Something To Think About Archive

In a collection of essays from former presidents and first ladies, members of cabinets, journalists and military leaders four lessons of leadership stood out: The importance of character, the importance of “soft power” through influence, the ability to compromise with principles intact, and the ability to learn from failure.

It’s been said that “All decision-makers are not successful. But all successful people are decision-makers.

Former Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz says that “You have to have passion, and that passion has to come through. I’ll take a smart person with passion over someone with years of experience any day.”

According to Colombian writer and journalist Gabriel García Márquez: “It is not true that people stop pursuing dreams because they grow old, they grow old because they stop pursuing dreams.”

After a failed railroad deal, Cornelius Vanderbilt declared that “I don’t fear my enemies, …but you must look out when you get among your friends.”

Author Victor Hugo believed that “There is nothing like a dream to create the future.”

It’s been said that “No bird soars in a calm.”

So-called “Behested Payments” are legal in California and arose in the 1990s as a way for businesses to curry favor with politicians.  One of the two nonprofits from which Gavin Newsome’s wife, Jennifer Siebel has collected more than $1.9 million in compensation, is the left-wing Representation Project which raised more than $800,000 from companies, including PG&E, AT&T, Comcast and Kaiser Permanente, all of which have some state oversight. We’ve long been critical of the self-dealing of the Biden and Trump families, but voters need to take a hard look at the next generation of politicians for the same questionable actions.

The late Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan once noted that “Since becoming a central banker, I have learned to mumble with great incoherence.”

Columnist Hal Lee Luyah notes that “There’s a deception to every rule.”

Cartoonist Bill Watterson says that “There’s never enough time to do all the nothing you want.”

“Fear” has been defined as “that little darkroom where negatives are developed.”

According to tennis great Billie Jean King: “Champions practice their strength. Concentrate on what you’re strong at and practice it.”

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jefferies’ over-the-top criticism of the Supreme Court borders on ridiculous when he uses terms like “corrupt and illegitimate.” But he and other Democrats use those terms to legitimize their desire to pack the Court with three more Justices of their choosing, assuming they win the White House and the Senate, and then have lower courts be the arbitrator of which cases can come before SCOTUS rather than letting them determine their own docket. All this hysteria ignores the simple mandate of the Court, which they adhere to: independent rulings based upon the Constitution. Period.

Calamity follows Apathy.