Abraham Lincoln once asked an audience how many legs a dog has, if you called the tail a leg? When the audience said “five,” Lincoln corrected them, saying that the answer was four. “The fact that you call a tail a leg does not make it a leg.”  

That same principle applies today. The fact that politicians call something a “stimulus” does not make it a stimulus.  The stimulus spending started back in 2008, during the Bush administration, and has continued under the Obama administration,  has had plenty of time to show what it can do and it's not good.

Thomas Sowell points out Obama, like FDR in the 1930s, cannot leave the economy alone.

Now 32, Mosab is the son of Sheikh Hassan Yousef, a founder and leader of the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas. Throughout the last decade, from the second Intifada to the current stalemate, he worked alongside his father in the West Bank. During that time the younger Mr. Yousef also secretly embraced Christianity

"I converted to Christianity because I was convinced by Jesus Christ as a character, as a personality. I loved him, his wisdom, his love, his unconditional love. I didn't leave [the Islamic] religion to put myself in another box of religion. At the same time it's a beautiful thing to see my God exist in my life and see the change in my life.

Matthew Kaminski talkes to Mosab Hassan Yousef about also becoming a spy

The president who finally did give public unions their modern powers was John F. Kennedy. In 1962, Kennedy signed Executive Order 10988, which allowed collective bargaining and gave unions other powers.

The same year Kennedy also gave public-sector unions a tool to justify higher wages by signing the Salary Reform Act of 1962, which established that there be "comparability" of public-sector pay to pay in the private sector.

Amity Shlaes says states will have to dial down pensions for Police, firefighters and teachers

This is a perfect snapshot of the West at twilight. On the one hand, governments of developed nations micro-regulate every aspect of your life in the interests of “keeping you safe.”  If you’re minded to flip a pancake at speeds of more than four miles per hour, the state will step in and act decisively: It’s for your own good.  

On the other hand, when it comes to “keeping you safe” from real threats, such as a millenarian theocracy that claims universal jurisdiction, America and its allies do nothing.

Mark Steyn at his best

 If we've learned anything from the bailout of Wall Street, it's that sensible policy making is difficult in the midst of crisis. Embracing new regulations now—while the financial industry remains in distress and emotions still run high—is the wrong strategy.

Instead, a blue-ribbon panel of diverse financial experts should first be established to understand more fully what went wrong in the financial system. The Council of Regulators proposed in the congressional banking reform bills seems like a good place to begin.  Then lawmakers and business leaders should devise smart policies that drive at the heart of the problems that led to the financial collapse. Here's a start

Maurice Greenberg lays out the six steps in the Wall Street Journal

Now, I'll just simply say this. . . . [W]e are all representatives of the American people. We all do town hall meetings. We all talk to our constituents. And I've got to tell you, the American people are engaged. And if you think they want a government takeover of health care, I would respectfully submit you're not listening to them.

Congressman Paul Ryan of Wisconsin Blair House comments on the unstainable cost of Obamacare

In Indiana's HSA, the state deposits $2,750 per year into an account controlled by the employee, out of which he pays all his health bills. Indiana covers the premium for the plan.  Unused funds in the account—to date some $30 million or about $2,000 per employee and growing fast—are the worker's permanent property.

Indiana governor Mitch Daniels discusses the positive effect of individually owned and directed health-care coverage