BY JOHN FEEHERY
Reprinted from TheFeeheryTheory.com

So, amid the myriad of scandals that currently occupy DC elite, the House of Representatives worked late into the night to vote once again to repeal Obamacare.

The press played this as another partisan attempt to poke at the President, a waste of time, a waste of effort, a waste of money. The bill wasn’t going to go anywhere in the Senate, so why would House Republicans do this for the 37th time?

I think there are several good reasons.

First, this is a revenue bill, and should the Senate want to go to conference on a revenue bill, this gives them a vehicle to do that. (more…)

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BY RICH GALEN
Reprinted from Mullings.com

From Livingstone, Zambia for the ONE Campaign

Don’t email me. It’s Livingstone with an “e.” And the guy who found Dr. David Livingstone in 1871 was Henry Stanley from the New York Herald.

We are ending our week-long visit to Africa here, having spent the last two days in the Zambian capital of Lusaka.

One of the places we visited was the U.S. embassy where we chatted with Ambassador Mark Storella. He has been very active in his nearly three years here in the area of health care generally and HIV/AIDS in particular. (more…)

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BY JOHN FEEHERY
Reprinted from TheFeeheryTheory.com

According to Wikipedia: “A whipping boy was a young boy who was assigned to a young prince and was punished when the prince misbehaved or fell behind in his schooling. Whipping boys were established in the English court during the monarchies of the 15th century and 16th centuries. They were created because of the idea of the divine right of kings, which stated that kings were appointed by God, and implied that no one but the king was worthy of punishing the king’s son. Since the king was rarely around to punish his son when necessary, tutors to the young prince found it extremely difficult to enforce rules or learning.” (more…)

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BY WILLIAM F. GAVIN

As we reach the end of Phase One of the IRS scandals, the  situation looks roughly like this (I say roughly because things change quickly): a bi-partisan majority condemns the IRS, and President Obama has stated his own condemnation. The White House, through spokesman Jay Carney, says that neither the President nor any White House official knew anything about the persecution of conservatives while it was going on. The IRS  says the wrongdoing was not partisan in nature, but the result of carelessness, incompetence, and lack of supervision by superiors.

I think that last point is going to be key to Phase Two, when investigations start to take place. If indeed this possible (and I think very  probable) violation of civil rights was not directed by administration officials, then what we have here (so goes the argument), awful as it is, cannot be blamed on the administration or specifically on the President. (more…)

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BY JOHN FEEHERY
Reprinted from TheFeeheryTheory.com

When I worked for the Hammer, I told him point-blank it was unwise for him to lead the impeachment of Bill Clinton.

I explained to him that even if we could pass an impeachment resolution out of the House, a conviction would fail in the Senate because that required a two-thirds vote, and if he led the impeachment drive, it would automatically become a partisan event, making a conviction impossible.

Tom DeLay thanked me for my thoughts and said in no uncertain terms that Clinton’s actions were a moral stain on the Presidency and that he had to be made accountable. (more…)

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BY JOHN FEEHERY
Reprinted from TheFeeheryTheory.com

Originally published in The Hill

Twenty-nine years before the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington, D.C., John Dean, then the White House counsel, sent a list of names to IRS Commissioner Johnnie Walters. On the list were names of enemies of the Nixon campaign that were to be investigated and audited and generally harassed by the tax-collecting agency.

That was among the revelations that came from the Watergate investigation, which eventually led to the resignation of President Nixon.

Some 40 years later, the Internal Revenue Service is once again in the news for targeting political enemies of the president. I would bet my bottom dollar that there is no evidence that the current president is involved directly in this latest scandal. (more…)

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BY FRANK HILL
Reprinted from TelemachusLeaps.com

Or should trump them, at least.

Despite all the consternation about the Obama Administration and Benghazi, the IRS harassment of Tea Party groups and the AP phone records being monitored, we still have a country to run.

Somebody better be paying attention to our spending and deficit/debt problems or else it really won’t matter if the Obama White House is lying about any of the above 3 scandals now a-brewing.

They are all important issues of governance or malfeasance, however you want to call it.

But none of them can do the damage to our future that out-of-control spending can cause because our debt gets too high and then, when interest rates return to ‘normal’? It either crowds out other essential functions of government or inflation rears its ugly, ugly head and everyone suffers. Especially the elderly, poor and infirm. (more…)

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BY B. JAY COOPER
Reprinted from BJayCooper.com

Jay Carney, White House press secretary is having, the worst of times.

With Benghazi talking points, IRS targeting right-wing groups and the Justice Department targeting AP reporters, ol’ Jay is getting LOTS of questions these days.
Politico put together what seems to be his standard answer to a question he doesn’t want to answer: “I appreciate the question.”

Having sat in the White House press office when the pressure hits, I have a good sense of what’s going on (even though the addition of 24/7 cable, the dimunition of the old get-it-right-first journalism and the pressure of the Internet didn’t exist back then and certainly has dramatically changed the dynamics). Still, there are principles for handling crisis that always come into play. For  example, don’t speak before you know the truth. Not always easy, I know. (more…)

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BY WILLIAM F. GAVIN

In baseball, a scout looks for the “five tools” while recruiting a prospect: can he hit, hit with power, run, field, and throw?

Now, as the second Obama administration shows signs of unraveling (in the Obama administration, the letters IRS now stand for Intimidate Republican Suspects), the GOP should remember the five tools of a successful political party: it has to have personalities, principles, policies, propaganda, and opportunity.

Allow me for a  moment to briefly discuss the importance of attractive political personalities. This is not original stuff, but as G. K. Chesterton once said, on most important matters, people have to be reminded rather than instructed. (more…)

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BY RICH GALEN
Reprinted from Mullings.com

An important part of the ONE Campaign’s effort to involve young men and women in Africa in helping to determine the next round of Millennium Development Goals for 2015 is a project called “You Choose.”

You Choose involves utilizing mobile phone numbers by large corporations asking users (at no cost) to text a certain message to a certain number if they want to become involved. Then they get to go through a decision-tree and pick out the issues they think should be highlighted.

This, as you might imagine, has taken the time and talents of some of the best young organizers in southern Africa and we’ve had the opportunity to catch up with some of them both in South Africa and in Malawi. (more…)

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