The Patriot Post® · Tuesday Short Cuts

For the record: “The blue states of America are in a depression. … Here is an amazing statistic courtesy of the just-released 2016 edition of ‘Rich States, Poor States,’ which I co-authored with Reagan economist Arthur Laffer and economist Jonathan Williams: Of the 10 blue states that Democrats won by the largest percentage margins … every single one of them lost domestic migration (excluding immigration) between 2004 and 2014. Nearly 2.75 million more Americans left California and New York than entered these states.” —Stephen Moore

Good question: “How can Trump’s chat with an ally [Taiwan] be more controversial than Barack Obama engaging in secret negotiations with the ayatollah of Iran while that regime was killing our soldiers in Iraq or Afghanistan? How can Trump’s call be more controversial than Obama reaching out to Cuba’s Fidel Castro who was an ally of the Soviet Union?” —Gary Bauer

For the record: “Fake news is whatever people living in the liberal bubble determine to be believed by the Right.” —Washington Free Beacon’s Bill McMorris

Fake news: “An earlier version of this article, relying on information from Armstrong Williams, a close friend of Ben Carson, misstated a part of [Dr.] Carson’s childhood. Mr. Williams said Monday that [Dr.] Carson had never lived in government housing.” —New York Times correction

Non Compos Mentis: “It feels like women betrayed us. The percentage of women who voted for Trump was insanely high. … Women hate women. That’s what I think it is. Women’s nature is not to support other women. It’s really sad.” —Madonna

False equivalence: “This feels like Selma! It feels like Montgomery! It feels like a time when a group that nobody paid attention to, black folks in the South, stood up and the world stood with them, so it’s a very powerful, emotional moment, I think, for the tribal communities.” —Van Jones on the Dakota Access Pipeline ruckus

And last… “For the left, Dakota Access is a symbol. In reality, it is simply a means of moving half a million barrels of crude oil a day from Point A to Point B, an activity that shouldn’t be considered dastardly or untoward. Fortunately for Dakota Access, and everyone else in the energy industry, help is on the way.” —Rich Lowry