Mike Flynn - Page 13

President Obama used his State of the Union Address to highlight a pivot to policies he claims will strengthen the middle class. As the last six years have instructed, President Obama’s rhetoric has a tortuous relationship with reality. As a new campaign by the Job Creators Network called Defend Main Street highlights, recent action by his Administration threatens almost 1 million small businesses.

In the build up to President Obama’s State of the Union address, the White House has floated plans to raise hundreds of billions in new taxes. The plans have almost no chance of passing Congress but are designed to frame the upcoming debates and alter the landscape for the presidential election in 2016.

Television’s top news anchor, NBC’s Brian Williams, earns a reported $13 million a year to read the news. This disparity far surpasses the 150-1 ratio earned by the average CEO.

At the beginning of the year, 20 states boosted their legally mandated minimum hourly wages. The hikes were the result of recently passed legislation or automatic inflation adjustments set into law. A new study, however, adds to the decades of economic research showing that such moves harm low-skilled workers, the very people such laws are intended to help.

Hours before the GOP took control of the U.S. Senate last week, Tennessee Republican Sen. Bob Corker used an appearance on CNBC to push a federal gas tax increase. Voters can be forgiven if they feel this was exactly what they expected when they gave Republicans complete control of Congress. Corker’s disastrous timing isn’t just bad politics — it is horrible policy.

In one of its first legislative acts of the 114th Congress, the House overwhelming passed a reauthorization of the federal terrorism insurance program on Wednesday.

In each of his last six years in office, Obama has experienced an upturn in his end-of-the-year polling. By January, this approval bump has disappeared.

As Republicans assume control of Congress this week, pundits and political observers are handicapping the odds of legislation passing the GOP controlled Senate. While House Republicans enjoy their largest majority in almost a century, Senate Republicans have just 54 seats in the Chamber. It is a solid majority but a handful of seats below the 60 vote threshold to end filibusters on legislation.

As President Obama returns briefly to Washington from vacation, he prepares for a campaign-like swing through three states to promote his upcoming State of the Union address. Obama will hit Michigan, Arizona and Tennessee with a focus on economic issues.

Conservatives rightfully worry that Republicans in Washington will pursue a modest agenda with their Congressional majorities, but the states provide fertile ground for a broad reform legislation. In recent years, Republicans and conservatives have won public sector reforms in Wisconsin, broad tax reform in a number of states, and have led three states—Indiana, Oklahoma, and South Carolina—out of the Common Core education regime.

Starting Thursday, governments in 20 states ordered increases in their state’s minimum wages. When combined with New York State’s mandated increase on Wednesday, more than half the states now have a minimum wage higher than the federal $7.25 hourly wage. Few Americans will notice the change, however, as the overwhelming majority of those with jobs earn well above the mandated minimum wage.

Over the past two years, almost no national leader of the Republican party has been able to pass a media microphone without declaring an absolute intention to pass immigration reform. The party’s “strategists” regularly aver to anyone who will listen that the party won’t be able to compete in the future unless it supports “immigration reform.” That allows their opposition to dictate what “reform” is, and negotiations proceed from the left’s desired policy vision.

Illinois’ current credit rating is A-, the lowest of any state in the union, one notch about junk bond status. This dismal rating is driven largely by the state’s enormous pension costs.

The viral photo of NYPD officers turning their backs on Mayor Bill de Blasio is an iconic image of a specific tragedy. It could also be a foreshadowing of 2015, when the chasm between the nation’s elected officials and the

Early next year, the FDA is expected to finalize a new regulation intended to eradicate even trace amounts of partially hydrogenated oils, known as trans fats, from our diets.

Last week, as the final recount from the 2014 midterms was settled with another GOP pickup in the House, the 2016 nomination contest entered its formal pre-season. Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush announced that he was considering running for President.

Illinois Gov.-elect Bruce Rauner, a Republican, will soon face the first real test of his reform agenda. Next month, he’ll name a successor to fill the term of the late Illinois Comptroller Judy Baar Topinka.  Topinka, who for a long

In many important respects, the Democrat party is no longer a national party. There are entire regions of the country without statewide elected Democrats. The entire South, most of the industrial Midwest and much of the Mountain and Southwest have

The Department of Health and Human Services reports that the error rate for Medicare payments increased to 12.7% of total fee-for-service reimbursements last year. This is up almost 50% since 2012 and represents a $46 billion annual loss for the health

Virginia Delegate Joe Morrissey, a leading progressive voice in the General Assembly, has accepted a plea deal to the charge of “contributing to the delinquency of a minor.” The agreement stems from a relationship between the 57-year-old Democrat and a 17-year-old

In a classic structured roll call vote, the House narrowly passed a $1.1 trillion omnibus bill to fund most of the government until September of next year. The vote saw defections at both ends of the political spectrum, with 62

Although ballots are still being counted in a handful of 2014 midterm elections, at least one Democrat super PAC is getting a jump on the 2016 presidential contest. On Monday, the left-wing American Bridge released what it calls a “media

The economy added 312,000 new jobs in November, according to the monthly jobs report released Friday by the Labor Department. Economists had expected a monthly gain of 253,000 jobs. It was the largest gain in jobs since January 2012.  The

Still reeling from its losses up and down the ballot in November, the Democrat National Committee has appointed a “task force” to rebuild the party. This “audit,” which has become the normal reaction to staggering election losses, includes the normal

Kentucky Sen. Mitch McConnell doesn’t take the reins of the Senate until January, but he is making an early move to consolidate his power. McConnell is pushing a rule change in the year-end spending deal currently under negotiation that would

The United Nations and the American media are choosing to highlight a new report of the international body’s Committee Against Torture that criticizes many aspects of US law enforcement. Writing for the Associated Press, reporter John Heilprin tried to frame the

A new report from a Chinese government agency finds that the country has wasted $6.8 trillion invested in “ghost cities,” abandoned apartment buildings and highways to nowhere. The staggering amount accounts for half of all Chinese investment in the economy

A lame duck Congress is always fraught with danger for those who want to restrain government. Inevitably there will be one or two pieces of legislation that “must pass” before the end of the year. The public isn’t paying attention

With the 2014 midterm elections behind us, pollsters and pundits have turned their attention to the 2016 presidential election. Quinnipiac and Rasmussen have released national polls of the nomination contests, while Bloomberg has surveyed the New Hampshire primary (Mitt’s their

A Gallup survey finds 72% of Americans give the US Post Office “good” or “excellent” marks for its service. By a wide margin, the Post Office is viewed more favorably than any other federal agency surveyed by Gallup.  The poll

President Obama says he intends to act quickly to offer executive amnesty to illegal immigrants, and aides say that move could come as soon as this week. This need for haste may be due to his party growing weaker with

As it picks through the rubble of the midterm elections, one of the bigger challenges for the Democrat party is recognizing not so much that its policies are perhaps too left-wing for the public, but that they are largely irrelevant.

It’s a plot device in hundreds of “coming of age” stories. At a low point, a group of scrappy friends decide to “get the band back together” and ride a wave of nostalgia and personal growth to a happy, meaningful

On Tuesday, voters across the country will go to the polls for this last national election of the “Obama Era.” What began with a bang six years ago and talk of a permanent Democrat majority will end with a whimper.

Two weeks ago, President Obama attended a rally for Maryland Governor candidate Anthony Brown. His appearance in Maryland, a state he won by 25 points in 2012, was his first campaign rally of the 2014 election. At the time, Brown

On Saturday, the Des Moines Register released its final poll of the critical Senate race, showing Republican Joni Ernst with a commanding seven-point lead over Democrat Rep. Bruce Braley.  The state Senator and military veteran is favored by 51 percent