“There is a rank due to the United States, among nations, which will be withheld, if not absolutely lost, by the reputation of weakness.” –George Washington

For the Record

“It is perfectly obvious that Iran’s latest uranium maneuver, brokered by Brazil and Turkey, is a ruse. Iran retains more than enough enriched uranium to make a bomb. And it continues enriching at an accelerated pace and to a greater purity (20 percent). Which is why the French foreign ministry immediately declared that the trumpeted temporary shipping of some Iranian uranium to Turkey will do nothing to halt Iran’s nuclear program. It will, however, make meaningful sanctions more difficult. America’s proposed Security Council resolution is already laughably weak – no blacklisting of Iran’s central bank, no sanctions against Iran’s oil and gas industry, no nonconsensual inspections on the high seas. Yet Turkey and Brazil – both current members of the Security Council – are so opposed to sanctions that they will not even discuss the resolution. And China will now have a new excuse to weaken it further. But the deeper meaning of the uranium-export stunt is the brazenness with which Brazil and Turkey gave cover to the mullahs’ nuclear ambitions and deliberately undermined U.S. efforts to curb Iran’s program. The real news is that already notorious photo: the president of Brazil, our largest ally in Latin America, and the prime minister of Turkey, for more than half a century the Muslim anchor of NATO, raising hands together with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the most virulently anti-American leader in the world. That picture – a defiant, triumphant take-that-Uncle-Sam – is a crushing verdict on the Obama foreign policy. It demonstrates how rising powers, traditional American allies, having watched this administration in action, have decided that there’s no cost in lining up with America’s enemies and no profit in lining up with a U.S. president given to apologies and appeasement.” –columnist Charles Krauthammer

Government

“As the United States watches a debt crisis in Greece like a fiscal oil spill, waiting to see where it will spread first and when it will make landfall on our shores, [New Jersey Governor Chris] Christie is tackling the nation’s worst state deficit – $10.7 billion of a $29.3 billion budget. In doing so, Christie has become the politician so many Americans crave, one willing to lose his job. Indeed, Christie is doing something unheard of: governing as a Republican in a blue state, just as he campaigned, making good on promises, acting like his last election is behind him. Upon taking office Christie declared a state of emergency, signing an executive order that froze spending, and then, in eight weeks, cutting $13 billion in spending. In March he presented to the Legislature his first budget, which cuts 9 percent of spending, including more than $800 million in education funding; seeks to privatize numerous government functions; projects 1,300 layoffs; and caps tax increases. … Christie is adamant about lowering taxes. After taxes were raised 115 times in the last eight years, he said the wealthy are tapped out. Property taxes rose nearly 70 percent in the last decade, and studies show top earners – the 1 percent of taxpayers paying 40 percent of income tax – are fleeing the Garden State. The goal is not just to crawl out of crisis but ultimately to lead, said Christie in his budget address. ‘If we make the tough decisions now, we will be one year ahead of 80 percent of the states in the race to economic growth. If we fail to act, we will fall even further behind … by going first, we can become first.’” –associate editor of The Hill A.B. Stoddard

The Gipper

“The federal deficit is outrageous. For years I’ve asked that we stop pushing onto our children the excesses of our government. And what the Congress finally needs to do is pass a constitutional amendment that mandates a balanced budget – and forces government to live within its means. States, cities, and the families of America balance their budgets. Why can’t we?” –Ronald Reagan

Opinion in Brief

“Recent liberal laments about the increasing ‘polarization’ of American political life are as predictable as the seasons. But pleas for centrism ring pretty hollow in light of recent history. The Washington Post editorial board, after noting Sen. Robert Bennett’s loss in Utah and Sen. Blanche Lincoln’s primary challenge, asked: ‘Is there a way to push back against the movement toward partisanship and paralysis – to carve out some space for those who strive to work across party lines in the national interest? We can think of no more important question…’ Really? How about the question as to whether the trajectory of government spending will drag the United States into insolvency? How about the problem of a governing class unmoored from the Constitution? … The Post is expressing a slightly more refined version of the broader liberal assault on conservative activism. In this construct, massive rallies for Obama are a sign of hope and human progress, but massive rallies against Obama’s health care plan are evidence of ‘fringe sentiments’ (Gov. Jennifer Granholm) or ‘fear’ (Rep. Steve Driehaus), or are ‘un-American’ (Rep. Steny Hoyer). When Michael Moore asked, during the Bush administration, ‘Dude, Where’s My Country?’ that was social commentary. When tea partiers say similar things, they are proto-fascists. … Grassroots activists are reasserting the virtues of limited government, personal responsibility, and public accountability. Our best hope is that tea party principles will prevail. Those are the very principles that can save us from Europe’s fate. We’ve done what the Post recommends. We met in the ‘middle.’ It didn’t work out very well for Republicans or for America.” –columnist Mona Charen

Political Futures

“The tea party movement stands to play an outsize role in the fall elections now that outsider Rand Paul has swept Kentucky’s GOP Senate primary…. Dr. Paul’s victory comes just after Utah Sen. Bob Bennett was denied a place on the primary ballot by a GOP state convention dominated by tea party activists. In Kentucky, Dr. Paul beat a GOP establishment candidate by calling for spending restraint and an end to ‘Bailout Nation’ policies. A new Rasmussen poll shows him leading his Democratic opponent by 25 points. Tea party-backed candidates also won key House primaries in Pennsylvania and Arkansas this week. Democrats, fearful of the grass-roots enthusiasm that candidates such as Dr. Paul are able to generate, immediately accused him of being an elitist for holding his victory party at a country club. They also slammed him for suggesting physicians like him deserve to earn ‘a comfortable living’ while supporting an end to farm subsidies. Liberal attacks on the tea party have flipped completely. Largely gone are dismissals that they are rednecks and rubes. After a New York Times survey found tea partiers are generally better educated and wealthier than the general public, they are now attacked as aloof and out of touch with the concerns of average voters. The criticism will only mount because tea party activists represent an injection of fresh blood and enthusiasm that threatens Democratic incumbents. They certainly expand the GOP voting base: A March Gallup poll found that 43% were registered independents and 8% declared themselves Democrats.” –Wall Street Journal columnist John Fund

Liberty

“One of the many shallow statements that sound good – if you don’t stop and think about it – is that ‘at some point, you have made enough money.’ The key word in this statement, made by President Barack Obama recently, is ‘you.’ There is nothing wrong with my deciding how much money is enough for me or your deciding how much money is enough for you, but when politicians think that they should be deciding how much money is enough for other people, that is starting down a very slippery slope. Politicians with the power to determine each citizen’s income are no longer public servants. They are public masters. Are we really so eaten up with envy, or so mesmerized by rhetoric, that we are willing to sacrifice our own freedom by giving politicians the power to decide how much money anybody can make or keep? … Once you buy the argument that some segment of the citizenry should lose their rights, just because they are envied or resented, you are putting your own rights in jeopardy – quite aside from undermining any moral basis for respecting anybody’s rights. You are opening the floodgates to arbitrary power. And once you open the floodgates, you can’t tell the water where to go.” –economist Thomas Sowell

Reader Comments

“No one does what you do as well as you do it, but as I read every one of your editions I cannot help but think, what would the Founding Fathers or the leaders of the Confederacy think of today’s America and Obama? The fact is that if you look at the causes of the American Revolution and the War Between the States, today’s Federal governmental actions far exceed anything that aroused such passions in 1776 or 1861. It will be only a matter of time decades, scores of decades or if we are lucky before the violence of these two historical events will be repeated. That is assuming the nation lasts that long and that the people have the means to return the republic to democracy.” –Christopher

“It was with sad surprise that our family read of the passing of Bud Mahurin. My father had served with Col. Mahurin at two CONUS locations and Korea, then worked with him at North American Aircraft during the Apollo project. As we read and reminisce about the character and accomplishments of Col Mahurin, we see stark contrast delivered to us daily by our commander in chief. Knowing that the torch has been passed, we now face our nation’s future with the resolve that has been given to us by true patriots and heroes such as Col. Mahurin.” –Steven, La Palma, California

Re: The Left

“The child of an apparent illegal may have stumbled upon a new approach for illegals to keep the Feds off their backs for good: Have your kids admit it in a classroom to a member of the First Family on national television. CNN reports: ‘Immigration officials will not swoop in to deport a woman whose daughter asked first lady Michelle Obama about "taking people away” if they don’t have proper paperwork, a Department of Homeland Security spokesman said Thursday. Immigration and Customs Enforcement investigations are based on “solid law enforcement work and not classroom Q and As,” said DHS spokesman Matt Chandler. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is a part of DHS.’ I wonder if it would work this way if my daughter was in school and told the president’s wife that her dad hadn’t paid any taxes for several years (I’d either get audited or offered a cabinet position – coin flip).“ –blogger Doug Powers

The Last Word

"The literacy rate in the United States is 99 percent. That means that only 1 percent of people in the United States above the age of 15 are incapable of reading and writing. Apparently, all of them are members of the Obama administration. Attorney General Eric Holder admits that he has not read the Arizona immigration law, which requires law enforcement officers to check immigration status upon stopping people based on reasonable suspicion of illegal activity. Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano says she hasn’t read the law, either. You can also lump State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley into that group. That did not stop any of them from opining at length on the Arizona law; Holder called the law ‘a slippery slope’ leading to racial profiling, saying he based that opinion on ‘television, talking to people who are on the review panel.’ Napolitano called the law ‘bad law enforcement law.’ Crowley defended a U.S. diplomat who actually apologized to China for the immigration law – as though American states should apologize for enforcing their borders to a country that routinely excises and sells the internal organs of its political prisoners. … The Arizona law is 15 pages long and runs about 8,000 words. An ADHD-addled teenager could peruse it in an hour. It’s been approximately one month since Arizona passed the law, and the Democrats still haven’t read it. Which means one of two things: either they prefer to remain ignorant so they don’t have to honestly appraise the merits of the bill or they can’t read. If it’s the former, they’re disingenuous liars. If it’s the latter, they’re ignorant boobs. I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt and say it’s the latter.” –columnist Ben Shapiro