Politicians From Texas

"Teaching is one of the most creative and exhausting jobs I have ever had. Clever political adversaries, irate constituents, and elbow-throwing litigators were never as tough to handle as those students were on a daily basis."

"This inequity in our country's education system has never stopped seeming like one of our most chronic problems."

"he (Barack Obama) said, in Spanish that was pretty damn good, "Julián ha vivido el Sueño Americano." Julián has lived the American dream."

"what I think is important for folks to realize out there — and now I’m speaking, you know, directly to the Latinx community — is that it’s night and day with Joe Biden versus Donald Trump. Donald Trump has been the cruelest, most ill-intentioned president when it comes to not only immigrants, migrants, but the broader Latino community, scapegoated the community, otherized the community, uses it as a political piñata. And Joe Biden is somebody who brings compassion, who brings understanding, and, most importantly — because what you want to judge politicians on is, OK, what are you going to do, and what is your track record — has a track record of expanding opportunity, with Barack Obama. The Affordable Care Act expanded healthcare to 4 million — more than 4 million Latinx folks in this country. On educational opportunity, on violence against women, on housing opportunity. I remember going to Delaware with him — I think it was Veterans Day of 2016 — and marking the effective end of veteran homelessness there in Wilmington, and seeing how much that meant to him. So, this is somebody that is going to work to make life better for everybody in this country, in a way that Donald Trump — as Michelle Obama pointed out, Donald Trump just isn’t up to it and doesn’t want to do it."

"we wanted to highlight especially the claims of members of the LGBTQ community and also one person who is disabled. She’s deaf. We were highlighting them specifically because under the terms of the “Remain in Mexico” policy itself, somebody with a physical issue or mental health trauma is supposed to be exempted. In other words, they’re supposed to be allowed to remain in the United States while their claim is adjudicated, instead of being sent back to Mexico. These members of the LGBTQ community, they have been persecuted. They’ve been subjected to violence. They’ve been threatened. They’re suffering trauma and, some of them, PTSD. And so, we believe that they should qualify for that exemption because of the mental health trauma they’re going through. And the person who is deaf has a physical disability, a physical issue. She never should have been put in that program in the first place."

"I went over there, as I mentioned, there are over a thousand people. They’re all living in tents. They told me, to a person, that they don’t have clean water to drink, that a lot of the kids there are sick. I saw children as young as 12 days old, a baby that was 12 days old. They’re living basically in a field that’s right near the river, the Rio Grande river, and right next to the border station. So, these are people who are in desperate circumstances, living in unsanitary conditions, in squalor, not knowing what’s going to happen to them, and pleading for help."

"I do think — I agree with you on the issue of representation. You know, last week, I think the count had been that there were 35 primetime speakers, and only three of them were Latinx. And I raised, you know, a concern about that and also, at that time, a lack of representation among Native Americans and Muslim Americans, because I don’t believe that that represents the — that represented the beautiful coalition that Democrats have put together."

"Greg Abbott has been in the same boat as Donald Trump and governors like Ducey in Arizona and DeSantis in Florida. It’s this putting right-wing ideology over the public health and science. when he reopened the state in early May, he made three mistakes, reopening too early. When they reopened, they didn’t have the two things in place that public health experts tell us you need to have in place, which was robust testing and robust contact tracing. In fact, at the time, Texas ranked 48th per capita in terms of the number of tests that were happening. And then, third, when communities across the state begged the governor to be able to tailor their own safety precautions, require masks or do other things, the governor said, “No, my order supersedes you. You can’t do that,” opened up the bars and restaurants, and then basically made it worse here in the state of Texas for everybody, and has hurt the economy because of that — and admitted, for instance, that he made a mistake in opening the bars up too early. So, it’s just, you know, we can’t rely — in the middle of a global pandemic, you cannot rely on people that are putting their own political ideology and interests ahead of basic science and the public health. That is in nobody’s interest. That’s exactly what Greg Abbott has done."

"As a Mexican American, I had a common history with many of the families seeking asylum. The issue of immigration is a complicated and ever-evolving one, but so many folks forget that their own lineage can be traced to another land, another nation, to a moment when their family's survival depended on the empathy and acceptance of strangers. It's no secret that most of us came here because America represented a land of expanding opportunities, a place where one could reach previously unimaginable heights of success through hard work. Times and circumstances change, I realize. But while it's easy to talk about the American dream, every once in a while we need to wake up and ensure that it is not becoming obsolete."

"College is fantastic for a variety of reasons, but that opportunity to bond with people of very different backgrounds, to pull knowledge-big and small-from such a diverse pool, is invaluable, especially in the formative years."

"I realized that I would be much better off just being myself around people. That way I'd attract friends who liked the real me, not some person I was trying to be."

"One of the most interesting classes I took, "Europe and the Americas," detailed the systematic and brutally efficient decimation of indigenous peoples and cultures. One of the required books, I, Rigoberta Menchú, recounted the struggle of indigenous Guatemalans. Later on, in "Imagining the Holocaust," I heard the horrific account of what happened to Jews during World War II. At Stanford I was forced to pull back from my tight community and understand how a common thread ran through so many other cultures around the world where people had to fight for their rights."

"I did not see that op-ed, but I think that Jorge puts it very well there, that — you know, that this was something that Mexico agreed to. And to me, that was surprising, given the history of López Obrador and what I thought he would stand for and do once he was in office."

"we, as Americans, are more alike than different."

"Embrace your own unlikely journey."

"My brother Joaquin and I grew up with my mother Rosie and my grandmother Victoria. My grandmother was an orphan. As a young girl, she had to leave her home in Mexico and move to San Antonio, where some relatives had agreed to take her in."

"we can’t ignore the fact, of course, that this president is trying to suppress the vote as a strategy to rig this election and win."

"I guess I would have to explain the difference between Mexican and Cuban, you know?"

"he should end this policy. If I were elected president, I would immediately end this “Remain in Mexico” policy. It flies in the face of the United States policy of allowing people who are making a claim of asylum to remain in the United States while their claim is adjudicated."

"I think that Senator Sanders did a wonderful job. I think Michelle Obama was very powerful last night. But you’re right with Senator Sanders that — look, one of the things I noticed out there right now is that whether people are liberal or conservative, they’re Republican, Democrat, independent, what they want are solutions. And I think what Bernie did well in highlighting was this is what electing Joe Biden is going to mean for you and your family — raising the minimum wage, healthcare, a number of other things that are going to make people’s lives better. That’s what I think people want to know. You know, how is this person going to make my life and the life of my family and the country better than it is today? I think we’ve gotten to a point that because there’s so much back-and-forth on cable news, because people are so polarized, that folks that don’t love politics, that don’t follow it all the time, they sort of — they tend to shy away from it even more than usual right now, shy away from that conversation. And the best way, I think, to get their attention is to say, “OK, well, this is how it’s going to be different in a positive way.” And he did that, which was great."

"I’m glad to see local communities across the country that are engaging in deeper thinking about investing in mental health counseling, social workers, housing opportunity, because so many of the calls that police officers are asked to respond to are for people that are homeless or have a mental health issue, that they don’t need an armed cop. The vast majority of them are not violent. What they need is they need services, so that they can get onto a better life. And cities across the country, whether we’re talking about Los Angeles or San Francisco or Austin, Texas, just up the road from me, recently, are moving in that direction. And Joe Biden has said that he wants to work with local communities as they do that. All of that is positive. And as he said, we need to keep pushing."

"You famously said to Biden, “I’ve learned the lessons of the past, but you haven’t.”"

"my hope is that this president is going to be held to account for what he’s done in terms of violating his oath of office and abusing his power, that he will be impeached, that he will be removed from office. If he is not impeached and removed, he’s going to be defeated on November 3rd, 2020, and that this nightmare, with respect to how he’s treating migrants, will be over."

"What I believe is that our diversity in this country makes us strong, that we can harness the potential of immigrants, and that, for generations, immigrants, both documented and undocumented, have made this country stronger, have powered our economy, have helped ensure that we continue to move forward as a nation. And that’s going to continue to be the case in the future. And I believe that we should increase the number of people that we’re taking in as refugees and asylees, and that we should put undocumented immigrants who are here in the United States on a pathway to citizenship, as long as they have not committed a serious crime here in the United States. That’s what I would do as president."

"we actually need to create an independent immigration court system, that’s independent from the Department of Justice, with enough judges and support staff to hear these asylum claims and get people an answer in a timely manner. Some people will get asylum. We also know that some people will not. But people should not be waiting years to get an answer on their asylum claim."

"I mean, that’s the product of a deranged mind right there. What else can we say about that, except that’s an individual with a deranged mind and, obviously, a lot of hate toward these migrants? And, you know, this is the caliber of person that’s sitting in the Oval Office right now. It’s just one more example of why he should not be president of the United States, somebody who is not only hateful, but who is so divorced from reality that he would, on multiple occasions, bring up the idea of shooting people. It makes no sense."

"His father worked in the petroleum industry, and the family traveled a great deal: Scotland, Egypt, Ecuador, and Columbia. As a result, Crenshaw developed a perspective on the world that deepened his appreciation for America and what it offered. He also wanted to model himself after his mother. For five years, Susan Carol Crenshaw fought a battle against breast cancer. Her positivity and refusal to give in to a victim's mentality had a profound effect on him long after she passed away when he was ten. A 2006 graduate of Tufts University with a degree in international relations, Congressman Crenshaw was also enrolled in the naval ROTC program there. He commissioned in the navy immediately after graduation. He served for ten years, experienced five tours of duty, and was medically retired in 2016. In 2012, while on an operation in Helmand Province, Afghanistan, an IED explosion seriously wounded him. He lost his right eye and very nearly lost the vision in his left. His recovery was miraculous, and he later deployed to Bahrain and South Korea. He served with great distinction during his military career and was awarded two Bronze Stars, one with Valor; the Purple Heart; and the Navy and Marine Corps Commendation Medal with Valor, among many others."

"When he was twelve, Congressman Crenshaw's father suggested he read Dick Marcincko's Rogue Warrior. Marcinko was a Navy SEAL and the man who first commanded SEAL Team 6. His memoir fired the imaginations of many future SEAL team members. Congressman Crenshaw possessed a keen sense of adventure at an early age (he originally thought he wanted to be a spy), but after reading that book, he told himself that a seal was who he wanted to become. In Congressman Crenshaw's mind, there is an important distinction between deciding what you want to do with your life and deciding what kind of person you want to be. Many of the decisions he's made in life have been based around the latter."

"CONGRESSMAN DAN CRENSHAW: “If I ever meet Tucker Carlson, I’ll suck him off. I’m not joking.” https://www.forbes.com/sites/siladityaray/2025/02/25/hot-mic-appears-to-catch-gop-rep-saying-hed-kill-tucker-carlson-if-they-met-former-fox-host-offers-his-address/"

"Congressman Dan Crenshaw has certainly made an impact since being elected to the House of Representatives for Texas's Second Congressional District. He ran as a Republican in the primary with very little previous experience and virtually no money to take on candidates with deeper pockets and more political and legislative experience. He won, like he has so often in life. Since taking office, he has gained in prominence within the Republican Party and is considered to be one of its young rising stars. That should come as no surprise given Congressman Crenshaw's bona fides."

"This is what happens when angry little boys like @alexstein99 don’t grow up and can’t get girlfriends…"

"Don’t kid yourself into believing that’s why we lost. It’s not. I’ll tell you openly. I'm not wrong."

"a super PAC called Conservative Results Matter is going after Republican Dan Crenshaw, calling him an “anti-Trump liberal,” in the two-way GOP runoff to replace retiring Texas Rep. Ted Poe. “‘Insane, hateful, idiot.’ These are the words so-called Republican Dan Crenshaw used to describe President Trump,” the narrator says in a new TV ad from the super PAC. “Crenshaw called Trump an ‘idiot.’” The attack mirrors a Facebook post by Crenshaw’s runoff opponent, state Rep. Kevin Roberts, which cites an old Facebook post of Crenshaw’s and says Crenshaw “openly [attacked] Donald Trump as an ‘idiot,’ ‘insane,’ and ‘ignorant.’”"

"Everybody I knew who became a SEAL wanted to be one for a long time. You wanted this. You knew that you were, or wanted to be, an outside-the-box thinker, a sort of renegade or rebel, but also a strictly disciplined soldier. So you became that before you got to BUD/S (basic underwater demolition/SEAL training). BUD/S just made you prove it and then trained you to harness that. You learn how to exist in two different mental states: those of an ultra-aggressive combatant and a chivalrous gentleman. And you can instantaneously transition between the two. That's a warrior."

"Politics is the social manifestation of a set of policies. When I speak to kids, I let them know that there's a crucial difference between politics and policy. If you want to go into politics, then you have to be a representative of other people. To do that, you have to be able to communicate well. So before you decide to run for office, you have to ask yourself a few questions: Do you care about just one policy or issue? Are you good at communicating? Are you able to frame and win an argument? What are you good at? I don't think that all elected officials or candidates think through answers to these, and lots of candidates don't win because they quit on that notion of self-examination. For me, politics happened overnight when an opportunity presented itself. Because the military makes you think you have to be uber-prepared for everything, I thought that maybe I'd have a seat in about ten years. We did it in three months."

"I encourage the American public to look beyond the headlines. If you read beyond the headlines, not only will you be outraged, you'll be a better thinker. Even good journalists are defeated by bad headlines. They don't write the headlines. Editors do, and they are created more as clickbait than truth. they are designed to appeal on an emotional level. I can't make the media do anything different. I can't force them. I can't shame them all day long, which is what I do, but they don't care. So many journalists are so left-wing that they are fighting an ideological battle. They'll do whatever it takes to drive their side's biases home. And that's sad for the good journalists who are out there writing good and fair pieces."

"There's a notion out there that service members are victims somehow, that they were being used by some government overlord to do their political bidding. That's not true. We're an all-volunteer force and we love what we do. We understand that there are bad people out there that seek to do harm against the United States' interests. We are willing to go out there and fight them."

"Not only was the SNL blowup a huge boon to Crenshaw’s campaign and public image, but it also totally blotted out any memory of the fact that the former Navy SEAL is linked to far-right conspiracy group “Tea Party,” which popularized the Pizzagate conspiracy. On August 31, Newsweek reported that Crenshaw and four other GOP nominees were or had been administrators on a popular Facebook group that bolstered the 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, pushed Pizzagate, and provided a comfortable home for racist chit-chat. When Newsweek contacted Crenshaw about the group he was listed as an administrator and had posted two of his campaign movies to the group, Crenshaw told the publication he’d “never actively managed or interacted with that page.” He then removed himself from the group."

"A little perspective can be the difference between spiraling into dark despair and clawing your way back to the light. A brave young woman fought through despair twenty years before, which meant I could do it now, suffering in darkness in a sterile hospital room in Germany. So when the doctors told me I had virtually no chance of seeing ever again, I just heard one thing: Virtually."

"A favorite memory of many veterans is their time sitting around grumbling incessantly about their circumstances with their teammates. I have to admit that we do this way more than the average group of people. It's like a continuous group therapy project. When the guys stop complaining, leadership starts to worry. What's wrong with them? Are they depressed? Something wrong at home? The reality is that in these high-performing environments, where everyone is a perfectionist and overachiever, people like to point out deficiencies in the most over-the-top fashion, usually with a side of sarcastic and cutting humor. The good news is that they also aspire to fix those problems. Or maybe we are just a bunch of divas. I don't know. Maybe it's both."

"I recognize my corpsman's voice, as he works on my wounds. I say, "Dude, don't get blown up. It sucks." He laughs and tells me to shut up."

"My mother spent half a decade staring death in the face, burdened with caring for two small boys whom she would not live to see grow up. She lived day to day in ever-increasing pain. The cancer afflicted her- and the cancer treatments afflicted her, too. Six rounds of chemotherapy on top of radiation treatments are a brutal experience for even the strongest constitution. Self-pity is never a useful state. But if anyone had reason to feel sorry for herself, and to complain a bit, it was my mom. She never did."

"As my career progressed, I took note of the leaders I respected. I thought about their actions, their manner of speaking, their habits. I noticed the way they incorporated humor to give a successful briefing, interacted gracefully with their subordinates, and thought creatively about tactical situations. I observed how some leaders would react too emotionally in tense situations, and how the team reacted as a result. Calm breeds calm, and panic breeds panic. Were these great leaders the fastest or the strongest? The best shooters? Not always. The qualities that made SEAL leaders great were rarely physical in nature. They listened. They empowered their team to be successful, carefully entrusting individuals with additional responsibility. They highlighted good performance publicly and criticized bad performance privately. They didn't waste their men's time. They were prepared and thoughtful with mission planning. They were articulate but also genuine. They came across as real people with humor and emotions instead of just robotic military men."

"You ever wonder why we are always doing inspections in the military? Why do we obsess over perfect creases, shiny shoes, and crisply made beds? It's simple: If you can't get the small stuff right, you won't get the big stuff right. If you ignore the relatively unimportant details, then you are more likely to ignore the very important details, the stuff that actually counts. This is true of running a town, a city, or a country, but also for running your own life."

"Writing this book was the first time I thought deeply about the lessons I'd derived from the SEAL teams, and life in general. It is quite the challenge to examine your own attributes, your failings, and then attempt to extract the lessons from your past that make you who you are today. This book is largely a product of that journey."

"I've always supported President Trump, I didn't always support candidate Trump."

"Israel is our most important ally in the Middle East. We must always stand with Israel."

"In BUD/S the failures are more surprising than the successes. A lot of times, the most athletic, the fittest, the physically strongest candidates were the ones who quit. They should have been able to just crush it, but they didn't. Part of that is because they spent too much time on physical preparation and not enough on mental preparation. They believed that because of their physicality, their athleticism, they wouldn't be so surprised when faced with immediate failure. Those failures happen so fast in BUD/S. Your body fails constantly. That's what the program is designed to do to you. It is not physically possible to do everything that is being demanded of you. So you break down; you can't do every repetition of every exercise. We called them beatdowns for a reason. The instructors want us to break down and run away with our tail between our legs. They keep pressing us to go on, even after you thought that the activity was over. That happens to you over and over again. Your muscles fail you. And the instructors understand that difference between quitting- a failure of the will- and failing- your body giving out when you have already pushed yourself past what you once perceived as your limit. They respect that you hung in there long enough to truly fail. That's probably why you see so much anxiety and increasing suicide in our larger society. We have the most comfortable society the world has ever known. And that's good; I'm glad we do. But it's also made some people weak, and they break down when confronted with suffering. If you want to be a person who doesn't freak out just because you're scared or whatever else you're doing, then decide to be that person. Every time you fall short of that goal, look back on that situation and tell yourself you're going to do better next time. Eventually you will."

"It's up to us as consumers of information to be smarter, to take control. The only way a problem gets fixed is if you fix it as an individual. Don't just read to confirm your own preconceived bias. Do your research. Wait to form an opinion. You do no harm when you say you don't know and you don't have an opinion. There's no shame in that. There's a lot of shame in having a strong opinion with no facts. Too many people are very quick to feel a truth. You can't feel a truth. You can have feelings, but don't pretend that your feelings are what matter the most. Don't let your feelings drive your reality. A lot of people, veterans and civilians, fall victim to victimhood. They feel like they are victims. What are you doing, then? You're removing power from yourself. Now you're letting somebody else have control over you. That's a terrible existence. Even if you were really unfairly treated, you have to tell yourself a story of overcoming that. It's the only way out. Period. Full stop."

"I always ask the question, like what? You know, like what is he undermining exactly? You know what – what democratic freedoms have been undermined? We just had an election where we switched power in the House. Democracy is at work. People are voting in record numbers."