"If we are going to have a rush to action, it shouldn’t be on guns. It should be on mental illness. It doesn’t make for high political drama or emotional cable chatter, but getting treatment for more of the most seriously mentally ill might actually prevent future shootings. Even if it doesn’t, it would improve the lives of sick and vulnerable people. ... 

"When they are treated, the seriously mentally ill aren’t more violent than the general population. If untreated, though, they are. The evidence is in our ongoing roll call of horrors perpetrated by the deranged. We don’t know yet if Adam Lanza was mentally ill, or if a better system would have helped him. We do know that somewhere out there a young man is about to get very sick. He could become the next Jared Loughner or James Holmes — unless someone gets him treatment."

"It is easy, and in moments of despair such as Friday quite understandable, to scream 'more' to gun control, 'more' to the morass of airport-style security that is spreading its way across our institutions, 'more' to the diagnosis and institutionalization of the mentally ill. But it is much harder to write the laws that would have guaranteed Adam Lanza could never find a gun, or enter a school by force, or go without what diagnosis, treatment, and supervision he might have needed. And hardest of all to write them in such a way that the republic we’d be left with would still look like America in the ways we value most. ... 

"On Friday, the president promised 'meaningful action to prevent more tragedies like this, regardless of the politics.' We doubt that something like this is possible, in a way consistent with the principle and the fact of the Second Amendment. If the possibility of terrors like Newtown are a reminder of why we need politics, their reality is a reminder that politics can do only so much."

"Over the 20th century, progressives erected a system and culture where the government in Washington is the agency of first and last resort for all of our problems. When government is expected to say yes to everything, electing the Party of No makes as much sense as hiring a priest to run a brothel. 

"So what is the answer? ... 

"My own view is that conservatives should recommit themselves to federalism and states’ rights. The party of Lincoln should protect core civil rights, but beyond that, states and localities should be given as much freedom as they can handle. If California wants to become Sweden with better weather, let it. If Texas wants to become Singapore on the Rio Grande, great, go for it. And the same principle goes for cities and towns within those states."

"In 1900, government spending at all three levels -- local, state and federal -- amounted to about 10 percent of national income. Government spending today amounts to 40 percent -- or 50 percent, if one places a dollar value on the unfunded mandates imposed on states and businesses by Washington. The voters re-elected a President who increased the national debt faster and by a greater amount than any previous administration. And there are simply not enough rich folks to pay for it.
 
"Obama, on Nov. 6, won the political argument to continue to expand government. But the election did nothing to change 'the math.' Memo to the middle class: Get ready, you're next."

"Right-to-work laws do not ban unions. They merely ensure that workers can no longer be coerced to pay them. They also create workplace conditions under which even union members are no longer a captive audience, forced to bow to whatever decisions the union leadership makes.
 
"And that's what the union leaders fear most."

"It is unclear what exactly the outcome will be when Obamacare’s avalanche of regulations lands upon the health-care industry. We believe that the consequences are likely to be unpleasant and unpopular, and that those state leaders who enable them are likely to pay a high political price for doing so. If imposing heavy new taxes and cumbrous new regulations upon their states’ residents is not enough, political self-interest alone should counsel state leaders against putting their imprimatur upon the exchanges. 

"Oklahoma is suing to secure its sovereignty against Obamacare’s intrusions, and 14 states have passed laws (and in some cases constitutional amendments) forbidding state workers to enable the administration in implementing the mandate. The states are under no legal or constitutional obligation to establish the exchanges, and if enough of them refuse to do so, then Washington will have no choice but to revisit the deeply unpopular law, providing the country with an opportunity to excise some of Obamacare’s most obnoxious elements. And though full repeal remains an unlikely possibility with Democrats controlling the Senate and the White House, the worst aspects of the law can be delayed or stopped altogether until such a time as pulling up Obamacare by the roots becomes a real political possibility. Obamacare is a threat to American health care, to be sure, but it is also a threat to the character of American government — injuries to which are not easily healed."

"If any Republicans thought that President Obama would respond with magnanimity in victory, they now know better. He is determined to rout them on taxes, give as a little as possible on spending, and blame them for any economic damage in the bargain. The question for the GOP is how to minimize the harm to the economy, as well as to their chances of a political and policy comeback in 2014 and beyond. ...

"Mr. Obama wants to give the appearance of a looming fiscal crisis because it serves his political interest in spooking Republicans to give him everything he wants. He's pressing so hard for tax rate increases not because they will bring in much revenue but because he wants GOP tax cover for Democrats in 2014 and to get Republicans to concede that tax rates must rise. Once he pockets that, he'll be back by more. 

"Republicans need not play along, and they and the country will suffer if they do. Above all, they need to start negotiating as a team with Mr. Obama and stop making premature concessions for the TV cameras that only make the White House less likely to meet them half way."

“[On] December 7, 1941 – a date which will live in infamy – the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan. … 

"No matter how long it may take us to overcome this premeditated invasion, the American people in their righteous might will win through to absolute victory.

"I believe that I interpret the will of the Congress and of the people when I assert that we will not only defend ourselves to the uttermost, but will make it very certain that this form of treachery shall never again endanger us."

"If the fiscal cliff talks make Lindsay Lohan look like a productive member of society, perhaps it's because President Obama and John Boehner are playing by the dysfunctional Beltway rules. The rules work if you like bigger government, but Republicans need a new strategy, which starts by exposing the rigged game of 'baseline budgeting.' 

"Both the White House and House Republicans are pretending that their goal is 'reducing the deficit,' which they suggest means making real spending choices. ... 

"Here's the reality: Those numbers have no real meaning because they are conjured in the wilderness of mirrors that is the federal budget process. Since 1974, Capitol Hill's 'baseline' has automatically increased spending every year according to Congressional Budget Office projections, which means before anyone has submitted a budget or cast a single vote. Tax and spending changes are then measured off that inflated baseline, not in absolute terms. ... 

"If Republicans really want to slow the growth in spending, they need to stop playing by Beltway rules and start explaining to America why Mr. Obama keeps saying he's cutting spending even as spending and deficits keep going up and up and up."

"With their enthusiastic backing of President Obama and the Democratic Party on Election Day, the bluest parts of America may have embraced a program utterly at odds with their economic self-interest. The almost uniform support of blue states’ congressional representatives for the administration’s campaign for tax 'fairness' represents a kind of  bizarre economic suicide pact. 

"Any move to raise taxes on the rich — defined as households making over $250,000 annually — strikes directly at the economies of these states, which depend heavily on the earnings of high-income professionals, entrepreneurs and technical workers. In fact, when you examine which states, and metropolitan areas, have the highest concentrations of such people, it turns out they are overwhelmingly located in the bluest states and regions."