The Patriot Post® · Wednesday Short Cuts

Insight: “If liberty is worth keeping and free representative government worth saving, we must stand for all American fundamentals — not some, but all. All are woven into the great fabric of our national well-being. We cannot hold fast to some only, and abandon others that, for the moment, we find inconvenient. If one American fundamental is prostrated, others in the end will surely fall.” —Albert J. Beveridge (1862-1927)

For the record: “The [Supreme Court], when it began at the time of the Constitution’s writing, had six members. They had six members for several years. They had 10 members for several years after the Civil War. They functioned with an even number of members. … Half of our cases are unanimous. The 5-4 cases are probably 20%, and it isn’t the same five and the same four.” —Justice Stephen Breyer

The BIG lie: “Obamacare has saved millions of Americans money. We don’t need to do what Donald Trump is saying and rip it out root and branch. We need to sit down together and iron out some of the kinks, and help make sure we can improve on what is already working for millions of Americans.” —Debbie Wasserman Schultz

Belly laugh of the week: “So far the ACA has been doing a pretty good job keeping insurance premiums low, and we have to redouble the efforts of that.” —ObamaCare architect Ezekiel Emanuel

Upright: “The Democrats promised something very unlikely: That we’d provide more health-care coverage for more people and spend less money doing it — and that the typical annual health-insurance premium for an American family would decline substantially, by an average of $2,500 a year. The opposite is happening: Premium prices have gone up, and they are expected to go up by [an average of] 25 percent in the coming year. … Is there another product you use the price of which increases at that rate, or anything like that rate?” —Kevin Williamson

Late-night humor: “CNN is reporting that Clinton ‘may have gone to Cubs games with her father as a kid, but after leaving Illinois, and around the same time she ran for Senate in New York, the former first lady touted her love for the New York Yankees.’ How convenient. As a 10-year-old she wears a Cubs hat. A mere 40 years later, she’s in a Yankees hat. Is there no hat she won’t wear?” —Stephen Colbert