I started the day off thinking it was Saturday. On occasion, retirees like myself have difficulty remembering what day it is. Why? Because more often than not, one day seems more like another. That is one reason why I’ve tried to maintain the same habits I had when I was working. I’m usually successful. Today, I was not.
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John Boehner – D-OH
Next week on January 6, 2015, the House will vote for the Speaker of the House publicly on the House floor. John Boehner and Nancy Pelosi are running. Conventional thought says Boehner is a shoo-in.
Perhaps, not.
The rushed passage of the CRomnibus funding bill upset…no, that is too mild a word, enraged GOP voters from one end of the country to another. It was viewed as a betrayal by Boehner and the GOP establishment leadership by preventing the GOP from using the power of the purse to control Obama, amnesty, et. a., and it was!
Next week, the House will choose a new Speaker. The winner will have to acquire a majority, not a plurality, of the votes. There are 435 members in the US House of Representatives. That means, if all vote, the winner for Speaker must have 218 votes to be Speaker. If any Representative refuses to vote or votes, “present!”, the number of votes needed to win decreases.
Remember, it is not the candidate who gets the most votes that wins the Speakership, it is the one who receives the majority of the votes cast. There is a difference, a big difference in those two words: majority vs. plurality.
Eric Erickson is the guest host for Rush Limbaugh today. He reminded us that all it takes to remove Boehner as Speaker is for 29 ‘Pubs to vote for someone else—not Pelosi, not to not vote, just vote for ANY other ‘Pub and Boehner loses. They don’t even have to vote for the same ‘Pub, each could vote for a different Representative and if Boehner doesn’t get the majority of the votes cast, he’s out.
By various counts, the rebels need only four to six ‘Pub votes to block Boehner next week. Many other think they have a real chance of doing just that.
The Last Resort: Replace John Boehner
By Lester Jackson, January 2, 2015
Crominbus was the last straw. Conservatives are now absolutely livid at the RINO Establishment. Rarely, if ever, has such an unmistakable voter mandate been so brazenly nullified before the newly elected could even take office. Calls escalate to “end” the Republican Party because conservatives cannot change it. By contrast, Rush Limbaugh, while lamenting that “the losers in the last election [got] pretty much everything they want[ed],” nevertheless rejects the third party call: “taking over the Republican Party is better.”
Sarah Palin protests that what House Speaker John Boehner and 162 Republican “yahoos” did “stinks to high heaven,” for which Rep. Gohmert expects Boehner to be rewarded with Democrat votes for speaker. Palin declares open season on RINOs, including replacing Boehner. Conservatives find it especially galling — and intolerable — to have a Speaker who (a) shows utter contempt for the representatives whose election resulted in his ascension to power; and (b) does everything he can to subvert the wishes, interests and values of these representatives and their constituents.
It could take years replace or seize control of the Republican Party, by which time everything this country has stood for could be destroyed. However, there is a clearly viable short term strategy. Oust Boehner from the speakership — now!
If the 2014 and 2010 elections are to have any meaning at all, if all the work and promises made to elect Republican majorities in both houses of Congress are not to be completely nullified, replacing Boehner must be considered the top priority. (Although Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell deserves recognition for his zealous defense of freedom of speech, he too should be replaced because he is a RINO stooge, as Andrew McCarthy makes plain. However, due to different House and Senate procedures, what follows is confined to Boehner.)
HE SHOULD be replaced… Period.
And Mitch McConnell, too.