Pelosi: "The constitution is off the table."

[Smith_3]

Ergo, she should be off the table.

[RFKJrNews]

1. Say goodnight, Nancy

I'd say we've had about enough, already.

[meegbear]

2. Link?

[ColbertWatcher]

3. If someone says it on the internets...

...it must be true.

Oh, BTW, here is your link!

[Richardo]

4. ..

:D:thumbsup:

Four recs for this post - how sad DU is these days.

[fascisthunter]

5. anyone saying people believe everything on the internets

is full of it

[ColbertWatcher]

9. The population of elephants has tripled in the last 6 months...

...if you don't believe that, you hate America.

[meegbear]

14. BWAH-HAHAHA!!

:thumbsup:

[ColbertWatcher]

15. Glad to see you have a sense of humor! n/t

[bowens43]

6. more hyperbole......

of course she said no such thing

[electropop]

20. Pelosi: Bush Impeachment `Off the Table’ (New York Times)

By Susan Ferrechio
Published: November 8, 2006

House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi promised Wednesday that when her party takes over, the new majority will not attempt to remove President Bush from office, despite earlier pledges to the contrary from others in the caucus.

“I have said it before and I will say it again: Impeachment is off the table,” Pelosi, D-Calif., said during a news conference.

...

http://www.nytimes.com/cq/2006/11/08/cq_1916.html

[QueenOfCalifornia]

29. When Pelosi

decided to take Impeachment off the table she also took the Constitution with it.

Get it?


BTW Kicked and Recommended.

[TechBear_Seattle]

7. That is not for you to say

She is the senior-most Democrats in the House; therefore, under the rules of the Democratic Caucus in the House, she is Speaker. The only way to remove her from office would be to A) Have the voters of her district oust her (extremely unlikely as she is an entrenched encumbent) or B) Have the House Democratic Caucus change the rules as to who gets the Speakership (even less likely.)

Unless you are a voting resident of her district, neither you nor I, nor the vast majority of Americans, have any say at all.

[EstimatedProphet]

10. Nor should we

Should we have a say in who is placed on the house Ways and Means committee? Should we hve a say on who becomes Secretary of the Treasury, or chief of NASA? None of these positions are chosen by public vote. The public doesn't have the information or understanding of the duties to make an informed decision in these cases.

[ColbertWatcher]

12. Exactly.

We should not be concerned with who holds the office of Speaker, because there are so many other in Congress, who, despite not being Speaker, have a vote equal to the Speaker's.

[TechBear_Seattle]

18. The Speaker holds a lot of power

She sets the agenda of the House and has considerable influence in naming committee chairs and members. She can, if she wants, send a proposed bill to committee with orders to sit on it; a chairman who allows it to pass back to the floor stands a good chance of being relieved of his chairmanship.

In effect, the Speaker of the House is roughly equivalent to the British Prime Minister: the PM, like the Speaker, sets the agenda, makes appointments and is a regular member of the chamber elected to that high position by the coalition that holds power. As such, we Americans most certainly SHOULD be concerned with who holds the Speakership. However, as with Commons, the general citizenry have no say at all in the matter; it all comes down to pressuring the constituency to not re-elect.

[ColbertWatcher]

23. it all comes down to pressuring the constituency to not re-elect.

Or, it comes down to reading between the lines.

Pelosi is not an idiot, despite the number of threads in this forum to the contrary.

She said "impeachment is off the table", but who gaveled the House to order when Kucinich read the articles into the record?

And if the resolution is voted on and passes, where does it go from there? And are there enough votes in the Senate?

If we disagree with her "off the table" statement, what are we doing?

Are we contacting our Representatives/Senators to make her eat her words?

Are we convincing our friends, family members, neighbors and co-workers who are of the GOP persuasion that at least one of those 35 charges has merit?

Or are we just bitching because she's an easy target? Or because she can count?

She said impeachment is off the table, and everyone is making her look prescient.

I thought people hated her enough to make her look bad.

[oldhippie]

13. Oh Lordy, another civics scholar ............

Have you taken junior high civics yet? No, the Speaker is not the senior democrat in the house. She is elected by the members of the House. Jeezzzzz, get a book. (Or Wikipedia........)


"The Speaker is elected on the first day of a new session of Congress. The election is presided over by the Clerk of the House of Representatives and each party nominates a candidate. Whoever receives a simple majority of the votes is elected and, after election, is sworn in by the Dean of the House, the chamber's longest-serving member.

In modern practice, the Speaker is chosen by the majority party in the House; it is usually obvious within two to three weeks of a House election who the new Speaker will be. It is expected that members of the House vote for their party's candidate. If they don't do so, they usually vote for someone else in their party or vote "present." Voting for the other party's candidate is dealt with very severely. For example, when Democrat Jim Traficant voted for Republican Dennis Hastert in the 2001 election for Speaker, the Democrats stripped him of his seniority."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speaker_of_the_United_States_House_of_Representatives

[TechBear_Seattle]

16. Technically, she elected by the whole House, yes

Effectively, though, the Speaker is the senior-most member of the caucus which holds a majority. When that majority is held by the Democrats, then the senior-most member of the House Democrats becomes Speaker. You may remember efforts in 2007 to have... I think it was Murtha elected Speaker? The consensus was that the effort to give the Speakership to someone other than Pelosi was doomed before it even began, because of two centuries of House custom.

Your own quote bears this out.

[oldhippie]

17. No, read again ........

Pelosi is not the "senior-most" democrat in the House by a long shot. She is #32 in seniority among the D's and #52 overall. Committee chairmanships are usually based on seniority, but the speaker is not. Read a little. (Edited to add: BTW, John Murtha is much senior to Pelosi.)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_current_United_States_Representatives_by_seniority

[ColbertWatcher]

24. Election of Murtha for something in House...

...that was 2006 and Pelosi voted to have him elected Majority Leader.

He wasn't, but she voted for him, allowing him to deliver a speech supporting pulling the troops out.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/12/AR2006111200762.html

[Kolesar]

8. Some people post on DU just to make controversy--look at the responses to dead Russert

The responses have been way out of scale against people who said Russert was a shill.

[ColbertWatcher]

25. dead Russert! How can you say such a horrible thing!

You must hate his whole family!

[Kolesar]

26. That was funny

:rofl:

[DemoTex]

11. Another libelous poster with no profile.

The quotation marks are as egregious as the Repub's use of Democrat Party.

[electropop]

21. libelous? See these links:

http://www.nytimes.com/cq/2006/11/08/cq_1916.html

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/11/AR2006051101950.html

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/10/20/60minutes/main2111089_page3.shtml

http://www.rawstory.com/news/2006/Pelosi_Impeachment_off_table_1023.html

[DemoTex]

27. The OP posted his/her opinionated paraphrase disguised as a direct quote of Pelosi.

Do you not understand that simple fact? You links support my position, not the technically wrong interpretation that Pelosi said that the constitution, not impeachment, was off the table.

[electropop]

28. Impeachment is a constitutional responsibility.

So to shirk the responsibility is to ignore the oath of office.

I assume you understand the OP's subject line was intended as :sarcasm:

[electropop]

19. Here's where it ended up:

[electropop]

22. But insanity is not off the table:

May 18, 2008 21:34

US House speaker: Nothing should be ruled out in order to stop Iran
By JPOST.COM STAFF

US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Sunday that no option should be ruled out in order to stop Iran's march toward nuclear weapons.

"Iran must be stopped. They are a threat to the neighborhood and a source of funding for Hamas and Hizbullah," Pelosi told Channel 1.

While hoping there would be no need for a military strike, the House speaker stressed, "I do think we must not take anything off the table."


http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1210668668378&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

[Name removed]

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