Maxine Waters
Has served as a Democratic member of the United States House of Representatives since 1991, representing the 35th District of California.
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The shouting, the overrunning of the Capitol, the sneaking in of Tea Party participants into the basement of the Capitol, the name-calling, the spitting, all of that…. The Tea Party emerges as not only outrageous, but they have turned up the volume in ways that even Code Pink have not been able to do.
I don't see white police officers slamming the heads of little white boys into police cars.
We’ve spent $400 billion between Iraq and Afghanistan. That amounts to a couple of billion dollars a week. I stood on the floor of Congress begging, trying to get just one billion to fight HIV and AIDS, to be able to fund all the outreach programs. But we’re at a time when very smart people have been allowing this dumb-ass President of the United States [George W. Bush] to do as he pleases.
Many other cities could go the way that Los Angeles went last night unless the president is willing to step in and take some strong action in terms of letting people know that he cares about this issue.
I am extremely angry, and I have no problems with saying that. You know, there comes a time when it’s all right to be angry. That’s how I feel. And I’m sure that the people that you see, no matter what you think about what they’re doing, and no matter how we would not like to see that kind of violence, you can understand the anger.
The anger that you see expressed out there in Los Angeles, in my district this evening, is a righteous anger, and it's difficult for me to say to the people, "Don't be angry." When people are angry and enraged, they do do senseless things. They do act even sometimes out of character, and that's why it is the responsibility of America to try and avoid putting people in these kinds of situations.
"The president is a liar. Dick Cheney, the chief architect of the Big Lie, is not only a liar, he is a thief."
If you call it a riot, it sounds like it was just a bunch of crazy people who went out and did bad things for no reason. I maintain it was somewhat understandable, if not acceptable. So I call it a rebellion.
I think we have to say it's okay to be angry. It's not all right to be violent. I know it would make people happy if I said I could wave my hand and make people behave less violently. I am not that presumptuous. We have a moral responsibility to share the resources of this country.
Riot is the voice of the unheard.
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