The GOPe slaps back at Mark Meadows
[Editor’s Note: Those of you who had hoped I had been spirited away by black helicopters never to be seen again, or had died in a fiery, explosive car wreck — I’m sorry to disappoint you. I’m back from a long holiday w
eekend in our state’s beautiful mountains. The batteries are recharged and we are ready to deliver some haymakers to some deserving folks. Buckle up. It’s sure to be a heck of a week.]
We’re not big fans of The Politico around here. In fact, we affectionately refer to it in-house as The PoS-tico. I am not going to do them the favor of linking to their site. If you want to see it for yourself, you know where Google is.
The PoS-tico is the official voice of The Washington establishment. Usually, it’s from the Democrat point of view. But, as El Rushbo recently revealed to us, the House Republican leadership has become big fans of leaking to those guys.
Speaking of The Orange Man and his underlings — our very own Mark Meadows has been getting under some very powerful, very orange skin. Boehner and his henchmen tried to remove Meadows from his committee chairmanship, but those pesky House rules got in the way and Meadows was reinstated. Now, Meadows has introduced a resolution calling for the speaker’s chair to be vacated. In other words, he’s calling for Boehner to be FIRED.
Meadows has upped the ante recently by calling for his resolution be dealt with when Congress returns this week. Conveniently, a story has showed up in The PoS-tico with this nasty headline: Meadows cuts check for false mileage reimbursement. 
Really? So, Mark Meadows defrauded the taxpayers? Actually — we read into the story and learned that — somehow — Meadows’s former chief of staff got $400 worth of mileage reimbursements after he left Meadows’s staff. Upon learning of this, Meadows wrote a personal check to reimburse Uncle Sam.
Yep. FOUR HUNDRED BUCKS.
Now, I’ve worked on Capitol Hill and have a little inside knowledge on how this works. First, Meadows himself did not cut the questionable check(s). Congress is a huge bureaucracy just like The Pentagon and HHS and The Department of Agriculture. Payroll and Accounts Payable are computerized, automated and very impersonal. It’s not hard to believe that Meado
ws would not know about a check being cut for his former chief of staff. It’s not like he’s brought a stack of checks to sign at the end of each month.
And, remember, this is the same institution that has run up $18 trillion in debt and ran the infamous “House Bank” debacle. In light of all that, is a $400 payroll screwup worth a nasty, biased hadline and a feature story in a national publication? It is if you are doing a solid for a certain orange man from Ohio — performing the journalistic equivalent of the ol’ horse head in the bed.
What’s more amazing about the Meadows-Boehner dustup is how few of Meadows’s colleagues are ready to jump in and help. Walter Jones is the only North Carolinian to step up. Virginia Foxx and Patrick McHenry — both of whom hold leadership roles — hav
e twisted themselves in knots to defend Boehner and show contempt for Meadows.
(You want to read a great piece on Meadows? Check this one out.)
There is no downside with the voters for opposing Boehner. I am surprised at the cross-section of people I encounter, Tea Partiers to country-clubbers, who speak disdainfully of the orange man. They — rightfully — see him as a co-conspirator in Obama’s destruction of the country.
The only reason any Republican Member of Congress would have for not standing with Meadows is a selfish one. Keeping those prime committee assignments that keep the PAC dollars coming in. In Peter Schweizer’s great book “Extortion,” he talks about Boehner’s prowess at orchestrating pay-for-play arrangements and how the orange man himself jokingly refers to it as a “toll booth.”
Standing with Boehner is not about furthering the interests of conservatism, promoting the party, or protectin
g the country. It’s about keeping your pockets full with illicit cash and keeping the gravy train rolling. Taxpayers be damned.
Making Boehner an issue in GOP primaries next year is smart. (Are you listening, Jim Duncan and Pattie Curran?) Make the incumbents in your races defend
their support for the orange man. Standing with the establishment is not a popular move this year. Don’t believe me? Check out Trump’s numbers.
You know, I saw Mark WALKER at a local meeting about 2 weeks ago, and it appeared to me that he had ALSO taken on that same particular orange hue that Boehner sports. We *KNOW* they are apparently buddies, since Mark Walker had voted for Boehner as speaker TWICE, and is giving every indication that he plans to do it a 3rd time. Do you supposed Boehner has treated him to some fancy spray tans, in exchange for his vote of confidence? LOL
The GOP organizations of at least two NC Congressional districts outside of his own have backed Mark Meadows on his efforts against Boehner:
http://www.redstate.com/diary/helmsconservative/2015/08/21/gop-organizations-nc-support-meadows-effort-remove-boehner/
Hopefully more Republican organizations will speak out about dumping Boehner, who is a horrible drag on the whole GOP ticket.
“The only reason any Republican Member of Congress would have for not standing with Meadows is a selfish one. Keeping those prime committee assignments that keep the PAC dollars coming in.”
Uh huh. Which is precisely why George Holding is not going to listen to the will of his district’s Republicans and jeopardize that sweet Ways and Means Committee seat.
Sad Commentary on the Political World here in NC and Nationwide. Legislators like Sen.Ted Cruz chose rhetoric that supports the ugliness in DC…. #WashintonCartel Are you reading this Rep. George Holding? Precinct 12-07 preparing for next years election is watching.
Are you criticizing Senator Cruz’ speech where he called out Mitch McConnell for lying to the GOP Senate caucus over the Im-Ex Bank at the same time the sleazebag McConnell was doing a secret deal the other way with the Democrats? I think Senator Cruz hit that one out of the ballpark. McConnell is at least as bad as Boehner.
Cruz’s speech spoke the truth and remember people theese days to not like to be confronted with the truth. Almost every problem with the republican party he addressed in that speech as a republican trying to fix this country and this party
Well said, Patrick!
Uh, what made you think that? I support Cruz rhetoric! He is the only Conservative that stands strong against the DC Cartel!
“Legislators like Sen.Ted Cruz chose rhetoric that supports the ugliness in DC…. #WashintonCartel”
I think the sarcasm in this was lost a little in your post and i think he was just trying to clarify things like you did about
And I will stand with you in support of cruz rhetoric otherwise known as the truth
Got that right, ToxHandler!
Tim Brown March 5, 2015
Why is John Boehner Still in Office in Violation of the Ohio State Constitution?
We all know that Speaker of the House John Boehner (R-OH) is a compromised man and that he has been an accomplice to much of the corruption that we see going on today in Washington under Barack Obama. However, something that seems to have eluded the people of Ohio is that John Boehner is in Congress illegally, at least according to the Ohio Constitution.
First, understand that Boehner has been in the federal Congress since 1991, after serving as an Ohio State Representative.
Consider that Boehner has been serving since 1991 and that according to the US Constitution, each representative’s term is two years before needing to be re-elected, Boehner has served over two decades and a dozen terms consecutively in office.
So, is there anything illegal about Boehner occupying the office of a federal representative that long? Yes, there is.
According to the Ohio State Constitution, Article V, Section 8:
Term limits for U.S. senators and representatives
§8 No person shall hold the office of United States Senator from Ohio for a period longer that two successive terms of six years. No person shall hold the office of United States Representative from Ohio for a period longer than four successive terms of two years. Terms shall be considered successive unless separated by a period of four or more years. Only terms beginning on or after January 1, 1993 shall be considered in determining an individual’s eligibility to hold office.
So what’s the problem? As usual, the federal courts stepped in and overstepped their bounds. In 1995, the Supreme Court ruled in U.S. Term Limits, Inc. v. Thornton to uphold an Arkansas Supreme Court’s decision that struck down Arkansas’ term limit provisions of federal representatives. The vote was 5-4.
In what had to be one of the most un-American and tyrannical portions of the majority opinion, Justice John Paul Stevens wrote, “The right to choose representatives belongs not to the states, but to the people.” He then added that members of Congress “owe their allegiance to the people, and not to the states.”
Do you see that? The people are not considered the people of the states. This is so backwards it isn’t even funny.
Justice Clarence Thomas understood properly and rebutted the majority position writing, “The Federal Government’s powers are limited and enumerated… the ultimate source of the Constitution’s authority is the consent of the people of each individual state, not the consent of the undifferentiated people of the nation as a whole.”
Furthermore, not one phrase of the US Constitution says anything about term limits, except with respect to the President, which is contained in the Twenty-second Amendment. The term lengths of senators is defined in Article 1, Section 3, Clause 1 (six years) and the term lengths are outlined for representatives in Article 1, Section 2, Clause 1 (two years).
Nothing in the US Constitution provides for term limits. Therefore, according to the Tenth Amendment, “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”
The question I would have asked Justice Stevens is what “people” are referenced in the Tenth Amendment? Is it not the people of the various states?
There is no authority granted to the federal government in the Constitution that allows for a ruling such as the Supreme Courts. Therefore, the 23 states that made provisions in their state constitutions should ignore the ruling and uphold their state constitutions.
Understand that the Supreme Court’s ruling was what was unconstitutional, not the provisions of 23 states that sought to impose term limits on federal senators and representatives.
Like the Supreme Court’s ruling on anti-sodomy laws, the states should have ignored the ruling as rulings are not law and no authority was given to the federal government to rule in such a manner. After all, if there is no authority to write law on such matters, then there is no authority to rule on it.
Both the Ohio Secretary of State’s office and the Ohio Attorney General’s office cited the federal court’s ruling, instead of properly understanding the Tenth Amendment when Freedom Outpost contacted them.
The anti-commandeering doctrine, resting on four Supreme Court Cases dating back to as early as 1842, should be considered in this matter.
Printz v. US is the cornerstone in this doctrine. The ruling states in part:
“We held in New York that Congress cannot compel the States to enact or enforce a federal regulatory program. Today we hold that Congress cannot circumvent that prohibition by conscripting the States’ officers directly. The Federal Government may neither issue directives requiring the States to address particular problems, nor command the States’ officers, or those of their political subdivisions, to administer or enforce a federal regulatory program…such commands are fundamentally incompatible with our constitutional system of dual sovereignty.”
The Tenth Amendment Center has also points out this little nugget:
Finally, the Court ruled that the federal government cannot force the states to act against their will by withholding funds in a coercive manner. In Independent Business v. Sebelius (2012), the Court held that the federal government cannot compel states to expand Medicaid by threatening to withhold funding for Medicaid programs already in place. Justice Robert Kennedy argued that allowing Congress to essentially punish states that refused to go along violates constitutional separation of powers.
The legitimacy of Congress’s exercise of the spending power “thus rests on whether the State voluntarily and knowingly accepts the terms of the ‘contract.’ ” Pennhurst, supra, at 17. Respecting this limitation is critical to ensuring that Spending Clause legislation does not undermine the status of the States as independent sovereigns in our federal system. That system “rests on what might at first seem a counterintuitive insight, that ‘freedom is enhanced by the creation of two governments, not one.’ ” Bond, 564 U. S., at ___ (slip op., at 8) (quoting Alden v. Maine, 527 U. S. 706, 758 (1999) ). For this reason, “the Constitution has never been understood to confer upon Congress the ability to require the States to govern according to Congress’ instructions.” New York, supra, at 162. Otherwise the two-government system established by the Framers would give way to a system that vests power in one central government, and individual liberty would suffer.
So, if you are wondering why you have corrupt politicians like John Boehner in the federal government, you can look to state leaders who will not stand up for States’ rights and the rights of the people for that. Though outwardly they may have penned particular provisions, when it came time to call the federal court’s usurpation of power they caved, but at least in Ohio, it’s still on the books. Therefore, it should be challenged and enforced.
As a last minute note, a MoveOn.org petition began circulating for the purpose of prosecuting Speaker of the House John A. Boehner for willfully breaking a federal law when he knowingly violated the 216 year-old Logan Act. The petition demands that Boehner, “by law must now be tried by Congress, and forced to resign.” However, according to 18 U.S.C. § 953 (Logan Act), by violating the “Logan Act” (Private correspondence with foreign governments) Boehner can be punished “under federal law with imprisonment of up to three years. Any act of prosecuting and convicting the Speaker must be initiated by a Justice Department United States Attorney; at best Congress can conduct its own investigation for ethics violations and expel Boehner, or he can resign.
Why not go the lawful route and enforce the Ohio constitution? I suppose that would require actually doing something rather than typing in your name to a website.
Every attempt to contact each of John Boehner’s offices for comment were met with voice recordings of being put on hold for over half an hour with no live person answering the phones.
Sidney Blumenthal, Consigliere for the Clinton Crime Family and a brilliant political operative, has stated in one of the emails found on Hillary’s server that Boehner would be easily manipulated by Hillary and he is a drunkard with no principles.
I wish every GOP congressional district would hold an up or down vote to support Mark Meadows resolution to oust Boehner. County chairpersons, will you propose a resolution with your district GOP chair?
This is a key issue for many US house members. Incumbents are pushing very hard to join the primary dates which would vastly favor the incumbents. RINO’s in Washington are very scared… and should be.
I am astounded that anyone who considers themselves to be an “at heart American” would be opposed to relieving Boehner of his speakership. He is a PROVEN O enabler. A golf buddy of O. With the way he has led the House he might as well be O.
Hummmmmm? Must not be as many “at heart Americans” as I thought there would be.here in NC
Certainly not as many as there needs to be if we are to survive the onslaught of BIG GUV and career politicians..
we
expect our country to survive BIG GOV’T
God bless Mark Meadows. I wish I was in his North Carolina district!
He (and Louie Gohmert) are two of the few house members with spines. I agree, “Ole’ Drunken John” needs to go!