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Kil
Evil Skeptic
USA
13477 Posts |
 Posted - 12/14/2009 : 21:31:18
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Lieberman's Medicare Flip-Flop Leaves Democrats Fuming
Well, if it isn’t clear that Lieberman doesn’t want any healthcare reform, this should send home the message.
A big issue is all the contradictions. The Connecticut Independent has for years been an ardent champion of the provision he now opposes. Lieberman has also reversed course on the question of filibusters, which he once denounced as a way of holding up legislation. And the same senator who was once critical of his electoral opponent for not exhibiting party loyalty has now fashioned himself into the ultimate rogue agent -- happiest only when the full attention of the political world is on him.
"When carrots no longer work, when you put Senator Lieberman's most significant health care proposal at the heart of reform and he still opposes not just the larger reform but also his own provision, you start to wonder if this man is dealing in good faith," said Paul Begala, the long-time Democratic strategist. "How do you deal with someone who is so committed to opposing health care reform that he will even oppose his own ideas? It's a tall order. And I haven't the slightest idea what the answer is." |
So they dropped the public option in favor of a Medicare buy in for people over 55, Lieberman’s idea and one he campaigned on, and he opposes that too. Why? Because he is a pig fucker, that’s why! He is owned by the insurance industry, lock stock and barrel. This one prick is going to kill off any meaningful health care reform for the whole country. I’m way fucking angry!!!
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Uncertainty may make you uncomfortable. Certainty makes you ridiculous.
Why not question something for a change?
Genetic Literacy Project |
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filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
 Posted - 12/15/2009 : 03:51:30 [Permalink]
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The Dems should have punished the pigfucker with the loss of his committee chairmanship when he turned his coat and campaigned for McCain. If they had any sort of a notochord in their overly-flexible spines, they'd do it now.
But then, if they had that, Liebermann would be irrelevant and we can't have that, now can we? Gotta keep Holy Joe and his business collaborators happy lest they get miffed and talk mean to us, or something.
This health care thing is going to turn out to be another windfall for the insurance industry, thanks a lot Joe, you piece of shit.
Liebermann's nothing but a teabagger in an expensive suit.
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"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)
"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres
"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude
Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,
and Crypto-Communist! 
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 12/15/2009 : 05:12:04 [Permalink]
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Democrats get what they deserve here, a good assraping by the guy who fucked them over but they were too cowardly to kick him out.
If they had just booted his traitorous ass to the curb instead of giving him chairmanships this problem would not exist.
I have no sympathy for congressional dems at this point, the spineless fuckers are just reaping the rewards of their lack of courage. Fuck them.
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Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
Posted - 12/15/2009 : 08:42:03 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Dude
Democrats get what they deserve here, a good assraping by the guy who fucked them over but they were too cowardly to kick him out.
If they had just booted his traitorous ass to the curb instead of giving him chairmanships this problem would not exist.
I have no sympathy for congressional dems at this point, the spineless fuckers are just reaping the rewards of their lack of courage. Fuck them.
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Indeed. I, who never misses an election day, am really on the fence about it now. I mean, who am I to vote for? I see little but cheap, corporate thugs on the one hand and sniveling candyassed pussies on the other, and have no respect whatsoever for either. Plus, the man I had huge hopes for, whom I thought was a scrapper and a head-knocker, has turned out to be a Presidential disappointment. Oh, he has some accomplishments and deserves all credit for them, certainly, but there are yet to be notches on his guns. And there won't be until he stiffens his spine and shoves all that bipartisan crap straight down the Congressional throat.
So who, Dude? I suppose I could go third party, or write in comic characters & porn stars, but that's as big an exercise in futility as voting R or D.
I dunno. There's still a ways to go before Nov. '10. Maybe... Nah, probably not.
Edited to add this link:
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
Darcy Burner: T
he Senate bill is a recipe for national disaster. If it's that bill or nothing, I prefer nothing.
by Joe Sudbay (DC) on 12/15/2009 08:10:00 AM
Rahm Emanuel, in all his wisdom, expects liberals to cave in order to pass health care reform, no matter how bad the bill gets. In the Senate, that's exactly what happened despite the months of tough talk we heard from the likes of liberal Senators Sherrod Brown and Tom Harkin. They learned a tough lesson this week: They don't matter to the White House. Lieberman does.
Over the past couple weeks, we've gotten indications that the Senate bill will be the final bill. It won't be fixed in conference, as promised. Instead, the House will be expected to pass the Senate bill as is.
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If that piece of shit makes it to Obama's desk and he slaps a veto on it, I will grant him a notch. If he signs off on it, fuck him too!
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"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)
"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres
"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude
Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,
and Crypto-Communist!
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| Edited by - filthy on 12/15/2009 09:07:08 |
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Kil
Evil Skeptic
USA
13477 Posts |
Posted - 12/15/2009 : 09:06:29 [Permalink]
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Problem for the Dems is that Lieberman represents the sixtieth vote, which prevents a filibuster. So even if they had taken away the chairmanship of his committee, the equation would still be the same. Lieberman is still pissed at progressives for backing the other guy. So not only is he in bed with the health insurance industry, but he gets to have revenge on the democrats that didn't support his last bid to be a senator.
They could have removed him from the caucus, but that would have guaranteed a filibuster. So they must work with the pigfucker to get anything. Too bad the Dems don't have 61 seats in the Senate. They would have dropped kicked Lieberman to a gulag in Siberia if that were the case.
It's too easy to blame the democrats for this. And a bit unfair. After all, the other side of the isle has done nothing to help, and have become nothing but obstructionists. And, they have an ally in Lieberman.
The rules of the senate are crazy. The problem is systemic. One guy shouldn't have the power to hold up an up or down vote in a democracy. The problem really starts there. (That's something Lieberman was against, by the way. Another flip-flop.)
But that Lieberman is taking full advantage of the rules and that gives him power that he shouldn't have, and worse, that he is using it against the people of this country, and the people he supposedly represents in his own state, makes him an opportunistic dickhead with absolutely no vision beyond what is good for Lieberman, no matter what the country wants.
He is, in short, a pigfucker. He is in bed with the pigs... |
Uncertainty may make you uncomfortable. Certainty makes you ridiculous.
Why not question something for a change?
Genetic Literacy Project |
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Fripp
SFN Regular
USA
727 Posts |
Posted - 12/15/2009 : 09:18:05 [Permalink]
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| Kil, I heard on the radio that the Dems have to drop the Medicare portion of the bill in order to get his vote and I had the exact same response as you. He is such a gigantic f'ing asshole. |
"What the hell is an Aluminum Falcon?"
"Oh, I'm sorry. I thought my Dark Lord of the Sith could protect a small thermal exhaust port that's only 2-meters wide! That thing wasn't even fully paid off yet! You have any idea what this is going to do to my credit?!?!"
"What? Oh, oh, 'just rebuild it'? Oh, real [bleep]ing original. And who's gonna give me a loan, jackhole? You? You got an ATM on that torso LiteBrite?" |
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filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
Posted - 12/15/2009 : 09:21:10 [Permalink]
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I think it's time & past time to shitcan the filibuster. I seem to recall that Bill First, another fucker of pigs, threatened to do just that when the Dems muttered semi-coherently about trying one back during the previous maladministration -- something to do with a "nuclear option." Correct me if I am wrong, but there is nothing in the Constitution stating that filibuster is a legitimate Senatorial procedure.
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"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)
"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres
"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude
Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,
and Crypto-Communist!
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Fripp
SFN Regular
USA
727 Posts |
Posted - 12/15/2009 : 09:37:22 [Permalink]
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The problem that I see is that when you are IN power, the filibuster sucks. But when you are in the minority, the filibuster is the only recourse you have to prevent the jackass Repubs from swiping whatever democracy we have left.
I really believe (and dearly hope) that our role as the World's reigning superpower is at its end. And the demise is due to the utter absence of intellect among the populace at large and the criminal misinformation campaign spread by jackholes like Boehner and (needs to grow a chin) McConnell and amplified by Vicodin-addict Limbaugh. These guys strike me as the dorks who got picked on in high school and are now bent on getting revenge. |
"What the hell is an Aluminum Falcon?"
"Oh, I'm sorry. I thought my Dark Lord of the Sith could protect a small thermal exhaust port that's only 2-meters wide! That thing wasn't even fully paid off yet! You have any idea what this is going to do to my credit?!?!"
"What? Oh, oh, 'just rebuild it'? Oh, real [bleep]ing original. And who's gonna give me a loan, jackhole? You? You got an ATM on that torso LiteBrite?" |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
Posted - 12/15/2009 : 10:03:54 [Permalink]
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It's hard to blame Lieberman alone. The Democrats should have known better than to gloat about a filibuster-proof majority in the face of reactionary Republicans, which ensured that no Republicans would get on-board with the bigger efforts, ensuring that any non-Republican with an axe to grind would basically get a one-person veto of whole suites of legislation. And I can't tell you how many Senate Republicans and Democrats I've heard lately abdicate their responsibility, instead relying on public opinion polls. We voted all 100 of these assholes into office, to lead, but now they just want to follow.
And the people they're following are generally panicked, about the economy, health care, or whatever. They're held in a state of panic by the folks who are screaming about "death panels" and the like. So let's put the blame where it belongs...
...on Lyndon LaRouche. |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 12/15/2009 : 12:05:36 [Permalink]
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Filthy- I don't know how my vote will be cast next election cycle. This is the first time in my life I have been in this position really. Maybe I will join the apathetic millions and just stay home.
Kil- The dems could do what the republicans threatened a few years back. Take the filibuster out. Only need 51 votes. Is there a shred of doubt that if the republicans were pushing shit through with 59 votes, and one guy was fucking them over, they would end the filibuster forever? No.
Dave_W- LL is a douchebag. A retarded illiterate fearmongering racist homophobe douchebage. But you can't blame him for this. The blame rests with politicians belonging to corporate lobby groups. They own Joe Traitorman whole cloth apparently. Kinda like the oil lobby owns a bunch of republicans. And so on. They represent their pet special interests to the exclusion of all else and STILL manage to get re-elected.
Honestly, I am pretty close to throwing in the towel on US politics. Move my meager assets offshore and prepare to leave this place when it finally implodes.
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Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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Kil
Evil Skeptic
USA
13477 Posts |
Posted - 12/15/2009 : 12:38:09 [Permalink]
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Well, since polls show that people who identify as democrats favor a strong public option, I only wish people like Lieberman were being led by opinion polls. I think what is leading him is he is owned by the health insurance industry coupled with a vindictive nature and a lust for power, which he has right now.
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Uncertainty may make you uncomfortable. Certainty makes you ridiculous.
Why not question something for a change?
Genetic Literacy Project |
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filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
Posted - 12/15/2009 : 13:03:12 [Permalink]
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The Rude Pundit isn't all that fond of the pigfucker either, and he says it a lot better than I could:
"12/15/2009
Joe Lieberman, You Can Choke on the Bones of Jacqueline Kelly as They're Crammed Down Your Throat:
Jacqueline Kelly died yesterday in Jersey City, New Jersey, of ovarian cancer. She also had emphysema. She was 61 years-old, a woman who was a stay-at-home mom to her six kids and a supportive wife for 44 years to John Kelly. John, 68, worked for fifty years as a truck driver and was old enough to get on Medicare when he retired. His wife could not, since she was 61.
She was told she didn't qualify for Social Security disability benefits because she had never "worked." They didn't qualify for welfare assistance or Medicaid because John's pension checks were too high. So, instead, most of the money went to paying for Jacqueline's medical expenses, as much as they could, until it became a choice of chemotherapy or food. As John put it, "I worked all my life. She's being penalized for staying home and taking care of her kids." Kelly died because of a lack of health insurance, pure and simple, cause and effect.
Think about that: John and Jacqueline Kelly were like apple pie, they fit so perfectly into the mold of ideal Americans that conservatives propagate. John was able to support his family doing a job that he stayed dedicated to. Jacqueline chose to stay at home and raise a large family. This is also death by sexism in that we live in a nation where full-time motherhood is not valued as a job and never has been. The myth of the American dream is always, always revealed as the lie it always was, and those who continue to foist it upon us are the ones least willing to make it be true. Where were all the alleged Christians, who are now so ready to kill health reform legislation? Where was the charity that's supposed to take care of such things? There was some, but not enough to get her the medical care that might have saved her.
You know who stepped up to help the Kelly family? Professional wrestlers. Yeah, Total Mayhem Pro Wrestling held a fundraiser for Jacqueline about a week ago, raising $4000 for medical expenses. That money will now be used for a funeral.
Pulls at your heartstrings, no? Really gets that lump in your throat going, this story of love and failure? Jacqueline Kelly was one of millions of Americans who would have qualified for help in just about any of the health care reform measures that actually seek to insure people. She'd have qualified for the public option. She'd have qualified for Medicare buy-in. In almost any other country in the developed world, and even in some in the undeveloped part, her care would not have even been an issue.
We are overwhelmed, yes, by tale upon tale of the sadness and horror brought on by this country's willful neglect of its citizens because we need to please some mad god of capitalism. And because we need to soothe the vanity of politicians, like Joe Lieberman.
We focus our rage on Lieberman out here in Left Blogsylvania not just because he is the kind of man who sucks his own cock in public and then grins, his semen-slicked teeth shining in the klieg lights, to the delight of Aetna and Wellpoint executives just before they shove his ass full of cash and tell him he can have it after he shits it back out. That would be enough. But it's that Lieberman actually takes pleasure in dicking over the Democratic caucus. Motherfucker said he supported the Medicare buy-in and then bailed? What kind of fuckery is that? That's just doing shit for the sake of doing shit. He's Shylock with less motivation. And that just makes us wanna go Berlusconi on his face. (Rhetorically, of course. Of course.)
But, if only to take a little power away from Lieberman, let's spread some blame around here for what is now a fairly worthless bill that is absent any control over insurance companies for jacking up prices in the wake of any new regulations. There's, of course, the Republicans, who never once negotiated in good faith (or bad faith, for that matter). There's Harry Reid, who took reconciliation off the table, thus shaking empty the compromise toolbox that had been dumped out when single payer wasn't even discussed. And there's the President, who demonstrated that if you are unwilling to say specifically what you want, then you will get nothing. Goddamnit, if Barack Obama had said he wouldn't sign a bill without a public option, if members of Congress knew he had their backs, his supporters would have rallied around the cause in a way that would have had the teabaggers grabbing their sacks in fear. He didn't, and you can't have a movement based on a vague hope that something might perhaps get done.
There's a couple of paths left now: revive reconciliation and/or try to salvage a bill that can be spun as a first step in a longer battle. The former is almost a must, because Lieberman has given anti-health care reform forces a boner for the final fucking. It might be a chance to get at least the Medicare buy-in or go back to the public option. The latter is close to surrender and is disgusting to contemplate, but there we are.
Lieberman's gotta be punished, or they gotta get rid of Reid. There's gotta be consequences for Lieberman. He's gotta lose his Homeland Security committee chair, maybe even be ejected from the caucus. He's gotta be publicly defiled. If there was any kind of justice right now, Lieberman should be locked in a glass room with the ghost of Lyndon Johnson. Motherfucker would be on his knees after five minutes, begging to give LBJ a rim job for mercy's sake.
Or, instead, Lieberman should be forced to eat the body of Jacqueline Kelly. He should have to taste her diseased organs and mutated cells. He should have to stare at her dead face as he ingests her faded skin and deteriorated muscle. And if he can't do it on his own, he should have her bones shoved down his throat until he fucking gags. Then maybe he'll understand that we're not talking about abstract numbers of people dying. We're talking about real corpses."
Damn' straight!
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"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)
"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres
"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude
Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,
and Crypto-Communist!
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Machi4velli
SFN Regular
USA
854 Posts |
Posted - 12/15/2009 : 18:36:07 [Permalink]
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"Kelly died because of a lack of health insurance, pure and simple, cause and effect."
What's to say she wouldn't have died soon anyway, even with treatment? I'm not trying to use this to support any position on the issue, only questioning this sentence specifically.
@Dude -- doesn't it take 67 votes to permanently change senate rules? The end of this page (http://uspolitics.about.com/od/usgovernment/a/filibuster.htm) explains the "nuclear option", pretty interesting because I definitely misunderstood what it was at the time. |
"Truth does not change because it is, or is not, believed by a majority of the people."
-Giordano Bruno
"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, but the illusion of knowledge."
-Stephen Hawking
"Seeking what is true is not seeking what is desirable"
-Albert Camus |
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Kil
Evil Skeptic
USA
13477 Posts |
Posted - 12/15/2009 : 18:59:19 [Permalink]
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Machi4velli:
What's to say she wouldn't have died soon anyway, even with treatment? |
It's a bit hyperbolic, but so is the Rude Pundit. Does it really matter? We know that thousands of people have died for lack of health insurance. I would be dead if it weren't for my health insurance. A lack of access to affordable health insurnace is a killer. It's as simple as that. |
Uncertainty may make you uncomfortable. Certainty makes you ridiculous.
Why not question something for a change?
Genetic Literacy Project |
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ThorGoLucky
Snuggle Wolf
USA
1487 Posts |
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Gorgo
SFN Die Hard
USA
5310 Posts |
Posted - 12/16/2009 : 10:33:54 [Permalink]
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| Most of these people, especially Obama, do not work for us. To blame one of them for not getting even as little as a really conservative program like Canada has, is missing the point. We've forgotten that single-payer is the compromise between the middle and the hard right. The problem really isn't really the payer, it's that the system is organized for profit, not for health care. Single payer at least spreads the cost around a little more than our system, which loads everything on the poorest among us. |
I know the rent is in arrears
The dog has not been fed in years
It's even worse than it appears
But it's alright-
Jerry Garcia
Robert Hunter
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I hate Joe Lieberman. I mean, I really hate him.
