BY MICHAEL S. JOHNSON

The woman sat behind her desk, her face buried in the computer screen, busily scanning, clicking, and shuffling her mouse in one direction and then another–you know with that pounding and scraping sound you make when you’re not happy with what you’re seeing.  She scanned the screen some more. Then she turned to me.

“What is your cell phone number?” she asked.

I told her.

“What are the last four digits of your Social Security number?” she asked.   Continue reading →

BY WILLIAM F. GAVIN

“Obama sets own pace as global crises erupt,” said a front-page headline in the Washington Post on August 31. “Deliberative approach to foreign affairs fuels criticism as world’s problems multiply.”

With all due respect to the Post, it seems to me that what our country needs is more, not less, deliberation in the making of public policy, especially in foreign affairs. Deliberation is prudence in action, and prudence is one of the bedrock virtues of conservatism.  Continue reading →

BY JOHN FEEHERY
Reprinted from TheFeeheryTheory.com

Who are these guys?

That’s the famous line from the classic movie, “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.” It could also be asked of the Sunni insurgency that has overtaken a healthy portion of Iraq and Syria.

They are called alternately ISIS or ISL which stands for either the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria or the Islamic State of the Levant. Continue reading →

BY MICHAEL S. JOHNSON

“At every step, Russia has come before this council to say everything but the truth. It has manipulated, obfuscated, and outright lied.”

US Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Powers speaking in an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council August 28, 2014

Ambassador Powers seems to represent the United States with great competence and a forceful presence, but her statement last week and those of President Barack Obama on the Russian invasion (why not call it what it is?) of Ukraine raise another question: What is the United States going to do about it? Continue reading →

BY JOHN FEEHERY
Reprinted from TheFeeheryTheory.com

Things were getting desperate. Notre Dame was down 6 and the clock was ticking. Gerry Faust, the former High School football coach, was prowling the sidelines, increasingly panicked.

“Do we have a bomb play?,” he shouted.

I’m not sure if that story is true or not, but my brother and I would always laugh about it as an example of Faust’s incompetence. Continue reading →

BY JOHN FEEHERY
Reprinted from TheFeeheryTheory.com

Originally published in the Wall Street Journal’s Think Tank

Jeb Bush is probably not running. Neither is Mitt Romney. Chris Christie is trying to hard to recover from Bridge-gate but that doesn’t seem likely.

That means there is a huge gap in the Republican field: The responsible one.

Rob Portman, the senator from Ohio, fills that gap quite nicely. And according to news reports, he is thinking about it very seriously. Continue reading →

BY JOHN FEEHERY
Reprinted from TheFeeheryTheory.com

Corporate inversions. The mere mention sends a shudder down the spines of most Americans.

I kid. The American people don’t give a rat’s ass about corporate inversions.

They care about their jobs, their families, their local schools. They worry that a dysfunctional Washington is making it harder for them to get ahead. And increasingly, they wonder about the President’s competence and engagement in the issues. Continue reading →

BY RICH GALEN
Reprinted from Mullings.com

I never crossed paths with James Foley. I regret not having met him.

A free lance reporter of great skill and courage, Foley was murdered, on camera, by the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq by cutting off his head.

I know “beheading” is a mellower term, but I don’t think this kind of barbarism should be softened. Continue reading →

BY JOHN FEEHERY
Reprinted from TheFeeheryTheory.com

I didn’t know James Foley, but I know well the University that shaped him. He studied History and played Rugby and thought about being a teacher in the inner city when he attended Marquette University.

Marquette inspires its students to make a difference in the world in whatever capacity they serve. Continue reading →

BY RICH GALEN
Reprinted from Mullings.com

Let us stipulate that none of us know what happened between Ferguson, Missouri police officer Darren Wilson and Michael Brown. We can also stipulate that the members of the Ferguson Police Department might need some additional training.

The Ferguson PD has 53 officers to serve and protect about 20,000 residents. That seemed high to me, but a quick glance at other places shows that might be about right. Continue reading →

BY JOHN FEEHERY
Reprinted from TheFeeheryTheory.com

I asked my Facebook friends for some reading recommendations. They had plenty.

The most popular was “Unbroken”, the tale of survival and forgiveness by Lauren Hillebrand.

Presidents were popular. “The Bully Pulpit,” a biography of Teddy Roosevelt, got several endorsements. Richard Nixon continues to fascinate. His relationship with Ike and with Mao were recommended in two different books. Continue reading →

BY RICH GALEN
Reprinted from Mullings.com

I know most of you are not terribly interested in foreign affairs. In fact, my experience has been that when I write a column based on something going on somewhere outside the borders of the U.S. of A. my normally quick-to-hit-the-SEND-key readership is just about silent.

Crickets.

Nevertheless, President Barack Obama was elected largely based upon his opposition to the Iraq war. He was against it before he was against it. Continue reading →

BY MICHAEL S. JOHNSON

“Had the FBI decided to stay in its headquarters on Pennsylvania Avenue we would have been happy for them to be here but (that) the federal site did not produce property taxes and most FBI employees were not taxpaying city residents…overall this is hugely positive.”

Washington DC Mayor Vincent Gray, expressing his satisfaction that the Federal Bureau of Investigation is being moved out of the nation’s capital.

The FBI is currently located in a 40-year-old colorless monstrosity right in the heart of Washington, on Pennsylvania Avenue, midway between the White House and the Capitol. The Continue reading →

BY JOHN FEEHERY
Reprinted from TheFeeheryTheory.com

Joseph Stalin famously asked how many divisions did the Pope have? That question is becoming more and more important these days. How many divisions does Christianity have?

The gloves are off in the Middle East. The largest Christian town in Iraq has been over-run by Jihadist Islamic extremists. Continue reading →

BY RICH GALEN
Reprinted from Mullings.com

I bet, that if you wanted to start a real shouting match with the Obamanistas, it wouldn’t do to compare President Obama to George W. Bush, or even Richard Nixon.

The “Fightin’ Words” would be: Ted Cruz.

On the comparison to President George W., the latest NY Times/Wall Street Journal poll has President Obama’s job approval rating at only 40 percent approve; a staggering 54 percent disapproving. Continue reading →

BY RICH GALEN
Reprinted from Mullings.com

From the National Journal’s website: “The Obama administration has spent roughly $840 million on HealthCare.gov, including more than $150 million just in cost overruns for the version that failed so badly when it launched last year.”

$840 million for a website is somewhat more than I spent on my blog, Mullings. About $839,998,250 more. By the way, Mullings was mostly written by Chuck DeFeo who is now the Chief Digital Officer for the Republican National Committee, so you can plainly see how crucial his association with Mullings has been to his career. Continue reading →

BY JOHN FEEHERY
Reprinted from TheFeeheryTheory.com

Who (or what) is to blame for persistent poverty in this country? Is it inequities in the marketplace? Is it the inefficiency and corruption in government programs? Is it the pathologies of the poor? Is it systemic racism?

Liberals tend to believe in economic determinism, based on the old Marxist dialectic. To them, everything must be viewed in terms of capital.

Marx posited in Das Kapital, according to Wikipedia: that the motivating force of capitalism is in the exploitation of labour, whose unpaid work is the ultimate source of profit and surplus Continue reading →

BY RICH GALEN
Reprinted from Mullings.com

There is a growing battle between the Republican-controlled House of Representatives and the Democrat-controlled White House. President Barack Obama is signing what are known as “Executive Orders” to (in the minds of House Republicans) either create laws that don’t exist, or ignore laws that do exist. Continue reading →

BY JOHN FEEHERY
Reprinted from TheFeeheryTheory.com

There’s nothing sacred about having 100 Senators and 435 Members of the House of Representatives.

It was 103 years ago, in August of 1911, when Congress passed the Apportionment Act, which set the number of House Members at the current number. When Alaska and Hawaii entered the union in 1959, that number was allowed to float to 437, but under that law, it sank back to 435 in 1962. Continue reading →

BY B. JAY COOPER
Reprinted from BJayCooper.com

Ruth Marcus, a Washington Post columnist who I respect greatly, has a column today on anonymous news sources and a kerfuffle started by the new White House press secretary, Josh Earnest.

Anonymous sourcing for news stories has been a controversial issue in the journalism industry for years, and a contentious subject in any White House which doesn’t like dealing with stories based on anonymous sources because, a. the stories tend to be true and it’s an easy answer (“we don’t comment on anonymous sources”) and, b. every White House does “background” briefing where officials talk but the ground rule is you can’t use their names. Continue reading →