What a Lovely Tea Party – Part Dos
2009 April 16
Here is a crowd picture (taken from behind the speaker’s dais). The guy working the sound gear is CJ, who blogs at A Soldier’s Perspective. CJ was a frequent guest of Pamela Furr (she did get some amazingly good guests) and he was her go to guy for military issues. The guy in the foreground is just another domestic terrorist.
The right wing extremist in this picture is Phil Williams, candidate for State House District 6:
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Watch Pensacola, FL Teabaggers who earn less than $250,000 dollars a year boo the truth and book a tax break.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AkOwsIIIe5I
Correction, should read and BOO a tax break.
You’re part of BO’s intellectually incurious base that doesn’t understand why a “refundable tax credit” that puts tax dollars in the pockets of individuals who have no tax obligation is not a tax cut. It’s wealth redistribution, plain and simple, not a tax cut.
Redeye – you are either ignorant or vulgar – using that term to describe the Pensacola protesters is vile. Typical nasty Leftist.
Everybody pays taxes, so I don’t know who the people are that you are referring to when you say the tax credit will go to those that have no tax obligation. Tell me who doesn’t pay taxes in one way or another, be it sales tax, grocery tax, gas tax, license tags, etc.
Unlike Bush, Obama is not taking money from the middle class so the rich can get richer. Unlike Bush, Obama is investing in the American people, not the Iraqi people. Unlike Bush, Obama is investing in America, not in spreading freedom and democracy to to to the Middle East. Unlike Bush, Obama is investing in building schools in America and not Iraq. Unlike Bush, Obama is creating jobs in America and not outsourcing them overseas.
If I earned more than $250,000 I would thankfully pay my fair share because I realize that Freedom isn’t Free.
What is the alternative? The majority of the American people voted to change the course not stay the course.
I am about sick and tired of the term tea bag from you and Anderson Cooper, and Olberman, and Maddow. You bunch of pervs.
It is really quite hilarious. A short peek at some of the blogs in the state show liberal folk using all kind of sophomoric humor – teabagging, pee pee party. All this, and still they are so busy being jealous that they can’t stop to understand what these events were about.
Sadly on the left that is the intelligence level we’re dealing with here. When you can’t beat ‘em, call them pee pee head and make crude frat boy sex jokes!
The fact that clowns and illiterates like Redeye and Left in Alabama have taken the angle on the Tea Parties they have is quite predictable. They wanted an explosion of racism and “Obama is a Muslim”, had they got that you would see a rational breakdown of the events pointing out the “real” intent. Instead what they got was a series of large, well behaved (but fired up) and reasonable crowds. So now they have to resort to this garbage.
Good job Redeye.
In fact Redeye’s stomping ground “Left in 1969’s Alabama” has ignored the Tea Parties since they didn’t get what they want.
Let us know when you join us in 2009 Redeye.
Who adopted the term “teabagging” for this hullabaloo?
For thousands of Americans, Tax Day was a moment to protest what they see as bloated budgets and a pile of debt being passed on to their children.
For CNN, MSNBC and other media outlets, it was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to use the word “teabagging” in a sentence.
Teabagging, for those who don’t live in a frat house, refers to a sexual act involving part of the male genitalia and a second person’s face or mouth.
So when the anti-tax “tea party” protests were held Wednesday across the country, cable anchors and guests — who for weeks had all but ignored the story — covered the protests by cracking a litany of barely concealed sexual references.
CNN anchor Anderson Cooper interspersed “teabagging” references with analyst David Gergen’s more staid commentary on how Republicans are still “searching for their voice.”
“It’s hard to talk when you’re teabagging,” Cooper explained. Gergen laughed, but Cooper kept a straight face.
MSNBC’s David Shuster weaved a tapestry of “Animal House” humor Monday as he filled in for Countdown host Keith Olbermann.
The protests, he explained, amount to “Teabagging day for the right wing and they are going nuts for it.”
He described the parties as simultaneously “full-throated” and “toothless,” and continued: “They want to give President Obama a strong tongue-lashing and lick government spending.” Shuster also noted how the protesters “whipped out” the demonstrations this past weekend.
Tea Party participants were not amused. The events were held in dozens of cities across the country, and while some demonstrators were criticized for wielding off-topic and sometimes insensitive protest signs, most took to the streets to speak out against government spending.
Brent Bozell, president of the conservative Media Research Center, said the media coverage was “insulting,” reacting specifically to CNN reporter Susan Roesgen’s combative interviews with Illinois demonstrators in which she declared that the protests were “anti-CNN” and supported by FOX News. She left the teabagging jokes to her colleagues, though.
“I’ve never seen anything like it,” Bozell said. “The oral sex jokes on (CNN) and particularly MSNBC on teabagging … they had them by the dozens. That’s how insulting they were toward people who believe they’re being taxed too highly.”
Max Pappas, public policy vice president at FreedomWorks — a small-government group which promoted the tea parties — said it’s a “shame” media outlets cracked jokes at a genuine “grassroots uprising.”
“I think what that reveals is how worried they are that this might actually be something serious. You make fun of things you’re afraid of, I’d say,” Pappas said.
If anyone thinks the orally charged remarks on mainstream cable were just a coincidence, MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow’s segments over the past week with guest, Air America’s Ana Marie Cox, would dissolve all doubt. Their on-air gymnastics, dancing around the double entendre of the week, looked like live-action Beavis and Butthead.
By one count, the two of them used the word “teabag” more than 50 times on one show. And on Monday, Cox even let the viewers in on their joke — referencing Urbandictionary.com, a site which offers a number of colorful definitions for the term “teabagging.”
“Well, there is a lot of love in teabagging,” Cox said. “It is curious, though, as you point out, they do not use the verb ‘teabag.’ It might be because they’re less enthusiastic about teabagging than some of the more corporate conservatives who seem to have taken to it quite easily.”
Jenny Beth Martin, a Republican activist who helped organize one protest in Atlanta, said she’s not too worried about the protests being dismissed by some media outlets. She estimated 750,000 people attended more than 800 protests in all 50 states, and that at the very least the local media and community newspapers documented it.
“Our message definitely got out where it needed to get,” she said.
Redeye, with the exception of the gas tax none of the taxes you listed are federal taxes. And you have no idea of knowing who paid how much (if anything directly) in gas taxes.
Here is how someone could have no federal income tax (actually, this family would walk away with more money):
Married couple with two kids filing jointly with an income of $35,000. They take the standard deduction of $10,900, which leaves a taxable income of $25,100 (1040 line 43). They owe $2,959 in taxes according to the tax table. But wait! They get a $1,000 per kid tax credit (non-refundable), so their “total tax” is $959 (1040 line 61). But the fun hasn’t ended! They qualify for the Earned Income Credit, a refundable tax credit worth $1,394 for them (1040 line 64a). So instead of owing $959 they actually get paid $435 (1040 line 72)!
There you go, no federal income tax obligation. They are already beneficiaries of wealth redistribution. That $435 was taken from someone like me who does owe money and given to them. Barack Obama wants to add more “refundable tax credits” to the mix and transfer more wealth.
Now, please tell me how creating another refundable tax credit for the hypothetical family described here – who already gets money from the federal government – can be considered a tax cut.
Brian, the $435 that was “taken from you”(?) won’t make you poor, or the married couple raising two children on $35,000 a year rich, so where is the “redistribution of wealth? The low income family is going to take that $435.00 and buy something with it. What ever they buy they will pay sales tax.
Wow, if you don’t see how taking from me and giving to another redistributes my “wealth” (money, property, pick your own word) then there really is no help for you. At least your comment is insightful to the thought process, such as it is, of your side, which is helpful to know.
What is better? Allow the mutual joy of people who have money to share with those who have not, or have the government forcibly take and give to those who have not? Have those in need to develop a relationship with a charity and a local community or have a faceless government check show up once a month?
Key difference in socialism v. free market is the faith in humanity. Socialists have none.
redeye- I will present you another analogy here and see if you still agree with your current view. From my perspective, I don’t tend to view my money as fiat (in the sense that most liberals do) but as a ’stock certificate of ownership in the country’. The more money I have, the more I can invest in the country (e.g. buying good/services, property, maintenance/upkeep, etc.). I learned the definition of the American Work Ethic at a very early age. It basically states: if you work hard enough for something, you will earn a just reward. This is one of the founding principles of this country that makes it so great and what has attracted so many to it– as opposed to the class-based systems used in UK and various other countries. It provides opportunities that other countries do not provide.
The welfare system in this country was put in with good intentions but like everything else it has run amuck. Too many want to work just enough to get by and let the rest of the country pull them out. (50% of the country did not pay federal income taxes last year alone!) The $435 taken from him in taxes will not make him poor but in the same sense it is not providing moral incentive to the low-income family to increase their net worth because they can always rely on receiving (at least that amount) yearly. What percentage of welfare recipients become financially independent? I don’t have an answer to that one.
The bottom line: Conservatives to to view wealth as ownership in the country whereas liberals tend to view it as something that can be printed up whenever they want.
Russ,
You said; I don’t tend to view my money as fiat (in the sense that most liberals do). I don’t know what the fiat you are talking about. The only fiat I know is a foreign car company.
You also said; The more money I have, the more I can invest in the country (e.g. buying good/services, property, maintenance/upkeep, etc.). That’s all well and good, but what good it having more money to invest in the country if the people who are buying the goods and services and peforming services etc. don’t have access to health care? Or don’t earn enough money to buy the goods and services? Or their children don’t attend quality public schools? You talk of “work ethic”, these are the people that go to work every day, the maids who clean homes they can never afford to live in, the autoworkers who make cars they can’t afford to drive, the teachers who come out of their pockets to buy school supplies , the construction workers who can’t afford to send their student to college, , the resturant workers who can’t afford to private school so they send their children to failing public schools, the nurses and hospital workers who can’t afford to get sick. There is nothing wrong with their work ethic. How are low income people expected to be motivated to “increase their net worth” under those circumstances? b What are they supposed to do, rob a bank or sell drugs?
Let’s say one day there is a Hurricane and it destroys your home and your business. Unless you have your wealth in a Swiss Bank or an offshore account the first thing you are going to do it apply for welfare, I mean assistance, from your government in the form of SBA Loans or FEMA disaster relief funds.
The bottom line is greed is not good. Republicans are all about I, me and mine. Liberals are about us, we, and our. The rich get richer and the rest get the shaft, is that the republican way?
BTW, republicans didn’t mind printing up trillions of dollars for welfare in Iraq.
My C0-worker is not married. So they each get the earned income credit. He works when he wants…no worries if he misses a day nearly every week because he gets food stamps, low income housing, medical and earned income credit. Add both their incomes….food stamps and Earned Income Credit and they make close to $50,000. And that’s not counting their free medical! They have big screen TV’s, new furniture, a boat, go out to eat several times a week…all courtesy of us Tax Payers. Gosh, for me, going to the movies and dinner is a treat. And I don’t dare call in sick at work and miss a days pay. I don’t get that FREE money at the end of the year! And health care is really out of the question. I am fed up….by the time most of the people I know get their earned income credit and food stamps they are making much more than my spouse & I make and we’re both working too. We’re having extra held out of our checks just so we won’t have to pay in at the end of the year. How fair is that???? Oh, and if $435 was taken from me it wouldn’t make me poor, but why should I have to give it to someone who makes more than me after they get all their benefits?