The Patriot Post® · Monday Short Cuts

The Gipper: “A friend of mine was asked to a costume ball a short time ago. He slapped some egg on his face and went as a liberal economist.” —Ronald Reagan

For the record: “The Special Counsel did not find that the Trump campaign, or anyone associated with it, conspired or coordinated with the Russian government [to interfere in the election], despite multiple offers from Russian-affiliated individuals to assist the Trump campaign.” —letter from Attorney General Bob Barr to Congress

For the record II: “The desperate ‘this is Barr, not Mueller!’ cries are amusing. Remember this: Mueller publicly & quickly corrected a piece of a Buzzfeed story that he thought was unfair/inaccurate. We’d sure as hell know if he thought Barr was distorting the central pillars of his conclusions.” —Guy Benson

Non Compos Mentis: “You have a president who, in my opinion, beyond a shadow of a doubt, sought to, however ham-handedly, collude with the Russian government or foreign power to undermine and influence our elections.” —Beto O'Rourke after the Mueller probe dropped with no such finding

Friendly fire: “Turning on Mueller and impugning his integrity and competence is the inevitable outcome — it’s the only play the Trump/Russia devotees have.” —lefty journalist Glenn Greenwald

Friendly fire II: “I wrote a letter in August [2016] to … [James] Comey and said Russia is messing with our elections and you need to do something about that. And by October he had done nothing. We now know he should have done something. … They’ve done it in the past. They are doing it as we speak in European countries. And they’re going to do it again in America.” —Harry Reid

And last… “Hands up, don’t shoot. Trump’s a Russian spy. Kavanaugh ran a secret gang rape cartel. Covington kids assaulted a vet. Never forget that these lies — and yes, they were outright lies — were deliberately peddled by all the same people for all the same reasons.” —Sean Davis