Quote Of The Day

"And so, Obama has finally finished evolving on same-sex marriage.  And about time! I, for one, never understood the point of saying you were 'evolving' when many of the voters you were pandering to don’t even believe in evolution."
-- Frank Rich

Quote Of The Day

"Today, the struggle continues to celebrate May Day not as a "law day" as defined by political leaders, but as a day whose meaning is decided by the people, a day rooted in organizing and working for a better future for the whole of society."

-- Noam Chomsky, Zuccotti Park Press

Quotes Of The Day

“Taxes are the price we pay for a civilized society.” --  Justice Oliver Wendall Holmes

“We may have a democracy or we may have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we cannot have both.” -- Justice Louis Brandeis

"In fact, the 'Buffett Tax' hike touted by President Obama has been called everything from a 'sham' to a 'hoax' to 'total gimmickry.'"  -- House Speaker John Boehner

Quote Of The Day

"You know, I feel like, one, trying to become a knuckleballer and work on something new and deconstructing what I once knew as a conventional pitcher and trying to relearn a mechanic, that helped me be a better human being. Going through counseling and trying to live in the moment well helped me be a better knuckleballer."

R.A. Dickey on Fresh Air, discussing his memoir "Wherever I Wind Up: My Quest for Truth, Authenticity and the Perfect Knuckleball."

Quote Of The Day

“I wish they weren’t called the Bush tax cuts. If they’re called some other body’s tax cuts, they’re probably less likely to be raised.” 

George W. Bush,  Bush Institute Conference on Taxes and Economic Growth

"So there you have it," as Hunter at Daily Kos puts it:  "Bush finally expresses some remorse for something, but it turns out it's not over his stupid tax cuts wrecking the budget, ballooning the deficit, and generally prepping America for it's uncomfortable handbasket ride to the netherworld. No, it's because the Bush family name sucks so bad (for some unknown reason that he cannot possibly fathom) that things associated with it are less popular than they really ought to be."

Quote Of The Day

"The "Jumpstart Our Business Startups Act" (in addition to everything else, the Act has an annoying, redundant title) will very nearly legalize fraud in the stock market."

Matt Taibbi, Rolling Stone, Why Obama's JOBS Act Couldn't Suck Worse

Here's more:

In fact, one could say this law is not just a sweeping piece of deregulation that will have an increase in securities fraud as an accidental, ancillary consequence. No, this law actually appears to have been specifically written to encourage fraud in the stock markets.

Ostensibly, the law makes it easier for startup companies (particularly tech companies, whose lobbyists were a driving force behind its passage) to attract capital by, among other things, exempting them from independent accounting requirements for up to five years after they first begin selling shares in the stock market.

The law also rolls back rules designed to prevent bank analysts from talking up a stock just to win business, a practice that was so pervasive in the tech-boom years as to be almost industry standard.

Even worse, the JOBS Act, incredibly, will allow executives to give "pre-prospectus" presentations to investors using PowerPoint and other tools in which they will not be held liable for misrepresentations. These firms will still be obligated to submit prospectuses before their IPOs, and they'll still be held liable for what's in those. But it'll be up to the investor to check and make sure that the prospectus matches the "pre-presentation."

The JOBS Act also loosens a whole range of other reporting requirements, and expands stock investment beyond "accredited investors," giving official sanction to the internet-based fundraising activity known as "crowdfunding."

But the big one, to me, is the bit about exempting firms from real independent tests of internal controls for five years.

And more:

There's just no benefit that the JOBS Act brings to an honest startup company. In fact, it puts an honest company at a severe disadvantage, because now it has to compete against other, less scrupulous companies that can simply make their projections up on the backs of envelopes.

Quotes Of The Day

"For me, the most compelling reason to reject the death penalty is to set ourselves on the path to the kind of society we really want for our future.  I want something better for our future.  We cannot confront darkness with darkness and expect light." 

Connecticut State Senator Gayle Slossberg (D-Miford)

"Today is a dramatic and potentially historic day because the Senate has ... an opportunity to correct the arbitrariness, the discrimination, the random haphazard approach to the application of our death penalty in this state.''

Connecticut State Senator Eric Coleman (D-Bloomfield)

“I cannot stand the thought of being responsible for somebody being falsely accused and facing the death penalty. For me, this is a moral issue and realizing that mistakes are obviously made.”

Connecticut State Senator Edith Prague (D-Columbia)

Quote Of The Day

"You spend a good piece of your life gripping a baseball, and in the end it turns out that it was the other way around all the time."

Jim Bouton

Quote Of The Day

"This court, cosseted behind white marble pillars, out of reach of TV, accountable to no one once they give the last word, is well on its way to becoming one of the most divisive in modern American history."

Maureen Dowd, Men In Black