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The more the president talks about his ideas, the more unpopular he becomes. Why would I want to deprive him of that opportunity?
— Speaker John Boehner, quoted by the Wall Street Journal, on reports that Republican might not invite President Obama to deliver his State of the Union address.
$25,000
Amount Warren Buffett gave — the maximum donation allowed — to Ready for Hillary last quarter. It was “his first-ever check to the sort of independent political groups that he’s scorned in the past,” Bloomberg reports.The group has raised more than $11 million to finance its efforts to lay the groundwork for a Clinton presidential campaign.
A lady never talks … Maybe there was a little hanky-panky, maybe there was a kiss on the roof.”
— Jenna Bush Hager, in a Bravo interview, on whether she ever fooled around in the White House.
30%
Of Americans say they “have serious political disagreements with someone in their family, but only about a third of those say a political disagreement has hurt their relationship with a close family member,” according to a new YouGov poll.
$3.50 trillion
Amount the federal government spent in fiscal year 2014, which ended Sept. 30. In fiscal year 2009, the federal government spent about $3.52 trillion. Cato Institute: “In other words, there’s been no growth in nominal government spending over the past five years. It hasn’t received nearly as much attention as it deserves, but there’s been a spending freeze in Washington.”
41%
Of President Obama’s U.S. diplomatic posts assignments so far have gone to political people. “Even assuming the GOP Senate won’t countenance confirming many more big-money bundlers in the next two years, Obama looks to have assembled the most political diplomatic corps since Ronald Reagan, whose grand total was 38 percent. Thirty percent of George W. Bush’s ambassadors were from outside the ranks of the foreign service, as were 28 percent of Bill Clinton’s, 31 percent for the elder George Bush and 27 percent for Jimmy Carter,” notes David Hawkings.
They tell us, at least, a prosecutor can indict a ham sandwich. Well clearly a black man’s life is not worth a ham sandwich when you put these stories together. And that is the frustration.
— Former RNC Chairman Michael Steele, criticizing two grand jury decisions to not indict white police officers in the deaths of black men in New York and Ferguson, Mo., The Hill reports.
83%
Of Americans now believe the climate is changing and 60% say the climate is changing due to man-made causes, a new Munich Re survey finds. The survey findings “indicate that national sentiment over whether or not climatic changes are occurring has finally reached a tipping point.”
It’s a horrible thing that he was killed, but he could have avoided that if he’d behaved like something other than a thug.
— Mike Huckabee, in an interview with Newsmax, on Michael Brown, the black teenager shot and killed by a white policeman in Ferguson, Mo.
Uh, I was fired.
— Joe Torre, quoted by the New York Times, after being praised by Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) for his tenure as the manager of the St. Louis Cardinals.
