Quotes and Links

A week in review.

Vice President Kamala Harris gives an interview with 60 Minutes on CBS, Sunday, October 29, 2023.

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• “Joe Biden is very much alive and running for re-election.” — Kamala Harris.

• “So I am clear that one of the greatest threats to democracy is mis- and dis-information.” — Also Kamala Harris.

• “In the woke mindset—a binary of powerful vs. powerless with race superimposed onto it—the Jew is oppressor, never oppressed. Evidence of Jewish victimization at the hands of ‘people of color’ must be torn off lampposts or denied in leftist media, lest the woke binary be upended.” — Newsweek opinion editor Batya Ungar-Sargon.

• “MAGA and Christian nationalism: Bigger threat to America than Hamas could ever be.” — Headline from Salon.

• “It is impossible to overstate the degree to which the committed liberal derives his personal pleasure from the idea that he is supporting something that embarrasses the caricature of his enemies he makes up in his head.” — Ulrich Kessler.

• “But also if you shoot with an AR-15, let’s say you shoot a deer, you can’t eat it because you’ve basically demolished the animal.” — The View’s Joy Behar.

• “The reality is that the terrorism threat has been elevated throughout 2023, but the ongoing war in the Middle East has raised the threat of an attack against Americans in the United States to a whole ‘nother level.” — FBI Director Christopher Wray. More than 160 migrants on the terror watchlist have been apprehended at the border this year; and Border Patrol is clocking 1,000 known “gotaways” a day.

• “People are stealing like there’s no tomorrow.” — A top presidential advisor to Volodymyr Zelensky, as quoted in a Time magazine story. The advisor said that corruption within Zelensky’s cabinet is widespread.

• “This column has been edited to remove unsubstantiated claims that Hamas raped women and beheaded men.” — Yale’s student newspaper. I watched a video of a Thai worker being decapitated with a gardening hoe. So, there’s that.

• “A year after Elon Musk bought Twitter, X is now a ‘worthless’ platform some say is no longer safe for activists.” — ABC News.

• “The idea of changing a bunch of names is, to many people — myself included, originally — throwing out a lot of history.” — John Fitzpatrick, an ornithologist at Cornell University, regarding the American Ornithological Society’s announcement that it will be “replacing all bird names derived from people so as not to honor figures with racist pasts.”

• “I never want to hear Jews cry about the Holocaust again.” — Author Lucas Gage.

• “We’re at the breaking point. There is no more room. Over 160,000 and as I stated, we’re getting anywhere from 2,500 to 4,000 a week. Think about that. This is so devastating for our city.” — Mayor Eric Adams, regarding NYC’s migrant crisis.

• “It is nice that after three years of demanding people be silenced over views on cloth masks and Caitlyn Jenner, the far left has rediscovered the importance of free speech. But it is strange that what reminded them of that was college students calling for the death of all Jews.” — Author Zac Bissonnette.

• “The city of Philadelphia has picked the winning design for a Harriet Tubman statue outside City Hall after facing criticism over its original choice of a white artist who’d been selected without competition.” — NBC News.

• “The father’s eye gouged out, the mother’s breast cut off, the girl’s foot amputated, the boy’s fingers cut off before they were executed, and then their executioners sat down and had a meal. That is what this society is dealing with.” — Secretary of State Antony Blinken, regarding a family that was attacked by Hamas.

• “Reminder: the CDC spent just under $1.7B of your tax dollars on the *pediatric* booster for 20 million doses that are presently 95%+ unused.” — American Commitment president Phil Kerpen.

• “The Pittsburgh Public Schools Board has voted to hire a consulting group that educates teachers on how to replace ‘White supremacy culture practices’ in math instruction with methods that center on the ‘wellness of students of color.’” — The New York Post.

• “And that summit will be in Punta Cana, so you’ll have time to be on the beach.” — Dominican Republic President Luis Abinader to Joe Biden, regarding the next Summit of the Americas.

• “I Used to Write for Sports Illustrated. Now I Deliver Packages for Amazon,” from the Atlantic.

• “The Decolonization Narrative Is Dangerous and False,” also from the Atlantic.

• “Keanu Reeves Knows the Secrets of the Universe,” a profile by Esquire.

• A story from the Atavist about a sketch artist and a grieving mother who set out to solve a cold case.

• “They Hacked McDonald’s Ice Cream Machines—and Started a Cold War,” from Wired.

• “The Greatness of Simplicity,” by N.S. Lyons.

• An ESPN story on “The grandmaster diet: How to lose weight while barely moving.”

• “Harvard’s Double Standard on Free Speech,” from City Journal.

• An Afar story about a state park in deep southwest Arkansas that that charges visitors $10 to search for gems that can be worth hundreds of thousands of dollars.