The Patriot Post® · Monday Short Cuts

Insight: “I have witnessed five major wars in my lifetime, and I know how swiftly storm clouds can gather on a peaceful horizon. The next time a Saddam Hussein takes over Kuwait, or North Korea brandishes a nuclear weapon, will we be ready to respond? In the end, it all comes down to leadership, and that is what this country is looking for now.” —The Gipper

Upright: “Obama … on Friday morning told ABC News that ‘we have contained’ Islamic State. Some are saying Mr. Obama is guilty of bad timing, but the truth is worse: The remark is what he believes, or at least what he has wanted Americans to believe. … Mr. Obama’s every instinct has been to suggest that America will be safer if we stop provoking jihadists and treat them as common criminals. Paris shows how mistaken that is.” —The Wall Street Journal

Some ‘splaining to do: “The president was referring very specifically to the question of ISIL’s geographic expansion in Iraq and Syria. They had been on the march in both Iraq and Syria for some time. But starting a year ago, we were able to halt that expansion.” —Ben Rhodes (Memo to Obama: Jihadistan has no borders.)

Non Compos Mentis, part I: “[W]hen you have drought, when people can’t grow their crops, they’re going to migrate into cities. And when people migrate into cities and they don’t have jobs, there’s going to be a lot more instability, a lot more unemployment, and people will be subject to the types of propaganda that al-Qaida and ISIS are using right now. So where you have discontent, where you have instability, that’s where problems arise, and certainly, without a doubt, climate change will lead to that.” —Bernie Sanders, doubling down on the ridiculous assertion that global warming produces terrorism

Non Compos Mentis, part II: “In just two weeks, more than 100 heads of state will gather in Paris to negotiate the world’s first global agreement on climate change. Their job, in the aftermath of the tragic attacks, has never been more important.” —Slate’s Eric Holthaus in his article, “Bernie Is Absolutely Right: Climate Change Makes Terrorism Worse”

Annals of the absurd: “We are united in mourning all lives lost to gun violence.” —Moms Demand Action, an anti-gun group, on the Paris jihadi attacks

And last… “Nothing says 'tough on terrorism’ like taking 10,000 Syrian ‘refugees’ into the U.S, and releasing 5 Yemenis from Gitmo.” —Twitter satirist @hale_razor