- Strong bench of capable conservatives in House and Senate
- Weep over the betrayals that led up to this
- Betrayal of the base not a good idea*
- On the balance sheet titled “obstructing the conservative cause” Mitch McConnell has darker entries.
- One more betrayal before it is over?*
- The good Catholic boy who wept during Pope Francis address before the Congress, it may be Boehner’s last act, his legacy, to continue the funding of Planned Parenthood.*
- After standing on the soap box in order to carny bark votes in for Republicans, promising to thwart Obama . . . immediately after the 2014 election he maneuvers with McConnell to fund Obama’s government. More business as usual.*
In a moment long awaited by conservatives around the nation, House Speaker John Boehner announced Friday that he will resign both his post and his seat at the end of October. An aide claims Boehner had intended to resign at the end of last year, but he delayed the transition after then-Majority Leader and presumptive successor Eric Cantor lost his seat in a huge primary upset. The trouble with Boehner is that he failed to lead — perhaps not surprising given that his entire goal seems to have been merely winning the position of speaker. Donald Trump’s rise in the presidential field is almost directly proportional to failed GOP leadership. As Mark Alexander noted recently, “Trump’s support reflects very little about his qualifications, but a lot about his message and how dissatisfied millions of disenfranchised grassroots conservatives are with Republican ‘leadership.’ The status quo represented by Speaker John Boehner and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has, in effect, underwritten Trump’s rising stardom. Despite greatly increasing the numbers of conservatives in the House and Senate in the historic ‘Republican Wave’ elections nationwide in both 2010 and 2014, the much-loathed ‘establishment types’ still hold the reins and they have failed to counter Barack Obama’s socialist policies. GOP leaders continue to marginalize or ignore the concerns of the conservative/Republican base — grassroots conservatives — and we are rightly outraged.”
Resigning now means Boehner loses nothing from stopping a shutdown over Planned Parenthood funding. And while it’s likely that Majority Leader and close Boehner ally Kevin McCarthy will step in to the speakership, he will undoubtedly be under pressure to move Right.
Your move, McConnell.
Cruz offers sobering comments after conservative summit cheers the news
Via the Washington Post (disregard much of the tripe in the article)
Speaking to reporters after his remarks at the conservative summit meeting, Mr. Cruz struck a discordant note about Mr. Boehner.
“The early reports are discouraging,” Mr. Cruz said. “If it is correct that the speaker, before he resigns, has cut a deal with Nancy Pelosi to fund the Obama administration for the rest of this year, to fund Obamacare, to fund executive amnesty, to fund Planned Parenthood, to fund implementation of this Iran deal and then presumably to land a cushy K Street job after joining with the Democrats to implement all of President Obama’s priorities, that is not the behavior one would expect from a Republican speaker of the House.”
Our view is that either way he was likely to fund Obama’s outrages. And either way end up resigning.
From Heritage Action:
“Americans deserve a Congress that fights for opportunity for all and favoritism to none,” said Michael A. Needham, the chief executive of Heritage Action, a policy arm of the conservative Heritage Foundation. “Too often, Speaker Boehner has stood in the way. Today’s announcement is a sign that the voice of the American people is breaking through in Washington. Now is the time for a principled, conservative leader to emerge. Heritage Action will continue fighting for conservative policy solutions, and we look forward to working with the new leadership team.”
*Items starred derived from comments by Buck Sexton, substitute host for Rush Limbaugh program today.
