Quotes and Links

A week in review

Activist poet Amanda Gorman at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, Illinois, on Aug. 21. | Axios

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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• “CNN VISITS BLACK-OWNED STORE SELLING MAGA MERCHANDISE” — CNN chyron

• “We have Oprah, they have the My Pillow Guy. Vote accordingly.” — Rep. Malcolm Kenyatta (D-PA)

• “Kamala Harris, who has been vice president for three and a half years is somehow gonna tackle the inflation crisis in a way tomorrow that she hasn’t for the past 1300 days. Giving Kamala Harris control over inflation policy is like giving Jeffrey Epstein control over human trafficking policy.” — J.D. Vance

• “The threat that masking mandates may one day make a comeback still looms, if only because rank-and-file Democrats still express their support for superfluous and theatrical measures anytime an element of uncertainty is introduced into the national discourse.” — National Review’s Noah Rothman

• “If things don’t go our way, we don’t have the luxury of whining or cheating others to get further ahead. No. We don’t get to change the rules so we always win.” — Michelle Obama, speaking at the Democratic National Convention on Tuesday night

• “Obama talks about ‘reducing conflict’ and living in a time of ‘confusion and rancor’ yet the entire core of the New Left is predicated on toxic intersectionality that creates the conflict, bitterness, rancor, divisiveness, and confusion. No self reflection at all.” — Psychopathologist J.D. Haltigan

• “Kamala and I are committed to strengthening illegal immigration, including protecting dreamers and more.” — Joe Biden, during his very late speech at the DNC on Monday night

• “What’s really been fascinating is to watch the men of the Democratic Party model a kind of masculinity that is certainly 21st-century masculinity.” — MSNBC’s Joy Reid

• “They are doing so in trying to put forward male figures, Tim Walz being one of them, Doug Emhoff last night, who can speak to men out there who might not be the sort of testosterone-laden, you know, gun-toting kind of guy who wants to listen to Hulk Hogan and the kind of players that came out at the RNC.” — CNN’s Dana Bash

• “The Democratic Party emasculates black men.” — Progressive activist Nina Turner, on why Donald Trump commands such high support among black men

• “The Walz-Vance contrast is just so devastating for Vance. Tim Walz is who JD Vance pretends to be.” — Dan Pfeiffer, co-host of the Pod Save America podcast

• “If you want to have a sex change or social justice seminar, then you can do it somewhere else, but you’re not going to do it in the Army, Navy, Coast Guard, Air Force, Space Force, or the United States Marines.” — Donald Trump, at campaign rally in Asheboro, N.C. on Wednesday

• “The ground-breaking normalcy of Doug Emhoff” — Washington Post headline

• “If anyone would like to set me up on a blind date with the 33-45 year old NYC-based equivalent of Doug Emhoff, my DMs are open.” — New York magazine’s Sophie Vershbow

• “We gather at this hollowed place because we believe in the American dream. We face a race that tests if this country we cherish shall perish from the earth and if our earth shall perish from this country.” — Much acclaimed activist poet Amanda Gorman, speaking at the DNC

• “The more details you share, the more your policies are going to get picked apart. But [Kamala’s] saying, I trust the American people, I trust the journalists, to explain these policies and our values to folks. And I think when that happens, it will be successful for Democrats.” — DNC delegate Kaivan Shroff, in an interview with ABC News

• “Kamala Harris has been tough as nails when it comes to securing our border.” — Dem. Senator Chris Murphy

• “Right now, before the crisis, is when we get to choose. Why wouldn’t we choose the leader who’s tough, tested, and a total badass?” — Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer

• “All you need to know about corporate media incentives to justify ignoring it completely. It no longer pays any real penalties for getting things wrong. But it faces very serious penalties for political and in-group disloyalty.” — Walter Kirn

• “I don’t believe it because I’ve never heard Trump say anything truthful.” — U.S. Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo, regarding the news that the U.S. economy added 818,000 fewer jobs than initially reported, which is the largest downward employment revision made by the Bureau of Labor Statistics in 15 years. When ABC News correspondent Kayna Whitworth tried to explain that the information came directly from the Bureau of Labor, Raimondo said “I’m not familiar with that.”

• “Why Kamala Harris’ New Politics of Joy Is the Best Way to Fight Fascism” — Rolling Stone headline

• “Child sex changes. Male inmates in women’s prisons. Abortion to the moment of birth. Permanent unlimited demographic turnover. These positions required of every Democrat running for public office. Whatever you think about all their other positions, how are these not deal breakers?” — Podcaster Darryl Cooper

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• “Ukraine Defies the U.S. to Launch a Showy Offensive Into Russia,” from Tablet.

• An ESPN story about how Nike lost NBA phenom Stephen Curry to Under Armour.

• A Harper’s piece on “the dubious rise of the private-security industry.”

• A Washington Post story about “The remarkable brain of a carpet cleaner who speaks 24 languages.”

• Vanity Fair: “Cracking the Case of London’s Elusive, Acrobatic Rare-Book Thieves”

• “In Cold Blood,” an old New Yorker story by Truman Capote that led to his book with the same title.

• Wired: “The Untold Story of the World's Biggest Diamond Heist”