The Patriot Post® · Tuesday Short Cuts

Insight: “To follow foolish precedents, and wink with both our eyes, is easier than to think.” —William Cowper (1731-1800)

For the record: “Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials launched routine ‘targeted enforcement actions’ in half a dozen states. This was not a new ‘crackdown.’ … Similar raids took place during the Obama years. The difference is that this time the criminals won’t be released into our communities.” —Gary Bauer

Payback: “Look, I think what’s happening with the Dakota Access pipeline is just plain wrong. … I’m certainly interested in anything we can do to avoid that pipeline destroying the earth and harming Native American people. I think there’s a way we can use our pension fund power in that equation.” —Bill de Blasio

Demo-gogues: “We forgot to talk to people. … We didn’t communicate our values to people. When Donald Trump says, ‘I’m going to bring the coal jobs back,’ we know that’s a lie. But people understand that he feels their pain. And our response was: ‘Vote for us because he’s crazy.’ I’ll stipulate to that, but that’s not a message.” —former Labor Secretary Tom Perez

You’re not helping: “One of the things that fuel[s] terrorism is the expression in some parts of the world of Islamophobic feelings and Islamophobic policies and Islamophobic hate speeches. This is sometimes the best support that [the Islamic State] can have to make its own propaganda.” —United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres

Village Idiots: “If we live through this precarious moment — if [Trump’s] catastrophic instinct to retaliate doesn’t lead us to nuclear winter — we will have much to thank this president for. Because he will have woken us up to how fragile freedom really is. … If you think people were mad when they thought the government was coming after their guns, wait until you see when they try to take away our happiness.” —Meryl Streep

Late-night humor: “Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer’s office recently reported that it gets around 1.5 million calls from constituents per day, but most of them are just people asking him to push up his glasses.” —Seth Meyers