"In the search for a 'new Reagan,' alas, even many Republicans enter primaries with a candidate they hope will be anointed without too much fuss. Many forget that Ronald Reagan was never anointed. In 1976, he challenged a sitting Republican president and lost, only to come back in 1980 and defeat a GOP party establishment that was still against him.  

"Come 2012, almost any Republican nominee will have the united support of a party determined to send Barack Obama back to Illinois. In the meantime, some of us would like to see them mix it up. So the next time one of these Republican candidates asks if he or she has your vote, the answer should be: 'I'm waiting for you to earn it.'"

"Wherever you are at 3:00 p.m. on Memorial Day ...
pause for a moment of reflection ...   
Live honoring America's fallen every day."

"Punishing enemies and rewarding friends — politics Chicago style — seems to be the unifying principle that helps explain the Obamacare waivers, the NLRB action against Boeing, and the IRS’s gift-tax assault on 501(c)(4) donors. 

"They look like examples of crony capitalism, bailout favoritism, and gangster government. 

"And they don’t look like the rule of law."

"When President Obama signed the trillion-dollar stimulus law in 2009, he proclaimed that he was 'keeping the American dream alive in our time.' The stimulator-in-chief failed to mention that billions would be spent keeping American tax scammers afloat on our dime. 

"At a congressional hearing on Tuesday, federal auditors reported on the latest porkulus spending gone wild. According to a new General Accounting Office audit conducted over the past year, nearly 4,000 stimulus recipients received $24 billion in Recovery Act funds -- while owing more than $750 million in unpaid corporate, payroll and other taxes. ..."

"How’s this for an impressive Republican lineup?

"A likable former governor and TV personality; a two-term governor with an unmatched fiscal record; another former governor with the best education-reform credentials in the country; a rising star in the House; and a photogenic senator from the heartland.

"They are Mike Huckabee, Mitch Daniels, Jeb Bush, Mike Pence, and John Thune. The Republicans sitting out the 2012 nomination battle would themselves make a formidable field. Indeed, more formidable than the actual entrants. The hottest place to be in Republican politics right now is sitting on the sidelines."

"Dear President Obama:

"I am writing today with a somewhat unusual request. Actually, it is a series of requests. First and foremost, I will be asking that you return America to its August 20th, 1959 borders so that Hawaii is no longer a state and you are no longer a citizen. I make this request because I don’t like your policies and I don’t like you. If I sound like I’m asking for too much just be patient. I’m only getting started."

"WASHINGTON – With gasoline prices hovering at $4 a gallon nationally, many Americans are making tough choices: scaling back summer vacations, driving less or ditching the car altogether. Some seniors are choosing a tank of gas over their prescriptions.

"An Associated Press-GfK poll shows the share of Americans who say increases in the price of gasoline will cause serious financial hardship for them or their family in the next six months now tops 4 in 10.

"Overall in the poll, 71 percent said rising prices will cause some hardship for them and their family, including 41 percent who called it a 'serious' hardship. Just 29 percent said rising prices are not causing a negative impact on their finances."

"Why, 28 months into the Obama presidency, is there now a sudden push to pass 'comprehensive' immigration reform? After all, from 2009 to early 2011, Obama had large Democratic majorities in both the House and Senate. Why hasn't Obama already rammed through his own immigration bill, as he did with health care?

"The answer, of course, is that about 70 percent of the American people consistently poll against the president's initiatives on illegal immigration. Obama simply did not want to sign an easily passable bill that would earn him further unpopularity.

"But now he has lost the House. A close re-election bid looms. The president is enjoying a sudden bounce in popularity after the capture of Osama bin Laden. He needs to firm up his base of Latino supporters. Presto: time to blame Republicans for his own past unwillingness to get a bill through his Democratic Congress."

"Mitt Romney has been stalwart in his defense of the individual mandate — the obligation to buy health insurance that is at the heart of both the law he signed in Massachusetts in 2006 and the federal version President Obama enacted last year.  Ironically, his firmness on this issue may cost him more dearly with Republican voters than his reputation for conveniently reversing past positions ever did."

"We could definitely use another Abraham Lincoln to emancipate us all from being slaves to words. In the midst of a historic financial crisis of unprecedented government spending, with a national debt that outstrips even the debt accumulated by the reckless government spending of the previous administration, we are still enthralled by words and ignoring realities. 

"President Obama’s constant talk about 'millionaires and billionaires' needing to pay higher taxes would be a bad joke if the consequences were not so serious. Even if the income-tax rate were raised to 100 percent on millionaires and billionaires, it would still not cover the trillions of dollars the government is spending."