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Below are some pics from the Tea Party that I attended this afternoon in Laguna Beach, CA.

There are more pictures at: LINK

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I've been laughing about this for over a week now.....I just don't get it.....

First off,where were all these protesters 5 years ago,when Bush was pouring untold billions down a bottomless pit in Iraq??..When he squandered away the biggest budget SURPLUS in American history??.....When tax rates were reduced for the top percentile of earners while rates remained the same for working class Americans,at the same time wages stagnated or even declined??....Where were these protesters when Bush widened the ability of Corporations to avoid paying 100 billion in annual taxes using overseas havens??....Taxes that WE now make up....The worst 3 states are New York at 11 billion lost,Texas and California each at 8 billion...EVERY YEAR!!......

They protest "run away spending"??....They want tax cuts and spending freezes??.......LMAO!!.....That's what got us in the mess we're in now.......A basic tenet of Economics 101 is that,in a stalled economy,the absolute last thing to do is either of those.....They protest the possibility of our grandkids grandkids paying for the mistakenly percieved overspending in the stimulus packages.....That's already a given,again,thanks to Bush's folly in Iraq....Why weren't they protesting that 5-6 years ago??......

They protest current tax increases,I guess from listening to idiots like Rush Limbaugh and the retards at Fox News.....The fact is,unless you're a smoker or earn over $250,000 a year your taxes have decreased...

It really amazes me how so many people can be so utterly misinformed,when less than 5 minutes of research shows how full of shit the Limbaugh crowd is.......

He squandered the biggest surplus in American history? Are you kidding? First of all, it is arguable that there was even a surplus to begin with; secondly, many felt after 9/11 that a proactive approach was necessary – thus, there was and is support for the war in Iraq. Thirdly, by this argument – no one should be able to complain about wasteful overspending or taxes, ever, simply because Bush spent… I am not sure if you have noticed, Republicans lost big time precisely because many within their own party was upset with the spending… now Obama has outspent the entire cost of the Iraq war in only a few months in office and you are still using the Iraq War as some kind of testament.

I am not sure where you have been; but, at least in California, where I am from, liberals have made their own beds… taxing businesses an exorbitant amount in order to feed the bloated bureaucracy and unions have only, and predictably, killed business growth in the state which has hurt employment, which ultimately hurt the people… yet you want to blame Bush? LMAO!

Wow, you speak of misinformation and provide a litany of misinformation to support that?

No, a big reason why we are in this mess is because of the mortgage crisis which is a result of deregulation imposed by the democrats against the warnings of Bush and other conservatives… [and then Democrats have worked to make the situation worse since then]. Do you not recall, Barney Frank calling those regulations racist? Secondly, in a down economy the LAST thing you do is raise taxes and spend wastefully – ie Obama’s plan. Perhaps, you forgot about 9/11 – perhaps if Clinton had acted in Somolia and elsewhere, about 3000 Americans would be alive today. The liberal wet-dream otherwise known as the UN is completely useless and anyone that trusts their security to them, deserves none… Bush went into Iraq because the UN and all her resolutions did absolutely nothing to protect America.

By the way it is not tax cuts and complete spending freezes, but rather tax cuts and wasteful spending cuts... and it has worked before, do you not recall Reagan... contrast that to how the situation was under the liberal, Carter.

Hmm, perhaps that is the problem… you need more, not less, than 5 minutes of research to understand the situation[s].

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I have no idea just who would argue that a budget surplus existed,so I can't address that.It's accepted fact in every place I can source it.......It's also accepted fact that Iraq had nothing to do with 9-11.We should have stayed on track in Afghanistan,and perhaps even gone into Saudi Arabia.....Of course people should be able to compalin about high taxes and over spending......But why now and not during the prior 8 years??......The money Obama has spent,in stimulus,is at least staying here and the bailouts are a continuation of Bush policy from last fall........In for a penny in for a pound.......


And why not tax businesses,which post record profits on the backs of middle class America,at high rates??.....Yeah I blame Bush,or rather his puppetmasters,for accellerating and widening the ability of Corporations to hide taxable assets in offshore havens....Bloated bureaucracies do need to be trimmed down,but Unions have done far more good,than harm,for working Americans.....That is unless you're against fair wages,medical coverage,retirement packages,even the 40 hour workweek.......

I didn't bring up the mortgage or deregulation issues,because they were not,to my knowledge,part of yesterdays laughable teabag parties.....That's true...That is also where much blame for todays economic problems lie....I was against deregulation as well as NAFTA....
Again,the only taxes that have been raised are the tobacco taxes and income taxes on people who earn more than 250k.Those taxes went from 36% to 39%.$7500 more a year on 250k.....At some point tax will have to go up across the board.There is no other way to climb out of the hole we're in,regardless of who shoulders the blame.I don't like it either but it is a fact of life......No,I haven't forgotten 9-11.Nor have I forgotten the fact that we got sidetracked away from hunting down Bin Laden and wasted time and billions of dollars,as well as lives,invading ,and attempting to shove our version of democracy down the throats of a country that had nothing to do with 9-11 and was never a threat to the United States.....Billions wasted that could have been used to address current crisis...I know Fox News and the Limbaughs only relay information that furthers their agendas, but we pulled out of Somalia from dwindling support by the general public,especially after the "Blackhawk Down" incident and having our soldiers bodies dragged through the streets.That,and the realization that remaining there would prove to be the same type of bottomless money pit Iraq is.....As far as the UN,fuck em and feed em fish......

I really didn't intend to get into a political debate....My original post was intended,merely to point out that what's being protested now,could have,SHOULD have been protested 5 or 6 years ago,and the question remains...Why now and not then??....I'm sure that Obamas being black has no bearing....Or that many wing nuts still think he's a muslim....Or that he was born in Kenya....Or maybe because Obama and his Black Panther buddies are on their way to their homes,any minute,to take their guns??......

As far as returning to the very policies and strategies that led us into this mess,tell it to your fellow Limbaughs,I know better....

On a whim,I just spent 5 minutes looking up a few items concerning your boy Bush....

During his tenure and directly attributable to him are 95000 Iraqi lives lost,in a war that to date has cost 3 trillion dollars....A tad more than the 800 billion Obamas tossed in the kitty to continue the bailouts Bush started last fall.....Aside from the false claims of WMDs and Saddam being associated with Bin Laden,Bushes stated reason to be in Iraq,after the lies were exposed,is,and this is a direct quote.."I'm driven with a mission from God.God would tell me,"George,go and fight those terrorists in Afghanistan."And I did,and then God would tell me,George,go and end the tyranny in Iraq,and I did"....

The global meltdown,greatly helped along by his insane policies,has resulted in 11 trillion dollars of lost wealth.....

Under Bush,Chinese holdings of U.S. debt rose to 727 billion.....An increase of 1100%....

He's also managed to kill 10000 Afghanis..

Another 10 seconds yielded this:

Robert ReichFormer Secretary of Labor, Professor at Berkeley


A Short Citizen's Guide to Kooks, Demagogues, and Right-Wingers On Tax Day


No one likes to pay taxes, so tax day typically attracts a range of right-wing Republicans, kooks, and demagogues, all of whom tell us how awful we have it. Here's a short citizen's guide (that is, a citizen's guide that's short rather than a guide for short citizens) responding to the predictable charges:

1. "Americans pay too much in taxes." Wrong: The United States has the lowest taxes of all developed nations.

2. "The rich pay too much! The top ten percent of income earners pay over 72 percent of all income taxes!" Misleading: The main reason the rich pay such a large percent is they've become so much richer than the bottom 90 percent in recent years. If you look at what they pay as individuals -- the percent of their incomes over and above the highest rate below them -- you'll see a steady decline over the years. When Republican Dwight Eisenhower was president, the marginal rate on the highest earners was 91 percent (after deductions and tax credits, closer to 50 percent); by 1980 it was still up there, at 70 percent (an effective rate of closer to 45 percent); under Bill Clinton, it was 38 percent (an effective rate closer to 28 percent).

Look at the after-tax earnings of families and you'll see what's really going on. Between 1980 and 2000, the after-tax earnings of families at the top rose more than 150 percent, while the after-tax earnings of families in the middle rose about 10 percent. The Bush tax cuts of 2001 and 2003 raised the after-tax incomes of most Americans by a bit over 1 percent -- but raised the after-tax incomes of millionaires by 4.4 percent.

3. "The bottom 60 percent pay only 3.3 percent of the taxes!" Misleading again. Most Americans are paying more in sales taxes than they ever have. Property taxes have also been rising at a steady clip. And Social Security taxes have also risen (thanks to the Greenspan Commission), while earnings over about $100,000 aren't subject to Social Security taxes. So-called "sin" taxes (mostly beer and cigarettes) have also skyrocketed. All of these taxes take a bigger bite out of the paychecks of people with lower incomes than they do people with higher incomes.

4. "Obama is raising your taxes!" Wrong. Obama is cutting taxes for 95 percent of Americans, by about $400 per person a year -- not a whopping tax cut, to be sure, but not a tax increase by any stretch. Only the top 2 percent will have a tax increase, but even this tax increase is modest. Basically, they go back to the rates they were paying under Bill Clinton (their deductions will be limited to 28 percent, which is only fair). And they won't start paying this until 2011 anyway.

5. "The huge debts we're wracking up will cause your taxes to rise!" Wrong again. When it comes to the national debt, as I've said before, the relevant statistic is the ratio of debt to the gross domestic product. The only sure way to bring that debt down and make it manageable in future years is to get the economy growing again -- which requires that, in the short term, the government spend a lot of money (because consumers and businesses won't). In the long term, the biggest source of concern is rising health-care costs. And that's something Obama and Congress are aiming to tackle.

6. "We have a patriotic duty to stand up against Washington taxes!" Just the opposite. We have a patriotic duty to pay taxes. As multi-billionaire Warren Buffett put it, "If you stick me down in the middle of Bangladesh or Peru or someplace, you'll find out how much this talent is going to product in the wrong kind of soil. I will be struggling thirty years later." President Teddy Roosevelt made the case in 1906 when he argued in favor of continuing the inheritance tax. "The man of great wealth owes a particular obligation to the state because he derives special advantages from the mere existence of government."

An acquaintance from law school, now a partner in one of Washington's biggest and wealthiest law firms, explained to me one day over lunch how he and his partners use tax rules to create offsetting taxable gains and losses, and then allocate the gains to the firm's foreign partners who don't pay taxes in the United States. That way, they keep the losses here and shelter their income abroad. I noticed he had an American flag lapel pin. "You're supporting our troops," I said, referring to his pin. "Yup," he replied, entirely missing my point.

True patriotism isn't cheap. It's about taking on a fair share of the burden of keeping America going.

I'm gonna go ahead and surmise you won't hear this on Fox News.

OK..One more article that sums up how I feel and even answers some of what I'm curious about:

Joseph A. PalermoAuthor/Associate Professor of History

Reporting From the Tea Bagger Hate-Fest in Sacramento


The hatred was palpable today on the State Capitol's steps. Hatred for taxes, hatred for government, hatred for state workers, hatred for teachers, hatred for Democrats, and hatred for all of the straw men that leap from the imaginations of talk radio jocks. But the most hated figure of all at today's "Tea Bag" anti-tax rally in Sacramento was President Barack Obama. One of the first placards I saw as I entered the Capitol grounds read: "Wake Up! Fresh Prince of Belair is Destroying Us -- Stop Drinking the Red Koolaid." A state police officer told me that he thought the crowd was "a couple thousand."

It was a sea of American flags of all shapes and sizes and many "Don't Tread On Me" yellow flags as well. The crowd was predictably very white, very Republican, and on the older side. I didn't see one African American (except for one of the musical performers on the stage who denounced Obama), and I didn't see any Latinos. George W. Bush could have been the focus of some of this rage because theoretically their hatred could just as well be aimed at him. But since he is a "good" Christian, white Republican Bush remained unscathed. I didn't see one sign that would indicate that it was anything other than a Republican hate rally.

Several placards called Obama the "Teleprompter in Chief" probably because Glenn Beck denounced the president for using one. The crowd chanted in unison: "No More Bail Outs! No More Stimulus! No More Taxes!" I was given an ice-cold coke from a vender who was handing them out for free and I strolled around for a good hour taking in the scene. There was one Jumbotron television or otherwise I couldn't see the stage because of the number of people packed into the Capitol grounds. It was a sizeable rally. Bigger than many of the anti-Iraq War protests I attended there. Obama's name or face was featured with sickles and hammers so much that his likeness became synonymous with something deeply un-American.

An elderly woman on a scooter -- I didn't ask her if Medicare paid for it -- had a sign affixed to her chair: "If I wanted Socialism, I'd Move to Europe." Many of the participants in today's Tea Bagging protest seemed to be as old as John McCain but there were a smattering of families with little kids and some tweens who were waving American flags.

Speakers from the local right-wing talk radio establishment led the crowd in chants: "Vote Them Out! Vote Them Out!" There were plenty of signs depicting Obama, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid as criminals, or the Three Stooges, or terrorists. One local talk radio speaker denounced Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano daring her to come and arrest this crowd. The straw man being that President Obama and the Democrats have somewhere denounced their tax revolt as being "un-American." In the land of Fox News and right-wing talk radio truth and falsehood blend together in an ideological muck that denounces Obama and the Democrats as "socialists," "fascists," "communists," and "terrorists" all at the same time. Speakers at the rally attacked labor unions and "card check" (a reference to the Employee Free Choice Act), which was ironic because most of the people in the crowd were clearly working class.

The Right has a monopoly on Sacramento's AM radio dial (1380 and 1530 where Rush Limbaugh started his career). So it was easy for them to pump up the volume and get people out. There's no progressive or even liberal information flowing on the public's AM airwaves in this region of California but somehow the Right always gets to play the "oppressed" victim. Ironically, after denouncing the "Liberal Media" and anyone else who suggested the Tea Bagging phenomenon was a product of cheerleading from Fox News and right-wing talk radio, a local AM jock confirmed to the crowd just that: "A lot of this is because of talk radio and Fox helped us defend ourselves!" This statement brought a huge cheer from the crowd. The right-wing talker also complimented channels 1380 and 1530 for bringing in people "from Rancho Cordova, Placerville, and El Dorado Hills." And he said the liberals want to impose the "fairness doctrine" that would undermine the good work of right-wing radio and urged people to go to "Talkback.com" to find out how they can save talk radio from the Democrats.

With the U.S. military base at Mather Field close by the veteran contingent loomed large. They were older vets though, mostly Vietnam, I only saw a few I thought were the age of the average Iraq or Afghanistan vet. There was a contingent of Republican state legislators and their staffers milling about who stood out because they were the only ones wearing suits and ties. Most of the people there were crusty-looking, grizzled biker types with American flag T-shirts and jeans, men with gray beards and baseball caps, women with big sunglasses and cheap jewelry. None of those people looked to me like they earn anywhere near $250,000 a year (like the AM jocks or Republican legislators do).

And therein lies the beauty of the whole Tea Bag "movement." Affluent people like Michelle Malkin and Grover Norquist and the army of radio "personalities" convince working people, most of who have a relative or are themselves on Medicare or Social Security, to denounce taxes on affluent people. Many of the people at the rally were from the eastern foothill communities that are pretty impoverished and would benefit from Obama's health care, economic, and education policies. The foreclosure rate alone east of Sacramento would lead one to think that far more people in this region could use some government help.

We will see if the Tea Bag phenomenon can be sustained or if it is just a one-time Republican gimmick. But remember, in 1994, Newt Gingrich took the House of Representatives with a similarly cornball gimmicky set of "principles" that channeled the same kind of blind right-wing hatred and anger. The lesson from today I think is that Congressional Democrats and the Obama Administration should work together to make the public AM radio airwaves more competitive so more diverse voices are heard. As long as the Republicans and the Right hold on to their monopoly on AM radio they'll be able to stage these kind of hate-fests easily and more often. I'd take the Tea Baggers seriously and move to use the FCC to open up the public airwaves and also use the Anti-Trust Division of the Justice Department to break up Rupert Murdoch's media empire along with the other media corporations that have become as dysfunctional to our democracy as the "too big to fail" financial corporations.

George W. Bush's entire eight years was nothing but a neo-liberal experiment in skewing government and every other public good toward serving the interests of profiteers and the rich. That was apparently fine with these rightwingers as long as the government money was flowing upwards into the hands of the rich and corporations. But as soon as a Democratic administration is elected to power everything's different now. The sky was the limit during the Bush spending binge on war and giveaways to Wall Street and lavish contracts for shoddy or nonexistent "government" services and corporate welfare and so on and on. But now with Democrats trying to put a little spare change in the pockets of the other 95 percent of the population who gained nothing from the Bush years all of a sudden the sky is falling! The Tea Baggers I encountered were very polite and well-mannered, even passive. They need cajoling to act out. They need their anger stoked. They need straw men to knock down and people to hate -- people like state workers and teachers and Democrats. I couldn't help but think that the whole damn thing is just one big constructed product of the propaganda from right-wing talk radio and their ideological soulmates at Fox News.

Bush knocked down the towers.

:]

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LOL.......Yeah I've heard those nuts too......

Hmmm... no where?
It took about 2 seconds to find that...


Well, that is not entirely true for a number of terrorists did find shelter in Iraq. However, it seems that you want to address the larger issue of wether Iraq had anything to do with 9/11... That is much more complicated question that it appears at face value.

To put it succinctly, if there is a fire in one part of town do you ignore another [smaller] fire elsewhere in town. The answer is no. You try to address both. The idea in Iraq was to combat the spread of anti-democracy in the Middle East... which, if successful, would curb the proliferation of terrorists; having a stable democratic government in the Middle East may/might prove to have many benefits in the future. However, it seems that Obama is intent on sacrificing all the blood and money lost for political expediency.


As I wrote before, many people were, and are, unhappy about the spending in the prior administration- and Republicans paid for it during the elections. However, again, Republicans did overspend, but not at this horrific and wasteful rate.

Many people could understand why Iraq had to be dealt with since the UN was, and is, worthless; many people could understand that 9/11 had an effect on our economy; many people could understand that Katrina victims needed help - these were reasons for increased spending... Obama just took office and he has already outspent the whole Iraq war... one shudders to imagine how much money Obama would actually spend if ever a real emergency arose that needed money...


That is because now is not the time, the economy is down and people need work; the government overtaxes companies will look to cut costs - labor is usually chief among them.

In regards to the unions your argument is akin to arguing that since one needed a cast at one point in their life [to heal a broken or fractured bone] and it was at one time benificial for them to wear one, it would be even more benificial for them to wear that cast forever. That does not make sense - in the end, the cast has already served it purpose and keeping it one will only weaken the limb and/or cause it to atrophy.

That is the situation with many of the unions today... there are government regulations, that protect workers - such as laws against child labor. Unions, for the most part, has outlived their usefulness and only serves to atrophy the American workforce.


Well they were part of the Tea Party because Obama is using the current crisis [caused by Dems] to push social reform... do you these words, "never waste a good crisis?" In other they help create the problem, and then use that to push their agenda on the people, while not fixing the problem, but instead making it worse.

In regards to Somalia - the movie came out after Clinton pulled out - so you cannot site negative public opinion when that occurred afterward and arguably, Clinton could have used the facts that our young marines had their dead bodies dragged through the streets of Somalia as a rallying cry... had Clinton stood up there, perhaps many Americans would be alive today.


Wow, it always amazes me, that those that seem most brainwashed truly believe that others are... the irony would be funny, if it were not so sad.

As I cited before, the rallies did not occur back then because the level of spending did not reach this rate at this speed; Obama has already outspent Bush in many ways and, if Bush overspent in 8 years, how much more has Obama spent in 4 months?

Of course, you can believe the liberal lies... labeling anyone that dares to oppose Obama as racist. It is sad, that CNN and MSNBS could not see that many Americans are not happy with the direction of this country... What is funnier [sad] is I recall how MSNBS and CNN covered a small protest by Code-Pink [maybe about thirty people] all day, yet only had time to disparage so many Americans who rightfully stood up.


Apparently, not...

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