Boehner Sworn In As House Speaker: 'It's Still Just Me'

Could John Boehner be a Great Speaker?
I have long been Bullish on the man who is now Speaker of the House.  Perhaps, it’s that John Boehner and I grew up not far from one another, he in the Working Class Cincinnati suburb of Reading, I in the more affluent enclave Wyoming just west of the Republican leader’s hometown. Cincinnati folk have always struck me as hard-working, decent Americans, largely respectful of their peers and generally treating people from different backgrounds with dignity.  It is no wonder that th...

Underwhelmed by Speaker Boehner
Bill Daley: Is it about competence or ideology? Is Darrell Issa the new Joe McCarthy? Nancy Pelosi spoke of combating Climate Change, ensuring college affordability, expanding access to Health Care, ending the war in Iraq. Newt Gingrich envisioned a Balanced Budget amendment, welfare reform, Tax Cuts, Deregulation, term limits. John Boehner promised... well, not very much. The 112th Congress, he said, will not "kick the can" or "fall short." It will be "the people's House," a place where "we ca...

Brit Hume on Gavel Transfer: Pelosi Could Not Quite Believe that Today was Not About Her Video 1/5/11
Here is video of Brit Hume delivering a commentary last night on the first day of the 112th Congress. He summed it up perfectly when it comes to former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi: “It was perhaps fitting that it took Nancy Pelosi longer to say her peace in surrendering her gavel to John Boehner than it took Boehner to say his. It was as if the nation’s first woman Speaker could not quite believe that today was not about her . . . “ Perfectly said. ...

Speaker Boehner: GOP Will Not Increase Debt Limit Without Spending Cuts
Shouldn't Obama be in 100% agreement with Boehner here? Didn't he promise to reduce the Deficit by going through the Federal Budget line by line and get rid of those programs that do not work? gatewaypundit reported Speaker John Boehner said that Republicans will not agree to increase the Debt Limit without Spending Cuts. Boehner released a statement: Washington (Jan 6) House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) issued the following statement on the Debt limit: “ I’ve been notified that the...

Speaker Boehner Dismisses CBOs Report Health Care Repeal Increases Deficit
ABC News’ John R. Parkinson reports:  Speaker of the House John Boehner dismissed a report by the Congressional Budget Office that found that repealing the Health Care law would increase the federal Deficit and warned that the “best Health Care system in the world is going to go down the drain” if Congress fails to Repeal the law. Earlier Thursday, the Congressional Budget Office released a preliminary analysis that the Repeal of the Health Care Reform law, including reduced spend

Democrats Turned Away From Pelosi in Record Numbers in Ceremonial Vote
The abandonment of Rep. Nancy Pelosi by 19 Democrats in the pro-forma vote for speaker of the House marked a breakdown in party loyalty of historic measure, according to the Washington Post. Not since 1913, when 23 Republicans bolted from the GOP's speaker nominee, has a Party Leader suffered so many defections, Congressional Research Service records show. Of the 19 Democrats who didn't support Pelosi, one voted "present" and the other 18 cast Protest ballots for some other Democratic House memb...

Congress to Tackle Healthcare, Filibuster Rules
On Wednesday, congressional observers were treated to a spectacle which used to be rare—a changeover in power at the House of Representatives. Both the House and the Senate swore in new members, and the new 242-seat Republican majority in the House handily elected Ohio Representative John Boehner to become Speaker of the House. In between raucous cheers and some campaign-style Rhetoric from both sides, now-House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi handed Boehner the gavel and watched him give h...

DCCC chair: Our 2012 agenda will be making Pelosi Speaker again
The reknowned political satirist Tom Lehrer once declared that Henry Kissinger’s Nobel Peace Prize in 1973 made political satire redundant.  After reading about the DCCC’s new strategy to win back the House in 2012, I must admit that for the first time in my life I feel a bit of sympathy with the general sentiment.  Guess who Rep. Steve Israel, the DCCC chair, wants to make as his poster girl for 2012? House Democrats’ goal is to make Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) the Speaker of ...

Boehner: Spending cuts must accompany debt limit
WASHINGTON—House Speaker John Boehner says any increase in the nation's Debt Limit must include steps to cut federal spending. The Ohio Republican says the country cannot default on its Debt, but neither can it continue to borrow recklessly. His statement comes after the Obama Administration notified lawmakers that the government will reach the current Debt Limit of $14.3 Trillion this spring. The Debt Limit sets a ceiling on the government's borrowing authority. Boehner says in his state...

Ms. Magazine Pelosi Cover Takes A Dig At Time And Newsweek (PHOTOS)
Ms. magazine is hitting back at Time and Newsweek for putting John Boehner on their covers after he became the presumptive Speaker of the House in the wake of the 2010 Midterm Elections--and they're doing it by putting someone those magazines never featured on their covers during her four years as Speaker: Nancy Pelosi. The cover line? "The Woman Time and Newsweek Won't Put On Their Covers." PHOTO: Pelosi herself mentioned this discrepancy to the New York Times' Deborah Solomon in a November...

Rep. Jeb Hensarling's nomination of Speaker John Boehner
As chairman of the House Republican Conference -- the No. 4 leadership post -- Dallas Rep. Jeb Hensarling got to nominate Ohio colleague John Boehner as the new Speaker of the House. Hensarling called it an honor. ...

A Day Later, House Swears-in DeFazio
A rather bizarre scene unfolded Thursday morning in the Capitol as the House of Representatives interrupted its live quorum call to swear-in Rep. Peter Defazio, D-Ore. DeFazio was nowhere to be found Wednesday when the House came to order for the 112th Congress. Multiple calls, emails and a visit to his office failed to yield any explanation as to why he was absent. Now that DeFazio has been sworn-in, the House is now at full membership with 435 members. It was an uncommon move when House Speake...

HOH's One-Minute Recess: Hats Off for Wilson
Freshman Rep. Frederica Wilson isn’t completely giving up her Trademark hats, but it appears she’s going to abide by rules prohibiting them on the House floor. Not a Subscriber? To continue reading, sign up for a free trial. House colleagues greet Rep. John Boehner on his way to accept the Speaker’s gavel from Nancy Pelosi on Jan. 5. Featuring more than 80 pages of analysis, this essential issue provides Election Results and detailed profiles of the new Members — giving y...

Men shave heads to spite genetics
Sandy Poirier, the owner of Shag salon, said he started shaving his head five years ago "when no one else was doing it," and he learned there are new obligations that come with the style. "You have to dress well, be more fashionable, or you're going to look like you don't care," Poirier said. "There should be a Moratorium on the word 'bald.' Everything else is politically correct, why not this?" he said. Santa Monica, Calif., Jan. 6 (UPI) -- Actress Jaime Pressly was arrested in Santa Monica, C...

Is Congress Listening to the American People?
Elected representatives are clearly talking more and more these days about listening to the American People. This is particularly true for the new Speaker of the House, John Boehner. As Politico put it in their Wednesday morning edition: “John Boehner will take the Speaker’s gavel with a commitment to restoring the House as an institution focused on listening to the American People.” The Washington Post reported that Boehner told reporters outside his apartment on Wednesday ...

Boehner: Budget office "entitled to their opinion" on health care repeal's deficit impact
House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) on Thursday defended House Republicans' efforts to Repeal the national Health Care law, disputing the accuracy of a preliminary Congressional Budget Office estimate that a Repeal of the law would add $230 billion to the National Debt through 2021. "I do not believe that repealing the job-killing Health Care law will increase the Deficit," Boehner said at a Capitol press conference the day after the GOP formally regained the House majority. "CBO is entitled to ...

Boehner claims he'll hold debt limit hostage
Reuters: U.S. House Speaker John Boehner said on Thursday that any move to increase the United States' $14.3 Trillion Debt Limit must be accompanied by Spending Cuts. "The American People will not stand for such an increase unless it is accompanied by meaningful action by the President and Congress to cut spending and end the job-killing spending binge in Washington," Boehner said in a prepared statement. Boehner is doing his best to pretend that he has a strong hand, but let's not forget, if ...

Congressional Hostages
One of the things new House Speaker John Boehner said he intended to do was to give up some of the power the majority holds in the House, to spread around some of the power he and his party holds. He didn't give out too many details, but the general idea was to make the House a bit less of a pure Democracy, and more of a republic -- majority rule, but recognition of the rights of the minority. Kind of like the Senate, in a sense, where a simple majority isn't enough to do much, but needs a sup...

Constitution reading goes bipartisan
The new Congress kicked off with a reading of the constitution on the floor of the House today, a first in the chamber’s history. Republicans proposed the reading, but it turned into a rare moment of true Bipartisanship on the floor. Continue Reading Text Size - + reset House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) went first, followed by Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.). House Republicans made the reading a requirement as part of the new Congress’ rules. Initially, there were questi...

Conservative leader urges House to follow through on spending
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Influential conservative Dick Armey on Thursday urged the new House to take leadership in reducing the size of government and reining in spending by cutting "obnoxious programs" out of the Budget. Armey, a Republican and Veteran Washington insider who was the House Majority Leader in the late 1990's, has emerged as a force within the Tea Party movement. His FreedomWorks political action group has given direction, know-how, and financial support to many within Congress' rec...

House Republicans Stage a Mighty Expensive Opening Scene
We can get used to a daily dose of hypocrisy from newly minted Speaker of the House John Boehner. Already, House Republicans have spent most of the new year hammering the two themes we can expect to hear constantly over the next two years—Fiscal Responsibility and reverence for the Constitution—while vowing laws that flout both principles. They’ve passed rules saying any spending bill must identify a matching Budget Cut, but have exempted their massively expensive (and purely t...

In House Constitutional Reading, Some Inconsistencies
Updated: 1:35PM ET House Representatives participated this morning in a full reading of the Constitution of the United States, marking the first such occasion in American history -- though the version of the Constitution that was read varied from the original document. (Watch video of the proceedings at left.) Following initial questions regarding which Constitutional document was being read - the amended or original Constitution - Rep. Bob Goodlatte, of Virginia, who is leading the proceedi...

GOP first order of business: strip D.C. residents of a vote
Any illusions of a non-partisan 112th Congress were wiped away yesterday with passage of new House rules. In a 225-188 vote along party lines, House Republicans made sweeping changes to how business will be conducted this year. Of particular interest to Taxpayers of Washington, D.C. should be the loss yesterday of representation in Congress. Being that the District of Columbia is not a state, it has never had a floor vote on the final passage of any Legislation. But like Puerto Rico, and the ter...

Conservative leader urges House to follow through on spending
Armey, a Republican and Veteran Washington insider who was the House Majority Leader in the late 1990's, has emerged as a force within the Tea Party movement. His FreedomWorks political action group has given direction, know-how, and financial support to many within Congress' recent wave of rookie conservative members. "Reduce the size of the government," he urged the new Congress. "It's big. It's obnoxious. It's counterproductive. Being in control of this monster that has been out of control, ...

Boehner Dismisses CBO Despite Previously Touting It, Wont Commit To Protect Consumer Protections
Boehner Dismisses CBO Despite Previously Touting It, Won’t Commit To Protect Consumer Protections This morning, at a press availability at the U.S. Capitol Visitor Center, House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) dismissed the Congressional Budget Office’s (CBO) estimate that repealing the Affordable Care Act would add $230 billion to the Deficit over 10 years and would not commit to pursuing universal coverage that prohibits insurers from discriminating against individuals with pre-exis...