Louisiana Voice

“If you’re asking me a hypothetical … we would fill it.”

—Senate Leader Moscow Mitch McConnell, on whether or not he would push for filling a Supreme Court vacancy should something happen to Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. This is the same Moscow Mitch who held up the nomination of Merrick Garland in 2016 because it was too close (nine months) to the presidential election. [Sorry, folks, I hate to be so blunt but anyone who cannot see a double standard here is blind, stupid, or both.]

“I have been saying now for about three years that this president doesn’t plan to have an election. He’s not planning to give up the office.”

–House Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-S.C.)

“In no way does the acting secretary condone this practice and he has immediately ordered an inquiry into the matter. The acting secretary is committed to ensuring that all DHS personnel uphold the principles of professionalism, impartiality and respect for civil rights and civil liberties, particularly as it relates to the exercise of First Amendment rights.”

—Department of Homeland Security (DHS) mouthpiece Alexei Woltornist, on July 31, after it was learned that DHS had (gasp) compiled intelligence reports on journalists and analyzed communications between protesters in Portland, Ore. [Translation: You can chalk up DHS Acting Secretary Chad Wolf as just another Trump sycophant who got caught lying through his teeth and that DHS intelligence office Brian Murphy was thrown under the bus for carrying out order from above.]

“Grace is to Trump what garlic is to vampires.”

—Bret Stephens, New York Times, Aus. 3, 2020.

“Over the past few weeks, my office has been inundated with calls referring to the Jade Helm 15 military exercise scheduled to take place between July 15 and September 15, 2015. This military practice has some concerned that the U.S. Army is preparing for modern da martial law.”

—Rep. Louis Gohmert (R-Texas), May 5, 2015. [Gohmert is the same one who claims he contracted the coronavirus from his mask—the same one, apparently, that he refused to wear until he tested positive.]

“The eight-week exercise starting in July and planned for locations in Texas, New Mexico, California and other Southwestern states, (right-wing bloggers and commentators) say, is part of a secret plan to impose martial law, take away people’s guns, arrest political undesirables, launch an Obama-led hostile takeover of red-state Texas, or do some combination thereof.

“…Gov. Greg Abbott issued a directive … to Maj. Gen. Gerald Betty, commander of the (Texas) Guard, … that he wanted Jade Helm 15 monitored because it was ‘important that Texans know their safety, constitutional rights, private property rights and civil liberties will not be infringed.’”

—The New York Times, May 6, 2015, explaining how right-wing conspiracy mills like Media Wars were claiming that the military was constructing tunnels beneath closed Walmart stores as part of a Pentagon-led takeover. [And some called me a fear monger for my theory that Trump was trying to disrupt the November election. You think maybe Gohmert, Clay Higgins, Jim Jordan and Devin Nunes are drinking buddies?]

REPORTER: “President Trump, you’ve said many times that the number of coronavirus cases is going up because testing is increasing, do you acknowledge that it’s going up for other reasons too, for example, that it’s actually spreading and what are you going to do to stop the spread?”

TRUMP: “Well do you know that we have one of the lowest mortality rates,…anywhere, if you know that Biden and Obama stopped their testing, they just stopped it and you probably know that but don’t want to report it, but uhm, they stopped testing uh, right in the middle, they just went no more testing.”

—A confused Donald Trump, claiming that the Obama administration ceased testing before the coronavirus was ever known. [He apparently was thinking of testing for Ebola, which killed two Americans, compared to 151,000 coronavirus deaths—and counting. But again, he was obviously confused, or maybe just being sarcastic.]

“Scooter Libby found not guilty of lying to FBI investigators.”

—Fox (“we report, you decide”) News crawler right after I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, chief of staff to Dick Cheney, was found not guilty on one count of making false statements, but guilty on four other counts: one count of obstruction of justice, two counts of perjury, one count of making false statements on March 6, 2007, related to the outing of CIA agent Valerie Plame. [An oldie but goodie because some things never change and while some might reasonably call that “fake news,” George W. Bush commuted his sentence in June 2007, sparing him of any jail time and Donald Trump issued a full pardon on April 13, 2018. Yep, some things never change.]

“We have to study the history of slavery and its role and impact on the development of our country because otherwise we can’t understand our country. As the Founding Fathers said, it was the necessary evil upon which the union was built…”

—U.S. Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), in an interview with the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, July 26, 2020. [And they dare to call it the Party of Lincoln.]

“If chattel slavery…where it was legal to rape, torture, and sell human beings for profit — were a ‘necessary evil,’ …it’s hard to imagine what cannot be justified if it is a means to an end,”

—New York Times reporter Nikole Hannah-Jones, in response to Cotton’s remarks, July 26, 2020.

“I just saw our new Trump-Reagan Commemorative Coin Sets and WOW, these coins are beautiful — I took one look and immediately knew that I wanted YOU to have a set.”

—Donald Trump, in true snake-oil salesman fashion, hawking the commemorative “coins” showing him shaking hands with Pres. Ronald Reagan back in 1987 in exchange for a $45 campaign “contribution.”

“We own the likeness of President Reagan and they used his image for the coin without our consent.”

—Reagan Foundation marketing officer Melissa Giller, July 25, 2020, demanding that the Trump campaign cease the sale of the “coins.”

“I won’t be able to be in New York to throw out the opening pitch for the Yankees on August 15th.”

–Trump tweet, July 26, at 2:44 p.m. [Those damned bone spurs on his elbow, don’t you know.]

“Biden in late April predicted Trump may try to push back the election, a suggestion the president’s campaign dismissed at the time as ‘the incoherent, conspiracy theory ramblings of a lost candidate who is out of touch with reality.’”

—The Hill, July 30, 2020, on Trump’s suggestion that the Nov. 3 presidential election be delayed. [You gotta know the White House staff scurried into damage control mode after Trump’s tweet. It’ll be interesting to see how precious secretary Kayleigh McEnany will spin this one.]

“I think he is gonna try to kick back the election somehow, come up with some rationale why it can’t be held.”

—Joe Biden, to supporters in April. [Not a bad prediction for one who Trump says has lost it mentally.]

“[T}he fact that he is even suggesting it is a serious, chilling attack on the democratic process. All members of Congress— and the administration— should speak out.”

—Sen. Tom Udall (D-N.M.), July 30, 2020.

“One more try at throwing a shiny ball out there to divert attention fro: inept handling of the pandemic, ignoring intel on Russian bounties, devastating economic numbers, lack of action or plan on next COVID-19 relief package.”

—Rep. Rick Larsen (D-Washington), July 30, 2020

“This is yet another statement by the President which undermines voter confidence and that seeks without evidence to undermine the legitimacy of voting by mail.”

—Richard L. Hasen, law professor at the University of California at Irvine. [Of course Trump knows more about the law than any law professor and as evidence of that, look at how many times he’s been sued.]

“That tweet claims powers that he does not have, period,” he said. “He is not a dictator.”

—Historian Michael Beschkloss. [No, but he certainly loves ‘em.]

I am frankly appalled by the president’s recent tweet seeking to postpone the November election. Until recently, I had taken as political hyperbole the Democrats’ assertion that President Trump is a fascist. But this latest tweet is fascistic and is itself grounds for the president’s immediate impeachment again by the House of Representatives and his removal from office by the Senate.

—Steven G. Calabresi, co-founder of the Federalist Society and professor at Northwestern University’s Pritzker School of Law, who says he has voted Republican in every presidential election since 1980, including in 2016. [Obviously a RINO]

“Even for Mr. Trump, suggesting a delay in the election is an extraordinary breach of presidential decorum that will increase the chances that he and his core supporters don’t accept the legitimacy of the election should he lose to former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr.”

—New York Times, July 30, 2020.

“Only Congress can change the date of our elections, and under no circumstances will we consider doing so to accommodate the president’s inept and haphazard response to the coronavirus pandemic.”

–Representative Zoe Lofgren, Democrat of California and the chair of the Administration Committee, which oversees elections.

“With Universal Mail-In Voting (not Absentee Voting, which is good), 2020 will be the most INACCURATE & FRAUDULENT Election in history. It will be a great embarrassment to the USA. Delay the Election until people can properly, securely and safely vote???”

—Donald Trump tweet, July 30, 2020. [So, it’s come to this. How many of you truly believe he would’ve EVER made such a suggestion if he wasn’t certain he will lose? (Nah, didn’t think so.) Suddenly, the “fear mongering” that I was accused of a few days ago doesn’t seem so far-fetched. Oh, wait. He was just being sarcastic. Of course. My bad.]