The Daily Beast: Opinion- Libby Torres: 'SVU's Detective Olivia Benson Is The Mother of The Me Too Movement'

Source: Notey- The current cast of Law & Order SVU

Source:Action

To say that NBC's Law & Order SVU is ahead of it's time, would be like saying that it gets hot in Texas especially in the summer or it rains in Seattle, well at any point during the year or it snows in Minnesota in January and hopefully you get the idea by now. ( God help if you don't ) They were talking about issues back in 1999-2000 ( the first season of SVU ) 17-18 years before the so-called Me Too movement emerged in 2017. They were dealing cases as a detective squad about women being raped and sexually abused in other ways. As well as little girls and boys who are sexually abused by their parents and other adults in their lives.

Source: Daily Mail- Mariska Hargitay and Brooke Shields, being very cute for a little boy on the set of SVU

The original Law & Order which I still get to watch every week ( thanks to Sundance and TNT ) is still favorite now just show from this franchise, but one of my favorite shows ever, especially from the 1990s and 2000s, but SVU is right up there as one of the best cop dramas on TV. Perhaps the best cop drama on TV right now, but I'm guessing fans of CSI Las Vegas would probably dispute that. Maybe they can get together on TV ( fans of both shows ) and debate on live national TV. I'm sure Bravo would be happy to broadcast that and it would be ultimate and perhaps even real reality TV show.

But on a less substantive note but still important the Olivia Benson character ( played by Mariska Hargitay ) is one of the first sexy female police detectives on TV. There've been beautiful, sexy, younger female law enforcement officers on TV before. Angie Dickinson was the original with Police Woman from the 1970s, Heather Thomas from The Fall Guy in the 1980s, Kelly Hu from Nash Bridges from the late 1990s and perhaps there are more.

But Mariska is the first from a trend that started in the mid 2000s or so where you would have beautiful, sexy women playing tough cops who kick ass on a regular basis and even kick male ass. They're no longer playing secretary's, receptionists or desk sergeants that just take calls and pass on information to the real detectives and their superiors, but working cases and getting into conflict and having to physically take on strong male suspects who could severely hurt them if not kill them if the female officer is not up to the task.

Mariska, is the first female TV law enforcement officer to where tight jeans and boots on the show on a regular basis while she's working and not at home or having a rare day off, but working her cases in beautiful black leather jacket, black denims, and boots. She was doing that back in 2007-08 if not earlier and now every cop show has at least one if not multiple female lead officers who are beautiful, sexy, physically able to take care of themselves who work their cases in boots and jeans on a regular basis. Just watch CSI Las Vegas with Elisabeth Shue, or watch Criminal Minds with the attractive detectives there, Chicago PD with Sophia Bush, NCIS LA with Daniela Ruah and I could go on.

Mariska Hargiatay ( who plays now Detective Lieutenant Olivia Benson ) is not the first beautiful, sexy, sharp, witty, great cop on TV, she's just the best cop with those qualities and that includes Angie Dickinson who I love as well and they're now in their 20th season with apparently no plans to ever wind the show down and plan for a final season and not just because of how popular the show is and that it's lead to over great cop shows like Chicago PD, but also because of how great the show is. How great the cast, storylines and everything else that makes cop shows great.

Reason Magazine: Nick Gillespie- Interviewing Ken White: 'Free Speech Is In Just As Much Danger From Right-Wingers'

Source: Reason Magazine- Attacks on free speech 

Source: The New Democrat

I guess where I would disagree is with the title of the Reason piece where they say, "free speech is in just as much danger from Conservatives." Implying that free speech is in just as much danger from Conservatives, that it is from Liberals. I argue that free speech is not in danger from either of the center's of American politics the Center-Right and Center Left, Conservatives and Liberals, but that's in danger from the fringes of American politics.

Nationalist-Tribalist- Christian-Nationalists on the Far-Right, who are offended by American culture and would like to see big government come in and restrict what we can see on TV and in pop culture generally. And anyone who opposes Donald Trump and his supporters are traitors ( from their perspective ) and therefor not serving of the same free speech rights as people who support Donald Trump and come from the Christian-Right Nationalist wing in and outside of the Republican Party.

And Socialists in some cases democratic but when you look at groups like ANTIFA and other self-described Communists in America, people who believe that right-wingers don't have free speech rights in America because what they say is offensive and they simply don't like what the Right ( especially Far-Right ) has to say and therefor should be shut down and silenced whenever they speak. Whenever one of these right-wingers especially Far-Rightist's like Ann Coulter tries to give a speech, you'll see Far-Left groups show up and protest her or someone else on the Far-Right and try to shut her down and shut her up. When one of these people writes a book, they'll protest bookstores and try to boycott them so the author can't sell their book.

As an actual Liberal, not a Libertarian, or Civil Libertarian or Conservative-Libertarian, but as an actual real-life Liberal who doesn't want big government trying to manage our personal and economic affairs for us including what we say to each other and doesn't want a national babysitter or nanny state, but a real Liberal in the real sense as someone who believe in liberal values like liberal democracy and the individual rights that Liberals actually support, I believe in free speech period. Whether it comes to pornography and other forms of adult entertainment that the Christian-Right claims to hate and use to view ( pre-Donald Trump ) as a national threat to our security and morality. Or critical or even offensive speech towards minority groups or anyone else in America that the Far-Right hates.

If you believe in free speech, you believe in free speech. Which is sort of like saying if someone believes in God, they believe in God, but my point is that if you believe in free speech you believe in free speech for everyone and not just people that you tend to agree with. Like that Michael Douglas line from The American President, that America is hard and you have to want it bad because it's going to come after you. Because it's a society where you have the right to say and believe whatever you want and those rights will be defended to the hilt. But that people who tend disagree with you have the exact same constitutional First Amendment free speech rights as you do. And free speech is better and America is better when we fight for the free speech rights as others the same way that we fight for our own and the people who we tend to agree with.
Reason Magazine: Nick Gillespie- Interviewing Ken White: 'Free Speech is in Just As Much Danger From Right-Wingers'

The Tonight Show With Johnny Carson- Burt Reynolds (8/02/1978)

Source: Richard Binckley- Burt Reynolds, on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson in 1978.

Source:The Daily Review

Burt Reynolds, the master of action/comedy who was a basically a comedian himself who didn't do standup ( except when he was sitting down being interviewed ) being interviewed by the master of the late show the King of Late Night Johnny Carson. What could possibly be funny about two masters of the wisecrack and improv who play off each other perfectly because they have similar sense of humors? And then throw they were both somewhat immature when it came to comedy as far as not afraid of looking silly when they do their comedy.

I didn't get much out of this interview other than Burt's wisecracks about Hollywood parties and his trip to Florida for his summer vacation and how commercial the towns that he went through have become. But with Carson and Reynolds you didn't need a script for these two guys to have a funny interview, because they played so well off each other. Sort of like Whose Line is it Anyway, Saturday Night Live, any Cary Grant movie where the director trusted his cast and let them do their things and be themselves as performers, because they director knew it would work out.
Richard Binckley: The Tonight Show With Johnny Carson- Burt Reynolds: 8/02/1978

Libertarianism.Org: Free Thoughts- Aaron Ross Powell & Trevor Burrus: Rob Schenck- The Moral Collapse of Evangelical America

Source: Libertarianism.Org- The perfect title for this piece

Source: The New Democrat

If there is a moral collapse of Evangelical America, it can be summed up in two words, which are Donald Trump. I'm talking about the political wing of the Christian-Right in America who are dominated by Evangelicals who base their political on their interpretations of the Bible, not the U.S. Constitution. And they see Donald Trump who just a few years ago was an Atheist or at best an Agnostic where religion had little if no impact on his life until he became a Presbyterian a few years ago, the Christian-Right sees Donald Trump and his presidency as their ticket to accomplish a lot of things that they couldn't do with really any other Republican President ever.

The Christian-Right, has made a bargain with devil ( so to speak ) with Donald Trump and have calculated that they're willing to tolerate anything that Donald Trump does all his bad personal behavior, maturity, temper, hate for any dissent against him, lack of experience and knowledge about the issues that he talks so much about and has to deal with as President, his bigotry towards people who don't support him and have decided to sum up all of President Trump's bad behavior into, "he's not a typical politician and does things differently."

And the Christian-Right have just swallowed President Trump's talking points when it comes to negative news about him into saying, "well, we don't know these things are true." Or "well, these Republicans even who don't like Donald Trump are just saying these bad things about him, because they're part of the establishment and are simply trying to defend that." Just as long as President Trump delivers on what he promised the Christian-Right. And appoints judges and justices that will one day will rule that abortion, and same-sex marriage are illegal, and there's no constitutional right to privacy even under the 4th Amendment. Which would be mean big government could then come into Americans personal lives and decide who Americans can sleep with and do with their personal time.

The Christian-Right-Wing of the Republican Party, that back in the 1990s saw pornography, same-sex marriage, and adultery, as threats to national security and morality and therefor must be outlawed in America, are now saying that they don't care about those things at least when it comes to the people they support politically. Adulterous affairs and pornography that their Republicans might have been involved with are none of the government's business, because these Republicans are their people and on their side. And because of this have lost all of their credibility when it comes to speaking about the personal lives and personal behavior of Americans including politicians, because they back and defend politicians who've lived similar lives and have done similar things. Whether it;'s adultery, pornography, or whatever it may be.
Libertarianism.Org: Free Thoughts- Aaron Ross Powell & Trevor Burrus: Rob Schenck- The Moral Collapse of Evangelical America

Ederik Schneider: 'Fixing Big Government is Not Conservative'

Source:The Daily Beast- it's the job of Socialists and Nationalists to fix Big Government. Not anyone else.

“Go West, young man,” New York Tribune editor Horace Greeley famously urged soldiers coming home from the Civil War and wondering what to do with the rest of their lives. In that spirit, here’s my politically corrected advice to millennials who want to change the world: “Go local, young gender-unspecified person.”

Don’t look to Washington to remake American society from the top down.  And don’t assume that real political change can only come through massive expansions of federal power." 

From The Daily Beast 

"The past few years have put the size and role of government at center stage of our national politics. But the raging debates about how much Washington is doing and spending have involved almost exclusively yes-or-no questions about the left's vision of government. The right has been very clear about what government should not be doing, or should be doing much less of, but it has not had nearly enough to say about just what government should do." 

From National Affairs 

Originally the title: "Fixing Big Government is Not Conservative" came from a YouTube video that I saw about 10 years ago, but since no one else seems to want to claim that title now, I will. 

It's not the job of Conservatives, to conserve big government or fix big government. (At least not Conservative in a constitutional or political sense) Its the job of Conservatives to conserve the U.S. Constitution, the American way of life for all Americans, regardless of their race, ethnicity, religion, culture, lifestyle, etc. It's the job of Conservatives to conserve our individual rights which grants every American the right to be themself and be individuals. 

It's the job of Conservatives, to fix government, when government is too big, or even too small and not doing the things that we need it to do. Conservatives shouldn't say: "Big Government is not working and this is how we should fix it." What they should say instead is: "Of course big government doesn't work and this why. Which is why we shouldn't have Big Government in the first place. And this is the type of government that we should have instead."

Let Socialists, Nationalists, Theocrats, Monarchs, worry about fixing something that can't be fix, which is big government. Because the reason why big government never works, because it's too big. Once you take power away from individuals and give it an organization that doesn't even know the people whose lives you've given it the to power to manage, of course it's going to fail. Which is as predictable as getting wet in the rain, or glass breaking when it hits a concrete floor.