So the traitor Lieberman struck again, I wonder how big his payoff was from the health care industry. {Please email and phone him everyone.He should not get a rest from all of the phone calls, also we should work to get rid of him in 2012.

Barack Obama supported this evil killer clown's re-election over Ned Lamont.

Nice going, President Hopey Changey.

That's a mighty nice Chairmanship you've got, Senator Lieberman -- it'd be a damn shame if anything happened to it !

Why has Reid abandoned reconciliation? Then we wouldn't have to deal with this egotistical freakshow.

How can we be rid of this ass-hat?

Told you so! Stupid Democrats. Joe Lieberman should be denied insurance.

God damn Joe Lieberman's shit-filled soul to hell.

lieberman is an ass. if he helps the repubs filibuster the bill, then his presence in the democratic caucus is meaningless. strip him of everything.

Something I just read is new to me. What is the difference between the negotiated and robust public options?

Hence the nice talk about the trigger -- to wit, the need for Snowe's vote -- not some principled insistence on bi-partisanship for its own sake, or last-ditch opposition to the public option by a WH in thrall to the interests -- no, simply Lieberman insurance.

Ockham's razor, people.

Lieberman's comments do not say on the face of them that he would filibuster over the opt-out public option as such. He says the bill -- overall -- "in its present form." That leaves plenty of room for manuever in many dimensions. Maybe we should stop locking people into positions pre-maturely.

As for cost, this approach by Reid allows for CBO scores to come in.

Hmmm. Sarah Palin, Joe Lieberman? Hmmm. Really, this time get rid of this pathetic douche-bag of a "Senator". Who didn't know this guy was a snake senate lifer? How many fucking examples does one require for appropriate action to occur?

I am sick of hearing about this person. He is useless and has no regard for real people. He claims to be an observant Jew, yet he shows little caring or compassion for real people. Religionists of any stripe show their true colors when it comes to caring for "the other." Until we decide that there is only one human family occupying one home, we will continue the game of "I'm better than you are and therefore I deserve to take yours, and leave you bruised and broken."

In a way, I am playing the same game. It is a hard habit to break.

I am committed to Oneness through Justice and Transformation.
peace,
st john

Ugh! Thanks CT.

I knew it was a matter of time before this piece of SHIT would try to find his place in the sun.

If he wants to keep fellating the Repubs, let's at least remove him from his chair and have him do what he does best on his knees.

Lieberman could care less about the legislation, he's just a media whore. When push comes to shove I suspect he will vote for cloture.

It would be nice is Dems could craft some sort of inter party rule, when you vote against the party on cloture, you loose all committee positions.

Has there ever been an instance when an R's voted against cloture against their own party ?

Joe's decided to go for it because he's a goner in his next election.

Ockham's razor...he's using this as a negotiating ploy, probably for something quite unrelated to health care. He knows he has leverage, and he's enough of an opportunistic, unprincipled creep to use it.

If he uses his power to scuttle health reform, don't stop at stripping his chairmanship. In that scenario, the Dems must completely drain his influence and power. He'll eventually caucus with the GOP, but at least he'll be exposed as the moral cretin that he is. There just has to be limits to "collegiality," even in the clubby Senate.

I stand corrected. In an earlier post I said that I had heard Lieberman was not going to vote against cloture. Now he says he will support a filibuster. The SOB changed his mind, probably at the behest of his republican friends. I know how to get him back on board. Quietly threaten to reduce support for Israel if he doesn't vote for cloture. His Israeli handlers will bring the traitor back in line. After all he isn't really a Senator from Connecticutt. He is really the Senator from Tel Aviv.

Obama campaigned for Lieberman over Lamont, so he's known this was coming. I assume Reid already delegated this problem to Obama, and Obama has a long-standing plan for dealing with it.

That is, we hold Obama accountable for getting Holy Joe on board. No cloture, no triggers, no bill.

Regarding:
Something I just read is new to me. What is the difference between the negotiated and robust public options?

Posted by: Rian Mueller on October 27, 2009 at 2:29 PM | PERMALINK

Rian,
The robust plan is Medicare rates plus 5; that's the bill that would have the most effect in bringing down medical costs overall and be the most affordable for the govt. The negotiated rates mean the Shumer public plan (not govt supported, only paid for by its clients) has to negotiate rates just as the private ones do. It won't save anyone as much money. Even though they all claim they are about lowering costs and lowering the deficit, the lack of interest in supporting the best things (best of all being medicare for all) belies their claims.

Plain and simply, this is just a ploy.

but at least he'll be exposed as the moral cretin that he is

To whom?

I'd say his self-important, amoral, attentoin hungry ass has been hanging out for quite some time now.

Dems, deal with this now or you will be shellacked in 2010 when the net roots that got you elected stay home and the tea baggers vote in force.

My enthusiasm gap is reaching gargantuan proportions.

Fuck this undemocratic 60-vote bullshit. They should just do a flat Medicare-for-all in reconciliation and be done with it.

"he can't face a primary since he's not a Democrat"

Actually, he is still registered as a member of the Democratic Party in Connecticut. He just didn't run as the Democratic nominee.

Being an incumbent doesn't guarantee you a slot on the ballot.

If he wants to run again, he probably WILL have to run in a primary - either the Dem primary, the Republican primary, or the Connecticut for Lieberman primary.

once again, can someone explain to me the downside of making the republicans filibuster a healthcare bill? keep them in session 24/7, thru thanksgiving, thru christmas.
and then, just for holy joe, call for a final vote sometime between sundown on a friday and sundown on a saturday.
and THEN strip him of his chairmanship, seniority, etc.

Like North Korea unto himself. Just as things start going well in the civilized world, mad little Joe just has to muck it up in order to gain some attention and let the adults know that he has to be taken "seriously". Utterly pathetic for him and tragic for the rest of us.

Lobbygrow--You ask a legit question. Lieberman is perceived as a reasonable Democrat to much of middle America. He was even a VP candidate not long ago, so he can't be too far off the Democratic mainstream, can he.

The case is made for people that read liberal blogs, but our numbers are much smaller than we tend to think. The average person doesn't know how he has migrated over the last several years.

What is the going rate for betraying your party and your country? Judas only got thirty pieces of silver for betraying Jesus. I don't know what that would mean in 2009 dollars, but I imagine Joe will get will get a whole alot more. At least Judas had the decency not to hang around (no pun intended) very long after collecting his blood money. I'm sure we'll be stuck with Joe for a very long time. Dante would have to create a new ring of hell for that man, unless there is an open space beside Lucifer's arse.

Rian Mueller asks: Why has Reid abandoned reconciliation? Then we wouldn't have to deal with this egotistical freakshow.

Damned good question. I know there's certain parts of the bill that theoretically can't be passed under reconciliation, because reconciliation's theoretically all about budgetary stuff. But it's not like the reconciliation process has never been abused before. And the budget bill included specific language authorizing the use of reconciliation to pass health care reform, so it's not much of a stretch.

And we're nearly two weeks past the magic October 15 date when passing health care reform under reconciliation rules became allowable. So reconciliation's looking awfully good right now.

Time for reconciliation.

There is still plenty of time to get Joe LIE's vote. He is just being a pain in the ass. He will vote for cloture cuz the bill will be affordable and will change with amendments. He is looking for some attention. He probably already promised Reid privately that he won't be the deciding vote for a filibuster.

It's quite likely that this is just Lieberman's move to keep himself relevant to the negotiations, just as a number of other Senators are doing. Once he says he won't agree to filibuster, no one need pay him any further attention, so his threat to filibuster could be a play to force Reid and the Democrats to woo him. It's not a surprising position for any centrist to take under the circumstances, and since we know that Lieberman's ego is sufficiently massive that he will need to be stroked, it's certainly predictable.

Having said that, it's also possible that Lieberman has already decided to filibuster, probably because he feels personally slighted over something.

While I don't advocate punishing Democratic Senators over any particular vote, I feel differently about Lieberman. If he votes against cloture, the Democrats should absolutely strip him of his committee chairs. He was elected as an Independent, and so his right to a chair is only by sufferance of the Democratic majority in the Senate; his obstructing an important Democratic piece of legislation like this by refusing to allow a majority rules vote should justify tossing him out of the Democratic caucus. At that point, he brings nothing to the table for the Democrats.

And by the way, let's not blame Obama and Reid for Lieberman's re-election. I think that their support of him in the election was based on their view that he was probably going to win anyway.

If he prevents the Senate from voting on the public option, he SHOULD BE STRIPPED OF HIS COMMITTEE CHAIRMANSHIP PERIOD. It is up to him how he votes on the final bill, but if he is able to destroy all the hard work being done, then he should be disciplined.

Yep, here is what it's about as if any of us are surprised ......

***********************************

Insurance Stocks Plunged As Reid Announced Public Option, Spiked After Lieberman Vowed To Filibuster It

Yesterday, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) announced that he would be including a version of the public option (with a state opt-out provision) in the Senate’s final health care bill. Although all of the details of the public plan are yet to be determined, progressives cheered the move. As Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) admitted, without all the pressure that progressives in and out of Congress put on legislators, it is unlikely there would have been a public option included in Reid’s final bill.

Yet this afternoon, Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) broke with the Democratic caucus that he is a member of and vowed to join a Republican-led filibuster if the public option is not removed from the bill. In response, insurance company stocks — which plummeted Monday as Reid made his announcement — shot up after Lieberman made his announcement around 1:30 pm:

stockpaint4

Lieberman’s opposition to the public option puts him completely out of step with Connecticut voters. As this polling from 538.com’s Nate Silver shows, voters in every single one of Connecticut’s congressional districts favor the inclusion of a public option in health care legislation by wide margins. The stated reason for Lieberman’s opposition to the public option — that it would increase the debt and create another entitlement — is misplaced. As ThinkProgress has noted before, the public option would be self-sustaining and would cut the deficit.

Insurance giant Aetna, represented by the blue line above, fared the best among all of the health insurance companies. Aetna is based in Hartford, CT. It is also the tenth largest single private contributor to Lieberman’s re-election committee.

And Lieberman vowed today to join with Republicans -- if the bill gives eligible consumers a choice of public and private health coverage, Lieberman will work with the GOP to kill health care reform.

That'd be straw that'd break this camel's back.

If Lieberman succeeds in thwarting health care reform by voting for an all but certain GOP filibuster, then the Dem Senate leadership should go for the "nuclear option", i.e. pass the bill through reconciliation, and then 'nuke' Lieberman to oblivion by stripping him of committee chairmanship, where he'd remain until he's up for reelection and gets booted out of the Senate -- or runs as a GOP, who are really his ideological soul mates.

How I hate that odious little toad.

FYI - Lieberman's pattern is to be for or against (sometimes both) a bill until it's time to vote. He knows health care reform is popular so he will seem to support it while complaining about it to keep his conservative cred. His complaints also give him the excuse to support a filibuster when it comes down to voting.

It's impossible to know how the odious toad will vote by what he says. I'm thinking he will filibuster, but he'd prefer not to be forced to vote.

I liked Lieberman a lot better when he was just the dad on ALF.

I still would love to know how on earth Al Gore settled on this charlatan as his running mate.

But honestly, like Minneapolis, the Democrats should have seen this coming 150 miles away. Too busy fucking around on their proverbial laptops, I guess.

I always figured Lieberman couldn't pass up this opportunity to stab the Democrats. Wake me when they figure out it's reconciliation or nothing.

I think that their support of him in the election was based on their view that he was probably going to win anyway. -DRF

Ah, that truly is the mark of a great leader. Blowin' with the wind.

danimal and Ron Byers

You read my mind. This isn't about health care with Lieberman at all. It can't be. He wouldn't be this intense and hard ball about some stinking domestic policy. He wouldn't be willing to go all the way to filibuster to prevent the Dems and White House getting what they want. This is leverage as you suggest. It is about putting pressure on the White House on something it wants badly in exchange for something that Lierberman wants. My guess is that what Lierberman wants is for the White House to back off on putting pressure on Israel against West Bank settlements.

That is a huge issue with Orthodox Jews. They think the West Bank is part of the Biblical Israel and are committed to making sure Israel gets it. That's the game Joe is playing. So, the Dems have to play hardball here. Turn the tables. If Joe wants to jeopardize health care to get something for Isreal, then Dems should threaten Israel or AIPAC instead in order to get Joe to play ball. The Dems have to have the guts to stand up to AIPAC and show that two can play at this game. This is all speculation of course, but I think it is a pretty good guess that this is what the Dems have to do if Lieberman takes health care to the brink, or beyond.

I still would love to know how on earth Al Gore settled on this charlatan as his running mate.

He delivered Florida -- and without Florida, it wasn't even close.

Gore is a better politician than generally given credit for.

None of which is to say Lieberman isn't a putz.

Ted F. Your guess is as good as any. He may be angling to make Tehran a smoking heap of rubble or pave the Hartford streets with gold. I don't know what he wants, but I'll bet that Harry Reid and Barack Obama are about to find out.

I guess every generation has its Judas, one who sells out mankind for 30 Pieces of Silver. Even the Biblical Judas had more integrity than does Liberscum - Judas hanged himself after his betrayal; Liberscun won't even give two shits about his. His actions in the past are merely prelude to his continuing treachery. In the law, it is "res ipsa loquitor" - the thing speaks for itself.

Yeah, could threaten to strip him of his chairmanship if he votes to support a filibuster, I guess that's some incentive. More incentive would be to strip him of the chairmanship now and say he'll get it back if he votes for cloture.

Lieberman lives in CT - the home of many a big insurance company. What did we expect from Joe? We know he doesn't really care about anything other than his re-election soooo he isn't going to do anything to upset his big insurance company campaign donors. He just doesn't have the well-being of anyone but himself in mind. It is and always has been his MO

Wow--what a bitter bunch. LOL. I especially like st. john--"Committed to ONENESS" through the elimination of the wrong kind of "other." LOL.

We need to threaten Liberman back. Take away his seniority, the Republicans won't give him any for switching parties anyhow.

The Schumer plan is more likely to react to the market better if the other laws impact the cost of healthcare, though. And it pays according to region, rather than a flat rate everywhere across the country, which is stupid.

Medicare should be negotiated rates, as well. They could negotiate really damn hard.

Wow--what a bitter bunch.

You're damn fucking right we're bitter.

We're bitter that 42K people die each year because they have no insurance.

We're bitter that 1,000,000 Americans file bankruptcy each year not because they spent like drunken frat boys on spring break, but because they got sick.

We're bitter that we are the only industrialized nation in the world that doesn't offer health care to every citizen.

We're bitter that we pay twice as much on health care, but get worse outcomes.

We're bitter that folks who claim to be fiscally responsible will support putting two wars on the nation's credit card and giving a $1.2 TRILLION tax break to rich people, but will fight against a health care option (true single payer) that costs LESS than what we have, or any of the current proposals.

We're bitter that one piece of shit Senator can derail months of work just because he's either concerned with his campaign contributions (another reason for publically funded elections), a complete attention whore who hasn't gotten enough camera time lately. Maybe even both.

So yeah ... we're bitter.

Sure beats being a jackoff troll like yourself.

"Joe the Ho" has done nothing but take from the Democratic Party.

It's time to cut him off and treat him like the enemy he is.

It's time to cut him off and treat him like the enemy he is.

Amen to that. Harry Reid needs to destroy this asshole. Take away his chairmanships, take away any standing he has in the party, and send a clear message that caucusing with a party can have a lot of leeway, but filibustering against the party's signature legislation and something the president rode to election on is not acceptable.

Destroy that smug assclown, and I bet Lincoln, Landrieu, Pryor and company start toeing the line a little better.

"Sure beats being a jackoff troll like yourself."

Oh, trust me, it doesn't.

To all the posters talking blithely about taking away Holy Joe's committee chair: it's late, I'm tired and cranky, and I'm not inclined to do the requisite googling to find the relevant sources, but...
IIRC, back in January, there were stories in some papers, and posts on some blogs, pointing out that the operating rules for the Senate made it next-to-impossible for anyone (even if they were so inclined, which I think it's far from clear that they are) to take away a committee chair once it's been granted, until the seating of the next Congress at the earliest. I don't recall the details at all -- but I'm pretty sure they involved, at the very least, getting minority-party support, which clearly would not be forthcoming w/r/t Lieberman.
I do believe we're stuck with the feculent pustule, this virulent pile of smegma, for the foreseeable future. (I agree with those posters who have pointed out that Joe must know he's past his expiration date with the CT voters, and is now looking to feather his post-Senate nest.)
The only hope I see is for the Lord to decide that He likes Joe sooo much that He elects to bring him home to his rest. Since I imagine most of us would agree that it's long since time for Joe to go to his reward, the best we can do is pray.
(And then hope that the Adversary's purchase on Joe's immortal soul is stronger than the Lord's. If Dante is to be believed, the very lowest circle of Hell is the one reserved for traitors. Where Lieberman is concerned, I'd imagine the Adversary would have a very strong case. I'd also bet that any one of us would be happy to stand as witness, should the need arise.)

Democrats tried to out him in the primary....Democrats failed. Now, you're crying foul? This is called getting your come-uppins. Enjoy! It's a shame that all of the heartburn you're getting from this won't be covered by a mandatory public option!

Democrats tried to out him in the primary....Democrats failed.

Meanwhile, back here in reality, Lieberman lost the Democratic primary.

But thanks for playing!

Mark, thank you for clarying that...I was unsure why Joe was an independent now. I noticed that rather than getting to the heart of my point, you decided to make a wity quip about a poorly written phrase. Mark, I was actually referring to the attempt by less-moderate Democrats to out Joe from the Senate. Judging by the bitterness in your response, you obviously supported these efforts and are now suffering from heartburn. Did your party really expect Joe to be an everything-but-foreign-policy Independent after that? Nice Pat Sajak impression, though...