From Fox News--Breaking: John Boehner has agreed to stay on as Speaker

Breaking: John Boehner has agreed to stay on as Speaker

Per Bret

Having Talked to several senior aides on Capitol Hill (along with Chris Stirewalt and his sources on the Hill tied to the leadership) here is the picture that is beginning to form.

Speaker John Boehner has agreed to stay on as Speaker--not just until the Caucus nominates someone --but, until that person can confirm 218 votes on the House floor (needed to take the Speaker’s gavel). Short of that – Boehner will stay on for the rest of this Congress and steer legislation that is pending.

What does this mean? Moderates and leadership types are cheering and saying Boehner is the only one they will support. Conservatives will go ballistic since they know this signals that Boehner will make ALL kinds of deals to get big ticket legislation through the House even if it means using Democrats votes to do it.

The news… short of another candidate that can get 218 votes (and that looks like a long shot with leadership and moderates lining up behind Boehner)

Looks like he may be here to stay to handle the very tough debt ceiling and next CR.

http://www.foxnews.com/on-air/specia.../files/2_3.jpg


http://www.foxnews.com/on-air/specia...d-stay-speaker

Oh hell no! This is a huge mistake on the part of Boehner and the elites. The public pressure against Boehner and his allies is going to quadruple if Boehner steps back in!

W

Sounds like a plan. The alternative is Paul Ryan. Anyone want that? I sure don't.

I agree Judy. People should be careful what they wish for---especially in Washington DC. Like Harry Truman said " If you want a friend in Washington, get a dog." We've have seen certain conservatives steering us into messes in the Middle East and often embarrassing themselves to critical thinkers.

The road to Hell is paved with good intentions.

I smell more than one rat, conspiracy planned very skillfully by Boehner and McCarthy. McCarthy withdrew too easily. "We tried to change leadership and no one agreed. yeah, I'm back, so what?" So, another promise (to be retired by months end), broken by republicans again!!!! That is what, just like last October thru January. I am sick and tired of being played as a fool. Anyone else?

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Originally Posted by kevinssdad

I smell more than one rat, conspiracy planned very skillfully by Boehner and McCarthy. McCarthy withdrew too easily. "We tried to change leadership and no one agreed. yeah, I'm back, so what?" So, another promise (to be retired by months end), broken by republicans again!!!! That is what, just like last October thru January. I am sick and tired of being played as a fool. Anyone else?

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I very much agree that this could have been a scam from the beginning. That line of reasoning is as good as any until someone comes up with another reason for McCarthy's quick exit from consideration.

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Originally Posted by MW

I very much agree that this could have been a scam from the beginning. That line of reasoning is as good as any until someone comes up with another reason for McCarthy's quick exit from consideration.

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DID SCARLET LETTER 'A' DOOM MCCARTHY?

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Originally Posted by JohnDoe2

DID SCARLET LETTER 'A' DOOM MCCARTHY?

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They're saying McCarthy didn't have the votes to get to 218. The Freedom Caucus was backing Daniel Webster from Florida. That's 38 votes right there plus Webster's vote for himself, which is 39 and some others who like him who support him so with that group behind Webster, they couldn't get to 218 with McCarthy. And there were 2 others I think running, so they would have some, so I think it was the numbers.

Kevin McCarthy's Exit Came After Personal Threat Over Affair Allegations

"Why not resign like Bob Livingston?”

Michael Calderone Senior Media Reporter
Posted: 10/08/2015 07:15 PM EDT | Edited: 36 minutes ago

http://img.huffingtonpost.com/asset/...e007e4ba9.jpegASSOCIATED PRESS

In the hours before House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) abruptly withdrew his candidacy to be the next speaker of the House, he was sent an email from a conservative activist threatening to expose an alleged affair with a colleague.

The subject line: “Kevin, why not resign like Bob Livingston?”
The email, sent just after 8 a.m. on Thursday, came from Steve Baer, a Chicago-based GOP donor known for mass-emailing conservative figures and Republican lawmakers. It was addressed to McCarthy and numerous others, including the personal account of Rep. Renee Ellmers (R-N.C.), who conservative media sites have suggested is tied romantically to McCarthy.

McCarthy has brushed off the affair allegation. After announcing that he would not seek the speaker's post on Thursday, he was asked about Wednesday's cryptic letter from Rep. Walter Jones (R-N.C.), which asked that "any candidate for speaker of the House, majority leader, and majority whip withdraw himself from the leadership election if there are any misdeeds he has committed since joining Congress that will embarrass himself, the Republican conference, and the House of Representatives if they become public."

"No. No. Come on," said McCarthy. His decision to withdraw, he said, was to ensure that fellow GOP members didn't have a tough vote. "For us to unite, we probably need a fresh face," he said.

But the existence of the Baer email, passed to The Huffington Post by a source, shows that there were personal threats being made prior to McCarthy's abrupt announcement.

In the email, Baer linked to a Washington Examiner story published earlier Thursday with the headline: “Specter of sex scandal injected into GOP leadership race.” The article referenced Jones’ letter in the context of Speaker-elect Bob Livingston abruptly resigning in 1998 following a sex scandal.
Baer urged McCarthy to spare his family and congressional colleagues the ordeal of the allegations being raised, and suggested that concealing an affair would be a national security risk because of the possibility of extortion.

Few news organizations have touched the affair allegations, beyond the Drudge Report and conservative media. Charles Johnson, the conservative provocateur behind GotNews.com,reported them back in January. (Johnson, who is currently banned from Twitter, took a victory lap Thursday on Facebook.)

The rumors gained more traction in the last week in conservative circles, perhaps partly due to Baer’s multiple emails over that time, sent to a string of high-powered Republicans.

RedState editor-in-chief and radio host Erick Erickson wrote Thursday that someone sent links to blog posts about the alleged affair a few days ago to 91 people, including members of Congress and “highly influential conservatives outside Congress.” Erickson added that “there’s no evidence of the rumor being true.”

Erickson didn’t name the email sender, but The Huffington Post has confirmed it was Baer.

In Thursday’s post, Erickson wrote that a comment by Ellmers in The Hill, in the context of the rumors, further hyped the rumor mill:

Even some natural leadership allies such as Rep. Renee Ellmers (R-N.C.) expressed doubts about promoting McCarthy to Speaker, a job second in line to the presidency.

“He has not spoken to me personally for my vote, and Jason Chaffetz has, so that’s where I am right now. At this point I will be casting a vote for Jason Chaffetz,” said Ellmers, who is facing a GOP primary challenger. “I can’t vote for someone who doesn’t ask for my vote.

“I’m apparently not high on his priority list,” she added.

Major media outlets often are reluctant to amplify such claims and famously ignored rumors of John Edwards’ infidelity during the 2008 election. While cable news was all over McCarthy's decision to withdraw from the speaker's race on Thursday afternoon, no hosts or guests on CNN, MSNBC, or Fox News explicitly referenced the rumors.

Bloomberg’s Mark Halperin seemed to allude to them during an MSNBC appearance, noting “there’s a lot of speculation” that McCarthy’s decision had “more to do with things outside of his professional life.”

A couple hours later, Halperin cryptically tweeted:

Conservative columnist Matt Lewis, one of the few prominent political writers to directly address the rumors Thursday afternoon, explained his reasoning to The Huffington Post.

"I think that the new media errs sometimes in being overzealous and imprudent and the old media errs in being stodgy and not fulfilling its responsibly to viewers and readers,” Lewis said. “It was stunning what happened today and people are looking for answers to something that seems unexplainable. And the truth is that insiders and media elites all over DC are talking about these rumors -- and some fairly prominent people are blogging about it. So I do think there’s a responsibility to be prudent in the way we present the story, but that needs to be balanced with the responsibility we have to our readers."

Baer did not return a request for comment from The Huffington Post. He is a mysterious figure, even in conservative circles. A 2013 National Review story described him as the “most successful email harasser” and noted he blasts out emails to influential conservatives like Erickson, Charles and David Koch, Grover Norquist, and Republican members of Congress.

UPDATE: 11:06 p.m. -- The Hill reported Thursday night that Baer "has been flooding lawmakers' personal email in-boxes with blogs and articles about the McCarthy rumors":

At least eight GOP lawmakers told The Hill they had personally received the Baer emails. One lawmaker said his wife got one of the emails, then asked him about it. A female Western state lawmaker said she began investigating Baer and the issue on Google.

One Midwest Republican lawmaker backing McCarthy took it a step further. After receiving several emails each day about the allegations, the lawmaker brought up the issue directly with close McCarthy allies.

“I didn’t blow it off,” the Midwest lawmaker told The Hill on Thursday. “I asked some direct questions of key people who should know Kevin very well. They said no. One of his closest friends and confidants told me, he knows Kevin and there has never been any indication or evidence or any suggested activities that would have indicated that was true.”

-- Sam Stein and Ryan Grim contributed reporting.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/...b0082030a1e0a8

Related:
Paul Ryan Won't Run For House Speaker
Politicians React To Kevin McCarthy's Withdrawal From Speaker Race
Kevin McCarthy Becomes Benghazi Committee's First Casualty

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The subject line: “Kevin, why not resign like Bob Livingston?”
The email, sent just after 8 a.m. on Thursday, came from The subject line: “Kevin, why not resign like Bob Livingston?” The email, sent just after 8 a.m. on Thursday, came from Steve Baer, a Chicago-based GOP donor known for mass-emailing conservative figures and Republican lawmakers. It was addressed to McCarthy and numerous others, including the personal account of Rep. Renee Ellmers (R-N.C.), who conservative media sites have suggested is tied romantically to McCarthy.Steve Baer, a Chicago-based GOP donor known for mass-emailing conservative figures and Republican lawmakers. It was addressed to McCarthy and numerous others, including the personal account of Rep. Renee Ellmers (R-N.C.), who conservative media sites have suggested is tied romantically to McCarthy.

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So a "donor" is behind these rumors? Steve Baer??!! He's a nut. Anyone who bows to his tactics needs a gumption drink. Republicans need to condemn this man, stop taking his money, yes that means you, too, Rick Santorum, tell him to go jump off a cliff, and call for an investigation by the FBI of how he gains access to the private emails of members of Congress that are not published and to which Steve Baer is breaking the law I believe by the secret method he uses to obtain them, and them use them to harass and threaten members of the US Congress as well as other political candidates.

Our political system is complicated enough without "donors" using secret technology and other means to try to disrupt our already extremely fragile system of government.

SHAME ON YOU, STEVE BAER, you low-down pond-scum with more money than brains.

This Conservative Mega-Donor Is the World’s Most Successful E-mail Harasser

by JONATHAN STRONG October 22, 2013 5:34 PM

At 7:21 p.m. on the last night of the government shutdown, as the House was set to pass a Senate-struck deal to open the government and raise the debt ceiling, dozens of members of Congress received a threatening e-mail from someone whose name they did not know. Accompanied with a link to a list of filing deadlines for candidates launching primary challenges against incumbent Republicans, the e-mail read:

“Now let us dine on RINO flesh” — RINO being an acronym for Republican In Name Only. Rumors flew on the House floor as lawmakers wondered who had penetrated their inboxes with such a colorful metaphor.

Many members of Congress keep their e-mail addresses secret from all but a few trusted aides and colleagues. One person who received the e-mail said he had never previously received an unsolicited e-mail at his address, which he had used for years.

Who was the sender, Steven Baer? Conversations with a number of conservatives reveal that Baer has been sending combative and colorful e-mail missives in past months to a who’s-who list of power brokers in the conservative world including David and Charles Koch, Foster Friess, Matt Kibbe, Tony Perkins, Grover Norquist, Erick Erickson, Rick Santorum, and a host of Republican congressmen.

Baer has mocked those who try to unsubscribe and seemingly has no bounds to the language he will employ in exhorting conservative and Republican officials to take a harder stance against President Obama, particularly over the matter of abortion.

In an interview, Baer described himself as a conservative activist and major, if secretive, donor to the conservative movement.

He ran for governor in Illinois in 1990 and helped former Senator Rick Santorum’s presidential campaign in 2012.

However, Baer says he now deeply regrets backing Santorum because, he alleges, Santorum is tied to international abortion subsidies via his ties to the Global Fund.

In the long e-mail threads, Baer offers to donate $500,000 to anyone willing to fund the kind of hard-hitting television ads targeted at the “wimpy,” “squish,” “RINOs” Republicans he is disgusted with.

A response from Heritage Foundation president Jim DeMint included in the thread says as DeMint has discussed with Baer, he appreciates his “passion and zeal for freedom and the future of our country” and would love to accept a “no strings attached” donation, after which “your country will be in your debt. . . . And I will too.”

Baer also refers to GOP mega-donor Friess as “mi amigo and gracious Tetons ski host” and refers to conversations they’ve had over how Republicans can maximize their leverage during the shutdown and debt ceiling fights that just ended.

More than anything, it’s Baer’s colorful language that draws notice from a host of recipients who express their revulsion. The subject of one Baer thread is “Values Voters Vaginitis” — a reference to accusing social conservatives of being prostitutes to the GOP.

He urges Wall Street Journal Editorial Page editor Paul Gigot, whose e-mail is included in the list of recipients, to “demonstrate NOW that Rupert Murdoch does NOT have electrodes tied to your testes to keep you from telling the truth.”

House Budget Committee chairman Paul Ryan is a “handsome devil.”

Speaker John Boehner’s decision to pass the Senate deal to fund the government and raise the debt ceiling is his “child-sacrificing, Baal-worshiping bow-down to Obama.”

“I don’t have a comment on efficacy,” Baer says when I ask him whether his tone is the most effective method to communicate to his audience.

“I’m just interested in the truth. The truth is that House Republicans are actively financing abortion subsidies. John Boehner’s House

Republicans have become the world’s biggest abortion financiers. Efficacy is another question. I think truth comes first.”

Sources say Baer has a remarkable ability to gather e-mail addresses from unwitting collaborators who don’t immediately realize who they are dealing with.

But a remaining mystery is who helped him access e-mails to dozens of members who have begun receiving the e-mail missives.

Unlike his normal practice of putting a huge list of recipients in the “to” field for every recipient to see, Baer listed at least some of the members under the blind-carbon-copy field, making their addresses invisible. But dozens of them received the “dine on RINO flesh” e-mail, several congressional sources say.

Anyone with access to the Capitol Hill e-mail system could have painstakingly compiled a list of members’ emails and provided it to Baer, but he’s not saying who it was. “I have people who do things for me,” he says, but “I can’t comment.”

Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/corner...onathan-strong

Shut him down, Republicans. STOP TAKING THIS HARASSER"S MONEY. Don't take his phone calls, don't take his money, run him out of dodge to the oblivion in which he belongs.

"Donors" like this are a scourge, a blight, a perverse sickness, that symbolize how the pure personal evil of a few can destroy our great Republic and have probably done much to distort, twist, discredit if not the destroy the Republican Party.

DO NOT TAKE THEIR MONEY.

Get new email addresses and report anyone who gets your private/personal emails without your permission. Someone is selling him a list or using a secret technology to hack them from the Congressional servers.