Top Headline Comments 10-18-13

Happy Friday.

As a follow-up to our shutdown theater posts, I've heard both at the office and from folks online about the Claude Moore Colonial Farm's Market Fair this weekend. If you're in the D.C.-area, you might think about going. I'm sure they could use the revenue after being shut down for so long.

If you're still in the mood for shutdown fight post-mortems, here's two more from National Review guys Rich Lowry and Jonah Goldberg.

To be honest, I don't think either the GOP or conservatives are capable of learning from past mistakes. This played out so exactly as predicted, but there's no evidence that I can see that either group thinks it needs a change in tactics. Goldberg writes once again that this was about a fight over tactics, but conservatives simply don't believe that.

Lowry notes that after weeks of squirming, we ended up pretty much where we started, but I think it's worse than that. We started with GOP leadership and the Democrats all inclined toward a one-year clean CR that preserved the sequester cuts. What we got was a three-month CR. Why so short? It was so short because Democrats realized that they could get another shot at undoing the sequester. In light of the GOP's now-obvious shortcomings, Democrats are salivating at undoing the only substantive spending cuts the federal government has seen in over a decade.

I'm not going to get drawn into a fantasy about the budget commission working, but if you'd like to follow it's inevitable collapse, the NYTimes has a notable article on its shitty start, with no real entitlement reform on the table (entitlement reform was the GOP's claimed demand): "With the scope of the talks narrowed for now, on the table are ideas left over from past, failed bargaining: possible reductions in other programs — like farm subsidies, federal pensions, the Postal Service and unemployment insurance — and relatively minimal tax loophole closings, possibly as little as $55 billion."

Three legal groups are fighting to take the lead role in Virginia lawsuits that they think will lead to nation-wide lawful gay marriage. I flag it because you're probably going to be hearing about either the Bostic or the Harris cases next year.

The video this week comes from Citizens Against Government Waste. There's heavy breathing:

Have a great weekend.

posted by Gabriel Malor at 06:59 AM

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