Louisiana Voice

“I don’t want to use the B-word. If what the airline industry says is true, then Congress really will have little choice to act or face a significant extinction moment for the airline industry.”

—Trump administration official, on March 12, apparently not realizing that bailout of the airline industry, hurt by the coronavirus spread (with apologies to Kris Kristofferson), is just another word for socialism.

 “At a time when we need to be moving away from fossil fuels, federal resources should be going to renewables and efficiency, not propping up drilling. This is socialism for the fossil fuel industry.”

—Michael Gerrard, of the Columbia University Law School, on March 12, on Donald Trump’s desire to bail out oil and gas producers from falling oil prices.

“If you do it for some, then how could you not do it for everyone?”

—Heritage Foundation visiting fellow and informal economic adviser to the 2016 Trump campaign, on March 12, in noting a broader bailout would be tantamount to more widespread socialism.

“To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public. Nothing but the truth should be spoken about him or anyone else. But it is even more important to tell the truth, pleasant or unpleasant, about him than about anyone else.”

—Theodore Roosevelt.

“With the tremendous progress we have made over the past three years, America is now energy independent.”

–Donald Trump, falsely boasting of America’s energy independence. [The U.S. continues to import energy. In 2018, the U.S. imported about 9.94 million barrels per day of petroleum from nearly 90 countries, according to an Energy Information Agency report, with 43 percent coming from Canada and 16 percent from Persian Gulf countries.]

“The speed by which Attorney General Barr released to the public the summary of Special Counsel Mueller’s principal conclusions, coupled with the fact that Attorney General Barr failed to provide a thorough representation of the findings set forth in the Mueller report, causes the court to question whether Attorney General Barr’s intent was to create a one-sided narrative about the Mueller report — a narrative that is clearly in some respects substantively at odds with the redacted version of the Mueller report.” 

—Federal Judge (appointed by President George W. Bush) Reggie B. Walton, in criticizing Attorney General William Barr’s handling of the Mueller report. [Not to beat a dead horse, but as long as readers insist on dredging up the name of Barack Obama in their defense of Trump, then we reserve the right to do likewise with the public record in shining a light on this administration.]

“I would get a Nobel Prize for a lot of things if they give it out fairly, which they don’t.”

—Donald Trump, lamenting the fact he didn’t receive the Nobel Peace Prize at a campaign rally in Toledo, Ohio, in January. (Of course there’s always the possibility he will win the Nobel for medicine for his heroic work on combating the coronavirus epidemic.)