I regret that we weren't able to reform Social Security. The fact that we weren't able to when we had majorities in the House and the Senate I think reflected poorly on our political party.
To the extent that our political dialogue is such where everything is under suspicion, everybody is corrupt and everybody is doing things for partisan reasons, and all of our institutions are full of malevolent actors - if that's the storyline that's being put out there by whatever party is out of power, then when a foreign government introduces that same argument with facts that are made up, voters who have been listening to that stuff for years, who have been getting that stuff every day from talk radio or other venues, they're going to believe it.
And what fastens attention, in the intercourse of life, like any passage betraying affection between two parties? Perhaps we never saw them before, and never shall meet them again. But we see them exchange a glance, or betray a deep emotion, and we are no longer strangers. We understand them, and take the warmest interest in the development of the romance. All mankind love a lover.
Needless to say, the business of living interferes with the solitude so needed for any work of the imagination. Here's what Virginia Woolf said in her diary about the sticky issue: "I've shirked two parties, and another Frenchman, and buying a hat, and tea with Hilda Trevelyan, for I really can't combine all this with keeping all my imaginary people going.
The American people have got a touchstone: Which party voted for the tools necessary to protect America and which party didn't? And that's what I'm trying to get people to focus on.
I just consider myself a piece of the puzzle and I'm lucky enough to be asked or invited to the party, if you will. I hope I can bring some laughs and grimaces to the fans.
The [China] government has improved in the last years. Of course, the structure is still the same; there's still a one-party system and strong censorship.
I just consider myself a piece of the puzzle and I'm lucky enough to be asked or invited to the party, if you will. I hope I can bring some laughs and grimaces to the fans.
There is one mind common to all individual men. Every man is an inlet to the same and to all of the same. He that is once admitted to the right of reason is made a freeman of the whole estate. What Plato has thought, he may think; what a saint has felt, he may feel; what at any time has befallen any man, he can understand. Who hath access to this universal mind is a party to all that is or can be done, for this is the only and sovereign agent
Men think they think upon the great political questions, and they do; but they think with their party, not independently; they read its literature, but not that of the other side
If you want to right-size executive power relative to the other branches of government, the best way to do that is to have a healthy Congress in which the two parties are debating, disagreeing, but also occasionally working together to pass legislation.
Like other parties of the kind, it was first silent, then talky, then argumentative, then disputatious, then unintelligible, then altogether, then inarticulate, and then drunk. When we had reached the last step of this glorious ladder, it was difficult to get down again without stumbling.
I just consider myself a piece of the puzzle and I'm lucky enough to be asked or invited to the party, if you will. I hope I can bring some laughs and grimaces to the fans.