Covered at Reason 24/7: Obama Says He Needs Nancy Pelosi as Speaker

Reason 24/7

The 2016 race for president may already be getting under way, but there's a more imminent election in 2014, and the campaigner-in-chief is in California today raising money for that effort, and, by extension, for his second-term plans.

From Politico:

President Barack Obama said Wednesday at a DCCC fundraiser it would be difficult for him to pass a slew of second-term agenda items without Nancy Pelosi regaining her speakership.

"I would be dishonest if I didn't say that it would be a whole lot easier to govern if I had Nancy Pelosi as Speaker," Obama said at the second Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee fundraiser he attended, this one at the home of San Francisco investor Gordon Getty.

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Comments

[The Late P Brooks]

LEAN FORWARD!

[Bobarian]

Having Skeletor as speaker worked out so effectively for him last time, right?

I mean, we got two full years of unobstructed 'Hope & Change' before the dreaded rethuglicans stopped our march down the golden road to nirvana. I mean he passed ACA and ... uh,...

Damned right wing bastards!

[Pro Libertate]

Ye gods, do I despise these people.

[The Late P Brooks]

"I would be dishonest if I didn't say that it would be a whole lot easier to govern if I had Nancy Pelosi as Speaker,"

At this point, nothing you say or don't say will change that.

[fish]

What's he going to say to a room full of SF rubes, dupes and thieves.....that John Boehner is little more than my hand puppet and I can continue to do damage to this country just fine with him as speaker?

[Sevo]

Beat me to it, fish.

[Sevo]

Folks, the blithering idiot was in SF raising money for his continued campaigning. This is the town that returns that hag to DC every chance it gets; what did anyone expect him to say?
I'm sure he also mentioned 'how nice it was to be in Los Ange...uh, San Francisco'.

[Tulpa (LAOL-PA)]

Just because his comment is completely predictable does not mean he's immune from criticism for it.

Like his comment about Pennsylvanians being a bunch of bitter clingers to guns and xenophobia at an SF fundraiser in 2008, it reveals a lot about the true BO.

[Drake]

This should really help the few remaining "Blue-Dogs". Keep reminding people that a vote for the most "Conservative" Democrat Congressional candidate is a vote for Speaker Pelosi.

[Ron]

When the republicans quit running RINO's maybe we will vote for them again. Until then I quit voting for them. Of course the same can be said for the Libertarian party, the guy they ran locally in the last election was a moron and unfortunately we share the same last name. Now I'm not talking I'm looking for perfection but this guy was an idiot it was not a good light for the libertarian party it clearly made the party look bad.

[DesigNate]

Then don't vote at all.

[Kaptious Kristen]

Yep...abstention is a legitimate way to express an opinion.

[robc]

I wrote in Lizard People for one race last time. It didnt work in Minnesota either, but still worth trying.

[Kaptious Kristen]

I've written in many random names. In fact, back in November, I wrote myself in for everything except Preznit.

[LTC(ret) John]

"everything except Preznit"

So you wrote "Warty" in that one, right?

[Tulpa (LAOL-PA)]

If you refuse to decide, you still have made a choice.

[Calidissident]

Tulpa making a run at the title of Red Tony

[entropy]

I suppose Obama would find it even easier if we elected an eggplant speaker.

It would also say far less stupid things.

[EDG reppin' LBC]

...eggplant speaker.

Racist!!

[Ken Shultz]

If there's any situation worse than Republicans having control of both chambers and the White House, it's the Progressives having control of both chambers and the White House.

Hell, I'd rather go to war than helplessly watch Obama wage class warfare here in the United States. ...and if the Progressives get that kind of leverage, I'm not sure we won't end up with some new unnecessary war somewhere anyway.

[John]

If you look at spending, spending was actually going down in 05 and 06. Then it shot up again in 07-10 and has leveled off since. It is almost like who controls that House means something.

[PapayaSF]

Indeed.

[Tulpa (LAOL-PA)]

If you look at spending, spending was actually going down in 05 and 06.

I seem to recall Senator BO complaining about the free spending federal govt at the time, and refusing to raise the debt ceiling, and Nancy Pelosi praising the virtues of federalism. Weird times.

[Calidissident]

Spending didn't go down in 05 and 06. Are you talking about the deficit? That was decreasing, but a lot of the increase in the deficit, to be fair, was due to decreased tax revenue from the recession, as well as some bipartisan spending endeavors, in addition stuff like the stimulus that was almost exclusively passed by Dems

[theresaithomas]

Piper. I see what you mean... Janice`s st0rry is shocking... I just bought a great Lancia Straton from earning $7664 this last 5 weeks and-also, 10-k last month. with-out any doubt it's the most financially rewarding I've had. I actually started 8-months ago and pretty much straight away began to earn at least $73, per-hr. I use the details here, http://2tu.us/6mll

[EDG reppin' LBC]

Well what the fuck are you doing working on the internet? You have a Stratos, man! You should be rallying across Europe and North Africa. Now that I think about it, your story smells. I call bullshit.

[db]

I think Dave Bowman has begun to work on Anonobot's language processing unit.

[LTC(ret) John]

db, I really think you should stop, take a stress pill and think things over.

Stop, db. Stop. Won't you stop, db...

/anonybot

[PapayaSF]

I DEMAND A "FLAG AS SPAM" BUTTON.

[LTC(ret) John]

*Flagged*

[Ken Shultz]

"I actually started 8-months ago and pretty much straight away began to earn at least $73, per-hr."

Did any of this require Janice to put up a red light above her doorway?

[Doctor Whom]

Spambot, you don't have to put on the red light.

[John]

I would be very surprised if the country allowed Obama to operate without any adult supervision. If the country wasn't going to give the Dems the House when the re-elected Obama, it is hard to imagine them doing so now that Obama is a lame duck.

Like most petty thugs, Obama fears his own people more than anything else. Suppose the Democrats really take a beating in 2014 like they did in 2010. At that point you have a lot of out of work and angry progtards. And Obama can't run again. He will make a convenient scape goat. Gee, the media might actually start reporting again. This more than anything is why Obama is so worried about taking back the House and not losing the Senate.

[Tulpa (LAOL-PA)]

You've been saying the media was ripe to turn on BO since 2009. I don't see it happening. It's ALWAYS the Republicans' fault.

[SIV]

Neuroscience to the rescue! With the proposed "Mapping of the human brain" and this new mice-tested, addiction-curing laser lobotomy experts can make perfect citizens.

[Pro Libertate]

Sure hard not to be disturbed when the government goes down this path. Sure, I'm confident they won't use mind-control, if and when they get it, for nefarious purposes.

[EDG reppin' LBC]

The government will use it to make you a better person. An ?bermensch.

[Doctor Whom]

(in monotone) You will be upgraded.

[EDG reppin' LBC]

Upgrade your grey matter, cause one day it may matter.

[Brett L]

FTA: "According to the National Survey on Drug Use and Health, 1.4 million Americans age 12 and older abused used cocaine in 2011"

[LTC(ret) John]

"Orbital Mind-Control Lasers" was my favorite card in Illuminati!

[robc]

Mine too.

I always say it Austin Powers style with air quotes around "lasers".

[sarcasmic]

Since the earliest stage of human history (say, the time of Cain and Abel), human beings have been homicidal maniacs. Yet, for untold ages, something was missing, something with the capacity to raise their murderous mania to truly magnificent heights. Only very late in human history?perhaps 10,000 years ago or thereabouts?did the long-awaited breakthrough take place: men finally devised the state. By employing its powers of organization, command, violence, and plunder, rulers could finally bask in the glories of heretofore undreamed-of atrocities. No longer did men have to rest content with workaday violence and manslaughter. Now they could achieve vastly more monstrous enormities than the evilest village bully had been able to achieve or even to conceive of previously.

http://blog.independent.org/20.....anization/

[John]

Is that White Indian?

[Ptah-Hotep]

Is that White Indian?

Not hardly. Dr. Robert Higgs actually wrote that.

[John]

It is pretty much the same sort of idiocy. Yeah, when man is organized, he can kill more. He can also trade more, produce more and build civilization. With the good comes the bad.

[Ptah-Hotep]

So you agree with him.

[John]

No. I think he is a fucking moron. He acts like civilization never producing anything but evil and going back to some stateless neolithic life would be preferable to today. He is just White Indian with a few Neocons thrown in for good measure.

[sarcasmic]

You are confusing society and government.

[John]

No. you are. You are thinking government is somehow this alien entity from society. No, the government is an expression of the society. The Nazis didn't come from Mars they were Germans and the Germans were not victims and didn't get anything that most of them didn't already want.

[Brandon]

You are conflating "the state" with "civilization."

[sarcasmic]

Trade, production, and civilization are not products of the state.

[John]

They are products of organization. And what makes the state deadly is organization. Yeah, once man started organizing himself and doing really big things, some of those really big things was killing each other. Such is life.

[Tulpa (LAOL-PA)]

They're all impossible without some form of state.

[sarcasmic]

They're all impossible without some form of state.

That is absolutely false. The state is inevitable, but not necessary.

[Sevo]

Tulpa (LAOL-PA)| 4.4.13 @ 12:50PM |#
"They're all impossible without some form of state."

Bullshit, and you know it.

[anon]

OT: I really can't understand the mindset on this site regarding abstaining from voting. Everything else you guys do is based on principle; yet when it comes to shit that could actually change the world you say "nah my guy's not gonna win anyways fuck it."

THIS IS WHY WE CAN'T HAVE NICE THINGS!

[sarcasmic]

I vote. I don't really know why since election results tend to be the exact opposite of my ballot.

[anon]

Yeah, I understand the pessimism regarding voting just fine. But to not vote seems very hypocritical.

[sarcasmic]

Why? You don't have a right to complain unless you exercise your right to cast a ballot that will make absolutely no difference in the outcome of the election?
That's an ad hominem if I've ever heard one.

[The Late P Brooks]

What would make it really easy to govern rule the country would be to have the army take Congress and the Supreme Court into protective custody.

[Brandybuck]

Wait... why is Obama campaigning for Pelosi? Her reelection in her home district of San Francisco is predetermined. No Republican has a slightest chance against her.

[The Late P Brooks]

why is Obama campaigning for Pelosi?

Ask Willie Sutton.

[Anonymous Coward]

Obama: 'I Am Constrained By A System That Our Founders Put In Place'

Obama also spoke about the people who say the government is coming after their guns.

"You hear some of these quotes: 'I need a gun to protect myself from the government.' 'We can't do background checks because the government is going to come take my guns away,' Obama said. "Well, the government is us. These officials are elected by you. They are elected by you. I am elected by you. I am constrained, as they are constrained, by a system that our Founders put in place. It's a government of and by and for the people."

If I am the government, can I print money? Can I shoot people and then claim they made a furtive gesture? Can I seize someone's assets and then tell them to prove they didn't gain them through criminal activity if they want them back? Can I surveil people without their knowledge? Can I shoot hellfire missiles at people and cite state secrecy?

[sarcasmic]

We are government and government is us. So if you don't want government to do something, you don't want anyone to do it. And since government is us and we are government, government would never do anything bad to the people. It is the people. By definition there is no such thing as government oppression, since that would mean the people oppressing themselves. How can you oppress yourself? You can't.

[SumpTump]

lol, what a pathetic joke!

http://www.GoPrivacy.tk