Free Republic

Speaker John Boehner told Republicans that the internal debate over immigration reform is an “important conversation,” as the House GOP kicked off its closed-door meeting Wednesday afternoon. Boehner said the House will “not” take up the Senate-passed bill, but said members must do something to address the issue, according to sources inside the room. Majority Leader Eric Cantor, harkening back to when President Barack Obama first took office, said Republicans need to have a counter offer, just like their alternative to the stimulus.

John Boehner (R-Ohio) said he might lose his job as House speaker over immigration reform, but he insisted he will not bring a bill to the House floor that does not have majority support of both Republicans and Democrats. Following the Republican conference meeting on Tuesday, Boehner was asked: “Rep. Rohrabacher said that if you bring immigration reform to the floor without the support of the GOP conference you will lose your job (as speaker). Do you think that’s accurate?” “Maybe,” Boehner said after a long pause, to laughter from reporters. …

It’s “inconceivable” that President Obama was unaware that the IRS was targeting conservative groups, House Speaker John Boehner said today. “It would be inconceivable in my operation that my staff would know it and I wouldn’t,” the Ohio Republican told ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos on “Good Morning America.” “It just doesn’t pass the straight-face test. How could – how can your chief of staff – your general counsel know, and you not know?” Obama has said that he first found out about the outcome of an inspector general audit when the report was released publicly, but his aides say they...

Rep. John Dingell, now 86 years old, on Friday became the longest-serving member of Congress. In a congratulatory news release, the office of House Speaker John Boehner’s office originally identified the liberal Democrat from Michigan as an “R.” …

House Speaker John Boehner (R., Ohio) suggested Wednesday that government officials might deserve prison time as a result of the Internal Revenue Service’s scrutiny of conservative groups. -snip- “Clearly someone violated the law,” Mr. Boehner said. “There are laws in place to prevent this type of abuse. Someone made a conscious decision to harass and to hold up these requests for tax-exempt status. I think we need to know who they are.”

House Republican members are defying Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) and five committee chairmen by endorsing a measure that would set up a special panel to investigate the deadly attacks in Benghazi, Libya. A growing number of members on the committees with jurisdiction over the Benghazi matter — Intelligence, Judiciary, Oversight and Government Reform, Armed Services and Foreign Affairs — have signed onto Rep. Frank Wolf’s (R-Va.) resolution. Boehner and the chairmen of those committees do not support the legislation. Instead, they have worked together to investigate the Obama administration’s handling of the Sept. 11, 2012 assault. Despite that resistance, Wolf...

Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) on Tuesday unveiled a report on last's year attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya, that blames then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for lapses in security. The 46-page report by the five committees of jurisdiction concludes that reductions in security levels prior to the attack that killed Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans were approved at the highest levels of the State Department, including by Clinton herself. The report also concludes that talking points from the intelligence community were altered to protect the State Department from criticism of inadequate security levels.

House Speaker John Boehner is being pressed by the conservative wing of the Republican Party not to allow a vote on major pieces of legislation -- from gun control to immigration -- without majority Republican support, after recent signals that he could be open to building a coalition with Democrats. Tea Party favorite and second-term Rep. Tim Huelskamp is among the most recent to express concern, saying Tuesday that Boehner “assured us” that he'd seek a majority Republican coalition before proceeding on controversial bills.

Speaker John Boehner told fellow House Republicans in an Easter week memo that his decision to allow the sequestration cuts to take effect has forced President Barack Obama and the Democrats to confront economic issues they have long been avoiding. “We forged a new tactical plan that focused on using our limited leverage to maximum effect in support of the reforms needed to support economic growth and job creation for all Americans,” Boehner wrote in the memo distributed to House Republicans on Thursday. … The memo noted that GOP efforts had forced Senate Democrats to produce their own budget plan...

House Speaker John Boehner says he "absolutely" trusts President Barack Obama — not that they don't have their differences. Boehner tells ABC's "This Week" that the two have a good relationship and that they're "open with each other ... honest with each other." But the Ohio lawmaker says they're trying to bridge some big differences. One issue they agree on: The U.S. doesn't have an immediate crisis in terms of debt. Some conservatives criticized Obama when he said last week that the country doesn't have an immediate debt crisis. Boehner says a debt crisis does loom in the years ahead...

After weeks without talks on the U.S. budget crisis, President Barack Obama called Republican leaders on Thursday to discuss the harsh “sequestration” cuts to government spending due to begin in just over a week. In what might be just the start of long negotiations to prevent the $85 billion in cuts, Obama spoke to House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. The conversations were “good,” White House spokesman Jay Carney said, but he declined to provide details. A McConnell spokesman said it was the first outreach from Obama since the New Year’s Eve “fiscal cliff”...

The Speaker of the House will be elected today and some conservatives believe they have the votes necessary to oust John Boehner. In an appearance on CNBC, American Majority Action spokesman Ron Meyer said there are more than 20 House Republicans willing to vote for someone other than Boehner on Thursday when the 113th Congress convenes to elect a Speaker. Another source from a different organization has similarly confirmed that more than 20 have planned to oppose Boehner.

It’s a truth that fire-breathing conservatives will have to handle: John Boehner isn’t going anywhere as speaker of the House. … When Boehner walks onto the House floor on Jan. 3, there’s an outside chance he‘ll see low double-digit defections—and those in and around his camp recognize it. The speaker’s fate has become a much-discussed topic as the fiscal cliff approaches and the Senate conducts last-minute talks this weekend—so far without a deal—to avoid across-the-board tax hikes. But even staunch conservatives admit what’s become abundantly clear within the House Republican Conference. “John Boehner is our speaker,” said Rep. Jason Chaffetz...

WASHINGTON (AP) – A last-gasp effort Thursday to avoid automatic tax increases and spending cuts got off on the same convulsive, partisan tone that marked congressional attempts to resolve the impasse before lawmakers left Washington to go home for Christmas. With a Dec. 31 deadline for an agreement to avert the so-called “fiscal cliff” rapidly approaching, leaders in each party demanded the other side take the initiative. The new flare-up happened despite a round of calls that President Barack Obama made to congressional leaders by phone Wednesday night from Hawaii before he boarded Air Force One to head home from...

In case the public weren’t frustrated enough over Congress’ failure to resolve the “fiscal cliff,” consider this: lawmakers probably could enact a compromise quickly and easily if Republican leaders let Democrats provide most of the votes.That would give Democrats a bigger voice in the bargain, of course, which the Republican-led House is loath to do. That’s why about 10 percent of the House’s members—staunch anti-tax conservatives—were able to thwart Speaker John Boehner’s bid to pass a narrowly crafted bill that might have strengthened his bargaining hand. … It’s not known how many House Republicans would vote to avert the “fiscal...

Conservative activists who helped doom Speaker John Boehner’s (R-Ohio) “Plan B” say Republicans must be prepared to go over the fiscal cliff to force President Obama to reach a deal that includes no tax hikes. … “I think Obama is very mindful of his legacy and is horrified of going over the cliff,” said Andy Roth of the Club for Growth. “Going over the cliff might be a signal that needs to be sent to the president, that he needs to play ball.” … “I think it is certainly better to go over the fiscal cliff than to have the...

John Boehner is a bloodied House speaker following the startling setback that his own fractious Republican troops dealt him in their “fiscal cliff” struggle against President Barack Obama. There’s plenty of internal grumbling about the Ohio Republican, especially among conservatives, and lots of buzzing about whether his leadership post is in jeopardy. But it’s uncertain whether any other House Republican has the broad appeal to seize the job from Boehner or whether his embarrassing inability to pass his own bill preventing tax increases on everyone but millionaires is enough to topple him. “No one will be challenging John Boehner as...

House Speaker John Boehner (R.-Ohio) said on Friday that he was not afraid of losing his speakership in the aftermath of the stunning defeat dealt to him on Thursday evening by House conservatives who refused to vote for his “Plan B” proposal to increase the income tax rate on income over $1 million. When a reporter asked Boehner at a Capitol press conference whether he should be concerned about losing his speakership, Boehner said, “No, I’m not.” “Listen, you’ve all heard me say this, and I’ve told my colleagues this, if you do the right things every day for the...

Americans for Tax Reform President Grover Norquist defended the leadership of House Speaker John Boehner on Thursday during an appearance on C-SPAN’s “Washington Journal,” after a caller suggested the speaker has been in Congress too long and recommended Rep. Tom Price (R-Ga.) as a better replacement. … Norquist defended Boehner’s leadership, saying the Ohio Republican was successful at “holding all the Republicans together.” …

House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) said there was “zero” chance that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and then-Sen. Barack Obama would have supported giving President George W. Bush the power to unilaterally raise the debt ceiling, as they propose giving the chief executive today. … “Do you think that Senator Reid or then-Senator Obama would have ever given to President George W. Bush the unlimited ability to raise the debt limit?” Boehner said. “They’re talking about doing it now,” a reporter replied. “I know they’re talking about doing it now,” Boehner said, jokingly. “Do you think there’s any chance...