“Well, I don’t know what the bankers have said. The Plaza is a very valuable property. Everybody told me, ‘oh, you paid too much, you paid too much,’ now they’re all saying what a great deal he made on the Plaza.”
–Donald Trump, in an interview with Barbara Walters in 1990. [Of course, it ended like so many other Trump business ventures that went south: he ended up taking an $83 million bath on the Plaza Hotel.]
“As we approach the election, again, …who’s to say whether or not these agents could potentially be used to intimidate or otherwise disturb the election process while they’re here?”
–New Mexico Secretary of State Maggie Toulouse Oliver, expressing concerns that Trump’s storm troopers could disrupt the presidential election on Nov. 3. [You know, fascism, third-world dictatorship, and all that stuff that we thought could never happen here—like storm troopers, children in cages, firing inspectors general, that kind of thing.]
“The violent tactics deployed by Donald Trump and his paramilitary forces against peaceful protesters are those of a fascist regime, not a democratic nation. Unless America draws a line in the sand right now, I think we could be staring down the barrel of martial law in the middle of a presidential election.”
—Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden, quoted in The Guardian, July 25, 2020.
“It would be a cold day in hell before I would consent to a unilateral, uninvited intervention in one of my cities.”
—Forer two-term Republican governor of Pennsylvania and the first homeland security secretary. [And of course, Trump responded by calling Ridge a RINO (Republican in Name Only).Insults, slurs and derogatory nicknames seem to be his only way of responding to criticism—as opposed to applying logic and reason to dispute resolution.]
“A key difference between now and before: In 1970, the attorney general was urging restraint. Today, the AG leads the charge.”
—The Washington Post, in an editorial explaining the difference between J. Edgar Hoover’s convincing then-Attorney General John Mitchell to dissuade Nixon from signing the so-called Huston Plan calling for federal troops to restrain domestic unrest 50 years ago, and Attorney General William Barr’s “Operation Legend,” which does just that.
“Plaintiffs’ gambit here—they seek to have the Court enter an emergency injunction based on alleged past encounters involving federal law enforcement officers, but have not demonstrated that similar incidents will take place in the future, much less that these particular plaintiffs will again experience the same alleged conduct by federal law enforcement officers. Because Plaintiffs cannot demonstrate a certainly impending injury, they lack standing to seek injunctive relief.”
–Attorney General William Barr’s response in claiming that the ACLU has no legal standing to request that Trump’s storm troopers be prohibited from beating, gassing or shooting with “impact munitions” reporters to prevent them from recording attacks on Portland citizens. [Nothing to see here, move along (translation: we don’t want witnesses).]
“Only nine states, an electoral Hall of Shame, make you choose between your health and your right to vote, because they don’t count the pandemic as a valid reason to request an absentee ballot. The nine: Connecticut, New York, Indiana, Kentucky, LOUISIANA, Mississippi, South Carolina, Texas and West Virginia.”
Dana Milbank, Washington Post, July 24, 2020. [Louisiana? With the myopic legislators so gifted with the Clay Higgins demagogic version of justice and democracy that we have in this state, go figure. If it doesn’t benefit their corporate donors, they’re just not interested.]
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Louisiana Voice 