Everyone Hates Congress

Mean Things People Have Said About It Over The Years

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I think if there is one thing we can all agree on is that we hate Congress.

We especially hate the just-departed 112th Congress, which had an approval rating of 9 percent at one point, the lowest ever recorded.

What is surprising is not that the IRS, the airlines, lawyers, communism, socialism, the big banks and even Paris Hilton polled hire than the 112th Congress, it's that 9 percent of the people thought Congress was doing a good job. Is it just me, or is that disturbing?

Of course, the 112th Congress isn't the only edition people have hated, just the one people have hated the most. Looking back is to see that historically when people didn't have anything nice to say, it didn't stop them from saying things about Congress.

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Here are 10 really mean, nasty and snarky things people have said and written about one Congress or another over the years:

"Reader, suppose you were an idiot, and suppose you were a member of Congress; but I repeat myself." (Mark Twain)

"I have wondered at times what the Ten Commandments would have looked like if Moses had run them through the US Congress." (Ronald Reagan)

"The only difference between death and taxes is that death doesn't get worse every time Congress meets." (Will Rogers)


"With Congress, every time they make a joke it's a law, and every time they make a law it's a joke." (Will Rogers)

"Congress is so strange. A man gets up to speak and says nothing. Nobody listens — and then everybody disagrees." (Boris Marshalov)

"It could probably be shown by facts and figures that there is no distinctly native criminal class except Congress." (Mark Twain)

You can lead a man to Congress, but you can't make him think. (Milton Berle)

"I've often thought that the process of aging could be slowed down if it had to go through Congress." (George H. W. Bush)

"I don't mind what Congress does, as long as they don't do it in the streets and frighten the horses." (often attributed to Victor Hugo)

Anyway, the fair thing to do would be to give the newly stalled 113th Congress the benefit of the doubt. But to save time, I've decided to just pre-hate it.

News You Can Use

A federal appeals court ruled last week that a police officer can't pull you over and arrest you just because you gave him the finger. The case involved a man who flipped off a police officer who was using a radar gun at an intersection. The officer claimed, and the judges didn't buy it, that he pulled the man over because he thought the man was "trying to get my attention for some reason," which obviously he did. While it may be legal, you have to think flipping off a police officer is not a high percentage move.


Since the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School on Dec. 14, 2012, there have been approximately 409 gun-related deaths in the United States (from all causes), according to data compiled by the website Slate, and the Twitter feed @GunDeaths.

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