December, 2014, Part 1, Politicians Say The Darndest Things: Political Campaign MIsquotes, Democratic Racism Quotes, and Who Needs Statistics

It’s the end of another year so I thought it might be a good idea to go back over the past twelve months and pull out some of the darndest quotes from members of the political class and their supporters. While the myth is that really smart people get involved with government and political office, in reality, based on the quotes of politicians we have brought to light over the past few years, the exact opposite is reality: we are currently served by a set of people that are shallow, selfish, and obviously incapable of having the mentality capacity or will to resolve the major issues facing the country. If they did have those attributes, one would have thought that the major issues facing us all, e.g. poor schools, leaky borders, high health care costs, etc. would have been resolved long ago.

To find previous reference to silly, inane, and stupid political quotes in this blog, just enter the phrase, “politicians say the darndest things,” in the search box above. As you will see, 2014 is not the only year that politicians have been putting their foot in their mouths and showing how incapable they are when it comes to governing and problem resolution.

1) Quote: “…or you might have a farmer from Iowa who never went to law school, never practiced law, serving as the next chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Because if Democrats lose the majority, Chuck Grassley will be the next chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee.” Senate candidate from Iowa, Bruce Braley.

Comments: Bruce Braley ran for Senator from Iowa this past November. You know, Iowa, a big farming state with a lot of farmers and farming interests. Given that reality, one would have thought that a candidate would be a little sensitive to not insult farmers, especially in light of extolling lawyers at farmers’ expense. 

But that is exactly what he did. He told a group of lawyers at an Iowan fundraiser that current Republican Senator Chuck Grassley was just “a farmer from Iowa who never went to law school.” Braley added that, unlike Grassley, he was not a simple farmer and was far more worldly because he “went to law school’ and ‘practiced law.’” Needless to say, Mr. Braley is not going to Washington when the new Congress meets next month.

2) Quote: “I'm very excited to be here to support your next senator from Iowa, our friend Bruce Bailey." Michelle Obama, campaigning for the aforementioned Bruce Braley.

Comments: The obvious flub here is that Ms. Obama was campaigning for a candidate named Bruce Bailey, not the real candidate, Bruce Braley. She compounded the error since after introducing Braley incorrectly, she continued to mispronounce his name seven times in total, according to CNN.

One would have thought that the first Lady could at least get the poor man’s name correct since the whole reason she was in Iowa was to campaign for him.

But for Ms. Obama, that was not the only screw-up in her campaign efforts for Democrats last November. She introduced incumbent Colorado Senator Mark Udall as a “fifth-generation Coloradoan.” Which sounds nice on the surface, but was actually a more accurate distribution and reality of Udall’s opponent, Cory Gardner. Gardner was truly a fifth-generation Coloradoan, while Udall was born in Arizona.

3) Quote: "I'm not going to compromise a Constitutional right provided here in Kentucky in order to curry favor on one or (an)other side or members of the media." Alison Grimes, Democratic candidate for the U.S. Senate from Kentucky, refusing to say who she voted for President in 2008 and 2012.

Comments: During an interview with the Louisville Courier-Journal editorial board, Grimes “Did you vote for President Obama in 2008 and 2012?” If she had just said yes, assuming that she did not vote for McCain or Romney, the issue would have probably died out in a few days. She is a Democrat, obviously she probably voted for Obama.

Instead, she hedged and she hawed and made an issue out of nothing and eventually lost to the Republican incumbent. Seems idiotic that by not confessing to whom she voted for she would have thought she would have distanced herself from Obama in the November election. 

4) Quote: “I may be a white boy, but I can jump.” Vice President Joe Biden, at an event during Black History Month when Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson challenged him to a basketball game.

Comment: Difficult to take someone seriously, whose boss is trying to smooth racial divisions in this country, when you are dealing in crude stereotypes, “white boy” and “white boys can’t jump.” If a Republican had something like that, he or she would probably have been eviscerated in the press and by Democrats for fomenting racial stereotypes. Biden says it, and nothing happens except for the fact that he continues to speak quotes that have nothing to do with resolving any issue in this country.

5) Quote: "Where are you going to get people to work to clean out hotel rooms or do our landscaping?" Ms. Alex Sink, failed Florida Democratic candidate for Florida governor in 2010.

Comment: Again, if a Republican had something like this the press and Democrats would have killed him or her. But Ms. Sink does show her contempt and low regard for illegal Hispanic immigrants when in her mind they are only good for cleaning up our hotel rooms and watering our shrubs, implying that they would not be able to move into higher paying better jobs and that we needed them in this country to do the jobs Americans would not do. Racist or condescending or both, really bad for any political candidate to be so pompous.

6) Quote: Illegal immigrants “pick our fruit and make our beds.” President Barack Obama

Comment: Maybe Alex Sink got her prejudices from the leader of her party, President Obama. During a speech President Obama gave justifying his right to use Executive Orders to grant amnesty, he actually said illegal immigrants “pick our fruit and make our beds.” As with Ms.Sink, the President asserts these types of people are never going to be anything else than fruit pickers, hotel cleaners, and weed pullers. Talk about elitsit, pompous and condescending.

7) Quote: “Make no mistake, my policies are on the ballot this fall.” President Obama when speaking about the November elections.

Comments: By associating every Democrat running for office in November with the President’s policies, mostly failed policies, he ensured that the Republicans would take control of all of Congress and sweep through state governments across the country. By selfishly making the elections all about him and his failed policies, ranging from Obama Care to anemic economic growth and policies to a bumbling foreign relations performance, his narcissism failed his party dramatically. 

For someone who is supposed to be the consummate political animal, her certainly came up small when insisting it was all about him.

8) Quote: “Frankly, it is irritating that anybody would be distracted by which statistics are accurate.” U.S. Senator Claire McCaskill

Comments: A recent study estimated that one in five women attending an American university is likely to be sexually assaulted during her college years. If true, this is a very serious problem since even one unwanted sexual assault is one too many. This study resulted in Senator McCaskill getting involved and trying to do something about his one in five ratio.

However, a subsequent study by the Bureau of Justice Statistics, one that had a better construct and much larger sample size, estimated that the true ratio was closer to 50 to 1, not 5 to 1. Again, any sexual assault is not to be taken lightly. But there is a big difference if the chance of sexual assault is ten times less likely than originally thought.

The real insanity of McCaskill’s quote is that like most politicians, why should she let reality enter into any political decision or action? Statistics were good and appropriate when it supported her position, 5 to 1, but should be ignored when it does not support her position and actions, 50 to 1. 

That will do it for today but we will continue our 2014 review of stupid political quotes tomorrow. Today we learned that a Senate candidate will lose an election if he insults his core constituency, that Michelle Obama does not really prepare for campaign rallies before going to them, the Vice President, the President, and a Florida politician continue to deal with and believe in racial stereotypes, and a U.S. Senator uses statistics only when it supports her position. 

And these are supposed to be the leaders of this country? Pathetic leadership, pathetic management skills, pathetic view of others.

Our book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government - Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom And Destroying The American Political Class" is now available at:

www.loathemygovernment.com

It is also available online at Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Please pass our message of freedom onward. Let your friends and family know about our websites and blogs, ask your library to carry the book, and respect freedom for both yourselves and others everyday.

Please visit the following sites for freedom:

Term Limits Now: http://www.howmuchworsecoulditget.com
http://www.reason.com
http://www.cato.org
http://www.bankruptingamerica.org
http://www.conventionofstates.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08j0sYUOb5w

November, 2014, Part 7, Political Class Insanity: Joe Biden Spoken Embarrassments, Politicians Idiotic Quotes, Wasting Money At NIH and More

It is the start of another month which means it is time again to review the latest political class insanity that has been dumped on us by the worst set of politicians to ever hold office in the history of this country. From wasteful spending to bad priorities to general ineffectiveness, the insanity rolling out of Washington and other political centers and governments around the country seems to be accelerating as the idiocy of our political times increases.

Last month we set a record by needing almost two full weeks of posts to get all of the insanity documented and discussed. Given what I see today, we will be hard pressed not to get close to or exceed that record of insanity this month. It keeps getting worse and worse and the effectiveness of the political class gets less and less.

This is our seventh post in this month’s series so the insanity continues to flow out of the political class and into our lives, our wallets, and our freedoms.  Makes you wonder when the insanity will stop:

1) We recently went through another tortuous and idiotic set of political campaigns leading up to the midterm elections. So much advertising had to result in some political class insanity, which it did:

A. Colorado Senator Mark Udall of Colorado wanted a redo on a very simple question that was posed to him when asked by an interviewer to name three influential books he had read “Let me think. We can play this over, right? I mean, re-tape this?” Senator, there is no crying in baseball and no retapes in political campaigns. Be a little smarter and prepared, this is not a movie set where you get several takes, it is real life.

B. Stupidity was the word of the day when Bruce Braley, running for the U.S. Senate seat of Iowa, a farming center if there ever was one, said: "[If you do not vote for me] you might have a farmer from Iowa who never went to law school, never practiced law, serving as the next chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee.” A little political tip Mr. Braley: given that the vast majority of the people voting in your election are farmers who never went to law school and never practiced law, better not to insinuate that there are not very bright.

3) The first two examples above were pretty silly and stupid. The next example of election year insanity was actually pretty cruel and heartless. Texas Democrat governor candidate Wendy Davis really stooped low when attacking her wheelchair-bound Republican opponent Greg Abbott: “And I guarantee you that anyone who tries to say otherwise hasn’t walked a day my shoes.” Unfortunately, Mr. Abbott has not walked a day in anyone’s shoes in a long time, low blow.

D) Give Montana Democratic Senate candidate Amanda Curtis kudos for at least being honest when asked by a reporter about her position on the border crisis: “I’ll need more time, you know only 11 days ago I was painting my storm windows.” Well, that’s great, those storm windows really needed it.

To defend her somewhat, she was a late entry into the race after the original Democratic candidate withdrew after it was found out he committed plagiarism. But really, shouldn’t you have at least a little bit of a more strategic statement on a top ten national issue than “I was painting my storm windows.” Does not build confidence among voters.

2) Two sayings come to mind on the next piece of insanity: 

• “What goes around, comes around.” Author unknown.
• “Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.” The Who

A recent Gallup poll showed that 32% of voters in this year’s midterm elections said that their midterm vote will send a message that they oppose President Obama while only 20% said that their vote will send a message of support for President Obama. A comparable Gallup poll in 2006 found that 31% of voters in that year’s midterm elections said that their midterm vote will send a message that they oppose President Bush while only 18% of voters said that their vote will send a message of support for then President Bush.

In other words, both Presidents are sitting in almost identical positions in the second midterm elections of their administrations. So much for hope and change, the more things change the more things stay the same, meet the new boss, same as the old boss. We are right back where we started eight years ago relative to the voters' distaste for the American political class.

3) Joe Biden is a lawyer. That means that he had at least seven years of college, four as an under graduate and three in law school. He has been often considered an expert on foreign affairs, given his time serving in the U.S. Senate.

But you really cannot take him seriously, especially when he recently stated that China is part of North America in a speech he gave in late September at Boston’s John F. Kennedy Forum at the Harvard Kennedy School. There he claimed that North America, "meaning Mexico, China and Canada," will account for two-thirds of the world's energy growth over the next two decades.

Come on Mr. Vice President, look at a map before you speak. How embarrassing is it for the country in the eyes of the rest of the world when the second in command of this country is so geographically ignorant? Insanely incompetent.

4) The National Institutes of Health (NIH), one of the taxpayer funded Federal government entities that should be financing and looking for vaccines and new medicines to combat major diseases such as Ebola, Alzheimers, dementia, etc., has spent more than $2 million to promote how joining a community choir can be beneficial to older adults. The NIH is currently financing a five-year project that is recruiting 450 “minority elders” to participate in choirs at senior centers in San Francisco.

Really? We are spending $2 million on 450 senior citizens in a single U.S. city, over $4,000 per person to encourage them to get into a choir? According to the grant proposal, there are almost 40 million senior citizens in the country. To reach all of them at this rate would cost about $178 BILLION.

How stupid is this program, especially since its premise is based on a similar study out of Finland a study with an extremely small and statistically unreliable sample size: “One hundred seventeen older adults who sing in community choirs in Jyväskylä, Finland, completed self-report measures of [quality of life] QOL, depressive symptoms, and a questionnaire about the benefits of singing in choir,” the report said. “Results suggest that singing in a community choir as an older adult may positively influence several aspects of QOL.”

Look, I am all for older Americans having a higher quality of life. But the country cannot afford these types of studies. Tens of millions of people are about to enter their golden years and are facing the devastating aging diseases of Parkinson's, Alzheimers, and dementia. I would bet that if you took a poll of every American senior and asked if they would rather have that $2 million spent on choirs or finding cures for these aging diseases, it would be no contest, cure the diseases.

That is why I find the NIH claim that it does not have an Ebola vaccine because it is under funded. It is not under funded, it is poorly managed when the NIH leadership funds stupid studies rather than real science studies to cure real diseases.

5) Let’s finish today’s insanity with more laughing at Joe Biden. Back in October, Biden was doing a public speech in Joplin, Missouri, when he again made a fool of himself. He overstated the deaths that were the result of a tornado that had torn the city up in 2011. The Vice President claimed the tornado claimed the lives of 161,000 people, or about 54 times more than had died from the 9-11 attacks: “161,000 brothers, sisters, mothers, fathers, sons, daughters, grandparents lost.”

But Reuters reported back in 2011 that the death toll was a little less, only 161 people had died as a result of the tornado. Oops, the Vice President was off by a factor of a thousand. Again, how can you take this politician seriously when he keeps screwing up basic data and basic realities? Do you really think that he, and others like him in Washington, have any clue how to defeat ISIS, protect us from Ebola, plan for our energy future, fix our broken public education system, grow the economy, or fix any other major issue facing Americans?

His actual uttering of these words can be seen at:

http://threepercenternation.com/2014/10/video-biden-overstates-deaths-in-joplin-missouri-tornado-by-160839/

That will do it for today’s insanity. It seems to never end, especially when people like Joe Biden are running the show. If we are lucky, the latest series of political class insanity posts may end tomorrow. Until then, take a look at our website that is promoting term limits at:

www.howmuchworsecoulditget.com

Given all of the insanity you have witnessed this week from the embedded political class across the country, but especially in Washington, how much worse could it get if we started over with a new set of people in Washington? At least most of them would likely know where China is on a map.

Our book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government - Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom And Destroying The American Political Class" is now available at:

www.loathemygovernment.com

It is also available online at Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Please pass our message of freedom onward. Let your friends and family know about our websites and blogs, ask your library to carry the book, and respect freedom for both yourselves and others everyday.

Please visit the following sites for freedom:

Term Limits Now: http://www.howmuchworsecoulditget.com
http://www.reason.com
http://www.cato.org
http://www.robertringer.com/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08j0sYUOb5w