The Patriot Post® · Thursday Short Cuts

Insight

“And now that the legislators and do-gooders have so futilely inflicted so many systems upon society, may they finally end where they should have begun: May they reject all systems, and try liberty; for liberty is an acknowledgment of faith in God and His works.” —Frederic Bastiat (1801-1850)

Re: The Left

“In the coverage of FTX’s meltdown, many in the media have been rather slow to ask a simple question: why didn’t anybody notice that [Sam Bankman-Fried] was one of the most obvious scam artists of all time? Perhaps it’s the insanity of the digital age, in which those fresh out of college can be assessed as billionaires without actually showing a balance sheet. But there’s something else going on here: SBF was a key cog in a political machine dedicated to the proposition that a coalition of like-minded Left-wingers can seize the reins of capitalist enterprise and then work with friends in government to reconstruct the world. That, after all, was what SBF was publicly attempting to do. He dumped $40 million into the midterm elections in support of Democrats; he donated $5.2 million to then-candidate Joe Biden during the 2020 election cycle. He had pledged the FTX foundation to hand out $1 billion in 2022. He did all of this in the name of supposed ‘effective altruism,’ a philosophy in which Left-wingers seek to use capitalism in order to enrich themselves, then dump the money into favored causes. … ‘Effective altruism’ is just another iteration of the World Economic Forum-approved ‘stakeholder capitalism’ idea — the idea that CEOs owe their shareholders nothing, but the world at large their time, money and resources. There is a reason that FTX had partnered with WEF — a fact that WEF has now obscured by cleaning its website.” —Ben Shapiro

For the Record

“The Monday before the election we could declare a state of emergency for [Hurricane] Nicole, conduct an election, count like 7.7 million votes by midnight … And these other states are still counting their votes from the election! How pathetic is that?” —Florida Governor Ron DeSantis

“To his credit, Trump killed off the Clinton dynasty in 2016, nominated and got confirmed three constitutionalist justices, reformed taxes, pushed deregulation, got control of the border, significantly degraded ISIS in Syria and Iraq, and cinched normalization deals between Israel and the Gulf states, among other things. These are achievements that even his conservative doubters and critics — including NR — can acknowledge and applaud. That said, the Trump administration was chaotic even on its best days because of his erratic nature and lack of seriousness.” —National Review

“Certainly, GOP voters should give up on the idea that Trump is a winner. After securing the GOP nomination with plurality support in 2016, Trump didn’t exceed 47 percent in either of his campaigns, winning in 2016 with 46.1 percent and losing in 2020 with 46.8. This is, to say the least, a very narrow electoral path, and one must assume that with all that’s transpired since 2020, Trump is weaker than in his first two races.” —National Review

“Needless to say, Trump is a magnetic political figure who has managed to bond countless millions of Republicans to him. Many GOP voters appreciate his combativeness and hate his enemies, who so often engaged in excesses in pursuit of him. Once he won the nomination in 2016, they understandably voted for him in 2016 and 2020, given the alternatives. But the primaries won’t present a choice between Trump and progressives with calamitous priorities for the nation, but other Republicans who aren’t, in contrast to him, monumentally selfish or morally and electorally compromised. (And it should be added, won’t be 78 years old if elected and ineligible to serve two terms.)” —National Review

“Trump’s argument is simple: Things were good when I was in charge, and now everything sucks.” —Ben Domenech

Political Futures

“I honestly believe that we’re going to have better choices. I hear people saying that they would like us to move forward with leadership that will unite our country around our highest ideals and reflect the kind of respect and civility that the American people demonstrate to each other every day.” —former Vice President Mike Pence

“We need more seriousness, less noise, and leaders who are looking forward, not staring in the rearview mirror claiming victimhood.” —former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo

The BIG Lie

“Yes. And we are working day in and day out to enhance its security.” —DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas when asked, “Do you continue to maintain that the border is secure?”

The Great Replacement

“Now more than ever we’re short of workers. We have a population that is not reproducing on its own with the same level that it used to. The only way we’re going to have a great future in America is if we welcome and embrace immigrants — the Dreamers and all of them — because our ultimate goal is to help the Dreamers but get a path to citizenship for all 11 million or however many undocumented there are here.” —Senate Democrat Leader Chuck Schumer (“This is literally the Great Replacement, clearly outlined by Chuck Schumer.” —Matt Walsh | “The idea that it is US policy to deliberately replace white people through immigration and demographically transform the country is a racist conspiracy theory. Schumer: we are going to demographically replace white people through immigration as a matter of policy.” —Pedro L. Gonzalez | “They say that it’s empowering to stay single forever and never start a family, claim having kids destroys the environment, promote abortion as a moral good, and their solution when they realize people aren’t having enough kids is to import the third world to replace them.” —Greg Price)