regarding holy joe

holy joe, a.k.a. senator joseph lieberman from connecticut, of the connecticut for lieberman party, has been in charge of the u.s. senate’s homeland security committee ever since democrats took control of the senate. part of the reason is that the democrats needed his support in order to have a majority in the senate. if he had caucused with the republicans, they would have been able to form a majority based on the tie-breaking vote of vice president dick cheney. holy joe, as he is nicknamed, is a former democrat who ran for vice president in the year 2000 as al gore’s running mate. he left the democratic party in 2006 and founded the connecticut for lieberman party to run for office that year, after he was beaten in the democratic primary for senator by ned lamont. then holy joe went on to win the general election in 2006, with most of his support coming from republicans, and most democrats voted for ned lamont. however, republicans overwhelmingly supported holy joe, and lots of democrats (but less than half) also supported him, as well as a majority of independents. so anyway, since being re-elected in 2006 to a 6-year term in the u.s. senate, joe lieberman has caucused with the democrats, helping harry reid be majority leader instead of minority leader, and he forced the democrats to give him concessions in exchange for his support, such as putting him in charge of the homeland security committee. most democrats in the senate do not put any conditions on their support for the democratic party, but then again, joe lieberman is not a democrat anymore, even though in 2004 he ran for president of the united states as a democrat. anyway, when he ran for re-election in 2006, joe lieberman made 2 very important promises repeatedly: he promised to caucus with the democrats and support having them be in charge of the senate, and he promised to support the democratic presidential nominee for the 2008 presidential election. many prominent democrats offered their support to joe lieberman in 2006 in the primary against ned lamont, including both bill and hillary clinton, barack obama, and pretty much all the other big names, and joe lieberman STILL lost the primary, despite all that support from the party establishment. soon after being re-elected, joe lieberman decided to support john mccain’s presidential campaign, despite john mccain being a republican. joe lieberman, by doing this, was clearly and openly violating a campaign promise he made to the voters of connecticut to support the democratic nominee for president in 2008. since that time, joe lieberman has very often spoken in favor of john mccain for president, criticized barack obama quite harshly, and he even gave the keynote address at the republican national convention earlier this year. now that the 2008 elections are over, the people have spoken and have overwhelmingly rejected republican rule, electing barack obama president by a huge margin in the electoral college, and picking up a number of senate seats. at this point in time, the democrats have enough senate seats to render joe lieberman irrelevant. there is absolutely no need to give in to holy joe’s demands to be in charge of the homeland security committee or some other powerful committee. he has consistently praised john mccain and other republicans and criticized barack obama and other democrats. while his voting record on issues other than the war in iraq and national security is quite liberal, his public statements and behavior show that he is much closer to the republicans than the democrats. it is ridiculous for him to demand to be in charge of a powerful committee or else he will leave and join the opposition minority republican party where he will have no power. and, as someone who is liberal on most issues, i doubt the republican party will have much taste for having someone like him among their ranks, and they will want someone more conservative to replace him. as a practical matter, the republicans are probably smart enough not to do that, and they would probably keep him if he switched to republican, and have him run for re-election in 2012 as a republican, whereas in the democratic party he has no future after 2012, since most democrats hate his guts at this point. so, as for holy joe, if he wants a career after 2012, it might be a good idea to switch to the republican party, regardless of whether the democrats let him be in charge of a powerful committee, since he is unlikely to win another election in connecticut if he tries to run as a democrat. holy joe was probably rooting for john mccain to win because, among other reasons, he thought he might get a cabinet post, and he was actually john mccain’s top pick to be vice presidential nominee until steve schmidt vetoed that. steve schmidt’s top pick was mitt romney, but john mccain vetoed that pick. they both settled on sarah palin, their mutual second choice that neither of them knew much about. anyway, back to holy joe... if the democrats kick him out, this may make them look bad, since they are supposed to be acting bipartisan and that is what barack obama’s message is. however, he is a traitor to the party, which he has proven hundreds of times he has said or done things to betray the democratic party, and he is not even in the party anymore. he can continue to caucus with the democrats if he wants, or caucus with the republicans if he wants. it is a free country, and that is a choice that is completely up to him. however, the democratic leadership in the senate can decide who to put in charge of committees, and their decisions should not be held hostage by rogue elements within the senate with ulterior motives to undermine the ruling party while pretending to be part of it. we have seen that there were rogue elements in the mccain-palin campaign that were actively working to undermine their own campaign through negative leaks to the press that were damaging to either sarah palin or john mccain. i have read online about the reasons for that, and primarily it is because most of these political operatives working for the mccain campaign were hired on after he won the primaries, and their loyalty is not to their 2008 candidate, john mccain, or to his running mate, sarah palin. many of them worked for other candidates such as mitt romney, mike huckabee, or others, and their loyalties still lie with those other candidates, and they saw the writing on the wall that john mccain was going to lose to barack obama in an electoral college landslide, so they decided to help out their favored candidate for the 2012 election by making sarah palin look bad. these operatives were worried that sarah palin might be a leading contender in 2012 when barack obama is up for re-election, and they wanted to destroy her politically so that mitt romney or mike huckabee or someone like that would be the republican candidate instead in 2012. these traitors to the mccain-palin campaign continue to leak bad things to the press, even after the campaign is over and john mccain has conceded the election, and they have said a lot of very negative things about sarah palin. my point is, in politics, you do not want to be working with traitors because traitors are traitors and they will betray you. john mccain is a traitor to the democratic party, something he has proven many, many times, and there is no reason for the democratic party to reward his anti-democratic, pro-republican behavior by putting him in charge of an important committee. there is absolutely no reason, however, for the democrats to even consider ejecting him from the democratic caucus or kicking him out, because he can freely choose which party to be a member of. however, he is not in a position to dictate terms to the democratic senate leadership, because he is in a minority of 1. there are not any other senators from the connecticut for lieberman party. joe lieberman can vote however he wants and say whatever he wants and campaign for whoever he wants, but in this country we also believe in personal responsibility and being held accountable for your actions, and we believe that if you are a traitor to an organization (such as the democratic party for example), it would be foolish for that organization to reward you for your traitorous actions by giving you a leadership position so you can actively undermine them from within. just as foolish as the libertarian party was by choosing bob barr as its presidential candidate this year, despite the fact that bob barr is not a libertarian and that for almost all of his political career, his views have been diametrically opposed to libertarian views on most issues important to libertarians. many libertarians gave up on the libertarian party because of the fiasco of them choosing bob barr as their nominee. look, should the democrats put someone like me in an important leadership position, such as white house press secretary? hell no. i would totally suck ass at something like that, and i am very bad at staying on message. i say what i think, which is not always what people want to hear or what the party line currently is. for instance, i don’t believe in god and i am a subgenius. that would not sit well with most people. also, i am very left-wing, and i don’t know whether i am a socialist or not, because i am unclear about what the word “socialist” actually means, after hearing it debated in the media a lot recently. i think i might be socialist but it depends on how you define it. i’ll put it this way: i am exactly as socialist as franklin delano roosevelt was, no more, no less. and by today’s standards, franklin delano roosevelt would be an ultra-left-wing radical. okay, i am a little more liberal than fdr; for instance, i would not have put japanese-americans in internment camps, because that was a very conservative thing to do. and i am more liberal than harry truman; i would not have dropped nuclear weapons on innocent civilians in hiroshima and nagasaki, because that was a very conservative thing to do. i am definitely more liberal and closer to a socialist than john f. kennedy, lyndon johnson, jimmy carter, bill clinton, or barack obama. that being said, i completely despise marxism and communism, as it is an authoritarian, totalitarian form of government where people have no rights. i believe in the socialism of the wealthy nations of europe, nations such as sweden or switzerland, or actually the vast majority of western and northern europe, as well as the great country of canada to our north. now, there are some reasons i do not prefer living in those countries to the united states: first of all, the english language is the only language that makes any sense whatsoever, so that eliminates all other countries except for the united kingdom and canada. ireland and australia are both wealthy countries but they are much more capitalist, like the united states. canada has cold weather and i hate cold weather, plus they have all that silly french-speaking nonsense. so maybe canada, but only the southernmost parts of it or some part where the weather is nice. but really, i think the best foreign country to live in for me personally would be the united kingdom. i have always thought the british are quite awesome. however, the united kingdom has a rather dysfunctional form of government, where they still have a queen and a house of lords and no constitution to guarantee people’s fundamental rights, and margaret thatcher privatized everything in the 1980s with her right-wing rule. so really, the united kingdom is not that great either, plus the economy in that country is not that good. in the end, i like the united states best, because we have the most freedom and the most prosperous economy, we are the most powerful nation on earth, i was born and raised here and love my country, and i share the same language and culture as the vast majority of americans, plus the only politics i really care about is american politics. so, while i think people in other countries have some good ideas that should probably be adopted here, that in no way means that i would rather move to those countries. as for the non-english-speaking countries, i have heard very wonderful things about sweden, for instance, from a friend of mine who is swedish. however, i have absolutely no intention of learning a foreign language and living in a country where english is not the main language. that for me is a complete deal-breaker. i am only willing to consider english-language countries, and i like the united states best. well ok, i forgot to mention another relatively prosperous english-speaking nation: new zealand. i have heard a lot of good things about new zealand, actually. i don’t know much at all about that country. it seems like an interesting place, certainly a nicer place to live than neighboring australia. then again, there is a tropical paradise that is part of the united states, namely hawaii, and i could go there instead. as for the continental united states, i am not too fond of the southeast, and i have been to florida many times and it is a rather messed up state. i also know that texas and california are quite messed up as well, in different ways than florida. new york is a very messed up state, too. so is alaska. it is hard to think of states that are actually run well, in a way that i agree with. ok so as far as florida is concerned, the 2000 election fiasco really turned me off on florida, and when i go there, things are just... well... kind of messed up. it is hard to explain exactly. there are a whole lot of old people, and florida is rather right-wing, and the air smells of sulfur when people use their sprinkler systems to water their lawns, and the weather gets a bit too hot in the summer (although going in the swimming pool solves that problem), and there are lots of problems with pesky insects because it never freezes in winter. as for texas... ugh... it is where george w. bush is from, and is a very very right-wing state, they have so many executions, and i just do not like texas at all. as for california, they obviously have very dysfunctional politics, their state is deeply in debt, they have tons of violent crime in the big cities, housing prices are astronomically high and completely unaffordable, and a lot of really good people have been laid off from silicon valley and those people know a lot about computers so i cannot really compete with them for jobs. as for new york, our state is also deeply in debt, our winters are cold, taxes are too high, the economy here is very bad, and everything is such a mess that most of the young people leave to find better jobs elsewhere. as for alaska, they have the coldest weather in the nation, their governor is sarah palin, and they most likely just re-elected senator ted stevens, a convicted felon 7 times over. alaska is very right-wing, they have the highest rates of rape of any state, and their state rips off the rest of the country in a very big way by taking in more money from the federal government than they pay to the federal government, per capita, more so than any other state. new york is at the opposite end of the spectrum, and is the arch-enemy of alaska, since we pay a lot more to the federal government each year in taxes than we get back in government spending, more so than any other state. new york has a debt of about $50 billion i think, and every year we send $87 billion more to the federal government than we get back. so if the federal government just treated new york equally to other states for 1 year, we could easily pay off our state’s entire debt and save up an extra $37 billion or so, and it would greatly benefit our state’s economy. similarly, the economy of alaska is heavily dependent on u.s. federal government spending that greatly exceeds taxes to the federal government paid by alaskans, and if the u.s. government treated alaska equally to other states, the entire economy of alaska would completely collapse, and everyone would either flee the state to someplace safe, or die there in the cold north. i am not sure which state i like best, but right now i am leaning towards hawaii, although i have never been there and do not really know that much about it. anyway, i have gotten off on a bit of a tangent there, talking about various potential places to live, and it is time to return to the main topic of joe lieberman. joe lieberman is someone most democrats despise and most republicans adore. it makes perfect sense for him to switch parties. he might as well just do it. it is ridiculous for him to make unreasonable demands to democratic party leaders after he openly betrayed the democratic party so many times, most notably with his keynote address at this year’s republican national convention. joe lieberman is not a bipartisan or nonpartisan kind of guy. he is fiercely partisan, pro-republican, and anti-democrat, something that is obvious every time he opens his lying mouth. we do not need him at all, and he has no relevance or importance whatsoever, but he can stay on our side if he really wants. it is time for joe lieberman to be cast into the dustbin of history along with the bush administration and the rest of the neocons who got us into the quagmire in iraq. i never want to see him on tv again or hear him mentioned in the news again. he is annoying and i hate him and want him to just go away and leave me alone when i am trying to watch or read the news without annoying characters like him popping into the news stories to distract me from the important things actually going on in the world. paris hilton is more relevant in the news than joe lieberman. that is how irrelevant i think he is. putting him in charge of an important committee is like putting the fox in charge of guarding the henhouse. he should just join the republicans officially so we can be done with all this drama over his traitorous judas/benedict arnold type behavior. and after he does that, i never want to see him or hear from him again in any news broadcasts or news stories. if he were a republican, his behavior would be understandable, because he acts just like any republican. the problem is that he keeps pretending not to be a republican, despite the fact that he has nothing but praise for republicans and nothing but criticism for democrats. imagine 2 sports teams going up against each other in a game, and 1 player on one of the teams keeps helping out the other team and helping them beat his own team. that is just wrong. if you do not support your own team, leave it and join the team you actually do support. this also applies to republicans who are disloyal to their party, such as colin powell or many other republicans who have endorsed or praised barack obama and/or criticized john mccain and/or sarah palin and/or george w. bush. i invite them all to join the democratic party, where they can express their disloyalty to the republicans even further. however, they had better learn to be loyal to the democrats once they have joined our team, or else our team will never make the playoffs.