Insight: “Curiosity is one of the permanent and certain characteristics of a vigorous intelligence.” —Dr. Samuel Johnson (1709-1784)

Gratuitous: “Bob Dole, who endorsed and voted for Trump twice, and called himself a ‘Trumper’ as recently as July, has passed away.” —MSNBC anchor Mehdi Hasan

Gratuitous II: “Bob Dole went all-in with Trump: ‘I’m a Trumper.’ He knew better, but this is what he chose in his final years. So, I’m going to hold off on the predictable whitewashing of our elected officials’ actions” —Daily Beast columnist Wajahat Ali

Gratuitous III: “Accurate reporting on former Senator Bob Dole’s life will note he served his country admirably for decades, as a soldier and elected leader, before casting his lot with Donald Trump and maintaining that support, even after the insurrection against the United States on January 6th.” —former Obama HUD official Brandon Friedman

The BIG Lie: “A lot of these allegations of organized retail theft are not actually panning out.” —Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

Non sequitur: “We have the votes in the House and the Senate for a universal background checks bill. We have a president who will sign it. It’s the rules of the Senate that prevent us from passing it. We probably have 52, 53, 54 votes in the Senate for this. So the rules right now are what prevent us from being able to enact the will of the public.” —Senator Chris Murphy

Braying jenny: “It is not our preference to be reimplementing and reinstituting [‘Remain in Mexico’]. … We still feel the program is inefficient, inhumane, and we … did not eagerly reimplement it.” —White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki

Non sequitur: “I worked full time, Monday through Friday, and took weekend classes to get my law degree. And still, close to $200,000 in debt. And I still owe over $70,000 and most of it was interest.” —Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib (“She’s a perfect example of why we shouldn’t forgive student loans. She makes 175,000 a year and wants the tax payer to assume her debts? No, pay your bills you deadbeat. Student loan forgiveness is upper class welfare.” —Matt Walsh)

Non Compos Mentis Award: “In 2020, Trump presided over a worst-in-world pandemic response that caused hundreds of thousands of unnecessary deaths; held a superspreader event at the White House and got covid-19 himself; praised QAnon adherents; embraced violent white supremacists; waged a racist campaign against Black Lives Matter demonstrators; attempted to discredit mail-in voting; and refused to accept his defeat in a free and fair election, leading eventually to the violence of Jan. 6 and causing tens of millions to accept the ‘big lie,’ the worst of more than 30,000 he told in office. And yet Trump got press coverage as favorable as, or better than, Biden is getting today.” —Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank

And last… “We sure moved fast from ‘mask up to protect the elderly when no vaccine is available’ to ‘give your five-year-old a shot or you can’t take her to a restaurant.’” —Ben Shapiro