Tag: Speaker of the House

Another Congressperson Packs It In

As the 2018 mid term election gets closer the more Congresspeople are packing it in for most know they will lose…..well the latest to say bye is the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Paul Ryan of Wisconsin.

Wednesday’s buzziest political development comes from Axios, which broke the news that Paul Ryan has decided not to run for re-election. The House Speaker’s office made that official with a statement explaining “this morning Speaker Ryan shared with his colleagues that this will be his last year as a member of the House. He will serve out his full term, run through the tape, and then retire in January. After nearly twenty years in the House, the speaker is proud of all that has been accomplished and is ready to devote more of his time to being a husband and a father. While he did not seek the position, he told his colleagues that serving as speaker has been the professional honor of his life, and he thanked them for the trust they placed in him.”

As for what fueled the decision, which has been rumored for some time, satisfaction is reportedly one: Tax reform had long been Ryan’s goal, and now that he achieved it, he’s ready to bow out, Axios’ Jonathan Swan told MSNBC. Another potential factor, per Swan: He’s “staring down the barrel frankly of potentially losing the House in November. I don’t know that Paul Ryan, minority leader, is a particularly appealing title.” President Trump had this to say in a tweet: “Speaker Paul Ryan is a truly good man, and while he will not be seeking re-election, he will leave a legacy of achievement that nobody can question. We are with you Paul!”

Of course he regurgitated the same reason as most of the others…”my kids are not getting any younger and I do not want to be a weekend father”…..really?  Apparently the kids were not important when they were younger…..it is a lame excuse….tell the truth…you now that you will have a hard time with re-election so why not quit and void the embarrassment of losing an election.

The Speaker Speaks–Dec. 2017

Some may say that I am a prick.  And they are probably right.  Why would I say this?

The tax bill that passed in Dec 2017 is nothing but a boost for the wealthy….the middle class gets a boost for a couple of years then it disappears but the wealthy gets to keep all their benefits….it will create jobs…horseshit!

All that aside….I have the Speakers words and his promises on vid and in print and I will be sure to play this for the conservs whenever they try to run in my district…..

https://www.speaker.gov/press-release/speaker-ryans-floor-remarks-tax-cuts-and-jobs-act

The “Swamp” just got richer…..

Boehner Unloads

Former House Speaker John Boehner has been silent since he left Congress thanx to the dickheads in the “Tea Party”……since his departure he has been pretty quiet but then along came new FOX News commentator, Jason Chavitz…..

Former House Speaker John Boehner called his former colleague Jason Chaffetz an “asshole” and “total phony” during a lengthy feature interview with Politico Magazine.

The profile, released on Sunday, promised an “unchained” Boehner in his most revealing and candid interview since retiring from Congress in 2015. While discussing Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.) taking over the House Oversight Committee following Rep. Jason Chaffetz’s (R-Utah) June resignation from Congress, Boehner let loose.

In addition to calling Chaffetz a “total phony” who was more concerned with self-promotion than legislation, Boehner ripped Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), the founding chairman of the House Freedom Caucus, calling him a “legislative terrorist.” Some Republicans wanted Jordan to take over the committee after Chaffetz’s resignation. Boehner added,

Source: John Boehner Rips ‘A**hole’ Jason Chaffetz In Scorching Interview | HuffPost

Let’s say Boehner pulled no punches and now we know what he thought of the idiots he served with in the House. All I can add in closing is….You Go Boy!

I was never a fan on Boehner when in office but I like his outspoken way and in so he has a new fan….ME!

I Knew There Was Humor In the Ryan Story….

It is official….Paul Ryan has a new job….Speaker of the House of Representatives….(let the peasants rejoice)……

House Republicans officially nominated Paul Ryan as speaker Wednesday, CNN reports. Er, excuse us, Paul D. Ryan. Also Wednesday, the congressman asked the Clerk of the House to formally change his name on all official documents and offices to Paul D. Ryan, Politico reports. His full name is Paul Davis Ryan. The full House is expected to approve Ryan’s nomination Thursday morning.

This just wasn’t his day…….as exciting as the news is that Ryan will be the next Speaker…..there was something that crapped all over his day…..

A runaway blimp!

Ryan’s big moment was overshadowed on all cable news channels by the daring escape of the military blimp……

A 243-foot military blimp called a JLENS has come free of its tether in Maryland and is now floating out of control somewhere in Pennsylvania.

The JLENS slipped out of Maryland’s Aberdeen Proving Ground, an hour outside Baltimore, at 11:54 am Eastern. It is still in the air, trailing 6,700 feet of cable across the Pennsylvania sky. The US military has dispatched two jets from Atlantic City Air Force Base to follow it.

The blimp may be armed and dangerous…..nothing is more dangerous than a blimp on the run!

According to the Baltimore Sun, “Authorities warned anyone who sees the blimp to keep a safe distance and dial 911.”

The Air Force has scrambled two F-16s from the Atlantic City Air National Guard base to track the blimp, which officials say is holding at 16,000 feet. The blimp broke free at 12:20 eastern time. “NORAD officials are working closely with the FAA to ensure air traffic safety, as well as with our other interagency partners to address the safe recovery of the aerostat,” NORAD said in a statement.

An unmanned Army surveillance blimp broke loose from its moorings in Maryland and floated over Pennsylvania for hours Wednesday with two US fighter jets on its tail, triggering blackouts across the countryside as it dragged its cable across power lines. The bulbous, 240-foot helium-filled blimp finally came down near Muncy, a small town about 80 miles north of Harrisburg. The North American Aerospace Defense Command in Colorado said the blimp detached from its station at the military’s Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland at about 12:20pm and drifted northward, climbing to about 16,000 feet.

The F-16s were scrambled from a National Guard base at Atlantic City, New Jersey, according to NORAD. At the Pentagon, Defense Secretary Ash Carter did not say what the two fighter jets might be asked to do or whether he considered it a threat to aviation. Witnesses reported seeing the blimp drifting in a sparsely populated area. Its tether was snapping power lines. The local electric utility, PPL, reported about 20,000 customers without power in the area, and Bloomsburg University canceled classes because of the outage. It was not immediately clear how the blimp came loose.

Sorry, my eyes have not been dry since I saw the daring escape……and Ryan is sitting in his office muttering to himself….”I can’t catch a break”….”who do I have to blow to get some press?”

Now I wonder how much this will cost the taxpayer?  To pay for it we will have nix the catheter program…..

Some news is just too good to pass up….and this is just such a story…..

 

 

Why, Big Mac, Why?

Okay…one more for the road…….

Let’s be honest shall we?  The contest for Speaker is about as interesting as watching flies mate……but the people that are dashing in the other direction….now that is a story.

By now we all know that the GOP front runner for Speaker has put his tail between his legs and bowed out of the race for the speakership……which is great….for it gives the media something to do trying to explain his decision…..I mean ….come on!

But why would he give up such a prestigious position?

There might be somebody out there who can unite all 247 House Republicans, but Kevin McCarthy says it definitely isn’t him. The House majority leader tells Politico that his shock decision not to seek the nomination for speaker came after friends said to him: “Why do you want to do it during this time? This time will be the worst time. They’re going to eat you and chew you up.” He says that while he could have won the speakership with around 220 votes, he “was never going to be able to get 247,” which would have left him unable to pass crucial measures like the debt ceiling increase. A big factor was the decision of the House Freedom Caucus to back Rep. Daniel Webster for the job, which could have left McCarthy without enough votes, reports the Washington Post.

There could be murkier factors involved: On Wednesday, Rep. Walter Jones called for candidates who’ve committed “misdeeds” to withdraw from the race, and rumors are circulating that he was referring to an alleged affair between McCarthy and fellow GOP Rep. Renee Ellmers, Gawker reports. Her Wikipedia page was edited on Thursday to say she has allegedly been having an affair since 2011. The edit, which came from a Department of Homeland Security IP address, was quickly reversed to remove the claim, Mediaite reports. Jones says he doesn’t have any proof of misconduct involving McCarthy or any other candidates, the Post reports. (McCarthy’s Benghazi comments didn’t help his cause.)

He bowed out because he was thinking of his next election (nothing else)….I mean how would it look to the voters back home if he could not get the required votes to become Speaker?

Back in the day he was one of the “Young Guns” of the GOP….they all had bright futures with the party and slowly but slowly they became persona non grata……first it was cantor….got his ass handed to him in an election.  Next was McCarthy….do I need to say more?  And last was past VP candidate Ryan who is still in the House but trying to keep a low profile….

But speaking of Ryan……

Senior Republicans are trying to draft Paul Ryan for the job that John Boehner and Kevin McCarthy don’t want. Ryan has repeatedly said that he doesn’t want to be House speaker, either—he announced, “I will not be a candidate” within minutes of McCarthy’s bombshell announcement yesterday, reports the Washington Post—but he’s coming under a lot of pressure from fellow Republicans who see him as the only man left for the job, Politico reports. The House Ways and Means Committee chairman may be starting to crack: Toward the end of Thursday, he went from total denial to telling reporters that he had no comment, reports the Post, which notes that the one-on-one pleas included two calls from Boehner.

Another call came from Rep. Trey Gowdy of South Carolina. “I have spent more time trying to talk him into running than I did my wife into marrying me,” Gowdy tells the New York Times. “Twenty-six years later, she’s still with me. I am just asking Paul for 14 months.” But Ryan, who was Mitt Romney’s running mate in 2012, has a long-term plan that does not involve moving up in the House, insiders tell the Post, and taking the speaker job now could end up killing off those ambitions. According to the Post, the last person to retire from the role in “good standing” was Tip O’Neill in 1986.

Ryan is also running scared…..I mean this dude wants to be prez and with the chaos in the House….it would play hard on his chances.

Another coward that is more concerned about image than duty…..

Who Dropped The Shoe?

The drama swirling around the election of the Speaker of the House has a new twist for all you political geeks…….

House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy dropped a political bombshell on his Republican colleagues Thursday morning by dropping out of the race for House speaker. McCarthy was the heavy favorite to succeed John Boehner at the end of the month, though he faced long-shot challenges from Reps. Jason Chaffetz and Daniel Webster, the latter being the chosen nominee of the conservative House Freedom Caucus, reports the Hill. Republicans were supposed to pick their nominee Thursday, but McCarthy’s announcement forced the vote to be postponed. Even had he won this vote, it was unclear whether McCarthy would be able to get the necessary 218 votes when the full House voted on Oct. 29—thanks to the conservative opposition to him from within his own party.

The GOP cannot do anything without some sort of drama.

Now that big Mac is gone…who oh who will get the leadership roll?

Surely someone has an opinion……here is your chance….take it!

The House Of Drama

At the end of this month (October) the House of Representatives will vote on a new speaker……the present speaker has decided he has had enough of the games and antics of the clowns in the political circus we call the House.

Boehner is out and McCarthy is the heir apparent………or is he?  It seems the Mr. Mac has a problem when speaking into a microphone (and he wants to be speaker….see the irony there?)

Any way Mac has a challenger one sleepy time Rep known as Jason Chaffetz from the state of denial….no wait….Utah, the state of Utah.  After Mac made his now famous comment about Hillary and the Benghazi investigation he got a challenger….I guess the other GOPers are pissed that Mac gave away the secret of the tape…..

But what if Mac is not that popular when the vote comes around and we have a hung trial and the votes go on……

Rep. Kevin McCarthy is the heavy favorite to be the next House speaker, but he’s got a big math problem at the moment: When the full House votes on Oct. 29, he needs 218 ayes—and a group of about 30 conservative Republicans can prevent him from getting there, writes Russell Berman in the Atlantic. That raises the possibility that the House will be unable to elect a speaker and thus could become “institutionally paralyzed” for weeks or even months despite a host of pressing issues. One scenario is that John Boehner will stay on until a new leader is elected, instead of resigning on Oct. 30 as planned, notes the Hill.

That would be a “nightmare scenario” for Republicans and the House, which hasn’t needed multiple ballots to elect a speaker since 1923, writes Berman. Conservative Jason Chaffetz is running a long-shot candidacy against McCarthy, but his prospects of actually winning are all but nil. Berman’s piece suggests a way out of the mess: Conservatives will wring enough concessions out of House leaders—key committee posts, etc.—in exchange for their support of McCarthy’s speakership before the House vote.

(Click to read the full post. McCarthy hasn’t helped his own cause with his Hillary Clinton comments.)

Is it possible that we could get even more drama out of the House?  More entertainment watching the GOPers act like spoiled rug rats?  Will the Freedom Caucus (new name for the Tea Party) be as moronic as they have been in the past?  Will we get much deserved chuckle from the antics of silly little people?

Hashtag#smileyface!

He Said What?

Did I mention the Pope stopped by for a cup of Joe?  Well he said he was the Pope and who am I to dispute a man in a white dress?

This month we will say good-bye to Boehner, Speaker of the House and the Freedom Caucus will not have him to kick around anymore….

Looks like Rep. Kevin McCarthy is vying for the position of Speaker……all I can do is laugh……why?

In the coming years the most daunting task the government will have is in the area of foreign policy…..and McCarthy is about as sharp there as a rotting turnip…..he is a mumbling babbling mess….a typical GOPer these days……

His recent speech on foreign policy should point you in the direction of how he will run the House….

Kevin McCarthy is about to ascend to the highest office in the House of Representatives and become second in line to the presidency.

But there is a problem: The speaker-apparent apparently still can’t speak.

I have been tracking the California Republican’s valiant but often unsuccessful struggles with the English language for some time now, and I was alarmed to watch him lose another round Monday during a foreign policy speech to the John Hay Initiative, a new outfit of the neoconservative bent.

“If I look at history of where we are it seems a lot like 1979,” McCarthy informed his audience in the ballroom of Washington’s St. Regis hotel.

“We must engage this war of radical Islam if our life depended on it because it does,” he opined.

“I have visited Poland, Hungria, Estonia,” he said, and also “visited in our, uh, the allies in the Arab Gulf.”

He has, furthermore, been informed that we “live on the greatest nation that’s ever been on the face of the Earth.”

McCarthy called for “an effective politically strategy to match the military strategy,” and he lamented that “we have isolated Israel while bolding places like Iran.” He blamed President Barack Obama’s White House for “putting us in tough decisions for the future,” but he voiced hope that a “safe zone would create a stem the flow of refugees.” And he scolded the Department of Veterans Affairs for failing to assist returning servicemen “who fought to the death in Ramadi.”

That babbling mess from a Congressperson that has sponsored two bills…..both to rename buildings….does that make him the best person for the job?

He needs to practice before he speaks……after over a year of denying that the Faux investigation into the Benghazi debacle was a Clinton with hunt…..he said this about the investigation…….

“Everybody thought Hillary Clinton was unbeatable, right? But we put together a Benghazi special committee. A select committee. What are her numbers today? Her numbers are dropping. Why? Because she’s untrustable. But no one would have known that any of that had happened had we not fought to make that happen,” McCarthy said.

This moron has all but admitted that the investigation was nothing more than a witch hunt…..and he wants to be Speaker of the House?  Seriously?

Think about it…if he is that big of an idiot he will be the perfect person to run the House….he can be bullied and control by the Freedom Caucus and every moronic idea will become a bill…..more money down the toilet.

I cannot wait for his next batch of utterances that will make my day…..

Thank you McCarthy!

On A Side Note:  Speaking of the Benghazi investigation……..

as if we didn’t know this was the agenda, we’ve been writing this for years here at Politicus. And just yesterday we discussed the outrageous fact that the Benghazi probe has gone on longer than the Watergate probe.

But the party that sells itself as “fiscally responsible”, in spite of their claim that “deficits don’t matter” when they were in charge, would definitely want to reimburse taxpayers the $4.5 million they have spent on lowering former Sec. of State Hillary Clinton’s poll numbers and manufacturing sound bites for free campaign ads against her, which they will all use since Republicans always have to run “against” a person since they can’t run on their own ideas.

The GOP toads owes the American people money…….TIME TO PAY IT BACK!

Drop A Bomb On Me

I am battling a internet connection that will not cooperate……please bear with me……..

Great reference to an old funk song from the 70’s…..

There have been times when I have been caught with my brain in neutral and today has been one of those days……

I got the news from my friend over at “The John Liming Report”……the weeping angle (Dr. Who reference) of thew Congress will step down from his leadership roll in October…..

John Boehner dropped a political bombshell this morning, announcing that he’s not only resigning as House speaker but as a congressman as well. Boehner will leave at the end of October, reports the New York Times. Boehner himself told House Republicans in a closed-door session today, reports Politico. The surprise move comes as Boehner faces another revolt from conservative House members about a potential government shutdown, this time over Planned Parenthood funding.

“The Speaker believes putting members through prolonged leadership turmoil would do irreparable damage to the institution,” an aide tells the Hill. “Speaker Boehner believes that the first job of any Speaker is to protect this institution and, as we saw yesterday with the Holy Father, it is the one thing that unites and inspires us all.” (Boehner was seen crying during the pope’s address, though he tends to cry a lot.) The same aide says Boehner, 65, actually intended to quit last year and stuck around only because of Eric Cantor’s stunning election defeat.

Now in October who will emerge as the top dog for the GOP in the House?

It seems that many GOPers are dancing on Boehner’s grave…..read more…..

Source: Conservatives Rush To Dance On John Boehner’s Grave

Where will the process of choosing the next Speaker take the country?  Will we be subjected to a lengthy partisan battle between the GOP and the Tea Party upstarts?  Where does that leave the shutdown?

Lots of questions and few good answers……

Thoughts?

Take That You Soul-less SOBs!

By now you have heard all about the mini revolt in the House GOP……some wanted to overthrow Boehner from his Speaker position….people like Gohmert (bat crap crazy) and Yoho (sounds like an awful drink)……

In case you were otherwise occupied and missed the tension……

In winning a third term as House speaker today, John Boehner had to fend off a defection from within his own party that was the biggest such revolt in more than 150 years, reports the Washington Post. In all, 25 conservative Republicans voted against Boehner, though that wasn’t enough to force the humiliation of a second vote. House rules allow members to vote for any US citizen, which is why Rand Paul and Jeff Sessions—who happen to be senators—each got a vote, reports the Hill. (On the Democratic side, Tennessee’s Jim Cooper voted for Colin Powell, notes CNN.)

A dozen GOP members voted for Rep. Daniel Webster of Florida, but today’s opposition was largely symbolic. It shows the “the clear limits” of Boehner’s clout in the GOP conference, observes Politico, while Chris Cillizza at the Post writes that it doesn’t bode well in terms of avoiding the logjams of the previous Congress. “If more than two dozen House Republicans are willing to stand up and voice their discontent with him in a vote that is almost certain to go his way, what will the prognosis be for Boehner when the legislative outcomes are less certain?” Here’s the full list of those who voted against him.

Okay the idiots on the Right did not succeed……but what will Boehner do?

Glad you asked!

John Boehner struck a magnanimous tone after fighting off the biggest anti-speaker rebellion in 150 years yesterday—”May the fruits of our labors be ladders our children can use to climb to the stars,” he told the House—but payback has been swift for some of the 25 conservatives who voted against him. Florida Reps. Dan Webster and Richard Nugent been kicked off the powerful House Rules Committee, which is appointed directly by the speaker, in apparent retaliation, the Hill reports. Webster ran against Boehner for House speaker yesterday and received 12 votes, including Nugent’s.

The move to kick the rebels off the Rules Committee could be just the beginning of Boehner’s revenge, according to Politico, which notes that some of the speaker’s allies say he has been too much of a pushover and will welcome this kind of action. In a process that GOP sources say could take months, the conservative insurgents may also lose perks including subcommittee chairmanships. With the increased GOP majority in the House, “we don’t need these fringe guys as much as we did anymore,” one Republican leadership aide says.

Revenge is sweet……and quick!