Monthly Archives: July 2013

Take Religion Out of Economics

BY RICH GALEN
Reprinted from Mullings.com

I had lunch yesterday with one of the smartest guys I know, Steve Bell. Steve is a long-time Hill budget and tax expert.

I am, as you may know, arithmetically challenged.

This was largely a one-way conversation. Steve talked and I nodded, pretending to understand what he was saying. The part of the conversation I did get was this: The two parties no longer consider each other to be political opponents – each aiming for the same goal but choosing differing paths to get there.

Each of the two parties now considers the other to be not just a political enemy, but an enemy of everything the other believes in. We have traded political ideology for political religiosity. Continue reading

The Imperfect Storm

BY JOHN FEEHERY
Reprinted from TheFeeheryTheory.com

As members of Congress prepare to depart for the August break at the end of the week, they will be packing talking points from their caucus messaging packets that seek to explain why Congress hasn’t accomplished very much since the last time they went home.

With congressional ratings bouncing around at an all-time low, it is hard to imagine that whatever they have to say will have any resonance with voters.

Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) tried to put a unique spin on congressional inaction when he said that politicians should be measured not by how many laws are passed, but by how many laws were repealed.

Continue reading

The Middle Class

BY RICH GALEN
Reprinted from Mullings.com

“U.S. President Barack Obama is using his weekly address to promote a better bargain for the middle class.”

If that were the lead of an Associated Press report we might think it deserves a closer look, but it was the lead of a press release from the Voice of America, an arm of the U.S. State Department.

Let’s look at Politico.com’s lead: “President Barack Obama sharpened his focus on the economy Wednesday, looking to breathe new life into his second-term agenda with a fresh pivot back to the issue a majority of Americans feel most acutely in their daily lives.”

Ok. We can work with that. Continue reading

Redistributionist Speaks in Illinois

BY JOHN FEEHERY
Reprinted from TheFeeheryTheory.com

That the President gave an economic speech in Galesburg, Illinois is significant, although not in the way that he might intend.

Illinois is an economic basket case. Because of the political leadership in the state, which has been dominated by the Democrats for the last decade, the land of Lincoln is the most likely big state to go belly up. Chicago, my home town, was voted most likely to follow Detroit into bankruptcy by the chattering classes.

My home state largely followed the economic philosophy of President Obama and that philosophy has largely sealed its doom. Continue reading

President Obama and the People of Galesburg

BY MICHAEL S. JOHNSON

In the early 19th Century, as the country was expanding into its midsection, Chicago played second fiddle to a town 175 miles to the West. There, the Rev. George Washington Gale had founded an institution dedicated to his missionary zeal and political enlightenment called Knox College.

Galesburg, located halfway between the Mississippi and Illinois Rivers on some of the richest farmland in the world, became an early social and economic center in Illinois.

Galesburg served as the crossroads of two giant railroads, the Santa Fe and the Burlington Northern.

The railroads brought wealth and prestige to the burg, with stately homes with rich architecture and richer occupants, along wide streets paved with bricks from the local ovens. Galesburg became a hub for another railroad, the Underground Railroad that served as an escape route for slaves from the South.   Continue reading

Mapping the Melting Pot

BY JOHN FEEHERY
Reprinted from TheFeeheryTheory.com

America is a melting pot.

Successive waves of immigrants crashed up America’s shores and then scattered in different conclaves.

Germans went to cities like Milwaukee, Cincinnati, and St. Louis, the Irish went to Boston, New York, and Chicago, the Scotch-Irish went to Appalachia, Kentucky, and Tennessee, the Italians went to Pittsburgh and Baltimore, the Swedes went to Minnesota, the Dutch went to Michigan and Pennsylvania, Africans were forcibly moved to the deep South.

Later waves went to many of the same cities, but in different neighborhoods. The Jews went to New York, the Poles moved en masse to Chicago, Hispanics flooded Los Angeles, etc.

The melting pot shouldn’t imply a monochromatic broth. Continue reading

Deliverance

BY RICH GALEN
Reprinted from Mullings.com

You know what? I am perfectly happy to follow the news about The Little Prince (with a nod toward Antoine de Saint-Exupry).

As you know the Prince was born yesterday (with a nod toward Judy Holliday) and in the way of Royalty the announcement read: “Her Royal Highness The Duchess of Cambridge was safely delivered of a son at 4.24 p.m. The baby weighs 8 lbs. 6 oz. The Duke of Cambridge was present for the birth. The queen, The Duke of Edinburgh, The Prince of Wales, The Duchess of Cornwall, Prince Harry and members of both families have been informed and are delighted with the news.”

You have to hand it to the Royals; who else would have the chutzpah to use the construct: “was delivered of a son?” Continue reading

To Brief Or Not To Brief: Shouldn’t Be A Question

BY B. JAY COOPER
Reprinted from BJayCooper.com

Reed Cherlin, a former assistant press secretary in the Obama White House, wrote a provocative piece for Slate proposing eliminating the daily White House press briefing. He argues, accurately, that the briefings have become a “preening” exercise for the media and a “first, make no news” goal for the Obama press office team.

If those two conditions were to be true and constant, I’d agree with Mr. Cherlin. But, they needn’t be.

I worked in the White House press office in the late 80s, before the Internet and before the onslaught of cable news channels and their ubiquitous talking heads who typically take one extreme position or another and take it over and over all day. The briefings have become even more performance art than they were in my day. But, and I don’t mean to sound like my father but, “in my day,” they also served a purpose. Continue reading

On the President’s Remarks Last Week

BY JOHN FEEHERY
Reprinted from TheFeeheryTheory.com

In the same week that Detroit declared bankruptcy, the President opined on George Zimmerman and the state of race relations in this country.

The President should have spoken up on the Zimmerman verdict, which has become a festering national wound, although I thought his remarks were incomplete at best, needlessly adversarial at worst.

The fact that Barack Obama can stride up to the podium in the Brady Room, tell Jay Carney to take a seat, and start opining on race relations in front of the whole world tells you all you really need to know about the state of race relations in this country. Continue reading

Helen Thomas

BY B. JAY COOPER
Reprinted from BJayCooper.com

Before I started my job in the White House press office, a veteran there warned me, “when you come in, at 6 or 7 a.m., Helen Thomas will be sitting on the credenza outside the press secretary’s’ office and will ask you questions about overnight stories. Do not say a word, not even ‘no comment.’ She will top her story with your quote before you even know what the facts are.”

The first day I walked into the White House, at a time of day when few were in their offices, the first person I saw was a guard and then I ran into Helen sitting on that credenza who asked, nonchalantly, something about an overnight story. I didn’t even say good morning, worried I’d be quoted.

Continue reading

The Fall of the Motor City

BY JOHN FEEHERY
Reprinted from TheFeeheryTheory.com

Eminem is the best thing to come out of Detroit in the last twenty years. That, and the Clint Eastwood Chrysler commercial.

Detroit filed for bankruptcy yesterday.

No surprise there. Kind of like Whitney Houston dying. You can only dance on death’s door for so long before the door opens and lets you in.

It was a bunch of French Canadians who first saw Detroit’s immense promise. Antoine de La Mothe Cadillac joined with 51 others and founded a place they called Fort Ponchartrain du Détroit, which provided a wonderful gateway to the Great Lakes and the Great White North, better known as Canada. Continue reading

Detroit. Bankrupt.

BY RICH GALEN
Reprinted from Mullings.com

The City of Detroit filed for bankruptcy yesterday afternoon. It owes as much as $20 billion and there is no conceivable way that debt will ever be paid. The city offered its debtors 10 cents on the dollar but the debtors refused.

A good deal of the blame – rightly or wrongly – will be placed at the feet of municipal workers – sanitation, water, sewer, cops, firefighters and so on.

The pressure of ever-rising wages for no additional work, leading to ever-rising pension costs, plus ever increasing benefits and ever more closely defined work rules will likely be found to be at the bottom of all this.

But its not the unions’ fault. It is the fault of the elected officials – Democratic elected officials in Detroit – who didn’t have the, um, guts to ever say “No” to their largest voting bloc. Continue reading

Health Care Costs Drop 50%!

BY FRANK HILL
Reprinted from TelemachusLeaps.com

“Health insurance has suddenly become affordable in New York,” said Elisabeth Benjamin, Vice President for health initiatives with the Community Service Society of New York.

“It’s not bargain-basement prices, but we’re going from Bergdorf’s to Filene’s here. The extraordinary decline in New York’s insurance rates for individual consumers demonstrates the profound promise of the Affordable Care Act,” she added.

Well, since everyone in New York seems to be right all the time, just as in the NY Times recent screed against the new initiatives and policies undertaken by the GOP majorities in the state legislature and from the Governor’s Mansion, we guess whatever New Yorkers say about everything has to be true.

Continue reading

Individual Mandate Hit on Young Americans

BY JOHN FEEHERY
Reprinted from TheFeeheryTheory.com

22 House Democrats joined with just about every Republican to delay the individual mandate included in the massive Obamacare law still being implemented three years after it was signed by the President.

House Republicans scheduled a vote on the mandate delay shortly after the President decided to delay the mandate on the business sector on his own accord.

If a mandate is good enough for the business community, the reasoning goes, it ought to be good enough for Generation Y.

And the fact of the matter is that the individual mandate is going to hit young adults the hardest. They are the ones who will be forced to buy insurance they don’t want and can’t afford.

Continue reading

Greatest Deliberative Body

BY RICH GALEN
Reprinted from Mullings.com

The national press corps held its collective breath on Monday night as members of the United States Senate wrangled over whether the holiest of holies – the filibuster rule – would be changed or scrapped altogether by the 55 Democrats in the majority.

This is known as the “nuclear option” and it is generally threatened by the Majority Leader – Republican or Democrat – when the Minority Leader – Republican or Democrat – successfully uses the existing filibuster rules to slow progress on legislation or nominations to a crawl.

The modern version of a filibuster can be broken if the majority can muster 60 votes. As the AP’s Dave Espo wrote: “While a simple majority vote is required to confirm presidential appointees, it takes 60 votes to end delaying tactics and proceed to a yes-or-no vote.” Continue reading

Good News: No Riots

BY JOHN FEEHERY
Reprinted from TheFeeheryTheory.com

The good news was there were no riots.

Some protests. A few folks got hurt here and there by vengeful kids who wanted to take their anger out on somebody. A promise of future protests by cable television star Al Sharpton. But not much burning and looting and otherwise carrying on.

I guess that’s progress.

Despite the fact that it is really hot out (or maybe because of it), and despite the fact that the unemployment rate is around 25 percent for African-Americans, there wasn’t an explosion of violence in reaction to the George Zimmerman ruling. Continue reading

Was Justice Carried?

BY RICH GALEN
Reprinted from Mullings.com

We often hear about a “miscarriage of justice” but rarely a “carriage of justice.” Much as we call people inept, but never say someone is really, really, ept.

Ok, there is no such word as “ept” so that doesn’t count.

The national news corps was all a-twitter – including being ON Twitter – when the jury came back with its not guilty verdict in the George Zimmerman trial for the death of Trayvon Martin. Too many of them expressed everything from disappointment to outright shock at the result. Continue reading

The Traffic Cop

BY JOHN FEEHERY
Reprinted from TheFeeheryTheory.com

Unlike the House, where the Speaker is expected to expedite the will of the majority, the person charged with running the Senate is not expected to exert his will.

Instead, he or she is more like a glorified traffic cop, making certain that all of the highways of the upper chamber are cleared of obstructions and moving smoothly.

It’s a tough job because the Senate is necessarily full of obstructions and rarely moves smoothly.The Senate majority leader, unlike the Speaker, is not named in the Constitution. Nor is the majority leader the top Senator in the line of succession to the White House. That title goes to the president pro tempore — usually the longest serving senator. Continue reading

The Anti-Snowdens

BY RICH GALEN
Reprinted from Mullings.com

Edward Snowden is still, as far as we know, hiding out in the transit lounge of an airport in Moscow, Russia. He is, as President Obama referred to him “a 29-year-old hacker” who leaked damaging information about what the National Security Agency is doing to, according to our government, protect American citizen from foreign attack.

Stay with me here.

I had the honor of traveling to San Antonio, Texas on Wednesday to be present at what is known in the military as a Change of Command ceremony on the grounds of the Alamo. The command that was changing was the 717th Military Intelligence Battalion from Lieutenant Colonel Joe Kushner to Lieutenant Colonel Jay Haley. The 717th is a subordinate unit of the 470th Military Intelligence Brigade. Continue reading

Confab on Immigration

BY JOHN FEEHERY
Reprinted from TheFeeheryTheory.com

Republicans are having a confab on immigration as I write this entry.

I imagine that none of them like the Senate product. I don’t blame them. I don’t like what the Senate produced, even though, had I been in the Upper Body, I would have voted for it.

The bill needs to be fixed.

The border surge is a complete waste of money. The internal security stuff is way too intrusive. I don’t like the e-verify provisions, especially on small businesses. I don’t think the Senate bill does enough on assimilation. You should have a conversational understanding of English if you are going to be a citizen. You should understand the basics of Continue reading