Slashdot Mirror

But I don't think this is true

I believe it was a freeper thing.

Notice the sign on the first picture:

http://washingtonindependent.com/31868/scenes-from-the-new-american-tea-party (and only a month after Obama's inauguation)

Wikipedia says "teabagger" refers to tea partiers. The talk page for disambiguation is funny. For some people.

As for both parties sucking....

I agree. But the Republicans seem more wild-eyed and mean-spirited about it. "Food stamps are BAD!" I mean come on, guys...

--
BMO

At the same time, the actual loans covered by the CRA were not a problem. Many sources back this up, including this:

[director of the Federal Reserve’s consumer and community affairs division Sandra Braunstein] cited a Federal Reserve Board analysis which found that, in 2006, CRA-covered banks operating in CRA-targeted neighborhoods accounted for just six percent of the risky, high-cost loans largely responsible for the housing crisis.

So what you're saying is, the CRA made loans not covered by the CRA to default. Does that make any sense? I don't think it does. It sounds more like the "wishful blaming" that those responsible began doing once their expensive lies were exposed.

This is Obama's economy, his policies, his executive orders, his parties control of the senate and house - for two years a supermajority.

You mean his supermajority for four months?

http://washingtonindependent.com/74033/the-four-month-supermajority
The Four-Month Supermajority
By David Weigel
Friday, January 15, 2010 at 9:03 am
In the final stretch of the Massachusetts special election for Senate, Republican candidate Scott Brown has focused on “restoring balance” to Washington. He’ll be the “41st vote” to filibuster legislation; the Democrats’ hold on 60 votes has let liberals run the country into the ground. “That’s not what the founders intended,” he said Monday during the final debate.
The irony is that if Democrats lose the seat, they will have had a working 60-seat majority for all of four months — much of which was spent with the Senate in recess. They opened the Congress in January with 58 votes, counting the ailing Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.), not counting Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.), whose razor-thin victory was held up by lawsuits from former Sen. Norm Coleman (R-Minn.). On April 28, 2009, Sen. Arlen Specter (D-Pa.) switched to the Democratic Party, bringing the Democrats to 59 votes without Franken. When Franken was finally sworn in on into the Senate on July 7, 2009, the badly ailing Kennedy was unable to vote and break filibusters

You don't get debates from liberals because you make stuff up. Dems only had a supermajority in the senate for four months, most of which were in recess. The republicans have used the filibuster (or threatened to fillabuster) nearly every bill, basically negating the majority. http://washingtonindependent.com/74033/the-four-month-supermajority Federal spending rose at anywhere between 3.2-5%, a rate below average, and if you start measuring the rate from October 2009, spending has been the slowest in 60 years http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/20/us/politics/fact-checking-obama-and-romney.html?pagewanted=all Oil drilling and fraking has been approved at a faster rate under obama than Bush II. (fraking due to technology). http://content.usatoday.com/communities/theoval/post/2012/03/obama-oil-drilling-up-on-my-watch/1

khipu laid out plenty of facts and 2 minutes crawling the net would confirm everything he says.

How much data do you need? If you need everything referencing, here's about 5 minutes worth:

Healthcare cop-out:

Cut a secret deal to kill the public option, while campaigning on its behalf
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/miles-mogulescu/ny-times-reporter-confirm_b_500999.html

Cut a deal to exempt abortion services from health care reform
http://www.politicsdaily.com/2010/03/21/deal-struck-on-abortion-clears-path-for-health-care-passage/

Pushed for a 5 year prison term for Charles Lynch, the operator of a medical marijuana dispensary, legal under California law
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/04/21/BA1V175SB9.DTL

Granted waivers for 30 companies, including McDonald's, exempting them from health care reform
http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/health/2010-10-07-healthlaw07_ST_N.htm?loc=interstitialskip

Warmonger:

Sent 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8389778.stm

Successfully protected Bush officials from prosecution for torture
http://washingtonindependent.com/33985/in-torture-cases-obama-toes-bush-line

Proposed a three year freeze on domestic spending, exempting cuts from the Pentagon and Homeland Security
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/01/26/obama-allies-struggle-to_n_436996.html

Argued that the widespread use of Predator drones is a justifiable form of self-defense
http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2010/03/drone-attacks-legit-self-defense-says-administration-lawyer/

Revived "Prompt Global Strike" weapons system, considered too controversial by Bush Administration
http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2010/04/obama-revives-rumsfeld-era-missile-scheme/

Backed off on his promise to close the prison at Guantanamo
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/26/us/politics/26gitmo.html?_r=1&partner=rss&emc=rss

Extended the Patriot Act without making any reforms
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/2010/0301/Obama-signs-Patriot-Act-extension-without-reforms

Cronyism:

Violated his own ban on lobbyists working for the administration
http://politifact.com/truth-o-meter/promises/promise/240/tougher-rules-against-revolving-door-for-lobbyists/

Sided with utility companies in lawsuit to stop greenhouse gas emissions
http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2010/08/26/obama-stance-on-climate-suit-stuns-allies/

Gave permits to BP and other oil companies, exempting them from environmental protection laws
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/14/us/14agency.html

Appointed Lawrence Summers as his top economic advise

I am not worried about the possibility of uniformed agents from Haliburton, Coca-Cola or Nestle seizing me up and sending me to some country to torture me?

You might be thinking of Blackwater, They provided a lot of the security, seizure and torture for the USA in Iraq (Haliburton mostly did infrastructure). You can download the The 2004 CIA Inspector General Report on Torture here: http://washingtonindependent.com/56175/the-2004-cia-inspector-generals-report-on-torture

After reading what Steve Jobs has to say about education reform, it suddenly made sense that he's actually a soul-crushingly ambivalent-to-human-rights modern businessman, not the LSD revering environmentalist hippy that was more his image.

Actually no, I'm just tired of dumbass Tea Partiers leaving a mess of shattered cans in the back corner of my backyard (shared fence) and scaring the shit out of my dog.

You know. Assholes like this guy.

Tea Partiers. NO respect for their neighbors. Or women. Or minorities.

Bingo. People that support illegal immigration just cant seem to grasp that they are supporting a system that exploits people that have no protection under the law. Also..dont give me that 'jobs you wont do' crap. I will happily pay more for fruit if the worker that picked it was making at least minimum wage and I know a ton of people without jobs that will take *anything* at this point.

So if we don't support racial profiling, we support illegal immigration?

Black doesn't equal not White, Geekforhire. Some of us support the Dem's comprehensive immigration reform, a bill that the Republicans won't let pass because letting bigoted southerners get riled up is too useful for votes in Election years.

No point in responding to your parent, since he was anonymous.

Basically all the big banks were selling off mortgages without proper paperwork (hence the "Where's the note?" stuff).

Re: Bernie Madoff: This is a separate class of accusation than the others. It's not that BoA did the shady stuff there, just that money went from BoA to Madoff.

BoA is the largest bank in the US. It's quite hard to believe none of BoA depositors ever sent money to Madoff via BoA.

The fact is money was transferred from BoA to be used in illegal activities.

But I don't think anybody was ever gunning for BoA on that account, since BoA was just a conduit, and not an actor re: Madoff. Similarly, there's no reason for them to attempt to "moral police" their depositors when they want to send money to WikiLeaks or anything that BoA thinks might be related to WikiLeaks, because BoA would just be a conduit ("a carrier").

This one was pretty classy. Nothing says "due process" like denying a mental patient access to care, and then deporting him to a country whose language he doesn't even speak, and from which he isn't even descended, despite having evidence that he is a US citizen(and thus not even under ICE jurisdiction)...

This article is rather more general. Cool thing is, immigration violations/deportations are considered to be civil, rather than criminal matters, despite the fact that people involved in them are generally detained in jail-esque conditions. No public defender for you, sucker. And proving your citizenship is a total cakewalk under those conditions...

Googling turns up a variety of similar stories. Perhaps the snappiest is the one that begins with the money quote from one 'James Pendergraph, then executive director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement's Office of State and Local Coordination': "If you don't have enough evidence to charge someone criminally but you think he's illegal, we can make him disappear.".

Obviously, if only by sheer statistical probability, ICE does manage to deport a fair number of authentic illegal immigrants every year; but they are about as callous and sloppy about it as you'd expect a bunch of jackboots with broad power and limited oversight to be.

Maine for one. In fact, until the 1920s, many states allowed legal immigrants to vote in state elections. I don't see this a being particularly outrageous, actually. My father, for example, has been a resident alien (aka green card holder) in the US since the 1950s. He has a social security number, pays federal and state income taxes, social security taxes, local property taxes, automobile excise taxes, etc. Hell, he was drafted and served in the US army, but he cannot vote. He fully understands that he could very easily become a US citizen and earn that right, but he chooses instead to hang on to his national heritage.

Here's a follow up to the original post: http://washingtonindependent.com/101462/california-mine-represents-hope-and-peril-for-u-s-rare-earth-industry It talks about U.S. plans for developing a native rare earth mineral industry and the potential problems.

Kagan? Oh, you mean the Supreme Court judge who publicly said that people can be held indefinitely without trial?

I think that's such arrogant disregard for the U.S. constitution that she she should be impeached immediately.

What is odd is how it's all of a sudden a "big deal." Digg's had a group of left-wing Bury Brigades for years (as covered in 2007 by Wired and a number of other news organizations), but it wasn't a problem until now?

It's sort of like noticing this kind of thing going on, which seems to get missed. Or the fact that the guys with "Obama in a hitler mustache" signs at Tea Party rallies were actually Democrats of the Lyndon LaRouche cult.

Say what you want about the Tea Party guys, there are plenty of kooks there just as there are plenty of kooks at Democrat rallies, but the "ooh only if we think it will make political hay for our side" behavior of much of the media is getting rather old. Digg "bury brigades" are old, stale news, from both sides.

Proof or GTFO.

It's quite simple. The question isn't where to begin, but rather where to end. Let's start at the present and work backwards shall we?

We've got over racist elements in the Tea Party. ("Obama-nomics: Monkey See Monkey Spend", "Zoo Has an African, and the White House has a Lyin' African!".

Obama as witchdoctor, isn't intrinsically racist, but is racially charged given the context. On the other hand, telling Obama to return to Kenya, isn't racist, it's a mistaken, but not a fringe belief with right wing activists.

Are these fringe elements of the Tea Party? I hope, and believe so. But it's hard to dismiss when the leaders of the "movement," exhibit racist signs themselves. As seen with Daje Robertson, self-refered founder of the Texas Tea Party, and operator of teaparty.org, holds a sign that reads "Congress = Slave Owner; Taxpayer = Niggar [sic]." Most people would have used,"slave," also they would have spelled the word correctly.

Also, we've got the pre-Tea Party the president is a pimp, and the first lady is his (presumably) number one ho, and Michelle Obama is a monkey, and who could forget, "Obama Bucks"?

Now how does the leadership of the GOP respond to statements like this? That's the real question. You might not be able to help it if idiots show up to your public rally, but nothing stops you from calling them out. Well silence.

Why? Well the Republic party has long used racism as a main tactic for stirring up votes.
Jesse Helms' infamous "Hands" ad for instance. So was the ad racist? It certainly was immediately perceived that way, but let's use the words of the Helms' campaign manager, and later CHAIRMAN of the Republican Party, Lee Atwater:

“You start out in 1954 by saying, ‘Nigger, nigger, nigger.’ By 1968, you can't say ‘nigger,’ that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like forced busing, states' rights and all that stuff. You're getting so abstract now [that] you're talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you're talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is [that] Blacks get hurt worse than Whites ”

This is called "The Southern Strategy", and hinges almost exclusively on promoting racism, and racist policies. One legacy of this is the fetishization of the Confederacy and Civil War. It is not a coincidence that Confederate flags regained prominence at the start of the Civil Rights movement, long after the symbol had become associated with explicitly racist groups such as the Klan. (See South Carolina,1962; Georgia, 1956) ("It's pride, not prejudice," the apologists say. Yet, many of these people aren't from the Confederacy, regularly make racist statements, and invoke "freedom" and "patriotism" while lionizing, traitors who began an armed rebellion for the "freedom" to keep slaves. The mind reels at the irony.)

Here's two, one by harris, one by research 2000. You may not believe the one by research 2000, but their numbers are quite similar to Harris, so no particular reason to discredit this particular poll.

http://washingtonindependent.com/75525/the-ultimate-poll-of-republican-beliefs

http://rawstory.com/2010/03/scary-harris-poll-24-republicans-obama-may-antichrist/

Actually no. They carried the very signs that started all of this:

http://washingtonindependent.com/69660/correcting-jay-nordlinger

In January of 09, they had a Facebook page that had some back and forth discussion about the 'alternate' meaning of teabag with some surprised disdain when they were informed as to what the term meant. They were apparently unaware at that point.

This is from the rally in DC on April 15th of 2009:
http://washingtonindependent.com/31868/scenes-from-the-new-american-tea-party

One final little tidbit...the debate by conservatives as to whether or not to wear the title with pride ;)

http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/12/to-teabag-or-not-thats-still-the-question-for-conservatives.php

Actually no. They carried the very signs that started all of this:

http://washingtonindependent.com/69660/correcting-jay-nordlinger

In January of 09, they had a Facebook page that had some back and forth discussion about the 'alternate' meaning of teabag with some surprised disdain when they were informed as to what the term meant. They were apparently unaware at that point.

This is from the rally in DC on April 15th of 2009:
http://washingtonindependent.com/31868/scenes-from-the-new-american-tea-party

One final little tidbit...the debate by conservatives as to whether or not to wear the title with pride ;)

http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/12/to-teabag-or-not-thats-still-the-question-for-conservatives.php

"Republicans right now are citing our polls more than Democrats because it's in their interest to do so," Scott Rasmussen said. "I would not consider myself a political conservative -- that implies an alignment with Washington politics that I don't think I have."

Can't really argue when it comes from the guy who started the company.

I believe the origin was a Tea Party follower with a sign reading "TEA BAG the LIBERAL DEMS BEFORE THEY TEA BAG YOU !!" At least that's the first instance I encountered associating "tea bag" (as a verb) with the movement. In other words, they brought it on themselves, to some extent.
http://washingtonindependent.com/31868/scenes-from-the-new-american-tea-party (2009-02-27)

That said, the joke should have died right there, after one good laugh at their expense. I do cringe when the term "teabagger" is used now, over a year later.

The problem is that wall-street lets people decide for themselves how much they want to earn.

A bit like all public sector people. The only ones really good at it though are these bastards.

And at least in the case of wall street, before the "too big to fail" nonsense and they became de-facto public sector banks, they had a bit of a case that they were actually useful.

Then we get into the idea of the stimulus package being useless, even though economists have agreed that it has done some good, and conservatives are taking credit for the good it does. Or something as simple as jobs. Most of us in texas knows that if a person wants a job, they can get one. Millions of people from mexico sneak in and get jobs. So why legal americans? Yet the tea party wants us to believe that the government is steal jobs, and it is just not that people are too lazy to work. I am just saying, from a Texas point of view, only the lazy person cannot at least be a bar tender or cut grass.

I'm absolutely certain that this story coming out right now has absolutely nothing to do with digging through Mr Southers' entire life story to come up with some dirt on him that will give Senator Jim DeMint (R-SC) political cover for leaving the TSA with no director for nearly a year. I mean, one might almost think that the real problem with this guy was that he was open to the possibility of TSA workers unionizing.

There is no difference between the parties these days when it comes to spending.

I'm seeing a lot of terrible misinformation here. This statement is simply inconsistent with the facts.

The Republicans want to spend the money on enormous tax cuts. All but five Senate Republicans voted for an amendment that contains huge permanent tax cuts, including reducing the highest marginal rate from 35% to 25%.

On the other hand, probably the most important piece of spending that was cut from the Senate version of the bill during negotiations that managed to secure three Republican votes was $40 billion in aid to state and local governments.

The Republicans like to complain that much of the stimulus spending isn't on "shovel-ready" projects, but this aid to state and local governments would serve to prevent cutbacks due to declining revenue. This is one of the most rapid forms of stimulus.

Republicans like to demand evidence for the effectiveness of various kinds of spending, but they simply assume that tax cuts are the most effective, without any evidence needed. It's indeed true that tax cuts are faster than many kinds of spending, but evidence (including last year's stimulus package) indicates that many kinds of spending (such as infrastructure spending) is considerably more effective (has a higher multiplier) than tax cuts. The reason is that when people receive a tax rebate, they are likely to add it to their savings rather than spend it.

Also, the focus on "shovel-ready" projects to "jump-start" the economy is somewhat misplaced. Economic forecasts suggest an extended period of unemployment and reduced output. Based on the Obama team's economic forecast, the stimulus should be much larger and extend into 2010 and 2011.