Pajamas Media

177 Comments

1. tc:

I went to a April 15th tea party. I plan to go to an event on healthcare tonight. I contacted Mark Levin’s list of Blue Dog Democrats who needed to be contacted, and I put my senator on notice–again–this morning.

The media and the political class mock us at their own peril. This is our country and they hear our footsteps.

Don’t tread on me—

Jul 20, 2009 - 3:38 am 2. LeighB:

Oh, I dunno, I’d rather be called a teabagger than a socialist-loving supporter of ObamaCare.

Jul 20, 2009 - 3:46 am 3. Libertyship46:

I wish one of the demands of the tea bag protesters will eventually include term limits for everyone in Congress. I see absolutely no reason why anyone in Congress should serve more than two terms. Period. If that’s the law for the President, I don’t see why it shouldn’t be the law for Congress as well. The current system we have is causing many of the problems we have today in Congress. It’s no wonder some of the representatives mentioned in this article could care less about what the “grass roots” wants in their district. To them the only people that matter are the lobbyists and the rich donors with money. Everybody else can be bought off with pork spending or promises they will never keep. But if these same representatives know that they can only serve two terms in Congress, you will have fewer of the Ted Kennedy’s or John Kerry’s or Robert Byrd’s who think they can hold onto their seats like popes. When you’re in Congress as long as those jerks, “Serving in Congress” is less about constituents and mostly about getting re-elected (and how and from who to get the money to do that). But if these same people know that they only have two terms to accomplish anything, they will either attempt to accomplish something of substance while they’re there or they will promote an agenda that is at least popular with their own party as a whole (and not just a few rich donors). At least they will be doing something, rather than just taking up space and voting the way their party leaders tell them to. The only way term limits will become a reality is if there is a vast cry for it from the people, because it certainly won’t come from the members of Congress.

Jul 20, 2009 - 4:10 am 4. "progressive"watch:

Douglas’s information can be used to define exactly what Obama and the Obamacrats stand for: an unbalanced budget,higher taxes,and waste,fraud,and abuse. In short, Marxism.

With Soros’ kind of money,you can buy a president and all of the progressive Senators and House members.

Jul 20, 2009 - 4:20 am 5. Formwiz:

People are sick of being sold out by the left-wing Democrats and the RINOs. They may not be able to do anything about the Demos, but, if the RINO party goes the way of the Whigs and the Federalists, it will be the work of the Tea Partiers.

Jul 20, 2009 - 4:29 am 6. David Thomson:

The Tea Party movement is definitely successful. Barack Obama is already probably a marginalized president. I doubt if he will ever again be able to get serious legislation passed in Congress. Thankfully, we have an increasing number of citizens who realize that our backs are against the wall. We can no longer procrastinate and hope things will improve on their own. It is also mandatory that our groups do not ease their foot off the accelerator. They must continue to give no quarter to the enemy. This is ultimately an all all or nothing existential fight to the bitter end. Our foes truly wish to destroy us. We must instead defeat them.

Jul 20, 2009 - 4:29 am 7. Oval Racism:

“This is about hating a black man in the White House. This is racism straight up.”

Racism takes place when a man uses skin color to explain the inherent fears of his mother.

Racism takes place when that man justifies his lifelong membership and participation in two radical religions that share the common cornerstones of hatred of America, hatred of white people and hatred of the Jewish race.

Racism takes place when that man’s wife explains her own hatred of America, white people and Jews by never feeling an ounce of pride for her country until her own husband ran for president.

Racism takes place when that same woman explains her own fears for her husband’s welfare by the lack of his own safety from white people while on a trip to the corner store.

Racism takes place when that woman perpetually calls upon slavery in order to explain her own importance and position to group after group of impressionable your black children.

Racism takes place when a government orders society’s normal selection priorities to conform with skin colors versus acheievements, education and proven qualifications.

Racism takes place when a political party spends six decades, or more taking advantage of a race of people by making promises to them that they have yet to keep one of them.

Racism takes place when that same political party spits into the face of the first race of people in order to do the same kind of dirty politics to a second minority race of people because there are many more of them.

Racism takes place when entertainment industries and the MSM profiteer by taking advantage of skin color versus individual’s performance, talent and/or success.

Racism takes place when entertainment industries and the MSM feature a successful person of color’s performance, talent and/or success to the point that it becomes overbearing and sickening for the rest of the human race.

Racism takes place when the MSM media uses skin color as the reason to defend a black man whose actions and policies are destroying our country, not to mention that they also stem from his own racist background and views.

Racism takes place when racism is constantly brought up and used as a factor even though racism as a factor or an element does not exist.

Sheer unadulterated abuse of races of people is racism; it is owned outright, in total by the gutless, hypocritical, two-face liars that are the liberal Democrats of the United States of America.

Jul 20, 2009 - 4:37 am 8. Steve:

What I find interesting is the media’s response to these party’s they act as if they are not happening at all and will not report on them and if they do they greatly exaggerate the actual number of people attending such events (it is always low).

The real tea party will be in the 2010 election and hopefully most of the democrats and RINOs in congress will no longer hold their seats. I have just registered to vote as I was changing my drivers license as I was constantly on the road and really unable to vote but not anymore.

Jul 20, 2009 - 4:59 am 9. Highlander:

Elected officials of the Democrat persuasion are not accustomed to being the target of protest. The result is, they become confused and ultimately overreact. Witness making obscene gestures, drawing the blinds, calling the police, and huddling (presumably in fear) behind locked doors, at the frightening aspect of a few middle-class moms and their children. Perhaps they were thinking of leftist protests – which often feature acts of violence. Honestly, a big grin creases my face every time I think of it.

Jul 20, 2009 - 5:07 am 10. vivo:

What tea parties?

Jul 20, 2009 - 5:14 am 11. BackwardsBoy:

Leftists, statists, and other big government types have previously been considered benign creatures, full of hype and bluster and thankfully, unable to implement their grand vision of Utopia for America. Obama’s election changed them into the real threat that they are. Mainstream America is beginning to see the damage that their programs can do. Massive defecits, high unemployment and a rapid, planned deterioration of our standard of living are forcing many formerly silent political observers to stand up and say “Enough!”
When grandparents take to the streets in protest, you know a movement has begun.
History has a habit of repeating itself. Our nation endured the debacle of the Carter administration and ushered in the Reagan era. Now we’re enduring the incompentency of the Obama administration while searching for the next Reagan. He (or she) is out there, ready to lead our country back to greatness and reduce the left to the margins of political power where they belong. Tea partiers are vocal and unresponsive politicians are scared.
2010 can’t arrive soon enough…

Jul 20, 2009 - 5:18 am 12. Deep Brain Diarist:

I think it’s sweet the way you kids pretend that people are paying attention to you. Check the diversity of your little teabag parties one of these days. You’re preaching to a very small choir.

Jul 20, 2009 - 5:34 am 13. Typos_R_Us:

When the N.Y. Slimes says something is being astroturffed, it means they are scared.

Jul 20, 2009 - 5:47 am 14. fear Obama:

12. Deep Brain Diarist:

RASMUSSEN 2012 poll released at 10:30AM ET

Obama 45% Romney 45%
Obama 48% Palin 42%

lol..

Your Bambi man is running through the halls of congress with no clothes.

pass the popcorn.

Jul 20, 2009 - 5:59 am 15. Cynic:

The “Washington Independent” isn’t really independent. It gets money from George Soros’s Open Society Institute. Its reporting should be viewed in that light.

Jul 20, 2009 - 6:02 am 16. Mongoose:

Deep Brain: Again, You are projecting: You are the one that is a “kid”, and you are the one no one is paying attention to, at least in any positive sense. That is why you believe the nonsense that you do and support the sort of traitors and incompetents that you do. You think it makes you “special” somehow, part of the “cool kids” and some how more “advanced”. In reality it just makes you in to a fool, and an immoral one at that. Just you wait a few years when adulthood catches up with you. Then you wll find that you do not even take yourself seriously.

Try the personal attacks then and see how that works out there in the real world. Out here you have to defend yourself reasonably and honorably.

Diversity? What is with you people and race? I have a clue for you, most of the nation is sick to death of this “diversity” nonsense. Any politician touting this garbage nationally will lose. This decades long hustle by the Left is soon to see its last days. Now here is a notion for you, 70% of the country is white. Chew on that one. Here is another one: Obama won by roughly 52% of the vote. Now due to the Democrat’s corrupt vote rigging, you can pull off around 5% of that vote. Does not look good for the Democrats next year. Now if you were old enough to understand the ebb and flow of American politics you would know that Democrats will nor pull off another stunt like the last election in a generation. But of course you have no real knowledge of American political history, you only know the nonsense your Democrat teacher and the Democrat controlled media has taught you. Next time around sloganeering, agitprop, slander, “hipness” and bile are not going to take the day. Reality is going to win, and not among people your age, but among people your parents age–you know, adults that have real responsibilities.

There is a large group of trolls here whose members imagine that they are part of some “movement”; they are not, they are just dupes of a cynical and blood-thirsty elite who would devour them and their whole families if given half a chance. You are a part of this group.

You are going to be in for a great suprise when you find that you are alone.

Jul 20, 2009 - 6:02 am 17. DanRampage:

To Deep Brain Diarist:

I attended the April 15th tea party in Atlanta. At this event were over 10,000 patriots from all walks of life, all with one very common philosophy – the importance of the individual. This philosophy is central to our country’s heritage, and vital to our success. Since you are calling tea party defenders “kids”, I can only conclude that you are a truly a small minded lackey, living with your parents, probably unemployed and accustomed to living of the largesse of the government from property conficated by successful Americans like me.

Jul 20, 2009 - 6:14 am 18. cubedweller:

6: “Barack Obama is already probably a marginalized president. I doubt if he will ever again be able to get serious legislation passed in Congress.”

I wish I was as confident as you. The GOP is caving on Sotomayor.

12: Again, to the left, “diversity” is represented by skin color and ethnicity, not by ideas or thoughts. In that latter regard, there is zero diversity (check the “diverse” faculty at most universities). I think the tea parties, while not the ACORN/Union rallies the left organizes, are more “diverse” by your definition than you think.

Jul 20, 2009 - 6:18 am 19. cubedweller:

12: Also interesting, is that while the “teabaggers” are portrayed as racist, it’s the left who are so focused on race and “diversity”, and judge accordingly.

Jul 20, 2009 - 6:21 am 20. jharp:

“On Independence Day, patriots from around the country took time away from family, friends, and food to attend anti-tax demonstrations.”

This, after Obama cut taxes.

Janeane Garofalo was right. The teabaggers are about nothing but hating Obama.

Jul 20, 2009 - 6:29 am 21. Adina Kutnicki,Israel:

Actually holding back tax payments come April 15 would put a crimp in the regime’s plans, and surely in Obama’s socialist coffers.

NO tax money, NO gov’t takeover. What are they going to do, go to thousands of homes and lock up all the ‘protesters’?

I don’t think so.

Jul 20, 2009 - 6:34 am 22. Brutus:

I just read that the administration is delaying its annual budget report by a month. Due in July, they’re not going to issue it until August. It’s quite apparent that the news is bad, probably dire. Obama and the Donks are ruining this country’s finances and they want to try to cram through their disastrous health care and possibly other legislation (union favors?) prior to letting the ugly cat out of the bag. I think it’s clear that once true the scope of our deficits to date are publicized that the anti-tax and spend movement will have the upper hand!

Obama is becoming increasingly desperate to avoid a repeat of the Hillary-Care fiasco that led to the Republican revolution of Clintoon’s first term.

Jul 20, 2009 - 6:41 am 23. pelaut:

FOCUS! Targeted anger. Rational, realistic solutions. TERM LIMITS.

And the arrest and trial of Dodd, Frank, Reins, Harman . . .

Jul 20, 2009 - 6:45 am 24. Peter the Bubblehead:

What vivo?

Jul 20, 2009 - 6:47 am 25. Peter the Bubblehead:

12. Deep Brain Diarist wrote:
Check the diversity of your little teabag parties one of these days.

Peter writes: A person who obvioulsy has not participated in a TAE Party, or he/she/it might have seen the diversity of people who attended the parties in Boston where I was. How about elsewhere?

Jul 20, 2009 - 6:49 am 26. Peter the Bubblehead:

Darn this site’s lack of spell-check…

TEA Party!

Jul 20, 2009 - 6:51 am 27. Sitruc:

DBD,
Admittedly, the attendees at TEA Party events are demographically definable. They are all TAXPAYERS!
Most folks are not motivated to attend protests events. This is especially true of conservatives. But that is changing with the TEA Parties, and very rapidly!
The main thing curtailing even further overt support of the movement is the direct FEAR of the government by folks who agree with the movement. They are afraid that they will be targetted by the Brown Shirts of ACORN, be targetted by the tax authorities, assaulted by those who sponge off the taxpayers, or publicly villified.
Not to mention that most folks don’t like to be condescendingly sneered at, as you just did. If you had data to counter the article, that would have been a more beneficial use of your bandwidth.

Jul 20, 2009 - 6:56 am 28. Wolla Dalbo:

Deep brain diarist–I suggest a craniotomy, to relieve some of that pressure from all that deep thinking you are doing.

Jul 20, 2009 - 7:01 am 29. Sebastian Shaw:

The MSM, many Leftist Democrats, RINO Republicans, & President Obama here’s something amiss behind their ivory tower of denial, but I believe the Tea Parties are successful; furthermore, with the absolute failure of President Obama’s “stimulus” turned into an albatross, President Obama is a diminished, weak POTUS. Obama was only lifted by the mirage of popularity. Once the popularity bubble burst, Obama is nothing but a would-be-dictator. Socialized medicine must fail along with Card Check & Cap & Trade for the sake of our country to remain free.

Jul 20, 2009 - 7:02 am 30. PM:

vivo, your mom is calling. time for lunch.

Jul 20, 2009 - 7:11 am 31. Spider79:

Hey jharp:

Get back to me at the end of “The One’s” term and let me know if your taxes are less.

In the words of Steely Dan “only a fool would say that”.

Jul 20, 2009 - 7:16 am 32. homero:

the diversity at the tea parties is also telling in how the “professional victims” insist on someone else paying their mortagage.

los pinche izquierdistas don’t have any rational argument so they attack and label the legitiment protesters as racists when in fact they are the ones who are the racists.

this is one of the larger problems faced by conservatives. the average person doesn’t follow the news closely enough the will believe the lies of the marxists and leftists.

it appears that no one is calling them on their hi-jacking of the language. this has always been one of the marxists methods. they claim they are for diversaty …so if you are not with them that leaves you to be a racist. …they use terms like the fairness doctrine …who can be against that ? yet there is nothing fair about that particular doctrine.

conservatives need to regain the high ground of language.

Jul 20, 2009 - 7:22 am 33. Realist:

96% of Blacks voting for Obambi now that is RACIST

Jul 20, 2009 - 7:26 am 34. Thomas:

Hey, Lefty Obama worshipers!
Ha ha ha, it will be fun to watch millions of elderly people on Medicare walking on the streets aimlessly, bewildered because they will be rejected by doctors – Obama lickers read this:

“Doctors Are Opting Out of Medicare”,
- from the mouth of the horse, a.k.a. N.Y.T

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/02/business/retirementspecial/02health.html

excerpts from this worrisome but instructive article:
“Of the 93 internists affiliated with New York-Presbyterian Hospital, for example, only 37 accept Medicare, according to the hospital’s Web site.

So dear Leftist Obama lickers, when your grandma flips over at Main and Eagle-mountain Rd. – unless you dig deeply into you pocket – grandma will have to sit between a bleeding murderer and Pedro the illegal at the Charity Hospital in the ghetto. Have fun with your idiot Caliph O.

Jul 20, 2009 - 7:52 am 35. JAL:

Ditto Steve @ 4:59 am (man, what are you doing up and writing at that hour??)

The Asheville Tea Party had people out at Heath Shuler’s (D-San Francisco?? LOL)office and on the street. (I actually counted ~ 150 minimum spread out on 4 street corners; organizers above at his office say total ~250 — so, split the difference — 200 at least).

The paper of record in Asheville — the Asheville Citizen-Times — had no reporter, no photographer and no mention of it.

Their online edition notes people falling out of pick-up trucks, over waterfalls, embezzeling, getting arrested, running in fund raising races, performing in international folk festivals….

I cannot wait for 2010.

Conservatives, step up to the plate.

Jul 20, 2009 - 8:12 am 36. SteveP:

If we’re teabaggers, who is getting teabagged?

Jul 20, 2009 - 8:20 am 37. Peter the Bubblehead:

20. jharp wrote:
This, after Obama cut taxes.

Peter asks: Please cite one tax that was cut? I know I have not received a single penny more in my paycheck than I was in February. Gas taxes are rising. Sales taxes are rising. Taxes on food and drinks are rising.

I tell you, I can’t afford any more of The Won’s ‘tax cuts.’

Jul 20, 2009 - 8:20 am 38. Steve:

26. Peter the Bubblehead:
Actually it is not necessarily the site in as much as it could be your browser I normally use Firefox with Vista and if there is a misspell the word will be underlined in red and a right click will show either the correct word or if it is an unknown word some other suggestions you might want to try out Firefox and see if that doesn’t help.

Jul 20, 2009 - 8:25 am 39. Mutnodjmet:

12. Deep Brain Diarist wrote: Check the diversity of your little teabag parties one of these days.

HEY BRIAN! Nice to see a member of the Diversity Police here today. You may want to compare these two groups, and note which had the diversity (HINT – it was NOT the Obamacare supporters)

http://templeofmut.wordpress.com/wp-admin/post.php?action=edit&post=723

Furthermore, in terms of ideological diversity, one of the Tea Party group’s speakers, and a founder of that group, is a DEMOCRAT:

http://templeofmut.wordpress.com/wp-admin/post.php?action=edit&post=555

(Note – the piece above is that rare post on the internet that gets MORE traffic as time goes on, as opposed to less — I am thinking that Democrats now realize hopeandchange will leave them with neither).

Finally: 150 citizens showed up at Babs Boxer’s San Diego office.

http://templeofmut.wordpress.com/wp-admin/post.php?action=edit&post=780

Jul 20, 2009 - 8:26 am 40. Blarty Blarckleblart:

I read the whole article but must have missed the “genuine impact” touted in the subheadline. All I saw in the body of the article was rhetorical questions about impact, and own-horn-tooting about how great the teabaggers are.

Shakespeare had a line that summed up this whole charade pretty well. Something about sound and fury, something something.

Jul 20, 2009 - 8:27 am 41. Rob Crawford:

“Check the diversity of your little teabag parties one of these days.”

What does “diversity” mean in this statement?

Jul 20, 2009 - 8:29 am 42. Steve:

35. JAL:
You will note that this comment will show up as 8:27 a.m. although it is 10:27 CDT the server that hosts this site is on Pacific Daylight Time so I posted at almost 7:00 a.m. this morning, and I usually am awake by 4:30 a.m. and have done so for years.

Jul 20, 2009 - 8:29 am 43. Rob Crawford:

“This, after Obama cut taxes.”

Never happened.

Jul 20, 2009 - 8:30 am 44. Rob Crawford:

Peter — the much-touted “tax cuts” were changes in the withholding schedules, which increased (slightly) the amount some people got in their paychecks after taxes. HOWEVER, the actual tax rates were not changed, meaning you’re still on the hook for what was not withheld.

Next April 15 is gonna be interesting, when people catch on to that little game…

Jul 20, 2009 - 8:32 am 45. Francis W. Porretto:

One thing we’ll definitely learn from this phenomenon is the extent to which the Main Stream Media are willing to collaborate with the Obamunist agenda against their own interests. A popular movement such as the Tea Parties constitutes news more dramatic than anything but a mass murder. The media have a natural interest in seeing it develop and grow, even to the point of encouraging it with favorable coverage as they did with the “student movement” and “anti-war movement” of the late Sixties. If they collude with the administration in minimizing and / or ignoring it, we’ll know beyond all possibility of refutation that they no longer view themselves as impartial watchdogs over the public interest.

On the other hand, if they refuse to collude with the administration in this matter, it would suggest that an ingress into their ranks has opened for Web writers and stringers friendly to the pro-freedom / small-government movement. It will then be up to us to figure out how best to exploit that opening. I hope some bright folks are thinking about that already.

Jul 20, 2009 - 8:33 am 46. Mutnodjmet:

12. Deep Brain Diarist wrote: Check the diversity of your little teabag parties one of these days.

HEY BRIAN! Nice to see a member of the Diversity Police here today. You may want to compare these two groups, and note which had the diversity (HINT – it was NOT the Obamacare supporters)

http://templeofmut.wordpress.com/2009/07/11/i-dont-want-to-be-a-burden-on-the-system/

Furthermore, in terms of ideological diversity, one of the Tea Party group’s speakers, and a founder of that group, is a DEMOCRAT:

http://templeofmut.wordpress.com/2009/06/15/on-being-a-democrat-at-a-tea-party/

(Note – the piece above is that rare post on the internet that gets MORE traffic as time goes on, as opposed to less — I am thinking that Democrats now realize hopeandchange will leave them with neither).

Finally: 150 citizens showed up at Babs Boxer’s San Diego office.

http://templeofmut.wordpress.com/2009/07/17/my-brother-in-law-apologizes-for-his-obama-vote-now/

(PS. Please delete previous, as this has better links)

Jul 20, 2009 - 8:33 am 47. Blarty Blarckleblart:

44 Rob

Peter — the much-touted “tax cuts” were changes in the withholding schedules, which increased (slightly) the amount some people got in their paychecks after taxes. HOWEVER, the actual tax rates were not changed, meaning you’re still on the hook for what was not withheld.

Hi Rob. What do the words “tax credit” mean to you? Because that’s what Obama has established, and what brought on the change in the withholding schedules.

Jul 20, 2009 - 8:40 am 48. JorgXMcKie:

jharp is just another of those cranio-anal inversion types (see: diarist, deep brain [evidently *proud* of just how deeply embedded in his lower intestine his head is]) who believes that (lying) words are exactly the same as deeds. Obama *said* he was going to cut your taxes, therefore it’s the same as actually cutting your taxes, *even though your taxes didn’t get cut.

You know how “you can tell how a politician is lying by if his lips are moving?” I swear, even when his lips aren’t moving Obama is still lying.

Jul 20, 2009 - 8:40 am 49. Typos_R_Us:

“Darn this site’s lack of spell-check…

TEA Party!”

Peter, I don’t think it’s the site. I think it is your browser. I have spellcheck, if I bother to use it.
I’m running FireFox 3.0.10. It has an option that defaults to text features, which includes spell check and I think a grammer check as well.

In the above PP, spellcheck, FireFox and grammer are highlighted as being misspelled.
Now If I cared I would go back and change them to something that made the browser happy. I don’t, so I won’t.
If you are running Windows, open it up and click ob the help button and see if spellcheck is there.

Jul 20, 2009 - 8:42 am 50. Hogarth:

“This, after Obama cut taxes.

Janeane Garofalo was right. The teabaggers are about nothing but hating Obama.”

LOL, yes because we can all be bought off for $300. We can all be paid off to ignore the cliff we’re speeding towards.

They say that ignorance is bliss. I contend that the utter inability to look beyond the most recent piece of gov’t candy must be equally wonderful. You know, for awhile anyway.

You, Sir, must be one of the most ecstatic clowns in the circus.

Jul 20, 2009 - 8:43 am 51. AARGH59:

Was one of about 30 souls waving signs in Newark, NJ last Friday in front of “our” senatorial offices. While we may not have been large in number, we were getting plenty of “horn action” from the traffic passing by.

Jul 20, 2009 - 8:43 am 52. Hogarth:

“What do the words “tax credit” mean to you?”

Easy answer: “Redistributive Socialist Welfare.” What do they mean to you? “Free handouts that no one will ever have to pay for” would be my guess.

As the rented mule that DOES pay for them, I’m naturally against them.

Jul 20, 2009 - 8:47 am 53. Rob Crawford:

Gee, “Blarty Blarckleblart”, care to source your claim?

Jul 20, 2009 - 8:48 am 54. Войска ПВО:

16. Mongoose writes:

“There is a large group of trolls here whose members imagine that they are part of some “movement”; they are not, they are just dupes of a cynical and blood-thirsty elite who would devour them and their whole families if given half a chance. You are a part of this group.

You are going to be in for a great surprise when you find that you are alone.”

Mongoose, there are NOT a large group of trolls here. There are, coterie of juvenile, unrealistic gullible miscreants who have done little in the way to confront the realities of work, family, career. They have no concept of what paying onerous taxes really is.

The smarter ones will appear in future blogs, writing something like, “back in the day, I was in the tank for that a**hole Obama who, after I figured it out, realized he didn’t know sh*t from Shinola. Now that I am married, have kids, and actually pay taxes, I have seen the light.”

The rest will never wake up so why help them along? If they wish, in their insecurity, to write off the growing rage at those who now control our gummint as an insignificant radar blip, then let them dwell in their ignorance. Besides, anyone who thinks that ugly, stringy-haired, tattooed, mediocre actress, Gerafalo, is right deserves the miserable half-light mental torpor they exist in.

Political paramecia swimming towards the darkness, fleeing from the light.

Jul 20, 2009 - 8:51 am 55. Ray:

“96% of Blacks voting for Obambi now that is RACIST”

As opposed to 100% of whites voting for a white guy in all previous elections? By your definition, as recently as 4 years ago, white voters proved that they’re amazingly racist.

You don’t really persuade anyone, or dissuade from the idea that conservatives/libertarians are racists simply with “no, but you are!” Especially when PJMedia/Instapundit/the whole movement has a habit (exhibited in these very comments) to be reflexively against any suggestion that diversity is a good thing. So it’s either a) racism, or b) a rediculous level of tone deafness as to how people are actually wired. Mind you, I’m not accusing anyone of racism, I’m saying that viewed objectively, it really isn’t that hard for a cursory examination to produce that impression.

As it is, it would have been relatively simple to point out that some of the key speakers for some of the larger tax day Tea Parties were in fact black, and that they weren’t lynched or harassed. That the Tea Party movement isn’t cultural, it’s about good governance and not writing a check on our children’s behalf, especially for goods that we don’t need or want.

Jul 20, 2009 - 8:57 am 56. Stacy:

“Actually holding back tax payments come April 15 would put a crimp in the regime’s plans, and surely in Obama’s socialist coffers.”

I appreciate the sentiment, but remember they already have the money. W2 employees have it withheld from their paychecks all year, and any other kind of income requires that you pay estimated taxes quarterly. You could refuse to *file* your taxes, but that likely just means they would also keep your refund.

Jul 20, 2009 - 8:59 am 57. john from cinncinatti:

didn’t go to any tea tax gatherings i was working. but i haven’t ever missed a vote except for the times i was deployed. maybe we are like roaches, for every one you see there are many more unseen. tea party may have a little more weight than is perceived to have.
Homero: truth to power on regaining the high ground of language. the izquerdista have alot of faith… saying things as what they want them to be, not as they really are.

Jul 20, 2009 - 9:07 am 58. Blarty Blarckleblart:

53 Rob

Gee, “Blarty Blarckleblart”, care to source your claim?

Sure.

The headline of that article – “Taxpayers To Get Rude Surprise” – is a good example of why people are confused. The taxpayers who will get a rude surprise are those who think they are eligible for the credit but aren’t, and those who aren’t having the right amount withheld (as you will see from the examples).

But the fact remains that individuals making under $95K, and couples making under $190K, will be getting $400 and $800 tax CREDITS, respectively.

Jul 20, 2009 - 9:13 am 59. jharp:

Rob Crawford:

“This, after Obama cut taxes.”

Never happened.

Rob Crawford:

“Peter — the much-touted “tax cuts” were changes in the withholding schedules, which increased (slightly) the amount some people got in their paychecks after taxes. HOWEVER, the actual tax rates were not changed, meaning you’re still on the hook for what was not withheld.”

Rob Crawford.

You are wrong. From the IRS’s own website.

http://www.irs.gov/newsroom/article/0,,id=206038,00.html

For 2009 and 2010, the Making Work Pay provision of ARRA provides a refundable tax credit of up to $400 for working individuals and $800 for married taxpayers filing joint returns.

For people who receive a paycheck and are subject to income tax withholding, the credit will typically be received through an automated reduction of income tax withholding by the employer beginning in early spring 2009. These changes may result in an increase in take-home pay.

A taxpayer who does not have taxes withheld by an employer during the year can claim the credit on his or her tax return.

Obama cut taxes for 95% of Americans.

And the teabaggers are out protesting tax cuts. Go figure.

Jul 20, 2009 - 9:13 am 60. 24AheadDotCom:

This post is yet another joke, right? The tea parties are just tantrums: emotionally-based pleas for attention that will have no impact on what politicians do. The polls Donald Kent Douglas should be looking at are those that attempt to find the level of extreme fiscal conservatism/Randroidism. The tea parties are like people trying to sell rutabaga soup: there are only so many Americans who want to eat rutabaga soup, and attempts to get others to eat rutabaga soup will fail. The “partiers” aren’t broadening their selection to include tomato, but instead insist that everyone should eat and like rutabaga soup just like them. It’s not going to work.

Regarding ObamaCare, the smart and effective way to block it is to embarrass a national politician over it on video by, for instance, pressing them on the fact that it may cover illegal aliens. That would have a far greater impact – and interest – than all the tea parties ever will. Yet, the “partiers” refuse to do that.

Jul 20, 2009 - 9:20 am 61. Blarty Blarckleblart:

52 Hogarth

Be careful telling the 95% of working families that the reduction in tax liability they are enjoying under Obama is “socialism.” They may just demand more of it.

Jul 20, 2009 - 9:22 am 62. JED:

The “Tea Party” concept is rich in American history. It tells of taxation without representation and asserting independence from foreign rule. It is contrary to redistributing the wealth from the commoner to the collective elite. The phrase sounds both civil and calming.

I would suggest expanding the electorate under this tent to a more modern and symbolic group,”The Shovel Ready Party.” These would be the newly disenfranchised blue collar workers who thought seriously about hope and change and yes we can, etc…, only to find themselves out of work by a more bloated bureaucracy. These citizens when from good jobs to welfare to state IOUs in only 6 months. Shovel ready?

Jul 20, 2009 - 9:22 am 63. Ohio Granny:

People who were at the July 17th protest in Ohio told me that the staffer came out and talked with the group. They were shocked by the number (only 30 but a nice little group), asked how many had jobs (all), and how many took time off from work (all). These are citizen activists.

People who were at the protests against Obamacare told me they were shocked that many many of the drivers of buses and company trucks who were African Americans beeped, raised their fists in support, nodded, and waved. Americans being the operative word. Not all black people are socialists. Not all black people are sucking the welfare tit. Those that work want to keep their money. Just listen to Samuel L. Jackson or Whoopi Goldberg complain about getting taxed to death.

What people don’t understand is that local offices of politicans talk to their DC equals. They tell them that the natives are restless. They tell them that we are coming to their offices locally and scaring the bejesus out of them. And then on Sept. 11th, we will be coming to their offices in DC.

Then Mr. Douglas will be writing that those crazy tea baggers did it. They went a lite a flame of discontent that swept through this nation and everyone, white and black and latino, little d and little r, took back control and demand accountability.

Oh, btw, I wanted to vote for term limits in Ohio but my husband said, why should Ohio have a disadvantage if no other state votes for it? If Teddy K and Robert Byrd get all the senority and chairmanships and good committees, how does that help us?

Jul 20, 2009 - 9:28 am 64. Teacher in Texas:

J Harp #20

“This, after Obama cut taxes”

Hey J Harp, you talked to a smoker lately? Roll your own tobacco users just had their taxes raised about 4,000%

And let’s not forget that the “tax cuts” were mostly more redistributed revenue to the 40% or so of American households who already pay ZERO federal income taxes.

Jul 20, 2009 - 9:31 am 65. SukieTawdry:

President Obama pretending not to know anything about the tax day tea parties was very telling (word is that behind the scenes, he was, in fact, furious). The response of Congressional Democrats’ local offices to tea party petitioners is also very telling. Oh well, while the Constitution guarantees our right to peaceably assemble and petition the Government for a redress of our grievances, it doesn’t say “Government” has to listen to us.

Jul 20, 2009 - 9:34 am 66. Blarty Blarckleblart:

And let’s not forget that the “tax cuts” were mostly more redistributed revenue to the 40% or so of American households who already pay ZERO federal income taxes.

Same thing would have happened if McCain had gotten elected.

Jul 20, 2009 - 9:45 am 67. Anonymous:

Libeal debate (a.k.a. “The Snub”) shows the left to be a bunch of cowards. They can’t even cough-up the guts to reply agrily to something. The “release the hounds” bit of calling the cops on peacful protestors after all the obnoxious “f*ck Bush” rallies they supported is quite revealing (although they’d need moral fiber for complaints of “hypocrite” to register with them). 2010, 2010, 2010! And, Palin 2012!

Jul 20, 2009 - 9:48 am 68. blotto:

Ray #55:”As opposed to 100% of whites voting for a white guy in all previous elections? By your definition, as recently as 4 years ago, white voters proved that they’re amazingly racist.”

Duh! Nice try but since this is the first time a black was a nominee your rejoinder is moot. Of course 100% of white voted for the white guy….all the nominees were white. But 96% of blacks voting for a black is racial if not racist. If it weren’t, the Dems would have nominated Clinton.

“…diversity is a good thing.” No you prove to us that diversity is a good thing. Does diversity matter to math, physics, science, etc??? Has diversity helped with the black dropout rate, black illegitimacy birth rate, black crime rate? Where is the diversity in nightly news anchors, college professors, X games, NFL/NBA, college administrators, DailyKos/HuffPo???

“…it really isn’t that hard for a cursory examination to produce that impression.” So Garafolo’s comments weren’t racists? How about the naacp using the dragging death of a black man against conservatives? How about se. Boxer’s comments vis a vis the black chamber of commerce? No, the left is always using race and racialist remarks to get black votes. It is projection by the left who accuses the right of being racist.

Jul 20, 2009 - 9:55 am 69. Commuter:

“And let’s not forget that the “tax cuts” were mostly more redistributed revenue to the 40% or so of American households who already pay ZERO federal income taxes.”

You’re wasting your time. Anyone still pushing the Obama lowered taxes on 95% of Americans is a tool who hasn’t a clue about how taxes work. jharp is one of the more purposefully ignorant trolls here who epitomize that.

jharp will get more hysterical with his postings, move up from the vulgarity of calling the Tea Party people teabaggers to everyone but him being ignorant fools. His last post in the thread will be a whine about his posts being deleted after the moderators have had enough of him.

And Blarty, the posters here generally strike me as being several magnitudes more savvy than the tittering juveniles who lap up their politics at MSNBC. I think it’s safe to assume the readers who don’t or seldom comment are generally that savvy also. They are neither impressed or insulted by the teabagging references. They’ll just dismiss the commenter. You may want to back off your teabagger references if you want to be taken seriously.

Jul 20, 2009 - 9:56 am 70. B. Johnson:

With all due respect to Tea Party patriots, although their hearts are in the right place, they don’t understand how they’re spinning their wheels in fighting higher (illegal) federal taxes. The following analysis of the ill-conceived 16th and 17th Amendments will help to explain why.

http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthread.php?t=199792

Jul 20, 2009 - 9:58 am 71. "progressive"watch:

The number one Obama maniac is Obama.

Jul 20, 2009 - 9:58 am 72. SukieTawdry:

Oh, btw, I wanted to vote for term limits in Ohio but my husband said, why should Ohio have a disadvantage if no other state votes for it? If Teddy K and Robert Byrd get all the senority and chairmanships and good committees, how does that help us?

Doesn’t matter how you vote, Ohio Granny; SCOTUS already ruled that term limits for federal office holders can’t be imposed by the individual states and require a Constitutional Amendment. There’s little chance, of course, that Congress would ever vote to propose such an Amendment which leaves it to the State legislatures to do so. And two-thirds of them would have to vote to ask Congress for a national convention to propose the Amendment. That method has not been used thus far in our nation’s history and probably wouldn’t be used in this case since so many State legislators have designs on a job in Washington. I can’t imagine what it would take to make our political class vote to limit their time in office.

Jul 20, 2009 - 9:59 am 73. Syl:

I disagree a bit re term limits (re #3). Imagine Congress full of lame ducks. Protesting means nothing if a sitting Senator or House member isn’t worried about re-election.

Just sayin’

Jul 20, 2009 - 10:05 am 74. mad-as-H:

Several helpful things to vent your anger (at the right people and place):
1. Cancel all newspapers and cable (propaganda).
2. Attend TEA PARTIES or organize one in your area.
3. Avoid purchasing non-essentials.
4. Save as much money as possible.
5. Attend local government money and FORCE them to stop accepting matching Federal Funds for projects they can’t afford.
6. Call your Senators and Representatives EVERY time you are mad about something. Tell them we don’t need them if they let OBAMA run the country.
7. Tell all your friends and relatives to do the same.
8. Subscribe to power organizations like NRA and Heritage Foundation.
9. Vote Independent and Republican (where you can stomach the candidate). Vote with a HEAVY BIAS against Democrats and LIBERAL Democrats especially.
10. Contribute money to defeat Reid, Pelosi, Dodd, Frank, Waxman and their ilk in 2010 and beyond.
11. Learn about the Climate Change HOAX and GREEN SHOOTS HOAX being foisted upon us. Challenge everyone you meet to become informed. Google Milankovitch Cycle.
12. Avoid buying union made products, especially cars.
13. Pressure your state government to FIRE UNNECESSARY employees BEFORE RAISING TAXES. Get citizens to review what is going on or not going on. FURLOUGHS work well in California.
14. RECESS NOW. Bring pending legislation home so CITZENS can READ IT and give input.

Jul 20, 2009 - 10:18 am 75. Allan:

If the Tea Party is about lower taxes or taxes without representation, the it is a misnomer. There is no taxation without representation in this country.

The Boston Tea Party was less about taxes than it was anti-socialism, or, perhaps, anti-fascism. The problem at the time was that the East India Tea Company was foundering because of competition. The King decided to prop up the company by mandating the colonies buy the tea. The colonists refused. The Boston Tea Party resulted. Taxes were not the problem, giving support to favored industries was.

Of course there was the Stamp Act and other laws that were actually taxation without representation, but the result was a revolution, not dumping tea into Boston Harbor.

Jul 20, 2009 - 10:22 am 76. Jim:

Racism? Not in my case. I would have bitterly resisted efforts by politicians of any color (or national origin) to destroy the Nation I love.

As to attendance at Tea Parties: the Taxed Enough Already movement predominantly comprises people who work and pay taxes. We don’t have an ACORN to recruit and bus “demonstrators” to “demonstrations”.

I worked my ass off on the Fourth of July to pay the bills. Mine and several others’ bills. If I could have gotten the day off, I might have slept in, which is a real treat because my alarm clock normally rings at 0430.

Obama’s a radical socialist and his Chicago thug cronies are destroying America.

Jul 20, 2009 - 10:22 am 77. Boxer_IS_Racist:

If anybody posting here is worried about RACISM, please contact SENATOR BOXER’s office.

Ask her to apologize to Harry A. Alford, President and CEO of the National Black Chamber of Commerce explaining how to achieve a RATIONAL energy policy.

Watch her RACIST (and arrogant) comments here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FE_jGD5nZ6U&feature=player_embedded

DEMOCRATIC LIBERAL RACISTS get a pass?

Jul 20, 2009 - 10:27 am 78. Moon Slayer:

I think the real “tea party” will come at the next election. Politicians must be faced head on. They come home, they campaign, don’t be afraid to ask questions, email them, call their offices. If you are against what they are doing, don’t just stand by and let it happen. If you don’t speak up, it’s your own fault. They are in Washington because you put them there.

I believe tea parties are a way for some to let off steam. Politicians pay attention to the voting polls, direct phone calls and emails to their offices. As the tea parties are relatively small and spread across the nation, the press and politicians feel they can ignore them. We have not been to a tea party, yet…come 2010 you can bet we’ll be at the voting polls.

Our government pays “little attention” to the average joe that creates the middle class jobs. When we do not give the middle class what they need in tax breaks etc., they will close their doors and there will be many more job losses. A tax cut for the families is nice However, if small businesses do not get a break, the families will not have to worry about that little tax break they think is so great… Unions should NEVER get breaks or special treatment that the average person does not get, period.

In Washington, we need “accountability” to the people back home. Politicians lose touch with what their constituents are up to and expect…and the people that do vote, don’t take time to see what is going on. If it’s raining, or any such silly nonsense, Republican turn out is lower, the Dems come out hell or high water.

If disliking what Obama he is trying to do is racist, them consider me a racist. “Racism”, a word thrown around strictly for “effect” and the “fear” it throws into anyone not black …is losing it’s effect. Stop and think about it. It is a way to control any “back talk” from “you” , the real power in America.

AND!!! you can spell any way you chose to spell, we get the meaning.

Jul 20, 2009 - 10:32 am 79. Professor Guvinoff:

Most news outlets simply ignore the tea parties. Yet, they pounce on every lost cat, limping dog and talking bird story. If there is some genuine editorial reason to deny coverage to some happenings and profusely elaborate on others, why should the citizen’s gatherings be pushe aside?

Methinks the self-absorbed editors have nothing to fear from the cute cats, dogs and birds. The tea party attendants are something else. I am one of these a proud protesters, and I can’t remember anyone being scared of me before.

Tea partiers unsignificant? Let’s remember that election turnouts are generally rather low, and that motivated voters carry the water and the apathetic don’t! What community organizer can out-motivate folks who don’t have any activist tendency, but go out spontaneously nevertheless? Insignificant? Only in the agitators community organizers wettest dreams!

Jul 20, 2009 - 10:35 am 80. jharp:

69. Commuter:

“You’re wasting your time. Anyone still pushing the Obama lowered taxes on 95% of Americans is a tool who hasn’t a clue about how taxes work. jharp is one of the more purposefully ignorant trolls here who epitomize that.”

Go read it right here at the website of the IRS.

http://www.irs.gov/newsroom/article/0,,id=206038,00.html

For 2009 and 2010, the Making Work Pay provision of ARRA provides a refundable tax credit of up to $400 for working individuals and $800 for married taxpayers filing joint returns.

For people who receive a paycheck and are subject to income tax withholding, the credit will typically be received through an automated reduction of income tax withholding by the employer beginning in early spring 2009.

A taxpayer who does not have taxes withheld by an employer during the year can claim the credit on his or her tax return.

Get it? A $400 tax credit for individuals and $800 for couples.

A tax credit that lowers one’s tax liability.

But by all means keep right on teabagging over the lowering of taxes.

The whole country is laughing at you. And the GOP is losing support over the ignorance of the teabaggers.

Jul 20, 2009 - 10:39 am 81. moptop:

jharp is like the guy falling from the building who is asked as he drops by the 30th floor “How’s it going” and he says “Fine… so far” Anybody who thinks about the physics of the situation, knows the man is doomed, jharp just lives in the moment though.

What kind of health care will a broke govt provide? That is my question.

Jul 20, 2009 - 10:40 am 82. jharp:

“What kind of health care will a broke govt provide? That is my question.”

You obviously are oblivious to Obamacare.

The “govt” isn’t going to provide any health care. That is what is called “socialized medicine”. And though wingnut after wingnut can’t wrap their Limbaugh addled brain around it, no one is proposing such a thing.

Jul 20, 2009 - 10:47 am 83. Hogarth:

“Same thing would have happened if McCain had gotten elected.”

Which has what to do with anything? The Tea Parties would have formed no matter what flavor of big-spending corruptocrat happened to be in the White House.

The strength of the Tea Party is its appeal to all concerned taxpayers, not just those of the current minority party. This is why the GOP has been repeatedly rebuffed in their attempts to snuggle up. They had their chance and they blew it, albeit to a lesser extent than the Pelosi/Read/Obama cabal.

Jul 20, 2009 - 11:07 am 84. carol:

81 ,69 etc…you’re just feeding the troll…please quit it. You’re too intelligent to lower yourselves to the constant feeding. The trolls are always on every post site on pjm, always trying to talk down to someone, call them names etc. Soros vomit , just skip their posts and read on…

Jul 20, 2009 - 11:09 am 85. jharp:

83. Hogarth:

“The Tea Parties would have formed no matter what flavor of big-spending corruptocrat happened to be in the White House.”

Really? No kidding?

So where were the teabaggers when Bush & Co. doubled the debt? And worse yet Bush doubled the debt to the benefit of the top 5% of earners not to mention the trillion he blew in Iraq that we have nothing to show for.

No one likes deficits. No one. However everyone likes even less the total collapse of the world economy which is where Bush nearly led us. Thank God for President Obama and his wisdom and guts to provide for an economic stimulus. It was our last option.

Jul 20, 2009 - 11:18 am 86. Allan:

Taxing and spending (Democrats)

is better than

Borrowing and Spending (Republicans)

Discuss.

Question: What viable party is available for those who want to reduce spending? Answer: none, because there is no natural constituency.

Jul 20, 2009 - 11:44 am 87. Commuter:

jharp,

If anyone is laughing, it’s at you.

It’s probably a waste of time trying to educate you, but I’ll make a token effort. We’ll dispense with the fine point of whether the game is played in weekly deductions and just look at the bottom line at the end of the tax season where appropriate.

I’ll also use some approximate %s. They are close and make my point. If you don’t like the figures, look them up yourself and fine tune them. They will be substantially correct in any event.

1: On average, between 125-1400 million returns have been filed yearly representing about 75% of individual Americans the last several years. 95% of Americans are not even represented in tax returns filed.

2: between 40 and 50% of those filing returns pay no taxes. So any tax credit is nothing more than income redistribution from those who pay taxes to those who don’t. That does not qualify as a tax credit by any definition accepted by any but the ignorant.

3: A very small % of those filing returns who fall into the range between paying no taxes and paying either $400 in income tax for an individual or $800 filing jointly will see the difference. This difference is again nothing more than income redistribution from those who pay taxes to those who don’t. The reason is that the amount of the credit they get would not have been paid in by this particular tax filer anyway. So this does not qualify as a tax credit by any definition accepted by any but the ignorant either.

4: 2 and 3 mean that the IRS is just the middleman with a convenient infrastructure already in place being used by the government to redistribute income in a sliding scale from roughly 40% of the people who file to somewhere in the neighborhood of %55 of people who file and would not have paid the full dollar amount of the tax credit into the system in any event.

5: A percentage of filers who pay more than $400 as an individual or $800 jointly will get the $400 or the $800 back as a tax credit. This will be in the neighborhood of 30-40% of people who file returns. In this case, it is not income redistribution. Good for them. Note that this is not 30-40% of Americans (versus your silly 95% or Americans claim) but 30-40% of people filing returns.

Do you get this?

Plus, this doesnot even address the fact that taxes are not just collected from income. Passing out a tax credit based on income taxes paid in and claiming taxes are reduced while at the same time raising other taxes is a game only the ignorant buy into.

Stop the claims that 95% of Americans have had their taxes reduced based on Obama’s tax initiative in his stimulus plan. It makes you read like an idiot without the slightest understanding of taxes. Certainly far less understanding than the folks you call teabaggers.

Jul 20, 2009 - 11:44 am 88. Alana:

The Atlanta Tea party had 20,000+ (not 10,000).

Yes, of course, we at the tea parties are making a difference.

When ordinary, mostly middle-class and working-class people – mothers, fathers, grandparents, kids, etc. – take to the streets in large numbers, most of them for the first time – you know a LOT of people are extremely unhappy, and our politicians know that, too.

Obama knows it.

Jul 20, 2009 - 11:55 am 89. jharp:

87. Commuter:

“1: On average, between 125-1400 million returns have been filed yearly representing about 75% of individual Americans the last several years. 95% of Americans are not even represented in tax returns filed.”

I should have been more clear as you clearly aren’t bright enough to understand that anyone who doesn’t file a tax return is not included. The correct term for the functionally illiterate is “95% of American taxpayers have had their taxes cut.”

“2: between 40 and 50% of those filing returns pay no taxes.”

100% complete and utter nonsense. Though it is true that some pay no income taxes. You do understand the difference?

“3: A very small % of those filing returns who fall into the range between paying no taxes and paying either $400 in income tax for an individual or $800 filing jointly will see the difference.”

If you claim 95% is a “very small %” you are correct. However even someone in full blown wingnuttia knows 95% is a substantial %.

“4: 2 and 3 mean that the IRS is just the middleman with a convenient infrastructure already in place being used by the government to redistribute income”

I get it. Tax cuts for the lowest earning 95% of American taxpayers are just “income redistribution”.

“5: A percentage of filers who pay more than $400 as an individual or $800 jointly will get the $400 or the $800 back as a tax credit. This will be in the neighborhood of 30-40% of people who file returns.”

Completely false. Again, the tax cut will be enjoyed by 95% of American taxpayers.
Do you get this?

“Stop the claims that 95% of Americans have had their taxes reduced based on Obama’s tax initiative in his stimulus plan.”

I’ll not stop simply because it is true.

Now go back to teabagging Obama’s tax cuts. It only makes you look foolish.

Jul 20, 2009 - 12:13 pm 90. jharp:

Why would you take this post down?

Are you so afraid of the truth?

Let me get this straight. 76% of Americans favor drastic health care reform. And a deficit neutral solution that expands coverage to 97% of us while at the same time providing COMPETITION that will drive costs down.

And you honestly believe Obamacare is a loser? It’s a loser all right. For republicans. It’ll send them into the wilderness for decades.

For Immediate Release:

July 17, 2009

CBO Scores Confirms Deficit Neutrality of Health Reform Bill

Washington, D.C. — The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released estimates this evening confirming for the first time that H.R. 3200, America’s Affordable Health Choices Act, is deficit neutral over the 10-year budget window – and even produces a $6 billion surplus. CBO estimated more than $550 billion in gross Medicare and Medicaid savings. More importantly, the bill includes a comprehensive array of delivery reforms to set the stage for lowering the future growth in health care costs.

Net Medicare and Medicaid savings of $465 billion, coupled with the $583 billion revenue package reported today by the House Committee on Ways and Means, fully finance the previously estimated $1.042 trillion cost of reform, which will provide affordable health care coverage for 97% of Americans.

Jul 20, 2009 - 12:18 pm 91. Moon Slayer:

87

I agree with not feeding the troll with your response. However, that is a very good post thanks.

88

We hope this will continue through 2010. The tea party theory appeals to “all taxpayers” not jut Repubs. it’s a “people” thing

73, you’re right…but there needs to be a way to control this train wreck.

We are hoping for stronger Republicans in 2010. In our state we have a Repub that is a do nothing. We are thinking he will get back in due to the backlash on Dems. Otherwise he would be on his way out. A two party system is supposed to work for the people, not against the people by putting someone back in because you are angry at the other candidate’s party and what they represent. neinerneinerneiner stuff.

Frankly we would like to see both parties purged. It will not happen, but if financial things begin to seep down to the people that voted for Obama, we could see some real changes..naaaaaw..never happen.

Jul 20, 2009 - 12:21 pm 92. Commuter:

“76% of Americans favor drastic health care reform. ”

No, they don’t. Not drastic.

And save the propaganda excerpt from speaker.house blog. Try the CBO’s own page to understand what they said rather than Pelosi’s office’s spin. I told you and Blarty that the posters and readers here are generally several magnitudes more savvy than the level your juvenile MSNBC political stance has you performing at.

And I pointed out earlier that you’d end up whining about your posts being deleted. One would think you’d take the obvious message.

Jul 20, 2009 - 12:39 pm 93. Steve:

Most people are figuring out the you can not make chicken soup out of chicken sh!t. This is a good thing and more will realize this after the inflation and high taxes and impossible to get high interest rate loans happen. Hell we are having trouble selling US Bonds and it is not getting any easier with the recklessness of this BADMINISTRATION.

Jul 20, 2009 - 12:52 pm 94. Commuter:

I see. We are the functionally illiterate who don’t understand that you are being very literate when claiming that 95% of Americans have had their taxes cut because we do not understand that what you meant was that 95% of American taxpayers have had their taxes cut. After you’re having said on multiple threads in exactly the same words that 95% of Americans have had their taxes cut.

Which is quite obviously nonsense anyway.

““2: between 40 and 50% of those filing returns pay no taxes.”
“100% complete and utter nonsense.”"

No. Factual. Those are the ballpark numbers. Look them up.

I did say up front that I felt that the attempt to educate a nannystater tool like you would be a waste of time. You will insist on posting your fallacies though.

Jul 20, 2009 - 12:53 pm 95. Commuter:

‘Which is quite obviously nonsense anyway.’ should be ‘Which is quite obviously nonsense either way.’

Jul 20, 2009 - 12:55 pm 96. jharp:

“Try the CBO’s own page to understand what they said rather than Pelosi’s office’s spin.”

I did. And here is what they said.

“By the end of the 10-year period, in 2019, the coverage provisions would add $202 billion to the federal deficit, CBO and JCT estimate. That increase would be partially offset by net cost savings of $50 billion and additional revenues of $86 billion, resulting in a net increase in the deficit of an estimated $65 billion.”

And Pelosi’s spin is accurate. — The estimates also cover important reinvestments in Medicare and Medicaid, including phasing in the closing of the “donut” hole in the Medicare drug benefit. The bill’s long-term reform of Medicare’s physician fee schedule to eliminate the potential 21 percent cut in fees, and put payments on a sustainable basis for the future, will cost about $245 billion. Those costs, however, are not included in the net calculations above, as they will be absorbed under the upcoming statutory “pay go” legislation that is pending in the House.

It’s great news for Obamacare and great news for Americans. But not for the “I hate everything Obama” teabaggers. Their journey in the wilderness just got a lot longer.

Jul 20, 2009 - 12:56 pm 97. Dee:

Tea Party Patriots are just as angry at Republicans as Democrats. We want smaller govt., lower taxes, less regulations, more capitalism. We want governtment out of our lives-period. This movement will continue. It will grow because as all of our new programs take effect, we will all pay higher prices for energy, food, shelter and yes, medical care. As time goes on, not only will the govt. tell us how hot/cold to keep our homes, but how to maintain them. Freedom choice will go out the window.

So yes, the movement will grow until government puts a violent and messy end to it.

See you guys in the gulag.

Jul 20, 2009 - 12:59 pm 98. Blarty Blarckleblart:

69 Commuter

You may want to back off your teabagger references if you want to be taken seriously.

Will I still be taken seriously if I call someone “a tool who hasn’t a clue about how taxes work”? Just trying to get a feel for the ground rules here.

These are the facts: individuals who earn less than $95K a year get a $400 tax credit. Couples who earn less than $190K a year get an $800 tax credit. You can argue about what percentage of Americans fall into those categories but you can’t dispute those very simple facts.

And the vast majority of Americans fall into those categories.

Jul 20, 2009 - 1:00 pm 99. robotech master:

Putting a bandaid on a missing limb isn’t much of a victory when the goal was to stop the limb from being cut off.

The simple fact is the tea-parties have fail in doing anything more then making ppl believe that the leftists care or that their end goal of communism has been stopped.

At this point its doubtful short of obama getting kicked out of office that the tea parties will have any real effect… delaying cap and trade, national health care and a host of other communism goals is just that a delay… and a losing one. For even if the tea parties stop the current bills they will still pass under obama some form of all of them thus moving us instead of a giant leap toward communism but a small jump.

None of the current repub candidates will roll back any of the things that obama has which means that in a few years the repubs will start pushing slowly left again and the dems will be right their waiting in the wings to push the US off the cliff into a sea of communism.

Its better that obama “win” while the US is still strong and ppl will still be able to fight then to wait 15 years and not be about to anymore.

Jul 20, 2009 - 1:00 pm 100. Blarty Blarckleblart:

Commuter, can you source your claim that 40-50% of people who file income tax returns “pay no taxes”? Thanks

Jul 20, 2009 - 1:02 pm 101. jharp:

Commuter:

“I see. We are the functionally illiterate who don’t understand that you are being very literate when claiming that 95% of Americans have had their taxes cut because we do not understand that what you meant was that 95% of American taxpayers have had their taxes cut. After you’re having said on multiple threads in exactly the same words that 95% of Americans have had their taxes cut.”

What a bunch of nonsense. You’ve got to file a tax return to get any tax considerations at all you numbskull.

And even the most brain dead of wingnuttia would realize that. And 95% of those folks got a tax cut.

Jul 20, 2009 - 1:09 pm 102. Peter the Bubblehead:

To Steve @ #38:
Thanks. I’ll give it a try.

Jul 20, 2009 - 1:14 pm 103. Swen Swenson:

David Weigel says the Tea Party Movement is losing steam? Well, there ya go! I can’t remember the last time Weigel was right about anything and I doubt this will be the exception.

Jul 20, 2009 - 1:16 pm 104. Peter the Bubblehead:

44. Rob Crawford wrote:
Peter — the much-touted “tax cuts” were changes in the withholding schedules, which increased (slightly) the amount some people got in their paychecks after taxes. HOWEVER, the actual tax rates were not changed, meaning you’re still on the hook for what was not withheld.

Peter writes: That was my point. I have not seen a single additional penny in my take-home pay, in spite of what the Dumbocrats might claim. But I shudder to think what my tax return will look like in 2010. I used to actually be able to pay for a nice family vacation with my tax refund.

Jul 20, 2009 - 1:17 pm 105. Mutnodjmet:

I think people should be aware of Community Transformation Plans:

http://templeofmut.wordpress.com/2009/07/20/community-transformation-plans/

One of the things she reported is that the Senate version of the proposed healthcare reforms had bureaucratic organizations to implement “Community Transformation Plans”. Teams that would assess the individuals that make up each community and begin drafting plans for healthier living. The bill, with the Orwellian name of the Affordable Health Choices Act, would direct money to “community organizations” so they could promote government health care and tailor citizens’ diet and exercise programs healthy lifestyles — based on their opinion of what constitutes such lifestyles. In a nutshell, American lifestyles would be dictated by “Community Transformers”.

Jul 20, 2009 - 1:17 pm 106. Blarty Blarckleblart:

97 Dee

We want governtment out of our lives-period.

Does that include wombs, or are they still Property of the State?

Jul 20, 2009 - 1:22 pm 107. Blarty Blarckleblart:

Peter

But I shudder to think what my tax return will look like in 2010.

If you are an individual earning less than $95K your tax liability will be $400 lower than it would have been without the Obama tax credit. If you are part of a couple earning less than $190K your tax liability will be $800 lower. The amount being withheld from your paycheck does not affect that fact.

Jul 20, 2009 - 1:41 pm 108. Peter the Bubblehead:

82. jharp wrote:
The “govt” isn’t going to provide any health care. That is what is called “socialized medicine”. And though wingnut after wingnut can’t wrap their Limbaugh addled brain around it, no one is proposing such a thing.

Peter writes: Hey jharp, have you even read the proposed Health Care bill? Have you ANY idea what it contains, before you start quoting falsehoods? Are you even aware that, on Page 16 of the House Health Care Proposal, if passed, would make it illegal to obtain a new health insurance policy from a non-government entity once the bill becomes law? Sure, Obama is not lieing when he says “If you like your health insurance, you can choose to keep it.” But what he is not letting you know is, should you lose your job (like millions have since The Won was sworn in as POTUS) or you choose to change jobs, all you are allowed BY LAW to obtain is Government health care insurance.

And if you have been watching even an inkling of news, we all know how well that is working out in England (where 6 breast cancer victims have been denied further care and medication because a government bean-counter decided it was too expense for the potential return) and Canada (where they wait between 1 and 3 years for an operation patients can expect to get in weeks in the US, prompting many Canadian citizens to cross the border and pay out of pocket rather than risk their lives waiting for the bureocracy to decide yes or no).

How are you going to feel about Obamacare when some government lackey tell you “Sorry, we have decided your 80 year old mother’s care is too expensive to continue and have decided to cut her off”?

Jul 20, 2009 - 1:45 pm 109. Northern Light:

I have been very interested in the Tea Party movement. Outside of abortion, there have not been big protests by American conservatives in my lifetime so it’s been an interesting situation to see protests where virtually the only people involved with any experience in things like this were former leftists (and there were several former leftists involved).

April 15th was not a huge success, but it was a start. Although the numbers weren’t great compared to liberal protests (think Iraq War or Environment rallies), the parties took place in an awful lot of places. Some, like El Paso had a few thousand, others, like Buffalo NY, had only a couple of dozen. But the ice had been broken. People came out and met with fellow conservatives. Some of these people did not know many like-minded conservatives before the parties. So, even if it wasn’t a huge success, it was a small success. Some said it was only the beginning. July 4th would be bigger.

July 4th was ot as big. Fewer cities had protests. FOX News gave the movement a lot less publicity. Numbers at individual Tea Parties appeared to be down. On the other hand, it appears that the parties were more grassroot and less “astroturf” than the April 15th gatherings. Some tried to be apolitical, while others were recruitment drives for the Republican Party (yes, I’m looking at you, Philadelphia Tea Party). Some parties forbade any elected representatives or candidates to speak while others not only allowed political figures to speak but raised money for GOP candidates (don’t try to slink off Rick Perry, we all saw you). But the different tone and approaches by various parties showed that there wasn’t a single organization calling the shots. Local organizers made decisions for themselves rather than take marching orders from somebody else.

The one thing that concerns me about the future of Tea Parties is that I haven’t heard anyone talking about the next round. On April 15th everyone was told about the events on July 4th. After July 4th I didn’t hear a thing about when the next parties would take place. If there is anyone here who knows when the next round of Tea Parties are due to happen please enlighten me. Saying they will happen at the ballot box in 2010 is all well and good, but if the numbers at the ballot box are about the size of a crowd at a minor league baseball game it does not bode well for the GOP.

Jul 20, 2009 - 1:47 pm 110. jharp:

44. Rob Crawford wrote:
“Peter — the much-touted “tax cuts” were changes in the withholding schedules, which increased (slightly) the amount some people got in their paychecks after taxes. HOWEVER, the actual tax rates were not changed, meaning you’re still on the hook for what was not withheld.”

Complete and utter nonsense. Obama cut taxes (reduced the amount of taxes paid) by $400 for individuals and $800 for couples. And 95% of American’s will reap the benefits.

“Peter writes: That was my point. I have not seen a single additional penny in my take-home pay, in spite of what the Dumbocrats might claim. But I shudder to think what my tax return will look like in 2010. I used to actually be able to pay for a nice family vacation with my tax refund.”

And this simply blows my mind. What is your thinking when you loan the government your money for the year for free?

A tax tip. Withhold the minimum. Anyone with a lick of sense gets no refund.

Jul 20, 2009 - 1:48 pm 111. Peter the Bubblehead:

85. jharp wrote:
So where were the teabaggers when Bush & Co. doubled the debt?

Peter corrects: You mean when the Dumbocratic congress doubled the debt, right?

Or are you referring to the doubling of the national debt to over 2 trillion, more than double what 43 Presidents combined managed to run up, in just the first 6 months of The Won’s reign… I mean, administration?

Jul 20, 2009 - 1:48 pm 112. Blarty Blarckleblart:

108 Peter

Health care is already rationed in the U.S. Peter Singer published an interesting analysis of that fact in the NYT this week. He also rebuts some common canards about Canada and Britain (at the end).

Jul 20, 2009 - 1:58 pm 113. jharp:

Bubblehead:

“Are you even aware that, on Page 16 of the House Health Care Proposal, if passed, would make it illegal to obtain a new health insurance policy from a non-government entity once the bill becomes law?”

I am aware of this lie being spread throughout the wingnutosphere.

And that is exactly what it is. A dirty rotten stinking lie. Spread by the party that calls themselves Christians.

You go to hell for lying just as you do for stealing. It’s one of the top ten.

Jul 20, 2009 - 2:00 pm 114. AThinkingPerson:

Funny how Obama’s “bailout” is now going to cost 23 TRILLION dollars. He’s an economic genius!

No wonder the Tea Parties are gaining momentum and Obama’s poll numbers are heading downward.

Carter II is upon us. Gird your loins.

Jul 20, 2009 - 2:05 pm 115. AThinkingPerson:

Blarty, jharp, Mike W: How ’bout that economic genius Obama eh? LOL!

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0709/25164.html

Calling him Carter II might even be a bit generous.

Jul 20, 2009 - 2:08 pm 116. AThinkingPerson:

There really should be a video game that has GOP’ers shooting holes in the liberal arguments. How fun (and easy) would that be? Play along…

Obama is going to create jobs! LOL!

Obama’s “stimulus” is going to stop unemployment numbers from rising! LOL!

Obama is going to be the “transparent” President! LOL!

Obama is going to cut the “pork”! LOL!

Shooting fish in a barrel. Truly. No wonder I’ve seen people driving around with tea bags hanging from their car antennas.

Jul 20, 2009 - 2:14 pm 117. AThinkingPerson:

I think Obama should annoint a Tea Party Czar. He’s annointed what, 32 Czar’s already? What’s one more Czar who doesn’t have to report to Congress or be held accountable to the voting public in anyway really?

Jul 20, 2009 - 2:19 pm 118. jharp:

AThinkingPerson:

“Blarty, jharp, Mike W: How ’bout that economic genius Obama eh?”

Yeah, how about it? From YOUR link.

“Still, the enormity of the IG’s projection underscores the size of the economic disaster that hit the nation over the past year and the unprecedented sums mobilized by the federal government under Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama to confront it.”

Tell me again who’s held Congress for 14 of the last 16 years. And the White House for the past 8 years.

Don’t fret buddy. Obama and the democrats will clean up the republican’s disasters.

Jul 20, 2009 - 2:22 pm 119. AThinkingPerson:

Obama’s Freudian Slip du jour:

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0709/25165.html

Hmmmm……I think his conscious is finally getting to him.

Jul 20, 2009 - 2:25 pm 120. jharp:

I’m going out to tinker in the yard but I really have enjoyed this full wingnutosphere meltdown.

I am very much looking forward to more of it when Obamacare becomes law.

Jul 20, 2009 - 2:32 pm 121. AThinkingPerson:

jharp: So in your opinion spending 23 TRILLION for a 2 TRILLION dollar stimulus is a good thing? Please, do extrapolate for us. How is spending 21 TRILLION dollars over budget the marks of an economic genius? I think I see smoke coming out of your ears jharp.

Yep, I knew you were an imbecile jharp. The delirium has set in, time to head back to the moonbat cave for a tune-up.

Jul 20, 2009 - 2:32 pm 122. gnomepunter:

“Peter Singer”

Yep, the creator of one of the most incoherent, impractical philosophies ever(and who hypocritically abandons it when he finds it inconvenient, ie when his mother is the one who is ill)is exactly who I go to for insightful analysis of the healthcare system:rolleyes:. I can see where the vapidness of your posts comes from if you get your marching orders from intellectual lightweights like Singer.

Jul 20, 2009 - 2:35 pm 123. AThinkingPerson:

Here’s proof of Obama’s economic genius!!!!!

His economic “recovery” includes 1.5 million for……….mozzarella cheese. Carter II at work.

http://www.recovery.gov/?q=content/contracts-recipient-summary&id=12-AGDPDVVDOC02503&primeid=36

Jul 20, 2009 - 2:37 pm 124. AThinkingPerson:

Wonder why Doh’Bama is putting off releasing his newest budget? Hmmmm….can’t even imagine.

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D99I8E485&show_article=1

Jul 20, 2009 - 2:39 pm 125. Hogarth:

“So where were the teabaggers when Bush & Co. doubled the debt?”

Voting for the lying Dems in 2006 that promised fiscal restraint. Or have you forgotten that?

Jul 20, 2009 - 2:48 pm 126. Blarty Blarckleblart:

122 gnomepunter

I’m not a fan of Singer’s philosophy either, but his analysis of how health care in America is already rationed is fact-based and does not depend on it. Perhaps you could point out exactly where he is wrong.

Jul 20, 2009 - 3:02 pm 127. jharp:

Why would you take this post down? What are you afraid of? This poor family needs help and you don’t even have the guts to let their story be known?

Are you proud of your work?

Nah, we don’t need any health care reform. I’m sure this guys just a slacker. 25 years of work and he has nothing to show for it.

All because he lost his health insurance.

“After 25 years with the same company, Andy Stark lost his job and his health insurance.
Advertisement

While he found other work, it paid 30 percent less and had no benefits.

Then his wife got cancer.

Now the Simpsonville couple is struggling to pay medical bills they expect will total about $140,000.

“This is not the way things should be in America,” Andy Stark said.

In South Carolina, 670 people a week lose their health coverage.”

http://www.greenvilleonline.com/article/20090720/NEWS01/907200314/1013/NEWS

I cannot imagine what this poor couple is going through. The cancer is bad enough but Mrs. Stark also enjoys the privilege of worrying about payment and bankruptcy instead of focusing on getting well.

You people sicken me. You are repulsive and despicable human beings to favor a policy that allows this to happen.

Jul 20, 2009 - 3:39 pm 128. Commuter:

So many fallacies. So little time.

Blarty,

The claim that 95% of Americans will see a tax cut based on the stimulus tax credit that jharp CONTINUES to make, and that you originally made is false.

Let’s assume that everyone is on the same page and that we are talking about households filing a return. jharps new interpretation of his own muddled thoughts. Households that file a return being defined as either filing individual or a joint return.

The numbers simply do not bear that out the claim that 95% of those households will see a tax credit as a tax credit is defined. I never disputed the $400 and $800 numbers, only to the taxpayers they would apply to, and whether this is a cut in taxes as you and jharp claim.

Let’s define what a tax credit is. A tax credit is a rebate of your taxes that appears as incrementally reduced with holding. This is different from a tax cut, which is a change in the tax rate, and also different from a tax rebate, which is handed out after the end of the tax season. A tax credit can seem like a tax rebate if it wasn’t credited during the year as you get the full or partial amount back at the end of the tax season. It is not, however truly a tax rebate in that it doesn’t go to everybody.

Both a tax rebate in the year it is implemented, and obviously a tax cut until it is changed or repealed, are actual cuts in income taxes. Tax credits may or may not be depending on how the legislation is written. The may or may not be part of the question depends on who pays income taxes and income cutoff points.

Let’s define who pays income taxes. You can find this in multiple places online with a simple search and the numbers agree pretty closely. Do your own research. It’ll do you good.

Historical figures over the last 3 or 4 years say that about 15-20 million of eligible households do not file returns. Recall the tax related definition of a household is both individuals and joint etc. The number is hard to pin down for obvious reasons, but it is the IRS estimate.

The IRS estimate. Look it up.

Some sources combine those numbers with the people who file returns but end up paying no taxes so for the sake of the argument, since the 15-20 million are not actually taxpayers, we can ignore those numbers and lowball the IRS figures on eligible households that do not pay taxes. That figure then stands at about 40-45%.

The IRS figures. Look it up.

40-45% of households filing returns see all federal taxes paid in during the year come back as a tax refund. Take them right out of the % of households getting a tax cut based on the stimulus tax credit. You can’t cut something that is already 0%. You can redistribute income tax paid by others to those households as income, but not as a tax cut.

The stimulus tax credit also is not $400 or $800 to everyone paying income taxes under some cutoff boundary. It is graduated. The more you make, the less the credit until you reach an income level where you get no tax credit.

The % of households actually getting a tax cut from the stimulus tax credit is somewhere between 45 and 95% of the households filing returns. At the low end there are households where the taxes paid would be less than the tax credit. Again though, for the sake of the argument, we’ll discount those households also and stick with the 45 to 95% numbers.

After allowing as much leeway as possible to your claim, no more than 50% of households filing tax returns can possibly see a tax cut. These are the numbers.

A claim saying 50% or so of households filing a return will get a tax cut based on the stimulus tax credit is at least on the table as worthy of debate.

50% or so of households filing a return.

A claim that 95% of Americans, or even that 95% of households filing returns, will get either a $400 or $800 tax cut depending on the nature of the household is patently false. Continuing to make the first claim is clownish. Continuing to make the second claim betrays an ignorance of the tax system.

Even claiming that 95% of households actually paying taxes will see a tax cut might translate to defensible percentages. But that still does not translate to more than 50%, AT BEST, of American households paying income tax seeing a tax cut and is not what either you or jharp was saying.

Both you and jharp can’t be precise in what you are claiming because you are simply echoing the general numbers without understanding how they apply. Neither you nor jharp understand what you are talking about and are just pushing numbers by people with a vested interest in pushing deceiving numbers without any grasp of what they mean. Which makes the both of you tools.

Unless of course, being illiterate, I took what was claimed at face value instead of understanding what the two of you actually meant.

jharp;

Once again, the people you call teabaggers are magnitudes smarter than you. The speakers blog echoed the CBO’s agreement that if they could save $10, and were given $5, they would have $15. What the speaker’s blog does not mention, and what you are too much a nannystate tool to find out or understand, is that the head of the CBO is on record at the same time saying projections are that the promise to save $10 is a sham.

Link? Look it up, tool.

Jul 20, 2009 - 3:44 pm 129. Sebastian Shaw:

President Obama should appoint a Critical Thinking Czar so he does not look foolish on national television. The teleprompters are not enough. The Obamacare Surgeon can implant a sentient wart on Obama’s should with Obama’s DNA & voila, we will have the Critical Thinking Czar!

Jul 20, 2009 - 3:47 pm 130. Roderick Reilly:

I would love to have Garofalo tell me what the significance of the original Tea Party was.

Jul 20, 2009 - 3:50 pm 131. jharp:

Commuter:

“Let’s define what a tax credit is. A tax credit is a rebate of your taxes that appears as incrementally reduced with holding.”

How the tax credit appears or when it is taken is irrelevant.

Obama’s tax cuts were for $400 and $800 for individuals or couples.

It simply means if your tax bill was previously $1,400 you now owe only $1,000. Or for a couple that would have owed $1,800 under George Bush now owe only $1,000.

It’s just that simple.

And 95% of American taxpayers are reaping the benefits. And you guys are teabagging over it.

Get real.

Jul 20, 2009 - 4:04 pm 132. jharp:

Q:What percentage of the U.S. population makes more than $250,000 per year?

A:Roughly one in 50 households will take in more than $250,000 next year.

Joint returns with more than $250,000 adjusted gross income and single returns with more than $125,000 adjusted gross income together are estimated to make up 3.1 percent of households next year.

http://www.factcheck.org/askfactcheck/what_percentage_of_the_us_population_makes.html

Jul 20, 2009 - 4:08 pm 133. jharp:

Her you go commuter. Maybe this will help you understand.

http://rushhannitywatch.200gigs.com/rush/obama-tax-cut-95-working-americans-lie/

Tax credits may be characterized as either refundable or non-refundable, or equivalently non-wastable or wastable. Refundable or non-wastable tax credits can reduce the tax owed below zero, and result in a net payment to the taxpayer beyond their own payments into the tax system, appearing to be a moderate form of negative income tax. Examples of refundable tax credits include the earned income tax credit and the additional child tax credit in the U.S., and working tax credits or child tax credits in the UK.

Thus the ARRA (American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, the proper name for the stimulus bill) tax credit is refundable, meaning you can receive the full amount of the credit you qualify for, even if you owe less income tax than that total.

This has been criticized in the right-wing media as “cutting checks for people who don’t pay taxes,” or in other words, straight-up welfare. There are two fallacies prevalent in that argument.

First, if we’re going to call refundable tax credits welfare for people who don’t pay taxes, we must include the EITC (Earned Income Tax Credit) and the CTC (Child Tax Credit), both of which are also refundable tax credits. Additionally, they may have to un-canonize Saint Reagan, who greatly expanded the EITC in 1986. This has the added bonus of implicating Saint Reagan in the expansion of “welfare” (if the right insists on calling refundable tax credits that), contradicting Reagan’s spoken opposition to welfare.

Second, the refundable tax credits do cut checks for people whose income tax liability may be lower than the credit. Conveniently forgotten by the pundits are the myriad other taxes the poor pay — like 15.3% payroll tax for Social Security and Medicare, which comes right off the top from the very first dollar earned (if not self-employed, only half of that is seen directly in their paycheck; the other 7.65% is reflected in wages being lower than they would be without the employer-mandated contribution). There is also the federal gasoline tax, along with state sales taxes, state income taxes, and so on.

Jul 20, 2009 - 4:22 pm 134. Carol:

HOW can you offer ANY opinions as NO ONE has read the medical bill they are touting in Washington? How do your elected people vote on something they have not read? How do you keep voting for them? Sheep!!!

I don’t know a lot about the “medical” crap that Obama is trying to get past us. But, what ever it is, ALL people involved in the governemnt need to be on this plan too. No exceptions, period.

How do you argue about something you know nothing about?

Your concern should be that you know NOTHING about it!!!! AND NEITHER DO THE PEOPLE IN WASHINGTON THAT ARE GOING TO VOTE ON IT!!! SHEEEEEEP!!!

You would never sign a contract on a house, land, car without knowing all about it would you..or would you???

Jul 20, 2009 - 4:25 pm 135. Commuter:

‘How the tax credit appears or when it is taken is irrelevant. ‘

Thanks, but I already made that point, ‘…if it wasn’t credited during the year as you get the full or partial amount back at the end of the tax season.’.

‘It simply means if your tax bill was previously $1,400 you now owe only $1,000. Or for a couple that would have owed $1,800 under George Bush now owe only $1,000.

It’s just that simple.’

I do believe that you think it’s just that simple. Just as I believe that you think that 95% of American taxpayers are reaping the benefits. Even when a ballpark 40% didn’t pay $1400 or $100 or even $1 before the tax credit. Because that is what you’ve been told to think. You haven’t a clue.

The people you call teabaggers, who literally despise nanny staters like yourself, and who are magnitudes smarter than tools like yourself, do understand. You are soon to be marginalized because the people you call teabaggers aren’t going away and Obama won’t stop sliding and you’ll be the last one off the bus, including the driver.

Jul 20, 2009 - 4:43 pm 136. Bluto Blutarsky:

Re tax cuts for the middle class: “Hey, you f***ed up…you believed us!”

Jul 20, 2009 - 5:15 pm 137. Saltherring:

Blarty @ 107:

Smoke and mirrors (and the Chinese) will only finance multi-trillion dollars deficits for so long. The fallacy of a free lunch built on the backs of “the rich” will soon come crashing down, (along with our economy) leading to major tax increases for all who work and pay taxes. The American people are beginning to realize they have been had.

Jul 20, 2009 - 5:30 pm 138. Commuter:

On an earlier comment, I stand corrected by information released in early July. The % of households that filed and paid no taxes (households being individual or joint tax returns filed) was 47% in 2009. This does not include households that do not file at all.

Bottom line, it’s about 45% of households that will benefit by some figure from the stimulus tax credit, not 50%.

So far. Let’s let jharp dig himself a little deeper before we submit the numbers.

Jharp with shovel in hand:

‘Q:What percentage of the U.S. population makes more than $250,000 per year?

A:Roughly one in 50 households will take in more than $250,000 next year.’

Of course, Factcheck.org should be considered the primary source over the IRS figures but lets take a look at the IRS figures anyway. Just to level the playing field, we’ll use the IRS figures gathered and correlated by the same Tax Policy Center that factcheck.org purportedly used in April 2008 to project the 2% 2009 figure.

It seems that factcheck.org got it wrong. About 14% of households took in more than $250K during 2009 according to the latest figures released in July by the IRS and correlated by the Tax Policy Center IRS, not 2%.

What does this mean? It would seem to reduce the % of households that will benefit by some figure from the stimulus tax credit to about 35%.

If I recall correctly, back when the ’stimulus tax credit’ was being touted as a cut for 95% of tax payers, the naysayers were naysaying that no more than 30% would benefit.

Now 35% admittedly is not 30%, but jharp should dig us up another 5% if he can’t stop himself in time.

Jul 20, 2009 - 5:39 pm 139. Commuter:

jharp,

‘First, if we’re going to call refundable tax credits welfare for people who don’t pay taxes, we must include the EITC (Earned Income Tax Credit) and the CTC (Child Tax Credit) etc’

Exactly what do you mean to prove by quoting this? None of the other tax credits have anything at all to do with Obama. Do you want me to agree that they too are income redistribution? Ok, I agree. I made the point earlier that tax credits to people not paying taxes is income redistribution.

I mean thanks, but I have no need for you to provide additional sources to support my positions. Your track record for supporting positions is inexcusably poor.

‘Second, the refundable tax credits do cut checks for people whose income tax liability may be lower than the credit. Conveniently forgotten by the pundits are the myriad other taxes the poor pay etc.’

Exactly what do you mean to prove by quoting this? Do you want me to agree that they illustrate that taxes are not limited to just income tax and that by logical extension every tax hike of any sort that Obama institutes must be set against any claim that his tax credit is cutting taxes on anyone at all, much less 95%? Ok, I agree.

Again, thanks, but I can prove my own points.

Look, jharp, if you want to argue that the tax credit will translate into a tax cut for some number of tax filing households between say 30 and 50% you have backup. No numbers I use can be considered precise. The tax codes are incredibly complex. Figuring out who pays what is an art form. If the numbers were easy to pick out, the 95% lie would have been put to bed long ago.

If you want to argue that the 46.7% of tax filing households that pay no income taxes need the help that the income redistribution that the Obama tax credit provides them in these times, you have a position.

What you do not have, no matter how much you gyrate, is any backup whatsoever for your continued claims that 95% of either Americans at large or American tax payers will receive a tax cut due to Obama’s stimulus tax credit.

Jul 20, 2009 - 6:52 pm 140. Frank:

Deep Brain, enough people are paying attention that we attract leftist trolls who clearly have nothing better to do than creep around all the blogs of their opponents.

Are there any right wingers here who hang around the KOS and HuffPo talking crap and trolling? I’m guessing not

Jul 20, 2009 - 7:26 pm 141. jharp:

Commuter:

“I do believe that you think it’s just that simple.”

That’s good because I do believe it and it is undeniably true.

“The people you call teabaggers, who literally despise nanny staters like yourself, and who are magnitudes smarter than tools like yourself, do understand. You are soon to be marginalized”

As opposed to the teabaggers who presently, as we speak, are marginalized. And that is exactly what is driving you nuts.

“About 14% of households took in more than $250K during 2009 according to the latest figures released in July by the IRS and correlated by the Tax Policy Center IRS, not 2%.”

Interesting since we’re only halfway through 2009.

And why don’t you save us all some trouble and lend yourself a teensie bit of credibility.

PROVIDE LINKS!

And I stand by my words. 95% of taxpayers benefited form the Obama tax cuts.

Even some who didn’t pay any federal income tax yet paid sales tax, property tax, gasoline tax, cigarette and liquor tax, state income taxes, local income taxes, and the 15.3% payroll tax among other taxes.

Jul 20, 2009 - 7:49 pm 142. Frank:

hey jharp, who pays you to hang around here?

Jul 20, 2009 - 8:00 pm 143. jharp:

Frank:

“hey jharp, who pays you to hang around here?”

So you think I’m so knowledgeable that I must be getting paid?

Thank you kindly but the answer is no one. I’m just a middle aged businessman with a wife and two teenagers who cares deeply about what the right wingers have done to our country. And I am equally disturbed by them trying to obstruct sorely needed changes to our health care system.

That’s all.

Jul 20, 2009 - 8:23 pm 144. SukieTawdry:

Are you even aware that, on Page 16 of the House Health Care Proposal, if passed, would make it illegal to obtain a new health insurance policy from a non-government entity once the bill becomes law?

I’m not trying to defend the indefensible, but that’s not what it says. That section provides for all existing plans to be grandfathered. Once the law becomes effective, however, the grandfathered plans may not accept new entrants and all new plans will have to conform to the law’s guidelines. If you leave a grandfathered plan, your only options at that point will be conforming plans, but it need not be the government option (if, in fact, there is a government option in which case over time it will become the only option which, I think, is the whole point in the first place). This piece of crap legislation is quite bad enough. We don’t need to enhance its suck factor with misinformation.

Jul 20, 2009 - 8:34 pm 145. Meryl:

PLEASE STOP FEEDING THE TROLLS.

Hospital executives do not spend 2/3 of their PR time and money each year arguing with fools who don’t believe in the existence of bacteria. That makes sense. Feeding trolls doesn’t.

Jul 21, 2009 - 1:39 am 146. Anne:

Better yet, have the trolls BANNED,problem SOLVED.

Jul 21, 2009 - 4:14 am 147. Al Reasin:

We had a protest in Centreville, MD on 7/17/09 at Rep. Kratovil’s (D-MD) district office. The rain held off so our parade around the one block in town to Mr. Kratovil’s office was uneventful. The police kept us off the road bed even though the office was on a low traveled side street. That caused the group of 100+ to be compacted in the mid 80 degree and humid weather. The office manager came out and he was strongly engaged. The protesters were reasonably civil considering that no one had admitted voting for Mr. Kratovil when the crowd at the rally assembly point was asked. So it was a very partisan crowd.

I would have liked the office manager to have had an opportunity to speak without being interrupted. Because of the small area for the protest, I stayed outside of the crowd, but I was told he gave talking points that were unacceptable as to why Mr. Kratovil voted for the cap and trade bill. But he was “brave” enough to face the crowd. Obviously our presence intimidated the staff since a lady there with children said she was afraid to leave the office. It’s a shame our congresspeople don’t feel a bit the same way.

We are not done regardless of what the MSM says since we are planning an August 11th protest at his Bel Air Office from 4-6 pm. I have picketed this office at the end of June and two groups are planning more routine picketing. We need to picket every working day and on Saturday utilizing the tactics of MLK.

Jul 21, 2009 - 4:24 am 148. Peter the Bubblehead:

To SukieTawdry @ #144:

“Except as provided in this paragraph, the individual health insurance issuer offering such coverage does not enroll any individual in such coverage if the first effective date of coverage is on or after the first day” of the year the legislation becomes law.

So we can all keep our coverage, just as promised — with, of course, exceptions: Those who currently have private individual coverage won’t be able to change it. Nor will those who leave a company to work for themselves be free to buy individual plans from private carriers.

Directly from the first independant source to discover this information.

http://www.ibdeditorials.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id=332548165656854

As I said, the bill states you can keep the insurance YOU HAVE NOW. But if you ever need to change it, for any reason, whether you get laid-off, change jobs, coverage isn’t right for you, whatever, your ONLY LEGAL OPTION (if this bill passes) will be Government Rationing.

(And what is the likelyhood that the average 30 to 40 year old working adult right now will be in the same job at age 65 they are in right this moment, given the stste of the economy and the current trend of working for multiple employers throughout your working life?)

Especially when you take into consideration, as the private companies have fewer and fewer policies and make less and less maoney, their prices rise and rise to the point of unaffordability, and guess what’s the only option left?

Jul 21, 2009 - 4:28 am 149. Commuter:

‘“About 14% of households took in more than $250K during 2009 etc.”
Interesting since we’re only halfway through 2009.’

Um, jharp, you gave us a link to the Tax Policy Center projecting 2009 based on what weren’t even final 2008 tax figures. I gave you back the LATEST Tax Policy Center figures published this July projecting 2009 based on the actual 2008 numbers. It takes that long for the information to be correlated with late returns, extensions, etc. I rather clearly said, ‘we’ll use the IRS figures gathered and correlated by the same Tax Policy Center that factcheck.org purportedly used in April 2008 to project the 2% 2009 figure.’

‘PROVIDE LINKS!’

Um, jharp, factcheck.org was your link to 2008 data Obama used in a debate with Hillary Clinton. Factcheck.org stated, in your link, that they got their figures from the Tax Policy Center. Refer to above paragraph. I followed your link to the original source, the Tax Policy Center.

So google Tax Policy Center.

I read and understood YOUR link and tracked the information back to the source. It appears you did none of that.

‘And I stand by my words. 95% of taxpayers benefited form the Obama tax cuts.’

No doubt. Unfortunately, the garbage you’ve been trying to sell for quite some time is that 95% of Americans received a tax cut under Obama. That ludicrous statement morphed into 95% of American taxpayers received a tax cut under Obama when it was pointed out how ignorant the first statement was. The ignorance, according to you, was that the reader did not understand what you say you MEANT versus what you clearly wrote. It appears now that it has again morphed into what you ACTUALLY meant was that 95% of taxpayers BENEFITED from the Obama tax cuts.

You have at least gyrated in the correct direction for once and are starting to converge with the lesson on taxes. You’ve dropped the two ludicrous claims. We’ll agree that some figure between 35 and 45% will benefit from a tax cut based on Obama’s tax credit.

You aren’t quite there on the rest and still claim that in the neighborhood of 45-50% of households getting the benefit of income redistribution from taxes others pay should be considered a benefit of a tax cut. The difference between a tax cut and a tax credit and why a tax credit is only a tax cut to those who pay in that amount or more still eludes you.

We’ve made some progress, but I really have wasted enough time on you. Especially since I’ve no doubt you’ll be reposting your original statement ‘95% of Americans received a tax cut under Obama’ before long.

Jul 21, 2009 - 4:47 am 150. Peter the Bubblehead:

146. Anne wrote:
Better yet, have the trolls BANNED,problem SOLVED.

Peter writes: The whole problem with that idea is the whole freedom of speech thing and promoting healthy debate, even though we know both are exactly what the trolls are trying to stifle.

Jul 21, 2009 - 5:57 am 151. jharp:

I know “shocking” that right wing media(Investors Business Daily) would lie….

“Investor’s Business Daily did not continue to read the bill to page 19(they lied). “Individual health insurance coverage that is not grandfathered health insurance coverage under subsection (a) may only be offered on or after the first day of Y1 as an Exchange-participating health benefits plan. ” It does not outlaw individual private coverage – you can still buy the plan on the Exchange where they will compete with the public option…

Another wingnut lie shot down.

Jul 21, 2009 - 5:58 am 152. AThinkingPerson:

To sum up: The Tea Parties are succeeding. Amen.

Jul 21, 2009 - 6:04 am 153. jharp:

jharp said “And I stand by my words. 95% of taxpayers benefited form the Obama tax cuts.”

Commuter said: No doubt.
————————————————–

Now that wasn’t so hard was it?

Thanks you for acknowledging the accuracy of my claim.

Jul 21, 2009 - 6:48 am 154. Blarty Blarckleblart:

I see jharp already corrected Commuter’s mistakes so there’s no need for me to add to the pigpile.

Except to point out that Commuter said at 128 that a tax credit is a rebate of your taxes that is different from a tax rebate. That’s some swirly genius there.

Definition of “tax credit”

Jul 21, 2009 - 7:31 am 155. Blarty Blarckleblart:

Please note that McCain would have “redistributed income” too.

Jul 21, 2009 - 7:33 am 156. NH:

Weigel’s article title was misleading because it then went on to describe massive tea parties. He’s an idiot.

Further, we are now using their own tactics against them — OVERWHELM THEM AND CONFUSE THEM AND CAUSE CHAOS. This is what SEIU/ACORN does everywhere it goes, and now we shall do the same!

Jul 21, 2009 - 8:56 am 157. Frank:

jharp:

No, I think that if you aren’t getting paid to hang around the blogs of your political opponents spouting off democratic party lines, you are one sad, sad little boy.

Jul 21, 2009 - 8:56 am 158. NH:

Deep Brain Diarist : We don’t measure everything by how many ‘token’ minorities we hire to do our dirty work like ACORN and SEIU who come out on payroll to oppose us. They were outnumbered though…. and they are vicious.

They love to swear and make obscene gestures at the peaceful protesters.

Our Reps in NH won’t admit that opposition is running 80% to both Cap and Tax and Health Care bills…. they are hiding that info… it’s public record though and they are going to have to give it up soon.

Jul 21, 2009 - 9:06 am 159. Blarty Blarckleblart:

158 NH

When you start going off about SEIU and ACORN to a normal person, what reaction do you usually get? Blank stare? Half-smile followed by discreet backing-up? I’m curious.

Jul 21, 2009 - 9:20 am 160. NH:

MSM is almost reporting nothing.

July 17th was huge, July 4th was REALLY huge.

Did you know that up to 37,000 people gathered in Dallas?

Liberals love to say it was not on the news so it did not happen. That’s called government propaganda for those who are too dumb to find out about things themselves.

Likewise the myth that other countries love Obama… Not true, or that there isn’t a lot of civil unrest here.

Another misconception is that Obama stopped giving money to corporations or stopped wars… did you see the post about new military bases ?

http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/golinger200709.html

Not one peep.

Jul 21, 2009 - 9:20 am 161. Blarty Blarckleblart:

Did you know that up to 37,000 people gathered in Dallas?

Liberals love to say it was not on the news so it did not happen.

Thank goodness for YouTube, huh? There must be hundreds of videos of the massive Dallas gathering.

Jul 21, 2009 - 9:27 am 162. Blarty Blarckleblart:

I guess a few hundred counts as “up to” 37,000.

Jul 21, 2009 - 9:41 am 163. Commuter:

“153. jharp:

jharp said “And I stand by my words. 95% of taxpayers benefited form the Obama tax cuts.”

Commuter said: No doubt.
————————————————–

Now that wasn’t so hard was it?

Thanks you for acknowledging the accuracy of my claim.”

No doubt in my mind whatsoever that your claim that you believe it is accurate. That’s all you got. You were owned, tool.

‘Jul 21, 2009 – 6:48 am 154. Blarty Blarckleblart:

I see jharp already corrected Commuter’s mistakes so there’s no need for me to add to the pigpile.

Except to point out that Commuter said at 128 that a tax credit is a rebate of your taxes that is different from a tax rebate. That’s some swirly genius there.’

And that’s all you got?

Smarter tools please.

Jul 21, 2009 - 9:44 am 164. Blarty Blarckleblart:

And that’s all you got?

I believe I linked to a definition of “tax credit” as well, for the curious.

Jul 21, 2009 - 9:49 am 165. carol:

157…ditto…

quit feeding the troll…

Jul 21, 2009 - 12:11 pm 166. Blarty Blarckleblart:

quit feeding the troll…

He’s got two sharp pointy teeth! Run away!

Jul 21, 2009 - 1:00 pm 167. NH:

It was confirmed that 37,000 were at Dallas South Fork… it was massive. Ask anyone who was there.

To argue about that is pathetic and shows that you are desperate because you can’t respond to why:

Obama has lied about just about everything
The press is covering up for the fact that 22000 fresh new troops for Iraq and Afghanistan have been deployed, in a ’surge’
Two new bases are being established in Columbia

Obama is the creation of the CFR, Henry Kissinger, Z Brzezsinski and George Soros backed by the money of Goldman Sachs and other bankers for whom he works…

The man spent few days in the Senate, never ran a city or state or business… that’s the extent of his CV. Kissinger gave him his first job. The scumbags at the CFR, Haass, et al, were just outed by big mouth Hillary — she admitted she gets her marching order from them.

He just signed PDD statements which give him the right to give money to the IMF/World Bank/UN without Congressional approval.

If you don’t know we are not in a puppet dictatorship now under the bankster fraudsters I feel badly for you.

Jul 21, 2009 - 3:13 pm 168. NH:

The first day in office Obama signed a PDD that would block all release of his personal records, including birth..

Obama + Below facts = puppet dictatorship…

Kissinger gave him his first job and only real job.
He’s never run a city, state or business.. period, that is the extent of his CV.
He litigated his way into the Senate where he voted ‘present’ 142 times
Brzezinski directs his imperialist foreign policy.
Soros directs his socialist domestic policy.
Goldman Sachs and European banking cartel fraudsters provided his money.
He doesn’t even know what is in the bills he is promoting, such as the page 16 provision to do away with private insurance options.

Jul 21, 2009 - 3:19 pm 169. Blarty Blarckleblart:

It was confirmed that 37,000 were at Dallas South Fork… it was massive. Ask anyone who was there.

I’ve bolded the part where I figured out you must be kidding.

Jul 21, 2009 - 6:23 pm 170. Blarty Blarckleblart:

He doesn’t even know what is in the bills he is promoting, such as the page 16 provision to do away with private insurance options.

You sure that wasn’t on page 37,000?

Jul 21, 2009 - 6:41 pm 171. Cindy Sue Causey:

Yeah, word to the White House :: Manipulation is so, uh, like yesteryear.. Any more wonder they want the Internet at the flip of a switch they control..?

Jul 22, 2009 - 9:26 am 172. NancyOH:

And Tea Partiers are mobilizing again in Columbus, OH Sat Aug 1 @ 2 pm OH Statewide Liber-Tea Party. On tax day, Col. Tea party drew 7,000. On Aug 1, Judge Andrew Napolitano is keynote speaker. We’ll we see 10,000?

I’ll be doin’ my part, gettin’ cap & trade, state sovereignty, & Fair Tax petitions signed. Naturally, Obamacare petitions will be signed, too! Right along with my mom, the Democrat. We’re Americans first, before party.

Jul 22, 2009 - 4:17 pm 173. Fed Up In Tennessee:

MARCH ON WASHINGTON, September 12, 2009
Be there and help us make history.

Jul 23, 2009 - 6:51 am 174. June:

I belong to www. roc-usa-net in Illinois, Obama;s state.Log on to the above website. We have people e-mailing from all over the world. www. National Tea Party.org site. We are very grassroots but gaining more members all of the time. People are becoming aware of what we are and what we do.
Obama and administration are not comfortable with the organizing that is taking place by just us”common folks”. We have people from all walks of life. Teachers, Doctors, plumbers, moms. dads, grandparents and young people. It is NON PARTISON but a place for citzens of this country to voice their opinions. I see yours written here and that is good. Join a T.E.A Party.(taxed enough already). As Obama slips in a bill, one after another, we call, email, fax the politicans so we cover every thing we can. thanks for voicing your opinions.

Jul 23, 2009 - 7:29 am 175. Ronald Moore:

On Apr.15th, I was the only one to hold a Tea Party at our Post Office, holding a sign and protesting. Then on May,1st there was a a Tea Party gathering in the Park in downtown Petoskey, Mi, where “Joe the Plumber” gave a talk where Hundreds showed up.

Jul 23, 2009 - 8:07 am 176. Pat J:

37,000 tea baggers at Southfork Ranch? That’s one hell of a smattering.

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/localnews/stories/DN-teaparty_05met.ART.Central.Edition1.4c2e100.html

Jul 23, 2009 - 1:44 pm 177. Al Reasin:

Good for you Ronald Moore.

I too have been the lone picket at one senator’s regional office and my reps local regional office. But I have educated many people who walk or drive by since they have told me they had never heard of cap and trade. My father watches ABC and didn’t know what I was talking about after it passed. It is amazing the reaction one gets when you have factual signs and dress and look normal. My submarine veteran status and hat saying so also helps. I walk with what was once called a walking sign/ad sign. One on my back and one on my front with straps over my shoulders made out of card board with lined easel paper over it with the message. Works well outside of a crowd and where cities do not allow signs mounted on sticks – fear they can be used as weapons I guess. If you are a Navy vet, carrying the DONT TREAD ON ME Navy Jack from 1775 with red and white horizontal stripes with the serpent climbing up the stripes, which flies now on our ships after 9-11, gets attention and conversations started. I use an 11 foot collapsible alum tube that was once used to wash trucks as my flag pole and with a small carpenter pouch on my side to place the end in to make it easy to carry and picket.

Keep up the good work; take care and be safe.

Jul 24, 2009 - 5:19 am

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