President Lieberman was for the expansion of Medicare just three months ago!
On Face the Nation yesterday, Sen. Joe Lieberman said that he not only wants to strip out the public option, but also the Medicare buy-in at fifty-five.
"You have to take out the Medicare buy-in. You have to forget about the public option. You probably have to take out the class act which was a whole new entitlement program that will in future years put us further into the deficit," Lieberman told CBS' Bob Schieffer Sunday.
"I want to tell you, we could pass a health care reform bill this week with more than 60 votes and it would be bipartisan if we just took a few things out of the bill as it is today," said Lieberman.
Lieberman wants to pass a Republican health care package, which is no plan at all. This bitter man is hijacking the entire health care reform effort for no other reasons than his petty, narcissistic agenda. He is a traitor to the liberal policies that once, as a vice-presidential nominee in 2000, he would have never signed onto.
Greg Sargent comes up with video proof which exposes Lieberman of being a bad-faith participant in health care negotiations. Holy Joe just three months ago was saying that he supports a Medicare buy-in plan. Oh, my!
What would David Broder say about that?
In the vid, Lieberman appeared to go further than the current Senate deal, which would expand Medicare to those aged 55-64, saying he supported the idea of expanding it to people aged 50 and over. Lieberman referenced his proposal along these lines during the 2006 campaign, and added:
“My proposals were to basically expand the existing successful public health insurance programs Medicare and Medicaid…
“When it came to Medicare I was very focused on a group — post 50, maybe more like post 55. People who have retired early, or unfortunately have been laid off early, who lose their health insurance and they’re too young to qualify for Medicare.
“What I was proposing was that they have an option to buy into Medicare early and again on the premise that that would be less expensive than the enormous cost. If you’re 55 or 60 and you’re without health insurance and you go in to try to buy it, because you’re older … you’re rated as a risk so you pay a lot of money.”
It’s not entirely clear that Lieberman was offering a full-throated current endorsement of the proposal, but his tone is clearly positive and approving. It’s yet another sign, as if you needed one, that Lieberman’s current opposition to the Senate proposal doesn’t appear to have any roots in a genuine policy disagreement.
It appears that Holy Joe wants to destroy health-care reform because his feelings have been hurt by liberals who disagreed with his warmongering behavior. The pettiness he holds dear to his heart is being used to destroy any chance that working-class Americans will be getting meaningful health care reform. You can't go lower than that.
Again it boils down to leadership, and President Obama and Harry Reid have not led this fight well from the beginning. They knew they had to deal with Joe, so he was bowed down to. The problem is that he felt no repercussions after he threw his full support to John McCain in the 2008 election. "He's with us on everything except the war," was what Harry Reid said. How did that work out for ya, Harry? Joe is destined to destroy health-care reform altogether.
People need to send the link to this to all the press and the villagers they can think of to show just how perfidious their favorite "man of integrity" is being on this. Thy won't care about the substance, but this helps expose Lieberman's pettiness which villagers always find uncomfortable. (The exposure, not the pettiness.)
The PCCC has set up another action against Lieberman:
Please sign this petition to progressive Senators Russ Feingold, Bernie Sanders, Roland Burris, and Sherrod Brown:
PETITION: "Don't let Joe Lieberman win! Americans need you to stand strong and block any 'compromise' without a strong public option. If necessary, demand that Sen. Harry Reid and President Obama support budget reconciliation and pass a bill with just 51 votes -- at which point, Joe Lieberman will be irrelevant and the public option can be made even stronger."
Key Democrats have said they won't support a bill without a strong public option:
Please sign on to it. The more we expose him as a fraud the better.
Joe's wife is also a major player in Lieberman's thinking process and part of his obstructionism that is responsible for Joe's switching of positions and trying to hold health care hostage.
That said, I agree with Chris Bowers that in a lot of ways the real story here is that the Senate leadership has, at every step of this process, underscored that a “reconciliation” path to a health care bill is off the table. That means Lieberman has unlimited control over what happens, and no incentive to compromise, so it shouldn’t surprise anyone that he’s being uncompromising. Can’t liberals be just as stiff-necked as Lieberman? Sure, they could. But liberals members do have an incentive to compromise—the tens of thousands of people who die every year for lack of health insurance. The leverage that Lieberman and other “centrists” have obtained on this issue (and on climate change) stems from a demonstrated willingness to embrace sociopathic indifference to the human cost of their actions.
just can't he1p himself and the media is so happy to attack Obama and the Dems using this terd. That's what Obama gets for supporting him over Ned LaMont.
________________
common sense matters as much as truth
are in Conn and donate to him as well as a liar...His wife is on the payroll of Susan G. Foundation and should be fired...
Liebermutt needs to be gone!
He wants attention --give him a call 1.800.828.0498 and tell him what amount of disgust and contempt in which you hold him! Slimey traitor!
Did you say 1.800.828.0498
Is that his professional number?
He obviously has some learnin' ta do from his electorate.
that way he can do less talkin' and more listenin'.
"Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob"
-= Franklin Delano Roosevelt =-
Fire up the bus and throw holy Joe under it already. What a piece of shit he is. The Dems need to boot him from the caucus and treat him like the scum he is. Lie-berman is just going to continue to play the dem party for saps as long as they continue to wimper at his feet in the mistaking belief that Joe will support them.
Joe LIEberman must have secret powers over our elected representatives.
"Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob"
-= Franklin Delano Roosevelt =-
the insurance companies. Apparently, people think I'm kidding. I'm not kidding. Maybe I should rebrand him as the "go between." The "fixer." Does that get my point across better?
lieberman should be tied up and
left on the railway tracks he has
thrown everyone else on.
what a lieing sack of shit.
...when the revolution comes, can we at least agree that we don't need a damn Senate? Or, if we have one, make sure it has good term limits? Or something? I'm not seeing the sense in a modern version of the Senate...
for millionaires!
The Senate doesn't act unless it involves hurting, killing or pushing people down.
NOBODY 2012
LIEberman is simply a business man, not the people's man. He is in the wrong profession. He has the system of government by the balls, and that is just so, so wrong...
"Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob"
-= Franklin Delano Roosevelt =-
lieberman will be come a health/pharmaceutical
lobbyist when he loses his senate seat....he
is just priming his transition to becoming
a worse fucking jackass.
He is in the wrong profession.
No, he's just in the wrong location: not far from the Capitol is 14th and K, previously the place one could find a whore, currently where one can find a lobbyist.
It has gone downhill.
Joe LIEberman Lies when will the Democrats ever learn?
and when will the media ever learn.
BTW - LIZard lips Chaney is mouthing off in public again today - right on schedule - she'll put her evil father in jail yet!
Have you noticed, her nose is getting longer each week?
And she always interrupts people. That is considered wrong, as is torture.
"Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob"
-= Franklin Delano Roosevelt =-
Stealing a kids lunch at school is "wrong".
Torture is a "war crime" punishable by death.
"The US has an army of 90,000 soldiers in Afghanistan and is spending $100bn a year, but has still been unable to defeat 20,000-25,000 Taliban who receive no pay at all." - Patrick Cockburn
Tom Hartman had what sounded like a good idea. That is to just expand the medicare budget vastly so it covers all, there by making a true single payer system. he was saying that because medicare is an already established program its budget was not up for cloture vote. A symple majority would do. If that is true, then it would seem that even the threat of something along those lines would get movement towrd compromise in the lefts favor. Either I mis-heard Hartman, he's full of shit, or the "centrist" dems are siding with the repubes on all things of significance it would seem.
"...Congress deadlocked on how not to provide Healthcare"
http://www.theonion.com/content/news/congress...
on Sanders Single-Payer amendment....
Stay tuned to C-SPAN.....
I'll believe it when I see it.
Obama has also called a pow-wow with the Senate Dems for tomorrow. I guess Rahm has a little arm-twisting to do.
"The US has an army of 90,000 soldiers in Afghanistan and is spending $100bn a year, but has still been unable to defeat 20,000-25,000 Taliban who receive no pay at all." - Patrick Cockburn
Firedoglake.com's Jane Hamsher Discusses the Liebermans' Health Care Conflict of Interest
Sign Letter to Susan B. Komen Foundation: Donations Shouldn’t Go To Hadassah Lieberman
When will government of the people, by the politicians, for the corporations perish from this Earth?
Not soon enough!
"It could probably be shown by facts and figures that there is no distinctly native American criminal class except Congress."
---- Mark Twain, 1894
Jane Hamsher is GREAT too, by the way, and I seldom use the word "great" for anyone. Ms. Hamsher deserves an award....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rYqF_BtIwAU
F---k you too, Joe.
"We will find fulfillment not in the goods that we have, but in the good we can do for each other."
Robert F. Kennedy
Is it just me, or are other people hearing the very clear message that Lieberman ("I"), Nelson, Baucus and another half dozen conservative Democrats are screaming and begging for Congress to pass this thing through Reconcilliation, so they can go back to their conservative-leaning voters and tell them that they voted against all of the progressive measures in the healthcare reform bill?
No matter WHAT you put in and what you take out they're going to say no to it, even though they're probably secretly in favor of the more progressive measures in it. They just can't say so in public, and don't want to say so in private for fear that it'll leak out anyway.
The Blue Dog Democrats WANT this to be done with Reconcilliation so they have an excuse to vote against something they (for the most part) believe in. The Republicans want it to fail. The Blue Dogs want it to succeed, but without them actually having to support it. You CAN'T do anything to satisfy the Republicans who want it to fail, but (ironically) you CAN satisfly the Blue Dogs by NOT forcing them into the spot of having to support a filibuster. Why is that so hard to understand?
And if you're going to do it through Reconciliation anyway, you may as well clean it up! Take out all the bells and whistles that were only put in to appease the Blue Dogs, and put a viable public option AND a 55+ Medicare buy in back in, along with the stripping of HMOs of their anti-trust law exemption.
if a 55 y/o and up American opted in to Medicare?
$600/mo.
Not sure about the rest of ya'll, but there would be ZERO chance of me being able to afford that.
"The US has an army of 90,000 soldiers in Afghanistan and is spending $100bn a year, but has still been unable to defeat 20,000-25,000 Taliban who receive no pay at all." - Patrick Cockburn
How about we evoke the spirit of Teddy Kennedy to kick the shit out of Holy Joe? Everybody concentrate really hard.
Joe LIEberman is your enemy Democrats!
Repeat after me.....
Joe LIEberman is an enemy of Democrats!
Actually, the bigger enemy of democrats is their own cowardice and lack of integrity. Have some backbone already and call out dopey dog for what he is.
Harry Reid...what a waste of good protoplasm.
Vote GOP and move forward to the 18th Century.
Fuck Lieberman. And I don't mean that in a nice way. It really is time to kick this power hungry bastard to the curb.
AIPAC has Joe's back....
Lieberman staying in as Chairman of The Homeland Security Committee and continuing to carry water for Israel is as sure a thing as the sun rising tomorrow morning....
"The US has an army of 90,000 soldiers in Afghanistan and is spending $100bn a year, but has still been unable to defeat 20,000-25,000 Taliban who receive no pay at all." - Patrick Cockburn
Nutless Harry Reid says to the the vindictive traitor, you block this, you lose any leadership position the Senate FOREVER. Not just this term, any term that Democrats hold the power. It's that fucking simple. Loserman is doing this for one reason. The progressives didn't back him. WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!!!! So let's hold the American people hostage because your feelings were hurt. Two more years of this asshole is two years too many. He'll never win in 2012. I'll bet Harry Reid's nutless sack on it.
is intended to be a factual statement
An explanation for LIEberman's actions is that he is in the pocket of the insurance industry. He has been criticized along those lines since his days as attorney general of Connecticut. Back in 1988, he was dogged for accepting campaign donations from the insurance company Advest Inc. one month after Connecticut Insurance Commissioner Peter W. Gillies had requested an opinion from his office in a case involving the company. Over the course of his career in the Senate, meanwhile, Lieberman has taken more than $1.04 million in campaign contributions from insurance companies, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.
LIEberman is screaming for "Reconcilliation"! All of the losers think they can save face if the "blues" use it. Use it. Reconcilliation It's perfect Karma...
Senate Dems now deserve to be afflicted with this vermin. And they will continue to deserve it until they actually do something about it. Nobody demonstrates the problems with our government better than Holy Joe!
He demonstrates the problem with our Democrats pretty good. Gutless, ball less and spineless. He deserves as much blame as Holy Joe.
is intended to be a factual statement
But Tom(The Hammer)DeLay got stuff done.
Sure, it was unethical, illegal, underhanded, abusive, corrupted, and pretty much mean and dirty. But he did get stuff done.
hmmmmmmmmm?
.
.
. I should add the /
What is your conceptual, continuity?
Except what Joe's doing. Strip him of his power because he doesn't fit in with the thinking of the party that's in control. Would a conservative party give the the leadership of Health and Human Services to a pro choice politician? I think not.
is intended to be a factual statement
Bill Frist never needed 60 votes to do anything. He just told the Dems that they could go f____ themselves, and they cowered away.
A potential threat of a filibuster on the Alito nomination? Don't worry, there's a bunch of sellout Democrats waiting to form a gang of turncoats to give the Republicans whatever they want.
I watched this shit yesterday. What sent me into orbit was at the very end of the segment where old Bob said "we'll be back with the Republican point of view after this." Nelson and Mush Mouth WERE the republican point of view!
Fuck Sens. Good Hair and Mush Mouth
M$M asking Lieberman about his earlier statements? Oh wait.
Don't blame Lieberman, scumbag that he is, for his power over HCR.
The asshole, wimpy, weakling, corrupt, pathetic Democrats, from Obama to Reid to the rest of the Senate Democrats, have chosen to needlessly make him a kingmaker. They just can't eat enough of his shit.
He's not even a member of their fucking party!
The Democrats are to blame for this mess. Remeber that when they are begging for money and votes.
that Rahm/Obama was the one who asked Lieberman to back off of his original support for the Medicare expansion. Obama's been striving for a purely privatized, for-profit healthcare system from day one to stay in cohoots with his plutocrat benefactors, while putting on a charade for his duped supporters that he stood for much more.
... really is one of the most despicable human beings in Washington.
I always thought he should just stick a (R-Likud) next to his name and be done with it.
As with Wanton Boy, the sound and sight of him make me sick.
BID
This pathologically narcissistic sociopath, this Quisling-like irredeemable opportunist, this irremediably corrupt predator really has no bottom, does he? There appears to be no limit to how far he will sink, no lie he won't tell others or himself, no trust he won't betray in order either to indulge his hunger for self-aggrandizement or to line his own pockets. I think he is one of the sleaziest, oiliest politicians this country has ever produced. He lives a life utterly devoid of a capacity to experience shame, any detectable trace of a functioning conscience, any sliver of evidence of a capacity to intellectual honesty. The scope of his self-made degradation and debasement are truly astonishing, especially when it is remembered that he considers himself to be a selfless exemplar of moral and ethical principles. Unbelievable, just unbelievable. I do believe that the man has so estranged himself from reality as to be functionally insane.
It should be clear to all at this point that the only interests he serves are his own, and he doesn't give a happy damn how many have to suffer for that to happen.
His ass needs to be ejected from the Democratic Caucus, he needs to lose his chairmanship with a quickness, and the fools who have been trying to curry favor with him by accomodating his whims and folding to his endless extortions need to wise-the-hell-up.
When in the world are we going to collectively wise up and stop electing such defective personalities to public office?
And here's some revolutionary music courtesy of Shostakovich to rally the people!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lp4444gU8D4
"We will find fulfillment not in the goods that we have, but in the good we can do for each other."
Robert F. Kennedy
There is a movement to give Joe Lieberman's opponent 1.5 million dollars in the next election. I don't know how effective that will be given that there are rumors that he won't seek reelection in 2012. Until Lieberman personally confirms that, however, I still agree with the idea of building up a war chest.
Besides, is it not the idea to elect better Democratic candidates? Even if Lieberman doesn't run in 2012, that should be the chance to put in place someone better than his type, and screw what the party bosses think!
Lieberman doesn't even know who he is anymore. This is a scary proposition for anyone trying to make a deal with him.
He knows exactly what he's doing. He's getting back at the Democrats who voted against him. This isn't about the people. Well, I guess it is. But more about political vengence.
is intended to be a factual statement
That's my take as well.
If I had the power, I'd make him switch places with a man who is struggling to get work and affordable health care. No connections, no rich buddies, no Senate seat.
I wish Karma would take a trip to Joe's mansion. Then Bush and Cheney's.
NOBODY 2012
That's not a bad bumper sticker... short... to the point... not bad at all....
Corruption favors the wealthy.
Lieberman's buddies over at Redstate are thrilled
http://www.redstate.com/dan_perrin/2009/12/13...
why Al Gore selected this droopy dog piece of shit as his running mate in 2000? What exactly did he bring to the ticket?
Every time I see this guy he's spouting off some nonsense that he was in favor of three months before? He's all over the place.
He's about as much a Democrat as Barney Frank is a Republican.
Connecticut voters must be very proud...........
I don't care who we lose it will not be anyone we truly need get rid of Joe L and Reid and anyone else that has constantly defending this down and dirty traitor. And before someone ask yes if that mean Obama then it means Obama.
It was Al Gore's fault for picking Joe for VP...which he did because
Joe's strong morals made him want to impeach Clinton and thus would help deflate hatred of Clinton. So it is Clinton's fault.
It was Obama's fault, because he supported Joe in a primary when challenger Ned Lamont beat Joe, then supported Lamont in the general when Joe beat Lamont (which most other Senate Democrats did as well.)
It was all Democratic Senators fault because they did not strip Joe of his seniority and chairmanships, which would have taught him
the lesson of failing to heed the Democratic line in a way that primary voters failed to do.
Of course, none of this is the fault of those who decided to primary Joe Lieberman in 2006 and teach him the error of his ways for supporting the Bush administration on the war in Iraq. They could not have known Connecticut was one of the few states which allowed an incumbent defeated in a primary to easily get on the ballot for the general. They could not have anticipated the Bushies, through Rove, could be devious enough to shove the Republican nominee under the bus and get their party voters to elect the once derided Loserman over Ned Lamont.
Folks, there is plenty of blame to go around. And plenty of suffering as a result of a lot of people's failure to see this bitter hypocrite for what he is.
“Why would anyone with a functioning brain believe this guy?”
Some guy with an eating disorder
That's where George Bush was born. They should be proud of him and of this old bastard. So few doing so much damage to so many.
So, Holy Joe says he'll order pizza as long as what's delivered has no cheese, no sauce, no toppings and no crust.
Fuck him. Fuck the whole Democratic Party.
Everyone is equally entitled to the pursuit of happiness. Wasn't that once self evident?
Listen to that weasel, Ben Nelson, yammer about his fears that opening Medicare will lead to a single payer system.
Once single payer was taken off the table, the door was opened for anyone to voice concerns that any step toward reform was a slippery slope to single payer. And what are the ones who took it off the table going to say in response? Note that Rockefeller couldn't think of any response.
Fucking ridiculous bargaining strategy! For crying out loud, even if the progressive wing of the Democratic Party had just pretended to consider single payer, just gave it nominal lip service, they could have avoided that obvious trap!
Everyone is equally entitled to the pursuit of happiness. Wasn't that once self evident?
why don't we dig the founders up out of their graves and skull
f*#k them too. If we did not have a bicameral legisaltive body containing a Senate based on states with equal representation this would not have happened.
“Why would anyone with a functioning brain believe this guy?”
Some guy with an eating disorder
Actually, the founders set up a very different kind of Senate. Senators were not elected by popular vote.
I know, I know, the 17th Amendment is supposed to make us more democratic, since we can directly elect our Senators. I know my view will be met with suspicion here, but I think it actually does the opposite. I think it makes us a far less democratic country, beholden far more to smaller states, and screwing most of the population.
I'll elaborate if anyone wants me to. Let the name calling begin, I guess.
Everyone is equally entitled to the pursuit of happiness. Wasn't that once self evident?
you got a point? or are you just about flaming ridiculous straw men?
Corruption favors the wealthy.
When the margin becomes one vote, any weasel can make himself king.
Who was it we blamed for Nelson? Who ran against him in the primary?
“Why would anyone with a functioning brain believe this guy?”
Some guy with an eating disorder
We need 50 plus Biden. That's it; that's all.
You really think Holy Joe is gonna support a filibuster? How about with Blue America ads pointing out how wholly owned he and his wife are by the moneyed interests on this issue? I doubt he'd last a week.
Lieberman, Nelson, & Ilk are just excuses for what Dems want to do anyway.
Corruption favors the wealthy.
You don't get cloture on debate, you don't get to go for the simple majority on the final vote.
Yeah, it's a shitty rule that should be nuked.
Don't try to confuse the issue with half-truths and gorilla dust.
Make the opposition filibuster. Make them read phone books. Let the American people see where the naysayers stand. Make the entire Senate stay in session for 60 days straight, have Harry tell them they aren't going home for Christmas until its done.
The troops don't get to go home for Christmas.
It effects all dilatory actions, including the traditional, one-man-holds-the-floor filibuster. I just don't think you could get 50 +1 of these current Senators to waive their right to filibuster in the future. The only reason it didn't happen in '05 is because the Gang of 14 made a deal: The 7 Republicans in the Gang agreed that they'd vote against the "nuclear option" if the 7 Democrats would agree not to hold up cloture on the Bush judicial candidates whose appointments were being held up at the time.
Don't try to confuse the issue with half-truths and gorilla dust.
I just want to watch Senators talk gibberish until they piss themselves. I want to see Joe "Droopy Dog" Lieberman in a sleeping bag on the Senate floor crying. Everyone is talking gibberish now: let's make it a 60 day marathon.
Bring on the filibuster. I just want to see Reid threaten it: bring it on.
By the way, if we don't even have 51 senators, then it is all for naught and our entire discussion is academic.
...definitely for a bill that has the Medicare buy-in and a triggered public option, and probably for one that's got an untriggered public option.
And if Lieberman started a filibuster, he could hand-off to any Republican to continue the filibuster. It could go on forever, killing all other legislation. The reason you didn't see that type of hand-off in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington is because the main character had absolutely no support in that fictional Senate.
Don't try to confuse the issue with half-truths and gorilla dust.
I was thinking the 57 day filibuster over the Civil Rights Act of 1964. I think history proves that the 57 lost days did not matter in retrospect.
Bring it on. Threaten it. Put on a goddamn poker face. Believe in it.
Or compromise some more. What do we have left to give away?
(not that a Bears fan knows much about that lately....)
Corruption favors the wealthy.
...and at the end, the Republicans call for cloture. You're not going to get 50 Democratic Senators willing to vote for the nuclear option over one bill. They want to preserve the privilege to delay legislation, just in case they want to use it in the future.
Don't try to confuse the issue with half-truths and gorilla dust.
We won: on that bill. This says nothing about any "nuclear option".
Filibusters don't always work... unless they're never tested.... If they're never tested then they always work.
Corruption favors the wealthy.
Enough support in the Senate to win a cloture vote, fiver. This one doesn't.
Don't try to confuse the issue with half-truths and gorilla dust.
Losing after a fight is one thing; abject capitulation is another.
And if we want to change anything next time around, then lets put responsibility where it belongs.
The Dems have been playing this shell game with a rotating bad guy every couple of weeks. No one is ever "the" bad guy, because capitulation follows to avoid any confrontation.
Enough of that. Time for them to take a stand.
Corruption favors the wealthy.
The Civil Rights Act had, all along, the votes it needed for passage as well as cloture. The filibuster in that case was a last-ditch effort by some southern conservatives to break the will of the rest of the senate, to strip off enough votes so that it wouldn't pass an up or down vote.
Don't try to confuse the issue with half-truths and gorilla dust.
... on matters of history. But that's not my memory (school memory, I'm too young for that) or what I'm finding with a quick glance.
If CRA proponents hadn't called the filibuster's bluff, it wouldn't have happened. Or at least not then.
Corruption favors the wealthy.
The moving train wreck in the status quo is worse than the unrealized potential of the full court press. You must choose one alternative or another. By capitulating up front our fate is sealed and the endless compromises continue.
At some point, procedural rationalization no longer provides adequate cover. Where is that elusive line in the sand?
Makes 50 democratic senators think differently. Maybe it makes the opposition buckle. Maybe it does nothing.
Maybe it changes the dynamic in 2010. Maybe it shows that democrats aren't a bunch of corrupt and spineless sycophants.
It's try or die Andy. I say we go all in.
Why make an attempted filibuster automatically a successful filibuster by default?
That's not a reason; that's an excuse.
Corruption favors the wealthy.
...they would hold up cloture. If they've got Lieberman, Nelson or Baucus on their side, they can kill the entire bill. They'd have 41 votes.
Don't try to confuse the issue with half-truths and gorilla dust.
And who holds up to that pressure? Lieberman? Both he and his wife are so filthy in health care money they would be humiliated - for as long as need be. Who else? Nelson? Landrieu?
Filibuster their own party and publicly fight huge polling majorities as well?
They wouldn't; they couldn't.
That's why the Dems will make sure they don't have to. Dems are fighting this to lose with as little culpability as possible.
Corruption favors the wealthy.
The only huge polling majorities that matter to them are those in their home states. Nebraska is pretty fucking conservative, and Connecticut is the home to a lot of insurance companies. Neither of them could get away with this type of behavior if they represented Illinois, California, New York or Massachusetts and expect to be re-elected. But they're as safe in their own states as they would be if they represented Utah or Oklahoma.
Don't try to confuse the issue with half-truths and gorilla dust.
State Farm, Allstate, Country Companies, and on and on. They love to headquarter in Illinois.
But my point is that it wouldn't matter. None of them could, politically or personally, survive filibustering their own party while they are aggressively attacked for their flagrant conflicts of interest.
How long does Lieberman last while his wife's health care lobbyist connections are pointed out daily? With the President making a stop or two in Connecticut?
He'd be toast; he knows it; and he wouldn't be making this bluff unless he knew it wouldn't be called.
Corruption favors the wealthy.
...And a populace that is smaller than Chicagoland. That means a higher percentage of people employed by insurers. There's a reason that Mrs. Lieberman works for the insurance industry and Mrs. Durbin (assuming there is a Mrs. Durbin) does not.
Dirty Democratic Party (not so) secret: Joe Biden was a major force behind the Bankruptcy Bill- the one that made it nearly impossible for a judge in bankruptcy court waive debt. Joe Biden, champion of the working man, right? No fucking way he'd push that piece of shit bill...Except that the banking industry employs more people in Delaware than any entity other than the state government and the education system in Delaware.
Don't try to confuse the issue with half-truths and gorilla dust.
yeah...
Bought and paid for.
But the last thing they want is a filibuster to help point that out.
Corruption favors the wealthy.
The largest private sector employer in his small state, fiver. It's not like Delaware has an assload of natural resources to exploit, or a lot of land to farm.
Fuckin' A, I expect Carl Levin and Debbie Stabenow to side with GM, Ford and Chrysler, as long as it means keeping jobs in the state.
Don't try to confuse the issue with half-truths and gorilla dust.
It is their corporate laws. They are the most favorable in the nation.
Bought and paid for.
I'm also not seeing the huge jobs benefit you mentioned.
Methinks the corporate cash matters a bit more.
Corruption favors the wealthy.
...and the only thing you've got that's higher is retail. But you subtract the banking sector jobs, and you'll see the retail jobs plummet.
You don't have jobs in the public sector- government, hospitals and education- or retail without the private sector jobs.
Flint, MI, in 1970 had the highest standard of living in the world. Great schools, great hospitals, stores where you could buy anything. But when GM started to go into the crapper, and auto workers started losing their jobs, the whole area followed. Same thing happened in Detroit, and, on a smaller scale, in Lansing and Grand Rapids. Same thing happened in Gary, IN, though it was jobs in the steel industry.
Would you say that representatives from those districts who offered up legislation favorable to the interests of the industries the districts were built around were in the bag for those industries, or in the bag for those who worked in those industries? Or were they in the bag for all of the workers in other sectors that provided services to those industry workers and their families?
Don't try to confuse the issue with half-truths and gorilla dust.
Corporations represent shareholders. Unions represent workers. Even though Flint may have gone down the drain, GM's directors, officers and major shareholders still probably had steak for breakfast.
Protecting a corporation can be useful in protecting jobs, but too often it seems merely coincidental.
Anyway Andy, it's late and I'm outta here.
Always a pleasure. Peace.
Corruption favors the wealthy.
It looks like the Senate Dems are selling us out on health care, so who's left? we can't vote for repugs, we can't vote for dems, and due to the ignorant nature of our country we can't seem to get a 3rd,4th,5th,etc party off the ground. (in any serious way, anyway)
So I ask...who's left? What hope does America have if not enough of our elected officials are on the side of the people who vote for them?
It's not just lieberman...although he is the perfect poster child for this crap. But we've been sold down the river by 100% of the repugs about 75% of the dems. so, who's left? - we need a serious education revolution to breed atleast one generation of Americans who actually give a shit about what is going on and what is done to them. - Sure we, blogging here, give a shit, but we are too few in number.
There are some people left, but they don't have enough power to make a difference.
No, you can't vote Republican. Yes, you have to keep voting Democrat a lot of the time in order to prevent Republicans from making things worse.
To fix anything, though, to have any hope, we have to change the electoral system. Until we get rid of our single-member, winner-takes-all districts, we will never have real change. It has to start from the bottom, and work upward. It will take many decades.
But nobody seems to care about it. So, I don't see much hope.
Everyone is equally entitled to the pursuit of happiness. Wasn't that once self evident?
But for some reason, people still see themselves as citizens of Texas, Delaware, Michigan....I don't think a change like this comes without a new constitution, and that will take, as you wrote, decades and decades.
Don't try to confuse the issue with half-truths and gorilla dust.
That pusillanimous, lying dickweed should be stripped of ALL his committees! Down with Droopy!
Proud DFH, emeritus!
Yea I'm shocked too when are the senate dems going to put there foot down
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/34415087/ns/polit...
"The end game at hand, Senate Democrats appeared ready to jettison a proposed Medicare expansion from sweeping health care legislation Monday in a bid to remove the largest remaining obstacle in the way of Christmas-week passage of the measure."
Give em hell Joe! The Dems needs more Senators like you. And thank God for the Blue Dogs too. Keep things knotted up until we get back in.
Love,
Newt G.
The rat / weasel doesn't have the Dems over a barrel like they would have us believe , it's all a charade , pretty obvious .
Insanity , it is what it is , there is no understanding it .
What can we do? Any petition we can sign.
I can't beleive this louse gets to act like he can set policy for the entire nation.
Steeeeeeeeerike three ! Appears now that the Dems are dropping the Medicare buy in plan in another "compromise" . JC , why don't they just give it up and admit that they ( the few who sincerely wanted and tried to get real healthcare reform done ) have failed , this is becoming a complete joke . Surely they must realize that we who want reform are not the same morons that the Repugs have the pleasure of bullshitting freely ?
Insanity , it is what it is , there is no understanding it .
Joe was never a liberal, remember, he was picked by the dems in Ct. to run for Lowell Weikers seat when Weiker ran for governor, because the dems figured the state repubs would find him more palitable and therefore vote him in.
Just goes to show where these machinations get you.
THIS is why the Senate is where good ideas go to die a vicious, horrible death. One f-ing guy who represents about 1.75 million people (half the population of Connecticut) can stop legislation that the people of New York want (because their Senators support TRUE health care reform) and half the population of that state is what, 9.75 million? So in the Senate, if you're a citizen of Connecticut, your vote has about 9 times more weight to it than if you're a citizen of New York. Now I know Lieberman only really represents himself and those who are major campaign donors, but the idea that the very few have more say than the many, shows the real problem with the Senate.
Make Lieberman and anyone else who wants to stop health care reform stand up and continuously recite their opposition. Even if it's a broken record, they should have to REALLY filibuster -Mr. Smith style. I'm just tired of this crap. The House can actually accomplish shit, but the Senate would much rather try hard to fail miserably.
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