reading comprehension would be your friend - if you had it.

Perhaps simply reading prior to posting. Even a lack of comprehension doesn't explain this post.

Well, he's an Obamanite. What can one expect?

Regan had Alzheimer and a video would be preferred over those big words without meaning in reports. Sure would like to know who put together the video "Make America Great by raising taxes on the poor and middle class and borrow like hell." CIA, Congress or just a lobbyist - he probably didn't know or care. And to those who will say his disease came after the WH years don't know much about the developing of this disease. Just thinking back on some of his actions is very commical and expected.

After Regan there was talk of a basic skills test to be president but it didn't go anywhere, too bad, otherwise Bush II never would have seen the inside of the White House.

Losing his marbles? I think you need to see some of his speeches and especially his jokes and quips when the cameras and microphones were “off”. Wasn’t there a big scandal because he told some jokes prior to some event dinner? As someone who spent years caring for folks with dementia of various sorts, the ability to remember and tell a relevant joke is one of the first things to go.

It’s funny how the left wing idiots “tweak” history when it paints a conservative in a positive light. It’s also convenient that people come forward claiming he had problems finding a particular word or remembering a name. If that’s the sign of the start of Alzheimer’s, well, I guess I’m well on my way.

He is definitely the best president we’ve had since JFK. The really amazing thing is they both held the same beliefs as far as government involvement, strong military and fiscal management.

You either have no real time knowledge of his presidency or simply have some axe to grind. You are also jealous because the Democrats haven’t found anyone even close in Ronald Reagan’s or John F. Kennedy’s caliber in the last 60 years.

I have real time knowledge of Reagan. Clinton surpassed Reagan in popularity, intelligence and economics. Clinton left office with a 86 billion surplus. Reagan spent every penny he could get and borrow leaving the economy deeper in debt than ever before. Some people have a warped since of well being if money is being spent even though it is borrowed, like spending on a credit card and thinking you are rich. That was Regan's problem. Regan raised taxes on the middle class and poor and gave the super rich big tax breaks, those tax increases on the poor and middle class exist today. Reagan was an actor not a leader. There is no ax to grind here, I didn't like the man before he was elected and that never changed. I didn't like his policies including his tax breaks for the super rich and military build up which we still suffer from today also. Those are facts, not honing.

any sentence with the words Reagan and intelligence and i stop reading

any sentence with the words Reagan and intelligence and i stop reading

And thus you never learned anything about either.

learned enough by paying attention. Reagan = beginning of the decline of america.

or i guess i could just say "I don't recall"

That's a lie. There is a reason he won his first term in a landslide and his second with the biggest landslide in history, carrying 49 states. Carter handed him such a disaster that when Reagan turned the country completely around and won the cold war to boot, he was rightly rewarded by the American voter.

No matter how much fascist disinformation you spew, you cannot rewrite history.

and that is because of his fortuneteller.

There is a difference between daily politics and history.

Unfortunately our education system is comprised of the same kind of folks that MSNBC attracts; they create the daily dose of negative political chatter. They care nothing about history other than an attempt to re-write it on a daily basis. They care nothing about what works. All they care about is what they hope works - and it never does.

I think it always helps to put oneself in the shoes of your opposition. Examples:

1. You loan money to someone to pay for their education. Do you want to be re-paid? Yes!

2. You sell a mortgage to someone allowing them to buy a house. Do you want to be re-paid? Yes!

3. You collectively give someone a K-12 education. Do you want them to graduate? Yes. Do you want them to look for work every day? Yes! Do you want them to create their own job if they can not find someone to hire them? Yes!! If they can not figure out how to create their own job, do you want them to at least create their own website or blog and populate it with advertising? Yes!!!

4. You collectively allow the underground economy to grow ever larger without paying income taxes because it is too expensive to enforce the laws. Do you want to institute a national consumption tax so that you are able to collect at least collect some taxes from these folks? Yes!

I could go on and on. But the fact is the majority of MSNBC visitors simply will choose to whine and go back to their negative political chatter. It helps no one. It certainly does not move the ball forward in solving our financial problems.

Go ask todays student about history and they look at you like what are you talking about. The schools do not teach history like they did when those of us who are in our 60s or more went to school, heck they don't even teach the basics on anything any more. Just saying.

We can never expect these "progressives" to ever say anything good about Reagan. Reagan was the greatest president in our lifetimes and they know it. But, because he was anti-union and anti-communist, they hate him. So don't even try to defend Reagan's name against them because, as we have seem from missrn above, they blind themselves to any truth.

Mikhail Gorbachev ended the cold war. Reagan himself admitted he played only a bit part.

That may have been his only moment of lucidity during his presidency.

Kevin-747617... it was his wife Nancy that used fortunetellers.

We spend our years doing all we can, only to have the constant shifts and rifts set us back into the street.

Where once upon your age, things were nothing as they are today. Then, you had respect, honor and legitimate work to perform.

Today, you get a broom or rag - told to sweep or wipe something down. They afraid to even teach a worker how to repair a maching, let alone run one.

They believe the worker today to be too stupid to learn much of anything... to be expected when they fail to teach them anything of any worth or value.. such as was received many years ago.

They knew the business.. they didn't want others learning their methods - lies, deceit, hate, greed... that way, there'd be far less competition. Once they could drive out the competition..they could really begin making the bucks... better have hoped you were their all time friends... and would let you have a job.

The big dogs, could see all this going on.. and since many had 'public backers' to pool the money from to buy out even more businesses... oh how the stock market progressed.

Lovely melting pot, where the smelters from the top, get to sift off the floating gold.

If you didn't listen to the video, maybe you should have. It was all there, in mostly full truth. If it wasn't at the time.. possibly in reagan's time it began.

What most everyone on the street today already has learned... there's been way too much false reporting going on in this country... and this will be the year the public is a wake, not in drunken brainwashed stupor.

I look to see major companys brought to the ground for rampantly and blatantly taking out casual business of which designed the original backbone of this country. The backbone each of them helped to rip from it's place.. forcing all Americans into darker slavery.

These are fincial crimes that purpetrators MUST pay for. You don't take from the public silently through the years, then call bankruptcy and walk away with millions in your own pocket.

Life is priceless, no CEO is work more than $500,000.00. Once they're gone, there is always another to take their place. Raise the expenses, then raise the costs to match... very bad for any business.

The public will learn which company destroyed which.. then things will become focused.

From a few posts here, I see there are still people with little clue on just how expensive things truly need to be.. in order for everyone to not only live well, but be able to get along also.

Rely on money... you're sickening.

@magnets - Outstanding summary. Thanks!

It's not so much propaganda when now they have the ACTUAL DECLASSIFIED VIDEOS.....

The fact that Reagan liked his briefings in video format - is true. The article makes it pretty clear that it was only some videos, and it's not like he didn't read at all. He also read intelligence and had daily (non video) briefings.

Actually, I think it's kind of a good idea to have a briefing in an easy to take in format like video.... he doesn't need all the little details as a President, a leader needs the bigger picture put together by the experts.

Shuk, that is exactly how the wool gets pulled over one's own eyes... since it's someone else's responsibilty relying on them to do their job is failure on your own part for not double checking them.

Believe what you here or see... in time you become the fool.

Verify what is said or printed... you become a knowledged tool.

"....no other country has nukes, what's there to worry about.. relax I tell ya.. nothing will come of it. "

If people do not stay up to date on what is going on around this world.. hey, party on. The ground drops out from under you.. don't bother asking those who've been following it. They are trying to prevent it before it strikes.. but.. enjoy your own little party.

Intelligence and education are so overrated,and tend to make you a liberal. See: College professors and all scientists.

Signed,

The Teabirthers.

Besides, he was senile for his entire second term.

Besides, he was senile for his entire second term.

Yet remarkedly sharper than you.

ooo good comeback Dr.

Actually, education is highly overrated, intelligence is not. Carter was an intelligent nuclear engineer, but was dumb as a post about national governance. All the education in the world won't help that unless you know how to apply it to real world problems.

Double digit inflation, double digit unemployment, 20%+ interest rates, that is Carters legacy.

Of course, the GOP exhibits neither....

NHL.. Carter failed as a president because he was probably the only HONEST man we have had as a president, in the last 50 years and couldn't be bought.

There is a lot of truth in the soviet propaganda, also some some distortions. But a LOT is TRUE!

And yet his second term was infinitely better that Obama's first. Maybe Obama could use some diminished capacity.

p111, is that a threat?

They have to resort to threats and fear mongering, their policies have no merit.

What p111 should realize, is since the character diminished second term, more than likely a few individuals in the cabinet took over decision making.... for Reagan... which means the second year went better because he was hardly there long enough to make the decisions.

Obama does appear to be making attempts... some feable, some not so bad... but he is making the attempts.

It's our Country's infrastructure and her people's inability to stop pointing fingers at this or that side and failing miserably to prevent the rich from exploiting the system to not only make themselves wealthier, but insure the rest of us would always remain poor ( from their view anyhow.. ).... and the explicit inability to realize each of us are living, breathing human creatures and allowed these miscreants to tilt the scales so bad in their favor.

"GET A JOB", "GO TO WORK AND SUPPORT THE SYSTEM", "Quit being lazy and work"... I truly believe many out there failed to listen to even themselves. Your complaints firsthand should have alerted all of you to the fact there was something wrong.

Blame it on Gov rather than acknowledge you kept to your little own slave working world without regard for other fellow human beings. Are you all that much better? Right, I suppose you will NEVER EVER ever die in this life time hey?

People exist. They will once each of us are gone.. rather than be solutions.. the rich created ever more problems for everyone in failing to be human in the most basic of sense.

Keep jacking prices, keep putting others in the street.. NEVER LOWER those prices for any reason.. squeeze the low lifes off the scale.. those low lifes that have allowed you to take from them at every turn you could possibly find a way to.

Get them all off their high pedastals.. we all may just find the entire world not to be so bad after all.

You have described a repugnican red neck's life with precision.

Actually, Richard described a huge portion of Democratic voters.

OMG, just admit the GOP/TP is in the crapper. You'all got some soul searchin to do before 2016

Dream on lib!

Actually, Richard described a huge portion of Democratic voters

Really? I thought the stereotype would be cafe lattes while watching Nova or something.... You need to get your stereotypes straight it seems.

That's absurd. Compare what Reagan was handed by Carter to what Obama was handed by Bush. No contest, Reagan had the tougher job and did infinitely better.

@ p111

LOL YOU SO FUNNY!!! Thank you for the laugh I really needed it....

Wow, P111. Where does one even start with that? Unbelievable.

Look, if you want to kiss St. Ronnie's ass, that's fine. But don't just make up stupid @!$%# to try and support your man crush.

I think you missed that part about the end of the Cold War. It was real, dangerous, and consuming. Our buildup ended it and started the Soviet Union splitting into the pieces we have today.

Otherwise, you would be reading in Russian.

"he will be best remembered for beginning the long decline of the American middle class."

That's a lie. Thanks to him we recovered from the worst disaster since the depression and between him and Bush I made enough to retire at 55. The middle class did very well during his presidency. Infinitely better than Carters double digit unemployment and inflation.

Dr. Larry -

If communism was a real threat isn't that admitting that it works? I thought the reason communism failed was because it didn't address reality and human nature via economic incentives? Not to mention that the USSR wasn't even seriously competing with us economically since our infrastructure was completely untouched after WWII (not so the Soviet Union). The Soviet Union most likely would have fallen regardless of who was President at the time (as seen by the fact that Bush Sr. was actually President at the time).

Did Reagan's nuclear buildup help? Maybe. The USSR already possessed enough nuclear warheads to destroy all life in the world, it doesn't make sense that they would need more to keep up with our buildup - but maybe they did. However, what is much more likely is that the effort and cost of trying to keep hold of their "republics," which were clamoring for freedom, is what eventually did them in.

Mutually assured destruction might have staved off a nuclear war between the US and the USSR, but it had little to do with the fall of the Soviet Union. Ultimately their economic theory failed, not their military. Additionally to say that we would be speaking Russian if not for Reagan is just silly. JFK and LBJ were just as staunchly anti-communism as Reagan.

I guess post hoc ergo propter hoc claims another victim.

Also the Afghan war played a significant role in 'nailing the coffin' on the USSR, I might add.

Our policies there contributed significantly to the fall of the USSR's military machine, Afghanistan-Soviet war was a brutal and bloody venture which ended in defeat for them. Their economy was already in dire straits....

But of course, unintended consequences of our subsequent "Well we're safe now that the Russians are defeated" mentality - oops, here comes Islamic Fundamentalism, now armed with American weaponry.

How about the start of Union Busting with the Air Traffic Controllers

You really have no clue do you? The AT Controllers broke the law and got two chances. They bluffed and got fired.

Dr Larry, I beg to differ. The whole idea that a strike could be illegal is completely ridiculous. When nothing else has worked, the only leverage a working person has to change whatever he or she determines needs to be changed, is to put his or her job on the line. I assure you, the PATCO members were not bluffing. Remember that Congress had determined after the previous strike that the AT controllers were correct, that the AT system was broken, and had mandated changes, not all of which the FAA had put into place. PATCO supported Reagan for election, and he betrayed their trust.

I won't say you have no clue, or call you names, but if you work for a living or you are somewhere in the middle class, Reagan was no friend of yours or your family's.

Safety? ridiculous?

In February 1981, PATCO President Robert Poli met with the FAA and demanded a $10,000-per-year wage increase for each controller, a four-day workweek, and full retirement after 20 years. The demands would have cost the FAA $770 million.

The FAA presented a $40 million counteroffer, which would grant a shorter workweek and a 10 percent pay increase to controllers who worked night shifts or doubled as instructors. Contract negotiations stalled, however, when 95 percent of PATCO’s members rejected the FAA’s proposal and began making arrangements to strike.

At 7:00 a.m. on Aug. 3, 13,000 PATCO members went on a strike in violation of a law barring federal employees from striking against the government.

In doing so, the union violated a law — 5 U.S.C. (Supp. III 1956) 118p. — that banned strikes by government unions. Ronald Reagan declared the PATCO strike a "peril to national safety" and ordered them back to work under the terms of the Taft-Hartley Act of 1947

He issued an ultimatum: Return to work within 48 hours, or be fired for breaking federal law. Two days later, 11,345 air traffic controllers were fired and given a lifetime ban from working as controllers.

"Dr." Larry -

Until you have visited ATC and know how incredibly stressful this can be, or have had ATC save your "rear" in an emergency, you have no idea of the value of these people.

As a pilot, I know these are some of the most dedicated, professional people I know of, and the "burn-out" rate is much higher than most people realize.

What they asked for was not unreasonable.

Sorry, I've been in their facilities and have friends that are controllers. The job is indeed stressful but so are many corporate jobs. They broke the law whether you like it or not. It is illegal for federal workers to strike and it is a termination offense.

The whole problem with this country now is a total lack of personal responsibility. Morality is no longer what is right, it is what you can get away with. Reagan was the last president to say ENOUGH!

I never did get Reagan, he eluded questions and clearly was manipulated. But America was under a spell, a Carter Bashing spell and then the Neo-cons really used propaganda before we all got our fill of it and realized what utter BS it was...and continues to be. What an utter disaster the GOP has been for America.

Congratulations. You win the award for the biggest pile of steaming BS.

Once again, Dr Larry, not calling you names. But would you possibly consider showing someone else the same courtesy? Just because you *say* it's BS does not make it BS. I'm not saying you didn't read it. But your reply doesn't refute any of the points.

On this group, we tend to try to advance coherent arguments that are framed and even (gasp!) contain attributions. But if you want to dismiss a well-researched and coherent blog article, I won't stop you.

That was not a well-researched and coherent blog article. It is an extremely biased and often ignorant left-wing rant. It is purely an opinion piece.

Using a lot of words, some of them big, does not change that.

We can offer a couple of easy refutations if that makes you happy:

Saddam - weapons of mass destruction? Maybe you should ask the Kurds that he gassed. No, wait - you can't - they died.

"no empirical evidence to support the idea that reducing taxes leads to more employment"?

This is stated as if increasing taxes would lead to more employment. That's patently laughable.

Stirring a pile of BS does not make it smell better.

BTW - I did not see any contribution in your post either.

Michael-you are just another brainwashed marxist lemming who cannot think independently of what your leftist spin masters feed you.

Instead of labeling what I wrote as "steaming BS" or "not well-researched" or "an ignorant left wing rant," or calling me a "brainwashed marxist lemming," why don't you dolts argue against the points I made? Show me research that belies what I've claimed.

Dr. Larry, that there is no evidence supporting the proposition that lowering taxes leads to more jobs doesn't mean or imply that increasing taxes leads to more employment, and I made no such claim. I wrote about knuckleheads who readily agreed to the Republican fabrication that Saddam had weapons to spin us into an unnecessary war. Saddam's gassing of the Kurds had nothing to do with my assertion. So, do you believe that killing hundreds of thousands of Iraqis was a fair price to pay for a butcher who not only gassed the Kurds but who shook Rumsfeld's hand when he was our friend, receiving money from the CIA, fighting the Iranians? You're just an illogical lout lurking behind baseless diatribes.

Mr. Robinson, what part of what I wrote is wrong? Argument ad hominem, attacking the speaker, is not an argument in favor of a position. Do you even know anything about which I wrote? Nah. You should stick to mouthing the nostrums of Fox News. Mr. Robinson, I have four university degrees, including a Master's Degree in law from Stanford Law School, where I taught. Just because I'm an academic doesn't mean I'm brainwashed. And what I espouse is neither Marxist nor socialist; it's just a more coherent explanation for why we have such poor distribution of income. Did either you or Dr. Robinson know that the top 20% of annual income earners control 85% of our annual income. http://sociology.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/wealth.html. How do you fellows explain why

"In June, an analysis from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities confirmed that gap between rich and poor in the United States reached levels not seen since 1929. Between 1979 and 2007, the yawning chasm separating the after-tax income of the richest 1 percent of Americans from the middle and poorest fifths of the country more than tripled. But while the Bush recession which began in December 2007 temporarily halted the stratospheric advance of the wealthy, the rich - and the rich alone - have largely recovered their losses. Which means that the record level of income inequality in America is growing once again." http://www.perrspectives.com/blog/archives/001908.htm.

Are you fellows aware that "The top 1 percent’s share of national income has doubled over the past three decades (from 10 percent in 1981 to well over 20 percent now). The richest one-tenth of 1 percent’s share has tripled. And they’re doing better than ever. According to a new analysis by the Wall Street Journal, total compensation and benefits at publicly-traded Wall Street banks and securities firms hit a record in 2010 — $135 billion. That’s up 5.7 percent from 2009.

Yet, remarkably, taxes on the top have plummeted. From the 1940s until 1980, the top tax income tax rate on the highest earners in America was at least 70 percent. In the 1950s, it was 91 percent. Now it’s 35 percent. Even if you include deductions and credits, the rich are now paying a far lower share of their incomes in taxes than at any time since World War II.

The top 1 percent’s share of national income has doubled over the past three decades (from 10 percent in 1981 to well over 20 percent now). The richest one-tenth of 1 percent’s share has tripled. And they’re doing better than ever. According to a new analysis by the Wall Street Journal, total compensation and benefits at publicly-traded Wall Street banks and securities firms hit a record in 2010 — $135 billion. That’s up 5.7 percent from 2009.

Yet, remarkably, taxes on the top have plummeted. From the 1940s until 1980, the top tax income tax rate on the highest earners in America was at least 70 percent. In the 1950s, it was 91 percent. Now it’s 35 percent. Even if you include deductions and credits, the rich are now paying a far lower share of their incomes in taxes than at any time since World War II." http://politics.salon.com/2011/04/04/tax_disparity_income_2012_robert_reich/.

Both of you lack the ability to think critically, so you resort to personal name calling. I'm afraid you guys are the lemmings here.

You got my vote. Nice piece. That's why we #Occupy

Very good article Michael. Research and common sense are not a big priority with the right. Rush and his ilk at Faux are thier trusted sources. Remember my right leaning friends, a lemming doesn't know it is a lemming until it is over the cliff. Keep feeding the percieved job creators and ignoring the real job creators which are the people whose wages and benefits are under constant attack by your party. Have a nice day.

Michael Marowitz - I like you and thank you for doing your homework and sorry that you may have gone through that period as I did. It has never really gone away- economically. I was in my senior yr when he took office. My university education was nearly over and the future looked bright with a new BA. But - The 1st day of work after the Inauguration - which I think he took the Monday off and it was a Tuesday - the 1st line of business was to state "No Federal Funds without State Matching Funds" and he meant it. It took about 45 days for the impact. States had to do without or scrape together all the money they could to get Fed dollars to sustain their most important needs and not a dollar left over for much of anything; let alone industry development. And global industry was changing. Japan entered the milling of our trees, closing our mills; Canada entered the agricultural global exchange;computers were coming on but PC's yet to arrive - so smaller industry not keeping pace with the loss of our larger ones. Automanufacturers couldn't retool to fit the new Asian compacts. Serious unemployment. In the teens even one time recorded over 20%. Reagan reconfigured statistics to include the military in 1982 to bring down the % to about 11%. It still fluctuated. Barbed wire could be seen around mid size companies with signs saying "WE ARE NOT HIRING". Crime, burglaryies and families falling apart came on the scene. Carter's employment program CETA was turned into a minor slice of it's former self and called JTPA or JPTA. What a joke. There were no jobs and homelessness took on a whole new look - in fact the word came about during the Reagan admin. It didn't occur before him. He took money away from mental health homes - developmentally disabled mental health homes - mental hospitals - so those people were walking the streets; often returning at night after a day of self care. He gave American's the Govt cheese - later he added crackers. He called school catsup 'the vegetable'. Star Wars, wouldn't say AIDS as it raced through cities and state after state began reporting the deaths.T

There is so much more about Reagan but I am at a loss for steam tonight. People don't listen or don't want to know.

It appears that the CIA made films for him and he took the information as his own knowledge and ran with it. So the CIA formed the Reagan view of America. Great....just dandy. Then Bush Sr. with great disdain for Americans by claiming his residence was Texas to avoid state income tax but we all knew he lived in Kennebunkport, Maine; continued the CIA positions. Great. just great.

I am tired of beating the drum to remind people of Reagan - glad to see your post.

Me dr larry me no lik mical he us big wurds he mite hav edcshun mak him go way

HEY Michal! *doing best Dr. Larry impression*

Solyndra! Fast and Furious! errr ummm 57 States! Teleprompter! Ummm.... what else... Kenyan! Unions suck! Those who can't do, teach! Obumba!

Yeah take that!

Welcome to prehistoric America... everyone have your clubbing sticks? Oh.. we haven't gone that far back... lucky us.

Mr. Marowitz, I disagree with much of your post, but enjoyed your writing style and fund of knowledge. It would seem, by a later post that for some reason would not allow me to reply to it, that you are very upset that "the rich" exist at all. I am now "rich", but started life in poverty in the 1960s. My father, a high school dropout, was able to finally move his family into the "middle class" in the ealry 1970s. He could not afford to send me to college, so I had to work my way through school, holding down, at one point, four part-time jobs simultaneously. I graduated, and attended medical school through a military sponsorship (it is called a "Health Profession Scholarship" but it is more like a term work contract: they pay for school and you work for the military for a period of years). Now, after 25 years as an Army physician, my family & I have lived well within our means, and now own our home, own several other small properties that we rent below market rates (we get loyal tenants that way) and can afford to send our kids to colleges wherever they want. Because of my income and net worth, I am in the very bottow edge of that 1% that the Occupy Wall Street are protesting about, yet I am much closer to the level of income of the other 99% than I ever will be to the "uber" wealthy, such as: Mark Zuckerburg, Bill Gates, George Soros, Warren Buffett, Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, Opra Winfery, Tiger Woods, the Koch brothers, Steve Ellison, etc.

So, in your "utopia", am I to be lined up and shot because you failed to parley your "four degrees" into wealth? Or are you just OK with a granduated tax system, such as we have now, but with "fairer" rates? Would those faired rates only apply to those making more per year than you?

I suggest anyone read Richard Dawkins' "The Selfish Gene" as a foundation, followed by works from the "young" field of study called evolutionary psychology. There seem to be some features in the way humans interact that are "inate" and are not a product of socialization (not refering to socialism, please). It is a fascinating field, and may explain why "conservatives" and "progressives" have sets of ideas thay they believe in vehemently. There were significant "survival" advantages to certain social stratagies in tribal human history: mistrust of strangers, allocation of resources to closer relatives, banishment of individuals from tribal support as a result of "taboo" behavior, strong loyalty to a gifted provider are amomg a few. It has been argued that human evolution has entered a phase of stasis, as there are no significant life & death survival pressures being applied now. This may change as we begin to run short of enough resources to maintain or achieve average lifestyles that cannot be sustained. In such a situation, each of us would "want" (at the gene-affected level of behavior) our own offspring to survive and someone else's to fail. Evolution, if true, does not only conflict with "equal outcome", it mandates that there be an unequal outcome for the process to occur.

Anyway, hope to post with you again sometime.

Grab a clue, everyone uses teleprompters and every president has at least since LBJ. At least Obama knows how to read, speak coherently and pronounce words correctly!!

Jim in Texas - interesting you bring Nancy up. While she was First Lady, I think her image suffered a lot, maybe more than she deserved, by her association with her husband's administration (see "Queen Nancy" and such). I feel like America has gotten to know her somewhat better since 88, and I for one have grown to respect and like her a lot more. She has been unwilling to toe the line on things like stem cell research, and her love for her husband did not seem quite the fawning we tend to see among many political spouses. Or maybe I'm getting old and mellow.

Actually, he didn't call her Nancy, he called her "mommie." Sick but true. To paraphrase Mrs. Reagan, "Just say no to (the GOP)."

No Randy - he didn't get it right.

What we saw in California as governor was precisely what we got as president ("you've see one tree, you've seen them all...")

These videos only confirm the obvious - Reagan was a man who could not deal with complexity. He was spoon-fed predigested Pablum.

He was an actor.

The worst of this was "supply-side" economics. It was a joke then, and a joke now.

Randy,

There's a famous statement in philosophical circles--contemporaneity does not prove causality. Just because Reagan was in office when communism fell doesn't mean Reagan caused it.

The main thing the Borax salesman did on his watch was to increase military spending (gotta feed that military-industrial complex we're so fond of nourishing), which may have bankrupted the Soviet Union when it tried to keep up. As much as Reagan sang the song of lower taxes, raising the debt ceiling for our military never troubled Reagan.

Reagan began what we are living in now. Wages became stagnant and the employee became the enemy under Reagan. We the People began losing our rights under Reagan. Iran/Contra was a big fat lie pulled on the American people. The Wall came down anyway - Reagan was told it was coming down and tried to take the credit. The Republicons tried to name everything (!!!)after Reagan after he left office. It is sad to see people try to kid themselves, but he was THEIR greatest - not America's greatest tho - not by a long shot. Maybe he should have been given an Oscar for his portrayal of a President. Reagan set us on track for where we hit in '08 and the world and the USA will struggle for years to get over his deregulations! Reagan began the full-fledged Government of, by and for Big Business. Nancy Reagan was the President in the old man's 2nd term - there is video showing her telling him what to say! The best of the Republicons was the biggest Con Job ever put over those gullible Republicons! America has suffered the most because of Reagan

The American people are waking up to the rip-off, too. Republicons misread the 2010 elections, but they will have to swallow the 2012 elections and stop holding America back! Their lockstep my-way-or-no-way governing does not work in America! Bring on 2012!

Randy, Reagan had NOTHING to do with "the end of communism." Gorbachev and Yeltsin on the other hand, DID. He also had nothing to do with the Berlin wall being torn down, you can thank Gorby for that as well.

Reagan just happened to be President at the time. One does not equate to the other.

Randythemoderate

Gobechev, Welesa, and Pope John Paul did far more to end the Soviet Union than Reagan ever did or could do, and the Soviet Union would have ended when it did even if Kermit the Frog had been President.

The current global economic crisis is a direct result of "Reaganomics", yet 30 years of "trickle down" not working, and the Teapublicans still claim it will work if we just leave it alone, and unfortunately, a large portion of the population seem to believe.