It's Sunday, and for once I'm going to do my religious duty and rest. But not before I throw out a topic for you readers to kick around and bring me up to speed on your thinking. We're once again up against a Congressional deadline for passing a budget, or passing a continuing resolution, or shutting down non-vital government functions until one of the previous two is accomplished.
On Wednesday, Republican House Speaker Boehner lost a vote on his proposed continuing resolution (they're not even close on an actual budget). Conservative Republicans joined Democrats in defeating the bill 230 to 195. Whatever one may think of their reasoning and their votes, the basic problem was that the conservatives thought the resolution didn't make enough deep cuts and wanted FEMA disaster funding handled separately. Democrats wanted to keep FEMA in the formula in order to demagogue Republican heartlessness. They also wanted some offsetting new taxes to balance the cuts ("revenue enhancement" in Democrat parlance means "higher taxes").
In fact, there was a more complicated reason for why the Republicans seemed to be susceptible to the claim of being heartless. They actually originally wanted to keep FEMA disaster funding and named the figure of $1.5 billion. But to keep that funding, they wanted an equal cut in funding for the Advanced Technology Vehicles Manufacturing Loans Program. In other words, the Democrats would rather kill funding for FEMA disaster relief than to allow cuts in their precious experimental toy cars program.
Former House Speaker and now very-minority Democratic Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi on Thursday did her usual incoherent discussion of the impasse, blaming recalcitrant Republicans for just about everything except the extinction of the passenger pigeon. Subtly admitting that she simply doesn't like cuts in federal programs that produce Democrat voters and ever-larger deficits, Pelosi said she was opposed to cuts in any programs in order to protect the FEMA disaster funding.
Says San Fran Nan: "Let's hope they're [Republicans] not playing games with us--and now we are getting into games. Why don't we just come back and have another press conference after they say what they're are going to do. Because it's a waste of your time and my time to speculate on the horrors that they could come up with--because we know they are endless and we could be here a long time." Pelosi is much more concerned with what she calls "games" (others call it hardball politics) and news conferences than she is with admitting that cuts have to be made and that the nation can't afford to keep all the Democratic pie-in-the-sky, something-for-nothing programs.
Given her tendency to hyperventilate over any proposal to downsize the federal government giveaway programs, her reaction was not exactly unexpected. Her failure to propose an alternative that the nation could afford was likewise not a surprise. And her incoherence was simply standard Pelosi. But that's not what I'm hoping you will edify me and enlighten me about.
Pelosi was sure that she would advocate against and vote to reject any Republican proposal that funds necessary government functions by cutting Democratic pork and wasteful government programs. She was in a quandary about only one thing (surprisingly). When asked directly if some government programs in a continuing resolution could be funded by de-funding Planned Parenthood, Pelosi said she wouldn't speculate on what she would if that proposal were made.
So there it is. I have no idea why Pelosi would have any hesitation about preserving the funding for the abortion mill that she has so often and strongly supported. I would have expected her to give up all funding for the Defense Department or fetal stem cell research before even considering cutting or de-funding Planned Parenthood. So what do you think? Should she be in a quandary about Planned Parenthood? Is she really in a quandary, or is she simply stalling for time until she can think of an answer favorable to Planned Parenthood? And finally, if everything else could be worked out, do you think Pelosi would fight a continuing resolution solely on the basis of de-funding Planned Parenthood?
Sunday, September 25, 2011
Planned Parenthood A Pelosi Quandary
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22 comments:
Hawk - I'm off for an early dinner as a prelude to seeing Alison Krauss & Union Station so I'll have to read this and comment a bit later :-)
Tennessee: Bon apetit and enjoy the show.
LawHawk,
It could just be that since she is Catholic and the end of her life is near, she may want to get on the good side of the Lord prior to expiring.
I don't think the Democrats care either way. They come from safe leftist districts so they'll do what their "progressive" clients want and make the Republicans and the Senate pass it on their own.
Joel: Considering how long she has supported assembly-line abortion, and her public misstatements of Catholic doctrine, she'd have to spend the rest of her miserable life in the confessional. And she'd still probably run out of time.
Andrew: But you do have to admit that it would be deliciously ironic if she had to agree to cuts she hates, but holds up the deal solely because of Planned Parenthood. Of course, they are a minority in the House, so we'll really have to concern ourselves with Liberace Reid and the rest of that gang in the other chamber.
LawHawk,
You could be right. I do know that her days are numbered. If the liberals can't get the numbers next election.....
She's stalling.
Well, my eyeballs are melting as I type this. Thanks for that pic, LawHawk.
As to your question of whether Pelosi is really in a quandry or just stalling for time on Planned Parenthood's behalf: What do you think?
Ooh, I love Alison Krauss and Union Station! Hope you're enjoying yourself, Jed! :-)
Joel: After being the high potentate of the House, she's now like Qaddafi. She's delusional, and doesn't understand she's out-of-power permanently. She's talking about her return just like Qaddafi talking about getting back into Tripoli. Maybe someday they'll end up in some place together, swapping fish stories.
CrisD: That's as good a conclusion as any I can come up with.
T-Rav: I kinda lean toward CrisD's thought that she's stalling. But quite simply, she's a little nuts, and I think she hit her head on a rock on the way down in her fall from power. Where her brain was askew before the fall, now it's positively scrambled.
T-Rav: Yeah, we're waiting for Tennessee to report back in about the show.
in a word, yes. I mean she certainly is capable of that. I laughed at the experimental toy cars thing except it really isn't funny, so I felt bad about it.
T-Rav: The show was awesome. Back home they wrapped up several months of touring with the final show and it was simply great. Probably played about an hour of encore. That part was old scholl with a single mike. At one point, jerry Douglass and Ron Bloch were playing stereo Martin acoustics on either side of the mike while Alison, Dan, and Barry did the old Watson Family ballad "Long Journey" and an acappella "Down to the River to Play." Also love their cover of the great Richard Thompson song "Dimming of the Day."
Night All!!
Jed, that's cool. I was in the Nashville area a couple months ago, but didn't get to catch any acts at the Ryman or the Opry, much less some good ones like that. Someday...
Tennessee: Many a true word is said in jest. Glad the concert was a success and that you enjoyed it.
Are the Martins Obama-safe, or did they also make the mistake of donating to conservative causes?
Tennessee: Reminds me of the supposedly true story of the pastor who had to apologize to a congregant because he meant to say her favorite religious poem was "There are no sects in heaven," not "There is no sex in heaven."
Hawk
This woman is living proof of Plato's quote.
"One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferior" Plato
I think there is a secret sect of "Enlightened (or Progressive) Catholicism" to which the lib "Catholics" belong... and in this sect abortion is a revered sacrament. I think that Pelosi (terrifying image BTW), being a high priestess in said sect, will fight against de-funding PP to the bitter end. I think she will waffle publically, but I think when it comes down to it she will be tossing out epithets against the "women-haters" who want women to have no healthcare because that's all the PP does, doncha know, with all of her well-known clarity of thought and exquisite turn of phrase...
and she's crazy.
Tehachapi Tom: And if we don't get out and work tirelessly to elect a Republican Congress and a Republican President, we'll have proven that "a people gets the form of government it deserves."
rlaWTX: With all the talk about black liberation theology, people tend to forget that it is nothing more than a race-baiting form of the broader and older liberation theology. Then Cardinal, now Pope Benedict admonished the South American bishops about their heresy in no uncertain terms for their support of liberation theology. Catholic Nancy Pelosi didn't listen. One of the things that liberation theology liberated women from was the restrictions on abortion.
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