Free Speech
Page 7
- ¦This is not a tool to bring down regimes. We never though of ourselves like this. We were just, you know, cracking jokes about the status quo. And it’s a way to deal with our differences…I think it’s a very healthy, cathartic way of freedom of expression. As a matter of fact, having a show like this reflects well on the government – that it allows something like this.
- The Congressional Budget Office is a reactionary socialist institution which does not believe in economic growth, does not believe in innovation, and does not believe in data that it has not internally generated.
- Adults who enter into public life implicitly consent to having less privacy, but their families - especially their children - should not be treated callously or thoughtlessly.
- [Melissa Harris-]Perry is not infallible. She is human. And like any other human, in recognizing that an action directly or indirectly causes someone harm, she owns up to responsibility, apologizes, and does what we all hope humans do: try to do better.
- I don’t agree with quite a bit of stuff I read in magazine interviews or see on TV. In fact, come to think of it, I find a good bit of it offensive. But I also acknowledge that this is a free country and everyone is entitled to express their views…I remember when TV networks believed in the First Amendment. It is a messed up situation when Miley Cyrus gets a laugh and Phil Robertson gets suspended.
- The First Amendment, like the constitution generally, only applies to the government. So if the government stops someone from talking, or punishes them, that’s a First Amendment issue. If a private person says 'I won’t hire you or let you be on TV anymore,' that’s not. The idea is we don’t let the government decide what’s a good opinion, but we do let individuals decide what they think is offensive and what should be rewarded and what should be discouraged. That’s the way the marketplace of ideas is supposed to work.
- [President Obama] made so many promises. We thought that he was going to be -- I shouldn't say this at Christmastime -- but the next messiah.
- The fact is, we’re not collecting everybody’s email, we’re not collecting everybody’s phone things, we’re not listening to that…NSA can only target the communications of a US person with a probable cause finding under specific court order. Today, we have less than 60 authorizations on specific persons to do that.
- I thought since I'm a knight - I'm a literal knight of the kingdom of Norway - I would get on my horse and charge forth in her defense.
- This is tough trying to figure which one of these women is lying. One of them has to be. So the Lieutenant Governor is blond, and the mayor is brunette. Is that relevant in determining which one of them's telling the truth? I don't know. Just asking. The Lieutenant Governor seems a little bit more at home with makeup than the mayor. Is there anything to learn from that? I'm just asking.
- I’m so sick and tired of all this violence, this gun violence. And how could I speak on it - you know - being one who has advocated violence and gun violence? The only way I could do it was through a song that spoke from the heart.
- With its strenuously chummy hosts Tina Fey and Amy Poehler, its saccharine bordering-on-absurd acceptance speeches, and its deluge of tearjerking “inspirational” commercials that sought to forge a hitherto unsuspected link between Golden Globes and Humanity’s
Greatest Achievements, the night was a deep dive into a pool of estrogen.