Dallas News Blog

As I look at my franchise tax return due on May 15th (last years revised taxes came to almost 10% of our net income), I'm hoping Gov Hairspray will take a re-look at the burden our state is placing on small business owners.

Maybe someone should remind him today.

Umm... the Dallas Tea Party link points to a parked domain.

Now why would Nugent go and associate with a nut like Beck? :D

(My real complaint: Why SA Ted, why?)

http://www.krld.com/RIght-Wing-Extremists-May-Try-To-Recruit-At-Tea-Pa/4207158

Not to belabor the obvious, but tea-bagging as a colloquialism has been around for a while. It means to drape one's scrotum over the upper face of another.

And really, isn't this what the Republicans have been doing for almost a decade?

Great name, guys. Really inspired. Best since the short-lived chocolate candy drops called Dingleberries.

Don't worry Perry, we're going to let you know what we think about your burdening the state with hidden taxes (Tollroads) come 2010.

They're taking to the street to demand an end to taxation at rates lower than those signed into law by President Reagan in 1982 by representation. Truly in the spirit of the...uh...someone...

"Why not stage a counter-protest, demand higher taxes and more wasteful spending?"

The stupidity of all of this is that nothing has changed in recent years, so where's the new outrage? It's nothing more than agenda-led news salesmen (or the conservative media, call it what you like) telling the general population to finally care. Most of the folks didn't give a damn before they were told to pay attention.

When these folks are willing to admit that they, THE PEOPLE, let this crap get out of hand long before the '08 election, maybe I'll start to think that they can think for themselves.

shit-pants says:
I think it was Toots who called it tea-bag Einstein, no doubt from the vast experience Toots has in that area.
====================================

Think again, buddy. I haven't been using the term, its being used by those putting on these rallies. What is amusing is that most of those attending will be getting a tax break themselves. True stupidity.

It takes a Dick Armey to have a Teabag Party.

Endless giggles.

Public protests, however silly, are totally protected by the First Amendment except from completely-deserved mockery for their status as Ivory Snow-white and uninformed self-indulgence.

"Apparently no-one was concerned about this because there was no street theater? Now that there is street theater, it's too late?"

If it weren't for street theater, how many people do you think would be at these events this year? Serious estimate, please.

The majority of these people likely couldn't tell you what the typical breakdown of the federal budget is, but somehow they're so educated on the matter of wasteful spending since the 2010 budget proposal hit the airwaves?

In case it isn't obvious, my disdain for this whole action comes from the fact that it is nothing more than a party-led event to try and stir up votes for the next major election. Hopefully you are well read enough to realize that few of those potential replacement candidates are actually going to change a damn thing. They're going to fall into the same tradition wasteful spending. Will we see the same outrage two to four years from now when things don't change?

I prefer real action from well versed individuals over mob-mentality from agenda-driven folk.

"In case it isn't obvious, my disdain for this whole action comes from the fact that it is nothing more than a party-led event to try and stir up votes for the next major election."

Exactly. This "movement" was being planned by Republicans last year. They were buying up domain names in August for Christ's sake. It would mean something if Fox News and Repulican politicos were not downright promoting it. Next month most of the folks going to these Tea Bag parties will feel dirty and used, like Chickenpants.

i work for a state agency and we just got tea bagged! a fine citizen came in and dropped off some tea bags and proclaimed we weren't serving him and his money was being wasted and then left. wahoo!

does this mean ted nugent will come by our office too?!?!

I'm in agreement with the first post. I will be sending a payment by May 15th to the State of Texas for approximately 40% of our small company's net income. Rick Perry has created the biggest tax burden on small business in the USA.

"So, you imply that there are people who care about the issue and have spoke out about it prior to this year".

Yes, even when the projected deficit was one-quarter what it is now. The street protest angle is new, but Conservatives are not known for their street theater tactics.

"I'll be honest, I haven't seen any of these outraged people that I think are capable of it".

So your point is not that conservatives are stoopid, it's a more nuanced declaration, they just aren't as smart as you, and unless herded by FOX, they wouldn't care at all.

Do you consider the great majority of anti-war demo's these past years as illegitimate due to the organizational efforts of our Stalinist pals, ANSWER?

Hey Toots,
Just because some D-Bag political opportunists like Perry are speaking doesn't mean these people don't kind of have a point.

And since others have the prejudiced viewpoint that all these people are only being herded in by Fox News and don't really care, I'm going to assume that they've been pissed off for years and now Obama almost quadrupling the budget deficit is the straw that broke the camel's back so now they protest.

Maybe the Republicans lost the last two elections because the people who are at these protests didn't vote for them.

Bart gets it. Most of you don't.

Like I said earlier, its a bunch of the right wing power elite trying to rally the mouthbreater troops with the typical "taxes are anti-american" BS to fight their ideological war against true change and independence. I guess quite a few of us here are smarter than the jackasses who are marching around with their signs and stupidity.

Bush years: expansion of government, expansion in social spending, expansion in foreign aid, expansion of deficit, war.

Statist lefties who crave expansion of government and more social spending become angry.

Obama months: expansion of government, expansion in social spending, quadrupling of deficit, expansion of foreign aid, escalation of war in Afghanistan.

Statist lefties now angry that right wingers are angry about most of what the left was angry about back then, including the liberal social spending.

And the greatest charge is HYPOCRISY, based not on polls or elections, or what was written and said from the right for Bush's term, but the number of participants in protests, and whether or not there is organization behind them.

Grade A goofballery.

Simple question, who here favors quadrupling the deficit?

"Bush years:" Dramatically increased voluntary spending by government for voluntary war in Iraq while voluntarily purchasing applause from GOP base by cutting taxes and putting the entire bill on a credit card.

"Obama months:" economic stimulus by government as the spender of last resort as private firms dramatically slow in making stuff and doing stuff to get income to pay their employees and remain viable.

Easily discernible differences for some.

Diana - the Iraq war, which the dem's voted for in the majority after years of warnings of imminent threat, is a drop in the bucket compared to entitlements/social spending, which grew dramatically under Bush.

Now it's called something new: "stimulus", and not even socialist democracies of Europe are on board Any student of Keynesian economics knows that this "stimulus" has gone well beyond the percentage of GDP at which that economic theory reverses and becomes counter-productive.

The only economic principles at work here are Marxist, and Fascist (look it up).

As for privatizing privatizing profit and socializing loss, as happy as some may be, consider:

• If you’re a 50-year old-with a college degree, you will pay approximately $81,000 over your working life just to pay the interest on the debt in the Obama budget.

• If you’re a 40-year-old, you’ll pay $132,000.

• And if you’re a 20-year-old, just starting out after college, you will pay a whopping $114,000 just to service the interest on the debt created by the Obama budget.

http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=31474

Enjoy!

Obama's Seat, lemme try the laughable generalizations on a bit and try your tactics:

Bush's years: A Republican majority criticizes the left, calls them unpatriotic, and tells them to leave the country if they don't like it. Wars are started, deficits grow, the compassionate conservative betrays fiscal conservative roots just to cut taxes, and meanwhile the Democrats who PROTEST are labeled as extremists who hate America.

Obama's months: Everything from the last few months of Bush's term is blamed on Obama (who started the bailouts?), an ANNOUNCED PLANNED BUDGET is voted in and used by propaganda machines to declare that our deficit has already quadrupled (I didn't realize it was 2017 already, my bad), and Tea Parties are organized to fool the easily coercible into believe that somehow this situation is equivalent to taxation without representation.

Meanwhile the growing 3.1 trillion budget for the current fiscal year apparently wasn't worthy of Tea Parties last year. That extra projected (likely to go up I'd bet) .4 trillion must've been the last straw!

Course, let's ignore that during Clinton's 8 years we saw light at the end of the tunnel with regards to deficits despite the outcry of the GOP (although credit is due to the balance that a Repub congress helped give to the situation prior to their asinine obsession with a blowjob). No, we want to make sure everyone believes that this "socialist" (laugh out ****ing loud) President will do everything wrong when we've only seen what he's done with 3 months.

Here's your answer O's Seat: Deficits suck, we're not magically turning it all around tomorrow, and acting like these Tea Parties mean jack is a joke. They're nothing but early campaigning for 2010.

I'd love to see sensibility in our gov't, but right now the People don't show any of it either.

Jesus Christ. You dirtbag hippies have been protesting anything and everything for the last 40 years! Now, some normal folks with jobs, who are usually too busy working to make it to a protest, decide to protest huge government deficits and you guys can't stand it.

Again. For the folks who refuse to answer a previous poster's question. Who here favors HUGE government deficits????

I love the tea baggers doin' their tea baggin'. It's all in the spirit of the First Amendment. However, they shouldn't be a bunch of whiners when people laugh at their manufactured, top-down epic fail of a circus clown act.

My question is whether the circus clowns who are here demonstrating their lack of grasp of Marxism, socialism, fascism and all those other bad words they want desperately to find a way to attach to the presidential candidate who...what was that...oh, yeah...won the election were out there baggin' it, too, or are you just the bloggin' arm of this super-duper giant "grass roots" movement.

For a lovely visual comparison, here's today in Washington D.C. and another gathering in 2004: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/4/15/720395/-Protest-v.-Protest

@ Diane

You just may be part of the problem. This is neither the time or place to school you in the nuance of Fascist economics, Marxist economic & social policy and socialism, but if you can't see any policies in this administration that bear uncanny likenesses to all three, you simply aren't looking, or you have no idea what these policies were/are.

I could recommend some literature if I thought you'd bother, but I'll leave you to your superior learnedness in this regard with a couple of suggestions.

First, go to youtube and find the debate question on capital gains tax answered by Obama (I'm at work, can't provide link). If you think his answer, paraphrased: "I realize it will lower tax revenue, but it's an issue of fairness" reveals no Marxist tendencies, then I'll assume you're talking about Groucho.

Second, and I know this will likely upset you - there's an excellent history book I;'d recommend: "Liberal Fascism" by Jonah Goldberg of National Review.

You might be enlightened, there's a lot of history a lot of people simply do not know, or would rather forget.

Anther good tome is currently #1 on the NYT bestseller list, and will be for a few more weeks: "Liberty and Tyranny" by Mark Levin.

Don't read the Daily Kos "reviews", think for yourself, read them, and you'll be less apt to laugh at those who correctly identify certain traits in people as well as political movements, because my dear, they are laughing right back at you from a more informed position.

peace/out

Oops. Obama's Seat officially nukes the fridge by citing Jonah "I'm Yet Another Beneficiary of Conservative Nepotism" Goldberg and his hackery in book form, Liberal Fascism.

Great boilerplate, Diana. You debate with an intellectual honesty that belies your apparent youth.

Why, thanks for patronizing me, Obama's "I'm hiding behind a screen name" Seat. My name is real and I retired from a 26-year plus career as a Richardson police officer after I'd spent four unpaid years as a reserve police officer with the Dallas Police Department. How about you?

(Yawn.)

Whatever... tomorrow these freaks blend back into the woodwork and we go back to cleaning up their mess from the last eight years.

Diana, you'll have to excuse Mr. Seat. He's a well known Republican who loves bacon and had to change their name because he's a pussy.

Btw, I wonder if any Tea bagging went on inside the restrooms of nearby protest sites......

I'm always Toots, baby. And stop talking about "fat white freaks", why does it always have to be about YOU?

@ Taylor

Yep - I recall, and you're right in your assessment of the program and abuse. With the gradual Europeanization of the US, maybe well get UK-style cameras, mandatory GPS and other goodies to help the Officer Friendly types keep an eye on dangerous overweight caucasian anti-deficit subversives.

@ Toots - Fat? Moi? 6' 2"" 170lb, but I loves me that bacon like you loves yer beans, so ya never know, it could catch up with me some day.

On the demos last night, I like the way the FOX handed out pre-printed signs cleverly made to look home-made, so as to appear more "grassroots".