"At last month's State of the Union, President Obama said America needs more passenger trains. How does he know? For years, politicians promised that more of us will want to commute by train, but it doesn't happen. People like their cars. Some subsidized trains cost so much per commuter that it would be cheaper to buy them taxi rides. 

"The grand schemes of the politicians fail and fail again."

"The Egyptian government's recent efforts to tamp down massive protests by shutting off Internet access has reignited debate in this country over a proposal to give the president emergency powers over the Internet...   

"The Internet is increasingly becoming the backbone of American commerce and communication. Efforts to cede control of it to the government ought to be carefully scrutinized if not completely rebuffed."

"Unless you're in favor of a fully nationalized health-care system, the president's health-care reform law is a massive mistake...

"All claims made for it were false. It will add trillions to the federal deficit. It will lead to a de facto government takeover of health care faster than most people realize, and as millions of Americans are added to the Medicaid rolls and millions more employees (including, watch for this, workers of bankrupt state governments) are dumped into the new exchanges."

"[President Reagan's] most underestimated political achievement? In the spring of 1981 the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization called an illegal strike. It was early in Reagan’s presidency. He’d been a union president. He didn’t want to come across as an antiunion Republican. And Patco had been one of the few unions to support him in 1980. But the strike was illegal. He would not accept it. He gave them a grace period, two days, to come back. If they didn’t, they’d be fired. They didn’t believe him. Most didn’t come back. So he fired them. It broke the union. Federal workers got the system back up. The Soviet Union, and others, were watching. They thought: This guy means business. It had deeply positive implications for U.S. foreign policy. But here’s the thing: Reagan didn’t know that would happen, didn’t know the bounty he’d reap. He was just trying to do what was right."

"Fresh off of blaming Jared Loughner's killing spree in the Tucson mall on Sarah Palin, liberals are now blaming it on high-capacity magazines. They might as well imprison everyone named 'Jared' to prevent a crime like this from ever happening again. 

"During the presidential campaign, Obama said: 'I don't know of any self-respecting hunter that needs 19 rounds of anything. You don't shoot 19 rounds at a deer, and if you do, you shouldn't be hunting.' It would have been more accurate for him to end that sentence after the word 'hunter.' 

"It's so adorable when people who wouldn't know a high-capacity magazine from Vanity Fair start telling gun owners what they should want and need."

"Monday's ruling by federal Judge Roger Vinson that the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act -- a k a ObamaCare -- is unconstitutional is a signal event in modern American history. For the first time since FDR browbeat the Supreme Court into accepting most of his New Deal, the Leviathan known as the federal government has been rocked back on its heels. 

"If the administration and the Senate Democrats had any sense, they'd take Judge Vinson's ruling as a gift, not a setback. Because, whether they know it or not, the judge just handed them an opportunity to get health care right."

"Liberal pundits who have consulted liberal law professors about liberals' great achievement -- ObamaCare -- are pronouncing the ruling by Judge Roger Vinson to be much to do about nothing. The ruling is. . . um. . . thinking of a case liberals hate. . . um. . . just like Bush v. Gore ! (Except it has nothing to do with the Equal Protection Clause or any other aspect of that case.) It is, we are told, 'curious,' 'odd,' or 'unconventional.' 

"These are complaints, not legal arguments. And they suggest that the left was totally unprepared for the constitutional attack on their beloved handiwork. After all, the recent mocking by the left of conservatives' reverence for the Constitution suggests they are mystified that a 200-year old document could get in the way of their historic achievement. They are truly nonplussed, and so they vamp, not with reasoned analysis but with an outpouring of adjectives... 

"The only thing 'odd' about the ruling is the left's response... "

"Jimmy Carter will go down in American history as 'the president who lost Iran,' which during his term went from being a major strategic ally of the United States to being the revolutionary Islamic Republic. Barack Obama will be remembered as the president who 'lost' Turkey, Lebanon and Egypt, and during whose tenure America's alliances in the Middle East crumbled." 

"This entire pantomime about debt reduction came after the first half of a speech devoted to, yes, new spending. One almost has to admire Obama’s defiance. His 2009 stimulus and budget-busting health-care reform are precisely what stirred the popular revolt that delivered his November shellacking. And yet he’s back for more. 

"It’s as if Obama is daring the voters — and the Republicans — to prove they really want smaller government. He’s manning the barricades for Obamacare and he’s here with yet another spending — excuse me, investment — spree. To face down those overachieving Asians, Obama wants to sink yet more monies into yet more road and bridge repair, more federally subsidized teachers — with a bit of high-speed rail tossed in for style. That will show the Chinese."

"I missed the middle section of Obama's State of the Union address when I took a break to read 'War and Peace,' but I gather he never got around to what I was hoping he'd say, which is: 'What was I thinking?'  

"The national debt is $14 trillion, the Democrats won't stop spending, and President Nero gave us a long gaseous speech about his Stradivarius."