Headlines - Wednesday

Happy tax and teabagging day! Brace for the crazy!

 

Today is the day when conservatives hold their "Tea Bag Protest" parties to celebrate the fact that the top 5% saw its share of national income grow from 15 to 21 percent between 1970-2006 as their effective income tax rate declined from 17.4% to 16.0%. 

 

They'll be protesting against new and popular ideas because the Republican party is fresh out of their own. Even this "tea party" idea is an old one, as inapt as the parallel is to the original Boston Tea Party. They don't have new ideas because they don't like them. They prefer the old ideas, no matter how obvious it's become that they've failed.

So the newest "new idea" is to scream; to scream about how much they hate new ideas. It'll work about as well as all their other recycled ideas - like tax cuts, which have never done anything to stimulate the economy and it's crazy to believe that they'd magically start working now. Just listen to Krugman at the New York Times:

 

...Republicans have become embarrassing to watch. And it doesn't feel right to make fun of crazy people. Better, perhaps, to focus on the real policy debates, which are all among Democrats.

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One way to get a good sense of the current state of the GOP, and also to see how little has really changed, is to look at the "tea parties" that have been held in a number of places already, and will be held across the country on Wednesday. These parties - antitaxation demonstrations that are supposed to evoke the memory of the Boston Tea Party and the American Revolution - have been the subject of considerable mockery, and rightly so.

But everything that critics mock about these parties has long been standard practice within the Republican Party.

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And how much will this cost the tax payers?

 

Tea bag terror: protests causing scares, evacuations at congressional offices: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/04/14/tea-bag-terror-protests-c_n_186596.html

 

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The two sides of the GOP teabags

 

The rich phonies who drink their tea with their pinkies out,

 

...leading the poor schmucks who have to use their teabags more than once. 

Oh, and digby has a brilliant analysis of the difference between MoveOn.org and FreedomWorks (the folks behind tea-bagging parties).

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Homeland Security warns of rising right wing extremism: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/04/14/homeland-security-report_n_186834.html

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h/t Dick WASHINGTON — Two United Nations agencies spent millions in U.S. money on substandard Afghanistan construction projects, including a central bank without electricity and a bridge at risk of "life threatening" collapse, according to an investigation by U.S. federal agents.

 

The U.N. ran a "quick impact" infrastructure program from 2003 to 2006 under a $25 million grant from the U.S. Agency for International Development. The U.N. delivered shoddy work, diverted money to other countries and then stonewalled U.S. efforts to figure out what happened, according to a report by USAID's inspector general obtained by USA TODAY under the Freedom of Information Act.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2009-04-14-un-probe_N.htm?csp=34

 

Perhaps LaVerkin was on to something.

 

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"We cannot rebuild this economy on the same pile of sand," Obama said, invoking a Biblical reference to Jesus' Sermon on the Mount. "We must build our house upon a rock. We must lay a new foundation for growth and prosperity a foundation that will move us from an era of borrow and spend to one where we save and invest, where we consume less at home and send more exports abroad."

 

...."We will hold people responsible for this crisis - remake 20th century rules that got us here..."

 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/04/14/obama-economy-speech-majo_n_186559.html

 

 

Then why did you hire people like Summers and Geithner?

 

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The Results of a Conservative Theocracy

 

A young couple in Afghanistan, their union frowned upon by their families, eloped to marry anyway, a gesture I find wonderfully romantic and sweet. 

Mullahs seized the rebellious couple, issued a religious decree, and had them shot on the street in front of a mosque, symbol of their religion of peace.

I think the true symbol of their religion should be a pair of bloody corpses, dreams dead, hopes destroyed, all joy crushed.

Spring will still come and the poppies will blossom, and the air will warm and the sun will shine—but where is the meaning of it all when minds are shackled and love is shunned, when happiness is replaced with regimented dogmatism? A season of rebirth should be accompanied by an expansion of ideas and feelings and human connections, not repression. There can be no springtime for the Taliban, except as a series of dates on a calendar.

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Why the torture boys won't be able to travel abroad ...

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Rewarding criminal behavior

 

Former Ohio congressman Bob Ney (R) has started a new talk radio show, eight months after finishing his sentence in a public corruption scandal.

 

Oh, and Rod Blagojevich wants permission to be on a reality show in the Costa Rican jungle.

 

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It's a good thing they're tax exempt, so they can afford this kind of thing ...

 

Baptist church accused of using Florida detective to uncover and identify identity of critical blogger: http://jonathanturley.org/2009/04/13/baptist-ministry-accused-of-using-florida-detective-to-uncover-and-identify-critical-blogger/#more-9933 

 

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After seeking adopting Bush positions on unlawful surveillance last week, President Obama has adopted another controversial Bush policy: opposing basic legal rights for detainees held in U.S. military prison in Afghanistan. Some of the most egregious allegations of torture and abuse have focused on such prisons as the one at Bagram Air base. President Obama is now claiming that access to courts and review in such cases would threaten national security.

http://jonathanturley.org/2009/04/13/obama-opposes-right-for-detainees-in-us-military-prisons-to-challenge-their-detention/#more-9930

 

 

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Sarah Palin plans to be out of the room — in fact, out of the state — when the Alaska legislature decides how much federal stimulus money to accept and what to do with it. The governor will be at an Indiana right-to-life dinner instead: http://www.pensitoreview.com/2009/04/14/palin-mia-during-critical-alaska-stimulus-vote/

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The worst bedbug outbreak in years has left people across the nation sleeping in their damn bathtubs because they are so freaked out by these repellent little insects. [AP]

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Land of the free

Just so you know: any Dems and liberal bloggers who join the "tea parties" will be considered "infiltrators" by the tinfoil right.

God bless Amerika!

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FreedomWorks orchestrates 'grassroots' movements to serve Dick Armey's corporate clients:                              http://thinkprogress.org/2009/04/14/lobbying-clients-teaparties/

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Why aren't the wingnuts protesting this?

A Senate report estimated in 2008 that the United States loses up to $100 billion a year in tax revenue to offshore tax havens. In a report released Wednesday, the U.S. Public Interest Research Group offers a state-by-state breakdown of the cost to taxpayers of tax revenue lost to "shell companies and sham headquarters" in places like Switzerland and the Cayman Islands.

The practice soaks dutiful taxpayers in every state for hundreds of millions of dollars, according to U.S. PIRG. The citizens of New York and Texas shoulder over $8 billion a year, and the good people of California are on the hook for an extra $11 billion.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/04/15/offshore-tax-havens-a-sta_n_186640.html