I’m really enjoying Emptywheel’s new site, ferinstance her take on “The $100 Billion TeaBagger Tax“:
Last week, when analysts were contemplating a debt downgrade, they put a price tag on it: $100 billion…
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That $100 billion among 310 million Americans works out to be $322 for every man, woman, and child to pay for the TeaBagger’s little temper tantrum.
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To put that in perspective, that’s more than the 2008 Bush tax rebate gave to taxpayers (rebate checks started at $300/person).
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So the TeaBaggers are now taking away whatever benefit we got from Bush’s last tax cut.
Hunter Gathers
Like they give a shit.
beltane
The Teabaggers are OK with taxes as long as those taxes go directly into the bank accounts of very rich people. They have a twisted sense of altruism in that they’d rather go hungry so that someone richer than they are can have more.
Linda Featheringill
Well if they did do it, I’m sure that Obama made them do it.
And how dare you criticize them? Silence, woman!
JPL
This is the line-up for Sunday morning..copied from halperin’s site.
Meet the Press: Sens. McCain, Kerry
Fox News Sunday: Tim Pawlenty, Rep. Ryan
Face the Nation: David Axelrod, Sen. Graham, Howard Dean
State of the Union: Steve Forbes, Larry Summers, Vice Adm. Mike McConnell, Gov. Jerry Brown, Anita Dunn, Tom Davis
This Week: Gov. O’Malley
fox news once again doesn’t disappoint.
Linda Featheringill
I will say one thing for S&P. They managed to punish the overlord class for failing to control the legislators.
The rest of us got hit, too, but that would have happened one way or another anyway.
BGinCHI
The Dems should start calling it “The Tea Party Tax” and they should say it over and over and over.
beltane
The Face the Nation line-up doesn’t look too bad. And why don’t they just go ahead and give John McCain a full-time slot on MTP, he’s there every week anyway.
GregB
But John King said this was Barack Obama’s embarrassment.
Omnes Omnibus
@GregB:
Well, that pretty much establishes that the blame should fall somewhere else. King isn’t as wrong as McMegan, but the boy ain’t right either.
Villago Delenda Est
The teabaggers have demonstrated, conclusively, that they have no business at all being allowed to participate in any way the the collective political process.
Because they do not understand cause and effect.
Davis X. Machina
Look at this from their point of view… Is $322 too much to ask, to make that awful black man go away?
Villago Delenda Est
@Davis X. Machina:
Hmmm…well, that certainly is a point, and a pretty profound one, in its own way.
Because as we all have observed, the deficit and the debt didn’t really manifest themselves as matters of paramount concern until a few moments past 8PM PST on 4 November 2008.
Mino
Fox News has fashioned mittel-American ignorance into a nuclear weapon.
But Obama seems to be busy taking all the issues off the table for the Dems. Free-trade agreements, anyone?
WereBear
I think it’s because they are tribal in thinking. They want to belong to the RICH tribe, even though they don’t benefit from it, rather than allying themselves with someone poor.
Like they think it’s catching :)
Southern Beale
If you agree that the Republican leadership is deliberately sabotaging the U.S. economy for political reasons, to win the White House and both houses of Congress in 2012, please consider recommending my comment saying as much on this The Economist story.
I think this is a story that more non-lefty types need to look seriously at.
BGinCHI
Tea Party Mushrooms:
feed them shit and keep them in the dark.
Too bad we can’t eat them on pizza or make a nice bisque out of them.
Omnes Omnibus
@BGinCHI: Some mushrooms are poisonous.
Pontiac
Tea Party Mushrooms:
Always a bad trip?
opie jeanne
@Southern Beale: What you posted at the Economist was great. I started reading and nearly had a fit of apoplexy when I got to the guy blaming everything on the baby boomers.
I would like to answer him but it’s off-topic and I’d probably just start ranting and become even more incoherent than usual.
Southern Beale
@opie jeanne:
Thanks.
I want this whole “economic sabotage” story to become part of the open debate, though. We need to really be looking at the craziness the GOP has inflicted on the public and ask why? Who gains? I really don’t buy that the Republicans are THAT stupid. They’re not. There’s a reason they’re caving to the Teanuts, who are a minority. There’s a reason the Teanuts were created to begin with.
We need to start openly talking about this. If it’s fair game to call liberals who were against the Iraq War “terrorist appeasers” and “dangers to American security” and every other thing, then fuckitall, we need to turn the tables and start addressing the economic terrorism the GOP has perpetrated on the American people.
And it can’t be some crazy lefty commenters on blogs, we need to have an open discussion about this on the talking bobblehead shows and the WaPo opinion page and everything else.
YES the Republicans will squawk that their fee-fees got hurt. YES they will hurl all sorts of insults about it being an “outrageous” assertion. But dammit I know there’s a memo somewhere, there’s a tape recording of some meeting, there’s evidence that this entire economic catastrophe has been ORCHESTRATED for partisan political reasons.
This is some fucking Nixonian black-ops going on here. Time to reveal it for the world to see.
Mike in NC
Teabaggers don’t do arithmetic ’cause that would be elitist.
WereBear
@Southern Beale: I have done so, since I agreed :)
This is the kind of thing people notice. Sadly.
harlana
it’s only a tax whey they call it a tax
eemom
let us take a moment to congratulate EW on her recent, um, liberation.
Here EW — this one’s for you.
Rhoda
Politico has the blame game story up now; and they get to the real point on the third page:
Meanwhile, rather than repeat that message the “elite” democrats wet the bed and take the sheets to Politico:
Fuck.
So the MSM hook on Obama’s part seems to be that he campaigned on changing Washington’s political culture in 2008 and failed; so this failure is on him. Fuck all about the failure of the Republican party until page 3 and immediately followed by a quote from a bed-wetting DEM undercutting the blow to the Republicans.
The Administration, Pelosi, and Schumer/Reid/Durbin better step up their game on this one because this weekend counts. The President shouldn’t be the hitman on this; DEM senators and the progressives in the House can beat the Republicans up on this and the President make a statement after the markets react Monday.
Omnes Omnibus
@Rhoda: An unnamed senior democratic official? Harold Ford? David Boren? Seriously, who can tell?
FlipYrWhig
I will never, ever understand why Democrats air their internecine grievances to their “friends” in the press. Especially, in this case, when what S&P is specifically asking for is _virtually to the letter_ what Obama wanted and what Republicans refused to accept. But the larger issue is still there. Why run squealing to the press about how things would have been better if the president totally did it your way and now we’re all doomed? They always do it. Always. Who are they trying to score points with?
wrb
Listening to NPR this morning, I get the feeling that this is going to make any stimulus much harder because it was all about our “dangerous” “out-of-control” debt plus some “both sides do it” Nothing clearly pointing out that the downgrade was due to the tea party.
Southern Beale
@WereBear:
Thanks.
Really, it boggles the mind. It’s fine to play the blame game but unless we get to the motives behind these maneuvers, it is meaningless. Yes of course Democrats are to blame for being spineless and weak and all that but cripes, the Republicans are the bully on the block selling Americans — REAL PEOPLE GODDAMIT — down the river just so they can have their little power grab. It’s quite craven, really.
And really, the message is already out there. We already have Rush Limbaugh saying he wants Obama to fail and Mitch McConnell saying his #1 goal it so make Obama a one term president. The public already knows what the GOP is doing. They just need to draw the line between the crazy GOP policies and their desire to make Obama fail.
Who’s the collateral damage? WE are.
Bruce S
Triple AAA Arrogance:
http://titanicsailsatdawn.blogspot.com/2011/08/unbearable-arrogance-and-hypocrisy-of.html
FlipYrWhig
Also, if anyone can articulate what “leadership” means other than “doing something that wins and makes me happy,” it might be a useful concept in politics. But until then it should be considered like “momentum” in sports, the thing that means you’re doing well while you have it, and when you lose it you stop doing well, even when it’s the same thing as doing well and the fact that you can lose it suggests it’s not that important to acquire it.
BGinCHI
@FlipYrWhig: Leadership is when you stand for something and argue strenuously to get it.
If you’re a GOP this gets you points for trying, even if the ideas are wrong and dangerous.
If you’re a Dem this gets you chided for being shrill and acting like a bully.
The reason is that anyone with half a brain knows that the GOP is incapable of doing anything well in terms of governance and the Dems are competent. Thus the standards are completely different: if the GOP does something, it’s like a puppy fetching a ball but dropping it in a pile of shit (Good dog! Look what he did!!), while even if the Dem puppy flies a plane and shoots down the Red Baron, he’s criticized for dangerous flying.
harlana
Wow, Dems can make some awesome soshulistic proposals that no one need fear would pass, again job creation proposals, and let the republicians keep bloviating about tax and spending cuts while our economy is in the gutter . . . okay, they could make some reasonable sounding proposals that might not scare independents and swing voters too much, esp those who are currently unemployed and, in the end, won’t give a shit where the help, money, jobs, or all of the above, come from.
Meredith
Rachel Maddow will be on Meet the Press tomorrow as well.
Villago Delenda Est
@BGinCHI:
You’ve put your finger on the problem, and it describes the vapid talking heads of our totally fucked up Ferengi Controlled Infotainment Media precisely.
Pangloss
We’re drifting into coup d’etat territory, little by little.
harlana
All this talk about how Dems are damned in the media no matter what, and what more proof do we need now that that is true, why don’t the Dem leaders pull together and hammer a few simple, repetitive messages through on every teevee appearance and make the case for the Dem agenda (which has been and is currently under attack), that is supposed to be about helping people and creating jobs. Acknowledge the people are suffering and we have a plan to alleviate some of that. The media can spin it however but what’s the harm in trying? Things are not looking good for republicans anyway right now.
We must reclaim all the good things we’ve done for the people and it doesn’t hurt to remind them of the republican record for smashing things, including surpluses, and Dems always having to come in behind wearing hazmat suits to clean up the mess.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@BGinCHI:
…even a “dick”
lamh34
Is the saying “No rest for the weary” or “No rest for the wicked”??
Either way in this case, I guess it’s “No rest for the weary”. Twitter is ablaze that President Obama will be coming back from Camp David early maybe today. Has anyone else heard that?
WereBear
@Southern Beale: Huge chunks of the public need help knowing where to put the dots; much less knowing how to draw the lines.
And this is all on purpose; I must have tutored four or five people over the last few weeks about what the debt ceiling is, and why screwing with it is such a bad idea, and what would actually happen if we default.
To a man or woman, they get a little pale and mutter to themselves. Some of them even say, “Why doesn’t the news explain all this?”
Why, indeed.
PaulW
I have so much rage right now for how fucked up we are as a nation and as a planet that there are no other words except “godd-mn” and “bullsh-t” that I can say at the moment.
I blame the registered Democrats who failed to get out the vote Nov. 2010.
I blame Republican voters for buying this Randian “kill government” bullsh-t that the con artists have been selling the last 30 years.
I blame a godd-mn media elite that doesn’t seem to quite f-cking get it that FACTS and REALITY have greater merit than their godd-mn opinions that are based on whatever meme is bouncing around inside their godd-mn echo chamber. Do any of them have even three or more friends on the unemployment lines? No, I doubt it. I’d bet good money on it IF I HAD ANY GODD-MN MONEY TO SPEND.
The only reason our nation hasn’t broken out the tar and feathers yet is because none of us can afford either.
Elie
I believe that this is going to take a while to sink into the average American’s reality… It IS important about the message that goes out and how the Democrats talk about it. It is completely destructive if individual so called democratic officials further knee cap us as purportedly happened as reported on Politico. There is so much lying in the media its hard to know if they would actually just make that shit up.
We are in a culture and perception war. Though I do not blame our own progressive firebaggers entirely, their constant knee capping is dutifuly reported by the press and included in assessments of the administration’s effectiveness. Calling for obama to be primaried over and over for every slight is an example and all of their criticism just becomes further fodder for the MSM to amplify. Again, this is not the lynchpin, but they do not help this desperate situation.
I further believe we are having a cultural and demographic crisis born of failed national community. The Media has played a central role but that followed, not led, other changes in how we live and communicate with each other. We have fractured into self serving enclaves and lost the ability to negotiate or exchange ideas without win/lose phychology. Hence, there is little effort to truly negotiate anything or compromise. Its all our way and that is reflected in everything from reality teevee shows to the fracture and specialization of web sites and blogs catering to homogenous ideology or opinion. All compromise, give and take, is seen as a loss. Being “voted off the island” now defines us and our attitudes towards each other.
I have no idea what is going to evolve. We desperately need a new way to “be a nation”… Though the republicans may be the most obvious symptom of our problem, we all display it and we all had better own a solution. We are running out of time.
wrb
@harlana:
Yesterday I came across an excellent economics site, Pragmatic Capitalism, that advocates with great sophistication a course of action very similar to what I’ve been thinking we should follow. They also make a good and original case for why we need higher deficits now.
You can pick up a lot of it by reading these two thread, including comments, which are high quality.
http://pragcap.com/it-time-to-get-serious-about-the-real-crisis
http://pragcap.com/waving-the-white-flag-before-the-fight-even-starts
Dennis SGMM
@WereBear:
Amen. I have more than one conservative friend who still believes that the government would rolling in dough if it just stopped wasting money on “welfare and foreign aid.” They don’t want to hear any different either because “the government just makes up those numbers so they can raise taxes.”
steve
Most people are pretty receptive when I argue that ‘news’ is 99% worthless stuff. You can learn more from one day’s worth of Steve Benen or Kevin Drum or Ezra Klein than a month of all the Sunday shows put together. When someone posted the guest list for the sunday shows above, I thought ‘who watches that garbage anymore?’
Plus, reading blogs means i don’t have to hear Mitch Mcconnell’s awful, awful voice.
lamh34
Look out your windows folks, are pigs flying and/or is the deviling wearing skis….
From twitter: @edhenrytv “Remember President Obama pushed for a “Grand Bargain” that would have cut approximately $4 trillion in debt, but Speaker John Boehner walked.”
Elie
@steve:
I frequently talk to my friends and family about regular viewing of teevee news and its lack of information or accurate information. How do we get them the goods? My Mom is 90 years old and I’ve tried to teach her to use the intertubes many times and she just is unable to do it. We have to change the quality of information shared in this country or we are doomed.
The Sheriff's A Ni-
@lamh34: Remember when everyone said the money men were going to step in? I just don’t know if its too late for better late than never.
I do know the GOP nomination race is gonna be a hoot. Where’s my popcorn?
MikeBoyScout
If a corrupt rating agency with flawed math downgrades a creditor and the rates/price of the downgraded bonds don’t move accordingly, did the rating agency make a sound?
wrb
@wrb:
moderation & I can’t spot why
Elie
@The Sheriff’s A Ni-:
I wish that I could enjoy it more. Their craziness just seems to know no limits as well as the media’s willingness to “normalize” it. If I had faith that they would be perceived accurately, I could relax… but I am very unsure of whether we can get a reorientation to reality from the MSM.
harlana
@The Sheriff’s A Ni-: I won’t say it makes it worthwhile, but we can sure use the entertainment right about now. Bachmann alone is a gift from the gods.
Mino
It wouldn’t surprise me if Politico made up the quote–they have their agenda.
Actually, S&P’s have done what the Dems couldn’t/wouldn’t–punished the Tea Baggers. And threatened worse. I know that no Republicans are doing mea culpa, but even they must see that action begat reaction.
MazeDancer
NY Times says Perry event draws 30K. Here’s pic with empty seats. And, no, that’s a prayer gesture not a Hitler-y salute.
http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/08/06/prayer-rally-draws-thousands-in-houston/?hp
moonbat
Well, so much for the teabagger meme (including Bachmann) that no matter how much they fucked around with this issue it wouldn’t make a difference either way. Ummm not so much…
Regardless of whether the media wake up and start doing their jobs (don’t count on it), I think middle American has already got the idea that these guys are poison. This will hopefully just reinforce the message.
wrb
@harlana:
Yesterday I came across an excellent economics site, Pragmatic Capitalism, that advocates cogently a course of action very similar to what I’ve been thinking we should follow. They also make a good and original case for why we need higher deficits now.
You can pick up a lot of it by reading these two thread, including comments, which are high quality.
[links deleted to get out of moderation]
I
wrb
the links deleted from the above post
http://pragcap.com/it-time-to-get-serious-about-the-real-crisis
http://pragcap.com/waving-the-white-flag-before-the-fight-even-starts
jwb
@MazeDancer: Hard to tell from that picture featured in the Times article, but it doesn’t look like 30,000 to me.
Omnes Omnibus
@jwb: A lot of them were in line at the concession stand. Fasting is hungry work.
Yutsano
@MazeDancer: Heh. Then the article doubles back on itself:
Unless this was a come-and-go-at-will event, 20K is still less than 30K. Unless you’re the NYT.
BGinCHI
@Omnes Omnibus: What kind of prayer meeting doesn’t sell beer?
Morans.
steve
I don’t think we can. But I don’t think it matters. It’s not like we used to have a well-read, widely-informed electorate and anything changed. Never have most people understood most of the basics of government or policy, and never will they. That’s why we have a representative democracy rather than a direct one. The founders knew how clueless people were. And that hasn’t changed.
ppcli
@BGinCHI: They say they want to be open to all faiths, so I guess the no beer thing is an effort to be welcoming to Muslims.
Also – wasn’t this supposed to be a “pray for rain” shindig? Apparently they looked at the long range forecasts and decided that perhaps they’d make it something more generic, so that the continued drought won’t make it as obvious that God has had it with their flouting of His direct, unambiguous instructions at Matthew 6:5.
Uncle Clarence Thomas
.
.
Speaking of Super Coke –
Finally, someone had the courage to say it.
Less detail, please, Mr. President, we are blushing!
.
.
steve
fuck are you babbling about
BGinCHI
@ppcli: Non-alcoholic beer.
Now where’s my fucking Nobel Peace Prize?
Omnes Omnibus
@BGinCHI: A Nobel for an abomination? I think not, sir. I think not.
Omnes Omnibus
@efgoldman: You’re god damned fucking right about that shit.
BGinCHI
@Omnes Omnibus: I knew that wouldn’t slip by you.
Predictions on the recalls up your way? What’s the skinny?
Omnes Omnibus
@BGinCHI: I actually am staying out of all recall conversations on blogs these days. I have been doing some work on contract for the Government Accountability Board (the people who supervise elections here) with respect to these particular elections, so I need to steer clear.
Villago Delenda Est
@efgoldman:
Which is why we have to say “Soshulist” or some similar thing to get past the dreaded boner pill string in the correct spelling.
BGinCHI
@Omnes Omnibus: Roger that.
Good luck with it all, and I hope the good people of WI come to their senses.
Omnes Omnibus
@BGinCHI: Thanks.
Yutsano
@Omnes Omnibus: Damn Hatch Act. :) It’s why I really shouldn’t be looking on BJ on my phone while waiting for calls. Breaks I can do whatever the fuck I want though.
Cain
Tim O’Reilly tweeted this article on The Atlantic which I thought was pretty apt:
Obama as chessmaster
I think Stuck would like this link a lot.
Kathleen
Thom Hartman said (I’m too lazy to link) that S&P made it clear that the Republicans’ actions contributed to the downgrade. He said the statement was on page 4 of an 8 page report, but no media outlet (including NPR) quoted the statement.
Tonal Crow
The S&P report has this to say about Republican terrorism:
Of course the report has a “both sides do it” tone, but this excerpt makes it crystal-clear who the terrorists are.
john
@Tonal Crow: Only to us. The teabaggers will read it the other way.