Mon 14 Dec, 2009
I thought everyone knew Joe Lieberman was going to do this:
Senator Joseph Lieberman (I-Conn.) informed Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) in a face-to-face meeting on Sunday that he will vote against a health care bill that includes a public option or a provision that would expand Medicare, a Democratic Senate aide tells the Huffington Post.
The two senators had a discussion in Reid’s office shortly after Lieberman appeared on CBS’s Face the Nation Sunday morning. The Connecticut independent discussed with Reid some of his concerns about the legislation, elaborating on issues he had raised during the show. According to the source, who was briefed on the exchange, Lieberman punctuated the discussion by telling the majority leader directly that he will vote against the bill if the Medicare buy-in and public option provisions remain in it. Roll Call reports that Lieberman said he would also support a Republican filibuster of legislation that included these provisions.
Joe Lieberman has been screwing over Democrats ever since Al Gore picked him to be his running mate in 2000. So why is this a surprise? I mean, you’d think the Democratic leadership would have anticipated this from the guy that smeared Obama during the campaign .
But regardless of how stupid the Democratic leadership is for not seeing this move, I hope they force Joe Lieberman to follow through with the filibuster. Why? Two reasons: I’ve never seen a live filibuster and I want this health care bill to die.
Now I know this may come as a shock to you, but I’ve never seen a live filibuster and I’m curious to see how long Joe Lieberman can speak. Because when I saw him on Face the Nation yesterday he sounded like a fat man struggling up a flight of stairs. And that was just during a 21 and a half minute show. I can only imagine how difficult it will be for him to speak for four, five, or six straight hours.
The second reason I want to see Joe Lieberman go through with the filibuster is because this health care bill needs to die a slow, painful death. Because it’s a bill written by the health insurance industry for the health insurance industry.
As the bill stands right now the health insurance industry gets to keep the inexpensive, healthy young people while forcing the government to take the expensive, sick old people. Which means the health insurance industry will make hundreds of millions of dollars in profit each year because they won’t have to spend money of things like heart surgery, life long diabetes medicine, knee replacements, hip replacements, and other things old people need. (How is that fair? And how is the government capable of taking care of people 55 and older but incapable of taking care of people 54 and younger?)
But I know Joe Lieberman’s not going to go through with the filibuster because Democrats are sackless, corporate shills who are going to give in to his demands and pass a health care bill that benefits the health insurance industry while fucking over every one else.
25 Responses to “How is this a surprise?
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Tags: And I want to see Lieberman pass out from exhaustion, Democrats, Health care, I want to see a fucking filibuster, Joe LiebermanComments (25)
PQ8 says:
“As the bill stands right now the health insurance industry gets to keep the inexpensive, healthy young people while forcing the government to take the expensive, sick old people. Which means the health insurance industry will make hundreds of millions of dollars in profit each year because they won’t have to spend money of things like heart surgery, life long diabetes medicine, knee replacements, hip replacements, and other things old people need.”
Ooofff….suckage!
cft says:
… when I saw him on Face the Nation yesterday he sounded like a fat man struggling up a flight of stairs.
This remark is one of the finest of you frequent moments of brilliance.
However, on the following point –
As the bill stands right now the health insurance industry gets to keep the inexpensive, healthy young people while forcing the government to take the expensive, sick old people …. (How is that fair? And how is the government capable of taking care of people 55 and older but incapable of taking care of people 54 and younger?)
– I must respectfully dissent. Not with respect to the accuracy of your assessment, but with respect to the political conclusions to which this state of affairs leads me. In weighing of the moral hazards of the passage of this bill against the moral hazards of passing no bill, I come down firmly in favor of passage. This might seem to contradict my longstanding annoyance with the Baby Boomers and older generations, and my feeling that the former of these groups is myopic, hubristic and decadent at the expense of younger generations like my own. I still think that’s true. Moreover, I’ve got no love for the insurance industry.
But the reason I still think it’s better to pass the bill is because I believe that the course this country has been pursuing since the advent of Reaganomics is an extremely destructive and inhumane one. Moreover — and perhaps more significantly — the neoliberal/neoconservative/pro-’privatizing’ agenda that this course serves is a bunch of big, stinking opportunistic lies that the Grover Norquists of the world have attempted to dress-up as the ‘philosophical underpinnings of conservative governance’. It’s got to go, because it’s nothing but a bunch of smoke-and-mirrors set up to justify rich people stealing the possibility of life, liberty and property from poor people by letting public infrastructure go to waste and using that capital to fight opportunistic oil wars.
So, while I despise the self-serving, pious, arrogant, intellectually dishonest, and greedy behavior of these wealthy older generations — and Joe Lieberman is an almost perfect encapsulation of all of the worst traits of his generation! — and although I am angered and repulsed as much as anyone my age by how much the above-50 set is willing to screw the under-50 set, I still think it’s a good idea for the legislation to pass. Because, although it’s not fair to me (and is unlikely to help me very much), it is likely, to however limited an extent, to help some people who need the help even more than I do. And even more importantly, it is the first significant step in new direction that accepts that Reagan-Bush-Clinton-Bush era laissez faire capitalism was and is little more than a highly rigged game that has gutted the possibility of improved education, social mobility, and even hope for a future for millions of Americans.
God, I sound so earnest. But anyway, just wanted to lay out why I prefer for the bill to pass, even though I agree that it’s a bad bill in many respects.
OHHH says:
You know, not a single one of you has even read a portion on the proposed bill at any point in it’s vomiting onto paper.
So my comments will simply be –’Goodbye in 3 years. Then the conservatives will be in charge of all the things you want the liberals to run now.’
PQ8 says:
Is a filibuster fun to watch or something?
Phuck Politics says:
@PQ8 – Is a filibuster fun to watch or something?
I’ve never seen a filibuster live, so I don’t know.
@cft – All this health care bill will do is make it a crime not to have health insurance. Which means it’s a subsidy for the health insurance. And I don’t know about you, but I’m sick of my tax dollars being used to prop up big business.
@OHHH – Every comment you leave hurts my head.
PQ8 says:
Why don’t we just dump all this money to give everybody invincibility mushrooms from Mario and adamantium skeletons and robot insides? I dare anyone to come up with a better plan.
Jeff says:
ctf- using words like “hubristic” is pretty hubristic in itself.
Infidel753 says:
elaborating on issues he had raised during the show
Lieberman elaborates on issues as a dog might elaborate on a fire hydrant. Further appeasement seems like a non-starter — take out the Medicare expansion and Lieberman will threaten to filibuster the bill unless it includes a requirement for every uninsured person to be hit on the thumb with a hammer once a week. The goalposts will never stand still.
But I’m with CTF. Yes, it’s a feeble bill, but it’s a first step. Even a weak public option or a narrow Medicaid expansion, if they help some people, will shift the political ground in favor of further reform. And even this bill, with one of those provisions, hardly seems likely to be favorable to the industry, considering how hard their 41 shills in the Senate are standing against it.
They should change the filibuster rules and have however much of a fight they need to have over that, then come back to health reform and do it properly, with 51 votes to 49 if necessary.
Every comment you leave hurts my head.
Careful, that sounds like a pre-existing condition.
Is a filibuster fun to watch or something?
Probably not, but seeing Lieberman overfilibuster himself into a collapse might be.
cft says:
@Jeff:
ctf- using words like “hubristic” is pretty hubristic in itself.
Really? How do you figure?… In this context, it was hyperbolic, maybe. I’ll allow that I may have gotten a little worked up, but no harm was intended! (I mean, obviously, it’s painting with a pretty broad brush to assign to an entire generation any single characteristic.)
@Infidel753:
Further appeasement seems like a non-starter … The goalposts will never stand still.
I agree & think that this is a very important thing to keep in mind when analyzing not only Lieberman but congressional posturing/shenanigans in general. So much of this stuff is nothing but theater and ego: the specific issues at play are almost beside the point. What Lieberman really wants is to be important and for people to have to pay attention to him, and he’d be pulling this no matter what (as the Dems have surely known all along).
But I’m with CTF. Yes, it’s a feeble bill, but it’s a first step. Even a weak public option or a narrow Medicaid expansion, if they help some people, will shift the political ground in favor of further reform.
I think this is a very important point. The Dems are proceeding with the knowledge of two things: no matter what bullshit the opposition party pulls in the short term, once reform (even if it were in name only) passes, in the long run, it will undoubtedly be popular and sets the groundwork for shifting the balance of power — however subtly and slowly — in the direction of the political sphere and away from the economic sphere. Short of actual revolution, this is the only method by which the status quo in this country has as much as a prayer of giving way to something slightly less ludicrous than the present non-system.
And even this bill, with one of those provisions, hardly seems likely to be favorable to the industry, considering how hard their 41 shills in the Senate are standing against it.
That’s right; I mean, have the insurance companies been appeased under the current conditions? Yes, of course. It makes me mad, but that doesn’t change the fact that this bill creates conditions that are ultimately worse for the insurance industry than the status quo. We are talking about one of the most powerful industries/lobbies in the country, and anybody who expected them to just roll over and die had to be kidding himself. With this bill, however weak it may be, the industry’s position begins to erode for the first time since the 30s. And, more importantly, the present conditions begin to seem less and less like ‘common sense reality’ to ideologically brainwashed middle- and lower-class people throughout the country who oppose change simply because it’s change, and in so doing are undermining themselves, their families and their futures through their support of Reaganomics and its offshoots.
PQ8 says:
When I hear filibuster I just think of Filbert off Rockos Modern Life. It’s a good thing I’m not into politics.
imissamerica says:
Problem is the Dems don’t have many options other than hold their nose and cave to Lieberman’s demands in order to move the legislation forward. Getting reform passed before the Winter break is more important than coming to a standstill over the Medicare Buy-in option, despite how repulsive Joe Lieberman or his power grabbing may be.
OHHH says:
Yea, despite how repulsive 59 power grabbing democrats may be…
Infidel753 says:
59 power grabbing democrats
Given power by the voters, you mean — and a mandate to get stuff done.
cft says:
@OHHH, Infidel759:
I mean, if this is what a Democratic ‘power-grab’ looks like, I’d hate to see what it looks like for 59 Democrats to behave in a docile and feeble way.
OHHH says:
Interesting you’d single out one guy who doesn’t mooo with the croud and call him the power grabber.
The cows are mooing because it’ll benefit the cows…
Fuckin libs…
PQ8 says:
Croud? Dude, what browser do you use? Seriously, any modern browser highlights typos like that for you, like a word processor would. However, if your just ignoring the squiggly red lines, more power to you!
cft says:
@OHHH:
Interesting you’d single out one guy who doesn’t mooo with the croud [sic] and call him the power grabber.
I didn’t call Lieberman a power-grabber; I called him an attention-grabber.
Anyway, your claim that achieving party solidarity in congressional voting is the same thing as ‘mooing with the crowd’ is not only incoherent on its face but selective in its application. It’s the Right that marches in lockstep with the slogans and decrees of its paymasters and demagogues.: its peons and foot-soldiers don’t think, they just repeat what their fat, double-chinned hero Glenn Beck tells them.
Speaking of Glenn Beck: I’ll bet you anything that guy poops his pants. Anybody else get that vibe?
Worker says:
Super post, Need to mark it on Digg
Worker
PQ8 says:
Oh man, you and your words…such as “incoherent” and “poop”. You got to stop that.
OHHH says:
The difference is, the MAJORITY of Americans don’t put this hellcare garbage even close to important on the radar, and the MAJORITY don’t want want it. The MAJORITY have not wanted it for the MAJORITY of time Obama and his powercrats have been in office.
The majority are not fooled and do NOT WANT your powergrab disguised as ‘healthcare reform’
Phuck Politics says:
@OHHH – I’m sorry, but it’s hard for me to take a Rasmussen Reports poll seriously when it’s founder, Scott Rasmussen, was a paid consultant for George W. Bush in 2004.
PQ8 says:
Hellcare, ha, I like that.
OHHH says:
amazing how when things don’t go the liberal way they try to distance themselves.
Well lets see, the only other nationally recognized and respected polling office is Gallup, which CNN just LOVEs to use cause they’re as liberal as can be.
Lets see what your liberal GALLUP has to say today:
http://www.gallup.com/poll/124715/Majority-Americans-Not-Backing-Healthcare-Bill.aspx
OH the same thing? What will phuck do now???
cft says:
@OHHH:
Oh, so I see your logic. When a “MAJORITY” agrees with you about something, it’s the will of the people. When a “MAJORITY” disagrees with you, then it’s “mooing with the crowd.”
I’m pointing out the emptiness of these rhetorical excesses in an effort to make the case for having an actual political discussion. Why not drop this stuff about: “You damn libs with your drug parties and your rock ‘n’ roll, oh and also with your abortion-loving, communistic elitist fascism…” I mean, you sound like a bad parody of somebody’s alcoholic uncle.
OHHH says:
You can do better than that CFT, and you know damn well you’re way off, extremely weak comparison.
– In this case…
The MAJORITY WHO AGREES is a cross section of AMERICAN PEOPLE with many different views and hopes for the best in their country.
The MAJORITY WHO DISGREE are a HARDLINE ‘fuck yall we doing what we want’ POLITICAL PARTY in power who refuse to change course, even when the same American people who disagree with them tell them so.
The only ones doing the right thing are the republicans who for the most part are honoring what the MAJORITY of AMERICA wishes. If Obama had a shred of bipartisanship, he’d have gotten a ton of shit done. As we’ve found out, he’s a fraud and way over his head.
You know CTF, you don’t for the most part seem like the typical liberal agenda based me me me kinda guy, but I haven’t seen enough of your responses to validate my hunch. You do go a bit over the top with your thesaurus, but there’s nothing wrong with that.
Frankly, trying to reason with a person in denial (aka most liberal blog posts) is less effective than talking to a wall so I don’t waste my time. I say it like it is – in a nutshell. All in hopes to wake up a few of those who aren’t dedicated to themselves or their idealistic party at the expense of everyone else. When someone proves themselves as an individual thinker capable of standard human reasoning and common sense, then I parley.