USFL Forever: USFL 1983-Week 1-New Jersey Generals @ Los Angeles Express: Full Game

Source:Real Life Journal

I can see why ABC Sports and the USFL would want New Jersey and Los Angeles for their week 1 matchup on ABC. The biggest markets in America in Los Angeles and New York/North Jersey. And try to get a big week one TV rating from this game. And maybe they did, but the New Jersey Generals were 6-12 in 83 and were much better in 84 and 85, but they were a bad team in 83, at least as far as what they showed. And the Los Angeles Express were 8-10 a mediocre team that again were better in 84 and 85.

I think what is rememberable about this game is that it was Generals running back Herschel Walker’s first professional football game. No question the best college running back in 1982 and instead of playing in the NFL, he ends up in the USFL because he lost his college eligibility for speaking to pro agents too soon. Either a bad rule or big mistake on Herschel’s part. Because had Herschel played his whole career in the NFL, we are talking about a guaranteed first ballot hall of famer. But that is how good the USFL was as far as the talent that they had and the players they brought in.

David Von Pein: Huntley Brinkley Report: Outtakes From An Interview With President John F. Kennedy

Source:The Daily Press

President Kennedy, getting a rare opportunity at a retake of an interview that he had before. David Brinkley and Chet Huntley, interviewing President Kennedy about Vietnam. Which of course in 1963 was going through a civil war between Communists in the North and Democrats in the South. The Eisenhower Administration decided to back the Democratic North in a limited way through aid and other resources. That the Kennedy Administration decided to continue when they came into office in 1961. Almost three years later in late 1963 President Kennedy was in a position where he needed to decide how much should America help the Democratic South after they sent advisers into Vietnam to assist the South. But I think it was clear that he wasn't in favor of sending American troops in to fight the Vietnam Civil War.

The second question being about the Kennedy tax cuts of 1963 that President Lyndon Johnson finally got through a Democratic Congress in 1963 after the assassination of President Kennedy in November of 63. The American economy of 1963 wasn't that different from the American economy of 2011-12. As far as economic and job growth. The economy in both periods was growing and creating jobs, but not very rapidly and slowly recovering from previous recessions. What President Kennedy wanted to do was put through an across the board tax cut and pay for it by cutting loopholes. To drive consumer spending and economic growth. There were concerns in Congress about how a tax cut that size would affect the deficit. And that is what the President was dealing with then.

Jack Kennedy, was a true Liberal Democrat, because he believed that liberty was worth defending here at home. That America had to be strong at home first economically before we try to show strength abroad. And the we way we should try to show strength abroad was not to try to police the world by ourselves, but work with our allies to preserve peace and expand freedom to people who were looking for it, but didn't have it. Because they were being held down by an authoritarian dictatorial regime. Where they have very little if any say on what goes on in their own country. And these were the reasons that the President wanted to help Democratic Vietnam, get the Senate to pass the Test Ban Treaty and to pass a large tax cut. Because he wanted to defend freedom at home and abroad and strengthen the American economy. So more Americans could live in freedom.

Raymond Fisher: Martin Luther King & Malcolm X Debate

Source:Real Life Journal

The Ali-Frazier of the American civil rights movement and what made this debate inside the African-American civil rights movement so interesting was how different the personalities of Martin King and Malcolm X were. And their different strategies and tactics in accomplishing what they wanted which was freedom, civil rights the constitutional rights to be enforced equally under law for African-Americans.

Martin King played the numbers game so to speak. Knowing that African-Americans only represented around ten percent of the population at this point. Knew that he would need the support of others in the country to accomplish his goals. Including like-minded Caucasian-Americans, as well as Jewish-Americans and Latino-Americans. In order to build the movement to pass the laws he was in favor of. Malcolm X took a more unrealistic approach which was that “we are here and want what is already entitled to us. Which is our freedom and since the Caucasians are in charge, they should simply just give our freedom to us.”

Dr. King had the approach that brought about the civil rights laws of the 1960s and all of those victories. But Malcolm X had a better post-civil rights movement approach for how to fix the African-American community going forward. Which was about individual freedom based through education, economic expansion, for the African-Americans to have the resources to build their communities and run their own business’s. Whereas Dr. King had more of a government centric, pubic assistance approach. That government should just give poor people money and take care of them.

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. ”

From 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.

NBC News: Update With John Dancy (December, 1979)

Source:FRS FreeState 

1979 was a very rough year as the summer showed with an energy shortage and high inflation and interest rates and so- forth. And this was after the so-called crisis of confidence speech from President Carter in I believe August of that summer. And after the Iranian Hostage Crisis in November that year. And one of the ironic things about 1979 economically, was that the economy was growing and jobs were created before the recession later that year. But people weren't feeling that because whatever economic growth there was, was getting wiped out by high inflation and interest rates. The economic malaise and the Great Deflation of the 1970s, a combination of high inflation and interest rates, was the worst economy America had at that point at least since the Great Depression.

But the bad economy was obviously bad enough for President Carter and the Democratic Congress then. And probably enough reason for President Carter to lose reelection and for Democrats to at least lose a lot of seats in Congress, even if Republicans didn't win back the House or Senate. The Iranian Hostage Crisis late in 1979 was simply the toper to that. The country was still dealing with an energy crisis that a very cold winter and very hot summer that year obviously didn't help. I actually remember a little of that summer. The country was essentially in crisis mode that year and except for what was going in entertainment and sports which was great that year, especially the World Series and Super Bowl which were both classics that were both won by Pittsburgh, there wasn't much to be happy about.

Drug Warriors Continue the Anti-Marijuana Propaganda

Source:FRS FreeState 

So to sum up where the drug warriors are now when it comes to the War on Drugs specifically when it comes to marijuana. Is that the War on Drugs is not working according to Margaret Hoover, but we should continue to support it anyway. Continue to support something that is not working. That makes a lot of sense, what’s conservative about continuing to support something with tax dollars that's not working. And then Margaret Hoover who I do not mean to pick on, but she lays out exactly perhaps unintentionally why the drug warriors are losing this argument. 

Margaret Hoover said that "if we legalize marijuana it would suddenly be available to kids". Apparently not realizing that if marijuana were to be legalize it would be regulated like alcohol. Twenty one or over to use, possess or purchase marijuana in America. So if you think marijuana would be too available to kids in this country, you should also be looking at alcohol and tobacco. Two drugs that are just as bad or worst than marijuana and how available they are to kids right now and they are legal today.

But there’s more and just to show that I’m not just picking on Margaret Hoover, but also to show why the drug warriors are losing now.  You go to Jason Taylor in the video who says that "if we legalize marijuana, heroin and cocaine would be next". Even though there’s no polling data that supports legalizing heroin or cocaine in this country. Except for maybe when it comes to cocaine and heroin dealers. Mr. Taylor use to play for the Miami Dolphins so perhaps, he met a few of them in South Florida. And that's why he made that point.

In another brilliant statement Taylor made had to do with "if we can’t successfully fight drugs in this country, why don’t we just legalize bank robberies because we can’t stop bank robbers". It's similar to the people who are against gay marriage who say "if we allow men to marry men and women to marry women, what’s next men will be allowed to marry their children and the same thing with women". When there’s no polling data thats shows any serious support for any of these things.

This is why I believe the marijuana legalization argument as well as the gay marriage argument is no longer liberal vs. conservative. It's no longer Left vs. Right even because now we have leftists and rightists who support marijuana legalization and gay marriage. Or at least allowing the states to make these decisions themselves. 

Liberals and Progressives on the Left who support marijuana-legalization. And Conservatives and Libertarians on the Right who support it. People who believe these decisions are about freedom and individual choice vs prohibitionists on the Left and Right who are against it even though they are now struggling to explain why. 

The Daily Telegraph: The Making of Margaret: Making Conservatism Mainstream in a Socialist State

Source:The FreeState

Margaret Thatcher, in some ways was very lucky because she arrived on the seen as first Leader of The Opposition in the United Kingdom in the mid 1970s. And then of course Prime Minister in 1979 at the perfect time when Britain was down and when socialism was not working and when the British were looking for a different message. Not so much different from what the United States was going through in the late 1970s. And Ronald Reagan came onto the scene.

Margaret Thatcher, didn’t set out to destroy Socialism, but empower Brits to have the freedom to take care of themselves and take on more responsibility in governing their own lives. And handing more power down from the central government in Britain to the British people themselves. Maggie Thatcher, coming to power in Britain was truly a Conservative Revolution from when the Socialists in the Labour Party had all the power in Britain. To a time where there was a new message in Britain. That was conservative and getting government out of the business of running people’s lives.

I believe Maggie Thatcher, would be called a Northeastern, or Bob Dole even Conservative Republican in America. Someone who was in favor of having a public safety net. But that it wasn’t the job of government to take care of physically and mentally able people for their entire lives. To help people who truly need it, but to help them help themselves. To put physically and mentally able people to work. Help people who are out of work get back to work, or go to work for the first time in their lives. As well as move Britain away from Marxist state economics and create a larger private sector in Britain.