The Patriot Post® · Thursday Short Cuts

Insight: “When a legislature decides to steal some of our rights and plans to use police force to accomplish it, what’s the real difference between them and the thief? Darn little! They hide behind the excuse that they’re legislating democratically.” —H.L. Richardson (1966-1988)

Upright: “I saved 15,000 lives in the operating room. And you don’t appreciate my service, but I wouldn’t trade a single one of them for all of your money. Money’s not important to me. It’s not what’s important to most Americans.” —Barry Bennett, campaign manager for Ben Carson, on what the doctor would have liked to tell Donald Trump Tuesday night

Huh? “I am all for private property rights. There’s nobody who wants property taken away less than I do, believe me. I would lose a lot of money if my property were taken away. But when you’re building a road, when you’re building a highway, when you’re building whatever it is you’re building from a municipal standpoint, you may need a corner of a piece of property.” —Donald Trump (Then why did you try using it for your own benefit?)

Getting it right: “Let’s be fair. If somebody had said [something threatening about another candidate] to Donald Trump and he had laughed, we’d be ripping him a new one… [Hillary Clinton] should have stood up to him.” —Leftmedia loudmouth Joy Behar

Braying Jenny: “As one of just 20 women currently serving in the Senate, it’s important to me to encourage more women to run for office. But equally important is encouraging more men to sometimes just shut the hell up. It’s not that women don’t value your thoughts, it’s just that we don’t value all of them. The world doesn’t need your opinion on everything.” —Sen. Claire McCaskill

Polluted emissions: “The number of extremely hot days has multiplied dramatically. The large downpours, floods, mudslides, the deeper and longer droughts, rising sea levels from the melting ice, forest fires — there’s a long list of events that people can see and feel viscerally now. Every night on the television news is like a nature hike through the Book of Revelation.” —Al Gore

Late-night humor: “Obama now has a personal Facebook page where he says he wants to have real conversations about issues. In other words, he’s new to Facebook.” —Conan O'Brien