Monthly Archives: May 2013

The Hatfields and McCoys

BY JOHN FEEHERY
Reprinted from TheFeeheryTheory.com

“These guys are like the Hatfields and McCoys. That’s why they can’t get anything done in Congress.”

My cab driver pretty much nailed it on the head. Relations between the Democrats and the Republicans in Congress have taken on all of the characteristics of that famous family feud.

The Hatfield-McCoy feud started out when a McCoy came home from the Civil War as a Union soldier, angering a group of Hatfields, who had formed a pro-Confederacy vigilante group called the “Logan wildcats.” They promptly murdered him. Continue reading →

Precise Language Matters

BY B. JAY COOPER
Reprinted from BJayCooper.com

Language not only matters (cliché though that is) but begets itself, which can be a problem, too.

Take the last week or so. President Obama told the Syrian government, through the media, that proof of their use of chemical weapons against their own people would cross a “red line.” In fact, it would even be a  “game-changer.” According to news reports, the White House went through a weekend of meetings to discuss the President’s posturing (important in diplomacy) regarding Syria and how he should phrase it. The language he wound up using at a press conference was not what they agreed to and apparently was more direct than they intended. Continue reading →

$248 Million Medicaid ‘Mistake’

BY FRANK HILL
Reprinted from TelemachusLeaps.com

The Governor of North Carolina, Pat McCrory, announced another ‘mistake’ in the Medicaid projections made by the Administration of former Governor Bev Perdue last fall before the elections. Wonder if these underestimations were deliberate in the hopes of helping the Democrat candidate in the gubernatorial race?

Nah, that never happens. Right? ‘Nothing to see here, ladies and gentlemen. Move right along’.

This time, the ‘underestimation’ accounted for $135 million in the state’s largest health care program, Medicaid, for the indigent and infirm. That was on top of another $113 million or so announced earlier this year. Continue reading →

Less Is More

BY RICH GALEN
Reprinted from Mullings.com

In spite of a lot of talk and promises, President Obama is one pick away from filling out his Cabinet-level team for his second term. The scorecard? According to the Washington Post’s Emily Heil and Al Kamen: The number of white men in Cabinet-level jobs increased from eight in the first round to likely 10 in this term and one fewer woman than there were in his first.

Moreover, according to the two writers, the President didn’t do very well in “maintaining diversity, and for those who expected more minorities – especially Latinos – not good at all.”

Assuming Charlotte Mayor Anthony Foxx is confirmed as Transportation Secretary, it “would bring the number of blacks to only three, down from four in the first term.” Continue reading →

Rubio is Right. National Review? Not so Much.

BY JOHN FEEHERY
Reprinted from TheFeeheryTheory.com

I have long been a fan of the National Review.

When I was in college, I would read the National Review to annoy the teachers. I had friends and mentors who wrote for the iconic magazine. I drew inspiration from William Buckley, who was the Godfather of the conservative movement. And you will always be entertained when you pick up a copy of the magazine.

Buckley broke with several conservatives when he came out in favor of legalizing drugs and when he expressed some real doubts about the Iraq war. But that was a while ago, when the conservative magazine marketplace wasn’t very crowded.

Now that publishing niche is very crowded indeed. Weekly Standard has been siphoning off some of its readers. Daily Caller has become the American political version of the Daily Mail.  And of course, the Drudge Report, the conservative news aggregator is the king of all things conservative. Continue reading →

Mark Sanford (R-Appalachian Trail)

BY B. JAY COOPER
Reprinted from BJayCooper.com

I had lunch a recently with an experienced Republican operative who happens to be from the South Carolina congressional district where Mark Sanford, the governor who said he was hiking on the Appalachian Trail but really was in Argentina with his mistress, is running for redemption. I also had dinner recently with a Democratic fund-raiser.

The Democrat and our other dinner companions (all three are Democrats) were joking about Sanford’s travails and saying there is no way he can win the special election. The Republican at lunch said he would win easily (Note: he said this before Sanford was nailed for trespassing in his ex-wife’s house watching the Super Bowl with  his young son and “trespassing,” meaning he violated his divorce agreement). When my Republican friend said the ex-governor would win, I questioned him, too, because my New England-based Continue reading →

The Lamest Lame Duck

BY JOHN FEEHERY
Reprinted from TheFeeheryTheory.com

The President did a press conference yesterday, where he made some news. None of it was good for him.

He said he still has juice in answer to a Jonathan Karl’s question that asked if the President was still relevant. If the media asks you if you still have juice, that is not good, especially if you are a second term President.

He said that he still wants to close down Gitmo. This was one of his original campaign promises. He ordered it closed four and half years ago. It is still open. What kind of juice is that? Continue reading →

The Day Distance Disappeared

BY RICH GALEN
Reprinted from Mullings.com

Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Heart’s Club Band lyrics notwithstanding, yesterday was the 20th anniversary of the birth of the World Wide Web.

The Web was invented in Switzerland. At the CERN laboratory near Geneva. The acronym CERN originally stood in French for Conseil Europen pour laRecherche Nuclaire (European Council for Nuclear Research). The name has since changed, but the acronym has stuck. Continue reading →