“Jack Lew, late of Citigroup and currently of the Obama administration, has issued a call for ‘economic patriotism.’ This phrase, which is without meaningful intellectual content, is popular in Democratic circles these days. Ted Strickland, the clownish xenophobe and nearly lifelong suckler upon all available taxpayer teats who once served as governor of Ohio, famously denounced Mitt Romney as a man lacking “economic patriotism” during the 2012 Democratic convention. President Barack Obama has used the phrase. It’s not that I do not appreciate lectures on ‘economic patriotism’ from feckless former executives of dodgy Wall Street enterprises, guys who get rich monetizing their political celebrity, and second-rate ward-heelers from third-rate states; it’s just that nobody ever has been able to explain to me what the term is intended to mean.” – Kevin Williamson/National Review

“Today, we are yet again being inundated with tales of Palestinian woe after Hamas’s familiar barbarism has provoked an Israeli military response. It thus bears remembering that the Palestinian people chose Hamas. What ever happened to all those Democracy Project paeans to self-determination? Hamas is Palestinian self-determination. Hamas was not forced on Palestinians. Hamas did not militarily conquer Gaza. No, Hamas swept parliamentary elections freely held in the Palestinian territories in 2006 – thrashing its rival, Fatah, which is only marginally less committed to the destruction of Israel.” – Andrew McCarthy/PJ Media

“When a caller attempted to blame Israel for the war with Hamas last week, SiriusXM radio host Howard Stern told him to ‘F*** off!’ and then launched into an impassioned defense of Israel, saying ‘If you’re anti-Israel, then you’re anti-America’ and arguing that Israel is ‘the only friend we have who’s willing to fight and stand up for what’s right.'” – Truth Revolt

“This is what the Jews are up against: an enemy that willingly sacrifices its own children, so great is its animus against its eternal foe.  To paraphrase Jimmy Malone in The Untouchables – what are the Israelis prepared to do? And then what are they prepared to do?” – Michael Walsh/PJ Media

“House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) on Thursday unveiled a sweeping new package of proposals to battle poverty that he says will help low-income people currently bogged down by the federal bureaucracy.” – The Hill

“We need to expand opportunity in this country. And to do that, we need Washington to get its act together. Each year, the federal government spends almost $800 billion on 92 programs to help struggling families. Yet the poverty rate is the highest in a generation.” – Paul Ryan/USA Today

Today, Christians in Mosul are tagged with the Arabic letter nun, shorthand for a pejorative, which we naturally take up as our own in a sign of defiance. Some of us have changed our avatars or added the character on social media. Isn’t that the worst kind of pathetic #slacktivism?” – Patheos

“At issue was whether Obamacare required federal health insurance subsidies to be limited only to plans purchased via a state-based health exchange. To date, only 14 states (plus Washington, DC) have established state exchanges; the federal government established and is operating the exchange used by residents of the other 36 states. In May of 2012, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) issued a rule stating that the subsidies would be available even if they would be applied to a plan purchased via the federal health exchange.” – The Federalist

“Dear Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus, Please reassure the millions of patriots who represent the grassroots of the Republican Party that leading from behind only happens at the Obama White House, because your silence on what’s happening in Mississippi is being taken as tacit approval. Please prove to us you really represent us, too, and not just the corporatists who think they get to call the shots behind the scenes.” – Steve Deace/Washington Times

“The Ex-Im gives U.S. taxpayer-backed loan guarantees to the foreign customers of giant U.S. corporations that don’t need the help. It socializes the risk while privatizing the profits. Basically, it’s free money for big businesses like GE, Caterpillar, and particularly Boeing (hence the outfit’s nickname, ‘the Bank of Boeing’). Even Barack Obama, shortly before he became president, derided Ex-Im as ‘little more than a fund for corporate welfare.’” – Jonah Goldberg/National Review