Nancy Pelosi Confuses Constitution With Declaration of Independence

    Speaking last Wednesday at the Center for American Progress (CAP), Democratic Leader of the House Nancy Pelosi became a little confused at one point, stumbling over her words and flipping through her notes while referencing one of the founding documents of the United States.  Rep. Pelosi was recalling the early women's rights convention held in Seneca Falls, NY 165 years ago.  The full video is posted on CAP's website, but here is a clip of her remarks:

"And so, it was 165 years ago, 165 years ago.  Imagine the courage it took for those women to go to Seneca Falls and do what they did there, to even leave home without their husband’s permission, or father’s, or whoever  it was.  To go to Seneca Falls, and to paraphrase what our founders said in the Constitution of the United States: they said the truths that are self-evident, that every man and woman, that men and women were created equal and that we must go forward in recognition of that."

    It is of course the Declaration of Independence and not the Constitution that contains the reference to self-evident truths:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

    The website of Rep. Pelosi includes a transcript of the speech that was edited to correct Pelosi's error:

To go to Seneca Falls, and to paraphrase what our founders said in the [Declaration of Independence] of the United States: they said the truths that are self-evident...

    Pelosi went on to name three priorities that she and those in her audience at CAP want Congress and the president to address: paycheck fairness, including raising the minimum wage; paid leave to care for sick family members via the Healthy Families Act; and universal child care.


UPDATE: As I discovered a few hours after this article ran at The Weekly Standard, Nancy Pelosi is not the only Minority Leader of the House to experience confusion over the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence.  None of than Republican House (then Minority, now) Majority Leader John Boehner made the same error back in 2009.


Note: A version of this article (before the update) first appeared at The Weekly Standard.

Nancy Pelosi Invokes a Priest's Sermon to Say GOP is "Preying on People"

    Wednesday Nancy Pelosi spoke at the Center for American Progress to help mark the launch the organization's new initiative called “Fair Shot: A Plan for Women and Families to Get Ahead.”  In her remarks, Pelosi referenced the Republicans' plan to scale back the food stamp program, the cost of which has more than doubled in the past four years.  She recalled a sermon she recently heard in Houston where she attended mass:

“I’ve been trying to listen as we – this has been a morning that you can’t even believe.  On the floor of the House the Republicans are trying to cut $40 billion, that’s 50 percent of the nutrition program – largely children, seniors, returning veterans, [and] women.  It’s a most incredible thing.  I said yesterday at a press conference on this subject, I said: unless we – it was in Houston, I go to mass wherever I go, and at the pulpit, the priest said, in Houston, Texas – not one of your liberal bastions – he said: ‘I think it’s important for people, not just to come to mass on Sunday and pray, but when they leave here not to prey on people.’  And it isn’t exactly what they are doing: preying on people.  

    The former Speaker of the House went on to reference "all the lack of values that [the GOP] budget presents," and that "basically what [Democrats are] about ... is restoring confidence to the American people."


Note: A version of this article first appeared at The Weekly Standard.

White House Still Denying "Spending Problem", Healthcare Excepted

    After dodging the question just a week ago, Jay Carney's hand was forced today by a statement Nancy Pelosi made yesterday on Fox News Sunday:

"We have to recognize that, which cuts really help us and which cuts hurt our future? And cuts in education, scientific research and the rest are harmful, and they are what are affected by the sequestration," she said on "Fox News Sunday." "So, it is almost a false argument to say we have a spending problem. We have a budget deficit problem that we have to address." 

    At a press briefing this morning, Carney initially seemed to contradict Pelosi (via Politico):

"Of course the president believes that we have a spending problem," Carney said at a White House briefing, adding that the problem "is specifically driven by -- and I think every economist worth, whose insights into this area are worth the paper on which his or her PhD is printed, would tell you that  -- the principle driver, when it comes to spending, of our deficits and debt, are, is health care spending. And that’s just a fact.

    By qualifying his answer with "health care spending," Carney simply repeated what he ended up saying a week ago when he first ducked the "spending problem" question [emphasis added]:

MR. CARNEY:  Wendell [Goler, Fox News], I’m not sure what rhetorical game you’re trying to engage in.  What he said -- I mean, what is true is that we have a health care spending problem.  That’s why the President addressed it in the Affordable Care Act.  That’s why he’s addressed it in the proposals he’s put forward, and he has addressed it in discretionary spending cuts and he has put forward more spending cuts.

     A search of the White House website turns up very few mentions of "spending problem," and based on the archives of the president's speeches and statements, he has never personally publicly uttered those words.  However, on April 13, 2011, the White House press office released the following statement by Gerald W. McEntee, President of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) [emphasis added]:

Gerald W. McEntee, President of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), issued the following statement in response to President Obama’s speech on fiscal responsibility:

“President Obama today made clear that everyone needs to sacrifice to lower the federal debt and that we need to look at both sides of the financial ledger.  As Congress works with the President to find solutions, we urge lawmakers to consider the fact that we have a revenue problem, not a spending problem – and to remember how much the working middle class of our nation has already sacrificed.  The surefire way to balance the budget is to create jobs, close corporate tax loopholes and require the wealthiest Americans to pay their fair share. We also commend the President for his strong rejection of the Republican budget proposal to turn Medicare into a voucher and to block grant Medicaid.”

    Unless the president believes the nation has developed a spending problem in the last 22 months, it seems safe to say that his position has not changed since the White House published McEntee's remarks. The White House firmly believes it has addressed the "spending problem" through the passage of ObamaCare. From now on, look for the emphasis to be on increased "revenue," more commonly know as taxes.

Note: This article first appeared at The Weekly Standard on Monday, February 11, 2013.

Is the GOP the "Stupid Party"?

    Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal just tossed some kerosene on the smoldering GOP debate over where the party has gone wrong in recent years, and in the 2012 election in particular.  Much of what he said is a reprise of an interview he gave Politico shortly after the November 2012 election.  His reference to Republicans' "offensive and bizarre comments" are widely believed to refer to abortion- and rape-related remarks by Todd Akin and Richard Mourdock, also widely believed to have cost both men their respective  elections.

    But what other "offensive and bizarre comments" have Republicans made?  Perhaps Mitt Romney's 47% speech? OK, and then there is pretty much anything Donald Trump said. But let's look at what came out of the other camp:

• If you’ve got a business, you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen. (WaPo)
• “I don’t think that we can make judgments based on peoples’ spirit,” Obama said. … “Maybe you’re better off not having the surgery, but taking painkillers.“ (HotAir)
• "[Unemployment benefits] creates jobs faster than almost any other initiative you can name." (FoxNews)
• “You cannot go to a 7-Eleven or a Dunkin’ Donuts unless you have a slight Indian accent. I’m not joking.” (Breitbart)
• “We have to pass [ObamaCare] so you can find out what is in it.” (Heritage)
• "I would tell members of my family -- and I have -- I wouldn't go anywhere in confined places now. It's not that it's going to Mexico in a confined aircraft where one person sneezes, that goes all the way through the aircraft." [re: swine flu] (ABCNews)
• "...as Democrats voted to amend their party's platform to include the word "God" and name Jerusalem as the capital of Israel... When Villaraigosa announced "the ays have it," loud boos erupted across the arena." (ABCNews)
• "We cannot be, we must not be, the party that simply protects the rich so they get to keep their toys." (BusinessWeek)

    Just kidding on that last one.  That wasn't a Democrat.  It was... Bobby Jindal.

    The point is that Republicans do not have a corner on silly, offensive statements.  The difference is that Democrats generally stand behind their gaffes and those who commit them, aided by much of the media.  Republicans generally act like Joe Biden when someone sneezes during swine flu season and drop the offenders into political quarantine. Should we defend nonsense? No. Should we abandon those who saying something dumb? No.

    One more quote:

• "The chances of President Obama's reelection are so remote as to be virtually non-existent." (SWA)

    That was me, last January. We all have our bad days and dumb remarks. Sometimes you just have to wear the "I'm With Stupid" shirt, and sometime you have to walk next to the guy who's wearing it.

The Tipping Point

    Much has been written about the 2,700 pages of Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of which Nancy Pelosi famously said before its passage, "We have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it."  I have posted several times recently about various proposed regulations regarding ObamaCare that are beginning to be issued at an increasing rate as implementation draws near.  Here is a passage from a single 81-page document containing some of those proposed regulations for the IRS, the Labor Department, and the Department of Health and Human Services:

    The Department of Labor regulations are proposed to be adopted pursuant to the authority contained in 29 U.S.C. 1027, 1059, 1135, 1161–1168, 1169, 1181–1183, 1181 note, 1185, 1185a, 1185b, 1185d, 1191, 1191a, 1191b, and 1191c; sec. 101(g), Public Law104–191, 110 Stat. 1936; sec. 401(b), Public Law 105–200, 112 Stat. 645 (42 U.S.C. 651 note); sec. 512(d), Public Law 110–343, 122 Stat. 3881; sec. 1001, 1201, and 1562(e), Public Law 111–148, 124 Stat. 119, as amended by Public Law 111–152, 124 Stat. 1029; Secretary of Labor’s Order 3–2010, 75 FR 55354 (September 10, 2010).
    The Department of Health and Human Services regulations are proposed to be adopted, with respect to 45 CFR Part 146, pursuant to the authority contained in sections 2702 through 2705, 2711 through 2723, 2791, and 2792 of the PHS Act (42 U.S.C. 300gg–1 through 300gg–5, 300gg–11 through 300gg–23, 300gg–91, and 300gg–92) prior to the amendments made by the Affordable Care Act and sections 2701 through 2763, 2791, and 2792 of the Public Health Service Act (42 U.S.C. 300gg through 300gg-63, 300gg-91, and 300gg-92), as amended by the Affordable Care Act; with respect to 45 CFR Part 147, pursuant to the authority contained in sections 2701 through 2763, 2791, and 2792 of the PHS Act (42 U.S.C. 300gg through 300gg–63, 300gg–91, and 300gg–92), as amended by the Affordable Care Act.

    Did you catch that?  Here, let me repeat it:

     The Department of Labor regulations are proposed to be adopted pursuant to the authority contained in 29 U.S.C. 1027, 1059, 1135, 1161–1168, 1169, 1181–1183, 1181 note, 1185, 1185a, 1185b, 1185d, 1191, 1191a, 1191b, and 1191c; sec. 101(g), Public Law104–191, 110 Stat. 1936; sec. 401(b), Public Law 105–200, 112 Stat. 645 (42 U.S.C. 651 note); sec. 512(d), Public Law 110–343, 122 Stat. 3881; sec. 1001, 1201, and 1562(e), Public Law 111–148, 124 Stat. 119, as amended by Public Law 111–152, 124 Stat. 1029; Secretary of Labor’s Order 3–2010, 75 FR 55354 (September 10, 2010).
    The Department of Health and Human Services regulations are proposed to be adopted, with respect to 45 CFR Part 146, pursuant to the authority contained in sections 2702 through 2705, 2711 through 2723, 2791, and 2792 of the PHS Act (42 U.S.C. 300gg–1 through 300gg–5, 300gg–11 through 300gg–23, 300gg–91, and 300gg–92) prior to the amendments made by the Affordable Care Act and sections 2701 through 2763, 2791, and 2792 of the Public Health Service Act (42 U.S.C. 300gg through 300gg-63, 300gg-91, and 300gg-92), as amended by the Affordable Care Act; with respect to 45 CFR Part 147, pursuant to the authority contained in sections 2701 through 2763, 2791, and 2792 of the PHS Act (42 U.S.C. 300gg through 300gg–63, 300gg–91, and 300gg–92), as amended by the Affordable Care Act.

    If ObamaCare is not the tipping point for government overreach, then the beast may have grown too large to ever tip.  The very idea that anyone could even write the above paragraphs and retain his sanity, much less that anyone could ever hope to decipher, understand, and enforce the regulations, is ludicrous.  It is difficult to say what can be done to move the public to revolt against this nonsense.  Perhaps the Congress should pass a bill requiring doctors' offices to hand out a copy of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (and accompanying regulations) to each patient to read along with the unavoidable clipboard of documents to read, fill out and sign that every doctor requires.

    Or will the answer come through the wallet from where most revolutions trace their origins?  I noticed this sign which, from the date, was posted shortly after ObamaCare passed in 2010:

    Doctors, as altruistic as we would like to believe them to be, are in the business to make money, without which they cannot stay in business.  Whatever a 2,700 page law (and accompanying regulations) might say, there will always be loopholes.  How much of the American people's money will have to be sucked into those loopholes before Washington hears a collective "Enough!"?

At the Bottom of the Slope

    Both Powerline and James Taranto's Best of the Web drew attention today to a UK Telegraph article about a recent peer-reviewed article in the Journal of Medical Ethics advocating infanticide.  I don't mean some nuanced version of late-term abortion.   I mean real, flat-out infanticide, although they choose the euphemism "after-birth abortion."  The authors even explain why they choose that over "infanticide."  The full text of the article is here.  The writing is clinical and horrifying.  (Adding to the surreal atmosphere is the writers' insistence on using the feminine pronouns in place of the generic he/him of traditional grammar when referring to the unborn.)  Here are some excerpts:

Both a fetus and a newborn certainly are human beings and potential persons, but neither is a ‘person’ in the sense of ‘subject of a moral right to life’. We take ‘person’ to mean an individual who is capable of attributing to her own existence some (at least) basic value such that being deprived of this existence represents a loss to her. This means that many non-human animals and mentally retarded human individuals are persons, but that all the individuals who are not in the condition of attributing any value to their own existence are not persons. Merely being human is not in itself a reason for ascribing someone a right to life. 

If a potential person, like a fetus and a newborn, does not become an actual person, like you and us, then there is neither an actual nor a future person who can be harmed, which means that there is no harm at all. So, if you ask one of us if we would have been harmed, had our parents decided to kill us when we were fetuses or newborns, our answer is ‘no’, because they would have harmed someone who does not exist (the ‘us’ whom you are asking the question), which means no one.  

A possible objection to our argument is that after-birth abortion should be practised just on potential people who could never have a life worth living.  Accordingly, healthy and potentially happy people should be given up for adoption if the family cannot raise them up.... On this perspective, the interests of the actual people involved matter, and among these interests, we also need to consider the interests of the mother who might suffer psychological distress from giving her child up for adoption.... after-birth abortion should be considered a permissible option for women who would be damaged by giving up their newborns for adoption.

[W]e do not put forward any claim about the moment at which after-birth abortion would no longer be permissible, and we do not think that in fact more than a few days would be necessary for doctors to detect any abnormality in the child. In cases where the after-birth abortion were requested for non-medical reasons, we do not suggest any threshold, as it depends on the neurological development of newborns, which is something neurologists and psychologists would be able to assess.

The chilling realization that comes after reading the entire article is that none of the authors' reasoning conflicts with current pro-abortion rhetoric.  On the contrary, the outcome is the logical progression of such rhetoric.  Indeed, the authors note that the Netherlands already permit infanticide in some cases, just not to the extent that this article advocates.  And make no mistake, this is not just a theoretical exercise - as the abstract at the beginning of the article says, "the authors argue that what we call ‘after-birth abortion’ (killing a newborn) should be permissible in all the cases where abortion is, including cases where the newborn is not disabled."
    The trump card of Roe v. Wade and subsequent cases has always been the "health of the mother."  This article unflinchingly and explicitly includes in the definition of "health of the mother" the phycological pain that may be experienced by a woman after giving up her child for adoption and justifies killing the child instead to spare her that pain.  Any hyperbole I could muster is inadequate to describe such a thought.
    So who will be the first courageous reporter to approach Planned Parenthood, Nancy Pelosi, Patty Murray, or any other champion of "women's health" to ask for a reaction to this article?  Is there any moral will left in the pro-abortion camp to finally draw a line at this travesty?  Or will they stand shoulder to shoulder with these two amoral ethicists at the bottom of the slippery slope?

Keeping Politics Out of Cancer Research

    I think all would agree that the Komen-Planned Parenthood spectacle this past week was a political battle the likes of which have not been seen since September 2011 when the Senate Appropriations committee voted to cut the National Institutes of Health budget by $190 million.  Much of the work of the NIH is funding cancer research.  The American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network put out a statement immediately:

The bill that passed out of committee today could slow progress in the fight to defeat cancer by cutting federal funding for cancer research for the second straight year. The bill would cut the National Institutes of Health (NIH) budget by $190 million, reducing research grants and delaying the discovery of potential breakthroughs in new treatments for cancer....   Cancer still kills 1,500 Americans every day. Patients waiting for new treatments and therapies can’t afford to wait for a better budget environment, while potential discoveries are left to languish in the labs.

Reactions from other quarters were swift and unequivocal.  For instance, Planned Parenthood put out the following statement:

[crickets] 

Similarly, Harry Reid had this to say:

[crickets] 

In a joint statement, Patty Murray and Barbara Boxer declared:

[crickets]

 Nancy Pelosi was perhaps most eloquent:

There’s a cut in funding for the National Institutes of Health. This is not a healthy thing for our country because that research has answers. You know that every family in America is one telephone call, one diagnosis, one accident away from needing the kind of biomedical research that can cure--really have the biblical power to cure in a very, very special way and so to cut back on that research is wrong.

Oh, wait...

My bad.

    Pelosi's statement was from March 2011 when the House GOP passed a continuing resolution calling for $1 billion in NIH cuts.  In September, it was all 16 Democrats voting down all 14 Republicans on the Senate Appropriations committee to cut the NIH budget.   Never mind.  Nothing to see here.