Portside

REWIND - A Week of Quotes and Cartoons

SUNDAY

Quote of the Day
June 30, 2013

'Discrimination at the ballot box continues and is
growing.'

Editorial
New York Times
June 30, 2013

Toon of the Day

Knock, Knock
Chris Britt - Cagle

MONDAY

Quote of the Day

`The Wealthy Man Who Worked for 1 Employer for
30-some Yrs again lectures Middle Class on need to
Re-Tool Self'

Michael Powell, a columnist on
New York City for the New York
Times, tweet-slammed fellow New
York Times columnist Thomas
Friedman for a column he wrote
about how the decline of the
middle class is a contributing
factor to why there are now "so
many popular street revolts in
democracies," such as Turkey,
Brazil, Egypt, Israel, Russia,
Chile and the United States.

Salon
June 30, 2013
 

Toon of the Day

Student Debt
John Darkow  - Columbia Daily Tribune

TUESDAY

Quote of the Day

'Unbelievably, interest rates on federally subsidized
loans are doubling today, from 3.4 to 6.8 percent. As
Congress bickers over alternatives, even Democrats
are backing "market-based" plans that aren't as bad
as GOP ideas, but aren't good either. I hope they can
find a way to lower interest rates, but the real
scandal isn't the rate hike. The real scandal is that
we take for granted that young people must go into
debt - at whatever interest rate - to pay for college.

'Of course, the truly lucky kids - those blessed
wealthy members of the Lucky Sperm Club - sail
through higher education without debt. But today,
even upper-middle-class kids are having to take out
loans, as the average annual cost of a four-year
public university soars above $22,000, while private
schools are over $50,000.  Who the hell thinks this
is a good idea?'

Columnist Joan Walsh
Salon
July 1, 2013
 

Toon of the Day

Congress Hums
Mike Luckovich

WEDNESDAY

Quote of the Day

'We're talking about the president on an official trip
after an official summit being kidnapped. We have
no doubt that it was an order from the White House.
By no means should a diplomatic plane with the
president be diverted from its route and forced to
land in another country.'

Sacha Llorenti Soliz, Bolivia's
ambassador to the United Nations,
after authorities in Portugal, France,
Spain and Italy refused to allow a
plane carrying Bolivian President
Evo Morales to cross their airspace

The Independent (UK)
July 3, 2013

Toon of the Day

Friends?
truthdig
July 3, 2013

THURSDAY

Quote of the Day

'More than 160 years ago, the greatest abolitionist in
U.S. history, the escaped slave Frederick Douglass,
addressed the Rochester Ladies' Anti-Slavery
Society. Douglass asked those gathered, "What, to
the American slave, is your Fourth of July?" His
words bear repeating this Independence Day, as the
United States asserts unprecedented authority to
wage war globally, to spy on everyone, everywhere.
Independence Day should serve not as a blind
celebration of the government, but as a moment to
reflect on the central place in our history of grass-
roots democracy movements, which have preserved
and expanded the rights proclaimed in the opening
lines of the Declaration of Independence: Life,
liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.'

Amy Goodman with Denis Moynihan
'This Independence Day, Thank a Protester'
Democracy Now!
July 3, 2013

Toon of the Day

Happy Fourth
Rob Rogers

FRIDAY

Quote of the Day

'The good news is that this is a faster rate of growth
than we have been seeing-the average growth rate
for the previous twelve months was 169,000.
However, the current pace of job growth is still
slower than what's needed for economy to return to
full employment any time soon. At this pace, it will
still be more than five years until we get back to the
pre-recession unemployment rate. While any sign of
an improving labor market is encouraging, it's
important to keep in mind that we are in still in
second gear, not yet at highway speeds. For
example, while the unemployment rate held steady
at 7.6% in June, the "underemployment rate"-the
U6 measure of labor underutilization-increased a
half a percentage point to 14.3%, due to an increase
in the number of workers who have part-time jobs
but want full time jobs, and an increase in the
number of unemployed workers who want a job but
have given up looking for work.'

Economist Heidi Shierholz
Economic Policy Institute
July 5, 2013
 

Toon of the Day

Where From
Jen Sorenson

SATURDAY

Quote of the Day

'Most congress critters clearly don't care about
America's middle-class jobs depression. The White
House cares, but doesn't treat it as the crisis it is, so
nothing happens. The only jobs push we've had is
the stop-gap effort by the Federal Reserve to pump
enough money into the economy to keep
unemployment from worsening.

'But rather than push harder, Ben Bernanke, head
of the central bank, recently sounded retreat. He,
too, uses the faulty unemployment statistic as a
crutch to claim "improvement" - the jobless rate, he
says, could drop to seven percent next year, so the
Fed's stimulus will no longer be needed.

'That's shameful. Even if that was the true rate,
seven percent equals 11 million unemployed
Americans and many millions more who'd still be
underemployed. From Bernanke to Congress, all
government officials who shrug their shoulders and
give up on helping that many Americans should
themselves be made jobless.'

Jim Hightower
LA Progressive
July 6, 2013
 

Toon of the Day

Jim Crow's Comeback Tour
Doonesbury - Garry Trudeau