Insight: “Never trust governments absolutely and always do what you can to prevent them from doing too much harm.” —John Arthur Passmore (1914-2004)

“The court was thought to be the least dangerous branch, and we may have become the most dangerous.” —Justice Clarence Thomas

“I think we should be careful destroying our institutions because they don’t give us what we want, when we want it.” —Clarence Thomas

“The Biden administration deciding to tranche out monoclonal antibodies based on ‘equitable distribution’ rather than need is just the latest evidence that their politics is about political hatred rather than saving lives. For example, the Biden administration’s response to unvaxxed in red states — which seems to be, ‘Go ahead and die’ — and Nicki Minaj, who receives sycophantic White House phone calls after distributing pure idiotic vaccine misinfo, is rather striking.” —Ben Shapiro

Friendly fire: “I have to cite a survey that was in The New York Times, which is a liberal paper so they weren’t looking for this answer. But they were talking about — the question was, what do you think the chances are that you would have to go to the hospital if you got COVID? … The answer is between 1% and 5%. Forty percent of Democrats thought it was over 50%. Another 28% thought it was 20% to 49%. So 70% of Democrats thought it was way, way, way higher than it really was. Liberal media has to take a little responsibility for that. For scaring the s—t out of people.” —Bill Maher

Lack of self-awareness: “I know many Americans are still struggling to make it through each day. For too many, it’s harder and harder to pay the bills: food, gas, rent, healthcare.” —Joe Biden

Braying jenny: “I say to my Republican friends, and I do have some: Take back your party. You’re the Grand Old Party of America. You’ve done wonderful things for our country. You have now been hijacked by a cult that is just not good for our country. Take back your party. Do not let it be dominated by those who want to suppress the vote because they have no positive message to win.” —House Speaker Nancy Pelosi

Non compos mentis: “I still think [General Mark] Milley has to testify in the open — no national security veil, no closed meeting, open meeting. … Even better, he should come here. I’ll give him the full hour to explain. And there won’t be competing agendas going on. We can get after the truth, without that toxic, two-side play going on.” —CNN’s Chris Cuomo

Bluster: “I was [vaccine] hesitant. When Donald Trump was out there controlling the CDC and controlling the FDA and manipulating them and making them put out falsehoods, anybody rational was hesitant.” —MSNBC’s Joy Reid (“Biden literally announced a date he wanted to start boosters while FDA said they weren’t justified.” —Phil Kerpen)

And last… “Maybe a thousand American residents are still being held hostage in Afghanistan, and it’s barely a story anymore.” —David Harsanyi