Lieberman says he'll filibuster Reid healthcare plan

Source: Politico/MSNBC

POLITICO (Washington) -- Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) said Tuesday that he'd back a GOP filibuster of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's health care reform bill.

Lieberman, who caucuses with Democrats and is positioning himself as a fiscal hawk on the issue, said he opposes any health care bill that includes a government-run insurance program — even if it includes a provision allowing states to opt out of the program, as Reid's has said the Senate bill will.

"We're trying to do too much at once," Lieberman said. "To put this government-created insurance company on top of everything else is just asking for trouble for the taxpayers, for the premium payers and for the national debt. I don't think we need it now."

Lieberman added that he'd vote against a public option plan "even with an opt-out because it still creates a whole new government entitlement program for which taxpayers will be on the line."


Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSTRE59Q3YB200...

Where ya been, Joe? Just waiting for the right moment to make an idiot of yourself?

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A public option with no opt-out, with no trigger, that anyone can join whether they're currently insured or not.

No more pandering to Snowe, Baucus, Conrad, etc. Let's get the damn thing done and done right for once.

That said, the Democrats didn't have any further use for Joe since he defeated Ned Lamont in 2006.

If John Ensign doesn't take me up on my offer of an entry-level back office job (P/T of course), I can let you have a shot at it, but of course your lack of experience means I will have to pay you sub-minimum wage under the table.

Unless he resigns due to huge outcry . But ask Senator Ensign about resigning.

Go ahead, Harry, do it - it will be the ballsiest thing you have ever done and everybody will cheer you on!

It should have happened earlier when he campaigned for McCain. Get him out of the Democratic caucus - he's just there to be a mole and a spy anyway.

Time for hime to go sit with his real party.

Maybe it's time for the nuclear option?

I refuse to allow my money be spent on traitors and milquetoasts.

My back really hurts from him stabbing it all the time....

take us back to 59, so they can stop claiming that we have a supermajority when we really don't.

Do those democrats in his state who voted for him get what they did now?

I've had it with him.

http://reid.senate.gov/contact/index.cfm

Let him know what we think of Lieberman's traitorous ways.


Call Lieberscum himself at these numbers:
Washington
(202) 224-4041 Voice
(202) 224-9750 Fax
For TTY Call 711

Connecticut
(860) 549-8463 Voice
(800) 225-5605 In CT
For TTY Call 711

And email him here:

http://lieberman.senate.gov/contact/index.cfm?regarding...

Make him the poster boy for gridlock in Washington. and why nothing ever gets done. What a piece of shit.

No cloture, no chairmanship.

My blood pressure rose about 50 points when I heard this.

This guy is unbelievable.

So what to do about it?

I'm calling and writing but I don't think this bastard really cares.

He's a senator in my state.

I write to him on a regular basis. I call.

He replies with a form letter that is all bs, no substance.

I will support anyone who runs against him. Anyone at all. Even a NE republican can be reasoned with or at least shamed. Not lieberman. He's all maggot.

right outside his office

Who's in with me?

outside his Temple on the Sabbath..... the selfish fundie nut case!

I don't care that he supposedly caucuses with the Dems. What has that gotten us, exactly?

Next go-round, if he has the nerve to run (and I still think he's been acting like he won't - burning a lot of bridges here), I will vote for anyone else. Too bad I can't vote for Weicker again against Lieberman.

and weeks later, got a form letter stating that he only accepts mail from his constituents.
Can you imagine the amount of hate mail this guy would get if his box was open to everyone?

get a form letter, scolding them for not seeing things as he does. All in that trademarked Lieberman whiny tone.

He might as well just admit it. He has ZERO integrity.

make him vote with the money. Let him show himself for the pubic hair he really is.

So he's a fiscal hawk on this issue. But not on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan we had to borrow money for.

Joe's not been getting the attention he craves. A knife in Democrats' backs has always been good for that.

And he made a big mistake. Playing both ends against the middle doesn't make you a moderate.

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we don't need your vote.

All we need is 50+1. Easy to do with Joe

I was going to say "that *#$%!!'s voicemail is already full," but that would be rude.

Lieberman's number is 202-224-4041.

The slimy bastard actually recorded his own message.

I was so angry I really couldn't speak intelligently.

Even for a Republican, I'm not sure she's so doctrinaire as to screw her chances with the Connecticut electorate.

this vote for the public option is just a show to demonstrate to progressives that they "tried" to get a public option. Then they will pass the "trigger" option with Olympia Snowe's support.

But the fact is that with both Lieberman and Snowe promising to fillibuster the trigger-less public option, it still only gets 59 votes if all Dem Senators plus Sanders vote for it.

Lieberman: Sure, I'll filibuster a health care reform bill I don't agree with. And I don't agree with it as it is now.

In other news, Sen. Blanche Lincoln today spoke out against the public option and the bill Sen. Reid (D-NV) announced yesterday. But revealingly, she did not say one way or another how she would vote on cloture (where the Dems need 60 votes), which is the key question.

I'd say it's assumed that, if the Dems are going to win this, several of the centrist and conservative Dems will vote no on the bill itself (where they only need 50) but yes on cloture (the key vote where they need 60).

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/

and throw him out of the caucus.

Useless piece of shit.

Hawkeye-X

from AP:

there are 3 votes we are talking about:

1. Bringing it to the Senate floor.
2. Cloture (i.e. shutting off the fillibuster once it gets to the floor) requiring 60 votes.
3. The actual up-or-down vote requiring 50 votes.

You only get to 3 if you get past 1 and 2. Lieberman says he will vote for 1 but not 2. So the public option stops at step 2 without Lieberman's vote.

especially at the end of long blurry brained day.
Thank you.

As long as he lets it go to a vote, his vote isn't needed for passage, and I don't think it could have been counted on in any case.

Lieberman has just abandoned all pretense of his "hawk on military matters, liberal on social matters" label, which seems to be
either a relic, or a self-bestowed label in the first place. You're hardly "liberal on social matters" if you are cool with
denying a few dozen million of your countrymen (and women) access to medical care because the war you cheered on sucked up
too much money cover them.

I want to see it. America needs to see it.

MAKE THEM FILIBUSTER!! I want the GOP & all America have to sit there and listen to the grating, obnoxious voices of the Republicans 24/7 while they try to drag our country into a corporate bank account.

Make them stand up and bloviate in front of the whole nation for hours and days.

that he obstructs again?

He is a disgrace to his state, and I wonder if he is even working in the interests of OUR country, even in his own miserable mind.

Let's see him pull the same stunt he did before and switch parties again. Maybe he'll finally jump over to the Republicans where he belongs.

I still can't get through the White House comment line but will keep trying.

Pass a stronger, robust public option using reconciliation. Screw him and the other narcissists.

Very moving, and spot on.

"he may be bad on foreign policy, but he is with us on domestic" rationalization - always BS, even more so now

Now you know why.

the DEMOCRATIC nominee

What's so hard to understand?

The president does not support the public option.

Obama supported Lieberman during the state primaries when Lieberman WAS a Democrat and a sitting DEMOCRATIC Senator. When Lieberman LOST the Primary, Obama fully supported Lamont OVER Lieberman in the run up to the election.

Your post is a pathetic attempt to spread crap and that, imo, is appalling.

Edited to correct typo.

primary, then did not do much for Lamont in the general, even though Lamont was running as a Democrat and POS wasn't.

The first thing we need to do is take back the Democratic Party, end that policy and do away with the un-Democratic and undemocratic super delegates.

Wow! Who would think those morons had it right about him the first time?

get for showing incredible forbearance towards Lieberman after he endorsed McSame? What should happen now is Reid threatens to strip him of his chairmanship to get him to fall in line, and once the reform bill gets past cloture, strip the jerk of his gavel anyway. He deserves to be treated with the same contempt he treats the Dems and the people.

And if he still chooses to filibuster, the Dems must force him and the rest of the Repugs to actually FILIBUSTER for once. Let them run down their stocks of Depends and die of exhaustion.

will have 99 members of the Senate voting for an end to the filibuster.

make the country hear him for hours on end - he will sow the seeds for his own demise

disguised in sheep's clothes.

YES!

Make them stay up all night reading from the phone book! No more just throwing up your hands and calling it quits at the THREAT of a real filibuster. Make them work for their obstruction. There'll be cloture in no time.

Except I know that stupid people will continue to believe stupid things no matter how many times they're shown to be wrong.

Can't take lieberman from the left? Take him from the right. Support the republican in the next race if there is no strong progressive. Anything to get this fucker out.

out of every committee. do not pass go. It is the LEAST they can do. fuck the one vote. Put that man in his place. Show the rest of the Dems what being a Dem means.

I prefer to use armpit than a$$hole.... an armpit doesn't have a function.

Why is he doing this? Is he at all aware of the VOTERS or is it just his ego and the chance, once again, to be in any spotlight.... any.

He needs about a million phone calls.

His Democratic constituents made it quite clear what they thought of him in 2006 and dumped his ass, so he ran as an Independent(Repug) and he STILL fucking won. He probably now thinks he can flip the bird at all Democrats anytime he likes and he'll get away with it, and the countless free passes Reid's handed to him have NOT helped.

Your threat to filibuster a public option is cowardly.
Please consider resigning from the Senate.

This little two faced jerkwad has tried to straddle the fence so many times that I think he slipped and one of the pickets went into his anus and caused brain damage.

but try not to use as much profanity as I did. Lieberman must loose his committee chair! Reid's office:202-224-3542!

This drives me insane! Fucking Democrats caved on everything fucking thing Bush did! How did John Roberts fucking work out for you?

REMOVE HIM FROM HIS COMMITTEE CHAIR NOW!

a ticket that "lost" the election in large part due to Lieberman being a part time campaigner.

It was probably the only time that he ever told the truth. We should have paid more attention then.
His willful self-serving comments on TV while people were trying desperately to get the FL recount to go ahead certainly "outed" him then.
Gore more than made up for his travesty of a Veep decision in 2000 by endorsing Howard Dean's candidacy for the 2004 election. And boy, didn't Baby Joe wail and moan about that!
The only positive thing about the theft of the 2000 election is that LIEberman never made it to No 2. Of course, he was McCan't's top pick for Veep last year, until McCan't sold out completely to the RW religious wackos ... much good it did him. But I'm glad that he did.

Never in a million years.

Though I have to say, due to my lack of knowledge about the candidates back then, I don't know who would have been a better choice.

Don't forget that... It was only mis- (non) counting of the votes that put bush in office.

It we don't do something right now about health care we will not have financial institutions. I have not heard one reason, from those against health Care reform, that makes any sense.

After hearing the latest from Republican Joe, the first thing that came to mind was what's the worst case scenario that could result?

My conclusion is that Congress, claiming they cannot get a public option passed in the Senate, decides to dumb down the reform bill to
MANDATES TO BUY PRIVATE INSURANCE WITHOUT ANY REGULATION OF RATES THEY CAN CHARGE and NO PUBLIC OPTION TO COMPETE.

If that is what is at the end of this tunnel, then I say it would be better to kill the bill altogether and try something else later than to cheat us out of real health care reform to give the corporations a huge group of new victims but no regulation of their actions that have brought us to this point.

Hopefully, the Progressive members of Congress will keep up the fight and perhaps the White House will finally throw some weight against people such as Republican Joe to benefit the bill for us, the American people who do not have the access to the same health care as Congress.

Meanwhile, I have signed the petition on democratic.com that states I will not give a dime of donations to any member of Congress that votes against a robust public option for ALL Americans.

(private insurance mandates with NO public option), I predict the following will happen"

1) Big jump in underground economy {to avoid income showing up as enough to draw penalties)

2) Civil disobedience (Hard to tell how much; it's something few Americans seem to have the stomach for. but some could just refuse to buy and refuse to pay penalty)

3. "Shell" fake insurance cos. spring up so people can "prove" they're insured.

Do we really want to encourage these steps?

Well... maybe we do, as a response to a law _forcing_ us to support a private corporation's profits.
And that's not jut the uninsured Americans who'll be forced to buy it. We'll all be forced to contribute to the insurance cos., via taxes for those "subsidies".

Aside from being BAD for almost every actual citizen in the country, it would be political suicide.

and Christmas. Then hit the airwaves every day to bash them over the head.

God - the people of Connecticut must rue the day they didn't vote for Ned Lamont.

He needs to be recalled by the people of Connecticut.
Scumbag asshole douchebag.

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Try freerepublic.com

Go fuck yourself and go back to fucking Free Republic.

First he supported McCain, and now this. He used complete Repuke terminology when explaining his opposition. Use reconciliation and send him over.

Strip him of any chairmanship and throw him out. He's not in the Senate as a Democrat anyway.

Does it not bother anybody that we almost had this douchebag as our VP? Considering that New England sides with the Demos more often than not, its long past time we threw this asshole out of caucus.

A - Connecticut (the A stands for Aetna or choose a letter for any insurance company)

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The Democratic Party cannot afford to keep you around anymore.

peace

Folks it'll be reconciliation. You know damn well what the House will do. It's time to start cam paining. We got Brown and Strickland elected in Ohio. We're stuck with Boehner though. We're working on it.

We're all going to have to keep campaining. Obama's election was just the start to take the country back from the Wall Street snakes. The bottom line is that's where it all comes from.

This is the real deal. We are going to see who's been bought.

Time for you folks in Connecticut to do what we did in Ohio. Dig into Smokin Joe and see who's paying him.

Because that is, in effect, who people are that threaten to filibuster when millions are denied health care.

The worst decision that Gore ever made was to tap Lieberman as his running mate. If this clown hadn't been given a pedestal, we would have all been saying, "Lieberman, who?"

Fuck him. I can't say it enough. FUCK LIEBERMAN!

Please, dems, use the reconciliation process and pass the public option with 51 votes.

on the Homeland Security Committee

Who caved????

as though he keeps electing himself leader of Senate Democrats, then doesn't consult anyone may be fun, but it is not realty.

Source: CBSnews

Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) said Tuesday that he would support a Republican filibuster of a health care bill that includes a public option.

Lieberman's comments confirm that Democrats in the Senate do not currently have enough votes to move forward the health care plan laid out on Monday by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.). Other moderates in the Democratic Caucus, Senators Ben Nelson of Nebraska and Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas, would not commit today to ending a filibuster.

Read more: http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2009/10/27/politics/politi...

---

Did Reid know about this, or suspect it? Was "opt-out" an attempt to stop it or a ploy to make sure it happened?

THIS makes it pretty clear.

the previous VP nominee loses in the primary in the not-so-radical state of Connecticut

THAT was the beginning of the uprising that the other side gets so much credit for.

but will vote no on the floor.

Which is it?

letting bill proceed to the floor for an up or down vote.

he did say public option "was not good for America" (or roughly that). Maybe his no vote will be after the cloture vote, i.e. against the bill itself.

CBS's Chip Reid called it a lethal blow and went on to gloat about Obama having a bad day and that his "political magic" is over.

Bastards.