Nancy Pelosi: If John Boehner Were A Woman, People Would Call Him 'The Weakest Speaker In History'

WASHINGTON -- Not only is House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) a weak leader, but if he were a woman, people would be calling him "the weakest speaker in history," House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said Monday.

During an interview on MSNBC's "All In With Chris Hayes," Pelosi, who served as House speaker for four years before Boehner took over, was asked point-blank if she thinks Boehner is a weak speaker.

"I will say this about John Boehner, and I have a good relationship" with him, Pelosi said. "If he were a woman, they'd be calling him the weakest speaker in history."

She said Boehner deserves that title because House Republican leaders "have never been able to pass anything without our coming to the rescue." The one exception to that rule, she said, is the GOP's "nasty" and "unprincipled" budgets.

"You know what, if a woman was speaker and nothing was happening in this way, they'd say, 'Oh, my gosh. Oh, my gosh,'" Pelosi said. "I'm just getting a little, shall we say, tired of some of the ways they take a pass on some and not on others. We get criticized for accomplishing things. They don't get criticized for not accomplishing things."

A request for comment from Boehner's office was not immediately returned.

It's true that Boehner has relied on Democrats to pass nearly all major bills out of the House this year. There are nine enacted bills and joint resolutions so far in this session of Congress. Of those, Boehner violated the so-called Hastert Rule -- an informal requirement that a majority of the majority supports a bill in order to bring it to a vote -- four times to get them passed. Those bills include the fiscal cliff deal, Hurricane Sandy aid, the Violence Against Women Act reauthorization bill and a bill relating to federal acquisition of historic sites.

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Today in history website + awesome domain name

Dear friend,

Take a look at thingsworthmentioning.com. It is a "today in history" kind of script with its own database. The script works perfectly, all it needs is a bit of design maybe. I am working on coding mostly so the site has no design!

It has over 6000 events and new ones can be easily added via mysql. For a few extra bucks I can create an admin panel too.

The site is up for sale, as it is now, for $100.

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Abraham H. Foxman: Israel at 65: A Proud History and Bright Future

Abraham H. Foxman: Israel at 65: A Proud History and Bright Future HPFB.init();
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GET UPDATES FROM Abraham H. Foxman   Like 42 Israel at 65: A Proud History and Bright Future Posted: 04/15/2013 5:03 pm Follow   Judaism ,   Israel ,   Science , David Ben Gurion , Yom Ha'Atzmaut , Innovation , Israel-65th-Anniversary , Technology , World News
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As Israel celebrates its 65th birthday, we should pause to marvel at the many successes of the Jewish state. Democracies around the world, including the U.S., have taken centuries to achieve the type of political, social and economic advances that define Israel's existence today. It is worth reflecting on what Israel has accomplished in the country's short history.

When David Ben-Gurion declared Israel's independence in 1948, the country consisted of 650,000 people, many of whom had survived the horrors of the Holocaust. Together with Jews from around the world, they joined in committing to the goal of creating a viable and secure democratic Jewish state.

Jews arrived from all corners of the globe to start their lives anew in Israel. Holocaust survivors from Europe, Jews expelled from Arab countries and Ethiopian and Russian immigrants all came seeking a more secure and prosperous future for themselves and their families. Despite the difficulties involved in absorbing these different population groups, including major political, cultural and religious differences, Israel never succumbed to internal violent conflict.

In the early days of the state, Israelis faced daunting twin challenges -- growing the homeland while simultaneously protecting it from external enemies who sought its destruction. Accepting the responsibility of building up a poor immigrant nation, the Israeli government pursued socialist policies that sought economic equality for its citizens and allowed for the government to oversee the country's development. This approach facilitated the resettlement and absorption of new immigrants, helped build up cities, towns and Kibbutzes, and contributed to the remarkable cultivation of undeveloped ecosystems like the swampy Hula Valley and the arid Negev desert.

At the same time, Israel faced repeated attacks from outside enemies on each of its borders who sought to destroy the Jewish state. Israelis remained resolute and resilient, fighting for the country's survival while calling on its enemies to sit down and negotiate peace.

Indeed, over the years, Israel has made enormous sacrifices for the sake of peace, both in blood and in territory. Menachem Begin, Israel's sixth prime minister, ceded control of the Sinai to Egypt. Yitzhak Rabin's brave efforts to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict led to his assassination at the hands of a Jewish extremist. Ariel Sharon's disengagement from Gaza gave way to a deadly Hamas-led rocket campaign against Israel's southern cities and towns. Even today, despite repeated terrorist threats against Israel emanating from the West Bank and Gaza, Israeli leaders, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, continue to actively pursue peace with the Palestinians.

Remarkably, even with the lack of complete peace, this country of eight million continues to grow as a nation. The Jewish state has come a long way, and is now recognized as an international leader in the hi-tech and scientific fields. In just the past eleven years, there have been six Israeli Nobel laureates, and major companies including Google and Microsoft have opened up facilities in the Jewish State. During President Obama's recent Israel visit, he underscored some of Israel's cutting-edge scientific and technological innovations, noting the important contributions Israelis were making towards improving the world.

What sets Israel apart from so many other nations is its desire and ability to help others in need. Following the devastating earthquake in Haiti in 2010, Israel had one of the first rescue teams on the ground, and operated the only fully functioning field hospital in the country. Israeli doctors regularly treat Syrian rebels who have been injured in the country's civil war, and Israeli scientists operate agricultural programs in a number of developing countries, using innovative Israeli technology to assist in dealing with environmental concerns like climate change and food security.

After 65 years of independence, Israelis look back with well-deserved pride in what they have accomplished in such a short period. Israeli democracy, despite having endured many trials and tribulations, remains remarkably strong. Political debate can be heard throughout cafes and restaurants across the country. Israel's vibrant press carries news and opinions from all spectrums of society. The Knesset has become a setting for politicians from all walks of life to engage in meaningful and impassioned discussions about important legislative issues.

Israelis also look forward with optimism about their future. Yes, Israel is an imperfect state, and continues to grapple with many important issues. To be sure, security issues still loom large and likely will for the foreseeable future. Palestinian feet dragging has led to a peace process that is stagnating. Hamas continues to violently threaten Israel and Iran, which has repeatedly threatened to wipe Israel off the map, is fixated on building nuclear weapons capable of doing so. The civil war in Syria has also raised serious concerns about the regime's chemical weapons falling into terrorist hands.

Yet these and other difficulties have not hindered Israel's ability and desire to continue building a strong democratic and prosperous Jewish state. Israelis know that the best way to counter those seeking to jeopardize its existence is to continue innovating and sharing ideas and creations with the rest of the world.

On Israel's 65th birthday, the Israeli people have expressed an unquestionable desire to build a better future for their country and for the world. While many challenges still remain for Israel and the Jewish people, as long as Israelis continue believing in and working towards achieving their country's potential, Israel will continue to be uniquely strong and vital for decades to come.

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by Abraham H. FoxmanThe Deadliest Lies: The Israel Lobby and the Myth of Jewish Control
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Don McNay: Success From Understanding History

I was reading an obscure blog, "The Impact of the Affordable Care Act on Special Needs Planning" by Scott Solkoff, when I saw a line that jumped out.

"There will be new opportunities for special needs attorneys because of the complexity of the Affordable Care Act."

That line made me realize the fundamental key to success:

1. Change is always going to make things more complex.
2. Those who "get" the complexity will master the universe.

I've owned a computer since the first IBM PC 30 years ago. I spent countless hours learning how to program code, manipulate software and rewire machines in order to do something simple like calculate simple numbers.

On the other hand, my ability to quickly calculate numbers gave me a huge advantage over competitors, who still use pen and paper. Many of them did not make it.

Apple became the largest company in the world by sticking to the mantra of making their products simple to understand. I don't need to do complicated programming to get an iPad to work; I just click on an application specifically designed to the task I want it to perform.

If I wanted, I could still do programming on an IBM XT. Part of me thinks that I spent years on a skill that is no longer needed.

The better part understands that the skill helped me get a competitive edge and fuel my desire to embrace change.

Most people are afraid of change. They want affirmation from "what everyone else is doing" and don't want to spend the time and effort to keep on educating themselves. I've been as guilty of that as anyone.

I realize that my stalling points in life are when I decided I "knew everything" and got lazy.

As Harry Truman said, "It's what you learn after you know it all that counts."

The first key to understanding Truman's point is to recognize that you are never going to "know it all."

The second key is that if you aren't constantly trying to "know it all," you are going to fall behind.

I see the world with a great divide of have's and have not's. I don't see it as shaped by economics or ideology.

The divide is between people who are hungry to learn and those who aren't.

The hottest countries on the world stage, like China and India, are fueled by the excitement of people willing to seek knowledge and embrace change.

A simple dynamic fueled their desire. Not long ago, they were two of the poorest countries in the world. They are seeing their quest for knowledge being rewarded with a better lifestyle for their families and themselves.

It's a lot harder to embrace change when things are going pretty well. It's also hard when you don't see an immediate tangible result.

That is where education comes in.

One of my great frustrations of 21st century society is that the study of history is not cherished as it should be.

There is a lot of focus on dealing with the problems of the moment instead of recognizing that someone else dealt with a similar problem decades or centuries ago.

To use another Harry Truman quote, "the only thing new is the history you don't know."

That is why I sat and read all 906 pages in the Affordable Care Act. Several times. I read every nuance through the same lens: Where are the opportunities for myself and my clients?

I also viewed it through the lens of a historic event: The interstate highway system.

Just like Obamacare will do, the interstate highway system dramatically changed America.

Those who understood the opportunities prospered. Those who did not went out of business.

Although there were some who made money building roads and bridges, the overwhelming opportunities of the interstate highway system were not on the surface.

One on both sides was Colonel Harlan Sanders. He had a successful restaurant in Corbin, Kentucky, right on a main road, until the interstate highway system routed cars in a different direction. Broke at age 65, Colonel Sanders did not curse his bad luck.

He embraced change, such as the mobility of society spurred by the interstate highway system and the rise of fast foods like McDonalds. By teaming up with smart businessmen, like former Kentucky Governor John Y. Brown Jr., Sanders created one of the world's most successful brands in Kentucky Fried Chicken.

There are immediate opportunities for my clients as Obamacare comes into law. What I am looking for is the less obvious opportunities, just like Colonel Sanders.

As I learned from history, it's possible for an obscure Kentucky businessman to ride the waves of change to success.

As long as we are willing to embrace change and not be afraid of it.

Don McNay's fifth bestselling book is , Life Lessons from the Golf Course, co authored with PGA professional Clay Hamrick,

Follow Don McNay on Twitter: www.twitter.com/Donmcnay

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'Smart Guns,' Designed To Be Fired Only By Owner, Have Battled History

NEW YORK (AP) — It sounds, at first, like a bold, next-generation solution: personalizing guns with technology that keeps them from firing if they ever get into the wrong hands.

But when the White House called for pushing ahead with such new technology as part of President Obama's plan to cut gun violence, the administration did not mention the concept's embattled past. As with so much else in the nation's long-running divisions over gun rights and regulation, what sounds like a futuristic vision is, in fact, an idea that has been kicked around for years, sidelined by intense suspicion, doubts about feasibility and pressure tactics.

Now proponents of so-called personalized or smart guns are hoping the nation's renewed attention on firearms following the Newtown school massacre will kick start research and sale of safer weapons. But despite the Obama administration's promise to "encourage the development of innovative gun safety technology," advocates have good reason to be wary.

In the fiery debate over guns, personalized weapons have long occupied particularly shaky ground — an idea criticized both by gun-rights groups and some gun control advocates.

To the gun groups, the idea of using technology to control who can fire a gun smacks of a limitation on personal rights, particularly if it might be mandated by government. At the same time, some gun control advocates worry that such technology, by making guns appear falsely safe, would encourage Americans to stock up on even more weapons then they already have in their homes.

Without the politics, the notion of using radio frequency technology, biometric sensors or other gadgetry in a gun capable of recognizing its owner sounds like something straight out of James Bond. In fact, it is. In the latest Bond flick, "Skyfall," Agent 007's quartermaster passes him a 9 mm pistol coded to his palm print.

"Only you can fire it," the contact tells the agent. "Less of a random killing machine. More of a personal statement."

In real life, though, there's no getting around the politics, and the debate over personalized guns long ago strayed well beyond questions of whether the technology will work.

Those were the first questions asked in 1994 when the research arm of the Justice Department began studying prospects of making a police gun that a criminal would not be able to fire if he wrestled it away during a struggle. Scientists at Sandia National Laboratories examined available technology in 1996 and found it promising, but wanting.

By then the notion of a safe gun had long captivated Stephen Teret, a former attorney and public health expert at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore who had gone after automakers for not including air bags in their cars. In 1983, he got a call that the 22-month-old son of a couple he knew had been killed by a 4-year-old who found a loaded gun in a nightstand drawer.

"Very definitely, that was the genesis," said Teret, who went on to found Hopkins' Center for Gun Policy and Research. "Because when one thinks of something as a public health person the first thing is you're sick with grief and the second thing that comes to mind is why in the world would there be a handgun operable by a 4-year-old?"

Teret began trying to get lawmakers and gun makers interested in the concept of personalized weapons. He convinced U.S. Rep. Pat Schroeder, D-Colorado, to earmark funding for the Justice study. And in the mid-1990s he voiced support for a project at Colt's Manufacturing Co., the legendary but beleaguered gun maker that saw an opportunity to sell safe guns to police officers and parents of young children.

Colt's developed a gun equipped with a microchip that would prevent it from firing unless the user was wearing an enabling device located in a special wristband. But gun rights activists were skeptical, partly because the government was funding research of the concept and because gun control advocates like Teret embraced it. At about the same time, New Jersey lawmakers began discussing a measure requiring all new handguns sold in the state to be personalized, three years after the technology came to market. The measure passed in 2002.

Owners' skepticism was heightened in 1997 when Colt's CEO Ronald Stewart wrote an editorial in American Firearms Industry magazine calling on fellow manufacturers to parry gun control efforts by backing a federal gun registry and developing personalized weapons.

"While technology such as this should not be mandated it should be an option for the consumer," Stewart wrote. "If we can send a motorized computer to Mars, then certain we can advance our technology to be more childproof."

Stewart did not respond to a message seeking comment left at a Connecticut company where he now serves on the board of directors.

Soon after, the Coalition of New Jersey Sportsmen — a state affiliate of the National Rifle Association — began calling for a boycott of Colt's. It warned that personalized technology might make it difficult for gun owners to defend themselves and called the company's conduct "detrimental to American-style freedoms and liberties."

Stewart was replaced as CEO of Colt's in 1998 and the company eventually abandoned development of a personalized gun.

In 1999, New Jersey's lawmakers approved a grant to researchers at New Jersey Institute of Technology to study personalized gun technology. Those efforts focused on adding transducers to a gun's handle to detect the grasp of an authorized user. Meanwhile, the Justice Department offered a challenge grant to gun makers and although two responded, they made limited headway by the time $7 million in funding ran out.

Work on personalized weapons suffered another setback after gun rights' groups boycotted Smith & Wesson over a 2000 agreement it signed with the Clinton administration in which the manufacturer made numerous promises, including one to develop smart guns.

Meanwhile, the New Jersey school, funded by Congressional earmarks, tried repeatedly to find a commercial partner for its work. But even as NJIT bolstered the reliability of its prototype, which now has a recognition rate of about 97 percent, it found it a hard sell. Talks with a Florida gun maker at first seemed productive until industry activists pressured the company to back away, said Donald Sebastian, NJIT's senior vice president for research and development .

"Their claim that these are just blue state liberals looking to take your guns away, it just inflames people to not think a little more rationally," Sebastian said.

"Yes it's a frustrating experience, but we have to be adults," he said. "I think it's been a long lesson to learn that this intermingling of the concepts of gun safety and gun control are ultimately poison."

Mike Bazinet, a spokesman for the National Shooting Sports Foundation, which represents gun manufacturers, said questions remain about whether the technology has been improved enough to assure police officers and civilians a personalized weapon would fire when they need protection. But there are also concerns "about individual consumers' ability to choose the firearm that they think is best for them," Bazinet said.

But gun makers and owners have not been the only critics. Activists from the Violence Policy Center, an outspoken gun control group, also spoke against personalized weapons.

"If a smart gun did exist what would its effect be, taking into consideration the nature of gun violence in this country?" said Josh Sugarmann, the group's executive director. "Would you place families at risk or people at risk by giving this impression that this is a safe gun? You know, people who wouldn't normally buy a gun, would they buy one now?"

NJIT's Sebastian, who joined a group of personalized gun advocates who met recently with Attorney General Eric Holder to push for their development, said his school has seen some renewed interest and is talking with officials at Picatinny Arsenal, which develops weapons for the U.S. military.

Meanwhile, two European companies working on personalized gun technology have their eyes on the U.S. market. One of those firms, TriggerSmart Ltd. of Limerick, Ireland, has developed a system using Radio Frequency Identification that would be built into the handle of a gun and triggered by a device the size of a grain of rice inside a user's ring or bracelet. Co-founder Robert McNamara said he is seeking to license the technology to a U.S. manufacturer, but is looking at the possibility of producing kits for retrofitting existing guns.

Another venture, Armatix GmbH of Unterfoehring, Germany, says it has developed a personalized gun, with settings based on radio frequency technology and biometrics, that was approved by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms in late 2011. Armatix said it hopes to begin selling the gun as well as accompanying safety and locking systems in the U.S. this year, but would not provide details.

Teret, who long ago launched the campaign for personalized guns, acknowledged much has to happen before they become a reality. But the White House has promised to issue a report on the technology and award prizes to companies that come up with innovative and cost-effective personalized guns, and its interest has rejuvenated hopes that the gun of the future may actually have one.

"For 30 years, at best we've been inching forward at a glacial pace," he said. "And now this puts it up to warp speed."

___

Associated Press writer David Rising in Berlin contributed to this report. Adam Geller, a New York-based national writer, can be reached at features(at)ap.org. Follow him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/AdGeller .

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