Mitt Romney: "Obama/Nero is fiddling’ - misses chance to solve fiscal crisis

◼ Breaking four months of silence, Mitt Romney on Sunday blasted President Obama for playing politics with sequestration and, in the process, missing a “once-in-a-generation” opportunity to put the nation on solid economic footing. - Ben Wolfgang/Washington Times

“This is an opportunity,” Mr. Romney said. “I look at the sequester and also the expiration of the Bush tax cuts as almost a once-in-a-generation opportunity for America to solve its fiscal problems … it’s being squandered by politics. The hardest thing about losing [the 2012 presidential election] is watching this critical moment, this golden moment, slip away with politics.”

He added that “Nero is fiddling” while a key chance for a bipartisan deal slips away, and he criticized the president for “campaigning” rather than truly leading.

Mr. Romney’s wife, Ann, said that if her husband were in the Oval Office, “we would not be facing sequestration.”

The Unpopular Party

◼ Reducing our debt can’t be the only Republican agenda. - Rich Lowry/National Review

The national party is leaderless and nearly issueless, but besides that, is thriving and in fine fighting trim.

It used to be that the Republicans were nasty people because they exploited “wedge issues,” which was the pejorative way to describe issues that were popular with the public but made Democrats uncomfortable. The phrase has been retired. Even if it hadn’t been, it’s not clear what Republican issue it would apply to anymore.

Once, taxes and national security were the party’s pillars, supplemented by domestic issues like welfare reform and crime and by symbolic issues like the Pledge of Allegiance and flag burning. Now, the pillars are in disrepair....

This won’t change soon. It is too early to have a presidential candidate or even a presidential field, so the GOP lacks a head and therefore a unified voice.

Of course, it wasn’t long ago that Democrats seemed to be in dire straits. The party agonized over appealing to “values voters” after 2004. Little did they know that, eight years later, they would run a successful reelection campaign on limitless abortion and free contraception. The Bush-era Democrats benefited from serial Republican debacles, from Jack Abramoff to the financial crisis.

Events will again take a hand, as they always do. And since last fall’s election, top Republicans from Bobby Jindal to Marco Rubio have been talking about a more bread-and-butter economic agenda. Fleshing that out, though, is a longer-term proposition. In the meantime, Republicans should prepare themselves for more discontent.

California in Crisis: A Five-Part Series

◼ Video: Conn Carroll discusses this series - Conn Carroll/Washington Examiner @conncarroll

◼ Day 1: What happened to the Golden State? 2/24

California is no longer a model that other states want to or should emulate. It currently has the nation's third highest unemployment rate, its highest poverty rate and more than one-third of the nation's welfare recipients. What happened?

◼ Day 2: The California spending rush 2/25

California's budget is balanced ... or at least that is what Gov. Jerry Brown wants you to believe, now that he "temporarily" hiked taxes on all Californians by $6.8 billion last year. Part 2 of our five-part series.

◼ Day 3: California's expensive education failure 2/26

"Nothing is more determinative of our future than how we teach our children," California Gov. Jerry Brown said in his January State of the State address. "If we fail at this, we will sow growing social chaos and inequality that no law can rectify."

Bad news, governor: California is already failing its children. And it wasn't always this way.

◼ Day 4: California's green jobs bust 2/27

Fourth of a five-part series. It was supposed to be the next big thing. California built decades of broad-based prosperity from the Gold Rush, then Hollywood, then aerospace, and later Silicon Valley. At the turn of the century, "green jobs" were supposed to be the wave of the future....

◼ Day 5: Green state chokes off its middle class 2/28

For all the bed-wetting environmentalists do over how climate change might affect the present ecosystems of California, they always seem to conveniently forget what the state looked like before it joined the Union. Last of a five-part series.

◼ California busted through spending limits to feed the unions and thereby tarnished its Golden State standing - Le-gal In-sur-rec-tion

Our California citizen groups beginning to plan new ballot measures to counter those that have tarnished our finances, as this is apt to be the most successful course to take in the 2014 election cycle. The Gann Limit shows the power of a good one.

Sperling Admits Obama Misled in Debate: The President Did Propose the Sequester

◼ White House economic adviser Gene Sperling admits that, yes, in fact, the sequestration was President Obama's plan - Weekly Standard

◼ Woodward invites Sperling (and President Obama) to his house - Politico

◼ "We put forth the design of' the sequestration, Sperling finally admits after a long back-and-forth." - Althouse

'The Bible' miniseries hits TV

◼ Mark Burnett was taken aback by the scale of what his wife, actress Roma Downey, had in mind when she suggested over tea one morning four years ago that they make a television miniseries based on the Bible. - David Bauder/The Associated Press via Times-Standard

”Momentarily, I think he thought I'd lost my mind,” Downey recalled. “He went out on his bicycle and he prayed on it and he came back and said, 'You know what, I think it's a good idea. I think we should do it together.' We shook hands and haven't looked back.”

The series debuts on History Sunday at 8 p.m. EST, the first of five two-hour chunks that will air each weekend. The finale airs on Easter Sunday.

Different stories in the Bible have been Hollywood fodder for years. Burnett, the prolific producer behind “Survivor” and “The Voice,” said no one had tried to tie it all together and use modern computer graphics to bring images like Moses parting the Red Sea to life on screen.

Instead of being all-encompassing, they tried to concentrate on stories in depth and on characters who would emotionally engage the audience. The first episode illustrates the wisdom of that approach: It flounders at the start with a discussion about the world's creation but becomes more gripping when the emphasis turns to the lives of Abraham and Moses.

Burnett said he believes there's a growing “Biblical illiteracy” among young people.
”It's like saying you never heard of Macbeth or King Lear,” he said. “In school, you have to know a certain amount of Shakespeare, but no Bible. So there's got to be a way to look at it from a pure literature point of view. If it wasn't for the Bible, arguably Shakespeare wouldn't have written those stories.”

◼ WHICH HOLLYWOOD POWER COUPLE PENNED THIS SURPRISING OP-ED: ‘WHY PUBLIC SCHOOLS SHOULD TEACH THE BIBLE’?

- Billy Hallowell/The Blaze

On Thursday, famed reality show producer Mark Burnett (“The Voice” and “Survivor”) and his wife, actress Roma Downey (“Touched by an Angel”) penned an eye-grabbing op-ed in the Wall Street Journal entitled, “Why Public Schools Should Teach the Bible.” True to its title, Burnett and Downey make the case that America’s children should be taught the holy book’s ins and outs in classrooms across the nation.

Referring to the Bible as “the most read, most influential book of all time,” the two pointed out the cultural value that the document has to Western civilization. In addition to highlighting the fact that many common phrases used in everyday language have roots in the Bible, the couple noted the that it has very literally shaped modern-day literature, entertainment and the culture at large.

#APHeadlines: President signs sequestration order he opposed but ‘couldn’t avert’

So Obama proposes the #sequester, threatens to veto replacing it, but @ap says he opposed it. OKAY. cc @chucktodd What bias?

— RB (@RBPundit) March 2, 2013

◼ Poor guy. Tonight, the president added his signature to a document ordering billions in cuts that he said wouldn’t happen and that the Associated Press said he ‘couldn’t avert’ — no matter how many rounds of golf he played with Tiger Woods. P.S. Sequestration was his idea. - Twitchy