 Obama even gets away with saying things like having a system to "keep insurance companies honest"-- and many people may not see the painful irony in politicians trying to keep other people honest. Certainly most of the media are unlikely to point out this irony. 
Thomas Sowell
Whose Medical Decisions?: Part IV
A New York Times report on the administration's strategy for fighting back against its critics reads like the flight plan for the Hindenburg.
Robert Tracinski
TIA Daily, 12 Aug 09
Like Richard Nixon, Barack Obama wants to govern on the strength of a silent majority, although with a twist. Obama wants the majority that opposes or questions his policies to stay silent.
Rich Lowry
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=ZmM2MTI2MTVkN2Y2ZjBlOTQ4N2U2YjY4ZGFkYzFmYzQ=
Forgive my reductionism, but there will always be tension between those who believe that the good of the individual is primary and that the good of the group must be subordinated to it, and those who believe that the good of the group is primary and that the good of the individual must be subordinated to it.
Phil Bowermaster
There is no necessary conflict between intelligent conservatism and real liberalism.
Henry Hazlitt
http://mises.org/story/3577
If America is circling the drain, Goldman Sachs has found a way to be that drain.
Matt Taibbi
The Great American Bubble Machine
But what would happen if administrative capability were to evolve to make it possible "to subject all of his subjects to the details of a uniform set of regulations"? That moment has now arrived.
Mark Steyn
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124631535597970609.html
I am extremely proud of my compatriots. Finally, we have decided to stand up and become a country of laws, not men. From now on, here in Honduras, no one will be above the law.
Octavio Sanchez
http://www.csmonitor.com/2009/0702/p09s03-coop.html
[The Iranian] people aren't dying in the street because they want a recount of hanging chads in suburban Isfahan. They want to bring down the tyrannical, misogynist, corrupt theocracy that has imposed itself with the very baton-wielding goons that today attack the demonstrators. This started out about election fraud. But like all revolutions, it has far outgrown its origins. What's at stake now is the very legitimacy of this regime -- and the future of the entire Middle East.
Charles Krauthammer
Obama Clueless on Iran
You can live as free men, but, if you choose not to, your society will die.
Mark Steyn
Live Free or Die
The code word for the new racism is 'diversity.' The Constitution of the United States says nothing about diversity and the Constitution is what a judge is supposed to pay attention to, not the prevailing buzzwords of the times.
Thomas Sowell
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2009/06/02/out_of_context_part_ii_96786.html
In the history of developed democracies with literate publics served by mass media, there is no precedent for today's media enlistment in the crusade to promote global warming "awareness." Concerning this, journalism, which fancies itself skeptical and nonconforming, is neither.
George Will
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2009/06/04/green_with_guilt_96828.html
[Pres. Obama] has left the concept of legal - he makes decrees. He got the spending via 'legitimate' vote... but no one challenged the constitutionality of TARP or the Stimulus bills. And no one is fighting against his ignoring the few limits on those new laws - he spends it where he wants, and makes decrees that have no law behind them (like firing the GM president, like setting salaries and bonuses). Law is the only tether to justice and the organized protection of rights. It has to be observed, now it isn't.
Steve Wolfer
http://rebirthofreason.com/Forum/Quotes/1444.shtml#7
We have borrowed more money in the last 6 months than the previous 30 years.
Steven Moore
Fox News - Glen Beck Show - 6/4/2009
We'd like for sure and rapid punishment to have some preventative effect, but when the gov't starts looking for ways to use their guns to prevent them from having to use their guns, there's a problem.
Ryan Keith Roper
http://rebirthofreason.com/Forum/NewsDiscussions/2423.shtml#2
If financial institutions won't cooperate with us, we will assume that they are sheltering money in tax havens and act accordingly
President Obama
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=103790910&ft=1&f=1014
The People of Virginia declare and make known that the powers granted under the Constitution being derived from the People of the United States may be resumed by them whensoever the same shall be perverted to their injury or oppression and that every power not granted thereby remains with them and at their will.
State of Virgina's Ratification of the US Constitutional
http://townhall.com/columnists/WalterEWilliams/2009/04/22/parting_company?page=1
If you don't think government bureaucrats can make questionable decisions, then you haven't dealt with many government bureaucrats.
Thomas Sowell
http://townhall.com/columnists/ThomasSowell/2009/04/22/words_versus_realities
I cannot find any authority in the Constitution for public charity. [To approve the measure] would be contrary to the letter and spirit of the Constitution and subversive to the whole theory upon which the Union of these States is founded.
Franklin Pierce
-- President Franklin Pierce's 1854 veto of a measure to help the mentally ill.
You too can have the soothing feeling of nature's own baby-soft wool being pulled gently over your resting eyes
Herbert Lawrence (Herblock) Block
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2009/04/random_thoughts_4.html
"We have earthquakes but then we forget and do nothing. It's not in our culture to take precautions or build in an appropriate way in areas where there could be strong earthquakes,"
Enzo Boschi
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L6566682.htm
Obama is a leveler. He has come to narrow the divide between rich and poor. For him the ultimate social value is fairness. Imposing it upon the American social order is his mission.
Charles Krauthammer
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2009/04/obamas_ultimate_agenda.html
When you deny your individuality, when you give it away for acceptance into a subgroup of people, you are harming the country.
Rush Limbaugh
http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/today.guest.html
Retroactive (or ex post facto) law- i.e., a law that punishes a man for an action which was not legally defined as a crime at the time he committed it- is rejected by and contrary to the entire tradition of Anglo-Saxon jurisprudence. It is a form of persecution practiced only in dictatorships and forbidden by every civilized code of law. It is specifically forbidden by the United States Constitution. It is not supposed to exist in the United States and it is not applied to anyone- except to businessmen.
Ayn Rand
America's Persecuted Minority: Big Business
The process by which these changes have been forced upon this body is so deeply offensive to me, and so deeply undemocratic, that it puts the omnibus appropriations package in jeopardy ...
Sen. Robert Menendez (D-NJ)
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29609567
...with our financial house on fire, Obama makes clear both in his speech and his budget that the essence of his presidency will be the transformation of health care, education and energy.
Charles Krauthammer
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2009/03/a_dishonest_gimmicky_budget.html
[paraphrase] "President Obama will talk about his early success. In just one month, he has already expanded government by 15%. That's a success."
political commentator [to be announced]
Live (streaming) audio at http://minnesota.publicradio.org/ (Obama's address to Congress)
One of the wonders of our times is how much more attention is paid to the living conditions of a bunch of cut-throats locked up in Guantanamo than to the leading international sponsor of terrorism getting nuclear weapons.
Thomas Sowell
http://townhall.com/columnists/ThomasSowell/2009/02/11/random_thoughts?page=2
I don't expect 100 per cent agreement from my Republican colleagues, but I do hope that we can all put politics aside and do the American people's business right now. ... The American people expect action.
Barack H. Obama
http://www.cbc.ca/money/story/2009/01/28/obama-economy.html
The Federal Register, which lists new regulations, annually averaged 72,844 pages between 1977 and 1980. During the Reagan years, the average fell to 54,335. During the Bush I years, they rose to 59,527, to 71,590 during the Clinton years and rose to a record of 75,526 during the Bush II years. Employees in government regulatory agencies grew from 146,139 in 1980 to 238,351 in 2007, a 63 percent increase. In the banking and finance industries, regulatory spending between 1980 and 2007 almost tripled, rising from $725 million to $2.07 billion. So here's my question: What are we to make of congressmen, talking heads and news media people who tell us the financial meltdown is a result of deregulation and free markets? Are they ignorant, stupid or venal?
Walter Williams
http://townhall.com/columnists/WalterEWilliams/2009/01/14/congress_financial_mess
What's required is a new declaration of independence. Not just in our nation but in our own lives. Independence from ideology and small thinking. Independence from prejudice and bigotry. Independence from selfishness. An appeal not to our easy instincts but to our better angels.
Barack H. Obama
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=99529782
All the campaign talk of the Great Depression, a Vietnam-like war, and our shredded Constitution will now thankfully subside as the Obama administration assumes office and solves problems with conciliation, dialogue, and multilateral wisdom, rather than shrillness, unilateralism, preemption, and my-way-or-the-highway dogmatism. We will hear that, by historical levels, unemployment is still not that bad, that GDP growth is not historically all that low, and that deficits, inflation, interest rates, and housing starts are all within manageable parameters. "Depression" will transmogrify into "recession" which in turn by July will be a "downturn" and by year next an "upswing" on its way to boom times.
Victor Davis Hanson
Life at New Animal Farm Won't Be All That Bad
Indeed, almost supernaturally crises will be solved with the departure of the hated Bush: no more flooding streets from cracked water mains that were a result of a President's neglect of infrastructure, and no more spontaneous crashes of Mississippi River bridges due to diversions of critical federal aid from cash-strapped states to Iraq. And when the temperatures rise or drop, the wind howls, the clouds burst forth or go away, the snow melts or piles up, it will be, well, nature that caused the havoc, not the current occupant of the White House who failed to sign Kyoto.
Victor Davis Hanson
Life at New Animal Farm Won't Be All That Bad
Have you guys ever thought about writing for, like, a woman's magazine or something?
Caroline Kennedy
to NYT "reporters" asking puff-piece questions
Obama the centrist? I'm not so sure. Obama was quite serious when he said he was going to change the world. And now he has a national crisis, a personal mandate, a pliant Congress, a desperate public -- and, at his disposal, the greatest pot of money in galactic history.
Charles Krauthammer
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/12/obamas_plan_to_transform_ameri.html
It is still hard to believe but, if Hillary Clinton's "confidantes" are to be trusted, Barack Obama is about to appoint her secretary of state and she is about to accept. This appointment represents the capstone of betrayal of Obama's promise to be the "change we can believe in." ...Apart from the breathtaking cynicism of the appointment lies the total lack of foreign-policy experience in the new partnership. Neither Clinton nor Obama has spent five minutes conducting any aspect of foreign policy in the past. Neither has ever negotiated anything or dealt with diplomatic issues. It is the blonde leading the blind.
Dick Morris
"Obama Nation" (Emphasis Added)
A power of the individuals who compose legislatures, to fish up wealth from the People, by nets of their own weaving ... will corrupt legislative, executive, and judicial public servants.
John Adams
http://www.nhreagannetwork.com/
...we've become a nation of thieves...
Walter Williams
http://www.gopusa.com/commentary/wwilliams/2008/wew_11191.shtml#
We cannot continue to rely only on our military in order to achieve the national security objectives that we've set. We've got to have a civilian national security force that's just as powerful, just as strong, just as well funded.
Barack H. Obama
http://rebirthofreason.com/Spirit/Videos/109.shtml
So let us summon a new spirit of patriotism; of service and responsibility where each of us resolves to pitch in and work harder and look after not only ourselves, but each other. Let us remember that if this financial crisis taught us anything, its that we cannot have a thriving Wall Street while Main Street suffers - in this country, we rise or fall as one nation; as one people.
Barack H. Obama
http://www.obama2008.eu/
That's exactly what Hitler did in Nazi Germany and it's exactly what the Soviet Union did," Broun said. "When he's proposing to have a national security force that's answering to him, that is as strong as the U.S. military, he's showing me signs of being Marxist.
Paul Broun, Rep (R)
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/C/CONGRESSMAN_OBAMA_MARXIST?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2008-11-10-18-38-54
"Ninety-eight percent of the adults in this country are decent, hard-working, honest Americans. It's the other lousy two percent that get all the publicity. But then, we elected them."
Lily Tomlin
John McCain and Sarah Palin, they call this socialistic. Y'know, I don't know when they decided they wanted to make a virtue out of selfishness. Y'know, the next thing I know, they're gonna find evidence of my communistic tendencies because I shared my toys in kindergarten -- cause I split my peanut butter and jelly sandwich with my friend in sixth grade.
Barack H. Obama
http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/10/obama_a_vote_for_me_is_vote_fo.php
"Good regulations are like extraterrestrials. There's this contingent of people who swear they exist, but as of yet no evidence has surfaced to confirm it. "
John Armaos
http://rebirthofreason.com/Forum/GeneralForum/1317.shtml#2
The almost erotic pleasure of spending money that others have earned and saved is one reason people put up with the tiresome aspects of political life.
George Will
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/10/22/AR2008102202891.html
Contrarian that I am, I'm voting for John McCain. I'm not talking about bucking the polls or the media consensus that it's over before it's over. I'm talking about bucking the rush of wet-fingered conservatives leaping to Barack Obama before they're left out in the cold without a single state dinner for the next four years.
Charles Krauthammer
RealClearPolitics
It's not just about tolerance; acceptance of same-sex marriage is now mandatory!
Author unknown
From a California campaign add for Proposition 8, which would eliminate the right of same-sex couples to marry.
Vote for Obama. McCain lacks the character and temperament to be President. And Palin is simply a disgrace. ... Obama is greatly overrated in my opinion, but the Obama-Biden ticket is not a capitulationist one, even if it does accept the support of the surrender faction, and it does show some signs of being able and willing to profit from experience.
Christopher Hitchens
http://www.slate.com/id/2202163/
Social Security operates on a simple principle: You give your retirement money to politicians and they squander it on something else.
Harry Browne
Fail-Safe Investing
Companies that form the foundation of our financial markets are shrinking and disappearing practically overnight. Their insatiable appetite for risk has permeated all sectors of the financial services industry, and has spread beyond our shores.
Chris Dodd, Sen (D)
http://dodd.senate.gov/index.php?q=node/4572
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