Nearly 16 months after they were given control of the U.S. House of Representatives in the 2010 midterm elections, it appears that Republican leaders in the House have finally taken the first step to recovery — they have recognized that they have a problem:

[Boehner's debt-reduction bill] needed to be bipartisan, but was written in secret to be as partisan as possible. The proposal needed to be sensible, but would instead force us to go through all of this again in six months and would mandate approval of a constitutional amendment in both chambers before House Republicans would allow the United States to pay its bills. Think about that for a moment. Elected GOP lawmakers have come to believe extortion is a legitimate tool to get Congress to pass an amendment to the U.S. Constitution. When I talk about Republicans shredding the American political process, this is what I’m talking about.

- Steve Benen at Washington Monthly

First Read reminds us of House Speaker John Boehner’s 60 Minutes interview with Leslie Stahl last December which revealed he knew his caucus would not let him compromise with Democrats. Or else he just can’t bring himself to pronounce, you know, c-c-c-c-com-com-comp-compost …
BOEHNER: We have to govern. That’s what we were elected to do.
STAHL: But [...]

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
Rachel Maddow started her MSNBC show last night with a pull quote from this article in The Hill newspaper — “Oh my God, it’s coming”:

When the Obama administration announced this week that the Executive Branch would no longer defend the so-called Defense of Marriage Act at trial, they effectively lobbed the ball into Speaker John Boehner’s court. It will be up to the Legislative Branch, which is to say Boehner and his tea party bosses in Congress, to defend [...]

I don’t know, I’m only the speaker.

- House Speaker John Boehner, when asked last week how long it would take his tea party bosses to cut $61 billion from the budget.

The House tea party caucus put its dominance over Speaker John Boehner on display last week when it pushed him and his hapless leadership team to the edge of the political ledge on the issue of budget cuts.
Here’s the Economic Policy Institute’s analysis on Friday of the ramifications of the tea party cuts were [...]

he House voted yesterday to eliminate a controversial fighter jet program, which, if it survives the Senate and conference negotiations, would result in the closing of a GE plant in Evendale, Ohio, and the layoffs of over 1,000 workers, most of whom live in Hamilton and Butler counties.
In the vote, 110 Republicans joined with 123 [...]