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."
If I wanted to be like a Dhimmicrat I would have joined your party already ...
Pelosi also defended her claim that she was never informed that waterboarding would be used on suspected terrorists. She added that her Republican 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 to 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.
#1
Nancy, Nancy, Nancy. It is not the Republican party you need to worry about - it is the people of the USA who have now had 2 years of your leadership and 100 days of The One. That is what you have to worry about and don't depend on your meek press corp enablers because they become even more irrelevant everyday.
Posted by: Jack is Back! ||
05/01/2009 15:58 Comments ||
Top||
#2
They do anything they want and they are all twisted.
of Americans enjoying their small windfall from President Barack Obama's "Making Work Pay" tax credit are in for an unpleasant surprise next spring. The government is going to want some of that money back.
The tax credit is supposed to provide up to $400 to individuals and $800 to married couples as part of the massive economic recovery package enacted in February. Most workers started receiving the credit through small increases in their paychecks in the past month.
But new tax withholding tables issued by the IRS could cause millions of taxpayers to get hundreds of dollars more than they are entitled to under the credit, money that will have to be repaid at tax time.
At-risk taxpayers include a broad swath of the public: married couples in which both spouses work; workers with more than one job; retirees who have federal income taxes withheld from their pension payments and Social Security recipients with jobs that provide taxable income.
The Internal Revenue Service acknowledges problems with the withholding tables but has done little to warn average taxpayers.
"They need to get the Goodyear blimp out there on this," said Tom Ochsenschlager, vice president of taxation for the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants.
For many, the new tax tables will simply mean smaller-than-expected tax refunds next year, IRS spokesman Terry Lemons said. The average refund was nearly $2,700 this year.
But taxpayers who calculate their withholding so they get only small refunds could face an unwelcome tax bill next April, said Jackie Perlman, an analyst with the Tax Institute at H&R Block.
#1
FOX NEWS > GLENN BECK did a pretty good oratory on how all of the MILYUHNS AND ZILYUHNS AND TILYUHNS OF TAX $$$ IN OBAMA'S STIMULUS BILLS = PORKULUS, ETC. DID JACK TO SAVE GM + CHRYSLER FROM BANKRUPTYC - in fact, Becky inferred it was "mysterious" how these major Automakers declared bacnkruptcy only AFTER Porkulus was approved [read, OBAMA = USGOVT COVERTLY PAID FOR THE RETIREMENT + OTHER LOSS, ETC. SUMS OF CEOS AS REWARD FOR DECLARING BANKRUPTCY + TURNING OVER TO GOVT. WIDOUT THE COMAPANIES HAVING TO PAY THEIR CONTRACTUAL TERMS/OBLIGATS]???
Torture is an impermissible evil. Except under two circumstances. The first is the ticking time bomb. An innocent's life is at stake. The bad guy you have captured possesses information that could save this life. He refuses to divulge. In such a case, the choice is easy. Even John McCain, the most admirable and estimable torture opponent, says openly that in such circumstances, "You do what you have to do." And then take the responsibility.
Some people, however, believe you never torture. Ever. They are akin to conscientious objectors who will never fight in any war under any circumstances, and for whom we correctly show respect by exempting from war duty. But we would never make one of them Centcom commander. Private principles are fine, but you don't entrust such a person with the military decisions upon which hinges the safety of the nation. It is similarly imprudent to have a person who would abjure torture in all circumstances making national security decisions upon which depends the protection of 300 million countrymen.
The second exception to the no-torture rule is the extraction of information from a high-value enemy in possession of high-value information likely to save lives. This case lacks the black-and-white clarity of the ticking time bomb scenario. We know less about the length of the fuse or the nature of the next attack. But we do know the danger is great. We know we must act but have no idea where or how -- and we can't know that until we have information. Catch-22.
Under those circumstances, you do what you have to do. And that includes waterboarding. Did it work? The current evidence is fairly compelling. George Tenet said that the "enhanced interrogation" program alone yielded more information than everything gotten from "the FBI, the Central Intelligence Agency and the National Security Agency put together." Michael Hayden, CIA director after waterboarding had been discontinued, writes (with former Attorney General Michael Mukasey) that "as late as 2006 ... fully half of the government's knowledge about the structure and activities of al-Qaeda came from those interrogations."
Even Dennis Blair, Obama's director of national intelligence, concurs that these interrogations yielded "high value information." So much for the lazy, mindless assertion that torture never works. Asserts Blair's predecessor, Mike McConnell, "We have people walking around in this country that are alive today because this process happened." Of course, the morality of torture hinges on whether at the time the information was important enough, the danger great enough and our blindness about the enemy's plans severe enough to justify an exception to the moral injunction against torture.
Judging by Nancy Pelosi and other members of Congress who were informed at the time, the answer seems to be yes. In December 2007, after a Washington Post report that she had knowledge of these procedures and did not object, she admitted that she'd been "briefed on interrogation techniques the administration was considering using in the future." Today Pelosi protests "we were not -- I repeat -- were not told that waterboarding or any other of these other enhanced interrogation methods were used." She imagines that this distinction between past and present, Clintonian in its parsing, is exonerating.
On the contrary. It is self-indicting. If you are told about torture that has already occurred, you might justify silence on the grounds that what's done is done and you are simply being used in a post-facto exercise to cover the CIA's rear end. The time to protest torture, if you really are as outraged as you now pretend to be, is when the CIA tells you what it is planning to do "in the future." But Pelosi did nothing. No protest. No move to cut off funding. No letter to the president or the CIA chief or anyone else saying "Don't do it."
On the contrary, notes Porter Goss, then chairman of the House intelligence committee: The members briefed on these techniques did not just refrain from objecting, "on a bipartisan basis, we asked if the CIA needed more support from Congress to carry out its mission against al-Qaeda." More support, mind you. Which makes the current spectacle of self-righteous condemnation not just cowardly but hollow. It is one thing to have disagreed at the time and said so. It is utterly contemptible, however, to have been silent then and to rise now "on a bright, sunny, safe day in April 2009" (the words are Blair's) to excoriate those who kept us safe these harrowing last eight years.
#3
I just wish Pelosi would quit grinning like she did something special. She is not special. Democrats at her level tend to be all about perversion and hypocrisy.
Perhaps we should start calling her Special Nancy (Pelosi), to go along with Landslide Al (Franken).
#8
Nancy Pelosi is a perfect example of why a friend who in the past was Democrat State Representative did not want the Dems to get both houses and the Presidency
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
By Charles Krauthammer
