The Patriot Post® · Thursday Short Cuts

Insight: “Collectivism holds that the individual has no rights, that his life and work belong to the group (to ‘society,’ to the tribe, the state, the nation) and that the group may sacrifice him at its own whim to its own interests.  The only way to implement a doctrine of that kind is by means of brute force — and statism has always been the political corollary of collectivism.” —Ayn Rand (1905-1982)

For the record: “Russia has sown distrust in the U.S. political system — aided and abetted by the Democratic Party, and perhaps the FBI. This is an about-face from the dominant media narrative of the last year, and it requires a full investigation. … Strip out the middlemen, and it appears that Democrats paid for Russians to compile wild allegations about a U.S. presidential candidate. Did someone say ‘collusion’?” —The Wall Street Journal

Observations: “[Some leftists] foam at the mouth at the mention of the president. Why is this? I think it has something to do with money. … It also has something to do with celebrity, which he also pretty much attained on his own. Then again, Trump has achieved in less than two years what others have spent their entire lives pursuing: the presidency. Thousands of gifted men and a dozen or so women have devoted themselves to being elected president of the United States, and only 45 have achieved it. The Donald might have spent less time in pursuit of the presidency than almost anyone else, with the exception of George Washington. That is a considerable achievement. Those are powerful reasons for small-minded people wedded to an utterly materialistic view of the world to hate Trump.” —R. Emmett Tyrrell

The BIG Lie: “The Electoral College is not a creation of the Constitution. It doesn’t have to be there.” —DNC Chief Tom Perez (Um, yeah, it’s in Article II.)

And last… “Is it any wonder that the American people don’t trust the ruling class? This squalid net of political espionage, catching in it everyone from Clinton to Comey to CNN (which hyped the fake dossier), captures the corruption and bad judgment of the ruling class perfectly.” —George Neumayr