John Boehner: Naked and Gelded

Bob Schieffer is the most astute interviewer in television news today. He's been around a long time. His show, "Face the Nation" is punctuated by his wisdom, experience and keen observations gleaned during fifty years in the business of reporting. This is our Speaker of the House, John Boehner. He's being interviewed by Bob Schieffer and he doesn't want to commit to any plans or ideas that involve immigration, the economy etc. He claims not to know of the President's agenda. He just wants to repeal the Affordable Health Care Act aka "Obamacare". Who's in charge here? Certainly not John Boehner. Boehner's pedantic and dismissive remarks, unwillingness to answer specific questions, annoyance with Schieffer's dogged persistence, are the stuff of an eye opening interview. The interview lasts 16 minutes, the first 7 are must see tee vee.




Aside from Boehner's insufferable attitude, what is most obvious here is his reluctance to commit to any plan of action resulting from his fear of retaining the position of Speaker of the House. He kowtows to the extreme elements in the GOP. He is a man being pulled in many directions by many demanding factions, including the President. He is resentful, he is ineffective, he is, in effect, a gelding.



As always, Schieffer puts things in perspective by reminding us, once upon a time, the country was working to accomplish great things. http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-3460_162-57594758/face-the-nation-transcripts-july-21-2013-boehner-and-snyder/

Your Tax Dollars at Work

Boardwalk 2.2
by Cole Scott


















It's no wonder I read the news at the end of rather than the beginning of my day. A few tidbits picked up while perusing the online news this evening got me fired up. 

The endless meetings and evenings devoted to arbitrating duels between big businesses destroy time and energy that could otherwise be spent on higher priorities. In America today, over 13 million people are out of work and millions more are underemployed. One out of every seven is living on food stamps. One out of every five American children lives in poverty. Yet the most consuming issue in Washington -- according to members of Congress, Hill staffers, lobbyists and Treasury officials -- is determining how to slice up the $16 billion debit-card swipe fee pie for corporations.  Huffington Post  4/28/11

Meanwhile,  the President had to call a press conference on this pressing issue.

President Obama released his long-form birth certificate on Wednesday, a step that injected him directly into the simmering “birther” controversy in the hope of finally ending it, or even turning it to his advantage. . .

. . .Mr. Obama’s complaint that the controversy threatened to distract politicians from the country’s big problems produced a hall-of-mirrors-like reverberation from his Republican adversaries, some of whom had raised doubts about his birthplace but now accused the president of releasing the documents to distract from the country’s big problems.   NY Times 4/27/11



Bob Schieffer had his usual razor sharp assessment of the Donald's boorish, bombastic insinuations that President Obama is not a U.S. citizen.  Why can't we have more news men and women like this?

And, finally, Mitch & Harry are facing off in both Houses of Congress once more but nobody wants to blink first..

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) announced on Thursday that Republicans will force a vote on the budget that President Barack Obama submitted to Congress in February

.

Designed to put Democrats in a tough spot, the move is retaliatory in nature. On Wednesday, Senator Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) announced that he would be staging a vote on Rep. Paul Ryan’s (R-Wis.) budget proposal -- despite a near certain expectation that it would fail to pass the chamber.

A spokesman for McConnell told The Huffington Post that the vote on Obama’s budget -- which includes across board cuts to government programs that would reduce the deficit by an estimated $1.1 trillion -- would come on the same day Reid schedules his vote.

McConnell plans to mimic whatever legislative maneuver Reid uses to bring the Ryan budget to the floor. For example, if the majority leader offers the GOP plan via an amendment to another piece of legislation, the minority leader will do the same with Obama’s budget. If Ryan's budget is offered as a “Sense of the Senate,” the same pattern will transpire with the White House plan. Huffington Post  4/28/11

And our representatives still get paid if they don't pass a budget; they're completely accessible to lobbyists with deep pockets; there is no bipartisanship that I can see and the average person, the middle class, are left to fend for ourselves. 

Awesome.

Health Care Reform Passes House

I am psyched to learn, this morning, the health care reform bill passed the House of Representatives last night and a lone Republican voted for it.

David Brooks on Meet the Press just reminded the panel he's on,  "Once this becomes law it will become sacred" with the voters.   At this very moment, Bob Schieffer, on Face the Nation, is interviewing Sen. Lindsey Graham who advises him that, among others, Sen. Joe Lieberman will filibuster the bill in the Senate.
We still have a long way to go before this is made law but my belief is it will continue to morph.  The NY Times has a comprehensive first take on the voting results.



I hope everyone remembers Joe Lieberman is a senator from the state with the greatest concentration of insurance companies, Connecticut.

No conflict of interest there.