Speaker of the House John Boehner is denying that he promised Democrats a vote on a clean bill to fund the Department of Homeland Security this week. But since Boehner clearly doesn't want a DHS shutdown—as his Friday scramble to keep the department open for another three weeks and then, after that failed, for just one more week shows—it's not clear what else he can do, and that means serious trouble for the speaker. The House Republican bill attempting to block President Obama's immigration actions cannot pass the Senate, and would be vetoed by the president in any case. That's not a good enough answer for extremist Republicans, though, leaving Boehner facing a dilemma: a bill that could become law could end up threatening his leadership role.

House Republicans are bitterly divided:



Over the weekend, one of Boehner’s closest allies, Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.), issued a statement that blamed the leadership’s troubles on “a small group of phony conservative members who have no credible policy proposals and no political strategy to stop Obama’s lawlessness.”

One conservative member, who asked for anonymity to speak frankly, said the mood of his colleagues will depend on how Boehner handles himself over the next week. If he tries to put a “clean” DHS funding bill on the floor for a vote, or doesn’t make overtures to conservatives, anger could boil over, the Republican said.

And while it's unlikely that they could succeed at ousting Boehner as speaker, the anti-immigration, anti-Obama hardliners are making noises about a challenge if he steps off their disastrous path:Chaos is the only realistic endgame of the far-right plan of violently opposing any bill that has a chance of passing the Senate and being signed by the president. If Boehner continues to coddles the extremists of his caucus, they may be able to force a shutdown that would result in interruption of critical programs and in hundreds of thousands of workers going without pay. But Republicans would take public blame—as they should—and the only path out of a shutdown is the same as the path they're refusing now to avoid a shutdown: passing a clean bill. If Boehner doesn't keep coddling the extremists, they'll hold it against him and his already weak speakership will be weakened still further.

Sometimes it feels like Republicans do more damage to themselves than Democrats ever could. Unfortunately, they damage the country along the way.