Think of an economy where people could be an artist or a photographer or a writer without worrying about keeping their day job in order to have health insurance or that people could start a business and be entrepreneurial and take risk, but not job loss because of a child with asthma or someone in the family is bipolar—you name it, any condition—is job locking.
Think of a situation where we can internationally competitive because we don‘t have this weight on us that other country—other businesses really don‘t have in other countries because they don‘t have this expense of health care which will all be reined in, those costs under this bill.
We cannot afford the status quo. We will make this difference and it will make a wonderful difference in the lives of our people, but also, in the vitality of our economy. That‘s what we want people to talk about.
From Pelosi’s remarks at the 2010 Legislative Conference for National Association of Counties,
You’ve heard about the controversies within the bill, the process about the bill, one or the other. But I don’t know if you have heard that it is legislation for the future, not just about health care for America, but about a healthier America, where preventive care is not something that you have to pay a deductible for or out of pocket. Prevention, prevention, prevention—it’s about diet, not diabetes. It’s going to be very, very exciting. But we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it, away from the fog of the controversy
U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi said on Thursday she was confident of satisfying Democratic concerns about a Senate-approved healthcare bill and passing the measure.
Pelosi made the comment at her weekly news conference — just hours after one lawmaker said a dozen House Democrats opposed to abortion were willing to kill the legislation unless it satisfies their demand for language barring federal funding of the procedure.
Their threat to kill healthcare reform came a day after President Barack Obama launched a final push to pass the overhaul, a top domestic priority, and urged Democrats in Congress to vote on the bill this month, even without Republican support.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi has picked liberal firebrand Rep. Pete Stark to replace ousted Chairman Charles Rangel on the tax-writing committee, according to a House leadership aide.
The decision was made during a Wednesday morning leadership meeting following Rangel’s announcement that he would temporarily step aside as chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, the aide said.
Rangel (N.Y.) had come under growing pressure in the wake of several ethics investigations, and he faced a vote Wednesday on a GOP-backed privileged resolution to force his ouster.
Embattled Rep. Charlie Rangel announced Wednesday that he plans to step down as chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee amid a wide-ranging ethics probe.
The announcement came as Republicans readied a formal resolution to strip the Harlem Democrat of his chairmanship, and as several Democrats began to peel away and call for Rangel to step down from his leadership post.
The New York Democrat made clear that he initiated the move. He said he sent a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi Wednesday morning asking her to grant him a “leave of absence” until the ethics committee investigation into his activities is completed. Rep. Pete Stark, D-Calif., is expected to succeed him.
Rep. Charlie Rangel’s admonishment for violating House gift rules “is not good,” but his actions did not put the nation at risk in any material way, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Sunday.
Pelosi said it is not her place to interfere in any investigations of the matter and said she would not get involved politically.
“But the fact is, is that what Mr. Rangel has been admonished for is not good,” she said on ABC’s “This Week.” “It was a violation of the rules of the House. It was not a–something that jeopardized our country in any way.”
Judicial Watch, the public interest group that investigates and prosecutes government corruption, announced today that it has received the first batch of documents from the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) regarding congressional “Torture Briefings.” The CIA produced the documents pursuant to a previous court order in Judicial Watch’s Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against the CIA (Judicial Watch v. Central Intelligence Agency, Case: 1:09-cv-01352). The court order stipulates that documents pertaining to congressional briefings on “enhanced interrogation techniques” must be provided to Judicial Watch by April 15. Additional documents are forthcoming.
According to the documents, previously marked “Top Secret,” between 2001 and 2007, the CIA briefed at least 68 members of Congress on the CIA interrogation program, including so-called “enhanced interrogation techniques.” The documents include the dates of all congressional briefings and, in some cases, the members of Congress in attendance and the specific subjects discussed. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who previously denied she was briefed by the CIA on the use of these techniques, is specifically referenced in a briefing that took place on April 24, 2002, regarding the “ongoing interrogations of Abu Zubaydah.” Zubaydah had been subjected to the enhanced interrogation techniques.
Prodded by the release of dozens of declassified CIA documents, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi reasserted her longstanding position about what she knew regarding the agency’s use of harsh interrogation practices.
“I have never been briefed by the CIA or anyone else on the subject of those interrogations, to the extent that they were being used,” the California Democrat told reporters Tuesday. “We were only briefed that there were lawyers in the Justice Department that thought they were legal, period.”
The comments marked Pelosi’s first foray into the controversy in nine months that pitted the top House Democrat against the nation’s premier spy agency. Responding to a lawsuit filed by Amnesty International and two other human rights watchdog groups, the CIA released several dozen documents detailing how the CIA handled suspected terrorism suspects and briefed lawmakers about it.
House Democrats are forming a Citizens United task force to decide on the best set of legislative push back against the Supreme Court decision that upended 100 years of precedent and legalized unlimited corporate involvement in elections, Democratic members and aides told HuffPost.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) tapped as the head Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), her assistant and chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee – which has much to worry about when it comes to Citizens United.
The rump group pulls together all the relevant committee chairmen and selected members of those panels.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) suggested Thursday morning she could support a version of the president’s proposed spending freeze that included defense spending.
Pelosi stressed at her weekly press conference that “drastic action” such as a spending freeze may be necessary.
But she said the entire defense budget “should not be exempted” from the freeze, as proposed by President Barack Obama in his State of the Union address Wednesday night.
Pelosi’s office did offer an explanation for the high room charges. Those who stayed just two nights were charged a six-night minimum at the five-star Marriott. One staffer said, they strongly objected to no avail. You may ask how they’ll negotiate a climate treaty, if they can’t get a better deal on hotel rooms.
Total hotel, meeting rooms and “a couple” of $1,000-a-night hospitality suites topped $400,000.
Flights weren’t cheap, either. Fifty-nine House and Senate staff flew commercial during the Copenhagen rush. They paid government rates — $5-10,000 each — totaling $408,064. Add three military jets — $168,351 just for flight time — and the bill tops $1.1 million dollars — not including all the Obama administration officials who attended: well over 60.
