Bootstraps

Lady Liberty Shower Scene

True Colors: Tea Baggers Assault Move On Activist

How long until there are Tea Party arm bands worn by bands of wandering thugs?

Nazi Teabagger Alert

Yes.  The guy in the middle of the picture (with the arrow pointing at him) is the GOP/Tea Party candidate Rich Iott who is running for the Ninth District House seat in Ohio.  He "used to" like to dress up as a Nazi SS officer and pretend to be... a Nazi SS officer.  David Duke "used to" be a member of the KKK.  Yes, teabaggers, enjoy the hate.  more

Weekly Link Dump

Teabagger Politician accused of fucking little girl he met at church where he's an "elder."
David Vitter (R-LA) is avoiding debates with his opponent Charlie Melancon.

Who knew Afghanistan was an EXXXTREME version of ancient Greece?
Even Fox Noise's own Chris Wallace can see that Glenn Beck is full of shit.
The Waterworld of white self pity.

Modus Operandi Podcast episode 29

 episode 29 8/20/2010 

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Notes:  At 1:48:12 This is one of the longest episodes to date as we were off for almost three weeks so there was a bit of catching up to do.

Here are some visual aids and comments that accompany this episode that aren't already posted on the blog in the recent past:

We totally fail to perform the Ogrefest theme song.  

I do not know the source of this graph but it is a good one. We mention this during the podcast and it is important that you look at this. The Democratic tax plan is truly progressive taxation. Someone that makes $10,000 a year simply cannot afford to pay $1000 in taxes, but someone that makes $1 million a year can pay $100,000 and still have $900,000 dollars in their pocket for that year. That's an enormous amount of money, enough for most of us to live out the rest of our lives comfortably. Progressive taxation is incredibly fair because the financial pain that paying $25 causes for someone that makes $10,000 a year is far greater than the financial pain caused by a millionaire paying out $100,000.

Oil plume under the water.  I notice since the podcast that there are suddenly a spate of optimistic newspaper articles about microbes eating the oil.  I wonder how much BP paid to make that happen.

In relation to Target giving money to the MN pact that supports this extremist right wing tea party, it appears that Best Buy gave around $100,000 to the same group.

T-Shirt Coming Soon:  Ogrefest - War Mongering Machine

Because I am running so late getting this podcast edited and uploaded I did not insert the "Dr. David Overbey Says Something Positive About Anything" theme music or introduction, but there are at least three places in the show that I could have used for the segment.  My apologies for being a lame ass though the intro and theme music would have made this 1:48 episode even longer and screw you for being upset if you are.  Which you aren't.  Because you're awesome.

Bike Paths Road to Communism Says Teabagger Politician

You just can't make this shit up.

Bat Shit Crazy Report: Tea Party Attacks Bachmann

The comparisons between American politics and the Mad Hatter's tea party in Alice in Wonderland seem to take less and less effort as time passes.  Yes, you read the headline right, the queen of the bat shit crazies, Michelle Bachmann, has come under attack from the Missouri Teabaggers.  Did someone get a picture of her reading a book?  Maybe she scolded someone for calling her black butler "boy?"  No, it's because she's endorsed Roy Blunt (R-MO) in his bid to retain his Senate seat.  That's right, she's stepped out of line and her name is mud.  Curiouser and curiouser.

More Alabama Bat Shit

Why the Tea Party May be Good for Dems

NEVADA - Yesterday Tea Party wingnut, militia supporter, and possible Scientologist Sharron Angle beat out her opponent, the less nutty (see her "barter for healthcare with chickens" remarks) Sue Lowden in the GOP Senate primary.  Many people thought that the election this fall would be a very difficult one for Harry Reid but they also thought he would be running against the former GOP State chairperson Lowden rather than the flat out kooky Angle.  The consensus is that Lowden was beaten by the level of ridicule she received for implying we should bring chickens to our doctor or offer to paint his house in exchange for health care, and Lowden was afraid to ridicule Angle's insanity because it's pretty much orthodox wingnuttiness.

For a certain group of Americans (let's call them Fox-ites) the Tea Party seems like a reasonable expression of anger against government that they're so angry at.  They have convinced themselves they're angry about "big government" though they voted twice for the man that expanded government more than any in history.  They've convinced themselves they're angry about "socialism" though not a single one of them could define it if their life depended on it.  Basically they've convinced themselves that the Fox "News" shows they watch (and the right wing radio they listen to) are based in reality and report actual facts about the world around them.  What most of these people don't realize (or ignore) is how far from rational most of the Tea Party candidates are, and they're going to get an upclose and personal look come fall.  Now demonstration of the lunacy of some of these nutjobs will only reinforce the faithbased beliefs of the Beck-oids and Dittoheads, but enough people will be appalled at these lunatics that I feel what could have been an intense thrashing of Democrats this fall may well turn out to be less than two licks with an open hand. 

Let's just look at this Angle woman as an example.  Despite Lowden's idiotic remarks about health care and chickens, she's a seasoned politician who could appeal to the more moderate conservative voters in Nevada.  Angle, on the other hand, supports the way out militia group called The Oath Keepers: 

Often seen at gun shows and similar settings, the Oath Keepers were singled out by the Southern Poverty Law Center in its 2009 report on the return of the militia movement since President Obama was elected as "a particularly worrisome example of the Patriot revival."

According to the SPLC, Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes, a former staffer for Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) warns his followers against "a coming dictatorship" that will happen if "our brothers in arms go along and comply with unconstitutional, unlawful orders." An extensive report on the group by Mother Jones in March suggests supporters of the movement believe they're living through the first steps of the shift away from constitutional freedom. Members of the group -- many of them in the armed forces -- share the "belief that the government is already turning on its citizens, they are recruiting military buddies, stashing weapons, running drills, and outlining a plan of action [to stop it]," the magazine reported.

...

The Reid camp is already signaling it plans to paint Angle as an extremist -- or even a paranoid -- by highlighting statements like her recent observation that Americans are "afraid they'll have to fight for their liberty in more Second Amendment kinds of ways."

Angle's endorsement of the Oath Keepers will only bolster that image. The group is preoccupied with nightmarish visions of U.S. citizens being marched into Nazi-style concentration camps. One part of the Oath Keepers' creed reads: "Such a vile order to forcibly intern Americans without charges or trial would be an act of war against the American people, and thus an act of treason, regardless of the pretext used. We will not commit treason, nor will we facilitate or support it.'NOT on Our Watch!'" TPM

With very little digging, Dems should be able to paint most Teabaggers their own true colors as delusional, fascist, hate-filled bigots... if they have the balls to do so.  Rand Paul, for instance has already managed to all but don his KKK robes without any prodding from the left, and Sarah Palin's endorsement appears to cause "independent" voters (whatever the hell that means) to run away in droves leaving incumbents like Barbara Boxer looking safer than expected.  We'll see come November but the recent election results (like the strong Dem win of Murtha's old seat) give me hope.

Teabag Flag

Glimmer of Hope? Tea Party Pressure Begins Melting GOP

So the teabaggers start having a real effect.  Senator Bob Bennett (R-UT) is out of the race for the upcoming election.  Bennett was eliminated from nomination in the second round of voting at the Utah Republican convention.  If Bennett isn't conservative enough for these people (seriously, Bob Bennett, isn't conservative?) then they're liable to push their candidates so far out to the right that none of them can win.  I bet they will win in a few places but mostly I think they're going to unseat electable Republicans with lunatics that will be beaten handily by their Democratic (or, I would prefer but know will never happen, independent left wing) opponents.

Ogre-oid: Crash The Tea Party a hoax?

So I thought this was a great idea but I noticed how many people on the left thought it was counterproductive.  Then Greg Correll of slate.com did some investigative work. 

Ogre-oid: Post Health Bill Threats from Palin, Teabaggers

I think this graph from Sarah Palin's PAC website says it all.  She "targets" the "enemy" by placing "gun sites" over their homes.  Yep.

Apparently the threats and actual actions are not only being aimed at opposition politicians but members of their families as well.  Good call, right wingers.  It's about time for the jack booted thugs.

Ogre-oid: Republicans Blame Democrats for Teabagger Epithets

Just to bring you up to date, at a recent gathering of the lunatic right (i.e. the Republican non-ultramega "base") to protest health care reform the crowd chanted "nigger" at Rep. John Lewis (D-GA) as he went from building to building and an elderly man shouted, "Barney, you faggot" at Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) to laughter from the rest of the crowd.  Civilized Americans would be appalled at this behavior (which I believe reveals more about the true reason for teabagger anger than any bills in Congress) but Republicans' reaction to it can be summed up in muted at best or completely nutjob like Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA) who blamed it on (wait for it)  the Democrats and their "totalitarian tactics" like majority rule by our elected representatives.

"When you use totalitarian tactics, people begin to act crazy. And I think, y'know there's people that have every right to say what they want. If they want to smear someone they can do it. It's not appropriate. and I think I would stop short of characterizing the 20,000 people who were protesting that all of them were doing that."

It must be fun living through the looking glass where everything is the opposite of reality.  A universe where this utterly flawed reform bill contains "Death Panels," forces us to euthanize Grandma, eliminates Medicare (a program the Republicans suddenly want to protect fiercely after trying to kill it since it was first suggested), and will put America so deeply in debt we won't be able to keep the lights on (as opposed to the huge savings the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) says it will deliver over the course of the next decade.  A universe where fascism and communism are the same thing.  A universe where a parliamentary procedure they used to ram through Bush's tax cuts which have nearly bankrupted the country (and when added to the price tag for his insane foreign wars they may very well have bankrupted us, we just haven't filed for Chapter 11 yet) is suddenly "exotic" and like nothing that has ever been done before in history. 

When the revolution comes I want to be one of the ones lining these SOBs up against the wall.  They've destroyed this country and will not stop until slavery and indentured servitude is the most common state of the lower classes.  If you vote Republican, FUCK YOU.

Ogre-oid: Justice Clarence Thomas's Wife Joins Teabaggers

As Virginia Thomas tells it in her soft-spoken, Midwestern cadence, the story of her involvement in the "tea party" movement is the tale of an average citizen in action.


"I am an ordinary citizen from Omaha, Neb., who just may have the chance to preserve liberty along with you and other people like you," she said at a recent panel discussion with tea party leaders in Washington. Thomas went on to count herself among those energized into action by President Obama's "hard-left agenda."


But Thomas is no ordinary activist.


She is the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, and she has launched a tea-party-linked group that could test the traditional notions of political impartiality for the court...

...Her biography notes that Thomas is a fan of Rush Limbaugh and Mark Levin, author of Men in Black: How the Supreme Court is Destroying America.


"She is intrigued by Glenn Beck and listening carefully," the bio says.  read complete article

 It leaves me gasping like a fish that finds itself suddenly on the shore.  I knew Justice Thomas was a moron but couldn't his wife wait until he retired to become an open supporter of these America haters?  She even uses the idea of  "what made America great" to define these bigots, assholes, idiots, and fascists.  Is that really "what made America great?"  It wasn't tolerance, unions, regulation of industry and finance, reluctance to enter wars, free thinking, and individual freedom?  It wasn't outlawing and abhorring torture?  What made America great was semi-literate hate mongers with no proof of their allegations, just belief?  Fuck that America.

Economic Domino Principle

Teabaggers