"The Obama administration's 'summer of recovery' has morphed into a summer of economic discontent amid anxiety over the weakening economy. The greater than 4% growth and less than 8% unemployment envisioned by the president's economic team are nowhere to be seen. Almost everything that is supposed to be up -- the economic growth rate, the stock market, bond yields -- is down. And almost everything that is supposed to be down -- unemployment-insurance claims, new mortgage delinquencies -- is up...

"Not surprisingly, the left is frantically calling for a second 'stimulus' and demanding tax hikes for the 'rich' -- a.k.a. our most productive citizens and small businesses. The rehashed ideas include such nonsense as massive infrastructure spending financed by a national infrastructure bank, an old Carter idea; yet more aid to the states; and even that worst of ideas, 'general revenue sharing,' which would force citizens to pay future federal taxes to fund the debt used just to send revenue back to their states.

"These ideas would do a lot more harm than good. To paraphrase Benjamin Franklin, we have the best economic system among the advanced economies, 'if we can keep it.' That will require fundamental policy changes, not doubling down on the failed big government experiment of recent years."

"Obama has tried a number of economic messages. 'If I hadn't spent a lot of money, you would be even more miserable than you currently are' hasn't worked very well, especially since the administration predicted that its stimulus spending would keep unemployment around 8 percent. 'Don't blame me, blame Bush' is negative and backward-looking. 'Just give me a little more time and things will work out' seems both passive and plaintive. Obama would do another round of stimulus spending if he could -- the primary Democratic approach to job creation. But having spent beyond public patience, this isn't a realistic option. 

"Now, two months before the midterm elections, the president is again trying to pivot to job creation, calling attention to some small-business tax reductions. But his message is about to be overwhelmed.

"The primary economic debate between now and the election will concern the tax reductions of 2001 and 2003 -- President Bush's economic stimulus -- which are due to expire on Dec. 31 unless Congress acts. Obama has proposed to eliminate the portion of that stimulus that goes to wealthier taxpayers. Republicans oppose any tax increases in a feeble economy. The result is a high-stakes game of chicken ..."

"Republicans lead by 51% to 41% among registered voters in Gallup weekly tracking of 2010 congressional voting preferences. The 10-percentage-point lead is the GOP's largest so far this year and is its largest in Gallup's history of tracking the midterm generic ballot for Congress."

"Peering from behind his dead horse at the charging Sioux, Lt. Col. George Custer might have thought to himself, 'This doesn't look good.' President Obama, peeking over his golf clubs at the American political landscape two months before this fall's elections, might understandably form the same thought...

"Signs are pointing to a stunning repudiation of the Obama agenda and Democratic team this fall. Individual candidates and races matter, so the actual results at the polls might be more muted than current indications suggest. Still, things look bad for Obama and his party. Maybe, like Custer, they shouldn't have rushed headlong into the breach without scouting out the terrain."

"New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg charges that opponents of Imam Rauf's mosque 'should be ashamed of themselves' and are bigots.

"Me, too, Mr. Mayor?

"If you want to join Speaker Pelosi in investigating me, your honor, I'd be glad to oblige. I'm just doing my job as a reporter. I wish more reporters had gone beneath the shouting on both sides. There's another part of the First Amendment in addition to the free exercise of religion: The press is free to investigate the reasons for Imam Rauf's fixation on the 9/11 location of his mosque.

"And why does this location make Hamas glow?"

"Mr. Obama's credibility is crumbling, and for good reason: He and his people are saying things people don't believe. At the start of his summer of recovery road show, the president flatly asserted that last year's massive stimulus package had 'worked.'  Vice President Joe Biden, not to be outdone, promised monthly job gains of up to 500,000 and insisted that the recovery's pace 'continues to increase, not decrease' as stimulus spending was 'moving into its highest gear.' 

"It's slightly surreal. 'Who are you going to believe,' as Groucho Marx once said, 'me or your own eyes?'"

"The 'Summer of Recovery' is looking more and more like the Beltway Chainsaw Massacre for America's workers. As President Obama lolls on Martha’s Vineyard with his well-heeled Chicago pals, a new Reuters/Ipsos poll shows that 72 percent of people are very worried about joblessness and 67 percent are very concerned about massive government spending. 

"After a nearly $1 trillion in fiscal stimulus and several multi-billion-dollar corporate and union bailouts, unemployment remains stuck near 10 percent nationwide; jobless claims rose again last week. One shudders to think how many more jobs will be on the chopping block after the vacationing president finishes 'recharging his batteries.'"

"Just a few months ago, Obama issued a very public challenge to opponents who seek to dump Obamacare. 'For those Republicans and folks who are on the 'repeal' platform, my attitude is, go for it,' the president told a cheering crowd at a Democratic fundraiser in Florida April 15. 'I'll have that fight. We'll have that argument.' 

"Well, the time to fight, the time to argue, has arrived. But with everything on the line, the president's party is trying to run away." 

"On Thursday the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) announced the federal budget deficit for 2010 will exceed $1.3 trillion. This is already on the heels of a 2009 budget deficit of $1.2 trillion and on top of a national debt of some $13.3 trillion. The word ‘trillion’ seems to have, almost overnight, crept into our standard economic parlance and by the looks of it is here to stay. And with the CBO’s forecast of more than $6 trillion in federal budget deficits accruing over the next nine years from 2010 to 2019, many are logically wondering if the United States has effectively crossed, or is fast approaching, a virtual economic point of no return — an economic Rubicon if you will.

"The comments coming out of Washington have also placed the public in a state of wonderment as to when the deficit spending will be stemmed and at what cost."

"Radical Islam is not, by any means, a majority of Islam. But with its financiers, clerics, propagandists, trainers, leaders, operatives, and sympathizers — according to a conservative estimate, it commands the allegiance of 7 percent of Muslims, i.e., over 80 million souls — it is a very powerful strain within Islam. It has changed the course of nations and affected the lives of millions. It is the reason every airport in the West is an armed camp and every land is on constant alert.

"Ground Zero is the site of the most lethal attack of that worldwide movement, which consists entirely of Muslims, acts in the name of Islam, and is deeply embedded within the Islamic world. These are regrettable facts, but facts they are. And that is why putting up a monument to Islam in this place is not just insensitive but provocative.

"Just as the people of Japan today would not think of planting their flag at Pearl Harbor, despite the fact that no Japanese under the age of 85 has any possible responsibility for that infamy, representatives of contemporary Islam — the overwhelming majority of whose adherents are equally innocent of the infamy committed on 9/11 in their name — should exercise comparable respect for what even Obama calls hallowed ground."