Free Republic

World's smallest violin You people are really something, you know that? You send a regular guy like John Boehner to Washington - a guy who cuts his own grass and irons his own shirts - and all he wants is to be able to play golf with the president in peace. And you # about it, to the point where he’s had to come to the heartbreaking conclusion that hitting the links with Obama just isn’t worth the trouble anymore: “The President has suggested, ‘Hey, do you think it is too much trouble to play golf again?’ ” he said...

Boehner responds to Obama's 'hot mike' jab By Jordan Fabian - 04/15/11 11:12 AM ET House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) on Friday responded to President Obama's criticism of Republicans that was caught on a live microphone during a fundraiser. At a press conference before a vote on a series of budget proposals, Boehner appeared to take a subtle jab at the president. "I didn't see his remarks. But I think you mentioned it was a campaign speech," he said. Republicans have criticized Obama as the "campaigner in chief" ever since he announced he was officially beginning his reelection bid last...

WASHINGTON (AP) — Speaker John Boehner says he's determined to clean up some of the mess of a politically gridlocked Congress in his final month before his successor takes over. The Ohio Republican says a spending bill to keep the government running will pass and there will be no shutdown when money runs out at midnight Wednesday. Beyond that, he said on CBS's "Face the Nation" Sunday he expects "I might have a little more cooperation from some around town to try to get as much finished as possible." "I don't want to leave my successor a dirty barn," he...

(Washington, DC) Republicans in the House of Representatives have banded together to ensure a cooperative debate on strategy and party disagreements before House GOP conference chairwoman Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA) can try to help House Majority Leader Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) take Rep. John Boehner (R-OH)’s ’s soon-to-be-vacated job as House Speaker, and instead force a special extended conference meeting that can now happen without McMorris Rodgers’ approval. The debate is enabled by Rep. Peter Roskam (R-IL), who was circulating a letter to his colleagues calling for debate on the Speakership process. At least 50 fellow GOP members have...

The date was Oct. 14, 2013, two weeks into a government shutdown engineered by Republicans in the House of Representatives who were trying once again to kill Obamacare. Scheduled for the next day was a vote backed by House Speaker John Boehner and his lieutenants that would have reopened the government and avoided the likely disaster of the U.S. government defaulting on its debt. The setting was a low-budget eatery on Capitol Hill called the “Tortilla Coast,” not known for its ambiance, as The Post’s Amy Argetsinger described it, but for its “utter lack of ambiance, its “windows bedecked with...

All you need to know about the failed speakership of John Boehner was exposed to the entire world by Boehner himself as he announced his resignation from Congress. The what, the how, and the why of his failures were succinctly explained when he said, “The first job of any Speaker is to protect this institution that we all love.” Do what? Well, no wonder he was a disaster as speaker. He had no clue what the job description was. In just 15 words, everything about his disastrous reign was brought into laser-sharp focus. Never has someone so orange said so...

September 16, 2015 Congressman Jim Jordan Chairman, House Freedom Caucus 1524 Longworth House Office Building Washington, D.C. 20515 HAND DELIVERED Dear Jim: When the House Freedom Caucus formed in January, I fervently hoped that it would provide responsible and effective leadership to advance conservative principles in the House of Representatives. I know that every member of the HFC sincerely supports these principles, but as I have expressed on many occasions during our meetings, I believe the tactics the HFC has employed have repeatedly undermined the House’s ability to advance them. Allow me to review a few examples. On February 27th,...

John Boehner is leaving as speaker because he can't control the tea party. Should the whole GOP give in? It has happened before. The Republican Party is barreling head-first toward a worst-case scenario – or is that a best-case scenario? The tea party wing of the party has essentially toppled House Speaker John Boehner. His replacement will almost certainly need the tea party's stamp of approval. Meanwhile, the Republican presidential campaign continues to confound the establishment. Donald Trump, Ben Carson, and Ted Cruz together have more support than all other Republican candidates combined, according to polls....

House Speaker John Boehner said on CBS’s "Face the Nation" this morning that there will be no government shutdown—thus signaling that the House of Representatives he will lead until the end of next month will not send the Senate a continuing resolution that Democrats there would filibuster because it prohibits funding of Planned Parenthood or that President Barack Obama would veto for the same reason. In response to a follow-up question from host John Dickerson, Boehner said he was "sure" the funding bill he will put through the Republican-majority House will need Democratic votes to pass. The law currently funding...

“McConnell needs to resign!!” Louisiana GOP Chairman Roger Villere wrote... Villere isn’t just any Republican. He’s the longest-serving state GOP chairman in the nation...the vice chairman of the RNC... also serves on the RNC’s executive committee... Aides for McConnell...did not return repeated calls and emails seeking comment. {Priebus} was unavailable Sunday. {Boehner resigned] and ...an ideological irony there is that his probable replacement, Kevin McCarthy...is closer politically to Mr. Boehner than to the more ideologically passionate members ... The same may hold true for Mr. McConnell... Villere said...“Honestly, I haven really thought of a replacement,” Villere did say what {offends...

Outgoing Speaker of the House John Boehner lashed out at the House’s “most conservative members” during a Sunday interview on ABC’s “Face the Nation.”CBS host John Dickerson began the interview by asking Boehner about the threatened government shutdown: “Four days, the government runs out of money. Is there going to be a shutdown?” Boehner responded, “no,” that he expected the Senate to pass a continuing resolution and that with the help of Democrats in the House, he expected the House to vote to keep the government open. Moving to the issue of Boehner’s upcoming retirement, Dickerson asked Boehner about conversations...

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URBANDALE, Iowa —Sen. Ted Cruz was Iowa on Saturday for the opening of his campaign office in Urbandale, making him the seventh Republican to set up shop in Iowa. Cruz and staffers opened their office just six months after the Republican first announced his candidacy. This opening means more than half of the 2016 presidential contenders are spending campaign cash on local rent space. Nearly 100 people including supporters and campaign staffers attended the opening. "I think it shows a commitment to the community to the state and to his supporters particularly, so he is here for the long term,”...

* Boehner calls some conservatives "unrealistic" * Plans to pass government funding bill with Democratic support * Says he could have survived a vote to oust himHouse Speaker John Boehner isn’t going out quietly. The outgoing and embattled speaker had choice words Sunday for his foes inside and outside of Congress and signaled that he intends to be very much in charge until he relinquishes the speaker’s gavel under pressure at the end of October. Boehner took aim at Republican rebels in the House of Representatives and unnamed conservative and tea party groups that agitated for his departure. He blasted...

Outgoing Speaker of the House John Boehner on Sunday didn’t deny that he was referring to Senator Ted Cruz when he warned of false prophets “out there spreading noise about how much [the government] can get done,” even pointing to comments he made at a fundraiser where he called the Senator a “jackass.” When questioned if Ted Cruz was a false prophet in an interview Sunday on “Face the Nation,” Boehner didn’t deny the suggestion, citing past comments he made at a fundraiser in August. “Are they unrealistic about what can be done in government?” CBS News host John Dickerson...

Outgoing House Speaker John A. Boehner, in his first one-on-one interview since announcing his resignation last week, compared conservative hard-liners in his party to biblical "false prophets" who promise more than they can deliver. Boehner announced Friday that he would step down Oct. 30 after nearly five years as speaker amid constant pressure from his party's right flank. Asked Sunday by host John Dickerson on a live broadcast of CBS's "Face the Nation" whether those hard-liners are "unrealistic about what can be done in government," Boehner exploded. [Snip] Boehner addressed the remaining five weeks of his speakership, in which he...

House Speaker John Boehner’s (R-Ohio) announcement that he is resigning from Congress effective October 30th was followed by a torrent of tears in Washington. Leading the sob fest, of course, was Boehner himself who lamented that “the blood, sweat, and tears I’ve shed for this country have gone unappreciated for too long.” As if to contradict Boehner’s lament, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif) praised “Boehner’s cooperative approach to getting things done,” and expressed the hope that “a similarly motivated and compliant successor can be found.” A glum Presidential Press Secretary Josh Earnest called the resignation “a serious setback for...

<p>A new poll conducted by Zogby Analytics after last week’s Republican presidential debate on CNN shows Donald Trump leading Dr. Ben Carson by 20 points.</p> <p>According to the survey, conducted September 18-19, made up of 405 likely Republican primary/caucus voters nationwide, Trump garnered the support of 33 percent, which is an increase of 2 percentage points since Zogby’s previous poll. Dr. Ben Carson remains in second place, but dropped 3 points to 13 percent.</p>

Movement Conservatives just claimed the head of House Speaker John Boehner. His political death was the price of preventing a catastrophic government shutdown after Movement Conservatives in Congress tied the very survival of the United States government to their determination to defund Planned Parenthood. Movement Conservatives are gunning for Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell next. We should be very afraid. Boehner and McConnell are not wild-eyed lefties. They are on the very far right of the American political spectrum: fervently pro-business, antiabortion, opposed to social welfare legislation. But they are old-school politicians who still have faith in the idea of...

Mayors from eighteen U.S. cities signed a letter to President Obama saying they are willing to take even more refugees than what has been proposed by the administration. “We will welcome the Syrian families to make homes and new lives in our cities,” wrote the mayors, all of whom are part of the Cities United for Immigration Action coalition. “Indeed, we are writing to say that we stand ready to work with your Administration to do much more and to urge you to increase still further the number of Syrian refugees the United States will accept for resettlement.” “This is...