This is not surprising:
More than 80 percent of Democrats say they believe Sen. Joseph Lieberman (I-Conn) should be stripped of his powerful chairmanship in the Senate if he ends up supporting a Republican filibuster of health care reform, according to a new poll.
The liberal action groups Progressive Change Campaign Committee and Democracy for America commissioned a survey several days ago, in which they asked more than 800 voters whether Lieberman’s position on health care should affect his status as head of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.
Eighty-one percent of Democrats said they would like to see the senator’s chairmanship — which he was allowed to keep despite campaigning for Sen. John McCain in 2008 — taken away should he sustain a filibuster. Only 10 percent of Democrats said there should be no punishment. Even fewer (nine percent) said they had yet to make up their minds, underscoring just how divisive Lieberman is within the party.
Here is the thing- Joe isn’t even a Democrat. If you can’t summon the nerve to punish an outsider who is continuously giving you and your agenda the shaft, you might as well kiss off any notion of party disciple ever. Even better, if you get rid of Holy Joe, you are down to 59 votes, which means the jackass Republicans can’t just sit around and say “Hey- you have the votes, why do you need us?” You might even muster some public support for doing something about the filibuster.
The first thing that has to change in regards to the filibuster, btw, is that people should actually have to filibuster. The status quo is unacceptable.
cervantes
I have made a half-hearted and as yet feckless effort to compose a flame worthy of the loathing and disdain I feel for the Dishonorable Joseph Lieberman (Lieberman for Lieberman Party).
It is now apparent that The Last Honest and Godly Man cares for only one thing — revenge on the Democratic voters of Connecticut who spurned him in 2006, and doing the most damage he possibly can to the Democratic Party, the current Democratic presidency, and the principles of that he once pretended to believe in. Lieberman is a malignant narcissist who takes joy from the deaths of innocents, because they demonstrate his power. There is no more vile and repulsive politician on the earth.
If anyone has anything meaningful to add to that, go to it. I have avoided vulgarity and profanity here, but you’re welcome to them. I detest that man. I detest everyone who doesn’t detest him. I detest everyone who doesn’t lie awake at night detesting him, and who doesn’t dream about detesting him when they finally do fall asleep, and who doesn’t dream about detesting everyone who doesn’t dream about detesting him. Oh hell, here’s some vulgarity after all. I shit in the milk of his mother, his grandmothers, and his great grandmothers unto the seventh generation. May he be flushed down the sewer of history. Feh.
Joshua Norton
They keep whining that they can’t go back to actually requiring people to filibuster because it would shut the rest of the Senate business down while it was happening.
They say that like it would be a bad thing. Apparently they’re the only ones who think so.
GReynoldsCT00
@cervantes:
/APPLAUDS
Zifnab25
The filibuster rules are most unpleasant for the majority. You need upwards of fifty Senators in their seats while the opposition needs one guy up yakking. Otherwise, he can call a quorum and take a break.
Ultimately, the way Harry Reid is running the Senate – weekendless and deep into the night – is probably more exhausting for Republicans than an offical filibuster. It just looks less dramatic on tv. You want a PR win, and I feel you, but the long entrenched compromise debates and the official filibuster amount to about the same thing.
Brian J
If Lieberman is truly operating on principle, then he’s going to vote with the Democrats when the right issue comes up. If he’s operating in order to spite someone or some group, then he’ll vote accordingly, sort of like he’s doing now. This leads me to believe that unless being punished in some way will reduce him to act like a true child, which is a possibility but something that we can’t be sure of, there’s no reason not to punish him. What do we have to lose at this point?
Thadeus Horne
All Blowjob Joe needs is the special “Berlusconi Facial Program” applied vigorously about his head and shoulders, repeated as often as required.
BR
I’m calling my senators right now and telling them to kick Lieberman to the curb immediately.
Xenos
An awful lot of ink and electrons are being wasted trying to psychoanalyze Lieberman. It is really pretty pointless. If here were just perverse and out to screw the rest of the party he would still have enough self respect to avoid all the transparent lies, the shifting rationales, the whole ridiculous series of foolish steps that set up, and then destroy not only the various proposals but the very process for trying to reform health care financing.
This is not a guy who is waiting for a sinecure from industry, or some sort of promise of favors down the line. He is too old for that sort of delayed, fuzzy corruption. Joe is acting like someone who has already been bought, gotten a clear quid pro quo, and is just acting out the weekly instructions he is getting from his masters. Maybe there is blackmail involved, too. Either way, looking for a high principle or motivation behind this outrageousness is a waste of time.
lou
The thing is they can’t strip him of his leadership role until after the elections for 2010 because of the way Senate rules work. That’s the frustrating thing about this. In the meantime he can do a lot of damage.
TR
For someone who believes in a just god, Lieberman hasn’t really thought this through.
Have fun in hell, asshole.
ellaesther
Ok, as has perhaps been obvious from my repeated requests, as a card-carrying member of the Jewish people, to throw Lieberman back, I have felt very frustrated that I have no leverage whatsoever over Joe the fucking Lieberman, and yet he is in a position to determine the future of heath care for me and the rest of the country.
BUT THIS GIVES ME HOPE!
Calling activist Balloon Juicers:
What can I, a card-carrying member of the Democratic Party, do to encourage – nay urge – nay DEMAND – that my party strip this man of his fucking chairmanship?
Is anyone grassrootsy doing anything along these lines? I mean, I can write/call my own Senators and US Rep — and I will do — but is there anything bigger and more organized being stirred up?
Redshirt
This is my vague test for Obama – I assumed it was Obama’s influence that saved Lieberman’s influence after the election – didn’t make sense to me then, but I put my trust in Obama, as I am far more vengeful and petty person than he.
But now, here we are: What does Obama (or the Dems) get in return for not kicking Joe out of the caucus? I haven’t seen any positives, and tons of negatives.
So, how’s it gonna go, Joe? When is the earliest he can be stripped of his ranks?
Napoleon
@cervantes:
With people like you out there I wonder if I can turn a buck selling Holy Joe Voodoo dolls on E-bay?
AB
Something oddly fitting about Lieberman having “I-CONN”, as in con artist, after his name.
Jim Crozier
Count me among the 80%+ who wants Joe kicked to the curb.
I honestly hate him more than any other human being in this country not named Sarah Palin right now. He’s such a lying sack of shit that he actually makes the Republicans look honest by comparison.
RareSanity
This.
If you really want to filibuster, you are going to have to do it the old fashioned way.
If you leave the floor to as much as go tinkle, we’re votin’!
brent
The idea that Lieberman cares about those chairmanships seems, at this moment, laughable to me. Lieberman is a lost cause. Strip him of his chairmanships or don’t.
On the other hand, he has done a couple of small favors for the Democratic caucus. One, he has hopefully clarified for them just how much of a prick he is. Something that every sentient human being not in the Senate already knew. That was a lesson they really needed to learn. And two, he has made it clear that, if there is to be any progress in the Senate on any substantive issue ever again, other than tax cuts for rich people, they will have to change the rules.
Brien Jackson
*sigh*
No one ever “had to talk” in the event the votes weren’t there for cloture. You just couldn’t do anything, because Senate rules only allowed for one item of business to be considered at a time. The talkathons were only used when the votes for cloture were there but someone in the minority still wanted to prevent action from being taken.
It’s a novel idea and all, there just isn’t any practical way to do it using the Senate’s conception of cloture.
inkadu
@cervantes: Actually, Lieberman has always been a spiteful fuck, from his first campaign attacking a Republican from the right, to his bolstering of the witch hunt by scolding Clinton, to his weekly barrage of Bush supporting, to this.
He’s like the crazy girlfriend that brings men home, has sex with them on the couch, then blames you for breaking up with her.
Koz
Yeah, yeah, yeah. It’s always Lieberman, it’s Baucus, or it’s Grassley. Look in the f***in’ mirror already.
ellaesther
@ellaesther: Oops. Of course, not my Rep. Just my Senators.
I was a little overcome with my fury!
But I’m also going to call the DNC.
Xenos
@Koz: Last I checked, Grassley was a Republican.
Face
…..followed by 2 paragraphs analyzing Lieberman.
jcricket
As a fellow Jew I’m embarrassed I ever thought Holy Joe was good for the party. I wish we had some kind of Jewish Pope who could excommunicate him.
The worst part is they always describe him as an “Orthodox” (devout) Jew. He is, but it’s told like he’s some kind of special person for it.
Fine, he doesn’t drive on the sabbath when he’s avoiding doing work in Congress and he doesn’t eat bacon when he’s suckling from the industry healthcare teat.
Sly
What?
Svensker
@Koz:
It’s my fault? I gotta be more careful with my superpowers in the future.
John O
Going out shopping today. Hope I don’t run into Joe, since getting arrested would slow down my Christmas plans.
Svensker
@Jim Crozier:
He DOES make Repubs look good by comparison. They are either insane or believe the shit they’re spouting (or both). Joe is just a spiteful little turd. He reminds me of the kid in 4th grade who would raise his hand and tell the teacher someone was reading a book under the desk.
Koz
“Last I checked, Grassley was a Republican.”
So?
The political class has always had its share of blowhards, time servers and ward heelers. That’s not the problem. The problem is that you liberals want to think it’s okay to reach into everyone’s pocket for midnight basketball, health care, walking around money for ACORN or whatever. Why are you expecting AIG or Goldman couldn’t get into that act as well.
GReynoldsCT00
Oh goodie! A new troll for Christmas
gbear
yes, a live one on the line. all of the talking points, none of the facts. this should be fun…
Xenos
@Koz: What is the opposite of a non sequitor?
Whatever it is, you need to get some.
Sloegin
Chairmanship shmairmanship, Joe really doesn’t care. Kicking him from the chairmanship would only give him more street cred on his cable and Sunday talk-show circut rounds.
Threaten him with something useful; he’s gonna lose his seat in 2012, if you really want him to come around, threaten to blacklist any lobbying firm that employs him or his better half once he’s out of the Senate.
Emma
Koz, dear, you’re an idiot. A Republican idiot. The kind of idiot that thinks that kissing the arse of corporate thieves will earn you a share of the profits. Wake up. The peasants don’t get to eat from that trough and nothing ever trickles down except the shit. Now, go away.
wilfred
So when Lieberman was pushing the Lieberman –Kyl amendment and blustering about wars with Iran, Palestine and any other Muslim country he saw fit and when he was getting photos of detainee torture and abuse kept from the public view then he was ok, right?
Chickens roosting. When he was everybody’s else’s scumbag he was ok, but now…
Tough shit.
BenA
@Koz:
As opposed to Haliburton, Exxon, and “faith based inititives.” You conservatives are always f–king hypocrites.
Elie
@cervantes:
Absolutely, totally agree — and then some…
I am enraged but trying to figure out what is to be done to deal with this…
matoko_chan
This is why reconciliation is built into the process.
The framers were geniuses in human nature.
WAI
(working as intended)
I think Obama originally floated the reconciliation option as part of his good cop/bad cop persona.
But it is still an option.
;)
low-tech cyclist
The first thing that has to change in regards to the filibuster, btw, is that people should actually have to filibuster. The status quo is unacceptable.
Who will bell the cat?
We can talk all we want about how the current filibuster rules are unacceptable, but Senate Rule 22 says we need 67 votes to change them.
matoko_chan
@Koz: Hey Kos…..
serge
@cervantes
I couldn’t have said it better. And I’m mad at the entire planet right now having just had my debit card compromised to the tune of ~ $2,000.
I could cheerfully kill someone. Curiously your excellent rant calmed me down somewhat…thanks.
Kennedy
We hardly have 59 or 60 votes as it stands, with all the grandstanding primadonnas like Nelson in our party. Not that it should be an excuse (though Reid would love it to be), but I’m just saying.
Also, remember when stripping Lieberman of his committee chairmanships was first discussed in late 2008? And Reid was pressured not to do so in the name of magical unity ponies and bipartisanship? And Lieberman threatened that if his chairman positions were stripped, that he would caucus with the Republicans? And everyone said that it would be detrimental to the Democrats to lose a potential vote to the Republican caucus? And then it turns out that he caucuses with them anyway?
It’s an abject tragedy that he’s not up for re-election until 2012.
menckenjr
One thing we could do is start digging into Holy Joe’s relationships with the medical insurance and/or pharma industries. If there were a smoking gun demonstrating a quid pro quo then Lieberman could be in real *legal* trouble and he might be strong-armed into dropping his filibuster threat.
Or, Reid and the Appropriations committee could play hardball and start stripping out items for Connecticut and making a very public show of doing it and laying the blame at Lieberman’s feet. Let’s see how long he keeps holding his breath until *we* turn blue then.
brent
We can talk all we want about how the current filibuster rules are unacceptable, but Senate Rule 22 says we need 67 votes to change them.
This isn’t exactly true. That is, it is technically true but, if you will recall from the “nuclear option” nonsense a few years back, it is possible to bypass that rule with a bare majority. In truth, 50 Senators and Joe Biden can do anything they want to the Senate rules, they just have to be willing to live with the consequences.
chuck
@low-tech cyclist:
To change them permanently, on the books, yes. Apparently all it takes to enact a de facto change for the term of the senate is a Point of Order.
Except the Senate values its gentlemans club atmosphere much too highly to ever consider doing something so gauche. We really are in the last days of the Roman Republic. Caesar will be carried in any day now.
Dustin
@Koz
Trust me buddy, if the government were controlled by my faults things would be a helluva lot different. Ever heard of the Bastille?
Kennedy
Reid? Play hardball? Don’t hold your breath.
J. Michael Neal
@matoko_chan:
What do the framers have to do with reconciliation? The procedure didn’t come about until 1974.
danimal
I’m beginning to hope that this is all kabuki and that a reconciliation bill is being quietly developed while the prima donnas pose for the cameras. If it is kabuki, then the prima donnas are able to posture as conservadems, the liberals get a bill that can pass both houses, and the GOP voluntarily shuts itself out of the process.
Nelson, Landrieu and Evil Joe would love to say to their constituents (conservatives and insurance company execs) that they opposed HCR while avoiding the stain of killing the bill.
I’m sure there’s a pony in here somewhere.
mak
While dreaming up a happy ending to Traitor Joe’s most recent cry for help, TBogg conjured up a new entry for the BJ Lexicon: “America’s Sanctimonious Shitsack” (A.S.S.).
http://tbogg.firedoglake.com/2009/12/14/this-would-never-have-happened-if-harry-reid-was-still-alive/
Violet
Those Senators who are threatening to filibuster should be made to filibuster. No excuses. Stand up there and read the phone book. They don’t want to have to do the work. Typical lazy ass politicians.
licensed to kill time
“Lieberman, Party of One” still an apt slogan for the mo-fo.
Tsulagi
Disciple? Don’t think Lieberman would want to be a disciple. He’s Jewish isn’t he?
If you meant discipline, that ship sailed long ago. Next fundraising letter from the Dems to be titled “Marginally better than the Republicans, when they let us be.” That’ll get the bucks rolling in.
JasonF
@Sly: I had the same reaction. Four out of five Democrats believe Lieberman is a problem and that means we’re divided? Ridiculous.
Rick Taylor
It’s a funny thing that one of the Republican memes is that Obama is a tough Chicago-style politician. I wish; we could use someone like Lyndon Johnson in the white house right now. As it is, Lieberman can play games with this as long as he likes and there’s never any price to pay. The longer it goes on, the more this becomes apparent. There has to be consequences for this behavior. True, he might switch parties or try to extract some other revenge (as though that would make much difference by this point), but a precedent would be set and there’d be an understanding in the future that there are limits to the party’s willingness to be screwed. As it is, everything appears to be fair game.
Sly
More to the point, the original rules of the Senate prohibited the filibuster, but were changed in the first ten years or so to allow for them. Even then, the first quasi-filibuster didn’t occur until 1841, and the procedure wasn’t offcially codified into Senate rules until 1872 (not by a rule change by 2/3rds of the Senate membership, but by a ruling by then Vice President Schuyler Colfax). Cloture didn’t come about, at least in practice, until 1919 during the debate on the Treaty of Versailles.
This is all by way of saying that, institutionally, the Senate (and the House, for that matter, as the House used to have a filibuster as well) has changed a great deal since 1789. And the whole “cooling saucer” argument, in my view, is satisfied solely by the fact that smaller constituencies (via states) have just as much Senate representation as the larger ones. The filibuster keeps the spirit of this arrangement no more than having Senators appointed by state legislatures, and we got rid of that corrupt little practice, completely, 96 years ago.
asiangrrlMN
@Tsulagi: Damn you for stealing my idea and making it much funnier.
@cervantes: I couldn’t have said it better myself. Except, fuck you, Joe Lieberman with TWO rusty pitchforks eleven-billionty ways of Sunday.
I don’t think there is much that will faze Lieberman now, though. And, to be honest, even without him, the Dems are in trouble looking for 60 votes. While it feels really fucking good to bitch about Lieberman, in the end, he is not really the problem.
Rick Taylor
Why didn’t they just meet with Lieberman and tell him, “Your highness, we Democrats need to pass a health reform bill, so could you please deign to write out what would be acceptable to you and we’ll pass it asap?” No need for CBO scores or negotiation or debate, it would have saved a lot of time and effort.
Rick Taylor
Here’s a link for that last. And how do you do block quotes with more than one paragraph?
Sly
@JasonF
Bring me back to the good old days of Nov. 2004 when 50.7% of a given group of people agreeing to support a politician was a clear and decisive mandate for said politician to unambiguously ram his entire agenda through, especially items on that agenda that he never mentioned during the campaign and tried really hard not to tell anyone about before the election.
licensed to kill time
@Rick Taylor:
Rick Taylor
@licensed to kill time
horatius
If only that pussy Obama realizes, he has two really strong and young hands he can use to squeeze the balls of one Traitor Joe.
licensed to kill time
@Rick Taylor:
If you begin your blockquote immediately under a link or line of text, it won’t go bold.
__
gopher2b
@RareSanity:
Totally agree. I think you would see this nonsense end so fast if you made them actually read the phone book.
Want to filibuster federal judge from the Western District of Kentucky? Fine here is the phonebook.
Want to filibuster every piece of legislation? Fine, here is the today’s newspaper. Go ahead and read it out loud on C-SPAN.
The public would be so outraged after three weeks this nonsense would stop.
Rick Taylor
@ licensed to kill time
So just use double underscores everywhere and eschew blank lines?
__
__
licensed to kill time
@Rick Taylor: Heh, indeedy!
Double underscores
Eschew empty lines
Blockquote, I conquer thee!
(I have suggested an FAQ entry on tips like these several times, sure would be helpful. I think the imminent site upgrade is supposed to take care of all this. I’ve also been told that these “fixes” come and go like the wind – what works now may not in the future….so, embrace the underscore while you can!)
P.S. You’re welcome, I’m a service-y kinda human ;-)
matoko_chan
@J. Michael Neal: the Framers had nothing explicit to do with reconciliation….but they made the constitution and our system of government adaptable and responsive, if well damped.
They could have graved everything in stone (and “conservatives” like to pretend they did when it benefits them).
So judicial activism and reconciliation are two examples of evolved adaptations to correct things like popular local support for slavery and contrarian filibusters.
Kewalo
I haven’t read all the comments so I don’t know if this has come up. But last year when the issue of Lieberman came up I wrote Bob Geiger, former blogger, and IMO one of the best authorities on the Senate I’ve ever read. I asked him if the Senate would be stuck with Lieberman for the whole term. Here is what he wrote me back.
Yes, I did compliment him in my email, but it was completely sincere as he’s just the best. I’m sorry he isn’t blogging anymore because nobody knows the senate like he does…I really miss him.
So, as you see, getting rid of Lieberman is not an easy task.
Kewalo
I haven’t read all the comments so I don’t know if this has come up. But last year when the issue of Lieberman came up I wrote Bob Geiger, former blogger, and IMO one of the best authorities on the Senate I’ve ever read. I asked him if the Senate would be stuck with Lieberman for the whole term. Here is what he wrote me back.
—
Yes, I did compliment him in my email, but it was completely sincere as he’s just the best. I’m sorry he isn’t blogging anymore because nobody knows the senate like he does…I really miss him.
So, as you see, getting rid of Lieberman is not an easy task.
Comrade Kevin
Speaking of Lieberman, the geniuses over at Firedoglake apparently are trying to go after his wife, pressuring the Susan G Komen for the Cure cancer charity to fire her in a fit of political stupidity/vindictiveness.
Regnad Kcin
@Thadeus Horne:
And that’s the only way Joeboy will ever be called ‘statuesque’
Ruckus
@cervantes:
Second GReynoldsCT100 with one small addition.
Standing ovation.
Ruckus
@Xenos:
that would be sequitur.
non sequitur – does not follow
sequitur – follows
That damned high school latin actually does come in handy sometimes.