David Von Pein: ‘The Age of Kennedy: NBC White Paper (1966)’

Source:David Von Pein– NBC News 1966 documentary about John F. Kennedy.

Source:The New Democrat

“THE AGE OF KENNEDY” is an outstanding “NBC White Paper” documentary that was first aired (in two parts) on the NBC Television Network in late May and early June of 1966.

The two “White Paper” programs (subtitled “The Early Years” and “The Presidency”) chronicle the life and political career of the 35th President of the United States, John Fitzgerald Kennedy.

This black-and-white documentary is filled to the brim with excellent archival film footage of JFK and his family. This program is definitely one that should be seen and downloaded for future viewings. It’s absolutely wonderful.

Adding to the classy flavor of this particular JFK video biography is the frequent narration of distinguished actor Henry Fonda in the first half of the program, as Fonda reads words that were written by John Kennedy himself. Chet Huntley of NBC News also serves as a narrator throughout this 101-minute documentary.

In 1997, “The Age Of Kennedy” programs were released by NBC News on home video in a 2-Tape VHS collector’s set, with a slightly-altered title: “NBC White Papers: The Kennedy Era”.

From David Von Pein

John F. Kennedy’s early years as an adult are not very impressive. He was in the U.S. Navy for a few years during World War II and got out in 1945 to and then ran for the House of Representatives in 1946 and got elected there mostly because of his name and his father literally buying votes and ballots.

I think the way to look at Jack Kennedy in the 1940s and 1950s is as a student who is still figuring things out and trying to decide what he wants to do in life. But I don’t believe he figures that out until his first term in the Senate in 1953. Jack Kennedy, was a playboy in Congress really the whole time he was there from 1947-61. His six years in the House and eight years in the Senate. He marries Jackie in 1953 and that doesn’t make him any more responsible.

Kennedy doesn’t figure out what he wants to do and where he’s going in life really until he gets reelected to the Senate in 1958. And he writes the book Profiles in Courage where you get to see his political and ideology emerge. In the 1950s, JFK becomes a Cold War, Liberal Democrat, who sees communism as the biggest threat to freedom and even mankind. As well as someone who wants to use a limited government to empower people in need to get themselves up and live well in life.

Kennedy, wasn’t a Conservative that today’s right-wingers want to portray him as, or a Social Democrat that had a government program to solve everyone’s problems for them. That today’s so-called Progressives want to see him as. But he was a Classical Liberal (the real Liberal) realist and pragmatist.

By the time Jack Kennedy completed his first term in the Senate and decided that he wanted to be President of the United States is where he got serious as a public servant and political leader. That communism needed to be defeated and that freedom needed to be expanded at home. For Americans who were struggling and living in poverty, but also for Americans who were simply denied access in America because of their race and color. Which is just one reason why JFK being assassinated at the age of 46 in 1963 is so tragic. Because the great liberal Jack Kennedy as a political leader was just emerging. He probably gets reelected fairly easily in 1964 against Senator Barry Goldwater. And I think we would have seen one of the best American leaders of all-time.

Read Full Post »

ABC News: ‘ABC World News Tonight, July 10, 1978’

Source:ABC News– World News Tonight With Peter Jennings.

Source:The New Democrat

“The premiere edition, anchored by Frank Reynolds, Max Robinson, and Peter Jennings.Posted for educational and historical purposes only. All material is under the copyright of their original holders. No copyright infringement is intended.”

From News Archive

The thing that people need to know about Marxist states which is exactly what the Soviet Union of Russia was for over seventy-years before the Soviet Union broke with all the non-ethnic-Russian states breaking away and creating their own independent countries, is that they can consider anything that goes against the state as treason. And anyone that says anything in opposition to the central state, is a treasonous.

The fake trial of Natan Sharansky back in 1978 was which was obviously fake. Here’s a man who was simply calling for human rights in a Marxist state where human rights don’t exist. The only rights that exist in a Marxist state all belong to the central government. Which is supposed to use that power to take care of the people.

In the late 1970s you saw Russia get more aggressive with their foreign policy and make moves in North Africa and Central Asia to protect their interests. Like in Ethiopia to protect a Marxist government there and of course in Afghanistan to install a Marxist government there.

You also saw Russian activists and non-ethnic-Russian activists in Russia like Natan Sharansky speak out in favor of human rights in a country where they simply don’t exist. As well as Russian citizens and non-ethnic-Russian citizens including Russian-Jews fleeing their country in hopes of finding freedom and coming to America so to speak because of that. And part of that had to do with President Jimmy Carter making human rights as part of his foreign policy.

1978 was a big year for tax cuts and a bad year for high taxes. As you saw several states with movements calling for cutting taxes across the board. Even in the so-called Republic of California that has always had high taxes and has been one of the most leftist states in the union when it comes to taxation.

In 1978 there was a movement led by anti-tax advocate Howard Jarvis, who you could call a 1970s Tea Party leader who managed to get on the state ballot there a measure that would cut property taxes across the board. And it passed even though California is one of the biggest Democratic states in the union as far as party registration. With a 2-1 Democrat to Republican party ratio. With Democrats controlling both houses of the State Legislature going back to the 1950s.

Read Full Post »

CBS News: 60 Minutes- Lesley Stahl Interviews Jimmy Carter: The White House Diary

Source:CBS News– 60 Minutes Correspondent Lesley Stahl, interviewing President Jimmy Carter (Democrat, Georgia)

Source:The New Democrat

“Lesley Stahl speaks to the former president about his new book, “White House Diary,” in which he admits mistakes and blames Ted Kennedy for delaying comprehensive health care.”

From CBS News

I mentioned this last week, but President Jimmy Carter was not a failed president and I laid out why I believe that. And of course we have the benefit of history now. And the economy was in bad shape when he left and the Soviet Union seemed to be stronger, even though again from the benefit of history their economy was failing with all of their bread lines, unemployment, poverty, shortages, that took them at least twenty years to over. So of course the Soviet Union wasn’t stronger when President Carter left office. Their military was just doing more because they thought America was weak.

There are a couple of reasons why Jimmy Carter wasn’t a great president. One of them his fault and the other partly his fault. His relationship with the two Democratic Congress’s that he had, especially with Senator Ted Kennedy, but Speaker of the House Tip O’Neil and Senate Leader Robert Byrd and many other examples. President Carter, actually had a better relationship with Senate Minority Leader Howard Baker (the ranking Republican in Congress during the Carter years) then he probably had with any Democratic leader in Congress. Including Southern Democrats who he probably had things in common with.

The other issue being all the problems that he had to deal with as president. Not his fault for the most part that they happened. Especially with the economy, but where he comes up short from my perspective at least was his failure to deal with them and gain traction and success in those areas. President Obama, inherited a worst economy then either President Carter, or President Reagan and yet the economy started moving again fairly quickly under his administration. And started creating jobs early in his second year.

I think what you see in the Carter White House diary, is what Americans back then and today really like and respect about the man. That Jimmy Carter, is a person and individual before he’s a politician.
He’s the politician that Americans say they want. Above board, free-thinker, free speaker, above politics, not all the time, but a lot of the time, does and says what he believes and then deals with the consequences. Including about how he feels with people he has to work with. As you see in his White House diary.

The problem with Americans though and perhaps where Carter’s personality hurt him, is that is just what Americans say they want. They actually prefer bullshit artists who tell them what they want to hear, generally, then free thinkers.

Read Full Post »

HKL Films: Wag The Dog 1997 Trailer- A Movie About a Real Made Up Presidential Scandal

This post was originally posted at FRS Daily Press

The late 1990s was a crazy and fascinating time for many reasons politically and other things and also one of the best periods for Hollywood as far as making movies. Some of my favorite movies of all-time come from 1997-99. Wag the Dog 1997 being one of them, Jackie Brown 1997 being another as far as I’m concern the best Quentin Tarantino movie of all-time. Out of Sight 1998 being another one, Primary Colors 1998 another one of my favorite movies. Cop Land 1997, The Big Lebowski 1998 maybe my favorite comedy of all-time with a great comedy duo in Jeff Bridges and John Goodman. Very Bad Things 1998 another very funny movie, Wild Things 1998 very funny.

But one movie in particular because it fit in perfectly with the times especially politically. The Monica Lewinsky scandal breaks in January 1998 the same month that the Pope visits Cuba which I doubt made the United States Government very happy especially with their embargo policy of Cuba. And also when President Clinton was probably at his most popular. Wag the Dog came out about a year earlier, in the Summer of 1997, two American embassies in East Africa were bombed and then America attacks both Sudan and Afghanistan.

Because the Clinton Administration believed that the Sudanese Government had a role of the African bombings. Again we attack Afghanistan as well that same month August 1998, but here’s the thing and why Wag the Dog is so relevant. That movie is about people working for the White House creating the appearance of a war in order to get the media and people’s attention off the latest sex scandal of the President.

After America attacked Sudan and Afghanistan by sending in missile strikes, Republicans in Congress Senator Dan Coates of Indiana whose generally a pretty rational and responsible person, right away questions whether the missile strikes had something to do with the Lewinsky scandal. And was done as a distraction just like in the movie Wag the Dog and even said something to that effect. “I wonder or I hope this is not a Wag the Dog moment for President Clinton”. The movie came out just a few months before the Lewinsky scandal broke. Wag the Dog is a movie about the President being in trouble with another sex scandal. He’s a popular President up until the scandal and looks like he’s flying to reelection.

But the scandal breaks and of course his opponent in the race a U.S. Senator played by Craig Nelson try’s to make the most out of it. Senator Nelson lets say is way down in the polls and is looking for anything he can to break through. Someone in the White House calls in a veteran big shot political strategist to deal with the scandal played by Robert DeNiro and he gets the idea that what the President needs is a distraction. To get the country’s attention off of the sex scandal and comes up with the idea of a fake war and hire a Hollywood producer played by Dustin Hoffman to put this show together.

Wag the Dog is a great movie for several reasons, one because of how relevant it is, perhaps not realistic though especially in the information age. And this movie did come out in 1997 as far as them being able to cover up a fake war without the Defense Department, CIA or someone knowing about it. But it’s still a very funny movie, well written and a great cast Robert DeNiro, Dustin Hoffman, Bill Macy, Ann Heche, Craig Nelson, Dennis Leary and others. And how desperate that these politicos were to save a Presidency and would even create a fake war to do that.

Read Full Post »

Movie Clips: The American President, 1995- A Movie About Romance and Hardball Politics

This piece was originally posted at FRS Daily Press

If you’re someone whose a political junky such as myself and you love watching political movies and political documentaries, than The American President is a very good movie. Because it’s about a President who at the beginning of the movie is pretty popular and is going into to his reelection campaign having not finished his whole agenda that he ran on, trying to finish that agenda with a crime bill and an energy bill.

And they go into how he and the White House work with Congress to get the votes to pass that agenda and how they set up the staff to do that. And how they work with special interest groups to get the support for their energy bill. If you’re someone who like romantic comedy’s that aren’t predictable and cheesy and are clever. Than The American President is a good movie, because it’s about a President whose a widower and the single parent of a daughter who’s somewhat lonely.

President Andrew Shepard meets an environmental lobbyist by accident, walks in on a meeting she’s having with his Chief of Staff. And he asks her to be his date at the next state dinner and even the process he goes through to make that happen is interesting because he calls her up at home. And she thinks the President is one of her friends impersonating the President. And makes fun of him, but the President doesn’t give up and calls her back to convince her he’s the President. The American President has hardball politics, romance and political scandal in about 105 minutes. A little something for everybody.

President Andrew Shepard, with a name like that he must be from New England, but he’s the former Governor of Wisconsin played by Michael Douglas. And this is one of his best roles because you see his ability to act and I’m not a big fan of most of his movies, but I believe he’s a great actor and you see his funny side in the movie and he can be very funny as well. He’s no Danny DeVito, but he can more than hold his own in comedy. Again plays the President who’s somewhat popular going in heading into an election year with still a big agenda to pass, and meets this environmental lobbyist played by Annette Bening who doesn’t like President Shepard’s Energy bill and they talk about it.

And the President and the lobbyist (sounds like the title of a movie) make a deal that if she can land half of the votes in the House for the bill she wants, he’ll get the other half. And at the end of the meeting he asks her on a date. She doesn’t take him seriously, threatens the President that he has to come through, or the President will lose the support of her group. The President gets his date and they hit it off and start an affair that causes the President trouble politically as well as with his agenda.

Again The American President is a movie that has hardball politics, romance, and political scandal. With the romance and with Senate Minority Leader Bob Rumson who’s also running for President making everything he can out of this affair even calling Sydney Ellen Wade a whore on national TV. And running as the Religious Right candidate for President, the Champion of Traditional Values. Running against a Liberal Democrat and a card caring member of the ACLU. And the scene towards the end of the movie, the press conference makes the whole thing worth watching where he sums up the whole movie in about five minutes.

Read Full Post »

American Experience: JFK, Extended Preview

Source:American Experience with a preview of their JFK documentary.

Source:The New Democrat

“The 2-minute preview for JFK, a new biopic coming to PBS and American Experience on November 11 & 12, 2013.”

From American Experience

The PBS version of John F. Kennedy is the best program at least I’ve seen of Jack Kennedy this month. Not that there has been a lot of quality programs and films about his so far in November. Because the rest of them have been about the assassination and why he was in Dallas in November, 1963. Or why he so highly regarded in pop culture as a cool president. But the American Experience program is truly about his life and his career.

Jack Kennedy before Congress, in Congress, the famous 1960 presidential election against Richard Nixon, the Kennedy Administration obviously and all of the key moments that happened in his administration. How he put his administration together, the relationship he had with the Southern Caucus of right-wing Democrats in Congress that had the real power in the House and Senate. Even though he did have large Democratic majorities in both the House and Senate.

President Kennedy’s policies to stimulate economic growth and expand educational and college opportunities. The Bay of Pigs, the Cuban Missile Crisis, his hard push for civil rights legislation. All of the things that you tend not to get from the commercial networks or the entertainment cable networks. But that you only get for the most part from PBS and films you see at the theater.

Read Full Post »

Ragma Loka: Killing John F. Kennedy (2013) Starring Rob Lowe

Source:Ragma Loka– Rob Lowe as President John F. Kennedy, during his last days alive.

“Recounting the chaotic events that occurred in Dallas, Texas on November 22, 1963, PARKLAND weaves together the perspectives of a handful of ordinary individuals suddenly thrust into extraordinary circumstances: the young doctors and nurses at Parkland Hospital, Dallas’ chief of the Secret Service, an unwitting cameraman who captured what became the most watched and examined film in history.”

From Ragma Loka

I saw bits and pieces of this movie and I didn’t think it was very good. Which is probably why I only saw bits and pieces of it. I’ve caught a little more of it when it has come back on with its repeats.

The movie about Kennedy from Reelz in 2011, I thought was much better and perhaps that is why they covered the entire Kennedy presidency, at least his years as President. And I thought Greg Kinnear did a much better job playing Jack Kennedy than Rob Lowe.

In 2013, there will be several movies about JFK because of the fiftieth anniversary of the JFK assassination. Including a film from PBS about the life of JFK, which I believe will be the best film.

Killing Kennedy is fairly interesting, but it really just about the last year or so JFK, including the Bay of Pigs fiasco in 1962 and the Cuban missile crisis. And this movie doesn’t go into great detail about John F. Kennedy as President.

What you see in this movie, is the stuff that is better suited for tabloid news and tabloid news fans. The women of JFK including his wife Jackie and of course all the affairs that President Kennedy had, including in the White House and including with women with dangerous organized connections. Including Judy Exner and Lee Oswald’s last year or so leading up to him assassinating President Kennedy. This movie I would give a 7.5 or 8, but it’s not a great movie.

You can also see this post on Blogger.

You can also see this post at FRS FreeState, on WordPress.

Read Full Post »

The White House: Weekly Address- President Barack Obama: ‘Celebrating Father’s Day Weekend’

Source:The White House– President Barack H. Obama (Democrat, Illinois) 44th President of the United States.

“President Obama discusses Father’s Day and notes that nothing substitutes for the love and support of the presence of a parent in a child’s life.”

Source: The White House

How to talk about the most important man in my life, which is the challenge of this post. How to communicate about the man who gave us life and has served as the most important male role model if. Not most important role model at least in my life. That’s why we have Father’s Day in America, to celebrate the men who gave us life and allowed for our country to keep on growing and moved us forward. Who raised us and made sure we had everything that we need growing up to be successful in life. So we go to a good school and are doing what we can to do the best job that we can as students, so we can be successful in life. Who work so we always have a place to live and enough food to eat.

Our father’s are always there to support us when we need them and are there in our most important moments in our lives. Just not as we are growing up, but as adults as well and the guy we can count on when we need advice and someone to turn to. That’s what father’s are for and why they are so important and why people who grew up with their fathers and had good father’s, tend to turn out better in life, then people who didn’t have a responsible father, or never met their father, or lost their father early on in life. And what my father means to me.

So that’s how I look at Father’s Day and what dad means to me. The guy, the rock I can go to when I need advice about something that I can’t get from anywhere else. Or can’t get better advice from anywhere else. Who I know will support me, whose always worked very hard in life professionally. But also as a father so his kids always have what they need to be successful and to live well.

And when I talk about dad, I tend to use words like Big Daddy and Teddy Bear for a couple of reasons. One because of his physical stature. A big tall man over 6’0 and two hundred pounds. Where I clearly get my size if you were to see both of my parents. But also his personality and when he hugs you, it’s like getting a hug from a big Teddy Bear with the warmth and strength that comes from his hugs. But personally that’s how he is as well. A very loving man who wants the best for all of his kids. Myself and my two brothers who also has a tough love approach to life. That he’s the nicest guy in the world, as long as you are doing what you are supposed to be doing.

But Dad is no one’s puppet, or punching bag and can also get on you and will when you are not doing what you should be doing. Or could be doing things better. We have Mother’s Day and Father’s Day even though some other countries might see them as corny. But we have these days to celebrate the two most important role models in our lives. Who without, we would never had existed. The two people who tend to be the most important people in our lives.

Father’s Day, is about celebrating the most important man in our lives the man who gave us life who raised us. From the day we were born and has been there everyday since support us and that’s what dad means to me. So happy Father’s Day, Big Daddy!

You can also see this post at FRS FreeState, on WordPress.

Read Full Post »

ABC News: World News Tonight (July 10, 1978)

Source:ABC News– U.S. Secretary of State Cyrus Vance.

“The very first broadcast of ABC World News Tonight on July 10, 1978 with Max Robinson in Chicago, Frank Reynolds in Washington, and Peter Jennings in London.

DISCLAIMER: I don’t own any rights to this video.”

From Sanjay Iyer

The economy was probably the biggest story of 1978, because that’s when it went down hill and didn’t come back until late 1983. With high unemployment, high interest rates, high inflation, and energy shortage and a recession in 1979-80 and all these things started in 1978. It was called the Great Deflation that started with the 1973 oil embargo that led to energy shortages. America was getting out of Vietnam and jobs were no longer being created from that war. Economic growth slowing down, unemployment going up. As well as the Federal budget deficit, interest rates and inflation. Even if the economy looked solid in January, of 78 with fairly low unemployment that was about to change very quickly by the spring that year.

The Soviet Union of Russia was feeling very strong as far as it’s military and energy power in the late 1970s. And when a huge, powerful, police state, especially a superpower like Russia, feels strong, it tends to behave very badly, like with the way it treats it’s own people, especially people who don’t like their regime, like Jewish-Russian Natan Sharansky. He was literally put on trial in Russia for speaking out against the Soviet State in Russia.

You can also see this post on Blogger.

Read Full Post »

Slate Magazine: David Weigel: ‘Filibuster Reform Kicks Open the Coffin and Returns From the Dead’

Source:Slate Magazine– Richard Cordray is President Barack Obama’s nominee to head the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

Source:FRS FreeState

“So far, it seems like only Greg Sargent and HuffPost are noticing: Democrats are talking about filibuster reform again. The latest progress report comes in this story from Ryan Grim and Jennifer Bendery, who find Democratic senators newly frustrated by their failure to pass bills or confirm nominees, especially CFPB head Richard Cordray.

Reid indicated Tuesday that he would bring Cordray’s nomination to a vote in July, and a Senate Democratic aide said that vote will come at a time when Reid is ready to launch into a broader fight over all of Obama’s stalled nominees. The “plan is to wait until immigration is complete before engaging in total all-out nom[ination] fight,” said the aide.

What kind of fight are we talking about? It starts with Democrats claiming to hold 51 votes to end the filibuster on executive branch nominees, because Republicans are being unreasonable. Republicans have tried to blunt the attack by proving that, hey, they’re letting people through and you’re not noticing.

“This President is being treated exceptionally fairly,” said Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley, the ranking member of the Judiciary Committee, on the floor this week. “The President has recently submitted a few new nominations. I know I have been reminding him that we can’t do anything about vacancies without him first sending up nominees. But again, even with the recent nominations, 58 of 82 nominations still have no nominee.”

Basically, Republicans need to lower the temperature and portray Democrats as unreasonable liars. “More executive branch appointments, confirmations, by and large – it’s been handled in a very bipartisan way,” said Mitch McConnell yesterday in his brief weekly on-camera press conference. This is one reason you saw so much harrumphing when Sen. Ted Cruz bragged to Texas conservatives that “squishes” sold him out on his filibuster of the motion to proceed to debate on guns. That fed into the public impression that Republicans were obstructionists – and, well, they are, for lots of good reasons, but it’s tough to sell when something popular is being obstructed.

So Republicans hype the nominees they let through, ask why Obama isn’t sending more nominees, and (as Daniel Foster pointed out in National Review) nominating conservatives for mandatory seats on bipartisan panels, whenever possible. They also express shock that Democrats would change the rules, or think about it.
“The majority leader said earlier this year that he would not change the rules in any extraordinary way, the nuclear option, in this Congress,” said McConnell on Tuesday. “I take him at his word. The assumption is that will not be done.”

From Slate Magazine

“Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) clearly explains how the republican minority was abusing senate rules at historic levels, leaving the democrats no choice but to change those rules and lower the number of votes needed from 60 to 51 to overcome obstructionist filibusters of presidential nominees.”

Source:TDC– U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (Democrat, Nevada)

From TDC

To be completely fair and to put everything out there and I do agree with probably everything that Majority Leader Harry Reid said in his speech, but Senate Democrats led first by Tom Daschle in 2003-04 and later Harry Reid when he was Senate Minority Leader from 2005-06, did the exact same thing that Senate Republicans led by Mitch McConnell are doing now, that Republicans are in the minority. They’re blocking nominees simply because they don’t like them, or are worried that Democrats will get a partisan advantage in the Federal court system. Which is exactly what Senate Democrats first led by Tom Daschle and later Harry Reid, did to then President George W. Bush, when Democrats were in the minority in the mid 2000s.

I think the only solution here is really clear and I also agree with Leader Reid on this as well. There should be no more filibusters on any executive or judicial nominee, that clears the committee with a majority vote. And in exchange, the minority party led by the Minority Leader can offer amendments to all the nominees that they disapprove of. Amendments like before this nominee is approve, the Senate needs answers to these questions or have these documents turned over first. But those amendments would just need majority approval as well. But at the end of the day, if the President and the Senate has a majority vote for the nominees, they should be approved.

Read Full Post »