[HN Gopher] Jimmy Carter has died
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       Jimmy Carter has died
        
       Author : gkolli
       Score  : 511 points
       Date   : 2024-12-29 21:08 UTC (1 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.washingtonpost.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.washingtonpost.com)
        
       | bdangubic wrote:
       | will go out on a limb here and say there will never be a US
       | President like him - what a man, what a life! RIP
        
       | csours wrote:
       | When I think about presidents in terms of what they did AFTER
       | their presidential term, it makes me very sad that Jimmy Carter
       | was not re-elected.
        
       | shmoe wrote:
       | The model of a post-Presidency. RIP sir, go be with your wife
       | now.
        
       | mentalgear wrote:
       | Rest in Peace, one of the last good presidents of the US.
        
       | th0ma5 wrote:
       | Lots of propaganda aimed at this man to undermine him. Still to
       | this day people will say he was "a nice man" as a way to diminish
       | his accomplishments and turn the conversation away from them.
        
       | kamikazeturtles wrote:
       | Of all the presidents I've seen in my lifetime, I think President
       | Carter might be the only one who felt genuine and didn't exhibit
       | narcissism.
        
         | christianqchung wrote:
         | Jimmy Carter feels very likely to be the last "normal person"
         | who will ever be elected president. That doesn't absolve his
         | presidency of mistakes obviously, but if you run through the
         | list of presidents since him, the vibes point to that for me.
        
           | JojoFatsani wrote:
           | Normal people are not as humble and generous with their time
           | as Carter.
        
         | UniverseHacker wrote:
         | I think our culture needs some general awareness and
         | "antibodies" against Narcissism, and emotional manipulation in
         | general. People seem generally unaware of, and as a result
         | easily manipulated and controlled by people with these
         | behaviors. I only became conscious of it after reading a book
         | about communication where I learned how emotional manipulation
         | worked- and then realized I was in a relationship with someone
         | doing this to me, and had been completely oblivious for years.
         | 
         | Once I understood how it works, I can easily spot people
         | including politicians using these quite simple manipulation
         | techniques, and I feel quite stupid for not figuring it out on
         | my own at a younger age.
        
           | pizza wrote:
           | What's the book?!
        
             | UniverseHacker wrote:
             | "When I say no I feel guilty" which is about assertive
             | communication, which is essentially the opposite of
             | emotionally manipulative communication. Also the blogger
             | "The Last Psychiatrist" has good information on Narcissism.
        
         | heresie-dabord wrote:
         | You have seen many things in your lifetime, friend, from
         | representatives of the genuine goodness of the US (Mr Carter,
         | Mr Biden) to the corruption of the information society and the
         | dismantlement of democratic principles.
        
         | LorenDB wrote:
         | I may be speaking out of turn here as somebody born in this
         | century, but after reading the book _The Man I Knew_ I have
         | held a high regard for George H. W. Bush. He, like Carter, was
         | a great human who really cared about others.
         | 
         | Again, for all I know, he could have presented himself
         | differently during his term in office, but after his term was
         | up, his life seems genuine to me.
         | 
         | https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/55648822-the-man-i-knew
        
       | jtwoodhouse wrote:
       | Carter proved it's never too late to add a new chapter to your
       | story if you're still alive.
       | 
       | He was much more influential as a diplomat after his presidency
       | than during it. RIP.
        
       | siltcakes wrote:
       | Carter was the most pro-Palestinian president of the 20th
       | century. It's worth reading his book _Palestine: Peace Not
       | Apartheid_.
       | 
       | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestine:_Peace_Not_Apartheid
        
         | insane_dreamer wrote:
         | He was the first American president to broker a serious Middle
         | East peace agreement between Israel and a Middle Eastern nation
         | (Egypt) - the Camp David Accord.
        
         | mouse_ wrote:
         | You're telling me this guy wrote a whole book urging "Free
         | Palestine" in 2006?
         | 
         | I did not know that, thanks.
        
       | Eumenes wrote:
       | Can someone explain whats going on in this pic of Bidens and
       | Carters? https://apnews.com/article/jimmy-carter-government-and-
       | polit...
        
         | Rebelgecko wrote:
         | Older people shrink and there's a bit of (unintentional?)
         | forced perspective going on
        
         | mohaba wrote:
         | A very wide angle lens.
        
       | sgammon wrote:
       | nyt now has it:
       | 
       | https://www.nytimes.com/live/2024/12/29/us/jimmy-carter
       | 
       | https://archive.is/tbb2v
        
       | jmclnx wrote:
       | Looking back, to me he was a much better president then people
       | believed in the 80s.
       | 
       | I believe if he got re-elected in 1980, the US would be in a much
       | better place. One thing, it could be argued real work on Climate
       | Change would have begun in 1981 as opposed to where we are now,
       | which is just watching the average probably blowing past 3C in
       | around 70 years from now.
       | 
       | For his loss in 1980, I still blame Kennedy.
       | 
       | RIP, he did a lot to help regular people through his life, far
       | more than our current crop of politicians.
        
         | khazhoux wrote:
         | > For his loss in 1980, I still blame Kennedy.
         | 
         | Explain?
        
           | jmclnx wrote:
           | Kennedy split the split the Democratic Party, causing people
           | not to bother to vote. Plus it gave Reagan many talking
           | points, which then started the move of Union People to the
           | GOP.
        
           | JadeNB wrote:
           | In case it helps to clarify, probably Ted Kennedy, not JFK.
        
         | christianqchung wrote:
         | After Ted Kennedy killed a woman[1], he never should've tried
         | to run for president. And I say that as a Cape Cod native. When
         | he finally died in 2009 he was literally replaced in the Senate
         | by a Republican, throwing the Democrats into chaos.
         | 
         | [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chappaquiddick_incident
        
           | DonHopkins wrote:
           | As the bumper sticker went:
           | 
           | "More people died at Chappaquiddick than at Three Mile
           | Island."
           | 
           | On the "October Surprise" topic that other posters have asked
           | for more information about -- it's a fascinating story that
           | ultimately leads to the Iran-Contra scandal:
           | 
           | Here's a transcript of a 1987 broadcast by The Other
           | American's Radio about the October Surprise:
           | 
           | https://www.donhopkins.com/home/catalog/text/october-
           | suprise...
           | 
           | And a paper I wrote about it in 1988 for a university writing
           | class, with lots citations to sources I looked up in
           | newspaper microfilm archives (what researchers had to do
           | before google and youtube and wikipedia were a thing), plus a
           | couple links at the end I added later when I transcribed it
           | to html, once the world wide web existed:
           | 
           | https://www.donhopkins.com/home/documents/OctoberSurprise.ht.
           | ..
           | 
           | Here's my criticism of Carter's response to the hostage
           | crisis, and a description of the failed hostage rescue
           | mission that Oliver North, Richard Secord, and Albert Hakim
           | sabotaged, years before they caused the Iran Contra Scandal
           | by trading arms to Iran for money and hostages, then
           | illegally channeling the money to the Contras:
           | 
           | >III. Carter's Response
           | 
           | >From the beginning, President Jimmy Carter gave the hostage
           | crisis a high profile. It was the focus his and his country's
           | attention, day after day. But that was exactly wrong approach
           | to take if he wanted to get the hostages out, without making
           | it seem like he conceded to terrorism. Not only did the
           | Iranians benefit from the publicity, but the constant crisis
           | took time away and attention from other important problems,
           | like the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, and the 1980
           | presidential election.
           | 
           | >What Carter should have recognized was that there were
           | different factions in the Iranian government competing with
           | each other for power, and the hostage situation would go on
           | as long as the Iranians could use the situation to their
           | political advantage. If there was not as much attention on
           | the hostage crisis, it would have not been as useful a
           | propaganda tool.
           | 
           | >The President threatened a military response if the hostages
           | were harmed or put on trial. The threat was deterrent, not
           | coercive. Such threats are most effective at keeping somebody
           | from doing something they haven't already done. The threat
           | worked. Iran stopped saying they were going to put the
           | hostages on trial and execute them.
           | 
           | >Carter considered several courses of military action. He
           | decided not to mine Iranian ports, as that would interfere
           | with other countries, and might provoke the Iranians to harm
           | the hostages. He did however order that a rescue plan be
           | drawn up, but he hoped it wouldn't have to be used.
           | 
           | >The other effective measures he took were to freeze Iranian
           | monetary assets, and to impose an arms embargo and economic
           | sanctions. His goal was to get other countries to go along
           | with the embargo and sanctions.
           | 
           | >IV. The Hostage Rescue Mission
           | 
           | >On April 23, 1980, an abortive Iranian hostage rescue
           | mission took place, conducted under the utmost secrecy. The
           | plan was to storm the American embassy in Tehran, and bring
           | home the hostages.
           | 
           | >8 helicopters, 6 C-130 transport planes, and 93 Delta force
           | commandoes secretly invaded Iran. They were to rendezvous at
           | a place in Iran they called Desert One, move out to another
           | point called Desert Two, and then go on to Tehran to rescue
           | the hostages. But Delta force never made it to Desert Two or
           | Tehran. The mission was aborted after three of the eight
           | helicopters failed, on the way to Desert One. The operation
           | was a miserable failure, resulting in an accident that caused
           | the loss of 8 American lives. Later investigation revealed a
           | surprising level of negligence. [4] [7] [13]
           | 
           | >Just before the rescue mission took place, several other
           | countries had finally agreed to level economic sanctions on
           | Iran. Some of them agreed to the sanctions because they
           | thought that if they did, the U.S. would not take any
           | military action. They were quite irate when they heard about
           | the rescue mission after the fact.
           | 
           | >At least three central figures in the Iran-Contra Scandal
           | were involved with the Iranian hostage rescue mission:
           | Secord, Hakim, and North.
           | 
           | >General Richard Secord helped to organize the abortive
           | rescue mission. After the first mission failed, he was the
           | head of the planning group that eventually decided against
           | another rescue attempt. Because the whereabouts of the
           | hostages were unknown, the second rescue attempt (the October
           | Surprise that the Reagan-Bush campaign was so worried about)
           | never happened.
           | 
           | >Secord was later suspended from his Pentagon post because of
           | the EATSCO probe. EATSCO is a company that belongs to Edwin
           | Wilson, the CIA operative who is currently serving time in a
           | federal maximum-security prison for, among other things,
           | secretly supplying 43,000 pounds of plastic explosives to
           | Kadaffi. [21]
           | 
           | >In 1981, he became Chief Middle East arms-sales adviser to
           | Secretary of Defense Casper W. Weinberger. [21]
           | 
           | >Albert Hakim is a wealthy arms merchant, an Iranian exile,
           | and CIA informant, who had a "sensitive intelligence" role in
           | 1980 hostage rescue. He worked for the CIA near the Turkish
           | boarder, handling the logistics of the rescue mission in
           | Tehran. Hakim purchased trucks and vans, and rented a
           | warehouse on the edge of Tehran to hide them in until they
           | were needed for the operation. Unexpectedly however, he
           | skipped town the day before the rescue mission. [2] [13] [25]
           | Later on, in July, 1981, Hakim approached the CIA, with a
           | plan to gain favor with the Iranian government by selling it
           | arms. [22]
           | 
           | >Oliver North led a secret detachment to eastern Turkey. He
           | was in the mother ship on the Turkish border awaiting the cue
           | from Secord to fly into Teheran and rescue the hostages. [2]
           | [25] After the first aborted rescue mission, he worked with
           | Secord on a second rescue plan.
           | 
           | >According to the October Surprise theory, Secord, North and
           | Hakim did not intend Desert One to carry through. The
           | miserable failure of Carter's Desert One rescue attempt may
           | have been deliberate.
           | 
           | [More intriguing details about the sabotage, election, Iran
           | Contra Scandal, and citations in the full paper: https://www.
           | donhopkins.com/home/documents/OctoberSurprise.ht... ]
        
             | christianqchung wrote:
             | This is very informative, thank you. I've always been
             | curious exactly what went wrong with the hostage situation,
             | and this seems like reasonable analysis to me.
        
             | chiph wrote:
             | One of the Lockheed EC-130E Hercules from Operation Eagle
             | Claw[0] (callsign Republic 5) is on display at the
             | Sullenberger[1] Aviation Museum in Charlotte NC. Totally
             | worth taking a look if you have a 4+ hour layover there.
             | 
             | A former neighbor's dad was one of the hostages, and he has
             | a photo from the reception that Reagan hosted at the White
             | House for them.
             | 
             | [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Eagle_Claw
             | 
             | [1] Yes, _that_ Sullenberger. The Airbus A320 from the
             | Hudson is on display there.
             | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sullenberger_Aviation_Museum
        
             | UncleOxidant wrote:
             | >From the beginning, President Jimmy Carter gave the
             | hostage crisis a high profile.
             | 
             | As someone who remembers that era, I'm not entirely sure I
             | agree with that. I don't think Carter himself made it high
             | profile as much as the media did. The ABC News show
             | Nightline started then as a nightly report on the latest in
             | the hostage situation. Every night it would start with "Day
             | XYZ: America Held Hostage!" (where XYX had been the number
             | of days. The Right wanted Carter to bomb Iran "back into
             | the stoneage".
             | 
             | As for the rescue attempt, there were significant problems
             | including equipment failure - new helicopters that weren't
             | really battle tested, for example (this led to a lot of
             | soul searching as to whether there were problems with
             | military procurement, for example). Yes, Carter probably
             | shouldn't have agreed to it.
        
           | anonnon wrote:
           | Kennedy killed _at least three_ different attempts at
           | universal healthcare by three different presidents (Nixon,
           | Carter, and Clinton) because he delusionally believed he not
           | only could win the Democratic nomination for President (he
           | never did), but that he could win the general election,
           | Chappaquiddick baggage and all, and that universal healthcare
           | would be _his_ legacy--a kind of new New Deal. This isn 't
           | just my interpretation of him and his actions, but Jimmy
           | Carter's himself, who went so far as to express
           | uncharacteristic spite towards Ted for this very reason: http
           | s://www.npr.org/sections/itsallpolitics/2010/09/16/12991...
        
             | christianqchung wrote:
             | Every time I've read about an opportunity for universal
             | healthcare to be passed, something apparently
             | insurmountable always crops up. I was too young during the
             | Obama debates to read about this, but I read more about it
             | a decade after. Carter expressing frankly what reads like
             | rage to me makes it feel like the closest chance we had,
             | but I haven't read into the specifics.
             | 
             | That aside, when I read about downsides of universal
             | healthcare in America, I still think the tradeoff is worth
             | it. Even if it means wait lines and decades slower drug
             | discovery, if it meant measurably less rage at the system,
             | I would support it. I know this isn't the thread topic, but
             | the public polled reactions to literal assassination being
             | not particularly negative points to how unpopular the
             | current system is, despite other measures showing it as
             | popular.
             | 
             | Anyway, screw the (political) Kennedy family. Seriously.
        
               | anonnon wrote:
               | My post wasn't about universal healthcare, but to point
               | out to the progressives who downvoted you that Ted was
               | instrumental in thwarting it _three different times_ ,
               | and that he likely did so for purely selfish reasons, and
               | that given all of his other baggage--including the fact
               | that he was the textbook definition of a "nepobaby," born
               | with a silver spoon in his mouth, admitted to Harvard as
               | a legacy, expelled for cheating on a Spanish test and
               | _then readmitted_ for  "reasons"--he shouldn't have much
               | posthumous appeal to non-boomer leftists, who obviously
               | don't "remember where you were when JFK was shot."
        
           | jfengel wrote:
           | That replacement didn't last long. The Democrats had an
           | absolutely historic filibuster-proof majority. It's a bit odd
           | that blue Massachusetts would choose a Republican, even a
           | relatively moderate one, to replace Kennedy, but for the
           | Senate as a whole it was something of a reversion to the
           | mean. He did not win re-election, and was replaced by
           | Elizabeth Warren.
           | 
           | It did derail the Democratic agenda, but mostly because
           | Republicans made it their mission to ensure that Obama was a
           | one term President. That has been policy ever since, and
           | effectively zero legislation has come out of Congress since.
           | 
           | Democrats did manage to finesse the sole legislative
           | accomplishment of the last couple of decades, the Affordable
           | Care Act. In a lot of ways it was a fairly trivial change to
           | the health care system, but getting anything passed at all
           | was, in the Vice President's words, "a big [effing] deal".
        
             | christianqchung wrote:
             | I actually think the Green New Deal (aka Inflation
             | Reduction Act), CHIPS Act, and the extra $500B in
             | infrastructure spending totalled together probably overtake
             | the strategic importance of something like the ACA. But to
             | each their own, most people disagree with that view.
        
             | sroussey wrote:
             | The ACA was a huge change. People generally know about the
             | parts about mandates et al.
             | 
             | The provisions for moving beyond paper was one of the
             | biggest, and most relevant to people here. Examples are the
             | use of electronic records, the incentives to actually use
             | them (both for patents and for metrics), etc.
             | 
             | Due to the market power of Medicare, it also changed
             | payments from per procedure to per outcome.
             | 
             | Many of these changes were quite deep. I would not use
             | trivial to describe it.
        
             | warner25 wrote:
             | > It's a bit odd that blue Massachusetts would choose a
             | Republican, even a relatively moderate one, to replace
             | Kennedy
             | 
             | It feels that way, but let's remember that Republicans have
             | held the governorship in Massachusetts for most of the past
             | 30+ years. That's an interesting broader phenomenon,
             | though. A number of other states have turned reliably blue
             | in congressional and presidential elections while voting in
             | Republican governors. New Hampshire is like that, and I was
             | recently surprised the learn that Vermont is too.
        
         | acdha wrote:
         | The big one I wish he'd been able to do was getting a U.S.
         | nuclear network going like France has. It'd be nice to have now
         | but they're so slow to build that a 40 year head start would've
         | been invaluable.
        
           | bb88 wrote:
           | Three Mile Island and then Chernobyl kinda killed that dream.
           | Both had bad actors trying to cover up the leak, and caused
           | the nuclear scare to go even worse.
           | 
           | France also has majority ownership of the nuclear plants,
           | something that would never fly in the US (because
           | Socialism!).
           | 
           | Even when I was an intern at a power company, the leaders
           | there saw the nuclear power plant the company owned as an
           | "albatross around their neck".
        
             | Terr_ wrote:
             | Over in Washington, the Hanford nuclear site is a big
             | demonstration that we haven't _really_ solved the holistic
             | problems of nuclear waste.
        
               | wbl wrote:
               | The Hanford site could be solved with a bunch of cement
               | but we promised to restore. Now of course we don't dump
               | waste the same way.
        
         | readthenotes1 wrote:
         | Look a little harder.
         | 
         | The people living through the 1970s knew how bad he was and
         | chose to put him out. He had bad staff, bad relations with the
         | overwhelmingly Democratic Congress, and we got the Mayaguez,
         | iran hostage, stagflation, and other troubles too many to list.
         | 
         | He was a bad president, a good man, and a great ex-president.
        
           | metabagel wrote:
           | Stagflation was a result of the guns and butter policies of
           | the Vietnam war and the oil crisis.
           | 
           | Carter wasn't responsible for the Iran hostage crisis.
        
           | bwanab wrote:
           | While I disagree with your verdict, those are all valid
           | points. I don't think stagflation can really be pinned on
           | him, though.
        
           | macrocosmos wrote:
           | Most people I've spoken to about Jimmy Carter who were alive
           | at the time seem to say the same as you. I've heard that
           | living in America at the time was depressing and
           | embarrassing. I have a feeling a lot of the praise for the
           | man is from people who weren't even around when he was
           | president but have been fed some story about how he was
           | great. I see a lot of praise for him online yet it's very
           | hard to find from the lips of American who lived through it.
        
           | zeroonetwothree wrote:
           | He appointed Volcker, who ended stagflation eventually. And
           | his predecessor was appointed by Nixon so it's hard to blame
           | Carter for this.
        
         | bwanab wrote:
         | I lived in the Knoxville/Oak Ridge TN area at the time. Under
         | Carter the TVA had built full working house demonstrations of
         | solar, geothermal, and passive cooling homes. They were all
         | cancelled shortly after the 80 election.
        
         | paulddraper wrote:
         | > to me he was a much better president then people believed in
         | the 80s
         | 
         | It would be hard to be worse
        
         | xattt wrote:
         | > the US would be in a much better place
         | 
         | This would have been the case with Gore (2000) and Clinton
         | (2016) too.
        
           | llm_trw wrote:
           | Gore was a bigger warmonger than Bush in the 2000 election. I
           | don't see how we would have had a better outcome with him in
           | power.
           | 
           | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P6nW2Uow-
           | zk&pp=ygUeQnVzaCBub...
           | 
           | In case you don't believe that.
        
         | zeroonetwothree wrote:
         | Ironically he did more deregulation than Reagan yet somehow we
         | don't remember it that way.
         | 
         | For his electoral loss it's just that Carter was never
         | interested in the political manoeuvring. He was never going to
         | have a good chance.
        
           | llm_trw wrote:
           | And yet people will mock you for saying that both parties are
           | the same.
        
             | bdangubic wrote:
             | that is because in america a large majority of people's
             | entire identity is tied to one of the two political
             | parties. there are no liberals who believe is small
             | government and state's rights, no conservatives who believe
             | in woman's rights or that america would collapse without
             | immigrants... for majority of people every single opinion
             | and thought they have just magically lines up with one
             | political party - maaaagic... hence, saying both parties
             | are the same will effectively offend everyone :)
        
             | lisper wrote:
             | With good reason.
        
         | yyyk wrote:
         | >it could be argued real work on Climate Change would have
         | begun in 1981 as opposed to where we are now
         | 
         | That's a common myth. 70s energy policy was a result of the oil
         | crisis, not environment concerns.
         | 
         | Sometimes the result was conductive to the environment (e.g.
         | efficiency increases), sometimes it was way less so (various US
         | gov research into _more polluting_ alternatives like synthetic
         | oil or shale oil), and sometimes it was just silly (like Carter
         | banning nuclear waste reprocessing which set back that entire
         | industry).
        
         | wombatpm wrote:
         | He had Kennedy trying to steal the convention and Jon Anderson
         | running as an independent. But the hostages sunk his
         | reelection.
         | 
         | To paraphrase Cicero: were it not for the fact he had been
         | president, Carter was the kind of man that everyone would say
         | he would make an excellent president.
         | 
         | RIP Mr Carter
        
         | consumer451 wrote:
         | Blaming Kennedy is a take I hadn't heard before. I always gave
         | the gang behind Reagan a lot of credit, since it is now
         | 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-...
        
       | award_ wrote:
       | He sure seemed like a legitimately good man.
       | 
       | I think one of my favorite stories about him is that he helped
       | resolve a nuclear reactor meltdown
       | 
       | https://www.military.com/history/how-jimmy-carter-saved-cana...
        
         | DonHopkins wrote:
         | SNL gave him a lot of shit, but SNL's "Ask President Carter"
         | skit was perfect:
         | 
         | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-68iTvhWNB0
         | 
         | Jimmy Carter will always be my favorite Amazing Colossal
         | President, as Rodney Dangerfield described in the SNL "The
         | Pepsi Syndrome" sketch:
         | 
         | https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=533858710873763
         | 
         | https://snltranscripts.jt.org/78/78ppepsi.phtml
         | 
         | Dr. Casey: "It means, Mrs. Carter, your husband, President
         | Carter, has become [camera zooms in on Dr. Casey] the amazing
         | colossal president."
         | 
         | Mrs. Carter: "Well, how big is he?"
         | 
         | Dr. Casey: "Well, Mrs. Carter, it's difficult to comprehend
         | just how big he is but to give you some idea, we've asked
         | comedian Rodney Dangerfield to come along today to help explain
         | it to you. Rodney?"
         | 
         | [Rodney Dangerfield enters]
         | 
         | Rodney: "How do you do, how are you?"
         | 
         | Denton: "Rodney, can you please tell us, how big is the
         | president?"
         | 
         | Rodney: "Oh, he's a big guy, I'll tell you that, he's a big
         | guy. I tell you, he's so big, I saw him sitting in the George
         | Washington Bridge dangling his feet in the water! He's a big
         | guy!"
         | 
         | Mrs. Carter: "Oh my God! Jimmy! Oh God!"
         | 
         | Rodney: "Oh, he's big, I'll tell you that, boy. He's so big
         | that when two girls make love to him at the same time, they
         | never meet each other! He's a big guy, I'll tell you!"
         | 
         | Mrs. Carter: "Oh no! Oh Jimmy! My Jimmy!"
         | 
         | Rodney: "I don't want to upset you, lady, he's big, you know
         | what I mean? Why, he could have an affair with the Lincoln
         | Tunnel! I mean, he's really high! He's big, I'll tell you! He's
         | a big guy!"
         | 
         | Mrs. Carter: "No! No! No!"
         | 
         | Denton: "Rodney, thank you very much. You can go."
         | 
         | Rodney: "It's my pleasure. He's way up there, lady! You know
         | what I mean?"
         | 
         | --Saturday Night Live, Season 4: Episode 16, "The Pepsi
         | Syndrome" skit, Apr. 7, 1979
         | 
         | And poor old Billy always got the cardboard box.
         | 
         | https://snltranscripts.jt.org/78/78ncarter.phtml
         | 
         | >SNL Transcripts: Gary Busey: 03/10/79: The Carters In Israel
         | 
         | [...]
         | 
         | >Lillian Carter: Jimmy.. Jimmy.. I've come to talk to you about
         | your brother.
         | 
         | >President Jimmy Carter: Oh, Mama. Let's not talk about Billy
         | now.
         | 
         | >Lillian Carter: Ohhh.. Jimmy, you've gotta remember that it
         | hasn't been easy for Billy. You were the oldest and the
         | favorite - you got the wagon, he got the cardboard box; you got
         | the bicycle, he got the cardboard box; you got the brains, he
         | got the cardboard box.
         | 
         | [...]
        
         | grecy wrote:
         | > _He sure seemed like a legitimately good man._
         | 
         | And I think this is where politics around the world has gone
         | wrong.
         | 
         | A decade or two ago I would genuinely have been happy for the
         | leader of a country, or mayor or whatever elected leader to
         | date my sister or to watch my kids or something like that.
         | 
         | These days it feels like the most narcissistic a-holes get
         | voted in. I wouldn't trust these people with my dog, and
         | basically every country is suffering for it.
         | 
         | (Jacinda Ardern being the massive exception. I'm sure there are
         | more exceptions too)
        
           | matsemann wrote:
           | Yesterday I watched an episode of a tv-show here in Norway
           | ("A-laget") where people with severe autism, downs and
           | similar interviews famous people. This episode was them
           | interviewing our prime minister. And he was honestly so
           | sweet, even when they asked questions with no filters. He
           | also visited a ski-podcast I listen to, and there as well he
           | came across as a very likeable guy.
           | 
           | I don't vote for him, but I honestly think he's a good
           | person. I hope we avoid getting the same kind of rhetoric and
           | harshness when we have our election next year, that we've
           | seen in recent years in other countries.
        
             | grecy wrote:
             | Good to hear there are more world leaders that are
             | genuinely good people.
             | 
             | I hope we can make it "normal" again around the world.
        
             | bowsamic wrote:
             | It will happen everywhere, it's where the incentives push
             | towards
        
       | moomin wrote:
       | Best President US has seen in modern times, the campaign that
       | unseated him bordered on treason.
        
         | gamesbrainiac wrote:
         | Is there any book or article that expounds on this further?
        
           | pizza wrote:
           | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1980_October_Surprise_theory
        
       | lelandfe wrote:
       | RIP Jimmy Carter. A model of living meaningfully in old age.
       | 
       | The Onion has many funny bits on the guy's age[0]. "Former
       | President Jimmy Carter, 98, announced Tuesday that he had gotten
       | his recent vasectomy reversed," "Jimmy Carter Makes Pact With
       | Dianne Feinstein That If Both Single In 50 Years They'll Marry
       | Each Other,""Jimmy Carter Concerned Desire For Fresh Faces In
       | Democratic Party May Hurt His Chances In 2020"
       | 
       | I always hoped he read those and would laugh - he seemed the type
       | of guy that would.
       | 
       | [0]
       | https://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Ahttps%3A%2F%2Ftheonio...
        
         | MrMcCall wrote:
         | He gave his life to compassion in service to all of humanity.
        
       | onetokeoverthe wrote:
       | https://www.cfr.org/conference-calls/conversation-jimmy-cart...
       | 
       | Conversation, part of the Council on Foreign Relations' History
       | Makers series.
        
         | dredmorbius wrote:
         | From May of 2012, as the dateline's somewhat obscure there.
        
       | neom wrote:
       | If you didn't follow what Jimmy Carter did after his presidency,
       | this short habitat for humanity vignette highlights it well -
       | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ajWLdawnCPU (11 mins)
        
         | benatkin wrote:
         | Hard for me to draw inspiration from that, at least compared to
         | Al Gore.
         | https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/3p3CYauiX8oLjmwRF/purchase-f...
        
           | neom wrote:
           | As the CEO of Habitat for Humanity says in the video, it was
           | for marketing, not the houses he literally built. "I don't
           | think anyone would have hear of Habitat for Humanity If
           | President and Mrs. Carter hadn't gotten on that bus in 1984"
           | - They've since gone on to build over 800,000 homes - he
           | could have easily not gotten behind them in such an earnest
           | way year over year.
        
             | benatkin wrote:
             | And the video has 16 upvotes on YouTube? Not that I wish it
             | had more, because Habitat for Humanity might not be among
             | the best major humanitarian charities.
             | https://www.propublica.org/article/habitat-for-humanity-
             | broo...
        
               | lelandfe wrote:
               | Sadly, things in the 80's tended to get few upvotes on
               | YouTube. But Carter really was the real deal: https://en.
               | wikipedia.org/wiki/Jimmy_%26_Rosalynn_Carter_Work...
               | 
               | > Habitat for Humanity might not be among the best major
               | humanitarian charities
               | 
               | Habitat-NYC is an independent affiliate, with its own CEO
               | and everything.
        
               | benatkin wrote:
               | If I was running a charity like that, I would try to
               | curate the main YouTube account and make it so
               | practically everything gets at least hundreds of likes.
        
       | pfdietz wrote:
       | Carter was also an illustration of the advances made in cancer
       | treatment.
       | 
       | His aggressive melanoma responded very well to immune therapy.
        
       | NoLinkToMe wrote:
       | An example for many, sad to hear of his passing. Really quite an
       | inspirational man.
        
       | robotmachine wrote:
       | .
        
       | madihaa wrote:
       | Refused to put one toe in 2025 and I can't really blame him.
       | 
       | Lots of respect for this man, he had a long life and lived well.
        
         | stopping wrote:
         | This is a duplicate of the following reddit comment:
         | https://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/1hp5r20/comment/m...
        
           | aspenmayer wrote:
           | Thanks for calling this out, as it is almost certainly
           | against HN guidelines to karma farm or post other's comments
           | as your own. Not the first time either, as I've seen people
           | post links that were in OP as comments as if they weren't in
           | the OP, as well as have seen people steal comments from
           | substack articles and post them as their own on the HN
           | submission of the substack.
        
       | insane_dreamer wrote:
       | Didn't do everything right as president, but a good man who
       | mostly tried to do the right thing for Americans. Particularly
       | exemplary since leaving the presidency.
       | 
       | The average U.S. person would be much better off today if he had
       | won in 1980 instead of it being the beginning of deregulation and
       | Reaganomics.
        
         | zeroonetwothree wrote:
         | More deregulation passed under Carter than Reagan.
        
       | hylaride wrote:
       | One could argue he set the stage for the 1980s economic boom by
       | making short term sacrifices that cost him re-election. It was
       | his administration that did market-oriented deregulation around
       | airlines and trucking industries (meaning you didn't need to have
       | a licence to ship goods across state lines and go through
       | monopoly trucking companies to get your goods to market) as well
       | as appointed Paul Volcker as Fed chair with the mandate to end
       | the stagflation of the era (which meant he jacked up interest
       | rates, causing the economy to temporarily slow down). There is a
       | quite probably apocryphal quote that Jimmy Carter asked Volcker
       | "can you end inflation" to which Volcker replied "Yes, but it'll
       | probably cost you re-election" and Carter said do it. Reagan then
       | swept in under these conditions.
       | 
       | Most of the "market reforms" under Reagan were more pro-business
       | than pro-market and resulted in big problems like the savings and
       | loan crisis, among other things.
       | 
       | Carter was also a very uninspiring person who mused too much in
       | interviews and press conferences, which didn't _look_ decisive to
       | the general public, even though it showed how he was thinking.
       | 
       | Either way, he was an underrated president that was more a victim
       | of timing and did what was best for the country.
        
         | seanmcdirmid wrote:
         | I'm really worried that we just elected a president who clearly
         | fixates on short term gains rather than long term planning.
         | Biden did not mess that up, even if he is a one term president
         | like Carter. It is nice to have adults in control, even if that
         | is increasingly politically untenable.
        
           | xrd wrote:
           | You said it better than I would have. Biden put a lot of
           | smart people around him, and together they made many long
           | term investments in states that overwhelmingly voted for
           | Trump. He will be remembered differently than he is now.
        
           | Salgat wrote:
           | What's frustrating is that a few years ago a recession was
           | predicted, and we avoided that. But no one seems to have even
           | mentioned it during the election. Am I just misremembering
           | this? At least in the tech sector, lots of layoffs seemed to
           | be attributed to the coming downturn.
        
             | hylaride wrote:
             | Also, the US is pretty much the only developed country
             | growing at any meaningful rate (though deficit spending is
             | probably a large cause of that and is arguably not
             | sustainable at the current rate).
             | 
             | Biden was past his prime and it showed during the campaign,
             | though.
        
             | wumeow wrote:
             | > But no one seems to have even mentioned it during the
             | election
             | 
             | That's because most Americans believe we were in a
             | recession.
             | 
             | https://www.theguardian.com/us-
             | news/article/2024/may/22/poll...
        
               | llamaimperative wrote:
               | Even here on HN, the vibecession was in full tilt.
        
             | seanmcdirmid wrote:
             | A lot of tech layoffs can be attributed to overhiring
             | during the pandemic, the need to rebalance to more AI
             | investments, and the end of low interest rates that
             | encourage growth rather than efficiency.
        
           | rayiner wrote:
           | Restricting immigration _is_ a long term investment in
           | America's future. The golden age Americans remember from the
           | mid 20th century is partly the result of the 1924 immigration
           | act, which cut the foreign born population from almost 15% to
           | under 5% by the 1960s.
           | 
           | As relevant here Carter proposed to make it unlawful to hire
           | illegal immigrants and to impose penalties on companies that
           | did so: https://library.cqpress.com/cqalmanac/document.php?id
           | =cqal77...
        
             | akaru wrote:
             | Something tells me you can't believe this nonsense you're
             | spewing. You're attributing the greatest economic boom the
             | world has ever seen, not to being the sole winner and
             | survivor of WWII, but because the borders were tightened.
             | You must be a troll.
        
             | rat87 wrote:
             | America is a nation of immigrants. Xenophobic politics is
             | stupid and makes us weaker.
        
           | UncleOxidant wrote:
           | When you compare Carter with the guy who's going to take
           | office next month it shows how far we've fallen as a country.
           | The previous era was already passing since about 2016, but
           | with the death of Carter it seems like that era has died with
           | him and it just feels very depressing.
        
             | silisili wrote:
             | While I agree with the general sentiment, I think the same
             | could have been said regardless of which candidate won. It
             | feels like the left moved left, the right moved right, and
             | instead of catering to moderates, threatening them to pick
             | a side.
             | 
             | Said another way, I think a young Jimmy Carter type
             | candidate would have wiped the floor with either side this
             | election.
        
               | UncleOxidant wrote:
               | > I think the same could have been said regardless of
               | which candidate won.
               | 
               | I don't disagree. It's a matter of degrees, though. The
               | post-WWII era was always going to go away when everyone
               | who remembered WWII (or were children of those who fought
               | it) passed away. That's kind of where we are now.
        
           | xyst wrote:
           | > short term gains
           | 
           | For who exactly? The $1.5T tax cut (deficit spend) for
           | billionaires was advertised as a "bill for the middle class"
           | [1] under the assumption of idiotic "trickle down economics.
           | Trump administration at the time even promised a "$4,000
           | raise" to the middle class. [2]
           | 
           | In reality, in the short term, billionaires able to afford
           | another stupid yacht or pad some offshore accounts.
           | Corporations buying back their stock. In the long term,
           | deficit spending, increasing national debt, jobs lost, cuts
           | of public programs, and further decimation of middle class.
           | 
           | [1] https://www.npr.org/2017/12/20/572157392/gop-poised-for-
           | tax-...
           | 
           | [2] https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2018/04/10/donald-
           | tru...
        
         | linguae wrote:
         | For these reasons, Jimmy Carter is my third-favorite president
         | of the 20th century, behind my favorite, Calvin Coolidge, and
         | my second-favorite, Dwight Eisenhower. I am a very big fan of
         | Paul Volcker and I'm glad Jimmy Carter nominated him as chair
         | of the Fed. I wish Reagan kept Volcker as chair during Reagan's
         | second term.
        
           | justin66 wrote:
           | Or nominated anyone other than Greenspan.
        
           | bdndndndbve wrote:
           | FDR doesn't make the cut?
        
             | WalterBright wrote:
             | FDR stripped 110,000 Americans of their property and herded
             | them into concentration camps.
        
               | emchammer wrote:
               | One of these persons came to speak to my class when I was
               | in elementary school. She was an elderly woman by then.
        
             | jdewerd wrote:
             | Oh, he only busted the Great Depression, won WWII, built
             | half of the infrastructure that we keep kicking the
             | expiration date on, and negotiated 80% of the beneficial
             | fine print in your employment contract. Don't you think he
             | could have done a bit more?
             | 
             | My list would be: 1. FDR, 2. Carter, 3. Teddy. Carter
             | because he sacrificed his career to fix inflation
             | (Republican attempts to rewrite history notwithstanding),
             | and Teddy because he wasn't merely an excellent man with
             | excellent politics, but also because whenever present-day
             | Republicans try to claim the man without claiming his
             | politics I can turn it into a teachable moment.
        
             | zeroonetwothree wrote:
             | FDR did Japanese internment, tried court packing, and was
             | arguably the first of the modern style of power-hungry
             | president. He constantly threatened members of Congress
             | that didn't roll over and go along with his agenda. To that
             | end he was very influential but not entirely in a good way.
             | 
             | He hardly ended the depression, economic conditions were
             | poor until WW2 (eg look at the 1937 downturn, well into his
             | tenure).
        
           | JadeNB wrote:
           | > For these reasons, Jimmy Carter is my third-favorite
           | president of the 20th century, behind my favorite, Calvin
           | Coolidge, and my second-favorite, Dwight Eisenhower.
           | 
           | Aside from Amity Shlaes, who seems to have worked backwards
           | from her desired conclusion, I've never heard an argument put
           | forward for Coolidge as among the great presidents. What do
           | you particularly admire?
        
         | bb88 wrote:
         | And Reagan also had the Iran Contra controversy which was
         | selling arms to Iran to fund the Contras in Nicaragua. When
         | asked in a deposition about what he knew, Reagan famously said,
         | "I don't remember". It may have been a legal tactic to avoid
         | culpability, but it could also have been real and highlighted
         | the man's cognitive decline. Or worse, his advisors knew about
         | the cognitive decline, kept information from him, and then ran
         | their own foreign policy in the basement of the pentagon.
        
         | ls612 wrote:
         | Reagan's first 2 and a half years also were setting the stage
         | for the growth of the 80s and 90s by taming inflation with very
         | high interest rates and a painful recession. Reagan would have
         | lost by a lot if his gamble hadn't paid off but instead by 1984
         | strong growth had begun and he won in a landslide.
        
           | oh_my_goodness wrote:
           | Carter appointee Paul Volcker controlled interest rates at
           | the Federal Reserve from 1979 until 1987.
           | 
           | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Volcker
        
             | ls612 wrote:
             | Rates peaked in 1982.
        
               | oh_my_goodness wrote:
               | https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/interest-rate
        
             | UncleOxidant wrote:
             | Carter interviewed Volcker for the job of Fed chairman and
             | asked him what he would do to lower inflation (which had
             | been persistently high since about the middle of the Nixon
             | admin). Volcker told him he would immediately and
             | significantly raise interest rates. This was in '79, there
             | was an election the next year so Volcker figured that
             | Carter wouldn't pick him. But Carter realized that Volcker
             | was right and did pick Volcker who then went on to raise
             | rates into the double digits (and people now complain about
             | 5%). As predicted that tanked the economy in the election
             | year, but in the long run it did the job of extinguishing
             | the 70's inflation.
        
         | WalterBright wrote:
         | As Reagan's first Executive Order, he repealed all oil and gas
         | allocation and price controls.
         | 
         | The chronic gas lines disappeared literally overnight, and
         | never came back.
         | 
         | I remember that day well.
        
           | metabagel wrote:
           | He also campaigned on states rights to win over southern
           | whites racists, and he ignored the AIDS epidemic, because his
           | supporters thought it was God's punishment for homosexuals.
        
       | FillardMillmore wrote:
       | My favorite Carter story was when he was out on a fishing boat
       | and there was a swamp rabbit that aggressively approached his
       | boat. Carter used his paddle to shoo it away. He told his
       | advisers about it, but they didn't believe him. But a White House
       | photographer was taking pictures of the trip at the time and
       | captured the rabbit in the picture. Of course, the press blew it
       | out of proportion and used it to mock/attack Carter.
       | 
       | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jimmy_Carter_rabbit_incident
       | 
       | For those that have seen Monty Python and the Holy Grail, I've
       | always recreationally believed that the 'killer rabbit' in that
       | movie was the same rabbit that went after Carter in his fishing
       | boat.
       | 
       | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XcxKIJTb3Hg
       | 
       | Rest in Peace, Jimmy.
        
         | 51Cards wrote:
         | I hadn't heard about this and thought "swamp rabbit" was some
         | catch term for alligator. Nope! It was actually a rabbit!
         | Thanks for sharing this.
        
       | RIPCarter wrote:
       | I was thinking about Jimmy Carter on election day. Carter told
       | America the truth about itself and they overwhelmingly voted to
       | get rid of him. Trump has given nothing but lies and hate and
       | America handed him the White House on a silver platter. This
       | country didn't deserve Carter. I hope he is with his wife now.
        
       | tomohawk wrote:
       | As president, Carter gave the green light for Doo-hwan Chun to
       | use force against the pro-democracy protests in Gwangju, S Korea.
       | 
       | Later, sent to N Korea by president Clinton, he massively
       | exceeded his authority and made a sweetheart deal that guaranteed
       | N Korea would eventually build nukes. President Clinton found out
       | about the deal on CNN with everyone else and never used Carter
       | again.
       | 
       | He also sandbagged president Reagan by taking a trip to the
       | Soviet Union and convincing the leaders there that Reagan was not
       | serious about reducing or eliminating nuclear weapons. This set
       | back progress on reducing nuclear weapons for several years. In
       | the end, Reagan was finally able to get them back to the table
       | and eliminated a class of nukes, reducing others.
        
         | metabagel wrote:
         | None of that happened.
        
       | ggm wrote:
       | I'd love to know what people think he could have done differently
       | about the hostages. Bear in mind that he would have been as
       | politically ruined by a parade of dead hostage bodies so any "go
       | harder" proposal has its own risks. If only the choppers hadn't
       | failed?
       | 
       | Iran knew it could wedge him and wait for the new president.
        
       | amazingamazing wrote:
       | As a former president I wonder why he voted for Harris and went
       | as far to tell others that he did so, but didn't officially
       | endorse. Seemed strange. A vote is tacit approval no? Was he
       | against endorsements in general? He endorsed Mondale and Clinton
       | iirc
       | 
       | Regardless at least he wasn't as divisive as 45.
       | 
       | RIP.
        
         | justin66 wrote:
         | Telling everyone you're going to vote for someone isn't an
         | endorsement?
        
           | amazingamazing wrote:
           | I consider an endorsement more of the rationale for why,
           | personally.
        
         | someperson wrote:
         | If you read the reports, those wishes were relayed by his
         | family. The last time he was filmed a few months ago he didn't
         | appear conscious.
        
         | whatendorsement wrote:
         | Can you provide a link to the non-endorsement? I search
         | google/bing/ddg and couldn't find any source for this claim
         | that he didn't endorse her.
        
       | macrocosmos wrote:
       | I wasn't alive for Carter's presidency, so can someone explain
       | how his handling of the hostages in Iran was positive at all for
       | the United States?
       | 
       | To me as an American even this many years later and as a young
       | person who didn't see it, ending your presidency while another
       | nation holds your citizens seems extremely embarrassing.
       | 
       | And all I see is extreme praise of the man. I'd honestly like to
       | see some discussion here.
        
         | userbinator wrote:
         | It's the usual HN politics echo-chamber, what'd you expect?
        
         | syndicatedjelly wrote:
         | Why does being alive in the 1970s qualify someone to speak
         | intelligently on that subject?
        
       | wahisurf wrote:
       | Jimmy Carter was the president that normalized the China
       | relations. We've already seen how China abused the WTO entry that
       | was granted by Bill Clinton in order to steal billions, if not
       | trillions, of intellectual properties from US. And destroyed
       | millions of factory jobs in America that really hurt American men
       | and household. China also killed millions of Americans via COVID
       | virus that was released from the Wuhan institute of virology.
       | 
       | Depending on what happens between China and US in the next
       | decades, and whether China increases military engagement with
       | rest of Asia, we will have a more clear view of what damage Jimmy
       | Carter had done to America.
        
         | kranke155 wrote:
         | It was Clinton who made the WTO, GATT and NAFTA treaties that
         | made manufacturing be sucked out of the US.
         | 
         | Carter was only following up on Nixon. It was Nixon-Kissinger
         | who had the brilliant idea of splitting the communist bloc (an
         | idea which I'd say likely helped shape the end of the Cold War
         | - without China influencing Asia in cooperation, the Soviet
         | threat was much reduced). Carter was only following up on a
         | winning strategy.
         | 
         | But it was Clinton and his team who did the most work to wipe
         | out the American industrial sector.
        
         | mitemte wrote:
         | Look at U.S. factories now vs the 1980s - way fewer workers but
         | making more stuff. Yeah, companies moved jobs overseas, but
         | they also went big on automation to boost efficiency. That's a
         | huge reason factory jobs disappeared.
         | 
         | As for COVID origins, let's not perpetuate unproven theories.
        
           | wahisurf wrote:
           | Nothing unproven about covid coming out of wuhan lab
           | 
           | House panel concludes that COVID-19 pandemic came from a lab
           | leak https://www.science.org/content/article/house-panel-
           | conclude...
           | 
           | Two-thirds of Americans believe that the COVID-19 virus
           | originated from a lab in China https://today.yougov.com/polit
           | ics/articles/45389-americans-b...
           | 
           | also, Harvard Business Review agreed that "some U.S. regions
           | lost manufacturing jobs as a result of trade with China in
           | the early 2000s" https://hbr.org/2022/11/has-trade-with-
           | china-really-cost-the...
        
             | shutupmagat wrote:
             | FTA: "Two-year probe led by Republicans faults agencies for
             | pandemic response, as Democrats on panel challenge final
             | report's findings on SARS-CoV-2's origin"
             | 
             | Yeah, the lying-ass republicans repeating the same bullshit
             | Russian-made talking points, meanwhile the Democrats who
             | aren't on the dole disagree.
             | 
             | What gullible Americans "believe" on some random poll site
             | doesn't matter. Belief in something doesn't make it true.
        
               | wahisurf wrote:
               | Since you are so blinded by party lines, here's an
               | article in NY times from Dr. Alina Chan, a molecular
               | biologist from MIT
               | 
               | Why the Pandemic Probably Started in a Lab, in 5 Key
               | Points https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/06/03/opi
               | nion/covid...
               | 
               | "Given what we now know, investigators should follow
               | their strongest leads and subpoena all exchanges between
               | the Wuhan scientists and their international partners,
               | including unpublished research proposals, manuscripts,
               | data and commercial orders. In particular, exchanges from
               | 2018 and 2019"
        
             | RealityVoid wrote:
             | The house panel report is profoundly flawed and used as a
             | political piece more than as a means of real inquiry.
             | 
             | And the fact a lot of people from the US believe it
             | originated from the lab doesn't really make it true. See
             | how many people believe you didn't go on the moon or that
             | 9/11 was an inside job.
             | 
             | It _could_ have originated from the lab, it's a distinct
             | possibility, but there is no concrete proof. We do know
             | it's not created using a gene drive though.
        
             | guiambros wrote:
             | From the article you linked:
             | 
             | > _The committee's 520-page report, released on 2 December,
             | offers no new direct evidence of a lab leak, but summarizes
             | a circumstantial case, including that the Wuhan Institute
             | of Virology (WIV) used NIAID money to conduct "gain-of-
             | function" studies that modified distantly related
             | coronaviruses._
             | 
             | > _Democrats on the panel released their own report
             | challenging many of their colleagues' conclusions about
             | COVID-19 origins. They conclude, for example, that the
             | viruses studied at WIV with EcoHealth funding were too
             | distantly related to SARS-CoV-2 to cause the pandemic._
             | 
             | In other words, it's the same partisan politics we've seen
             | since 2020, with very little science sprinkled on top.
             | 
             | I believe we grossly fumbled investigating the origin of
             | the virus, but unfortunately this report does little to
             | present new, conclusive evidence.
        
             | tzs wrote:
             | That House panel report is a joke. They massively cherry
             | pick evidence to praise everything Trump did and condemn
             | everything Biden did.
             | 
             | For example, they praise Trump's travel restrictions for
             | saving lives. To support this they cite a single study,
             | which didn't even study COVID. It was a study that used
             | computer models of the spread of other diseases to see if
             | travel restrictions are useful. That's an interesting and
             | useful type of study, but it isn't anywhere near
             | conclusive.
             | 
             | Compare to masks, which they conclude are worthless. They
             | acknowledge that the CDC provided them a list of over a
             | dozen studies that were specifically of mask use in regard
             | to COVID, but they completely dismiss all of them because
             | they were observational studies, not randomized controlled
             | trials.
             | 
             | Here's an article that gives more details on the
             | deficiencies of that report, including the deficiencies in
             | its claims about COVID origins [1].
             | 
             | [1] https://arstechnica.com/science/2024/12/congressional-
             | republ...
        
         | bb88 wrote:
         | Actually, really the blame goes to Nixon on this. Nixon ended
         | 25 years of isolation between the US and China [1], and further
         | played China against Russia.
         | 
         | The deeper reality is that US corporations wanted cheap labor.
         | And the Chinese wanted to increase their standard of living for
         | their people. But also, China turned into a nuclear power while
         | people weren't looking, and trade between the US and China
         | would prevent any wars.
         | 
         | It's easy to look back and say one thing, but back in the
         | 60's/70's the nuclear threat to the US was real, and trade was
         | the most powerful deterrence option that could lead to long
         | lasting peace.
         | 
         | [1] https://www.nixonlibrary.gov/nixons-trip-china
        
         | yyyk wrote:
         | I don't believe blaming 1970s-1980s Presidents for this is
         | reasonable. China was economically tiny, and the alliance was
         | conductive for the Cold War. The error was not pivoting later
         | and going for the 'economic engagement will lead to democracy'
         | 'theory'.
        
       | basementcat wrote:
       | The Carter Center is on the verge of eradicating Guinea worm
       | disease, a hideous illness that predominantly afflicts the poor.
       | I hope other former Presidents can use their political leverage
       | to help people in similar ways.
       | 
       | https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dracunculiasis
       | 
       | https://www.cartercenter.org/health/guinea_worm/index.html
        
       | tonymet wrote:
       | Carter deregulated the beer & airline industries
        
         | macinjosh wrote:
         | And now flying is the worst consumer experience of them all and
         | Budweiser is made out of rice. Is this winning?
        
           | tomjakubowski wrote:
           | Budweiser has been brewed with rice from the beginning, since
           | 1876.
        
           | irrelative wrote:
           | Flying is incredibly less expensive largely due to
           | deregulation, and Budweiser has always been brewed with rice.
           | So, yes, this is winning.
        
       | bb88 wrote:
       | His main achievement was and forever will be the Egypt/Israel
       | peace agreement. This has lasted nearly 50 years, and the people
       | who still have grievances will soon be dead in another few years.
        
       | supernova87a wrote:
       | "For Christ's sake, you people made me get rid of my peanut farm
       | before you let me be president."
       | 
       | https://theonion.com/you-people-made-me-give-up-my-peanut-fa...
        
       | neilv wrote:
       | Carter did many lifetimes' worth of good service to others.
       | 
       | With his passing now, he'll just miss one of the fundamentally
       | opposite administrations taking control.
        
       | watersb wrote:
       | My dad worked for then-Governor Carter's administration.
       | 
       | The state of Georgia at that time was mostly rural. A small town
       | that needs to expand their water supply would often lack the
       | specialized staff required. Under Carter, the state created
       | regional offices to assist with planning, grant writing, etc.
       | 
       | It was DevOps for local government.
       | 
       | Carter was quite willing to innovate.
        
       | jseip wrote:
       | God bless a good man
        
       | Spagbol wrote:
       | I have not done significant research, but the more I have read
       | about Jimmy Carter the more I am convinced he is very underrated,
       | and the more I read about Reagan the more I beleive he was a bad
       | choice for the average U.S. citizen long-term (e.g. destroying
       | the U.S. lead on climate tech, and creating policies that
       | ultimately eroded the wealth of the middle class) Reagan was
       | certainly charming, but I beleive he didn't have the integrity of
       | Carter. While Reagan let dictators like Pinochet commit heinous
       | human rights abuses so long as they were anti-communist, Carter
       | put actual pressure on the regime and sought answers. I consider
       | him a long-term thinking leader rather than your average short-
       | term thinking politician. I think that history will end up being
       | much kinder to Carter in hindsight.
        
         | metabagel wrote:
         | I hope you're right, but there is an entire cottage industry
         | dedicated to propping up Reagan's legacy.
        
       | keyme wrote:
       | Good riddance.
        
       | xyst wrote:
       | He was a good person, but unfortunately his administration set a
       | massive precedent in deregulation of private industries, and
       | setup the foundation for neo-liberalism and Reagan/"trickle down"
       | economics.
        
       | recroad wrote:
       | Only US President to tell the truth about Israel's apartheid.
       | https://www.youtube.com/shorts/y23V6PLTCMw
        
       | jmward01 wrote:
       | He was a great human being. We need more people like him,
       | especially in government.
        
       | dboreham wrote:
       | Met him one time. About 20 years ago, boarding a Delta RJ to SLC.
       | I got upgraded, row 1. I'm stowing my carry on in the bin. Guy in
       | row 2 stands up, sticks out his hand towards me and says "Pleased
       | to meet you, my name's Jimmy Carter". I think "sure you are dude"
       | and "if you were the former president, that lady next to you
       | would be Ros...wait...she IS Rosalynn...". He had been on a fly
       | fishing trip. Deplaned before everyone else into SS vehicle on
       | the apron. Nice guy.
        
       | rurban wrote:
       | The only US president of the last 100 years who would have not
       | been executed by a nuremburg-like trial for war crimes
        
       | nla wrote:
       | My parents almost lost their house to a 19% mortgage after he was
       | in office.
        
       | animanoir wrote:
       | finally
        
       | gslin wrote:
       | https://archive.ph/677UB
        
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