« Upon this, one has to remark that men ought either to be well treated or crushed, because they can avenge themselves of lighter injuries, of more serious ones they cannot; therefore the injury that is to be done to a man ought to be of such a kind that one does not stand in fear of revenge. » The Prince, Niccolò Machiavelli.

...[H]aving covered five presidential elections, I frankly do not know what you could write about our political process that would make it appear any stupider than it actually is.

- Dave Barry

“It definitely broke our spirits,” said Brittany Harris, 17, a junior and the co-president of the club, when she heard that the board didn’t want to accept the grant that students had worked on for weeks.

LGBTQ teens won a grant for their school. Adults sent the money back. (Now no longer paywalled!)

"There's a Palestine that dwells inside all of us, a Palestine that needs to be rescued: a free Palestine where all people regardless of color, religion, or race coexist; a Palestine where the meaning of the word "occupation" is only restricted to what the dictionary says rather than those plenty of meanings and connotations of death, destruction, pain, suffering, deprivation, isolation and restrictions that Israel has injected the word with"

-- Refaat Alareer, from Gaza Writes Back

Well, Fire fighter dude certainly didn’t hold back on his thoughts.

I know I'm a week late but I do think people are misunderstanding the point of the Anthony Bourdain quote about Kissinger

The point was never "Anthony Bourdain has good politics and is an unproblematic fave," the point is that even someone with mainstream liberalish politics who goes to Cambodia for a food tour - a, let's be honest, very bougie type of trip to be part of your job - and has a basic understanding of history and a bare minimum of human decency can come away from that bougie food tour wanting to murder Henry Kissinger with their bare hands. The point is that Henry Kissinger fucked up this country so bad the only reason he wasn't lynched decades ago is because it's on the opposite side of the world and the people who were in proximity to him never really saw what it was. The point is that if we could see firsthand what our First World politics do to the Third World we would understand that monsters walk among us and it's a cultural failing that we let them die at home at 100 years old surrounded by their friends and family.

"It hurt to lose to Ronald Reagan. But after the election, I tried to make the transition as smooth as possible. Later, from my experience in trying to brief him on matters of supreme importance, I was very disturbed at his lack of interest. The issues were the 15 or 20 most important subjects that I as President could possibly pass on to him. His only reaction of substance was to express admiration for the political circumstances in South Korea that let President Park close all the colleges and draft all the demonstrators. That was the only issue on which he came alive."

-- Former President Jimmy Carter, on losing the 1980 election and the transition leading to the inauguration of Ronald Reagan, interview with TIME Magazine, October 11, 1982.

“There’s never been a true war that wasn’t fought between two sets of people who were certain they were in the right. The really dangerous people believe that they are doing whatever they are doing solely and only because it is without question the right thing to do. And that’s what makes them dangerous”

~ Neil Gaiman (as Mr. Wednesday) “American Gods” (2001)

« To secure himself in his new principality, to win friends, to overcome either by force or fraud, to make himself beloved and feared by the people, to be followed and revered by the soldiers, to exterminate those who have power or reason to hurt him, to change the old order of things for new, to be severe and gracious, magnanimous and liberal, to destroy a disloyal soldiery and to create new, to maintain friendship with kings and princes in such a way that they must help him with zeal and offend with caution » Niccolò Machiavelli, The Prince.

Haven't you already taken enough? Or do you need to sacrifice another pound of flesh on the altar of the culture war? You've denied us health care, banned our books, and harassed and forcibly outed queer kids. If the leadership in this body had any dignity whatsoever, it would immediately adjourn this subcommittee and issue an immediate apology for ever having entertained such an egregious violation of human rights.

Amie Wichtendahl, Iowa's first elected transgender member of government, speaking at a hearing where Iowa's attempt to revoke civil rights for trans ppl was defeated (via ErinintheMorning)

Jason, after being arrested at Disneyland: I was a political prisoner.

Bruce: How were you a political prisoner?

Jason: I punched a giant mouse in the face. Do I have to draw you a diagram?

Wherever there are politics or economics no morality exists.

Friedrich Schlegel, Ideas