The Patriot Post® · Monday Short Cuts

The Gipper: “The other day, someone told me the difference between a democracy and a people’s democracy. It’s the same difference between a jacket and a straitjacket.”

Upright: “I can summarize the health care cost problem in one sentence… The reason capitalism doesn’t work in health care is the consumer is disconnected from the product.” —Sen. Rand Paul

Dezinformatsiya: “How Trump and Republicans may get away with hurting millions of people.” —headline from The Washington Post’s Greg Sargent

Non Compos Mentis: “This 125 million [chronically ill] people as of today will be as high as 140 million by 2020. And in 2020, they are going to be looking for somebody to give them medication and health care. And what this bill does is sends them all to death.” —Montel Williams

Braying Jackass: “Senate Republicans want to gut Medicaid — throwing children and families who rely on it to the wolves. … The Republicans’ health care plan will literally cost American lives.” —Sen. Richard Blumenthal

Alpha Jackass, part I: “[Steve Scalise’s] whole job is to get people, convince Republicans to [expletive] kick people off [expletive] health care. I’m glad he got shot. I wish he was [expletive] dead.” —now-ousted Nebraska state Demo official Phil Montag

Alpha Jackass, part II: “Every morning I wake up and in the seconds before I turn my phone on to see what the latest news is, I have this boundless sense of optimism and hope that this is the day that [Trump] is going to have a massive stroke, and, you know, be carted out of the White House on a gurney.” —Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Michael Chabon

Earth to Hillary: “You lose an election, you don’t blame other people, you blame yourself.” —Sen. Chuck Schumer

Late-night humor: “The Senate health care bill … would cut a tax on indoor tanning. Which is the biggest proof so far that Trump was actually working on the bill.” —Jimmy Fallon