TEA BAGGERS are SWALLOWING WHOLE the Fox News STAFF's SCHTICK

MSNBC’s David Schuster: If You’re Planning Tea Bagging Across The Country, ‘You’re Going To Need A Dick Armey’

This is pretty damned funny! He uses most, if not all, of the innuendo I’ve already heard floating around…

I took the liberty of transcribing it:

“For most Americans, Wednesday, April 15th will be Tax Day, but in our fourth story tonight it’s going to be TEA-BAGGING day for the right wing and they are going NUTS for it! Thousands of the WHIPPED OUT the festivities early this weekend and though the parties are officially TOOTHLESS, the protesters are FULL-THROATED about their goals. They wanna give President Obama strong TONGUE-LASHING and LICK government spending. Spending they did not oppose when they were under Presidents Bush and Reagan. They oppose Mr. Obama’s tax rates which will be lower for most of them, and they oppose the tax increases Mr. Obama is imposing on the rich, whose taxes will skyrocket to a rate that’s about 10% less than it was under Reagan. That’s TEA-BAGGING, in a NUTSHELL. Taking it’s inspiration from the Boston Tea Party when colonists tossed British tea into the sea because the tax on it had not been voted on by their duly elected representatives. That’s exactly the opposite, of course, of todays’ taxes, which is known in some quarters as ‘Taxation With Representation’. But as New York Times coumnist Paul Crudeman points out today, this time the TEA-BAGGING is not a SPONTANEOUS UPRISING, the people who came up with it are a familiar circle of Republicans, including former House Speaker, Newt Gingrich, and former house majority leader Dick Armey, both of whom have FIRM support from right wing financiers and lobbyists, as well as Washington prostitute patron, Senator David Vitter who has issued statements in support of TEA-BAGGING, but is publicly type-left. Then, there was the media, specifically the Fox ‘News’ Channel, including Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity. Both are looking forward to an UP CLOSE and PERSONAL TASTE of TEA-BAGGING, themselves at events this Wednesday. But most amusing of all is Neil Cavuto, a member of the network’s executive committee. Neil’s online bio says he joined the network in July 1996, three months before the Fox News channel went on the air. Cavuto, defending his network’s promotion of TEA-BAGGING, said, quote ‘We are going to be right in the middle of these [TEA-BAGGERS], because at Fox we do not pick and choose these rallies and protests. We were there for the Million Man March.’ Can we roll that footage, the footage of Fox News at the Million Man March, back in October of ‘95? Of course the Million Man March occurred, as NewsHounds.org points out, almost a year before Fox News was on the air. We can only speculate why widespread TEA-BAGGING made Cavuto think of the Million Man March… Unless, he got them confused with DICK ARM[E]Y. And in Cavuto’s defense, if you are planning SIMULTANEOUS TEA-BAGGING around the country, you’re going to need a DICK ARMY!”

What David Schuster failed to include in his brilliant report, and what makes me fear for my country, much as Glenn Beck does (or pretends to), is that many of the NUT-JOBS that host and attend these NUT-FESTS to express their opinions in a (hopefully) peaceful manner, and to have a BALL (or two) with some good friends or like-minded strangers are the same people that believe, as many TEA-PARTY websites and flyer’s propose, in a “revolution”, and the same people who are buying conservative t-shirts that say “vote from the rooftops” (with pictures of sniper rifles), inferring that they wish to assassinate President Obama. I saw one conservative t-shirt for sale online that said “R.I.P. The American Dream, 1776-2008″. I thought a black man becoming the president was a pretty clear indicator that the American dream is alive and well. Perhaps these revolutionary TEA-BAGGERS who believe in “voting from the rooftops” (with sniper rifles) are racially motivated? I guess their American dream doesn’t include people who aren’t white. Or maybe it’s just jealousy? They are openly into TEA-BAGGING, so perhaps they are jealous, as black men are popularly known for having larger TEA-SPOUTS than they do…

I’m afraid that many of the TEA-BAGGERS attending the TEA-PARTIES today are lost souls, searching for a new direction, possibly a violent one. As Anderson Cooper said on CNN when describing why it’ been HARD for the Republicans to find their voice after the election, “it’s hard to talk when you’re TEA-BAGGING“

I’ve got to say, whoever created and has promoted this movement really made quite a snafu by not researching the social connotations of their terminology, but, I guess there’s no such thing as bad press. I just hope for the Republicans sake that they don’t, as I saw one guy comment on Glenn Beck’s 9-12 Project website “make up places to protest flag burning and call the Old GLORY HOLES“.

Keith Olbermann also did a funny segment about TEA-BAGGING, including some more good innuendo, including:

“SPILLING into the streets, CHOKING off traffic … pushed their own vision of TEA-BAGGING DOWN THE THROATS of the TEA-BAGGERS … SEMINAL moment … ONE LUMP OR TWO?”

And, for the enjoyment of those who are just becoming familiar with the sexual slang used for decades, and for the enlightenment of those who still don’t get it, I’ve included the following links to some definitions on Urban Dictionary:

TEA-BAGGER TEA-BAG TEA-BAGGING TEA PARTY

I read an article on the Wall Street Journal’s Opinion Journal by Ari Fleischer, a former press secretary for President George W. Bush, now president of Ari Fleischer Communications, entitled “Everyone Should Pay Income Taxes“.

Here are some excerpts from the article:

… A very small number of taxpayers — the 10% of the country that makes more than $92,400 a year — pay 72.4% of the nation’s income taxes. They’re the tip of the triangle that’s supporting virtually everyone and everything. Their burden keeps getting heavier.

… According to the CBO, those who made less than $44,300 in 2001 — 60% of the country — paid a paltry 3.3% of all income taxes. By 2005, almost all of them were excused from paying any income tax. They paid less than 1% of the income tax burden. Their share shrank even when taking into account the payroll tax. In 2001, the bottom 60% paid 16.3% of all taxes; by 2005 their share was down to 14.3%. All the while, this large group of voters made 25.8% of the nation’s income.

When you make almost 26% of the income and you pay only 0.6% of the income tax, that’s a good deal, courtesy of those who do pay income taxes. For the bottom 40%, the redistribution deal is even better. In 2001, these 43 million Americans, who earn less than $30,500, made 13.5% of the nation’s income but paid no income tax. Instead, they received checks from their taxpaying neighbors worth $16.3 billion. By 2005, those checks totaled $33.3 billion.

In addition to exempting almost 50% of the country from income taxes, today nearly every other social cause is given a loophole — or a preference — in the tax code. Want to buy a hybrid vehicle? You get a tax break. Do you own a solar water heater? You get a credit. Want to give to charity? You get a deduction. Own a house? There’s another tax deduction for you. How about college savings, certain medical costs, and retirement savings? Yes, yes, and of course yes. Did you move, pay alimony, or “provide housing to a Midwestern displaced individual”? More deductions, credits and exemptions there too, if you qualify.

Here is my response to Mr. Fleischer:

I hear a lot of whining from rich people about the redistribution of wealth. I would remind them that when they, over time, lower worker’s benefits, make each worker do more and more work while firing more and more workers, and raise the prices for their goods and services, they themselves are guilty of the redistribution of wealth.

When the government lowers or removes taxes from the poor, they are just helping to correct the damage done by the greed of the rich.

If the rich included these facts in their arguments, they would appear inhumanely self interested, so they conveniently ignore this basic truth: money doesn’t come from nowhere.

If you have a lot of it, chances are, it’s because of the hard work of many other people, and they don’t have a lot of it.

And don’t give me the old “anyone can succeed and prosper with hard work and good intentions and build their own company and or fortune” answer; this would only be true if the people and companies who are already wealthy did not use that money to influence those in power in the government through lobbying, tax loopholes, and secret bribes. It is hard enough for a small business owner to try and compete with corporations without them using cheap overseas labor and getting politicians to pass laws that are more favorable to them than they are to their workers or to competing small business owners.

The wealthiest 10% of the country may pay more than 10% of the income tax, but this is because they have more than 90% of the wealth. I doubt that Mr. Fleischer has ever tried to survive at the $10K, $20K, or $30K annual income level, or his article would have a drastically different perspective. Most people in this country, even those who work full time, or overtime, or 2 jobs, can barely afford to pay for all the basic aspects of life that the wealthy take for granted, while at the same time, the wealthy are profiting far more from their labor than they ever will.

What percentage of the sale of most products or services goes to pay the worker, and what percentage goes to the executive?. I don’t know the percentages, myself, but the fact that most CEOs make more in a year than most people in do in a lifetime, with many making more hundreds of thousands of times more than their workers, is very telling indeed. When you make tens of millions of dollars a year, it might seem unfair if you have to pay a few hundred thousand in taxes. But keep in mind, these people exploit far more tax of the loopholes, preferences, deductions, credits, and exemptions that Mr. Fleischer argues against than the poor ever do, especially since the rich have well-paid, knowledgeable tax attorneys do their taxes, while the poor do not. If there truly were no tax loopholes, those who make tens or hundreds of millions (or billions) would pay far more in taxes than they do now, so the rich shouldn’t be arguing against loopholes. Notice how Mr. Fleischer only mentions deductions and credits which are common to poor people? I don’t see him say that the rich shouldn’t be able to use tax shelters like giving millions to their spouses (like Bernie Madoff), giving billions to their own or their friends’ foundations (Warren Buffet), filing bankruptcy after buying yachts, jets, cars, and mansions, or any of those kinds of things.

You might argue that, being poor, this response of mine is self-interested. Perhaps that is true. However, I hope it illustrates just how self interested Mr. Fleischer’s arguments are as well.

Atheist: The Big Bang created the Universe.

Believer: And what or who caused the Big Bang?

Atheist: I don’t know. Maybe it just happened on it’s own.

Believer: Or maybe God did it?

Atheist: Then who or what made God?

Believer: Nothing, he just is, and always was.

Atheist: Or maybe the Big Bang did it?

Agnostic: Or maybe God is the Big Bang and the Big Bang is God?
Anyway, what do you guys want for lunch?

- Mark Baland