Liberal Senator George Brandis declared on the ABC program Q&A this week that he didn’t think think that anything that was said by people in the Tea Party or the more mainstream elements of the Republican Party during the recent Congressional campaign was “beyond the bounds of legitimate but very heated criticism of the president, the current administration and their policies.” I have written about this view in today’s Crikey email but for those interested in the subject here are some further examples of what the would-be Australian Attorney General thinks are legitimate political comments.
Tea Party candidate Ken Buck, after being asked why people should vote for him for the Colorado GOP Senate nomination: ”Because I do not wear high heels. She has questioned my manhood, and I think it’s fair to respond. I have cowboy boots, they have real bullshit on them. And that’s Weld County bullshit, not Washington, D.C., bullshit.” Buck was referring to an ad run by his opponent, which decried third-party spending on behalf of his campaign and urged Buck to ”be man enough” to run the ads himself.
(July 21, 2010)
”I don’t know if you’ve ever been to one, but they wear these little Speedos and they grind against each other, and it’s just a terrible thing.”
—Carl Paladino, New York State Tea Party-backed candidate for Governor, on gay pride parades, Today Show interview, Oct. 11, 2010
[China has a] ”carefully thought out and strategic plan to take over America … There’s much I want to say. I wish I wasn’t privy to some of the classified information that I am privy to … A country that forces women to have abortions and mandates that you can only have one child and will not allow you the freedom to read the Bible, you think they can be our friend? We have to look at our history and realize that if they pretend to be our friend it’s because they’ve got something up their sleeve.”
—Delaware GOP Senate candidate Christine O’Donnell, in a debate during Delaware’s 2006 Senate primary, which she lost
”America is now a socialist economy. The definition of a socialist economy is when 50% or more your economy is dependent on the federal government.”
—Delaware GOP Senate nominee and Tea Party favorite Christine O’Donnell
”The Republicans have lost their standards, they’ve lost their principles. Really that’s why the machine in the Republican Party is fighting against me… They have never really gone along with lower taxes and less government.”
—Nevada GOP Senate candidate Sharron Angle, criticizing the integrity of Republicans and establishment efforts to direct her campaign, in remarks caught on tape from a conversation she had with Senate candidate Jon Scott Ashjian, who is running with the ”Tea Party” affiliation next to his name (Oct. 2010)
”I’m ashamed of what happened in the White House yesterday. I think it is a tragedy in the first proportion that a private corporation can be subjected to what I would characterize as a shakedown — in this case a $20 billion shakedown … I’m only speaking for myself. I’m not speaking for anyone else, but I apologize. I do not want to live in a county where anytime a citizen or a corporation does something that is legitimately wrong, [it is] subject to some sort of political pressure that, again, in my words, amounts to a shakedown.”
—Rep. Joe Barton (R-Tex.) member of the Tea Party Caucus, during a congressional hearing with BP CEO Tony Hayward, referring to a $20 billion fund for damages that President Obama pressured BP to set up to pay for the Gulf oil spill. Barton, the biggest recipient of oil and gas industry campaign contributions in the House of Representatives, was forced by Republican leaders to apologize for his BP apology.
”I’m in the construction industry.”
—Carl Paladino, New York State Tea Party-backed candidate for Governor, on why he sent emails of a woman having sex with a horse, President Obama and Michelle Obama dressed as a pimp and ho, and various other pornographic and racist chain letters
”We will talk a little bit about what has transpired in the last 18 months and would we count what has transpired into turning our country into a nation of slaves.”
—Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN), founder of the congressional Tea Party Caucus, speaking at the Western Conservative Summit in Denver about the evils of the Obama administration, July 9, 2010
”I dabbled into witchcraft — I never joined a coven. But I did, I did… I dabbled into witchcraft. I hung around people who were doing these things. I’m not making this stuff up. I know what they told me they do… One of my first dates with a witch was on a satanic altar, and I didn’t know it. I mean, there’s little blood there and stuff like that. We went to a movie and then had a midnight picnic on a satanic altar.”
—Delaware GOP Senate candidate Christine O’Donnell, in a 1999 appearance on Bill Maher’s ‘Politically Incorrect’
”The Second Amendment is the right to keep and bear arms for our citizenry…This is for us…This is for us when our government becomes tyrannical…”
—Nevada GOP Senate nominee and Tea Party favorite Sharron Angle
”We’re on to them; we’re on to this gangster government.”
—Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN), at the Tea Party’s Tax Day protest in Wahington, D.C., April 15, 2010
”You are taking a very small group of cases and making a point about abortion. We have hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of abortions in this country every year. And the example that you give is a very poignant one, but an extremely rare occurrence.”
—Ken Buck, Tea Party-backed GOP candidate for Senate in Colorado, defending his opposition to abortion even in the case of rape and incest, Aug. 4, 2010
”If you’re oriented toward animals, bestiality, then, you know, that’s not something that can be used, held against you or any bias be held against you for that. Which means you’d have to strike any laws against bestiality, if you’re oriented toward corpses, toward children, you know, there are all kinds of perversions … pedophiles or necrophiliacs or what most would say is perverse sexual orientations.”
—Rep. Louis Gohmert (R-TX), member of the Tea Party Caucus, arguing that a hate crimes bill passed by Congress would lead to Nazism and legalization of necrophilia, pedophilia, and bestiality, Oct. 6, 2009
(My thanks to the Political Humour page of About.com for the quotations.)
17 Comments
Some of these (a few) do seem like legitimate political comment. What’s wrong with Sharon Angle saying that the Republicans have lost their standards and principles? That’s practically a tautological truism. Others seem like bullshit; ignorant, but fairly harmless. The argument is weakened by lumping these in with the truly poisonous.
Wasn’t Brandis the bufoon who likened the Greens to the Nazis or fascism here not so long ago?
IMHO the man is a walking talking example of an overrated political goon
Brandis is sometimes called a moderate and beside Howard he might sort of be, but the reality is he is a bullying thug.
During the Bali hearings he blamed the victims and tried to shut down the enquiry that showed gross incompetence on the part of the government at the time.
I agree with JamesH above. While all of the statements are constestable and a number painfully and gobsmackingly stupid, I see only one that is downright mad (China wanting to enslave the US). There are no birther remarks or pitches to kill the president, comments about the Earth being 8000 years old, and you’ve left out the one about “if evolution is true how come monkeys haven’t evolved into humans?” attributed to the TPM.
Certainly none is as much fun as the Republican from Illinois pitching at being head of the House Committee on Energy — John Shumkis who read Genesis 8 as proof that floods would not wipe out the Earth and Matthew 24 as proof that the Earth would be destroyed by God.
Given that he’s a fair chance of having his way and was elected to Congress, his madness counts more strongly.
Of course Brandis is quite correct.
Farmer is a fully paid up member of the leftist sneering class.
I note George Will and Michael Barrone both conservative pundits above reproach in the Beltway are in total agreement with the wonderful Michele Bachmann:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/10/23/AR2009102303193.html
“Bachmann repeatedly called such politicization of the allocation of economic rewards “gangster government.” And she repeatedly noted that the phrase was used by a respected political analyst, Michael Barone, principal co-author of the Almanac of American Politics, who coined it in connection with the mugging of GM bondholders in the politicized bankruptcy. Bachmann, like Barone, was accurate.”
Progressive puffpieces and incoherent sneering of conservatives are Farmers stockn’trade.
It ain’t journalism and sure as hell isn’t informed commmentary.
Pathetic is what is; even for a decaying lunar lefty…..
This US President is utterly dreadful…. a catastrophe for the Democrats, America and most importantly the free world.
European leaders know. Sarkozy and Merkel certainly.
The only people not to get that are the ever small-minded european bourgeoisie and sundry scattered lunar lefys like Farmer worldwide…….
Speaking of bufoons
Even the liberal magazine, The Economist says Obama has “ridden roughshod over [creditors'] legitimate claims over the [automobile companies'] assets. . . . Bankruptcies involve dividing a shrunken pie. But not all claims are equal: some lenders provide cheaper funds to firms in return for a more secure claim over the assets should things go wrong. They rank above other stakeholders, including shareholders and employees. This principle is now being trashed.”
http://www.economist.com/node/13610871?story_id=13610871
George Will also said in another article:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/13/AR2009051303014.html
“The Obama administration’s agenda of maximizing dependency involves political favoritism cloaked in the raiment of “economic planning” and “social justice” that somehow produce results superior to what markets produce when freedom allows merit to manifest itself, and incompetence to fail. The administration’s central activity — the political allocation of wealth and opportunity — is not merely susceptible to corruption, it is corruption.”
NASA, whose administrator appointed by Obama is one Charles Bolden who has said that “perhaps foremost” among NASA’s missions is finding “a way to reach out to the Muslim world and engage much more with dominantly Muslim nations to help them feel good about their historic contribution to science.”
Charles Bolden, a space cadet and has said (I have on good authority):
“quantize is a genius. He’s one of us”…..
Speaking of sneering, elitists:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/04/15/AR2009041502861.html
lmbo
George Brandis is the one of those totally discredited Members for Israel that regretably inhabit in our Federal Parliament.
He supported the bombing of Gaza, and the starvation of its infant children. George says they deserve it for trying to rid their lands of illegal Israeli occupants. He’s a lawyer, so he should know.
Does anyone of note take anything poor old George says seriously?
What a sad lightweight….. in every sense.
Note to quantize:
I’ve found that not to mention certain bufoons is the best policy over time. It only feeds the fragile ego
Good point Kevin…quite bizzare though isn’t it…as though those frothingly insane posts will convince anyone of anything other than confirm it only has one eye.
Buckets of crazy dribbling.
?Kevboy Charlie Herbert = Charles Bolden = Space cadet
Nah.
Bolden is an Islamic apologist but not anti-semitic…..
“NASA, whose administrator appointed by Obama is one Charles Bolden who has said that “perhaps foremost” among NASA’s missions is finding “a way to reach out to the Muslim world and engage much more with dominantly Muslim nations to help them feel good about their historic contribution to science.””
So?
Daniel, I lost all respect for George Will when I saw this video. He’s a liar. Not just a regular liar like everyone, he wrote a column for a mass audience being fully aware that it was not true. Not only did he lie about the contents of a newspaper article, he completely misrepresented the contents of that article. No
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EU_AtHkB4Ms#t=4m12s
“Some climatologists believe that the average temperature in the Northern Hemisphere, at least, may decline by two or three degrees by the end of the century. If that climate change occurs, there will be megadeaths and social upheaval because grain production in high latitudes (Canada, northern regions of China and the Soviet Union) will decrease.”
- George Will, “A Change in the Weather,” Washington Post, January 24, 1975, quoted in James Fleming, Historical Perspectives on Climate Change (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998), pp. 132-33.
I’m sure George is brokenhrearted that Broggly has “lost all respect” for him but he was actually writing columns during that particular phase of leftist Armageddon fearmongering………
Daniel, comprehending the significance of rampant stupidity is a trait of the intelligent……
When the financial powerhouses of the free market make their own rules so we have a superior system which “markets produce when freedom allows merit to manifest itself, and incompetence to fail” then you end up with a financial crisis that does not allow them to fail! Somebody has to oversee the recovery, so without handing the asylum back to the lunatics who would you suggest besides the government of the day!
Even I can find a climatologist to come up with a theory to support any side of the argument, even to begin fear-mongering to the extent where there will be MEGADEATHS!!!!
I’m sorry you can wash it anyway you like but to anyone with an open mind it is obvious the Tea Party movement is full of one line statement policies with no substance that will do nothing but damage the Republican push for re-election.
For people to take the time and effort to go to the Tea Party rallies I thought they would have taken the time and effort to study the polices and statements made by the ring leaders but when asked to discuss them in any depth they have no idea. Deep at the core their may be some legitimate ideas and philosophies that many people would agree with but they will not achieve this in the current format in which they conduct themselves today. They prey on the ignorant with fear tactics and nation dividing rhetoric which appears to be the only way they can sell their ideology.
Many in the Tea Party movement actually read the 2000+ page healthcare bill.
None of the congress members did before voting on it.
Speaker of the House Pelosi said: “we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it”
Now who is doing the preying on the ignorant?