The PCTC Blog

That Hard Slogging Harry Reid!

You know, this is one of those things that makes me say "WTF!"

Senate bracing for a 'hard slog' on stimulus bill - CNN.com.

On Thursday night, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nevada, said it is going to be a "long, hard slog" with "late nights" after the $900 billion bill comes to the Senate floor Monday night. "It is up to us how long this takes," Reid added. "We hope we can work things out."

The full Senate will vote on its version of the bill Wednesday. Should the Senate and House pass different versions, the two bills would have to be conferenced together. Then both chambers would have to vote on the conference version.

Is it time to just box Harry Reid's ears, or perhaps replace him with someone with gonads?

Yeah, there should be a lot of work to get it right, and make sure they're not wasting too much taxpayer money. But "a long, hard slog"? "We hope we can work things out"????

Maybe he's not aware that Republicans only have 41 seats right now, and that it's unlikely that they'll even attempt to filibuster. If they TRY to filibuster, it'll do more to damage the GOp than anything they have done previously, and that takes some doing.

Here's a clue, Harry. You have the majority. You have a president that is more popular than the last president ever thought of being (except when the country was in a 9/11 stupor), and the people want something done NOW, and screw the deficit. The only thing to "work out" is to make sure that as much stimulus as possible is passed, so that we can get the economy moving again.

We gave you the backbone, Harry. We don't REALLY need 60 votes; 59 will work just fine. Now get out there and do your job.

Gay Lefty to Lead Iceland

Here's an eye-opener that should get tongues wagging.

From globeandmail.com: Gay woman minister to become Iceland's PM.

The woman expected to become Iceland's interim prime minister is an openly gay former flight attendant who rose through the political ranks to lead a new leftist government.

Johanna Sigurdardottir, the island nation's 66-year-old social affairs minister, began as an union organizer for flight attendants and is now among the country's longest-serving lawmakers.

Both political parties forming Iceland's new coalition government support her appointment — and a decision could be announced as early as Thursday.

“She is a senior parliamentarian, she is respected and loved by all of Iceland,” said Environment Minister Thorunn Sveinbjarnardottir.

So, let's get this straight...

She's a woman.
She's gay.
She's a former union organizer.

And no one's complaining?

Well, not so fast. If the country has right wingers, well...

Conservative critics say Ms. Sigurdardottir's leftist leanings and lack of business experience won't help her fix the economy. “Johanna is a very good woman — but she likes public spending, she is a tax raiser,” Mr. Haarde said.

Yeah, I know; another "conservative" whose government can't pay the bills, but all he can think about are tax cuts. But wait...

Can you imagine any Republican leader right now calling her a "good woman"?

Meet the House, er, Republican

Them there Republicans must be so proud.

Just when you think they're done, and they're about to become inconsequential for a generation, they turn around and defy expectations and elect a chairman who is... um... well... a "keepsake," for the lack of a better term. You see, they've realized the errors of their ways, and they have chosen as their leader someone who... um... is unlike the bulk of Republicans, in that he... well, see for yourself...
Meet the House, er, Republican

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Who the hell is Michael Steele, and what are his qualifications to run a major party? Well, that should be obvious. I mean, sure, he's never won public office running on his own. But he was a securities associate with Cleary Gottlieb for 7 years, right? You know, helping underwriters find investments. And hey! he's Mike Tyson's former brother-in-law; that must mean something... And of course, he's also Catholic, and actually goddamned near became a priest. Hmm.. wonder how that'll play with the base, given how they feel about that "Catholic cult" and all? Hmmm...

Can we talk, guys? Okay...

This is a guy whose only qualification for this post is that he's held the same post in the state of Maryland, one of the most Democratic states in the union. He was my boyhood "pal" Bobby Ehrlich's running mate in 2002, and he served four years as Lieutenant Governor. He ran a god-awful campaign for Senate in 2006, and with him as the titular kinda sorta head of the Republican Party, Maryland, which once had five Democrats and three Republicans in the House, now has seven Democrats and one Republican. His greatest claim to fame in public life has to be the time he claimed to have made a speech in which white Democrats threw Oreo cookies at him. That incident, of course was made up.

The RNC has elected an empty suit, folks.

Oh, did I mention, he was black? First black head of a major party. Wow. They might pull 5% of the black vote next time, huh?

Congratulate Michael Steele! Send him your Oreos!

Republicans -- In the Car Seat, Driving Nothing

I know it's difficult, given what we've been through for the last 28 years, and especially the last 8, but can I please ask progressives and others to stop obsessing over whatever the Republicans do?

To put it bluntly, who gives a shit?

Barack Obama is a master politician. He's publicly making overtures to the Republicans, for one reason only; he promised to. He knows they have two choices; they can either play to him, or they can play to the nut cases who make up their core "constituency," or what they consider to be their "base." (Seriously, has there ever been a more appropriate term for people like this than "base"?

And we all know which course most of them will take. And it will be to their detriment, and it's all good.

See, we know how these people think. House Minority Leader (not the "MINORITY" in his title, folks) John Boner (sp?) screwed the pooch last week when he threatened the entire Republican delegation with  something (what the hell could he possibly threa ten them with? They've already lost everything in two elections) and got them all to vote against a stimulus package that is guaranteed to work. At the same time, he whined about a few measly million dollars for contraceptive programs, and then complained about the resultant deficit.

The result was, not one Republican voted for the bill, and it still passed. See? nothing to worry about, right?

And mark my words, it will pass the Senate. There is no way Senate Republicans will have the balls to filibuster this thing. But suppose they do, and they're successful. Can you imagine the shitstorm when they have to go back to their home states and proudly proclaim that they killed a bill that cut taxes and created jobs? How many working people do you think will vote for them in 2010 or 2012, if they keep killing these packages?

In other words, even if they managed to filibuster the bill once, they won't filibuster another one. Mark my words.

Republicans are digging their own political graves, and they are too stupid and ideological to realize they're doing it. They actually see it as a point of pride -- some sort of victory -- to have given zero votes to a package that contains far more of a stimulus than the package their lord and ruler George W. Bush, begged them to pass last September. They all voted, as a bloc, against it, and it passed anyway. And the results of the bill will be positive in many communities, including some of those in districts that these Congresspeople represent. Imagine it works, and a year and a half from now, they're campaigning, and someone brings up the fact that they voted against it. Will it be a victory then?

In other words, they are rooting against the country pulling out of this thing. They are so politically twisted, that they see an economic recovery as a detriment to them. And they don't understand that voters see that. They don't get that, even among natural Republicans, the country comes before party, always. And independents -- people Republicans need on their side in order to win -- definitely vote against that sort of behavior.

We're in the driver's seat, folks, and the Republicans in charge right now are sitting in the car seat in the back, and pretending they're driving themselves.

Stop worrying about them. They lost, and the more they try to pretend they didn't, the harder 2010 and 2012 will be on them. We have to stop worrying about them, and focus our attention on getting President Obama and Congressional Democrats to continue to return the government to the people. Concentrate on making sure the government returns to its job of making our lives better.

It's our time. They had their time and blew it. Let's make sure we don't blow our chance.

Cutting the Crap: "Redistribution of Wealth" as a Neocon Talking Point

I know the neocons hate the word “redistribution,” because they claim it sounds “communist,” but here’s a stone cold fact; their baby, supply-side economics, is all about redistribution of wealth. These assholes have been taking from the average person for years. Look at your 401(k) for a clue. Twice in the last eight years, your account has been plundered. Haven’t you wondered where that money went? I’ll give you a hint; it didn’t vanish into thin air. Someone has that money; it just isn’t you. That money was “redistributed” to someone who’s right now laughing at your stupidity for trusting him. Money doesn’t disappear into the ether; it moves from one place to another. Don’t let these assholes fool you about the evil inherent in “redistribution of wealth.”

All wealth gets redistributed. That's how the freaking economy works. But for years, they've been creating instruments designed to take money from other investors -- you know, like you and your retirement fund -- and keep it themselves. That's why we're in the economic mess we're in, folks. Wealth is always redistributed, but for the last eight years, it's only been redistributed from the poor and the middle class to the rich.

It's time to even that out a bit, don't you think?

Cutting the Crap! Limbaugh and the Economy

Okay, I don't know about you, but I'm sick of seeing that idiot Rush Limbaugh in the news. And why the HELL is he writing editorials for The Wall Street Journal, telling us how to end the recession? Oh yeah, it's because Rupert Murdoch owns the paper now; I forgot. Anyway, here's a link to the editorial, and as is my tendency, I will now take excerpts and cut the crap,as is my wont to do. Why does this one feel like I'm washing a dirty diaper?

Seriously, this could be a primer on just why the right wing once again finds itself on the fringes. They have NO CLUE what the hell people are going through out there, and they have no clue that it is their policies that have put us here. Check out some of this cluelessness, starting with the first paragraph;

There's a serious debate in this country as to how best to end the recession. The average recession will last five to 11 months; the average recovery will last six years. Recessions will end on their own if they're left alone. What can make the recession worse is the wrong kind of government intervention.

Wow. That's his opening; what he hopes to "wow" us with. And it's clueless.

First off, left to their own devices, the market would pretty much always be in recession, with a few depressions thrown in. What has created an economy wherein the "average" recession will "only" last five to 11 months is -- are you ready? -- the New Deal. Yes, that's right, folks; it's government intervention that reduces the size of recessions. Recessions will NOT end if they're left alone. In fact, the last time a Republican left a goddamn recession alone, we found ourselves in the worst Depression in the history of the modern economy. Hey Rush, perhaps you heard of that one. When Herbert Hoover left that one alone, it lasted for more than a decade, and was only ended by World War II.

I also love the term "wrong kind of government intervention," as well, but we'll get to that later.

Closing Gitmo: Don't Let the Frighty Righties Scare You

I love all of the sudden consternation over President Obama's decision to close Gitmo within a year.

Obama's been talking about this for a year, and he definitively stated that he would close it a few months ago. Now, suddenly, we have many in the news media speculating as to what will happen to all of those prisoners. David Shuster actually asked Sam Brownback, of all people, how he would feel, should Obama transfer the prisoners to Leavenworth.

Okay, now, Shuster's a great guy and all, and he's a credible jourmalist. But for Chrissakes; what's the point of speculating about such a thing until someone in the Administration suggests that as a possibility? I mean, there is almost as much of a possibility that he'll give them tickets to Disneyland and put them up in the Sheraton Orlando.

The prison at Guantanamo Bay must close. It's really that simple. The message that it says to the rest of the world is that the United States talks a good game, but is too weak to act upon our actual principles. We have to hold true to our principles, and the only way to show true strength is to adhere to those principles through adversity, George W. Bush, in trying to project a measure of "strength," actually showed us as weak. He demonstrated that he, as our leader, was of the opinion that our system of justice was simply not strong enough to be able to try and convict some violent thugs, and put them away legitimately. More than that, he showed the world that, because we're the biggest, baddest kid on the block, we could do whatever we want.

In other words, the prison at Guantanamo Bay doesn't demonstrate our strength; rather, it exposes our weakness for all to see. With it, the United States looks like a bully, and we all know what the other kids want to do to the bully, don't we?

And contrary to the beliefs of some of the David Shusters out there, disposing of the prisoners at Guantanamo Bay Detention Center will not be all that incredibly difficult. We're not talking about thousands, or even hundreds, of prisoners suddenly being dumped on the prison system. In fact, there's a good chance we could be talking about relocating a couple of dozen prisoners, at most.

You see, since the beginning of the Afghan War, about 775 prisoners (numbers are approximate, because the Bushies have largely kept the numbers "secret") have been transported to Gitmo. Of that number, about 420 of them were released without charge.

Yes, you read that right. The Bushies captured 775 people, put them in jail cells, told us they were all "enemy combatants" and were just too dangerous to be believed, and then released 420 of them without charge, presumably after torturing a lot of them and getting no information. As of May 2008, there are 270 detainees at Gitmo, and of those, about 60 of them have already been marked for release by the Bushies, with further plans to release another 130-150. The Bushies only planned to try about 60-80 detainees, at most, eventually, when they got around to it. Of course, many posit that perhaps half of those detainees can no longer be tried, either because of torture, or because the evidence against them has been declared top secret and cannot be used at a trial. Yes, that's right, folks; the Bushies may have made it impossible to even try most of the people they claim are so incredibly "dangerous" with their extraconstitutional actions.

Yet, to hear the press talk about this, one would think we should expect a swarm of nasty terrorists to overrun our legal corrections system, when the reality is, at most we should expect 60-80 detainees to be absorbed into a system that already has more than a million people in it. In other words, our correctional system is not going to be overrun with terrorists; at worst, we'll be adding .008% to the current prison population.

The United States must regain its footing as an ethical and moral superpower, and the to that are to reassert our moral authority with regard to justice and mercy. In two days, President Obama has begun the process of doing just that, by demanding that the prison at Guantanamo Bay be closed, and that the United States will no longer torture anyone for any reason. But don't let the frighty righties scare you; we're not talking about letting thousands of prisoners loose to wreak havoc on the United States and the rest of the world. At most, we'll be trying a few dozen of them, and absorbing them into regular jails. If they're found guilty of terrorist activity, they can serve out their days with the rest of the prison population, where they belong. if they're not guilty, they can be sent back to be with their families.

But the United States of America can never be about grabbing people and holding them, just because we don't trust them. If we have evidence of crime, then try and convict them. Otherwise, they're innocent, and must be allowed to go back to their families.

We are what we stand for. And we should stand for justice.

Obama's Right: Time to Grow Up!

It's a new day; no doubt about it. 

 

We're about to turn back into the United States of America, folks; isn't it exciting?

 

If it's not exciting yet, it will be. Although, it's likely to be a little different than many of you expect.

 

I think most who occupy the center of the spectrum, including those who occupy the left and right of center, will be happy with the Obama Administration, because there is little doubt that he has the stones, and the ability, to right the ship of state.  It's also likely that we'll make tremendous progress toward what should be our main goal, and that is to return the government to the people. Those who occupy space a little farther out to the right and left might be a little disappointed, however. The right wingers will be  very disappointed, of course, because their view of the world has little to do with reality. In their world, the greatest menace imaginable is apparently illegal Mexican gay people coming over to abort their babies and marry members of the same sex, while getting "free" medical care. Since I'm pretty sure that almost never happens, I'm going to go out on a limb and say that the above will not be a priority of the Obama Administration.

 

Likewise, I expect to hear a lot of whining coming from the far left, as well. It's quite unlikely that far left progressives will get everything they want, either, and because so many of them seem to think it's possible to get everything just because they want it, there will be a significant amount of whining coming from the far left, as well.

 

Here's my advice to progressives. Never stop working toward what you want. Never apologize for wanting social justice and complete equality for all people. No one ever won a Super Bowl while hoping to finish the season with seven wins. All teams start the season thinking that it's possible to go 16-0. But just as 30 out of 32 teams in the NFL didn't get to the Super Bowl, and only one can win it, we have to understand that, as progressives, progress sometimes means failing 20 times before we finally succeed, and accepting the progress we make each time we fail.

 

President Obama understands this, and that's why the overriding theme of his inaugural speech was, "Grow Up, America."

 

It's funny. It's like he was reading my mind the last few weeks. I was thinking almost exactly that when I listened to the constant whining and hand wringing  over Obama's choice of Rick Warren to give the invocation. Yeah, I get that gays feel offended by the choice, but for Chrissakes; it was a goddamn prayer.  There shouldn't even BE Christian prayers at such functions, and yet look at the miles and miles of column and blog space that was taken up with this "issue." If the inaugural traditionally included a child sacrifice as part of the ceremony, would we have protested more if he had chosen one of Pat Robertson's grandchildren to be sacrificed, rather than one of Angelina Jolie's kids? In other words, to deliver a prayer that is technically against constitutional principles, he chose a right wing bigot. Think about that a moment. It's actually more appropriate, under the circumstances.

 

Seriously; we're replacing a near-demonic corrupt and criminal administration that spent the last eight years screwing us royally, and this country has some serious problems. We need to grow up, and stop worrying so much about the little shit. We have to tackle some really serious issues. Being the father of a son who recently decided to enter the Army to pay for college, I'm here to tell you; there are more important issues out there. 

 

And that's what Obama spoke about yesterday. It's time to grow up, America, and realize that we can't do any of the things we really want to do, unless and until we right the ship of state, and put our economic base on a sure footing.  President Obama is not a wizard; he won't be able to conjure up solutions to all of our problems right away. Before he can do anything, he has to open up the government and air it out, to get rid of the stench the last administration left.

 

We're entering a new era, to be sure. It will be a good era for America, but it will be a long era; one that will shape our future to a very great extent.  But you can't just lurch society into a completely new mindset because you think it's the right one. The way to move forward -- you know, to make "progress," which is what we're supposedly all about -- is to convince most people that what we want for society would be best for them.

 

For too long, the progressive movement has been dormant. And it's been dormant in part because we have spent far too much time whining about what hasn't been done, rather than proactively trying to move things forward. Part of that is because we haven't had a president who listened to or cared about the people -- and yes, I include Bill Clinton in that group. Now, we have one. Now, we have a president who will do what's best for the people. Our job, as progressives, is to get behind him and push, not stand in front of him and yell. If we are going to make social progress over the next four to eight years, we have to come to accept incremental stages of progress, and make our case to the average American, in terms he can readily understand. We have to communicate in hopeful terms, and stop with the gloom and doom agenda. Hope sells; hopeless gets you right wingers in office.

 

We've turned a corner, as a country, to be sure. People voted for hope this time, and they voted for some drastic changes to happen. But we have to accept that most of those changes will have little to nothing to do with those issues that far left progressives hold near and dear. For that to happen will take some really hard work with a president who is willing to listen to us, and a public that is far more preoccupied with the economy and the future of their family, to  obsess over whose saying a prayer at the inauguration.

 

Speak to the president and the public, not at them. And grow up enough to realize that not everyone cares about the same things we care about.  It's time we retire our seemingly permanent sense of indignation, and start developing strategies that allow us to work society toward our goals.

 

Obama's right; it's time to act like grown ups.

Keep God Out of Government, For His Own Protection and Ours

Do you realize what geniuses the Founding Fathers were?

They knew enough to put "God" in the Constitution at the very beginning of this republic, and told the government to keep its hands off. How prophetic were they? It’s as if they knew a bonehead like George W. Bush would come along and muck things up in the name of God. You know; someone dumb as a post, and completely unprepared for responsibility, but who would gleefully use the name of God just to shut off debate, and do whatever the hell he wanted. Because we all know, when someone brings up God in an argument, you can’t counter them, regardless, because they’re entitled to their beliefs, right? I mean, who’s to say God didn’t come to the Chimp in a vision and tell him to bomb the living hell out of 25 million people, destroy their country, and make neighboring country Iran far more powerful?

Of course, there is that possibility. Perhaps God sent us Dubya as a sort of negative reinforcement, to remind us how sacred the separation of church and state actually is. Maybe God sent us a disastrous president, in order to demonstrate that He has no intention of telling us how to run our country. We do seem to have forgotten the whole church-state separation thing lately. The Constitution and the New Testament both demand it, but Americans, who are supposedly 84% Christian, and 100% American, seem to choose to ignore both.