Why John Boehner Is Resigning

/28 Comments/in , /by

By Manu Raju and Deirdre Walsh. House Speaker John Boehner on Friday seized control of an ending that was beginning to feel inevitable.

Boehner had wanted to end his run last year, but was concerned about destabilizing the House Republican caucus. He was ready to announce his resignation on his birthday this November. But Friday, one day after the emotional, historic visit by Pope Francis to Capitol Hill, Boehner found his moment.

“I decided today is the day I’m going to do this, simple as that,” Boehner said at a Capitol Hill press conference, saying his decision came after a night of sleep and prayers.

The decision marked a tumultuous end to Boehner’s nearly six-year tenure leading the fractured Republican caucus, a time marked by repeated fiscal clashes with the White House, failed deal-makings with President Barack Obama and Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid, but also a rare bipartisan accord on trade and the historic papal visit.

Boehner was elevated to the speakership thanks to the power of tea party candidates in 2010 and then limited by what he could accomplish because of them. The conservative bloc of lawmakers consistently pressed Boehner to take a harder line with Obama and Democrats, a strategy Boehner, a consummate dealmaker, did not always embrace. (Read more from “Why John Boehner Is Resigning” HERE)

_______________________________________

John Boehner Will Resign From Congress

By Jennifer Steinhauer. Speaker John A. Boehner, an Ohio barkeeper’s son who rode a conservative wave to one of the highest positions in government, said Friday he would relinquish his gavel and resign from Congress, undone by the very Republicans who swept him into power.

Mr. Boehner, 65, made the announcement in an emotional meeting with his fellow Republicans on Friday morning as lawmakers struggled to avert a government shutdown next week, a possibility made less likely by his decision.

Mr. Boehner told almost no one of his decision before making it Friday morning. “So before I went to sleep last night, I told my wife, I said, ‘You know, I might just make an announcement tomorrow,’ ” Mr. Boehner said at a news conference in the Capitol. “This morning I woke up, said my prayers, as I always do, and thought, ‘This is the day I am going to do this.’ ”

His downfall again highlighted the sinewy power of a Republican Party faction whose anthem is often to oppose government action. It also made vivid the increasingly precarious nature of a job in which the will and proclivities of a politically divisive body must be managed. No House speaker since Thomas P. O’Neill Jr., who held the gavel from 1977 to 1986, has left the job willingly.

For Mr. Boehner, who has been pressured throughout his tenure to push for deeper spending cuts and more aggressive policy changes than were possible with President Obama in the White House, seemed both exhausted by the fight and yet at peace with his final move: to leave rather than face a potentially humiliating fight within his party. (Read more from this story HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

Would Carly Fiorina Still Support a Muslim President After Seeing This Poll?

/13 Comments/in , /by

Ben Carson’s comment that he would not support a Shariah-compliant Muslim for president because Islamic law is incompatible with the U.S. Constitution led to the former brain surgeon’s roasting among media talkers and politicians of all stripes . . .

“For any candidate to suggest that someone should not be elected president because of what he or she may believe is nothing short of religious bigotry,” said Rep. Andre Carson, D-Ind., one of two Muslim congressmen.

But what do American Muslims believe?

The Council on America-Islamic Relations, or CAIR, which has been most vocal in its calls for Carson’s withdrawal from the GOP presidential race, claims to speak for American Muslims. The organization has a long history of ties to terrorists, as documented by WND’s “Rogues gallery of terror-tied leaders,” but it is still treated by most U.S. media as the Muslim equivalent of the American Civil Liberties Union . . .

A poll commissioned in May 2015 by the Center for Security Policy showed that 51 percent of American Muslims preferred that they should have their own Shariah courts outside of the legal system ruled by the U.S. Constitution. And nearly a quarter believed the use of violent jihad was justified in establishing Shariah. (Read more from “Would Carly Fiorina Still Support a Muslim President After Seeing This Poll?” HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

Largest State Republican Party in US Endorses Amnesty, Self-Destruction

/14 Comments/in , /by

On Sunday, the Republican Party of California voted to make themselves irrelevant by opposing the rule of law and changing their party platform on illegal immigration. Fortunately for them, their decision will not make much of a difference because they were already eternally irrelevant and hopelessly disenfranchised precisely because the very policies they espoused this past weekend have already been implemented.

The GOP of California is deader than dead.

According to the Orange County Register, the GOP’s revision to the platform went beyond dropping their opposition to amnesty. It is now considered controversial to promote the deportation of violent criminal aliens:

Meeting during their semiannual convention, state Republicans voted on a new immigration stance that states the party is “pro-immigrant” and wants to fix a system that “does not work for California or America.” Under its new platform, the state GOP supports worker visa programs but is against providing amnesty. Gone is language about “illegal aliens” or cross-deputizing state and county law enforcement to help immediately deport those who have committed crimes.

What these “Republicans” will never understand is that they can never out-maneuver the Democrats on immigrant-pandering and opposition to Americanization. The voters will always choose the real thing rather than the mealy-mouthed diffidence of pretenders.

More importantly, they can nominate the most pro illegal immigration candidates to statewide offices and it won’t make a difference. The state of California has been remade past the point of cultural return. Rather than fostering a melting pot that helps immigrants assimilate into the existing values of the state, there has been so much legal and illegal immigration to the state over such a short period of time, no Republican candidate – fiscal or social conservative – can ever win, irrespective of his views on immigration.

Just ask Carly Fiorina who ran on support for amnesty and birthright citizenship, yet got crushed in a good national year for Republicans, despite spending $22 million on her campaign. In fact, almost every Republican politician in the state has run on an open border platform for quite some time – long before the platform change – and has failed to move the impermeable needle one inch.

As early as 1993, even Harry Reid was warning that 67% of all babies born in LA hospitals where children of illegal aliens. The problem has only grown and compounded for 22 years. A whopping 27% of California is foreign born and 38.6% of the state’s population – a plurality – is Latino. They are expected to become an absolute majority between 2050-2060. According to the 2010 Census, 23 of the 58 counties in the state are 30% or more Hispanic. California Governor Jerry Brown claims that 30% of schoolchildren in his state are either “undocumented or don’t speak English.”

Take Orange County, for example. Orange County was once the breadbasket of GOP politics in the state and was a big part of the GOP’s dominance during the Nixon and Reagan eras. Thirty percent of the county’s population is now foreign born and 45.5% of resident speak a foreign language at home.

Toss in the illegal policies of automatic birthright citizenship and counting illegals in the reapportionment process, and there is no way Republicans will ever win that state again. This analysis doesn’t even begin to digest the enormity of the social programs that are now available to legal and illegal aliens in the state. As recent as 1988, Republicans were still able to carry the state in a presidential year. Now, Republicans believe that a “me too” approach to the very policies that created a permanent Democrat majority will somehow revive their electoral viability.

It doesn’t take a world-renowned political scientist to understand that such unprecedented societal transformation (without representation) – beyond anything our nation has ever seen – will produce a permanent majority of those who don’t assimilate into free market constitutional values, but permanently alter those values. With 44% of the state’s residents speaking a language other than English at home, including 54.3% of the Los Angeles metropolitan area, Republicans could put out as many campaign ads in foreign languages as they want but it will fail to move the needle. They have already lost.

There’s a melting pot; there’s a salad bowl, then there’s California.

Will national Republicans learn the lesson?

Americans have always been open and welcoming to those who assimilate into our culture and support our constitutional values. But numbers, origin, and time span all matter in immigration policy. We can bring in all sorts of people, but numbers and time matter. The citizenry should have more input in the future of our immigration policy.

It’s time for the GOP platform to reflect one simple principle: no societal transformation without representation. Or, if you will, the elite politicians who often live in the ivory towers unaffected by the deleterious effects of illegal immigration on schools, hospitals, and public safety, ought to follow the Golden Rule. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Or at least let them have a say in the matter. (For more from the author of “Largest State Republican Party in US Endorses Amnesty, Self-Destruction” please click HERE)

Watch a recent interview from the author below:

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

Seven Ways Pope Francis Slapped Conservatives in the United States

/3 Comments/in , , /by

Allowing President Obama to Represent Himself as An Advocate of Religious Liberty. On Wednesday, while speaking at the White House, President Obama said, “Here in the United States, we cherish religious liberty….[The United States] stand[s] with you in defense of religious freedom and interfaith dialogue, knowing that people everywhere must be able to live out their faith free from fear and intimidation.” Meanwhile, President Obama’s IRS cracks down on religious charities and his Obamacare regime targets religious institutions; his administration looks into persecuting religious Americans for failing to participate in same-sex weddings. A well-timed comment from the Pope could have been useful here. Instead, he stood by and said nothing. Instead, he went to visit the Little Sisters of the Poor – and the media ignored it. The Pope knows full well when the cameras are on him. They were on him with Obama. They weren’t during his side jaunt to visit those victimized by the President.

Ripping Capitalism Before Congress. Speaking before Congress, the Pope spent an inordinate amount of time lecturing legislators on the need to redistribute wealth in the name of the poor. He praised Dorothy Day, a Catholic organizer who once wrote, “We need to overthrow, not the government, as the authorities are always accusing the Communists ‘of conspiring to teach [us] to do,’ but this rotten, decadent, putrid industrial capitalist system which breeds such suffering in the whited sepulcher of New York.” Senator Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT)16% (Socialist-VT) was ecstatic. . .

Pushing Environmental Extremism. The Pope spent a significant amount of time before Congress talking about climate change and encouraging Congress to restrict American economic growth to fight that chimera. But at the United Nations, he really let loose, suggesting that the environment has “rights” – an argument unfamiliar to many readers of the Bible. People may have obligations toward the environment, but the environment has no freestanding “rights” from humanity; God does not weep when a tree is used for lumber to house a poor family. This logic leads to the Malthusian anti-humanism of the deep green left. . .

Ignoring Abortion, Talking Death Penalty. The Pope said nothing about abortion before President Obama. Then, while speaking before Democrats in Congress who support federal funding for abortion machine Planned Parenthood, he said that all human life must be treated with respect – and proceeded to glide right over the abortion issue entirely, settling on the death penalty instead. As I noted yesterday, 35 murderers were executed in 2014 in the United States. One million unborn children were killed. Some say the Pope didn’t have to get explicit about abortion. Just why in the hell wouldn’t he? He did mention the unborn at the United Nations with one word. Should we celebrate such courage?

At 10:10 in the below video, John Zmirak talks about the Pope:

Ignoring Same-Sex Marriage. The Pope encouraged marriage in his speech before Congress, and talked vaguely of the value of family. He complained of threats to the family. But he said nothing about what those threats were – with the very Supreme Court that declared itself above God in terms of defining marriage sitting in front of him.

(Read more from “Seven Ways Pope Francis Slapped Conservatives in the United States” HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

State Dept. Receives Clinton Email Chain Apparently Not Included in Pages Turned Over

/3 Comments/in , /by

The State Department has received an email chain between former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Gen. David Petraeus that apparently was not included in the collection she said was a full record of her work-related correspondence.

In addition, the State Department said it provided more than 900 Libya-related emails to the House Select Committee on Benghazi Friday. The Department has had those emails since December.

The Clinton-Petraeus messages, according to the Department, were exchanged in January and February of 2009 and included a discussion about personnel . . .

Officials said the emails in no way dealt with classified material. But their existence challenges Clinton’s claim that she has handed over the entirety of her work emails from the account.

“In the last several days, the State Department received from the Department of Defense and the State Inspector General several copies of one email chain between former Secretary Clinton and then Commander of US Central Command David Petraeus which were not previously in the possession of the Department,” said State Department spokesman John Kirby. (Read more from “State Dept. Receives Clinton Email Chain Apparently Not Included in Pages Turned Over” HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

With the Perverts in DC, Is It Any Wonder That THIS is How the Media Describes Child Rape Now?!

/3 Comments/in , /by

This week, Joe Miller discussed the horrors of known pedophiles and child rapists being protected within US military bases in Afghanistan. He suggested that, “When you put perverts in office, you end up with problems like this.” Listen to that short clip here:

The Editor-in-Chief for former Representative Allen West’s website, Michele Hickford, is similarly outraged. She wrote a column about a headline and story from the Daily Caller that should anger all red-blooded Americans:

I was shocked and appalled to see the headline the Daily Caller had chosen for this story: Army Rejects Appeal Of Green Beret Discharged For Confronting Afghan Boy.

Excuse me if I am shouting, but BOY LOVER? ARE YOU FRIGGING SERIOUS? A child rapist is now called a “boy lover?” How is this in any way acceptable?

You may have heard about an organization called “NAMBLA” which stands for the North American Man Boy Love Association. NAMBLA seeks to “normalize” (as it says on the website) “the love of a man for a boy, and of a boy for a man. Enjoyable, consensual, beautiful”. . .

Does the media, the mainstream media now also agree with their aims? Is it no longer politically correct to call a child rapist a rapist, but now a “boy lover?”

I am absolutely beside myself on this one, folks. As a society we now accept all kinds of sexual behavior, gender and even racial identity as normal. It’s all just fine. Even though it may represent a tiny, tiny percentage of the population, any sort of behavior must be accommodated, celebrated, represented — heck even TAUGHT in public schools.

But BOY LOVER to describe a rapist?

Where will this end? At some point, in our civil society, we must say NO MORE.

Yes, folks, its time to put an end to the craziness. What will you do?

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

California Lake Mysteriously Runs Dry Overnight Leaving Residents Looking for Answers

/3 Comments/in , /by

A Northern California reservoir ran dry overnight, killing thousands of fish and leaving residents looking for answers.

While a $3.5 million drought safety net at Folsom Lake finishes, a lake in another part of the state is left high and dry.

Thousands of fish lay dead in what used to be Mountain Meadows reservoir also known as Walker Lake, a popular fishing hole just west of Susanville . . .

Residents say people were fishing on the lake last Saturday, but it drained like a bathtub overnight. Bauer has lived near this lake his entire life. This is the first time he’s ever seen it run dry. He and other residents want answers . . .

At Folsom Lake, workers are finishing work on floating barges that would pump water to the city of Folsom and the prison if the lake gets too low for the water to flow through an intake valve. An insurance policy that may be put into use soon. (Read more from “California Lake Mysteriously Runs Dry Overnight Leaving Residents Looking for Answers” HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

Unstable Boehner Bawls During Pope’s Speech to Congress

/22 Comments/in , /by

Boehner Bawls, Pope Ignores Abortion, Homosexual Marriage

In yet another emotional outburst that some believe denotes instability, Speaker of the House Boehner began crying during the Pope’s speech to Congress yesterday. Regrettably, RINO Boehner apparently wasn’t crying over the fact that the Pope utterly ignored the failure of the Congress to defund the barbaric Planned Parenthood, or made no comment about the atrocious homosexual marriage decision by the Supreme Court.

Incidentally, the Pope spent much of his moral capital criticizing the United States for the death penalty and the few hundred justifiable executions that have occurred, ignoring the fact the we’ve killed 60 million of our own by abortion since 1973.
_____________________________________________________

Listen to Dr. John Zmirak’s Analysis of the Pope’s Visit below. The discussion regarding the Pope begins at 10:10.


_____________________________________________________
Pope Francis Urges Congress to Act

By Paul Singer. In the first-ever papal address to a joint meeting of Congress, Pope Francis called on Americans Thursday to embrace immigrants from Latin America and around the world.

“Our world is facing a refugee crisis of a magnitude not seen since the second World War,” the pope said, including “thousands of persons (who) are led to travel north in search of a better life.

“We must not be taken aback by their numbers, but rather view them as persons, seeing their faces and listening to their stories, trying to respond as best we can to their situation,” Francis said in a 45-minute speech. “To respond in a way which is always humane, just and fraternal. We need to avoid a common temptation nowadays: to discard whatever proves troublesome.”

Speaking slowly in English before a packed House chamber including the assembled members of Congress and hundreds of dignitaries and reporters, the Argentine pope said, “We, the people of this continent, are not fearful of foreigners, because most of us once were foreigners.”

The pope’s immigration plea comes in the middle of a fierce debate in American politics about illegal immigration, fueled in part by Donald Trump’s strong campaign for the Republican presidential nomination. Trump launched his campaign with a tirade against Mexico for sending “rapists” across the border and has promised that if elected he will build an impenetrable fence across the U.S./Mexican border. (Read more from “Pope Francis Is Urging Action to These Issues in Trip to U.S.” HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

Most Agree With Trump on This American Issue, Poll Finds

/4 Comments/in , /by

By John McCormick. Americans are “fed up” with politics, suspect the wealthy are getting an unfair edge, and think the country is going in the wrong direction, according to a new Bloomberg Politics poll that lays bare the depth and breadth of the discontents propelling outsider candidates in the Republican presidential field.

The survey shows that 72 percent of Americans think their country isn’t as great as it once was—a central theme of front-runner Donald Trump’s campaign. More than a third prefer a presidential candidate without experience in public office.

Three of the four candidates leading the Republican field fit that description: Trump, the first choice of 21 percent of registered Republicans and voters who say they lean that way, followed by neurosurgeon Ben Carson with 16 percent, former Florida Governor Jeb Bush with 13 percent, and former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina with 11 percent.

Fiorina and Carson have seen the strongest gains among Republicans since the survey was taken a month ago. In the interim, voters have had their first extended looks at the candidates in two nationally televised debates. Fiorina’s numbers, at 1 percent in the August poll, leaped by 10 percentage points while Carson jumped 11 percentage points, up from 5 percent. Trump’s numbers have remained unchanged. Together, the three candidates who have never held political office account for 48 percent of the Republican vote.

“At some level, it is a risk to elect a person with no experience in government,” said J. Ann Selzer, president of West Des Moines-based Selzer & Co., which conducted the poll. “Republicans, especially, seem ready to take that risk.” (Read more from “Most Agree With Trump on This American Issue, Poll Finds” HERE)

_______________________________________

Was The Second Debate The Beginning Of The End For Donald Trump?

By Harry Enten. The “narrative” coming out of CNN’s Republican debate last week has been that Carly Fiorina notched another victory, in part by crushing Donald Trump. Here at FiveThirtyEight, we take a lot of shots at political media narratives, so it seems only fair to point out that, in this case, the narrative is right: Eight national polls of GOP voters have been conducted related to the Republican race for president since the debate, and they show a couple of clear winners and losers — Fiorina won; Trump lost.

Before we get to that, though, let’s be clear that we’re still talking about polling several months before any voting takes place; a lot can — and will — happen before the Republican nomination is wrapped up. And just as we said after the Fox News debate, it’s better to look at the aggregate of polls (that’s why I waited more than a week to write this). Finally, to control for house effects — a pollster’s tendency to find results that favor one candidate or another — I’m comparing post-debate surveys to the most recent pre-debate poll by the same pollster (i.e., Quinnipiac to Quinnipiac), as long as the “before” poll was conducted within a month of the Sept. 16 debate.

Winners

Carly Fiorina: As I said at the top, she was the biggest beneficiary of the CNN debate. She is the only candidate to gain relative to her baseline in every post-debate poll. In an average of post-debate polls, a solid plurality of Republicans who watched the debate declared Fiorina the debate’s winner (Trump came in a distant second). Moreover, it’s possible that the swift press declaration of Fiorina’s debate triumph augmented her bounce. Remember, it’s not only the debate that influences public opinion, but the post-debate media spin as well.

Marco Rubio: He was the only candidate other than Fiorina who didn’t lose ground in any post-debate poll, and Rubio gained in all but one. He also placed third, behind Fiorina and Trump, for the candidate most voters said won the debate. Perhaps most importantly for Rubio, he is now nearly tied with Jeb Bush as the top “establishment” choice in the polls (candidates who have held elected office before). (Read more from this story HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

Poll: 62% of GOP Feels Betrayed by Party; Democrats Disgusted with 2016 Front-Runners

/1 Comment/in , /by

Screenshot-2015-03-18-22.15.00By Dana Blanton. Nearly four-in-ten American voters are proud to have Barack Obama as president.

Fewer voters feel the same way about the top 2016 presidential contenders.

A new Fox News poll finds that 36 percent of voters are extremely (20 percent) or very proud (16 percent) to have Obama as president. Forty-one percent felt that way in 2011 . . .

That’s markedly higher than the 28 percent who would feel proud if Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton were president (including 15 percent who say extremely proud).

Only one in five (20 percent) would be proud of a President Bernie Sanders or a President Donald Trump. (Read more from “Poll: Proud to Have 2016 Front-Runners as President? Not Really” HERE)
______________________________________________

Almost Two-Thirds of Republican Primary Voters Feel Betrayed by Party

By Dana Blanton. Most Republicans feel betrayed by their party — and show their displeasure by supporting outsiders over establishment candidates in the GOP presidential race. . .

Trump stays on top with 26 percent among GOP primary voters, followed by Carson at 18 percent. Fiorina and Florida Sen. Marco Rubio are next, tied at 9 percent. All four have gained ground. After the August Fox News debate, Trump had 25 percent, while Carson had 12 percent, Fiorina 5 percent and Rubio 4 percent.

Trump holds his leader status even though he was once again rated in the poll as having done the worst job in the debate. Fiorina, Rubio and Carson receive positive marks for their performances.

The appeal of outsiders comes from significant dissatisfaction with the party establishment: 62 percent of Republican primary voters feel “betrayed” by politicians in their party, and another 66 percent say the recent Republican majorities in Washington have failed to do all they could to block or reverse President Obama’s agenda. For comparison, 40 percent of Democratic primary voters feel betrayed by their party.

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.