Collected Quotes
The Social Compact
May 24, 2003
www.joke-a-week.com
The city, the county, and the state continue to cut social programs to provide drug and alcohol treatment, mental health services and other programs that could help deal with the problems of the homeless. Now, we want to start charging those who feel a
Christian duty to feed them.
52
Joel McNally, referring to the Milwaukee Police Department's decision to declare St. James Episcopal Church a public nuisance, and charge for police calls. The church provides a free breakfast to 200 people daily, and has exceeded the city limit of 3 police calls in 30 days (September 14, 2002).
As politicians retreated from any responsibility to provide for the poor, food pantries, homeless shelters and church meal programs were a convenient way to keep a lot of folks from dying in the streets at absolutely no cost to the taxpayers.
52
Joel McNally (September 14, 2002).
Their mothers were at work. Their fathers were in prison.
74
Joel McNally, answering a question about the mob of children that beat a man to death on a Sunday night in Milwaukee (October 12, 2002). Some Wisconsin politicians pride themselves on putting more single mothers to work, and jailing a higher percentage of African-Americans, than any other state.
When Strom Thurmond ran for president we voted for him. We're proud of it. And if the rest of the country had followed our lead we wouldn't have had all these problems over all these years, either.
113
Senator Trent Lott, Republican - Mississippi, speaking at Thurmond's 100th birthday party (December 6, 2002). Thurmond ran for president in 1948 on a segregationist platform, stating that "All the laws of Washington and all the bayonets of the Army cannot force the Negro into our homes, our schools, our churches." Lott spokesman Ron Bonjean refused to explain what Lott meant by "all these problems."
A poor choice of words conveyed to some the impression that I embraced the discarded policies of the past. Nothing could be further from the truth, and I apologize to anyone who was offended by my statement.
114
Senator Lott, explaining what he didn't mean (December 6, 2002)
His comment was an inadvertent slip.
116
Senator Arlen Specter, Republican - Pennsylvania (December 11, 2002)
You know, if we had elected this man 30 years ago, we wouldn't be in the mess we're in today.
117
Trent Lott, speaking of Strom Thurmond at a Ronald Reagan rally (1980)
Racial discrimination does not always violate public policy.
116
Trent Lott, asking the Supreme Court to let Bob Jones University keep its tax-exempt status (1981)
The Republican Party has become a haven for white racist attitudes and anti-black policies. The party of Lincoln is now a safe house for bigotry.
117
Bob Herbert, The New York Times (December 12, 2002)
It certainly goes against what the president wants to project as the Republican image. Like at the Republican convention, when African-Americans giving the speeches far outnumbered the black delegates. It's image control. Substantively, if you looked at many Republican voting records, they wouldn't be dissimilar from Trent Lott's.
119
Thad Mayfield, explaining why the Republicans removed Trent Lott as Senate majority leader (December 22, 2002)
I strongly support diversity of all kinds, including racial diversity in higher education. The method used by the University of Michigan to achieve this goal is fundamentally flawed and amounts to a quota system that unfairly rewards or penalizes prospective students solely on their race.
131
President George W. Bush, speaking against affirmative action in college admissions (January 16, 2003)
Using just the kind of point system that Mr. Bush now derides as quotas, Andover gave George three extra points on a 20-point scale for being the son of an alumnus. That's a higher percentage than a Michigan applicant gets for being black.
129
Nicholas D. Kristof, The New York Times, discussing George W. Bush's admission to Phillips Academy, Andover, MA (January 24, 2003)
His SAT's of 566 verbal and 640 math were far below the median scores for students in his Yale class: 668 verbal and 718 math. But in the end, having a Yale pedigree, a grandfather on the Yale board and a Texas background bounced him into the entering class.
129
Nicholas D. Kristof, The New York Times, discussing George W. Bush's admission to Yale (January 24, 2003)
How can we evaluate the justice of preferences that favor blacks without considering preferences that benefit whites (legacy), athletes (football players), the wealthy (children of donors), and farm kids from Oregon (me when I applied to colleges).
129
Nicholas D. Kristof, The New York Times, (January 24, 2003)
Aside from its mean-spiritedness, this suggestion is simply false: our deficits are too large, and our current spending on the poor too small, for even the most Scrooge-like of governments to offer additional tax cuts for the rich without raising taxes or cutting benefits for the middle class.
The list of cuts - in child nutrition, medical care for children, child-care assistance and support for foster care and adoption (leave no child behind!) - was clearly designed to suggest that the budget can be balanced on the backs of the poor, without any significant cuts in programs that benefit the middle class.
171
Paul Krugman, The New York Times (April 15, 2003)
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