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Quotable: Posted Recently

“It was pretty much a proctology exam through your earlobe.”
Karen L. Kenney, the coordinator for the San Fernando Valley Patriots, one of the conservative groups seeking tax-exempt status that were the objects of extra scrutiny from the Internal Revenue Service and which received an IRS questionnaire containing 100 questions 19 months after the group had submitted its application to the agency along with a $400 check to fast-track the process
>> Washington Post | Posted May 16, 2013

“Your meter expired; however, we saved you from the king's tariffs. Robin Hood and his Merry Men. Please consider paying it forward.”
Wording on a card placed under the windshield wipers of cars in Keene, N.H., by a group dubbed Robin Hood of Keene that patrols downtown armed with video cameras and pockets full of change to fill expired parking meters, six of whose members have been sued by the city on charges that the activists are harassing city employees
>> New Hampshire Union Leader | Posted May 15, 2013

“At no time did the officer violate any of my constitutional privileges and even gave me a juice box after I said I was thirsty.”
Review of the Arlington County, Va., Detention Facility posted on Yelp, the restaurant- and business-rating website that increasingly is being used by inmates and defense attorneys to rate lockups around the country
>> Washington Post | Posted May 14, 2013

“Try coming to the grocery store with me and see how you will be able to shop and buy your spinach and your milk and not be asked about a pothole or be asked about a streetlight out or complain about something that happened in the news.”
Detroit city council President Charles Pugh--who receives a base salary of $76,911 a year plus health care, a pension, a city-owned car filled up with city-paid gas and a city-issued cellphone--defending the council against critics who say the council, which consultants have recommended be made part-time with members' aides slashed to one each, is bloated and overpaid
>> Detroit Free Press | Posted May 13, 2013

“Seriously, we will never get the government we want if all we do is tear it down.”
Max Stier, the president of the Partnership for Public Service, hailing Public Service Recognition Week as something of an antidote to an acronym he has coined, "FBATT," which stands for "fed-bashing all the time"
>> Washington Post | Posted May 9, 2013

“Jack assured me that he is going to work to make at least one letter legible in order not to debase our currency.”
President Obama, joking about Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew's loopy, illegible signature, which the president's former chief of staff reportedly is practicing to improve before it is affixed to the nation's currency
>> Fox News | Posted May 8, 2013

“We really are just in the baby steps. This can go wherever we want it to go. The sky is the limit.”
Jim Diss, Scottsdale, Ariz.'s purchasing manager, on the city's sales of surplus and unclaimed items--ranging from a jukebox and barber's chair to jewelry and computers--via silent online auctions, which have brought in $160,000 in revenue in just nine months
>> Arizona Republic | Posted May 7, 2013

“Diligently serving without the expectation of fanfare, they enforce our laws, teach our children and lay a strong foundation for our nation's progress.”
President Obama, in a letter commemmorating Public Service Recognition Week, thanking federal-, state- and local-government workers and describing them as "committed to a cause greater than personal ambition"
>> Federal Times | Posted May 6, 2013

“We greatly appreciate the federal employees who are so important to our region, and we want to show our solidarity with those public servants who enjoy the sport of golf.”
Brian Knapp, chairman of the Northern Virginia Regional Park Authority, on "Furloughs to Fairways," a 30 percent discount on greens fees the authority is offering to furloughed federal workers at its three golf courses
>> FederalDaily | Posted May 3, 2013

“These are all very hardworking people. They have a dream. They want to make their dream a reality.”
Arnold Schwarzenegger, speaking at the University of Southern California think tank that bears his name and invoking his own rise from bodybuilder to movie action hero to California governor in arguing for reforming the nation's immigration system
>> Los Angeles Times | Posted May 2, 2013

“It's going to look like a phone book.”
John Arntz, head of the San Francisco Department of Elections, on the ballot guide that will be mailed to voters this fall that is expected to run to more than 500 pages, thanks mostly to a referendum on the height of a waterfront luxury condo development, with a city law requiring that the guide contain the full text of the referendum as well as documents from Planning Commission and Board of Supervisors hearings and copies of studies relating to the development
>> San Francisco Chronicle | Posted May 1, 2013

“If we had our choice, we would use that money in a different way.”
Gen. Ray Odierno, the Army's chief of staff, on a bipartisan push in Congress to spend $436 million to build improved versions of the Abrams tank, which the Army and defense experts have said repeatedly are not needed, while keeping production rolling protects businesses and well-paying jobs in congressional districts where the tank's many suppliers are located
>> AP/Military Times | Posted April 30, 2013

“We know how the script ends.”
Actor Michael Douglas, who portrayed the nation's chief executive in the 1995 movie "The American President," asked at this weekend's White House Correspondents' Association Dinner to describe the difference between the real presidency and Hollywood's conception of it
>> Washington Post | Posted April 29, 2013

“I created plenty of opportunities to exercise that right.”
Former President George W. Bush, speaking at the opening of his presidential library, acknowledging that his had been a controversial presidency while noting that one principle of a free people is the right of citizens to disagree with each other and with their elected officials
>> Houston Chronicle | Posted April 26, 2013

“Bring on the cup! I have nothing to fear!”
Minnesota state Sen. Duane Quam, welcoming a measure that passed the House by a landslide and was to be introduced in the Senate requiring drug tests not only for welfare recipients but also for state lawmakers
>> McClatchy News/Governing | Posted April 25, 2013

“We had 40 years to get here. We've got 18 months to get out of it.”
Kevyn Orr, Detroit's emergency manager, saying he remains optimistic the city can emerge from its financial crisis with a positive outlook for the future but that "if we shut down everything we did as a city right now today--no police, no fire, no water, no nothing--we couldn't pay off our long-term debt in 14 years"
>> Detroit Free Press | Posted April 24, 2013

“I'm blessed to stand on the shoulders of teachers who I continue to learn from.”
Jeff Charbonneau, who teaches chemistry, physics, engineering and architecture at Zillah High School in Washington State's Yakima Valley and has been named the National Teacher of the Year for 2013 by the Council of Chief State School Officers, crediting his colleagues at Zillah High--which he attended as a teenager--for their mentoring
>> Seattle Times | Posted April 23, 2013

“They have unique skill sets.”
Scott Carney, administrative services director for the California Department of Corrections, explaining why his department is one of more than two dozen agencies that are continuing to fill some of the state government's highest-paying positions with retirees who draw salaries of $45-$75 per hour on top of their pensions, despite an edict from Gov. Jerry Brown's administration last year to sweep nearly all retirees from the state's workforce
>> Sacramento Bee | Posted April 22, 2013

“I'm really passionate about this issue.”
Oregon Secretary of State Kate Brown, who is pushing for legislation that would instantly register voters based on information in their Department of Motor Vehicle records, which would make Oregon the only state to automatically register voters
>> Governing | Posted April 19, 2013

“Consider who you're writing it for and what the purpose is.”
Collen Blessing, a senior editor at the Energy Information Administration, among federal agencies that were commended for publishing official government literature in "clear and concise language," receiving ClearMark awards from the Center for Plain Language
>> Government Executive | Posted April 18, 2013

“So the teachers' union filed a lawsuit saying they don't want to be evaluated based on student performance? I'm shocked--shocked, I say.”
Florida Senate President Don Gaetz, a Republican who has long supported performance pay for teachers, commenting facetiously on a federal lawsuit filed by seven Florida teachers, backed by their state and national unions, challenging a new teacher-evaluation system on constitutional grounds
>> Miami Herald | Posted April 17, 2013

“I need to tell you that I still am fun to have dinner with even though I study things like arsenic and rice.”
Carol Folt, the interim president of Dartmouth University who has been selected to become chancellor the the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill July 1 and who has primarily focused her academic research on the effects of dietary mercury and arsenic on human health and aquatic life, Atlantic salmon restoration and climate change
>> Daily Tar Heel | Posted April 15, 2013

“Do you want Homer Simpson researching cancer for your children's diseases?”
John Berry, whose tenure as director of the federal Office of Personnel Management ends tomorrow, saying his biggest frustration has been "beating back those small-hearted people who somehow feel it is appropriate to denigrate public service" in a time when it's crucial to be able "to recruit the best and brightest"
>> Washington Post | Posted April 12, 2013

“The next DNI can try it.”
Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, saying that dismantling the intelligence community's first large-scale experiment with pay for performance--which a 2010 report by the National Academy of Public Administration concluded was rushed and flawed--cost $60 million and that he has no interest in giving it another shot
>> Federal Times | Posted April 11, 2013

“It's a symbiotic relationship. The more Wi-Fi you have, the more power you need.”
David Wilson, chief technologist for the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, which has installed 432 new power outlets around its gates since 2011 and expects to add 564 more through 2014, reacting to travelers' increasing demand for places to plug in their devices since the airport begain providing free broadband in 2010
>> Seattle Times | Posted April 10, 2013

“Families gave this land believing it would be taken care of.”
Former Washington Secretary of State Ralph Monroe, among those decrying the state's neglect of its 100-year-old park system as a result of the elimination of most direct funding for the parks, for which more than 30 percent of the land was donated by families
>> Seattle Times | Posted April 9, 2013

“I don't want to compare this to the civil rights movement, but there is a parallel there.”
Jason Sledd, an amateur home beer brewer from Huntsville, Ala., on bills moving through the legislature that could end Alabama's distinction as the last state in which home brewing is illegal, a ban that dates back to the end of Prohibition
>> National Journal | Posted April 8, 2013

“You have to be careful to, first of all, say she is brilliant and she is dedicated and she is tough, and she is exactly what you'd want in anybody who is administering the law and making sure that everybody is getting a fair shake. She also happens to be by far the best-looking attorney general in the country.”
President Obama, drawing laughs at an Atherton, Calif., Democratic National Committee fundraiser, along with some criticism from online commentators, for his words praising California Attorney General Kamala Harris
>> Washington Post | Posted April 5, 2013

“To refuse to challenge the status quo that is failing thousands of African-American students, that's what I call racist.”
Chicago Public Schools CEO Barbara Byrd-Bennett, responding to accusations that her decision to close 54 schools is racist and saying the accusations insult her "as a woman of color"
>> Chicago Sun-Times | Posted April 4, 2013

“There is a lack of understanding of how difficult it is to change the culture of an organization. You need people who are trained in those fields, who are unbiased, a third party that can assess the existing structure.”
Jose Cornejo, manager of Denver's Public Works Department since last year, on a $210,000 contract the department has with Bob Tipton, a motivational speaker who calls himself "Chief Transforminator," to help replace a workplace culture inside the department that has grown so toxic that officials believe it is impossible for the city's Office of Human Resources to rectify
>> Denver Post | Posted April 3, 2013

“I got a lot of nasty emails nationally.”
Berkeley, Calif., City Councilman Gordon Wozniak, on the reaction--including one message calling him "the epitome of a communist"--to his proposal that the federal government tax email to raise money to keep the U.S. Postal Service afloat, an idea that Wozniak, a retired nuclear scientist, admits faces "a real uphill battle"
>> Los Angeles Times | Posted April 2, 2013

“He's pretty bad.”
Juwan Clarke, a 15-year-old Denver resident, assessing Mayor Michael Hancock's prowess at basketball after the mayor, along with Denver Broncos linebacker Wesley Woodyard, played the game with some local youths at an event launching the MY Denver Card, which allows Denver's 90,000 public-school students free year-round access to the city's basketball courts, gyms and pools
>> Denver Post | Posted April 1, 2013