Category: John Boehner

@DailyPundit, Optimist At Large

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by Smitty

But since [the re-election of Rep. Boehner as Speaker] just a squabble over the leadership of the minority faction of the Ruling Party, none of this has a great deal of meaning in the larger scheme of things. No matter who is in charge of the GOP faction, everything will continue to go to hell in the same way it has been going to hell for the past several decades.

I just wonder where Bill gets his supply of rose colored glasses. The #FiscalCliff kabuki was only a 60-day stay of execution for the sequester. Then there is the debt ceiling. If the purpose of the #FiscalCliff, besides thrashing the holidays of all paying attention, was to destroy public interest in paying attention to what these yahoos are doing with the public purse, it was largely successful. Speaker Boehner’s resumption of the gavel was anticlimactic, despite a minority of the peanut gallery stimming itself about unseating him.
From Boehner’s remarks:

Our government has built up too much debt. Our economy is not producing enough jobs. These are not separate problems.
At $16 trillion and rising, our national debt is draining free enterprise and weakening the ship of state.
The American Dream is in peril so long as its namesake is weighed down by this anchor of debt. Break its hold, and we begin to set our economy free. Jobs will come home. Confidence will come back.

As I was able to Tweet the good speaker for his immediate inattention:

World’s Youngest Blogger: I May Have To Get Medieval On Boehner

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Were these United States not begun as a tax revolt? Was taxation without representation not a cause célèbre ~250 years ago? Are Congresses on about not binding future Congresses?

So what’s the big deal here? Why is it blatantly obvious to someone in their second year of life that binding future generations with a ridiculous tax burden is so fundamentally un-American as to hearken back to that crappy Parliament the Founders kicked to the curb a couple centuries back?

Would those Founders do anything other than order the Colonials to fix bayonets, if they were confronted with the wretched hive of scum and villainy that this Congress has become?

It’s time to realize that the country has come full circle. Just get over the fact that, yes, Woodrow Wilson sowed to the wind, and, a century on, it’s time to reap the whirlwind. You’re not winning within the status quo. The GOP needs to quit trying to fight for the helm and go sound the collision alarm. This Progressive course has been our undoing. All hands brace for shock.

After the collision with the Fiscal Cliff  I’m going to track down Speaker Boehner and flog him with my pacifier.

Update: linked at Jackie Wellfonder.
Also, dad’s on this ‘Twidder’ thing. Can someone help me understand why this is funny?

Boehner: Obama ‘Picking a Fight Where One Doesn’t Exist’ on Student Loans

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“No one wants student loan interest rates to go up,” House Speaker John Boehner told Candy Crowley in an interview aired today on CNN’s State of the Union. “For the president to politicize this for his own re-election is picking a fight where one doesn’t exist.”

Boehner pointed out that President Obama signed “the payroll tax cut, that included $4 billion worth of reductions in this same program,” and that the administration’s own budget proposal calls for reductions in the student-loan program. Here’s video:

Administration’s Counter-Terrorism Chief Does Three Network Sunday Shows

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Coming up on the first anniversary of the raid that killed Osama bin Laden, it will be victory-lap time on Fox News Sunday, CNN’s State of the Union and ABC’s This Week, with counter-terrorism adviser John Brennan as the guest. Andrew Malcolm writes:

You remember Brennan as the one rushed out to the White House briefing room the next day to provide the hungry media with their cherished tick-tock account of the commandos’ penetration into Pakistan and the slaying of the instigator of 9/11.
Unfortunately, so eager was the administration to tell its story quickly, that Brennan’s premature enunciation of the event contained numerous details later adjusted or contradicted, detracting from the anticipated accolades.
By now, however, most of the raid confusion is cleared. And everyone knows that the successful killing was mainly the result of Obama’s brave decision, although the SEALs, the stealth helicopter pilots and the Air Force electronic cloaking crews probably helped a little.
Oh, look, it’s an election year!

Sarcastic much? Allahpundit says you should skip the three-network BrennanFest in favor of Bob Schieffer’s lineup on Face the Nation:

CBS looks like the better bet for OBL coverage, though. They’ve got David Ignatius, whose new column argues that the Islamist trend in the Arab Spring has given Bin Laden the last laugh, and Peter Bergen, who interviewed OBL four years before 9/11 and has a new book on the manhunt for him out on Tuesday.

From that David Ignatius column:

Egypt is a case in point: This has been a year of mostly nonviolent democratic revolution. But it has brought to power some Salafist and Muslim Brotherhood groups that share common theological roots with bin Laden. And the al-Qaeda goal of driving the “apostate,” pro-American President Hosni Mubarak from power has been achieved. . . .
What we’re seeing now in Egypt is something that might be called electoral bin Ladenism. Take the group Gamaa Islamiya, which under its spiritual leader, Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman, made the first unsuccessful attempt to destroy the World Trade Center in 1993. Today, the organization has formed a Salafist political party with the benign name Building and Development Party. This organization, which like al-Qaeda traces its roots to the Islamist theorist Sayyid Qutb, has 13 seats in the new Egyptian parliament.

You might also want to check William Jacobson’s argument: “Obama got Osama, but lost the Middle East.”

While you browse your local TV schedule for Sunday show times, a couple more points: CNN’s also has House Speaker John Boehner, while NBC’s Meet the Press goes straight to the presidential campaign, with Ed Gillespie for the Republicans and Robert Gibbs for the Democrats — plus Hilary Rosen and Rachel Maddow!

If any of these people make actual news, I’ll let you know.

Boehner: Have I Pissed Off The Tea Party Enough Lately? Maybe Not

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by Smitty

CBS News:

House Speaker John Boehner addressed one of the biggest sticking points for the 12 member Congressional “supercommittee” today, acknowledging that any bipartisan agreement will need to include some new tax revenue.
“I think there is room for revenues, but I think there clearly is a limit to the amount of revenues that are available,” Boehner told reporters.

Maybe, just maybe, it’s time that conservatives thought about forming a second major political party in this country. The Dem/Dem-Lite siamese twins are really, really tiresome.

via Alan Colmes

Tommy Christopher’s New Assignment: Covering Speaker Boehner’s Resignation

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Neutral Objective Headline of the Day:

Speaker John Boehner Should Resign For
His Unprecedented Insult To The President

That’s from Tommy Christopher at Mediaite, who adds:

The media, meanwhile, ought to abandon its fetish foe false objectivity, and recognize the facts. All parties agree the President gave the Speaker sufficient notice, and I cannot think of another president in history whom the media would suggest should have been preempted by a routine political debate, certainly not in a time of national crisis. The media is complicit in the insult through its failure to recognize this.

While I’m not familiar with Tommy’s term “fetish foe false objectivity,” I certainly do not believe that journalists must be strictly neutral in every political conflict. However, a tendency toward emotional hysteria is not generally desireable in this line of work.

Tommy: We are talking about the scheduling of a speech.

As for the “time of national crisis,” it hasn’t even impinged on the president’s golf schedule. The matter of postponing his World-Historic Address to a Joint Session of Congress — “Four score and seven revised-downward jobs reports ago . . .” — from Wednesday to Thursday hardly seems the kind of “unprecedent insult” that would require the resignation of the Speaker of the House of Representatives.

Jim Hoft accuses Tommy of a “hissy fit.”

Another Unprecedented Insult! In a Time of National Crisis!

Jim Hoft must resign from the blogosphere!

Boehner 1, Obama 0

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The White House caused a ruckus Wednesday by attempting to schedule President Obama for a speech to a joint session of Congress on Sept. 7 — which just happened to be the date, scheduled months ago, of a GOP presidential debate at the Reagan Library in Simi Valley, California.

Say hello to “separation of powers”: Nobody at the White House had bothered to clear the Sept. 7 date with the Speaker of the House, who suggested moving the date to Sept. 8 and — after some partisan grumbling — the administration was forced to back down:

“Today, the President asked to address the Congress about the need for urgent action on the economic situation facing the American people as soon as Congress returned from recess. Both Houses will be back in session after their August recess on Wednesday, September 7th, so that was the date that was requested. We consulted with the Speaker about that date before the letter was released, but he determined Thursday would work better. The President is focused on the urgent need to create jobs and grow our economy, so he welcomes the opportunity to address a Joint Session of Congress on Thursday, September 8th and challenge our nation’s leaders to start focusing 100% of their attention on doing whatever they can to help the American people.”

What was this childish stunt all about? Nobody really knows, but Allahpundit gauges the Left’s predictable reaction:

Coming soon to a left-wing blog near you: “He caved again.”

It’s as if the administration, unwilling to fight for anything important — or too politically weak to win any important fight — with the Republicans, decided to fight for something trivial. And the fact that they lost even this juvenile pissing match will only further erode the presidential image.

Which means it’s time for the liberal media to produce another story about how dumb Republicans are.

McConnell Says ‘Very Close’ to Deal on Debt-Ceiling Agreement With Obama UPDATE: Reid’s Bill Fails Senate Vote

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UPDATE 1:25 p.m. ET: The Senate just held a cloture vote on Harry Reid’s bill which, as expected, failed to get the 60 votes necessary to end debate and proceed. The vote was 50 “aye” and 49 “no.” So much for Reid’s bill being the “only game in town,” huh?

UPDATE 2:15 p.m. ET: Here’s the roll-call vote. Scott Brown of Massachusetts was the only Republican to vote “aye,” while Democrats Joe Manchin (West Virginia) and Ben Nelson (Nebraska) both voted “no,” as did socialist independent Bernie Sanders of Vermont. Reid voted against his own bill on the cloture motion; this is a parliamentary maneuver, since voting “no” permits Reid to bring his bill up for a vote later.

Linked at Legal Insurrection — thanks!

PREVIOUSLY (11:45 a.m. ET): The outlines of the Neither Fish Nor Fowl Bipartisan Sellout Compromise Act of 2011 are coming into focus, and the Senate Republican leader is cautious:

McConnell said he is “very very close to being able . . . to recommend to my members that this is something that they ought to support.”
“You’ll see that this is a process that could get him (President Obama) past the election. We’re working on the combinations that will get us there,” McConnell said. “I’m particularly appreciative that we’re now back talking to the only person in America who can sign something into law and that’s the president of the United States.”

Getting Senate approval for a compromise plan will likely be much easier than getting such a deal through the House, as I explain at The American Spectator:

How many Republican votes can House Speaker John Boehner deliver for a compromise that abandons principles that were seen as essential to conservatives, when he could just barely get 218 votes for his own bill Friday? And if Boehner can’t deliver a majority for the compromise deal, can Nancy Pelosi produce any Democrat votes at all, considering that zero Democrats voted for Boehner’s bill?

If this deal does go through, the biggest loser will be Harry Reid, as Professor William Jacobson says: “We don’t know all the details of the negotiations between Mitch McConnell and the White House which apparently are closing in on an agreement, but one thing is clear, Harry Reid has become a sideshow.”

There’s always more room under Obama’s bus, isn’t there?

UPDATE: Linked by Da Tech Guy — thanks! — and the latest word is that there will be a procedural “test vote” in the Senate at 1 p.m. ET.

UPDATE: OK, here are details on the “test vote,” which is a cloture motion on Harry Reid’s bill:

Talks intensified ahead of a test vote in the Senate on the Democrats’ debt-ceiling plan. That vote is expected to fail, putting the onus on negotiators to come up with yet another alternative. . . .
Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid has postponed a vote on his deficit-reduction package until 1 p.m. ET. That vote is still scheduled to take place, but 43 Senate Republicans have already vowed to oppose it, putting more pressure on negotiators to come up with an alternative.

Right now, I’m watching C-SPAN2, where Barbara Boxer is blathering on with her usual partisan crap.

UPDATE III: Boxer’s crap has now ended, and John McCain is now debating Dick Durbin. It’s like Freddie Krueger vs. Jason, Alien vs. Predator.

UPDATE IV: Amid the accusations of “betrayal!” and “sellout!” from conservatives angry at GOP concessions, let’s pause to look at what liberals are saying. Nate Silver of the New York Times:

The debt deals as reported really seem like more a capitulation by the White House than a compromise.

What the Left wanted — nay, demanded — were tax-increases on “The Rich” and “Corporate America.” Obama gave speech after speech demonizing “millionaires and billionaires.” But when push came to shove, he folded like a cheap suit.

If conservatives were in a mood to declare victory, we could easily do so on such grounds. Yet it seems to be Night of the Long Knives time, and there is a lot of grassroots anger toward the Republican Establishment.

Linked by Don Surber — thanks!