Quotes of the Day

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9 - 6 - 2010 - Twenty-five per cent of all Medicare spending is for the five per cent of patients who are in their final year of life, and most of that money goes for care in their last couple of months which is of little apparent benefit....

Like many people, I had believed that hospice care hastens death, because patients forgo hospital treatments and are allowed high-dose narcotics to combat pain. But studies suggest otherwise. In one, researchers followed 4,493 Medicare patients with either terminal cancer or congestive heart failure. They found no difference in survival time between hospice and non-hospice patients with breast cancer, prostate cancer, and colon cancer. Curiously, hospice care seemed to extend survival for some patients; those with pancreatic cancer gained an average of three weeks, those with lung cancer gained six weeks, and those with congestive heart failure gained three months. The lesson seems almost Zen: you live longer only when you stop trying to live longer. - Letting Go by Atul Gawande (Submitted by Arnie Arnesen)

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WSJ's Matthew Rosenberg and Maria Abi-Habib report: “A top shareholder in Afghanistan's largest bank called on the U.S. to shore up the lender after depositors withdrew about a third of its cash reserves in two days … Mahmood Karzai, brother of Afghanistan's president and the third-largest shareholder in Kabul Bank, urged the U.S. to calm the situation, saying the lender could keep up with the pace of withdrawals for only a few more days. … The U.S. said it has no plans to prop up Kabul Bank and has only sent in a small team of experts to help the Afghan central bank sort out the mess.”  (Submitted by Michael Krull)

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9 - 5 - 2010 - The Obama administration moved to fast-track the Middle East peace process, gaining Arab and Israeli support for twice-monthly negotiations aimed at establishing an independent Palestinian state within a year. – Wall Street Journal (Submitted by Michael Krull)

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It was announced today that Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein -- Iraq War supporter, champion of Bush appointees Michael Hayden and Michael Mukasey, Surveillance State cheerleader, and beneficiary of her husband's vast, defense contracting wealth -- will take the lead in working to defeat Prop 19 and thus keep marijuana criminalized, in turn keeping Mexican cartels empowered and adult American citizens prosecuted for using this substance which is far less harmful and dangerous than alcohol, if it is even "harmful" or "dangerous" at all. - Glenn Greenwald (Submitted by Arnie Arnesen)

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Robert Reich's Blog: "The number of Americans willing and able to work but who cannot find a job hasn't stopped growing since the start of 2008. All told, about 22 million Americans are now jobless. Add in those who are working part-time who'd rather be working full time, and we're up to 25 million … It is not that America is out of ideas. We know what to do…The problem is lack of political will to do it." (Submitted by Steffen Schmidt)

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9 - 4 - 2010 - Consider these data (the most recent available), which explain the fear in the middle class:

Median family income:

2000: $63,430

2008: $61,521

Percentage of population in work force:

2000: 67.1

2010: 65.3

Unemployment rate:

2000: 4.0

2010: 9.6

Percentage of population in poverty:

2000: 12.4

2008: 13.2

U.S.-global trade deficit:

2000 (first six months): $180 billion

2010 (first six months): $247 billion

Trade deficit with China:

2000 (first six months): $44 billion

2010 (first six months): $119 billion

Percentage of wealth controlled by top 1 percent:

2001: 39.7

2007: 42.7

Elliot Spitzer does the numbers (Submitted by Arnie Arnesen)

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New York Times’ Kirk Johnson: “The college vote is up for grabs this year - to an extent that would have seemed unlikely two years ago, when a generation of young people seemed to swoon over Barack Obama. “Though many students are liberals on social issues, the economic reality of a weak job market has taken a toll on their loyalties: far fewer 18- to 29-year-olds now identify themselves as Democrats compared with 2008. “Is the recession, which is hitting young people very hard, doing lasting or permanent damage to what looked like a good Democratic advantage with this age group?” asked Scott Keeter, the director of survey research at the Pew Research Center, a nonpartisan group. “The jury is still out.” (Submitted by Michael Krull)

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9 - 3 - 2010 - "Christina Romer, chairman of President Obama's Council of Economic Advisers, was giving what was billed as her 'valedictory' before she returns to teach at Berkeley, and she used the swan song to establish four points, each more unnerving than the last: She had no idea how bad the economic collapse would be. She still doesn't understand exactly why it was so bad. The response to the collapse was inadequate. And she doesn't have much of an idea about how to fix things. What she did have was a binder full of scary descriptions and warnings, offered with a perma-smile and singsong delivery . . . ." -- staff writer Dana Milbank, writing in the Washington Post. (Submitted by Michael Krull)

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Hussein Agha and Robert Malley write: Abbas will return to a fractured, fractious society. If he reaches a deal, many will ask in whose name he was bartering away Palestinian rights. If negotiations fail, most will accuse him of once more having been duped. If Netanyahu comes back with an accord, he will be hailed as a historic leader. His constituency will largely fall in line; the left will have no choice but to salute. If the talks collapse, his followers will thank him for standing firm, while his critics are likely in due course to blame the Palestinians. Abbas will be damned if he does and damned if he doesn't. Netanyahu will thrive if he does and survive if he doesn't. One loses even if he wins; the other wins even if he loses. There is no greater asymmetry than that. – Washington Post (Submitted by MIchael Krull)

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9 - 2 - 2010 - Beset by mounting casualties on the battlefield and deepening disquiet at home over America's longest war, President Obama's Afghan policy now faces another big headache: the unraveling of central authority in Kyrgyzstan, a Central Asian nation that hosts an American air base critical to the battle against the Taliban. – Washington Post (Submitted by Michael Krull)

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9 - 1 - 2010 - The withdrawing troops leave behind a country with only a tenuous hold on stability: Nearly six months after the national parliamentary election, no new government has formed, violence is on the rise and Iraq's security forces are being targeted. Despite assurances that the United States is not abandoning Iraq, people here are scrambling to prepare themselves.  – Washington Post (Submitted by Michael Krull)

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...in his speech, President Obama let President Bush off the hook... “From this desk, seven and a half years ago, President Bush announced the beginning of military operations in Iraq,” Obama said. “Much has changed since that night. A war to disarm a state became a fight against an insurgency.” 

Oh. Was that all? But what did that “war against an insurgency” result in? A country in chaos without a government. (No, I am not talking about the United States; I am talking about Iraq.)

There used to be spoils to war. Territory won, reparations received. We don’t go to war for those things any more. But what did we win in Iraq? What did the enemy lose? Go down any Main Street in America and find me 10 people who can answer that. Find me one.

In the end, we got shattered bodies, shattered minds, and ended lives. - Roger Simon (Submitted by Arnie Arnesen)

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8 - 31 - 2010 - In the 40 years that I've been in this business, I have to say I've never seen anyone quite like you. You're not a newsman. You're not a preacher. You're not a politician. -Fox News Host Chris Wallace to Glenn Beck (Submitted by Arnie Arnesen)

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Financial Times' Ed Luce sums it up: “On Tuesday night Barack Obama will give a rare prime-time address from the Oval Office on the end of the US combat mission in Iraq. But if polls are to be believed … the president would get as much attention if he delivered a lecture on the merits of stamp-collecting. With just nine weeks to go before the US midterm elections, the economy is monopolising the minds of voters. … According to Gallup earlier this month, only 4 per cent of voters rate 'wars in general,' which include Iraq, Afghanistan and terrorism, as their most important concern. The economy, jobs and the deficit were cited by almost two-thirds of those polled.”  (Submitted by Michael Krull)

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8 - 30 - 2010 - Robert J. Samuelson opines in the Washington Post: “Why is the recovery faltering? There are many explanations … But consumers, representing 70 percent of the economy's $14.5 trillion of spending, are the crux of the matter.”  (Submitted by Michael Krull)

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What country has the highest exports in the world today? It’s the country with the highest wage rates and union restrictions. Germany has become more of a power, not less of a power as the world has become more global. Our problem isn’t competing with China, it’s competing with Germany in China. We’re so focused on China all the time, and low-wage assembly stuff, that we’re missing what’s going on. It’s Germany that’s going in and selling stuff in China that we ought to be selling that would hold down the trade gap between the U.S. and China. It’s not China’s fault; it’s Germany’s. But no one wants to talk about that. Because that would raise questions about the whole U.S. model: Why is this high-wage country beating us? Why are the European socialists beating us? It’s too subversive an idea so we don’t allow in the discourse.- Thomas Geoghegan, a labor lawyer in Chicago  (Submitted by Arnie Arnesen)

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Bloomberg's Liz Capo McCormick and Susanne Walker reports: “The bond market is giving … Obama the green light to spend more money to boost the faltering economy. While the government has increased the amount of marketable Treasuries by 70 percent to $8.18 trillion the past two years, rising demand has driven yields so low that interest to service the debt has fallen 17 percent so far in fiscal 2010 ending Sept. 30 from all of 2008. … Obama has the bond market on his side as he heads into midterm congressional elections saddled with a 44 percent approval rating as measured by the latest Gallup poll.”  (Submitted by Michael Krull)

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8 - 29 - 2010 - Glenn Beck is the anti-King.

(I find it curious that many of the same people who object so strenuously to the Islamic cultural center proposed for Lower Manhattan, many on the grounds that it is inappropriate and disrespectful, are virtually silent on the impropriety and disrespect inherent in Beck’s giving a speech on the anniversary of King’s address.)

But Beck seems bent on appropriating the civil rights movement...

Beck wants to swaddle his movement in the cloth of the civil rights movement, a cloth soaked in the blood and tears of the innocent and oppressed, a cloth his divisiveness and self-aggrandizing threatens to defile....

And yet, I’ve come to the conclusion that anger is the wrong reaction to Beck’s rally in Washington. Anger provides too low a return on investment. It consumes a tremendous amount of energy, but yields little progress. Instead, we should each take this opportunity to listen to the “I Have a Dream” speech once more, paying particular attention to how the echoes of yesterday’s struggles reverberate in our present struggles, and to recommit ourselves to the nobility of righteous pursuits.

We should use Glenn’s nightmare to reconnect with Martin’s dream. - Charles M. Blow (Submitted by Arnie Arnesen)

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FT's Jean Eaglesham and Brooke Masters report: “The [SEC] has vowed to bring more high-profile enforcement actions against Wall Street over the financial crisis, following last month's $550m settlement with Goldman Sachs. US regulators told the Financial Times the SEC's contentious civil fraud case against the bank over the sale of mortgage-backed securities was an example of the type of high-profile action its revamped enforcement division was working on. 'Deterrence works in the white-collar world. Financial institutions look at cases like Goldman and review their own practices and risk-tolerance and think about how risky behaviour affects their brand,' said Robert Khuzami, SEC director of enforcement.”  (Submitted by Michael Krull)

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8 - 28 - 2010 - Douglas E. Schoen in the WSJ, “Time for Obama to pull a Clinton”: “As campaign season heats up-for the midterms, of course, as well as for 2012-President Obama is pursuing a strategy that is bound to fail. To secure his political future, he needs to change his approach in the way that Bill Clinton did halfway through his first term. I first met with Mr. Clinton privately in early 1995, after the Republicans gained control of Congress for the first time since 1954. I warned him that he could not be re-elected in 1996 unless he turned around his administration's reputation: from one of big-spending liberalism (represented by his attempt to massively overhaul the health-care system) to one of fiscal discipline and economic growth. Mr. Clinton did just that, and now Mr. Obama must do the same-and quickly. Yet the White House seems to believe its approach should be to blame George W. Bush for everything. Polls suggest that this approach is likely to have only the most limited success.”  (Submitted by Michael Krull)

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In a sign of his growing frustration with U.S. policy, Afghan President Hamid Karzai said Thursday that President Obama's timeline for withdrawing troops was aiding insurgents and also suggested that the United States must do more to force Pakistan to stop supporting the Taliban. – Washington Post  (Submitted by Michael Krull)

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8 - 27 - 2010 - POLITICO's Jim VandeHei, Alex Isenstadt and Mike Allen report: “Top Democrats are growing markedly more pessimistic about holding the House, privately conceding that the summertime economic and political recovery they were banking on will not likely materialize by Election Day. In conversations with more than two dozen party insiders … Democrats in and out of Washington say they are increasingly alarmed about the economic and polling data they have seen in recent weeks. They no longer believe the jobs and housing markets will recover … They are even more concerned by indications that House Democrats once considered safe - such as Rep. Betty Sutton … are in real trouble. … Not all Democrats - or Republicans, for that matter - share this pessimistic assessment 68 days before the election. Republicans need to pick up 39 seats, and polls show most voters still have a downbeat view of the GOP's ability to govern any better than Democrats. Republicans have been out-raised and out-spent at the national level and in many of the key races.” (Submitted by Michael Krull)

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Remember the moment: a woman with matted hair and a shaky voice rose to express her doubts about Barack Obama. “I have read about him,” she said, “and he’s not — he’s an Arab.”

McCain was quick to knock down the lie. “No, ma’am,” he said, “he’s a decent family man, a citizen.”

That ill-informed woman — her head stuffed with fabrications that could be disproved by a pre-schooler — now makes up a representative third or more of the Republican party. It’s not just that 46 percent of Republicans believe the lie that Obama is a Muslim, or that 27 percent in the party doubt that the president of the United States is a citizen. But fully half of them believe falsely that the big bailout of banks and insurance companies under TARP was enacted by Obama, and not by President Bush. - Timothy Egan NY Times  (Submitted by Arnie Arnesen)

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8 - 26 - 2010 - Now part of this conviction is rooted in my own experience. I’m a Christian, but my father came from a Kenyan family that includes generations of Muslims. As a boy, I spent several years in Indonesia and heard the call of the azaan at the break of dawn and at the fall of dusk. As a young man, I worked in Chicago communities where many found dignity and peace in their Muslim faith. - Obama (Submitted by Arnie Arnesen)

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"Obama has been the most activist domestic president in decades, yet the philosophy behind his legislative achievements remains muddy in the eyes of many supporters and skeptics alike. There is not yet such a thing as 'Obamism.' The ability to transcend ideological divides and unite disparate parts of the electorate was a signal strength of his candidacy in 2008. But that has given way to widespread -- if often contradictory -- complaints about his agenda (too radical or too cautious?) and the political tactics (too partisan or too conflict-averse?) he uses to pursue it. At first blush, it is a mystery: How could a political leader preside over nearly a trillion dollars in stimulus and other spending, and pass overhauls of the health care and financial services sectors, but still leave many of his own supporters uncertain of his larger aims?" -- John Harris and James Hohmann writing at Politico.com. (Submitted by Michael Krull)

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8 - 25 - 2010 - Washington Post lead story, “CIA sees increased threat in Yemen: AL-QAEDA AFFILIATE 'ON THE UPSWING,'” by Greg Miller and Peter Finn: “For the first time since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, CIA analysts see one of al-Qaeda's offshoots - rather than the core group now based in Pakistan - as the most urgent threat to U.S. security … The sober new assessment of al-Qaeda's affiliate in Yemen has helped prompt senior Obama administration officials to call for an escalation of U.S. operations there - including a proposal to add armed CIA drones to a clandestine campaign of U.S. military strikes … It took the group just a few months to … [get] an alleged suicide bomber aboard a Detroit-bound airliner on Christmas Day.”  (Submitted by Michael Krull)

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U.S. officials believe al Qaeda in Yemen is now collaborating more closely with allies in Pakistan and Somalia to plot attacks against the U.S., spurring the prospect that the administration will mount a more intense targeted killing program in Yemen. – Wall Street Journal (Submitted by Michael Krull)

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8 - 24 - 2010 - New York Times' Andrew Ross Sorkin reports: “August is shaping up to be the busiest month for M.&A. in recent memory. On Monday, we drew near the threshold of $200 billion worth of deals worldwide for the year … Yet a chorus of senior deal makers, who ordinarily would be eager cheerleaders for a mergers revival, are saying: Not so fast. If you ask them, they will suggest that all the recent merger hoopla may be a positive sign, but it is overdone. 'I'm as befuddled as anyone,' said Mark G. Shafir, head of global mergers and acquisitions at Citigroup. 'This is a blow-away August. Yet I can't call it a trend.' … With unemployment hovering near 10 percent, the latest wave of deals is unlikely to bolster the job market any time soon. Indeed, expect quite the opposite: Some of these deals are being driven by 'savings,' an overused euphemism for layoffs.” (Submitted by Michael Krull)

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 “It’s not that I was above changing my positions, but McCain has made it an art form...He was a maverick, but I guess he’s not anymore. One thing he is is vulnerable. He can’t change that.” Former Senator DeConcini, 73, who represented Arizona for  21 years in the US Senate. (Submitted by Arnie Arnesen)

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8 - 23 - 2010 - The prime movers in the campaign against the “ground zero mosque” just happen to be among the last cheerleaders for America’s nine-year war in Afghanistan. The wrecking ball they’re wielding is not merely pounding Park51, as the project is known, but is demolishing America’s already frail support for that war, which is dedicated to nation-building in a nation whose most conspicuous asset besides opium is actual mosques.

So virulent is the Islamophobic hysteria of the neocon and Fox News right — abetted by the useful idiocy of the Anti-Defamation League, Harry Reid and other cowed Democrats — that it has also rendered Gen. David Petraeus’s last-ditch counterinsurgency strategy for fighting the war inoperative. How do you win Muslim hearts and minds in Kandahar when you are calling Muslims every filthy name in the book in New York?- Frank Rich (Submitted by Arnie Arnesen)

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The head of the U.S. military Pacific Command said Chinese assertiveness in the South China Sea was causing concern in the region, and said the United States would work to ensure security and protect important trade routes. - Reuters (Submitted by Michael Krull)

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“What's worse, John  B. Judis [New Republic writer] says, Obama does not seem to realize that "populism has been an indelible part of the American political psyche, and those who are uncomfortable making populist appeals . . . suffer the consequences at the polls." David Broder, Washington Post. (Submitted by Steffen Schmidt)

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8 - 21 - 2010 - The Hill's Silla Brush, who says the battle to “overhaul the $11 trillion mortgage-finance system … could make the fight over Wall Street reform look tame.” More: “The administration aims to submit its proposal for rewriting housing policy to Congress early next year. But at a summit of bankers, housing experts and others this week, senior administration officials offered a preview of their position: The government should continue to back parts of the mortgage market but play a much more limited role than now or before the financial crisis. … While the administration and [Rep. Barney] Frank appear to be moving away from either a full nationalization or privatization of the housing finance system, any government guarantee will face stinging criticisms from Republicans.”  (Submitted by Michael Krull)

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"We don't want to turn an act of hate against us by extremists into an act of intolerance for people of religious faith." - Ted Olson, a longtime Republican attorney whose wife died on 9/11. (Submitted by Arnie Arnesen)

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“But they [New York Russians] have not escaped the ethnic encounters often associated with urban migrations, including grumbling by natives that the newcomers are taking over. This has surfaced most vividly as a  result of a Russian-run community and day care center’s plan for a new 10,000-square-foot building that it promises would be for all Staten Islanders.  It  will become  another “Russian thing,” one skeptic, Joanne Bennetti, a 60-ish retired beautician, said at a meeting of the South Beach Civic Association. “You don’t know what it’s like to feel like a foreigner in your own neighborhood.” New York Times article. (Submitted by Steffen Schmidt)

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8 - 20 - 2010 - "There is too much at stake,Constitutional rights, the development of the Muslims here, how the world is watching the United States. We tell people America upholds religious freedom. We should not compromise those values....We are debating about having a healing dialogue, building bridges and this whole thing has turned into the opposite of what we have envisioned." - Daisy Khan, along with her husband Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, is one of the co-founders of Cordoba House, which has proposed to build a mosque more than two blocks from Ground Zero (Submitted by Arnie Arnesen)

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Washington Post's Zachary A. Goldfarb report: “For the all the changes to the regulatory fabric contained in the landmark Dodd-Frank law, none might be more significant to the financial sector's health than Section 956(a). That largely overlooked provision of the law gives federal agencies expanded powers to write regulations dictating pay at financial firms. How they choose to use these powers could have a major impact on whether banks pursue excessive risks. … Shortly before the law's passage, regulators issued guidance on bank pay. They can now decide whether to continue with that guidance, which outlines broad principles about how firms should pay their executives, or write specific rules dictating pay schemes. In either case, they will also have to decide how much compensation packages need to change to discourage bankers from taking excessive risks.” (Submitted by MIchael Krull)

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“The New York Cordoba House gang should have guessed that without proper preparation of the ground, springing a Mosque 2 blocks from Ground Zero was going to be a shock to most Americans. These folks are naïve beyond all imagination. If you are going to provide a security escort service for women coming home late at night from work you don’t suddenly jump out of an alley and say ‘I’m HERE TO ESCORT YOU HOME!” and then yell “NO FAIR!” if you get pepper sprayed.” Anonymous, overheard at the Sea-Tac Airport. 2010 (Submitted by Steffen Schmidt)

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8 - 19 - 2010 - "President Obama has achieved some significant successes so far in his presidency. But when it comes to reducing the influence of lobbyists, Obama has utterly failed to reach his own goals -- or perhaps he was only pretending to try . . . Why has K Street boomed under Obama? Because whenever government gets bigger, it makes lobbyists that much more valuable. That's bad for those who really want to constrain lobbyists. It's good for the lobbyists, and whoever can afford them" -- Columnist Tim Carney in the Washington Examiner. (Submitted by Michael Krull)

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Today, former Reagan Solicitor General Ted Olson -- whose wife, Barbara Olson, was killed on 9/11 -- said he saw no reason for Park51 to move.  And Peter Beinart, expediting his ongoing transformation from TNR Seriousness Guardian into shrill liberal blogger, today called on Democrats to -- as he put it -- "Grow a Pair" by standing up to this increasingly toxic campaign.  Yet here comes Howard "I'm-from-the-Democratic-wing-of-the-Democratic Party" Dean, advocating that the vicinity of Ground Zero be turned into a Muslim-free zone because some people don't want Muslims near it.  It's episodes like this which breed increasing levels of pervasive disgust and even indifference about electoral outcomes. Glenn Greenwald (Submitted by Arnie Arnesen)

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8 - 18 - 2010 - Gibbs (Obama's Press Secretary) does not see his job as a bridge between the press and the presidency. He sees himself more as a moat. - Columnist Maureen Dowd (Submitted by Arnie Arnesen)

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"To Obama, taxation is always a matter of redistribution. It is never a matter of unleashing the creative forces of your most innovative citizens. So the high taxes on the 1% of Americans ends up ripping out old sidewalks in depressed communities, not in fueling new growth businesses with novel market plans and cutting technologies. Sure, most private businesses don't become the next Google. But you never hit a gusher unless you drill for oil. It is not only in the Gulf of Mexico that Obama is shutting down production. It is throughout the economy" -- University of Chicago Professor Richard Epstein, writing in Forbes. (Submitted by Michael Krull)

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8 - 17 - 2010 - STUART LEVEY op-ed in the FT, “Iran's new deceptions at sea must be punished”: “In recent weeks, the UN, the US, the EU and other partners have announced new sanctions to hold Iran accountable for conduct surrounding its nuclear and ballistic missile programmes. … [T]he latest round of measures … sharpens the focus on another sector that is a critical lifeline for Iran's proliferation and evasion: shipping. Some of Iran's most dangerous cargo continues to come and go from Iran's ports, so we must redouble our vigilance over both their domestic shipping lines, and attempts to use third-country shippers and freight forwarders for illicit cargo. Iran has consistently used its national maritime carrier, the Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Lines (IRISL), to advance its missile programmes … [W]hile private business action