“Looking at impeachment, what he did, for sure, is survey the situation and understood that with this action, with this strike, that he would create a giant smokescreen that clouds and distracts around the issue of impeachment,” he suggested. This is a political act that has endangered the country. And the result of this is a more dangerous world where Americans will be killed that otherwise would not have been killed.”
— Steve Schmidt, former republican strategist, ‘Blood will be spilled’: Steve Schmidt explains Trump’s plan to get re-elected in 2020
*****
“The president of the United States is as easy to control as a toddler. … My diaper-wearing 20-month old daughter has better impulse control than this president.”
— Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-IL), Democrat Tammy Duckworth says Trump ‘is as easy to control as a toddler’ and ‘gets manipulated’ by dictators
*****
“The president treats the truth like a second home, he only lives there occasionally.”
— Mark Shields, Shields and Brooks on Iran general’s killing
*****
“There will be dead Americans, dead civilian Americans, as a result of this. I think we’ve now ended any hope of keeping Iraq out of Iran’s arms.”
— Michael Morell, former acting head of CIA on repercussions of assassination of Iranian Maj. Gen. Suleimani, Making of a martyr: How Qassem Suleimani was hunted down
*****
“It is rarely the children of the billionaire class who face the agony of reckless foreign policy ― it is the children of working families.”
— Sen. Bernie Sanders
*****
“Washington unfortunately, is a city filled with ambition, with individuals whose first instinct when faced with a decision is look over their shoulders and calculate how this might help or hurt them, who are unwilling to take a chance, to take a risk, to think of anyone or anything else besides themselves and their own careers.”
— Rep. John L. Lewis, Walking With the Wind: A Memoir Of The Movement, 1998 (p.451)
*****
“If the Democratic Party follows its base and promotes progressive candidates and policies, it has a good chance of pulling America back from the brink of authoritarianism and oligarchy, and to restore our moral authority in the world. A return to big thinking and big goals like those of FDR and LBJ will put Democrats on a track to a second multigenerational governing majority.”
— Thom Hartman, How America Broke Up With The Democratic Party
*****
“For anyone who accuses us for instituting purity tests, it’s called having values. It’s called giving a damn.”
— Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez