Tag Archives: John Boehner

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Who said anything about 'blank check'?

U.S. House Speaker John Boehner says Congress won’t give President Obama a “blank check” to spend as he sees fit on trying to solve the border crisis.

Interesting, yes?

Who on God’s Green Earth said anything about writing a blank check?

“I’ll tell you this, we’re not giving the president a blank check,” Boehner said of Obama’s request for a $3.7 billion emergency fund for the humanitarian crisis. “Beyond that, we will await further discussions with our members before we make any final decisions.”

OK, Mr. Speaker. Set the ground rules for how the money should be spent if you wish.

If I heard the president correctly, all he’s asking is for you and your congressional colleagues to approve the spending request so he can deploy the resources he needs to help solve the problem of all those kids coming here from Central America.

The speaker and others in Congress — mainly Republicans — are critical of Obama for failing to act. Well, he cannot act on his own — right, Mr. Speaker? So he’s asking for money that only Congress can appropriate.

Meantime, let’s stop the sniping and get down to doing the people’s work.

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Why not act on your own, Mr. President?

Texas Gov. Rick Perry reportedly posed an interesting notion to President Obama when the men met this week in Dallas to discuss the illegal immigrant/refugee border crisis on the Texas border with Mexico.

Why not take action on your own, Mr. President? Perry asked.

Interesting, yes? Obama said he responded that such executive decisiveness has produced the real threat of a lawsuit by House Speaker John Boehner, who contends Obama does too much of that kind of thing already.

No can do, governor.

Obama is pushing Congress now to act on his request for a $3.7 billion emergency spending bill to deal with the crisis that involves the flood of young immigrants coming into the United States from Central America. Congress insists the president do something about it. He has asked Congress to give him the money to do what it asks. It’s now up to Congress to, um, do what it has insisted on doing all along.

Can the president act alone? I suppose there are ways he can do a little of this and that administratively.

It’s interesting nonetheless that Gov. Perry would have made such a suggestion at a time when his Republican colleagues in Congress are considering legal action to prevent that very thing.

The ball has been kicked back to Congress. What are you going to do with it, ladies and gentlemen?

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Impeachment talk makes me crazy

All this impeachment poppycock is making me nuts.

Some goofball right-wing members of Congress — not to mention a few bystanders perched in the political peanut gallery — are saying the House of Representatives needs to impeach President Barack Obama.

For what, you say? I don’t know exactly. For issuing executive orders in keeping with his constitutional authority? For the flood of illegal immigrants who are coming into the country, as if the president himself could order it stopped? For tweaking the Affordable Care Act after it became law?

The right-wing loons contend he’s broken laws. They haven’t cited specific laws — because he hasn’t broken any law.

Many of us have lived through two impeachable events involving presidents.

* The first one occurred in the early 1970s. President Nixon’s re-election campaign hired a team of goons to break into the Democratic Party headquarters at the Watergate office complex. When word got out that they were captured, Nixon then ordered the FBI to block the investigation. Then that became known and all hell broke loose.

The House Judiciary Committee and a select committee of senators conducted hearings. The Judiciary Committee then approved articles of impeachment. Nixon resigned in August 1974 rather than face certain impeachment by the House and conviction by the Senate.

* Then came the episode involving President Clinton. A special prosecutor was hired by Congress to examine the Whitewater real estate dealings allegedly involving President and Mrs. Clinton. The prosecutor then began snooping around allegations that Clinton fooled around with a young White House intern. A federal grand jury asked Clinton about it. He lied when he denied any involvement with the woman. Oops. You can’t perjure yourself. The House impeached him on those grounds, but the Senate acquitted him.

Two specific incidents resulted in a near impeachment and the real thing.

The stuff involving President Obama? It’s all political hucksterism, meant to inflame the Republican base, get ’em riled up.

Sure, the president has made mistakes. Has any president skated through office without blundering here and there? Of course not.

Do these blunders require an impeachment? No.

To his credit, House Speaker John Boehner says he disagrees with the impeachment yammering.

Good. Now he needs to take the tea party yahoos within his caucus who keep fomenting this nonsense to the woodshed.

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Impeachment talk is ridiculous

Put a sock in it, Sarah “Barracuda” Palin.

You too, U.S. Rep. Louie Gohmert, R-Loony Bin. Same for the rest of the clowns on the far right wing of the Republican Party who believe Barack Obama has committed an impeachable offense.

At least one leading Republican, the speaker of the House of Representatives, is sounding a note of sanity.

Boehner says no to impeachment

John Boehner knows better. He was there when the House commenced impeachment proceedings against President Bill Clinton and then watched as Republicans took it on the chin in the 1998 mid-term election.

Palin, the ex-half-term Alaska governor, says Obama should be impeached because of the immigration crisis on our southern border. Someone needs to ask the former GOP vice-presidential nominee: What “high crime” and “misdemeanor” has the president committed?

I think I know the answer: none.

She wrote in an op-ed: “The many impeachable offenses of Barack Obama can no longer be ignored. If after all this he’s not impeachable, then no one is.”

Let’s allow the grownups to run the country. Speaker Boehner said simply to the impeachment calls, “I disagree.”

Enough said.

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POTUS plans immigration push

As one who generally endorses the notion of presidential prerogative, I welcome the news that Barack Obama is going to use the power of his office to move immigration reform forward — with our without congressional buy-in.

http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/210995-obama-pledges-to-take-executive-actions-on-immigration

Obama is steamed that Congress won’t vote this year on a comprehensive immigration reform bill. It seems to matter little that most members of Congress — including Republicans — want reform legislation enacted. House Speaker John Boehner says it won’t happen because, he says, lawmakers and “the American people” don’t trust the president to enforce immigration laws.

Obama’s response: “If Congress will not do its job, at least we can do ours.”

He hasn’t yet specified how he’ll act. He plans on the Fourth of July to naturalize several U.S. military men and women who aren’t yet citizens.

“I don’t prefer taking administrative action,” Obama said in a Rose Garden event, standing beside Vice President Biden. “I’ve made that clear multiple times. … I only take executive action when we have a serious problem, a serious issue, and Congress chooses to do nothing.”

Congress already is angry over what it says is the president’s “excessive” use of executive authority. That’s a phony argument on its face, given that Barack Obama has issued fewer such orders than any president of the past 100 years.

The president has asked for more money to secure our borders in the wake of the Central America immigration crisis that has stranded thousands of illegal immigrants — mostly children and young adults — on our southern border. Boehner’s response to date? He’s just content to dig in his heels even more.

The Constitution and federal law give the president wide latitude on taking action. As the president has noted, Congress should lead, follow or get out of the way.

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Boehner changes mind on executive orders

It still boggles my mind that John Boehner wants to sue the president of the United States for exercising his constitutional rights as the nation’s chief executive.

That is, the president has decided to issue executive orders — imagine that — to move projects forward.

http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2014/06/25/3453244/boehner-executive-order-suit/

Why, how dare he do that, says the speaker of the House of Representatives.

Well, as it’s been reported on the link attached to this post, it was just fine for President George W. Bush to use executive authority, but not President Barack Obama.

Obama has pulled out his executive signing pen fewer times than Bush ever did. He’s done far fewer times than many of his predecessors.

But that hasn’t dissuaded the speaker from taking the president to court in what many people think now is a stunt, a sop to the tea party wing of his Republican congressional caucus.

Wait a minute. Didn’t Boehner once declare that the tea party wing wasn’t to be taken seriously? Didn’t he incur their wrath when he said that?

The wrath must have gotten to the speaker, who’s now saying that the president has failed to carry out his duties “faithfully,” whatever that means.

Today, the Supreme Court stuck it to the president when it voted 9-0 in ruling that Obama’s recess appointments were improper. I get the court’s standing in reeling in the president’s executive authority in making these appointments while Congress is in recess.

I do not quite understand what in the world has riled the speaker enough to sue the president for doing what the Constitution says he is entitled to do.

Maybe the speaker will let us all in what he has in mind … in due course.

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Who should be filing suit?

Shouldn’t it be taxpayers suing Congress for LACK of action, instead of Congress suing the President for doing too much?

So said David Axelrod in a tweet just a few moments ago.

Axelrod is to President Barack Obama what Karl Rove is to President George W. Bush. I guess we should call Axelrod “Obama’s Brain,” correct?

But the former White House senior policy/political adviser does make a good point about House Speaker John Boehner’s decision to sue President Obama over the president’s supposedly “excessive” use of executive authority.

Axelrod wonders why Americans aren’t suing the do-nothing Congress for sitting on its hands while President Obama is trying to push programs forward.

I get that some Americans are glad to have Congress doing nothing. They welcome the stalling, fighting, arguing, threatening and obstruction that’s been occurring in Congress.

I’m more of a good-government kind of guy, even though some folks might consider the term “good-government” be an oxymoron — kind of like “military intelligence” or “jumbo shrimp,” to borrow two of the late George Carlin’s examples.

For the speaker, though, to suggest that Obama is overreaching with his executive authority when the president has used that authority less than any of his predecessors over the past century, does seem to be a bit of an overreach in itself.

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Tea party winning as it's losing

It’s time to give credit where it most definitely is due to the tea party wing of the once-Grand Old Republican Party.

Even when it loses it wins.

Take the race for U.S. senator in Mississippi this week. Sen. Thad Cochran beat back a stout challenge from tea party Republican Chris McDaniel. But did Cochran campaign in the GOP runoff on his ability to work with Democrats, or on his ability to funnel lots of money to his home state? Oh no. He campaigned on his conservative record — which he has established — and by telling Mississippians that he’s as conservative as they are.

http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/elections/weakened-tea-party-takes-more-punches-n140851

I am no longer paying much never-mind to these predictions of the tea party’s death, resurrection and death yet again. The tea party wing of the GOP has won the debate.

It has dragged normally thoughtful conservatives into the rage pit right along with them. U.S. House Speaker John Boehner is as “establishment Republican” as they come. Now, though, he’s suing President Obama because the president has taken some executive action that has angered the tea party wing of the GOP. That means Boehner is mad, too.

Here in Texas, tea party Republican state Sen. Dan Patrick yanked Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst so far to the right that Dewhurst never got his legs under him or found his voice. He looked and sounded awkward trying to be as out there as Patrick, who’s smooth, articulate and glib. Patrick beat Dewhurst in the Texas GOP runoff.

Across the state, Republicans are sounding more alike all the time — meaning they’ve adopted the do-nothing mantra so popular among tea party officeholders in Washington.

There once was a Republican Party with pols who could work well with Democrats. Two come to mind immediately: the late U.S. Sen. Everett Dirksen of Illinois and former U.S. Sen. Bob Dole of Kansas. There’ve been others, but those two men stand out in my own mind. Dirksen was pals with President Lyndon Johnson and helped LBJ enact civil rights and voting rights legislation in the mid-1960s. Dole was a dear friend of the late Democratic U.S. Sen. George McGovern of South Dakota. It helped that the two men both were World War II heroes and had a shared bond of military service. They also worked hand-in-hand on anti-hunger legislation.

Dole and Dirksen would be laughed out of the Senate chamber today.

The tea party’s strength can be seen in the debate that’s raging within the Republican Party — if you want to call it that when virtually all Republicans now are singing off the tea party song sheet.

The tea party, therefore, is winning, even when it’s losing.

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Litigious speaker going to court

Politicians and everyday Americans have griped for decades about the lawsuit-happy society we live in these days.

Well, this one just might take the cake.

U.S. House Speaker John Boehner says he is going to sue President Obama because of the president’s penchant for issuing executive orders. He calls the president’s actions unconstitutional, unlawful and, by golly, he plans to take the commander in chief to court.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2014/06/25/boehners-attack-on-obamas-executive-orders-ignores-presidential-history/

But …

Is the 44th president the most executive-order-happy person ever to occupy the White House? Not by a long shot.

To date, Obama has issued 168 such orders. President George W. Bush issued 291 during his two terms; President Clinton logged 364; President Eisenhower signed 484; President Truman put his name on 907.

The all-time champ? None other than President Franklin Roosevelt, who signed 3,572 executive orders. Let’s give FDR a pass, though, given that he served three full terms and a fraction of a fourth before he died in office in April 1945.

Barack Obama has signed fewer such executive orders than any president in the past century.

Boehner, though, says he’s had enough of this executive authority business from the constitutional law professor-turned-president of the United States.

At the start of the year, Obama did declare his intention to bypass Congress to get some things done. The Constitution does give him the authority to do these things, after all. It’s just that he’s stepped on Republican goes on issues such as benefits for same-sex couples employed by the federal government and raising the minimum wage for federal contract employees.

This grandstanding by Boehner is meant to relieve pressure he’s getting from the right wing of his party.

So please, Mr. Speaker, don’t gripe in public about frivolous lawsuits. You’ve just announced your intention to file one yourself.

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Tea party fights back, ousts (gulp!) Rep. Cantor

My bad.

I’ve been among those who’ve talked openly about the seeming demise of the tea party wing of the Republican Party everywhere but in Texas.

Oops. Something really, really weird has happened back in Ol’ Virginny. U.S. Rep. Eric Cantor, the No. 2 Republican in the House of Reps and someone who knows the tea party playbook by heart, has been beaten for re-election by a first-time candidate for any public office.

http://www.politico.com/story/2014/06/eric-cantor-primary-election-results-virginia-107683.html?hp=t1

Dave Brat is now the Republican nominee for Congress from the Richmond, Va., area.

Cantor was thought to be the next speaker of the House once John Boehner decided he’d had enough fun in Congress. Cantor also was known to be a staunch conservative lawmaker.

No one saw this coming. No one predicted Cantor would lose. No one even predicted even a close race. It turns out it wasn’t that close after all; the challenger won with a comfortable margin, for crying out loud.

I’m going to take some time now to catch my breath and try to understand what this means to the congressional political balance of power.

If I were Speaker Boehner, I just might start thinking even more seriously about quitting. He’s griped already about how the tea party wing of his GOP House caucus is making his life so miserable. Well, Mr. Speaker, it’s going to get really nasty.