“It Is About Power”

Well, the Republican majority in the U.S. House of Representatives made shameful history today. By a party-line vote of 225-201 (with all but five Republicans voting for the measure, and all 199 Democrats opposing it), Congress’ lower chamber authorized Speaker John Boehner’s much-talked-about--and ridiculed--lawsuit against President Barack Obama. That’s right: Rather than dealing with the nation’s continuing unemployment situation, trying to pass comprehensive immigration legislation, relieving pressure on veteran’s hospitals overwhelmed by the influx of soldiers caused by George W. Bush’s short-sighted bellicosity, or working with the president to reduce crippling student debt, curb greenhouse gases that are endangering the planet’s future, and ease financial burdens on the middle class, Republicans would rather spend millions of taxpayer dollars on a frivolous lawsuit against President Obama for doing his job, for acting while Republicans sit on their hands, complain, and do almost nothing to earn their paychecks.



This is the height of idiocy, nothing but a partisan power grab. Republicans--who’ve tried to undermine President Obama since the first day he took office--now hope to stir up their fear-gripped, anti-government and, yes, hateful base in advance of November’s midterm elections. Yet the result of all this is just as likely to be that it stirs up fierce opposition from Democrats and Independents, who remember the 1990s and what then-Speaker Newt Gingrich sought to do: impeach another Democrat, President Bill Clinton, because they didn’t want him sitting in the White House, either. A recent poll showed that perpetually angry, bigoted Republican extremists--the folks who seem to be in charge of that once “grand” party right now--want to impeach President Obama. And when Boehner’s lawsuit fails, as it likely will, they’ll demand that impeachment hearings commence post haste--even though launching them, with such an obvious dearth of provocation, only further trivializes the significance of an impeachment. This ugly, ultimately self-defeating partisanship and legislative gridlock will only worsen if Republicans manage not only to hold onto their majority in the House in November, but win control of the U.S. Senate as well.

If you think that nothing of any value is coming out Congress at the present juncture, just imagine what will happen if Republicans--opposed to minimum-wage hikes, fighting to restrict women’s access to abortion and other health services, hoping to kill the Affordable Care Act that has finally brought health-care coverage to millions of Americans, and rattling their sabers in favor of brand-new wars in the Middle East--are rewarded with greater power on Capitol Hill. President Obama will then be the only bulwark against a new flood of extremist, religion- and paranoia-rooted bills coming out of both chambers.

Ed Schultz of MSNBC’s The Ed Show devoted a good-sized segment of his broadcast tonight to the cost and pointlessness of Boehner’s games-playing. I have embedded that above. It’s well worth watching.

READ MORE: “The Not-So-Secret GOP Strategy for Everything: Do Nothing, and Blame Obama,” by Joan Walsh (Salon); “Even by ‘Do-Nothing’ Standards, This Congress Is Useless,” by Henry Decker (The National Memo).

Default Lines

After trying and failing twice yesterday, majority Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives this afternoon finally managed to pass--if by a squeaker vote--a baldly partisan bill raising the nation’s debt ceiling, but tying it to $22 billion in cuts from next year’s spending and the passage of a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution. In other words, it’s a bill that has no chance of being approved by the Democratic Senate or ever being signed into law by President Barack Obama.

So the Tea Party yahoos and other Republican ideologues in the lower chamber once more wasted their time and tens of thousands of our taxpayer dollars in a symbolic gesture that accomplishes nothing. The final resolution to this GOP-created financial crisis, if there is to be one before next Tuesday’s deadline for raising the debt ceiling and avoiding default, will have to be worked out between the Senate and the White House, with hateful Republican obstructionists in the House ultimately relegated to the sidelines, having either to accept a compromise or provoke further financial disaster.

The Senate is expected to take up the bill later tonight, and quickly kill the thing. Its members will then have to work over the weekend to come up with a more balanced substitute that can gain not just Republican votes, but a majority of Democratic ones as well. Many investors, however, recognizing the intransigence of GOP ideologues on this matter, aren’t confident that such an agreement can be struck--which is why they’re pulling their money out of the stock and mutual-fund markets in advance of the August 2 deadline.

No matter what happens between now and Tuesday, it’s clear that the House has marginalized itself to the crazy zone. Even Americans who haven’t been paying close attention to the insanity of right-wingers trying to destroy Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid through this debt-ceiling fight, have to recognize in these final days the sheer incompetence of House Republicans and their inability to govern.

The cavernous divisions between veteran politicians on Capitol Hill, willing to compromise, and fire-breathing, my-way-or-the-highway Tea Partiers bent on destroying the government’s ability to help Americans in any manner have been striking over the last couple of months. It has fallen, at long last, to the “adults” in Washington, D.C.--President Obama, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nevada), and whatever non-ideologues remain on the Republican side of the Senate--to save the United States from self-inflicted catastrophe. People such as Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), who was unable to convince House Republicans to go along with less-strident versions of a debt-ceiling increase, are the big losers in all of this; Boehner--never trusted by the wacko Tea Party crowd--can probably start counting down his last days in his present office, though who will succeed him, nobody knows yet. The sad thing is, it might be someone, like Eric Cantor (R-Virginia), who’s even less sensible and willing to negotiate with his opponents.

Meanwhile, Republican obstructionists in D.C. have become laughingstocks, not merely within U.S. borders, but in the rest of the world. The German tabloid Bild opines that “What America is currently exhibiting is the worst kind of absurd theatrics and the whole world is being held hostage ... Most importantly, the Republicans have turned a dispute over a technicality into a religious war, which no longer has any relation to a reasonable dispute between the elected government and the opposition.”

It’s hard to argue with that.

READ MORE: “A Balanced-budget Amendment: Bad Idea, for Many Reasons,” by Robert J. Samuelson (The Washington Post); “Friday’s Vote Made Boehner’s Job Harder, Not Easier,” by Ezra Klein (The Washington Post); “Senate Quickly Tables Boehner Debt Plan,” by Josiah Ryan and Alexander Bolton (The Hill).

Boehner Bombs

Longing for Pelosi’s Leadership Again

From The Huffington Post:

House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) has struggled to project an image of serenity in the opening weeks of the 112th Congress while working to rein in nearly 90 freshman lawmakers.

Some Republicans have suggested that the difficulties that Boehner and the rest of the new House leadership have encountered, such as a backlash over spending cuts, are part of a natural learning curve. But when Democrats took control of the House under President George W. Bush in 2007, then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) didn’t have that experience.

Gaveled in on Jan. 5, 2011, Boehner presided over the passage of four bills during his first month as speaker, with a total of just 25 votes. The most notable of those was a repeal the president’s signature health care law--a move that was viewed as a strictly symbolic gesture, as it is not expected to pass or even get a vote in the Senate.

By contrast, Pelosi, gaveled in on Jan. 4, 2007, led the Democratic Congress in passing 19 bills during her first month as speaker, including all six of the bills targeted in her “First 100 Hours” agenda.

Why the discrepancy? Well, part of it is that Democratic Congress of 2007 spent more of its first month in session: As of Feb. 1, 2007, Congress had been in session for 16 days, 134 hours, and 50 minutes, according to the Congressional Record.

By contrast, this year Republican leadership determined the House would be in session for only 11 days, 62 hours, and 5 minutes of its first month, according to the Congressional Record. Some of that time was spent reading the entire U.S. Constitution on the House floor, a nod to Tea Party activists.

So if Boehner & Co. spent less time posturing and protecting their big-money interests, and more time actually working on behalf of all Americans, they’d get more done. No surprises there.

The full Huffington Post piece is here.

READ MORE: “Is John Boehner Doing a Good Job as Speaker?” by Ezra Klein (The Washington Post).

Pulling a Boner

I’m glad to know that I was not the only person who noted that the perpetually tanned John Boehner’s pick to be the next head of the RNC failed to win that job. From Slate:

The Republican National Committee ousted Michael Steele and elected Reince Priebus, who previously led the Wisconsin Republican Party, as its new leader. With the vote, RNC members sent a message that “there’s at least one corner of the Republican Party that’s beyond House Speaker John Boehner's reach,” writes Politico. Boehner was a big advocate of veteran operative Maria Cino. Despite Boehner’s efforts, “an aggressive and assertive collection of RNC insiders” ended up getting their way pushing for Priebus as a compromise candidate. The RNC prides itself in being independent from leaders in Washington. Committee members see themselves more as “an extension of the grass roots,” explains Politico and some weren’t happy about all the influence peddling. Boehner wasn’t the only big name who tried to get Cino elected. Former Vice President Dick Cheney also pushed for Cino and his daughter, Mary Cheney, even helped launch her campaign.

You’ll recall that Boehner passed up attending this last Wednesday’s memorial service at the University of Arizona in Tucson, and therefore missed being in the audience to hear President Obama’s roundly applauded address, because he was attending a fundraiser for Cino in Washington, D.C. So let me see if I’ve got this straight: Boehner opened himself to criticism because he eschewed a national “healing” event, following the mass shooting in Tucson last weekend ... and then the woman for whom he ditched said event didn’t even win. Heck, Cino didn’t even come in second.

It seems Boehner might just be in the market for some better political advice in the future.

“An Allergy to Policy Depth”

John Boehner, the Ohio pol and U.S. House minority leader who aspires to relieve Speaker Nancy Pelosi of her job next year, seems to be clueless when it comes to taxes and other economic issues.

Who Are They Kidding?

READ MORE: “Maybe Boehner Left Out the Good Parts,” by Steve Benen (The Washington Monthly).

Forget the Nation, Just Vacation!

Over the too many years, beginning during President Clinton’s first term, that Republican’ts were the majority party in the U.S. Congress, they were notorious for their abbreviated working hours and leisurely breaks from having to do the people’s business. George W. Bush actually set the record for presidential vacation time (at a cost to taxpayers of $20 million for air travel alone), topping even Ronald Reagan’s liberal holiday schedule. Now, anticipating gains on Capitol Hill come November’s midterm elections, members of the congressional GOP are trying to legislate a two-month, taxpayer-funded break for themselves between November 2 and January 3, 2011, when the next Congress is scheduled to be sworn in.

Gee, does wannabe-House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) need some more time to brush up on his golf game?

From The Huffington Post:

House Republicans are going forward with plans to introduce a resolution on Tuesday to prohibit the House of Representatives from assembling during the two-month period following the November elections.

A GOP leadership aide confirmed to The Huffington Post that the resolution, authored by Rep. Tom Price (R-Ga.) for the purposes of preventing Democrats from passing legislative items during the lame-duck session, would be introduced before the House passes additional Medicaid and teacher funding.

Haven’t Republican’ts already taken a vacation during the last two years, doing little or nothing to help the United States dig itself out of the financial mess that Bush and company left behind? Haven’t they already put their feet up enough, as they tried to slow down or outright kill legislation designed to improve access to health-care services, hold Wall Street accountable for its irresponsible practices, regulate the predatory credit-card industry, and bring valuable fiscal reform to the nation’s student loan program? It seems to me that “the Party of No” has already exceeded its right to be lazy, to do nothing while collecting fat paychecks. Isn’t it about time Republican’ts on Capitol Hill started to work for a living? Over the last two years, Democrats appear to have been the only ones who took the nation’s needs and business seriously.

If the GOP really thinks it can win voter support in November by endorsing a two-month holiday for its members of Congress who are already not doing much of anything to help Americans, it’s more out of touch than even its worst critics imagined.

READ MORE: “Republicans Seek to Handcuff Democrats in Lame-duck Session with Resolution,” by Molly K. Hooper (The Hill); “Lame Duck Hypocrisy: GOP Leaders Blast 2010 Lame Duck Session Despite Supporting Previous Sessions” (Think Progress).

Absolutely Outrageous!

John Boehner, the perpetually tanned Ohio Republican who currently serves as minority leader in the U.S. House of Representatives, but who hopes to ascend to the speaker’s chair, if his fellow partisans can convince voters to give the GOP (Gridlock and Obstruction Party) control of the House in November’s midterm elections, says he agrees with U.S. Chamber of Commerce head Tom Donohue, that American taxpayers--not just the company responsible, British Petroleum (BP)--ought to pay the exorbitant costs of cleaning up the current oil spill disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. “I think the people responsible in the oil spill--BP and the federal government--should take full responsibility for what’s happening there,” Boehner said during his weekly press conference this morning. Now, we all know that Republicans worship at the feet of Big Business, but this is a flagrant case of putting special interests ahead of the public interest.

There’s more on Boehner’s statement here.

READ MORE: “The Would-Be Speaker,” by Steve Benen (The Washington Monthly).

A Study in Contrasts

You just knew this was going to happen, right? Some bright YouTube user has modified rapper Will.i.am’s pro-Barack Obama, “Yes, We Can” video from the 2008 U.S. presidential election to demonstrate the sharp contrast between Obama’s hopeful message for the country and the Republican’ts’ blanket negativity toward every change he and his fellow Democrats try to make.

The screaming little man who repeatedly interrupts Obama and his supporters in this version of the video is House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio), shouting in anger, frustration, and cynicism on the House floor last Sunday as he tried desperately--but futily--to derail Obama’s health-care reform legislation.



(Hat tip to Salon editor Joan Walsh).

READ MORE: “An Attack on Inequality,” by Ezra Klein (The Washington Post); “A Muddled Repeal Message,” by Steve Benen (The Washington Monthly); “The Surging Popularity of Health-Care Reform,” by Michael J.W. Stickings (The Reaction); “Nasty Parties Don’t Win Elections,” by Anne Applebaum (Slate).