Archive for the 'Nancy Pelosi' Category

Filed under: Fandom, Exhibition

Last night, the San Francisco International Film Festival hosted the world premiere of Fog City Mavericks — an entirely appropriate new documentary about the San Francisco Bay Area’s contributions to film, from Chaplin to Pixar. The film itself is enjoyable enough (although you have to wonder about a documentary about film in San Francisco — or about film at all — that gives more screen time to Chris Columbus than Phillip Kaufman, but that’s a minor quibble), but last night it was all about the Red Carpet — with Bay Area personages like George Lucas, Robin Williams, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, Walter Murch, a trio of Pixar’s directors and many more. Above, Lucas gives an autograph hound a weary look; below, Robin Williams meets the press — and there are many more photos after the jump. …

Continue reading SIFF Red Carpet, Fog City Mavericks — Lucas, Williams, Pelosi, Bird and More!

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• Right wing efforts to destroy Nancy Pelosi are failing miserably.

  [I]deological liberals HAVE thrown their lot with Pelosi as an individual, giving her a 68-19 approve/disapprove rating among the group.

  And moderate voters who tilted away from Bush, the Iraq war and congressional Republicans last fall -- who've yet to fully embrace the new Congress as a whole -- are in some cases are voicing a more than 2-to-1 approval of Madame Speaker.

  Ideological moderates approve of her job performance 55-26, while self-identified independents support her work 45-34 so far.

  In fact, Pelosi is far more popular amongst moderates and independents than the overall Congress -- a lesson to Blue Dogs who think they alone represent "the center". They do not.

• Reps. Boucher (D-VA) and Doolittle (R-Corruptionville) are introducing legislation to reform the DCMA. It's clear copyright owners have been able to trash Fair Use rights, and the balance must be restored.
• Dear Brian Lamb, claiming that C-SPAN holds copyright on footage of congressional committee meetings is undemocratic.
• North Korea has nuclear weapons today because of George Bush. This may not be a foreign policy disaster on the scale of Iraq, but it's a disastrous one nonetheless.

  Because of a weapons program that may not even have existed (and no one ever thought was far advanced) the White House the White House got the North Koreans to restart their plutonium program and then sat by while they produced a half dozen or a dozen real nuclear weapons -- not the Doug Feith/John Bolton kind, but the real thing.

  Idiots.

• Now Michigan is trying to move up its primary schedule. They should just give up and have a national primary. And yeah, that'll cost a lot of money. But if a candidate can't raise money, he or she has no business running for president anyway.
• Funny how the same people who get the vapors over the Clenis, don't seem to have a problem with Giuliani's multiple marriages, marriage to a second-cousin, rampant womanizing, and general mistreatment of his ex-wives.

  When Giuliani met Hanover on a blind date in the early 1980s, his first marriage to Regina, his second cousin, was already over. Hanover, who went on to appear in the television series Ally McBeal, was a glamorous soulmate who seemed to enjoy the spotlight as much as he did.

  They had two children, Andrew, 21, and Caroline, 17, but in 1996 Hanover stopped calling herself by his last name and a year later Vanity Fair magazine said that he was having an "intimate relationship" with a senior member of his staff.

  In 2000, without telling Hanover first, Giuliani announced at a press conference that he was separating from her. She retaliated by accusing him of being unfaithful with the employee, but he was already with Nathan [...]

  Yet however vicious the personal attacks on Giuliani, they are unlikely to dent his reputation for competence. He did, after all, handle the September 11 attacks while bunking with gay friends in the midst of an affair and a divorce battle.

  Digby wonders what happened to the culture war?

  The Christian Right supporting Rudy Giuliani proves that the culture war is nothing but a GOP scam and we can stop obsessively worrying about offending these people with our godless, fancy-pants, big-city ways.

• Did you hear the latest slam against Hillary? She gives money to charity! Only an independent counsel can get to the bottom of this nefarious plot!
• (mcjoan) Arthur Schlesinger, historian, Kennedy White House staffer, and unabashed liberal, has died at age 89.

  In his last book, "War and the American Presidency," published in 2004, Mr. Schlesinger challenged the foundations of the foreign policy of President Bush, calling the invasion of Iraq and its aftermath "a ghastly mess." He said the president’s curbs on civil liberties would have the same result as similar actions throughout American history.

  "We hate ourselves in the morning," he wrote.

Do you approve of the way House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is doing her job?

In a startling move, Dick Cheney has decided that someone should be held accountable for their Iraq position: Nancy Pelosi.

Vice President Cheney today repeated his charge that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's approach toward the Iraq war would benefit al-Qaeda, saying that he was not trying to impugn the speaker's patriotism but instead hold her accountable for the consequences of her policies.

Boy, Pelosi sure must be shamed to have a master of moral authority like Dick Cheney calling her to account.

Cheney, of course, is bewildered by why the Speaker of the House would object to being accused of assisting terrorists:

"I am not sure what part of it that Nancy disagreed with," Cheney told ABC News during an interview today in Sydney, Australia. "She accused me of questioning her patriotism. I didn't question her patriotism, I questioned her judgment."

Cheney said: "The point I made, and I'll make it again, is that al Qaida functions on the basis that they think they can break our will. That's their fundamental underlying strategy, that if they can kill enough Americans or cause enough havoc, create enough chaos in Iraq, then we'll quit and go home."

So if it's a question of judgment, let's assess Cheney's judgment for a minute.

May 2005:

"The level of activity that we see today from a military standpoint, I think, will clearly decline. I think they're in the last throes, if you will, of the insurgency."

Boy, those are some serious throes.

But apparently it's not just a question of judgment, it's a question of will.  Can al Qaeda "break our will"?

If that was what mattered, we'd be in luck, because if there's one thing Cheney and Bush have, it's will.  Arrogant, stubborn will that's been destroying the US and Iraq for the past several years, but nothing will break their will.  Just like nothing will get them to back off of saying that Nancy Pelosi helps al Qaeda:

Far from a repudiation, the message from the White House is that Cheney was not out of line, but evaluating policy on the merits.

"The Vice President out of line? Absolutely not," White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said yesterday aboard Air Force One on the way to North Carolina. "He was questioning the merits." (Washington Post)

Asked if he was willing to take back his criticism of Pelosi, Cheney replied, "I'm not backing down." (Time)

It's not surprising, but that doesn't make it any less disgusting.

While the House debate on the anti-escalation resolution culminates in a vote today, a handful in Congress are working on the follow-up, binding resolutions, that will address our continued occupation of Iraq and seek to end it.

Speaker Pelosi has linked support for Bush's funding request to stricter standards for training, equipping, and rotations, and Biden is looking at repealing the Iraq AUMF:

Congressional Democrats signaled a willingness to directly challenge and curtail Bush's warmaking powers, a move that will almost certainly spark a legal or constitutional confrontation. Rep. John P. Murtha (D-Pa.), a Pelosi ally, is rewriting the president's spending request to limit Bush's options in prosecuting the war, and Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.), chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, said he will seek to repeal the 2002 congressional authorization for Bush to wage war in Iraq and substitute legislation that would narrow the mission of troops there and begin to bring some home.

"If we are going to support our troops, we should respect what is considered reasonable for them: their training, their equipment and their time at home," Pelosi said in an interview with a small group of reporters. "What we're trying to say to the president is, you can't send people in who are not trained for urban warfare . . . who are not prepared to contend with an insurgency."

Those stricter standards are likely to come in the form of that legislation being written by Rep. John Murtha. The Left Coaster has more details:

By mid-March, Murtha will unveil legislation that he says would set such stringent rules on combat deployments that Bush would have no choice but to begin bringing troops home.

His legislation would dictate how long troops can stay, the equipment they use and whether any money could be spent to expand military operations into Iran. Murtha says few units could meet the high standards he envisions, meaning Bush's plan to keep some 160,000 troops in Iraq for months on end would be thwarted.

Under his plan, he says, Democrats would be helping and not hurting troops by making sure they have what they need before being thrown into combat.

"This vote will be the most important vote in changing the direction of the war," Murtha, D-Pa., told an anti-war group in an interview broadcast on the Internet Thursday.

"The president could veto it, but then he wouldn't have any money," he later said.  [emphasis mine]

By setting the rules of the continued occupation, Murtha will set the bar for what "supporting the troops" means. Beyond this, Murtha's bill would close Abu Ghraib, reduce reliance on contractors, and defund permanent bases in Iraq. And it's done in a politically smart way. By setting benchmarks for troop safety, the opposition is going to have a hard time arguing it would be abandoning the troops. And if Bush vetoes, he doesn't get any money.

Pelosi began a blog, The Gavel, which features a great deal of YouTube clips of chamber proceedings.

Crazy Republicans, hating the fact that more people can use these clips to get a look at what's happening in Congress, are crying foul. This press release was blasted to the media a short while ago:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE   CONTACT: Brad Dayspring (202) 225-3484

February 15, 2007                                                                                        

Speaker Pelosi's New Blog Violates C-SPAN Copyright/Trademark of House Proceedings
Will the Speaker bring the gavel down on "the Gavel Blog?"

As you may have heard, Speaker Nancy Pelosi launched a new blog entitled "The Gavel."  Though we applaud the Speaker's effort to adapt to new technology, the blog violated copyright and trademark law on the very first day.

Not once, not twice, but 16 times?

As of noon today, the Speaker had posted at least 16 videos that are copyrighted
C-SPAN material from the House floor. The RSC spoke with C-SPAN today, who confirmed that these videos violate C-SPAN copyright/trademark of the House proceedings.  

Using C-Span for partisan purposes?

In addition to using pirated material, Speaker Pelosi also has used the pirated C-SPAN footage for partisan purposes. The collection of C-SPAN footage used in her "first official blog" is an example and the other pirated C-SPAN trademarked material shows Democrat after Democrat offering their views of the non-binding Democrat resolution on the reinforcement and realignment of American troops in Iraq.  

So, what does Speaker Pelosi believe the role of C-SPAN is?

"One of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's first decisions was to deny a request by C-SPAN to be permitted to cover the House floor proceedings with its own cameras. Last month, Pelosi sent a letter to C-SPAN Chairman and CEO Brian Lamb saying she believed "the dignity and decorum" of the House "are best preserved by maintaining the current system of televised proceedings."

(CQ Weekly, January 15, 2007, Page 169)

Is the dignity and decorum of the House preserved by pirating copyrighted C-SPAN material for political purposes?

If not, will the Speaker bring the gavel down on "the Gavel Blog?"

###

Brad Dayspring
Communications Director
Republican Study Committee
(202) 225-3484
AIM: BDDACE2
www.house.gov/hensarling/rsc

This is idiotic on so many levels, though we shouldn't expect anything less from the morons at the Republican Study Committee (the far right wing of the party). First of all, the clips are clearly Fair Use. Second of all, why is the RSC so afraid of further dissemination of chamber proceedings? They shouldn't just be applauding Pelosi's use of new technologies like YouTube to deliver governmental proceedings to more people, but they should be adopting the tactics themselves (Fox News can't cover all their crazy rants). Third of all, if opposing the surge in Iraq is "partisan", it looks like 60 percent or so of the country is now Democratic. They may want to rethink that framing.

But aside from the wingnut idiocy, it does highlight something that Pelosi can fix -- the ridiculous notion that our government's proceedings can't be spread far and wide without running afoul of copyright laws.

That's got to end, and she can do so.

Either force chamber proceedings taped by C-SPAN to be public domain, or kick them out of the chamber and install government-owned cameras to cover the proceedings. By being public domain, C-SPAN could still air them on their channels without holding an undemocratic stranglehold on the information.

Update: The morons at the RSC have retracted their press release. It was too frackin stupid even for them.

Also, Stoller has more. Turns out that floor proceedings are public domain, but committee hearings are not. Thus, C-SPAN claims ownership of the Alito hearings for the next 100 years. That's unconscionable and must end.