AP Ticker has a more modest proposal:

I don’t understand why I am supposed to care about this whole #OccupyWallStreet protest. There is no platform, no legislative vehicle, no coherent call to action, no overriding message, and very little in the way of any point.

…and then read that the pilots union joined the occupation, followed by the transit union just voted to join them as well, as have Verizon’s unionized workers, with the IWW expressing their support,

all i hear is this song:

Those who don’t understand why they should care about Occupy Wall Street are the same people who year after year tell me why I must support the Democrats, while at the same time openly admitting that the Democrats will never pass the legislation I want to see passed, because it is the best i can hope for. While these kids, who see no future for themselves, and their supporters know the truth:

“There comes a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart, that you can’t take part, you can’t even passively take part; and you’ve got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon all the apparatus, and you’ve got to make it stop, And you’ve got to indicate to the people who run it, the people who own it, that unless you’re free the machine will be prevented from working at all.” –Mario Savio

And so they don’t see what’s happening.

The first question was about discrimination about atheists. Another wanted to know Obama’s biggest regrets. Another asked about compromise, what does it mean? And finally one person asked about Roosevelt’s epic fuckup that plunged the US back into the red in 1937. I swear, these questions were so thoroughly unrelated to the supposed topic, I had to wonder if they were plants, especially the young woman who wanted to shake the president’s hand because he is so awesome.

Along the way, the president informed me that Democrats only read the NYT and watch MSNBC, while conservatives and republicans only read the WSJ and watch FOX News. This is such a ridiculous and shallow characterization, i have to wonder if the president really believes it: if so, can someone please bring him out of his bubble?

And oh yes, much was made of the false and inaccurate analogy that governments, like families, must tighten their belts, as if families never deficit spend (ahem, college loans, mortgages, home equity loans, carloans) and when they do that they put credit card payments ahead of putting food on the table.

The whole thing was quite free of substance, and I’m sure the president was grateful that he had to answer questions about atheists facing discrimination rather than the prospect of senior and soon-to-be-senior citizens living out their old age eating cat food. I’m sure he was glad he didn’t have to talk too much about how cutting Medicaid would put the financial burden of caring for sick, elderly parents on families, not the government.

I did learn one thing though: the president may be sincere about his desire to gut these programs, but reading the comments at the linked Daily Kos article, you see an equally sincere group of activists getting angrier by the second. And you know, contrary to the claims of some people, we’re not all a bunch of upper middle class white progressives who just don’t get it. Some of us are counting on social security, medicare,and medicaid when WE get older, because our careers and paychecks have stagnated for years, pensions no longer exist, and there is no such thing as job security anymore.

I’d put the president’s re-election at 50/50. If these cuts go through, I’d put my bets on his challenger.

I learned back in 1992 that Bill Clinton was a lying piece of shit, not a progressive, and barely a Democrat.

From the description:

Leaked cell phone footage of Bill Clinton cozying up to Paul Ryan

The day after the stunning upset in the special congressional election in upstate New York, Rep. Paul Ryan is a man under fire.

ABC News was behind the scenes with the Wisconsin Congressman and GOP Budget Committee Chairman when he got some words of encouragement none other than former President Bill Clinton.

“So anyway, I told them before you got here, I said I’m glad we won this race in New York,” Clinton told Ryan, when the two met backstage at a forum on the national debt held by the Pete Peterson Foundation. But he added, “I hope Democrats don’t use this as an excuse to do nothing.”

Ryan told Clinton he fears that now nothing will get done in Washington.

“My guess is it’s going to sink into paralysis is what’s going to happen. And you know the math. It’s just, I mean, we knew we were putting ourselves out there. You gotta start this. You gotta get out there. You gotta get this thing moving,” Ryan said.

Clinton told Ryan that if he ever wanted to talk about it, he should “give me a call.” Ryan said he would.

Not our friends by any definition. We’re fucking doomed.

Mr. Obama, who is to meet at the White House with the bipartisan leadership of Congress in an effort to work out an agreement to raise the federal debt limit, wants to move well beyond the $2 trillion in savings sought in earlier negotiations and seek perhaps twice as much over the next decade, Democratic officials briefed on the negotiations said Wednesday.

The president’s renewed efforts follow what knowledgeable officials said was an overture from Mr. Boehner, who met secretly with Mr. Obama last weekend, to consider as much as $1 trillion in unspecified new revenues as part of an overhaul of tax laws in exchange for an agreement that made substantial spending cuts, including in such social programs as Medicare and Medicaid and Social Security — programs that had been off the table.
[...]
The intensifying negotiations between the president and the speaker have Congressional Democrats growing anxious, worried they will be asked to accept a deal that is too heavily tilted toward Republican efforts and produces too little new revenue relative to the magnitude of the cuts.

Congressional Democrats said they were caught off guard by the weekend White House visit of Mr. Boehner — a meeting the administration still refused to acknowledge on Wednesday — and Senate Democrats raised concerns at a private party luncheon on Wednesday.

I’ll bet they’re growing nervous: Wall Street’s president, who has done everything in his power to protect banks and has not prosecuted one single CEO responsible for the crash is now cutting secret deals (most transparent adminsitration EVAH!) with the Republicans to cut Social Security, Medicaid, and Medicaid. This puts pretty much every Democratic seat at risk, because not only do old people vote, but the Republicans will campaign hypocritically but accurately that the Democrats cut their benefits. This kind of appeasement NEVER works, and the fact that the president is proposing to bend you over so the Republicans will release the hostages tells you all you have to know.

This president is not on our side, in my opinion. This president is, in fact, a Republican. If these are his proposals, if he is THAT out of touch with the real world, then I’m not voting for him again, and don’t think you should either.

From “Hope and Change” to “George Bush in blackface” in less than 4 years. The mask is off. We gotta fight back.

Call your congressman, call your senator, tell them no cuts to Social Security, medicare, and medicaid.

White House…202-456-1111

House Minority Leader: Nancy Pelosi …..202-224-4965

Senate majority Leader: Harry Reid…202-224-3542

DCCC: Van Hollen…202-225-5341

UPDATE: You just lost Oliver Willis, President Bush, I mean Obama. Keep pushing it, watch what happens.

Meanwhile, anti-soda-tax forces were lobbying just as hard, with a small army of executives, lobbyists and union leaders in Council chambers. Soda mogul Harold Honickman, owner of the Canada Dry Bottling Co., in Pennsauken, was seated in the waiting area of Council President Anna Verna’s office before 9 a.m.

“The right decision is no soda tax,” said Honickman, whose family has also been persuasive with its pocketbooks, contributing this year to the campaigns of Council members Greenlee, Bill Green, Maria Quinones-Sanchez, Darrell Clarke and Jannie Blackwell, as well as to Nutter.

I know that Green, Greenlee, and Quinones-Sanchez voted for the property tax increase, and having lived in Philadelphia for ten years, I can hazard a good guess that Honickman’s money played a big role in helping these “guardians of the public trust” find the spine achieve the necessary erection to fuck their constituents yet again. I haven’t received the roll call yet, but when I do, you can bet I’ll be naming more names. These whores, however, have lost my vote. I don’t care how fucking “progressive” you say you are: when you’re hitting homneowners, most of us moderate-income and struggling with stagnant wages, over and over and over again while giving corporation a free pass, you can go kiss my ass BEFORE I wipe.

So, for that matter, have Coke and Pepsi lost my business. We’ve been hit with three property tax hikes over the past three years: 9.9% increase in 2009, I forget what the other increase was, and now we’re getting another 3.85% added on going forward. And you know, I am NOT the guy who typically bitches about paying taxes: I firmly believe they are the price we pay for living in a civilized society. But jesus fucking christ, homeowners in Philly have taken it on the chin the past three years running. It is not our fault that Tom Corbett is a fucking penisface who deliberately underfunded our schools. It is not our fault that Philadelphia hired grifter Arlene Ackerman, who together with the incompetent boobs at the School Reform Commission sank the schools into an even worse deficit (by the way, note to Council: once you get Coca-Cola’s dick out of your mouth, maybe you could take some steps to get rid of Ackerman, or is that too much to ask). It is not our fault that the economy crashed either: that was the banks.

Everyone has to sacrifice except those who can afford to sacrifice. “City of Brotherly Love”, my ass: they ought to call it Corporadelphia, because that’s who our lawmakers are standing up for. So Coca Cola and Pepsico, you who lobbyed so hard to protect your already massive profits, I am going to offset my property tax increase by giving up your product, which I usually drink during my lunchbreak. No more Coke or Pepsi, no more Minute Maid juices, no more Aquafina or Dasani (both of which have trace amounts of salt, making sure your thirst is never truly quenched). I can’t afford that luxury anymore.

And what a luxury: both of these products contain enormous amounts of caffeine, which has been linked to cancer as well as high blood pressure, heart attack, and stroke. Everyone knows that sugar is bad for your teeth, but what you may not know is that the phosphoric acid in soda is as bad for your teeth as drinking battery acid and can give you osteoporosis as well.

This is what soda does to your teeth. This is what Philadelphia’s City Council protected.

So fuck you Coca-Cola and Pepsi: I’d sooner drink piss than drink your products. And now that you’ve added on a shitload of extra money to my taxes, because god forbid a global industry worth billions pays any extra taxes, I have the perfect excuse not to.

U.S. REP. Allyson Schwartz is a pearl-necklace-wearing policy wonk who prides herself on picking her battles and choosing her words carefully. But sometimes she just has to speak her mind.

Even if it means telling one of her colleagues that he’s being, well, a wiener.

Schwartz, who represents parts of Philadelphia and Montgomery counties, was the first Democratic member of Congress to publicly call on U.S. Rep. Anthony Weiner to resign last week in the wake of revelations that he’d sent explicit photos of himself to women he’d met on Twitter.

Other elected officials piled on, and yesterday Weiner quit. Schwartz, who has captured huge media attention for her move, said she was simply telling it like it is.

Yes, it is certainly true that politicians can make a big splash with the media when it comes to talking about dick pictures and panty-sniffing. But that shouldn’t be a mark of pride, it should be a mark of shame.

The fact is, Allyson Schwartz had nothing to say when Mark Foley was trying to get it on with 16 year old pages. She didn’t have anything to say about any of the other wandering penises either. And I’m sorry, Allyson, but it really doesn’t take any courage to join a pig-pile. If anything, it shows that you’re disloyal and more interested in putting yourself in the media than anything else.

And when you look at Schwartz’s record? She sides with banks over people, she’s ,a href=”http://www.opencongress.org/wiki/Allyson_Schwartz”>pro-war and anti-civil liberties: she voted YES on making the Patriot Act permanent, YES on continuing intelligence gathering without civil oversight, YES on continuing military recruitment on college campuses, and NO on redeploying US troops out of Iraq. Schwartz is a nted AIPAC whore (who believes the 1967 borders are “a starting point”), and one of those so-called “moderate democrats” who are always busy watering down good legislation to benefit their corporate cronies.She joined the republican assault on health care reform, working to repeal the Independent Payment Advisory Board, which would have made Medicare less expensive. That’s because she’s in the pocket of the health insurance industry. She’s also helped ship good jobs overseas.

That’s not a rising star: that’s a snake. To be more specific, a snake who’s positioning herself for re-election by appealing to some bullshit sense of “moral values”.

U.S. Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont says he thinks a resignation by New York Congressman Anthony Weiner would be in the best interests of his constituents and the U.S. House…. Leahy also says he supports the House Ethics Committee investigation, but says he would welcome a decision by Weiner to resign voluntarily.

Jesus fucking christ. The dude has broken no laws, he hasn’t even had real sex with these women, but Pat Leahy who hasn’t said fucking BOO about David Diapers Vitter, Mary Titty-Lickin’ Good Bono, Larry Widestance Craig, or even Mark I-Like-Tennage-Boys Foley wants him to resign. What the fuck?

Then I saw one of the pictures Weiner took of himself, and jesus christing fuck, I think I knew what the problem is. So I called Pat Leahy’s office.

riiiiiiing….. riiiiiing

“Hello, Senator Leahy’s office,” sais a sweet-voiced young woman.

“Hi,” I said. “My name’s Brendan Skwire, and while I’m not a constituent, as a civil libertarian, I have always been a fan of Senator Leahy. I used to live across the border in Western Massachusetts, and I always liked his approach. I support him on reforming the PATRIOT ACT, on ending the wars, and getting our country back on track. I called yesterday to register my objections to his call for Anthony Weiner to step down…” and I listed all the of various politicians above and how Leahy hadn’t said anything about any of them.

“I was curious why he wanted Weiner to step down,” I went on, “because it didn’t make a lot of sense to me. But then I saw the totally nude picture, and i think I’ve figured it out.

“A lot of senators are really old, right? How old’s Pat, he’s gotta be pushing 80 at this point.”

[The fact is, Pat Leahy looks and sounds like a turtle who burnt out his vocal cords by drinking bleach of something. He's ancient.]

“And here’s this brash young guy, with this incredibly hot wife, he’s totally physically fit, and he’s… well, let me just say that if i was Anthony Weiner’s father, I’d be VERY proud of my genes–”

“OK SIR, WE GET IT,” the young woman began shouting over me.

“I mean, he’s hung like–”

“WE GET IT, SIR”

“…a freakin’ horse, he puts Ron Jeremy to sh–”

“WE GET IT SIR, WE GET–”

“–ame, and I think that Pat’s just jealous. Can you confirm that for me?”

CLICK. Or rather SLAM!!!

I have no patience for this nincompoopery. Anthony Weiner broke no laws. This is between him, his wife, and his constituents, 56% of who want him to carry on. Pat Leahy needs to shut his trap until and unless he’s ready to start calling for all these others to resign as well.

If not, I’m going to keep making fun of him, just like I’m making fun of Allyson “haha, I bankrupted you” Schwartz and nancy “my face is frozen from too much botox and I haven’t had sex in decades” pelosi.

So until I hear otherwise, my belief is that Pat Leahy and the rest of these scolds are simply jealous. Leahy’s in his 70s. And not to be mean, but his wife’s as ancient as he is. The dude probably hasn’t had sex without the help of Viagra in years.

I’ll admit, I’d be jealous too. But I’d also keep my mouth shut about shit that isn’t my business and doesn’t hurt the public interst, like a good team player.

This is rich.

A few weeks ago, I posted about Philadelphia Republicans’ recent town-hall debate, and listed all the ways in which the Republican candidates are unfit to govern, insane, short-sighted, and foolish.

What i neglected to mention was that I left a comment at the article, stating pretty much the same:

I’ll be one of the first to say that the Democratic one-party rule in Philadelphia, like one party rule anywhere, has had damaging effects on the city.

The problem is that the Republicans are not a credible alternative. We have all seen what happens when you elect them to any position of authority: they do NOTHING to create jobs, and instead spend all their time trying to bust unions, drive down wages, deny women health care, destroy necessary infrastructure projects, and turn a blind eye to corporate polluters (while cutting their taxes or, in the case of corbett, not taxing them at all).

Philly’s in bad shape because of decades of unchallenged democratic rule, but it’s no secret that the GOP acquiesced to this in return for patronage crumbs, which is something the Weekly reported on a year or so ago. The fact is you cannot trust the republicans to be fair or even competent for that matter: this is a party that believes government IS the problem, how could you expect them to govern effectively?

I would argue that the comment is not only tame coming from me, it’s also entirely accurate. And boy oh boy, did that set off Republican candidate David Oh, who had a full-on, pants-wetting hissy fit:

BrendanCalling,

The Republicans are evil? Is that the best you can offer? Is that because you care about the people? If you really cared, you would have studied these problems and would be able to offer something constructive. Do you have more?

I read your comment criticizing vouchers. Do you think vouchers which provide relief to working parents, harms the public schools? These parents often work two jobs to send their children to a modestly priced private or Catholic school. That’s because the public school in their neighborhood has a high dropout rate, violence, bullying and very little learning. If they are not able to continue to afford private school, they are likely to move out of our city. That results in less money for the students who attend public school. That’s because these working parents pay School Tax but do not benefit from it. Their money benefits the students who attend public school. Do you belive in smaller class size? I do. If private and Catholic schools continue to shut down, where do these students go? Public school, right? At least, those who are not able to leave the city.

I am for accross the board vouchers for parents. I am not for providing nearly the full tuition of only the poor at the expense of working families. How will that model be sustained? I am not for more Charter Schools than we already have. I am for fixing our public schools. Now, without some type of voucher program, tell me how you will reform education? Do you understand the magnitude of the problems facing our school children? They have far greater problems than you appear to understand or have ever experienced (not “fitting in” is among the least of them).

So tell me about you solutions. I suspect it goes along the lines of tax the rich. But the people that you target as rich are not very rich at all. They are struggling to make ends meet and they do it without government assistance. They are the taxpayers. If they falter, they made need assistance themselves and that means less funds for the poor. Is that your goal? Are you for replacing the public shcools with only charter schools?

You don’t have solutions, do you. What you offer is another political party. That’s fine but tell the readers what you offer besides higher taxes, more government run programs, less choice and increased burdens upon working families.

-David Oh
Republican Candidate for City Council At-Large

You’ll note that, right out of the gate, Oh puts words in my mouth and then argues against them. I think that’s called a straw man argument, and it’s highly dishonest, like the way Oh pretends I’m for charter schools (lie) or the way he pretends he can read my mind. Anyway, i responded:

david oh,

Sorry about your thin skin when it comes to criticism, but as Republican Tom Davis said “the Republican brand is in the trash can…if we were dog food, they would take us off the shelf.” You have no one but yourselves to blame.

your party has been taken over by tea party lunatics thanks to party leadership. I have seen what your party does when given power: you attack programs that help women and children, you go after abortion rights, you go after unions and collective bargaining, and you run up enormous deficits that you then blame on democrats. Then you try to balance budgets on the backs of working people, the poor, and the middle class.

It’s quite illustrative that you openly mock the idea of taxing the rich: I’ll remind you that Eisenhower’s tax rates, when america was prosperous and the middle class was growing, were well above what Mr. Obama has imposed.

Please: it’s the same old phoney concern for the deficit. david, if government is the problem as you suggest, why do you want to be a part of it to begin with? Why would you want to govern when your party prides itself on the fact that it doesn’t believe in government?

PS: my solution for schools? How about properly funding them, which your republican governor doesn’t seem to believe in AT ALL.

It was so nice, i did it twice.

and by the way, david, you’re the one who used the word “evil”, not me. Please don’t put words in my mouth, it’s highly dishonest.

I think what got you so upset is that i pointed to concrete, current examples of what the GOP does with power, and that scares the living crap out of you since the voters have soured on the fringe candidates they elected just a few months ago.

Your party ran on jobs, David, but all they have done is push their far-right social issues that have nothing at all to do with employment (and in many cases, like in NJ and Florida’s rejection of high speed rail, have cost jobs). That’s an indisputable FACT. Knowing this, why would a sane voter believe any of your party’s promises?

By the way, taxes are our dues for living in a civilized society, and everyone should pay their fair share. That includes the wealthiest Americans who, under your party’s leadership, have gotten some of the biggest breaks of all, turning a surplus into a massive deficit.

The fact is, I didn’t say anything that was unfair or inaccurate about the Republicans. Hey, I’m sure David Oh is a nice man, even if he DOES want to undermine public schools and likes to lie about what his critics think. And with all his bragging about union support, he probably wouldn’t attack collective bargaining. Probably.

Look: I’m harbor no illusions about the Democrats is this city, their corruption, their parochialism, their close-minded nepotism. But given what we’ve seen in Harrisburg, Florida, New Jersey, Wisconsin, Indiana, Ohio, and Michigan, do we really want to risk what little we have to the tender mercies of the Republicans?

I say no, we don’t. Given David Oh’s hysterical and defensive over-reaction to criticism, I don’t think he’s got the temperament to govern: given that Republicans don’t believe in government to begin with, that’s a perfect reason NOT to vote for him.

At the same time, no matter what any of these candidates say, I discourage all Philadelphians from voting for even one of them, building on a comment I left at the same article.

I’ll be one of the first to say that the Democratic one-party rule in Philadelphia, like one party rule anywhere, has had damaging effects on the city.

The problem is that the Republicans are not a credible alternative. We have all seen what happens when you elect them to any position of authority: they do NOTHING to create jobs, and instead spend all their time trying to bust unions, drive down wages, deny women health care, destroy necessary infrastructure projects, and turn a blind eye to corporate polluters (while cutting their taxes or, in the case of PA governor Tom Corbett, not taxing them at all). They also try to defund schools, incorporate religion into secular education (including advocating teaching the myth of Creationism in science classes).

Philly’s in bad shape because of decades of unchallenged democratic rule, but it’s no secret that the GOP acquiesced to this in return for patronage crumbs, which is something the Weekly reported on a year or so ago. The fact is you cannot trust the republicans to be fair or even competent for that matter: this is a party that believes government IS the problem, how could you expect them to govern effectively?

To me, it’s hilarious to see a Republican candidate like Elmer Money (apt name for a Republican) talk about how he wants to “promote social change and improve health services especially for those who are most vulnerable and struggle to pay medical bills because of unemployment or lack of insurance”. The only social changes Republicans promote are reactionary and regressive. “Improve health services”? This is a party that claims our medical system is the best in the world, claims Medicare is socialism, spent the past two years blatantly lying that Obama’s pathetically marginal reforms would lead to death panels, and insists that women don’t have a right to reproductive health care or pre-natal services: anyone who thinks a Republican has the best interests of expectant mothers and the poor at heart has been smoking angel dust.

Looking at each candidates campaign promises, I find something to point at and laugh derisively. John Featherman wants to get rid of the city’s Department of Ethics, so I’ll have to assume the candidate is opposed to ethics and in favor of corruption. On the other hand, he’ll let me get hiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiigh.

Lazin complains about fair elections: that’s rich coming from the party that goes out of its way to disenfranchise voters, especially youth and minority voters.

David Oh wants to undermine public education with vouchers for private and religious schools. Well, that’s nice, and I’m sure Mr. Oh has a practical solution for those kids the private schools deem unfit, and skim out of their population (I know how THAT goes: I was kicked out of private school in 8th grade for not fitting in, which was code for “fights back against the bullies”). Maybe someday he’ll share it with us, but if you value public education and a unionized workforce, David Oh is not your guy.

John McColgan thinks that cutting spending creates jobs and wants to start by firing a good chunk of the city’s workforce. McColgan knows a lot about how much better the private sector is, because the US Navy is entirely funded by the private sector. Oh wait…

I’ve already laughed at Elmer Money’s concern for the poor, health care, and expectant mothers, but will remind you that Republicans hate the poor, oppose health care reform, and fought hard in DC to cut WIC and prevent women from having reproductive and pre-natal health care.

Mark Untermeyer wants to get rid of the sheriff’s office and no-bid contracts, but doesn’t describe how he’ll do either of those things, or what he’ll replace the sheriff’s office with. This seems to be standard Republican practice: point to something unpopular, say you’ll get rid of it, but offer no plan for the aftermath. See, “Iraq”.

FInally, we get to Al Schmidt, who i feel a little bad about criticizing because he really IS a nice guy. But again, the idea that a republican can be counted on to “make sure vote totals will be fair and ‘make sure every vote counts’” is laughable on its face. In addition, while I welcome the calls for transparency (as if Republicans are some model of open governance, just look at Tom Corbett’s administration to put the lie to that one), there’s also that characteristic GOP cheap-assedness I’ve come to love SO much. Really Al? You think that a high school kid paid a couple of hundred bucks could come up with a workable system to count votes? Hey, why not hire a McDonalds employee as head chef at Le Bec Fin? Or replace the city’s expensive EMT squad with some Boy Scouts? Maybe we can save a few bucks by ensuring all new structures in Philly are made of Legos instead of bricks and mortar. Anyway, we’ve all seen how skimping on proper software has worked Waukesha County Wisconsin, where the Republicans conveniently “found” thousands of votes for the losing incumbent.

As I said at the outset of this piece, it’s certainly true that the Democrats’ monopoly on Philadelphia’s governance (abetted by lazy and corrupt Republicans) has been harmful, even disastrous in some ways. But turning to the Republicans as some kind of alternative is insane. They won’t keep any of their promises, and will turn immediately to preventing you from getting a Pap smear or cervical exam, throwing you out of work, making it easier for their REAL constituency (corporations and the wealthy) to run roughshod over you, defunding the arts, defunding public education, and union busting.

If you’re looking for an alternative, I suggest the Green Party. They’re running a fantastic candidate for sheriff’s office, a real fighter named Cheri Honkala. The more you support REAL alternatives, especially on the local level, the stronger they grow.

But beware, always, of Republicans promising “reform”. It’s not going to be any reform that helps you or makes your life better.