Sheila Jackson Lee has got to be the most prolific walking political gaff reel of all time. And it certainly doesn't help that her seemingly sole mission in life is to get herself on television. Congressional staffers actually ran a pool for the rare day when she doesn't take the floor to address the House during session. You could no doubt compile a feature-length documentary from short YouTube blooper excerpts alone. I had one guy ask, "How could a city the size of Houston continuously re-elect the village idiot to Congress?" I had no response.dhoobler wrote:SheJack is so far out there The Onion won't even touch her.
Below are but a tiny fraction of her lexicon because many of her ramblings are so, well, rambling that it can be quite difficult to figure out what, exactly, she's saying. Warning: do not read with coffee in your mouth. This represents a known hazard to keyboards and mobile devices.
- "Why do we have the capacity, uh, to dismantle the transponders? Why wasn't the emergency call already in place that it automatically signals when a [sic] aircraft goes off its, uh, discerned or destinated [sic], uh, destiny, uh and destination, uh, as relates to, uh, its flight pattern. Why does it have to be done manually?" [Speaking on the floor of the House regarding Malaysian Airlines Flight 370]
- "All those who wore sheets a long time ago have now lifted them off and started wearing, uh, clothing, uh, with a name, say, I am part of the tea party. Don't you be fooled. Those who used to wear sheets are now being able to walk down the aisle and speak as a patriot because you will not speak loudly about the lack of integrity of this movement." [Speaking at the 2010 convention of the NAACP in Kansas City]
- "This Fast and Furious debacle started under the Bush administration. Uh, and, uh, it has been evidenced by various reports, uh, that it started with the ATF office in Arizona unbeknownst to leadership in Washington D.C., at least leadership, uh, that came in, uh, under the Obama administration, in this instance Eric Holder." [Being interviewed on C-SPAN in 2012]
- "Maybe I should offer a good thanks to the distinguished members of the majority, the Republicans, my chairman and others, for giving us an opportunity to have a deliberative constitutional discussion that reinforces 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." [Speaking on the floor of the House in March, 2014]
- "Let us vote to provide for unemployment insurance for working men and women so that faces across America will not have the tear of desperation on their faces." [Speaking on the floor of the House in 2013; language deconstructionists concluded that she was calling for unemployment benefits to be paid to the actively employed]
- "You know that I'm going to, first of all, denounce the utilization of this intrusion of Wikipedia, through the Russian intrusion. That's what this is about." [Speaking on-air about the Russian hacking of the election; Wikipedia users immediately looked up "Sheila Jackson Lee."]
- "I believe this caucus will put us on the right path and we'll give President Obama a number of executive orders that he can sign with pride and strength. In fact, I think that should be our number one agenda. Let's write up these executive orders, draft them of course--and ask the president to stand with us on full employment." [Speaking to fellow democrats in 2014; and the rest of us naively thought that executive orders came from the White House, not Congress]
- "We have martial law. What that means--and my colleagues know what it means--is that you can put a bill on in just minutes." [Speaking on the floor of the House in 2013; it is somewhat disturbing that a Congresswoman with 18 years of service in the House does not know the meaning of "martial law."]
- "I happen to represent Enron here in Houston. We have many good corporate citizens here in Houston. Enron happened to have been one."
- "A historical fact: 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." [Speaking in 2014; however, in 2008 she and 10 fellow democrats in Congress co-sponsored Dennis Kucinich's bill to impeach President Bush]
- "I stand here as a freed slave because this Congress came together." [Speaking on the floor of the House; while we believe the intent can be interpreted, the New York native and (somehow) graduate of Yale was, herself, never, well....]
- "I'm Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee! Who do you think you are?" [After instructing her driver to disobey Secret Service orders at the U.S. Treasury building, and then forbidding him to pull over for pursuing agents, SheJack eventually confronted the Secret Service agents.]
- "You don't understand. I am a queen, and I demand to be treated like a queen." [SheJack in 1998 to Capitol office executive assistant and events scheduler Rhiannon Burruss when the Congresswoman was not assigned a chauffeur to a Selma march anniversary, and she learned someone else was.]
- While on a trip to the Mars Pathfinder operations center in California in 1997, SheJack, at the time a member of the House Science Committee and the Subcommittee on Space and Aeronautics, asked if the Pathfinder had succeeded in taking a picture of the flag planted on Mars by Neil Armstrong in 1969.
- "I have been on the border, I have been on the Rio Grande. I have been on the border at night." [SheJack has done a lot of traveling on the taxpayer's dime, including to Michael Jackson's memorial service; but we don't believe she's spent much time floating on the Rio Grande at night.]
- "Maybe the word welfare should be changed to something of, 'a transitional living fund.' For that is what it is--for people to be able to live." [I'm sure many were ready to line up for their "Living Fund Stamps" and free cell phones."
- "And I want to say to my colleagues that I stand here asking us to do what we did not do in Vietnam. Was to recognize the valiant and outstanding service of our men and women. And to understand that victory had been achieved. Today we have two Vietnams, side by side, North and South, exchanging and working. We may not agree with all North Vietnam is doing, but they are living in peace. I would look for better human rights record for North Vietnam, but they're living side by side. Because that was a civil war. And because the leadership of this nation did not listen to the mothers and fathers who borned [sic] the burden of 58,000 dead and did not declare victory, the mounting death, the violence continued going up and up. Rather than understanding the political nature of the war in Vietnam, we did not listen to those families." [Speaking on the floor of the House in 2010 as a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee; considering that there has been no South Vietman since the fall of Saigon in 1975, you'll just have to figure this one out on your own.]
- "Don’t condemn the gangbangers, they've got guns that are trafficked, that are not enforced, that are straw purchased and they come into places even that have strong gun laws. Why? Because we don't have sensible gun legislation." [Speaking on the floor of the House; contradicts herself within a few words. But think of all the innocent gangbangers....]
- "This is about closing the donut hole..." [No; I don't know what this could possibly mean, either. Maybe she meant loophole?]
