Clipping blog

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• Forgive Me for Not Joining the Party: A Debbie Downer Blog Post
• Clearing the Browser Tabs – When Do We March on the Schools Tuesday Edition
• Let Us Look Back at the Calm, Rational Rhetoric of the Debt Ceiling Circus

Forgive Me for Not Joining the Party: A Debbie Downer Blog Post Posted: 02 Aug 2011 08:49 AM PDT I’m afraid I don’t share the general exultation of the right side of the blogosphere today over the debt ceiling deal that will undoubtedly become law today. Hooray, says my friend Jeff: The Republicans scored a political win that slowed down the runaway spending locomotive! Hooray, says my friend Pete: Republicans like Allen West and Renee Elmers didn’t come to a bad decision, they’re just “consolidating the ground” they won! Boo and hiss, says Ezra Klein: This talking point I have that says I must use the word “austerity” in nearly every sentence I write causes me great pain…and austerity! I suppose there’s room for a little joy that the conservative point of view wasn’t utterly discarded. It’s probably good to be happy that the Tea Parties weren’t utterly slandered by everyone in Congress, including the people who owe their seats to us. There is something to the point that any budget agreement that causes the Wonderhack Twins Ezra Klein and Matthew Yglesias to become simultaneously verklempt is probably a good thing. On the other hand, this is real. See the blue line? That’s the spending that Barack Obama, Harry Reid, and Nancy Pelosi have set on autopilot for us for the next ten years. The red line is the spending we’ll do thanks to the debt ceiling deal. Does that look good to you? Does that look like a reason to celebrate? Does that look like we’ve “changed the terms of the debate” or have “shifted the conversation” or any of the other happy phrases some folks on the right have tossed out there to paper over the very real fact that the deal will slow down spending as well as a pill bug in the middle of a superhighway will slow down a tractor trailer? Should we find satisfaction in a bill that gives President Obama, who is a political animal to the very marrow of his bones, the authority to borrow $2.4 trillion more dollars with only token limits? What Republicans do not seem to understand is that the conversation has already changed. Look at the poll numbers in this post. Consider that almost two-thirds of the country want the basics of the “Cut, Cap, and Balance” plan for which the GOP refused to fight in the Senate. America is ready for a real defense of real spending cuts — cuts that at least flatten those Matterhorn-steep increases. What rankles me is that this deal should have been better for the country, but it wasn’t because the Republican leadership lacked the courage and vision to make it so. I’m convinced that the only reason John Boehner and Mitch McConnell didn’t get a worse deal is because Barack Obama and Harry Reid are two of the worst negotiators on the planet. We Tea Party types don’t need more numbers as much as we need more leaders who can plainly and relentlessly fight for smaller, better government. We need to replace the people who say “well, at least we won something, so yippee” with people who say “I hate that we couldn’t defend our principles well enough and that we sucked down this crap sandwich as a result”. I don’t honestly care if Republicans win the White House in 2012 if we can fill the House and Senate with more people who refuse to accept that our spending must always increase. I am not happy with this debt deal and less happy with my conservative friends who are. This is not a deal to celebrate. It is a failure of vision we can use as fuel to do far, far better when the real budget fight comes around in October.

Clearing the Browser Tabs – When Do We March on the Schools Tuesday Edition Posted: 02 Aug 2011 03:10 AM PDT I suspect that we may be on the verge of a major education revolution. Thanks to state of Wisconsin, led by Governor Scott Walker and a few brave Republcians (who, by the way, face a series of scurrilous recall elections thanks to the bitter and petty left), we know that the teachers’ unions do not work for the best interests of their own members. As such, we have ammunition to de-legitimize and dismantle them. A story from Pennsylvania may give us just as much ammunition to de-legitimize and dismantle big, centrally-controlled school systems. It appears the entire state school system engaged in a massive fraud to secure more government funding and hide its own failures, much as Atlanta’s school system did over several years (via memeorandum). As I’ve noted before, the story of how badly Atlanta’s educators failed the children entrusted to them has been criminally-underreported. Perhaps this new scandal will get the attention of a couple more of the big media outlets and they’ll send a few investigative teams into other school systems. There is no way in the world that this same kind of fraud isn’t happening elsewhere. We need to find it, expose it, and take our schools back from the lazy, dishonest slugs who have them now. Tonight is The Delivery night, so be sure to set your clocks for a little before 9:30 P.M. Eastern! I’ll have Caleb Howe on the show to talk about the upcoming Red State Gathering. We’ll make fun of Democrats as well because, let’s face it, they’ve said a lot of stupid things lately. It will embiggen your heart, so don’t miss it. And now, links! Dear manufacturers of cool and/or delicious products, I am available to do reviews. Especially of fudge. Allahpundit discovered what I learned Sunday night: there is nothing in the debt ceiling agreement to prevent tax increases. Now is the time at EdDriscoll.com when he wonders if the MSM can even spell the word “objectivity”. I like it when entrepreneurs get in front of the cameras, share what they’ve learned, and inspire young people to get into the game. I found this video interview with the former CEO of McDonald’s worth the time. I learned something and got a bit fired up and what I’m doing at The Shack. I liked this post about the rules of negotiation from my new Twitter friend PolitiJim. Mayhap it’ll find its way into the hands of some Republican members of Congress. You could do much worse than to start your day with a quote from G.K. Chesterton. Thanks to The Anchoress, you’ll have at least a couple weeks’ worth (via Glenn Reynolds, who gave me my third Instalanche in three weeks, and Stacy McCain who wrote a good post on a possible national sales tax you should read). If you’re even the tiniest bit an astro-science geek, you’ve heard about the theory of Nemesis. Well, it turns out we may have evidence that puts it to rest once and for all.

Let Us Look Back at the Calm, Rational Rhetoric of the Debt Ceiling Circus Posted: 01 Aug 2011 05:28 PM PDT Now that the debt ceiling circus is all over but the voting and back-slapping, why not look back at some of the well-considered and not-at-a–batspit-crazy statements made by certain influential members of the left over the past few days. We can start very near the top, with this nugget of reason from Vice President Joe Biden. Vice President Joe Biden joined House Democrats in lashing tea party Republicans Monday, accusing them of having "acted like terrorists" in the fight over raising the nation's debt limit. Biden was agreeing with a line of argument made by Rep. Mike Doyle (D-Pa.) at a two-hour, closed-door Democratic Caucus meeting. "We have negotiated with terrorists," an angry Doyle said, according to sources in the room. "This small group of terrorists have made it impossible to spend any money." Biden, driven by his Democratic allies' misgivings about the debt-limit deal, responded: "They have acted like terrorists," according to several sources in the room. Hmm. That wasn’t quite what I expected from a leader of the Democrats who, you’ll recall, lectured Tea Party members for their “violent rhetoric” not all that long ago. Perhaps White House adviser and CNN contributor Fareed Zakaria exercised a bit more calm. …the Tea Party is trying to pass a particular agenda, which is basically this all-cuts budget. It cannot get it through the Congress of the United States. It cannot get it through the political democratic process that we have, which is that Congress passes something and the president must sign it. That’s the normal workings of democracy. So, instead of accepting some compromise that can get through the democratic process, what they’re saying is we’ll blow up the country if you don’t listen to us. We’ll hold hostage the credit of the United States, the good standing of the United States and we’ll blow it up. “Blow up” America? Hold it “hostage”? Well, that’s pretty much the Biden line. Gee, I’m beginning to detect a carefully-scripted talking point. Hopefully the hypocrisy ended there. I’d hate to see it spread into, say, Congress. Rep. Emanuel Clever (D-Mo.) called the newly agreed-upon bipartisan compromise deal to raise the  debt limit “a sugar-coated satan sandwich.” “This deal is a sugar-coated satan sandwich. If you lift the bun, you will not like what you see,” Clever tweeted Monday. Good news: no more terrorist analogies. Bad news: Satan? Really? The Prince of Lies himself? I don’t see how the rhetoric could get any more ridiculous! In an interview with ABC News’ Diane Sawyer, [Former Speaker of the House Nancy] Pelosi said she will “absolutely” vote yes on the compromise package, even though she agreed with one colleague who called it a “Satan sandwich.” “It probably is – with some Satan fries on the side,” Pelosi said. Oof! A Satan sandwich with Satan fries? Did she forget the Satan Diet Coke and the little packets of Satan ketchup that would have completely the Infernal Unhappy Meal? For Pete’s sake, people, this came from the woman who, this time last year, was the Speaker of the House of Representatives — the third in line to the Presidency itself! Satan fries?? It’s hard to imagine how she could have been more incendiary. Off-cam from House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) as she walked out of the presser. A reporter continued to press her about the pending resignation of Rep. David Wu (D-OR). Somewhat exasaparated Pelosi said that Wu "is the least thing on my (mind). Then… "What we're trying to do is save the world from the Republican budget," she said. "We're trying to save life on this planet as we know it today." Yep. That’ll do it. Maybe her comrades in the House were a little more sensible. After all, no one can be quite as nuts as our newest superhero Nancy “Deposed Speakernator” Pelosi, right? Right? “I have never witnessed this level of dysfunction in the House and in the Congress as a whole,” said [Democratic Representative William Lacy] Clay, of St. Louis, who was elected in 2000. “The speaker and the House Republican leadership have allowed a small number of extremists to take the House of Representatives and the economy of the world as hostages,” he asserted. And we’re back to that well-rehearsed “extremist hostage-taker” talking point. I wonder if every time one of these clowns steps in front of a microphone and spouts the noxious attacks from Democratic Party Headquarters, their soul dies just a little bit more inside. But of course we’re not done. No left-wing coordinated message would be complete until it’s appeared in the pages of the formerly-great New York Times. And the editorial staff, which has been just a little bit confused lately, did not disappoint. There is little to like about the tentative agreement between Congressional leaders and the White House except that it happened at all. The deal would avert a catastrophic government default, immediately and probably through the end of 2012. The rest of it is a nearly complete capitulation to the hostage-taking demands of Republican extremists. One might be tempted to believe this is just the boilerplate attack against the right, and especially the Tea Parties which existence not only vexes the professional progressives to no end but also handed them a historic electoral beatdown just a few months ago. I suppose I can see that. After all, it’s not like anything happened today that might remind people of the last time the left hauled out the “Tea Partiers are hyper-violent extremists” or anything. No, indeed.

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