Local Political Interactions, Tea Party Edition

Subj: Please expand on property tax increase, if you would

I have received two of your postcards in the last five days, asking me to contact my city council member, etc. regarding a proposed property tax increase.

As an independent, I prefer not to dive into knee-jerk reactions on any particular side of an issue, including tax increases. I prefer to hear the arguments, compare them all to verifiable facts (such as the actual text of the proposed tax ordinance that would be going into effect as of this date, as proposed), and see who's coming closest to objective reality.

If you have the proposed language, today's tax rate & the proposed tax rate, I would like that information (a link to something @ nashville.gov would be fine), if you can provide it. Also, if you know the ostensible reason(s) that're being given for the need for the tax increase, and how you believe the truth or non-truth of said reason(s), that would also be helpful to me in deciding who to call, or if to call.

Also, if you are comfortable sharing the source(s) of the funding for this direct mail campaign, that would also be a factor for me. 

Thank you much, and look forward to your timely response.
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I'm Guessing...

... it isn't the first time, either. Seen at TPM.
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So, The Point Was...

I only listened once, because this shitbag makes me ill -- just his voice, mind you. But at some point he says (paraphrased) that "... those two words distracted from the point I was trying to make." Which was...

... that she should reduce her sexual encounters (or at least the ones that might lead to conception) to a level where she wouldn't have any sensible desire for her health insurance to cover contraceptives without a co-pay?

... That women who want their health insurance to cover contraceptives without a co-pay should have to make amateur porn for fat drug addicts to get hard by?

... That surely buying cars for women who want to have sex in back seats of cars is an absolutely logical extension of what benefits insurance companies would have to cover if women are able to have their health insurance to cover contraceptives without a co-pay?

Or...?

The "two words" bullshit is, in fact, complete, utter bullshit.

This guy has got to go.
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Can They Handle The Truth?

2012, Nutshell Edition.

h/t Meanie-meanie, tickle a person.

UPDATE: From TPM, New Obama campaign pitch distilled to 7 words: "GM is alive; bin Laden is dead."
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Check Your Chicken

The poor kid above just had cradle cap, but... because of the suggestion that we might barter poultry for healthcare from U.S. senatorial candidate Sue Lowden, this kid's about to have his brain sucked out by the mutant chicken who's been hanging out in some radiology department for Christ-knows-how-long.

Ms. Lowden actually said:

Let's change the system and talk about what the possibilities are. I'm telling you that this works... you know, before we all started having health care, in the olden days, our grandparents, they would bring a chicken to the doctor. They would say "I'll paint your house."

I'll paint your house. No shit.

Patient: Uh, doc? I don't have any money. But I have a chicken. And, by the way, I'm a hell of a house painter.

Doctor: Well, my house's exterior is imported Italian stone, so it really doesn't need painting.

Patient: What about the interior?

Doctor: Do you have kids?

Patient: Uh... what?

Doctor: Do you have kids? I mean, YOU'RE not going to be able to paint the interior of my 8000 square-foot house when I need it in four years, not with this illness YOU have, and DEFINITELY not with the treatment that I am willing to give you for a mere promise of a paint job in four years.

Patient: Um...

The invisible hand of the free market just went up your ass to the elbow!
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Eli Must Be Stopped

He does know how to bring teh funnay, though.
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Temper Tantrum

Yes, America -- The GOP has decided that since health insurance reform has now passed, they will not allow any of the people's business to be conducted after the first two hours of the Congressional day... including subcommittee hearings about training of Afghan police. Y'know... Country First, an' all that shit, right?

Gosh, I'm sure Americans will appreciate that the GOP only plans to work two hours a day from here on out. It'll leave them plenty of time to campaign, though!

UPDATE: I misunderstood the obscure unanimous consent rule that Senator Burr used to halt yesterday's committee meetings on the hill. The rule actually bars committee meetings from beginning until two hours after the Senate is in session for the day, and must conclude by 2 p.m. ET. However, at least one committee meeting was in progress (presumably started at 9 a.m., and halted at 11 a.m.) Seems the solution to this is to have Harry Reid start the Senate's day at 4 a.m.
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Start The Clock

... 'cause you KNOW Something Awful is about to come out about Mooselina by the network news hour, today.
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Echolarity

Poor ol' Rusty. He's so unconcerned that people find out what a coward he is, blocking my comments at tennesseefree.com, that he came over to Eschaton to say so!


Ah, but I'm a liar, you see:


This couldn't get much more entertaining.

UPDATE: So unconcerned for such an innocent guy. :lol:
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Echo Chamber: Now With Even MORE Echo!

Well, folx, this graphic has finally pushed ol' Rusty ("serr8d" -- clever, typically-winger macho name evoking a bladed weapon -- ooh, how original) off the deep end. He's blocked my ability to comment at tennesseefree.com, where I used to get my daily quota of pointing and laughing. I still do, actually, but I'll have to share the pointing and laughing over here, from now on, it seems.  :)  That's cool -- it probably needed a wider audience, anyway.

I e-mailed Glen Dean, just to let him know that his ideal of "... a website created by a middle Tennessee political junkie for the purpose of encouraging and promoting the free exchange of ideas among Tennesseans" had been hijacked by an impotent blowhard who's simply frustrated that my blog has no such mission statement, and that I therefore regularly reject his many humorous comments about my cats' litterboxes and my horrible photograpic skills. He's spent many hours combing the net to gather my comments from other sites, and sharing them over there, in a sadly-misguided attempt to shame or intimidate me, but now he'll have to do it without my being able to address it in the same forum.

Brave Sir Rusty!

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For Serr8d

Tea 2 Da Bag

From Fox News/Opinion Dynamics (PDF):

43. Would you be willing to join a symbolic tea party to protest excessive government spending on April 15?

Yes No (Don't know)

31 Mar-1 Apr 09 36% 58 6

Democrats 29% 65 6
Republicans 47% 48 5
Independents 29% 63 8

So, with a metro area of a very 50/50 purple area of Tennessee with a population of ~1,000,000, I would expect ~360,000 locals to have answered this question in the affirmative, if asked. Accounting for the fact that people in general notoriously lie about how involved they are in politics, I would still expect to see at least 100,000 teabaggers on state capitol grounds on April 15th.

I'll be there, with cameras, to document the reality.

UPDATE: HAW!

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Uh, MC Mike?

In hip-hop parlance, you're now R_xush Limbaugh's bitch.

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For My Tennesseefree.com Homies

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Let's Own Up, GOP

This ain't hip-hop.

This is out-and-out pimpin'. For big business. 

You can't outrun it. You can't rebrand it. You can't even quit the game.

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Be Ye Not Deceived

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The Politics Of Fear

The reaction of top Bush Administration officials to the ICRC report, from what I can gather, has been defensive and dismissive. They reject the ICRC’s legal analysis as incorrect. Yet my reporting shows that inside the White House there has been growing fear of criminal prosecution, particularly after the Supreme Court ruled in the Hamdan case that the Geneva Conventions applied to the treatment of the detainees. This nervousness resulted in the successful effort to add retroactive immunity to the Military Commission Act. Cheney personally spearheaded this effort. Fear of the consequences of exposure also weighed heavily in discussions about whether to shut the CIA program down. In White House meetings, Cheney warned that if they transferred the CIA’s prisoners to Guantanamo, “people will want to know where they have been—and what we’ve been doing with them.” Alberto Gonzales, a source said, “scared” everyone about the possibility of war crimes prosecutions. It was on their minds.

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Impeach GFY First -- Amen!

I get e-mails!

The trial of Scooter Libby has produced overwhelming evidence that Vice President Cheney personally led the campaign to attack Joe Wilson through the media. This "get Wilson" campaign included telling numerous reporters that Wilson was sent to Niger by his wife Valerie Plame, a key CIA operative fighting the spread of weapons of mass destruction. Plame's "outing" actually exposed her entire covert network, at tremendous cost to the CIA's secret war against terrorism. If America is in a generational "war on terror" as Bush and Cheney insist, then Cheney's action was criminal negligence at best, and arguably treason.

Cheney was a key architect of the illegal and disastrous invasion of Iraq. Behind the scenes, Cheney was in charge of assembling bogus "evidence" of weapons of mass destruction, including visiting the CIA personally to intimidate skeptical analysts. In public, Cheney uttered the Administration's most egregious and bald-faced lies, especially about Iraq's non-existent nuclear program.

Congress must begin impeachment proceedings against Vice President Cheney. Sign the petition to Impeach Cheney First:
http://www.democrats.com/cheney

Read more:
http://impeachcheney.org

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Another Installment of "Click Me!"

Go on -- you know you want to click it.

Click it.

Click it.

Thank me later. :)

Hat tip to blogless Richard.
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OMG. Click!

You will thank me. Do not send me your doctor bills for any injuries sustained, though. :)

Hat tip to Atrios.
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