Hot Air

“It’s the biggest sort of trillion-dollar question about how you adapt communities like this to the world that we’re already now living in, at the same time trying to mitigate … more wicked storms down the road with more fossil fuel pollution. Right now, the Gulf is being reopened by the Biden administration for oil and gas lease sales… There are lawsuits around that … but it’s the double bind of these sort of oil economies and places like this where they have that as an income stream, but also the cost of it is becoming bigger with every storm.” —CNN Chief Climate Correspondent Bill Weir

“To understand these fires, you have to rewind to the 19th century, when Christian missionaries transformed an area that was mostly wetlands into large-scale sugar plantations that required the digging of tunnels and the building of reservoirs to divert water to mills and away from sustainable agriculture.” —New York Times opinion writer Yarimar Bonilla in “A Legacy of Colonialism Set the Stage for the Maui Wildfires”

“I don’t think anybody can deny the impact of the climate crisis anymore. Just look around.” —Joe Biden

The BIG Lies

“Lightning stuck my house. We had to be outta that house for about seven months while it was repaired because so much damage was done to the house, and half the house almost collapsed.” —Joe Biden

“We are stopping the flow at the border. … The president has put a plan that is … indeed stopping, slowing down the flow.” —Karine Jean-Pierre

Baghdad Bob

“[Biden] went to Kyiv and he was there with the alarms blaring in the back and people were so impressed that he was able to be there and look strong.” —White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre

“It is hard for us to keep up with this president, who is constantly, constantly working every day to get things done.” —Karine Jean-Pierre

“[Biden] has his finger on the pulse of what it is that the American people need, he talks about issues that really matter to the American people, and he is delivering.” —Karine Jean-Pierre

“What this president brings to this administration is wisdom and experience — and that is just true.” —Karine Jean-Pierre

Belly Laugh of the Day

“I want to thank, of course, our nation’s champion, President Biden, for your leadership and commitment to lowering costs for working families in every way.” —Kamala Harris

Village Idiot

“No doubt there is 1% or 2% of black people in America who have a better life.” —musician John Mellencamp regarding post-slavery America

Political Futures

“At a time of deep political division, Biden unites Americans in a common view of his complete unsuitability for a second term. An Associated Press/NORC poll found that 77% of voters think he’s too old to serve again, including 69% percent of Democrats. They are being driven to this conclusion by the unadorned evidence of Biden’s disturbingly uneven performance.” —Rich Lowry

“Usually, someone has her kind of rock-bottom numbers after being associated with a deeply unpopular new initiative or a major scandal. But the only baggage Vice President Harris has is her own political persona.” —Rich Lowry

And Last…

“Two weeks ago, we have Biden shouting in a press conference: ‘Name me one single objective that we set out to accomplish that we failed on. Name me one in all of our history. Not one!’ I say to you, Mr. President: You’ve got 13 pictures that we have all named. You’ve got 13 that you did not accomplish. I know he can’t name one of them without a card sitting in front of him or a teleprompter sitting in front of him. I say to him: resign. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. Secretary Blinken, Secretary Lloyd, General Milley: you need to resign.” —Afghanistan Gold Star dad Darin Hoover