The Patriot Post® · Thursday Short Cuts

Letting the Cat Out of the Bag

“I’m from Brooklyn, New York. We … can absorb a significant number of these migrants. … I need more people in my district just for redistricting purposes.” —Congresswoman Yvette Clarke (D-NY)

Race Hustling

“Our country owes — OWES — a debt to the descendants of enslaved Black people, not just for slavery, but for what followed, like Black Codes, red lining, Jim Crow, and mass incarceration. That’s why I introduced my Reparations NOW resolution. This country has an obligation.” —Congresswoman Cori Bush (D-MO)

Baghdad Bob

“Bidenomics — it’s working.” —White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre

“[Republican officials] should hope … that we continue the economic progress that this president has made.” —Karine Jean-Pierre

Braying Jenny

“‘I’m going to take all the journalists, I’m going to take all the gay folks — I’m going to move y'all around and disappear you.’ If that’s the country you want, you know who to vote for.” —"The View" co-host Whoopi Goldberg

For the Record

“If the principal deputy assistant secretary for Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity went missing, presumably only her personal assistant would notice, and the country would be better for it. The secretary of defense, in contrast, is a rather consequential position in the U.S. government. He is in charge of the largest and most important part of the executive branch and second in the chain of command only to the president of the United States. He is central to any number of scenarios crucial to U.S. national security, including the decision to launch a nuclear strike. If a U.S. destroyer gets hit in the Red Sea, you don’t want U.S. commanders and high U.S. officials wondering where the SecDef is. … Just as no Harvard freshman could get away with the plagiarism that Claudine Gay engaged in, no Private first class could go AWOL and expect to remain in the military.” —Rich Lowry

“The most important lack of transparency about health is happening before our eyes. It doesn’t involve any cabinet official, but the commander-in-chief himself. We are told that Joe Biden is robust and energetic, when he is increasingly rickety and, seemingly, easily confused. We can be sure if the president gets worse, the White House — adopting the [Lloyd] Austin policy — will do everything in its power to hide the ball.” —Rich Lowry

“If the administration is gonna go to such great lengths to keep secrets about the defense secretary’s health, how can anybody be certain that the administration would not go to the same lengths to keep secret problems with President Biden’s health in the future?” —journalist Peter Doocy

“While many Biden apologists are making excuses for Austin’s behavior and attempting to minimize the situation, his disappearance is not a minor matter. … I guarantee that the enemies of the United States likely knew more about Austin’s situation than the president did. Our enemies monitor every cabinet secretary, especially the secretary of defense.” —Gary Bauer

Political Futures

“Of course Trump wants the economy to crash if it hurts Joe Biden and helps him win. Most politicians, especially the ones crazy enough to think they should be in charge of the entire country, would agree. Trump is not like most politicians, because they would never say it out loud. They’d just spout a bunch of insincere [crap] about ‘wanting what’s best for the American people.’ This is part of Trump’s appeal. American voters understand that politicians are full of insincere [crap]. They pretend they aren’t, but they definitely are. Trump doesn’t even bother to pretend. He just wants to win.” —Andrew Stiles

“Yes, Biden suggested, Trump was akin to the Confederates. And he, Joe Biden, would stand in their way. Biden has made this case before. Against — yes, really — Mitt Romney. Back in 2012, Biden argued that Romney would put Black Americans ‘back in chains.’ Suffice it to say that Biden has little credibility trying to breathe new life into that political corpse.” —Ben Shapiro

Re: The Left

“It is an unfortunate quirk of history that the Civil Rights Movement, led by a Black Christian pastor, reached its peak at the moment when Americans decided to start banishing the Bible from our culture. A movement informed by good and evil and personal responsibility has been replaced by politics, interest groups and victimhood. The community most hurt by the purge of personal responsibility that defines individual freedom is the one that started out the weakest and the greatest victim of our moral failures. Without a new birth of faith, we for sure will not have a new birth of freedom in America.” —Star Parker