REWIND - A Week of Quotes & Cartoons

SUNDAY

Quote of the Day
September 23, 2012

'Having covered Watergate and the impeachment of
Richard Nixon, and more recently written a
biography of Nixon, I believe that the wrongdoing we
are seeing in this election is more menacing even
than what went on then. Watergate was a struggle
over the Constitutional powers and accountability of
a president, and, alarmingly, the president and his
aides attempted to interfere with the nominating
process of the opposition party. But the current
voting rights issue is even more serious: it's a
coordinated attempt by a political party to fix the
result of a presidential election by restricting the
opportunities of members of the opposition party's
constituency-most notably blacks-to exercise a
Constitutional right.

'This is the worst thing that has happened to our
democratic election system since the late nineteenth
century, when legislatures in southern states
systematically negated the voting rights blacks had
won in the Fifteenth Amendment to the
Constitution. '

Journalist Elizabeth Drew
New York Review of Books
blog
September 21, 2012
http://tinyurl.com/92x72nq

Toon of the Day
http://tinyurl.com/8dkdnyn
Repair Shop
Ken Catalino

MONDAY

Quote of the Day
September 24, 2012

'Bill Maher was right when he said that "the God
Mitt Romney worships isn't in the Bible, it's in the
Cayman Islands or Geneva," and that putting God
on money is "redundant" because money has
become our God. You can thank Ayn Rand and her
acolytes, from Alan Greenspan to Paul Ryan, for that
theological shift.

'Mitt Romney's secret video showed that he shares
the delusionally sheltered and narcissistic
worldview of his ultra-wealthy peer group. Paul
Ryan's recording reveals his radical hostility toward
the nation's most popular social programs. Together
they display a deep reverence for money, a rejection
of the social values that have guided our society
since it was founded, and contempt for the idea that
people can and should work together to solve their
common problems.

'The story of Judas is found in Matthew 26, but
Ryan's Catholic critics are more likely inspired by
words from the preceding chapter. That's the one
where Jesus says, "Inasmuch as you have done it to
the least of these" - fed the hungry, clothed the
naked, housed the homeless - "so too have you done
it unto me."

'"The least of these." Or as the Romney/Ryan/Rand
crowd calls them, "looters".'

Richard (RJ) Eskow
Campaign for America's Future
September 24, 2012
http://tinyurl.com/8rjh8sq

Toon of the Day
http://tinyurl.com/9qkvhr3
Dad's Voice
David Horsey - Los Angeles Times

TUESDAY

Quote of the Day
September 25, 2012

' That led to a standoff between the sides that boiled
over on Wednesday evening, when the normally
even-keeled and optimistic Greek finance minister,
Yannis Stournaras, lost his temper, according to two
people with knowledge of the incident who were not
authorized to speak publicly.

'At the meeting, Poul Thomsen, the I.M.F.'s lead
negotiator for Greece, was pushing hard for
additional tax increases and wage and pension cuts,
these people say. Mr. Stournaras angrily gestured to
a bullet hole in one of the windows of the Finance
Ministry.

'"You see this - this came from a bullet," Mr.
Stournaras said. "Do you want to overthrow the
government?"

'Mr. Stournaras threatened to resign, these people
said, rather than approve cuts to public employee
pensions and salaries beyond the 5 billion euros
($6.5 billion) to which the government had agreed.

New York Times
September 25, 2012
http://tinyurl.com/8ukcmct

Toon of the Day
http://tinyurl.com/8t32nzz
Fuses
Clay Bennett - Chattanooga Free Press

WEDNESDAY

Quote of the Day
September 26, 2012

'The decision by the NFL owners to lock out the
referees jeopardizes your health and safety. This
decision to remove more than 1,500 years of
collective experience has simply made the workplace
less safe.

'It is the NFL's duty to provide a workplace that is as
safe as possible. The League will want fans, the
media and sponsors to talk only about "the product"
on the field. We are not product.

'While the focus today is about a blown call and the
outcome of one football game, our focus as a family
of players is and will remain squarely on workplace
safety.

'Contrary to some reports, we are not crossing any
picket line. The referees are not on strike. The
owners locked them out.

'We are actively reviewing any and all possible
actions to protect you.'

NFL Players Association (NFLPA)
Executive Director DeMaurice Smith's
message to players

AFL-CIO Now
September 26, 2012
http://tinyurl.com/9l2xnmo

Toon of the Day
http://tinyurl.com/9cp2rpy
Chair?
Tom Toles - Washington Post

THURSDAY

Quote of the Day
September 27, 2012

'I doubt Mitt regrets picking Ryan; he needed him to
nail down his own base, and what was the
alternative, Tim Pawlenty? (Who has now moved on
to his rightful calling - as a lobbyist.) But even
before the GOP convention ended, prominent voices
on the right were wailing that Ryan had been
castrated by the Romney campaign. Ryan's
acceptance speech was largely Republican Muzak
rather than the Ayn Randian exercise in "big ideas"
the faithful was craving. That he remains muzzled
would be in keeping with the Romney campaign's
conviction that the tiny sliver of undecided voters
would be frightened away by hard-line conservative
ideology. A further indignity for Ryan is that his
campaign minder is now Dan Senor, the
mastermind behind Mitt's hapless foreign policy
tour during the Olympics. But no one should count
Ryan out post-2012. He may look like Eddie
Munster, but he's the GOP's Sammy Glick,
ambitious as hell. It may fit his own career plans to
be seen and heard as little as possible in a Romney
defeat. As a Republican political operative in Iowa
told the Times last week, "If Ryan wants to run for
national office again, he'll probably have to wash the
stench of Romney off of him." Looks like Ryan is
already lathering up!'

Columnist Frank Rich
New Yorker
September 26, 2012
http://tinyurl.com/d2blwnv

Toon of the Day
http://tinyurl.com/8oan5vx
Drones
Jeff Danziger

FRIDAY

Quote of the Day
September 28, 2012

'...the straight economics of the situation suggests
that Spain doesn't need more austerity. It shouldn't
throw a party, and, in fact, it probably has no
alternative (short of euro exit) to a protracted period
of hard times. But savage cuts to essential public
services, to aid to the needy, and so on actually hurt
the country's prospects for successful adjustment.

'Why, then, are there demands for ever more pain?

'Part of the explanation is that in Europe, as in
America, far too many Very Serious People have
been taken in by the cult of austerity, by the belief
that budget deficits, not mass unemployment, are
the clear and present danger, and that deficit
reduction will somehow solve a problem brought on
by private sector excess. '

Economist Paul Krugman
New York Times
September 28, 2012
http://tinyurl.com/975duu7

Toon of the Day
http://tinyurl.com/8od6nah
Nurse Betty
John Deering -  Arkansas Democrat Gazette

SATURDAY

Quote of the Day
September 29, 2012

'This is the product of this huge crisis and this huge
recession we're in.So that should ring a bell to our
allies and to the Western world: that if this happens
in Greece and in Spain and tomorrow in other
countries, that they should make sure this will not
intensify.'

Greek Prime Minister, Antonis Samaras
on anti-austerity protests in Greece, Spain
and Portugal this week - "this new social
phenomenon" sweeping Europe

New York Times
September 29, 2012
http://tinyurl.com/9puvwcq

Toon of the Day
http://tinyurl.com/8lu88su
Ordinary Risks
Jeff Danziger - Los Angeles Times

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