The bronze to Congresswoman MICHELE BACHMANN.
We‘re all laughing at her historical gaffe about Jimmy Carter and swine flu.
It turned out she topped herself on the floor of the House.
The Carter gaffe first, “I find it interesting that it was back in the 1970s that the swine flu broke out then under a Democrat President Jimmy Carter. And I‘m not blaming this on President Obama. I just think it is an interesting coincidence.”
Yes, the swine outbreak was in February 1976 when Republican Gerald Ford was president 11 months before Carter was inaugurated. But on the same day, she pulled this whopper, “FDR applied the opposite formula, the Hoot-Smawley Act, which was a tremendous burden on tariff restrictions and then, of course, trade barriers and the regulatory burden and taxpayers. That‘s what we saw happen under FDR. The American people suffered for almost 10 years under that kind of thinking.”
Seriously, congresswoman, you are a buffoon. Smoot-Hawley, not Hoot-Smawley. It was the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act. And not only was it passed in 1930, three years before Franklin Roosevelt became president, but it was written by two Republicans, Sen. Reed Smoot and Congressman Willis Hawley. It was signed into law by a Republican President Herbert Hoover over the pleading of all the economists and big bankers, even the head of J.P. Morgan, and it was repealed under FDR in 1934.
I know, I know, congresswoman. You weren‘t paying attention in history class in high school. You were too busy going to the movies. But it was in the movies, in “Ferris Bueller‘s Day Off” where Ben Stein, the economics teacher, asked his class, “Anyone? Anyone?” where anyone raise or lowered. He was asking about the Smoot-Hawley Act. Hoot-Smawley. Hoot-Smawley.
We let this woman vote on actual pieces of legislation. But it‘s worse that that. We let her drive a car. Hoot-Smawley.
Runner up, RUPERT MURDOCH.
The Audit Bureau reports the average American daily news paper lost just over seven percent of its circulation during the last six months compared to a year ago. Some did better, some did worse. The circulation of the “L.A. Times” dropped 6.6 percent. That of the “New York Times” dropped 3.6 percent.
But the biggest loss in the top 25 market - Murdoch‘s “New York Post.” Circulation is down 20.5 percent. This other piece of the Murdoch empire, the cornerstone of the reactionary, the jerk, half-fiction racist, xenophobic, retaliatory conservative media and one out of every five readers has vanished, three times as fast as “New York Times” readers.
How can the stockholders of News Corp. continue to indulge Rupert Murdoch‘s personal political agenda, vanity press? How can the folks not stand up and say, “Rupert, you owe me money.”
But our winner, and this is the most despicable thing said on the floor of the House in decades.
This feature is Congresswoman VIRGINIA FOXX
from the fifth district of North Carolina, Winston-Salem, arguing against the Matthew Shepard hate crimes bill.
(VIDEO CLIP)
REP. VIRGINIA FOXX,NORTH CAROLINA CONGRESSWOMAN: The hate crimes bill that is called the Matthew Shepard Bill is named after a very unfortunate incident that happened where a young man was killed. But we know that that young man was killed in the commitment of a robbery. It wasn‘t because he was gay. The bill was named for him. The hate crimes bill was named for him. But it is really a hoax that that continues to be used as an excuse for passing these bills. (end clip)
KEITH OLBERMANN: Congresswoman Foxx you are the only hoax here. One of Matthew Shepard‘s killers admitted under oath that he knew he was gay, that they lured him from a bar by pretending to be gay themselves. Then they robbed him, pistol-whipped him, fractured his skull, tortured him with sharp implements and they tied him to a fence post in rural Wyoming. He was not found for 18 hours.
There is no excuse for Congresswoman Foxx‘s remarks. She is, at best, callous, insensitive, criminally misinformed. At worst, she is a bold-faced liar. And if there is a spark of a human being in there somewhere, she should either immediately retract and apologize for her stupid and hurtful words, or she should resign her seat in the House.
She is not worthy to represent this country nor any of its parties nor any of its peoples. She is our shame. And adding to our shame, she said all that as Matthew Shepard‘s mother sat in the House gallery. Congresswoman Virginia Foxx, fifth district of North Carolina, today‘s worst person in the world.
No comments:
Post a Comment