Insight: “The authoritarian sets up some book, or man, or tradition to establish the truth. The freethinker sets up reason and private judgment to discover the truth… It takes the highest courage to utter unpopular truths.” —Herbert Spencer (1820-1903)

“Society has no issue being told how to live by society, but will resist to its last breath being told how to live by God.” —Darrell B. Harrison

“As is often the case with viruses, this latest variant may spread faster than earlier strains, but it does not appear to be as debilitating. And new variants will just keep coming. The Biden administration seems incapable of acknowledging this new reality. ‘We didn’t see delta coming,’ Vice President Kamala Harris said last week. ‘We didn’t see omicron coming. And that’s the nature of what this awful virus has been, which, as it turns out, has mutations and variants.’ Biden and Harris were unable to see delta and omicron coming because they are stuck in a naive morality play where if the government is just able to force everyone, especially those evil Trump voters, to get the vaccine, then COVID will disappear forever and Biden and the Democrats can declare victory.” —Washington Examiner

“Biden’s vaccine mandate will only make the nation’s supply chain problems worse and cause inflation to go higher. What Biden still does not understand is that he cannot control people and there will always be some people, especially independent-minded people who drive trucks, who would rather find a new job than get a mandated vaccine.” —Washington Examiner

“When I was a kid, my father taught me to treat nickels as if they were manhole covers. We had to, because if we weren’t profitable every year, we’d lose the farm. Biden’s position is just the opposite: When you’re broke, you just keep spending. As a result, we are seeing crushing inflation throughout our economy, hurting the vulnerable families and fixed-income seniors Biden’s socialist policies purport to help. … It’s no surprise that Joe Biden and Jen Psaki, whose only meaningful experiences with agriculture probably come from weekly trips to Washington, D.C., farmers’ markets, don’t understand why food prices are rising. If we want food prices to be lower, we need an administration that understands agriculture, values fiscal responsibility, and wants to make it easier, not harder, for our farmers and ranchers to grow food without the federal government getting in the way.” —livestock producer Jim Pillen

Belly laugh of the week: “House Democrats delivered a historic economic recovery that’s created six million jobs and made a once-in-a-century investment in our infrastructure that will put millions more Americans to work. We’re going to tell people about it and keep at the hard work of governing. House Republicans will have to explain why they continue to peddle conspiracies that threaten to prolong this pandemic” —Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee spokesman Chris Taylor

Grand delusions: “Senate Democrats have a strong record of accomplishments: delivering millions of vaccines, cutting taxes for American families and passing a bipartisan infrastructure law that grows good paying jobs.” —Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee spokeswoman Jazmin Vargas

Braying jenny: “To put it simply, if you have been living vaccine-free, your time is up. If you wish to live life as w/the ease to do the things you love, you must be vax’d. This health order may pose an inconvenience to the unvaccinated, and in fact it is inconvenient by design.” —Chicago Dictator Mayor Lori Lightfoot

A blind squirrel finds a nut: “The virus will not be eradicated, and we have to learn to live with it.” —NBA Commissioner Adam Silver

And last… “At its heart, wokeness is divisive, exclusionary, and hateful. It basically gives mean people a shield to be mean and cruel, armored in false virtue.” —Elon Musk