Thug Tactics: Is Speaker Boehner the new Pelosi?

***UPDATE – BOEHNER DISMISSES IT***

This is unfreaking believable. Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) may find his district much more difficult to win as thugs in the Republican Party are out for revenge over Jordan’s disloyalty to Speaker Boehner:

COLUMBUS DISPATCH – U.S. Rep. Jim Jordan’s open defiance of Speaker John Boehner’s efforts to solve the debt-ceiling crisis could cost the Urbana Republican his safe seat in next year’s election.

Two Republican sources deeply involved in configuring new Ohio congressional districts confirmed to The Dispatch today that Jordan’s disloyalty to Boehner has put him in jeopardy of being zeroed out of a district.

“Jim Jordan’s boneheadedness has kind of informed everybody’s thinking,” said one of the sources, both of whom spoke only on condition of anonymity. “The easiest option for everybody has presented itself.”

Jordan’s rural 11-county district, which has a 60 percent Republican voter index, “is easy to cannibalize because it stretches so far,” said the other source.

Hostilities between Boehner and Jordan, whose districts abut each other, broke out into the open this week as the speaker struggled to line up votes from tea party conservatives in the House for his plan to raise the debt ceiling while cutting as much as $3 trillion over the next decade.

Jordan, a tea party favorite who chairs the 170-plus member Republican Study Committee, has stymied Boehner’s efforts to raise the debt ceiling. On Wednesday, the rift exploded when it was discovered a key aide to the committee sent emails to conservative groups urging them to push undecided Republicans to vote against Boehner’s plan.

The undermining of Boehner was the last straw for Statehouse Republicans controlling the redistricting process in Ohio, saying Jordan’s refusal to be a team player should cost him his job.

“He doesn’t know it, but he solved a problem for Republican line-drawers by (figuratively) standing up and saying, ‘I’m a jerk and I deserved to be punished,’ ” said one of the sources.

Folks, you better buckle up cause we have a lot more work to do in removing these power hungry establishment types out of the Republican Party, both state and federal.

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UPDATE: Just to be clear, it’s only my opinion that Boehner may be in on this. Great thinkers like Ramesh Ponnuru from National Review Online disagree with me, suggesting that his ‘fan club’ in the Ohio Republican Party may be working on their own. That may in fact be true. But I find it hard to believe in light of Boehner suggesting that opposing his plan would be standing with Obama, Reid, and Pelosi. He is making this about loyalty and not about America and that makes me want to run for the exits.

***

UPDATE: Apparently I missed this yesterday but Boehner released a statement dismissing any idea of retribution for dissenting views:

“Jim Jordan and I may not always agree on strategy, but we are friends and allies, and the word retribution is not in my vocabulary,” Boehner said in a statement. “I look forward to continuing to serve with him in the U.S. House after the redistricting process in Ohio is complete, and for many years to come.”


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