WEEKEND QUOTABLES

Time Magazine

There were 3,800 anti-Asian racist incidents, mostly against women, in the past year. A torrent of hate and violence against people of Asian descent around the U.S. began last spring, in the early days of the coronavirus pandemic. Community leaders say the bigotry was spurred by the rhetoric of former President Trump, who referred to the coronavirus as the “China virus.”Amid the current upsurge in attacks on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, and in reaction to the growing national movement against anti-Asian hate crimes, former Arkansas Republican Gov. Mike Huckabee seized the moment to post this dismissive, mocking tweet about people of Chinese ancestry in America. 

Mike Huckabee

“I’ve decided to ‘identify’ as Chinese,” Huckabee tweeted Saturday. “Coke will like me, Delta will agree with my ‘values’ and I’ll probably get shoes from Nike & tickets to @MLB games,” he added, in a reference to criticism against Georgia for its new law making it more difficult to vote. -- Huffington

 Congresswoman Ilhan Omar 

“It’s been really horrendous to watch the defense put George Floyd on trial instead of the former police officer who’s charged with his murder.” -- Guardian 

Former House Speaker, John Boehner

“P.S.: Ted Cruz, go fuck yourself!” -- Leaked audiobook

 Rebecca Solnit

My hope for a post-pandemic world is that the old excuses for doing nothing about climate – that it is impossible to change the status quo and too expensive to do so – have been stripped away. In response to the pandemic, we in the US have spent trillions of dollars and changed how we live and work. We need the will to do the same for the climate crisis.  -- Guardian

Sen. Bernie Sanders

“I have no problem with going to West Virginia, and I think we need a grassroots movement that makes it clear to Joe Manchin and everybody else in the United States Senate, including Republicans, that the progressive agenda is what the American people want." -- MSNBC

WEEKEND QUOTABLES

Hollywood Blvd. 

Mariame Kaba, organizer against criminalization 

Yes, We Mean Literally Abolish the Police... here’s an immediate demand we can all make: Cut the number of police in half and cut their budget in half. Fewer police officers equals fewer opportunities for them to brutalize and kill people. -- New York Times op-ed

House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn

... said Sunday no one is going to defund the police, and instead called for a "reimagining" of police forces across the country."

 Clyburn told CNN's Ana Cabrera on Saturday that he believes pushing a "defund the police" slogan only gives "cover" to President Donald Trump and the people opposing change in the law enforcement system. -- CNN

Democratic Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar 

"No one is saying crimes will not be investigated. No one is saying that we are not going to have proper response when community members are in danger."

Instead, she said the current policing infrastructure should not exist anymore, and echoed Clyburn's call to reimagine the system, citing changes in places like Camden, N.J.

"We can't go about creating a different process with the same infrastructure in place," she said. "And so dismantling it, and then looking at what funding priorities should look like as we reimagine a new way forward is what needs to happen." -- Politico

Rep. Bobby Rush

 “They’re the organized guardians of continuous police lawlessness, of police murder and police brutality. The Chicago Fraternal Order of Police is the most rabid, racist body of criminal lawlessness by police in the land. It stands shoulder to shoulder with the Ku Klux Klan then and the Ku Klux Klan now.” -- Politico