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REWIND - A Week of Quotes and Cartoons

SUNDAY

Quote of the Day
July 7, 2013

'The 11-member Foreign Intelligence Surveillance
Court, known as the FISA court, was once mostly
focused on approving case-by-case wiretapping
orders. But since major changes in legislation and
greater judicial oversight of intelligence operations
were instituted six years ago, it has quietly become
almost a parallel Supreme Court, serving as the
ultimate arbiter on surveillance issues and
delivering opinions that will most likely shape
intelligence practices for years to come, the officials
said.'

New York Times
July 7, 2013

Toon of the Day

Journalism Summer Camp
Brian Mcfadden - The Strip

MONDAY

Quote of the Day

'Congress's first priority should be job creation and
restoring opportunity through work for the millions
who remain unemployed. Yet Congress has made an
uphill climb for the long-term unemployed even
steeper.  Before they leave for summer recess, our
elected representatives need to undo the
unnecessary and damaging mess they've created
and repeal the sequester. '

Christine Owens, executive director
of the National Employment Law Project

AFL-CIO Now
July 8, 2013

Toon of the Day

America's Need?
Joel Pett

TUESDAY

Quote of the Day

'Turmoil in Egypt. Edward Snowden's travel plans.
Immigration reform's fortunes. Obamacare's
troubles. The Weiner-Spitzer return to politics.
There's no shortage of items absorbing political
energy and media bandwidth. But simmering below
all of this is a crisis that goes without the immediate
attention it demands. Last Friday morning, the
Bureau of Labor Statistics reported yet another
month of lackluster jobs numbers. While
Washington has long since lost any sense of urgency
regarding the jobs crisis, this is an issue that
continues to poll at the top of Americans' concerns.

'Our economy is stuck at just over 2 percent growth,
and the rate of productivity is worse than anemic.
We have hit a point where an unemployment rate of
7.6 percent inspires cheers of "it could've been
worse!" The result is a painful "new normal" for too
many of our fellow Americans.'

Katrina vanden Heuvel, editor and
publisher of the Nation magazine

Washington Post
July 9, 2013
 

Toon of the Day

What a Card
Jen Sorensen

WEDNESDAY

Quote of the Day

'They talk about something called regulatory
convergence and that is synonym for saying we want
to take away stronger public protections and go with
the worst or least and prevent the countries or
trading partners, the US or EU or any individual
countries or US states from enacting stronger laws
in the future.'

Ed Mierzwinski, the US Chair of Trans
Atlantic Consumers Dialogue (TACD),
a forum of the largest European and US
consumer groups, and consumer program
director of the US Public Interest
Research Group (USPIRG), a
Washington-based watchdog organization,
on negotiations for a new US-EU trade pact

Deutsche Welle (Germany)
July 8, 2013
 

Toon of the Day

Hung Out to Dry
Matt Wuerker

THURSDAY

Quote of the Day

'Many low-income people who are barely surviving
today will be pushed over the edge. Hunger, poverty
and despair will escalate unless sequester ends and
federal financing for safety net programs is restored.

'... Ninety-year-old women who live alone in five-
story walkups or homes 10 miles from the nearest
grocery and whose meals are delivered by volunteers
haven't shown up in Congress to protest the loss of
$51 million in funds for senior meals in fiscal
2013.'

Larry J. Tomayko, chief of staff
of Meals on Wheels
Association of America

UPI
July 11, 2013
 

Toon of the Day

Border Business
Lalo Alcaraz
 

FRIDAY

Quote of the Day

'Permit me an impertinent question (or three).

'Suppose a small group of extremely wealthy people
sought to systematically destroy the U.S.
government by (1) finding and bankrolling new
candidates pledged to shrinking and dismembering
it; (2) intimidating or bribing many current senators
and representatives to block all proposed legislation,
prevent the appointment of presidential nominees,
eliminate funds to implement and enforce laws, and
threaten to default on the nation's debt; (3) taking
over state governments in order to redistrict,
gerrymander, require voter IDs, purge voter rolls,
and otherwise suppress the votes of the majority in
federal elections; (4) running a vast PR campaign
designed to convince the American public of certain
big lies, such as climate change is a hoax, and (5)
buying up the media so the public cannot know the
truth.

'Would you call this treason?

'If not, what would you call it?

'And what would you do about it?'

Economist Robert Reich, Chancellor's
Professor of Public Policy
at the University of California at
Berkeley, former U.S. Secretary
of Labor

blog
July 12, 2013
 

Toon of the Day

Elepohantcare
Pat Bagley - Salt Lake Tribune

SATURDAY

Quote of the Day

'Can we think of bias in the sophisticated way in
which it operates - not always conscious and not
always constant, but rising and then falling like
rancid water at the bottom of a sour well?

'And this, too, is why the sadness lingers. There is a
mother who will never again see her son's impish
smile or feel his warm body collapsing into her open
arms. There is a father who won't be able to
straighten his son's tie or tell him "You missed a
spot" after a shave. There is a brother who will never
be able to trade jokes and dreams and what-ifs with
him well into the night, long after both should be
asleep. The death of a child blasts a hole into the
fabric of a family, one that can never truly be
mended. I refuse to believe that was God's plan for
Martin's family.

'The sadness also lingers because so many parents
and siblings and friends and sympathizers look on
in horror at the prospect of a scary precedent - that
some may walk away from this trial believing that
they should do nothing different from what
Zimmerman did, and that the law may either
endorse or allow inadvisable actions that could lead
to such an end.'

Columnist Charles M. Blow
New York Times
July 13, 2013
 

Toon of the Day

Filibuster
Matt Wuerker - Politico