Tea Baggers

slideman67 · Post by **slideman67** » Wed Apr 15, 2009 11:10 am

Enjoy this for today.

slideman67 · Post by **slideman67** » Wed Apr 15, 2009 11:22 am

Great article from Joan Walsh in Salon today that pretty much covers it.

Party like it's 1995!

Protests are as American as apple pie, and that includes the Glenn Beck, Fox News and CNBC backed "Tax Day Tea Parties" on Wednesday. The work of a small if increasingly angry echo chamber of Obama obstructionists, they'll come and go without hurting the president's political approval ratings. We're covering them -- and we're asking you to help us cover them -- but it's entirely possible to make too much of them.

Just in time for this day of massive protest, Gallup released a poll showing that 61 percent of Americans believe the income taxes they paid this year are "fair," and more Americans now say the amount they pay is "just right" than "too high" -- one of the most pro-tax outcomes since Gallup began polling on this question in 1956. Great timing, Tea Partiers! Way to have your fingers on the nation's pulse.

Still, it's interesting to examine what Obama's opponents think are winning messages at a time when they're utterly shut out of power. Remember that when CNBC's Rick Santelli kicked off the tea-party movement, he was railing against a small component of Obama's credit-crisis plan intended to help homeowners avoid foreclosure. The entire TARP program will easily cost a trillion dollars; Timothy Geithner's PPPIP ("Public Private Partnership Investment Program," or "Cash for Trash" in Paul Krugman's words) will cost an estimated half-trillion more. But Santelli got upset about "losers" who bought homes they couldn't afford, and who'd get helped out by taxpayers -- who will get only a fraction of the money Obama's spending on the crisis.

Imagine that: Not a word from Santelli about bailouts for bankers and other plutocrats with criminally poor judgment. Likewise, yesterday I was on MSNBC's "The Ed Show" with radio talker Neal Boortz (who's joining Sean Hannity at the tea party protest in Hot-lanta!) and host Ed Schultz was railing (appropriately) against the way banks and credit card companies are taking TARP money with one hand, and then raising interest rates and consumer fees on the other. TARP oversight director (and my personal hero these days) Elizabeth Warren is livid about it, telling the Wall Street Journal: "The people who are subsidizing the activities of the banks through their tax dollars are the same people who are furnishing the high profits through consumer lending. In a sense, we're asking taxpayers to pay twice."

But that didn't bother Boortz, who ridiculed people who run balances on their credit cards in the first place, which he insisted mainly pay for "luxuries." I noted a recent raft of stories about consumers forced into bankruptcy because they paid healthcare with credit cards, but Boortz didn't seem to care. Maybe, like Santelli, he'd just call such people "losers."

Of course, the real irony, maybe even tragedy, of the Tea Party movement is the fact that it's Obama who kept a campaign promise and lowered taxes on roughly 95 percent of American taxpayers. How many folks attending the protests do you expect will know that? There may even be a significant percentage of Tea Partiers who could be penalized by high-balance fees by the credit card companies or who might ultimately need help with their mortgages. Sucks to be those guys! Expect the president to spend much of April 15 talking about his tax cuts and other assistance for struggling, middle-income Americans. Let's hope his message gets through, even to some of the Tea Party attendees. There's still so much class-unconsciousness going on.

To me the most laughable aspect of the Tax Day protests is the leadership role taken by has-beens like Newt Gingrich and the ever-creepy Dick Armey. (No teabagging jokes, please!) Let's remember when Armey insisted President Clinton's minor tax increases in the mid-'90s would destroy the economy; of course the Clinton years turned out to be an economic golden age. Why does being wrong never hurt guys like Dick? As Joe Conason notes, when Armey left Congress for his banking- and tobacco-funded golden parachute Freedom Works, his first failed project was to try to organize Astroturf groups supporting Social Security privatization. I expect Armey's Tea Party movement to be just as effective.

The escalation of shrill and sometimes violent anti-government rhetoric since Obama took office is a blight on our culture. But while we'll pay attention to the Tax Day Tea Party movement, we won't overreact. Obama's greatest achievement was finally convincing a decisive number of red-state and working-class people to stop supporting Republicans over their own class interests. If you attend any Tea Party events -- or cover them for Salon -- be sure to ask people there if they know whether Obama cut their taxes. Maybe we can start a dialogue, not a fight. I'll be attending the Tea Party at House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's office here in San Francisco. More on Wednesday.

slideman67 · Post by **slideman67** » Wed Apr 15, 2009 12:36 pm

From today's Austin American Statesman. This editorial pretty much summs it all up.

http://www.statesman.com/opinion/content/editorial/stories/04/15/0415teaparty_edit.html

GOP is teed off and out of ideas
EDITORIAL BOARD
Wednesday, April 15, 2009

Instead of presenting ideas for lifting the economy, Republicans again are engaged in attention-getting gimmickry. This time they are backing a "Tax Day Tea Party" to denounce President Barack Obama's budget and initiatives to stimulate the economy. Obama signed a $787 billion stimulus package he pushed to boost the economy and asked for a $3.6 trillion budget for fiscal year 2010.

The tea parties, scheduled today in Austin and across the country, are stunts — the kind associated more with high school or college students than serious-minded politicians confronting an economic crisis. And they come as the economy has shown recent signs of recovery, small though they are. Americans are taking home more money in their paychecks thanks to Obama's stimulus initiative. There is even a bit of good news to be had in filing federal taxes. Tax refunds to individuals are up about 15 percent through April 3 , according to the Internal Revenue Service. (Reminder: Today is the deadline for filing tax returns on time.)

Tea party organizers present themselves as a grass-roots movement to protest expanded federal spending. Yet today's event in Austin will feature big names in GOP politics. U.S. Rep. Michael McCaul, whose district includes parts of Austin, will be a featured speaker at the Capitol, along with state Sen. Dan Patrick, R-Houston. At Austin City Hall, Gov. Rick Perry, Texas Railroad Commissioner Michael Williams and state Rep. Wayne Christian, R-Center, are scheduled tea party guests.

If the tea parties have that conservative talk-show look and feel, that's because they are being promoted by Fox Television's Sean Hannity, Glenn Beck and Neil Cavuto.

It's fair to question whether a void in leadership prompted a takeover by right-wing talk show hosts that now seem to set the agenda for the Republican Party. If so, that's unfortunate because the GOP has several serious-minded leaders and thinkers: Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty; former U.S. House speaker Newt Gingrich; Sens. John McCain of Arizona and Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania; Sens. Olympia Snowe of Maine and Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas. Unable to find its voice, purpose or identity, the GOP continues to adopt obstruction and gimmickry as a means to respond to a popular president.

By the look of most polls, the public is not buying gimmicks this season.

A Gallup Poll shows that 71 percent of Americans have a great deal or a fair amount of confidence in Obama to do or recommend the right thing for the economy, a much higher level of confidence than is given to Republican leaders in Congress.

Today's tea parties will do little to change those sentiments about Republicans. Instead, they are likely to contribute to a growing perception that the GOP is not only out of power, but out of touch and ideas. If Republicans want to win public confidence, they should drink the tea and dump the gimmicks.

annarborgator · Post by **annarborgator** » Wed Apr 15, 2009 1:02 pm

I notice you had no response to my explanation of how the Prez is maintaining the status quo at the taxpayer's expense.

annarborgator · Post by **annarborgator** » Wed Apr 15, 2009 1:20 pm

Nice, succinct explanation here of why all the bailouts, etc. are worth bitching about:

We've lambasted just about all the bank program as being based on the flawed premise that asset prices are temporarily distressed, rather than the recognition that a tremendous amount of credit was given to people who even at the time could not have realistically serviced the debt, plus another group that would be money good only if the economy kept running in high gear. But rather than accept the new reality, they are instead trying to prop up asset prices to restore status quo ante.

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2009/04/us-decides-to-disclose-some-results.html

Your boy's either an idiot or bought-and-paid-for. Which one is it?

slideman67 · Post by **slideman67** » Wed Apr 15, 2009 2:20 pm

I notice you had no response to my explanation of how the Prez is maintaining the status quo at the taxpayer's expense.

My comment to that is that I am not happy about insiders being in the adminsitration. On the other hand, to say that the status quo is being maintained is simply not true. The whole package has not been finalized yet, and I can tell you that the days of anything goes no regulaation are over. And that in and of itself will shake up the status quo.

slideman67 · Post by **slideman67** » Wed Apr 15, 2009 2:22 pm

Nice, succinct explanation here of why all the bailouts, etc. are worth bitching about:

We've lambasted just about all the bank program as being based on the flawed premise that asset prices are temporarily distressed, rather than the recognition that a tremendous amount of credit was given to people who even at the time could not have realistically serviced the debt, plus another group that would be money good only if the economy kept running in high gear. But rather than accept the new reality, they are instead trying to prop up asset prices to restore status quo ante.
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2009/04/us-decides-to-disclose-some-results.html

Your boy's either an idiot or bought-and-paid-for. Which one is it?

Neither. And my further response to you would be to ask what would you do? Let the banks fail? If so, why? And if so, how exactly would that improve our situation?

slideman67 · Post by **slideman67** » Wed Apr 15, 2009 2:23 pm

I am also noticing that you don't happen to be out there standing with the tea baggers.

annarborgator · Post by **annarborgator** » Wed Apr 15, 2009 2:53 pm

I'm saving my energy for when the pitchforks come out. O0

(I'll see what I can come up with in response to your asking me what I would do...class is over for the moment though)

slideman67 · Post by **slideman67** » Wed Apr 15, 2009 3:39 pm

Let me just make one more comment. I am not happy having to do these bailouts. As far as I am concerned, all of these fucktards that got us into this mess, which would include former Senator Phil Gramm (Thank God he is not our Treasury Secretary!) should be tarred and feathered, and led through the streets of this country in cages so that we can throw rotten fruits and vegetables at them. The bottom line is though that we can't let these institutes fail, otherwise things will get worse.

I think you think I am happy about these bailouts. I just wanted to clarify.

annarborgator · Post by **annarborgator** » Wed Apr 15, 2009 4:31 pm

We don't need a banking system. We don't need any particular banks. By saving certain banks in such a reckless manner we've put the entire system at risk. Sometimes leaders have to make the RIGHT decision, even when it seems like a tough decision to make for the short term effects.

While you don't like the bailouts, you apologize over and over for them with rather tenuous arguments for the "need" for said bailouts. If Obama had decided to "let the banks fail" (I can't understand what makes these banks different from any other business that deserves to fail) by taking them through receivership and selling the good parts back to the private sector, you'd be cheerleading him for that, even though right now you think we "need" to bailout these banks. I can't find the intellectual honesty in that perspective.

What I think we should be doing is throwing out fake contracts that were made under delusions. That's the very essence of an unconscionable contract and we don't enforce unconscionable agreements in this great nation of laws. By maintaining the status quo, I mean that Obama isn't getting to the root of the problem, which is the absurd practices these banks followed during the boom years. You can't make contracts based on insane terms and expect taxpayers to bail you out, IMO. I don't give a flying fuck how "systemic" the risk is--because by bailout out such institutions we are merely EXACERBATING the systemic risk by undermining the rule of law.

And as we all know, unintended consequences are a bitch. Why does this situation require us to ignore the law? It must, since we are paying off folks for fraudulent activities. THAT, my friend, is the real risk. Once you erode the rule of law and private capital gets burned, it stops playing. At that point you've destroyed the free flow of capital and the government is forced to step in and provide essentially ALL liquidity. We can't handle that, FYI. We don't have that kind of public ammunition.

Tipmoose · Post by **Tipmoose** » Wed Apr 15, 2009 4:36 pm

Let me just make one more comment. I am not happy having to do these bailouts. As far as I am concerned, all of these fucktards that got us into this mess, which would include former Senator Phil Gramm (Thank God he is not our Treasury Secretary!) should be tarred and feathered, and led through the streets of this country in cages so that we can throw rotten fruits and vegetables at them. The bottom line is though that we can't let these institutes fail, otherwise things will get worse.

I think you think I am happy about these bailouts. I just wanted to clarify.

This would be a wonderful thing for you to post in my challenge thread, slide.

G8rMom7 · Post by **G8rMom7** » Wed Apr 15, 2009 4:43 pm

AA, I haven't read all the above, but I'm watching the Tea Party on Glenn Beck and it seems like you and Ted Nugent were seperated at birth. Lots of Indies and Libertarians at these things from what I can see. LOL

annarborgator · Post by **annarborgator** » Wed Apr 15, 2009 5:33 pm

LOL that's why I don't think slide's argument here is all that important. Certainly, the GOP has joined in the growing tax revolt, but the groundswell started apart from the GOP with free-minded individuals who require a certain amount of moral justification for the theft of their hard earned money to pay for distant and nebulous "public benefits".

I could def see myself hanging out with the Motor City Madman and having a great time. He'd fit right in out on the ranch, partying, riding around in trucks/ATV and shooting guns. O0

G8rMom7 · Post by **G8rMom7** » Wed Apr 15, 2009 7:04 pm

^^^Him and Penn (from Penn and Teller)...you guys would definitely have a good time together!

slideman67 · Post by **slideman67** » Wed Apr 15, 2009 8:44 pm

We don't need a banking system. We don't need any particular banks. By saving certain banks in such a reckless manner we've put the entire system at risk. Sometimes leaders have to make the RIGHT decision, even when it seems like a tough decision to make for the short term effects.

While you don't like the bailouts, you apologize over and over for them with rather tenuous arguments for the "need" for said bailouts. If Obama had decided to "let the banks fail" (I can't understand what makes these banks different from any other business that deserves to fail) by taking them through receivership and selling the good parts back to the private sector, you'd be cheerleading him for that, even though right now you think we "need" to bailout these banks. I can't find the intellectual honesty in that perspective.

What I think we should be doing is throwing out fake contracts that were made under delusions. That's the very essence of an unconscionable contract and we don't enforce unconscionable agreements in this great nation of laws. By maintaining the status quo, I mean that Obama isn't getting to the root of the problem, which is the absurd practices these banks followed during the boom years. You can't make contracts based on insane terms and expect taxpayers to bail you out, IMO. I don't give a flying fuck how "systemic" the risk is--because by bailout out such institutions we are merely EXACERBATING the systemic risk by undermining the rule of law.

And as we all know, unintended consequences are a bitch. Why does this situation require us to ignore the law? It must, since we are paying off folks for fraudulent activities. THAT, my friend, is the real risk. Once you erode the rule of law and private capital gets burned, it stops playing. At that point you've destroyed the free flow of capital and the government is forced to step in and provide essentially ALL liquidity. We can't handle that, FYI. We don't have that kind of public ammunition.

Don't need a banking system???? Wow, that certainly runs counter to what I learned in my UF MBA program. What pray tell would you replace it with then? Please expound on this.

And regarding your comment above, let me say this. Conservatives and Republicans seem to think that this tea bagging is some sort of movement to get them back into power. It isn't, plain and simple. And now that they have had their groups circle jerk, they can go back to their basements and bitch about something else.

annarborgator · Post by **annarborgator** » Wed Apr 15, 2009 9:06 pm

LOL sorry about that...It's supposed to say we need a banking system but not any particular bank (especially the zombie ones, in this case).

slideman67 · Post by **slideman67** » Wed Apr 15, 2009 9:25 pm

OK, that makes al ittle more sense. I thought you had gone off the deep end ther for a second.

annarborgator · Post by **annarborgator** » Wed Apr 15, 2009 9:26 pm

Yep. My point is I don't think any of these banks are necessary for us to have a functional banking system, if we had the balls to stand up to them and create a better system.

G8rMom7 · Post by **G8rMom7** » Wed Apr 15, 2009 11:21 pm

I hate to tell you this slider, but this Tea Party stuff was not a Republican/conservative thing all together...and it's not going to go away...as much as the media will try to make it. The Orlando Tea Party group that has a seperate website already has 9 other parties planned through 2010. It seems to me this should warm the liberals hearts! Aren't they all about free speech and protests? I don't understand the demeaning of people who just want to be heard. Most are pissed by what Bush did and what Obama is continuing to do...it's really not as partisan as you think it is.

slideman67 · Post by **slideman67** » Wed Apr 15, 2009 11:36 pm

Well that's fine. And people have the right to do what they want. But when this event is organized by Dick Armey's lobbying group and sponsored by Fox "News", don't try to tell me that this is some grass roots movement. More like Astroturf. And this will not get Republicans back into power. Mark my words on that.

One other thing I can guarantee you - if we had a President McCain, none of this would be going on.

Quite frankly, I find a lot of humor in this whole thing. Many of the people involved don't know what they are saying when they call themselves loyal teabaggers. It makes me laugh. :laugh:

annarborgator · Post by **annarborgator** » Wed Apr 15, 2009 11:47 pm

Perhaps you are the one who misunderstands the real meaning of what a teabagger is. Perhaps you've forgotten the country's foundations for the sake of supporting the least of all evils.

I dunno. But you seem to spit plenty of venom about lots of folks who are, like m7 asserted, out there expressing themselves as active and participatory citizens. Collectivists/democrats (ps this great nation is not a democracy) simply have ZERO room to deride any such action, regardless of its supporters or sponsors, IMO.

radbag · Post by **radbag** » Thu Apr 16, 2009 7:37 am

kool aid or tea...which is it?

MinGator · Post by **MinGator** » Thu Apr 16, 2009 11:57 am

Slider, I think you're seeing this from a pretty narrow perspective. You keep saying this will not put the pubs back in power and I don't see that as the goal for most of these protesters. This is about excessive taxes and huge spending programs. I'm sure that most of the folks protesting would agree that it wouldn't matter who was in power so long as the tax collected was being spent judiciously. I'm not saying there aren't some who would equate the two but both sides have their extremists.

TheTodd · Post by **TheTodd** » Thu Apr 16, 2009 1:28 pm

Now, if the republican party started worrying more about things the Tea Baggers have rallied against, versus trying to control things like morality, then I think that is precisely what would put the pubs back in power, at least they would have my vote.