“Sometimes you have to make the tough decisions. If you think this has to be done, you have my blessing. But someday you guys are going to need to tell me how we ended up with a system like this. I know this is not the time to test them and put them through failure, [...]

And [our predecessors] knew that when any government measure, no matter how carefully crafted or beneficial, is subject to scorn; when any efforts to help people in need are attacked as un-American; when facts and reason are thrown overboard and only timidity passes for wisdom, and we can no longer even engage in a civil [...]

“In LaCrosse, Wisc., the Gundersen Lutheran Hospital system is, according to the Dartmouth [Atlas of Health Care], the least expensive place in America for the last two years of life. They have an advanced directive program, and over 90 percent of their patients have an advanced directive. They have electronic health records, so everybody on [...]

“The controlling of medical costs in countries such as Britain through rationing, and the health consequences thereof, are legendary. The stories of people dying on a waiting list or being denied altogether read like a horror script … People such as scientist Stephen Hawking wouldn’t have a chance in the UK, where the National Health [...]

“Right now insurance companies are rationing care. They are basically telling you what’s covered and what’s not. They’re telling you: ‘We’ll cover this drug, but we won’t cover that drug; you can have this procedure, or, you can’t have that procedure’. So why is it that people would prefer having insurance companies make those decisions, [...]

“This president, I think, has exposed himself as a guy, over and over and over again, who has a deep-seated hatred for white people or the white culture.”
- Glenn Beck demonstrating again why he’ll only ever appeal to fringers
Here’s the clip…

At a certain point, even if you are Fox News, you really have to start [...]

“We’ve got to say to our children, yes, if you’re African American, the odds of growing up amid crime and gangs are higher. Yes, if you live in a poor neighborhood, you will face challenges that someone in a wealthy suburb does not have to face. That’s not a reason to get bad grades. That’s [...]

“There are tens of millions of pro-choice Republicans that are just as good Republicans as I am, and we need to support them. That’s what party building is about, and don’t think that is giving up your principles.”
- Haley Barbour testing the waters for 2012
No doubt this is encouraging, but are base Republicans really ready [...]

“I am not unaware of the controversies swirling around this dinner, swirling around the speed — or lack thereof — that we’re moving on issues that are of great importance to you and, quite frankly, to me and to the president and to millions of Americans…. More importantly , I want thank you for being [...]

“We always knew we were not going to get all that much fiscal impact during the first five to six months. The big impact starts to hit from about now onwards.”
- Obama economic adviser Christina Romer on when the economy will pick back up
And this is true. From the CBO’s projections back in January, the [...]

“The test of bipartisanship is not just how many Republican votes you have.”
- Rahm Emanuel talking about healthcare legislation & bipartisanship
I tend to agree in theory, but there are still a whole host of poison pills legislators can put into a bill that means they’d vote against something that included one or two of their [...]

“Today you are the media, it is your duty to report and keep the hope alive.”
- A recent Facebook status update by Mir Hossein Mousavi
Over the weekend, I touched on the significance social media is playing in this revolution, and Mashable has more details…
The status update, posted in Farsi and translated both in the Facebook [...]

“So long as our relationship is defined by our differences, we will empower those who sow hatred rather than peace, and who promote conflict rather than the cooperation that can help all of our people achieve justice and prosperity. This cycle of suspicion and discord must end.”
- Obama in his speech to the Muslim world [...]

“Whatever titles we give these murderers, both deserve our attention. Violence like that is no way to solve a political dispute nor a religious one. And the fanatics on all sides do great disservice when they confuse dissention with rage and death.”
- Sarah Palin on the similarities between the Tiller and Long shootings
Credit where credit [...]

“If it’s 2012 and our party is defined by Palin and Limbaugh and Cheney, then we’re headed for a blowout. That’s just the truth.”
- A GOP strategist for John McCain and Jon Huntsman
Here’s more about Hunstman specifically and Obama’s savvy move to make him ambassador to China…
Now, Huntsman’s decision to accept the president’s invitation to [...]

“People that are social conservatives are also economic conservatives. But a lot of the economic conservatives are not social conservatives. Throw the social conservatives the pro-life, pro-family people overboard and the Republican party will be as irrelevant as the Whigs.”
- Mike Huckabee on the Republican party’s BIG problem
And honestly, I don’t know how they’ll fix [...]

“I’ve had some friends that are actually homosexual. And, I mean, they know where I stand, and they know that I wouldn’t have them anywhere near my children. But at the same time, they’re people, and they’re going to do their thing.”
- Joe Wurzelbacher sharing his views on friendship
Now, does anybody here think that Joe [...]

“It is true that being a Republican moderate sometimes feels like being a cast member of Survivor — you are presented with multiple challenges, and you often get the distinct feeling that you’re no longer welcome in the tribe. But it is truly a dangerous signal that a Republican senator of nearly three decades no [...]

“The Federal Reserve has been hobbled by at least two major shortcomings that were primarily responsible for the current and several previous credit crises. Its failure to spot the importance of changing financial markets and its commitment to laisser faire economics were big mistakes and justify a fundamental overhaul of the Fed.”
- Henry Kaufman in [...]

“It is near-extinct in many ways in the Northeast, it is extinct in many ways on the West Coast, and it is endangered in the Mountain West, increasingly endangered in the Southwest… and if you look at the state of the party, it is a shrinking entity.”
- Former McCain campaign manager Steve Schmidt on Repubs
This [...]