‘Fire Boehner’ Crowd Feeling The Love From Jim DeMint

What Limbaugh and DeMint were joking about was the so-called conservative purge, a move by Boehner to strip committee assignments from four members in the 113th Congress after they bucked Republican leadership in the 112th.

Boehner’s defended the demotions as having “nothing to do with ideology,” claiming he made the changes to punish disloyalty. But that hasn’t stopped some tea party conservatives from spooling up the full grassroots right wing machinery against him, including claims of conspiracy and attempts to depose him.

Over at Breitbart, there are reports of a “a secret criteria list” used by Boehner and the House leadership to run the purge. Conservative groups are livid, and they’re trying to use the tea party playbook to punish Boehner.

American Majority Action, a conservative group that boasts around 30,000 members on its email list, is calling on 16 House Republicans to either vote against or abstain from the vote making Boehner speaker in the next Congress.

“The House rules demand that a Speaker receive a majority — 218 votes — to be elected speaker. If no nominee for speaker receives 218, the House remains speakerless — as it did during parts of the Civil War,” Ned Ryun, American Majority Action president and son of former Rep. Jim Ryun (R-KS), wrote on the group’s website. “If 16 House Republicans were to abstain from voting for Speaker, Boehner would only receive 217 votes.”