"Unions Lose Again in Wisconsin:  It looks as if the organized labor movement has failed to recall enough Wisconsin Republicans to regain control of the state senate. That’s a) in an off-year election where union turnout usually makes the difference b) in famously progressive Wisconsin c) after spending many millions d) with a nationwide media and organizing push e) when labor had a galvanizing issue in Gov. Scott Walker’s direct assault on the institutional collective bargaining power of public employees, which led to a dramatic walkout by Democrats."

"Much of the media has spent the past decade obsessing about the malapropisms of George W. Bush, the ignorance of Sarah Palin, and perhaps soon the stupidity of Rick Perry. Nothing is so typical of middling minds than to harp on the intellectual deficiencies of the slightly less smart and considerably more successful.

"But it takes actual smarts to understand that glibness and self-belief are not sufficient proof of genuine intelligence. Stupid is as stupid does, said the great philosopher Forrest Gump. The presidency of Barack Obama is a case study in stupid does."

"As the nation mourns its loss, just as it has the losses of 10 years of a war it did not choose and which it cannot avoid, the greatest thing that civilians can do is remember that their lives and the lives of their children and grandchildren are what they are because of warriors flying through mountain passes half a world away."

"America’s recovery from a balance-sheet recession was always bound to be sluggish and fragile. And its woes need not fell the world economy, thanks to the strength of emerging markets. But the thoughtlessness of the debt deal -- notably its failure to tackle any of the real sources of America’s fiscal problems, such as entitlement spending -- raises a bigger worry. Can the country's politicians, so starkly polarised and so willing to gamble with the economy, be trusted not to turn what was always an inevitable period of hardship into longer-term stagnation? ...

"If America does manage to avoid recession and slowly begins to pull out of this mire, it will be testimony to its underlying strengths. It still has huge advantages over other rich countries: a younger, less-taxed population, a more innovative economy and, for now at least, the dollar as the global reserve currency. If only it had the political leaders to match, its chance of avoiding recession would be far better than one in two."

"During the recent debt crisis, President Obama talked about the need for bipartisan compromise and, as in the past, urged civility. Giving ground and engaging in polite discourse, of course, can be noble aims. But, like most one-eyed-jack politicians, Obama has rarely embraced the admirable qualities he advocates -- a fact increasingly evident to a skeptical public. ... 

"In fact, in 2007 the National Journal found that Obama's voting record was the most partisan in the entire U.S. Senate -- further to the hard-line left than the Senate's only self-described socialist, Bernie Sanders, more predictably partisan than even the most consistently conservative senator that year, Jim DeMint. At the time, Senator Obama unapologetically wished to advance a hardcore liberal agenda, and he saw no reason to backtrack from it or compromise on it. ... 

"So spare us any more of the bottled piety, Mr. President. Instead, just make the argument to the public that borrowing $4 billion a day is still necessary and sustainable -- and explain how it came to be that this post-recession recovery on your watch is the weakest since World War II."

"The American Age of Austerity lasted approximately three minutes, give or take a nanosecond. Immediately after the Senate approved the bipartisan 'Budget Control Act of 2011' on Tuesday afternoon, President Obama hustled over to the Rose Garden — to crow about the renewed opportunity to make 'key investments.' 

"Yes, the pitched battle to force government to live within its means has preserved the failed stimulator-in-chief’s ability to keep spending like there’s no tomorrow. As the curtains closed on D.C.’s debt-ceiling theater, Obama wasted no time putting his new 'investment' priorities on the table: higher taxes, more funding for endless unemployment benefits, and a 'national infrastructure bank.'"

"The liberal pundits — the 'progressives,' as liberals insist on calling themselves since they royally stunk up the word 'liberal' - tried to label the tea party conservatives as knaves, kooks and cleaned-up Ku Kluxers, to drive them into sullen silence as in the past. This time, that didn’t work. The pundits, like the Democrats in Congress, are in a pout because the 'sealed' deal doesn’t raise taxes, and cuts deep into the blubberhood where big government lives. ...

"But this time, the Republicans and other conservatives did not flinch, their spines stiffened by courage taken from the teapot. Washington hasn’t seen a panic like this since Beauregard sent the Federal army scrambling back to Washington from Manassas battlefield in the summer of ‘61. This was the change we’ve been hoping for."

"The big picture is that the deal is a victory for the cause of smaller government, arguably the biggest since welfare reform in 1996. Most bipartisan budget deals trade tax increases that are immediate for spending cuts that turn out to be fictional. This one includes no immediate tax increases, despite President Obama's demand as recently as last Monday. The immediate spending cuts are real, if smaller than we'd prefer, and the longer-term cuts could be real if Republicans hold Congress and continue to enforce the deal's spending caps. 

"The framework (we haven't seen all the details) calls for an initial step of some $900 billion in domestic discretionary cuts over 10 years from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) baseline puffed up by recent spending. If the cuts hold, this would go some way to erasing the fiscal damage from the Obama-Nancy Pelosi stimulus. This is no small achievement considering that Republicans control neither the Senate nor the White House, and it underscores how much the GOP victory in November has reshaped the U.S. fiscal debate."

"Obama faces two massive problems — jobs and debt. They’re both the result of his spectacularly failed Keynesian gamble: massive spending that left us a stagnant economy with high and chronic unemployment — and a staggering debt burden. Obama is desperate to share ownership of this failure. Economic dislocation from a debt-ceiling crisis nicely serves that purpose — if the Republicans play along. The perfect out: Those crazy Tea Partyers ruined the recovery! 

"Why would any conservative collaborate with that ploy? November 2012 constitutes the new conservatism’s one chance to restructure government and change the ideological course of the country. Why risk forfeiting that outcome by offering to share ownership of Obama’s wreckage?"

"If Obama truly was serious about solving our nation's debt crisis he would have released a serious plan months ago. Instead, he not only passed the buck to a debt commission that he created, he then cynically dismissed their work when they announced a solution. Obama then introduced a budget so fanciful that the Senate rejected it 97-0. House Republicans, meanwhile, bravely took a hard vote on a real budget proposal scored by the Congressional Budget Office. Obama reacted by publicly rebuking House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan, R-Wis., and then outlining a plan that was so vague the CBO refused to even score it. 

"The Treasury Department has reportedly been telling U.S. banks that there is no risk the federal government will default on U.S. debt. And there is no reason it should. The federal government takes in far more money each month in taxes than it owes in interest payments. But there is a real danger that ratings agencies may downgrade the nation's triple-A credit rating anyway. If that happens, Obama will only have himself to blame."