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Chuck Todd, NBC Political Director

Mark Murray, NBC Deputy Political Director

Domenico Montanaro, NBC News Political Reporter



Who stole my cheese?

Posted: Thursday, July 09, 2009 1:58 PM by Domenico Montanaro
Filed Under: , ,

From NBC’s Mike Viqueira


House Minority Leader John Boehner continued to attack stimulus spending and the administration's handling of the economy today.

"No wonder the American people think we're nuts," Boehner concluded.

On behalf of his constituents, he had a question for Vice President Biden, who, of course, was not present, but near Boehner's turf stumping for the stimulus in southwest Ohio today.

"Mr. Vice President, where are the jobs?" Boehner asked.

Ohio's unemployment rate is above 10%.



Video: As lawmakers and analysts debate the effectiveness of President Barack Obama’s economic recovery plan, MSNBC’s Dylan Ratigan and a panel of guests offer their impressions.

And on the dust up between leading House Democrats and CIA Director Leon Panetta, Boehner encouraged further public debate.  

"I think the catfight going on within the Democratic Party should continue," he said, cheekily.

Boehner held forth at his regular weekly news conference, which today was held in the gi-normous, brand new subterranean studio located in the Capitol Visitor's Center. This was the first use of the venue.

Boehner accused the federal government of spending $16 million in stimulus money to save something called the salt marsh harvest mouse, which he said resides near House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's district -- something he’s brought up before.

He asserted that during the stimulus debate, Pelosi had sworn that no such funds would be spent, and pointed out that 100 miles away in the Central Valley, there are farms drying up, in part, so the mouse's habitat can stay wet. He appeared next to a picture of the critter.

The speaker's office called it nonsense.

"The mouse was never specifically mentioned in the recovery legislation nor was it championed during the debate,” a spokesman writes in an e-mail response. “This project competed among many other projects for the funding it was awarded yesterday ... This project is not in the Speaker's district. None of these endangered animals inhabit San Francisco -- nor is there any historical evidence that they ever inhabited the area that is now the City of San Francisco."

On the CIA dust up, Boehner repeated his oft-repeated call for the speaker to either apologize to the CIA for calling them liars, or to come up with evidence.

"It's pretty clear that she was briefed" on waterboarding, he said once again.

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Boner and company know that the government cannot, and isn't expected to, replace EVERY single job that companies have slashed in the past 18 months. The stimulus plan was meant to staunch the bleeding and to help preserve/create between 3-4 million jobs by the end of 2010. It was intended to act as a "life line", when the private sector and lower levels of government were cutting and slashing jobs, by building infrastructure and paying out money to the lower levels of government UNTIL THE PRIVATE SECTOR STARTS HIRING BACK THOSE THEY HAVE LAID OFF.

This recession didn't happen over night and it won't recover overnight. The private sector, even that "socialist" Obama agrees, is the prime generator of jobs so if you have beef, start asking your local companies when are they gonna start hiring workers back again?
Mr Boehner, this spring, why did you propose a 3 page spending plan that you wanted to debate for 6 months?

That's right Mr. Boehner, you were the one who had his feet stuck in the mud and spent last year and this year watching the economy crash.  The economy went in the tank in December 2007.  

In spring of 2009, Boehner proposed a whopping 3 page stimulus plan that he said Congress shouldn't hurry.
i think john wanna be african american need to be quiet, and try and come up with a solution not criticise not a hurry come up one either, a real solution.
Nancy Pelosi taking all the stimulus money, good idea Obama!!!!
Exactly! Where are the jobs? Early this year Obama promised millions of jobs if we implemented his plans, and now Barack says that unemployment is just going to keep on rising. What in the world is that about? Obama is spending the next few generations of taxpayers down the river, and for what? Nothing.
FR: "The mouse was never specifically mentioned in the recovery legislation nor was it championed during the debate,” a spokesman writes.

It wasn't a mouse. It was a rabbit.
No, Mr. Boehner we don't think you are nuts because of the stimulus but because John Boehner and others like him ARE nuts because they don't give the stimulus time to work, they offer no viable alternative, and they whine and complain being part of the problem rather than part of the solution.
The Boner ios a LIAR

He claimed that no Stimulus spending was going on in Ohio... THAT'S A LIE !!
52 projects were under way while the Boner said that

The BONER LIED

'...The Democratic National Committee is taking the aggressive step of going after Republican politicians, accusing them of posturing and hypocrisy, when it comes to the president's stimulus package.

On Wednesday, the DNC put out a web ad rapping the House Minority Leader John Boehner for making inaccurate remarks about the infrastructure dollars sent to Ohio through the stimulus. The video, titled "Boehner 'No Facts'" accuses the Ohio Republican of "using baseless attacks to mislead the public about the success of the Recovery Act." It also ties him to the "Bush economic policies of the past eight years that brought our economy to its knees."

What's noteworthy here is not the Bush line -- a predictable line of attack when it comes to browbeating GOP pols. Rather, it is the willingness, indeed eagerness, on the part of the DNC to engage Boehner in a debate over the stimulus.

If there is a particular vulnerability for the White House, it is the scope of president's stimulus spending. And among the places where the recovery package's shortcomings are most obvious, Boehner's home state of Ohio is one of them. A new Quinnipiac poll shows that Obama's approval rating in the Buckeye State dipped from 62 percent in May to 49 percent a month later.

But, at least at this juncture, it seems clear Democrats feel comfortable defending the White House record when it comes to its job creations policies, in part because it's easy to localize the importance of the stimulus. As the DNC ad points out, Boehner's district alone has received nearly $15 million in recovery-related projects.

That said, Boehner's office isn't exactly shying away from the debate. As the House Minority Leader's spokesman, Kevin Smith, told Politico:

"Ohio was very nearly the last state to get the first 50 percent of its stimulus construction money obligated for construction projects, which is ridiculous. As of late May, approximately, no contracts had been signed. Since that time, some contracts have been belatedly set in motion, but the entire process has been absurdly slow-moving -- just as Republicans warned it would be last winter when we called for an economic recovery bill based on fast-acting tax relief for small businesses and working families rather than spending on slow-moving government programs. It's embarrassing that the DNC can't defend its own indefensible trillion-dollar stimulus that isn't working but resorts to desperate tactics like this."

UPDATE: DNC Spokesman Hari Sevugan responds to Smith's response, again tying Boehner to the Bush economic record.

Kevin Smith and John Boehner need a history lesson. It was them and their Republican allies - including Dick Cheney and George Bush that - that sunk our economy into a near depression - while it's the very economic policies and the jobs bill passed by President Obama that have begun to turn things around. What's embarrassing is that after being one of the handful of Republican leaders responsible for pushing our economy over the cliff and putting millions of Americans out of work - that John Boehner would go on national TV and not tell the truth about the projects in Ohio that are beginning to put people back to work - no thanks to him...'

LIES, DAMN LIES and REPUBLICAN TALKING POINTS


WHAT HAS BOEHNER EVER ACCOMPLISHED ???

(besides getting an orange tan?)
And Obama and Biden keep spreading their happy bs thoughout the country. They keep telling us the economy is getting better while all the while it is getting worse. They keep telling us about "Green shoots" all the while the unemployment lines get longer and longer. They keep spending money, our money, on things we don't need, but money that does pay off their political friends, and all the while they show us their happy little faces while they are ripping us off.

The faster these two phonies are sent packing the better.
'...On the CIA dust up, Boehner repeated his oft-repeated call for the speaker to either apologize to the CIA for calling them liars, or to come up with evidence...'

'...Peter Hoekstra’s (R-MI) repeated criticism of the agency, including this statement in 2007: “We cannot have an intelligence community that covers up what it does and then lies to Congress.” ...'


'...in 2007 Gingrich himself accused the CIA, among other U.S. intelligence agencies, of not just misleading Congress but actively undermining the President...'


From Think Progress:

'...Host Diane Sawyer challenged Gingrich, noting that he never criticized Rep. Peter Hoekstra’s (R-MI) repeated criticism of the agency, including this statement in 2007: “We cannot have an intelligence community that covers up what it does and then lies to Congress.” Gingrich struggled uncomfortably and repeatedly attempted to change the subject:

GINGRICH: Well, in that case, he’s writing a specific letter asking them to change something they were doing. He did not say the CIA routinely lies —

SAWYER: “Lies,” he said —

GINGRICH: — to the Congress.

SAWYER: Well, he says “lies.” He says “what it does and then lies to Congress.”

GINGRICH: And I think they actually had to come back and testify.

But more hypocritical than his silence in response to Hoekstra’s criticisms of the CIA is the fact that in 2007 Gingrich himself accused the CIA, among other U.S. intelligence agencies, of not just misleading Congress but actively undermining the President of the United States. In response to the release of the 2007 Iran National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) — which concluded that Iran had halted its nuclear weapons program — Gingrich said that he believed the NIE and its authors were “damaging to our own national security”:

[The NIE] is so professionally unworthy, so intellectually indefensible and so fundamentally misleading that it is damaging to our national security.

The NIE appears to be a deliberate attempt to undermine the policies of President Bush by members of his own government by suggesting that Iran no longer poses a serious threat to U.S. national security because we apparently have credible reports that Iran halted its nuclear weapons program in 2003.

While Gingrich claimed to be aiming his criticisms at “partisan State Department bureaucrats,” the reality is that the NIE was compiled and authored by the Director of National Intelligence and the National Intelligence Council, in which the CIA plays an integral role. It was regarded as the “intelligence community’s most authoritative and coordinated written assessment” of Iran’s nuclear capabilities....'

The Republicans are just trying to cover up the Bush/CFheney WAR CRIMES !!

Bush/Cheney TORTURED

HANG 'EM HIGH
"Mr. Vice President, where are the jobs?" Boehner asked."
       Mr. Boehner and his Republican buddies let corporate America send all of them overseas, anyone that thinks this problem that has taken decades to create is going away overnight is nuts and being just plain silly.
Ohio's unemployment will go to 15%. Ohio is just like the federal government. It has a liberal Democrat governor and majorites in both legislative houses. So who do the Democrats like Governor Ted Strickland blame the very problems they created on? Yup, you guessed it, the Republicans. In Ohio's case, the Republicans and some Democrats are against expanded gambling in the state to get more tax revenue. Gee Strickland, maybe it's not a good idea to depend on gambling to meet your budget.
I watched Dylan Ratigan show. Stephen A. Smith was guest who discussed how the stimulus was working.
I am confused this is the same person who is on ESPN talking about basketball
where does he get any credibility to discuss economic issues and why would you have him on a panel to discuss such issues what does that say about your show  
Does Boehner do anything other drone on and on about how he disagrees with everything, he must be a lot of fun to hang with.
Good for you, Rep, Boehner, or as we call you in my house, WOODY. And your alternatives are - - - Oh, yea, tax cuts for the rich, I (yawn) forgot.
Other than work on a phony tan, just what DO you do?
I realize people are getting antsy with the recovery, but don't forget, the Great Depression lasted years, so we are still treading water. The hate and negativity you guys are mired in is really getting old.
Good job, Mr. President, you still have my support. And I hope to change that to GREAT JOB, Mr. President, by the time I'm raking leaves...
Msieera, I see your still to ignorent to have an original thought and continue with your cut and paste from leftwing blogs and websites. You contribute zero to this discussion baord.
Mr. Boehner, it's better to be thought a fool than to open your mouth and prove it.

I guess he's still in a snit because he was proven to be a bald-faced liar twice this week - once by the ohio dept. of transportation on stimulus projects and again on the cia issue.  

Keep squealing tan man, since palin quit we need the comedic relief.
Jon chesterfield, have a seat.

So, you're suggesting that you're okay with a government spending YOUR money on Iraq, Halliburton and Blackwater but NOT to maintain unemployment payments, money to suspend states from firing employees or for national infrastructure? Or were you this livid about the previous government spending money and leaving future generations holding the bag too?

You can't have it both ways. If you have been consistently fiscally conservative then I applaud you. If not, get on board the hypocrite train with most of the Republicans ranting about "wasteful" spending by this administration.

We're still waiting for Obama to show us the jobs.  
Can someone check to see if Boehner is having an affair?

I mean when Sanford kept talking out of his head - we found out he was in love with another woman in a foreign country.

It seems like Boehner could be riding on a similar boat – really.

Then again – the tanning booth could be too hot for him.

Thank you and GOD BLESS AMERICA


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