Turn Out the Lights Pelosi

In case you haven't heard, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi adjourned Congress rather than allow debate on off-shore oil drilling.



Perhaps they want the next President to get credit for saving us from high oil prices, rather than Bush.

Anyway, here's some video and article clips. Feel free to comment afterwards:

Dems turn out the lights on Republicans and lower oil prices

By Ross Balano, Midwest Voices Colunist 2008

Thanks to Nancy Pelosi congress adjourned for five weeks without addressing America’s energy crisis.

Speaker Pelosi refused to allow a vote on increased off shore drilling choosing instead to leave for vacation even though Republicans protested loudly saying that the refusal to allow a vote is harmful to the economy. Pelosi’s response was to turn off the lights and cut the microphones on Republicans.

Republicans continued to talk in the dark and with no microphones and finally the lights and microphones were turned back on for a time and then turned off again.

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Lights off & Locked Out

Posted by: John Campbell at 12:47 PM

Congress has passed no meaningful energy legislation to move us towards lower gas prices and more American energy and now has recessed for a 5 week break. Republicans, including yours truly, wanted to speak more about that on the floor of the House this afternoon. The Pelosi majority took the unusual step of calling for immediate adjournment to prevent these speeches from going forward and turned off the cameras and microphones on the House floor.

It’s one thing to not allow a vote on more energy production. It’s another to not even allow people to speak about it. I and several dozen others are speaking on the House floor right now to a gallery full of cheering people to demand that Speaker Pelosi allow a vote on more American energy production. No TVs. No microphones.

You can turn off the lights, but you cannot silence the will of the American people.

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House Dems Turn Out The Lights But GOP Keeps Talking

By John Bresnahan

"This is the people's House," Rep, Thaddeus McCotter (R-Mich.) said. "This is not Pelosi's politiburo."

Democratic aides were furious at the GOP stunt, and reporters were kicked out of the Speaker's Lobby, the space next to the House floor where they normally interview lawmakers.

"You're not covering this, are you?" complaing one senior Democratic aide. Another called the Republicans "morons" for staying on the floor.

Update - The Capitol Police are now trying to kick reporters out of the press gallery above the floor, meaning we can't watch the Republicans anymore. But Minority Whip Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) is now in the gallery talking to reporters, so the cops have held off for a minute. Clearly, Democrats don't want Republicans getting any press for this episode. GOP leaders are trying to find other Republicans to rotate in for Blunt so reporters aren't kicked out.

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Congress Adjourns, but Talks on Oil Persist

By DAVID M. HERSZENHORN

In a letter to Representative Nancy Pelosi, the speaker, earlier in the day, House Republican leaders demanded that she call a special summer session.

“You have the power to call Congress back into session at any moment to deal with issues of urgent national importance,” they wrote. “No one can argue that the issue of high energy costs and their impact on American families does not rise to this level.”

At a news conference, some Republicans also urged President Bush to call a special session of Congress — a power last exercised by President Harry S. Truman in 1948.