BY JOHN FEEHERY
Reprinted from TheFeeheryTheory.com
It was Molly’s first State of the Union Address (she is four months old) and whatever the President said clearly didn’t agree with her. To say she was fussy would be an understatement. She moaned. She complained. She cried. And then she burped.
Okay, well maybe she had a bad case of gas. But after the listening to the President spend some more of her money, I wouldn’t blame her if she were more than a bit upset. Continue reading
BY RICH GALEN
Reprinted from Mullings.com
“The state of the Union,” the President reported last night, “is stronger.”
He said, to prove his point, we have created more new jobs, sold more American cars, bought less foreign oil, and are sending fewer soldiers into battle.
That is like saying (on the day pitchers and catchers officially reported to Spring Training sites) that a batter going 4-for-4 has raised his batting average by .100 percentage points, without pointing out he was batting .053 and is now batting .153. Continue reading
BY JOHN FEEHERY
Reprinted from TheFeeheryTheory.com
Free from the burdens of a reelection campaign, presidents who win second terms reveal themselves when they come to Congress to give their fifth State of the Union address.
They can’t say the same thing that they just said in their inaugural address, because that would be really boring (not that most States of the Unions aren’t boring. They are.)
George W. Bush revealed himself to be a confident gambler who decided to bet all of his chips on Social Security reform. Bill Clinton revealed himself to Continue reading
BY RICH GALEN
Reprinted from Mullings.com
From Paris, France
I am in Paris for one afternoon and overnight because the non-stop service from Oujda, Morocco to Dulles International Airport just outside Washington, DC hasn’t yet begun. We flew into Orly Airport which is the Newark Airport of Europe. If you can arrange a trip that doesn’t include Orly, I recommend you do that. But, any story that ends with, “and then we had dinner in Paris” is a pretty good story.
Washington, DC is awash in activity surrounding the President’s State of the Union address tomorrow night at nine Eastern time. Continue reading
BY MICHAEL S. JOHNSON
“Traffic signals in New York are just rough guidelines.” –David Letterman
The same could be said for Washington, DC. Do you ever get the feeling that some people are deluded into believing traffic laws weren’t meant for them?
Take bicyclists, for example. Rarely do their bikes have lights, reflectors, fenders or license plates. They don’t have to signal turns or wear helmets. They zip through stop signs and red lights, ride the wrong way down one-way streets and swear at you if you get in their way. They hold up traffic, dart Continue reading
BY FRANK HILL
Reprinted from Telemachus.com
Sometimes, it is just smarter (and easier) to let people who are smarter than you explain complicated things.
Such is the case with Chuck Blahous, a long-time friend from Washington DC who is now a trustee on the Social Security and Medicare Trust Fund. We were about to plow through the CBO update on long-term economic and budget projections that came out yesterday when we saw Chuck’s summary come in our email inbox.
CBO reported that ‘deficits would fall below $1 trillion!’ for the first time in 4 years. People from the White House on down, including the President, Continue reading
BY JOHN FEEHERY
Reprinted from TheFeeheryTheory.com
Karl Rove is probably a cafeteria conservative. So am I.
Cafeteria Catholics are Catholics who go to Mass on a regular, or semi-regular basis, but don’t exactly follow all the rules of the Catholic Church.
The Catholic Church has a lot of rules. No pre-marital sex. No masturbation. No birth control. No gay stuff. No abortion. No meat on Fridays. No food an hour before you take communion.
Lots of Catholics tend to pick and choose among these rules. The no pre- Continue reading
BY RICH GALEN
Reprinted from Mullings.com
From Rabat, Morocco
Yesterday I had the great opportunity to meet with, and do some teaching to, women members of the Moroccan Parliament and, a little later in the day, the journalism school students who want to, one day, cover them.
This trip is sponsored by Legacy International through a grant from the U.S. Department of State.
It was not all that long ago that women members of Congress in the U.S were still an oddity, and women members of the Senate were a rarity. In the 113th Continue reading
BY JOHN FEEHERY
Reprinted from TheFeeheryTheory.com
I have a bright idea. Let’s end the war on drugs and then let’s launch a new war against illegal guns.
The war on drugs, much like Prohibition in the 1920’s, makes our country more violent and gives criminals the ability to corner the market on the recreational drug industry.
Most people in our prisons (which are over-capacity, by the way) are there because of a connection to the illegal drug trade. Continue reading
BY RICH GALEN
Reprinted from Mullings.com
From Rabat, Morocco
I am in Morocco with Mullpal Peter Fenn as a bipartisan team to meet with and help train young people in and out of the Moroccan government on communication strategies.
The trip is sponsored by Legacy International through a grant from the U.S. Department of State. Continue reading
BY JOHN FEEHERY
Reprinted from TheFeeheryTheory.com
The real budget battle in Washington is not between Republicans and Democrats or conservatives and liberals. The real budget battle in Washington is between discretionary spending vs. entitlement spending.
What the hell does that mean?
Discretionary spending is basically money authorized and then approved each year by Congress. Entitlement spending is money that automatically Continue reading
BY RICH GALEN
Reprinted from Mullings.com
I subscribe to the general theory that a President, Republican or Democrat, should be able to have the people running his Departments, Commissions, and Agencies that he wants.
Unless there is some overriding disqualifying reason to reject him or her, the Senate should abide by the terms of Article II, Section 2 that says the President, “shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint … Officers of the United States.”
The nomination of Chuck Hagel to be Secretary of Defense is an excellent case in point.
I may not agree with Hagel on the 3 I’s – Iran, Iraq, and Israel – but we don’t generally allow Secretaries of Defense to make foreign policy. Nor, for that matter, do Secretaries of State make foreign policy. Continue reading
BY ROBERT WALKER AND CHARLES MILLER
Reprinted from the Wall Street Journal
During his first term, President Obama set out to transform NASA’s relationship with the private sector, announcing a plan in February 2010 to make technology, innovation and commercial space travel and exploration the centerpiece of his administration’s space strategy. Despite great resistance from special interests, the president proposed to cancel NASA’s programs to build government-designed rockets, leaving that to the private sector.
Unfortunately, Congress wouldn’t go along. Now that Mr. Obama has started a second term, however, he is well positioned to recommit himself to a vision that in the long run will benefit every American and may be remembered as a 30-year arc of Reagan-Bush-Obama space policy. Continue reading
BY RICH GALEN
Reprinted from Mullings.com
In another example of his highly developed strategy of “leading from behind,” President Barack Obama gave a speech in Las Vegas coming out in favor of Immigration Reform just a day after a group of Senators announced the outlines of a bipartisan plan for … Immigration Reform.
Get used to this. In his first four years in office, President Obama pretended he had nothing to do with almost anything going on with the economy or in foreign policy. If it was going badly – whatever “it” might have been – it was all George W’s fault. Or the Republicans in Congress. Or both.
If it was going well – whatever “it” might have been – it was a first person victory “I did it,” or “My administration did it.” Continue reading
BY RICH GALEN
Reprinted from Mullings.com
We all know the term “The Bill of Rights” which are the first 10 amendments to the U.S. Constitution although few of us (including me) could name them.
Hint: None of them start “Thou shalt not …” Rather they tend to start “The Government (or Congress) shalt not …” Keep that in mind.
The First Amendment is a catch-all of rights upon which the Congress may not trample: It protects an individual’s freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and freedom of the press, as well as the right to assemble and to petition the government. The American press corps is very, very focused on the First Amendment and will go to great lengths to make sure that right is not diminished. Continue reading
BY MICHAEL S. JOHNSON
“Illegal aliens have always been a problem in the United States. Ask any Indian.”
There is as much truth as humor in those words from my friend and former colleague Bob Orben, a brilliant political speechwriter and comedy script craftsman (sometimes they are one and the same, but I digress).
The point is that Americans have been both immigrants and native population. Many of us are the progeny of immigrants. But despite our heritage, we still struggle with immigration, both legal and illegal, how we feel about it and what we should do or not do to integrate new arrivals into a burgeoning and diversifying American society.
BY JOHN FEEHERY
Reprinted from TheFeeheryTheory.com
John Boehner might be right. The President may very well want to annihilate the Republican Party. But if that is true it is going to take far longer than Mr. Obama thinks.
Obama’s speech on Monday and his efforts to force gun control on an unwilling Senate served two invaluable purposes for the GOP. First, it unified them to an extent that they haven’t been unified in a long while. Second, it made it awfully hard for Harry Reid to keep control of the Senate. Continue reading
BY JOHN FEEHERY
Reprinted from TheFeeheryTheory.com
The President’s second inaugural brilliantly pushed forward his political agenda in ways that Republicans need to understand and learn from.
Republicans will never be able to outbid the President when it comes to coalition politics. But they need to appreciate how coalition politics, as practiced by the Democrats in the Obama era, is played and they need to come up with a game plan to counter it.
The President’s message was aspirational for the country, inspirational for his coalition partners and infuriating for his opposition. He was able to make the cause of his diverse coalition – gays, immigrants, anti-gun people, African-Americans, Hispanics, poor people – seemingly the most important cause of the nation. And he dared the Republicans to oppose it. Continue reading
BY RICH GALEN
Reprinted from Mullings.com
One hundred years, and 100 pounds ago I was the coxswain on the freshman crew at Marietta College, Marietta, Ohio 45750.
During that year I learned that “starboard” means right facing forward, and “port” means left facing forward. President Barack Obama’s inaugural address on Monday was a clear signal that he intends to steer the ship of state hard a-port.
During the speech I Tweeted that it was “⅓ Gettysburg, ⅓ FDR, and ⅓ State of the Union.”
The speech didn’t have the traditional reach across the aisle to the other political party suggesting Republicans and Democrats are smart enough, dedicated enough, and patriotic enough to find common ground and make America a better place. Continue reading
BY MICHAEL S. JOHNSON
Newly inaugurated President Barack H. Obama left the balcony of the west front of the Capitol and paused before going inside. He turned around and looked back down the mall at the throng that had just witnessed him taking the oath of office for his second term. It was a poignant moment. There was this triumphant, historic figure prolonging the experience, taking just one last look at a scene he will never see again, a scene that framed one of the greatest achievements of his lifetime. Continue reading