The Patriot Post® · Friday Short Cuts

Upright: “[Joy has] been my word all year, and I tried to be intentional with that. For me personally, joy comes from focusing on Jesus, others, and yourself. There’s so many great coaches that are so deserving of a moment like this that never get the chance to experience it, and to do it once and now to get to do it again — it’s a blessing, and it’s just simply the grace of the good Lord to let us experience something like this. All the credit, all the glory, goes to the good Lord!” —Clemson football coach Dabo Swinney

Good idea: “The time that you had cameras in the meeting — I think we need to bring them back, because what [Schumer] described the meeting to be was totally different than what took place.” —Rep. Kevin McCarthy rejecting Schumer’s characterization of Trump leaving the meeting as a “temper tantrum”

Re: The Left: “Ah yes, the tunnel myth. Because it’s so easy to build tunnels. No one would ever notice. Might as well just do nothing, now that the tunneling option has been exposed. Can we have a serious conversation now? That’d be great.” —Rep. Dan Crenshaw rebutting Nancy Pelosi’s pathetic assertion that we should not build a border barrier because migrants would simply tunnel under it

Friendly fire: “For too long in our country, politicians have weaponized religion for their own selfish gain, fomenting bigotry, fears and suspicions based on the faith, religion or spiritual practices of their political opponents.” —Rep. Tulsi Gabbard to her fellow Aloha State Democrat Mazie Hirono regarding anti-Catholic attacks on the Knights of Columbus as a religious test for confirmation (Hirono responded, “It is unfortunate that Congresswoman Gabbard based her misguided opinion on the far right-wing manipulation of these straightforward questions.”)

Non Compos Mentis: “White nationalist, white supremacist, Western civilization — how did that language become offensive? Why did I sit in classes teaching me about the merits of our history and our civilization?” —Rep. Steve King

And last… “In 2019, the federal government will spend a whopping $4.407 trillion. Yet Congress and the president are shutting down the government in a dispute between the $1.3 billion the Democrats have approved for border security and the $5.7 billion the president is demanding — precisely 0.0998 percent of the total federal budget. In Washington, that is considered a rounding error. … But now we are shutting down the government over a wall much like the one that Pelosi and Senate Democrats fully supported just five years ago?” —Marc A. Thiessen