U.S. Senate Democrats really hate Joe Lieberman these days. Why? Check out the video above.
For Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, there’s no bigger scandal than a former Democratic candidate for the second-highest office in the land than stumping for, well, the enemy.
So now Reid wants Lieberman out of the Democratic caucus and he wants to do it by holding a secret ballot. However, as Riehl World View points out, that’s pretty ironic coming from the Democratic Party, which plans to do away with secret ballots for workers who are thinking about unionizing. So much for making choices free from intimidation.
I’m not even going to pretend I understand everything involved here. But it seems pretty cut and dried that if private voting is good enough for Senate members, shouldn’t it be good enough for their constituents?
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If Harry Reid had any brains he’d schedule an Obama-esque BJ for Lieberman, welcoming him back into the Democratic fold. They’re currently 3 seats from a filibuster-proof senate. Apparently Reid wants to ensure that doesn’t happen.
From Thinkprogress:
Today in a closed-door meeting, Senate Democrats voted 42-13 to allow Joe Lieberman (I-CT) to keep his chairmanship of the Senate Homeland Security Committee, despite his attacks on Barack Obama during the campaign season. Today during a press conference with Lieberman and other Democrats, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (NV) claimed that he was “angry” by Lieberman’s actions, but said that “we’re looking forward, we’re not looking back.”
“If the meeting goes as planned, this aide confirms to NEWSWEEK, Reid will only give Lieberman the equivalent of a legislative talking-to, demanding that he rally behind Obama, or at the very least, release a statement of support for the president-elect. But if it turns tense or combative, Reid could deny admission to the Democratic caucus, even strip away Lieberman’s valuable chairmanship of the Senate Homeland Security Committee. “I doubt that will happen,” this aide says, “unless the meeting goes really bad.”
Most democrats know they can’t be seen as being punitive. Plus, they may find they need his votes.
“Most democrats know they can’t be seen as being punitive.”
Now let’s start those war crimes trials….
“demanding that he rally behind Obama, or at the very least, release a statement of support for the president-elect.”
He should support the president. I do and I didn’t vote for him, and I think he’s only slightly more qualified to be president than I am. But he should also be allowed to think, and speak for himself. I thought that’s what democrats stood for. Ask Joe. Yeah you know who I mean.
Once agian the Dems show they don’t have a spine and will let anyone roger them as long s he helps them regain a majority in votes.
Now if only the Republicans could get rid of McCain……
Trust me, if Dingy Harry already had his filibuster-proof 60 and then some or was way short, Lieberman would have been Freddo by now.
I love how ‘fair and balanced’ the nutjob video is, and how the higher-ups in the Democratic Party are being so magnanimous in victory. We’ll see what happens when the results finally come through in Alaska, Minn. and Georgia.
And not to sound naive, but why should Lieberman toe the party line? He’s an Independent, right?
Hey, Reid, nice Stalinistic tactics. It’s people like him and Pelosi that keep from voting with the Democrats.
…that keep “me” from voting with the Democrats. Pardon that whoops.
THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU Deceiver for pointing this out!!! The Employee Free Choice Act is pretty scary and Obama has already said that he’d sign the damn thing.
For those that don’t understand the idea behind card check legislation here it is quickly:
The UAW is loosing membership due to industry wide cutbacks.
Lower membership equals less political muscle in state and federal government.
How can unions increase membership (and muscle) despite having a smaller workforce?
Unionize automotive plants in right-to-work states.
What’s a right-to-work state?
A state where you don’t have to be a union member to work in the plant. They’re mostly in the south, companies like Toyota, Honda, Saturn, etc. The unions are still present to various degrees, but you aren’t forced to join. In many cases the company rewards you for not being union by making certain jobs, promotions, and benefits available to you. Employee satisfaction on the whole seems to be higher in non unionized plants and productivity is measurably higher. The recent trend in automotive is to leave unionized states (like Michigan) for cheaper states with minimized union influence.
What’s the problem with a unionized plant?
Automotive Corps can’t afford to keep hiring people to screw screws for $50/hr.
But what about card check? What’s that got to do with secret ballots?
If employees in a right to work state want to unionize, they have to vote on it. So far, they haven’t had enough votes to unionize. That’s where card check comes in. Democrats (on behalf of unions) are proposing the “Employee Free Choice Act” (nice name, huh?) which means that the next time a “Unionize or Not?” vote comes around, instead of voting by secret ballot, you’d fill out a card or a tally sheet with your name, address, and vote.
So?
It’s a card with your name and your vote on it. Everyone gets to see how you voted.
So?
So, the pro-union forces know exactly who votes against unionization.
So?
Would you really want to have a disgruntled union organizer show up at your front door? Want them following you around work? Does the name Jimmy Hoffa ring a bell?
But if I vote for unionization, they’d leave me alone, right?
Yeah, but your boss would know that you voted to unionize.
So it’s not really an “Employee Free Choice” act then, is it?
Only if the choices are “rock” and “hard place”.
Think that video is harsh? Check political cartoonist Mike Luckovich’s Nov. 7 take on Lieberman. (May have to step through to the Nov. 7 cartoon.)
http://projects.ajc.com/gallery/view/opinion/luckovichnov08/
Mr. Luckovich has a Pulitzer Prize.
If Lieberman had any brains, he’d be conservative.
The Republican Party really dissed their own candidate to get Lieberman re-elected. His name was Schlessinger and he was a real class act. He had been banned from one or two of those casinos owned my Indian tribes for winning money. If DECEIVER wants a true hypocrite check out the Republican Party in this matter. The Republicans deserved to lose, if only for the way the party treated Schlessinger in Conneticut.
minnow:
That’s completely incorrect. The EFCA does NOT mean secret ballots are replaced with open ones.
In case you’re honestly misinformed and not trying to spread lies, let me clarify the subject:
The Employee Free Choice Act means that if enough employees sign a union sign up sheet, they don’t have to go through with the voting process at all – the reason being that companies use that time to fire pro-union workers and harass union activists so that everyone backs down before it’s time to vote. In over a third of union drives, workers end up getting fired and employees face intimidation by management. That’s documented fact.
If the workers wanted to have a secret ballot vote after the card check process, there’s nothing stopping them from doing so. It just means that the company can’t demand a vote if the employees have already made their wishes known.
Oh America, the most virulently anti-union country in the industrialized world.
What a crock.
So basically corrector, people sign a sheet with their real names, in order to avoid multiple signatures, making it plainly obvious who did not sign the sheet, so all the pro-union people can remind them to. But that’s okay because after the Union’s gotten started, because they have enough signatures, they can have a secret ballot to dissolve the Union they just started?
Never mind that the names of those who were reluctant to sign the original sign up sheet are already known.
Am I getting it right?
Pretty funny that all the Democrats complaining about 8 years of Bush never stop to think what 8 years of Joe Lieberman and John Edwards would’ve been like.
You know what I said when Gore chose Lieberman as VP? “He just lost the election.” I didn’t quite realize there would be hanging chads and the supreme court involved but Joe is just, sigh. Someone I work with says she saw him at her local temple and he is just a dour man.
Unions suck Alon.
Rocko
But that’s okay because after the Union’s gotten started, because they have enough signatures, they can have a secret ballot to dissolve the Union they just started?
I think that idea is stupid too – unfortunately, that’s the system we have now. And yes, if employees wanted to, they have the right to keep doing it. Like I said, the EFCA just means they don’t have to go through the process twice and have management playing strongman over the process.
Yeah – when someone says America is anti-union I take that as a badge of honor.
Unions tend to forget one very important thing: unions do not now, nor will they ever, exist everywhere. As long as they don’t exist everywhere in the world, the nations without them are going to have a huge advantage.
No matter how much you cry about ‘jobs being shipped overseas’ – they’re not going to stop just because you think it’s unfair. Unions force companies to pay WELL above market value for workers with little to no actual skill. It’s counter-intuitive to the entire capitalist system that someone with a GED screwing a bolt onto an automotive frame all day should make more than a lot of college graduate just because he’s been there 25 years. No – a man screwing a bolt onto a car has a fixed value. If you want to make more money then you need to learn additional skills and move up in your company or another.
The big auto companies are going bankrupt as a direct result of their unions. They priced themselves out of the market with artificially inflated labor prices, constant work stoppages, abysmal output they couldn’t be held accountable for, and retirement packages that you wouldn’t freaking believe.
Yes Alon – that is a path we should all rush lemming-style to follow!
old joe got 4 years left on his term, then his career is over. as for the democrats, we got another election in 2 years, and if they don’t deliver on promises made we will throw them out too, just like we did to the republicans.
re: REID
a ’secret ballot’. the kind that these same eejits want to abolish in union shops??
~some are more equal than others~
Corrector:
Interesting. So you’re saying that openly posting your name on “a union sign up sheet” is not a casting an openly scrutinizable vote to unionize?
Oh yeah, I forgot. According to union rules, it’s only a vote if we all get together and vote to call it a vote.
“The big auto companies are going bankrupt as a direct result of their unions.”
Ideed. Bailing out the big 3 just delays the inevitable. Unions don’t want sound business practices, just more fiscally disastrous goodies to line their pockets.
Holly,
You’re a f***ing moron.
The vote wasn’t to kick Lieberman out of the Dem caucus. It was to strip him of his HS Chairmanship and to give to to an actual democrat, since, you know, they won a pretty resounding victory this past election.
It would have been punishment for activity campaigning against Dem senators and Obama, but staying in the caucus would have been up to Lieberman, as no-one ever threatened to kick him out.
Go back to school before you say something else so stupid.
Don’t be a dick about it, Aleric.
Hey now, don’t pick on the blonde! The vote to kick Lieberman out was a possibility according to the Politico article I linked to in the post:
Take it up with them, pls.
Minnow
Interesting. So you’re saying that openly posting your name on “a union sign up sheet” is not a casting an openly scrutinizable vote to unionize?
Oh yeah, I forgot. According to union rules, it’s only a vote if we all get together and vote to call it a vote.
In your fervor to make unions look bad, you’re missing the point. Right now, card-check (the initial union sign up process) is NOT considered a vote, and the employees have to vote again – that works in management’s favor. The EFCA will make the card check process count as a vote, which you just said you support. Right now it doesn’t count, and the employees have to vote again.
In other words, the process you just criticized is the one anti-union forces are trying to preserve. You just argued in favor the the EFCA.
Thanks for your support…
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-foreign-policy20-2008nov20,0,4430107.story
I’m laughing at you Obamabots. You guys were played for fools, and swallowed everything this guy said hook, line, and sinker. Turns out he’s just a politician and all that change he talked about was a change back to 1994.
Dear Mr. Corrector (geeze, I love irony),
In your haste to deliver stinging correctory lightening bolts my way, I fear you have taken to quibbling semantics.
The Employee Free Choice Act (and since that’s another bit of delicious paradox, I won’t be calling it the EFCA) in essence turns the current card check proceedure into a vote.
What once was a preliminary petition, which normally would be collected by union organizers, submitted to a labor oversight board, and never shared with company management, now becomes an official vote to install a union. That’s card check, signing your consent, writing your name down… it becomes a vote.
And the secret ballot vote procedure, which normally followed the card check petition phase, would cease to exist.
So here’s the crux. The union would be using the petition as an officially official vote (without actually using the word vote), the union reads the names to find out who didn’t vote (oops, sign), the union shows the list to management as proof of a vote (uh… a signage) of approval, management sees who voted (oops again, signed) to unionize…
Here we see a glaring lack of privacy and a blatant disregard for basic self determination, but you want to thumb wrestle me over my use of the word “vote”?
Hell, call it what you want. No matter what word you use, it’s still exposing the entire employee body to a wide open system where both the union and management can see who’s on which side and can mete out an appropriate punishment to those they disagree with.
Hmmm, a bloody nose from the organizer or a bloody nose from your boss? Both are equally unpleasant.
Well, if I can’t say EFCA, you really don’t have to say vote. Fair’s fair’s fair.
But gee whiz, it sure does sound like a vote to me.