Janeane Garofalo Quotes

The average Tea Partier is sincerely against government spending - with the exception of the money spent on them.

I think it's clear to me that what - when I look at the tea party, it's about one-third Democrat, one-third Republican, one-third independents. But 100 percent of them are sure that the agenda that is taking place in Washington, D.C., is about extremism and is about bankrupting this country and every state within this country.

The Tea Party movement went off on a more extreme agenda that I did not support at all, and was very frustrated by it, to the point that not only did I change parties, I decided to do something about it and run for Congress.

I think there are a lot of people who are involved in the Tea Party who have very real and sincere concerns about spending that's out of control or generally philosophically believe that the government should be less involved in certain aspects of American life rather than more involved. And they have every right and obligation as citizens to be involved and engaged in this process.

A group called the Texas Tea Party Patriots is hosting a debate next month where Newt Gingrich and Herman Cain will go head to head, while people watching that will go head to pillow.

I was a Republican and I saw the activists and what they were doing, it was intolerable to me.

Tea Party members go to meetings on Medicare scooters.

The Tea Party I have huge disagreements with, obviously. But I give them credit for having activated themselves. And they made a difference in terms of moving the Republican Party, in terms of moving the country in a particular direction. It's a direction I disagreed with. But it showed that, in fact, you get involved, if your voice is heard it has an impact.

I have always been involved in issue-based politics, not party politics - I was never really originally drawn to party politics.

I would never join the Tea Partiers, because I don't have a problem with the color of Obama's skin. I don't have a problem with immigrants. You know what I mean? I do have genuine problems with policy and government corruption. Sure I do. And I speak very candidly about that, regardless of who's in office. But since the Tea Partiers are ridiculous, why would I urge anyone to participate with them?

If a poet would work politically, he must give himself up to a party; and so soon as he does that, he is lost as a poet.

The court follows elite opinion, not public opinion. And Democratic leaders in Congress and Republican leaders in Congress follow elite opinion as well. It's what I've called "the Washington cartel." It's career politicians in both parties. It is lobbyists and giant corporations.

You look across this country people are fed up with Washington. This [2016] election was the American people saying, enough already with the corruption in Washington and it's both parties.

The role of third parties is to sting like a bee, then die.

The Republicans, with their crazed Reagan fixation, are a last-gasp party, living posthumously, fighting battles on sex, race, immigration and public education long ago won by the other side. They're trying to roll back the clock, but time is passing them by.

Unless women are prepared to fight politically they must be content to be ignored politically.

The Tea Party, which is pretty darn clear on its main focus, which is fiscal restraint, financial restraint, economic restraint, and return to Constitutional values and Founding Fathers' principles, had been impugned as racist, violent, homophobic, and all their motivations have been impugned.

As a lobbyist he had long ago concluded there was no difference in how Democrats and Republicans conducted the business of government. The game stayed the same: It was always about favors and friends, and who controlled the dough. Party labels were merely a way to keep track of the teams; issues were mostly smoke and vaudeville. Nobody believed in anything except hanging on to power, whatever it took.

When contemplating a shield that would protect America for incoming missiles, Democrats suddenly became hardheaded fiscal conservatives. For the first time in recorded history, liberals were concerned about the cost and usefulness of a government program. These people believe federally funded art therapy for the homeless will pay for itself. That you can take to the bank. But a shield to repel incoming nuclear missiles from American soil they said, was too expensive and wouldn't work.

The Washington establishment does not like the Tea Party. Don't you love all these politicians that run around and campaign as outsiders, anti-establishment, 'I'm not part of that Washington culture.' Well, then join the Tea Party, 'cause that's who's really anti-establishment, that's who's really a bunch of outsiders is the Tea Party. But you don't see those politicians who want to be considered outsiders joining or embracing the Tea Party, do you?

I think we have got to get the Republicans and the Democrats to get back to what I call the fiscal conservative, the issues that drive the tea parties.

Remember, the left corrupts everything, folks. The Democrat Party, the left corrupts every institution. They politicize it, and by virtue of that alone they corrupt it. And so at the NSA, at the Defense Intelligence Agency, at the CIA, and at the FBI, there are Obamaites, there are people that think like he.

John Kerry met with Ralph Nader last week. Both sides of every issue were discussed. And then, Nader spoke.

Look, I don't mind if the President sends a budget which he knows is not going to achieve anything. But when he prefaces his remarks as we just saw by saying we have to put politics aside, posing again as the one person in the country who rises above partisanship and party, speaks for the national interest, it's really grating.

The Democratic Party hasn't whipped anybody into a frenzy. The assumption is that the people that are marching and protesting and standing up against this don't have enough sense to stand up for their own interests.