Pelosi says she can get the votes (then why hasn’t she gotten them?)
The ordeal goes on. There is not going to be any early end to the health care battle. The Democratic leadership, alit with demon fire, will keep fighting it out on this front for months to come, perhaps for the entire year, right up to the moment the Republicans take the gavel from Nancy Pelosi next January 3—which, as a result of the Democrats’ war against America, I now expect to happen, whether the Democrats succeed in passing the bill or not.
I don’t want this site to continue to be so dominated by this one subject for months on end. At the same time, I still have to cover it somewhat.
Here is the story on Speaker Pelosi from yesterday’s Times. The disconnect between the Democratic leadership’s assurance that they can pass the bill by reconciliation, and Sen. Conrad’s assurance that that the Senate rules prohibit that, is total. It’s impossible to make sense of it. We will just have to let events unfold.
Pelosi Says She’ll Get Votes Needed for Health Bill
By ROBERT PEAR
February 28, 2010
WASHINGTON—Speaker Nancy Pelosi says she is confident she will be able to get the votes needed to pass sweeping health care legislation in the House, even if it threatens the political careers of some members of her party.
In an interview carried Sunday on ABC’s “This Week,” Ms. Pelosi said she was working on changes to a Senate-passed bill that would make it acceptable to the House.
Ms. Pelosi was asked what she would say to House Democrats who were “in real fear of losing their seats in November if they support you now.”
“Our members, every one of them, wants health care,” Ms. Pelosi said. “They know that this will take courage. It took courage to pass Social Security. It took courage to pass Medicare. And many of the same forces that were at work decades ago are at work again against this bill.”
“But,” Ms. Pelosi continued, “the American people need it. Why are we here? We’re not here just to self-perpetuate our service in Congress. We’re here to do the job for the American people, to get them results that give them not only health security, but economic security.”
On CNN’s “State of the Union,” Ms. Pelosi was asked about opinion polls showing opposition to the Democrats’ health care bills.
“The point is that we have a responsibility here,” Ms. Pelosi said. “The Republicans have had a field day going out there and misrepresenting what is in the bill, but that’s what they do.”
The House passed a bill to remake the health care system in early November. But on Sunday, Ms. Pelosi said, “There isn’t a bill.”
The speaker said she would have another version, incorporating compromises between the House and the Senate, “in a matter of days.” When the new package is ready, Ms. Pelosi said, she will sell it to the public.
“Our bill, the House and the Senate bill, had some major differences, which we’re hoping now to reconcile,” Ms. Pelosi said. “Then when we have a bill—as I say, you can bake the pie, you can sell the pie, but you have to have a pie to sell. And when we do, we will take it out there.”
Republicans said Ms. Pelosi and President Obama were pursuing a high-risk strategy.
Senator Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, the No. 3 Republican in the Senate, said, “It would be a political kamikaze mission for the Democratic Party if they jam this through after the American people have been saying, look, we’re trying to tell you in every way we know how, in elections, in surveys, in town hall meetings, we don’t want this bill.”
Democratic leaders hope to orchestrate passage of health legislation in a three-step process intended to avoid the threat of a filibuster by Senate Republicans. Under this plan, the House would pass the health bill approved in December by the Senate, and both chambers would approve a separate package of changes using a parliamentary device known as budget reconciliation.
But on NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday, the House Republican whip, Representative Eric Cantor of Virginia, said: “I’ll tell you one thing: If Speaker Pelosi rams this bill through the House using a reconciliation process, they will lose their majority in Congress in November.”
[end of article]
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A. Zarkov writes:
I asked myself, “Is Pelosi insane?” It seems other people have asked the same question, and one suggested looking at these three videos, here, here and here. None of these deal with the health care bill, but they illustrate someone who seems to have a fragmented mind. She might be using some kind of psychoactive medication such as Valium, and chronic use has taken its toll. Last year I saw Joesph Califano (HEW Secretary for Jimmy Carter) on television. As Chairman of the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse, he’s interested in Valium abuse. In a side remark he related a conversation he had with a prominent member of Congress who told Califano that he could not get through the day (any day) without Valium, and he kept a bottle in his pocket. Pelosi must have about the most stressful job in the House. In my opinion, it’s likely she uses some kind of prescription tranquilizer to help her cope. She’s only 69, but it’s not too soon for senile dementia to be setting in helped along by drug abuse.
LA replies:
Well, there was that story in the last day that ten of the former 29 “nays” have indicated they are undecided, which supports her statement that she’s confident she can get the needed votes.
Posted by Lawrence Auster at March 02, 2010 07:15 AM | Send