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.

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