Quotes and Links

A week in review

Late-night host Jimmy Fallon joked about CNN on Thursday while discussing the upcoming debate between President Biden and former President Donald Trump. | Fox News

Note for new subscribers: On Fridays I send out a post with a list of various notable quotes from the past week, along with links to some of the best reading material I’ve come across. You can opt out of these posts by simply clicking on the top right and going to “manage subscription.”

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• “There is reason to believe that progressives would be better equipped to resist the present crackdown on pro-Palestinian advocacy had social justice activists not previously popularized an expansive conception of harmful speech.” — Vox’s Eric Levitz

• “Really entertaining watching sites like Vox suddenly discover the Kafkaesque university disciplinary processes that sane people have been criticizing for 10 years because they were finally wielded against a left-wing constituency.” — Swann Marcus

• “The Constitutional right to free speech is the protection against government interference restricting speech.” — The New York Times Editorial Board, which has never said a word about the Biden administration’s censorship leviathan.

• “Joe Biden protects free speech.” — Rep. James Clyburn (D-SC), during an interview with CNN.

• “It was almost explicit that the coverage at the Times had to help Joe Biden’s election. More than explicit lies about what was happening in 2020, how the mainstream media controlled the narrative was by not covering it. All of us collectively agreed to ignore it.” — Nellie Bowles, a former columnist at The New York Times.

• “I am so tired of white men failing up.” — Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-MA)

• “Integrating the gender perspective into strategic plans and operations can be used to better understand hybrid threats, especially those that target civilian environments where adversaries may employ multifaceted strategies including disinformation, terrorism, and cyber violence, as well as economic and military tools.” — Rear Admiral Pete Garvin (Naval War College president), during a conference titled “Advancing Gendered Security in a Complex World” at the “Women, Peace, and Security” symposium.

• “In the U.S. what I call a legal genocide is happening, where we’re being denied health care. Young trans folk and nonbinary folk are being murdered because of the rhetoric being put out. How can we not show up for Palestine when we understand intimately what it’s like to go through what Palestinians are going through — being dehumanized and erased?” — Mama Ganuush, a transgender drag artist and pro-Palestine activist.

• “But they don’t have freedom in Texas and Florida. Does that mean we should carpet bomb Texas?” — The Washington Post’s Taylor Lorenz, in response to Don Lemon saying that members of the LGBTQ community would not have freedom in Gaza.

• “My editor retiring this month has fucked me up worse than any breakup I’ve ever had. I throw up thinking about it and start crying. I literally don’t think I can work or exist without him idk what to do.” — Also Taylor Lorenz

• “Instead of trash-talking rats, Mayor [Eric] Adams should focus on clearing New York’s streets of the massive heaps of garbage attracting them in the first place.” — PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman, who called out the mayor for “villainizing rats.”

• “One of Biden’s debate conditions was not having an audience. So that explains why it’s on CNN.” — Jimmy Fallon

• “Y’all talk noise and then you can’t take it. Cuz if I come and talk shit about her, ya’ll gon’ have a problem.” — Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-MO), during a House Oversight Committee hearing on Thursday.

• “Would a group trying to save black lives have seized on a statistically tiny number of police killings as justification to rid black neighborhoods of police? That’s what Black Lives Matter did. And by the time the cops were hobbled, and violent crime spiked precisely where police were most needed, the movement’s leaders were using corporate donations to buy safe suburban palaces. BLM was an attack on law enforcement, because law enforcement maintains the good working order of the United States. Undermine that and you’re left with chaos, which is the objective.” — Commentary’s Abe Greenwald

• “I doubt the New York indictment would have been brought against a defendant whose name was not Donald Trump.” — CNN’s Fareed Zakaria

• “We’ve given [answers] to them, but they’re blocked by some of their views on guns. They have the three Gs: guns, gays, God.” — Nancy Pelosi, on the “poor souls” in the populist movement “who are looking for some answers.” Pelosi made the comment during a recent Oxford Union debate.

• “In 2021, MIT hired six high-level DEI officials. Two of them now appear to be serial plagiarists. One official, Tracie Jones-Barrett, copied an entire section on ‘ethical considerations’ from a classmate in her Ph.D program. Her dissertation’s title? ‘Cite A Sista.’” — Washington Free Beacon’s Aaron Sibarium

• “The Deep State is packed with patriots.” — ABC’s George Stephanopoulos, during a recent appearance on The View.

• “This is a country where ESPN airs competitive hot dog eating every July 4th. Any restaurant that pitches ‘all you can eat’ as a moneymaking strategy deserves to get smoked.” — Washington Free Beacon editor Peter Hasson, in reference to Red Lobster going bankrupt because people took “all you can eat shrimp” too literally.

• “Removing someone’s mask while COVID is still a real thing is beyond comprehension to me. This is so vile. The powers that be are more hostile towards students than they were to insurrectionists who tried to overthrow the damn government.” — Nashville councilwoman Delishia Porterfield, in reference to a clip showing police removing the mask of a protestor.

• “Late last year, several 𝕏 employees were threatened by a guy with a machete outside the Walgreens on Market St in SF. They didn’t report it, because that doesn’t constitute an arrestable crime in California. That guy later killed 3 people.” — Elon Musk

• “We write equity into the laws. We write equity and inclusion into the work we do each and every day.” — Gavin Newsom, during remarks made at the Vatican Climate Summit.

• “Trump Assures Jury Stormy Daniels Was Way Hotter Back Then” — Babylon Bee headline

• A Wired story about “The Explosive Legacy of the Pandemic Hand Sanitizer Boom.”

• The New Yorker: “A British Nurse Was Found Guilty of Killing Seven Babies. Did She Do It?”

• “Spiraling in San Francisco’s Doom Loop,” from Curbed.

• A City Journal piece about how “Inclusive scholarship” is the latest justification for failed diversity efforts.

• “The real Lord of the Flies: what happened when six boys were shipwrecked for 15 months,” from The Guardian.

• The Wall Street Journal: “Suddenly There Aren’t Enough Babies. The Whole World Is Alarmed.”

• “The truth about Covid’s origins is finally coming out,” from Spiked.

• A Reason piece on how “Congress is Preparing to Restore Quotas in College Admissions” through a “very quiet part of the bipartisan ‘privacy’ bill.”