Robert D. Novak, Syndicated Columnist, On House Republicans and Speaker Nancy Pelosi:

“Operating outside public view, the House Democratic majority is taking extraordinary steps to maintain spending as usual while awaiting a Democrat as president. Remarkably, the supine House Republican minority hardly resists and even collaborates with its supposed adversaries.

“There has been little or no public Republican protest over seizure of the appropriating process by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her clique. For the second straight year, no appropriations bill other than defense is scheduled for passage. Instead, spending details are crafted in the Speaker's Office, negating President George W. Bush's veto strategy. In a little-noticed maneuver April 23, Pelosi won passage of a bill preventing Medicaid billions from being saved through Bush administration regulations. Despite the GOP leadership's nominal opposition, House Republicans voted for higher spending by two to one.”

Regarding Alternative Fuels:

“To the annals of market manias and regulatory follies, a new chapter is being added: The Great Ethanol Bubble of 2008. It is possible that someday a fuel made from a cheap, abundant, renewable crop may replace oil. But it won't be food-based ethanol. It’s time not only to stop subsidizing the stuff but to revamp the chaotic, politicized and wasteful system of subsidies for alternative energy.

“It is now well established that inefficient corn ethanol actually pumps out more total life-cycle carbon emissions than gasoline, and total emissions from ethanol coming even from the most advanced refineries offer at most a 25% improvement over gasoline in terms of greenhouse gases — at a staggering environmental and financial cost.”

— The Editors, The Los Angeles Times

“Corn is the answer to our food problems, not our fuel problems. The World Bank estimates that the amount of corn needed to fill the gas tank of an SUV is enough to feed one person for an entire year. That’s a tradeoff the world can no longer afford.”

— Edwin Feulner, Heritage Foundation President

Mike S. Adams, Author, University of North Carolina Criminology Professor, Regarding Leftist Professors, Gun Laws and Crime Statistics:

“I want all of those leftist professors who say that having a gun in one’s home does not deter burglary to do the following:

“1. Post a sign on your front door saying ‘Caution: You Are About to Enter a Gun Free Zone.’

“2. Send a post card to DrAdams.org, P.O. Box 319, Wrightsville Beach, NC, 28480. Just note that you have posted your sign and leave a return address so I can mail you a crime victimization survey this time next year.”

Debra J. Saunders, San Francisco Chronicle Syndicated Columnist, On Universal Healthcare Proposals by Presidential Hopefuls Hillary Clinton (D-NY) and Barack Obama (D-IL):

“[Senators] Clinton and Obama both promise to provide access to health care for all Americans by mandating that employers provide or contribute to the cost of health plans for employees. Clinton would mandate that all uninsured adults buy health care; Obama has no ‘individual mandate.’ Both candidates would offer health care for all children, subsidies for adults and would require insurers to cover everyone, regardless of health.

“Somehow they propose to offer and subsidize more health care without raising costs for the majority of Americans who already have it.

“What next? Consume more calories, weigh less?”

Letter From More than 200 Economists Opposing the Gas-Tax Holiday Proposed by Presidential Hopefuls Hillary Clinton (D-NY) and John McCain (R-AZ):

“[S]uspending the federal tax on gasoline this summer is a bad idea, and we oppose it... First, research shows that waiving the gas tax would generate major profits for oil companies rather than significantly lowering prices for consumers. Second, it would encourage people to keep buying costly imported oil and do nothing to encourage conservation. Third, a tax holiday would provide very little relief to families feeling squeezed. Fourth, the gas tax suspension would … reduce the amount of money going into the highway trust fund that maintains our infrastructure.”

This Week On the Trail:

“Hoosier State voters spoke, but they didn't say superdelegates should do anything dramatic like stripping the nomination from Obama in order to save the party in November.”

— Charles Hurt, New York Post D.C. Bureau Chief

“Hillary Clinton’s strategy for winning the Democratic nomination is now a fond wish wrapped in a desperate hope.

“Her fond wish is to seat the pledged delegates from the rogue states of Michigan and Florida in a way that is advantageous her and damaging to Barack Obama.

“Her desperate hope is then to persuade the superdelegates to overturn the will of the pledged delegates and make her the Democratic nominee.”

— Roger Simon, The Politico Chief Political Columnist

“The Clinton campaign formulated a poor nomination strategy. When it fell to pieces, the campaign essentially began improvising. To this day, it lives week-to-week, one ‘do-or-die’ primary after another. This has diminished its capacity to take advantage of political opportunities. The Obama campaign, on the other hand, formulated a superb nomination strategy, which it is still following even after 14 months of campaigning, and which has minimized the damage from a major political controversy.”

— Jay Cost, Real Clear Politics “Horse Race” Blog

“A top Democratic source with insight into Bill's and Hillary's states of mind says the Clintons are convinced that a Democratic presidency is all but certain no matter how messy the fight for the nomination.”

— Thomas M. DeFrank, New York Daily News Washington Bureau

“Hillary has another brand-new advantage: She is hated on all the right fronts. The snots and the snark-mongers now all despise her, along with the trendies, the glitzies; the food, drama, and lifestyle critics, the beautiful people (and those who would join them), the Style sections of all the big papers; the slick magazines; the above-it-all pundits, who have looked down for years on the Republicans and on the poor fools who elect them, and now sneer even harder at her. The New York Times is having hysterics about her…

“And what caused this display of intense irritation? She's running a right-wing campaign. She's running the classic Republican race against her opponent, running on toughness and use-of-force issues, the campaign that the elder George Bush ran against Michael Dukakis, that the younger George Bush waged in 2000 and then again against John Kerry, and that Ronald Reagan — ‘The Bear in the Forest’ — ran against Jimmy Carter and Walter F. Mondale. And she's doing it with much the same symbols.”

— Noemie Emery, Contributing Editor, The Weekly Standard

“Obama's newest attempt to save himself after Wright's latest poisonous performance is now declared the new final word on the subject. Therefore, any future ads linking Obama and Wright are preemptively declared out of bounds, illegitimate, indeed ‘race-baiting’ (a New York Times editorial, April 30).

“On what grounds? This 20-year association with Wright calls into question everything about Obama: his truthfulness in his serially adjusted stories of what he knew and when he knew it; his judgment in choosing as his mentor, pastor and great friend a man he just now realizes is a purveyor of racial hatred; and the central premise of his campaign, that he is the bringer of a ‘new politics,’ rising above the old Washington ways of expediency. It's hard to think of an act more blatantly expedient than renouncing Wright when his show, once done from the press club instead of the pulpit, could no longer be ‘contextualized’ as something whites could not understand and only Obama could explain in all its complexity.

“Turns out the Wright show was not that complex after all. Everyone understands it now. Even Obama.”

— Charles Krauthammer, Syndicated Columnist

“Senator Barack Obama won the endorsement of the Teamsters earlier this year after privately telling the union he supported ending the strict federal oversight imposed to root out corruption, according to officials from the union and the Obama campaign.

“It's an unusual stance for a presidential candidate. Policy makers have largely treated monitoring of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters as a legal matter left to the Justice Department since an independent review board was set up in 1992 to eliminate mob influence in the union.”

— Brody Mullins and Kris Maher, The Wall Street Journal

“Nearly halfway to choosing the next President, voters are witnessing an amazing spectacle in addition to the Barack Obama-Hillary Clinton scrum. All three of the contenders are avowed believers in ever more restrictive and convoluted campaign finance laws. They are also proving, with their every decision, why those laws have become a national farce.

“With his fund raising headed for the stratosphere, Mr. Obama has transformed himself from earnest reformer to Senator Moneybags willing to renege on his pledge to accept public financing. Mrs. Clinton flirted initially with another donor scandal, and now her big givers are maxed out so even she has to scramble for cash for the later primaries. And John McCain, the caped crusader of reform for more than a decade, has taken to bending rules so he can remain competitive: His campaign pledged his eligibility for federal matching funds as collateral for a bank loan, then declined public funding and its spending limits for the primary season.”

— The Editors, The Wall Street Journal

“In each state Clinton carried the vote of Republican voters - 52 to 44 percent for Obama in Indiana, and 61 to 32 percent in North Carolina. Republicans made up only 5 percent in North Carolina's Democratic primary electorate, but made up 11 percent of the vote in the Indiana Democratic primary, enough to provide Clinton's expected margin of victory.

“While taking the time to turn out and vote in the Democratic primaries, Republican voters in both states have plans to vote for McCain in November. In North Carolina, 74 percent and 76 percent of Republicans said they would vote for McCain if Clinton or Obama, respectively, were the nominee. In Indiana, 66 percent would vote for McCain against Clinton, and 61 percent would vote McCain if Obama's the nominee.”

— Monika McDermott, CBS News Political Consultant

“Maybe Rush should be prosecuted after all. Is any American entitled to have this much fun at liberals' expense during a campaign season? Surely there's something in McCain-Feingold, or maybe in the Americans With Disabilities Act to address this abuse.”

— Brent Bozell, Author, Syndicated Columnist, Founder and President, Media Research Center