The Patriot Post® · Tuesday Short Cuts

Insight: “To be controlled in our economic pursuits means to be controlled in everything.” —Friedrich August von Hayek (1899-1992)

Upright: “Only weeks after a hack exposed the names and other confidential information about Ashley Madison’s mostly male clientele, it’s hard to see how the company can recover. By contrast, Hillary Clinton remains the Democratic Party’s likely 2016 nominee for president, even though … she conducted State Department business over her private email. … Seems the market for adulterers has more exacting standards than the market for a Democratic presidential nominee.” —William McGurn in The Wall Street Journal

Observations: “Hillary Clinton actually presents two distinct but mutually reinforcing problems for the Democrats: 1) She’s a lousy politician and 2) she represents a Washington establishment and corrupt status quo that is under siege by populists on the left and the right. Subbing-in Biden might fix some of the first problem but it would do little to fix the second. Any way you slice it, the fact that Biden is the best the Democrats can come up with is a perfect illustration of the damage Obama has done to his party.” —Jonah Goldberg in National Review

Fratricidal infighting: “This sort of rigged process has never been attempted before. … We are the Democratic Party, not the undemocratic party!” —Martin O'Malley complaining about the lack of debates

Gun grabbers: “I do not accept the fact that I have been weak on this issue. In fact, I have been strong on this issue. And in fact, coming from a rural state which has almost no gun control, I think I can get beyond the noise and all of these arguments and people shouting at each other, and come up with real, constructive gun control legislation which most significantly gets guns out of the hands of people who should not have them.” —Bernie Sanders

The wrong question: “Is anything — anything — likely to happen when it comes to guns given the power of the NRA in the country?” —Fox News host Megyn Kelly

And last… “Right now we have a president who just flew 4,200 miles from Washington, D.C., to Alaska to rename a mountain, who sits down for interviews with internet stars famous for bathing in cereal, and prances all over the White House with a selfie stick. Is a Kanye [West] presidency really that much of a step down for us and our culture?” —IJReview’s Stephen Miller