Free Republic

Most of the political world’s attention this week was focused on Speaker John Boehner’s decision to let President Obama continue borrowing without limit until next March. Speaker Boehner’s decision to break with his conference — and break with his own dollar-for-dollar rule in raising the debt limit — shows that the House GOP conference is without leadership today. While this should strike fear in all who hope to see a conservative governing majority by 2017, Heritage Action’s Conservative Policy Summit showed that there is a path out of the wilderness, if only Washington’s political class can find the courage to...

With just two days before America hits the debt ceiling deadline, Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) announced on Tuesday his desire to raise it. "The goal here is to increase the debt ceiling," said Boehner. "Nobody wants to default on our debt."

The conservative group ForAmerica is pushing to oust GOP leaders in both the House and Senate with a new campaign called "Dump the Leadership." The organization, long a critic of both House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), calls on both leaders to step down in its new online advertising campaign. ForAmerica Chairman Brent Bozell tells The Hill that the group is likely to spend at least $675,000 on the web campaign between now and the November election, and could increase the sum to more than a million dollars in the future. "We need new...

Lifelong Ohioan Eric Gurr -a 48-y.o. student of history who's campaigning as a 'Conservative Republican'- was born and raised in Hamilton, Ohio. He attended the University of Cincinnati, has been registered as Republican his entire adult life, and is currently the CEO of Best and Brightest inc. a computer consulting firm based in West Chester, Ohio.   He's married and has three children and two grandchildren, who all reside in Liberty Township. Ohio. Amusingly, Eric is a second cousin to George Washington. (9x removed)... And check him out on the issues: he's pro-life, anti-Obamacare, and against unhelpful foreign entanglements like Libya...

In an opinion piece in The Week today, Bill Scher added his voice to the growing chorus in the media pushing to get Boehner to cave on immigration. Scher clearly lays out the new media mission: get Boehner to “fold again” on Obama’s next agenda item, immigration reform. Many presume the Republican House is a black hole sucking President Obama's second-term agenda into oblivion. But the list of Boehner's past retreats offers a glimmer of hope, especially to advocates of immigration reform. Though it has languished in the House, an immigration overhaul passed with bipartisan support in the Senate, and...

House Republican leaders are waiting to hear back from the White House after GOP staff sent over an informal proposal Thursday night that would raise the debt ceiling and create a process for reopening the government. Aides say President Barack Obama and Republicans are haggling over a deal that would lead to an end to the two-week-old government shutdown and raise the debt ceiling in exchange for a clear path to serious negotiations about spending and other fiscal issues. -snip- many Republicans are expected to still vote against such a deal. GOP leaders will likely need some Democratic votes to...

As Speaker John A. Boehner (R.-Ohio) struggles with the budget crisis, a Troy, Ohio schoolteacher and Tea Party activist announced Sept. 30 he will challenge Boehner in the 2014 GOP primary. Joseph D. “J.D.” Winteregg, who is a founder of the Ohio Accountability Project, a grassroots organization in Ohio-8, a congressional district bordering Indiana, said he is motivated by the gulf between the interests and values of the district and Boehner. It is a gulf exasperated by the Speaker’s concern for national issues, which has come to mean that although the district’s congressman is the Speaker of the House, the...

As Speaker John A. Boehner (R.-Ohio) struggles with the budget crisis, a Troy, Ohio schoolteacher and Tea Party activist announced Sept. 30 he will challenge Boehner in the 2014 GOP primary. Joseph D. “J.D.” Winteregg, who is a founder of the Ohio Accountability Project, a grassroots organization in Ohio-8, a congressional district bordering Indiana, said he is motivated by the gulf between the interests and values of the district and Boehner.

Eric Gurr is a 48-year-old Ohioan and a lifelong Republican. He was born and raised in Hamilton, a suburb of Cincinnati. Mr. Gurr is the CEO of a computer consulting firm based in West Chester, Ohio. He is married and has three children as well as two grandchildren. He and his family reside in fast-growing Liberty Township. He has never run for political office before. Oh, and he just happens to be challenging House Speaker John Boehner in the Republican primary for Ohio's 8th congressional district. Mr. Gurr was kind enough to grant yours truly an exclusive interview. Robert Elliott:...

Tea Party leaders who have been pushing for a primary opponent against House Speaker John Boehner in 2012 for not keeping a campaign promise to cut more federal spending are getting their wish. Tea Party activist David Lewis, a 26-year-old married father, announced Friday that he will challenge the Ohio Republican. But Lewis is mounting a protest candidacy on a single issue: Boehner’s support of a federal budget that provided funding to Planned Parenthood. Lewis plans to unveil graphic anti-abortion ads on his website Monday. “I’m not delusional. I don’t know if I have a chance at beating the speaker...

On Tuesday, after John Boehner’s last gambit to pass a government-funding bill ran aground in the face of a Tea Party revolt, a reporter asked the House speaker if he had any idea what he’d do next. “No. Do you have an idea?” Boehner replied, according to Politico. “They’ll just shoot it down anyway.” Boehner’s dilemma -- finding a way to satisfy the right wing of his caucus that doesn’t involve shutting down the government -- isn’t new. The debate rages in Washington over whether he has an impossible job or whether he’s just terrible at it, but it doesn't...

With the Syrian crisis receding on Capitol Hill, Congress on Thursday plunged back into its bitter fiscal standoff as Speaker John A. Boehner appealed to the Obama administration and Democratic leaders to help him resolve divisions in the Republican ranks that could lead to a government shutdown by month’s end. In meetings with Democratic and Republican Congressional leaders on Thursday after a session with Treasury Secretary Jacob J. Lew on Wednesday, Mr. Boehner pleaded for a resumption of negotiations that could keep the government running and yield a deficit-reduction deal that would convince b>recalcitrant conservatives to raise the government’s borrowing...

Here’s the read among Congressional Dems on this fall’s fiscal fights. At some point, House GOP leaders will have to pass an important bill with a lot of Democratic support — stiff-arming the Tea Party in the process. GOP leaders are trying to defer that moment for as long as possible, but there’s just no clear way around it. Multiple reports this morning tell us House GOP leaders are struggling to round up support among House Republicans for their new strategy for the fall. They are proposing a vote on a measure that would temporarily fund the government at current...

Senior GOP aides of a super PAC linked to Speaker John Boehner are lobbying House Republicans to pass the Senate “Gang of Eight” immigration bill, legislation that Boehner has said he will not bring to the House floor. The lobbying effort is coming under the umbrella of the American Action Network, a nonprofit 501(c)(4) “action tank” led by former senator Norm Coleman, which is touting the “major positive economic impact” of the Senate bill in e-mails sent to individual House Republican offices. AAN is housed in the same office as the Congressional Leadership Fund, a super PAC associated with Boehner,...

Sarah Palin has impeccable timing. The former Republican vice presidential nominee took to her Facebook page Thursday afternoon to warn freshman Republicans in the House that they just might face primary opposition if they cave in to demands by their party to raise the debt ceiling. “All my best to you, GOP Freshmen, from up here in the Last Frontier. Sincerely, Sarah Palin,” she wrote. “P.S. Everyone I talk to still believes in contested primaries.” Just two hours later, House Speaker John A. Boehner was forced to postpone the vote on his proposal to increase the debt ceiling at the...