Amen Twofer...

First, Ryan Avent says what I mean about the impending government shutdown.

What really makes this so upsetting, and it's really, genuinely upsetting, is that these proposed cuts are basically useless. America doesn't face a short-term fiscal crisis; its debt is dirt cheap. America faces a long-term fiscal crisis due to projected increases in government health spending. So Republicans are cutting short-term discretionary spending to address a fiscal crisis that doesn't exist while ignoring the fiscal crisis that does exist. Their proposed cuts aren't emerging from any cost-benefit analysis; rather they seem designed to spare GOP interests at the expense of Democratic interests. And to do this, they're prepared to—potentially—cost the American economy 2 percentage points of growth.
It's really remarkable. It's remarkable how things have deteriorated in so short a time. Last year, the president's bipartisan deficit commission recommended deficit cuts that didn't focus on the short-term, and that did put defence and entitlements on the table. Now Republicans are declaring that they'll shut down the government unless all of their demands are met—demands with virtually no redeeming value. This is no way to govern. No way at all. [More]

Next, Will Wilkinson hammers it on the WI union flap.

There’s something about the union demonstrations in Madison, and the excitement it has caused on the left, that reminds me of the Tea Party. I think I’ve figured it out what it is. The advent of the labor movement is at the heart of the left’s sacred creation myth. The sense on the left that unions are under siege gives them something to fight for with a bracing sense of historically-rooted identity and moral authority. Similarly, the sense on the right that America’s foundational values are under siege gave the Tea Party something to fight for with a bracing sense of historically-rooted identity and moral authority. Of course, the Tea Party has about as much to do with the values of the American founding as John Adams has to do with Raytheon, and public-sector unionism has about as much to do with preventing worker exploitation as Eugene Debs has to do with unfireable $100,000 a year public-school teachers. But it’s nice to have a team, and a noble lineage, and to get out there and really give the bastards who are stealing our country hell. [Source - but...ahem, I sorta lifted the whole post]

What they said. 

I got nothin' to add.