The Patriot Post® · Friday Short Cuts

Insight: “When government — in pursuit of good intentions — tries to rearrange the economy, legislate morality, or help special interests, the cost come in inefficiency, lack of motivation, and loss of freedom. Government should be a referee, not an active player.” —Milton Friedman

Upright: “We’re addicted to our belief in the primal power of our politicians. Once we believe that Trump is either the Great Satan or the Great God, it’s no wonder that fringe actors on either side are willing to take extreme measures to harm or ‘protect’ him. The only solution: We must realize that the president is merely a constitutional officer bound by the checks and balances of his role. And we must stop attributing to politics control over our lives that politics does not truly exert.” —Ben Shapiro

For the record I: “There are dozens of documents that support the fact that Peter Strzok and Lisa Page had ongoing relationships with multiple reporters, and that they were feeding them information to spin a narrative. It’s not legal… They are denying it, and we have the proof.” —Rep. Mark Meadows (R-NC)

For the record II: “The dossier was a big lie. What they did is, they said, ‘It’s a big lie. The more people we can get to talk about the dossier, the more likely it is they will believe the lie.’ So that’s why they had the leak strategy — to support a document that was the basis of everything.” —Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH)

Village Idiots: “I think it’s possible [that Donald Trump is America’s final president], absolutely. I think that we have someone in the White House who has no respect for the rule of law, who dislikes democracy by an incredible degree, which doesn’t make him really any that much different from other billionaires or CEOs, because their businesses are not democracies. They rule by fiat.” —filmmaker Michael Moore

A blind squirrel finds a nut: “The [Justice Antonin Scalia] vote was unanimous. Every Democrat and every Republican voted for him. But that’s the way it should be, instead of what it’s become, which is a highly partisan show. … I wish I could wave a magic wand and have it go back to … the way it was.” —Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg

And last… “If you can’t debate hard issues honestly, with honor, with integrity, how do we keep a civil society?” —Justice Clarence Thomas on the Democrat ridicule of Brett Kavanaugh