Insight: “The study of money, above all other fields in economics, is one in which complexity is used to disguise truth or to evade truth, not to reveal it.” —John Kenneth Galbraith (1908-2006)

Upright: “While we cannot control our circumstances, including the chores of life and the friction created by our interaction with others, we can control how we think and what meaning we give to the actions and activities of others. This frames how we react to those actions and activities; our change in attitude then creates changes in those around us. As a teenager, I sometimes cleaned the baseboards in our house, but I lived in a house that provided shelter. I sometimes washed and dried the dishes, but I had food to eat. Decades later, I have come to realize that the way we approach life influences the way life unfolds before us. We each get to choose to be grateful for what we have or be frustrated by what we don’t have.” —Jackie Gingrich Cushman

Exactly: “The conflict between Hamas and Israel is about a stubborn fact: Israel exists, and Hamas wishes it didn’t exist. Hamas will target civilians in Israel, use Palestinian children to shield its rockets and lie to the press to achieve its goals. Israel, meanwhile, is seeking to minimize civilian casualties at great risk to its own citizens. Opposing Israel’s actions doesn’t make you an anti-Semite. But siding with Hamas in a conflict like this one certainly does.” —Ben Shapiro

Observations: “In part, the Western left always despises the unapologetically successful — as if they are inevitably beneficiaries of unfair privilege. Underdog Israel was not so hated from 1947 to 1967. Then, it was poorer, more socialist and in danger of being extinguished by its many neighboring enemies. But after the victories in the 1967 and 1973 wars, the Israeli military proved unconquerable in the region, no matter how large the numbers, wealth and armaments of its many enemies. For the left, Israel’s current strength, confidence and success mean it cannot be seen as a victim, but only as a victimizer. … Hating democratic Israel while it is under attack is not just a reflection of the new woke and ethically bankrupt left. It is also a symptom of a deeper pathology in the West, one of moral equivalence, amoral relativism and self-loathing. Hating Israel has become the surrogate Western way of hating oneself.” —Victor Davis Hanson

Food for thought: “If Hamas put down their weapons, there would be peace. If Israel put down their weapons, there would be no Israel.” —Senator Tom Cotton

The bottom line: “President Biden has sent the world a profoundly different message. Instead of seeking peace through strength, he has invited violence through weakness.” —Mike Pence

For the record I: “The Iranians understand power and deterrence and they can sniff weakness 5,000 miles away.” — former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo

For the record II: “This administration threw away all the good work we had done. When I hear [the Biden administration] say, ‘We are telling people not to come,’ the truth is they are telling people to come. … This is a real crisis that is taking place on our southern border. It’s a crisis of sovereignty, American sovereignty, of making sure we know who is coming in and out of our country, of keeping us safe.” —Mike Pompeo

For the record III: “The evidence that the virus came from Wuhan is enormous, though largely circumstantial, and most signs point to the Wuhan Institute of Virology, or WIV, as the source of COVID-19. In America, concern about the site is now broad and bipartisan. The world must hold the Chinese Communist Party accountable and punish Beijing…” —Mike Pompeo

Non compos mentis: “We condemn Hamas’s firing of those rockets, but I think you have to look at what prompted even that behavior. … I think what Hamas has done is — obviously we condemn that — but we have to look at the power balance here, or imbalance as it were, and we have to put more responsibility on Israel in maintaining peace in the region.” —Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal

And last… “When a country forgoes — and even demonizes — its shared values and instead categorizes people as oppressed or oppressors based on their race, religion, gender, class, etc, you don’t get equity, equality or empathy. You get resentment, bitterness, strife & violence.” —Allie Beth Stuckey