The Patriot Post® · Tuesday Short Cuts

Insight: “As to the evil which results from a censorship, it is impossible to measure it, for it is impossible to tell where it ends.” —Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832)

Upright: “Fossil fuels, far from being the great villain of the climate story, have been the main source of greenhouse-gas reductions in the United States over the past several decades, as relatively clean-burning natural gas displaces relatively dirty coal in electricity generation. But that is not the kind of intelligent tradeoff that interests American environmentalists, who are moralists and romantics and committed to the notion that hydrocarbon fuels are, simply, evil — and that they must be fought on every front. Hence, the American Left’s comprehensive and total war on any and all infrastructure associated with our most abundant energy sources.” —National Review

Belly laugh of the week: “There are channels in which lies are told, and there are channels in which facts are told. And people who want the lies, they don’t come here. They go to a different channel.” —CNN’s Jake Tapper

Braying jackass I: “There are millions of Americans, almost all white, almost all Republicans, who somehow need to be deprogrammed.” —The Washington Post’s Eugene Robinson

Braying jackass II: “The question is: How are we going to really almost deprogram these people who have signed up for the cult of Trump?” —Katie Couric

Paging the “fact-checkers” I: “I would love to see [Trump’s] phone records to see if he was talking to [Russian President Vladimir] Putin the day the insurgents invaded our Capitol.” —Hillary Clinton

Paging the “fact-checkers” II: “I don’t know what Putin has on him politically, financially, or personally, but what happened last week was a gift to Putin because Putin wants to undermine democracy in our country and throughout the world.” —House Speaker Nancy Pelosi

Non compos mentis: “The [National] Guard is 90-some-odd percent I believe male. Only about 20 percent of white males voted for Biden. … There’s probably not more than 25 percent of the people that are there protecting us who voted for Biden. The other 75 percent are in the class that … might want to do something [sinister]. … So, it does concern me.” —Representative Steve Cohen

Grand delusions: “I don’t think there’s a human being alive in America today that could do a better job than Chuck Schumer in this moment to bring this country back together again.” —Senator Kristen Gillibrand

And last… “You need a valid ID, credentials, and approved passage through a predetermined checkpoint before you enter the nation’s Capitol right now. Why shouldn’t that be the same standard we apply at our nation’s borders?” —Charlie Kirk