… And even more importantly, he says, his chance to vote for Kamala Harris!
Former President Jimmy Carter is turning 100. His grandson tells OutFront "what he's really excited for is to go cast his ballot for Kamala Harris." pic.twitter.com/t5rvtZ9XIm
— Erin Burnett OutFront (@OutFrontCNN) September 18, 2024
There’s an old proverb about a dish best served cold… Per the Washington Post, “As Jimmy Carter nears 100, he is buoyed by Harris’s run for president” [gift link]
… Carter has been in hospice for 18 months, and his health slipped further after his wife, Rosalynn, died in November, two members of his family said. But recently, as the former president’s 100th birthday approaches on Oct. 1, he is talking more, asking about the fast-changing 2024 presidential campaign and delighting in the momentum behind Vice President Kamala Harris, the new Democratic nominee. He is even eating mini cupcakes — red velvet and caramel are his favorites.
James Earl “Chip” Carter III said in an interview with The Washington Post that his father spent days watching all of the speeches from the Democratic National Convention last month that he recorded for him. “He thought Michelle Obama was the best, and he thought Kamala was great, too,” he said.
For Carter’s birthday next month, a concert in Atlanta, a 100-mile bike ride near his hometown of Plains, Ga., and other events are planned. But when Chip Carter told his father that many people believe he is trying to stay alive to reach his birthday, the former president pushed back: “He said he didn’t care about that. It’s just a birthday. He said he cared about voting for Kamala Harris.”
Carter’s state of Georgia is critical to the November election. Biden beat Donald Trump in 2020 by less than 1 percent of the vote in the state, and Carter’s family said he can’t wait to cast his mail-in ballot for Harris…
Trump has long derided Jimmy Carter as the worst president in history, and more recently has said he thinks Biden may be worse. After losing his reelection bid to Ronald Reagan in 1980, Carter began a post-presidency of humanitarian work. He won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002 for his efforts to promote democracy, human rights and better health worldwide.
Carter, who has a long record of promoting women and African Americans, wants to live to see Harris elected. During his 1977-1981 administration, Carter appointed the first Black woman ever to serve in the Cabinet, Patricia Roberts Harris, who served as secretary of housing and urban development.
Carter enjoys hearing updates about the family farm, where 1,400 acres of longleaf pines were recently planted. He smiles when he hears about Habitat for Humanity. Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter for years led home-building efforts with the group, and to mark his birthday, country music stars Garth Brooks and Trisha Yearwood, friends of the Carters, will lead a project to build 30 homes in St. Paul, Minn…
As Carter nears his 100th birthday on Oct. 1, the 39th president is being lauded not just for his longevity but for his accomplishments in government and his work as a global humanitarian. https://t.co/uBUG7bqYFJ
— Times Free Press (@TimesFreePress) September 26, 2024
This Associated Press bio is also a good read — “Jimmy Carter at 100: A power-playing loner from the farm to the White House and on the global stage”:
… Now, as Carter nears his 100th birthday on Oct. 1, the 39th president is being lauded not just for his longevity but for his accomplishments in government, his work as a global humanitarian and, as Obama himself said in a birthday tribute for his fellow Democrat, “for always finding new ways to remind us that we are all created in God’s image.”
It’s a preview, of sorts, of what will happen when Carter’s long life ends and the nation pays tribute with state funeral rites in Washington. The praise, though, carries some irony for a president who campaigned against the ways of Washington and was an outcast of sorts even during his four years in the White House. To be sure, many presidential hopefuls campaign that way — Clinton and Reagan did it, too. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and Nikki Haley of South Carolina tried it as recently as the 2024 GOP primaries. But for Carter, being a loner even as a power player has been, perhaps, the defining posture of his life — sometimes by circumstance, sometimes by design…
In late 1975 and 1976, as Carter grew into a plausible underdog, “the media loved him,” Alter said. But as a Southerner, he also faced deeply held biases, media historian Amber Roessner said.
“Any leading candidate was going to get extra scrutiny after Watergate,” she said, “but for Carter it was even more intense.”
When Carter described himself as a “born-again Christian,” the reference was commonly understood anywhere Baptist evangelicals are prevalent, but not so much in the Northeast, where national media is headquartered and where most voters in 1976 were mainline Protestant, Catholic, Jewish or nonreligious.
“Some members of the press,” Carter complained in a Playboy magazine interview, “treat the South as a suspect nation.”…
In December 1977, when Carter’s team had been in the West Wing less than a year, Washington Post society columnist Sally Quinn labeled them “an alien tribe,” incapable of “playing ‘the game.’” An elite Georgetown hostess herself, Quinn nodded to Washington’s “frivolity” even as she assessed “the Carter people” as “not, in fact, comfortable in limousines, yachts, or in elegant salons, in black tie” or with “place cards, servants, six courses, different forks, three wines … and after-dinner mingling.”…
Carter returned home in 1981 “humiliated by the voters” and “at least somewhat depressed,” Alter said, but found his most sustained success as an outside influencer once he and Rosalynn Carter founded The Carter Center in Atlanta in 1982.
Decades of global democracy and human rights advocacy followed. Some of the former president’s international maneuvering annoyed his successors and Washington’s foreign policy establishment. Carter criticized U.S. wars in the Middle East, the West’s isolation of North Korea and Israel’s treatment of Palestine. He won a Nobel Peace Prize along the way.
“The best way to understand Carter as outsider is to see him as always understanding the rules of the insider circle,” Roessner said. “He just didn’t always play by them.”
????President Carter is turning 100 on Oct. 1! To celebrate, we’re creating a stunning mosaic filled with photos, videos, and birthday messages from around the world. Join the celebration and share your message with us!?? https://t.co/TtFVEAcC1q#HappyBirthday #JimmyCarter100 pic.twitter.com/ghYx7QXsFG
— The Carter Center (@CarterCenter) September 19, 2024
As Jimmy Carter nears his 100th birthday, a musical gala celebrates the 'rock-and-roll president' https://t.co/eSGdSj63fs
— The Associated Press (@AP) September 18, 2024
On The Road – Captain C – Road Trip, April 2024 Part 3: Vermont part 2
Baud
Thanks, AL. Very inspirational.
I noticed that WaPo couldn’t help themselves.
Completely gratuitous sentence that provides no useful information.
Dan B
Jimmy, the PRC, and me! I’m the same age as the PRC, a fact not well known (understatement) in my home state of Ohio. Party on Thursday so we can watch the VP candidates debate on the 1st.
p.a.
People are horrified that tRump resonates with 40+/- % of the US. As good a person as Carter losing to that Reagan crew was the warning shot about what lurked out there.
geg6
Met him once back in ‘76 when he made a campaign stop in Aliquippa, PA (where I was born). I was volunteering with my mom. I was not yet old enough to vote (would turn 18 in late November) but I was already a political junkie. There was a big reception and we were part of the crew setting it up. He made a point of coming to each of us and thanking us for our work that day and throughout the campaign. So nice and kind and real! Glad he’s perked up for his birthday and to vote. And I hope beyond hope that he gets his birthday wish on Nov. 5 and that he’s here with us to see it.
lowtechcyclist
@geg6: Good morning! Looking forward to your second-to-last day in the working world?
raven
Plains is not in a good place with Helene coming.
NotMax
Thankfully he successfully fended off that rabbit.
lowtechcyclist
@NotMax:
And he didn’t even need to use the Holy Hand Grenade.
NeenerNeener
I remember being horrified when my mother told me she voted for Reagan because “he would bring glamour back to the White House”. There may be some of that thinking in Trump voters now. I have to think that my mother would NOT be a Trump voter now if she was still alive, because she read the NY Post regularly and knew what a scum bag he is.
oldster
I hope he lives to see Kamala’s inauguration, too.
Aziz, light!
No more honorable man has ever served this country.
catclub
@p.a.: The US economy in 1980 was the worst it has ever been for an election year with the possible exception of 1932. 5% contraction–recession plus inflation The hostage situation was lagniappe.
No incumbent gets re-elected under those conditions.
rikyrah
Good Morning Everyone 😊 😊 😊
Baud
@catclub:
Nowadays we just make up bad times to hurt incumbents.
Baud
@rikyrah:
Good morning.
Tony Jay
@Baud:
It provides a lot of useful information to those on the sniff for such titbits. Namely that the WAPO is happy to reduce its News output to the level of idle cocktail banter, more than willing to megaphone Club Deplorable sneers out to a wider audience, and are as eager as their NYC ‘rival’ to strip anything that might cast the Stench/Snowball campaign in a bad light out of their reportabage.
Bad to see. Good to know.
Jeffg166
Got an email from the Pennsylvania Department of State telling me my mail in ballot is on the way. It should arrived in the next 5 days. Think I will take it to the local post office rather than drop it in the box at the corner to make sure it is in the post office building.
Princess
I saw people on the internet fussing about Trump dying, the whole state funeral question etc. ideal would be if he dropped dead during a Harris term about 48 hours after Jimmy Carter dies when all of DC and the press are already focused on a week of commemoration and a state funeral for Carter. Trump can be buried on his golf course with his children in attendance.
moonbat
@Princess: Yeah, no lying in state for Trump. He’d likely explode in his coffin like Henry VIII did anyway.
Baud
@moonbat:
He can lie in state at the Kremlin.
Ken
@moonbat: Or it would be like that scene in Charade, with everyone making damn sure he’s dead.
NotMax
@moonbat
Well, he’s already got the lying part down pat.
//
MagdaInBlack
@catclub: Ah, 1980, the year of 18% interest rates. We chose not to buy a house then.
Gvg
@Baud: Disagree. Reminds people how lightweight and petty Trump himself is.
Carter was not a great President. He was a good one, but had some weaknesses. He has been a much better ex President. As a President, he held on to the idea he should be an outsider for its own sake, instead of learning to get things done that were the point of running. Sort of performative left, and picked a few fights that were pointless. Had his own southern prejudices against northerners. And then he was too reasonable and sometimes changed his mind too easily. He grew though, his entire life, and didn’t stop with that big office.
but he was right about how petty the media and elites were, and right way too early for the electorate about Israel. The problem with that was the Palestinians never seemed to come up with leaders that weren’t worse.
His time in office revealed a lot of things if you were paying attention.
I knew Regan would be a disaster though, but I wasn’t old enough to vote. I also knew a lot of the complaints against Carter were specious.
satby
@rikyrah: 🙋 good morning!
Drove to Akron OH yesterday with the sibling tabbies, met both sab and manyakitty for lunch and then saw the kitty heaven setup at sab’s house. Those cats will have it very good. Also met the lovable Ponyo, who’s just a wriggly sweetie.
lowtechcyclist
@catclub:
And Teddy Kennedy challenged him for the nomination, and was even more of a jerk towards Carter afterwards than Bernie was to Hillary in 2016.
NotMax
OT.
Whoops.
Received a letter in the Sept. 26 mail from my auto dealer. “To take advantage of this offer, call this number by the deadline of Sept. 25.”
hueyplong
@Princess: In the words of the owner of Swamp Castle, Please! This is supposed to be a happy occasion. Let’s not bicker and argue about who gets what kind of funeral. The point of the hypothetical is the pig being dead.
satby
@Gvg: also right about the impending disaster that climate change would become, decades before other politicians took it seriously.
EarthWindFire
@Baud: Faux real estate tycoon derides ex-president who built houses as charity. I’m shocked. Shocked, I tell you!
NotMax
@satby
1970s style solar panels installed atop the White House (which Reagan promptly removed).
hueyplong
1980 was another time that September polling wasn’t too helpful. My recollection is that it didn’t turn from “who knows?” to Regan in a big way until very late. Would love to see a reverse-1980 in which Harris rolls and senators like Ted Cruz and Rick Scott get Frank Churched.
The Thin Black Duke
@satby: One of the earliest “something wicked this way comes” moments of the Reagan presidency was the Gipper removing the solar panels from the roof of the White House.
(Darn it, NotMax!)
lowtechcyclist
@Baud:
That would certainly be the most appropriate place.
Russia, if you’re listening…
Elizabelle
I hope Jimmy Carter is celebrating with us on Election Night and at the Harris Walz inauguration.
He has to live until October 15, at the minimum. First day of early voting. Hoping they can take an in person voting machine, tablet, whatever they use, to him.
EarthWindFire
@Gvg: My father worked for Carter’s Interior Secretary for 2 years. His take on his presidency: too much of a micromanager but right about nearly everything, too bad America doesn’t reward prophets.
Elizabelle
@EarthWindFire: Le sigh. Jimmy Carter was a Cassandra decades before Hillary Clinton.
NotMax
@Baud
Or Pyongyang.
Baud
@lowtechcyclist:
An inconvenient truth that gets memory holed. But probably made no difference in the outcome in 1980.
Sourmash
I’m somehow glad to see Sally Quinn was a whiny, insufferable, arrogant elitist way back then. Makes me feel better somehow, since there are eternal verities in this life…
lowtechcyclist
@Princess:
The perfect timing would be maybe two weeks from now. By then, the GOP would be pretty much stuck with JD as their nominee – even if they tried to pick a new one, the internal war would be quite something to behold, and it would be getting too late for states to print new ballots anyway. And still another few weeks for their disgust with JD to sink in.
NotMax
@Sourmash
Wanna-be Perle Mesta.
Gvg
@Baud: Ted may also have grown and learned. I think the party learned some thing from that also. But the economy was a problem. From my economics classes long after, i think those years were a learning experience to economists too and it took a while for them to think they had it figured out.
lowtechcyclist
@satby:
Major props to you for all you’ve done to get all those furballs into their new homes! I’m sure these two will have a great life with sab.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@satby: Sounds like a great day.
Dorothy A. Winsor
I’m having a hole poked in my ear this afternoon. Not the good kind of hole where you get to wear jewelry in it, but an actual hole in my eardrum. The hearing in that ear was quite suddenly muffled and the doctor says it looks like it does after you get off a plane. We waited for it to pop but it didn’t so he’s going to poke a hole for the pressure to equalize. It’s creepy, I know.
hueyplong
@lowtechcyclist: Let’s go with Oct 15. Something just feels right about it happening on the tax extension deadline.
Chief Oshkosh
@Baud: Oh, I don’t know. It provides reason 102,546,782 to dump Trump.
Another Scott
@Baud: Since TCFFG is wrong about everything, by the Law of Negation…
Cheers,
Scott.
Ken
No, no, not at all. I’ll just be over here in the corner screaming into my pillow.
Just kidding, the thought of that procedure doesn’t bother me much. Now if it were eye surgery….
NotMax
@Dorothy A. Winsor
Holy cilia, Batman.
Digits crossed for an easy outcome.
JWR
BBC TV reported earlier today that Zelenskyy’s visit with Donald Trump may be on ice, largely because of the very awful, terrible, downright mean things Zelenskyy’s recently said regarding Trump and the hard right Repubs, all of whom had their precious fee fees hurt. Aww. :(
@NotMax:
@The Thin Black Duke:
Not to disparage them, but didn’t I read somewhere, probably here, that Carter’s solar panels were really just a sort of glorified water heater? Even still, dumb move on Reagan’s part by having them removed. Just one more middle finger to his political opponents.
lowtechcyclist
@NotMax:
Nah, it’s gotta be Russia, so that Putin can have his coffin ceremonially pushed out of a tenth-story window.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Ken: @NotMax: The doc seemed pretty casual about it, so maybe it’s not a big deal.
NotMax
@JWR
Providing hot water was about the limit of solar back then. And, realistically, for 20-some years thereafter.
sab
@satby: Kitties spent yesterday evening in the basement hiding together in a corner under the stairs. All the other cats wandered down one by one to check out the newbies. No incidents at all. My cats seem very relaxed about the situation. New guys hiding is to be expected after their eventful day yesterday.
Our Sadie has moved onto the new cat tree. Sigh. It’s supposed to be for the new guys.
This morning Echo (the sister) was still in her corner of the basement, but Solly (her brother) had moved upstairs and is under a bed in the guest room. There are six cat feeding spots around the house, and four water dishes, both upstairs and downstairs.
My cats are mostly upstairs all morning, so Echo is alone downstairs. Hopefully she will find that less stressful. My guess is that Solly was shocked to find a dog upstairs. The dog hasn’t even noticed him.
Baud
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Pretty sure you can wear jewelry on just about any body part.
lowtechcyclist
@Baud:
It didn’t make any difference because it was a blowout anyway, but it certainly didn’t help. It reinforced the divisions in the party, and was a visible image of Carter as a failed leader.
Soprano2
@catclub: This is true. If the hostage rescue had been successful, though, he would have sailed to victory. The people who think the economy is bad now should have lived through the late ’70’s/early ’80’s. That was a bad economy.
satby
@sab: nice! Echo was very shy even in her former home I was told, so she’ll take a while. I’m glad they’re settling in. Your pup is such a sweetie!
frosty
@JWR: Oh, a little better than that, but yes they were solar hot water panels which was the only way to use the sun back then.
Fun fact, when we had the kitchen and bathroom renovated awhile back each shared a wall from the basement to the attic so when we had them down to bare studs I had the plumbers run piping so I could put in solar hot water in the future. In the meantime solar electric panels took off and got cheap and easier to manage so I never did it. The pipes are there for the new owner though!
NotMax
@lowtechcyclist
105 story empty office/hotel building in North Korea’s capital (the so-called Hotel of Doom) just crying out for a use
“Gold coffin fall down, go boom.”
//
JPL
Melania rump will give an interview with Fox today. She’s promoting her book, but if they ask about her relationship with Donald, she will say I love my husband. Then she’ll text Donald and say that will be 50,000 dollars.
JML
Carter’s presidency is a fairly complex one: he definitely made mistakes and has to bear responsibility for his poor relationships with Congress, even with his own party. (One of the reasons Kennedy was able to bring a solid challenge to the fore was because of how poor those relationships were) The economy along with the hostage crisis is what sunk him in the end (and of course there was the usual GOP ratfuckery going on with Iran, ensuring that the crisis didn’t end until AFTER the election), so the fact that things were as close as they were is fairly impressive. He wasn’t great on Labor issues, but Labor itself was struggling to deal with corruption and racism in its ranks.
Carter’s post-presidency has become the model for an ex-president to continue to do good work in the world, and he’s probably been the most successful at it in history. It’s him and JQA, really. Maybe Obama will rise now that he’s getting further away from his presidency and the constant referendums on him that still influence our politics.
Carter might be the best person to ever be president, even if he wasn’t the best president. There was a stretch where a lot of people would have put him in the bottom, just ahead of the utter crooks like Nixon and disasters like Hoover. Having been proven right about so many things, he does better in history’s eyes.
I hope Jimmy makes it.
rikyrah
@Jeffg166:
I remind everyone with a mail Ballot
If you don’t have the option of a Dropbox
DO NOT JUST DROP IT IN A MAILBOX
GO INSIDE THE POST OFFICE AND WATCH THEM PUT THE DATE STAMP ON YOUR BALLOT
satby
@Dorothy A. Winsor: it was. Long, but great.
Sorry about your ear! My kid had tubes when he was young, the hole will naturally close up and heal but the relief should be almost instantaneous.
Baud
Whichever country buries Trump, I think Harris should honor him by sending them a harmless piece of classified information for Trump to be buried with.
NeenerNeener
@Dorothy A. Winsor: I had myringotomies done a few times when I was a kid. I have underdeveloped sinuses; it’s a hereditary thing. The procedure sounds worse than it actually was.
JPL
@sab: Fun times! It was sweet of you to take in another little fur ball.
Math Guy
First time I was eligible to vote was Fall 1976. Voted for Carter for president and never regretted it. A decent human being and I hope he gets his wish to vote for Kamala.
Another Scott
@catclub: +1
Plus, Democrats had held the House (nearly?) continuously for 35-40 years and the Senate much/most of that time. There was a complacency about national politics except for who held the White House. “Stagflation” was a cudgel against the whole Democratic world view.
And the Federal Reserve and too many economists learned the wrong lessons about oil price shocks (a couple of big step changes in prices – even big ones – do not mean ever increasing inflation).
People were looking for someone to fix things to make them better. It’s hard for the party that has dominated politics for so long to make the argument that they’re better for change than the outsiders.
[ sigh ]
It was good that Ted figured out that he could do a lot of good as the “elder statesman” in the Senate instead, but he did do damage to Jimmy. :-(
Finger’s crossed for Jimmy. Hang in there!
Cheers,
Scott.
lowtechcyclist
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
Did he have you try Flonase or something similar first? I had a persistent earache this summer, and when the urgent care doc couldn’t see any cause of it on the outside of the eardrum, he said it was probably because things were stuffed up inside, and once I used Flonase for a couple of days, the sinuses and passages would be unclogged, pressure equilibrium would be restored, and the earache would go away.
It worked, so I’m rather hoping he had you try this before poking a hole in your eardrum.
JML
@Sourmash: Sally Quinn and her crew treated the Clintons with even more contempt 15 years later. I blame them for Hillary being treated more unfairly than any politician in modern history. They were as complicit in the vast right-wing conspiracy as anyone, and almost certainly went to their deaths thinking they were oh so wonderful (I suppose many of them are still alive patting themselves on the back). And they’re dreadful, horrible imitations of a senile and useless European nobility that adds nothing but only impedes progress.
Elizabelle
@sab: Ponyo sounds like a doll. Good luck with the new kitties. What a houseful!!
Ironcity
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Had to have that procedure done on my almost 1 year old. Brought her home from Russia and after 4 months of advanced USA medical treatment the ear infection, became a sinus infection became strep throat, became pneumonia, became a collapsed lung, became …. A few nights in the NICU willing your kid to breathe will give you religion if you don’t already have it. That was 24 years ago and it turned out fine, she is a work in progress like many of her age and the nicest person around. The dogs, cats and horses can tell.
sab
@Soprano2: Inflation was 12.5 % at the end of 1980. Jimmy Carter appointed Volcker to head the Fed towards the end of his term. Volcker slammed us into a short but severe recession that stopped the inflation.
Jimmy Carter was handed a terrible economy and a hostile Congress and managed over his term to turn things around (slowly.) So when he inevitably lost the election, Reagan got the credit for what Carter had put in place.
sab
@JPL: Two furballs. We are now certified crazy cat people.
Another Scott
@lowtechcyclist: It is indeed worth a try, but presumably the doc has thought about this.
Azelastine HCl is over the counter now, and works very well for me.
Good luck!
Cheers,
Scott.
Soprano2
@Gvg: I took economics in college in 1981 and 1982, and the professors kept saying that what was happening at that time was unprecedented and they didn’t fully understand it. They seemed to be pretty freaked out.
lowtechcyclist
@JML:
No lie told, to borrow rikyrah’s expression.
sab
@rikyrah: SO TRUE! We had a mayoral recall election a few years back where 10% of the ballots were disqualified because the Cleveland post office forgot to datestamp them before they returned them to Akron. They arrived on time but it couldn’t be proven so out they went.
narya
I turned 18 in summer 1976, and my first vote for President was for Jimmy Carter (and my second, for that matter). I remember listening on the radio as he and Roslyn walked to the White House after the inauguration and hoping that meant things would be better than under Nixon [spit]. I admire him greatly for the way he has lived his life.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Baud: But inside my ear canal, no one would see it!
Betty Cracker
There’s a light, gentle rain falling this morning as the hurricane grinds north through the Gulf. We’re not worried about it but are prepared. I’m baking chocolate chip and macadamia nut cookies later. Could be handy if we lose power!
satby
@Betty Cracker: I’m baking chocolate chip and macadamia nut cookies later
Absolutely would be my priority too, provisions are essential!
Dorothy A. Winsor
@satby: @NeenerNeener: That makes me feel better. Thanks.
@lowtechcyclist: I’ve been using Flonase for about 3 weeks. The ear may be marginally better but I can’t tell for sure.
@Ironcity: Oh wow. That would be terrifying. Good to know it had a happy ending.
lowtechcyclist
@Ironcity:
I didn’t realize you’d also adopted from Russia! Our 17 year old boy getting ready to head off to school right now was born in Samara, and we brought him home in March 2009.
Glad your daughter’s health problems weren’t long-term. Our son has been the healthiest kid I’ve ever known, I figure he must’ve been exposed to every germ possible during his year and a half at Baby House #1, and came home already immune to them all.
Another Scott
@Betty Cracker: Fingers crossed for you folks, and everyone near the path.
NOAA.gov Interactive Storm Surge Forecast Map
Good luck!
Best wishes,
Scott.
p.a.
@sab: I was a junior in college ’79-’80 taking some econ courses that year and senior year (def NOT my concentration (Brown’s term for major)). Econ dept was only one openly pro-Reagan. I remember a few of us buttonholed a prof, H. Grossman IIRC, outside class and challenged him that EVERYONE knew the Laffer Curve was bullshit. Never forget the response, this is almost verbatim: “Well if they told people they’re going to cause a recession no one would vote for them.”
A reganaut🤮 outpost in liberalandia. GHW Bush later appointed one of the dept’s economists, Wm Poole, head of St Louis fed.
cmorenc
@catclub:
The bitter irony is that the economic forces of stagflation (the Iranian hostage crisis, too) would have fallen instead on Gerald Ford, had he won the close election of 1976 (2% popular vote margin, 297-240 EV margin) and the “change” candidate in the 1980 election would have most likely been Ted Kennedy, and Reagan would likely never have won the Presidency. In the home stretch before the 1976 election, Ford was enjoying a resurgent wave of support and nearly overtook Carter. Whomever was president in the runup to the 1980 election would have been running against gale-force headwinds of structural economic and international problems.
Although I have often pondered whether had Carter sent a larger fleet of helicopters for the 1980 Iranian hostage rescue effort, or else simply had better luck with the atmospheric elements (ill-timed sandstorm) – how a successful mission might have altered his chances. IIRC the number sent was tweaked by Carter and his NSC to attempt to more credibly present it as a hostage rescue mission and not an attempt to overthrow the new Iranian regime, which was IMO a huge mistake that the adverse circumstances turned into the final P.R. straw that made enough of the electorate willing to take a chance on Reagan.
lowtechcyclist
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
If it hasn’t worked by now, I gotta say it’s more than time to try something else. Hope the hole takes care of it!
schrodingers_cat
@rikyrah: I actually go in to the Town clerk’s office when I can and drop of my ballot in person. I have dropped it in the dropbox and the regular mail
I have only voted once in person since MA adopted easy mail-in ballots post COVID. That was during primaries last year.
Mark’s Bubbie
@NeenerNeener: My mother-in-law was a big Reagan fan, for pretty much the same reason. But I don’t think she would’ve liked Trump. The pussy-grabbing… yeah, she was not a fan of sexual assault.
Booger
@JWR: Not all solar has to be electric. We’ve lost sight of that.
Another Scott
@cmorenc: IIRC, supposedly the Carter mission only needed one more chopper to not abandon the mission. Supposedly Obama made sure there was one more chopper on the OBL raid…
Cheers,
Scott.
Salty Sam
Heh. I just got eye surgery yesterday- a “vitrectomy”, where they poked a hole in the side of my eye and drained all the juice out.
Getting old is SO much fun!
schrodingers_cat
@JWR: We have solar panels for both hot water and electricity. Hot water solar panels have cut down our heating oil bills by more than half.
cmorenc
@Another Scott:
Yes, that’s exactly what I recall about the # of helicopters on the 1980 hostage rescue mission. The mission to get OBL was nearly undone by the crash of one of the two helicopters involved, and was also very lucky to have had just barely enough time to complete the mission and get away before the Pakastani military (who were obviously aware and supportive of OBL’s presence) arrived on the scene from their nearby base.
Booger
@JML: I seem to recall that Jimmy Carter was not well served by folks like Hamilton Jordan, and the rest of the Georgia mafia.
Another Scott
Meanwhile, MBAs chasing the latest hoped-for tech monopoly are going to speed burning-up of the planet.
I hope the Treasury and FED folks are thinking about sensible responses for when this AI bubble bursts…
Grr…,
Scott.
TBone
@satby: such happy endings are good for my soul, thank you for everything you do!
Another Scott
@Booger: My recollection is that FTFNYT and others had their knives out for Jimmy and his team the whole time.
Maybe Carter’s team didn’t understand the ways of DC politics well enough (e.g. IIRC, Carter’s first budget was declared “dead on arrival” by Democrats, so the White House rewrote it and submitted the new version. The Democratic leadership used that change against them, “don’t know how to play the game, etc.”…). Democrats were not pulling together as a team as well as they should have back in those days.
And, as usual, the bigwigs in the press were upset when their carefully cultivated sources were out of power and the new guys were not doing things the way the press wanted…
Cheers,
Scott.
WhatsMyNym
@NotMax
@JWR:
I don’t know what Carter used, but photovoltaic cells have been around for a long time. It was always about up front cost. NASA started to use them in 1958 to power satellites.
satby
@Another Scott: everyone who thinks it’s the new hot thing obviously has never had to try to get through a 20 question AI script with bad timing and prompts to just extend a rental by one hour. 15 minutes (in traffic) with the computer vs a max of 5 with the human who could have handled it
Every MBA who advocates for this needs to be locked in a room and only have calls to an AI help desk enabled for assistance to get out. They’d starve to death in that room. Which would be fitting.
kalakal
So far so good with Hurricane Helene here. It’s now a Cat 2, not much wind or heavy rain here yet. If it follows predictions the center should pass by about 80 miles to the west later today. Fair bit of wind and rain expected but shouldn’t be too extreme here and Kalakal Towers is 80ft above sea level* so well out of the storm surge zones. It’s looking very grim for the big bend.
* by Pinellas County standards that’s the Alps, you’ll be pleased to know the highest point is occupied by a shopping mall
satby
Which lesson the “dump Biden” folks forgot, and handed more power to subvert a presidency to the press. Fortunately Biden and Harris outplayed them this time
JML
@Booger: I think that’s fair and was part of Carter’s problem in dealing with Washington. He wanted people around him he knew and could trust, but too many of the crew from GA simply didn’t know how to play at that level and you can’t treat US Senate committee chairs like they’re part-time legislators from the sticks. It’s part of why Biden has been so successful as president: he simply knows how the federal government works (and doesn’t).
You also have to have a lot more people who can play at that level as president than you do as Governor. And as an outsider, Carter didn’t have as many to draw on.
zhena gogolia
@Baud: Yes, disgusting.
Josie
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Easy for him to be casual about it. Hopefully there are good drugs to be had for the operation.
Another Scott
@WhatsMyNym: Neat trick, as NASA didn’t exist for another 3 months. ;-)
Vanguard 1 was a US Navy project. It’s still up there (though it stopped working in 1964). Not bad for a planned 90 day mission.
:-)
Cheers,
Scott.
Kay
Gov Shapiro is a good Harris surrogate. Strong, blunt language!
Chief Oshkosh
@p.a.: Remember Wahloos? “Iss no dam goot!”
Even I, a hick from the sticks, knew that they were all blowing smoke and full of shit. Monetists, supplier-siders, boy were they respected back then.
I’ve always wondered if at least part of the reason that that generation of fuck-up economists were so anti-Keynesian is that Keynes was pretty much right (and with the Biden recovery, again proven right), and so there really wasn’t, and isn’t, much reason for people to go into Economics (macro, anyway) as a philosophical or academic exercise or career. Government “economists” just need to RTFM and advise government to apply the instruction set.
Frankensteinbeck
@JWR:
Solar panel tech was terrible up until 2009. You at best broke even over the lifetime of the panel. The Stimulus allowed a huge surge of renewable energy research that is why green power is so efficient today.
espierce
@kalakal:
I’m in Ozona and back up to a tidal creek the County just finished cleaning out yesterday. Fingers crossed about the surge.
Pretty good hurricane tracker.
Betty Cracker
@kalakal: Glad you’re not in Shore Acres! I was just looking at the radar, and it appears like the eye is jogging east a bit. Hmmm. This bears watching. Stay safe!
JWR
Not meaning to ignore all the thoughtful responses to my question about Carter and solar panels, (TY to all!), but I’ve been reading through the last thread and thought about how good Fred MacMurray was not only in his Noirs, but in his Westerns, too.
TBone
Today’s Heather Cox Richardson letter is focused on VP Harris and Earth 1, the reality-based community to which jackals belong. The whole thing is great and I had trouble choosing a highlight. I decided to use the concluding paragraphs.
https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/september-25-2024
Enjoy!
SatanicPanic
Damn, 100 is old. I hope he’s able to do some of the things he enjoys still.
Mousebumples
I share a birthday with President Carter, though I’m a few decades younger. (born during Reagan’s presidency)
I’m hoping to celebrate at least 1 more birthday with him – and maybe more! 🤞
kalakal
@espierce:
Thanks for the tracker, you must be about 8 miles north of me, stay safe
@Betty Cracker: Yes, there’s a few worrying hours yet. Stay safe
TBone
@Mousebumples: 😊 my Great Aunt lived to 101 and retained her faculties to the end. She was, as they say, “a caution!”
Jackie
@Elizabelle:
HA! This is Georgia – he’ll have to stand/sit in line and nobody had better offer him water! //
Does Georgia have VBM options? Absentee ballot options?
TBone
Did anyone here know that racism caused James Earl Jones to become mute for a long part of his childhood? That he had a stutter? I did not. God bless his English teacher who unlocked his power!
https://www.michaelmoore.com/p/james-earl-jones-and-the-story-he
Anne Laurie
Truth be told, insofar as Quinn gets a spot in the history books, it’ll be for quotes like this attacking Carter, later Clinton, then Obama, eventually Hillary Clinton…
Oh, and for showing Olivia Nuzzi a career path: Young Sally broke into journamalism by talking dirty to WaPo’s editor Ben Bradlee, who found her ‘untrained but talented’ enough to break up his marriage for her.
Mousebumples
FYI – free covid tests are available for order again!
https://special.usps.com/testkits
Sounds like they ship out next week.
Elizabelle
Here’s another WaPost gift link. (I know, I know; they ask for an email. Make up one!) I have to say, it makes me want to read her book.
Hillary Clinton op ed:
Hillary Clinton: To err is human, to empathize is superhuman
Is there any way to drain the fever swamps so we can stand together on firmer, higher ground?
From her newest memoir, wherein Hillary and Chelsea go canoeing with a woman, Shannon Foley, formerly a white supremacist, who changed her views and now reaches out to try to deprogram other white supremacists. She addresses it as a response to trauma, and it takes a lot of gentle questioning and listening to begin the process. One of Shannon’s “clients” (make that “rescues”), another former supremacist, Samantha, is also in the canoe.
Anyway, Hillary also had some comments about her “deplorables” remark, and definitely brings up how prescient she was about their threat. Also the cluelessness of the media.
RevRick
@catclub: Both of those horrible, economic and political situations were due to the Islamic Revolution in Iran. The troubles began in 1978 with a strike by Iranian oil workers, which slashed production from 6 mbd to 1.5 mbd, causing a swift doubling of the price of crude oil. Saudi Arabia stepped up its production, but still left a 4% overall decline in total production. The outbreak of the Iran-Iraq War led to a further 7% decline in production.
Stagflation, which had been a chronic problem in the 1970s, now became a full-blown recession combined with an awful increase in prices.
So, yes, Carter’s chance of reelection was sunk by that double whammy to the economy plus the hostage crisis.
p.a.
@Chief Oshkosh: Milton Friedman rot in hell.
TBone
@Elizabelle: great post – empathy is indeed a Dem superpower.
Front page worthy IMO and definitely a repost in the new page above.
Elizabelle
@Mousebumples: Thank you! Ordered a set for myself, and for my young neighbors. Free is better than having to hunt for a test kit and pay for it at a pharmacy.
Stay healthy, jackals.
RevRick
Way off topic, my wife and I are heading off to Cape May tomorrow for our first “just us” vacation since before COVID. We’ll spend four nights at the Queen Victoria B&B. So far, our only planned activities are a visit to the Harriet Tubman Museum (Cape May was one of the routes of the Underground Railroad) and a play, “The Case for the Existence of God.” God’s never mentioned. It’s a story about the developing friendship of two very different men sitting in adjacent office cubicles.
Weather forecasts are iffy, but we don’t care.
Matt McIrvin
@Frankensteinbeck: From all the data I can find, the cost of solar power was plummeting long before 2009. Solar PV technology seems to have a ferocious experience curve, which I guess makes sense since it’s an offshoot of silicon computer chip development.
But Obama gave the industry a big kick in the US.
Elizabelle
@RevRick: Enjoy! There will be food, books, companionship, bird watching, biking in light rain, if you are up for that.
Have fun in Cape May. Cool place.
Jackie
@Betty Cracker: The worst thing for me on the west side of the country is having to hear Pudd’n Boots’ nasally voice again on TWC.🤮 I assume his spiffy go-go boots are polished and buffed…
Matt McIrvin
@JWR: Yes, they were solar water heaters. In the 1970s, that was the only kind of home solar power that made practical sense. It was good symbolism, but not an extravagance–you’d see photovoltaic panels used on some buildings but those were really expensive showpieces then, not cost-effective at all. Where photovoltaics made sense even then were some very low-power applications like calculators.
Matt McIrvin
@catclub: It was the ONLY recession that happened under a Democratic President between Harry Truman and today, which is a really stunning thing to think about. Arguably it arose from conditions set up well in advance of Carter, but he had real trouble dealing with it.
I think that there’s a fair chance of another recession happening over the next year or so regardless of who gets elected (you can see indicators like the unemployment rate creeping up), so we might get a third if Harris wins. But the track record of Dem Presidents suggests that we really don’t want a Republican in charge when it hits, especially not that Republican.
Kathleen
@Soprano2: Thank you! Economy was really bad.
Funny (not really) how Republicans sabotaging elections with their own “negotiations” with foreign powers or Supreme Court intervention has been a thing for over 50 years (starting with Nixon in 1968). Always the Republicans. And the media shrugged and yawned very damned time.
Elizabelle
More on the woman who went canoeing with Hillary and Chelsea (mentioned in comment above about WaPost op ed):
I wonder if Shannon Foley Martinez, the former white supremacist now working to deprogram others, will be comfortable with a lot more attention. I hope so.
Here’s a free article on her from Yes! Magazine.
Deradicalization in the Deep South
How a former neo-Nazi makes amends.
artem1s
@hueyplong:
Poppy Bush recognized his only way into the WH was thru a puppet POTUS. The ‘great compromise’ was made at the GOP convention. No one had enough delegates to a clear winner. Then suddenly Bush dropped out, endorsed Raygun and then was named VP at or right before the convention. Raygun was never in charge of that administration. It was Poppy, Ed Meese, Rove, Ashcroft, Rove and Darth. And thus the endless oil wars began. Raygun wouldn’t have won the nomination without Bush.
Geminid
@Matt McIrvin: The Obama administration’s clean energy initiatives also helped push battery technology a long ways. Now, the Biden administration is doing the same thing with geothermal energy and hydrogen fuel.
If I had a big pile of money to invest I might research companies involved in deep drilling technology. Some geothermal projects involve drilling wells 2 miles deep, and if the search for geologic hydrogen deposits pans out that could mean a lot more deep drilling.
A couple years ago French geologists found a large deposit of geologic hydrogen in Lorraine. Since the EU has projected hydrogen as a substantial component of its future energy mix, the Lorraine field ought to prove whether or not geologic hydrogen is a viable clean energy source.
Kathleen
@Betty Cracker: Excellent treat strategy. I take treat strategies seriously for any scenario. My grandson in Riverside (Tampa) said sun was out. He’s working from home but his brother is in the office. Of course I’m worried about them even though they’re grown men now LOL. I hope you don’t have any damage or weather related crisis.
Kathleen
@Anne Laurie: I see Nuzzi as a Dollar Store Dowd minus the squandered writing talent but you’re right about Sally Quinn, Mother of the Modern Mean Girls. I had forgotten about her. Thank God. As an Irish Scorpio Rising my Grievance Dance Card is already full.
Mousebumples
@Elizabelle: you’re very welcome! I did the same.
Elizabelle
@Mousebumples: Got to stay healthy for postcarding and canvassing!
stinger
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
I had that done when I was a kid. Nobody back then thought to advise me to take an ibuprofen beforehand. I hope the procedure helps you!
schrodingers_cat
@Anne Laurie: I thought you liked Olivia (horseface with a blonde mane) Nazi.
Elizabelle
@Jackie: You specifically don’t want vote by mail or absentee ballot in the event of a death before Election Day. Registrars can compare their list of absentee ballots agains recent deaths (I don’t know how many actually do).
Jimmy Carter’s passing would be international news.
If there is vote in person, someone should be able to bring a voting machine out to the car, for any voter who cannot make it inside. Maybe they don’t do that in Georgia? We do in Virginia.
When you vote in person, on a machine: bingo. Your vote is cast.
stinger
@JWR:
There’s a thread about Fred MacMurray? Hustling right over to read it now!
Elizabelle
@schrodingers_cat: How goes the India trip? My condolences again to you and your family.
artem1s
@Baud:
Bullshit. Teddy challenging the sitting POTUS was the impetus the GOP needed. It exposed Carter as vulnerable. And the GOP learned early that the way you beat a Dem is to attack his strengths and make them look like weaknesses. All they have to do next is wait for the usual D-assholes to pile on.
Remember, Carter buried Gerald Ford largely because of the Nixon pardon but also Vietnam. Carter ended the draft and probably would have wrapped up that generation’s vote for the party for the next 50 years. But then Teddy decided he couldn’t stand to upstaged by some hick from Georgia.
Then GOP used the hostage situation to frame him as weak on foreign relations. Never mind that the Bush’s were ratfucking the negotiations in back room deals with a foreign power illegally. Carter wasn’t willing to bomb, bomb, Iran and satisfy the military’s blood lust for proving they weren’t losers who lost SE Asia. So instead of remembering Carter for saving the next generation from having to be cannon fodder for oil wars, he got blamed for the oil industry dropping the ball on their puppet regime in Iran. Do you think the OPEC raising oil prices in the 1970’s was just co-incidental?
Elizabelle
For those daylight jackals who missed all the great noir movie suggestions last night: it was Cole’s thread. Discussion still going on! I saved the link, since so many good suggestions.
https://balloon-juice.com/2024/09/25/wednesday-night-open-thread-45/?updated=1727363081#comment-9371712
Matt McIrvin
@Geminid: One of my favorite adaptations of geothermal energy is amazingly simple and doesn’t even require deep drilling–the heat pump with a ground tap, to take advantage of the ground’s seasonal thermal inertia. I don’t have one but I see myself getting one down the line.
Emily68
In Washington state, if you complete your mail-in ballot and send it back, your vote will be counted even if you die before Election Day. Can someone please reassure me that this is also the case in Georgia.
Emily68
@Elizabelle: You know for a fact this is how it’s done in Georgia? That’s not how we do it in Washington state. Once your ballot is mailed back, your vote is counted, whether you’re dead or alive. And we all vote by mail.
Geminid
@Matt McIrvin: There’s at least company in the Charlottesville area that’s doing those shallow geothermal installations. I think the progression of drilling machines helps. I often see horizontal drilling units installing underground fiber optic lines. They’re fairly compact. I expect there are be compact verticle drills designed to drill geothermal wells on small residential properties.
H-Bob
@satby: Also the Global 2000 report!
H-Bob
@JML: “and disasters like Hoover” … actually, Hoover was a prominent humanitarian but couldn’t handle the Great Depression.