Posts Tagged ‘Tea Party’
October 14th, 2011 by John Feehery
Never assume.
I usually get in trouble when I make assumptions and then challenge them.
I have been assuming for some time that the Republicans will easily beat Barack Hussein Obama.
I have been assuming that for some very good reasons.
For example, Obama is just not a very good President. He doesn’t have a clue how the private market place works. He is not much of a leader. His neo-Marxist philosophy is all out of step with our free-market system.
Even if you do like the President personally, it is still hard to make the case that he deserves to be re-hired. The economy is in terrible shape. Our country is “this close” to going completely broke. He has failed to take on entitlements in any serious way.
He has had some successes in the war on terror, but unfortunately for him, this election won’t hinge on Mr. Obama’s ability to give the order to kill terrorists.
That is what we all know, and that is why he is cracking 50% in his disapproval ratings.
But the Republicans can still screw this up. Here are a few ways BHO could still win: Read more...
Tags: 9-9-9 plan, afghanistan, American economy, Barack Hussein Obama, Bill Clinton, Dodd-Frank regulations, economic growth, Freedom Works, Hermann Cain, Hispanic voters, Immigration, Libertarian, Matt Kibbe, Mitt Romney, neo-Marxist philosophy, Obamacare, Republicans, Rick Perry, Super Pacs, Tea Party, Unemployment
Posted in GOP, Government, Politics, Presidential election, Theory, election, spending, 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 »
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 »
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 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 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 10th, 2011 by John Feehery
According to Wikipedia, a flash mob is “a group of people who assemble suddenly in a public place, perform an unusual and sometimes seemingly pointless act for a brief time, then disperse, often for the purposes of entertainment and/or satire. Flash mobs are organized via telecommunications, social media, or viral emails. The term, coined in 2003, is generally not applied to events and performances organized for the purposes of politics (such as protests), commercial advertisement, publicity stunts that involve public relation firms, or paid professionals.”
Neither the Obama campaign of 2008 nor the Tea Party movement of 2009 can be characterized as flash mobs under that definition, although they share many of the same characteristics.
Under that definition, the Arab Spring protests also don’t qualify as flash mobs. They had a political point to them.
Flash mobs have overtaken London and other British cities. They don’t seem to have any point to them at all, other than rage and terror.
Flash mobs have also rose suddenly in many American cities. The Wisconsin State Fair was besieged by black flash mobsters whose only goal was to terrorize white citizens. Imagine, for a moment, if white flash mobsters decided to terrorize black citizens. Al Sharpton would be doing his new MSNBC show from wherever the white racists did their deed, and we would never hear the end of it. Read more...
Tags: Al Sharpton, American flash mobsters, Arab Spring protests, British flash mobs, flash mob, Milwaukee attacks, Msnbc, Obama, snow ball fight in Dupont Circle, Tea Party, terror, terrorism, terrorist, Wisconsin State Fair attack
Posted in Bad Decisions, Government, History, Politics, Social Media, Theory, bad news, terrorism | No Comments »
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 2nd, 2011 by John Feehery
John Boehner won a complete and total victory in the House with an overwhelming vote to extend the debt limit.
His victory was so complete, many of his closest allies in the House could safely vote no to avoid primary fights next year.
House Democrats divided almost exactly in half, and their left wing is livid at the deal cut by the President.
The Tea Party, the rambunctious group of mostly second and third term members (and more than a few freshman) could only look on in anger and despair. They looked liked fools, their demands unrealistic, their rhetoric unnecessarily heated, their performance disappointing not only to their base, but also to Republican establishmentarians like me.
They demanded that the Senate pass a balanced budget amendment, but had to settle merely for a vote, a request that Harry Reid, the Senate Majority leader was more than happy to grant, over the grimace of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.
Imagine how hard it has been for McConnell to explain to Jim DeMint how he is trying to take back the Senate and that giving Reid a chance to give his moderates cover to vote yes on the balanced budget amendment only hurts the cause. Read more...
Tags: Bush tax cuts, Conservatives, debt limit, Democratic Caucus, Democrats, extend the debt limit, Harry Reid, House Democrats, Jim DeMint, John Boehner, liberals, Michele Bachmann, Mitch McConnell, Politics, Republican, Republican Conference, Senate, Senate Majority Leader, Senate Minority Leader, Tea Party
Posted in Economy, Financial Crisis, GOP, Government, Laws, Liberal Media, Media, Politics, Promises, election, spending, taxes, terrorism | 1 Comment »
August 1st, 2011 by John Feehery
As we were driving back from the airport, my 5-year old son Jack asked me, “Daddy, what’s the debt limit?”
We had just flown in from Chicago. I had dropped off my son at grandma’s house, and drove up to Milwaukee for my 25 year college reunion.
The debt limit wasn’t just on the mind of my 5-year old. It was also on the mind of many of my friends and some other folks who I didn’t even know.
In the hotel coffee shop Sunday morning, the topic of conversation between two 50-year reunion participants was whether they had a deal on the debt limit or not.
They weren’t asking me. They were talking (loudly) among themselves. Their mood was more than a bit grim and frustrated.
At the reunion, my old classmates mostly traded old war stories and tried to remember who did what crazy thing when. It is amazing we all survived our college years (well, most of us survived at least).
When I first arrived on campus close to 30 years ago, Ronald Reagan was in his first term and the economy wasn’t doing very well. Reagan had an abiding sense of optimism and a hatred of communism, neither of which played particularly well with many of my college professors. Read more...
Tags: Bill Speros, college, Communism, Congress, Obama, Obamacare, Politics, Republican, Ronald Reagan, Tea Party, Washington
Posted in Bad Decisions, Economy, Financial Crisis, Government, History, Laws, Media, Politics, Promises, Theory, gun control, health care, national security, spending, taxes | No Comments »
Loading ...