Jon Stewart Laughs in Nancy Pelosi’s Face After She Admits She Doesn’t Know Why Obamacare Site Failed

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Mediaite.com:

House Minority Leader Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) sat down with The Daily Show host Jon Stewart on Thursday for a contentious interview. The interview became tense when Stewart attempted to get Pelosi to explain why government appears to function so poorly to the outside observer. When Pelosi attempted to explain why this was the case, Stewart became even more agitated.


“Right now, we have a school of thought in the House Republican caucus that is anti-government, anti-science, anti-Obama,” Pelosi said when asked about the nature of governance in Washington. “They have a trifecta that just enables them to vote against everything.”

Stewart said that Democrats are then required to make a stronger case. He said that Democratic governance now appears “chaotic” and their execution of legislation appears to “lack efficiency.” When Pelosi again blamed Republicans for this condition, Stewart became even more agitated.

When he asked why it was so difficult to get a company to execute the Affordable Care Act’s insurance exchange website “competently,” Pelosi replied, “I don’t know.” 

“What do you mean you don’t know? How do you not know?” Stewart asked laughing. 

Pelosi called the failed website “shameful,” but noted that it is improving. 

Stewart circled back to a philosophical pro-government argument that Democrats espouse but at the same time have been unable to demonstrate competency. He cited President Barack Obama’s campaign which had an efficient online process, but noted that it was impossible for that team to work on the ACA.

“Doesn’t matter,” Pelosi said. “What matters is it should have been prepared for.”

“Do we have a foundational problem? Is there a corruption in the system that needs to be addressed?” 

Stewart asked. Pelosi went on to detail the issues with bureaucracy and the failure of departments to communicate with each other. “Okay, do something about it,” Pelosi said. 

“I was actually going to say that to you,” Stewart interjected. 

RELATED: Nancy Pelosi Pushed By Progressives To Block Obama's Trade Deal

‘Just Quit’: Group of Black Political Activists in Chicago Savage Barack Obama’s State of the Union

Mediaite.com:

After watching President Barack Obama’s State of the Union Address on Tuesday night, a group of African-Americans were asked for their thoughts on the speech. Their reactions were not favorable toward the president. Most said they believed that their conditions had not greatly improved over the course of his presidency with one of the interviewees even saying that Obama should resign.

According to J.R. Flemming, a member of Chicago’s anti-eviction campaign, the speech was the “same old, same old” and “a bunch of talk and rhetoric to give favor to a dying economy in America.”

“And the reason why our economy is dying is the president’s approach is always to place blame,” he continued. “It’s not the 1 percent problem, it’s not the 99 percent problem, it’s an American problem. And the problem is patronage, nepotism and cronyism.”

Obama has been “more hurtful to the black race than he has been helpful,” added Voices of Ex-Offenders (V.O.T.E.) founder Joe Watkins. “But those of us at the bottom of the ladder don’t accept that.”

“Just quit,” Mark Carter added, “because if this is what you call helping us, then just stop helping us.”

RELATED: Race Gap: Blacks Fall Further Behind Under Obama

RNC Chair Reince Priebus Calls for Complete GOP Boycott of MSNBC over ‘Demeaning’ Tweet

Mediaite.com:

Republicans are fuming at MSNBC tweeting out a derogatory message last night about the right wing “hating” a cute Cheerios ad featuring a biracial family, and now RNC Chairman Reince Priebus is openly calling for a Republican boycott of the network until network head Phil Griffin apologizes.

In a memo posted on the official Republican party website, Priebus attacks the tweet as the latest example of comments from MSNBC “that belittle and demean Americans” with a conservative philosophy, and says until Griffin takes action and apologizes publicly, no Republican official or elected representative should grace the network with their presence.

This morning I left a message with MSNBC President Phil Griffin to express my displeasure. I have sent him a letter demanding that he personally, as president of the network, take responsibility and apologize for the disgusting tweet. Until he takes internal corrective action and personally apologizes—not just to the RNC but to all right-of-center Americans—I’m banning all RNC staff from appearing on, associating with, or booking any RNC surrogates on MSNBC.

As an elected official, strategist, or surrogate, I’m asking for you to agree to the same.

Priebus takes shots at recent comments made by current and ex-MSNBC personalities from Alec Baldwin and Martin Bashir to Melissa Harris-Perry and Alex Wagner, saying it all adds up to “toxic programming” coming from the liberal network.

Michael Steele, the head of the RNC before Priebus, is currently a political analyst for MSNBC.
This is the offending tweet that set off the controversy:

Several hours later, after an Internet outcry from conservative bi-racial families, MSNBC deleted that tweet and sent out two others apologizing for the “offensive line.” Richard Wolffe, the executive editor of MSNBC.com, also tweeted out an apologetic message, saying the offending tweet was “not who we are at MSNBC.”

RELATED: MSNBC fires staffer after new controversy

House Republicans Release Their “Standards for Immigration Reform”

If there's never another Republican President, this will be one of the reasons why:

Behold the long-awaited “statement of principles,” hot off the presses at today’s House Republican retreat. There are no surprises, or at least not yet: The statement’s so light on specifics, especially in the crucial final sentence, that it’s impossible to guess how bad the final deal might be.

Although if you guess “pretty bad,” you’re almost certainly on safe ground.

Standards for Immigration Reform
PREAMBLE Our nation’s immigration system is broken and our laws are not being enforced. Washington’s failure to fix them is hurting our economy and jeopardizing our national security. The overriding purpose of our immigration system is to promote and further America’s national interests and that is not the case today. The serious problems in our immigration system must be solved, and we are committed to working in a bipartisan manner to solve them. But they cannot be solved with a single, massive piece of legislation that few have read and even fewer understand, and therefore, we will not go to a conference with the Senate’s immigration bill. The problems in our immigration system must be solved through a step-by-step, common-sense approach that starts with securing our country’s borders, enforcing our laws, and implementing robust enforcement measures. These are the principals guiding us in that effort.

Border Security and Interior Enforcement Must Come First
It is the fundamental duty of any government to secure its borders, and the United States is failing in this mission. We must secure our borders now and verify that they are secure. In addition, we must ensure now that when immigration reform is enacted, there will be a zero tolerance policy for those who cross the border illegally or overstay their visas in the future. Faced with a consistent pattern of administrations of both parties only selectively enforcing our nation’s immigration laws, we must enact reform that ensures that a President cannot unilaterally stop immigration enforcement.

Implement Entry-Exit Visa Tracking System
A fully functioning Entry-Exit system has been mandated by eight separate statutes over the last 17 years. At least three of these laws call for this system to be biometric, using technology to verify identity and prevent fraud. We must implement this system so we can identify and track down visitors who abuse our laws.

Employment Verification and Workplace Enforcement
In the 21st century it is unacceptable that the majority of employees have their work eligibility verified through a paper based system wrought with fraud. It is past time for this country to fully implement a workable electronic employment verification system.

Reforms to the Legal Immigration System
For far too long, the United States has emphasized extended family members and pure luck over employment-based immigration. This is inconsistent with nearly every other developed country. Every year thousands of foreign nationals pursue degrees at America’s colleges and universities, particularly in high skilled fields. Many of them want to use their expertise in U.S. industries that will spur economic growth and create jobs for Americans. When visas aren’t available, we end up exporting this labor and ingenuity to other countries. Visa and green card allocations need to reflect the needs of employers and the desire for these exceptional individuals to help grow our economy.

The goal of any temporary worker program should be to address the economic needs of the country and to strengthen our national security by allowing for realistic, enforceable, usable, legal paths for entry into the United States. Of particular concern are the needs of the agricultural industry, among others. It is imperative that these temporary workers are able to meet the economic needs of the country and do not displace or disadvantage American workers.

Youth
One of the great founding principles of our country was that children would not be punished for the mistakes of their parents. It is time to provide an opportunity for legal residence and citizenship for those who were brought to this country as children through no fault of their own, those who know no other place as home. For those who meet certain eligibility standards, and serve honorably in our military or attain a college degree, we will do just that.

Individuals Living Outside the Rule of Law
Our national and economic security depend on requiring people who are living and working here illegally to come forward and get right with the law. There will be no special path to citizenship for individuals who broke our nation’s immigration laws – that would be unfair to those immigrants who have played by the rules and harmful to promoting the rule of law.

Rather, these persons could live legally and without fear in the U.S., but only if they were willing to admit their culpability, pass rigorous background checks, pay significant fines and back taxes, develop proficiency in English and American civics, and be able to support themselves and their families (without access to public benefits). Criminal aliens, gang members, and sex offenders and those who do not meet the above requirements will not be eligible for this program. Finally, none of this can happen before specific enforcement triggers have been implemented to fulfill our promise to the American people that from here on, our immigration laws will indeed be enforced.

As expected, per the “Youth” section, there’ll be a special path to citizenship for DREAMers but not for adult illegals. As for the final line, what sort of enforcement triggers are we talking about here? “No legalization until there’s been a measurable 50 percent drop in illegal immigration over five years” would be a trigger worth considering. “No legalization until DHS submits a border-security plan,” which is basically what the Gang of Eight prescribed, wouldn’t be. There’s a lot of devil in these details.

Sean Trende of RealClearPolitics started tweeting in total mystification after the statement was released as to why the GOP would be pushing amnesty now, of all moments. If they were dead set on doing this before the midterms, he reasoned, why not do it last year, to give conservative anger more time to cool before the big vote? Failing that, why not wait until next year, after the midterms, since no one expects the Latino vote to be decisive this fall? I have no answers to the first question but you know my answer to the second. I think Boehner’s afraid that if they wait another year, until the GOP holds the Senate as well, conservative expectations for a “tough” Republican-written law will be so high that the backlash when they fail to come through will be even more bitter than it’ll be if they do it this year. In fact, as another Twitter buddy speculated, it may be that Boehner expects so many more tea partiers in the House and Senate next year that he feels he has to act now, before they’re seated. If he waits, tea partiers might be strong enough in 2015 to block the sort of bill that his friends in the Chamber of Commerce want written. When push comes to shove, he, Ryan, and the rest of the leadership think conservative/independent anger over ObamaCare will wash away all of their sins come November, including a mortal sin on immigration. Even if they sell you out on this, they figure, you’ll still go to the polls to rebuke Obama for the millions of cancellations and higher premiums that his pet boondoggle has stuck America with. And honestly? I’m not sure they’re wrong.

Update: Good catch by Greg Sargent. There’s no special path to citizenship here for adult illegals, but neither is there anything that would preclude them for applying for green cards and citizenship later on through existing channels. In fact, Paul Ryan signaled yesterday that they would be able to apply. Go figure that the leadership didn’t want to highlight that footnote in their statement.

RELATED:  House GOP leaders back limited path to legal status for illegal immigrants

Academy of Motion Pictures Rescinds Oscar Nod for Christian Film’s Song

Mediaite.com:

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) has announced that it is rescinding the Best Original Song Oscar™ nomination for “Alone Yet Not Alone,” from the film Alone Yet Not Alone, citing improper lobbying by the song’s composer, Bruce Broughton. There will be no replacement nominee selected, according to the Academy.


From AMPAS’ press release:

The decision was prompted by the discovery that Broughton, a former Governor and current Music Branch executive committee member, had emailed members of the branch to make them aware of his submission during the nominations voting period.
“No matter how well-intentioned the communication, using one’s position as a former governor and current executive committee member to personally promote one’s own Oscar submission creates the appearance of an unfair advantage,” said Cheryl Boone Isaacs, Academy President.

The press release goes on to describe the normal nominating process, whereby “all 240 voting members of the Music Branch received a Reminder List of works submitted in the Original Song category and a DVD copy of the song clips with film and song title only (additional information including composer and lyricist is not provided),” and were “asked to watch the clips and then vote in the order of their preference for not more than five nominees in the category.”

The song was performed by Joni Eareckson Tada, whose beaming face graced the coffee tables and bookshelves of seemingly every Evangelical Christian household in the late 70s, from the cover of her inspirational autobiography Joni. As a teenager, she was paralyzed from the neck down in a diving accident, but overcame the disability to become an accomplished artist and author. The bad news is that it’s impossible to tell how well the song would have done without Broughton’s thumb on the scale, but the publicity from the nomination, and its rescission, could boost the film’s wider release in June.

RELATED: Oscar Drama: Christian B-Movie Song Booted From Nominee List

Pretty White Girl Amanda Knox Gound Guilty (Again) of Murdering Meredith Kercher

You think Amanda Knox would've gotten all this attention from the mainstream media over the years if she didn't look the way she looked? Well, thank goodness some people in this world can recognize a murderer for being a murderer regardless of what the monster shows on the outside:

An appeals court in Florence convicted Amanda Knox and her former boyfriend  Thursday of murder for the second time in the 2007 death of Knox’s British roommate in the Italian university town of Perugia.

Knox was sentenced to 28 years and six months in prison. Raffaele Sollecito was sentenced to 25 years.
This was Knox and Raffaele Sollecito’s third trial for the murder of Meredith Kercher and it spanned four months. Deliberations lasted more than 11 hours.

Sollecito, 29, was present along with his father and other relatives when the verdict was read.

Knox, 26, was awaiting the verdict half a world away in Seattle, where she returned after spending four years in an Italian jail and then being acquitted of the murder on appeal in 2011. In Italy, defendants are not required to appear at their trials.

RELATED:  Good Looks On Trial: The Amanda Knox Case

Robert Gibbs Admits Barack Obama Gave Up on Trying to Change Washington A Long Time Ago

DailyCaller.com:

Former White House press secretary Robert Gibbs was uncharacteristically candid during an appearance on MSNBC Tusday morning, claiming “the White House sort of stopped trying” to change the “dysfunction” in Washington, D.C.

Gibbs spoke on a “Morning Joe” panel about President Obama’s relative lack of measurable accomplishments as he goes into his State of the Union speech this evening. “Robert, I know you’re not in the White House anymore –” MSNBC host Willie Geist began. “Thank God!” Gibbs interjected, prompting some incredulous laughs from the panel. ”Well, there’s a moment of honestly,” Geist grinned.

“But you’re obviously — you know the president very well,” the host continued. “We know what this poll says about how the country’s feeling about him. How is he feeling about the country right now? I mean, this is a guy who came in five years ago saying, ‘Change comes from outside Washington. We’re gonna break the fever, we’re going to change the way Washington does business. We’re going to get things done.’ And he’s learned some pretty hard lessons in how Washington actually works and doesn’t work.”

“Well, I think the ability to change Washington is something that, long ago, the White House sort of stopped trying to do,” Gibbs began. “Whether or not that’s a good thing, we’ll look back on history. I do think that, you know, this is a story of Washington dysfunction . . . Everything in this speech is what the public wants to hear. The public just doesn’t simply think that this group of people assembled in this room is remotely capable of solving those problems.”

“2013 was a lost year for the president,” the former press secretary continued. “He was buffeted by crisis after crisis. I think the test of this speech will be, do the American people who do watch, do they feel like this president has a plan to get some of those things done? Or is this just another speech out of Washington?”

Gibbs is a long-time Obama loyalist, joining the president’s Illinois Senate campaign way back in 2004. He followed him through the Senate to the White House, where he served as press secretary and close personal adviser to President Obama until early 2011. Some of his recent commentary, however, suggests the communications professional may have soured on the president’s leadership — and certainly shows relief that his tenure as White House spin doctor is now over.

RELATED: Gibbs: If Dems Lose Senate, 2015 SOTU ‘Will Be an Exceedingly Minimal Affair’

Nancy Pelosi: "We Did Not Treat President Bush This Way"

Amazing how often this insane woman can lie straight to people's faces:

Democrats are looking to President Obama to really help kick the populist agenda they have been re-devising for the 2014 campaign season into high gear with his address this evening, and in previewing the SOTU on MSNBC this morning, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi was really in her element, hitting all of the latest “obstructionist,” “income inequality opportunity gap,”  “executive action” talking points like so many carefully concocted whack-a-moles. That it always and necessarily takes two parties to tango is a piece of logic that never seems to enter into that kind of woe-is-us, nobody-else-has-ever-had-to-deal-with-a-divided-government brand of thinking:

The point is that, since that time, under President Obama’s administration, we have eight million jobs created… We have an opportunity gap that the president will be addressing, but let’s remember where we were and how far we have come from the Bush economic policies to where we are now. … The point is, what is happening here now, and let’s, since you’re trying to analyze it, is we have a large segment of the Republican party that is anti-government. We don’t want any more government than we need, but they’re anti-government, anti-science, and anti-Obama. They have a trifecta that is going. I say to the Republicans, take back your party. …To obstruct every initiative that the president has put forth on jobs and say, ‘Why don’t we have more jobs?’ Well, we do have more jobs, but no thanks to the Congress of the United States. … We did not treat President Bush this way. … This obstruction to President Obama is something quite stunning, and something quite different.

RELATED: Pelosi: Bush 'a total failure'

Rush Limbaugh: GOP Should Troll Obama by Taking Selfies at ‘State of the Coup’

Mediaite.com:

Rush Limbaugh is still annoyed that President Obama took a selfie at Nelson Mandela‘s memorial, and on Tuesday he said it would be hilarious if, during the “State of the Coup” address, Republicans just get back at Obama by taking selfies the whole time.

Limbaugh said in an ideal world, John Boehner would sit down behind Obama “in a white lab coat… as a doctor that has lost his practice” thanks to Obamacare, but said it wouldn’t happen because of the “prestige and tradition” of the State of the Union.

But Limbaugh thought of something else Republicans could do just to mess around during the speech.

I think what the male Republican ought to do is find an attractive woman, not his wife, and put his arm around her and start taking some selfies while Obama is delivering the State of the Coup address. Would that not be hilarious? Would that not be eye catching?

Limbaugh referred to Obama taking the selfie with Helle Thorning-Schmidt and the picture of Michelle Obama looking none too happy, though the man who took that photo said he she wasn’t really upset and told people to get a life if they’re seriously fixated on this.

RELATED:  WaPo poll: 52% support Obama using executive orders to bypass Congress on his legislative goals

MSNBC Host Andrea Mitchell Cuts Away from Some Silly NSA Thing to Breaking Justin Bieber News

MSNBC.com:

For those of you who don’t like how the media prioritizes the superficial over the substantive, here is your new go-to video for everything you hate about cable news. On MSNBC Thursday, Andrea Mitchell was speaking with former Congresswoman Jane Harman about reviews and proposed restrictions on the NSA debate, but before they could really get down to the meat of the subject, Mitchell had to cut away for some breaking news.

Specifically, news having to do with America’s favorite… whatever he is… Justin Bieber. Yes, just as Harman was about to get into the details of what she believes proper NSA reform should be, Mitchell cut away because heaven forbid policy should get in the way of a good celebrity scandal.

Ever since Bieber got arrested early yesterday, the media has been itching to cover every last detail, though there have been some networks proudly boasting to be above the pettiness.

RELATED:  Justin Bieber Is Now Comparing Himself to Michael Jackson