Tag: quotation

Woodward knew the truth behind the administration’s deadly bungling—and worse—and he saved it for his book, which will be released to wild acclaim and huge profits after nearly 200,000 Americans have died because neither Donald Trump nor Bob Woodward wanted to risk anything substantial to keep the country informed. … For reasons of their own—venal, selfish, inexcusable reasons, all of them—both Donald Trump and Bob Woodward shirked the duties of their respective occupations and, eventually, hundreds of thousands of Americans may be dead in part because they did. The shame of this should be everlasting. Bob Woodward’s nonfeasance in the face of this disaster should stand with Walter Duranty’s covering for Stalin in the matter of the Ukrainian famine as eternal embarrassments to journalism and to simple humanity.

Charlie Pierce in Esquire. 

Explicit racism in law enforcement takes many forms, from membership or affiliation with violent white supremacist or far-right militant groups, to engaging in racially discriminatory behavior toward the public or law enforcement colleagues, to making racist remarks and sharing them on social media. While it is widely acknowledged that racist officers subsist within police departments around the country, federal, state, and local governments are doing far too little to proactively identify them, report their behavior to prosecutors who might unwittingly rely on their testimony in criminal cases, or protect the diverse communities they are sworn to serve.

Excerpt from Michael German’s report for the Brennan Center for Justice, 

Hidden in Plain Sight: Racism, White Supremacy, and Far-Right Militancy in Law Enforcement. 

It is today’s necessary reading. 

Has there ever been a president so utterly devoid of scruple, so naked in his ambition to steal an election? Trump is so terrified of losing that he’ll take the entire system down with him. Our post office. Our elections. Our very democracy. His depravity is boundless.

—Representative Adam Schiff of California. 

Today might be yet another good day to contact your representatives in the House and Senate, this time to demand protections and full funding for post office operations. I have my congressional delegates’ numbers on speed dial. You can find contact info for yours at www.house.gov/representatives/find-your-representative and www.senate.gov/senators/index.htm. 

Do not get lost in a sea of despair. Be hopeful, be optimistic. Our struggle is not the struggle of a day, a week, a month, or a year, it is the struggle of a lifetime. Never, ever be afraid to make some noise and get in good trouble, necessary trouble.

Georgia Congressman John Lewis, from a Twitter post in June 2018 encouraging righteous agitation for righteous causes. He died today at age 80 of pancreatic cancer. 

In their obituary the New York Times calls him a “towering figure of civil rights.” When conferring the Presidential Medal of Freedom on him in 2011, President Obama said of him, “Generations from now, when parents teach their children what is meant by courage, the story of John Lewis will come to mind — an American who knew that change could not wait for some other person or some other time; whose life is a lesson in the fierce urgency of now.”

I see guys in camo, four or five of them pop out, open the door and it was just like, ‘Oh shit. I don’t know who you are or what you want with us.’

Conner O’Shea, a protester in Portland, Oregon, describing his arrest by unidentified federal law enforcement officers on July 15 as reported by Oregon Public Broadcasting. O’Shea was likely arrested by officers of the U.S. Marshals Special Operations Group or Customs and Border Protection’s BORTAC, operating in Portland at the direction of Donald Trump and acting Homeland Security secretary Chad Wolf. O’Shea was arrested away from federal property, and without probable cause. 

This is what fascism looks like. 

The trust between Louisville Metro and the people we serve is eroding at a pace that may soon pass the point of restoration. … Efforts by the Metro Council to force transparency have been met with denial followed by slow acceptance. Rather than taking exact and quick action to seek outside investigation and acknowledge problems, this administration has delayed and obfuscated the truth in hope that this like other problems would go away. It hasn’t—it can’t. … We, the undersigned members of the Louisville Metro Council’s leadership write this letter today to demand the immediate release of all documents that relate to the Breonna Taylor Case. … The people of Louisville deserve answers.

Excerpts from a July 8 letter from the Louisville Metro Council to Mayor Greg Fisher. The letter requests full disclosure of case information after Breonna Taylor’s family filed a wrongful death suit against the Louisville Metro Police officers who shot and killed her. The lawsuit alleges that the police department engaged in targeted actions in Breonna’s community in order to force people to vacate homes so a high-dollar real estate development could move forward. The Metro Council letter describes this as “a modern twisted update to the policy of redlining” that Mayor Fisher supposedly opposes and has campaigned against. 

Mayor Fisher indicated today that he cannot accommodate the request.

I think Arizonans are smart and have common sense and will demonstrate responsibility.

Arizona Governor and former CEO of Cold Stone Creamery, Doug Ducey, at a press briefing belatedly announcing new restrictions on public gatherings and business closures in response to a surge in COVID-19 cases in the state. This is perhaps the most charitable and optimistic thing that anyone has ever said of Arizonans, whose judgement is arguable at best. After all, they did elect Doug Ducey. 

I don’t know what the Russians have on the president politically, personally or whatever it is, but he wants to ignore [reports of wrongdoing]. How else would you explain his refusal to ignore, again and again, the intelligence that puts right at the Russian doorstep the involvement into our elections, for example?

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, when asked if she thinks the Russians have dirt on Trump, on ABC’s This Week.

I really believe that all lives matter. And that’s where the heart of the American people lies. What I see in the leaders of the Black Lives Matter movement is a political agenda of the radical left that would defund the police, that would tear down monuments, that would press a radical left agenda.

Mike Pence, hypocritical court evangelical, racist, and Vice President of the United States, explaining (sort of) why he refuses to say “black lives matter.” On CBS’s Face the Nation.