I’m not saying I was always right. I’ll leave that to God and history. But I believed I was doing what I thought was right and people didn’t just disagree with me. There was hatred. But I’m not alone in that. You can take the last three presidents — Clinton, Bush, Obama — and people haven’t just disagreed with them, they’ve hated them. And to me, that’s really terrible. That’s a cancer that’s eating at our politics.Joe Lieberman • Discussing the hatred he’s seen during his time in the Senate, especially in recent years. He should know, he was there, hated by many of the same folks that hated any (or all) of the above presidents. Lieberman, who entered the Senate a Democrat but leaves an Independent, spent 24 years representing Connecticut, and even got thisclose to being a vice president in 2000. No matter your feelings on Joe, he’s probably right on this point.
» The nitty-gritty: The bill was co-sponsored by 23 senators, including one Republican (Susan Collins of Maine). It passed the committee easily, via a bipartisan voice vote, and is actually rather narrow in scope: It only provides benefits for unmarried, same-sex domestic partners of federal workers. Married same-sex couples—and unmarried opposite-sex couples—are not included. The range of benefits provided, though, is pretty huge: medical, long-term care, disability, life insurance, workers’ comp, retirement, and more.
Follow ShortFormBlog • Find us on Twitter & Facebook
Argument: As they age, John McCain and Joe Lieberman are slowly morphing into the same person, with similar facial expressions. Evidence: See photo, above, taken with Syrian refugees in Turkey. (Photo by Umit Bektas/AP)
ladyromanahasmoved asks: Just wondering if you guys have heard of the Enemy Expatriation Act, and if you've written anything about it? Scary stuff.
» SFB says: We haven’t, but as far as we can tell, the Enemy Expatriation Act (which would strip citizenship of those accused of terrorism) is a newer version of a bill introduced in both the House and Senate in 2010 (and notably co-sponsored by Joe Lieberman) called the Terrorist Expatriation Act. That bill didn’t go anywhere, though it got play in the media. Considering that the bill was resubmitted in October, in the wake of the recent death-by-bombing of Anwar Al-Awlaki (based on a YouTube comment by Rep. Charlie Dent) I get the impression that they were hoping to build new attention for the idea after it faded away the first time. Clearly, since the only news item on the new bill is a syndicated Activist Post story (which seems to suggest that the thrust of the bill got into the NDAA indirectly, “expatriation in practice but not in name,” though their reasoning sounds like a stretch to me), and it’s gone nowhere since October, according to GovTrack, it seems to me that it wasn’t very successful in that goal. However, we’ll keep an eye out. — Ernie @ SFB
Dynamic duo losing steam: According to Public Policy Polling, John “Maverick” McCain and “Cowboy Joe” Lieberman are now the two least popular Senators in the country amongst their constituents. source
» What’s going on? Well, it’s a mix of this and that. A few of the retirees clearly weren’t going to win re-election, namely John Ensign and “Cowboy Joe” Lieberman. A few could have won but faced uphill battles (Jim Webb, Kent Conrad). Hawaii’s Daniel Akaka is just really old, and Kay Bailey Hutchison had promised that she’d retire if she lost her bid for Texas Governor (which she did). But some of the retirements — Jeff Bingaman and John Kyl in particular — seemingly came out of nowhere. We’ll just have to take ‘em at their word when they say what politicians always say when they retire: they want to spend more time with their families.
» Democrats lick their chops: After Lieberman deftly tiptoed into a 2006 victory over Ned Lamont and some Republican we don’t care about, Democrats felt a little wounded. Now they’ve got reason to be happy, as they actually stand a chance of winning the seat back. On the other side, word is that Linda McMahon plans to run again, giving us more opportunities to link to wrestling videos of her getting tombstoned.
I don’t think this will leave any scars. I just think we leave this fight knowing that I was right and he was wrong. I mean, it’s as simple as that.Sen. Joe Lieberman • Explaining his feeling on the flare-up John McCain had over yesterday’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” repeal. While the law’s passage was otherwise calm, McCain (who led the dissent against repeal) got angry at least a few times yesterday, mainly because he wanted more time to debate the bill (which he got without having to be angry about it). Anyway, the former presidential candidate went a little off the deep end, bemoaning “this bizarro world that the majority leader has been carrying us in,” and basically being kind of a jerk about the whole thing. So, this is what it’s like to be a maverick, eh? source (via • follow)
So guys, remember ten years ago, when our country was so divided that we had to debate how stupid Florida’s ballots were? You probably don’t, because ten years of drama has happened since then, but today marks the tenth anniversary of the Supreme Court’s decision that gave George W. Bush the electoral college win – and led to his two twisted terms. It’s a reminder that no matter how far we’ve come since then, the partisan bickering never really went away. source
I’m moving back to New York in a few days. Unlike past...
OMG. I got so...
In this week’s Newsweek, a little...
Tumblr this morning. [h/t anne]
#@#$%!.tumblr.com
Here’s a hidden feature that shipped in...
» It gets better for gay teens. And it may get better for openly gay soldiers after the Senate takes up Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell repeal. Lisa Murkowski, who looks to be keeping her Senate seat out of Joe Miller’s hands, said today that she wouldn’t vote against repeal, the first Republican to openly pledge to do so. Joe “Connecticut For” Lieberman says that the Democrats have the votes needed to pass repeal, so long as Republicans get as much time to debate the bill as they want. We’ll believe this when we see it, but things are looking good for repeal advocates.
Copyright 2009-2013 Ernie Smith • Ask us stuff! • E-mail us • Follow us on Twitter • Follow us on Facebook
