Both Sides Now

The Senate voted today and the Ghost of Dubya continues to hover...

From the New York Times:

The Senate on Saturday rejected President Obama’s proposal to end the Bush-era tax breaks on income above $250,000 for couples and $200,000 for individuals, a triumph for Republicans who have long called for continuing the income tax cuts for everyone.

The Senate also rejected an alternative proposal, championed by Senator Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York, to end the tax breaks only on income exceeding $1 million.

Republicans voted unanimously against both proposals, and Democrats said it showed that they were siding with “millionaires and billionaires” over the middle class. Republicans said they were refusing to let taxes rise on anyone given the continuing weakness in the economy.

Or as one of their mouthpieces put it:

Joe Lieberman, Asshole.

Joe Lieberman, insurance state flunky and Grade A asshole.
Good-bye, public option, good-bye Social Security buy-in.
I sure as hell hope Connecticut Democrats are gearing up to find a candidate who kicks this sham's ass in 2012, and I also sure as hell hope Senate Democrats--and President Obama--stop trying to pander to this meandering putz. C'mon, Senate Dems--grow a pair and strip him of his Senate Homeland Security Committee chairmanship and toss him in the sewer. That's exactly where he belongs.

More here.

Ted Kennedy And The Future Of Liberalism.

From James Ridgeway on MotherJones.com:

Ted Kennedy, who died late yesterday, was much, much more than the Liberal Lion of the Senate. He was all we had left. Even in sickness, he was the anchor for decent health care reform. He was the one man in Congress who could pull quarreling politicians into a united effort. (John McCain and Orrin Hatch were Kennedy best friends.)

We are left with weak, squabbling, visionless Democratic puppets and a President whose domestic reform policies are adrift—sliding towards the horizon with each passing day. The lost battle for Afghanistan. Seriously. The British. Then the Soviets. Now us. The phony victory on Wall Street, one bubble replacing another; health care in the hands of right wing screwballs at the town meetings. The very idea that Obama, amidst the rightwing anger of the town meetings, and with health care reform in flux, is vacationing on a huge estate at Martha Vineyard with the wealthiest of the wealthy, is smack out of the George Bush playbook.

So, without Kennedy, even as a shadow in the background, who will it be for health care reform? Max Baucus, pawn of the health care industry? Christopher Dodd, bag man for Wall Street? Lieberman, turncoat? Harry Reid?

To be sure there are decent senators—Dorgan,Conrad, Rockefeller, Levin, Harkin, Leahy. None of them with the knowledge, experience, and political acumen of Kennedy, though.

The flag will be at half mast across the country today. Not on Wall Street, where as the sun goes over the yardarm, you’ll be hearing the popping of corks.

More here from The Nation.

A list of accomplishments is here.