The Foundation

“I think all the world would gain by setting commerce at perfect liberty.” –Thomas Jefferson

Editorial Exegesis

“An administration that has no respect for Congress, the courts or the Constitution has been found in contempt for reissuing a drilling moratorium that a U.S. district judge found overly broad. The Obama administration’s trouble with the courts has continued with a judge’s ruling last week that the Interior Department’s reinstating of a drilling moratorium followed by a de facto moratorium via an overly restrictive permitting process constituted contempt. The administration had issued a drilling moratorium in May in waters deeper than 500 feet after the explosion and sinking of the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig off Louisiana that resulted in the spill of more than 4.1 million barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico. In June, Martin Feldman of the Eastern District Court of Louisiana struck down Interior Secretary Ken Salazar’s original moratorium, saying it was overkill based on flawed reasoning. … So the administration went back, rearranged a few words and a few deck chairs, and reissued its moratorium. That one was officially lifted in October, although the permitting process, which mysteriously includes shallow-water wells, has had the effect of continuing the moratorium. Feldman was not amused. ‘Each step the government took following the court’s imposition of a preliminary injunction showcases its defiance,’ the judge said in his ruling. ‘Such dismissive conduct, viewed in tandem with the reimposition of a second moratorium … provides this court with clear and convincing evidence of its contempt.’ … It is not so much that the Obama administration differs with the law, but that it considers itself above it – even above the Constitution.” –Investor’s Business Daily

The Demo-gogues

There, he fixed it: “I know that many of you [small businesses] have told me that you are waiting for demand to rise before you get off the sidelines and expand, and that with millions of Americans out of work, demand has risen more slowly than any of us would like. But many of your own economists and salespeople are now forecasting a healthy increase in demand. So I want to encourage you to get in the game. So if I’ve got one message, my message is now is the time to invest in America.” –regulator in chief Barack Obama with a pep talk to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce

Spread the wealth: “If we’re fighting to reform the tax code and increase exports, the benefits cannot just translate into greater profits and bonuses for those at the top. They have to be shared by American workers, who need to know that opening markets will lift their standard of living as well as your bottom line’” –Barack Obama

“There’s nothing socialist about [the health care law]. That’s saying to Americans, we’re going each of us be responsible for our own health care.” –Barack Obama

The BIG Lie: “I didn’t raise taxes once.” –Barack Obama (“Once” is the only true part of that statement. According to The Heritage Foundation, “All told Obamacare contains 18 separate tax increases that will cost taxpayers $503 billion between 2010 and 2019.”)

Class warfare: “The president laid out significant cuts to deal with the long-term debt. We are going to once again attempt to repeal the unnecessary $700 billion tax cut for people who make the top 2 percent.” –Joe Biden, announcing a major tax increase on small business owners

Still the same old leftist: “I haven’t – I didn’t move to [the center]. I’m the same guy.” –Barack Obama

Keen sense of the obvious: “Over the first two years of my presidency, we had a complete disaster. Right?” –Barack Obama, who would have stumbled into the truth had he stopped there

Insight

“Beware the temptation to ignore the facts of history and the aggressive impulses of an evil empire and thereby remove yourself from the struggle between right and wrong and good and evil.” –Ronald Reagan

“We’re a nation with global responsibilities. We’re not somewhere else in the world protecting someone else’s interests; we’re there protecting our own.” –Ronald Reagan

Upright

“First, Reagan actually believed he could win the Cold War. He committed himself to that goal early and unequivocally. … Reagan was seen as the ultimate Cold Warrior, giving no quarter to the ‘Evil Empire.’ Yet, his care for the everyday lives of human beings languishing in the USSR went largely unnoticed. That’s too bad, as that concern is a moving testimony of where this president’s heart guided him. That’s something worth remembering as a nation remembers the life of Ronald Reagan this February 2011.” –author and columnist Paul Kengor

“He didn’t see himself as ‘the great communicator.’ It was so famous a moniker that he could do nothing but graciously accept the compliment, but he well understood it was bestowed in part by foes and in part to undercut the seriousness of his philosophy: ‘It’s not what he says, it’s how he says it.’ He answered in his farewell address: ‘I never thought it was my style or the words I used that made a difference: it was the content. I wasn’t a great communicator, but I communicated great things.’ It wasn’t his eloquence people supported, it was his stands – opposition to the too-big state, to its intrusions and demands, to Soviet communism. Voters weren’t charmed, they were convinced.” –columnist and Reagan speech writer Peggy Noonan

“Now that two different federal courts have declared ObamaCare unconstitutional, the administration’s answer is to call the courts guilty of ‘judicial activism.’ Barack Obama has a rhetorical solution for every problem. Remember the repeated claims of ‘shovel-ready’ projects that needed only federal stimulus money to get started? Last year the President quietly admitted that there were not many ‘shovel-ready’ projects, after all. But the phrase served its political purpose at the time – and that was obviously all that mattered. Now, in the wake of rulings by two different courts that ObamaCare is unconstitutional, rhetoric is being mobilized again, without any fussy worries about facts.” –economist Thomas Sowell

“Senate Republican efforts to repeal ObamaCare went down on a strict party-line vote [last week], with every single Democrat voting against (except for independent caucus member Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, and Mark Warner of Virginia, who didn’t vote.) … What Republicans are carrying into the 2012 election season is a lockstep vote from a Party desperately trying to defend a badly broken law that is hated by the people, unlawful in the judgment of a federal court, devastating to the economy, and beaten to the ground by the 26 states filing suit against it. It was already looking like a bad election for the Democrats, but now they have to run from the twisted monstrosity dragging itself behind them and vomiting waivers. [Last week’s] vote was much more than a symbolic act.” –columnist John Hayward

Dezinformatsia

Favored by whom? “This guy has game. If you want to add, make a long list – what are all the reasons Barack Obama is favored for being re-elected? Forget the Electoral College, forget the unemployment rate and earnings and all that. That performance has a level of sophistication and skill that not one Republican on the field right now can duplicate.” –Time’s Mark Halperin

Say what? “This is a new president. The market is up 12 percent since he changed his ways. He doesn’t say he’s changed his ways, but boy business sure feels he has.” –CNBC’s Jim Cramer

Journalistic mockery: “There is Reagan Airport, the Reagan Building, the Reagan Library. Then there is the church of Reagan, where candidates worship. … In fact, you might say there is a Republican primary and a Reagan primary. Who can be the most Reagan-y?” –ABC’s John Berman mocking 2012 candidates for trying to align themselves with Reagan

Revisionist history: “Basically we have a president [Ronald Reagan] who treated the poor poorly, did not tend to the sick, broke laws, committed nearly impeachable offenses by your own reporting. Why should we be lionizing him in the broad public domain?” –PBS’s Jon Meacham

Invalid comparison: “So the Muslim Brotherhood has a parallel role here with the Tea Party, they’re the ones who keep you honest and decide whether you’ve stayed too long? Whether you’ve got a ‘Sell By’ date looming?” –MSNBC’s Chris Matthews

Newspulper Headlines:

Everything Seemingly Is Spinning Out of Control: “Rendell: People Are Starting to Think of Obama as a Leader” –video title, RealClearPolitics.com

Foreign Minister Sharif al-Dupnik: “Egyptian Foreign Ministry Says Obama Inciting Violence” –FoxNews.com

Breaking News From Exodus: “Sharing Tales of an Exodus From Egypt” –CNN.com

More Words Doesn’t Add Up to No Better Grammar Neither: “Washington Health Policy Week in Review Study: More Docs Doesn’t Add Up to Happier Patients” –Commonwealth Fund press release

We Blame Global Warming: “Maddow Blames Beck and Other Conservatives for Her Getting Duped by Satirical Website” –NewsBusters.org

Bottom Story of the Day: “Gore: Global Warming Causing Record Cold, Snow” –NewsMax.com

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

Village Idiots

More revisionist history: “If you had a problem, [Ronald Reagan would] give you the shirt off his back but then he would turn around and engage in policy making that was deeply hurtful to people. … There were policy ideas he had, Reaganomics and others that just hurt the very people he sought, I think, to most help. … Everybody wants to play the sort of ‘Ronald Reagan ended the Cold War’ game. … It’s one of the many myths we hear about him.” –filmmaker Eugene Jarecki

He says through the looking glass: “[Republicans are living] in a parallel universe divorced from reality with no facts.” –Bill Clinton

Wishful thinking: “We don’t believe this kind of judicial activism will be upheld, and we are confident that the Affordable Care Act will ultimately be declared constitutional by the courts.” –Stephanie Cutter, deputy senior adviser on another court ruling ObamaCare unconstitutional

It would be funny if it weren’t outrageous: “It is inaccurate to state, as too many have, that the border is overrun with violence and out of control.” –Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano

Non Compos Mentis: “To take a page from Senator Harry Reid’s book: if you’re a woman anywhere to the left of [Westboro Baptist leader] Fred Phelps, I don’t understand how you can in good conscience vote for the Republican Party.” –blogger Dante Atkins at Daily Kos in a post titled “The Rapeublican Party” (Uh, Phelps is a Democrat.)

Short Cuts

“[T]he Hawaii House is considering legislation that would outlaw the sale of toy guns to minors. Apparently some kids use these guns to spray other youngsters with dangerous dihydrogen monoxide. It seems to us this is a wrongheaded policy, not to mention a violation of the Second Amendment. Remember, squirt guns don’t squirt squirts, squirts squirt squirts.” –Wall Street Journal columnist James Taranto

“The head of Homeland Security told people at the game, if they saw anything not right give them a call. They got 50 million calls as soon as Christina Aguilera started singing the National Anthem. The good news, you can’t accuse her of lip syncing.” –comedian Jay Leno

“In his new book, Ron Reagan claims his father was already suffering from Alzheimer’s while he was still in the White House. Personally, I suspect he’s confusing the dazed look of a poor senile soul with the struck-dumb look of a typical American dad who’s just been told that his son is planning to be a ballet dancer.” –columnist Burt Prelutsky

“Hillary Clinton urged Egypt’s street protesters to remain calm Monday and she told the Egyptian Army to use restraint. Rioting and burning and looting followed. Nothing calms down a million observant Muslims like a Methodist woman telling them what to do.” –comedian Argus Hamilton