1.)Pelosi Called Opponents Of Government-Run Health Care Experiment "Un-American." (Speaker Nancy Pelosi & Rep. Steny Hoyer, "'Un-American' Attacks Can't Derail Health Care Debate," USA Today, 8/10/09)
2.) Last Night, Pelosi Once Again Ignored The Will Of The American People And Voted Again To Pass Their Government-Run Health Care Experiment. (H.R. 3590, Roll Call Vote #165, Approved 219-212; D 219-34; R 0-178, 3/21/10)
3.) Yesterday's Vote Came Just Four Months After Pelosi Rammed Through $1.2 Trillion Health Care Bill On A Saturday Night. (H.R. 3962, Roll Call Vote #887; Approved 220-215; D 219-39; R 1-176, 11/7/09)
4.) Leading Up To The Vote, Pelosi Made Clear Once Dems "Kick Open That Door ... There Will Be Other Legislation To Follow ... We'll Take The Country In A New Direction." (Greg Sargent, "Pelosi: Passing Health Reform Will Set Stage For Great Debate With GOP," The Plum Line, 3/15/10)
5.) Pelosi Claims To Be Unaware Of The Behavior Of Disgraced Former Rep. Eric Massa, And Continued To Defend Rep. Charlie Rangel Despite Ethics Committee Admonishment. (James Hohmann, "Nancy Pelosi Defends Charlie Rangel, Again," Politico, 2/26/10; MSNBC's "The Rachel Maddow Show," 3/11/10)
6.) In June, Pelosi "Laid Down The Gauntlet" To Rush Through Cap And Trade National Energy Tax. (Steven T. Dennis and Tory Newmyer, "Pelosi Flexes Muscle," Roll Call, 6/24/09; H.R. 2454, Roll Call Vote #477; Approved 219-212; D 211-44; R 8-168, 6/26/09)
7.) In February Of Last Year, Pelosi Passed President Obama's $862 Billion Stimulus, Promising To Create Jobs; Yet Since Then, America Has Lost 3.3 Million Jobs. (H.R. 1, Roll Call Vote #70: Passed 246-183; R 0-176; D 246-7, 2/13/09; U.S. Bureau Of Labor Statistics, www.bls.gov, Accessed 3/5/10)
8.) Pelosi Has Failed To Run House In Spirit Of Bi-Partisanship, With Democratic Members Being "Explicitly Told Not To Work With Republicans." (Rep. Jim Cooper, "Reconciliation Rules - Not Bipartisanship - Will Kill Health Care Reform," The Huffington Post, 6/18/09)
9.) Despite Pelosi Promising "The Most Open And Honest Government In History," Even Dem Member Admits "Caucus Is A Real Disappointment" Because They "Aren't Transparent." (Rep. Nancy Pelosi, "Pelosi: 'We Will Create the Most Open and Honest Government in History'" Press Re lease, 1/18/06; Glenn Thrush, "Sestak Blasts Pelosi, Obama On Transparency," Politico, 1/7/10)
10.) Pelosi Accused The CIA Of Lying To Her And To Congress On Use Of Interrogation Techniques. (David Espo, "Pelosi on CIA: 'They Mislead Us All the Time,'" The Associated Press, 5/14/09)
This weekend, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi ensured that the 111th Congress will live in infamy. Instead of listening to the people she used every procedural trick at her disposal to pass her health care legislation. She must be stopped.
Over the last year, the American people have witnessed a Speaker who will stop at nothing to achieve her vision of a Leftist government. She believes that she is no longer accountable to congressional rules, and national laws. Those are just guidelines that can be tossed away on a whim if determined they will prevent her from accomplishing her goals.
On Sunday, she cast them aside with reckless abandon and forced through her government takeover of health care.
Nancy Pelosi has no regard for public opinion. Even in a hostile electoral environment, she asked members of her caucus to fall on their swords so that she might add another achievement to her increasingly shameful legacy. Her actions are deceptive, dishonest, and simply unconstitutional, but she shows no remorse. To her, the ends justify the means.
Let there be no doubt: Nancy Pelosi’s sole priority in this entire health care drama has been authorizing a government seizure of the American health care industry and nationalizing a full one-sixth of our economy. She ignored the cold hard facts of the federal budget. Plainly put, you cannot add $1 trillion dollars to the budget and then claim that it’s revenue neutral, cut $500 billion from Medicare, and won’t affect recipients.
The math simply doesn’t work. But Nancy Pelosi doesn’t seem to have any problem with fudging the numbers when it’s to her advantage.
Worse yet, Speaker Pelosi has claimed that she would preside over the most ethical and transparent Congress in history. She has repeatedly denied Americans their Constitutional right to know what Washington is doing in their name, because she knows that if they find out, they will hold her caucus accountable.
For the sweetheart deals and arm-twisting tactics; for this unconscionable dereliction of her duty; for this gleeful defiance of the Constitution; and for the utter contempt with which she has repeatedly treated the American people, Speaker Pelosi MUST be fired.
The time has come for Americans to speak out. If you believe that American government should be open, honest, and transparent; if you believe that individual Americans, not the federal government, are best equipped to make their own medical decisions; if you believe that the Constitution of the United States – not this radical leftist agenda – is still the ultimate authority in our land, I am asking for your help to fire Nancy Pelosi.
I am asking you to pledge your support to punish her and every Democrat who joined her in this abomination and help Republicans regain the majority in the House.
The voice of the people was ignored on health care, but with your help we will make sure they hear it loud and clear when we remove Speaker Pelosi from her throne this November.
Fresh off a night of unsuccessful wrangling over health care legislation, Republicans have set out to take down Nancy Pelosi.
That’s hardly a secret or a news development, except that the Republican National Committee has begun a fund-raising drive to do it.
Visitors to the committee’s Web site on Monday morning were automatically redirected to firenancypelosi.com. The site, which features the House speaker in front of roiling flames with her fists raised, presses donors to help Republicans capture 40 seats in the House of Representatives, enough to thrust Democrats out of the majority. “40 Seats Means No More Madam Speaker,” a headline read.
The R.N.C.’s goal is to raise $402,010 (read, 40 seats in 2010) in 40 hours. And it appeared to be well on the way: By 10:40 a.m. Eastern time, the site said it had raised $279,429.
“Fire Nancy Pelosi” was one of the most common Google search phrase early Monday morning, and the committee urged its Twitter supporters to use the hashtag #FirePelosi.
Emanuel bearish on public option's chances in the Senate The Senate has been fairly clear that they cannot pass a healthcare bill including a public option, White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel asserted Wednesday evening.
Emanuel professed pessimism that healthcare reform would include a strict public (or "government-run") option, though he signaled an expectation that House liberals may still push for the prized reform.
"I think Senate's been clear about the prospect there is," Emanuel told PBS's Charlie Rose when asked if healthcare can pass with the public option. "That doesn't mean in the House they're not going to come to the table and demand it."
The chief of staff argued that the public option would be hammered out in conference between the House and Senate bills. He said that the bill would be likely be passed by the Thanksgiving holiday break in Congress, though.
"Health care will be passed before the members go home for Thanksgiving," he said, rejecting a question about whether the bill would largely resemble the proposal to emerge from the Senate Finance Committee.
"It will not just be on the Senate Finance Committee because the legislative process a place where both bodies get to contribute," he said.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said any bill that passes the House of Representatives will absolutely have Public Option.
Speaking at her weekly press conference, Pelolsi said there were no doubt that House Democrats will include a government-administered health insurance plan.
In response to a question about whether healthcare reform would "definitely" include a public option, Pelosi responded: "The bill that passes the House? Yes."
Pelosi added that neither a co-op nor a so-called "trigger" for the public option would be satifsactory.
"A trigger is an excuse for not doing anything," the Speaker said.
The leader of the House of Representatives, Speaker Nancy Pelosi, said Thursday she sees little support for sending more U.S. troops to Afghanistan, forecasting a potential showdown with the Obama administration over how to win the war.
Pelosi's comments put President Barack Obama in an uneasy position as he considers whether to side with his top commander in Afghanistan, who is expected in coming weeks to ask for more troops and other resources.
She is the highest-ranking Democrat to signal that any White House or Pentagon push for more troops will be resisted in Congress.
"I don't think there's a great deal of support for sending more troops to Afghanistan in the country or in the Congress," Pelosi, a Democrat, told reporters.
Rep. John P. Murtha, chairman of a House Appropriations panel that would approve paying for any buildup, described himself as "very nervous" about sending more troops to Afghanistan. Murtha, a Democrat and a Marine veteran, said Thursday he might support it if the Obama administration withdraws a significant number of soldiers from Iraq in the very near future.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, meanwhile, said he is urging Democrats to withhold judgment until Obama decides what to do.
"Let's just take it easy," Reid, a Democrat, told reporters. "I don't think we need 100 secretaries of state. I think we should wait and give the president an opportunity to see what he recommends, and then we can dissect that any way we want."
McChrystal’s request
Pelosi said she has not yet seen an on-the-ground assessment of the military situation in Afghanistan that was delivered last week to the White House. The assessment, by Army Gen. Stanley McChrystal, commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, does not specifically ask for more troops. But a follow-up report expected in coming weeks is widely expected to.
A briefing on the classified report's conclusions was tentatively planned for this week, according to Capitol Hill aides. Pelosi, however, said she had not yet been briefed and believed she would not be until next week.
Earlier this year, Obama ordered 21,000 more troops to Afghanistan, which would bring the total number of U.S. forces there to 68,000 by the end of 2009.
In interviews this week, lawmakers said they wanted to see strong evidence that ordering thousands more troops to the war-torn nation would dislodge insurgents from safe havens in Afghanistan and neighboring Pakistan.
Opposition so far appears stronger among House Democratic leaders than their Senate counterparts.
"I'm very hesitant to endorse additional troops," Murtha said. "We don't have the financial resources to sustain one long deployment, let alone two. ... There's so much consternation in Congress about additional troops, especially without (seeing) a plan. It's going to come to a head here."
There are about 130,000 U.S. troops still in Iraq.
The issue of adding more troops in Afghanistan has divided both parties. Though some Republicans also are wary of a buildup, the party leader on the House Armed Services committee warned that without more troops, the U.S. mission easily could be lost.
A major error
"Narrowing the effort in Afghanistan or withholding vital resources from our troops and diplomats would be a major error, guarantee continued stalemate, and could eventually lead to defeat," said Rep. Howard "Buck" McKeon, a Republicanf.
White House officials are working to enlist congressional support for the fighting in Afghanistan, which in August saw its bloodiest month for U.S. troops since invading in October 2001. Fifty-one U.S. troops died in Afghanistan last month.
Obama administration officials have asked lawmakers and staff to help draw up a list of about 50 benchmarks that the government wants to use in determining whether U.S. strategy in the region is working. That list is due Sept. 24.
Pelosi said she was "more interested" in that assessment than the McChrystal report that went to the White House last week. "September 24th is fraught with meaning for us," she said.
As Obama considers the McChrystal report, Defense Secretary Robert Gates planned to give him two more takes on its conclusions, from Joint Chiefs Chairman Adm. Mike Mullen and U.S. Central Command Gen. David Petraeus. Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morrell said those assessments would be delivered later this week.
Government officials have said a final decision on whether to send more troops to Afghanistan likely would not come for several more weeks.
(Both Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi & Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid comment on Pres. Obama's upcoming Health Care Reform "Game Changer" speech.)
(The Huffington Post’s Lawrence O’Donnell talks about whether President Barack Obama’s speech to a joint session of Congress Wednesday night will reunite his party on health care reform and include a Public Option.)
Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi finally has a trump card.
Tired of watching helplessly as House bills are carved up to win support from conservative Democrats and moderate Republicans in the Senate, the speaker has a message for President Barack Obama and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid: Take the public option out of health care reform, and you may not have a bill at all.
“Every time we have had a negotiation, Reid and [White House chief of staff] Rahm [Emanuel] say you have to accept this or that because we need the 60 votes [for cloture],” says a senior Democratic aide in the House. “That’s true this time. The difference now is that Pelosi can turn right back at them and say, ‘I can’t pass this in the House without the progressives.’ And that will be true, too.”
Pelosi’s leverage in her perpetual push-pull with Reid has been boosted by a rebellion among Pro-Public-Option progressives, African-American and Hispanic House members, who say they are tired of being shortchanged by the White House and will vote no rather than OK a bill without the public option.
Democratic insiders say Pelosi is intent on harnessing that liberal power play as the only way to keep the public option alive, even if it’s in a watered-down form.
Last week, in the hours after Obama announced his Wednesday health care speech, Pelosi, the Congressional Progressive Caucus and the Congressional Black Caucus issued a volley of statements and letters warning the president from throwing the option overboard in the name of deal-cutting.
Dozens of members from those groups have signaled their intention to vote against any bill without a public option — and the bill could, indeed, go down if a sizable proportion of them join the GOP and conservative Democrats in opposing the package.
“They’re for real this time,” said a Democratic senator, speaking on condition of anonymity.
House liberals, including Pelosi lieutenant Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.), are still smarting from February’s stimulus negotiations, when Reid stripped out hundreds of millions in House projects, including school construction funding, to secure the support of moderates such as Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine).
Progressive lawmakers are intent on avoiding a repeat, arguing that they — like conservative Democrats — got an earful from angry constituents during the August break.
The difference is that their enraged audiences came at them from the left, pushing for universal coverage, a crackdown on insurers and a public plan to keep private insurance companies honest.
“Frustration is frustration, and we’re the ones there,” Rep. Raul Grijalva (D-Ariz.), co-chairman of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, said of the little-covered liberal ruckus.
Pelosi met with Reid and Obama at the White House on Tuesday, and she emerged in a defiant mood, vowing to keep the public plan alive, even as the Senate Finance Committee released a draft bill with no such provision — and her No. 2, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.), suggested the option could be ditched.
“I believe the public option is essential to our passing this legislation out of the House,” Pelosi told reporters after meeting with Reid and Obama.
Later in the day, Pelosi cut Hoyer off as he hedged about the need for a public option. “In order to pass a bill in the House, it must have a public option,” she said.
Pelosi also warned insurance companies to accept a public option without a trigger, arguing that a public plan triggered by high premiums or other insurer bad behavior would be much harsher than one negotiated now.
“They’d be better getting a Public Option now. ... They’ll have a tougher public option to deal with later,” she said.
Sources: Politico, Whitehouse.gov, MSNBC, Countdown with Keith Olbermann
As the White House signals that it is willing to move forward on a health reform plan without a public option, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Ca.) sent a strong message Thursday evening: not so fast.
In her strongest statement yet, Pelosi said that any bill "without a strong public option will not pass the House":
“Any real change requires the inclusion of a strong public option to promote competition and bring down costs,” Pelosi said. “If a vigorous public option is not included, it would be a major victory for the health insurance industry.”
Pelosi’s remarks come less than one week before President Barack Obama delivers an address to a joint session of Congress as part of a re-launched campaign effort to sell his health care reform bill to both lawmakers and the public. White House aides have said the president will use the speech to offer more detail than he has so far about what sort of bill he'd like to reach his desk.
“President Obama has said that a public option will keep the insurance companies honest. If someone has a better idea for promoting competition and reducing health care costs, they should put it on the table,” Pelosi said. “But for the past month, opponents of health insurance reform have demonstrated that they are afraid of the facts. They have only offered distortions, distractions and misrepresentations to try to kill this historic legislation.”
“A bill without a strong public option will not pass the House,” Pelosi said. “Eliminating the public option would be a major victory for the insurance companies who have rationed care, increased premiums and denied coverage.”
U.S. Senate Democrats said Sunday that they were fleshing out plans to pass health legislation, particularly the option of a new government-run insurance program, with a simple majority, instead of the 60 votes that would ordinarily be needed to overcome a filibuster.
After consulting experts in Senate rules and procedure, the Democrats said they were increasingly confident that they could legislate creation of a public plan in a way that would withstand challenges expected from Republicans.
Appearing Sunday on the NBC News program “Meet the Press,” Senator Charles E. Schumer of New York, the third-ranking Democrat in the Senate, said a public insurance plan was “essential to getting the costs down, which is our No. 1 problem.”
Proponents of a public plan say it would drive down costs because it would not have a profit motive and would have lower overhead costs and lower executive salaries than private insurance companies.
In Colorado on Aug. 15, President Obama said people had become “fixated” on the public plan option, which he described as “just one sliver” of efforts to overhaul the health care system.
Mr. Schumer said it was “looking less and less likely” that Republicans would support Democratic proposals to subsidize coverage for tens of millions of the uninsured. And Senate Democratic leaders said they had little hope that the chairman of the Finance Committee, Senator Max Baucus, Democrat of Montana, would be able to forge a bipartisan compromise.
In the last week, Democrats have begun to talk openly of using a procedure known as budget reconciliation to pass a health bill in the Senate with a simple majority, assuming no Republican support. To do that, under Senate rules, they would probably need to show that the public plan changed federal spending or revenues and that the effects were not “merely incidental” to the changes in health policy.
Democrats believe they could clear this hurdle by demonstrating that the public plan would save money or cost money.
“If a public plan is shown to have a cost to the government that affects outlays or revenues, it could be included in a health care bill using reconciliation procedures,” said Martin P. Paone, a former Senate aide who has been consulted by Senate Democrats.
Republicans object to both the idea of a new government plan and the use of expedited procedures to push it through the Senate on a simple majority vote.
Senator Orrin G. Hatch, Republican of Utah, said that using the budget reconciliation procedure to pass a health bill would be “an abuse of the process,” which was meant to focus on spending and tax policy. Moreover, Mr. Hatch said, “every Republican says that they will not be for a public option.”
Mr. Hatch said a new public insurance program could “bankrupt the country.” He said it made no sense to “throw out a system that works for 85 percent” of the population so Congress could take care of the 15 percent who were uninsured.
Senator Joseph I. Lieberman, independent of Connecticut, said Mr. Obama should take a more gradual approach. “We morally, every one of us, would like to cover every American with health insurance,” Mr. Lieberman said on “State of the Union” on CNN. But, he noted, “that’s where you spend most of the $1 trillion” in expected costs over 10 years.
“We’ve got to think about putting a lot of that off until the economy’s out of recession,” he added. “There’s no reason we have to do it all now, but we do have to get started. And I think the place to start is cost, health delivery reform and insurance market reforms.”
The administration continued on Sunday to wrestle with questions about planning for medical care at the end of life.
Senator Arlen Specter, Democrat of Pennsylvania, called for hearings to investigate a guide used by the government to counsel veterans with critical or terminal illnesses.
On “Fox News Sunday,” H. James Towey, the director of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives under President George W. Bush, said the guide seemed to encourage people to “hurry up and die.”
The booklet, “Your Life, Your Choices,” asks people to consider whether life would be worth living if, for example, they were in severe pain, relied on a feeding tube or a breathing machine, lived in a nursing home or imposed “a severe financial burden” on family members.
In addition, the booklet asks, “Have you ever heard anyone say, ‘If I’m a vegetable, pull the plug’?” It then explains that people have different ideas of what it means to be a vegetable or to “pull the plug.”
In a bulletin last month, the Department of Veterans Affairs recommended the booklet as a tool to help veterans with “advance care planning.”
Tammy Duckworth, an assistant secretary of veterans affairs, said it was being revised.
But Mr. Towey said, “The document is so fundamentally flawed that the V.A. ought to throw it out.”
(House Speaker Nancy Pelosi claims the CIA misled her and other lawmakers about its use of waterboarding during the Bush administration. NBC’s Kelly O’Donnell reports.)
(Newsweek's Michael Isikoff reports to msnbc's Rachel Maddow on the long-suppressed report by the CIA's inspector general on torture tactics used on terror suspects.)
(Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff discusses the potential for another attack on U.S. soil with NBC’s David Gregory on “Meet the Press.”)
President Obama has approved the creation of an elite team of interrogators to question key terrorism suspects, part of a broader effort to revamp U.S. policy on detention and interrogation, senior administration officials said Sunday.
Obama signed off late last week on the unit, named the High-Value Detainee Interrogation Group, or HIG. Made up of experts from several intelligence and law enforcement agencies, the interrogation unit will be housed at the FBI but will be overseen by the National Security Council -- shifting the center of gravity away from the CIA and giving the White House direct oversight.
Seeking to signal a clean break from the Bush administration, Obama moved to overhaul interrogation and detention guidelines soon after taking office, including the creation of a task force on interrogation and transfer policies. The task force, whose findings will be made public Monday, recommended the new interrogation unit, along with other changes regarding the way prisoners are transferred overseas.
A separate task force on detainees, which will determine the fate of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and future regulations about the duration and location of detentions of suspected terrorists, has not concluded its work.
Under the new guidelines, interrogators must stay within the parameters of the Army Field Manual when questioning suspects. The task force concluded -- unanimously, officials said -- that "the Army Field Manual provides appropriate guidance on interrogation for military interrogators and that no additional or different guidance was necessary for other agencies," according to a three-page summary of the findings. The officials spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence matters freely.
Gray Zone
Using the Army Field Manual means certain techniques in the gray zone between torture and legal questioning -- such as playing loud music or depriving prisoners of sleep -- will not be allowed. Which tactics are acceptable was an issue "looked at thoroughly," one senior official said. Obama had already banned certain severe measures that the Bush administration had permitted, such as waterboarding.
Still, the Obama task force advised that the group develop a "scientific research program for interrogation" to develop new techniques and study existing ones to see whether they work. In essence, the unit would determine a set of best practices on interrogation and share them with other agencies that question prisoners.
The administration is releasing the new guidelines on the day when what it sees as the worst practices of the Bush administration are being given another public airing. New details of prisoner treatment are expected to be included in a long-awaited CIA inspector general's report being unveiled Monday about the spy agency's interrogation program. The report could set off a fresh debate between members of the current administration and the previous one over whether such tactics are necessary to prod detainees into cooperation and, ultimately, keep the country safe.
Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. is also considering whether to appoint a criminal prosecutor to investigate past interrogation abuses. Obama and White House officials have stated their desire to look ahead on national security; White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said last week that the administration is eager to keep "going forward" and that "a hefty litigation looking backward is not what we believe is in the country's best interest."
But a steady drip of stories about past practices has focused attention on the Bush administration. According to recent reports, the CIA hired the private contracting firm Blackwater USA as part of a program to kill top al-Qaeda operatives.
In addition to the new interrogation unit, the Obama task force recommended that the State Department play a more active role in transferring detainees between countries. When the United States is moving a prisoner to another country, it "may rely on assurances" from the foreign government that the detainee will not be tortured. But the State Department will now be involved in evaluating whether such assurances are sincere, the officials said, and the United States will also seek new ways of monitoring treatment of prisoners in foreign custody. Other recommendations involve prisoner transfers that are classified, the summary said.
Members of the new interrogation unit will have the authority to travel around the world to talk to suspects and will be trained to handle certain high-interest people, such as al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden. Linguists and cultural and interrogation specialists will be assigned to the group and will have "some division of responsibility" regarding types of detainees, a senior administration official said. Most of the group's members will work there full time, although they will have part-time support from the FBI.
Gleaning Intelligence
Interrogators will not necessarily read detainees their rights before questioning, instead making that decision on a case-by-case basis, officials said. That could affect whether some material can be used in a U.S. court of law. The main purpose of the new unit, however, is to glean intelligence, especially about potential terrorist attacks, the officials said.
"It is not going to, certainly, be automatic in any regard that they are going to be Mirandized," one official said, referring to the practice of reading defendants their rights. "Nor will it be automatic that they are not Mirandized."
The director of the HIG is expected to come from the FBI, and the deputy will be selected from one of the intelligence agencies, such as the CIA. Although past CIA techniques have come under fire in the debate over torture, the agency will continue to play "a very important role," one official said.
The CIA had recommended to the presidential task force that the agency, the FBI and the Defense Department establish a joint interrogation training center so that all agencies understand the rules under which they operate.
The U.S. Justice Department’s ethics office has recommended reversing the Bush administration and reopening nearly a dozen prisoner-abuse cases, potentially exposing Central Intelligence Agency employees and contractors to prosecution for brutal treatment of terrorism suspects, according to a person officially briefed on the matter.
The recommendation by the Office of Professional Responsibility, presented to Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. in recent weeks, comes as the Justice Department is about to disclose on Monday voluminous details on prisoner abuse that were gathered in 2004 by the C.I.A.’s inspector general but have never been released.
When the C.I.A. first referred its inspector general’s findings to prosecutors, they decided that none of the cases merited prosecution. But Mr. Holder’s associates say that when he took office and saw the allegations, which included the deaths of people in custody and other cases of physical or mental torment, he began to reconsider.
With the release of the details on Monday and the formal advice that at least some cases be reopened, it now seems all but certain that the appointment of a prosecutor or other concrete steps will follow, posing significant new problems for the C.I.A. It is politically awkward, too, for Mr. Holder because President Obama has said that he would rather move forward than get bogged down in the issue at the expense of his own agenda.
The advice from the Office of Professional Responsibility strengthens Mr. Holder’s hand.
The recommendation to review the closed cases, in effect renewing the inquiries, centers mainly on allegations of detainee abuse in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Justice Department report is to be made public after classified information is deleted from it.
The cases represent about half of those that were initially investigated and referred to the Justice Department by the C.I.A.’s inspector general, but were later closed. It is not known which cases might be reopened.
Mr. Holder was said to have reacted with disgust earlier this year when he first read accounts of abusive treatment of detainees in a classified version of the inspector general’s report and other materials.
In examples that have just come to light, the C.I.A. report describes how C.I.A. officers carried out mock executions and threatened at least one prisoner with a gun and a power drill. It is a violation of the federal torture statute to threaten a prisoner with imminent death.
Mr. Holder, who questioned the thoroughness of previous inquiries by the Justice Department, is expected to announce within days his decision on whether to appoint a prosecutor to conduct a new investigation; in legal circles, it is believed to be highly likely that he will go forward with a fresh criminal inquiry.
Paul Gimigliano, a C.I.A. spokesman, said Sunday that the Justice Department recommendation to reopen the cases had not been sent to the intelligence agency. He added: “Decisions on whether or not to pursue action in court were made after careful consideration by career prosecutors at the Justice Department. The C.I.A. itself brought these matters — facts and allegations alike — to the department’s attention.”
The report by the Justice Department’s ethics office has been under preparation for more than five years, and its critique of legal work on interrogations provoked bitter complaints from Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey as he was leaving office as the Bush administration’s final attorney general.
The Justice Department’s report, the most important since Mr. Holder took office, was submitted by Mary Patrice Brown, a veteran Washington federal prosecutor picked by Mr. Holder to lead the Office of Professional Responsibility earlier this year after its longtime chief, H. Marshall Jarrett, moved to another job in the Justice Department.
There has never been any public explanation of why the Justice Department decided not to bring charges in nearly two dozen abuse cases known to be referred to a team of federal prosecutors in Alexandria, Va., and in some instances not even the details of the cases have been made public.
Former government lawyers said that while some detainees died and others suffered serious abuses, prosecutors decided they would be unlikely to prevail because of problems with mishandled evidence and, in some cases, the inability to locate witnesses or even those said to be the victims.
A few of the cases are well known, like that of Manadel al-Jamadi, who died in 2003 in C.I.A. custody at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq after he was first captured by a team of Navy Seals. Prosecutors said he probably received his fatal injuries during his capture, but lawyers for the Seals denied it.
Over the years, some Democratic lawmakers sought more details about the cases and why the Justice Department took no action. They received summaries of the number of cases under scrutiny but few facts about the episodes or the department’s decisions not to prosecute.
The cases do not center on allegations of abuse by C.I.A. officers who conducted the forceful interrogations of high-level Qaeda suspects at secret sites, although it is not out of the question that a new investigation would also examine their conduct.
That could mean a look at the case in which C.I.A. officers threatened one prisoner with a handgun and a power drill if he did not cooperate. The detainee, Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, was suspected as the master plotter behind the 2000 bombing of the Navy destroyer Cole.
All civilian employees of the government, including those at the C.I.A., were required to comply with guidelines for interrogations detailed in a series of legal opinions written by the Justice Department. Those opinions, since abandoned by the Obama administration, were the central focus of the Justice Department’s internal inquiry.
It has been known that the Justice Department ethics report had criticized the authors of the legal opinions and, in some cases, would recommend referrals to local bar associations for discipline.
But the internal inquiry also examined how the opinions were carried out and how referrals of possible violations were made — a process that led ethics investigators to find misconduct serious enough to warrant renewed criminal investigation.
(President Obama calmly confronts Health Care Reform lies & rumors at a recent DNC event.)
(The White House is reportedly taking a closer look at moving ahead with health care legislation without GOP support. Rep. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., discusses.)
(Huffington Post editor Roy Sekoff appeared on "The Ed Show" on Thursday afternoon to discuss President Obama's health care guarantee. Sekoff questioned Obama's lack of "steely resolve" and wondered, "Where was the fire?" Watch.)
(Talk radio host Michael Smerconish talks with TODAY’s Ann Curry about his interview with the president yesterday and what he thinks of the proposed health care bills.)
With control of the health care debate slipping from his grasp, President Barack Obama pitched his ambitious plan to both conservative talk radio and his own liberal supporters Thursday — and denied a challenge from one backer that he was "bucklin' a little bit" under Republican criticism.
Liberals were on the verge of revolt as Obama refused to say any final deal must include a government-run insurance option, while Republicans pressed their all-but-unified opposition to the White House effort. Obama, who will leave Washington Friday on vacation, said reason would prevail and it was no time to panic.
"I guarantee you ... we are going to get Health Care Reform done. And I know that there are a lot of people out there who have been hand-wringing, and folks in the press are following every little twist and turn of the legislative process," Obama told a caller to Philadelphia-based radio talk show host Michael Smerconish during a broadcast from the White House Diplomatic Reception Room.
"You know, passing a big bill like this is always messy."
Obama is struggling to regain the momentum on a comprehensive bill that would extend health coverage to nearly 50 million Americans who lack it and restrain skyrocketing costs. Opponents of the overhaul have drowned out supporters at lawmakers' town halls around the country this month, and public backing for Obama's effort has slipped in opinion polls. Congressional Democratic leaders are preparing to go it alone on legislation, although in the Senate bipartisan negotiations continue among a group of three Democrats and three Republicans on the pivotal Finance Committee.
Gang of Six Call
The so-called Gang of Six convened a conference call late Thursday to resume their talks, their first discussion since they dispersed for Congress' August recess, in some cases to be greeted by angry constituents at home.
Top Finance Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa, the GOP's key negotiator, said this week that he'd have to take his constituents' concerns into consideration in continuing talks. But after members of the group spoke for about an 1 1/2 hours Thursday, senators said they remained committed to producing a bipartisan bill and planned to continue work with an increased focus on affordability and costs.
"Tonight was a productive conversation. We discussed our progress and remain committed to continuing our path toward a bipartisan health care reform bill," said Finance Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont.
The group is aiming to finalize legislation by Sept. 15, and Baucus said the group will meet again before the Senate returns to Washington after Labor Day.
On the defensive, Obama is embracing a new role of fact checker-in-chief, trying to correct untrue claims such as that the proposals would provide health care for illegal immigrants, create "death panels" or pay for abortions with taxpayer dollars. Aides say the situation has left Obama exasperated.
Rally at DNC headquarters
"Now, c'mon," a mocking Obama told a cheering crowd late Thursday at a Democratic National Committee appearance designed to re-energize activists who were instrumental in his drive to the presidency. "What we're going to have to do is to cut through the noise and the misinformation."
"I said during the campaign that the best offense against lies is the truth," Obama said. "And so all we can do is just keep on pushing the truth."
Yet for all the gnashing from Republicans and fiscally conservative Democrats, he faces equally tough opposition from lawmakers and activists on the left who insist any overhaul must include a government-run insurance option.
In fact, shortly after his comments Thursday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi declared the Democratic-controlled House simply won't approve the overhaul without it.
"There's no way I can pass a bill in the House of Representatives without a public option," Pelosi, D-Calif., said after a round-table in San Francisco.
Obama told his DNC audience — as well as thousands watching online and listening by telephone — that health care was the toughest fight he has faced in office.
"Winning the election is just the start," he said. "Victory in an election wasn't the change that we sought."
That election, though, came with his promise of the government insurance option, a provision that Obama's team now calls "preferred" but not mandatory. During both his Thursday appearances, Obama declined to call it a deal breaker.
"What we've said is that there are a number of components to health care," he told Smerconish, who is generally seen as a conservative, although he endorsed Obama last year and supports abortion rights. "I see nothing wrong with having public option as one choice."
He said "the press got excited and some folks on the left got a little excited" when he and top administration aides last weekend made statements indicating that a publicly run health insurance option was just one of several alternatives.
Since then, Obama has faced increasing criticism from his left flank.
"And even though some White House advisers seem to have forgotten, the reason the public option has become central to reform is simple: We're fed up with the insurance companies and we need real accountability for them," liberal MoveOn.org said in a message sent to its 5 million members while the president was speaking with Smerconish. "They've had decades to fix the problems with our health care system, but they haven't done it."
One caller to Smerconish's program said he sensed the administration was making a misstep.
"I'm getting a little ticked off that it feels like the knees are bucklin' a little bit," said the caller who identified himself as Joe. "You have an overwhelming majority in both the House and the Senate, and you own the whole shooting match. ... It's very frustrating to watch you try and compromise with a lot of these people who aren't willing to compromise with you."
Obama told his audiences he is trying to reach across the aisle to craft a bipartisan plan, even as he blamed Republicans for delay. He peppered his DNC remarks with jokes and jabs at conservatives that had the partisan crowd breaking into applause and laughter.
In response, a spokesman for the No. 2 Republican in the House said he had a question for Obama and his team.
"We would love to know when, exactly — time, date, place — the president or his staff reached out to Republican leaders?" said Brad Dayspring, a spokesman for Rep. Eric Cantor, R-Va.
Republican leaders in May sent Obama a letter outlining the GOP's principles and asking to collaborate.
"And the president's response?" Dayspring said. "Meeting? Nah. Work together? No thanks. Further discussion? Nope. Instead, they went with, 'Thanks for the letter.'"
While the White House insists Obama is still looking for Republican support for a comprehensive health care bill, Democrats privately are preparing a one-party push, which they feel is all but inevitable. Polls show slippage in support for the president's approach, although respondents express even less confidence in Republicans' handling of health care.
Former Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney said Thursday that Obama is struggling to get a health care bill because he has been too deferential to liberals. Romney, who may challenge Obama in 2012, said on CBS' "The Early Show" that "if the president wants to get something done, he needs to put aside the extreme liberal wing of his party."
Here's the least surprising news of the week: Americans are souring on the Democratic Party. The wonder is that it's taken so long for public opinion to curdle. There's nothing agreeable about watching a determined attempt to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.
A poll released Wednesday by the Pew Research Center reports that just 49 percent of respondents have a favorable view of the Democrats, compared with 62 percent in January and 59 percent in April. This doesn't mean, though, that Americans look any more kindly upon the Republican Party -- favorability for the GOP has been steady at 40 percent throughout the year, according to Pew.
What it does mean, however, is that Republican efforts to obstruct, delay, confuse, stall, distort and otherwise impede the reform agenda that Americans voted for last November have had measurable success. And it means that Democrats, having been given a mandate -- one as comprehensive as either party is likely to enjoy in this era of red-vs.-blue polarization -- don't really know how to use it.
That the Democratic Party is no paragon of organization and discipline is almost axiomatic. That's not the problem. The Pew poll suggests that the Democrats' weakness is neither strategic nor tactical but emotional. To quote the poet William Butler Yeats: "The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity."
There's not enough passion on the Democratic side, not enough heat. There's some radiating from the Democratic majority in the House of Representatives, too little emanating from the Democratic majority in the Senate, and not nearly enough coming from President Obama. Republicans, by contrast, have little going for them except passion -- but they're using it to impressive effect.
Step back from the health-care debate for a moment and survey the landscape. Democrats are within sight of a goal that has fired the party's dreams for half a century. They have the power to enact meaningful reform. Polls show that Americans are hungry for reform. The solid wall of opposition once presented by big business has crumbled. Even the insurance companies and Big Pharma are ready to deal. Yet somehow we've gotten sidetracked onto an argument about "death panels," while a provision that many advocates believe is central to effective reform -- a government-run, public health insurance plan -- is suddenly in doubt.
How could this happen? The Pew survey suggests, basically, that Republicans are more passionate about the health-care issue than Democrats.
According to Pew, those who would be "pleased" if health-care reforms proposed by Obama and Congress are enacted outnumber those who would be "disappointed." But when you look at those who feel most passionately about the issue, just 15 percent say they would be "very happy" if the reforms go through, while 18 percent say they would be "angry." Among Republicans, a full 38 percent would be angry if health-care reform finally passes -- but among Democrats, just 13 percent would be angered if it doesn't.
It's hard to argue that anger, per se, is something we need more of in American politics. But passion -- which sometimes, yes, finds expression in anger -- is a powerful and legitimate tool. Health-care reform is something the Democratic Party has been trying to achieve since the Truman administration, and only 13 percent of Democrats would be angry if it fails? Only 27 percent of Democrats would be "very happy" if reform passes, according to Pew, while 42 percent could only bestir themselves to feel "pleased" that the grail long sought by the most beloved Democrat of all, ailing Sen. Edward Kennedy, has finally been attained?
One reason for this imbalance of passion about health-care reform, I believe, is that there is no single piece of legislation around which Democrats -- and others who see the need for reform -- can rally. But it's impossible to deny that the Republican strategy of generating anger and fear has also been a major factor.
Where are the millions who so passionately chanted "Yes, we can!" at Obama's campaign rallies? Where are the legions who cried tears of joy on election night and tears of pride on Inauguration Day? Is Sarah Palin now the only politician capable of inspiring "passionate intensity"?
Democratic leaders should stop backpedaling, stop apologizing and show their followers -- by words and deeds -- that the principle of universal health care is worth fighting for. They should even allow themselves to raise their voices at times -- not motivated by anger but by conviction.
Passion finds expression in anger, but also in hope. Democrats knew and felt that during the campaign. If they forget it, they might as well also forget about achieving the kind of fundamental change that the country sorely needs.
U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said she won’t be able to pass health-care legislation in her chamber if the measure doesn’t include a government-run insurance plan to compete with private insurers.
“There’s no way I can pass a bill in the House of Representatives without a public option,” Pelosi, a California Democrat, said at a press conference in San Francisco today.
The idea, a central component of President Barack Obama’s effort to overhaul the nation’s health-care system, has emerged as a flash point in his party. Suggestions by administration officials in recent days that the White House might be willing to give up on the public plan drew protests from some House Democrats.
Obama yesterday reiterated his support for the proposal.
“If we have a public option in there it will help keep insurance companies honest,” he told a group of community volunteers in Washington.
Lawmakers are attempting to rein in health-care costs and extend coverage to many of the 46 million uninsured people in the U.S. Opponents of the public option argue that it would expand the role of government too much and undercut the market for private insurers such as Indianapolis-based WellPoint Inc.
Bureaucratic Nightmare
The public-option concept has been criticized by Republicans such as Wyoming Senator Mike Enzi, who say they might be willing to support the overall legislation. Enzi is among a group of six senators working on a bipartisan compromise in the Senate Finance Committee who are scheduled to discuss the legislation by telephone this evening.
“For millions of Americans, the government-run plan would turn into a bureaucratic nightmare,” Enzi wrote in a USA Today opinion piece yesterday. “In the finance committee, six of us leading the negotiations are working from the premise that there will not be a government-run plan.”
Enzi and other negotiators plan to convene at 9 p.m. Washington time today for about 1 1/2 hours. The group is led by Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, a Montana Democrat, and also includes Republicans Charles Grassley of Iowa and Olympia Snowe of Maine, as well as Democrats Kent Conrad of North Dakota and Jeff Bingaman of New Mexico.
Still Negotiating
The finance panel is the only one of five congressional committees with jurisdiction over health care still working on a plan. Instead of a public option, the senators in the finance negotiating group are considering allowing the creation of nonprofit cooperatives that could get government seed money.
Three House committees and one Senate panel have approved their versions of the legislation on party-line votes. All these proposals contain some sort of public option.
Pelosi, who spoke to reporters today after meeting with community religious leaders, said Congress has to take “comprehensive” action on the health-care issue now while it has the chance.
“I don’t know how you would scale it down,” she said.
Arianna appeared on "Charlie Rose" on Thursday night, along with presidential historian Doris Kearns Goodwin and New York Times op-ed columnist Ross Douthat, to assess President Obama's handling of health care reform. While praising Obama for being a "natural born teacher," she was critical of his leadership skills: "He is demonstrating a preference for compromise and reconciliation even before the fight has been fought." She contrasted him with FDR, who rejected compromise with both Republican and Democratic senators who sought to water down Social Security, concluding of Obama: "He's a pied piper but he has not taken a strong stand on health care reform or on Wall Street reform."
President Obama attended an Organizing For America event at the DNC this afternoon to rally support for his health care effort.Here are the highlights:
—"It's good to be here because it reminds me of how we got here in the first place," Obama said. "We all know that winning the election was just the beginning. … Victory in an election wasn't the change that we sought," he continued.
—Obama said "there's been a lot of confusion" about the public option but says it "can help keep insurance companies honest."
—"When you're talking to seniors out there tell them that nobody is talking about cutting their benefits...Medicare is already a government program," he said.
—"We cannot be intimidated by some of these scare tactics...people are understandly nervous and are more vulnerable to misinformation."
—"The best offense about lies is the truth. All we can do is keep on pushing the truth. The truth is there is no plan...that covers illegal immigrants," Obama says. "Nobody has proposed anything close to government takeover of health care...nobody is talking about getting between you and your doctor."
—When asked where the “misinformation” about health care was coming from, Obama replied, "just flick the channels...and stop on a certain one."
—Asked why he is not pushing the public option harder if he supports it, Obama largely dodged the question and accused the public option debate of being "manufactured" this week.
Using a wardrobe analogy, Obama says "The insurance reforms are the belt. The public option can be the suspenders." He said he considers a public option important but that it's "just one component of a broader plan."
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