Firing Line With Willam F. Buckley: Ron Paul (1988)

Source:The New Democrat

What I respect most about Ron Paul, former U.S. Representative from Texas and presidential candidate for both the Libertarian Party and the Republican Party, is his honesty.  He's truly against big government from both an economic and a personal standpoint, like all classic libertarians or classic conservatives. In this video, he explains why he's running for president for the Libertarian Party in 1988, to grow the size of the Libertarian Party and not to actually win the election but to bring publicity and new members to the LP.

FOX Sports: 'The Sports Butterfly Effect: What if the Portland Trail Blazers Drafted Michael Jordan Instead of Sam Bowie'

Source:The New Democrat

If only this were true, and the Portland Blazers instead of the Chicago Bulls had drafted Michael Jordan in 1984; how different the NBA would've been!  The Blazers and Bulls played each other in the NBA Finals in 1992, by the way, which was a classic six-game series that the Blazers could have won with Clyde Drexler at the off-guard instead of Air Jordan and Kevin Duckworth at center and instead of Sam Bowie, the man they drafted in 1984.

We'll never know, obviously, but had the Bulls drafted Sam Bowie instead of Michael, they would have been stuck with an injury-prone center who had a bad foot in college before he got to the NBA, which everyone including the Blazers knew about. That only got worse the more he tried to play in the NBA, because the man had a stress-fracture in his foot that never healed properly after he injured it the first time in 1981 or 1982, and this was from a movie made about big Sam's career. So his foot was simply never strong enough to play basketball, at least not basketball at the professional level.

But look at the positive aspect of this story, a team with both Michael Jordan and Clyde Drexler on it. I mean, think about it, you have Mike at the off-guard and Clyde at the wing-forward because Clyde at 6'7", 220 pounds or so, was big enough to play up front. Both were great players, both were great scorers, both were very good defenders, both could handle the ball, both could shoot, both could drive, both could rebound, etc. If you had the Blazers, with Terry Porter at point guard, and then you had found a solid center, the Blazers would have been serious NBA Finals contenders for at least 10 years.

Without Mike and with Clyde Drexler, the Blazers were NBA Finals contenders for 3 years from 1990 to 1992, and then they fell back to the middle of the pack in the Western Conference in the mid-1990s. With Sam Bowie, the Bulls would not have even been a playoff team for probably another 5 years with such an big investment in their center, who was missing half of the season or more every year.  The Bulls and NBA would have been a lot different.

The American Conservative: Leon Hadar: The Right's Putin Problem

Source:The New Democrat

I'm not trying to sound overly partisan or harsh and when my dad reads this he might say, "Why not?". But when I think of Vladimir Putin, the President of the Russian Federation, I think of Neoconservatives in America, especially when they praise the man for his clamp down on homosexuality in Russia.  He is not democratic or authoritarian. He's somewhere in between, a fascist politician who believe he knows what's best for his country and therefore shouldn't have to contend with any real opposition or dissent.

Sound familiar in America, especially when you look at the Neoconservative flank of the Tea Party that see themselves, a lot of them from the least populated parts of America, as the true American Patriots?  The believe that they know what is best for America and anyone who disagrees with them should just shut up or move to Canada or some socialist country. Well, again, that is Vladimir Putin who believes that it's his way or no way and you if you don't like it you may end up in jail labeled as a traitor to the Russian Republic.

Imagine what it would be like if we really had a Tea Party President of the United States.  This will never happen as free speech, privacy and personal freedom becomes more popular everyday. But how different would someone like a Michelle Bachmann or a Rick Santorum or Steve King, U.S. Representative from Iowa, be from Vlad Putin. They wouldn't be able to lock up the entire opposition in the country but they may try to. I would doubt we would see much difference in governing style  between a Tea Partier and Vlad Putin. 

Biography: Sophia Loren

Source:The New Democrat

Sophia Loren is perhaps the best looking Italian woman, American or native Italian, that Italy has ever produced, even though I'm more obviously more familiar with Italian-American women than native Italian women. I would put Sophia up against any other ethnic Italian woman who has ever lived and any other woman period who has ever lived as far as physical beauty and appearance go. A perfect example of that is her role in Grumpier Old Men from 1995 when she is 60 years old and still a goddess, turning on older and younger men at this point.

But as the corny saying goes, it doesn't stop there, because, like Raquel Welch, Marilyn Monroe, and other goddesses who've worked in the entertainment business, she was a very talented entertainer who could act and sing and make anyone laugh and go toe to toe with great comic actors like Cary Grant when it came to wit and wisecracks, as in the movie Houseboat. She is an actress with great comedic timing and stage presence in addition to her physical beauty and stage command.

Another thing I love about Sophia is how real she was, coming from nothing and raised by people other than her parents in Rome, Lazio, Italy in the 1930s at the height of the fascist Benito Mussolini regime. She made something great of herself with incredibly hard work, especially after we saw the Sophia that the rest of the world is so familiar with, this tall, curvy hot baby-face goddess with the great Italian voice.

Nevada Policy Research Institute: 'Las Vegas Mob War- Government-Funded Museum'

Source:Nevada Policy Research Institute- talking about the Las Vegas Mafia.

Source:The New Democrat

"The Mob is notorious for shakedowns, but in the battle between competing Mob exhibits in Las Vegas, it's the government strong-arming a private business and taxpayers. The privately funded Mob Attraction must compete with the government-backed Mob Museum that's already received over $42 million in government handouts.

That was one offer taxpayers wanted to, but couldn't refuse." 

From the Nevada Policy Research Institute

Las Vegas and Southern Nevada in general became a personal State for the Italian and Jewish mafias, an area they developed and owned by means of legitimate investments in Vegas that served as a cover for their criminal activities, turning Vegas into a bank they could use to fund their criminal operations but also to buy the politicians and public officials needed to keep law enforcement off their backs.

Then you add the crooked elements of organized labor in the 1940s, 60s, 70s, 80s, and perhaps even longer than that with Jimmy Hoffa, Sr., and company, which had all the resources they needed not only to stay in business but also to keep the politicians and public officials at bay and to send the message through their henchmen and hit men that messing with them would have a heavy price in terms of lives lost or ruined.

Las Vegas is the ultimate story of starting from scratch and building a major city with all the investments, businesses, and land as well as people to maintain these operations. The American mafia, Italian and Jewish for the most part, had a huge role in this along with the people they brought with them. As in government and organized labor, it took really clean, powerful people unconcerned about whether the mafia would destroy them to bring down these characters.

ABC News: Gore Vidal vs William F. Buckley: 1968 Republican National Convention

Source:ABC News- political commentator and author Gore Vidal in 1968.

Source:The New Democrat

"Gore Vidal vs William Buckley Republican Convention 1968 Debate" 

From Thomas G

The ultimate debate, when it comes to wit, humor, and intelligence was between Gore Vidal and Bill Buckley. You don't need a moderator in a debate like this and there really wasn't one, with Howard Smith letting Vidal and Buckley basically just go at it because the two men could carry the conversation by themselves and knew where to go and what they wanted to say. They also both listened to each other and knew how to respond to their opponent's legitimate points in an intelligent way.

It would be nice to see more debates like this, with two people literally just going at it and no one asking questions but just giving them topics to talk about.  They already knew what to say because they knew what they thought. That should go without saying, but a lot of politicians and candidates either don't know what they think or do not know how to express it in a way that doesn't hurt them politically, so they are afraid to say what they think.

Townhall: Daniel J. Mitchell: 'Is America Doomed to Becoming a Failed European Style Welfare State'

Source:The New Democrat

One thing I tend to agree on with Progressive economists on is that there isn't any magic number to attach to how big the public sector has to be or how small it has to be that is the signal that government is too big and must be trimmed down. Before the Great Recession, America was doing very well economically for about 25 years, with a few slow-downs in between and periods of high unemployment, with our public sector to Gross Domestic Product ratio somewhere around 20 percent. The European Union as a whole did well economically also, especially Germany, with its public sector to GDP ratio around 45 percent during the same time period. And Scandinavia, among  the biggest governments in the developed world during the same period, grew well at around 65 to 70 percent.

When it comes to economic growth and the public sector, it is all about what you need government to do. What do people need to do for themselves and what do government and the people need when it comes to resources to be able to do for themselves so the society as a whole can prosper?With Scandinavia being rich in natural resources and land and with its socialist culture, it can afford expansive welfare states that come with higher taxes because it also has very small populations.

This situation is similar to Canada's but if you actually looked at the Canadian federal budget, the size of its government is not that much different fromAmerica's, the difference being that it has a much smaller national security budget and spends a lot more on public social insurance programs and on infrastructure.  Canada also has a great deal of land and is energy independent.  It also has a small population considering the vast physical size of the country.

America is different because we are rich in land and in natural resources but for whatever reason, we are still importing a hell of a lot of oil and gas when we are capable of producing all of the natural resources in the world, including oil and gas, and even though we are a country of 310 million people, we have thousands of square miles of land with very few people, the Dakotas, Wyoming, Montana, Nebraska, Iowa, Oklahoma, Montana, New Mexico, Nevada, Utah. And we could easily produce all of the energy we need for ourselves if we just got around to doing it

My point is that a Scandinavian welfare state, considering the size of our population and the fact that we are still importing a hell of a lot of energy and have a large deficit when it comes to infrastructure, would not be the right economic model for us with those factors alone.  Since that is not the right economic model for us, it doesn't mean it can't work in other countries and has worked in other countries, but not all countries are the same and they have different needs and populations.

It's all about what government needs to do and what you need people to do for themselves and what businesses need to be productive and profitable. Once you get those factors figured out, then you get to how big the national government should be and how much it should tax to finance those operations that is consistent with strong economic and job growth, where most of the country has well-paid jobs and can pay its bills without government overtaxing it.