A Republican Insider who is working to return his party to its more conservative ideals, details how John Boehner came much closer to losing his position as House Speaker than most realize.
(After promising Republicans he would battle much more strongly against Barack Obama, John Boehner remains Speaker of the House…barely)
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RI: Am I disappointed that John Boehner remains our Speaker? Yes. Am I surprised? No.
Yesterday when you said you were getting media reports that Boehner was about to resign I told you I had not heard anything like that. Again, I don’t know where those reports came from but I wouldn’t be at all surprised if they came from the other side of aisle. The Democrats were really enjoying the chaos in our party.
Having said that, you need to know that the fight was a lot stronger and Boehner’s position a lot weaker than most people realize, including most in the media. His losing the nomination was a lot closer than you think. I said we were working with a small group and trying to grow those numbers quietly. This kind of secrecy needs to be maintained until the very last moment. It was at that final moment when some of them who were agreeing with us and wanting to openly challenge Speaker Boehner backed off. This was expected. That always happens. If you can’t give people certainty, you can’t expect them to put so much on the line for you. So like I said, while I’m disappointed, I’m not surprised. That’s just how it works here. I can’t change gravity. And self preservation is pretty much the same as gravity on Capitol Hill.
We had nine Republicans openly go against Congressman Boehner. We had four more who either didn’t vote or voted present. That means we had 13 ready to fight, and all we needed were just a few more and the outcome could have been much different. At the very least a multiple ballot situation which would have seriously weakened Speaker Boehner even more and might have cost him the position. Once you get another ballot, then people who were on the sidelines start to step up. You asked how much Cantor was involved in the rebellion. Officially or personally the answer is zero involvement. None. Again, that’s how it’s done. He was aware of the rebellion, his no vote the other day provided motivation for that rebellion, but he wasn’t personally involved in any of it. That would be a major breach of protocol. As the #2 he can’t be seen openly doing that kind of thing.
The Speaker’s office had people securing support late last night and very early this morning. Basically promising all of us that he is ready and willing to take Barack Obama on over the debt ceiling negotiations. Saying that it’s the debt ceiling where the real fight needs to be. Am I optimistic that he will do that? No. I told you a while ago that there needs to be a change in leadership. A change in messaging. A change in direction for the Republican Party. We have played nice too long. We put ourselves into corners over and over again. We aren’t even close to controlling the message. Not even our own message. I want to see us mocking President Obama and his liberal Democrats. Not in a mean spirited way necessarily, but in a poke fun at them a bit, and laugh at how silly and stupid their ideas are kind of way. It’s all serious business, but go after them with humor and I guess kind of just brush them aside like they are annoying jokes that nobody wants to hear anymore. Liberals hate that the most. They hate being made fun of. It scares Obama to death to be made fun of. That is what you learn when you really study how Reagan went about the job of president in dealing with liberals in Congress and the media. He would just make fun of them, over and over again, and liberalism became a joke to the American people. That is why you hardly hear the term anymore. Now they call themselves “progressive” because Reagan was so effective at associating liberal with a sad and pathetic mindset. We need to do the same thing with the term Democrat and Progressive. Make fun of them while we are kicking their butt. Don’t get nasty – get nice. But the kind of nice that hits them in the face and knocks them down with a joke and a smile.
Just like Reagan did it.
We’ll see if Boehner stays true to his promises. I hope he does. He’s not a bad guy. He’s just a weak leader. And he takes things too personally. He is the kind of guy Obama and his operatives can manipulate much too easily, and that’s dangerous for the country.
Oh, and one last thing in case you didn’t hear about it. Allen West received some votes for Speaker. Thought you might like to hear that.
Today wasn’t a victory, but it wasn’t a defeat. It was more of the same though, and just like you and a lot of other people, I’m getting tired of more of the same. Real tired.
-RI
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The Man Who Calls Himself Obama: Collection One: Volumes 1-6
D.W. Ulsterman is now offering readers the first six volumes of the bestselling Insider interview series in one complete collection with never before available commentary by White House Insider. Here is the true and shocking tale of the Obama White House as told by those simply known as The Insiders.
“People die in this business. I am ashamed to say I know that fact all too well.” -WHI
Boehner is more of the same. So the nightmare continues.
I am changing my regstration from R to I tomorrow.
Because the people who backed him up (not voted for him, backed him up, big difference) need to understand their brand sucks and that I am ready and willing to vote for nobody rather than their candidate of choice.
I have said it before but I will say it again, I will not vote the next elections but for local seats. And I am hearing a lot of my friends and acquaitances saying the same thing unprompted.
RI: I am more than tired with these people, I am done!
I’ll change it too, soon.
Republican voters are learning that most of the (R) candidates lied to us about being fiscally conservative, to get elected. In 2 years (R) candidates will learn that lying to voters to get elected will lead to them losing in the primaries, and if not then in the general election.
It seems many pundits are still cheer leading a Republican party that exists only in their minds. The reality is most R reps are big government “Statists”. The GW Bush years are part of the evidence. Their votes are the real evidence. Their rhetoric, is well, not truthful.
I won’t be voting for any RINO, and prefer the liberal win in such races. Then at least those rent-seekers supporting RINOs will learn their “investment” in a RINO isn’t worth much. RINOs will learn that betraying their constituents doesn’t pay. And the liberals will get the blame.
“Today wasn’t a victory, but it wasn’t a defeat.”
Well, that attitude pretty much sums up the entire article as well as the Republican Party since Reagan left office in 1988 …
We have real men and women who are anonymous and ignored heroes dying and being maimed daily in wars on foreign lands — all so that these pathetic, spineless cowards who are afraid of … wait for it … John Boehner embody the value system that “Self preservation is pretty much the same as gravity on Capitol Hill”?
What about the preservation of the Constitution, the Republic, the Nation, Individual Liberty, the economy, prosperity and innovation, those serving in the military, and the citizenry you were elected to SERVE?
Game.Set.Match. We lose …
I agree. This insider doesn’t quite realize the stakes; and if he does, he’s not too bright.
There are many, many legal things that Republicans can do to utterly sabotage the Democrat agenda. I have a running list of about 50 or so; they are affordable and would be extremely effective.
They need to start treating this situation with the mentality of thwart and route. And don’t limit the tactics to the halls of Congress – go after the allies of the Progressives, such as donors and sympathetic news outlets.
The solution to our woes will not come from inside the beltway. They are too myopic, too concerned with their personal lives, too interested in getting invited to the next cocktail party. The capital is being run like a petty country club with a monster at the head of the board table.
So true, Randall, thwart and rout like crazy, and fast.
Spot on! THEY DO NOT REALIZE THE STAKES …
If they DID, they’d be doing EVERYTHING they could — including putting their lives, fortunes, and (if they had any) sacred honor — at risk to try and salvage the sorry fate that they and their predecessors have left not only to their progeny, but to over 300 million citizens in this country not to mention any semblance remaining of and hope in the future for “the free world.”
Nice comment.
Saved it.
Sounds like this insider is a tea party patriot. They have my support then! Tough job to try to fix the mess of the Republican party though but thanks for fighting for us!
Hmmm…I came back to this after reading it the first time. I am getting what this Republican Insider is trying to say. How there is a lot of us who just get angry and spout off but we don’t really do anything. I have been one of those people. We did our Tea Party stuff in ’10 but then sat back and just assumed Obama would lose. Well that didn’t happen and I guess we have to take some of that blame huh? I get it now. We can’t just be angry. We have to be smart and focused. Ok. Count me in. So what now?
Republican Insider – I agree with this stragedy!! It is what the Democrats have been doing to you all the time and its why they best you and win all the time. It’s time for a turn around. America is lost if you don’t do something FAST and you can start with smart,strategic thinking against obama.
Republican wimpiness is the reason for our disgust with you.
Good point on military serving overseas in dangerous situation and these politicos are worried about losing their seats…evidence that they’re really not interested in “public service.” These vermin won’t hesitate to vote to send your kid overseas and potentially die….but cast a vote that might cost them their seat???? Hell no. That’s the sickening part of it.
When Clinton was in office I was a true blood Republican….dyed in the wool type you might say. I went to local county Republican office and volunteered to knock on doors, hand out flyers etc…whatever was needed for grunt work. I left my phone number and asked them to call with whatever they needed. Never got a call. This happened not once but twice…twice they turned down an offer of volunteer help.
The real kicker and eye opener for me was just after I had gotten out of the service…discharged honorably after serving in USAF. When I had gotten out I had collected unemployment for 2 months and then found a job. When it came time to file my taxes I didn’t report the unemployment as the form asked for “earned” income. In my stupidity I thought that earned income was money you worked for. Long story short……IRS waits 2 years to contact me and then tells me I owe thousands from not reporting the unemployment with the interest accrued. They never once attempted to notify me prior to that but instead waited a full two years to notify me. Just after I had gotten the letter threatening penalties and imprisonment I had called IRS office and arranged payments to be deducted from my paycheck. Right after I got off of the phone with IRS I went into a convenience store for lunch and looked at the headline on one of the newspapers in the stand. It read, “US To Forgive Saudi Arabia Two Billion Dollar Debt.” To say I was livid was an understatement.
It was then that I knew that they do not care about the citizens at all. Here I was an American citizen who served in our military and had been paying taxes since I was 14 when I had working papers and was washing dishes, and the IRS was hammering me. The Saudi’s were getting off scot free.
Fast forward to today…the recent fiscal cliff nonsense was yet another pork program and everyone’s taxes are going up compliments of our leaders. Our Republicans who have pledged and were elected to hold the line against further encroachment have let us down again. Let’s take a peek into the future debt ceiling fight that will be coming. Does anyone really believe that they won’t raise the ceiling and NOT cut spending in return? Will we ever in our lifetimes see a reduction of the national debt, unfunded liabilities?
I have my doubts. My apologies for the rant.
Great rant, Mark. It encapsulates the upside-down nature of political “public service” now — where “We the people” serve the bureaucrats — and exposes the false concept of “social justice” for what it is, as there can only be justice — and, in your case, some injustice — for individuals …
You’ve earned the right to rant more than most of our so-called “leaders”, and thank you for your service!
Edit to above rant…unemployment was actually more than 2 months. The exact duration escapes me as it was over 25 years ago.
Obama and Progressiveism…Obama is making the USA progressively more broke, progressively more ill informed due to his buffet of Lies…, progressively more communist, progressively more perverse..
.Obama is schizophrenic… His mentor was a pervert…Would one expect better under those circumstances? I think not…
As much disgust as I share with fellow posters over today’s events, it is best we take over the party in the same way the communist progressive took over the Dem party…
Quitters never win…. and Winners never quit…Kepp that in mind…
The world economy is about to explode …maybe for new opportunities and new growth…we may be looking at a Renaissance of sorts….
We cannot let the Skinney Red Prez keep us schackeled …he will put all new opportunity in the Communist/Union thugs column if we don’t curtail his bizarre and inherited inclinations…
An interesting article worth the read
Jerry Bowyer, Contributor
I explore the problems leaders face.
OP/ED
The Next Big Thing From The Official Who Predicted Communism’s Demise
The Fall of the Berlin Wall, 1989. (Photo credit)
Herbert E. Meyer served during the Reagan administration as special assistant to the director of Central Intelligence, and vice chairman of the CIA’s National Intelligence Council. He is widely credited as having been the first senior official to predict the fall of the Soviet Union. He’s also, written a number of good books (including How to Analyze Information: A Step-by-Step Guide to Life’s Most Vital Skill, and The Cure for Poverty: It’s the Free Market: History’s Greatest Invention), plus he often speaks to groups of business executives.
Recently he took time out of his busy schedule to sit down across a Skype connection with me, at the hinge point between 2012 and 2013 to reflect on intelligence, forecasting, what he saw in the 1980s which others did not, and what he sees coming next, which might be even bigger than the fall of the Berlin Wall.
I suggest you set aside some time to listen to the whole discussion (more of a thinking session than an interview), but in case you don’t have time, I jotted down some notes hitting just a few of the highlights from the conversation. These are notes, not perfect transcriptions, so they sometimes paraphrase a bit. For the real unfiltered thing click on this link.
Regarding the CIA and its inability to see the fall of the Soviets:
They (that is most of the intelligence community) saw the Cold War as a permanent feature of the world. But Reagan came along and said, ‘wait a minute, the Soviet Economy is on the verge of implosion.’ The ‘establishment’ said the Soviet Economy would go on forever.
The CIA had been built to monitor Soviet strengths, but nobody was looking at Soviet weaknesses.
The key to it is to know what you’re looking for in order to find it. Until we asked ‘can the Soviet Economy be sustained?’, nobody was looking in that direction. We had our people look for intelligence about Soviet weaknesses. The weaknesses were overwhelming the strengths.
It never occurred to anyone that the Cold War would end, so we were playing defense. From the end of WWII to the 1980s the world was playing defense.
Reagan came in and said we don’t want to just not lose the Cold War; we want to win the cold war.
“In the Cold War, we instructed our spies: ‘If you find something like this (whatever we thought was important to identifying signs of Soviet vulnerability), don’t throw it into the wastebasket, send it to us fast.’ We knew that if nothing comes in through that channel, either our theory was wrong or our collectors were incompetent. They got us all kinds of stuff that no one was looking for. If you’re back channel becomes crowded then your theory is probably right.”
It just never crossed these people’s mind that the Soviet Union was unsustainable. They had those ideological blinders on. They viewed President Reagan as so stupid because he felt intuitively that their system could not be sustained.
Gorbachev gave it his best shot; it couldn’t be reformed, and that was his great failure. He said it could be made to work better and that simply was not true.
At one point Reagan had said that he wanted a private conversation with Gorbachev…he said to Gorbachev, “What’s the difference between a communist and a scientist?” “I don’t know,” responded Gorbachev. Reagan smiled and said, “A scientist would have tried it out on rats first.” I think that’s when we won the Cold War, when Gorbachev realized he wasn’t sitting across from the idiot he’d been told he would be dealing with.
Regarding intelligence gathering in general:
Before 9/11 intelligence services never made a list of things to look for as if Al Qaeda were in the U.S. and trying to attack us. When the FBI noticed young men learning to fly planes but without learning how to land, there was no one waiting for that.
The crucial intelligence skill is the ability to spot a pattern with the fewest possible facts. You’ve got to have people who can make that intuitive leap. They’re all over the place…they’re not in our intelligence services.
The key intelligence skill is that you have to know what you’re looking for in order to find it. The notion that you have to keep looking at data endlessly waiting for something to pop up is nonsense, it’s just noise.
Regarding organizational leadership:
The first rule of organizations is that first-rate executives hire first-rate executives. President Reagan was a first-rate executive and he brought in a varsity team: Bill Casey, at the CIA, Cap Weinberger at defense, Jeanne Kirkpatrick at UN and they hired first rate executives themselves.
He understood something that a lot of CEOs don’t. To accomplish your objective you’re going to have to work very closely with people you’re not very comfortable with and don’t want to hang out with. You don’t have to want to hang out with these people to work closely with them. He had his own friends. In contrast, and I don’t want to overstate this, but The George W. Bush people were a bunch of frat boys. It was as if they thought that ‘If I’m not comfortable with you, I don’t want you here.’ They were good guys, but they were all the same. You see this mistake in corporations all the time.
You hire the talent and point them to the objective and get of the way.
You remember that people have different skills. President Reagan, for example, could do things no one else could do, whether it was standing in from the Berlin Wall and telling Gorbachev to tear it down…but he couldn’t name all 25 members of the Politburo. He probably couldn’t name all the members of his cabinet and he saw no reason to clutter up his mind with such detail.
He would not make any decisions which could be made by anybody else. He would only make those decisions which only he could make.
The chief executive shouldn’t be that busy. When I see a chief executive who’s buried in paperwork at ten o’clock every night, that guy doesn’t have a grip on it. The CEO should be sitting there with his feet up on the desk thinking, figuring out strategically what to do next.
Regarding the next big world event that no one is paying attention to:
When you stand back from all the yelling and the screaming…you can see what I believe is the most important trend in the word…the world is emerging from poverty fast. This is the biggest under-reported news story in the world.
By 1980 or 1990 about two billion human beings were out of poverty, since then another half billion have crossed the line out of poverty; a lot of them in India and china. In the last six years 20 million Brazilians have emerged. When you put all these numbers together…each year between fifty and one hundred million human beings are leaving poverty behind.
If we can continue this trend within our lifetimes, and certainly within our children’s lifetimes, the overwhelming majority of human beings will no longer be poor. This is the biggest thing that’s happened in the entire world.
By the way it’s going to be a five billion-person middle class. This will become the most powerful force in the world. Their demand for our goods and services will set off an economic boom…I believe that we’re heading for not just a sonic boom, but maybe a supersonic boom.
I’m not sure I agree with everything Herb Meyer said in our discussion, which is why I challenged him a little bit on his optimism about the pace, or even the possibility, of Islam’s reconciliation with modernity. You can listen to the discussion and draw your own conclusions. But I came away from this with the sense that through Herb, we were being given the opportunity to go back in time and sit in the front row seats at one of the great moments in history (the winning blow which would lead to the dissolution of the USSR) and with one of the great men of history (Ronald Reagan). I also think that he’s right about the emergence of a global middle class: it’s coming, it’s huge, it’s real and it’s spectacular. And investors and entrepreneurs who tap into it will be tapping into the greatest wealth creation event in human history.
However, human nature has not been abolished. The boom won’t happen everywhere; it will happen in the parts of the world which embrace freedom, and it won’t come easily. Supersonic boom? Perhaps, but geographically lumpy and chronologically lumpy and, given recent events, not centered in the United States.
Ronaldus Magnus is my hero, AtB, but I have to agree with Beck, when he pointed out that part of the USSR is alive and unfortunately, well. The economy may have improved, but their people aren’t “free.” When the wall fell, the KGB went out in the woods and changed from uniforms into suits. And as Beck still points out, watch Putin’s walk. He still holds his arms like he’s marching and carrying a sidearm. Isn’t it interesting how Russia has elections but Putin is still in charge?
Russian journalists who don’t kowtow to Putin disappear to the tune of 40/year, so I’d venture to say that the Russians — who feel free to take potshots at our deteriorating U.S. situation — have lots of work to do.
That said, the Herbert interview was fascinating, but where’t the audio link?
Interesting post AthB, thanks for sharing.
“The boom won’t happen everywhere; it will happen in the parts of the world which embrace freedom, and it won’t come easily.”
Can anyone enlighten me on which parts of the world embrace freedom more than — even in our sorry present state — the U.S.A.? I do not believe we will ever see any government again (although I hope I’m wrong) base its Constitution on the principle of The Sovereignty of the Individual (i.e. The Protection of the Minority from the Tyranny of the Majority — the smallest minority being the individual) as did occur at our Founding …
God bless Allen West
“We have played nice too long. We put ourselves into corners over and over again.”
We we we. Keep in mind that “we” outside of DC, here in flyover country, are the ones who REALLY pay for all this. While the “DC we” are trying to hang onto their jobs and adhere to “protocol,” the rest of us are trying to keep up with mortgage payments and feed our families. The “DC we” got pay raises, not pink slips. You guys are cloistered in Dc and have no idea how real people live. You’re playing Monopoly with other people’s money. And come 2016 we’ll be forced to accept another lackluster RINO as our candidate.
Kitty,
“our candidate”… Not mine. I am not a Republican anymore and I have reconcilled myself with “wasting” my vote to minor candidates.
I will never again vote for a RINO.
Anyway, it does not matter, my vote will be fraudulently changed on me, so why bother.
“I want to see us mocking President Obama and his liberal Democrats. Not in a mean spirited way necessarily, but in a poke fun at them a bit, and laugh at how silly and stupid their ideas are kind of way. It’s all serious business, but go after them with humor and I guess kind of just brush them aside like they are annoying jokes that nobody wants to hear anymore. Liberals hate that the most. They hate being made fun of. It scares Obama to death to be made fun of.”
You took the words right out of my mouth, RI. It ought to go without saying though, ought to come naturally to more people with brains.
The absurdity of the left is obvious and always ripe for the ridicule it deserves. But could the GOP have the brains, nerve, guts, heck, playfulness even, to give the Democrats the treatment they deserve? No, they are afraid of the press.
They have wasted a lot of goodwill and tried the patience of the American people to the breaking point now however. One can hope and pray that what ought to come naturally can somehow be taken up and used as a strategy as you suggest. Good luck.
RI,
No matter how ‘close’ it was, the fact remains that weepy Bonehead is still Speaker and if I have a ‘vote’ on the matter, I vote ‘no confidence’ in the entire chickensh*t Republican party.
Your poor excuse of a party had better find some intestinal fortitude and fast, because if you don’t, you’ll lose election after election and neither the Tea party nor the true Conservatives will give you and your RINO candidates the time of day.
If you don’t know what you’re up against, just look around you; it’s the Chicago thugocracy and they don’t say ‘please’ and ‘thank you.’ Start fighting them on their level and take off your damned dainty white gloves or else you’ll end up in the dust bin of history like the Whigs.
Give me someone I can enthusiastically vote FOR and not someone I HAVE to vote for just to vote against their candidate; I’m tired of voting for your poor choices just so the other one won’t be elected.
BTW, the talk of Ted Cruz, Jindal, or Rubio as candidates in 2016 shouldn’t even be in the discussion phase; none is eligible. We already have that problem squatting in the White House (OUR house!) right now. If your party nominates any of these people, I’m finished with you and I’m sure others will be, too.
Grow a pair and read the Constitution while you’re at it.