Frank Gifford, was truly one of a kind. I don’t believe we’ve had another Hall Fame football player and Hall of Fame sportscaster in one person. Frank Gifford, was the voice of Monday Night Football. Howard Cosell, was the comedian of that show, but Frank made that show with deep knowledge of the game. As a Hall of Fame player for the New York Giants, his intelligence and his great voice. He was both an announcer and an analyst and did both jobs at the same time. His main role was as the announcer, but the way he would call what he was seeing was from an analyst’s perspective. Because he knew exactly what he was seeing and why he was seeing it.
Growing up as a kid, I couldn’t wait for ABC’s Monday Night Football. Still the best football show on TV, at least prime time show. I couldn’t wait to hear Frank do the intro for that show. Because he brought such passion, intelligence and humor to that show and brought the audience into the show as if you were going to a football party at someone’s house. With the host welcoming you in as you were at home. That’s what it was like listening to Frank call games. It was like as if you were there with him. The only NFL announcer I would take over Frank Gifford would be Pat Summerall and maybe be Al Michaels. But Frank is in the same class as both of those men.
As far Frank Gifford the NFL player, when you talk about hybrid players today, guys who could play running back, or wide receiver and are so good at both you have to use them at both positions, Frank Gifford was the first great hybrid NFL player on offense. He would’ve been a great running back, or receiver. Because he had great hands, quickness, footwork and size. He could’ve played quarterback as well. Very similar to a Paul Hournung with the Green Bay Packers. Frank, was the leader of those great Giants teams of the 1950s that went to five straight NFL Championship’s. But he was also the leader of ABC’s Monday Night Football the best prime time NFL show of all-time. Source:NFL
Jimmy Carter, is one of those president’s who looks a lot better 30 years later than he did, really at anytime he was in office. By late 1977, President Carter’s approval rating was dropping he never gained any of the political momentum that he had when he entered office in January, 1977 with a Democratic Congress. That had a 2/3 majority in the House and a 3-5 majority in the Senate. Where Democrats and Republicans were becoming the Democrats and Republicans that they are today ideologically.
President Carter, had the economic crisis, or economic malaise and the Great Deflation on his plate. Which was at its strongest point by 1978 and the economy goes back into recession in 1979. High inflation, high interest rates, high cost of energy, energy shortages, the rise of Japan economically, all of these things led to a very weak American economy. With so many Americans simply struggling just to pay their bills. All of these things that the Carter Administration inherited, not created, but serious problems that they didn’t seem prepared for and have any answers for.
And then you go to foreign affairs, where America was still prompting up the Shah of Iran and seemed to not have any idea how unpopular he was at home and that the young people there especially wanted the Shah to fall. And be replaced by a different regime. I’m not sure its clear yet if they wanted the Shah to be replaced by an authoritarian Islamic theocratic dictatorship. But hated what they had in their leadership and President Carter and his team telling people in public how great a leader the Shah was with again not knowing how unpopular he was at home just made things even worst for everybody. So that is sort of the negative aspects of the Carter presidency.
The positive side and really the brilliance of Jimmy Carter and where he really is the Richard Nixon of the Democratic Party as far as pure intelligence and knowledge and the ability to see things way out in the future as happening in the short-term that know one else could, has to do with where the country was going politically and where the Democratic Party was going. President Carter, knew the days of the New Deal and Great Society were over. Not the support of those programs, but that America wasn’t looking to pay more in taxes and take more money out of their wallets to pay for knew welfare programs. That they believed there was a limit to what government could do for them.
I believe that President Carter, started to move the Democratic Party back to the Center-Left. We go from the George McGovern and the New-Left running the Democratic Party in 1972, to a Center-Left New Democratic in Jimmy Carter in 1976. Someone who didn’t believe in an expansionist unlimited government that could do practically everything for people if they just give them their money, or have it taken away from them in higher taxes. Carter, believed that government needed to be more practical, live in a budget and watch what it spends. Use government more to empower people to take control over their own lives. Instead of using government to manage people’s lives for them. Jimmy Carter in 1976, paved the way for Bill Clinton in 1992. Similar to how Barry Goldwater in 1964, paved the way for Ronald Reagan in 1980.
When it comes to foreign affairs. Who was the U.S. President that made human rights and freedom part of his foreign policy? President Jimmy Carter and he did that as part of his 1977 Commencement Address at Notre Dame. One of the best foreign policy speeches and speeches about human rights that you’ll ever hear an American President give. Which will be up on this blog hopefully next week. Where he said that, “recent democratic development’s and movement’s in Greece and India would free up the United States from the inordinate fear of communism that one led America to ally itself with brutal dictators who agreed to help fight the communist menace. What was needed in the New World that America faced was a policy based on constant decency in its values and optimism.”
The so-called Eastern Bloc of Eastern European Communist States in Slavic countries like Poland and Czechoslovakia, that were considered Russian satellite states during the Cold War, fell in the 1980s and the former Eastern Germany was part of the Russian bloc as well. The movements that led to those authoritarian regimes falling in the 1980s and led to democratic government’s coming to power there, said that President Carter’s 1977 human rights speech was part of their inspiration. President Ronald Reagan, gets a lot of credit for those communist states falling and perhaps he deserves some. And a lot of those states fell under President George H.W. Bush. But the fact is those movement’s started under President Carter’s watch and his administration helped them. The famous military buildup of the 1980s that partly led to the end of the Cold War, started under President Gerry Ford and President Jimmy Carter.
Egypt, recognized the Jewish State of Israel during the Carter Administration. Still the only Arab state to do that and that wasn’t an accident either. And Egypt and Israel have been at peace ever since. It was President Carter that brought Egypt and Israel together to sign the 1978 Camp David Accords between Egypt and Israel. Which meant that Egypt would recognize Israel as a Jewish State and that Israel would give back some of the land that it won during the 1967 Arab-Israeli War. And what would become what is known as the Palestinian Authority today, which is essentially the State of Palestine was part of that agreement as well. Where Israel would pull out of the West Bank and Gaza in Palestine and be replaced by a democratic Palestinian government.
How about the Panama Canal Treaty of 1977, where America finally gave up the Panama Canal to the Republic of Panama. Ending some American colonization in Latin America. And allowing for Panama and the Panamanian people to take control of their own country and land. Neoconservatives, obviously hated this, but this has been one of the most successful treaties that America has ever signed. President Carter, recognized the People’s Republic of China in 1979. And the United States normalizes relations with the Communist Regime there, the largest country in the world in people. And they have remained one of our largest trading partners ever since. President Nixon, went to China in 1971 and got the ball rolling there. But President Carter and his administration got the ball in the end zone.
Energy policy, which has both to do with out economic policy and foreign policy. President Carter, knew that one of our foreign policy problems and economic problems had to do with the over reliance on Middle Eastern oil and foreign oil in general. A big reason why we were so close to the Shah of Iran and the Saudi Kingdom all of these years. Because we’ve needed their oil so much, even though they were both authoritarian states. President Carter, knew that we needed to get off of foreign oil and become energy independent. That we had all the resources to do that and that it was just a matter of developing them. He actually got an energy policy out of Congress in 1977 that started the development of alternative renewable energy sources in America. Solar and wind, are a couple of examples of that.
Not trying to make Jimmy Carter look like one of our top five greatest president’s, or even a great president. The reason why he lost reelection in 1980 had to do with his administration’s inability to deal with the economic and energy crisis of the late 1970s and political situation on the ground in Iran that led to the 1979 Islamic Revolution there and Iranian terrorists taking American hostages there in late 79. But to look at President Carter as a failure and as a weak President when he actually had a lot of great accomplishments during his term even just in four years, similar to President George H.W. Bush, is a big mistake.
When I think of liberty, I don’t think of the liberty to do whatever the hell I want without any consequences. I think of individual liberty, self-determination, free will, the ability for people to make their own decisions and make their own beds, just as long as they also sleep in them. That individual liberty is exactly that, for the individual. That the individual has liberty over their own lives, but not the liberty to manage someone else’s and certainly not to hurt innocent people with what they’re doing. Not talking about anarchy, but individual liberty, balanced by rule of law there to protect the innocent from predators and to handle the predators who hurt the innocent.
Individual liberty, again is exactly that. Not talking about economic freedom, or personal freedom, but individual freedom which covers both, plus political freedom. The ability to run for office and for voters to pick from a wide variety of candidates and to publicly weigh in on them. As well as to weigh in on government policy and potential future government policies. This blog covers freedom of choice a lot and has a whole section dealing with that. But that is exactly what freedom of choice is. The freedom for people to make their own choices in life, but then have to deal with the consequences of their decisions.
To me as a Liberal, a free society is an educated society. Without education, liberty doesn’t exist. So what you need for liberty to exist and be real is for the public to be educated. And once they’re educated they’ll have the tools and freedom to make the right decisions with their own lives. From where to work, where to live, what health insurance plan they should have, how to invest their money, whether, or not they should gamble or not, to smoke, or not to smoke and that includes marijuana, when it get married, or if to get married and who they should marry if anyone and even things like prostitution and pornography. Just as long as they know what they’re getting into before they make those decisions and the consequences that come with those decisions.
Now if you’re lets say a Religious, or Christian, or even a Conservative-Muslim in America and tend to look at politics from lets say a religious, or traditional perspective, the way I just described liberty probably sounds immoral and dangerous. That I want to destroy America and our traditional moral values and everything and perhaps even have anarchy. And if you’re part of the Paternalist-Left in America, people who I and others both Liberals and Libertarians call nanny statists, because you believe in the collective over the individual, you probably also see my politics as dangerous. Because I’m calling for free will and free choice and you don’t tend to trust the individual. And want a big government big enough to even protect people from themselves.
But that is not what I’m calling for all. Something that both so-called Progressives and Religious-Conservatives have in common is the belief in education and that people should be educated and intelligent so they can live well and make good decisions. The only thing is that I take that a step forward and not just call for an educated society, because without an educated society you can’t have a free society. But then I also say that free individuals should have the education, power and liberty to use that power to make the best decisions for themselves. That you put out all the information there and let free people make their own decisions with that knowledge and hold them responsible for their own individual decisions. Individual freedom and responsibility. Source:Academy of Ideas
"Billionaire real estate mogul and television personality Donald Trump announced Tuesday plans to run in the 2016 presidential election, marking the first time he will formally seek the Republican nomination after floating the idea in several previous election cycles. Here are some key facts to know about Trump...
I’ve actually sort of gone out-of-my-way to not comment on Donald Trump for president for several reasons.
One, just about everything I would’ve said about him most of it, actually all of it negative has already been said. Even by Fox News to the point that The Donald has added Megyn Kelly to his women’s enemies list.
The fact that the Republican Party would have a joke like The Donald who is only able to run for president, because he’s a billionaire, just shows you how big of a joke the Republican Party is right now. I mean, their frontrunner’s last name is Bush. I’m sure Jeb is a good guy and all and probably would’ve been successful in life if his name was Kowalski and he grew up in Pittsburgh the son of a truck driver. But he’s the frontrunner, because he’s a Republican and his last name is Bush.
Don Trump, ( does anyone else call The Donald, Don ) is not an idiot and he’s not crazy. A big asshole, no argument here. An egomaniac, I’m still looking for a bigger egomaniac. Actually, I stopped looking when I first saw The Donald. He’s a guy who simply wants attention and for whatever he’s involved in to simply be about him.
The Donald is a one-man entertainment and comedy show who has no idea what he would do as president and has nothing to run on as far as what he’s in favor of and what he would do. I mean, the guy is a Republican, who is supposedly anti-immigration, even though he’s probably hired thousands of illegal immigrants. And those people not being from Ireland, or Britain, but Mexico and other Latin American countries.
How do you take someone like that seriously for president. He wants to be President of the United States and talks about our eighteen-trillion-dollar national debt and two of his companies have gone bankrupt. So ironically that sort of makes him an expert on our bankruptcy laws. What is The Donald’s message on fiscal policy? Don’t run the United States the way he ran his companies. Because it will fail and instead of filling for bankruptcy and being bailed out by taxpayers, we’ll try to get bailed out by China, or Saudi Arabia?
I did see the Republican debate on FNC on Thursday. And actually I think the FNC panel did a very good job questioning the candidates. I was expecting to see batting practice at a home run derby from the questioners. And see them loft up a lot of hanging curves and softballs at the candidates. For them to well hit out of the ballpark and look good. But as I was watching the debate I was sort of thinking to myself how would Saturday Night Live play this. And looking at The Donald, you don’t need to see SNL doing their version of this debate, because what they would’ve done is what we saw on Thursday.
The panel, asking The Donald very tough questions and trying to put him on the spot. With Trump coming back with some wisecracks to get the audience behind him. This is what running for President of the United States the most important job in the world is to The Donald. His own reality show and all about him and nothing else. With every network that covers politics picking up the series.
The reason why The Donald is in first place in a single a baseball league (as far as the quality of talent when you’re talking about the quality of candidates that they have) is because the state of the Republican Party right now. Not because of how great a presidential candidate that The Donald is, or his qualifications for being President of the United States.
"Yet more signs of an improving job market. The U.S. Labor Department says employers added 215,000 jobs last month. That’s the third consecutive month of job gains above 200,000 following weaker than expected job growth earlier in the year. While the unemployment rate held steady at 5.3 percent, analysts say the July job gains increase pressure on the Federal Reserve to start raising interest rates soon. Mil Arcega has more. Originally published at:VOA News."
The fact that the Federal Reserve is considering raising interest rates, tells me as a non-economist that the American economy is starting to do well. That people are going back to work, that their incomes are rising and spending money.
The Fed, has kept interest rates at practically nothing since 2008 when the Great Recession started, because the economy for most of this period was pretty weak. 2010 and 2014 would be exceptions to this, but by in large economic growth has been fairly weak since the Great Recession even with job growth being steady and solid since 2010. Which tells me we can forget about another recession at least in the short-term.
Congress, has lately has started to become helpful with the economy. They passed another short-term extension to the highway program. The Senate, passed a a six-year highway bill last week that is fully paid for. The House, is going to take up that bill and hopefully pass their own bill when Congress comes back from recess in September. So we're starting to see some real healthy signs with the economy.
Even though the economy actually shrunk in the first quarter this year, the economy by in-large is ready to do well and hopefully take off again. And do well for the rest of 2015 and hopefully take off next year.
Kids going back to school in September so there will be a lot of back to school sells for the next couple of months. As well as this being August and Americans still vacationing. And then once we get through September and October we're into the holiday season. And then you may actually see the Fed raise interest rates.
So I believe there are plenty of reasons to be optimistic about the American economy right now. And with a healthy economy would also mean the budget deficit will continue to fall and we'll see more investment in America as a result.
With all due respect to Julie Borowski over at Life and Liberty Magazine who I personally don’t know and just saw her name for the first time a couple of days ago, she poses a silly question about Planned Parenthood. If her question about whether pro-life people should be forced to subsidize Planned Parenthood is serious, than so are questions like should anti-death penalty advocates be forced to pay for the death penalty of convicted murderers. Or should anarchists, be forced to pay for law enforcement. Should pacifists be forced to pay for the military. Should isolationists and people who are against foreign aid be forced to pay for foreign aid. And I could go indefinitely. But don’t worry, because in the interest of time I won’t.
When you live in a liberal democracy especially the size of the United States where we pick our leaders by majority vote in most cases and when each of us only have one vote, you’re not always going to get who you voted for. Because sometimes your candidates the people you voted for don’t win. Which means the opposition comes to power and if they have the power to do what they want, or win some political battles perhaps through compromise, they will get to set policy. And that even means establishing policy and laws that others disapprove of. Whether it is continue to fund law foreign enforcement, fund foreign aid, continue the death penalty with taxpayer funds, continue to finance corporate welfare with taxpayer funds and yes continue to fund Planned Parenthood. Which does perform abortions, but without taxpayer funds.
This question about whether the pro-life community should be forced to fund Planned Parenthood with their taxes, sort of reminds me of the question that Libertarians and Conservative Libertarians like to pose about the safety net, or the so-called social contract. And they say why should they be forced to pay for something that they didn’t personally sign and approve of when it was passed. Well, again a country is a community we all have to play by the rules that the leadership who are hired by the people put in place. And if we don’t like the rules that are put in place we can always vote out if we have a majority support the leaders who enforce the rules. But to try to put out this argument that you don’t like the rules so you’re not going to follow them, is quite frankly silly. Source:Washington Free Beacon
"Why is abortion legal in the United States? What is the Roe v Wade decision? A direct explanation of the 1973 Supreme Court Decision which legalized abortion across the country without any of the politics, bias or controversy."
Roe V Wade, is one of the most important decisions ever decided in the United States when it comes to women’s health and individual liberty really for everyone in the country both female and male. Because it is about when can the state regardless of governmental level can come in and tell someone: “no. You can’t do that to yourself, or for yourself. Government knows best over the individual.”
Whether you’re pro-choice, or pro-life ( actually anti-abortion ) I believe people make that decision based on when they believe life starts. With Christians, especially fundamentalists Christians, life begins at conception: “Once a woman is pregnant, she is now carrying life and because of that she’s carrying someone who should be protected as much as anyone who has been born.” According to Catholics and other Christians. If you’re pro-choice, again regardless of what your religious affiliation may be, or if you’re Atheist, or Agnostic, life begins for you when the fetus is already born. And once the fetus is born then it's a baby that deserves the same human rights including the right to life as everyone else who has been born.
That is really what the abortion debate is about. When does life start and again depending on when you believe life starts will determine your position on abortion. Now for me as an Agnostic, I guess I have a little more freedom to make my own decision and take my own position here. Because I’m not constrained by religious affiliations and beliefs. Wasn’t raised in a Catholic, Protestant, or any other religious family. So for me it becomes and individual liberty and role of government issue. Not a religious issue and it comes down for me who gets to decide in this case. And whether government and others can, or not force people who don’t share their religious to live by them on one of the most important decisions that a women will ever make.
As a Liberal, I’m pro-choice on practically everything short of someone hurting another innocent person. And if you want to call abortion hurting an innocent person by murdering an innocent baby, I can’t stop you, but I also don’t have to listen to you either. I’m 98-99% pro-choice on abortion. The 1-2% on this very key issues comes down to public financing of abortions which I’m against.
I agree with Democratic Senator Chris Murphy on this issue for the most part. That government should be completely out of abortion. But then he says government, meaning taxpayers should pay for abortions and not just when the life, or health of the mother is involved. So he contradicts himself there and speaks out of two mouths, which is actually common in Congress. But I take Senator Murphy’s words on abortion literally as far as government shouldn’t be involved in abortion period. Short of making sure they are safe for women to have them. But they, meaning taxpayers don’t have to pay for them.
As a Liberal, pro-choice is exactly that. The right for the individual to decide for them self what is best for them when it comes to their own life. Doesn’t give them the right to make decisions for other people like intentionally to take their own life even not in self-defense. Or intentionally hurting another person. And abortion similar to a whole host of issues that also have something to do with privacy and personal freedom comes down to this question. Who gets to decide? The government, or the individual when it comes to a woman’s productive rights including when she should give birth, or not.
For me since life doesn’t begin at conception, but when the fetus actually becomes a baby and is born that is when their right to life begins. And when they get the same right to life as someone who is in their forties, or whatever their age may be. Government, except when it comes to making sure abortions as safe as possible, should be completely out it. Even funding abortions, except to save the life and health of the mother.
