Tag: joe the plumber
‘Joe The Plumber’ Praises Trump, Cites His ‘Beautiful Women’

‘Joe The Plumber’ Praises Trump, Cites His ‘Beautiful Women’

By Tim Reid

HOLLAND, Ohio (Reuters) – “Joe the Plumber,” the Ohio workingman who came to symbolize U.S. taxpayer frustration in the 2008 presidential election, is still angry. And like many angry voters, he likes insurgent Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump — in part because the New York billionaire dated attractive women.

“He’s a winner. He’s made billions. He’s dated beautiful women. His wife is a model. That’s not to sniff at. And a lot of people believe he can bring that kind of success to the White House,” said Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher, 42, who shot to prominence during the 2008 campaign after then-Republican nominee John McCain seized on a confrontation Wurzelbacher had with then-Democratic candidate Barack Obama.

Sitting in his Ohio house, a Ruger handgun on a table next to him, Wurzelbacher told Reuters he has yet to decide who to support but he likes the caustic Trump, a real-estate developer and former reality TV show host, and is unhappy with the Republican Party establishment lining up against him.

He also likes Ted Cruz, the conservative U.S. senator from Texas. He is scathing about Marco Rubio, the senator from Florida and the favorite of the Republican establishment to challenge Trump. And he dislikes John Kasich, the Ohio governor who narrowly trails Trump in his home state with less than two weeks until Ohio’s primary on March 15.

Trump, 69, is the front-runner in the race for the Republican nomination for the Nov. 8 election, but party leaders worry policies that include building a wall on the U.S.-Mexican border and temporarily banning Muslims from entering the United States will turn off voters and upset U.S. allies.

QUINTESSENTIAL EVERYMAN

As a conservative, Wurzelbacher says he is willing to overlook Trump’s previous heresies on issues such as gun control, abortion, gay marriage and even his past donations to Hillary Clinton, the Democratic presidential front-runner. The Obama administration, he says, is a miserable failure.

In the 2008 campaign, Wurzelbacher made headlines when he asked Obama about his small business tax policy. During a videotaped exchange, Obama answered in part by saying, “when you spread the wealth around, it’s good for everybody.” Wurzelbacher had told Obama he was interested in buying a plumbing business.

Two days later McCain, Obama’s opponent, cited “Joe the Plumber” as the quintessential American everyman who had exposed Obama as having what McCain called a socialist, wealth-distributing economic world view. It mattered little that Wurzelbacher did not have a plumbing license or that “Joe” wasn’t his first name.

Soon after, Wurzelbacher appeared at rallies with McCain and his running mate, former Alaska governor Sarah Palin. He seemed enraged at Obama’s economic policies.

‘TRUMP SCARES THEM’

Today, he is highly critical of Senator McCain, deriding his opposition to Trump as corrupt.

“They are not opposing Trump for the American people. They are doing it for their party, and I don’t like that. It’s control, power, greed. Trump scares them.”

Wurzelbacher, who had assailed unions along with Obama’s decision to use taxpayer money to rescue the car manufacturers Chrysler and General Motors from bankruptcy in 2009, drew much criticism when it emerged that he took a job at a Chrysler plant in Toledo, Ohio, in 2014 – and joined a local union to get it.

“That was an experiment,” Wurzelbacher said. He said he never intended to work at Chrysler full-time. He wanted to see inside a union factory so he could write about it, he said. He worked on the paint line for three months, and then left.

He ran for the U.S. House of Representatives in 2012, winning the Republican primary for Ohio’s 9th congressional district but lost to Democratic Marcy Kaptur by a landslide.

Wurzelbacher says his life has settled down since the madness of 2008. He got married five years ago. He has a three-year-old daughter and one-year-old son, and a 20-year-old son living in Kentucky. He now spends his time running two websites, JoeforAmerica.com, and one his wife inspired, livingloving.com.

But he is disgusted by much of the debate in America.

“Political correctness is a huge issue. People are afraid to speak their minds. They are afraid of being labeled a racist or a homophobe.”

On guns, Wurzelbacher says the more people who have guns, the safer they will be. Asked how many guns he has, Wurzelbacher replied, “not enough.”

(Editing by Jason Szep and Howard Goller)

Photo: Sam Wurzelbacher, aka “Joe The Plumber”, poses for Reuters in his home in Holland, Ohio. REUTERS/Tim Reid

This Week In Crazy: Harry Reid Is A Mass Murderer, And The Rest Of The Worst Of The Right

This Week In Crazy: Harry Reid Is A Mass Murderer, And The Rest Of The Worst Of The Right

Welcome to “This Week In Crazy,” The National Memo’s weekly update on the wildest attacks, conspiracy theories, and other loony behavior from the increasingly unhinged right wing. Starting with number five:

5. TheBlaze

Over the past several months, the White House has attempted to spark a national conversation about the issue of sexual assault on college campuses. This is probably not what they had in mind.

It may not stun you to learn that TheBlaze — the right-wing media network owned by rape-joke enthusiast Glenn Beck — is not thrilled with the White House initiative. But even by Beck’s standards, this segment is rather jaw-dropping:

I cannot stress this enough: If one of your employees comes to you with a fresh idea to make rape funny, please say no.

Thankfully, the biggest victim here was good taste (and whichever interns had to spend their Tuesdays making arrow-shaped signs reading “RAPE!”)

4. Pat Robertson

Televangelist Pat Robertson returns to the list at number four, for offering a unique bit of relationship advice to his viewers.

After receiving a letter from a woman who was annoyed by the way her husband always reminds her “I did that for you” when he pitches in with household chores, Robertson explained that this attitude is just part of the “male psyche.”

“Do you want to have a loving, warm, sensuous, exciting marriage or do you want to have a partnership, a business relationship with your spouse?” Robertson asked. He then went on to lay out his version of the ideal marriage: One in which the husband trades chores for sex.

“With each dish he’s saying ‘I love you,’ and if you understood that you’d say, ‘Darling you’re wonderful, I got a treat for you…wait till we get behind closed doors and you’ll see the treat I have for you,'” Robertson counseled.

Sadly, in Robertson’s world, married Jews don’t get to have much sex. After all, they’re too busy polishing their diamonds to pitch in around the house.

3. Gordon Klingenschmitt

Screenshot/Youtube

Screenshot/Youtube

Colorado legislature candidate and demon expert Gordon Klingenschmitt is still an outspoken opponent of anti-discrimination laws — and he’s still not making a ton of sense.

Perhaps sensing that his last attack against transgender Americans — a warning that Nancy Pelosi wants to make women share their bathrooms “with a man who may or may not be sitting down when he goes pee” — inspired more giggling than fear, Klingenschmitt took a different tack in a weekend email to his supporters.

“‘Transgenders’ want your children,” he wrote, in response to a recent court ruling in Maine. “Liberals demand public access to rape your girls, at least visually in public bathrooms, or to expose themselves to your girls at school, without parental consent or protection of any kind.”

It should go without saying that the ruling does not give liberals the right to rape your kids. But then, Klingenschmitt has never been known for his legal acumen.

Klingenschmitt went on to offer a solution to the totally-not-made-up crisis. “Maine parents should immediately remove their children from public schools, and teach them at home.”

Sounds like a perfect solution for paranoid parents — at least until the militant gays show up during recess to have sex in the house.
2. Rush Limbaugh

Unlike many of his right-wing colleagues, Rush Limbaugh sees the recent mass shooting at UC Santa Barbara as a cause for urgent action.

“We’ve got to see the signs, and then when we see the signs, we have to be willing to act on the signs that we’re seeing. The telltale signs that we might be dealing with somebody unbalanced, capable of mass murder and violence,” Limbaugh said Wednesday. “And we must take steps, as a society and as a culture, to stop this.”

Don’t give Limbaugh too much credit, though. As it turns out, he only sees the telltale signs of a mass murderer in one man: Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV).

“I think somebody needs to put Harry Reid in a safe and secure place,” Limbaugh said. “This obsession that he has with the Koch brothers very much scares me…this man hates and resents the Koch brothers every bit as much as Elliot Rodger hated women.”

Of course, if Reid’s criticism of Charles and David Koch makes him the same as Elliot Rodger, then Limbaugh’s own rhetoric on President Obama makes him roughly equivalent to Genghis Khan.

Although Limbaugh wants to see Reid locked away, he’ll never attempt to disarm him. After all, guns don’t kill people — liberalism does.

1. “Joe” The “Plumber”

Samuel Wurzelbacher

Photo: ronnie44052/Flickr

Shockingly, Limbaugh didn’t have the worst reaction to the UCSB shooting. That honor goes to former right-wing celebrity Samuel Wurzelbacher — better known as “Joe the Plumber” (although that’s neither his name nor his occupation).

In an open letter published on BarbWire Tuesday, Wurzelbacher offered the following condolence to grieving father Richard Martinez, whose 20-year-old son was killed in the attack: “As harsh as this sounds – your dead kids don’t trump my Constitutional rights.”

“There are no critical words for a grieving father. He can say whatever he wants and blame whoever he’d like – it’s okay by me. You can’t take a step in his shoes – at least I can’t,” Wurzelbacher writes.

“But the words and images of Mr. Martinez blaming ‘the proliferation of guns’, lobbyists, politicians, etc.; will be exploited by gun-grab extremists as are all tragedies involving gun violence and the mentally ill by the anti-Second Amendment Left,” he continues.

“We still have the Right to Bear Arms and I intend to continue to speak out for that right, and against those who would restrict it,” Wurzelbacher adds, “even in the face of this horrible incident by this sad and insane individual. I almost said ‘Obama Voter’ but I’m waiting for it to be official.”

Stay classy, “Joe!”

Of course, Wurzelbacher won’t be giving up his guns any time soon — after all, he may need them to film ads for his next failed campaign… or who knows what else. “Guns are mostly for hunting down politicians who would actively seek to take your freedoms and liberty away from you,” he said ominously in a blog post.Google ‘Hitler, Mao, Kim Jung [sic] Il, Castro, Stalin’ just for starters.”

But look on the bright side: While he did invoke Hitler, at least he didn’t hold forth on the Holocaust this time.

Check out previous editions of This Week In Crazy here. Think we missed something? Let us know in the comments!

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How President Obama Helped Joe ‘The Plumber’ Get A Union Job

How President Obama Helped Joe ‘The Plumber’ Get A Union Job

Congratulations, Samuel “Joe” Wurzelbacher — better known as “Joe the Plumber.”

The non-Joe, non-plumber announced on his Facebook page that he has acquired a job with the Chrysler Group LLC, which requires membership in the United Automobile Workers labor union.

“In order to work for Chrysler, you are required to join the union, in this case UAW. There’s no choice – it’s a union shop – the employees voted to have it that way and in America that’s the way it is,” he wrote.

Wurzelbacher became nationally known during the 2008 presidential debate when GOP nominee John McCain cited how “the Plumber” had confronted President Obama about his plan to end tax breaks for those in the top tax bracket. He later said that McCain had “screwed up his life.”

Being a Tea Party celebrity generally requires that you don’t have an actual job or, if you do, that you quit it as soon as possible — while endlessly chastising the jobless (blatant hypocrisy is another requirement). But after his congressional bid for Ohio’s 9th district floundered, with incumbent Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D-OH) winning more than 70 percent of the vote, he was eager for an opportunity.

Of course, Chrysler would likely not exist without the government bridge loans that Mitt Romney actively opposed. The former Republican nominee for president argued that private creditors should have stepped in for a traditional bankruptcy, though General Motors’ chief executive officer insisted no such capital existed.

The auto rescue of both General Motors and Chrysler was begun by President George W. Bush. On the day President Obama took office, Fiat announced it wanted to buy Chrysler.

Obama’s auto industry task force recommended the acquisition, which was necessary for the company’s survival, and kept the automaker funded until the sale was complete.

Altogether, the auto rescue saved $248 billion in personal income and saved millions jobs, like the one “Joe” “the Plumber” just started.

Photo: Joe the Plumber’s Facebook page

Joe The Congressman? Wurzelbacher Files For Congressional Run

In what may be the clearest sign yet that the Republican Party has gone completely off the rails, Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher — better known as “Joe the Plumber” — is running for Congress in Ohio’s 9th District. Wurzelbacher formed a congressional campaign committee and filed a statement of candidacy declaring his intention to challenge incumbent Democrat Marcia Kaptur for the seat on Friday.

He rose to prominence late in the 2008 Presidential campaign, when he confronted Barack Obama over his tax plan at a campaign stop. John McCain subsequently turned Joe the Plumber into a meme of sorts, using his name as a symbol for the collective struggles of all working class Americans and making several joint appearances with him. Wurzelbacher would eventually fade from the spotlight as McCain’s campaign limped to the finish line.

Wurzelbacher’s intention to run for Congress comes as a surprise, as he has little to no experience that would qualify him for such a job. The natural reaction to the news would be to doubt whether a plumber should be in charge of writing the nation’s laws, but then again Wurzelbacher isn’t even a licensed plumber. Furthermore, his famous debate over whether or not he would pay more taxes under an Obama presidency turned out to be completely irrelevant given that Wurzelbacher was only making around $40,000 a year at the time (far less than the $250,000 number that he presented to Obama.)

Since becoming a minor celebrity in 2008, Wurzelbacher has worked as a motivational speaker and occasionally as a political commentator, where he took the curious position that journalists should not be allowed to cover wars. Even for the Republican Party, Joe the Plumber is on the fringe.

And is there any clearer sign of how powerful the right wing fringe has become in the Republican Party than the fact that Samuel Wurzelbacher went from an unofficial plumber to an official congressional candidate in just 3 years? Wurzelbacher’s only qualifications for the job appear to be a talent for self-promotion and a willingness to go on TV and describe anything that the White House does as “Socialist.” Depressingly enough, that may make him a perfect fit for today’s Republican Party.