Posted on 04/28/2009 4:59:25 PM PDT by Sub-Driver
Pelosi: now we don't have to 'explain process' @ 7:44 pm by Eric Zimmermann
Sen. Arlen Specter's decision to switch parties will make it easier for Democrats to move forward with their agenda, Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said Tuesday.
Specter's switch will give Democrats 60 caucus members in the Senate (assuming Al Franken wins his legal battle in Minnesota). That is enough votes to end debate on a bill and overcome Republican filibusters.
"Very exciting, very exciting for the American people, because now we can get things done without explaining process," Pelosi told CNN's Candy Crowley.
Specter has said that he will not be that "automatic 60th vote."
Pelosi added that Specter's decision should prompt some reflection on the part of Republicans.
"You know what, they're going to have to do their own self-analysis," she said, adding that Democrats had worked harder to be bipartisan. "Hopefully now [Republicans] will also extend the hand of friendship so they can work together in bipartisan way."
Pelosi also defended her claim that she was never informed that waterboarding would used on suspected terrorists. She added that her Republicans critics might be revealing classified information by revealing more specifics from the interrogation briefings.
"[F]or some reason the Republicans, while I am barred from talking about what goes on in meetings and I could be charged for revealing classified information, they seem to feel at liberty to talk about everything that went on at every meeting as they saw it," Pelosi said.
The Speaker indicated that she won't push for an independent "Truth Commission" to investigate Bush-era interrogation policies, instead ceding to President Obama's desire to leave the matter co Congressional committees.
"It's pretty clear–the president has been pretty clear that he doesn't want any Truth Commission on Torture and so has Harry Reid," she said, "so the attention to that will probably be done in a more regular order way by the committees in the House and in the Senate." Pelosi added that she would personally prefer a commission.
I wonder what might happen if the GOP (Grand ole Poopheads) would just STOP showing up in the House of Reps?
Lack of a quorum? Sergeant at Arms dragging Reps into the House?
Seriesly, the GOP should just STOP going to Congross on a daily basis. This would DRIVE HOME one party rule to the rest of the ignorant intellectually lazy idiots in this country.
I don’t think she’s stupid but I do agree with the Representative who said she’s as mean as a snake and I’d also go with crazy as a loon.
This is just frightening - I’m as worried about this as I’d be if i were in Pakistan and watching the oncoming Taliban. Oy VEY!
They'd just be following the lead of Texas Democrats during May 2003:
More than fifty Democratic Party members of the Texas Congress have slipped across the border into Oklahoma, to escape arrest by the Texas rangers. The State Governor has ordered the Rangers to hunt the Democrats down and bring them back for a vote in the legislature.
Staying at a motel just across the border, the Democrats say it's a matter of survival, the minority standing up to the tyranny of the Republican majority. The effect of their walkout has been to stall an attempt by state Republicans to redraw electoral boundaries.
This harridan is a scourge on the American people.
That’s about the best idea I’ve heard. Our side doesn’t seem to realize that aggressive action is needed right now. Unfortunately, we really don’t have anyone in Congress representing us with any guts/balls. So it’s unlikely we’ll get any help there. Which means, we might have to take matters into our own hands, and that might get messy. But that’s just the way it’s gonna have to be. Bring it on.
Rulers don’t have to “explain” things to their subjects.
Would they, Constitutionally, be able to conduct business if the Republicans went on strike in both the House and Senate?
Would they, Constitutionally, be able to conduct business if the Republicans went on strike in both the House and Senate?
I am asking as:
We have no fillibuster
We have no amendment process
We have no ‘explanation’ process
We have no representation
Process? We don’t need no stinkin’ process..
“I wonder what might happen if the GOP (Grand ole Poopheads) would just STOP showing up in the House of Reps?
Lack of a quorum?”
Very interesting question indeed. I am an elected Town Meeting Member in a town of 25,000 that has a representative form of town government. We CANNOT hold a town meeting or vote on anything without a quorum! There have been town meetings where we sit there until enough members show up until we hit the number of members present needed to make a quorum. I like your line of thinking: NO QUORUM NO VOTING?
The question is does the GOP have the backbone to pull it off? doubtful
Good question. My hunch is that as long as they can get a quorum (50%+1), the 'Rats can do whatever they want.
OTOH, Specter moving to the Democrats smacks of a fictional, but devious, conspiracy theory. Let's say Specter still owes 41 a big favor from the time he was CIA director, i.e. 41 has some real dirt on him.
So Specter puts on a scam as the "reliable 60th vote", but does it in a way that he gums up the works enough that Obama's agenda is hampered.
Awww...forget it. I never should've picked up the crack pipe.
Specter to the Democrats: “You like me! You really LIKE me!!!!”
When the CIA got things done without explaining the process, the dems freaked out.
It’s past time for the republicans to take the gloves off.
No more ‘bi-partisan’ crap. It’s time for lawsuits against Nazi Pelosi!
Otherwise, they would have found me guilty as a war criminal. I was strongly against that.
Not that Mike Godwin means anything to me, but if you’re going to lay down his “law”, at least get it right. It applies to long, heated debate in which one party calls the other “Nazi”, thus ending the utility of said debate.
It does not take any and all references to the Nazi regime off the table in discussions of government. Even if it did, you’d have to be insane to follow such a rule. Are Lenin, Stalin, and Mao off-limits too? Is there anything from the 20th century we’d be allowed to discuss under a doctrine of totalitarian neo-Godwinism?
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