Kurt Eichenwald Quotes

#1. The doctor gave me several warnings: Never tell anyone unless necessary, because I might be ostracized. Call it 'seizure disorder,' not epilepsy, because fewer people would be frightened. Try to choose a profession as free from stress as possible.

Kurt Eichenwald

#2. All anti-abortion protesters should be presented, on the spot, with an application to sign up as foster parents. They should also be given the names of children in their area in need of adoptive parents. And if they won't sign or volunteer, they should shut up.

Kurt Eichenwald

#3. Fastow had found someone trusting and pliable.
Fastow wanted a pupet, Bowen concluded, and he already controlled Ben Glisan's strings.
p.338

Kurt Eichenwald

#4. Plenty of people detested Michael Jackson before his death wiped away the world's collective memory. Timberlake was originally dismissed as just another boy-bander. Legions have joined in a 'Hate Anne Hathaway' movement. Elvis, the Rolling Stones, Kristen Bell, even Mozart had haters.

Kurt Eichenwald

#5. Enron would keep its unearned windfall, generated solely because David Duncan didn't know what he was doing.

Kurt Eichenwald

#6. By the dawn of the millennium, the hallways at Microsoft were no longer home to barefoot programmers in Hawaiian shirts working through nights and weekends toward a common goal of excellence; instead, life behind the thick corporate walls had become staid and brutish.

Kurt Eichenwald

#7. Bitcoins are not an investment. They are an investment fad that someday could be a real digital currency, but if they continue to behave as they have, they will instead be nothing.

Kurt Eichenwald

#8. Whenever someone says zygotes are babies, I reply: 'Imagine a thousand zygotes in test tubes in one room, and three toddlers in another. A fire breaks out, and you only have time to get to one room. Which would you save from burning - the zygotes or the children?'

Kurt Eichenwald

#9. Bitcoins can be traded or used for purchases, but only with those sellers who will accept them. Because it is a system independent of external meddling, there can be no sudden devaluation of Bitcoins through the actions of governments.

Kurt Eichenwald

#10. Like most people, I gave little thought during my life to the scourge of child pornography. But, I now know we are fighting a losing battle. The predators are sophisticated in the use of computers and talented in the manipulation of children.

Kurt Eichenwald

#11. The argument by the anti-gay-marriage crowd is so absurd, so internally contradictory, and so awash in unproven assertions that it is difficult to take it as anything more than a construct cobbled together by people who just don't like those people.

Kurt Eichenwald

#12. Basically, whenever someone says they're wrong, conservatives too often fall back on claims that those who disagree with them are biased and thus worthy of being ignored, a convenient position that allows them to avoid debating uncomfortable criticisms.

Kurt Eichenwald

#13. I have always trusted my impulses. I have always believed that once I'm in the circumstances, whatever they may be, I will find the right way.

Kurt Eichenwald

#14. People don't have a constitutional right to leave loaded guns lying around. And if they choose to do so - and a kid gets shot and killed because of it - it's not an accident. It's negligent homicide.

Kurt Eichenwald

#15. When the Bill of Rights was written, no one owned a MAG5100, 100-round magazine for an M-16. The concept of a mass slaughter carried out over a matter of minutes was incomprehensible.

Kurt Eichenwald

#16. I've often thought that Obama should come out in favor of oxygen, just to see how many right-wingers keel over from holding their breath for too long.

Kurt Eichenwald

#17. In a market, preceptions could be as important as reality.
p.403

Kurt Eichenwald

#18. As late as 2007, Facebook was still trying to figure out what it wanted to be when it grew up. An advertising space seemed to be the obvious answer, but how that would tap into the massive value of the personal data uploaded to the company every day remained a puzzle.

Kurt Eichenwald

#19. When it came to dire warnings about Obamacare, the Republicans were the kings of 'swing and a miss.' People would flee the health care industry to avoid Obamacare? Nope - according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, health care gained about 1 million new jobs in preparation for increased demand.

Kurt Eichenwald

#20. I think it's wrong for the government to subpoena records from journalists involved in national-security reporting (particularly since I do it myself). I do believe it has a chilling effect on the ability to gather news about potential abuses masked by inappropriate classification.

Kurt Eichenwald

#21. To a degree, the West is reaping what it sowed from a major strategic blunder in the aftermath of 9/11 - the entire concept of a war on technique, that is, terrorism. Defining the enemy when fighting a concept was impossible.

Kurt Eichenwald

#22. If Republicans truly are dedicated to the sanctity of life, they should be the first ones on the front lines trying to get policies for the uninsured.

Kurt Eichenwald

#23. Social media is not only the most important tool for inciting terrorists, it can also be an effective weapon against them.

Kurt Eichenwald

#24. Assess Bitcoins? All you can do is examine the trading patterns, which do not provide a real analysis of any underlying economic value. The economics of investments are not solely based on supply and demand, and that is all that goes into Bitcoin prices.

Kurt Eichenwald

#25. Plenty of gun opponents have pointed out the obvious: that the Founding Fathers could never have envisioned the kinds of 'arms' that exist today - Washington, Jefferson, and the rest had never even seen a bullet. Musket balls for guns that required constant reloading were the 'arms' of the day.

Kurt Eichenwald

#26. When it comes to the teapot tempest that is the Hillary Clinton email imbroglio, the real controversy isn't about politics or regulations. It's about journalism and the weak standards employed to manufacture the scandal du jour.

Kurt Eichenwald

#27. The bottom-line message of history is that if you're doubling and tripling your money in record time, you're also more likely to lose it all.

Kurt Eichenwald

#28. According to the Epilepsy Foundation of America, there are more than two million Americans with epilepsy. Half have what I have, idiopathic epilepsy, meaning there is no known cause for the seizures.

Kurt Eichenwald

#29. If a doctor said you had stomach cancer, would you consult Rush Limbaugh for a second opinion? Of course, that sounds like nonsense, but many Americans have no qualms about listening to political commentators and untrained activists when it comes to even more complex scientific questions.

Kurt Eichenwald

#30. When 'Christians' cite the Bible as the basis for secular policies, they must explain why they believe Muslims in the Middle East are evil for doing the same with the Koran.

Kurt Eichenwald

#31. There have been times that I have found myself in places, and I don't know how I got there, and I don't actually know where I am.

Kurt Eichenwald

#32. At any time of day, hundreds of different versions of Facebook are running on the Internet - with a changed color here, a moved button there - and the user response to each variation is measured. And the same is done with advertising.

Kurt Eichenwald

#33. A war on Al-Qaeda could have been won with a decisive military strike in Tora Bora during December 2001, but American fighters at Tora Bora were refused requests for more forces when they trapped Al-Qaeda there; the Pentagon was busy husbanding resources for the Iraqi invasion.

Kurt Eichenwald

#34. Uninsured people don't just slink off into a corner and die. They seek treatment, but usually when it is an emergency, and this will be the most expensive kind of care available.

Kurt Eichenwald

#35. Until his dying days, Steve Jobs could not only predict the direction the marketplace would be heading, but help drive it there.

Kurt Eichenwald

#36. By the time I arrived for my freshman year at Swarthmore College in 1979, I had already had many seizures, although my family, friends and I did not know it.

Kurt Eichenwald

#37. It is the ultimate conceit of conservatives: that more than half of American voters don't make up more than half of our country.

Kurt Eichenwald

#38. I've long thought that Marco Rubio would make a strong G.O.P. candidate for president. While he was brought into office by surfing on the Tea Party wave, he has proven himself not to be wedded to the frequent lunacy of those folks.

Kurt Eichenwald

#39. Enron was becoming a virtual cult of creativity, often placing swagger over substance. New ideas were celebrated for their newness, for their potential; tried and true businesses like the pipelines were almost derided.

Kurt Eichenwald

#40. Obamacare is socialism? Nope - as insurance companies vie to sell new policies, competition within private industry is growing rapidly, with the number of participating insurers growing by 26 percent between 2014 and 2015, and the number of products they offer growing by 66 percent.

Kurt Eichenwald

#41. There were plenty of reasons to suspect Obamacare might have been a colossal failure - although none of them had to do with death panels, huge lines for treatment, a government takeover of health care, etc.

Kurt Eichenwald

#42. I am an Obamacare agnostic - if it works, as I hope it will for the good of the nation, then it's a great thing. If it doesn't, then that is a disappointing thing, and we need to try something else.

Kurt Eichenwald

#43. There isn't a lot of honesty when it comes to discussing Obamacare. Too many Republicans lie about the implications of the health-insurance program and dismiss out of hand the reasons a massive overhaul of the long-time system is necessary.

Kurt Eichenwald