The Patriot Post® · Thursday Short Cuts

Insight: “A government that is big enough to give you all you want is big enough to take it all away.” —Barry Goldwater (1909-1998)

For the record: “[S]tarting … in the ‘20s with Woodrow Wilson, the government started getting involved in everything. It kept growing, metastasizing. By the time we got to the '60s, LBJ was saying, we the government are going to eliminate poverty. Now how did that work out? You know, $19 trillion later, 10 times more people on food stamps, more poverty, more welfare, broken homes, out-of-wedlock births, crime, incarceration. Everything is not only worse, it’s much worse. And that’s because it’s not their job. It’s our job. I wish the government would read the Constitution. I think that would probably help quite a bit. And maybe they did read it and maybe they got confused when they read the preamble, which says one of the duties is to promote the general welfare. They probably thought that meant putting everybody on welfare.” —Ben Carson

Belly laugh of the week: “I tell you what: If I would have run four years ago [Barack Obama] wouldn’t be president right now.” —Donald Trump (So by not running Trump still managed to screw us? Figures.)

Alpha Jackass: “Scalia’s death greatly boosts survival chances of Obama’s climate policy, all other humans.” —Slate’s Eric Holthaus

Singing a different tune: “Looking back on it, the president believes that he should have just followed his own advice and made a strong public case on the merits about his opposition to the [Supreme Court] nomination that President Bush had put forward. … What the president regrets is that Senate Democrats didn’t focus more on making an effective public case about those substantive objections. Instead, some Democrats engaged in a process of throwing sand in the gears of the confirmation process. And that’s an approach that the president regrets.” —Obama spokesman Josh Earnest

Braying Jenny: “It’s almost like [Republicans are] not being patriotic, it seems to me. … And I have to say it — I know it’s not popular to say it — but [Obama’s] color has something to do with it.” —talkinghead Joy Behar speculating on why the GOP objects to an Obama Supreme Court nominee

And last… “[S]lavery was abolished by the 13th Amendment, a constitutional provision even many progressives are willing to respect as written.” —James Taranto