Quotes and Links

A week in review.

President Joe Biden delivers remarks to service members, first responders, and their families on the 22nd anniversary of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Anchorage, Alaska, on September 11. | CNN

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• “And that’s what I f*cking teach in the classroom, I always say to give [love] to your friends, not your mom. Because f*ck your mom.” — DeDe Duffy, a preschool teacher in Cape Coral, Florida.

• “Obviously, Canada will always defend freedom of expression, freedom of conscience, freedom of peaceful protest.” — Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who forcibly shut down truckers peacefully protesting against his covid mandates and seized protestors’ bank accounts.

• “You’ve got [Republicans] talking about these people that killed cops [on 1/6], calling them — again, if you don’t think so, ask the family, okay? Ask the family, who killed the cops?” — MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough. No cops were killed on 1/6, but three years later they’re still saying otherwise.

• “I do not see how you can teach our students to be ethical researchers or how the results of future research projects conducted by you could be deemed as trustworthy.” — Florida State University Provost James Clark, in a letter to criminology professor Eric Stewart. Stewart, who is widely regarded as the academic most responsible for the narrative that “systemic racism” infests U.S. police departments, was fired for incompetence and falsifying data throughout his career.

• “You have blood on your hands and I hope you rot in hell.” — Harvard Law School professor Alejandra Caraballo to Jamie Reed, a whistleblower who worked as a case manager for the Washington University Transgender Center at St. Louis Children’s Hospital. It was announced this week that Washington University physicians will no longer prescribe puberty blockers or cross-sex hormones to minors for gender transition.

• “My advice to the president: Ask for the resignation of Alejandro Mayorkas, his failed homeland security secretary. Put a highly respected former military officer, like retired Adm. William McRaven, in the job. Call up 10,000 active duty troops to help police the border. Work with Mexico to further strengthen its border with Guatemala. And invest infrastructure funds to build that damned wall. Because if Biden doesn’t get control of the border, it will become Donald Trump’s signature — and possibly winning — issue in next year’s campaign.” — Bret Stephens of the New York Times.

• “Never forget! Ground Zero in New York. I remember standing there the next day.” — Biden to service members gathered in Anchorage, Alaska for a ceremony commemorating the 22nd anniversary of 9/11. Biden was in D.C. on September 12, 2001, not in New York. Neither the Washington Post nor the New York Times mentioned this comment in their coverage.

• “We’ve seen little to indicate that Biden is suffering any real cognitive decline.” — MSNBC.

• “The real President is whoever controls the teleprompter.” — Elon Musk.

• “We don’t always have somebody on scene to make sure that we’re getting it right. I think this is a way to make sure that the department doesn’t get it wrong.” — Sergeant Guadalupe Velasquez, the Milwaukee Police Department’s “LGBTQ+ liaison.” The department will no longer state victims’ genders in order to “avoid misgendering.”

• “Professions of fealty to D.E.I. ideology are so ubiquitous as to be meaningless. We are institutionalizing a performative dishonesty.” — Daniel Sargent, a professor of history and public policy at University of California, Berkeley.

• “Hard Reality: For our Democracy to survive, two things have to happen. Donald Trump needs to be Convicted for Jan. 6th and there can be no Third Party Candidate.” — Filmmaker and Democratic activist Rob Reiner.

• “It’s also important to consider there is a cost to returning to pandemic-era restrictions as well. For many people who don’t want to bear that cost, I think it’s also reasonable for them to say, ‘Look we’ve pretty successfully decoupled infections from severe illness for the majority of people, so we’re going to move on with our lives.” — Rather remarkably, CNN health expert Leana Wen.

• “This is what you do to keep a major constituent and donor group in your tent? You sacrifice a generation of kids?” — The Wall Street Journal’s Peggy Noonan. In Franklin Foer’s new book The Last Politician, it was revealed that the Biden administration trimmed its goal of returning kids to school during the pandemic to a fraction of what had been promised on the campaign trail in order to avoid conflict with Randi Weingarten and the American Federation of Teachers.

• “No constitutional right, in my view, is intended to be absolute.” — New Mexico Gov. Michelle Grisham, who issued an emergency public health order to impose a 30-day ban on the open and concealed carrying of guns in Albuquerque and Bernalillo County after a spate of shootings. Remember when people warned that excess powers used during the pandemic would extend into other areas of public policy?

• “I will vote for the first presidential candidate who promises a federal ban on cyclists.” — Matt Walsh. I will campaign for the first presidential candidate who promises to ban babies from airplanes.

• “A free society is anti-fragile with respect to speech. It doesn’t need to censor. False beliefs are self-correcting as the insightful outcompete the confused. Censorship and coercion are authoritarian partners. If censorship is required, it is to prevent freedom, not protect it.” — Bret Weinstein.

• “If anyone would like to send my family members $20 million from shell companies, I promise to not personally receive any of it.” — Former U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Interior Jeremy Carl.

• “Pew Research finds that 5.1 percent of adults under 30 now claim to be trans or nonbinary. In reality, though, a staggering 99.4 percent of the population lacks the physical traits that cause someone to become transgender, according to UCLA’s Williams Institute, an LGBTQ advocacy group.” — City Journal’s Larry Sand.

• “Curtailing aid to Ukraine from the allies will only prolong the war, and this will create risks for the West in its own backyard. It is impossible to predict how millions of Ukrainian refugees in European countries will react to the fact that their country was abandoned. Ukrainians generally ‘behaved well’ and are ‘very grateful’ to those who sheltered them. But it will not be a ‘good story’ for Europe if it ‘pushes these people into a corner.’” — Volodymyr Zelensky, in an interview with The Economist. That’s a pretty blatant threat.

• “Don’t rely on the fact that you had a vaccine in the past. It will not help you this time around.” — New York Governor Kathy Hochul.

• “He thinks so, and that’s what matters.” — Nancy Pelosi, when asked by CNN’s Anderson Cooper if Kamala Harris is the best running mate for Biden. Cooper asked the question a second time, and Pelosi dodged it again.

• “I don’t know whether President Biden has named his running mate.” — Democratic representative Jamie Raskin, when asked by CNN’s Jake Tapper if Kamala Harris is the best running mate for Biden. When prompted by Tapper that Raskin “could say yes,” Raskin replied “I’ve not seen any public opinion polling.”

• “J.F.K. Assassination Witness Breaks His Silence and Raises New Questions,” from the New York Times.

• An investigation from the Telegraph found that “literary agencies are choosing people of color, disabled or LGBTQ+ writers whilst others are becoming ostracized.”

• A piece from ESPN on the NBA’s secret addiction to PB&J.

• “Worst Roommate Ever,” from the Intelligencer.

• Martin Gurri on “The World Before the Thaw” and the era of pseudo-ideology.

• From Aeon: “The bad news on human nature, in 10 findings from psychology.”

• “You’re Not Imagining It: Social Media Is in Chaos,” from the New York Times.