Insight: “Concentrated power is not rendered harmless by the good intentions of those who create it.” —Milton Friedman (1912-2006)

Upright I: “This is some of the most horrific human activity that we have seen since the last century, and the administration has a responsibility … to convince the Chinese Communist Party not to behave in this way [and] to impose costs on them when they don’t. So to pawn this off as just a different norm or a different set of behaviors, that’s what the Chinese Communist Party says. That’s how they talk about this.” — former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo

Upright II: “To hear an American president talk about it in such a way that doesn’t connote all the seriousness with which this must be taken is disheartening, and I hope the administration will take it seriously in the same way that we did when we were in office.” —Mike Pompeo

Canaries in a coal mine: “[Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer] continue to treat the January 6 … criminal riot as an excuse to seize power, to control more power, to step on people’s Second Amendment rights, to take away their First Amendment rights. Now we’re hearing about a domestic war on terror. I mean, what’s that going to be? An excuse to go rifle through the emails and bank statements and personal messages of law-abiding Americans?” —Senator Josh Hawley

For the record: “I was so disgusted that Biden, on the anniversary of my daughter getting murdered, announced they were going to put all these gun control measures in place. [None] of those would have made a difference in my daughter getting murdered in Parkland.” —Andrew Pollack

Friendly fire: “That’s classic Andrew Cuomo. … You know, the bullying is nothing new. I believe Ron Kim and it’s very, very sad. No public servant, no person who’s telling the truth, should be treated that way. But yeah, the threats, the belittling, the demand that someone change their statement right that moment? Many, many times I’ve heard that and I know a lot of other people in this state have heard that.” —Mayor Bill de Blasio

A blind squirrel finds a nut: “I think at some point [Trump] probably will be allowed back on [social media] and probably should be allowed back on.” —Bill Gates

Actually, he dropped the nut: “I am offsetting my carbon emissions by buying clean aviation fuel and funding carbon capture and funding low-cost housing projects to use electricity instead of a natural gas. And so I’ve — I have been able to eliminate it, and it was amazing to me how expensive that was.” —Bill Gates justifying his hypocrisy

Braying jackass: “The bottom line is, Texas thought it could go it alone and built a system that ignored climate change. It was not what’s called resilient, and now Texas is paying the price. I hope they learned a lesson.” —Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer

Non compos mentis: “We don’t want low wage businesses. I think most successful small businesses can pay a fair wage. … I love small businesses — I’m all for it — but I don’t want small businesses that underpay employees.” —Rep. Ro Khanna

Non sequitur: “Some of the comments I’m seeing on social media from lefties who hate Rush, saying they hope the cancer takes him away as fast as possible — it’s revolting to me. As much as we talk about Trump and misinformation, there is a strain of contempt on the left that also worries me. Why can’t people just say, ‘We hope that Rush gets better quickly’?” —CNN’s Brian Stelter a year ago (And who does he think fueled that hate, then and now?)

And last… “Let’s see a conversation between the people insisting ‘teachers just want to be safe!’ and the grocery store clerks who’ve shown up for work without fail for 12 months — including when we thought the pandemic was far deadlier. Ah, but they don’t have powerful Democrat unions.” —Buck Sexton