This is who they are...

The following is intentional. I have collected a small smattering of images from today's Teabaggin' Parties from the Washington Independents' Aaron Weiner and David Weigel, as well as some stuff from Daily Kos.

These images, of course, show the worst of the worst. Protestors advocating violence, or racism, or toeing that fine line.

These images do not show all protesters. There were those who merely wanted to protest taxation and the deficit. I merely find these people deluded, not dangerous. And it is danger of which we speak here.


Yeah, let's link our deadly enemy, the one we might have to go to war with, with the duly elected President of the United States.

And yes, the sign says "While Some Kenyan tries to Destroy America". Forget the "In Living Color" quote.


Anything to make the President look alien and foreign.

And of course, my "favorite" for the day...

Apparently, it was from Chicago.


Are you sure you want to go there?



Originally posted at Fort McHenry.

"Mental Gymnastics..."

Even when I disagree with him, Taibbi is always fun.

And, right now, I certainly don't disagree with him.

It requires serious mental gymnastics to describe the Obama administration — particularly the Obama administration of recent weeks, which has given away billions to Wall Street and bent over backwards to avoid nationalization and pursue a policy that preserves the private for-profit status of the bailed-out banks — as a militaristic dictatorship of anti-wealth, anti-private property forces. You have to somehow explain the Geithner/Paulson decisions to hand over trillions of taxpayer dollars to the rich bankers as the formal policy expression of progressive rage against the rich. Not easy. In order to pull off this argument, in fact, you have to grease the wheels with a lot of apocalyptic language and imagery, invoking as Beck did massive pictures of Stalin and Orwell and Mussolini (side by side with shots of Geithner, Obama and Bernanke), scenes of workers storming the Winter Palace interspersed with anti-AIG protests, etc. — and then maybe you have to add a crazy new twist, like switching from complaints of “socialism” to warnings of “fascism.” Rhetorically, this is the equivalent of trying to paint a picture by hurling huge handfuls of paint at the canvas. It’s desperate, last-ditch-ish behavior.

...

But actual rich people can’t ever be the target. It’s a classic peasant mentality: going into fits of groveling and bowing whenever the master’s carriage rides by, then fuming against the Turks in Crimea or the Jews in the Pale or whoever after spending fifteen hard hours in the fields. You know you’re a peasant when you worship the very people who are right now, this minute, conning you and taking your shit. Whatever the master does, you’re on board. When you get frisky, he sticks a big cross in the middle of your village, and you spend the rest of your life praying to it with big googly eyes. Or he puts out newspapers full of innuendo about this or that faraway group and you immediately salute and rush off to join the hate squad. A good peasant is loyal, simpleminded, and full of misdirected anger. And that’s what we’ve got now, a lot of misdirected anger searching around for a non-target to mis-punish… can’t be mad at AIG, can’t be mad at Citi or Goldman Sachs. The real villains have to be the anti-AIG protesters! After all, those people earned those bonuses! If ever there was a textbook case of peasant thinking, it’s struggling middle-class Americans burned up in defense of taxpayer-funded bonuses to millionaires. It’s really weird stuff. And bound to get weirder, I imagine, as this crisis gets worse and more complicated.

Originally posted (such as it is) at Fort McHenry.

It's not redistribution, its re-redistribution

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Lies from/of the Liberal Press

The whole Liberal Media nonsense? It's purely a gut thing. It ties into and co-justifies the other narratives that people who use that label believe. It is true because it feels true to them, and, as with all cases of faith, they aren't going to let rational analysis get in the way.

Let's just imagine it's true, that the media is made up of nothing but Card-Carrying, Bleeding-Heart, Secular-Humanist Liberal Elite. Would not Obama be their man? Would they not take every chance to cast him in the best possible light? Perhaps even to the point of distorting truths in his favor?

And yet, the Liberal Media insist on complicity in distorting Obama's tax plan. Again. Already. Huh? Liberal? Really?

(Ahh, cognitive dissonance. I think the Right rides it like a daily caffeine buzz.)

CBS failed in an almost pardonable way in setting up their coverage of the Obama and McCain tax plans. In classic "lies, damn lies, and statistics" style, they posed as representative three income levels that were actually skewed high. Quibbling, maybe, but clearly the way an analysis like this is framed, through the choice of example, will affect the outcome.

But this right here slays me:

"The network asked an accountant identified as Matt Yuskewich of Columbus --who, CBS didn't inform its viewers, is also the treasurer of the Ohio House Republican Campaign Committee--to “[run] the numbers” for these families' tax bills..." (emphasis mine)

So, let's again imagine, in our fairytale land of rainbows and bubblegum, that the Liberal Media is not a myth. Wouldn't the Liberal Media have to be some motherfucking hapless dupes to choose a Republican campaign worker to "run the numbers."

Now, again, this is where we have to stand up and be the ombudsmen that proud media outlets once had, and have since sent out to pasture. When a major network again tries to drag the middle to the Right, call them out, make sure that the watchdog groups like FAIR and Media Matters for America have too many echoing voices to be labeled as lunatic fringe.

And the next time taxes come up in a conversation with anyone but one of the top 5% of richest Americans, tell them, clearly and in short, declarative sentences, to get their facts straight. Don't allow the empty narrative that "Obama will raise taxes!" to pass unchallenged.

FAIR: CBS Cheats on Tax Coverage

Ad: Patriotic Act, & Why I don't want Biden's job

It didn't take the McCain long to jump on Biden's Good Morning America comments on tax increases for those making $250,000+/year and release this ad:



Deni handles well the underlying problem with McCain's attacks in the previous entry (how is paying taxes not patriotic, especially when fighting a war? - just because it isn't on the budget doesn't mean it ain't tax dollars feeding and clothing the military), and the independent Tax Policy Center has already done a better job of debunking the claims made than I could ever do. I just want to talk for a moment about this ad as an ad.

Because the first word that comes to mind is "slapdash." Seriously, this ad could be created on my 3+ year old Mac laptop in an hour. It isn't meant to have a long life, except to be passed among party faithful. It's the photocopied flyer version of a television ad.

Which I take as a recognition, somewhere down in the reptilian brain of the McCain campaign (how you like that illiteration?), that these kind of attack ads are nothing more than jabs, meant to keep the opponent off-balance and reactive while accepting that none of them will be a knock-out punch.

(I think that's why I didn't like this ad much - it seems like a cheap jab, when the opponent actually dropped the hands far enough to be taken out with roundhouse.)

All it took was one moment, one perhaps-not-ideal choice of phrase, by Biden to open up the attack.

And this is why I don't want Biden's job. Because he has to debate Palin.

Do I think Palin will "beat" Biden? The very idea made me spit-take tea all over the aforementioned laptop. No, that's not the problem.

I can't imagine being in his position, knowing you can mop the floor with this clueless, inexperienced candidate, and yet having to do it so carefully knowing that anything that can be spun into a misstep will be all over the campaign ads the next day. If he so much as smirks at one of Palin's ditzy non-answers, he'll be crucified. Hell, if he holds back, he'll still be crucified.

If something so benign as referring to the paying of taxes as a patriotic journey unleashes a flurry of jabs, how much of a minefield will it be to step into the ring with that intellectual flyweight?

Good luck, Joe. My best advice? Ignore the jabs, don't jab yourself, but take that uppercut opening when it comes, then walk quietly back to your corner for the standing eight. Then do it again.

No smirking. And watch your footwork.

AP via Yahoo!: Biden: Paying higher taxes patriotic for wealthy

Country First?

During an interview on Good Morning America, while explaining the Obama plan to cut taxes on 95% of Americans while raising them on people making over $250,000, Joe Biden said, “It’s time to be patriotic. Time to jump in. Time to be part of the deal. Time to help get America out of the rut.”

Of course the shameless people from the other ticket took that opportunity to slam Biden.

“To the rest of America that’s not patriotism. Raising taxes is about killing jobs and hurting small businesses and making things worse,” said faux hockey mom Ms. Pit Bull Lipstick.

Let's forget for a minute that that is not quite what Joe Biden said and also forget that Obama's tax plan will cut most people's taxes. Basically what Biden was saying was that it is time for the wealthy to step up and pay their fair share in this time of crises, but that wouldn't be attack-able enough for the shameless duo.

But let's address their slam anyway. Why isn't it patriotic? Isn't paying taxes an incredibly patriotic thing to do? Contributing to your country so it can function, so that we can have fire fighters, police officers, school systems, transportation and a national defense seems to me to be an incredibly patriotic thing to do.

And as Jonathan Cohn points out, paying higher taxes during a time of war has always been seen as the patriotic thing to do.

We are at war, are we not Mr. McCain and Mrs. Palin?

When exactly did "every man and family for themselves" become the patriotic thing, and helping your country survive and not pass on a huge debt to our children, the unpatriotic thing?

What McCain-Palin are doing is not even shameless.

It's shameful.


Read - Biden and Palin Tussle Over Taxes from the NYT politics blog
Read - Patriotism from Joe Klein at Time

Shut Up And Pay Your Higher Taxes, You Whiners

Something that the media should be pointing out a lot more than they are is McCain's lie about how Obama is going to raise your taxes and McCain is going to lower them. The media has started to question him a little more on it than they have previously, pointing out that an independent and nonpartisan tax group has said Obama will cut taxes for the majority of Americans and only raise the taxes of the highest wage earners.

But one thing they have not tried to call McCain on is his insane tax increase on health insurance. The big thing he says he wants government to get out of the way of is the very thing that he's going to put a tax on.

What McCain is proposing is not just insanity, it is criminal insanity. Under McCain's plan the health insurance you get from your job would now be taxable income. You read that right.

To make sure I'm clear, we are not talking about just the non-taxed portion of your salary that you contribute to your coverage being taxed. That would be bad enough, that $100 to $300 or whatever per month being taxed when you now enjoy being able to put that into your health insurance as pre-tax money. That saves you a few bucks a year.

No, what McCain's plan would do is put the entire value of your health insurance, meaning the amount that it costs your employer, in the taxable income column.

This means that a President McCain would raise your taxes as if you got a $10,000/year raise (average cost for a family on the cheapest plan) without you being able to actually reap the benefits of a larger income.

He would replace this with a $5,000 tax credit for families, which won't pay for even half of a year's worth of health coverage even if what you get even really equals five grand, which for most people it will not. You can't get the whole amount if you don't make enough money to owe that much in taxes to begin with.

So who would this help, when it is obviously not the working people of America? Well, it sure goes a long way in helping the big corporations. Once people can't afford the extra taxes they have to pay they will drop their health plan at work, saving millions for large companies with thousands of employees. (Wal-Mart would presumably be unaffected, not really having a health insurance plan for the majority of their employees anyway)

John McCain is selling a health care plan that would considerably increase number of people who are uninsured in this country.

Add this slap in the face to the working class to the one his biggest financial advisor, Phil Gramm, already did by calling us a nation of whiners about the economy.

That isn't even the biggest sin of Phil Gramm. As the Princeton economist Paul Krugman points out, Gramm - as the head of the Senate banking committee and the chief writer of banking deregulation bills in the late 90s and early 2000s and as the V.P. and main lobbyist for the investment firm UBS - is the person most responsible for the current economic crises, save for one Alan Greenspan.

It is widely known that McCain will tap Gramm as the Secretary of the Treasury if he is elected.

The United States better get used to the phrase, "Brother can you spare a dime?" again.

I beg you to make sure that every voting age person you know knows about this disastrous plan.

Read: Journal Disputes McCain’s Health Care Claims.

Read: McCain’s Radical Agenda.

__

Quick addendum from JJ:

Mother Jones has a nice piece about McCain slamming Wall Street for the failure, and ignoring how much Phil Gramm had to do with it.

Mother Jones - MoJoBlog: McCain Blasts Wall Street Failure, Neglects To Mention His Adviser Helped Cause It

The best part of the whole financial mess is going to be how it forces McCain out of his comfort zone of personality politics (read: bullshitting the voters) and into actual policy conversations, in which he inevitably flounders.