BY JOHN FEEHERY
Reprinted from TheFeeheryTheory.com
When I was a teenager, Space Invaders was one of most popular video games. The premise, for those who have recently arrived from space, was pretty simple: Shoot down incoming missiles that descended from the sky before they landed on your missile silos.
We seem to live increasingly in a space invader world.
Things keep coming down from the sky and it is getting harder and harder to shoot them down. Continue reading
BY RICH GALEN
Reprinted from Mullings.com
America Held Hostage: Sequester Day 8
It didn’t snow in DC on Wednesday so I spent the entire afternoon watching Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) filibustering the nomination of John Brennan to be the director of the Central Intelligence Agency.
Sen. Paul’s issue wasn’t with Brennan; it was with the refusal of President Barack Obama to describe his position on using drones to kill people generally, and Americans in particular, on U.S. soil. Continue reading
BY MICKEY EDWARDS
It has become common in recent years for self-described Republican “conservatives” to target for defeat in party primaries those candidates (including incumbent officeholders) whom they consider Republicans In Name Only (“RINOs).
This purification process is based on the rational view that if one believes in party-based governance, Republican voters should elect those candidates who most accurately reflect what the party stands for. It’s a view that confuses America’s constituent-based governing system with the parliamentary systems the Founders rejected (for good reason) but I’m willing to accept the anti-RINO logic even if based on a faulty premise. Continue reading
BY RICH GALEN
Reprinted from Mullings.com
America Held Hostage: Sequester Day 6
President Barack Obama has shut the White House to visitors. A notice went out yesterday saying that due to the personnel reductions required by the sequester, there will be no public tours after Friday. According to USA Today a recording on the White House tour line was as follows: “Due to staffing reductions resulting from sequestration, we regret to inform you that White House Tours will be canceled effective Saturday, March 9, 2013, until further notice. Unfortunately, we will not be able to reschedule affected tours …”
In case anyone was too dense to get to the “baby puppies, calves, lambs, and kittens will die” part of the announcement, this: “We very much regret having to take this action, particularly during the popular spring tour season.” Continue reading
BY JOHN FEEHERY
Reprinted from TheFeeheryTheory.com
Missing one day of work over 19 years is impressive for just about anybody. But it is more impressive when the person missing that one day of work started his new job at age 71 and is still plugging along at age 90.
Washington celebrated Bob Michel’s 90th birthday last night. And ole Bob gave some pretty good advice to all of his friends about longevity.
He told the assorted crowd, which included over the evening former Speakers of the House Tom Foley, Newt Gingrich, Denny Hastert and Nancy Pelosi, as Continue reading
BY JOHN FEEHERY
Reprinted from TheFeeheryTheory.com
Don’t tell the Tea Party, but the tag team of John Boehner and Mitch McConnell are currently mopping the floor with Barack Obama.
The president convincingly won a second term in November, but since that time, the congressional Republican leadership has outfoxed, outmaneuvered and plain out-strategized him on just about every issue. Continue reading
BY RICH GALEN
Reprinted from Mullings.com
For the next 1,418 days the top issue on the mind of President Barack Obama and his ever-tightening inner circle will involve the six letters: L.E.G.A.C.Y.
Just as years three and four were totally focused on the President’s re-election; so the last two years of his second term will be focused on the legacy he leaves behind.
Will it be Jimmy Carter’s well-intentioned ineptness? Or FDR’s history changing vision?
One thing is for sure: unless the Democrats win control of the House and maintain control of the Senate Obama’s legacy will be an eight-letter word: Gridlock. Continue reading
BY FRANK HILL
Reprinted from Telemachus.com
This ‘Dreaded Sequester’ will apparently only cut $42B out of this year’s fiscal budget. Not $85B as previously reported and feared.
That is according to CBO. That is also less than 1 penny out of every dollar the federal government spends this year. Even Joe Scarborough says so although Mika would disagree with him, of course.
Have you had to cut back a little more than 1 penny per dollar in your spending these past 4 years? Betcha have.
1 penny. Less than 1% of the budget this year. Continue reading
BY FRANK HILL
Reprinted from Telemachus.com
Think about the things ‘very conservative’, ‘far right-wing’, ‘ultra-conservatives’ have wanted to achieve in Congress over the past 40 years.
We’ll give you two hints:
– Long-term, permanent lower tax rates.
– Spending cuts in many bloated federal programs.
Just try to remember the headlines in the liberal media, both electronic and in print, whenever Presidents Reagan, Bush 41, Bush 43 or Speaker Newt Gingrich tried to cut taxes or spending since 1980: Continue reading
BY RICH GALEN
Reprinted from Mullings.com
Well, well, well. Here we are. March first. Sequester day. America Held Hostage; Day One.
President Obama has been criss-crossing the country proclaiming the dire effects of March 1 if the Republicans in the House didn’t bow to his demands. We don’t know what his demands are, but he spent a lot of money accusing the GOP of not caving into them.
The Department of Homeland Security is made up, apparently, of the only group of people in America that believed Obama. A division of DHS got a jump on Sequester Day by letting “several hundred” illegal aliens who were in jail, out of jail and into what a spokesperson called “placed on an appropriate, more cost-effective form of supervised release. Continue reading
BY JOHN FEEHERY
Reprinted from TheFeeheryTheory.com
Bob Woodward doesn’t think much of the Obama White House. You can tell that he doesn’t believe that the President is much of a President. And now the White House is making it pretty clear that it doesn’t think much of Bob Woodward.
This has all come to light in recent days in a bizarre he-said he-said tussle between the veteran Post reporter and Gene Sperling, Obama’s diminutive economic whiz. Politico did a story that said that Sperling threatened Woodward during the course of the argument. The White House pushed back hard and then released the entire email that seemed, in isolation, to be cordial enough.
What it didn’t release was the transcript of the thirty minute screaming match that apparently precipitated the email exchange. Continue reading
BY RICH GALEN
Reprinted from Mullings.com
A recent poll by the Pew organization showed that while those of us in our Nation’s Capital and the 2,375 people who watch cable chat shows are consumed by the looming sequester, the other 75% of Americans are just shrugging, sighing, and smiling knowingly that the world will go on after Friday.
The underlying issue about the size of the deficit (about $1 trillion for FY 2013) and the national debt (a touch under $16.6 trillion) is the way the government spends our money.
Not its money. Our money. Continue reading
BY JOHN FEEHERY
Reprinted from TheFeeheryTheory.com
The Blade Runner was paranoid.
South African Olympic track star Oscar Pistorius shot and killed his beautiful girl-friend and those gun-shots have been heard around the world.
We don’t know if the no-legged phenom was paranoid over a potential intruder (as he maintains) or was paranoid over the beauty’s faithfulness (which the police could charge), but we do know that paranoia played a role.
Paranoia plays a huge role in our national political discussion. Despite the fact that crime is at historic lows, everybody is paranoid that the bad guys are coming to rob them. Continue reading
BY RICH GALEN
Reprinted from Mullings.com
The other day, the President railed against Congressional (read: Republican) inaction on averting the sequester by giving a speech while surrounded by uniformed policemen. The picture was designed to make the point that if the automatic cuts go into effect, people across the country will lose police protection.
Back when mules were the principal form of transportation, I was a member of the City Council of Marietta, Ohio 45750. One of my committee assignments was as chairman of the Police and Fire Committee. Continue reading
BY JOHN FEEHERY
Reprinted from TheFeeheryTheory.com
The New York Times ran a story about a staff hire in Senator Reid’s office. It was your typical cynical report about the “revolving door,” in the world of politics. Here is an excerpt:
“Take what happened late last month as Washington geared up for more fights about taxing, spending, and the deficit. The Senate majority leader, Harry Reid, Democrat of Nevada, decided to bolster his staff’s expertise on taxes. Continue reading
BY RICH GALEN
Reprinted from Mullings.com
The latest projectile-sweat-producing event in our nation’s capital is the looming automatic cuts in the federal budget known as “sequestration.”
Sequestration is not a word we get to use every day in a sentence, most of us, but it is fun to say because we get to use the tip and the back of our tongues to say it.
According to Webster’s, sequestration is a 14th century word from the Latin sequesrare – to hand over to a trustee or some other third party. Today it is an Continue reading
BY JOHN FEEHERY
Reprinted from TheFeeheryTheory.com
There are two ways to look at the proposal to increase the minimum wage put out by the President in his State of the Union Address.
There is the way that economists and small business owners look at it: Increasing the minimum wage makes it harder for businesses to hire workers.
Then there is the way that some on the left look at it: Only by increasing the minimum wage will you entice people off of welfare and into the workforce. Continue reading
BY JOHN FEEHERY
Reprinted from TheFeeheryTheory.com
When I was a kid, we got both Washington’s Birthday and Lincoln’s Birthday off of school. That made February a fun month for kids. Not so much for parents.
These days, we celebrate their birthday on the same day. It’s kind of like when my wife decided to combine our son’s birthday party with the birthday party of one of his classmates. Saved time and money, and hey, it was fun for the whole family.
So, now we have President’s Day, which give us a good excuse to read books on all of the Presidents. I am currently reading a biography of George Washington Continue reading
BY RICH GALEN
Reprinted from Mullings.com
Quick! What’s the name of the White House Chief of Staff?
I didn’t know, either. It’s Denis McDonough.
He was only appointed to the post by President Barack Obama January 25, meaning he has been on the job for less than a month. Yesterday he showed being a foreign policy expert does not a political expert make when he got himself involved in immigration reform. Continue reading
BY FRANK HILL
Reprinted from Telemachus.com