The PCTC Blog

Pro-Choice is the Essence of Liberty

When I was very young, a few years before Roe v Wade, my parents were good friends with a family (a father and two daughters-- the father had become widowed several years earlier), all of whom were officers with the police department of a major US city. Mr. Andy loved to regale us with stories of the seamier side of life, even when I was no more than 11 or 12. Basically, I think he just liked grossing out my mother, which was remarkably easy. The stories were horrific. Now, I know the current-day image of the 50's and 60's is more like of Leave it to Beaver and Happy Days and that sort of thing but, frankly, his stories would make people in 2011 feel a bit queasy.

One story – actually a series of stories - in particular hit me pretty hard, and I remember it very well. It was actually something of a regular occurrence for the police department to receive a call from someone who found a fetus in a trash receptacle somewhere in the city. After an investigation, they would often find several fetuses, wrapped up in paper or plastic, after which they would write a report. They would investigate, but there was no way to tell where they came from, so they rarely "caught" anyone responsible. According to Mr. Andy, they could have come from any of a number of "abortion mills" that had been set up around the city to take care of women who wanted an abortion, but who were forbidden from getting a legal one. Police were also often called out to investigate cases in which desperate women had mutilated themselves attempting to abort their own fetus, or having a friend do it for them; someone who had no business attempting a medical procedure. Among the tools used for these procedures were not forceps, but coat hangers, soda bottles and vacuum cleaners. One story involved a pair of pliers.

Some folks apparently think such a world was the ideal. 

Cutting the Crap on Right Wing Historical Revisionism

I had the most fascinating Twitter “debate” Sunday.  Actually, that’s something of a misnomer, since I don’t think it’s possible to “debate” on Twitter, because it’s limited to 140 characters at a time, and many things are not possibly explained in 140 characters.  But that doesn’t prevent many right wingers (and the occasional left winger) from trying.

I simply made a really basic statement that I believe to be true, and that will probably be borne out by historians many years from now; that George W Bush was the worst president in US history. Let me repeat that:

George W Bush was the worst president in United States history. 

That’s just my opinion, of course, and there are a few historians who disagree with me, of course, in that they may put a few other presidents behind Bush. Hoover, of course, is a rational choice, since he did nothing for 3 ½ years after the economy bottomed out, and led us into the Great Depression. And Grant was also a perfectly awful president, in the opinions of many.

Everyone Should See This Short Video

Robert Reich is a genius. Pass this on to everyone you know who thinks the economy is complicated. It's not. 

 

Cutting the Crap on the Debt Ceiling

It's amazing how often I'm forced to listen to teabaggers. That is because we are being ill-served by a news media that is populated by idiots who seem to be under the impression that the definition of “objective journalism” is to present all sides of any argument, no matter how stupid and uninformed any one of those arguments is.  I’ll get to that in other columns, I’m sure. This column, however, I'd like to clear a few things up about the debt ceiling. Call it a public service to teabaggers. 

The debt ceiling is the somewhat artificial barrier Congress put in place many years ago in order to pretend they were being responsible with our money. It is absolutely illegal for the United States to borrow more than the debt ceiling allows. So every so often (more often when Republicans are running things, for some reason), Congress votes to raise the debt ceiling to a number a bit higher than the projected deficit, and Congress may then borrow money at will up to the new limit.

The debt ceiling is once again coming up for a vote, and the Tea Party is chomping at the bit to make a stand on it. They won’t be successful in the long run, but it will be fun to watch the less-lunatic Republicans in Congress hem and haw and stammer and pose just to make the teabaggers happy. That’s what happens when you allow your base to be populated by the most ignorant people on the planet; you are made to look stupid.

And face it, folks; these people are dumb as rocks, and that may be unfair to rocks, since at least rocks have the good sense to simply lie there and not screw things up. As idealistic and naïve as some portions of the far left are at times, at least one has a sense that they can be taught. Teabaggers can’t be taught anything, because they see everything in simple black-and-white terms, and they’re too convinced of their own genius that they can’t absorb anything about which they have not preconceived a notion.

So, last night, I’m watching the news, and reporters were talking about the looming vote to raise the debt ceiling. They spoke to an economist, a couple of politicians and, for “balance”, a Tea Party spokesperson, who came on to tell us all that it’s important to not raise the debt ceiling, because that will once and for all force the government to live within its means, and it will make them cut spending. She had such a smile on her face. It was clear that at least one person in that discussion thought she was brilliant. 

Gosh, I wish life was so simple. I wish economics were so simple, you know? But in an economy that was built on debt, and thrives on debt, they’re dreaming.

Breitbart Should be Ashamed. If Only...

It seems Andrew Breitbart can't handle criticism on his own blog, because he's blocked my comments there, so I'll put it on mine. More people will read it anyway.

If you consider yourself a journalist, or even just a truth-teller, and you EVER have this asshole on your program, or quote him in your news article, you should be ashamed. This guy is the uncle we all have and won't talk about, who has strong opinions about everything and everyone, and shares them with everyone, true or not. 

Most of the shit he posts is made up of pure lies. Once in a while, he gets a fact right, and he actually expects us to believe everything else he's ever said, even when it's been proven wrong repeatedly. He was the linchpin in the James O'Keefe bullshit stories that brought down ACORN,  which were later proven wrong. He was the one who first proffered the story that Shirley Sherrod was a racist, which was proven wrong, and for which he's been sued. He keeps on saying things that are untrue regarding the Pigford settlement, and a lot of other things, too numerous to mention. (I've written about these bullshit stories and the one on NPR on this blog, HERE and HERE, which is one reason, I'm sure, why he blocked me on Twitter, as well.)

But as bad as he's been in the past, what he did today should certify him as a completely untrustworthy douchebag. 

Be Careful and Stick to the Facts! They (Facts) Have a Liberal Bias, After All

The information in this post is important for a few reasons. First, it shows that even trusted news and information sources should be checked for accuracy. It also shows that organizations that we trust for information should be incredibly careful not to use their data to editorialize in a way that is not supported by the data. And finally, it shows the importance of perspective in evaluating any broad statements made by anyone, including those we generally trust. 

Skepticism should be your mantra. It is not a bad thing; it is what we on the left have that the gullible right wingers do not. Don't believe anything without checking it first, even if it's something you want to believe. 

This all started with a Tweet from Open Secrets. Open Secrets is a phenomenal website run by the usually stellar “non-partisan” organization, The Center for Responsive Politics. The site tracks the money candidates receive as donations and where the money comes from. The fact of the matter is, while they attempt to be, and lebel themselves “non-partisan, they do lean left. Of course they lean left; the right doesn’t think such things should be tracked at all. Besides, facts tend to have a liberal bias, especially in today's political climate.