Boehner replaces Pelosi as Speaker

Nineteen Democrats Scorn Pelosi in Speaker Vote, WaPo Buries Story on Page A8
The first vote cast by the 110th Congress on January 4, 2007 was for election of Speaker of the House. Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) won all 233 Democratic votes (including her own). All 202 Republicans voted for Rep. John Boehner (R-Ohio. Two years later Pelosi secured 255 (including her own), and there was only one Democrat, Rep. Luis Gutierrez (N.Y.) who did not vote. Minority Leader Boehner received every Republican vote, save for his own and three other Republicans who didn't vote. By co...

Barack Obama's Clinton makeover cannot hide fatal flaw
The convening of a new Congress is traditionally an occasion when the White House allows the denizens of Capitol Hill their day if not in the sun, then at least on the Cable News channels. That was not the case on Wednesday when John Boehner, the new Speaker of the House, accepted an outsize gavel from Nancy Pelosi, the San Francisco liberal who became the first woman to occupy the post four years ago. Just over a mile away, at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, President Barack Obama was intent on mak...

Sperling to Head National Economic Council
Bloomberg reports: President Barack Obama will name Gene Sperling, a counselor to Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, as head of the National Economic Council, according to a person familiar with the matter. Sperling, 52, is returning to the post he held from 1997 to 2001 under former President Bill Clinton. He replaces Lawrence Summers, who was NEC director for the first two years of Obama’s presidency and left last month to return to Harvard University. Obama is set to announce several ap...

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...

Boehner Dismisses CBOs Health Repeal Cost
Yahoo! Buzz House Speaker John Boehner is dismissing an estimate by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office that repealing President Barack Obama ’s health bill would increase the Deficit by $230 billion over 10 years. “The CBO is entitled to their opinion,” the Ohio Republican told reporters in his first Press Conference as speaker. “CBO can only provide a score based on the assumptions that are given to them,” he added. “If you go back and look at the health c...

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. ...

White House Scribe Calls MSNBCs Olbermann Careless
Sam Youngman , White House Correspondent for The Hill, fired a few rounds at MSNBC “Countdown” Host Keith Olbermann today for being “careless.” Mediate reported today that on Wednesday night’s show Olbermann made an off-the-wall comment that the “professional left” remarks made by White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs were made without ground rules. Youngman was the reporter who wrote that story after an extensive interview with Gibbs. Mediaite called...

Speaker Boehner On Birthers: The State Of Hawaii Has Said President Obama Was Born There. Thats Good Enough For Me
In his first interview since being sworn in as Speaker of the House, John Boehner makes it clear he has no questions about President Obama’s birth, saying “the State of Hawaii has said President Obama was born there. That’s good enough for me.” In the exclusive interview with NBC’s Brian Williams-set to air tonight on NBC Nightly News-Boehner does not say he’ll tell members of Congress to simply put the matter of the president’s birth aside:...

Congress Recites the US Constitution
(NewsCore) - The 112th Congress kicked off its new session Thursday by reading the US Constitution aloud for the first time in history. Newly-minted Speaker of the House John Boehner (R-Ohio) was first behind the podium, followed by Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.). In all, the reading done by a Bipartisan group of 53 members lasted about 90 minutes. Some antiquated parts of the founding document were omitted from the reading, including the provision about counting slaves and Native Ameri...

Congress Recites the US Constitution
(NewsCore) - The 112th Congress kicked off its new session Thursday by reading the US Constitution aloud for the first time in history. Newly-minted Speaker of the House John Boehner (R-Ohio) was first behind the podium, followed by Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.). In all, the reading done by a Bipartisan group of 53 members lasted about 90 minutes. Some antiquated parts of the founding document were omitted from the reading, including the provision about counting slaves and Native Ameri...

One Week In...How Motivated are You NOW?
Hi Everyone! We are almost one week into the New Year, and there are lots of things to be happy about, if you think about them. There are also many ways to be motivated to make this year your best ever! Even if you blew all your resolutions in the first 12 hours of 2011, don't let that bum you out. Never give up! I will post some great video's that will hopefully motivate you for the rest of the year. If these don't work, well, don't get stuck in the cute kitteh's predicament above. If that vide...

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...

What Do You Know? Nancy Pelosi Was A Historic Speaker!
This seems like the perfect punctuation mark to close out the reign of the hands-wodn worst Speaker of the House in our nation’s history. With 19 Democrats withholding support from Nancy Pelosi for House Speaker on Wednesday, it represented the largest defection from a party’s speaker nominee in nearly a century. The resistance in the Democratic Party to back now-former Speaker Pelosi (D-Calif.) in the ceremonial first vote of the 112th Congress registered higher than at any poi...

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 ...

CBO: Health care repeal would increase deficit
House Speaker John Boehner of Ohio, right, accompanied by House Majority Leader Eric Cantor of Va., gestures during a news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington, Thursday, Jan. 6, 2011. Repealing President Barack Obama's landmark Health Care overhaul would add billions to government red ink and leave millions without coverage, Congress' nonpartisan Budget referees said Thursday ahead of a politically charged vote in the House. House Speaker John Boehner brushed off the Congressional Budget O...

Boehners Opening Bid On the Debt Limit
John Boehner’s office released a statement on the Debt ceiling issue: I’ve been notified that the Obama Administration intends to formally request an increase in the Debt Limit. 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. While America cannot default on its debt, we also cannot continue to borrow recklessly, dig ourselves deep...

Dennis Miller revives "Pelosi Galore' for House Speaker's last day Video
"Pelosi Galore", a play on "Pussy Galore" villian  of the James Bond flick,  was revived by conservative comedian, Dennis Miller,  on his Radio Show to  commemorate former Speaker of the House  Nancy Pelosi's much heralded departure. While the roster of good guys and bad guys in Dennis Miller's 'Mansquito' continues to grow, there is one -- announced today -- who is running chills up and down the spines of people of America. Her name? Pelosi Galore . As explained on toda...

Filibuster Fears
Reining in the Filibuster would make it easier for Congressional majorities to enact their proposals—and to enact them in sufficiently coherent form that they have a chance of working as planned and being judged accordingly. As I say in the Comment: if it weren’t for the filibuster, the 111th Congress would have yielded a much better health-care program, including a strong Public Option; a larger and more intelligently structured stimulus; a return to Clinton-era Tax Rates for the ri...

CBO: Healthcare repeal price tag $230B
WASHINGTON, Jan. 6 (UPI) -- Repealing the healthcare law -- sought by U.S. House Republicans -- would increase the federal Deficit by $230 billion, the Congressional Budget Office said. The non-partisan CBO's preliminary analysis of the Republicans' Repealing the Job-Killing Health Care Law Act boosted Democrats' claims that overturning President Obama's signature domestic bill would devastate the deficit, Politico reported. The CBO score on the Affordable Care Act indicated it would decrease th...

At last, (some of) the Constitution is read
The Historic Incantation of the Constitution was delayed for about a half-hour, as various Democrats attempted to get the Republicans to actually read the whole Constitution, which, in the original text, has some iffy stuff about the enslavement and subjugation of various peoples. Republicans said they'd read the whole text "as amended," which means they're leaving out the stuff that amendments later changed. If we're whitewashing the shameful bits out of our founding document, we're not getting...

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...

Daley to Become Next White House Chief of Staff
William M. Daley will become the next White House Chief of Staff, Obama Administration officials said Thursday.  Currently a senior executive with JPMorgan Chase, and formerly the commerce secretary with the Clinton Administration, Mr. Daley is expected to bring an outsider’s voice and decades of business experience to the West Wing. President Obama is expected to make the announcement at 2:30 Thursday afternoon. Pete Rouse, the interim chief of staff and a longtime friend of th

Obama chooses JPMorgan exec. William Daley as new chief of staff
Stumble This! JPMorgan Chase & Co. executive and former commerce secretary William Daley was chosen Thursday to be President Obama's new White House Chief of Staff, according to published reports. Sixty-two year old Daley is brother of outgoing Chicago major Richard Daley and has close ties to former White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel and outgoing White House senior adviser David Axelrod. He will be replacing interim chief of staff Peter Rouse. Rouse stepped in when Obama's first chie...

Gibbs out as White House spokesman
Robert Gibbs, the feisty Press Secretary whose job as President Barack Obama‘s chief spokesman and confidant has given him an outsized presence at the White House, announced Wednesday he was quitting for the less demanding, more lucrative role of giving paid speeches and advising the president from the outside world. In a rapidly unfolding makeover, Obama was also closing in on a decision whether to tap William Daley, a former commerce secretary, for the vital gatekeeping job of White Hous...

What the Bill Daley hire tells us about the White House
The best of the best of state-based political blogs -- as of April 2009. The hiring of former Commerce Secretary William Daley as White House Chief of Staff is a telling indication of where President Obama sees himself and where he wants to go between now and his 2012 re-election race. 1. Liberals, schmiberals : Much was written during the lame-duck session of the 111th Congress about the relationship (or lack thereof) between President Obama and the liberal left. The selection of Daley is furt...