An Orange Julius Sunset?

Taking this with an entire salt mine, but Taegan Goddard notes the Breitbrats are reporting a concerted effort to get rid of John Boehner as Speaker of the House.

"Several conservative House Republican members are contemplating a plan to unseat Speaker John Boehner from his position on January 3," Breitbart News reports.

"Staffers have compiled a detailed action plan that, if executed, could make this a reality... Dissatisfaction with Boehner is growing in the House Republican conference, but until now there hasn't been a clear path forward."

If the unrest generated by Boehner's Plan B debacle has gotten to this point, it may actually be serious.  Unlike 2010, when Health Shuler and the Blue Dogs went after Nancy Pelosi (and that plan went nowhere, resulting in the remaining Blue Dogs getting thrown out of Congress in November) this assault on Orange Julius's job seems to be a much more serious prospect.

Still, I'll believe it when I see somebody step up to challenge him.  So far, it's nobody, officially.  John Stanton over at BuzzFeed points out that odds definitely remain in Boehner's favor for a good reason:  the Tea Party doesn't want to govern, nor do they have to if they control Boehner and he remains around to take the slings and arrows.

None of this is to say a coup, and a successful one, is impossible. Boehner is clearly weakened by the last week’s events, his conference has become more, not less, conservative. And there are a number of scenarios under which Boehner is forced out of leadership.

But consider this: a weakened Boehner in the speakership may be exactly what conservatives ultimately want. Having one of their own atop the House puts the burden on them to actually govern, find common ground with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and President Obama, and marshal an effective electoral strategy for the 2014 midterm elections.

Remaining on the outside of a leadership team that is not in firm control of the House conference gives movement leaders the freedom to operate and push their agenda with none of the responsibilities that come with actually being in charge.

Meanwhile, President Obama has reportedly told Orange Julius exactly where he can go with his Plan B (via Bob Cesca):

Mr. Obama repeatedly lost patience with the speaker as negotiations faltered. In an Oval Office meeting last week, he told Mr. Boehner that if the sides didn’t reach agreement, he would use his inaugural address and his State of the Union speech to tell the country the Republicans were at fault.

At one point, according to notes taken by a participant, Mr. Boehner told the president, “I put $800 billion [in tax revenue] on the table. What do I get for that?”

“You get nothing,” the president said. “I get that for free.”

Like I said, right now I'm not seeing anyone step up for Boehner's head so until that happens, he stays Speaker.  But I'm betting that changes in the next week or two.  How far that challenge goes?  Stay tuned.

The Unbearable Lameness Of Being Bryan

It took Republicans losing two presidential contests and constantly getting played in the last two years especially by deals between the White House and the GOP, but Pajamas Media hack Bryan Preston finally, finally has realized with the scoreboard 67 to 14 or so that maybe the black guy isn't as stupid as all the smart white pundits thought.

President Obama comes out of last night’s debacle in a position of greater political strength, without having had to move an inch. The GOP leaders in the House will end up having to chase Democratic votes to get anything passed. The markets are reacting negatively to the near vote so far, dropping sharply in light pre-Christmas trading. A president who puts economic growth first would find this worrying, but Barack Obama is clearly putting politics first. Boehner’s Plan B was an attempt to expose that fact, but it instead exposed the fissures on the right. Obama’s priorities all along have been political, and he is well on the way to achieving all that he wants, while positioning himself to be able to blame Republicans for all the downsides. The media will amplify that.

Many of us on the right like to call Obama an amateur, but the fact is, he has won national election twice by hook or by crook, and right now he is poised to benefit from the threat of economic difficulty that he has helped engineer, again. The amateurs are those who think he is dealing in good faith, and those who think one stand on “principle” or “letting it burn” will end up hurting Obama. The fact that at this stage the Republicans have no good options left while the Democrats are set up to swoop in as saviors of the very middle class that their policies are destroying tells us who the real amateurs are.

Now of course, Preston's too much of an utter hack to realize just how bitter and resentful he sounds.  He's a card-carrying member of the "middle class must feel the pain" club, and at best his column grudgingly approaches consideration of President Obama as a human being.  Almost.

But as I've said time and time again, if Obama's supposedly so totally naive and/or stupid, how come he keeps beating the GOP?

Preston doesn't have an answer for that, of course.  Funny, that.

StupidiNews, Weekend Edition!

• NASA scientists say asteroid 2011 AG5, which had a very small chance of hitting the planet in the year 2040, will now completely miss the Earth by some 900,000 miles.
• NATO officials are accusing the Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad of firing SCUD missiles at rebel positions near Damascus.
• Cuba is lashing out at the US for imposing multi-billion dollar fines on European banks that have violated economic sanctions against the island country.
• South Korean rapper Psy has now seen his hit "Gangnam Style" hit 1 billion views on YouTube.
• Google and Motorola are going back to the drawing board to plan a new "X Phone" project to go after Apple's share of the market.