Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee

[Zarathustra]

How is this woman still in office? Who votes for this idiot?

For those who aren't familiar with her and think perhaps I'm being a tad bit unfair, here's a few of her dumbest statements, uttered on the House Floor:

"... the sanctity of this nation and how well it is that we have lasted some 400 years, operating under a constitution that clearly defines what is constitutional and what is not.”

“I stand here as a freed slave because this Congress came together.”

"Today, we have two Vietnams, side by side, North and South, exchanging and working. We may not agree with all that North Vietnam is doing, but they are living in peace. I would look for a better human rights record for North Vietnam, but they are living side by side.”

During a tour of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, she asked if the Mars Pathfinder probe had taken a picture of the flag Neil Armstrong planted in 1969. And she thinks repealing ACA would be a violation of the Constitution.

Okay, perhaps we can all agree she's stupid. But her latest gaffe is not merely funny, but deeply troubling.

...
During the floor debate over authorizing the lawsuit against Obama, Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Texas, suggested that Democrats had the moral high ground.

Even though some Democrats had thought that President George W. Bush had abused his authority when he initiated the Iraq War, the House, while under Democratic control in 2007 and 2008, did not impeach him.

The current resolution to authorize a lawsuit, Jackson Lee said in a floor speech on July 30, 2014, "smacks against the Constitution, which says there are three equal branches of government. Therefore, the executive has the right to perform his duties. I ask my colleagues to oppose this resolution for it is, in fact, a veiled attempt for impeachment, and it undermines the law that allows the president to do his job. It is a historical fact that President Bush pushed this nation into a war that had little to do with apprehending terrorists. We did not seek an impeachment of President Bush because as an executive, he had his authority. President Obama has the authority."

A reader asked us to check whether it’s accurate for Jackson Lee to say, "We did not seek an impeachment of President Bush." So we took a closer look.

Jackson Lee, it turns out, is an imperfect vehicle for making this charge. Here’s the problem: A dozen House Democrats in 2008 did introduce a resolution seeking the impeachment of Bush. And Jackson Lee was one of the measure’s 11 co-sponsors.
...

link


So she claimed that Dems didn't seek impeachment of Bush, even though she cosponsored the bill to impeach him! And when a concerned citizen called her office to ask about this contradiction, he was threatened with an IRS audit! This is how Dems think: the power of the government is theirs to use against their political critics.

Things got dicey, however, when he was transferred to an unidentified gentleman. According to Horner, the man he spoke to insulted him, and even called him un-American for daring to question Jackson Lee's false statement.

"I was transferred to a gentleman on Lee’s staff," Horner wrote. "When I again asked him about the contradiction and stated that perhaps I was confused, the man said 'Oh look it here, we have one of those right wing, tea-bagger nut jobs on the phone taking his cues from FOX News.'”

The situation only got worse, he said, when the unidentified staffer raised his voice and accused him of being un-American. Moreover, the staffer falsely accused Horner of being on a mission to destroy the country.

“I don’t have to give it to you because I don’t want to show up on some right wing blog and be on your Twitter account,” the man said when Horner asked him for identification. Horner said he never identified himself and the staffer simply made assumptions while attacking him.

“I doubt you even pay taxes and the IRS will find you soon enough,” the man said when Horner reminded him that his salary is provided by the taxpaying public. After issuing the veiled threat, the man hung up, Horner added.

After being insulted, threatened and hung up on, Horner called back and asked to speak to Jackson Lee's chief of staff. He was transferred to another man who only identified himself as "Chief Counsel," who gave Horner 15 seconds to speak.

“Really?” Horner asked the man on the other end of the phone. "Chief Counsel" then informed Horner he had 14 seconds left.

"When I asked him for his name, he said 'Chief Counsel,'” Horner said. "Of course that’s not his name, and I said 'No, I mean your name, not your title.'”

The man, however, refused to give his real name. Horner said he could find out through a Freedom of Information Act request. The man, however, hung up on him.

"That’s what happens when you (contact) the office of Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX)," Horner said. This is not the first report of rudeness from Jackson Lee and her staff, as we noted in March 2011.

But it seems that Jackson Lee is no longer content to lie on the floor of the House. Now, it appears she and her staff is willing to threaten anyone who dares ask a question about her statements.

link

[finn]

Perhaps the Dems have found their own Sarah P?

[ussusimiel]

That's a shocking level of performance for a politician of any level. The behaviour of her staff is unbelievable as well. (And she doesn't seem to treat them very well either.)

This is one of the big weaknesses of democracy. When a candidate focuses almost exclusively on meeting the concerns of their local constituency, it doesn't matter what thay do at a national level. We suffer badly from it here in Ireland. It's a horrible mixture of 'clientalism' and 'parish-pump politics'. (Probably related to 'pork barrel' spending in the US.) The worst example here at the moment is Michael Lowry, who has been shown to be a tax cheat and corrupt, yet who is constantly re-elected with the largest vote in the country

People get the politicians they vote for, that's democracy.

u.

[Damelon]

A remarkable level of stupidity, even for Congress. But, it's up to the voters in her district to get rid of her.

[lorin]

there are lots more about this person;
www.politifact.com/texas/statements/201 ... tnams-nor/

Sheila Jackson Lee says there are two Vietnams: North and South
False
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Sheila Jackson Lee on Vietnam
Good morning, Vietnams.

In a speech on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives on July 15, Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Houston, raised eyebrows when she compared the war in Afghanistan to Vietnam.

"I stand here asking us to do what we did not do in Vietnam, (which) was to recognize the valiant and outstanding service of our men and women, and to understand victory had been achieved," she said during the special order speech, which House members can give on any topic at the end of a day's legislative work.

"Today, we have two Vietnams, side by side, North and South, exchanging and working," she said. "We may not agree with all that North Vietnam is doing, but they are living in peace. I would look for a better human rights record for North Vietnam, but they are living side by side."

Conservative pundits and bloggers are still lampooning the congresswoman, and Jackson Lee, who earned a bachelor's degree in political science at Yale University and is a member of the House foreign affairs committee, backpedaled.

"If there was any reason to raise a point of concern, it was probably because I misspoke and did not add the phrase, after my discussion of North and South Vietnam, that 'the nation was united as one,'" she said in a statement issued the following day. "However, my point is still accurate, and that is that the war between North and South Vietnam is similar to Afghanistan, in that those fighting against each other were Vietnamese and now the country lives as one Vietnam. However, it is South Vietnam that was consumed by North Vietnam and governed by the policies of North Vietnam."

The incident is already infamous on Jackson Lee's entry on the online encyclopedia Wikipedia, under a section titled "gaffes." Also noted: in 1997, Jackson Lee asked a NASA scientist if the Mars Pathfinder had photographed the flag that Neil Armstrong had planted on the moon.

Quick history lesson, compliments of the CIA World Factbook:Under the 1954 Geneva Accords, Vietnam was divided into the Communist North and anti-Communist South. The United States' military presence in South Vietnam grew during the 1960s in an attempt to bolster that government, but armed forces withdrew in following a cease-fire agreement in 1973. Two years later, North Vietnam conquered the south, reuniting the two countries under Communist rule.

Today, the Socialist Republic of Vietnam is home to Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City.

Jackson Lee was four decades too late in her reference to two Vietnams. There's just one now, and just one way to rate her statement: False.

Here is my take on the quality of this type of representative. It is very similar to the big commissioners at my former job. My former bosses all had to take civil service tests in order to be placed into some of their positions. I took the same test. The last promotional test I took was for Administrative Staff Analyst. It was a 7 hour grueling test. Three months later my score came in at 92 out of 100. The scores of the tests are public lists and three of my commissioners had to take the same test. The scores were 67, 58 and 72. When the placement list came out I was somewhere around 8400 out of 10000 that took the test. The two people that passed the test with a 67 and 72 were 400 and 423 on the promotional list. They received a bump up due to being minority and female. The one that failed was promoted up to a non civil service title that had no test.

So these three women became my bosses. There is a point to all this. They were placed in their positions based purely on their race and gender . One day I was talking to my foster daughter about Obama. My foster daughter is black. I asked her what was her reason for voting for Obama. Mind you, I voted for him too. She said......because he's black and he knows what its like to be black. I asked if that is the only reason, she said yeah, cause he's black. This is the mentality that is rampant these days. Your education, your experience, your political position matters less and less.

My bosses were (are ) idiots. Morons that cannot write a decent proposal, have no command of the English language and looked for me for all projects that had to be submitted to the Mayors office. I was the only caucasian manager in my agency. People, my peers, were hired purely based on race by my commissioners. Let's be clear, I am saying this happened in the white regime as well. So who is under served by this policy? The population of, in my case, the homeless. They (the homeless) received low level care and advocacy by the lowest scoring , least literate, least experienced managers. And since 80 percent of the population is black and hispanic, then those victimized by these policies were the people it was designed to serve.

This woman graduated from Yale in the 70's, I believe. Yet she does not know we have yet to land on Mars or that North and South Vietnam are a thing of the past. How did this happen? How did someone like this graduate from Yale? (actually Im not sure she graduated)

[SoulBiter]

Wow... what can you say about such idiocy. But when you see that, it makes it clear why we have such a dis-functional government.

We had one of those in Georgia that we voted out some time ago.Cinthia McKinney... she served 3 different terms and in my opinion was only voted in because of her race.

[Rawedge Rim]

Still got mine here in florida: Rep. Corrine Brown District 3 (until they redraw her district, then we'll see)

[finn]

The following are actual stories provided by a retiring Washington, D.C. travel agent of 30+ years:


•I had a New Hampshire Congresswoman ask for an aisle seat so that her hair wouldn't get messed up by being near the window.

•I got a call from a Candidate's Staffer, who wanted to go to Capetown. I started to explain the length of the flight and the passport information then she interrupted me with, "I'm not trying to make you look stupid, but Capetown is in Massachusetts." Without trying to make her look like the stupid one, I calmly explained, "Cape Cod is in Massachusetts, Capetown is in Africa." Her response ... click.

•A Senior Vermont Congressman called, furious about a Florida package we did. I asked what was wrong with the vacation in Orlando. He said he was expecting an ocean-view room. I tried to explain that is not possible, since Orlando is in the middle of the state. He replied, "Don't lie to me. I looked on the map, and Florida is a very thin state!!!"

•I got a call from a Lawmakers Wife who asked, "Is it possible to see England from Canada?" I said, "No." She said, "But they look so close on the map."

• An Aide for a Bush cabinet member once called and asked if they could rent a car in Dallas. When I pulled up the reservation, I noticed they had only a 1-hour layover in Dallas. When I asked him why he wanted to rent a car, he said, "I heard Dallas was a big airport, and we will need a car to drive between the gates to save time."

• An Illinois Congresswoman called last week. She needed to know how it was possible that her flight from Detroit left at 8:20am and got into Chicago at 8:33am. I tried to explain that Michigan was an hour ahead of Illinois, but she could not understand the concept of time zones. Finally, I told her the plane went very fast, and she bought that!

• A New York lawmaker called and asked, "Do airlines put your physical description on your bag so they know who's luggage belongs to who?" I said, "No, why do you ask?" She replied, "Well, when I checked in with the airline, they put a tag on my luggage that said (FAT), and I'm overweight; I think that is very rude." After putting her on hold for a minute while I "looked into it" (I was actually laughing) I came back and explained the city code for Fresno, CA is (FAT), and that the airline was just putting a destination tag on her luggage.

• A Senator's Aide called in inquiring about a trip package to Hawaii. After going over all the cost info, she asked, "Would it be cheaper to fly to California and then take the train to Hawaii?"

• I just got off the phone with a freshman Congressman who asked, "How do I know which plane to get on?" I asked him what exactly he meant, to which he replied, "I was told my flight number is 823, but none of these darn planes have numbers on them."

Read more at snopes.com/travel/trap/congress.asp#7RUm9IxH5q3Zs57G.99

[Holsety]

The following are actual stories provided by a retiring Washington, D.C. travel agent of 30+ years:

But if you click on the link, it says they're false! Man Holsety, you do some great detective work sometimes.

[Cail]

The following are actual stories provided by a retiring Washington, D.C. travel agent of 30+ years:

But if you click on the link, it says they're false! Man Holsety, you do some great detective work sometimes.

Probably a plant by anti-Russian Jews.

[Hashi Lebwohl]

Ms. Lee is the Queen of her South Dallas district. She knows it, her staffers and supporters know it, and the people who vote for her know it. If you live in South Dallas, or want to be a community or business leader there, or if you want to do business successfully there, then you go and kiss the ring on Queen Lee's hand. If not, then you won't have any support.

She will never fail to be voted into office in her district, even if she told people she was an alien from another planet and was Napoleon in a former life.

[SerScot]

Representative Hank Johnson worried the Island of Guam might tip over and capcize if we stationed too many people there:

www.snopes.com/politics/quotes/guamtip.asp

He did later claim he was speaking metaphorically, but, in the Video he sounds pretty serious.

[Hashi Lebwohl]

I thought this was a thread about Sheila Jackson Lee. The Israel thread is elsewhere. A little derailing is normal but this is ridiculous.

My self-imposed task for the day: move the Israel comments to the Israel thread.

Done. I didn't even read those posts, either, just skimmed them while splitting to make sure I didn't accidentally move any SJL-related comments.

[Ananda]

I posted this in this thread, but it got moved to the isreal thread.

--

And, on topic, what made you post this about this particular woman? She seems about as stupid as Sarah Palin. We had the former head of socialdemokraterna say some really stupid things here, too. I'm so glad she's gone from the leadership now.

Read this and imagine you are swedish and try not to get sick:
Quote:
I think that's what makes many Swedes jealous of immigrant groups. You have a culture, an identity, a history, something that brings you together. And what do we have? We have Midsummer's Eve and such silly things.
Mona Sahlin in a speech to the Turkish youth organization Euroturk, March, 2002.

Socialdemokraterna are the biggest party on the left side. If the left won the election last time, she would have been our prime minister!

[Zarathustra]

I started a thread about this woman this week because her latest example of stupidity happened last week, in conjunction with an ongoing IRS scandal in which Dems are abusing their power to target conservatives. The fact that she can lie or speak ignorantly about impeachment--which is another current issue being pushed by Dems to make Obama look like a victim--and then have her staff threaten IRS action against people who dare phone her office with questions surrounding that lie/ignorance, makes her audacious abuse of power and truth especially timely.

Now, the comparisons to Palin are absolutely ridiculous. Palin's gaffe's are no worse than Obama's or Biden's. She doesn't utter falsehoods like an existence of North/South Vietnam, or astronauts landing on Mars. She doesn't blame the other party of doing something she herself did, and then try to hold the high ground by claiming she never did it. Nor is she in the position to use the IRS to target anyone.

Someone said this isn't a serious thread ... it's damn serious. If the Bush admin was using the IRS to silence his critics during an election year, then he won that election and yet failed to live up to his promise to get to the bottom of this scandal, Dems would be going into full-Olberman self-righteous indignation mode. But when I bring up examples of more Dems threatening even more IRS action, people think it's a joke.

Democrat integrity is the joke here. This has nothing to do with Palin. That's just an off-topic diversion from an embarrassing truth.

[Ananda]

Okay, thanks for clarifying, Z.

[SoulBiter]

Nothing like taking someones 'accent' and colloquialism and use that to paint them as ignorant people. They did it with GW and they did it with Palin.

Being from the south, you guys would crack up at my accent....

Fingers you say? I saw Fangers. Looks like rain you say? I say 'coming up a cloud". Invitation to dinner? More likely to be Supper. OH and anything that ends with 'ing' can be substituted for 'in'

Cookin, Cleanin, Skinnin, huntin, fishin,

But all that aside and take the accent and colloquialisms out, and I'm a fairly educated, well read individual.

[Savor Dam]

SB, I will stipulate that GWB may have experienced more of that than he deserved. Like RWR, his depth was widely underestimated...regardless of how one views the policies or administration of either President.

However, erstwhile Governor Palin had more than regionalism undermining her. She torpedoed herself through ill-advised statements, what-was-she-thinking photo opportunities, and post-2008 pandering to a fringe movement that drove the final spikes into her national political credibility.

When first brought to prominence by Sen. McCain (whom I had a high opinion of in 2000 and was willing to consider in 2008), I thought she might be the factor that turned the election his way. What happened was quite the opposite...and she has done nothing since but dig a deeper hole.

Why she is still a topic (other than as a way to score cheap points) escapes me.