I want to correct something I said last night. The bombs thrown in New York City over the weekend by ISIS inspired attackers was thrown into a crowd of anti-Muslim protestors and not specifically targeted at Mayor Mamdani. That wording was inaccurate and I didn’t catch it ahead…
CNN is brimming with FAKE NEWS and inaccurate, inadequate "apologies."
Just stop, @abbydphillip …You are literally READING FROM THE TELEPROMPTER - which means you saw it ahead of time, and it was seen & vetted by at least one other @CNN producer, boss, etc … if not more. Inexcusable. And predictable. https://t.co/NSkBpkwbeb
MORE: “BALAT additionally stated that they wanted to carry out an attack bigger than the Boston Marathon bombing, which BALAT noted caused only “three deaths.”
Jay Clayton, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, announces charges against Emir Balat and Ibrahim Kayumi:
"Free speech and peaceful assembly are the bedrock of American democracy. But violence is not protected...[it] will be met with swift justice." pic.twitter.com/Cpv2uRsPpJ
— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) March 9, 2026
It's been a while since I've watched Obama deliver a speech.
I didn't see his speech at the Democrats' convention last summer. I stopped watching his State of the Union addresses years ago. I didn't see his second inaugural address. I tuned out.
That echo was annoying. Strange that the sound was so weird.
In terms of content, naturally, supporters and fans consider the address to be Obama at his best, a soaring triumph.
I consider it to be Obama as usual, making some true and some false claims delivered as truth, both cloaked in flowery phrasing meant to impress. Sure, some of the things he said sounded nice, but there was a disconnect between his words and the truth. Of course, the Leftist utopian rhetoric was out in full force, as were the crowd-pleasing applause triggers that peppered the speech. And, of course, there were those thinly-veiled shots aimed at Trump and Republicans, as well as the statement that prompted the crowd to boo loudly, "In ten days, the world will witness a hallmark of our democracy."
I didn't like the lecturing, especially given the hypocritical nature of his remarks. He can't talk unity when you look at his 8-year record of divisiveness and partisanship. The last time I heard such a load Meryl Streep was lecturing the country during the Golden Globes just a couple of days ago, singling out the rubes, the football and MMA fans.
Obama's yapping about the "retreat into our own bubbles" and complaining about the "selective sorting of the facts" was so disingenuous.
Obama was doing a lot of finger-pointing when he should have been looking in the mirror, and at least acknowledging that he was certainly a major player in stoking the problem.
He complained about "corrosive" political dialogue.
In his own farewell address, George Washington wrote that self-government is the underpinning of our safety, prosperity, and liberty, but “from different causes and from different quarters much pains will be taken... to weaken in your minds the conviction of this truth.”
And so we have to preserve this truth with “jealous anxiety;” that we should reject “the first dawning of every attempt to alienate any portion of our country from the rest or to enfeeble the sacred ties” that make us one.
America, we weaken those ties when we allow our political dialogue to become so corrosive that people of good character aren’t even willing to enter into public service. So course with rancor that Americans with whom we disagree are seen, not just as misguided, but as malevolent. We weaken those ties when we define some of us as more American than others.
Obama has been so corrosive. The things he said while campaigning for Hillary were beyond the pale. Was he admitting that he engaged in weakening those "sacred ties"? No, but he did.
I didn't like Obama's claim that "no foreign terrorist organization has successfully planned and executed an attack on our homeland these past eight years." That statement rests on the definition of "foreign terrorist organization."
While he did go on to acknowledge "Boston and Orlando and San Bernardino and Fort Hood," he diminished the significance of those terrorist attacks by attributing that violence to "dangerous radicalization," as if killing in the name of an ideology requires a "foreign terrorist organization" to order the bloodshed to consider it a successful attack.
Either Obama genuinely doesn't understand terrorism or he is intentionally defining it in a manner that allows him to claim there have been no attacks "on our homeland these past eight years."
Whatever. Why bother picking apart his words? At 11:00 AM CT on January 20, the Obama era ends. It's history. The possibilities for the future, for change and improvement, for better days ahead, excite me.
It was very touching when Obama thanked Michelle and his daughters (Malia was there, but Sasha was not), expressing his pride and appreciation and love. I believed it. He was being sincere. I could relate to him in that moment.
I was reminded that what we share as Americans and human beings is much greater than any of the things that divide us.
Two years after bombs in two backpacks transformed the Boston Marathon from a sunny rite of spring to a smoky battlefield with bodies dismembered, a federal jury on Friday condemned Dzhokhar Tsarnaev to death for his role in the 2013 attack.
In a sweeping rejection of the defense case, the jury found that death was the appropriate punishment for six of 17 capital counts — all six related to Mr. Tsarnaev’s planting of a pressure-cooker bomb on Boylston Street, which his lawyers never disputed. Mr. Tsarnaev, 21, stood stone-faced in court, his hands folded in front of him, as the verdict was read, his lawyers standing grimly at his side.
Terrorism may get you on the cover of Rolling Stone but it may also get you the death penalty.
Wait for the t-shirt that reads "Terrorists' Lives Matter."
CVS/pharmacy has decided not to sell the current issue of Rolling Stone featuring a cover photo of the Boston Marathon bombing suspect. As a company with deep roots in New England and a strong presence in Boston, we believe this is the right decision out of respect for the victims of the attack and their loved ones.
Tsarnaev doesn't look like a creep, let alone a terrorist.
When Charles Manson made the cover of Rolling Stone, his image wasn't attractive. He looked like an evil man.
The photo of Tsarnaev isn't scary looking. Rolling Stone chose to use a photo that looks like he's a star who posed for the cover, with a crew of make-up artists tending to his carefully tousled hair.
Al-Qaeda's military chief in Yemen warned Americans in an audio message posted online Sunday that the Boston bombings revealed a fragile security as he urged Muslims to defend their religion.
Qassim al-Rimi, the military chief of Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, said making bombs such as the ones used in the twin blasts in Boston in April, is within "everyone's reach".
"The Boston events... and the poisoned letters (sent to the White House), regardless of who is behind them, show that your security is no longer under control, and that attacks on you have taken off and cannot be stopped," he said, in the message entitled: "A letter to the American people."
"Every day you will be hit by the unexpected and your leaders will not be able to defend you," warned the man whose organisation is considered by Washington the world's most dangerous Al-Qaeda branch.
...To the Muslims in the United States, he said: "We encourage you to carry on with this way, be steadfast in your religion.
"Carry out your obligations, defend your religion and follow in the footsteps of those who supported their religion and Ummah (Muslim nation) while they are in their enemy's den," he said.
Hear that, Muslims?
"Defend" your religion and kill Americans.
I think Muslims, the peaceful practitioners, should speak out against this man's proclamation. They should loudly and clearly voice their condemnation. They should distance themselves from al Qaeda. They should vow to contact authorities and report any extremists they believe to be potentially dangerous.
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.
The 9/11/12 terrorist attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi went on for HOURS.
Where was Obama?
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.
On Friday's The Five, Greg Gutfeld delivered a terrific monologue about the idiocy of comparing the Boston terrorist attack to Sandy Hook.
Here's video:
Transcript
GREG GUTFELD: So, some intelligence experts call the Boston bombing a homegrown attack, comparing it to Sandy Hook. Now to buy that you'd have to ignore the red flags that were raised about the dead bomber before the attack or the associations to various terrorist lowlifes. Yup, you have to play down the idea that the bombing may be part of a greater movement meant to inspire mayhem. Sorry, the last time I checked the Sandy Hook ghoul wasn't part of a larger hate group. Why didn't the experts cite the Fort Hood shooter instead?
Here's why: The experts believe that if Muslims feel like they belong here, no more bombs.
At this point, I'm trying hard not to explode. First, we worried if they liked us over there. Now, we must worry whether they like us coming here. Here you have people leaving miserable places to come to the greatest country ever, and we must adapt to them.
Imagine throwing a party in which the goal is to make it less fun. You pee in the dip; you trash the furniture; you punch each guest.
Welcome to America, now 80 percent more like Afghanistan!
This is the first time in history the world's greatest decides to assimilate downward. It goes back to exceptionalism. When we once believed that our country was tops, we expected those who came here to get it. Now, having forfeited that idea, we embrace a toxic tolerance that turns a blind eye to deadly connections.
It's so sad. So many people left the desert to come here and it's us who stick our heads in the sand.
It's simple.
If you want to live in America, then embrace America.
State lawmakers have launched an investigation into whether the suspects in the Boston Marathon bombings improperly received public benefits.
The House Committee on Post Audit and Oversight is reviewing hundreds of documents collected from state agencies that may have provided benefits to the suspects or their families since 2002.
Sources who have seen the 500 pages of documents sent to the House Committee on Post Audit and Oversight told News Center 5’s Janet Wu that the Tsarnaev family -- including the parents of the two bombing suspects, the two suspects themselves, their sisters, the widow of the suspect killed and their child -- received "every conceivable public benefit available out there."
One source told Wu that the amount of state, federal and local benefits totaled over a $100,000 in the past decade.
"I am concerned that the taxpayers and victims here may have been funding terrorists," said Rep. Shaunna O'Connell, a Republican representing the 3rd district. "People have a right to know if that's the case and they have the right to know immediately."
The house post audit committee was scheduled to release public the documents Monday, but the chairman announced late in the day confidentially laws dictate they first comb through the papers, primarily to protect minors listed.
He wouldn't comment on any details, but sources who saw the pages say among the benefits the family received: medicaid, SNAP - also known as food stamps, cash assistance, federal benefits like Social security disability which the father of the suspects received, as well as Section 8 housing.
All this help from the government and they still hated Americans so much that they chose to carry out bombings.
The family received "every conceivable public benefit available out there."
That's a good reason to murder and maim and terrorize people. American taxpayers supported them.
The Tsarnaev brothers obviously didn't feel grateful for the assistance. These immigrants didn't feel any allegiance to the country that literally kept them alive. They repaid America with deadly attacks.
Nice.
The entitlement culture doesn't create thankful recipients. It does create a massive voting block desperate to keep the benefits flowing.
The United Nations official who angered critics by blaming the Boston Marathon bombing on “American global domination” will keep his post, because not enough other countries took offense at his comments.
No surprise there.
_________________
Don't blame Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev for the terror attack in Boston. Don't blame them for the murder of MIT Police Officer Sean Collier.
Richard Falk, the UN Human Rights Council's special investigator, blames America, and Israel.
United Nations anti-Semite-in-chief Richard Falk has pinned blame for the Boston Marathon bombing on America and, you surely guessed, Israel.
So once more, the call goes out for the UN to fire Falk as the Human Rights Council’s special investigator of conditions in the Palestinian territories, a post he uses to groundlessly bludgeon the Jewish state.
Alas, once more, Falk appears likely to stay in place among the council’s like-minded ilk. All too mildly, a spokesman noted that Secretary General Ban Ki-moon had not appointed Falk and hoped that he would “understand that... public comments can undermine the credibility and the work of the United
Nations.” Fat chance.
Falk has called Israel’s leaders Nazis, accused them of genocide and suggested former President George W. Bush ordered the destruction of the twin towers. He has posted a cartoon of a dog wearing a yarmulke with a Star of David, eating a human carcass and urinating on Lady Justice.
Now he rationalizes the Islamist radicalization of the brothers Tsarnaev by writing: “The American global domination project is bound to generate all kinds of resistance in the postcolonial world. In some respects, the United States has been fortunate not to experience worse blowbacks, and these may yet happen.”
He added: “As long as Tel Aviv has the compliant ear of the American political establishment, those who wish for peace and justice in the world should not rest easy.”
Falk actually had the audacity to refer to terrorists' victims as "canaries."
A UN “expert” of the UN Human Rights Council, Richard Falk, has announced that Boston had it coming. America’s “fantasy of global domination” justified what he has labeled “resistance.” Boston’s “canaries” happened to be the ones the resisters decided “have to die.”
Appointed in 2008 as the UN “Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967,” Falk spends his time as a professor emeritus from Princeton University, responding to speaking invitations, collecting awards from around the country, spouting antisemitism, and supporting 9/11 conspiracy theories.
Princeton. The UN. It all makes sense.
However, the fact that it's to be expected, that Falk is cradled and encouraged by the Leftists at Princeton and the anti-Semitic, anti-American body known as the United Nations, makes his remarks no less repulsive.
Leftists, doesn't this stuff bother you? Do you agree with Falk and those of his ilk?
I think Obama does to a certain extent. He's not willing to say it, but I think he agrees with the gist of Falk's remarks. I believe Obama thinks of himself as a global citizen first. That stance helped him receive the Nobel Peace Prize. He was rewarded as a peacemaker for merely acknowledging America to be a bully and apologizing for what he sees as its sins.
Meanwhile, Obama is killing civilians with drones. Objections from the Left? No.
I blame the terrorists for the bombings in Boston. I blame Islamists.
Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev were not just planning to party in New York to celebrate killing three people, including an 8-year-old little boy, and injuring hundreds. They were taking their bombs there. JIHAD!
NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg said the terrorist brothers were on their way to New York to kill more Americans.
The Boston Marathon bombing suspects had Times Square in their sights before law enforcement authorities put an end to their bloody terror spree, according New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg.
"New York was next on their list of targets," Bloomberg said of brothers Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. Bloomberg said he received confirmation of the chilling second phase of their plot from the FBI. “The fact is, New York City remains a prime target for those who hate America and want to kill Americans.”
Police Commissioner Ray Kelly said the brothers, Muslims from Dagestan, a breakaway republic in Russia, hatched their plot while driving the streets of Cambridge last Thursday in a Mercedes SUV they had carjacked from a man who later escaped. Kelly called the New York plot "spontaneous," and said they had six bombs with them in the car, some of which they hurled at police cars hours later when they were being pursued in a chase that culminated in Tamerlan Tsarnaev's death.
Think of all those reports stating that Dzhokhar was such a sweetheart, a normal American kid.
A body pulled from the water off Indian Point Park in Rhode Island has been identified as the Brown University student mistakenly linked by amateur sleuths on a social media site to the Boston bombings.
Health Department spokeswoman Dara Chadwick said Thursday that the body of Sunil Tripathi was identified through dental records.
It was not immediately clear when Tripathi, who was last seen March 15, died. The cause of death has also not been determined.
Tripathi's body was found Tuesday by members of the Brown University crew team.
The Pennsylvania native was on leave from the Ivy League school but was living in an apartment near campus in Providence, R.I., with several other students.
After the April 15 bombings of the Boston Marathon, crowdsourcing groups drawing upon photos released by the FBI of a suspect erroneously reported via Reddit, a social news website, that the person in a baseball cap strongly resembled the missing student.
At one point, Tripathi's name landed on the Twitter top trends list.
"The last eighteen hours have generated tremendous and painful attention -- on social media platforms Facebook, Twitter, and Reddit, as well as from television media inquiries -- linking Sunil to the video stills released by the FBI yesterday afternoon," said Akhil Tripathi, Sunil's father, in a family statement last week, WPVI-TV reported.
"Unequivocally, we have known that neither individual suspected as responsible for the incident in Boston was Sunil," the statement said.
On Monday, Reddit general manager Erik Martin apologized for the "dangerous speculation" that "spiraled into very negative consequences for innocent parties."
In a blog post, he specifically apologized to the Tripathi family "for the pain they have had to endure."
"The Reddit staff and the millions of people on Reddit around the world deeply regret that this happened," he said.
Obviously, this had to be the conclusion that the Tripathi family feared most.
My prayers are with them. The family has surely gone through hell since Sunil went missing, and now they must deal with going through life without him. Truly heartbreaking.
Again, my deepest apologies for repeating the misinformation about Sunil being Suspect 2 in Boston Marathon bombings.
"Marathon bombings mastermind Tamerlan Tsarnaev was living on taxpayer-funded state welfare benefits even as he was delving deep into the world of radical anti-American Islamism, the Herald has learned," reports the Boston Herald.
"State officials confirmed last night that Tsarnaev, slain in a raging gun battle with police last Friday, was receiving benefits along with his wife, Katherine Russell Tsarnaev, and their 3-year-old daughter. The state’s Executive Office of Health and Human Services said those benefits ended in 2012 when the couple stopped meeting income eligibility limits. Russell Tsarnaev’s attorney has claimed Katherine — who had converted to Islam — was working up to 80 hours a week as a home health aide while Tsarnaev stayed at home.
"In addition, both of Tsarnaev’s parents received benefits, and accused brother bombers Dzhokhar and Tamerlan were recipients through their parents when they were younger, according to the state."
The terrorists received handouts from the government, yet they hated Americans so much so that they plotted to kill innocents.
Talk about state-sponsored terrorism!
Of course, this was done unwittingly. So much of what the government does is done in an unwitting manner.
Still think it's a good idea to put the government in charge of more of your money?
On Monday's The Five, I heard Democrat Bob Beckel say something I found quite stunning.
During a discussion on terrorisim and the Boston bombings and their apologists, Beckel, a Leftist, suggested that Muslim students not be allowed to attend school in the U.S., at least for a while.
BOB BECKEL: In the Muslim communities around the world, they do not like us. They recruit people from poor areas and they turn them into terrorists.... I think we really have to consider -- given the fact so many people hate us -- that we're going to have to cut off Muslim students from coming to this country for some period of time so that we can at least absorb what we've got. Look at what we've got, and decide whether some of the people here should be sent back home or sent to prison.
Kind of shocking, isn't it?
___________________
Beckel doesn't back down. He stands by his statements.
U.S. prosecutors dropped charges against a Mississippi man accused of sending ricin-laced letters to President Barack Obama and a U.S. senator, according to a court order signed by a judge on Tuesday.
The decision came hours after Paul Kevin Curtis was released from a Mississippi jail on bond.
In a court order dismissing the charges, prosecutors said the "ongoing investigation has revealed new information" without providing any additional detail.
Curtis told a news conference afterward that he respected Obama and would never harm a public servant. "I love this country," he said.
...Christi McCoy, Curtis' attorney, told CNN she believed her client had been framed. The Clarion Ledger newspaper reported that law enforcement officials searched the house of a second Mississippi man in connection with the case. A spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney's Office in Oxford, Mississippi, did not return calls for comment.
"I do believe that someone who was familiar and is familiar with Kevin just simply took his personal information and did this to him," McCoy told CNN. "It is absolutely horrific that someone would do this."
Curtis was arrested last Wednesday at his home in Corinth, Mississippi. He was charged with mailing letters to Obama, U.S. Senator Roger Wicker of Mississippi and a state judge containing a substance that preliminarily tested positive for ricin, a highly lethal poison made from castor beans.
...Curtis, known in Mississippi as an Elvis impersonator, was held in the Lafayette County Detention Center prior to his release. He was charged with threatening to harm Obama and using the mail to make other threats.
An innocent man is jailed and a terrorist, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, is questioned by the FBI and allowed to go about his business. His business, of course, was killing four people and maiming and injuring hundreds.
"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."
