November 1st, 2011 by John Feehery
According to the United Nations, the 7 billionth person came into the world the other day.
I was wondering why it felt kind of crowded around here.
The 1 billionth person arrived when Thomas Jefferson was president. No. 2 billion came when Calvin Coolidge was president, the 3 billionth when Dwight Eisenhower was president, the 4 billionth when Nixon was getting impeached, the 5 billionth when Reagan was in his second term, the 6 billionth when Clinton was in his second term, and now Obama is president with No. 7 billion.
If it seems like the pace is picking up, well, you are right. At this rate, we will hit 10 billion by 2050.
Most of the growth is occurring in Asia, Africa and South America. The United States and Europe are expected to stay fairly flat in their population growth, but that doesn’t mean that Europeans and Americans won’t be profoundly affected by the population explosion in other parts of the globe.
The CIA and the Defense Department planners are already thinking through the implications of this population boom. Politicians need to follow suit. Read more...
Tags: 7 billionth person, Africa, Asia, CIA, Defense Department, Europe, free-market, market capitalism, nited Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization, Obama, population growth, Social Security, South America, Thomas Jefferson, Transportation infrastructure, United Nations, United States, Water security
Posted in Bad Decisions, Economy, Financial Crisis, Food, Foreign Relations, Government, History, Immigration, Politics, bad news, health care, national security, poverty, spending, taxes | No Comments »
October 28th, 2011 by John Feehery
“Get your head out of your ass.”
We were in the locker room of a high school gym in the South Side of Chicago, and the coach of my team, Paul Jackson, was not too pleased with our team’s play in the first round of the basketball tournament.
We were sophomores and frankly, we were playing like crap and deserved to hear the message, which was delivered at a fairly high decibel.
I was thinking about Coach Jackson and the general state of basketball in America.
At the professional level, basketball is a complete mess.
General interest in the game has taken a turn for the worst, as LeBron James and Kobe Bryant have proven to be poor substitutes for Michael Jordan. And that was before a mystifying strike that now threatens to put the NBA out of business for good.
Is anybody truly worried (outside the family and friends of NBA players) if the league went out of business?
At the college level, basketball is learning a rude lesson. It isn’t nearly as important as football.
The Big East, college basketball’s preeminent league, has been torn asunder by University presidents who care more about football revenues than they care about great basketball rivalries. Read more...
Tags: basketball, David Boren, Kobe Bryant, LeBron James, Michael Jordan, Mitch McConnell, NBA, The Big East, West Virginia’s Joe Manchin, “Prayer for a Perfect Season.”
Posted in Bad Decisions, Economy, Financial Crisis, Fun, Government, History, Politics, bad news | 3 Comments »
October 27th, 2011 by John Feehery
The rich are different than you and me.
And it isn’t only that they have more money.
The rich have come under attack recently, so I decided to take a look at who is really, really rich.
And what I found was a group of people who have changed our world profoundly.
Think of the Walton family, responsible for Walmart.
The Mars family, responsible for all of that Halloween candy.
Bill Gates and the dearly departed Steve Jobs, who revolutionized how we work, how we interact, how we live.
Mark Zuckerberg founded Facebook, and the Google guys are at the top too.
There is Warren Buffett, a role-model for all the savvy investors.
And at both ends of the political spectrum, you have controversial figures like George Soros and the Koch brothers who made their money because they worked hard and were smarter than their competitors.
These folks have collectively revolutionized modern society. They had vision, creativity, persistence, and an innate toughness to get where they got.
So why should we begrudge them their wealth? Why should we talk them down and try to take their hard-earned money away from them? Read more...
Tags: Babe Ruth, Bill Gates, debt crisis, Facebook, George Soros, google, Mark Zuckerberg, Steve Jobs, the Koch brothers, The Mars family, The rich, the Walton family, Walmart, Warren Buffett
Posted in Economy, Financial Crisis, Government, History, Politics, Presidential election, Social Media, Theory, spending, taxes | 3 Comments »
October 26th, 2011 by John Feehery
It is generally assumed that Herman Cain will not be the Republican nominee for President. Likewise, it is assumed that Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum, Ron Paul, Michele Bachmann, Jon Huntsman and Gary Johnson won’t get the nomination either.
That leaves Rick Perry and Mitt Romney.
The Perry campaign assumes that the dominant conservative wing of the party will never nominate somebody like Mitt Romney.
The Romney campaign assumes that Rick Perry is not ready for prime time and that his Texas shtick won’t translate beyond the Lone Star State.
Neither the Perry nor the Romney campaign are completely sold on their assumptions though, which is why they are slugging away at each other, ignoring the rest of the field, especially the current front-running, Mr. Cain.
Perry and Romney are the only two candidates who have the money to last them past January. If Santorum wins Iowa, perhaps his campaign might breathe in some new life, but I wouldn’t bank on it.
Perry is running the same campaign that he ran against Kay Bailey Hutchinson, the Senator from Texas and his chief rival in his re-election bid. The whole Republican establishment supported Hutchinson, but Perry ran far to her right, nodded to the secessionist wing of the party, condemned her work as an appropriator, called her a Washington insider, and basically bludgeoned her with sharp attacks on her conservative bone fides. Read more...
Tags: Barack Obama, Gary Johnson, Herman Cain, John Kasich, Jon Huntsman, Kay Bailey Hutchinson, Michele Bachmann, Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich, Presidential election, Republican nominee for President, Rick Perry, Rick Santorum, Ron Paul, TARP program, The Perry campaign, The Romeny campaign
Posted in Bad Decisions, Economy, GOP, Government, History, Liberal Media, Media, Politics, Presidential election, Promises, Theory, election | No Comments »
October 25th, 2011 by John Feehery
The president does a pretty good job of declaring victory. He doesn’t do a particularly good job of explaining the cost.
He ended last week declaring that our troops in Iraq will be home for Christmas. What he didn’t explain was that decision was reached because the Iraqis are kicking us out of their country and that the likely result will be a dirty civil war that will make Iraq a puppet of Iran.
But the president has a history of these kinds of victories.
Sure, he signed a health care reform law, which he hailed as a victory for the American people. What he didn’t explain was that health care insurance costs would likely continue to climb for most consumers and that many businesses would be ending their health insurance programs in favor of these exchanges created by the law.
Sure, he signed the Dodd-Frank law, which he hailed as a victory for those who are frustrated by a banking industry that doesn’t work properly. But the law hasn’t even been fully vetted by the regulators and already it has made it harder for the banks to loan out their money to small and medium-sized businesses. Read more...
Tags: Anwar al-Awlaki, Congress, Dodd-Frank law, health care insurance, health care reform law, Libya, Moammar Gadhafi, Mustafa Abdul-Jalil, Obama, Osama Bin Laden, Pakistan
Posted in Bad Decisions, Economy, Financial Crisis, Foreign Relations, History, Politics, Presidential election, Promises, Theory, election, health care, national security, terrorism, tragedy, war | No Comments »
October 24th, 2011 by John Feehery
Politicians in Washington rushed Nevada into Statehood in 1864 to assure Abraham Lincoln a comfortable margin in his bid for reelection smack dab in the middle of the Civil War, and ever since then, the Silver State has played a unique role in American political history.
Nevada is mostly desert, so it has always been a bit creative in how it has looked at its growth potential. In the early 1900’s, it went the libertarian route, allowing prostitution and gambling, as way to draw more settlers from California. It worked, and Nevadans found a formula that has kept it growing for most of its relatively short history. That is, up until the Obama years.
It was Bugsy Siegel who first thought of building a strip in Las Vegas and the mobsters that followed him gave the city its well-deserved moniker of “Sin City.” An ad campaign that ran a few years ago – “What Goes In Vegas, Stays in Vegas” – helped cement that reputation.
Las Vegas is not necessarily family-friendly. You drive into the city and you see ads on the billboards that would make you blush if you were going with your inquisitive five-year old, for example. In fact, it has one of the highest crime rates in the country, although most of that is attributed to boorish behavior by out of town visitors. Read more...
Tags: Abraham Lincoln, Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, Bugsy Siegel, Civil War, George W Bush, Las Vegas, Mitt Romney, Nevada, Silver State, Sin City
Posted in Bad Decisions, Economy, Financial Crisis, GOP, Gambling, Government, History, Politics, Religion, Theory, bad news, election | 2 Comments »
October 21st, 2011 by John Feehery
Marco Rubio
Chris Matthews thought he would get me with his question on Marco Rubio. He asked me, breaking news style, what I thought about the revelations that Rubio’s family fled Cuba two whole years before Castro came to power.
I didn’t scratch my head on camera, but I did so in my mind.
What the hell is the big deal, I thought.
Not knowing a thing about this “breaking story”, I didn’t give much of an answer. I mumbled something about Rubio being a rising star in the party and then the segment ended.
But having read the story this morning, I have a better sense of what is going on here.
The Democrats are desperately afraid that Mitt Romney is going to pick Rubio to be his Vice Presidential candidate, and they are getting the Washington Post to do its bidding.
I don’t know if Romney is going to pick Rubio and I don’t know if Rubio would accept such an offer (he says he won’t), but I do know that the R and R ticket would spell the doom of Mr. Obama and his ill-fated administration. Read more...
Tags: Castro, Chris Matthews, Democrats, Hispanic Vote, illegal immigrants, immigration bill, Marco Rubio, Medicaid, Mitt Romney, Republican, Rubio, the American dream, the Obama Administration, Vice Presidential candidate, Washington Post, welfare
Posted in Bad Decisions, Economy, Financial Crisis, Foreign Relations, GOP, Government, Immigration, Laws, Liberal Media, Media, Politics, Presidential election, Promises, Unemployment, bad news, election, medicare, national security, poverty, spending, taxes, welfare | 2 Comments »
October 20th, 2011 by John Feehery
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said yesterday: “It’s very clear that private sector jobs have been doing just fine, it’s the public sector jobs where we’ve lost huge numbers, and that’s what this legislation is all about.”
He was talking about his plan to give more money to states so they can give more money to teachers unions and public safety unions.
Joe Biden breathlessly said yesterday that if you didn’t support this plan, the chances that you might get raped (if you are a woman) or held up at gunpoint (if you run a 7-11) will go up dramatically. He said yesterday in Washington:
“In many cities, the result has been — and it’s not unique — murder rates are up, robberies are up, rapes are up and folks, there’s a simple reason for it. There’s been a perfect storm out there — these God-awful Ponzi schemes that the last outfit allowed Wall Street to engage in resulted in this gigantic collapse of the financial industry. Housing — the bottom fell out. Foreclosures increased, particularly in poorer neighborhoods. Abandoned homes are created. Drug lords move in. Arson increases. Budgets fall because the property taxes fall. Cops and firefighters get laid off. Response times increase from five minutes to 30 minutes, and people die, and people’s homes burn to the ground.” Read more...
Tags: Bloomberg New, Economy, Federal employees, foreclosures, gigantic collapse of the financial industry, Joe Biden, Kevin Zeese, Politics, Ponzi schemes, President’s jobs plan, private sector, private sector jobs, Prosperity Agenda, public safety unions, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Silicon Valley, teachers unions, Wall Street
Posted in Bad Decisions, Economy, Financial Crisis, Government, Media, Politics, Promises, Unemployment, bad news, corruption, election, housing crisis, poverty, spending, taxes | 1 Comment »
October 19th, 2011 by John Feehery
Newt Gingrich had the line of the night towards the end of the debate when he complained that the moderator encouraged a level of bickering that could only make it harder for the GOP to get the White House.
I don’t think Anderson Cooper was really trying to sink the Republican nominee for President in this debate. He was trying to make an 8-person debate interesting for television. But, if the bi-product is to make all the candidates look silly, well, mission-accomplished.
As Mitt Romney has tried to point out occasionally, we live in complicated times and sometimes the simplest answer is not always the best answer, but giving nuanced explanations in 30 second sound bites is damn near impossible, especially when you have a moderator asking your fiercest opponents to tear your ideas apart in a brief rebuttal.
Most avid Republican primary voters probably have heard that Mitt Romney has a 59-point plan to reform government and revive the economy, but I bet you only two people outside the media and Romney campaign have actually looked through it. Newt Gingrich has a new contract with the American people. Nobody knows anything about it and I am sure all of the other campaigns have their own plans, even Rick Perry. Read more...
Tags: Anderson Cooper, APEC, ASEAN, CNN, GOP, Herman Cain’s plan, immigration laws, Mitt Romney, Mormon, NATO, Newt Gingrich, OPEC, pre-primary debates, President Obama, Republican nominee for President, Rick Perry, White House
Posted in Contests, GOP, Government, Liberal Media, Media, Politics, Presidential election, Promises, Theory, election | 2 Comments »
October 18th, 2011 by John Feehery
Wasting away again in Obamaville.
Looking for my lost shaker of salt.
Some people claim that George Bush is still to blame.
But I know.
It’s Barack Obama’s fault.
In the wake of the stock market crash of 1929, and in the depths of the Great Depression, shantytowns sprung up around America.
Called Hoovervilles, these itinerant communities came to symbolize the failure of the Herbert Hoover Administration to deal with the economic calamities of that bygone era.
We are now entering into Day 100 of the so-called Occupy Wall Street protest in New York City, and the movement has spread to other cities.
Doug Schoen, the Democratic pollster, did a survey of these protestors and he found that they didn’t represent Main Street at all. He wrote this morning in the Wall Street Journal that what he found instead is that the movement “comprises an unrepresentative segment of the electorate that believes in the radical redistribution of wealth, civil disobedience and in some case violence. Half have participated in a political movement before, virtually all say they would support civil disobedience to achieve their goals, and nearly one-third would support violence to advance their agenda. The vast majority of demonstrators are actually employed. What binds a large majority of the protestors together is a deep commitment to left-wing policies, opposition to free-market capitalism and support for radical redistribution of wealth, intense regulation of the private sector and protectionist policies to keep American jobs from going overseas.” Read more...
Tags: Democrats, Doug Schoen, Great Depression, Herbert Hoover Administration, Obamaville, Occupy Wall Street, Occupy Wall Street protest, Politics, Wall Street Journal
Posted in Bad Decisions, Economy, Financial Crisis, Government, History, Politics, Protests, Theory, bad news, poverty, taxes | No Comments »
According to the United Nations, the 7 billionth person came into the world the other day.
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