Quote 'O the Day: no not that one ...

Quote 'O the Day

by digby

So Michele Bachman may have had the worst GOP presidential campaign rollout since Newt Gingrich's this morning when she misstated that Waterloo Iowa was the home of John Wayne instead of serial killer John Wayne Gacy.

The presidential hopeful -- who was born and grew up in Waterloo as a child before moving to Minnesota -- said, "Well, what I want them to know is just like, John Wayne was from Waterloo, Iowa. That's the kind of spirit that I have, too."

The Washington Times points out one slight problem with the Tea Party favorite's remarks: The John Wayne with roots in Waterloo is John Wayne Gacy, a serial killer who was executed by lethal injection in 1994 after being convicted of 33 murders.

John Wayne -- the late movie star, director and producer -- was born in Winterset, Iowa, but appears to have no specific connection to Waterloo.


Winterset is three hours away...

It's going to be hard to beat that one. But as amusing as it is, I wouldn't say that it's the quote of the day.

I'm going to vote for this one, a tweet from our majority leader:

@SenatorReid: Cutting debt is equally important to job creation


Any idea what the hell he's talking about? I assume he's talking about cutting government debt. What effect do you suppose that's going to have on job creation, other than making it less likely?

It's not like we don't have some data already:

The layoffs of thousands of government workers may threaten the already slow-motion economic recovery in many U.S. metropolitan areas, according to a report released on Wednesday by the Brookings Institution.

"Job growth, though occurring in more metropolitan areas than in the past, was sluggish," the think tank said. "Those that suffered the most, as well as those with the weakest economic recoveries, typically lost government jobs."

Since the recession began in 2007, 19 out of the 20 metropolitan areas with the strongest economies gained government jobs, according to the report which focused on the first quarter of the year. Conversely, 13 of the lowest performing 20 areas lost government jobs.

Looking at the 100 metropolitan areas combined, Brookings said total employment rebounded by 0.8 percent after hitting its low point in the recession. But local government employment fell 1.2 percent and state employment dropped 0.2 percent, "reflecting the impact of reduced local and state revenues."

Political leaders and economists have warned that government layoffs could pose serious obstacles to economic recovery. Brookings noted that state and local employees make up the bulk of the government workforce.


And this isn't even going to appease the confidence fairy. Check this out:

Analysts and investors in the $2.9 trillion municipal bond market are worried that tax revenues have not rebounded enough to make up for this summer's end of the 2009 economic stimulus plan, which included the largest transfer of money from the federal government to the states in U.S. history.


Senator Reid surely knows better. But they've all decided to pretend that this makes sense because ... well, just because.


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