BY RICH GALEN
JUL 6 | Reprinted from Mullings.com

Let me say, at the outset, that I am so far out of my depth in this issue that, if I look up, all I see is a sea of numbers. If I were you I would roll my eyes, sigh loudly, hit the DELETE key, and return to a close examination of this morning’s postings by your Facebook friends.

If you’re still with me, hang on.

Voters in Greece, yesterday, rejected an austerity program that would have allowed the European Central Bank (the European Union’s Fed) to lend money to Greek banks so they would have enough Euros to pay depositors. Continue reading →

BY MICHAEL S. JOHNSON  |  JUL 2

Charleston has now buried its dead. The nine victims of Dylan Roof have been immortalized.

The families of the victims have reacted with truly amazing grace, not sung but practiced. They have offered one of the most difficult yet most meaningful gifts one human being can offer another — forgiveness.

“I just wanted everybody to know to you I forgive you,” Nadine Collier, the daughter of victim Ethel Lance, said to Roof during his first court appearance. “We are here to combat hate-filled actions with love-filled actions,” Alana Simmons, who lost her grandfather, Pastor Daniel L. Simmons Sr., said. Continue reading →

BY JOHN FEEHERY
JUN 30 | Reprinted from TheFeeheryTheory.com

Originally published in the Wall Street Journal’s Think Tank

It took nine decades for Congress and the states to amend the Constitution to allow for the direct election of U.S. senators.

It took only a few years–and a couple of months before the Supreme Court–for control of congressional redistricting to be taken away from politicians and put directly into the hands of the people. Continue reading →

BY RICH GALEN
JUN 29 | Reprinted from Mullings.com

I was very, very disappointed as I awoke Friday morning. I turned on CNN, then Fox, then MSNBC, even Bloomberg looking for some report of a flying saucer having landed on the National Mall near the Washington Monument.

I even practiced saying Klaatu barada nikto in case it missed by a little and ended up in the Potomac River at Alexandria, Virginia and I had to communicate with Gort.

After the dire predictions leading up to (a) the Congressional action on Trade Promotion Authority then the Supreme Court rulings on (b) Obamacare and (c) Freedom to Marry I thought for sure last Friday would be the day the Earth Stood Still. Continue reading →

BY RICH GALEN
JUN 25 | Reprinted from Mullings.com

I got my letter from the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) alerting me that I might/could/probably/was included in the 4/8/18/32 million records that are now being pored over like the White House travel staff’s in Hillary Clinton’s office.

The U.S. government believes the Chinese government is behind this.

The hack that was originally reported by the Democratic Administration of President Barack Obama included the social security numbers, dates of birth and – for all we know our mothers’ maiden names – of people who not only worked in some branch of the federal government, but had ever applied for a job with some branch of the federal government. Continue reading →

BY JOHN FEEHERY
JUN 23 | Reprinted from TheFeeheryTheory.com

It’s easy for me to say it.

I am from Illinois. I was taught, growing up, that Abe Lincoln was America’s greatest President and that the Civil War was a noble cause to keep the Union together and to rid the nation of the ugly stain of slavery.

So, for me, it’s a no-brainer. The Confederate Battle Flag belongs in a museum, not outside any State Capitol.

I am a history buff, so I actually think the Rebel flag is an interesting item for the museum.

The flag itself is visually attractive. Continue reading →

BY RICH GALEN
JUN 22 | Reprinted from Mullings.com

I don’t want to add to the blathering and hand wringing over what happened when Dylann Roof killed nine people at the Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina.

But, we can’t help but wonder how a 21-year-old man – barely a man – could get to a place in his head that not only made his act possible, but apparently made it inevitable.

I don’t want to play politics with this. I am a member of the NRA and will continue to be one, but background checks for all types of firearms are hard to argue with. I have a pistol. It’s locked inside a heavy plastic container with a trigger lock inside of that. I am (or was) a pretty good shot. Continue reading →

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

The killings in South Carolina have produced many human emotions, some expected, some unexpected.

The unexpected are what struck me the most. First, let me say, this was a, premeditated, horrible mass murder for reasons we all know – the racist basis for them, the chilling shooter sitting in the Bible Study group an hour before pulling out his gun and killing everyone there except one he wanted as a witness to his killings, to the cold, empty eyes we’re becoming too accustomed to seeing when photos of these killers are published. Continue reading →

BY JOHN FEEHERY
JUN 17 | Reprinted from TheFeeheryTheory.com

I like Jeb Bush and I want him to be President.

But when he says about the Pope’s coming encyclical on climate change, “I think religion ought to be about making us better as people and less about things that end up getting in the political realm,” he is being completely disingenuous.

And despite Jesus’s admonition to “Give what belongs to Caesar that which belongs to Caesar and that which belongs to God to God,” the idea that the Pope should butt out of issues like climate change is nonsense. Continue reading →

BY RICH GALEN
JUN 11 | Reprinted from Mullings.com

The New York Times, last week, published an article detailing the driving record of Florida Senator Marco Rubio and his wife. According to the article, “A review of records dating back to 1977 shows that the couple had a combined 17 traffic violations: Mr. Rubio with four and his wife with 13.”

As you can imagine, that set off a firestorm in the Twitterverse with numerous examples of combining disparate numbers to arrive at a large total.

If I had joined in, my Tweet might have been: “Boone Pickens and I have about a billion dollars in assets.” Continue reading →

BY MICHAEL S. JOHNSON  |  JUN 9

“Who were these guys?” I thought. “And what were they doing here?”

It was a cold January day in 1977, the second of January to be exact. The two other guys were sitting in overstuffed leather chairs in Room 2112 in the Rayburn House Office building just across the street from the U.S. Capitol.

The three of us were meeting for the first time. We were brought together as part of the new leadership staff of the freshly minted Republican Whip in the House, Bob Michel of Illinois. We were all recruited by Michel’s chief of staff, Ralph Vinovich, who cut his political teeth on the staff of the venerable Senator from Illinois, Everett Dirksen. At the time, Michel represented the changing of the guard in Republican leadership. It was, yet again, time for new beginnings, for all of us. Continue reading →

BY JOHN FEEHERY
JUN 2 | Reprinted from TheFeeheryTheory.com

You don’t have to be a sociologist or a criminal studies major to figure this out. The headlines are pretty stark.

In the NY Times:

Shootings in New York City have been rising for two straight years, the first time that has happened since the end of the 1990s, when the city was still in the early years of a remarkable downturn in crime. Continue reading →

BY JOHN FEEHERY
MAY 12 | Reprinted from TheFeeheryTheory.com

Robin Hayes openly wept on the House Floor after voting to give President Bush fast track authority late in 2001. He thought the vote in favor of TPA would cost him his seat.

He wasn’t the only one.

Many folks cried when Republicans passed TPA at President Bush’s request, but many shed only crocodile tears, hoping upon hope to get political and other help from the White House and the GOP Leadership. Continue reading →

BY B. JAY COOPER
MAY 12 | Reprinted from The Screaming Moderate (bjaycooper.com)

Politics ain’t bean bag. Neither is football.

The New England Patriots are having one of their worst weeks, and this after yet another Super Bowl championship. They cheated, or so says the NFL. Therefore, quarterback and all-American perceived nice guy Tom Brady will be suspended for four games, which means a loss of about $2 million in pay, and his team is being fined another million. Why? Because, the league says, they intentionally deflated footballs to make them more easily gripped by one of the best QBs ever to play the pro game. As if he needs such an advantage.  Continue reading →

BY RICH GALEN
MAY 11 | Reprinted from Mullings.com

The results of the elections in the United Kingdom last week were the latest, not the first, surprise if “surprise” is based upon what the pre-election polls were saying. The Conservative Party had been tipped (as they say in the British papers) to play to a tie with the Labour (as they spell it in Britain) Party at the the six-week campaign.

When the dust settled (as they said in the old West), the Tories (another name for the Conservative Party) romped not just to the most seats in the 650-seat Parliament, but an absolute majority of 331 seats – a feat the Tories had not accomplished since 1992. Continue reading →

BY JOHN FEEHERY
MAY 8 | Reprinted from TheFeeheryTheory.com

Jim Wright left a mark.

I came to Washington to work for House Republican Leader Bob Michel in September of 1989, about four months after the Texas Democrat stepped down in disgrace.

Wright had run roughshod over the House Minority, radicalizing Members like Dick Cheney, and empowering bomb-throwers like Newt Gingrich.

The future House Speaker was strangely inspired by the Speaker he successfully deposed. He too would be brought down by a passion to sell books. He too would marry a Congressional Continue reading →

BY RICH GALEN
APR 30 | Reprinted from Mullings.com

Baltimore is only about 40 miles from Washington, DC. For decades Baltimore was where we went to watch Major League Baseball. There was a stadium in the middle of a neighborhood on 33rd Street.

We commiserated with the city when the owners of the Baltimore Colts NFL team snuck out of town, literally, in the dead of night and surfaced in Indianapolis.

The Inner Harbor has been a showplace for the revitalization of a downtown area since it was substantially completed in 1965. The Orioles and the Baltimore Ravens have stadiums that share a parking lot adjacent to the area. Continue reading →

BY RICH GALEN
APR 28 | Reprinted from Mullings.com

Last week General David Petraeus, as the result of a plea agreement, was sentenced to two years probation and a $100,000 fine for the crime of, as reported by CNN.com, “sharing classified information with his biographer and lover, Paula Broadwell.” He was allowed to plead guilty to a misdemeanor rather than a felony.

The notebooks he shared with Broadwell “included notes from national security meetings, the identities of covert officers, and more classified documents,” according to CNN.

I have met David Petraeus although he would have to feign knowing me if we ran into one another. He rose to the rank of Four-Star General – the highest rank in the United States Military – on the basis of being smart, being good looking, being an excellent military strategist, and Continue reading →

BY B. JAY COOPER
APR 21 | Reprinted from The Screaming Moderate (bjaycooper.com)

Remember when you’d wait anxiously, day to day for the mail to arrive because you were expecting a letter from someone (okay, I’m talking to people over 30 here who remember snail mail), or a delivery of something you bought mail order?

Well, last week I signed up for Medicare. And while I got an email a few days later saying that a decision had been made on my application, of course it didn’t say what the decision was but that I’d be getting a letter telling me soon (because why shouldn’t the federal government, which is rolling in dough, spend a few more shekels on a stamp?).

Well, yesterday it arrived. I’m officially registered for Medicare which starts in a few months when I actually do turn 65 (65? Oy). Continue reading →

BY JOHN FEEHERY
APR 21 | Reprinted from TheFeeheryTheory.com

The first major law passed by the Congress under our current Constitution and signed by President Washington was the Tariff Act of 1789. Declared the Second Declaration of Independence by the local newspapers at the time, the new law put taxes on products made overseas to benefit American manufacturers.

James Madison, as a leader in the newly formed legislative branch, navigated passage of the law, attempting to balance the sectional interests of the country. Southerners largely favored lower tariffs, because they exported the bulk of their products (mostly cotton and tobacco) overseas, while Northern manufacturers favored higher duties, because they didn’t want the competition from Europe and their market was largely domestic. Continue reading →