"In one of President Obama’s many prissy little sermonettes, complete with finger-wagging, he has declared: 'Next year when I start presenting some very difficult choices to the country, I hope some of these folks who are hollering about deficits step up. Because I’m calling their bluff.'

"There is already a bipartisan commission set to provide political cover for the Democrats’ wild spending, which has increased the national debt from 63 percent of the country’s GDP in 2004 to 83 percent in 2009— and official estimates of more than 90 percent this year, with more increases in sight.

"Why Republicans join such transparent attempts to rescue the Democrats from the political consequences of their own actions is one of the many unsolved mysteries of human nature in general and the Republican party in particular."

"America's looming debt crisis challenges this experiment in democracy. Political leaders should meet this crisis with the same seriousness and determination they would bring against an invading army. There are no Madisons, Hamiltons and Washingtons to save us from our folly, nor do we need a new Constitution. Yet the courage, imagination, wisdom and public spirit that provided the founders with the plan to end America's first debt crisis can also supply our needs. We only need leaders who will rise above narrow partisanship to confront our debt challenge and save our exceptional country."

"I hope the White House is paying attention to the latest annual Congressional Budget Office Long-Term Budget Outlook, which offers a truly frightening picture of the scale of America’s national debt, with huge implications for the country’s future prosperity.  According to the non-partisan CBO, 'the federal government has been recording the largest budget deficits, as a share of the economy, since the end of World War II'...

"With his reckless big government policies, Barack Obama threatens to run his country into the ground, with American decline the inevitable end result.  It is not too late to reverse course, but so far there is not a shred of evidence that the president is willing to do what is necessary.  Not only will the United States suffer from this kamikaze-style approach, but the world will too."

"After the Supreme Court ruled that cities and states must respect the right of individuals to own handguns for self-defense, Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley declared the justices to be divorced from reality. 'They don't seem to appreciate the full scope of gun violence in America,' he charged...

"But really: Whose judgment about the value of guns to law-abiding citizens do you trust? Ordinary people defending their homes against criminals? Or a public official who is shepherded to work each day by police officers?...

"The reality that goes unpublicized by the mayor is that the weekend before the Supreme Court decision, at least 26 people in Chicago were shot, three fatally. The previous weekend, the victims numbered more than 50, with at least eight dying. Daley downplays the obvious fact that his ban hasn't spared the city from 'the full scope of gun violence in America.'"

"If the Supreme Court would follow the dictates of the Constitution, much of the vast deficit-creating, individual-freedom-crushing current laws of the land would be unconstitutional.

"Thus, Republican senators need to understand that, notwithstanding all their fine statements over the years about looking for justices who believe in 'original intent' and don't believe in 'creating law from the bench' will be for naught when the Tea Party voters measure those Googled words against the senator's Googled vote for Ms. Kagan because she is in the 'mainstream of current legal thought.' Changing the mainstream of current legal thought is a big part of what the November election is about."

"As for the merits or demerits of gun-control laws themselves, a vast amount of evidence, both from the United States and from other countries, shows that keeping guns out of the hands of law-abiding citizens does not keep guns out of the hands of criminals. It is not uncommon for a tightening of gun-control laws to be followed by an increase — not a decrease — in gun crimes, including murder.

"Conversely, there have been places and times where an increase in gun ownership has been followed by a reduction in crimes in general and murder in particular.

"Unfortunately, the media intelligentsia tend to favor gun-control laws, so a lot of hard facts about the futility — or the counterproductive consequences of such laws — never reach the public through the media."

"Economics, the joke goes, is common sense made difficult.

"It just takes common sense to appreciate that our economy is not recovering because it is being strangled by government.

"This will continue until we start going in the other direction. Cutting back government – spending and taxes – and unleashing again private American citizens to work and live free."

"Recently, the secretary of labor, Hilda Solis, produced a video advising workers to contact her office should they feel that they have been shorted wages by their employers. Fair enough. But then she goes on to explicitly include workers who are not documented and to promise them confidentiality, i.e., de facto federal protection for their illegality: 'Every worker has a right to be paid fairly, whether documented or not.'

"'Undocumented' is part of the current circumlocution for breaking federal law and residing here illegally. In short, although Solis is a federal executive sworn to uphold existing federal law, she has decided which laws suit her and which do not. She rightly promises to pursue lawbreaking employers, but quite wrongly not to pursue lawbreaking employees.

"Yet when we become unequal before the law, the entire notion of a lawful society starts to erode."

"Americans are more pessimistic about the state of the country and less confident in President Barack Obama's leadership than at any point since Mr. Obama entered the White House, according to a new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll...

"Sixty-two percent of adults in the survey feel the country is on the wrong track, the highest level since before the 2008 election. Just one-third think the economy will get better over the next year, a 7-point drop from a month ago and the low point of Mr. Obama's tenure...

"The results show 'a really ugly mood and an unhappy electorate,' said Democratic pollster Peter Hart, who conducts the Journal/NBC poll with GOP pollster Bill McInturff. 'The voters, I think, are just looking for change, and that means bad news for incumbents and in particular for the Democrats.'"

"For all his John Wayne rhetoric on the BP oil spill, President Obama has failed to administer a swift kick to the ample, deserving rump of Interior Secretary Ken Salazar. No matter: Federal judge Martin Feldman has now done the job the White House won’t do.

"In a scathing ruling issued Tuesday afternoon, New Orleans–based Feldman overturned the administration’s radical six-month moratorium on deepwater drilling — and he singled out Salazar’s central role in jury-rigging a federal panel’s scientific report to bolster flagrantly politicized conclusions. In a sane world, Salazar’s head would roll. In Obama’s world, he gets immunity."