The Patriot Post® · Thursday Short Cuts

Insight: “The great inlet by which a colour for oppression has entered into the world is by one man’s pretending to determine concerning the happiness of another.” —Edmund Burke (1729-1797)

Editorial exegesis: “Some argue that withholding our funding of the WHO — $400 million a year — will hinder its international relief efforts. This is a legitimate concern, but the WHO’s missteps themselves hindered the fight against the pandemic at a critical stage. In any event, U.S. funding of pandemic relief does not depend on any single multilateral bureaucracy. In fact, the U.S. has already spent more than $500 million on foreign aid to combat the pandemic — roughly 25 percent of the WHO’s annual budget — on top of existing contributions to multilateral and nongovernmental organizations. … The more the World Health Organization capitulates to Chinese soft power, the less effective — and the less deserving of our support — it will be. The White House is right to bring serious pressure to bear to try to check this trend.” —National Review

Upright: “The PPP program is going to run out of funding soon — the Senate should approve add'l funding by unanimous consent ASAP. Small businesses need our help to survive during this emergency.” —Sen. Kyrsten Sinema

Alpha jackass: “The reason that we’re in the crisis that we are today is not because of anything that China did. It’s not because of anything WHO did. It’s because of what this president did.” —Sen. Chris Murphy

Now do welfare: “You all realize that check Treasury is sending you with Trump’s name scribbled on it is your money, right? It’s your tax dollars that Congress appropriated. Trump is basically the guy who ‘lends’ you back your own lawnmower he borrowed and has had at his house for months…” —MSNBC’s Joy Reid

Non compos mentis: “I wasn’t thinking of the Bill of Rights when we did this. … We looked at all the data and the science and it says people have to stay away from each other.” —New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy

Exactly — it’s a slippery slope toward dependency: “It is a funny moment because everyone wants to fight against these [socialist] policies until they have been personally impacted, and we’ve seen this not just economically, but we’ve also seen it in terms of social rights as well.” —Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

And last… “I think it is reasonable, given the new data showing people were already self-locking down, to put in place a plan to start reopening parts of the country on May 1st and trust people to use their best judgment.” —Erick Erickson