Quotes of the Week
Plus links to some of the best articles and essays.
Note for new subscribers: On Fridays I send out a post with a list of notable quotes from the past week, along with links to some of the best longform essays and articles that I’ve come across. You can opt out of these posts by clicking “manage subscription” on the top right.
“Colorado grandfather detained by ICE while walking his dog.” — CBS News headline about an illegal immigrant with a rap sheet that includes over two dozen arrests for theft, assault and battery, damaging property, and shoplifting
“Trump’s political magnetism, if you will, with his base is about being rich.” — MSNBC’s Nicolle Wallace
“There is a difference between being politically black and being racially black.” — Nikole Hannah-Jones
“Fuck ICE and everyone who supports them. These thugs are America’s gestapo, our modern national shame, and must be stopped at every opportunity.” — Democratic Senator Megan Hunt
“Doctors’ groups sue Kennedy over Covid shot changes for kids, pregnant people” — Politico headline1
“The useful political lesson of the Mamdani-Columbia story is that racial self-identification can be more complicated than a lot of (White) people appreciate.” — Washington Post’s Philip Bump
“In South Africa, where Zohran lived for a time while his father taught there, many Indian South Africans on the left identified as Black - a habit borne of the struggle against apartheid as a way to disavow the hierarchy of race it imposed. This discomfited Black Americans I met, it smacked of stolen valor. But it was instead a refusal of superior opportunities - education, housing, employment - offered to that racial group - Indians - deemed to be superior to Blacks. It was an act of solidarity.” — NYT’s Lydia Polgreen
“Violence doesn’t come from Democrats, just to be clear. I mean, obviously anyone can be a criminal, but it is MAGA. It is specifically the MAGA faction.” — Democratic Rep. Jasmine Crockett
“I think the nice part about being on the court is you have the opportunity, whether you’re in the majority or in the dissent, to express your opinions. I just feel that I have a wonderful opportunity to tell people, in my opinions, how I feel about the issues. And that’s what I try to do.” — Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson
“The Trump regime is engaging in ethnic cleansing. We need to say it aloud.” — George Takei
“I wanna see a few dead ICE agents Los Angeles! Don’t let me down.” — San Antonio City Council candidate Matthew Gauna
“I tried to interview Joe Biden for my book on the 2024 election. I called his cell phone, and he agreed but cut it short as he boarded an Amtrak train. His aides then changed his number.” — NYT White House correspondent Tyler Pager
“The Trump administration just dropped 8 immigrants — who they were previously holding in a shipping container in Djibouti — into war torn South Sudan. Cruel. Inhumane. There aren’t words to describe how disgusting this is.” — Democratic Rep. Pramila Jayapal, regarding a group of illegal immigrants that includes multiple murderers and child sex offenders
“May all visitors, children, non-MAGA voters and pets bet safe and dry. Kerr County (TX) MAGA voted to gut FEMA. They deny climate change. May they get what they voted for. Bless their hearts.” — Houston pediatrician Dr. Christina Propst
“I am clueless about what it is exactly that they may be investigating me for.” — Former CIA Director John Brennan
“As marriage among people of child-bearing age has declined, the most common number of children born to an American woman aged twenty-five to forty-four is now zero (that is, more women have no children than have any other number).” — First Things’ Darel. E. Paul
“I think it’s insane, honestly, to just assume we’re going to have normal elections next year. I don’t assume that.” — Joy Reid
“The thing to understand is that district court judges have to follow the law and Supreme Court Justices get to just make up the law.” — MSNBC’s Chris Hayes
“I’m going to be very honest and clear. I am fully preparing myself to die under this new American regime. That’s not to say that it’s the end of the world. It isn’t. But I am almost 50 years old. It will take so long to do anything with this mess that this is the new normal for *me*.” — UNC professor Tressie McMillan Cottom
“Here’s the thing, they’re not going after criminals, they’re going after anybody that is brown, that looks like me, that can’t pass as what they say is the typical American.” — Democratic Rep. Jimmy Gomez
“The secret to the Jake Tapper character is acting all shocked and surprised when he digs up a skeleton that he himself helped bury five or six years earlier.” — Walter Kirn
If you need to get past a paywall, try Archive Today or 12ft.io.
Texas Monthly: “The Informer”
The Atlantic: “That Dropped Call With Customer Service? It Was on Purpose.”
USA Today: “A jailbreak, a massive manhunt and a push to fix New Orleans’ broken lockup”
Rolling Stone: “My Best Friend’s Murder Was a Tabloid Circus. Now, I’m Looking for the Truth.”
Outside: “Dead Weight”
The New Yorker: “What Happens After A.I. Destroys College Writing?”
The New Yorker: “Did Lead Poisoning Create a Generation of Serial Killers?”
Vanity Fair: “The Man in the Latex Suit”
Note that the term “pregnant people” is not in the lawsuit referenced by Politico, it was an editorial choice.
“There is a difference between being politically black and being racially black.” — Nikole Hannah-Jones
Yes, the difference is choosing to be a free American citizen or choosing to be a slave of the Democratics.
I will also say that The New Yorker is very late in noticing that colleges are in big trouble. Perhaps they could start fixing this horrific decline by ending all indoctrination efforts, terminating all instruction in useless degrees and taking steps to reinstitute academic standards, discipline and accountability. Bringing back blue books might be a way to start.