Sarah Palin Quits Again, This Time Before She Started, Barry Ritholtz on a Double Dip Recession, Noted Civil Rights Leader Dies, Why Thomas Friedman of the NYT is Out of It . . .

And Other Newsworthy Quotes in the News that are Worthy of Commentary

“As always, my family comes first and obviously Todd and I put great consideration into family life before making this decision.  .  .When we serve, we devote ourselves to God, family and country. My decision maintains this order.”

---Sarah Palin on why she is not running for President.  Notice the near total lack of support for Ms. Palin by Republicans is not mentioned.  Also, one strongly suspects that the Deity told Ms. Palin not to run.  It is, after all, considered to be a Benevolent Deity.

Hopefully this means American Media's long national love affair with Ms. Palin is now over, and that the press can maybe focus on meaningful issues. 

“I find the relentless double dip drumbeat to be wrong, only in that the next recession is far enough away from the prior one as to be considered its own, stand alone contraction.”

--- Barry Ritholtz on the current economic condition on his Forum, The Big Picture.  Somehow this doesn’t provide a lot of comfort.

The invisible bond vigilantes continue to lure us into their invisible trap.

--- Paul Krugman’s observation that Conservatives who denounced expansionary policy don’t have an invisible leg to stand on.  Real world data, of course, has never swayed a single Conservative to change their mind on anything.

it's never easy to win if you're one of the most unpopular Senators in the country

--- Public Policy Polling on its recent poll showing Neb. Sen. Ben Nelson (D) behind in his race for re-election.  Yep, that “unpopular” thing will hurt in almost any election.

Texas Congressman Ron Paul raised $8 million in the third quarter with 100,000 donors, his campaign confirms to NBC News

--- NBC News. Anybody wondering what Mr. Paul is doing with the money?

When in 1957 he tried to enroll his children in an all-white school, Klansmen attacked him with bicycle chains and brass knuckles.

--- The New York Times in an article on the death of civil rights leader Fred Shuttlesworth.  A polls show that almost everyone under the age of 30 thinks those type of events happened on Mars and not in the United States.

“Farmers have to bear almost all the labor market risk because they must prove no one really was available, qualified or willing to work but the only way to offer proof is to literally have a field left unharvested.”

---Dawn D. Thilmany, a professor of agricultural economics at Colorado State University speaking about a program that allows temporary workers into the U. S. to pick farm products.  Maybe Mitt Romney will make all those children of illegal immigrants who were brought here when they were very young go pick farm products before he deports them.

Had Christie — a moderate on gun control, climate change and immigration who has also backed Simpson-Bowles — run and won significant support, he would have forced Obama back to the center.

---Thomas Friedman in the New York Times.  The idea that Mr. Christies would have won significant Republican support if he had entered the Presidential race shows just how far this once great columnist has fallen.  The idea that Mr. Obama is not in the center shows just how far this once great columnist has to go to recover.

The Obama administration’s Department of Energy was poised last summer to give Solyndra a second major taxpayer loan of $469 million, even as the company’s financial situation was growing more dire.

---Washington Post.  One has to assume that only the incompetency of the bureaucracy prevented the loan from going through, and that some officials probably wanted to let it go through anyway.

Money will, after all, only get you so far in politics.

---Chris Cillizza, the great Washington Post political observer commenting on the fact that Texas Gov. Rick Perry raised $17 million for his campaign.  Mr. Cillizza is right, those irksome voters often get in the way of political money, something Conservatives hope to change with unlimited campaign spending.