We’re never going to decrease the deficit until we create jobs, bring revenue into the Treasury, stimulate the economy so we have growth. We have to shed any weakness that anybody may have about not wanting to be confrontational on this subject for fear that we’d be labeled not sensitive to the deficit. … The American people have an anger about the growth of the deficit because they’re not getting anything for it. … So if somebody has the idea that the percentage of GDP of what or national debt is will go up a bit, but they will now — and their neighbors and their children — will have jobs, I think they could absorb that. … If we pull our punch, as they did in the mid-30’s, we shouldn’t be surprised if history repeats itself.

Listen here:

During the Depression, President Roosevelt’s policies brought the unemployment rate down to 14 percent, from 24 percent, by 1937. But then, as Paul Krugman explained, Roosevelt “mistakenly heeded the advice of his own era’s deficit worriers. He sharply reduced government spending, among other things cutting the Works Progress Administration in half, and also raised taxes. The result was a severe recession, and a steep fall in private investment.” The Wonk Room has more.

“Also, 61 percent of you feel that governor Sarah Palin, former governor, has been treated unfairly by the mainstream media,” commented Steve Doocy. Co-host Gretchen Carlson suggested that Pelosi’s numbers are low even though she doesn’t get much “scrutiny” because “if you’re a conservative woman, you get more attacks“:

CARLSON: It’s interesting because even though that number shows that Pelosi has a much higher unfavorable rating, you don’t, you don’t at least hear as much about the scrutiny of Nancy Pelosi as you did about Sarah Palin. And that may go back to that whole age old argument that if you’re a conservative woman, you get more attacks than if you have liberal points of view.

Watch it:

The contention that the media treats conservative women worse than liberal women is conventional wisdom on the right. But Carlson’s claim that scrutiny of Nancy Pelosi is under the radar is surprising considering her own network’s often times downright mean treatment of the first female speaker of the House:

– On the November 10 edition of Fox and Friends, for instance, radio host Laura Ingraham said that “Pelosi basically did everything except sell her own body” to pass health care reform.

– On Nov. 4 on the O’Reilly Factor, Dennis Miller said Pelosi had a “sub-reptilian intellect” and likened her face to a “lizard laying on a hot rock.”

– On October 30, Fox and Friends laughingly re-enacted protesters calling for Pelosi to “burn in hell.”

– On October 21, Bill O’Reilly mocked Pelosi, saying, “If there wan’t Botox involved, with all due respect, there might have been more expression” on her face.

– On August 6, Glenn Beck joked about putting poison in Pelosi’s wine.

– On May 20, Hannity guest Jay Thomas said, “I think if you waterboarded Nancy Pelosi, she wouldn’t admit to plastic surgery.”

– On May 19, Dennis Miller called her a “train wreck” and a “shrieking harridan magpie.”

On Fox, a progressive woman like Pelosi doesn’t just get “scrutiny,” she gets insults.

Glenn Beck had Fox News host Bill O’Reilly on his radio show today to promote their upcoming “Bold & Fresh Tour,” which will take the two right-wing personalities around the country to preach “the truth — straight up, whether you like it or not.” When Beck brought up Dennis Miller’s appearance on the O’Reilly Factor last week — in which Miller warned of a coming “insurrection“– O’Reilly predicted a “tax revolt” that will “get nasty” and end up with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) “bobbing up and down in the Boston Harbor.”

BECK: Last week, I head you say that — you were on with Dennis Miller. … You two were talking about an insurrection coming.

O’REILLY: Tax revolt.

BECK: He used the word insurrection. And not in a comedic way.

O’REILLY: Yeah, tax revolt. I think people, when they figure out how badly they’re going to get hurt in the next few years, there’s going to be a tea party on taxes and its gonna get nasty. Nancy Pelosi’s going to be bobbing up and down in the Boston Harbor.

This statement appeared to be too much for Beck even, who replied, “Uh, I don’t think that’s necessary.” Listen here:

But Coleman said Sunday that some members of his group were “uneasy” with the idea of counter-protesters and that people might mistake the TEA Party Patriots for being violent. Coleman compared the event to similar acts of protest in the nation’s history, such as opposition to the Stamp Act of 1765. [...]

“I still would like to do it,” Coleman said, “but it’s still up in the air at this point. We’ve already started stacking firewood and building the effigy …we will have a bonfire. Burning someone in effigy was just gonna be part of it.” [...]

“We were using it as a symbol of how things are similar to that (colonial) period in history,” he said. “Things have gotten out of hand … the more real we get, the more unreal it gets.”

Coleman added that the public reaction to the group’s plans has been “kinda strange.”

In July, protesters also hung Democratic Rep. Frank Kratovil (MD) in effigy outside his district office. (HT: Blue Virginia and Firedoglake)

Previously on Fox News, Glenn Beck joked about putting poison in Pelosi’s wine.

Today’s protest is allegedly the first in a series that will last until Nov. 12, designed to “defeat health care.”

In his latest attempt to drive attention to his hate-filled agenda, Terry has launched a contest to encourage people to make videos burning House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) in effigy. Randall Terry’s press release states:

Join a Contest! Win Prizes!

Who Can make the best “Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid BURN IN HELL!” video?

First prize: Expenses paid for weekend here in DC during Roe vs Wade anniversary, Jan 22-24, including pro-life training seminar (Includes travel stipend!), and full Insurrecta Nex television series. [...]

Send link of your video by NOVEMBER 15, 2009 to: Burninhell@overturnroe.com

Legal Mumbo Jumbo: Obey local laws on open flames; be careful; if under 18, do not burn Nancy Pelosi in effigy unless your mom or dad is with you, and gives you permission, and strikes the match; do not burn yourself; do not burn another human being; do not burn small animals; do not burn large animals; do not burn anyone from PETA; and remember: this is not a threat to Nancy Pelosi’s or Harry Reid’s person…it is a prophetic witness of what awaits them when they die if they do not repent for this horrific sin.

Randall also recorded a video demonstrating how to burn an effigy of Pelosi and Reid, telling the audience that “Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid will be waiting in Hell!” Watch it:

CNSNews.com: “Madam Speaker, where specifically does the Constitution grant Congress the authority to enact an individual health insurance mandate?”

Pelosi: “Are you serious? Are you serious?”

Listen here:

Pelosi is right to be dismissive of the fringe right-wing theory behind this question, which has no basis in the Constitution itself. Article I of the Constitution gives Congress the power “[t]o regulate commerce…among the several states” as well as the authority to “make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution” its power to regulate commerce.-Een ultra-conservative Justice Antonin Scalia acknowledges that these constitutional provisions give Congress sweeping authority to enact laws that regulate “economic activity.”

CNSNews’ question to the House Speaker essentially parrots a claim by two discredited right-wing attorneys that a provision of health reform known as the “individual mandate” exceeds Congress’ authority because it does not regulate economic activity. This claim is wrong.

When confronted with the “tenther” question, House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) offered an entirely novel argument against the individual mandate. Although Boehner admitted that he is “not a constitutional lawyer,” he added that “it’s wrong to mandate that the American people have to do anything”:

Boehner said: “Well, I’m not a lawyer and I’m certainly not a constitutional lawyer, but I think it’s wrong to mandate that the American people have to do anything.

“You know, one of the things that’s great about America is that we have the freedom to do anything that we want, as long as it doesn’t infringe on somebody else’s freedom,” said Boehner.

For the record, nothing in the Constitution says that an Act of Congress is unconstitutional simply because John Boehner thinks that it is “wrong.”

I’ve gotten to be good friends with Justice Antonin Scalia, who he and Justice Clarence Thomas are the only ones who have any concept of what the Constitution is supposed to be and, and do what they’re supposed to do as justices by upholding the Constitution. But, in fact every, when I was sworn into the Marine Corp, I was sworn to uphold the Constitution against every enemy, foreign and domestic. We’ve got a lot of domestic enemies of the Constitution (applause) and one of those sits in the speaker’s chair of the United States Congress, Nancy Pelosi.

Previously, Broun has said that President Obama wants to go “down the road” of Hitler and has the pieces in place to “establish an authoritarian government.” He has also said that Obama, Pelosi, and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) are part of a “socialist elite” that wants to declare martial law in America.

It’s really sad that they really don’t understand how inappropriate that is. I’m in my place. I’m the speaker of the House — the first woman speaker of the House. And I’m in my place because the House of Representatives voted me there.

Pelosi added that she hadn’t heard sexist language like what was in the NRCC press release in “decades.” Watch it:

– Ryan Watkins

“I’ve also made it clear it’s a very difficult vote to get from the members,” she added. “Their constituents don’t like an escalated war in Afghanistan. They’d like to see a different approach. But let’s see what the president has to say.” (Glenn Thrush, “Pelosi skeptical about Afghan surge, McChrystal,” Politico, 10/05/2009)

Pelosi, of course, is not “backpedaling” in any way. In the first paragraph of the Politico article cited by the NRCC, the reporter notes that Pelosi said she is still “agnostic” on a troop surge; she was simply stating the realities in her party.

So what is the NRCC’s solution to dealing with Pelosi? It wants McChrystal to “put her in her place“:

What place does the NRCC think that this accomplished woman — the first female Speaker of the House in U.S. history — deserves to be in?

Apparently Republicans hold Democrats to a higher standard than they hold members of their own party. … There’s no reason for Mr. Grayson to apologize. If anyone should apologize, everyone should apologize.

Yesterday, Grayson did say he was sorry — to all the people who have lost their lives because they didn’t have health insurance (almost 45,000 Americans each year).

“Unfortunately, these town hall meetings have been hijacked by these Tea Party folks and extremists who really take away from the honest dialogue on the facts of the debate and end up seeing this issue devolve into fear mongering and the peddling of misconceptions,” he said, referring again to the sign that referenced his father’s death.

“They had mass-produced signs, ‘Bury ObamaCare with Kennedy,’ ” he said after the AARP event. “It wasn’t just an individual who was over the edge in their ideology and vitriol. This stuff was mass-produced and mass-distributed and mass-funded. When you put that together with folks around the country calling in very destructive ways for other things about Obama, and connotations of my family name, it’s not a real stretch as to what the message is here.”

Judie Brown, the president of the American Life League, claimed that the over 10,000 signs distributed by the group were neither “violent” nor “insensitive.” “I believe it was extremely insensitive for his father to have advocated the death of millions of babies,” said Brown. “I don’t think what we did was insensitive.” After Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) worried aloud that today’s political climate could spark violence, five former Secret Service, FBI and CIA officers told Politico that they too were concerned that “supercharged political vitriol could lead to violence.”

At the end of the hearing, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) agreed with Potter. “You cited a public option as one way for it to reach its achieve its goal,” she told him. “We will be passing the ‘Private Insurance Profit Perpetuation Act.’ We have no intention of doing that”:

Mr. Potter, you said it well when you said if we do a plan that doesn’t really achieve its goal, and you cited a public option as one way for it to reach its goal, we will be passing the ‘Private Insurance Profit Perpetuation Act.’ We have no intention of doing that. We want the private sector to thrive — we don’t want our members to go into an exchange where they only have one choice, where there’s sole sourcing. But that the public option provides that competition.

Watch it:

Potter has harshly criticized Sen. Max Buacus’ (D-MT) proposed framework for reform, calling the bill “an absolute gift to the industry.”

“A public option must be created to provide true choice to consumers or reform will fail to fix the root of the severe problems that have been caused in large part by the greedy demands of Wall Street. By creating a strong public option and restricting the insurance companies’ ability to enrich executives and investors at the expense of taxpayers and consumers, HR 3200 [the House health bill] will truly benefit Americans,” Potter said in his opening statement. “The Baucus plan, on the other hand, would create a government subsidized monopoly for the purchase of bare bones high deductible policies that would truly benefit big insurance. In other words, insurers would win, your constituents would lose.”

KRISTOL: Can I just say one thing? He [Obama] is leading his party off a cliff, and Speaker Pelosi is going to lead his party — her party off the cliff if they try to rebuke Joe Wilson.

He has apologized. It will be a disgrace if they do some stunt in the House to try to humiliate this man, who is, in fact — has a reputation for bipartisanship on the Armed Services Committee and the Foreign Relations Committee he’s on.

Obama and Pelosi are leading the party off a cliff, I think, and I hope a lot of Democrats say, Slow down. Let’s take a look at this bill.

Watch it:

Republican leaders, including Minority Leader John Boehner (OH), have also been pressuring Wilson to apologize to the House.

He took jabs at U.S. Rep. Zack Space for not holding a town-hall forum on the issue and “climbing up on Nancy Pelosi’s lap” by voting for cap-and-trade energy legislation and supporting the Democrats’ proposals to reform health care.

Steele asked those in attendance to pay attention to the debate throughout the fall because Democrats “are guaranteed to bury language in the bill with triggers to do what they want to get done.”

Rep. Fred Upton (R-MI) even sent a letter to House Chief Administrative Officer (CAO) Daniel Beard — who, The New Leader points out, “reports to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi” — objecting to the change. But as ThinkProgress reported yesterday, this story is nothing more than a conspiracy theory. We spoke to Beard’s spokesman Jeff Ventura:

The music was changed during recess as a pilot program in an attempt to offer offices a choice of hold music. [...]

This had nothing to do with the leadership — not in the beginning or the final outcome.

Basically, congressional offices have traditionally been able to have a choice of music or no music. The CD that had been in the congressional muzak system for “a long time” was a “patriotic tunes CD.” The CAO’s office wanted to test a program giving people a choice of multiple CDs and decided to try out a jazz CD because it’s “what a lot of companies have when you’re on hold.” However, based on the feedback they received, they simply decided to go back to the old system.

Nevertheless, Fox News decided to pick up the false report and run with it. From Sean Hannity’s show last night:

HANNITY: Now up until now you probably have been enjoying lovely patriotic tunes. Well, that is until Nancy Pelosi had anything to say about it. Under the current Democratic leadership, patriotic music was replaced with smooth jazz elevator music. … Well, let this serve as a lesson to the Democrats — don’t meddle with our patriotic music.

This morning, Fox and Friends discussed the important issue with former boxer George Foreman, who broke out and started singing “America the Beautiful” at the end of the segment. Foreman said that patriotic music was “a necessity” because it’s a “privilege” to call your federal lawmakers and something you can do “only in America.” “You better not have that jazz playing.” Host Steve Doocy noted that the “Democratic leadership” had decided to go back to the original music. “America wins!” he declared. Watch it:

Since when is jazz not American?

Transcript:

HANNITY: And have you ever tried to call your representative? Well, if so, you’ve probably been put on hold. Well, it’s the leadership in Congress who decides what music you will be listening to while you wait.

Now up until now you probably have been enjoying lovely patriotic tunes. Well, that is until Nancy Pelosi had anything to say about it. Under the current Democratic leadership, patriotic music was replaced with smooth jazz elevator music.

Well, Michigan congressman, Fred Upton, well, he was not about to stand for this. He wrote a letter to the House’s chief administrative officer, who reports that Speaker Pelosi, reporting that, quote, “Callers routinely express their delight in listening to a few notes of Americana. We should proudly embrace our nation’s patriotic songs, not callously shun them for elevator music.”

And guess what? In response to several calls from FOX News, a spokesman for the chief administrative officer said today, quote, “The music has been changed during recess, in an amendment to offer offices a choice of hold music, but based on the negative response that we received, it was changed back today.”

Well, let this serve as a lesson to the Democrats — don’t meddle with our patriotic music.

…..

CARLSON: Okay, now let me ask you this, George. When you’re getting ready for a big fight, do you like to listen to smooth jazz? Does that get you going? Or do you like to listen to some good old-fashioned patriotic music?

FOREMAN: Patriotic. It’s a necessity because it’s a privilege to be able to call your congressmen or senators. It’s a privilege, and you better remember, only in America that you can do something like that. You better not have that jazz playing.

MORRIS: Well here’s what happened in Congress. The past three weeks they switched the phone call music — the hold music — so if George Foreman calls me and I’m a congressman — that’s never going to happen! — but if that were to happen, you used to hear this music. (MUSIC) That would get you pumped up. Now, for the past three weeks, you were hearing this, George, if you were to call, this is the music you’d here — this is a little smooth jazz. This is what you’d hear. (MUSIC) George, you’re on hold right now.

DOOCY: Maybe the idea was to put people to sleep.

FOREMAN: I couldn’t dance anyway. Give me some old patriotism music. I don’t need that jazz. (CROSSTALK) I want to hear that the country’s working. There’s nothing like patriotic music. I got in big trouble in 1960, because I picked up a small American flag and waved it. But the point is, we weren’t there to earn money, we were there to represent our country, and that’s what they need to know now. When you call there and you get an answer, get your mind on patriotism.

DOOCY: The key is the House leaders, in their wisdom, decided, “This was a bad idea, so we’re going to start playing the patriotic music again.”

FOREMAN: Good.

DOOCY: America wins!

If you’ve ever been stuck on hold with a congressional office in the past, at least you’ve been able to enjoy some good patriotic music, as opposed to the lilting tones of generic smooth jazz that have been driving elevator users insane for decades. For years, congressional offices have played patriotic anthems as the background music during hold times.

Not any more. After we were startled by the hold music when we called a House office recently, sources on Capitol Hill informed us this week that the Democratic House leadership has made a sweeping decision that congressional offices now have the options of “smooth jazz” elevator music or no music at all.

The post was picked up by various right-wing blogs. Rep. Fred Upton (R-MI) has even sent a letter to House Chief Administrative Officer (CAO) Daniel Beard — who, The New Leader points out, “reports to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi” — objecting to the change.

This conspiracy theory is the craziest thing since freedom fries. And birthers. ThinkProgress spoke with Beard’s spokesman Jeff Ventura, who cleared up the confusion:

The music was changed during recess as a pilot program in an attempt to offer offices a choice of hold music. [...]

This had nothing to do with the leadership — not in the beginning or the final outcome.

Here’s what happened: Congressional offices have traditionally been able to have a choice of music or no music. The CD that had been in the congressional muzak system for “a long time” was a “patriotic tunes CD.” The CAO’s office wanted to test a program giving people a choice of multiple CDs and decided to try out a jazz CD because it’s “what a lot of companies have when you’re on hold.” However, based on the feedback they received, they simply decided to go back to the old system.

So for the record, there is no left-wing conspiracy to ban patriotic muzak.

Hoyer (D-Md.) emphasized his support for a public option in a teleconference call with reporters, but also said he wants to ensure Congress sends a bill to the president.

“I’m for a public option, but I’m also for passing a bill,” he said. Democrats believe the public option is necessary, he said, “but we’ll have to see.”

He added that there are many other important parts of healthcare legislation approved by three committees in the House.

Hoyer’s comment echoes HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius’ recent claim that the public option is “not essential,” which the Obama administration has aggressively sought to walk back.