Muhammad Ali: The Greatest of All-Time

Source:Nonstop Sports– Down goes Sonny Liston!

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

“The unbelievable life story of Muhammad Ali, the greatest boxer ever, and the most influential athlete of all time.

There have been better punchers, boxers with better records or more victories – but nobody had what Ali brought to the table. He was a phenomenal champion, the greatest entertainer, and the leading activist for human rights amongst all athletes.

Here is the life story of one Muhammad Ali and our take on his greatness – his boxing, his great service to humanity, his famous trash talk, but also his stepping out of line, and stubbornness that kept him in the ring for too long.

Muhammad Ali – The Greatest of All Time.”

From Nonstop Sports

How to explain Muhammad Ali, the challenge of this post and the challenge of the day for me.

Imagine a big tall man 6’2-6’3, probably more like 6’2 whose built like a statue and looks more like an NFL linebacker or running back than a boxer because he’s also 215-220 pounds depending on the fight. And who was all muscle and well-built like a statue. Muhammad was certainly not invincible as we all know now with the state of his health.

And we also know he was declining both physically and mentally when he was still fighting as early as 1975 with the third fight against Joe Frazier. Taking a serious toll on him, which should’ve been the fight that forced Muhammad into retirement. But Muhammad was so much stronger both physically and mentally than most of the fighters he fought.

Muhammad could take so much more than most if not any other boxer who ever fought. Which allowed him to be able to deliver all the punishment that he did to his opponents. Muhammad Ali fought with a shield that you had to break in order to beat him.

If Larry Bird is the genius when it comes to basketball players, then Muhammad Ali is the genius when it comes to boxers. Because he was a boxer that could see fights developing before they developed.

Muhammad knew his opponents as well as himself better than they knew themselves or him. So he was always at least a couple of steps ahead of his opponents and even his own corner.

Muhammad won most of his fights before the fights happened because of all the preparation he put himself through. And being able to sike out his opponents and get them to hate him and wanting to knock Ali out instead of trying win the fight. And Ali would use that against him and simply do his job: “I can hit you and prevent you from hitting me.”

Muhammad: “Even if you land shots, I’m strong enough to take them and hit you back harder. Because I’m built like a tank and with the amount of punishment that I can deliver to you I’ll beat you simply by wearing you down.” This happened against Ron Lyle where both fighters delivered many great shots, but where Ali could simply take and deliver more than Ron Lyle had to offer.

Another way to look at Muhammad Ali is not to look at him as a knockout artist, someone who could knock you out in one or two punches like a George Forman or Mike Tyson. But look at Muhammad as a power-puncher who knocked people out unless they were strong enough to go the distance with 5-10 punches in a row or a hundred punches.

Muhammad got his knockouts by simply punishing his opponents and wearing them down. And what makes Muhammad Ali the greatest heavyweight of all time is his physical strength and stamina, as well as preparation. But also because of his intelligence that he knew his opponents a lot of times better than they knew themselves. And used that against them.

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

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Muhammad Ali: ‘Why I Refused To Go To Vietnam’

Source:Iconic– The Greatest of All Time: Muhammad Ali.

You can also see this post on Blogger.

“Muhammad Ali on his decision to not joining the US army.”

From Iconic

“My conscious won’t let me go shoot my brother, or some darker people, or some poor hungry people in the mud for big powerful America. And shoot them for what? They never called me nigger, they never lynched me, they didn’t put no dogs on me, they didn’t rob me of my nationality, rape and kill my mother and father… Shoot them for what? …How can I shoot them poor people, Just take me to jail.”

Source:Kaotik Calm– The Greatest of All Time: Muhammad Ali.

From Kaotik Calm

One thing that I respect about Muhammad Ali is that no one pushed him around, for the most part. Except for Don King perhaps with all the money he screwed Muhammad out of as his promoter in the 1970s. And Muhammad perhaps the most famous athlete in the world not just in the United States in the 1960s, who was at the heart of the American civil rights movement because of his race.

Because of Muhammad’s intelligence and the attention that he could bring to himself and because of how honest he was and wasn’t nice to the American establishment no matter the race, who knew how to get exactly what he wanted. And always said exactly what was on his mind so when he said he was against the Vietnam War in the mid 1960s. Like most people in his generation and was not going to fight against a country that never harmed him. Or denied him his freedom and constitutional rights because of his race and his complexion to fight against a country that never hurt him.

Muhammad wasn’t going to fight for a country that was trying to hold him down and when he said: “I’m not going to fight for a country that’s been trying to hold me down, because of my race to fight against a country that never called me Nigger”. and so-forth and he was being honest and serious. Muhammad was the Malcolm X of professional sports as far as someone who knew American history and the state of the African-American community.

Muhammad knew what African-Americans were going through and wasn’t going to take trash (to put it mildly) from anyone and be pushed around. Just like Malcolm X even if it meant his life. Malcolm was assassinated something that Muhammad has avoided. Muhammad was going to live his own life and try to help people that he felt he could and make a positive difference where he could and because of his intelligence. And his personality that he wasn’t going to sacrifice his own freedom and his own constitutional right to stand up for what he believed even if it meant getting his boxing career back, to fight for a cause that he believed was unjust.

What you see in this interview is Muhammad Ali being himself. And the interviewer bringing up for example all the money that not taking part in being drafted into the U.S. Army to fight in the Vietnam War and so-forth and losing his World Heavyweight Boxing Championship and his boxing license and the millions of dollars that came with that and Muhammad saying that: “Yeah, I could have that”. But I’m not going to take it at the cost of my freedom. Muhammad Ali wasn’t going to be bought.

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

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Crooks & Liars: Report: Allison Lundergan-Grimes Unleashes Epic Smackdown Right to Mitch McConnell’s Face

Allison Lundergan-Grimes

Crooks & Liars: Report: Alison Lundergan-Grimes Unleashes Epic Smackdown Right To Mitch McConnell’s Face

This post was originally posted at The New Democrat on Blogger

This is a prefect example of why as a Democrat I’m not worried about Democrats losing the Senate this year. Because the most unpopular member of Congress that is Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell is up for reelection in a state where Democrats are not only still competitive, but in power controlling the governor’s mansion and the State Senate. Allison Lundgren Grimes who will be Mitch McConnell’s opponent in November also just happens to be Secretary of State for Kentucky and a popular Secretary of Kentucky. Who is thirty-five, an outsider with a lot of energy to combat Leader No. The Do Nothing Senator, just a couple of nicknames that Mitch has picked up, Leader Obstruction would be another one.

Kentucky is a red-state at the presidential level, but in Congress it is a purple state. They have at least one U.S. Representative and will have a competitive U.S. Senate election this year. Kentucky is more like Ohio or perhaps Michigan or Indiana politically. Not Mississippi or South Carolina which means Democrats don’t have to sound like they are with the Christian Right on social issues and the Tea Party on economic issues to get elected. Which means Lundgren Grimes can run as a center-left New Democrat and still win the election there because of how blue-collar that state is.

Mitch McConnell on the other hand has been more of a national Republican really since he became the Assistant Majority Leader back in 2003 when Republicans won back the Senate. And then became Senate Minority Leader in 2007 when Republicans lost Congress House and Senate. And he is tied to the national Republican Party and the base of the party that is so unpopular right now. And tied to a very unpopular Congress as Senate Minority Leader. And is just right for the picking to be defeated and sent back to Kentucky for retirement or becoming a Washington lobbyist.

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Andrew Kaczynski: ‘When Mitch McConnell Supported Changing The Filibuster’

Source:Andrew Kaczynski– U.S. Senate Assistant Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (Republican, Kentucky) talking about changing the Senate filibuster in 2005.

Source:The New Democrat

“When Mitch McConnell Supported Changing The Filibuster”

From Andrew Kaczynski

Newsflash: there’s bipartisan hypocrisy when it comes to the Senate filibuster. And a big example of why the U.S. Congress has a ten percent approval rating (and the ten percent are probably comatose or living oversees right now) because the upper chamber uses and complains about the filibuster to meet its short-term gains. Instead of what is best for the Senate and the country.

And Senate Democrats were in favor of filibustering presidential nominees before they were against it. And Senate Republicans were against the Senate filibuster before they were in favor of it.

The Senate filibuster debate is purely about politics and short-term political advantage to gain absolute power to the point that the party in power wouldn’t even have to acknowledge the minority party and even the minority leadership about what bills to proceed to and when to debate them.

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The Daily Beast: Jonathan Miller: ‘ObamaCare is Winning in Kentucky Thanks to Steve Beshear’

Source:The Daily Beast– From left to right: Governor Steve Beshear, (Democrat, Kentucky) U.S. Senator Rand Paul (Republican, Kentucky) and U.S. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (Republican, Kentucky,

“We stuck with the Union in favor of our favorite son, Lincoln, but then joined in common cause with the Confederacy after the Civil War had ended. A century later, we boasted some of the nation’s most progressive civil rights laws; yet, to this date, we still feature many of America’s most segregated societies. And while Kentucky’s been one of the largest beneficiaries of the New Deal/Great Society welfare state, the dominant strain in our politics remains a fierce anti-government, anti-tax worldview.

Kentucky’s perplexing and hypocritical aversion to big government has been exploited brilliantly by our senior senator Mitch McConnell, who’s capitalized on our cultural resentment of elite interference to transform the Bluegrass State into a deep-red citadel in federal elections. More recently, our junior senator Rand Paul catapulted McConnell’s vision much further than Mitch intended, placing Kentucky in the crosshairs of the Tea Party revolution. But while these two political icons and their surrogates clash over the depth of government slashing, they’ve been steadfastly united behind one common vision: the defeat, and, more recently, the repeal of the Affordable Care Act.

It’s no coincidence then that Obamacare is beginning to expose the political fault line that divides the two Kentuckys. The GOP’s effective—and quite misleading—messaging plays into the anti-establishment populace’s greatest fears about out-of-control outside interference: the myth of a government-run-health-care system, engineered by a President with socialist tendencies (and whose skin pigmentation and exotic name frankly heighten popular anxiety in some of the nation’s least educated counties). And yet, when you wade through the propaganda and understand the law’s true impact, Kentucky needs the Affordable Care Act…desperately. It’s a state consistently ranked near the bottom of nearly every national health survey, where one out of every six citizens remains uninsured.

With our long-standing tradition of timid politicians fearful of incurring the wrath of the anti-government mobs, it wouldn’t have been surprising to see Kentucky join much of Red America and reject both Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion to the working poor, as well as its option of establishing a state-run health benefit exchange to provide affordable health care to the remaining uninsured.

But in a delicious irony, Mitch McConnell and Rand Paul’s home state may ultimately serve as the proving ground of Obamacare’s success. That’s due to the political chutzpah of one man: Kentucky Governor Steve Beshear.

Over the past several months, Beshear used his broad executive powers to bypass resistance from the GOP-controlled state Senate to ensure that the Commonwealth is the only Southern state that both expanded its Medicaid rolls and opened up a health benefit exchange, providing access to affordable health care to our more than 640,000 uninsured citizens. And while the federal launch of the program has been plagued with technical difficulties, Kentucky’s experience has been exemplary: In its first day, 10,766 applications for health coverage were initiated, 6,909 completed and 2,989 families were enrolled. Obama himself bragged that Kentucky led the nation with its glitch-minimized performance.

It would be hyperbolic to crown Steve Beshear as a profile in courage. The Governor’s second and final term expires in two years, and he’s made clear that this is his last political hurrah. However, Beshear is keenly interested in the political prospects of his son Andy—the betting favorite in the 2015 race for Attorney General—and he understands that even a tangential connection to the unpopular Obama carries a heavy political burden. Furthermore, the Governor isn’t quietly going about the business of administering the new law: Beshear has been gleefully poking the eye of the Tea Party beast — and its subservient U.S. Senators—and channeling Harry Truman in the national media circuit: In a recent New York Times op-ed, Beshear crowed: “[T]o those more worried about political power than Kentucky’s families, I say, ‘Get over it’…and get out of the way so I can help my people. Here in Kentucky, we cannot afford to waste another day or another life.”

From The Daily Beast 

I’m not a mindreader (obviously) but if I had to guess I would say that the hyper-partisan, right-wing base of the Republican Party hates the Affordable Care Act (also known as ObamaCare) but I don’t think that’s who they really hate or what they really hate.

What the right-wing in America really hates is President Barack Hussein Obama, who the Far-Right of the party, which might be the dominant faction in the Republican Party, sees as an Un-American, Muslim-Socialist, from Kenya, who represents everything that they hate about modern America. And now that President Obama has ObamaCare on his legacy, that adds 20 million Americans to the health insurance roles in this country, they hate him even more.

Again, I’m no mindreader, but had a President John McCain got the Affordable Care Act or McCainCare (as it would’ve been called) and gotten the exact same law that President Obama gotten through a Democratic Congress in 2009-10, you wouldn’t see the Republican Party, even with a Republican House trying to repeal the ACA today. The Republican right-wing’s opposition to ObamaCare, is really about Barack Obama, not as much as the law itself.

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Mox News: CNN Crossfire- ‘The Strength of The Assad Regime in Syria’

“We’ve Also Seen An Islamic Rebel Eating The Heart Of A Soldier!” CNN Crossfire: The Strength of The Assad Regime in Syria”

From Mox News

The fact is that without the serious threat of military force in Syria against the Assad Regime, Russia and Syria aren’t talking about negotiating and giving up the Syrian chemical weapons. That Russia and Syria took that threat serious enough to actually do something about it and not play chicken. Which is why now the Obama Administration is now listening to them and a real peaceful resolution may emerge. But I wouldn’t keep my fingers crossed (unless that makes you feel better) because President Bashar Al-Assad may just be trying to stall and buy more time.

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Senator Rand Paul: ‘Foreign Relations Hearing on The Crisis in Egypt’

Source:Senator Rand Paul– U.S. Senator Rand Paul (Republican, Kentucky) at the Foreign Relations Committee.

“Sen. Rand Paul at Foreign Relations Hearing on the Crisis in Egypt – 7/25/13”

From Senator Rand Paul

At risk of being in need of a head examination (as early as tomorrow) I completely agree with everything that Senator Rand Paul said here about Egypt and our giving foreign aid to authoritarian regimes and dictators.

I have a theory that it’s not the individual freedom that Arabs and Middle Easterners, including in Egypt hate about America, including the freedom that our women and minorities have here, but it’s the fact that we literally subsidize with American tax dollars the dictators in those countries.

I’m not saying your average Egyptian and anyone else in Arabia is a freedom-loving person, because I don’t think we can know that. And I know the counter-argument from the other side from internationalists and hawks arguing that if we don’t subsidize these dictators, those regimes will fall because they won’t have the money and other resources to stay in power because they’re unpopular and will be replaced by a regime that’s even worst and less cooperative with America and would subsidize terrorists that want to hit America.

But the reason why we get the terrorism that we do, is American taxpayers by force from their government, subsidize these unpopular Arab dictators and their regimes. So how does that make us safer?

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Best of World Boxing: ‘Rivals- Muhammad Ali vs Joe Frazier’

Source:Best of World Boxing– Muhammad Ali vs Joe Frazier.

“Profile on the greatest rivalry in Boxing.”

From Best of World Boxing 

I realize football is very different from boxing, but the great NFL analyst John Madden once had a great quote about rivalries and what you need for a rivalry to even be a rivalry, let alone a great rivalry. And he was talking about the great rivalry between his Oakland Raiders and the Pittsburgh Steelers in the 1970s, the two best franchises in American Football Conference, if not the entire NFL in the 1970s.

What Coach Madden said for a rivalry to be great (and I’m paraphrasing) the two teams involved have to be good at the same time once the rivalry starts and then have to be good after that. Their games have to matter, to be important, to be well-played, and close.

What made the Muhammad Ali-Joe Frazier rivalry a great rivalry in the 1970s, was not only did they hate each other (even though secretly they respected each other) but they were not just good, or real good, or even great, but they were the two best heavyweight fighters in boxing in the 1970s. That’s why they had those three great fights against each other from 1971-75.

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New York Magazine: Jonathan Chait- ‘Why Rand Paul Distrusts Democracy’

Source:New York Magazine– U.S. Senator Rand Paul (Republican, Kentucky

“The most unusual and interesting line in Julia Ioffe’s highly interesting profile of Rand Paul is Paul’s confession, “I’m not a firm believer in democracy. It gave us Jim Crow.” Of course, that’s an awfully strange way to condemn Jim Crow, which arose in the distinctly undemocratic Apartheid South (it was no coincidence that the dismantling of Jim Crow and the granting of democratic rights to African-Americans happened simultaneously). But it’s not just a gaffe or another historical misrepresentation — rather, it’s an authentic clue into an ideology Paul has been busily concealing as he has ascended into mainstream politics.”

Read the rest at New York Magazine

“Rand Paul: Woodrow Wilson’s ‘Spreading Democracy Throughout the World’ is a Failed Policy. Support a Constitutional Republic and Limited Government.”

From Vision Liberty

Just to respond to Senator Rand Paul’s speech about democracy and you can take Jonathan Chait’s speech about him for whatever you believe it’s worth:

Senator Paul was essentially arguing that you don’t want a democracy, but you want a republic. Well, how are the leaders of this republic supposed to get hired and get the jobs to govern for us and stay in power? Most, if not the entire developed world has one form of a democratic system or another and a lot of those countries are also republics. Just look at America or Germany, France, Italy, Poland, etc.

If Senator Paul were to say something like: “Oh, I believe in democracy and want the people to elect their leaders.” Then he is essentially saying that he believes in democracy as well.

There are all types of democracies, as well as republics. What hyper-partisans like the Rand Paul’s of the world don’t bother to mention, is that all of the republics in the developed world are democracies. Republican is not a form of government and neither is democratic.

There are authoritarian republics like in Russia and in the Middle East. China in the Far East. And you have democratic republics like in America and in Europe. The question is if you are a republic, what kind of republic are you: democratic or authoritarian? And a country like the Islamic Republic of Iran which is not part of the developed, first word, they’re both democratic and authoritarian. They elect their leaders, but their personal freedom and individual rights are fairly limited. The same thing with Turkey.

And to talk about Senator Paul’s comments about Jim Crow: what he didn’t bother to mention (and yes, I think he knows better) is that the Democrats who supported segregation and Jim Crow 50-100 years ago, were right-wing Neo-Confederate Democrats. When Rand Paul ran for the Senate in 2010, he was rumored to be a Neo-Confederate Republican, partially because he opposes the civil rights laws of the 1960s. So I don’t think this is a subject and debate that Senator Paul seriously wants to get into with just half the truth, because he could get seriously boomeranged on this.

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Norm Strassner: ‘The Filibuster (Facts of Congress)’

Source:Norm Strassner– pretty good summary of a Senate filibuster.

“Civics doesn’t need to be dry and boring! Learn Facts of Congress with music and animation in Jib/Jab & Monty Python style from those hilarious folks at Flashback Media Productions in Colorado, USA”

From Norm Strassner

You want to know why there’s so much hot air in Washington, well I’m going to tell you anyway:

For one, the weather that in a normal weather year we can get up to five months of summer weather starting in May and going through October. Halloween has traditionally been a warm humid day and night in the nation’s capitol. Not trying to sound a meteorologist, but we get 90-95 if not high 90s to 100 heat with that type of humidity as well. And in a lot of years as early Memorial Day Weekend which is the official start of our summer, but if it was just the weather in Washington that was hot and humid, then it wouldn’t be that big of a deal, especially for native Washingtonians, Marylanders, and Virginians and people who are from warmer climates.

The real bad source of hot air in this big, beautiful, great city that I truly love, but would love more if the politicians got out-of-town and took a permanent, recess, but it’s really the U.S. Congress (both chambers) and both parties that are our bad source of hot air that’s polluting the country.

Another source for hot air is the people themselves that come here to do sight seeing I’m sure. But also to give their two cents worth to their Representative or Senator. But the problem is their two cents are generally only worth one cent even without any inflation and before tax. Perhaps a lot of times when their two cents is really only worth one cent, is because if they gave the full two cents, the Internal Revenue Service will take half of it. Something to ponder.

Voters and lobbyists, as well as political activists, all come to Washington with their message of: “Don’t do this or do this or don’t take this away from me. My thing is in the national interest, Joe or Jane’s thing is wasteful and so forth. You do what I want from you and make it worth your while and finance your campaign for you and so-forth.”

A big problem with Congress is there’s too much talking and not enough disclosure of what they hell they are talking about on the public’s time and money so we don’t know what we are getting for the 150K$ a year we pay our Representatives and Senators.

The Senate is not perfect obviously and they’ve already basically eliminated the rule that requires sixty votes just to debate anything. (In Senate speak the Motion to Proceed Rule where it use to take sixty votes just to debate anything) Forget about sixty to pass something, but before this Congress it took sixty votes in the Senate just to move to debate. They fixed that in this Congress already now the Leader of the Senate can bring up a bill and he only needs fifty-one votes to get. The debate started on it so that’s progress and I don’t have a problem with Congress moving slowly.

We only need Congress to do what we need it to do like when issues arise in the country that need some type of legislation to address the problem. Like immigration (just to use as an example) and one of the advantages of the House and Senate moving slowly is that it makes it harder for them to pass bad legislation. And with the people we have in Congress right now, trust me, that’s a good thing. But the House and Senate should at least be competent enough to pass what they need to do like keeping the Federal Government running. (To use as an example)

The House is certainly not perfect without any real minority rights where basically the majority rules over the minority. Like a dictator would rule over the people without much if any check on the regime. But we certainly do not need a filibuster rule in the House. Imagine that if it took a three fifths vote to pass anything in the House of Representatives, except for maybe the budget. and appropriations, the House would become a debating society that’s almost four and one half times as large as the Senate. With so much hot air in the House chamber because you would always need 261 votes to cutoff a filibuster. There would be so much hot air in the House chamber that people in Washington could do their sun tanning on the House floor, rather than going down to Ocean City or out to Delaware or Virginia Beach or taking a trip down to South Carolina or someplace courtesy of the lobbyist that gave them the most money. So we do not want to see a filibuster in the House even if it did kill more bad legislation.

What we need Congress to do basically is shut the hell up and instead of yelling at each other or see who can get the most words in a ninety second soundbite, actually talk to each other and listen to what the other guy or gal is saying in both parties and both chambers. And figure out what’s the best thing to do and govern like adults even if their lobbyists disagree with them. And then their constituents will reward them because they govern like adults and instead of passing a lot of bad legislation or not passing anything, they’ll get the work done that we need them to do. And perhaps lose a free trip to Florida or California as a result from their lobbyists but they are supposed to, be public servants first anyway and not just represent the big money interests.

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