Monthly Archives: November 2014

May Flowers

BY JOHN FEEHERY
Reprinted from TheFeeheryTheory.com

April showers bring May flowers.

The Epigaea repens is a delicate flowering plant that was prevalent at Plymouth Rock, especially in the early 1600’s.   It was so prevalent that the 100 or so religious separatists who made Massachusetts home named it the Mayflower, after the ship that brought them to America.

Mayflower was not an uncommon name for a sailing vessel at the time. There had been a Mayflower to sailed against the Spanish Armada when the Catholic power tried to instill its will on a newly Protestant English Monarch.

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For What Its Worth on Immigration

BY RICH GALEN
Reprinted from Mullings.com

“Compromise,” as others have said before, “is not a four-letter word.” In a January 2014 column in The New York Times, Tom Friedman quoted former U.S. Senator Alan Simpson as having said: “If you can’t learn to compromise on issues without compromising yourself, you should not be in Congress, be in business or get married.”

Note: Sen. Simpson did not warn against being a columnist, being a radio host, or being a panelist on a cable TV program.
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Short History of Executive Orders

BY JOHN FEEHERY
Reprinted from TheFeeheryTheory.com

The President’s power to issue an executive order is not spelled out in the Constitution.

And for the first 75 years or so of our Republic, an executive order wasn’t even made public.  They were just directives sent from the White House to the various agencies, telling them what to do.

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Resist the Bait

BY JOHN FEEHERY
Reprinted from TheFeeheryTheory.com

When the President issues his executive order granting temporary amnesty to up to 5 million undocumented immigrants, Republicans are going to be very unhappy.

The big question is: What do they do about it?

Conservatives want to have an early showdown with the President, using the power of the purse. That’s why they are pushing John Boehner and Mitch McConnell to agree to only a short-term continuing resolution to fund the government until March of next year. Continue reading

Questions About the Future of Immigration Reform

BY JOHN FEEHERY
Reprinted from TheFeeheryTheory.com

Will Congress and the President come to a meeting of the minds on fixing our broken immigration system or will they continue to play to their political bases in hope that they retain the upper hand on the issue?

That ‘s the big question that hangs over this whole debate.

The President misplayed the issue going into the midterms by promising and then not acting on his promise to use his executive authority to grant legal status to 5 million undocumented immigrants. Continue reading

Lest We Forget

BY JOHN FEEHERY
Reprinted from TheFeeheryTheory.com

My son plays soccer at Anacostia Field, across the river from Capitol Hill. It’s a short bike ride from the Capitol building and it was there that veterans of the Great War had assembled in 1932.

It had been a muddy swamp, but the grizzled ex-military men built a road and a sanitation system and otherwise made it habitable.

About 43,000 American soldiers came to Anacostia to march on Washington. They were jobless, desperate and angry. And they wanted to redeem certificates granted to them by the Congress in 1924 for a cash bonus. The certificates, a bond really, guaranteed them money for their Continue reading

O’s Not Wild About Harry

BY RICH GALEN
Reprinted from Mullings.com

You know the old saying: “A victory has a thousand parents; but a failure is an orphan.”

Democrats in Our Nation’s Capital are busily trying to hang each other’s name over the door of the orphanage that was built over the past two years and officially opened for business last Tuesday night.

Not to rub it in too much but the Obama-led Democrats lost control of the U.S. Senate (by far more than anyone thought), saw the largest GOP majority in the U.S. House since Herbert Hoover’s election in 1928 (although we know how that turned out), and a two-seat pickup in Governors officers (when the GOP was slated to lose as many a net three). Continue reading

Do You Hear What I Hear?

BY RICH GALEN
Reprinted from Mullings.com

When Sen. Barack Obama was sworn in as the 44th President of the United States on January 20, 2009 there were 257 Democrats in the U.S. House and 59 Democrats (and independents) in the U.S. Senate. In April, Arlen Spector of Pennsylvania crossed the aisle and became a Democrat giving the Ds a filibuster-proof 60-40 advantage.

His job approval was at 68 percent and he was just months away from being named the recipient of the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize.

By the time the dust settles after this year’s mid-term elections there are likely to be about 185 Democrat members of the House and 46 Democrat members of the Senate. That’s minus 72 in the House and minus 14 in the Senate. Continue reading

The Limits of Direct Democracy

BY JOHN FEEHERY
Reprinted from TheFeeheryTheory.com

I couldn’t do it.

Despite talking a big game about being for pot legalization, when I had the chance to vote for the policy, I voted no.

It didn’t matter. DC voters overwhelmingly approved the referendum.

I voted no because I really don’t think the city can handle more pot smokers. Continue reading

The Process Worked Again

BY RICH GALEN
Reprinted from Mullings.com

Help me out with this:
— The Republican “brand” is seriously damaged.
— The number of people voting for Republicans is continuing to shrink.
— Republicans can’t win without increasing the votes of people of color.
— Voters disapprove of the President; dislike Congressional Democrats more; and hate Congressional Republicans most of all.

And, yet, no matter what the final numbers are, there is no doubt this was a huge win for Republicans. Continue reading

Take A Little Time to Govern

BY MICHAEL S. JOHNSON

Pollsters, camera-ready prognosticators, sages and soothsayers, for weeks have been predicting a Republican “wave” election today.

Two eminent Republican pollsters, Glen Bolger and Neil Newhouse had this to say about it in a Washington Post op-ed: “Such a victory gives the Republican Party a significant opportunity to recast itself in the eyes of the voters. But let’s be clear: Winning on Tuesday, will not necessarily portend success in 2016.”

It is not surprising that Bolger and Newhouse couldn’t wait for one election to be over before turning to the next. That is what they do. Continue reading