Bohener becomes Straus

"He who is often rebuked, and hardens his neck,
Will suddenly be destroyed, and that without remedy."
Proverbs 29:1

Prior to election 2014, the Texas Legislature and the U.S. Congress weren't particularly similar.  Since then, however, legacy Republicans at both levels have deployed an identical playbook.  On that note, where have we heard this before?!?

A new bombshell report from Politico found that House Speaker John Boehner had several days of secret negotiations with Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, the recently emboldened former Speaker, leading up to his decision to flip-flop and fund President Obama’s executive amnesty—including a pre-hashed out deal to use the hoopla around Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Tuesday address to Congress over Iran’s nuclear ambitions as political cover to sneak in the extraordinarily controversial vote. Even with the bombshell report, however, Boehner’s office continues to deny any deal took place.

“It was Monday at 5:30 p.m. when Pelosi and Boehner agreed that it was ‘best to take up the matter on Tuesday immediately after Netanyahu’s address in order to deal with the matter as quickly as possible upon return of the Senate papers,’ according to an aide familiar with the conversations,” Politico’s Lauren French wrote on Thursday evening.

That part of a supposed deal between Pelosi and Boehner came after what French reported were several days of negotiating and dealmaking between the current and former Speaker.

....

“The vote Tuesday is just the latest chapter in a long-running saga between Democrats and Boehner,” French wrote. “The Ohio Republican is often forced to turn to Pelosi to deliver votes when legislation, like government spending bills and increases to the debt limit, fail to garner enough support from Republicans. That gives Pelosi, who has watched her caucus sink into the deepest minority Democrats have experienced in decades, an unusually powerful hand in times of crisis.”

....

Mooney’s not alone in raising the question of just how much rope Boehner has left before he hangs himself with these Democrat deals. Technically, on Tuesday, to pass the bill to fund executive amnesty after spending months saying he wouldn’t, Boehner violated the so-called Hastert Rule yet again. As such, it’s worth revisiting what Denny Hastert—the Boehner predecessor for which the rule is named—said when Boehner first began flirting with using Democrats to achieve his big government agenda.

“Here is the problem. Maybe you can do it once, maybe you can do it twice, but when you start making deals when you have to get Democrats to pass the legislation, you are not in power anymore,” Hastert, who served as House Speaker from Jan. 6, 1999, through Jan. 3, 2007, said in a Fox News interview when Boehner used Democrat votes to pass the fiscal cliff deal through the House in late 2012.

....

Boehner, as of late, has become addicted to using Democratic votes to pass significant pieces of legislation. In his first term as Speaker, he did it once in March 2011 and one more time on the first day of 2013 to pass the fiscal cliff vote. In his second term as Speaker, though, he did it six times, spread out over two years. And now, on the first major consequential vote of his third term as Speaker, he did it again—and notably, this time, there is a Senate Republican Majority. If Boehner keeps doing this, he’s likely to eventually infuriate enough Republican members for an eventual internal conference coup against his speakership.

It gets better:

A number of right-wing Republicans, long wary of Boehner's commitment to GOP efforts attacking President Obama's policy priorities, have openly considered a coup in an attempt to transfer the gavel into more conservative hands.

But Democrats from across an ideological spectrum say they'd rather see Boehner remain atop the House than replace him with a more conservative Speaker who would almost certainly be less willing to reach across the aisle in search of compromise. Replacing him with a Tea Party Speaker, they say, would only bring the legislative process — already limping along — to a screeching halt.

“I'd probably vote for Boehner [because] who the hell is going to replace him? [Ted] Yoho?” Rep. Bill Pascrell (D-N.J.) said Wednesday, referencing the Florida Tea Party Republican who’s fought Boehner on a host of bipartisan compromise bills.

Bottom Line: The only reason Democrats are part of the discussion in either the Texas or the U.S. House is because 79 and 75 Republicans, respectively, were too callow and feckless (or too corrupt?!?) (or too stupid?!?) to stand with their own voters instead of Marxist Democrats; that's not sustainable.

And don't get us started on how watching McConnell cower before filibusters reminds us of Dewhurst and the old 2/3rds rule.

As we wrote last December:

Election 2014 gave the American people a New Hope; if the Empire chooses to Strike Back in 2015, the Jedi WILL return in 2016.

The 2016 Republican primaries are going to be a bloodbath.