Predictably, Marc Ambinder is promoting the wonders of tea-bagging:
But the tea parties really are something. Their origins — organic, programmatic, accidental or otherwise — don’t matter much anymore. If — and we’ll have to see the numbers at the end of the day — 100,000 Americans show up to protest their taxes, the onus to dismiss them as a nascent political force shifts to the Democrats.
A few questions… Why are Democrats obligated to dismiss this as a political force? Isn’t that what elections, which once had consequences, are about? And if these are such a political force, shouldn’t that force manifest itself more powerfully in political polls?
Finally, why do we have to pay attention to 100K tea-baggers when 10 million anti-Iraq war protesters were considered a focus group?
(via)
someguy
I do believe they were rendered utterly irrelevant by a 52-48 vote and a total washout in the electoral college a few months ago, and you can’t argu with Obama’s 60-something percent popularity. So their voice does not matter, the greedy bastards. Though I could be wrong and it’s their own insanity that makes them irrelevant, or perhaps it’s their power mad, sex-crazed christofascist leadership. So many options here… hard to pick just one.
Lavocat
You’re soooo right: time for a little Van Morrison. Maybe some "Jackie Wilson Said" and some "Wavelength" to start things off right. Oh, mama!
Danton
Hundreds–I say hundreds–of teabaggers show up for a rally in a major American city and they are a "nascent political force" ?
This is all a tempest in a teapot.
Joshua Norton
I pick "otherwise". Like in corporate sponsorship. The pale male big wigs are the only ones being affected by any kind of "tax increase". They just needed the more gullible "Walmart Republicans" to play the useful idiots in this little charade.
demkat620
And what will the teabaggers do next week?
Just Some Fuckhead
Ambinder is a douche.
passerby
the onus to dismiss them as a nascent political force shifts to the Democrats. –Ambinder
A pretty bold declarative, but he offers not one additional word to explain or justify such a statement. Lame.
Xecky Gilchrist
the onus to dismiss them as a nascent political force shifts to the Democrats.
What are they a force for? Cutting taxes? Obama already did that.
Next!
georgia pig
Ambinder is an utter dork. More than 100K voted for Cynthia McKinney in the 2008 presidential election, over 200K voted for Chuck Baldwin. The vote total in 2008 was 131 million so, assuming Cheney-level popularity, about 25 million of those would be Cheney lovers. You can find 500-5000 nutters in any medium to large city in the US, and you can certainly get that many to show up if all they have to do is drive downtown (getting half a million to show up in DC is another matter). This is fucking nonsense.
schrodinger's cat
Drink coffee?
Just Some Fuckhead
@Danton:
Ha!
HitlerWorshippingPuppyKicker
I’m aware of all the Balloon-Juice traditions when it comes to protests. This has always been a hotbed of protest support and rabble-rousing, amirite?
But anyway, the uber-nuts are claiming 100k in protests today, which given the way they have lied about every other damned aspect of this story, makes me think the real number is probably around 30k. Let’s see what the grand total turns out to be after some fact checking. They were reporting 5k ("they" being Fox News, which was pimping the story so hard I thought they would pop a vein) in Sacramento, the capital of a state of 38m people. Wow, pretty (un)impressive.
My favorite laugh of the day so far was listening to Fox reporters (in their high, "talk over the din" voices) listing all those things that the protesters were "outraged" about: Uh, crippling taxes! Debt! Yeah! And stuff like that!
Laugh or cry, one doesn’t know which is the correct response.
AkaDad
Toss salads?
Punchy
100K, eh? So Cedar Fucking Rapids is angry about taxes, and nobody else in the rest of the country is.
Perspective, they not gotz it.
(BTW, Wakefield 6 outs away from no-hitter)
demkat620
Okay, you know the level of stupid on Hardball today is unbelievably high.
How in the hell does Heidi Harris manage to get out of her house in the morning?
GP
I got a bag they can suck on……
rock
What utter bullshit. I’ll restrict myself to criticizing 3 things Ambinder says:
1) "Their origins don’t matter…" is stupid from the get-go. You have well-funded groups and major media outlets pushing these events. This is not some nascent movement, it’s simply a manifestation of the existing conservative movement.
2) "100,000" Where the hell did that number come from? That’s now the magical threshold for a meaningful protest? The anti-war demonstration numbers DWARFED this junk and they were dismissed as irrelevant fringe hippies. The double-standard is so blatant that it makes a mockery of the author. Oh, and the anti-war protests didn’t have a TV network dedicated to promoting them either. And I’m not even going to pretend to understand why 100000 people throwing tea around is as meaningful as a national election.
3) "protest their taxes"…recent polls show people are not particularly upset with their federal taxes (link anyone?). Moreover, Obama is enacting a tax cut for the vast majority of people in the country. A. Tax. Cut.
Zifnab
These are the only people that matter, John.
This isn’t a test for the Democrats, it’s a test for the Republicans. Another multi-million dollar boondoggle publicity student. Let’s see if it does half as well as "Mission Accomplished" or the Dixie Chicks protest or Freedom Fries or Terri Shaivo.
Ambinder can talk a big game and he can maybe get his 100k protesters (really lowering the bar there Marc, I’ve seen bigger protests in WoW), but once they’re done flexing their political muscles they’ll eventually be asked to lift something.
We’ll see if we get an uptick in political contributions or other political activism in the next month or two. Then we’ll see what song he sings.
SGEW
More food for thought, in regards to th’ whole thing:
Wolcott cuts to the heart of a part of it:
However, Jack Balkin, of all people, raises an interesting caveat or three (or four or five; read the whole thing):
It’s complicated, no?
SLKRR
@someguy:
By that, I assume you mean a 53-46 vote, right?
Keith
Voters > Protestors
JenJen
100,000? Didn’t Senator Obama encounter no difficulty getting 100,000 people to show up for one of his election rallies, in any given city, at any given time? As an Obama supporter, I’d have no problem calling those events ENTIRELY PARTISAN.
But today, I am being asked by my Liberal Media to believe the Tea Parties are entirely bi-partisan, and in doing so am also being asked to ignore the fact that they are funded by Dick Armey’s corporate lobby, endorsed by the RNC, addressed by GOP Congressional Members, and promoted by Fox News.
It’s a laff-riot, it really is, especially when John Gibson over at Fox adds that this Republican Period Costume Drama was attended by millions across the nation, in a completely BI-PARTISAN manner.
The Cat Who Would Be Tunch
That 10 million figure is the result of counting by liberal fascists. You need to apply some proper weighting and factoring to get the true total number of protesters. For instance, I’m sure there were black people in those anti-war protests. Therefore, you need to multiply 10 million with 3/5 which starts netting you a more believable result.
Joshua Norton
And that’s mainly because a bunch of them thought Michelle Malkin was going to be there.
GSD
Obama won the election by 7%.
The rightwingers keep claiming that it was 52% to 48%.
It was 53% to 46%.
As a side note, most of these tea-bag events were less attended than the Houston 500 bukakke party.
-GSD
P.S. Remember this past summer when large crowds showing up to Obama’s political events were the target of endless derision from the right and the McCain campaign?
Just Some Fuckhead
I think attendance was actually higher than they anticipated because a lot of folks showed up thinking they were actually going to get their balls sucked.
NickM
Way to set the bar low. Since when is .03% of the U.S. population a potent political movement that must be reckoned with? Oh, since the Republicans started doing protests.
JenJen
CNN’s "I Love Candy" Crowley just told me that these Tea Parties were in NO WAY endorsed by Republicans.
So the RNC doesn’t count any more? That’s some cracker-jack reportin’, Candy!
demkat620
@JenJen: Yeah, cause why wouldn’t you want to be associated with this circus?
El Cid
When a weak minority of right wingers making no sensible points protests a strong majority elected and very popular Democratic government, it means the government should stop what it’s doing and take their perspectives into account.
When liberals and/or leftists protest a bare majority elected Republican government, it means they’re scary seditious traitors deserving of free speech zones and arrest and lockups and ripping media tags off independent journalists, and that they’re silly and wacko, and the government needs to show its resolve by ignoring these fringe extremists.
The Cat Who Would Be Tunch
@Joshua Norton:
What? Malkin didn’t attend? What a shame.
Ninerdave
From a cheat sheet for the teabaggers about today’s festivities.
The teabaggers make me happy.
angulimala
Does anyone else find the constant emphasis of how this is a "real" grass roots phenomena to be a wee bit off-putting?
Perhaps the ladies do protest too much.
sparky
Balkin is a pretty smart guy but I think he’s off the mark here. Why? Because this is a top-down movement not a bottom-up one. If it was a real movement then you’d see some real organization. This is just a feel-good event like going to a pep rally. No real viability, IMO, just a media phenom, which, I suspect is just fine with Fox et al.
Shorter me: they are this year’s (more likely this month’s) PUMAs.
binzinerator
@Just Some Fuckhead:
That’s a win.
Dan
The larger groups were made up of people on their lunch hours. Sure, I’ll go down to the park and yell shit, but I have to be back by 1.
Do this on a Saturday and see how many people show up.
RSA
I’ll put it this way: All the Americans protesting against taxes on Teabagging Day would comfortably fit in one of the larger college football stadiums in the U.S. Dismissed!
zoe kentucky from pittsburgh
I think they’re awfully cute– welcome to community organizing, kids. Ok, not quite grassroots organizing since the GOP has endorsed it and many republicans like Dick Army helped coordinate it.
Although what I find truly strange is that they had the benefit of an entire news channel promoting their protest for WEEKS, and yet they can only get a few thousand people in a city like Chicago or DC? Seriously? That’s just sad. Not to mention Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Hannity, etc. pimping the event all this time. It might make them feel good today because it’s a new thing to them but at the end of the day their numbers are really quite small.
flounder
I am just chomping at the bit to get my teabag on. Our protest doesn’t start for another 3 hours.
My sign is this chart, and says:
YOU CAN’T SPELL GENERATIONAL THEFT WITHOUT THE "R"
I have a real sweet American Flag bandana to wear as well. This is going to to kick ass!
Mike in NC
You’re up, Norquist!
The Daily Show & Colbert Report should be in rare form tonight.
Svensker
They had a tea-bagger from Bergen County, NJ, on Fox this morning, but the Tax Day Tea Party New Jersey site doesn’t list any protests in Bergen County. Maybe Fox would cover the 4 Quakers who go out every Sunday from my church to stand in silent protest against the wars in the Middle East, and the much larger group that protests in Leonia once a month over the Iraq war.
Do ya think they might? No? I’m shocked.
Oh, what about the 10,000 person march on Wall Street on April 4 that United for Peace & Justice hosted, to protest the wars and Wall Street greed? No? Shocked again.
DougJ
@flounder
Send in some pictures.
Brachiator
@Just Some Fuckhead:
Wouldn’t that be douche-bag?
The amazing thing is that most of these people got tax cuts. So in effect, GOP oligarchs have got these morans to protest for tax cuts for the wealthy. Now, that’s a Jedi mind trick.
John PM
Regarding the "protest" in Chicago, the main body of protestors were in the Federal Plaza, while those mocking them were across the street at various points. I suspect the numbers might be inflated in part because the counters, not to mention Fox News, will be counting people who were not actually taking part in the protest.
Edit – BTW, I wonder how many of the people protesting the taxes actually paid their taxes for 2008. I would assume all of them. For those who did not, they should be more than willing to turn themselves in to federal authorities in an inspiring moment of civil disobedience ala Thoreau. Odds of that happening: 0.
bvac
Out of those 100,000 people, you have to assume that at least 30-40k of them were ACORN thugs
Martin
And by assumption, they are protesting AGAINST tax cuts for the middle class.
anonevent
@SGEW: If Jack were being accurate, he would describe how these people are seeing their dominance end. A black man is president and most people don’t mind, they just want him to fix things. And this is truly freaking out the fringe, because most of America will only care that competent people are in charge, not white people. And then their kids (and my kids) will have to prove that they’re able to do their job, not be white.
schrodinger's cat
DougJ,
What do you think about Ruth Marcus’s column in your favorite newspaper today?
Jay B.
@zoe kentucky from pittsburgh:
No kidding. They had TONS of press. An entire network promoting them for weeks. Months of planning time. And a good date to gin up anti-government sentiment.
And they draw hundreds in places like Philly, Boston and DC? Seriously? Mimes draw more tourists than that. Ambinder can bite me.
valdivia
@AkaDad:
full of win.
asiangrrlMN
OK. I hate to cut into all the revelry and mocking, but I have a serious question as this is Tax Day.
For all the people who are paying less taxes this year than last year or are receiving a refund, do you think they will give the money back to the government? Some of them are protesting the stimulus bill as well. Will these people refuse the stimulus money coming their way?
Didn’t think so.
Back to mocking and lighthearted revelry.
P.S. All this talk about the populist outrage masks the fact that what is so outrageous is that whites have to actually start thinking of POCs for a change. I am talking about whites in general. When I was in high school, I was told that my parents were taking the jobs of Americans and that I should go back to where I was born. Which would be Minnesota.
It’s a whole new America, and some people are not ready to face that.
MBunge
100,000 people in a country of 300,000,000 is just a bit more than .003% of the population. That’s quite a nascent political force, there.
Mike
Trollhattan
In Sacramento there were a good deal of folks wandering–wandering in, wandering out, wandering in circles wondering what the hell they were mired in on their lunch hour…. So for an event as long-winded as this appears to be it’s likely not possible to place a meaningful number on (intentional) turnout.
FWIW the only em ess em satellite truck I saw was from Fox (duh), and the jumbotron was sponsored by PJTeeVee. All veddy grassroots.
Laura W
Oh DougJ…never have I been more sad to see one of your pithy titles. One of my favorite Van songs ever used in conjunction with the 987th teabag post of the week here on BJ. Truly abusive.
I heard the voice of America
Callin’ on my wavelength
Tellin’ me to tune in on my radio
I heard the voice of America
Callin’ on my wavelength
Singin’ "Come back, baby
Come back
Come back, baby
Come back
Cris
Except, except, except. When president-elect Obama said:
I believe he really meant it.
I mean, you’re right, these guys lost. They lost the election, and for that matter it came on the heels of a long undeserved winning streak. But Obama is a bigger man than Bush, and even though he wont be held hostage to the demands of a handful of loudmouths, he will still govern as though their needs matter.
Joel
I don’t get Marc. He’s just trying too hard.
Cris
And none of them ended with a Ron Jeremy countdown.
The Cat Who Would Be Tunch
@asiangrrlMN:
This is the part that I have trouble comprehending. Do many of these people not understand the > or
flounder
@DougJ I’m going to try an get some video.
Zifnab
@GSD:
Wait, what? Why was I not informed of this?
Cris
@Zifnab: Don’t worry about it. Like the tea parties, the reported attendance was almost certainly exaggerated by careful camerawork and clever editing.
Seanly
I love the cognitive dissonance happening in Syracuse: Disabled lady on welfare against the nanny state! h/t: Atrios
dc to va
Any idea when they’ll have the pearl necklace party? I’d be more than willing to make a donation.
iluvsummr
I just saw the Vancouver Sun’s article on the tea parties.
Headline: Fox News-sponsored "tea parties" fail to ignite popular uprising among U.S. conservatives.
Ouch!
Excerpt:
flounder
I was watching MSNBC and saw the hundreds of people in D.C. today. Then some Weekly Standard tool and Glenn Reynolds were on NPR’s Talk of the Nation claiming that they had filled up some square in D. C. like it had never been filled up before.
amorphous
Can we impeach Governor Good Hair, for fuck’s sake? Talking about secession today?
Eat a HUGE bag of dicks, and choke on the last one, Rick Perry.
The Cat Who Would Be Tunch
@The Cat Who Would Be Tunch:
Lame. Apologies for the double post. Let’s try that again.
@asiangrrlMN:
This is the part that I have trouble comprehending. Do many of these people not understand the less than operator and/or the changes in the tax rates? I really wonder what these people are gonna think when they get their refunds.
There’s another variant of this that isn’t as bad but still annoys some of my friends. After telling people that they’re American when asked, the follow-up question is always "Oh ok, but where are you from originally?" As if blacks and whites have the monopoly on being ‘original Americans’…
But hey, at least they didn’t tell you that you should be indefinitely detained because you looked funny.
gizmo
The fact that the Republicans are now out of power effectively liberates them to carry on with their Theatre of the Absurd. Given that they don’t have any responsibility to actually govern at the moment, they are free to indulge in their most bizarre impulses. They are basically a boundless resource for Jon Stewart.
4tehlulz
Yahoo front page headline:
"Revolution is brewing"
*rimshot*
LosGatosCA
In a nutshell.
I marched in a crowd that took over an hour and a half to pass filled Union Square and was reported as "tens of thousands"
Ambinder and his teabagging buddies are just idiots. Full stop.
Dennis-SGMM
Just like the crash of the economy, two unfinished wars, the reconstruction of New Orleans…
This is one of the death spasms of a movement that has managed to completely marginalize itself: nothing more, nothing less. They’re angry because having their flippers on every lever of power for years resulted in catastrophe and, for once, blaming the liberals, the Brown People or a "perfect trifecta" isn’t sticking. Party on, teabaggers, party on.
DougJ
I think I’ve only done about five tea bag posts.
BDeevDad
when Obama can get that many people to show up at one location.
The Populist
Hey righties, can we finally agree that the "liberal media" is a myth?
If all this coverage is being devoted to a bunch of losers with no life protesting so some rich guy doesn’t have to pay 3% more in taxes (yes, 3 fucking percent…boo fucking hoo) that’s proof there is no liberal media. 100,000 is the best this so-called movement can pull off? Fuck me upside down with a clawhammer.
So the right are whining that the rich are being unfairly soaked when it’s a fact that the rich USE more of the public items than any other person (courts, roads, rail, docks, etc) but the middle class has to bear the brunt while the idiots like Limpbaugh get to make out like bandits? Sorry, no fucking way.
Pay your fair share and STFU AND I wish the middle class righties would stop shilling for these idiots like they will magically be rich one day. My wife and I pull in about 160K a year. For years we got stuck with the AMT before they froze it out last year. I didn’t whine or cry and I PAID my fair share. Funny, with the AMT my share of taxes was GREATER than that of any rich 1 percenter.
The dumbasses who don’t make the top 1% of income need to stop buying into this belief we live in a free market and one day they MIGHT be rich too. Odds say you will be hit by lightning before you’d make the income of a top 1 percenter.
Idiots.
The Populist
Oh yes, the next asshole on the right to talk revolution on the PUBLIC airwaves should be arrested for sedition.
If I can’t yell fire in a crowded theater out of responsibility for others, these fucks can’t shout revolution and pretend they meant at the voting booth. We all know damn well what these fucks mean.
asiangrrlMN
@The Cat Who Would Be Tunch: You are too smart with your greater than sign. I had to read your sentence twice because I thought you had cut it short (oh, probably shouldn’t say that in relation to teabaggin’).
MikeJ
I heard the Decembrists were playing. That’s why all those people showed up.
Kiril
I don’t think Democrats need to dismiss them at all. To the contrary, they need to join our daily mocking points with Limbaugh and Beck.
The Populist
Good do it you dumbass. BTW, Ricky, when you talk like that you do realize you violate the oath you took to defend the constitution.
Asshole.
The Populist
Note to righties…a lot of people are more worried about finding and/or keeping good jobs than this nonsense. Maybe the rightie idiots in the congress should find ways to WORK with Obama and find reasonable compromise to put America back on track instead of all this showy nonsense.
Even my right wing friends think this is stupid and pointless.
kay
@amorphous:
They completely lost credibility on state’s rights. Just completely. The GOP Congress and President Bush seemed to set out do it deliberately.
They tried to impose jury damage award limits on STATE courts.
They tried to pull authority to regulate the insurance industry from states. The one and ONLY reason they failed in those two measures is because Democrats blocked them.
I could rant for hours on the absolute hypocrisy of conservatives and state’s rights. It’s a lie. Just ignore the ranting about the 10th amendment. They don’t mean a word of it.
Cris
Maybe he’s counting comments as posts.
The Populist
The dirty little secret of the right that they keep from their low info supporters is basic…drown the government in a bathtub and make sure it dies. Drown it in debt so the left can’t enact social programs that HELP people. Yep, you are correct…they did this deliberately and Bush was all too happy to help.
The Populist
Oh yes, righties.
Why are you people such cowards? If I go to Malkin’s site (for example) to post facts they won’t let you post anything.
Why are they so afraid? If their ideas were so spot on, why be afraid of counterpoints?
Sad little cretins these teabagger leaders.
asiangrrlMN
@The Cat Who Would Be Tunch:
So you did cut it short! Ok. I feel better now.
I have been asked where I’m really from. I have been asked where are my people from (in Canada, after my Canadian friend had just finished telling me that Canadians were less racist than Americans). I have been told that I speak English well. One guy told me he never knew there were Asians in Minnesota (he was hitting on me). One guy was puzzled because I only speak English. He said, "But you’re Asian." He was black. The other people were white.
I had a black boss who retorted (after I complained about being asked where I was from), "They don’t dare ask where blacks are from because they know, and they know how we got here." That was funny, I have to admit.
Oh, and I used to fly to see my out-of-state partner (male) every few months. Every time, I would be pulled aside and ‘randomly’ searched. Each way, I would get searched on one of the legs. I dressed in nice slacks and a nice shirt that covered my tats, but it didn’t matter. I just built it into my travel time.
The good thing is, once security tightened after 9/11, it didn’t affect me at all because I was already always being searched.
kay
@The Populist:
It’s a touchy issue for me. I have complicated theories on state’s rights. I won’t bore you. I have given this a ridiculous amount of thought.
The upshot is, state law is the sometimes the best way to go, which liberals finally figured out.
JUST as liberals figured it out, in 2002, conservatives completely abandoned the whole state’s rights concept, and thwarted my still-aborning strategy.
They started imposing conservatism on the states the second they got a President and a Congressional majority. Foiled again! I was furious. I’m bitter.
Cris
Forgive me for misreading that.
Seanly
And it isn’t even really 3%. That’s just the increase in the marginal rate.
SGEW
@asiangrrlMN: I love the "where are you from?" game.
Some Dude: Where are you from?
Me: New York.
S.D.: No, I mean where are you from?
M.: Well, I was born in Yonkers.
S.D.: Is that in [random foreign country]?
M.: No, dude. Yonkers. Just north of the Bronx. You don’t know about Yonkers? Where are you from?
Classic.
Jay Severin Has A Small Pen1s
100,000 collectively protesting nationwide is notable movement?
Shit, ACORN got ten times that to vote illegally in the last election.
Now that’s a MOVEMENT!!!!!
KCinDC
Seanly, I’m sure the article’s unquestioning acceptance of attendance estimates based only on organizers’ fantasies and announced before the event even takes place will help establish accurate perceptions of the size of these demonstrations:
bvac
@The Populist: When Vermont talks about secession it’s kind of charming, and I always picture that state as being run by old grampas and crazy uncles. When Texas does it, it’s slightly more batshit insane. It would be totally awesome if they seceded and were promptly conquered by Mexico, though.
The Cat Who Would Be Tunch
@asiangrrlMN:
I feel for ya about airport security (no pun intended). Especially because I have a really crappy profile for traveling and I’m a heavy traveler.
@SGEW:
That’s just too awesome.
JK
Marc Ambinder is a first class scumbag
gg
As a sufferer of Celiac disease, I would like to point out that teabaggers are outnumbered by a factor of 20 by people who get explosive diarrhea after eating bread — and I had never heard of Celiac disease before I was diagnosed.
asiangrrlMN
@Cris: Heh. Yeah, well one of my tats is over one of my tatas, so you weren’t completely misreading.
@SGEW:
Yup. I had fun with this as well.
Some person: Where are you from?
Me: Minnesota.
Some person: No, I mean, where are you reallyfrom.
Me: New Brighton (suburb of St. Paul).
Some person: No, I mean where are your people from?
I have always wanted to say that I don’t have a people, but I usually just said, "My parents are from Taiwan, but met in Tennessee."
I wasn’t as rude and/or sarcastic in my youth.
Not In Our Name
The real reason all these tea parties had poor attendance and peace rallies have larger numbers is because conservatives have to WORK for a living. They don’t have their bills paid by mommy and daddy.
How dare this impostor from Kenya spend my hard-earned money on propping up these wall street fat cats. He needs to get his hands out of the market and let the invisible hand do all the guiding.
Just you wait. Us REAL Americans will stand up and defend what’s ours, like Stonewall Jackson against those Northern Aggressors. Just you wait, there will be Stonewall Riots in the streets to fight for what we deserve.
SGEW
[cont.]
S.D.: Where are your people from?
M.: Mostly in Brooklyn, nowadays, but I got some peeps up in Harlem and the Heights too.
S.D.: No, no. Your people.
M.: Naw, dude, I don’t have an agent or nothing. Why, you wanna do some kinda promotional deal or something?
S.D.: Gah! I mean where is your family from?
M.: Well, my Dad’s from Pittsburgh. You heard of it? It’s in Pennsylv . . . .
S.D.: God damn it! What fucking racial ethnicity are you?!
M.: How rude! Good day, sir!
Tax Analyst
Zif – my understanding was that it wasn’t in Houston, but that…uh…well, actually I guess it was kinda "in" Houston…at least at various times. Well, actually it wasn’t really "it", it was "they", or maybe a "bunch of its", and it wasn’t really in "Houston", the city, but "Houston" the, uh, "actress".
I hope that clarifies it for you.
Not that I would really know much about this type of stuff.
Hawthorne Wingnut
Oh yeah,look up opensecrets.org and you will see who Dick Armey took $$ from while in congress:
Bank of America
MBNA
Citigroup
Countrywide Credit
National Assn of Homebuilders
National Assn of Realtors
Texas Manufactured Housing Assn
American Bankers Assn
Securities Industry & Financial Markets Assn.
Seriously, get the word out
Tonal Crow
@AkaDad:
Party in the St. Paul airport’s Larry Craig Memorial Men’s Room?
El Cid
@Not In Our Name: OK, I get it. Now.
bago
@dc to va: After they have the American Taxpayer March!
AnneLaurie
Give me five minutes — I haven’t run dog patrol in the backyard lately. Of course, Mr. Ambinder will have no trouble sucking down a sackful of healthful, organic dog droppings, as long as he can be assured that they are from a carefully screened committee of extremely bipartisan dogs. He keeps it up, he’s gonna get labelled as The Atlantic’s Dumbest Blogger, and McArdle will be scaling the wall of his gated community with a 2×4 clenched in her teeth.
cosanostradamus
.
Media-generated astro-turf.
Let’s put a stop to this b*llsh*t. Complain to the FCC and the FEC over the blatant abuse of OUR airwaves for crypto-Nazi political purposes, as an unreported corporate campaign contribution to the Repukes by Rush, Rupert, et al.
.
toujoursdan
I have to love this article in the Vancouver Sun:
"A reportedly corporate-financed grassroots" anti-tax movement, paid for, planned and promoted by right wing think tanks, corporate lobbyists and Fox News Channel, has failed to bring about the "popular uprising" against the Obama administration its creators had hoped for.
The day of "tea parties" pushed by Republican operatives and partisan advocacy groups such as FreedomWorks, that sought to protest the Obama government’s tax and stimulus policies by encouraging people to ‘wave tea bags’ brought about only a few hundred "tea-baggers" in most parts of the U.S., despite relentless promotion by Fox News TV hosts.
Participants had hoped to rally hundreds of thousands of people to begin a grassroots movement that would force Obama to change government policy. But the turn-out was far from what was hoped for, with most rallies looking decidedly on the small side, especially compared to the 2006 immigrants rights rallies or the 2004 pro-choice march on Washington, both of which attracted millions.
…Rising popularity in the polls for President Barack Obama, a strengthening economy, and the unfortunate choice of name for the movement ("tea-bagging" is slang for a sexual act) are considered the prime reasons for the failure of the event, but recent exposure of the groups behind the protests also drove some away from taking part…
…In yet another tea-bag day controversy, Fox anchor Neil Cavuto was captured on an open mic discussing the crowd numbers with an on-location producer, estimating the turnout at 5,000 people, but minutes later Cavuto told viewers that "They were expecting 5,000 here, it’s got to be easily double, if not triple that."
The day of uprising continues."
The whole article is good for a chuckle.
Church Lady
Out of curiosity, I went to the Memphis Tea Party Protest this evening. I was sort of shocked at the number of people there. I expected a couple of hundred and, although I am probably a little off, it looked like somewhere between 1,500 and 2,000.
I stayed for about an hour. There weren’t any counter-protesters that I ever saw. The crowd was predominantly white, although I did see a smattering of hispanics, asians and a few African Americans. Age wise, it was tilted toward what appeared to be retirees, next probably young families with small children, then middle-aged people. It started at five and I left a little before six, but lots of people were still pulling their cars into the park as I was leaving.
Lots of homemade signs, some of them quite clever. They were mostly geared towards disagreement with spending, but signs against taxation, such as Taxed Enough Already, were also quite prevalent. I saw only one sign concerning gun rights.
I didn’t see anything really weird or over the top and didn’t hear anyone say anything crazy. They seemed like everyday normal people who just took the opportunity to vent about some things they don’t like that the government is doing.
All in all, it was interesting. News vans from all the local stations were there, so I’m interested in watching the late local news tonight and seeing what their estimates of the size of the crowd was.
Just Some Fuckhead
You are an idiot, Church Lady. All those people just got a fucking tax cut on top of all the tax cuts they got during the Bush adminstation.
Church Lady
@JSF-
Why am I an idiot? I didn’t agree or disagree with veracity of their protest. All I did was say what I saw. I thought it would be interesting to go and see what all the hubub was about and then wrote about what I saw. I didn’t do a person-to-person survey of each person’s tax status/situation. Also, as I said in the post, most of the signs had to do with government spending, not taxes, so what does whether or not they received a tax cut have to do with anything?
handy
Are you for real? What do you think the beef is when someone says "The government spends too much," that they’re afraid it will go bankrupt? Maybe it won’t be able to afford starting pointless wars? What’s funny is that you yourself had just observed:
But, it’s really about government spending too much money.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Church Lady:
You are doubling down on the idiocy, per usual. The last eight years have seen the national debt doubled from 5T to 10T and yet oddly, none of them thought to hold a protest.
Mike in NC
As Dana Carvey, the original Church Lady, would have said, "Now isn’t that special!"
Church Lady
@JSF-
Just out of curiosity, where do you think the national debt will be in another eight years? As it continues to increase, as both Obama and the CBO say will happen, will it be ok with you to protest then? When taxes go up for everyone, rather than just the top five of ten percent of taxpayers, as they will have to, do people then have your permission to protest government spending?
If you objection is based simply that the people protesting now didn’t earlier, and that such a failure to protest the spending earlier negates their ability to bitch about it now, does that also apply to other things? As I recall, John Kerry, Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden and the majority of Democrats in both Congress and the Senate voted to give Bush the authority to go to war. They also voted for the use of force in Afghanistan. I assume, under your reasoning, that they should have been precluded from changing their minds and later objecting to the war. In fact, under your reasoning, circumstances don’t ever change and all must stick with original positions on anything.
Exactly what do you approve protests against? Only those things that you object to? I’m just curious as to your stance on who is allowed to protest and the circumstances in which a protest meets your approval.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Church Lady: They aren’t protests, Lynne. They’re manufactured circuses, devoid of any meaning, detached from any mechanism that could effect change, a group of halfwits cynically fired from someone else’s cannon. You’ll fit right in. Get out there and scream yer black lungs out.
El Cid
I don’t assume a straight line increase in deficit spending from here to the end of the Obama administration.
I remember being told in 1993 that Bill Clinton was going to kill this nation with deficits as the awesome Bush Sr. economy collapsed around his ears.
Somehow things turned out different.
Jrod
@Church Lady: Nobody needs permission to protest, you idiot. A right to protest does not imply a right to be free of mockery for being rank hypocrites. The plain fact is that when Republicans ballooned the national debt, as they do every single fucking time they gain the Presidency, none of these people cared at all. These people, in fact, called us on the left traitors for daring to suggest that massive tax cuts for the wealthy combined with multi-billion dollar boondoggles designed to enrich the well connected combined with a fucking war that was also designed to enrich the well connected might be a bad idea. But now, we have dolts like you taking us to task for daring to point this out, like doing so was somehow infringing on the teabagger’s right to assembly.
Fuck them, and fuck you.
Mike in NC
Moron, the national debt DOUBLED under Dubya, your hero. Who gives a flying fuck about the national debt in eight years when the REAL unemployment rate now is close to 16%? Stupid twat.
Brachiator
@Church Lady:
You can’t be serious. Here’s a blast from the past:
It’s not the just the protests I mock, it is the intellectual dishonety.
There are conservative pundits and talk show hosts who are on the record as saying that Constitutional protections don’t matter when it comes to fighting the global war on terror. Now these same fools want to wrap themselves in an American flag circa 1820 and hiss "My precious…" as they slobber over the Constitution.
And even here, they tend to doze off in post-orgasmic bliss after they shoot their wads over the Second Amendment.
Neither of us has a Magic 8 Ball to peer into the future, but what we have seen so far is that Obama is a pragmatist. On the other hand, it was Dubya’s stubborn refusal to demonstrate any rational judgment at all when it came to spending and fiscal policy that has got us into the mess that we are in.
I’ll go with Obama.
Church Lady
@JSF- As I said, I went out of curiosity, to see what all the outcry was about. Frankly, I just don’t understand the vitriol being directed at the Tea Party Protesters. What is it that makes it manufactured? Why don’t you think it has any meaning? What mechanism do you think should be in place in order to effect the change they want, other than electoral? Why is this particular protest different from any other type of protest? Did you consider the AIG bus ride manufactured? Or the anti-war protests during the buildup to Iraq? I went and saw nothing but some people seemingly unhappy by what they see as excessive government spending, the bailouts and taxes. Nothing more, nothing less. I guess they felt like it was an opportunity to have their voices heard. What could be more American than the right to assemble and express your grievences.
@Jrod – You took what I wrote just a little to literally. I was ribbing JSF about protesters needing to meet his pre-determined criteria as to what constitutes a valid protest. I didn’t join in, I didn’t have a sign, I just went and observed out of a sense of curiosity. Believe me, I’ve never called anyone on the left a traitor. It might be because I tend to lean to the left. I just don’t hate the right. I saw a few Obama stickers on cars in the lot I parked in, which I found to be sort of interesting.
@Mike – Bush my hero? Get real. Did I vote for Bush, ever? No. Do I care about how Bush ran up the national debt? Yes. Do I care that the debt, as projected, will increase at an even faster rate in the future? Yes. Does that make me a right winger? No. It makes me a Mom with two kids who wonders how the hell it will ever be paid off and what kind of life my kids will be able to lead while they are shouldering paying for it.
Church Lady
@Brachiator – I sincerely doubt that anyone attending today’s protest in Memphis was a member of the Bush Administration. Although I did see an older gentleman that bore a striking resemblence to Cheney. Hmmmm…….
independent
Republicans vs Democrats! Black vs Mexican! Christians vs Muslims!
We don’t try to listen anymore, we just demonize those that don’t agree with us. Most of the people posting here just want to flame those that don’t agree with them.
Well have fun ragging on each other. I guess it is more fun that listening and discussing rationally the topics presented.
Of Course, don’t expect others to respect you when you fail to show respect.
I am sure that this post will receive some nasty comments, but it will only confirm my observations. I wish each of you a happy life and nothing but the best.
charliedoodle
@anonevent:
Thank you. Well said.