The PCTC Blog

Pro Lefties' and Advanced ODS (Obama Derangement Syndrome): Case Study: Robert Scheer

2012-01-26T13:51:41-05:00

I woke up this morning preparing to finish a post on capitalism and the right wing this morning, so that I could put it up this weekend, when I received an email from the “Truthdig!” web site. The author, who is also the Editor of Truthdig, was Robert Scheer. I dropped my capitalism post immediately, out of concern for what has to be the worst case of Obama Derangement Syndrome I've ever seen in a professional lefty.

Robert Scheer was a liberal reporter and columnist of incredible note for many years. I’ve been a fan of his since I was a kid. Unlike many on the professional left, Scheer has unquestionable journalistic chops. He’s one of the few on the professional left who can boast of Pulitzers and legitimate acclaim.

So, when I found the following article linked in my email this morning, I was concerned. If ODS can hit a pro lefty with his reputation, is anyone really safe? Here's the article of which I speak.

Obama’s Faux Populism Sounds Like Bill Clinton

The title itself is not meant to be a compliment. You see, Robert Scheer is an old-school liberal, who inarguably knows a lot about politics. In relation to most of the rank amateurs in the professional left, Scheer knows a hell of a lot more. And it is that knowledge that makes this particular attempt to throw basic logic out the window more concerning than recent attacks of ODS exhibited by Greenwald, Hamsher, Moore and the like. That Robert Scheer is just trying to attract pissed off liberals to his site and his columns just makes me sad.

This is troubling, folks. The Pulitzer Prize-winning Scheer is retreading the same tired, ridiculous arguments the far left has been pushing for years, and which have never had any validity. He pushes the absurd “President Obama is in Wall Street’s pocket” meme so hard, he had to have herniated himself after writing it. The entire column is a whine about the people Obama’s hired in his administration, and the things he hasn’t done, without any consideration of what he’s actually accomplished. And there isn't an actual fact in the entire piece. Not one.

That's how ODS works, folks. It sneaks up on a pro lefty and takes away his formerly rational sense of reason. For example, he actually claims that he feels “betrayed” by President Obama:

… I get angry because betrayal by the “good guys” for whom I have ended up voting has become the norm.

Yes, betrayal, because if Obama meant what he said in Tuesday’s State of the Union address about holding the financial industry responsible for its scams, why did he appoint the old Clinton crowd that had legalized those scams to the top economic posts in his administration? Why did he hire Timothy Geithner, who has turned the Treasury Department into a concierge service for Wall Street tycoons?

ODS strikes the memory first. Apparently, Scheer's current memory is that his vote for Obama was a vote for a far left progressive when he voted for him in 2008. After all, that's the only way he could feel “betrayal.” To feel “betrayal”, you have to have trusted the person in question, don't you?

Fortunately for Robert, I was a regular listener to KCRW’s “Left, Right and Center” podcast at the time. I can assure you; in 2008, Robert Scheer continually reminded the other panelists, Matt Miller, Tony Blankley and (sometimes) Arianna Huffington, that Obama was a centrist and not a full on liberal. His columns before the 2008 election (such as this one) and after the election but before the inauguration (like this one) also reveal that he knew he was voting for a “centrist,” and one he didn’t seem to like very much.

In other words, Scheer's ODS has been part of his life so long, and has been a part of his life for so long, he can't possibly feel betrayed.

It's especially sad to see an actual professional left journalist stricken by ODS, because they're so rare. His ODS is so severe, that he even engages in irational attacks on Tim Gethner, which seems to be a major symptom of ODS. From an ODS sufferer, the attacks on Geithner are always non-specific, because he really hasn’t done anything objectionable as Treasury Secretary. An off-hand remark that is absolutely unsupportable by fact such as “turning the Treasury Department into a concierge service for Wall Street tycoons” is unworthy of a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist, and a sure sign that the ODS has advanced almost to the point of no return.

Another example of the effects of ODS is apparent in the following passage:

Why hasn’t he pushed for a restoration of the Glass-Steagall Act, which Clinton’s deregulation reversed? Does the president really believe that the Dodd-Frank slap-on-the-wrist sellout represents “new rules to hold Wall Street accountable, so a crisis like this never happens again”? Can he name one single too-big-to-fail banking monstrosity that has been reduced in size on his watch instead of encouraged to grow ever larger by Treasury and Fed bailouts and interest-free money?

This has to be the ODS speaking. The journalist Robert Scheer knows the answers to all of these questions, and the implications are flat wrong.

Obama actually did push for a restoration of Glass-Steagall, which is why we have Dodd-Frank. What the president proposed what was pretty much a full restoration of Glass-Steagall in June 2009; it was in all the papers. If the ODS wasn't so debilitating, Scheer could have looked up the history of the bill on THOMAS. It seems to be too much to ask that the opinions of OGS sufferers be backed by facts. The ODS has clouded Scheer's judgment so much, he seems to not realise what a miracle it was to get Dodd-Frank passed at all, since Republicans in the Senate were filibustering everything Democrats proposed. He should know this; that’s his job as journalist. But alas, the Obama Derangement Syndrome has taken its toll on his journalistic judgment.

If he isn't suffering from ODS, why would Scheer imply that Obama and Geithner bailed out the banks? The bailouts were passed before he became president. I would also point out that, assisted by Geithner, Obama has recovered MOST of the bank bailout money. And only an ODS sufferer would think a president could simply order private companies to break up? A Pulitzer Prize winning journalist without ODS would certinly understand that CONGRESS would have to pass a law that leads to them breaking up, and that such a law would never pass the Republican brick wall.

Scheer's ODS is apparently so ingrained that he even managed to take a little dig at Clinton in the passage above. To call it “Clinton’s deregulation” is a bit sophomoric. Phil and Wendy Gramm were the masterminds behind that amendment, not Clinton, a fact that Scheer actually once knew all too well before his ODS took over his entire mind.

Here is Scheer from his appearance on Democracy Now, September 22, 2008:

ROBERT SCHEER: Yeah, well, the point is, when Bush and McCain and Paulson, who was head of Goldman Sachs before he was head of the Treasury, say they don’t know how this happened, they designed this system. We had a regulatory regime in place ever since the Great Depression to prevent this kind of meltdown, and that said that stockbrokers, insurance companies, banks, investment banks, commercial banks, could not merge. And in 1999, they passed legislation, the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act. Gramm is the guy who McCain supported for president in ’96. He was co-chair of his campaign until he complained about the whiners out there, meaning the public. And that legislation is what caused this. It allowed the swaps and everything else.

And then, in 2000, hours before the Christmas break, Gramm introduced legislation. I’m holding it in my hand. This smoking gun is available on the internet; you can read it. And what it said is that the swaps is defined in the Financial Service Modernization Act, meaning that instead of going into a bank and somebody said, “OK, we’ll give you a loan, and we expect you to pay it over thirty years. We know your house has the equity. We know you have the means to pay it” — that was the traditional way — instead, they allowed these mergers, and as a result, they could buy insurance on it, they could do these swaps, they could do what they call hybrid instruments. And it is legislation that was never discussed, was — never had hearings or anything, says that all of this stuff is exempted from all previous regulation. The SEC cannot regulate it, the Commodity Futures Board cannot regulate it.

So they gave these institutions, of which Goldman Sachs was critical — so was Citigroup, where Robert Rubin, who was Clinton’s Treasury secretary, he had also come from Goldman Sachs. And, by the way, even though this is Republican-led, there were plenty of Democrats, in fact, a majority of Democrats, who voted for this. And Robert Rubin, who unfortunately is advising Barack Obama — I don’t know how this guy can wake up and — you know, and not be embarrassed and how he can appear on television — and Lawrence Summers, these are the two guys in the Clinton administration who teamed up with Phil Gramm to pass that atrocious legislation.

A couple of things to note from the above. One is, obviously, Phil Gramm was the guy who wrote this crap, Clinton was given shitty advice from Rubin and Summers. But obviously, it’s not “Clinton Deregulation.” And look at his sideways attack on Barack Obama, just six weeks before the election. Again; how can someone “betray” you, if you never trusted him in the first place? Apparently, the ODS was already taking hold.

ODS is an insidious condition that turn an award-winning journalist's brain to irrational mush. Take this attempt to adopt what has become a de rigueur far left slur on Steven Jobs in his attempt to slam Obama.

It was also a bit bizarre for Obama to celebrate Steve Jobs as a model entrepreneur when the manufacturing jobs that the late Apple CEO created are in the same China that elsewhere in his speech the president sought to scapegoat for America’s problems. Apple, in its latest report on the subject, takes pride in attempting to limit the company’s overseas suppliers to a maximum workweek of 60 hours for their horribly exploited employees. Isn’t it weird to be chauvinistically China baiting when that country carries much of our debt?

Like I said; ODS is an insidious disease. Look at the complete disregard for facts.

First of all, the notion that Apple is simply about “manufacturing jobs” has been debunked before, such as with this article from ZDNet. The fact is, jobs have been leaving the United States for such a long time, we no longer have the factories or skilled workers to make something as sophisticated as the components in the machines Apple makes. But it’s also unfair, because Apple has created a class of entrepreneur that is huge in its scope. I’ll get into this more in a later post, but suffice it to say, Scheer’s ODS-driven whine about Apple is based on a Luddite’s approach to economy. Computers simply won’t work without the software and apps to run them. Without the software, which is largely made here, most computers, including Apple’s, would be doorstops. It's the software that makes these machines work. And with their app store, anyone with the ability to write code has the opportunity to create something that will work on one of these machines. Computers are not toasters.

But the best evidence of the effect of Scheer’s ODS comes when he accuses the president of tying to “scapegoat” China in the State of the Union Address. Seriously? He obviously didn’t listen to the speech very well. Here was everything President Obama said about China:

Tonight, I'm announcing the creation of a Trade Enforcement Unit that will be charged with investigating unfair trade practices in countries like China. There will be more inspections to prevent counterfeit or unsafe goods from crossing our borders. And this Congress should make sure that no foreign company has an advantage over American manufacturing when it comes to accessing finance or new markets like Russia. Our workers are the most productive on Earth, and if the playing field is level, I promise you – America will always win.

(…)

I will not cede the wind or solar or battery industry to China or Germany because we refuse to make the same commitment here.

Those were the only mentions of China in the entire speech. I don’t see any attempt to create a “scapegoat.” I have to be honest here; the ODS has progressed so far, I'm not sure Scheer can be helped. How can you take anyone seriously when they accuse the President of the United States for trying to “scapegoat” a dictatorial country that acknowledges use of slave labor, imprisons anyone who tries to bring democracy to the country, and that openly acknowledges the use of what is practically slave labor? Even if he was trying to "scapegoat" China, any progressive should reject the notion out of hand.

Apparently, The ODS-addled Scheer isn’t planning to vote in the next election, given the way he ends this silly column:

Of course, Romney, Obama’s most likely opponent in the general election, will never challenge the Wall Street hold on Washington, since he is the personification of the vulture capitalism that is the true cause of America’s decline. Obama should shine in comparison with his Republican challenger, but there is little in his State of the Union speech to suggest he will chart a much-needed new course in his second term.

Well, he won’t be able to at all, if Obama Derangement Syndrome continues to grip the professional left.

There is a way to curb the spread of ODS among the professional left, and that is by promoting the truth. Join me in spreading this cure, won't you?

Pro Left Insult Obama Every Chance They Get: Case Study #2: Huffington, Michael Moore

2012-01-25T12:01:53-05:00

If you want to quibble with President Obama’s State of the Union address last night, feel free. This is a free country, after all, even if the right wing would like for everyone to be less free. But the speech was masterful for two reasons. First, it laid out a bold vision for the future that every progressive should be excited about. But just as importantly, it used the Republican Party’s own rhetoric to frame the issues, which means they'll have to abandon the few principles they have left, to attack Obama. This should make progressives downright giddy.

Yet, my Twitter feed has been chock full of naysayers this morning; mostly, they’re self-professed “progressives” who are managing to twist themselves into something of a pretzel shape in order to backhand President Obama for not being perfect. The professional left have been particularly harsh.

Arianna Huffington, for example, Tweeted the following first thing this morning:

A speech that ran for about 90 minutes, and THAT was what she took out of it? And isn’t she supposed to be a great journalism mogul these days? She actually had to take the quote completely out of context in order to take a swipe at the president. Here is the quote in its proper context from a transcript of the State of the Union Address:

The renewal of American leadership can be felt across the globe. Our oldest alliances in Europe and Asia are stronger than ever. Our ties to the Americas are deeper. Our iron-clad commitment to Israel's security has meant the closest military cooperation between our two countries in history. We've made it clear that America is a Pacific power, and a new beginning in Burma has lit a new hope. From the coalitions we've built to secure nuclear materials, to the missions we've led against hunger and disease; from the blows we've dealt to our enemies; to the enduring power of our moral example, America is back.

Anyone who tells you otherwise, anyone who tells you that America is in decline or that our influence has waned, doesn't know what they're talking about. That's not the message we get from leaders around the world, all of whom are eager to work with us. That's not how people feel from Tokyo to Berlin; from Cape Town to Rio; where opinions of America are higher than they've been in years. Yes, the world is changing; no, we can't control every event. But America remains the one indispensable nation in world affairs - and as long as I'm President, I intend to keep it that way.

Yes, that’s right; the woman who has control of a significant journalism enterprise actually had to take a quote referring to American global leadership, and apply it to domestic issues.

The fact of the matter is, America’s prestige was greatly damaged by the Bush Administration, and the black eye that was left by those clowns on the world stage for eight years has largely been healed over the past three. THAT was what Obama was referring to, as is clear when you bother to look at the context.

Say, aren’t journalists supposed to include context in their reporting? More importantly, if someone has to take a quote OUT of context in order to make a point, is that criticism valid at all?

The FACT is, President Obama acknowledged that we still suck, domestically speaking. And he offered a number of initiatives, in the form of tax breaks for those who bring manufacturing here and the elimination of rules that allow American companies to locate offshore and avoid taxes in their own country.

But what bothers me most about the Tweet is that it actually implies that President Obama is the one responsible for “23 million” being unemployed or under-employed. That is obviously false, and that is what people see when they read Huffington’s crap. The constant negativity and the false narratives play to the Republicans’ major strategy, which is to depress turnout. Depressed turnout makes their solidly fanatical minority more powerful, and makes it more likely that Republicans will make gains again in 2012.

Then there is Michael Moore.

I actually like Michael Moore. I know he doesn’t think I do about now, but this blog deals with real politics, and he only seems to have one foot in the real world. I have no doubt that he really cares about the poor. But his political instincts just plain suck, and much of what he does actually leads to more right wing influence, not less.

He’s made a few silly Tweets since the State of the Union, but this one shows just how important it seems to be for everyone on the professional left to make a dig at President Obama, even when they’re complimenting him. That would be okay, if the dig was actually true.

The truth is, Michael, that given Iran’s history and their current leadership, war IS an option. It will always be an option with them, because they are not above threatening to start one. Also, if you knew anything about dealing with the Middle East, you would know that leaderships in the region always have to leave the possibility of war on the table. If you don’t understand why, I suggest you teach yourself some history.

It’s a mischaracterization of what Obama said in two ways. The president didn’t imply that war was not off the table, he stated it outright, as any good political leader would with a country like Iran. I know some progressives only want to think of puppies and kittens and unicorns who fart glitter, but we live in the real world, in which bad guys want to get their hands on nuclear weapons so they can sell them to other bad guys, or use them themselves. That’s the real world.

But read what Obama actually said in the State of the Union address:

And we will safeguard America's own security against those who threaten our citizens, our friends, and our interests. Look at Iran. Through the power of our diplomacy, a world that was once divided about how to deal with Iran's nuclear program now stands as one. The regime is more isolated than ever before; its leaders are faced with crippling sanctions, and as long as they shirk their responsibilities, this pressure will not relent. Let there be no doubt: America is determined to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon, and I will take no options off the table to achieve that goal. But a peaceful resolution of this issue is still possible, and far better, and if Iran changes course and meets its obligations, it can rejoin the community of nations.

Can you imagine ANY Republican running for reelection making such a statement? Again, in context, he DID threaten them with anything he had to do to keep them from getting a nuclear weapon (which is rational), but he also offered them an olive branch at the same time. Yet, Michael can apparently only hear the threat of war, and not the offer of peace because, for whatever reason, he seems to have to bash President Obama every chance he gets. It almost seems pathological to these folks.

When did it become de rigueur for the professional left to say something bad about President Obama every chance they get? They have to be under the impression it resonates with progressives, or raises the “street cred” factor among lefties. But we can’t afford this anymore, folks. This is how we ended up with teabaggers running the damn Congress. This is why President Obama can push forth a comprehensive jobs bill, and Republicans can simply refuse to pass it. This is how we got Governors like Walker, Daniels and Scott.

Our side sucks at politics, and Republicans have come to depend on it.

It’s time we all started putting pressure on professional lefties, and got them to at least tell the truth. Just as importantly, they all know the choice for president will be between Obama and either Romney or Gingrich, so what’s the point of habitually trying to put the president in a bad light? Do they really think putting Romney or Gingrich into the White House will make the country more progressive? Republicans have been winning most elections for 32 years now; how much longer are progressives willing to wait? Do you really imagine the Occupy movement will be able to convince either Gingrich or Romney to put moderates on the Supreme Court? And who do you think they’ll drag into Congress with them if we depress turnout enough for them to win again? Gosh, yes; what this country needs is more teabaggers.

Words matter. Rhetoric matters. And most of all, the TRUTH matters. And they all matter because the American people matter, and the people need progressives to take their turn at bat and run the show. We have to become smarter, politically. And that means taking everything a self-proclaimed “progressive” tells you with a grain of salt, and check the facts before drawing conclusions. Yes, folks, that includes me. No one is always right; always check facts. Believing everything the professional left says just makes you gullible, not smarter.

The professional left is not your friend.

On Skepticism

2012-01-23T21:16:50-05:00

You know why Fox News is so popular? This may seem strange, but it’s precisely because they don’t tell the truth. They tell people what they want to hear. Many people have preconceived notions about how things should be, and they like to feel validated, regardless of the lack of truth contained in their opinions. In other words, right wingers tend to be low-information types, and they care more about seeing their opinions being validated than telling the truth.

One thing you can count on from extremists; they don’t care about the truth much at all. And if you think only right wing extremists fall victim to the Fox News curse, then you need to pay better attention. Many on the professional left sell us misinformation in much the same way. If you fall for someone trying to flatter you into believing something they want you to believe, and you don't check the facts, that makes you just as gullible as those poor saps who depend on Fox News for all of their information.

Here are a few facts to chew on:

Jon Bon Jovi is still not dead.
Barack Obama was actually born in Hawaii.
The NDAA bill Obama eventually signed was greatly changed from the one he threatened to veto, and it was nothing compared to the GOP-led House verson. Also, the bill passed with a veto-proof majority.
Those with the most money don’t always win elections. In both primaries in 2008 and the GOP primary this year, the candidate with most money either is behind or lost.
Citizens United and other really bad laws can only be overturned if you put people in office willing to overturn it.
There is no evidence that the Department of Justice coordinated with Mayors to stop protesters.
President Obama led the passage of the most significant health insurance reform in history.
Democrats in Congress passed 375 bills that Republicans in the Senate blocked with the filibuster.
Democrats never actually had 60 votes in the Senate.
President Obama did kill the Keystone XL pipeline for now. He does not have the power to prevent it from moving forward in the future.

Except for the second one, all of the above are facts that other liberals have argued against over the last few weeks. I have proven almost all of them wrong on this blog, complete with citations. And yet, because many professional left keep repeating this crap, ad nauseum, many far lefties stick with them as if their BS was indeed true.

We cannot move the progressive movement forward unless we tell people the truth.

Two very important facts you need to understand;

Not all swing voters are “low information.”
“Too much information” is not always better than “low information.” (the tech term term GIGO comes to mind.)

Voter turnout has been way down for the past 32 years (which plays to the right wing’s election strategy quite well) precisely because voters are tired of being fed a diet of crap. They don’t watch Fox News, and they don’t immerse themselves in everything the “news channels” produce. That doesn’t make "news junkies" smarter or them “dumber.” They hate the right wing as much as we do, and while they’re looking for someone to vote for, they’re also looking for a reason to vote. Right wing Republicans are hoping to hell they won’t find that reason, and won’t show up at the polls; it’s a major Republican strategy. When they play to their “base,” they’re performing two tasks; they’re thrwing red meat to the far right Fox News enthusiasts, and they are also trying to discourage reasonable swing voters from showing up.

In 2008, they were being told by both right and left wings, “Obama’s a disappointment,” “Democrats are weak” and “Democrats suck.” Obama’s only a disappointment if your expectations aren’t reality-based, and the other two statements have been proven on this blog repeatedly, using actual facts in support.

The professional left often likes to push a narrative they know other “progressives” want to buy into, regardless of whether that narrative is borne of truth. Their motivation can be argued, but it doesn't matter. What makes it galling is that too many other progressives are all too willing to believe their crap and repeat it, which sets the progressive movement back, and gives the right wing even more hope. You may think what you Tweet, or post on Facebook, or publish in a comment on a blog doesn’t matter, but it does; it contributes to the overall meme, which plays right into the right wing’s hands.

How do we solve this problem?

It’s easy. It’s called skepticism.

Always be skeptical of everything you read, hear or see, even when it comes from someone other progressives tell you to trust. I’m not just talking about “facts” that seem a little smelly; I’m talking about everything. When someone tells you a bill is bad because of something they don’t like, read the bill yourself. Look at what others say about it, but evaluate it yourself. Consider all sides of an issue, and consider all possible consequences of any action taken by any poliitician.

Professional lefties love to frame things in stark black and white terms, because it makes things seem easy, but we skeptics understand that nothing is either all good or all bad. When someone tells you that an issue only has two sides, your BS detector should go off immediately, and you should investigate thoroughly. When someone tells you a politician like Obama is a "disappointment," don't just repeat it; look at his entire record and evaluate it for yourself. There are plenty of tools out there for doing so, including several on this blog and many others.

You also have to understand the difference between fact and opinion, and always value facts to a greater degree than opinion.

When evaluating any issue or any candidate, understand that most voters really don’t care about individual issues. They generally listen for the overall meme and look for someone they think is capable of handling the job. They understand current issues better than you think, because they live them, but they also understand that no one knows what issues will occur in the future, so an overall sense of competence is more important to swing voters than anything they say about most issues.

The above paragraph is an opinion. Hopefully, that was obvious.

In 2010, one solution to the logjam in Congress, in which Democrats passed 375 bills, many of them very progressive in nature, and Republicans in the Senate blocked them with a filibuster, was fewer Republicans.

The above paragraph is also an opinion, although it is supported pretty heavily by this very blog, right here. Though it is backed by fact, because it basically predicts the future, it can’t be anything but opinion.

Barack Obama is a Democrat, and the first African American President of the United States.

The above is a fact. That should be obvious, but with some of the things I read from progressives at times, I’m not 100% sure it is. Opinions can be backed by facts, but they are not actual fact. Beware of anyone who tries to claim his or her opinions are fact.

It is not a fact that NDAA will allow presidents to round up and detain citizens within the United States. It is not a fact that Citizens United will cause the rich to win every election. It is not a fact that President Obama has completely disregarded civil rights in his presidency, or that he refuses to close Guantanamo Bay prison. It is not a fact that Democrats and Republicans are two sides of the same corrupt coin. It is not a fact that the Occupy movement gets no media attention, or that the “mainstream media” largely ignores progressives. Unless they present you with a massive study to back them up, all of the above are opinions or perceptions, not facts.

The way to move the progressive movement forward is to stick to the truth. Moderate and centrist voters DO listen to us, and they do hear/read what we say. When we repeat something that isn’t true, some of them will check our facts, even if we don’t. If they find out what we say isn’t true, they won’t believe us when we do tell the truth. And worse, they’ll tell other people.

Do we really want the reputation for crap that Fox News enjoys outside of the far right?

Be skeptical of everything you see, hear or read. Don’t be gullible. Question everything that everyone says (yes, that includes me; I'm not always right). Having a lot of information at your fingertips doesn’t make you smarter. Making sure the information you pass on is as accurate as possible, and considering every possible angle of every issue makes you smarter. One problem I have with the current state of journalism is this preoccupation with being first with a story, rather than being the first to get the story right. If we're going to spread the progressive message far and wide, we have to be better than that. We have to be curious, inquisitive, and we have to make sure we’re right. The right wing spreads enough crap over the electorate; we have a duty to provide them with actual intellectual nourishment.

Be intelligent. Be skeptical.

The Main (But not the only) Reason to Vote Democratic; The Current GOP Sucks; Here's Proof

2012-01-20T11:55:00-05:00

You've heard this from me many times over the years, but both parties are NOT the same, and anyone who says such a thing is not an "expert," no matter how he/she portray themselves.

The 2012 election is a crucial one for progressives. This is our tipping point; if we don't make our mark now, we risk becoming a historical asterisk. We have allowed the right wing to pretty much run the show for the last 32 years, and it's time to take the country back. I'm not talking about marching and singing and playing political theater. I'm talking about opening our eyes and seeing the real problem with our politics and getting rid of it.

Whether you like it or not, the economy will always be the number one issue, regardless of the year. But the Republican Party still touts economic policies which were proven wrong many years ago, like supply-side economics, which is often called "trickle-down." Unless we're comparing the economy to molasses, a lot more should have "trickled down" to us by now, don't you think? It has been 32 years, after all.

And need I mention our tax policy? The Republican Party actually touts the virtues of low taxes, even as they scream and carry on about the budget deficit. Yet, they won't even agree to common-sense budget cuts, because, apparently, billionaires and millionaires are somehow hurting, financially, regardless of actual statistics, which show the opposite occurring.

This country has plenty of money. We're still the richest single country, by far. But under 32 years of neocon Republican guidance, our government can't pay its bills, because they operate under the theory that, if you starve the government of money, it can't spend any. They've even gone so far as to refuse to create jobs, which would create more taxpayers, and increase revenues without necessarily raising tax rates. In other words, they don't want to raise taxes on the rich, but they also won't create jobs and taxpayers. Yet, they whine about the deficit?

If that's not basic incompetence, what is?

Please check out These charts and enter reality; it will blow your mind. In 1980, Reagan and the right wing claimed the debt was growing out of control, despite the fact that it was actually at its lowest point as a percent of GDP since before the Great Depression. In the first 193 years of our democratic republic's existence, even with a number of wars, recessions and depressions, we only managed to accumulate $998 billion in debt, in total. But in 8 years, Reagan tripled the size of the debt, and in 4 more after that, Bush, Sr. doubled it again. In 12 years with neocon Republicans at the helm, more than $5 trillion in debt was added. Democrat Bill Clinton forced the Republicans in Congress to help him balance the budget, and they even created a surplus. When Clinton left in 2001, the federal government was scheduled to run surpluses for at least the next ten years, according to the CBO, and trim the then-$6 trillion to about $4.5 trillion in that time.

Unfortunately, the same Republicans who claim they helped Clinton balance the budget then helped Bush blow it up again. When Bush Junior was appointed president by the Supreme Court, he immediately enacted the least necessary tax cuts in the history of the republic, and appointed cronies and crooks to fail to oversee the financial system, resulting in immediate return to record deficit spending, even before the economic collapse he caused, by ignoring warnings given to him as early as 2003.

Even under the rosiest of perspectives for Republicans, they are responsible for at least 75% of the current national debt. Obama and the Democrats tried to kill the Bush tax cuts twice, and Republicans have blocked them, so it's unfair and inaccurate to blame them for much of the deficit at all. Look at what was handed to him when he took office, for starters. Even the current deficit can't be laid entirely at his doorstep. Last year alone, while the overall deficit was $1.2 trillion (40% lower than the deficit handed to him when he took office), more than $454 billion of that figure went to pay interest on the debt, with more than $420 billion of that going to interest on just portion of the debt that can be tied to Republican excesses. (HERE is that number) In all, out of $16 trillion in debt, more than $13 trillion of it can be laid at the feet of the party and the ideology currently whining about the deficit and refusing to do anything about it until the black guy is out of the White House. (But check their record; they won't do anything about it even then).

And let's make something clear; while $16 trillion is a lot of money, we are not BROKE, as the Republican leadership claims. A lot of the wealth that was claimed during the Bush years was phony -- there's no way home values should have ever been as high as they were, and a lot of securities shouldn't have existed in the first place, but in no way are we broke.

HERE are some numbers to look at. Total household wealth in the United States in 2001 was about $44.4 trillion. At the bubble's peak, that number went to about $66 trillion. I know it sounds contradictory to many, but a healthy economy does NOT grow wealth by 50% in a half dozen years. That means someone in charge had to know, or at least should have known, there was a problem, and they did nothing about it. At its lowest point during the recession, total household wealth bottomed out at $48.5 trillion. That doesn't constitute "broke." In fact, the number is still higher than in 2001, when we were apparently so UNbroke, Republicans were cutting taxes for the rich to the bone. By the end of 2009, household wealth was back up to $54 trillion, which would seem to indicate we were even LESS broke, not more.

Here's another perspective. As a percentage of GDP, the current debt is just about100%, although one major reason for that is that GDP shrunk a little for two years. That's not good, but it's not unprecedented. After World War II, the debt was 120% of GDP, and in 35 years, we reduced it to about 33% of GDP. We are capable of dealing with such debt, IF we use the money to invest in those things that create more revenue, like building infrastructure. We could borrow and spend another $2 trillion right now to build infrastructure programs, and the resultant tax revenue would actually increase GDP AND increase tax revenues AND reduce the debt, all without necessarily raising tax rates. If we spend money on the right things, we can actually pay that money back and start paying down the debt in a much shorter time than if we simply cut spending. Where do Republicans think government spending goes, anyway? They seem to think it disappears like magic, but it doesn't; it goes into pockets and bank accounts, and eventually gets invested and spent.

To put it mildly, Republicans are not to be trusted with the economy. Every major economic problem in this country for the last century can be traced to the GOP. When the economy tanks, their solution is to do nothing, which always makes the situation worse. They keep proposing the same economic policies they've pushed since the 1920s, which have been proven detrimental time and time again. They're always on about an "unregulated free market," which would be a recipe for disaster, if it wasn't pure fantasy. Unregulated free markets are what keep drug kingpins in business.

Why are we forced to listen to these people? Why are they allowed to have a forum that is at least equal to everyone else, and why doesn't anyone call them on their rhetoric? Journalists, do your job! The next time a Republican tells you that cutting taxes increases revenue, make him show you actual, hard proof of such a thing. Then, use the statistics in this post to prove that Republican is wrong.

The proof that the current Republican Party is incompetent is right in front of you, if you'd bother to look. They've been running certain states for years, and touting what a paradise those red states are. According to the narrative, red states are full of moral, peaceful and God-fearing people, while blue states are full of heathenous retches who kill babies and coddle terrorists.

You know, Democrats.

Ever bothered to look at the relative safety, security and economic stability of red states versus blue states? Compare red states with blue states, and you are left with a road map of right wing Republican incompetence.

You're welcome.

Note; in the statistics below, I left Washington, DC out of the mix on purpose. It's not a state, and the city is largely run by Congress. Plus, a large portion of its population for most of the day is transient, which tends to skew per capita figures to a very great degree.

I've provided links so you can check my work.

Let's start this with some basic economics.

Here's a list of the ten states with the highest median incomes: 1. New Hampshire, 2. Connecticut 3. Maryland 4. New Jersey 5. Alaska 6. Virginia 7. Hawaii 8. Massachusetts, 9. Colorado 10. Washington.

Notice something about the above? Except for Alaska, whose numbers are skewed because of their largely socialized economy, (yes, Caribou Barbie, I said your state is socialist), and the purplish Virginia and New Hampshire, ALL are bright BLUE.

Just as interesting are the BOTTOM ten states; 50. Mississippi 49. Arkansas 48 West Virginia, 47. Tennessee 46. Kentucky 45. Louisiana, 44. Alabama 43. Montana 42. South Carolina 41. North Carolina.

Notice something about that list? Yeah, Except for West Virginia, which can be a bit purple, all if the above states are reliably RED.

The above statistics have been pretty much static for the last 40 years; the groupings haven't changed much. And the poverty levels back that up.

The ten states with the highest populations living below the poverty line are: 1. Mississippi, 21.6%, 2. Louisiana, 19.4%, 3. New Mexico, 19.3%, 4. Arkansas, 17.9%, 5. West Virginia, 17.9%, 6. Kentucky, 17.4%, 7. Texas, 16.6%, 8. Alabama, 16.1%, 9. South Carolina, 15.7%, 10. Oklahoma, 15.3%. Yep, Republican-led states have far more poor than Democratic-led states.

Again, I ask; why are these people telling us how to put people to work and increase tax revenue, when they obviously can't do it themselves? Republicans are running the poorest states in the country, and they won't be satisfied until they've done the same thing for everyone else.

Let's go beyond economy. There's a lot more to the story. For example, they're always posturing themselves as being "tough on crime." But how tough are they?

The ten states with the highest violent crime rate are, according to the FBI's Uniform Crime Statistics for 2006 via the Census Bureau are 1. South Carolina, 2. Tennessee, 3. Nevada, 4. Florida, 5. Louisiana, 6. Alaska, 7. Delaware, 8. Maryland, 9. New Mexico, 10. Michigan.

Yes, you read that right. The states with the highest violent crime rate are mostly RED, not blue. And if we dig down to the top 15, the only blue states added are Illinois and California, which means ten of the 15 states with the highest violent crime rates in the country are reliably Republican. Also note that New York and New Jersey are NOT on that list, and that bastion of liberalism, Massachusetts, is actually near the bottom.

When you focus just on the murder rate, note that, of the 19 states with rates higher than the US average, 14 are RED states. The states with the highest murder rates in 2009 follow the same pattern; 1. Louisiana, 2. New Mexico, 3. Maryland, 4. Tennessee, 5. Alabama 6. Mississippi 7. Missouri 8. South Carolina 9. Michigan 10. Oklahoma. Eight of the ten states are reliably RED, folks.

And they love the gun in those red states, don't they? They will swear with their dying breath that the gun protects them. But check out the ten states with the highest firearm death rate ; 1. Alaska, 2. Louisiana, 3. Wyoming, 4. Arizona, 5. Nevada, 6. Mississippi, 7. New Mexico, 8. Arkansas, 9. Alabama, 10. Tennessee.

Just for giggles, check out the states with the LOWEST firearm death rate. I'm only pointing this out to make the people in the red states squirm. 50. Hawaii, 49. Massachusetts, 48. Connecticut, 47. New Jersey, 46. New York, 45. Rhode Island, 44 New Hampshire, 43. Minnesota, 42. Maine, 41. Iowa.

Besides the fact that most of them are BLUE states, they put a lie to the claim that states with the strictest gun laws have the most shooting deaths. That's simply not true. You have a far greater chance of being shot and killed in Caribou Barbie's Alaska than in New York or New Jersey. It's that cognitive dissonance, folks; they can't help themselves.

Perhaps their cognitive dissonance is because of their lack of education. I know you may find it hard to believe, but despite their efforts to force us to run schools their way, they don't have a very good track record. (I highlighted one you might appreciate.)

Let's start with the ten states with the highest graduation rates in 2008: %1. Vermont, 86.6% 2. Wisconsin, 85.6% 3. Minnesota, 85.3% 4. New Jersey, 85.2% 5. Iowa, 83.9% 6. South Dakota, 82.7% 7. North Dakota, 81.9 8. New Hampshire, 80.6 9. Pennsylvania, 79.5% 10. Nebraska, 79.5. Again, 7 out of 10 reliably blue. And Wisconsin, which its current Republican Governor is trying to claim is being ripped off by its teachers, has the second best rate.

But check out the bottom ten. (I'd say "just for fun," but it's really not funny; these are the people expected to take over the country later.) Again, you can almost guess who most of them are. 50. Nevada 49. South Carolina, 48. Louisiana, 47. Georgia, 46. Florida 45. New Mexico, 44. Mississippi 43. Alabama 42. Texas 41. Delaware.

Okay, so governments run by Republicans tend to be poorer, have more crime and less successful educational systems. That's okay, because they're more moral than those damn liberals, right?

Maybe not.

They claim to hold marriage so sacred that gays shouldn't be allowed to partake of it. But how "sanctified" do they hold marriage, really? The ten states with the highest divorce rates are as follows; 1. Nevada, 2. Arkansas, 3. Alaska, 4. Oklahoma, 5. Wyoming, 6. West Virginia, 7. Alabama, 8. Idaho, 9. Florida, 10. Tennessee.

In fairness, Nevada shouldn't be on the above list, because tacky people from all over the country get divorced there. But all of the others are reliably red, except West Virginia, which is a bit purplish at times.

What about teen pregnancy? Surely, if “abstinence-only” education is the key, their girls must be chaste and virtuous, right? Well, you tell me. Here are the ten states with the highest rates of teen pregnancy; 1. Nevada, 2. Arizona, 3. Mississippi, 4. New Mexico, 5. Texas, 6. Florida, 7. California, 8. Georgia, 9. North Carolina, 10. Arkansas. Once again, except for California, all of these states are pretty reliably red.

What about health care? It's hard to find a Republican lawmaker who doesn't want to kill "Obamacare." While it might seem logical that the states with the most uninsured would be most in favor of creating a national health insurance system, since when are Republicans logical?

By now, I'm sure you can almost guess which states have the HIGHEST number of uninsured citizens in 2006-2007, before health insurance reform. 50. Texas (24.8%) 49. New Mexico (22.7%) 48. Florida (20.7%) 47. Louisiana (20.2%) 46. Mississippi (19.8%) 45. Arizona (19.6%) 44. California (18.5%) 42 (T) Oklahoma and Nevada (18.4%) 41. Arkansas (17.5%).

Now, check out the states with the LOWEST proportion of uninsured:

1. Massachusetts (7.9%) 2. Hawaii (8.2%) 3. Wisconsin (8.5%) 4. Minnesota (8.8%) 5. Maine (9.1%) 6. Connecticut (9.4%) 7. Rhode Island (9.7%) 8. Pennsylvania (9.8%) 9. Iowa (9.9%) 10. Vermont (10.7%)

By the way, the two states with the smallest proportion of uninsured also have something akin to the health care plan being proposed by Congress. Coincidence? And in Massachusetts, the number of uninsured was intolerable to Mitt Romney, which is why he gladly signed Romneycare.

Yes, Willard, you did.

But the greatest sign of Republican incompetence has to do with their hubris in claiming "states' rights" and "economic independence. They're always on about "welfare," they whined about the "stimulus" passed in 2009, and they continue to cry about corporate bailouts, even though they passed most of them long before President Obama came along, and continue to protect them.

Well, the hypocrisy cup runneth over, folks.

Meet the state welfare queens. These are the states that get the most bang for every buck they pay in federal taxes. Next to each state is how much money they get back for every dollar in federal taxes they pay in; 1. New Mexico, $2.03 2. Mississippi, $2.02, 3. Alaska, $1.84, 4. Louisiana, $1.78, 5. West Virginia, $1.76, 6. North Dakota, $1.68, 7. Alabama, $1.66, 8. South Dakota, $1.53, 9. Kentucky, $1.51, 10. Virginia, $1.51.

First off, a case can be made that purple Virginia shouldn't even be there, because the far northern part is "DC Lite." But the same could be said of Maryland, and it's not on that list. Number 11 is Montana, anyway, which is pretty red, so it almost doesn't matter.

Now, based on Republican logic, the following states should be ones screaming the loudest about those blasted Red State welfare queens. These are the ten states who receive the LEAST federal money; 50. New Jersey, $0.61, 49. Nevada, $0.65, 48. Connecticut, $0.69, 47. New Hampshire, $0.71, 46. Minnesota, $0.72, 45. Illinois, $0.75, 44. Delaware, $0.77, 43. California, $0.78, 42. New York, $0.79, 41. Colorado, $0.81.

Yes, folks, you read that right; Democratic-Party-led states are largely subsidizing Republican-led states. If you live in a red state and you have low taxes, you should be THANKING the people of California, New York and New Jersey and other red states for being so kind. Next time a Republican complains about California's fiscal irresponsibility, show them these statistic and tell him to shut up.

Put simply, the current incarnation of the Republican Party consists of hypocrites. But more importantly, their political philosophy is KILLING the country. They have to be purged from the government, which we can't do if we're screaming that "both parties are the same," or some other such nonsense. If you care about this country and the 99%, you'll set as a priority getting rid of these incompetent people.

That has to be the main objective for progressives for 2012 and beyond; get rid of the right wing, and we can move the country forward. Without doing that, we really can't.

Pro Lefties Can't Give Obama Credit for ANYTHING. Case Study #1: FDL

2012-01-19T11:57:32-05:00

I’m really not all that worried about President Obama winning reelection. The GOP Klown Kar is doing all it can to help Obama win another four years. Seriously, if the best they can do is Willard Romney, progressives will have to screw this one up worse than we did in 2000.

Yes, progressives; it wasn’t the Katherine Harris or the Supreme Court that decided that election; Even running an admittedly lousy campaiogn the choice of Al Gore over George W. Bush should have been a no-brainer for progressives, including Ralph Nader, Michael Moore and the like. But alas, those savvy political thinkers on the professional left undermined Gore mercilessly, while leaving Bush untouched.

That was twelve years ago, and you’d think such savvy political thinkers might have learned a little something by now. After all, they’re supposed to be “professionals” right? And aren’t professionals supposed to be better than the rest of us amateurs at politics?

They haven’t learned much of anything.

One reason I’ve been taking on the professional left on this blog recently (and don’t worry, I will take on the right wing, too) is because too many progressives listen to these people and their caterwauling about what “a good progressive” should say and think. They wail about “DINOs” (Democrats in name only), despite the fact that the Democratic Party is a very proud, very diverse party, where all opinions are welcome in the mix. Hell, truth be told, many of them aren’t even registered with the Democratic Party, anyway.

I don’t use the term “DINO” (or anything similar) on this blog because, in my opinion, such a term should be used sparingly, perhaps to describe a right winger who registers as a Democrat just to vote in an open primary. And as a lifelong progressive, I would never presume to tell any other progressive what he or she should do, think or say in order to be a "good progressive." In fact, doing so is a sure sign of a non-progressive, because progressives are supposedly tolerant. Aren't they?

One thing many on the pro left don't understand is that the Democratic Party is a fully (small d) democratic institution, meaning the candidates who are chosen, the policy positions they take, and even how they govern, are all determined by the people inside the party who choose to participate. In short, if you want the Democratic Party to change, then you have to change it from within. Standing outside and demanding that a political party change in order to “get your vote” is a naïve notion, and one that is politically ineffective, if not outright absurd. If you haven’t figured that out after 32 years of neocon domination, then you must be “professional left.” Oh, wait; they don’t actually believe that nonsense; they’re playing to an audience. They’re saying what they think will appeal to you, and get you coming back for visit after visit.

I have nothing personal against any on the professional left. If you look closely at what I write about them, I never get personal. I deal with what they say, not who they are, or what they do. And what they say oftentimes is either untrue, or the truth is stretched beyond its natural limits. They make their livings as provocateurs, which is why they constantly trash President Obama, despite the fact that his record is more progressive than any president since FDR, although Jimmy Carter’s presidency was also very progressive. And provocation is NOT good politics. In fact, it’s the opposite of good politics. Good politics is about getting people to support you, and very few non-extremists support extremism and provocation.

Now, I know a lot of professional lefties are reading this and saying, “I don’t constantly trash Obama,” but in most cases, you really do. I’m not saying they’re lying, exactly; most of what they write is so overwhelmingly negative in nature, they probably don’t even realize it. But they do. Two great progressive things happened this week, so let’s look at how one of the most notorious professional left websites, Firedoglake, viewed them, shall we?

First, the Keystone XL pipeline was done away with. It’s effectively dead. The reliably unreliable Firedoglake covered the story, of course. At the beginning of the story, written by David Dayen, is a link, touting what it describes as the “official rejection” of the pipeline, and what it considers to be “interesting framing.” Unfortunately for the reader, the link Dayen provides is not to anything “official” at all; it links to a Mother Jones story on the rejection of the pipeline. Just for the record, here is the White House statement. (In all fairness, Dayen and FDL include the link as an afterthought on their piece. The White House statement is only two paragraphs long, and is very easy to read. I urge you to compare what the White House actually said to what David Dayen claims it said, and you’ll find a bit of disparity. But the galling thing about the Firedoglake piece is the throwaway at the end.

Here is what the professional journalists at Mother Jones wrote in their piece about the possibility of Trans-Canada reapplying:

In its statement on Wednesday, the State Department made clear that its denial of the permit application "does not preclude any subsequent permit application or applications for similar projects." So TransCanada can apply again, after it works out an alternative route through Nebraska.

It’s true. Trans-Canada can apply again. Which means the ultimate strategy to stop this pipeline is twofold; we have to make the issue so toxic in the public’s mindset that it can’t pass at all; and we have to make sure the government isn’t full of Republicans who really don’t care what the American people think about anything. That's our job as progressives; to spread the progressive message and to keep the bad guys out of government.

Yet, the Firedoglake version of this issue makes both of those tasks more difficult, not less:

A lot of this is blame-gaming, with Obama trying to blame Republicans for the arbitrary deadline before Republicans blame him for destroying jobs in the energy sector. But considering that TransCanada, under the terms of this rejection, can re-apply for a pipeline permit, the nature of this rejection does suggest that a future plan could get approval down the road, given the proper amount of time for environmental review and routing.

Whether TransCanada goes that route isn’t yet clear. I will say one thing in praise of the coalition that stopped this pipeline for now, however. Like SOPA and PIPA, most observers believed that this pipeline was a done deal not very long ago. The activists worked on this, and got the President to delay a review until after the election. At that point, Republicans wanted to make it a political issue – more than they wanted a pipeline – so they forced the 60-day timeline that led to today’s rejection. But the activists did play this well, forcing the confrontation that blew up the deal. So good for them.

It's obvious the professional lefties at Firedoglake literally cannot say anything without slapping the president in the process. It must be in their DNA. Obviously, they think it makes them look smarter than everyone else, which would again, be wrong. It is a fact that Trans-Canada can apply again in the future. Everything else in the above is an attempted slap at President Obama, and is completely fact-free. The pipeline was a “done deal” until protesters “forc(ed) the confrontation that blew up the deal”? No, it wasn’t.

The reason the GOP had to attach it to the payroll tax bill was because it was the opposite of a “done deal.” For Dayen and FDL to suggest otherwise is just silly. Was David Dayen not paying attention when Democrats and President Obama were roundly rejecting the pipeline and the Republicans were intent on pushing it as hard as they can through any means possible? How the hell do you think such a provision ends up in a bill to extend a payroll tax break? Here’s a news story from last month; perhaps his memory is faulty.

Before I get to the attempted swipe at Obama regarding SOPA and PIPA, note Dayen's use of the phrase “(M)ost observers believed…”. Seriously; for a guy who fancies himself a political "expert," the use of such a phrase is intellectually dishonest, if not an outright lie. He has no way of knowing what “most observers believe” about anything. It’s a rhetorical device akin to Fox News’ infamous “some people say,” but it’s even more insidious, because it can almost never be true, in a journalistic sense. I suppose, if you’re reporting on an execution, and you’ve gathered quotes from most observers in the viewing room, it could be true. But Dayen was talking about legislation. And given that Pelosi and Reid were extremely vocal in their opposition to the pipeline, as were quite a few non-Congressional Republicans, who were threatening a court fight if it was implemented, no “observer” with a brain in his head could possibly consider this pipeline a fait accompli. In fact, given that Obama still had a month to go before the deadline, it would seem “most observers” Mr. Dayen knows aren’t pating very close attention. In fact, in the same article, he contradicts that notion. If Republicans were trying to "trap" him into rejecting the pipeline, then obviously it couldn't have been a "done deal," could it?

When someone uses this phrase “some people say,” your bullshit detector should go off right away. But when someone – regardless of claimed ideology – says “(M)ost observers believed…” you should know the author is full of crap, because there is no way to know this.

Now, about SOPA and PIPA. Not only are neither of these bills even close to “done deals,” both are effectively dead. PIPA was dead in the water, because it would never get through the “kill anything Democrats pass” House. SOPA had a slightly better chance of passing, albeit in modified form, although the possibility of its passage has never been better than iffy. SOPA was unique, in that it had progressives and Tea Party Congresscritters on the same side against it. So, it’s absolutely untrue to claim anyone saw either bill as a “done deal.”

Dayen also implies that President Obama was prepared to approve SOPA and PIPA, until protesters forced his hand, and made him back off. I challenge Dayen to come up with a statement from the White House in support of SOPA or PIPA, before this week. And now, the Obama Administration is on record as being against the bills.

Yet, this is what FDL’s David Dayen has to say regarding the Obama Administration’s rejection of SOPA/PIPA:

In the end, it was not necessarily the White House’s opposition as much as the pressure on House Republicans that has all but doomed anti-piracy legislation for the year. Darrell Issa, who along with Ron Wyden has been out in front of the opposition to SOPA and PIPA, the respective bills on this issue, says that he secured a promise from House Majority Leader Eric Cantor that no bill will hit the House floor without “consensus.”

Obama can’t get any credit from these folks on anything he does. Yes, Darrell Issa has been out front against SOPA and PIPA, but that’s because his party is in the majority in the House. Obama’s promise to reject this legislation if it comes to him in anything close to its current form will either effectively kill both bills, or force Congress into a completely different approach, because there's no way they’ll get a veto-proof majority. I would also note that the president will probably take a fundraising hit for doing this, since Hollywood and the music industry were both in favor of these bills. So much for that complaint about the president, eh?

See, here’s the thing; if Darrell Issa and Republicans were key in killing SOPA and PIPA, why were both bills still alive? Why did they essentially not die before Obama rejected them?

I’m not an “Obamabot” because I instinctively like everything President Obama does, or because I belong to a cult. I support President Obama because he understands politics, and he does what he has to do to get things done. And he has gotten a lot done, regardless of what the naysayers think. That so many on the professional left seem to think they need to trash Obama and Democrats to have "credibility" is why our side keeps losing elections. Tell the truth, and we win. Period.

By the way, their constant negativity doesn't even work. Here is a basic analysis of their traffic. They might want to try another approach.

Last Word on NDAA: If You Don't Like it, Stop Helping Right Wingers Win!

2012-01-04T11:31:09-05:00

See, the problem with us progressives is, many of us think we know all about issues, but we don’t. We get so bogged down in pointless minutiae, we completely lose sight of the issues themselves. The funny thing is, some "progressives" PRIDE themselves for knowing about millions of small details on every issue, at the same time they lose sight of the big picture, and what politics is REALLY about.

Take the NDAA, for example. Oh, my, are some people on the left pissed off about this! It started with the professional left, but a lot of far lefties took up the mantle.

Oh, my goodness, folks! The entire republic is about to go up in flames because the president might actually be able to imprison some non-citizens indefinitely during a war! Gosh, when has that ever happened, right? And it’s ALL President Obama’s fault! That hopey changey bastard! How DARE he sign a bill that passed with a veto-proof majority in which 2 of its 565 pages were flawed?

The professional left has been referring to this repeatedly as the “Indefinite Detention Bill.” As I pointed out in a previous post, that’s a dumb name for it, politically speaking. For one thing, those looking for a bill by that name will never find it. The last thing we need, as we try to recruit people to support us (we are doing that, right?), is for them to think we’re making stuff up. But the NDAA also implements the START Treaty that we were so happy about when President Obama signed it. There is also a provision that strengthens whistleblower protections for DOD personnel and contractors. So, here's something to consider: if people who LIKE the more odious provisions of the NDAA called it the “START Treaty Implementation bill” or the “Whistleblower Protection bill, wouldn’t those monikers be just as accurate? More importantly, if President Obama had vetoed the NDAA, wouldn’t they be able to complain because he’d be cancelling those, as well?

We simply have to play politics better. Black and white are NOT the only colors in the rainbow, folks.

There is little to no logic to most of the complaints about this bill. I’m not saying there are no problems with it. Its vagueness does make those provisions troublesome; you’ll get no argument from me on that. The President agreed with this, and even said so in a signing statement he attached to the bill. But the NDAA doesn’t add anything to the law that wasn’t already there when he signed it. Should the AUMF be done away with altogether? Absolutely. But it was passed in 2001, not 2011, and we need an amenable Congress in order to change it, and we don’t have one, thanks to progressives. Democrats and President Obama worked hard to get a bill they could live with, given the makeup of the current Congress, and if you ask me, they got it. No actual change to the law is good, when you have a House dominated by teabaggers.

If you don’t want crappy law, stop letting far right Republicans win.

I can’t believe I keep having to say this to these self-professed “political junkies,” but without playing smart politics, and at least preventing the wrong people from being elected, “progress” will never happen. Two things you have to remember before you make any argument:

Congresspersons are elected democratically by a majority of people who choose to vote, and
Presidents don’t make laws; they execute the laws Congress has made.

In other words, the solution to the problem with the NDAA is right in front of everyone’s face. Get the cranks out of Congress. The solution in 2010 would have been to keep the House in Democratic hands, and make sure 3-4 more Republican Senators lost. Yet, a large group of "progressives" seems to have learned nothing from that debacle. Worse, they seem hell-bent on playing the blame game, somehow thinking that doing so makes them politically smarter than the rest of us. As a former manager, I’ve always found the “blame game” to be pointless. If all you do is run around looking for scapegoats, you never actually accomplish anything. And what makes it mnore pathetic is, they’re not even blaming the right people. Obama didn’t write this crap, and the Democrats in the Senate had to write a bill that was acceptable to both the president and the Republican-led House.

Have any of you complaining actually looked at the House bill? Perhaps you should. Here’s a link to the House version of the bill. Take a good look at this, and consider; this would have been PASSED if we had a Republican Senate and a President McCain looking to be reelected next year and still trying to secure “victory” in Iran (that is an ‘n’ not a ‘q’). He would have happily signed it, just as it is. There is too much lunacy to include even excerpts here, but start at page 567; the “Counterterrorism” section. After you read this monstrosity, and the signing statement, you should be getting down on your knees and thanking the stars above that we have a president with the political ability to get House teabagger Republicans to sign onto a bill with a provision that doesn’t actually change current law.

No, I'm not a "cultist" for Obama. I wish he didn't have to sign that law. I wish he had a Congress that didn't create such bills in the first place. See, here's the thing; if you keep blaming him and Democrats for everything, then you're going to end up with someone from the GOP Klown Kar in the White House, a Republican House and a Republican Senate. You can't possibly think you're going to get better laws. Ah, but there'll be more to protest, right? Gee whiz; even more fun and games. Screw those 30 million people due to get health insurance in the next year or two,, and we can say goodbye to all of the insurance reforms we've seen. Oh, and millionaires' taxes will probably go down even more, even as they cut back on educational assistance and assistance for the poor. Oh, and we can probably loook forward to war with Iran. But hey; you'll have lots more to protest; isn't that all that matters?

Progressives don’t have to agree on much. But one thing we have to agree on, because it’s a matter of fact, not opinion, is that the current incarnation of the Republican Party is bad for everyone. They are intent on taking down every progressive reform this country has ever made, and they have to go. If you’re screaming at President Obama because he’s not “progressive enough” for you, consider what he has to work with. And make no mistake; progressives gave him that Congress; he didn’t ask for it.

Elections have consequences, lefties. Because we failed to support Democrats last term, we have a Republican House. That means every single bill that gets to the president’s desk WILL have a right wing tinge; there’s no avoiding it. You don’t get to help a right wing Republican majority take over the House and expect zero consequences.

If you really care about those people you claim to care about more than yourself, then you'll start trashing right wing Republicans MORE than you trash Obama and the Democrats, because that is how you get better government.

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

2011-12-20T11:56:34-05:00

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.

But you know what? Politifact has outdone that little error. They have determined that the Lie of the Year 2011 is that “Republicans voted to end Medicare.” Not just a lie, mind you, but the BIGGEST LIE OF THE YEAR. In a year that featured claims such as “The Iraq War was a success,” “Cutting taxes on millionaires will mean more jobs,” and “The United States is so broke, it could default on its debt,” they chose THAT as the “Lie of the Year”? Really? With a Republican presidential field full of lies and “pants on fires,” that was the biggest lie they could think of?

What makes it worse is, it’s not even a lie. It’s absolutely true; the Republicans in Congress voted overwhelmingly to dismantle Medicare as it exists now and replace it with a privatized voucher system that they would call Medicare.

Anyone wanna buy my mansion?

You know how picky I can be. There really is no “Indefinite Detention Bill” in Congress, and no amount of intellectually dishonest gymnastics can create one. But Medicare has always been a public system, in which doctors submit bills to the program, and they get paid. Under the Paul Ryan plan, seniors would receive vouchers for private insurance, and the public system would have been dismantled. Sorry, but since that changes what Medicare was always conceived to be, saying that the Republican plan doesn’t dismantle it simply doesn’t pass the smell test.

They jumped through a number of hoops to draw the conclusion that we Democrats and liberals were lying. Check out this faulty “logic:”

But more often, Democrats and liberals overreached:

• They ignored the fact that the Ryan plan would not affect people currently in Medicare -- or even the people 55 to 65 who would join the program in the next 10 years.

• They used harsh terms such as "end" and "kill" when the program would still exist, although in a privatized system.

• They used pictures and video of elderly people who clearly were too old to be affected by the Ryan plan. The DCCC video that aired four days after the vote featured an elderly man who had to take a job as a stripper to pay his medical bills.

"Both parties use entitlements as political weapons," Ryan said in an interview with PolitiFact. "Republicans do it to Democrats; Democrats do it to Republicans. So I knew that this would be a political weapon that the other side would use against us."

Basically, because no one under 55 would be affected, it’s not a lie? I’m 53. I’ve been working and paying Medicare taxes for 37 years. I’ve been paying those taxes with the promise that, when I turn 65, my health insurance will be taken care of. Now, I’m essentially being told by Politifact to stop my whining; that it doesn’t really change anything.

Well, my father just died a couple of weeks ago, and among the paperwork I’ve been looking through have been his medical bills, and I figured out that Medicare paid more than $27,000 of his medical bills in the last year of his life, and another $4,000 was paid by his Part B insurance (for which he was paying $227 a month), with him having to pay about $1,000 out of pocket. Under the Ryan plan, my father would have gotten a voucher for private insurance that would have covered about $20,000 of that amount, and he would have to pay about double for supplemental insurance to cover the other $7,000 PLUS the $4,000 they cover now. Proportionally speaking, my father would be looking at covering three times as much of his own health care expenses. And my father was relatively healthy for a 76 year old man; imagine if he had cancer or some other chronic illness? What if he needed physical therapy?

Plus, participation in Medicare would be voluntary. That means, those folks who are having trouble making ends meet could forego paying for Medicare altogether, and we’d end up with a huge pool of seniors without health insurance. Politifact might quibble with the photos of current seniors who won’t be affected by the plan, but as someone who is 53, I am well aware that I am not that far from that age, and I’m being told MY insurance won’t cover shit, even though I’ve been paying into the system for 37 years.

It’s not a lie at all to say that Republicans didn’t vote to kill Medicare. What Ryan proposed was NOT Medicare.

Medicare is NOT a privatized system. Medicare is us paying for our parents’ health care now, and receiving a promise that the next generation will take care of us in return. Under the Ryan plan, there will be a HUGE pool of seniors who will have ZERO health insurance upon retirement. Plus, those of us on that bubble, who have been paying for private insurance for years and looking forward to the day when we could tell private insurers to piss off, will find ourselves paying MORE for insurance in our retirement than we were paying during our working years (MOST companies pay at least 75-80% of our premiums for us, Ryan’s “kill Medicare” plan would pay 61%). Not only that, but Ryan’s plan would also kill the parts of the Affordable Care Act that allowed 30 million more people to be covered, which would return us to the hyperinflation in health care that we’ve seen the past 30 years.

Essentially, Politifact is claiming that Medicare without the benefits we were always promised is still Medicare, simply because Ryan calls it Medicare. I’d like to point the Politifact authors to my father’s former “mansion,” which is for sale, including an acre of land in the middle of
the desert. I was going to charge $36,000 for it, but Politifact has inspired me to just call it a mansion and demand $360,000, since I can apparently call anything a mansion, and it magically becomes one. Here’s a pic; anyone who wants to buy this mansion for $360,000, feel free to send me an email. Although, I will take $36,000, or the best offer.

Mansion, anyone?

The Ryan plan would have killed Medicare, it would have killed the concept of Medicare, and Politifact should be ashamed of themselves for not only saying otherwise, but for dubbing it “Lie of the Year.”

The TRUTH Will Set Progressives Free!

2011-12-19T13:29:13-05:00

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.

Our side must always keep in mind that the number one Republican strategy is to depress turnout at the polls. They’re a small minority of the population, and it’s the only way they can win. In other words, there are actually TWO purposes for their rhetoric; one is to excite their extremist base with red meat. But the other is just as important; they want to make the people in the political middle, including swing voters who ACTUALLY decide elections, not want to vote. Their “base” makes up about a quarter of the population and this is a democracy; do the math.

When progressives try to mimic the Fox News crowd, it has the same effect; it depresses turnout among moderates and swing voters. That's why we lose.Think about it; if the GOP’s main strategy is to depress turnout, and our rhetoric depresses turnout, how are we not helping them in their effort?

This isn’t just conjecture. When you look at voter turnout figures (Go here, here and here), you see a steady downward spiral since the end of World War II. Look at the presidential election years; when turnout was around 60%+ every election, we got people like FDR, Truman, Ike and Kennedy. Since 1980, the ONLY time we even came close to 60%, in 2008, we got the first Democrat to win a clear majority for president since LBJ in 1964. (Clinton won twice, but never got more than 50% of the vote.) In the 1950s and 1960s, the off-year elections featured 45-50% turnout, and we had a moderate/progressive majority (usually Democrats), and the nutbars who occupied the Dixiecrat and Taft wings of the two major parties had minimal influence in Congress.

That’s not coincidence, folks.

When we’re positive and honest, we win. When we’re negative and dishonest, we lose. It’s really that simple. In 2008, we rallied the troops behind Barack Obama and he won in a walk. Immediately after his election, our side went right back into whine mode, and we lost in historical fashion in 2010. Again, NOT coincidence.

If we truly want a progressive country, we’re going to have to convince a majority of voters that progressive values are a winner. We can’t do that by lying. In fact, the lying is killing us. Pretend you're an average voter -- the kind we need on our side to build a progressive country -- neither right or left wing, and you're trying to decide whether or not to vote at all. You already think the right wingers are a bunch of lying loons.

When a self-described "liberal/progressive," especially one most average Americans actually trust, claims the Department of Homeland Security is behind the raids on Occupy camps, and that turns out to be false, why would that not cause us to lose credibility?
If our loudest voices are going to claim, on the one hand that we represent 99% of all Americans and then turn around and complain that a major labor union is attempting to “co-opt the movement,” why would you NOT turn away from progressives as a bunch of dishonest jerks?
If self-described “investigative journalists” are proclaiming that Obama’s “caving” to the far right on everything, and you later read that the far right is upset because they didn’t get anything they wanted, who would YOU trust?
When a liberal “investigative journalist” demands that Obama veto a bill, and you look it up and find out that such a bill doesn’t actually exist, what would your opinion be of progressives’ credibility? For that matter, what do you imagine happens to our ability to reach them later? Even if they find the section of the actual bill to which that liberal “investigative journalist” refers, what do you think happens to our credibility when they figure out that what we’re whining about is actually less than 2 pages of a 902-page bill that also contains several other provisions, such as increased whistleblower protection, that aren’t so bad? Do you really think confusing such people will make us MORE popular?

Republicans lie because they have to. Their “base” is made up of millions of gullible miscreants who live for red meat and attacks on “liberals.” They also know the lies upset people and turn them away from the Democratic process and stay home on Election Day, which makes it more likely they’ll win.

When you defend the lies these folks tell, you're also giving Fox News more credility. The NDAA, for example, has a provision that provides for greater whistleblower protection. What if everyone at FNC adopted the talking point that the liberals are trying to kill "The Whistleblower Protection Bill"? Would you complain? I would, because it would be a lie. Calling the NDAA the "Indefinite Detention Bill" is dishonest propaganda. And when a professional lefties lie or exaggerate to make a point, they're doing exactly what Fox does as a matter of course.

You can’t celebrate progressive politics and also celebrate those who feel they have to lie to support their point of view. Those views are incompatible.

I am a progressive. A full-on, died-in-the-wool proud LIBERAL. But more important than liberalism is truth. Without it, we get tyranny. If you doubt that, look at the last 32 years. Lies get us tyranny; the truth will set us free.

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

2011-12-16T15:00:19-05:00

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?

Obama doesn't have a line-item veto, so he can’t veto the “Indefinite Detention Bill” without vetoing the entire NDAA. Now, you may think that would be a good thing, but would it? It’s not just about the troops. What about all of those civilians who might lose their jobs for at least a month or two, while Obama and Congress, including teabaggers, who have declared defeating Obama as their main goal, worked out a new NDAA without that little amendment, assuming they could do so? What do you think canceling all those defense contracts for a month or two would do to the unemployment rate? How about six months? What would happen to all of those small towns that depend on the military bases and contractors to support their small businesses? Do you imagine the GOP might be a bit energized after the unemployment rate suddenly rises to 10% and it's all blamed on the Obama veto?

Those of you who claim “principle” when you discuss this need to stop. Many pros and emos claim Obama’s showing a “lack of principle” by signing this “Indefinite Detention Bill.” Forget the fact that you lack principle if you're lying to the public about a bill that doesn't exist. You’re actually advocating for an action that could put millions of people out of work for a few months, and forcing our troops to lose their meager pay for a few months for… what, exactly? What are your “principles” when you advocate for that, in order to kill an amendment that will probably ultimately have zero effect on anyone, and might even die in the courts?

I don’t like this amendment any more than you do. But you know what? If he vetoes this bill to kill that amendment, and then causes the Republicans to win in 2012, they’re just going to pass the same bill, and allow President Gingrich/Romney/Perry to detain people at will, anyway, right?

See, this is how politics works, pro and emo lefties; elections have consequences. When our side trashed Obama and the Democrats mercilessly in 2009-10, we helped right wing Republicans win. Hell; after the 2010 election, pro and emo "progressives" were CROWING about having defeated “Blue Dog” Democrats, thus giving teabaggers most of those seats, giving the Speaker’s chair to a Boner, and handing committee chairs over to right wingers, who replaced the progressives that had been chairing those committees. Look, folks; when you help right wingers get elected, you don’t get to act shocked and sadden when they do exactly what they promised to do.

It’s not Obama’s fault he doesn’t have a line-item veto. The only way to veto this thing is to kill the entire bill. With Congress recessing today for about a month, that means the entire DOD and its contractors could go unfunded until late January or early February, if a deal could be worked out. That means a lot of contractors would have to fold up shop in the meantime. It could put some out of business altogether, but it could also mean millions out of work for at least a month or two. What about military people and contractors who are facing foreclosure; what would this do to them? It’s possible Congress might pass an emergency appropriation to cover this problem, but given the influence of the teabaggers, who in their right mind would count on something like that? In one year, they’ve damn near pushed through four government shutdowns.

If you think you're adhering to "principle" by demanding Obama veto this thing, I'm afraid you don't understand the concept of "principle" very well. Each individual "principle" doesn't work in a vacuum; they all work together. This reminds me of those idiots who wanted to kill the entire health care bill because it didn't include a "public option." To deny 30 million people health insurance, and force those with insurance to continue to endure the restrictions on coverage, just because you didn't get what you wanted is not "principled." It's the opposite.

The “Indefinite Detention Bill” will only potentially have a negative effect if a Republican wins in 2012, in any case. Obama probably won't use it, except maybe to trigger a court challenge, which this amendment will probably fail, anyway. The Hamdan case alone would seem to indicate the president cannot have such power over US citizens, at least.

Here’s the language in section 1021 that has the pro lefties up in arms. It’s in the Conference Report (not the current version of the bill, btw). Follow along, please. Oddly (?), most pro left cite (1), but leave out (2)-(4). I know, that just seems so odd, doesn’t it?

(c) DISPOSITION UNDER LAW OF WAR.—The disposition of a person under the law of war as described in subsection (a) may include the following:

(1) Detention under the law of war without trial until the end of the hostilities authorized by the Authorization for Use of Military Force.

(2) Trial under chapter 47A of title 10, United States Code (as amended by the Military Commissions Act of 2009 (title XVIII of Public Law 111– 84)).

(3) Transfer for trial by an alternative court or competent tribunal having lawful jurisdiction.

(4) Transfer to the custody or control of the person’s country of origin, any other foreign country, or any other foreign entity.

Yes, I do admit section c) looks troubling, especially if you look at it all by itself. But as long as we have Obama (or Biden) in office, we have time to get rid of it, especially if we give them a Democratic Congress. But I would also note that the pro lefties also leave out sections b) d) and e). When you read them you’ll know why.

(b) COVERED PERSONS.—A covered person under this section is any person as follows:

(1) A person who planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored those responsible for those attacks.

(2) A person who was a part of or substantially supported al-Qaeda, the Taliban, or associated forces that are engaged in hostilities against the United States or its coalition partners, including any person who has committed a belligerent act or has directly supported such hostilities in aid of such enemy forces.

(...)

(d) CONSTRUCTION.—Nothing in this section is intended to limit or expand the authority of the President or the scope of the Authorization for Use of Military Force.

(e) AUTHORITIES.—Nothing in this section shall be construed to affect existing law or authorities relating to the detention of United States citizens, lawful resident aliens of the United States, or any other persons who are captured or arrested in the United States.

Oops.

Yes, you read that right. The so-called – the “Indefinite Detention Bill” that some lefties are trying to convince you will give the president the power to round us all up and detain us forever without a trial, not only doesn’t exist on its own, but the language is somewhat limiting, and specifically excludes US citizens or people who are in the United States legally. Section b) 2) does bother me, but I don’t think it’ll survive a court challenge because it’s too broad. What the hell is a “belligerent act,” for example? I once called a US Senator an asshole to his face; that was kind of belligerent.

I will note, for the record, that the provision does fly in the face of the 14th Amendment, and I don't like it. But I don't see anything in it that isn't reversible, and certainly nothing that's worth putting hundreds of thousands of people out of work for, just as we're recovering from the worst recession in 80 years.

AND I BLAME CONGRESS FOR THIS, NOT OBAMA. They put it there, not him. In fact, if Democrats were still in charge, this entire discussion probably wouldn't be happening. Blaming this on Obama is kind of like blaming the company who put the olives in the jar because you didn't chew your olive responsibly. Just saying.

In order to kill the above provisions, Obama has to kill the entire bill. That would be a politically stupid thing to do, and anyone with any common sense would understand that. The best way to handle this is to keep this provision in mind, give Obama a second term, and give him a Congress that will pass a repeal that he can sign. There you go; problem solved.

I’ll end this with a short critique of our “friend” Glenn Greenwald’s Salon post entitled “Three myths about the detention bill.” In it, he lies like a rug. Here are the most blatant lies:

Lie #1. There is no such thing as an “Indefinite Detention Bill”. To imply there is means you’re also implying that Obama can veto such a thing without killing the entire NDAA. He can't.

Lie #2. Obama did not announce his intention to sign the “Indefinite Detention Bill” and for Greenwald to claim it’s “embedded” in the 2012 NDAA is an obfuscation, if not an outright falsehood, because it implies a possibility for him to veto just that “bill.”

Lie #3. “Until the end of the hostilities” does not necessarily mean “indefinite detention.” It’s entirely possible, even likely, that Obama will declare an end to al Qaeda within the next year, and he has already all but declared an end to hostilities against the Taliban. In fact, if we oversee an election of Democrats in 2012, and they declare both “wars” at an end, guess what happens?

(Note; that does not mean I want this part of the bill to survive. I want to see it repealed, which will happen if assholes like Greenwald start going after the perpetrators of this nonsense, and stop attacking Obama and Democrats incessantly. I’m just saying, there are other ways around it, and to declare such a thing as essentially “true” is a lie.)

Lie #4. As you can see when you read both d) and e) in section 1021 above, the “bill” does NOT expand the scope of the AUMF, and explicitly does NOT expand it.

Lie #5. The “bill” DOES explicitly exempt US citizens from its provisions. Strangely, Greenwald cites Section 1022 as proving his point. Here’s the language:

(b) APPLICABILITY TO UNITED STATES CITIZENS AND LAWFUL RESIDENT ALIENS.—

(1) UNITED STATES CITIZENS.—The requirement to detain a person in military custody under this section does not extend to citizens of the United States.

(2) LAWFUL RESIDENT ALIENS.—The requirement to detain a person in military custody under this section does not extend to a lawful resident alien of the United States on the basis of conduct taking place within the United States, except to the extent permitted by the Constitution of the United States.

Strangely, Greenwald highlights certain sections of this in his article, and then inexplicably says the following (bold in original):

The only provision from which U.S. citizens are exempted here is the“requirement” of military detention. For foreign nationals accused of being members of Al Qaeda, military detention is mandatory; for U.S. citizens, it is optional. This section does not exempt U.S citizens from the presidential power of military detention: only from the requirement of military detention.

Except for one problem; Section 1021, which explicitly forbids detention of US citizens and resident aliens. He’s counting on us all reading each separate section as if it operates on its own, which is not the case.

Look, folks, I don’t like this section of the bill much more than Greenwald does. On its face, without lying, it’s odious, especially if Obama is replaced by anyone in the current Republican field. The problem is, the bullshit braying by professional lefties like Glenn Greenwald actually helps make the possibility of a Republican president and a Republican Senate greater, not less likely. If you really want crap like this amendment repealed, you’ll need a Democratic House and Senate and a Democratic president. You’ll also need a Supreme Court appointed and approved by Democrats, because an entire court full of Scalia/Thomas/Alito clones will happily give a Republican president this power.

The only thing I ask of any actual progressive is that they tell the truth, and place the blame where it belongs.

Obama didn’t place this odious amendment into the bill; Republicans did. Even if they didn't place the exact language into the bill, they created the impetus for including crap like this in an irrelevant bill in the first place. Go after them!

Stop lying, and go after those who are actually responsible. For a change.

Another Example of Professional Lefties Blowing Off Facts

2011-12-06T13:50:08-05:00

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.

Look, folks, I’m not crazy about big banks myself, but it's for the same reason no corporation should be allowed to become dominant in any market segment. I actually think Wal-Mart is worse for our economy than Bank of America. While it's true that, if Bank of America fails, the hit to the economy would be worse because they're responsible for more of our cash. But when it comes to day-to-day operation, Wal-Mart’s policies have been far more destructive to the economy over the years than Bank of America’s.

I know this will make the heads of a few pro lefties explode, but big banks were NOT the cause of the Great Recession. They weren't the disease so much as a symptom. They did contribute to it, but they were not the cause. The cause was the repeal of Glass-Steagall and the negligence of the Republican Congress to honor its mandate to “regulate commerce,” as outlined in the Constitution. A mortgage securities market that had once been purposely limited to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and heavily regulated to keep it solvent was opened up by Congress and pretty much completely deregulated. At the same time, a number of very questionable financial instruments were allowed to be created, despite the fact that no one even understood what the hell they were.

Basically, what Congress created and then neglected was an industry in which pretty much anyone could be a “mortgage broker,” and offer up mortgages through a number of “creative financing” schemes, through which people who were paying $700 a month rent could suddenly own a nice, new home for $500 a month. “Brokers” were doing anything they could to get these loans through, including faking paperwork. Banks should have been more diligent in approving the mortgages, but they didn’t have to be, because they didn’t have to deal with the mortgages for long, thanks to the mortgage aftermarket that had built up, thanks to Congress’ and the Bush Administration’s negligence.

ALL banks were approving mortgages they probably shouldn’t have, not just the big ones. ALL banks were dumping their mortgages into the aftermarket, then turning around and investing in the mortgage securities and the derivatives that shouldn’t have even existed, if Congress and the Bush Administration had been doing their Constitutionally mandated jobs. Not just big banks, but ALL banks were doing this. Hundreds of smaller banks went under, because they were doing exactly the same damn thing those wretched "big banks" were. Fannie and Freddie were forced into problems, because the pressure to compete was so strong, even they started to invest in this crap.

If you’re a lefty, and you have an obsession with the "big banks," and try to blame everything bad on them, you’re kind of missing the point. The reason our economy is in bad shape is because of 32 years of neocon economic policies. Corporations are naturally greedy; that’s their job, actually; they’re supposed to use whatever they can to maximize profits. That’s where the government comes in; it’s the government’s job to keep them honest.

The root cause of the economic crisis was large corporations doing what they’re supposed to do, and the government (run by Republicans at the time) not doing their constitutionally mandated job at all. It wasn’t "big banks," it was all banks. But while the banks were negligent, it was small brokers and speculators who really screwed the system. And the problems banks had weren't because they were banks, but because they were corporations with a shareholder mandate to maximize profits.

We do have other problems with our financial system, including a number of problems that have little to nothing to do with banks, big or small. One of the biggest, in my view, is the predatory short-term loan industry. These are often called “payday loans,” although some folks may put up their car’s title or even a deed to their home to get these loans. These places usually pop up in neighborhoods and areas with many poor or working class folks who have limited access to legitimate banks.

These companies are predatory, they are largely unregulated, and they cause huge financial problems for families. They do fill a financial need, unfortunately, because some people need a little short-term cash to meet expenses, and banks are actually unable to make such risky loans. But they should be regulated, to make sure their lending practices are fair.

The short-term loan problem has nothing to do with the "big banks." So, imagine my surprise when a link to the following article appeared in my Twitter feed this morning, from ThinkProgress. The general sloppiness of this article surprised me, because it’s relatively atypical for them.

How Big Banks Finance Billions In Predatory Payday Lending

Let's start with the implication of that headline. It's crap, first of all. It's meaningless, but it's also not factual. They don't necessarily finance the lending, anymore than it could be said the loan given to your auto mechanic financed your car repairs. Such a concept is simple-minded on its face, and it's worthy of a Fox News anchor than a reputable progressive "news source."

(By the way, as I was researching this column, I found this same article in roughly the same form other places, so it's not even particularly original.)

This article is a prime example of how we need to stop engaging in Fox News-style BS on the issues and stick to facts and the truth. Just as importantly, we have to get a handle on a little thing called “perspective.” Here are the “shocking stats” posed by the article that supposedly proves their assumption. I’m going to comment on each of these:

(A)ccording to Credit Slips’ Nathalie Martin, a professor at the University of New Mexico, the nation’s biggest banks are, in a big way, financing this predatory lending:

– Major banks provide over $1.5 Billion in credit available to fund major payday lending companies.

– The major banks funding payday lending include Wells Fargo, Bank of America, US Bank, JP Morgan Bank, and National City (PNC Financial Services Group).

One reason we have a hard time communicating with the average voter, and why the average voter can't relate to us is because we use imprecise terms, and assume they know what we're talking about.

What are “the major banks”?

And is there evidence that no payday lenders get credit from “minor banks”? In order for this statement to have significance, the author would have to prove two things; that, somehow, providing credit to these folks was somehow against the law, and that only “major banks” were doing it. I would also point out that many payday loan companies are owned by minorities and immigrants; can anyone else besides me imagine a huge uproar if they started denying loans to these folks? I would also point out that $1.5 billion isn’t much credit for an industry that lent more than $45 billion last year. But if it was used for start-up costs, to pay for employees (yes, these companies do provide jobs), buildings, phones, computers and other overhead, they're not really lending that money, so the implication is meaningless.

– All together, the major banks directly finance the loans and operations of (at minimum) 38% of the entire payday lending industry, based on store locations.

There it is again; what is "the major banks," exactly?

By the way, it almost doesn't matter, because this is an outright falsehood. Banks are subject to very strict controls regarding how they use their money, and it would actually be illegal for them to finance the loans “directly.” And again I ask; how is it illegal for a bank to loan money to a legitimate business operation? You may not like payday loan operations, but they are currently legal.

– The major banks indirectly fund approximately 450,000 payday loans per year totaling $16.4 Billion in short-term payday loans.

Here is another outright falsehood. There is no such thing as “indirect funding” of payday loans, and the citation of such ridiculous statistics should never be accepted by anyone without a citation. Unless payday lenders are funding the payday loans in cash from a mattress they keep in their offices, I would assume that all of their money touches a bank at some time or another. In fact, most payday loans are deposited directly into the receiver’s bank account from a lender's bank account, so technically, all loans come through two banks. But attributing a specific number to “major banks” is misleading, and impossible to determine, since individual financial transactions are still private.

But the statement above is bullshit on its face anyway, as anyone with a calculator should know. Do yourself a favor and divide $16.4 billion by 450,000 payday loans. Are we to believe that the banks are lending an average of $36,444 per loan?

Hey lefties; if you're going to repeat statistics you heard from someone, do a bit of a sniff test, and see if they're ripe.

– Wells Fargo is a major financier of payday lending and is involved with financing companies that operate one third (32%) of the entire payday lending industry, based on store locations.

– All of these above mentioned banks received TARP bailout funds in 2008-09 and have benefited from accessing capital at exceptionally low interest rates from the Federal Reserve.

I hate this kind of sophistry when it comes from the right wing. It makes me livid when it comes from our side of the aisle. What does any of the above mean, anyway? The implications are all over the place, they’re imprecise, and frankly, they smack of innuendo. There isn’t one actual fact in any of the above, except the generalized statement that the banks they mentioned probably received TARP funds. And it’s possible Wells Fargo is the preferred bank of people who set up these shops. But again; it’s a legitimate business, whether we like it or not. It should be more heavily regulated than it is, but as of right now, if you have $50,000 you’d like to lend to high-risk borrowers and make 400% or more on the money, there’s nothing stopping you. And if you have the credit score that would allow you to borrow a $100,000 from a “major bank” and open such a shop, the bank certainly has no right to stop you.

Facts have a liberal bias, people. There are all sorts of things to hate about big banks and payday lenders. there is absolutely no need to make shit up about either, and it actually hurts the cause to conflate the two into one problem. They're not.

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

2011-12-05T15:35:28-05:00

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.

Has our definition of “good businessperson” become so perverted that we think anyone who claims to have made a profit qualifies? Doesn’t that make your average meth dealer a “good businessperson”? What about the kid who sells marijuana and pills to the other guys at the frat? For that matter, using the neocons' basic definition, any snake oil salesman is a "good businessperson", which would go a long way to explaining why they thought selling unbacked mortgage securities was a good idea.

When most sane people think of "good businesspeople," we generally think of people who started a new business from scratch and through blood, sweat and tears built that business into a winner, year in, year out. Anyone can sell a few widgets and make a few bucks in the short term. Good businesspeople make widgets an indispensible part of people’s lives, and make theirs the widgets people must have, above all others.

Did Herman Cain turn around Godfather’s Pizza? It depends on who you ask. Even if you accept that he did, he did so in a way that largely makes him a good bookkeeper, not a "good businessman." He fits the Republican ideal of “good businessman,” though, which is a hell of an indication as to why our economy isn’t doing as well as it once was.

Pillsbury acquired Godfather’s almost by accident. It purchased a company called Diversified Foods to get about 300 Burger King franchises, and got 800 Godfather’s Pizza stores that came along with it. At the time, the pizza chain was known for terrible pizza, terrible service, and largely a terrible place to work. Pillsbury assigned Cain to run the place, to see if perhaps he could “turn it around” and make it somewhat profitable.

There are two ways to turn around a struggling business. The easy way is to take what you have, trim the “fat,” and figure out a cheaper way to do the same thing the company's been doing all along. The other way is to do things completely differently, and to do things BETTER than everyone else does it.

Cain chose the easy way. As you can see from this well-sourced blog post from Jay Raskin, I’m not sure by what measure anyone could consider Godfather’s a success. During his time there, the number of stores dropped by more than 200, and sales figures show little or no real movement. In fact, two and a half years after he took over the company, Pillsbury sold Cain and a management group the company, citing underperformance. From 1986 to 2002, when Cain finally stepped down from their management board, Godfather’s sales went from $275 million to $287 million. Though in 1987, he boldly predicted 1000 stores by 1990, the total number of stores when he left was 540. And Cain refuses to cite profit figures, which is strange, given the massive success he is now claiming as a legacy. While Godfather’s was the fourth largest pizza chain in the country when he took over, it was eleventh when he left. Moreover, the number of employees dropped by nearly 10,000 in that time, and he depressed wages during that time, and slashed employee benefits. He even took time off to lead a fight against Clinton's health care plan, because he would have actually had to do the right thing.

Why is someone who basically creates an inferior product, creates more unemployment, and who is so concerned with his costs that he fights minimum wage increases and the Clinton health care plan considered a “good businessman”? And if that’s become the model for “good business” in the United States, is it any wonder we’ve gone from being the richest creditor nation in the world to being a biggest debtor nation in the space of about 30 years?

A truly “good” businessperson would have made a BETTER pizza, not a cheaper one. Every community is chock full of little pizza shops; the most effective way to compete is to do it better than the other guy. In the neighborhood I grew up in, there are no fewer than seven pizza shops within a four-block area. The one that does the most business doesn’t deliver; it simply makes the best pizza and subs anywhere. Anytime I go back to the area, I head straight for that place.

A good businessperson would create a great place to work and keep working. To make a quality product requires a high level of skill, even with something as seemingly simple as making pizza. And a high level of skill requires good employees who love their job and gain something from it. The pizza joint I mention above has at least 10-15 employees who have been with them 15 years or more. They all make more than double the minimum wage, and they get paid health, dental and life insurance. And a 16-inch pizza doesn’t cost any more than those sold at the big chains.

A good businessperson should welcome an increase in the minimum wage, especially if they were in the pizza business, because it means more customers. I know, I know, this kind of notion gets a right winger’s head to spinning, but it’s true. First of all, no businessperson in his right mind pays anyone minimum wage, whatever that means where you are. See, when you do that, you demonstrate that you place no value in your employees whatsoever. Worse, you demonstrate that you place no value in what your business offers. Even worse than that, you demonstrate that you place no value in your clients/customers whatsoever.

But think about this; while you have to pay a little more to your employees, thousands of others in your area are getting a raise, and have more money to spend on pizza. Go figure, huh?

A good businessperson knows that, while some people buy based on price, many more people do not. The major reason why so many smaller businesses fail when a chain moves in is because they forget this simple reality. If you want to beat the competition, you have to create value in your product and provide service that goes above and beyond everyone else’s. This notion that people will only buy the cheapest product is what has driven our economy into the ground during the neocon era, and the notion defies reality. If everyone buys everything based solely on price, why are there no longer any Yugos and Daihatsus on the road? How do companies like Sony survive? How did Apple become one of the largest companies in the world?

Nordstrom will never make as much money as Wal-Mart, but they thrive in the retail world, because they offer a level of customer service and quality that is unsurpassed by the massive chains. They also train their employees well, and they pay them a good salary and benefits for doing so. I would also point out that one of Wal-Mart’s direct competitors, Costco, pays a living wage to their employees, and provides them with health insurance and other benefits, and actually enjoys a higher “profit-per-employee” than Wal-Mart. Yes, that’s right; Costco pays more, 82% of their workforce is covered by health insurance, and they still enjoy a HIGHER profit than Wal-Mart. Again; one can imagine right wing heads exploding all over the place.

Starbucks has a good quality product, but they also pay their employees a good salary, and benefits and they train them to do what they do. If you think you can open a coffee shop and pay people $10 an hour to work there and skip on benefits, expect to fail. Ben & Jerry’s probably doesn’t sell as much ice cream as some of the cheaper chains, but they make a healthy profit and pay their workers a decent wage plus benefits.

And look back at our past, when we became the largest economic power in the history of the world. Back from the post-war era through about the mid 1970s, union membership averaged around a third of the workforce. And we thrived. The largest corporation in the world at the time, General Motors, had one of the strongest union workforces in the country. Very few companies paid the minimum wage, and companies usually competed for workers. In fact, one of the reasons why company-provided health insurance became a standard in the first place was because companies were looking for some way to attract the best workers. During World War II, there was a wage freeze in effect, so companies started offering free health, dental and life insurance as an incentive to get the best workers. Now, an increasing number of companies look at employees as something of a nuisance, and they actually find benefits and the minimum wage to be a nuisance to be avoided.

Cain was a good bookkeeper and from what I’ve read, he was a very good motivational speaker when he worked at Godfather’s Pizza. But a truly good businessman would have made Godfather Pizza into the highest quality pizza chain in the country, he would have paid his people well, and made his workforce into the best in the business, and he would have created a market in which everyone looked for a Godfather’s pizza in whatever city they were in, because the taste was that good. He didn’t do that.

Good businesspeople make money by increasing revenues, bnot by decreasing overhead.

Cain’s attitude, of course, stems from the neocons’ obsession with supply-side economics. Businesspeople like him don’t care about customers, or employees, or even vendors. They only care about executives and shareholders. And that, in a nutshell, is why our economy is falling behind those of other countries.

If you look at the great brands that have gone down in flames over the last 30-40 years, in almost all cases, their demise was caused by over-attention to the bottom line, and a lack of attention to products and services and their customers. It’s a model that fails miserably. You can gaze in awe at the Wal-Mart model if you want, but while it’s a cash machine for executives and shareholders, and it’s a disaster waiting to happen. If you doubt that, ask the folks who used to run the former #1 retailer, K-Mart, and the one before that, Sears. Wal-Mart only increases its revenues and its profits by doing several things. It has to build more stores. It also has to negotiate smaller and smaller contracts with vendors. And it has to continue using Medicaid as its health plan, and Food Stamps and welfare to supplement its pay. If it has to pay decent wages to its employees and supply them with a decent health insurance plan, they will have no choice but to raise prices, which will hurt their business model, which is largely based on starving everyone who makes them money, in favor of huge bonuses for executives.

The Costco model, in which customers, vendors and employees are considered equally with executives and shareholders, is the only model that will actually move our economy forward. It’s no coincidence that our companies are largely being overtaken or taken over by companies from Europe and Asia. It’s no coincidence that workers in other developed countries are largely happier than we are. And it’s no coincidence that, since the neocons took over, our economy has become increasingly dependent on a series of bubbles to make it “look good.”

If this country is ever going to pull itself out of the economic doldrums we find ourselves in, we’re going to have to change our definition of “good business practice” to something other than simply “making a profit.” Making a profit for a year or two is easy. Building a business that is good for consumers, good for employees, good for society and good for executives and shareholders requires a balance that neocons and their supporters seem incapable of understanding and acknowledging as necessary to making the economy hum again.

We can either be like Apple or Ben & Jerry's, and move the country forward, or we can be Wal-Mart and Godfather's Pizza and continue funneling our money to the 1%. It's OUR choice. But stop calling Herman Cain a "good businessman." It's an insult to good businessmen.

Finally! Decent Political Satire in your eBookstore!

2011-11-28T15:10:00-05:00

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Update on DHS Conspiracy BS; Rick Ellis Takes on Karoli, Fails BigTime

2011-11-27T01:24:46-05:00

This is essentially an update to a column I posted 10 days ago, which can be found here.

As you can see at the link, I tried really hard to give Rick Ellis the benefit of the doubt, but I can't anymore.

Saturday, Ellis posted an "update" of sorts, entitled "The dangers of relying on common sense (or why Crooks & Liars is wrong). Now, his original "story," such as it is, has been flying around the Internet and left leaning news, even though absolutely zero provable facts were contained in the original, and no additional facts have come to light. Yet, once again, Rick Ellis uses unverifiable fact and supposition to make the unprovable DECLARATION that "Crooks & Liars is wrong."

He's referring to this story on the "Crooks & Liars" website, written by longtime blogger, Karoli. The essence of the story actually has little to do with Mr. Ellis; It's about the hysteria surrounding a story that has been bouncing around the Internet for 11 days, and which was absolutely refuted by my post 10 days ago. Mr. Ellis is only mentioned tangentially in this piece. The essence of his mention can be summed up by the following passage:

No one has a source, no one has any evidence, and the originating story which Michael Moore and now Naomi Wolf breathlessly spread quotes an anonymous source with the promise of still more to come in the future, from a "reporter" for Examiner.com who no one seems to know. Miraculously, this "reporter" got a tip from DHS that no national reporter received, and even though Mr. Ellis walks back his original accusation, he promises updates in the future. Well, it’s the future. It’s two weeks later and crickets from Mr. Ellis. Mission accomplished, though. Ask people who are paying attention to the OWS movement and they’ll swear up and down that yes, it was coordinated by DHS because MICHAEL MOORE and now NAOMI WOLF say so.

Truth: We don’t know. It isn’t completely out of the realm of possibility for mayors to consult with DHS. After all, that’s what they’re there for. To help local and state governments deal with threats, real, rumored or perceived. At best, one can conclude that maybe they did, and maybe they didn’t coordinate, and if they did coordinate, no one knows to what extent they did or whether there was any sort of "blessing" and/or mandate from DHS to what they ultimately chose to do.

Rick Ellis is not exactly a national reporter of note. There can be no disputing that. I produced a ton of evidence of this in my original post. Karoli and I both note that it seems rather strange that someone who works for DHS and is in a position to know such things would call Ellis, of all people, and relate the story to him. No one's saying he's a liar, just that it's not exactly obviously plausible. Anyway, here's what Ellis has to say about that:

Crooks and Liars also passes along a bit of the standard snark along the lines of "Hey, this guy is an unknown and why would anyone talk to him?" Aside from the fact that it's often written by people no one else has heard of either, it ignores the fact that lots of solid journalists spend their entire lives working without ever getting to the point where they have a national stage. If anyone had bothered to ask, I would have told them that one of the places I met a lot of federal law enforcement people was during my stint as the managing editor of a then NBC-owned TV station web site in Birmingham, Ala. There were a few stories that brought in scores of federal law enforcement folks to town, including the trial of Eric Rudolph. Like many other journalists, I keep in touch with sources and you'd be surprised what you learn over the period of years. As for the rest of career, I've done everything from financial news to working a national news desk for a company that ran 70+ local news sites across the U.S.

This piece also argued, "Hey, where are all the follow-up pieces?" I hesitate to be snarky, but seriously, stories like this play out over a period of weeks and sometimes even months. If I wanted to just post theories or unsourced material, I could writing about this every day. You will hear more about this--from me and from other probably better-known reporters--but it's a complex story that deserves a solid block of reporting. A few days without breaking news doesn't mean the story is wrong. If anything, it means there is lot here to digest and confirm.

How could a journalist with the kind of experience Ellis is claiming not understand the questions posed above? They're very basic. Not only does he not answer them, he creates more. The tv station website he claims to have been "managing editor" for was never owned by NBC, for example. It was affiliated with NBC, but someone in that business for a long time should understand the difference. The domain was registered to NBC, of course, but that is because it had NBC in the title, and NBC uses an IP protection service to administer them. But the station itself was never owned by NBC. Also, "managing editor" is usually the title given to a lead anchor. It's difficult to believe Ellis carried that title at the station's website. I'm not saying he's lying, but again; what he says creates more questions than it answers.

(I stand corrected. Mr. Ellis pointed me to Wikipedia (ahem), which says that NBC may have owned the station he claims to have been affiliated with between 1996-2006. I stand by the rest of the story.)

By the way, the last part of the above passage isn't "snarky," it's asinine. YES, journalists DO spend a lot of time on some stories. YES, a lot of stories DO take a lot of time to play out. But that significant time commitment is supposed to be taken BEFORE a news story is published. You're supposed to report facts when you know them, not post a rumor and then ten days later take others to task because the story "hasn't worked out yet."

My original post was preceded by almost 3-4 hours of research, just gathering facts, to make sure everything I said was correct BEFORE I reported it. That's how stories work. You don't hear something on the phone, then report it, and cross your fingers that it turns out to be true later. Well, you don't unless you wish to emulate Fox News.

One more quick note; look at his attempted "take-down" of Karoli. Notice a problem with it? You know, like HE is the one making unsubstantiated claims, not Karoli. It's not her job to do his research for him. She's simply pointing out that his claims are unsubstantiated. As you'll see in a minute, he actually proves her right.

The issue is whether or not we should allow Rick Ellis to say "trust me" when he tells us an "unnamed source" gave him the information in his articles. Again, I ask; if I told you an "unnamed source" told me something about the Bush White House, should you believe it? The answer is no. Anyone who "just believes" such a thing is no different than a typical Fox News consumer, who believes the fertilizer he's fed on a daily basis.

And for the record, I would never publish such a piece. If I couldn't substantiate something I said with documentation, I would pull an experienced journalist in to corroborate everything. Put it this way; I guarantee I know more people who've worked in the White House than Ellis, and I could easily get someone to admit anything I wanted "off the record." But that's the problem with journalism these days, isn't it? Too many of those types of stories.

This is how Ellis ended his piece:

I don't mind the criticism, but when it comes in pieces that don't offer anything other than opinion and some links to other pieces, I can't take it too seriously. The Crooks & Liars piece (like lots of other things being written) relies on the "well it doesn't make common sense" argument. The problem is that argument only works if you know all the facts.

I'm not going to wade into this again, because otherwise I'll never get any work done. We'll just let the events of the next few months play out and see who's right.

I want everyone who's relied on his piece to let that sink in. The "reporter" who first propagated the story now suggests that we should all wait weeks and months to see IF his story might turn out to be true someday, maybe. Is this really a story you want to hang your credibility cap on, Michael Moore, Naomi Wolf and Richard Kim, among others? The reporter himself has all but admitted that he can't prove his own story is true, and that we will all have to trust him. That means everyone who even mentioned this story has reported something that is, on its face, untrue.

Once more, the key to fighting Fox News is to NOT be like them.

Politics 101 for the Far Left: Lessons #1 thru #9: Revised & Updated.

2011-11-26T16:20:00-05:00

When all is said and done, if you want to know why the politics in what should be a liberal country such as the United States has been dominated for 32 years by people who should be relegated to the fringe, if you consider yourself to be on the far left, look in the mirror. If not, look at the far left.

A quick perusal of the leftist “blogosphere” shows people who obsess over everything that happens, as if they’re doing play-by-play for a baseball game. But they seem to neither know nor care about the average person, and they definitely lack understanding of basic politics. It’s amazing how little they know, yet they act like experts, despite the fact that the only people who actually buy their bullshit are like-minded people who are gullible.

Yes, folks; a lot of left wingers, especially those on the "professional left" are JUST LIKE the far right in that way.

Most actual liberals are very cool, and not very dumb, politically speaking. While the liberal side of the aisle encompasses a wide array of different people, with different types of experiences, the denizens of the far left are almost all white, they’re rarely poor and they have college educations. Though they have very little contact with the people they claim to be advocating for, to listen to them, they know more about being poor or being a minority than the poor and minorities do.

One reason the liberal side of the political debate has been sitting on the sidelines for the better part of 40 years is because a small-but-noisy segment of our ideology is ruining it for the rest of us. I don’t know about you guys, but I’m sick of it. It’s time we taught basic politics to the far left.

Consider this Politics 101, lefties.

Lesson #1: We live in a democratic republic. That means those who gets the most votes win and get to make policy.

I know that sounds too basic, but let’s face it; for a bunch of far left political “experts” seem shocked and surprised when assholes get elected and do pretty much what they said they would do. Every segment of government in this country runs by majority rule; he or she who gets the majority of votes makes the rules. If you want the government to do what's necessary to help working people, the poor and downtrodden, you have to see to it that the person elected in each race is one who is the one most oriented to listen to what the people want, and do as much as they can. Of course, there is a second part to that equation:

Lesson #2: To get a progressive government, you need a progressive populace.

Again, this should have been part of fourth grade Civics class. Since majority rules, to get progressive laws passed, you need a progressive majority. To do that requires changing the hearts and minds of the people, not screaming at them and writing them off as “stupid” when they don’t think the way you do. Listen to them, then frame issues in a way that makes them want to be on our side. “Climate change” is an abstract concept to most people, but that doesn’t mean they wouldn’t like to drive a vehicle that's safe and also gets 200 miles per gallon, or uses no gas at all. Most people would gladly switch their electricity provider to a clean energy company, as long as the cost wouldn't double. If they’re against abortion in principle, most folks aren’t in favor of the government forcing women to stay pregnant against her will.

It’s this simple, folks. If you want the politics in this country to move left, you have to move the electorate left. Which leads us to:

Lesson #3: Until there are 218 or more progressive districts in this country, ousting “Blue Dogs” is not a source of pride; it’s actually dumb.

After more than 30 years of neocon-driven politics, no one should be surprised that a large number of districts lean to the right. Yet, a large number of “progressives” were actually gleeful at what they saw as a “silver lining” in the 2010 election results; that about half of all “Blue Dog” Democrats lost. Yes, that’s right; they were HAPPY. Nancy Pelosi was replaced by an orange Boner, and that all committee chairs all went from being progressive Democrats to being right wing Republicans. We went from having a House of Representatives that passed hundreds of relatively progressive bills to one that has repeatedly tried to kill Medicare and damage Social Security.

And do you know WHY this happened? In part, it’s because several dozen “Blue Dogs,” almost all of whom voted with Democrats at least 80% of the time, were replaced by right wing Republicans and teabaggers.

Does that sound like “progress” to you? Really? If you do, then you must be one of those geniuses who thinks both major parties are the same. And that leads to:

Lesson #4: No matter how many times you tell yourself this, there is NO SIMILARITY between the two political parties at this point in time.

Many on the far left love to quote Harry Truman, who once famously said, “Given a choice between a Democrat who acts like a Republican or a Republican, the people will always choose the Republican."

Gosh, that’s catchy. The problem is, he said it nearly 65 years ago. News flash; the Republican party has changed a lot since then. Back then, a majority within the two parties saw each other as “the loyal opposition.” Nowadays, the current incarnation of the Republican Party sees all Democrats and any reasonable Republican as “the enemy.” They've declared war on the poor, and will do everything they can to help the rich get richer. The current GOP happily puts party politics ahead of country, which is something most Republicans in Truman’s day rarely did.

If you are unable to see a difference between how Republicans and Democrats run things right now, you’re not paying attention. If you can even imagine Democrats proposing gutting Medicare, trying to kill unions, repealing health insurance reform, and cutting programs for the poor to pay for tax cuts for the rich, then you belong under a doctor’s care. If you can imagine Republicans restoring regulations on Wall Street financial activities, demanding that executives limit their pay as long as they were under obligation to the federal government for bailout money, or even demanding that banks pay back the funds, then have the doctor up your meds.

The two parties couldn’t be more stark in their differences these days, and to characterize them as the same is killing us, politically speaking. Swing voters HATE teabaggers as much as we do. Most people like most social programs, they’d simply like to see more done to combat waste, fraud and abuse. They do care about the environment and ending wars, even if they do so more in the abstract. They’re our natural friends, politically speaking. So, the more the far left screams at the top of their lungs that “both parties are the same,” the more they poison that well, and allow the far right to keep winning elections. Which brings us to:

Lesson #5: Politics is a game of strategy, but some strategies simply don’t work, like “fighting.”

While it’s nice to get all of the right people elected, it’s just as important to get the wrong people out of government. While governing affects the average person’s life in profound ways, politics itself is a game, and requires a very distinct, and very long-term strategy. of course, it also requires the understanding that governing and politics are two separate concepts, which seems difficult for many progressives.

Many left wingers think political strategy is complicated and ielaborate, but it’s not. In fact, if you make it too complicated, it’s destined for failure. Unless you're running a campaign, my advice is to relax. The issues many far lefties consider to be important issues are only a minor consideration to most voters, since many are struggling to get by every day, and don't obsess over the news. They simply want to know the people in charge won’t make things worse, so the number one strategy of any political endeavor begins with the classic “KISS,” or “Keep It Simple Stupid.”

As for their constant desire for a "fight," my advice to most left winger is to stop demanding it, because most politicians understand it's political suicide, at least as many lefties define it. If you believe “fighting for the people” means shouting, grandstanding and making pointed speeches and calling the opposition “poopy-heads,” sit down; it's never foing to happen.

The purpose of election is to pass laws designed to make our lives better. That means writing a bill, then getting a majority to vote for that bill. How many laws do you think would pass if they were running around grandstanding and making the opposition party look bad? There are a number of ways to “fight” in politics, and most Democratic politicians do exactly that on a daily basis, especially President Obama, who is a master at outmaneuvering the opposition.

For example, left wingers scream bloody murder every time Obama reaches out to Republicans, because they're so obsessed with everything he does, they can’t see the result. When he reaches out to the GOP, and they slap his hand, what most voters see is someone who is trying to do the right thing, and an opposition that wants to bite his hand off for doing so. Since most voters HATE infighting, he’s actually courting voters to his side when he does that. Rather than “kowtowing” or “caving,” he’s actually working for the progressive cause.

And can we please get off the whole “bully pulpit” phrase? That phrase was coined by Teddy Roosevelt more than a century ago, and political discourse has changed a lot, to the point that the pulpit is no longer bully. If you want to know why we lost the “public option," for example, here's a piece of reality. Because of the nature of his opposition, Obama actually kept the “public option” alive longer by NOT advocating for it. For Chrissakes, folks; he single-handedly revived health care reform, after even the far left had declared it dead and buried.

Overall, his strategy on health care was just short of perfect, which is why it passed for the first time ever. While the far left was devoted to the notion of a “public option,” if the Republicans had Obama on record as saying “The public option is a must” for a health insurance reform bill in the current climate, they would have gathered the troops and used that to launch a billion-dollar campaign against Obama’s attempt to force “socialized medicine” down our throats. It would have made it even more difficult to pass than it was, and it might have killed any sort of reform for at least another 10-15 years. The "bully pulpit" has become a lightning rod, and anyone with real political savvy understands this.

President Obama realizes that he has to pick and choose his battles, and that HOW he fights the battles matters less than the results of the "fight." He’s getting more done than anyone in the last 40 years or more, and the far left in this country is sitting around with their thumbs up their asses, waiting for someone else to “lead them” to where they need to go. Which is how we get to:

Lesson #6: “We are the ones we have been waiting for” is not just a cute slogan; it’s how the system works, and how we win at politics.

If you’re waiting for a savior to come along and bring the left out of the desert into the political system, then you’re part of the problem.

The fact of the matter is, politicians do not lead us, WE lead THEM. I understand why people on the right don’t get that, because they’re politically brain-dead. But a lot of far lefties seem to miss out on that concept, too.

They’re called “representatives” for a reason. THEY stand in for US, not the other way around. It’s OUR job to tell them what we want and give them the tools to do that. It’s not THEIR job to read our minds. And our number one job is to get a majority of the people behind our efforts; it’s not the politician’s job. Political success involves a couple of steps, and both of them are OUR responsibility as voters. First, we must honor the democratic process and try to make sure the choice of candidate is the one most likely to result in the policies we want. That doesn’t mean we always have a clear progressive choice; in fact, it rarely means that. But there is often one candidate who will absolutely NOT vote for our side EVER, and we absolutely must promote the best candidate to the best of our ability. Then, once the best of the two candidates is elected, we then SUPPORT them. Yes, I said SUPPORT! For some reason, many on left wingers seem to think the constant complaining about politicians constitutes “holding them accountable,” but if you’re on the job and your boss was complaining about every little thing you did, without even evaluating the results, would you dismiss it as your boss “holding you accountable,” or would it just irritate the crap out of you to the point that you'd quit and work somewhere else?

Yeah, that’s what I thought.

Now you know why politicians don’t take the far left seriously at all. They’re constantly whining, they don’t vote reliably, and their support is based more on what politicians say, and less on what they do. Politicians are looking for support, not a constant shrill whine. Which brings us to:

Lesson #7: The far left’s concept of “principle” is downright bizarre and often detrimental to progressive politics.

It’s really simple; after 32 years, neocons are still in office, and still dismantling the mechanisms we built during the depression and after the war. Despite the fact that we know how to fix the economy (we did it before), the wingnuts are still pushing the same tired crap they’ve been pushing for 40 years. And they get away with it because a large portion of the left side of the political debate likes to SAY they have principle, but they really don’t. The fact of the matter is, supporting someone who says everything you want to hear, when that person has neither the intention nor the ability to actually get into office and do what he or she is saying makes you gullible, not principled.

Let me repeat that; voting for someone you know can't win because he/she says all the right things is NOT "principled." It's the opposite of "principled."

In order to be a principled progressive, you would do anything to move us in the direction of achieving social justice. That doesn’t mean backing Dennis Kucinich, who has less than a snowball’s chance in hell of ever sitting in the Oval Office. It means doing whatever you can to see to it that as many politicians as possible are amenable to working toward making this country better, and then working to make sure they have the support they need to do that. If you have actual principles, stop screaming at the politicians, and start educating (without screaming) their constituents.

If you’re not doing everything you can to make sure progressive policies are in place, you’re not principled. Which brings us to:

Lesson #8: The overall meme of the debate is far more important than playing micro-politics.

Imagine you’re about the leave work, and you’re wondering whether or not you should take your umbrella, so you ask a co-worker if they think it might rain. Which answer are you likely to consider most helpful?

“According to the weather service, it’s not supposed to rain until Friday.”

or

“I don’t know, but I do know the air is dirtier now than it was 20 years ago, the sun is much harsher than it used to be, and the world will probably become uninhabitable in 10 years.”

The first one is how the left SHOULD answer. Unfortunately, the answers to political questions coming from our side usually sound like the second. Many on the far left tend to be news junkies, which is a stupid idea in and of itself. You don’t become smarter by watching nothing but news all of the time. But worse, they seem to think everyone else is, or should be, a news junkie as well. So they neither answer political questions nor give political answers that actually matter to people.

The average voter doesn’t have time to sit and watch news all day, because he or she is working for a living. They don’t sit and watch every single bloody thing the government does, because they trust the government to do what it needs to do. The majority only pays attention to the overall meme in any election. The reason they voted for Barack Obama was because of his positive message and his promise to reverse the incompetence of the Bush years. And they stayed away from the polls in droves in 2010 because the overall message of that election was “Democrats suck.” They don’t vote for the right wing, but when both sides are screaming “Democrats suck!” what message do you imagine these folks take away from the “debate,” such as it is? It didn't matter to them that the "Blue Dogs" you were whining about only constituted about 4-5 votes in the Senate and 30-40 in the House; they voted against ALL Democrats. And gosh, wasn't that a great thing?

The overall meme matters more than anything else, so STOP SCREAMING! When both sides are screaming at each other, voters aren't actually listening. Let the far right scream. They’re incredibly stupid, and they don’t understand how politics works, either. Their side has a simple-minded affinity for red meat over substance; they love the negative. But we're not like them. More importantly, swing voters aren't like them, either. They don't decide who to vote for, so much as they decide whether or not to vote.

How many elections do we have to lose before we get this? The far left was negative about Carter in 1980, and we got Reagan. Ditto Dukakis in 1988, and we got Bush 41. We were a bit more positive about Clinton in 1992 and 1996, he won, although he still never received a majority. The far left bashed Gore mercilessly in 2000 and refused to get behind Kerry in 2004, leaving us with a double dose of the worst president in history. In 2008, the left finally seemed to shed its stupidity and got behind a moderate, and Obama was elected overwhelmingly. Since then, it seems quite clear that many left wingers voted for “the black guy,” and attributed a level of far left politics to President Obama that was never actually apparent during the campaign. Because of these fantasy expectations, they’ve branded him as a “disappointment,” and that played a major part in the depressed turnout that led to a right wing win in 2010. Again.

That leads to:

Lesson #9: The people who are elected will (almost) always represent the political center.

It has always been the case, and it will (almost) always be the case, that the majority of voters anywhere will choose someone they perceive as between the extremes. The only exception to that rule comes when one side of the political spectrum trashes mercilessly the candidate to whom they are ideologically closest, like in 2000 and 2004. (And don't take solace in the "Bush stole the elections" crap; they shouldn’t have been that close in the first place.)

But most of the time, the person elected will represent the political center, especially when it comes to president. FDR didn’t run or govern as a political liberal at all. In fact, with the exception of reforming banking and instituting a few jobs programs, he took a relatively conservative approach to getting out of the Depression. Even he admitted that later, when the massive deficit spending to pay for World War II finally brought us into recovery mode and sent unemployment down below 10% for the first time in more than a dozen years. Lincoln didn’t run for election promising to make the Emancipation Proclamation and amend the Constitution to be anti-slavery. Likewise, Kennedy didn’t run on promising the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts would pass. As is always the case, moderates are forced by circumstances and politics to become progressives.

I would also point out that even the most progressive politicians in our history lack ideological purity. Lincoln suspended habeas corpus. FDR refused to even consider civil rights or abolishing Jim Crow, and it took World War II to get him to accept a Keynesian economic model. Even Dennis Kucinich was anti-choice for many years, because of his Catholicism. If not for Ted Kennedy’s ego, we probably would have had the beginnings of universal health care before 1980, instead of 2010, precisely because he killed a universal health care bill in order to try to get a leg up on Carter in the 1980 election.

The main complaint most left wingers have about Democrats has to do with their relative “impurity.” For some reason, they have gotten it into their little brains that all Democrats should represent the progressive side of things, and that any variation whatsoever is unacceptable. That’s a fantasy, folks. No one is always “left” or always “right” on every single issue, unless he or she is incapable of thought. Expecting everyone to adhere to your standard of what a “true progressive” should be is unrealistic and frankly, politically suicidal.

Those are today's lessons. More coming, of course.

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

2011-11-25T21:20:00-05:00

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.

As bad as their arrogance is, however, the worst part is, they really suck at politics. They seem to have no concept that we live in a democracy, and for all of their supposed education, they continually think they can short-circuit the process, and do things without a popular electoral mandate. People like this somehow believe that the goodness of their cause is sufficient to bring about social change, and electoral politics is just a bother. They want the result, but they don't want to do the work required to get the result. Because of this attitude by the loudest segment of the progressive movement, it's been 45 years (at least) since we've had a strong voice.

Einstein once defined insanity as “doing the same things over and over, and expecting different results.” It's time for progressives to stop being insane.

Part of their attempt to keep this insanity going has forced "emo progressives" to perpetrate one of the biggest lies in the history of our politics; that both major political parties is the same. I'm not sure what they hope to accomplish by perpetrating this insanity, but anyone who thinks both political parties are the same is certainly not occupying this portion of the universe.

One of the common ways they do this is to invoke images of a Republican Party that no longer exists. The Republican Party has largely been taken over by far right extremists these days.To refer to them as "conservative" is an insult to real conservatives. They are more radical than they have ever been. Even such classic Republican stalwarts as Ronald Reagan, Barry Goldwater and Richard Nixon would find no place in today's GOP.

They are also a minority party. There are more Democrats and more independents who lean Democratic than there are Republicans, which means Democrats have a natural advantage in the electorate. Because of this, a major Republicans strategy over the years has been to cultivate a following among the most cynical elements in this society, which in turn depresses turnout among all elements. That's right; being radical has two purposes; it gets their "base excited, because cynical idiots love red meat. Also, such negativity actually drives down turnout at the polls. Which is GOOD for Republicans, because they're a minority party.

The reason Republicans keep winning elections is not because of money. It’s not because their level of commitment is greater. It’s certainly not because of their “message,” which is unintelligible to any sentient human being with an IQ registering in double digits. They only win elections if there is no alternate message. To an electorate looking for a positive reason to turn out to vote, a small but vocal portion of our side of the debate is actually adding to cacophony of negativity, and feeding the right wing’s main strategy, which is to drive down turnout.

Basically, the average American thinks right wingers are basically idiots. Therefore, when some very loud progressives push the ridiculous meme that both major political parties are two sides of the same coin, not only was that concept absolutely ridiculous, it's also potentially dangerous, precisely a large number of voters will believe it, and stay away from the polls. After all, if you think Republicans are morons, but both parties are the same, then doesn't that imply that Democrats are morons, too?

What makes things worse is, it's not even close to true. If you can look at John Boehner and Nancy Pelosi and think they're anything alike, you must be crazy. If you truly believe Barack Obama and George W. Bush are anything alike, put down the drugs.

Not long ago, some "progressive" gave me the "both parties are the same" crap on Twitter. When I replied that the concept was silly, he responded with the following:

They agree on three things which are bleeding our economy dry. Free Trade, military spending, and support of CEOS.

Forget the fact that none of the above are major reasons why our economy is in bad shape. But let’s look at how the two parties see those issues one at a time, and see if there is any truth in that statement.

Free Trade: The two major parties don’t even have the same definition of free trade. In fact, the commenter couldn't have chosen a much better example of how the two parties DIFFER.

To the current incarnation of the Republican Party, “free trade” means everyone should be able to sell anything they want in the marketplace with no government regulation whatsoever. They want to get rid of the FTC, FDA, EPA and any other agency that tries to keep anyone honest. If you think otherwise, consider who Bush appointed and the GOP Congress approved to head these agencies and others and compare them with those Obama chose and the Democratic Congress approved. Obama tried to appoint Elizabeth Warren to head a commission Democrats in Congress created to protect consumers, and Republicans refused to hold hearings about her appointment and are trying to kill the commission altogether.

Though regulation of commerce is spelled out and required by the Constitution, Republicans do everything they can to remove all regulation from the commercial market. They've spent the last 75 years trying to undo the New Deal! That alone makes the concept of "both parties are the same" out to be a lie. If Republicans could get away with it, there would be no minimum wage, no OSHA, Medicare, Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) would all be history. Hell, if it was up to the current GOP, we'd all have to work at below-minimum wage until we keeled over and died. What, exactly, do Republicans have to do to you before you figure out that the two parties are at polar opposites when it comes to commerce and trade?

I’m sure the Tweet-twit was referring to NAFTA, which to some progressives is shorthand for everything that’s wrong with our economy over the last 20 years, even though most of the jobs that were shipped overseas were shipped to Asia. Our manufacturing base was coming back in force by the late 1990s, because Clinton made deals with a number of countries to open up their markets to more of our goods. Of course, when Bush and the GOP came in, those deals went by the wayside, and our manufacturing base started to shrink once again. Since Obama’s been president, our manufacturing base is showing signs of a comeback; in fact, it’s the only sector of the economy that has shown significant job growth. Obama has invested more cash into the alternative energy industry – a huge job creation engine – than has been invested in that sector in nearly 20 years.

Free trade is not a bad thing, by the way. Free regulated trade is how this country became a superpower. But the two parties see “free trade” very differently. It’s obvious, if you take a moment to think about it.

Military spending – If you think the two parties are the same on this, then you must have been in a coma the past 30 years, because Democrats have been cutting defense spending every time they’ve been in a position to do so, and Republicans have been restoring it. In the last 40 years, only four presidents have overseen a reduction in military spending; Carter, Bush 41, Clinton and Obama. Yes; I said Obama. Three of the four of those were Democrats. Of course, as soon as the Republicans took over in 1994, they immediately started to restore “defense” funding.

Republicans have been using “defense” spending as a jobs program of sorts for most of the last 30 years, whereas Democrats have largely tried to redirect defense spending to other areas of the economy, especially since the end of the Cold War. Eisenhower couldn’t get funding for the Interstate Highway system through Congress until the Democrats took over, and he couldn’t get Republcians on board until they labeled it a “defense” program.

I know many progressives think cutting defense should be easy, but it’s not as simple as it sounds. Yes, it’s stupid to be spending so much to build weapons that are essentially pointless, but the fact of the matter is, those weapons systems represent jobs. So, if you lop off a couple of hundred billion dollars, you have to reinvest it in something else that will create jobs. My recommendation would be to invest in retrofitting weapons-building facilities into alternative energy facilities. But such a thing is impossible while Republicans are in charge, because Democrats and Republicans see “military spending” in damn near opposite ways.

Support of CEOs – I’ll be honest; I don’t even know what this means. I know CEOs are the whipping boys of the far left, and some compensation schemes are obscene. But in the end, they're private entities, answerable only to stockholders and others within their corporations. If they're breaking the law, they should be prosecuted, and of course they should be taxed on all compensation. Strangely, Democrats are all for prosecuting them for crimes and charging them more in taxes, but Republicans are absolutely against it. Not only that, but one of the biggest problems with the 2008 economic meltdown was that Republicans had removed regulations on so many activities, much of what these assholes -- the banksters and the corporate pirates -- were doing was no longer illegal.

There is almost NO issue in which the current incarnation of the Republican Party and the Democratic Party are the same. In fact, if they have ever been more polar opposite than they are now, I can’t recall such a time. And the overall message is very important. It’s never been more essential that we remain positive and hopey-changey if we intend to get rid of the far right. And make no mistake; until you beat back the far right, politically speaking, there is no possible way we can do anything about creating a progressive country. I’m way past the point of being nice about this shit. If we’re going to have a progressive country, we have to do two things; we have to get rid of obstacles, and we have to project a hopeful message that a majority will take with them to the voting booth. Otherwise, we’re looking at countless more years being run over by right wing cranks.

And if you’re not sick of that, most of the rest of us are. MOST liberals are positive and hopeful and see the possibilities in creating a just country in which everyone is truly equal. And we’re getting a little tired of the small minority of progressives that thinks they know every little thing about every single issue (they’re wrong about that, too), but who are always whining and complaining and creating an obstacle to political success. This blog is my opinion, and nothing more. But there is one underlying fact that cannot be denied; no one likes progressives very much.

We have to win in 2012, and we can’t win unless we always tell the truth and offer positive solutions. It’s really that simple. And if you keep on lying, and claiming both parties are the same, you're helping to move progressive politics backwards.

And it is a lie to claim both parties are the same. They're not even close.