Anytime I receive a colored brochure with Senator Lieberman's picture emblazoned on it, I get curious. Especially when there are flags, stars, and scientific-doctor people helping, hand-holding and doing happy, hospital kind of things emblazened next to our Senator.
Did you know that Biotech Research Can Create New Cures and New Jobs for Americans?
"Joe's gotta go!" union members yelled at a rally on the Green during Thursday's lunch break....
Olsen said he plans to "pray" for Lieberman to change his position. He called health are reform an overriding "moral" issue, not just a "labor" issue."
He called it "a crucial time" for Lieberman ... "How can you say to someone you can wait about life or death? What if it was his mother who passed? What if it was his child that says, 'You have to wait and can't have health care now'? Joe has to reach down into his heart. This is a moral issue."
So was endorsing Lieberman's reelection a mistake?
He said he has no regrets; he prefers to "look forward," not "back."
Yes, who could have possibly predicted that, 15 years after Joe Lieberman last helped kill health care legislation proposed by a new Democratic president, he might try to do so again?
Apparently not Olsen, who seems just as shocked in 2009 as he was in 1994, with a similar refrain from his members ringing in his ears:
"Hey! Hey! Ho! Ho! Lieberman's health care plan has got to go!" they chanted.
About 40 labor union members, consumer advocates and other disaffected voters attended the brief rally, aimed at convincing the state's junior senator of the depth of the country's health care problem and the need for fundamental reform....
The rally was organized by the Connecticut State AFL-CIO, which represents about 200,000 people. Union President John W. Olsen, who spoke at a brief gathering after the rally outside the First Church of Christ, said the demonstration was intended to counter the heavy lobbying Lieberman and other lawmakers have received from the health and insurance industries....
(from "LIEBERMAN'S STAND ON HEALTH CARE DRAWS PROTEST; 40 AT RALLY PROTEST FOR REFORMS," Hartford Courant (Connecticut), July 29, 1994, MATTHEW DALY)
Regressive Senator Joe Lieberman sat down last week with the Connecticut Post for a long interview and online question session. Among the first questions was about his supposed change in support for a public option from 2004 when he ran an ill-fated campaign for President. Liberman explained that his proposal then was nothing like what is being proposed by others now. And that is true. It's certainly easier to call your plan something it isn't when you're running for the highest office in the land.
Lieberman was also mocked for his support of the Iraq invasion and subsequent occupation which will end up costing taxpayers north of a trillion dollars (more in real dollars than the Vietnam war, inflation adjusted) yet won't support meaningful health care reform. You can watch the full length video at the CT Post site. Apparently that was Donald Rumsfeld's fault...
STAMFORD -- U.S. Sen. Joe Lieberman made it clear Wednesday that he would not vote for a health care bill that included a government-run option, but said that without it, he and most of Congress would support comprehensive health care reform.
Discussion on health care dominated an informal question-and-answer session with the fourth-term Connecticut senator, who spoke to the editors of The Advocate and Connecticut Post and answered e-mailed questions from readers.
If the public option "is off the table, we have the opportunity to achieve significant reform with bipartisan support," Lieberman said during the nearly two-hour meeting Wednesday afternoon.
Lieberman was on CNN's State of the Union this morning, spouting his usual quackery. This time it was calling the Senate Finance Committee efforts to draft a bipartisan bill "the great hope now."
"Morally every one of us would like to cover every American with health insurance, but that's where you spend most of the trillion-plus dollars, said the Independent from Connecticut, who caucuses with the Democrats. "I'm afraid we've got to think about putting a lot of that off until the economy's out of recession."
"I think it's a real mistake to try to jam through the total health insurance reform--health care reform plan that the public is either opposed to or of very passionate mixed minds about. It's just not good for the system-frankly, it won't be good for the Obama presidency....There are other fights to fight," Lieberman said on "State of the Union," listing climate change, regulatory reform, and the war in Afghanistan.
"Great changes in our country often have come in steps....let's focus now on how to reduce costs," Lieberman said, adding that the six members of the Finance Committee - three Democrats and three Republicans - "agree on about three-quarters of what needs to get done."
Staying true to his comments from yesterday, Joe Lieberman is now officially working to block health care reform in this Congress.
Today, Lieberman joined Ben Nelson and 4 other Senators in a letter sent to Senate leadership asking for a delay in the process - once again spitting in his good friend Chris Dodd's face, a mere 48 hours after Dodd's HELP bill with a public option was voted out of committee.
A bipartisan group of centrist and conservative senators sent a letter to the Democratic and Republican leaders on Friday urging delay in consideration of health care reform.
The letter, obtained by the Huffington Post, was drafted by Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) and is also signed by Democratic Reps. Mary Landrieu (La.) and Ron Wyden (Ore.). Independent Joe Lieberman (Conn.), who caucuses with Democrats, signed on, as did Maine Republican Sens. Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins -- moderates heavily courted by President Obama.
The organized effort to slow down the process is a blow to the reform effort. Obama has pushed hard for a final vote before the August recess, arguing that delaying until September could slow momentum and risk missing a historic opportunity.
Never mind that Joe Lieberman has had more than 15 years to think about how to get health care reform done since the last time he helped kill it. He still needs "additional time."
"I believe a lot of Democrats who had previously voted for President Reagan and President Bush voted for President Clinton because they really felt he was a different kind of Democrat," said Senator Joseph I. Lieberman of Connecticut, who is a vice-chairman of the Democratic Leadership Council....
"In the first four months of the Government, there has been some disappointment both on a policy ground and a personnel ground," Mr. Lieberman said....
The Democratic moderates point to a long list of signals they feel send a message of overwhelming liberalism to voters: a budget that favors raising taxes over cutting spending; a Cabinet dominated by liberal Washington insiders; a fondness for ambitious and expensive programs like the proposal to overhaul health care...
-- "'New Democrats' Say Clinton Has Veered Left and Left Them," By Michael Kelly, New York Times, Sunday, May 23, 1993
After months of posturing, Congress is trying to come to grips with health care reform. But with only about two weeks left before the July 4 recess, the Clinton administration and supporters of universal health care in Congress must move quickly. Although the search for consensus is going badly, it must not fail....
Conservative Democrats, such as Connecticut's Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman, are becoming equivocating artists. Mr. Lieberman is not being helpful to the case of health care by saying reform may not pass this fall.
Pinning down Connecticut's Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman on health care is like trying to hold quicksilver in your hands.
Mr. Lieberman has said he is not fully behind President Clinton's proposal or Senate Majority Leader George J. Mitchell's alternative or any of the bills that have come from various Senate committees. He's said little about what he is for....
Mr. Lieberman acknowledges that he has studied the health care issue for months if not years and has had briefings from all sides. By now, he should have a clear position.
-- "Sen. Lieberman, Please Stand Up," Editorial, Hartford Courant, August 10, 1994
Mr. Lieberman has also attracted support as a result of his strong stance against the President's health-care plan. According to the National Library on Money and Politics, a nonpartisan research group in Washington advocating campaign financing reform, he garnered $128,400 from health and insurance political action committees in 1993, the eighth highest total in the Senate.
-- "6 Years After Squeaker, Lieberman's Star Rises," By Jonathan Rabinovitz, New York Times, Tuesday, November 8, 1994
Lieberman spokesman Marshall Wittman attempts to explain his boss's untenable position on the public option to the Huffington Post, and gets it exactly wrong. At least twice:
Contrary to the suggestion that Senator Lieberman is a "health care spoiler," the opposite is true because Senator Lieberman is working hard to build a coalition to pass a health care reform bill. Although he does not support a public option that would be cost prohibitive and would make it very unlikely to pass a bill, he strongly supports health care reform that expands access, lowers costs and increases quality of care.
1) The public option in the new HELP bill lowered the CBO price tag from $1 trillion over 10 years to $600 billion over 10 years.
2) All 13 Democrats on the HELP committee have now said they will support the public option proposal under consideration there. There would likely be many more than 50 Democratic votes for a public option in the Senate. The only way a public option makes it "unlikely" that that bill will pass the Senate is if Senators like Mitch McConnell and Joe Lieberman decide to block the bill through a filibuster. You know... if they act like "spoilers".
Furthermore, with more and more progressive Representatives - now including Rep. Nadler (D-NY) - pledging to vote against any final bill that does not include a public option, Wittman and his boss are (intentionally, of course) getting the politics wrong too.
A public option will be a necessity for this bill's passage through this Congress, not a hindrance.
Jed at DKosTV catches another quote from Joe Lieberman in October 2006, where he seems to have promised specific support for his version of a public option:
"I've been working on health insurance reform for more than a dozen years. ... I have offered a comprehensive program. Small business health insurance reform, plus something I call MediKids to cover all the children in America on a sliding fee basis up until the age of 25.
"MediChoice to allow anybody in our country to buy into a national insurance pool like the health insurance pool that we federal employees and Members of Congress have. Medical malpractice reform.
"It will cover 95% of those who are not covered now, and it will reduce the pressure on rising costs for all the millions of others."
"MediChoice" seems to be a Lieberman health care proposal going back to his 2004 presidential run, when he described it in a questionnaire as a public option, but one only available to certain types of workers:
"My plan will also enable all Americans who don't have access to affordable, conventional health insurance to buy into new MediChoice health insurance pools, modeled on the health care program for federal employees. The MediChoice pools will be open to all workers who currently fall through insurance cracks. This includes self-employed, part-time, seasonal and temporary workers. It also will give stay-at-home moms, early retirees over 55 and workers in small companies with less than 50 employees access to affordable health benefits."
Lieberman touted his own "public option" back when he was running in (and losing) Democratic primaries - first for President, then for Senate. But Lieberman now?
"One is I'm fearful that at a time when we're spending much too much money here in Washington, going much too deeply in debt that a public option on health care, no matter how you structure it, will end up costing the taxpayers money.
"Secondly, we don't need it. There's more than 350 companies, maybe more than that, selling health insurance. There's going to be a lot of competition for health insurance once universal health insurance comes."
"I can do more for you and your families to... get universal health insurance."
In the 2006 general election, Joe Lieberman told reporters the same thing:
Lieberman devoted a conference call with reporters to an issue that his main rival in the U.S. Senate race, Democratic nominee Ned Lamont, has highlighted in recent days.
"I have long supported the goal of universal health care," Lieberman told reporters. "Ned Lamont can talk about it. I've been doing something about it all the time I've been here.
Of course, it was all a lie, and a particularly bad one.
At the time, it was easy to see that Lieberman's election-year rhetoric on health care was just as mendacious on its face as his claim that "no one wants to end the war in Iraq more than I do", or his promise to help Barack Obama "reach to the stars", or his vow that he would help "elect a Democratic president in 2008" and that it was his primary opponent who would "frustrate and defeat our hopes of doing that".
Now, in 2009, on the cusp of a 60-seat Senate majority and at a now-or-never moment on heath care reform, Democrats have the old Joe to deal with once again:
"If we create a public option, the public is going to end up paying for it," Lieberman said following an hour-long confab with public-health experts at the Ashmun Street community center of the Monterey Homes public housing complex. "That's a cost we can't take on."...
Lieberman hopes to help do that through the work of an informal, but busy, bipartisan group he formed last year with Republican U.S. Sen. Lamar Alexander....
That common ground, in Lieberman's view, has no room for the public option.
Just six months removed from being saved by political irrelevancy by Preisdent Obama, Joe Lieberman has declared that he is now working to kill Obama's health care plan.... almost exactly 15 years after he helped kill President Clinton's.
This was the scene in Washington, D.C. in July 1994, as constituents rallied at Lieberman's office against his positions on health care:
About 40 labor union members, consumer advocates and other disaffected voters attended the brief rally, aimed at convincing the state's junior senator of the depth of the country's health care problem and the need for fundamental reform.
Unions, consumer advocates, women's groups and other traditional Democratic supporters have been unhappy with the New Haven Democrat for months, saying his stance on health reform is inadequate for the problems many Americans face.
The demonstrators said they want a health care package that includes basic coverage for all Americans, paid for primarily by employers, without taxation of benefits and with stepped-up controls on cost -- the outline of a bill materializing in the House of Representatives.
..."We need to bring more attention to the lousy record Joe Lieberman has on health care to make sure people know Joe Lieberman is wrong on this issue," said Leo Canty, president of the Connecticut State Federation of Teachers
(from "LIEBERMAN'S STAND ON HEALTH CARE DRAWS PROTEST; 40 AT RALLY PROTEST FOR REFORMS," Hartford Courant (Connecticut), July 29, 1994, MATTHEW DALY)
Throughout the early to mid 1990s, he showed the same willingness to fight hard against any health care reform:
Lieberman did not support President Clinton's sweeping 1993-94 reform plan, saying it was "too big, too bureaucratic, too governmental."...
The next year, he worked with a bipartisan coalition of senators, led by Majority Leader George Mitchell, D-Maine, who made a last-minute push to pass a health care plan. It would have required all insurers to accept anyone and offer them a standard-benefits plan. Lieberman ultimately opposed the measure because of its employer mandate.
His 1994 mission to kill health care utilized the same "death by compromise" tactic he seemingly plans to use now. But even if an observer somehow missed all of the above, his aversion to health care reform extended to his presidential run. In 2003, here's how one notable Democrat reacted to a Lieberman attack on Dick Gephardt's universal health care plan:
Mr. Lieberman, in a remark in the debate that was endorsed by aides to many of Mr. Gephardt's rivals today, suggested that Mr. Gephardt's health care plan could prove an irresistible target to Republicans should he win the nomination. Mr. Lieberman lumped the plan with ''big-spending Democratic ideas of the past,'' adding, ''We can't afford them.'...
How, [opponent's aides] asked, could a Democrat who is such a staunch supporter of the war, and who questioned the practicality of an ambitious universal health care plan, survive the left-leaning electorate that dominates the Democratic nominating process?
''What he's saying to Democratic voters is, 'You may not agree with me on major issues, but voters outside our party do, so I can win -- therefore vote for me,' '' said David Axelrod, an adviser to Mr. Edwards. ''I think it's a difficult task to win a nomination like that. There is a core, a heart and soul to the party, and you have to speak to it. You don't have to make yourself unelectable to win.''
Joe Lieberman has spent his entire career killing any shot at real health care reform. There is no reason to think he will not spend the rest of 2009 making sure it dies this time too. That's why it's so crucial to whip the Connecticut House delegation as part of a strategy to make sure a robust, workable, effective public option emerges out of this legislation.
"I enthusiastically welcome my good friend Arlen Specter into the Democratic caucus. It will be very good to have the company of yet another independent minded Democrat in the caucus!
"I have always admired Arlen as a man of deep principle who has been a bridge builder to get things done in the Senate. Arlen understands that we get things accomplished when we listen to the vital center of American politics. I know that Arlen will continue to make a major contribution to the Senate and the nation as an effective independent leader and problem solver."
--Joe Lieberman, 4.28.09
Specter, as Lieberman did in 2006, blames the extremist elements in both parties as the reason for his leaving the republican party, and compares his situation to Lieberman's ("the party has left me," sort of schtick). If it were just left to the silent majority of low-information voters everything would be hunky dory. It's when you get the excited rabble too involved that everything goes to pot, eh Arlen?
From today's news conference.
And here is Lieberman's take on what went down today. Of note is why Specter made the choice when he did, as he did not have the same "opportunity" to run as an independent should he have lost the republican primary. Pennsylvania, unlike Connecticut, has a so-called "Sore Loser" rule in place to prevent the type of foolishness we saw in 2006.
VAN SUSTEREN: Again, the whole business about the torture memos being released by the Obama administration -- good idea or bad idea?
LIEBERMAN: I thought release of the memos was a bad idea.
The President of the United States as the commander in chief has the right to decide what kinds of tactics he wants to use with detainees who we believe are associated with terrorism and what kinds he does not want to use. Congress legislated on that. I was a cosponsor with Senator McCain of the anti-torture provisions we put into law.
But once you start to take internal memos that have been designated as top secret --
VAN SUSTEREN: Even if it's -- first of all, is waterboarding torture?
LIEBERMAN: Well, I take a minority position on this. Most people think it's definitely torture. The truth is, it has mostly a psychological impact on people. It's a terrible thing to do.
I have said in the past, and I'll say it again to you, that I want the president of the United States in a given circumstance where we believe somebody we've got in our control may have information that could help us stop an attack, an imminent attack on the United States like 9/11 or, god forbid, worse, we ought to be able to use something like waterboarding.
But, generally speaking, it ought to not be on the table.
Incidentally, I believe General Hayden when he says that not just waterboarding, which he stopped, as I understand it, but a number of the other items on that list that have been published, really did work, did help to give us a lot of information we have about Al Qaeda.
Why do I think it was a mistake to give it out? It wasn't necessary. It just helps our enemies. It doesn't really help us.
Again, the president can decide what tactics he wants the CIA or the military to use on people we capture, suspects of terrorism. But to let our enemies know what we are going to do or not do, that's not a good idea.
Below is my letter to Manchester Journal-Inquirer editorial page editor Keith Burris setting him straight about Ned Lamont after he went after Ned in a bizarre oped recently.
I was, frankly, dismayed by your oped regarding Ned Lamont and his possible run for governor of the state of Connecticut ("Lamont for Governor?"). First, you suggested that Mr. Lamont lost the general election because he wasn't a very good politician and Joe Lieberman was. Furthermore, you went on, Mr. Lamont still isn't a very good politician. Let's take a look at the facts.
To begin, let's keep in mind what actually happened: in August 2006 a guy named Ned Lamont, whom virtually no one in the state had heard of six months before, defeated Joe Lieberman, a three-decade incumbent politician, one of the best-known politicians not only in the Constitution State, but in the entire United States, in the Connecticut Democratic primary that featured an overwhelming turnout. Now a guy just doesn't come out of nowhere to defeat Joe Lieberman if he's not one heckuva politician. Lamont went on to lose the general election to Lieberman, but look what he was up against.
In the general election, Lieberman enjoyed tremendous assistance from 1) the overwhelming support of the Republican Party, including the Republicans' decision not to field a strong candidate and to withhold virtually all financial support from that candidate, 2) close strategic guidance from Karl Rove, who was on the phone with Lieberman virtually on a daily basis, 3) Republican operatives to run his campaign seconded from Mayor Bloomberg to Lieberman's campaign, and 4) massive financial support from Republican donors mobilized by the Republican Party. And Lieberman had the support of not only the up-and-coming Illinois senator Barack Obama, who spoke on his behalf at the party's JJB dinner, but also the most popular Democrat in the country and the state in Bill Clinton, who filmed TV ads for Lieberman near the end of the primary campaign. Last, virtually the entire Democratic establishment either stayed clear of Ned Lamont during the general election campaign, or, as did Jim Amman, defied the primary vote and supported Lieberman.
Doug Schwartz at Quinnipiac reports on some numbers they've made up found in polling of CT (March 3-8, 1238 registered voters +/- 2.5%).
"These numbers have to worry Sen. Christopher Dodd. Former Congressman Simmons is not well known outside his district, yet he is running neck and neck with Dodd at this point," said Quinnipiac University Poll Director Douglas Schwartz, PhD.
"Simmons easily wins his former district. The good news for Dodd is that this is the first poll in a long time where Dodd's job approval hasn't dropped. It appears that Dodd's slide may have ended."
Simmons is almost certainly running. From this morning at Politico:
In an interview with POLITICO on Monday, Simmons said he will make a final decision by the end of the month. He met with NRSC officials last Friday and is leaning towards jumping into the race.
"I'm definitely interested,'' Simmons told Capitol Watch. "I'm angry about what's going on in Washington, D.C. ... I've worked all my life, and I've watched my IRA go down 50 percent, and I'm luckier than most."
U.S. President Barack Obama (L) is embraced by U.S. Senator Joe Lieberman after Obama delivered a primetime address to a joint session of the U.S. Congress on Capitol Hill in Washington, February 24, 2009.
Apparently Sen. Lieberman thought getting to know ultra right-wing xenophobes better is always in his best interest, especially if Avigdor Lieberman becomes Israel's next foreign minister as he hopes. The Jerusalem Post has the story of their meeting yesterday.
Israel Beiteinu leader Avigdor Lieberman met with his American namesake, US Senator Joseph Lieberman, on Sunday in what sources close to him said was an audition for the role he wants in Prime Minister-designate Binyamin Netanyahu's government: foreign minister.
Lieberman has told associates in closed conversations that he will request the Foreign Ministry in coalition talks. Former ambassador to Washington and incoming Israel Beiteinu MK Danny Ayalon, who accompanied Lieberman to the meeting, said he was a natural fit.
"He's already prepared to be foreign minister," Ayalon said.
The senator requested the meeting, because he wanted to better understand the Israel Beiteinu leader's views. He advised his namesake to go to the US to explain his views.
"Though we're not related by blood, we are privileged to hold positions in two great nations," the senator said after the meeting. "I wanted to meet Lieberman, because he will play an important role in the next government, so it's important that we in the US get to know him well."
The Israel Beiteinu chairman explained his party's platform, including his call for a loyalty oath, which he renamed "the responsible citizenship bill," and dispelled what he said were myths about the party being racist.
If Senator Dodd had a serious challenger in 2010, he could lose. Fifty-one percent said they were unlikely to vote for Dodd in 2010 -- and that includes 32 percent who said they definitely won't vote for Dodd.
Attorney General Richard Blumenthal remains popular, and if he ever decided to run against Lieberman, Blumenthal would likely win in a route. In a head-to-head race, Blumenthal leads Lieberman in the poll by 58% to 30%.
Governor Rell remains popular, and the Democrats running against her have a lot of work to do. Susan Bysiewicz has an early big lead over the other Democratic contenders.
"If the Democratic primary for governor were being held today and the candidates were Dan Malloy, Susan Bysiewicz and Jim Amann, for whom would you vote?"
Forty-four percent of Democrats polled answered Bysiewicz, Stamford Mayor Dannel Malloy followed with 12 percent and former Speaker of the House James Amann trailed the pack with 4 percent.
Check out the poll here. What else jumps out at you?
On Thursday, February 5, the U.S. Senate took up an amendment introduced by Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) to strip church-state protections from the stimulus bill. The amendment failed 43 to 54 ...
Lieberman was one of 43 voting in favor of DeMint's unconstitutional amendment. Here's what happened:
On Tuesday, the American Center for Law and Justice, created by Pat Robertson ... "discovered" a provision in the stimulus bill that "unfairly targets religious activity at universities and colleges that receive federal stimulus funds."
In fact, the provision "discovered" by the ACLJ has been included in legislation for decades, and has been upheld by the Supreme Court. It prevents federal funds from being used to construct buildings, like chapels, designed for religious worship or sectarian instruction. It's perfectly in keeping with the spirit of the First Amendment and prevents taxpayer dollars from being used to take sides on religion by funding some groups' worship facilities.
Clearly, Lieberman was trying to win brownie points with the John Hagee crowd. To really understand why this amendment was introduced, check out this report at People for the American Way.
Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, who announced Monday he will seek a sixth term, is mulling a challenge against Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) in 2012.
Multiple Connecticut Democrats, speaking on condition of anonymity, say Blumenthal has begun informing influential members of the state's political class that he will prepare for a run against Lieberman.
In an interview with The Hill, Blumenthal said he was focused on his current job.
"My only focus and my sole interest right now is on the race in 2010 and seeking reelection as attorney general," he said.
Still, serving in the Senate "would be an honor, and it's always been a career goal," Blumenthal added. "I've said that I look forward to continuing opportunities for public service in the future."
[snip]
His passivity has been seen by some as a potential drawback to a bid against Lieberman. Those in the state's activist class who urged him to run in 2006 said his entering the race now might be viewed as opportunism.
"If he was so afraid and hesitant and cautious about running against Lieberman when he thought it was going to be tough, is he going to run a cautious, careful, don't-take-risks campaign that people aren't going to rally around?" asked one former Lamont aide.
I'm inclined to think he is going to run and this is the usual coyness politicians engage in as they test the waters early on. Let's just hope he doesn't "pull a Blumenthal*" and wait until the last minute to declare, keeping others out, or not bothering to run at all.
One thing is for certain, no one flouts these things out there for no reason.
Joe Lieberman's 2006 primary campaign manager, Sean Smith, who accused Ned Lamont of hacking their website the day of the Connecticut primary in 2006, has been selected to be the new Administration's spokesperson at the Department of Homeland Security.
If there's any federal department that needs truth-talking more than DoJ, it's likely DHS. Its serial errors throughout the Bush Administration are an embarrassment: color-coded politically motivated terror alerts; the utter failure to prepare for and respond to the devastation of the Gulf Coast by Katrina; its continued lunacy about airline passengers, liquids and shoe-removal; its managers' racial insensitivity; its politically timed and motivated leak about the Democratic presidential candidate's far-flung family; Secretary Michael Chertoff using undocumented workers to clean his own home; cruel immigration raids across the country targetted at employees but not employers.
- Sean Smith, Obama's Pennsylvania communications director for the general-election campaign and campaign manager on Sen. Joseph Lieberman's 2006 reelection, will be the chief communicator at Homeland Security.
Howard Wolfson is also mentioned at State.
So whomever thought this was a good idea, he'll now be serving under Janet Napolitano and presumably have some contact with Joe Lieberman. How charming.
Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani (right) with U.S. Senator John McCain (second left) and Senator Joe Lieberman during a meeting in Islamabad on Saturday. Mr. McCain was on a daylong visit to Pakistan.
Hard to say if this was a relayed message or just wish-fulfillment on the part of McCain and Lieberman to begin the nuclear holocaust...
I'm joking. Right?
And in what capacity are these clowns authorized to embark on diplomatic missions to start wars?
ISLAMABAD: United States Senator John McCain has said there is enough evidence of the involvement of former Inter-Services Intelligence officers in the planning and execution of the Mumbai attacks.
If Pakistan did not act swiftly to arrest the people involved, the Senator said, India would be left with no option but to conduct aerial operations against select targets in Pakistan.
Senator McCain, the Republican presidential candidate who lost to Barack Obama, told a select group of Pakistanis at an informal lunch in Lahore on Saturday that this was conveyed to him by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in New Delhi.
Ejaz Haider, a senior editor at the Daily Times, who was at the lunch said Mr. McCain told the group that Washington would not be able to do much to stop India, as the Mumbai attacks were its "9/11."
"The democratic government of India is under pressure and it will be a matter of days after they have given the evidence to Pakistan [that they decide] to use the option of force if Islamabad fails to act against the terrorists," Mr. Haider quoted the Senator as saying.
Mr. McCain, who arrived in Pakistan from New Delhi on Friday and met Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani in Islamabad in the evening, told the group that Dr. Singh was "visibly angry and reeling from the shock of the attacks."
He said if Pakistan did not act to get the "bad guys," India would have no option but to use force.
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