Groucho Marx on Doing Nothing

Dr. Ben Carson: "I used to be a flaming liberal"

Dr. Ben Carson gave a revealing interview with Genevieve Wood of the Daily Signal.

h/t: Daily Signal

Dale Carnegie on Success

Chris Christie Vows to Smoke Out State Cannabis Scofflaws

Republican Presidential hopeful New Jersey Governor Chris Christie made headlines for pithily reiterating his intention to enforce federal laws regarding marijuana. This barb uttered on the hustings in New Hampshire echoes prior pronouncements about respecting federal supremacy on drug laws, though Christie also wants to encourage rehab for non-violent offenders.


 

 Some pundits wonder about alienating the "Rocky Mountain High" vote in places like Colorado and Washington with legalized recreational marijuana.  But such cynical campaign critics fail to appreciate the importance of the rule of law to the Republican party base.  Moreover, such a staunch stance for law and order reinforces Christie's tough New Jersey persona as well as reminds voters that Christie got his start in public service by being appointed United States Attorney by President George W. Bush in 2002.

Princess Diana on Life

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Mohandas Gandhi on Happiness

Barack Obama on "Every person has worth" -- Really?

  President Barack Obama was lecturing Africans about human rights in a speech in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Mr. Obama's entreaties about human rights seem hollow as a third video exposing Planned Parenthood selling body parts was released. 

 To be fair, Mr. Obama qualified that all persons were born equal.  But President Obama's rhetoric does not meet his reality or his record.  While he was a state legislator in Illinois, Barack Obama  opposed a ban on partial birth abortions as well as being the only politician opposed to the Born-Alive Protection Act. 

 For the unborn, perhaps "Every person has worth" takes on another meaning.  

    

 The Center for Medical Progress expose videos have been shunned by the Lamestream Media as it challenges their progressive pieties.  Many others who have seen the videos, including some pro-choice people, have been revolted by prospects of Planned Parenthood profiting on baby parts. 

 As a society, we need to gestate a respect for life and  come to grips who who is a person who deserves dignity.  Does this include the unborn?  How about the elderly who no longer can contribute to society and are persons who can be framed as a costly medical burden?

Laura Ingraham on GOP Priorities

Senator Ted Cruz on "The 11th Commandment"

Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX)  made a piercing floor speech denouncing the tactics of Majority Leader Senator Mitch McConnell (R-KY) of reneging on promises about floor votes over the Export-Import Bank.  Majority Leader  McConnell used the parliamentary tactic of "filling the amendment tree" to only add the Export Import Bank Amendment to the must pass Senate Highway Bill and a symbolic Repeal Obamacare vote (which was doomed to fail cloture), Senator Cruz lambasted protecting the vested interests of the Washington Cartel through legislative legerdemain which ousted Senate Majority Leader Senator Harry Reid (D-NV) made famous. 

Thereafter, it was unlikely that Senator Cruz was going to be invited to any future Cocktail Parties by the Washington establishment.  But Grand Old Party establishment grey beards like Senator Orrin Hatch (R-UT) and Senator John Cornyn (R-TX), denounced the lack of decorum, which opaquely criticized the Junior Senator from Texas. Of course these attacks were more restrained than earlier criticisms of young turk's aggressive  ways in Washington, which colleague Senator John McCain affectionately attributed as "wacko birds".

 Ronald Reagan had popularized the political "11th Commandment"  -- to not speak ill of your fellow Republican.  In fact, Senator Cruz has been conspicuous for not denouncing Donald Trump because Cruz does not want to attack fellow Republicans on the campaign trail. Charles Krauthammer considers Cruz's floor speeches to be an example of hypocrisy. 

The question is whether telling the truth is included in Reagan's 11th commandment is key to discerning party loyalty.

Senator Cruz has been positioning himself as an insider campaigning for the Oval Office as an outsider. Cruz has also bucked the Republican Senate Leadership's "go along to get along" modus operandi through the budgetary filibuster in September 2013 which caused the federal government to shut down for over a fortnight. 

Many have attributed the wave of support for Republican Presidential candidate Donald Trump to dissatisfaction with Do Nothing Republicans who will not speak the truth. If the Trump boomlet ends, has Ted Cruz positioned himself to gain the support of those who want to Make DC listen again?

A broader question for the Grand Old Party faithful is whether the electorate should not register their protest for elected officials that campaign one way but govern in another that is almost indistinguishable from the Democrat opposition. 

Carly Fiorina on Organ Harvesting

Senator Mike Lee on Bureaucracy

Senator Ted Cruz on the Washington Party

In a rare Sunday session held to consider the must pass Highway Bill, Republican Majority Leader Senator Mitch McConnell (R-KY), called up an amendment to revive the Export Import Bank and filled the tree to prevent any other amendments, aside from a sisyphean symbolic vote to repeal Obamacare (which, as expected, failed to reach cloture).

Senator Ted Cruz' (R-TX)  floor speech on Sunday Bloody Sunday, the junior Senator from Texas had better hope that the campaign trail keeps him busy as he should not expected any invites to Cocktail Parties in the District of Calamity (sic).

Cruz's cri-de-couer floor speech may not help him in the current Grand Old Party Senate Cloakroom, but may curry favor from anti-establishment supporters on the campaign hustings.  Assuming the Cruz remains in the Senate, he may be standing alone or with several new practical conservative colleagues. 

Milton Friedman on Consumers

Larry Elder on Civil Rights

Trump Gets an Assist from Dennis Rodman

During this Trump Summer before most primary voters seriously concentrate on electing a Republican Presidential nominee, the billionaire populist GOP candidate earned an unexpected assist.  Trump was endorsed by Dennis Rodman.

Of course, Rodman has also endorsed North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un, so it is hard to discern what Rodman's political disposition is, other than supporting friends. In the past, Trump was chagrined by prior attempts to by Rodman to worm a connection between the Big Apple billionaire and the  Pyongyang's newest Dear Leader.

On Adulation and Dictators

Hillary Clinton on NASA

Morticia Addams on Normal

Rep. Mike Pompeo on the Iran Nuke Deal

Tom Cotton on Iran Secret Side Deals: "Trust But Don't Verify?"

Ray Kroc on Business

Pamela Geller on the Jihad in America

Sinclair Lewis on Writers

Marcus Luttrell on Stateside Rules of Engagement

General Ray Odierno on the Unarmed Stateside Military

In the aftermath of the Chattanooga shooting (which the Obama Administration is loathe to call a terror attack), US Army Chief of Staff Ray Odierno justified the continuation of a 1992 Department of Defense directive prohibiting most stateside military personnel from carrying arms while on duty.


Odierno's opinions on maintaining the current regulations seem political to justify that current Commander-in-Chief's policies to check soldiers, sailors, Air Force and Marines while denying that there really is a war by radical Islamists which have come to America's shores. The safety concerns  seem specious as these armed forces are trusted with weapons while on duty abroad.

In response to the Chattanooga terror attack, the Pentagon ordered military recruiters to make modest security measures like closing their shades and they were told not to wear their uniforms in public.  It is pathetic that concerned civilians feel compelled to stand guard near military recruiting centers as the service personnel can not legally carry firearms.

The DoD Regulation 5210.56 occurred during the Pentagon's drawdown from Cold War readiness.  After the attack of military recruiters in Little Rock in 2009 and Chattanooga in 2015 along with the Fort Hood shooting in 2009 (which the Obama Administration "workplace violence") and the 2014 Fort Hood shooting, it is time to change the policy to protect our troops and eliminate sitting duck targets in no gun zones.  

Thomas Sowell on Deciding What Is Best

Neil Armstrong on Apollo 11

Dwight D. Eisenhower on Leadership

Dietrich Bonhoeffer on Morality

Brad Thor on Lone Wolves

Reacting to the Chattanooga terror attack, thriller author and national security analyst Brad Thor questions the string of so called "Lone Wolf" attacks in America, particularly by radical Islamists.

So how many lone wolves make for a wolf pack?

h/t: Michael Ramirez

      Gary Varvel 

Bobby Jindal on Radical Islam

In the wake of the Chattanooga terrorist attack, Republican Presidential candidate Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal (R-LA) had harsh words for the Obama Administration and their inability to admit that radical Islamists are inflicting violence on America. 

Some jaded political pundits perceive Governor Jindal's statements as being calculated comments to draw attention to his fledgling Presidential campaign or even to make the top ten cut for the Fox News opening debate. These analysis are either ignorant of Governor Jindal's hard hitting January 2015 foreign policy speech in London when he criticized Sharia "no go zones", his commitment to protecting religious liberty for persecuted Christians or his evangelical political appeal. 

These Cocktail Party commentators seemingly prefer that people ruminate on whether Caitlyn (ne Bruce) Jenner should have received the ESPY "Courage" award or wiping the Confederate Flag from the Dukes of Hazzard car because of the Charleston church shooting.  Mainstream media commentators like symbolism and ultimately ineffective action rather than dealing with a prickly socio-political problem which regularly costs lives throughout the globe and continues to come to our shores. 

Donald Trump has made a splash on the campaign circuit with his tough talk on America's illegal immigration morass and has rocked up the polls. While this Trump popularity may not last, it does show that a wide segment of the Republican electorate are tired of mealy mouthed politicos who spout politically correct platitudes while doing nothing to tend to festering wounds to the American body.

Rather than perceive Gov. Jindal's comments as a cynical campaign strategy, it would be wise to appreciate Jindal naming Radical Islam as the enemy as plain talk on real problems which have been ignored during the Obama Administration. Perhaps that is eventually a winning strategy. Nevertheless, it beats robotically recited platitudes, carefully controlled listening tours and a strange Scooby mobile.

Carl Reiner on Truth

Mark Levin on Weapons

Observe What Tolerance Is Left

During a panel discussion on Dr. Drew about ESPN honoring "Caitlyn" (ne Bruce) Jenner, a transgendered panelist physically threatened conservative author and media figure Ben Shapiro.

Shapiro pointed out that Jenner had not yet undergone any gender reassignment surgery.  Nevertheless, such a medical procedure still does not change one's DNA which is either male or female.

To drive home the point, Shapiro asked his trangendered panelist Zoey (ne Robert) Tur "What is your genetics, sir?".  Of course, that was an uncomfortable scientifically based question.  But what seemed to set off Tur was the use of the title "Sir". Thus, Tur put a hand on Shapiro's shoulder and threatened to send him home in an ambulance.


 Aside from the fact that Tur's threat was not a very ladylike of a response, it underlined the thesis of Shapiro's book "Bullies: How the Left's Culture of Fear and Intimidation" (2014).  Shapiro was outnumbered on the panel and was physically threatened for stating his opinions, which are scientifically unimpeachable.

It should be noted that Tur is the father of Katie Tur, the NBC News reporter who recently conducted a hard hitting extended interview with Republican Presidential candidate Donald Trump  So Zoey Tur's indignation may not have only be based on honorifics but also pent up partisan frustration.

Several years ago, after the 2011 Tuscon shooting which seriously wounded former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ 8th), Democrats like President Barack Obama pushed for civility in public discourse. This Dr. Drew dialogue again shows that so called civility is but a one-way street.  Those not espousing the current progressive shibboleth are targeted to be bullied and silenced. Even liberal pundit Camille Paglia condemns the fascistic tendencies among liberals which imposes silence on those who are not politically correct.  Alas, as Tom Nichols suggests in "The New Totalitarians Are Here", progressives want more than silence, but the expect not only to win arguments but make the loser love it.

What makes Tur's threats remarkable is that they were done physically on camera with a principled person who will not back down.

Scott Adams on Life

Susan Rice on the Iran Nuke Deal

Mia Love on the Iran Nuke Deal

  

Robert Oppenheimer on Trinity

Robert Oppenheimer, the American theoretical physicist from the University of California at Berkeley, headed the Manhattan Project since 1942 thus he was dubbed "the Father of the Nuclear Bomb" or Doctor Atomic. 

 The Manhattan project moved from New York City to Los Alamos, New Mexico in order to maintain great secrecy for the American World War II effort. Eventually, the remote, desert like compound grew to more than 6,000 people.  

No one was sure what would happen when testing "the bomb".  Some worried that the detonation would light off the atmosphere.  But on July 16th, 1945, the Manhattan Project achieved a success with the detonation of the first nuclear bomb near Alamagordo, New Mexico (code named "Trinity")

 When reflecting upon the successful explosion of the Trinity bomb, Oppenheimer mused that he thought of a Hindu verse from the Bhagavad Gita: "Now I become death, the destroyer of worlds." Oppenheimer may have internally mused that verse, but Oppenheimer's brother was an eyewitness to Doctor Atomic's reaction, and all he said was "It worked." Brigadier General Thomas Farrell was also an eyewitness to Oppenheimer's reaction in the Trinity control bunker, and Farrell observed:

Dr. Oppenheimer, on whom had rested a very heavy burden, grew tenser as the last seconds ticked off. He scarcely breathed. He held on to a post to steady himself. For the last few seconds, he stared directly ahead and then when the announcer shouted "Now!" and there came this tremendous burst of light followed shortly thereafter by the deep growling roar of the explosion, his face relaxed into an expression of tremendous relief.

This was the only bomb that the Manhattan Project possessed.  However, within three weeks, two atomic bombs were ready for use in the Pacific theater to try to obtain unconditional surrender from the Japanese. 

In 2005, composer John Adams premiered an opera "Doctor Atomic"  with the San Francisco Opera in which  much of the libretto was based on declassified American government documents about the Manhattan Project.  

Will Smith on Consumerism

John Kerry on the Iran Nuke Deal

Bibi Netanyahu on the Iran Nuke Deal

Alan Dershowitz on the Iran Nuke Deal

Garry Kasparov on Iranian Intentions

John Stuart Mill on Belief

Governor Mike Huckabee on Iran Nuke Deal

Senator Lindsey Graham on the Iran Nuke Deal