BULLETIN:  BOEHNER TO RESIGN – AT 9:28 A.M. ET:  And quickly.  From The New York Times:

WASHINGTON — Speaker John A. Boehner, under intense pressure from conservatives in his party, will resign one of the most powerful positions in government and give up his House seat at the end of October, throwing Congress into chaos as it tries to avert a government shutdown.

Mr. Boehner made the announcement in an emotional meeting with his fellow Republicans on Friday morning.

The Ohio representative struggled from almost the moment he took the speaker’s gavel in 2011 to manage the challenges of divided government and to hold together his fractious and increasingly conservative Republican members.

COMMENT:  It's a shocking move, but a correct one.  The speaker is a fine man, but a man who lives in an era when Republicans in Congress got a little too used to losing.  Republicans today are asking, "We elected a Republican Congress.  What difference has it made?" 

I think Republicans are still stunned by the fact that, with the public behind them, and control of both Houses of Congress, they could not stop the Iran nuclear deal, and cannot move the country toward a 20-week standard on abortion, a standard adopted by almost all civilized nations.  Better leadership needed.

Now the talk will begin about Boehner's successor.

And then, maybe about Mitch McConnell's in the Senate.

September 25,  2015