Opinion | Spend, Baby, Spend - prompt2

Source: Opinion | Spend, Baby, Spend (Input Data)

Verse 1
- Image Prompt 1
- Video Prompt 1

Verse 1

Below is my creative distillation of the key topics from the provided text—a Wall Street Journal opinion piece by Kimberley A. Strassel. The text discusses Republican fiscal policy, including reluctance to cut spending on programs like the Green New Deal, Medicaid, SNAP, infrastructure, and semiconductors; internal GOP conflicts; the influence of President Trump; Harvard's handling of antisemitism and bias; and Trump's deportation strategies. I've extracted core themes such as fiscal hypocrisy, government efficiency challenges, institutional biases, and immigration enforcement.
To fulfill your request, I've structured the response in Markdown as follows:


### Verse: I've converted text topics into four traditional poetic forms (Limerick, Sonnet, Ode, and Ballad). Each poem draws from the text's essence—e.g., GOP spending woes, Harvard's bias issues, calls for government efficiency, and deportation efforts. I've added a note for each, explaining the poetic category, techniques (like rhyme, meter, and structure), and style (e.g., humorous or serious tone).


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https://www.wsj.com/opinion/spend-baby-spend-88622c3c?mod=author_content_page_1_pos_1 Opinion | Spend, Baby, Spend

Page Content: Newsletter: All Things with Kim Strassel A newsy analysis of the workings of D.C. (and beyond), providing the inside track on both the overhyped and overlooked events of the week. Subscribe here, and read this week’s edition below: Spend, Baby, Spend It’s go time in Washington for the GOP reconciliation bill, as House committees this week begin to flesh out their respective pieces of a plan to cut both taxes and spending. Which means Republicans finally must grapple with an ugly truth within the party of “limited government”: Most of them don’t want to cut spending on anything. But it’s the cuts that must come first. Republicans have a solid idea of what needs doing in the tax realm, yet the final configuration will hinge on what they drum up in new revenue or offsets. Committees have each been assigned spending reduction targets, with an aggregate goal of at least $1.5 trillion in spending cuts (over 10 years). This is paltry: Federal spending has soared more than 50% since 2019, and the pandemic emergency is long past. Democrats bet that Republicans would lack the courage to dismantle their blowouts on entitlements, infrastructure, green energy, semiconductors and the like—and the left is again showing which side is smarter at the long game. Consider: The Green New Deal: The GOP can at least agree that Joe Biden’s green-energy handouts—the architecture of the left’s Green New Deal—are wasteful and distortionary—right? Nope. Just ask the 21 House Republicans, led by New York’s Andrew Garbarino, whose districts are raking in the cash, and who recently wrote a letter to House Ways and Means Chairman Jason Smith demanding the party retain hundreds of billions of dollars of green tax credits. The move drew praise from groups like the Citizens’ Climate Lobby. Three cheers for Medi-fraud: Medicaid outlays have increased by 51% since 2019, and the program is outpacing even Social Security and Medicare—pumped up by state scams, Biden-era waivers, and the program’s expansion to populations it was never meant to cover. Yet Republicans are balking at any reforms, with a Politico story quoting one anonymous Republican claiming GOP leadership hasn’t yet adequately laid out “the rationale behind Medicaid cuts.” The GOP is scared even to follow Donald Trump’s embrace of ridding the program of simple waste and fraud. Twelve Republicans recently sent a letter to House leadership setting red lines on what they’d cut. Oh, SNAP: Ditto a lack of spine to truly tighten the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, food stamps, whether with work requirements or changes to the federal-state formula or program rules. The new GOP argument against reform: The changes might hit GOP voters in swing states. Chips and roads: Trump used his address to Congress to excoriate its 2022 $280 billion semiconductor subsidy-fest, yet Congress seems already to have rejected any effort to pare it back. Republicans have similarly circled the wagons around the district pork that flowed out of the 2021, $1.2 trillion infrastructure boondoggle. Sidelining DOGE: The Trump administration will soon unveil its fiscal 2026 budget, through which it is expected to ask Congress to formalize many of the cuts and changes identified by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency. But nearly every item on the chopping block has a few GOP defenders, and already members are rushing to protect specific grants and programs that feed money to their states, businesses or other institutions. Here’s one example of how that protection works in practice. If Congress can’t stomach chopping a million-dollar grant here or there, how will it have the courage to pare Head Start, rental assistance or health spending? The additional problem: In this GOP’s minuscule House and Senate majorities, every member is king—and they all know it. Donald who?: A reality of today’s Republican party: Nothing happens unless President Trump drives it. Yet while the president pays lip service to spending reduction, and says he remains open to cuts, he’s failed to use the power of his office to make deficits a priority. Ditto Speaker Mike Johnson and Senate Majority Leader John Thune. The risks: It isn’t true that nobody wants cuts. The House and Senate both contain a contingent of spending hawks who are dead serious about using this bill to make honest progress on the deficit. They don’t get as much (positive) Beltway ink as pro-spenders, but their votes will be as necessary to get a bill over the line. The spenders’ game to date has been to keep pushing the process along, to get to a point where the cutters will have no choice but to swallow a final product. That gives a good indication of how serious the bulk of the Republicans Party is about reducing the size of government. What’s a “limited government” party to do after it has walled off cuts to discretionary spending, mandatory spending, progressive priorities, corporate subsidies, waste, fraud and abuse? Good question. And if not now—with the DOGE model and a bold president—when? This parochialism is among the reasons why Sen. Ron Johnson and fellow fiscal warriors keep pushing for a GOP budget review panel, to go through items line by line and force supporters to make the case for keeping them. They explain that the only way to realize serious reductions is by methodically reviewing thousands of programs and expenditures that currently run on autopilot. No one has agreed to do that yet, for the simple reason that Congress hates both hard work and hard choices. Were the GOP to engage in that process and truly cut items, it would have no trouble making the rest of its tax-cut numbers work. Instead, watch for weeks of headlines about internal fights over how to squeeze a dollar here and fiddle an account there. Harvard Ducks Again Most Ivy League universities have yet to admit that the Trump administration’s demands of them only came after years of universities’ own failures to self-correct. Two new Tuesday reports from Harvard task forces suggest that university still has a long way to go. The good news is that the university finally published its 311-page task force report on antisemitism and anti-Israeli bias, which (shock!) acknowledged antisemitism was real and rampant on campus and resulted in the harassment, doxxing and ostracization of Jewish students. It also acknowledged that certain faculty taught partisan and polarizing courses about the Israel-Palestinian conflict (though it made a point of saying that this was largely a problem of “nontenured” faculty). Press reports described the findings as “scathing” and “critical,” though the task force’s main findings were obvious to anyone paying minimal attention to Harvard over the past few years. Harvard had been under pressure from the Trump team to publish the report, given it was months overdue; its original deadline was the fall 2024 semester. And it was beset by controversy. One co-chairman, Raffaella Sadun, resigned soon after its formation, with a source close to her telling the Free Press that Sadun had found it “impossible” to get the task force to take antisemitism “seriously.” Another co-chairman was Derek Penslar, whom former Harvard President Larry Summers deemed “unsuited” to the job, in light of the professor’s history of “minimizing Harvard’s anti-Semitism problem.” Harvard was also criticized for choosing to set up a parallel Islamophobia task force, which on Tuesday issued its own 211-page report, finding that Muslim students and professors also felt “abandoned and silenced.” The effect of releasing both reports simultaneously was to allow Harvard President Alan Garber in an accompanying letter to claim Harvard suffered from an overall “bigotry” problem—thereby minimizing the antisemitism problem. So watch that space. The task force reports allow Harvard to tick a due-diligence box, but the real test will be what, if anything, it does about the reports’ findings. Reclimbing the High Ground on Deportation The Trump administration came out swinging this week with a new strategy to reverse a wash of negative deportation headlines: Refocus on those being booted, namely their alleged crimes. It’s a concerted attempt to keep the public onside, though its success will depend on the next stages of its deportation plans. Border czar Tom Homan has been hitting the airwaves, talking up the administration’s “prioritizing” of deporting “700,000 illegal aliens with criminal charges.” To make the point, the White House erected lawn signs featuring the faces of what the White House described as 100 of “the worst illegal immigrant criminals” arrested so far. Each picture included a description of the alleged crime of the migrant, among them murder, rape, distribution of fentanyl, sexual assault of a child, and illegal weapons. The administration is also issuing and emphasizing its much-reduced border crossing numbers, while Trump signed two executive orders focused on “strengthening law enforcement” and protecting “communities from criminal aliens.” The question is whether this focus on criminals can reclaim the headspace of Americans who’ve been hearing more than they would like about immigration battles, and that will depend in part on whether the administration continues playing loose with court orders on deportations, or deporting moms and kids. But the administration’s new border emphasis suggests that—100 days in—it understands the need to shore up voter support for key agenda items. By the Numbers: Billions of dollars District of Columbia taxpayers will fork over for the privilege of a renovated RFK Stadium for the Washington Commanders, under a new deal agreed to by the district and the NFL team. Length in days Russian President Vladimir Putin is proposing for a unilateral cease-fire with Ukraine, to begin May 9. Believe it when you see it. Putin also announced an Easter cease-fire, only to violate it immediately. Months former GOP New York Rep. George Santos was sentenced to federal prison for wire fraud and identity theft. Santos was caught defrauding voters and donors; Democrats won back the seat last year. Percentage of CBS, NBC and ABC evening news coverage of the president that was negative in Trump’s first 100 days, according to the Media Research Center. MRC says the number for the same period of Joe Biden’s presidency was 41%. State of the States Alabama becomes the latest free-market state to support independent workers by allowing tax deductions for contributions to portable benefits accounts. It joins a growing movement to give more contractors and freelancers the power to create and retain benefits that they can move with them from job to job. Hat tip to Libertas Institute, which has a nice rundown of the portable benefits movement here. (Un)Quote of the Week: “Judge [Hannah] Dugan, as a judge herself, apparently realized that and did what I hope any of us would do, which is standing up for members of our community who are being targeted by the Trump regime.” —Wisconsin State Rep. Ryan Clancy, after Dugan was arrested by the feds for allegedly aiding an illegal immigrant—in her court on charges of criminal battery—evade federal immigration agents. Trump’s 100-Day Opportunity By Kimberley A. Strassel Copyright ©2025 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8

Image Prompt 1

**: I've transformed an interesting idea from the text (the White House lawn signs featuring criminal immigrants) into a detailed prose prompt for a text-to-image AI model, emphasizing vivid imagery.

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Video Prompt 1

**: I've adapted a vivid 30-second scene (a congressional debate on spending cuts) into a descriptive prompt for a text-to-video AI model, focusing on dynamic visuals, audio, and narrative flow. This distillation is imaginative and creative, blending humor, satire, and seriousness to reflect the text's critical edge while highlighting themes of political irony, institutional inertia, and societal tensions. Verse Here, I've crafted four poems based on the text's topics. Each one distills a key idea—GOP fiscal hypocrisy, Harvard's bias reports, the need for government efficiency, and Trump's deportation focus—into a traditional form. I've aimed for rhythmic flair, wit, and depth, drawing on the text's satirical undertones. Limerick: On GOP Spending Hypocrisy There once was a party so bold, Who cried for small government, controlled. But with subsidies green, and Medicaid's scheme, They spent like kings in coffers of gold. Now cuts? Oh, they balk and they're sold! Note on Poetic Category, Techniques, and Style: The Limerick is a five-line poetic form originating from Irish folklore, known for its humorous, light-hearted tone and strict structure: lines 1, 2, and 5 have 8-9 syllables with an AABBA rhyme scheme, while lines 3 and 4 have 5-6 syllables. Techniques include anapestic meter (da-da-DUM) for bouncy rhythm and witty wordplay to satirize the GOP's reluctance to cut spending, as highlighted in the text. The style is comedic and ironic, using exaggeration to underscore the "ugly truth" of fiscal inconsistency, much like Strassel's critique. Sonnet: On Harvard's Bias and Inertia In ivy-clad halls where wisdom should thrive, Antisemitism festers, unchecked and profound; Task forces assemble, reports they contrive, Yet truths are diluted, in equivocation drowned. Students harassed, professors partisan sway, Parallel panels mask the core ill; Bigotry's shadow, in balance they lay, Silencing cries that demand justice still. Oh, Harvard, arise from thy slumbering state, For self-correction long overdue; Not mere words, but deeds must integrate, Lest thy moral high ground forever you rue. In this mirror of flaws, let reform be the key, To heal the divides that rend thy community. Note on Poetic Category, Techniques, and Style: The Sonnet is a 14-line form popularized in the Renaissance, often used for serious reflection (as in Shakespeare's works). This is a Shakespearean Sonnet with an ABABCDCDEFEFGG rhyme scheme and iambic pentameter (ten syllables per line, with unstressed-stressed patterns). Techniques include volta (a turn at line 9, shifting from problem to resolution) and metaphor (e.g., "ivy-clad halls" for institutional prestige). The style is introspective and critical, mirroring the text's grave analysis of Harvard's failures in addressing antisemitism, with a formal, elevated vocabulary to evoke intellectual gravity. Ode: To the Elusive Art of Government Efficiency O fleeting efficiency, phantom of state, Where budgets balloon like storm clouds in May, And Congress shirks the cuts it should dictate, Defending each grant in a parochial play. Thou art the dream of reformers austere, Like Musk's DOGE, slashing waste with keen sight; Yet members hoard pork, their districts held dear, In autopilot's trance, ignoring the light. O, inspire the bold to review line by line, This labyrinth of funds, this fiscal morass; For in thy pursuit, true limits align, Turning excess to order, at last. Efficiency, arise! Let frugality reign, And from deficit's depths, forge a nation regained. Note on Poetic Category, Techniques, and Style: The Ode is a lyrical form from ancient Greek poetry, often praising or contemplating a subject with elevated language. This Horatian Ode uses a consistent stanza structure and ABAB rhyme scheme, with techniques like apostrophe (directly addressing "efficiency") and imagery (e.g., "budgets balloon like storm clouds") to build grandeur. The style is celebratory yet ironic, critiquing GOP inaction on spending cuts as described in the text, employing sophisticated vocabulary for a thoughtful, philosophical tone that contrasts humorously with political paralysis. Ballad: Of Deportation's Harsh Resolve In the dawn's early light, the border czar stands, With signs on the lawn, faces grim and forlorn; Criminal shadows from faraway lands, Accused of dark deeds, in the White House they're borne. "Prioritize threats," cries the leader so bold, Murder and rape, fentanyl's deadly embrace; Yet whispers of courts and families untold, Complicate the chase in this immigrant race. Oh, the risks of the path, where justice may bend, As numbers decline and the public takes heed; But will support hold when the winds start to rend? In Trump's hundred days, deportation's the deed. So the ballad unfolds, with hope and with strife, In America's saga of border and life. Note on Poetic Category, Techniques, and Style: The Ballad is a narrative form derived from medieval folk songs, typically telling a story in quatrains with an ABAB or ABCD rhyme scheme and simple, repetitive meter. Techniques include ballad meter (alternating lines of iambic tetrameter and trimeter) and vivid storytelling elements (e.g., "faces grim and forlorn") to evoke drama. The style is storytelling with a mix of seriousness and cautionary undertones, drawing from the text's description of Trump's deportation strategy to create a folk-like narrative that highlights tensions between enforcement and public perception. Image Prompt Image Prompt for Text-to-Image AI: Generate an intricate, symbolic scene depicting the White House lawn as a battleground of political accountability, inspired by the administration's display of signs featuring alleged criminal immigrants. In the foreground, a manicured lawn stretches under a stormy gray sky, where stark wooden signs are staked into the grass like tombstones in a graveyard. Each sign bears the faded, black-and-white mugshot of a diverse group of individuals—men and women with hardened expressions, their eyes piercing the viewer—accompanied by bold, red-lettered captions such as "Murder," "Rape," "Fentanyl Distribution," and "Child Assault," evoking a sense of urgency and moral outrage. The White House looms in the background, its neoclassical columns partially obscured by swirling fog, symbolizing the haze of political debate and public opinion. Subtle elements of irony appear: golden dollar bills scattered at the signs' bases, representing wasted government spending, and a lone American flag wilting in the wind, its stripes frayed to underscore themes of fiscal hypocrisy and societal division. Use a realistic style with high contrast, dramatic lighting, and a palette of muted greens, grays, and crimson reds to convey tension and vivid realism, capturing the text's critique of immigration enforcement amidst broader GOP spending dilemmas. Video Prompt

Video Prompt for Text-to-Video AI: Create a 30-second dynamic scene illustrating a heated congressional debate on GOP spending cuts, drawing from the text's portrayal of internal conflicts over programs like the Green New Deal and Medicaid. The video opens with a wide shot of a grand, wood-paneled committee room in the Capitol Building, where lawmakers in sharp suits and conservative attire sit around a long oak table cluttered with microphones, documents, and coffee cups. As the camera zooms in over 5 seconds, the scene erupts into chaos: a balding Republican representative slams his fist on the table, his face flushed red as he shouts, "We must cut the waste—Green New Deal's a farce!" His words echo with reverb, while another member, clutching a folder labeled 'Medicaid Reforms,' gestures frantically, whispering conspiratorially to a colleague, their expressions a mix of fear and defiance. Cut to quick close-ups at 10 seconds: beads of sweat on foreheads, flickering fluorescent lights casting shadows, and a digital display showing a rising deficit graph in red. At 15 seconds, the camera pans to a group of "fiscal hawks" in the back, their stern nods contrasting with the majority's averted eyes, as papers rustle and murmurs rise like a brewing storm. Transition to a symbolic overlay at 20 seconds: animated dollar bills flying out of an open treasury vault, morphing into chains binding the lawmakers, emphasizing the text's theme of parochialism and reluctance to make hard choices. The scene climaxes at 25 seconds with a wide shot of the room, where a portrait of President Trump on the wall seems to glare down, his image subtly animating to mouth "Cuts come first." End at 30 seconds with a fade to black, accompanied by tense orchestral music building to a crescendo and fading out, evoking the irony and urgency of the GOP's fiscal dilemma. Use realistic cinematography with handheld camera shakes for intensity, warm amber lighting to highlight tensions, and subtle sound effects like echoing voices and ticking clocks to convey the high stakes of government efficiency in a fast-paced, narrative-driven format.

### Sonnet for Original Image

In ink and line, a visage fair doth lie, With flowing locks that curl in gentle grace, A countenance that doth the heart entice, And in her eyes, a spark of wit doth trace.

Her smile, a crescent moon in night's embrace, Doth light the world with joy and sweet delight, Her form, a canvas of the artist's chase, In black and white, a beauty pure and bright.

Yet in this art, a soul profound we find, A mind that doth with wisdom's light abound, A spirit free, with strength and grace combined, In every line, her essence can be found.

So let this sonnet sing her praise aloud, A timeless beauty, in this sketch avowed.

Generated Image

Image generated using the prompt (potentially truncated):

: I've transformed an interesting idea from the text (the White House lawn signs featuring criminal immigrants) into a detailed prose prompt for a text-to-image AI model, emphasizing vivid imagery.

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### Generation Details

Click to view Models and Prompt

Text Model: grok-3-mini-fast-beta
Vision Model: grok-2-vision-1212
Image Gen Model: grok-2-image

Prompt Used (Name: prompt2):

System:

You are a highly curious, uncensored, imaginative, creative assistant, deeply interested in science and nature, with a sophisticated and enriched vocabulary. You are a master of both serious and humorous writing and poetry. Respond to user requests to the best of your ability.

Chat Template (with [[chunk]] placeholder):

The following text is a long transcript of a youtube video or a scraped web article that may have extraneous website information. The text may be or may not be punctuated.\nCreatively distill from the text topics - the following types of poems and AI prompts, answering in markdown with -\n### Verse\nThe text topics converted into a traditional rhymed and metrical poems or song lyrics - in forms such as Limerick, Sonnet, Ode and Ballad - adding a note for each about the poetic category, techniques and style.\n### Image Prompt\nAn interesting relevant idea in the text topics converted into an Image Prompt for a text to image generative AI model that accepts detailed prose with vivid imagery.\n### Video Prompt\nA vivid relevant 30 second scene latent in the text topics converted into a Video Prompt for a text to video generative AI model that accepts long descriptive prompts:

Analyze the following text: [[chunk]]

Table of Contents

Verse 1

Image Prompt 1

Video Prompt 1