Tick, tock...time is running out for this Congress to act before taxes go up on everyone. But it would appear that John Boehner and Mitch McConnell have decided to pass the buck rather than deal with what is already on the table; namely, an extension of the middle class tax cuts. The Senate passed that last summer, but John Boehner doesn't want to pass it with Democratic votes, so it hasn't been brought to the floor for a vote.

That's too bad, but Boehner is caught in a vise of his own creation. Adele Stan's report on AlterNet brings news of House intrigue and a possible coup plot.

At the right-wing Brietbart.com, Matthew Boyle writes of a plan by conservatives to wrest the speaker's gavel from Boehner by changing the rules of the vote to a secret ballot, under the reasoning that, if Boehner was unable to determine who voted against him, he would be unable to visit retribution on those members should his speakership survive the vote.

Although Boyle relies entirely on unnamed sources, he obtained a document laying out the plan, which is currently being circulated among right-wing members of the House. The irony is that they plan to use Boehner's promotion of an anti-union position favored by the Tea Party as the rationale for making the rules change.

Here's how Card Check plays in. Boehner wrote an op-ed saying that secret ballots were more democratic because there wouldn't be retribution for one's vote. They plan to use that op-ed to force Republicans to change the procedure. According to the document published by Breitbart.com (application/pdf - 102.43 KB), the plan is to bring a proposal up to change votes for the Speaker to secret ballot, then vote for a tea party candidate.

Since Boehner yanked tea party representatives out of leadership positions, there's been a lot of resentment on their part, and even more resentment about his pretending to negotiate with President Obama. They have lots of billionaires funding them, so assume they're bowing to the wishes of their patrons on this.

Here's a somewhat funny paragraph reassuring members that Nancy Pelosi couldn't sneak in and win if they did this:

Don't worry about Speaker Boehner losing GOP votes in a secret ballot. It is still not possible for Pelosi to become Speaker even with 100% of Democrats united behind her and a split GOP vote.

Honestly, the thought never occurred to me, but it must worry some Republicans who would be afraid a split GOP vote would end up electing the Minority Leader as Speaker.

According to Adele Stan, Norm Ornstein has weighed in with a novel idea.

Go to Article I, Section 2: The Constitution does not say that the speaker of the House has to be a member of the House. In fact, the House can choose anybody a majority wants to fill the post.

Ornstein's suggestion? Jon Huntsman, the erstwhile presidential candidate and former U.S. ambassador to China, who he figures could win the votes of enough Democratic members of Congress (Huntsman was appointed to his China post by Obama) and less radical Republicans to win the gavel.

Please don't drown out the Congress with your peals of laughter.

But let's say they try this idea. Who would they elect in place of Boehner? Paul Ryan? Eric Cantor? Who would you guess?

This stuff just writes itself, which is, of course, what Louie Gohmert hopes for.

While Democrats run out the clock in order to force Republicans to act like grownups, the House of Representatives is busy, busy, busy doing the people's business. Today's agenda? Vote on a Senate bill to remove the word "lunatic" from Federal Law. I note for the record that they did not also vote to remove the word "idiot", which is probably a good thing.

According to The Hill, the bill passed almost unanimously. Gohmert's "no" vote was the only vote against it. Only a lunatic could defend keeping the word lunatic in federal law, right?

Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas) was unapologetic for his lone Wednesday vote against a bill striking the word "lunatic" from U.S. law, and said the word should be used more often to describe many of the people in Washington, D.C.

"I don't have a problem with 'lunatic' being used in the federal law, and apparently I was the only one here on the floor," he said shortly after the House approved the bill.

"In fact, it occurred to me that not only should we not ... eliminate the term 'lunatic' at a time when we are facing national bankruptcy if we don't get serious about our issues, but we should also use the term to identify those who want to continue doing business as usual around this town," he added. "It's time we got serious."

Maybe Gohmert thought he would be excluded from coverage under federal law if they quit using that word and struck it from existing law. Someone should have told him he'd still fall under the idiot designation.

[Video from 2011.]

The House results on Election Day 2012 were the only bad things that happened in what was otherwise obviously a pretty great day for Democrats and progressives. The biggest question for 2014 is whether we can find a way of turning that result around. Part of the answer, of course, is dependent on how the economy is doing. If the pessimists are right and things are not looking good, we will lose seats not gain them. But even if the economy is okay, do we have a chance at being the House majority after the 2014 elections?

As many Democratic activists have pointed out, we actually won the overall votes in House races by the same 2% plus margin that Obama did, so re-districting dominated by Republican gerrymandering clearly played a big role in them holding on to the House. Democrats, though, are making a big mistake in attributing our failure solely to gerrymandering and essentially giving up on retaking the House the rest of this decade as many pundits are suggesting. I remember the same points being made after the 2002 and 2004 failures to retake the House, and in 2006 and 2008 we not only retook the House but added considerably to the margin in 2008.

The pundits will be predicting doom and gloom for sure. Not only did we fail to win the House back in a good Democratic year, they will remind us, but in the 6th year of a Presidency the president's party almost always loses seats. But historical trends never would have predicted a lot of things we have seen in politics over the last couple of decades (an African immigrant's son with a Muslim name being elected President for one, and then being re-elected in spite of a bad economy for another), and I've been in the middle of a couple big surprises in terms of the House over the years that are worth recalling here because of the lessons they teach.

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Curiouser and curiouser:

Under increasing pressure from top Democrats to disclose what's kept Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. off the job for more than a month, the congressman's office issued a statement Wednesday saying he is being treated for a "mood disorder" at an inpatient center.

Even as Jackson's camp tried to tamp down widespread speculation — denying chatter that Jackson was being treated for alcohol or drug abuse — an array of questions was left unanswered. It remains unclear what specific psychiatric problem Jackson is being treated for, where he's being treated and when he'll get out.

In keeping with the secrecy that has surrounded Jackson since his medical leave from Congress was announced, the office's statement came from a doctor who went unnamed, citing health privacy reasons.

Don't know what 'mood disorder' means in this particular case; don't really think it's any of our business, either. I do note that Rep. Jackson's office wanted to be very clear that he was not being treated for substance abuse, which I think was what many of us assumed by the cryptic nature of the announcements. And it's not as if he's not facing enough stressors to topple even the most healthy person: he's currently under investigation for ethics violations for his role in the Blagojevich scandal and there's always the rumors of infidelity and how that plays with his family. But personal issues aside, illness is illness. Insofar as Jackson is concerned, I hope he is on the path to wellness and feels up to returning to his duties soon.

But what makes this newsworthy to me is more the oddly disloyal reaction of his fellow Democrats, like Dick Durbin and Steny Hoyer, demanding that a hospitalized colleague come forward and 'fess up his condition. Why? Where is the compassion? Where is the comity of fellow party members? When Mark Kirk suffered a stroke, he entered the hospital under an assumed name and hasn't appeared for a vote since January, something for which House leadership has been understanding. Republicans notoriously will circle the wagons and protect their own, even in the case of clear wrongdoing (I'm looking at you, David Vitter and Dick Cheney), but Democrats will discard their own like a used tissue even in a case where it's a treatable medical condition.

We are all hypocrites now and again. It seems to be a key ingredient of human nature, to ignore those who advise us to "judge not lest ye be judged," as we looks towards our friends, neighbors and political leaders with the scowl of Simon Cowell, as if we're Charles in Charge and they're Tyler Durden from Fight Club.

So that is who we are as a species. If we screw up it's bad luck. If the guy or gal down the hall does, there was evil intent or they are incompetent or quite likely a member of the Palin family trying to do another reality show (nice work Lifetime!). Although, to give Bristol Palin credit, she deserves some kind of a prize for convincing 1.1 million people who actually thought the idea of watching Dancing Moms to be a good one, to put the Cheetos aside once the mom-folk stopped undulating, lean forward in their Barcaloungers and turn the channel to anything where Bristol Palin was not.

But I digress. Yes, human beings are hypocrites. If we weren't we wouldn't get just so darn offended when we find out our favorite athlete went to the team that paid the most money or senator such-and-such said a bad word. Lord knows neither of these offenses would ever befall any of us.

Yet, that group of gray hairs reenacting their very own libertarian Woodstock, also known as Tea Party faithful, they seem to almost delight in their hypocrisy. Often we talk about this this in terms of their not-quite-personally-valued family values fetishes. For if you added up those lucky duckies who have, at one time or another, been enjoined in marital bliss to Bob Barr, Newt Gingrich and Rush Limbaugh, you could probably start a small village of home-schooled, Jesus-campers.

But on the economic front, this do-as-I-say-not-as-I'd-ever-think-of-doing is just as pernicious, if not more.

On Wednesday, Sam Stein of The Huffington Post made this abundantly clear on that day's edition of Morning Joe. Stein was on the panel with former (and kind of still current) Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul, who has compared Social Security to slavery, and had just gone on a long exposition about how it was unconstitutional, abrogated our freedoms and was just a downright terrible idea in general. So Stein asked Paul a simple question. "Are you on Social Security?"

I bet you know the answer! Of course Ron Paul cashes his Social Security checks. Sure, he has the means so he doesn't have to accept them. As a former doctor, and from those kindly old newlsletters he published in the 1990s that helpfully warned us about all those criminally inclined (as high as 95% in Washington DC alone!) and "fleet of foot" black men walking--or perhaps running--among us. But much like his idol Ayn Rand, who thought Social Security was evil until she accepted it and Medicare under her husband's name, and more recently Congressman Paul Ryan, who utilized Social Security survivor benefits to attend college, Ron Paul is a hypocrite of the highest order.

Social Security is a-ok to do for them (not currently for Rand, as she has passed on) as it currently does for millions of Americans in providing a necessary income supplement to retirement or benefits for children who have lost a parent, but won't do anymore for the hoi polloi if the Pauls and Ryans get their way (yes they are not trying to eliminate it, but they are trying to privatize it, which in light of what happened in 2008, is a swell idea).

Of course this is a widespread trend. Tea Party hero-cum-lunatic Congressman Joe Walsh of Illinois, who screams at constituents about spending like Chris Christie screams at constituents about, well, everything, was found to be delinquent by a judge in paying child support to the tune of $100,000 (personal responsibility!). Or Michele Bachmann of the Children-Of-The-Corn eyes, who happily accepted hundreds of thousands of dollars in farm subsidies for the family farm while thinking this kind of government spending for anyone else to be a conspiracy on par with the moon landing! And, of course, all you have to do is look at the members of Congress who repeated Tea Party slogans while killing the public option, only to accept their swanky government-provided health insurance, thank you very much.

Hypocrisy is the worst of human nature. And it is in all of us. It's just in the Tea Party a lot more.

Follow me on Twitter @cliffschecter

This piece was first published at Al Jazeera English

Oh, look. Another Congressional Republican saying something crazy and offensive.

"I don't know whether Barack Obama was born in the United States of America. I don't know that," Coffman said. "But I do know this, that in his heart, he's not an American. He's just not an American."

But MoveOn once compared Bush to Hitler! Michael Moore! Both sides are equally extreme!

Here's the problem. Republican rhetoric has gone so over the bend over the past four years that no one will even notice. Coffman apologized, but one wonders -- why? This stuff began even before Obama got in the White House -- with Paul Broun (R-GA) comparing Obama to Hitler. Was he censured? Not at all.

This is why, four years later, Allen West (R-FL) can call half of the Democrats in the House "Communists" and there's hardly so much as a peep.

And since there's no rebuke, and no price to pay, Republican voters will keep lapping up this poison like candy -- and further down the drain we all go.

Investigative journalist Dina Rasor is now on the Buck McKeon beat—not good news for an embattled incumbent drowning in a series of serious scandals, some just ethical, but at least one also criminal. She's especially dangerous to McKeon, chair of the House Armed Services Committee, because he's more than just your run-of-the-mill, garden variety crook.

Rasor founded the Project on Military Procurement (now called the Project on Government Oversight, or POGO) to serve as a nonprofit, nonpartisan watchdog over military and related government spending. She knows where the bodies are buried—and she's well aware that the corruption and rot isn't just about Republicans, but that it has encompassed corrupt conservative Democrats as well. There's just something about conservatism and corruption that go hand-in-hand. Always has been, always will be.

Rasor claims in a blockbuster new post at Truthout that McKeon, whose rise to fame was engineered by his fealty to John Boehner, "has taken self-dealing to new heights and is having those same contractors contribute to his wife's campaign for the California legislature."

It comes as no surprise that McKeon has served as an in-house patsy for Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Raytheon, General Dynamics, and other deep-pocketed defense contractors.

Another extraordinary investigative journalist, Lee Lang has exposed the connections between McKeon's bribe-vacuuming operation and his wife's campaign for the California state Assembly. She's getting money—and lots of it—from defense contractors who have never contributed to California legislative campaigns in the past.

Republic Report looked into the claim that Patricia’s defense industry contributors are simply local businesses, and found a startling pattern. Many of her defense lobbyist benefactors are first time California donors, while others appear to be reviving their California accounts only to help Patricia:

• The lobbying firm Beau Boulter, which represents drone manufacturers, gave Patricia McKeon $1,000. This is the first donation the firm has made in California.
• Joseph Kimmett, a government affairs executive with the defense contractor OshKosh, gave Patricia McKeon $500. OshKosh has no other recorded donations in California state politics.
• Cliff Madison Government Affairs, a lobbying firm in DC, gave $1,000 to Patricia McKeon. The firm has no other recorded donations in California state politics.
• The Fund for American Opportunity, a 527 political group run by Mark Valente, a lobbyist with defense contractor clients, gave $1,000 to Patricia McKeon. The Fund for American Opportunity has not given to any other California state politicians in recently years.
• Lockheed Martin gave Patricia McKeon $1,000. The donation was the only donation from the company to a California state legislature candidate in over a decade

.

Rasor's report paints an even bleaker picture for Mr. and Mrs. McKeon (as well as for their sons who they are trying to set up—mostly with limited suceess—in the family business).

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The good news:

The House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed a bill on Thursday to ban insider trading by members of Congress and to impose new ethics requirements on lawmakers and federal agency officials.

(Let's pause a moment to note that Congress had to pass a law that bans them from doing something illegal. Crickey.)

Now the bad news:

Democrats said that House Republican leaders had weakened the Senate-passed bill by stripping out a provision that would, for the first time, regulate firms that collect “political intelligence” for hedge funds, mutual funds and other investors. Under the Senate bill, such firms would have to register and report their activities, as lobbyists do.

Nothing like giving the hedge funds a little kickback in a bill that's supposed to create a firewall from members of Congress and Wall Street.

I can't lie, I'm a little teary from that video. Read this as I pull myself together:

Representative Gabrielle Giffords, a Democrat from Arizona whose unlikely recovery from a shooting last year stirred her colleagues and the nation, said Sunday that she would resign from Congress to focus on improving her health.[..]

Ms. Giffords’s decision to step down throws the race for her seat representing Arizona’s Eighth District into chaos. She barely fought off her Republican challenger in 2010, but was expected to be a shoo-in for re-election had she decided to run this year. The remainder of her term will be filled by the winner of a special election on a date to be determined by Gov. Jan Brewer.

Under Arizona law, a governor has 72 hours from the day the vacancy is declared to name the dates for special elections; the primary must take place 80 to 90 days from date of the vacancy followed by a general election 50 to 60 days after that.

Giffords' recovery thus far is nothing short of miraculous, considering that she was shot point blank in the head. She had been widely considered a shoo-in for re-election if she had opted to campaign again, but the exertions of a campaign and fundraising are not the kinds of things she needs to focus on. Arizona Democrats-- perhaps looking at John McCain and John Kyl in the Senate and Jan Brewer in the Governor's office--are naturally worried about losing this strong Democrat in the House and Gifford's husband, Cmdr Mark Kelly (ret.), was approached to run for his wife's former seat, but it looks like Kelly is not interested.

Giffords will reportedly attend the State of the Union speech on Tuesday before officially vacating her seat.

I keep hearing this ridiculous canard in Republican debates and now from John Boehner about the alleged jobs bills the Republicans have passed that the "Democrat Senate" refuses to act upon. Since I watched the better part of their activity in real time, I know this is a lie. But most people aren't obsessive-compulsive about government and politics and might not realize just how much of a lie it is. So without further ado, let me debunk this claim made by the disingenuous Speaker of the House.

WALLACE: Question -- how will you counter that line of attack?

BOEHNER: Chris, 30 jobs bills passed over the last year in a Republican House of Representatives that are sitting in the United States Senate -- thirty.

Our focus over the last 12 months has been on jobs. Our focus over the course of the next 12 months is going to be on jobs.

The president asked us to extend the payroll tax credit, to make sure that we extended unemployment insurance with reforms, and make sure that doctors that dealt with Medicare patients were adequately reimbursed. And he asked us to do it for a year. We did it for a year. It was the United States Senate who decided, we're just going to do it for two months and we can't agree on how we're going to offset these costs. And so, we'll just kick the can down the road.

To make sure they back up their public claims with what might appear to be "fact", they've built a page on the House of Representatives site with a list of their so-called jobs bills, which number 27 and not 30 as the Speaker claims. What follows is a list and a brief explanation of why they are not jobs bills. Feel free to share it widely with your friends who might be inclined to believe Mr. Tobacco Lobbyist Check Distributor without questioning it.

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