The Patriot Post® · Friday Short Cuts

Political futures

“Yet if the Republicans advance a coherent national plan of action to restore a pre-Biden America, if Trump will focus positively on national issues and not take the bait to obsess on the wrongs done to him, and if grass-roots conservatives this time around prepare to preempt massive left-wing vote harvesting, they will achieve their blowout. But that is a lot of ifs.” —Victor Davis Hanson

Thoughts on Antony Fauci’s retirement

“You don’t get to say whether you go. You get a congressional subpoena, you show up, or you get the Steve Bannon treatment.” —Megyn Kelly responding to Fauci’s claim that he’ll “consider” appearing before Congress

“Someone needs to grab that little elf and chuck him across the Potomac.” —Ron DeSantis

Re: Biden’s student loan heist

“The frame for virtually any discussion of American politics at the moment advanced by the hair-on-fire segment of our media elite is that democracy itself is under attack. … How quietly these same voices become when the White House itself engages in actual threats to the rule of law and up-end representative government in order to engage in policy steps that are aggressively at odds with that little old thing called the Constitution.” —Ben Domenech on Biden’s student loan giveaway

“It would represent a middle finger to the Constitution, which vests legislative power in Congress, not the president. It would represent a middle finger to Congress, which has not given the executive branch the authority to give $10,000 each to millions of college students. It would represent a middle finger to the Department of Education, which found last year that it ‘does not have statutory authority to provide blanket or mass cancellation, compromise, discharge or forgiveness of student loan principal balances, and/or to materially modify the repayment amounts or terms thereof.’ Nancy Pelosi confirmed last summer that ‘the president can’t do it — so that’s not even a discussion.’ She said, ‘Not everybody realizes that, but the president can only postpone, delay but not forgive.’ Biden’s response? A middle finger.” —Charles C.W. Cooke

“Biden’s decision to waive student loan debt will increase inflation and is another gift to the rich. Tennesseans should not be forced to pay for coastal elites to get their PhD in gender studies.” —Senator Marsha Blackburn

“Student loan debt relief is spending that raises demand and increases inflation. It consumes resources that could be better used helping those who did not, for whatever reason, have the chance to attend college. It will also tend to be inflationary by raising tuitions.” —economist Larry Summers, Obama’s senior economic advisor

“My mortgage identifies as a student loan. Can I stop paying now?” —Benny Johnson

And Last…

“I’m not actually worried about the cost of college because my son is 6 foot 5 so he’s gonna get a women’s basketball scholarship.” —Jimmy Failla