Senator Jon Kyl Jokes About Obama Drowning

By GottaLaff

Some things just aren't funny, Jon Kyl:

Senate Minority Whip Jon Kyl (R-AZ) "got a big laugh on Saturday at a National Republican Senatorial Committee retreat, but his joke definitely wouldn't be funny to some people," The Hill reports.

His joke: "So Obama, Pelosi and Reid are in a row boat, and it springs a leak and starts to sink. Who gets saved?" Answer: "The American people."

I can just picture the chortling and rib jabbing now. I wonder if they'd be chortling and rib jabbing if they had the good sense to realize how they might be influencing the more violent among us.

Of course, had a Democrat made the same tasteless joke about a Republican leadership, all hell would have broken loose, there would have been demands for hearings, 24/7 media coverage, condemnation in loud, indignant voices, and calls for impeachment/resignation/prison time/firing squads.

That Family Values party has some sense of humor... and don't get me started on their outstanding judgment.

Pelosi: BushCo Barred Officials From Briefing Congress Pre-'08 Financial Crisis

By GottaLaff

So far, when it comes to legal repercussions for their thuggery, BushCo has skated. Worms like John Yoo, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, and Bush himself are free to write books and spew their toxic venom all over the Tee Vee Machine while America (and what's left of its Constitution) has suffered immensely.

There have been no consequences for holding and torturing hostages at Gitmo and elsewhere, for spying on Americans, for outing a CIA agent, etc., ad nauseam.

Will there be any for this?

Nearly two years after the Wall Street meltdown drove the U.S. economy to the brink of collapse, and forced the U.S. government to prop up major financial institutions with hundreds of billions of dollars, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi now claims that the Bush Administration prohibited its own top officials who were handling the emerging crisis from briefing Congress until a complete financial collapse was only hours away.

In little-noticed statements to reporters over the last few weeks, Pelosi has alleged that the Bush administration knew well in advance of its intervention that the financial crisis would hit, and that Congress would need to authorize a historic and unpopular bailout - but that top officials, including then-Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, told her that they had been barred from briefing Congress about true extent of the crisis.

If accurate, the allegation could constitute a major indictment of the Bush administration, which may have worsened the crisis and resulting economic fallout by delaying the call for congressional action.

IMHO, with the economy still slogging through a sluggish recovery, the national state of mind could very well default to blame mode and demand a full investigation. One can only hope. And of course, that's only if this story gets media attention.

Will BushCo be excused because it's difficult to prove intent, or because there is no appetite to go after them?

Nor is it clear if the Administration's alleged decision not to brief Congress earlier was a calculated strategy to avoid spooking the already shaky financial markets thus hastening the crisis or, as Pelosi suggests, a political calculation in advance of the 2008 presidential elections, or a combination of the two.

There's much more here. TPM did a great job reporting this.

UPDATE: Bush and Paulson spokesperson fire back.

H/t: hapkidogal

Tom Coburn Defends Pelosi from Fox News Attacks

Oh oh, doesn't Coburn know that Fox is the GOP's new boss? Countdown until primetime mea culpa on Hannity.... Via Taegan-

At an Oklahoma town hall meeting, Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) defended Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi against character attacks from Fox News, reports Capitol News Connection.

While discussing his policy disagreements with Pelosi, Coburn said "she's a nice lady," which brought hisses and hoots from the crowd.

Said Coburn: "Come on now. She is nice -- how many of you all have met her? She's a nice person. Just because somebody disagrees with you doesn't mean they're not a good person... So don't catch yourself being biased by Fox News that somebody is no good. The people in Washington are good. They just don't know what they don't know."

Largest Monthly Job Gain In 3 Years: The Chart

By GottaLaff

Look what Nancy Pelosi gave us today:

This morning, the Department of Labor released the March jobs report showing job gains of 162,000 — the largest job gain in a single month in the past three years.

Pelosi rejects Stupak abortion solution

Aww, poor Bartie. Guess his 15 minutes are over.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) on Saturday rejected an offer to hold a separate vote on abortion provisions in the sweeping health-care legislation, setting the stage for the final talks with the last Democratic holdouts.

Pelosi told reporters that she rejected the solution offered by Rep. Bart Stupak (Mich.), the leading antiabortion Democrat who proposed passing separate, strict language that would clarify that no federal funds in the proposed legislation could go toward abortion coverage.

Asked if a vote was coming, Pelosi declared no extra votes would be held to appease antiabortion Democrats or liberals still hopeful for adding their favored causes. "Not on abortion, not on public option, not on single payer, not on anything," Pelosi said. She later added, "The bill is the bill."

Nancy Pelosi Says Process Decision Not Yet Made

By GottaLaff

Decisions, decisions. What's a House Speaker to do?

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) said that she "has not yet made a decision on whether to use a special procedure to enact the Senate's health care bill without a separate vote, but she noted that Republicans used similar procedures when they were in charge," Roll Call reports.

Of the GOP criticism, Pelosi said: "I didn't hear this ferocity the hundreds of times the Republicans used these methods."

Nance, that's because they're hypocrites. Got that? Good.

Oh, and if you're still undecided, choose the green shirt... the one on the right.

Here's an explanation of the procedure, short and sweet.

Dick Armey Predicts Democrats Will Probably Pass Health Care

By GottaLaff

Dickle Me Armey (of FreedomWorks infamy) is probably right, we will probably pass health care, because it's probably good for America, as we will probably discover once it's probably passed.

And look what probably surprised Dickle Me:

"What has probably surprised me more than anything else about Speaker Pelosi is her ineptness," Armey said at luncheon at the National Press Club in Washington, DC. "I didn't realize anyone could rise to the position of Speaker and be that inept."

Project much?

"She's more inept than I thought she was, but she's not as mean as people think she is," Armey said.

What next, "She don't sweat much for a pig?" Talk about a backhanded compliment.

But even with Pelosi's "inept" leadership, Armey says Democrats will most likely pass health care reform legislation that has been debated for the last year and is expected to come to a vote this week.

Yes, poor inept Nancy is probably about to pass health care reform. What an amateur.

Probably.

Christian leaders to Congress: Ignore misinformation on abortion, pass health reform

By GottaLaff

(click on image to enlarge)

The other day on the Rachel Maddow Show, Nancy Pelosi made a point of telling Rachel that health care reform was not just about abortion, it was about saving lives, money, and providing care to millions.

She repeated the positives of the plan and steered Rachel away from concentrating too hard on something that shouldn't be an issue (mainly because Bart Stupak is spreading misinformation; abortion will not be being funded by the government).

Pelosi is one of the few that has insisted on clarifying and laying out the benefits of the bill. Anthony Weiner is another. Their consistent message of what health care reform offers, rather than getting sidetracked by GOP talking points, is something that's been sorely missing over the past year.

Meanwhile, a group of "pro-life" Christian leaders has come out in support of the plan. They're darn pretty clear, too.

Think Progress takes it from there:

Underscoring this point, this week, a group of 25 “pro-life Catholic theologians and Evangelical leaders” sent a letter to Congress urging them to look past the misinformation on abortion and pass health care reform. From their letter:

As Christians committed to a consistent ethic of life, and deeply concerned with the health and well-being of all people, we want to see health care reform enacted. [...]

We are writing because of our concern about the lack of clear and accurate information regarding abortion provisions in the health care reform bill passed by the Senate on December 24, 2009.

Reforming our health care system is necessarily complex, and the provisions related to abortion, or any other issue, require careful examination of the facts as they exist in the legislative language. We believe that the provisions below provide extensive evidence that longstanding restrictions on federal funding of abortion have been maintained. Furthermore, this bill provides new and important supports for vulnerable pregnant women.

The Catholic Health Association also sent a letter (see image above) to Congress urging passage of the Senate bill. They pointed out that millions of Americans would benefit.

Imagine that.

Nancy Pelosi to House: Brace yourselves for a climactic health care vote

By GottaLaff

Is the moment finally here? Should we actually buckle our seatbelts and set our Tee Vee Machines to CSPAN?

Via an e-mail alert from Politico:

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told her members Friday to brace themselves for a climatic [sic] health care vote as early as next week, warning them to clear their schedules for next weekend and promising to stay in session until the landmark vote, people present at the meeting told POLITICO. President Barack Obama has postponed an overseas trip until March 21, and Pelosi said, "I am delighted the president will be here for the passage of the bill. It will be historic."

For more information...http://www.politico.com

About time!

The Hill - Pelosi: Public option will not be in health bill

By GottaLaff

Have your emotions yo-yo'd as much as mine lately?

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said Friday that the public health insurance option will not be included in a package of fixes to healthcare reform legislation.

Pelosi's comments throw a wrench into liberal efforts to reintroduce it to the bill. She shut the door on a possible pathway opened by Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), who said earlier on Friday that he would "aggressively" push senators to vote for the plan if the House included it in the fixes.

"We had it, we wanted it ... it's not in the reconciliation," Pelosi said at her weekly press briefing. "It isn't in there because [the Senate doesn't] have the votes to have it in there."

She also said other provisions would satisfy proponents of the public option, via exchanges.

And just now on the Thom Hartmann Show, Bernie Sanders feels it can be added later.

House votes to open ethics probe of Dem leaders on Massa

By GottaLaff

Yesterday, case closed. Today, not so much:

From the Department of Here We Go Again:

The House voted Thursday to open an ethics investigation into what and when House Democratic leaders knew of allegations of sexual harassment against former Rep. Eric Massa (D-N.Y.).

The House overwhelmingly backed a privileged resolution offered by GOP Leader John Boehner (Ohio) that will have the Ethics Committee look into what House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.), and other Democratic leaders and staffers knew about allegations of sexual harassment against Massa, and when they became aware of the situation.

494-2, and the two were Republicans.

What did they know and when did they know it? Here goes another 24/7 scandal cycle...

Pelosi says House has votes for healthcare if vote were held today

By GottaLaff

Today's Quickie, via the Hill:

Pelosi, in an interview with Bloomberg and PBS host Charlie Rose, hinted that she could pass Democrats' healthcare plans through the House if they were brought up this week.

What about next week?

That was Today's Quickie. Was it good for you?

Rep. Pete Stark to replace Charles Rangel as committee chair

By GottaLaff

"Liberal" is such a pretty word. Let's use it often:

Speaker Nancy Pelosi has picked liberal firebrand Rep. Pete Stark to replace ousted Chairman Charles Rangel on the tax-writing committee, according to a House leadership aide. [...]

In Stark, Pelosi is picking a fellow Californian to head one of the House's most powerful committees. [...]

In a statement, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington Executive Director Melanie Sloan said, "By forcing Rep. Rangel out, Democrats undercut Republican efforts to portray them as soft on ethics, the very strategy that returned Democrats to the majority in the 2006 elections."

Too bad Dems are soft on so many other things.

VIDEO- Pelosi: Health reform will pass, abortion rights will neither increase nor diminish

By GottaLaff



Nancy Pelosi is convinced there will be a "positive result" in the House. And by positive result, she must mean that there will be no homicides, because from what we've seen from members of Congress... Well, let's just say, if looks could kill...

On the contentious issue of abortion, she said a health reform bill will pass that will neither increase nor diminish the opportunity for abortion, as defined by current federal law.

Just pass the damn bill already.

VIDEO- Pelosi: "The Democrats will retain the majority in the House of Representatives"

By GottaLaff

Via CNN:



"I'm not yielding one grain of sand. We're fighting for every seat. [...] We inherited this terrible mess."

Damn right we did. And now, most likely as BushCo planned and hoped, we're paying the consequences for their government malpractice.

Pelosi: House Dems can support Obama healthcare proposal

By GottaLaff

Medicare extension. Medicare extension. Medicare extension. Listen to Howard Dean...

Speaker Nancy Pelosi said House Democrats can support the major parts of the healthcare proposal released by the White House. [...]

Pelosi also didn’t object to the lack of a public insurance plan in Obama’s bill. Liberals in the House have pled for Obama to support the public option, and had included it in their bill as a way to ensure competition with private insurance and to drive down healthcare costs.

“There are other ways to do that,” Pelosi said. “We intend to do that in the bill. [The public option] seems to me the best way to us, but that will depend on what the Senate can pass on the Senate side.”

Just. Do. Something.

Nancy Pelosi's new health care plan

By GottaLaff

The newest new and improved new facelifted health care plan, brought to you by the newest new and improved facelifted Nancy Pelosi (Sorry, cheap joke, one that I usually avoid. Bygones):

With the broader health care bill still perilously close to collapse, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi plans to take a shot at the health insurance industry next week by scheduling a vote on a smaller bill to revoke its half-century-old exemption from antitrust laws.

The vote is part of her new two-track strategy to tackle things that won’t be included in a more sweeping bill — if Congress ever passes one — while giving her members something politically popular to vote on. The move also puts pressure on Republicans, the industry and wavering Democrats, who wish their leaders would abandon the push altogether. [...]

It’s an appealing target for House Democrats, and it would be hard for Republicans to obstruct without facing charges that they were trying to protect insurance companies.

Apart from the politics of forcing an anti-industry vote, the strategy also serves Pelosi’s purposes, since the antitrust language is not something that would survive in any case if Democrats were to ultimately use Senate “fast-track” reconciliation rules to break the impasse on comprehensive reform.

Politico likes to emphasize the likelihood of a health care bill not passing. Aren't they just the little optimists? I know, consider the source. I did.

Never mind- Pelosi: No Hope For Public Option At This Time

By GottaLaff


Earlier I posted about some optimism in the House about the public option.

Never mind:

But on a conference call today, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi put a second set of nails in the public option's coffin--saying it would not be part of any grand bargain to push ahead with health. And in so doing, she took a veiled swipe at the White House for not standing enthusiastically behind the proposal. [...]

"And so I think that what you might see coming out of some reconciliation would be those areas of agreement that all three--the White House, the Senate and the House--had already agreed to...more than two weeks ago."

As I said in the previous post about this, I chose that particular Peanuts image on purpose.

Pelosi says she CAN get votes to past Senate health care

By GottaLaff

BREAKING: MSNBC just reported that Speaker Pelosi says that she can get the votes to pass the Senate health care bill. She has the votes.

UPDATE: Speaking to Pelosi's office. All they'd say is that reconciliation is an option now. THEY KNEW NOTHING OF MSNBC'S quote.

UPDATE: (H/T: svtdragon)

John Harwood of The New York Times and MSNBC says he was told by Pelosi in an interview that she can get the 218 votes needed to get a bill through the House.

Part of the deal would be that the Senate would have to pass changes in the bill through the reconciliation process, which would not require overcoming a filibuster.

UPDATE:

Just came from session with Pelosi & reporters. Tweets are wrong. She did NOT say she has the votes to pass the Senate bill. #hcr 22 minutes ago from web

Hoyer: Dems have 2 weeks to decide healthcare reform game plan

By GottaLaff

First it was by summer. Then it was by Thanksgiving. Then it was by Christmas. Then it was by the new year. Now:

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) said Democrats have a two-week window to determine their next move on healthcare.

Don'tcha hate broken deadlines? So does Nancy Pelosi:

[...] Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) [...] said last week there was “no rush” to figure out how to pass healthcare after Democrats lost their 60th vote in the Senate.

You can't break a deadline if you don't have a deadline. Smart girl.

Earlier in day, Hoyer laid out what he and other Democratic leaders see as the four options available to them: Pass a smaller series of health reform measures; pass the Senate bill along with a companion bill to “fix” certain aspects of the Senate bill and have the Senate use the reconciliation process to pass the “fix”; pass the Senate bill in its current form; or abandon healthcare reform efforts altogether.

Hoyer said he agreed with Pelosi’s assessment that the House lacks the votes to pass the Senate bill as is, and said that passing no legislation isn’t viewed as a realistic option by “most of us.”

That's nice. Now do it.

UPDATE, the Rushpublics are threatening obstruction... again:

John Podesta tells TPM there is a growing "consensus" behind "having the House pass the Senate's health care bill but only with guarantees that it could later be amended through a reconciliation bill."

Meanwhile, Sen. Judd Gregg (R-NH), the ranking Republican on the Budget Committee, told the New York Times that, of reconciliation, Republicans "would make it an extraordinarily difficult exercise."