The Patriot Post® · Friday Short Cuts

Insight: “If the American Revolution had produced nothing but the Declaration of Independence, it would have been worthwhile. … These words are more revolutionary than anything written by Robespierre, Marx, or Lenin, more explosive than the atom, a continual challenge to ourselves as well as an inspiration to the oppressed of all the world.” —Samuel Eliot Morison (1887-1976)

Sage advice: “EPA is the Holy Sepulchre of progressive politics, and [Scott] Pruitt posed an existential threat to command and control regulation that is the hallmark of the left’s environmental agenda. Mr. Pruitt had to avoid even the hint of an ethical question, and he should have been walking around Federal Triangle handcuffed to a general counsel. … The shame is that Mr. Trump is losing his bravest deregulator. … Fresh off its Pruitt defenestration, the left will be looking for new targets, so some advice to the rest of the Trump cabinet: Fly coach.” —The Wall Street Journal

Dezinformatsiya: “Scott Pruitt eyed as a possible future Senate candidate in oil- and gas-dependent Oklahoma, where many Republicans are more focused on what they consider his accomplishments at the EPA than on allegations about his ethics.” —Associated Press (Translation: Many Republicans were more focused on Pruitt’s accomplishments than the Leftmedia’s witch hunt against him.)

Braying Jackass: “On this Fourth of July, I refuse to let Donald Trump have the flag of the United States as his own. I refuse to have the Pledge of Allegiance to that flag, which for me harkens to boyhood civics lessons, and U.S. citizenship ceremonies, and the camaraderie for our military, sullied by the jingoism and divisions of our present national leaders. I refuse to have the Star-Spangled Banner used as a cudgel against principled speech. I refuse to let the best of this nation be debased and weaponized against truth and justice. I refuse to bow to cynicism.” —Dan Rather

Non Compos Mentis: “I stopped going to the gym because of Trump. Now I can’t open jars.” —Guardian columnist Brigid Delaney

And last… “Democrats [are] so opposed to Scott Pruitt … you’d think he once turned a river orange with millions of gallons of mine wastewater.” —Twitter satirist @hale_razor