Monthly Archives: July 2013

Higher Salaries to Attract Better Candidates

BY FRANK HILL
Reprinted from TelemachusLeaps.com

I got to thinking the other day about what was ‘more important’ to the United States of America: Having great referees in our professional sports leagues….or having great representatives and senators in Congress in Washington?

Apparently, based on the way we pay our elected representatives versus professional referees, we ‘value’ the services of NFL/MLB and NHL referees at or around the same level as we ‘value’ our elected officials in this nation.

We know, we know: ‘The market values rare talent’. Alex Rodriguez, LeBron James, and Peyton Manning are those ‘rare talents’ and command massive salaries up to $25M per year. ‘They put fannies in the seats and sell advertising on the tube!’ team owners and general managers say to justify such exorbitant salaries. Continue reading →

Dog Days

BY JOHN FEEHERY
Reprinted from TheFeeheryTheory.com

Originally printed in The Hill

The dog days of summer used to be dedicated to the appropriations process on Capitol Hill.

Both the House and the Senate would slog through 13 spending bills, usually under an open amendment process. Members of the various subcommittees would fend off hostile amendments, defending projects, programs and spending levels.

When the bills passed the House or Senate floors, members of both bodies would put out press releases, touting the bacon they would be bringing home for local constituencies. And back home, those constituents would applaud news of funds from Washington, to build bridges, to fund the local Veterans Affairs hospital, or whatever else was being touted by those press releases. Continue reading →

Duck Sex and Essential Government (Part II)

BY MICHAEL S. JOHNSON

When last we commiserated about the sex life of ducks, we questioned why taxpayers were being billed (billed—ducks—get it?) for million-dollar National Science Foundation (NSF) research into the corkscrew-like genital appendage on the female duck that deters the unwanted advances of the male.

The study, now in its eighth year, is just one of hundreds of taxpayer-funded projects that presumably hold the promise of scientific discovery and the eventual benefit to society worth the investment. And maybe that will turn out to be the case.

Though science projects are a budgetary breeding ground of questionable spending priorities and outright waste, there are others much worse.

Remember the Las Vegas retreat for General Service Administration employees? How about the Internal Revenue Service spending $49 million on conferences? Continue reading →

Politics Is Easy, Governing Is Hard

BY RICH GALEN
Reprinted from Mullings.com

This has to have been the longest, yet least relaxing Independence Day ever.

As you know, the 4th was on a Thursday so here, in Our Nation’s Capital, almost everyone I know pretended they had been sequestered out of having to work on Friday and made it a four day weekend.

While wondering why we choose to end 4th of July fireworks displays with the playing of The 1812 Overture by a Russian composer celebrating a victory over France this happened:

— The U.S. Government announced that the Employer Mandate part of ObamaCare could just wait until January 1, 2015 instead of its scheduled launch on January 1, 2014. It would have taken less time (3 years, 7 months) to defeat Japan in World War II than to implement ObamaCare (3 years, 9 months). And Obama will still miss it. Continue reading →

Carolina ‘Yay/Boo’ Cheer

BY FRANK HILL
Reprinted from TelemachusLeaps.com

Everyone was all a-twitter last weekend when a lower level deputy Treasury secretary, not President Obama, announced in his blog, (not the President’s) that the onerous employer-mandate section of Obamacare (just that part, nothing else) was going to be suspended for a year.

Until after next year’s mid-term elections.

Of course. More political gamesmanship from this President on health care. Every time there is a ‘cost’ associated with Obamacare that gets pushed to the out-years while the bennies of Obamacare get shoved to the in-years from day 1 (coverage of children til age 26, etc). Continue reading →

Gettysburg Anniversary Lessons to Relearn

BY MICHAEL S. JOHNSON

The 150^th Anniversary of one of the most important events in American history and arguably in world history slipped past the public consciousness July 3, without much attention or appreciation.

The event was the Battle of Gettysburg, actually a series of the most bloody battles of the Civil War that occurred just outside Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, beginning with Picket’s Charge up Cemetery Ridge on the afternoon of July 1, 1863, and ending with the retreat of the Confederate Army under the command of General Robert E. Lee in the early morning hours of Independence Day, July 4.

Continue reading →

One Year Delay

BY JOHN FEEHERY
Reprinted from TheFeeheryTheory.com

Just imagine if George III had told the colonists that he would delay for one whole year the implementation of the Stamp Act, the tax that Parliament imposed on the colonies to pay for its worldwide war against the French.

Do you think the colonists would have decided to pack it in and not break away from England?

In many ways, the Obama Administration is trying to do just that with its suspension of an Obamacare mandate on the business community.

The White House is giving employers a year reprieve, as if a year is going to make much of difference for most business operations.

Continue reading →

Oh for 20

BY RICH GALEN
Reprinted from Mullings.com

America’s Traitor, Edward Snowden has allegedly applied for asylum in 20 countries.

None have granted it.

But late yesterday afternoon, there was suspicion that Snowden had boarded the aircraft carrying the President of Bolivia, Evo Morales, from Moscow to Bolivia. Those suspicions were so strong that, according to the International Herald Tribune: “Bolivia’s foreign minister told news outlets that France and Portugal had both blocked airspace access to the Bolivian presidential plane on suspicion that Mr. Snowden might been on board.” Continue reading →

Leaders and Followers

BY JOHN FEEHERY
Reprinted from TheFeeheryTheory.com

At my gym, they put little inspirational quotes up on the wall to get you to work out harder (that’s the theory, at least).

“Lead, follow, or get out of the way,” was last Tuesday’s quote, attributed to the Marine’s handbook, which was a revelation to me. I always thought that Lee Iacocca was the man who first said that memorable phrase when he was trying to fix Chrysler.

This quote must haunt Congressional Republicans on both sides of the Capitol dome.

In the House, the followers aren’t following the Leaders. In the Senate, the Leaders aren’t following the followers. Continue reading →

Arab Summer: Egypt

BY RICH GALEN
Reprinted from Mullings.com

An American teacher guilty of nothing more than wanting to help school children in Egypt learn English was stabbed to death while watching a demonstration against Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi.

According to CNN International: Andrew Pochter of Chevy Chase, Maryland, was stabbed Friday in the port city of Alexandria. He was in the country teaching English to elementary school children. “As we understand it, he was witnessing the protest as a bystander and was stabbed by a protester,” his family said in a statement. “He went to Egypt because he cared profoundly about the Middle East, and he planned to live and work there in the pursuit of peace and understanding.” Continue reading →

Four Score and Seven Years Ago

BY JOHN FEEHERY
Reprinted from TheFeeheryTheory.com

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. Continue reading →