The Patriot Post® · Wednesday Short Cuts

For the record: “[J]ustices like Steven Breyer … claim that even [Kermit] Gosnell’s barbaric acts don’t justify laws like Texas’s. ‘Gosnell’s behavior was terribly wrong. But there is no reason to believe that an extra layer of regulation would have affected that behavior. Determined wrongdoers, already ignoring existing statues and safety measures, are unlikely to be convinced to adopt safe practices by a new overlay of regulations.’ How ironic, Carrie Severino points out! That’s the same argument conservatives make about gun control. Yet the liberal justices are so desperate to further their own policy agendas that they’ll not only ignore the court’s precedent but their own.” —Tony Perkins

Village Idiots: “I see absolutely no value to a judge of spending decades, years, months, weeks, day, hours, minutes, or seconds studying the Constitution, the history of its enactment, its amendments, and its implementation. … Eighteenth-century guys, however smart, could not foresee the culture, technology, etc., of the 21st century. Which means that the original Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and the post–Civil War amendments (including the 14th), do not speak to today. … In short, let’s not let the dead bury the living.” —7th Circuit Court of Appeals judge Richard A. Posner

Shameless: “The Republicans on the House Benghazi Committee are finishing their work in the same, partisan way that we’ve seen from them since the beginning. … [T]he Republican members are clearly seeking to avoid any fact-checking of their discredited, conspiracy theories. … [T]his Committee’s chief goal is to politicize the deaths of four brave Americans in order to try to attack the Obama administration and hurt Hillary Clinton’s campaign.” —Clinton campaign spokesman Brian Fallon

Look who’s talking: “[Republicans] are cynically trying to capitalize on the death of four innocent Americans. The degree to which Republicans are willing to play politics with their death and this tragedy is astounding.” —Josh Earnest

That’ll teach ‘em! “The United States condemns in the strongest possible terms [yesterday’s] heinous terrorist attack at Istanbul’s Ataturk International Airport in Turkey, which appears to have killed and injured dozens.” —Josh Earnest

And last… “Leftist diversity advocates and multiculturalists are right to argue that people of all races, religions and cultures should be equal in the eyes of the law. But their argument borders on idiocy when they argue that one set of cultural values cannot be judged superior to another and that to do so is Eurocentrism. That’s unbridled nonsense. Ask a diversity/multiculturalism advocate: Is forcible female genital mutilation, as practiced in nearly 30 sub-Saharan African and Middle Eastern countries, a morally equivalent cultural value?” —Walter Williams