Bizarre, Media, Politics, Society

Fifty-Six Percent Of Democratic Voters Do Not Want Pelosi To Be Speaker . . . Democratic Members Move To Make Pelosi Speaker

During the election, the potential of Rep. Nancy Pelosi being made speaker was a constant drag on close races with many members and candidates assuring voters that they will not support her return to the office.  Despite those assurances (and many of the Democratic leadership remaining silent on Pelosi), the Democratic establishment is now pushing to put Pelosi right back into the chair. Obviously, when all voters (including Republicans and independents) are considered, the opposition to Pelosi is overwhelming.  None of matters (including to the media which barely mentioned the opposition and does little on the many polls showing the position of voters).

This is despite a new Gallup poll showing that 56 percent of Democratic voters are opposed to the move as well as past polls saying that Pelosi and the establishment are driving younger voters away from the party.  The reason is simple: the Democratic members do not view these elections about the party and certainly not the voters.  It is about them and Pelosi can deliver key positions and benefits to them for support.  This is precisely why I have been long critical (here and here) of both party establishments and how voters continue to be played like chumps in this duopoly of power in our country.

As someone who comes from a deeply political and Democratic family in Chicago, I have been amazed by the resilience of Pelosi and establishment leadership who have held on to power despite repeated rejections from the voters.  To make matters even worse, Hillary Clinton is reportedly considering another run for the White House.

According to the new Gallup poll, only 39 percent of Democratic voters want to see Pelosi return. Pelosi has previously said that complaints about her refusing to step aside as sexist — ignoring her position as the most unpopular Democratic leader in office.  She also said after the stinging defeat in 2016 that she does not believe that voters want any change in direction.

Given the past elections and polls showing the need for change, this should be a no brainer if the party was truly responsive to voters and repositioning to be a majority party.  Instead, Pelosi — who has remained one of the most unpopular politicians in the country for years — will remain the face of the Democratic party going into the critical 2020 election.

147 thoughts on “Fifty-Six Percent Of Democratic Voters Do Not Want Pelosi To Be Speaker . . . Democratic Members Move To Make Pelosi Speaker”

        1. says Heart of Darkness? says Harbinger of Destruction? Says Herald of Doom? Says Hypertrophied Deltoids?

  4. OT:

    “A Badge of Shame: The Government’s War on America’s Military Veterans”

    https://www.rutherford.org/publications_resources/john_whiteheads_commentary/a_badge_of_shame_the_governments_war_on_americas_military_veterans

    Excerpt:

    It stands to reason that if the government can’t be bothered to abide by its constitutional mandate to respect the citizenry’s rights—whether it’s the right to be free from government surveillance and censorship, the right to due process and fair hearings, the right to be free from roadside strip searches and militarized police, or the right to peacefully assemble and protest and exercise our right to free speech—then why should anyone expect the government to treat our nation’s veterans with respect and dignity?

    So if you really want to do something to show your respect and appreciation for the nation’s veterans, here’s a suggestion: skip the parades and the retail sales and the flag-waving and instead go exercise your rights—the freedoms that those veterans risked their lives to protect—by pushing back against the government’s tyranny.

    Freedom is not free.

    It’s time the rest of the nation started to pay the price for the freedoms we too often take for granted.

  7. The Democrats rigged their own presidential primary. Why would they be any more responsible to the voters with regard to Pelosi?

    1. Darren, what obligation did the Democratic party have to just roll-over and let Bernie Sanders take over? Sanders, as you know, had never been a Democrat.

      Sanders was attacking the party establishment as early as the first primaries. Why would they ‘want’ him as their nominee?? It makes no sense at all! Furthermore, had Bernie been the nominee, Republicans would have carpeted the airwaves with attack ads labeling Bernie a ‘communist’.

      It’s ridiculous hypocrisy for Republicans to parrot this ‘rigged election’ crap. Just because ‘they’ allowed their party to be hi-jacked by an outsider doesn’t mean that Democrats have to do the same.

      1. Peter, are you telling fake news? why, wiki says:

        “he was first elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1990 and caucuses with the Democratic Party, enabling his appointment to congressional committees and at times giving Democrats a majority.”

        maybe you need to correct wiki. shouldn’t be too hard since it’s thick with Democrat busybody volunteer editors

        1. wiki also says

          Elections
          Main articles: United States Senate election in Vermont, 2006 and United States Senate election in Vermont, 2012

          Sanders being sworn in as a U.S. senator by then Vice President Dick Cheney in the Old Senate Chamber, January 2007
          Sanders entered the race for the U.S. Senate on April 21, 2005, after Senator Jim Jeffords announced that he would not seek a fourth term. Chuck Schumer, chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, endorsed Sanders, a critical move as it meant that no Democrat running against Sanders could expect to receive financial help from the party. Sanders was also endorsed by Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada and Democratic National Committee chairman and former Vermont governor Howard Dean. Dean said in May 2005 that he considered Sanders an ally who “votes with the Democrats 98 percent of the time.”[103] Then-Senator Barack Obama also campaigned for Sanders in Vermont in March 2006.[104] Sanders entered into an agreement with the Democratic Party, much as he had as a congressman, to be listed in their primary but to decline the nomination should he win, which he did.[105][106]

          Bernie’s in the party or out, but he’s been instrumental at many times in their success, and conspicuously not part of many of their failures. like Hillary’s campaing, but some other interesting things. he both opposed the iraq war consistently, but has also voted against various gun control measures

          all in all, seems like a very interesting fellow and not worthy of the shabby treatment he received from the Hillary clique

        2. more interesting stuff about bernie sanders

          “On September 24, 2008, Sanders posted an open letter to Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson decrying the initial bank bailout proposal; it drew more than 8,000 citizen cosigners in 24 hours.[121] On January 26, 2009, Sanders and Democrats Robert Byrd, Russ Feingold, and Tom Harkin were the sole majority members to vote against confirming Timothy Geithner as United States Secretary of the Treasury.[122]

          In 2008 and 2009, Sanders voted against the Troubled Asset Relief Program (also referred to as the Wall Street bailout) which was a program to purchase toxic banking assets and provide loans to banks which were in free fall at the time.[123][124] Sanders has advocated greater democratic participation by citizens, campaign finance reform, and a constitutional amendment or judicial decision that would overturn Citizens United v. FEC.[112][113][114] He calls for comprehensive financial reforms,[115] such as breaking up “too big to fail” financial institutions, restoring Glass–Steagall legislation, reforming the Federal Reserve Bank and allowing the Post Office to offer basic financial services in economically marginalized communities.[125] Among Sanders’ proposed financial reforms is the auditing of the Federal Reserve, which would reduce the independence of the Federal Reserve in monetary policy deliberations; Federal Reserve officials say that ‘Audit the Fed’ legislation would expose the Federal Reserve to undue political pressure from lawmakers who do not like its decisions.[126][127][128]

          In 2016, Sanders voted for the Federal Reserve Transparency Act, which included proposals for a reformed audit of the Federal Reserve System”

          aw heck, Bernie wanted to audit the Fed? no way he was gonna win! LOL talk about messin with the system

          I see Russ Feingold and Robert Byrd, two other interesting maverick Democrats, voted with him against the TARP. well, whether the TARP was successful in economic terms or not, a principled case sure could have been made against it by anybody. Few Dared.

          And in a way it was whistling past the graveyard, given the literal billions the Fed was loaning to BOA at zero percent for example, without TARP authority; was it even needed? Mostly as a fig leaf to conceal the massive and almost unimaginable economic power of the Federal Reserve Bank and its supreme significance in the American system

          maybe the bankers were giving all that money to Hillary just to make sure Bernie didn’t win!

        3. Kurtz, Bernie had not been a formal member of the Democratic Party until right before his decision to run for the party’s presidential primary. Apparently in Vermont it’s a sign of status for politicians to have an ‘I’ beside their name. That’s cool. But don’t expect the Democrats to just roll-over and give you the nomination.

          1. You had an opportunity with Sanders to squeeze the pus out and you blew it.

            1. Tabby, am I to believe that ‘you’ would have voted for Sanders..??

              Of course you wouldn’t have. You, and all the Trumpers on this thread, would have gone on and on and on labeling Bernie a ‘communist’ who was going to ‘destroy our way of life’.

              1. against anybody but Trump oh I would definitely have considered it. Bernie was ok on gun control, against the endless wars, and entrenched financialism. he has even spoken up for the rights of native workers vis a vis immigrants

                I would have voted for him over little Marco or Kasich by prolly not Lyin Ted. I kind of like Lyin Ted even if he is a Canadian.

          2. very disingenuous. the Dem party owes Bernie and he is what I would call a principled leftist. It shows they lack principles and they lack appreciation

            1. Kurtz, I didn’t mind that Bernie challenged Hillary for the nomination. It looks better if there ‘is’ some competition. And I didn’t mind that Bernie called himself a socialist. After years of Tea Party rants, Bernie socialism sounded like a breath of fresh air.

              But when I discovered Sanders was 6 years older than Hillary, that was it for me. I had already concluded that Hillary was too old. An even older candidate was out of the question.

              Then, throughout 2016, my Facebook stream was inundated with posts from Bernie Bros. Most of them were apolitical types who had never voted before. Their ignorance was shocking! Most were even less knowledgable than Trumpers. That was the irony: ‘The Trumpers seemed bright by comparison’!

              Bernie became the biggest sour apple of divas. It seemed that he and his followers were only concerned with destroying the Democrats. Rarely was their focus on destroying Donald Trump. And ‘that’ is the reason Trumpers love Bernie so much.

              1. not too old if they’re in good health and mentally clear

                hillary was not healthy and they were hiding it

                i am not a bernie bro, i voted for trump, but I’m not faking my compliments of him on the issues i identified

                nor am i making up Hillary’s over the top dominance of the party. Donna brazile said it and explained it fully. that’s for you to consider not me. I have always been a Republican but I find it sad. There have been many fine Democrat politicians throughout American history

      2. It’s not who the leadership of the party wants that is important. It’s who the voters wanted. Mr. Sanders was a viable candidate and the leadership of the party thwarted his campaign. So much for democracy. The Democrats and the Republicans for that matter could use some new outside influence. Better yet they both should be simply cast into the dustbin of the past and ordinary people take away their power and start anew without the corruption that accompanies our current federal politicians. But as long as people keep voting in flavors One and Two of the same malfeasants that currently occupy Congress, little is going to change. The best each of us can do is to try to insulate ourselves from them and foster our own independence from their control.

        1. i used to think the same thing and quit the political fun and games a long time. and then a few friends ran for office and i learned a few things from their experiences.

          mostly that winning is expensive and requires skill. and professionals and armies of volunteers and donors. all the skilled hands, current organized volunteers, and engaged donors, are 99% locked up in parties a and b. so it’s nearly impossible anything else can happen under the current electoral arrangements. nothing short of a civil war could change these arrangements, and enable a third party, or a successor to the current parties; all other things being equal. that’s my conclusion and then not long after Trump showed up I thought I might as well support the Republicans again if they got behind them well enough, which they did.

          its funny how the system can drag us back in even after decades of non-involvement

          1. and the fact that maverick Bernie was polling so well showed that there was tremendous ferment in the 16 election. Hillary truly played the shill of the established interests and protected the system against both Bernie and in a way the Donald, by solidifying the narrative against him with all the usual suspects in the Deep State and corporate media, and also organizing the post-electoral interference movement which has hamstrung his effectiveness from day one

          2. One of most significant structural problems is the Primary Election process where in most states the top two candidates proceed to the general election. That effectively under the status quo permits only Democrat/Democrat, Republican/Republican, or Democrat/Republican to advance to the general election. IF we eliminated the primary election we could have a complete marketplace of individuals, ideals, or approaches available to us and the grip on power by the two political machines will be weakened. Some say that we would then have a hundred people to choose from–too many to process. So be it. A compromise might be the primary decides the top 20 candidates for each office. I would accept that outcome or something close, as long as WE have the power to decide which candidates we select the better. As we have it now, we mostly only get the table scraps politicians toss at us.

            1. Darren Smith –! According, Kenneth Arrow’s Theorem, what you propose violates at least one of the five axioms of fairness

            2. Darren, we partially agree. I don’t think small, homogenous states like Iowa and New Hampshire should decide our presidential candidates.

              I think a better way would be a primary of 5 Super Tuesdays. Just 5 primaries that are geographically balanced with a mix of big, medium and small states.

        2. Darren, Hillary beat Bernie fair and square in the primaries, tallying about 3 million more votes. No election commissioner anywhere in the country determined that Hillary’s campaign had ‘rigged’ any primary. Bernie’s ‘rigged’ charges were as irresponsible as similar claims made by Trump.

          Interestingly, Bernie did best in small, mostly White states like his adopted home of Vermont. But Hillary beat him soundly in most the biggest states.

          Had he been a team player, Bernie would be Vice President now, or Chairman of whatever Senate committee he wished to chair.

          There’s nothing wrong with being a team player to one’s party. That’s the only way parties can work. Bernie didn’t have to attack the Democrats. That was his choice. And the Democrats didn’t have to make him their nominee.

          1. ha you must have missed this book by Donna Brazile Peter. hello? she said…..

            https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/11/02/clinton-brazile-hacks-2016-215774

            Before I called Bernie Sanders, I lit a candle in my living room and put on some gospel music. I wanted to center myself for what I knew would be an emotional phone call.

            I had promised Bernie when I took the helm of the Democratic National Committee after the convention that I would get to the bottom of whether Hillary Clinton’s team had rigged the nomination process, as a cache of emails stolen by Russian hackers and posted online had suggested. I’d had my suspicions from the moment I walked in the door of the DNC a month or so earlier, based on the leaked emails. But who knew if some of them might have been forged? I needed to have solid proof, and so did Bernie.

            So I followed the money. My predecessor, Florida Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, had not been the most active chair in fundraising at a time when President Barack Obama’s neglect had left the party in significant debt. As Hillary’s campaign gained momentum, she resolved the party’s debt and put it on a starvation diet. It had become dependent on her campaign for survival, for which she expected to wield control of its operations.

            Debbie was not a good manager. She hadn’t been very interested in controlling the party—she let Clinton’s headquarters in Brooklyn do as it desired so she didn’t have to inform the party officers how bad the situation was. How much control Brooklyn had and for how long was still something I had been trying to uncover for the last few weeks.

            By September 7, the day I called Bernie, I had found my proof and it broke my heart.

            ***

            The Saturday morning after the convention in July, I called Gary Gensler, the chief financial officer of Hillary’s campaign. He wasted no words. He told me the Democratic Party was broke and $2 million in debt.

            “What?” I screamed. “I am an officer of the party and they’ve been telling us everything is fine and they were raising money with no problems.”

            That wasn’t true, he said. Officials from Hillary’s campaign had taken a look at the DNC’s books. Obama left the party $24 million in debt—$15 million in bank debt and more than $8 million owed to vendors after the 2012 campaign—and had been paying that off very slowly. Obama’s campaign was not scheduled to pay it off until 2016. Hillary for America (the campaign) and the Hillary Victory Fund (its joint fundraising vehicle with the DNC) had taken care of 80 percent of the remaining debt in 2016, about $10 million, and had placed the party on an allowance.

            If I didn’t know about this, I assumed that none of the other officers knew about it, either. That was just Debbie’s way. In my experience she didn’t come to the officers of the DNC for advice and counsel. She seemed to make decisions on her own and let us know at the last minute what she had decided, as she had done when she told us about the hacking only minutes before the Washington Post broke the news.

            On the phone Gary told me the DNC had needed a $2 million loan, which the campaign had arranged.

            “No! That can’t be true!” I said. “The party cannot take out a loan without the unanimous agreement of all of the officers.”

            “Gary, how did they do this without me knowing?” I asked. “I don’t know how Debbie relates to the officers,” Gary said. He described the party as fully under the control of Hillary’s campaign, which seemed to confirm the suspicions of the Bernie camp. The campaign had the DNC on life support, giving it money every month to meet its basic expenses, while the campaign was using the party as a fund-raising clearinghouse. Under FEC law, an individual can contribute a maximum of $2,700 directly to a presidential campaign. But the limits are much higher for contributions to state parties and a party’s national committee.

            Individuals who had maxed out their $2,700 contribution limit to the campaign could write an additional check for $353,400 to the Hillary Victory Fund—that figure represented $10,000 to each of the 32 states’ parties who were part of the Victory Fund agreement—$320,000—and $33,400 to the DNC. The money would be deposited in the states first, and transferred to the DNC shortly after that. Money in the battleground states usually stayed in that state, but all the other states funneled that money directly to the DNC, which quickly transferred the money to Brooklyn.

            “Wait,” I said. “That victory fund was supposed to be for whoever was the nominee, and the state party races. You’re telling me that Hillary has been controlling it since before she got the nomination?”

            Gary said the campaign had to do it or the party would collapse.

            “That was the deal that Robby struck with Debbie,” he explained, referring to campaign manager Robby Mook. “It was to sustain the DNC. We sent the party nearly $20 million from September until the convention, and more to prepare for the election.”

            “What’s the burn rate, Gary?” I asked. “How much money do we need every month to fund the party?”

            The burn rate was $3.5 million to $4 million a month, he said.

            I gasped. I had a pretty good sense of the DNC’s operations after having served as interim chair five years earlier. Back then the monthly expenses were half that. What had happened? The party chair usually shrinks the staff between presidential election campaigns, but Debbie had chosen not to do that. She had stuck lots of consultants on the DNC payroll, and Obama’s consultants were being financed by the DNC, too.

            When we hung up, I was livid. Not at Gary, but at this mess I had inherited. I knew that Debbie had outsourced a lot of the management of the party and had not been the greatest at fundraising. I would not be that kind of chair, even if I was only an interim chair. Did they think I would just be a surrogate for them, get on the road and rouse up the crowds? I was going to manage this party the best I could and try to make it better, even if Brooklyn did not like this. It would be weeks before I would fully understand the financial shenanigans that were keeping the party on life support.”

          2. Hillary is the classic example of the Politician who is supported by established financial interests not IN SPITE of her corruption, but, BECAUSE OF IT

  8. Yes, the Democrat leadership will change soon but right now they need to get things done. And Pelosi will get it done quickly and the will of the people will come first.

    1. ha ha ha that’s hilarious Pelosi executing the will of the people that’s a laugh

      1. I bet that you were not laughing November 7. I bet you will not be laughing when Congress does their job of oversight. I bet you will not be laughing when they pull Trump’s taxes. I bet you will not be laughing when they look into the emoluments clause of Trump, or his cabinet secretary’s businesses. You just sit there with your little red hat on and laugh.

        1. i want one of those red hats as a token of remembrance for this time when we had such a Great Leader. But, I don’t wear baseball caps.

          I will laugh every day of life which remains to me God willing and no Democrats can steal that from me And I will be fine no matter who wins, trust me, I will be fine and only God will punch my ticket, when he is ready.

          Democrats can pass a whole lot of stupid laws or regulations or investigations far beyond what’s been done in the past and every stupid regulation will be that much more difficult to enforce on the whole.

          And if the Left goes too far, it will reap a backlash unimaginable. That would have me laughing hardest

      2. I bet you were not laughing November 7. I bet you that you will not laugh when Congress does it’s job of oversight. You just sit there and wear your red hat and laugh, and keep doing it in public so everybody will know who the village idiot is.

        1. i was you bet i was laughing and nobody thinks me the fool. but if they do that’s ok too. trust me I need very little social approval to enjoy my day to day; what about you?

          And i’m as detached as I need to be from anything. Stay hungry, travel light

    2. And Pelosi will get it done quickly and the will of the people will come first.

      Ha ha ha. Waal, if we take the crooks at Clinton News Network at face value, 77% of all Democrats want impeachment proceedings, because shooting barbs at Democratic Party clients is a high crime, so so they fancy.

  9. Ben Franklin, we gave you “…a republic, if you can keep it.”

    In deed and for good reason, Ben Franklin’s was a restricted-vote republic in which citizens must have been “…free white person(s)…” and voters, Male, European, Age 21 with 50 lbs. Sterling or 50 acres.

    No one is actually allowed to cast an authentic vote in the communist dictatorship, China, America’s cheating and stealing competitor and mortal enemy. Totalitarian communist dictator Xi Jinping is China’s “Leader for Life.”

    Nancy Pelosi.

    Democrats.

    Enough incoherence and hysteria.

    Repeal the antithetical, improperly ratified, unconstitutional and fatal 13th, 14th, 15th and 19th amendments.

  10. In what might be the best move a minority party ever made–and in following President Trump’s suggestion–every, Every, EVERY Republican should vote for Pelosi to be the speaker. That would guarantee recalcitrant Democrats couldn’t elect a better choice.

    As to your comment “voters continue to be played like chumps in this duopoly of power in our country,” let’s consider a slight variation. You post on your blog, frequently stirring up a storm, and when your followers specifically counter some of your claims, you’re nowhere to be found. In any debate, and likely in any courtroom, your failure to respond gives the other side the points–and probably the win. Do you even read the comments? Or, do you simply follow the “pigeon method” of flying overhead, dropping a load, and flying on? Do you have any interns or other underlings reading the comments to notify you when posters disagree with you, not with each other? So, here’s the repurposed comment: “Posters continue to be played like chumps in this monopoly of power in/on your blog.”

  11. The party’ s ruling class, Pelosi and Clinton. Where the money flows from. These 2 will provide great material for Donaldson Trump.

  12. I think the parties get to elect their own leadership and that’s fine.

    The parties as collective entities have been damaged enough by strong internal factions like Hillary and a leader with long tenure like Pelosi offers a counterbalance inside the party to her minions on the one hand and the new fledgelings chirping for the insanity of impeachment on the other

  13. Speaking of non elected people high up in the succession chain. ALL of the Secretaries all of them together got zero votes. Governors get more than representatives. Change the Act of Succession to Senators of the same party, then Governors who have experience in leadership roles and last the Representatives who have the least experience and votes except for the Secretaries who have no votes and very narrow experience.

  14. She is perfect as Trump’s punching bag for the next two years. Thank you Democrats.

    1. Only in Hollywood and DC. The perfect candidate for the Loser Party. Between Pelosi and Clinton their destruction is almost assured. Only a YoungTurks Revolution in that group can save the remanants and there is two much division for that to be successful.

  15. This is another illustration of the choices being the lesser of the evils. Just as Clinton was evil but less evil than Trump, Pelosi has worn out her welcome but there is no one to take her place. Pelosi and Clinton both offered the knowledge of the ins and outs of the system but none of the backbone and innovation necessary to take the US out of this swamp. With Trump American got a combination of and idiot and a swamp monster, the quintessential silver spoon oligarch.

    Pelosi should champion and support a younger and more innovative centrist. America does not need fanatics on either extreme but people who can fine tune out the problems.

          2. To the rose-colored Anonymous:

            As for “treason,” you clearly don’t know the meaning of the word.

    2. Damn even Bacon Boy is trumpeting a theft of the GOP platform just as Clinton is saying she has religion. America does not need extremist fanatics true. Which leaves out the progressive socialists en toto. They have no place in a Representative Constitutional Republic.

      1. Your, ‘en toto’ illustrates perfectly what is wrong with America. You are that fanatic that would be first in line marching along a Strasse in Munich screaming down with all others than those with whom I agree. America has evolved beyond this sort of fanaticism. Only sometimes it’s two steps forward and one back. Trump is that backward step. MA, you are his voice.

    3. Speaking from some swamp in the US, or some swamp in the abundant and cold wetlands of the Great White North?

  16. OT:

    “Security guard killed by police in Robbins bar wanted to be a cop, friends say”

    https://wgntv.com/2018/11/12/officer-responds-to-gunfire-fatally-shoots-security-guard-at-robbins-bar/

    Excerpt:

    “Everybody was screaming out, ‘Security!’ He was a security guard,” witness Adam Harris said. “And they still did their job, and saw a black man with a gun, and basically killed him.”

    It all began when security asked a group of drunken men to leave Manny’s shortly before 4 a.m. Sunday. Witnesses said someone came back with a gun and opened fire. Security returned fire, witnesses said, and Roberson was able to detain one of the men involved outside.

    “He had somebody on the ground with his knee in back, with his gun in his back, like, ‘Don’t move,'” Harris said.

    Soon after, according to witnesses, an officer responding to the scene shot at Roberson — killing him.

    1. That’s called in leftist fictionary parlance ‘reframing” It’s followed by ‘redefining’ No matter it will be replaced by something else equally fallacious by tomorrow if not this afternoon.

    2. cops dont like wannabes

      also, the armed citizen often faces danger when police arrive. have to be very careful and appear to present no threat. man with gun is always a threat to cops, reasonably so or not

      1. cops dont like wannabes

        And you learned that from who?

        Chicago is notable for having police staffing on a par with New York City’s – but without the satisfactory results in order maintenance New York City manages.

        1. i learned it from cops. chicago cops. but it’s a generalization you will find all over.

          i don’t know anything about NYC cops but I know plenty about Chicago cops. Personally, I always liked them. It’s a big department, has its bad apples.

  17. That the majority of Democratic voters are not represented very well by their party’s leadership should come as no surprise to anyone.

    1. It constantly comes as a surprise to the left who cannot understand much of anything. That takes thinking, reasoning and some slight element of …. never mind…. whatever it isn’t allowed by their ruling class.

  18. Did anyone think that the candidates vowing to vote against Pelosi were not lying?
    Sure she will release some of them to “vote their conscience” but she will get the votes she needs.
    If she was not going to get the votes, she would have announced her intent not to seek the position before the election.

    1. Not getting doesn’t enter her mind. She has the bucks to buy all of them ten times over. Selling committee seats is very lucrative.

  19. PELOSI’S UNPOPULARITY IS RIVALED BY..

    SENATE MAJORITY LEADER MITCH McCONNELL!

    Professor Turley’s column here made me wonder, of course, if Senate Majority Leader McConnell is any more popular than Pelosi. He isn’t! In fact, by some measures McConnell looks even ‘less’ popular than Pelosi.

    The question then becomes: “Why is Professor Turley noting Pelosi’s unpopularity and ‘not’ McConnell’s??” Is there a double-standard here regarding women in positions of power?

    https://www.cincinnati.com/story/news/politics/2018/07/25/kentuckys-mitch-mcconnell-and-matt-bevin-among-us-most-unpopular-senator-and-governor-poll/836022002/

          2. And you forgot to mention:

            President Trump has an approval rating of 60 percent in Kentucky. Slightly more than one-third of respondents, 36 percent, disapprove of the job the president is doing.

            McConnell is business as usual fellate the Chamber-of-Commerce. It’s not surprising most people don’t care for him at this point.

    2. Why, indeed, is Turley focusing on Pelosi, rather than the verbal lashing Trump received from Macron over his “nationalism” and Trump’s refusal to go to the American cemetery? Trump was afraid the Aquanet wouldn’t hold, so the pompadour would fall and then everyone would see his bald spot. His spin machine, of course, claims that cloudiness and light drizzle made helicopter travel impossible, so grounding the helicopter was the decision made by the Marines. Also, he didn’t want to disrupt traffic on the roads to the cemetery because he’s just so kind and considerate. He never cared about disrupting traffic right here in America to get to the vainglory rallies, and showed up even after being asked to stay away from Pittsburgh following the synagogue murders. Also, since when is cloudiness and light drizzle an obstacle to helicopter travel? When I think of the brave men who crawled through mud, rain and snow to serve and die for this country versus the arrogant, genital-grabbing reality TV performer whose priority was to protect his hairdo, I want to vomit.

      As to the merits of Pelosi, what, exactly, has she done to deserve the condemnation heaped on her by Faux News? She has been used in anti-Democratic candidate attack ads, as if she is some form of a demon, but what has she done to deserve this? Did she, like McConnell, deny Americans their right to input into a Justice for the Supreme Court purely to shove onto the SCOTUS someone whose views are far right of most Americans? What has she done that is scandalous or un-American? Could PH be correct? Is she being demonized because she is a powerful woman who has gotten things done?

      1. Why, indeed, is Turley focusing on Pelosi, rather than the verbal lashing Trump received from Macron over his “nationalism”

        Because he doesn’t give a rip about the trivia which interests you.

        1. So, to you, it is trivial that the President of France publicly excoriates the POTUS over his expressions of nonunity with allies? Yes, I guess it would, now that I think about it, because none of the norms applicable to the POTUS apply to the rodeo clown. Well, we can take comfort in the fact that we probably won’t have to wait much longer for him to go.

            1. The French population is collapsing.

              It isn’t. The total fertility rate in France is 1.96 children per woman per lifetime. They’d benefit if it were slightly higher, but that will do for now.

      2. Two reasons never mind two comments. The day isn’t over and it’s just a diversion on your part.

      3. you guys are great at scolding Turley what to write on his own blog. if you don’t like the blog you can always take your wise words and cast these pearls elsewhere

      4. like McConnell, deny Americans their right to input into a Justice for the Supreme Court purely to shove onto the SCOTUS someone whose views are far right of most Americans?

        The U.S. Senate is charged with granting or withholding advise and consent to judicial nominees. Sometimes they withhold consent when you don’t want them to (in this case, by ignoring a presidential nominee). Grow up.

      5. Did she, like McConnell, deny Americans their right to input into a Justice for the Supreme Court purely to shove onto the SCOTUS someone whose views are far right of most Americans?

        You say that like it’s a bad thing. Fortunately we still have a Senate majority willing and able to confirm nominees that respect and honor the wisdom of the framer’s of our constitution. If these new justices are far right of the majority of Americans, then that’s a reflection of how our education system has corrupted that majority.

    3. None of the Congress is in the 20th or above percentile. The closest group to them is the media. Added together they couldn’t make it past fly spray.

  20. The Speaker’s position should be elected from outside the chamber’s membership. Ideally an elderly or retired judge who wouldn’t serve more than 3 terms. Same deal in re the President pro tem of the Senate.

    Ideally, the majority caucus would elect each of the committee chairs at the beginning of each Congress, and committee chairs would be subject to rotation-in-office rules. Committee seats would be distributed by lottery, with the qualification that a member could hold on to an assignment from one Congress to the next subject to rotation-in-office rules. Each caucus could by majority vote put troublesome members under disciplinary interdicts which would require they be excluded from drawings for committee seats and only receive the seats no one else wanted. The floor leader of the majority would be ex officio the chairman of the rules committee and the floor leaders would exercise their influence by control of the schedule, not by patronage distribution.

    1. Sounds good except I don’t know that we should have an unelected official that high up in the order of Presidential succession.
      If they want to go the unelected route, Democrats should elect Andrew Gillum as Speaker. This would give them a chance to market test their socialist agenda while showing how inclusive they are.

      1. The presidential succession is determined by statute, not by the Constitution. Both the Speaker of the House and the President pro tem of the Senate should be removed from the Succession without regard to how you re-organize the House leadership. No Speaker in living memory has had any executive experience (bar John Boehner’s years running a company with a single digit number of employees) and the President pro tem of the Senate is commonly about 85 years old per current custom.

        If you want ‘elected officials’ in the succession, you’re going to make use of members of Congress, few of whom are properly prepared for the office. And, of course, none of them have a constituency which exceeds 12% of the national population.

        The thing to do about the succession is to have the succeeding president serve 8-9 months unless the elected president departs office within 17 months of the end of his term and have the state and territorial legislatures elect a successor. The semi-elective vice presidency is a 5th wheel we can do without. That sort of succession would require a constitutional Amendment.

    2. How about a VP? Could make him or her a Secretary of The States, changing State Department to Department of Foreign Affairs. Why not? The congressionals would treat whomever just like the do the real President of The Senate at what cost to the tax payer.

    3. there is only so much you can do to fix a problem like patronage. a lot of democratic elections and our system does not attempt to cure social problems just contain them. sometimes there is no cure and problems can only be managed

      1. There is no compelling reason to have:

        1. A partisan presiding officer (they don’t in Britain).

        2. Committee chairmen for life (the Republicans enacted term limits when they took control of the House in 1995. The Democrat-scum restored the previous system when they took back control in 2007).

        3. Committee assignments to advance the floor leader’s entrenchment. (See the New York State Legislature for gruesome examples of this).

        These are choices.

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