Vocal Minority

Who Said It?

"[Our country] cannot and should not continue maintaining companies, productive entities, services and budgeted sectors with bloated payrolls (and) losses that hurt the economy, are counterproductive, and form bad work habits."

Who said it?

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 Raúl Castro 
[Reuters 12/27/12, via Doug Urbanski filling in for El Rushbo 1/2/13]

Not only did Raúl make this and similar statements, but since taking over Cuba from his ailing brother Fidel:

• The number of private (Cubans call them "non state") workers rose 23% in 2012 -- 1.1 million, or double, the number from 2010)
• State sector employment dropped 5.7 percent (the Cuban government cut 228,000 public jobs in 2012, on top of the previously announced 137,000 in 2011)

Reuters also reports:

The cash-strapped state is closing thousands of its small retail outlets such as barbershops and cafeterias, notorious for economic inefficiency and employee theft, and offering to lease the premises to employees or others interested in running their own business.

Starting in 2013 the state plans to turn more than 200 medium-sized businesses, from shrimp breeding and produce markets to construction and light manufacturing, into private cooperatives. The experiment will be expanded if successful.

You know we're living in an upside-down world when Cuba is moving to become less government-centered and more private-centered, and the U.S. under Comrade Obama is doing the exact opposite. Pretty soon Americans will be taking rafts to escape to Cuba!

Who Said It?

... [T]he oligarchy of this country is clever, they knew that it would take a person of color with an Islamic name who sold his soul many years ago–to fulfill the neocon agenda of planetary dominance.

Who said it?

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Cindy Sheehan
On her website, March 27, 2011 [h/t I Hate the Media]

Well, O'Bummer, game over. Once you've lost Cindy Sheehan, you've lost America ...

 

Who Said It?

[President Obama] should stop saying that giving people tax cuts is giving people money. It’s their money! 

A tax cut is when the government doesn’t take our money. It’s an important distinction. 

He talked today, for example, about people getting a check from the government in the form of a tax cut. That’s not the way it works. If tax rates are kept lower, it’s a matter of the check going to the government being smaller. Again, it’s an important distinction.

Who said it?

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Chris Matthews
(Yes, Chris Matthews!)
 On Hardball, September 20, 2010

[h/t Mark Davis filling in for El Rushbo Sept. 22]

Hey, even a stopped clock is right twice a day.

Who Said It?

The context: Illegal alien Elvira Arellano was living in the U.S. with one son. Shortly after 9/11/01, after having gotten a job at a major U.S. airport (!),  she was charged and convicted of document fraud. She was ordered to be deported, but became a fugitive. Once found, her only salvation was the intervention of either Senator from the state where she was living. Neither one agreed to help, and the poor woman was deported back to Mexico. 

When questioned about Arellano situation on local news, of the Senators callously and unsympathetically told the reporter:

“We live in a country of laws. We don’t do things sort of based on one person’s situation, no matter how painful.”

Who said it?

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Senator Barack Obama (D-IL)
August 16, 2006

Thanks, Naked Emporer News!

Who Said It?

[T]he fact of the matter is the president has been on his 60-day tour, and everywhere he goes the numbers just get worse. The American people have essentially voted on this proposal and really what you have is a situation now where I think that the president and the … Congress are going to need to figure out a way to save face and step back a little bit.

And if they let go of their egos …… Listen, I’ve been on the other side of this where, particularly with my wife. [laughter] Where I’ve gotten in an argument and then at some point in the argument it dawns on me: “You know what? I’m wrong on this one.” And it’s irritating, it’s frustrating. You don’t want to admit it, and so to the extent that we can provide the president with a graceful mechanism to say “We’re sorry, Dear,” then I think that would be helpful.

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—Senator Barack Obama (D-IL), National Press Club, April 25th, 2005 [h/t El Rushbo]

Obama was suggesting that then-President George W. Bush and his Republican Congress step back, let go of their egos, listen to the American people, and retract a plan that enjoyed only 35% national support: the partial privatization of Social Security.

Fast forward to today. Support for President Obama and the Democrat Congress’ government-run health (s)care plan has been hovering around 40%. Approval ratings for Obama are below 50% and ratings for Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi have been consistently in the toilet.

Ya think President Obama and his Democrat Congress are going to step back, let go of their egos, listen to the American people, and retract their plan?

Who Said It?

“Now, we have an opportunity to move toward national health insurance, with an emphasis on the prevention of disease, an emphasis on out-patient care, not in-patient care; an emphasis on hospital cost containment to hold down the cost of hospital care far those who are ill, an emphasis on catastrophic health insurance, so that if a family is threatened with being wiped out economically because of a very high medical bill, then the insurance would help pay for it. These are the kinds of elements of a national health insurance, important to the American people.”

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Jimmy Carter, during the 2nd presidential debate with then-Governor Ronald Reagan, October 28, 1980.

The song remains ... the song remains ... the song remains the same.

P.S. It was to this statement that Reagan famously retorted “There you go again.”

Who Said It?

“When men get in the habit of helping themselves to the property of others, they cannot easily be cured of it.”

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The New York Times

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... in a 1909 editorial opposing the very first income tax.

 

What a difference a century makes. [h/t The B.S. Report]