In the past few months and years, President Obama has castigated Super PACs. Obama has said “you can’t be against Super PACs one day and for them the next,” and he’s referred to 527s as a “threat to democracy.”

Fortunately, Nancy Pelosi is here to help explain why these same threats to democracy, when reluctantly utilized by the pure of heart in emergency situations, can also be used to help preserve democracy.

Here’s a brief transcript of Pelosi’s explanation by way of The Right Scoop:

The president made a decision which I think was a wise one that he was not going to unilaterally disarm and leave the field to the Koch brothers to decide who would be POTUS and who would control the Congress.

Maybe Pelosi’s right — it’s straight from Sun Tzu: “To know your enemy, you must become your enemy.” Of course, they didn’t have Super PACs in Sun Tzu’s day, which might explain why the book isn’t called “The Art of Hypocrisy”:

**Written by Doug Powers

Twitter @ThePowersThatBe

If she actually couldn’t see this coming, her family might want to make sure she never crosses the street unescorted:

Former Democratic congresswoman Kathy Dahlkemper, a Catholic from Erie, Pennsylvania, cast a crucial vote in favor of Obamacare in 2010. She lost her seat that November in part because of her controversial support of Obamacare. But Dahlkemper said recently that she would have never voted for the health care bill had she known that the Department of Health and Human Services would require all private insurers, including Catholic charities and hospitals, to provide free coverage of contraception, sterilization procedures, and the “week-after” pill “ella” that can induce early abortions.

“I would have never voted for the final version of the bill if I expected the Obama Administration to force Catholic hospitals and Catholic Colleges and Universities to pay for contraception,” Dahlkemper said in a press release sent out by Democrats for Life in November.

What part of Nancy Pelosi’s health care law proclamation didn’t Dahlkemper understand?

**Written by Doug Powers

Twitter @ThePowersThatBe

Sheriff Joe Biden may only half-heartedly believe what he’s saying here. It’s just that word around Capitol Hill is that if you help convince Nancy that her reunion with the Speaker’s gavel is imminent, there’s a good chance she’ll throw a pretty good stock tip your way, so what the heck.

From The Hill:

House Democrats will win the House in November, swinging the gavel back into the hands of Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), Vice President Joe Biden predicted Friday.

“Nancy, I think, is not going to be remembered just for being the first woman Speaker,” Biden said, “she’s going to remembered for being the second woman speaker.”

Addressing House Democrats gathered on the Eastern Shore for their annual retreat, Biden said the combination of GOP obstructionism and a strengthening economy will propel the Democrats back into control of the lower chamber after just two years in the minority.

“It’s becoming absolutely clear the decisions that we made … are actually working,” Biden said, speaking softly because he said he’s battling a cold.

It’s sort of a “bad thought, good thought” situation. The bad is that Joe Biden is predicting the Dems will control the House after the election. The good is that in 2010 he predicted the same thing, and, well, you know how that turned out.

**Written by Doug Powers

Twitter @ThePowersThatBe

In December, Nancy Pelosi was bragging about having dirt on Newt Gingrich. Shortly after that, she backed off.

As evidenced by an appearance with CNN’s John King, Pelosi wants to once again play the “inside information” game and can’t contain herself:

Pelosi: “He’s not going to be President of the United States. That’s not going to happen. Let me just make my prediction and stand by it, it isn’t going to happen.”

King: “Why are you so sure?”

Pelosi: “There is something I know. The Republicans, if they choose to nominate him that’s their prerogative. I don’t even think that’s going to happen.”

Geez… did something happen on the global warming couch that we don’t yet know about?

You have to watch the video to capture the full glory of Pelosi’s giddy, sophomoric attitude. She behaves like a high schooler who found the letterman jacket of the opposing school’s quarterback in the back seat of the car of the girl who beat her out for homecoming queen — and is dying to tell somebody about it just before the game.

Click the pic to roll tape:

**Written by Doug Powers

Twitter @ThePowersThatBe

Nothing new here, but it’s good to know that to try to win back the gavel in 2012, Nancy Pelosi plans to employ the same strategy that cost her the gavel in 2010:

“I simply will not have us engage in a this, that, last August, 10 years ago. This is about here and now, and the highly unusual circumstance that we are in because the Republican failed policies, economic policies, of President George Bush took us to a financial meltdown, took us into near-depression, took us into deep deficits that we still have to deal with. Are they just too tired to come to work? I hope not.”

Pelosi’s excuses are like Nick at Nite’s primetime schedule… nothing but reruns:

**Written by Doug Powers

Twitter @ThePowersThatBe

BigGovernment.com ran an interview this week with Nancy Pelosi’s daughter, Alexandra, who said that her mother would get out of politics if not for her loyalty to her donors:

She would retire right now, if the donors she has didn’t want her to stay so badly. They know she wants to leave, though. They think she’s destined for the wilderness. She has very few days left. She’s 71, she wants to have a life, she’s done. It’s obligation, that’s all I’m saying.

Alexandra Pelosi later told BigGovernment that she said “greatness” and not “wilderness.” In any case, Pelosi’s office quickly issued a denial:

Nadeam Elshami, a spokesman for the House minority leader, said it’s simply not true.

“This may be wishful thinking on the part of a right-wing blog, but it is totally untrue,” Elshami said. “When the day comes and Leader Pelosi’s work is done, she won’t be announcing it there.”

True. We’ll know Nancy Pelosi’s work is done when she’s announcing her retirement as the country is declaring bankruptcy and being repo’d by China. Hopefully Nancy cuts her daughter some slack though and realizes that her words had to be passed before we found out what was in them.

More:

Alexandra Pelosi didn’t deny uttering the remark but declined to expand in an email to POLITICO.

“I don’t speak for Nancy Pelosi — I was merely projecting my own personal opinions,” Alexandra Pelosi wrote in an email.

It’s a good thing Christmas dinner has already been served at the Pelosi household, or else Alexandra might have found herself in the other room at the card table where the kids and/or people who provided stock tips that didn’t pan out were made to sit.

Forget about any talk of retirement — Pelosi’s more immediate problem is that “Occupy Hawaii Island” could soon be making an appearance near her vacation spot. Naturally Pelosi will go join in because she’s such a loyal supporter.

**Written by Doug Powers

Twitter @ThePowersThatBe

Those who engage in tireless efforts to improve the lives of the working class and speak out in support of the 99 percent never really get a vacation. Nancy Pelosi is one example. Pelosi is once again working semi-undercover at a high-priced Hawaiian resort in order to observe the plight of the 99 percent from the top-down:

Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi, D-CA, who served as Speaker of the House and is now head of the House minority, is once again spending her Christmas at the exotic Four Seasons Resort Hualalai at Historic Ka’upulehu in Kona on the island of Hawaii.

Pelosi spent the last two Christmas holidays in Kona at the same hotel in an elaborate suite that rents for $10,000 a night.
[...]
Pelosi has been escorted by local police during her last two holiday visits to Hawaii Island at a cost of $34,000 to local taxpayers.

In order to emerge victorious from any conflict, it’s wise to closely study the ways of one’s opponent. Not unlike the way she’s waged a battle against the greed of Wall Street by cleverly pretending to take part in the process, Pelosi is occupying the Four Seasons Resort Hualalai. The 99-percent should feel fortunate to have Nancy working on their side. OWS looks forward to her report when she returns.

**Written by Doug Powers

Twitter @ThePowersThatBe

My column is a year-end review of Democrat leader Nancy Pelosi’s congressional self-dealing and ethics covers-up. On a related note, here’s an amusing story of blue-on-blue corruption conflict: Calif. Democrat Rep. Laura Richardson (flashback here on her financial scams) attacking Pelosi’s wealth:

The sources disagreed on the exact wording of the unusually direct shot at the party leader, but Richardson’s sentiment was clear: Pelosi, whose net worthis at least $40 million, doesn’t need the money as much as some of her colleagues, and she should have consulted with them before deciding to protect the GOP-written pay freeze.

It was “something like, ‘Well I am sorry, Madam Leader, but some of us are not in the financial situation you are in,’” said one source.

Mic check!

***
Nancy Pelosi, Down and Dirty
by Michelle Malkin
Creators Syndicate
Copyright 2011

As a rueful Queen Elizabeth once said of a particularly rough year for the royal family, 2011 is “not a year on which” Queen Nancy Pelosi “shall look back with undiluted pleasure.” The former House Speaker relinquished her crown — er, gavel — in January. It’s been an epic downhill ski crash ever since.

Most recently, Pelosi faced questions from liberal “60 Minutes” and conservative investigative author Peter Schweitzer about a 5,000-share Visa stock purchase she made with her husband as the House was considering credit card regulations. She made a “killing” off the highly sought-after initial public offering. The stock holdings more than doubled in a few weeks; the credit card regulations were put on ice somewhere in the back of Pelosi’s fridge.

While she makes grand gestures toward banning congressional insider trading, San Fran Nan’s financial conflicts of interest are once again on display. This week, Reuters columnist Dan Indiviglio pointed to pending House legislation titled the “New Alternative Transportation to Give Americans Solutions Act of 2011,” which is stuffed with natural gas vehicle subsidies: $9 billion worth, to be precise.

These very subsidies are championed by Texas billionaire and failed wind farm evangelist T. Boone Pickens. He just happens to be a major stockholder in the company that would benefit from the bill: Clean Energy Fuels.

Question the timing? Indeed. As The Washington Examiner’s Tim Carney observes: “While Pickens, a longtime oil and gas man, has been lobbying for natural gas subsidies for decades, his cause has become particularly urgent this month. Pickens owns options to buy 15 million shares of Clean Energy Fuels at $10 per share, according to SEC filings. Those options expire Dec. 28. If Congress could pass the NATGAS Act this month, shares of Clean Energy would skyrocket.”

Pelosi just happens to be a stockholder in — you guessed it — Clean Energy Fuels. The then-Speaker bought between $50,000 and $100,000 of stock in Pickens’ CLNE Corp. in May 2007 on the day of the initial public offering. As I reported in a column three years ago, Pelosi’s 2007 financial disclosure form listed “assets and ‘unearned income’ of between $100,001-$250,000 from Clean Energy Fuels Corp. — Public Common Stock.” If the natural gas giveaway passes, Pelosi profits.

Of course, an endless parade of dirty Democratic scandals earlier this year had already completely obliterated what was left of Pelosi’s Mop-and-Glo reformer image. She and other liberal feminists rallied around disgraced Twitter freak and former N.Y. Democratic Rep. Anthony Weiner even as evidence mounted that he lied to them. And used taxpayer resources and government buildings while sexting. And recklessly neglected to ensure that his Internet paramours were of legal age.

Pelosi and fellow femme-a-gogue Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Fla., led from behind, calling for Weiner’s resignation only after the public tide had shifted.

Photo credit: Willamette Week

Pelosi showed similar reticence in dealing with basket-case Oregon Democratic Rep. David Wu — whose sexually aggressive, alcohol-addled erratic outbursts stretched over decades. Despite knowledge of Wu’s staff’s panic about his infamous 2010 Tigger costume photos and despite months-old pleas for help from an underage victim of Wu’s sexual indiscretions, House Democrats sat on their hands. In July, Pelosi finally called for an investigation by the House Ethics Committee.

That’s the same panel that slapped Pelosi pal and New York Democratic Rep. Charlie Rangel on the wrist for serial tax-cheating and has yet to move forward with California Democratic Rep. Maxine Waters’ ethics trial after charging her last year with three violations related to her crony TARP bailout intervention on behalf of minority-owned OneUnited Bank in Los Angeles.

What a way to close out her annus horribilis. Nancy Pelosi, the proud feminist who boasted she would clean up Washington, is covering up and cashing in. Just like all the other self-dealing good old boys.

I’ve written before about Cozy Nancy Pelosi and her financial stake in the eco-adventures of billionaire T. Boone Pickens.

See August 2008 – Nan and the Big Wind Boone-doggle.

Refresher:

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called congressional Republicans who want up-or-down drilling votes “hand maidens of the oil companies.” Let’s call Pelosi what she is: House girl of the Big Wind boondogglers.

And so, potentially, does the Democrat Speaker of the House windily wagging her finger at the financial motivations of others.

Fast forward.

Today, Daniel Indiviglio at Reuters reports that a Pickens-backed bill is quietly making its way through Capitol Hill in the Christmas chaos.

Amid the flurry of legislation Congress is rushing to complete by year’s end is the New Alternative Transportation to Give Americans Solutions Act of 2011, or NATGAS Act. The proposal would, among other things, provide subsidies for driving vehicles powered by natural gas.

It’s a Pelosi legislative priority, but precious few are raising eyebrows about San Fran Nan’s conflict.

Where are the Big Biz/Big Government watchdogs when we need them?

Bueller? Bueller?

In a recent interview, Nancy Pelosi implied that being on an ethics committee that investigated Newt Gingrich in the 1990′s put her in a position to know secrets about him that she just might be willing to spill at some point.

After being called on it, Pelosi’s office now says she didn’t imply that — it’s just that everybody misunderstood what she was saying:

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi now says she is not sitting on a trove of opposition research on former House Speaker-turned-GOP presidential candidate Newt Gingrich.

In an interview conducted Friday and published Monday, Pelosi hinted that once the time is right she has some juicy stories to tell about her former colleague.

“One of these days we’ll have a conversation about Newt Gingrich,” Pelosi, D-Calif., told Talking Points Memo. “I know a lot about him. I served on the investigative committee that investigated him. Four of us locked in a room in an undisclosed location for a year. A thousand pages of his stuff.”

But this afternoon, Pelosi’s spokesman, Drew Hammill, suggested that her comments have been misconstrued beyond the leader’s intent.

“Leader Pelosi was clearly referring to the extensive amount of information that is in the public record, including the comprehensive committee report with which the public may not be fully aware,” Hammill wrote in a statement.

The Gingrich dirt with which Pelosi was tantalizing Talking Points Memo is stuff from a 1997 report everybody’s had access to? I haven’t seen backpedaling like that since Lance Armstrong’s brake cables snapped while careening down Filbert Street.

For those of you keeping score at home, here’s the latest sports update:

Newt – 1
Nancy – 0

(h/t Red State)

**Written by Doug Powers

Twitter @ThePowersThatBe

In a recent interview, Nancy Pelosi lobbed a “nice campaign ya got there — shame if something were to happen to it” unveiled threat toward Newt Gingrich:

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) is holding back some information on Republican Newt Gingrich that could detract from his presidential campaign, according to a report published Monday.

“One of these days we’ll have a conversation about Newt Gingrich,” Pelosi told Talking Points Memo. “When the time is right. … I know a lot about him. I served on the investigative committee that investigated him, four of us locked in a room in an undisclosed location for a year. A thousand pages of his stuff.”

That’s stupefying. Can you believe it? Nancy Pelosi was on an ethics committee?

Hey Nancy, if you’re talking about this… we already know:

Update: Gingrich responds:

First of all I’d like to thank Speaker Pelosi for what I regard as an early Christmas gift. If she’s suggesting she’s gonna use material she developed while she was on the ethics committee, that is a fundamental violation of the rules of the House and I would hope members would immediately file charges against her the second she does it.

It does my heart good to know there are selfless public servants like Nancy Pelosi who are willing to spend time working on ethics committees in order to help keep our government free from corruption collect material to subsequently hold over the heads of political opponents.

**Written by Doug Powers

Twitter @ThePowersThatBe

Nancy Pelosi is blissfully unaware or doesn’t care that the health care law is arguably the single biggest reason she’s no longer Speaker of the House, and as a result Pelosi is traveling the country promising to pay similar legislative attention to your kids if she regains the gavel.

From the Washington Post:

Last week, the California congresswoman hit five cities in five days, barnstorming for money to try to win the 25 more seats it would take to regain control. And if that happens — or when, according to her — at the top of her to-do list, she says, will be “doing for child care what we did for health-care reform” — pushing comprehensive change.

That statement should get so many children and their parents running in the other direction that Nancy’s government child care initiative might qualify for funding under the “Let’s Move” program.

My kids just submitted an early request for a waiver from “PelosiDaycare,” just in case.

**Written by Doug Powers

Twitter @ThePowersThatBe

Tuesday, as Michelle noted, C-Span asked the Supreme Court to allow their cameras to televise oral arguments when the Court hears the Obamacare law case next spring.

Nancy Pelosi agrees:

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said Wednesday that Supreme Court arguments over President Obama’s healthcare law should be televised.

“When the Affordable Care Act is placed before the highest court in our country, all Americans will have a stake in the debate; therefore, all Americans should have access to it,” Pelosi said in a news release.

Back when all Americans should have had a stake in the debate — which was when it was being written — all they got was closed door meetings and “you have to pass it to find out what’s in it.” Now that it’s in the Supreme Court, where the opinion of anybody who isn’t wearing a SCOTUS robe or in the room arguing the case doesn’t really matter, transparency should be the order of the day.

Something’s making me suspicious enough to be against the idea now that Nancy Pelosi is for it. I can already picture her watching the Supreme Court proceedings with her stock broker on the line and adjusting investments based on how the debate is going: “Dump Cigna, exercise the call options on GE, and if Ruth Bader Ginsburg scratches her nose one more time go short on Medtronic.”

This seems like only yesterday…

**Written by Doug Powers

Twitter @ThePowersThatBe

As we stampede toward the Iowa caucuses and beyond, Newt Gingrich is trying to shake some unnecessary baggage that has caused him some political problems as well as mockery from assorted conservative bloggers. Specifically, I’m referring to Gingrich’s appearance next to Nancy Pelosi on what became affectionately known as the “global warming loveseat” in a PSA for Al Gore’s organization WeCanMakeAlGoreRicher.org WeCanSolveIt.org.

Whether or not Gingrich regrets dabbling in Gore’s global warming magic remains to be seen, but he sure is sorry about being pictured sitting next to Nancy Pelosi:

GOP White House hopeful Newt Gingrich wants voters to know he really, really regrets making a 2008 ad with then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) calling for action to address climate change.

“That is probably the dumbest single thing I’ve done in recent years,” Gingrich, the former House Speaker, said Tuesday on Fox News, calling the ad “inexplicable.”

Okay, Newt’s kinda-sorta repented for the Pelosi ad — will Mitt see Newt’s repentance and raise him one Romneycare regret at tonight’s debate? Highly unlikely.

**Written by Doug Powers

Twitter @ThePowersThatBe

“After years of historic deficits, this new Congress will commit itself to a higher standard: pay as you go, no new deficit spending. Our new America will provide unlimited opportunity for future generations, not burden them with mountains of debt.” — Nancy Pelosi during the gavel acceptance speech, January 2007

By the end of her tenure as the nation’s 60th Speaker, the national debt shot up approximately $5 trillion — more than the first 57 Speakers combined, according to CNS News.

I have a feeling that’s not the kind of “heyday” the majority of voters will be longing for a return to when they go to the polls just over a year from now, but President Obama is putting it out there nonetheless just in case:

President Obama on Saturday said Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) was a great House Speaker and that she will get that job back after the 2012 elections.

“I am biased, but I think Nancy was one of the best Speakers of the House this country ever had,” Obama said after Pelosi had introduced him at the National Italian American Foundation gala.

“She was no doubt the best Italian American Speaker of the House we ever had. And I believe that she will be the best Speaker of the House again in 2013.”

It wouldn’t be Halloween without a good scare.

In terms of leaving most other Speakers in the dust as far as swiping the national credit card and demagoguing her opponents goes, yes, Nancy Pelosi was and is one of the best.

**Written by Doug Powers

Twitter @ThePowersThatBe