With the bailout of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, the Reagan revolution has at last realized the robber barons’ dream: privatize the profits and socialize the debt. Nicely done, fellas.

— a letter to the editor of The New York Times from Candida Pugh of Oakland, Calif.; Sept. 10; emphasis added.

We now see the compensation wasn’t deserved. I don’t think taxpayers want their money to go to the C.E.O.’s of these very large institutions.

— Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., on the exit pay packages of Daniel H. Mudd of Fannie Mae and Richard F. Syron of Freddie Mac who, The Times’ Eric Dash reports, are eligible for as much as $24 million in severance, retirement benefits and deferred compensation; Sept. 10.
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The object of the political war is not to shrink the state or shut it down; it is to capture the thing and run it for your constituents’ benefit.

— from “The Wrecking Crew: How Conservatives Rule” by Thomas Frank; p. 39; emphasis added.

When our economy is hurting, the last thing we should do is raise taxes as Barack Obama plans to do and has done. The American people cannot afford a Barack Obama presidency.

— statement from Republican presidential candidate John McCain after the Labor Department reported that the national unemployment rate rose to a five-year high of 6.1 percent last month as American companies cut about 84,000 jobs; Sept. 5.

Today’s jobs report is a reminder of what’s at stake in this election — John McCain showed last night that he is intent on continuing the economic policies that just this year have caused the American economy to lose 605,000 jobs.

— statement from Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama following the jobs report release; Sept. 5.
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This represents the final bodies from Katrina, the last unknown victim of Katrina. This represents the pain and suffering.

— New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin; Laura Maggi of The Times-Picayune reported that “[s]even people who died during Hurricane Katrina were interred Friday morning in one of six mausoleums created to hold the remains of those who were not identified after the storm or whose families did not claim them; Aug. 29.

People are bringing five or six suitcases. We want to carry more people and less luggage.

— St. Charles Parish Emergency Preparedness Director Tab Troxler as residents of New Orleans and surrounding parishes begin evacuation of the Gulf Coast as Hurricane Gustav approaches; Aug. 30.
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Young man, you have the gift of gab. Keep it up and some day you’ll be President of the United States.

— an old Republican to a young Warren G. Harding after his first political speech, according to a New York Times obituary of President Harding; Aug. 3, 1923.

I predicted that New Orleans would come back as a stronger and better city. That’s the prediction I made. I also pledged that we’d help. And $126 billion later, three years after the storm — we’ve helped deliver $126 billion of U.S. taxpayers’ money. (Applause.) And I thank you for applauding on that statement, but I know you’re applauding the American taxpayer. A lot of people around the country care deeply about the people down here. And so it was — you know, it was money that we were happy to spend.

— President Bush, speaking at the historic Jackson Barracks in New Orleans on the recovery of the Gulf Coast region three years after Hurricane Katrina; Aug. 20.
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In China, size matters. People want to have a car that shows off their status in society. No one wants to buy small.

— Zhang Linsen, the 44-year-old founder of a media and graphic design company in Songjiang, China; he owns a black Hummer H2; July 28; emphasis added.

It’s a cultural thing. When the kids are hungry, they go to their mother, not their father. And when there is less food, women are the first to eat less.

— Herve Kone, director of a group that promotes development, social justice and human rights in Burkina Faso, quoted in the Washington Post Foreign Service’s Kevin Sullivan story about the impacts of the African food crisis on women and children; July 20.
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It’s my day off, so I was home, and the ground starts rockin’ and rollin’. So I thought, ‘You know what? I’m gonna go to the bar, drink with my bros, and if this is the Big One, I’ll go down with a cold one.’

— Ed’s Pub patron Michael Gallardo after a 5.4-magnitude earthquake shook the Los Angeles area; July 30.
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He is convinced that with the help of God he will win.

— Svetozar Vujacic, a lawyer for Radovan Karadzic, who was “twice indicted for genocide for the massacre of 8,000 Bosnian Muslims in the town of Srebrenica in 1995 and for the 43-month siege of Sarajevo,” on his plans to conduct his own defense at the Hague tribunal; July 23.

Always be prepared for demonstrators, even if the local organization tells you that there will not be any. It is the responsibility of the Lead Advance to have in place an effective plan for dealing with demonstrators.

— from the Presidential Advance Manual dated October 2002 used to prepare locations for visits by President Bush; emphasis added.
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Our economy has demonstrated remarkable resilience.

— President Bush at a press conference; July 16.

We’re spending like a drunken sailor.

— Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., predicting the federal budget deficit would double this year; according to Manu Raju of The Hill newspaper, the Congressional Budget Office has estimated that, for the first nine months of fiscal 2008, the government ran up a $268 billion deficit, $148 billion more the same period last year; July 17.
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I’ll approach Obama with fearless honesty. He’s a liberal. I oppose liberals. That’s all that’s involved here.

— Rush Limbaugh on presidential candidate Barack Obama; Mr. Limbaugh has renewed his contract with Premiere Radio Networks and Clear Channel Radio, which will pay him more than $400 million; Mr. Limbaugh once referred to Sen Obama and actor Halle Berry as “Halfrican American” on the Jan. 24, 2007, broadcast of his nationally syndicated radio show; July 6.

We have sort of become a nation of whiners. You just hear this constant whining, complaining about a loss of competitiveness, America in decline.

— former senator Phil Gramm, one of presidential candidate John McCain’s top economic advisers, likening the nation’s economic problems to a “mental recession“; July 10.
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The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

— from the Declaration of Independence; July 4, 1776.

The executive branch shall construe the provisions of H.R. 3199 that call for furnishing information to entities outside the executive branch, such as sections 106A and 119, in a manner consistent with the President’s constitutional authority to supervise the unitary executive branch and to withhold information the disclosure of which could impair foreign relations, national security, the deliberative processes of the Executive, or the performance of the Executive’s constitutional duties. Full story »

I don’t have pet peeves. I have major, psychotic hatreds.

— George Carlin, who died early this week at age 71; June 23
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I know that I speak for all Americans. We’ll do everything necessary to try and rebuild their lives.

— Republican presidential candidate John McCain while inspecting flooding in Columbus Junction, Iowa, a town of 1,900 people; June 20; emphasis added.

The country stands with you. We’ll do all in our power to help you.

— President Bush, addressing residents of the Gulf Coast at the end of a Rose Garden press briefing on the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina; Aug. 31, 2005; emphasis added.
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You want a dark, Goth version of Tweety Bird? Have at it.

— Lisa Gregorian, executive vice president for worldwide marketing at Warner Brothers Television, in a story about “[a]n unusually large number of classic characters for children … being freshened up and reintroduced — on store shelves, on the Internet and on television screens — as their corporate owners try to cater to parents’ nostalgia and children’s YouTube-era sensibilities”; June 11.

Your eminence, you’re looking good.

— President Bush, addressing Pope Benedict XVI at the Vatican; June 13.
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We were just having fun making posters. There was no time to think about what we were doing. It was a furious time, but I think most great art is created in a furious moment.

— Stanley Mouse, artistic partner of Alton Kelley; the pair created hundreds of classic psychedelic rock posters and threw “the world’s first psychedelic dance-concerts at Longshoreman’s Hall in September 1965, essentially starting the San Francisco scene”; Mr. Kelley died this week at age 67; June 3.

When it comes to issues like this, [corporations] don’t want to be anywhere near them and they will cave very, very quickly — anything to stop the pain, anything to stop the press from calling.

— Eric Dezenhall, the head of the crisis public relations firm Dezenhall Resources, on Dunkin’ Donuts’ decision to remove an ad from its Web site featuring celebrity chef Rachael Ray after conservative bloggers complained her scarf resembled a keffiyeh, labeling it “jihadi chic“; May 30.
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[P]erhaps the most compelling evidence against the existence of a boys’ crisis is that men continue to outearn women in the workplace.

— from a report by the American Association of University Women, “whose 1992 report on how girls are shortchanged in the classroom caused a national debate over gender equity,” that debunks the notion of a “boys’ crisis,” saying, “Girls’ gains have not come at boys’ expense”; May 20.

I would say the president really has a choice here to show how much he values military service.

— Sen. Jim Webb, D-Va., who has led the Senate’s efforts to expand education benefits for veterans, on President Bush’s threat “to veto a bill that would pay tuition and other expenses at a four-year public university for anyone who has served in the military for at least three years since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001″; May 22.
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Hhaing The Yu, 29, in rain falling on the ruins of his home, in a township outside Yangon, Myanmar.

This is not about politics; it is about saving people’s lives. There is absolutely no more time to lose.

— United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, pressing the military junta in Myanmar to accept international assistance as hundreds of thousands of its citizens reel from the effects of a devastating cyclone earlier this month; May 14.
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If our profits are taxed, that means we’ll have less capital to invest in new production.

— John Hofmeister, president of Shell U.S., to CNNMoney.com; May 6.

These companies are spending a very small amount of their operating cash flow on exploration. They are spending the majority of their funds buying back stock.

— Amy Myers Jaffe, a fellow in energy studies at the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy, discussing results of her just-finished a two-year study looking at oil companies and how they spend their money; May 6.
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I think blogs are dedicated to cruelty, they’re dedicated to dishonesty, they’re dedicated to speed.

— Buzz Bissinger, author of “Friday Night Lights” and other bestsellers, castigating blogs on HBO’s “Costas Now”; May 1.

It’s one of the bigger Cadillacs. I’ve got a desk in it. It’s like an airplane. … I want them to feel that they are somebody and their congressman is somebody. And when they say, ‘This is nice,’ it feels good.

— Rep. Charles Rangell, chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, describing the 17-foot-long, 300-horsepower, 2004 Cadillac DeVille he leases for for $777.54 a month; House rules permit members to lease any vehicle at taxpayer expense; May 1.
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You get used to listening to that Alvin and the Chipmunks voice.

— New York state Gov. David Paterson, who is legally blind, on the special tape recorder he uses to listen to long articles or books played “at speeds so fast, it is difficult for others to comprehend”; April 21.

We shouldn’t have to give employers complete control over our private life so they can save a few dollars on medical care.

— Lewis Maltby, president of the National Workrights Institute, which advocates for employee privacy, on a report that Whirlpool Inc. “suspended 39 workers who signed insurance paperwork claiming they don’t use tobacco and then were seen smoking or chewing tobacco on company property”; April 23.
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In a garbage dump in Haiti, people scavenge for food.

They look at me and say, ‘Papa, I’m hungry,’ and I have to look away. It’s humiliating and it makes you angry.

— Saint Louis Meriska of Port-Au-Prince, Haiti, whose “children ate two spoonfuls of rice apiece as their only meal recently and then went without any food the following day”; food prices in Haiti have spiked 45 percent since 2006; April 18.
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