BY RICH GALEN
Reprinted from Mullings.com
President Barack Obama is now officially a boat anchor hanging around the necks of Democrats running for public office from east to west; from north to south and, if there is another dimension – like The Cloud – he’s a hindrance there, too.
A bunch of polls have been released this week, all of which show that, as of now, a basic distrust of the President’s abilities are baked into the American consciousness. Continue reading
BY JOHN FEEHERY
Reprinted from TheFeeheryTheory.com
So, you want all of the illegal aliens to leave your local school? Then you should support common sense immigration reform.
Stanford historian Ana Raquel Minian completed an exhaustive study, consistent with other research, which found that the more the border was militarized, the more immigrants who arrived here without documentation decided to stay in America. Continue reading
BY RICH GALEN
Reprinted from Mullings.com
While waiting for some actual news about that missing airliner, my attention moved back to Ukraine generally, and to the whole sanction thing in particular.
In the modern era when one country – say the United States – decides to use sanctions to bring to bear a change in behavior of another country – say Iran – the sanctions often include freezing any accounts with any connection to the sanctioned nation. Continue reading
BY RICH GALEN
Reprinted from Mullings.com
A minor food fight has broken out among news anchors over the amount of attention the missing Malaysian airliner is getting on the Cable news programs.
There is no question that CNN has glommed onto this story and is not letting go. The other cable nets are often leading with the latest theory, conjecture, or unsourced leak, but then go onto other things like the Russian annexation of Crimea. Continue reading
BY JOHN FEEHERY
Reprinted from TheFeeheryTheory.com
America likes winners. They vote against losers.
Obamacare is not the reason that the Republicans are going to win big this fall. Or at least, not the sole reason.
President Obama is.
The American people abhor weak leadership. Continue reading
BY RICH GALEN
Reprinted from Mullings.com
When I first came to Our Nation’s Capital in 1977, Democrats held a 292-143 edge in the U.S. House – an astonishing 149 seat majority.
Over the next nearly four decades I have had to do what the poor writers at the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) had to do Tuesday night after the results of the special election in Florida came in. Continue reading
BY JOHN FEEHERY
Reprinted from TheFeeheryTheory.com
So the lobbyist beat the Obamacare supporter in the special election in Florida?
And the race wasn’t even that close.
David Jolly, a former lobbyist and former Staff Member to Congressman Bill Young, beat Alex Sink, a pretty well-known and well-funded Democrat who seemingly and improbably embraced Obamacare during the Continue reading
BY MICHAEL S. JOHNSON
“Unfortunately, many Americans live on the outskirts of hope…. Our task is to help replace their despair with opportunity. This administration today, here and now, declares unconditional war on poverty in America.”
President Lyndon Johnson, State of the Union, January, 1964
“Today, the poverty rate is stuck at 15 percent—the highest in a generation. And the trends are not encouraging. Federal programs are not only failing to address the Continue reading
BY RICH GALEN
Reprinted from Mullings.com
Can we take a day off from Ukraine and CPAC and missing airliners to celebrate something very special? It’s the need for most of us to want to learn new things; and for being blessed by having a few people who know about those things and, more important, know how to explain them to the rest of us.
A re-booted version of the fabulously successful 80s program about space, “Cosmos; A Personal Journey,” which was hosted by the late Dr. Carl Sagan (pronounced SAY-gun) premiered jointly last night on all 10 20th Century Fox networks including the National Geographic Channel, FX, and Fox (the one that features the NFL). Continue reading
BY JOHN FEEHERY
Reprinted from TheFeeheryTheory.com
CPAC started small, with a few Young Americans for Freedom (better known as Yaffers) and some folks from the American Conservative Union coming together to plot the future of a movement.
Richard Nixon was President, America was in the throes of social and cultural revolution, memories of Barry Goldwater’s epic failure in 1964 was still relatively fresh in the minds of activists, and Ronald Reagan was the hero they all hoped would save them. Continue reading
BY RICH GALEN
Reprinted from Mullings.com
In addition to Vladimir Putin’s strutting and fretting his hour upon the world stage, the big news out of the U.S. Senate yesterday was that seven Democrats voted with all 44 Republicans on a test vote on the confirmation of a guy named Debo Adegbile to be the head of the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice.
It was a nomination put forward with some vigor by President Barack Obama. Continue reading
BY RICH GALEN
Reprinted from Mullings.com
In the late 1980s, there were teams of Americans – Republicans and Democrats – who were deployed to nations that had been members of the Warsaw Pact but were now free of the Soviet yoke.
We worked with local groups to help them jump start political organizations. Center Right parties were guided by teams sent by the International Republican Institute (IRI); Center Left parties were aided by teams sent by Continue reading
BY JOHN FEEHERY
Reprinted from TheFeeheryTheory.com
They fall for it every time. Those in the media who decide what is and what isn’t news can’t help themselves.
Anything that has anything to do with the gay community has to immediately become a national issue.
So, of course, this stupid bill in Arizona had the feel of the Cuban Missile Crisis. Will we go to Def Con 4? Continue reading
BY JOHN FEEHERY
Reprinted from TheFeeheryTheory.com
“Don’t tax you. Don’t tax me. Tax that fella behind the tree.”
That’s how legendary Finance Committee Chairman Russell Long summed up the basic view of most Americans about tax policy.
The Beatles put it a different way:
Let me tell you how it will be
There’s one for you, nineteen for me Continue reading
BY RICH GALEN
Reprinted from Mullings.com
I have been to Ukraine twice in the past four years – in January 2010 and in October 2012. None of what has gone on there over the past few months is my fault. I was on my best behavior – for me – and I left the country more-or-less as I had found it in each instance.
Ukraine – and that is its preferred name, not The Ukraine – is basically divided into two parts: The west, that as you might expect is European-facing, and the east, that feels closer in distance and culture to Russia. Continue reading
BY JOHN FEEHERY
Reprinted from TheFeeheryTheory.com
Young people are knuckleheads. That’s what the First Lady said on Jimmy Fallon last night.
Thanks for the clarification.
Michelle Obama was making the case that younger Americans need to wise up and sign up for her President’s health care plan. They don’t know how to cook and often slice their fingers on sharp knives. That is why young people need Obamacare.
Or they could buy Neosporin and a band-aide. Continue reading
BY RICH GALEN
Reprinted from Mullings.com
Over the past three weeks the Congressional Budget Office (better known as the CBO) has made a great deal of news.
First, opponents of Obamacare (of whom I am one) pointed to a report at the beginning of February in which the CBO seemed to claim that the law would cause the loss of some 2.3 million jobs over the next three years.
It appears that what the CBO really said was even worse: The jobs will be there but more than two million people will find it financially more beneficial to sit at home and watch NCIS reruns, leaving home only to get their prescriptions for medical marijuana filled. Continue reading
BY JOHN FEEHERY
Reprinted from TheFeeheryTheory.com
I am in favor of comprehensive immigration reform that tightens the border, legalizes the status of the 11 million immigrants who live in society’s shadows now, provides a fair pathway to folks who want to be citizens in this country, and provides both tools and incentives to businesses so that they don’t hire people who are here illegally in the future.
But I am opposed to turning this country into a police state.
That’s why I was concerned about a story I read in the Washington Post this morning. The story read: “The Department of Homeland Security wants a private company to provide a national license-plate tracking system that would give the agency access to vast amounts of information from commercial and law enforcement tag readers, Continue reading
BY MICHAEL S. JOHNSON
“President Obama does a disservice to Norwegians, to himself and, above all, to the people of the United States by sending such an unqualified person to represent him and us in the capital of a long-standing NATO ally.”
Lehigh University professional Henri Barkey on the appointment of campaign bundler George Tsunis as Ambassador to Norway. Tsunis joins about 40 other political ambassadorial appointees, some of whom can’t speak the language, or know a great deal about the government, or ever visited the country to which they are being posted.
BY RICH GALEN
Reprinted from Mullings.com
Earlier this week Speaker John Boehner avoided a showdown on the debt limit through the simple maneuver of getting 193 Democrats to join 28 Republicans to pass the legislation taking the debt limit off the table until March of next year.
The Washington Post’s discussion of the whole thing called the 221-201 tally “a narrow vote” forgetting, perhaps, that the infamous vote to approve Obamacare cleared the House by an overwhelming 219-212. Seven votes.
199 Republicans voted against the debt limit bill – although I suspect there were several sitting on the edge of their pew waiting to see if their “Aye” vote would be needed. Continue reading