Something To Think About Archive

Singer Lena Horne advised us to “Always be smarter than the people who hired you.”

British film director Michael Winner called a “team effort” “… a lot of people doing what I say.”

It’s been said that “Two men working as a team will produce more than three men working as individuals.”

Albert Einstein said: “Every day I remind myself that my inner and outer life are based on the labors of other men, living and died, and that I must exert myself to give in the same measure as I have received….”

We see that a major union announced a proposal to impose a “one-time” 5% tax on billionaires in California to address federal funding cuts to health care for low-income people. The tax would be on the net worth of California’s richest residents. This opens the door to a wealth tax which would be pretty tempting for Sacramento to make permanent and then put on a sliding scale for all taxpayers, not just the billionaires. Remember that only 1–2% of the population were targeted by the original federal income tax in 1913 and in 5 short years ten times as many households were liable for the tax. And, here at home, in 2012 Jerry Brown backed the supposed “temporary” Prop 30 income tax increase to 12.3%, slated to expire in 2018, only to have it extended in 2016 to 2030 by Prop 55. Vampire Taxes never die.

Publisher B.C. Forbes’ thought that we should “Think not of yourself as the architect of your career but as the sculptor. Expect to have to do a lot of hard hammering and chiseling and scraping and polishing.”

“Fame is tough” notes Charles Barkley. “When you’re top dog, everybody wants to put you in the pound.”

It’s been said that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. So if you want to receive a great deal you have to give a great deal.

Congratulations to the Tuolumne County D.A.’s office and all public safety agencies for their aggressive and successful work on DUI prosecutions keeping roads, drivers and pedestrians safer.

Marie Curie said: “I was taught that the way of progress was neither swift nor easy.”

In August 2023, Zohran Mamdani, the new Mayor-elect of New York City delivered a keynote speech at the Democratic Socialists of America’s national convention in Chicago claiming that “Our fight is to end capitalist exploitation… and the parasitic death-drive of capitalism.” Let’s be clear about what the DSA platform calls for: the nationalization of railroads, utilities, critical manufacturing, technology companies, institutions of monetary policy and financial services, as well as public ownership of hospitals and other healthcare providers. It also urges government control of food production with a call to “socialize the agricultural system.” Finally, it calls for “social ownership” of the media and internet providers. It demands that the U.S. work toward collapsing the criminal justice system by defunding the police; the demilitarization of the border and ICE; and finally, the DSA calls for dramatic cuts in U.S. military spending, an immediate withdrawal from NATO, cutting off Israel while normalizing relations with Cuba, Iran, Venezuela. In other words: No more America as we know it. We wish the peoples of New York good luck for a bleak future.

According to social entrepreneur William Drayton, “Change starts when someone sees the next step.”

Boxing champion Evander Holyfield believed that “A setback only paves the way for a comeback.”

According to the late Johnny Carson, the last great late night TV host, “If life were fair, Elvis would be alive and all the impersonators would be dead.”

Greek historian Polybius said: “Some men give up their designs when they have almost reached the goal; while others obtain victory by exerting, at the last moment, more vigorous effort than before.”

Baseball legend Tommy Lasorda once noted that “The difference between the impossible and the possible lies in a man’s determination.”

It’s almost comical to watch Letitia James, among others, decry their recent legal troubles with Justice Department as lawfare and she in particular likening it to the struggles of slavery. Not hardly. And we would point out that James got elected to her post as New York Attorney General on the promise to go after President Trump and bring criminal charges against him for anything, anything she could, no matter how contrived. And she did claiming that he defrauded banks in applying for loans, loans that the banks themselves said were not fraudulent and were paid back in full. But going after John Bolton in particular and even James Comey makes us say “enough is enough of these antics from both sides.”

Ben Franklin said: “An investment in knowledge always pays the best interest.”