Month: February 2011

Verbatim

Buck Banks

The President is replacing the rule of law with the rule of Obama. The President swore an oath on the Bible to ensure that the laws be faithfully executed, not to decide which laws are and which are not constitutional.

— Newt Gingrich, on yesterday’s decision not to defend the Defense of Marriage Act in court.

Vebatim

Buck Banks

The poll came out, and we’re in a virtual tie and I haven’t campaigned … I’m not really, despite that, that surprised, because it’s a message of common sense. We can have a great country again, the problem is we don’t have the right leadership. We don’t have the right leaders. We don’t have people that have any semblance of negotiation.

— Said Mr. “You’re Fired!” Donald Trump on CNN, claiming he wasn’t at all surprised by a new poll that showed him in a virtual dead heat with President Obama in a hypothetical 2012 presidential race.

Verbatim

Buck Banks

There are some people who are willing to stand up and fight for the family and others who would rather, to use the comment of one potential candidate, call a truce on these things.

— Rick Santorum, quoted by the Des Moines Register, taking a shot at Indiana Mitch Daniels’ call for a “truce on social issues.”

Boehner Kills Jobs, Focuses on Abortion But Chides Obama for Ignoring Jobs with ‘Divisive’ DOMA Shift

Jon Ponder

When the Obama administration announced this week that the Executive Branch would no longer defend the so-called Defense of Marriage Act at trial, they effectively lobbed the ball into Speaker John Boehner’s court. It will be up to the Legislative Branch, which is to say Boehner and his tea party bosses in Congress, to defend the act in upcoming trials.

Boehner’s only accomplishment is a budget bill that would kill hundreds of thousands of jobs and hobble gross domestic spending by 2 percent.

It refreshing to see the White House playing hardball with the speaker. In offloading to Boehner the responsibility for defending DOMA — which is unconstitutional on its face — the administration has unilaterally forced Republicans to shift from arguing their case against gay marriage from the court of public opinion, via their in-house media outlets on Fox and AM radio, into the court of law, where their illogical, Bible-based rationales are immaterial as testimony:

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Verbatim

Buck Banks

The only thing that I’ve heard is if you take a plastic bottle and put it in the microwave and you heat it up, it gives off a chemical similar to estrogen. So the worst case is some women may have little beards.

— Maine Gov. Paul LePage (R), quoted by the Bangor Daily News, arguing there “hasn’t been any science” that suggests a problem with the chemical bisphenol A (BPA), and apparently confusing the female hormone estrogen with the male hormone testosterone.

Verbatim

Buck Banks

If American workers are being denied their right to organize when I’m in the White House, I will put on a comfortable pair of shoes and I will walk on that picket line with you as president of the United States.

— Barack Obama, quoted by Slate, while making a campaign speech in 2007.