The Patriot Post® · Tuesday Short Cuts

A blind squirrel finds a nut: “For years, the fundamental complaint of the right in the culture wars has been that the left is hypocritical, and the Nikki Haley episode perfectly confirms the point: A prominent Republican woman is smeared. The author who does the smearing is celebrated by all the A-listers, including the most prominent Democratic woman in the country, who herself has a history of giving a pass (or worse) to men accused of sexual assault and harassment. And yet the arbiters of American culture cheer the Democrat and, in the words of the actor Don Cheadle, tell the Republican who has the gall to defend herself: ‘Sit down, girl. You’re drunk.’” —New York Times’ Bari Weiss

The BIG Lie: “[Releasing the FISA memo] is a distraction from the fact that [Republicans] passed a tax bill that gives 83% of the benefits to the top 1%. They’d like to distract from that. And 86 million middle-class Americans will pay more in taxes. … They do give this gift to corporate America at the expense of our children’s future. They don’t want to talk about that.” —Nancy Pelosi

Self-righteous indignation: “Yes, I think from a moral perspective, [the shutdown] was the right thing to do, and that is to say to these 800,000 young people we are not going to allow them to be subjected to deportation.” —Bernie Sanders

Race bait: “I think a lot of President Trump’s rhetoric is racist. Let’s be very clear: When someone uses the phrase ‘chain migration’ … it is intentional in trying to demonize families — literally trying to demonize families and make it a racist slur.” —Kirsten Gillibrand

That’s not how a Republic operates: “Popular vote went to Hillary, and Democratic Senators represent 40 million more Americans than a [sic] Republican Senators do. Give democracy a chance rather than ignoring the popular majority.” —Sheldon Whitehouse

And last… “The growth rebound in 2017 shows that secular stagnation isn’t destiny; it was the result of policy choices by the previous Administration. The Obama Democrats put income redistribution ahead of growth and got more inequality and less growth. Mr. Trump and the GOP Congress have made growth a priority, and that’s where they need to keep their focus if they want to keep the expansion going.” —The Wall Street Journal