"Writing is a skill, not a talent, and thus one's ability as a writer can be improved by thoughtful effort. The problem with some people is that they graduate college as good writers, experience early success on account of that, and thus never devote themselves diligently to the relentless quest for improvement that could make them great writers."
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) is among the seven finalists chosen for Time magazine's annual "Person of the Year," according to media reports on Monday.
"Look, she's the first woman Speaker of the House. She's the strongest Speaker of the House in decades," Time managing editor Richard Stengel said of Pelosi on NBC's "Today" show. "She had piloted what is probably the most important legislation in decades through the House. She's a really, really pivotal lawmaker."
That useless botox bag peaked in 2006, when she opened SNL (very arguably NSFW):The country would be better served by impeachment of that woman, except that the House Ethics Committee oscillates between 'humorless joke' and 'infuriating oxymoron'.
Sen. Tom Coburn, the Oklahoma Republican who developed a close friendship with President Obama when they served together in the Senate, is threatening to have the entire health care bill read on the Senate floor. . . . Coburn, who has a reputation for using procedural rules to block and delay legislation, has been an outspoken critic of the president’s health care overhaul. He recently told the New York Times: "My mission is to frame this health care debate in terms of the fiscal ruin of this country. . . . I have instructed my staff to clear my schedule for every minute that bill is on the floor."
Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.) told CNSNews.com on Thursday he has not reached an agreement with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and therefore he and dozens of pro-life Democrats are still poised to kill the House health care bill. Stupak has organized a group of about 40 Democrats who are committed to killing the health care bill if Pelosi (D.-Calif.) does not allow them a straight up-or-down vote on an amendment that would prohibit federal dollars from paying for any part of any health insurance plan that covers abortions. . . .
Read the rest of that and also Barbara's post at American Freedom. Pro-life groups are especially urging phone calls and e-mails to Congress from their activists who live in House districts represented by Democrats. If Pelosi can enforce discipline in her own caucus, she has enough Democrats to pass ObamaCare without a single Republican vote.
The fact that ObamaCare would amount to a federal bailout of the abortion industry has not gotten much notice in the MSM, but the pro-lifers are ready to use that as a "wedge" issue, which could really hurt Democrats with Catholic voters in 2010.
In April [2008], the annual report of Planned Parenthood Federation of America revealed that the abortion giant had a total income of $1.02 billion -- with reported profits of nearly $115 million. Taxpayers kick in more than $336 million worth of government grants and contracts at both the state and federal levels. That's a third of Planned Parenthood’s budget.
Ann Coulter has said that abortion is the sacrament of the Church of Liberalism, and the Democrats desperately fear that they're missing opportunities to kill babies because of the funding shortage caused by the bankruptcy of their Ponzi-scheming friends. So now they want to bankrupt the rest of us to bail out the baby-killers, and trying to do it secretly by sneaking through their plan on a football Saturday:
[Nancy Pelosi] is scrambling to buy off recalcitrant Democrats on two of the very issues that Rep. Joe Wilson and other House Republicans called out the White House for: abortion and illegal immigrant coverage. The wheeling and dealing is taking place behind closed doors. Once again, the Democrats who promised transparency are breaking their own promise to publish the final bill publicly 72 hours before the vote.
Some representatives are keenly aware that the jobs they save may be their own. The bad economic news combined with last week's electoral cautionary tales, unresolved hot button issues, and the sheer massiveness and cost of HR 3962 is making too many legislators queasy.
If it weren't for the encouragement Pelosi gets from unprincipled RINOs (who would vote for nuclear war so long as you called it nuclear "reform" and threw in some pork for their districts) she might have dropped the whole thing months ago.
UPDATE: According to the Washington Post, they have reached an agreement to vote on the Stupak Amendment, which is expected to pass. Smitty passes along a report that the House may not vote until Tuesday.
Interesting News Items reports that the undead are about as displeased with the 2 kilo-page Pelosicare love note to the American people as the not-dead-yet Americans.
Some cruel and inhman provisions carefully described in tiny paragraphs within the document included an overtly punitive tax on human brain consumption. In response:
...the undead plan a march on Washington within the month, where they hope to meet Speaker Pelosi and eat her brains. "If they can find any," joked Saunders. "Just kidding. Hope that's not a hate crime."
The head Zombie will of course dress in his finest rags.
...to say to the American people what the Governor of her state told Assemblyman Tom Ammiano in the margin of a single page.
Prof. Jacobson:
Obama does not understand the difference between profit margins and wages. This is exactly what you would expect from someone who always has been on the receiving end of wages, and never had to meet a payroll. Wages are not profits and have nothing to do with the success of a business. Just ask the auto companies.
I don't think Obama and the other Democrats are lying about this aspect of the health care tax. They truly do not understand how the private economy works. In their blissful ignorance they are designing job-killings provisions which they do not understand.
It is not an overstatement to say "be afraid, be very afraid" of this monstrosity.
If we can't impeach the Speaker outright, we've got to implore the people of CA-8 to nominate anyone, ANYONE for their representative, instead of this piece of work. I truly think that even Sean Penn would be more competent than the woman, and I type that feeling full Cthulhu-ian horror of the concept.
CNSNews.com: "Madam Speaker, where specifically does the Constitution grant Congress the authority to enact an individual health insurance mandate?" Pelosi: "Are you serious? Are you serious?" CNSNews.com: "Yes, yes I am."
Dear Nancy Pelosi,
There was a time when political leaders understood the Constitution, and their oath to protect it. Those leaders worked on laws which fell within the scope of that document.
Your atrocious Congress, Madame Speaker, seems to understand "Constitutional" to be whatever befits your whims, emerges from the printer, garners the magic squiggle from the meat puppet at the other end of the Mall, and receives no legal challenge at the SCOTUS.
Please do us all a favor. Do not pass any more than the minimally required legislation, do not run for re-election, and do not waste any more public time. Instead, retire and work on your memoir, which I promise not to read.
by Smitty (hat tips: Cassy, story; Dodgeblogium, photo)
San Joaquin Valley farmers are getting arid under the collar over the delta smelt. Given a boost to survey a crowd of angry farmers (Victor Davis Hanson has yet do deny his presence at the event) by a staff member, the Pelosi Cat hissed at the crowd:
Several interpretations were proffered for the cryptic utterance:
A brief notice of any of the little people affected by her imperious policies. This hypothesis perished immediately.
The 'Pelosi' pussy did promise to shed a little light, if not fur, on what the American people can do ease her concerns about getting her way at a future press conference.
Update: Those seeking a more substantive post on the Wicked Witch of the West are directed to the Sundries Shack.
No guess as to when the Wicked Witch of the West said this, but, as a safety measure, have your barf bag in hot standby for this one: Maybe San Fran Nan could be John Edwards' next squeeze for Sunsetter Retractable Awnings:
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, whom I used to admire for her smooth aplomb under pressure, has clearly gone off the deep end with her bizarre rants about legitimate town-hall protests by American citizens. She is doing grievous damage to the party and should immediately step down. . . . The president is promoting the most colossal, brazen bait-and-switch operation since the Bush administration snookered the country into invading Iraq with apocalyptic visions of mushroom clouds over American cities. . . . Face it: Virtually all nationalized health systems, neither nourished nor updated by profit-driven private investment, eventually lead to rationing.
A sociopath has no conscience, and therefore no inhibitions about doing wrong or inflicting hurt. Often they are charming, although that usually has to do with their genius for telling you whatever it is that you want to hear in order to hand over your power and money to them willingly. . . . Gays and lesbians! Is this ringing any bells?
The RNC released this video about Nancy Pelosi's attacks on the CIA, using a James Bond theme and finishing with the tagline, "Lack of Leadership. Democrats Galore." This is a play on the name Pussy Galore, the evil woman in the 1964 Bond flick, Goldfinger. As Darleen Click at Protein Wisdom says, "all kerfuffle breaks loose."
Try to read Taylor Marsh's hissie fit (this term is a derivative of hysteria, whose Greek roots remind us that the patriarchy has been oppressing womyn for 3,000 years) and never forget the accusation: It's Republicans who don't have a sense of humor.
Too bad this happened too late for National Offend A Feminist Week. But thanks to the RNC for keeping alive the festive holiday spirit.
I’d love to know who among the Republican brain trust thought this was a good idea. Even if their motives were pure, after seeing what happened to Limbaugh’s “I hope he fails” comment, they simply have to be more attuned to how their message will be received and whether they’re giving their opponents easy opportunities to distort it.
No, this is brilliant. Get your enemy to promote your message, and do it in such a way that everybody who clicks will sit through the whole video in hopes of seeing -- "Pussy!" -- what the Left tells them they're going to see.
The joke is on the critics, of course, since the same term is a common substitute for "wimp," and "Democrats Galore" rather cuts to the heart of what the GOP is really trying to say about Democrats' approach to national security, eh?
(P.S.: Note that when feminists are promoting The Vagina Monologues, it's "empowering" to shout this from the rooftops. Only when Republicans try it does the Left suddenly become as prudish as a Victorian schoolmarm.)
Update II: by Smitty Joe Gandelman at The Moderate Voice delivers unintended comedy:
But it’s indicative of the continued lowering of the bar of American political discourse: even by the increasingly sleazy standard of political ads utilized by both sides, this ad is a particularly smelly one.
I'm not sure what clip you watched, Joe, but the one I saw was roughly as sleazy as, say, a Police Squad episode. Recommend good diet and excercise, Mr. Gandelman.
The Pelosi schadenfreude is something to behold. Here is a roundup of reactions and highlights:
Common Cents: Not since Bill Clinton has a politician been more blatantly caught in a lie that Nancy Pelosi in the last weeks. Her ongoing story explaining what she knew about CIA enhanced terrorism techniques have at least five different endings. Her Thursday press conference was painful to watch but we have it here for you.
Monique Stewart seems to crave a thing rarely seen inside the beltway: I’m not trying to help the Democrats. It just seems to me, they would gain a lot more respect, and a lot more support, if they would just admit that they knew what was going on, and in light of what had happened (that being the greatest terrorist attack on American soil) they supported it. They did, or supported, what most of us would have done, or supported.
Gary Graham at Big Hollywood Big Irony: Waterboard Pelosi — Let’s Get to the Truth!. Gary offers a less than impressed review of the today's press conference. I would come up with some rejoinder using the words "wench" and "quench", but that would hardly be respectful of the Office of the Speaker of the House.
Larry Johnson at No Quarter: Nancy Pelosi, A Lying C******n: That’s right. She’s a lying Congresswoman. Good God! How brazen and how stupid can the leader of congressional Democrats be? Are they going to tolerate this kind of smear of the CIA?
John at PowerLine inquires Can Pelosi Survive?. Following some choice quotes concerning the press conference, we get: As the Washington Post's Chris Cillizza notes, Pelosi "would not have held this sort of press conference unless she and her inner circle believed that she was losing altitude -- politically -- on the issue." But it seems clear that she has now gone too far. The matter cannot be left to rest with her assertion that the CIA "lied" to her and "misled the Congress of the United States." The Agency will have to respond. And already, Republicans Pete Hoekstra and John Boehner have called on the CIA to release the Agency's detailed notes on its briefings of Congress to Hoekstra as ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee.
I don't suppose anyone imagines that the CIA was foolish enough to lie to Pelosi and others about the use of waterboarding. On the contrary, it seems obvious that everyone in the chain of command was covering himself or herself by disseminating information about the harsh interrogations of three al Qaeda leaders. Pelosi has now opened the lid on a box that she will not be able to close. The CIA has no choice but to defend itself by demonstrating that she, not the Agency, is lying. Possibly Leon Panetta can save her, but at the moment, it is hard to see how this affair can end with Pelosi remaining as Speaker of the House.
Moving leftward, we have Alan Colmes: And, not surprisingly, the right wing has taken the blame for torture and placed it squarely on Nancy Pelosi, removing themselves from the equation.
No, Alan. No one is coming out in favor of torture, or denying events. The attack on Pelosi has everything to do with her non-command of basic things like facts and integrity with respect to her involvment. Stephen Green, he of the Stoli glass and steely nerve, managed to diagram the trajectory of Pelosi's prevarications as only a professional blogger can: Oh, the Huffington Post offers the same aplogies: "I wasn't briefed, I was informed that somebody else had been briefed about it," she said. Yeah, yeah. Recalls a movie line: "My best friend's sister's boyfriend's brother's girlfriend heard from this guy who knows this kid who's going with the girl who saw Ferris get briefed at 31 Flavors last night. I guess it's pretty serious."
Related to Madame Speaker's gyrations is the disintegration of the Rule of Law:
It is bad enough that the administration is selectively mining the Freedom of Information Act, the procedures for declassifying national-defense information (Mandatory Declassification Review, or “MDR”), and the rule of law. What is worse is the objective of this sleight of hand: to present the American people with a skewed perspective of a CIA interrogation program that saved lives and helped keep our citizens safe from additional terrorist attacks after 9/11 — a fact attested to by top intelligence officials from administrations of both parties. President Obama is manipulating the law in a way that reveals — to our enemies and everyone else — sensitive details of the interrogation tactics that were used by the CIA, while at the same time denying the American people a chance to assess the vital information produced by those tactics.
Hm. No *cough*Chrysler*cough* pattern at work here... Sad state of affairs. Listen, CA-8: please, as a personal favor, vote for any other legal candidate besides the Wicked Witch Have some decency and regard for the rest of the country. Cindy Sheehan is relatively palatable. While I might not agree with Cindy on much of anything, her integrity is relatively stellar compared to this piece of work Pelosi.
Update: Sooner than 2010? We should be so fortunate.
The Reid, Pelosi Swearing Match is just another brick in the wall for The Congress That Shall Live in Infamy. But this brace of boobs didn't just show up in January. No, their consistent non-command of effective leadership is such that there is a body of classic abuse just waiting to be linked. You, Mr. Reid, are the target of among the more majestic rants I've ever heard:(Aside: how many new PJTV subscribers would it take to secure a weekly Miller Time segment, one wonders?)Slightly less caustic in approach is Kristen Wiig's demolition of Nancy Pelosi, just after the 2006 election. This clip is from SNL, and the implication that the House of Representatives is an S'n'M dungeon under her tenure makes it NSFW.How does that lady keep a straight face while serving up that material?CWCID: Instapundit
Alexandra Pelosi, daughter of the Speaker of the House, has an HBO film deal -- I mean, wow, what a coicidence, huh? Time/Warner has only given $7.1 million to Democrats since 2000, making 82% of their donations to Democrats in the 2008 election cycle.
What kind of documentary would you expect given the subject matter and the filmmaker? . . . If you said the film would show conservatives as ignorant, racist, hateful folk who genuinely cling to God and guns, give yourself a prize. Bonus points go for those who predicted the film would characterize McCain/Palin rallies as hate events.
House Democrats are likely to jettison family planning funds for the low-income from an $825 billion economic stimulus bill, officials said late Monday, following a personal appeal from President Barack Obama at a time the administration is courting Republican critics of the legislation. . . . Several Democrats said Monday night that Obama had spoken personally with Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., about removing the provision. Waxman is chairman of the committee with jurisdiction over Medicaid and a close ally of Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.
Obviously, Obama could see that Pelosi's anti-baby agenda was political poison. It was a shrewd move for him to ask them to ax it. Expect the Left to howl that Obama's given in to the "Republican attack machine," but they don't understand that not everybody hates babies as much as urban yuppies do.
(Outraged comment from Young4Eyes in 3, 2, 1 . . .)
The entire intellectual underpinning of President Barack Obama’s spending plan rests on the belief that certain types of government spending creates a "multiplier effect" which raises national income beyond the size of government’s initial spending increase. . . . So if Obama’s stimulus plan bails out California’s spendthrift government, and Sacramento then spends that money buying condoms for Nancy Pelosi's constituents, [neo-Keynesian economist] Mark Zandi wants us to believe that this entire transaction will increase GDP by $1.36 for every $1 in condoms Sacramento buys. Does anybody really believe this?
Hmmm. Given Pelosi's San Francisco-area district, I'm not sure if buying condoms for her constituents actually qualifies as "birth control." But you see how easy it is to make this measure look ridiculous on economic grounds alone.
Perhaps some clever GOP researcher can find out how much money the latex industry gave the Democrats, so we can accuse Pelosi of being in the pockets of Big Rubber.
See? If Republicans don't go along with Obama's agenda, we're divisive haters. But if Obama shrewdly placates conservatives, he's "caving." Hey, tough luck, lefties: If you wanted somebody who was 110% for your anti-baby agenda, you should have nominated Hillary.
STEPHANOPOULOS: Hundreds of millions of dollars to expand family planning services. How is that stimulus? PELOSI: Well, the family planning services reduce cost. They reduce cost. The states are in terrible fiscal budget crises now and part of what we do for children's health, education and some of those elements are to help the states meet their financial needs. One of those - one of the initiatives you mentioned, the contraception, will reduce costs to the states and to the federal government. STEPHANOPOULOS: So no apologies for that? PELOSI: No apologies. No. we have to deal with the consequences of the downturn in our economy.
Stephanopoulos could have pointed out that the reason the health costs for kids are rising is that Pelosi just led the charge to expand SCHIP to cover families of 4 that have incomes of more than $80,000 a year.
Right. On the one hand, liberals insist on ever-expanding entitlements "for the children." On the other hand, they insist on pushing birth control to reduce the Baby Menace. Pelosi is one of those alleged Catholics whose politics are 180 degrees out of phase with her own church.
WTF. I mean, seriously. What the hell do these f----rs want? They won the election. Will they not be satisfied until they completely trash this man and those who work for him?
Look, let 'em run with this ball as far as they want. Their petty vindictiveness will horrify common-sense people, and the only people they'll please are the Glenn Greenwald-type zealots, who aren't exactly "swing" voters.
Nancy Pelosi got only 60% of House Democrats to support the plan, and then used her final speech before the vote to lash out at Republicans.
It was as if the whole point of Monday's vote was to embarrass John McCain. The GOP nominee having identified himself so strongly with the bailout, a defeat for the bailout was a defeat for McCain, and the Democrats saw a chance to make him look like an idiot.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi ordered her Majority Whip, Jim Clyburn, to essentially not do his job in the runup to the vote on Monday for the negotiated Wall Street bailout plan, according to House Democrat leadership aides. "Clyburn was not whipping the votes you would have expected him to, in part because he was uncomfortable doing it, in part because we didn't want the push for votes to be successful," says one leadership aide. . . . During the floor vote, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer and House Democrat Conference chair Rahm Emanuel could be seen monitoring the vote on the floor, and gauging whether or not more Democrat votes were needed. . . . Emanuel, who served as a board member for Freddie Mac, one of the agencies that precipitated the economic crisis the nation now finds itself in, had no misgivings about taking a leadership role in tanking the bill. "He was cheerleading us along, mothering the votes," says the aide. "We wanted enough to put the pressure on the Republicans and Congressman Emanuel was charged with making it close enough. He did a great job."
Pelosi cut a deal in which, as far as I can tell, every single Republican in a safe seat had to vote yes so that the Democrats could maximize their no votes. Given that the Republican caucus is pretty much in open revolt, this was beyond moronic. She then spent a week openly and repeatedly blaming the Republicans and the Bush administration for the current crisis. The way she set things up, it was "Heads I win, tails you lose": vote for the deal and I'll paint you as heartless reactionaries bailing out your fat cat friends. If you're going to do that, you'd better make sure you have some goddamn margin for error in your own party. She didn't. Then she got up and delivered yet another speech blaming the Republicans for the bailout deal she was about to pass.
Nancy Pelosi says the current financial crisis is all Bush's fault. Tom Maguire finds that in 2003, the Bush administration proposed more oversight for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac but . . . guess who stopped it?
Among the groups denouncing the proposal today were ... Congressional Democrats who fear that tighter regulation of the companies could sharply reduce their commitment to financing low-income and affordable housing. ''These two entities -- Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac -- are not facing any kind of financial crisis,'' said Representative Barney Frank of Massachusetts, the ranking Democrat on the Financial Services Committee. ''The more people exaggerate these problems, the more pressure there is on these companies, the less we will see in terms of affordable housing.'' Representative Melvin L. Watt, Democrat of North Carolina, agreed. ''I don't see much other than a shell game going on here, moving something from one agency to another and in the process weakening the bargaining power of poorer families and their ability to get affordable housing,'' Mr. Watt said.
Wait -- did they say "affordable housing"? You mean, like below-market loan rates for uncreditworthy borrowers? Gee, I bet those subprime mortgages might be risky.
Mucking forons! And gee, do you think it was just humanitarian concern that made the Democrats so goshdarn worried about reforming regulatory oversight? Let's look at top recipients of contributions Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae -- right there, it says: Barney Frank $42,350, and Mel Watt $17,250.
By the way, the top 3 recipients of Freddie Mac/Fannie Mae contributions, 1989-2008:
Chris Dodd ................... $165,400 Barack Obama ............ $126,349 John Kerry .................. $111,000
Amazing -- Obama's only been in the Senate three years and he's already collected more Freddie Mac/Fannie Mae contributions than John Kerry!
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