Today there are about 40 million retirees receiving benefits; by the time all the baby boomers have retired, there will be more than 72 million retirees drawing Social Security benefits.

We believe. We believe in our destiny as a nation. We believe we have been called to do good, to spread the blessings of liberty and encourage the sense of trust upon which free societies depend.

Well, we can't afford blindness anymore. There are tens of thousands of thugs who loathe liberty and love death, and want to annihilate Western civilization.

Voting is a right best exercised by people who have taken time to learn about the issues.

If you think Independence Day is America's defining holiday, think again. Thanksgiving deserves that title, hands-down.

The art of being sick is not the same as the art of getting well.

Every one of our greatest national treasures, our liberty, enterprise, vitality, wealth, military power, global authority, flow from a surprising source: our ability to give thanks.

Yet, it ought to be obvious that good music generally occupies a higher plane that mere politics. Great writers can express moods through melody and capture experiences we share most powerfully - love, lust, longing; joy, rage, fear; triumph, yearning and confusion.

The secret of learning to be sick is this: Illness doesn't make you less of what you were. You are still you.

In other words, Social Security is every bit as insecure as the stock market.

Somewhere near you, somebody right now is trying to help the indigent and poor - providing food, shelter, clothing or simple kindness.

The business of peace requires more than showing up with paint brushes, foodstuffs and an oil pipeline or two.

George W. Bush broke a mold four years ago: Even though he lost the popular vote, he governed as if he had won by acclamation.

Investigators have discovered that dogs can laugh, which can't be too big of a surprise.

It is a common mistake these days to politicize anything and everything, including music.

It makes no sense to pack an auditorium with 5,000 people and then tell them to keep quiet.

Many people don't give a rip about politics and know as much about public affairs as they know about the topography of Pluto.

Sometimes, political campaigns make decent people act and talk like perfect buffoons.

The real sin with Social Security is that it's a long-term rip-off and a short-term scam.

The United States spends more money on African aid than any nation on earth.