pacino wrote:

Grotewold wrote:

06hawkalum wrote:

jerseyhoya wrote:Al Gore is at Trump Tower meeting with Ivanka about Climate Change issues

What a time to be alive

It appears that Ivanka and Kushner will be largely running the show with Cheeto nothing more than a figurehead.

We win?

out-of-touch corrupt millionaires living off their parents' glory governing from a golden tower

#draintheswamp

Oh they're pretty low on my list of preferred leaders of the free world, but he's lower

thephan wrote:538 list of scholarly presidential rankings

Abraham Lincoln
Franklin D. Roosevelt
George Washington
Theodore Roosevelt
Thomas Jefferson
Harry Truman
Woodrow Wilson
Dwight D. Eisenhower
John F. Kennedy
Ronald Reagan
James K. Polk
Lyndon B. Johnson
Andrew Jackson
James Monroe
James Madison
John Adams
Barack Obama*
Bill Clinton
William McKinley
John Quincy Adams
Grover Cleveland
George H.W. Bush
Ulysses S. Grant
Gerald Ford
William Howard Taft
Jimmy Carter
Calvin Coolidge
Chester A. Arthur
Richard Nixon
James A. Garfield
Martin Van Buren
Rutherford B. Hayes
Zachary Taylor
Benjamin Harrison
Herbert Hoover
John Tyler
Millard Fillmore
George W. Bush
Andrew Johnson
William Henry Harrison
Warren G. Harding
Franklin Pierce
James Buchanan

* Projected

Yes there are 43 because Grover Cleveland is the 22/24 president.

So if we survived the bottom third of that list, we will be OK.

Kennedy is way overrated. So is Jefferson. Ford maybe could be bumped up a few slots. Grant is way too high. Obama will probably climb the rankings as the years go by. The worst over ranking on that list though has to be Wilson.

andrew jackson did the trail of tears and is ranked 13th.

“I had a lengthy and very productive session,” said Gore after meeting with Trump. “It was a sincere search for areas of common ground.” He added: “I found it an extremely interesting conversation and to be continued. And I’m just going to leave it at that.”

I'm going to assume nothing will come of this

TenuredVulture wrote:



Kennedy is way overrated. So is Jefferson. Ford maybe could be bumped up a few slots. Grant is way too high. Obama will probably climb the rankings as the years go by. The worst over ranking on that list though has to be Wilson.

Denigration of Kennedy, Wilson and Jefferson I know runs with current scholarship, although I think in the case of Wilson and Jefferson there's a bit of overcompensation going on. Haven't heard the argument for the elevation of Ford, though.

Polk over Johnson? Andrew Johnson maybe

what's Monroe doing way up there?

and Reagan's too high of course

swishnicholson wrote:

TenuredVulture wrote:



Kennedy is way overrated. So is Jefferson. Ford maybe could be bumped up a few slots. Grant is way too high. Obama will probably climb the rankings as the years go by. The worst over ranking on that list though has to be Wilson.

Denigration of Kennedy, Wilson and Jefferson I know runs with current scholarship, although I think in the case of Wilson and Jefferson there's a bit of overcompensation going on. Haven't heard the argument for the elevation of Ford, though.

Ford found himself President in almost an impossible set of circumstances. He was neither great nor inspiring, but he managed to leave the country in better shape than he found it. He should definitely be ahead of Grant.

Is it supposed to be scholars ranking the best presidents or a ranking of the most scholarly presidents? I thought it was the latter, but comments make me think it's the former.

either way, reagan is too high. Much too high.

Monkeyboy wrote:Is it supposed to be scholars ranking the best presidents or a ranking of the most scholarly presidents? I thought it was the latter, but comments make me think it's the former.

either way, reagan is too high. Much too high.

Yeah I originally thought it was the latter, but I think we were wrong.

yeah, i thought it was based on the education and experience the president had

Lincoln had very little of either.

Wilson then would be the most scholarly President--PhD in political science, professor at Bryn Mawr and then Princeton, I believe he was president of the American Political Science association as well. I guess Jefferson would be next then, having founded UVA.

And if there hadn't been a UVA, there may not have been a Dave Matthews Band

makes you think

pacino wrote:Snooping law in the UK is nuts, going much further than us and has almost no outlined safeguards or privacy for dissent, journos, etc

The sneaky bastards managed to get it approved whilst everyone was focused on bigger things, fucking Teresa May couldn't get it through in 2012 but she managed it now. Expect Trump and his lackeys to try and top it though.

21McBride wrote:Lincoln had very little of either.

pretty sure he was an attorney, read plato by firelight, walked miles uphill both ways to school in the snow, etc

The current state of the country (even world) brought an oldie but very goodie to mind:

Radio, an insidious form, helps shape your thoughts making you conform. Programming music easy listening, help you achieve that moronic grin. Playing your regurgitated pap, selling products that are mostly crap. Rarely hearing music you want to hear, it has an effect over all these years. Why don't you think for yourself. Live in this self-made Hell.

Television, the idiot tube, helps to raise our children as fools. Watch the news see what they want you to see, our awareness is limited by network VPs. Moronic sit-coms and one-sided news alter your feeling give you conformist views. Why can't you get that garbage out of your head, you'd be better off to read a good book instead. Why don't you think for yourself. Live in this self-made Hell.

Newspapers, what do they say, Not much I think when they want schoolkids to pray. Getting the facts from some daily news, you hate the system but adhere to its views. Blaming the dead because they can't complain, shielding officials holding them above blame. You'd better wake up and see what's plain to see, or end up a willing part of the machine. Why don't you think for yourself. Live in this self-made Hell. Why don't you think for yourself. You must think for yourself.

Brainwashed - Nuclear Assault

drsmooth wrote:

21McBride wrote:Lincoln had very little of either.

pretty sure he was an attorney, read plato by firelight, walked miles uphill both ways to school in the snow, etc

didn't say it was a bad thing. And he had the McGuffey Reader.

21McBride wrote:And he had the McGuffey Reader.

good old McGuffy

So Trump's Taiwan call was a long planned act of provocation against China. He's gonna start a war before he's even inaugurated.

I was of the mind that if anything unprecedented happened on Dec. 19th that it may destroy the country. Now I'm thinking that may be the only way to save it.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics ... ing&wpmm=1

It needs to be done. The electors should step in.