Quotes and Links

A week in review

President Joe Biden speaks after signing the $95 billion foreign aid bill at the White House in Washington, DC, on April 24, 2024. | Jim Watson/AFP/Getty Images

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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• “What I do know is that even the most peaceful of protests would be treated as outrages if they were interpreted as, say, anti-Black — even if the message were coded, as in a bunch of people quietly holding up MAGA signs or wearing T-shirts saying ‘All Lives Matter.’” — Columbia professor John McWhorter, on the anti-Israel protests roiling the groves of academe.

• “Trump was just gaga over Putin because Putin does what Trump would like to do: Kill his opposition, imprison his opposition, drive journalists and others into exile, rule without any check or balance.” — Hillary Clinton, in an appearance on the Defending Democracy podcast.

• “Sorry but the fact that so many Pro-Palestine protesters are still wearing outdoor COVID facemasks in April 2024 creates the impression that Pro-Palestine protests are dominated by the mentally ill.” — Michael Tracey

• “In Florida, you know, between Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis, you’ve got a team there that really made a landscape for women that’s downright dangerous.” — MSNBC’s Mika Brzezinski

• “The concept of ob*sity is used to exact violence on fat people.” — Self-described “fat liberationist” Marquisele Mercedes, in an essay assigned to all first year students at UCLA’s medical school as part of their mandatory health equity class.

• “It’s a good day for world peace and freedom.” — Joe Biden, during his remarks after signing a mammoth foreign aid package that will indefinitely prolong the wars in Palestine and Ukraine. It was also revealed this week that the Biden administration secretly sent long-range Army Tactical Missile Systems to Ukraine last month, which have been used to strike behind Russian lines.

• “Americans are not funding the war in Ukraine.” — Volodymyr Zelensky, in an interview with NBC News.

• “These people have no interest in protecting or serving anyone but capital, most of them are white supremacists even if they are black/brown. The way they move and operate reflects a deep disdain for the black/brown people they target, harass, surveil, police.” — Mone Makkawi, a research affiliate at the Palestine Land Studies Center and student at NYU. Makkawi, who was referring to the NYPD, was among the hundreds of NYU student protestors “abducted” (arrested) on Tuesday.

• “What we know is that the attack on diversity, equity, and inclusion, DEI, is an attack on democracy.” — Former Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams, during an interview with MSNBC.

• “In the future institutions will have rights and individuals obligations. The very, very near future.” — Walter Kirn, co-host of America This Week with Matt Taibbi.

• “So often, illusion rules, facts don’t matter. You’ve got the weaponization of grievance on these anger networks, 24/7 spewing propaganda. Here is one of the strongest economies in our lifetime. You have one of the most extraordinary records of any president in our lifetime.” — Gavin Newsom, during an interview with MSNBC. Newsom was talking about the “conservative disinformation machine.”

• “The Ukranian-Russian border is our border!” — Democratic Rep. Gerry Connolly

• “Government Surveillance Keeps Us Safe” — Headline from The New York Times

• “We are increasingly concerned [about] the potential for some kind of coordinated attack here in the homeland, which may be not that different from what you saw against the concert hall in Russia a few weeks ago from ISIS-K.” — FBI Director Christopher Wray, in an interview with NBC News. Good thing the border is wide open.

• “Nobody should have to go to jail for smoking weed.” — Kamala Harris, who won more than 1,900 marijuana convictions during her time as District Attorney in San Francisco.

• “I just read yet another article that glorifies so-called intelligence, which is a social construct rooted in eugenics.” — Michelle Ciurria, a self-described “queer disabled ecofeminist philosopher” who is a Visiting Research Fellow at the University of Missouri-St. Louis.

• “The Biden administration is in fact the greater threat to democracy. I think that they have a totalitarian temper. They have bought into the progressive movement. And they’re trying to squelch opposition and freedom of speech. It’s a heavy-handed bunch of thugs in my opinion, and that’s where the threat is.” — Former Attorney General Bill Barr, in an interview with Fox News. Barr says he is backing Trump and warned about “the rise of the far left.”

• “Wow! Former A.G. Bill Barr, who let a lot of great people down by not investigating Voter Fraud in our Country, has just Endorsed me for President despite the fact that I called him ‘Weak, Slow Moving, Lethargic, Gutless, and Lazy’ (New York Post!). Based on the fact that I greatly appreciate his wholehearted Endorsement, I am removing the word ‘Lethargic’ from my statement. Thank you Bill. MAGA 2024!” — Donald Trump, in a Truth Social post.

• “I don’t think *anything* should be a crime. I think prisons should all be opened, everyone set free, and cops abolished. I don’t think the criminalization of harm helps anyone heal, and I don’t think it can produce anything like justice.” — Grace Lavery, an Associate Professor of English, Critical Theory, and Gender & Women’s Studies at UC Berkeley.

• “The fact is, that Donald Trump is in fact better-liked than he was four years ago, and is better-liked than Joe Biden is right now in these battleground states. It’s pretty gosh darn clear.” — CNN senior data reporter Harry Enten

• “The president had an emotional, and I think, a symbolic moment.” — White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, when asked by Fox News reporter Peter Doocy why Biden was claiming his Uncle Bosie was eaten by cannibals.

• “They Lost their Kids to Fortnite,” from Maclean’s.

• Vox: “Most people are disgusted by these animals. These New Yorkers are filling their homes with them.”

• A New Yorker story about people making $70-80K per year selling restaurant reservations in NYC on the secondary market.

• “The Right’s Future Must be Parallel, and Counter-Revolutionary,” by N.S. Lyons.

• An American Prospect deep dive into Boeing’s corporate mismanagement and the brain drain that has produced a fleet of flaw-ridden planes, crashes, and a scarcity of people who can fix them.

• “Toxic: How the search for the origins of COVID-19 turned politically poisonous,” from AP.

• The New York Times: “Inside the Crisis at NPR”

• “Abolish DEI Statements,” from The Atlantic.