NEWS ABOUT: Nancy Pelosi
Nancy Pelosi stories: 187 news briefs
House votes tomorrow on measure to cut greenhouse gases
The Hill Jun 25, 09 12:35 PM CDT
(Newser Summary) -
Al Gore is engaging in phone diplomacy today as the House prepares to vote on a landmark climate bill tomorrow. Original plans called for the former VP to appear in person, but Nancy Pelosi says lawmakers are close enough to an agreement that it's not necessary. Others offer a less optimistic take, telling the Hill the vote is so close, Pelosi needs Gore to wheedle recalcitrant Democrats one by one rather than wasting time traveling.
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Speaker may need GOP backing
The Hill Jun 24, 09 4:23 AM CDT
(Newser Summary) -
Nancy Pelosi has scheduled a vote this Friday on a controversial climate change bill despite the strong reservations of some Democrats, the Hill reports. Farmbelt lawmakers fear that the sprawling bill's measures to curb emissions will put a disproportionate burden on their states with no reward. The House speaker and other top Democrats have been looking for a compromise deal as well as for votes from centrist Republicans.
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Powerful AMA pushes against Obama,
Dem proposals
New York Times Jun 11, 09 6:54 AM CDT
(Newser Summary) -
Just as Republicans and Democrats head for a showdown on health care reform, the American Medical Association is telling Congress that it will oppose a government-sponsored insurance plan—a key, if the most controversial, piece of plans put forward by Dems with support from the White House. The AMA wants health care "provided by private markets, as they are currently." As the New York Times reports, the opposition of the powerful physicians' organization presents reform advocates with a major hurdle.
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Congresswomen flourish in areas with skewed gender ratios
FiveThirtyEight Jun 8, 09 8:37 AM CDT
(Newser Summary) -
Alaska is reliant on male-dominated industries like mining and fishing, and the state has 106 men for every 100 women—the most gender-skewed state in the country, where the overall ratio is 86:100. Yet Alaska is one of just five states with an elected female governor, and one of Alaska's senators is a woman as well. Statistics bear out this "Palin paradox," writes Nate Silver of FiveThirtyEight.com: women are more likely to be elected in districts where the male-to-female ratio is higher.
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Long critical of Beijing, speaker will focus on environment in visit
Washington Post May 24, 09 1:29 PM CDT
(Newser Summary) -
Like Hillary Clinton before her, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi will sidestep Beijing's human rights record on her weeklong trip to China that began today, reports the Washington Post . Pelosi, who has been a vocal critic of the Tiananmen Square massacre and Chinese policies on Tibet, says the focus of her trip will be climate change.
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The Hill May 22, 09 11:06 AM CDT
(Newser Summary) -
Don't look for Nancy Pelosi to shed any more light on what she may or may not have known about the CIA’s interrogations. At a press conference today—her first since she accusedthe agency of misleading her and Congress—the House speaker clammed up, reports the Hill . “I have made the statement I am going to make,” she said. “I stand by my comments.”
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Cites agency's 'very
bad record' on honesty, chides GOP for 'games'
Politico May 20, 09 3:23 PM CDT
(Newser Summary) -
Arlen Specter defended Nancy Pelosi today against the CIA and former GOP colleagues he says are making a “political game” out of the interrogation debacle. “The CIA has a very bad record when it comes to honesty,” the Senate’s newest Democrat said. Specter charged that the agency repeatedly failed to inform him when he was chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Politico reports.
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ANALYSIS
Time May 20, 09 1:47 PM CDT
(Newser Summary) -
The CIA debacle engulfing Nancy Pelosi stems from two key mistakes on the part of the House speaker, Jay Newton-Small writes in Time . Pelosi’s dangerous belief that media training is “a waste of her time” was demonstrated when she walked away from her own press conference on the subject of interrogation briefings. Her other mistake—or character flaw—is reacting rashly in unanticipated situations.
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Points way to door over CIA comments
Gawker May 20, 09 8:24 AM CDT
(Newser Summary) -
Newt Gingrich “essentially” called for Nancy Pelosi’s resignation as House speaker last night in a chat with Jon Stewart, Gawker reports. "She either should prove her allegation” that the CIA regularly misleads Congress, or “I think she's done a huge disservice,” the former speaker said on The Daily Show. “To have a person who would lie about everybody in the intelligence community” as speaker is “utterly irrational,” Gingrich said.
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Speaker 'not in any trouble' as loyal caucus backs her in CIA ruckus
Washington Post May 20, 09 5:41 AM CDT
(Newser Summary) -
Republicans have all but slapped a bulls-eye on Nancy Pelosi over what she knew about CIA interrogation practices, but as the Washington Post reports, House Democrats have rallied behind the speaker. In a sign of the considerable unity of the party caucus, several leading Democrats said yesterday that they believe the CIA misled Pelosi, while others questioned the agency's recordkeeping. Steny Hoyer, once a rival of Pelosi's, said that the current uproar was "a political tactic" by the GOP to distract from the issue of torture.
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OPINION
Kristol: Why else would CIA boss 'humiliate' his party's speaker?
Washington Post May 18, 09 12:13 PM CDT
(Newser Summary) -
After Nancy Pelosi suggested the CIA had misled Congress, the agency’s director fired back with a letter denying the claim. But the idea that Leon Panetta would send a letter “humiliating a House speaker of his own party” entirely of his own accord seems “almost inconceivable,” writes William Kristol in the Washington Post . Perhaps he “ran it by” Rahm Emanuel—begging the question: “Does Emanuel (and, presumably, President Obama) want a chastened Pelosi to remain speaker?”
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TALK SHOW ROUNDUP
ACLU slams Obama; Liz Cheney: 'fantasies' spread about dad
Politico May 17, 09 11:13 AM CDT
(Newser Summary) -
Michael Steele has “a personal opinion” on whether the CIA’s interrogation techniques amounted to torture, but he refused to share it with David Gregory on Meet the Press today. “That’s not appropriate,” the RNC chairman said. But Steele did defend Dick Cheney and said Nancy Pelosi “stepped in it big time” by accusing the CIA of misleading her.
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Speakers shifts focus
to Bush administration
after Panetta rebuff
Politico May 16, 09 2:16 AM CDT
(Newser Summary) -
Nancy Pelosi retreated yesterday from her claim the CIA lied to Congress about its interrogation program and shifted the blame to the Bush administration, Politico reports. The speaker said her criticism is "separate from my respect for those in the intelligence community who work to keep our country safe.” Pelosi was rebuffed by CIA head Leon Panetta shortly before issuing her statement.
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The Hill May 15, 09 2:09 PM CDT
(Newser Summary) -
CIA director Leon Panetta today denied Nancy Pelosi’s claim that the agency misled lawmakers in a 2002 briefing, the Hill reports. In a memo to employees, Panetta said “CIA officers briefed truthfully on the interrogation of Abu Zubaydah, describing ‘the enhanced techniques that had been employed.’” Moreover, “we are an agency of high integrity,” he said. “Our task is to tell it like it is.”
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OPINION
Krauthammer doing 'moral calculus'
Washington Post May 15, 09 12:45 PM CDT
(Newser Summary) -
Nancy Pelosi’s “contemptible hypocrisy” on the torture issue tells us a great deal about the “moral calculus” behind the issue, writes Charles Krauthammer in the Washington Post . “Our jurisprudence has the ‘reasonable man’ standard,” he argues, which asks a jury to decide what a reasonable person would do in urgent circumstances. Post 9/11, Pelosi, and many Americans, decided torture was a reasonable response to the terrorist threat.
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analysis
Speaker puts herself at center of storm over Bush policies
Washington Post May 15, 09 5:59 AM CDT
(Newser Summary) -
Whether by accident or design, Nancy Pelosi has turned the debate on the Bush administration's anti-terror program into a high-stakes game of brinksmanship, Dan Balz writes in the Washington Post . Pelosi's declaration yesterday that the CIA lied to Congress amounts to "a declaration of war," Balz writes, setting the stage for a long battle certain to claim political casualties.
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Ex-senator's stance
may help Pelosi
Huffington Post May 14, 09 6:58 PM CDT
(Newser Summary) -
This could help Nancy Pelosi's case: Bob Graham, former head of the Senate Intelligence Committee, tells the Huffington Post and Plum Line that the CIA never told him about waterboarding or other harsh interrogation techniques in a 2002 briefing. Graham, a Democrat, also criticized the agency's records as "suspect." He recently asked the CIA how many times he'd been briefed on interrogations and was told four. When that didn't jibe with his personal records, the CIA agreed and said he was briefed just once.
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ANALYSIS
Washington Post May 14, 09 2:44 PM CDT
(Newser Summary) -
Nancy Pelosi’s accusation that the CIA lied to Congress about waterboarding will likely have broad political consequences, Chris Cillizza writes in the Washington Post . In the short term, Pelosi has stolen President Obama’s thunder on credit-card reform and could force the early announcement of a Supreme Court nominee as a distraction. It could also ignite a debate on Bush-era torture that Obama had sought to avoid.
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Associated Press May 14, 09 10:55 AM CDT
(AP Summary) -
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said today she was not complicit in the government’s decision to waterboard terrorist suspects, and she claimed the CIA misled her about whether the interrogation technique considered torture by many was being used. “To the contrary … we were told explicitly that waterboarding was not being used,” the California Democrat said of a formal CIA briefing she received in fall 2002.
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OPINION
'Someone appears not to be telling the truth' about waterboarding
Wall Street Journal May 14, 09 6:50 AM CDT
(Newser Summary) -
Karl Rove indulges in a bit of revenge on Nancy Pelosi in his Wall Street Journal column today, writing that "the political persecution of Bush administration officials she has been pushing may now ensnare her." As evidence mounts that the CIA told her as early as 2002 about waterboarding—which "Democrats are calling" torture—Rove wonders whether Pelosi should be considered "an accessory to a crime."
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