115 responses to “Tea Party – “Deaf, deluded, deceptive”?”

1. 

   RL Crabb

   25 May 2011

   Mike, you’re right about the GOP eating their own, but the left is no better. On the neighboring “middle” blog, one commenter opined that blue dog Democrats were traitors and should be sent to prison. (Does that include Gabby Gifford?) And on many occasions, I hear progressives call Barack Obama a “moderate republican” president. I would argue that if Obama had been smart, he would have directed more stimuli at small businesses back in early 2009. If he had done so, there wouldn’t be a tea party today.

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2. 

   Todd Juvinall

   25 May 2011

   Here is another example of ignorance from a leftwingnut. We on the right work hard to be principled while the left will cheat and steal and lie to win. When Reagan’s 11th Commandment is not followed, we lose. It is important on the right to have varying opinions unlike the jackbooted left. Fran Freedle was not qualified and it became untenable to support her so she was passed over. Sue Horne went on to win a county wide office, Assessor, and that was with the help of many republicans. Gingrich was wrong in his opinion and has since retracted. So, to complain he was thrown under the bus is ludicrous. The left has a double down philosophy as shown by Obama. He threw Israel under the bus then threw the bus under the bus. The left also rewards their scofflaws like Elliot Spitzer, the scumbag lefty who liked to spend time with prostitutes. He has a CNN gig spewing LWN propaganda. We usually boot them from our ranks.
   RL Crabb skewers everyone and it appears to me the leftwingnuts here and on the LWN Blog have a rather personal animus against him. Any debate here is usually not personal but policy. So, the liberals have become a 20% loser party and we can now see why.

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3. 

   Todd Juvinall

   25 May 2011

   BTW here is a great assessment of last nights NY 26 election on Red State. I agree with the analysis. The victory of a 47-43-9 will last only until November 2012.
   http://www.redstate.com/erick/2011/05/24/the-gop-loss-in-new-york-was-about-new-york-not-paul-ryan/

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4. 

   Mike Thornton

   25 May 2011

   While I won’t say you’re 100% wrong, Bob, I would argue that it isn’t quite an “equivalent” situation. I don’t think that it’s a simple “difference of opinion” or “taking a different line” on one or two or three issues that sends the left into it’s (sometimes) apoplectic fits.
   It’s what they see as (and very often is) the systematic betrayal of progressive values as a result of cowardice.
   On another note: I think there needs to be a new variation of “Godwin’s Law” that applies to using Gabby Gifford as a political sword and/or shield. She’s been through enough!

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5. 

   Mike Thornton

   25 May 2011

   This is brilliant!
   Enjoy!!!!
   Class War For Idiots /Tea Party / April 17, 2010
   A People’s History of Koch Industries: How Stalin Funded the Tea Party Movement
   By Yasha Levine
   Stalin-Tea-Party
   This article was first published on Alternet.org
   “I would rather live under a bridge than live under socialism”
   —tea bagger slogan
   Everyone knows that Tea Party revolutionaries fear and hate socialism about as much as the Antichrist. Which is funny, because the Tea Party movement’s dirty little secret is that it owes its existence to the grandaddy of all Antichrists: the godless empire of the USSR.
   What few realize is that the secretive oil billionaires of the Koch family, the main supporters of the right-wing groups that orchestrated the Tea Party movement, would not have the means to bankroll their favorite causes had it not been for the pile of money the family made working for the Bolsheviks in the late 1920s and early 1930s, building refineries, training Communist engineers and laying down the foundation of Soviet oil infrastructure.
   The comrades were good to the Kochs. Today Koch Industries has grown into the second-largest private company in America. With an annual revenue of $100 billion, the company was just $6.3 billion shy of first place in 2008. Ownership is kept strictly in the family, with the company being split roughly between right-wing brothers Charles and David Koch, who are worth about $20 billion apiece and are infamous as the largest sponsors of right-wing causes. They bankroll scores of free-market and libertarian think tanks, institutes and advocacy groups. Reason magazine, Heritage Foundation and Cato Institute are just a few of Koch-backed free-market operations. Greenpeace estimates that the Koch family shelled out $25 million from 2005 to 2008 funding the “climate denial machine,” which means they outspent Exxon Mobile three to one.
   I first learned about the Kochs in February 2009, when Mark Ames and I were looking into the strange origins of the then-nascent Tea Party movement. Our investigation led us again and again to a handful of right-wing organizations and think tanks directly tied to the Kochs. We were the first to connect the dots and debunk the Tea Party movement’s “grassroots” front, exposing it as billionaire-backed astroturf campaign run by free-market advocacy groups FreedomWorks and Americans For Prosperity, both of which are closely linked to the Koch brothers.
   fredkoch
   But the Tea Party movement—and Koch family’s obscene wealth—go back more than half a century, all the way to grandpa Fredrick C. Koch, one of the founding members of the far-rightwing John Birch Society which was convinced that evil socialism was taking over America through unions, colored people, Jews, homosexuals, the Kennedys and even Dwight D. Eisenhower.
   These days, the Kochs paint themselves as true-believer Libertarians of the Austrian School. Charles Koch, the elder brother who runs the family business in Wichita, Kansas, quotes the wisdom of proto-libertarian “economist” Ludwig von Mises, but also sees himself as a thinker in his own right. In 2007, Charles made his contribution to the body of free-market thought with an economic theory he calls Market-Based Management® (trademark protected, of course), which he lays out in a book titled the Science of Success. A Forbes reviewer seemed a bit disturbed by Charles’ overt socialist leanings, writing that the “author professes an almost Marxist faith in the ‘fixed laws’ that ‘govern human well-being.’”
   David Koch is the highbrow brother who lives in New York. He ran as the Libertarian party candidate for vice-president in 1980 and says that his dream is to “minimize the role of government, to maximize the role of private economy and to maximize personal freedoms.” Apparently everyone’s a free-market enthusiast at Koch Industries, including their spokeswoman, who recently wrote a letter to the New York Times stating that “it’s a historical fact that economic freedom best fosters innovation, environmental protection and improved quality of life in a society.” It might be true somewhere for someone, but not for the Kochs—they owe it all to socialism and totalitarianism.
   01rich10
   Here is a better historical fact, one that the Kochs don’t like to repeat in public: the family’s initial wealth was not created by the harsh, creative forces of unfettered capitalism, but by the grace of the centrally-planned economy of the Soviet Union. This deserves repeating: The Koch family, America’s biggest pushers of the free-market Tea Party revolution, would not be the billionaires they are today were it not for the whim of one of Stalin’s comrades.
   The story of how the Koch family amassed its socialist wealth starts at the turn of the 20th century with the birth of Fredrick C. Koch. Fred was born in a tiny town in north Texas town to a Dutch immigrant and newspaper publisher. The historical record is not clear about the family’s wealth, but it appears that great-granddaddy Koch was not hurting for cash, because Fred Koch turned out to be a smart kid and was able to study at MIT and graduate with chemical engineering degree. A few years later, in 1925, Fred started up the Winkler-Koch Engineering Company with a former classmate, quickly developing and patenting a novel process to refine gasoline from crude oil that had a highe-yield than anything on the market. It was shaping up to be an American success story, where anything was possible with a bit of elbow grease and good ol’ ingenuity.
   The sky was the limit—until the free market rained on Fred’s parade.
   See, Fred was living through the Roaring Twenties, a time of big business, heavy speculation and zero government regulation. Much like today, cartels were free to form and free to fix—and so they did. Sensing a threat to their royalty-revenue stream from Winkler-Koch’s superior refining technology, the reigning oil cartel moved in to teach the young Koch how the laissez-faire business model worked in the real world.
   “[W]hen he tried to market his invention, the major oil companies sued him for patent infringement. Koch eventually won the lawsuits (after 15 years in court), but the controversy made it tough to attract many US customers,” according to Hoover’s Company Records service. Just like that, Winkler-Koch Engineering found itself squeezed out of the American market. They had a superior product at a cheaper price, but no one to sell it to.
   Luckily, there was one market where opportunity beckoned—and innovation was rewarded: the Soviet Union.
   Stalin’s first Five Year Plan was just kicking into action a nation-wide industrialization effort, and the Soviet planners needed smart, industrious college grads like Fred Koch. The Soviet Union was desperately trying to increase its oil refining capacity, so oil engineers were especially in high demand—and well paid, too.
   “We are the world’s greatest market, and we are prepared to order a large amount of goods and pay for them,” Joseph Stalin told an American journalist in 1932. Stalin wasn’t kidding. From 1926 to 1929, the Soviet oil industry bought $20 million worth of equipment from America. And Koch was about to get in on the action.
   In 1929, after hosting a delegation of Soviet planners in Wichita, Kansas, Winkler and Koch signed a $5 million contract to build 15 refineries in the Soviet Union. According to Oil of Russia, a Russian oil industry trade magazine, the deal made Winkler–Koch into Comrade Stalin’s Number One refinery builder. It provided equipment and oversaw construction:
   The first Winkler–Koch plants were set up in Tuapse in 1930. The cracking unit operated commendably, and would in the future be the type preferred by the heads of the Soviet Union’s petroleum industry when purchasing new cracking equipment.
   In 1931, two Winkler–Koch cracking units were launched in Baku, another two in Batumi, and six at once in Grozny; the last had a combined refining capacity of 900,000 tons per year. In 1932, a Winkler–Koch unit commenced operations in Yaroslavl.
   At the time, the Soviet Union’s oil industry was a total mess. Equipment built by Western engineering firms was always breaking down or didn’t work at all. Western engineers were constantly being accused of espionage or sabotage, real or imagined, and booted out of the country. Soviet workers suspected of colluding with the foreigners were simply taken out back and shot. Winkler-Koch made sure they were running a tight, effective operation. Unlike their Western competitors, Koch pleased his Soviet clients by ensuring top quality and helping the cause of socialism.
   Koch and Stalin
   Koch lived up to the slogan: “Work hard enough for Comrade Stalin to thank you!”
   The Soviet oil planners were delighted with Koch’s refineries, which “operated commendably, and would in the future be the type preferred by the heads of the Soviet Union’s petroleum industry when purchasing new cracking equipment.” The Communists were so impressed they kept giving Winkler-Koch business and regularly sent Soviet engineers to train in Wichita. It was a sign of growing mutual trust.
   By the time he got out in 1933, Koch earned $500,000, which was a ton of money for a kid fresh out of college. This nut of money served as the foundation for the family’s future wealth, which Koch no doubt started acquiring at rock-bottom prices. After all, 1933 was one of the two worst years of the Great Depression—all assets were priced to go at 90% off. In the end, the capitalist-hating socialists ended up treating Koch fairly, way better than the monopolistic thrashing he got from his native land. So you’d think he’d at least something good to say about the Soviet Union when he got home?
   Nope, not at all. He hated the Commies real bad. But for some reason he kept it to himself until the late 1950s (possibly because he was still doing work for the Soviet Union). Then, after coming back from a trip to the Soviet Union in 1956, he flies off the handle. According to a 1956 AP article, Fred Koch was among eleven prominent residents of Wichita, Kansas, “left for Moscow by plane today in an effort to convince the Russian people that Soviet propaganda about capitalists is untrue.” Sounds like the perfect cover for a business trip.
   It’s not clear what he was actually doing there. But whatever the outcome—maybe he didn’t get the contract he was expecting or maybe he got swindled out of some investment or maybe he plain ol’ hated the thaw of post-Stalin Russia—Fred Koch came back a pissed-off anti-Communist freak and joined up with the right-wing Bircher freak show. He bankrolled a John Birch Society chapter in Wichita and attempted to open a Bircher bookstore, which wasn’t too popular and had to close.
   He warned of a massive Communist conspiracy to take control of America, saying that the Reds were eroding American universities, churches, political parties, the media and every branch of government. “Maybe you don’t want to be controversial by getting mixed up in this anti-communist battle,” Koch said in a speech to a Women’s Republican Club in 1961. “But you won’t be very controversial lying in a ditch with a bullet in your brain.” Strong words for a strong Stalin Queen—must’ve rocked the stockings off the Bircher groupies.
   In 1961, Koch published a pamphlet called “A Businessman Looks At Communism,” in which he recounted his travels with a “hardcore Communist” named Jerome Livshitz. It was from him Fred Koch had first learned about the commie conspiracy to take over America:
   The government detailed a little man by the name of Jerome Livshltz to go around to our various installations with me. Livshitz had taken part in the revolution of 1905, and had spent twelve years in the U.S.A. as a revolutionary, most of the time in jails….
   In the months I traveled with him he gave me a liberal education in Communist techniques and methods. He told me how the Communists were going to infiltrate the U.S.A. in the schools, universities, armed forces and to use his words, “Make you rotten to the core.” I believe that due to his American experience he was one of the original architects of the Communist plan of subversion of the U.S.A.
   My associate and I pulled him from under an overturned car in Tiflis, and he was amazed. “Why did you save my life?” he said. “We are enemies. I would not have saved you. Perhaps when the turn there, I will spare your lives.” He told me that if his own mother stood in the way of the revolution he would strangle her with his bare hands. This is the mark of a hard-core Communist. They will do anything—anything.
   Fred Koch’s paranoia continued to spiral out of control until his thumper quit in 1967. But by that time his son, Charles G. Koch, had already taken over control of the family business. He appropriated his father’s Communist paranoia and made it the basis for the family’s free-market business philosophy.
   “Once, my father ran a business in the ex-Soviet Union, and all engineers who worked with my father were imprisoned by Stalin later. My father, who had experienced this, became an anti-communist and thought the value of economical freedom and prosperity was more important than ever before,” Charles said during an interview with a Korean newspaper in 2008, leaving out the part how evil socialist cash is the foundation of the Koch family’s wealth.
   Once he took over, it was clear that Charles had big plans for Koch Industries. He was going to push the limits of corporate growth by plowing 90% of the company’s profits back into till and diversifying to the max. It worked. The company expanded at an unreal rate: its revenues increased from $100 million in 1966 to $100 billion in 2008—that’s 1,000-fold growth!
   Today, it operates thousands of miles of pipelines in the United States, refines 800,000 barrels of crude oil daily, it buys and sells the most asphalt in the nation, is among the top ten cattle producers, and is among the 50 largest landowners. Koch Industries also plowed hundreds of millions of dollars into right-wing organizations like Institute for Humane Studies, the Cato Institute, the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, the Bill of Rights Institute, the Reason Foundation, Citizens for a Sound Economy and the Federalist Society—all of them promoting the usual billionaire-friendly ideas of the free market, deregulation and smaller government.
   If that expansion looks too fast to be legit, that’s because it was.
   William Koch, the third brother who had a falling-out with Charles and David back in the ’80s over Charles’ sociopathic management style, appeared on “60 Minutes” in November 2000 to tell the world that Koch Industries was a criminal enterprise: “It was – was my family company. I was out of it,” he says. “But that’s what appalled me so much… I did not want my family, my legacy, my father’s legacy to be based upon organized crime.”
   Charles Koch’s racket was very simple, explained William. With its extensive oil pipe network, Koch Industries’ role as an oil middleman–it buys crude from someone’s well and sells it to a refinery–makes it easy to steal millions of dollars worth of oil by skimming just a little off the top of each transaction, or what they call “cheating measurements” in the oil trade. According to William, wells located on federal and Native American lands were the prime targets of the Koch scam.
   “What Koch was doing was taking all these measurements and then falsifying them on the run sheets,” said Bill Koch. “If the dipstick measured five feet 10 inches and one half inch, they would write down five feet nine and one half inches.”
   That may not sound like much, but Bill Koch said it added up. “Well, that was the beauty of the scheme. Because if they’re buying oil from 50,000 different people, and they’re stealing two barrels from each person. What does that add up to? One year, their data showed they stole a million and a half barrels of oil.”
   In 1999, William decided to take his brothers down. He sued Koch Industries in civil court under the False Claims Act, which allows whistleblowers to file suit on behalf of the federal government. William Koch accused the company of stealing hundreds of millions of dollars in oil from federal lands.
   The band of brothers settled the case two years later, with Charles agreeing to pay $25 million in penalties to the federal government to have the suit dismissed. It turned out to be a great deal for Charles and David, considering that in the 1980s their “adjustments” allowed Koch Industries to siphon off 300 million gallons of oil without paying. It was pure profit–free money–to the tune of $230 million.
   At the trial, 50 former Koch gaugers testified against the company, some in video depositions. They said employees even had a term for cheating on the measurements.
   “We in the company referred to it as the Koch Method because it was a system for cheating the producer out of oil,” said one of the gaugers, Mark Wilson.
   Ah, finally! We’ve stumbled upon the secret to the family’s success! At the bottom of it all, the Koch Method that funds all the libertarians is nothing but good old-fashioned plunder. Or, as Koch hero Ludwig von Mises might say, “The Koch Method is just an unceasing sequence of single scams.”
   Yasha Levine is a mobile home inhabitin’ editor of The eXiled. He is currently stationed in Victorville, CA. You can reach him at levine [at] exiledonline.com.
   Further reading
   1. A People’s History of Koch Industries, Part II: Libertarian Billionaires Charles and David Koch Are Closetcase Subsidy Kings Who Milk Big Government Tyranny, But Want To Slash Spending On Anyone Else
   2. The investigation that broke the Tea Party movement wide open: “Exposing the Rightwing PR Machine: Is CNBC’s Rick Santelli Sucking Koch”
   3. CNBC Bitch-Slaps Santelli Into Line, FreedomWorks Admits It Organized “Grassroots” Tea Parties, Jon Stewart Cancels Santelli & Megan McArdle Queefs On Our Founding Fathers
   4. How FreedomWorks Gave Teabaggers a Dirty Sanchez
   5. AstroTurf Revolution Dispatch: Activists Teabag Media
   6. Freemarket Failures: Investors Prefer Doing Business With Hugo Chavez Over Billionaire Koch Brothers

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6. 

   Paul Emery

   25 May 2011

   The Tea Party had an effect on last years elections but the shine seems to be wearing off.
   The NY 26 election is consistent with what seems to be a Democratic surge due to the overreaching efforts of the Republicans to please the TP’s who will pout if they don’t get their way. Here’s the latest showing Obama with a 14% approval on Fox and +21 on AP. http://www.pollingreport.com/obama_job.htm
   The Senate vote on the Ryan budget will show some defectors from the Repubs that I guess mostly will be those up for election in 2012.

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7. 

   Steve Enos

   25 May 2011

   For the record… I like Bob Crabb and his work, no ” personal animus against him” as Todd claims.
   Kathy Hochul was elected and this sent a real big message… will the R’s get it? This was a major wake up call to the right about over reaching.
   The message is clear as is the national polling on this… Americans like and want Medicare.
   I do hope the hard right keeps trying to kill off Medicare and also keeps insulting the largest growing voter groups too as it helps insure President Obama will be re-elected next year.
   I hope the Tea Party keeps breathing a bit longer and the RINO hunters keep hunting too.

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8. 

   Michael Anderson

   25 May 2011

   Paul E. wrote: “I’m an odd duck. I’m kind of a Libertarian Green.” I’ve been using libertarian progressive on these pages to describe that duck–I am one as well.
   I would love to see an RL Crabb cartoon featuring Planned Parenthood associates and welfare queens trying to break into the Skeptic Tank.

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9. 

   Scott Obermuller

   25 May 2011

   I’ve been trying to keep up with the usual rah, rah, for our side and it strikes me that the ship is still sinking and the left only cares about who has control over the deck chairs. It doesn’t matter who won the special race in NY – Medicare and SS are going seriously broke. All the money you can confiscate from the “rich” won’t save it.
   BTW – “libertarian green” = I can do whatever I like and I can make you follow my lunatic religion.

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10. 

    Dixon Cruickshank

    25 May 2011

    There goes thornton with another 10,000 words of BS – I do like the headlines at the bottom though – shows it comes from a serious source

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11. 

    Mike Thornton

    25 May 2011

    I know it’s hard to keep up Dixon, but the shirt version is that the Koch family has been supporting extreme right wing organizations (including the “teahadists”) for a long, long time.
    Ironically the money they inherited (so goes the “meritocracy”, you all so claim to worship)started flowing into the family as a result of business relationships that Daddy Fred, had with Papa Joe Stalin!
    I know it wasn’t on FOX or the Savage Nation and of course they’re the ONLY source of “real” news, yeah right!

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12. 

    Steve Enos

    25 May 2011

    Paul was correct when he posted… “The NY 26 election is consistent with what seems to be a Democratic surge due to the overreaching efforts of the Republicans to please the TP’s who will pout if they don’t get their way”.

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13. 

    George Rebane

    25 May 2011

    General Administrivia – Please don’t copy and paste into these comment streams long articles in their entirety posted on other blogs and websites – e.g. MikeT’s 25 May 2011 at 09:29 AM ‘comment’. Instead, you can include the link to the novelette that you want others to read. Remember, that’s why God inventred URLs. Thanks much.

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14. 

    Mike Thornton

    25 May 2011

    No problemo!

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15. 

    Todd Juvinall

    25 May 2011

    There is no sweeping change or even a little change to the NY 26 race. I recall when Scott Brown won in Mass and the press refused to say it was a change (and that was a whole state!) to the future because the press loves the dems and will never give any credit to a R. Scott Brown won in a extremely heavier D district than Hooza did in NY 26. It just cracks me up these leftys think they can foretell the future. What a hoot. Kind of like the Hawaii vote special last year. It reverted back to D because that is the district.

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16. 

    Mike Thornton

    25 May 2011

    Graveyard…whistling

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17. 

    Steve Enos

    25 May 2011

    Scott Brown?… his positon on Medicare is what? Brown is now being attacked by the Tea Party RINO hunters. A perfect example of why I hope the Tea Party stays alive until the 2012 elections.
    Fact… the election of a Dem in NY 26 race is a very telling event. The NY 26 has been an ultra R district forever.

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18. 

    Greg Goodknight

    25 May 2011

    Thornton’s verbatim copying of material from inforwars.com seems a clear violation of oopyright, not to mention a violation of typical blog standards. It should be deleted.
    Fair use is a short quote and then some comments.
    I get it, Thornton, you don’t like the Koch’s.

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19. 

    Todd Juvinall

    25 May 2011

    NY 26 was no bell weather. Anyone that says it is has no clue. Also, Scott Brown won on being the vote against Obamacare, remember? Then is different then now. Tea Party helped him Steve, remember?

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20. 

    Mike Thornton

    25 May 2011

    Clear violation of copyright?
    Did I claim it as my own?, No!
    Was it relevant to the discussion about the “tehadist” party?, Yes!
    Did it show that the Kochs have been supporting extremist and racist organizations for decades? Yes!
    Does it show, once again. that some of the loudest voices promoting free enterprise and free markets, in fact started out with a huge, unfair advantage over the competition by being handed wealth that they themselves didn’t earn? Yes!
    Does it show that. in fact some of that wealth came from Fred Kochs business dealings with Joe Stalin, a name that is used regularly on these very pages as an example of “communist brutality and murder? Yes!
    I get it, Greg, you don’t like people pointing out exactly who and what the Kochs really are!

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21. 

    Paul Emery

    25 May 2011

    This was Jack Kemp’s district that the Repubs lost. When the message got out that you can be denied health coverage at the insurance company’s discretion for previous conditions when you reach 65 if Obama Care is reversed like the Repubs want it was a slam dunk that the voucher proposal is useless and people know it. This position is a total loser for the Repubs and this election is only the start. Sure it excludes everyone over 55 but those who have been paying into what they believed was a full coverage for over 35 years (assuming they started paying into medicare at the age of 20) feel ripped off because they are not getting what they paid for.

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22. 

    Mike Thornton

    25 May 2011

    There’s no such thing as “Obama care”, Paul.
    That is a phrase that the corporate shills came up with to try and de-legitimize health care reform.

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23. 

    Todd Juvinall

    25 May 2011

    Thanks for another delusional screed. What a hoot. No Obamacare! Amazing.

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24. 

    Steve Enos

    25 May 2011

    Looks like someone isn’t keeping up with current events… Scott Brown is now being attacked by the Tea Party and RINO hunters.
    The election of a Dem in NY 26 race is a very telling event. The NY 26 has been an ultra R district forever and that’s a fact. The election was a single issue election… Medicare.

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25. 

    Paul Emery

    25 May 2011

    Yeah Mike. I was just using language that Todd would understand.

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26. 

    Barry Pruett

    25 May 2011

    If I may Mr. Enos, the Democrat won the seat with only 47% of the vote. There were three candidates. A Republican who received 43% of the votes and an independent, very conservative millionaire who self-funded his campaign who received 9% of the vote. Absent the third candidate, the Republican would have won the seat. Considering the married Republican Congressman who resigned was trying to pick up women on Craigslist and the third candidate, this special election is hardly a referendum on either Republicans in general or Medicare. You can try to spin it that way by omitting key facts…but that dog don’t hunt.

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27. 

    Todd Juvinall

    25 May 2011

    Barry, that explanation is too complex for the two ignoramuses. Try this, 47-43-9. Also, I did a article on the NY 26 race at my blog. It is too complex for the libs here, so I would imagine they won’t understand it. LOL.

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28. 

    Paul Emery

    25 May 2011

    Barry
    Do you really believe that the Ryan plan for Medicare had no negative effect? Also, it’s a broad assumption that all of the third candidates votes would go to the Repub. Many times third party voters won’t vote for either candidate. I doubt if you spouted your theory on the lost election to a group of serious Republican politico’s you’d be taken very seriously. They know.

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29. 

    wmartin

    25 May 2011

    Scott Obermuller sez: “I’ve been trying to keep up with the usual rah, rah, for our side and it strikes me that the ship is still sinking and the left only cares about who has control over the deck chairs.”
    But that’s what makes this all so fun.
    You can essentially count on the Right not righting the ship since there’s too many third rails (Medicare, SS, military adventures, government services in general) so we’ll auger in no matter what. The tyranny of double entry bookkeeping and the bond market will see to it that the wealth is extracted somehow, most likely through a collapse of the dollar I’d wager.
    At some point, the Little Red Hen economy has to have more bakers and less eaters, but the insufficiency of bread will make itself known. Some new equilibrium will be reached. Perhaps we can invent ourselves out of this situation by increased use of social websites and search engines, but I kinda doubt it.
    In the meantime, pleasing stories will be invented. ‘All Persians hate the US because the CIA overthrew an Iranian government a while back’. ‘Halliburton caused the invasion of Iraq’. ‘Republican party governments will balance the books given a chance’. ‘It (practically anything, really) is for the children’.
    Pat answers have always been the mother’s milk of political discourse.

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30. 

    Todd Juvinall

    25 May 2011

    Ryan’s budget defeated by Senate 57-40, Obama’s defeated 97-0. LOL

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31. 

    Steve Enos

    25 May 2011

    “Absent the third candidate, the Republican would have won the seat”. Barry, Barry, Barry… wrong!
    The third candidate did not get “R” votes only. The third candidate was a past Dem candidate, he got votes from all sides and the middle too.
    No spin needed, even the smart R political consultants agree that Medicare was the issue in this election.
    Oh by the way… if I may… IF, IF, IF, IF, and more IF’s are worth nothing in an election. IF you were the only candidate in your election you might have won, but you were not and you didn’t win… IF, IF, IF is meanless.

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32. 

    Paul Emery

    25 May 2011

    wmartin
    I like your style

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33. 

    wmartin

    25 May 2011

    You can just bet that everyone will vote for whoever claims to support Medicare.
    Looking at the source numbers, and I could be wrong here you never know, it cooks up something like this:
    . Average Medicare recipient receives roughly $12k/year in benefits. I suspect that’s a low number given the imposed pricing, but I’ll go with that.
    . Average US income is around $35k/yr per person. I doubt that it’s 100% Medicare taxable, but let’s stick with this number
    . Medicare tithe is a smidge under 3% and has no income cap. It’s also, for the sake of simplicity I suppose, not progressive.
    So, for $1k a year or so for a working lifetime, you get a grand a month from age 65 to around 80.
    Whether this is a better deal than a government pension is left as an exercise for the reader.

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34. 

    wmartin

    25 May 2011

    It occurred to me that we need to donate cartoon ideas. I’ll start.
    [weight challenged blogger crouched over keyboard] RACIST!
    [follicle challenged blogger crouched over keyboard] COMMUNIST!
    [weight challenged blogger crouched over large slice of pie] numma numma numma
    [hat wearing cartoonist crouched over artwork] Ok, here’s Teegeeack. I’ll draw the volcanoes over here. I’ll draw myself over there.
    [horde of lawyers and cops crouched over cartoonist’s house] HE’LL FREE XENU WITH THAT STRIP! STORM THE HOUSE!
    I’m not sure that a five panel strip will do. It’s probably time to hire an editor.

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35. 

    RL Crabb

    25 May 2011

    Ha! Maybe you should start drawing cartoons, wmartin. (Warning: Don’t quit your day job.)

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36. 

    Greg Goodknight

    25 May 2011

    Yes, Thornton, violation of copyright, and you seem to have ‘copyright’ and plagiarism confused. The bottom of the page you lifted it from clearly says ‘copyright’, and ‘all rights reserved’ and copying that much is clearly beyond fair use.
    The screed mixing everything the elder Koch (the Bircher) did with everything the brothers have done, in order to tar the brothers, really is standard operating procedure in too many places. Pure character assassination and a real double standard is in play. Compared to Soros, David Koch is Rebbecca of Sunnybrook Farm. Your readers, and the readers of the website you lifted it from, might have missed that even with all that mud being flung, none of it had David Koch’s name on it.

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37. 

    Mike Thornton

    25 May 2011

    regressive logic dictates that their every victory, no matter how small, is a mandate and every loss is a an anomaly, caused by a vast left wing conspiracy.

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38. 

    Russ Steele

    25 May 2011

    If the Democrats want to make the Ryan budget a campaign issues, then Ryan should take it to the people, by running for President.
    “‘It’s a very good idea,’ says Rep. Tom McClintock (R., Calif.). ‘Paul Ryan would make an excellent candidate and an excellent president.’ If Democrats are intent on making the House Republican budget the central issue of the 2012 campaign, who better than that budget’s author — and most capable defender — to be the GOP nominee? Other members certainly feel the same, McClintock said — you won’t find too many Republicans with a negative opinion of Ryan — but he insisted there isn’t a concerted effort among members to urge Ryan to get in the race. ‘I’ve not heard any rumors that he’s seriously considering it,’ he said. ‘But I still think it’s a pretty good idea.’
    
    Quote of the day at Hot Air

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39. 

    Todd Juvinall

    25 May 2011

    The Ryan budget is dead because the Reid Senate voted it down. Since Reid won’t allow a yes on any vote, (there were three thers defeated as well) then it will be quite a task to defeat R’s in a year and a half with something that never made it. I like Ryan too but by the time the democrat slime machine is done with finding out he used a spitball in third grade. he will be toast.

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40. 

    Greg Goodknight

    25 May 2011

    Thornton, do you also just recycle random phrases from your playbook when you’re doing your “media consulting and public relations’?

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41. 

    Mike Thornton

    25 May 2011

    No Greg
    I don’t use my “playbook” here.
    Actually you guys write this material for me.
    I know you’re pretty well used to just talking to each other and patting yourselves on the back because you think you’re so patriotically clever, but the truth is that a lot of what you guys say is actually pretty ridiculous and pretty great comedy material.
    The truth is that there are tons of people who are saying the same kind of things that I am, but you don’t know it because all you watch is FOX.
    You should try reading David Frum or even listening to him on NPR. He’s a brilliant “Conservative” thinker. If you did. you might be able to have a more intelligent debate on the real issues we face as a nation.
    But you guys always head right for the gutter and that’s why I talk to you the way I do.
    Plus on top of that what I’m saying is factual.
    Nighty-bye!

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42. 

    Greg Goodknight

    25 May 2011

    “You guys”? Sorry, Thornton, I don’t watch “Fox”. I also listen to the BBC and NPR.
    I’ve even spent a lot of time listening to KPFA and KPFK, mostly for the Car Show and “Sounds of Jamaica” with Miss Wirewaist.
    I’ll watch Fox on occasion if I’m not the one controlling the TV. It isn’t that bad. You should force yourself, you might learn something about the ‘you people’ you seem to have such a superficial knowledge about.
    “Deaf, deluded, deceptive” seems to be applicable to many “progressives”, too.

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43. 

    Russ Steele

    25 May 2011

    Mike, as I recall David Frum was recently fired from the American Enterprise Institute for being overly critical of Republicans and their healthcare proposals.
    Three days after calling health-care reform a debacle for Republicans, David Frum was forced out of his job at the American Enterprise Institute on Wednesday.
    The ouster also came one day after a harsh Wall Street Journal editorial ripped the former speechwriter for President George W. Bush, saying he “now makes his living as the media’s go-to basher of fellow Republicans” and accusing him of “peddling bad revisionist history.”
    Frum made clear, in a letter to AEI President Arthur C. Brooks, that his departure after seven years as a resident fellow at the conservative think tank was not voluntary. “I have had many fruitful years at the American Enterprise Institute,” he wrote, “and I do regret this abrupt and unexpected conclusion of our relationship.”
    Now your are telling us that we should be paying attention to this Republican basher. On the other hand Frum maybe right it is a political potato to hot to handle. What the Republican potions? Just let Medicare self destruct, then rebuild it from scratch, once it is broke and seniors are dying from the lack of affordable care. If the Democrats want to pay politics with Medicare they sure as hell better have a solution once they win the honor of caring for our senior citizens.

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44. 

    Greg Goodknight

    25 May 2011

    By the way, Thornton, you do know the difference between plagiarism and copyright violations, don’t you? Because your statements denying the copyright problem were, in part:
    “Clear violation of copyright?
    Did I claim it as my own?, No!”
    You claim to be a media consultant, yet you seem curiously ignorant of copyrights. You might consult the wingnut big-boy himself over at Sierra Foothills Report, he’s been vigilant in the past about policing the blogs that he resents that run afoul of copyright law. I suspect the two of you should be able to work it out.

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45. 

    Greg Goodknight

    25 May 2011

    Russ, one problem NPR has always had is that their “conservatives” seem always to sound more like moderate Democrats. And they ignore libertarians completely.
    In their defense, I think NPR really does try to treat conservative Republicans fairly, but it’s hard for them. It’s like trying to think in French without even having a clue how to find France on the map. NPR correspondents have to be careful… get to know a few conservatives, treat them like real people and you might slip and end up like Juan Williams.

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46. 

    Todd Juvinall

    26 May 2011

    I must say Thornton has all the SOP of liberal techniques down against conservatives. He is our comic relief on these threads and I encourage him to remain. The liberals all share the same playbook and it has been that way since I started paying attention many years ago. During my term at the BOS and CABPRO the local libs used “last pristine” to stop timber, mining and ag. Then they changed to “FOX NEWS, Koch brothers and Mediscare”. Thorton just vomits up the DNC and DailyKOS talking point recommendations. I read the DailyKOS so I know he does and before that it was the HUFFPost and their ilk. It probably frosted their plums when Arrianna made a gazillion bucks in the sale. So, please Thornton, stay and keep supplying us with the material so we can get a good laugh at tthe run of the mill liberal “regressive” thinking.

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47. 

    Greg Goodknight

    26 May 2011

    Todd, we disagree. Imagine that.
    I’d prefer ending the playing to stereotypes that you and Thornton both tend towards. I know I prefer someone to be making a case for or against my ideas based on what I’ve said or written, rather than the ‘you people’ caricatures.

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48. 

    Mike Thornton

    26 May 2011

    Frum got fired because he wasn’t extreme enough for the current Republican leadership.
    He’s clearly a “conservative”, but with well thought out and reasonable policy proposals.
    That makes him unwelcome in today’s Republican party and apparently here as well.
    Let’s see if I have this right….Regressives, can label and stereotype anyone they want too, anytime they want too and for any reason they want too, but God forbid that someone do it to them, right? When I start seeing regressives holding other regressives to standards of honesty and decency, fairness and respect, I’ll start taking your criticism seriously. Until then it’s simply another example of selective and phony regressive “outrage”.
    I’m happy to have a factual, respectful dialog and debate with anyone here, but you guys need to clean up your own side of the street before you start telling other people what to do and how to act. It looks like Greg has actually taken a step in that direction and so I’ll make an effort to do the same with him!

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49. 

    Greg Goodknight

    26 May 2011

    Thornton, you remain a pot calling the kettle black.
    Factual, respectful dialog? Please, don’t use big words you don’t seem to understand, as even this post of yours lecturing ‘you guys’ shows a big blind spot. My steps have always been the same direction here, but you are so blinded you just hadn’t noticed; I suppose all non-progressives just look alike to you.

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50. 

    Todd Juvinall

    26 May 2011

    I have friends who are “progressive” and they are not at all like Thornton or Enos or Frisch or Pelline. They are nice and respectful and we debate in a low temperament way. What happens with the above leftwingnuts is they are way way out there in left field and are unable to function in the real world. Yes I am not unhappy slapping them upside the head when they deserve it, that is true. But, after 35 years of them and their anti mantra’s to America and its specialness, I will be just an unrelenting defender.

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