The Patriot Post® · Wednesday Short Cuts

Insight: “Constitutions are checks upon the hasty action of the majority. They are the self-imposed restraints of a whole people upon a majority of them to secure sober action and a respect for the rights of the minority.” —William Howard Taft (1857-1930)

Judicial activism: “Only [Officer Chris] Thompson and [Richardo] Salazar-Limon know what happened on that overpass on October 29, 2010. It is possible that Salazar-Limon did something that Thompson reasonably found threatening; it is also possible that Thompson shot an unarmed man in the back without justification. … Our failure to correct the error made by the courts below leaves in place a judgment that accepts the word of one party over the word of another. It also continues a disturbing trend regarding the use of this Court’s resources.” —Justice Sonia Sotomayor dissent taking a not-so-subtle shot at SCOTUS’s past police rulings

Braying Jackass: “It’s my view that if the president stepped out of it, we could get a budget done by Friday.” —Chuck Schumer, to whom Nancy Pelosi responded, “Totally agree. We were on the path to get it done until he did intervene.”

Braying Jenny: “[Trump] did not promise [while campaigning] that he would take food out of the mouths of babies and seniors, [and take] education, clean air, clean water, scientific research off the table in a significant way in order for him to pay for his immoral, ineffective, unwise proposal of a wall.” —Nancy Pelosi

A novel idea: “Ann Coulter has just gotten a much bigger platform because someone tried to deny her a chance to speak. My view is: Let her speak, and just don’t show up. If you don’t like it, don’t show up.” —Sen. Elizabeth Warren

Facepalm: “I think what would motivate President Obama [to criticize Trump] is if we saw the federal government start to cross some clear red lines in terms of long-observed norms and values that, frankly, I think that we’ve started to take for granted.” —Josh Earnest

And last… “‘I did not run for office to be helping out a bunch of fat cat bankers on Wall Street.’ —guy raking in $400,000 for speech to Wall Street bankers.” —Twitter satirist @hale_razor