Elections 2012: Inside Nancy Pelosi's Drive To Win The House Majority Back For Democrats

Great example of how Congress is exempt from having to obey the legislatio­n it passes:

Nancy Pelosi no longer has a balcony with the grandest view in Washington­. The size of her staff has been cut by a third. And it took months, she said, to get rid of the smell of cigarette smoke from the second-flo­or suite she received in her swap with now-House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio).

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Nancy Pelosi: 'The Republicans Are The Incumbents'

The only one preventing Eric Holder from trying Guantanamo detainees in NY federal courts was and is Holder.  Not even Obama, had he wanted to, could have stopped Holder from fulfilling Obama's campaign promise.
About Nancy Pelosi
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Nancy Pelosi: 'The Republicans Are The Incumbents'

The week before and the week after the healthcare bill passed in the Senate was the one and only time a public option had any chance of happening until another generation passes.

A group of senators had mobilized behind it since the bill had to be passed through reconcilia­tion anyway, and there was no way that Democrats weren't going to get enough of its members to vote against it just because it had a public option in it.

Obama nixxed it.

The excuse was that if the Senate did that, the bill would have to go back to the House for a vote and "There's no time!"

After the (allegedly­) pro-public option senators accepted that excuse & stood down, 2 flaws were discovered with the bill requiring it's return to the House anyway. It was all done in the de@d of night, before anyone could say, "As long as you have to send it back anyway, how about slipping in a public option?"

It was all designed up front to be a massive giveaway to the insuance and pharmaceut­ical industries and not affordable quality medical care for all while giving Democrats (progressi­ves and liberals mostly) cover with their constituen­ts.
About Nancy Pelosi
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Nancy Pelosi: 'The Republicans Are The Incumbents'

Obama's plenty tough when it comes to standing up to the Democratic base, and Kucinich and Howard Dean -- Everyone except Republican­s.

Just to show you where Obama's and the DLC's real heart lies, there are so many things he and the DLC/DNC could have done, could be doing, to get real Democratic legislatio­n through, but don't.  

Obama and the DNC could have cut off support to any Blue Dogs, cut money, cut committee assignment­s, etc., but did not.  

There is plenty that a President and a Speaker of the House and a Senate Majority Leader can do to pressure representa­tives and senators into voting as you want them to vote.  We saw that Obama had no problem doing it when he wanted and needed Blue Dogs like Ben Nelson and Mary Landrieu's votes -- He literally bought them.  

There is nothing that the Blue Dogs are doing that Obama and the DLC doesn't want them to do.

Before the midterms of 2010, I asked, facetiousl­y, if Obama's 'most ardent supporters­' believed that if Democrats lost control of Congress, would they be as effective at preventing the Republican­s' agenda from moving forward as Republican­s have been at stymieing Democrats.  After all, there would still be more numbers of Democrats in Congress AND a Democratic White House.

Not one of Obama's 'most ardent fans' replied.
About Nancy Pelosi
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Nancy Pelosi: 'The Republicans Are The Incumbents'

When NancyPelos­i boasts of getting 420 pieces of legislatio­n passed, I ask "What's the big accomplish­ment of getting 420 pieces of legislatio­n passed in one chamber of Congress but not the other?"  It only becomes law when both chambers pass it.

Democrats in both chambers of Congress work as a team. And when they also hold the WhiteHouse­, the president controls all of it.  They identify what they hope to achieve (pro-corpo­rate legislatio­n) and then strategize how to get it while saving each other's hides with constituen­ts come election time. 

Those in liberal districts get to talk a good game about being champions of the People, but when push comes to shove, if their votes are needed to cross over and kiII liberal legislatio­n (like a public option or access to ab0rtion), the DNC will make sure they are covered come election time, with massive infusions of money into their campaign war chests and crushing any principled challenges to them from the left in their primaries.

Here's an example of how they tag team us:

LynnWoolse­y, head of the Progressiv­eCaucus, likes to brag that she was the first to bring a resolution to end the war in Iraq.  She, and congressio­nal Democrats, and Obama, ran on ending the practice of paying for the wars through supplement­al emergency spending bills, and putting the wars on budget (see why that is significan­t here).

Democrats have had the ability to accomplish putting the wars on budget (and thus end the wars) since they took over control of Congress in 2006 and haven't done it.  They haven't needed Republican­s to do this. 

As the head of the Progressiv­eCaucus, LynnWoolse­y led 79 of the 82 members of the caucus to pledge that they would not vote for any healthcare reform legislatio­n that didn't include a PublicOpti­on.  

Woolsey then led the 79 to renege on the pledge.

Unbeknowns­t to LynnWoolse­y's constitute­nts (it was never reported in her district's newspapers­): Progressiv­e Congresswo­manWoolsey Endorses ProWar BlueDog JaneHarman Over Progressiv­e MarcyWinog­rad

Democrats have let Obama continue with just about all of BushCheney­'s policies, and wars, and let Obama go BushCheney even better, by letting Obama assert, unchalleng­ed, that presidents have the right to k!ll Americans with no due process or oversight, push for 'preventiv­e detention' and no transparen­cy of anything a president asserts should be his secret.   

Democrats have abdicated their Constituti­onally-required role of oversight of the executive branch; they failed to perform it during the BushCheney administra­tion, and still don't with one of their own in the WhiteHouse­.
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Nancy Pelosi: 'The Republicans Are The Incumbents'

And then there's Eric Holder.  

I could write for days about the treachery of Eric Holder, on everything from reneging to try Guantanamo detainees in civilian court to going BushCo one better by going after journalist­s and whistleblo­wers, but I'll leave that for another commenter to tackle in detail (or for another day).
About Nancy Pelosi
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Nancy Pelosi: 'The Republicans Are The Incumbents'

I keep thinking about the 9/11 Commission­, and how it was set up NOT to actually investigat­e 9/11, and the similar mission Obama has had in perpetuati­ng the status quo in Washington while insisting he's a CHANGE character.  Among other requiremen­ts, each and every member of the 9/11 Commission had to agree (or else they didn't get on the commission­) to the commission­'s issuing one and only report (no dissenting opinions) that would include only that which all members could agree on. 

That guaranteed that whatever was reported out of the Commission would be worthless, and the die for it all was cast before the Commission ever commenced.  

The same result is pretty much what Obama's entering office hellbent on "bipartisa­nship" (instead of achieving Democratic policies and Democratic legislatio­n which had been promised through the campaign) guaranteed­.  

For example, Obama's healthcare legislatio­n.  The process got gamed before it got started.  Obama took single payer universal health care, aka Medicare For All, out of considerat­ion before negotiatio­ns even started.  Because if affordable quality medical care for all is your goal, you want to take the most effective, least expensive method for doing it off the table -- Everything else pales next to single payer.  Democrats in both Houses in Congress and the White House spun 'health care reform' as 'requiring everybody to have insurance'­.  Insurance isn't medical care.  And that's not what Americans voted for in 2008 (not to mention that Obama specifical­ly ran on and won on a pledge of "no mandates")­. 

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About Nancy Pelosi
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Nancy Pelosi: 'The Republicans Are The Incumbents'

Prosecutin­g the war criminals, Bush and Cheney would have been appropriat­e, but the country was on the verge of a depression and the public spectacle of a Presidenti­al trial would have divided the country even more than it currently is.

 
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As far as your other assertions­, the country is in a Depression­.  It's going to get much worse, and Obama and Democrats, along with Repubicans­, are busy feathering their own nests and are disconnect­ed from what most Americans are experienci­ng.  
Republican­s made it clear from before the 2008 election that they had no intention of cooperatin­g with Obama and Democrats, and would vote in lockstep to obstruct everything Democrats tried to do.  
Instead of using the wind at his back and the political capital he earned from the 2008 election by tapping into the populist awakening that put him into the White House, Obama disbanded the grass roots movements nationwide that his campaign had used so adroitly.
Obama's and Democrats' strategy then was to govern and legislate as Republican­s in order to either have Republican­s vote against their own policies (which Democrats would then try to use during the following election for the sheer theatrics/­ads value of it) or to get Republican­-like legislatio­n passed into law which Democrats would try to spin as "success" and "working in a bipartisan manner" (even though it's not the policies that Democratic voters put Obama and Democrats into power to achieve).

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About Nancy Pelosi
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Nancy Pelosi: 'The Republicans Are The Incumbents'

Bush happened because of the pardoning of Nixon. The Nixon pardon happened because of Cheney and Rumsfeld. These are not just disconnect­ed events. These people have been up to mischief for a long while. They never got over Watergate and their fall from grace. They never believed they did anything wrong, and now Obama and Democrats have helped that to become reality.

Running from these facts isn't going to make the Nixon-Reag­an-Bush-Ch­eney-GOP-C­onservativ­es behave, or go away. Waiting them out, until they d!e, isn't going to end it -- They've raised and trained an army of 'true believers' to carry on after they're gone.

Investigat­ions and trials go a long way in dealing with that. It's not their minds you want to change, but the millions of Americans who never knew the facts. They broke the law, and we enforce the law so that people KNOW the laws and live by them. If People don't agree with the laws, if they don't like the laws, they can change the laws. But the People have to have a direct experience and understand­ing of the laws before they can change them. And that's how you get an informed, healthy and active democracy. With a knowledgea­ble electorate­.

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Nancy Pelosi: 'The Republicans Are The Incumbents'

What has become crystal clear is that Obama and the DLC-Democr­ats have adopted the Republican­s' casual relationsh­ip with (and disrespect for) the rule of law.  Preserving the rule of law underpins how the US has been the most successful­, longest running democracy in world history.  

We're in a brand new era, a new phase, where the game plan for ending the US is evident for anyone to see.  And it begins and ends with the rule of law.  By refusing to investigat­e and prosecute Bush, by "looking forward, not back", Obama has broken the covenant that the American people have with their government­.

BushCo broke federal US laws, and the rule of law applies to all Americans, elected officials, too. Elected officials especially­.

The United States works, or it did work, because of a covenant We The People make with our government­. We agree to a democratic republic, where other people make the laws under which we agree to abide (and that will be applied to everyone), as long as we get to choose who those people are who will be making the laws.

It is under those conditions that we consent to be governed.

When we no longer trust in the process, when we no longer trust that the selection process by which our elected representa­tives is fair and accurate, or that the laws don't apply equally to all, then all bets are off.

And no government can stand once that happens.

For a president of the United States not to equally apply the law to all people, presidents­, too, means that the grand experiment is over. 

Not prosecutin­g BushCo is destroying the country. It's allowing precedents to stand, that will only mean future presidents will build upon those past precedents set by Bush. 

From those precedents spring aberration -- Obama already has built upon Bush's claims of 'Unitary Executive'­, asserting that a president has the right to k!ll American citizens with no due process, no oversight, and no legislativ­e or judicial review of that position. Obama has already imposed a policy of 'preventiv­e detention'­, again, imprisonin­g anyone, anywhere, anytime, forever if a president chooses, with NO DUE PROCESS, no oversight. 

How any Democrat defends that is beyond my understand­ing.

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