Monday, December 17, 2018

Foreign Affairs: Senator Elizabeth Warren: 'A Foreign Policy For All'

Source:The Atlantic Magazine- U.S. Senator's Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren on Capitol Hill. 
Source:The New Democrat 

"Around the world, democracy is under assault. Authoritarian governments are gaining power, and right-wing demagogues are gaining strength. Movements toward openness and pluralism have stalled. Inequality is growing, transforming rule by the people into rule by wealthy elites. And here in the United States, many Americans seem to accept—even embrace—the politics of division and resentment.

How did we get here? There’s a story Americans like to tell ourselves about how we built a liberal international order—one based on democratic principles, committed to civil and human rights, accountable to citizens, bound by the rule of law, and focused on economic prosperity for all. It’s a good story, with deep roots. But in recent decades, Washington’s focus has shifted from policies that benefit everyone to policies that benefit a handful of elites. After the Cold War, U.S. policymakers started to believe that because democracy had outlasted communism, it would be simple to build democracy anywhere and everywhere. They began to export a particular brand of capitalism, one that involved weak regulations, low taxes on the wealthy, and policies favoring multinational corporations. And the United States took on a series of seemingly endless wars, engaging in conflicts with mistaken or uncertain objectives and no obvious path to completion. 

The impact of these policy changes has been devastating. While international economic policies and trade deals have worked gloriously well for elites around the world, they have left working people discouraged and disaffected. Efforts to promote the United States’ own security have soaked up huge resources and destabilized entire regions, and meanwhile, U.S. technological dominance has quietly eroded. Inequality has grown worldwide, contributing to an unfolding nationalist backlash that seeks to upend democracy itself. It is little wonder that the American people have less faith in their government today than at any other time in modern U.S. history. The country is in a moment of crisis decades in the making." 


A "foreign policy for all", I guess has a real hipster ring to it, similar to Medicare For All or whatever example you want to use, but like most catch phrases whether they're pop culture or political, when you actually get into them the first question is always, "what does that mean?" What do you mean by that? As much as President Donald Trump's presidency contradicts this, the President of the United States and American government more broadly are actually serious things meant for serious people. This is not a reality TV show or some movie or hip sitcom or anything else. This is real-life where real decisions are made everyday effecting real people. "A foreign policy for all" might have a catch ring to it, but what does that mean and what is in that foreign policy.

So when Senator Elizabeth Warren, argues that it's time to bring our troops home, the first obvious question is, "bring them home from where?" If you're talking about bringing them home from Iraq and Afghanistan, then the next question would be, "what would happen instead after America is out of those two countries?"

Senator Warren, also argues that America spends too much on national defense, OK where would you cut the defense budget? It's hard to get official numbers from the U.S. Defense Department on this, but we're currently somewhere between 50-100 billion dollars on the defense of Europe in NATO. We currently make up just as one country 70% of the entire NATO defense budget. Would asking or demanding that Germany, France, Italy and other European states spend more on their own defense and take a good chunk of that revenue out of our own defense budget since Europe is now spending more on their own defense? America could do a lot with 50-100 billion dollars a year that it wouldn't have to spend on defense.

Monday, December 10, 2018

Sony Pictures Entertainment: The Frontrunner (2018) Hugh Jackman as Senator Gary Hart

Source:Sony Pictures Entertainment- Hugh Jackman, as Senator Gary Hart, when he ran for President in 1984 and 87.
Source:The Daily Review

"Based on a true story that changed everything, Hugh Jackman is #TheFrontRunner – only in theaters this Election Day."

From Sony Pictures Entertainment

Source:We Got This Covered- Hugh Jackman, as Senator Gary Hart.
I saw The Frontrunner not this Saturday, but the previous Saturday in Silver Spring, Maryland because I wanted to see it obviously, ( no, I was kidnapped and forced to watch it ) but because of the subject matter. I was 11 years old and in the 5th grade in Bethesda, Maryland in the spring and early summer of 1987. Gary Hart's presidential campaign for 1988 was so short that I'm not sure it even made it to the summer of 87, at least officially. It made Michele Bachmann's presidential campaign look like a Breaking Bad marathon on AMC. You would have to be familiar with her very brief presidential campaign, as well as Breaking Bad and AMC to get that reference, but it was very short.

So, when Senator Gary Hart was running for president in 1984 and 88, I was a very young kid and don't remember much about his two campaigns. Both were fairly short, but at least for 84 Senator Hart made to January before falling out after finishing third, ( I believe in Iowa ) but going into 87 Democrats knew that they weren't going to have to run against President Ronald Reagan again and the Reagan Administration had the Iran Contra scandal hanging over his head with a Democratic Congress in charge of it since they now controlled both the House and Senate and that those investigations could hurt both President Reagan and then Vice President George H.W. Bush, especially since George Bush was not only the Vice President, but was considered the Republican frontrunner for the 1988 campaign.

Gary Hart, was as very talented politician, as well as a very intelligent man both in foreign affairs and national security policy, but domestic policy as well. He was compared with John F. Kennedy for good reasons. He was very bright, good looking, and also had a tendency to tell people what he believed and what was on his mind. Very similar to Senator Joe Biden who also ran for President that year. He also had an ability to talk about serious and complicated issues, but do it in a way where you didn't believe you needed a Russian or Chinese translator to translate what he was saying. He had a very common touch not that different from Bill Clinton, Ron Reagan, or even George W. Bush. And if his 1987-88 presidential campaign was about what he wanted to be about which was new ideas and time for a new generation, instead of what it became about, maybe he not only wins the 1988 Democratic nomination for President, but defeats Vice President Bush as well.

Which is my lead in to what The Frontrunner is about with actor Hugh Jackman playing Senator Gary Hart. It wasn't the media, it wasn't The Miami or The Washington Post, or NBC News that brought down Gary Hart. Only Gary Hart with his extra marital affair and his political suicidal mistake of daring the media to follow him around to see that he wasn't having an affair. There were rumors going into 1987 that Senator Hart was a bit of playboy who cheated on his wife which was before he even meet Donna Rice the woman he had a brief affair with in the late spring or early summer of 87. And Hart was tired of getting those questions and truly believed that they were none of the media's or the American people's business what kind of relationship that he had with his wife and other women.

Gary Hart, perhaps in a split moment lost his cool at a local diner on one of his campaign stops having lunch with a Washington Post reporter and dared the media to follow him around to see if he was having an affair or not and that's exactly what they did. That's how they got pictures of him with Donna Rice on a boat together in Miami. As well as pictures of them together at his Georgetown townhouse in Washington. Because he invited the media to follow him around and didn't just shoot himself in the foot politically, but shot his whole foot off and perhaps his brain and heart as well. Thanks to 1987, Gary Hart has never ran for political again and has never even served a Democratic President again.

As far as the movie, other than not looking much if at all like Senator Gary Hart, I believe Hugh Jackman did a great job of playing him. But I believe the people who played the reporters and the media officials were the real stars of the movie. As well as Senator Hart's campaign staff including J.K. Simmons especially. Gary Hart, comes as naive when it comes to how the media reports on these stories about politicians and candidates and their relationships with women. Which is how Hart should've been portrayed because in real-life he wasn't expecting the media to cover his affairs, just the substance of his campaign. Which of course is not how the real world in politics works.

Monday, December 3, 2018

PM Stunt Fan: Intent To Kill (1992) Starring Traci Lords

Source:PM Stunt Fan- Traci Lords: "Holy smokes, Batman!" LOL 
Source:The Action Blog 

“Traci Lords as an undercover cop in leather skirt and jacket.” 

Source:Leather Series & Movies- Traci Lords as an LAPD undercover detective in Intent To Kill.  

From Leather Series & Movies

Today shows and movies featuring gorgeous, sexy big city police detectives and other law enforcement officers are very common. Just look at Law & Order SVU, CSI Las Vegas, The Mentalist, movies like One For The Money where Catherine Heigl plays a New Jersey bounty hunter and I could go on. But in the early 1990s, actresses even gorgeous and sexy actresses, even very good if not great actresses were playing the wives or girlfriends of big police detectives, or playing the victims. Perhaps they would play a rookie patrol officer or desk officer, but generally not involved in doing the legwork and dirty work of what vice cops do to bring down criminals and put themselves in serious physical danger.

Source:PM Stunt Fan- Traci Lords, about to kick ass 
Whatever you think of Intent To Kill and I'm one of the first people to say that it's not a great movie, even though I like it and have seen it several times, Intent To Kill was ahead of it's time in a positive way, because it had a female police detective who ends up bringing down the bad guys ( to use a cliche ) almost by herself. Her partner and boyfriend ( played by Scott Patterson ) ends up being the one who dies during the last shootout in the movie, not the woman with her boyfriend trying to save her as well and the day. ( To use another cliche ) Traci Lords, is the badass, super cop in the movie who brings down the bad guys. A Los Angeles drug gang, that's involved in other crimes like rape and murder.

Again, I'm not saying that Intent To Kill is a great movie. Some if not a lot of the writing especially for a 1990s film was pretty cheesy. Traci Lords, made a name for herself in the adult film industry not as a great dramatic or action star. But she's great in this movie as a LAPD vice detective who is gorgeous, sexy, has the look more of an LA biker chick with the black leather biker jacket, Levi's jeans, black leather boots, but who isn't just a pleasure to check out, but who plays a very sharp cop as well who is always ahead of the game. Her first seen in the movie she takes out a rapist on her own, because the victim is a hooker who is simply not believable as a rape victim. Which was a very different time back then. And she ends up essentially playing the female Dirty Harry in this movie and does a great job. A very entailing movie especially if you enjoy seeing gorgeous, sexy women kicking ass.

Monday, November 26, 2018

David Von Pein: CBS News Special Report- Eric Sevareid: 'Presidents and Assassins (November 25, 196)'

Source:David Von Pein- CBS News Special Report from Eric Sevareid.
Source:The New Democrat

"PRESIDENTS AND ASSASSINS" (CBS NEWS SPECIAL REPORT AIRED ON NOVEMBER 25, 1963)"

From David Von Pein

This CBS News Special Report, was just 3 days after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in Dallas, Texas. This was all very new with if not most Americans, but certainly a lot of them. Maybe only the oldest people in America remember William Mckinley being assassinated in 1901 and people who would have to be in their early hundreds at this point to remember President Abraham Lincoln being assassinated in 1865. And to remember President Lincoln being assassinated in 1865 and to still alive and to remember that in 1963, you would need one helluva healthy mind and perhaps body as well.

Source:David Von Pein- CBS News Special Report 
And since this was all so new with most Americans and with network news not being the dominate factor in America media in the early 60s that it had become by the early 70s with the Watergate coverage and President Richard Nixon's administration, Americans weren't use to seeing these special reports from the networks devoting so much air time to covering current affairs especially during prime time when most networks back then were showing their family entertainment like sitcoms, dramas, variety shows. Forget about 24 hour news networks not being around yet in the early 60s, network news other than the morning show and nightly news wasn't much of a factor yet by this time.

Source:Assassination of John F. Kennedy- CBS News Special Report 
The JFK assassination changed America a lot as far as how it operated and changed both our government and culture as well. The President got a lot more security with the Secret Service now becoming a major factor not just in the President's life, but his family as well, and ex-president's and their families. Americans started becoming more interested in current affairs with the networks newscast moving from 11 minutes a night to 22 minutes a night ( not including commercials ) and with nightly newscasts expanding, special reports and documentaries that were produced by the network news divisions themselves like CBS News for CBS, because a regular part of TV network viewing in the 1960s.

This CBS News Special Report by Eric Sevareid, is something that today you would probably see from PBS, CNN, perhaps MSNBC or FNC, but probably coming from a real slant. C-SPAN or one of the 24 hour documentary networks like National Geographic Channel today because the broadcast networks don't want to donate even a hour of their time at night to showing a current affairs or history documentary and take that time away from one of their hit sitcoms or dramas, especially when there's PBS, one of the news networks, or the documentary channels like History and others that show this type of programming all day and all night everyday and every night. But post-JFK assassination up until really the 1990s or so documentaries and Special Reports about one particular subject that was going on in the country at the time were shown by the networks on a regular basis back then.

Monday, November 19, 2018

Jayne Mansfield Diamonds To Dust : A Guide For The Married Man (1967) Jayne Mansfield

Source:Jayne Mansfield Diamonds To Dust- Son of a beach!
Source:The Daily Review

I'll be the first to say, actually I would run to make sure I was the first person in line to say that A Guide For The Married Man is not a great movie. It's also not a horrible movie, but perhaps I wouldn't make the same effort to say that. It's a good, funny movie with a great cast: Walter Matthau, Robert Morse, Inger Stevens, Lucile Ball, Phil Silvers, Art Carney, and someone named Jayne Mansfield. ( Perhaps you've heard of her as well ) Except for the bit part or cameo A Guide For The Married Man is right up Jayne's dress, I mean ally for her. Comedy especially romantic comedy was her shtick and it would've been nice if she had a bigger role in this movie. Perhaps playing one of Robert Morse's 10 girlfriends in the movie.

Source:Movies Ala Mark- Hollywood Babydoll Jayne Mansfield and Terry Thomas, in A Guide To The Married Man 
By 1967, Jayne Mansfield was doing most of her work and making most of her money outside of Hollywood. She literally was on the nightclub circuit and doing comedy and music all over America. Think about that for a second: one of the most popular Hollywood Goddesses from the 1950s reduced to singing and doing comedy at nightclubs by 1965 or so. She was also doing films in Britain and Europe, including in Italy. She was tired of doing comedy in Hollywood and by the early 1960s, wanted a newer role and do other things and expand her acting resume.

Source:Flickr Via Podie- Hollywood Babydoll Jayne Mansfield, in A Guide To The Married Man
Which is sort of like saying that Michael Jordan or Larry Bird is tried of shooting the basketball and scoring points, so what they're going to do instead is just rebound and play defense, pass the ball when they have it instead of leading their team in scoring and leading them to victory. Comedy for Jayne Mansfield, was like the passing game for the New England Patriots, it was her bread and butter, her go to offense and what made her famous and popular to go along with her goddess body and little girl adorable appearance. And ironic that her last trip back to Hollywood for work was to do another comedy which is what she was doing in the late 50s with movies like Will Success Spoil Rockwell Hunter and The Girl Can't Help It.

If you want a full post or report on A Guide For The Married Man, I suggest you go somewhere else for that, because I'm really just interested in Jayne Mansfield's role in it. She plays the comic relief in a movie that's pretty funny to begin with but is so good at it playing the mistress of a man who is married and her wife catches them together in their bed and he and Jayne play it off like nothing is going on at all and the wife is completely imagining what she's seeing. And the guy and Jayne just get out of bed, make the bed, get dressed while the wife is in the room and has already seen everything and Jayne leaves the room and house as if nothing had just happened. And they do it so perfectly that the wife starts actually believing that she's imagining everything that she just saw. Great scene with Jayne just making a pretty funny movie even funnier.
Source:Jayne Mansfield Diamonds To Dust

Monday, November 12, 2018

Leather Pants Models: Leather Pants Model Talia

Source:Leather Pants Models- Leather Pants model Talia. 
Source:The Action Blog

There's this movement in the adult entertainment industry where women will plays victims or hostages wearing very tight sexy outfits. Sometimes they'll actually play perpetrators and be the person in charge where guys will plays the hostages in their videos. But in this video the former is true where you have beautiful, sexy brunette in tight leather jeans for the first seconds of this video lying down on the ground tied up. Her legs are all tied up and suddenly she appears completely free and does her modeling in her leather outfit.

Source:Leather Pants Models- Leather Pants model Talia 
If you're familiar with Katja or jeans sitting or face sitting which is somewhat popular especially with Millennial's in the adult entertainment industry, it's really all part of the same thing which is what I call skin-tight jeans porn. Where you'll see women wearing tightest denim and sometimes leather jeans you could possibly cover ever imagine, with high boots and tight t-shirts or tank tops. And they will be playing dominatrix's in their videos and will dominate male actor in the video. A man will be all tied up and they'll sit on his face or even whip him with a belt. Sit on his face in skin-tight jeans, generally denim and tight, long boots as well.

Source:Leather Pants Models- Leather pants models 
I wouldn't say this video is PG and meant for family viewing, but compared with what else is available online and perhaps at your local DVD store this video is pretty mild sexually, at least compared with what's also available. A lot of the jeans and facesetting videos that were on YouTube back in 2007, 08, 09, 10, and perhaps even 11 are all gone either voluntarily deleted or pulled down by YouTube themselves, but this video is vert mild compared with what's also been uploaded there and available on other sites online today.
Source:Leather Pants Models

Monday, November 5, 2018

The New Yorker: 'A Hundred Years of American Protest, Then and Now'

Source:The New Yorker- American liberal democracy in action.

Source:The New Democrat 

"A split-screen look at how protests in America have evolved over a hundred years. From the civil-rights movement and the Ku Klux Klan to the March for Our Lives and Unite the Right, here’s how mass protests have changed." 

From The New Yorker

There's an old American cliche that this is as American as apple pie. Baseball is as American as apple pie. Hot dogs are American as apple pie. Going to church or your house of worship on Sunday is as American as apple pie. Which is all true and I like apple pie as much as the next American, especially with vanilla ice cream and I love baseball and hot dogs especially when they go together. But there's something even more American than all of those things that is older than all of those things as well and I would argue even more American than all of those things and as liberal democratic as anything you'll ever find, which is our First Amendment and constitutional right to free speech which includes our right to protest.

Source:The New Yorker- Americans marching for civil rights in the 1960s 
The phrase American exceptionalism gets thrown around a lot and considered racist by the Far-Left and some now on the Far-Right don't like it because it's used to complain about how undemocratic right-wing government's around the world operate, but this expression not only exists, but is true. 

Our diversity not just ethnically, racially, culturally, religiously including people who aren't religious at all such as myself, and our political diversity all makes America very exceptional. And one thing that Americans all have in common is that they believe in the right to protest and are more than willing to express ourselves when we see something in government or is going in the private sector that we don't like and feel the need to express ourselves about what we don't like.

To just use the example from The New Yorker about American protest from the last 50 years, but I would take that up to the last 55, 60, 65 years with the civil rights movement that was about expanding civil rights to African-Americans who were being denied their constitutional rights in America simply because of their race and denied access in America simply because of their race. 

And someone like Dr. Martin Luther King comes along and says this is not only wrong, but needs to stop and that there is not only something that can be done about this racism, but has to be done for the Constitution to mean anything when it says that all American men ( which includes women ) will be treated equally in America with all of us having the exact same basic constitutional rights.

The anti-war movement from the 1960s and 70s with all of those Baby Boomer Americans protesting the Vietnam War, is another great example of liberal democracy in action in America. Americans protesting for a cleaner environment, the women's movement that said that women shouldn't be treated inferior to men in America simply because of their gender and should be allowed to pursue their own American dream just like men. The gay rights movement from this era that said that gays shouldn't be locked up institutionalized or denied access in America simply because they're gay.

If you want a Republican leaning example at least, I would give the start of the Christian-Right movement in the late 1960s that protested the cultural changing of America with personal freedom on the rise with Christian-Conservatives protesting against what they see as immoral. Like women's and sexual liberation, homosexuality, pornography, essentially protesting against the 1960s. 

As well as Conservatives protesting in favor of Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan in the 1960s and then again in the late 1970s which you could at least argue was the start of the early Tea Party movement in America before the Tea Party movement from 10 years ago.

You don't have to agree with every protest and every political movement that happens in America to believe in free speech and the right to protest, you just have to understand the First Amendment in the Constitution and our constitutional right to free speech which of course includes political speech which is just one thing that it protects. 

But I think you'll have a hard time arguing with any credibility whatsoever that you believe in America and love America and are a true American Patriot, if you don't at the very least acknowledge our right to free speech and to protest. Even if you don't agree with that fundamental right, because our right to protest and free speech in general is as American as the American flag itself.

Monday, October 29, 2018

The Film Archives: This is Your Life With Ralph Edwards - Jayne Mansfield (1960)

Source:The Film Archives- Baby Jayne Mansfield, This is Your Life .
Source:The Daily Review

"Jayne Mansfield (born Vera Jayne Palmer; April 19, 1933 -- June 29, 1967) was an American actress in film, theatre, and television, a nightclub entertainer, a singer, and one of the early Playboy Playmates. More Jayne Mansfield Amazon"

From The Film Archives

This Is Your Life Jayne Mansfield, is a short story in years, but a fascinating story that plays more like a long, but great soap opera for a woman who comes from very humble meanings at least in the sense that wasn't known at all until she went to Hollywood and started landing parts in movies. But then hits it big in Hollywood in the mid 1950s with roles in The Burglar, Will Success Spoil Rockwell Hunter, The Girl Can't Help it, making it clear to Hollywood that she was a good comedian and comedic actress with great timing including musical comedy. Had Jayne stayed on that track I believe we're talking about one of the best comedians and musical comedians of her generation at least.

Source:The Film Archives- Baby Jayne Mansfield, This is Your Life 
But by 1960 she was moving away from Hollywood because she was tired of just doing comedy and wanted to expand her career as an actress and move into drama. The problem that she had was that Hollywood just saw her as a comedian and as a sex symbol. A woman who was obviously gorgeous with the great body, yet who was also as cute as a little girl really up until she died in 1967. And they wanted to use her to sell movies with her sex appeal and comedy. But she wanted to move to drama instead which is who she ends up in Britain in the early 1960s with the movie Too Hot To Handle. But unless you're a huge, dedicated fan of Jayne Mansfield or have lived in Britain, you probably haven't heard of Too Hot To Handle.

Source:The Film Archives- Baby Jayne Mansfield, This is Your Life 
It's Hollywood where Jayne always belonged and if it was drama she wanted to do, then it was soap operas and dramatic comedy like working with Alfred Hitchcock where she should've been working. Instead of trying to do serious roles in TV and films. I tweeted on Twitter ( of all places ) a few weeks ago about Jayne Mansfield with one of my followers ( but not my only follower, ha, ha ) replying to me that she was never taken seriously and wasn't a serious actress. Which is true, but I would qualify that by saying that she wasn't meant to be taken seriously. She wasn't a dumb blonde, but she wasn't cut out for serious roles.

Similar to Mary Tyler Moore, Carol Burnett, Bette Midler, and I'm sure other actresses and comedians she was a natural comedian who was born to entertain and to make people laugh. Which is what she should've been doing her whole career and would've had a great career in Hollywood as a comedian and not try to move away from that.

Monday, October 22, 2018

Leather Dating: 'Rocker Chick- Posing in Leather Jeans and Classic Leather Biker Jacket'

Source:Leather Dating- Rocker chick all leathered up.
Source:The Action Blog 

"As requested by a lot of subscribers here's another video of this awesome leather babe.Get in contact with leather girls, check:Leather Dating." 

From Leather Dating

Leather is very common in American rocker culture at least and perhaps in rocker culture outside of America as well like in Britain. Rocker both men and women have always wanted to be seen as outsiders and outlaws and have gone for fashion that looks similar to what biker men and women wear.

Leather and denim especially together, being very common in biker culture and the same thing with rocker culture. Leather giving the people the feeling of being a rebel who doesn't really fit into mainstream society and rocker culture has always had an outsider outlaw streak and vibe in it.

Rocker chicks, love leather, jeans and boots and the thing with leather is you can do all three of those looks with just leather and not need any other material. Rocker chicks wear not just jeans, but leather jeans and leather boots, along with leather jackets. When women or men are wearing leather jeans, like this woman in this video, they're wearing jeans. When they wear a leather jacket and boots with their jeans, they're a leather jacket with jeans and boots.

They are just wearing leather jeans instead of denim jeans. Leather whether you're talking about jackets, jeans or boots have been very common in rocker culture at least since the late 1970s and early 80s when leather pants including jeans started to become popular in American culture.

The woman in this video even with the slight mohawk or crewcut badass rocker chick look, is absolutely adorable like a little girl except for the outfit and body and looks like a beautiful, sexy rocker chick.

Great black leather jacket, black leather jeans, and boots and looks similar to how Joan Jett would look in public or Melissa Etheridge from 10-15 years ago when she was wearing skin-tight leather jeans everywhere. This is who beautiful, sexy rocker chicks look and why guys love them and love being around them. 

Monday, October 8, 2018

The New Republic: Bryan Mealer- 'The Struggle For a New American Gospel'

Source: The New Republic- TNR: not so liberal anymore. 
Source:The New Democrat

"God first appeared to me in a photograph. I was six years old. A deacon in my family’s Pentecostal church called me over one morning and pulled out a grainy photo from his suit pocket. It was taken from an airplane window, he said. Out past the wing, suspended in the clouds, was the faint image of a man. “That’s Jesus,” he told me."

From The New Republic

"What is the history of the freedom of religion as outlined in the first amendment to the U.S. Constitution? How is this freedom enforced? How does religious policy manifest in the real world?"

Source: History- Thomas Jefferson, one of our Founding Liberals. 
From History

As someone who grew up in an Atheist family where both my father and mother were Atheists at least when I was growing up, (I believe Mom is more of an Agnostic now, but Dad if he could would probably outlaw religion and has more of a communist view of it) I've never been very religious at all.

I grew up with hardcore Atheists during a time when the Christian-Right was becoming very powerful in America politics at least within the Republican Party and with Republicans who represent a lot of fundamentalist Christians, so I grew in Maryland just outside of Washington in the 1980s and early 1990s and got to see both fringes when it comes to religion in America.

But because I come from Atheists and have seen what religion looks like from the other side, I'm not in love with either camp and I'm not religious, but I'm not ready to say God doesn't exist and religion in itself is a bad thing.

As a Liberal if there any religious values I believe in its do unto others what you would do to you. Meaning treat people the way you want to be treated. And if that's not good enough for you there's always a backup plan which is treat others the way they treat you. If someone is a jerk ( to be kind ) to you, you can be a jerk to them. But don't be a jerk just because you want to be a jerk, or you are a jerk and if you are a jerk, reform your ways and learn how to treat people properly.

The other religious value and this is I believe probably best liberal value out there along with free speech and racial and color blindness is live and let live. Meaning you make your bed in life and live with the consequences and responsibilities from making your own decisions, but you let others do the same thing and don't try to micromanage people especially adults. Which gets to the last reason I'm not religious which is you don't see religions that tend to believe in these things even from the Left.

From the Right all you basically get now a days at least from what's reported is that homosexuality, women's liberation, personal freedom and individualism in general are ruining America. From the Left, you just get a lot of social democratic propaganda that for a government to be moral it must take care of the poor and that somehow being wealthy is some type of sin.

If there were or is and perhaps someone who is smarter than me when it comes to religion knows this better than me, but if there is a religion that preaches the liberal values that I just mentioned before, even though I don't believe in God, I could probably get into that religion myself and at least want to check out that house of worship and hear preachers talk about the value of live and let live, do unto others what you would do to you, racial and ethnic tolerance and not just for minorities, but for all people all races and ethnicities, as well as traditional religious values like helping the needy help themselves through charity.

As a Liberal I don't believe in God because as a Liberal I believe in reason which tends to be out of line with faith. Faith about belief and believing in something even if you can't see it because the facts and evidence don't back it up. Reason of course is about evidence and believing in what you can actually see for yourself. But I don't believe you have to believe in God to be religious, but just believe in a certain set of religious and moral values that others believe in as well.

Monday, October 1, 2018

Jayne Mansfield Diamonds To Dust: The Girl Can't Help It (1956) 'Jayne Mansfield: Doing The Jerri Jordan Walk'

Source:Jayne Mansfield Diamonds To Dust- Tom Ewell and Jayne Mansfield, in The Girl Can't Help It. 
Source:The Daily Review 

"Jayne Mansfield doing the Jerri Jordan walk and later emphasizes large milk jugs. Scene from 1956's The Girl Can't Help It, starring Jayne Mansfield." 

From Jayne Mansfield: Diamonds To Dust

The Girl Can't Help It from 1956, is a movie that Jayne Mansfield was born to be in and Jerri Jordan might be the character she was born to play. Jayne, was put on this planet to entertain, make people, to be the Halloween eye candy. And I'm not criticizing her for any of this or calling her a bimbo or anything like that. I have a lot of respect for her as an entertainer and have never seen her as a bimbo.

Source: Little White Lies- Tom Ewell and Jayne Mansfield, in The Girl Can't Help It 
And there are a lot of great entertainers who've made their careers as comedians like Johnny Carson, David Letterman, Bob Newhart, Bette Midler, who were born to make people laugh and bring smiles to their faces and have made great careers for them. Jayne Mansfield, isn't any of these people, but those entertainers aren't Jayne Mansfield with her goddess little girl adorable features, with her great comedic and musical abilities.

Source: Kenneth H. Smith- Hollywood Goddess and Babydoll Jayne Mansfield, as Jerri Jordan in The Girl Can't Help It 
What also made Jayne great in The Girl Can't Help It, was not that she was basically herself, because she wasn't in that movie. Rockwell Hunter, which came out in 1957 where Jayne plays Hollywood actress Rita Marlowe is where Jayne basically plays herself in that movie. The Girl Can't Help It, she plays the girlfriend of a Hollywood mogul who has been in a career slump and hasn't produced a hit or really anything in a while and he sees his girlfriend Jerri Jordan ( played by Jayne ) as his next superstar and ticket back in the industry that will jumpstart his career again.

The problem is unlike in Rockwell Hunter, Jerri wants nothing to do with being a star and celebrity. The only career goal that she seems to have in this movie is to be the housewife of the man that she falls in love with. If you're familiar with the real Jayne Mansfield, you know that always wanted to be a Hollywood starlet.

Jayne Mansfield, always saw more for herself in her career in Hollywood which is probably why it dried up because she wanted to be a great dramatic actress and consistently turned down parts in comedies including musical comedies, but came back to Hollywood in early 1960s after working in  Britain to do Too Hot To Handle and had a major role as George Raft's girlfriend in The George Raft Story, Kiss Me Stupid in 1964, and then a Guide For The Married Man in 1967, which she made right before she tragically died in 1967.

 I believe Jayne could've had a great career as a comedic actress and just as a musical comedian as well similar to Bette Midler where she would go on stage to sing, dance, and do standup and joke around with the audience. Which is what she was doing when she was on the nightclub circuit in the last years of her life., but had a much better career with and doing more films, had she not left Hollywood in the late 1950s and early 60s and continued down that career path, but she thought she should be doing more than just comedy.

Monday, September 24, 2018

Rio Stob: 'Lynn's Premier Video Now Online'- Lynn in Chaps Over Jeans and Boots

Source:Rio Stob- Black leather chaps over blue denim jeans.
Source:The Action Blog

"Lynn's Premiere Video now online. First video of Lynn. Full Video in HD at StudentsOfBoots.com."

From Rio Stob

Source: Kandi Vixen Chaos- Brown leather chaps over blue denim jeans 
Love beautiful sexy women in leather chaps over denim jeans. It's the ultimate leather n denim combo, along with leather jackets with denim jeans and boots. The two sexiest materials around when it comes to women right now because they really highlight a woman's body perfectly. When I think of leather n denim especially together, I automatically think of fall and winter fashion where you'll see beautiful sexy women dress up their jeans a lot and wear them blouses and stylish boots, a stylish leather jacket. And wear outfits like that when they're shopping, going out to lunch, going to movies, going out at night.

Source: HD Bike Pics- Brown leather chaps over blue denim jeans 
Which can go both ways, because the positive route would be a woman with beautiful legs, beautiful round butt, loves jeans and showcasing her legs, as well as butt, but also because they make her feel good and sexy, perhaps horny as well not to mention what they do for guys around her like this baby cutie in this video. But they can go the other way is a woman has serious weaknesses with her body. She's either seriously overweight and anything tight on her is very uncomfortable and over highlights her fat, or she's seriously underweight and frail and tight, sexy clothing over highlights her weaknesses and frailty.

What you see with Lynn ( a woman I don't personally know ) in this video is a beautiful, adorable woman with a cute body, dressing down her jeans which can also look great if the woman puts some effort into it and just doesn't wear her jeans with a t-shirt and flip flops like a teenage girl or wears the just with a college sweatshirt, but puts some real effort into it with a tight short sleeve or long sleeve t-shirt, with boots of course that are meant and probably designed to wear with jeans both denim and leather. Or like with Lynn can wear her denim with boots of course, but with a black tank top, with black leather chaps over her blue denims with her black leather boots. And she's absolutely beautiful and sexy in this video.

Monday, September 17, 2018

The Economist: 'The Literature of Liberalism'

Source:The Economist- Liberal thinkers. 
Source:The New Democrat  

"THE definition of liberalism has long been the source of disagreement. The tension between its various strands—such as American progressivism, libertarianism and the classical tradition in which The Economist was founded—can seem irreconcilable. So for Open Future, an initiative aimed at sparking debate around liberal values, we aimed to build a bibliography of liberalism in its it many forms." 


"CEU's Rethinking Open Society project brings leading thinkers to CEU to examine open society, its history, its achievements and failures, and its future prospects in a political environment that challenges its ideals. It is an effort to subject the ideals of open society to unsparing scrutiny, and answer some of the fundamental questions of our time.

This video features an interview with Roger Scruton who is a writer and philosopher who has published more than forty books in philosophy, aesthetics and politics. He is widely translated. He is a fellow of the British Academy and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature." 

Source:Central European University- Roger Scruton talking about liberal democracy.

From Central European University

There's been this ongoing debate about what liberalism actually is and what it means to be a Liberal. If you were ask me as a Liberal what it means to be a Liberal, I would tell you it means someone who believes in the defense of liberty, meaning the protection of individual rights. If you were to ask me what Liberals believe the role of government is I would tell you is to defend and conserve our individual rights. And where they can expand freedom for people who don't currently have it.

I believe this definition works for anyone who considers them self to be a Liberal and perhaps Libertarian or Conservative-Libertarian, but that doesn't work for everyone especially people who are further left and even Far-Left, but don't see themselves as Far-Left and it's just that everyone else is out of the mainstream, but somehow they're the sane, rational, mainstream people. And instead of calling themselves Socialists or Communists, or even Democratic Socialists or Social Democrats, they prefer to be called Liberals, in some cases Progressives, and the more candid members of the Far-Left especially in America might call themselves Modern Liberals.

Even though a lot of what the Far-Left advocates for is actually illiberal ( meaning anti-liberal ) and not liberal at all. Like censorship when it comes to offensive and critical speech, or hate speech. Protesting against Halloween and Thanksgiving, team nicknames, because they believe those holidays are somehow racist. Using big government to make the dietary decisions for everyone and tell everybody what they can eat and drink and what we can say to each other and in some cases even what we can do with our own bodies. Otherwise known as the nanny state which is just another example of the illiberal-left, not liberal-left.

Along with all of their big centralize government views when it comes to the economy where they believe wealth should essentially outlawed and taxes so high so government can decide how much money and freedom everyone should have, because they don't want anyone to be rich or poor. As well as the belief that big centralize national government is always the best government and decentralizing governmental power is somehow dangerous, along with personal freedom and free speech being dangerous (according to the illiberal-left) which is just another way of saying Far-Left or New-Left.

Even though one of the core liberal values of liberalism is that big centralize power shouldn't be trusted and always held accountable and then absolute power whether it's public power or private power corrupts absolutely. But it's not liberal values that the Far-Left believes in, but instead collectivist values and in some cases social democratic values that they believe in.

According to Wikipedia

"Liberalism is a political and moral philosophy based on liberty and equality. Liberals espouse a wide array of views depending on their understanding of these principles, but they generally support civil rights, democracy, secularism, gender and race equality, internationalism and the freedoms of speech, the press, religion and markets."

According to Merriam Webster

Illiberalism is: "opposition to or lack of liberalism."

So someone who is against free speech and instead is in favor of censorship when it comes to language they don't like whether it's in movies or music, t-shirts, critical speech, offensive speech, hate speech even, someone who believes that speech that's offensive should be censored and that political correctness should be the policy when it comes to speech, is proposing an illiberal view.

Someone who doesn't believe in personal autonomy, personal choice, otherwise known as personal freedom even if they're pro-choice when it comes to women's reproductive rights and sexuality and romance freedom and that romantic couples shouldn't be required to get married before they start living together and having kids, even if you're pro-choice on the issues meaning things that you already agree with, but propose personal freedom in general, because you believe it's dangerous and that individuals can't be trusted to make their own decisions, you're not very pro-choice.

Someone who is pro-choice lets say on abortion, but believes gambling, junk food, soft drinks, alcohol, tobacco, marijuana, should be outlawed, is not very pro-choice. The key when it comes to being pro-choice or not is whether you're pro-choice on abortion and sexuality, or things that you already agree with, but on issues that you might have problems with and wouldn't make those choice for yourself.

Do you believe that people should have the right to make their own personal decisions even if they may disagree with some of their decisions, or not. And if you tend to believe that people should be able to make their own personal decisions, then I suggest you're not only pro-choice, but you might be a Liberal as well. If you're not generally pro-choice, then you're not only not liberal, but probably illiberal which again is the opposite of what it means to be a Liberal.

A Liberal is someone who believes in liberal values: things like free speech, personal autonomy, decentralization of power, checks and balances, separation of powers, limited government, individual rights, equal rights, equal justice for all, free speech, personal autonomy, and yes property rights and markets. 

Liberals don't want the government trying to do everything for everybody. Which is just one thing that separates us from Socialists and Communists on the Far-Left and Nationalists and Theocrats on the Far-Right. And if you believe in the liberal values that I just suggested and not the illiberal values where personal freedom practically doesn't exist, because big government has so much power, then I suggest that you might be a Liberal.

Monday, September 10, 2018

The Economist: John Stuart Mill- Against Tyranny of The Majority: The Father of Liberalism

Source:The Economist- Tyranny of The Majority. 
Source:The New Democrat

What is this is really about is democracy and there several different forms of democracy which I'm going to explain here. And if you're familiar with this blog and my writing, you know that we believe in the liberal form of democracy which is liberal democracy which is what we advocate and I'm going to talk about here as well.

Source: The Federalist Papers- One of the first Liberals 
There are several different forms of democracy. Democracy in itself is just about voting and that citizens deserve the right to vote in their communities and country It's just about being able to not only vote, but having choices in who you vote for. Different party's and different candidates with the voters getting to decide who represents them in the legislature whether it's local, state, or national. Or who get to serve as the chief executive of their community, state, or country. Don't mistake democracy with freedom, because they're two different things. In free societies of course they elect their leaders and representatives through democratic elections. But you could have a country that's technically a democracy, but where you don't have much freedom. Like Russia or Venezuela, or Iran.

Source: Fact Myth- Our Founding Liberals 
What this blog promotes and what I promote with my blog is what's called liberal democracy. America is a liberal democracy, where yes we have multi-party elections, but that's not the basis of our government and not where our people get their freedom. We're a liberal democratic constitutional federal republic. With all sorts of individual rights including the right to vote, but all the right to free speech, the right to worship or not worship, the right to privacy, property rights, the right to sell-defense, even the right to education. All coming not from God or some great Socialist who decided that we should all have these rights, but from our Constitution that was created by our Founding Fathers the Founding Liberals of America.

According to Wikipedia

"Liberal democracy is a liberal political ideology and a form of government in which representative democracy operates under the principles of classical liberalism. Also called western democracy, it is characterised by elections between multiple distinct political parties, a separation of powers into different branches of government, the rule of law in everyday life as part of an open society, and the equal protection of human rights, civil rights, civil liberties and political freedoms for all people. To define the system in practice, liberal democracies often draw upon a constitution, either formally written or uncodified, to delineate the powers of government and enshrine the social contract. After a period of sustained expansion throughout the 20th century, liberal democracy became the predominant political system in the world."

So when someone is talking about the tyranny of the majority, they're saying that lets say in a majoritarian democracy where majority vote always rules or in a social democracy with similar outcomes where a lot of policy decisions are made through referendum, what they mean by tyranny of the majority is that the majority getting to rule over the minority and be able to make decisions on their behalf simply because they have more votes than the minority.

Anyone with a basic social studies understanding of American government and our Constitution that you could get at any quality high school in this country, knows that the majority doesn't always get their way.

Look at the U.S. Senate where you almost always 60-100 votes to pass anything, or our constitutional amendment process, where you need 2/3 majority from both the House and Senate in Congress, as well as 34-50 states to approve any constitutional amendment. Or the U.S. Supreme Court that throws out laws that were passed with a majority because they're unconstitutional. Or our Electoral College where big states don't get to rule over smaller states in the presidential election simply because their states are bigger.

In a liberal democracy, of course we have the right to vote, but we have so many other individual rights as well both personal as well as economic. We own or rent our homes instead of government deciding where we live. Law enforcement needs a warrant in order to enter our homes and property.

Our right to free speech, the right to practice or not practice religion, equal rights and justice under law.

The right not to be discriminated against and denied access in society simply because of our race, ethnicity, gender, or religion.

The right to make our own personal decisions and choices which is protected by our 4th Amendment.

These are just some of the examples of what makes up a liberal democracy and why I'm a Liberal Democrat ideologically, because I believe in liberal democracy. The right to be left alone and live freely in society. Along with other great liberal values like free press, rule of law, checks and balances, separation of powers, federalism, and limited government.

Liberal Democrat

Liberal Democrat
Liberal Democracy