Author Archives: skiplogic

Wingnut Web: The Teabagger Boogie

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From the man who brought you the GEICO Insurance ad announcer voice, who was recently fired from his job for having an opinion on something ridiculous, brings you another Tea Bag-tacular event you won’t want to miss, The Teabagger Boogie (Dick Armey’s Army of Dicks):

This DC Douglas guy is awesome, his new full time job should be being the slick and sane voice of reason on a series of videos that hold the Tea Parties’ feet to the candle and make them accountable for the retarded mess they’ve created in this country.

Poor people are ROBBING YOU!

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Browsing The Drudge Report last night I came across a shocking headline (Drudge’s specialty): “ROB THY NEIGHBOR: HALF OF HOUSEHOLDS PAY NO FED INCOME TAX…”

Shocking! You mean to tell me Mr. Drudge that the 50% of the country that isn’t Black or Hispanic is supporting the other half of the country by paying the entire nations taxes? That’s like, a lot of people and a lot of money. Right? Damn freeloaders.

The link from Drudge led me to this article on Yahoo, an article which details a study by the Tax Policy Center (a joint venture between the Brookings Institute and the Urban Institute) which came to the conclusion:

About 47 percent will pay no federal income taxes at all for 2009. Either their incomes were too low, or they qualified for enough credits, deductions and exemptions to eliminate their liability.

Tax breaks in action! For a family of four with two children under 17 and two parents collectively making $50,000 a year, these families can expect to pay little to no money in federal income tax due to tax breaks, tax credits, and other deductions they will qualify for, being all in the low income tax brackets and such. The Tax Policy Center is a trusty and more or less non-partisan institute and from their findings you can draw one of two conclusions: either this study is demonstrating that government tax relief and tax breaks are working in the favor of those low income individuals they were designed to support or you see that 50% number and you think to yourself “those selfish thieving lazy good-for-nothings are taking all my tax money! Unfair!”

Readers of The Drudge Report were no doubt feeling the latter impression from the study. With our Communist in Chief in the White House it’s no surprise that half of the country is getting welfare rich off the backs of us hard-working tax-paying CEOs and Board of Directors directors! This information, along with what Chuck Norris and Jon Voight have told me, will only further justify me not paying my income taxes this year. Take THAT you shotgun-welding IRS agents!

Like most right-wing hate and anger though, you really need to look at this story and wonder if it’s at all justified, if this SHOCKING headline is anything new or if this result is the product of some other force beyond the Obama administration.

In short, it should come as no surprise that 50% of the country not only qualify as “low-income”, and therefore can receive these tax credits, but also that this large portion of the country doesn’t make enough money to even make a meaningful contribution to the tax system. Even more shocking than 50% of the country reaching a zero-sum with their tax payments is that a RIDICULOUSLY small percentage of the United States holds the vast majority of the wealth in this country, and they’re making more money than ever before!

According to Berkley professor Emmanuel Saez, the top 1% of wealth earners in the United States took home 49.7% of the total income out there in 2007:

“The top 1 percent incomes captured half of the overall economic growth over the period 1993-2007,” Saes writes.

Economic inequality is nothing new in the United States of America, but you’ve gotta wonder here who is robbing whom in this situation? Is Drudge’s headline right in blaming the bottom 50% of Americans, who qualify for federal tax breaks and credits, and accusing them of “robbing” the wealthy earners in society, or is it the top 1% of wealth earners in the United States who are brining home 50% of the total wages out there and are robbing the other 99% of us in this country?

Did you see that? Any argument for a Flat Tax just flew right out the window. Sorry Groover Norquist.

FOX News and The FOX Nation: We ARE the Tea Parties

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FOX News, Roger Ailes, Rupert Murdoch, again and again and again you tell us that it’s completely incorrect to associate the coverage and pundits on FOX News with the actions and protests of the Tea Parties/Wingnut Birther crazy movement. Despite the fact that you ran plenty of promos advertising the Tax Day Tea Party protest, constantly interview Stewart Rhodes of the Oathkeepers, have Griff Jenkins and other FOX anchors whipping up and encouraging protesters, and have hired the crazy princess Sarah Palin to give informed opinions on the network, among so many other infractions, you still dismiss any suggestion that you’re trying to pander to the Tea Party crowd and make money off of them as “left-wing lame stream media propaganda”.

So if everything you’re saying is true (we know what a complex relationship FOX News has with the truth) and FOX News genuinely doesn’t mean to associate themselves with the violent, racist, crazy crazies, then what the fuck was this shit you featured on The FOX Nation to celebrate The FOX Nation’s 1 year anniversary? (Click the link for the video, I can’t embed their content).

[adrotate banner=”3″]Yup, that’s right. Glenn Beck has only been on the network for a year too, but by far, FOX’s worst offender for giving a voice to the crazy is celebrating its first birthday. To me, the tone of FOX fundamentally changed a year ago when they brought on Glenn Beck and opened up The FOX Nation for their loving hateful fans. It also changed pretty drastically when President Obama was elected into office at roughly the same time, but of course a political institution like FOX wouldn’t simply change up its coverage just because a Democratic president is now in office, right? Just to make sure they covered all their crazy bases (FOX Nation would lose a lot of fans if they didn’t happen to feature every single aspect of the nebulous Right Wing crazies to make everyone happy) all of the following are a part of the short “Happy Birthday” video for the FOX Nation:

  • An introduction from Michelle Bachmann
  • Soundbite from Bill O
  • Tea Party protesters and signs
  • Stephen Baldwin blowing a kiss?
  • Glenn Beck juxtaposed with Geraldo (see, FOX News is fair and balanced!)
  • Geraldo saying “FOX believes in the American dream” then immediately cutting to footage of angry Tea Party protests
  • More Tea Party footage
  • Mitt Romney saying how much he loves the FOX Nation
  • Andrew Breitbart admitting how he reads FOX Nation and get upset when they scoop him
  • Juan Williams (didn’t they fire Juan Williams for being too much of a Communist?)
  • More Tea Party protesting
  • A colonial Tea Party guy
  • American flags
  • The “I can cure gay people with therapy” guy, Richard Cohen
  • And a closing statement by Rick Perry mentioning that “FOX Nation is the place for information”

Notably absent from the video:

  • Ron Paul and/or Rand Paul
  • Sarah Palin (she’s their leading talent after all!)
  • Joe The Plumber
  • Pat Buchanan (probably not featured because he’s more of an MSNBC guy these days)
  • Mike Huckabee (FOX News host and potential presidential candidate, very surprised he didn’t make an appearance since that’s like a two-fer)
  • Trig Palin (Trig has had a hard year being in the spotlight, no sympathy from FOX?)
  • Dr. Orly Taitz Esq. (if Palin is the princess of FOX News/the Tea Parties then Orly is the Queen. IS FOX LEGITIMIZING THE OBAMA PRESIDENCY BY NOT HAVING ORLY ON?)
  • Hard-working Americans (FOX Nation is supposed to be for hard-working real Americans, but besides the chants from Tea Party protesters and the Right-Wing celebrity fest, this video features not one regular Joe just trying to get by in America)
  • Black people (also a hard-working segment of America that is notably absent from the video. Juan Williams doesn’t count)

Pretty much just as crazy as the people the video was meant for. But why does FOX News continue to pander to and use footage from the Tea Party movement and protests yet at the same time vehemently deny any connection between the network and this fringe “grassroots” group? Does this mean that FOX News, Roger Ailes, and the rest continually lie again and again straight to people’s faces without any regard or backbone?

Is this behavior by FOX anything new to you? Go FOX Nation, congratulations on one whole year of circular-babbling crazy.

Wingnut Web: Let the Tea Party violence begin (continue?)!

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[adrotate banner=”3″]A few days ago I posted about all the overtly violent threats and actions the folks over at Resistnet had to offer on the eve of the passage of Healthcare Reform. The world is no stranger to idiots making fiery threats towards others over the internet, some of the power behind websites like Resistnet lies in the fact that it’s a very small community echoing each other’s thoughts to the point that they believe these opinions (shared by maybe a dozen of their compatriots on the site) are in actuality the attitudes of everyone who feels discontented by the things President Obama has done.

Unfortunately for those of us who love the country and want to see it succeed (not secede like these Tea Party “patriots”) no matter who is in charge or what legislation they aim to pass, the populist violence party that used to be contained on the internet is now frothing up and spilling out onto the streets irl. Springboarding from my post a few days ago, I thought it would be appropriate to jot down all the real ACTUAL violence, threatening phone calls, vandalism, and other ironically “patriotic” acts that no doubt those who identify with the Tea Party, Birther, Militia, Oathkeeper, White Nationalist, and other movements are behind. It’s been less than a week since the vote on Healthcare Reform so what you’re going to read here are just the juvenile beginnings of what will prove to be a really ugly time in American History (as if everything since the election of President Obama wasn’t bad enough).

1. Sen. Bart Stupak’s threatening phone calls from loving concerned Christians who wish on him ass-bleeding cancer:

It’s great to hear from these angry God-fearing Christians who value the lives of other people’s unborn children so much that they wish death, anal cancer, beatings, bleeping bleep bleep, and other fun things on a fellow Christian. Its no use trying to talk or reason on a theological level with these people, it’s a wonder what they learn at church every Sunday. I don’t even think God himself could come down from the clouds and convince these people that they are the literal embodiment of brain-curdling migraine-inducing irony.

Rep. Louise Slaughter also received threatening phone calls indicating that snipers would kill her and her family. Oh and speaking of Louise Slaughter…

2. Bricks thrown through the office windows of Rep. Louise Slaughter and Rep. Gabrielle Giffords:

Nothing says “populist rage” like people throwing bricks through the windows of Democratic representatives offices. Incidents of window smashing was reported in New York, Arizona, Kansas, and Alabama, with some possibly linking the Alabama incident to a blogger in that area. Republican Whip Eric Cantor also reported that apparently someone had fired a bullet through the windows at his offices in Richmond, VA but it’s doubtful how true this is seeing as Cantor is a Republican and voted against Healthcare Reform. But hey, Virginians love firing those guns.

3. Gas line cut at Rep. Tom Perriello’s brother’s home

This one is not as big of a deal on the surface. Reports would suggest that Tea Baggers dug through the man’s backyard and severed a natural gas pipeline or something, but in reality they disconnected the propane tank from the man’s outdoor grill and let the gas escape, maybe hoping for God to throw down a lightning bolt and ignite the whole thing.

The fucked up thing about this item however is that Tea Partiers posted online the home address of what they though was Rep. Tom Perriello’s house and encouraged their community members to go to the man’s home address and express their discontent over Healthcare Reform to him personally. I guess “express yourself” to these people means “fuck with that guy’s shit”. If I get a brick through my front window in the next few days I’ll know it’s from these same people with poor address skills.

4. Rep. James Clyburn receives faxes of nooses

The same guy who the same tea partiers were calling “nigger” on the steps of the Capitol building a few days ago are now faxing the offices of of Rep. Clyburn, a man who fought alongside the Civil Rights movement in the 1960s (another movement that was wayyyyy unpopular with the Republican party), receiving images synonymous with lynching and death. Keep it classy Tea Party!

5. “White Powder” sent to Rep. Anthony Weiner’s office in Queens

This one is sort of breaking today, a suspicious package containing white powder was sent to the offices of Rep. Anthony Weiner in Queens. The news isn’t confirming if this is like the many many incidents of people just sending flour through the mail to create some chaos at a government office or if it’s like those two cases of Anthrax or other poisons being sent to a government office in order to kill people (but those were terrorists who did that, these Tea Party “patriots” would never stoop to the actions of terrorists, right?). We’ll see how this one plays out.

But yeah, pretty much those fuming mad Tea Partiers who are fuming mad that their tax dollars might go towards public programs that help other people (unlike where their tax dollars have been spent on years), are now turning their internet rage into real life rage and throwing bricks and threatening people and all the rest of it. It’s unclear who exactly are perpetrating these crimes, but we here at TarsTarkas.net are pretty sure that they follow and post on the same networks as Resistnet.com, TeaPartyPatriots.org, and the same ilk who would love to abort all those lawmakers who helped pass Healthcare Reform.

And the kicker? Those lawmakers on the side of the Tea Parties aren’t condemning any of this. They love it! They support it! They want to see these people throw bricks and threaten and hurt people because it’s good for their politics. Not quite good for the country, but when have guys like John McCain cared about “Country First”?

Oh yeah, and Sarah Palin is declaring open season on hunting Blue Dog Democrats, here PAC releasing this map targeting the congressmen’s home district locations with rifle sights. No one would ever interpret this in terms of guns, right?

SUPER EDIT:

It seems as though I missed a few incidents in my initial post, so here are a few extra Tea Bagging tricks to update you about.

6. Coffin placed on the front porch of Rep. Russ Carnahan’s Missouri home

A coffin is substantially harder to propel through a window than a brick, a concept I don’t think the people behind this act initially realized. Coffins are expensive though! I wonder if this was just a simple pine box that some proud Missourian built or if some lout decided he’d rather die on the battlefield with his Tea Party brothers rather than be buried in the coffin he bought for the coming 2012 apocalypse.

An update to item #3:

The administrators at the Danville Tea Party seem to be the ones responsible for posting the incorrect address of Rep. Tom Perriello’s house where a gas tank line was severed. The AP spoke to the Tea Party group’s leader, Nigel Coleman, who had the following words of remorse:

Nigel Coleman, chairman of the Danville Tea Party, said he re-posted the comment that originated on another conservative blog, including the address, Monday on his Facebook page. The posts were taken down after the mistake was discovered.

“We’ve never been associated with any violence or any vandalism,” he said. “We’re definitely sorry that we posted the incorrect address.”

Thank you Gawker for the updated information and for pointing me to this excellent map of violent outbursts of populist rage that Talking Points Memo has created. There’s a war goin on outside folks!

The 2010 elections are going to make me hurt myself

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[adrotate banner=”3″]Here we go folks. With the political fates that have been sealed due to the historic passage of Healthcare reform, this November’s mid-term election cycle is now having they key turned and the engine is slowly starting to turn over into first gear. Why is it going to suck so much? Well, besides the normal barrage of television, radio, print, bus stop, and picket-sign ads that we’ve all come to know and love, the robo-calls and people knocking on your door asking for your support, and this great political climate we’re now entering into the second stage of, a few Supreme Court rulings and recent media trends are sure to damn us all to political hell from now until election time.

First the small point. I keep my television off for many good reasons, rarely turning it to C-SPAN when something really neat is happening like Congress passing Healthcare Reform, but if you need even more reasons to hate your digital set, especially in an election year, you have to look no further than Carly Florina. She is running for the Senate in California and if you haven’t already heard her name you’d surely recognize her campaign from their crazy ridiculous Demon Sheep TV ad. It’s a retarded ad to begin with, but even more so the people behind its production, Fred Davis III of Strategic Perception Inc., understand that in today’s viral video-obsessed internet world the more bizarre and weird the videos you produce are, the more people will talk about how their weird and bizarre your videos are and the person(s) attached to that video, thereby getting people to talk about the person the ad campaign is promoting.

What’s that mean for the American TV watching audience? For one it means you’ll probably be talking to your friends a lot this summer and fall about all the utterly stupid, nightmare inducing, repugnant, fact-less, commercial hallucinations you were seeing on television every day until you decided to put a shotgun to the screen so you could end the madness. Already the Florina campaign has a new epic 10-minute spot where they depict Senator Barbara Boxer’s head as a floating doom zeppelin of bitch coasting through the cities and green valleys of California (presumably where the Demon Sheep graze) to find her next meal in the form of a newborn Republican baby. Maybe this weird political campaign Florina is running is just a product of us wacky Californians and the chemicals in our drinking water, but what if every candidate with as much money as Florina talked to Fred Davis III and asked to get an equally batshit retarded TV campaign going? This balloon ad will not be the weirdest part of a political campaign we see this year, mark my words.

But on to my second and much graver point. With the Supreme Court’s decision in Citizens United v. Federal Elections Committee it was established that corporations can use as much money as they please to fund political campaigns and candidates for elected office. When a business incorporates and becomes a “corporation” they become legally recognized as a “business entity” instead of a company owned by a bunch of people. This incorporation protects the individuals who run the company if someone happens to sue them, the lawsuit is instead directed to this incorporated “person” and the money derived from the lawsuit comes out of the “pockets” of the corporate “person”, the income and revenue of the business not the business owners.

This idea of corporate personhood has now been stretched so far that under the Citizens United ruling the “corporation” is now basically considered to have all the same rights as an average living breathing American citizen, including the right to throw their money around in any direction they choose, and as much money as they choose. In short this means that big business will now be directly influencing politicians and their campaigns to an even more exponential degree than they were before. Rulings like this will make damn sure that Carly Florina, an ex-CEO from a variety of big tech companies, will definitely have the funds to keep making her epic multi-million dollar feature-length campaign ads. A victory for political theater!

Today the first post-Citizens United corporate funded political campaign ad appeared in newspapers across Texas:

Some Republican for State Representative, sponsored by KDR Development Inc. I can’t find the website for KDR, I don’t know what kind of business they are in, but according to this article on The Economist the president of KDR had run against incumbent Chuck Hopson in a previous election. The ad doesn’t even say “vote for this guy we support him”. It simply says “vote for one of these Republicans over this guy in office cause the guy who runs the company who bought this ad lost out to him in a previous election”. I can only imagine how much more fun this ad game will get.

On a related note, through their interpretation of the Supreme Court ruling, the corporation Murray-Hill Inc. has decided that due to their new found corporate personhood their choosing to back the living, breathing, political figure known as Murray-Hill Inc. Murray-Hill Inc. is running for office in Maryland and part of me really hopes that Murray-Hill Inc. will win the race and be able to enact all that political legislation that Murray-Hill Inc. has worked so hard to get across during his (its?) political career. And just so you know, Murray-Hill Inc. is running for exactly the same reasons you might expect Murray-Hill Inc. to run for public office. Let the mockery that is our brave new corporate-funded political world commence!

Resistnet Reacts Racistly! Live chat logs from the eve of Healthcare Reform

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[adrotate banner=”3″]March 21st, 2010 was a historic evening. With the passage of the Healthcare Reform bills America has now entered the First World in terms of providing the most basic of human care to all its citizens (yes just the legal citizens you dopes) and hopefully this historic occasion could also mark the point at which the mass media and those ever so entertaining (read: complaining) Tea Party Patriots, Birthers, Deathers, Uppers, and Downers will finally have something else to laser focus their hate, disdain, and guns towards.

Because of the significance of the evening I decided to skip a really awesome concert and the chance to go out for dinner so I could watch the live Senate debate on CSPAN. I also decided it would be appropriate to spend some time with the one community I’ve embedded with for so long, struggling through this whole debate with. Along with their crazy forums, Resistnet.com also has an equally crazy live chat room where Tea Partiers and like minded individuals can gather to talk and pray and reassure each other that the Communist menace will be beaten back in the good name of the lawd. Below are the best moments from last night’s chat in an edited format (for transparency’s sake I will also provide the unedited logs, but honestly you don’t even need to assume I altered the crazy in these peoples’ words, you really can’t make this stuff up).

Oh also, when I say “best” moments I mean the moments when the Resistnet folks were at their personal “best”, which is to say the words I read last night indicate that the Resistnet community, no matter how their spokespeople paint them, are a bunch of racist, violent, gun-toting, zealously Christian, proud rednecks who would like nothing more than to see our government figured murdered, assassinated, hung, drawn and quartered, simply because they lost their shouting match that’s taken place over the past year and 2 months. I had wished last night would be the culmination and the end of such things, but to be honest I believe that, in the words of the Resisters, “things are only getting started”:

Yay! Sniper assassination party!

Dr. James Lawrenzi speaks for himself

See it’s ok to talk about picking up your gun and killing people because it’s relaxing to some of the Resistnet community

Yup you sure do Dee, but we did see that, we saw all of the crazy that you’re community “supposedly” does not represent.

I thought there wasn’t such a thing as working whites anymore since the latinos move in to town.

How dare those Black and Hispanics go to their own colleges! I’m not racist though, really.

Locked and loaded, with pitchforks (and guns).

If you covered the streets of DC in your blood I’m sure there would be those who would celebrate not having to pay for you in the new Healthcare system.

At this point Rep. John Boehner was giving his passionate remarks about the HC bill, calling to have the senators vote individually so these crazies can identify them and know whose picture to put up on their target ranges.

First they came for my neighbors (who I didn’t like anyway), and I said nothing…

Man even if she was on fire? Nancy Pelosi just can’t catch a break with these people.

Yeah witches are people too (unlike Nancy Pelosi who is some kind of half dog-person, half breakfast pastry)!

So Mellie (who is a big time admin on Resistnet) is welcoming this bill because she won’t be denied coverage for being a woman? Right on sista!

And if you’re happy with your current plans you can keep it!

Yeah, what’s the point of insurance anyw– oh.

It’s all come down to this, the vote has begun.

Too bad old folks will now be transformed into some kind of super immortal race (who will apparently shoot you) with this new Healthcare reform.

The anxiety of the vote got to some people, those would would fantasize about kissing Democrats on the lips (with tongue and everything!)

Oh haha, suddenly that thing I was joking about has become reality for Tana W. Bernard.

The vote is almost at 216 now, most of the Resistnet.com members now admit they’re ready to go to jail for crimes they’re going to commit.

Suddenly the realization that most of these people have wasted the last year of their lives sending faxes to Congress, shouting at politicians, and carrying their guns to protests. Note to self: blame it on Bush.

And finally the watershed moment. The votes have been cast, the bill has passed, now we’re past the point of no return. Time to start “changing” things.

Time to pray to God the politicians die, also time to declare internet silence, mostly due to  the criminal nature of what we want to discuss.

Ok guys and gals, time to get this REVOLUTION STARTED Glenn Beck style!

Yes, F**K talking indeed.

No, we can’t say what we’re really thinking Resistnet administrator Dee because we’re really thinking someone should shoot the president.

What are we all thinking again?

Need new options? Tactics? Winning the War? What ever are they referring to?

Mmmmm KFC.

Tana W. Bernard the lawmakers are going to die soon? Why? It can’t be due to inadequate health coverage can it?

If you turn your protest flag upside down does that mean you’re no longer protesting what the flag represents?

PLANT! EVERYONE WHO DOES NOT AGREE WITH ME IS A PLANT! OBAMA AGENT PLANT!

It’s a slippery slope towards smae sex marriages everyone!

How evil of you!

Linn is too good for a socialist Federal prison.

I think you guys have had this end of times mentality for a while.

Yeah, down with Whitey!

The plants are getting to Moondog6

And on and on and on it goes. At this point in the evening I decided to go outside to smoke a cigarette and eat the rest of the bacon in my house in honor of the historic passage of Healthcare reform. This chat log was long, but long for a reason (there is just so much crazy out there, we need to be aware of it). I’m also sure this is not the end of this kind of rhetoric, nor the end of the Tea Party, Birther, Resistneters or their schemes.

However, no matter how batty, racist, anti-semetic, or violent these people get you can be sure that here at TarsTarkas.net we will be bringing you the raw information you need to know what these people are up to. You can be sure that this is only the beginning of something. It’s sure as hell the beginning of me being able to get affordable and fair healthcare coverage and not get reamed up the ass by insurance companies, but for some others it may as well be the beginning of the end. We can’t say how far any of these people will go to express their outrage against the government but we can only hope that the passing of Healthcare reform will mean a better and healthier life for so many Americans who work hard and deserve to be helped in their darkest hours. Cheers!

EDIT: This is Tars Tarkas with a quick edit, a person claiming to be the real Dr. James Lawrenzi has written us saying the guy on the Resistnet chat is a fake who is stealing his identity. I have no way to verify this fact, but it adds more drama to the mix and I figure it is at least fair to mention it. The other James Lawrenzi claims to be pro-HCR and is very upset.

SECOND EDIT: upon further review, there is no evidence that Dr. James Lawrenzi’s identity was stolen at this time. We are disappointed that there isn’t a vast conspiracy of fake identity trolls on Resistnet.com to expose.