Ultimately, this odd, bipartisan coalition – Hoyer, Reid, Boehner, and Obama – outflanked, out-whipped and outmatched Pelosi, liberal Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren and progressive House Democrats. Despite the deep Democratic reservations about changes to Wall Street regulations and GOP concerns about allowing Obama to unilaterally change the enforcement of immigration laws, the legislation passed 219 to 206 at 9:37 p.m. Thursday night…

At 5:30 p.m., Democrats went into a caucus meeting, and Republicans continued to wait. They scheduled a leadership meeting for 6:45, but pushed it to 7 and then to 7:30 p.m., as the meeting dragged on. When Republicans finally gathered in the Capitol, Scalise and McHenry told Boehner they were confident of their count – 162 Republicans would vote yes, with four or five more in their back pocket if they needed them. They were leaving nothing to chance: Republicans assigned “escorts” to those handful of members to make sure they didn’t stray too far…

Altogether, 57 Democrats voted in favor of the measure, joining 162 Republicans to pass it. Obama had his biggest floor victory in a long time, Hoyer had showed he could deliver, and Boehner had gambled and won.

A clearly put-out Rep. Mo Brooks (R-Ala.) groused: “We call it the crummybus.”

“If the other team on the field — Barack Obama and the Democrats who promote illegal aliens over American citizens — stop us, then you punt,” Brooks said, using a football analogy. “But you punt on fourth down, not first down. And right now, the House leadership, for whatever reason, thinks it’s best to punt without running a play.”…

Republican Reps. Steve King of Iowa and Michele Bachmann of Minnesota said they devised a plan and presented it to Boehner: a 60-day continuing resolution for all government agencies with language that would undo Obama’s immigration actions. They didn’t get their way.

“We almost brought the rule down,” Bachmann said Thursday. “We almost won. But then you heard the bones breaking, with the arms that were twisted. But we almost won.”

Representative Marlin Stutzman (R., Ind.) accused House Republican leadership of reneging on a deal made with him to get his support on a crucial procedural vote that almost killed the $1.1 trillion cromnibus funding bill…

Stutzman was one of the last Republicans to cast his ballot in favor of a rule allowing the House to vote on the cromnibus. National Review Online reported that Stutzman backed the rule at the last minute after leadership told him that they would pull the bill, once the rule was passed, and replace it with a short-term continuing resolution favored by rank-and-file conservatives. With the last-minute help of Stutzman and outgoing representative Kerry Bentivolio (R., Mich.), leadership won the vote 214–212.

“I supported the rule because I was informed by leadership that the cromnibus was dead and a short term CR would take its place,” Stutzman said.

Though school officials, nutritionists, parents, and students have decried First Lady Michelle Obama’s school lunch program, the $1 trillion CRomnibus (part “continuing resolution” and part “omnibus”) does not include relief from the unpopular meals standards after all.

Daren Bakst at The Daily Signal notes that the spending bill does not include, as was anticipated, a temporary waiver, so that schools could get some relief from the onerous standards…

House Republicans have said the school meals program represents a federal overreach, and a House Agriculture Appropriations bill approved over the summer included waivers for schools that have been losing money on the school meal program. The waivers, however, were only temporary and amounted to a one-year reprieve that would allow schools to opt out of the program if they lost money on meals over a period of six months.

The federal debt has increased by $3.8 trillion in the 3.8 years that have passed since House Speaker John Boehner cut his first spending deal with Senate Democrats and President Obama.

That works out to $32,938.38 for every household in the United States—including those taking federal welfare benefits—and $42,783.20 for every full-time year-round private-sector worker in the United States.

In fact, the $42,783.20 that the federal government has borrowed per full-time year-round private-sector worker since Boehner cut his first federal spending deal exceeds the $41,916 that according to the Census Bureau was the median annual earnings of full-time year-round private-sector wage and salary workers in 2013.

Let’s have a big round of applause for the GOP Establishment, ladies and gentlemen!  They managed to throw away the most remarkable electoral victory in a generation in only one month, maneuvering themselves into a position where the losers who got crushed will be making demands to win their support for a bill that effectively ratifies their will through half of their sojourn in electoral exile.

There was no reason to give the defeated Democrats anything except a stop-gap bill to fund the government through January, at which point the incoming Republican majorities should have exercised control over everything.  If the Democrats don’t like that deal, let them shut down the government in a fit of pique, and tell voters how they party they just threw out of power should be allowed to control their lives for an extra year.  Not only would that be smart politics – giving the Republicans more fiscal leverage to stand up for America against Obama’s amnesty, instead of just funding for the Department of Homeland Security – but it would represent more sensible and responsible government.  All of this multi-trillion-dollar monstrosity is linked together; all of it should be on the table; the flab should be liposuctioned out of every agency at once in a comprehensive plan for fiscal sanity and increased American liberty…

Why any of these leadership strategists think voters will reward them in 2016 after they (a) give the country away to Emperor Obama and his new imported class of super-citizens, and (b) allow the defeated minority party to effectively run Washington for a year, remains a mystery.  Presumably they think their own base really isn’t all that serious about the rule of law and U.S. citizenship – it’s a bout of intense anger that will pass, perhaps aided by some idle speculation about all the wonderful things a Republican president can do with Obama’s imperial powers.  The same leadership geniuses will sit in shock, mouths flapping helplessly like beached fish gasping for air, when the Beltway media complex instantly strips Obama’s Republican successor of those powers before his first hundred days are over.  When they lose their majority to Democrats, they’ll sob and beg the new masters of Congress to remember how well Republicans treated the decimated Democrat Party in 2014… while the Democrats ruthlessly set about marginalizing Republicans, stripping them of power, and throwing their wadded-up budget proposals right back in their tear-streaked faces.

The Republican leadership isn’t just bad at standing up for its principles and fulfilling commitments to its voters.  It seems institutionally incapable of understanding, as Democrats do, that power won today must be used to set the stage for tomorrow’s elections.

It stinks to high heaven. Did arrogant politicians not get the memo that Obama’s agenda was decisively defeated in last month’s historic midterm landslide? Good Lord, America said loud and clear not just “no” but “hell no” to Obama’s failed policies. Americans who pay attention said absolutely no to Obama’s amnesty for illegal aliens. 

We also said no to the mother-of-all unfunded mandates, Obamacare, and voters believed promises that they would ratchet down the $18 trillion debt. Well, our bad for apathetically trusting politicians. No, on second thought, it’s not “our bad.” Some of us warned and worked hard to elect candidates who would buck the status quo. Many conscientious Americans did all they could to open the eyes of low-information voters. It was tough going up against Obama’s lapdogs in the media and the power liberals have to play their politics of personal destruction against commonsense conservatives…

This is an example of the GOP establishment campaigning one way and then governing another. It’s quite nauseating. They promised they would do everything in their power to stop Obama’s executive amnesty – I heard their darn campaign speeches promising to do so! – and yet when they have the power to do so (power that we the voters just gave them) they tacitly endorse Obama’s failed agenda. They’re shining that boot that liberals have on the neck of our economy. They’re carrying Barack Obama’s water even more so than Nancy Pelosi if you can believe it. 

[Elizabeth Warren,] reading RedState, took advantage of Rep. John Boehner (R-OH)‘s unwillingness to fight in order to recast the fight as one of main street versus Wall Street. And damned if she was not right.

The provision in question would benefit Citibank. It’s not a bad provision. I favor it. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) does not. But it is quite telling that House GOP Leaders preferred a shutdown to stripping that provision out. They could not, however, be bothered when it came to stopping amnesty.

That’s really all you need to know.

Conservatives were not really helped. Pro-life Christians proved yet again what a cheap date they are. But in the end we all got to see the Republican leadership for who they are. And that has long term benefits for conservatives in the ongoing fight against the establishment.

John Boehner has Barack Obama whipping Democrat votes for him.  It is Obama talking to recalcitrant Democrats in the Senate trying to get them on board to vote and support the Republican bill.  It’s not Dingy Harry.  Pelosi is in this mix, too.  She’s not happy, along with Elizabeth Warren.  Now, these, quote/unquote “facts” as they’ve been reported are as incongruous as I can imagine. 

Why are Barack Obama, Joe Biden, Harry Reid, Steny Hoyer, working so hard on John Boehner’s behalf?  That’s what’s happening.  That’s what you need to take away from this.  You’ll find some people telling you to, “Hey, you know, sit back and enjoy this infighting in the Democrat Party.”  Well, go ahead if you want.  I mean, if that lights your fire, have at it.  But I’m telling you: The thing that’s happening that fascinates me is all these Democrats working so hard for John Boehner. 

That’s what fascinates me. 

Obama, Biden, Dingy Harry, Steny Hoyer.  The reason why is it’s Boehner’s doing their bidding.  It’s Boehner’s bill they want.  Boehner, the Republican Speaker of the House. His bill is what Obama wants.  That’s why they’re working.  That’s why they’re whipping votes for Boehner.  That, to me, is what’s newsworthy today.

So thanks to the brave leadership of John Boehner, Harry Reid and Barack Obama we made it easier for political parties to fend off outside interest groups and make sure banks can trade derivatives again with the knowledge that if things go south, the taxpayers will foot the bill. The chairman of Citigroup certainly must be pleased with his personal lobbying efforts…

The story isn’t that a minority of the GOP found common cause with some Democrats to oppose these deals, it’s that after facing a populist backlash after the failed GOP administration of 2001-2007, the party has successfully weathered the storm and returned to business as usual. Big donors and big business get theirs. Meanwhile voters who thought they voted for spending cuts and opposition to amnesty just six weeks or so ago are told, sorry can’t do it. Good luck ever collecting.

I know there’s a lot of anger on the right today, as there should be. But don’t blame the GOP. There’s no White Knight coming to liberate the GOP from the evil clutches of Boehner and McConnell. They are what the GOP is. Instead of railing about sellouts leading the party, ask yourself why you continue to support them and why you thought it would be any different this time.