December 2010
37 posts
WatchRep. Barney Frank, in an interview after the repeal of the military’s Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy.
Asked if gay and straight personnel should be required to shower together, Frank, who is openly gay, told his CNSNews.com interviewer that homosexuals “tend to take showers,” and “we don’t get ourselves dry cleaned.”
“In those 50 years we have never seen anything like the pervasive collusion of so...”
– Bill Hancock, president of Mayer Hoffman McCann, a prominent accounting firm that gave clean audits to the city of Bell, where current and former government officials face corruption charges for mismanaging city finances. The California state controller’s office said that the company’s...
“We are an organisation that does not promote leaking. We’re an...”
– Julian Assange, founder of WikiLeaks, after a BBC interviewer noted the irony of Assange’s complaints about Swedish prosecutors “deliberately and illegally” leaking to the press selected information about rape accusations against him. Last month, the organization WikiLeaks leaked a...
“What they say is that they found out that they were mutual lovers of mine and...”
– WikiLeaks’ founder Julian Assange, summarizing in his own words the substance of the rape and sexual assault allegations against him. The Guardian last week published detailed accounts from his accusers, two Swedish women.
“A house of cards is almost never built by one lone architect.”
– The U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, Preet Bharara, announcing the arrest of two more employees of convicted Ponzi schemer Bernie Madoff.
“Is there no shame, ever, with respect to the arguments that are made sometimes...”
– Sen. John Kerry, pushing back on complaints from some Republicans that the new arms control treaty with Russia is being brought up at the last minute before the end of the lame duck Congress. Kerry said the treaty had been delayed 13 times at the request of Republicans.
“The state of Illinois is known as a deadbeat state. This is a reputation that...”
– Illinois comptroller Dan Hynes, in an interview on “60 Minutes,” discussing his state’s fiscal troubles.
“We just sat on our cars, watching the girls, talking, doing what boys do. We...”
– Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour, on watching a 1962 speech that Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. gave in Barbour’s hometown of Yazoo City.
“We want to make sure that they take into account the men at the tip of the...”
– A spokesman for Veterans of Foreign Wars, urging a go-slow approach on implementing the repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell.
“I complained to a supervisor that I felt I always was lying to borrowers.”
– A Bank of America employee quoted in a new lawsuit that alleges that the bank regularly misled homeowners trying to get mortgage modifications.
“Although it is my understanding that the estate’s legal liability may not have...”
– Barbara Picower, widow of Bernie Madoff investor Jeffry Picower, agreeing to repay $7.2 billion to victims of the Ponzi scheme. Picower was the single largest winner in Madoff’s scam.
“The Court does not work for CITI and cannot wait for CITI, a multi-billion...”
– Brooklyn Supreme Court Justice Arthur Schack reprimanding Citimortgage for not submitting an affirmation that the foreclosure documents it submitted to the court were true. The judged dismissed the foreclosure case.
“They do what we do and we do what we do… And one thing I don’t want...”
– Rep. Louise Slaughter (D-N.Y.), speaking of the White House and Congress and being cut out of negotiations on the recently passed tax deal.
“It’s more survivable than most people think. The key is avoiding nuclear...”
– An anonymous administration official telling the New York Times that it actually does make sense to train the public about what to do after a nuclear blast.
“Refrain from asserting that the planet has warmed (or cooled) in any given...”
– Fox News Washington managing editor Bill Sammon issued the above directive in an email to the network’s journalists, sent during last year’s climate change conference in Copenhagen. The note was apparently sent soon after a correspondent reported that 2000-2009 was on track to be the...
“I am no little angel, but neither am I a criminal.”
– Mexican Congressman Julio César Godoy, after being sworn in to the country’s legislature. Godoy, who was elected last year, has been on the run from Mexican authorities since he was charged shortly after election with laundering drug money. Godoy snuck into the legislature in September to be...
“In Washington, the view is that the banks are to be regulated, and my view is...”
– Rep. Spencer Bachus (R-AL), the incoming chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, in an interview Wednesday. Quote credit: Nicko.
“No excuses. No lies. No hidden agenda.”
– Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele, on a conference call Monday night, announcing his intention to seek re-election to lead the party.
“We will put people in jail.”
– Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller, speaking about the 50-state investigation on banks’ foreclosure practices.
“You’ve got to stop this war in Afghanistan.”
– The last, delphic words of Ambassador Richard Holbrooke.
“We do not have a doomsday scenario at the CDC.”
– A spokeswoman for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, responding to PolitiFact’s fact check of “The Walking Dead,” AMC’s hit series in which flesh-eating zombies take over the city of Atlanta and survivors taking refuge at the CDC learn that the...
“So, you know, as they say in the countryside, some people’s cows can moo,...”
– Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, attacking the United States after a leaked diplomatic cable showed U.S. diplomats criticizing Russian democracy. Putin, using a Russian idiom, said the West is in no place to criticize Russia after how it’s treated Julian Assange.
“1) Please use the term “government-run health insurance” or,...”
– Fox News’ Washington managing editor, Bill Sammon, issuing an e-mailed reminder to staffers at the height of the healthcare debate. “Public option,” which Sammon told staffers to avoid using without qualifiers, got more positive responses in the polls compared to the term...
“This type of language sounds awful and is very disappointing, but it does not...”
– Goldman Sachs, responding to questions from the Financial Times regarding newly discovered emails between Goldman traders discussing a strategy in 2007 to drive down the price of credit default swaps “to cause maximum pain” and make people “totally demoralised.”
“Turn down your thermostats? Buy a smaller car? Conserve? I have spent quite a...”
– Don Blankenship, CEO of Massey Energy—the company that owns the Upper Big Branch mine that exploded in April and killed 29 coal miners. Blankenship announced his retirement last week shortly after an article in Rolling Stone called him “the embodiment of everything that’s wrong...
“It’s like what beauty is. Everyone knows what a bridge to nowhere is, or an...”
– Rep. Phil Roe, a Tennessee Republican, discussing exactly what constitutes an “earmark” and whether there should be exemptions to the GOP’s recent ban on them.
“Tragedy comes in threes. Pearl Harbor, Elizabeth Edwards’s passing and...”
– Christine O’Donnell, former Delaware Republican candidate for Senate. O’Donnell backed off her comments later, saying that her opposition to the unemployment extension was based on how the extension was paid for.
“It’s just an unfortunate situation and my heart goes to his family and...”
– Arizona Governor Jan Brewer, reacting to the death of a Phoenix man who was denied state Medicaid coverage for a bone marrow transplant. In October, Arizona stopped funding certain transplants under the state’s version of Medicaid. Critics say the cuts are a death sentence for low-income and...
“Don’t you have connections in Baltimore????? Someone needs to take this...”
– An executive at Abbot Laboratories, a drug and medical device company, writing in an internal email about a Baltimore Sun columnist who criticized of a heart device that the company manufactures. A company spokesman has apologized for the remark, saying that it “wasn’t meant to be taken...
“Would you ever ask a man that question?”
– Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, responding to a question about what clothing designers she prefers. The question was asked on Clinton’s visit to Kyrgyzstan, just moments after she made a point about sexism and the scrutiny women face—that men don’t—regarding clothing.
“We are pleased that this lawsuit has finally ended with plaintiffs’...”
– A statement from Google, which reached an agreement in court to pay $1 in damages to a Pennsylvania couple for trespassing when it took a Google StreetView photo of the couple’s house.
“It is amazing to me how really downright stupid the Democrats are, especially...”
– Sen. Orrin Hatch, a Utah Republican, on negotiations over an extension of the Bush tax cuts.
“The fraudulent claims might be, well Johnny, yeah he was raised on a farm but he...”
– Rep. Steve King, an Iowa Republican, explaining why he opposes a settlement between the U.S. Department of Agriculture and black farmers who faced discrimination from the agency in the 1980s and 1990s. King, who says most of the claims are fraudulent, has said they are “slavery...
“The museum should pull the exhibit and be prepared for serious questions come...”
– Rep. Eric Cantor, a Republican, calling on the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery to remove an exhibit on gay and lesbian identity, calling it “an outrageous use of taxpayer money.”
Though the Smithsonian does receive federal funding, the exhibit itself was funded by donors....
“I had not used a computer in the eight years I spent in the White House and I...”
– Fmr. first lady Laura Bush, talking in a radio interview about her addiction to her Blackberry.
“It’s just the scandal du jour, I suppose. I reckon we’re all a bit jaded. So...”
– An unnamed mortgage strategist at a recently subpoenaed hedge fund, reacting to the government’s probe of insider trading.