Whenever people are being intellectually dishonest in debate, it is an implicit concession they have lost the fight
BARNEY FRANKI’m used to being in the minority. I’m a left-handed, gay Jew. I’ve never felt, automatically, a member of any majority.
More Barney Frank Quotes
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I do not believe that the federal government should treat adults who choose to smoke marijuana as criminals.
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I think there were two criticisms you can make of Donald Trump’s involvement in the Health Care Bill. First of all, there were times when he wasn’t being helpful. Secondly, there were times when he was trying to be helpful. I’m not sure which one did more damage.
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While I was pleasantly surprised by the relatively high number of jobs created in April, the fact is that job creation during this recovery period has significantly lagged both historical experience in recovery, and the projections of the Bush Administration.
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But it is also clear that left entirely untouched by public policy, the capitalist system will produce more inequality than is socially healthy or than is necessary for maximum efficiency.
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But when others suggested that the poor should not simply be the objects of these programs but also the subjects – that they should be actively involved in shaping the programs, making decisions about how to spend the money etc. – some of the previous supporters reconsidered.
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I have been mislabeled as a big advocate of low-income home ownership over rental.
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I am not aware of any specific provision that mandates any tightening of lending to small business other than a requirement that people who lend and then sell that loan be prepared to take a part of the risk. And I’m proud of that.
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I hope we will not so characterize religious people as being so narrow and so biased towards people not of their own religion that they cannot even work with them in this common cause to which you say they are committed.
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I am very proud of the role I played in getting legal equality for people who are lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender, and in helping get rid of the prejudice by being visible about it, helping to block the conviction of Bill Clinton of impeachment.
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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.
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Serving in Congress is like having a second shot at high school.
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Nothing in the world is as mobile as capital. It can move anywhere in the world instantaneously.
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The problem with the war in Iraq is not so much the intelligence as the stupidity.
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In America, unlike England, unlike Israel, unlike Japan, other democracies, we have elections that have staggered terms.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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There are no moderate Republicans left, with the exception of a few who would vote with us when it doesn’t make any difference,” Frank said. “It’s the most rigid ideological party since before the Civil War. … The bumper sticker I’m going to have printed up for Democrats this year is, ‘We’re not perfect, but they’re nuts.’
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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.
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If people knew of ethics violations, they should have sent them to the Ethics Committee. If you think there was serious ethics violation that ought to be looked at, you don’t hold it back for retaliatory purposes.
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It is because the fight against the harshest aspects of unrestricted capitalism is therefore a political problem and not an intellectual one that community action remains so essential.
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But here too it should be noted that the President’s approach was to first ask the repressive and brutal Taliban to surrender Osama bin Laden to us, and only after that government refused to do that did we invade.
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I wouldn’t want [gay marriage] to go to the United States Supreme Court now because that homophobe Antonin Scalia has too many votes on this current court.
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The fact that theyre a congressionally chartered group should no more incline people to give to that group than the fact that its National Pickle Month should make them eat more pickles.
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Lawyers are very, very good at keeping you out of prison, but they will sacrifice your reputation and credibility to do so.
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The issue is not that morals be applied to public policy, it’s that conservatives bring public policy to spheres of our lives where it should not enter.
BARNEY FRANK