Tag Archives: John Boehner

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Insanity may result in government shutdown

The insane wing of the Republican Party is having its way, or it would appear, as the government inches toward a shutdown.

Will someone ever be able to slam some sense into those thick tea party skulls?

House Speaker John Boehner, one Republican who doesn’t want to shut the government down over objections to the Affordable Care Act, is now hamstrung by the conservative cabal that has hijacked the once-great political party. They’re insisting on defunding “Obamacare,” and are willing to risk shutting down the entire federal government to do so.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has adopted an apt term for the tea party wing. He calls them “anarchists.”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/year-end-tax-cuts-have-nearly-doubled-projected-size-of-national-debt-cbo-says/2013/09/17/cda802d2-1f9c-11e3-94a2-6c66b668ea55_story.html

The Washington Post reports: “None of the Republicans are willing to stand up to these anarchists,” Reid told reporters. Of the law known as Obamacare, he added: “They’re obsessed with a bill that passed four years ago, a bill that was declared constitutional by the Supreme Court of the United States. They can’t get over that.”

I keep waiting for some leading Republicans, the folks who’ve been around the nation’s capital for some time, to talk some sense into these yahoos. I’m thinking of, oh, people like Rep. Mac Thornberry, R-Clarendon, who’s been through a government shutdown and knows the political price his party will pay if they go through with this idiotic notion.

Thornberry, though, doesn’t raise a ruckus. I know it’s not his style to be drum-thumper. I’m kind of wishing he’d rethink his back-bench mentality and take the lead on this one.

If he doesn’t, or if someone in the leadership doesn’t wrest control back from the GOP’s insane wing, there will be hell to pay.

Guaranteed.

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Putin stomps on 300 million sets of toes

Russian President Vladimir Putin is bucking for a pie in the face next time he comes to the United States of America, the world’s remaining superpower, with the world’s leading economy and a history of extraordinary achievement.

You see, the Russian strongman has dissed the United States by declaring that we aren’t “exceptional.”

http://www.cnn.com/2013/09/12/politics/putin-syria-editorial-reaction/index.html?hpt=hp_t1

Putin put proverbial pen to paper in an op-ed column that appeared this week in the New York Times in which he pushed for completion of a deal proposed by the Russians to have Syria turn over its chemical weapons cache to international inspectors. The idea is to end the avert a threatened U.S. strike against Syria in retaliation for the government’s gassing of civilians.

But it’s the view he holds about America that has gotten the most buzz here. U.S. Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J., said Putin’s remarks made him feel like vomiting. House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, said he felt “insulted” by Putin’s view.

Of course, the American exceptionalism mantra has been a political staple here for the past several years. Republicans and Democrats alike are proud to declare — with justification, I should add — that the United States remains the most exceptional nation on the planet.

We give more money than any other country on Earth to fight infectious diseases such as AIDS; we are the first nation to respond to disaster relief whenever and wherever it occurs; our nation was founded on the belief that we should be free from religious oppression; we pride ourselves in our allowing open and sometimes angry debate over government policy. I think that’s all pretty exceptional.

Can the Big Ol’ Russian Bear make such claims?

Have we made mistakes? Certainly. All great nations have skeletons in their closets. I daresay that Russia’s closet is quite a bit more full than ours, given that it’s existed for far longer. Then again, I suspect its skeletons would outnumber ours if you march forward from, say, 1776 to the present.

Vladimir Putin owes this country an apology.

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Boehner, Cantor sign on with POTUS on Syria

U.S. House Speaker John Boehner has been persuaded: Striking Syria is the right thing to do, given the Syrians’ horrifying act of gassing civilians.

So will House Majority Leader Eric Cantor.

The question? Will these two leaders be able to bring the rest of their Republican caucus behind them, giving the president an important foreign-policy victory? My guess is that most of the GOP caucus will join them.

http://firstread.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/09/03/20308438-boehner-says-hell-back-obama-on-syria-strikes?lite&ocid=msnhp&pos=2

President Obama sought and received the backing of the House GOP leadership in advance of Congress’s planned vote on whether to authorize a military strike. What the president has done is put the burning ember in the Republicans’ pocket. Now it’s their call, along with congressional Democrats, on whether Syrian military authorities should be punished for using the chemical weapons on innocent victims.

I still believe a strike must occur. Barack Obama drew that “red line” when he said using the chemicals would violate all “international norms.” The president reportedly is considering a limited strike aimed solely at military targets. Whether our forces can pull this off without inflicting civilian casualties remains to be seen.

Rest assured, even if the attacks are executed as planned, someone within the Syrian government is going to accuse us of harming civilians. Hey, that’s politics — even in international affairs.

The political battle back home, though, has cleared an important hurdle with the House’s two leading Republicans signing on.

Let the debate continue.

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March on DC event lacked bipartisan flavor

I watched a lot of the 50th anniversary celebration of the March on Washington event this week and came away with a single disappointment.

There was no sign of leading Republicans at the speaker’s podium.

Of course, leave it to the likes of Fox News loudmouth Bill O’Reilly to claim falsely that “no Republicans were invited” to speak.

http://mediamatters.org/blog/2013/08/28/bill-oreilly-falsely-claims-republicans-barred/195656

Turns out there were invitations extended. Former Presidents George H.W. Bush and his son, George W. Bush, got invited but declined — understandably — for health reasons. House Speaker John Boehner and House Majority Leader Eric Cantor were invited, but couldn’t attend because of “scheduling conflicts.” Same is true, I suppose, for Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.

The scheduling conflict dodge does bother me. All of these individuals knew long ago that this event was on the calendar. If they wanted to attend this event, they certainly could have had their schedulers ensure they would be available to take part — don’t you think?

Absent their presence anywhere near the DC Mall this week, many of the speeches were tinged with a bit too much partisan rancor from those who argued against legislation to make voting more restrictive, which is a largely Republican initiative being pushed on Capitol Hill and in state capitol buildings throughout the South — and that includes Texas.

There once was a time, about 50 years ago, when Democrats and Republicans locked arms for a single cause, which was equality for all Americans. I was hoping the two parties could put aside their differences to mark the 50th anniversary of one of the great days of the American civil rights movement.

Maybe next time.

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GOP troubles with Hispanics keep growing

Two words — one syllable each — can describe just why the Republican Party cannot make inroads with the nation’s fastest-growing demographic group.

Steve King.

The Iowa GOP congressman has planted both feet inside his very large mouth and has drawn criticism from none other than the speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives.

http://thinkprogress.org/immigration/2013/07/25/2355631/boehner-condemns-steve-king-comment/

King said recently that for every young illegal immigrant living the United States, 100 more of them are drug mules who pack illegal drugs across the border. Then he said they may be small in stature but they “have calves the size of cantaloupes.”

Boehner, also a Republican, has called King’s remarks “hateful” and mean. Do you think, Mr. Speaker?

King is among a minority of House Republicans who oppose immigration reform. He prefers to round all them illegals up and ship ’em back to wherever they came from. King fervently opposes the Dream Act pushed by President Obama, which would in effect grant amnesty to young U.S. residents who were brought here illegally as children but who have made this country their home.

As for Boehner, he is invoking a House rule that says a measure should be voted on only when a majority of the party in power — that means Republicans — favor it. The House is deciding what to do with the immigration reform bill approved by the Senate in a sweeping bipartisan vote in June. Most House Democrats favor it as does a significant number of Republicans. It has the support of the full House, but it won’t come to a vote unless most GOP members sign on.

Steve King’s big mouth and utter callousness ought to persuade Boehner that the majority-of-a-majority rule — named after former Speaker Dennis Hastert — needs some serious rethinking.

 

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Hastert Rule has to go

The San Antonio Express-News has editorialized wisely in calling for the end to the Hastert Rule.

The link to the editorial is here:

http://www.mysanantonio.com/opinion/editorials/article/Hastert-rule-undercuts-democracy-4660269.php

U.S. House Speaker John Boehner is going to invoke the rule before allowing the House to vote on immigration reform. The rule — named after former Speaker Dennis Hastert — requires a majority of Republican House members to favor a bill before it goes to a vote. Never mind that the bill already has a majority of support among the entire body, which includes Democrats. Most GOP members have to agreed to it, according to Boehner.

Suspend the rule, Mr. Speaker, and let the House vote on whether to reform the nation’s broken-down immigration system.

Look at it this way, Mr. Speaker: Your GOP colleagues in the Texas Senate suspended its own two-thirds rule to vote on a bill restricting abortion in Texas. If they can bend the rules here in the Lone Star State, you can do it on Capitol Hill.