Insight: “The highest manifestation of life consists in this: that a being governs its own actions. A thing which is always subject to the direction of another is somewhat of a dead thing.” —Saint Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274)

For the record: “The FBI framed Flynn for a perfectly legitimate conversation with the Russian ambassador. That fed into the false narrative that ‘Russia stole the election.’ When Trump rightly fired Comey, that led to the appointment of Special Counsel Robert Mueller and a two-year inquisition that produced nothing. But the left bitterly clung to its false narrative of foreign influence and used a leaked phone call with Ukraine’s president to launch another investigation, which culminated in this year’s impeachment trial. While the media and the left are obsessed with Trump and Russia, we should be far more concerned about the meddling of the Deep State. We must not forget about the rampant abuse of the FISA court to illegally spy on American citizens.” —Gary Bauer

Upright: “There is so much to unpack with the new info on Gen. Flynn. The most upsetting is how calculated it was. Letting Gen. Flynn off is not enough. People need to pay for this and the FBI needs to answer to how the public can have confidence that it will never happen again. Shameful.” —Nikki Haley

Observations: “As for liberal commentators/legal scholars saying all this is ‘routine,’ well, let’s sure as hell hope not. The FBI exists to investigate cries — not create them.” —Kimberley Strassel

Hardly “moderate”: “I view myself as a transition candidate. … My job is … to bring the Mayor Petes of the world into this administration … and even if they don’t come in, their ideas come into this administration.” —Joe Biden

Non compos mentis: “This is what unfettered capitalism is all about. Trump demands that low-income workers in meatpacking plants either go back to work and get sick, or lose their unemployment checks and go hungry. The struggle for justice continues.” —Bernie Sanders

Braying jenny: “I’m satisfied with how he has responded.” —Nancy Pelosi on Joe Biden, who had at that time yet to respond to allegations that he sexually assaulted Tara Reade

Braying jackass: “[Trump is] also pushing U.S. intelligence to find evidence for this theory that the virus was accidentally released from a lab in Wuhan. That’s his new angle to feed the wingnuts — to treat this virus like it was a conspiracy of some kind. … Tomorrow, he’ll blame the Spanish flu on Antonio Banderas.” —Jimmy Kimmel

And last… “I’ve said since the Kavanaugh saga that the #MeToo movement lost its way when it went from ‘listen to women’ to ‘believe women.’ That’s not advocacy; that’s injustice. Now it’s worse, as it’s gone from ‘believe women’ to ‘believe Democrats.’” —Allie Beth Stuckey