Saturday, September 26, 2015

Slow Saturday Special: Boehner Bails Out of Congre$$

And I will be bailing out on the Slow Saturday Specials at this point.

"It was his failure to tilt at windmills that apparently doomed Boehner, and the next speaker will have to find a way to resist the self-defeating war cry of the Tea Party."

The only windmills they tilt at are those demanded by the Jewish apartheid state (not for virgin ears), and I love the "self-defeating war cry" hyperbole coming from the propaganda pre$$.

"Boehner’s resignation sets off shock waves in House" by Annie Linskey and Tracy Jan Globe Staff  September 26, 2015

WASHINGTON — Republican Speaker John Boehner announced Friday that he’ll relinquish his gavel next month and quit his seat in Congress, plunging the House into uncertainty and abruptly ending a four-year leadership tenure marked by civil war among GOP representatives and crippling partisan gridlock in Congress.

I was stunned when someone told me about it, and immediately thought it was because he cried when the Pope was there.

With insurgent conservatives agitating for a change at the top, and a budget showdown looming next week over funding for Planned Parenthood, Boehner said at a brief news conference that he prayed Friday morning and decided “today was the day’’ he would resign.

That is a very interesting choice of adjectives. I didn't know it was Tea Party members of Congre$$ that were laying roadside bombs and ambushing AmeriKan troops.

The move is expected to avert a government shutdown next week because Boehner, as a lame duck, would pay no political penalty if he pushes through a budget resolution with support from minority Democrats. Conservatives had threatened the shutdown as a strategy to block Planned Parenthood funding.

Does that mean Obama has one more war left in him?

He told members of his unruly caucus about his plan during a closed-door meeting Friday morning, and they were “shocked,’’ he said.

The word I heard was they were pushing him out the door!

“It had became clear to me that this prolonged leadership turmoil would do irreparable harm to the institution,” said Boehner, 65, who has represented his Ohio district for 25 years and who marked a career highlight Thursday when he hosted the visit by Pope Francis to Congress.

Some of those staunch conservatives viewed Friday’s development as a victory, even though in the short term the government is now likely to continue running with Planned Parenthood funding intact.

I know I did. My first thought was let's eat 'em.

“Today the establishment lost,’’ US Representative Tim Heulskamp of Kansas declared on Twitter.

I view that as a good thing now, sorry.

Boehner has a wry, playful sense of humor, and is known for his tanned visage, fondness for merlot, and occasional displays of public weeping.

I think those last two go together, and alcoholism is great if you are a member of Congre$$. Drink all day, drink all night!

He was one of President Obama’s highest-profile foils on Capitol Hill, presiding over the largest Republican majority since 1928. But his defiant GOP caucus prevented him from leveraging his power to maximum advantage, even after the party also won control of the Senate last fall.

Boehner’s bombshell left the fractured GOP caucus on an uncertain course. Though Boehner struggled to knit together factions of the party and had become deeply unpopular with the conservative base, the next speaker will still face the same fundamental dynamics. 

I guess I'm in there somewhere seeing as I usually vote in their primary. They don't want me in the tent though.

The ironies of Boehner’s tenure as speaker have been rich. Republicans recaptured the House in 2010 on a wave of Tea Party anger over Obama’s health care law, allowing Boehner to ascend to the top job.

But some of the conservative newcomers who made that victory possible had zero patience for legislative compromise and the sort of relationship-building that have been hallmarks of Boehner’s career.

When Senator Marco Rubio, a Florida Republican running for president, announced Boehner’s resignation to conservative voters attending the Values Voter Summit in Washington, the audience leapt to their feet, cheering and clapping.

So did I, metaphorically speaking.

“The time has come to turn the page and allow a new generation of leadership in this country,” Rubio said....

YUP -- and I pray it won't be you, Marco. 

I have two qualifications for president: One, will they stand up to Israel, and two.... okay, I have one qualification for president.

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Also seeHis guard down, the speaker shared a glimpse

Boehner is now at peace.

I'm sorry, but the humanization of war collaborator $cum leaves me uneasy.

NDU: 

"Boehner’s exit heightens fear of D.C. stalemate" by Jonathan Weisman and Michael D. Shear New York Times   September 26, 2015

WASHINGTON — At the White House, a stunned President Obama expressed hope for bipartisan progress as turmoil among Republicans ended US Representative John A. Boehner’s speakership.

On Capitol Hill, the conservatives who had again felled one of their leaders rallied to name the terms for the next person to wield the speaker’s gavel.

And on Wall Street, fear set in at the prospect of another showdown over the government’s ability to pay its debt, support its export businesses, and simply keep its doors open.

Even better. Let them fill up on it for a while. I'm all tapped out when it comes to fear.

Boehner’s surprise announcement Friday that he will step down from the speakership and leave the House on Oct. 30 has thrown Washington into deep uncertainty. His resignation is likely to herald an even more combative stretch in the nation’s capital, emboldening conservatives to defy Obama on looming decisions regarding spending, debt, and taxes.

This is all a load of $how fooley crap, and I will explain why shortly.

Some in Congress and the White House hold out hope that Boehner’s departure and the election of a new speaker will appease conservatives, who have been plotting his downfall for over a year, and grant his replacement a grace period. Obama promised on Friday to “reach out immediately” to the next speaker to begin working on the nation’s problems.

Nothing will appease me (whatever that label means) other than an end to the wars and cutting loose of that anchor Israel.

But more prevalent is a sense of dread that an already bitter and divisive political atmosphere will get even worse.

The Republican presidential primary battle has been dominated by outsiders like Donald Trump, Carly Fiorina, and Ben Carson, who have castigated their party’s leadership in Washington.

Now, with conservatives claiming Boehner’s demise as a political victory, many expect his successor to face tremendous pressure to bring that combative spirit to the halls of Congress, and to instigate a showdown with the president over budget limits and the debt ceiling at the end of the year.

I thought it, too, but they will soon explain why it is not.

Uncompromising conservatives on and off Capitol Hill are demanding the elevation of one of their own to confront the president at every turn. And lawmakers who had pressed to get rid of Boehner warned Friday that they would not buckle in their defense of those spending limits, even in response to veto threats by Obama that could lead to a Christmastime stalemate and a government shutdown.

“To get members to bust the budget caps, they have to threaten a Christmas-vacation shutdown for members of Congress,” said Representative Thomas Massie, a Kentucky Republican who is one of the rebels who pushed for Boehner’s overthrow. “Heaven help the speaker who replaces John Boehner and goes along with that charade.”

The terminology tells you that the NYT disapproves!

Boehner’s decision is likely to smooth a path around a government shutdown at the end of the month. But the real showdown looms on Dec. 11, when a stopgap spending bill expected to pass this week would expire, and Congress and the president will have to find a way to fund the government through September 2016 and raise its borrowing limit.

The showdown will be cancelled (keep reading).

The new speaker, elevated to the country’s third-highest constitutional post by a conservative rebellion, will face demands from those same rebels to extract concessions from a president who has little to lose by standing firm.

"From here you will witness the final destruction of the alliance, and the end of your insignificant rebellion."-- E. Palpatine

At stake for conservatives will be the one clear victory they have scored since the Tea Party revolution of 2010: firm statutory limits on spending signed into law in 2011, which Obama has said he can no longer abide. 

It's what they used to call a pyrrhic victory.

In turn, the Republican Party, already wrestling with the effect of Trump’s populist insurgency on its chances at the White House, could find itself with the political challenge of justifying to moderate voters yet another Washington crisis, prompted by an even more confrontational House majority.

Oh, so the Donald is also laying roadside bombs for US troops (if only metaphorically each time he opens his mouth).

“Having been hoisted to the speaker’s chair by what was essentially a revolt,” David Axelrod, a former adviser to Obama, predicted, the next speaker will not have the freedom to compromise with the president. “This group is not installing him to pursue compromise and mutual cooperation,” he said.

Insurgencies, revolts, why not just go shoot 'em?

Presidential aides have begun to take stock of a changed political landscape that could include some last-minute deal-making with Boehner before he heads back to Ohio. There could be a longer-term budget agreement that also deals with raising the nation’s debt ceiling, and possibly even a major infrastructure bill, long talked about and long stalled.

Like I said, there will be no showdown and Tea Party lost. 

That's what this was: Boehner's way of getting all this stuff passed with Democrat and minority Republican support. Now the heat is off.

Can we still eat him?

“John’s not going to leave for another 30 days, so hopefully he feels like getting as much stuff done as he possibly can,” Obama said during a news conference with the Chinese president on Friday.

Looking at the long term, Democrats in Washington wondered whether Republicans wanted to show Americans they could govern, if only as a means to win back the White House and keep control of the Congress that they fought so hard to gain.

“For most Republicans, resolving these issues now, instead of having the government shut down in December, would be a political plus,” said Phil Schiliro, Obama’s former chief liaison to Congress. If the next speaker “decided that he wanted now to do a fair amount of business, there’s a window to do that.”

But Schiliro, too, expressed some pessimism, adding, “At its core, there’s a group of members in the House Republican caucus who affirmatively don’t want to govern.”

I used to be a big believer in government, but now I wonder if we would be better off without them.

Already, those who have egged on the rebellion are showing no willingness to give the next speaker much room for compromise.

No offense, but where has "compromise" gotten us?

Before the news of Boehner’s decision had even sunk in, conservative knives were out for the heir apparent, Representative Kevin McCarthy of California, the House majority leader.

Second course.

Mark Levin, a conservative talk show host, called McCarthy “Eric Cantor with 10 less IQ points,” a reference to the last House majority leader, who lost his seat to a Tea Party insurgent in 2014.

Hours after Boehner’s announcement, Representative Roger Williams, a Texas Republican who is among the conservative hard-liners, warned, “I hope all Republicans, including those in the Senate, are listening to what grass-roots conservatives are saying: It is time for conservative leadership and conservative principles.”

They didn't even let Ron Paul in the building.

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Time for me to bailout; kickoff is in two minutes.