Insight: “People constantly speak of ‘the government’ doing this or that, as they might speak of God doing it. But the government is really nothing but a group of men, and usually they are very inferior men.” —H.L. Mencken (1880-1956)

Observations: “A culture that presents children as sexual objects is a culture that exploits them for adult gratification. This is not limited to adults receiving sexual gratification from children. More often, it is about making the adults feel better about the sexual choices they themselves have made, regardless of what this does to the children.” —Laura Hollis

Upright: “Our mission is to defend the legacy of America’s founding, the virtue of America’s heroes, and the nobility of the American character. We must clear away the web of twisted lies in our schools and classrooms and teach our children the magnificent truth about our country. We want our sons and daughters to know that they are the citizens of the most exceptional nation in the history of the world.” —Donald Trump

Re: Leftmedia: “The news as we once understood it is dead. It has been replaced by the un-news: a political narrative created by partisans who believe the noble ends of destroying Trump justify any biased means necessary — including destroying their own reputation and craft.” —Victor Davis Hanson

For the record: “They’re not interested in black lives. They’re interested in props, a small number of blacks who are killed by police during conflicts with police — usually less than a dozen a year — who they can use as props to achieve a much broader political agenda.” —William Barr on Black Lives Matter

Food for thought: “We are in a period of decadence and we’re in a period where decadence is dominant. And if you don’t want to be decadent, you better keep your mouth shut. Power is never given up. Power is taken. … This is one of the great transition periods. I think the most important thing to recognize is that this is a historic rather than a political period.” —Newt Gingrich

A blast from the past: “Voting by mail is now common enough and problematic enough that election experts say there have been multiple elections in which no one can say with confidence which candidate was the deserved winner.” —The New York Times just before the 2012 presidential election on “Error and Fraud” associated with voting by mail

Reading the tea leaves: “We support peaceful demonstrations. We participate in them. They are part of the essence of our democracy. That does not include looting, starting fires, or rioting. They should be prosecuted. That is lawlessness.” —Nancy Pelosi

And last… “[Social media] censorship does not make us wiser. It does not make us better informed. If it did, we would be speaking Russian right now and the Soviet Union would be running the world. Instead, the Soviet Union is extinct. It collapsed under the weight of its own absurdities — absurdities abetted by censorship.” —Tucker Carlson after social media outlets removed comments from a respected Chinese scientist about the origins of the coronavirus