February 15, 2013

An Unhappy Week

The title of MULLINGS following the State of the Union speech Wednesday morning was: “Not a Long, Nor a Long-Lasting Speech.” Boy, was I right. Not only did the speech slip into history among the cable chat shows, even President Obama didn’t see the need to keep up any momentum as he will be in Chicago this morning then head to Palm Beach, Florida for a mini-vacation over the holiday weekend. The cable chat shows made far more of Sen. Marco Rubio’s (R-Florida) leaning out of the frame for a sip of water during he rebuttal remarks than they did Mr. Obama’s long list of new programs that he said will not cost one dime in new spending.

The title of MULLINGS following the State of the Union speech Wednesday morning was: “Not a Long, Nor a Long-Lasting Speech.”

Boy, was I right.

Not only did the speech slip into history among the cable chat shows, even President Obama didn’t see the need to keep up any momentum as he will be in Chicago this morning then head to Palm Beach, Florida for a mini-vacation over the holiday weekend.

The cable chat shows made far more of Sen. Marco Rubio’s (R-Florida) leaning out of the frame for a sip of water during he rebuttal remarks than they did Mr. Obama’s long list of new programs that he said will not cost one dime in new spending.

I Tweeted: “When I give a speech I generally keep the bottle within easy reach. And it’s generally filled with Pinot Noir.”

Got big laughs in the Twitterverse.

What with the Pope resigning – the first time a Holy Father has left the Papacy while still alive in over 600 years – and with San Bernardino County deputies using the David Koresh method of criminal extraction to finish off Christopher Dorner plus the coverage of that floating toilet bowl, the Carnival Cruise Lines “Triumph” there was plenty of other news to keep us busy.

Here in Our Nation’s Capitol, the cliff hanger vote counting over whether Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev) could round up 60 votes to get former Republican Senator Chuck Hagel’s confirmation for Secretary of Defense to the floor for an up-or-down vote.

He couldn’t. According to the Huffington Post, four Republicans – Sens. Mike Johanns (Neb.), Susan Collins (Maine), Thad Cochran (Miss.) and Lisa Murkowski (Alaska) – voted with Democrats. Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) voted present.

Republicans said they would allow his nomination to come to the floor later this month following the upcoming 10-day President’s Day recess made necessary by the fact that the Senators have been working for nearly three weeks in a row taking only Fridays, Saturdays, Sundays, and Monday mornings off during that back-breaking stretch.

Secretary of State Kerry and Secretary of Defense Hagel. And here I was worried there might be a shortage of material for MULLINGS for the next four years.

American Airlines and U.S. Airways decided to officially merge into one airline this week. Even though U.S. Airways was pushing for the marriage, the combined operation will still be called American Airlines.

That leaves three major U.S. international airlines: Delta, American and United. I am a million miler on both American and Delta so I can survive one more round of accretion in the industry before I have to move to the back of the plane.

Getting back to the President the Gallup three-day tracking poll of Presidential approval showed him with his head barely above water 52% - 43%.

If the crack White House staff thought he was going to get a State of the Union “bump” they were mistaken. As of last night the poll showed Obama at 52-42.

The Congress is still sailing along on a tide of public adoration. According to the RealClearPolitics.com average of national polls since January the Congress is beloved by about 16 percent of those responding, and not so much by 79 percent.

Actually, that’s an improvement over last August when the split was 12% approve, 84% disapprove. At that rate the Congress could be at 50 percent by sometime in April, 2017.

Maybe the entirety of the Federal government is sliding into irrelevancy in the minds of Americans.

The only identifiable piece of good news all week was that Spring Training camps officially opened for Major League Baseball teams in Florida and Arizona.

The sainted Washington Nationals have improved their defense and pitching staff and have embarked on a World-Series-or-Bust campaign for the 2013 season. It is not good to tempt the Baseball gods, so it is better that we wait until they’ve played all 162 games and see where they are next September before popping the champagne.

That was the week that was. As Brooklyn Dodger fans used to say, “Wait’ll next week.”

I think that was it.

On the Secret Decoder Ring page today: Links to the San Bernardino County story, the cruise ship story and the Huffington Post coverage of the Hagel story.

Also, a Mullfoto of an almond tree in Eastern Morocco that is among the oldest in that country.

Copyright ©2012 Barrington Worldwide, LLC | Mullings.com

Who We Are

The Patriot Post is a highly acclaimed weekday digest of news analysis, policy and opinion written from the heartland — as opposed to the MSM’s ubiquitous Beltway echo chambers — for grassroots leaders nationwide. More

What We Offer

On the Web

We provide solid conservative perspective on the most important issues, including analysis, opinion columns, headline summaries, memes, cartoons and much more.

Via Email

Choose our full-length Digest or our quick-reading Snapshot for a summary of important news. We also offer Cartoons & Memes on Monday and Alexander’s column on Wednesday.

Our Mission

The Patriot Post is steadfast in our mission to extend the endowment of Liberty to the next generation by advocating for individual rights and responsibilities, supporting the restoration of constitutional limits on government and the judiciary, and promoting free enterprise, national defense and traditional American values. We are a rock-solid conservative touchstone for the expanding ranks of grassroots Americans Patriots from all walks of life. Our mission and operation budgets are not financed by any political or special interest groups, and to protect our editorial integrity, we accept no advertising. We are sustained solely by you. Please support The Patriot Fund today!


The Patriot Post and Patriot Foundation Trust, in keeping with our Military Mission of Service to our uniformed service members and veterans, are proud to support and promote the National Medal of Honor Heritage Center, the Congressional Medal of Honor Society, both the Honoring the Sacrifice and Warrior Freedom Service Dogs aiding wounded veterans, the National Veterans Entrepreneurship Program, the Folds of Honor outreach, and Officer Christian Fellowship, the Air University Foundation, and Naval War College Foundation, and the Naval Aviation Museum Foundation. "Greater love has no one than this, to lay down one's life for his friends." (John 15:13)

★ PUBLIUS ★

“Our cause is noble; it is the cause of mankind!” —George Washington

Please join us in prayer for our nation — that righteous leaders would rise and prevail and we would be united as Americans. Pray also for the protection of our Military Patriots, Veterans, First Responders, and their families. Please lift up your Patriot team and our mission to support and defend our Republic's Founding Principle of Liberty, that the fires of freedom would be ignited in the hearts and minds of our countrymen.

The Patriot Post is protected speech, as enumerated in the First Amendment and enforced by the Second Amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America, in accordance with the endowed and unalienable Rights of All Mankind.

Copyright © 2024 The Patriot Post. All Rights Reserved.

The Patriot Post does not support Internet Explorer. We recommend installing the latest version of Microsoft Edge, Mozilla Firefox, or Google Chrome.