teabagging

April 16, 2010April 18, 2020

What exactly is the Tea Partiers problem?

Once again my TV was filled with images of angry people complaining about big government and runaway spending and too many taxes. The facts really say otherwise so why are they so upset and have been. I know the primary reason is they lost the 2008 election and their GOP partners can only complain and stomp their feet. But what I just don’t get is why are the tea partiers so upset – really.

With Tax Day again upon us, two story lines will predictably dominate the media coverage on April 15th. In their perpetual war on taxes, conservatives will claim that rates are too high even as those Americans who receive tax credits get “welfare.” Meanwhile, frothing-at-the-mouth Tea Partiers will protest about being “Taxed Enough Already.”
Here, then, are 10 Inconvenient Truths for Tax Day:
1. Over 95% of Working Households Got Tax Cuts
2. Only 2% of Tea Baggers Know Obama Cut Their Taxes…
3. …and 52% of Tea Partiers Think Their Taxes are Fair…
4. …and Think the Federal Tax Level is Over Double What It Is
5. 1% of Families Earned 24% of All Income…
6. …and 57% of All Capital Income
7. 400 Richest Taxpayers Saw Incomes Double, Tax Rates Halved
8. Only 1 in 500 Families Pay the Estate Tax
9. Corporate Taxes Have Plummeted as a Share of GDP
10. The U.S. Loses $345 Billion a Year to Tax Evasion and Fraud
10 Inconvenient Truths for Tax Day

So they protested *not* paying taxes? Really?

I also don’t understand how a rational compassionate human being can be against a needy person getting the health care they need without having to destroy their financial lives. Do tea partiers really believe that affordable health care is something open to merit? Really?

I know the protesters aren’t all racists but why do they automatically use images and words that invokes racism? I know if President Obama wasn’t black that some of the words and images wouldn’t be used in the protests.

Why does it seem that the protesters will take the word of known liars and not do their own research when forming beliefs on public policies. Are they that gullible? Really?

Where were these people when Bush was running up huge debit to fight an unneeded war and violated our 4th amendment rights with impunity?

Oh that’s right – then they agreed with everything. Really??

September 14, 2009April 18, 2020

Tea Parties – efforts in peasant thinking

In case you missed it several thousand people gathered in Washington on Saturday to protest everything they hate about the current administration. The theme, egged on by their talk radio puppet masters, seemed to be that Washington was stealing money from middle-class Americans and giving it to undeserving people – ie. poor people. Glenn Greenwald writes that such thinking is peasant thinking.

It wasn’t the poor or illegal immigrants who were the beneficiaries of the Wall St. bailout; it was the investment banks which, not even a year later, are wallowing in record profits and bonuses thanks to massive taxpayer-funded welfare. The endlessly expanding (and secret) balance sheet of the Federal Reserve isn’t going to fund midnight basketball programs or health care for Mexican immigrants but is enabling extreme profiteering by the very people who, just a year ago, almost brought the global economic system to full-scale collapse. Our endless wars and always-expanding Surveillance State — fueled by constant fear-mongering campaigns against the Latest Scary Enemy — keep the National Security corporations drowning in profits, paid for by middle-class taxes. And even health-care reform — which supposedly began with anger over extreme insurance company profiteering at the expense of people’s health — will be an enormous boon to that same industry, as tens of millions of people are forced by the Government to become their customers with the central mechanism to control costs (the public option) blocked by that same industry. That’s why those industries are enthusiastically in favor of reform: because, as always, they will benefit massively from it.
If Fox News, Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh were truly opposed to expanded government power, where were they when George Bush and Dick Cheney were expanding federal power in virtually every realm, driving up the national debt to unprecedented proportions, destroying middle-class economic security in order to benefit the wealthiest, and generally ensuring government intrusion into every aspect of people’s lives? They were supporting it and cheering it on.
Who are the undeserving “others” benefiting from expanded government actions?

April 18, 2009April 18, 2020

Teabaggers can’t handle the truth

The best part of this past week’s Tea Bag protest sponsored by Fox News happened in Pensacola Florida when a person who agreed to speak told the crowd the truth. That those making less than $250,000 will be taxed less and the blame for the economic crisis we face lies squarely on the Republican party and the Bush administration.

Sinfonian, a blogger at Blast Off!!! blog, has the details:

Seriously — I didn’t realize there would be an opportunity to speak, but they were practically begging folks to come up and say a few words … and I was right there…
I enjoyed the part when I asked, “How many here make less than $250,000 a year?” and there’s a big cheer … then it goes quiet again when I tell them they’ll pay less in taxes under the Obama plan. That’s about when the murmuring started …
My favorite part, though, is as I continue to gripe about the years from 2000 to 2008 (yeah, it’s ’01 to ’09, but you have to “speak to your audience,” y’know), and then I hit them with “place the blame where it belongs: squarely on the Republican Party and the Bush administration,” they pretty much lost their shit at that point. That was fun.
DFH blogger speaks at Pensacola Tea Party … and lives to tell the tale

Here’s the video of the event:

Now we know why the Republican party requires you to sign a loyalty oath before being allowed to attend one of their events. How else to you suppress the truth?

My only other comment about the events on the 15th is that it made me sad to see so many ignorant racist people involved with the protest. I know it will take time to reverse the Alfred E Bush dumbass effect from the past 8 years but it still makes our country look bad.

*Update 4/18/09*

Actually I had planned not to make any more comments about the Fox News Teabag movement until I came across a great point by writer Matt Taibbi:

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.
The really irritating thing about these morons is that, guaranteed, not one of them has ever taken a serious look at the federal budget. Not one has ever bothered to read an actual detailed study of what their taxes pay for. All they do is listen to one-liners doled out by tawdry Murdoch-hired mouthpieces like Michelle Malkin and then repeat them as if they’re their own opinions five seconds later. That’s what passes for political thought in this country. Teabag on, you fools.
Teabagging Michelle Malkin

I agree with Taibbi. Everyone at those Teabag parties are absolute morons…..