Tag Archives: Nancy Pelosi

Fisking a Tweet

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The Grand Jury acted upon the facts and the law. <fisk> However, it indicted Trump anyway. </fisk>

No one is above the law, and everyone has the right to a trial to prove innocence.  <fisk> A defendant has no obligation to prove his innocence; the state has the duty to prove his guilt. </fisk>

Hopefully <fisk> grammatically incorrect use of an adverb </fisk>, the former President will peacefully respect the system, <fisk> unnecessary comma </fisk> which grants him that right. <fisk> As noted above, the presumption of innocence requires the state must prove guilt. Also, the right to a fair trial is not granted by any “system.” It and the other rights secured by the main body of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights are pre-existing rights. </fisk>

<fisk> BTW, (at)SpeakerPelosi is no longer Speaker of the House. </fisk>

The Left’s Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Week

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Monday was a bit of a rocky start with the Supreme Court hearing oral arguments about challenges to the Texas law that allows citizens to bring lawsuits against persons who perform abortions. Based on the justices’ questions, the case isn’t a slam dunk for either side. A win for the Left isn’t a gimme.

Tuesday was election day. The Democrats lost bigly in Virginia, and were reduced to referring to the first black woman to win state-wide office as a “white supremacist.” They lost a special election in Texas in a heavily Latino legislative district. Most stunning, they barely able to keep the vote within the margin of theft in New Jersey.

Wednesday, oral arguments in the challenge to the New York handgun permitting system were heard by the Supreme Court. Most commentators are projecting a 6 to 3 decision vindicating the petitioners’ Second Amendment rights. (I’m betting on 5 to 4.)

Thursday, the first actual arrest was made in the Russia Collusion Hoax case. The supporting indictment filed by Special Prosecutor John Durham paints a picture of collusion by the Clinton campaign with Russians.

Friday, was the day that Nancy Pelosi was going give Joe Xiden a win by passing his more-than-a-trillion dollar “infrastructure” bill. She failed to do so, and also failed to move the legislation for the Build Back Better scam either.

And that’s just some of what went right this week.

UPDATE—Well, well, well … Mrs. Pelosi did move some legislation. She did get the Senate’s version of the infrastructure bill through 228 to 206 (7 not voting). 13 Republicans voted for the bill: Katko, Bacon, Van Drew, Young, Upton, Kinzinger, Gonzalez, Fitzpatrick, Reed, Gabarino, Malliotakis, McKinley, and Smith of New Jersey. Pelosi couldn’t have pulled this off without that Republican support. It will be interesting to see how many of these congresscritters are reelected.

How Confident Are They?

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During last year’s elections, the Democrats managed to get their guy into the White House, just barely flipped control of the Senate, and maintained a slim margin of control of the House. OTOH, they did not do well in state races, and they will not be in control of the reapportionment of House districts coming before the next election. Moreover, many states are reforming their election laws to improve election integrity. 2022 could be a challenging election year for the Democrats.

Looking at the Democrats’ legislative agenda, it appears that they are trying to ram as much of their wish list through as quickly as possible, regardless of the political cost. For example, their pending “infrastructure” bill spends a couple of trillion dollars with less than half going to actual infrastructure projects. The bulk of the bill simply directs government spending into the pockets of favored businesses and not-for-profits.

They’re proposing the biggest tax increase in almost 30 years to pay for their schemes. Now, Joe Xiden was in the Senate in the 1990s, and if his mental faculties were intact, he should remember that tax increases and gun control were what caused the Democrats to lose control of the House in the 1994 midterm elections. Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi managed to keep their House seats in ’94, but they should remember that loss and what caused it. So why are they pushing legislation that’s likely to ensure a similar loss in 2022?

It could be that they don’t remember or that they discount the possibility of an electoral backlash because they believe America has changed. They thought that was the case when they rammed Obamacare through on a party line vote, and they lost the House in the next election, but they may think that this time will be different.

Perhaps, but I believe that Xiden (78), Pelosi (81), and Schumer (70) see this Congress as their last chance. They see handwriting on the electoral wall for 2022, and they want to get as much of their agenda passed while they still can.

Whether because of arrogance or desperation, we should expect the Democrats to act recklessly.

Is it 2023 yet?

A Lawless Lawmaker

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Speaker Pelosi thinks she has the power not to seat a duly elected member of the House.

She’s wrong, and that’s not just my opinion. The Supreme Court has already ruled the Speaker, indeed the whole House, does not have that power. Powell v. McCormack, 395 U.S. 486 (1969). Unless the House can show that the winner of an election does not meet the constitutional qualifications for office (for example, isn’t at least 25 years old or isn’t a resident of the state represented), the member must be seated.

Once a member is seated, he or she can be expelled, but that requires a 2/3 vote. Pelosi doesn’t have the supermajority necessary to expel Mariannette Miller-Meeks, so she doesn’t appear to have a lawful means of stealing the Iowa Second District seat for the Democrats.

Of course, that doesn’t mean that the arrogant overreach that has been on display thus far this session won’t lead her to do something foolish.

Stay tuned.

Bad Science and Even Worse Theology

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The Federalist reports that Nancy Pelosi wants to keep churches closed. When asked to comment on her archbishop’s statement that the state and local governments’ restrictions on worship violate the First Amendment, the Speaker said,

With all due respect to my Archbishop, I think we should follow science on this. And again with faith and science, sometimes they’re countered to each other.

Mrs. Pelosi is wrong in multiple ways in her statement. First, there is less science involved the medical response to the Wuhan virus pandemic than many people imagine. Good medicine, like good engineering, uses scientific knowledge and principles to the extent they are available and applicable to the case at hand, but sometimes a new problem must be dealt with without existing good scientific knowledge available. Guesswork based on experience may or may not give an optimal solution, and some guesses will be wrong. Today’s news about Nashville’s wrongheaded response in closing certain business is just one example of how fallible public health officials, mayors, and governors have been. Continuing to act as if a failed hypothesis is correct in bad science.

Second, while her invocation of science is bad science, her theology is even worse. Without exception, apparent contradictions between what we think we understand from science and theology wind up being caused by a lack of clear understanding of what one or both of them are trying to tell us—or from asking one of them to answer questions about which it has no answers. Science tells us how. Religion tells us why. (See the posts under the Science and the Bible tab in the menu above for more on this point.)

Third, her due respect for the pastoral authority of her Archbishop requires that she submit to his spiritual leadership. If she can not or will not, she has a limited range of options. She can go full Karen and speak with his manager. The Pope would probably take her phone call. (Come to think of it, she might even get support from Pope Francis.) Her other honest choice is to leave the Catholic Church. I expect she will do neither.

The voters of San Francisco are getting what they voted for. Good and hard.

The Check Isn’t In The Mail …

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… and it hasn’t been for almost a decade. The Obama administration began phasing out paper checks in 2011, and since March, 2013, all new applications for Social Security benefits must include sign-up for electronic payments to a bank, credit union, or a savings and loan account or to an EBT card. The only exemptions are for people with certain disabilities such as as mental impairment or who live in remote geographic location where electronic payments may be prohibitive. I received my first Social Security “check” in 2013 by direct deposit.

You’d would think that a mentally competent person in her late 70’s would be aware of how she receives her Social Security benefits, but the Speaker of the House seems to think that checks are still being mailed. She sent this as the opening paragraph of a message explaining why she was calling the House back from the August recess in order to vote on the “Delivering for America Act” to prohibit the Postal Service from changing levels of service from what they were on 1 January, 2020.BTW, the “Delivering for America Act” could be a dumb idea on multiple levels. An improvement in service is a change; are improvements forbidden? Also, there was no mail delivery on New Year’s Day, 2020. Without mail delivery, it’s going to be hard to use mail-in ballots for the November election. (OTOH, that may be feature rather than a bug.)

They’re panicking.

Everything is proceeding as I have foreseen.

Some Interesting (and Snarky) Questions

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Jeff Dunetz has a post over at The Lid asking some questions about how things will go in the aftermath of the House Impeachment Hoax. This one’s my favorite.

When nasty Nancy ripped up the copy of the State of the Union Address, Speaker Pelosi broke the record for pettiness. Wouldn’t it be fun if, at next year’s SOTU, President Trump gave Pelosi the transcript of his speech on an iPad? I, for one, would love to see her struggle to break the screen when Trump’s speech was over.

Perhaps Shadow can create an app for that.

And the week isn’t over yet.

When Overreach Starts to Fail

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Nancy Pelosi allowed the forces on her left wing to go a bridge too far. She tried to find a way to salvage the House Impeachment Hoax, but she’s been outmaneuvered by Cocaine Mitch. The mopping up action will begin in the Senate next week, and the hapless PR skirmishing by the Maddows in The Media will not save The Narrative.

Meanwhile in Virginia, Governor Blackface and his friends in the Legislature are pushing ahead with California/New York style gun control. As anyone who has looked at a map of those Second Amendment sanctuaries can see, the proposed laws have little popular support outside of the DC suburbs and a few urban areas. The legislature has responded to public unrest by changing its rules in order to be make lobbying by gun control supporters more difficult and by moving to change the law related to recalling public officials. The governor plans an emergency declaration to prevent the carrying of firearms at a pro-Second-Amendment rally. These are not the acts of fair-minded politicians seeking to do the will of their constituents.

We see the system of checks and balances envisioned by The Founders working in the case of the Impeachment Hoax. We see it apparently failing in Virginia. I doubt Madison or Jefferson would be pleased with their home state today.

President Trump will face an election, and the voters will either keep him for another term or fire him.

Virginia … well, the state’s motto is sic semper tyrannis, so let’s hope that cooler, wiser heads prevail.

Buyer’s Remorse

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The Russian Collusion Hoax had failed. The Mueller Report was a nothing burger. So the left wing of the House Democrats sold Nancy Pelosi a bill of goods that finally led to her allowing the Impeachment Hoax to go forward. And then it dawned on the Speaker that it would be Cocaine Mitch who would take charge of the action when the Impeachment reached the Senate.

Now, it may be that she had thought that 2019/202 would be like 1974 and that a group of Republican senators would go to the President and tell him to resign rather than face a trial. But 2020 isn’t 1974. In 1974 there was an underlying crime and a cover up of that crime. In 2020, there’s merely whining about Orange Man Bad. Indeed, it appears that there was significant criminal activity that tainted the 2016 election, but the President was among the victims of those crimes. In 2020, the Republicans in the Senate seem prepared to give the President an opportunity to present his defense, and the President seems to look forward to vindication rather than removal from office.

Hence, the Speaker’s problem. If the case goes forward to the Senate, more of the Truth about who did what is likely to come to light, and that is not likely to be beneficial to Pelosi, her allies, or Democrats as a whole. No wonder she’s having trouble articulating her talking points.

Everything is proceeding as I have foreseen.

 

Don’t Know Much About History

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As this tweet demonstrates,  should never be considered an authoritative source for Real World information—While it is true that Speaker Pelosi is next in line after the Vice President in the order of succession, Section 2 of the 25th Amendment specifies that the President (i.e., President Pence if Donald Trump were removed from office) “shall nominate a Vice President who shall take office upon confirmation by a majority vote of both Houses of Congress.” Note the use of the word shall. President Pence would be required to nominate a new Vice President subject to the approval of both houses of Congress. When the new VP was sworn in, the Speaker would move back to her proper place in line.

Section 2 has been triggered twice. When Vice President Agnew resigned, President Nixon nominated Gerald Ford to replace him. Congress confirmed that nomination. When President Nixon resigned and Gerald Ford became President, President Ford nominated Nelson Rockefeller as VP, and Congress confirmed him.

Perhaps the kids over at Vox think that Mike Pence couldn’t think of a sufficiently non-controversial nominee for VP and that the office would remain vacant until after the next election. Or maybe they’re too young and too ignorant of History to remember or know what happened 45 years ago.

Or both.

Trump v. Pelosi v. AOC

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Donald Trump is running for reelection, and it seems that he’d rather run against the sort of Progressive Democrat whose politics are strongly different from his own—”a choice not an echo” to borrow an old campaign slogan. While AOC won’t be the 2020 nominee, she’s the face of the Democrat’s for now, and that seems to suit Trump just fine.

Nancy Pelosi’s goals aren’t much different from She Guevara’s, but the two differ radically on how to achieve those goals. After six months as a congresscritter, AOC has shown that she is unwilling and/or unable to work within the established congressional order. She wants revolution now. Pelosi’s decades of practical politics have taught her that a recurring first step toward her goals is winning elections. She’s also seen what happens when her side’s politics moves too fast for the voters. See, eg., the elections of 1994 and 2010.

Pelosi isn’t all that popular with voters outside the costal blue zones, but recent poling shows that AOC and her squad of newbies are unpopular even in many Democrat strongholds. Thus, Trump would much rather have She Guevara as the face of the Democratic Party. As the coming primaries settle on the Democrat’s presidential nominee, that candidate will push AOC aside, but her effect on the party’s branding will linger, and Trump sees that as to his advantage.

So Trump is likely to continue baiting AOC and her squad. And given their mix of arrogance and inexperience, I suspect they’ll keep taking the bait.

Oh, one more thing … I’ve seen Trump’s tweets from last weekend labeled as “racist.” He suggested that a foreign-born congresswoman return to her homeland, straighten it out, and then come back to show us how it was done. How is that challenge racist?

Don’t Know Much About History

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Nancy Pelosi has recently said that the National Park Service should deny a permit to a group she opposes rather than let them “spew forth their venom.” She says that the Constitution doesn’t allow one to “yell wolf in a crowded theater.” David French has a piece over at NRO that looks at how her misquoting Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., shows her ignorance of constitutional law and our country’s history. (The fire in a crowded theater comment is dicta found in Schenck v. U.S. which is no longer good law. Brandenburg v. Ohio is now the proper standard.)

Mrs. Pelosi has also called for Speaker Ryan to remove statues of Confederates from the Capitol, something she failed to do when she was Speaker of the House. (She did order the statue of Robert E. Lee moved to a less prominent spot and his old spot given to a statue of Rosa Parks.) OTOH, at least she didn’t dedicate any such statues—as her father did when he was Mayor of Baltimore. AFAIK, she’s failed to make any public comments concerning her family’s history related to Confederate monuments.

One more thing … Because it will come up, here’s my opinion on Confederate monuments:

I grew up in the South. One of my great-great-grandfathers served as an officer in the Confederate Army. Another great-great-grandfather was a slaveholder. What both of them did was wrong, and I like to believe that I would have been among the substantial minority of Tennesseans who opposed secession and supported the Union.

The monuments that were built by people with a living memory of the war should probably be left alone as historical artifacts. However, later monuments erected as pushback to the 20th-century civil rights movement should have no such protection. If, for example, Baltimore decides to remove the Lee-Jackson monument Nancy Pelosi’s father dedicated in 1948, I would be inclined to believe that city was making a wise choice.

San Francisco: City of Refuge NOT

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The Daily Caller reports that Nancy Pelosi’s congressional district has not taken in a single Syrian refugee.

San Francisco, California, which includes Pelosi’s district (CA-12), has taken in zero refugees since the fiscal year began. San Francisco also didn’t take in any Syrian Refugees in either 2014 or 2013.

While Pelosi’s district hasn’t actually taken in any Syrian refugees, Pelosi herself has been a vocal proponent of bringing Syrian refugees into the U.S.

Read the whole thing.

I’m Not Making This Up, You Know

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The Weekly Standard has a piece up in which Nancy Pelosi is quoted, and she seems to be saying that she saying that she supports abortion because she’s a Catholic. (H/T, Evi L. Blogger Lady at Batshit Crazy News). I am not a Catholic, but from what I know of that church’s doctrine, I find this mind-bogglingly weird.

Pope Francis was unavailable for comment.

Paging Winston Smith

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Speaking on the anniversary of the publication of Nineteen Eighty-Four, Nancy Pelosi said,

I don’t remember saying that everybody in the country would have a lower premium.

The Weekly Standard reports that during the 2012 campaign season Mrs. Pelosi said,

everybody will have lower rates

during an appearance on Meet the Press (1 July, 2012).

Clearly, either the memory hole is not operating or MiniTrue has dropped the ball on the appropriate rewrite.

In other news … the chocolate ration will be increased to 20 grams.

No Wonder the Maryland Electorate Votes For Democrats

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Nancy Pelosi was raised in Baltimore. Here’s the sort of nonsense she learned in Civics Class. Speaking on Fox News yesterday, she said:

We avow the First Amendment. We stand with that and say that people have a right to have a gun to protect themselves …

The last time I checked, the First Amendment had nothing to do with the right to keep and bear arms. That seemed to be in the Second Amendment. If that’s the sort of understanding of the Constitution that a congresscritter with a B.A. in Political Science brings to the issues, imagine the confusion of the vast majority of low information voters reliant on what they learned in Maryland schools.

Sigh.

Nancy Pelosi Promises Partial Repeal of the Bill of Rights

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Nancy Pelosi has said that if the Democrats regain control of Congress one of the first things they plan is to repeal part of the First Amendment. The Daily Caller quotes her as saying:

We would pass a DISCLOSE Act. ‘I’m Nancy Pelosi, I approve this message’ — but Mr. Big Bucks who put hundreds of millions of dollars into campaigns to get tax breaks for their industry or their heirs, they don’t have to disclose their names. So DISCLOSE: Amend the Constitution to overturn ‘Citizens United.’

She’s not alone. President Obama has said that he favors such action.

These people have made themselves the enemies of free speech.

Is it November yet?

UPDATE–David Horowitz speaks out against other enemies of the First Amendment. TOM has video.

Nomex Underwear

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Nomex is a fire retardant material used for safety clothing worn by pilots, firefighters, etc. What with all the “pants on fire” level of lying going on, it probably should be used for politicians underwear. Nancy Pelosi might find such safety undergarments useful.

In an interview with Al Hunt she claimed that President Obama has been to Israel “over and over again.” Wrong! He’s never been since elected to the White House. He’s never been as a private citizen. He did make a couple of official trips as a senator, but that hardly adds up to over and over again.

Mrs. Pelosi tries to paint the President as a friend of Israel. With friends like that … Oh, never mind.

Is it November yet?

UPDATE—White House Communications Director Dan Pfeiffer is another candidate for Nomex BVDs after his bogus claim concerning the bust of Winston Churchill removed from the Oval Office.