said:
The Bidens wore masks outside the house but took them off to go inside for a photo.
Can't make this shit up!Just got done watching our shit-for-brains President attempt to say some niceties about the passing of Jimmy Carter, you wana talk about cringeworthy…holy hell!!jesus greets me looks just like me ....0 -
lindamarie73 said:shecky said:
The Bidens wore masks outside the house but took them off to go inside for a photo.
Can't make this shit up!Just got done watching our shit-for-brains President attempt to say some niceties about the passing of Jimmy Carter, you wana talk about cringeworthy…holy hell!!0 -
Choccoloccotide said:lindamarie73 said:shecky said:
The Bidens wore masks outside the house but took them off to go inside for a photo.
Can't make this shit up!Just got done watching our shit-for-brains President attempt to say some niceties about the passing of Jimmy Carter, you wana talk about cringeworthy…holy hell!!
Embarrassing like this?jesus greets me looks just like me ....0 -
josevolution said:Choccoloccotide said:lindamarie73 said:shecky said:
The Bidens wore masks outside the house but took them off to go inside for a photo.
Can't make this shit up!Just got done watching our shit-for-brains President attempt to say some niceties about the passing of Jimmy Carter, you wana talk about cringeworthy…holy hell!!
Embarrassing like this?0 -
Choccoloccotide said:josevolution said:Choccoloccotide said:lindamarie73 said:shecky said:
The Bidens wore masks outside the house but took them off to go inside for a photo.
Can't make this shit up!Just got done watching our shit-for-brains President attempt to say some niceties about the passing of Jimmy Carter, you wana talk about cringeworthy…holy hell!!
Embarrassing like this?jesus greets me looks just like me ....0 -
josevolution said:Choccoloccotide said:josevolution said:Choccoloccotide said:lindamarie73 said:shecky said:
The Bidens wore masks outside the house but took them off to go inside for a photo.
Can't make this shit up!Just got done watching our shit-for-brains President attempt to say some niceties about the passing of Jimmy Carter, you wana talk about cringeworthy…holy hell!!
Embarrassing like this?0 -
hunterh75 said:josevolution said:Choccoloccotide said:josevolution said:Choccoloccotide said:lindamarie73 said:shecky said:
The Bidens wore masks outside the house but took them off to go inside for a photo.
Can't make this shit up!Just got done watching our shit-for-brains President attempt to say some niceties about the passing of Jimmy Carter, you wana talk about cringeworthy…holy hell!!
Embarrassing like this?jesus greets me looks just like me ....0 -
josevolution said:lindamarie73 said:shecky said:
The Bidens wore masks outside the house but took them off to go inside for a photo.
Can't make this shit up!Just got done watching our shit-for-brains President attempt to say some niceties about the passing of Jimmy Carter, you wana talk about cringeworthy…holy hell!!
Sometimes "people" are exactly what they accuse.
To post comments like that on a day like this, her brain is rotten to the core.0 -
lindamarie73 said:shecky said:
The Bidens wore masks outside the house but took them off to go inside for a photo.
Can't make this shit up!Just got done watching our shit-for-brains President attempt to say some niceties about the passing of Jimmy Carter, you wana talk about cringeworthy…holy hell!!
www.myspace.com0 -
Lerxst1992 said:josevolution said:lindamarie73 said:shecky said:
The Bidens wore masks outside the house but took them off to go inside for a photo.
Can't make this shit up!Just got done watching our shit-for-brains President attempt to say some niceties about the passing of Jimmy Carter, you wana talk about cringeworthy…holy hell!!
Sometimes "people" are exactly what they accuse.
To post comments like that on a day like this, her brain is rotten to the core.0 -
lindamarie73 said:Lerxst1992 said:josevolution said:lindamarie73 said:shecky said:
The Bidens wore masks outside the house but took them off to go inside for a photo.
Can't make this shit up!Just got done watching our shit-for-brains President attempt to say some niceties about the passing of Jimmy Carter, you wana talk about cringeworthy…holy hell!!
Sometimes "people" are exactly what they accuse.
To post comments like that on a day like this, her brain is rotten to the core.It's a hopeless situation...0
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