Nancy Pelosi

Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) got a contempt citation passed in his House Judiciary Committee for both Miers and Bolten in late July, because, as the photo reminds us, when they were subpoena'd for testimony related to the U.S. attorney firings, they told Congress to go Cheney itself. They both, plus Rove to the Senate Judiciary Committee, claimed that executive privilege protected them from even having to appear in person to invoke executive privilege - hence the empty chair pictured above.

Conyers' contempt citation means exactly dick until it is passed by the full House. And as House leader Nancy Pelosi crowed, the most important thing about Democratic takeover in Washington D.C. was "subpoena power."

So it's no surprise then that as soon as Congress returned from summer recess, Nancy "subpoena power" Pelosi made sure nothing happened. Then a vote was supposedly imminent in November -- Conyers even issued a final warning to the White House. But the vote didn't come (it got pushed to December because Congress was busy caving to Bush on Iraq and FISA). Then it was supposed to come shortly after the winter recess. But, Nancy "subpoena power" Pelosi strikes again:

Senior Democrats have decided that holding a controversial vote on the contempt citations, which have already been approved by the House Judiciary Committee as part of its investigation into the firing of nine U.S. attorneys, would “step on their message” of bipartisan unity in the midst of the stimulus package talks....

“Right now, we’re focused on working in a bipartisan fashion on [the] stimulus,” said House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.), indicating that the contempt vote is not expected for weeks, depending on how quickly the stimulus package moves....

“When we have the votes, we’ll go ahead with this. Right now, the votes are just not there,” said one top House Democratic insider, speaking on the condition of anonymity.

Ow, the stupid, it hurts. Firstly, the bipartisan "unity" of the stimulus package is simply this; on a bipartisan basis, Congress is passing 100% of the tax cuts that Bush wants.

So it's for that utter capitulation that James Madison's required checks and balances moves to the back burner.

And when will we pick "it" back up? Why, when the votes are there, of course!
What votes? GOP votes.

When exactly will Republicans vote to send fellow Republicans to prison?
Any day now! All that's needed is some more of that sweet bipartisanship.

Jesus Fucking Christ in a Chicken Bucket counting on these Democrats is like being forced to shave off your nipples... Which is merely to say that it's awful and painful, it mostly makes you want to vomit, and just the thought of it is infuriating, confusing and insulting.

Democrats need to distance themselves from this stimulus package - but they won't.

Democrats should have fought to include some measures that would have helped poor and middle class Americans - but they didn't.

On just about every single thing since the midterms in 2006 when America decided to stop the Conservative Agenda (and stop George W. Bush's ability to destroy any more) Democrats have failed to prove through their actions, that they deserve to govern.

Looking at the specifics of the package that the White House wants - and will get, one wonders what the point was of electing Democrats in 2006 at all.

The egregious part about this stimulus package isn't that about 10% of the households in the United States don't qualify, or that it includes classic "screw the blue states" tricks. The bill does nothing to address the relative disparity with why the poverty line is different around the country.

Democratic leaders are leaving out middle class people that live in high cost areas, ie blue states. I'll note also that this is precisely smack dab in the middle of the demographic status of creative class liberals.

Again, I ask what is the point of electing Democrats when they act like Republicans?

Whatever you want Mr. Bush.

The stimulus package bill, defective as it is, is probably as good as we can get thanks to our frienemies the Republicans (emphasis added):

Pelosi's decision to drop expanding unemployment payments and more money for food stamps — which many lawmakers had assumed would be included in the package — could prove very controversial with Democratic constituencies, who were already stung by a decision to deny states more money for their Medicaid programs.

Many Democrats had pressed to extend unemployment benefits for people whose 26 weeks of benefits have run out, but Republicans resisted.

In light of the WaPo article this week on growing long-term unemployment among the well educated, the Republican Party just stuck it pretty damned hard to the middle class.

Pelosi dropped some key demands to keep the tilt of the package toward the middle class and to include the working poor. In addition to the unemployment and food stamp benefit extensions, she set aside proposed funding increases for low-income heating assistance and aid to state and local governments in the form of either Medicaid assistance or infrastructure funding.

Bush made Pelosi drop off the package help for people who need to heat their homes this winter. This is a classic "fuck the Blue States" tactic. The side of the civil war that won is in the middle of winter - this is what we get for winning. Scared of her shadow, she caved to Bush.

The whole point of the "stimpak" is then not to help anyone, really. It's designed solely to get people who don't have credit, or are already maxed out, to buy more stuff, thus keeping the consumer spending machine humming a few more quarters until Bush is out of office.

Then we'll officially be in recession, and suddenly everyone on the Hill will rediscover fiscal responsibility, saddling the next President with either deep spending cuts or higher taxes, and God help the poor bastard who has to deal with this big shitpile.

All of this is designed to give Bush CYA so that the Republicans can come roaring back in 2010 and 2012 with the promise of more tax cuts. It's a goalpost move, nothing more, nothing less.

Just as the emptying the treasury and enriching the rich was the best way to deal with the Bill Clinton surplus (Bush's tax cuts of 2000), and just as emptying the treasury and enriching the rich was the best way to deal with the shock to our economy after 9-11 (Bush's tax cuts of 2001), now we learn, of course, that the best way to deal with recession is to, guess what: empty the treasury and enrich the rich. As the Post reported:

"Another element of the plan is a package of tax breaks for businesses that could cost as much as $70 billion, far more than had been expected, a senior House aide and a Democratic lobbyist said."

The stimpak is corporate welfare in two ways; one, it's a direct corporate hand-out, and two for retailers, it gets people out to buy more shiny crap for a few months.

What if everyone took the $300 checks and paid down credit card debt? What then? My guess? More tax cuts.

"We've tried tax rebates before, but they haven't worked as well as they should because previous rebates left out those at the very bottom of the economic ladder -- the families struggling every day to pay their bills, heat their homes and pay their mortgages," Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-MA) said on the Senate floor. "Now the president wants to do the same thing again. He's proposed a tax break in his stimulus package that would completely leave out the poorest Americans."

And what happens when we are so in debt that the dollar isn't worth the paper it's printed on? When our infrastructure is crumbling? When the elderly are freezing to death in winter, dying of heat stroke in summer, starving all year, when schools close, when local governments shut down due to lack of funds?

Who cares? They'll blame it on the Democrats. And cowards like Nancy Pelosi will offer to share the blame.

What did leadership do in the first day back? Schedule an embarrassment.

Nevertheless, Democrats are feeling the pressure of being viewed as a do-nothing majority. In a show of bipartisanship, and perhaps an indication of desperation, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid have sent a letter to President Bush requesting a meeting on the economy. The Democratic leadership is hoping to hold a grand meeting prior to announcing a stimulus package - hoping, no doubt, to both pass an important piece of legislation and to take credit for initiating a bipartisan effort.

"It's a bad situation. You have a polarized Congress with several members of Congress running for the presidency and an institutional battle that's been taking place between the president and the Congress. It's a recipe for not legislating," says Julian Zelizer, a congressional historian at Princeton University in New Jersey. "That said, there's room for Congress to find a [legislative] package that works in everybody's political interest."

This is why historians as pundits are usually so wrong about the current state of affairs. They have no idea what the current political climate is like and they have no idea what it's like to live in America in the middle class. We're back to the days just after Henry Clay politically and economically. There isn't a way to find a 'package that works in everybody's political interest'. The Republicans have nothing to gain from such a deal. Here's why:

1. George Bush is a lame duck. His people have no hope that he'll end his reign liked. He'll stay hated and everybody knows it.
2. GOP is playing major defense in these elections.

Open Seats
Republicans
1. (CA-52) Duncan Hunter
2. (IL-18) Ray LaHood
3. (MS-03) Chip Pickering
4. (OH-15) Deborah Pryce
5. (IL-14) Dennis Hastert
6. (AZ-01) Rick Renzi
7. (MN-03) Jim Ramstad
8. (IL-11) Jerry Weller
9. (AL-02) Terry Everett
10. (NM-01) Heather Wilson
11. (OH-16) Ralph Regula
12. (OH-07) David Hobson
13. (NM-02) Steve Pearce
14. (LA-01) Bobby Jindal
15. (CO-06) Tom Tancredo
16. (NJ-03) Jim Saxton
17. (WY-AL) Barbara Cubin
18. (NJ-07) Michael Ferguson
19. (LA-04) Jim McCrery
20. (MS-01) Roger Wicker
21. (PA-05) John Peterson
22. (CA-04) John Doolittle
23. (LA-04) Richard Baker

Democrats
1. (CO-02) Mark Udall
2. (ME-01) Tom Allen
3. (NY- 21)Mike McNulty
4. (NM-03) Tom Udall
5. (IN-07) OPEN – Julia Carson
6. (CA-12) Tom Lantos

How do you defend against that? The GOP Presidential race is leaving so many rank and file Republicans disappointed and beggared for a party savior. There will be no coattails, there is only something to run against - namely Hillary and the Dem'rat Congress.

What does the GOP have to gain from working with us? Nothing! The only way they gain politically is to not work. Literally. They want nothing to get done. That is the only thing they have to run on, the attempt to say the Democratic Congress has been do-nothing and filled with pork barrel spending for liberal causes like buying Cadillacs for welfare crack-mothers.

The Republicans merely need to keep whispering to reporters that partisanship is so bad now that Dems are in control, that, sniff they wanna cry sometimes. This will keep the media scolding Democrats for not being bipartisan enough.

The other thing Republicans need to do is simple: as little as possible.

Democratic Congressional Leadership needs to make the case that what America needs is more and feistier Democrats. We need to point out that the Republicans are wrong.

This Reid/Pelosi meeting with Bush on 'common ground' and the wasting of precious time with Chris Shay's inane baseball questions is not how it is done.

Harry and Nancy, you can't play nice anymore.

The GOP can all be dead and still be as effective (which is VERY effective).
How alive do you have to be to vote against cloture and object to unanimous consent on any motion to proceed?

The Republicans strategy is a nihilistic strategy aimed at destroying the ability of government to function legislatively - no matter who gets hurt - then blaming the Democrats for doing it.

The lack of any movement on the mortgage meltdown is a great current example. And the energy bill, SCHIP, Iraq, etc, etc, etc ... but it goes down to any and all bills.

So far, it's working. The strategy is blatant but over the heads of most Americans, it's over the head of most political reporters, even. "Roadblock Republicans" is what they should be called.

Stopping bills is not a means to an end; it's the end all by itself. Republican leadership doesn't give a shit if the government works. They truly are just roadblocks. They deserve ridicule and contempt. Not "compromise."

The GOP counts on Bush Dog Democrats peeling from the Caucus and they count on Harry and Nancy's cowardice to force filibusters or demand vetoes.

Do both, you stooges.

BTW: John Kerry deserves some credit for pushing the meme harder than any other Dem.

The following letter from Reps. Maxine Waters, Lynne Woolsey, and Barbara Lee was sent to Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and the House Leadership today:

As leaders of the Progressive Caucus and Out of Iraq Caucus, we write to urge you not to include funding for the continued military occupation of Iraq in any Fiscal Year 2008 omnibus spending bill unless it requires these funds to be used solely for fully-funding the safe and timely redeployment of our troops and military contractors from Iraq within a specified timeline. Should legislation come to the House floor that does not strictly limit funding to protecting our troops and a timeline for commencing and completing their complete redeployment out of Iraq, we will not be able to support such a bill.

After almost five years, nearly 4000 lives of our brave service men and women, and approximately half-a-trillion dollars spent, it is past time for the US occupation of Iraq to end.

Additionally, the American public is ahead of Congress on this point. More than half of those polled in recent weeks want US troops home as soon as possible (USA Today/Gallup) with nearly 60 percent wanting the engagement to end on a specified timeline (Pew).

It is critical that we keep faith with the clear majority of Americans who voted us into the majority last year to end the disastrous U.S. military intervention in Iraq, use the momentum we have gained to end our occupation of Iraq and bring our troops and military contractors home, and strictly fence any additional appropriated funds accordingly.

They attached the official position of the Progressive Caucus on Iraq in the form of a letter to President Bush co-signed by 92 House Members.

D-Day has a wonderful post about the pathetic problem in our Senate today:

Harry Reid has no problem respecting the one hundred holds from Tom Coburn on all sorts of legislation, but will ignore Chris Dodd's. That's the bottom line, and given that, you have to conclude that Harry Reid is the one doing the holding.

Chris Dodd is heroically calling for a filibuster, but the real issue here is the issue of ignoring the rules of the Senate. Harry Reid is picking and choosing which Senators he will listen to. The fact that Chris Dodd came within one vote of defeating him for Minority Leader back in 2004 wouldn't have anything to do with this, would it?

Harry Reid has set up two rules for the United States Senate; one under the normal standards of conduct that have held for 200-plus years, and one for bills that he really really has to pass or the President will get mad at him. Earlier this year, Reid ignored a hold placed by Sen. Ron Wyden and confirmed an assistant Secretary of the Interior that Wyden had issues with. Sen. Wyden dropped an important amendment into the flawed Intelligence Committee bill on FISA that the President opposes, which would force the government to get a warrant to spy on Americans overseas. I guess we'll see if Reid strips that amendment out of the bill, and if he holds the same respect for amendments that he does for holds.

The point is that Harry Reid has made Tom Coburn the most important member of the United States Senate. He's made Chris Dodd, a member of his own party, irrelevant. And he's made himself into a joke. We cannot go into 2008 with this laughingstock of a leader in the Senate.

Harry Reid loves crazy-ass Tom Coburn and is a vindictive prick. Was that mean? His staffers are brainwashed into thinking he's a God who single-handedly put Nevada on the map. Oops, was that too true?

My colleague on this site, Abijah Adams has called for new Senate and House leaders. While I'd love that, here's my 2c.

Votes for leadership positions are paybacks for campaign donations. Pelosi got where she is because she is phenomenal at raising money and handing it out. Plus she is pretty tough on her caucus, all things considered. Her problems are Rahm/Hoyer (the corporatists) and the presence of so many Bush dogs in the caucus.

We need to hurt Rahm and Hoyer by sending a message that their people are more vulnerable than the protection his $2,000 checks to them afforts.

Pelosi is not going to be defeated in SF--she is Establishment there and Rahm and Hoyer can also raise phenomenal amounts of money, therefore it would be a waste of time and resources to try for any of those three.

What we can do is be consistent about giving through Act Blue and not through the DCCC or any of the leadership PACs in order to dilute these three people's influence simultaneously we should try to pick off a couple of Bush dogs as examples, the way The Club for Growth has done on the right.

We should start with Daniel Lipinski and Al Wynn and maybe Zack Space.

It feels like ages since any Dem was counted as leading so I've got to give a tip of the hat to David Obey. At least he tried.

The cardinals rebelled against a plan suggested by Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey (D-Wis.) to save $9.5 billion by slashing earmarks. Obey hoped to use the money to minimize cuts to domestic programs important to Democrats.

The backstory is that on Wednesday Nancy as matter of course caved and said that she'd cut back on total spending to keep to the strict $933 billion limit set by the White House.

She abandoned a proposal she supported Tuesday to cut pork after she faced stiff opposition from the 12 cardinals (the Democratic chairmen of the House Appropriations subcommittees).

All of this was done to keep Bush from vetoing 11 bills. Since when do Democrats work to make things convenient for Bush?

But, hat tip -- nice try, Obey. Maybe if your House leader had a strategy for how to use vetoes to further Dems goals, then maybe your Cardinals would have hung tight. Who knows.

CNN's story about the National Democratic Party Cave-In contains this little window into the logic of these cowards "leaders" as they try to explain that they didn't completely capitulate in every single way possible -- it is one of the most pity-inducing passages I've read:

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Democratic lawmakers and staffers privately say they're closing in on a broad budget deal that would give President Bush as much as $70 billion in new war funding. The deal would lack a key provision Democrats had attached to previous funding bills calling for most U.S. troops to come home from Iraq by the end of 2008, which would be a significant legislative victory for Bush.

Still, Democrats are trying to sell $70 billion in new war funding as a partial victory for them. They point out that while the final numbers are still in flux during intense private negotiations, Bush is likely to get far less money than he originally requested.

"What is for sure is he will not get all $200 billion," said one senior Democratic lawmaker. "Whatever number it is, it is much less than what the president asked for. For the first time in this war, he has received less than his request."

But senior administration officials privately say they expect to be able to get at least of the rest of the president's $200 billion request passed through Congress next year.

The silver lining to the cave-in is that they are only giving Bush $70 billion for the war now, and they won't give him the other $130 billion he wants for three whole weeks. They really showed him.

More pain from The Politico:

But it's a simple truth, whether you support the war or not: There is a lot more Democrats could do to change, or at least challenge, the politics of the war in Washington, even if they do not have the numbers to impose new policies on President Bush.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) could force a vote a day over Iraq. She could keep the House in session all night, over weekends and through planned vacations.(…)

Democrats, in on-the-record and on-background interviews, said they do not do these things because they would be bad politics. Democrats in the House and Senate would splinter over such extremist measures.

In closed-door caucus meetings, members say, Democratic leaders like Reps. Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.) and Rahm Emanuel (D-Ill.) have carried the day by warning that there is no appetite for such tactics in the districts of vulnerable Democrats, upon whom the party's new majority status depends.

We need to give up the country to save our DINOs in Indiana?

RedState's crazies know the deal:

There is no Democratic Party in Congress. There are, instead, a bare majority of Congressmen and Senators who have banded together in order to gather power, influence, and money. Which is fine, as far as it goes -- except that they are not actually using any of the resources that they are gathering to benefit the groups and causes who worked to put them in power.

The headline of the post from the above? "Sweet Jeebus, is there nobody in the Democratic Party who understands national party unity?"

No. There isn't. Harry Reid deserves to lose his Senate seat and his leadership position.

Bush vetoed SCHIP again. May hay, you idiots!

Here's a freebie, "When Bush came up with 'No Child Left Behind' I didn't think he meant that when he got done, there would be no children left."

Why can't you take advantage of any situation?! Any single one!

File under "Yeah no shit."

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi , D-Calif., admitted Thursday that she had underestimated the willingness of Republicans to stand behind President Bush’s Iraq policy despite the drubbing the GOP took in the polls in 2006.

“The assumption I made was that the Republicans would soon see the light,” she said.

{My head explodes}

Instead, the minority stuck to the president’s war policy in the face of unrelenting pressure from congressional Democrats and powerful lobbying campaigns by anti-war groups.

I completely forgot that Nancy was brand-new to politics.

I have to wonder, did Nancy REALLY want Republicans to see the light?
Wasn't MoveOn.org pounding conservatives "with unrelenting pressure" for them to see the light?
Didn't Nancy allow a vote to condemn MoveOn.org? Yeah, I think she did.
Why would she undermine her ally?

Oh, that's right, she's totally brand new to politics.

"The assumption I made was that the Republicans would soon see the light," she said. "I felt that the voices of the American people were so strong..."

Gee, Nancy, who would have thought that Republicans would fight for their worldview? Who would have guessed that Republicans would rubberstamp any policy or plan that protects their President? Answer: ANYONE with HALF A BRAIN!

Nancy is doing what all powerful Democrats are always doing--trying to avoid mysterious uninvestigable small-plane crashes and trying to impress Joe Klein by catering to voters who would just as soon kill them than vote for them. Ever.

New House Leader Needed, apply within.