Is is just me — or are others noticing that their left-of-center Facebook friends are still posting more links (and commentary) critical of Republicans (and conservatives) than they are posting pieces praising the reelected president and promoting his second-term agenda?

How quick some were to pounce on General Powell’s suggestion about dark undercurrents of racism in the GOP. (They didn’t bother to come up with facts backing up their assertion — and ignored the fact that most Republicans seem pleased the the nation’s only Indian-American woman governor appointed a black man to serve in the United States Senate. And when you provide examples of Democrats saying similar things to those Republican statements Powell singled out, well, it comes time to insist that Republicans really, really are racist.)

One friend just linked something from an outfit called Americans Against the Tea Party. Is it that those folks define themselves not by what they’re for, but by their against?

Just wonderin’.

Before even pausing to mourn the children, teachers and school administrators murdered in Connecticut, our friends in the legacy media sought to pin the blame on someone other than the deranged shooter. The NRA is to blame. Or so, some claimed. (Just check the Facebook feed from some of your liberal friends.)

Look up at CNN next time you’re at the gym — or in an airport — and you’ll see another piece on guns. It’s not that most Americans are clamoring for gun control,* it’s that folks in their circles are doing that.

CNN — and other voices in the legacy media — attempt to craft a national narrative from the opinions of certain segments of the population.

How much different our news would be if our journalists associated more often with small businessmen and women or churchgoing Christians.

* (more…)

In the wee hours of Sunday morning, I woke with a throbbing headache.  I could not fall back asleep until I had taken a long, warm shower  – and a dose of Advil.

A few hours later, with the sun peeking through cracks in my blinds, my head still ached, but I managed to get out of bed, throw on a few clothes and make some coffee.  And take another Advil.

I lamented the pain, fearing it would prevent me from enjoying a quiet Sunday which I had hoped to devote to reading and writing.  Perhaps due to the Advil, perhaps the coffee, perhaps just the cycle of this particular ailment, the pain began to ease; I was able to enjoy my reading and accomplish the writing goals I had established (and then some).

When I did turn to my reading, I had a rather pleasant sensation which grew even as the headache, though much diminished, still lingered.  Perhaps because I had feared that I would not be able to read today as I had hoped, I appreciated all the more the opportunity I had to read a good book at my desk by an a big window open to a sunny day.

Something to keep in mind when we face unexpected obstacles to our enjoyment — and our obligations.

Two days ago, the Washington Examiner’s Byron York reminded us of a Democratic failure our friends in the legacy media tend to neglect:

Lawmakers are required by law to pass a budget each year by April 15, but there’s no provision to punish them, or even slightly inconvenience them, if they don’t.  In [Senate Majority Leader Harry] Reid’s case, the Senate last passed a budget in April 2009, 1,351 days ago as of Wednesday.

Not quite sure how to refine a google news search to compare the number of articles written about and amount of broadcast “news” time devoted to Todd Akin’s crazy comments on rape and those on the failure of Reid’s Senate Democrats to meet their legal obligations in passing a budget.

Seems the Missouri Republican fit the legacy media narrative about Republicans being fringe characters, but somehow Mr. Reid’s inaction is at odds with their conviction about the Democrats being the more responsible party.

Just a thought.

Just caught this on ad on the sidebar of a Weekly Standard article:

And it called to mind something Glenn Reynolds had posted yesterday, a reader e-mail reporting increased business at gun stores in Alabama. “There’s no question“, said correspondent observed

that America is better armed than it was two months ago, all thanks to President Obama! Assuming the Republicans in the House don’t prove spineless (a major assumption), the net effect of the Obama gun control initiatives will be to a massive increase in guns owned by private citizens, record profits for gun stores and manufacturers, and a very alert citizenry. This second term may yet work out better than expected!

Instead of decreasing the number of firearms, including “assault” rifles owned by citizens, Democratic rhetoric has served to increase that number.  Seems that politicians’ rhetoric is like government action:  the results are quite from those intended.

RELATED: NRA adds 100,000 paid memberships in 18 days

ALSO RELATED: Dianne Feinstein’s Legacy Might Surprise You

As I, in returning from my family vacation, return to work on my fantasy epic, I am trying to work out a schedule similar to that I “effected” when I was writing my dissertation, spending the early part of the day and into the afternoon, “dissertating” and the late afternoon and part of the evening “blogging.”

While the dissertation seemed to require more work than does the novel, it didn’t drain me as this sometimes does.

Perhaps, I just need to get used to writing fiction again — or perhaps I find this writing draining because I am drawing from images that have been stirring in my “subconscious” (and conscious) mind for over a decade.  And in the current chapter, I am providing much background information, notions and images that have been continuously simmering for sometime.

Or that creative writing is in itself more draining.  Or that my sense of being drained is just my psyche seeking rest to allow the images to settle and then emerge. . .

Not sure what it is — but to hope again to restore the balance I enjoyed when I was writing my dissertation.

Until then, I have encouraged ILoveCapitalism to blog a little more regularly than we had initially asked him to blog.  :-)

Just caught this on Yahoo!

Do recall how the media showed a bit more, um, well, discretion when the son of a prominent Democrat was arrested for driving under the influence.

If politics of taxes have changed in the Democrats favor, as they seem to argue, why aren’t they willing to ask all Americans to pay a little more for the huge increases in spending President Obama has given us?  Instead, the Democrat so demagogued the tax issue, making it appear that he favors cutting middle class taxes (having even hinted in his reelection campaign that Republicans wish to increase such levies).

In her post earlier today, attempting to put a positive spin on the fiscal cliff deal, Jennifer Rubin also speculates about the politics of taxes:

Many on the left have seemed convinced lately that the politics of taxes had changed dramatically in their favor, and that the opportunity presented by the cliff could result in the kind of surge in revenue that could put off the coming fiscal crunch for years (until, they seem to think, it will just magically go away at some point) and so could save our entitlement programs from the need for reform. . . .

But that hasn’t happened here. This deal is projected to yield $620 billion in revenue over a decade—increasing projected federal revenue by about 1.7% over that time. And that’s about it. The Democrats have made the Bush tax rates permanent for 98 percent of the public, which Republicans couldn’t even do when they controlled both houses of Congress and the presidency.  . . .

[ellipses in original]  Read the whole thing.  Again this gets to the crucial point of the Democrats’ failure.  They want us to believe that we just need raise taxes on the rich in order to pay for all their programs, but the fact remains that they have increased federal spending without paying for it.

Obama’s Democrats are not willing to make the tough choices that, in the past, such increases entailed:  ask the American people to pay for them–with higher taxes.

And this from a president who faulted his predecessor for not paying for his policies.

NB:  After posting this, wonder if I should have changed the title to read, “The higher spending Obama (& his Democrats are unwilling to pay for).

RELATED: Has leverage switched to Republicans on spending cuts?

LIke many conservatives — as well as good number of independents — who follow politics, I’ve struggled to understand how, after four years of near-constant failure, Barack Obama could have won re-election as President of the United States.  He didn’t put forward a plan to improve the economy or addressing the burgeoning debt.  He had not shown much willingness to work with his partisan adversaries in Congress.

In the ended it seems, low-information voters, together with those more concerned about matters other than the economy and our government’s shaky fiscal state, tipped the scales for the Democrat.

Michael Barone thinks that Obama “was helped by widespread feelings that it would be a good thing for Americans to elect a black president and a bad thing to reject him.”

Calling Obama “born orator backed by a flawless machine, whose personal rise from a difficult childhood is a true inspiration, and whose achievement in breaking the ultimate color barrier is gift to us all“, Noemie Emery considers a notion we have addressed on this blog

People like the idea that Obama is president. As a politician and president, he has only one failing — he is the wrong man at the wrong time to be leading this country. He is out of sync with his age and its crises. There is more proof every day — here and abroad, in nation-states, states and even some cities — that his political theories will lead to disaster, and do so every time they are tried.

The Democrat may not have any ideas on how to fix the nation’s problems, but people do like the idea of Barack Obama, the post-partisan healer who can bring people together.

In his first four years in office, he governed in a manner quite different from his 2008 campaign rhetoric — and from the media-endorsed image of his character, but some people who don’t follow politics as closely as do we.  And in whatever little bit of time they pay attention to politics, they see a less tarnished version of that image than do those more familiar with current events. (more…)

That graphic links this post: John Bolton: Hillary Clinton Came Up With ‘Diplomatic Illness’ To Avoid Benghazi Testimony

Perhaps by writing this, I will make it a bit easier to blog, but I don’t know.

When I used to run road races, particularly my favorite distance, the half-marathon, I would have this wonderful feeling of accomplishment and this oddly pleasant sensation of soreness in my legs for a day or two after the race.  And as I enjoyed those sensations, I also found it much more challenging to run.  I sometimes delighted in that irony that for a few days after running my best, I was not able to run well at all.

And so it seems, after two weeks focusing on the second chapter of my epic, I have been finding it challenging to write.  Much as I love The Hobbit–and as long as I had thought about adapting it for the screen, I did not find the words flowed as smoothly as I would have liked as I wrote my post yesterday on how I would have written the screenplay.

There remain issues to blog about — and a good number I’d like to address — and will try to do so this afternoon (Pacific Time), but right now feel like today is the day to gather my notes, setting myself up to write the third chapter, entirely different from the third chapter in the outline of the epic’s first section only last week.

It seems that now is the time to jot down notes rather than to craft a coherent narrative, but we bloggers recognize that pressing issues sometimes arise when our writing energy is sapped. Like the days after a great run, the few days after a good run of writing seem to be days when we have depleted the energy to engage in the activity which we once performed to the best of our ability.

Several years ago, when I learned that Peter Jackson was helming a screen adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit, I found myself scribbling out a plan (not quite an outline) how I would handle the challenging process of producing a prequel to a successful film trilogy, knowing that the book had been written long before the author had even imagined the story behind that trilogy.

That is, in Tolkien’s imagination, The Hobbit came first.

For many filmgoers, however, the Lord of the Rings would be their first taste of the Beowulf scholar’s fantastic realm.

Tolkien himself provides the key.  In the short narrative, “The Quest for Erebor” published by his son Christopher in  Unfinished Tales of Númenor and Middle-earth, he reports of an exchange that took place in Minas Tirith shortly after the coronation of King Elessar.  Some members of the fellowship had asked Gandalf how he had come to ask Bilbo to join the thirteen dwarfs in their quest to recover their treasure — and their long-lost mountain home — from the dragon Smaug (i.e. the quest that takes place in the movie released today).

That is where I would begin it, with the members of the fellowship sitting around in a house (or a pub?) in the restored capital of Gondor, asking Gandalf that very question.  We would fade from his telling not to the first scene in the book (i.e., The Hobbit), with the wizard approaching the hobbit at his home, but to the scene presented in that tale, with him encountering Thorin just outside the village of Bree.

Thorin would show some reluctance to including the hobbit, perhaps familiar with Bilbo’s very bourgeois and bland father.  Durin’s heir would eventually defer to the Maia whom Manwë himself had dispatched to Middle-earth.

Even as he accepts the wizard’s choice, the dwarf leader would often find himself at odds with Bilbo.  The film would present the two as almost opposites, with a tension between them similar to that we often see in cop movies with such pairings.

Now that I have outlined how I would have adopted the classic book, I am prepared to see the movie.  I’ve tried not to watch the previews, but have seen in at least one an image of Cate Blanchett reprising her role as Galadriel, so it seems Jackson has made some changes, given that this daughter of Finarfin does not appear in The Hobbit.  Nor in fact do any women.

I wish I could go into this without expectations, but having been a Tolkien geek for the better part of my life, I cannot alas.

Since I’m on Pacific Time, it’s not yet 12:12 so post this now to honor a moment that passed forever on the east coast.

Are they having second thoughts about the election? According “to a lighthearted new survey released Monday by Public Policy Polling (PPP)“:

More Americans put Romney than Obama on Kris Kringle’s “nice” list: 63 percent said the former Massachusetts governor would get presents, versus just 51 percent for the president, PPP found.

Mr. Obama won just under 51% of the vote last month.

Assuming all those who voted for Mr. Romney put him on the “nice” list, then over one-quarter of those who voted for Mr. Obama also would put the Republican on the list.

* (more…)

Obama Fiscal Cliff Speech: I ‘Won’t Compromise’ On Taxes

In a column which really must rank as one of the silliest on “fiscal cliff” negotiations, the Washington Post’s Dana Milbank calls on Mitt Romney to delay his retirement so he can help Republicans reach a compromise.

Milbank, like many liberal columnists based in the nation’s capital, seems to think that the problem is really controlling the “Republican backbenchers.”  He fails to acknowledge that the president has failed to compromise himself, not having specified significant cuts to the federal budget he’d accept as part of a deal (you know that “balanced” approach which he talked about on the campaign trail).

If Republicans need to compromise on taxes, shouldn’t Democrats compromise on spending?

Milbank does at least recognize that fiscal cliff negotiations have reached an impasse.  In calling on Romney to come in and help resolve things, he seem to have acknowledged that Obama has failed to forge a workable compromise.

. . .  he needs not merely meet with his erstwhile opponent for the White House and negotiate in good faith with Republican legislators, he also needs acknowledge the sincerity ofRepublican concerns and appreciate that over 49% of Americans who voted in the presidential contest had legitimate reasons for voting against him.

And by acknowledge of Republican concerns, he needs express his understanding of why Republicans fear tax hikes, even if just on the “wealthy,” might dampen the sluggish recovery.  And if he is going to insist on this tax hike, he needs counter their argument in civil terms.

As part of the “Fiscal Cliff” negotiations,

The White House has said it wants tax rates on household income above $250,000 to rise, with the other rates holding pat. A full return to Clinton-era rates would have households paying a 36% rate on income earned between $250,000 and $388,000, compared with 33% today, and 39.6% rate on income above that level, up from 35%.

Now, much as I don’t want to see tax rates go up, let me put forward an idea (note this is in the Random Thoughts category) where Republicans could go bold on the issue, say they are willing to compromise with the president on hiking taxes on the “wealthy.”

They could first offer to compromise on the higher rate, say raising the highest rates to a rate half-way between the current rate and the president’s proposal.  But, given how Republicans would have to break with their base to do this, Speaker Boehner could ask for a significant concession from the White House in return, say, ending of federal funding for all public broadcasting, that is, requiring National Public Radio (NPR) and the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS).

It would be a bold move and put Democrats on the defensive.  Republicans would have be prepared to fight back quickly, wondering why, at a time of trillion-dollar deficits, we are subsidizing television and radio.  And remind Americans that many such stations survive in the private sector.

And to show that Republicans don’t want to destroy public broadcasting, Boehner, in announcing his plan, could pledge that as a private citizen, he will donate a few extra bucks to WCET, the Cincinnati PBS affiliate.

Just a thought.  And one which put the Democrats on defense.
—-
*federal funding of.

FROM THE COMMENTS:  V the K  offers an intriguing suggestion:  ”Make the tax increases expire unless the White House implements spending cuts.”

There has been much talk these past two weeks about the GOP needing to alter course in order to remain viable in the future.  Given that President “Obama got reelected because he enjoys a degree of personal popularity disconnected from his record“, Abe Greenwald, just days after the debacle, contended that Democrats too have to engage in some soul-searching:

The president’s reelection is not evidence of a new liberal America, but rather of the illogical and confused experience that is infatuation. For multiple reasons, Americans continue to have a crush on Barack Obama even after his universally panned first term. No longer quite head over heels, they’re at the “I know he’s no good for me, but I can change him” phase. Whatever this means, it surely doesn’t suggest conservatives would be wise to move closer to policies that aren’t even popular among Obama supporters.

Read (and consider) the whole thing.  Obama may have won the election, but most of the intellectual energy is on the opposite side of the political aisle, with the Republican Party having many more leaders committed to reform that the Democrats.  Noting those many Republican “up-and-comers“, Jennifer Rubin asks

Do the Democrats pine for a President Biden or a President Clinton ? (The latter’s future, I suppose, depends in part on how long a trail of foreign policy bungles she leaves behind.) Biden will be 74 four years from now and Clinton, 69. Not unfit for service, but hardly fresh faces or innovative figures.

More to the point, without Obama, and more important, without Romney, what do and will Democrats believe in? Big government and debt? We really don’t know since Obama has run two races about nothing, (more…)

Just caught this on Instapundit:

DONALD SENSING: Petraeus and Broadwell: The FBI circles the wagons. “There is nothing here deserving of the media attention it is getting (which should be redirected now directly upon the FBI itself, not the principals) or deserving of the expenditure of investigator man hours and resources being expended on it. Does one smell the aroma of a US attorney general ordering the FBI to make sure that this non-issue stays the lead story as Congress prepares to hear testimony about the Benghazi attacks?”

Emphasis added.  Given that our friends in the legacy media seem to prefer the tawdry details of  sex scandal to the real story of the Obama administration’s incompetence, it is a reasonable question, no?

UPDATE:  Also via Glenn, Monica Crowley asks the questions that our friends in the legacy media should be asking.  And they ain’t about sex.