CONNECT
Tea Party House Candidate Calls for Troops Along Arizona Border to ‘Start Shooting’
Think Progress / News Report
Published: Tuesday 14 August 2012
Samuel Wurzlbacher — known to most as Joe the Plumber — made an inappropriate comment about how to solve the country’s immigration problem.
Image of Samuel Wurzlbacher
Samuel Wurzlbacher — known to most as Joe the Plumber — made an appearance at a fundraiser for a Republican Arizona State Senator candidate over the weekend, and told the audience that the way to solve the country’s immigration problem is to station troops along the border and have them “start shooting.”
The comment was first made at a Friday evening fundraising dinner for Lori Klein, the Republican candidate for her state senate district:
“For years I’ve said, you know, put a damn fence on the border going to Mexico and start shooting. I’m running for Congress and that should be a bad thing to say. But you know what, it’s how I feel…I want my borders protected, I’m very very adamant about that.”
The dinner attracted both Wurzelbacher, who is running for Congress in Ohio, and infamous conspiracy theorist Sheriff Joe Arpaio, along with 125 supporters. His comment was met with nervous laughter, as seen in a video shot by local news outlet Prescott eNews.
Lest anyone think that Wurzelbacher somehow misspoke, he repeated the outrageous comment the following morning at another campaign event for Klein, an outdoor “Patriot rally” in Prescott:
“I’m running for Congress. How many congressmen or people running for Congress have you heard, put a fence up and start shooting? None? Well you heard it here first. Put troops on the border and start shooting, I bet that solves our immigration problem real quick.”
Wurzelbacher’s comments were met with swift condemnation from his Democratic opponent, Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D-OH). “Joe the Plumber’s comments have no place in a civil society…He should take back his words and apologize to everyone who respects life, the Constitution and the rule of law,” she said in a statement obtained by the Huffington Post.
Watch it:
Get Email Alerts from NationofChange
ABOUT Adam Peck
Adam Peck is a Reporter/Blogger for Think Progress at the Center for American Progress Action Fund. Adam grew up just outside of New York City, and attended Stony Brook University’s School of Journalism. Before joining Think Progress, Adam was an intern at Countdown with Keith Olbermann at MSNBC in New York, and at Campus Progress in Washington, D.C. He was also the founder and editor of Think Magazine, the largest collegiate news organization on Long Island. His work has appeared in The New York Times, CNN and the BBC.
Top Stories
By Green Shadow Cabinet
38 comments on "Tea Party House Candidate Calls for Troops Along Arizona Border to ‘Start Shooting’"
August 17, 2012 11:28pm
Yea, here we go again .... the morons are getting all the press and no one is mentioning the fact the Romney received illegal contributions from oversees sponsers. This will make it an issue for the GOP at the convention to vote for him as the candidate of choice, including his sidekick Paul Ryan. Stay tuned for the latest. I know that Huffpost has the information but maybe controlled by the GOP and witholds the news....
August 17, 2012 11:28pm
Yea, here we go again .... the morons are getting all the press and no one is mentioning the fact the Romney received illegal contributions from oversees sponsers. This will make it an issue for the GOP at the convention to vote for him as the candidate of choice, including his sidekick Paul Ryan. Stay tuned for the latest. I know that Huffpost has the information but maybe controlled by the GOP and witholds the news....
August 15, 2012 12:27pm
I live in a border state and can honestly state that we don't have an immigration problem. Oddly, Arizona seems to be the only place where they have one. And what the heck does Joe Whateverhisname know about immigration issues? He's from Ohio!
August 15, 2012 6:44pm
thank you for the info that vermont does not have an immigration problem
August 15, 2012 11:10am
Our 'FASCIST' government allows foreign, undocumented workers to come into this country and replace opportunities of documented workers. Employers have to by law have employees sign W9 forms. If they complied with the law, then there would be no problems. NO prosecutions of breaking the labor laws seem to be taking place. The agencies that are paid to enforce the laws are getting paid to sit it out. WHY? Is it because the companies who profit from this illegal action are pumping monies into the coffers of the campaigns? Our representatives are complicit to the crimes! Where are any of the attorney generals, state and federal that are paid to protect us? They complain that unemployment and welfare are too high. Well they helped to create the mess. FIRE THEM.
August 14, 2012 10:52pm
Typical jihadist repuglican.
August 14, 2012 4:29pm
Paul Mario..there are many fathers and mothers who are citizens of the USA who would love to pick those fruits and vegetables to feed, clothe, and shelter their children. Or work as maids in hotels.
Giving work authorization to millions of illegals when over 14 million citizens are out of work...is a SIN! It is shameful!
Illegals have MORE RIGHTS than citizens have! That is wrong!
I got a letter from my medical university for a doctor's appt. They noticed I have no insurance. They told me how many HUNDREDS of dollars I would have to bring with me to pay the first bills. Yet an illegal can come in and get the same medical treatment, and walk out and pay NOTHING! Well, I had to cancel that appointment...I don't have HUNDREDS of dollars to bring for the first visit.
Tell me they do NOT have more rights than taxpayers! I will show you even MORE evidence to the contrary.
September 02, 2012 2:14pm
The plumber is someone who is reading good knowing in creating and preserving these various kinds of plumbing systems. You'll find the a variety of plumbing is usually been recently used by plumbers to make regarding sprinkling systems. Primarily plumbing is involving 2 main sort which include the plastic material tube plumbing and steel pipe plumbing. aquatechuk plumber epping
August 15, 2012 7:48am
@Struggling - "Illegals" DON'T have more rights than taxpayers. Your little story about your doctor appointment is not "evidence" they do. So, before you offer to show "MORE" evidence, you might try showing ANY evidence.
In the field of medical care, undocumented immigrants have only the same right to EMERGENCY medical care as you or I. Any non-emergency medical services provided to them by any particular facility is provided voluntarily, not in response to any right the immigrant possesses. It just so happens that undocumented immigrants use emergency medical services at a lower rate than do low income citizens. Studies have shown that the threat of deportation discourages most undocumented immigrants from using emergency rooms for any but the most serious medical emergencies. Unless you have way to verify the legality of a person just by looking at them, you are in no position to refute this fact with anecdotal stories about emergency rooms full of foreign language speaking people.
You really need to get your facts straight before you continue on your anti-immigrant tirade. No one is giving work authorization to "millions of illegals". A few hundred thousand young people, brought here as infants and small children, are being allowed to stay. There are conditions placed on them for the privilege, such as staying in school and out of trouble.
What is shameful and wrong is the extent of xenophobia and racist disinformation that permeates this country. What's shameful and wrong is the way that immigrants are allowed to be exploited for the profit of a handful of agriculture and hotel barons and to prevent a few cents increase in the price of a head of lettuce or a few dollars more cost for a hotel room.
Would you prefer we send these young people to the country of their parents' birth; a country they know nothing of, and haven't seen since infancy? These are not the people who will be competing with you for jobs picking vegetables and cleaning hotel rooms.
If you want health care, don't fool yourself into thinking that the way to get it is to deny it to someone else. Pressure your reps. to support universal health care, like all the civilized countries have. Unfortunately, the same people spreading nonsense about immigrant rights are the same people who would sooner see you die in the street than to support health care for all Americans.
If you're concerned about unemployed Americans, lobby for sanctions against employers who exploit immigrants with illegal wages and working conditions. Your "many fathers and mothers who are citizens" would NOT "love" to pick fruit or work as maids in hotels, given the abysmal working conditions and pitiful wages that employers provide, while the gov't talks tough and turns a blind eye.
People like Joe the Plumber will never support real solutions to illegal immigration. It's more fun and requires less explanation to their dimwitted constituency to just say "shoot them". Meanwhile, those who benefit by slave labor pound their chests and blame immigrants.
Incidentally, illegal immigration is DOWN in this economy and those that are here are being deported at a record rate. No jobs = no illegal immigration. No $2 wages = no illegal immigration.
August 14, 2012 3:49pm
Sherriff Joe is right - "illegal immigrants" are simply TRESPASSERS.
August 14, 2012 3:21pm
If there ever was a suspicious character that Sheriff Joe Arpaio should check their papers it is Samuel Wurzlbacher. Joe the Plumber. His name is not Joe and he is not a plumber. Stop harassing innocent people just because they are Latino and check the papers of this suspicious person.
August 14, 2012 4:14pm
Innocent? The moment they trespass our borders...they are criminals. They escalate their criminality, because they are being rewarded to do so.
Have you or your grand children checked your social security lately? How many illegals have used your grand children's social security number. That is FRAUD!
I would go on....but why don't you ask someone who has gone through the process of immigration the proper way..and see what THEY think of the illegal invaders!
August 15, 2012 7:59am
Fraud for which they receive absolutely nothing. Until recently, if they used your grandchild's SS number, your grandchild would see his SS account increased. The "illegal" would receive nothing and your grandchild would benefit.
Besides, you are fundamentally wrong that they are criminals when they "trespass" our border. The vast majority of illegal immigrants arrive here legally. They only become illegal when they overstay their visas.
You need to start finding sources of real information instead of xenophobic, right wing talking points.
I suppose that, next, you'll lamenting all the voting that these illegals do. Do yourself a favor. Turn off Fox and AM radio so that, eventually, you'll begin to sound less like a low-information, xenophobic hysteric.
August 14, 2012 2:45pm
I have a better idea for Joe:
How about when you get elected, and after you pass that law to legalize murder, you drive down to the border and show us first hand how it works.
I mean, you sound really tough.
Show us how to blow the brains out of an unarmed 13 year old civilian girl.
Any pussy can shoot adults. Tough males shoot children.
And anyway, all of the shooting in the world won't cure your grammar problem: ". . . .I bet that solves our immigration problem real quick.”
It's "really quickly" as you have confused adverbs and adjectives, just like your plan to shoot civilians is inhumanely confused.
You might want to think about sticking to plumbing.
August 14, 2012 1:25pm
Its citizens of the U.S. who bring foreigners to the U.S. for cheap labor, with no rights. Its U.S. citizens who hire them for cheap labor. Those are the people who should be deported or...
August 14, 2012 4:30pm
Not deported...but jailed for doing so.
August 14, 2012 1:24pm
You know the Tea Party started in earnest, but was hijacked by the radical right. Reminds me of the classic Frank Capra movie "Meet John Doe" from 1941. The Tea Party encompased all party's and was for the people to raise up against the corruption of Government. I'm also waiting for the Occupy movement to be hijacked also by those in power also, for it's a threat to the status quo
August 14, 2012 4:16pm
You are correct about the TEA Party. I left our local one when the heads of our local one started working for one of the campaigns.
But..the Occupy Movement is already compromised. Soros and other progressives (Communists) have been monetarily supporting them from the beginning.
August 14, 2012 3:52pm
Too late - "Occupy" is already OWNED by George Soros' Tides Foundation.
They believe "Property is Theft!" when in fact lack of property rights is simply slavery! And "illegal immigrants" are simply TRESPASSERS!
And, you're right: the Tea Party is already owned by the Republicans.
We should just do away with all these interest-conflicted, treasonous gangs!
Since there's really only one elitist oligarchs' (banksters & oilmen's) "political party" anyway (despite their Punch n' Judy puppet show) let's just FIX DEMOCRACY!
Here's how: If we just hold 2 quick, back-to-back elections each time (the first, as usual, to hire the worker's pool of our Public SERVANTS from our districts, and the second where WE ALL appoint them DIRECTLY to their cabinet portfolio positions) then we eliminate their self-interested conflicts of loyalty-dividing political "parties," (which always only "party" at our direct expense, anyway,) forever!
;-)
August 14, 2012 12:38pm
those who say the USA does not have a border problem need to get out of their parent's basement and go to tx,nm,ariz,ca seasonal controlled worker permits will solve any problem
August 14, 2012 12:24pm
Typical republican lies and bullsh*t...
The "border problem" is a figment of the imagination of jan brewer, joe arpaio and the rest of the neo-nazis in Arizona -- primarily designed to funnel more booty into the pockets of the private prison industry -- that's what SB1070 was ALL about -- more meat for the private prisons at OUR expense.
August 14, 2012 4:18pm
Wrong!
August 14, 2012 3:54pm
If all border problems are only imaginary, can I go live in your house and eat from your refridgerator? After all, I have as much right to your stuff as you do!
;-)
August 15, 2012 8:20am
Sure. You can eat from my refrigerator. As long as you clean my toilet, wash my car and mow my lawn for $2/hr. As long as you don't complain if I insist that you risk your life to do it. As long as I can work you for 14hrs a day/7 days a week and profit from your labor. As long as I'm not responsible for your health care, or clothing, or safety, come on over.
But remember, just like an illegal immigrant, you have no "rights" beyond the basic human rights that any human being expects from any country that dares to call itself civilized.
August 14, 2012 4:33pm
Good answer! I wonder how he would feel if they came into his home while he was away and when he got back, he could not remove them. They will eat everything he has...bust the doors and windows, and leave trash everywhere..but he cannot get rid of them.
THAT is what is happening in our home....the USA.
August 14, 2012 10:26am
Well, Joe, since it is how you feel......just think if everyone who felt disgust with you acted upon it because that is how they feel........
August 14, 2012 9:51am
For those of you who do not remember the world of 23 years ago, there once was a wall across much of Europe patrolled by guards who had orders to "start shooting" and often did. It was most noticeable in Berlin and was common referred to as the Iron Curtain.
Now, Tea Party people, how many of you recall Ronald Reagan's comments to Mikhail Gorbachev about the Berlin Wall?
August 14, 2012 12:04pm
Brilliant. I wish Joe the Plumber could read this post. This man is deranged and is clearly an example of the extremism that is rampant among oligarchs.
August 14, 2012 10:03am
Well, Dave, there's a rather conspicuous difference. The Soviets were keeping people in against their will.
Keeping people out is the right of any nation. Check Mexico's immigration laws. Compared to Mexico, we're open house!
August 14, 2012 4:38pm
"The Soviets were keeping people in against their will."
Give it a few years of paranoia under the radicals you apparently support and the same will apply here.
August 14, 2012 1:01pm
The time is fast approaching when a wall will be needed to keep people in this country. Who the fuck but the "yachtsters," the xenophobic, racist, knuckle dragging morons who actually have decided that "Joe Drainpipe" and "Sheriff Blowhard" have a functioning brain and the NRA whose greatest moment of ejaculation was an empty cartridge spewing forth from an automatic weapon, will "want" to stay in this Fascist asylum? "Keeping people out is the right of any nation." You must not have driven by a farm field in the last 100 years or so. U.S. farmers and agri-business have brought people from Mexico and beyond INTO the country for the sole purpose of exploiting their labor and enriching themselves. What the hell do you think would exist in Arizona WITHOUT the labor of hundreds of thousands of Mexicans over the last century? The "Great White Landgrabber" does NOT maintain the golf courses, clean the malls and hotels, sweep the streets, tar the roofs, pick up the trash, or any one of many mundane and labor intensive tasks. He beckons for "Juan" or "Maria" to mix him and his "riffraff disdaining wife" another "Margarita."
August 15, 2012 8:12am
Here, here. I've been saying that for a couple years now. We are becoming to Canada what Mexico is to us. In Holland, their biggest "illegal immigration" problem is Americans. If Europe had an open immigration policy, they'd be flooded with Americans. Same with Australia and New Zealand, both of which impose extremely tough financial pre-conditions to immigration, conditions implemented mainly to stem the tide of Americans.
The main reason the U.S. is the destination for Latin American emigrants is nothing but a geographical accident. If California was Canadian territory, 90% of the problem would belong to the Canadians.
Give it another 10 years or so and Canada will be putting up a fence to keep Americans out. In 20 years, Mexico will be doing the same thing and it'll be financed by other Latin American countries who will be trying to stem the flood of American retirees looking for a better standard of living.
August 14, 2012 4:20pm
Have you checked out Sheriff Joe's curriculum vitae?
You should.
August 14, 2012 12:25pm
The "conspicuous difference" is that there is NO F*CKING BORDER PROBLEM IN ARIZONA.
Thanks to USAmerica going into the tank and becoming just another 3rd world country, there's no incentive for folks from Mexico to cross the border -- we're bankrupt! So they AREN'T COMING ANY MORE, nimrod!
As for jan brewer, et al and their paranoid fantasies about border bandits and violent "illegals", that's just more bullsh*t they've pulled out of their a**es to justify more booty to the private prison industry...
THERE IS NO BORDER PROBLEM IN ARIZONA, so pull your head out of your a** and find something real to comment on...
August 14, 2012 4:22pm
Obviously, you do not live in a border state. And it does not matter what state it is....we have an immigration problem.
Take your head out of the sand and actually do some research.
August 14, 2012 10:07am
good point skingk bring troops home from afgan and iraq
August 14, 2012 12:26pm
Gee, that sh*t used to be illegal...
I guess you've never heard of Posse Comitatus, eh?
Understandable...since gwbush/Obama have pissed on it...
August 14, 2012 12:20pm
We have already brought back troops from Iraq and will from Afgan soon. We caused the immigration problem a long time ago; where do
think your fruit and veggies came from in your life? We don't need a fence, there are not as many even trying anymore, ask a farmer.And ask yourself if you want to pick whatever for $2 or 3 an hour.