Here are some of the week’s most notable quotes culled from news reports from across Texas, and beyond.
Conservative radio host Sandy Rios, discussing Brandon Bostian, the Amtrak engineer in Tuesday’s train derailment that killed eight people and injured more than 200.
I am not inferring to [sic] those of you who are gay rights activists and who like to monitor this show, I’m not inferring that this accident happened because he was gay. But I do think it’s an interesting part of the story, and I bet it will be edited out.
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“I don’t know,” she added, “but I think it is something to be discussed and I think it’s a factor and I doubt you will hear it anywhere else.
TFN President Kathy Miller, on the likely death of House Bill 4105, which would have barred state and local officials from issuing or recognizing marriage licenses for gay and lesbian couples regardless of what the U.S. Supreme Court rules.
We hope today’s action means the death of this irresponsible bill and are grateful to all of the legislators who have worked hard to ensure that it never gets out of the House. This was just one bill among many in a broad strategy to lock in discrimination against gay and transgender Texans and subvert a Supreme Court ruling on the freedom to marry. Bad actors will continue to push their discrimination legislation, including as amendments to other bills, until the final gavel. So we’re not letting our guard down now.
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Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s response when asked if he understood why gay people view the state’s same-sex marriage ban as discriminatory.
They can feel how they want. The reality is the voters of Texas have passed the law as it is.
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Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson, on his proposed flat-tax plan which he says was inspired by the biblical practice of tithing.
You make $10 billion a year, you pay a billion; you make $10 year, you pay one. That’s pretty damn fair if you ask me.
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Mizzy Zdroj, saying that news coverage of Jade Helm 15 is missing the context of the collective trauma of Bastrop residents who survived the most destructive wildfire in Texas history.
The way it’s been playing out is that this place has lost its rocks or something. People aren’t crazy around here. People have just been through a lot.
