"With a chip on his shoulder larger than his margin of victory, Barack Obama is approaching his second term by replicating the mistake of his first. Then his overreaching involved health care — expanding the entitlement state at the expense of economic growth. Now he seeks another surge of statism, enlarging the portion of gross domestic product grasped by government and dispensed by politics. The occasion is the misnamed 'fiscal cliff,' the proper name for which is: the Democratic Party’s agenda."

"Whatever resolution is achieved for the Fiscal Cliff will probably make very little difference to the long-term trajectory of the U.S. economy. What does matter desperately is entitlement reform, controlling the growth of health-care costs and, ideally, some sort of comprehensive tax reform that could raise a bit more money while being less of a burden on economic growth. Unless these issues are addressed, the Fiscal Cliff debate may monopolize the attention of legislators and commentators, but it will all be a lot of sound and fury signifying very little indeed." 

"The actual liabilities of the federal government -- including Social Security, Medicare, and federal employees' future retirement benefits -- already exceed $86.8 trillion, or 550% of GDP. For the year ending Dec. 31, 2011, the annual accrued expense of Medicare and Social Security was $7 trillion. Nothing like that figure is used in calculating the deficit. In reality, the reported budget deficit is less than one-fifth of the more accurate figure. 

"Why haven't Americans heard about the titanic $86.8 trillion liability from these programs? One reason: The actual figures do not appear in black and white on any balance sheet. ...

"Neither the public nor policy makers will be able to fully understand and deal with these issues unless the government publishes financial statements that present the government's largest financial liabilities in accordance with well-established norms in the private sector. When the new Congress convenes in January, making the numbers clear -- and establishing policies that finally address them before it is too late -- should be a top order of business."

"Conservatives are worried that the negotiations that will begin this week to avoid the 'fiscal cliff' will end in disaster. Tax increases that will weaken the economy could be combined with spending cuts that never materialize in an agreement that will leave many Republicans — especially those who have signed the 'no net new taxes' pledge promoted by Americans for Tax Reform — vulnerable to public outrage, and indeed to primary challenges in the midterm elections. 

"The way to avoid that outcome may be for conservatives to insist on the transparency and openness that Barack Obama has spent much of his career promoting but has almost never delivered in practice.  ...   

"Having the budget negotiations out in the open would at least expose such blatant hypocrisy on the part of the Obama administration or, at best, force it to pony up and negotiate honestly. If negotiations remain in the shadows, Democrats will follow the precedent they’ve set in years past and push for higher taxes in order to feed an ever-growing government that they have little interest in reforming."

"While the storm clouds gather far across the sea, let us swear allegiance to a land that's free; let us all be grateful for a land so fair, as we raise our voices in a solemn prayer: 

"God bless America, land that I love. Stand beside her, and guide her through the night with a light from above.  From the mountains, to the prairies, to the oceans, white with foam -- God bless America, my home sweet home."

"Running the [ObamaCare] exchanges would be an administrative nightmare for states, requiring a complicated set of rules, mandates, databases and interfaces to establish eligibility, funnel subsidies, and facilitate purchases. All of this would have to take place under broad and often incoherent statutory requirements and federal regulations that have yet to be written. 

"The exchanges would create unsustainable pressures on each state's insurance market, treating similarly situated people differently by providing far greater subsidies for those in the exchanges than those in employer plans -- yielding perverse incentives that distort consumer and employer decisions and increase costs. ... 

"President Obama won re-election and Democrats maintained control of the Senate this month, but the states hold the future of ObamaCare in their hands. Knowing the harm the law would do to their citizens, to the economy and to American health care, governors should refuse to become its enablers."

"A few days ago, the president announced that he would be holding firm on his demand for $1.6 trillion in new tax revenue from the rich as part of any deal he would make to address the 'fiscal cliff' and our debt problem. In theory, the president promises some spending cuts. That's what he calls the 'balanced approach,' and it is a recipe for disaster because it will both fail to address our debt problem and hurt the economy. ... 

"The bottom line is that Obama's 'balanced approach' more closely resembles the historic failures -- the fiscal adjustments that don't successfully reduce a nation's debt-to-GDP ratio. What's more, history reveals that the balanced approach generally results in tax increases but rarely delivers on the spending cuts. That's unfortunate, considering that if the government could actually collect $1.6 trillion over 10 years from tax increases, this amount still wouldn't be enough to fill in the projected $6 trillion cumulative deficit over the period."

"States have to defend themselves against the giant takeover of states’ powers and duties by Obamacare. The decision to 'just say no' has to be taken by mid-December. Encourage your governor to say no and to sue alongside of Oklahoma ...  Not only is this the right way to proceed for a state intent on protecting its citizens from an ever-expanding federal government, it may also present the Supreme Court with a second bite at the Obamacare apple via a different set of issues not dependent on the 'is the penalty a tax' debate. ...

"The left is attempting to declare the Obamacare fight over. It isn't. It is a 15 round fight."

"I’m not annoyed that the Obama administration is lying to us about Benghazi, David Petraeus and the rest of this messy, farcical story.

"I’m annoyed that they expect us to believe them. ...   

"I’d like to believe that our president would never lie to us about a terrorist attack that killed four Americans, including an ambassador. I’d like to believe that our president is above politically manipulating the resignation of a CIA chief and successful general. 

"I’d like — no, I’d love — to believe it all. Unfortunately I can’t. Can you?"

"David Petraeus, who might have been the most respected man in America, has resigned due to a personal scandal that threatens to turn into a national-security scandal. ...

"Rather than looking to Petraeus, we should look — as we have looked for a decade or more — at the hundreds of thousands of men and women, most of whose names we do not know, who have chosen a life of sacrifice and service in our nation’s military.

"[...] Individually, they are awash in flaws, as we all are. Taken as a whole, they are exactly the authority figures the nation needs and deserves — examples of sterling human conduct that overcome personal weaknesses rather than examples of personal weakness that serve to discredit human achievement."