Insight

“Everybody is in favor of free speech. Hardly a day passes without its being extolled, but some people’s idea of it is that they are free to say what they like, but if anyone says anything back, that is an outrage.” —Winston Churchill (1874-1965)

Political Futures

“The midterm election is less than six months away. To preserve their narrow majorities in Congress, Democrats need to change the trajectory of this campaign. Right now. Their solution? Pretend that the election isn’t a referendum on Biden’s job performance but a choice between Biden and Donald Trump. Scare voters with references to the extremism of the right. Invoking Trump alone is not enough, however. Terry McAuliffe tried that approach during last year’s Virginia gubernatorial campaign and it flopped. McAuliffe lost. Running against Trump and the Make America Great Again (MAGA) movement doesn’t work when Trump is neither president nor on the ballot. Democrats have convinced themselves that victory in the fall requires something scarier than MAGA. It requires Ultra-MAGA. … Expect the alarm bells to ring louder as autumn approaches. By Election Day, Biden will have moved from ‘Ultra-MAGA’ to ‘Mega-MAGA,’ ‘Super-Duper MAGA,’ ‘MAGA Deluxe XXL,’ and, in homage to his love of ice cream, ‘All-Out Triple Scoop Chunky Monkey MAGA with Extra Deplorables.’ Voters will respond as they usually do when Biden speaks. They will ignore him.” —Matthew Continetti

For the Record

“The institution that I’m a part of, if someone said that one line of one opinion would be leaked by anyone, you would say that, ‘Oh, that’s impossible. No one would ever do that.’ There was such a belief in the rule of law, belief in the court, a belief in what we were doing, that that was verboten. It was beyond anyone’s understanding, or at least anyone’s imagination, that someone would do that. And look where we are, where now that trust or that belief is gone forever. When you lose that trust, especially in the institution that I’m in, it changes the institution fundamentally. You begin to look over your shoulder. It’s like kind of an infidelity that you can explain it, but you can’t undo it.” —Justice Clarence Thomas

Non Compos Mentis Award

“The fact is this is a dangerous court to families, to freedom, in our country.” —House Speaker Nancy Pelosi

Dezinformatsiya

“When President Biden took office, millions were unemployed and there was no vaccine available. In the last 15 months, the economy has created 8.3M jobs and the unemployment rate stands at 3.6% — the fastest decline in unemployment to start a President’s term ever recorded.” —The White House

Dumb and Dumber

“I think Americans are in denial exactly about what this Republican Party is planning to do. They would like to overturn voting rights. They would like to overturn gay rights. They’re in the process of overturning women’s rights.” —"The View" co-host Joy Behar

“Listen, it doesn’t matter what you think. When you think [the preborn have rights]. … It’s your decision, what you do with your body and how your family works. And for me, I don’t care what your religious beliefs are.” —"The View" co-host Whoopi Goldberg

And Last…

“Sending baby formula to illegal immigrants while your own infant citizens starve is not compassionate. It is cruel. It is what you do when you hate your country.” —Allie Beth Stuckey

“Biden’s mistake is that he thinks he was elected to transform the country, but actually everyone just wanted less drama.” —Elon Musk