The PCTC Blog

Anybody Wanna Buy Our "Mansion"? Politifact Surrenders Its Credibility

As those who have been following this blog for a while know, it’s about uncovering lies and encouraging the use of facts to move the progressive movement forward. The problem with saying things that are provably false is, eventually someone will discover the falsehood, and will tend to not believe anything you say afterward. We need a majority on our side, which means we must invest ourselves in truth. 

I’ve always had a problem with “fact checking” web sites run my major news or propaganda organizations. Media Matters, I love, because they don't actually interpret. They simply say whatever was said, then show whatever caused a contradiction, and let the readers decide what they should believe. They do lean left when it comes to choosing which lies they discuss, but their discussion of falsehoods is rarely, if ever, actually biased. Too many "fact checking" organizations, however, have a tendency to assert their own biases in their analyses. 

Some will recall that I had a major row with Factcheck a couple of years ago, when they tried to claim the Affordable Care Act would allow for government funding of abortions. It was bad enough that they made a mistake, but after I uncovered the mistake and corrected them using language in both the ACA and the Hyde Amendment, the director of Factcheck, Brooks Jackson, insisted he was right because, well, he was, that’s all. They lost a lot of credibility with me, and many of my readers, and I still fact check Factcheck as a result. 

The TRUTH Will Set Progressives Free!

I know some of you think I have something personal against people like Greenwald, Hamsher, Moore and the rest of the professional left. I assure you, I do not. I'm sure if I met them and had a conversation with them, I'd find them delightful. In fact, I can honestly say, I admire them all for the things they do right. I still point to Bowling for Columbine as one of the best examinations of our gun culture ever, and Roger & Me changed the definition of documentary forever. (Well, until Ken Burns came along and added another definition, anyway.) I happen to like a lot of what Glenn Greenwald and Jane hamsher write; I only have a problem with their increasing tendency to exaggerate, and even outright lie, in an attempt to "sensationalize" their views on issues. They think they're helping the cause by providing extreme lefties with "red meat," in the same way the right wing does. They would be wrong.When the professional left simply makes things up, it actually undermines the movement. Our media can’t be like Fox News and expect to win elections.

For the last 40 years, the progressive side of the debate has been largely dormant. We have been extremely ineffective, politically speaking, to the point that a small minority of right wing cretins has been able to dominate electoral politics for the last 32 years. The reason we have been dormant is because a large portion of our most vocal “advocates” apparently believe that the sorts of things Limbaugh and the douchebags at Fox News do and say actually work, and make the right more popular. They do work, but not because the right wing becomes more popular. The right wing doesn't win elections, we LOSE THEM. That's a VERY important distinction.

There's No Such Thing as an “Indefinite Detention Bill” and Other Pro Left Lies

One of the most galling things about the professional left is the number of times they lie to make a point. You can’t be a progressive and also lie to the people who read your stuff. As this blog notes time and time again, the truth has a liberal bias; Fox News needs to lie; we do not.

Case in point; the hysteria over what many pro and emo lefties refer to as the “Indefinite Detention Bill.” Even people I often admire are buying into the hysteria, and it’s become depressing.

First thing you should know is, there is NO SUCH THING as an “Indefinite Detention Bill.” The actual bill Obama first threatened to veto and has now agreed to sign is called the “National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for Fiscal Year 2012.” The part about the “indefinite detention” is actually one small portion of a very large bill.

Yet, who the hell do these supposed "liberals" go after? Not the people who put that crap into the bill in the first place, of course. They go after President Obama, who has command of the military (which includes my son, who’s working hard trying to rebuild Afghanistan, by the way) and have little choice but to put up with such Amendments. How incredibly stupid is this? Did so many progressive really learn NOTHING from the 2010 elections?

Another Example of Professional Lefties Blowing Off Facts

One reason the progressive movement has been largely stalled for the last 30-40 years is because the average person simply doesn’t understand what our movement is supposed to be about. That's entirely our fault. The loudest component of the progressive movement, the “professional left,” as it were, likes to speak broadly about issues, at the same time they obsess over minutiae that really has no basis in reality.  If you look at the liberal press, especially the blogs, you see mostly broad negatives, very few positives and quite a few unhealthy obsessions.

Their latest unhealthy obsession seems to be with banks, specifically "big banks," whatever the hell they are. I suppose it's one of those "you know them when you see them" things, right? Big banks are the root of all evil, as the professional left sees it. If we just get rid of those "big banks," our economy will be fixed, all poor people will become rich, angels will once again dance on the heads of pins, and no police officer will ever again stop a black man for walking through the “wrong neighborhood.”

Okay, that was a slight exaggeration, but only slight.

If Cain's Considered "Good Businessman," No Wonder Economy's So Bad

So Herman Cain has suspended his presidential campaign.  Pardon me while I yawn. This was never a campaign, so much as a book tour. No one on the Republican side has more than a snowball’s chance in hell of winning anything. Cain was never going to get the nomination, which is why it has always amused me that anyone took him seriously at all. But this column isn’t about his doomed candidacy; it’s about this notion that Cain’s main qualification (besides his having the right skin color to allow right wingers to think they could be forgiven for their racism) was that he was a brilliant businessman.

He wasn't. Not even close.