Ryanism?

When Speaker Paul Ryan told CNN’s Jake Tapper he doesn’t support Donald Trump and might not ever do so, the world of politics was set on its ear.  “I hope to support our nominee.  I’m just not ready to do that at this point.  I’m not there right now.” said Ryan.

When Ryan was elected Speaker of the House in October of 2015, he replaced John Boehner whose leadership caused the institutional standing of the Republican Congress and it’s morale to crumble to a record low.  He owed his speakership to the likes of Nancy Pelosi.   Put simply, he was compromised. 

The Freedom Caucus was prepared to “boot him out of office”, but Boehner “decided” to resign in order to “spare the Party” the embarrassment of removing him.  “The idea that this approach was one designed to appeal to some higher purpose is laughable,” wrote Ben Domenech at The Federalist.  “One does not fall on a sword when your head is already on the guillotine.”

Nutshell:  The House GOP bungled things for years leaving voters feeling betrayed, Paul Ryan was begged to fix things and when the Party realized voters were now wielding their pitchforks and tar and feathers, the blame landed  squarely in Ryan’s lap.

The long knives are out for Ryan, due in part, because of his statements made last month when he pointed to his belief that “populism must be tethered to good principles.”

Though he did not mention Trump by name and has been magnanimous in his policy criticisms of Trump in the past, he made it clear that no matter who the eventual nominee would be the Party would be “comfortable” and unify around the platform that he is advocating in Congress.  Of course, that statement was made well before the Indiana primary that saw Ted Cruz and John Kasich abandon their run for the Oval Office.

Ryan and Trump will meet face-to-face Thursday at Republican headquarters in DC to determine whether there’s any way to reconcile their differences in both style and substance. RNC Chairman Reince Priebus will play counselor to the conservative budget wonk the GOP clamored for to run for president and the presumptive nominee whose surprising voter appeal has rocked the Party.

Ryan’s gambit appeared to be a desire to provide cover for the many Republican lawmakers who do not want to be pinned down with a “yes” or “no” answer to the question of whether they will support Trump as their nominee.

For the conspiracy-minded:

What happens if no presidential candidate gets the required 270 Electoral College votes needed to win election?

If no candidate receives a majority of electoral votes, the House of Representatives elects the President from the presidential candidates who received the most electoral votes. Each state delegation has one vote. The Senate would elect the Vice President from the 2 Vice Presidential candidates with the most electoral votes. Each Senator would cast one vote for Vice President. If the House of Representatives fails to elect a President by Inauguration Day, the Vice-President Elect serves as acting President until the deadlock is resolved in the House. 

"I Was the Tea Party Before There Was a Tea Party"

Testicular Absence

There has been a crescendo of voices calling for the firing of Speaker of the House John Boehner. The Speaker and the House GOP Steering Committee purged four conservative House members, two from the Budget Committee and two from the Financial Services Committee.

Boehner failed to effectively win negotiations with The World’s Most Dangerous Community Organizer and appointed moderate committee chairs. He pushed milquetoast policies like the tax hikes found in CRomnibus, the $1.1 trillion spending bill that failed to target TWMDCO’s executive action on immigration enforcement.

The Hill has an updated Whip list of the growing number of Republicans who say they will vote on Tuesday to deny him a third term as Speaker. The speakership vote takes place on the House floor and will be broadcast on C-SPAN.  He will need 217 votes.  If 29 Republicans vote against him he will lose his gavel.

Over the weekend, Rep. Ted Yoho (R-FL) and Louie Gohmert (R-TX) announced they would run for speaker against Boehner.

Rep. Steve King (R-IA), in a piece at Breitbart.com wrote, “The American voters elected 87 freshmen Republicans to the House of Representatives, every one pledged to repeal ObamaCare. Then, our soon to be Speaker told us we would not and could not use the Constitutional ‘power of the purse’ to block implementation of ObamaCare.”

[SNIP]

“I am convinced Congress will not be allowed to restore its Constitutional authority under his Speakership and by refusing to do so, cannot call upon the courts to do so. How then, can I take an oath to the Constitution and put up a vote for John Boehner, almost in the same breath?”

Trey Gowdy: A Lion To Lead Them

On Friday, Twitchy erupted in a call to fire John Boehner and draft SC Republican Trey Gowdy as Speaker of the House.  As of this posting there are 2,396 signatures on the website Petition2Congress to remove Boehner and replace him with the fierce Gowdy.

Conservatives are angry at Boehner for playing footsie with Democrats and spearheading the passage of the $1.1 trillion CRomnibus bill—a complicated 1600-page bill designed to prevent another government shutdown.  The bill passed by a relatively narrow margin, 219-206. Only 67 House Republicans voted no. Boehner wasn’t one of them.

67 Republicans voted against the Omnibus in the House pic.twitter.com/tYs9uGsv4S
— Jamie Dupree (@jamiedupree) December 12, 2014

Bills like CRomnibus, crafted in darkness and presented as must-pass legislation, allow the special interests to get what they want. A free and open debate on these issues is what this country needs.

Please read The GOP #CRomnibus Catbird Seat

Here’s a palate cleanser I hope you will enjoy. 

Watch Live: House Rules Committee Hearing on Proposed Lawsuit of President Barack Obama

One Love

The World’s Most Dangerous Community Organizer belonged to a “Choom Gang” and was a truly committed pothead.

So here’s my suggestion for solving the current government shutdown and the looming debt ceiling debate:  Let’s get Ray the Dealer to bring some quality buds to the West Wing.  Let TWMDCO fire up a doobie and I’ll bet he negotiates with the GOP.

Can’t you just picture it—Bob Marley playing on the Preezy of the United Steezy’s iPod, smoke rolling around his face, glazed-over eyes—good times. 

Cue the music—

Performing The Miracle Of Turning Unlimited Debt Into Unimaginable Prosperity

Alright gang, Christmas is over.  Time to face the music.

If you haven’t read Kyle Becker’s The Progressive Bible: Obama’s Genesis, you really should.  Here’s just some of his parody:

In the beginning Obama promised to create a heaven on earth. 

And his believers’ minds were without form, and void; and awe-struck looks were upon the faces of the asleep. And the Spirit of Obama moved upon the faces of the believers. 

And Obama said, Let there be debt: and there was debt.

We learn today that the Chicago Messiah plans to return early from his annual vacation to Hawaii in order to take part in talks to avert the fiscal cliff.  Congress is also due to return to the capital on Thursday.

“God only knows” how a deal can be reached now, said Speaker John Boehner.

If negotiations between His O’liness and Congress collapse completely, 2013 looks like a rocky year.

Taxes would jump $2,400 on average for families with incomes of $50,000 to $75,000, according to a study by the non-partisan Tax Policy Center. Because consumers would get less of their paychecks to spend, businesses and jobs would suffer.

At the same time, Americans would feel cuts in government services; some federal workers would be furloughed or laid off, and companies would lose government business. The nation would lose up to 3.4 million jobs, the Congressional Budget Office predicts.

Several tax breaks begun in 2009 to stimulate the economy by aiding low and middle-income families are also set to expire at the beginning of 2013.  For example, the alternative minimum tax would expand to catch 28 million more taxpayers, with an average increase of $3,700 a year. Taxes on investments would rise, too. More deaths would be covered by the federal estate tax, and the rate climbs from 35 percent to 55 percent. Some corporate tax breaks would end.

If the nation goes over the fiscal cliff, budget cuts of 8 percent or 9 percent would hit most of the federal government, touching all sorts of things from agriculture to law enforcement and the military to weather forecasting. A few areas, such as Social Security benefits, Veterans Affairs and some programs for the poor, are exempt.

The New York Times has an article in today’s paper that cites noted research economists at the Bank for International Settlements, Stephen Cecchetti and Fabrizio Zampoli.  They say, “The United States, along with the rest of the industrialized West, has been on an unsustainable fiscal path for decades.”  They predict that unless radical reforms are adopted the public debt will exceed 400% of GDP.

Such debt levels are wildly implausible, as creditors would likely stop lending to Western governments long before such levels are reached. Some politicians and economists may want to put a fig leaf on it, but the projections by Cecchetti and others mean that the West is effectively bankrupt.

I’d like to personally thank all those f%#king low-information voters for perpetuating this financial morass by re-electing The Protector of the People as Long As They Know Their Place and Belong to The Right Unions.

Here’s A Pen, Sign Your Surrender

I loved that line so much; I pinched it from John Gordon Steele’s piece at Commentary Magazine for the title of this post.

Steele concludes his post with this pearl of wisdom: 

“Obama’s utter disdain for any ideas but his own is going to be the ruin of this president and that ruin might not be that long in coming. Too bad it is the country, along with his place in history, that has to suffer for his hubris.”

Obama’s budget plan is “mainly tax hikes,” House Speaker John Boehner told reporters today in Washington. “We’ve got some serious differences,” he said. During a phone call yesterday, Boehner said, he and the president were “frank” about “how far apart we are.”

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), said Obama’s focus on higher tax rates for top earners has made a deal tough to reach.  “The president and his allies have taken so many things off the table the only thing left is varnish,” McConnell said.

When I conceived this Photoshop™, I considered Ebenezer Scrooge from Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol because he loved money more than life itself.  Obama loves money; your money—my money—our children’s’ and our grandchildren’s money.

The second character in the ‘shop is of the bitter, grouchy, cave-dwelling Grinch who had a heart two sizes too small.  He’s there because Obama “seems to think that if all he talks about are taxes, and that’s all reporters write about, somehow the rest of us will magically forget that government spending is completely out of control.”

The third character, Uncle Sam wearing handcuffs, represents a helpless country unable to fend off the significant negative economic, employment, and social consequences of going over the fiscal cliff—the effects of which, in many cases, would mean long-lasting if not permanent damage.

And finally, the errand boy sent by grocery clerks himself, laughing his ass off as he warns Republicans against using the debt ceiling as a bludgeon in this debt battle.  In the spring, when the Chicago Messiah seeks to raise the debt ceiling, we can only hope they refuse to pay him any attention.

Boehner’s Savvy: Obama Inventing A Fight Where There Isn’t One

Speaker Boehner announced that the House will vote on a $5.9 billion bill Friday, April 27^th to extend the current interest rates on federal student loans.  

The GOP will offset its cost with money from what they dub a “slush fund” in the Democrats’ 2010 health care law

In a hastily called press conference Boehner said, “Today I’m pleased to announce that on Friday the House will vote on a bill to extend the current interest rate on federal student loans for one year. We will pay for this by taking money from one of the slush funds in the president’s health care law.”

“You know, this week the president’s traveling the country on the taxpayers’ dime, campaigning and trying to invent a fight where there isn’t one, and never has been one on this issue of student loans. We can and will fix the problem without a bunch of campaign-style theatrics,” said Boehner.

The 2011 Nightmare Before Christmas

In what can only be described as a “nightmare before Christmas,” Speaker of the House John Boehner conceded to Senate Democrats over the expiring payroll tax cut.

Friday, after the bill passes, Captain Humility will sign the bill and board Air Force One with Bo, the family dog (undoubtedly flown back to Washington at taxpayer expense for a showdown photo-op) to join the First Family in Hawaii.

All the back-biting over the past week or so means that the payroll tax cut which is worth an astonishing $40 on the average paycheck will continue through February 2012.  Jobless benefits will also continue and the “doc fix” which prevents a proposed 27.4% pay cut for physicians serving Medicare patients will not take effect on January 1, 2012.

Democrats are pissing their pants with glee over having won the battle, but a two-month band-aid will only create more uncertainty for families and businesses that create jobs and shackle economic growth.

During his news conference, when asked if House Republicans “caved”, Boehner said, “Sometimes it’s hard to do the right thing.  It may not have politically been the smartest thing in the world, but I’m gonna tell you what, our members waged a good fight.”

This was no good fight.  They decided to play politics with the XL Keystone Pipeline as a strategy to win favor with Americans.   Their calculus was flawed and now they’ve damaged the Republican brand.  How badly?  Only time will tell.

So enjoy your forty bucks.

 

Incidentally, the Democrat-controlled Senate has not passed a budget in 1,346 days; something they are required by law to do each and every April 15^th.  Throw Them All Out.


Linked by The Other McCain.  Thanks so much.