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“White Supremacists Are Glad Boehner’s Leaving”: Didn’t Focus Enough On “The Replacement Of Whites By Non-Whites”

White supremacist leaders took to social media to celebrate the resignation of House Speaker John Boehner on Friday morning,  a “cuckservative” whose tenure didn’t focus enough on “the replacement of whites by non-whites through immigration and higher birthrates.”

And one prominent white supremacist consider it a big loss for a Republican establishment they believe is “outmoded”—and an even bigger win for the appeal of “instinctive, unconscious (for) white Americans” they say Donald Trump provides.

“Whites are objectively more useful to the country than blacks or Hispanics in terms of crime rates, welfare dependency, labor-force productivity, etc.  This is obviously true but everyone is too terrified to say so,” Jared Taylor, the President of the New Century Foundation, told The Daily Beast.

“Mr. Boehner never talked about these things, but he should have. “

The New Century Foundation is a self-described “white separatist” organization, which publishes a journal a “race realism” journal called American Renaissance. According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, “most would describe (Taylor) as crudely white supremacist.”

Taylor believes the “replacement of whites by non-whites” is “the greatest long-term threat to conservatives.”

“Non-whites are like hens’ teeth in the Republican Party, but Republicans are too stupid to realize that an increasingly non-white America will be increasingly hostile to everything they claim to care about,” he said.

“The irony is that nothing conservatives profess to love will survive without whites.”

Many white supremacists pointed to what they perceived to be Boehner’s “weakness” on immigration, and his unwillingness to join those in his party that are insistent on building a wall at the U.S.-Mexico border.

They believe the Speaker’s border policy makes him a textbook “cuckservative,” which, as The Daily Beast’s Matt Lewis defined the term, is a “newfangled slur that combines the word ‘cuckold’ (which has both sexual and racial overtones) with the word ‘conservative.’”

“Boehner is generally weak on the immigration question. Thus, he’s lost his base of power,” said Richard B. Spencer, the head of the National Policy Institute, a white separatist think tank. In the past, Spencer has argued for a “new society, an ethno-state that would be a gathering point for all Europeans.“

“White Americans recognize (in an instinctive, unarticulated way) that taxes and budgets are meaningless in the face of White dispossession. It’s only issues of immigration and demographics that really matter,” he told The Daily Beast.

That’s why, Spencer believes, Donald Trump is gaining in the polls among those who share his beliefs.

“Today, the Republican Party is haunted by the specter of White dispossession and ethno-politics,” he said. “This is what the Trump phenomenon is really about, and this is why Trump is loathed by establishment conservatives (FOX, the GOP, the ‘conservative movement’) and why he appeals—on an instinctive, unconscious level—to White Americans.”

Jason Jones, who runs the Twitter account “End Cultural Marxism,” also intimated that Boehner wasn’t conservative enough for him and his 17,000-plus followers on social media.

“Boehner is a pro-immigration cuckservative. (I’m) glad he’s resigning. Both legal and illegal immigration are driving down American wages. It’s the No. 1 issue of our age,” said Jones.

When asked if he agreed with a fellow white supremacist, who wrote that Boehner “served his own special anti-White purpose,” he replied “yes.” Jones had retweeted the quote.

“European-descended people (whites) have interests too. Boehner did not represent our interests,” said Jones.

By midday, however, white supremacists like Taylor and Spencer had already resigned themselves to a new House Speaker who likely won’t speak for their values.

“Diversity is a source of conflict, not a strength. The idea that diversity is a strength is so obviously stupid that only very smart people can convince themselves of it,” said Taylor. “His replacement should talk about (these issues), but we can be certain that he will not.”

Spencer is equally disillusioned with those rumored to be the next Speaker—like Reps. Kevin McCarthy or Paul Ryan. But he says he sees a bright future for sect of white separatists like him that he believes to be burgeoning within the GOP.

“I’m not particularly impressed with the putatively more ‘conservative’ Republicans who are in position to take Boehner’s place. Indeed, they seem just as much products of the past as the current Speaker,” said Spencer. “In the end, politics is a lagging indicator of social change. And the Right of the future is just now taking shape.”

 

By: Ben Carson, The Daily Beast, September 25, 2015

September 28, 2015 Posted by | Immigrants, John Boehner, White Supremacists | , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

“Obama Facing The World As It Really Is”: A Smiling Pope, A Fallen Speaker And Two Tough Guys — Obama’s Crazy Week

The week began with President Obama on the tarmac of a military base in Maryland, waiting to welcome a global celebrity far more popular than he. It ended with him raising a toast to a hard-nosed world leader who has repeatedly challenged American interests and Obama’s resolve.

Along the way, the president’s most frequent legislative sparring partner in Washington relinquished his post on Capitol Hill, finally surrendering to the sharp polarization that has come to define American politics in the past five years. And abroad, another of Obama’s persistent antagonists — the Russian president — suddenly wanted a face-to-face chat about Syria and Ukraine.

The week’s events seemed like political surrealism. When Pope Francis arrived at the White House on Wednesday, the weather was so gorgeous it put Obama in a hopeful, reverential mood.

“What a beautiful day the Lord has made,” he said.

Two days later, Chinese President Xi Jinping arrived on the South Lawn to a much stiffer, more martial ceremony, complete with a 21-gun salute and lengthy remarks read from thick binders. Behind the scenes, the two leaders grappled over questions of economic hacking and Beijing’s military adventurism in the South China Sea.

But amid the piety of the pope and the provocations by China loomed the potential of another government shutdown. The surprise announcement by House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) on Friday that he would step down provided the week’s surpassing piece of political drama.

In Obama, Boehner has faced a determined adversary, but it was a mutiny within his own caucus that finally drove him to the exit. And as tempestuous as the Obama-Boehner relationship has been, the speaker’s departure signals that Obama may face an even more fractious GOP majority Congress in the remaining months of his presidency.

More than some of his predecessors, Obama is acutely aware of the contrast between his lofty ideals and the reality facing him. He talks about it all the time.

“Ultimately, global leadership requires us to see the world as it is, with all its danger and uncertainty,” the president told graduates of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point in May 2014. “But American leadership also requires us to see the world as it should be — a place where the aspirations of individual human beings really matters ; where hopes and not just fears govern; where the truths written into our founding documents can steer the currents of history in a direction of justice.”

The past week was a single lens into both those worlds, with their maddeningly uplifting complexity.

In Francis — and his progressive message on inequality, immigration and climate change — Obama saw the world as he wanted it to be. In everything else — Xi’s visit, Boehner’s resignation and a decision to meet with Russian President Vladi­mir Putin during the upcoming U.N. General Assembly session in New York — the president faced the world as it really is.

The president has had only a modest impact on three of the protagonists who dominated the week, although he has sought to engage all of them at different points. Xi and Obama have found a common cause in tackling climate change, but on many other important policy issues, they are at odds. Putin, like Xi, has joined the United States in pressuring Iran to scale back its nuclear program. But he defied American calls to respect Ukraine’s sovereignty and has ignored the U.S. push to sideline Syrian President Bashar al-Assad as part of a political solution to the ongoing Syrian civil war. Obama sought to enlist Boehner’s help in forging fiscal and immigration reforms, but the GOP leader was never able to bring along enough members of his party to make the deals happen.

Still, Obama was at the center of all of the action over the past week.

Stanford University’s Michael McFaul, who served as U.S. ambassador to Russia for three years under Obama, returned a few days ago from Beijing. He said he was struck by the massive coverage in China of Xi’s visit to the United States, as he was by Putin’s desire to speak with Obama during the U.N. meeting. China’s and Russia’s dealings with the United States rank as each of those countries’ “most important bilateral relationship,” he said.

“It seems to me [Obama is] still pretty engaged in international affairs, and people want to engage him,” said McFaul, who directs Stanford’s Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies. “We’re still the central power in the international arena.”

During a news conference with Xi in the White House Rose Garden on Friday, Obama delivered a brief lecture on the many responsibilities that accompany China’s rise from the “poor, developing country” it once was to its current status.

“It is now a powerhouse. And that means it’s got responsibilities and expectations in terms of helping to uphold international rules that might not have existed before,” the president said.

But on several issues, Xi asserted that China would not mimic other world powers. “Democracy and human rights are the common pursuit of mankind,” he said. “At the same time, we must recognize that countries have different historical processes and realities, and we need to respect people of all countries in the right to choose their own development path independently.”

Although the White House has emphasized the value of the time Obama and Xi have spent “outside the glare of the klieg lights,” in the words of press secretary Josh Earnest, experts cautioned that that sort of schmoozing has its limits.

Patrick M. Cronin, senior director of the Asia-Pacific Security Program at the Center for a New American Security, said there’s an “American tendency to believe in the personalization of relations.”

“It’s all generally true, but the president of China doesn’t come as a person,” he said. “He comes here as the leader of the Communist Party, and the leader of China.”

Obama’s exchanges with the pope were less charged.

Obama and Francis chatted amiably as the choir of Washington’s St. Augustine Catholic Church sang “Total Praise” on the South Lawn, and in their public remarks, the president and the pontiff emphasized their common values.

The pope said he found it “encouraging” that Obama was cutting carbon emissions linked to climate change. Meanwhile, the president not only praised Francis’s vision of “empathy,” but also said his “unique qualities as a person” gave the world “a living example of Jesus’s teachings, a leader whose moral authority comes not just through words but also through deeds.”

On Friday, after word of Boehner’s resignation became public, Obama said he hoped lawmakers would “really reflect on what His Holiness said,” especially the idea “that we listen to each other and show each other respect, and that we show regard for the most vulnerable in society.”

Seven decades ago, with Eastern Europe in turmoil, Soviet leader Joseph Stalin dismissed the Vatican’s influence in the world with this question: “How many [military] divisions does the pope of Rome have?”

Michael Ignatieff, a professor at the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at Harvard’s Kennedy School, described Obama as “a realist and a pragmatist” with reasons to align himself with Francis.

“A ‘realist’ fact about the modern world is Pope Francis has divisions,” said Ignatieff, who led Canada’s Liberal Party in opposition between 2008 and 2011. “He has articulated a longing for justice, the care of nature, the care of the poor — that’s very powerful stuff.”

 

By: Juliet Eilperin, White House Bureau Chief, The Washington Post, September 26, 2015

 

September 28, 2015 Posted by | John Boehner, Pope Francis, Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping | , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

“Almost Giddy”: Religious Conservatives Celebrate John Boehner’s Downfall—And Pray Mitch McConnell Is Next

This morning, when Senator Marco Rubio interrupted his address to the Values Voter Summit in Washington to break the news that House Speaker John Boehner was resigning, the crowd of conservative Christian activists immediately rose to their feet, breaking into cheers and shouts of “Amen!”

“The time has come to turn the page,” Rubio declared to raucous applause. After the speech, the overjoyed activists described Boehner as the emblem of all that’s wrong with Washington today: too weak, too moderate, and unwilling to listen to the conservative base. “Mr. Boehner has no backbone when it comes to standing up for principles that Christians believe in,” said Ron Goss, an activist from Locust Dale, Virginia.

“It’s absolutely best news I’ve heard in months,” said Judith Neal, a Christian activist from San Dimas, California.

“I am delighted because he’s been there too long,” said Gary Frazier, a Christian organizer from Colleyville, Texas. Like the other conservatives assembled from around the country for the weekend summit, Frazier has said that conservatives expected big things after the 2014 midterms and Republicans took full control of Congress. Instead, he continued, “it’s been a year and a half of nothing.” Nobody on the religious right has been fooled by the current Republican threat to shut down the govenment over Planned Parenthood funding, he said, calling it “nothing but political posturing.”

The moment they heard about Boehner, the mood among the activists—so long frustrated by electing Republicans who didn’t carry out their agenda effectively—became almost giddy. “I’m just a little overwhelmed,” Neal said, holding her hand to her heart. “He’s held back Congress from doing all the right things.” But he’s not the only one, she said. Like many activists, Neal immediately began hoping that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell would be next, adding that she was now feeling more hopeful that the Republican establishment was finally—finally!—starting to listen.

There was no consensus among activists as to who the next speaker should be, but they expressed confidence that it would be someone from the GOP’s right flank who’d be more friendly to their social agenda than Boehner. Shak Hill, a Ted Cruz supporter and Virginia-based activist, said that the new speaker should force President Obama to veto more bills. “We’re not putting forward enough issues to show [Obama’s] true colors,”  Hill said. Tammi Wilson, 51, a conservative activist from North Carolina, agreed: She’d specifically like to see the next Speaker bring up bills that challenge funding on a line-by-line basis, as opposed to the omnibus spending bills that have kept the government open. Republicans like Boehner, she said, haven’t done so because “they’re afraid of Obama.”

The right flank of the GOP has been calling for Boehner to resign for years, but the shadow of the 2016 elections seems to have done him in. In the short term, Boehner’s resignation could conceivably help Republican candidates convince disillusioned and frustrated GOP voters that change is possible after all, that there’s renewed hope of their agenda advancing. But those hopes could also backfire on the Republican establishment, precisely because of the renewed optimism that evangelicals were reveling in this morning: Cynicism and frustration with Washington have hurt the candidates who already hold office. But what happens when the frustrations set in again, and activists want the insurgents to flex their muscles and topple the establishment again?

Senator Ted Cruz, who’s counting on the religious right to be a cornerstone of his campaign, wasn’t worrying about that for now: Taking the stage shortly after his presidential rival, Rubio, broke the news about Boehner, Cruz used the speaker’s resignation as a rallying cry. “You want to know how much each of you terrify Washington?” Cruz asked, clearly feeling the buzz of unexpected optimism in the crowd. “Yesterday, John Boehner was speaker of the House. Y’all come to town and all of a sudden that changes. My only request is that you come more often.”

 

By: Suzy Khimm, Senior Editor, The New Republic; September 25, 2015

September 28, 2015 Posted by | Christian Conservatives, Evangelicals, John Boehner | , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

“Poisonous Intra-Party Politics”: John Boehner’s Resignation Won’t Save Republicans From Themselves

For all his flaws, House Speaker John Boehner, who announced on Friday that he will resign from Congress at the end of October, was badly served by a lot of people.

Boehner’s decision is due not to any ostensible scandal or illness but to cruel political mathematics: His conference has become so dysfunctional that when a Republican speaker resigns, the House becomes less, not more, chaotic and reckless. The circumstances that prefigured his resignation are thus a fitting metaphor for his entire speakership and for the state of the Republican Party as a whole. It would be to Boehner’s credit to do everything in his power in the next month to protect his successor from the same fate.

What makes Boehner’s decision surprising is that the forces that drove him to it are familiar enough that they’ve become mundane. Up against a deadline to complete a basic function of government—in this case, to fund it—Boehner found himself beset by conservative demands that he condition Congress’ obligation to help run the country on President Barack Obama’s capitulating to partisan demands. This time the demand was to defund Planned Parenthood. In the past it’s been to change immigration policy, slash social spending, and defund the Affordable Care Act. In each instance, Boehner was confronted with a terrible choice: provoke a crisis, like the 2013 government shutdown, or capitulate to Obama, and face repercussions from unruly conservative members, who were constantly threatening to depose him.

These episodes of brinkmanship always resolved themselves, sometimes in damaging ways. In addition to the shutdown, Boehner’s 2011 decision to ransom the statutory debt limit brought the country within hours of an economically devastating credit default, and precipitated an agreement to impose automatic, indiscriminate spending cuts that harm the government and the economy to this day. More recently, he placated his members by embroiling the House in a lawsuit against the president, which, if successful, would precipitate a constitutional crisis. But he always maintained his brittle grip on power. Either he no longer believes he can, or doesn’t want the hassle anymore.

By stepping down, but not for a month, Boehner has freed himself from the poisonous intraparty politics that made it all but impossible for him to govern, and left himself a brief opening in which to settle some accounts, before the next speaker is elected.

If the succession of power goes as it has in recent years, his deputy—Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy of California—will become speaker. A conservative dark horse, like Representative Jeb Hensarling of Texas, could mount a challenge. But any insurgent candidate will have to overcome the fact that the speakership, unlike the majority leadership and other high-ranking posts, is determined by the entire House. Democrats, who can not elect a speaker on their own, are ultimately likelier to assure a victory for McCarthy over the devil they don’t know.

But no matter who comes next, the question is whether they’ll immediately confront the same tawdry dynamic that ultimately felled Boehner, or whether Boehner takes it upon himself to bring some stability to the chamber.

If he takes the path of least resistance, the next speaker will have all the same problems Boehner had, minus his years of experience. That path would end with a brief continuation of government funding—just enough to hand the same political mess over to a new leadership team. It would leave the government no less vulnerable to a shutdown, or another debt limit crisis, or a lapse in highway funding, and the party no less vulnerable to bearing responsibility for a crisis in the middle of election season. Call it Boehner’s curse.

Boehner probably can’t end the vicious cycle that hobbled his speakership. But he could plausibly clear the deck for his successor for long enough that the big issues Republicans want to fight over can play out in the election, rather than in the throes of governance. He could place legislation on the floor that funds the government for a year, extends the debt limit through 2016, and replenishes the highway trust fund, and allow Democrats to supply most of the votes required to restore calm. If Boehner were determined to make the next speakership less volatile than his own, and to end his own speakership on a note of responsible stewardship, he almost certainly could. What remains to be seen is whether he has one last fight left in him.

 

By: Brian Beutler, Senior Editor, The New Republic; September 26, 2015

September 27, 2015 Posted by | Conservatives, House Republicans, John Boehner | , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

“Bye Bye Boehner”: The Speaker’s Exit Has The Potential To Cause Chaos On Capitol Hill

Friday morning, House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, announced his resignation and rocked the political world. The embattled speaker will step down at the end of October. Boehner’s latest move was abrupt and unexpected. Until this morning’s announcement, Washington was still collectively basking in the afterglow of Pope Francis’s historic visit to our city. Now, the speaker’s impending exit has everyone wondering what happens next.

The most immediate matter on Congress’ agenda is the continued funding for the operations of the federal government. Current funding is due to expire at the end of the fiscal year, which is Sept. 30. Congress has not passed the funding bills for fiscal year 2016, so it must take some type of action next week to avoid shutting the government down. According to the Washington Post, the speaker’s resignation has cleared the way for this to happen, and Congress will pass a short-term funding deal that would keep the government running.

Until this morning, some House Republicans were threatening to vote against continued funding for the government unless the necessary legislative package also included provisions to defund Planned Parenthood. The division within his own party could have left Boehner without the votes needed to pass even a temporary funding bill, but his resignation seems to have appeased the conservatives who opposed him. Rep. John Fleming, R-La., told the Post, “The commitment has been made that there will be no shutdown.”

While the initial crisis of a potential government shutdown will be averted, Congress still has much more to do before the end of the year. These matters will become more complicated with the new hole in the House’s Republican leadership. Although the member next in line for the speakership seems to be House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., the Washington Post noted that many House Republicans “believe he lacks the political and tactical gravitas to be a force in the House,” adding “The resignation sets up a bruising leadership race that will represent a long-delayed open clash between conservative and establishment Republicans.”

The crucial matters that Congress must decide on before the end of the year include a long-term funding package for the remainder of fiscal year 2016 and legislation to raise the debt ceiling, which is expected to become necessary in late October or November. The potential for a contentious leadership race, which pits conservatives against the rest of Republican conference, could make reaching consensus on these remaining matters difficult. Unless House Republicans are able to decide on a new leadership slate quickly, the rest of the year could be ugly on Capitol Hill.

Long-term, the effects Boehner’s retirement could be more far reaching. The speaker may not have been beloved by Democrats or by some of the members of his own party, but he was a force in the House and he won more than he lost. He had one of the most difficult jobs in Washington, but he worked every day to bring the factions of his House majority together so that Congress could continue with the work of the people. Most of the time, he succeeded.

It remains to be seen whether any of those who will run to replace him will be able to do the same. Recent calls from members of his own party for his removal had damaged the speaker somewhat, but he was still the most powerful, effective and thoughtful member of his party’s leadership in the House. With a relatively weak bench lined up to succeed him, Boehner’s resignation has the potential to create chaos now and in the years to come.

 

By: Cary Gibson, Government Relations Consultant, Prime Policy Group; Thomas Jefferson Street Blog, U. S. News and World Report, September 25, 2015

September 27, 2015 Posted by | Federal Budget, House Republicans, John Boehner | , , , , , , , | 2 Comments