The Patriot Post® · Wednesday Short Cuts

Insight

“As so often before, liberty has been wounded in the house of its friends. Liberty in the wild and freakish hands of fanatics has once more, as frequently in the past, proved the effective helpmate of autocracy and the twin-brother of tyranny.” —Otto Hermann Kahn (1867-1934)

“I get the feeling some people are using [Joe Rogan’s] COVID interview as a pretext to silence his voice because he’s not woke. Zealots of wokeism try to censor voices who don’t agree with theirs, because they fear the absurdity and weakness of their positions will be exposed.” —Tulsi Gabbard

For the Record

“We find no evidence that lockdowns, school closures, border closures, and limiting gatherings have had a noticeable effect on COVID-19 mortality. They have contributed to reducing economic activity, raising unemployment, reducing schooling, causing political unrest, contributing to domestic violence, and undermining liberal democracy. [Given these] enormous economic and social costs, a standard benefit-cost calculation leads to a strong conclusion: lockdowns should be rejected out of hand as a pandemic policy instrument.” —researchers at Johns Hopkins University

“In 2003, President George W. Bush nominated Janice Rogers Brown to serve on the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, which is widely considered the nation’s second most important court and a training ground for future Supreme Court justices. At the time, Brown was a justice on the California Supreme Court. She was known for her conservative judicial opinions against affirmation action and in favor of parental consent for abortion. But rather than embrace Brown’s appointment to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, Democrats were united in opposition. Democrats, including then-Senators Joe Biden and Barack Obama, repeatedly filibustered Brown’s confirmation. Yes — filibustered! The procedure that Biden today calls a relic of the Jim Crow era was used by Biden to destroy a black female nominee.” —Gary Bauer

“For many years, the majority of illegal crossers have been a mixture of people from Mexico and the Northern Triangle countries — Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador. In early 2021, that changed dramatically. Starting virtually with the inauguration of President Joe Biden, the number of illegal crossers from other countries, that is, not from Mexico or the Northern Triangle, began to skyrocket. Now, in the last month, the number of crossers from other countries actually exceeded those from Mexico and the Northern Triangle.” —Byron York

Credit Where It’s Due

“Men now comprise only 40.5% of college students and are failing in high school at much higher rates. There’s a crisis among American boys and men that is too often ignored and is definitely going unaddressed. Boys are more than 2-3x as likely to be diagnosed as having ADHD, five times more likely to spend time in juvenile detention, and are far less likely to finish high school. In many places being good at school is now considered feminine. 70% of US valedictorians were girls in ‘12. It doesn’t get any better when men become adults. Average male wages have declined since 1990 in real terms. At least one-sixth of prime working age men 25-54 are either unemployed or out of the workforce. More men aged 18-34 are living with parents than with romantic partners. Economic transformation hasn’t helped. Almost three-quarters of manufacturing workers are — were — men; the sector has lost about 5 million jobs since 2000. That’s a lot of unemployed men. The sidelining of this many boys and men has massive social, political and economic consequences. Tyler Cowen calls it 'the bad men problem.’ It’s getting tougher and tougher to not fall into this category. Addressing or at least reducing this is crucial to any positive future. … The fact that this isn’t front and center of any policy agenda is a massive failure of our media institutions and public leadership that struggle to frame boys and/or men as sympathetic figures despite very clear data indicating the need.” —Andrew Yang

Braying Jenny

“In general I am excited about this era in which the work, the achievements, the contributions of black women are being lifted up, because black women have always done the work but have rarely been acknowledged. Having said this, I don’t know whether I would be so excited about a conservative black woman. I think it’s important to take politics into consideration. There is already a black person on the Supreme Court, and that person is the most backward force on the Court. So I want … a black woman, but I want a progressive black woman who can help usher us into the future.” —Marxist activist Angela Davis

The BIG Lie

“At CNN we have a health desk. We make sure that the information that we provide viewers is accurate.” —CNN’s Oliver Darcy

And Last…

“The big football story from this weekend wasn’t the games. On Saturday, ESPN reported that Tom Brady is retiring. But then … conflicting reports came out that said Brady hasn’t decided yet. See, this is what happens when you let the CDC announce your retirement. You just don’t know — six feet, three feet, five days.” —Jimmy Fallon

“In a sane world, Whoopi [Goldberg] wouldn’t be suspended. But the Left’s standard is that if you say a Bad Thing™ then you lose your job. So they should fire her. Mutually assured destruction until you stop with all of this nonsense.” —Ben Shapiro