Posts Tagged ‘Barack Obama’
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 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 17th, 2011 by John Feehery
(Chicago, IL) Today, David Axelrod, the chief of the Re-elect Obama Campaign, today announced that it will formally join the Occupy Wall Street protests and start mobilizing against the policies endorsed by the Obama Administration.
Axelrod brandished a Tim Geithner bobblehead doll, which he stabbed repeatedly with a pen knife while chanting an indecipherable spell, which he later said he hoped would lead to the Treasury Secretary’s immediate departure from his office.
Axelrod, in announcing this unusual campaign, said: “We have decided that we aren’t going to defend the indefensible. Yes, we have terrible unemployment. Yes, Wall Street is getting away with murder. Yes, people have lost faith in the future. As much as I have tried, we can’t blame Bush for this anymore. We have to blame the Obama Administration.”
“I believe in Barack Obama, the campaigner. I have lost faith in Barack Obama, the President. So our campaign will basically run against the President and urge his replacement with the guy on the campaign.” Read more...
Tags: Barack Obama, Bush tax cuts, David Axelrod, expansion of NAFTA, Obama Administration, Obama Campaign, Occupy Wall Street protests, Politics, Presidential election, Re-elect Obama, Teacher’s Unions, Tim Geithner, Unemployment, White House, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney
Posted in Bad Decisions, Government, Liberal Media, Media, Politics, Presidential election, Promises, Theory, taxes | No Comments »
October 13th, 2011 by John Feehery
Well, that was quick.
Yesterday, as I drove through Washington’s streets, all I saw was a bunch of traffic, made worse by the 30 rabble-rousers who occupied a half-block in downtown D.C.
Today, dozens of South Korean flags were fluttering in the pouring rain.
The President of South Korea is in town, meeting with Barack Obama and addressing a joint session of Congress.
Apparently, this visit constituted an important enough deadline to compel Congress to finally act on a free trade agreement with one of our best Asian allies.
The House and Senate usually only work this quickly together when they pass a continuing resolution to keep the government open.
South Korea wasn’t the only trade pact passed in a New York minute yesterday. So were the Colombia and Panama Free Trade agreements.
If you like NAFTA, you will love this trio of trade pacts.
If you don’t like NAFTA, you will be despondent.
The big business and the agriculture sectors love free trade. Free trade makes it easier for our companies to sell their products at a lower price to more customers and that is something that makes farmers and multi-national CEO’s very happy. Read more...
Tags: Barack Obama, Bush administration, Colombia Free Trade agreements, Congress, Free Trade, House and Senate, Mitt Romney, NAFTA, Occupy Wall Street, Panama Free Trade agreements, President of South Korea, South Korean, Tea Party, White House
Posted in Bad Decisions, Economy, Foreign Relations, Government, Politics, Presidential election, Theory, bad news, spending, taxes | No Comments »
October 5th, 2011 by John Feehery
Apparently, Radiohead couldn’t get its schedule straight with the Occupy Wall Street protesters and they didn’t play for the grungy crowd last week. I am not hip enough to know exactly what kind of music the band plays, but I do know that a couple of years ago, the members of the band came up with a brilliant marketing strategy to sell one of its albums. “Pay what you want or pay nothing at all if that is what you want to do.” The band never released how much money it made by letting its fans name their own price, but they chose to not pursue the same strategy for their next album.
Despite the scheduling snafu, Radiohead still has endorsed the protest movement that seems to be gaining strength every day. For example, all of the government employee unions are now on board with Michael Moore and assorted other left-wing radicals to protest the money that Wall Street financiers make every day.
These Wall Street financiers and their other colleagues, known collectively by the collectivists as “the rich” or the “one-percenters”, pay about 30 to 35% of the taxes collected by the Federal government. Having the government employee unions protest against these prodigious tax-payers is somewhat akin to the protesting against the goose because he is not producing golden eggs fast enough. Read more...
Tags: America, anti-capitalist, Barack Obama, Capitalism, Democrats, Federal government, immigrants, Jobs, Mexicans, Michael Moore, New York Times, Occupy Wall Street protestors, Old Gray Lady, Politics, Radiohead, spending, taxes, Wall Street financiers
Posted in Bad Decisions, Economy, Financial Crisis, GOP, Government, Politics, bad news, spending, taxes | No Comments »
October 4th, 2011 by John Feehery
Originally posted on THE HILL – October 3, 2011
It might be too early to start analyzing what went wrong with the Obama administration in its first three years, but I am going to do it anyway.
Here are seven turning points that led to the president’s decline and fall, seven places where Obama or his Democratic allies made critical errors that forever altered the course of his presidency. He hasn’t done everything wrong, but he has made enough mistakes to make his reelection extraordinarily difficult.
1. Failed to veto the initial stimulus package: Imagine for a moment if Obama had vetoed that initial stimulus package. Imagine if he insisted that Democratic leaders take out all the pork and cleanse the bill of unworthy projects. Imagine if he had insisted that congressional Democrats work with Republicans to include their ideas, because we are all in this together. He would have immediately branded himself as a different kind of president, as someone above the fray, as a leader who cares first about the country, not the Democratic Party. And if he had done that, he would have had the Republicans hopelessly divided. Of course, he didn’t take that step, congressional Democrats were able to walk all over him and Republicans stiffened up their resolve and presented a united front against the president and his plans. Read more...
Tags: America, Barack Obama, Bush’s tax cuts, David Plouffe, Democrats, dollar, election, George W Bush, Government, healthcare, House Republicans, Nancy Pelosi, Obama Administration, Obamacare, olympics, Politics, Republicans, spending, White House
Posted in Economy, Financial Crisis, Government, Politics, Presidential election, election, health care, medicare, national security, spending | 1 Comment »
October 4th, 2011 by John Feehery
The Hermanator - Herman Cain
The Hermanator is now tied with Rick Perry for second place in a new Washington Post poll in the Republican race for the White House.
That doesn’t surprise me much. A very good friend of mine who describes himself as a moderate independent Republican kind of guy pinged me on Facebook about Cain. He said he would vote for him if Mr. Cain survives the primary process down in Texas.
And for many folks out there, Herman Cain is more than just a successful pizza guy. He is the embodiment of the American dream.
Unlike Barack Obama, Cain believes deeply in the concept of American exceptionalism. He worked hard his whole life, and he has been successful at just about everything he has done.
Where Obama preaches collectivism and class envy, Cain preaches self-reliance and individual liberty. Where Obama has nothing but contempt for free-market capitalism, Cain believes strongly in the power of the marketplace.
He turned around Burger King, made Godfather’s Pizza a huge success, and helped to stop Hillarycare in the mid-nineties. Read more...
Tags: America, American exceptionalism, Barack Obama, Burger King, Cain, Coca-Cola, Congress, Democrats, Economy, election, free-market capitalism, Godfather’s Pizza, Herman Cain, Hermann Cain, Hillarycare, individual liberty, Morehouse College, Obama, Politics, President Obama, Presidential election, Republican race for the White House, Rick Perry, Secretary of Commerce, self-reliance, the American dream, The Hermanator, Washington Post poll, White House
Posted in Government, History, Liberal Media, Media, Politics, Presidential election, Promises, Theory, election, medicare | No Comments »
September 29th, 2011 by John Feehery
It used to be that waivers were a bad thing.
It was bad to be put on waivers if you were in the NFL or played Major League Baseball. That meant you were out of a job.
Now, waivers are a good thing.
The Obama Administration announced that it was going to give waivers to the states of No Child Left Behind.
Too many states can’t meet the requirements of NCLB, so they are begging the Feds to give them a break.
If there is one thing that Mr. Obama and all the Republicans running for President agree on, it is that they don’t really love that landmark law legislated by John Boehner and Ted Kennedy and signed into law by W.
It’s too hard. Let’s give the states a waiver.
That, of course, begs the question: If the law is so bad, why don’t you just repeal it. Good question.
Mitt Romney promised that the first thing he would do if elected President would be to give waivers to all 50 states to the health care law signed by Mr. Obama. Read more...
Tags: America, Barack Obama, Congress, Congressional laws, Democrats, Government, John Boehner, Major League Baseball, Michele Bachmann, Mitt Romney, NFL, No Child Left Behind, Obama Administration, Obamacare, Republicans, Rick Perry, Social Security, taxes, Tea Party, Ted Kennedy
Posted in Bad Decisions, Bailouts, Economy, Financial Crisis, GOP, Government, Laws, Presidential election, Promises, Theory, election, taxes | 1 Comment »
September 28th, 2011 by John Feehery
I was talking to a Democratic friend of mine this morning, and he told me to expect the President’s people to go after Mitt Romney on the jobs issue. “There is a lot more that hasn’t come to the surface,” he told me confidently.
I’m sure there is. There is always more on just about everybody. I wish we knew more about Obama before the American people elected him three years ago.
The issue that my friend talked to me about had to do with Romney’s time at Bain Capital.
Bain Capital is a private equity firm that buys undervalued companies and turns them around so they can become profitable. They have had a lot of success. You can wake up with a Bain Capital company (Sealy), check out the weather (they own the Weather Channel), get a cup of coffee and a donut (Dunkin Donuts), go to the store and buy some running shoes to work off the donut (Sports Authority), buy some office supplies (Staples), grab a burger (Burger King), buy a present (Brookstone), catch a movie (AMC Entertainment), and then get home in time for dinner (Domino’s Pizza). Read more...
Tags: America, Bain Capital, Barack Obama, Congress, Democrats, Economy, election, Government, Mitt Romney, Politics, Presidential election, private sector, public sector, Republican, Republicans, spending, taxes, Ted Kennedy, Washington, White House
Posted in Economy, Financial Crisis, Government, History, Laws, Politics, Presidential election, Promises, Theory, election, spending | No Comments »
September 26th, 2011 by John Feehery
Ping-Pong is a wonderful game, requiring skill, finesse, great hand-eye coordination, and at times, power.
Ping-Pong is a different game in the Congressional sense.
When one legislative body ping-pongs back a piece of legislation to another legislative body (like the House jamming the Senate) it can be both exhilarating and frustrating at the same time.
Last week, the House served up a continuing resolution plus some additional disaster assistance money to the Senate before leaving for its break for the Jewish holidays.
The Senate, which hoped to also break for the week, is not at all happy with what the House served up.
But to be successful in jamming back the House, the Senate has to act as one. The rules of the Senate make it awfully hard for that body to act quickly on anything if there is a disagreement between the political parties.
And on this package, there is intense disagreement.
The Republicans want to pay for disaster assistance. The Democrats don’t like how the Republicans paid for it, especially their efforts to isolate a particularly bad political scandal that is currently afflicting the Obama Administration. Read more...
Tags: America, Barack Obama, Congress, Conservatives, Democrats, House of Representatives, John Boehner, Obama Administration, Ping-Pong, Politics, President, Republican, Republicans, Senate, Senate Minority Leader McConnell, Speaker Nancy Pelosi, the Senate Majority Leader, White House
Posted in Economy, Financial Crisis, GOP, Government, Laws, Politics, spending | No Comments »
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