Monthly Archives: July 2014

Obamacare Overruns

BY RICH GALEN
Reprinted from Mullings.com

From the National Journal’s website: “The Obama administration has spent roughly $840 million on HealthCare.gov, including more than $150 million just in cost overruns for the version that failed so badly when it launched last year.”

$840 million for a website is somewhat more than I spent on my blog, Mullings. About $839,998,250 more. By the way, Mullings was mostly written by Chuck DeFeo who is now the Chief Digital Officer for the Republican National Committee, so you can plainly see how crucial his association with Mullings has been to his career. Continue reading

Incomplete Thoughts on Solving Poverty Problems

BY JOHN FEEHERY
Reprinted from TheFeeheryTheory.com

Who (or what) is to blame for persistent poverty in this country? Is it inequities in the marketplace? Is it the inefficiency and corruption in government programs? Is it the pathologies of the poor? Is it systemic racism?

Liberals tend to believe in economic determinism, based on the old Marxist dialectic. To them, everything must be viewed in terms of capital.

Marx posited in Das Kapital, according to Wikipedia: that the motivating force of capitalism is in the exploitation of labour, whose unpaid work is the ultimate source of profit and surplus Continue reading

Impeachment!

BY RICH GALEN
Reprinted from Mullings.com

There is a growing battle between the Republican-controlled House of Representatives and the Democrat-controlled White House. President Barack Obama is signing what are known as “Executive Orders” to (in the minds of House Republicans) either create laws that don’t exist, or ignore laws that do exist. Continue reading

Expanding the Size of the Senate

BY JOHN FEEHERY
Reprinted from TheFeeheryTheory.com

There’s nothing sacred about having 100 Senators and 435 Members of the House of Representatives.

It was 103 years ago, in August of 1911, when Congress passed the Apportionment Act, which set the number of House Members at the current number. When Alaska and Hawaii entered the union in 1959, that number was allowed to float to 437, but under that law, it sank back to 435 in 1962. Continue reading

A Not-So Earnest Defense

BY B. JAY COOPER
Reprinted from BJayCooper.com

Ruth Marcus, a Washington Post columnist who I respect greatly, has a column today on anonymous news sources and a kerfuffle started by the new White House press secretary, Josh Earnest.

Anonymous sourcing for news stories has been a controversial issue in the journalism industry for years, and a contentious subject in any White House which doesn’t like dealing with stories based on anonymous sources because, a. the stories tend to be true and it’s an easy answer (“we don’t comment on anonymous sources”) and, b. every White House does “background” briefing where officials talk but the ground rule is you can’t use their names. Continue reading

Gaza: An Overview

BY RICH GALEN
Reprinted from Mullings.com

The Gaza Strip is a land mass bordered by Israel on the north and east, the Mediterranean Sea on the west, and Egypt on the south. It has a land mass of 360 square miles which is about twice the size of Washington, DC.

The proximate cause of the current conflict was the abduction on June 12, 2014 of, according to CNN.com: “Three Israeli teens on their way home from school in the West Bank were abducted. One was a dual U.S. citizen. Israel blamed Hamas. Their bodies were found on July 1 in the West Bank.” Continue reading

How To Win Votes and Influence Policy

BY JOHN FEEHERY
Reprinted from TheFeeheryTheory.com

Originally published in The Hill

Amid the Great Depression, Dale Carnegie’s book, How To Win Friends and Influence People, was published by Simon & Schuster and went on to be one of the biggest-selling self-help books in history.

There is plenty of good material in there for political parties. Here are my modified rules for the Republican Party, as inspired by Carnegie.

1. Don’t only criticize, condemn or complain.
Carnegie warned about the negative effects of criticism. It leaves a mark on the psyche of Continue reading

Symptoms of an Ineffective Drug Control Policy

BY JOHN FEEHERY
Reprinted from TheFeeheryTheory.com

The humanitarian crisis on the Southern border and the crime spree in Chicago are connected by one common thread, and are symptoms of a far bigger public policy problem.

The reason children from Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador are able to traverse thousands of miles between their home countries and the Texas border is most likely because they are getting assistance from criminal drug gangs. Continue reading

All Too Often, Good Politics = Bad Policy

BY JOHN FEEHERY
Reprinted from TheFeeheryTheory.com

Originally published in The Hill

Republicans have a historic chance to take back the Senate this November. If they control both houses of Congress, they will have an opportunity to set the agenda during President Obama’s last two years in office and set the table for the next presidential election.

To take full advantage of this opportunity, however, they have to conquer one huge obstacle. Continue reading

Dixon, Baker: Politicians to Remember

BY MICHAEL S. JOHNSON

They called him Al the Pal.

He had a smile as wide as the Mississippi is long and a boisterous voice that left no doubt Al the Pal was in the room. He was an honest politician; a real man of the people. The kind you felt comfortable around, like a close relative or the owner of the gas station where you took your car for repairs. Continue reading

Bettin’ on the Senate

BY RICH GALEN
Reprinted from Mullings.com

Let’s chat about the state of campaigns for the United State Senate in the midterm elections on November 4.

The news continues not just to be good regarding the chances of the GOP taking control of the Upper Chamber; the news continues to improve.

Many of you know that my predictive skills are somewhat lacking. Whether it’s picking stocks, the winner of a Presidential campaign, or whether I have enough time to cross the street Continue reading

Happy Birthday, America

BY RICH GALEN
Reprinted from Mullings.com

If you’ve ever watched PBS on July 4th, you know that for many years your local affiliate has broadcast the “Capitol Fourth” program which is the concert on the West Lawn of the U.S. Capitol followed by the fireworks which are beyond the Washington Monument on the far end of the Smithsonian Mall.

Our first Fourth of July in Washington, DC was in 1978. The woman who would become the Mullings Director of Standards & Practices and I took our son, then a little over two-years-old, Continue reading