Quotes and Links
A week in review
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.”
“Excessive free speech is a breeding ground for more Trumps” — Headline from The Globe and Mail
“But an Associated Press analysis of nearly 70 years of similar cases showed Trump’s case stands apart: It’s the only big business found that was threatened with a shutdown without a showing of obvious victims and major losses.” — AP’s Bernard Condon, on Trump’s New York civil fraud case.
“Trump’s call for a ‘bloodbath’ was literal — let’s not waste time pretending it was ambiguous.” — Headline from Salon
“Cancer could have been cured and Mars could have been settled with all the energy that’s been devoted to litigating the nuances of Trump’s public wisecracks since 2015.” — Michael Tracey
“Trump Says To Drink Lots Of Water, Media Reports He Told Everyone To Drown Themselves” — Headline from The Babylon Bee
“This experience, painful as it was, has clarified the extent to which so much of what progressives claim to care about are just convenient cudgels with which they might bludgeon their right-wing opponents. It was clear early on in the pandemic that school closures hurt minorities and lower-income Americans the most. The Left didn’t care. It was obvious that rates of emotional instability and anxiety in children were reaching crisis proportions as a direct result of remote learning. The Left didn’t care.” — The National Review editorial board, on the damaging legacy of covid school closures.
“A new study out of Stanford’s Hoover Institute finds the total cost of learning loss from COVID school shutdowns will be $31 trillion.” — Republican rep. Kevin Kiley
“I would thus observe, as a former prosecutor, that if a judge is talking about you when he describes the ‘odor of mendacity’ wafting through the courtroom, you ought to leave the proceedings voluntarily . . . and maybe start thinking about your next career move.” — National Review’s Andrew McCarthy, regarding Judge Scott McAfee’s opinion that scathes Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis.
"It’s like finding two people in a bank vault and taking one off to jail." — Constitutional law attorney Jonathan Turley, on Judge McAfee’s ruling that Fani Willis either recuse herself or remove lover Nathan Wade from the Trump racketeering case.
“Barron Trump turns 18 today. He’s fair game now.” — Former NBC executive Mike Sington, who apparently has a creepy obsession with Barron Trump that goes back years.
“Excuse me, sir, RICO is not a crime, it is a category.” — Democratic rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, during a Wednesday hearing in Biden’s impeachment inquiry.
“I’m not a gun expert.” — Biden’s Seventh Circuit judge nominee, Nancy Maldonado. This was in response to Senator John Kennedy asking her what she meant by “assault weapons” when she said they “may be banned because they’re extraordinarily dangerous and are not appropriate for legitimate self-defense purposes.”
“The best way to combat fake news is for people to watch MSNBC because they report real news all the time.” — Democrat rep. Ted Lieu, during an interview with MSNBC.
“It Turns Out the ‘Deep State’ Is Actually Kind of Awesome” — Headline from The New York Times, which previously argued the Deep State didn’t exist.
“My biggest concern is that your view has the First Amendment hamstringing the government in significant ways.” — Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, during Monday’s hearing on Murthy v. Missouri, the case challenging the Biden administration’s Big Tech censorship.
“Soon Trump will lose, or go to prison, or I don’t know, have a heart attack. I don’t know. I don’t know what his demise is going to be, but he’ll have his demise.” — Democratic rep. Katie Porter, during an episode of Pod Save America.
“There’s not a damn thing a man can do that a woman can’t do.” — Joe Biden, in his remarks delivered at a Women’s History Month reception at the White House on Monday.
“A study of more than 100 birthing parents showed that pregnancy and birth cause changes in brain circuits that may be involved in empathy and bonding with the child.” — Headline from Scientific American, which cites a study that uses “woman,” “mother,” and “female,” and does not call subjects “birthing parents.”
“It’s spelled ‘Fani’—like your ass.” — Donald Trump, during his rally outside of Dayton on Saturday.
“That’s a form of slavery. I feel like a slave sometimes in this building.” — Democrat senator London Lamar, who accused the Republican supermajority in Tennessee’s legislature of stifling dissenting voices, suggesting that disagreement on certain bills leads to attempts at silencing opposition—a sentiment she equated to a form of slavery.
“From an FBI perspective, we are seeing a wide array of very dangerous threats that emanate from the border, and that includes everything from the drug trafficking, and the FBI alone sees enough fentanyl in the last two years to kill 270 million people.” — FBI Director Christopher Wray, during Monday’s Senate Select Intelligence Committee Hearing on Global Threats.
A beautiful, heartbreaking story in The Atlantic about grief, memories, and a special dog.
An Outside piece on the longest footrace in the world, which takes place around a nondescript block in Queens, NY.
“The Rough Years That Turned Gen Z Into America’s Most Disillusioned Voters,” from The Wall Street Journal.
A New Yorker story about The Woman in the Window author Dan Mallory’s long trail of lies and deceptions.
Defector: “From TED To PERNOCTATED, Scrabble’s Best Player Knows No Limits.”
“The Squatters of Beverly Hills,” from New York magazine.
A Tablet piece on the state of German politics, and how lawfare attempts to ban right-wing political parties, a la Trump, are backfiring around the globe.
I feel like a slave every year when I file my taxes. I wonder how London Lamar would feel about that.
Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson confirms with this extraordinary comment what so many supposed (& probably some actual) racist have maintained about her. She is incompetent & tragically uninformed & just an Affirmative Action hire. Is that reparations enough to have another black American start to reinstitute slavery by taking away basic freedoms - shades of Anthony Johnson.