PrairiePundit

The Hill: Obama's ultimatum: No more short-term spending bills Obama: I won't negotiate on debt limit Will McConnell and Boehner respond--"Where do a sign?"

Washington Post: Bad blood: John Boehner and his  tormentor Ted Cruz Back in 2013, some Republicans had called Cruz "speaker." House Speaker Boehner had a few other names for him. Republican leaders found it more difficult to say one thing at election time and then cut a deal to fund Democrats after Cruz was elected.  For that reason the Republican leadership in Washington thought he was not a team player.  In fact he was standing up for the team that got him elected .  It is not the job of elected officials to make it easy to betray campaign promises.  Boehner and McConnell look like the leaders of the preemptive surrender caucus.  They need to find a way to thwart Democrat spending on Obamacare, and amnesty if they hope to survive in the majority.

NBC News: Poll: 72% of GOP Voters Dissatisfied With Boehner, McConnell So what happened when Boehner resigned.  His team started calling the GOP base and those who support it "crazies."  When you resort to that kind of name calling about your own voters it says you are not much of a communicator.  Those Washington who support the voters who elected them were called "false prophets" by Boehner.  What you have is 28 percent or less in the party looking down their noses at the rest, disrespecting them and their own promises to them.

Washington Post: Resignation clears path for GOP to avert shutdown The crisis may be avoided for now, but the forces that drove Boehner to quit remain and will likely bedevil the next speaker. Democrats will still want the GOP to fund their bad programs, such as Obamacare, amnesty and Planned Parenthood.  Democrats and the media are willing to take the rest of the government hostage to get their spending whether the voters want it or not.  I do not see Boehner's departure changing that. The problem is the omnibus spending bills throws everything into a stew on a take or leave it basis.  Congress no longer has separate appropriations for individual departments and items.  If they had separate appropriations, Obama could not shut down the government and blame it on Republicans. What is really clear is the the Republican base is fed up with funding programs they despise and dealing with an intransigent President.  That is Why Dave Brat won in 2014 and it ...

NY Times: Next House Speaker Likely to Face Similar Problems Whoever takes over from Speaker John A. Boehner will be under pressure to confront Democrats and the White House more strongly, meaning the job probably won’t get any easier. Here are just some of the problems that caused rebellion against Boehner--funding the despised and horrid Obama healthcare plan; funding Obama's illegal amnesty for illegals; and funding Planned Parenthood and their immoral commerce in baby body parts.  All these programs waste money and make the country poorer. One of the reasons Democrats get away with these programs is the use of omnibus spending bills which tie them to needed government funding.  Congress seems to have lost the ability to have separate appropriations for various items in the budget.  If each item had its own appropriation a Presidential veto would just mean that the particular program would not be approved and not the entire government. Make no mistake, the l...

Politico: Speaker John Boehner retiring from Congress at the end of October The House speaker’s sudden announcement comes amid a GOP rebellion. The genuine anger among Republican voters at the somewhat docile acceptance of the evils of liberalism as proposed by Obama and Democrats had reached a point where there was also open rebellion with in the house ranks.  Senate leaders should heed the same message.  Voters are not fooled by show votes that lack any prospect of getting past Democrat intransigence.  Republican voters did not send people to Washington to fund Obamacare and amnesty for illegal aliens. I know the media is not on the GOP's side and they will back the Democrat agenda regardless, but that does not mean Republicans should meekly submit.   What happened to the plan to use "regular order" to get things past.  At least Obama would have to veto the measures which would mean he would be the one shutting down the government.  Why go along w...

Erick Erickson: Perhaps I am overly cynical, but when I heard that Rep. John Boehner (R-OH) N/A% referred toSen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) 100% as a “jacka–” at a fundraiser in Colorado, my first thought was that he knows the establishment’s goose is cooked. Between Donald Trump and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) 100%, he’d prefer Cruz. Boehner, to be sure, hates Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) 100%. But he also knows the difference between Trump and Cruz is that Trump is, even now, pouring gasoline around the Capitol and White House waiting to strike a match. Cruz, for all of Boehner’s dislike of him, is the more reasonable of the two. “We can do business with him,” Boehner thinks. Boehner is, if nothing else, a survivor in politics. Caught on the wrong side of the Gingrich coup, he waited it all out, plotted slowly, and got himself into the Speaker’s chair. He knows with Trump, win or lose, the party is over. With Cruz, if Cruz wins the party might be able to repair itself and move on and if Cruz loses Boehner a...

Guardian: Iran has “no intention” of keeping its word on an agreement being negotiated in Switzerland over its nuclear programme, House speaker  John Boehner said on Sunday. The top Republican’s comments came as negotiations in Lausanne approached the 31 March deadline for the drafting of a framework for a deal, under intense criticism from Israel’s prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu. Speaking on CNN, Boehner said he had serious doubts about the talks. “We’ve got a regime that’s never quite kept their word about anything,” he said. “I just don’t understand why we would sign an agreement with a group of people who have no intention of keeping their word.” If there was no agreement, Boehner said he would move “very” quickly to impose new sanctions on Iran . ... “I think the animosity exhibited by this administration toward the prime minister of Israel is reprehensible,” said Boehner. “And I think the pressure they have put on him over the past four or five years frankly pushed h...

Ed Lasky: A correction appearing in the New York Times quietly unravels what has become a major story as phony agitprop, intended to discredit the leaders of Israel and the House of Representatives.  Of course, the story is still believed by many, and has well served those in the White House and media who created and disseminated it. Omri Ceren  spotted the correction and explained on Twitter:  NYT tries to promote anti-Netanyahu talking point that  #Israel blindsided Obama. They got just 1 tiny detail wrong. http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/30/us/politics/benjamin-netanyahu-is-talking-to-harry-reid-and-leading-democrats-to-little-effect-so-far.html?partner=rss&emc=rss&_r=2 Correction: January 30, 2015  An earlier version of this article misstated when Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel accepted Speaker John A. Boehner’s invitation to address Congress. He accepted after the administration had been informed of the invitation, not before...

Washington Post: Boehner survives largest revolt by a party against its speaker in 150 years As the GOP took control of Congress, hard-right conservatives rallied against Boehner. Polling shows that some 60 percent of GOP voters wanted someone besides Boehner as Speaker.  It is not insignificant  that the Congressional leadership of the Republican party ignored that desire of their constituents.  Don't be surprised if some of those who supported him get challenged in 2016 by conservatives who are dissatisfied with his appeasement of Obama spending priorities.  They are going to have to work hard get that support back.

NY Times: Boehner Beats Back Dissent to Reclaim House Speaker Post Two dozen Republicans voted against John A. Boehner, diminishing somewhat what should have been a day of euphoria for the party as Republicans assumed control of both houses of Congress for the first time in eight years. After a historic election that clearly rejected Obama and the Democrats Boehner was seen as giving them what they wanted on the spending bill and many in the GOP were displeased with the results.  Boehner appears to fear the wrath of the media more than the wrath of the voters.

Washington Post: Rep. Gohmert to wage long-shot challenge against Boehner for speaker The Texas Republican railed against Boehner for passing the spending bill with Democratic votes. I think he reflects the dissatisfaction of conservatives with the big spending bill where Republicans after winning a landslide election caved to most of the Democrat demands.  The split appears to be over whether it is worth it to shutdown the government to stop Obama's spending priorities.

Washington Times: Boehner: More people will lose insurance under Obamacare than sign up in exchanges That was not the exchange most people had in mind.

Fox News: More than a week into the glitch-littered launch of the ObamaCare insurance "exchanges," critics are decrying the roll-out as a "train wreck" that should give everyone pause about requiring individuals to use the new system -- or obtain insurance elsewhere -- by early 2014. "How can we tax people for not buying a product from a website that doesn't work?" House Speaker John Boehner said. The healthcare.gov site opened for enrollment on Oct. 1, but users are still having trouble breaking through the website's myriad problems just to sign up. Reports have since surfaced about warning signs that the site was not ready for launch; raising more questions, another report said the price tag for the site has grown from $93 million to $634 million. ... ... critics say the site was just poorly designed. Computer software experts told FoxNews.com the site may experience significant technical glitches for months . "I wouldn't rule out t...

David Hirsanyi: The Most Underrated Congress of All Time It is a pretty clever piece about the Boehner controlled House Republicans and the poor media types trying to deal with them.

Daily Caller: ... “If the Senate stalls until Monday afternoon instead of working today, it would be an act of breathtaking arrogance by the Senate Democratic leadership,” Boehner said. “They will be deliberately bringing the nation to the brink of a government shutdown for the sake of raising taxes on seniors’ pacemakers and children’s hearing aids and plowing ahead with the train wreck that is the president’s health care law. The American people will not stand for it.” ... That si a pretty apt description of what the Democrats are up to.

John Feehery: Don’t tell the Tea Party, but the tag team of John Boehner and Mitch McConnell are currently mopping the floor with Barack Obama. The president convincingly won a second term in November, but since that time, the congressional Republican leadership has outfoxed, outmaneuvered and plain out-strategized him on just about every issue. On taxes, McConnell (R-Ky.) just flat-out beat Joe Biden. He preserved 98 percent of the Bush tax cuts in perpetuity, which from a policy perspective is huge. He also made sure that the payroll tax holiday came to a conclusion, thereby making sure that every American would feel the tax increase that President Obama has long been fighting for. By agreeing on a smaller tax increase, McConnell also inoculated Republicans from Obama’s demands for higher taxes later on. Hey, Mr. President, we just raised taxes, and you want to raise taxes again? That dog simply doesn’t hunt with most voters, and Obama has taken to the less politically explosive po...

The Hill: By demanding Senate Democrats act first on major legislation, the House Speaker may help Republicans win back the upper chamber. Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) is passing the buck to the Senate and, in the process, he's lending a big hand to Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) Boehner's move to force the Democratic-led Senate to take the lead on enacting President Obama's agenda puts him squarely in line with a top McConnell priority — wresting control of the upper chamber from Democrats. The Speaker has made it clear that he believes his one-on-one negotiations with Obama over the last two years allowed Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and his caucus to escape responsibility for taking politically-tough votes in the last two years, helping Democrats not only keep control of the Senate, but expand their majority in 2012. As Boehner put it on Thursday, "those days are over." The House, he indicated, has no intention of acting on the ...

Michael Barone: The House Republicans, in serious trouble with public opinion as they blinked facing the "fiscal cliff" over New Year's, seem suddenly to be playing a more successful game -- or, rather, games, an inside game and an outside game.inside game can be described by the Washington phrase "regular order."  What that means in ordinary American English is Bills are written in subcommittee and committee and then go to the floor. When the House and Senate pass different versions -- likely when Republicans control the House and Democrats have a majority in the Senate -- the two are taken to conference committee to be reconciled. Then both houses vote on the conference committee report. If it is approved, the president can sign or veto it. Note the lack of negotiations between the White House and congressional leaders. Speaker John Boehner decided they're useless after the failure of his grand bargain talks with Barack Obama. Under regular order, Hous...

Phillip Klein: Speaker John Boehner, as I described in more detail earlier, is in an impossible situation when it comes to resolving the fiscal cliff in a way that accommodates reality without alienating House conservatives. But that doesn’t mean he’s played things perfectly. Far from it. Of all the mistakes he’s made since the election, the biggest was allowing President Obama to get away with raising his tax demands. During an election in which Obama gave very few details about his second term agenda, one thing he made clear was that he wanted to raise taxes on those earning more than $250,000 by allowing the Bush era rates to expire on the income group. Doing that would raise taxes by $824 billion over a decade. But once the election ended and “fiscal cliff” discussions began, Obama raised his demands to $1.6 trillion in tax hikes — double what he campaigned on. Now, it’s true that Obama did unveil a debt proposal in 2011 to raise taxes by $1.6 trillion and he did occasionally me...