August 19, 2012
August 11, 2012
June 9, 2012
April 17, 2012
April 11, 2012
November 10, 2011
March 17, 2011
Corporations Are Lying to Us About the Dangers of Japan’s Nuclear Meltdown
It’s summed up in the emphasized third sentence – if nuclear power plant owners followed every safety precaution, they couldn’t make any money. Neocon Republicans love to spread fear by doting on lurid tales of the destruction that could be wrought by a ‘dirty-bomb’ nuclear device in the hands of a terrorist – so far, ‘peaceful’ nuclear power has killed more people than Al-Qaeda, but you won’t hear the GOP complain; they are, after all, a paid arm of the nuclear power industry.
“…[I]t’s been normal for this company in the past [lying to the public]. It’s normal for the industry to some extent.
“It’s a highly ideological industry, and it also involves a lot of concentration of political power, as well as physical power. And those institutions become very powerful, very close to the regulators, and an adversarial culture develops where they’re constantly pushing against the safety measures, because that`s where the money is.
“If you did every single thing that you — that was possible to make it safe, then you couldn’t make any money.”
– Greg Mello of the Los Alamos Study Group on MSNBC’s “Hardball,” March 16, 2011, talking about the Japanese nuclear plants. [Emphasis mine.]“Nuclear plants the world over must be certified for what is called ‘SQ’ or ‘Seismic Qualification.’ That is, the owners swear that all components are designed for the maximum conceivable shaking event, be it from an earthquake or an exploding Christmas card from Al Qaeda.
“The most inexpensive way to meet your SQ is to lie. The industry does it all the time. The government team I worked with caught them once, in 1988, at the Shoreham plant in New York. Correcting the SQ problem at Shoreham would have cost a cool billion, so engineers were told to change the tests from ‘failed’ to ‘passed.’ ” [snip]
“These [Japanese nuclear] plants are now releasing radioactive steam into the atmosphere. Be skeptical about the statements that the ‘levels are not dangerous.’ These are the same people who said these meltdowns could never happen. Over years, not days, there may be a thousand people, two thousand, ten thousand who will suffer from cancers induced by this radiation.” [snip]
“It would be irresponsible for me to estimate the number of cancer deaths that will occur from these releases without further information; but it is just plain criminal for the Tokyo Electric shoguns to say that these releases are not dangerous. …The carcinogenic isotopes that are released at Fukushima are already floating to Seattle with effects we simply cannot measure.”
– Greg Palast, investigative journalist and former nuclear plant inspector, from “The No BS Info on Japan’s Nuclear Operators,” March 14, 2011.
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February 8, 2011
100th Birthday Quote-to-Quote: The Real Ronald Reagan
Ever wonder where current Republican twits like Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann get some of their goofiest, dumbest twists on history, society and government? Seems they are simply borrowing from the ‘Master,’ the same mental colossus many members of the GOP want engraved on the dime and enshrined on Mount Rushmore:
“Why should we subsidize intellectual curiosity?”
– Ronald Reagan, campaign speech, 1980.“Fascism was really the basis for the New Deal.”
– Ronald Reagan, quoted in Time, May 17, 1976“I favor the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and it must be enforced at the point of a bayonet, if necessary.”
– Ronald Reagan, Los Angeles Times, October 20, 1965“I would have voted against the Civil Rights Act of 1964.”
– Ronald Reagan, Los Angeles Times, June 17, 1966“Today a newcomer to the state is automatically eligible for our many aid programs the moment he crosses the border.”
– Ronald Reagan, in a speech announcing his candidacy for Governor, January 3, 1966. (In fact, immigrants to California had to wait five years before becoming eligible for benefits. Reagan acknowledged his error, but nine months later said exactly the same thing.)“…a faceless mass, waiting for handouts.”
– Ronald Reagan, 1965. (Description of Medicaid recipients.)“Unemployment insurance is a pre-paid vacation for freeloaders.”
– California Governor Ronald Reagan, in the Sacramento Bee, April 28, 1966“We were told four years ago that 17 million people went to bed hungry every night. Well, that was probably true. They were all on a diet.”
– Ronald Reagan, TV speech, October 27, 1964“History shows that when the taxes of a nation approach about 20 percent of the people’s income, there begins to be a lack of respect for government…. When it reaches 25 percent, there comes an increase in lawlessness.”
– Ronald Reagan, in Time, April 14, 1980. (History shows no such thing. Income tax rates in Europe have traditionally been far higher than U.S. rates, while European crime rates have been much lower.)“Because Vietnam was not a declared war, the veterans are not even eligible for the G. I. Bill of Rights with respect to education or anything.”
– Ronald Reagan, in Newsweek, April 21, 1980. (Wrong again.)“What we have found in this country, and maybe we’re more aware of it now, is one problem that we’ve had, even in the best of times, and that is the people who are sleeping on the grates, the homeless who are homeless, you might say, by choice.”
– Ronald Reagan, defending himself against charges of callousness on Good Morning America, January 31, 1984“All the waste in a year from a nuclear power plant can be stored under a desk.”
– Ronald Reagan (Republican candidate for president), quoted in the Burlington (Vermont) Free Press, February 15, 1980. (In reality, the average nuclear reactor generates 30 tons of radioactive waste per year.)“Trains are not any more energy efficient than the average automobile, with both getting about 48 passenger miles to the gallon.”
– Ronald Reagan, quoted in the Chicago Tribune, May 10, 1980. (The U.S. Department of Transportation calculates that a 14-car train traveling at 80 miles per hour gets 400 passenger miles to the gallon. A 1980 auto carrying an average of 2.2 people gets 42.6 passenger miles to the gallon.)“I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. The U.S. Geological Survey has told me that the proven potential for oil in Alaska alone is greater than the proven reserves in Saudi Arabia.”
– Ronald Reagan, quoted in the Detroit Free Press, March 23, 1980. (According to the USGS, the Saudi reserves of 165.5 billion barrels are 17 times the proven reserves–9.2 billion barrels–in Alaska.)“I have flown twice over Mount St. Helens. I’m not a scientist and I don’t know the figures, but I have a suspicion that one little mountain out there, in these last several months, has probably released more sulfur dioxide into the atmosphere than has been released in the last ten years of automobile driving or things of that kind.”
– Ronald Reagan, quoted in Time magazine, October 20, 1980. (According to scientists, Mount St. Helens emitted about 2,000 tons of sulfur dioxide per day at its peak activity, compared with 81,000 tons per day produced by cars.)“…until now has there ever been a time in which so many of the prophecies are coming together. There have been times in the past when people thought the end of the world was coming, and so forth, but never anything like this.”
– President Reagan revealing a disturbing view about the “coming of Armageddon,” December 6, 1983“Ronald Reagan is the first modern President whose contempt for the facts is treated as a charming idiosyncrasy.”
– James David Barber, presidential scholar in “On Bended Knee: The Press and the Reagan Presidency,” by Mark Hertsgaard“He demonstrated for all to see how far you can go in this life with a smile, a shoeshine and the nerve to put your own spin on the facts.”
– David Nyhan, Boston Globe columnist“He has the ability to make statements that are so far outside the parameters of logic that they leave you speechless”
– Patti Davis (formerly Patricia Ann Reagan) talking about her father in “The Way I See It.”“Poor dear, there’s nothing between his ears.”
– British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher
Quotes selected from a post at DemocraticUnderground.com.
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December 31, 2010
Today’s Quotes: The New Year
“Ring out the old, ring in the new,
Ring, happy bells, across the snow:
The year is going, let him go;
Ring out the false, ring in the true.”
– Alfred, Lord Tennyson, 1850.“New Year’s Day is [everyone's] birthday.”
– Charles Lamb“New Year’s Day: Now is the accepted time to make your regular annual good resolutions. Next week you can begin paving hell with them as usual.”
– Mark Twain“A New Year’s resolution is something that goes in one year and out the other.”
– Author Unknown“Many years ago I resolved never to bother with New Year’s resolutions, and I’ve stuck with it ever since.”
– Dave Beard“Making resolutions is a cleansing ritual of self-assessment and repentance that demands personal honesty and, ultimately, reinforces humility. Breaking them is part of the cycle.”
– Eric Zorn“You’re lucky if you are graced with good resolutions and a bad memory.”
– Elvin Morganfield“If our celebration of the New Year made any sense, it would start in spring when the flowers begin blooming and warm breezes return to the air, and our calendars would have months with an equal number of days in them. But, since we are stuck crazily celebrating New Year’s Eve in the dead of winter, on the 31st day of a month that was preceded by a month with only 30 days, let’s make the most of our insanity, cut loose and enjoy ourselves!”
– Argyle Sachs“People are so worried about what they eat between Christmas and the New Year, but they really should be worried about is what they eat between the New Year and Christmas.”
– Author Unknown“Your Merry Christmas may depend on what others do for you. But your Happy New Year depends on what you do for others.”
– Author Unknown“Many celebrate the coming of the New Year with an open bottle and warm wishes, but how many maintain an open mind and a warm heart throughout the New Year? The difference is the difference between advancing forward and retreating backwards.”
– Maryellen Mattea“Year, n: A period of three hundred and sixty-five disappointments.”
– Ambrose Bierce, “The Devil’s Dictionary.”“Life is like getting dropped off in the middle of the woods and then, year by year, gradually making your way home.”
– April Foiles“The only way to spend New Year’s Eve is either quietly with friends or in a brothel. Otherwise when the evening ends and people pair off, someone is bound to be left in tears.”
– W.H. Auden“The proper behavior all through the holiday season is to be drunk. This drunkenness culminates on New Year’s Eve, when you get so drunk you kiss the person you’re married to.”
– P.J. O’Rourke“To add to the glad tidings of New Year’s Day,
there is not much more one can say,
but to stop existing in the same old way,
and to start living life
as if there isn’t hell to pay.”
– Arris Jaye“If all the year were playing holidays, to sport would be as tedious as to work.”
– William Shakespeare“Another New Year and another chance to get joyously one year older and giddily deeper in debt.”
– Francis Albert Skinnatra“Cheers to a new year and another chance for us to get it right.”
– Oprah Winfrey“And a Happy New Year to you – in jail!”
– Old Man Potter in Frank Capra’s “It’s A Wonderful Life.”
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October 5, 2010
July 5, 2010
Quote-to-Quote-to-Quote: Corporate Propaganda…
…And the way it’s done
“Corporations want us to believe that they are concerned, moral ‘corporate citizens’ — whatever that means. So businesses pump millions of dollars into charities and nonprofit organizations to deceive us into thinking that they care and are making things better. On top of that, corporate charity can buy the tacit cooperation of organizations that might otherwise be expected to criticize corporate policies. Some PR firms specialize in helping corporations to defeat activists, and co-optation is one of their tools.
“Some years ago, in a speech to clients in the cattle industry, Ron Duchin, senior vice-president of the PR firm Mongoven, Biscoe, and Duchin (which represents probably a quarter of the largest corporations in the world), outlined his firm’s basic divide-and-conquer strategy for defeating any social-change movement. Activists, he explained, fall into three basic categories: radicals, idealists, and realists. The first step in his strategy is to isolate and marginalize the radicals. They’re the ones who see the inherent structural problems that need remedying if indeed a particular change is to occur. To isolate them, PR firms will try to create a perception in the public mind that people advocating fundamental solutions are terrorists, extremists, fearmongers, outsiders, communists, or whatever. After marginalizing the radicals, the PR firm then identifies and ‘educates’ the idealists — concerned and sympathetic members of the public — by convincing them that the changes advocated by the radicals would hurt people. The goal is to sour the idealists on the idea of working with the radicals, and instead get them working with the realists.
“Realists, according to Duchin, are people who want reform but don’t really want to upset the status quo; big public-interest organizations that rely on foundation grants and corporate contributions are a prime example. With the correct handling, Duchin says, realists can be counted on to cut a deal with industry that can be touted as a ‘win-win’ solution, but that is actually an industry victory.”
– John Stauber, Editor of PR Watch.
(Read “The War on Truth” here.)“If we understand the mechanisms and motives of the group mind, it is now possible to control and regiment the masses according to our will without them knowing it.” […]
“The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country…. In almost every act of our daily lives, whether in the sphere of politics or business, in our social conduct or our ethical thinking, we are dominated by the relatively small number of persons … who understand the mental processes and social patterns of the masses. It is they who pull the wires which control the public mind.”
– Edward Bernays, the father of modern public relations, from his book “Propaganda.”[Note: Bernays' PR techniques for influencing the public were assimilated and expanded by Hitler's propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels to seize and hold power in Nazi Germany and are still in use today – just turn on the news. (Read "BP: Mitigating Exposure, Controlling the Response and Making Edward Bernays Proud!" by Steve Horn, PRWatch.org, June, 2010.)]
“The twentieth century has been characterized by three developments of great political importance: the growth of democracy, the growth of corporate power, and the growth of corporate propaganda as a means of protecting corporate power against democracy.”
– Alex Carey
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December 31, 2009
The Tattlesnake – Odd Quotes at Year’s End Edition
Random blips on the mental radar selected randomly, with commentary in brackets:
“One of the very difficult parts of the decision I made on the financial crisis was to use hardworking people’s money to help prevent there to be a crisis.”
– George W. Bush, Jan. 12, 2009. [Translation to English from Bushspeak: 'I used your money to bailout my family and wealthy friends on Wall Street and in banking because my administration didn't do its job of properly regulating them.']
“Um, you guys said that we, um, did this for the show.”
– Falcon “Balloon Boy” Heene, to his parents during a TV interview, Oct. 15, 2009. [This should be the motto of the Republican Party.]
“I think we all have a screw loose in this business.”
– Kyra Phillips, inadvertently speaking the truth on CNN, Oct. 9, 2009. [This should be the motto of the US national media.]
“Give me a waterboard, Dick Cheney, and one hour, and I’ll have him confess to the Sharon Tate murders.”
– Jesse Ventura, former MN Gov. and Navy SEAL, on CNN, May 11, 2009.
[This line should be emblazoned across the bottom of the screen every time a clip of Cheney speaking is shown.]
“I don’t know anything about cars.”
– Edward E. Whitacre, Jr., when he took over as CEO of GM, June 9, 2009. ['Gee, how could we be going bankrupt?']
“You can’t convince me that the founding fathers wouldn’t allow you to secede.”
– Glenn Beck, April 14, 2009. [They might make an exception in Beck's case.]
“So you need to get deep into why he is what he is, instead of just saying, ‘Well, he’s a homosexual so how do I handle him, and how do I be Christian?’ Well, I think you ought to tell him, ‘Listen, son, you know, here’s what the Bible says about this, and it’s called an abomination before God, so I’ve got to tell you the truth because I love you.’ That’s what I think.”
– Pat Robertson’s advice to the parents of a gay son, on CBN’s “The 700 Club” June 9, 2009. [Right after this broadcast, Pat ordered out for a BLT.]
“An Inuit hunter asked the local missionary priest: ‘If I did not know about God and sin, would I go to hell?’ ‘No,’ said the priest, ‘not if you did not know.’ ‘Then why,’ asked the Inuit earnestly, ‘did you tell me?’”
– Annie Dillard
“Ted Kennedy’s dad, by the way, Joe Kennedy, sympathetic to Hitler, sympathetic to the Nazis.”
– Rush Limbaugh, as quoted by Simon Maloy at Media Matters’ LimbaughWire, Aug. 8, 2009. [George W. Bush's grandfather, Prescott Bush, helped finance the Nazis even after WWII began, and was forced by the US government to stop. Whatever Joe Kennedy's sympathies, he never contributed financial backing to Hitler's Third Reich.]
“The Army, the Marines do not have uniforms that fit that big an ass.”
–The always classy Limbaugh again, commenting on Hillary Clinton, Sept. 22, 2009, also via Media Matters. [This from the manly Lard Lad whose 'anal cyst' was too big to allow him to wear the uniform.]
“Nearly half of all US children, including an overwhelming majority of black children, will eat meals at some point during their childhood paid for by food stamps, an indicator of poverty, a study showed Monday.”
– AFP, “Half of US kids depend on food stamps during childhood: study,” Nov. 2, 2009. The study was done by the American Medical Association’s Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine. [Out of a population of about 300 million, 66 million Americans now collect food stamps, a record high number. Nearly 50 percent of US children need food stamps to eat regularly.]
“The urgent necessity is to make a decision — whether or not it is right.”
– David Broder’s sage advice to Obama on Afghanistan, proving once again why Uncle Fudd is the dean of doomed Washington punditry, from the Washington Post, Nov. 13, 2009. [Say, Dave, if your life were on the line, would you be this cavalier about whether Obama's decision was wrong or right?]
“The white Christian heterosexual married male is the epitome of everything right with America!”
– Michael Savage, from his radio show June 17, 2009, as quoted by Media Matters. [Okay, so when does the former Michael Alan Weiner come out of the closet?]
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December 25, 2009
Quotes with a Holiday Punch
“How many observe Christ’s birthday! How few his precepts!
O! ’tis easier to keep holidays than commandments.”
– Benjamin Franklin, Poor Richard’s Almanack, 1757.
“Jesus wasn’t a Christian, and he never preached in a church. He was also a drinker, and liked to hang out with sinners. We think of him very highly in the Church of Stop Shopping. We put him right up there with Lenny Bruce.”
– Reverend Billy
“Every day people are straying away from the church and going back to God.”
– Lenny Bruce
“To hear many religious people talk, one would think God created the torso, head, legs and arms, but the devil slapped on the genitals.”
– Don Schrader
“Christian fundamentalism: The doctrine that there is an absolutely powerful, infinitely knowledgeable, universe-spanning entity that is deeply and personally concerned about my sex life.”
– Andrew Lias
“The problem with fundamentalists insisting on a literal interpretation of the Bible is that the meaning of words change. A prime example is ‘Spare the rod, spoil the child.’ A rod was a stick used by shepherds to guide their sheep to go in the desired direction. Shepherds did not use it to beat their sheep. The proper translation of the saying is ‘Give your child guidance, or they will go astray.’ It does not mean ‘Beat the sh*t out of your child or he will become rotten’ as many fundamentalist parents seem to believe.”
– Author Unknown
“I read about an Eskimo hunter who asked the local missionary priest, ‘If I did not know about God and sin, would I go to hell?’ ‘No,’ said the priest, ‘not if you did not know.’ ‘Then why,’ asked the Eskimo earnestly, ‘did you tell me?’”
– Annie Dillard
“Give a man a fish, and you’ll feed him for a day; give him a religion, and he’ll starve to death while praying for a fish.”
– Author Unknown
“Christianity is not a religion; it’s an industry.”
– Author Unknown
“You can safely assume that you’ve created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do.”
– Anne Lamott
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April 19, 2009
March 29, 2009
The Tattlesnake – GOP: Road to the Nut House Edition
Conservative Christopublican Michele Bachmann Offends American History By Quoting Liberal Deist Thomas Jefferson
Descending into obscurity, bereft of leadership, and driven to distraction by Obama’s cool, the fading Republican Party has opened yet another can of crackpot and let it pour over the religiously bewitched and acutely ignorant leftovers of nasty Nixonism, regressive Reaganism and bumbling Bushism.
Joining the cranky ranks of Michael Steele, Rush Limbaugh, Bill O’Reilly, Sean Hannity, Newt Gingrich, Ann Coulter, Mike Pence, John Boehner and all of the other daft neocons needing professional help, the new can in question is boiling-over-the-top-crazy Rep. Michele Bachmann of Minnesota, who barely won reelection in 2008 over an obscure Tolkien character named, no kidding, Elwyn Tinklenberg. No offense to poor old Elwyn, but Tinklenberg is a politician like Limbaugh is a neurosurgeon.
Bachmann’s fringe-right dementedness is nothing new for her, as the excellent Dump Bachmann blog has archived, just not yet exposed to a national audience. In fact, Michele’s been in the forefront of every extreme Christopublican-corporatist nutcase movement since she was in the MN state legislature. In her Jesuitic devotion to the poor, she vehemently opposed any increase in the minimum wage, saying in January of 2005: “Literally, if we took away the minimum wage … we could potentially virtually wipe out unemployment completely because we would able to offer jobs at whatever level.” (No doubt she did not mean this to include Minnesota Congresswomen, nor any member of their immediate families.)
She has also been a stern Old Testament foe of all things gay, as this quote from a 2004 interview on a Minnesota radio program called “Prophetic Views Behind The News” highlights: “This is a very serious matter [homosexuality], because it is our children who are the prize for this community, they are specifically targeting our children.” (The gay is comin’ ta get ya!)
But just so the reader doesn’t think this might have been a singular anti-gay eruption elicited by one too many cocktails, there are also these tidbits from something called the ‘EdWatch National Education Conference’ in November 2004: “If you’re involved in the gay and lesbian lifestyle, it’s bondage. It is personal bondage, personal despair and personal enslavement.” (As opposed to the bondage, despair and enslavement to corporate kindness caused by the lack of a minimum wage.) At the same venue, she took the hatchet to companies that neglected to contribute to her campaign fund, “They aren’t just kind of gay-friendly, they are gay advocates at Proctor and Gamble… Here’s just a few other companies that support the pro-homosexual agenda. They include Levi-Strauss, American Airlines, Sara Lee Bakery, Jaguar and Land Rover.” (“Sara Lee – Their Delicious Cakes Will Make You Gay!”)
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December 20, 2008
The Tattlesnake – The Quotalizer Rides Again Edition
A Quoteload of Seasonal Quotable Quotes of the Quippy and Quirky Variety
“How many observe Christ’s birthday! How few his precepts!
O! ’tis easier to keep holidays than commandments.”
– Benjamin Franklin, Poor Richard’s Almanack, 1757.“Jesus wasn’t a Christian, and he never preached in a church. He was also a drinker, and liked to hang out with sinners. We think of him very highly in the Church of Stop Shopping. We put him right up there with Lenny Bruce.”
– Reverend Billy“If Jesus had been killed twenty years ago, Catholic school children would be wearing little electric chairs around their necks instead of crosses.”
– Lenny Bruce (or, these days, tiny syringes.)“Every day people are straying away from the church and going back to God.”
– Lenny Bruce“Going to church doesn’t make you a Christian anymore than going to the garage makes you a car.”
– Dr. Laurence J. Peter“Christ died for our sins. Dare we make his martyrdom meaningless by not committing them?”
– Jules Feiffer“Life in Lubbock, Texas, taught me two things: One is that God loves you and you’re going to burn in hell. The other is that sex is the most awful, filthy thing on earth and you should save it for someone you love.”
– Butch Hancock“To hear many religious people talk, one would think God created the torso, head, legs and arms, but the devil slapped on the genitals.”
– Don Schrader“Christian fundamentalism: the doctrine that there is an absolutely powerful, infinitely knowledgeable, universe-spanning entity that is deeply and personally concerned about my sex life.”
– Andrew Lias“The problem with fundamentalists insisting on a literal interpretation of the Bible is that the meaning of words change. A prime example is ‘Spare the rod, spoil the child.’ A rod was a stick used by shepherds to guide their sheep to go in the desired direction. Shepherds did not use it to beat their sheep. The proper translation of the saying is ‘Give your child guidance, or they will go astray.’ It does not mean ‘Beat the shit out of your child or he will become rotten’ as many fundamentalist parents seem to believe.”
– Author Unknown“I read about an Eskimo hunter who asked the local missionary priest, ‘If I did not know about God and sin, would I go to hell?’ ‘No,’ said the priest, ‘not if you did not know.’ ‘Then why,’ asked the Eskimo earnestly, ‘did you tell me?’”
– Annie Dillard“Give a man a fish, and you’ll feed him for a day; give him a religion, and he’ll starve to death while praying for a fish.”
– Author Unknown“Most sermons sound to me like commercials — but I can’t make out whether God is the Sponsor or the Product.”
– Mignon McLaughlin, “The Second Neurotic’s Notebook,” 1966.
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The Tattlesnake – Another ‘Who Said That Quiz’ Edition
Drop your pretenses and grab your pencil and paper, here comes a multiple-choice quiz to test your political savvy.
Who said the following?
1. “Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration.”
a. Karl Marx
b. Franklin D. Roosevelt
c. Barack Obama
d. Abraham Lincoln
2. “Wise men don’t need advice. Fools don’t take it.”
a. Barry Goldwater
b. Ronald Reagan
c. Benjamin Franklin
4. Winston Churchill
3. “Will you tell those dumbasses at the Tea Party to stop asking questions about birth certificates while I’m on the camera.”
a. Karl Rove
b. Bill O’Reilly
c. John Boehner
d. Ken Buck
4. “Don’t believe the right-wing ideologues when they tell you the left still controls the media agenda. It does not any longer. It’s a fact.”
a. Bill O’Reilly
b. Roger Ailes
c. Al Franken
d. Alan Grayson
5. “The thing that attracts people to ‘The Sopranos’ is the family element. It shows that America still has a longing for that traditional upbringing.”
a. Carl Paladino
b. Sharron Angle
c. Glenn Beck
d. Christine O’Donnell
6. “The New York Times is for us what Pravda was for the Soviets.”
a. Ronald Reagan
b. Antonin Scalia
c. Gore Vidal
d. Sean Hannity
7. “The Republicans have lost their standards, they’ve lost their principles. Really, that’s why the machine in the Republican Party is fighting against me.”
a. Barack Obama
b. Sharron Angle
c. Harry Reid
d. Christine O’Donnell
8. “Counterinsurgency in operation did not live up to the high-minded zeal of the theory. All the talk was of ‘winning the allegiance’ of the people to their government, but a government for which allegiance had to be won by outsiders was not a good gamble.”
a. Bob Woodward
b. Gen. Wesley Clark
c. Barbara Tuchman
d. Bernie Sanders
9. “Why don’t you write books people can read?”
a. George W. Bush to wife Laura.
b. Sean Hannity to Newt Gingrich.
c. Glenn Beck to Arianna Huffington.
d. Nora Joyce to husband James.
10. “Am I too conservative? They probably said that about Thomas Jefferson and George Washington and Benjamin Franklin.”
a. Rush Limbaugh
b. Sharron Angle
c. Jim DeMint
d. Christine O’Donnell
11. “You cannot preach the Bible if you cannot preach God’s hate.”
a. Mike Huckabee
b. Pat Robertson
c. Jerry Falwell
d. Fred Phelps
12. “There was no assignment of political points of view when we were making the film … I thought it was really about the onset of a kind of life where the corporate people are trying to tell you how to live, what to do, how to behave. And you become puppets to these merchants that are somehow turning individuals into victims.”
a. Michael Moore on “Capitalism: A Love Story”.
b. Oliver Stone on “Wall Street”.
c. Paul Newman on “Cool Hand Luke”.
d. Kevin McCarthy on “Invasion of the Body Snatchers”.
Answers below the fold.
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