Insight

“Communism was the regime for the privileged elite, capitalism the creed for the common man.” —Margaret Thatcher (1925-2013)

For the Record

“This inability to judge the West — which was created by Christians and has, with all its many flaws, been rooted in Judeo-Christian morality — as morally more elevated than the Muslim world goes to the heart of the crisis facing the West: the Left’s desire to destroy it. Western elites in academia, media, politics and the business world — in short, everywhere — are moral fools. … It is true that it was only one Muslim who stabbed Salman Rushdie. But it is millions of Muslims who believe anyone who ‘insults’ Islam should die. It was also one Muslim who murdered Dutch filmmaker Theo Van Gogh for ‘insulting’ Islam’s take on women. And it was a lot more than one Muslim member of the Islamic State who slit the throats and beheaded countless infidels — that is, non-Muslims.” —Dennis Prager

“If papers in former President Donald Trump’s home represented such a grave threat to national security, why did the Justice Department take so long to act on it? Among the implausible details of this disturbing story has been that after a Justice official and several FBI agents visited Mar-a-Lago in early June, Justice waited several days before merely requesting that a stronger lock be placed on the door of a storage room and then waited roughly two months before seeking a warrant. Now a new report makes the theory of a significant security threat even harder to credit.” —James Freeman

“In his confirmation hearing, [Attorney General Merrick] Garland repeatedly pledged that political considerations would hold no sway with him as attorney general. Yet, in just two years, the Justice Department has careened from one political controversy to another without any sign that Garland is firmly in control of the department.” —legal scholar Jonathan Turley

“Whatever one thinks of Trump’s character, he is entitled to the same presumption of innocence as any other American. Trump always suffers from a presumption of guilt. He is forced to continually prove he is innocent of charges, often made by ‘sources’ who leak information to anti-Trump media, or must explain himself to hostile Democrats (and a few hostile Republicans). The specter of armed federal agents outside Trump’s Florida home is not an image I suspect many of us are comfortable with. Even those who do not like Trump and hope he does not run for president in 2024 should be alarmed at how this focus on him is contributing to what has been a long slide in the trust Americans place in our institutions. … No foreign power could hope to undermine the pillars of our democracy better than we are doing ourselves. Serious attention to rebuilding these and other institutions, which can lead to restoring confidence in them, is urgently required.” —Cal Thomas

“The IRS employee union donates 99% of its money to Democrats. This scam to give the IRS tens of billions of dollars will pipeline millions of dollars into the coffers of Democratic candidates. Does anyone believe that an agency that gives almost every dollar from its PAC to one party is an unbiased referee of our tax system?” —Stephen Moore

“What a lot of people may not realize is last week, the Democrats through our Judiciary Committee passed a ban on the AR-15. They call it a weapon of war, but they made sure that their ban exempted every federal department including the IRS, the Department of Education and the USDA.” —Congressman Thomas Massie on the IRS arming some of its planned 87,000 additional employees with AR-15s

Grand Delusions

“We are in a season of substance. This administration began amid a dark time in America.” —President Joe Biden

“After four years of a president who relished creating chaos, Americans are seeing what it looks like to have a president and a Congress that’s focused on delivering results that make their lives better. Mr. President, you’ve restored dignity, respect, and a sense of action back to the Oval Office.” —Senate Democrat Leader Chuck Schumer

Even CNN Knows It Was a Con Job

“Let’s get real. They call it the Inflation Reduction Act as a marketing device in part to lock down the vote of Joe Manchin. To reassure Joe Manchin that they were focused on his issue.” —CNN White House Correspondent John Harwood

Settled Science™

“We used to spend a lot of time talking about six feet of distance, 15 minutes of being together. You know, we realize that’s actually not the right way to think about this. That’s not the, kind of, the most accurate way to think about this.” —White House Coronavirus Response Coordinator Dr. Ashish Jha