Some consider the Nation’s Capital as “Fantasyland on the Potomac”. Other outsiders are “Fed Up” with the Federal City. It's better to consider D.C. as “the District of Calamity” (sic).
A nadir of the Kavanaugh Circus was some Democrat Judiciary Committee members shifting their questioning of Trump Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh from uncorroborated allegations by Christine Blasey Ford to the 1983 Georgetown Prep's Yearbook.
Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) obsessed about entries in Brett Kavanaugh's senior bio, including inquiries about "Renete Alumnius", "boofing" and "the devil's triangle".
The Resistance plan for Democrats in the District of Calamity seems to be the Soros inspired discredit your opponents to dictate the political agenda.
While talk about the impeachment of President Trump has temporarily waned among most elected officials, there is a full court press to besmirch Trump advisers and allies in Washington by implicating them as untrustworthy due to the supposed Russian interference with the 2012 General Election of Mr. Trump. Currently, this is culminating on a call for and independent counsel to investigate the charges which intelligence chiefs have already dismissed.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) took the lead in casting doubt about House Intelligence Select Committee Chairman Devin Nunes (R-CA 22), who went to the White House to brief the Administration there was incidental surveillance of the Trump family and Trump transition staff and American names had been improperly unmasked and leaked. Schumer was upset that Intelligence Chairman Nunes did not go to his Democrat Intelligence Minority Leader Adam Schiff (D-CA 28th) first, thus the accusation that Nunes is in the pocket of President Trump and must step aside.
Speaker John Boehner's press conference announcing his now pending resignation as Speaker at the end of October was a surreal mixture of cheeriness, candor and subterfuge.
Speaker Boehner showed some candor when speaking about stepping down from the Speakership. Mr. Boehner revealed that he intended to do so at the end of the 113th Congress, but events during the summer of 2014 changed plans. What that meant was that Speaker Boehner's hand picked successor to the Speaker's gavel, then Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA 7th) lost a primary challenge to a small college economist professor now Congressman David Brat (R-VA 7th). Seeing the House in turmoil, Speaker Boehner decided to continue on in the big chair.
Yet it strains credulity that Mr. Boeher's decision was spur of the moment. During the parade of cable coverage of Pope Francis' visit to Washington, a political commentator opined that the culmination Mr. Boehner's tenure as Speaker was to greet the Pope in the Capitol so why not just drop the mike afterwards and proclaim "I'm outta' here". Was it prescience or planted pontification by the pundit?
How convenient that the day after the Pope's visit to DC on a dead news day in Washington that Mr. Boehner just decides "I'm gonna' do it." Sure.
Speaker Boehner's remarks on resigning glossed over the real reason why he was vacating his chair. Mainly because he no longer had the votes within the Republican Caucus to retain power if Representative Mark Meadows (R-NC 11th) actually filed the Motion to Vacate the Chair, which is a privileged motion for the full House to vote on leadership. It became crystal clear to Mr. Boehner that he did not have the votes to win by a party line vote.
Republican Establishment politicians in the House loyal to Speaker Boehner, like Representative Devin Nunes (R-CA 22nd) began to attack to the Freedom Caucus as "Pelosi Republicans", which was an odd turn of phrase, as Boehner would have needed to rely upon the graces of Democrat Minority Leader to engineer a victory for Speaker Boehner (by having some members vote for retaining Boehner as Speaker or merely vote present).
One suspects that Mr. Boehner is being coy about his future plans. Maybe he does not want to give out his forwarding address to K Street at the present time. By stepping down instead of being voted out, his name may have more Marquis cache after the one year cooling off period to comply with the 2007 Lobbying Law ends.
Senator Marco Rubio at 2015 Value Voters Summit
Whether or not Speaker Boehner's resignation was planned or was spontaneous, this is no argument how it was received by conservatives. At the Value Voters Summit, which featured a cattle call of Republican Presidential aspirants, the one line which drew the loudest and most sustained applause was when Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) announced from the dais the news that Speaker Boehner was leaving office. The next scheduled speaker at the Values Voters Summit had to cancel, as Congressman Mark Meadows was a little busy after that news.
As the Motion to Vacate the Chair stops being a theoretical idle threat and enters the realm of political possibility, some Speaker Boehner loyalists have begin to lash out.
Congressman Devin Nunes is the youngest Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee. He did not get this coveted position without the aid of leadership. Thus, it explains his harsh words about the Freedom Caucus.
The trouble is that his explanation of the process is mistaken. If Speaker Boehner has trouble securing enough votes to defeat the Motion to Vacate the Chair, Boehner and the Establishment Republicans either need to rely upon the graciousness of House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA 12th previously 8th) in getting some of her Democrat Caucus to support Boehner or vote Present, thus lowing the threshold for victory.
There are indications that Pelosi might be willing to lend her support, but at what price? Could the Republican Caucus countenance a Speaker who retains power only by relying upon support from the other aisle? If it is a down low deal, with some Democrats skipping the vote or voting Present, what concessions will have to be made. Or is it just the pleasure of watching Boehner twist in the wind thus allowing more progressive power during the 114th Congress and beyond?
If Boehner loses re-election, there is no way that Nancy Pelosi or another Democrat garners the 218 votes necessary for ascending to the Speaker's seat. So it is a misnomer to call the Freedom Caucus "Pelosi Republicans".
Governor Jerry Brown (D-CA) has imposed emergency water restrictions on California residents due to the drought, which include up to $500 a day fines on households who take too long of showers. This seems rather draconian on residents, especially since agricultural interests do not suffer similar strictures.
Carly Fiorina, the former CEO of Hewlitt Packard who unsuccessfully ran to represent California in the US Senate in 2012, has not minced words about where to place the blame for the drought-- liberal politics.
Carly Fiorina, who made an unsuccessful bid to represent the California in the US Senate in 2012 and is currently contemplating a run for the Republican Presidential nomination, did not mince words at who to blame-- liberal ideology.
During an interview with Glenn Beck to promote her upcoming book on leadership as well as her inchoate Republican Presidential campaign, spoke knowledgeably about how Golden State liberals prevented building new aqueducts and hydration infrastructure, despite a doubling of the population. Moreover, environmental activitists who championed federal lawsuits to protect the delta smelt which has turned what Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA 22nd) called an agricultural Garden of Eden back into a desert. The dirty truth is that the environmental suits root water rights to California's coastal urban areas while parching inland agricultural California.
Fiorina's fact that the water used in almond production alone represents 70% of California residential use shows how liberals who have run California for the last 30 years have made tragic mistakes on water use and infrastructure decisions.
Climate Change evangelists like Jerry Brown prefer big government solutions which take away individuals freedom to address insolvable issues like assumed anthropogenic global warming. The way that liberals are progressing, they may start articulating Mikail Gorbachev's modest proposal to tackle the "ecological crisis"-- eliminate 90% of the human population.
Some Tea Party types and activists in the conservative base question Carly Fiorina's viability of winning the Republican nomination. Her media hits and recent CPAC appearances have shown that Fiorina is an effective foil to criticizing Hillary Clinton. Fiorina's prowess on providing leadership against liberal environmental excess may be another important element in developing the Republican message in 2016.
