“…nine big U.S. banks paid $32.6 billion in bonuses in 2008, while receiving $175 billion in taxpayer funds. In the first half of this year, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. has already boosted compensation and benefits by 33%, setting aside a record $11.4 billion for such payments. And Citigroup and Bank of America have just formally asked the government’s permission to pay bonuses to their most senior executives…”

“…Congress can do much more to ensure that companies act more responsibly on executive compensation  by taking a simple, straightforward step: eliminating the tax break for irresponsibly high CEO pay…”

“…By eliminating the deduction for any compensation above $1 million, they can simplify the tax code, abolish the taxpayer subsidy for irresponsible compensation and restore bonuses and stock options to their original purpose of rewarding good performance rather than as a means to avoid paying taxes…”

READ MORE @ New York Daily News

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

It makes me so angry when I hear Republicans (mostly) talking about how “our children and grandchildren are going to have to pay for this” as an argument against President Obama’s plans for alternative energy, education, and health care.

I think if my children and grandchildren could grow up in a country where they could breathe, afford to go to college, find a job, and get insurance, that they would be glad to pay for that, versus growing up in a country which, as of now, looks as if it will have clouds of coal and oil fumes to blind and choke my children and grandchildren, who won’t be able find jobs, or afford college, health care, or possibly even food or gas.

I’ve been watching C-SPAN, and almost every Republican repeats this “it’s not fair for our children and grandchildren to have to pay for this” mantra, almost every time they speak. I know what they are really saying: it’s not fair for THEIR children and grandchildren to have to pay to fix the world that THEIR greed and selfishness and shortsightedness have created, even if it means a lower standard of living for MY/OUR children and grandchildren.

These guys weren’t arguing when Bush spent hundreds of billions on the Iraq war, or when the bailout for their rich embezzler banker buddies got hundreds of billions, but when it comes to hundreds of billions to make a better life for the core of America, the working class, the middle (and increasingly lower) class, “NOW IS NOT THE TIME TO SPEND A TRILLION DOLLARS!”

They didn’t seem to be worried about the National Debt before, BUT…

When they hear that it might be spent on solar, wind, and hydrodynamic energy to compete with the coal and oil guys who bribe them to make policies that benefit them, they stand up against spending. When they hear that the big business lobbyists might have to pay taxes to provide health care for the workers who make them rich and die from lack of insurance and retirement benefits (which were reduced over decades to increase the business owners already tidy profits) they stand up against spending.

When they hear that the taxes of the rich might help my poor son go to college to get a good job to not be poor someday, and to compete with their son who is put through the best schools because they profited from friendships with big business that I and my fellow Americans have worked so hard for for so little compensation, and that OUR children and grandchildren, if educated, might want jobs someday that their big business buddies plan on farming to third world countries to save money, they stand up against spending.

Well, I am glad for one that they are standing up! I wish they were standing in line at the unemployment or welfare office, so they would see the need to spend money on PEOPLE!

(You probably thought I was going to say I wish it was against a wall in front of a firing squad, or in a line at a guillotine, or underneath the nooses hanging from the gallows!)

I say, debt be damned!

If Obama wants to spend a trillion a year for 10 years, and it means we can get away from being the bend-over bitches of the middle eastern oil barons, create jobs for our record numbers of unemployed people, and ensure college and health care for at least some of our children and grandchildren, shouldn’t we do it?

These are the same guys who are probably always saying things like “you gotta spend money to make money”.

Well, guess what? Spending money in Iraq/Afghanistan/Iran is not going to make us any money.

It might make your defense contract buddies or your oil stock buddies or you money, but most of us are not seeing a dime.

OUR children and grandchildren need education, jobs, health care, and a clean environment, not more terrorists avenging their dead family members!

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R7i-5oRPCT0]

Old white people are dying off, and latinos, blacks, and liberal young whites are taking over. Amen. Change may be possible, even in Texas. Read More…

Remember the young, happy Budweiser Wassup guys? See them after 8 years of Bush/Cheney:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qq8Uc5BFogE]