The Patriot Post® · Tuesday Short Cuts

Insight: “Treat people as if they were what they ought to be and you help them to become what they are capable of being.” —Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832)

Upright: “It may be easier to kick a drug or smoking habit than to wean some people from government. … Now that the tax code [is being] ‘overhauled,’ the next step should be to overhaul government. It has far exceeded the boundaries set for it by the Constitution.” —Cal Thomas

Dezinformatsiya: “The American isolation over the Israel-Palestinian conflict was on full display Monday at the United Nations Security Council, where a vote was planned to reaffirm the council’s longstanding rejection of Israel’s sovereignty over Jerusalem.” —New York Times (“When you’re the New York Times, you’re more upset at Haley’s veto than you are at revelations of Obama admin appeasing Hezbollah.” —Stephen Miller)

Fear-mongering: “I think it’s frankly cheap shots when some of these Republican colleagues would question [Robert] Mueller’s integrity. And if you were to see a firing, I think you would see a constitutional crisis.” —Sen. Mark Warner

Non Compos Mentis: “Consent isn’t always black and white. Sometimes ‘yes’ means ‘no,’ simply because it is easier to go through with it than explain our way out of the situation. … Most of us understand, or at least we should, that a blackout drunk person cannot consent to sex. On some campuses, that inability to consent applies even if someone has had just a sip or two. But what about a woman who doesn’t feel that she can speak up because of cultural expectations? Should that woman be considered unable to consent, too?” —New York Times’ Jessica Bennett

And last… “If this [tax reform] bill passes, Trump-GOP will have: Repealed the ACA individual mandate, cut taxes by $1.5 trillion, opened up ANWR to oil drilling, put Neil Gorsuch on the Supreme Court, confirmed a dozen appellate judges, [and] killed a lot of regulations. This is not a trivial agenda.” —Sahil Kapur