Posts Tagged ‘Congress’
September 7th, 2011 by John Feehery
Ev and Gerry started the whole response thing.
Everett Dirksen and Gerry Ford, the former Senate Republican leader from Illinois and the former House Minority Leader (and later President) from Michigan used to have a radio show broadcast from the Capitol.
They turned that radio show into a televised rebuttal to President Johnson’s 1966 State of the Union Address.
Dirksen, with his mop of white hair, and Ford, with his bald pate, must have been quite a sight in the years leading up to the Age of Aquarius. Dirksen was the one who famously said, “a billion here, and a billion there, and pretty soon you are talking real money.”
I could understand the frustration of the two Republican (and minority) leaders. Lyndon Johnson wasn’t much to tell the truth, and Republicans at the start of 1966 didn’t have any legislative power. Dirksen, a genius when it came to the political communication innovation, probably dreamed up the idea of a joint response, and a new idea was born: Let’s tell our side of the story. Read more...
Tags: Age of Aquarius, America, Ames Straw poll, assassinations of Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, Bob Livingston, Bob McDonnell, Bob Michel, Bobby Jindal, Congress, Denny Hastert, Dick Armey, Everett Dirksen, Gerry Ford, GOP, Government, House Republicans, Jennifer Dunn, Jim Wright, John Boehner, Lyndon Johnson, Michele Bachmann, Mike Mansfield, Mitch McConnell, Newt Gingrich, NFL, Obama, Paul Ryan, Politics, President Johnson’s 1966 State of the Union Address, President Obama, Presidential election, Republican, Richard Nixon, Robert Byrd, Ronald Reagan, Senate Republican leader from Illinois, spending, Steve Largent, White House
Posted in Economy, Financial Crisis, GOP, Government, History, Politics, Theory, election, speeches | No Comments »
September 2nd, 2011 by John Feehery
According to Wikipedia, Labor Day has traditionally been the last time it is fashionable for ladies to wear white. This weekend, it might be the time that President Obama starts waving the white flag of surrender.
Labor Day was born out of conflict. Grover Cleveland signed legislation making Labor Day a holiday in 1884 six days after the Pullman strike ended. Cleveland signed it as a peace offering to the labor movement, which was still pretty raw after the national strike where Federal troops were called in and 13 strikers were killed.
This history remains relevant today.
The Labor Department announced today that the American economy created zero jobs in August. Zero. That hasn’t happened since the end of the Second World War – September of 1945 – when people were so busy celebrating the defeat of the Japanese that they didn’t have time to create any jobs.
Some economists are saying that the dreary job numbers were caused, in part, by the debate over the debt ceiling. I find that hard to believe.
There are plenty of other reasons, including the actions of both this President and of the labor movement. Read more...
Tags: America, American Small Business League, ASBL, Barack Obama, Boeing, Catholic school, Congress, Conservatives, Department of Transportation, Environmental Protection Agency, EPA, Gibson Guitar, GOP, Government, Grover Cleveland, job creation, Jobs, John Boehner, Justice Department, Labor Day, labor movement, National Labor Relations Act, National Labor Relations Board, NLRB v. Catholic Bishop of Chicago, Politics, President Obama, Pullman strike, Republican-controlled House, Republicans, spending, St. Xavier University, The Labor Department, the Obama Administration, Verizon, Washington Examiner, World War II
Posted in Economy, Financial Crisis, GOP, Government, History, Laws, Politics, Promises, Religion, Theory, Unemployment, bad news | 1 Comment »
August 31st, 2011 by John Feehery
Hurricane Irene blew in to Washington over the weekend and the biggest casualty was the Martin Luther King Memorial ceremony.
It turns out that the weather was pretty nice on Sunday afternoon, and the event could have still occurred, but it is hard to predict the weather.
It’s also hard to predict the future.
Are we as a country moving forward on the whole concept of racial harmony or are we moving backward?
Congressman Andre Carson said today that certain members of the Tea Party want to see black lawmakers “hanging on a tree.”
I wonder if Alan West and Tim Scott, two of the most influential Tea Party members of Congress (who coincidentally happen to be black), want to hang their fellow Congressional Black Caucus members up a tree.
I doubt it.
Carson believes that the Tea Party is to blame for the fact that unemployment is so high in the black community.
I find that hard to believe.
I guess it is far easier to blame a bunch of white conservatives than it is to blame the nation’s first black President.
The Tea Party hasn’t really had much of an impact on the President’s policies, not yet anyway. Read more...
Tags: affirmative action, African-Americans, Al Sharpton, Alan West, America, Barack Obama, Congress, Congressman Andre Carson, Conservatives, Democrats, Economy, election, first black President, George W Bush, GOP, hurricane Irene, Martin Luther King Memorial ceremony, Milwaukee Police Chief Edward Flynn, Msnbc, Obama, Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter, Politics, racism, raising taxes, Republicans, spending, taxes, Tea Party, Tim Scott, Washington
Posted in Bad Decisions, Economy, Financial Crisis, Government, History, Media, Politics, Presidential election, Religion, Theory, bad news, election, poverty, spending, taxes, terrorism | No Comments »
August 30th, 2011 by John Feehery
John Wayne is still my favorite Hollywood star.
No matter which one of his movies comes on the television screen, I will stop what I am doing and watch it.
The Quiet Man is perhaps my favorite, but Rio Grande, The Searchers, She Wore a Yellow Ribbon, all are very close in my estimation.
Another favorite is The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance. I watched that classic western with my brother-in-law. It co-starred Jimmy Stewart as the intellectual lawyer who thought he could conquer the wild West and Lee Marvin as the evil and deadly Liberty Valance.
This is a great movie on many levels. John Wayne, of course, plays the tragic hero figure in the flick. He is the one who actually shoots Valance, but loses the girl. Stewart gets credit for killing Valance, wins the girl and ultimately becomes the successful politician who actually brings civilization to the lawless territory.
In real life, Jimmy Stewart was a hero in the Second World War. He flew multiple bombing missions against the Germans as a Captain of a B-52 squadrons, and he retired a general. John Wayne never killed anything in his life, except maybe a few bottles of tequila. Read more...
Tags: America, American history, Barack Obama, Congress, Conservatives, Democrats, election, GOP, Government, Jimmy Stewart, John Wayne, Lee Marvin, Mitt Romney, Politics, Presidential election, Republicans, Rick Perry, Rio Grande, She Wore a Yellow Ribbon, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, The Quiet Man, The Searchers, White House
Posted in GOP, Government, History, Hollywood, Politics, Presidential election, Theory | 2 Comments »
August 26th, 2011 by John Feehery
Our family car is a relic. It doesn’t have XM radio. It doesn’t have sync capabilities with the iPhone. It doesn’t have a satellite navigation device. It does have an AM/FM radio and a CD player, but since my wife threw out all of our compact discs, that isn’t much of an option on a long ride.
We drove back from our vacation in Florida, and as you are driving through the Old South, there aren’t many very good radio options on either AM or FM, unless of course, you want to listen to a Baptist preacher telling you how the world is going to Hell in a handbasket, and only your personal contribution to his church can buy your salvation.
With the earthquake and then the hurricane hitting Washington D.C., I could be convinced that the world is going down the tubes, but I probably would never be convinced to give any of my hard-earned money to a Baptist preacher, no matter how convincing he might sound.
Only once did I hear a radio show that didn’t have a religious theme, and it was a North Carolina representative of the NFIB talking about the crushing impact of regulations on small businesses. Read more...
Tags: America, Barack Obama, Commerce Department, Congress, Conservatives, Democrats, earthquake, EPA, House Republicans, hurricane, John Boehner, Justice Department, Obama Administration, OSHA, Politics, small businesses, spending, Tea Party, Washington, White House, XM radio
Posted in Bailouts, Economy, Financial Crisis, GOP, Government, History, Laws, Politics, Religion, spending | No Comments »
August 15th, 2011 by John Feehery
I caught some of Michele Bachmann’s appearances as I drove down to Florida on my family vacation. She was doing one of the Sunday talk shows after her Ames, Iowa victory, and she sounded articulate and smart enough to hold her own.
The Republican Party of Iowa has already had an outsized influence on the GOP primary process. By elevating Bachmann and the Libertarian Ron Paul over Tim Pawlenty, the Straw poll voters knocked out the former Minnesota Governor.
Tim Pawlenty made an attractive candidate on paper. He had a good record. He is a nice guy. He is plenty conservative. What he didn’t have was a compelling message. He wasn’t crazy enough to appeal to either the Bachmann or Paul supporters (or the Herman Cainers either), and he wasn’t establishment enough to attract Mitt Romney type money.
I believe and continue to believe that if he portrayed himself as a warrior for the middle class, he could have made a bigger dent in the campaign. Instead, he kind of wandered from one message to another, at one point warning the party that it was becoming too isolationist, at another, claiming that he was a reformer with results, ala George Bush. Read more...
Tags: America, Ames, Ames Straw poll, Barack Obama, Congress, Conservatives, Democrats, election, George Bush, Governor Rick Perry, Iowa, Kay Bailey Hutchison, Michele Bachmann, Mitt Romney, Obama, Politics, President Obama, Presidential election, Red Staters, republican party, Republicans, Ron Paul, Straw Poll, Tim Pawlenty, White House
Posted in GOP, Government, History, Media, Politics, Presidential election, election | No Comments »
August 10th, 2011 by John Feehery
John Boehner and Mitch McConnell put some real thought into their picks for the Joint Super Committee that will decide the fate of so many spending programs and perhaps the financial health of the country.
Harry Reid? Not so much.
Boehner picked two real deal-makers in Dave Camp and Fred Upton, and a guy who learned how to drive a hard-bargain from the best hard-bargainer in the business (Phil Gramm) in Jeb Hensarling.
Neither Camp nor Upton are partisan bomb-throwers. Upton ran into some resistance from the hard right to his ascension to the Energy and Commerce Committee because he was viewed as too moderate, although Fred has been a very reliable conservative in his role as Chairman.
Upton has long experience in budget politics, having served at OMB under Reagan. He is also an expert on entitlement programs, and his appointment shows that Boehner is serious about getting serious on spending.
Camp has been very thoughtful in his new role as Chairman of the powerful Ways and Means Committee. He said that he wasn’t going to jam the Ryan Medicare bill through the House only to see it die in the Senate, a signal to the world that Camp was no Kamikaze pilot on smashing the Republican Majority into a Senate cliff. Read more...
Tags: America, Arlen Spector, Barack Obama, Chris Van Hollen, Congress, Dave Camp, election, Energy and Commerce Committee, Fred Upton, Harry Reid, Jan Schakowsky, Jeb Hensarling, John Boehner, John Kerry, John Lewis, Joint Super Committee, Jon Kyl, Max Baucus, Michelle Bachmann, Minority Leader Pelosi, Mitch McConnell, moderate, Nancy Pelosi, Pat Toomey, Patty Murray, Phil Gramm, Politics, Presidential election, Reagan, republican party, Republicans, Rob Portman, Ryan Medicare bill, Senate Majority Leader, spending, Steny Hoyer, Steve Israel, Tea Party, Texas Senator Gramm, Ways and Means Committee, Xavier Beccera
Posted in GOP, Government, History, Politics, Promises, Theory, election | No Comments »
August 9th, 2011 by John Feehery
Barack Obama just turned 50 years old. He is still a young man (by contemporary standards). He still plays basketball regularly, he likes to golf, he enjoys spending quality time with his daughters.
I have an idea for him. He should announce that he is taking a break at the end of next year from politics. Instead of running for re-election, Mr. Obama should tell the country that he is going into private business.
He has plenty of time to run again should he discover that he still has some work he wants to finish as President.
He can always run again. He can pull a Cleveland. Grover Cleveland was the only President to win in two non-consecutive terms, although he lost to Benjamin Harrison in between. Obama can take the high road and leave while the leaving is good.
The President needs some real world experience. Imagine how much better he would do with the experience of having to meet a payroll or worry about the P&L Statement. Imagine how much more sympathetic he would be if he actually understood how his health care law would make it harder to hire people. Imagine if he actually understood that by “spreading the wealth around,” the government actually makes it harder for the economy to grow. Read more...
Tags: Barack Obama, Benjamin Harrison, Congress, Conservatives, Democrats, Economy, election, George Bush, Government, Grover Cleveland, Hillary Clinton, Jeb Bush, medicare, Obama, Politics, President Obama, Republicans, spending
Posted in Bad Decisions, Economy, Financial Crisis, GOP, Government, History, Politics, Presidential election, Promises, Theory, election, health care | 1 Comment »
August 8th, 2011 by John Feehery
Democratic spinmeisters have concocted a nice little phrase to describe the actions of the Standard and Poor’s Ratings Agency, which was used to little effect over the weekend: The Tea Party Downgrade.
Nice try. That is kind of like blaming the fire department for not putting out the fire fast enough.
The S&P believes that we spend too much as a nation and that we don’t have the political will to stop spending. The Tea Party was formed primarily to send a message to Washington that America needs to stop spending money we don’t have.
The Tea Party won’t get the blame for the debt rating downgrade. President Obama will get the blame and it will hurt him with the American people in the next election.
This 30-second ad takes less than 30 seconds to create. A picture of the President hanging out with his Democratic colleagues fades in and fades out. A screen shot fades in: “The first President to ever lose America’s AAA credit rating. Had enough?”
The President’s men know this is a bad hit. That is why Tim Geithner is attacking the S&P so harshly. That is why the spinners are trying to pin the blame on conservative Republicans. But it won’t work. Read more...
Tags: AAA rating, America, American people, Barack Obama, Bush administration, Congress, Congressional leaders, Conservatives, debt limit, Democrats, election, FDR, George Bush, George W Bush, GOP, health care law, impson-Bowles deficit commission, JFK, Media, medicare, Politics, President Obama, Presidential election, recession, reform, Republicans, Senate, spending, Standard and Poor’s Ratings Agency, tax increases, taxes, Tea Party, Tim Geithner
Posted in Bad Decisions, Economy, Financial Crisis, GOP, Government, History, Laws, Media, Politics, Presidential election, Theory, bad news, election, health care, medicare, national security, spending, taxes, war | No Comments »
August 5th, 2011 by John Feehery
The world is going to hell in a hand basket. The stock market just crashed as if Congress allowed the President to default on our debt payments. Europe is in the same shape financially as it was in 1946.
So why am I focused on the Infield Fly Rule?
I don’t know. I thought it would be a pleasant diversion from the negative news we see every day.
So, for those of you who don’t follow baseball, the Infield Fly Rule, according to Wikipedia, is: “The infield fly rule is a baseball rule that is intended to prevent infielders from intentionally dropping pop-ups in order to turn double plays (or triple plays). Without this rule, a defense could easily turn a pop-up into a double play when there are runners at first and second base. If the runners stay near their bases to tag up, the defense could let the ball drop, throw to third base and then to second, for a force-out at each base. If any of the runners stray too far from his base, the defense could catch the pop-up, and double-off any runner that failed to tag up. When the rule is invoked, the batter will be out (and all force plays removed) regardless of whether the ball is caught, thus negating the possibility for multiple outs.” Read more...
Tags: America, American League, Baltimore Orioles, Barack Obama, baseball, Bourbon Democrat, Congress, Conservatives, Cy Young, Democratic Party, Democrats, dollar, Gilded Age, Government, Grover Cleveland, Infield Fly Rule, National League championship, progressives, spending, stock market, The Depression, World Series
Posted in Bad Decisions, Economy, Financial Crisis, Fun, Gambling, Government, History, Laws, Politics, Theory, baseball, sports | 2 Comments »
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