Quotes and Links

A week in review

CNN’s Jake Tapper had an amusing slip-up while interviewing Nikki Haley, Monday, March 4, 2024.

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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• “America is a sticky-fingered nation built on stolen land, and its current moral panic is about shoplifting.” — The Washington Post’s Maura Judkis

• “We could be a dictatorship next year if Donald Trump is elected.” — MSNBC’s Michael Beschloss

• “[Biden’s] done more in the last three years than most presidents have been able to do in their two terms!” — White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre

• “Fact Focus: Claims Biden administration is secretly flying migrants into the country are unfounded” — Headline from the Associated Press, which then goes on to quite literally confirm in its “fact focus” that Biden has indeed been flying migrants into the country.

• “Last I checked it’s the snow roaches that are mad about immigrants.” — U.S. Agency for Global Media chief information officer James Reeves, who has repeatedly referred to white people as “snow roaches” on social media.

• “F you if you can’t handle the truth. This version of Biden, intellectually, analytically, is the best Biden ever.” — MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough

• “Most Americans are still unaware that the census counts ALL people, including illegal immigrants, for deciding how many House seats each state gets! This results in Dem states getting roughly 20 more House seats, which is another strong incentive for them not to deport illegals.” — Elon Musk, who is correct about this.

• “The National Guard Might Help Subway Riders Feel Safer” — Headline of an opinion piece by The New York Times’ Mara Gay.

• “Running this puts black people in danger.” — Mara Gay in June 2020, regarding the infamous opinion piece written by Senator Tom Cotton in which he called for the National Guard to help quell the most destructive riots in American history.

• “They should lose whatever jobs they might have. They should be kicked off corporate boards. And if people are going to act irresponsibly like this, they should be absolutely shamed to our society’s utmost ability to shame.” — Bulwark editor Jonathan Last, on what should happen to anyone who participates in third-party activism.

• “I have it on so they can let me in.” — What an Honduran migrant trying to cross the border told Griff Jenkins of Fox News; the migrant was referring to the Biden/Harris campaign shirt he was wearing.

• “Those aren’t tears, Fascist. They’re urine. I’m sure you enjoy being bathed in it.” — Keith Olbermann, in response to someone accusing him of crying about the unanimous Supreme Court ruling on Trump’s ballot eligibility.

• “[Republicans] don’t vote based on economics, or based on the benefits they’re getting economically from the president. They are voting on race; they are voting on this idea of an invasion of brown people over the border, the idea that they can’t get the job they want.” — MSNBC’s Joy Reid

• “But understand, you’re going to wake up one morning, and you’re going to see horror across Europe; you’re going to have American soldiers and sailors having to go over there and do something that we could have done with dollars we have to do with blood.” — CNN’s Van Jones, on why Nikki Haley supporters shouldn’t support Donald Trump.

• “In sheer dollar figures, wages and salaries have risen much faster under Biden than under Trump. But after adjusting for inflation, the advantage flips: Real wages grew under Trump but have declined in the Biden years.” — The New York Times

• “Biden has produced the strongest large economy in human history, bar none, absolutely no other time or place comes even close.” — Minnesota House of Representatives candidate Will Stancil

• “You can’t be racist against white people!” — Alyssa Mercante, a senior editor at Kotaku, which is one of the biggest gaming news websites.

• “Our republic is surely in trouble now that random Traffic Court judges in Chicago can’t unilaterally exclude presidential candidates from the ballot.” — Michael Tracey; Tracie Porter, the Illinois judge who tried to remove Trump from the ballot, “presides over minor traffic violations and Class A Misdemeanor matters.”

• “Donald Trump participated in an erection.” — CNN’s Jake Tapper, during an interview with Nikki Haley.

• “[Georgia prosecutor Nathan Wade] had experience in something else. You know, a lot of experience. And at that, I’m quite sure he was very good based on the fact that [Fani Willis] called him 2000 times.” — Donald Trump, during a campaign rally in Richmond, VA.

• “In this particular context we refer to ‘white privilege’ meaning that your race and skin colour can give you access to the outdoors when others can be excluded because of historic, enduring racism and biases.” — From clothing retailer North Face’s “Allyship in the Outdoors” training course. Customers who take this “digital course in racial inclusion” are given 20% off.

• An explosive piece from The Intercept, which obtained a trove of secret FBI files that raise questions about whether federal agents pursued a larger, secret effort to encourage political violence in the run-up to the 2020 election.

• GQ Sports: “Bonefishing Off Bimini With Bobby Knight”

• “Everyone in Stephenville Thought They Knew Who Killed Susan Woods,” from Texas Monthly.

• A piece by former CIA analyst Martin Gurri about how Biden’s 2024 advantage is “an alliance of elites rigging the game.”

• “The strange survival of Guinness World Records,” from The Guardian.

• “I Was a Heretic at The New York Times,” from The Atlantic.

• New York Magazine: “COVID Lockdowns Were a Giant Experiment. It Was a Failure.”