The Patriot Post® · Friday Short Cuts

Keen sense of the obvious: “One human being should not be able to go into a dark room by himself and decide, ‘Oh, that person gets heard from, that person doesn’t.’ That’s not how it should work.” —Elizabeth Warren, who’s suddenly discovered the virtues of free speech now that Elon Musk owns Twitter … except that somehow she thinks she’s arguing against Musk’s changes

“The effort to remove a lawfully elected president was planned and orchestrated by officials at the highest level of government and the media… false attacks on Trump edged our political discourse toward Orwellian Newspeak by presenting lies and smears…” —Mollie Hemingway

The BIG Lie: “He’s been there. He’s been to the border.” —White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre (Yes, Biden has been to the border. Just not while president.)

On that intentional border invasion: “President Biden has been taking action to fix our immigration system and secure our border. And that’s why, on day one, he put forward an immigration — immigration reform — a piece of legislation to deal with what is currently happening at the border. But, you know, that — we’re not seeing that from Republicans. We’re not seeing a willingness to work with us on — on, you know, fixing a situation that’s been around for decades now. Instead, they’re — they’re doing political stunts.” —Karine Jean-Pierre passing the buck and defending Biden’s amnesty bill

Sure thing: “Clearly, I made a lot of mistakes. … I didn’t ever try to commit fraud on anyone.” —Sam Bankman-Fried on the collapse of FTX

Then: “If you join the protest because you’re tired of COVID, you now need to understand you are breaking the law.” —Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in February

Now: “Everyone one in China should be allowed to protest [COVID restrictions]. We will continue to ensure that China knows we will stand for human rights and with people who are expressing themselves.” —Justine Trudeau in November

For the record: “It wasn’t an elaborate, multilayered plot. It wasn’t democracy hanging by a thread. It was a mob run amok, a riot. It was dangerous for those on the scene, and it was notorious because it happened at the Capitol instead of, say, on the streets of Minneapolis. But it was a spontaneous, chaotic, nearly pointless tantrum that had no chance of achieving even the nebulous, short-term aim of preventing Congress from counting state-certified electoral votes, much less of overthrowing America’s constitutional order. Oh, and to hear prosecutors tell the story of January 6, Donald Trump had precious little to do with the whole thing.” —Andrew McCarthy on the conviction of some Oath Keepers

For the record II: “Congrats, [Keri] Lake, you’ve earned the 2022 Stacey Abrams Sore Loser Award. Election Day in Arizona included real problems in Maricopa County, home to Phoenix and more than half the state’s population. But it simply isn’t believable that these snafus cost Ms. Lake the election. How did she perform in Maricopa specifically, compared with other Republicans? Ms. Lake received 77,342 fewer votes than GOP state Treasurer Kimberly Yee. Ms. Lake received 39,165 fewer votes than the combined GOP U.S. House candidates. Ms. Lake received 23,901 fewer votes than GOP county prosecutor Rachel Mitchell. These figures are especially striking because voter interest wanes down the ballot.” —The Wall Street Journal

“The idea is we’re all supposed to fight for free speech for bad people because we know for a fact that a standard of ‘We’ll just ban people we all think are bad’ will never lead anywhere good.” —Frank J. Fleming