Posts Tagged ‘Obama Administration’
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 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 »
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 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 »
September 19th, 2011 by John Feehery
The Washington Post had this to say about a crucial voting bloc: “American Catholics are the ultimate swing voters, switching between Republicans and Democrats alike. Representing approximately one in four U.S. voters, Catholics make up the largest single religious voting bloc in American politics.”
Catholic voters voted big time for Barack Obama in the last Presidential election, despite the fact that Mr. Obama is staunchly and aggressively pro-choice.
Catholics voted for Mr. Obama over Mr. McCain by a nine-point margin (54 percent versus 45 percent), a turnaround from 2004 when Catholics supported President Bush over Sen. John Kerry, Massachusetts Democrat, by a five-point margin (52 percent to 47 percent).
Politics doesn’t often come in Mass, but it did this past Sunday in the least expected way. Although from the very beginning I should have thought something was up. Read more...
Tags: America, American Catholics, Barack Obama, Catholic church, Conservatives, Democrats, Department of Health and Human Services, health care, McCain, Obama Administration, Politics, President Obama, Presidential election, pro-choice, Republicans, The Washington Post
Posted in Bad Decisions, Government, Politics, Promises, bad news, election, health care, poverty | No 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 »
June 27th, 2011 by John Feehery
Ben Franklin was the one who first said that the only inevitable things in life were death and taxes.
These days, the same could probably be said for debt and taxes, but that doesn’t mean that the debt limit should include tax provisions. Here are seven reasons why:
Raising taxes during a slowing economy is bad policy: The economy is in danger of backsliding into a recession. There are more signs of a double-dip than there are in a Baskin-Robbins. Democrats seem intent on raising taxes on rich people, but right now, that could take money out of the private marketplace, inhibit investment and push our economy off the cliff.
The Republicans won’t, because the Democrats didn’t: Six months ago, with overwhelming majorities in the House and the Senate, the Obama administration decided that the Bush tax cuts they hated so much were good enough to extend for two more years. It is awfully hard for the president to make the case that the policies he put into place only half a year ago are now null and void. It strains credibility for the president to ask Republicans to raise taxes when he wouldn’t do so when his team ran the Congress. Read more...
Tags: America, Barack Obama, Ben Franklin, Bush tax cuts, Congress, debt limit, Democrats, dollar, Economy, election, ethanol subsidy, George W Bush, Obama, Obama Administration, reform, Republicans, spending, tax reform, taxes
Posted in Bad Decisions, Economy, Financial Crisis, Government, Laws, Theory, election, spending, taxes, welfare | No Comments »
May 13th, 2011 by John Feehery
Two things drive me completely crazy about the debate over higher gas prices.
First, this whole issue of big oil subsidies is complete crap. The oil industry gets the same tax breaks as any other manufacturer. And why shouldn’t they? They manufacture a product here in the U.S.
I am stealing the following four paragraphs from the American Thinker blog (if I say that I am stealing it publicly, then it isn’t plagiarism, right?) because I think the author does a nice job of summing up what these tax credits are:
“Domestic manufacturing tax deduction — $1.7 B. This is a tax deduction given to every manufacturer in the US. Per CNN, it was “designed to keep factories in the United States.” If that deduction were eliminated for oil companies only, it would mean singling out oil companies from all other manufacturers.
Percentage depletion allowance — $1 B. Any industry can write down a portion of the cost of its capital equipment as part of the cost of doing business. Right now, oil in the ground is treated as capital equipment. Again, this “subsidy” amounts to how the cost of doing business is defined. All companies get it, not just oil companies. Read more...
Tags: American Thinker blog, CNN, energy independence, EPA, foriegn oil, gas, gas prices, Government, Iran, Isreal, Obama Administration, oil industry, Saudi Arabia, taxes
Posted in Economy, Financial Crisis, Foreign Relations, GOP, Government, Politics, The Web, Theory, middle-east, national security, spending, taxes, terrorism | No Comments »
March 25th, 2011 by John Feehery
Karl Rove’s group, American Crossroads GPS, launched a new website called “Wikiaccountability,” yesterday to great fanfare.
Well, not really. The website’s purpose is pretty simple: As it says itself: “Wikicountability is a repository for Freedom of Information Act requests and other legally obtained official documents. This wiki is community contributed and community edited. The site is a project of Crossroads GPS, founded for the purpose of publicly sharing information obtained through FOIA and other important reports, documents and analyses.”
Pretty simple, huh? Help out the Fourth Estate by figuring out how the Obama Administration is stiffing them when they ask for information. After all, didn’t Mr. Obama promise more openness and transparency? Isn’t it helpful to know how they are doing when it comes to openness and transparency?
Well, the Democrats attacked American Crossroads for being non-transparent because they asked for the government to be more transparent. The New York Times, which should look at this effort with great anticipation, because the New York Times is supposed to be in the news gathering business, instead swallowed the Democratic talking points hook, line and sinker. Read more...
Tags: American Crossroads, American Crossroads GPS, Barack Obama, CREW, Democrats, Karl Rove, Melanie Sloan, New York Times, Obama Administration, Republicans, Wikiaccountability
Posted in Bad Decisions, GOP, Government, Media, Politics, Theory | No Comments »
March 22nd, 2011 by John Feehery
Rebel fighters gesture in front of a burning vehicle belonging to forces loyal to Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi after an air strike by coalition forces along a road between Benghazi and Ajdabiyah.
President Obama says that Libyan strongman Muamar Gaddafi “has to go.”
The question that pops up in my mind is: “Go where?”
I don’t think our President has an answer for that question. I think the President is winging it.
The Administration did a good job of getting the Arab League to agree to let us start bombing Libya. They did a pretty good job of getting the U.N. to look the other way.
They forgot one crucial group, though: the Congress.
It seems to me that making sure that the folks who are paying the bills would be clued into this latest foray into the Arab world.
The Obama Administration is taking the position that Dick Cheney took in the run-up to the first Gulf War: it doesn’t need Congressional authorization.
But the first President Bush rejected Cheney’s advice and sought Congress’s stamp of approval before launching Operation Desert Storm in 1991. Read more...
Tags: American people, Arab League, Congress, Dick Cheney, Libya, Muamar Gaddafi, Obama Administration, President Bush, President Obama, U.N., war in Libya
Posted in Bad Decisions, Foreign Relations, Government, History, Politics, Theory, national security, war | No Comments »
Loading ...