Rubio: White House creating 'culture of intimidation'

Rubio: White House creating 'culture of intimidation'

Boehner: "My question is who is going to jail over this scandal?” IRS disciplines 2 in probe into conservative targeting

usnews

By Kelly O’Donnell, NBC News

A senior official at the Internal Revenue Service has told congressional investigators that two IRS employees have been disciplined in relation to the special scrutiny applied to conservative groups, Congressional sources told NBC News on Wednesday.

The disciplined employees are from the IRS’s Cincinnati office, which was responsible at the time for reviewing the applications of groups that wanted tax exemption, the sources said.

An internal report faulted the IRS for using “inappropriate criteria” in the screening and for bad management. The disclosure has angered members of both parties in Congress, and President Barack Obama has said it was inexcusable. The Justice Department has opened an investigation.

In testimony before the House Judiciary Committee, Attorney General Eric Holder said Wednesday that prosecutors are looking at several different criminal statutes, including one that requires IRS employees to do their jobs without favoritism.

“The facts will take us wherever they take us,” Holder said.

He said that the investigation, while based in Washington, will be nationwide in scope and not limited to the offices that have been the subject of complaints so far.

IRS employees used to terms search as “Tea Party” and “Patriots” to determine which organizations would be allowed tax exemption under federal law. An IRS official has apologized, but lawmakers want to know who within the organization, and perhaps elsewhere in government, was aware of the screening.

House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, demanded earlier Wednesday: “My question isn’t who is going to resign. My question is who is going to jail over this scandal?”

Boehner: "My question is who is going to jail over this scandal?” IRS disciplines 2 in probe into conservative targeting

Boehner calls for release of Benghazi emails as pressure grows on administration

Fox News

Pressure on the Obama administration to release more information about the Benghazi attack grew Thursday, as House Speaker John Boehner demanded officials turn over emails pertaining to the controversial "talking points" and another top Republican appealed for more whistle-blowers to come forward.
On the heels of a dramatic hearing where three whistle-blowers testified, Fox News has learned that former Vice President Dick Cheney on Thursday, on the Hill for a meeting with House Republicans, also told lawmakers: "I think Hillary (Clinton) should be subpoenaed if necessary."
The comments and developments signal that Republicans will continue to press for answers on the deadly Sept. 11 attack. Despite arguments from Democrats that the hearing was not nearly as shocking as Republicans made it out to be, GOP lawmakers said it raised troubling questions that need to be investigated.
"The truth shouldn't be hidden from the American people behind a White House firewall," Boehner said Thursday. "Four Americans lost their lives in this terrorist attack. Congress will continue to investigate this issue, using all of the resources at our disposal."
Boehner specifically urged the Obama administration to make public a set of internal emails that some lawmakers had been able to review but not keep.
One of the emails apparently showed a top State Department official saying a group affiliated with Islamic terrorists was responsible for the strike. Separate emails, though, allegedly depict the White House and State Department pressing lower-level officials to remove references to terrorism in talking points about the attacks.
Based on those talking points, U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice would go on five Sunday talk shows shortly after the attacks to claim they were triggered by protests over an anti-Islam film. Top officials would later claim the flawed assessment was based on the best intelligence at the time, but the testimony from whistle-blowers Wednesday indicated that those on the ground knew the attack was terrorism.
"The YouTube video was a non-event in Libya," Greg Hicks, deputy chief of mission in Libya, testified Wednesday.
After the hearing, Republican Rep. Darrell Issa said he will continue to seek whistle-blowers to "come forward."
"Candidly, as quickly as possible, we simply want to have the whistleblowers that are still out there, in fact witnesses that are still out there to come forward, tell us their story. We will get it out and we will close up this investigation," he told Fox News.
Issa, R-Calif., is chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, which held the hearing.
The wide-ranging and dramatic testimony Wednesday raised several fresh questions about the attack. Witnesses questioned why security had not been tightened in Benghazi in the months leading up to the assault and why U.S. military assets did not respond sooner that night, with one alleging a military team was not given permission to fly from Tripoli to Benghazi the next morning.
Further, they raised serious concerns about the administration's initial decision to describe the attack as a protest gone awry despite evidence on the ground to the contrary.
In startling testimony, Hicks also claimed the State Department retaliated against him after he raised questions about that decision. He claimed that Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs Elizabeth Jones delivered a "blistering critique" of his management style after he criticized Rice's initial claim that the attack was tied to anger over an anti-Islam film. He also claimed that he was counseled to avoid personally discussing the attack with Republican Rep. Jason Chaffetz and was "effectively demoted" to a desk officer in the end.
Issa, in a written statement after Wednesday's hearing, called the alleged retaliation and intimidation "perhaps most troubling."
Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., top Democrat on the committee, vowed to protect the whistle-blowers while criticizing his Republican colleagues for allegedly trying to politicize the tragedy. He claimed afterward that the testimony only served to undercut Republican allegations.
"What should have been a bipartisan investigation involving our national security was another sorry example of Republicans promising explosive new facts but delivering only a press spectacle," he said in a statement.
The committee may move to hear testimony next from at least one leader of the State Department's internal review of the Benghazi attack. Though the leaders, former Joints Chiefs of Staff Adm. Mike Mullen and former Ambassador Thomas Pickering, apparently declined to testify, Pickering told MSNBC on Wednesday that he is willing to speak.
Issa spokesman Frederick Hill on Thursday noted the "change of heart" -- but also said neither Pickering nor the administration has contacted the committee about possible testimony.
Several claims from Wednesday's hearing could open up new lines of inquiry on the attack and its aftermath. Among them, Hicks claimed that Rice's faulty claims about the nature of the attack hurt the FBI investigation.
Hicks argued that Rice's comments so insulted the Libyan president -- since they contradicted his Sept. 16 claims that the attack was premeditated -- that it slowed the FBI's investigation.
"President Magariaf was insulted in front of his own people, in front of the world. His credibility was reduced," Hicks said, adding that the president was apparently "still steamed" two weeks later.
This bad blood, he claimed, contributed to the FBI team being stuck in Tripoli for about 17-18 days.
"I definitely believe that it negatively affected our ability to get the FBI team quickly to Benghazi," he said, adding that the U.S. could not even get the Libyans to secure the crime scene during that time.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/05/09/issa-seeks-more-whistle-blowers-after-dramatic-benghazi-hearing/#ixzz2Sp6u0oH4

Boehner calls for release of Benghazi emails as pressure grows on administration

Boehner: ‘I don’t think anyone quite understands’ how sequester gets resolved

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

By Tom Curry, National Affairs Writer, NBC News

In an exclusive interview with NBC’s Meet the Press, House Speaker John Boehner said there is no easy way to stop the budget cuts -- known as the “sequester” -- that began taking effect Friday night, and voiced uncertainty over how Washington can solve the overall fiscal problems that have consumed the nation’s politics for more than two years.

In an exclusive interview on Meet the Press, House Speaker John Boehner weighs in the economic impact of the sequester and whether or not it will hurt the country's economy.

“I don't think anyone quite understands how it gets resolved,” Boehner admitted in his interview with NBC’s David Gregory.

Boehner explained his strategy in the Republicans’ tax-and-spending standoff with President Barack Obama, saying that he didn’t want to “arbitrarily pull out a couple of tax expenditures” just to raise the revenue needed to avert $85 billion in spending cuts which are being made this year.

The president and many of his administration officials have warned of dire consequences to government services and national security if the sequester happens as planned.  But to avoid them and reach a deal, the president wants new tax increases, something Boehner and his fellow Republicans have insisted are off the table.

The spending cuts – which were intended to spur a bipartisan “grand bargain” on deficit reduction, entitlement reform and tax increases -- are part of the 2011 Budget Control Act which Obama signed into law.

Boehner voted for the law and urged his members to do likewise.

But now that the spending cuts are beginning, neither Boehner nor Obama wants them to continue. Yet they have been unable to reach an accord on an alternative measure.

More on nbcpolitics >>

Boehner: ‘I don’t think anyone quite understands’ how sequester gets resolved

Obama: Sequester 'not going to be an apocalypse'- blames ’dumb’ cuts on GOP

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Read on firstread >>

Obama: Sequester 'not going to be an apocalypse'- blames ’dumb’ cuts on GOP

Boehner on sequester: Obama doesn't have a plan to replace it

 

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Read on nbcpolitics >>

Boehner on sequester: Obama doesn't have a plan to replace it

Get 'off your ass': Boehner blasts Senate Democrats

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

firstread

By Carrie Dann, NBC News

House Speaker John Boehner addresses the ongoing sequester standoff on Capitol Hill.

Echoing the frustration of lawmakers throughout Washington hoping for a last-minute swerve to avoid impending budget cuts, House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, used some PG-13 phraseology Tuesday to urge the Senate to action. "We have moved a bill in the House twice," Boehner said at a press conference Tuesday. "We should not have to move a third bill before the Senate gets off their ass and begins to do something." The refrain of urging Senate action comes from Boehner just four days before the sequestration cuts are slated to kick in. President Barack Obama will travel to Newport News, Va. this afternoon to highlight the cuts' effect on the region's shipbuilding community. He will be joined by the area's Rep. Scott Rigell, a Republican. The White House's road trips to warn of the sequester's impact have drawn criticism from foes. "He has traveled over 5000 miles the last two weeks, and we challenge him travel a mile and half and come to Capitol Hill," said Rep. Cathy McMorris Rogers of Washington on Tuesday. "Sit down with Harry Reid and urge the Senate Democrats to take action."

Boehner said Obama's event this afternoon will reduce the nation's military to a campaign "prop."
"I don't think the president is focused on finding a solution to the sequester," he said. "The president has been traveling all over the country, today by going down to Newport News in order to use our military men and women as a prop in yet another campaign rally to support his tax hikes."

Get 'off your ass': Boehner blasts Senate Democrats

Washington's sequester standoff drags on: 'Mr. President, you got your tax increase'

By Michael O'Brien, Political Reporter, NBC News

The nation’s capital was enveloped in a familiar kind of gridlock late Monday, as Republicans again demanded that President Barack Obama and Senate Democrats act first to put off $85 billion in automatic cuts slated to take effect on Friday.

“The president says we have to have another tax increase to avoid the sequester,” House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, said of the hefty and indiscriminate spending cuts. “Well, Mr. President, you got your tax increase. It's time to cut spending.”

Related: Obama to govs: Push Congress to avert cuts

As Congress returned to work following a weeklong recess, the Obama administration and lawmakers appeared no closer to resolving the automatic spending cuts before their Friday deadline. While both Democrats and Republicans bemoan the cuts as potentially catastrophic for the economy and the national defense, both sides have been locked in a virtual staring match over the sequester.

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

More on firstread >>

Washington's sequester standoff drags on: 'Mr. President, you got your tax increase'

YOU MADE IT, NOW FIX IT: Boehner Says Obama Must Own Up to Sequester Crisis

foxnews

House Speaker John Boehner had a simple message Wednesday for President Obama after he used the bully pulpit to blame Republicans for the "meat cleaver" of looming spending cuts: You created it, you fix it.
"Having first proposed and demanded the sequester, it would make sense that the president lead the effort to replace it," Boehner wrote in a Wall Street Journal op-ed.
The "sequester" is the Washington word for the $85 billion in 2013 spending cuts set to hit starting March 1, with more than $1 trillion in cuts on tap over the next decade. Boehner and Obama both agree that the federal budget needs that level of deficit reduction and more, but sharply disagree over how to achieve it. In the absence of any compromise, the set of indiscriminate cuts which would hit the military hardest are set to take hold in less than two weeks.
The president on Tuesday, surrounded by first responders who are among those who would see cutbacks, called on House Republicans to drop their resistance to tax increases and steer the country away from the budget "meat cleaver."
But Boehner reminded Obama that the automatic cut idea was originally proffered by the White House during the debt-ceiling talks of 2011. He said Congress "reluctantly accepted the president's demand" and claimed it's now up to Obama to find the escape hatch.
"So, as the president's outrage about the sequester grows in coming days, Republicans have a simple response: Mr. President, we agree that your sequester is bad policy. What spending are you willing to cut to replace it?" Boehner asked.
White House Communications Director Dan Pfeiffer rejected what he described as "revisionist history." The White House acknowledges the "sequester" came from their office, but argues that Congress was on board at the time. The original plan was to tee up cuts so Draconian that Congress would be compelled to strike a deal to replace them -- Congress, though, failed to do so.
While Boehner blames Democratic resistance to spending and entitlement cuts, Obama blames GOP resistance to closing tax loopholes.
"(Obama) is willing to make tough choices. Now it's time for the speaker to do the same. The speaker has yet to name one tax loophole he's willing to close. Not one," Pfeiffer said.
White House Press Secretary Jay Carney also said Tuesday that Congress "must act" to avert the spending cuts, putting the onus on congressional Republicans. "It is bad policy," he said.
The back-and-forth was further evidence that the two sides are drifting further apart as the deadline nears, and that chances of a deal in the near-term are fading.
The president spoke Tuesday at the White House, urging Congress to come up with a short-term fix to cancel sweeping cuts to defense and other programs set to hit March 1.
"These cuts are not smart. They are not fair. They will hurt our economy. They will add hundreds of thousands of Americans to the unemployment rolls," Obama said. "This is not an abstraction -- people will lose their jobs."
The president ticked off a host of expected repercussions should the $85 billion in cuts for this year take effect. He said Border Patrol, emergency responders, FBI agents, airport controllers and others would all face cutbacks. He said teachers would be laid off by the thousands and America's military would be degraded.
But Congress is out for the week, effectively leaving one more workweek to reach a deal, or a stopgap, before the deadline.
Shortly before he spoke, Obama was also dealt a blunt warning by former Republican Sen. Alan Simpson, who co-chaired the president's deficit-reduction commission.
Simpson warned that Obama "will have a failed presidency" unless he deals "honestly" with entitlements, saying programs like Medicare and Social Security must be dealt with in order to get the country on a sustainable path.
"If he wants to leave it alone and not deal with those two biggies, forget the rest of the stuff -- he'll have a failed presidency," Simpson told Fox News.
While Obama says opposition to tax hikes is holding up a deal, Republicans say Democrats' resistance to major changes to entitlements are a big part of the problem.
Simpson and Erskine Bowles, the former co-chairmen of the president's deficit-reduction commission who for years have been urging Washington to stop kicking the can, got in front of the president early Tuesday morning to push a plan of their own.
The two fiscal hawks pitched a plan to avert the looming spending cuts -- heavy cuts to defense and other programs that they describe as "abrupt" and "mindless" -- and instead enact a $2.4 trillion deficit reduction plan over 10 years.
A quarter would come from changes to health care spending, a quarter would come from closing tax loopholes and the rest would come from spending reductions including a stingier adjustment of Social Security's cost of living increases.
On tax reform, the plan presents a middle ground -- by using the savings from closing loopholes to both lower rates and bring down the deficit. By contrast, Obama has pushed to use that savings mostly to reduce the deficit, while Republicans have pushed to use it to bring down rates. 

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/02/20/boehner-to-obama-created-spending-cut-crisis-fix-it/#ixzz2LTLxCUbT

YOU MADE IT, NOW FIX IT: Boehner Says Obama Must Own Up to Sequester Crisis

Boehner's blast: Obama doesn't have 'the guts' to cut spending

firstread

By NBC's Kelly O'Donnell and Domenico Montanaro

UPDATED 11:49 AM ET:  House Speaker John Boehner Tuesday repeatedly challenged the president's willingness to go against his own party on issues that include reforms to social programs and spending.

J. Scott Applewhite / AP

"I think he'd like to deal with it [fiscal problems], but to do the kind of heavy lifting that needs to be done, I don't think he's got the guts to do it,” the Ohio Republican said in a meeting with a small group of reporters for nearly an hour Tuesday morning. “He understands there is a spending problem. He understands that we need changes and reforms, and we need to solve these problems."

When pressed about the severity of that statement, he modified, saying the president does not have the "courage."

Washington is in the midst of yet another fiscal crisis, facing a political showdown over so-called "sequestration," the self-imposed round of across-the-board spending cuts to domestic programs and the Pentagon. The sequester was supported by both the White House and Congress as a way to encourage lawmakers to find common ground. Instead, they have been mired in a stalemate, unable to find an equitable solution for both sides. 

"I am not suggesting that this is easy,” Boehner said, “but what I am suggesting is that he is the President of the United States. This is the biggest threat to our society."

President Obama campaigned on raising taxes on the wealthy and got that in the showdown over the fiscal cliff. He wants more revenue -- from what he says are "loopholes and deductions" for the wealthy. Republicans have balked at that notion, saying he already got all the revenue he was going to get.

The White House has accused Boehner of walking away from "grand bargains," deals to reduce the country's deficits, in both 2011 and 2012 because he could not sell it to his base. Boehner's office vehemently disagrees with that notion, instead pointing the finger back at the president.

Republicans also feel as if they have already given in and do not want to give more, particularly after passing the tax increase and punting on the debt ceiling, voting to suspend it temporarily until the Democratic-controlled Senate passes a budget, something it has not done in years.

But those maneuvers have not been without staunch GOP opposition and misfires. President Obama and Boehner were thought to be, once again, close to a deal when Boehner abruptly announced "Plan B," an initiative pushed by House leadership, including Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA), that would have let tax cuts expire for millionaires. But Boehner pulled the measure after he realized it did not have majority support within his conference.

President Barack Obama is expected to ask for more tax revenue and fewer spending cuts during Tuesday's speech but can his plan pass Congress. Gene Sperling, the director of the White House Economic Council, Bloomberg Businessweek's Josh Green and Bloomberg View's Margaret Carlson discuss.

Instead, Boehner issued a statement urging President Obama and the Democratic-controlled Senate to pass something to avert the fiscal cliff. Boehner eventually brought the Senate-passed measure to the House floor. It passed without majority GOP support.

On immigration, Boehner claimed in the meeting, "The thing I am most concerned about immigration reform is the president getting in the way. Sometimes I think he'd rather have an issue than a solution. Here's the guy who four years ago said he was going to have immigration reform, and he's done absolutely nothing for four years. I hope the president will play a constructive role."

Democrats say that prior to the 2012 presidential election, they have faced a brick wall of opposition on immigration, despite President Obama's promises, especially from House Republicans. But since Obama's re-election, in which he won 71 percent of the Hispanic vote, Republicans have sounded a different tune on immigration.

Boehner's blast: Obama doesn't have 'the guts' to cut spending

How President Obama Lost His Shirt to John Boehner

Forbes/ Ralph Benko

The House, under the leadership of Speaker John Boehner, has precipitated a postponement in the debt ceiling fight until May. This represents a strategic choice by Boehner to make the Sequester fight, not the debt ceiling fight, the next major engagement. Much of the mainstream media now is accusing Congress of “kicking the can down the road.” They are missing the strategic implications.

In retrospect, at the Battle at Fiscal Cliff, Boehner took President Obama to the cleaners. He did it suavely, without histrionics. While Obama churlishly, and in a politically amateurish manner, publicly strutted about having forced the Republicans to raise tax rates on “the wealthiest Americans” Boehner, quietly, was pocketing his winnings.

Dazzled by Obama’s Ozymandias-scale sneer most liberals failed to notice that Boehner quietly made 99% of the Bush tax cuts permanent. As Boehner himself dryly observed, in an interview with The Wall Street Journal’s editorial board member Steve Moore, “”Who would have ever guessed that we could make 99% of the Bush tax cuts permanent? When we had a Republican House and Senate and a Republican in the White House, we couldn’t get that. And so, not bad.’”

“Not bad” is a resounding understatement. Dealt a weak hand, Boehner managed to 99% outfox, on tax policy, a president who had the massive apparatus of the executive branch, the Senate majority, and a left-leaning national elite media whooping it up for a whopping tax increase. Even more impressively, Boehner pulled it off with steady nerves while under heavy pressure from the anti-spending hawks in his own caucus.

Boehner, deftly, also dramatically raised the threshold, on which Obama had campaigned, at which the modest 3.6% rate increase kicked in. Yet his biggest win may have been in making the Alternative Minimum Tax patch permanent. This changes the baseline with profoundly positive implications for future tax reform and economic growth.

Boehner thereby won a triple jackpot, a bonanza for conservatives and supply-siders … while Obama, giving up all that for a trivial symbolic victory, lost his Progressive shirt. The mainstream media, with a few exceptions such as Howard Kurtz at the Daily Beast, was too deep in the tank to report that the Emperor has no clothes.

But Obama ended up, at least, shirtless. Next … off come the pants. Here come the real spending cuts. As reported by Moore, Boehner privately told Obama “’Mr. President, we have a very serious spending problem.’ He repeated this message so often, he says, that toward the end of the negotiations, the president became irritated and said: ‘I’m getting tired of hearing you say that.’”

Boehner, last week, again bested Obama by pushing the debt ceiling fight back to May. This is a double whammy by Boehner. According to specialists, by structuring the law to allow new borrowing only to the extent of obligations “outstanding on May 19, 2013, exceeds the face amount of such obligations outstanding on the date of the enactment of this Act” Boehner effectively instituted a spending freeze. This, in the face of Obama’s relentless demand for even more spending, is a victory for anti-profligacy hawks.

There’s a much bigger whammy embedded. Pushing the debt ceiling fight back to May, as the New York Times put it, “re-sequenced” the fight. Re-sequencing was not an idle gesture. It was a major tactical win by the House. The Times reported that “’The president stared down the Republicans. They blinked,’ said Senator Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York.” Schumer speaks with macho naiveté.

The Democrats, apparently, still don’t know what Boehner has hit them with. Thanks to the Sequester anti-profligacy conservatives now negotiate from strength. What are the implications of putting the Sequester fight before the debt ceiling fight? Steve Moore:

“The Republicans’ stronger card, Mr. Boehner believes, will be the automatic spending sequester trigger that trims all discretionary programs—defense and domestic. It now appears that the president made a severe political miscalculation when he came up with the sequester idea in 2011.

“As Mr. Boehner tells the story: Mr. Obama was sure Republicans would call for ending the sequester—the other ‘cliff’—because it included deep defense cuts. But Republicans never raised the issue. ‘It wasn’t until literally last week [columnist’s note: just before the deadline] that the White House brought up replacing the sequester,’ Mr. Boehner says. ‘They said, ‘We can’t have the sequester.’ They were always counting on us to bring this to the table.”

“Mr. Boehner says he has significant Republican support, including GOP defense hawks, on his side for letting the sequester do its work. ‘I got that in my back pocket,’ the speaker says. He is counting on the president’s liberal base putting pressure on him when cherished domestic programs face the sequester’s sharp knife. Republican willingness to support the sequester, Mr. Boehner says, is ‘as much leverage as we’re going to get.’”

Will the support of the defense hawks hold? It appears Boehner’s not bluffing. Although Obama’s outgoing defense secretary, Leon Panetta, infamously called the sequester “catastrophic,” the secretary obviously is falling back on the old bureaucratic tactic called “squealing louder than it hurts.” The Washington Post afterward called Panetta “the former (emphasis added) deficit hawk.”

As the Center for Strategic and International Studies, and nobody’s patsy, crisply notes about the Sequester: “This cut is significant to be sure, but it does not reach that of previous postwar drawdowns.”

Catastrophic? Oh please. Panetta surely knows better. The Post reprised a younger Panetta who, at a 1992 hearing (when the deficit was less than half its current size), stated “I think the most dangerous threat to our national security right now is debt, very heavy debt, that we confront in this country.”

“As chairman of the House Budget Committee and later as budget director in the Clinton administration, Panetta was an unforgiving enforcer of the bottom line as the United States grappled with record-size debts. As the largest government agency, the Pentagon found itself a frequent target of his whip, especially as it struggled to justify its missions in the aftermath of the Cold War.

“’I think the most dangerous threat to our national security right now is debt, very heavy debt, that we confront in this country,’ Panetta lectured then-Defense Secretary Richard B. Cheney and Gen. Colin L. Powell, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, during a hearing in 1992.”

It now should be clear to every Tea Party Patriot that Boehner is acting with integrity, with acute political sophistication, as an authentic conservative serious about reducing the debt by reducing spending. His claim, to Moore, that “he has significant Republican support, including GOP defense hawks … for letting the sequester do its work,” promises to be a game changer.

Given the assessments by sober defense analysts — and according to other, private, reports from Capitol Hill — there is no reason to think that Boehner is bluffing about having the support he needs to take the Sequester or barter it for even better cuts. And Boehner’s abhorrence of debt appears completely authentic. Moore: “He sees debt as almost a moral failing, noting that when he grew up in a little middle-class, blue-collar neighborhood’ outside of Cincinnati, ‘nobody had debt. It was unheard of. I just don’t do debt’.”

Boehner, having shrewdly identified the conservatives’ point of maximum leverage, appears poised for an historic victory. Boehner may prove himself to be the guy big enough and smart enough finally to engineer something that eluded even the great Reagan: pushing federal spending onto a downward trajectory.

If Boehner succeeds in closing the deal as he, with a critical assist from Senate Minority Leader McConnell, seems about to do he will go down in history as having brought about “the moment when the rise of the oceans (of debt) began to slow” … and our republic “began to heal.” If so John Boehner will deserve to be more than a Republican, conservative, and tea party, hero. He will go up in popular esteem, and down in history, as the master who staunched Washington’s hemorrhaging of America’s wealth.

How President Obama Lost His Shirt to John Boehner

First Lady Caught Rolling Eyes Twice at Boehner

It was a video clip in desperate need of a caption.

During the inaugural luncheon Monday, Michelle Obama could be seen blatantly rolling her eyes at something House Speaker John Boehner told her husband. 

The moment was fleeting. As Michelle Obama was seated in the middle, Boehner leaned back for a word -- and apparently a laugh -- with President Obama. 

There was no audio on the three of them, but the first lady's face said it all. As Boehner addressed the president, he tapped Michelle Obama's arm. She glanced up, and quickly looked back down.

Then Boehner appeared to crack a joke. He smiled, the president laughed -- whatever Boehner said, it made Michelle Obama pause from her lunch for a few seconds, visibly shaking her head and giving the speaker's comment a hearty eye-roll.

The moment was then interrupted when Sen. Chuck Schumer had everyone join in a round of applause for the chef and caterer.

President Obama and Boehner have been at odds for months over a string of budget issues. After the latest deal to avert the fiscal crisis, Boehner said he would no longer negotiate with the president one-on-one. 

Whether the two were getting chummy again at Monday's lunch is unclear -- but it didn't look like the first lady was buying it.

Read more: http://politics.blogs.foxnews.com/2013/01/21/michelle-obama-gives-boehner-eye-roll-he-jokes-president/#ixzz2Ij6YXoRR

First Lady Caught Rolling Eyes Twice at Boehner

GOP Fires Back at Obama Gun Plan

foxnews

President Obama's sweeping plan to address gun violence was met Wednesday with swift and stiff resistance by gun rights advocates and conservative lawmakers, setting up a tense debate that will be held on the airwaves, in congressional hearing rooms and in communities across America.
The package proposed Wednesday is the most comprehensive in decades. The president called for a new, tougher assault weapons ban and a 10-round limit on magazines, as well as legislation to bar the possession of armor-piercing bullets and require criminal background checks for nearly all gun sales.
Separately, he approved 23 executive actions while calling for additional funding to address mental health and school security.
The movement comes in the wake of last month's school massacre in Connecticut, where 20 children and six adults were killed.
"If there's even one life that can be saved, then we've got an obligation to try," said Obama, joined at the White House by four children who wrote to the president following the Newtown, Conn., tragedy.
But several lawmakers said the president's proposals in large part would not have prevented a shooting like the one at Sandy Hook Elementary School. They accused the president of glossing over potential factors like the entertainment industry and the country's mental health system, making clear that the legislative proposals could face an uphill climb.
"Nothing the president is proposing would have stopped the massacre at Sandy Hook. President Obama is targeting the 2nd Amendment rights of law-abiding citizens instead of seriously addressing the real underlying causes of such violence," Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., said. "Rolling back responsible citizens' rights is not the proper response to tragedies committed by criminals and the mentally ill."
Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, said the proposals would merely invite "drawn-out court battles."
"Instead of a thoughtful, open and deliberate conversation, President Obama is attempting to institute new restrictions on a fundamental constitutional right," he said.
Texas Gov. Rick Perry, in a written statement, said: "Guns require a finger to pull the trigger. The sad young man who did that in Newtown was clearly haunted by demons, and no gun law could have saved the children in Sandy Hook Elementary from his terror."
But both sides of the debate were preparing Wednesday for a drawn-out national debate. The National Rifle Association is preparing to launch a major ad campaign and has already started running one ad. The group said Wednesday it would work with Congress on a "bipartisan basis" but that "attacking firearms and ignoring children is not a solution to the crisis we face as a nation."
The NRA said: "Only honest, law-abiding gun owners will be affected, and our children will remain vulnerable to the inevitability of more tragedy" as a result of the administration's plan.
On the other side, a group founded by former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, who was wounded in a 2011 mass shooting, and her husband, Mark Kelly, has gotten involved in making the public case for gun control. Kelly and Vice President Biden, who led the president's anti-gun violence task force, met Wednesday in Washington.
A handful of Democratic lawmakers have already proposed gun-control bills, though Obama on Wednesday did not endorse any specific piece of legislation. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy said he plans to start holding hearings in two weeks on the issue.
Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., who intends to introduce a gun-control package next week including an assault-weapons ban, on Wednesday praised the president's announcement.
"He was exactly right when he said 'weapons designed for the theater of war have no place' in our society. I couldn't agree more. These weapons have one purpose: to kill the most people in the shortest amount of time possible," Feinstein said.
The leaders of the House and Senate declined to issue any definitive statements on Wednesday. "House committees of jurisdiction will review these recommendations. And if the Senate passes a bill, we will also take a look at that," said Michael Steel, spokesman for House Speaker John Boehner.
In the Senate, Democratic Leader Harry Reid said: "I am committed to ensuring that the Senate will consider legislation that addresses gun violence and other aspects of violence in our society early this year." He thanked the task force for the "thoughtful" ideas and said "all options should be on the table moving forward."
The president, immediately after making his remarks, signed nearly two-dozen executive actions -- a step that has stirred objections from lawmakers who have warned Obama not to overstep his bounds.
Unilaterally, Obama on Wednesday directed federal agencies to share information with the federal background check system; proposed new rules to let law enforcement run full background checks before returning a seized gun; ordered the Centers for Disease Control to research causes of gun violence; required law enforcement to trace guns from criminal investigations; and took other steps. Obama also is nominating the ATF's acting director, Todd Jones, to lead the agency permanently.
The most controversial elements of the president's plan, though, continue to be the proposals he wants Congress to pass.
The call for universal background checks would extend to gun shows and private sales, with "limited" exemptions for "certain transfers" among family members and other situations. The administration plans to give private sellers guidance on how to run background checks as soon as possible.
The president also wants to commit $4 billion to hiring more police officers and to pass new gun trafficking laws to explicitly prohibit straw purchasing.
The White House plan addresses school security, as well, urging Congress to help schools complete emergency plans; proposing an initiative to help schools hire up to 1,000 resource officers and mental health professionals. and proposing new training for teachers to recognize mental health issues among young people. Obama also plans to beef up mental health insurance coverage by executive action.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/01/16/obama-gun-plan-meets-resistance-on-capitol-hill/#ixzz2IBzKVOml

GOP Fires Back at Obama Gun Plan

We're now one step closer to America's coming civil war

foxnews

ozarkteaparty.com

By Arthur Herman 

The New Year has started with a monstrosity of a budget deal, one that proves that neither political party, Democrats or Republicans, is really serious about controlling the growth of big government.

But soap opera dramatics about fiscal "cliffs" and sequestration shouldn’t deflect from where President Obama is really taking this country. Consider this story from the Wall Street Journal a few days before Christmas:

“Thousands of people in several Argentine cities ransacked supermarkets for a second day in the latest challenge to President Chistina Kirchner, who is struggling to revive a weak economy...In the central city Rosario, two people were killed during the incidents and 137 people arrested.

Washington's Republicans and Democrats alike have become the toll collectors on the road to serfdom

“The violence puts Mrs. Kirchner in a difficult position as the poor are [her] core constituents...Her government spends billions of dollars a year to help low income families, including free health care...[Yet] Argentine activists who claim to represent the poor traditionally block access to supermarkets in the month of December to demand free food and other items...The latest events were some of the worst acts of looting and vandalism in years.... Local media showed dozens of men, women, and children hauling away televisions, refrigerators, and food.”

Some have said my warnings about a coming civil war between makers and takers are exaggerated. It’s true that Argentina’s politicians have been waging class warfare since Juan and Eva Peron–and they aren’t fazed when it turns bloody. Obama and the Democrats are relative newcomers to the game. But Argentina reveals who really suffers when those who create a nation’s wealth get mugged by those who spend it–as just happened this week in Washington.

It’s the poor and the middle class, the very ones big government says it’s trying to protect.

And sadly that’s where Mitt Romney had it wrong.

That 47 percent of Americans who get unemployment benefits, Social Security disability checks, Medicare and Medicaid, and government student loans, aren’t the real takers. Like the rioters in Rosario, they’re just pawns in a perennial battle between those who see wealth and prosperity as something created by hard work, ingenuity, and innovation in a free market system–or something to be doled out by government.

Experience teaches that those who believe in free markets are right. The November election and the budget deal, however, show that the other side is winning, and winning big.

Since 1970, America’s public sector has exploded as a percentage of GDP, rising to almost 25% last year. While the national unemployment rate hovers at the 8% mark, government worker unemployment rate is a cozy 3.8%. Sixteen percent of America’s workforce now work for government. By the time the Obama administration ends, we won’t be that far away from Argentina’s 21 percent.

Yet as an economic and social enterprise, government creates nothing.

Far from adding to people’s standard of living, government is the number one cause of poverty in this country. It forces those who depend on its largesse to live hand to mouth, with no time or money to plan for the future. They become unable to fend for themselves---and increasingly resentful of those who can.

When the economy tanks and the government checks have to shrink, their only alternative is to take to the streets. That’s what happening in Argentina, and in Greece; and that’s where the growth of government is taking us here, as this current budget deal increases handouts–and more and more Americans are finding that an unemployment or Social Security disability check is their only life line.

Washington’s Republicans and Democrats alike have become the toll collectors on the road to serfdom–and the road to Rosario.

How far down that road depends on how our private sector rallies in 2013 after two numbing defeats, first on November 7 and then on Capitol Hill this week.

It needs to explain to that 47 percent that when big government wins, we all lose–and that this nation won’t survive if it does.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2013/01/03/were-now-one-step-closer-to-america-coming-civil-war/#ixzz2HplyFyvw

We're now one step closer to America's coming civil war

America is watching 'War of the Roses' 2013-style starring Obama and Boehner

foxnews

Painting by Henry Payne in 1908 [Wikipedia]

By Liz Peek 

The most famous talked-about couple in Washington needs serious therapy. No, not Michelle and Barack – I’m talking about the  President Obama and House Speaker John Boehner.

Watching those two guide the country through difficult times is like witnessing "The War of the Roses" – the film variety. 

Unfortunately, instead of the relatively trivial matter of managing household finances, our elected leaders need to come together on solving our country’s dire fiscal problems. Most immediately, they need to raise the nation’s debt ceiling.

As with many troubled couples, these two cannot agree on money matters. Like a wife ignorant of the family’s finances, Obama wants ever more and ultimately ruinous spending. Boehner is the stern husband trying to talk sense.   

As with many troubled couples, these two cannot agree on money matters. Like a wife ignorant of the family’s finances, Obama wants ever more and ultimately ruinous spending. Boehner is the stern husband trying to talk sense.   

Beyond philosophical disagreements, and adding to their inability to function well together, Messrs. Obama and Boehner do not appear to have a high regard for each other. This is disastrous in marriage, and in politics. In "Blink," author Malcolm Gladwell introduces psychologist John Gottman, who claims that after only fifteen minutes of observing a couple, he can predict with 90% accuracy their chance of a successful marriage. (Really, I’ve always wondered why don't more young hopefuls don’t sign up for this?)

What are the signals? He ascribes most marital failures to the presence of four behaviors: defensiveness, stonewalling, criticism and contempt. 

It is hard to come up with four words that more appropriately describe the relationship between the House Speaker and the president, who have regularly indulged in angry phone calls, pouting and blame-throwing. There is one reaction, though, that is determining, and that is contempt. As Gottman explains, “...if I speak from a superior plane, that’s far more damaging, and contempt is any statement from a higher level.”

Does anyone doubt that President Obama speaks from a higher plane? That he is dismissive of John Boehner?  Do we imagine that John Boehner is enthralled with the president? 

The Speaker reported recently that Obama told him, “we don’t have a spending problem.” Boehner was not only exasperated, he was also incredulous. After four years of trillion-dollar deficits on his watch, after suffering the first U.S. credit downgrade in generations, having been on the receiving end of stern warnings from the IMF of the sort usually reserved for countries like Zambia, and with every reasoned analysis projecting fiscal Armageddon if Medicare is not brought to heel, how could the president not recognize the urgency of bringing long-term entitlements spending under control?

Boehner’s explanation is that President Obama is “so ideological himself”, as he told the Wall Street Journal’s Stephen Moore, and that he is “unwilling to take on the left wing of his own party.” It’s hard to say which the Speaker considers worse.

When Boehner tried to press his concern about excessive U.S. spending, Obama reportedly replied, “I’m getting tired of hearing you say that.”  How very Marie Antoinette.

As in most marital spats, there are hints of affections straying. New Jersey Governor Chris Christie has played, perhaps, the “other woman”, to pursue this analogy. Christie was charged with introducing candidate Mitt Romney at the GOP convention -- perhaps the most important speech at the Republican gathering –- testament to his stature in the party. 

He spent that coveted spot mainly talking about himself, and giving but mildly enthusiastic support for his party’s hopeful, planting seeds of doubt in the minds of some that he was the GOP’s best bet for 2016. However, his standing took an even greater hit when he bear-hugged (literally and figuratively) President Obama in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy. Coming as it did just before the election, the Sandy love-fest, and Christie, are blamed for boosting Obama’s image at a critical moment.

More recently, Christie savagely criticized the Speaker’s failure to ram through the relief bill so needed by New Jersey and other states badly damaged by the hurricane. Christie’s attack, on the heels of the dalliance with Obama, has helped dim the public’s view of Boehner, further trimming his negotiating ability.

The Speaker Boehner has determined that he will forgo any more closed-door negotiations with the president, considering them “futile.” The president, in return, has vowed not to negotiate over raising the debt ceiling. More and more Obama has turned to executive orders to carry out his agenda – including most recently threatening to use that means to enact gun controls. The relationship, as poor as it was, appears to be on the skids. This is not entirely good news for the country.  

Is it time to bring in marriage counselors? One team that might help the fractious twosome is former Senators Simpson and Bowles. This bipartisan duo, after all, was asked by President Obama to come up with a long-term plan for putting our nation’s finances in order. They did a bang-up job of putting everything on the table, and proposing measures that both right and left found odious. That was the virtue of their plan, which remains the best blueprint – or at least the most intelligent starting point -- for putting our house in order. 

Numerous House Republicans in the past couple of days have proposed taking up the Simpson-Bowles plan; Texas Representative Steve Stockman has said he would introduce it as a bill in the House. Unfortunately, Obama dismissed the plan as readily as a shopaholic housewife scorns a budget; the plan was DOA.

Indeed, it is of course not just DC’s most talked-about visible power twosome duo that is having difficulties. The entire extended body politic -- GOP and Dems alike – cannot communicate.They talk right by each other on important matters like reining in our spiraling entitlements obligations, how we are going to rebuild our outdated infrastructure, the best way to rationalize our immigration system and improve our public schools, how to simplify and improve our tax code, how to reboot job creation and make sure our institutions are protected from cyberthreats. 

We have real problems, and a legislative body – and White House – that seems unable to get the nation’s business done. As a result, Americans are ever more anxious about our future. They say politics makes strange bedfellows. Sadly for the country, Beltway insiders have apparently taken a vow of chastity.  

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2013/01/11/watching-obama-and-boehner-is-like-watching-war-roses-2013/#ixzz2HpkXxtHq

America is watching 'War of the Roses' 2013-style starring Obama and Boehner

Boehner re-elected as Speaker

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Read on nbcnews >>

Boehner re-elected as Speaker

‘Negotiating’ With the Left: A Waste of Time

frontpagemag

John Boehner

By Tom Blumer

Having lived in Greater Cincinnati for most of my life, I’ve had a chance to observe Congressman John Boehner’s actions and performance from a perspective most haven’t.

Most of what I saw until he became House Speaker in January 2011 was good — usually very good. What has transpired since has not been. Boehner and House Republicans have been unable to put the brakes on the country’s headlong rush towards insolvency driven by President Barack Obama, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, the federal regulatory leviathan, and the courts, or on their continued trampling of our fundamental freedoms.

I can already see the excuses: “Tom, the House of Representatives is only one-half of one of the three branches of government. You can’t expect Boehner and Republican leaders to withstand the daily assaults from all other quarters.” Sure, I get that. Add the adversarial, hostile, double standard-driven establishment press to the mix, and one can totally understand the daunting challenges the Speaker has faced.

There’s one problem with that attempt at justification, and it has nothing to do with ordinary expectations. It instead has everything to do with the heightened expectations Boehner and the Republican Party created in the run-up to the 2010 congressional elections, embodied in both the party’s Pledge to America and Boehner’s October 2010 speech just a few weeks before Election Day.

By that time, it was clear to almost everyone, thanks to the growing influence of the Tea Party movement, the pathetic economic recovery, and the unprecedentedly awful job market, that Nancy Pelosi’s reign as Speaker of the House was going to end, and that Boehner, with a solid post-election GOP majority, was a virtual lock to become its next Speaker.

Boehner’s speech and the party’s Pledge gave millions of frightened mainstream Americans hope that they could, and would, right the ship of state. Consider just a few things Boehner said in that October speech, and compare them to actual results.

“(This speech is) about the jobs that were promised to the American people by the current administration, and never delivered.”

At the time, total seasonally adjusted private-sector employment as measured by the Establishment Survey at the Bureau of Labor Statistics was eight million below its January 2008 peak. 25 months later, private-sector employment, which should by now have jumped to several million above that 2008 high, is still down by 3.7 million. Even those grim statistics understate the gravity of the employment situation and how little improvement we’ve seen, especially in comparison to past recoveries. Full-time employment as measured by the BLS’s Household Survey is still 6.2 million lower than its peak in late 2007, while part-time employment is up by 2.8 million. Since the recession officially ended in June 2009, over 800,000 of the 3.3 million net jobs added have gone to those who toil at temporary help firms.

“The greatest threat to job creation in our country is the flawed idea that we can tax, spend and borrow our way to prosperity.”

In the 24 months Boehner has been Speaker, the government has run a deficit of over $2 trillion, spent over $7 trillion, increased the national debt by over $2.4 trillion, and done almost nothing to contain the explosive growth of entitlements. 

“Our plan cuts spending immediately, back to pre-stimulus, pre-bailout levels.”

If that were currently the case, the government would be spending about $2.9 trillion annually — still far more than necessary to carry out its constitutionally assigned functions (a topic for another day). Instead, it has spent $3.4 to $3.6 trillion during each of the past four fiscal years, and is off to a record-shattering start in fiscal 2013.

“Your government is out of control. Do you have to accept it? Do you have to take it? Hell no you don’t! That’s what elections are for! In Common Sense, Thomas Paine wrote that ‘we have it in our power to begin the world over again.’ In just 25 days, voters will have a chance to do just that.”

Unlike many others, I really believe that John Boehner intended to get what he described as an “out of control” government back on track. Nobody who heard that speech could possibly have imagined that he would acquiesce to an August 2011 debt-ceiling deal that put off serious consideration of what we are doing to our children, grandchildren and generations yet to be born until after the 2012 elections, seriously crippling 2012 GOP election campaigns across the land. There was also no reason to believe that Boehner would just over two years later get behind fiscal cliff-preventing legislation which by some accounts involves $41 in tax increases for ever dollar in spending “cuts,” which we know really means “reductions in projected spending increases.” A January 2 Wall Street Journal editorial asserts that the legislation involved represents “the biggest tax increase in 20 years” coupled with “spending increases.”

So what happened? Boehner, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, and Washington Republicans have naively believed, and probably still do despite their repeated humiliations, that there can be honest negotiations with Washington Democrats led by the most radical president in U.S. history. That is not possible.

Boehner’s only alternative from Day 1 of his speakership, something which I erroneously thought he finally realized in that 2010 speech, was to:

• Insist on constitutional grounds that the House would consider no revenue-raising legislation originating in the Senate. (Article 1, Section 7: “All bills for raising Revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives.”)

• Pass comprehensive legislation to accomplish the goals articulated in the Pledge for America.

• Adjourn, and don’t come back. If the Senate or the President wouldn’t sign, then the government would shut down, and it would be blindingly obvious to anyone with an ounce of sense who caused it.

The People’s House has the constitutional power of the purse. John Boehner hasn’t leveraged it. Until he or the next Speaker does, the left will rule the fiscal roost in Washington, and our nation’s rapid descent into bankruptcy will be virtually assured.

‘Negotiating’ With the Left: A Waste of Time

Boehner Facing Fight for the Gavel?

Read on Fox >>
Also on NBC Boehner boxed in >>

Boehner Facing Fight for the Gavel?

John Boehner told Harry Reid to "go f--- yourself"

foxnews/

newswhip.com

As nasty as the battle over the fiscal crisis bill looked on the floors of Congress, it was even nastier behind the scenes.

Sources confirmed to Fox News that House Speaker John Boehner told Harry Reid to "go f--- yourself" while passing by the Senate majority leader at the White House Friday.

The outburst came after Reid, on Thursday, took to the floor and likened Boehner to a dictator. Reid had claimed Boehner was holding back a bill out of concern for his speakership. 

"John Boehner seems to care more about keeping his speakership than about keeping the nation on firm financial footing," Reid said Thursday, claiming the chamber was "being operated with a dictatorship of the speaker."

Boehner did not take kindly to the accusation. Politico first reported that Boehner swore at Reid when he saw him the next day at the White House, where congressional leaders were convening for a meeting. 

Reid reportedly seemed startled, asking, "What are you talking about?" Boehner then repeated, "Go f--- yourself." 

Boehner's office offered "no comment" on the incident.

Fox News' Chad Pergram contributed to this report.

Read more: http://politics.blogs.foxnews.com/2013/01/02/boehner-swore-reid-after-dictatorship-comment-sources-say/#ixzz2Gqs6iBzj

John Boehner told Harry Reid to "go f--- yourself"

Fiscal cliff deal: House OKs proposal despite GOP objections

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Read >>

Fiscal cliff deal: House OKs proposal despite GOP objections