HANNITY: BOEHNER MUST BE REPLACED

On his radio show on Friday, Fox News host Sean Hannity said House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH), along with the rest of the Republican leadership in the House, had to be replaced. 

"I do think leadership in the House needs to change," Hannity said. "I don't think John Boehner is equipped for the job. I don't think he has the stomach to negotiate. I don't think he has the ability to communicate the positive, solution-oriented vision for the country."

"How hard is it?" Hannity asked. "Why aren't these guys out there explaining what their vision is?"

For instance, Hannity said Republican leaders have not done a good job of explaining how America's plentiful domestic energy sources can lead to prosperity. He also cited issues like health savings accounts and ways to reduce the country's debt to preserve the nation's solvency as missed opportunities. He said the GOP has a "communications problem" that has been reflected in the party's bad poll numbers.

Hannity also ripped Republican leaders in Washington for "alienating" the Tea Party. Hannity named Senators like John McCain (R-AZ) and Bob Corker (R-TN) for being the top offenders and said their "unwillingness to stand strong" and constant bashing of the Tea Party is "irritating every conservative I know." 

Via: Breitbart . Continue Reading....

HARRY REID’S OFFICE LEAKS BOEHNER OFFICE EMAILS—AND IT COULD RUIN ANY FAITH YOU HAVE IN WASHINGTON

A series of leaked emails authored by House Speaker John Boehner’s chief of staff Mike Sommers show that the Speaker may have coordinated with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to exempt Congress from Obamacare.

The emails were leaked Tuesday by Reid chief of staff David Krone, who actually has a history of this sort of thing.

Speaker of the House John Boehner, R-Ohio, walks to a House Republican meeting on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., Sept. 30, 2013 (AFP/Getty Images)

The leaks, which are a major taboo in Washington, show Boehner (R-Ohio) worked behind the scenes earlier this year to address confusion over a provision in the Affordable Care Act that would force members of Congress and their aides into the exchanges. In fact, if one were to go by the leaks, which were first published by Politico, it appears that the offices of Boehner and Reid regularly coordinated to exempt Congress from the health care law.

But given that Boehner is now apparently against congressional Obamacare exemptions, the emails make him look inconsistent and hypocritical – which may have been the point of their leaking.

Via: The Blaze

Continue Reading.....

Congress's Fiscal Fiasco Forces Americans to Wear Badge of Shame

As readers of my past columns know, I was not exactly optimistic as we approached crunch time over the debt limit in 2011. But I am far more pessimistic now. At a dinner I attended Monday night with a host of those individuals deeply involved in fiscal matters, it became clear that there are no talks going on now—neither formal nor back channel—to avoid a series of crises over spending and the debt ceiling. The House majority is in profound disarray, unable to muster majorities for anything on the spending front as the new fiscal year approaches.

In a misguided attempt to mollify his radicals and avoid a government shutdown over the demand to abort Obamacare, House Speaker John Boehner has instead turned the focus to the debt ceiling. His earlier assurance that he and his party would not play games with the nation's full faith and credit turned into a pledge weeks ago into to invoke the "Boehner Rule," insisting that the debt limit be raised only by an amount equal to additional new spending cuts—meaning trillions of additional dollars piled on to the $2.5 trillion in cuts already made (but of course with no specifics about what he would want to cut). And it is clear that a slew of Republicans inside Congress, bolstered by forces outside like Heritage Action, will push their crusade to crush Obamacare by holding the debt-ceiling hostage.

In 2011, when the intensive negotiations between Boehner and President Obama broke down, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell stepped in at the eleventh hour to fill the vacuum and avert a default. When Boehner declared that he would not participate in any negotiations over the fiscal cliff, McConnell stepped in with Vice President Joe Biden to fill the vacuum. This time? There will be no McConnell; the minority leader is so cowed by the challenge to his renomination from the right that he will not be a party to any "compromise." And the informal negotiations between Obama, his Chief of Staff Denis McDonough, and a group of Republican senators led by Bob Corker have broken down, at least for now.

At this point, I will be surprised if we do not have at least one partial government shutdown within the next month or two, and I fear there is a high chance of a real breach in the debt ceiling, one that may not last for a long time, assuming that the markets react violently to something they still believe will not really happen, and that voters react to the notion that the U.S. will pay its creditors in China before it pays its troops in Afghanistan. But a default this time will have devastating consequences, meaning a downgrade in our credit by all ratings agencies and a spectacle to the world of spectacular, self-destructive dysfunction.

Via: National Journal

Continue Reading...

Boehner blasts Obama for bargaining with Putin, not Congress ahead of budget vote

House Speaker John Boehner ripped President Obama for negotiating with Vladimir Putin while giving congressional Republicans the cold shoulder, as he and his rank-and-file prepared for a potentially bruising showdown over ObamaCare. 

The Capitol Hill air was filled with recriminations on Thursday, as Republican and Democratic leaders accused each other of flirting with a government shutdown. Boehner has teed up a vote for Friday on a bill that would condition a stopgap spending measure on support for de-funding ObamaCare. 

President Obama and his allies say this is a formula for a government shutdown, since Democrats will not support the ObamaCare measure; and without a stopgap spending bill, funding for the government runs out by Oct. 1.

Boehner kept a stiff upper lip in advance of the vote. Speaking to reporters, he chided Obama for recently negotiating with the president of Russia over Syria's chemical weapons while allegedly employing less diplomacy with Congress. 

"While the president is happy to negotiate with Vladimir Putin he won't engage with the Congress on a plan that deals with the deficits that threaten our economy," Boehner said. 

The White House escalated the fight on Thursday, formally threatening to veto the bill. 

Via: Fox News

Continue Reading...

WSJ: Obama Threatened Boehner With Using Inauguration, SOTU Address To Blame GOP

WASHINGTON, DC - DECEMBER 21: U.S. President Barack Obama delivers a statement on fiscal cliff at the James Brady Press Briefing Room of the White House December 21, 2012 in Washington, DC. Obama called on congressional leaders to work out a solution on the fiscal cliff over the Christmas break. He also said "becaues we didn't get this done, I will see you next week." (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)

President Obama has threatened House Speaker John Boehner that if no deal is struck on the “fiscal cliff,” he will use his Inaugural address and State of the Union speech next month to blame Republicans,according to the Wall Street Journal.

In the Journal’s behind the scenes account of how fiscal cliff talks between Obama and Boehner hit a wall, what comes across is that the president is emboldened by his reelection and eager to extract more concessions from Boehner than he was willing to accept during last summer’s debt limit talks.

This excerpt from the piece is revealing:

Mr. Obama repeatedly lost patience with the speaker as negotiations faltered. In an Oval Office meeting last week, he told Mr. Boehner that if the sides didn’t reach agreement, he would use his inaugural address and his State of the Union speech to tell the country the Republicans were at fault.

At one point, according to notes taken by a participant, Mr. Boehner told the president, “I put $800 billion [in tax revenue] on the table. What do I get for that?”

“You get nothing,” the president said. “I get that for free.”

Via: Washington Examiner

Continue Reading...

Gingrich slams Obama on welfare revamp

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich accused President Barack Obama and his “even more radical” appointees on Wednesday of plotting to destroy the work requirement in the 1996 welfare reform law.

Obama and his aides “have a real fight and it is a fight they can’t possibly win,” he said.

“This happens to be an issue that is devastating for liberals… [many voters are] really offended by government giving away money for nothing,” Gingrich said during a press conference arranged by the Republican National Committee.

Obama’s deputies are pushing back against Mitt Romney’s new focus on the July decision by the department of Health and Human Services to relax welfare-to-work rules.

Romney said Tuesday the change is an “insult” to hard-working Americans.

In July, HHS invited states to conduct “demonstration projects” that could exempt welfare recipients from long-standing work requirements.

Obama’s aides say the new proposal won’t reduce the popular requirement that welfare recipients also work, and they argue that officials will only approve projects that actually boost work rates by 20 percent.

Via: The Daily Caller

Continue Reading