THE FOUNDATION

“Beware the greedy hand of government, thrusting itself into every corner and crevice of industry." –Thomas Paine

UPRIGHT

"The stimulus package being discussed is politically smart but economically stupid. It’s that bedeviling, omnipresent Santa Claus and Tooth Fairy problem again. … A far more important measure that Congress can take toward a healthy economy is to ensure that the 2003 tax cuts don’t expire in 2010 as scheduled. If not, there are 15 separate taxes scheduled to rise in 2010, costing Americans $200 billion a year in increased taxes. In the face of a recession, we don’t need that.” –economist Walter E. Williams

“Bashing Rush Limbaugh last week, Obama urged GOP lawmakers to ignore the voices of obstructionism and sign on to his behemoth stimulus package: ‘We shouldn’t let partisan politics derail what are very important things that need to get done.’ … History has shown us that ‘Get Things Done’ is mindless liberal code for passing ineffective legislation and expanding government for government’s sake.” –columnist Michelle Malkin

“More government spending by Hoover and Roosevelt did not pull the United States economy out of the Great Depression in the 1930s. More government spending did not solve Japan’s ‘lost decade’ in the 1990s. As such, it is a triumph of hope over experience to believe that more government spending will help the U.S. today.” –two hundred economists in an open letter disseminated by the Cato Institute

“We all know how we got into this economic mess. We spent too much, borrowed with abandon, and acted like the bills would never come due. So what’s the prescription for getting out? Spending more, borrowing more, and acting like the bills will never come due.” –columnist Steve Chapman

“For those of you not shouting hosannas, it might have occurred to you that we are suffering from a rampant sickness in American life that casts government as the author of your dreams and an Illinois politician as the linchpin of your hopes.” –Denver Post columnist David Harsanyi

INSIGHT

“Employment gives health, sobriety and morals. Constant employment and well-paid labor produce general prosperity, content and cheerfulness.” –American statesman Daniel Webster (1782-1852)

“Too bad all the people who know how to run the country are busy driving taxis and cutting hair.” –comedian George Burns (1898-1996)

EDITORIAL EXEGESIS

“Ah, the dirty little secret is out. That $700 billion TARP (Troubled Asset Relief Program) bill was in part simply a variation on congressional pork – except this time the recipients were banks with friends in high places. One of those powerful friends was Rep. Barney Frank (D-[MA]), chairman of the House Financial Services Committee. And one of the recipients of a $12 million infusion of federal cash was the troubled OneUnited Bank in Boston – a bank that had already been accused of ‘unsafe and unsound banking practices.’ Its CEO, Kevin Cohee had also been criticized by regulators for ‘excessive’ pay that included a Porsche. Frank admits he included language in the TARP legislation specifically designed to bail out OneUnited. He also acknowledges contacting officials at the Treasury Department about the bank’s bailout application. ‘I believe it would have been a very big mistake to put the only black bank (in Massachusetts) out of business,’ Frank said. Besides, he insists, ‘It was a case of the federal government causing the problem.’ Causing the bad loans OneUnited made? Or would that go back to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which Frank so staunchly defended earlier on? Frank has never failed to amaze us with his ability to defend the indefensible and to staunchly uphold the double standard. It’s his special talent.” –Boston Herald

DEZINFORMATSIA

Not that there’s anything wrong with that!: “[I]n a meeting [last week] with senior White House staffers, President Obama showed a lot of love. That’s right. The president is a man hugger. We counted nine man-to-man hugs. … We think the president could be setting a new trend here.” –CBS’s Julie Chen

Just doesn’t get it: “[B]y far the lion’s share of the [federal budget] surpluses went into the tax cuts. It was the most profoundly un-conservative act of the Bush presidency. Rather than pay down the debt or save in the good times for the inevitable bad times, Bush squandered it all, so that all of us, particularly the high-income earners, could indulge in a bit more consumption.” –Newsweek editor Fareed Zakaria, who must have missed the fact that federal revenue increased faster than inflation because of the tax cuts

Right analysis, wrong goal: “As he has done so often, Obama pronounced debates about the size of government as irrelevant. What matters is ‘whether it works.’ Quietly but purposefully, he was overturning the Reagan revolution.” –Washington Post columnist E. J. Dionne

Partisan divide: “Does President Barack Obama finally have the cajones, that some Democrats haven’t had in the past, in saying to other Republicans ‘you don’t have to listen to Rush Limbaugh’?” –MSNBC’s Norah O'Donnell

Wrong label: “Now, the [Kristen] Gillibrand pick [for U.S. Senate from New York] is not without controversy itself. She is a conservative Democrat, favoring gun rights. And the pick has upset some more liberal Democrats.” –ABC’s “Good Morning America” reporter John Berman Gillibrand has an American Conservative Union rating of 8, and a NARAL endorsement. That’s conservative?

And proud of it: “I’m a liberal, I was born a liberal, I’ll be one ‘til I die, what else should a reporter be when you see so much and when we have such great privilege and access to the truth?” –White House reporter Helen Thomas

On the inauguration crowd: “From above, even the seagulls must have been awed by the blanket of humanity.” –ABC’s Bill Weir Yeah, awed by the amount of garbage dropped by the Obamaniacs and the huge feast they were about to make of it.

Newspulper Headlines:

Looks as if the Honeymoon’s Over: “Rotten Canned Fish Linked to the Democrats” –Bangkok Post

And You Thought College Was Expensive: “Full-Day Kindergarten Will Cost Millions” –Muskegon (MI) Chronicle

News of the Tautological: “A New Day Dawns for America, World” –St. Petersburg Times

Everything Seemingly Is Spinning Out of Control: “Former French President Chirac Hospitalised After Mauling by His Clinically Depressed Poodle” –Daily Mail (London)

We Blame Global Warming: “As Challenges Mount, Ardor for Obama Cools Abroad” –Associated Press

Except for the Northern Hemisphere, Where It’s Winter: “Study: Antarctica Joins Rest of Globe in Warming” –Associated Press

Bottom Stories of the Day: “Surveyed Scientists Agree Global Warming Is Real” –CNN.com

(Thanks to The Wall Street Journal’s James Taranto)

THE DEMO-GOGUES

Translation: more government: “We begin this year and this administration in the midst of an unprecedented crisis that calls for unprecedented action. …[I]f we do not act boldly and swiftly, a bad situation could become dramatically worse.” –President Barack Obama

It’s all about retaining power: “If we don’t get this done we [the Democrats] could lose seats and I could lose re-election. But we can’t let people like Rush Limbaugh stall this. That’s how things don’t get done in this town.” –Barack Obama, more concerned with re-election that America

Stumbling out of the gate: “What I told [Middle East 'envoy’ George Mitchell] is start by listening, because all too often the United States starts by dictating. … My job to the Muslim world is to communicate that the Americans are not your enemy.” –Barack Obama in his first official presidential TV interview – with Saudi-owned, Dubai-based Al Arabiya news channel Al Arabiya

The earth is renewed: “There is a great exhalation of breath going on in the world as people express their appreciation for the new direction that’s being set and the team that is put together by the president. We have a lot of damage to repair. It not any kind of repudiation or indictment of the past eight years so much as an excitement and an acceptance of how we are going to be doing business.” –the new secretary of state, Hillary Clinton

Says the kettle to the pot: “For too long, international family planning assistance has been used as a political wedge issue, the subject of a back and forth debate that has served only to divide us. I have no desire to continue this stale and fruitless debate.” –Barack Obama on reversing the ban on federal funding for international “family planning” (read: abortion)

Non Compos Mentis: “[C]ontraception will reduce costs to the states and to the federal government.” –House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) saying that fewer births would save the government money

Socialism 101: “Well, whatever you want to call it…. If we are going to put money into the banks, we certainly want equity for the American people. In other words, if we are strengthening [the banks], then the American people should get some of the upside of that strengthening. Some people call that nationalization. I’m not talking about total ownership…. Now how big that investment becomes is – would we have ever thought we would see the day when we’d be using that terminology? Nationalization of the banks.” –Nancy Pelosi when asked if it’s a good idea to “have nationalization or partial nationalization of the banks”

Bursting with pride: “If there was no Martin Luther King Jr. and no Roland Burris, there would be no Barack Obama in the White House today.” –Sen. Roland Burris, who was appointed to take Obama’s Senate seat

VILLAGE IDIOTS

Social engineering: “I am concerned, as I’m sure many of you are, that these jobs not simply go to high-skill people who are already professionals or to white male construction workers. I have nothing against white male construction workers. I’m just saying that there are a lot of other people who have needs as well…” –former Labor Secretary Robert Reich

From the peacenik files: “I have believed for some time that military power is no solution to terrorism. … So let me suggest a truly audacious hope for [the Obama] administration: How about a five-year time-out on war – unless, of course, there is a genuine threat to the nation?” –former presidential candidate George McGovern advising Obama on appeasement

Mindless hope: “I know just coming back from Egypt and Abu Dhabi and other places in Europe that the world is so happy that we’ve changed direction. They’re so hopeful. They are as hopeful as we are, and they are really impressed with the American people that they have taken on this guy and that uh, he’s going to be – they hope, managing things in a different way.” –actress Susan Sarandon

Thugs for Obama: “He is a man with good intentions; he has immediately eliminated Guantanamo prison, and that should be applauded. I am very happy and the world is happy that this young president has arrived … [We] welcome the new government and we are filled with hope.” –Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez on Obama

Looking for a one-way plane ticket to Gaza: “Yes, I do. I think [Hamas can be trusted]. Because of their own self-interest. Not because they’re benevolent or kind or that sort of thing. But yes, I do. I think they can. And they’ve never betrayed any commitment that they’ve made to me or publicly, as a matter of fact.” –chief Village Idiot Jimmy Carter

SHORT CUTS

“More than 144 hours into Barack Obama’s presidency, the economy is still in recession, the country is still at war, and in many parts of the country it’s still cold outside. Citizens are growing impatient: Wasn’t President Obama supposed to bring change?” –Wall Street Journal columnist James Taranto

“During his upcoming administration, Obama has promised to out-do FDR by putting an additional 2.5 million people on the federal payroll. He has also threatened – I mean, promised – to create some sort of civilian paramilitary group that sounds suspiciously like Hitler’s brown shirts, but I could very well be mistaken. For all I know, Obama may dress them in blue.” –columnist Burt Prelustsky

“This week the Left arrived in Washington, excited about the wonderful things it will do to us – I mean, for us. They always do it for us.” –ABC “20/20” co-anchor John Stossel

“Let’s start a new group: PETT: People for the Ethical Treatment of Taxpayers.” –political analyst Rich Galen

“If Nancy Pelosi wants fewer births, I have the way to do this, and it won’t require any contraception. You simply put pictures of Nancy Pelosi in every cheap motel room in America. That will keep birth rates down, because that picture will keep a lot of things down.” –radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh

Jay Leno:

President Obama said when it comes to passing the stimulus package we can’t afford distractions and delays. You know who took offense to this in Congress? The head of the Senate Distractions and Delays Committee.

President Obama has signed an executive order closing Guantanamo Bay. Well, the big problem, how do you get these inmates back to their home countries? They’re all on the “do not fly” list.

Well, I mean, what’ll they do with them? I mean, look, most politicians don’t want them in their state or their district. Other countries don’t want them. Although, today, New York City’s Yellow Cab Company said, “Hey, we’ll take them.”

Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich’s impeachment trial got under way [Monday]. But he was not there. He didn’t go. He went on “The View” instead, which is a pretty smart move, because it will help his case when he pleads insanity.

Former French President Jacques Chirac was rushed to the hospital after being mauled by his clinically depressed poodle. See that’s how you know that the French are not fighters, okay – when their leader is attacked by a maniacal poodle.