The mayor of a Wisconsin town whose heavy drinking last summer sparked pressure to step down lost a special election on Tuesday to a former Democratic state representative.
First-term Sheboygan Mayor Bob Ryan, 48, lost the first mayoral recall election in the city's history to Terry Van Akkeren, 57.
Van Akkeren received about 53 percent of the votes cast to Ryan's 46 percent, according to unofficial returns from the city clerk's office.
More than 4,000 Sheboygan voters had signed petitions to force the recall after Ryan was caught on tape making sordid jokes about a sister-in-law and was photographed passed out in a tavern during a drinking binge last summer.
Ryan had said on Monday he believed the recall election may have served as an intervention. He has said he has not had a drink for months.
"I have nothing to be ashamed of," Ryan said Tuesday after learning of the results, adding that he would not run again for mayor, "but maybe I'll write a book."
Well, Ryan does have some things to be ashamed of.
They'd probably make for interesting reading if he's serious about writing a book.
It sounds like Ryan is hoping to sell the rights to his story, maybe a made-for-TV movie on cable.
Ryan's antics received national attention. He might think he can exploit that.
Fame at what price?
YouTube can be a curse.
Here's video from FOX6 News:
Video from TMJ4:
Here's video of Bob Ryan's concession speech:
Ryan is certainly angry at the media.
He wants to be seen as a victim, ostracized because of his addiction to alcohol. He was supposed to just go away.
Comparing himself to "the way we used to treat girls, teenage girls back in the 50s where they'd have an issue and they'd send them away and then they'd come back all nice and shiny" was weird to say the least.
Ryan isn't like a pregnant teenager, but like it or not, he was sent away.
Sheboygan Mayor Bob Ryan and former state Rep. Terry Van Akkeren captured the top two spots in Sheboygan’s first-ever mayoral recall primary on Tuesday.
Ryan and Van Akkeren advance to face each other in the Feb. 21 general recall election, which will be a rematch of the 2009 mayoral election, in which Ryan defeated Van Akkeren to win the office.
If Ryan wins on Feb. 21, he will continue as mayor; if Van Akkeren wins, he would be sworn into office at the March 5 Common Council meeting and serve the remaining 13 months of Ryan’s term, which ends in April 2013.
Ryan and Van Akkeren topped an eight-candidate primary field, which drew a turnout of 34.5 percent of Sheboygan’s 28,458 registered voters and caused some polling places to run out of ballots briefly in the late afternoon.
In unofficial results, Ryan finished first with 3,225 votes (33 percent), followed by Van Akkeren with 2,567 26 percent).
...Ryan’s well-documented problems with alcohol, including the fallout from a three-day drinking binge in Elkhart Lake last July, also played a major part in the recall effort. Citizens collected 4,481 valid petition signatures to force the election.
Getting signatures to force a recall election is one thing.
Succeeding in booting an official out of office is another.
Sheboygan Mayor Bob Ryan says he is "more resolute than ever" to remain in his post as the city's leader. Ryan says the time is now to put the issues of his drinking aside and move forward with Sheboygan's business.
Mayor Ryan has been under fire for his drinking, most recently for a weekend binge in Elkhart Lake in which he was involved in a barroom scuffle.
On Tuesday evening, Ryan said he'll voluntarily take a sobriety test if any of his colleagues believe he's been drinking while on the job. He says he has not had a drink in 37 days. Some in the crowd gathered began to applaud Ryan for that statement. But Ryan said he would rather have the applause when he hasn't had a drink in 37 months.
Video:
So Ryan has been sober for 37 days.
How long will he manage to stay sober?
Not long enough.
How many chances are Sheboygan's citizens willing to give Ryan?
Sheboygan Mayor Bob Ryan refuses to resign. He declares that he's not going anywhere, even as the Sheboygan Common Council begins the process of having him removed from office.
Because Ryan is fighting the complaints and the Council, it's necessary to call in the lawyers.
After a flurry of parliamentary moves and angry exchanges between the mayor and aldermen, the Common Council voted Monday night to hire an attorney to look at complaints filed against Mayor Bob Ryan related to a recent drinking binge in Elkhart Lake and to begin the process of potentially removing him from office.
After aldermen voted to hire an attorney, a motion failed that would have transferred $50,000 to a legal services fund to pay the attorney. The council voted to reconsider, however, and approved an amendment to cap the initial outlay at $10,000.
A combative Ryan offered to sign a pledge that he would never drink again as long as he is mayor and said he was stepping up his treatment program for his alcoholism.
But he also claimed he had done nothing to deserve being ousted and said he was the victim of rumors and reiterated that he will not resign.
“This whole thing stinks,” he said. “You should know by now that I never quit. Even if everything out there is true, does it constitute reason to remove me from office?”
Ryan is offering to sign a pledge that he won't drink again while in office as mayor.
How lame!
And then when Ryan goes off on another drinking binge, he'll probably offer to sign a new pledge, promising never to drink again.
Ridiculous!
It's clear that Ryan's alcoholism is not under control. Again and again, he has had high profile relapses.
Ryan has terrible judgment. He's kidding himself if he truly believes that he's up to the job of being mayor of Sheboygan. He's not kidding anyone if he thinks signing a pledge will reassure the people.
By fighting the Common Council, Ryan shows that he has no problem with needlessly sticking the taxpayers with a mountain of legal bills. He cares about himself much more than the people of Sheboygan and the city.
Ryan doesn't understand that he's a public servant. He acts as if the people are mistreating him, as if he's the victim here.
It all boils down to Ryan's failure to hold himself accountable for his repeated inappropriate and unacceptable behavior.
Ryan refuses to accept responsibility. He's stubborn and selfish.
The Council is doing the right thing. Ryan has shown that he's not fit to serve as mayor. He doesn't need enablers. He needs to be confronted with reality.
Following through on his vow in recent days, Mayor Bob Ryan again refused Monday night to resign his office after aldermen voted 14-2 to officially request that he step down because of a recent drunken binge by Ryan.
“We all know that I will respectfully decline,” Ryan said after re-entering the council chambers following the vote. He stepped out to allow Council President Eric Rindfleisch to oversee the discussion on the resolution.
Only Aldermen Joel Hammen and Kevin Matichek voted in Ryan’s favor.
...Meanwhile, Sheboygan City Clerk Sue Richards said Monday she has received a letter asking that Ryan be removed from office.
Richards, who did not divulge the contents of the letter, said she has forwarded it to City Attorney Stephen McLean.
“We’re treating it as a communication at this point and not a formal complaint until it is reviewed by the city attorney,” Richards said.
McLean said he would review the letter and it would likely come up before the next council meeting in two weeks.
The council by itself cannot remove Ryan from office, but can begin the process of forced removal following a formal complaint by a citizen of the city.
Ryan is not fit to serve. He has shown that he does not have control of his alcoholism.
City aldermen, meeting as the Committee of the Whole, recommended Wednesday night that Mayor Bob Ryan resign his post in the wake of an alleged weekend-long drinking binge in Elkhart Lake.
In a prepared statement made following a closed-door meeting that lasted almost two and a half hours, Council President Eric Rindfleisch said if Ryan refused to resign, the committee “recommends that the council take further steps.”
The episode “has brought embarrassment to the city. The council is reviewing its options from censure to removal if a formal complaint is filed,” Rindfleisch said in the statement.
I think Ryan should resign.
I hope people close to Ryan convince him that his resignation is in order.
Sheboygan Mayor Bob Ryan is struggling again with his alcoholism.
In 2009, Ryan was filmed at a bar, apparently drunk and making sexual remarks about his sister-in-law.
The antics of Sheboygan's mayor became fodder for comics, like Jay Leno.
JAY LENO: Oh, well, here -- here is another one of those stupid men behaving badly stories. The mayor of Sheboygan, Wisconsin, a man named Bob Ryan, has apologized after he was caught on a cell phone -- He was at a bar, and somebody had a cell phone camera, and he's talking to the guys about his sister-in-law, and saying that he heard she was good at one particular sex act.
Well, he gave a press conference, and his wife was standing next to him. The sister-in-law wasn't there... Well, she may have been under the podium, but she wasn't at, she wasn't at, you know, at the press conference.
(Laughter, applause)
But anyway, so far calls to his office are split down the middle -- half want him to resign, the other half want the sister-in-law's phone number. So, I don't know what's going on there.
Very embarrassing.
Now, Ryan is involved in more embarrassing public incidents, this time in Elkhart Lake, a small town in northwestern Sheboygan County, home to Road America and resorts.
Mayor Bob Ryan — an admitted alcoholic who a year ago said he was seeking treatment — confessed Tuesday to having a "couple drinks" over the weekend.
But while Ryan downplayed the relapse as one night out with friends, employees and customers at two Elkhart Lake nightspots said Ryan had been an obnoxious regular for at least several days, drinking from mid-afternoon until closing time while being rude and vulgar, especially toward women. They said he passed out at least once and was even seen getting into his car after drinking.
"He basically came to town on a rampage," said a bartender at the Barefoot Bay Tiki Bar in Victorian Village, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
"He's been on a bender," said another man, who saw Ryan over several nights.
This comes three weeks before he is scheduled to face a judge over a sexual harassment complaint filed after he allegedly made drunken advances on Angela Payne, then the city's director of human resources. Payne filed a complaint with the Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development that will be heard before an administrative law judge Aug. 16-19.
City officials responded Tuesday by scheduling a closed session Committee of the Whole meeting for 6:30 tonight.
Ryan on Tuesday called the matter a "setback" to his ongoing treatment program — the same term he used after a relapse last July.
"It's not that big of a deal, anything that transpired," Ryan said. "I got off my program a little bit here, had a little minor setback, was out in Elkhart, went to a different couple places, end of story."
Ald. Eric Rindfleisch, president of the Common Council, said he was concerned with Ryan's version of events and information making its way to him and other leaders.
"I feel that (Ryan's comment) minimizes what took place and I feel that whatever did happen was far more serious than the mayor is discussing at this time," Rindfleisch said. "As a city leader and a resident and a taxpayer … I'm again appalled that the person that occupies the office of mayor has dragged the city through the mud."
...Witnesses at the Brown Baer grill and tavern said Tuesday that Ryan became a regular in recent days, arriving in the afternoon and staying until near closing time.
Three witnesses — two women and one man — said Ryan was at the Brown Baer after hours Sunday night, drinking Jack Daniel's whiskey and diet colas. Ryan made rude and sexually explicit comments to staff and patrons — when he wasn't passed out, said the witnesses, who asked to not be identified.
"He said some really inappropriate things (to women). Things you can't print in your newspaper," one woman said.
Ryan was passed out for long periods of time, during which bar patrons took pictures with him.
In one case, two women bared their breasts next to the passed-out mayor, the witnesses said. In another instance, a man took Ryan's watch off and put it on his own wrist, had his picture taken wearing it and then put it back on Ryan's wrist, they said.
"There are probably some pretty good pictures on the Internet by now," a witness said.
One man, who declined to give his name because Ryan is a "pretty powerful guy," said Ryan's comments led to a physical altercation at the Brown Baer.
"(Ryan) was basically being a (jerk)," the man said. "After a while, one guy got sick of it and punched him twice. Bar stools went flying; glasses went flying."
Both men were kicked out of the bar and Ryan sat outside the bar until police arrived. They did not arrest Ryan but told him to move on, the man said.
Yikes! The patrons at the Brown Baer sound like a real classy bunch, don't they?
...On another night after Ryan had been drinking, one woman said she saw him leave the Brown Baer and get into his car, a metallic blue Corvette convertible.
"He couldn't even focus," she said.
At the Tiki Bar, Ryan also was rude and vulgar to waitresses and other women, said a bartender, who also asked that his name not be used.
"He would show up in the early afternoon and stay pretty near closing time every night," he said. "Two nights in a row I had to cut him off."
I imagine Sheboygan residents must be losing patience with their mayor.
Perhaps he should focus on battling his alcoholism and step down.
Ryan is downplaying the reports of his drunkenness in Elkhart.
Ryan said he was out drinking Saturday with several business owner friends who live in Elkhart Lake, whom he declined to identify. He said he was only in the village on Saturday, and he stayed the night before driving home Sunday.
"I was not drinking and driving if that's the question," he said.
When questioned about reports of sexually inappropriate comments, he denied anything the various allegations.
...And Ryan denied ever passing out: "I was not passing out in any bars," he said.
Ryan said in April 2010 that he realized through the two-pronged scandal that representing the city is a 24-hour job, saying, "I thought I could keep a private life and be the mayor at the same time. I realized that is not possible."
But Tuesday he took the opposite tact in explaining his behavior, adding that the incident is mitigated because he wasn't in Sheboygan.
"Is it a newsworthy story? No, I would hope it would not be. Nothing happened. It's not a story. It's my personal life," Ryan said. "I was out and about in Elkhart Lake. I was not in Sheboygan. … It's a different city."
Ryan acknowledged being part of a physical altercation, which he said started when a man he didn't know at the Brown Baer confronted Ryan about being out drinking.
"Not that I should be out drinking alcohol, but if I can't even go to a place for year after year without people giving me a hard time, something's wrong with that picture," Ryan said. "I think there might have been a little pushing and shoving on his end toward me, but it was nothing major. It wasn't a big deal."
Ryan's excuse that his drinking and alleged bad behavior took place in another city is ridiculous.
Bob Ryan became the first mayor censured by the Sheboygan Common Council in 19 years on Tuesday night, as aldermen voted, 15-0, to formally reprimand him over sexually vulgar comments he made about his sister-in-law in a drunken video taken while he was in a Sheboygan tavern that was later posted on YouTube.
"I'm glad it's over with," Ryan said to reporters after the meeting. "The idea was to accept the censure this evening, do it hopefully with some dignity and to move our city forward. That was the reason I accepted it, and to tell you the truth, I cannot say that I don't deserve it, and I'm looking forward to putting this chapter behind us and I'm looking forward to moving forward."
Ryan could have challenged the censure under city statute, but decided against asking for a quasi-judicial hearing, which could have taken several weeks.
The council moved to censure Ryan after aldermen voted, 11-5, on Oct. 6 against a resolution asking Ryan to resign because of the video, which was taken by someone with a cell phone at Brennan's tavern, and later put on the Internet.
The resolution called for censuring Ryan "due to the embarrassment his recorded actions have caused the residents of Sheboygan and to the office he now holds."
...Ryan is also facing allegations from former Human Resources Director Angela Payne that the mayor fired her after she refused his sexual advances, but those allegations are not mentioned in the censure resolution.
On Tuesday night, the aldermen also voted, 15-0, to reject a written complaint from 52 city residents who were demanding that the council alderman remove Ryan from office over the video and for causing "the biggest scandal in the history of Sheboygan."
City Attorney Steve McLean filed an opinion with the council that he believes the citizens' action was too vague and failed to meet the state requirements needed for a complaint. He said the complaint lacked the "written verified charges" required by state statute, likening it to a petition.
Politically, Ryan seems to have survived the fall-out from the YouTube clip that rocked Sheboygan and provided plenty of fodder for comedians on the national stage.
Ryan dodged this bullet but he still faces the allegations of sexual harassment from Angela Payne.
Ryan has a long way to go on his road to redemption.
Sheboygan Mayor Bob Ryan went before the Common Council Tuesday night to ask for a second chance after allegations call into questions his ability to lead.
Outside Sheboygan City Hall, more than a dozen people held up signs to show where they stood. Some continue to support Mayor Ryan while others back a resolution calling on the mayor to voluntarily step down.
The mayor's character came into question last month when a video taken on a cell phone appeared on YouTube. In the video, the mayor appears drunk and makes an unflattering and sexually-charged comment about his wife's sister.
That same week, the city's former human resources director sent a letter to the city claiming she was fired after rejecting Mayor Ryan's sexual advances -- an allegation he denies.
The Common Council voted on a non-binding resolution asking for the mayor's resignation. More than two-thirds of the council rejected the motion, voting 5-to-11.
The vote came after the council president said he'll offer a motion of censure at the next Common Council meeting. The mayor said he'll accept it.
At the meeting, Mayor Ryan further explained what he called an abuse of alcohol in light of the online video.
"We are making remarkable progress. When my abuse of alcohol interfered, I failed family, I failed myself, I failed you, the Common Council," he said.
The mayor said resigning will never be an option. He denied the claims of sexual harassment.
...The mayor, in conclusion, asked the council to "reunite with me" to move the city forward.
Ryan obviously has the support of the council, at least at this point.
It would be silly for him to resign now.
Why leave if he's not being asked or forced to do so?
The assistant fire chief is downright angry. He says instead of pulling out his license and registration- a man pulled out his cell phone to call in a fake crash.
"There's a lady laying in a ditch holding her head," Christopher Jones is heard saying on 911 tapes.
"Did you stop?" asks the dispatcher. "No I kept going. There was a car behind me"
Rochester Assistant Fire Chief Jack Bierman says, "When a call goes out we think the worst right away and respond accordingly."
Bierman and 14 EMTs rushed to the scene but nothing was there.
"We thought maybe the caller got his directions wrong," Bierman said.
Deputies say that Jones made it all up. The 31-year-old had been pulled over for speeding. Investigators think he called 911 hoping it would distract the deputy.
...Jones was also carrying a fake sheriff's department ID card and badge.
Thankfully, Jones now will be held accountable for his various deceptions.
[T]he lawyer for former Human Resources director Angela Payne has released the letter Payne sent to the city, alleging she was fired for turning down Mayor Bob Ryan's sexual advances.
The letter is detailed on www.sheboyganpress.com. In it, Payne claims Mayor Ryan tried to kiss her while the two were out at a bar in July. Payne also alleges Ryan later apologized for his behavior. Payne was later terminated.
The allegations in the letter also include Ryan making inappropriate comments about other female city employees and Ryan bragging that he gets more sexual acts performed on him now than ever before.
I think it will be difficult for Ryan to survive this.
Two Sheboygan alderpersons are calling for the forcible removal of Mayor Bob Ryan in the wake of a pair of salacious scandals.
Alds. Marilyn Montemayor and Eric Rindfleisch will introduce a resolution to remove him from office at a Common Council next month.
Those out to get Ryan have played this perfectly.
The YouTube clip raised concerns about Ryan's behavior. More importantly, it raised questions about his character. The release of this letter detailing Payne's explosive claims exploits those doubts about Ryan.
It's a one-two punch that could knock Ryan out of office.
Should it?
If Payne's allegations are true -- Yes.
She made some rather odd choices, like agreeing to go to The End Zone with Ryan after she claims he had sexually harassed her, and even offering to let Ryan sleep on the couch or floor at her apartment because he was too drunk to make it home.
Why didn't Payne call a cab for Ryan and leave immediately if she felt so threatened and degraded?
Payne's questionable choices don't really matter. They don't excuse Ryan's behavior, though they may have an impact on the outcome of her lawsuit.
In any case, Ryan has got a lot to lose. He's definitely on defense.
IF it is determined that Payne is giving a fair account of what happened, I think calls for Ryan's resignation are legitimate and a reasonable response to the situation.
This is Sheboygan Mayor Bob Ryan's moment, his 15 minutes of fame.
He made the monologue on The Jay Leno Show.
JAY LENO: Oh, well, here -- here is another one of those stupid men behaving badly stories. The mayor of Sheboygan, Wisconsin, a man named Bob Ryan, has apologized after he was caught on a cell phone -- He was at a bar, and somebody had a cell phone camera, and he's talking to the guys about his sister-in-law, and saying that he heard she was good at one particular sex act.
Well, he gave a press conference, and his wife was standing next to him. The sister-in-law wasn't there... Well, she may have been under the podium, but she wasn't at, she wasn't at, you know, at the press conference.
(Laughter, applause)
But anyway, so far calls to his office are split down the middle -- half want him to resign, the other half want the sister-in-law's phone number. So, I don't know what's going on there.
Sheboygan's mayor says he's sorry he made sexual remarks about his wife's sister that ended up on YouTube.
...The mayor says he hasn't seen the video, but he has called his sister-in-law and apologized.
During a news conference Thursday afternoon Ryan called the incident an embarrassment.
"I have no excuse. I have no excuse whatsoever. Truthfully it was conversation between guys. I'm sure we've, and I don't put a disclaimer on it, I do not. I take full responsibility for it. However, it was conversation between men in an establishment," said Ryan.
Ryan also said he has to choose between his personal lifestyle and his job of running the city. He said he is choosing the city.
Aside from his apologies, Ryan said he is seeking professional treatment to help him in his personal life, but he would not elaborate what that problem is.
Ryan's wife also apologized, and even thanked the person who posted the video.
"I will say today that someone has finally taught him a very powerful lesson. And as strange as it may sound I want to personally thank whoever that individual is. And I can assure you that from this day forward, you won't have another opportunity," said Mary Ryan.
The mayor did question whether the timing of the video was connected to allegations he fired his human resources manager because she resisted his advances. Ryan would not comment on that incident saying it was a legal manner.
______________________
Just about everyone has experienced that disturbing dream of being in public without their clothes on or some similar uncomfortable exposure.
Sheboygan Mayor Bob Ryan is living that nightmare, metaphorically speaking.
Apparently, Sheboygan Mayor Bob Ryan can be crude, rude and socially unacceptable.
And thanks to YouTube, you can witness his antics for yourself.
A clip of the Ryan - taken, it appears via cell phone - shows the 46-year-old mayor slurring his words and offering sexually explicit statements about one of his relatives. It does not appear that Ryan realized he was being videotaped at the unidentified tavern.
I think it can be said with metaphysical certitude that Ryan did not realize he was being videotaped.
It must be terribly embarrassing for Ryan, even though it could have been much worse. This all has to be awful for Ryan's wife and sister-in-law, collateral damage.
But there is another angle to this. Someone thought it would be a good idea to post the roughly 2 minutes of video on the Internet. That someone is definitely not a friend of Ryan.
I bet there was more video. Probably dull stuff. There is no question that this clip was picked to hurt Ryan politically, to do damage to him.
I think it would be extremely hypocritical for Leftists to jump all over this and take a holier-than-thou stance.
Spare me the sudden conversion to Puritanism.
Remember, we have to separate a person's private life from their performance on the job. The libs have lectured about that for over a decade.
The fact is the clip does not record Ryan committing a crime.
He didn't drive drunk. He didn't have a young woman in his car, drive off a bridge, fail to summon authorities and emergency personnel, and leave the scene of an accident knowing the woman was trapped in the vehicle and likely dead or dying. That would be bad. It would be a career ender, right?
Someone caught Ryan in an embarrassing candid camera moment, but applying Chappaquiddick standards, it's not even close to a career ender.
We've seen the video.
Now I'd like to know the identity of the person responsible for taking it and posting it on the Internet and spreading the word that it was available for the public's viewing pleasure.
That's an intriguing part of this story.
Today's cell phones are incredible instruments.
If phones capable of taking video had been around when John Norquist was in office, maybe the apple incident would have made it to YouTube.
But why look back?
Ryan won't be the last politician to be exposed in this manner. This is just the beginning.
"And my job is to shut other white people down when they want to interrupt."
"We have to, at the DNC, provide training. We have to teach them how to communicate, how to be sensitive, and how to shut their mouths if they're white."
"Hollywood is crawling with outsiders and foreigners, and if we kick 'em all out, you'll have nothing to watch but football and mixed martial arts, which are not the arts."
"When I would deny that there was a significant racist component in some of the politics on our side, it was because the people I hung out with were certainly not. When suddenly, this rock is turned over, there is this—'Oh shit, did I not see that?'"
----------------------------
"In any other scenario, Hillary Clinton's lying about her emails, and her pay-for-play relationship with the Clinton Foundation would be disqualifying issues. The only reason they're not disqualifying is because Donald Trump is a fundamentally more repellent, dishonest figure."
"I made a mistake in recalling the events of twelve years ago... I said I was traveling in an aircraft that was hit by RPG fire. I was instead in a following aircraft."
"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
"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."
"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
"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
"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."
"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."
"[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
"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 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
"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 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
"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
"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
"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."
----------------------------
"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."
----------------------------
"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."
----------------------------
"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."
----------------------------
"The reforms we seek would bring greater competition, choice, savings, and INEFFICIENCIES to our health care system."
----------------------------
"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."
--BARACK OBAMA
NOTEWORTHY QUOTATIONS
"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
"Liberalism is the philosophy of the stupid."
--MARK LEVIN
"We are Warriors forever."
--BO ELLIS
"I know how much you're supposed to enjoy every sandwich, you know."
