I Didn't Say It

Jon Stewart, comedian, former “Daily Show” host and activist, taking on Ted Cruz for voting No on the PACT bill, and the subsequent passing of the bill:

"I'm used to lies. I'm used to hypocrisy. I'm used to their cowardice. I'm not used to the cruelty [for a bill] … they had fought for, for more than a decade. The bill that Ted Cruz voted yes on had the exact same funding provisions as the bill he voted no on. It’s the exact same bill. None of this makes any sense. That is just a word salad that he's spewing into his coffee cup on his way to God knows where. All cowards. All of them … I’m not sure I’ve ever seen this situation where people who have already given so much had to fight so hard to get so little. I hope we learned a lesson.”

The bill finally passed this week though these eleven Republicans voted ‘No’: Mitt Romney, Rand Paul, Mike Crapo, James Lankford, Mike Lee, Cynthia Lumis,  James Risch, Richard Shelby, Pat Toomey, Tommy Turberville, Thom Tillis.

Note that Rafael Cruz voted ‘Yes’ this time though not one thing changed about the bill after he voted ‘No’ and then fist-bumped his fellow ReTHUGlicans.

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Whoopi Goldberg, on the passing of pioneering actor Nichelle Nichols who inspired her to appear in ‘Star Trek’:

“Nichelle Nichols was a trailblazer, a heroine, and an extraordinary woman—somebody who inspired millions and millions of people, but who inspired me because I explained when I went to get my gig at ‘Star Trek’ that Nichelle was the first Black person I’d ever seen who made it to the future. She was head of communications. And this show and this woman was the one beacon that said, ‘Yes, we’ll be there.’ And it just made me feel like that was an amazing thing. She helped propel other women to go into space. She was extraordinary and I was lucky enough to spend time with her over the years. She was my friend. She’ll be missed.”

As in many cases, people of color stand on  the shoulders of those who came before them, and help the next generation step up. Nichelle did that for Whoopi, and Whoopi paid it forward.

Rest in Power.

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Joe Scarborough, MSNBC’s ‘Morning Joe,’ on that stunning rejection by Kansas voters of an amendment that would have allowed state legislators to ban abortion:

“I think it’s an example a lot of people who identified themselves as pro-life looking at what happened since Roe was overturned. Looking at the extremism, looking at the 10-year-old girl being chased from the state, looking at the Texas attorney general fighting for the right to let mothers die on the operating table, to tear away the protections that the federal government is trying to put in place to protect moms to have a choice whether they die on an operating table or not. You look at all of the extremities, and now again in another Republican state legislature trying to give the right to members of a rapist’s family to sue a rape victim for $20,000 unless she has a forced pregnancy. This is a rapist’s bill of rights that Republicans are passing, a rapists’ bill of rights for forced childbirth on children.”

The vote made Kansas one of the only red states where abortion remains legal after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. And it might just be the first because SCOTUS and the GOP’s rapidly increasing radicalism—Don’t Say Gay, don’t honor police officers, vote against healthcare for vets, ban books, attack drag queens—has pissed off a lot of people on both sides.

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Mitch McConnell, Senate Minority Leader, walking back his expectations about how many Senate seats are likely to flip in the midterm election:

“I think it’s going to be very tight. We have a 50-50 nation. And I think when this Senate race smoke clears, we’re likely to have a very, very close Senate still, with us up slightly or the Democrats up slightly.”

I think Mitch maybe trying to play both sides. We do not have a 50-50 nation; there are more democrats than Republican and when we vote, we win. And the four years terrorist reign  of Thing 45, coupled with this radical SCOTUS, and the GOP’s culture wars on everything that isn’t white and Christian and straight, has angered Democrats and Independents and women and the LGBTQ+ community.

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