It's too little and too late to overcome the bursting housing bubble—Research has estimated that the next recession could increase unemployment by 3.2 million to 5.8 million people, and poverty by 4.7 million to 10.4 million, with at least 4.2 million also losing health insurance. . . . Hard times ahead highlight the need for structural changes such as universal health care and labor law reform. These and a bigger, "green" fiscal stimulus that would reduce carbon emissions should be pushed to the top of the political agenda.—Charlotte Observer

Hallmark of a totalitarian state—Before they seize power and establish a world according to their doctrines, totalitarian movements conjure up a lying world of consistency which is more adequate to the needs of the human mind than reality itself; in which, through sheer imagination, uprooted masses can feel at home and are spared the never-ending shocks which real life and real experiences deal to human beings and their expectations. The force possessed by totalitarian propaganda—before the movements have the power to drop iron curtains to prevent anyone's disturbing, by the slightest reality, the gruesome quiet of an entirely imaginary world—lies in its ability to shut the masses off from the real world—Hannah Arendt