The Patriot Post® · Friday Short Cuts

Save Our Democracy — by Ending It!

“There’s obviously been this repeating phenomenon where a handful of Democrats crosses over and works with Republicans. I don’t know that you can save our democracy if [Democrats] aren’t united moving forward.” —Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT)

Friendly Fire

“Ladies and gentlemen, keep in mind that the Epstein files were in existence and free to have been open during the Biden administration. You were there for four years! How come you didn’t open it as a Democratic Party then? What am I missing? … See, this is the kind of stuff that smells.” —radio host Stephen A. Smith

Re: The Left

“The same party that shrugged off Ashley Biden’s diary revealing her father showered with her as a young child now wants you outraged that Donald Trump kicked Jeffrey Epstein out of his club. It’s laughable.” —Matt Margolis

“When someone of [Nancy] Pelosi’s stature frames a political opponent as the embodiment of evil, it sets a moral permission structure. If Trump is ‘the worst thing’ on Earth, then what act wouldn’t be justified to stop him? This is the logic that inspires assassination attempts. … The United States has survived depressions, wars and assassinations, but what it cannot survive is the collapse of a shared moral language.” —Armstrong Williams

For the Record

“What we have found is staggering: half a million people getting [SNAP] benefits two times under the same name. Five thousand dead people.” —Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins

“There is no ‘dignity’ in obesity, malnourishment and chronic illness, especially when it is a function of poverty, ignorance and dependence upon government.” —Laura Hollis

“When government assumes responsibility for rectifying every inequity and soothing every hurt, it smothers the habits of self-reliance and neighborly concern that make a society humane. As government expands, citizens contract. … When people get used to looking to government for answers, they eventually forget how to act without it.” —Jeff Jacoby

“Virtually no politician is willing to say the obvious: that in order to achieve affordability, politicians must be deprived of their power, not given more of it.” —Ben Shapiro

National Sovereignty

“I don’t think that the European Union gets to determine what international law is. [What] they certainly don’t get to determine is how the United States defends its national security.” —Marco Rubio striking back at EU critics

Memo to Trump

“I stand behind few in my contempt for legacy media, but it’s far more likely that the average voter feels like prices are high because they’ve actually been in a supermarket during the past year. Yet, Trump officials have apparently landed on a strategy of gaslighting consumers. This was tried not very long ago. The Joe Biden administration constantly waved away ‘transitory’ inflation. No issue did more damage to the administration.” —David Harsanyi

Upright

“Over half of Americans can’t pass the citizenship exam we expect people who come to this country to pass. Most Americans cannot name the three branches of government. And if you ask me what [is] the greatest danger America faces today, it’s itself. And we have to learn how to talk to one another. We need to know our shared history.” —Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch

Self-Deprecating Belly Laugh of the Day

“If you thought my face looked bad before, wait until you see it now!” —Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) after collapsing on his morning walk and suffering minor injuries to his face