Visual source: Newseum
President Obama at USAToday:
A balanced deficit deal that includes some new revenues isn't just a Democratic position. It's a position that has been taken by everyone from Warren Buffett to Bill O'Reilly. It's a position that was taken this week by Democrats and Republicans in the Senate, who worked together on a promising plan of their own. And it's been the position of every Democratic and Republican leader who has worked to reduce the deficit in their time, from Ronald Reagan to Bill Clinton.
There will be plenty of haggling over the details of all these plans in the days ahead. But right now, we have the opportunity to do something big and meaningful. This debate shouldn't just be about avoiding the catastrophe of not paying our bills and defaulting on our debt. That's the least we should do. This debate offers the chance to put our economy on stronger footing, restore a sense of fairness in our country, and secure a better future for our children.
President Norquist:
Another challenge has been to suggest that members of Congress had somehow made a pledge to Americans for Tax Reform, or even to me personally, and that therefore it should be no big deal if they broke their commitments. Nonsense. The pledge clearly states that the commitment is to the people of their states and the nation.
Dave Moberg:
With only a few exceptions, Chicago union leaders did not support Rahm Emanuel when he was elected mayor of the city earlier this year. And his first few months in office have confirmed their suspicions, according to Henry Bayer, executive director of the state council of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, “that this guy is a real threat.”
Facing a $30 million budget shortfall in this fiscal year that is almost certain to swell next year, perhaps to $600 million, Emanuel has turned his political and policy guns on city workers and the several dozen unions representing them to find ways to plug the fiscal hole.
Joe Lieberman and Kelly Ayotte give us the skinny on why their abominable proposal to keep the Guantánamo Bay detention center open is smart policy.
Oliver North misses his chance to warn us about the black helicopters.
Paul Krugman:
For those who know their 1930s history, this is all too familiar. If either of the current debt negotiations fails, we could be about to replay 1931, the global banking collapse that made the Great Depression great. But, if the negotiations succeed, we will be set to replay the great mistake of 1937: the premature turn to fiscal contraction that derailed economic recovery and ensured that the Depression would last until World War II finally provided the boost the economy needed.
Marian Wright Edelman:
In the face of these deeply disturbing and growing child needs, some of our political leaders are heedlessly and heartlessly proposing that children, who have no belts to tighten, sacrifice their food and Head Start and other survival needs while asking nothing in sacrifice from powerful billionaires and corporations. Policies, programs, and essential services that we know help children survive and thrive—Medicaid and CHIP (the Children’s Health Insurance Program), the Maternal and Child Health Block Grant, WIC (the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children), SNAP (the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program or Food Stamps), Early Head Start and Head Start, the Child Care and Development Block Grant, the Title I Education Program designed to help disadvantaged children, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act programs, Pell Grants, the Social Services Block Grant, and others—are all threatened with federal cuts and/or program changes that will further unravel the already porous safety net provided for poor children.
Storer H. Rowley:
To have U.S. astronauts grounded indefinitely from rocketing aloft from U.S. soil, or even for an extended hiatus without a clear end, is not the kind of American vision and leadership that lifted us to the Sea of Tranquility on the moon.
The solar system is waiting. We need a national mandate for the next American mission, with more clarity, vision and a timetable. Obama needs to set that agenda. Polls show that Congress and the public would be likely to support it. But it has to be more expansive if it's going to inspire the next generation.
Ann Coulter pretends to know some about hypocrisy:
The entire mainstream media are fixated on Murdoch's imagined role in the Fleet Street phone-hacking story—the only topic more boring than the debt ceiling—solely in order to pursue their petty vendetta against Fox News, which liberals hate with the hot, hot heat of a thousand suns.
Douglas NeJaime:
California law recognizes four different classes of same-sex couples with official relationship status: First are those couples who married in California during the brief window after the state's Supreme Court declared same-sex marriage legal but before Proposition 8 was passed. They remain legally married in the state's eyes. Then there are the couples living in California who married outside the state before Proposition 8. They too are considered married in California. Then there are couples who have entered into domestic partnerships in California or in other places where they are legal. Finally, there are those who married in states where marriage is legal, but they did so after Proposition 8. They are considered de facto domestic partners in California. Of course, despite their differences, all of these couples share a striking commonality: They are considered single under federal law.
Debra J. Saunders finally writes something sensible:
Remember that old argument that a woman could not be president because she would have trouble keeping her cool during "that time of the month"? Brace yourself. In 2012, that mothballed idea has morphed into migraines and menopause.
The old menstrual-cycle argument was based on the notion that women are too emotional for high office, but men do not lose their cool. (It helps if you don't know any men.)