The bright moment of yesterday’s vote on the “Ugh, this bill sucks” bill was Gabby Giffords’ triumphant return to Congress.
The House erupted in applause and Giffords looked marvelous, smiling, and strong. (Oddly, it was during the standing ovation that Michele Bachmann decided to slink into the room — bizarre).
The tone in Washington, however, is just as uncivil as it ever was. From Talking Points Memo:
Adam Green is desperate for your money. So desperate that he is willing to lie, cheat, and steal to get it.
You see, a couple weeks ago, Adam Green (PCCC’s Treasurer and Grifter-in-Chief) registered the domain name “ColberSuperPAC” in an attempt to bleed donations and membership from Colbert’s Super PAC, Americans for a Better Tomorrow, Tomorrow (which can be found at <www.ColbertSuperPac.com>):
Progressive Change Campaign Committee Treasurer Adam Green purchased the URL ColberSuperPAC.com, omitting the t in Stephen Colbert’s name, and then redirected that URL to his own PAC web site in an apparent attempt to steal critical membership and donations away from Colbert’s PAC, Americans for a Better Tomorrow, Tomorrow. Colbert announced Friday night on his show, The Colbert Report, more than 100,000 previous ABTT members need to sign up a second time because the organization is now a super-PAC.
As if being run by grifter Adam Green (to whom you should totally send three dollars, by the way) isn’t enough to stain PCCC and Bold Progressives’s reputation, PCCC’s co-founder Aaron Swartz was indicted for wire and computer fraud today.
From AP,
A Harvard University fellow who was studying ethics was charged with hacking into the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s computer network to steal nearly 5 million academic articles.
Aaron Swartz, 24, of Cambridge, was accused of stealing the documents from JSTOR, a popular research subscription service that offers digitized copies of more than 1,000 academic journals and documents, some dating back to the 17th century.
In an indictment released Tuesday, prosecutors say Swartz stole 4.8 million articles between September 2010 and January after breaking into a computer wiring closet on MIT’s campus. Swartz, a student at the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics, downloaded so many documents during one October day that some of JSTOR’s computer servers crashed, according to the indictment.
Prosecutors say Swartz intended to distribute the articles on file-sharing websites.
Swartz turned himself in Tuesday and was arraigned in U.S. District Court, where he pleaded not guilty to charges including wire fraud, computer fraud and unlawfully obtaining information from a protected computer. He was released on $100,000 unsecured bond and faces up to 35 years in prison, if convicted.
[snip]
Tonight, Lawrence O’Donnell dropped some more knowledge about the debt ceiling negotiations, and I must admit to a sense of self-satisfaction that what he said tonight dovetails nicely with what I’ve been saying for a week (see e.g., here and here) about Obama governing and courting swing voters1 simultaneously:
Outrage notes have been struck today in the liberal blogosphere and elsewhere that the President was entertaining modest modifications in Medicare and Social Security that could save trillions, even though liberal democrats in the past have done exactly that. The President’s willingness to discuss raising the retirement age in Medicare or Social Security has met rage from some who don’t know that the eligibility age of Social Security has already been raised, that a gradual increase of a retirement age was enacted in 1983, increasing the full retirement from 65 to 67, and that increase had the support of liberals in the House and the Senate.
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Posted in Balloon Juice Cross-Posts, Obama 2012: Yes We Will!, Our Pundits of Perpetual Disappointment, Political Shenanigans, Puritopians
Tagged Adam Green, campaigning, compromise, debt ceiling, governing, Lawrence O'Donnell, Medicare, Obama, Obama 2012, PCCC, President Obama, Progressive Change Campaign Committee, puritopians, Social Security, The Last Word
Adam Green recently sent out a mass email attacking President Obama based on several lies concocted from a press conference on July 11, 2011. These lies were born and reside only in the mind of Adam Green, as well as the rabid Obamahaters who cling to Green’s every word to justify their irrational hatred for our President.
Green’s group, the PCCC (Progressive Change Campaign Committee), is probably the most organized group of people suffering from Obama Derangement Syndrome.
So what was so dishonest about his appeal? How about EVERYTHING!
Whether blatant or subtle lies, exaggerations, misrepresentations or selective omissions of reality, they are lies – pure fucking lies.
Lie Number 1: The lie upon which most of the other lies were derived: Obama “came right out and said” that he’s pushing for benefit cuts in important programs like Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.
Adam Green cherry picked Obama’s statements in order to concoct a lie. He plucked one utterance of the word “benefits” from a general statement by Obama in which he discussed the broader issues of how we get the country’s fiscal house in order. Bear in mind — the word “benefits” does not appear anywhere near the words “Social Security,” “Medicare” or “Medicaid” (the big 3), and considering the President had addressed those issues before and after that question in the press conference, it shows that Adam Green doesn’t give a shit about the truth. If he did, he would have looked at everything the President said and not cherry picked one word and then connected it to previous words in order to manufacture a lie.
Adam Green is using scare tactics to raise money from his vulnerable and apparently very gullible followers. I’ve been waiting for him to talk about “death panels”.
The following passage is where Adam Green plucked that word from. Of course, I’m including the context — unlike Mr. Green. The bold type is where he grabs that lone word, “benefits”.
So it’s come to this.
President Obama is talking about making a deal with the Republicans and Democrats in Congress on a budget plan, and anonymously-sourced articles are appearing in the major political newspapers, and on the basis of statements from a “Democratic official familiar with the administration’s thinking“, the EmoProgs are losing their shit.
And they’re sending you emails about it.
Bold Progressives/PCCC (Adam Green):
“President Obama: If you cut Social Security, Medicare, or Medicaid benefits for me, my family, or families like mine, don’t ask for a penny of my money or an hour of my time in 2012. I’m going to focus on electing bold progressive candidates who will fight to protect our Democratic legacy.” Click to add your name.
We can’t be silent and allow President Obama to cave to Republicans, and put some of the most important and successful programs in our country on the chopping block.
House Democrats and most Democratic Senators have already said they will not go along. It is not too late.
Tell President Obama: Protect Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. Click here to automatically sign the petition.
Can you sign our emergency petition to Democrats in Congress and tell them to stand up and tell the President they will not vote for Social Security and Medicare benefits cuts?
Add your name here.
President Obama is making a huge mistake that will cost our country dearly.
Follow me below the fold for a some thoughts about these emails, what they represent and what opportunities they miss.
Watch this clip and ask yourself this: Do Jane Hamsher (@3:53) and Adam Green (@1:07) look like people who are attempting to foment progress and change? Adam Green can’t stop bitching about how Obama never fights and uses the bully pulpit. As for Jane, the disdain is practically oozing from her pores; and of course she makes sure to bash Obama at the end because that’s all she knows how to do.
Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
Adam Green (of PCCC, the “progressive” group that is airing anti-Obama ads, one of which (as I wrote about here) is deplorably racist) may just be a dolt. That ad aside, I get the sense that he just doesn’t know what the hell he’s doing and that he doesn’t know anything about how politics works. I’m certainly no political strategist, but running anti-Obama ads? Seriously? What the hell is that going to accomplish? That’s no political strategy; it’s political strategery.
Jane, I believe, is equally clueless and uninformed, but she’s far more pernicious (as I discuss here and as Matt Osborne discusses here). Several bloggers have been trying to figure out what her “progressive credentials” are. Thus far, no one has come up with any answers (that I’ve seen). One thing seems certain, Jane is in it for herself.
As Deaniac83 at The People’s View points out, Hamsher seems more interested in criticizing President Obama than in doing anything of value. It makes no sense that she has a seat at the MSNBC table (or any table for that matter.) She obviously doesn’t know anything.
I’m going to cut this short before I have an aneurysm. I do have one more thing to say, however:
Posted in Angry Black Lady Chronicles, Please Die in a Fire, Political Shenanigans, Puritopians
Tagged Angry Black Lady, Asshats on the Left, DADT, die in a fire, Firedoglake, Jane Hamsher, Lawrence O'Donnell, LGBTQ, Manic Progressives, PCCC, Progressive Change Campaign Committee, puritopians, Rachel Maddow, The Last Word
A couple days ago, Ezra Klein (of the Washington Post), Adam Green (of the racist ass ad for Progressive Campaign for Change [seeDeaniac83's post on the subject over at The People's View]), Jane Hamsher (of the Lake of Fiery Dogs), and Roger Hodge (he wrote some book I don’t care about) appeared on The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell to discuss bash Obama and the tax cut plan.
I watched the clip and was irritated (of course). First, Roger Hodge stutters and stumbles as the “Obama is a French surrender monkey!” narrative spews forth from his lips. He can’t answer any of Lawrence O’Donnell’s questions, and can’t even effectively deliver the snark he’d probably been planning for weeks. [Barack Hoover Obama? Really, dude?] O’Donnell asks Hodge what the bottom tax rate is. Of course, Hodge doesn’t know. O’Donnell tells him it’s 10% and would go up to 15% for the lowest bracket. Hodge’s response? “No one wants to see that happen.” Oh really? Because that’s what you’re advocating, ding dong.
Second, Adam Green, who has adopted right-wing “ZOMG! Obama is, like, so black and scary!” tactics, chimed in and started talking his talky talk. He didn’t have much to say when O’Donnell pointed out that Republicans could never be shamed into raising taxes. And seriously, if you don’t know that by now, why are you in politics?
And finally, there’s Sweet Lady Jane who blinks and doe-eyes her way through her bullshit narrative: “They are using the poor as a human shield.” Oh really, rich white lady who can afford healthcare?1 Is that what he’s doing? Or is he recognizing that, while the extension of unemployment benefits may not be important to you, they are pretty damn important to, you know, poor folks.
And then there was Ezra Klein who actually had some facts about the tax plan. He agreed that the tax cuts for the rich are odious, and that the estate tax deal is noxious, but he pointed out that there are two ways to look at this:
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