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Legislators have a formal set of responsibilities to work together, but there’s no hierarchy.

Barney Frank

Whenever people are being intellectually dishonest in debate, it is an implicit concession they have lost the fight
BARNEY FRANK

Debate Fighting People
Today, many people take for granted the notion that people whose lives are going to be very heavily affected by public policies should have a say in how they are formulated and carried out.
BARNEY FRANK

Affected Grant People Policy Public
There were a lot of Romneys. There’s the Romney who was going to be better on gay rights than Ted Kennedy; now there’s a Romney who checks with Rick Santorum on that issue.
BARNEY FRANK

Better Country Gay Rights
Going before an audience of people who expect you to be funny is tough. Going before an audience that expect you to be boring, and then being a little funny, is much easier. I prefer easier.
BARNEY FRANK

Littles People Tough
There was a degree of interventionism in American foreign policy, the notion that we must be the superpower and we have to intervene everywhere, that I think makes no sense.
BARNEY FRANK

Degree Foreign Policy Thinking
It is, of course, further indication that a fundamentalist right has really taken over much of the Republican Party, People might cite George Bush as proof that you can be totally impervious to the effects of Harvard and Yale education.
BARNEY FRANK

Party Taken Yale
For the trustees to turn away from the entirely reasonable request of the students that a hearing-impaired individual be made president of the college is a very unfortunate expression of insensitivity.
BARNEY FRANK

College Expression President
And unless you think there is a serious chance you’re going to jail, don’t listen to your lawyer.
BARNEY FRANK

Jail Serious Thinking
For most of my life, I have eaten to deal with stress.
BARNEY FRANK

Dealing Eaten Life Stress
Bush senior used to say that we have more will than wallet. So he urged the country to attack poverty with a thousand points of light, none of which could be eaten.
BARNEY FRANK

Country Light Senior
Most people who are activists and are concerned about issues get their information from sources which reinforce their opinions and give them the facts that they want to hear.
BARNEY FRANK

Giving Issues People
The left and the right live in parallel universes. The right listens to talk radio, the left’s on the Internet and they just reinforce one another. They have no sense of reality. I have now one ambition: to retire before it becomes essential to tweet.
BARNEY FRANK

Ambition Essentials Reality
Ridicule is about the most powerful weapon possible.
BARNEY FRANK

Politics Powerful Weapons
But on those occasions when I do strongly disagree with the Democrats and I don’t say anything, I think I forfeit my right to have people pay attention to me when I say the things that I don’t like about what Republicans are saying.
BARNEY FRANK

People Say Anything Thinking
Disruption never helps your cause. … It just looks like you’re afraid to have rational discussion.
BARNEY FRANK

Causes Helping Looks
Martin Luther King said, and it is sadly still true, that one of the most segregated times in America is the hour of worship.
BARNEY FRANK

Country Kings Worship
They have to convert our agenda into something aggressive. Two guys wanting to be happy together are invading their marriages. Helping a kid who’s getting beaten up in school is promoting homosexuality. If you gave me a million dollars, I wouldn’t know how to promote homosexuality.
BARNEY FRANK

Kids School Two
This bill is the legislative equivalent of crack. It yields a short-term high but does long-term damage to the system and it’s expensive to boot.
BARNEY FRANK

Doe Long Yield
People are entitled to the presumption of innocence.
BARNEY FRANK

Entitled Innocence People Presumption
Ronald Reagan believes in the free market like some people believe in unicorns.
BARNEY FRANK

Believe People Unicorn
It seems to me that politicians ought to use the same words as other people.
BARNEY FRANK

People Politician Use
Conservatives believe that from the standpoint of the federal government, life begins at conception and ends at birth.
BARNEY FRANK

Believe Birth Government
Well, many of us believe that excessive media concentration is a subject that ought to be addressed, and it is, of course, the intention of the majority party not to allow that to be discussed.
BARNEY FRANK

Believe Media Party
I don’t think Donald Trump is the right person because I very much disagree with him.
BARNEY FRANK

Persons Thinking Trump
What’s troubling is that the Republicans to defend Mr. DeLay are weakening the ethics process.
BARNEY FRANK

Delay Ethics Republican
These two entities Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are not facing any kind of financial crisis. The more people exaggerate these problems, the more pressure there is on these companies, the less we will see in terms of affordable housing.
BARNEY FRANK

Affordable Housing People Two
When I was here there was still a requirement that students had to swim 50 yards to graduate…because Harry Elkins Widener had drowned with the sinking of the Titanic. And it made me very grateful at the time that he had not gone down in a plane crash.
BARNEY FRANK

Funny Graduation Grateful Swim

Legislators have a formal set of responsibilities to work together, but there’s no hierarchy.

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Legislators have a formal set of responsibilities to work together, but there’s no hierarchy.

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