Oliver Stone: Richard Nixon (1995) Starring Anthony Hopkins

Posted on January 12, 2014 by Rik Schneider

Roger Ebert_ Nixon (1995) Film - Google Search

Source:Roger Ebert– Anthony Hopkins as President Richard M. Nixon (Republican, California) 37th President of the United States.

“Oliver Stone creates empathy for this most enigmatic of American leaders. One of the year’s best films.

Oliver Stone’s “Nixon” gives us a brooding, brilliant, tortured man, sinking into the gloom of a White House under siege, haunted by the ghosts of his past. Thoughts of Hamlet, Macbeth and King Lear come to mind; here, again, is a ruler destroyed by his fatal flaws.

There’s something almost majestic about the process: As Nixon goes down in this film, there is no gloating, but a watery sigh, as of a great ship sinking.

From Roger Ebert 

“One of the best film trailers of all time, this was the original theatrical trailer for one of the greatest political dramas of all time, Oliver Stone’s 1995 classic NIXON, starring Anthony Hopkins and Joan Allen.”

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Source:Fire Ice 1971– Joan Allen and Annabeth Gish.

From Fire Ice 1971

Nixon is one of my favorite movies purely for entertainment value. And I believe Anthony Hopkins did a great job of playing Richard Nixon and Joan Allen did a great job portraying Pat Nixon. But I don’t believe the movie is very accurate as far as other things movies and books that I’ve seen about the man.

I mean the movie constantly has Dick Nixon drinking some type of scotch or alcoholic beverage. And although Nixon was Irish, (ha, ha) people close to him said that he couldn’t hold his liquor. He would have maybe one drink after work and another with dinner. But wasn’t drinking throughout the day and during meetings and so-forth.

Also, the movie I believe over-portrays Dick Nixon’s negative aspects. And again if you are familiar with the man you know he’s one of the most fascinating complicated politicians whose ever lived. And a big reason for that had to do with the fact that he wasn’t just good or just bad. That he had many aspects that were good and bad that people who worked for the man who have broad respect. Like David Gergen or his second Attorney General Elliot Richardson, said that the man had some awful character flaws like not being able to trust people (to use as an example) but that he did a lot of great things as president like as they related to China and Russia.

Nixon is a very good movie from an entertainment value and as far as the aspects of Dick Nixon’s life that they covered. And was very well-written with a great cast that also included Paul Sorvino, James Woods and Ed Harris (to name a few others) but they left a lot out or didn’t cover some of the other aspects of the man’s life, like his time in Congress or as Vice President and some of his big accomplishments as president.

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The McLaughlin Group: Chris Christie Jammed Up in New Jersey

Posted on January 11, 2014 by kireschneider

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Source:The New Democrat 

New Jersey Governor Chris Christie taking the I was in the dark about this defense. In the dark about the New Jersey traffic jam story or in the dark about his own administration. Remember Governor Christie likes to come off as a strong leader who doesn’t take let’s say junk from anyone. The person head of this scandal also happens to his Deputy Chief of Staff. So we are talking about someone pretty close to the chief executive of New Jersey and the governor not knowing what she was up to.

As far as the Robert Gates book. This man was President Obama’s Secretary of Defense for over two years and if he really believed that President Obama was a weak leader and remember Bob Gates is a career civil servant whose spent most of his career working for the National Security Council and if he really believed President Obama was making national security decisions for political reasons, the man would’ve stepped down well before he did.

As far as Unemployment Insurance if that if not extended which I believe it will be and even the Republican House at the end will agree to do it. And the question is just really how it will be done. We’ll see millions of Americans with absolutely no income with more people being evicted or being foreclosed. Because they can’t keep up with their payments and then what, a lot of people literally on the street with nowhere to go.

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GOP Weekly Address: Video: U.S. Senate Thad Cochran With the GOP’s Weekly ObamaCare Statement

Posted on January 11, 2014 by Rik Schneider

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This post was originally posted at The New Democrat on Blogger

The GOP’s one horse race is ObamaCare even though that is not the only issue Americans are interested in. And if you look at the weak December jobs report and millions of people losing their Unemployment Insurance without having any other way to pay their bills. But the GOP especially the Senate GOP believes their best and perhaps only shot at winning back the Senate in 2014 and giving Republicans a united Republican Congress is talk about what they do not like about the Affordable Care Act and we’ll see how it works for them. Because the Senate GOP at least has no agenda of their own. Nothing positive to run on tell Americans why Mitch McConnell should be Leader of the Senate in the next Congress.
Thad Cochran

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Associated Press: NY Yankees 3B Alex Rodriguez Out For Entire 2014 Season

Posted on January 11, 2014 by Erik Schneider

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Source:The New Democrat 

Is anyone surprised by this. We knew A-Rod was going to get hit big for use of drugs that are illegal in Major League Baseball. And what A-Rod has been doing what the last six months or so is trying to buy time in hope that he would be bailed out. And have some shot of playing in 2014. If you are dumb enough to illegal drugs in MLB, then you’re dumb enough to get caught and more than deserve the time that you get for them. He knows about his physical health and the state of his playing career better than anyone. And what a one year suspension could do to him in his late thirties. Especially since his career has been in decline the last few years anyway. And yet he takes this big risk with the rest of his career and will now pay the price for getting caught.

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The White House: Ensuring 2014 is a Year of Action to Grow The Economy

Posted on January 11, 2014 by Erik Schneider

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Source:The New Democrat 

With the weak December jobs report President Obama should be calling for a huge infrastructure investment bill somewhere in the hundreds of billions of dollars. And even call for a National Infrastructure Bank that could finance a lot of these projects through the private sector. And either have his own Transportation Department draft the bill or push Congress to do it. Especially the Democratic Senate and have them start to draft this bill and they could probably find Senate Republican support for it and see if they can pass a bill like this by some point in the spring.2014 could be a great year for the American economy if it is used to rebuild America which would create hundreds of thousands of jobs, if not millions of good jobs. In the construction industry. As well as our manufacturing industry building and selling the supplies to do these jobs.

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PBS NewsHour: Shields & Brooks on Chris Christie & Robert Gates

Posted on January 10, 2014 by kireschneider

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Source:The New Democrat 

As far as the Chris Christie let’s say stuck in traffic in New Jersey scandal. It just feeds into what we already know about Governor Christie that he is a big tough guy not afraid to throw his weight around (pun intended) and that in some ways he isn’t as strong of a leader as he likes to come off as. Instead of saying the buck stops here to quote an actual strong leader, he tried to put the blame on others. And not to say he deserves all the blame, but this traffic story happened on his watch.

The Bob Gates story the book he wrote about being President Obama’s Secretary of Defense. Of course the partisan Right just focusing on the negative things he had to say about the President, like the defense cuts. But Secretary Gates also called President Obama a strong leader who made strong and good decisions. Who took risks and wasn’t afraid to take risks. And the Osama Bin Laden capture and shooting in 2011 is a perfect example of that.

The War on Poverty, well fifty-years later and we are still fighting this so-called War on Poverty. That has been covered several times on this blog this week. And if you are really interested in that and what has been said about it on this blog, then I suggest you check out the War on Poverty section. But again mixed results at best and as Mark Shields and David Brooks said in the video, the Great Society has benefited seniors very well. But as far as children in poverty they are still growing up in rough high poverty neighborhoods with their parents. And generally one parent not having the skills to raise them in a positive way and move them to the middle class.

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Brian Rob: ‘The Reason Why Black Men Won’t Date or Marry Black Women’

Posted on January 10, 2014 by Ederik Schneider

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Source:The New Democrat 

Malcolm X seems to be saying in this video that African-Americans should be building their own livable middle class communities instead of feeling the need to have to live in mostly or majority Caucasian communities in order to feel the need to be successful in America. That African-Americans should be educating themselves so they can manage their own business’s in their own communities. Instead of feeling the need to have to live in middle class Caucasian communities to feel that they’ve made it in America. For me as a Caucasian-American, I don’t think you should base success on race. And that you need to have a country where people period can be successful and that is everyone. And where they and who they choose to live with, is up to them. Part of living in freedom in a liberal democracy.

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Crash Course: Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter: The Economic Malaise of the 1970s

Posted on January 10, 2014 by Derik Schneider

.[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pyN5LPHEQ_0

The Great Deflation of the 1970s as it is more commonly known. Really lasted that entire decade with the economy taking a big hit in 1973 thanks to the energy crisis of that year. Because of the 1973 Middle East Oil Embargo and it was actually President Richard Nixon who was going, through some really tough political issues that year for well-known reasons. (Anyone old enough to remember Watergate) Who made a big push to move America to energy independence and had almost no success with that.

But the energy crisis of the early 1970s crisis followed by the 1974-75 recession, followed by a mild recovery of 1976 that had weak economic and job growth. The economy taking a big hit in 1978 with rising interest and inflation rates. Followed by the recession of 1979-80. The American economy was in transition in the 1970s. Because the Vietnam War was finally ending which is a good thing.

But the defense budget gets cut in that decade with defense industry losing money as a result. Taxes going up thanks to the Great Society of the 1960s. America becoming more dependent on foreign oil from an unstable area of the world. The Middle East pumping less oil making our energy prices and cost of living with the high interest rates and inflation, very expensive in this country.

Source:The New Democrat

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Townhall: Opinion: Daniel Doherty: Gallup Poll, Liberal Self-Identification on The Rise

Posted on January 10, 2014 by Rik Schneider

Liberal Democrat

Liberal Democrat


Townhall: Opinion: Daniel Doherty: Gallup Poll, Liberal Self-Identification on The Rise

This post was originally posted at The New Democrat on Blogger

I’ve sort of been sensing this since the 2006 mid-term elections that Americans have moved Left. Not far-left, but certainly in the liberal left direction after experiencing five years of the neoconservative Bush Administration with the pre-emptive War in Iraq and another unpaid for War in Afghanistan. With the 2002 Patriot Act, the Bush Administration having four years of unchecked power basically with a united Republican Congress that the country was moving away from this and wanted a check on the Bush Administration and weren’t happy with the Republican Congress.

And as a result the American voters spoke in 2006 and gave Democrats Congress back, both the House and Senate. Seven years later Democrats still hold the majority in the Senate with a 55-45 margin. Americans weren’t saying that they want to go from the neoconservative right and the religious-right, to a more socialist direction on the far-left. But that unchecked power when it goes to far is bad for the country. If I had to testify under oath whether America is a center-left or center-right country, I wouldn’t be able to answer that because I do not know for sure.

But I do know we are a country that likes our personal and economic freedoms and do not want a heavy-handed big centralized government trying to manage our lives for us. But we aren’t anti-government either. We just tend to have a skepticism for big government and only want government to do for us what we can’t do for ourselves and based on this you could make a very good case we are a center-left country. If you look at where the country is now on marijuana and the broader War on Drugs.

Or look at where America is now on privacy, gay rights and so-forth and that we aren’t calling for a big expansion of government in our economic affairs either. That Americans tend to be mainstream with their politics, but so is liberalism in its classical form. This is good news for Democrats, but is also a reminder for the Democratic Leadership when it comes to recruiting, that if you are going to recruit and back the more progressive or socialist even minded candidates, to run for office it better be in areas where they can actually win.

Lets say more far-leftist areas of the country, at least when it comes to the country as a whole, where even big government economics, where a large percentage of the population is even looking for a bigger government even at the federal level in their lives. And that will mostly be in the Northeast, Northwest and the San Francisco Bay Area. But for the rest of the country where the Democratic Party is strong, you want to have center-left Liberal Democrats representing you instead.

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Foreign Affairs: Opinion: Lane Kenworthy: “America’s Social Democratic Future”: America’s Liberal Democratic Future

Posted on January 10, 2014 by Erik Schneider

ObamaCare
Foreign Affairs: Opinion: Lane Kenworthy: America’s Social Democratic Future

This post was originally posted at The New Democrat on Blogger

The Affordable Care Act even though health insurance won’t be expanded to all Americans even when fully implemented and that is one of the weakness’s of it, which is why I was in favor of the public option when it came out as well as making Medicaid universal for everyone eligible and fully funded and self-financed for everyone in the country who is eligible for it. But the great thing about the ACA is that it is exactly not what the Tea Party and Libertarians says it is. That Social Democrats in America wanted. Which is that government takeover of at least the health insurance system.

Expanding health insurance to millions of Americans who do not have it, but allowing for them to decide where they get their health insurance. Because despite what the Tea Party and Libertarians say it is, this is not a government takeover of health care that Social Democrats in America wanted, but the opposite. It builds on the private health insurance model while fixing the weakness’s of that system as it gets to consumer protections. That millions of new Americans now getting health insurance and millions of Americans not losing their health insurance because of the new consumer protections in the ACA.

The Obama Administration and Congressional Democrats made a smart calculation in 2009 when they started pushing for heath care reform. And knew that there was a limit to what Americans wanted government doing for them. Especially the Federal Government and a big reason why they pushed the consumer protections in the law so heavily. As well as that old line, “if you like your health insurance, you can keep it.” And whether that is true or not that was big key to their message.

That they didn’t want Americans to think that Uncle Sam was taking over the health insurance system. Or the entire health care system that what they wanted to do was to expand health insurance through the private system. And create a public option that Americans could decide for themselves to choose or not. But again it would be their choice and not Uncle Sam making that decision for them. And as badly as they played the politics and failed to get Americans behind that message and it cost them the House of Representatives in 2010 as a result, that is the health care plan they were pushing and ran on from day one.

Lane Kenworthy was pushing the idea of social democracy in Foreign Affairs today. That ObamaCare is the sign that America is moving towards social democracy and we are going to transform America into Scandinavia. And create this huge centralized superstate known as the super or welfare state. That we are going to be transform from a Jeffersonian Federal Republic in the form of a liberal democracy which is different from a social democracy. Liberal democracy is about choice, freedom the ability for people to govern their own lives.

Social democracy is about having a large centralized central government to provide the basic human services that the capitalist economic system comes up short in providing. We are still that Jeffersonian Federal Republic and will remain that for an indefinite future. Because the younger generations Gen-X and Gen-Y, do not expect and want government trying to do everything for them. And tend to be more liberal to libertarian with their social and economic views. Instead of progressive to socialist. Which is why social democracy in America is still considered Far-Left.

For politicians and politics to be successful in America no matter from which political philosophy it is they are coming from, the people in power have to know where the country is politically and what is politically possible. The Obama Administration knew that which is why single payer Medicare For All was never on the table. And even considered because of the political backlash that would’ve come from the Right and Independents as well as some Democrats. Democrats paid a heavy price for the bill they got which was just building off of the private health insurance system. With the public option being pulled out because of some vulnerable Democratic senators.

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