Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gave John Boehner a lesson in leadership by risking his political career to come here to address a joint session of Congress. In that speech, Netanyahu made a compelling case for our country standing up to Iran over nuclear weapons.
With the Israeli election just two weeks away, Netanyahu faced enormous pressure in Israel and here in the United States from those urging him to stay home. Nevertheless, he threw caution to the wind and used his time to lecture Barack Obama on the dangers of striking a dangerous deal with Iran that will allow that country to remain a hair's breadth away from becoming a nuclear power and essentially get nothing in return.
Unfortunately, this lesson was lost on Boehner. Shortly after Netanyahu left the House Chamber, Boehner offered his unconditional surrender to Barack Obama over his illegal amnesty and, in return, got nothing, nada, zilch!
The deal Obama is offering Iran can mean the destruction of Israel and will undermine the peace and security of the free world; the deal Boehner gave Obama undermines our rule of law and, over the long term, our security and his own political future.
Nevertheless, Boehner was willing to cave in to the president and fund his illegal amnesty in order to retain the speaker's gavel for a few more meaningless years. And, make no mistake, Republican control of Congress with Boehner as speaker will be meaningless!
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Last fall, Obama's executive action granting amnesty for some 5 million illegal aliens was the last straw for most Americans. The polls show voters overwhelmingly elected Republicans over Democrats in November for one reason and one reason alone: to stop this executive overreach.
Our Founding Fathers gave us divided government, each with a check on the other two. Congress' check on the executive branch is the power of the purse. Boehner angered conservatives by passing an omnibus bill that funded the government through September 2015 before the new Republican-led Congress could be seated. The only exception was the Department of Homeland Security. Ostensibly, that was to allow the new guys an opportunity to defund Obama's illegal action
Anyone who has been paying attention should have known that the new Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, was not up to the task. In fact, it should be obvious that he supports Obama's illegal action because it gives his business supporters a fresh supply of cheap labor.
Boehner dutifully passed a DHS appropriations bill sans funding for Obama's amnesty, but, despite all his tough talk in the beginning, it appears he never intended to fight for it.
A real leader works tirelessly to make a case for what he or she believes with all guns firing. As incredulous as it may seem, instead of attacking Democrats for holding up the bill, as Boehner should have, a group aligned with the speaker has been running TV ads attacking conservative Republicans!
Now, Boehner is blaming the Senate, and Senate leaders are blaming the Democrats. Let's be clear: A real leader doesn't offer excuses. A real leader leads!
A real leader would have gone on every television news program and every political talk show until he had no more breath. The silence from McConnell was deafening. The silence from Boehner was almost as bad. How many political shows did Boehner make last weekend? Just one, "Face the Nation." It was to bask in the glory of his invitation to Netanyahu and to run up the white flag of surrender on the DHS bill.
When asked by host John Dickerson if he made a deal with Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, Boehner said, "The promise I made to Ms. Pelosi, is ... that we would follow regular order."
"Regular order" was code for an obscure procedural rule that allowed him to reverse an earlier vote on the DHS bill that contained no restrictions on Obama's amnesty. This was possible because his co-conspirator in the Senate, Mitch McConnell, passed the Democrats' bill. Then, when Senate Democrats – surprise, surprise – voted against going to conference with the House to work out the differences, voila!
At that point, Boehner ran up his white flag and encouraged 75 squishy Republicans to go along with the Democrats and join his unconditional surrender.
By coming to the U.S., Netanyahu placed himself in danger of losing his election. It is no secret that he is under tremendous pressure from his left and his right. Nevertheless, Netanyahu boldly put it all on the line to do the right thing. That's statesmanship, something that is solely lacking with the current congressional leadership.
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