So-called Democrats

The millionaires won again yesterday. Who were the so-called Democrats who joined the Republican filibuster of Obama's jobs bill?

One of them was, of course, Joe Lieberman, who hasn't been a Democrat for...ever.

I hope Barack Obama and Harry Reid regret their failure to send him packing to the Republican caucus when they had the chance in January 2009 - to repay his betrayal with the back of their hand.

The others were Ben Nelson, always reliable voting for a Republican filibuster, and Mark Pryor. I refuse to put a D next to their names.

Meta-question: Why did I have to visit a third site before finding who the turncoats were? Don't journalists find the question who an important question any more?

The Republican Lieberman

Lisa Murkowski (R-inheritance) will likely remain the Republican Senator from Alaska. She will now become the scold of the GOP, à la Joe Lieberman's self-appointed role in the Democratic Party. She'll appear on Olbermann and say, "Well, Keith, I have to agree with you on that." She'll vote for President Obama's next Supreme Court nominee. And the Republicans will leave her in her preferred committee assignments.

Are you kidding me?

Right right right

Rights in the political arena...

Click image for full Jim Morin/Miami Herald cartoon.

More low comity

"In my capacity as the senator from Minnesota, I object," replied [blessed Al] Franken.

Keeping the verbose, self-important Joe Lieberman (IINO-CT) from finishing yet another whiny, self-flattering speech on the Senate floor was only a slap on the wrist. Reid should throw Lieberman out of the caucus – and out of his chairmanship.

John McCain of course leapt to Lieberman's defense. Those two ought to get a room.

But answer me this: Has McCain ever objected on the Senate floor to Tom Coburn's Dr. No act? Has it ever occurred to him that Coburn's constant hamstringing of the Senate is far more low comity than shutting off Lieberman's at the end of his time? I know it deprives him of the heroin of ego gratification that a captive audience gives him, but everyone else in the world knows when to shut up.

Update: It's all so much bullshit, a non-story trumped up by the screamers in the media.

Insurance principle

CIGNA, whose Senator scuttled the last vestiges of reform in health care "reform", just sent me an explanation of benefits. There's quite a little bit of corporate bullshit in that misnomer. For one thing, it's not about a benefit. For another, it's not an explanation. It says, as cryptically and indecipherably as possible, that the previous EOB that didn't abuse the word 'benefit' was wrong, that I would indeed have to pay $3400. I suppose non-explanation of non-benefit would be too ... honest.

I'm sure it was just coincidental that this happened within a month of my signing up again for another year of their health insurance.

Hint: The Democrats (my Democrats) are not going to change this at all. I can't wait to see their bullshit EOB.

Updated 12/16.

Connecting the dot

Singular. The FBI looked into Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan correspondence with a radical Islamic cleric. Good. They should have. It was certainly alarming on its face.

Many Republicans, including Joe Lieberman, already have a diagnosis for why the FBI didn't make waves about it, and they don't even know what the FBI found:

[Fran Townsend] expressed concern that “political correctness,” and fear of intruding on Major Hasan’s free speech rights, may have interfered with the sharing of information earlier this year, when an F.B.I.-led counterterrorism team examined his e-mail exchanges with Anwar al-Awlaki, a well-known radical cleric, but found nothing amiss.

By political correctness, Bushists like Townsend mean observance of legal and Constitutional rights. Free speech? Who needs it!

I know they object to having to abide by the law of the land, but that email correspondence is the single dot they have to connect to a conspiracy that coddles soldiering while Muslim. It doesn't seem like a web of failure.

The Walter Reed fitrep (or unfitrep!) might look like another dot, but it's a garden variety personnel matter. In addition to being undeniably Muslim, Hasan was a really bad psychiatrist, and there's no denying that that is another possible motive for his crimes.

The right moment

Click image for full Robert Unell/Kansas City Star cartoon.

Baldwin on points

The first round of Alec Baldwin vs. Joe Lieberman goes to Baldwin. Lieberman started with a tiresome old Reaganesque chestnut, badly delivered:

“You know, make my day.”

Baldwin, who disclaims any intent to run, offers this rejoinder:

"Part of me would hate to see Lieberman go, because there are so few moderate Republicans left in the Senate today."

Lieberman is going to need better writers, at least until Democrats get a candidate.

Calvinball gets a new name

Colemanball:

As Coleman, a Republican, listened from his lawyers' table, Friedberg said that a strict standard requiring that each element of absentee voting be met -- being properly registered, signing both the envelope and application, having it witnessed by a registered voter, and more -- "doesn't exist anywhere in Anglo-American jurisprudence."

Read that again. Coleman's lawyer is explicitly arguing that the four corners of the statute don't exist in jurisprudence. To make sense, that means he is asking the court to disregard the law and make up new law.

The irony is that Bushists accused Democrats of this in 2000, when in fact Democrats wanted interpretation and standards for intent of the voter, which was already law. Republican Coleman's lawyers want to throw out the law and rewrite it for their convenience.

And their wingnut supporters will claim that Democrats are stealing this election. They really can't tell the difference between truth and a lie.

Man bites dog

Joe Lieberman says something nice about a ... wait for it ... Democrat.

CNN slyly shows us a picture of Joe with John McCain.

Severe crop of Getty image used without permission under Fair Use.

Constitution back in force!

Like a rabid dog to raw meat, Judicial Watch announced this week that Hillary Clinton is forbidden by the Constitution from serving as Secretary of State:

Article I, Section 6 of the Constitution says the following: "No Senator or Representative shall, during the time for which he was elected, be appointed to any civil office under the authority of the United States, which shall have been created, or the emoluments whereof shall have been increased during such time."

...

In January, President Bush signed an executive order increasing the salary for the secretary of state and other Cabinet positions by $4,700.

Executive order? The Constitution was written under the assumption that Congress held the purse strings. Article I, section 6 was an anti-corruption measure. Of course, Duhbya was probably granted the power to give Cabinet raises as part of a deal to piggyback Congressional raises without actually having to vote on them, since they're always unpopular with everyone who makes less - most of us. Or maybe Duhbya just arrogated it, and no one stopped him.

Wouldn't that violation of separation of powers be something more important for Judicial Watch to care about? (Only the Supremes might well have rubberstamped it since I think their salaries were included in the escalator clause.)

The Constitution's words, of course, do matter, even when raised by these guys. Though Hillary did not participate in the increased emolument to the Secretary of State, it did happen. There is no reason, however, that this possible defect can't be cured by a simple reduction to the previous level of pay. Since there's no corruption here, even that may not be necessary.

I guess Larry Klayman's Clinton Derangement Syndrome wasn't cured by eight years of Bushism! He hates him some Clinton.

The oddest thing is that Darth Cheney's election in 2000 was clearly unconstitutional, and nary a peep from Judicial Watch. Unless you bought his bullshit show of journeying back to Wyoming to register to vote there, the reality was that Cheney could not receive the electoral votes of Texas, due to the 12th Amendment:

The Electors shall meet in their respective states and vote by ballot for President and Vice-President, one of whom, at least, shall not be an inhabitant of the same state with themselves.

In the absence of a majority of electoral votes for Vice President, the Senate should have had to choose between Darth and Joe Lieberman, no matter how much a Hobson's choice the intervening eight years have revealed that to be.

I do have to thank Judicial Watch for one thing: Article I, section 6 proves that the Cheney-Addington theory of the fourth branch is not just bunk under any commonsense interpretation of the Constitution. It also violates the black and white text within the four corners of the document:

[N]o Person holding any Office under the United States, shall be a Member of either House during his Continuance in Office.

Oops! The VP is prohibited from being a member of Congress. Next theory!

Foolish of me to fight this old battle, though. With a Democrat back in the White House, of course the limits to Presidential power are back in force.

More on the Constitution or lack thereof here.

Just hypothetically

Put yourself in Alaska's position. When would you vote in favor of a convicted felon?

No, never is not the answer I'm looking for. There are worse choices than a felon, though not often. Edwin Edwards, whatever the state of his rap sheet at the time of election, was better than the repellent racist David Duke.

Alaska has now made its choice not to re-elect a convicted felon. By a hair over one percent. A hundred and forty-seven thousand Alaskans thought that patronage hack and convicted felon Ted Stevens should be re-elected because at least he wasn't a Democrat, and you know they'll bring the end of ... what, exactly?

Of course, I wouldn't expect the felon to acknowledge defeat any more than he has acknowledged his convictions.

For all us boys and girls keeping score at home, that's 58-40. Is Joe Lieberman in Georgia yet?

Please sir, may I have another

The idiot Senate Democrats let the fox back into the chicken coop, without even an insincere apology. My party needs a few people that everyone knows you can't fuck with without paying a steep price. Instead, the weak Reid caucus tells the world: Screw us again; we like it.

Insincere hypocrite

If Joe Lieberman is serious about making nice with actual honest Democrats, why isn't he in Georgia with Jim Martin demanding to know why John McCain has completely flip-flopped on the dishonor of Saxby Chambliss? Or is holy scolding only for us on the left of the aisle?

Who has to make a choice?

Joe, make your choice. That's what you did for McCain. Make your new choice now. Which caucus do you want to be in? Do you want to sit next to Jon Kyl? Your seniority lapsed when you went out on your own.

Harry, it's going to be 58-42 without Lieberman. The path to 60 runs through Maine (and other places), not Connecticut. Let Joe make his choice, no strings. Of course, you'll want to string him along until Georgia reelects Chambliss, the invidious jerk.

Not long from now in a galaxy not at all like our own

Some wingnut will liken what the Taliban did to this mullah to what I'd like to do to Joe Lieberman.

Hint: I don't want his house burned down, much less to piss on his ashes.

There have to be consequences

Harry, tell Joe Lieberman he can start rebuilding his Democratic cred by keeping his mouth shut and voting with you until 2010. Otherwise, he can go kiss Mitch McConnell's tobacco-stained ass.

Oh, and change the filibuster rule to 55. Put McConnell in the position of needing to win support across the aisle instead of simply saying nyet to everything.

At every moment, remind the Republicans that they are the ones who screwed collegiality. But don't let them screw you, too.

Confidential internal RNC memo

Title: "No honeymoon for Obama"

Whether there's a similar memo or not, the RNC has already exposed its immediate goal. Hint: It's not to help the country with its economic crisis.

The RNC's immediate goal is, as it always is, purely political. They want to pin the Democrats down under a hail of sniper fire, to keep them from doing what they were elected to do.

Just ask yourself: When those yammerheads were in power, how bipartisan were they? I will really be happy when John Boehner can't get anyone in the press to write down, much less print, his oily, insincere, bullshit quotes.

At every step, the Democrats will be more bipartisan, though the word bipartisan no longer means including the other party's backstabbers, say, Joe Lieberman or Zell Miller.

Why Lieberman is out

He said this:

Attending an event with Mr. McCain in York, Pa., in August, Mr. Lieberman said the race was “between one candidate, John McCain, who has always put the country first, worked across party lines to get things done, and one candidate who has not.”

My magnanimity is waning. I have nothing against the horse Joe rode in on. Joe, on the other hand, ...

A lot of people are kissing ass now. They think one little pruny-lipped peck is enough. In reality, they owe some serious and continuing open-mouthed smooching, so much that it really looks as though they like it. Joe? I don't even want to be as crude as to say what he has to do.

Lieberated

Duhbya used to say that elections have consequences. Now the phrase is all over the left blogosphere.

I'm ready to apply it to Joe Lieberman. If Harry Reid is not, time for a new Senate Majority Leader. (Hillary?)

Holy Joe made his choice. He repeatedly reaffirmed his choice. He made it visibly and publicly and very loudly. We all heard it. It's not as though he didn't know.

Here's what I would offer: Back-bencher with last choice of committee assignments and no committee chairs or subcommittee chairs. No capacity for mischief. You want to be a member of the majority caucus? That's the deal, revocable any time we get tired of your bullshit. Take it or leave it.

Believe me, that deal is way too magnanimous.