Axel Reyes: Kennedy 1983- A Look at John F. Kennedy as President

This post was originally posted at FRS Daily Press

There have been several movies about John F. Kennedy. Because even though he only lived forty-six years there were so many things that went on in his life that were worth writing and filming about. Like his Navy career, what he did right after that trying to decide what he would do the rest of his life. His first campaign for the House of Representatives in 1946, his time in the House, he was a bit of a playboy there.

And not very disciplined, but of course he had the great name and was such a charming man and likable. His friendship with Richard Nixon in the House and later in the Senate. Sen. Kennedy’s name and charm was good enough for him to keep his job in the House and then even running for the Senate in 1952. His first Senate campaign of course being elected the same year that Dwight Eisenhower.

Jack Kennedy was elected to the Senate in 1952 and served in the last Republican Congress until 1995 with the Gingrich Revolution. Jack Kennedy’s time in the Senate, where he becomes more serious and takes the job seriously and puts in the time and work because of course he had bigger goals, Sen. Kennedy writes a book in the Senate Profiles in Courage where there was some controversy about whether Sen. Kennedy wrote the book or was the book written by Ted Sorenson one of his Senate staffers.

Adlai Stevenson the 1956 Democratic nominee considers Sen. Kennedy as his Vice Presidential nominee which would’ve been a disaster for Sen. Kennedy. Because GOV. Stevenson lost to President Eisenhower in a landslide and Kennedy wouldn’t of made much of a difference. I believe Hollywood for the most part has done a very good job with Jack Kennedy with making movies about him.

Unlike Oliver Stone with Richard Nixon, they haven’t tried to cover Jack Kennedy’s whole life with one huge movie. They’ve broken his life up in several stage. There was one mini-series alone I believe shown by CBS about the Kennedy’s relationship between them. Especially Jack and Bobby with union leader Jimmy Hoffa. Another movie about the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962 from 2000, another movie about Sen. Kennedy’s involvement in Civil Rights. A new Mini Series in 2011 about the Kennedy Presidency, a movie about Jack Kennedy’s navy career.

You could make another movie about Jack Kennedy’s Congressional career or the great presidential election of 1960 that featured Jack Kennedy and Dick Nixon between two future presidents. Or another movie about the Bay of Pigs Crisis in 1962 the failed attempt to oust Fidel Castro as President of Cuba. There are so many things that happened in Jack Kennedy’s life that are fascinating that are worth making public either by book, TV or movie that trying to cover the whole life in one movie or mini-series is too much, because you’re bound to miss something.

The Kennedy mini-series from 1983 with Martin Sheen is a pretty good, but not great mini-series. And it focus’ just on the Kennedy Presidency, starting on Election Night 1960 when of course Sen. Kennedy is elected President in one of the closest presidential elections of all-time beating of course a sitting Vice President who worked for a very popular President in Dwight Eisenhower beating Dick Nixon in 1960, a very long election night. Sen. Kennedy finds out that he’s just been elected President 6 or 7 the next morning. Jack Kennedy deserves several movies about him, all focusing on different aspects of his life.

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Gorgeous Celebs: The Best of Raquel Welch

 

Hollywood Goddess

Source: This piece was originally posted at The New Democrat

There hasn’t been a better looking women since Marilyn Monroe died than Raquel Welch. That’s how high she stands out, a hot sexy baby who at 74 years old still has those qualities. Who can sing, dance, act, make people laugh and even right while doing those things. She’s gift from heaven down to men because of all of those traits, that is a national treasure that always commands respect.

And she’s still going strong and still does not look like an older women, senior citizen who has been eligible for Medicare and Social Security for what nine years now. Why, because she’s still a hot baby-face sexy baby goddess who takes care of herself and doesn’t want to look old or go old and as a result keeps providing men with countless images of her that a man with Alzheimer’s disease couldn’t forget even if they wanted to. And leaving women young enough to be her daughter and even granddaughter jealous as a result.

Gorgeous Celebs: The Best of Raquel Welch

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Bolinha Franca: Video: The Man With The Golden Arm 1955 Trailer: The Women Saves The Man

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This post was originally posted at The New Democrat on Blogger

Frank Sinatra was overpaid to be able to work with Kim Novak. The pleasure was all his to be able to work with a hot sexy baby like Kim that he got to work with and see everyday. Who was also a pretty good actress and I’m sure Kim liked Frank as well. Not putting down Frank’s ability as an actor, because I think he was a hell of an actor, but just seeing a working with Kim everyday would be enough incentive to work with her.

If you’ve seen the movie Pal Joey and are familiar with that, which I saw again last week, this movie is fairly similar to Pal Joey. Except Frank is already sort of a made man in the entertainment business in the sense that he’s already successful. In The Man With The Golden Arm, Frank plays an up incoming musician who hasn’t made it yet, who has a checkered past including doing time. And has to do other things to pay his bills including gambling.

Frank also plays a drug addict in this movie, when in Pal Joey he was sober basically the entire movie. But in both movies he meets Kim Novak who is an entertainer herself working at local clubs and they get involved in both movies. Except in Golden Arm, Kim saves Frank from his addiction and helps him get cleaned and then they get involved. This time the women saves the man in the movie.

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Movie Clips: Video: Vertigo 1958: Let’s Wander Together

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This post was originally posted at The New Democrat on Blogger

I could simply listen and watch Kim Novak until Israel and Palestine came to peace and agree to a two-state solution. There’s just something about her voice and those eyes and cheeks that just makes me want to go “aw, she’s so sweet and sexy”. Angie Dickenson who is from the same generation as Kim has the exact same effect on me. And not only that, but her movies were really good and she worked for and with great people like Jimmy Stewart and Alfred Hitchcock. So you got to see her in great roles.

This scene right here is just coming after Madeline spending the night or a big part of the night at Scottie’s apartment in San Francisco the nigh before. They were complete strangers, but she fell into the San Francisco Bay and Scottie rescued her and brought her back to his place. He was paid by her husband to follow her because the husband claimed to be worried about her mental condition. What Scottie wasn’t aware of was that a lot of this was part of a big act that the husband was setting up to cover up a murder. And they were using Scottie in this process.

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Beyonce Knowles: Proud to be An American, God Bless the USA: Honoring the Great Americans Who Fight For America

This post was originally posted at The New Democrat

I like the Beyonce version of this great song more than the Lee Greenwood version of this song that is 20-30 years older. And not because the Beyonce version is more current. But I’m just more of an R&B fan than a pop fan, but both singers do a great job of honoring I believe at least the most important Americans that we have which is our military veterans. And the people who defend our freedom risk their lives to protect our freedom and in too many cases give their lives. And leave their families back to defend our freedom.

Which is what Veterans Days is all about and something that only the anti-military Far-Left and to a certain extent Libertarian-Right in America can’t seem to grasp. And if anything tend to see our military as part of the problem in defending peace and fighting for peace and defending our freedom and this is really the nice way of putting how the anti-military Far-Left and Libertarian-Right in America tends to look at the American military.

Veterans Day is not just an extra day off or a three-day weekend in a beautiful time of year when people want to be outside at the park or at football games, cookouts and so-forth. But it is the day that we give to our military veterans where we honor them with songs and performances. And parades and ceremonies and where we honor the great Americans who fought for our freedom. Whether they are still with us or have already given their lives to fight for our freedom or time has simply come for them to rest in peace.

And this is why since 1918 after World War I that we take a day out of our year to give to the veterans who have given their lives to serve our country by defending it and is something that not many Americans do considering how large our country is. Which is why it is even more important that the three-hundred plus Americans who haven’t served in our military I believe even have a bigger debt to the veterans who have served us.

So instead of looking at Veterans Day as another day in the year where we do not have to work as Americans. Look at it as a day where we honor the men and women, fathers and mothers. Grandfathers and grandmothers, uncles and aunts, brothers and sisters who have served our country. By defending our freedom and look to pay back some of that huge debt to them. By thanking them for their service and remember that we only have this day off because of them.

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Movie Clips: Video: Vertigo 1958 Trailer: A Detective Falls in Love With a Goddess

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This post was originally posted at The New Democrat on Blogger

I wouldn’t say that Vertigo is a great movie, especially not a great Alfred Hitchcock film. There are at least three others and probably more Hitchcock movies that are better. North by Northwest my favorite, Rear Window and To Catch a Thief and I’m sure others are definitely better than Vertigo. Vertigo is not Kim Novak’s best movie either. But Kim Novak and Jimmy Stewart made Vertigo a very good and entertaining movie almost by themselves by how they worked together and the chemistry they had.

Vertigo does have a very good plot. Jimmy Stewart plays a former San Francisco police detective who is now in semi-retirement. His old buddy from I believe college gets a hold of him with a job for him, but now as a private detective. His old friend who hasn’t seen a long time is a very wealthy San Francisco businessman who has a gorgeous baby-face goddess of a wife in Kim Novak. He wants Stewart to believe that his wife is going crazy and wants her to tail her to see what she does during the day.

What Stewart’s character isn’t aware of is that this couple is using him and is in on a murder plot. They want Scottie played by Stewart to think that Madeline played by Kim Novak is dead. When the fact is she is alive and well and comes back in the movie playing another character that just happens to meet Scottie. And Scottie is blown away by her because of the incredible resemblance and falls in lover with the same women again. A very interesting and good movie, but certainly not the best Hitchcock movie.

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HBO: Real Time With Bill Maher- Bill Maher: Destroys Idiots Who Say Atheism is a Religion

Source: HBO

Source: This piece was originally posted at FRS Daily Press

I don’t have a problem with people being Atheists, we have Freedom of Religion in the United States. Which means Americans have the constitutional right to believe or not believe in religion. But we don’t have the right to force our views on other people or force them into law. We have a Fist Amendment in this country, which is Freedom of Speech, but we don’t have a constitutional right to force others to go along with what we believe.

Which is something the Religious Right has never understood in this country. But is something that the Atheist Left doesn’t get either. It’s not good enough for them apparently that they have the constitutional right to not believe in God, but they feel the need to look down on and put down people who do believe who do. And that if anything that religion shouldn’t even exist in the United States, a country that is probably the most religious country in the West.

Mexico and Italy might come close on that. But we are very religious as a country, compared with Canada and Europe. And I guess Atheists feel outnumbered in America. Atheists tend to be progressive (socialist actually) politically, people who are supposed to be tolerant and open-minded. And yet they tend to have very little to no tolerance for people who believe in God, a bit of a contradiction.

As much as Atheists claim to have no faith, they seem to have a lot of faith in that God doesn’t exist. And there a lot of today’s Progressives in this country who claim to not believe in God, but also claim to be very spiritual. This is common in Hollywood and I don’t doubt that they are. But I believe there’s another reason with that. That being religious in this country especially among young people, where the decline in religion is very high, fewer Americans going to church or a House of Warship, but not being spiritual may come down as too elitist for a lot of people.

But not being religious at all, makes you seem like an elitist, someone who can’t communicate with the average folk so to speak. That you think you are better than everyone else because you feel you don’t need God or something. But if you are spiritual, you can sort of split the difference. “I don’t believe in God, but I believe in a higher power or something above myself”.

What we need in this country from the Religious Right and the Atheist Left, is instead of them trying to destroy each other, that they both realize that they both have a constitutional right to exist. That we do have a First Amendment in America that protects both Freedom of Speech and Freedom of Religion. And they would both do much better and be able to attract more followers in the future, because they would seem tolerant and reasonable.

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Free Thinking: Bill Maher- Be More Cynical on religion

Source: Free Thinking

Source: This piece was originally posted at FRS Daily Press

Being cynical is probably a conservative boring way to live your life. Where you’ll end up taking less risks and you’re not putting your heart on the line very often. Not trying to sound gushy, but being cynical has its advantages as well. You’ll probably get burned and disappointed less, because you’re taking less chances. You’re not automatically going to take someone’s word when they say something.

For example when a member of Congress refers to someone from the other party as their friend, which happens all the time in the Senate, you’re not automatically going to assume Sen. Smith is friends with Sen. Jones or John McCain is friends with George W. Bush. Just because they say that, you’ll understand that they may just be saying that.

That’s how Washington works and when a member of Congress is referred to as a distinguished gentlemen or distinguished gentle lady, you know that they not be distinguished at all. Perhaps except for being a leader in Congress when it comes to fundraising, or bridges to nowhere, or “bringing home the bacon”, that no one eats. Because no one lives or drives there, etc.

If you trust someone who has a good track record with you, they have sound judgement, etc and they invite out to treat you for dinner or will pick up the check, you know to take their word they’ll do those things. But when you offer them something to eat and give it to them, something they never had before and they taste it and have a horrible look on their face and they say it’s not good, chances are they are just being nice and don’t take that seriously. Truth and flattery are different.

The only advice I would give here, is take things in life for what they are. And don’t automatically assume everything you hear is the truth. Especially from people who need you for something. I would start with politicians, but anyone who needs something from you, when they do and say things that make sense and you know why they did it and understand it, great.

But if they do or say something strange that’s out of character and is something that’s not a good thing, for example let’s say you love playing tennis. And someone you know needs something from you. And they don’t have a clue about tennis and don’t even like the game and they start talking to about tennis, trying to express an interest in it, even challenging you to a match, don’t automatically assume they’ve become tennis fans.

They just might want you to believe that they are tennis fans instead, as a way to communicate to you. When they give you an explanation for it, unless it makes sense and adds up, don’t automatically assume they are saying what happened or the whole truth. Because they might only be saying what they want you to hear.

I know I’m a political junky and I have this pattern of using political stories to communicate broader points. But this is my last political story here. Politicians are the perfect people to be cynical about. If a white-collar politician comes to your state, hell let’s say running for President, why not and I’m not going to use a name here, a wealthy white-collar wine and cheese yuppy politician, let’s say.

This person comes to your State and let’s say your state has a lot of blue-collar workers there, lets say Pennsylvania or Ohio. And this politician stops by one of your local taverns or bowling allies in Pittsburgh, to speak to your people. And this person comes to show you his bowling skills, trying to convince you he has some.

Or the white-collar limo owning and riding politician drinks beer to show you he likes beer, but generally doesn’t do these things, don’t automatically assume this politician is like you. But instead wants you to believe he is, to get you to vote for him. He wants your vote not to be friends.

The more you take things as they are and not just what you want them to be, the better you’ll be off if life. And I know that sounds unromantic and perhaps unreligious, but what do you expect from an Agnostic anyway. Because you’ll always know or at least most of them depending on how intelligent you are, who is with you and who wants you to believe they are with you in order to get something out of you.

Free Thinking: Bill Maher- Be More Cynical on Religion

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Movie Clips: Primary Colors- A Movie Based off a Real Southern New Democrat

This post was originally posted at FRS Daily Press

I saw the movie Primary Colors in the spring of 1998. Doesn’t seem that long ago, but that’s a different story with a long time friend of mine from high school who’ll go nameless. And we saw it for free because my friend worked at a movie theater, one of the few perks of being friends of him. And I looked forward to seeing this movie, because it reminded me of a real-life Southern politician another New Democrat. The real Liberal Democrats, who’s a political hero of mine, who had the ability and vision to do great things. But lacked personal discipline, made too many mistakes for someone with his intelligence who also had a strong take charge attractive wife played by Emma Thomas. Who’ve could’ve been very successful on her own.

The question being could her husband be successful on his own. Same question in this movie Primary Colors was full of scenes that looked like the real person I’m talking about and if you’ve seen the movie and follow American politics, you probably already know who I’m talking about. And the movie was also based on this real-life person, liberal governor from the South who culturally fit in very well with his state and the broader region. Who didn’t have any Federal Government experience, not even serving in the military. Who despite being a Southerner, fit in very well with people outside of that region especially Northeastern and Hollywood Democrats who have a lot of power in the Democratic Party if not run the party.

The main politician in Primary Colors the character played by John Travolta, great actor and a very funny man GOV. Jack Stanton running for President, had the strong wife that I was talking about. Started running for President in New Hampshire with a very small budget and staff, just like the real-life person. Had a sex scandal that involved a long time friend of the Governor, had really smart political strategist also from the South played by Billy Bob Thornton. Again long time friend of the Governor just like the real-life person, veteran politicos as well a young people on his staff. Just like the real-life person and there was a question of whether GOV. Stanton evaded the Vietnam War Draft just like the real-life character.

There was a primary debate where GOV. Stanton had a big moment to win the debate just like the real movie. There was a campaign event, where GOV. Stanton was able to connect with the audience his I feel your pain moment just like the real movie. When GOV. Stanton basically told the audience that “I know times are tough, but I can’t promise you the jobs you lost are coming back. That its time that a lot of American workers go back to school and learn other trades”. Which also happened with the real-life character. And of course the comeback kid moment in New Hampshire where GOV. Stanton does well enough in New Hampshire to keep his campaign going.

Of course the real life person I”m talking about is Bill Clinton who back in 1991-92, when he was running for President was Governor of Arkansas and was a Liberal Democrat ,but in the true sense. Progressive sure, but also understood the limits of government and the New Deal and Great Society. And that government has to be more responsible with tax revenue and of course all those situations that I just laid in the movie actually happened with Bill Clinton or were very similar.

Very intelligent, but not very discipline, strong intelligent wife with Hillary Clinton. Small budget and campaign in New Hampshire, memorable debate where he takes in Jerry Brown. The campaign event where he feels the senior citizens pain and walks up to her and hugs her. The sex scandal with Jennifer Flowers, the story of whether Bill Clinton dodged the Vietnam War. Great Political Strategist Jim Carville these things being true.

Primary Colors was based on Bill Clinton and his 1992 campaign for president where of course he was elected president. And also based on a book by author Joel Klein that was fictional with different names for the characters. But still based on a true story and they both did a very good job and this was a very entertaining movie.

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Fire Cloud: Video: The Contender 2000: Lane Evans, The Church of Liberalism

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This post was originally posted at The New Democrat on Blogger

Except for the part about taking every gun out of private hands and private homes, which might be a far-left Hollywood fantasy and clearly against the Second Amendment and the Right to Self-Defense, this was a very good speech by Vice Presidential nominee Senator Lane Evans in The Contender. She was talking about the women’s Right to Choose, of course referring to abortion. The constitutional amendment that gave women the right to vote. Freeing the African slaves in the civil war and using military force to fight for human rights.

If I wrote that speech, I would’ve taken out the part about the guns, left everything else in there. And also talked about Freedom of Speech for everyone, the Right to Privacy for everyone to do everything as long as innocent people aren’t hurt as a result. The right to a quality education for all, which I believe we should have for freedom to really be available to everyone. Instead of writing a speech that makes liberalism look like some form of statism, I would’ve talked about the freedom that liberalism is actually about and not statism. But this for the most part was an excellent speech.

U.S. Senator Lane Evans

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