Posts Tagged ‘Ireland’
August 12th, 2011 by John Feehery
Nihilism rules the streets of Great Britain. A normal looking Norwegian kills scores of fellow countrymen in the hopes of sparking a war against Islam. Paris is still recovering from the Algerian riots of last year.
America loses it AAA rating. Europe struggles to stay fiscally afloat. Portugal, Ireland, Spain, Italy, Iceland all look like they are going to go bankrupt.
European birthrates can’t compete with European death rates, as more immigrants fill the workforce and create tension.
Gangs of black youths run around major American cities, beating up white people for the fun of it. Police forces in rural America spend the majority of their time trying to close down meth labs, as the percentage of people in the country who are addicted to the deadly drug inches up.
Teachers (not students) are accused of cheating when it comes to grading standardized tests, so that they can escape the brunt of the No Child Left Behind law.
Stories of abuse, suicide, rape, incest and a variety of other unbelievable evils dominate the headlines.
What the hell is going on with Western Civilization? Read more...
Tags: Catholicism, Europe, Evangelicals, Great Britain, Holocaust, Iceland, Ireland, Islam, Italy, Moral Majority, Nihilism, No Child Left Behind law, Portugal, Protestantism, Spain, the Enlightenment, Vietnam War, Western Civilization
Posted in Bad Decisions, Education, Financial Crisis, Government, History, Laws, Politics, bad news, national security, spending, taxes, tragedy, war | No Comments »
May 24th, 2011 by John Feehery
I wore my green tie in honor of President Obama’s visit to Moneygall yesterday.
The President was warmly received in his visit to the Emerald Isle, and he didn’t disappoint. He drank a pint of stout in four sips, an impressive feat for any person who is not predominantly Irish.
The President was visiting this small Irish village because he has an ancient relative who was born there. That great-great-great grandfather immigrated to Ireland in the middle of the potato famine, around the same time that old Tom Feehery left Roscrae in county Tipperary.
The Irish diaspora went far and wide in the world in that era. My family ended up in Chicago and so did Obama. Small world.
The Irish economy is approaching the level of disaster that befell Ireland in the 1850’s. Nobody is starving, but the people are leaving again like they did then, looking for jobs.
The irony is that Ireland is far different than it was then, and that a motivated and smart workforce, favorable tax laws and a good infrastructure should help propel the Irish back fairly quickly.
The President’s visit is good politics for him. He should have taken some more time, played some golf and established closer ties to the Irish. Read more...
Tags: America, Barack Obama, Chicago, Economy, election, Emerald Isle, Government, Guinness, Ireland, Irish, Irish Catholics, Moneygall, Obama, President Obama, Presidential election, spending
Posted in Economy, Financial Crisis, Foreign Relations, Fun, Government, Immigration, Politics, Presidential election, Religion, Theory, election, national security | No Comments »
March 17th, 2011 by John Feehery
The world celebrates St. Patrick’s Day today, as millions of Irish celebrate their national heritage.
One of the most enduring myths in Ireland is of the leprechaun finding the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.
In Washington and in State Capitols around the country, policy makers are vainly searching for rainbows in hopes that they might find that pot of gold to help them balance their budgets.
Inspired by the Tea Party, Republicans believe that they have found the perfect way to balance budgets, which is to dramatically cut spending.
In Congress, House Republicans started with discretionary spending, which only holds a relatively small pot of gold, but they have promised to go after entitlements spending, where the real money is.
They believe that the voters sent them to Washington to accomplish this mission, and in many cases, they are right.
But before they cut too deeply, the GOP might want to look at the experience of the Irish.
They just recently held an election there, where the party in power, Fianna Fail, dramatically slashed spending in response to a fiscal crisis that brought about a budget crisis for the Irish government. Read more...
Tags: Congress, Conservatives, Democrats, Economy, Fianna Fail, GOP, Government, Ireland, Irish, Politics, Republican, Republicans, spending, St. Patrick’s Day, Tea Party
Posted in Foreign Relations, GOP, Government, History, Politics, Promises, Theory, spending | No Comments »
June 14th, 2010 by John Feehery
Like Big Wheels, I missed the soccer generation.
Let me explain. My younger brother was the first in my family to get a Big Wheel, because they came out just at the right time for his height and weight. I was too big to ever ride a Big Wheel.
And by the time soccer came to my high school, I was already set on football, baseball and especially basketball. I didn’t have time on my hands to get into soccer because I was too busy doing the other stuff.
So, when it comes to soccer (or football as they call it in other parts of the world), I am a fair weather fan. I don’t particularly love the game, unless it is the World Cup, and even then, I only root for two teams, the United States and Ireland.
I remember several years ago when the Irish beat the Italians in the World Cup in New York. That gave me an excuse to go to the Dubliner and hoist of few pints in honor of my ancestral home (as if I needed an excuse). Read more...
Tags: Ireland, soccer, sports, USA, world economy
Posted in Foreign Relations, sports | No Comments »
June 11th, 2010 by John Feehery
World Cup Fans / Photo credit: Audrey & Patrick Scales
It is an overdone cliché to thank the good Lord for Friday, but this has been a particularly long week, so stringing a coherent column together might be beyond my capability today. But that won’t stop me from some Friday musings. Read more...
- Talk about Chutzpah. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is seriously considering ditching the outside ethics panel that she trumpeted as one of the most important achievements of her tenure. She did it because she wanted to convince the voters that Democrats were the most ethical people in the whole, entire world. It didn’t work. Most voters still think the Democrats are incurably corrupt. According to news reports, Members of the Congressional Black Caucus are leading the charge to neuter the Office of Congressional Ethics, because that office has the temerity to look at what the members of the CBC are actually doing and ignoring what they are saying.
Tags: Blackhawks, California, Congressional Black Caucus, Ireland, Nancy Pelosi, Office of Congressional Ethics, Proposition 14, South Africa, Stanley Cup, World Cup
Posted in Government, Politics, Theory, sports | 1 Comment »
March 8th, 2010 by John Feehery
Most people looked at the President’s March 18th health care deadline and saw a totally unrealistic, pie-in-the-sky, hail Mary pass from a guy who has set down several totally unrealistic, pie-in-the-sky, hail Mary pass deadlines in the past.
Remember, when he wanted a health care law on his desk last August? Or when he wanted it done before Thanksgiving? Or Christmas?
Now he wants it done the day after the most important holiday of the year, St. Patrick’s Day.
My middle name is Patrick, so I have always taken St. Patrick’s Day very seriously.
I believe that St. Patrick’s Day should be a national holiday, and as most people know about me, I don’t do any meetings on that day, unless, they are held at a very particular place.
Having a health care vote on the day after St. Patrick’s Day offends me personally. Everybody knows that the day after St. Patrick Day should be a day of reflection and quiet contemplation, not a day of yelling, screaming, arm-twisting and fulminating at the mouth. My head hurts just thinking about it. Read more...
Tags: Africa, Bertie Ahern, Brian Cowan, Celtic Tiger, Economy, Fianna Fail, Financial Crisis, Inflation, Ireland, socialist, St. Patrick’s Day, the Euro
Posted in Financial Crisis, Government, Politics, spending | 2 Comments »
June 12th, 2008 by John Feehery
This appeared a year ago last March in The Hill pundits Blog:
I serve on the board of a charity organization called Cooperation Ireland, dedicated to promoting peace in Northern Ireland between the nationalist and loyalist communities. This organization helps fund projects focused on bringing together two communities that have rarely intermingled in the last 30 years, communities that don’t really know, like or trust each other. Building peace is hard work, and the really hard work is not done by the politicians, it is done by the people.
Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) spoke to our annual dinner in New York last night, and he did a great job. I am supporting Rudy Giuliani for president (he was honored by the group last year), but that doesn’t mean that I don’t respect McCain and his contributions to our nation.
McCain made the link between the good news in Ireland and the increasingly bad news in Iraq. Building civil societies out of communities that are sharply divided is hard work. Anybody looking for easy answers to the situation in Iraq is kidding himself. Just look how hard it was to implement the Good Friday Accords. Ten years later, and only now are the people of Northern Ireland getting the devolved government that had been promised. Read more...
Tags: election, Ireland, McCain, peace-process
Posted in Government, Politics, Theory | No Comments »
Loading ...