The Patriot Post® · Monday Short Cuts

The Gipper: “We need true tax reform that will at least make a start toward restoring for our children the American Dream that wealth is denied to no one, that each individual has the right to fly as high as his strength and ability will take him. … But we cannot have such reform while our tax policy is engineered by people who view the tax as a means of achieving changes in our social structure.”

Upright: “Whatever their mistakes, Republican leaders have built the largest majority in Congress and the states since the 1920s. They’ve developed the most ambitious reform agenda in decades — on taxes, entitlements and even poverty. Anyone who claims there’s no difference between Paul Ryan and Tom DeLay, or for that matter President Obama, is obtuse or dishonest. If Republicans had stayed focused on the Obama record and Hillary Clinton, they’d now be uniting with a great chance to retake the White House and reform the federal government.” —The Wall Street Journal

Non Compos Mentis: “We really are the only advanced democracy on Earth that systematically and purposely makes it really hard for people to vote. … And there’s a legacy to that that grows directly out of a history in which first property-owning men, then white men, then white folks didn’t want women, minorities to participate in the political process and be able to empower themselves in that fashion. … Australia has got mandatory voting. You start getting 70-80 percent voting rates, that’s transformative.” —Barack Obama

Oops: “[My worst mistake was] probably failing to plan for the day after what I think was the right thing to do in intervening in Libya.” —Barack Obama

The BIG Lie: “That is beyond absurd. [Republicans are] saying a lot of things these days, and I’m just going to let them say whatever they choose to say. ISIS was primarily the result of the [power] vacuum in Syria caused by Assad first and foremost, aided and abetted by Iran and Russia.” —Hillary Clinton on why neither she nor Barack Obama are to blame for the rise of the Islamic State

Blind squirrel finds a nut: “She may have the experience to be president of the United States. No one can argue that. But in terms of her judgment, something is clearly lacking.” —Bernie Sanders

Late-night humor: “John Kasich had to move his campaign event to a larger venue when he got more RSVPs than expected. Kasich said, ‘We had to move it from a toll booth to a Sunglass Hut.’” —Conan O'Brien