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Subscribe to RSSHouse Speaker John Boehner dismissed Grover Norquist as a "random" person on Thursday despite a week's worth of frequent references to the antitax activist on Capitol Hill.
The name of Norquist, the Americans for Tax Reform president, has been on the lips of just about every political figure who's expressed frustration at his influence over Republicans, and their unflinching resistance to tax hikes in any form.
The reason is Norquist's "Taxpayer Protection Pledge," the manifesto Norquist first drafted in 1986 which opposes increases in taxes. Boehner and another 235 House members have signed the pledge, as have 41 senators. The vast majority of signatories are Republicans, and only six Republicans in each chamber haven't signed the pledge. (All of the GOP's presidential candidates but Jon Huntsman have also signed.)
But today, when asked by NBC News about Norquist's sway over the GOP conference, Boehner downplayed the relationship.
“We are doing everything we are doing to get our economy back to work. It's not often I'm asked about some random person in America," the Speaker said of Norquist.
NBC News: Random person?
"Our focus is about creating jobs, not talking about somebody's personality."
NBC News: What he stands for, is that a positive influence in your conference?
"What he stands for???"
NBC News: Yes, his no tax hikes under any circumstances pledge, is that positive for your conference?
"Listen, our conference is opposed to tax hikes because we believe tax hikes will hurt our economy and put Americans out of work."
Boehner’s reference to Norquist as a “random person” struck many on Capitol Hill as odd; privately, GOP aides will often discuss Norquist’s influence on GOP politics and admit its significance.
The test of Norquist's sway, though, will come in the next few weeks, when the bipartisan, bicameral supercommittee is set to make its recommendations as to how to achieve as much as $1.5 trillion in deficit reduction. Republican members of the panel are under pressure to agree to new revenues through tax reform, a prospect which Norquist has already decried.
Democrats and even some Republicans feel he has undue influence on deficit discussions because Republicans worry if they support any type of tax increase, Norquist’s group will attack them come election season.
Already, proponents of those kinds of reforms have begun to test the fealty of the GOP to Norquist.
Alan Simpson, the former Republican Senator from Wyoming and former co-chairman of the president’s fiscal commission said, “If Grover Norquist is now the most powerful man in America, he should run for president. There's no question about his power. And let me tell you, he has people enthralled. That's a terrible phrase. Lincoln used it. It means your mind has been captured. You're in bondage with a soul.”
Yesterday on the floor of the U.S. Senate, Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) said of Norquist’s influence on Republicans: “They are in a thrall -- they're in submission to a man whose singular focus keeping taxes low for wealthy, they fear his political retribution.”
That was the second shot Reid had taken at Norquist. Earlier in the week, he said: "My Republican friends, these poor folks, are being led like puppets by Grover Norquist ... They’re giving speeches that we should compromise on our deficit, but never do they compromise on Grover Norquist. He is their leader.”
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I love it! More and more are catching on about the big Job Creator LIE!!!!!!
Norquist keeps the democrats from governing
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/43849306#43849306
This is what the GOP leader of the house “John Boehner” said about jobs lost, 2/15/11 “So be It”
http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/02/boehner-if-jobs-are-lost-as-a-result-of-gop-spending-cuts-so-be-it.php
There is a quote that says “There are no stupid questions” I think I proved this quote wrong, there are stupid questions and even stupider answers http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/boehner-where-are-jobs
Speaker Boehner’s 15 big job bills he send to the Senate, that he claims is being shelved and not brought to the floor for a vote, 8 of them deal with deregulating Wall Street, big banks, Credit Card companies EPA, and Oils companies and 5 deal with more oil drilling on and off shores and in/on State parks and Federal lands any place there may be a whiff of oil in the ground.
Here are just a few bills every Republicans vote NO on
H.R. 1 (American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009)
A bill making supplemental appropriations for job preservation and creation, infrastructure investment, energy efficiency and science, assistance to the unemployed, and State and local fiscal stabilization, for fiscal year ending September 30, 2009, and for other purposes.
13-Feb-2009 House vote:
Vote: Yeas 231 Nays 194 Not Voting 1
Yeas: Democrats 231 Independent 0 Republican 0
Nays: Democrats 21 Independent 0 Republican 173
Not Voting: Democrats 2 Independent 0 Republican 5
http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2009/roll067.xml
February 10, 2009 Senate vote:
Vote: Yeas 61 Nays 37 Not Voting 1
Yeas: Democrats 58 Independent 2 Republican 1
Nays: Republicans 37
Not Voting: Republican 1
Signed into law by President Barack Obama on February 17, 2009
http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=111&session=1&vote=00061
http://projects.washingtonpost.com/congress/members/b000589/
H.R. 5297 (Small Business Jobs and Credit Act of 2010)
Passage of H.R. 5297, As Amended; An act to create the Small Business Lending Fund Program to direct the Secretary of the Treasury to make capital investments in eligible institutions in order to increase the availability of credit for small businesses, to amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to provide tax incentives for small business job creation, and for other purposes
06/17/10 House vote:
Ayes: 237 (Democrat: 236; Republican: 1)
Nays: 187 (Democrat: 13; Republican: 174)
Abstained: 9 (Democrat: 6; Republican: 3)
http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2010/roll369.xml
September 15, 2010 Senate vote:
Vote: Yeas 61 Nays 38 Not Voting 1
Yeas: Democrats 56 Independent 2 Republican 2
Nays: Republicans 37
Not Voting: Republican 1
http://www.opencongress.org/vote/2010/h/539
Signed into law by President Barack Obama on 09/26/10
http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=111&session=2&vote=00237
http://projects.washingtonpost.com/congress/members/b000589/
(under Signed into law are two links that you can research vote tallies and voting records of all members of congress in both The House and Senate)
And even with all these facts, the Teapublicans still proclaim that President Obama is a faillure and unable to get the job done to restart our economy.
Perhaps the 99.8% should list all the accomplishments of President Obama made without any Teapublicans or turncoat Democrats. I give support to the President to side step Congress on any issue he can pass and add those to the list of the obstructionists. Once the list is completed copy enough for the entire legislative body who opposes everything and shove it down their lying a@@ throats.
"Um, who was that random person who's ass I just pulled my head out of?"
It was quite comical watching Beohner stumbling over the question about Norquist.
Norquist who??????
I'll bet there is a shrine in the Republican chambers of Grover
Warning: the following statement is made by a combat veteran, a former black ops member. It is pointed and meant for the ears of this guy called Boehner whom I believe sows hate and dissent and bathes happily and proudly in his diminished evolution. De Oppresso Liber...
Bonerboy, your arrogance is born out of an obvious sociopathic, lying, self aggrandizing nature. It's understandable with your being raised in a bar where the drug of aggression, liquor, flowed and cancerous tobacco floated into and out of the mouths of addicts. No wonder you are driven by self righteous egoism of ignorance of what it means to be an actualized human being. You seem to enjoy your purpose of being a stick to be stuck up the donkey of the majority of Americans. I am grieved by the fact that serving my government (yes a gov't job) to kill communists in the late sixties and early seventies I made the mistake of assisting far better humans than you to leave the planet. I hope someday you wake up with the number '99' written on your orange forehead with indelible ink....and you get booted out of politics.
www.OneTao.com
It still wonders me if the young man (Justin Coussoule) that ran against Boehner in the 2010 election was a plant.
He received none or very little support from the Dem party.
Haven't you ever heard of the DLC?
Looks like Boener either lied to Norquist or he lied to America . Either ay he can't be trusted .
He's just some random person and if you don't believe me I'll call him on his private line and you can ask him yourself.
One Pledge to rule them all. One Pledge to find them.
One Pledge to bring them all and in their darkness bind them.
In the Land of Sauron Norquist, where the GOP lies.
The replicans/t-baggers know how ignorant most of the voters are.
What they forget is the 70% of the people that do not usually vote!
They (the replicans / t-baggers) have just stoped in Congress another part of jobs bill.
Next November the U.S. people that do not usually vote will eliminate their jobs.
Silent Majority: All hope is lost without your help next Nov.
It matters not if you vote for a true Republican or Democrat.
We have to get the ones the ignorant people put there, out.
59yo Just registered to vote out as many GOPer as I can.
Grover Norquist is the Republican's Daddy they can act only if Norquist says so. The Republicans has excepted Charles and David Koch Money, and now support American Legislative Exchange Council, ALEC, who also the funder of ALEC.
What a mess the Republicans have gotten themselves into, all of this plus excepting "TAINTED" money from Iran via Charles and David Koch.
Will The Ohio GOP's War On Firefighters Flame Out Next Tuesday?
In declaring war on public workers, Ohio Republican Gov. John Kasich has become the best community organizer in the state.
For Democrats.
Exhibit A: Yesterday afternoon, a man in his late 50s arrived at my home to install a new microwave to replace the one that went kaput in our kitchen. Tim had to step over our new puppy, and within minutes we were exchanging stories about pets, grandchildren, and what our grown kids do for a living. One of his sons is a firefighter in a suburb in the Cleveland area.
"I'm not seeing much of him these days. He's spending every free hour working to defeat Issue 2," he said, referring to next Tuesday's vote on a Republican bill that strips public employees' right to collectively bargain for wages, benefits and work conditions. "He's going door-to-door tonight, and will canvass again over the weekend.”
He smiled as he described his son's new-found activism.
"He's telling everyone he knows to vote against SB5," he said. "I'm telling everyone I know, too."
The statewide referendum is less than a week away, and there are thousands of families like that firefighter's mobilized all across Ohio.
Kasich, a former congressman, was elected to office last fall by voters frustrated with a sluggish economy. Within weeks of taking office, he and his minions in the Statehouse decided to demonize teachers, firefighters, police officers, and other public employees by ramming through this legislation and gutting their rights as workers. Their strategy was to make it about the unchecked power of the nasty unions. What the Republicans didn't count on was that their mow-'em-down tactics would unleash a pro-worker fury that we haven't seen in Ohio for decades.
Kasich didn't alienate only public employees. When you go after 360,000 local and state workers, you make it personal for everyone who knows, and often loves, a public employee. And that loyalty to friend and kin trumps partisan politics, which is why polls are showing Issue 2 going down to resounding defeat no matter which group of voters you ask.
As a columnist for The Plain Dealer in Cleveland, I wrote about SB5 a number of times. What struck me about the volume of response was how many readers identified themselves as conservative voters who felt betrayed by the Republicans. One of the most moving emails, which I included in a column in March, came from a man who wanted to share his letter of apology to his wife, a schoolteacher:
I first wrote about this husband’s letter in March. Since then, I've lost count of the number of people I've met at rallies or call centers -- or in line at the grocery store -- who have quoted his letter at length.
"He speaks for me," they say, often adding they wish they hadn't voted for Kasich.
The Washington Post reported Thursday that, in the next few days leading up to our election, we're going to see more than $2 million worth of misleading ads sponsored by right wing groups funded by anonymous donors. These brave citizens don't even want us to know their names. Instead, they hide behind patriotic-sounding groups like "Restoring America," which was recently slapped with a restraining order and banned from running candidate ads in Kentucky after a judge ruled they had violated state campaign finance laws.
Now they're bringing their trash to Ohio, and not because they think they can defeat Issue 2. This is all about laying brick for the road ahead in 2012. They want to do what they always do: Stir up enough hatred to fire up their base in Ohio so they can pick the next president.
Here's what those right wing outsiders don't understand: Things have changed here in Ohio, and even friendly Midwesterners have their limits.
On Tuesday, everyday workers in this battleground state are going to make it clear who's boss.
Hint: It ain't Kasich anymore.
Connie Schultz is a Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist for Creators Syndicate.
strange the Romans
who spoke Latin (now a dead language) at the time
made up the name jesus which is pronounced hay-zeus in Latin
for Yeshu'a whose name (when translated) is Joshua
latins wanted their god to be family of Zeus?
bibles were not given out to people (what the protestant reformation was about)
merli perli do you know anything about your man-made religion
when Yeshu'a bar Joseph tomb was found there were only two nails not three
his ankles were not nailed!
Just once again showing that GOP pledges are not worth the paper they are printed on. That means a candidate can sign anything they want and can blow it off later if they decide it is in their way
John Boehner...
"Luke Russert how dare you try to impugn my character by asking me about my relationship with some random person.
Now if you'll all excuse me I'm off to toss some random person's salad."
John Boehner redux...
"That is if I don't bump my forehead into the back of Eric Cantor's head."
John Boehner redux Part II...
"Oh well,if that's the case there's always room for one more at Rush's....errr,some random radio personality's ass crack."
Congressional Reform Act of 2011
1. No Tenure / No Pension.
A Congressman collects a salary while in office and receives no pay when they are out of office.
2. Congress (past, present & future) participates in Social Security.
All funds in the Congressional retirement fund move to the Social Security system immediately. All future funds flow into the Social Security system, and Congress participates with the American people. It may not be used for any other purpose.
3. Congress can purchase their own retirement plan, just as all Americans do.
4. Congress will no longer vote themselves a pay raise. Congressional pay will rise by the lower of CPI or 3%.
5. Congress loses their current health care system and participates in the same health care system as the American people.
6. Congress must equally abide by all laws they impose on the American people.
7. All contracts with past and present Congressmen are void effective 1/1/12. The American people did not make this contract with Congressmen.
Congressmen made all these contracts for themselves. Serving in Congress is an honor, not a career. The Founding Fathers envisioned citizen legislators, so ours should serve their term(s), then go home and back to work.
I think Grover Norquist has committed treason. The Webster Dictionary definition:
the offense of acting to overthrow one's government or to harm or kill its sovereign.
We have had one rating agency downgrade our credit rating and another agency threatening to do the same if the 'Super Committee' can not come to an agreement. And how can they if they're beholding to Grover.
Boehner and his party are suffering from delusions of grandeur. How can this party exist amidst all of the deceptions? The Grover Norquist pledge. They say JOBS, JOBS, JOBS, but vote on coins, motttos and abortions. They pass laws to strip unions, suppress voting and give themselves more vacation time? The only thing that makes sense is that the support comes from 99%ers that want-to-be 1%ers.
Deport Norquist from America to live with his Jihadist friends or throw him in jail! We Americans think he's a weak man with a God-complex!