The Patriot Post® · Thursday Short Cuts

Insight: “If we don’t believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don’t believe in it at all.” —Virginia Woolf (1882-1941)

Perspective: “For a would-be FDR, Biden doesn’t seem to understand that a fundamental source of the New Dealer’s power was enormous congressional majorities. FDR came into office in 1932 with almost a 200-seat majority in the House, 313-117, after Republicans lost more than 100 seats. … In the Senate, FDR had 58 Democrats, as Republicans lost 12 seats in 1932 in one of the worst senatorial drubbings in history. … With his legislative margin of error so thin, it’s unlikely that Biden will get his way on much besides spending and taxes. Almost all of his sweeping proposals, from federalizing elections to making D.C. a state, will fall by the wayside. More to the point, it’s wrong for Biden to attempt force through such radical measures when his mandate for them exists only in his ridiculously inflated self-image.” —Rich Lowry

Food for thought: “Former Secretary of State John Kerry is under fire after a New York Times report suggesting that he leaked intelligence about Israel’s counterterrorism activities to Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif. … Kerry denied the allegations, labeling the New York Times report as ‘unequivocally false.’ But it wouldn’t be the first time that Kerry has had questionable communications with the Iranians. Here’s the bottom line: Someone is lying. If it’s Zarif, how can we trust anything he has to say in the nuclear negotiations?” —Gary Bauer

Observations: “In the end, evidence for systemic racism is utterly unnecessary. Systemic racism requires no evidence of intent, either individual or systemic. It requires only evidence of disparate outcome by race. … Systemic racism is a fundamentalist religious belief. It posits original sin; it posits saints and prophets; it posits its own malevolent god of the gaps. Most of all, it persecutes heretics in the name of a supposedly higher good. To be saved is to declare fealty to radical racial polarization; to be damned is to deny such fealty.” —Ben Shapiro

Re: political theater: “When we look at this administration, the way they’ve treated this whole thing has amounted to a huge amount of theater, as opposed to actual science. When the president comes out with a mask over, and over, and over again, he sends the message implicitly that if you get vaccinated, nothing will change.” —Ben Domenech

Yep: “Dr. Anthony Fauci, the moment he came out last year and said that we needed to shut down schools, he should have been fired.” —Ben Domenech

Non compos mentis: “The proportion of seniors who have been vaccinated is essentially equal between white and seniors of color. I said from the beginning that we we’re going to fight this virus with equity.” —Joe Biden

Straight from the horse’s mouth: “Hate crimes are crimes where there’s an explicit motive and of bias. We don’t have any evidence that Derek Chauvin factored in George Floyd’s race as he did what he did.” —Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison

And last… “Instead of [complaining] about the unfairness of losing a congressional seat, I dunno, maybe start thinking about why residents are fleeing your state like it’s on fire.” —David Burge