The PCTC Blog

If You Think Both Parties are the Same, You're INSANE

Those of you who have been reading this blog for a while know; that this blog is a bit different from other lefty blogs. Yes, I take on the Right Wing Fart Machine and will continue to do so. But frankly. a small but loud portion the progressive movement has a tendency to be just as bad as the right wingers when it comes to flinging rhetorical bullshit. These people are loud, obnoxious, and they like to portray themselves as the “only true progressives." This, despite the fact that they constitute a small minority within the progressive movement, and often, they;re rhetoric actually hurts our cause. 

These “progressives,” who tend to be referred to as "professional left" or "emo left" are usually white, they tend to have college degrees, and they tend to have above-average-sized bank accounts, and they seem to think they know more about what it’s like to be poor and working class than those who actually are poor and working class. I saw an exchange recently on a lefty blog, in which a white "emo lefty" actually attempted to imply that his sociology  degree had equipped him with the knowledge to understand what a black man in America faced. I wish I was kidding. 

Post #500 -- A Plea to Democrats - Get a Spine and You'll Win Every Time

An open letter to the Democratic politicians holding up health care reform…

Why are you so afraid of everything?

I thought the election of Barack Obama meant the virtual end of the Democratic Leadership Council’s (DLC) dangerous and wrongheaded influence, but I guess I was wrong. This is a crucial time in the history of this country, and we have a smallish, but somewhat significant contingent of Democrats who seem to think the public will vote them out if they act boldly and with conviction.

How stupid are you people?

To you Democratic politicians who are constantly worried about being kicked out of office on your asses for acting boldly and with conviction; you deserve to be kicked out of office – don’t let the door hit you on the way out. You don’t have the political sense to even hold office, let alone keep it.  And what is the point of continually winning elections and keeping your office if you don’t plan to do anything good with it? Do the American people need that? Is that why we elected you people in the first place? No. We elected you to represent us and stand up for our interests; no good is served by having spineless pussies represent our interests.

Are Progressives REALLY Part of the "Democratic Base"?

Now, about this habit we progressives have of referring to ourselves as the Democratic “base.”

Why do we do that?

You’ve heard this repeatedly over the last few months, right? Sure you have.

Whenever a bunch of millionaire pundits sit around a table in front of a camera and try to explain why President Obama’s approval rating isn’t in the 60s, the stock answer is “he’s losing his base.”

Every time someone makes an errant comment about the health insurance reform bill that gets some progressives in a tizzy and crying, they cry that “Obama had better be careful, or he’ll lose his base.”

Bill Moyers on Real Time About Health Care

Here is an enlightening interview with Bill Moyers about the current health care bills before Congress... it is a MUST SEE...

Updated Again!: Factchecking Factcheck.org: No Abortions With the Health Care Reform Bill

(Who knew? A friendly little reminder that a factcheck.org piece is mistaken, and it turns into something of a war? Come on, guys... we all make mistakes; it's okay...)

Look; I like Factcheck.org. They perform an essential public service, and they are usually right about the facts, even when I disagree with their conclusions. But I got one in my e-mail on Friday that is absolutely WRONG. You can go here to read the whole article, but here's a summary:

Abortion: Which Side Is Fabricating?

Despite what Obama said, the House bill would allow abortions to be covered by a federal plan and by federally subsidized private plans.

August 21, 2009

Summary

Will health care legislation mean "government funding of abortion"?

President Obama said Wednesday that’s "not true" and among several "fabrications" being spread by "people who are bearing false witness." But abortion foes say it’s the president who’s making a false claim. "President Obama today brazenly misrepresented the abortion-related component" of health care legislation, said Douglas Johnson, legislative director for the National Right to Life Committee. So which side is right?

The truth is that bills now before Congress don’t require federal money to be used for supporting abortion coverage. So the president is right to that limited extent. But it’s equally true that House and Senate legislation would allow a new "public" insurance plan to cover abortions, despite language added to the House bill that technically forbids using public funds to pay for them. Obama has said in the past that "reproductive services" would be covered by his public plan, so it’s likely that any new federal insurance plan would cover abortion unless Congress expressly prohibits that. Low- and moderate-income persons who would choose the "public plan" would qualify for federal subsidies to purchase it. Private plans that cover abortion also could be purchased with the help of federal subsidies. Therefore, we judge that the president goes too far when he calls the statements that government would be funding abortions "fabrications."

I urge everyone to go read the article in its entirety, and you'll note something missing in the analysis...

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.

McAuliffe Promises to Help Obama -- RUN, BARACK, RUN!!

Terry McAuliffe, the supremely ineffective former head of the DNC and DLC stalwart, is now predicting the race will be over by early June.

But he makes a promise that is almost as scary as a convention floor fight...

From: Clinton aide predicts race will be over by June - Yahoo! News.

"It'll be over early June," McAuliffe said. "We've all said we'll be together at the end. If Hillary doesn't win, Hillary, (former) President (Bill) Clinton, myself, we'll be over there helping Senator Obama. And, likewise, Senator Obama will come together to help Hillary if she's the nominee."

Senator Obama, I implore you... if they come toward you, have the Secret Service escort them from the premises and make sure they never come back.

Please don't let these people near your campaign. These are people who had two perfectly good candidates in Al Gore and John Kerry, and couldn't beat the Simpleton from Crawford! These are the people who took a woman who has excellent credentials, and who had the nomination in hand, and told her that the best campaign strategy in an election in which "CHANGE" is the most important issue was to stress her many years of experience. These are people who thought that putting her on a podium and encouraging her to tell stories of Bosnian snipers was a great idea.

Seriously; the DLC is political poison, and only DLC members seem to be oblivious to it. From the time they took charge, Democrats have been a party of wussies. It's only started changing since Howard Dean took charge.

Stick with your current team, and add some truly new blood, if you need it. But if McAuliffe comes a-knockin, please, run the other way...

It's Just Not That Simple...

One constant theme throughout Saturday's protest in Washington was this notion that Democrats are somehow just as culpable as Republicans when it comes to stopping the Iraq occupation, because they somehow hold "the power of the purse" and apparently haven't used it sufficiently. According to these folks -- and there seemed to be a lot of them -- this is due to the mere fact that they now hold a slim majority in the House and Senate. As this "conventional wisdom" goes , because they are now the majority party, Democrats can just cut off all funding, and thus force the president to simply stomp his feet, scream "aw shucks!" and bring the troops home.

 

Standing next to this too-large contingent of lefties is a group who is slightly more realistic, and suggests that Democrats just need to keep on sending bills to Bush and make him keep vetoing them. Their reasoning says that doing such a think would "show" everyone… um… what, exactly? That he's obstinately sticking by the war, regardless of what anyone thinks? Yeah! That'll show…. Um… whom, exactly? Is there anyone in the country who doesn't know this already? Constantly sending the president bills to veto over and over is just childish, and wastes time that could be spent on actually doing their jobs.

 

Stopping the appropriations process really isn't all that simple, anyway. It's not a matter of stomping your feet and saying "no more money, Mr. President." It's far more complex than that, and to expect it in the current environment is just plain silly and simplistic. Democrats hold a bare majority in the House, and several bills have gotten through there already. The Senate is another story, however. Under the circumstances, Democrats are effectively in the minority in the Senate, at least when it comes to Iraq. On Iraq, Democrats have exactly 50 votes in the Senate, and only since Tim Johnson returned from brain surgery; before that, they had 49. Meanwhile, the Republicans have 49 plus Lieberman, and Darth Cheney holds the tie breaker. The Democrats can't just vote away the war; they really do not have the votes. Republicans may hate this war, and there may be a point in the future in which Republican Senators hate the war enough to start voting against it, but to expect them to vote to cut off funding, well… it's just not realistic.

 

Even if Congress was able to cut off funding as of right now, there is no guarantee that such an action would have the desired effect, anyway. Approximately $500 billion has already been appropriated for Iraq so far, and that amount has been appropriated outside of the Defense budget, where there are tens of billions in discretionary dollars every year. It is unlikely that every dollar appropriated previously has been spent; there is probably a significant reserve built up, to keep the contractors happy for at least a year or two more. Therefore, even if the funding were to magically end right now, the war wouldn't necessarily end due to a lack of funding.

 

That said, imagine that the funding were suddenly cut off. Such a circumstance could potentially create a political minefield for Democrats, politically speaking. Any increase in violence could be turned against Democrats in Congress, for cutting off funding. This administration has been handed more than a half trillion dollars for this war, but hasn't been able to find the 20 billion or so it would take to provide body armor for all of the troops now; a reduction in funding would assure that they still don't get what they need. Halliburton, Bechtel and ExxonMobil will continue to make money from this war; make no mistake about that. Refusing to fund the troops isn't just a jingoistic Fox Noise Talking Point™, folks; the net effect of cutting off funding could be just that.

 

That is what the Democrats can't do. There is a lot, however, that they can do, although they need our help.

 

Many individual Congressional Democrats are doing a lot. They make speeches on the House and Senate floors, and they go onto talk shows and discuss the war. They tell everyone who will listen to them that this occupation is illegal and immoral and that it needs to stop. And they are doing that. Congressional Democrats have been all over the news this year, trying to drum up support for their bids to end the war.

 

If this war is going to end, we have to get more Republicans against the war, to the point that even THEY want it to end. That takes a hell of a lot more than a series of polls saying the American people don't like it. There has to be a groundswell that is so overwhelming that Congressional Republicans can't ignore it. That will take letter writing campaigns unlike any seen in years. I am not talking about e-mail, folks; I'm talking about letters. No petitions, no mass mailings in which you simply have to sign your name to a form letter. I'm talking about writing letters to Congress and your local newspaper, in which you express your disgust with this occupation, and its effects in the United States and the world.

 

We have to create a groundswell that makes the average person look up from their busy lives and say "You know, you're right! Iraq is a quagmire and a debacle!" to the point that they, too, write their Congresspersons and make their feelings known, as well.

 

The fact of the matter is, we don't have the votes to simply cut off war funding. That means, we have to create the votes. We have to make sure that 18-20 Republican Senators feel that they have no choice but to vote to end this thing. That's our mission, folks. If we can't get enough votes to override a veto, then there is nothing Democrats can do right now. Take this lesson into 2008, though, and make sure Democrats have enough votes next time. Right now, we have enough votes to stop the government hemorrhaging, and little more.  We need 60 votes in the Senate; more if a Republican like Bush is in the White House. 49-50 just won't cut it right now.

 

Constantly passing bills that are destined to die is not progress. Expecting miracles isn't progress. Progress takes a lot of work, and it requires a lot of passion. Not fake passion, but real passion.

Leahy Says F*** You Back to Bushies

I'm going to go out on a limb here, and say the Democrats in the Senate are going to become increasingly frustrated and pissy with the Bush White House. They're simply not used to being the least effective body in Congress, and while they don't have enough votes to do anything drastic, they can make it clear to the voting public where the problem is...

From: Leahy Threatens Bush Aides With Contempt - The Huffington Post.

A top Senate Democrat on Monday threatened to hold members of the Bush administration in contempt for not producing subpoenaed information about the legal justification for President Bush's secretive eavesdropping program.

"When the Senate comes back in the session, I'll bring it up before the committee," said Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt. and chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. "I prefer cooperation to contempt. Right now, there's no question that they are in contempt of the valid order of the Congress."

Leahy's committee on June 27 subpoenaed the Justice Department, National Security Council and the offices of the president and vice president for documents relating to the National Security Agency's legal justification for the wiretapping program.

White House lawyer Fred Fielding, in a Monday letter to Leahy, said that the administration needed more time.

"A core set of highly sensitive national security and related documents we have so far identified are potentially subject to claims of executive privilege and that a more complete collection and review of all materials responsive to the subpoenas will require additional time," Fielding said.

Leahy said they had waited long enough.

"It has been almost two months since service of the subpoenas, three weeks since the time they asked for additional time. And still, we have nothing at all," Leahy said.

Is there a greater bunch of pussies on the planet than Congressional Republicans? Here they are, stuck with an incompetent White House, that is effectively killing the party slowly with its actions, and yet none of them have the balls to stand up to the Bushies. Even the few who aren't chickenhawks seem to be deathly afraid of opposing this 29% popularity White House...

Write your Congressperson, and especially your Senators -- and I do NOT mean e-mail, either -- and let them know that they have to stand up to this White House and do what's right. And by the way, that includes writing to Democrats AND Republicans; the GOP needs the wake-up call, and the Dems need the spine...