The elections for House Republican Leadership were ALL Boehner made, to include the whip.

The only real, actual, election, would have been Cole versus Sessions, but Cole stepped aside. He wasn’t “forced out” as the papers said. In fact, he nominated Sessions…. The members know what happened.

The Leadership in the House is wholly owned by Boehnercorp now. Don’t think it’s anything but that.

Why did Bacchus survive? The answer is pretty obvious.

The problem too many erstwhile conservative politicians have is that they articulate, campaign on, and may even believe in conservative policies and positions until it affects them. Then they (and too often their constituents) are just as likely to want a government handout as the most liberal of Democrats.

It’s possible to stand for the right thing, even if it conflicts with the interests of a certain portion of your constituency. Risky? Yeah. But that goes with the territory.

I’m fine with principle, and I oppose the bailout as well, but we have to be realistic. Sometimes, Congressmen have to vote with their constituents. McCotter is a very good conservative 99% of the time. Insisting that he vote against the bailout is foolish.

And this “he’s the Republican Policy guy” argument is equally foolish. NO Congressman isn’t going to have to vote his constituency over his party from some time or another.

This is the worst example of “eating our own” I’ve seen recently.

“Oh, gee, I am here to serve the constituents and, gee, if it takes the country over a cliff, is opposed to my so-called principals and against the will of a plurality- just call me Mr. Folding Chair.”

This is the weak, inept losing tones that are bereft of leadership and so far remove from sagacity it makes me hurl. If this party wants to continue promoting jerks like Cad Mc-Caitiff with no stones, so be it. But count me out.

From George Washington’s blog:

Carbon trading is a scam.
A big red flag is that our bailout buddies over at Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, Morgan Stanley, Citigroup and the other Wall Street pirates are buying heavily into carbon trading.

Since these firms contributed so heavily to Obama’s campaign, they will exert enormous pressure on Obama to push a huge carbon trading program. As University of Maryland professor economics professor and former Chief Economist at the U.S. International Trade Commission Peter Morici writes:

Obama must ensure that the banks use the trillions of dollars in federal bailout assistance to renegotiate mortgages and make new loans to worthy homebuyers and businesses. Obama must make certain that banks do not continue to squander federal largess by padding executive bonuses, acquiring other banks and pursuing new high-return, high-risk lines of businesses in merger activity, carbon trading and complex derivatives. Industry leaders like Citigroup have announced plans to move in those directions. Many of these bankers enjoyed influence in and contributed generously to the Obama campaign. Now it remains to be seen if a President Obama can stand up to these same bankers and persuade or compel them to act responsibly.

That’s right. The same companies that made billions off of derivatives and other scams and are now getting bailed out on your dime are going to make billions from carbon trading.

Moreover, even based on its stated goal of reducing carbon emissions, carbon trading might not work.

Carbon trading is a scam.

These guys are great 90% of the time. Until the bailout, Camp was widely regarded as a smart policy-savvy conservative on health care and tax issues. So Camp is now bad and Wally Herger is better because the latter has a totally safe district? This is circular firing squad stuff.

Even Mr Bluey’s employer, the Heritage Foundation, which has no voters to deal with, can mess up. Heritage’s Stuart Butler is back pedalling his version of government health care.

So let’s stop the bailout unless we get a good quo for our quid, and let’s cut local representatives some slack if they line up on the right side the vast majority of the time.

I think McCotter’s positions should be taken as a whole, rather than cherry-picking stuff some group or another doesn’t like. Otherwise, the GOP just continues on with its circular firing squad.