WFB:
On Thursday, after eight years in the minority, Nancy Pelosi returned to power as speaker of the House of Representatives. Her party controls 235 seats to the Republicans’ 199. One contest, in North Carolina, has yet to be decided. The Democratic majority is a couple seats larger than the one Pelosi led more than a decade ago. Back then a Republican resided in the White House as well. By the seventh year of his presidency, when some 100 U.S soldiers were killed in Iraq every month and gas on average cost $2.80 per gallon, George W. Bush was about as popular as Donald Trump is today. And in 2007, as we all remember, Pelosi’s Democrats set about enacting universal health care and ending the war in Iraq.
Fooled you! Actually, the victories of the 110th Congress were much more modest: a minimum wage increase, lobbying reform, and a ban of incandescent light bulbs. Health care had to wait for a subsequent Congress and a Democratic president. So did withdrawal from Iraq—though retreat didn’t work out as planned, and America returned, in much smaller numbers, in 2014. The history of Nancy Pelosi’s tenure as speaker is a reminder of the limitations and tenuousness of political victories (and defeats).
I suspect Pelosi is aware of this lesson. I doubt her caucus is. More than a quarter of them are freshmen, many are young, and two are self-avowed democratic socialists. They are inclined to believe history began when Barack Obama entered Mile High Stadium in Denver. It’s an impression encouraged by cable news, which spent the run up to Pelosi’s investiture celebrating the youth, diversity, and ambition of the House Democratic freshmen. And yet, for all the talk of Alison Spanberger and the “Badass Caucus,” of how Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Rashida Tlaib “aren’t going to take no for an answer,” of grand plans for a Green New Deal and Medicare for All, there remains the inescapable reality of power. Democrats don’t really have it. Indeed, they have even less than the last time Pelosi became speaker.
Yes, they can fire their subpoena cannon at the White House. They can interrogate cabinet officials, subpoena Jared and Ivanka, leak scoops to reporters, maybe force a cabinet official or two to resign, if any are left. When Mueller delivers his findings, they could begin impeachment proceedings. But impeachment, like progressive legislation, won’t get far. A decade ago the House could pass bills and hope that Harry Reid would persuade his Democratic Senate majority to support them. All Pelosi had to worry about was President Bush’s veto. Now, Pelosi has to deal with Mitch McConnell’s Republican Senate even before her policies reach Donald Trump. more here
Pelosi will be no more effective than Ryan as speaker.
GD it, it’s PRESIDENT Trump. I am really tired of the disrespect, even from those who purport to support.
I think there will be a two year fight between the old progressive guard, led by Pelosi, and the new socialists who are mostly younger and less experienced. Ocasio-Cortez and Taliab are too enamoured with their new-found star power bestowed upon them by the MSM and the late night talk shows, and Dems like Pelosi have too much experience in political fighting to go away easily. Throw in the large number of blue dogs who don’t agree with either faction, and we may have an unusually incompetent House (even if judged by the historic low standards the House has earned).
Republicans don’t need to reach across the aisle – various Democrat factions will reach across to them. It may be an ironic chance for a Republican minority to get more accomplished than the Republican majority did.
Say what you will about Pelosi, she won’t be any less effective at moving the conservative agenda forward than Ryan was. She couldn’t possible be.
At least we know what she is doing behind the scenes, with Ryan he was saying one thing on television and then ten minutes later cutting backroom deals with Chuck and Nancy.
Ya’ know I’m right.
It’ would be a good idea to install a set of monkey bars in the well of the house to keep the new dems occupied. That should take care of the time for the next couple years until we can gets some adults back in there.
The dems have set the bar. They are the “fact free party of the moral right”.
There smug, clueless and surging with confidence that they know what is best for you. What could possible go wrong?