The GOP's love-hate relationship with Cordray

The Republicans on the Senate Banking Committee  are seeking a way to deny Richard Cordray a job by resorting to a variation of the tune sung by the late Jerry Falwell:  Love the sinner but hate the sin.  Where else except in  the loony political atmosphere of  GOP America would you find conservative senators praising the key witness for his competence while trying to strip him of the job he was hired to do?

Cordray, the former Ohio attorney general, is the still-unconfirmed director of the U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, a self-explanatory title. Republicans have all but declared the agency to be a front for Shariah Law. They insist Cordray would have too much power to raise hell with anyone ripping off consumers.  They assured Cordray that they mightily admire his good work, but...

But really, folks, how are these stonewallers qualified to recognize good work?

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More hilarity  from Capitol Hill:  The Paul Ryan Show,  one-man stand-up  comedy that has played before, is continuing to amuse observers who scored more than a c-minus in arithmetic.  In a revival that could reach Broadway for its impudent gag lines, Ryan has retrurned to his self-styled abacus to present a budget filled with what can only be described  as a mathematical non-sequitur. Undismayed, Ryan invites everyone to come back in 10 years, when he  will be able to show you that even if the numbers don't add up, they work.

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As if John Boehner doesn't have enough on his plate, a former Ohio Republican congressman who is back in street clothes from a prison term, has some untidy things to say about the Speaker in a  new memoir.  Bob Ney,  who spent 11 months in a federal prison for political corruption from his illegal handiwork with Jack Abramoff,   charges in the book that Boehner is a  "chain-smoking, relentless wine drinker" who engages in the high life of "golf, women, cigarettes, fun and alcohol."

An alcoholic himself,  Ney admits that his own crash "whichever way I look at it, was wrong, illegal, unethical and immoral."  He says he has found peace  through meditation   inspired by the Dalai Lama.  Will he now play nice and share the path with Boehner?

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Finally, another "rising star". As you may be aware, I'm keeping a list of the designated rising stars in politics while the supply lasts.  Today's comes from the Associated Press,  which described George Prescott Bush, Jeb's son, a "rising star among Hispanics."
G.P announced Tuesday that he's running for Texas land commissioner.  A Bush grandfather,  an uncle and a father, and now a land commissioner?  How many stars can the universe accommodate?  No problem, George Prescott Bush says on his website:  "Texans are exceptional."

Boehner stations troops in Canton area's remap

CONSIDERING THE current decline in property values, what would an entire congressional district be worth these days? $25 million? $509 million ? $2 million? Not even close. For John Boehner's real estate reappraisal team, try a skimpy $210,000. That's what the Timken Company has donated to Republican Rep. Jim Renacci, of the 16th Congressional District (Canton area).

According to media reports, Boehner's aides played a leading role to redraw the district from the earlier proposed map in order to include the Timken Company in the new boundaries. The Plain Dealer reported:

"Tom Whatman, executive director for Team Boehner, the Republican speaker's political team, was making key recommendations on how to configure Ohio's new congressional districts out of public view". His mission, of course, was to create the friendliest possible map for Republicans such as Renacci.

Emails recovered by the Ohio Campaign for Accountable Redistricting, which include the League of Women Voters and a coalition of progressive groups , revealed that the political mapmakers met secretly in a Columbus Hotel to lay out the new maps. The emails contradicted Ohio House Speaker William Batchelder's assurance that the entire process was transparent. And, as we have been told, Batchelder never lies. (But the people who swear to that do lie.)

The smoking gun for this back-room deal came from a Whatman email, in which he thanks the locals for agreeing to the last-minute change in the district's boundaries that now has Timken back in Renacci's district. "Very important to someone very important to us all," he says.

Nothing could be more transparent than those words.

Renacci, former Wadsworth mayor and adminstrator of a group of nursing homes, faces Democratic Rep. Betty Sutton in the new district. A wealthy (millions) conservative, he has become a corporate darling as an enemy of government regulations. With the big investors and the new district map on Renacci's side, Sutton, who has experienced trench warfare in the past, will face another tough race. But I have a feeling that he will, too.

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The debt limit bill; Boehner's hostage role:

Watching Tea Party hostage John Boehner strutting around with a grin and a victory thumb up blurs the record that he, in turn, held the nation hostage to protect his hide against threats of Tea Party opposition to his own reelection next year. Meantime, anybody who suggests that the winners are laughing all the way to the bank are overlooking an important point: Folks, they

ARE the bank.

Boehner means business about,,.um... small business

IN THEIR POST-ELECTION theatrics, Republican leaders in the House continued to hypnotize us with their promises that the new Congress will get American moving again by helping small business. You can count on us to help small businesses in America, the likely House Speaker told us countless times long past midnight. It's critical, he says, that Congress take up the task immediately for the sake of...um...small businesses. Rep. Eric Cantor, the next in line dauphin in the House, is another robotic supporter of..um...small business. The only difference of Boehner's portrayal of the alleged work ahead is that Cantor doesn't say it tearfully but rather with a wide brush-a- brush-a brush-a Ipana smile that appears to be awfully real.

Where have these fellows been?

As I recall, the Democratic Congress finally was successful in passing a $30 billion small- business measure in September after GOP chorus blocked it for months. But it's easy to find disconnects with Boehner, one of corporate America's (i.e., big, big business) favorite baggers of lobbyist money even if he insists he is a commoner who shares the woes of small business because as a kid he used to scrub floors in his father's little tavern.