WEEKEND QUOTABLES

 

Tim Miller

 CPAC Was the Real Republican Party All Along. -- The Bulwark

Sarah Jones

Schools need to reopen, but the process is complicated by problems created by years of underfunding, not by teachers unions. -- New York Magazine

Tim Cadogan, GoFundMe C.E.O.

  “This is a war against a virus...If this were a war against another country at this scale, it would be no question what we would do, right? We would mobilize our society to defeat it.” -- New York Times

King James responds to Zlatan

"I’ll use my platform to continue to shed light on everything that’s going on around this country and around the world. There’s no way I would ever just stick to sports because I understand how powerful this platform and my voice are.” -- Sportsnet

Gross. Mike Pompeo at CPAC, brags about under Trump, they used “beautiful tomahawk missiles” to bomb Syria. MISSILES ARE NOT BEAUTIFUL! They are killing machines.

— Medea Benjamin (@medeabenjamin) February 27, 2021

Talk about being anti-science. Now we assassinate scientists.

 

Well, at least now we know what Sec. of State Mike Pompeo and  Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu were secretly meeting about last week in Saudi Arabia. They were planning the assassination of another Iranian nuclear scientist, Mohsen Fakhrizadeh.   

Remember, Israeli Mossad agents assassinated a half-dozen Iranian nuclear scientists from 2010 to 2012. Then, in January, Trump ordered the assassination of Iranian military leader Qasem Soleimani, in violation of international law, claiming that the killing would "stop a war, not start one." Soleimani's murder occurred during the 2019–20 Persian Gulf crisis, which began after the U.S. withdrew from the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran in 2018.

The difference this time is that there's little pretense about stopping a bomb or heading off an Iranian terrorist plot. Fakhrizadeh's killing, only weeks before the Trump/Pompeo gang will be forced to give up the reins of power, was simply a provocation aimed at sabotaging Biden's transition setting back any attempt at restoring the collapsed nuclear deal.

According to the New York Times:

 Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, with the support of President Trump, seems intent on scorching the earth to make it harder for any return to diplomacy under President-elect Joe Biden.

Trump, in fact, appears to be hoping for retaliation from Iranian leaders which could then escalate the crisis and leave Joe Biden with a war on his hands when he takes over on January 20th. The Republicans' goal is to weaken Sec. of State Anthony Blinken's ability to negotiate a new nuclear agreement. 

Biden is already committed to reopening talks with Iran along with his European partners. Iran has said repeatedly that it would go back into full compliance with the nuclear agreement if the Biden administration agrees to do the same and lifts the onerous sanctions piled on by President Trump.

This latest provocation was predictable. Some even earlier expressed fears that a new attack on Iran would be used by Trump to use war-time powers to put off the election. Obviously, that was just a pipedream. 

Iran’s response to Soleimani’s killing was limited to a dozen missiles fired against two U.S. bases in Iraq. The hope is now that Iranian leaders will see the Trump/Netanyahu plot for what it is and be measured in their response again this time around. 

WEEKEND QUOTABLES

Jim Carroll

“In basketball, you can correct your mistakes immediately and beautifully, and in midair.” -- Esquire

Betsy DeVos

Education Secretary Betsy DeVos compared the choice to have an abortion with the choice to own slaves, saying President Abraham Lincoln also had to contend with a misguided “pro-choice” argument. -- Washington Post

Chesa Boudin

John Raphling, Human Rights Watch

“For too long, prosecutors have used money bail and pretrial incarceration as leverage to pressure people to plead guilty regardless of actual guilt. Boudin’s policy favoring pretrial release is a welcome change and will build the credibility of our courts.” -- The Nation

Mary Louise Kelly, “All Things Considered” host on NPR

Kelly, remarkably, said that Pompeo asked her after the interview, “Do you think Americans care about Ukraine?” and asked her to find the country on a blank map, apparently suggesting she didn’t even know. She said she did, and Pompeo concluded the scene by saying, “People will hear about this.” -- Washington Post

 Donald Trump

"Take her out." -- Recording

WEEKEND QUOTABLES

Evangelical Trump supporters at Miami rally, "He was sent to us."

Donald Trump

"God is on our side." -- N.Y. Times

Rep. Ilhan Omar

“‪Let’s not mince words: the assassination of Qasem Soleimani was an act of war undertaken without Congressional authorization, in violation of the Constitution of the United States of America. We in Congress must exercise our Constitutional duty—and do everything in our power to stop another disastrous war. ” -- Press Release

Adel Abdul Mahdi, Prime Minister of Iraq

Adel Abdul Mahdi recommended that the government establish a timetable for the departure of foreign troops, including the members of the U.S.-led coalition fighting the Islamic State militant group, “for the sake of our national sovereignty.”

“What happened was a political assassination,” Abdul Mahdi said. -- Washington Post

Sec. of State Mike Pompeo

Iraqis — Iraqis — dancing in the street for freedom; thankful that General Soleimani is no more. -- Twitter