September 20th, 2011 by John Feehery
The Electronic Benefits Transfer Card is the identification card for the SNAP/Food stamp program. It works like a credit card with a magnetic strip on the back that slides through a machine at a grocery store and some restaurants (including some fast food places).
Meant as a way to help reform the Food Stamp system in 2004, the EBT card is used in all 50 states and in the District of Columbia. It has not been without some controversy.
In the State of Pennsylvania, for example, Democratic State Auditor Jack Wagner found wide-ranging fraud in the system, including one example where one EBT card holder withdrew close to $150,000 in $1,500 increments in one day. Who knows what he (or she) did with the money.
The EBT has received some unwanted attention. As one website put it: “A new music video by R&B artist Chapter for her song “It’s Free Swipe Yo EBT” mocks black women on public assistance programs. In her satirical video, Chapter plays Keywanda, a young mother of ten who deals with the “stress of her children’s fathers.” And according to the video, Keywanda lives with very few worries because she’s on several public assistance programs. Among other subjects, this song mostly takes aim at the Electronic Benefit Transfer (EBT) program and Section 8 vouchers, which make both food and housing available to parents.” Read more...
Tags: African-American, America, Auditor Jack Wagner, Barack Obama, Congress, Democrats, Economy, election, Electronic Benefits Transfer Card, Food stamp program, Obama, Presidential election, R&B artist Chapter, Republicans, Section 8, Tea Party activists, unemployment insurance, Welfare abuse, welfare system
Posted in Bad Decisions, Bailouts, Drugs in America, Economy, Financial Crisis, GOP, Government, Immigration, Politics, Presidential election, Religion, Scandals, Theory, bad news, corruption, medicare, poverty, spending, taxes, welfare | No Comments »
August 23rd, 2011 by John Feehery
Muammar Gaddafi
If and when Muammar Gaddafi is finally deposed in Libya, President Obama probably deserves some credit. He backed Nicholas Sarkozy and NATO’s efforts to aid the rebels (whoever they are). He authorized the Navy and the Air Force to bomb the hell out of the bad guys. And of course, he has been boldly predicting that Gaddafi’s days are numbered, a nice counter-balance to the Libyan dictator’s assurances that he was going nowhere.
Will Obama get that credit? Probably not.
Most Americans don’t care what happens to Mr. Gaddafi. They are worried less about the economic future of Tripoli and more worried about jobs in their own community. Why should we spend our hard-earned tax dollars deposing a far-away dictator when we have a huge budget deficit and a struggling economy back here?
For the conspiracy theorists out there, there is a persistent rumor that we went into Libya to bailout Goldman Sachs.
Goldman lost 98% of Libya’s Sovereign Wealth Fund in 2007 (which amounted to $1.3 billion, a lot of it personal Gaddafi money, undoubtedly), and the Libyans were not very happy about it. Goldman could never come up with a solution to this problem that could make the dictator happy. Read more...
Tags: America, Assad, Barack Obama, Economy, Goldman-Sachs, Libya, Muammar Gaddafi, NATO, Nicholas Sarkozy, Obama, Politics, spending, Syria, Tripoli, Wall Street Journal, war, Zarti
Posted in Bad Decisions, Economy, Financial Crisis, Foreign Relations, Government, History, Media, Politics, Scandals, Theory, bad news, national security, spending, taxes, war | 1 Comment »
August 22nd, 2011 by John Feehery
Are you ready for some college football?
After a summer of revelations about how corrupt the college football system has become, you could be excused for not being quite ready for a new season.
Apparently, a University of Miami booster spent millions of dollars providing prostitutes, payola, and other perks to star athletes at the program in order to restore the Hurricanes to former greatness. Isn’t that special?
This followed a scandal at Ohio State University that forced its esteemed football coach, Jim Tressell, from his job. Tressell didn’t think it was particularly useful to follow the rules as set forth by the NCAA, and while that helped him short-term to a NCAA championship, it hurt his long-term job prospects.
Last year’s Heisman Trophy winner, Cam Newton, was so tainted with scandal that it became a open question as to whether he would be forced to quit before he was to receive the award. He wasn’t and he got it anyway. The chief allegation was that Newton’s father had put his son on the open market. You pay the father a lot of money and you get the son to play for the program, a clear violation of NCAA rules. Read more...
Tags: Cam Newton, college football, Education, Heisman Trophy winner, Jim Tressell, NCAA, NCAA championship, No Child Left Behind, Ohio State University football scandal
Posted in Bad Decisions, Education, Government, History, Politics, Promises, Scandals, Theory, bad news, sports | No Comments »
July 27th, 2011 by John Feehery
John Boehner is doing an exceptional job as Speaker under extraordinarily tough times.
When I first started working in Congress, Tom Foley had just taken over from Jim Wright as Speaker of the House. Unlike the dictatorial Wright, Foley ran a decentralized process that gave too much power to Committee barons like Dan Rostenkowski, Jack Brooks and John Dingell.
Foley could never quite get the Chairmen to work together enough to overcome their jurisdictional squabbles, and Democrats faltered under the House Bank scandal, the Post Office debacle and a series of other damaging revelations about a Congress that was out of control.
When Newt Gingrich came to the Speaker’s Office, he leap-frogged over the gentlemanly Bob Michel (my former boss) who unfortunately announced his retirement before he could see the promised land of a Republican majority. Gingrich learned the lessons of the ineffective Foley, centralized power in his chambers, and bull-rushed an ambitious Contract with America legislative agenda. Along the way, Gingrich alienated some of the new Freshmen, his committee Chairmen, and some key members of the leadership, so much so that a few of them launched a failed coup against the embattled Speaker. Read more...
Tags: America, Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, Bob Michel, Congress, Conservatives, Dan Rostenkowski, Democrats, Denny Hastert, Dick Armey, George Bush, GOP, Government, Grand Bargain, House Republicans, Jack Brooks, Jim Wright, John Boehner, John Dingell, Mark Foley scandal, Nancy Pelosi, Newt Gingrich, President Obama, Republican, Republican Conference, Republicans, Speaker of the House, spending, taxes, Tea Party, the Iraq War, Tom DeLay, Tom Foley, White House
Posted in Bailouts, Economy, Financial Crisis, GOP, Government, History, Media, Politics, Promises, Reviews, Scandals, Theory, election, speeches, spending, taxes, war | No Comments »
June 17th, 2011 by John Feehery
I heard Congressman Steve Israel, the head of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, on television this morning talking about the real scandal.
His point was that the real scandal wasn’t Anthony Weiner. The real scandal was the fact that Republicans are cutting the kind of government spending that he likes.
He is wrong on a couple of levels.
First, Weinergate was a real scandal. It wasn’t a huge scandal, and it wasn’t a kind of government conspiracy. But by Washington standards, it was nice little summer scandal. It involved lying, a cover-up, sex (kindof), a stripper (always good for Washington scandals), the Clintons (so many scandals), a loudmouth, infidelity and embarrassing photographs. Throw in contact with a minor, and you have yourself a real scandal.
But if you want to talk about bigger policy scandals, Republicans cutting spending is not a scandal. The biggest scandal would be if Republicans didn’t cut spending. They promised in the last campaign to do exactly what they are doing this month.
Somebody once said that a Washington gaffe is when somebody accidentally tells the truth. That may be true, but accidentally sticking with your campaign promises is not a scandal. Read more...
Tags: Anthony Weiner, Barack Obama, Congressman Steve Israel, Conservatives, Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, Democrats, Economy, GOP, Government, Gretchen Morgenson, Harry Reid, housing crisis, Joshua Rosner, medicare, middle class, Politics, Republicans, Ryan budget, scandal, Tom Coburn, United States Senate, Washington, Weinergate
Posted in Bad Decisions, Financial Crisis, GOP, Government, History, Media, Politics, Promises, Scandals, bad news, spending, taxes | No Comments »
June 14th, 2011 by John Feehery
I actually thought he would survive.
When I first heard the allegations against Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.), I assumed he would stick it out and stay in Congress.
After all, this was a sex scandal without the sex — a goofy and, yes, creepy case of tweeting without any sense. It seemed pretty harmless at the beginning, but it quickly devolved into a career-ender.
When Weiner faced the New York media last week, seven truths became evident that sealed his fate.
1. He is a liar, big-time: You can expect a politician to lie, initially, about a sex scandal. The last thing anybody wants to do is have that uncomfortable conversation with a spouse. But Weiner’s lies were so elaborate, so practiced and so high-profile that his credibility as a political leader could never recover.
2. He went all in on a losing hand: Weiner tried to bluff Andrew Breitbart, not realizing that the conservative newsmaker had all the cards. Either Weiner didn’t realize that Breitbart had the whole story or is such an idiot that he decided to bluff anyway. Read more...
Tags: Andrew Breitbart, Congress, Democrats, Eliot Spitzer, Government, Media, Nancy Pelosi, Politics, Rep. Anthony Weiner, Republicans, sex scandal
Posted in Bad Decisions, Government, Media, Politics, Scandals, Theory, corruption, tragedy | No Comments »
June 8th, 2011 by John Feehery
In the short term, the economy might dip back into a recession, which means that our debt picture in the long term gets only worse.
In the short term, it sure is fun to make fun of Anthony Weiner. In the long term, do we really want to kick out members of Congress because of affairs that they didn’t have?
In the short term, the media swarmed over an Internet rumor that there were 30 dead bodies outside Houston. In the long term, if the media keeps jumping on these stories and causing local police departments to deploy resources, they all go broke within five years.
In the short term, Republicans may lose their House majority over Medicare, in the long term, if that happens, we will never fix Medicare and it will go broke.
In the short term, politicians seem to only care about the next election. In the long-term, short-sighted thinking will spell the doom of this nation.
In the short term, everybody is talking about jobs. In the long term, we have more serious issues when it comes to the basics — water, food, roads, electricity – which nobody is talking about. Read more...
Tags: Anthony Weiner, Congress, Democrats, Economy, Government, House Republicans, Iraq, Long Term, medicare, Michelle Bachmann, national security, Politics, recession, Republicans, Sarah Palin, scandal, Short Term
Posted in Bad Decisions, Financial Crisis, Foreign Relations, GOP, Government, Media, Politics, Presidential election, Religion, Scandals, Theory, Unemployment, bad news, health care, middle-east, national security, poverty, spending, war | No Comments »
June 7th, 2011 by John Feehery
Posted in Scandals, Theory, corruption | No Comments »
June 7th, 2011 by John Feehery
There are more than a few politicians at the federal level who share two conflicting traits: They believe they are the center of the universe, but they also believe that they are anonymous.
That is especially true for Anthony Weiner, but he is not the first and certainly not the last political figure to be beset with controversy brought on by his own stupid actions.
These politicians believe that they should be able to get free drinks at a bar, but are shocked when a reporter calls them on it. They believe that they can pick up girls who are not their wives and are shocked when somebody notices. They believe that they can get away with low-grade corruption, but are devastated when they end up serving time in a minimum security jail.
These politicians are not babes in the woods. They learn a great deal about life and about hard-ball politics when they run for office. They are used to people combing through their garbage, pouring over their tax returns, having every inch of their lives examined with a fine-tooth comb.
But somehow, after the campaign is over, they drop their defenses. Or after they have spent decades in Congress, they figure that they are invulnerable. Read more...
Tags: America, Anthony Weiner, Barney Frank, Bob Ney, Chris Lee, Congress, Democrats, Duke Cunningham, Eliot Spitzer, Ethics Committee, Gerry Studds, Government, Jack Abramoff scandals, James Traficant, Joe Early, John Boehner, John Doolittle, John Edwards, Mark Foley, Nancy Pelosi, Newt Gingric, political ethics, Politics, Republicans, Rostenkowski, sex scandal, Tom DeLay, Tony Coehlo, Washington, Weiner-gate
Posted in Bad Decisions, Government, History, Politics, Scandals, Theory, bad news, corruption | No Comments »
June 2nd, 2011 by John Feehery
Anthony Weiner, the voluble Congressman from New York, may or may not have been caught with his pants down. Nobody knows for sure, but it sure makes for a great media story.
The gist of the story is that a picture of Weiner in his underwear was sent, via Twitter, to a co-ed across the country. But several questions have been raised. Is it really Weiner? (The picture shows only the underwear portion. He isn’t saying it is and he isn’t saying it isn’t.). Did Weiner Tweet the picture? (He says he didn’t.)
These threshold questions beget other threshold questions. Why is this college co-ed following Weiner? Why is Weiner following her? Why does Weiner only follow good looking women on Twitter? What does his wife think?
The most important question, though, is: Who cares?
I certainly don’t care. If Mr. Weiner wants to Twitter a picture of his package wrapped up in tighty whities to somebody over the age of 18, why do I care?
Some Republicans think that Mr. Weiner should face the same wrath that faced Chris Lee. But I got news for you guys. Weiner is not going to resign. Democrats don’t resign in the face of sex scandals (and this can hardly be classified as a sex scandal). Read more...
Tags: America, Anthony Weiner, Barney Frank, Bill Clinton, Chris Lee, Congress, Conservatives, Democrats, election, Gerry Studds, Government, New York Congressman, Politics, Presidential election, Republicans, twitter
Posted in Bad Decisions, GOP, Government, History, Media, Politics, Presidential election, Scandals, Social Media, The Web, Theory, bad news, election | 1 Comment »
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