BY JOHN FEEHERY
Reprinted from TheFeeheryTheory.com
Originally published in The Hill
It’s the easiest story to write for the mostly younger journalists on Capitol Hill: the conservative uprising against the Republican leadership.
Texas Sen. Ted Cruz hosted a press conference last week on the House side, calling for a government shutdown unless the president accepts a provision in the “cromnibus” appropriations bill that would reverse his executive order on immigration. Continue reading
BY JOHN FEEHERY
Reprinted from TheFeeheryTheory.com
Originally published in the Wall Street Journal’s Think Tank
Amid tension over funding the government past next week’s deadline, Congress has invented a term that brings back memories of the 2012 losing Republican presidential nominee–for no reason other than it rhymes with his last name.
What do you get if you combine a short-term continuing resolution with a long-term omnibus spending bill. Continue reading
BY JOHN FEEHERY
Reprinted from TheFeeheryTheory.com
At the demand of the British Nobility, King John included the use of Grand Juries in the Magna Carta, although Henry II had first established the process in 1066.
The Grand Jury was the way the British people put their stamp on their Justice System, taking the power to indict and convict away from the Monarchy and giving it to the citizenry. Continue reading
BY JOHN FEEHERY
Reprinted from TheFeeheryTheory.com
April showers bring May flowers.
The Epigaea repens is a delicate flowering plant that was prevalent at Plymouth Rock, especially in the early 1600’s. It was so prevalent that the 100 or so religious separatists who made Massachusetts home named it the Mayflower, after the ship that brought them to America.
Mayflower was not an uncommon name for a sailing vessel at the time. There had been a Mayflower to sailed against the Spanish Armada when the Catholic power tried to instill its will on a newly Protestant English Monarch.
BY RICH GALEN
Reprinted from Mullings.com
“Compromise,” as others have said before, “is not a four-letter word.” In a January 2014 column in The New York Times, Tom Friedman quoted former U.S. Senator Alan Simpson as having said: “If you can’t learn to compromise on issues without compromising yourself, you should not be in Congress, be in business or get married.”
Note: Sen. Simpson did not warn against being a columnist, being a radio host, or being a panelist on a cable TV program.
Continue reading
BY JOHN FEEHERY
Reprinted from TheFeeheryTheory.com
The President’s power to issue an executive order is not spelled out in the Constitution.
And for the first 75 years or so of our Republic, an executive order wasn’t even made public. They were just directives sent from the White House to the various agencies, telling them what to do.
BY JOHN FEEHERY
Reprinted from TheFeeheryTheory.com
When the President issues his executive order granting temporary amnesty to up to 5 million undocumented immigrants, Republicans are going to be very unhappy.
The big question is: What do they do about it?
Conservatives want to have an early showdown with the President, using the power of the purse. That’s why they are pushing John Boehner and Mitch McConnell to agree to only a short-term continuing resolution to fund the government until March of next year. Continue reading
BY JOHN FEEHERY
Reprinted from TheFeeheryTheory.com
Will Congress and the President come to a meeting of the minds on fixing our broken immigration system or will they continue to play to their political bases in hope that they retain the upper hand on the issue?
That ‘s the big question that hangs over this whole debate.
The President misplayed the issue going into the midterms by promising and then not acting on his promise to use his executive authority to grant legal status to 5 million undocumented immigrants. Continue reading
BY JOHN FEEHERY
Reprinted from TheFeeheryTheory.com
My son plays soccer at Anacostia Field, across the river from Capitol Hill. It’s a short bike ride from the Capitol building and it was there that veterans of the Great War had assembled in 1932.
It had been a muddy swamp, but the grizzled ex-military men built a road and a sanitation system and otherwise made it habitable.
About 43,000 American soldiers came to Anacostia to march on Washington. They were jobless, desperate and angry. And they wanted to redeem certificates granted to them by the Congress in 1924 for a cash bonus. The certificates, a bond really, guaranteed them money for their Continue reading
BY RICH GALEN
Reprinted from Mullings.com
You know the old saying: “A victory has a thousand parents; but a failure is an orphan.”
Democrats in Our Nation’s Capital are busily trying to hang each other’s name over the door of the orphanage that was built over the past two years and officially opened for business last Tuesday night.
Not to rub it in too much but the Obama-led Democrats lost control of the U.S. Senate (by far more than anyone thought), saw the largest GOP majority in the U.S. House since Herbert Hoover’s election in 1928 (although we know how that turned out), and a two-seat pickup in Governors officers (when the GOP was slated to lose as many a net three). Continue reading
BY RICH GALEN
Reprinted from Mullings.com
When Sen. Barack Obama was sworn in as the 44th President of the United States on January 20, 2009 there were 257 Democrats in the U.S. House and 59 Democrats (and independents) in the U.S. Senate. In April, Arlen Spector of Pennsylvania crossed the aisle and became a Democrat giving the Ds a filibuster-proof 60-40 advantage.
His job approval was at 68 percent and he was just months away from being named the recipient of the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize.
By the time the dust settles after this year’s mid-term elections there are likely to be about 185 Democrat members of the House and 46 Democrat members of the Senate. That’s minus 72 in the House and minus 14 in the Senate. Continue reading
BY JOHN FEEHERY
Reprinted from TheFeeheryTheory.com
I couldn’t do it.
Despite talking a big game about being for pot legalization, when I had the chance to vote for the policy, I voted no.
It didn’t matter. DC voters overwhelmingly approved the referendum.
I voted no because I really don’t think the city can handle more pot smokers. Continue reading
BY RICH GALEN
Reprinted from Mullings.com
Help me out with this:
— The Republican “brand” is seriously damaged.
— The number of people voting for Republicans is continuing to shrink.
— Republicans can’t win without increasing the votes of people of color.
— Voters disapprove of the President; dislike Congressional Democrats more; and hate Congressional Republicans most of all.
And, yet, no matter what the final numbers are, there is no doubt this was a huge win for Republicans. Continue reading
BY MICHAEL S. JOHNSON
Pollsters, camera-ready prognosticators, sages and soothsayers, for weeks have been predicting a Republican “wave” election today.
Two eminent Republican pollsters, Glen Bolger and Neil Newhouse had this to say about it in a Washington Post op-ed: “Such a victory gives the Republican Party a significant opportunity to recast itself in the eyes of the voters. But let’s be clear: Winning on Tuesday, will not necessarily portend success in 2016.”
It is not surprising that Bolger and Newhouse couldn’t wait for one election to be over before turning to the next. That is what they do. Continue reading
BY JOHN FEEHERY
Reprinted from TheFeeheryTheory.com
In 1950, Jesse Helms was in charge of publicity for the Senatorial campaign of Wills Smith, a conservative Democrat, a campaign that featured fliers with the unambiguous heading, “Wake Up, White People.”
Helms would later run and win as a Senator from North Carolina. In 1990, running against Harvey Gantt, the Helms campaign released an ad that tightly focused on a pair of white hands, crumpling up a job-rejection letter, with a voice over that he lost the job because they had to hire a minority. Continue reading
BY RICH GALEN
Reprinted from Mullings.com
This is a difficult MULLINGS to write because I am not certain how I would react if it were me.
The issue is mandatory isolation – quarantine – of doctors, nurses, and military personnel who have been in the Ebola area of West Africa. I have unending respect for Americans who make the decision go into dangerous places to help try to save people’s lives.
The case making current news has to do nurse Kaci Hickox who had been in Sierra Leone working with Doctors without Borders. Continue reading
BY JOHN FEEHERY
Reprinted from TheFeeheryTheory.com
The nation’s news media has never been held in lower esteem. And never has that derision been more deserved than in Ferguson. It’s astounding really, how irresponsible the news coverage has been.
The facts are thus. A white cop and a black man get into scuffle. The white cop shoots the black man.
End of story.
Tragic? Yes. But hardly the conspiracy that we have been led to believe by the news media. Continue reading
BY RICH GALEN
Reprinted from Mullings.com
We’ve heard all the chatter about the chances of the GOP taking control of the U.S. Senate in the midterm elections a week from Tuesday.
But what, if that should happen, would that mean, in practice?
First of all, assuming Republicans end up with a net six seats (either through knocking off six Democrats in the elections, getting a few sitting Democrats to switch sides, or both) they will get to organize the Senate. Continue reading
BY WILLIAM F. GAVIN
Through the years (I won’t mention how many) my mind has accumulated a great deal of quotations, not in any systematic way, but through the random process of reading and listening. Many of the quotes that I remember most clearly come from sources—-old radio shows and old songs in particular–not known for providing nourishing food for the mind.
Why I remember certain quotations and not others is a mystery. I wish I could say I know great chunks of the Bible or Shakespeare or Lincoln by heart, but I don’t. Throughout my life, when I try to memorize something special, I almost always fail to do. I can hold my own in a contest to recall song lyrics written by such Golden Age giants as Johnny Mercer, Lorenz Hart, Ira Gershwin, and Cole Porter, but I think this is because the words are accompanied by irresistibly memorable tunes which can be great mnemonic devices. Continue reading
BY RICH GALEN
Reprinted from Mullings.com
I have no interest in adding to the rising level of fear-mongering and finger-pointing that we’re reading, hearing, and seeing about Ebola. It is scary enough without a bunch of people running around like a character in an Edvard Munch painting.
I just looked this up. According to webmd.com an outbreak “happens when a disease occurs in greater numbers than expected in a community or region or during a season.” Continue reading