Dan Calabrese

About that ‘20 things 20-year-olds don’t get’ list

This is getting a lot of circulation at the moment, and for the most part I think writer Jason Nazar (age 34, apparently) nailed it. My favorites:

VIDEO: Am I really going to defend Anthony Weiner’s weird behavior here?

Weiner is confronted by a reporter from Britain's ITV. And he acts pretty weird in a loose cannon sort of way, almost as if he knows the jig is up and he figures, What the hell, might as well just beclown myself totally. And yet I can't entirely find fault with him here. Watch:

White House: Oh no, small businesses, you’re not getting out of ObamaCare

This is how ridiculous the rollout of ObamaCare has become. In what amounts to a high-stakes chess game between small businesses and the government, the Obama Administration is now informing business owners that it won't let them get away with hiring part-time workers as a method of avoiding the employer mandate. In order to ensure that as many companies as possible fall under the mandate, the government plans to add up the hours of part-time workers and count them as "full-time equivalents."

By the way, we’re in waaaaay more debt than you think

I can't emphasize enough how important it is that everyone read Steven Malanga's new piece in City Journal, which will certainly not uplift you but will enlighten you concerning the true nature of public debt in this country. While you're focused on the borrowing that goes on in Washington D.C., a lot of it is happening in your state capital or right down the street at your city hall. How much? Try in excess of $6 trillion, much of it in spite of the fact that state constitutions and city charters say all debt is supposed to be approved by voters.

Why threaten NBC over Hillary movie? Just cancel the stupid media debates . . .

I understand why RNC Chairman Reince Priebus is unhappy about NBC airing a Hillary biopic, although I suspect the main damage it will cause is to afflict the nation with yet more terrible prime time television. It will take some awfully talented fiction writers to write a made-for-TV movie that makes Hillary Clinton seem like an interesting human being, and if what we've seen from NBC in recent years is any indication, they don't have any such talent there.

WSJ: Yes, Obama really is giving Congress an ObamaCare exemption

You might have seen a lot of things people post on Facebook, claiming Congress has exempted itself from ObamaCare, followed by snickers from liberals at the gullibility of some conservaties who will just believe anything negative that's said about ObamaCare.

House passes bill to prevent IRS enforcement of ObamaCare

This is another one of those bills that Obama and Harry Reid sluff off as "meaningless," by which they mean, "Stop passing those bills we don't like!" If a bill passes the House of Representatives, and both the Senate leadership and the president pretend it never happened, the only thing that's meaningless is the attitude of the president and Senate leadership toward the legislative process.

Seattle city officials: The terms ‘citizen’ and ‘brown bag’ are too offensive to say

A long time ago, I spent a couple of years working in local government. It wasn't a big city, and while the P.C. era was already underway (the Clarence Thomas confirmation hearings occurred during this period), I don't recall the good folks at the Charter Township of Canton wasting much if any time on nonsense like this.

Obama to Putin: We’ll just see if I have a summit with you, Snowden protector!

One of the things I loved, and liberals hated, about George W. Bush was something Bush declared about himself: "I don't bluff."

Obama to GOP: That 2011 deal on spending? Yeah, we’re not sticking to that . . .

It's mind-blowing to me that people like John Boehner, who has been in Congress a long time and should understand how things work, get played for fools as easily as they do. But they do. It's the nature of the game when, instead of using the power the voters gave you, you choose instead to "negotiate deals" with people who can't be trusted to keep their word.

New Weiner ad: Hey, aren’t you impressed that I’m not a quitter?

Of all the conceits of narcissistic politicians, this may be the most galling:

Obama’s ‘grand bargain’: Cut corporate taxes, spend on infrastructure

I have to admit, my first reaction to the news that Obama would be proposing this was that it was not the most wretchedly awful thing he had ever proposed. How's that for faint praise?

Teachers at Arkansas school to pack heat

This is the sort of thing that will have the gun control crowd apoplectic, of course, and that's usually your best indication that you've hit on a good idea. If any crazed gunmen try to enter Clarksville High School in Clarksville, Arkansas - about 100 miles southwest of Little Rock - they won't get far:

Those ObamaCare death panels are kind of a problem, says . . . Howard Dean?

How many of you remember that Howard Dean is a doctor? Long before YEEEEAAAAAARRRRRRGGGGGHHHHHH, he was wielding a stethoscope, checking pulses and writing prescriptions.

Obama narrows Fed choice down to two punch spikers

We will certainly shed no tears here for the departure of Ben Bernanke as chairman of the Federal Reserve, as the man never could quite grapple with the notion that his constant manipulation of interest rates and the money supply was doing nothing to improve the economy while seriously compromising the soundness of the dollar.

Of course: MSM ignores ObamaCare call center story

I should know better. I see a story like this one from National Review, and I think, they can't ignore this. It's too brazen. They won't like it, but they have to report on the sheer audacity of ObamaCare apologists for setting up call centers and doing exactly what employers across the country are doing - which is hiring part-timers to avoid the crushing costs of ObamaCare.

MSNBC host: Detroit’s problem is that it’s so libertarian

Now you know me, not exactly a big fan of libertarians. But come on.

George H.W. Bush security detail: Bald . . . and really big

OK, first, I love what they did . . . even H.W. himself shaving his head to show solidarity with the two-year-old, leukemia-stricken son of one of the agents. Looks like a wonderful group of people.

Poll: Those ‘meaningless repeal votes’ Obama hates reflect the will of the nation

Among his other talking points trying to blame Republicans for the failure of his economic policies, President Obama whined yesterday that they keep taking "meaningless repeal votes" on ObamaCare.

Has the middle class caught on to Obama’s hustle yet?

Let's start by defining a hustle. Someone is pulling a hustle on you when they constantly try to convince you they offer something that is actually illusory. The hustle can become a career for them if you keep buying it, but in order for that to happen the hustler has to very skillfully convince you that your lack of reward is because of some sinister outside force working against the hustler. If the hustler can pull this off, he can prevent you from recognizing that the offer itself is empty.