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Debra Craig . . . Get a grip on reality!Ronald Reagan, a great president? You decide where how high that bar is.
Kick-started his 1980 campaign in Nashtoba County, Mississippi with the coded call on behalf of “states rights.” Oh, Nashtoba? That’s the country where Philadelphia, MS is. You do remember Philadelphia, MS don’t you? Try Mississippi Burning, in 1964.
Prior to 1980, RR strongly opposed the Voting Rights and the Equal Rights Acts. What a bonhomie fellow, that Ronnie was, eh?
More members of his administration were investigated, indicted, tried and convicted on felonies than in the administrations of any other president, before or since; 138 total.
His deregulation mantra was a direct contributor to the Michael Milken/Ivan Boesky junk bond fiasco and the Michael Keeting/Neil Bush/Jeb Bush S&L meltdown that US taxpayers bailed out to the tune of tens of billions during the Reagan administration!
The two deepest and longest and most destructive recessions since The Great Depression occurred on his watch; 1983 and 1987; 10.2% unemployment rate in 1983, 11.3% in 1987.
In 1987, President Reagan presided over the most severe stock market crash since 1929!
Prior to Bush II, the largest government deficits in US history — including during WWII — occurred through almost the entirety of the Reagan years, and saw the national debt double.
Although he signed the bill, Mr. Reagan bitterly opposed designating any day as a memorial to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and had Nobel Peace Prize winner Nelson Mandela designated a terrorist, and Mandela’s African National Congress as a “terrorist organization.” Prior to and through the crumbling of the apartheid system in South Africa, Reagan supported that odious regime by vetoeing sanctions against it.
Reagan supported the brutal dictatorships of Pinochet in Chile and Suharto in Indonesia.
In 1983, Reagan responded to the murder of 241 Marines in Lebanon by cutting and running, only to later invade Club Med in Grenada.
Through the entire 8 years of his administration, Reagan supplied Osama bin Laden with military equipment and intelligence.
Ronald Reagan sent Donald Rumsfeld to Baghdad three times, to shake the hand of Saddam Hussein and to supply the dictator with the seed chemicals for the WMD the Iraqi president would use on his own Kurdish population in 1987. The entirety of the Reagan administration stood stone silent over the travesty! Exactly as he did when terrorists blew up the Pan-Am jet over Lockerbie, Scotland!
During the Reagan administration, the United States became the world’s largest and most prolific trafficker in illegal arms and drugs (Iran Contra).
And Debra, I haven’t even gotten started. (nasty, insulting, name calling text deleted by publisher. See comment/warning from Rob Kall, below.)
— Ed Tubbs
