not in the Soap Box cause it ain't news

http://www.salon.com/news/tea_parties/index.html?story=/opinion/conason/2010/09/15/clintontea

Tea Party is a sham to lead the weak minded to their own destruction!

9/15/2010 8:04:52 PM

go suck a cock you left wing commie puff ball.

9/15/2010 8:05:54 PM

I'm a registered libertarian

but I can't stand behind this Tea Party bullshit cause motherfuckers are getting duped!

9/15/2010 8:07:47 PM

your language is offensive

9/15/2010 8:08:24 PM

Quote :

"[Clinton]mocked Dan Maes, the floundering Republican gubernatorial candidate in Colorado. "He says that the bike paths that have made Denver one of the healthiest cities in the country are a plot to turn over Colorado’s sovereignty to the United Nations." Clinton paused and chuckled. "I didn’t make this stuff up." "

PWNT SO SOUR!

9/15/2010 8:09:35 PM

Quote :

"Republican gubernatorial candidate Dan Maes is warning voters that Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper's policies, particularly his efforts to boost bike riding, are "converting Denver into a United Nations community." "This is all very well-disguised, but it will be exposed," Maes told about 50 supporters who showed up at a campaign rally last week in Centennial. Read more: Bike agenda spins cities toward U.N. control, Maes warns - The Denver Post http://www.denverpost.com/election2010/ci_15673894#ixzz0ze9op9x1"

wtf

9/15/2010 8:10:34 PM

moron

9/15/2010 8:11:27 PM

Quote :

"The Republican Party had changed, said Clinton, during the course of his own lifetime. "It’s a very different Republican Party from the one I grew up with," he said, a change that began "when they foresaked their founder, Abraham Lincoln" to chase segregationist voters in the South. Republican traditions favored private initiative and smaller government, but if the nation needed federal action, the Republicans supported it. He recited a litany of landmark Republican programs, from Lincoln’s creation of the land-grant college system to Theodore Roosevelt’s anti-trust reforms to Eisenhower’s construction of the Interstate Highway System."

these Tea Parties are finally doing the work for the terrorists and anarchists by dismantling the American democracy

9/15/2010 8:14:03 PM

hating the tea party is the "in thing" for young democrats these days

9/15/2010 8:47:05 PM

it's always "in" to despise the enemies of freedom

9/15/2010 8:50:25 PM

Quote :

"Republican traditions favored private initiative and smaller government, but if the nation needed federal action, the Republicans supported it."

Yes, propping up failing business models/pension and paying for erections is exactly where our federal dollars need to be going.

My follow up question to clinton would be hasnt the democratic party changed from "ask not what your country can do for you...." to "gimme gimme, I dont care if there isnt any money..go get some from all those people who have more than me..."

9/15/2010 8:53:01 PM

Tea Party members might be wealthier and "more educated" but that doesn't mean they know dick about shit

Quote :

"Tea Party supporters’ fierce animosity toward Washington, and the president in particular, is rooted in deep pessimism about the direction of the country and the conviction that the policies of the Obama administration are disproportionately directed at helping the poor rather than the middle class or the rich."

yeah
FUCK the poor - they've had it too easy for too long!
Jesus fucking HATED the poor so we'd all be better off without them

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/15/us/politics/15poll.html

and here's your BETTER EDUCATED:

Quote :

"“I just feel he’s getting away from what America is,” said Kathy Mayhugh, 67, a retired medical transcriber in Jacksonville. “He’s a socialist. And to tell you the truth, I think he’s a Muslim and trying to head us in that direction, I don’t care what he says. He’s been in office over a year and can’t find a church to go to. That doesn’t say much for him.”"

9/15/2010 8:59:25 PM

Quote :

"conviction that the policies of the Obama administration are disproportionately directed at helping the poor rather than the middle class or the rich.""

haha, where did that come from?

Tea parties are against the growing size of govt and spending/debt. Neither are sustainable...no matter what economic level you are.

9/15/2010 9:07:47 PM

read the NY Times article I cited

the Times, in conjunction with CBS News, conducted a poll

Quote :

"More than half say the policies of the administration favor the poor, and 25 percent think that the administration favors blacks over whites — compared with 11 percent of the general public."

9/15/2010 9:09:25 PM

My mother thinks she is a member of the Tea Party.

I hate all things related to my mother, who is an irrational bigoted uneducated bitch; which casts a poor light on said Tea Party.

9/15/2010 9:16:12 PM

I'm sad that you have such a bad relationship with your mother

if my parents and I disagree about something we sit down and talk it out
even if we don't agree there's always an element of mutual respect

mostly, however, it is my parents disagreeing with my desire to own firearms, buy land and protect it

9/15/2010 9:17:38 PM

ok, from your NY Times/CBS poll.

And if you read the whole thing you see the problem. We have to cut spending and the biggest issues are going to be medicare/medicaid and SS. Those are the beasts that are going to bankrupt us. But people are so dependent on the govt tit, people will riot if they are taken away. (which btw isnt a serious solution anyone is discussing) But you have to start reforms that either limits the access govt has to these funds or start creating ways to lessen the need for the programs.

Eventually ONE generation is going to get the shit end of the stick but one will have to step up to the challenge. Politicians know they need votes so they simply kick the problems down the road. imo

9/15/2010 9:19:36 PM

as my father says "just agree with her, you know the laws of physics don't aply to your mother"

she didn't beleive me when I told her that a pound of feathers and a pound of iron would fall at the same time on the moon.

also she doesn't believe alot of other common held knowledge.

9/15/2010 9:24:26 PM

I just want to address the "I'm sure we can find just as many Democrats saying retarded shit" argument before it even comes up

I'm NOT a Democrat - I haven't voted for a Dem in years (and even if I did it is none of your fucking business)

with that said, just because some assclown said something insufferably retarded does not excuse OTHER assclowns from being fucking idiots

In my opinion this country should NOT be steered by emotionally charged, uninformed soon-to-be-retiree pessimists

what we need are deeply committed, optimistic and patriotic READERS in our offices
and journalists with the gumption to report real news and to follow a story all the way back to the money (because that's what is REALLY going on)

9/15/2010 9:25:33 PM

^I agree, but you have to be careful not to paint everyone with a large brush. All parties have idiots in them, it doesnt make them ALL idiots. I applaud the goals of smaller govt and less spending. Dems and Repubs arent delivering it, its time to support those that will act.

9/15/2010 9:37:17 PM

I'm all for third parties!

unfortunately the Tea Party is not a third party
it is a veiled PR campaign run by the Republicans, the Koch brothers and other private interests

9/15/2010 10:30:19 PM

and the jews, right

9/15/2010 11:10:40 PM

Quote :

"We have to cut spending and the biggest issues are going to be medicare/medicaid and SS. Those are the beasts that are going to bankrupt us."

Have you looked at our military spending? Really? Have you looked[/it at it?

http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/us_welfare_spending_40.html

You can see medicare taking up 457.2 billion USD from our budget. What should we do to reduce it? Well, we can increase the age in which you qualify for medicare, we can reduce benefits, we can put in income caps, which would basically make it a medicaid for old people. Either way, it would require reducing the amount of people eligible for it.

Now, from what I gather from many Tea Party "members," is that they support Medicare. Ok. So do I. I also gather that they don't like it when you talk about cutting their benefits. Lets face it, Medicare [i]isn't insurance for the most part. It functions like insurance, but it is mainly there to help reduce the risk that actual insurance companies have in insuring us. While it's nice to think that we can attach equal amounts of "risk" to each of us, we all know that older people are at a greater risk of becoming sick than a 20 year old, much like how a 16 year old is at a greater risk of getting into a car accident. So by having them fall under a government run health insurance carrier, it helps keeps their insurance costs manageable as well as providing adequate coverage and it helps keeps our insurance costs manageable.

But to me, it just seems like a complete contradiction to the Tea Party's ideology of being for Medicare, yet they'll rail "big" government and FDR. I just don't understand how you can be for something and be against it at the same time.

Now, the next thing you'll see on that list is "Vendor payments (welfare)." If you keep expanding the menu, you will see Medicaid grants to states. It's 275.4 Billion USD, almost half of what is paid for in medicare, and almost 1/8th of what is paid for on national defense. But what should we cut on that? Should we just eliminate medicaid? How do we keep the "lazy" people off of medicaid, and give it to people who genuinely need it and who want to better themselves, IE, give them a helping hand to help them live the American dream. I know that there's talk of getting rid of anchor babies, but how much will we really save? Will it just be a drop in the bucket? To me, it really seems like it's more of a way to appease Tea Party members then to actually solve the problem.

How about our military spending? We have one of the highest, if not the highest, military budgets in the entire world. It's about 25% of our budget. What better way to cut spending then to start with the part that costs the most? We spend 895 Billion USD on our military per year. How about getting out of some of our wars? It would seem like a large military would be directly contradictory to the Tea Party's ideology. Again, they want a small government. That same large military that protects us is the same one that runs us and can attack us if it so chooses. But if you want a small government, how can you have one with a large, powerful, military? We can cut R&D, make an attempt to get out of some of these wars, and stop trying to be the world police.

I'm not advocating a weak military, but a smaller military. Is it really important for us to have the best military in the world? The only thing it's contributing is debt.

If you're concerned about beasts that will bankrupt us, look no more, it will be our own military.

And while I would love less spending, where do we begin? Just throwing out general areas to cut, like "welfare," doesn't help. We need specifics. I don't see the Tea Party as advocating ideas that will help us out. I see them as being nothing more than a bunch of tools who really don't know what they want.

9/15/2010 11:18:58 PM

For fuck's sake, if you're going to Soap Box then take it to the Soap Box.

Doesn't matter if its news or not, politics that you're going to actively debate goes in that shit hole.

9/15/2010 11:19:24 PM

Shut the fuck up.

9/15/2010 11:26:07 PM

haha. lefties and libertarians getting worked up over conservative activism. you dumbshits should listen to yourselves sometime and you'll see you sound just as dumb as these teabaggers.

9/15/2010 11:49:17 PM

^You're totally right, dude.

Clinton is such a "dumbshit." Every time he opens his mouth, he sounds just like them teabaggers.

9/16/2010 12:16:10 AM

lets retire a couple of nuclear subs

and lets cut our armored divisions

nobody fights those kinds of wars anymore

9/16/2010 12:30:19 AM

if you cut the federal spending in half, assuming this wouldn't be devastating for the economy/country, it would take 6-7 years to cut our 13 TRILLION debt down to a measly 6 TRILLION (this is making the very wrong assumption that tax rates stay constant, and tax receipts stay concept, realistically, this time period would be closer to 12-15 years).

People who harp on the debt have absolutely no perspective on how deep the hole is. It's dumb to cripple the country by slashing budgets without regard, when the time period to see real benefits (in the PERFECT scenario) is long enough to allow every other country to surpass us.

Obviously the debt needs to be significantly reduced, by the most intelligent way to go about it is targeted methodical cuts designed for long-term stability, while maintaining our investment in the science, technology, and people that support innovation and production.

[Edited on September 16, 2010 at 12:36 AM. Reason : ]

9/16/2010 12:35:48 AM

^^^I was talking about people in this thread, you dumbshit

[Edited on September 16, 2010 at 12:36 AM. Reason : ^]

9/16/2010 12:36:33 AM

the Tea Party isn't really activism

it is a well-funded PR campaign to undermine the power of the President and to push for the deregulation of big business (an act that will almost certainly financially benefit the funders)

9/16/2010 12:52:52 AM

^^Thanks for clarifying.

Next time, be more specific, and we won't have these misunderstandings!

9/16/2010 1:33:45 AM

In addition to cuts in the budget, especially the military, we will need to raise taxes on everybody, especially the rich (start with a new 45% bracket for individuals making more than $300K per year); then again I don't see Congress having the political will to let deficit reduction have priority over tax cuts and greater government services.

On a related note, I am now hoping that the GOP successfully stalls Democratic efforts to continue the Bush tax cuts for just the upper-middle class and below, because then the cuts will all expire and the CBO budget projections won't become more dire (they only go by current law and by particular pending legislation when scoring it).

9/16/2010 2:34:15 AM

I don't buy the tea party's front, I have a feeling they are just going to turn in to a more angry far right group within a few years, it seems like the real tea party is just the libertarian party

9/16/2010 2:36:18 AM

soap box? in my chit chat???

9/16/2010 2:36:32 AM

Quote :

"and stop trying to be the world police. "

I've never understood this either, every world conflict on cnn and we somehow have to stick our fat noses in the center of it as if it's assumed to be that way, sometimes I think there is some major conspiracy shit going on around here

9/16/2010 2:46:53 AM

Bill Clinton caused 9/11.

9/16/2010 7:18:30 AM

Bill Clinton could've fucked anyone he wanted, instead he porked a fatty.

So pretty much everytime I see Bill Clinton, I see him saying "I did not have sexual relations with that woman" and then saying "I did indeed have a relationship that was inappropriate".


he's a LIBERAL CHUBBY CHASER!!!

*lol* he likes pork spending

9/16/2010 7:31:56 AM

Well, at least this thread gave some of you the opportunity to use your beloved "teabagger" pejorative yet again.

9/16/2010 7:34:54 AM

If it's good enough for our president to use, then it's good enough for me.

9/16/2010 9:14:13 AM

Quote :

"if you cut the federal spending in half, assuming this wouldn't be devastating for the economy/country, it would take 6-7 years to cut our 13 TRILLION debt down to a measly 6 TRILLION "

Yet only takes them 10 years to take a 10T debt to 20T. You see the problem. First rule of getting out of debt is to stop digging the hole.

Merbig, I think you can afford to cut some defense spending. Although defense is the job of the feds not erection pills. But you are right. However, you have to look at the growth of the entitlements. SS, Medicare, Medicaid. Already Medicaid is bankrupting states, as states pay half of the costs, and those costs will only grow.

Defense spending is about 20%. The entitlements are over double that and projected to increase rapidly as the boomers become eligible. This is like getting ready to get your house foreclosed but blaming the cable bill.

From your own link.

Defense (total) 896B
Entitlements (total state plus fed) 985.9+ 1107+762.3=2855.3B

9/16/2010 9:37:27 AM

Entitlement is kind of a biased word choice, don't you think?

if I called it Social Aid, Government Assistance, or Poverty Relief would it sound quite as bad?

sure, the Founding Fathers did not intend a system of social welfare but they also didn't intend a system of universal and obligatory insurance

and they surely were concerned about the welfare of the people

9/16/2010 9:53:56 AM

keep you government hands off my biased word choices

9/16/2010 10:07:20 AM

call it what you want, you cant ignore the numbers and projections.

9/16/2010 10:39:06 AM

Quote :

"I'm a registered libertarian but I can't stand behind this Tea Party bullshit cause motherfuckers are getting duped!"

As am I. If the TEA party stuck strictly to economics, I could get behind it. However, it has morphed into some sort of quasi-constitutional arm of the religious right which I can't stand.

9/16/2010 10:40:00 AM

comparing military spending to state AND federal spending on ALL social programs is a little bit disingenuous, don't you think?

also, did you include education in your entitlements?

if you're at State I invite you to set an example and begin paying ~$50k+ per year for tuition
instead of enjoying your "entitlement"

9/16/2010 10:44:06 AM

"corporation" and "astro-turfing" are to the Left as "socialism" and "Muslim" are to the Right.

9/16/2010 11:41:35 AM

I'm not against corporations

I'm against irresponsible business practices and shadowy manipulation of public opinion

9/16/2010 12:23:13 PM

Snewf ownin faces in this thread and he's not even trying to own faces

9/16/2010 12:47:56 PM

I just don't want working class people to get duped by some ruthless billionaire family that (literally) poisons Americans

they claim to oppose deficit spending yet they collected money from government contracts to the tune of some $100 million since 2000

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/08/30/100830fa_fact_mayer

9/16/2010 1:02:44 PM