When is a War not a War? When Obama is President and Libya is the Opponent

By: Jeff Emanuel (Diary)  |  June 22nd at 12:00 PM  | 

Last week, at House Speaker John Boehner’s (R-OH) request, the Obama administration provided a brief (32 pages plus classified addenda) overview of its activities in Libya, its conversations with Congress about them, and its rationale for not needing Congressional approval to continue this war ad infinitem.  The full document (minus the classified annexes) is available here in pdf form.  Here are a few highlights. 1. | Read More »

Throwing Down the Gauntlet: House GOP Accepts Obama’s Empty Offer to Debate Budget Proposal

By: Jeff Emanuel (Diary)  |  March 26th at 02:10 PM  | 

Just hours after the House Democratic leadership forced President Obama’s $3,600,000,000,000.00 budget for fiscal year 2010 through the House Budget Committee, the House GOP unveiled their alternative to the president’s astronomical spending bill (the GOP document can be seen here, courtesy of good friend and RS contributor Dan Spencer). President Obama has pulled out all the stops in pushing his multi-trillion-dollar budget, which even USA | Read More »

House GOP Leaders Reach Across Aisle, Pledge to Support Obama if he will Attempt to Fulfill Promise of Fiscal Responsibility

By: Jeff Emanuel (Diary)  |  March 6th at 02:06 PM  | 

Last Friday, ten House Republican leaders sent a letter to President Barack Obama. In it, they offered to work across party lines and Congressional divisions with the new president to achieve the latter’s stated commitment “to fiscal transparency and accountability and ensuring that [all] spending commitments are paid for without burdening our children and grandchildren with excessive debt,” and to “slash[ing] earmarks to no greater | Read More »

GOP Attempt to Freeze Spending, Strip Earmarks from Omnibus Fails in House

By: Jeff Emanuel (Diary)  |  March 6th at 12:54 PM  | 

Update: An emailer points out that the 54 Rs and Ds who abstained from voting on the motion must have made President Obama, with his history of over 100 “present” votes in the Illinois state legislature, very proud. Minority Leader John Boehner’s Motion to Recommit, which would have frozen federal spending at current levels and stripped the 9,000 un-reviewed earmarks from the $410,000,000,000.00 omnibus spending | Read More »

BREAKING: House Republicans to Force Vote on Spending Freeze, Stripping of Earmarks from Omnibus

By: Jeff Emanuel (Diary)  |  March 6th at 10:52 AM  | 

We’ve received word that House Republicans plan to force a vote this morning on a spending freeze that would lock in federal spending at current levels and strip the $410,000,000,000.00 “omnibus” spending bill of all 9,000 “un-scrutinized earmarks.” Though certain to fail, this is another laudable move from a GOP minority that unanimously opposed the nearly $1,000,000,000,000.00 in pork-barrel waste that made up President Obama’s | Read More »

‘The House GOP is Back’ — Open Thread

By: Jeff Emanuel (Diary)  |  February 14th at 04:29 PM  | 

A post-Porkulus video from the Whip’s office: Kudos once again to the House GOP, which held the line in unanimity not once, but twice, against the Democrats’ Porkulus charge. Senator McConnell, the day you rein in Arlen Specter, Susan Collins, and Olympia Snowe and lead your caucus in holding the line on a transformational piece of legislation like this, we might have space for a | Read More »

John Boehner is Righteously Angry

By: Jeff Emanuel (Diary)  |  February 13th at 04:03 PM  | 

Watch him on the House floor early this afternoon stating the obvious: that not one single member of the House of Representatives had read the 1,000-page, $800,000,000,000.00 borrow-and-spend bill they were about to vote on, and that the unanimously-passed instruction that Americans receive 48 hours to read the bill before its passage had been knowingly — and dishonestly — scrapped. Throwing the bill onto the | Read More »