Quote of the Day posts

Wednesday April 16, 2014

Quote of the Day

“'Liquidity' was one of those words Wall Street people threw around when they wanted the conversation to end, and for brains to go dead, and for all questioning to cease.”

-- Michael Lewis in “Flash Boys: A Wall Street Revolt.” I immediately flashed to an interview I did with the king of Mergers & Acquistion law, Joseph Flom, before he died. I don't think Flom wanted my brain to go dead; it just did.

Posted at 08:46 AM on Apr 16, 2014 in category Quote of the Day
Tags: Michael Lewis, Flash Boys, Wall Street
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Monday April 14, 2014

Quote of the Day

“For the first time in six years, I have health insurance. As a response to Obama's election in '08, my coverage literally quadrupled. I made the wrenching decision to drop it because I simply couldn't afford it. That night, one of my right-wing friends very kindly included me in a forwarded email, purportedly a letter to the editor from an ER doctor, his face a rictus of anger, railing that all of the unwashed, sorry, shiftless, uninsured ”moochers“ and ”takers“ carried new iPhones and sported expensive tattoos and could easily afford insurance in the best country in the world if they would just prioritize their spending. Well, suck it, Mr. ER doctor — suck it long and hard. And thank you, Mr. President.”

-- Candice Dyer, Georgia freelance writer extraordinaire, in a Facebook post today.

The follow-up comments read like an ad ... or the bursting of a dam:

Up until Obamacare, I couldn't even get insurance. I had a very mild stroke at age 35. Nobody would even touch it.
I'm saving $175 a month ...
After being uninsured for over a year I signed up on ACA. And yeah... all the folks talking about moochers can kiss my ass. I've worked hard all my life and the Right wants us to die and be quiet.
The insurance we had went down 20%! Of course Blue Cross rewrote the policies but, even the co-pays went down! I love Obamacare, and I love my President.
Well, this post and the whole thread made my day.

Posted at 02:28 PM on Apr 14, 2014 in category Quote of the Day
Tags: Health Care, Barack Obama
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Sunday April 13, 2014

Quote of the Day

“I expect we ought to lighten our hand in the Middle East. We should move the framework away from the current situation, where everyone is telling us everything is our fault and angry with us, to a basis where they are seeking our help. ... In the future, we should never use U.S. troops as a peacekeeping force. We are too big a target. Let the Fijiians or New Zealanders do that. And keep reminding ourselves that it is easier to get into something than it is to get out of it.”

-- then-U.S. Mid-East envoy Donald Rumsfeld in a November 1983 memo entitled “The Swamp,” as recounted in Errol Morris' much-recommended documentary, “The Unknown Known.”

Donald Rumsfeld, the Unknown Known

Posted at 02:38 PM on Apr 13, 2014 in category Quote of the Day
Tags: Donald Rumsfeld, Errol Morris, The Unknown Known, The Iraq War, Documentaries
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Saturday April 12, 2014

Hank Aaron: Modern GOP = KKK

“A lot of things have happened in this country, but we have so far to go. There's not a whole lot that has changed.

”Talk about politics. Sure, this country has a black president, but when you look at a black president, President Obama is left with his foot stuck in the mud from all of the Republicans with the way he's treated. We have moved in the right direction, and there have been improvements, but we still have a long ways to go in the country. The bigger difference is that back then they had hoods. Now they have neckties and starched shirts."

-- Henry Aaron, on the 40th anniversary of breaking Babe Ruth's homerun record, in USA Today.

Of course, the GOP yelped about this one. The usual stuff. But the basics are correct. The intransigence of the GOP during Obama's two terms in office, the way his moderate policies and moderate personality have been vilified during this time—a time, I should add, of national crisis brought on in part by GOP policies—is one of the great shames of the Grand Old Party.

Meanwhile, Joe Posnanski has a good post on why Henry Aaron isn't really the homerun king—that he's much more than that. Nate Silver over at 538.com takes Posnanski's thought and crunches the numbers: What if all of Hank Aaron's homeruns had been singles? Would he still be a Hall of Famer?

Hank Aaron homerun king baseball card

I owned this card when I was 11.

Posted at 08:19 AM on Apr 12, 2014 in category Quote of the Day
Tags: Hank Aaron, Barack Obama, GOP, Ku Klux Klan
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Tuesday April 01, 2014

From the 'Unmade Movies' File: Ronald Reagan, Commie

From J. Edgar Hoover Goes to the Movies: The FBI and the Origins of Hollywood's Cold War, by John Sbardellati:

Jack Warner, eager to erase the public memory of “Mission to Moscow,” announced to the committee and the press his studio’s plans for an anti-Communist feature tentatively titled “Up until Now.” His company’s press statement affirmed that “backslid Americans, as well as outside enemies of our free institutions, will be exposed in this story of a Boston family. Here at Warner Brothers we have no room for backslid Americans and wishy-washy concepts of Americanism.” The film was to star Claude Rains as the troubled father of a wayward son, played by Ronald Reagan, who would be lured into the Communist Party. Warner, however, dropped the project later in the year, believing that the public had had enough of Hollywood politics in the wake of HUAC’s fall hearings.

Not an April Fools' joke.

Ronald Reagan

“I have not, nor have ever been, a member of the Commu ... Well, except for that one picture. I remember it well. Jack Warner came to me and said, 'Ronnie, you look like the kind of son of a gun that would ...'”