BY MICHAEL S. JOHNSON  |  JUN 22

The single-story wood frame house needs a paint job. The foundation is cracked. Windows are broken and the roof leaks.

Oh, yes, it is also on fire.

Research guru David Winston has been using a picture of this house for years, to make a powerful point: Too often in politics we miss the big picture. We replace the windows and fix the roof, but don’t put out the fire, which in Winston’s analogy is a bad economy. Fixing the economy has been the number one priority of Americans in nearly all of the years Winston has been presenting his burning house. But government has done little, while concern has turned to fear and fear to anger and anger to despair. And, once again economic doom and gloom loom are on the horizon. There is talk of recession. Continue reading →

BY RICH GALEN
JUN 20 | Reprinted from Mullings.com

Both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump are “underwater” as it pertains to their favorable/unfavorable ratings.

The percentage of people who have a negative image of Clinton is in the mid-50s. Those who have similarly chilly feelings toward Trump are in the mid-to-high 60s, although in a Washington Post/ABC News poll released last week Trump’s unfavorable hit an unheared of level of 70 percent.

Clinton has been a major figure in American politics since the election of 1992 – probably two years before that when Gov. Bill Clinton broke onto the national scene. Let’s look at that. Someone eligible to vote (having achieved the age of 18) would have had to been born in 1974 or earlier. Continue reading →

BY RICH GALEN
JUN 13 | Reprinted from Townhall.com

My first thought when I turned on my TV Sunday morning and found that the Orlando shooting had occurred in a gay nightclub was: They’re dead because they were gay.

I have a lot of gay friends. I tried to come up with words that would express my feelings for what they must have been going through.

I couldn’t.

I assume they were going through the same feelings I had – and will have again, I fear – when Jews are attacked in shops and restaurants. Those attacks occurred not because they were in the wrong random place at the wrong random time, but because they were in a place that Jews were known to frequent. Continue reading →

BY JOHN FEEHERY
JUN 13  |  Reprinted from TheFeeheryTheory.com

America’s First Amendment to the Constitution is unique.

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

No other country goes out of its way to protect the right of everybody to practice whatever religion they want.

The attack in Orlando shows the limits of that protection. Continue reading →

BY RICH GALEN
JUN 2 | Reprinted from Mullings.com

Donald Trump’s press conference to announce his donations to veterans’ groups was a jaw dropper. The amount of money he announced having donated (about $5.6 million) is a long, long way from small change even if you measure your total wealth in the billions.

But, if the Trump campaign thought its candidate making good on a promise made months ago was going to lead every newscast in the near Galaxy, they were wrong.

What led, of course, was Trump’s excoriation of the press in general, the political press corps in particular, and three specific reporters in laser focus. Continue reading →

BY RICH GALEN
MAY 26 | Reprinted from Mullings.com

I need a day off from politics. This is a sad column tumbling headlong toward maudlin. It’s about a high school classmate of mine named Marty Packin. If you want politics today, scroll down to the Lad Link. Reed will fill that role solo today.

I graduated from high school in 1964. If you missed my 50th Reunion column you can read it HERE. I just read it again. It’s pretty good.

Marty was also a member of the West Orange Mountain High School class of ’64. He had grown up with most of the people we graduated with. Had been there through the grammar school, junior high, and high school years. Continue reading →

BY JOHN FEEHERY
MAY 9  |  Reprinted from TheFeeheryTheory.com

Originally published in The Hill

In 1912, when Theodore Roosevelt bolted the Republican Party in opposition to incumbent William Howard Taft and ran as a third-party candidate, it put Nicholas Longworth in a very tough position.

Like former House Speaker John Boehner, Longworth was a Republican Party stalwart and a member of Congress who hailed from Cincinnati. He was also married to Roosevelt’s daughter Alice, who aggressively supported her father’s insurgent campaign.

Longworth chose his party over his wife by backing Taft over his father-in-law. While that decision put a chill into his marriage, it didn’t hurt his career in the long run, although he did lose his House race during that brutal election campaign to a Progressive candidate supported by Alice Roosevelt. He would later win reelection in 1914, eventually become Speaker of the House and have his name put on the building that houses the Ways and Means Committee. Continue reading →

BY B. JAY COOPER
MAY 9 | Reprinted from The Screaming Moderate (bjaycooper.com)

I served on the staff of two Republican presidents, one Republican Cabinet member and four Republican National chairmen, as a Republican myself. Today, I quit the Republican Party and registered as an Independent (technically, “unenrolled” as they call it in Massachusetts).

Why? Donald Trump may think he’s attracting more to the Republican Party but he also is pushing many from the party. I also question how many of his crossover voters in the primaries are actually registering with the GOP – I’m guessing not many. He claims to be expanding the party. He’s not but there are millions of voters drawn to him. He is a candidate of convenience for them. A candidate with whom to place their anger and their hopes. Continue reading →

BY B. JAY COOPER
APR 20 | Reprinted from The Screaming Moderate (bjaycooper.com)

Before we even are positive who the two candidates will be for the two political parties (though Hillary is a sure thing and Trump is the favorite), there are key takeaways from this primary season. And they are takeaways that elected officials – at all levels – should take seriously. They are not one-year wonders.

Bernie Sanders has delivered a message of the inequities of the economic system – the 1 per cent getting richer and the 99 percent paying more taxes. Donald Trump and Ted Cruz are delivering messages that the grassroots of the GOP want progress from their elected officials, not broken promises. Continue reading →

BY NEIL BRADLEY
APR 10 | Reprinted from Medium.com

There is increasing interest in Congress and among conservatives about how to restore the powers and responsibilities of Congress in making laws and exercising oversight of the federal government. Senator Mike Lee (R-UT) and Representative Jeb Hensarling (R-TX) recently launched the Article 1 Project. One of Speaker Ryan’s (R-WI) six agenda task forces is dedicated to restoring constitutional authority. These are important efforts.

There is a temptation in these efforts to focus almost exclusively on what rules within Congress should be changed or what new laws can be enacted to restrain the executive branch. While rules changes and new laws are necessary, they are insufficient and, as we have seen with measures like the REINS Act, can be difficult to enact. While continuing to work on changes in rules and statutes, those concerned with restoring the powers of Congress ought to also think about what operational changes they can effectuate right now to assert more authority over the executive branch. Continue reading →

BY RICH GALEN
MAR 31 | Reprinted from Mullings.com

I Tweeted this Tuesday night:
Gotta give @realDonaldTrump this: He is much better at defending his employee than Breitbart was at defending theirs

Of the 11.5 thousand times I’ve hit the “Tweet” button (I don’t have any other hobbies) this one struck the loudest chord. 394 people either re-Tweeted or Liked it.

Once again the DC-NYC axis doesn’t get it. Continue reading →

BY B. JAY COOPER
MAR 30 | Reprinted from The Screaming Moderate (bjaycooper.com)

Thirty-five years ago today, Ronald Reagan was the victim of an assassination attempt, fewer than three months into his first term in office. Thirty-five years ago today I was working my first day as a political appointee in the Reagan Administration, as a public affairs staffer over at the Commerce Department, led by Secretary Malcolm Baldrige.

I can’t say I recall every minute of that first day for me, as Imy memory is overtaken by the attempt on the President and the effects of that on the country and the world. I imagine I spent most of the morning filling out paperwork as a new employee of the government. Which would mean that, after lunch, I was in my first hours of actual work, or learning what it was I was supposed to be doing, when we got the news that President Reagan had been shot. It was a memorable day on many levels. Continue reading →

BY MICKEY EDWARDS  |  MAR 26

Originally published in Politico.com

Donald Trump is likely on the verge of losing the Republican primary, falling short of the number of delegates required to win the presidential nomination. But, as bullies are wont to do, Trump is now trying desperately to change the rules—to argue that the nomination should go not to the candidate who wins 1,237 delegates but to whoever comes closest.

What’s wrong with that argument? Electing a U.S. president is not a schoolyard game, where goalposts change when bullies whine. There’s a reason a candidate has to make it to 1,237 votes to win the nomination. Each party’s goal is to put forth a nominee whom the party’s members, represented by their elected delegates, believe will best reflect the party’s collective judgment—a determination possible only when the level of support is clear and convincing. That’s why both parties set a benchmark, the political equivalent of the tape at the finishing line of a race, sufficient to establish the party’s preference. In a hundred-yard dash, a runner who beats the others but who can only manage 95 yards doesn’t go home with a medal. Continue reading →

BY B. JAY COOPER
MAR 22 | Reprinted from The Screaming Moderate (bjaycooper.com)

Donald Trump’s tour of Washington, D.C., yesterday – ed board at the Washington Post, speech at a major Jewish organization, press conference at a hotel he’s building – showed different facets of Donald Trump, Marketing Genius.

I watched his speech, I read about his press conference and I read the transcript of his interview at the Post. What those events demonstrated to me is that Donald Trump is the exact opposite of what he claims to be. He says he’s not a politician but he certainly is, in the worst, cynical sense. Continue reading →

BY RICH GALEN
MAR 14 | Reprinted from Mullings.com

Elite Washington is totally consumed by the political events over the past week. From Donald Trump cancelling a large rally in Chicago on security grounds, to video of a White (assumedly) Trump supporter cold-cocking a Black protester being led out of another rally, to Trump’s campaign manager Cory Lewandowski allegedly grabbing and shoving to the ground a female reporter for Breitbart.com, Michelle Fields.

In all of that there was no mention of anyone else. Especially not anyone else named Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, or John Kasich. Continue reading →

BY MICHAEL S. JOHNSON  |  MAR 8

Almost every day you can view in HD the emaciated bodies of frightened, starving children crying for help, trapped inside the bombed out rubble of entire neighborhoods and cities all across Syria.

You can look into the angry and horrified faces of refugees along the closing border of Greece and Macedonia, tugging their children along, looking for human salvation, many of them the relatives of those whose bodies have floated up on the Mediterranean beach having not survived the desperate trip across the sea.

You are left aghast at the grotesque, genocidal inhumanity of man all across the Middle East and North Africa where terrorist extremists massacre innocent women and children, without a hint of remorse. Continue reading →

BY FRANK HILL
MAR 5 | Reprinted from TelemachusLeaps.com

‘It’s morning again in America. Today more men and women will go to work than ever before in our country’s history. With interest rates at about half the record highs of 1980, nearly 2,000 families today will buy new homes, more than at any time in the past four years. This afternoon 6,500 young men and women will be married, and with inflation at less than half of what it was just four years ago, they can look forward with confidence to the future. It’s morning again in America, and under the leadership of President Reagan, our country is prouder and stronger and better. Why would we ever want to return to where we were less than four short years ago?’

So goes the text of one of the most successful political ads in American history, ‘Morning in America,’ which was the theme of the 1984 presidential campaign of incumbent President Ronald Reagan asking the American people for a second term. Continue reading →

BY JOHN FEEHERY
MAR 4  |  Reprinted from TheFeeheryTheory.com

“One clear loser in Thursday’s debate: the Grand Old Party,” blared The Washington Post.

“Welcome to the GOP civil war,” Politico chimed in.

“A Heated Debate Along a Growing Republican Divide,” agreed the New York Times.

Does Donald Trump really represent an existential threat to the future of the GOP?

I don’t think so. Continue reading →

BY RICH GALEN
MAR 4 | Reprinted from Mullings.com

I’ve been involved with politics since I was in college which is a long, long time ago. I have never been through a day like today.

I am including in that election day (and night) 2000 when Bush won Florida, then Florida was too close to call, then we descended into the nightmare of the recount – a process that didn’t end until December 12, 2000.

I covered local politics as the news director of WMOA Radio (1490 on your AM dial in Marietta, Ohio 45750). I ran for City Council twice. Lost by two votes the first time, but won in a walk the second time when the Mullings Director of Standards and Practices ran my campaign. Continue reading →