Keppler Speakers: 'Senator Bob Dole Shares Great Political Wit'

Source:Keppler Speakers- former U.S. Senate Republican Leader Robert J. Dole (Republican, Kansas)

Source:The Daily Review

“Since leaving public elective office, former Presidential candidate and Senator Bob Dole continues to take an active leadership role in a wide range of public policy and charitable causes. Recent projects include serving as Chairman of the National World War II Memorial, which was completed and dedicated in 2004; serving as Chairman of the International Commission on Missing Persons, and co-chairing, with Former President Bill Clinton, a foundation to assist the spouses and children of the victims of the 9/11 terrorist attack; and serving as President of the Federal City Council. He also takes an active role in supporting the work of the Robert J. Dole Institute of Politics at his alma mater, Kansas University. As a renowned political commentator, a frequent guest on late night talk shows, star of two Super Bowl commercials and best selling author, Bob Dole is part of the American landscape. Senator Dole’s best-selling World War II memoir, One Soldier’s Story, chronicles his harrowing experience on and off the battlefield and the lessons learned through his struggle to survive. One Soldier’s Story is a tribute to those who defended liberty in its darkest hour and his gift to future generations, a destined-to-be classic about overcoming adversity and making the most out of life. Book Bob Dole at Speakers.com.” 

From Speakers 

Bob Dole, follows the oldest rule in the book, that he perhaps wrote himself, or had his good friend Strom Thurmond right for him: “Never take yourself too seriously.” The best rule for a politician, or any special interest servant, I mean public servant.

There’s so much nonsense (to be charitable) that goes on in Washington. Most people judge their finances in the thousands. Companies, in the thousands and millions, state and local government’s in the millions and to a certain extent hundreds of millions.

The U.S. Government in Washington millions of dollars to someone in Congress, is like a slam dunk to Lebron James: no big deal, something that he does several times in each game.

The U.S. Government, deal in billions, hundreds of billions and even trillions everyday. There’s so much money for them to manage and the fact that Congress, anyway represents the people who send them there and are only as good as them, there’s no way they can manage all of it themselves.

I think politicians have to laugh at themselves, otherwise they would go crazy and end up back at the nut house they escaped from to run for Congress and get reelected in the first place.

You’re always in the public eye even when you’re making your back room deals and voting on things you don’t want anyone especially your constituents to know about, because leaks get out. And people who work for you no longer feel they can hide what their boss is doing.

A public servant, is truly that at least in the sense that they work in the public, even if they work for their lobbyists. And in today’s internet age there’s only so much that they can hide from the public. So when they do crooked and stupid things, it gets out and they get reelected anyway, because their constituents are blind and didn’t bother to pay attention to what their senator, or representative was doing, or perhaps were drunk when they went into the voting booth. And voted for the wrong person by accident.

I believe what Bob Dole is talking about here is not only all the politicians in America that have had a great wit, but also making fun of a lot of things that he saw while he was in Congress. All the late night sessions because senators didn’t want to vote on things that their constituents would find out about. So they would vote when they thought the whole country was asleep. And even if Alaska and Hawaii found out about it, the thinking there was that they were too far away to do anything about it.

There’s so much nonsense (to be charitable) that goes on in Washington, Congress and the U.S. Government as a whole. You almost have to laugh at it, or deal with a horrible case of depression. And perhaps take up alcoholism to get through it. 

June-Marie Liddy: Folding Denim Jeans in Jeans in Boots

Source:June-Marie Liddy- skinny jeans in boots.

Source:The New Democrat

"June-Marie Liddy Folding Denim Jeans in Boots." Originally from June-Marie Liddy, but her video has been deleted.

June-Marie Liddy and I follow each other on Google+. I’ve followed her on YouTube for a guess a year or so. We haven’t met in person yet but, I’m pretty familiar with her online. And she does these videos about household chores and what she does around the house. And does them in tight denim jeans in boots and looks great in them as she’s doing this work. And more than willing to express herself physically as she’s doing this work. And gives guys a lot of rides (if you are familiar with the phrase) and a pleasure to check  out.

You can be sexy and substantive at the same time. You don't have to look like a nerd who eats TV dinners at home while reading a book every Friday night by yourself, or with another nerd you're involved with. While working at the library, or some laboratory everyday during the week.

Or look like a hooker who asks children for help in spelling the simplest basic words. You can have real substance and style at the same time, JM Liddy proves that. 

Senator Rand Paul: Senator Paul Speaks Out Against Budget Agreement: 10/29/15

Source:U.S. Senator Rand Paul (Republican, Kentucky)

Source:The New Democrat

I actually agree with a lot of what Senator Paul said here. But he gets a couple of things wrong here. The new spending in the Bipartisan Budget Act that is for defense and domestic programs is paid for by adjusting payments in Disability Insurance. As far as the Guns and Butter, that is what happens when you have a divided government where you have one party that always wants to increase defense spending and cut domestic spending, even infrastructure, which is generally a good pathway to reelection and the other party always looking to cut defense and increase domestic spending. So maybe we should look at the voters who send these people to Congress instead of the Congresspeople who just represent the people who send them there.

We do have a national debt of around twenty-trillion-dollars and I would love to bring that down and you can only do that through stronger economic growth, higher employment, with raising wages and deficit reduction. As long as you have a deficit, the debt will always go up. Which is how you get a national debt through annual deficits that are always adding to the debt. And again, divided government with a military oriented national security party that believes the best interest of corporations are always the best interest of the country. And a party that is more interested in domestic and economic spending, that tends to believe that the best interest of labor unions is always the best interest of the country.

So unless you have people from both parties who say, “we need to cut the deficit and I’m willing to give some of my priorities in a smart intelligent way, but I’m not going to hurt them, if you do the same thing with your priorities”, we’re always going to have guns and butter. Republicans, will get more military spending. Democrats, get more domestic spending like in the areas of infrastructure, education, medical research. And at best you’ll get a bipartisan agreement to fund and not borrow the money to pay for each parties priorities, but you won’t have a real agreement to deal with the long-term debt and budget deficit. That is how Congress works especially when the margins are fairly close both in the House and Senate and the President is from the other party that is not leading Congress. And this is also how you avoid government shutdowns and defaulting on the national debt. Which would have been the worst possible outcome.

University of California Television: An Evening with Christopher Buckley (2009)

Source:University of California Television- talking to Christopher Buckley.

Source:The Daily Review

"Political satirist (”Thank You For Smoking”) Christopher Buckley brings down the house in this raucous interview with host Dean Nelson as part of the 2009 Writer’s Symposium by the Sea, sponsored by Point Loma Nazarene University... 

From the University of California Television

I like Chris Buckley’s line saying that it is unfair for satirists, because they are now in competition with USA Today. Applying that a lot of jokes come true, or as I would put it, get elected. We now have a Congress that represents America. Not exactly the best of America, I hope now anyway. Or maybe I’ll join Alec Baldwin the next time he threatens, or is generous enough to leave America. 

USA Today is supposed to be in the business of news and report serious issues. Satirists, are in the business to make fun of what’s going on and life in general. The problem for satirists is that USA Today and other news organizations now report on a lot of things that look like comedy. Like the government shutting down, because the House of Representatives can’t get the President to repeal his own signature legislation.

Sarah Palin, who I actually have a lot of respect for as a satirist, comedian and a beautiful woman, (even if someone who has just graduated from high school is more qualified to be either President, or Vice President of the United States) is the perfect example of satire, or a real-life comedy story. 

In Supreme Courtship, Chris Buckley, writes about a fictional character from Texas, a very attractive female judge who loves firearms and the Southwestern Texas lifestyle. Sarah Palin, who other than being from Alaska instead of Texas, has a lot in common with the fictional Texas judge. A very attractive woman with a keen sense of humor, from rural Alaska, who loves the country lifestyle and is a big fan of guns, who has a great personality. But who is more qualified to be a fictional TV character than Vice President of the United States. And yet she’s nominated for Vice President by the candidate who comes within a few large states of winning the presidency.

As I’ve blogged before, you can’t follow Washington politics and that is national politics and I’m sure Washington city politics as well, without a sense of humor. Unless you have a lot of money that you don’t know what to do with and decide to spend all that money on shrinks and vacations at mental institutions as a patient. Because you’re suffering from a severe case of depression. Because there’s so much nonsense (to be nice, bullshit to be accurate) that happens here that we all pay for.

U.S. Senators, who rather be president to the point that they their main job becomes running for president, instead of serving their people in Congress that the taxpayers have to pay for. 

A taxpayer-funded Defense Department that is so big that it can’t be audited. One f the funniest true stories of all-time. 

Taxpayer Congressional investigations that purely designed to hurt the leading presidential candidate from the other party. 

The largest entitlement programs in the world that are going broke if they’re not fixed. That no one in Congress has the balls to actually fixed, because that might mean that they have to go home and find a real job, that they’re a lot less qualified for.

But again the problem with satirists and people who write satiric books for a living about current affairs, is that it becomes harder to find new stories to write about even if you think you have something that is really funny. Because chances are that story is actually true, or something very similar to that has already happened. Tobacco companies have said under oath that tobacco is not addictive. Which was the story in Chris Buckley’s Thank You For Smoking.

We actually do have a Congress that makes con man, used car salesman, personal injury attorney’s, gold diggers, look popular. As well as the nerd in class whose hand is always up to not only answer every question, but answers the questions that the teacher puts to other students and then wonders why they never have any money for lunch, or are always getting kicked in the butt. Because their lunch money is always stolen and they’re wearing a kick men sign on their butt.

The thing about Washington and American government is that jokes are not just funny, but they get elected and a lot funny made for Hollywood stories actually come true. You would go nuts and became Michelle Bachmann’s roommate at a mental institution if you couldn’t laugh about it. But that is democracy for you. 

As the great political satirist George Carlin said, “politicians are a reflection of the people.” They’re not God, or aliens from another planet, or even robots. (Even if they look and act like them for their lobbyists) And they represent the best and worst of us.

Commentary Magazine: Noah Rothman: 'Donald Trump Goes Full Democrat'

Source:Commentary Magazine- The Donald, somewhere on Planet Earth, at least physically.

Source:The New Democrat 

"For Republicans with even a passing attachment to the principles of conservatism, as opposed to merely the personalities who count themselves among the movement’s members, the fatalistic refrain so often repeated over the course of 2015 has been that “nothing matters.”

The latest Republican of dubious loyalty to be thrown into the stockades by the movement’s purity police is soon-to-be Speaker of the House Paul Ryan. The Wisconsin representative and former GOP vice presidential nominee has done more to advance conservative principles and a Republican agenda in the age of Obama (and has taken innumerable arrows for it) than virtually any other elected official. For the alleged heresies of preventing a financial meltdown in 2008 with his TARP vote and for supporting comprehensive immigration reform, Ryan has been branded a “RINO.” This is unhinged in the most literal sense. It is an opinion divorced from reality and lent legitimacy only by the critical mass of angry Republicans who have also succumbed to this mania."  

From Commentary Magazine

Donald Trump reminds me of a used car salesman who tells a potential customer that he has a great deal on a 1978 Ford Pinto, of Chevy Chevette, as if there’s such a thing as a great deal on a Pinto, or Chevette. Maybe the salesman is drunk, or high, or something, but anyway he says he has this great deal on this car and as he’s showing the car the doors falls off as he tries to open the door. And tries to explain by saying that: “Oh yeah, this car has flexible doors. So you can take them off if you want more air in the car when you’re driving.” He sees this customer isn’t as smart as a pile of bricks and that they’ll buy anything he tries to sell them. 

Well, Donald Trump sees average Americans voters as used car customers who can't afford anything else to drive and are desperate for a pair of wheels (even if they fall off as soon as they start rolling)  at least Republican voters and that is only assuming he actually cares, that he’s not running for president simply because ego and publicity is drug to him that he if he doesn’t get his body goes into shock.

Trump looks at Republicans voters as marketing opportunity. As a market to sell himself and he’ll anyone anything they want to hear to get their support. The man makes Mitt Romney look like a man of hard rock never bending principles. Mitt Romney, was the king of flip-flops at least in 2011-12 and I personally called him Flip Flopper and changed his name for him with consulting him about it. But compared to The Donald, Mitt looks like Barry Goldwater. A man who was rock solid when it came to his conservatives principles. 

The Donald, truly isn’t a politician simply, because he unelectable. He’s suffering from the worst form of political whiplash, because how many times he’s officially changed his mind when its come to abortion and other key issues in the country.

Donald Trump, will never be President of the United States. I don’t believe any intelligent person about American politics believes he has a snowflake’s chance in Los Angeles of ever winning the presidency even if Republican voters are taking him seriously. Because of what he’s said about immigrants, especially Latinos, women, that new political maps have been made to cover all of his changing positions on the issues. But I think he actually knows that and is essentially running for president for the fun of it. Perhaps trying out for a new movie where he plays himself running for president, or something. Donald Trump For President, makes the GOP presidential debates look like the worst prim-time TV programs since reality TV was officially created in the late 1990s. And until the GOP wakes up the country will stuck having to see him.

Dennis Miller Live: Christopher Hitchens (2001)

Source:Generic Name- Dennis Miller Live in 2001.

Source:The Daily Review

"Opinionated political iconoclast, CHRISTopher Hitchens, talks with, smart aleck, raconteur, Dennis Miller. His 2nd appearance on the show." 

From Generic Name 

“Christopher Hitchens on Dennis Miller Live. (2001)” Originally from Bitcoin Faucets, but the video has been deleted or blocked on YouTube.

Source:Bitcoin Faucets - Dennis Miller Live. 

Chris Hitchens, seemed to hate Bill Clinton so much that he almost loved the man. His hatred of Billy Jeff, reminds me of the pastor and activist on the Christian-Right who claims how evil and dangerous homosexuality is, it comes out that he’s gay himself. And has had relationships with adolescent boys. The strongest opponents of homosexuality in several cases have been closeted gays. I guess the thinking that if they act all butch and are strongly against homosexuality in public, no one will ever know they actually speak with a high voice and cheat on their third wives with men. 

Without Bill Clinton, what would Hitchens have to write about in the 1990s? Wait, Tony Blair and New Labour coming to power in Britain? He might hate Tony Blair more than Bill Clinton actually, if that’s possible.

Keep in mind, Chris Hitchens was a Democratic Socialist. Bill Clinton, New Democrat, who moved the Democratic Party from this malaise of Utopians who were never happy about anything except when new news got worst and more people were suffering and they could make a case for more big government. 

I've always thought that Hitch's (not Alfred Hitchcock) main beef with William J. Clinton, was the fact that Clinton wasn't a what they call in Britain, at least, a Social Democrat. That he was a Classical Liberal, who would be center-right, at least in Britain, instead of the left-winger, that Democrats got stereotyped as, at least before 1992. That I think is the main beef that Hitchens had with Billy Jeff. To the point that he calls the man a rapist without much if any evidence to back up that charge. 

Billy Jeff, if he wasn’t a busy and important man and had better things to do other than concern himself with Chris Hitchens, could have sued him for libel and probably have a hell of a case. Hitchens reminds me a little of the Republican political strategist/JFK assassination conspiracy theorist Roger Stone, who officially will never support the Warren Report, even though he’s probably smart enough to. (Jury is still out) And has written books arguing that Vice President Lyndon Johnson had President Kennedy killed.

I’m surprised that Oliver Stone hasn’t picked up on one of Chris Hitchens’s conspiracy theories. And made a movie or documentary about one of them. There are certainly enough dumb people and escaped mental patients, or people who should be committed, that would see that film for the movie to make money. Maybe Oliver Stone and Bill Clinton are friends, or Stone at least is an admirer of Clinton. Perhaps a contributor to Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign or a member of her husband’s Foundation’s board. 

This is where Hitchens was at least in the 1990s and early 2000s, a left-wing conspiracy theorist, who seemed to be campaigning for the best room at the nuthouse. Before he became a Neoconservative, who wanted Islam destroyed or something. And jumped into President Bush’s back pocket (no more room in the front pockets) and became a cheerleader for the so-called War on Terror and the Iraq War. When Hitchens was focused on something, he wouldn’t let it ago. Until he found something else to bury himself in.

Canan Dian: 'Christopher Buckley- Discusses Christopher Hitchens Life and Mortality'

Source: Canan Dian- Chris Hitchens & Chris Buckley.

Source:The Daily Review 

"Christopher Buckley reviews "Mortality" by Christopher Hitchens"  

From Canan Dian

What I like most about Christopher Hitchens is why he never would have made a very successful politician, because he has this big habit of always saying what he thought and what he knew. And he didn’t give a damn what others thought about it. His consistency for the most part and the on exception to that being how his national security and foreign policy views changed after 9/11, I believe are unparalleled. 

Chris Hitchens wasn't just an anti-Christian, or anti-Christian-Right radical on the Far-Left, but he was a true Atheist. He didn’t bash the Christian-Right for their positions on homosexuality, women’s place in the world, censorship, while he defended Muslims for believing that women and gays should be second-class citizens. He critiqued and attacked religious extremism wherever he saw it.

Politically, I’m not sure I have ever had much in common with Chris Hitchens. I’ve never been a Democratic Socialist, or a Neoconservative. I don’t know of many other people who’ve gone from one end to the other politically like that. But I’ve always respected his consistency especially with his Atheism. 

If Hitchens was alive today would be treated like a bigot by the New-Left in America, similar to how Bill Maher, Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris, are now treated. As being anti-Muslim and anti-Middle Eastern and so-forth. He was anti-Muslim, but he was also anti-Christian and anti every other religion. He saw religion as a dangerous force in the world and with his new neoconservative leanings and perhaps would have if he could had religion outlawed in America. Not sure about that, but he was a true militant Atheist.

I believe political and current affairs writers should be judged on their ability to learn, grasp and to be consistent. Do they say and write things that add up and where you could at least make a good case for their beliefs. Or do they just write for their team and over hype all the positive things about their side, while underplaying the low points of their side. And are they consistent, or do they contradict themselves. Do they bash religion, while only concentrating on one type of religion, or are they a true Atheist who doesn’t like religion in general. And will critique negative aspects of religion wherever they see it. Do they bash big government on one side, while praising it on another, but without calling it big government. 

Chris Hitchens, meets at least all of my standards as a great current affairs writer. Because he was someone who learned, who understood facts and made his arguments based on them. And adapted when he was wrong and because of these things and many others he’s still missed today and will be for a long time.