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A key bloc of conservatives is laying plans to throttle legislation on the House floor and will meet privately this week to discuss a shakeup of GOP leadership. The group is irate at what one called a “culture of punishment” that Speaker John Boehner’s leadership team has instituted against dissenting members — most recently the removal of Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.) from a subcommittee chairmanship after he bucked Republican leaders on an important procedural vote. In his first interview since that move, Meadows stopped short of calling for the removal of Boehner or his lieutenants; House conservatives likely lack support...

Voting against the speaker’s reelection may have cost one Iowa Republican his seat. John Boehner has found ways to punish the fractious conservatives who have formed into a thorn in his side since attempting a coup at the beginning of the year. Through means both petty and significant, Boehner has made his displeasure felt while trying to lead the broader conference in a series of high-profile legislative fights. A number of rebel backbenchers have had their overseas travel curtailed and their committee posts threatened or even taken away. But the treatment of one lawmaker in particular stands out: Colleagues worry...

Scott Perry, 53, is a sophomore congressman from Dillsburg, Penn. Exuding a humble intensity and a mindfulness of his oath to the U.S. Constitution, his daily orientation in public office means he takes no vote for granted.rWhat do you think? “It’s a fight every day,” Perry says in this 22-minute exclusive video interview with The Daily Caller. Yet, Republican leaders, increasingly governing by fear, risk continuing dissension and disarray. Evidence is building that Republicans, who are failing to persuade those members with differing opinions, and catering to monied interests in Washington, are alienating Americans who voted for them. This interview...

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: Scott in Philadelphia. Great to have you on Open Line Friday, sir. Hello. CALLER: It's an honor, Rush. I got a problem with all the... McConnell, Boehner, and Karl Rove. They've hijacked the party. RUSH: Yeah. (sigh) CALLER: I want to know why nobody says nothing about it. I mean, we elect these conservatives, they get in there, and then they're browbeaten into submission. RUSH: Well, it's not that nobody says anything about it. I myself have been referencing this. Others I know have. I mean, I know people who are making this the focal point of...

It’s time for conservatives to take out House Speaker Rep. John Boehner (R-OH)35% and all of his comrades in primaries, nationally syndicated radio host, New York Times bestselling author, and conservative movement thought leader Mark Levin argues in an exclusive comment to Breitbart News. Levin’s comments come after Boehner’s retaliation against conservatives hit a new low this weekend, with a report from Politico about how House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform chairman Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-UT)80% —playing along with Boehner’s scheme to attack Republicans for voting their conscience—removed Rep. Mark Meadows (R-NC)96% as the chairman of a subcommittee on...

House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) and House Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) have taken swift retribution against House members who dared to break ranks with “the team” on a rule vote for Trade Promotion Authority (Fast Track). On Monday, June 15, Scalise booted GOP Reps. Cynthia Lummis (Wyo.), Steve Pearce (N.M.) and Trent Franks (Ariz.) — all members of the House Freedom Caucus (HFC) — from the whip team. Reps. Lummis and Franks both issued conciliatory statements saying they completely “respect” Chairman Scalise’s decision — perhaps to avoid further retribution. Rep. Pearce was less tilted toward appeasement. “Not much has...

Mark Levin 12 hrs · THE TPA BOONDOGGLE IS BACK AND ... I am told that John Boehner is telling the GOP members that if they vote to pass the TPA, a bill later with restrictions on immigration, among other things, will be passed to reign in Obama's actions. Boehner pulled the same trick against Congressman Marlin Stutzman not long ago, when Kevin McCarthy promised if he voted to let the massive budget bill go to the House floor, the GOP leadership would replace the bill on the floor with a smaller spending bill. But McCarthy lied to Stutzman. The...

When a group of House conservatives voted last week to kill a trade bill favored by President Obama, House Speaker John Boehner and other GOP leaders who support the measure steamed. Representative Mick Mulvaney (R., S.C.) celebrated the revolt as a coming-of-age moment for rebel backbenchers. “Yesterday will be the day that we look back at as the day that conservatives finally started getting organized in the House,” he wrote in a note to the Spartanburg Tea Party. Led by Representative Jim Jordan (R., Ohio), a platoon of conservatives demanded that Boehner agree to a series of concessions in exchange...

Ever since the mid-1990s, the House of Representatives have operated under an informal governing principle known as the Hastert Rule, a rule that required a “majority of the majority” in order to pass legislation. Simply put, the rule meant that the Speaker of the House would not allow a floor vote on a bill unless a majority of the party in charge supported the bill, while preventing the minority party from passing legislation unwanted by the majority. This practice came to an end under Gutless On Principles (GOP) Hall of Shame member John Boehner, and it served as the perfect...

After a House Benghazi Select Committee discovered either Hillary Clinton or the State Department withheld Benghazi emails, House Speaker John Boehner used the occasion to throw Bill Clinton’s infidelity in her face.What do you think? “When it comes to Hillary Clinton’s #Benghazi-related emails, it depends upon what the meaning of the word ‘all’ is,” Boehner tweeted Wednesday, linking to a post on his blog titled “It Depends Upon What the Meaning of the Word ‘All’ Is.”What do you think? The line’s a reference to Bill’s infamous attempt to argue his way out of perjury before a grand jury after having...

Republican leaders will try to resurrect the trade deal Democrats sank less than a week ago, planning a new vote Thursday and insisting they will corral enough votes to approve fast-track negotiating powers President Obama needs to complete a legacy-building Pacific Rim trade deal...“We are committed to ensuring both TPA and TAA get votes in the House and Senate and are sent to the president for signature,” House Speaker John A. Boehner and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said in a joint statement, pushing back against claims that the issue is dead after last week’s embarrassing failure...The White House has...

Sean Hannity tore apart GOP leadership for continuing their push to give President Barack Obama Trade Promotion Authority (TPA) as the House looks to set up a vote as early as this week on the legislation. On his Wednesday program, Hannity said House Speaker John Boehner and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnel are “selling out American sovereignty,” adding that the secrecy of the bill shows those two and the Obama administration doesn’t “care what we think.” “In spite of all the calls, I’m being told, going into Congress — like 30 to 1, they’re still pushing [TPA] anyway because they...

It’s not new. Blackmail, extortion, and dirty pool in politics have, like disease-ridden ticks, found easy hosts for decades. J. Edgar Hoover had dirt on everyone who stepped across the line. The Mafia had dirt on him – he was a closet homosexual. All came to mind recently when Ohio Republican Congressman John Andrew Boehner, the 61st and current Speaker of the House, allowed Obama to push through the far-reaching and disastrous “CRomnibus” budget bill. The Political Insider expressed its astonishment this way: “Why, after a massive Republican landslide victory on election day, would Boehner act in such a strange...

House GOP leaders booted three members off the whip team for voting against a procedural rule that structured how a critical trade package was brought to the House floor last week. Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) informed Reps. Cynthia Lummis (Wyo.), Steve Pearce (N.M.) and Trent Franks (Ariz.) on Monday that they were no longer a part of the GOP’s vote-counting operation, a source close to the whip team confirmed. Scalise’s decision was based on longstanding whip team rules that stated members must “vote as a team on procedural matters” but are free to vote against leadership on underlying legislation,...

House Republican leaders are cracking down on rebellious members after a near-disaster on a trade vote last week, but another imperiled rule coming to the House floor Tuesday is making it difficult to punish the members who leaders need to pass the measure. Reps. Cynthia Lummis, Steve Pearce, and Trent Franks have been removed from the whip team after they sided with GOP rebels to vote against a rule governing debate on a trade bill, according to sources close to the team. Lummis, a deputy whip and a member of the conservative House Freedom Caucus, was perhaps the whip team's...

How can it be that the largest pending trade deal in history – a deal backed both by a Democratic president and Republican leaders in Congress – is nearly dead? The Trans Pacific Partnership may yet squeak through Congress but its near-death experience offers an important lesson. It’s not that labor unions have regained political power (union membership continues to dwindle and large corporations have more clout in Washington than ever) or that the President is especially weak (no president can pull off a major deal like this if the public isn’t behind him). The biggest lesson is most Americans...

Paul Ryan, Boehner, McConnell et al. Over the weekend an anniversary was marked with little fanfare — the second anniversary of the implementation of the U.S.-Korea Free Trade Agreement. The U.S.-Korea Free Trade Agreement passed with the usual fanfare, supported by the usual suspects. Barack Obama hailed the agreement’s implementation on March 15, 2012. In the middle of his re-election campaign, he cheerfully promised the agreement would increase American exports to South Korea by $10 billion and would create 70,000 U.S. jobs. One of Barack Obama’s signature efforts for his second term is the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a trade deal...

A chance to break Boehner's Speakership that ought not be missed. Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of the Grand Old Party and take them out. If conservatives — who are just now realizing the extent of the bait-and-switch double-cross that the loathsome Mitch McConnell and Weepy John Boehner have pulled on them — must now make common cause with their “friends” across the aisle in the interests of recapturing the Party of Reagan, so be it. Sometimes the enemy of my enemy really is my friend. That the Republican Establishment has lined...

Constitutional conservatives don't like it. Trade unions abhor it. Obama critics hate it. Environmentalists despise it. Outside the Beltway bubble, a broad coalition of voters from the left, right and center opposes the mega-trade deal getting rammed through Congress this week by the Republican establishment on behalf of the White House. Here's why. The Obama administration, House GOP leader John Boehner and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell have sold out American sovereignty. Their so-called Trans-Pacific Partnership Commission will have sweeping authority over trade, immigration, environmental, labor and commerce regulations. As alert watchdogs U.S. Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., chairman of the...