Category Archives: Politics
Super Bowl Version XLVIII.2
Hate to drag politics into the sports, but I didn’t want to miss out on Super Bowl Version XLVIII.2. First, Team Obama tweeted The One throwing a football. Then Bill O’Reilly interviewed him.
Dr. Krauthammer says the interview was better than the game and the score was closer.
Dana Milbank says O’Reilly treated President Obama like a guest on the Factor. Which is to say, not well. O’Reilly’s interruptions were annoying but Obama would have verbally stonewalled him if he let him. Instead he blamed his problems on Fox.
As it was Obama booted questions on Benghazi and Republicans have yet to recover the ball (view from 6:24-7:37).
Super Bowl Version XLVIII.2 Update:
Fox New’s Catherine Herridge nails the CIA for knowing the attack in Benghazi had nothing to do with demonstrations gone wild, yet the director changed talking points allowing Susan Rice to blame the attacks on protests about a video.
Chris Christie Tied Up
Chris Christie and his political ambitions are tied up right now. A lawyer for the guy responsible for the infamous closing of the lanes on the George Washington bridge says Christie knew about the stunt.
Christie’s campaign committee wants permission to spend $127,000 left over from its $12 million binge to re-elect the governor. The campaign says it needs that money, and more, for legal defense against subpoenas issued by US prosecutors.
After parsing the slippery “meaning of is” language used by both Christie and the lawyer in the bridge case, The Washington Examiner says the bombshell could be a dud.
Update:
Politico reports on a Christie email criticizing the New York Times and David Wildstein (the guy responsible for the bridge lane closing).
Bipartisan Farm Bill
Congress got something done last week. It passed a bipartisan, 10 year, trillion dollar farm bill.
The farm bill includes insurance against “adverse price movements”. Isn’t that what the credit default swaps were supposed to do for subprime loans before the great recession?
Bipartisanship on Farm Bill
It’s all too much for the editors of National Review who note that:
Many crop prices are near all-time highs, and if they drop as expected, new loss-protection programs could — likely will — cost billions more than the CBO calculates.
In an even rarer case of bipartisanship the Washington Post editorial board agrees:
Supposedly necessary to secure the nation’s food supply at a time of record farm income and epidemic obesity, this federal largess flows almost regardless of how much money its recipients already have.
The Post then calls on President Obama to use his pen to veto the bill.
More Bipartisan Farm Bill Update:
Bloomberg reports the Senate threw out a requirement that members of Congress would have to publicly report if they receive federally subsidized crop insurance.
Separation of Powers
During his State of the Union speech the president again emphasized his intention to go it alone. He’s his own separation of powers. He’s got a phone and a pen and he doesn’t need no stinking Congress.
Update:
Back in December Law professor Jonathan Turley said that President Obama is “becoming the very danger the Constitution was designed to avoid”.
Update 6/5/14:
Professor Turley now says Obama is the president Nixon always wanted to be.
Little Sisters of the Poor
The Little Sisters of the Poor won a skirmish against Big Gov. The Supreme Court issued an injunction that excused the nuns from filling out a form directing others to provide contraceptives to their employees.
