Tag Archives: John Boehner

national news, political news

House GOP 'survey' loaded with baloney

Nice try, U.S. House Speaker John Boehner.

You sought to ask me my views on how you and National Republican Congressional Committee are seeking to save the country from those reckless and feckless liberals in the White House. I ain’t taking the bait, Mr. Speaker.

You’ll get your State of the Nation Survey back in the mail. I even signed my name to it to validate its findings.

You see, sir, I don’t share your view that President Obama has wrecked the country. Almost every question you pose in your survey presumes that you and your party are right and the president and his party are wrong … across the board.

To be fair, I do agree with a few of the questions you pose. I believe, as you do, that the feds should work “closely with state and local officials to stop border violence and enforce federal immigration laws.” I also believe in the Second Amendment’s guarantee that we have a right “to keep and bear arms.” I agree with you that our legal system should “better protect victims and consumers while also giving manufacturers and small businesses confidence to keep jobs in America.” I even believe in “Republicans’ landmark ban on all earmarks” attached to federal legislation.

So, Mr. Speaker, your survey isn’t a total loser with me.

However, I do not subscribe to your notion that liberal/progressive policies are inherently bad for the country. I happen to be a good-government liberal who thinks the Obama administration has done well to revive the economy and keep us safe from terrorists. I also believe, contrary to your view, that our standing in the world hasn’t been diminished. Furthermore, I believe that the Affordable Care Act, which likely needs more fine-tuning, should remain on the books, as it is providing millions of Americans with health insurance they didn’t have before it was enacted.

Those are my views, Mr. Speaker, and I’m sticking with them.

Thanks for giving me the opportunity to vent.

God bless the United States of America.

 

International news, national news, political news

GOP senators broke the law with The Letter

Let’s remember The Letter.

It was sent by 47 Republican U.S. senators to the mullahs who run the Islamic Republic of Iran. It sought to discourage the Iranians from agreeing to a treaty that would end Iran’s nuclear program.

Some observers have suggested that the letter broke the Logan Act, enacted in 1799 to prohibit unauthorized U.S. citizens from negotiating with foreign governments.

Now we hear from a law professor at American University that the senators may have broken the law.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/gop-senators-probably-broke-law-with-iran-letter/ar-AA9BIdI

What’s the punishment? Professor Stephen Vladeck said the senators got away with something. The Logan Act is virtually unenforceable and it might even be unconstitutional, he said.

What’s more, says the professor, House Speaker John Boehner might have broken the law by inviting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to Washington to lobby against the Iranian nuclear negotiation. Should the speaker be punished? In my mind, sure. Will he be punished? Again, no.

The Letter is what’s gotten folks so riled up in Washington.

Freshman Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., came up with the idea. He pitched it to his GOP colleagues, 46 of whom signed it. Seven more GOP senators didn’t sign The Letter. One of the senators whose name is missing is Susan Collins of Maine, who has said The Letter has alienated Republicans even more — if that’s possible — from their Democratic colleagues and, oh yes, the White House.

That doesn’t matter to the Gang of 47. They wanted to make some kind of point about trying to broker a deal with Iran.

They made it, and likely broke the law in the process.

Take a bow, folks.

national news, political news

Amazing turnaround on race

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UPDATE: This just in … House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., agreed late to commit to attending the Selma, Ala., rally commemorating the march that helped spark approval of the Voting Rights Act 50 years ago.

***

Virtually no Republican leaders will take part in ceremonies marking the 50th anniversary of the Selma, Ala., civil rights march?

How can that be?

The Party of Abraham Lincoln needs to have representation at this event. Doesn’t it?

http://www.politico.com/story/2015/03/gop-leaders-to-skip-selma-event-115801.html?ml=po

The march helped produce the Voting Rights Act signed by President Lyndon Johnson, a Democrat who pushed it through Congress with help from his Republican allies. Indeed, the Democratic Party — particularly in the South — was well-known to resist civil-rights legislation. LBJ was warned by his Southern Democratic friends that the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act would cost the party dearly in terms of Southern support. It did.

Fifty years later, it’s now Republicans who are staying away from events to commemorate the march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge.

The GOP won’t be totally absent. An estimated 23 Republican members of the House and Senate will attend. Good for them.

Are the party leaders who should be there — Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, House Speaker John Boehner, House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy — all racists? I don’t believe that for a moment. One key GOP leader, though, really and truly needs to be there. That would be House Majority Whip Gary Scalise, who spoke to a David Duke-sponsored political event before being elected to the House; he’s since disavowed that appearance and has declared that he harbors no racial bias — but he needed to commit to this event.

The allegiances of the two major parties appear to have turned rather dramatically with regard to race relations.

Amazing.

International news

Enough of the barbs, guys; start talking like friends

President Obama has been trading barbs of late with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

They’re tossing them in public at each other. I’m wondering, though: Each man has a secure phone line to the other’s office. What might a private conversation sound like at this moment:

Obama: Hello, Bibi? This is Barack. You got a few minutes?

Netanyahu: Sure thing, Barack. Hey, I can call you “Barack,” right? I heard about that crap over your addressing (German Chancellor) Merkel by her first name, Angela. What nonsense.

Obama: Sure thing, Bibi. No problem. Hey, let’s set aside all this name-calling and get down to brass tacks. You know why I didn’t want you to speak to Congress. First of all, John Boehner messed up by not advising me about the invitation. Second of all, you’ve got an election coming up and we just don’t usually invite foreign leaders to make high-profile public speeches so close to an election. That’s been the practice for as long as I can remember.

Netanyahu: Yes, I understand. But you have to understand something about my position here on Iran and those nuclear talks. Iran is a neighbor of ours. Those crazies sit just a few hundred miles from Jerusalem. I worry about them every hour of every day I’m awake. I’ve got to make the case that no deal is better than a bad deal. You’re sitting in Washington, a long way from the Middle East. You have the comfort of distance. We don’t have it here.

Obama: Absolutely, I get it. But understand that we have a tradition in this country of putting partisanship aside when it concerns foreign policy. In this country, as in yours, we have only one head of government at a time. Boehner’s invitation is seen as an intrusion in our foreign policy tradition. The president’s team negotiates deals. Sure, we take advice from legislators, but their job is to make laws, not to engage in diplomacy.

Netanyahu: OK. Here’s what I think we — you and I — ought to do. Let’s quit sniping. We know you love Israel and we love the United States, too, Barack. Let’s just cool the rhetoric until we get this negotiation completed with Iran. If the nut jobs in Tehran reject whatever plan you and your international partners come up with, then you and I can speak with one voice — as we’ve sought to do before.

Obama: But what if Iran accepts the deal?

Netanyahu: We’ll decide then what to do. Personally, I’m hoping they reject it, if only because I want us to be friends in public the way we are in private.

Obama: Deal, Bibi. Let me make just one request: If you decide to bomb the Iranian nuke plants, give us a heads-up, just to show Boehner how friends are supposed to interact with each other.

Netanyahu: Will do, Barack.

 

national news

Speaker gets past this rocky road

House Speaker John Boehner has had more fun than what he experienced the past couple of weeks.

It’s been like, well, herding cats. His Republican caucus all but went into apoplexy over a plan to fund the Department of Homeland Security. The TEA party wing of the caucus remained dead set against it. Other Republicans joined with Democrats to fund DHS until September.

Without the money, DHS would have had to shut down; 30,000 federal employees would have been furloughed.

Crisis is averted. For now.

http://thehill.com/homenews/house/234467-house-approves-dhs-funding

The speaker’s difficulty with his the TEA party cabal is far from over. I’ll just suggest that his fear will be that they’ll be so angry with him they might try to launch an intraparty insurrection to get Boehner removed from his post.

Who would get the gavel? Louie Gohmert, the East Texas chucklehead? Would it be Steve Scalise, the majority whip from Louisiana who once spoke to a David Duke-sponsored outfit?

My hunch is that Boehner will survive any possible rebellion.

But the vote to fund DHS now allows the House of Representatives to get on with more serious matters. Lawmakers ought to focus on things such as, oh, a budget, infrastructure legislation, some national security issues. You know, the stuff to which they all signed on to do on behalf of all Americans.

I’m glad the deal was struck. Boehner actually worked with Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, the despised former speaker. That, by itself, might be cause for the TEA party wing of the GOP to break out the pitchforks and torches.

Isn’t governing fun, Mr. Speaker?

International news

Bibi's speech proves Barack's point

Barack Obama had it pegged. Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech today before a joint congressional session will play well in Israel and because of the proximity to the upcoming election, it was totally inappropriate for the Israeli prime minister to make such a speech in that venue.

http://thehill.com/policy/international/middle-east-north-africa/234543-fiery-netanyahu-speech-divides-dems

But the prime minister today delivered a blistering attack on President Obama’s Iran policy. Was he correct? Is a possible deal to stop Iran’s nuclear enrichment program so bad that it puts the Middle East in more danger of an Iranian nuclear weapons development?

Netanyahu says it will. Does he know more than anyone else on the planet? That’s debatable, to say the very least.

Today’s speech was not intended to disrespect the president, Netanyahu had promised. I’m afraid it did what he said it wouldn’t do. He suggested that the United States does not understand the Iranian threat. I would submit that the United States understands all too well how mercurial the Islamic Republic of Iran can be at many levels.

Mr. Prime Minister, surely you recall the Iranian hostage crisis of 1979-80.

Well, the White House didn’t want Netanyahu to speak, citing the juxtaposition of the speech and the upcoming Israeli elections. The United States is now going to be seen as playing a part in influencing the election. It’s long been customary to forgo such speeches.

None of that mattered to Speaker John Boehner, who extended the invitation without consulting with the White House. Nor did it matter to Netanyahu, who accepted the invitation understanding the firestorm it would create.

I remain confident that U.S.-Israeli relations will remain strong. President Obama says it is unbreakable; Prime Minister Netanyahu says the nations are like “family.”

This speech, though, has caused a significant rift between these allies.

The time to heal that rift is at hand.

 

International news, national news, political news

Partisanship has no place in foreign policy

OK, one more attempt at making sense of this Bibi blowup and I’ll move on.

It’s being reported that about a quarter of congressional Democrats are going to stay away from the speech Tuesday that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will make before a joint session of Congress.

http://thehill.com/homenews/news/234398-bibi-boycott-grows-ahead-of-address

Democrats are angry that Republican Speaker John Boehner invited Bibi to speak without consulting with the White House. I get their anger. It is infuriating that Boehner would flout longstanding diplomatic protocol by inviting a foreign head of government in such a manner.

Netanyahu, in remarks today to a pro-Israel group, said he doesn’t want to become the object of partisan scorn in Washington. Indeed, such partisanship shouldn’t be an issue when we’re talking about foreign policy matters.

Who, though, turned it into a partisan event? I’ll go with Boehner, who stuck it in the president’s eye in the way he invited Netanyahu. The prime minister opposes negotiations to get Iran to stop its nuclear development program; he favors tougher sanctions on Iran now, along with Boehner and most Republicans; Obama opposes the sanctions; and the president is miffed over the invitation issue.

None of this means the United States and Israel are going to part company. Netanyahu will affirm the nations’ close ties Tuesday, just as he did today.

The partisan nature of the protest, though, smacks more of petulance than anything else.

I’ll say it again: Democrats should listen to Bibi in person and give him the respect that the leader of our nation’s strongest Middle East ally deserves.

 

national news, political news

Governing looks like the old way

So, this is what the new style of governing looks like on Capitol Hill.

Republicans control both legislative houses. The Senate wants to move away from the stalemate over funding the Department of Homeland Security; it wants to vote on a “clean” funding bill that doesn’t contain measures to strip out President Obama’s executive action on immigration. The House of Representatives — led by its TEA party coalition — wants to stick it to Obama.

http://www.politico.com/story/2015/03/john-boehner-republicans-homeland-security-funding-plan-115657.html?hp=t2_r

Neither side can persuade the other chamber that their way is the right way.

We’re stuck.

Ain’t governing fun?

House Speaker John Boehner is having a difficult time corralling the rebels in his GOP caucus. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has done a better job of taking control of the Senate.

DHS has enough money to function until Friday. Then lawmakers either (a) vote on yet another short-term deal or (b) vote on a “clean” bill that might just anger the House TEA party rabble rousers enough to try to oust Boehner as speaker.

Meanwhile, the agency charged with protecting our borders from oh, you know, drug smugglers and terrorists is being kicked around like an unwanted critter.

This isn’t the way it was supposed to work when Republicans took control of government’s legislative branch.

International news

Netanyahu plans no 'disrespect' of Obama

Benjamin Netanyahu has laid it out carefully: His speech Tuesday before Congress is not intended to “disrespect” President Obama or the office he holds.

The Israeli prime minister made that point today in a preliminary event at the American Israel Public Affair Committee speech. He said the U.S.-Israel alliance is stronger than ever, but that the two friends have differences on how to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons.

The main event occurs Tuesday when the prime minister speaks before a joint session of Congress.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/other/netanyahu-says-congress-speech-is-not-intended-to-show-any-disrespect-to-president-obama/ar-BBi9ajY

Actually, if any disrespect has occurred, it came from the man who invited the prime minister to speak to Congress. That would be House Speaker John Boehner, who broke with diplomatic protocol by extending the invitation without consulting with the White House — or with the president.

Netanyahu contributed to showing up Obama by accepting the invitation.

But the speech he has planned to deliver Tuesday will seek to drive home the friendship that the two countries maintain in spite of differences over specific strategies and tactics.

“Israel and the United States agree that Iran should not have nuclear weapons. But we disagree on the best way to prevent Iran from developing those weapons,” he told the AIPAC audience. “Disagreements among allies are only natural from time to time, even among the closest of allies.”

He added: “We’re like a family. Disagreements in the family are always uncomfortable.”

The prime minister will no doubt get an earful from the president’s domestic critics about why they think Obama is wrong on Iran. He’ll agree with them clearly.

Let’s not look for any sign of a breakup between two of the world’s tightest allies. From where I sit, the United States and Israel remain the best of friends.

 

International news

Let's hear Bibi make his point

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Allow me to call him “Bibi,” OK?

He is Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, aka Bibi. He’s going to speak Tuesday to a joint session of Congress. I am opposed to the way he was asked to speak — invited by Speaker John Boehner without giving the White House a heads up, thus violating a longstanding rule of diplomacy.

http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/03/benjamin-netanyahu-address-to-congress-115640.html?hp=r2_3#.VPPabVJ0yt8

But now that he’s coming, let’s hear what he has to say.

A key Republican congressman, Mike Rogers of Michigan, and Michael Doran, a policy wonk at the Hudson Institute, have written an essay laying out the reasons for hearing the prime minister’s remarks.

The chief reason, according to Rogers and Doran, is that Bibi’s speech will spark an important debate about how to deal with Iran and its desire to develop a nuclear program — and virtually everyone agrees means a nuclear weapons program.

Rogers and Doran are incorrect in asserting that President Barack Obama is indifferent about fighting the bad guys of this world. They are correct, though, in suggesting that Bibi is making a courageous stand against his country’s arch-enemy, the Islamic Republic of Iran.

My main problem with his speech is its timing, given that the United States is in the middle of negotiations with Iran to end is nuclear program development.

Still, the prime minister is a key world leader with a vested interest in a permanent Middle East peace.

It cannot happen if Iran develops a nuclear bomb. Let’s hear what Bibi has to say.