Quote du jour

“My opponent was literally in bed with Chinese intelligence” will make a hell of a good attack ad.

- @jimgeraghty, on Eric Swalwell

Quote du jour

If a protest turns into violence, looting, or the destruction of property, we would like a government and police forces that stop it, identifies the perpetrators, and arrests them. We would like prosecutors to do their jobs, instead of unilaterally decreeing that they do not deem charges of disorderly conduct, interfering with a peace officer, or rioting to be crimes anymore.

- Jim Geraghty

Quote du jour

Last night, New York governor Andrew Cuomo declared, “In many ways, COVID is just a metaphor.”
Except the thousands upon thousands of New York nursing-home residents who died didn’t succumb to a metaphor.

-@jimgeraghty

Quote du jour

“The fact that Kamala Harris’ brother-in-law is chief legal officer for Uber at a time when the company has vowed to cut off all operations in California rather than pay its drivers as employees ought to be a bigger problem for the Democratic ticket.”

-@jimgeraghty

Quote du jour

Based simply upon case and death numbers, Hawaii’s David Ige is arguably the most successful governor in the country. But his mandatory quarantine rules have simultaneously destroyed the state’s tourism industry and his state has 26% unemployment.

-@jimgeraghty

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Reuters: “A troop of monkeys in India attacked a medical official & snatched away blood samples of patients who had tested positive for the novel coronavirus...The attack occurred this week...
You knew something like this would happen after we lost Charlton Heston

-@jimgeraghty

Quote du jour

"North Korea’s Kim Jong-un has turned into Schrödinger’s dictator, apparently simultaneously alive and near-death."

-Jim Geraghty

Quote du jour

Five hundred million dollars, divided by 327 million people, comes out to roughly $1.52. To make everyone in America a millionaire, you would need $320 trillion (with a “tr”). The total world gross domestic product — that means the total value of every good and service generated by every human being on the planet for an entire year — is about $92 trillion.

-Jim Geraghty

Quote du jour

If you love to see Democratic candidates tearing into other Democratic candidates, the Las Vegas debate was joyous, beautiful, exciting, and wondrous. It was WrestleMania, it was Roman gladiators, it was a demolition derby. Don’t let anyone spin you; most of the candidates came out in worse shape than they entered.

-@JimGerahty

Quotes du jour

“It’s time for an economic revolution. Capitalism today is failing us, killing us, and robbing from our children’s future.”

-Mark Ruffalo

"Ruffalo’s net worth is about $30 million and he made about $6 million for the last Avengers movie. For a guy who hates capitalism and the profit motive, he sure is good at it."

-Jim Geraghty

I Guess American History Began in 2017, Huh?

“The president’s serious misconduct, including bribery, soliciting a personal favor from a foreign leader in exchange for his exercise of power, and obstructing justice and Congress are worse than the misconduct of any prior president,” Michael Gerhardt, a University of North Carolina law professor will say, according to a copy of his opening statement obtained by Politico.

Dude. Dude. Eight of our presidents owned slaves while serving in the White House. Franklin Roosevelt forcibly imprisoned tens of thousands of law-abiding American citizens for four years because of their ancestry. Woodrow Wilson re-segregated the federal government, wrote that the races were unequal, and threw a black civil rights leader out of the Oval Office. If we want to expand it to vice presidents, Aaron Burr straight-up murdered the old Treasury Secretary by shooting him in the chest.

Worse than Lyndon Johnson telling America that that we were winning the Vietnam War when we weren’t? That one proved a lot more consequential in the lives of Americans.

How much better or worse is the effort to strongarm the Ukrainian government than Jimmy Carter’s irritated pledge, “if I get back in, I’m going to f*** the Jews”?

-Jim Geraghty

Quote du jour

That’s what separates those of us deeply frustrated with Trump from those who have full-blown Trump Derangement Syndrome. When you cannot take any satisfaction, joy, or other positive feelings in a dead ISIS leader, the end of the Islamic State, low unemployment, a booming stock market, criminal justice reform, Right to Try, or any other development in any realm of social policy, economic policy, or foreign policy, then we are no longer discussing a particular presidency but what criteria you use to see the world.

Your lens is permanently darkened and cannot let in light, no matter how brightly it shines. The continued presence of a president you deeply dislike ruins everything for you, and that says a great deal more about you than him.

-Jim Geraghty

Quote du jour

The fact that so many people are willing to lash out so angrily over some random person’s criticism of their favorite pop star suggests to me that we live a society full of people who are desperate to believe in something. They yearn for someone to put their faith in and to inspire them. They want to believe that someone out there is, if not perfect, about as close as any human being can get to that exalted status. They want to feel connected to a larger group, a community all experiencing the same feelings at the same time. They want to believe in something greater that gives them purpose and direction, provides a set of role models, and often gives them some sort of lesson about what living a good life is.

-Jim Geraghty

Quote du jour

Beto O’Rourke called the El Paso shooting an “act of terror, that was directed at our community, in large part by the president of the United States.” Trump says a lot of controversial, incendiary, and ill-considered things, but it is a damnable lie to contend that Trump directed the shooter to kill Latinos in a Walmart.

-Jim Geraghty

Quote du jour

Bernie Sanders declared, “we have the highest child poverty rate of almost any country on earth.” He’s exaggerated a report by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development that put the U.S. in the middle of 38 countries studied; there are 195 countries on earth. The frustrating thing is that Sanders could have said, “too many American children live in poverty, and we should do everything we can to bring that number to zero” and everyone across the political spectrum would agree.

-Jim Geraghty

Quote du jour

After Epstein was labeled a “Level 3 sex offender” — meaning the worst — Epstein was required by law to check in with the NYPD every 90 days. He never checked in at all over an eight-year span. How did that not generate any consequences?

-@jimgeraghty

Seek, and Ye Shall Find!

The loss of U.S.S. Scorpion inadvertently played a role in the discovery of the wreckage of the Titanic. In 1985, the Navy asked oceanographer Robert Ballard to see if he could find the wreckage of the Scorpion and another lost submarine, the U.S.S. Thresher. The Navy needed a cover story, so Ballard asked if he could say he was looking for the Titanic — and to maintain the cover, he would search in the area the Titanic was suspected of sinking. Fine, the Navy said, just remember your job is to find those submarines.

Ballard found the two U.S. submarines, studied the ocean currents, debris, and drift patterns . . . and then found the Titanic.

-Jim Geraghty

Quote du jour

The things that are right about America do not erase what is wrong about America, and the things that are wrong about America do not erase what is right about America. That’s an oddly simple point, but one that a lot of people don’t want to hear.

-Jim Geraghty

Quote du jour

In practice it is clear that in recent cycles, a good chunk of the people running for president aren’t really running for president. They’re running for more media appearances, a post-campaign cable-news gig, maybe hoping to be picked for vice president or a future cabinet post, a bigger book deal some years down the road, and maybe status as the de facto leader of one faction within the party. In short, a bunch of these candidates are running because they want to be celebrities.

-Jim Geraghty

Quote du jour

"Democrats with thin résumés enjoy the fantasy stage of campaigning for president."

-Jim Geraghty