The challenges ahead (Biden's America)

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Fox News reports on a new poll of 150 political scientists which ranks Barack Obama among the top ten presidents (he's at seventh; Abraham Lincoln is first), with "Ronald Regan and Donald Trump below Joe Biden." That's a bit of an understatement. While Biden is in fourteenth place and Reagan is in sixteenth place, Trump is dead last in that list:

41. William Henry Harrison (1841-1841)
42. Franklin Pierce (1853-1857)
43. Andrew Johnson (1865-1869)
44. James Buchanan (1857-1861)
45. Donald Trump (2017-2021)

There have been 46 presidential administrations, but only 45 presidents, because Grover Cleveland's two terms weren't consecutive.

Even among Republican respondents to this poll, Obama ranked 15th and Trump ranked 41st. Curiously, Republicans put Bill Clinton higher than Democrats did.

Here is a link to the actual poll:

http://www.brandonrottinghaus.com/uploa ... r_2024.pdf

[Sunsilver]

This is what gets me - if Trump is dead last on the list, why do polls re. the upcoming election show him as being very close to Biden in terms of who people are going to vote for?

I really wonder how accurate the polls are. One thing Trump had Cohen to do was manipulate polls to falsely increase how popular he was. It would not surprise me to find out that is still happening.

[RoseMorninStar]

This is what gets me - if Trump is dead last on the list, why do polls re. the upcoming election show him as being very close to Biden in terms of who people are going to vote for?

I really wonder how accurate the polls are. One thing Trump had Cohen to do was manipulate polls to falsely increase how popular he was. It would not surprise me to find out that is still happening.

It's because the list in question was complied by political scientists, not by the general population who may not understand the constitution, etc.. etc..

[N.E. Brigand]

Yes, it was a poll of a small number of trained professionals. Such a group (even including some Republicans as it did) will have its own biases, whereas the public's major failing is forgetfulness or ignorance. Most people can't even name half the U.S. presidents, so how could they possibly be trusted to rank all forty-five? This is something I've also observed as regards movie polls, although there it's not just a recency bias but also parochialism. Most movies aren't American, but in polls of American audiences, relatively recent American films predominate.

Here is a link to the actual poll: http://www.brandonrottinghaus.com/uploa ... r_2024.pdf

Thanks for that! I see that the poll was previously conducted in 2015 and 2018, by which latter date Donald Trump was already in last place.

I was tickled by this commentary on the list including the remarks on Grover Cleveland (26th on the list and faring the same with both liberal and conservative poll participants), who "evidently believed the role of the president was to do as little as possible. When destitute Civil War veterans begged for pensions, he didn't do anything. When the American planters in Hawaii overthrew the monarchy and petitioned for annexation by the US, he didn't do anything. When the economy crashed at the start of his second term, he didn't do anything." Note also the respondent who finds everything described there praiseworthy and also likes Cleveland's "veto of a bill to give federal aid to farmers in Texas after a flood." That is a view of government I am completely opposed to, but I do appreciate seeing it made forthrightly.

[N.E. Brigand]

"If you want to hang out
You've gotta take her out
Sawdust.

If you want to get down
Get down on the ground
Sawdust.

She don't lie, she don't lie, she don't lie
Sawdust."

The third page of Hunter Biden's most recent legal filing cites Marcy Wheler's post in which she points out that prosecutors mistook sawdust for cocaine.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Meanwhile, solid proof that the Russians have been behind the push to get Biden all along.

[N.E. Brigand]

Meanwhile, solid proof that the Russians have been behind the push to get Biden all along.

Even so, he's been released on bail.

[Sunsilver]

This is what gets me - if Trump is dead last on the list, why do polls re. the upcoming election show him as being very close to Biden in terms of who people are going to vote for?

I really wonder how accurate the polls are. One thing Trump had Cohen to do was manipulate polls to falsely increase how popular he was. It would not surprise me to find out that is still happening.

It's because the list in question was complied by political scientists, not by the general population who may not understand the constitution, etc.. etc..

Okay, but that doesn't mean the polls couldn't be manipulated. I am sure whoever is working for Trump now has been ordered to find a way to make him look as good as possible in the polls. After reading Cohen's book, I am willing to bet this is still happening. It's who Trump is - remember how he insisted he had one of the largest turnouts ever at his inauguration celebration?

[RoseMorninStar]

Oh, Trump lies like he breathes. Constantly. You can't believe a thing the man says.

He was raised with (the delusional beliefs of) Rev. Norman Vincent Peale and 'The Power of Positive thinking' which instructs that one should never admit any defeat or consider any outcome other than what they want to see come to fruition. It was messed up then and it's still messed up. From Wikipedia:

General and psychological critique
Peale's works were criticized by several mental health experts who denounced his writings as bad for mental health, and concluded that Peale was a "con man and a fraud,"[20] and a "Confidence Man."[21] These critics appeared in the early 1950s after the publication of The Power of Positive Thinking. [/url]

[N.E. Brigand]

She don't lie, she don't lie, she don't lie
Sawdust."

The third page of Hunter Biden's most recent legal filing cites Marcy Wheler's post in which she points out that prosecutors mistook sawdust for cocaine.

Last night Sean Hannity strongly implied that the picture of sawdust (on a saw, no less) really was sawdust cocaine. And like prosecutors, he also doesn't seem to realize that the photo wasn't taken by Hunter Biden. It was sent to Hunter Biden.

By someone who has been a guest on Hannity's show.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Don't you mean that he implied that it really was cocaine?

[N.E. Brigand]

Meanwhile, solid proof that the Russians have been behind the push to get Biden all along.

[Tweet from Kyle Cheney: "JUST IN: Feds say in a detention memo that Alexander SMIRNOV -- charged with fabricating claims that Joe Biden was bribed by Ukrainians -- had high-level contacts with Russian intelligence operatives."]

This is properly being treated as a big deal in the press, but it's probably worse than it looks. The story now is that the FBI, the Dept. of Justice, and Congress were duped by a Russian agent, but Marcy Wheeler argues, with evidence from House Republicans' own files, that some of them wanted to be duped and made it possible. Scott Brady was the U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Pennsylvania for much of Donald Trump's presidency. As Wheeler has pointed out numerous times over the past four years, in 2020, Attorney General William Barr set up Brady's office as a portal "to scrutinize information that had been gathered in Ukraine by Trump's personal attorney Rudy Giuliani, relating to Trump's opponent in the 2020 presidential campaign Joe Biden and his son, Hunter. Brady met with Giuliani in Pittsburgh to discuss the materials, and the arrangement raised concerns within the FBI and DOJ about the agencies being drawn into a politicized investigation." That's Wikipedia's summary. Well, Brady testified to James Comer's committee, and he said, under oath, that his team had vetted Smirnov's claims, by e.g., checking whether Smirnov was in the cities he claimed when he received the information he was sharing about Hunter Biden.

The Dept. of Justice filing yesterday says that Smirnov was not in those cities at those times. And the DOJ should have known that. It's possible that Smirnov's FBI handler was lying, and Brady didn't know it. But somebody in the U.S. government seems to have been covering for Smirnov in order to smear Joe Biden.

- - - - - - - - -
Edited to add:

Don't you mean that he implied that it really was cocaine?

Grr. Yes. Fixed. Thanks.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

You should take my corrections as a compliment, because it shows that I believe that your posts are worth reading carefully. And I certainly make more than my share of errors.

Meanwhile, David Weiss, the Special Counsel who was appointed to investigate Hunter Biden and brought the charges against Smirnov, is pushing back on the decision to release him pending trial.

[RoseMorninStar]

I've heard that it's in part because he's disceminating propaganda for or upcoming elections.

[N.E. Brigand]

The Wall Street Journal notes that "It's Been 30 Years Since Food Ate Up This Much Of Your Income."

While true, that means going from a low of 10.3% of income pre-Covid to 11.3% of income now.

More importantly, it's largely because people are eating out more, i.e., because they have discretionary income to spend on restaurants rather than groceries.

- - - - - - - - - -
There's a conspiracy theory circulating on the right that inflation is actually 15% not 3%. It ain't true.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

There's a conspiracy theory circulating on the right that the sky was yellow and the sun was blue.

No, wait, that's a line from a Grateful Dead song. Never mind!

[N.E. Brigand]

In chart form, economist Claudia Sahm notes some examples of the booming economy under President Biden:

Worker compensation has stayed ahead of inflation over the past three years and particularly in 2023:


The percentage of people working part-time because they can't find full-time work is as low as it ever was during Donald Trump's presidency:


Edited to add: unemployment claims, just reported today, are "much better than expected, suggesting the labor market still has plenty of capacity to keep the expansion going" with "both initial and continuing claims [at] more than 10% below the pre-COVID norm and tracking roughly in-line with 2019 levels (when the labor market was smaller)."

[RoseMorninStar]

Because the US does not have national health care, employers have an incentive to not hire full time and provide benefits/especially health insurance. From my experience, many nurses, physical therapists, doctors, shop workers, etc.. etc.. work at more than one facility because employers just won't hire full time. In my humble opinion, it's really hurting the American work force.

[N.E. Brigand]

Meanwhile, solid proof that the Russians have been behind the push to get Biden all along.

[Tweet from Kyle Cheney: "JUST IN: Feds say in a detention memo that Alexander SMIRNOV -- charged with fabricating claims that Joe Biden was bribed by Ukrainians -- had high-level contacts with Russian intelligence operatives."]

This is properly being treated as a big deal in the press, but it's probably worse than it looks. The story now is that the FBI, the Dept. of Justice, and Congress were duped by a Russian agent, but ... some of them wanted to be duped and made it possible.

"Why Richard, it profits a man nothing to give his soul for the whole world. But for Wales?"



Meanwhile House Republicans sent a subpoena to one of President Biden's assistants, then sent another one an hour later saying to ignore the first one. Why? Because the first one had said the aide needed to respond to allegations from Smirnov.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Meanwhile, David Weiss, the Special Counsel who was appointed to investigate Hunter Biden and brought the charges against Smirnov, is pushing back on the decision to release him pending trial.

Apparently, the judge in California agreed, and Smirnov has been re-arrested.