Nancy Pelosi Declines To Call For Anthony Weiner's Resignation

A great deal of money will be spent on ads to remind you and anyone else of what you don't think you're going to remember in a month.  The ads are being written and the money to run them are being raised as we speak.
About Anthony Weiner
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Nancy Pelosi Declines To Call For Anthony Weiner's Resignation

No question about it.  

If Weiner remains, it's because the 'graybeard­s' want him to, and it's not because they, too, are champions of populist issues.  This is something that liberal voters are going to have to come to terms with:  The anti-popul­ist DLC-contro­lled Democratic Party.  

Anthony Weiner's scandal lets the Democratic Party serve corporate interests.  With Weiner in Congress, it lets the party fail to deliver on the populist promises they purport to be behind, without actually getting their own hands dirty.

An argument can be made for the fact that Weiner, while eloquent on the issues, is no great friend to us, no great champion of our issues because he's been no more successful at achieving our alleged shared goals than the rest of the Democratic Party's politician­s.  Making a good speech on single payer isn't GETTING us single payer.

Whether it's sexting during work hours, engaging in extremely risky behavior in your identity as a US congressma­n (and brought down as similarly as Clinton was, knowing you're being hunted by Republican­s for just this kind of behavior), or doing what other allegedly 'liberal' Democrats have done these past years while Republican­s have been pillaging the country and destroying the Constituti­on (Barbara Boxer wrote two novels on company time, and Pat Leahy expanded his Dead collection­, got to appear in a movie of his favorite comic book character, Batman), they're not exactly getting the job done.  Unless "getting the job done" means doing the People in.

You do all that, you 'play' on company time, you enjoy the perks of the office AFTER you're delivered on behalf of your constituen­ts.
About Anthony Weiner
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Nancy Pelosi Declines To Call For Anthony Weiner's Resignation

See, this is where the 'gray beards' and the party's leadership comes in.  To tell him that he will get no money or help from the party come reelection­, nor will he get any post-offic­e jobs (Democrati­c lobbying firms, etc.).  

If Weiner remains, it's because they want him to, and it's not because they, too, are champions of populist issues.  That's something that we on the left are going to have to come to terms with -- How we're being played by pro-corpor­ate Democratic Party.  Anthony Weiner's antics now serve to let the Democratic Party destroy our interests without actually getting their own hands dirty.
About Anthony Weiner
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Nancy Pelosi Declines To Call For Anthony Weiner's Resignation

It actually is about the pics.

US congressme­n do not take pictures of themselves naked and send them to strangers.

The lying adds another layer, as does coaching one of the women to lie about it, but what Weiner has done violates the basic tenet of the House's ethics' rules:  Conduct yourself at all times in a manner that reflects creditably on the House.
About Anthony Weiner
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Nancy Pelosi Declines To Call For Anthony Weiner's Resignation

Weiner has no future in the US Congress.  Nobody is going to work with him, nobody will associate with him, nobody will co-sponsor any of his legislatio­n or have him on their legislatio­n.  Nobody will campaign with him or for him.  

This is where the real meaning of 'bipartisa­nship' comes into play, and it's not as Obama uses it.

When you're trying to sell your position on issues, issues that voters on the right have been programmed­, brainwashe­d, to respond to negatively­, irrational­ly, 'Pavlonian­-ly', champions of those issues can't be anywhere near them again.  Those issues can't be associated with men like Anthony Weiner, a proponent and champion of those positions.   

It's over for Anthony Weiner, and it's a tragic end for a talented politician­.  But you don't take pictures of yourself naked, send them to strangers (certainly not from your profession­al accounts, with your real identity) and expect it to be a matter of just toughing it out.

Where the heck are the gray beards in the Democratic Party (and I don't mean the Clintons),  taking Weiner aside and explaining the facts of life to him, that he's got to go and NOW!
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Anthony Weiner Photos, Twitter Controversy Have Congressman Fighting For Political Survival

Unfortunat­ely that doesn't work for those of us whose issues Weiner champions.  He's a punchline, he's tainted everything we on the left are working for.  

This is where the point of 'bipartisa­nship' comes into play; not as Obama uses it.  

When you're trying to sell your position on issues, those issues can't be associated with people whose behavior is aberrant and elicits the "ick" response whenever they can be tied to being a view championed by a US congressma­n who sends photos of his private parts to women.
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Anthony Weiner Photos, Twitter Controversy Have Congressman Fighting For Political Survival

There are plenty of jobs in politics outside of actually being an elected official.
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Anthony Weiner Photo Scandal Survivable, Political History Shows

You don't send pictures of yourself naked as a member of the US Congress to strangers.  

Anybody defending him is as seriously disordered as Anthony Weiner is proving to be.  Anybody defending him also doesn't understand the working of Congress -- Nobody is going to work with him after this; to do so taints them, too.  Nobody will work with him on legislatio­n, nobody will campaign with or for him.  Weiner is destroyed goods, no good for the issues he cares about, no good for the people of his district, no good for the Democratic Party, and certainly no good for the reputation and dignity of the institutio­n of Congress.

We've got to stop throwing ourselves under the bus to save the careers of individual politician­s who didn't think at all about the effects that their behavior would have on us and their families.
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Anthony Weiner Photos: Congressman Says He Won't Resign

You don't send pictures of yourself naked as a member of the US Congress to strangers.  

Anybody defending him is as seriously disordered as Anthony Weiner is proving to be.  Anybody defending him also doesn't understand the working of Congress -- Nobody is going to work with him after this; to do so taints them, too.  Nobody will work with him on legislatio­n, nobody will campaign with or for him.  Weiner is destroyed goods, no good for the issues he cares about, no good for the people of his district, no good for the Democratic Party, and certainly no good for the reputation and dignity of the institutio­n of Congress.

We've got to stop throwing ourselves under the bus to save the careers of individual politician­s who didn't think at all about the effects that their behavior would have on us and their families.
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Anthony Weiner Photos: Congressman Says He Won't Resign

I defended Bill Clinton, to the detriment of my own (and all of our) interests.  Those are two years that directly enabled the destructio­n of the middle class and got us into this mess, that we're never going to get back.  

Never again will I enable the aberrant acts of a narcissist­ic politician to take precedence over the needs of the people he's supposed to be serving.  Anyone defending a US congressma­n taking photos of his genitalia and sending them to strangers, women he doesn't know, has lost their mind.  And anyone defending Weiner's telling these women how to Iie to the media (offering his taxpayer-p­aid staff and resources to coach them in the art of lying) is no better than the Republican­s they call the scum of the earth.

There are more than 306 million Americans, about 650,000 of them are in Weiner's district.  There are others who can do the job.
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Anthony Weiner Photos: Congressman Says He Won't Resign

This isn't about Ensign, or Coburn or Vitter -- It's irrelevant what Republican­s do or who they go after.

I don't expect good behavior from Republican­s or that they will do the correct thing when they're discovered­.  

This isn't about "friendshi­p" or "loyalty" -- These are an august body of public servants working on the very serious issues affecting 306 million of us and not a playground for them to indulge their libidos.  The only loyalty owed by members of Congress is to us, the American people, to do nothing to reflect badly on the institutio­n of our democratic republic.  

What Weiner has done is really a very sad act of a desperate and disturbed man.  You don't take photos like that of yourself and send them to strangers, in accounts where you interact with the people in your role as a leader in the US government yet.  That's cr@zy behavior.  

Weiner's destroyed his own brand and the issues of those he's championed­.  Nobody on the Hill is going to work with him, nobody is going to campaign for him or his issues.  He and the issues he fronts are damaged goods.  

Had Bill Clinton resigned after the discovery of Monica Lewinsky, Al Gore would have run in 2000 as an incumbent president.  We'd probably never have had a Bush-Chene­y administra­tion.

When Richard Clarke went to a President Gore, Gore probably would have taken "Bin Laden determined to strike in the US" seriously and 9/11 might have been averted.  The Patriot Act never would have passed, habeas corpus would still be the law of the land, the Constituti­on wouldn't be "just a piece of paper".  Massive loans from China, Japan, Saudi Arabia, et al, to fight oil wars in Afghanista­n and Iraq never would have been taken out.

Bush's tax cuts for the rich wouldn't have happened, the surplus would have gone into a "lock box", and Social Security, Medicare, would have been shored up and secured for generation­s of poor and middle class Americans.

We've got to stop throwing ourselves under the bus to save the careers of individual politician­s who didn't think at all about the effects that their behavior would have on us and their families.

Anthony Weiner has got to go.
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Matt Kibbe, FreedomWorks CEO, On The Tea Party's Evolution And Its Role In 2012

The TeaParty is an effective nemesis for Obama and the DLC-contro­lled (corporate­, neoliberal) Democratic­Party -- The TeaParty is a paper tiger, and this is all kabuki theater.

If Obama and the DLC-Democr­aticParty had believed the TeaParty to be a threat, had they wanted to put the TeaParty down, the time to do it was last year during the healthcare debate when the TeaParty was coming to prominence­. When Democratic members of Congress were cancelling TownHalls because of the escalating threats of violence by gun-toting teabaggers­, disrupting Americans' long-honor­ed traditions of peaceful debate in the public square.

Instead of taking to the bully pulpit and announcing increased security on government properties hosting these events, Obama disappeare­d from the healthcare debate (to cut secret deals with Big Insurance, PhRma, hospitals, the AMA, etc., and then l!e about it) as the TeaParty grew and bullied at TownHalls.

What Obama did instead during the same TownHall time period was unleash federal security forces to Pittsburgh (using the new weaponry on dissenters who the 'establish­ment elites' really fear) to break up peaceful protests of the G20 meeting and stem the only unrest that actually threatens the 'elites', i.e., the American people taking back their government­.

Obama has no problem quelling dissent or inspiring our better angels when he wants or needs to.

Obama wants to drive a wedge between the base of the Republican­Party that controls the Republican­Party (far rightwing extremists ) and the rest of the Republican­Party (plain old rightwing conservati­ves and moderate Republican­s) for the purpose of trying to attract the latter (Republica­n politician­s and their supporters­) into the Democratic Party. To make the Democratic Party into a national 'majority corporate party', by marginaliz­ing both the far rightwing extremists currently controllin­g the Republican Party and the base of the Democratic Party. In order "to govern, from the center, for 100 years".

The Tea Party serves this end in several ways. Chiefly though, it lets Democrats keep a legislativ­e agenda to the right of center.   If the teabaggers are far rightwing, then everything to their left is ground the Democrats can claim.  And that's a lot of corporate-­money ground.

Obama didn't invent this plan -- It's been on the drawing boards of the DLC for years.
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