The Patriot Post® · Wednesday Short Cuts

Insight: “In matters of conscience, the law of majority has no place.” —Mahatma Mohandas K. Gandhi (1869-1948)

Non Compos Mentis: “We’re not putting America combat troops back into Syria or Iraq. We are not going to do that. … I cannot conceive of any circumstances where I would agree to [put combat troops on the ground].” —Hillary Clinton (So, two weeks after the attack in Paris, Clinton can’t “conceive of any circumstances” for committing combat troops?)

Braying Jackass: “I’m anticipating a Democrat succeeding me. I’m confident in the wisdom of the American people on that front.” —Barack Obama (Heaven help us if he’s right.)

Demo-gogues: “I have long believed that the most elegant way to drive innovation and to reduce carbon emissions is to put a price on it. This is a classic market failure. If you open up an Econ 101 textbook, it will say the market’s very good about determining prices and allocating capital towards its most productive use, except there’s certain externalities, there’s certain things that the market just doesn’t count, it doesn’t price, at least not on its own. Clean air is an example, clean water — or the converse, dirty water, dirty air. In this case, the carbons that are being sent up that originally we didn’t have the science to fully understand, we do now. And if that’s the case, if you put a price on it, then the entire market would respond. And the best investments and the smartest technologies would begin scrubbing, effectively, our entire economy.” —Barack Obama (Wow, is Obama really trying to lecture us on economics?)

Hot air: “It’s very reasonable that the recent trouble in Paris is a result of climate change.” —Bill “The Science Lie” Nye

Upright: “The amazing thing is, never in history, anywhere, ever, has all the power of the modern state — supplemented by mass education, supplemented by the mass media, supplemented by journalism and entertainment — been all been employed for 30 years to propagandize about this sort of thing, about global warming and all the rest, to almost no effect. Fewer Americans carpool today to work than carpooled in 1980. SUVs have never been a larger proportion of the vehicles being sold in this country.” —George Will

“Maybe President Obama will be more willing to fight ISIS if we name their leaders after hurricanes.” —Twitter satirist @weknowwhatsbest