JAY LENO: White House officials continue to insist that President Obama knew nothing about the IRS scandal until we all heard about it in the news last week. They said because there was an investigation underway it would have been inappropriate to tell him. And besides, he was too busy not knowing anything about Benghazi to not know anything about this...
So, the president didn't know about Benghazi, didn't know about the IRS scandal, didn't know about the AP scandal. Do you know what this means? They took 'don't ask, don't tell' out of the Pentagon and moved it into the White House.
A woman named Lois Lerner, she is head of the tax-exempt organization division of the IRS, she testified before a congressional committee earlier today. She pled the Fifth and refused to answer questions. Somebody from the IRS refusing to answer questions... You know, we should deadline her. We should tell her she needs her answers in writing by some specific date, like, oh, maybe April 15th! Maybe that's a good date. And then, maybe charge her a penalty for every day that she's late.
____________________
Jimmy Fallon continues his comedy blackout of Obama's trio of major scandals. Instead of even remotely touching on this big news in the country, what everyone is talking about, Fallon started his monologue with a lame 'Joe Biden is an idiot' joke. JOE BIDEN!
When you refuse to testify by invoking your Fifth Amendment rights, doesn't that mean you don't make remarks related to the case?
At the IRS scandal hearings yesterday, Lois Lerner decided she could proclaim herself innocent of all wrongdoing and comment on a document, as well as declare herself to be a model government employee and servant of the people.
Lois G. Lerner, who led the IRS tax-exempt unit at the center of the scandal, invoked her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination during an appearance before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, saying that members of the panel had already falsely accused her of providing false information to Congress.
“I have not done anything wrong,” she said. “I have not broken any laws. I have not violated any IRS rules or regulations. And I have not provided false information to this or any other congressional committee.”
On the advice of counsel, she said, she would not answer further questions.
Before dismissing her, the committee’s chairman, Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), asked Lerner to review a transcript of an interview she gave to the Treasury Department watchdog as part of an investigation into the matter. Lerner confirmed the contents of the document but declined to answer further questions.
Issa then dismissed Lerner and her attorney against the objections of Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.), who said that Lerner had waived her right to invoke the Fifth Amendment by making an opening statement.
“She ought to stand here and answer our questions,” he added later as people in the audience applauded.
When the hearing concluded six hours later, Issa announced that he might recall Lerner before the committee and review whether she waived her Fifth Amendment rights by giving an opening statement and answering questions about the document.
Accordingly, Issa said the hearing “stands in recess, not adjourned.”
...Lerner’s lawyer, William W. Taylor, adamantly disagreed with suggestions that his client had opened herself up to contempt charges.
“The law is clear that a witness does not waive her Fifth Amendment rights not to testify as to facts by asserting that she is innocent of the wrongdoing with which she is accused,” Taylor wrote in an e-mail
Stanley M. Brand, who has represented several clients who faced congressional scrutiny, agreed that Lerner did not provide “a waiver” for lawmakers to ask her questions.
“The question would be whether she made statements about the factual substance of the subject, but courts will be loath to divest someone of their rights absent a clear and unequivocal waiver,” Brand wrote in an e-mail.
Here's video of Lerner testifying on her behalf, or not:
Did Lerner waive her Fifth Amendment rights when she made her speech?
That's for lawyers and lawmakers to argue.
Kind of funny that there is discussion about protecting Lerner's rights during an investigation about the rights of conservatives being so flagrantly violated.
What's clear is that Lerner's decision not to answer questions about the IRS abuses isn't helping Obama get beyond this scandal.
This is part of a pattern. A picture of Obama fully engaged during times of crisis is shared via Twitter, either from White House photographer Pete Souza or the White House itself.
Obama was quick to release photos of himself "at work" in response to the Boston Marathon bombings. In fact, he released two photos. View the photos here and here.
JAY LENO: President Obama gave a commencement address at Morehouse College over the weekend - great speech, very inspiring. He told the young graduates 'your future is bright,' unless of course they want jobs, then they're totally screwed. But other than that...
Michelle Obama also gave a commencement address at a high school in Nashville, Tennessee. The first lady said about her husband, she said, 'I could take up a whole afternoon talking about his failures.' And today she was offered her own show on FOX News. So how about that? It's amazing! Amazing!
A Chicago man has set a new Guinness Book World Record for the longest Ferris Wheel ride. He went to 48 hours, 48 hours straight riding the Ferris Wheel at Chicago's Navy Pier. About the only other way to go around and around in a circle that many times is to read the official report on Benghazi. That's about the only way to go around and around.
The White House has admitted that President Obama's Chief of Staff had advance warning the IRS was targeting conservative groups but never told the president. Well, President Obama says the first time he heard about the IRS scandal and the AP phone records scandal, the first time he about it was from the media. See that's why President Obama holds press conferences - not to explain what's going on, to find out what's going on.
A massive tornado at least a half mile-wide with 200 mph winds churned through Oklahoma City's suburbs Monday afternoon, killing at least 51 people including at least 20 children, flattening entire neighborhoods and destroying an elementary school with a direct blow as children and teachers huddled inside.
Amy Elliott, a spokeswoman for the Oklahoma Medical Examiner's Office, said at least 51 people were killed and the death toll is expected to rise. At least twenty of dead were children, Elliot said.
The storm laid waste to scores of buildings in Moore, a community of 41,000 people about 10 miles south of Oklahoma City. Block after block lay in ruins. Homes were crushed into piles of broken wood. Cars and trucks were left crumpled on the roadside.
More than 120 people were being treated at hospitals, including about 50 children.
Search and rescue crews were looking for anyone who may be trapped in the rubble. Many land lines to stricken areas were down, and cell phone networks were congested. The storm was so massive that it will take time to establish communications between rescuers and state officials, Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin said.
This is catastrophic. It's devastating. It's heartbreaking.
Anyone with an ounce of intelligence knows that death and destruction accompany an enormous tornado when it hits a populated area.
Lizz Winstead, Jon Stewart's Daily Show buddy, apparently doesn't have that ounce.
At approximately the same time [the deadly tornado] was bearing down to kill innocent people, Lizz Winstead, the co-creator of Jon Stewart's Daily Show, commented on Twitter, "This tornado is in Oklahoma so clearly it has been ordered to only target conservatives":
Those checking that link surely have found that this tweet has been scrubbed for Winstead, after getting heat, felt contrite:
Made a political joke, Twas before devastation revealed. In hindsight, had I understood, I would have refrained. Beyond sorry. #LetMeHaveIt
She's from Minnesota! She has no excuse for her tastelessness. Her ugly remark was not the result of ignorance. She understands what a tornado can mean for people in its path.
Winstead's recommendation that people donate to the Red Cross is pathetic. Too little, too late.
Im recommending Make a donation now. Text REDCROSS to 90999. If any Oklahomans have a charity that they love, hit me up I'll tweet it out.
"A single payer health care plan, a universal health care plan. And that’s what I’d like to see. But as all of you know, we may not get there immediately. Because first we have to take back the White House, we have to take back the Senate, and we have to take back the House."
"We are going to have to, if you're very old, we're not going to give you all that technology and all those drugs for the last couple of years of your life to keep you maybe going for another couple of months. It's too expensive, so we're going to let you die."
"[Health services should not be guaranteed to] individuals who are irreversibly prevented from being or becoming participating citizens. An obvious example is not guaranteeing health services to patients with dementia."
"And I can make a firm pledge: under my plan, no family making less than $250,000 a year will see any form of tax increase - not your income tax, not your payroll tax, not your capital gains taxes, not any of your taxes."
"Many on the political right believe this president ought not to be there – they oppose him not for his policies and political view but for who he is, an African American!"
"I would not look to the U.S. Constitution, if I were drafting a constitution in the year 2012. I might look at the constitution of South Africa. That was a deliberate attempt to have a fundamental instrument of government that embraced basic human rights, had an independent judiciary. It really is, I think, a great piece of work that was done."
"The death of Andrew Breitbart disproves the adage that only the good die young."
--JULIAN BOND
"I voted for Barack because he was black. 'Cuz that's why other folks vote for other people — because they look like them ... That's American politics, pure and simple. [Obama's] message didn't mean [bleep] to me. When it comes down to it, they wouldn't have elected a [N-word]. Because, what's a [N-word]? A [N-word] is scary. Obama ain't scary at all."
--SAMUEL L. JACKSON
"The National Institute of Health has said that it is a danger to women's health and safety of their families that for 30 years to be exposed to the prospects of pregnancy."
"I think that the Tea Party have some very, very -- some quite sensible notions, actually, when -- on paper. But also that kind of seems to be an umbrella thing that just covers up a lot of real homophobia and racism."
"I'll put it this way, you don't deserve to keep all of [your money]. It's not a question of deserving, because what government is, is those things that we decide to do together."
"Why did- Couldn't the President have said at that moment, way back in December of last year, 'no game playing. No hostage-taking. No terrorizing this country with the debt ceiling. I'm not going to negotiate with you guys. You can't play it that way.' Could he have done that?"
"I remember distinctly an image of--we were sitting on his couches, and I was looking at [Obama's] pant leg and his perfectly creased pant, and I'm thinking, a) he's going to be president and b) he'll be a very good president."
--DAVID BROOKS
"Circumcision is barbaric and stupid.... I love my Jewish friends, I love the apples and the honey and the funny little hats, but stop cutting your babies."
--RUSSELL CROWE
"I feel like calling her back and smackin' her around."
"[I]f you go back to the year 2000, when we had an obvious disaster and - and saw that our voting process needed refinement, and we did that in the America Votes Act and made sure that we could iron out those kinks, now you have the Republicans, who want to literally drag us all the way back to Jim Crow laws and literally - and very transparently - block access to the polls to voters who are more likely to vote Democratic candidates than Republican candidates. And it's nothing short of that blatant."
--DEBBIE WASSERMAN SCHULTZ
"You know, the numbers showed that we won and we are gratified to have that victory in hand."
"This is probably one of the worst times we've seen because the numbers of people elected to Congress. I went through this as co-chair of the arts caucus. In '94 people were elected simply to come here to kill the National Endowment for the Arts. Now they’re here to kill women."
"The protesters have proven today that they‘re not going away. It was a pretty rough night last night. You can imagine if people said, well, we just can‘t fight the power. Instead, this morning, they came by tens, by hundreds, by thousands. By midday today, it was easily more than 10,000, perhaps as many as 15,000 people on the square here in Madison. Not organized by anyone, just grassroots citizens who came out just like the Minutemen in 1776."
--JOHN NICHOLS
"They're sitting on the money, they're using it for their own -- they're putting it someplace else with no interest in helping you with your life, with that money. We've allowed them to take that. That's not theirs, that's a national resource, that's ours. We all have this -- we all benefit from this or we all suffer as a result of not having it. I think we need to go back to taxing these people at the proper rates."
"I realized I was so un-self-examined I could have been a Republican, but you know, thank goodness I'm just gay. So that's much better, don't you think?"
"Why don't we just raise the taxes and let these folks have their collective bargaining, have their union representation and go back to their jobs? Raise the taxes on the wealthy."
"So I would urge my Republican colleagues, no matter how strongly they feel -- you know, we have three branches of government. We have a House. We have a Senate. We have a president. And all three of us are going to have to come together and give some, but it is playing with fire to risk the shutting down of the government."
"I'm Rebecca Kleefisch. I performed fellatio on all the talk show hosts in Milwaukee. And they endorsed me and that's how I became lieutenant governor."
"I think [Sarah Palin's] a loon and I think she's kind of a traitor to this country because she would love to erase the line between church and state... [H]er followers are the dumbest people on Earth. ... No, but seriously, they can barely scare up a pulse. I'm serious. They're not, they are really stupid. They're stupid... The people who like Sarah Palin are all on the government dole going out there and bitching about people wanting to get on the government dole. Please. Every one of them is on the government money."
"Dick Cheney. He's never worked an honest day in his life."
"[Military leaders] tell us that childhood obesity isn’t just a public health issue; they tell us that it is not just an economic threat -- it is a national security threat as well."
"[Obama] has to realize that Mitch McConnell has virtually said so that politically he wants to cut out his heart and throw his liver to the dogs."
--DAN RATHER
"And the instructions are not to improvise a comedy sketch, but to elect a group of unqualified, unstable individuals who will do what they are told, in exchange for money and power, and march this nation as far backward as they can get, backward to Jim Crow, or backward to the breadlines of the '30s, or backward to hanging union organizers, or backward to the trusts and the robber barons.
"Result: the Tea Party. Vote backward, vote Tea Party. And if you are somehow indifferent to what is planned for next Tuesday, it is nothing short of an attempted use of democracy to end this democracy."
"I gotta wonder when people are gonna start wearing uniforms. I mean they've got an army out there in Alaska of militia people. You've got these guys going around acting like street thugs. I mean it isn't far from what we saw in the thirties, where all of a sudden, political parties started showing up in uniform."
"[Sharron Angle] is a moron on top of being evil...
I'd like to see her do this ad in the South Bronx. Come here, bitch. Come to New York and do it. I'm not praying for her. She's going to hell. She's going to hell, this bitch."
"So people have been hurting and I understand that. And it doesn't give them comfort or solace for me to tell them, you know, but for me, we'd be in a worldwide depression."
"And to play Dick Cheney, all I had to do was find my Dick Cheney. And you can find all the villainy in the world in your own heart, and that's what an actor's job is. I always say to kids, inside you is Hitler and Jesus. And you got to find the appropriate person and bring them out."
"Because I live in the District of Columbia which is so predominantly Democratic, I am a registered Democrat. But I am an avowed neutral. And to put that into practice, I take my young daughter into the voting booth and she votes for me. She's now 14. We've been doing this since she was about age 4. She's now quite informed."
"Sarah Palin's an idiot. Come on. This is a remarkably, stunningly, jaw-droppingly incompetent and mean woman."
"The Democrats may have moved into the center, but the Republicans have moved into a mental institution."
--AARON SORKIN
"Perhaps the greatest threat of all is the undermining of our Constitution and the systematic attack against the inalienable rights of the citizens of this nation, rights that are guaranteed by our Constitution. At the vanguard of this insidious attack is the Tea Party. This band of misguided citizens is moving perilously close to achieving villainous ends."
"Ah, the Tea Party, the nativist bed-wetters who somehow control our national dialogue. Yes, I call them the Pee Party, Jay, because they're always peeing in their pants about something. They're just, they're afraid of a mosque being built in New York. They're afraid of guns. You know, they think Obama, who like every other pussy Democrat has never said a single word about gun control, but they are very sure that he and his Negro army are coming after their guns.
You know what? If you think that he's coming after your guns, you need to get out of your chat room and have your house tested for lead. He's not coming after your guns or your Bible or your fishing pole or your chewing tobacco."
"That's a trade-off society is making because of very, very high medical costs, and a lack of willingness to say, you know, is spending a million dollars on that last three months of life for that patient, would it be better not to lay off those ten teachers and to make that trade-off in medical costs. But that;s called the 'Death Panel' and you're not supposed to have that discussion."
"[If Rush Limbaugh suffered a heart attack in my presence, I would] laugh loudly like a maniac and watch his eyes bug out. I never knew I had this much hate in me. But he deserves it."
--SARAH SPITZ
"You want freedom, you going to have to kill some crackers. You going to have to kill some of their babies."
"If this was Texas, which is the state that, that is directly on the border with Mexico, and they were calling for a measure like this, saying that they had a major issue with, you know, with undocumented people flooding their borders, I would say I would have to look twice at this.
"But this is a state that is a ways removed from the border. And, um, it just, it doesn't make sense to me that when you google this subject, if you put in 'Arizona S.B. 1070,' that you see a picture of the governor of Arizona meeting with President Obama in May of 2010. If you have direct linkage to the president, there are already National Guard troops on the border in Arizona."
"Tell [the Jews] to get the hell out of Palestine. Remember, these people are occupied and it's their land. It's not German. It's not Poland. [The Jews] can go home. Poland. Germany."
--HELEN THOMAS
"After the last eight years, it's good to have a president that knows what a library is."
--PAUL McCARTNEY
"By the way, I just want to point out I'm wearing my splash shield because I was told I was going to be in the splash zone (during Harry Smith's colonoscopy on live TV)."
--KATIE COURIC
"And that Word is, we have to give voice to what that means in terms of public policy that would be in keeping with the values of the Word."
----------------------------
"Think of an economy where people could be an artist or a photographer or a writer without worrying about keeping their day job in order to have health insurance or that people could start a business and be entrepreneurial and take risk, but not job loss because of a child with asthma or someone in the family is bipolar—you name it, any condition — is job-locking."
--NANCY PELOSI
"Back in World War II, we viewed the Japanese as 'yellow, slant-eyed dogs' that believed in different gods. They were out to kill us because our way of living was different. We, in turn, wanted to annihilate them because they were different. Does that sound familiar, by any chance, to what's going on today?"
--TOM HANKS
"The 'White Right' is trying to set Barack up to be assassinated.... Here are Christians praying for God to kill Barack Obama."
--LOUIS FARRAKHAN
"I refuse to accept the notion that the United States of America is not going to lead the world economically throughout the 20th Century."
--JOE BIDEN
"Obama's critics keep blasting him for Chicago-style politics. So, fine. Channel your inner Al Capone and go gangsta against your foes. Let 'em know that if they aren't with you, they are against you, and will pay the price."
--ROLAND MARTIN
"TeaBagger crowd: polite. The nutjobs who were bussed to Town Halls didn't get their way paid to Sarah [Palin]'s $100,000 speech."
--ROGER EBERT
"Martha Coakley is running to fill the rest of Ted Kennedy's term, and her opponent is a far-right tea-bagger Republican."
--CHUCK SCHUMER
"I tell you what, if I lived in Massachusetts, I'd try to vote ten times. I don't know if they'd let me or not, but I'd try to. Yeah, that's right, I'd cheat to keep these bastards out. I would. 'Cause that's exactly what they are."
--ED SCHULTZ
"We also see how revved up the tea baggers are at the thought of hijacking health care reform and every chance we have at making progress in Washington."
--JOHN KERRY
"A few years ago, this guy (Obama) would have been getting us coffee."
--BILL CLINTON
"I want to say, but it's complicated, but I want to say categorically yes. I agree with you. We should not be using health care reform to provide government access to abortion. I hear what you say. And I would hope that people from whatever party won't try and go down that road and put into a bill in the dead of night and then, lo and behold, wake up the next morning and something that shouldn't have happened did happen. We should not do that."
--HERB KOHL, Liar
"I was responsible for the 9/11 operation from A to Z."
"I didn't realize I had written a column defending Roman Polanski and minimized his crime - are you sure it was me? I mean, I? There is, apparently, more to this crime than it would seem, and it may sound like a hollow defense, but in Hollywood I am not sure a 13-year-old is really a 13-year-old."
--TOM SHALES
[The UN podium] doesn't smell of sulfur. It's gone. No, it smells of something else. It smells of hope."
--HUGO CHAVEZ
"I think an overwhelming portion of the intensely demonstrated animosity toward President Barack Obama is based on the fact that he is a black man, that he's African-American."
"Joe Wilson yelled 'You lie!' at a president who didn't. But, fair or not, what I heard was an unspoken word in the air: You lie, boy!"
--MAUREEN DOWD
"One awkward moment for Sarah Palin at the Yankee game... During the 7th inning, her daughter was knocked up by Alex Rodriguez."
--DAVID LETTERMAN
"I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life."
--SONIA SOTOMAYOR
"We all considered sexual abuse of minors as a moral evil, but had no understanding of its criminal nature."
--REMBERT WEAKLAND, Archbishop of Milwaukee 1977- 2002
"You know, you might want to look into this, [President Obama], because I think maybe Rush Limbaugh was the 20th hijacker, but he was so strung out on Oxycontin he missed his flight."
"Rush Limbaugh -- 'I hope the country the fails.' I hope his kidneys fail."
----------------------------
"[Obama] told me I did a great job. The first lady said the same thing. I got a 'well done' from the president, I'm on cloud nine."
--WANDA SYKES
"Americans are looking for more government in their life, not less."
--COLIN POWELL
"[Tea Party goers are] just a bunch of wimpy, whiny, weasels who don't love their country."
--PAUL BEGALA
"[A]t a certain point I don't think we'll be so consumed with being the pre-eminent super-power and, you know, driven by sort of militarism and this need to export, you know, democracy and so forth."
--RON HOWARD
"I wouldn't want [gay marriage] to go to the United States Supreme Court now because that homophobe Antonin Scalia has too many votes on this current court."
--BARNEY FRANK
"Going forward, my mind will be open to every solution -- except one. We should not -- we must not -- and I will not -- raise taxes."
--JIM DOYLE, Liar
"He's a terrorist. Rush Limbaugh is a terrorist."
--JOY BEHAR
"You know, I just want to say to her (Sarah Palin), just very quickly...F--- you."
--JON STEWART
"Should I be worried about being a slave and being returned to slavery?"
--WHOOPI GOLDBERG
"I also believe that America is the greatest sin against God."
--FR. MICHAEL PFLEGER
"I'd like to tip off law enforcement to an even larger child-abusing religious cult. Its leader also has a compound, and this guy not only operates outside the bounds of the law, but he used to be a Nazi and he wears funny hats. That's right, the Pope is coming to America this week and, ladies, he's single."
"If you have a few hundred followers, and you let some of them molest children, they call you a cult leader. If you have a billion, they call you 'Pope.' It's like, if you can't pay your mortgage, you're a deadbeat. But if you can't pay a million mortgages, you're Bear Stearns and we bail you out. And that is who the Catholic Church is: the Bear Stearns of organized pedophilia -- too big, too fat."
"When the current Pope was in his previous Vatican job as John Paul's Dick Cheney, he wrote a letter instructing every Catholic bishop to keep the sex abuse of minors secret until the Statute of Limitations ran out. And that's the Church's attitude: 'We're here, we're queer, get used to it,' which is fine, far be it from me to criticize religion. But just remember one thing: If the Pope was -- instead of a religious figure -- merely the CEO of a nationwide chain of day care centers, where thousands of employees had been caught molesting kids and then covering it up, he'd be arrested faster than you can say 'who wants to touch Mr. Wiggle?'"
--BILL MAHER
"Those who think they can revive the stinking corpse of the usurping and fake Israeli regime by throwing a birthday party are seriously mistaken. Today the reason for the Zionist regime's existence is questioned, and this regime is on its way to annihilation."
--MAHMOUD AHMADINEJAD
"We'll be eight degrees hotter in ten, not ten but 30 or 40 years and basically none of the crops will grow. Most of the people will have died and the rest of us will be cannibals."
--TED TURNER
"Look, [Mitt] Romney comes from a religion founded by a criminal who was anti-American, pro-slavery, and a rapist. And he comes from that lineage and says, 'I respect this religion fully.'"
--LAWRENCE O'DONNELL
[The Bush] administration has done the greatest assault on our Constitution perhaps in American history."
--RUSS FEINGOLD
"I invite you to embrace Islam... There are no taxes in Islam, but rather there is a limited Zakaat [alms] totaling 2.5 percent."
--OSAMA BIN LADEN
"Mexico does not end at its borders... Where there is a Mexican, there is Mexico."
--FELIPE CALDERON
"The planet has a fever. If your baby has a fever, you go to the doctor. If the doctor says you need to intervene here, you don't say, 'Well, I read a science fiction novel that told me it's not a problem.' If the crib's on fire, you don't speculate that the baby is flame retardant."
--AL GORE
"Don't fear the terrorists. They're mothers and fathers."
--ROSIE O'DONNELL
"Is America ready for a black president? Well, I say we just had a retarded one. When did being black become a bigger deterrent than being retarded?"
--CHRIS ROCK
"Shut the f--- up! Shut up if you can't take a joke [about President Bush]!"
--BARBRA STREISAND
"Right, oh, yeah, Happy 9/11! Celebrate the day, right?"
--JAMES BROLIN, Mr. Barbra Streisand
"I think President Bush very well may have signed an authorization for the 9/11 attacks."
--KEVIN BARRETT, UW-MADISON Lecturer
"I said what I said. I am not guilty."
--SADDAM HUSSEIN
"Terri will not be starved to death. Her nutrition and hydration will be taken away."
--MICHAEL SCHIAVO
"On the eve of the election last month my wife Judith and I were driving home late in the afternoon and turned on the radio for the traffic and weather. What we instantly got was a freak show of political pornography: lies, distortions, and half-truths -- half-truths being perhaps the blackest of all lies. "
--BILL MOYERS
"I hate the Republicans and everything they stand for."
--HOWARD DEAN
"The Iraqis who have risen up against the occupation are not 'insurgents' or 'terrorists' or 'The Enemy.' They are the REVOLUTION, the Minutemen, and their numbers will grow -- and they will win."
--MICHAEL MOORE
"And there is no reason, Bob, that young American soldiers need to be going into the homes of Iraqis in the dead of night, terrorizing kids and children, you know, women, breaking sort of the customs of the--of--the historical customs, religious customs."
"I'm not going to have some reporters pawing through our papers. We are the president."
--HILLARY CLINTON
"It depends on what the meaning of the word 'is' is."
--BILL CLINTON
"And let me tell you something -- for the first time in my adult lifetime, I am really proud of my country. And not just because Barack has done well, but because I think people are hungry for change. And I have been desperate to see our country moving in that direction and just not feeling so alone in my frustration and disappointment."
--MICHELLE OBAMA
"If asking a billionaire to pay the same tax rate as a Jew, uh, as a janitor, makes me a warrior for the working class, I wear that with a badge of honor."
"[F]or most of my lifetime, the United States was such a dominant economic power, we were such a large market, our industry, our technology, our manufacturing was so significant that we always met the rest of the world economically on our terms. And now, because of the incredible rise of India and China and Brazil and other countries, the United States remains the largest economic and the largest market but there’s real competition out there. And that's potentially healthy. It makes -- Michelle was saying earlier I like tough questions because it keeps me on my toes. Well, this will keep America on its toes."
----------------------------
"If Latinos sit out the election instead of saying, 'We're gonna PUNISH OUR ENEMIES and we're gonna reward our friends who stand with us on issues that are important to us,' if they don't see that kind of upsurge in voting in this election, then I think it's gonna be harder and that's why I think it's so important that people focus on voting on November 2."
----------------------------
"We don't mind the Republicans joining us. They can come for the ride, but THEY GOTTA SIT IN BACK."
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"We can absorb a terrorist attack. We'll do everything we can to prevent it, but even a 9/11, even the biggest attack ever... we absorbed it and we are stronger."
"We talk to these folks because they potentially have the best answers so I know whose ass to kick."
----------------------------
"We're not trying to push financial reform because we begrudge success that's fairly earned. I mean, I do think at a certain point you've made enough money. But, you know, part of the American way is, you know, you can just keep on making it if you’re providing a good product or you're providing good service. We don't want people to stop fulfilling the core responsibilities of the financial system to help grow the economy."
----------------------------
"It is a vital national security interest of the United States to reduce these conflicts because whether we like it or not, we remain a dominant military superpower, and when conflicts break out, one way or another we get pulled into them. And that ends up costing us significantly in terms of both blood and treasure."
----------------------------
"But I -- I think that the most important thing for the public to understand is, we're not handling any of these cases any different than the Bush administration handled them all through 9/11."
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"One such translator was an American of Haitian descent, representative of the extraordinary work that our men and women in uniform do all around the world -- Navy CORPSE-MAN Christian [sic] Brossard. And lying on a gurney aboard the USNS Comfort, a woman asked Christopher: 'Where do you come from? What country? After my operation,' she said, 'I will pray for that country.' And in Creole, CORPSE-MAN Brossard responded, 'Etazini.' The United States of America."
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"I hear that Dr. Joe Medicine Crow was around, and so I want to give a shout-out to that Congressional Medal of Honor winner. It's good to see you."
"I am going to teach [my daughters] first about values and morals, but if they make a mistake, I don't want them punished with a baby."
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"The reforms we seek would bring greater competition, choice, savings, and INEFFICIENCIES to our health care system."
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"Over the last 15 months, we’ve traveled to every corner of the United States. I’ve now been in 57 states? I think one left to go. Alaska and Hawaii, I was not allowed to go to even though I really wanted to visit, but my staff would not justify it."
"In a word, freedom is ever new. It is a challenge held out to each generation, and it must constantly be won over for the cause of good.... [A] democracy without values can lose its very soul."
--POPE BENEDICT XVI
"When freedom does not have a purpose, when it does not wish to know anything about the rule of law engraved in the hearts of men and women, when it does not listen to the voice of conscience, it turns against humanity and society."
--POPE JOHN PAUL II
"We ourselves feel that what we are doing is just a drop in the ocean. But the ocean would be less because of that missing drop."
--MOTHER TERESA
"To promote choice for its own sake is more akin to self-indulgence than self-determination. It is the philosophy of a pre-schooler in a candy shop."
--BRIAN POLLARD, M.D.
"The ultimate tragedy is not the oppression and cruelty by the bad people but the silence over that by the good people."
--MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.
"The house we hope to build is not for my generation but for yours. It is your future that matters. And I hope that when you are my age, you will be able to say as I have been able to say: We lived in freedom. We lived lives that were a statement, not an apology."
--RONALD REAGAN
"America has never been an empire. We may be the only great power in history that had the chance, and refused -- preferring greatness to power and justice to glory."
--GEORGE W. BUSH
"Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty."
--JOHN F. KENNEDY
"Liberalism is the philosophy of the stupid."
--MARK LEVIN
"We will be Warriors forever."
--BO ELLIS
"I know how much you're supposed to enjoy every sandwich, you know."
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