Wanna know what's next after "teabagging" on the Right?
... or check out the video on YouTube after the click.
Saturday, April 18, 2009
Twitters From Texas
Gail Collins / NYTimes
Let us pause to consider Rick Perry, the governor of Texas, and his feelings about seceding from the union.
This all started during the recent anti-tax protests. You undoubtedly saw the pictures of the demonstrations full of people wearing teabags or tricorner hats who kept comparing themselves to the founding fathers at the Boston Tea Party. True, when it comes to taxation without representation, they were slightly different from colonial New Englanders on the minor point of having representation. But let’s not be picky.
Have you ever noticed that the states where anti-tax sentiment is strongest are frequently the same states that get way more back from the federal government than they send in? Alaska gets $1.84 for every tax dollar it sends to Washington, which is a rate of return even Bernard Madoff never pretended to achieve. Yet there they were in Ketchikan waving “Taxed Enough Already!” signs and demanding an end to federal spending.
... read more about the Twits from Texas and other tax protesters who don't have a clue about what they're saying.
My comment: There's a certain irony about a bunch of people madly waving the American flag and shouting "Secede!". But, honestly? I don't think they get it.
Let us pause to consider Rick Perry, the governor of Texas, and his feelings about seceding from the union.
This all started during the recent anti-tax protests. You undoubtedly saw the pictures of the demonstrations full of people wearing teabags or tricorner hats who kept comparing themselves to the founding fathers at the Boston Tea Party. True, when it comes to taxation without representation, they were slightly different from colonial New Englanders on the minor point of having representation. But let’s not be picky.
Have you ever noticed that the states where anti-tax sentiment is strongest are frequently the same states that get way more back from the federal government than they send in? Alaska gets $1.84 for every tax dollar it sends to Washington, which is a rate of return even Bernard Madoff never pretended to achieve. Yet there they were in Ketchikan waving “Taxed Enough Already!” signs and demanding an end to federal spending.
... read more about the Twits from Texas and other tax protesters who don't have a clue about what they're saying.
My comment: There's a certain irony about a bunch of people madly waving the American flag and shouting "Secede!". But, honestly? I don't think they get it.
Just a quick thought
Session, as promoted by the Republican governor of Texas and other right wingnut so-called patriots is, by definition un-American. Un-American is precisely what the right-wingers labeled contemporary Democrats in general and progressive liberals in particular for the last 40 years.
Elections have consequences and the elections in 2006 and 2008 sent a clear message that the unholy alliance of social conservatives, fiscal conservatives, libertarians, neocons and fundamentalist Bible thumpers had pursued a set of social and economic policies that the majority of people in this country recognized as NOT in the national interest. The response of the losers has been on the order of "we want to take our marbles and go home". Having forced ultimately distasteful policies down the throats of the majority of Americans for the last 20 years they are appalled that defeat tastes (as Jon Stewart characterized it) like a sh!t taco.
Elections have consequences and the elections in 2006 and 2008 sent a clear message that the unholy alliance of social conservatives, fiscal conservatives, libertarians, neocons and fundamentalist Bible thumpers had pursued a set of social and economic policies that the majority of people in this country recognized as NOT in the national interest. The response of the losers has been on the order of "we want to take our marbles and go home". Having forced ultimately distasteful policies down the throats of the majority of Americans for the last 20 years they are appalled that defeat tastes (as Jon Stewart characterized it) like a sh!t taco.
Teabagging Michelle Malkin
From
Matt Tiabbi
So yeah, government waste sucks, it’s rampant at every level, and taxes are a vicious racket, and everyone should be pissed off. What’s hilarious about the teabaggers, though, is how they never squawk about waste until the spending actually has a chance of benefiting them. You will never hear of a teabagger crying about OPIC giving $50 million in free insurance to some mining company so that they can dig for silver in rural Bolivia. You won’t hear of a teabagger protesting the $2.5 billion in Ex-Im loans we gave to GE through the early part of this decade, even as GE was moving nearly a hundred thousand jobs overseas over the course of ten years. And Michelle Malkin’s readers didn’t seem to mind giving IBM millions in Ex-IM and ATP loans at the same time it was giving its former CEO, Lou Gerstner, $260 million in stock options.
In other words teabaggers don’t mind paying taxes to fund the salaries of Bolivian miners, Lou Gerstner’s stock options, deliveries of “sailboat fuel,” the Hermes scarves on Sandy Weill’s jet pillows, or even the export of their own goddamn jobs. But they do hate it when someone tries to re-asphalt their roads, or help bail their slob neighbor out of foreclosure. And God forbid someone propose a health care program, or increased financial aid for college. Hell, that’s like offering to share your turkey with the other Pilgrims! That’s not what America is all about! America is every Pilgrim for himself, dammit! Raise your own motherfucking turkey!
Oh, and there’s one other thing. I heard today from Steve Wamhoff of Citizens for Tax Justice. He had an interesting tidbit to offer on the teabagging movement. According to his research, 39% of respondents with incomes below $30,000 told the Gallup agency that they felt that federal income tax levels were “too high.” Which is interesting, because only 32% of respondents in that income category will pay any federal income taxes at all on their 2008 income. You can draw your own conclusions.
... more wit and wisdom from Matt Tiabbi after the click.
Matt Tiabbi
So yeah, government waste sucks, it’s rampant at every level, and taxes are a vicious racket, and everyone should be pissed off. What’s hilarious about the teabaggers, though, is how they never squawk about waste until the spending actually has a chance of benefiting them. You will never hear of a teabagger crying about OPIC giving $50 million in free insurance to some mining company so that they can dig for silver in rural Bolivia. You won’t hear of a teabagger protesting the $2.5 billion in Ex-Im loans we gave to GE through the early part of this decade, even as GE was moving nearly a hundred thousand jobs overseas over the course of ten years. And Michelle Malkin’s readers didn’t seem to mind giving IBM millions in Ex-IM and ATP loans at the same time it was giving its former CEO, Lou Gerstner, $260 million in stock options.
In other words teabaggers don’t mind paying taxes to fund the salaries of Bolivian miners, Lou Gerstner’s stock options, deliveries of “sailboat fuel,” the Hermes scarves on Sandy Weill’s jet pillows, or even the export of their own goddamn jobs. But they do hate it when someone tries to re-asphalt their roads, or help bail their slob neighbor out of foreclosure. And God forbid someone propose a health care program, or increased financial aid for college. Hell, that’s like offering to share your turkey with the other Pilgrims! That’s not what America is all about! America is every Pilgrim for himself, dammit! Raise your own motherfucking turkey!
Oh, and there’s one other thing. I heard today from Steve Wamhoff of Citizens for Tax Justice. He had an interesting tidbit to offer on the teabagging movement. According to his research, 39% of respondents with incomes below $30,000 told the Gallup agency that they felt that federal income tax levels were “too high.” Which is interesting, because only 32% of respondents in that income category will pay any federal income taxes at all on their 2008 income. You can draw your own conclusions.
... more wit and wisdom from Matt Tiabbi after the click.
Friday, April 17, 2009
Teabaggers ... in a nut shell ...
from Wonkette
... today’s History Scholars are protesting Obama’s massive tax increases, or as they are known back here on Planet Earth, “the largest middle-class tax cuts in history.” They also do not like that he is from Kenya.
... read the rest after the click.
... today’s History Scholars are protesting Obama’s massive tax increases, or as they are known back here on Planet Earth, “the largest middle-class tax cuts in history.” They also do not like that he is from Kenya.
... read the rest after the click.
Isn't "Laying blame for the past" what we used to think of as "justice"?
by Howard Rodman on HuffPo
President Obama did something which should be commonplace but which, in this terrible time, is now thought of as optional for high officials, which is to say, he obeyed the law. The law in this case required him, in response to an ACLU lawsuit, to disclose the Torture Memos, prepared by the Office of Legal Counsel under the Bush administration. (It is a sad testimony that doing as the law requires is, in our political climate, an act of bravery.)
... more after the click.
President Obama did something which should be commonplace but which, in this terrible time, is now thought of as optional for high officials, which is to say, he obeyed the law. The law in this case required him, in response to an ACLU lawsuit, to disclose the Torture Memos, prepared by the Office of Legal Counsel under the Bush administration. (It is a sad testimony that doing as the law requires is, in our political climate, an act of bravery.)
... more after the click.
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
Some Stuff Just Ain't True
Here, then, are 10 Republican Tax Day lies:
1. President Obama will raise taxes on small businesses.
2. The estate tax devastates small businesses and family farms.
3. 40% of Americans pay no taxes.
4. Tax cuts always increase revenue.
5. The GOP is the party of fiscal discipline.
6. Ronald Reagan was the greatest tax cutter of all time.
7. FDR caused the Great Depression, or at least made it worse.
8. Obama's cap-and-trade plan will cost each American family $3,100 a year.
9. Obama's tax proposals will undermine charitable giving.
10. The rich pay too much in taxes already.
For the details behind each of the GOP's Tax Day deceits, continue reading ... after the click.
1. President Obama will raise taxes on small businesses.
2. The estate tax devastates small businesses and family farms.
3. 40% of Americans pay no taxes.
4. Tax cuts always increase revenue.
5. The GOP is the party of fiscal discipline.
6. Ronald Reagan was the greatest tax cutter of all time.
7. FDR caused the Great Depression, or at least made it worse.
8. Obama's cap-and-trade plan will cost each American family $3,100 a year.
9. Obama's tax proposals will undermine charitable giving.
10. The rich pay too much in taxes already.
For the details behind each of the GOP's Tax Day deceits, continue reading ... after the click.
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
Recession fueling right-wing extremism
Reuters via Yahoo NEWS
Right-wing extremists in the United States are gaining new recruits by exploiting fears about the economy and the election of the first black U.S. president, the Department of Homeland Security warned in a report to law enforcement officials.
The April 7 report, which Reuters and other news media obtained on Tuesday, said such fears were driving a resurgence in "recruitment and radicalization activity" by white supremacist groups, antigovernment extremists and militia movements. It did not identify any by name.
DHS had no specific information about pending violence and said threats had so far been "largely rhetorical."
But it warned that home foreclosures, unemployment and other consequences of the economic recession "could create a fertile recruiting environment for right-wing extremists."
... read the rest of Reuters coverage after the click.
My comment: So ... let me see if I get this right. Right wing ideology that engineered the almost total deregulation of our financial sector, a deregulation that lead directly to the housing crisis, the banking crisis, the credit crisis and the impending recession has also bred a bunch of right wingnuts who feel the answer is to collect guns and ammunition so they can stage a "revolution" against an administration that is working overtime to stabilize a situation that their approach to government created. The right wing sense of logic and reality leaves something to be desired.
Right-wing extremists in the United States are gaining new recruits by exploiting fears about the economy and the election of the first black U.S. president, the Department of Homeland Security warned in a report to law enforcement officials.
The April 7 report, which Reuters and other news media obtained on Tuesday, said such fears were driving a resurgence in "recruitment and radicalization activity" by white supremacist groups, antigovernment extremists and militia movements. It did not identify any by name.
DHS had no specific information about pending violence and said threats had so far been "largely rhetorical."
But it warned that home foreclosures, unemployment and other consequences of the economic recession "could create a fertile recruiting environment for right-wing extremists."
... read the rest of Reuters coverage after the click.
My comment: So ... let me see if I get this right. Right wing ideology that engineered the almost total deregulation of our financial sector, a deregulation that lead directly to the housing crisis, the banking crisis, the credit crisis and the impending recession has also bred a bunch of right wingnuts who feel the answer is to collect guns and ammunition so they can stage a "revolution" against an administration that is working overtime to stabilize a situation that their approach to government created. The right wing sense of logic and reality leaves something to be desired.
Why we study the past ...
Ever notice how the wingnuts all clutch their pearls and collapse on the fainting couches whenever President Obama talks about the miserable failure that has been conservative rule?
Of course, they really don't want to own up to this failure, because otherwise their fading movement will collapse altogether. But the harsh fact is that we can't solve the problems, and prevent their repeat, without understanding the nature of the mistakes that caused them.
... read the rest on Crooks and Liars after the click.
My comment: We study the past because you can't fix problems if you don't know how they came about.
Of course, they really don't want to own up to this failure, because otherwise their fading movement will collapse altogether. But the harsh fact is that we can't solve the problems, and prevent their repeat, without understanding the nature of the mistakes that caused them.
... read the rest on Crooks and Liars after the click.
My comment: We study the past because you can't fix problems if you don't know how they came about.
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