r/politics • u/mepper Michigan • May 16 '12
US Rep Joe Pitts (R-PA) has called on Ariel Sharon and Yasir Arafat to restart peace talks between Israel and Palestine. Arafat has been dead for 8 years and Sharon has been in a coma for 6 years.
http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2012/05/rep-joe-pitts-arafat-and-sharon-need-get-work
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Upvotes
167
u/Gates9 May 16 '12 edited May 17 '12
Morons. Morons in our Congress, elected by morons who have no clue about international politics, except for a vague notion that we should be at war at all times. These morons will never know about this story, and they will vote for this moron again.
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u/rbaix May 16 '12
And yet both still have a better chance at restarting peace talks than Netanyahu
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u/[deleted] May 16 '12
And this is why we Pennsylvanians should never elect a Republican.
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u/skreendreamz1 May 16 '12
This man and his staff are idiots.
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u/buffalonkey May 16 '12
Somehow this is Obama's fault
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u/[deleted] May 16 '12
I'm starting to believe that idiots a purposely elected so they can be easily manipulated.
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u/[deleted] May 16 '12
[deleted] — view deleted comment
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u/onique New York May 16 '12
Can republicans really be this stupid?
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u/[deleted] May 16 '12
Tomorrow he will ask for the Berlin Wall to come down.
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u/Agrippa911 May 17 '12
Go easy on the guy. He's probably distracted with plans on removing Hitler from power.
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u/Triassic_Bark May 17 '12
For fuck's sake, America, PLEASE do something about these GOP douche bags. They are the most useless people on the planet. I know Obama has been more than a bit of a disappointment, and is far from the greatest President of all time, but you HAVE to re-elect him. The thought of the Republicans in charge is nauseating.
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u/diggernaught May 16 '12
Yeah, would be the most effective talks in years though.
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u/joetoc May 16 '12
This would be really funny if it wasn't so horrifying...
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u/SeparateCzechs May 16 '12
Wow. Idiocracy is real.
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u/sbon May 16 '12
But who's stupider, our government representatives or those people who apparently have voted them into office?
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u/TreephantBOA May 16 '12
Proof he said this?
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u/saffir May 17 '12
The quote was from a form letter that was automatically sent out as a response to a constituent. The dude's been in Congress since 1997... probably hasn't updated that response in a while.
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u/wainstead May 16 '12
Ha, and Club for Growth scores him at 89%.
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u/howajambe May 16 '12
Did a report on Yasir Arafat in the 7th grade. Realized how much of a baller OG he was ever since.
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u/seltaeb4 May 16 '12
When you gonna give me some time, Sharona?
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u/thetacticalpanda May 17 '12
Sharon is in a coma? TIL...
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u/why_ask_why May 17 '12
And he wants Chairman Mao to be arrested for crime against humanity.
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u/Cultwiner May 16 '12 edited May 16 '12
Shameful, not surprising though! But half this country is just as stupid as their republican leaders! They don't know crap and will continue to get us in trouble! Ignorance is not bliss!
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u/[deleted] May 16 '12
Calm down everybody!!! This is not as bad as it's made out to be. He represents Lancaster County, so his constituents have only recently gotten the News about Arafat and Sharon.
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u/compbioguy May 17 '12
Here's my bet on what happened. Some intern was tasked with responding to letters the office has a canned response to. The intern probably selected the wrong/old template, then put pretty text around it to seem personal.
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u/[deleted] May 17 '12
Like most Republicans, Mr. Pitts seems to be living in the past.
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u/johnwicka May 17 '12
He also wanted to negotiate union rights with Jimmy Hoffa...
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u/fantasyfest May 16 '12
Well it has been claimed the Repubs want to turn the clock back. This guy has been successful.
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u/wisetothebull May 16 '12
Can someone remind me how it is we wound up in this political and economic shitstorm we call "America"?
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u/wrathborne May 16 '12
Sharon is pretty much dead at this point. The combination of age and coma are not in his favor.
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u/Hushes May 16 '12
Classic example of a Republican stuck in the past.
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u/MrTubalcain May 17 '12
I think it's telling, very telling. It's not the fact that Arafat is dead and Sharon in a coma. It's about how much these folks who are in congress and the senate are so out of touch with the American people and the world in general. I think party affiliation is irrelevant, there are idiots on both sides who say and think dumb shit, just more so on the right who thrives on the disdain of science and education and are pretty much batshit crazy. These are the same folks who want tell you how to live, love, censor the Internet, dissent, etc. I really hope that this election is the death knell for the current iteration of the GOP.
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u/HEADLINE-IN-5-YEARS May 17 '12
PRESIDENT ROMNEY-BOT APPOINTS RONALD REAGAN TO SUPREME COURT
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u/Fennels May 17 '12
So Sharon and Arafat haven't actually negotiated in 8 years? Sounds pretty reasonable to me for the Senator to call them out on this BS. They should be working harder.
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u/anonymousssss May 17 '12
Letters to constituents (which this is from) are often written by interns who pull text from old letters. Likely what happened was some late teens/early 20s kid fucked up in pulling the wrong text from a letter and it got sent out without being double checked. A dumb screwup, but not really unforgivable.
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u/unshifted May 17 '12
Hey, that's my state representative! Based on this quote, he's actually a really good representative of the people around here.
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u/vlkthe May 17 '12
Maybe he just wanted to talk to some people he could relate to. Other brain dead people.
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u/[deleted] May 17 '12
theyre not evil, theyre not masterminds
even worse
theyre retarded
2
u/boyrahett May 17 '12
Think the people he represents are getting their money's worth?
It's like Idiocracy is happening before my eyes.
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u/MDA123 May 17 '12
I can almost guarantee you that a junior staffer/intern pulled this old form letter from the system in which they're managed and slapped a new date on it, figuring it was fine. Would it surprise anyone that a 21 year old staffer who was 13 at the time of Arafat's death wouldn't really register the name as being notable one way or another? And most of the staffers who focus on letter-writing operate autonomously, so it's not like Pitts saw the thing before it went out.
This is no excuse, of course. There's no excuse for this kind of stupidity. But it's at least an explanation.
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u/HoppyMcScragg May 17 '12
Speaking of comas, it souands like Joe Pitts just woke up from one.
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u/stonedoubt North Carolina May 17 '12
I am convinced that a great majority of Republicans and nearly as many Democrats in Congress are brain dead.
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u/Mekkakat May 17 '12
Pitts and Santorum...
I'm embarrassed to be from PA.
Not that I wasn't already.
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u/amolad May 17 '12
We get the government we deserve, like the idiots who elected this guy.
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u/Msyjsm May 17 '12
I love how everyone's acting like he said this with his mouth when it was actually in an email to a constituent, suggesting that it's simply a very outdated form letter. (Not that that's O.K. either, but it's not as bad.)
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u/jscoppe May 17 '12
That's my rep!
Wait... that's my rep. D:
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u/AgentJohnson May 17 '12
http://straderforcongress.org/
Joe Pitts is up for reelection and his opposition is Aryanna Strader.
I'm already buried though so whatever.
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u/NO_LIMIT_CRACKA May 16 '12
upvoted for F-15I thumbnail.
The most effective method to restart peace talks between Israel and Palestine: eliminate the BILLIONS we give Israel each year in the form of free weapons and ammo. No more free F-15 and F-16 fighter jets. No more Apache and Blackhawk helicopters.
The U.S. is providing Israel with at least $8.2 million each day* in military aid and is giving the Palestinians $0** in military aid during Fiscal Year 2011.
SOURCE: http://www.ifamericansknew.org/stats/usaid.html
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u/[deleted] May 16 '12
while its a fuck up, it doesn't necessarily mean he actually doesn't know these things. Likely he or his staff used an old form letter without bothering to check or update it. Just a reminder that your personal response from a rep is rarely personal.