“Any man can learn anything he will, but no man can teach except to those who want to learn.”
Henry Ford, January 1, 1924
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Henry Ford
Year: 2016
The President of the United States claims to be very popular with “the zero to eight demographic.” The kids like his name, which they say in an unbroken string of syllables: Barackobama.
Politics is a lot like football.
Teddy Roosevelt was the coolest president . . . until Barackobama.
All this, and more, we learn from the latest episode of Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee, Jerry Seinfeld’s online interview show, in which Jerry drives a comedian to a coffee shop for a video-recorded chat.
In the recent Barack Obama episode, the comedian and the Commander in Chief drive inside the confines of the White House fences in a nice silver blue 1963 Corvette Stingray . . . and then go for a coffee inside the White House. Seinfeld’s excuse for this special episode is that the Prez has gotten off just enough funny lines to qualify.
Some of us wonder whether Mr. Obama could be planning an entertainment career after being ejected from office by the normal workings of presidential term limits. As this and other one-on-one interviews have shown, he gives great repartee.
But back to term limits. Aside from the football comment, Seinfeld’s chat did indeed yield a few substantive ideas. Such as:
JS: How many world leaders are completely out of their minds?
BO: A pretty sizable percentage.
And Obama knows why: “The longer they stay in office, the more likely [going bonkers] is to happen.”
“At a certain point,” Obama explains, “your feet hurt, your have trouble peein’, you have absolute power. . . .”
Good thing we have term limits!
Here’s to a future episode of Former Presidents in Limos Getting Lattes.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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King Charles
On Jan. 4, 1642, King Charles I of England sent soldiers to arrest members of Parliament, beginning England’s slide into civil war.
On Jan. 4, 1649, the English “Rump Parliament,” having purged those members willing to restore Charles I to the throne, voted to put Charles I on trial for high treason. Before the month was over, he was executed.
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Madame Speaker Minnie D. Craig
“There’s a field – a grand one for women – in politics, but women must . . . play politics as women and not as weak imitations of their ‘lords and masters.’ Men are all to inclined to ‘stuff’ a lady full of nonsense, treat her with not too much respect for her intellect and be far happier when she’s nicely tucked away in some corner where she can do them no harm — and herself no good. But it doesn’t have to be that way. . . . She has certain natural talents which men don’t have. Women are naturally given to detail. . . . If they weren’t, they couldn’t make pies or sew dresses. Men don’t like details. Because of woman’s training . . . she’s more thorough than man and right there she has a splendid opportunity for politics.”
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Townhall: Obama Violence
Barack Obama wants to go out swinging, like a take-charge super-president. And his next target? Gun rights. Click on over to Townhall.com for the January 3, 2016, column by Paul Jacob. Then come back here:
- Washington Post: Obama plans curbs on guns
- Wall Street Journal: Obama to Discuss Gun Control Options with Attorney General
- Washington Post: Obama explores unilateral steps on guns
- Fox News: Gun crime prosecutions on decline, amid call for more laws
- Address to the Nation by the President – Dec. 6, 2015
- YouTube: Trey Gowdy grills DHS official on due process
- New York Post: Now even Obama has to admit San Bernardino was terrorism
- CNS News: Obama Finally Calls Fort Hood a Terrorist Attack
The distinguishing property of man is to search for and to follow after truth.
Marcus Tullius Cicero, On Duties, 44 BC.
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Rep. Craig
On January 3, 1933, Minnie D. Craig became the first woman elected as Speaker of the North Dakota House of Representatives, the first female to hold a Speaker position anywhere in the United States.
On the same date in 1977, Apple Computer was incorporated.
January 3rd birthdays include that of Cicero (106 BC), Roman philosopher and theorist of republicanism, and J. R. R. Tolkien (1892 AD), English philologist and author of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. Both were deeply concerned about the problem of absolute power.
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Video: Sports Stadia
The political economy of a popular obsession….
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Fourth to Ratify
On January 2, 1788, Georgia became the fourth state to ratify the United States Constitution.
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John C. Calhoun
“It is harder to preserve than to obtain liberty.”
John Caldwell Calhoun, in a speech (January 1848) delivered on the Senate floor.