BY GARY ANDRES

Reprinted from the Weekly Standard

If legislation were dirt, Democrats would have piled up a mountain of it over the past 18 months, digging themselves in a deep political hole in the process.

The House that Nancy (Pelosi) built continues to ramrod new policies through the legislative process, hoping the bustle will salve America’s sour mood. Senate Democrats move a little more slowly due to different institutional rules, yet their hearts are in the same place: the more legislative production the better.

That’s what legislators do, after all.  New laws are like seed corn, intended to grow public support.

But it’s not working.   The congressional majority keeps passing initiatives they say respond to the public’s desire for “change.” Yet the combination of current liberal initiatives and uncertainty about future policies now seriously hampers economic growth and business risk-taking. It’s also taking a toll on congressional standing with voters.

Gallup reinforced this point last week, reporting Congress’s job approval rate hovering near an all time low of 20 percent.

Perceived liberalism in the lawmaking process may also impact Americans’ ideological self-identification.  Gallup issued a separate study recently, demonstrating a significant rise in the number of Americans describing themselves as conservatives since the 2008 election.

Near record numbers now also say that the Democratic Party is “too liberal.”

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BY MICKEY EDWARDS

 Reprinted from The Atlantic

 Shakedown? You wanna talk about a real shakedown?

What? You didn’t think Al Capone was around any more? Let me tell you about the SEIU.

Merriam-Webster defines a shakedown as extortion. To “extort” is to obtain one’s money or property by force or intimidation. Herewith, a personal story which (I apologize) requires a bit of context.

After leaving Congress, I was invited to teach at Harvard. At Harvard, one’s ability to teach is gauged by fellow faculty members and administrators (who judged me to have done well enough that I was appointed and reappointed , eventually staying far longer — eleven years — than almost any other non-tenured “practitioner” in the Kennedy School’s history). And by the students (who voted to name me the most outstanding teacher in the school). Then I was invited to teach at Princeton and again did so successfully. I also taught, as a visiting professor, at Georgetown. All in all, more than 15 years of teaching at not-so-shabby places.

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 BY JOHN FEEHERY

From the Feeherytheory.com

There are two things that can ruin an MRI scan.   One of them is metal.  The other is Obamacare.

The MRI machine was first used on a human being on July 3, 1977.  Three doctors, Dr. Raymond Damadian, Dr. Larry Minkoff and Dr. Michael Goldsmith, worked for 7 years on their machine, which they called the “Indomitable”.

The MRI’s most important component is a huge magnet, which is why it is pretty dangerous to bring any kind of metal object into a room where a MRI is being used.

If you are holding a paper clip or a screw driver, when the MRI switch is flipped on, the paper clip or screw driver could fly out of your hand and through the air, towards the magnet, where the patient is usually laying down.  That paper clip or screwdriver then could become a flying missile, heading right for the poor sucker who just wants to find out what is going on inside his or her body.  That is one way to really screw up an MRI.

Basically, an MRI machine uses the huge magnet to create electromagnetic waves that create photons that are then turned into images, which are then read by radiologists.

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BY JOHN FEEHERY

 Reprinted from the Feeherytheory.com

  My father, a rabid White Sox fan if there ever was one, would always talk derisively about Cubs third baseman Ron Santo as Mr. Clutch. 

 “If you ever needed a guy that would hit a completely meaningless home run when it didn’t matter and strike out when it did matter, Ron Santo is your guy,” he would say with a laugh.  I was thinking about Ron Santo when I heard that the conference committee on the Wall Street reform package had just concluded.  

 The Democrats were very proud of themselves, with Barney Frank and Chris Dodd exchanging hi-fives and getting standing ovations from their colleagues.

 Some commentators have said that with the health care package that passed earlier this year and with this financial services package that will pass next week, theoretically, the President is really putting “points on the board.”

 But in my mind, those points are kind of like the points that the reserves get in garbage time, when the game is already over.  They aren’t going to help the Democrats win any elections, and more importantly, these legislative victories aren’t going to create any new jobs.

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BY GARY ANDRES

            When tiny globs of gooey brown oil began washing up on Gulf shores, it foreshadowed a more ominous environmental calamity lurking just over the horizon.  These first signs were troubling enough. But they also revealed a more daunting threat riding incoming tides that might prove impossible to fix.

            The Gulf disaster is a metaphor for our federal spending and debt crisis.   Globs of budgetary red ink have been washing up in Washington for some time now.  Cleaning up the immediate problem is hard enough. But the difficulty policymakers face addressing the current fiscal mess only underscores a larger challenge.

            The Senate’s efforts over the past month, trying to enact a state aid/unemployment/tax extender bill are illustrative. The Democrats’ original plan exemplified politics as usual.  These initiatives all cost the federal government money.  But instead of making the tough choices necessary to pay for these benefits, they proposed just adding more to the deficit.

            But with an election looming and nervous voters increasingly cranky about unsustainable debt, the original Senate plan, which increased the federal debt because it offset less than a third of the  $190 billion in spending, ran into a buzz saw of opposition.  Democratic leaders continue to ameliorate concerns by scaling back the package or finding other offsets.

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BY JOHN FEEHERY

 Reprinted from the Feehery Theory

 The president’s top budget guy announced today that he’s leaving.

That should come as no surprise. After all, congressional Democrats announced that they weren’t going to do a budget this year anyway.

Who needs a budget?

Our country is doing fine financially.

Sure, we’ve got historically high debt to deal with. Sure, we have tax policy that is about to get a lot more interesting at the end of the year, when a bunch of tax provisions expire. Sure, we have Social Security starting to go broke quicker than anybody anticipated. Sure, we have a huge problem with chronic unemployment in the private sector and bursting employment in the public sector. Sure, almost every state seems like it is ready to belly-up financially.

Sure, we have all of those problems, problems that are all budget-related. But that doesn’t mean we should do a budget.

We don’t need no stinking budget. 
Budgets require tough choices. Budgets require (at least notionally) that the numbers all add up. Budgets require leadership. 

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BY JOHN FEEHERY

When I was growing up, I was obsessed with toy soldiers.

I had armies of little Army guys and little German soldiers, who I would array in various little battles.  Unlike a howitzer, a well-shot rubber band would often serve as the artillery, and proved the temporary death of a many a little German dude.

One of my earliest memories was getting a Fort Apache set for Christmas.  It had little U.S. cavalry soldiers and little Indians, and it provided me with hours of fun.

I once used my revolutionary war toy soldiers to build a model of the Battle of Lexington and Concord for my seventh grade class.

These toy soldiers help me imagine history in ways that books just couldn’t match.

Toy soldiers are making a comeback, chiefly because of the great kids’ movies in the Toy Story movie series.  My son is going to catch the opening of Toy Story 3 this weekend with a few of his classmates.

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BY GARY ANDRES

Reprinted from Weekly Standard

Political enthusiasm is the secret sauce of American politics.  When it comes to producing calories for winning elections, it’s the difference between a Big Mac and Lean Cuisine.

But what stimulates this vote-producing electoral flavoring?  One party sometimes gets an energy jolt through a combination of forces.

This year Republicans received the extra dollop of zeal on the political menu.  Predictable historical conditions explain part of the equation.  The “out” party normally enjoys an enthusiasm gap because the “outs” want to become the “ins.”

But Barack Obama and the Democrats in Congress also contribute to the GOP’s edge. Their policies and performance – since January 2009 — engender emotions that will create additional GOP electoral punch in November.

At one level, the Republicans enjoy an expected enthusiasm gap. History provides some insights here. In November 1994, with Bill Clinton in the White House and his party in control of Congress, a Gallup survey asked voters if they were “more enthusiastic” or “less enthusiastic” about voting compared to previous elections. Self-identified Republicans said they were more excited by an 11-percentage point margin.

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BY JOHN FEEHERY

Reprinted from the Feehery Theory

This may sound counter-intuitive, but I kind of feel sorry for Bobby Etheridge.

He is the North Carolina Congressman who is the new YouTube hero.  He is the guy who attacked some college kids who had the nerve to ask him if he supported the Obama agenda on camera.
The flip-cam is becoming the bane of every elected official.

Flip-cams are small little cameras that often have high-definition quality, don’t require lights, and pick up every utterance on tape.

Both Republicans and Democrats and their campaign committees use college age kids to harass vulnerable politicians into saying something stupid or doing something stupid on a flip camera, and then having those clips from the flip cam uploaded virally on YouTube, Facebook, Twitter etc.

The first politician to be YouTubed was George Allen, the former Virginia Senator who was expected to run for President.  Legend has it that Allen lost his reelection campaign in 2006 because, in small part, he was caught calling a college kid a Macaaca, which apparently is some sort of racial slur on camera.  That video was uploaded on YouTube, it made its way onto to CNN and the rest is history.

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By Michael S. Johnson

 Foreign Dignitaries Who Should Brush up on Their Manners

   
            Mexican President Felipe Calderon came to the United states on May 21^st, stepped up to the podium on the Floor of the U.S. House of Representatives, and condemned the people of Arizona.         

            It is one thing for the President of the United States to criticize the Arizonans.  It is yet another for a foreign head of state.  It is yet another for a foreign head of state to do it in the United States.  It is yet another for a foreign head of state to do it while exercising a rare privilege afforded to only a very few Americans, let alone foreigners–to speak before the Congress of the United States from the podium of  the people’s House.

            Rock legend Paul McCartney was awarded the Library of Congress’ Gershwin Award at the White House a week or so ago.  Standing in our White House, accepting an award from our President McCartney, I guess emboldened by Calderon, took the opportunity to insult former President Bush, saying at least he was getting the award from a President who knew what a library was. He could have at least waited until he got outside.

More on Arizona

            President Calderon’s impertinence paled in comparison to the impenitence of Assistant Secretary of State Mike Posner, who repeatedly described the Arizona legislation as a “troubling trend in our society” to none other than the Chinese, at none other than a human rights conference. Why does he still have his job? 

Joe Biden

Our Vice President continued the slaps at the U.S. in Belgium a couple of weeks ago. He said in prepared remarks that “Brussels probably now qualified for the capital of the free world,” a title Americans have assumed and taken pride in for a long time.  Prepared remarks.  Think about it.

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