------------------- Ronald Reagan's Record "Firsts" --------------------

First to serve as Governor on a "conservative" platform and increase spending by 112%.
First Governor to increase personal income taxes by 60%, increase the cigarette tax by 200%, and increase state tax collections by 152%.
First to have a popularity rating of only 35% after his first two years in office.
First to have had a shotgun wedding.
First president to have been divorced.
First to increase spending by 80%--in only 8 years.
First to spend more in eight years than was spent in prior 50 years.
First to cut taxes by 60% for his rich pals.
First to have increased the national debt faster than growth of national income.
First to "almost": triple the national debt.
First to increase the national debt faster than growth of GDP.
First to double the deficit.
First to turn America into a debtor nation.
First to set a record for the largest one day percentage decline in the DOW in history. 10-19-87.
First to have "real" interest rates of 8% after averaging 1% over 35 years.
First to keep prime interest rates at 20%.
First to have home loan interest rates as high as 16%.
First to allow the savings and loan industry to be raided after signing a deregulatory bill and proclaiming "I think we have hit the jackpot". Come and get it the vaults are unguarded.
First to send an autographed Bible to a man he called "The Satan of Terrorists".
First to have an admiral plead the Fifth Amendment.
First to have a stealing, lying, gutless wife abusing Marine LT. Colonel plead the Fifth Amendment.
First to have a sitting cabinet member indicted.
First to have an Assistant Secretary of State indicted.
First to have an Asistant Secretary of Defense sent to prison.
First to have over 100 members of an administration charged with crimes.
First to have more members of his administration charged with crimes than the cumulative total of all other presidents in the twentieth century.
First to testify "under oath" 130 times that "I don't remember".
First to have an Admiral with a photographic memory testify 128 times " I don't remember".
First to repeatedly falsify his wife's age, as though anyone cared.
First to promote his religious faith and while never having an active membership in any church.
First to never use the term Jesus Christ in speeches.
First to have unemployment at 10.8% since great depression.
First to attack a small unprotected nation with 88,000 inhabitants and 10,000 bb guns, and then proclaim "America stands tall again". "we have whipped the Vietnam Syndrome. We have defeated communism".
#1-in farm foreclosures.
#1-In bank failures.
#1-In Savings and Loan failures.
#1-In percent increase in personal bankruptcies.
#1-In having servicemen killed during peacetime.
#1-In largest drop in popularity in one week.
#1-In being first to honor Nazi Storm Troopers by calling them" Innocent Victims".
First to lie - over and over- to reporters "I do not dye my hair; my barber uses a special shampoo."
First to have a wife who "forced" him to wear three suits in one day.
First to boast "Not bad for a dumb guy who worked only 20 hours per week".
First to have his wife sit nearby and whisper answers to questions.
First to have his press secretary remove him from the microphone when he could not answer questions. (When the reporter shouted out "answer my question", the president replied "my handlers won't let me speak").
First to have a Special Assistant say on national TV "sometimes you had to hit him on the head with a 2 x 4 to get his attention".
#1-In needing a staff person standby during press conferences to tell the press "what he really meant".
#1-In recorded misstatements.
#1-In never having a single press conference in which he did not make incorrect statements.
First to invite the Pope to visit the White House and "bring the wife and kids".
First to fall asleep while the Pope spoke.
First 20th Century president to have historians rate him below every president of the 20th except for Richard Nixon. 1994 Poll.
First to have been openly alienated from his children.
First to suggest his eldest son undergo psychiatric examination.
First to have been voted in British polls (twice) as the "most feared leader in the world" sic em Rambo.
First to have his official biographer state on national TV: 'After he was shot in 1981, he got slower and slower each year. His speech got slower. He deliberated more and he hesitated more when he spoke. He lost his physical quickness and would not make decisions on the spot. It was a very, very slow and steady mental and physical decline".
First president to have the Geriatrics Department of a major university study his behavior and conclude that after three years in office he had Alzheimer's.
First to have over $10,000,000 increase in wealth from serving for 8 years as president.

This is just a small sample of all the debunking I do of Ronnie at my http://LiberalsLikeChrist.Org/Reagan.html page.

Wilson was one of the worst presidents ever, and he would admit so. After selling the country out by signing the Federal Reserve Act, a disillusioned Wilson lamented, "I am a most unhappy man. I have unwittingly ruined my country. A great industrial nation is controlled by its system of credit. Our system of credit is concentrated. The growth of the nation, therefore, and all our activities are in the hands of a few men. We have come to be one of the worst ruled, one of the most completely controlled and dominated governments in the civilized world. No longer a government by free opinion, no longer a government by conviction and the vote of the majority, but a government by the opinion and duress of a small group of dominant men."
And so it remains today.

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War is Peace.
Freedom is Slavery.
Ignorance is Strength.

It's a post 9/11 world.

I picked Teddy Roosevelt, the first and only Real and True Environmentalist President. He preserved, and respected Nature, along with responsible hunting.

John F. Kennedy no
Thomas Jefferson great statesman did a lot of things to expand the nation
Harry Truman dropped the atom bomb killing so many
Franklin Roosevelt 4 tearms pretty impressive. made lasting social programs
Abraham Lincoln freed the slaves in a different country not is own. preserved the union
Bill Clinton had a great economy. as ell as great sex
Teddy Roosevelt no
George Washington had the good sense to quit after 8 years
Ronald Reagan hmmmm the father of modern conservatisim. Don't think so

None of the above.

Possibly Jefferson.

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The economy is fundamentally sound! John McCain.

The Bible contains six admonishments to homosexuals and 362 admonishments to heterosexuals. That doesn't mean that God doesn't love heterosexuals. It's just that they need more supervision. ~Lynn Lavner
My lesbianism is an act of Christian charity. All those women out there praying for a man, and I'm giving them my share. ~Rita Mae Brown

George Washington.

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MCCAIN/PALIN
2008

Its FDR followed somewhat closely by Reagan.

FDR busted this country out of a depression and paved the ground for its route to supremacy.

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"Any man who is under 30, and is not a liberal, has not heart; and any man who is over 30, and is not a conservative, has no brains."
- Winston Churchill

I'd have to against policy here and say a three way tie.

LINCOLN, KENNEDY. and F.D.R.

In my opinion all three were equaly great the time they spent as presidents.

A comment on the apparent disagreement of this poll with the relative dominance of commentary found in the forum. Does this reflect a discontinuity? To me it suggests a silent majority, and a vocal minority. As of Sept. 14 the ranking order is:
(1)Reagan, (2)Roosevelt. ,(3)Lincoln, (4)Washington, (5)Kennedy ,(6)Clinton, (7)Jefferson, (8)Roosevelt T, (9)Truman
Accepted popular wisdom” would look something like this: (1)Kennedy, (2)F. Roosevelt, (3)Clinton, (4)Reagan, (5)Truman, (6)Lincoln, (7)T Roosevelt, (8)Washington, (9)Jefferson (Truman might suffer here because he used the first Atomic weapon on another country- but he is most often quoted by party faithful in "The buck stops here" and he is epitomized in the famous words "give 'em hell Harry!)

BTW thanks for putting the poll together, for obvious reasons. Could we have more than nine with significant numbers? Who got the largest part of the (now) 30 voters so as to make the rankings an even 10?

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American Bottoms

A Type Unit Geology ~ a system of glacial filled valleys in Southern Indiana which embraces the broader impulses of the whole region in which it is integrated.
~~~
[A] LACK of self awareness renders us transparent. A soul that knows itself is opaque;
We can see through others only when we can see through ourselves.

From Eric Hoffer's PSM

VISIT MY ALBUM

The one and only, great Ronal Reagan.

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There shall ye find Light

Be thou faithful unto Death
And I will give thee a crown of Life

I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain myself to a man who rises and sleeps under the blanket of the very freedom that I provide and then questions the manner in which I provide it.

Oh cruel fate, to be thusly boned. Ask not for whom the bone bones. It bones for thee.

Grover Cleveland was, in my opinion, the greatest President in American history. He supported limited government, free trade and the gold standard, plus he was mostly non-interventionist in his foreign policy and he lessened government cronyism.

I give an honorable mention to Calvin Coolidge as the best of the 20th century.

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"Some people complain about the system. The system is not good, so they can't do anything. It's an excuse. Freedom is in your heart." (Jin Xing)