Universal Newsreels: President Eisenhower & President Khrushchev- 'New Diplomacy: 8/03/1959'

Source:Universal Newsreels- President Dwight D. Eisenhower (Republican, Texas) talking about the visit of President Nikita Khrushchev (Soviet Union)

"Ike special press conference, reads joint text, that Khrushchev has accepted invitation to visit U.S., and Ike will visit USSR (partial newsreel)."

From Universal Newsreel

Just another example of why Dwight Eisenhower was such a qualified and effective Cold War President, because he was such a high ranking general during World War II leading Allied Forces in Europe and being in charge of defeating Nazism and other fascists ideologies in Europe during World War II. So when he became President of the United States in 1953. he was more than well-prepared to take on another form of fascism which was communism and the leader of communism in the world at the time being the Soviet Union of Russia. 

So when President Nikita Khrushchev comes to America in 1959 to visit President Eisenhower to talk and even negotiate with the United States, Dwight Eisenhower because of his World War II and Cold War background, was more than capable and credible to discuss issues with Communist Russia. Because you could never accuse Dwight Eisenhower of having Far-Left or other communist leniencies and respect for the Soviet Union. Because he was a man who just didn't hate communism publicly, but someone who fought against Nazism and fascism in the 1940s in Europe leading Allied Forces. 

President Eisenhower's credibility against communism, was fairly similar to the record that Richard Nixon had against communist first in Congress, but later as Vice President. 

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C-SPAN: George Carlin- 'Lying Politicians & Words'

Source:C-SPAN- Comedian George Carlin, at the National Press Club in Washington, in 2008. 

"Lying Politicians And Words: George Carlin comments."

From C-SPAN

I never blame, well I should say I never put the most blame (and I'm already sounding like a politician in this piece) politicians who may be very good politicians, but aren't very good public servants, because how did they get their jobs?

Well, its simple they were voted into office, receiving at least one more vote than their opponent in the last election. Election being a key word because the people vote for the politicians they get. So when I hear someone complaining about their Representative or Senator, I want to ask them did they vote for that person or not. And if they say yes, then I say you voted for who you have now. And if they respond well I didn't know this person would be like that in office. Well then I would say you didn't do your homework and you got who you voted for.

Thats the thing about democracy as former U.K. Prime Minister Winston Churchill once said: "Democracy is the worst form of government in the world except for all of the rest." And that when you leave it up to the people to decide we'll have people who'll make bad decisions because they don't know any better.

I'm not blaming democracy for the bad public servants that we get but I'm blaming the people who vote for the bad politicians that we get because we as a country have to deal with the bad decisions that these bad public servants make at least at the Federal level. That it's not so much democracy that we need but what we really need is a smart liberal democracy.

People who just don't vote but people who know how to vote and vote for the right people who'll protect our freedoms and not try run our lives for us by trying to pass new restrictions on how we should live our own lives. That what we really need is a smart democracy with smart people voting for good smart people who actually know what the hell they are doing. And what public service is about which is about representing the people. And not the small interest groups who bankrolled their campaigns for them.

Even though I'm a Liberal I really do believe in that old fashioned value of personal responsibility. That we get what we pay for and must deal with the consequences of our own decisions. So when it gets to voting that means we get who we voted for and if you don't like who you voted for, then don't vote for that person in the future. And vote for a good person instead or don't vote at all but don't repeat your own past mistakes.

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The Fiscal Times: Liz Peak- 'Margaret Thatcher Was Right: A Dependent Society Will Fail'

Source:The Fiscal Times- Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher (Conservative, United Kingdom) and President Ronald W. Reagan (Republican, United States) and that's all I know about this photo.

Source:The Daily Times

"The Bitch is Dead,” read the banner paraded through the streets of London yesterday – proof that hatred of Margaret Thatcher lives on, even in death. Of all the extraordinary accomplishments of Britain’s only female prime minister, surely her outsized and continuing impact on the nation’s psyche is one of the most remarkable. Hardly a contemporary British story is written or West End play produced – witness Billy Elliott or even the comic One Man, Two Guvnors – that doesn’t slam the former leader. “Thatcherism” in some quarters is as loathed as “McCarthyism” in the U.S. " 

Read the rest at The Fiscal Times 

The biggest thing that Margaret Thatcher did to the United Kingdom and her biggest legacy in a positive sense, is that she moved a socialist state both politically and economically and from a country where the government was expected to take care of everyone and meet its basic needs and even run a lot of its companies and industries for them, to a country where people were expected to take care of themselves. 

Call it Welfare Reform of the 1980s (UK style) where people who are physically and mentally able, but were collecting public assistance (as Americans call it) to financially support themselves and weren’t working at all, now were expected and required to work. And at least working for welfare benefits that they were receiving.

Britain became a country where people learned how to take care of themselves and how to meet their basic needs. Where everyone had access to a quality education so they would have the skills that they would need so they could take care of themselves. And not have to need public assistance just in order to survive and pay their bills. 

Prime Minister Thatcher transformed a dependent society (in Britain) with a welfare state that’s there to take care of everyone, to a British Opportunity Society and Free Society (in their terms) where Brits were expected to finish school and get a good job. So they could support themselves and their families. And not just live off of the welfare state simply, because they lost their job, or lacked the skills to get themselves a good job.

Margaret Thatcher wanted to create a freer society where the people would have the freedom to take care of themselves, because they would have the opportunity to get themselves the skills in order to do so. And have a good job that allows for them to be able to pay their own bills and not be so dependent on government to take care of them. 

British Socialists who were in power before in Britain under the Socialist State of the Labour Party, people weren’t expected to work and too many cases even run businesses and create business’s. Because the national government ran so much of the British economy. And people who were unemployed, or perhaps didn’t have any real work experience weren’t expected to do much if anything for themselves. Because the welfare state would take care of them. That's the difference between Thatcher Conservatives and Socialists.

NPR News: Carrie Johnson- 'Some Public Defenders Warn: 'We Have Nothing Left To Cut'

Source:Carrie Johnson- welcome to public broadcasting?

"Steven Nolder joined the federal public defender's office when it opened in Columbus, Ohio, nearly 18 years ago. Nolder handled his share of noteworthy cases, including the first federal death penalty trial in the district and the indictment of a former NFL quarterback embroiled in a ticket fraud scheme." 

From NPR

We have all sorts of economic insurances in America that we can collect from when we need them. Like health-insurance, auto-insurance, homeowners-insurance (to use as examples) but we do not have an insurance system that in some case is just as much about life death as health-insurance, which is our justice system. And when we are involved in, either under criminal trial or being sued or wanting to sue, someone else for some miss-justice that we believe has been committed against us. And when we are in the justice system either in a criminal or civil sense we have to pay for those services out-of-pocket for the most part, unless we have a very good lawyer with a lot of resources that pays for our defense or representation in court on their own. 

And if we are not someone of means, either of average means who can't come up with tens of thousands of dollars in legal bills or even more than that, or we are even poor, we are looking at purchasing a second mortgage on our home or we are out of luck perhaps stuck with legal aid which are made up of fine qualified hardworking people, but who tend to be overworked.

For people without means when it comes to criminal justice or civil justice, they are left with legal aid or the public defenders office. Offices that are way underfunded and overworked that do not pay for themselves because they tend to represent clients without means. And the money they do get has to come out of general tax revenue and in tough economic and budget times like today. 

That means they can expect to not be cut but get slashed and the people who need those services are left without anywhere else to go to get legal assistance when they need it and in a country that champions justice as much as we do. And speaks in such high praise of it, that should be unacceptable and we should be looking to create a justice system thats affordable for everyone. As we are currently attempting to do with our healthcare system. 

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National Post: Jesse Kline: 'Liberal Party Talks Tough But Still Struggles to Define Itself'

Source:National Post- Canadian Liberal Party Leader Justin Trudeau.

"TORONTO — Liberal leadership hopefuls had their final opportunity to make their pitch to party members and supporters in Toronto on Saturday. The candidates focused on personality, rather than policy, and spent little time attacking each other, choosing instead to focus on how much they hate Stephen Harper."  

From The National Post

"Justin Trudeau's major address to delegates at the 2014 Biennial Convention of the Liberal Party of Canada in Montreal on February 22, 2014."   

Source:Fact Point Video- Canadian Liberal Party Leader Justin Trudeau.

From Fact Point Video 

It seems to me at least as a Liberal American that if a political party is going to call itself the Liberal Party, then it should be a Liberal Party and not try to occupy the center and focus on purely centrist positions. That if you want to be a Centrist Party, then that's what you should call yourself or the Independence Party. Perhaps Mushy Middle Party, or the Radically Moderate Party. But if you are going to call yourself the Liberal Party, then that's exactly what you should be. Otherwise you are falsely representing and advertising yourself.

We all know where the Conservative Party in Canada is, they are a Conservative Party that's exactly what they are representing, the center-right in Canada. And we know where the New Democratic Party is, the lets call it the far-left party in Canada. Even by Canadian standards they are on the far-left and are a social democratic party that probably represents Quebec or Scandinavia better than Canada as a whole. Canada is not as socialist as people tend to think and actually has a smaller Federal Government as percentage of gross national product than America.

I'm not an expert on Canadian politics obviously being a life-long American whose never lived in Canada. But I do follow Canadian politics and a lot of their elections going back to the late 1990s. Thanks to C-SPAN and the internet and what I get about the Liberal Party in Canada is that the reason why they are out of power is because Canadians and perhaps even Liberals themselves up there do not seem to know what the Liberal Party stands for anymore.

What does it mean to be a Liberal? That if you are trying to just occupy the center and not look like Social Democrats, you are not only giving away the center-left in Canada, because you are not even trying to occupy what you claim to be which are Liberals, but you are also giving away the center because people don't know what you are. You say you are Liberals, but you are trying to tell Canadians you are Centrists instead, so what are you.

All I'm saying is that if you are going to be the Liberal Party, then that's exactly what you should be and that's what your platform should look like. "We are the Liberal Party in Canada that represents the center-left. We are not Social Democrats on the far-left and not trying to be the New Democratic Party. But we are Liberal Democrats that believe in freedom and that it's the number job of government to protect freedom for those who have it and still deserve it. And expand freedom for people who do not have it, but deserve and need it".

It's not the job of government to take care of people with a superstate. But to protect their freedom and expand freedom with opportunity for people who need and deserve it. Thats what a Liberal platform would look like, that's what the vision would be. And if Justin Trudeau are actually Liberals, then that is what they would be pushing. And perhaps even get support from the growing libertarian movement in Canada who are not Social Democrats or Conservatives either.

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You can also see this post at The New Democrat, on Blogger.

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Hoover Institution: Firing Line With William F. Buckley- The Wallace Crusade (1968)

Source:Hoover Institution- Firing Line With William F. Buckley, in 1968.

"WFB had sharply criticized Mr. Wallace in print, both for his once-adamant attachment to segregation and for his New Deal statism, and Mr. Wallace came on Firing Line determined not to give an inch. GW: "Name one thing in Alabama that I have supported on the governmental level that you are against." WFB: "You want the state to take care of hospitalization, you want the state to take care of old people, you want the state to take care of the poor." GW: "Are you against caring for the poor and the old? ... I might say that no conservative in this country who comes out against looking after destitute elderly people ought to be elected to anything." WFB: "You call yourself a populist, right?" GW: "If you mean by a populist a man of the people, yes, I'm a populist. Let's get back to the old-age pension. Let's see, you're against Alabama's looking after the elderly destitute citizens of the state?" (The following month, Mr. Wallace would declare his third-party candidacy for President.)" 

From the Hoover Institution

The Wallace Crusade (if you want to call it that) at its best and at its best not saying this was all of it, but at its best the Wallace Crusade was a Federalist movement that was about local control and states rights. Not saying I agree with the Wallace movement, but at its best thats what it was: a movement that was about states-rights and local-control, that state and local governments no best how to govern their communities. And do not need the Federal Government interfering with how they govern their communities. 

Now at its worst, the Wallace Crusade was a majority over the minority movement as it related to race-relations: "There are more of us then you, that is more Caucasian-Americans then there are African-Americans in Alabama and we the majority are going to get to decide what the minority are going to have as it relates to freedom, constitutional rights and so forth. And we'll even keep you away from us and let you have what's left. If we decide to do so." 

George Wallace's movement at it's worst, was a Neo-Confederate, nationalistic movement in the South, that never got over losing the American Civil War and decided that if they had to live with African-Americans, they were going to make their lives as horrible as they could get away with. 

Mike Gardner: CBS News Campaign 1970- 'Alabama Governor's Race'

Source:Mike Gardner- CBS News covering the 1970 Alabama Governor's race.

"George Wallace, Albert Brewer, and Charles Woods mix it up." 

From Mike Gardner

The 1970 political campaign for George Wallace running once again to be Governor of Alabama so he would have a podium to stay in the news and continue to run for President of the United States. George Wallace's 1970 political campaign was about staying in the news and remaining a viable candidate for the 1972 presidential election. 

The new South (as its called) was not there yet, but emerging even in Alabama perhaps the reddest state in the union, was moving past racism in the sense that Anglo-Southerners were moving past the point where they wanted a racist Governor, whether it was because they were moving past racism themselves or because they no longer wanted a Governor who was so flamboyant who brought so much attention to it a lot of it negative. 

Plus, African-Americans were becoming a bigger force in this state and voting more. And as a voting block needed to be taken seriously by more Progressive candidates. 

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