“Ted Cruz of Texas is a disaster, not least for the Party that ran him for the Senate. He says he doesn’t trust his fellow Republicans. Neither, he said, does he trust Democrats. He’s putting himself on the national stage as the enemy of compromise, of reasonable comity between the Parties, of bipartisan agreement itself.

“We’ve known for years the tea party has full control of the House. Now we understand they have full control of the Republican caucus here in the Senate.”

“Unfortunately, you’ve grown up hearing voices that incessantly warn of government as nothing more than some separate, sinister entity that’s at the root of all our problems; some of these same voices also doing their best to gum up the works.  They’ll warn that tyranny is always lurking just around the corner. You should reject these voices. Because what they suggest is that our brave and creative and unique experiment in self-rule is somehow just a sham with which we can’t be trusted.

We have never been a people who place all our faith in government to solve our problems. We shouldn’t want to. But we don’t think the government is the source of all our problems, either. Because we understand that this democracy is ours. And as citizens, we understand that it’s not about what America can do for us, it’s about what can be done by us, together, through the hard and frustrating but absolutely necessary work of self-government.”

“All of these things we’ve said about what the president could do, should do, might have, could have, but the central thing to keep in mind is his opponents – you talk about taking them out to dinner, making nice with them – these people politically want to cut his heart out and throw his liver to the dogs. That does make it very, very difficult to come on nice to them.”

“When you’re publicly admitting your party doesn’t care enough about black America, then it’s time for a new black friend. Enter Dr. Ben Carson, who’s been embraced recently because he’s smart and helpful in assuaging their guilt.

Carson is a brilliant medical thinker, but he’s got intellectual tumors in his mind like a flat tax – which is regressive and ignorant in the face of American wealth inequality where the top 1 percent own 35 percent, and the bottom 60 percent own 2.3 percent. I doubt Jesus would tax them equally, just as I doubt the GOP would entertain a white, non-politician with unserious ideas.

But Carson has joined the GOP’s version of affirmative action, where blacks that can speak conservative game get raced to the front of the line because then people get to put a bumper sticker on their car that say, ‘How could I be racist? I would have voted for Carson!’ Which would fit nicely over the bumper sticker saying, ‘How could I be racist? I would have voted for Cain?’ Which fit nicely over the bumper sticker saying, ‘How could I be racist? I would have voted for Allen West!’

Yes, any black friend will do, no matter how far outside the political system they emerge from and no matter how unserious their ideas are.”

“They have a goal besides getting rid of the safety net, they also want to reduce the corporate tax rate to 25 percent. And that, that is just going to cut the living daylights out of everything that we consider the government.

Now I think what the people are not expecting is, if this sequester keeps going and they start closing all the small airports in this country, which is what the FAA is planning, and they start closing all these aspects where people count on government, they’re, people are going to be stunned ’cause there’s a disconnect in their mind between government and no taxes. I mean, they just don’t understand, if you don’t pay taxes, there’s some services you don’t get.”

“To see people sitting down and then they there are others standing and cheering. I don’t think it’s difficult believe [how bad racism was]. I think that we have people sitting there who are as bad as the people who were against any kind of desegregation.”

“I know that this has been some of the conventional wisdom that’s been floating around Washington: That somehow, even though most people agree that I’m being reasonable, that most people agree that I’m presenting a fair deal –  the fact that they don’t take it, means that I should somehow do a Jedi mindmeld with these folks and convince them to do what’s right.”