Clipping blog

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• Clearing the Browser Tabs – Liberation Thursday Edition
• Nothing Says Leadership Like A Token Hot Dog on the Run
• The Delivery Presents – Slacker Unions and New Resolutions
• Robert Gibbs Last Gift: Reminding Us Who Created Four Years of Soul-Crushing Debt

Clearing the Browser Tabs – Liberation Thursday Edition Posted: 06 Jan 2011 03:10 AM PST The day of our delivery (as opposed to the day of The Delivery) has arrived. The new crop of Republican winners have arrived in Washington and the essential battles have already been joined. Some Democrats are looking for a graceful way to ditch Obamacare and save their professional hides while the MSM has assumed its role as Democratic propaganda organ (via Instapundit). The next couple of years ought to be very interesting on Capitol Hill and plenty of folks there hope that you will stop paying them attention. Stay focused and we can turn our country around. And now, links! If reading the Constitution before one session of Congress is a lame stunt, why did the New York Times spend so much energy (but apparently not research time) to disparage it? Remember that British study that claimed a link between childhood vaccines and autism? It was an “elaborate fraud”. Please, parents, get your children vaccinated. Nancy Pelosi is a spiteful, arrogant piece of work. I’m glad she’s no longer in charge of The People’s House. We couldn’t survive much more of her particular form of politics. Shocker: Of the four people on President Obama’s Chief of Staff short list, three are experienced lobbyists. Steny Hoyer says that if you side with the Tea Party philosophy, you had to have come from a very unhappy family. This is default progressive cant — anyone who disagrees with the Utopian fantasies of the left must be fundamentally deficient instead of simply wrong. Is there nothing the government won’t buy? (via Linkiest) Mitch Daniels sounds better and better as a 2012 candidate the more I hear him. On one hand, Guillermo del Toro is making an At the Moutains of Madness movie. On the other hand, it takes place at the North Pole (!!) and has a part specially written for Ron Perlman (!!).

Nothing Says Leadership Like A Token Hot Dog on the Run Posted: 05 Jan 2011 07:12 PM PST I’ve often wondered what the essential quality of leadership is. You might think that a true leader would choose to celebrate a big victory with by spending an hour or so with his most dedicated followers, but you’d be very wrong. Sharing yourself with the little people is for suckers. According to California public sector union leader Nick Berardino, real leadership involves eating a hot dog right out in public. [California Governor Jerry] Brown emerged around 1:20 p.m. but avoided the stage, where a podium and microphone awaited. Instead, he found his way to the hot dog tent, walked around it in search of a hot dog and was finally served his hot dog, which he ate with mustard. After taking a bite or two, Brown returned to the Capitol building. The crowd, including many state workers, booed and dispersed after Sen. Lou Correa, D-Santa Ana, made it clear Brown wasn’t coming out again. [...] The union’s general manager Nick Berardino said Brown eating a hot dog proved he was “the people’s governor.” [...] “He came out and had a hot dog, him and his wife, right where the people were standing and right where the people were eating,” Berardino said. “That’s a hallmark of a true leader through these difficult times. We would have liked him to have said hello to the crowd, but I think it’s more inspiring that he came out to the cheap seats and talked to the people.” [emphasis Mine] I’ll expect Brown’s new book on leadership, Leadership on A Bun: How to Lead Without Actually Getting Close Enough to People to Catch Their Commoner Cooties, some time this year. I suppose we should be glad he didn’t have his Imperial Food Taster check out the dog before he ate it. Goodness knows what sort of inspiring leadership message that would have sent to Berardino. (via John J. Pitney at NRO)

The Delivery Presents – Slacker Unions and New Resolutions Posted: 05 Jan 2011 06:38 PM PST I’m quite proud that we’ve made 72 episodes of The Delivery without missing a single week. I realize that good fortune and the grace of God have had a rather large hand in that, but also, there’s a certain stubbornness on my part. Nothing will turn me off to a podcast faster than an irregular schedule. It may be unfair on my part to do so, but I question a podcaster’s dedication to delivering a good product when their shows start to miss weeks or when a Tuesday release, say, begins to show up on Wednesday or Thursday without explanation. In the spirit of the second half of the show, I’d like to share a couple few show-related resolutions I’ve made for the year. I’m taking my own advice and sharing them with you so that you can hold me to them. I hope they all make the show more accessible and just plain better for you in 2011. Put more content on the web site. I know I’m already running The Sundries Shack, and it consumes most of my blogging time, but I’d like to start putting my social media-related posts here and give you more to do than just listen to podcasts. Part of that also involves completing the archive post so that you can listen to every episode right here at this site. Build a bigger audience. Okay, that seems like a copout, but I actually have a goal of 10,000 listeners a show by the end of the year. My end goal, which I don’t think I’ll reach this year, is to have enough listeners to attract advertisers and to build a subscription-based revenue stream. Reach out for “impossible” guests. I admit, there are “dream guests” I’d like to have on the show to whom I’ve not reached out because I was afraid they’d say “no” and laugh at me. One of the things I’ve learned (and it’s been a slow process) from my friend Andrew Lawton is that you don’t get if you don’t ask. So I’m going to ask. I think the results will please you greatly. Go multimedia. I love Gary Vaynerchuck’s almost constant barrage of short videos and impromptu UStream chats. I’d like to do some of that for The Delivery as well. SMP Mike and I have also been kicking around the idea of a video version of The Delivery that would be as polished and well-produced as the show you get now. The latter idea may take some time to develop, but there are no reasons I can’t do my own short videos about the show (upcoming guests, after-show talk, coming features, etc.) for you to enjoy during the week. Well, those are some of the things I want to do. I’d also like to hear from you. What are some things you’d like to see from me in 2011? What can I do better? What can I do more of? What new approaches would you like me to try? Feel free to leave comments here or drop me an e-mail. I’ll listen. I promise. The Delivery - Episode 72 This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now

Robert Gibbs Last Gift: Reminding Us Who Created Four Years of Soul-Crushing Debt Posted: 05 Jan 2011 01:46 PM PST From the blogosphere to the briefing room in less than a day. Jake Tapper got right on top of some apparent Obama hypocrisy and gave Robert Gibbs, who I note today is leaving his position as Flopsweater-in-Chief to gear up the President’s re-election campaign, the chance to make it right. Gibbs, of course, did nothing of the sort. In fact, as I’ll explain later, he made things worse. TAPPER:  You referenced Austan Goolsbee’s – GIBBS:  Yes. TAPPER:  — comments about the debt ceiling — debt ceiling.  I wanted — I wanted to read you this quote from a senator:  The fact that we’re here today to debate raising America’s debt limit is a sign — is a sign of leadership failure.  Leadership means the buck stops here.  Instead, Washington is shifting the burden of bad choices today onto the backs of our children and grandchildren.  America has a debt problem and a failure of leadership.  Americans deserve better.  I therefore intend to oppose the effort to increase America’s debt  limit.  I suspect you know who I’m quoting. GIBBS:  Joe Biden? TAPPER:  That is — GIBBS:  (Chuckles.)  I know.  Barack Obama from 2006. TAPPER:  That is Senator Barack Obama in 2006 voting against raising the debt ceiling. GIBBS:  And I think what is important is, it’s — understand that the — raising the debt limit was not in question in the outcome. TAPPER:  It passed 52 to 48. GIBBS:  — in the outcome of that vote. TAPPER:  It was a close vote, 52 to 48. GIBBS:  Well, we’ve had closer.  (Chuckles.)  I think — I think it’s important that the outcome — based on the outcome of that  vote, the — as I mentioned, the full faith and credit was not in doubt.  The full faith and credit of our — of our government and our  economy was not in doubt. And the president used it to make a point about needing to get  serious about fiscal discipline.  And we, as I’ve said earlier, are dealing with the legacy of decisions that have been made over the past many years — not paying for a prescription drug benefit, not paying for wars, not paying for tax cuts — that changed our fiscal situation much more markedly than anything ever had. So I think it is up to and it’s important for Congress – because we know — not to play politics with this, not to play games – to find a way to raise that debt limit,  understanding that we have to — as I mentioned to Matt, we’re going have to have to take some serious steps to get our fiscal house in order. But we understand — we know what happens.  We know the catastrophic actions with things like Social Security and Medicare if you threaten the solvency of the government. TAPPER:  So he — so he — so he only voted that way because he knew that it was going to pass? GIBBS:  I think clearly he was sending a message. TAPPER:  But he knew it was going to pass.  That’s why he voted — GIBBS:  Again, his vote was not necessarily needed on that. Let me see if I can cut through Gibbs’ blather to the real heart of his answer. Senator Barack Obama voted against raising the debt ceiling in 2006 because he knew his vote didn’t matter. He haughtily lectured the President and the Republicans about leadership while casting a vote he knew meant absolutely nothing. And besides, there wasn’t a crisis back then, so what did it matter. Thank you Robert Gibbs for pointing us down that path, evne though I”m sure you won’t like where we end up. See, if there wasn’t a crisis then but there is a crisis now, one might be led to wonder from whence this crisis that could threaten “the full faith and credit of our government” came. Gibbs wants us to believe it was George W. Bush’s fault, but the President doesn’t spend the money in this country. Congress does. It’s even written right in the Constitution — that old document that Democrats apparently don’t like, or even understand, all that much. So if we went from a situation where Senator Obama’s “no” vote didn’t threaten to bring the government down around our ears to one where even the mention of a “no” vote is enough to jeopardize American’s existence, who else can we blame but Senator — now President — Obama and the rest of his discredited gang? I would have thought the White House would not want us to make those mental connections, but obviously I’m not a Smarty McSmartPerson like Robert Gibbs or his boss.

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