"... Republicans want less government spending and more leeway for entrepreneurs to create new businesses and jobs. No one knows what innovative products and services will emerge.

"That’s the beauty of free enterprise, but it also makes it a hard sell politically — unless voters have figured out that no amount of government spending is going to restore the old status quo."

"... In a New York Times Magazine profile last October, the president admitted he had to learn the hard way that there’s 'no such thing as shovel-ready projects.' 

"This is a staggering indictment of the president, the team he assembled, and the journalists who accepted this administration’s arrogant assertions that they knew exactly what to do, how to do it, and what would happen as a result. ..."

"Obama is still bragging about massive federal subsidies to the wind- and solar-power industries, while making it nearly impossible to obtain new leases for fossil-fuel exploration. Yet for all the billions spent, the percentage of new energy produced by subsidized high-cost 'green' projects has not changed much. 

"Meanwhile, revolutionary breakthroughs in the exploration for and recovery of natural gas, oil, tar sands, shale oil, and coal deposits in just a year or two have vastly expanded the nation’s fossil-fuel reserves and the ability to produce clean energy from them."

"Four Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) agents in transcribed interviews with top GOP oversight official Darrell Issa’s office are contradicting the Justice Department’s account of 'Operation Fast and Furious,' saying hundreds of weapons – including assault rifles and military grade sniper weapons – were allowed to escape into the clutches of Mexican drug cartels in an apparently reckless investigative strategy.

"Their testimony raises the question of whether Ronald Weich, a deputy to Attorney General Eric Holder, lied to congressional investigators in a Feb. 4 letter denying the allegations. Weich is testifying before Issa’s committee Wednesday."

"Covering this upcoming election is like covering a competition between two Soviet refrigerator companies, cold-war relics offering products that never change."

"President Obama referred to the lack of job growth in May as 'a bump in the road.' Unfortunately, it's more like a 100-car pileup."

"We are in the midst of a once-in-a-generation debate about the nature of the welfare state (entitlement versus safety net) and, indeed, of the social contract between citizen and state (e.g., whether Congress can mandate — compel — you to purchase whatever it wills). Let’s finish that debate. Start with Obama’s abysmal stewardship, root it in his out-of-touch social-democratic ideology, and win. That would create the strongest mandate for conservative governance since the Reagan era."

"In the most important appeal of the Obamacare constitutional saga, today was the best day yet for individual freedom.  The government’s lawyer, Neal Katyal, spent most of the hearing on the ropes, with the judicial panel extremely cautious not to extend federal power beyond its present outer limits of regulating economic activity that has a substantial aggregate effect on interstate commerce. 

"As the lawyer representing 26 states against the federal government said, 'The whole reason we do this is to protect liberty.' With those words, former solicitor general Paul Clement reached the essence of the Obamacare lawsuits. With apologies to Joe Biden, this is a big deal not because we’re dealing with a huge reorganization of the health care industry, but because our most fundamental first principle is at stake: We limit government power so people can live their lives the way they want."

"The economy will continue to suffer until there is a coherent and favorable economic policy. That means bringing long-term deficits under control without raising marginal tax rates -- by cutting government outlays and by limiting the tax expenditures that substitute for direct government spending.  It means lower tax rates on businesses and individuals to spur entrepreneurship and investment.  And it means reforming Social Security and Medicare to protect the living standards of future retirees while limiting the cost to future taxpayers. 

"All of these things are doable.  But the Obama administration has not done them and shows no inclination to do them in the future."

"For someone who’s spent a lot of years offering quick judgments when a shock wave roils the political waters, I turned off Rep. Anthony Weiner’s mea maxima culpa with more questions than answers. ... 

"Will powerful, successful men learn from this latest example that their achievements do not exempt them from acts of reckless stupidity? 

"I looked for inspiring quotes from John Adams, Tocqueville, Emerson and Reinhold Neibuhr, but found that John McEnroe said it best: 'You cannot be serious.'"