Josh Welle did not vote for Nancy Pelosi to become the next Speaker of the House yesterday because he wasn’t invited to the Democrat Caucus meeting in Washington.
Since losing to Congressman Chris Smith on November 6, the sanctimonious semen has been spotted at Alice’s Kitchen in Sea Bright and at the Tropicana Casino in Atlantic City during the NJ League of Municipalities Convention where he and his former campaign staffers got into some late night drunken texting with Jim Keady, the front runner for the 2020 Democrat nomination in CD-4.
Steny Hoyer and Nancy Pelosi during President Trump’s first State of the Nation address. photo via Zimbio
Congressman Steny Hoyer, the #2 Democrat in the House of Representatives behind Nancy Pelosi, will be in New York City on Thursday to raise campaign cash for Josh Welle, the Democrat running against Congressman Chris Smith in the 4th congressional district of New Jersey, according to an invitation to the fundraiser obtained by MMM.
Hoyer entered the House in 1981, the same year as Smith.
Congressman Frank Pallone and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi rallied House Democrats to block the passage of legislation supported by President Trump that would allow terminally ill patients to try to extend their lives by using experimental drugs that have not been approved by the FDA.
President Trump called for the “right to try” legislation in his State of the Union Address. The U.S. Senate passed the bill unanimously and there is bi-partisan support for the bill in the House.
The bill was up for a ‘fast track’ vote in the House on Tuesday, which requires passage with votes from two-thirds of the chamber. The vote was 250 aye to 140 no, falling short of the two-thirds requirement. Read the rest of this entry »
Congressman Frank Pallone was elected ranking Democratic member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee this morning in a 100-90 vote by the entire Democratic Caucus, according to Roll Call.
He defeated California Congresswoman Anna Eshoo, who had been backed for the post by Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi.
Both Eshoo and Pallone downplayed speculation that the result was a result of Democratic discontent with Pelosi who was reelected Minority Leader yesterday.
But fellow New Jersey Congressman Bill Pascrell is quoted indicated that Pelosi overdid it in support of her friend and fellow Californian:
“One can make the argument that she overdid it,” Pascrell said. “One may make the argument that she overdid in terms of the letter she sent out, on the other hand, she had every right to do it — she didn’t break any laws.”
House Democrats won’t let pregnant Iraqi war veteran vote by proxy
Congressman Frank Pallone cruised to reelection easily earlier this month, but the race he’s been waging since February for a key leadership post in the Democratic Minority of the House of Representatives will come to a head on Tuesday, November 18.
Pallone is battling California Congressman Anna Eshoo for the ranking position on the House Energy and Commerce Committee. The retirements of Henry Waxman and John Dingle made the coveted position available. Pallone is the next in line for the job, based upon seniority, but Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi in backing her California colleague Eshoo who, as At-Large Democratic Whip, has been part of Pelosi’s leadership team since 2003.
Maryland Congressman Steny Hoyer, the # 2 Democratic Leader in the House, backs Pallone for the position.
By now most people are aware that Jonathan Gruber has stated on several occasions over the last few years that in order to pass Obamacare, it was necessarily to 1. Lie to Congress and the American people, and 2. Depend on the “stupidity” of the American voter to accept this health care act.
Nancy Pelosi, the representative from Pacific Heights, and currently the second scariest resident of Pacific Heights, second only to Jim Belushi’s character in the movie of the same name, claims that she has no idea what he is talking about, because she never met him and has no idea who he is. As the major force behind the passage of Obamacare in the House, even more than Frank Pallone, who declared as “lousy” every insurance policy purchased by Americans prior to Obamacare, including those policies covering procedures no longer covered by Obamacare, and costing far less than Obamacare, Nancy Pelosi’s statement would carry considerable weight. If this were still 1995. Today, of course, we have social media recording just about everything said by anyone in public view. This includes the speech by Nancy Pelosi in 2009 when she assured everyone that Obamacare was a perfect health plan because it was carefully written by Jonathan Gruber of MIT, the person who she claims now did not write the plan and whom she had never heard of.
Legislature in poised to pass a “cap” that doesn’t control costs
State Senator Mike Doherty
State Senator Mike Doherty (R-Warren) told MMM that he hadn’t read a bill of which is he is a primary sponsor, the day after it cleared the Senate State Government, Wagering, Tourism and Historic Preservation Committee.
We’re not talking about an insignificant bill like designating “I’m from New Jersey” as the State Song, or the establishment of special licenseplates for honorably discharged veterans, two other bills that Doherty sponsored.
We’re talking about the extension of the 2% cap on arbitration awards for police and firefighters unions, the provision of the 2010 reform legislation that slowed the growth in New Jersey’s property taxes and made the 2% cap on those taxes work.
Doherty joined Senate President Sweeney in sponsoring legislation that exempts contracts that have already been subject to the cap from being subject to it again when they are up for renewal and raises the cap to 3% on contracts that have not yet been subject to renegotiation.
Doherty said, “I don’t see what the big deal is, the original bill had one bite at the apple, this bill extends that. Is it a perfect bill? No, but this is the way Trenton works. A bill that passes is better than no bill.”
Not really, Senator. A bill that passes the same as no bill, except it deceives the public into thinking the legislature is continuing fiscal reforms when they are actually engineering massive chaos in municipal governments.
Doherty said he hadn’t read the bill when we questioned him on specifics. He said he was relying on analysis of the bill from Republican legislative staffers and referred questions to Republican Senators Steven Oroho and Sam Thompson, members of the committee that unanimously cleared the bill.
The leadership of the police and firefighters unions not only read the bill, they helped write it, according to what they are telling their members.
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi has passed over Congressman Frank Pallone and thrown her support to Congresswoman Anna Eshoo of California in the internal Democratic caucus campaign to select the ranking member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, according to a report at TheHill.com.
Eshoo, who has served two terms in the House less than Pallone, is currently the fifth ranking Democrat on the committee. Pallone is the third ranking Democrat, behind Chairman Henry Waxman and John Dingell. Both Waxman and Dingell are retiring at the end of the 113th Congress.
In a letter to House Democrats, Pelosi said she’d intended to steer clear of making a public endorsement, “but since so many of you have asked, I am writing to let you know why I support Anna.”
“Anna’s leadership is marked by integrity, inclusiveness and bipartisanship, critical qualities in a committee leader,” Pelosi wrote. “She advocates in the committee and in the House for healthcare, consumer protections, the environment and access to technology and issues related to women and children.
“Anna’s leadership, vision, values and progressive commitment to the future gives us the opportunity to newly invigorate the debate,” Pelosi added.
Since being sworn into Congress in 1987, six bills that Pallone has sponsored have become law. One of the bills was to name the post office on Route 35 in Middletown. Does anyone know the name of that post office?
Eshoo has sponsored 234 bills that have become law.
Bob Woodward’s new book, “The Price of Politics” may do more to threaten President Obama’s reelection than the anemic jobs reports.
Obama may be a great orator with a clever campaign, but Woodward’s book depicts his White House as dysfunctional and disorganized. The president himself is depicted as aloof and unable to develop the relationships necessary to lead the nation. Congressional leaders of his own party, Nancy Pelosi in the House and Harry Reid in the Senate, have little regard for Obama’s leadership abilities.
The book focuses on the debt ceiling crisis that the nation face during the summer of 2011. A crisis that was so serious that “they wouldn’t tell the world how bad in was at the time,” according to Woodward in a interview with ABC’s Diane Sawyer that will be aired Monday night.
As I was reading several reviews of the book I was reminded of Governor Chris Christie’s frequent criticism of Obama’s lack of leadership and inability to work across the aisle. It’s worse than Chrisite imagined. Harry Reid asked Obama to leave the room, at a meeting Obama called of congressional leaders at the White House, so that the congressional leaders could hammer out a deal to avert our nation defaulting on its debt that Obama would have no choice but to sign. Earlier in the Obama administration, Nancy Pelosi muted a conference call from Obama while she and Reid were together working on details of the stimulus package so that the president wouldn’t know that he did not have their undivided attention for his pontification. Clint Eastwood was right. The chair is empty and even the national Democratic congressional leaders know it.
The mainstream media’s coverage of the book may be more damaging to Obama’s reelection chances than the content of the book itself.
Reviews in the New York Times and Washington Post read like the reviewers compared notes before publication. They are trying to suppress sales by depicting the book as boring and a rehash of previous reporting. Yet they have enough integrity to report Woodward’s conclusion:
“It is a fact that President Obama was handed a miserable, faltering economy and faced a recalcitrant Republican opposition.
“But presidents work their will — or should work their will — on the important matters of national business. There is occasional discussion in this book about Presidents Reagan and Clinton, what they did or would have done. Open as both are to serious criticism, they nonetheless largely worked their will.
“Obama has not. The mission of stabilizing and improving the economy is incomplete.”
But ABC is giving Woodward prime coverage of the book on Monday night in a intervew with Sawyer during “World News Tonight” and “Nightline.” Woodward will sit down with George Stephanopolous live on “Good Morning America” on Tuesday, September 11, the day the book is release.
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi has passed over Congressman Frank Pallone and thrown her support to Congresswoman Anna Eshoo of California in the internal Democratic caucus campaign to select the ranking member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, according to a report at