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Joe Lieberman has finally made Richard Nixon seem warm and cuddly

Reporting and analysis By Pablo Fanque, All This Is That National Affairs Editor

Illustrations and digital art By Jack Brummet, All This that creative director

Sen. Joe Lieberman ("Independent," Conn.) said Tuesday that he’d back a GOP filibuster of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s health care reform bill. The most shocking thing about the fallout from the left is that they were surprised when one of the most despicable and treacherous turncoats in the history of the Democratic Party stuck it to them once again. I wrote about Lieberman's duplicity here, in December, 2005: With Friends Like Joe Lieberman, The Democrats Need No Enemies.

The sawed-off turncoat appears to have second
thoughts as he marches onto the Senate floor
to vote against his former comrades in arms

Lieberman, caucuses with Democrats (but officially broke away), and positions himself as a fiscal hawk on health care on any bill that includes a government-run insurance program — even if it includes a provision allowing states to opt out, as Reid's Senate bill will. Whatever the Dems propose will come out watered down, a husk of the dream. And yet the battle is not over. Who knows, we may see defections on both sides of the aisle. It's that kind of year.

"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." Interestingly, he fails to mention reduced profits for his good friends in the insurance business, or that he enjoys his gold-plated government health insurance just fine.



When asked about Lieberman’s threat to filibuster a final vote on the Reid plan, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said: "I haven't seen the report from Sen. Lieberman or why he's saying what he's saying. I think Democrats and Republicans alike will be held accountable by their constituents who want to see health care reform enacted this year.”

Lieberman said 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." His comments confirmed that Reid is probably still short of the 60 votes needed to advance the bill out of the Senate

Lieberman said he “very much” wants to vote for health care reform but that he’s worried about stifling “the economic recovery we’re in” or adding to the federal debt. Really? It doesn't have anything to do with the dozens of insurance companies headquartered in Connecticut, or the "donations" from those companies that flow so often and richly into his campaign coffers

You know from previous articles on All This Is That that we consider him a Republicrat at best, and at worst, a rat, a Judas Goat, and a turncoat spoiler, leading Democrats astray in the guise of moderation. Is anyone even listening to him except the Republicans? No. And the GOP don't trust him anymore than they do their own turncoat, Senator Arlen Specter. Any sane Democrat wrote him off years ago; he reinforced our thinking with his bumbling and pathetic run for the Presidency in 2004. He was a disastrous pick as Gore's Vice President in 2000, and his 2007/2008 defense of, and cozying up to The Bush White House was a clear signal that he would switch parties the moment it was most politically expedient for him to do so.

The Democrats continue to caucus with him for no other reason than he votes with us once in a while. With friends like this sawed-off weasel, who needs enemies? It's difficult for even the most conservative of Democrats to forget his spirited defense of President Bush's handling of the Iraq war and his continual toadying up to President Bush and his hatchet-man, Dick Cheney.


And still, Joe Lieberman lives.

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The Sargeant and Gomer Pyle - a hi-fi clip from a show I watched in my youth

Oddly enough, Jim Nabors (Gomer), who was (is?) a good pal of Burt Reynolds, got his start on the Andy Griffith Show (or was it called Andy of Mayberry?). This show was his spinoff/star vehicle. It's right up there with some of the other shows we watched, like My Mother The Car, Car 54 Where Are You. Gomer Pyle was something else. Someone mentioned this show on the WFMU blog, because this is the Sargent's 85th birthday...


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Governor Schwarzenegger sends a hidden message (F*** You!) to Tom Ammiano

Governor Schwarzenegger sent a hidden, but very public message (F*** you) to Tom Ammiano, the San Francisco Democrat, in a letter vetoing a bill Ammiano sponsored. You may remember Tom Ammiano from the movie Milk, in which he played himself. You can find the details of their feud elsewhere, but the imbroglio started when Ammiano heckled the Governor during a speech...

Here is the letter (emphasis added by us).


click to enlarge
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Alien Lore No. 161 - Alien Implant Rejection Techniques

Cerebral eviction was in times past
Always fatal.
You used an axe
To force open the skull
And remove the ganglion.
There was no question
Of the “patient’s” survival.
In our enlightened times
The Alien Rejection Technique is employed.
The ganglion is poisoned within the host
And half the patients survive.
As the alien ganglion is rejected
Or forcibly removed,
It emits a distress pulse
On the Hive mindband
And every hive member
Within five miles
Responds to the call to arms.
Within minutes the Hive swarms
To the location of the distress pulse
And instead of one alien,
You are now faced
With dozens from the Hive
With one purpose:
To end your tenure on earth.
With unfeeling insect eyes
They march dead ahead,
Converging upon you.
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Digital art: Link (a/k/a President Abraham Lincoln)

click to enlarge

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Poem: The Mission

click to enlarge

Poem: The Mission

The President
And the Masters of War
Don’t tell you

As they bob and weave
To finesse the mission,
That the army,

When all is said and done,
Has two duties:
To break things, and kill people.
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Priest Sentenced For Jogging Naked In Colorado

Father Whipkey will now become a registered sex offender. The lowdown is here.
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My niece Melanie and BF Mitch perform a bit of Americana in a Trattoria in Rome

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SP No. 48: On fire!

Alien Lore No. 160 - Random photographs from the archives

Asleep at the wheel? Stoned? An Northwest Airlines jet misses runway by about 150 miles

The National Transportation Safety Board is investigating a runaway 'plane flight Wednesday night where Northwest pilots approaching Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport in an Airbus A320 overshot the airport by around 150 miles. They had to circle back to land. To the panic of the air-traffic controllers, they also lost radio contact. Controllers knew the plane hadn't crashed, but there was no response for an alarming period of time. The NTSB is trying to figure out exactly what really happened up there.



It happened on another plane recently, as well.



According to the Associated Press, the crew claims they were distracted by a heated debate on airline policy and lost track of where they were. Really?


Were the pilots momentarily abducted?

Northwest had another snafu this week when their crew on a 767 from Brazil to Atlanta landed on the taxiway instead of the runway.
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