Insight: “I choose free libraries as the best agencies for improving the masses of the people, because they give nothing for nothing. They only help those who help themselves. They never pauperize. They reach the aspiring and open to these chief treasures of the world — those stored up in books. A taste for reading drives out lower tastes.” —Andrew Carnegie (1835-1919)

Food for thought: “I suspect the President is keeping his own counsel this week and it is going badly for him. The only groups winning the news cycle right now are the Russians, the Mexicans, and the anti-gun crowd. On top of it all, the President quite possibly began the long goodbye with some of his core supporters by cutting this deal that abandons the wall. Instead of adding to his coalition, he keeps shrinking it instead. It’s almost as if he is sabotaging himself.” —Erick Erickson

For the record: “2018 has been the strongest year since the financial crisis and during that period, we’ve had low unemployment and strong growth, and inflation has still remained just a touch below 2%.” —Federal Reserve chairman Jerome Powell

What difference does it make? “Who cares? … It didn’t matter.” —James Comey when asked when he found out the fake dossier was funded by Hillary Clinton and the DNC

Race bait: “In my research on reducing gender bias and my work conducting training on general diversity and inclusion with fire departments, I find that, when evaluating fitness and competence, firefighters tend to default to a reductive set of traits (physical strength evaluated through strict fitness tests, for example) that serve to maintain white men’s dominance in the fire service.” —UCLA professor Corinne Bendersky

And last… “Many leftists and LGBT activists are simply not content with ‘live and let live.’ It’s ‘embrace completely everything we think, say and do or else we will do whatever we can to ruin you.’ What a special brand of tolerance.” —Allie Beth Stuckey