Thursday Short Cuts
Insight: “There is no worse tyranny than to force a man to pay for what he does not want merely because you think it would be good for him.” —Robert A. Heinlein (1907-1988)
Nailing the Left: “Does the president of the United States have the power to unilaterally tell millions of individuals who are violating federal law that he will not enforce that law against them now, that they may continue to violate that law in the future and that he will take action that makes them eligible for federal benefit programs for which they are not currently eligible due to their unlawful status? Through Solicitor General Donald Verrilli, President Barack Obama is telling the Supreme Court exactly this right now.” —Terence Jeffrey
For the record: “PayPal gets the hypocrite of the year award [for opposing North Carolina’s bathroom bill]! … PayPal operates in countries including Saudi Arabia, Nigeria, and Yemen for Pete’s sake. Just last month PayPal announced they would be expanding in Cuba, a country in which homosexuals and transgender people have been imprisoned, tortured, and executed. PayPal only agreed to come to Charlotte in the first place after holding out for millions in corporate incentives. And under the current law that they are so strongly protesting, PayPal could have chosen their own corporate bathroom policies.” —Franklin Graham
Spin machine: “We’ve had two enormously successful Democratic administrations: Clinton and Obama. We’ve had a disastrous Republican administration in the middle of all this. The Republican Party is cracking up right in front of our eyes. So about 40% of the Democratic Party’s answer to this is, ‘Hey, let’s nominate someone who isn’t even a Democrat.’ It utterly makes no sense to me.” —Clintonista James Carville on Socialist Bernie Sanders
Lecturing: “Look, I think it’s exciting to be, in effect, protesting. I remember I did that a long time ago when I was in my 20s, and I totally get the attraction of this.” —Grandma Hillary Clinton (And, like the old “Scooby Doo” villains, she’d get away with it, too, if it weren’t for you lousy kids!)
Alphas Jackass: “Discrimination is not a New York value. We believe our diversity is our greatest strength, and we will continue to reject the politics of division and exclusion. This Mississippi law is a sad, hateful injustice against the LGBT community, and I will not allow any non-essential official travel to that state until it is repealed.” —New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (“Cuomo will soon run out of places, other than Communist Cuba, to send state workers to, at this rate.” —Susan Wright)
Late-night humor: “More than 11.5 million documents called the ‘Panama Papers’ just leaked, and they link Vladimir Putin to $2 billion held in secret offshore accounts. If confirmed, it could be the LEAST bad thing Putin’s ever done.” —Jimmy Fallon