BY JOHN FEEHERY
Reprinted from TheFeeheryTheory.com
America likes winners. They vote against losers.
Obamacare is not the reason that the Republicans are going to win big this fall. Or at least, not the sole reason.
President Obama is.
The American people abhor weak leadership. Continue reading
BY MICHAEL S. JOHNSON
“I am as conservative as they come and there is nothing we have done in this Congress that violates conservative principles.”
That sums it up and sets it up.
Speaker John Boehner made that point last week while criticizing several outside interest groups that have raised havoc with the Republican agenda in the 113th Congress, shut down the government for 16 days at a cost of $24 billion to American taxpayers, deliberately fomented division and distrust among the populous, and prevented the government from governing. Continue reading
BY JOHN FEEHERY
Reprinted from TheFeeheryTheory.com
In matters of foreign policy, tis far better for Presidents to beg for forgiveness than to ask for permission.
If a President takes bold and decisive action, the Congress will usually follow along.
If a President dithers and negotiates and asks the opinions of scores of lawmakers, all of whom have different constituencies and vested interests, the result is usually a mess.
Thomas Jefferson purchased the Louisiana Territory, amid murky Constitutional concerns. Congress didn’t blink, because it was such a damn good deal.
President Reagan sent a few missiles into Libya to send a message to Muammar Khadafy. While a few members of Congress may have complained, most saw it as a justified strike. Continue reading
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
BY JAY BRYANT
As the Obama administration crumbles like an old Ritz Cracker, the Democrats are trying to save it by claiming there’s no there there, and that all the troubles are caused – in one case literally, in the others figuratively — by a few low level bureaucrats in Cincinnati.
And none of them are caused by Barack Obama.
I think they’re right.
I don’t think Obama is, or ever has been, a causative agent in the events of his life. I think he is a tool, a talented one in certain ways, but lazy in the extreme and not ever in charge. Once he was Bill Ayers tool. Now he’s propped up and sent out to his 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 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 MICHAEL S. JOHNSON
President Barack Obama has had a charmed political life.
He has been a first class passenger on a supersonic rise in politics from community activist, state legislator and part-time U.S. Senator to President of the United States. And now he is running for a second term, wrapped in coats of Teflon slapped on so thick the negatives just don’t stick.
President Obama is rising in the polls and enjoying high personal popularity at a time when so much seems to be crumbling around him. Continue reading
BY MICHAEL S. JOHNSON
The death of the super committee on deficit reduction was so painful to watch.
It didn’t even get a decent funeral. But then it didn’t deserve one. Its life was ill begotten and misspent.
The eulogies were a mix of ‘I told you so’s’ by people and press who told us nothing, and politicians and interest groups pointing the finger of blame at each other—back and forth between conservatives and liberals, Democrats and Republicans, Senators and House members, Congress and the President (how does the Supreme Court always escape blame?), tea partiers and occupiers and on and on.
Nobody apologized for the failure.
The combatants remain defiant. They were still harping at each other the Sunday after Thanksgiving. Some seem to be under the influence of an elixir that has them hallucinating about the next election. They believe if they put off governing for another year, the American people will reward them by electing more politicians of their ilk. They could then, beginning in 2013, impose their political will on the country without any of this nettlesome bickering standing in their way today. Continue reading
BY RICH GALEN
Reprinted from Mullings.com
On November 6 next year – 52 weeks from tomorrow – those of us who haven’t availed ourselves of early voting, absentee voting, mail-in voting or some other form of not standing in line on election day will, in fact, be stepping into a voting booth to vote for President and Congress and for about a third of the population, for U.S. Senator.
For those of us who do this for a living, we will spend the next 12 months trying to tease out who is ahead, who’s behind and why. This process is easier when we are into the finals; when we know who the Republican candidate will be to run against President Obama.
While the popular press thinks the muddled GOP results are good for Obama, I think they are wrong. We’ll get back to that later.
The most recent poll was the ABC News/Washington Post poll which shows Romney about two percentage points ahead of Cain (25-23). That poll was, as we say, “in the field” from last Monday through last Wednesday meaning the Cain story had broken and was on everyone’s lips in between sips of coffee. Continue reading