Mr. Penny CCW: Video: HBO Films: Magic & Bird, a Courtship of Rivals

Posted on February 14, 2014 by Erik Schneider

Magic & Bird, Courtship of Rivals HD – YouTube.

Source:The New Democrat 

To understand the impact of Earvin Magic Johnson and Larry Legend Bird and what they meant and mean to the National Basketball Association (NBA), you have to know the state of the NBA in the late 1970s and how far the league went down from where it was by the late 1960s and early 1970s. The NBA Finals were played on tape-delay television to use as a great example, which means the network at this time, CBS, recording the game and producing the game with CBS Sports and then CBS Sports playing the game after the late local news, instead of the game being aired at 8 or 9 pm when the game was played.

By the time the 1980s were over, the NBA was right there with the National Football League. The NFL at its height of popularity because it had so many prime and great games on national TV because of two men and two teams: Earvin Magic Johnson and Larry Legend Bird and the Los Angeles Lakers and Boston Celtics. The two best players of this era, if not all time, going head-to-head from opposite conferences, having to beat the other to accomplish what they wanted to do, which was to be the best by beating the best, which was the other team with its great player.

The great NBA basketball head coach Pat Riley, who also happened to be the Lakers’ head coach in this era has, I think, the best and most accurate way to describe Magic and Legend, saying they were about team first and team last and everything else in between. Being the best by beating the best and winning as many NBA Finals as possible and all the championships they could handle for one career, they did by being the best two best team players of their era, if not all time, and they did this for an entire decade plus a couple of seasons.

One thing about Magic and Legend is that they needed each other to be as great as each. They were only interested in two things, which were to win the NBA Finals over and over and to be the best player in the game. Without the other and without the Lakers pushing the Celtics and vice versa, the competition with each other and those two great franchises being from different conferences, meaning they would play each other in the NBA Finals, that competition and push I believe got the best out of both players and both teams.

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Revolutionary Workers Party: Malcolm X vs. James Baldwin

Posted on February 12, 2014 by Rik Schneider

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Source:The New Democrat 

I have a problem with Malcolm X having a problem with the civil rights sit-ins of, I believe, from 1963, and perhaps earlier than that. Because what these young Americans were doing was saying that they were people too and that they could not be denied service simply because of their race or color. And all they were doing by going to these restaurants and diners and what Rosa Parks did on the bus by refusing to give up her seat to a Caucasian man was saying “we are here too and you can’t force us to leave.” Perhaps what Malcolm X would’ve preferred was that the demonstrators had bats or guns or something. And when a racist would tell them to move or try to physically move then that they would get hit the demonstrator.

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ESPN: 30 For 30: Muhammad and Larry

Posted on February 9, 2014 by kireschneider

Source:The New Democrat 

I just lost some respect for the great boxing trainer Angelo Dundee when he said that he’s been asked, “why didn’t you tell Muhammad Ali that your time is over and you should stop fighting, or at least not fight Larry Holmes?” And Angelo saying that it is not his job to tell his fighter when they should stop fighting. That fighters have a god-given right to fight as long as they want to. Not the point because if you love or care about someone, that enough should be enough reason to say, “look champ, you shouldn’t do this because you will get seriously hurt.”

The story of the 1980 World Heavyweight Championship fight between the top two heavyweights of their generation at least, Muhammad Ali and Larry Holmes is more than just a World Championship fight. But a fight between someone entering the prime of his career in Larry, against a fighter whose time was over and only regained the World Heavyweight Championship in 1978, because he fought Leon Spinks. But any really good or great heavyweight would’ve given Muhammad a similar beating. That Larry Holmes gave him in 1980.

This is a fight that’s all about one thing and only one thing. Money, the two best heavyweights in the world and so many fans wanting to see this fight. Had nothing to do with anyone else and the hell with the consequences as far as who get’s hurt in this fight. Because anyone who knew about both fighters and their current physical conditions, knew this fight should’ve never happened. That Larry was simply too strong for Muhammad at this point in their careers.

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XFL 2001: XFL 2001-Week 2-Las Vegas Outlaws @ Memphis Maniax: Full Game

Posted on February 9, 2014 by Ederik Schneider

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Source:The New Democrat 

Well I’ll give the Xtreme Football League as it was called not my name for it, but what they called it credit for a few things actually. But the first one not being their best credit. Is that combining pro football that is major league football NFL talent all over the XFL with pro wrestling was an interesting concept. But something that will probably never be done again for good reason. World Wrestling Entertainment Vince McMahon’s company are the people who produced this league and the games.

The XFL didn’t die after one season because they lacked talent or didn’t have the right coaching or anything really having to do with football. The XFL died because it was run by WWE. And having WWE personalities all over the league and turned the XFL in not so much a pro football league. But a celebrity reality show that was designed to look like a concert or a show and not football games. Which is not what football fans want to see which is football.

If you are familiar with the WWE and what they do and then watch a XFL game, the only thing that is different about either show is that instead of watching pro wrestling you are watching what is supposed to be pro football. But with all of these wrestling personalities involved in the production. And their little wrestling segments involved in the programs as well. Instead of seeing a serious pro football game and show that is only about pro football.

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Marecski: Video: Rounders 1998: The Final Hand

Posted on February 9, 2014 by Erik Schneider

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This post was originally posted at The New Democrat on Blogger

Great scene because this is really about a guy Mike McDermott who at best is a part-time law student, but who really makes a living as a gambler a poker player. Who makes his money reading other people’s faces and mannerism’s who is in a deep hole of ten-thousand dollars. Actually a hole he inherited from his friend Worm who ran up a big debt losing in poker and Mike is trying to help his irresponsible friend out. And that is where he get’s into trouble because his friend is not good for the debt.

So Mike goes into this game hours away from having to pay his debt off. Or get his ass kicked by gangsters he owes the money to thanks to Worm. So he goes to the one guy who has the money that he could win from him to get the money he needs to pay off the debt. And so he’s down to his last play late in the game fourth and twenty. And he comes through and makes the play or risk getting his ass handed to him and perhaps not surviving the experience.

This is the ultimate scene about one guy putting everything on the line and coming out on top. Beating the best poker player in New York City by not getting lucky which is really not what poker is about. But by using his poker skills to read KGB and beat him at his own game and not only wins enough money to pay off all of his debts. But walk away from the game with a profit and he kicks KGB’s ass at his own game and walks away the winner.
Rounders

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The O’Reilly Factor: ‘Representative Michele Bachmann’s Stupidity Baffles Bill O’Reilly’

Posted on February 8, 2014 by kireschneider

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The New Democrat

Forget about what the guy with the big mouth doing the commentary in the video. The O’Reilly-Bachmann exchange represents exactly what is wrong with the Republican Party right now. And Bill gave Representative Michelle Bachmann all the opportunity possible in about four minutes. When the asshole wasn’t speaking to make it clear that the GOP is the NMP right now the No Message Party. Because they do not have a unifying message because they are the opposition party. Without a clear frontrunner for 2016 so they got these tribes who really just speak for themselves instead.

I almost fell asleep listening to Cathy McMorris-Rodgers response to President Obama at the State of the Union a couple of weeks ago. And keep in mind I’m an insomniac and I don’t fall asleep very often. But at least there was some point to her message. Someone coming from middle class small town roots to the big time as member of the Republican Leadership in the House of Representatives. But with Michelle it is two minutes of what that she’s pro-American, apple pie and motherhood and so-forth.

Michelle Bachmann represents exactly why IQ tests should be required for anyone in Congress to serve on the House or Senate Intelligence committees. And thank God she only serves on one of them. Because give her one topic and you get competing messages on the same topic. As well as her volunteering other topics to talk about in a span of two minutes. And I wish this Congress could only end tomorrow so she is no longer in the House which she is retiring from at the end of this Congress.

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The New Democrat on Blogger : Journey on a Bike: My Last Bike Adventure Leading to My New Bike

Posted on February 8, 2014 by Erik Schneider

Old Bike

Old Bike


The New Democrat on Blogger: Journey on a Bike: My Last Bike Adventure Leading to My New Bike

This story is almost exactly a week old, actually more like ten days. But a week from last Wednesday the Wednesday before the Super Bowl, I took my bike out for a ride on a cold late Maryland afternoon. Which isn’t uncommon for me, but what was uncommon was that the gears weren’t working properly. The gears were stuck in low gear if not the lowest gear making the bike very difficult to accelerate. Imagine driving a car on the road especially a highway with the top speed of twenty miles an hour. Well that is what it is like riding a bicycle stuck in low gear.

The next day somehow the gears are back to running normally and I didn’t do a thing to the bike. Or have anyone look at it or fix it, but the gears were back to running normally. But last Friday I had a bigger problem with the gears in that they were now stuck in high gear. So I’m trying to ride up steep hills with the bike in top gear. Kinda like trying to push a piano up a flight of steps with just your hands. Lucky for me I’m an avid rider and I’m in very good physical and biking shape. When they were stuck in top gear I knew I had a serious problem and needed to get the bike to the shop.

So last Saturday I take the bike in high gear ride it all the way over to Big Wheel Bikes in downtown Bethesda, Maryland. About two miles from where I live and this is a place that gives excellent service. I’ve been a regular customer there for almost four years now since the summer of 2010. And they told me they didn’t have the parts to fix the gear changer on the bike. But that I should call them back Tuesday and the manager there would call around and see if he can get the new parts by then, but he wasn’t sure if he could at all.

The guys at Big Wheel even suggested that if I didn’t want to wait that long which I didn’t I bike ride everyday, that maybe I should take the bike over to Griffin’s Bikes just up the street. And maybe they could fix it that day, Griffin’s just happens to be one of Big Wheel’s competitors. I use to be a regular customer of Griffin’s but in late 2009 I go in there just for a tune-up which are normally like three-hundred bucks for my old bike. The bike is four years old at this point and guy there was basically trying to sell me a new bike. Saying that if he gave it a tune-up I might only get a couple more months out of that bike.

I take the bike over to Big Wheel in the summer of 2010 and get another tune-up after the last tune-up came from Griffin’s in the fall of 2009 and they fixed the bike right up and I got almost another four years out of it. I go to Big Wheel partly because of my last experience at Griffin’s, but also because Big Wheel was suggested to me by two people who know a lot about bikes that I respect. The last two years for my old bike were pretty rough. The whole bike except for the base of it has essentially been rebuilt including the breaks and the gears would’ve had to have been replaced as well.

I go to Griffins last Saturday because Big Wheel couldn’t fix the gears right away. And the guy there asks me if he can look the bike all over because he very quickly was seeing a lot that wasn’t right. About the bike and basically concluded that what it would take to rebuild the bike it would simply be cheaper to get a new bike. And what I asked him was how about if you completely repair the old bike and I’ll get a new bike from you and use the old bike as a spare. He told me that fixing the old bike would be somewhere around a thousand dollars and it wouldn’t be worth the time. So I decided to dump the old bike except for the parts that still worked like the basket, headlight, backlight and so forth. And had them transferred to my new bike.

I bought the old bike in the summer of 2005 for five-hundred dollars. I bought my new Trek mountain bike today that has all the new features as my old 2005 Giant Boulder. Great bike by the way when it was running for six-hundred and fifty dollars. Griffins saved me something like four-hundred dollars by getting me a new bike. And the thing I can’t figure out is how come Big Wheel didn’t figure out that my old bike needed a hell of a lot of new work on it. On top of the work I had on it late last year and the summer as well and just tell me, “how about we dump this bike and sell you a new one and save you some money”.

Old Bike

Old Bike


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Andrew Sullivan: ‘Why is Liberal a Dirty Word?’

Posted on February 7, 2014 by kireschneider

Source:The New Democrat 

The reason why in the past the word Liberal has almost been seen as bad as a cuss word or someone would call someone a Liberal like they would call someone a jerk or a bastard or an insult worst than that, is because of how successful the partisan right-wing going back to Richard Nixon and perhaps even to Barry Goldwater to make Liberals look like something they aren’t. And liberalism something that it isn’t. Which is some big government statist ideology that is all about government running people’s lives for them. And against everything that has made America work mostly having to do with freedom.

Another reason why the word Liberal has been seen as something as bad as a horrible insult, is that people who aren’t Liberals, but have more of a big government statist Far-Left ideology, get called Liberals by people in the media who don’t understand liberalism. And people who again share that big government statist philosophy calling themselves Liberals. Even though they don’t even understand liberalism themselves. Or prefer to be called Liberal instead of something else that is even less popular in America. Like a Socialist, Communist or Statist.

But if you go up to 2008 the charge against Barack Obama when he was running for president the charge from the right-wing was no longer labeling him a Liberal. But a Socialist and for good reason, because Americans now no longer see Liberal as a bad thing especially younger Americans. More Americans are learning more about liberalism and understanding it. And also more Americans now see their own politics as Liberal as well which is a big reason why young Americans overwhelmingly voted for Barack Obama for president in 2008. And reelected President Obama in 2012.

Liberal is not a dirty word, but a clean beautiful word that is about liberty, liberation, empowerment. Notice the words Liberal and Libertarian sound similar because even though they are certainly different. But they believe in similar things like individual rights and liberty and privacy. And are skeptical about what large organizations can do for them that they can’t do for themselves. Whether they are public or private institutions and more Americans now believe in these things as well.

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The Modern Socialist: Brandon Payton-Carrillo: The Purpose of Government

Posted on February 7, 2014 by Derik Schneider

The New Democrat

The Modern Socialist: Opinion: Brandon Payton-Carrillo: What is the Purpose of Government?

This is the perfect question to be asking and debating, because it goes to the heart of a big debate America has debated as a country for at least forty-five years. With the creation of the Great Society, to President Richard Nixon’s Federalist approach to domestic issues. To get government power out of Washington and back to the states. To President Jimmy Carter’s New Democratic approach to get more power back to the people. And of course the debate just getting bigger with President Reagan, President Clinton and of course today with President Obama. That is why do we have a government and different levels of government and what is it exactly do we need, not want government to do for us in a civilized society.

Why do we have a government and what we need it to do. Depends on who you ask anywhere from Socialists on the Far-Left let’s say who have the biggest role for government and tend to have programs and taxes that are designed to solve all of our problems for us. To Libertarians who aren’t quite Far-Right, but have the smallest role for government for us. To Liberals and Conservatives who are somewhere in the middle. But with different roles for government in our lives and what we need to pay in taxes.

My role for government as a Liberal I believe is pretty simple. To do for us what we can’t as people do for ourselves, or do as well for ourselves. The obvious things being law enforcement, national security, foreign policy, smart regulation of the economy. But not running the economy which is different. A public education system, but not an education monopoly for the broader public. These are a few examples but my role for government doesn’t get much bigger than this.

My basic idea for government is to protect and expand freedom that individuals have to run their, or govern even their own lives, not to take someone else’s freedom from them. But to be able to manage their own economic and personal affairs. So for people who do not have freedom, but need it and deserve it, help them help themselves so they have the freedom to take care of themselves. And to protect freedom for those who already have it and still deserve that freedom.

I’m not anti-government even at the federal level and not pro-government at any level. But the role of government is to protect and expand freedom. That also includes protecting workers and consumers from predators with smart regulations. But again not designed to run companies, but to protect people from those in companies who would hurt us. Only having the government that we need and not the government that we want. Which are different things.

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The Atlantic: Molly Ball: ‘No, Progressives Don’t Control The Democratic Party’

Posted on February 7, 2014 by Ederik Schneider

Source:The New Democrat 

To comment on the column in The Atlantic from Molly Ball. Actually Liberals do control the Democratic Party and this goes to the fact of why labels are not only important, but more importantly that people who especially do not follow politics closely understand what these labels mean. And who is a Liberal or a Progressive or a Conservative or a Socialist to use as examples. And not call people Liberals who are not liberal or people who are not conservative, Conservatives. And perhaps most importantly of all because Socialist tends to be used as an insult, do not call people Socialists who are not Socialists.

And because of the lack of political education in America especially as it relates to our political factions or tribes, the best way to judge where America is ideologically is where Americans are on the issues. Instead of how Americans self-describe their own politics. And based on that no matter whatever percentage of Americans are self-described as Liberals, Liberals do very well in this country especially in the Democratic Party, because of where we are as a party and a country on the issues.

1. As a country we want to see more infrastructure investment in the country

2. Tax reform so everyone pays their share of taxes.

3. Equal rights for Gays including marriage and adoption

4. Marijuana legalization and a new approach to the War on Drugs in general

5. Comprehensive immigration reform

6. A national energy policy that moves America to energy independence with Americans natural resources including renewable sources.

7. Civil liberties, privacy and personal freedom in general

8. More education and job training for low-income Americans so they can move up the economic ladder.

All of these issues are liberal democratic issues that bring the Democratic Party together and unites us. What divides us as a party is that not all Democrats are Liberals and I’ll explain that and it goes to my point about labels. That if you are going to label someone, first you better know what the label you give that person means which is very important. But also you better know what the person’s politics are that you are labeling. So you are not falsely labeling someone.

The Democratic Party has three strong political factions. Liberals and Progressives who are two different groups. The JFK Liberal New Democrats that Bill Clinton and his coalition brought to power in the mid and late 1980s as well as 1990s. And the FDR Progressive New Deal Democrats who are much more mainstream and not anti-business, anti-capitalist, anti-private enterprise and anti-military. Unlike today’s so-called Progressives who only call themselves progressive. And the third faction is a more socialist faction, the Far-Left of the party who look more Greens or Democratic Socialists. Than they do Liberals and Progressives.

To know that Liberals run the Democratic Party, just look at the leadership of the Democratic Party. And where they are on those issues that I mentioned and that these are all liberal issues and have liberal positions on those issues. And that it is the Far-Left of the party the big government anti-business and anti-private enterprise in general in some cases who see most Americans except for the poor as under-taxed, who are anti-military and in a lot of cases pro-prohibition and would like to outlaw anything that could be unhealthy for us, as the wing of the Democratic Party without a lot of power.

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