This Week In Quotes: May 5 – May 12

by John Hawkins | May 13, 2011 2:38 am

Plus, I hate guys showing off their abs. It’s vulgar. That’s why I don’t do it. In fact, I find it so vulgar I have taken great precautions to make sure I never cross this line, such as dilligently encasing my rippling abs in a protective slab of Modesty Fat. — Ace[1]

Root-canal economics has a name, and its name is Doing Nothing. The greatest threat to our economy and our future is doing nothing. We urgently need to enact reforms that will protect and preserve critical programs like Medicare and Medicaid. — John Boehner[2]

It’s true that allowing America to default would be irresponsible. But it would be more irresponsible to raise the debt limit without simultaneously taking dramatic steps to reduce spending and to reform the budget process. — John Boehner[3]

We might ask ourselves how we would be reacting if Iraqi commandos landed at George W. Bush’s compound, assassinated him, and dumped his body in the Atlantic. Uncontroversially, his crimes vastly exceed bin Laden’s, and he is not a “suspect” but uncontroversially the “decider” who gave the orders to commit the “supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole” (quoting the Nuremberg Tribunal) for which Nazi criminals were hanged: the hundreds of thousands of deaths, millions of refugees, destruction of much of the country, the bitter sectarian conflict that has now spread to the rest of the region.

…Same with the name, Operation Geronimo. The imperial mentality is so profound, throughout western society, that no one can perceive that they are glorifying bin Laden by identifying him with courageous resistance against genocidal invaders. It’s like naming our murder weapons after victims of our crimes: Apache, Tomahawk… It’s as if the Luftwaffe were to call its fighter planes “Jew” and “Gypsy.” — Noam Chomsky[4]

The new recipients will be the typical husband and wife who reach age 66 and qualify for Social Security. Starting next year, this typical couple, receiving the average benefit, will begin collecting a combination of cash and health-care entitlement benefits that will total $1 million over their remaining expected lifetime.

According to my calculations based on government data, such married couples will begin receiving monthly Social Security checks that will, on average, total about $550,000 after inflation. They will receive health-care services paid for by Medicare that, on average, will total another $450,000 after inflation. The benefactors will be a generation of younger workers who are trying to support themselves and their families while paying taxes to finance the rest of government spending. — John Cogan[5]

What are Americans supposed to do to earn money? Obama doesn’t care: Ordinary Americans are irrelevant to the Democrats’ electoral ambitions — they exist only to justify the hiring of more government workers. — Ann Coulter[6]

Five years ago, legislation was passed to build a 700-mile double-layer border fence along the southwest border. This is a promise that has not been kept. Today, according to staff at the Department of Homeland Security, just 5 percent of the double-layer fencing is complete, only 36.3 miles. The Government Accountability Office (GAO), Congress’s investigative arm, reported in early 2009 that only 32 miles of double-layer fencing had been built. That means under President Obama, only 4.3 miles of double layer fencing has been built. This is woefully inadequate. — Jim DeMint[7]

Cut through all of the issues and it boils down to this: The SEALs had to kill Bin Laden to prevent him from falling into the hands of Eric Holder. — Jonah Goldberg[8]

We have gone above and beyond what was requested by the very Republicans who said they supported broader reform as long as we got serious about enforcement. — Barack Obama[9]

And it frustrates me sometimes when people talk about ‘government jobs’ as if somehow those are worth less than private sector jobs. I think there is nothing more important than working on behalf of the American people. — Barack Obama[10]

With regard to the idea of whether you have a right to health care, you have realize what that implies. It’s not an abstraction. I’m a physician. That means you have a right to come to my house and conscript me. It means you believe in slavery. It means that you’re going to enslave not only me, but the janitor at my hospital, the person who cleans my office, the assistants who work in my office, the nurses. — Rand Paul[11]

I don’t think (killing Bin Laden) was necessary, no. It absolutely was not necessary. I think respect for the rule of law and world law and international law. What if he’d been in a hotel in London? We wanted to keep it secret, so would we have sent the airplane, you know the helicopters into London, because they were afraid the information would get out? — Ron Paul[12]

To go with a girl to Tahiti was incredible. Now everybody goes to Tahiti. This generation can do anything, but it’s less fun. — Gunter Sachs[13]

The American people, they’re very simple people. — Wang Qishan[14]