Boehnerland

Born out of the GOP's politics of resentment and self-victimization, surly and ignorant teabaggers managed to cut off their collective noses to spite their face Tuesday. And their fuehrer, South Carolina secessionist and C Street cult member, Jim DeMint, says it's worth losing a sure GOP pick-up in Delaware-- with mainstream conservative Mike Castle-- to send a message to the Republican Establishment that it has to move even further right, via the increasingly controversial Miss No Turning Japanese Allowed (above). As Fred Barnes reminded Weekly Standard readers yesterday, Castle "voted against ObamaCare and is a co-sponsor of repeal legislation.  He voted against the stimulus. He’s for extending all the Bush tax cuts."

And he's exactly like John Boehner, leader of the House Republicans, in many other ways as well. Both are more corporatist than ideological and both are grateful to the corporate interests that have financed their long, long political careers. (Remember, Boehner, a freeloader who hasn't really worked since he was a teenager, lives in the only gated community in Ohio's 8th congressional district, more than symbolically separated from his own constituents.) Both of them were leaders in the passage of George Bush's no-strings-attached Wall Street TARP bailout and both have been relentless backers of deregulating banks and relentless backers of the job-killing trade policies-- from NAFTA and CAFTA, to the WTO/GATT that have wrecked America's manufacturing base and shipped millions of middle class jobs overseas to low wage countries (killing, in the process, business' consumer base as well, of course). Castle, in a deeply blue, more politically competitive environment, has had to handle the p.r. a little differently than Boehner. Basically, though, both have just wanted their constituents to go away and stop bothering them while they profited mightily in Boehnerland, a proverbial land of milk and honey for well-connected legislators with a loose set of ethical standards.

Today's Dayton Daily News highlights Boehner's fear and arrogance in an article about Justin Coussoule. Like the other media outlets in the district, the Daily News in not happy Boehner is ducking debates and behaving imperiously towards them and towards Ohio voters.

[S]o far, Justin Coussoule, a Liberty Twp. Democrat, said Boehner, R-West Chester Twp., hasn’t accepted-- and doubts he will.

“Boehner as the incumbent seeking re-election has an obligation to stand before the voters to make a case to be rehired,” Coussoule said.

The first-time public office seeker said he also must make his case if he hopes to oust the incumbent. Coussoule said Boehner is either “afraid” or “too arrogant” to debate.

“We ought to have an opportunity for the voters to hear us both in the same room on the same topics and be able to answer questions and be able to compare and contrast,” Coussoule said... In a Sept. 8 Butler County News and Issues blog posting at journal-news.com titled “The ‘debate’ debate,” some respondents said they wanted to see a debate, and one poster said Boehner is “ignoring his own constituents.”

Back t Delaware lunatic fringe teabagger for a moment. I doubt O'Donnell has a real chance of winning in November, but I agree with those who think she'd be a better choice for the right than Castle-- at least for a year... until her natural instincts as a crook kick into high gear. Someday she may be as good at crookedness as a John Boehner. Meanwhile, though, America is stuck with John Boehner either as an obstructionist Minority Leader or, worse, as Speaker of the House.


Notice Boehner's tie above. That isn't photoshopped. That's what he was wearing the other day: a big fish eating a little fish. It's his world. It's an integral part of Boehnerland. He's willing to block tax deductions for 97% of taxpayers if Democrats don't allow tax breakers for the already fat and sassy 3% of wealthiest families. The small fish getting eaten by the big fish, the big fish who have been so good to John Boehner that he'd screw over the people who vote for him in Butler, Miami, Mercer, Darke, Montgomery and Preble counties. That's the other side of Boehnerland.

Blue America and the Americans For America PAC know full well that there's only one person who can stop John Boehner. It isn't Barack Obama and it isn't Nancy Pelosi. It's not the DNC or the DCCC, although it would be nice if either or even both, would lend a hand; it's Justin Coussoule, the progressive Democrat running for the Ohio seat Boehner has been disgracing for two decades. Below is the latest ad we made to hammer home to southwest Ohio voters that, for the first time ever, they actually have a viable alternative to more Boehnerland. If you feel the spirit, please help us keep our ads on TV in Ohio from now until November. You can do it here on our Blue America ActBlue page or by sending a check to Blue America PAC, PO Box 27201, Los Angeles, CA 90027.