July 1, 2021: Historians Rank Trump 41st Best President

 

July 1, 2021: July begins with President Joseph R. Biden Jr. sporting a 52.7% average approval rating. 

That means during his first 162 days in office, his average approval rating has been higher than his predecessor ever managed in four years.

 

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Ratings are in and Trump is not the worst president in U.S. history! He’s better than three other losers. Party-time at Mar-a-Lago!

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NOW, a new month begins and….WTF! The Trump Organization is about to get slapped with an indictment. At 6:20 this morning, Allen Weisselberg, Chief Financial Officer for the business, turned himself in to authorities. 

Trump has already responded, in a perfectly Trumpian way, calling prosecutors in the case, “rude, nasty, and totally biased.” He insists that his company’s actions were “standard practice throughout the U.S. business community, and in no way a crime.” The problem with his denial is that we already know he cheats on golf scores, on wives (serially), and customers. In this case, he and his minions allegedly cheated the government – that he led – out of the kind of tax dollars you need to fund the military. Or dare we say, money to build the wall!

 

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WHAT ELSE is going wrong for Don? He won’t get this because he knows about as much U.S. history as a cicada; but C-Span has released its Historians Ranking of Presidential Leadership survey, which it does every time there’s a change at the White House. Forty-four men have held the highest office in the land (Grover Cleveland had two terms, but not consecutively, so counts twice.) 

Trump ends up ranked 41^st. 

(Can you guess the names of the three losers that Loser Donald beat? 

42. Franklin Pierce (admit it, you didn’t even know he was a president) 

43. Andrew Johnson (took over when Lincoln was assassinated, first president ever impeached) 

44. James Buchanan (left a mess for Lincoln to inherit; our only bachelor president; he couldn’t even get a wife) 

Poor Trump. His overall score was dragged down because of his rating on “administrative skills,” where he finished #44. He also finished last in the category of “moral authority.” He did better in the “public persuasion” category (#32), but when you think about it, he was mostly good at persuading people to believe idiotic crap.

 

Finishing in the top ten: 

1. Abraham Lincoln 

2. George Washington 

3. Franklin D. Roosevelt 

4. Theodore Roosevelt 

5. Dwight D. Eisenhower 

6. Harry S. Truman 

7. Thomas Jefferson 

8. John F. Kennedy 

9. Ronald Reagan 

10. Barack Obama (that’s right, Trump fans, historians rate Obama 31 spots higher than the Tangerine King of Mar-a-Lago)

 

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ANYTHING ELSE that might be troubling Loser Don? Suddenly, he hates Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Mark Milley – who holds that post because some numbskull gave him the job. 

Oh, wait. That was Trump. 

Milley’s sin? Insisting that it was good that officers in the U.S. military be taught to understand racism in American history. Trump was furious. Milley should resign and “be replaced with someone who is actually willing to defend our military from the leftist radicals who hate our country and flag,” said Don. He also called Milley “sad” and “pathetic” and a liar. 

Among others who have come to Gen. Milley’s defense, we have his predecessor as Joint Chiefs chair, Gen. Joseph Dunford, and Trump’s former Secretary of Defense Mark Esper.

 

On the other hand, Tucker Carlson is on Trump’s side. He said of Milley, he’s “not just a pig, he’s stupid.” 

Imagine what Carlson would say if some liberal person called a man who has worn the uniform for more than 40 years a “pig.” 

Whereas Tucker has 0 days of service, tying his Orange King, who also has 0 days in uniform.

 

For fun, let’s take a trip down Memory Lane – still unpaved, since Trump never did get an infrastructure deal. Trump picked Gen. Milley to head the Joint Chiefs in December 2018. With Dunford stepping down, and Milley stepping in, the then-president tweeted, “I am thankful to both of these incredible men for their service to our Country!” 

He called Milley “a friend.” He “never had a doubt” about his choice. In fact, he went out of his way to choose Milley and not an officer recommended for the job by his then-Secretary of Defense, Gen. James Mattis. Trump loved “Mad Dog” Mattis, once upon a time, but came to hate him too. 

And he can’t stand his old White House Chief of Staff, Gen. John Kelly, either. 

And, of course, Trump now hates Sen. Mitch McConnell and his former Attorney General, Bill Barr. (See 6/28/21.) 

Trump might have been a terrible president, but you can’t deny that man was good at hate. 

 

NOT-SO-FUN FACT #1: We have already highlighted the record high temperatures set in the final days of June. But one deserves special mention. On Tuesday, Lytton, Canada, a tiny village in British Columbia, recorded a high of 121°, the hottest temperature ever in that country. 

The old record was set on Monday – in Lytton (118°) – and that broke an older record, still – set Sunday – in Lytton (116°). 

That high Tuesday was nine degrees hotter than Baghdad the same day. That was also the highest temperature ever recorded, anywhere in the world, north of 45 degrees latitude. 

Or as all but the numbest skulls would admit: More evidence of the growing threat posed by climate change.

 

NOT-SO-FUN-FACT #2: Axios offers an update on the heat wave gripping the Pacific Northwest. 

Based on “normalized data,” climatologists estimate that this kind of heat could be expect in the region no more than once in every 4,776 years. Or as one Twitter user notes, “Once in recorded history.” 

This means multiple states and provinces in Canada are seeing temperatures 25 to 50 degrees above normal. In Portland and Seattle, streets buckled, as pavement expanded and cracked. Seattle had only three recorded days of 100 degree or higher temperatures in its recorded history. 

Now, the city had three in a row.