Insight

“We cannot defend freedom abroad by deserting it at home.” —Edward R. Murrow (1908-1965)

Upright

“Zelensky is not wrong to call for a no fly zone. He’s trying to preserve his people. NATO is right to refuse. We can’t risk direct confrontation. But with the right weapons, we can square that circle. Give Ukraine the missiles it needs to deny Russia control of the skies.” —David French

“No-fly zones don’t work in a big-power, symmetrical standoff. In a cost-benefit analysis, they are not worth the risk of shooting down the planes of a nuclear power. They usually do little to stop planes outside of such zones shooting missiles into them. Sending long-range, high-altitude anti-aircraft batteries to Ukraine to deny Russian air superiority is a far better way of regaining air parity.” —Victor Davis Hanson

Re: Hunter Biden

“When the New York Post published information about the tawdry access-peddling business dealings of President Joe Biden’s son a month before the 2020 election, much of the major media refused to cover it. … Now on Thursday, the New York Times finally admits that the contents of the laptop were legitimate. … We can gripe about the past as much as we want, but the more important question is: Just what are the tech platforms and the major media colluding to lie about right now? What are our gatekeepers covering up today? If they used ‘disinformation’ as the excuse to hide a story that was ‘harmful’ to their politics in 2020, we should assume that their current cries to cut off ‘disinformation’ include efforts to protect the Left from other bad news items. You know they are lying to you about the bill in Florida to stop child grooming — to prevent misguided or creepy teachers from giving age-inappropriate sex education to young students. … You know they are lying to you about studies that purportedly show that forcing children to wear masks all day is important in fighting COVID-19. You know that they lie to you about election laws in places such as Texas and Georgia. But what else are they lying about that we won’t discover until much much later?” —Timothy P. Carney

“As recently as September 2021, the Times called the laptop ‘unsubstantiated’ in a news story. Why was it unsubstantiated? Because of willful ignorance and the Times’ curious lack of curiosity. Hunter’s business partner Tony Bobulinski came forward immediately after The Post’s reports and confirmed that the emails bearing his name were legitimate. The Bidens didn’t even deny it was true! They just deflected, with the media’s help, saying it was a dirty trick or not a story. … How did the Times ‘authenticate’ the laptop? It doesn’t say. Unlike The Post’s reporting, which detailed exactly how we got the files and where they came from, the Times does a hand wave to anonymous sources. No facts have changed since fall 2020. They knew the laptop was real from the start. They just didn’t want to say so.” —New York Post editorial board

“It’s fair to say that many media outlets did not exactly cover themselves in glory in the Hunter Biden laptop matter. But the real shame belongs to social media giants Twitter and Facebook, which actively suppressed the New York Post story. … Now, of course, it’s all one big Never Mind. Except no one can go back and undo the damage Twitter and Facebook did. And the power the two social media giants exercised only served to heighten their already-strong inclination for censorship and cancellation. In the end, the new New York Times story on Hunter Biden says a little about Hunter Biden and a lot about some deeply troubling trends in our media world.” —Byron York

“The Hunter Biden story should serve as a reminder that no matter how much you despise the corporate press, it’s not near enough.” —Jesse Kelly

For the Record

“[Biden is] asking teenagers to do his job for him. I mean, think about that for a second. This is the president of the United States. It’s bad enough that he’s going around begging dictators to give us oil because he won’t allow Americans to produce our own energy, but now he’s going to actual teenagers and begging them, on a Chinese-owned social media app, to do his job. I mean, I’ve never seen anything like this. You cannot make this stuff up. … Beijing has a backdoor into TikTok. All of the data that TikTok collects on you … the Beijing government, the Communist Chinese Party, can see it and use it. This isn’t an app that anybody ought to be promoting, let alone the president of the United States. So, it is incredibly irresponsible.” —Senator Josh Hawley

Grand Delusions

“We have to address the Putin … gas hike. … We’re doing everything we can to minimize the Putin price hike at home.” —House Speaker Nancy Pelosi

“President Biden has done a masterful job in managing this [Ukraine] situation.” —Nancy Pelosi

“The Build Back Better legislation … will be paid for. It will be non-inflationary. It will help reduce the national debt. … [It] goes a long way to save the planet for the children.” —Nancy Pelosi

Non Compos Mentis Award

“I may be Irish, but I’m not stupid.” —Joe Biden

And Last…

“President Biden’s economic response to the [Ukraine] invasion, and military response to the invasion, in my judgment, has been a wimp fest. … Unless you’re still living with your parents, you understand that you can’t put Putin on his knees without cutting off his cash flow. And you can’t cut off his cash flow without cutting off his oil and gas. … The woker darlings and the Democratic Party will not allow President Biden to adopt an all-of-the-above energy policy, which includes oil and gas, and the president just doesn’t seem to have the courage to stand up to him.” —Senator John Kennedy

“The Biden administration doesn’t mind fossil fuel production, after all. They just don’t want to buy American. The administration will buy oil from the Supreme Leader of Iran. It’ll buy oil from Maduro. If North Korea had oil, it’d probably try to buy that too.” —Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell