Louisiana Voice

“An ‘army’ doesn’t sound like people just there to observe. An ‘army’ sounds like people there to engage in war with the enemy.” —Sean Morales-Doyle, of the Brennan Center for Justice, on Trump’s call for an “Army” in recruiting poll watchers for the Nov. 3 election.

“The Donald Trump approach to law is all legal levers would be fair game in pressuring or punishing a bank.” —Former Treasury official Scott Carnell, on Trump’s willingness to prod the Justice Department to investigate perceived enemies, including banks he owes money to and which are subject to federal regulation.

“The damage Trump will be leaving to Joe Biden is incalculable. The death toll caused by his mismanagement of the COVID crisis and the numbers of infections increase by the thousands seemingly every day. The only good thing about a hollowed-out federal government will be the thousands of appointments Biden will be able to make upon taking office, and the dozens of executive orders he’ll be able to sign reversing Trump’s giveaways to polluters, drug companies and corrupt corporations.” —Lucian K. Truscott, IV, writing in Salon.com.

“They’re getting tired of the pandemic — aren’t they? You turn on CNN. That’s all they cover. Covid, covid, pandemic. Covid, covid, covid. . . . They’re trying to talk people out of voting. People aren’t buying it, CNN, you dumb bastards.” —Trump, at a rally in Arizona. [Remember Vietnam? It was a pretty hot topic for the media 50 years ago. We lost 58,000 American lives there –over a 10-year period. Covid has killed 220,000 this year alone. You expected the media to ignore that? Seriously?]

“We don’t get a retirement account. We don’t give two hoots about what Wall Street is doing. We are not investing in that. We are trying to pay our rent, pay for food.” —Wisconsin early childhood educator, who makes about $10 an hour and receives no benefits, explaining why Donald Trump’s boasts about the economy fail to resonate with her and her family.

“Nationally and in Wisconsin people look at the stock market and the jobs figures and think that’s the economy. But often their personal experiences are not reflected in those macro figures. The big challenge when talking about the economy is that people don’t look beyond these big, macro numbers. The pandemic has crystalized the idea that there is one economy for the rich and another for working folk.” —Wisconsin activist Dana Bye, on the failure of Trump economic policies to help Wisconsin, where wages, when adjusted for inflation, have risen only 73 cents per hour in 40 years.

NOT A TRUMP QUOTE, but it should be (with apologies to Cavin & Hobbes):

“Since September it’s just gotten colder and colder. There’s less daylight now, I’ve noticed too. This can only mean one thing – the sun is going out. In a few more months the Earth will be a dark and lifeless ball of ice. Scientists say the sun isn’t going out. They say its colder because the earth’s orbit is taking us farther from the sun. They say winter will be here soon. Isn’t it sad how some people’s grip on their lives is so precarious that they’ll embrace any preposterous delusion rather than face an occasional bleak truth?”