Louisiana Voice

66 Days to go

“[T]he Justice Department is not the president’s private law firm. The attorney general is not the president’s private lawyer. I will not interfere with the Justice Department’s judgment of whether or not they think they should pursue the prosecution of anyone that they think has violated the law.”

–Joe Biden, Aug. 6, 2020, on whether or not as president, he would block prosecution of Trump.

“He suggested we should postpone the election, full of just bald-faced lies about how mail-in votes were fraud, and how it was so terrible. He’s calling out any effort to exploit this pandemic for political purposes. It distracts from his complete failure.”

–Joe Biden, on Trump’s desperate maneuvers as he falls in the polls.

“We desperately need an actual president. I hope we have one in January. Until then, unfortunately, the lesser evil is that Trump spends his time rage-watching Fox News and howling at the moon.”

Eugene Robinson, writing in The Washington Post, Aug. 3, 2020.

“Anybody of substance is voting for Biden. Anybody who has an IQ of over 100 and has worked for Donald Trump, with the exception of Steve Bannon, is not voting for him.”

—Former Trump aide Anthony Scaramucci

“The Washington Post is blatantly interfering with the business relationships of the Trump Organization, and it must stop. Please be advised that we are building up a very large ‘dossier’ on the many false David Fahrenthold and others [sic] stories as they are a disgrace to journalism and the American people.”

—White House spokesman Judd Deere letter to Washington Post reporter David Fahrenthold, Aug. 27, 2020. [Have we become so numbed to Trump idiocy that we are no longer the least bit outraged at his attempt to trample all over the First Amendment?]

“How shocked are we that 17-year-olds with rifles decided they had to maintain order when no one else would?”

—Fox News host Tucker Carlson, defending Kyle Rittenhouse, the Illinois teenager who is accused of killing two protesters and injuring another in Kenosha, Wisconsin. [Seriously? And from the White House, which wants to quell any criticism of the administration, only silence while a talking a*****e endorses vigilante justice in a so-called civilized society that grows more barbaric every day under Donald Trump. Dear God, what have we become? Indeed, how shocked are we? How numbed have we become to such behavior that we have not demanded action from such cowards as John Kennedy, Bill Cassidy, et al, who have themselves become deafening in their own silence?]

67 days to go

“Yesterday Obama campaigned with JayZ & Springsteen while Hurricane Sandy victims across NY & NJ are still decimated by Sandy. Wrong!” 

—Trump tweet just before the 2012 election.

“[P]residential leadership came swiftly and effectively with an extraordinary rescue for health and safety to successfully fight the covid virus.”

—Trump economic adviser Larry Kudlow, Aug. 25, 2020. [Really? In what universe?]

“The recommendation not to test asymptomatic people who likely have been exposed is not in accord with the science.” 

—John Auerbach, president of Trust for America’s Health, on Wednesday’s posting of guidelines that say it’s no longer necessary for those who have been in close contact with coronavirus-infected people, but don’t feel sick, to get tested. [Is this recommendation an example of that “swift and effective” leadership? Can we call this an “extraordinary rescue”?]

“This is like a public health version of Vietnam.”

—Brian Castrucci, president of the de Beaumont Foundation, which works to strengthen the public health system, on the new CDC guidelines.

“…a recipe for community spread.

—The American Medical Association, on the new CDC guidelines.

“…a step backward in fighting the pandemic.”

—The Association of American Medical Colleges, on the new CDC guidelines.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the country’s top infectious disease expert and perhaps the best-known task force member, said Wednesday he wasn’t part of the discussion that green-lighted the change. Fauci told CNN he was undergoing surgery when the new guidance was discussed last week, adding he was “worried it will give people the incorrect assumption that asymptomatic spread is not of great concern. In fact, it is.” [Wasn’t it convenient that this action by the White House coronavirus task force was taken while Fauci was undergoing surgery and unavailable to take part in such an important decision?]

“From the very beginning, Democrats, the media and the World Health Organization got the coronavirus wrong. One leader took decisive action to save lives: President Donald Trump.”

G.O.P. propaganda film shown at Republican Convention, on Monday.

“We did the exact right thing. We saved millions.”

—Donald Trump, at the G.O.P. Convention on Monday.

68 days to go

“A conspiracy theory only sounds crazy until it’s proven.”

—QAnon congressional candidate Erin Cruz (R-Calif.).

“I hope that [QAnon] is real because it only means America is getting stronger and better,”

—QAnon congressional candidate Lauren Boebert (R-Colorado).

“The question isn’t whether QAnon-connected murder, terrorism, and law enforcement scrutiny will cause the mainstream press to take QAnon as a serious extremist threat. We’re past that point. The question is now how much QAnon-connected crime and death are required for the press to understand the dangers associated with QAnon.”

—Travis View, a host of a podcast about QAnon.

“Last night there were two people from St. Louis who were at the convention because they had waved guns at black people. That is their sole reason to be at that convention.”

—Stuart Stevens, a Republican strategist, speaking out against Donald Trump.

“We can be as great as we want to be,” he said. “We don’t have to be a socialist country like Europe.”

—Rudy Giuliani, on Fox & Friends, Aug. 24. 2020. [So, where on the map is this socialist Europe country? And what’s its capital?]

‘Kimberly Guilfoyle’s speech at the Republican Convention seemed to make way more sense with North Korean propaganda music in the background.”

https://twitter.com/i/status/1298089911954714624

—Mother Jones, Aug. 26, 2020.

“The student honor code is called ‘The Liberty Way,’ and according to it, premarital sex is forbidden, as are same-sex relationships. Drinking alcohol and ‘obscene language’ are infractions, and students are instructed to ‘dress modestly at all times.’”

—Ashlie Stevens, writing for Salon, Aug. 25, 2020. [And Jerry Falwell Jr. is now out a Liberty. But isn’t he one of Trump’s foremost evangelical supporters?]

FALWELL CONVENTION SPEECH CANCELED

“The president has always said he’ll see what happens and make a determination in the aftermath.”

—White House precious secretary Kayleigh McEnany, on whether or not Trump will accept the results of the Nov. 3 election.

“There’s no more direct attack on democracy than saying you’re not going to respect the outcome of an election. It’s the People’s House. Saying there that you might not respect the result of the election does seem particularly galling.”

—Noah Bookbinder, executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), on McEnany’s remarks.

“The Court finds that the President has not sufficiently pled that the subpoena is overbroad or was issued in bad faith on this basis.” 

—Ruling by U.S. District Judge Victor Marrero, Thursday, on Trump attorneys’ attempt to shield his tax records from the Manhattan district attorney’s office.

“Donald Trump was the national leader of the grotesque, racist birther movement with respect to President Obama and has sought to fuel racism and tear our nation apart on every single day of his presidency.  So, it’s unsurprising, but no less abhorrent, that as Trump makes a fool of himself straining to distract the American people from the horrific toll of his failed coronavirus response that his campaign and their allies would resort to wretched, demonstrably false lies in their pathetic desperation.”

–Joe Biden campaign statement on Trump’s reprise of the birther issue.

“I’ve been in this business more than three decades, and what’s happening now is unprecedented. We are attacked on a near daily basis using Stalinist language. We are called corrupt and dishonest. We are given false information from staff who often know full well that it is false. I have never encountered a public official, a candidate for office, a bureaucrat, a defense lawyer or, frankly, an actual criminal who is as regularly and aggressively dishonest as the current president of the United States. And that includes a dozen years covering the Florida legislature. It is no longer newsworthy that the person leading the world’s most powerful nation, commanding the most destructive arsenal in human history, is untrustworthy to his core,”

–HuffPost reporter S.V. Dáte, on Donald Trump and his lies. [Finally! At long last, perhaps the MSM is starting to find the backbone to challenge Trump on his distortions and outright lies.]

“It should be readily apparent by now that there is no treason, no crime, no act of cruelty or instance of corruption or incompetence that will be enough for supporters to abandon Trump. This is how fascism works, how cults of power follow their leaders into the dark abyss.”

—Jared Yates Sexton, author, political commentator and associate professor in the Department of Writing and Linguistics at Georgia Southern University, Aug. 25, 2020.

“So far, the RNC seems to be mostly providing content designed to thrill MAGA devotees who already love Trump. I’d think that’s a questionable strategy.”

—Robby Soave, writing for the conservative publication Reason, Aug. 25, 2020.

“This convention is targeted to one voter: Donald Trump. The whole convention is to make his lonely soul feel affirmed.”

—David Brook, The New York Times, Aug. 25, 2020.

“President Trump brought our economy back before, and he will bring it back again.”

— Former U.N. ambassador Nikki Haley. [The United States added jobs for 94 straight months, of which 18 were under Trump’s leadership. In 2017, Trump’s first year in office, monthly job growth slowed to 179,000 per month. It jumped to 223,000 a month in 2018 — lower than under President Barack Obama in 2014 and 2015 (more than 250,000 jobs each month in 2014 and 227,000 a month in 2015) — and fell back to 175,000 a month in 2019. Facts.]

“Those kinds of sentiments have some appeal — to the people who already form the Trump base. But it is difficult to see how they help bring voters from the center ground into the fold. And it is those voters whom the president desperately needs.”

—Niall Stanage, The Hill, Aug. 25, 2020,, describing the speeches of the first night of the Republican Convention.

“It would pass, I can guarantee it. It is 100% owned by him. Not even bought and paid for. They sold their souls to him so he could own them.”

—Conservative activist Kendal Unruh, speculating that a resolution to rename the Republican Party the Donald J. Trump Party would likely be approved, Aug. 24, 2020.