Quotes and Links
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.”
“It just seems to me that since she is in an interracial marriage, she should have known that to support a racist is problematic. Her children are biracial, and her family is one of the families in the ’70s who could not have lived in any of Donald Trump’s buildings. It just seems to me that she’s just not that politically savvy, or maybe she’s just not read in.” — The View’s Sunny Hostin, regarding Brittany Mahomes, who’s still being condemned for liking a “MAGA-sympathetic” post on social media
“Kamala Safe And In Stable Condition After Attempted Interview” — Babylon Bee headline
“I was told I could not release any information on this increase in SIAs [Significant Interest Aliens] or mention any of the arrests. The administration was trying to convince the public there was no threat at the border.” — Former Customs and Border Protection Chief Patrol Agent Aaron Heitke, testifying at a House Homeland Security Committee hearing on the Biden administration’s border policies. Heitke said that the Department of Homeland Security ordered Border Patrol agents to conceal rising numbers of illegal immigrants with “significant ties to terrorism.”
“We had an open primary and [Kamala Harris] won it. Nobody else got in the race, because she was politically astute.” — Nancy Pelosi, in an interview with Semafor
“She is the hope and change and youthful energy in this race. To me, the images are more important than anything she’s saying right now. When she keeps filling these rallies, that’s probably more important than what she says out loud at the rallies.” — CNN’s Brian Stelter
“Right now I feel like MAGA in general, they are threats to us domestically.” — Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-TX), speaking on MSNBC
“I wanna live in an America where the press has more access to the Democrat nominee than the assassins do to the Republican Nominee.” — Fox News’ Jimmy Failla
“Campaigning for wife Kamala Harris, Doug Emhoff embodies (and redefines) masculinity” — USA Today headline
“I would like to also enter into the record a screenshot of a text message I received from the esteemed professor from Vanderbilt, Michael Eric Dyson. After my CNN interview, [he] begged me for photos. In this text, he says, after calling me a racist on CNN, ‘Shh, don’t tell anybody we look good together,’ and sent me a kissy emoji. Then the guy says I’m gorgeous in all these photos. I don’t think he’s that bent out of shape on how anyone pronounces Kamala.” — Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC), during a House Oversight Hearing on Thursday
“‘It’s almost shameful to want to have children’” — Los Angeles Times headline
“To think that the other side in this campaign wants people to be afraid and filled with anger and hatred, and trying to hurt other people, is so terrible and so un-American, and now we have with, you know, Kamala Harris and Tim Walz, two happy warriors, two people who will fight for us." — Hillary Clinton, in an interview with MSNBC
“You’re a racist disgrace and I hope your mixed-race kids, the grandchildren of brown immigrants from the ‘third world,’ grow up and disown you.” — Mehdi Hasan, in a now deleted tweet directed at J.D. Vance
“Not only is [Kamala Harris] positive, does she bring hope and optimism, but as a black woman, the product of a mixed marriage, she will inspire millions of people throughout the world. Our credibility as a nation, you know, that we would be able to allow, our country is so great that we’re allowed a woman like that to become the Commander-in-Chief, the President of the United States, that is going to send a powerful message all over the world. People like Vladimir Putin are going to say, hey, wait a minute, these guys, you know, they truly have democratic country. They truly are representative. They truly are fighting for all their people. And Kamala Harris is a manifestation of that.” — Retired U.S. Army brigadier general Steven Anderson, during an interview on MSNBC
“I don’t hate Trump. I hate the people who vote for him. I think they are stupid. I do. I have no respect for them.” — Howard Stern
“Right after I endorsed President Trump, I received a letter from the National Marine Fisheries Institute saying they were investigating me for collecting a whale specimen 20 years ago.” — RFK Jr., at a Trump campaign event
“One thing I wouldn’t be willing to say is that the New York Times is a respectable paper.” — J.D. Vance, when asked by a NYT reporter “What’s something you’re willing not to say to make a point?”
“We don’t know that no one has tried to kill Kamala Harris in the last couple of months.” — The Washington Post’s Leigh Ann Caldwell, during an appearance on CNN
“Bluesky seems like a DARPA experiment that sought to see what might happen if you created an extremely concentrated form of midwittery and went horribly wrong.” — Nate Silver
“Trump gets blamed for every paragraph in a 900-page Heritage book he has never even read but Kamala Harris cannot be expected to defend anything she has ever said or done.” — Committee to Unleash Prosperity president Phil Kerpen
“If somebody breaks into my house, they’re getting shot. Probably should not have said that.” — Kamala Harris, speaking to Oprah Winfrey at a Thursday night campaign event, vindicating Kyle Rittenhouse by endorsing stand your ground laws
If you need to get past a paywall, use Archive Today or 12ft.io.
An Aeon piece on why it’s as hard to escape an echo chamber as it is to flee a cult.
Outside: “Why Does Yellowstone National Park Turn Us All into Maniacs?”
“The underground railroad for Russian deserters,” from UnHerd.
A Current Affairs piece on why The Atlantic is the worst magazine in America.
“The $3 Billion Family Art Feud,” from The Wall Street Journal.
A Rolling Stone story about “How a high school jock from Texas rose to the top of one of Mexico’s most powerful and ruthless cartels.”
New York Times Magazine: “The Man Who Cracked the Lottery”
Does Howard Stern now believe he holds a podium at some intellectually high university & that all the people who listened & laughed at his radio shows are no longer acceptable except to be scraped off the bottom of his shoes? Does he hope that the people he used to malign will now enshrine his words because he has cast his former listeners into the pit of deplorables? I remember that he interviewed Trump on one of his radio shows & they laughed together. Et tu Brutus.
Gold medal for awful -- that fawning USA Today article on Emhoff, which boldly quotes Democratic campaign workers/consultants and supporters about how wonderful he is; frames him glowingly throughout to signal support, not neutral reporting; was apparently written to express the reporter's value system, and filters them through Emhoff for credibility while advancing the Harris campaign; and cringely tells readers that men can still like sports and support their wives, while presenting Emhoff as a "guy's guy."
Silver medal -- The Pelosi quote, but also the question that led to it. Semafor's Kadia Goba tees up an answer for Pelosi about the lack of an open primary: "Did you change your mind because you saw all the excitement around Kamala Harris?" Earlier in the interview, around the 39-minute mark, Goba asks this winner: "Why is California producing such dynamic political people?" Is there any wonder why our media deserves our scorn and passionate disdain?
Bronze medal -- That absurd, tortured question by the NYT reporter to J.D. Vance: "What's something you're willing not to say to make a point?" I had to read that a couple of times to understand it; kudos to Vance for being to HEAR it and make sense of it and its editorializing.