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Blaming Kennedy is a take I hadn't heard before. I always gave the folks behind Reagan a lot of credit, as it is a historical fact that they conspired with a fo

Blaming Kennedy is a take I hadn't heard before. I always gave the folks behind Reagan a lot of credit, as it is a historical fact that they conspired with a foreign power to hold the American hostages until after the election. > A Four-Decade Secret: One Man’s Story of Sabotaging Carter’s Re-election > A prominent Texas politician said he unwittingly took part in a 1980 tour of the Middle East with a clandestine agenda. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/18/us/politics/jimmy-carter-october-surprise-iran-hostages.html?unlocked_article_code=1.lE4.pKHb.TBIdFKQTAr0l&smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare&tgrp=on https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/18/us/politics/jimmy-carter-...

CalChris 2y ago
Blame John Anderson as well.
- oh_my_goodness 2y ago
  Maybe so. But Anderson also pulled votes from more-or-less Republicans who didn't believe Reagan's assertion that cutting taxes and increasing spending would narrow the deficit.
  - rayrey 2y ago
    Describes my father who voted for Anderson. He didn’t trust Reagan at all
    - CalChris 2y ago
      But he didn't vote for Carter either.
      - oh_my_goodness 2y ago
        That's maybe almost implied already.
  - throw0101d 2y ago
    > But Anderson also pulled votes from more-or-less Republicans who didn't believe Reagan's assertion that cutting taxes and increasing spending would narrow the deficit. When Reagan's own people said his economics were bullshit… > Following Reagan's election, the "trickle-down" reached wide circulation with the publication of "The Education of David Stockman" a December 1981 interview of Reagan's incoming Office of Management and Budget director David Stockman, in the magazine Atlantic Monthly. In the interview, Stockman expressed doubts about supply side economics, telling journalist William Greider that the Kemp–Roth Tax Cut was a way to rebrand a tax cut for the top income bracket to make it easier to pass into law.[25] Stockman said that "It's kind of hard to sell 'trickle down,' so the supply-side formula was the only way to get a tax policy that was really 'trickle down.' Supply-side is 'trickle-down' theory."[25][26][27] * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trickle-down_economics#Reagan_years https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trickle-down_economics#Reagan_...
  - CalChris 2y ago
    It is true that Reagan campaigned against Carter's 'profligate' spending. But then it's also a fact that Carter (2.6% in 1980) had reduced Ford's deficit (4.1% in 1976) and then Reagan's deficit (5.9% in 1983) greatly increased Carter's. Reagan's Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney summarized the Reagan governing philosophy as deficits don't matter.
    - oh_my_goodness 2y ago
      Almost 50 years later, borrow-and-spend politicians still sell themselves to US voters as fiscally responsible.
KennyBlanken 2y ago
Reagan's entire administration was swamped in corruption and scandals. People really don't remember just how many investigations, charges, and convictions there were. People only remember Iran-Contra and the hostage crisis; it was so much worse. Reagan even cheated in a televised debate; someone stole Carter's notes and gave them to Reagan. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scandals_of_the_Ronald_Reagan_administration https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scandals_of_the_Ronald_Reagan_... Ronald "Small Government" Reagan ballooned the national debt by 160-180%, depending on who's counting. That's higher than any other president by a massive amount: https://www.data-z.org/library/imglib/National-debt-growth-by-president-2.png https://www.data-z.org/library/imglib/National-debt-growth-b... Then there was his disassembling the national mental healthcare system with no substitute, causing a national crisis - and in a real case of irony - getting shot by a mentally ill person who should have been committed. Then there was him ignoring the AIDS epidemic because it only seemed to affect gay people. Then there was him coming down with Alzheimer's with symptoms cropping up during his first term, according to his own son and video from his debate against Mondale. At some point the country was effectively being run by Nancy Reagan and her astrologist. Hell, there's hot mic footage of her telling him word for word what to say to the press...
- Quekid5 2y ago
  Ignoring [the AIDS epidemic] is putting it mildly, IMO
- thordenmark 2y ago
  All that is saying is that back then the Democrats engaged in lawfare. Nothing new.
  - mindslight 2y ago
    Sarcasm doesn't come across well in written comments.
- 4RealFreedom 2y ago
  "That's higher than any other president by a massive amount" - Any modern president. Abraham Lincoln had a 2859.40% increase. Martin Van Buren had a 1458.32% increase. We've had quite a few over 200%.
lolinder 2y ago
> Confirming Mr. Barnes’s account is problematic after so much time. Mr. Connally, Mr. Casey and other central figures have long since died and Mr. Barnes has no diaries or memos to corroborate his account. But he has no obvious reason to make up the story and indeed expressed trepidation at going public because of the reaction of fellow Democrats ... > None of that establishes whether Mr. Reagan knew about the trip, nor could Mr. Barnes say that Mr. Casey directed Mr. Connally to take the journey. Likewise, he does not know if the message transmitted to multiple Middle Eastern leaders got to the Iranians, much less whether it influenced their decision making. "Historical fact" is a very strong way to say "one man's story recounted 40 years later and backed by modest circumstantial evidence", and even to the extent the story is true as told in that article, Reagan's backers didn't "conspire" with anyone—as recounted, they never spoke with the Iranians, they told other Arab leaders to let the Iranians know. If true, this is still worth recounting, but you're not helping anything by overstating the degree to which we know this to be fact nor by overstating the crime.
- JackFr 2y ago
  Further it’s far from given that had the hostages been released Carter would be re-elected. 1980 was the second straight year of double digit inflation. Reagan was elected with 51% of the popular vote to Carter’s 41% and carried 44 states to Carter’s 6(+DC), tallying 489 electoral votes to Carter’s 49. This was not a close election.
  - lolinder 2y ago
    Yeah, at those kinds of margins blaming any single factor is... a stretch.
  - EFreethought 2y ago
    There is a good chance that if the hostages had been released before election day that Carter would have won. Hamilton Jordan, his chief of staff, wrote a book about Carter's last year in office. A lot of people thought Reagan was a clown. He was not as popular as his worshippers in the GOP like to think. Reagan was usually ahead of Carter in polls before the election, but usually by a few points, not the same margin as the final count. The hostage crisis started on Nov 4, 1979; the one year anniversary of the hostages being taken was right on election day. A lot of media was running stories on the hostages in the week leading up to the election, particularly over the weekend. Jordan says there was a shift that took them all by surprise in its speed and magnitude. When you spend months only a point or two behind, it is easy to think you might win.
GeekyBear 2y ago
> Blaming Kennedy is a take I hadn't heard before. Carter wanted to pass legislation to give every American catastrophic healthcare coverage, so that a major medical incident would no longer bankrupt families, as a stepping stone towards universal coverage. Kennedy opposed this, despite being on record supporting universal coverage. It would have been a major win for Carter, but Kennedy already knew he wanted to run against the sitting President.
- eru 2y ago
  You can buy catastrophic healthcare coverage, can't you?
  - jliptzin 2y ago
    Everyone already has it, the cost is just absorbed by the public instead of being taken out of the taxes of the person receiving the emergency care, assuming they can’t afford the hospital bill.
    - rbetts 2y ago
      Many studies find that a majority of personal bankruptcies in the US involve medical debt with some estimates of ~500,000 medical-cost contributed bankruptcies per year. A hospital (might) not kick you to the curb if you are dying in their emergency room. However, this is not the same as catastrophic coverage.
      - jliptzin 2y ago
        It is functionally the same for the recipient of the medical care who wouldn’t be able to afford it out of pocket. You get the medical care, and you don’t pay for it. Then declare bankruptcy if you have to.
    - chefandy 2y ago
      Nope. EMTALA means hospitals have to evaluate, and if necessary, stabilize you, and that’s it. If you’ve got a growing cancer or some expensive chronic disease that’s causing serious problems, they’ll do what they can to stop those problems from killing you in any given visit, but they absolutely will not treat cancer with the intent of curing it or help you control a chronic disease knowing they’ll never recoup payment. They’ll give you a prescription for insulin but they’re certainly not going to fill it for you, no matter how big of an emergency it is or how much the hospital visit cost. Even then, they still bill you for all of the services they do render and medical bills still bankrupt people. Needing to make sure someone isn’t going to die in the next few hours is very different from taking the financial responsibility for treating a very expensive medical problem.
cbsmith 2y ago
> Blaming Kennedy is a take I hadn't heard before. It was a broadly established take, and the reason why there's a superstition about sitting Presidents having opponents in primaries.

CalChris 2y ago

Blame John Anderson as well.

oh_my_goodness 2y ago
Maybe so. But Anderson also pulled votes from more-or-less Republicans who didn't believe Reagan's assertion that cutting taxes and increasing spending would narrow the deficit.
- rayrey 2y ago
  Describes my father who voted for Anderson. He didn’t trust Reagan at all
  - CalChris 2y ago
    But he didn't vote for Carter either.
    - oh_my_goodness 2y ago
      That's maybe almost implied already.
- throw0101d 2y ago
  > But Anderson also pulled votes from more-or-less Republicans who didn't believe Reagan's assertion that cutting taxes and increasing spending would narrow the deficit. When Reagan's own people said his economics were bullshit… > Following Reagan's election, the "trickle-down" reached wide circulation with the publication of "The Education of David Stockman" a December 1981 interview of Reagan's incoming Office of Management and Budget director David Stockman, in the magazine Atlantic Monthly. In the interview, Stockman expressed doubts about supply side economics, telling journalist William Greider that the Kemp–Roth Tax Cut was a way to rebrand a tax cut for the top income bracket to make it easier to pass into law.[25] Stockman said that "It's kind of hard to sell 'trickle down,' so the supply-side formula was the only way to get a tax policy that was really 'trickle down.' Supply-side is 'trickle-down' theory."[25][26][27] * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trickle-down_economics#Reagan_years https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trickle-down_economics#Reagan_...
- CalChris 2y ago
  It is true that Reagan campaigned against Carter's 'profligate' spending. But then it's also a fact that Carter (2.6% in 1980) had reduced Ford's deficit (4.1% in 1976) and then Reagan's deficit (5.9% in 1983) greatly increased Carter's. Reagan's Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney summarized the Reagan governing philosophy as deficits don't matter.
  - oh_my_goodness 2y ago
    Almost 50 years later, borrow-and-spend politicians still sell themselves to US voters as fiscally responsible.

KennyBlanken 2y ago

Reagan's entire administration was swamped in corruption and scandals. People really don't remember just how many investigations, charges, and convictions there were. People only remember Iran-Contra and the hostage crisis; it was so much worse. Reagan even cheated in a televised debate; someone stole Carter's notes and gave them to Reagan. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scandals_of_the_Ronald_Reagan_administration https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scandals_of_the_Ronald_Reagan_... Ronald "Small Government" Reagan ballooned the national debt by 160-180%, depending on who's counting. That's higher than any other president by a massive amount: https://www.data-z.org/library/imglib/National-debt-growth-by-president-2.png https://www.data-z.org/library/imglib/National-debt-growth-b... Then there was his disassembling the national mental healthcare system with no substitute, causing a national crisis - and in a real case of irony - getting shot by a mentally ill person who should have been committed. Then there was him ignoring the AIDS epidemic because it only seemed to affect gay people. Then there was him coming down with Alzheimer's with symptoms cropping up during his first term, according to his own son and video from his debate against Mondale. At some point the country was effectively being run by Nancy Reagan and her astrologist. Hell, there's hot mic footage of her telling him word for word what to say to the press...

Quekid5 2y ago
Ignoring [the AIDS epidemic] is putting it mildly, IMO
thordenmark 2y ago
All that is saying is that back then the Democrats engaged in lawfare. Nothing new.
- mindslight 2y ago
  Sarcasm doesn't come across well in written comments.
4RealFreedom 2y ago
"That's higher than any other president by a massive amount" - Any modern president. Abraham Lincoln had a 2859.40% increase. Martin Van Buren had a 1458.32% increase. We've had quite a few over 200%.

lolinder 2y ago

> Confirming Mr. Barnes’s account is problematic after so much time. Mr. Connally, Mr. Casey and other central figures have long since died and Mr. Barnes has no diaries or memos to corroborate his account. But he has no obvious reason to make up the story and indeed expressed trepidation at going public because of the reaction of fellow Democrats ... > None of that establishes whether Mr. Reagan knew about the trip, nor could Mr. Barnes say that Mr. Casey directed Mr. Connally to take the journey. Likewise, he does not know if the message transmitted to multiple Middle Eastern leaders got to the Iranians, much less whether it influenced their decision making. "Historical fact" is a very strong way to say "one man's story recounted 40 years later and backed by modest circumstantial evidence", and even to the extent the story is true as told in that article, Reagan's backers didn't "conspire" with anyone—as recounted, they never spoke with the Iranians, they told other Arab leaders to let the Iranians know. If true, this is still worth recounting, but you're not helping anything by overstating the degree to which we know this to be fact nor by overstating the crime.

JackFr 2y ago
Further it’s far from given that had the hostages been released Carter would be re-elected. 1980 was the second straight year of double digit inflation. Reagan was elected with 51% of the popular vote to Carter’s 41% and carried 44 states to Carter’s 6(+DC), tallying 489 electoral votes to Carter’s 49. This was not a close election.
- lolinder 2y ago
  Yeah, at those kinds of margins blaming any single factor is... a stretch.
- EFreethought 2y ago
  There is a good chance that if the hostages had been released before election day that Carter would have won. Hamilton Jordan, his chief of staff, wrote a book about Carter's last year in office. A lot of people thought Reagan was a clown. He was not as popular as his worshippers in the GOP like to think. Reagan was usually ahead of Carter in polls before the election, but usually by a few points, not the same margin as the final count. The hostage crisis started on Nov 4, 1979; the one year anniversary of the hostages being taken was right on election day. A lot of media was running stories on the hostages in the week leading up to the election, particularly over the weekend. Jordan says there was a shift that took them all by surprise in its speed and magnitude. When you spend months only a point or two behind, it is easy to think you might win.

GeekyBear 2y ago

> Blaming Kennedy is a take I hadn't heard before. Carter wanted to pass legislation to give every American catastrophic healthcare coverage, so that a major medical incident would no longer bankrupt families, as a stepping stone towards universal coverage. Kennedy opposed this, despite being on record supporting universal coverage. It would have been a major win for Carter, but Kennedy already knew he wanted to run against the sitting President.

eru 2y ago
You can buy catastrophic healthcare coverage, can't you?
- jliptzin 2y ago
  Everyone already has it, the cost is just absorbed by the public instead of being taken out of the taxes of the person receiving the emergency care, assuming they can’t afford the hospital bill.
  - rbetts 2y ago
    Many studies find that a majority of personal bankruptcies in the US involve medical debt with some estimates of ~500,000 medical-cost contributed bankruptcies per year. A hospital (might) not kick you to the curb if you are dying in their emergency room. However, this is not the same as catastrophic coverage.
    - jliptzin 2y ago
      It is functionally the same for the recipient of the medical care who wouldn’t be able to afford it out of pocket. You get the medical care, and you don’t pay for it. Then declare bankruptcy if you have to.
  - chefandy 2y ago
    Nope. EMTALA means hospitals have to evaluate, and if necessary, stabilize you, and that’s it. If you’ve got a growing cancer or some expensive chronic disease that’s causing serious problems, they’ll do what they can to stop those problems from killing you in any given visit, but they absolutely will not treat cancer with the intent of curing it or help you control a chronic disease knowing they’ll never recoup payment. They’ll give you a prescription for insulin but they’re certainly not going to fill it for you, no matter how big of an emergency it is or how much the hospital visit cost. Even then, they still bill you for all of the services they do render and medical bills still bankrupt people. Needing to make sure someone isn’t going to die in the next few hours is very different from taking the financial responsibility for treating a very expensive medical problem.

cbsmith 2y ago

> Blaming Kennedy is a take I hadn't heard before. It was a broadly established take, and the reason why there's a superstition about sitting Presidents having opponents in primaries.