1. Boehner Embraces Cutting, Capping, and Balancing

2. New York Times Brushes Off Ethical Concerns

3. Gov. Brown’s Office to Conservative Californians: Leave the State!

4. Now That Possibly Drunk Rutgers Economist Susan Feinberg Is Sobered Up, She Has No Comment

5. As Their ROI Slips, Democrats Find Unions Less Giving of Members’ Money

1. Boehner Embraces Cutting, Capping, and Balancing

Many of us thought John Boehner would not turn back from the negotiating table. But he did. The media is a real tizzy trying to explain it. As is typical, they’re dumbing it down. Boehner backing away from the negotiating table (1) had nothing to do with tea party opposition, (2) nothing to do with fears of helping Barack Obama’s re-election, and (3) nothing to do with fear of crossing Grover Norquist and his tax pledge.

Boehner left the table because he and the Republicans in Congress actually, factually believe raising taxes would be a bad idea. President Obama says the taxes he wants to raise are off a ways in 2013 or 2014. But Republicans understand that businesses and employers knowing their profits will fall in a few years will start making cuts today to preserve their net profits tomorrow. It’d be bad for the economy.

What’s more, John Boehner did offer up a plan — it sounds like he is embracing the policy pledge inspired by Senator DeMint, i.e. “Cut, Cap, and Balance.”

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2. New York Times Brushes Off Ethical Concerns

For those of you who missed it, The New York Times recently ran some controversial, front-page stories regarding the natural gas industry. Specifically, some are questioning whether or not this was an agenda driven hit piece on the gas industry.

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3. Gov. Brown’s Office to Conservative Californians: Leave the State!

So, a member of the Riverside County Board of Supervisors – Jeff Stone, a Republican – has proposed splitting the state of California, with San Diego and the largely rural, Republican-leaning south east of the state becoming “South California,” and LA remaining with the liberal coast and northern part of the state. You can follow the link to the LA Times for the map of what his proposal would look like. Secession proposals of this nature are a hardy perennial on the Left and Right alike, and are almost always bad ideas, although there is at least a fair argument that California as currently constituted is (1) too large any longer to serve the role of responding to local needs unmet from Washington that is a major part of why we have a federal system in the first place (as the LAT notes, “[t]he proposed 51st state would be the fifth largest by population, more populous than Illinois, Ohio and Pennsylvania”), (2) essentially dysfunctional, and (3) particularly unresponsive to the needs of the 13 million residents of the 13 counties in question.

But what’s really interesting here isn’t a proposal by one member of the board of one county, but rather the response by a spokesman for Governor Jerry Brown:

“If you want to live in a Republican state with very conservative right-wing laws, then there’s a place called Arizona,” Brown spokesman Gil Duran said.

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4. Now That Possibly Drunk Rutgers Economist Susan Feinberg Is Sobered Up, She Has No Comment

This is the Susan Feinberg who probably was drunk — you hope she was drunk otherwise the words we’d have to use aren’t fit for a family site — when she decided to cause a scene at Bistro Bis in Washington, D.C.

Feinberg, who we can also presume gets nuts when drinking or just can’t handle alcohol, stormed over to Paul Ryan and attacked him for using his own money to drink an expensive glass of wine while daring to want the government to spend less of his, Susan Feinberg’s, and your money.

In any event, after she’d had a chance to sober up and think soberly about the scene she caused, Byron York of the Washington Examiner tried to get her to comment on the cut off point for what wines can and cannot be purchased without looking like Marie Antoinette.

Feinberg’s bottle of wine was $80.00, after all. So Byron just wanted to know what the cut off point was between $80.00 and $300.00, the price of Paul Ryan’s bottle.

Susan Feinberg now has no comment.

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5. As Their ROI Slips, Democrats Find Unions Less Giving of Members’ Money

What’s the purpose of buying a Democrat if they just don’t deliver the goods? That’s been union bosses’ ham-fisted message to Democrats for a couple of months now: If Democrats don’t start delivering on what union bosses expect, union bosses will pull their funds.

Well, it appears that union bosses are making good on their threats–or, like sending a dead fish, they’re putting the message out that they mean business (before 2012 rolls around and they open up the spigots again).

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