Clipping blog

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Clearing the Browser Tabs – Don’t Play the Partisan Hacks’ Game Monday Edition Posted: 29 Aug 2011 03:10 AM PDT A couple of days I wrote about Bill Keller’s risible New York Times column wherein he proved that he knows as much about religion as a mouse does about quantum entanglement. I opted for a more measured approach, which, in retrospect, I don’t think is the right way to approach such intentional ignorance. I had considered another post — had made a few notes on it, in fact — but then I saw this incredible piece by Kurt Schlichter at Big Government and realized I don’t have to. He said everything I wanted to say, and did it far better than I could have. Bill Keller doesn’t really care about the religious beliefs of Republican presidential candidates any more than he did about the beliefs of Barack Obama’s mentor for twenty years when the man was damning America for a bushel basket full of invented sins. What he does care about is how much mayhem he can cause among the electorate by asking loaded questions and twisting any answers he gets into the shapes he desires. His questions are not honest, his motives are purely partisan, and we are under no obligation to do anything but call him out for his dishonesty and bigotry. We will see this again, folks. Don’t play the game the hacks want you to play. It’s rigged and you won’t ever win. And now, links! Not that I want to channel Mark Steyn, but none of these nations have to worry about dying out because they’re not having enough babies. Unchecked immigration will kill them off long before depopulation will. Now that our manned space program is dead, at least for the foreseeable future, the International Space Station is in real trouble. Maybe the Chinese will take it over in a few years when their space program eclipses ours. Nice Deb asked how think-skinned our President is. I’m pretty sure the answer is “very”. I’m very sure he’d act less like an emo middle school girl if the MSM didn’t pat his hand and tell him he’s special. Then again, if the MSM hasn’t covered for him as much as they did a few years ago, he wouldn’t be President today. Remember when Michelle Obama told college students that they shouldn’t look for jobs that paid good money and instead should go into “public service”? Yes, well, it appears that public service pays pretty darned well if you have all the right connections. No one likes the Chevy Volt, not even the guy who runs the company that makes it. One of the things I want our next President to do in his first hundred days is tear down the tenure-based pay scale for Federal Employees in favor of one based on merit. I admit, I have a couple of these verbal tics, and you can hear them on occasion when you listen to The Delivery. I do try to use them as little as possible, though, so that’s something. Also, you really should listen to The Delivery! Do you want to live longer? Just add 15 minutes of exercise to your day and you can add three years to your life. Sounds like a good deal to me. Forty-five years ago this month, NASA’s Lunar Orbiter took the first picture of Earth from the orbit of the moon. The story behind that photograph is worth a lunch-time read today.. I did not know that Def Leppard has a new live album out, but now that I do, I want it! So what do you say — think you might give the tip jar a hit?

Mule-Headed Republicans and the Whomping Club of Motivation Posted: 28 Aug 2011 07:27 PM PDT Slowly, Republicans in Congress are getting the message that America isn’t in any mood to play silly political games. Unemployment is unacceptably high and not likely to come down to a reasonable level any time soon. We’re running a debt so large that it changes the orbit of celestial bodies. The Democrats refuse to come up with an economic plan that doesn’t involve unicorns, powdered Bigfoot toenails, and elfin magic. You don’t have to be a political genius to see how well a simple and positive plan would be received. Of course, Republicans are stubborn beasts and it appears that we’ll have to continue to beat some political sense into them. Fearing angry protests, some GOP lawmakers have decided to skip public town-hall meetings. Others have mustered courage to face constituents in unpredictable settings, sometimes with uncomfortable results. "I've never seen people as angry as they are right now. They're angry at the whole system and evidencing that in their comments to me," said Rep. Timothy Johnson (R-Ill.), who has crisscrossed his district attending chicken dinners and state fairs. "Being an incumbent in either chamber in either party is an unpopular brand. I'm trying to show people that I'm different, that I listen and don't engage in a lot of partisanship," said Johnson, who plans to redouble his efforts as a member of the Congressional Center Aisle Caucus to promote bipartisan cooperation in the fall. Yep, that’s exactly what the voters want — a politician who can’t lead unless he’s surrounded by members of the opposition party who, I hasten to remind you, have called ordinary Americans like you and me terrorists and racists because we won’t give them as much control over our lives as they desire. I don’t know Rep. Johnson from Adam, but I’d hazard a guess that he couldn’t give you an opinion on anything unless he asked someone else what they thought. That isn’t leadership. That’s cowardice. The other Republicans in the article aren’t much better. All of them think they can help the economy by swapping one government program out for another one that brings more taxpayer money back to their districts. We already know that won’t work. If it did, West Virginia would be a prosperous utopia. They all talk a great game — how we need to hack away at the jungle of regulations that strangles entrepreneurship in its crib, and that jobs have been a priority for the Republicans since “day one” — but they still don’t understand what it is we want. Paul Ryan’s flawed but brilliant plan is all but dead because his fellow Republicans couldn’t muster the backbone to defend it as fiercely as Democrats attacked it. If they wouldn’t stand up for a plan that didn’t get around to a balanced budget for at least a decade, why would they get behind a more aggressive idea? We all know the answer to that one. They won’t. They’re playing defense while the other team is barely on the field. And so, once again, we voters are going to have to break out the Whomping Clubs of Motivation and apply them to the foreheads of another bunch of reluctant elephants. Eventually, we’ll get some members of Congress who truly do understand the enormity of our problems and push bold solutions to them. I only hope they show up in sufficient numbers before it’s too late.

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