Tag Archives: Teabaggers

Denver April 28 War on Women march was a PRObama rally and we fell for it

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Rita Ague
DENVER- Isn’t there something distasteful about a gathering of Obama supporters who want to rail against “The War On Women” and permit no mention of his non metaphorical deadly engagements? Organizers complained bitterly about activist Rita Ague’s successful subversion of their Democratic Party-only event messaging, while pretending the Pro-Obama theme was spontaneous and not partisan astroturf. While attendees carried all sorts of reproductive rights slogans, the only signage hung on the amphitheater was for Dem candidates. We had anticipated as much from early participants instructed not to worry about signs, they’d be provided. Indeed they were: “Women for Obama”, “Latinas for Obama” and anti Right-wingnut signs. Another clue came from Denver colleagues who surprised us with the news that a significant turnout was not expected because the Denver community was not responding. This was strictly a country mouse affair.

By “we fell for it” I mean of course Colorado Springs, where we fall for everything. War, Jesus, and soon, Fracking. The average Colorado Springs Joe would prefer Sarah Palin in the White House, so to fall on the smarter side of that curve it’s enough to favor Obama. In Colorado Springs even the left is right, gays are Log Cabin Republicans, and Occupiers are Teabaggers. Only on conservative campuses did academics look for common ground between Occupy Wall Street and the Tea Party.


Sure enough, three of the five organizers were from Colorado Springs, all outside Denver circles. Does it matter? Not really, the day was a fun outing for Spring’s would-be activated women, and the issues are real and persist. But why now? Why the sudden “Rightwing” onslaught on women’s rights, when Republican candidates and representatives are already wearing the black hat in the economic downturn? It’s called baiting, and the Repugs took it. The War on Women, so-called, is the cry to circle the wagons in fear and support your local gunslinger and hey, he’s a Democrat!


And there they were, keeping to themselves at upstage right, the candidates waited to make their speeches about who was going to save the women.

As a LONG TIME party faithful, Rita Ague sussed immediately that this “grassroots” event was a DP hoax. She recognized the usual suspects and traditional call outs. Newly activated citizens are prey for election year campaigns, and Rita suspected the Dems were after the better half of the 99% like the GOP did the Tea Party.

Even in their country mouse afterglow, organizers pretend they didn’t know their rally would become Pro-Obama. Does that make them duplicitous or simply stupid? I’m tired of suspecting otherwise earnest, personable, and very effective fellow activists of being deceitful, hence the depressing tone of this story. We’re idiots, in a more disguised analogy, we’re sheep.


Rita Ague was criticized for upstaging the speakers with her sign, NO WAR ON WORLD OR WOMEN. Because it clashed with the programmed message. (No Democrat is offering to save women from war.) In threatening Rita, the organizers proved themselves as comfortable as their political guests with censoring all public assertion of free speech at what was supposed to be a grassroots rally. What unmitigated, transparently blank-headed dicks, for want of a sexist term.

The newly formed War on Women defenders circle thought they’d parlay their apparent momentum by calling for a Slut Walk for the following weekend. Why not, the media image-friendly meme has become a successful Jezebel feminist protest form , though not usually scheduled in the cold of MAY.


The authentic grassroots element had a blast on the march, here you can observe a large Occupy Denver contingent, participating to show solidarity and to meet people like-minded enough to take to the street for something they believe in.

Tea party klan patriot thug Jim Kross circulates fliers to incite mob violence

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OccupyAfghanistan vets Jeremy and Brittany Westmoreland attracted Patriot Shop teabag Jim Kross to their vow to destroy our local occupy. I’d like to say as little as possible about this lamentable development, except to document today’s escalation.


Occupy Colorado Springs held forth on the sidewalk in front of Memorial Hospital this Saturday, making a plea for UNIVERSAL HEALTHCARE. Across the street once again were our threat-making stalkers, fortunately not reprising their Westboro Baptist tauntings, but sitting in their truck as OCS’s original heckler Jim Kross finished his cigar.


We weren’t many, but of course the recent news stories didn’t help recruit participants, claiming that OCS is so against the troops, that it kicked out members because they were soldiers. And not more accurately, because they initiated a witch hunt against occupiers who weren’t showing solidarity with the US military’s occupy movement, OccupyIraq, OccupyAfghanistan, OccupyLibya, veni, vidi, vici.


We were in the unusual position of trying not to elicit honks of support from the passing traffic, in view of standing outside a hospital, but drivers signaled their enthusiasm in friendly ways. We discussed repeating this healthcare action soon, it was such an easy sell.


Eventually Patriot Kross came over to film us as he made his best taunts. The Westmorelands watched from the truck and after Kross was through, they drove back and forth flipping us off.

At first Kross denied any knowledge of the dozen fliers we’d found taped and pinned around the hospital’s perimeter.


The fliers were “wanted” posters which offered a bounty for the eviction or firing of certain occupiers. The fliers bore Kross’s email address and website. He conceded they were his, or belonged “to one of [his] identities,” whatever, and then he named the reward, said the amount may have grown since he looked online, and then solicited the occupiers present.


We had already removed the fliers he’d circulated around the hospital, from trees, street signs, walls and doors.


We had found some fliers downtown on our way to the action. This one was taped to the office building door.


Jim Kross’s animosity for Occupy goes back to the original GAs, when he used to videotape from the circle’s center and exploit the opportunity it gave him to counter everyone’s statements. He hadn’t been harassing OCS actions until last week when OCS held its NO WAR ON IRAN event. Kross made a gleeful reappearance with Raven Martinez counter-protesting what she considered an anti-troop message.

Speaking of Raven, I received this Facebook message on Friday, from her daughter’s account which Raven uses when she finds her account blocked…


Are those the words of an 11-year-old? “WATCH UR BACK”?

Neither Raven nor the Westmorelands seem to understand the line they cross with their threats. On Tuesday Raven defended her comment on NMT asking me what I’d do if my home went up in flames. She said I needed to take it in the context of her talking about soldiers, police and first responders, ignoring the context Soldier Westmoreland had created with his vow to burn NMT down.


Patriot Kross says he’s a veteran of the police force. You’d think he’d understand that distributing wanted posters charging his own personal complaints is a call for vigilante justice. To begin with, posting fliers is against city code, and these incite violence.


Kross came across our noon bannering at Acacia on Friday, mocking Patti for standing on her lonesome, Occupy reduced to just herself. He didn’t like the color of her flags.


I caught this priceless photo as Kross stepped quickly back when he saw that reinforcements were coming.


The bright side of this story is that when I went to take a picture of Jim Kross’s store, the Patriot Shop, it was gone, in retreat, to within another store, on Academy. Bye Jimbo.

Right wing blogger asshole Andrew Breitbart died of shame, obviously

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More likely gout. Obviously Breitbart’s body lacked the bilious elasticity of Bill O’Reilly or Rush Limbaugh. Speaking of which, were you in the loop on this email joke? A young black Limbaugh asks his mom; “Mommy, how come I’m black and you’re white?” To which his mother replied: “Don’t even go there Rush! From what I can remember about that party, you’re lucky you don’t bark!”
 
Probably you’d find that joke more crude than either a Limbaugh or Breitbart mother would deserve, but imagine that the actual subject of the email was President Obama and his mother. The real story is that such an email was forwarded by Montana Chief US District Judge Richard Cebull to his inner circle, with the following personal note: “Hope it touches your heart like it did mine.”

Seize BP put cleanup fund in escrow

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British Petroleum logoColorado Springs isn’t big on anti-corporate indignation. We tried Wall Street rallies, stood beneath WaMu with posters crying JUMP YOU FUCKERS! but got no takers. Not much understanding of finance fraud in the provinces: our teabaggers are so used to heckling hippies, they forget which side of the class war they’re on. So when ANSWER called on its grassroots to RALLY MAY 12 to SEIZE BP, we thought we better phone this one in.

No, the oil giant shouldn’t be let to slip out of its liability for the ongoing environmental havoc at its Transocean well blowout. They can call it nationalizing big oil, or a government takeover, but hold British Petroleum to account.

Originally it was Antiwar Mother’s Day

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Antiwar songFor how many war years longer will a MOTHER’S DAY tradition be to remind the vast Hallmark-washed that Mom’s postbellum holiday originated as a grassroots resistance by mothers opposed to enlisting their sons in war? Quoth abolitionist/pacifist/feminist/poet Julia Ward Howe in the Mother’s Day Proclamation: “We, the women of one country, will be too tender of those of another country to allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs.” Take heed war-loving patriots, Howe also penned the lyrics to Battle Hymn of the Republic.

Up against the wall, antiwar mother.

During WWI the plea expressed itself in a popular song: “I didn’t raise my boy to be a soldier.” Of course the song provoked many jingoist responses such as “I didn’t raise my boy to be a coward,” and “I tried to raise my boy to be a hero.” Blood lusty teabaggers were up to their same knee jerk patriotism back then, egged on no doubt by the same industrial military interests. From across the Atlantic, Punch magazine reflected the British eagerness to see the US join their war and lampooned with “I didn’t raise my girl to be a voter.”

Mother’s Day Proclamation, 1870

Arise, then, women of this day!
Arise, all women who have hearts,
Whether our baptism be of water or of tears!

Say firmly:
“We will not have great questions
decided by irrelevant agencies,
Our husbands will not come to us,
reeking with carnage, for caresses and applause.

Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn
All that we have been able to teach them
of charity, mercy and patience.

We, the women of one country,
will be too tender of those of another country
To allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs.”

From the bosom of the devastated Earth
a voice goes up with our own.

It says:
“Disarm! Disarm!
The sword of murder is not the balance of justice.”

Blood does not wipe out dishonor,
nor violence indicate possession.

As men have often forsaken the plough
and the anvil at the summons of war,
Let women now leave all that may be left of home
for a great and earnest day of counsel.

Let them meet first, as women,
to bewail and commemorate the dead.

Let them solemnly take counsel
with each other as to the means
Whereby the great human family can live in peace,?

Each bearing after his own time
the sacred impress, not of Caesar,?
But of God.

In the name of womanhood and humanity,
I earnestly ask?

That a general congress of women without limit of nationality?
May be appointed and held at someplace deemed most convenient?
And at the earliest period consistent with its objects,?
To promote the alliance of the different nationalities,?
The amicable settlement of international questions,?
The great and general interests of peace.

Tea Partygoers may be embarrassing morons, but they know more than you

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Acacia Park, April 15, 2010TEABAG SPRINGS, CO- Acacia Park overfilled with angry white folks for their Tax Day protest, though talk of actual tax resistance was as unlikely as spilled tea. Instead our local teabags espoused Fox talking points about the illegitimacy of our current government, etc. Aside from the socialist herring, how right they are.

The teabags have that over liberals and progressives, they know both parties are irredeemable. Their bucket brigades may be ferrying accelerants, but at least they know the house is on fire.

Acacia Park, April 15, 2010
Following Rush Limbaugh’s tip for preemptive framing of racist-infiltrator provocateurs, these gentlemen prepared a sign, but set it aside when invariably it pointed to naught but the teabagger beside them.

Acacia Park, April 15, 2010
On their lunch hour, a clutch of Palmer High School students decided to march across the park with hastily drawn signs which read “We love Obama.” An angry woman (pictured) immediately blocked their way asking: “How old are you? Are you voters?” When they answered no, the woman told them, “If you’re not voters, you should leave.” But the students marched past her attempts to take their picture and proceeded bravely through the crowd. Their chant of the same refrain “We support Obama” were quickly drowned by the huskier Teabag shouts of “USA, USA.”

Acacia Park, April 15, 2010
As per the usual musical acts which have accompanied past Acacia Park Tea Rallies, the crowd assembles to what sounds like a Doobie Brothers medley, including Neil Diamond’s anthem “They’re coming to America,” chosen it would seem because “America” figures prominently, and not because it’s an homage to immigrants.

Teabonics parlee-voo

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Tea Party anti-Immigrant rally
While we’ve been fussing about whether to dub them TEABAGGERS or just TEABAGS, someone’s honed in on the pejorative that binds them, TEABONICS –with apologies to African Americans whose variant dialect reflects cultural influence not lack of education or intelligence. Irony of course flies IQ levels above Tea Partygoers, as central to their anti-immigrant anglo-centrism is the insistence that real Americans know English. Here’s a Flickr collection of proclamations in Teabonic.

Tea Party Anti-Immigrant RallyMy favorite is at right. Today’s US exploitation of undocumented workers is a disingenuous equivalent of slavery. Our American economy depends on low wage laborers who can be deported as “illegal” when we want to change them out with cheaper ones. Those tea party faces are the same who opposed abolition and blocked the Civil Rights marchers in Selma.

Just flew back from DC, arms tired

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March 20 ANSWER DemonstrationI hoped to be sending updates from CAMP OUT NOW at the capitol, but a laptop mishap left me unplugged for the week. Have much to report about Sheehan’s last stand(s), Obama and St Pats, Cynthia McKinney and the ANSWER march, street-dancing with SDS, Kathy Griffin and DADT, Medea torments AIPAC, Sunday’s immigration rally, Kill-the-Bill teabaggers vs. anti-abortion Catholics, RAN tripods at the EPA, the Smithsonian for Complete Idiots, disciples for 911 untruth, Holocaust Denial at the National Museum of the American Indian, and more.

Teabag Springs

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TEABAG SPRINGS, COLORADO- How did it feel to hear Diane Sawyer talk about our city, poor as dirt, not for lack of resources, landmarks or climate, but so stupid, so corrupt and tax-averse, to have run ourselves straight out of operating funds? Our future has been painted indelibly: dried up parks, extinguished street lights (misquoted as “1/3 of traffic lights,” they imagine us that dumb), our services and security compromised, and public spaces boarded until we can float another financial bubble. Not mentioned: the war economy is booming, and many of the private war-profiteers are local. Through whose fingers is the military largess escaping? We knew Springs voters were dumb, our teacup overfloweth, now we’re poor folk too.

Dennis Kucinich to lead Independents

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kucinich-2012-independent
Strike three. Obama’s out. Stop war? Nope. Address climate change? Sorry no. Reform health care? In the insurer’s interest only. I’m hearing Obama’s failure to deliver real health care being blamed on Americans themselves, for not building a movement to support it. WTF. In fact Dems are being asked to root for Obama’s duplicitous health care legislation, or hinder the change-meister’s momentum. Momentum for what? Not one issue remains for which Democrats can claim to deliver America from the GOP. Isn’t it time to uproot all incumbents and side with the majority of voters? Teabaggers can have their Palin, the Dems can sink their last hope in Obama, Americans need to claim the largest constituency of recent past elections, the independents.

Tea Party Patriot robes for tiny pee pees

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Klu Klux Klan Minuteman Racist Bigot anti-immigrant robeCOLORADO SPRINGS- This year for Halloween I’m dressing up like yokel heroes Sean Paige, Richard Randall, Tom Gallagher, and Doug Lamborn, the rabble-rousers behind our local Teabag mobs. They’re reveling in the white man anger, against immigrants, ACORN, and taxes for social programs, laughing off accusations of being racist, while probably praying to God their mob doesn’t seize upon a passing African American and lynch him. Until recently a Halloween costume like this would have been mistaken to be a ghost, but for the resurgent ugly white man. The Pikes Peak region was crawling with KKK members in the 1930s, and during the Bush years their sons and grandsons snuck to the Texas border to join the Klan’s modern incarnation The Minutemen. With a black president clouding the horizon, suddenly these same men and women are rallying. At a recent public meeting, Representative Lamborn chuckled about his fellow malcontents rising up, at “I guess we call them, Tea Parties.” A heckler cried out “Clan Rallies.” The Lamborn crowd booed, but I bet most of them still have their fathers’ robes.

Change that Works as viewed by the very dim light of a thousand points

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I read there were demonstrators at Texas A & M to greet President Obama as he arrived to participate in a community service symposium honoring former president George Herbert Walker Bush. I’ll admit I was surprised they were run of the mill teabaggers. Where was the indignant left, protesting LOUDLY at the dubious priority of this whistle stop, while health care reform withers in DC? So far, SNL survived a fact-check on a satiric Obama checklist, except: Kissing up to the Bushes. If the Saudi King shows up for some fealty, I just know Obama is going to hold his hand.

Was this event so important an honor to Bush 41 that it required a presidential visit? Not significant enough however, to draw Junior Bush to attend the ceremony?

Dubya defenders suggest it is too early in Obama’s term for the immediate predecessor to make an appearance with the sitting president. They overlook an unprecedented extenuating factor, the event was celebrating Bush 43’s dad.

The sight might have pushed us all over the edge to see Obama palling around with the Bush dynasty in abeyance, who should all be persons of interest in prosecutions of high crimes and misdemeanors.

Wasn’t it sickening enough to see Obama fawn over the “Thousand Points of Light?” Where was Obama when the rest of world could read H.W. Bush’s lips, teacups of bull pucky. At the Bohemian Grove they quote Bush 41 to the tune of Tiptoe Through the Tulips. TPOL is code for Let them eat light.

Seeing Obama and Daddy Bush together reminded me of Dana Carvey’s flattering portrayal of the senior Bush, before the 2000 election. Bush is hunting with his attention deficit son, and for a brief shining moment he considered accidentally shooting Dubya for the good of the nation, except that Barbara would be too upset. The fantasy practically redeemed the real Poppy Bush in my eyes, forgetting he went on to profiteer with the Carlyle Group and other crony deals. Now Obama is reconciling us against our will.

The thousand points of light was just Republican’s consolation prize for Americans who began losing their jobs. Minus the federal middle class jobs to administrate the service projects. FDR looked after the jobless by creating a welfare bureaucracy that boosted the middle class. Bush had nothing to offer but a road map of the stars. Make yourself useful, yada yada.

Now Obama is picking up the tune. Where in the hell are his constituents to say, by change, Obama, we didn’t mean spare change. Get up there with some handcuffs and make a presidential citizen’s arrest, or get off the stage. The fraternizing is making us nauseated.

D. Lamborn don’t want to hear from U

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Tomorrow brings another last chance to will America some health care. Representative Lamborn is back in town on Monday, asking his constituents to come let him know how to vote on health care reform, as if he were not already fully in every corporate pocket. Come on out, although Doug Lamborn cannot fail but deliver the TV coverage his backers expect. No doubt Lamborn was commissioned to gather his fellow teabaggers, to give the networks more grassroots backdrop for the so-called populist opposition to health reform. Come anyway. Shooting fish in a barrel is underrated. Mostly teabags know only the barest of talking points. They show up to show what good fan club members they are, for their favorite Fox, disinfotainment clowns.

It’s billed as: Doug Lamborn’s Health Care Legislation Town Hall Meeting, on Monday, October 19 from 11:30am to 12:30pm. At the Stargazer Event Center, 10 S. Parkside Drive, off Pikes Peak.

Come early. The last time the conservative Lamborn threw a town hall, he overfilled the minuscule room hours before with Republicans only. This time the venue is giant, but it’s no surprise the date coincides with the latest tea party roll out. Expect ignoramuses in droves, made to go play outside by their fairy TV godparents, Becks, Limbaughs and Malkins. They’ll give KRDO the usual low common denominator that doesn’t turn heads in the Springs.

The health argument is growing simpler every time we do this. This disagreement isn’t between those who have insurance and those who do not. It’s between those who haven’t needed medical care, and those who have.

Insured or not, no one’s getting care.

The joke’s on the poor bastards agitating for the continuing privilege to pay the spiraling premiums. Most, I’ll bet, don’t actually have insurance. They cling to their right not to buy any. They would be adversely affected if reform passes as currently drafted. Can’t argue with that.

But wait ’til they need something from a doctor, even just to schedule a visit, or get a prescription. Chief among their recurring arguments is that the uninsured right now can walk into any hospital and get treated. They recite this anecdote either because they’ve done it, or their friend’s done it, or Rush keeps bellyaching about how everybody’s doing it. But they’re sure of it.

Of course, that can remedy a broken arm, or a burst appendix, but forget recurring treatments. If you are diagnosed with something that’s not going to kill you in the emergency room, they can wait. You can wait, at home, to let your ailment get the best of you. The end.

Teabag Constitution Day, Acacia Park

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THE NOT-WITH-MY-TAXES PATRIOTS are holding another tea party tomorrow, to mark Constitution Day Sept 17, 11AM downtown in Acacia Park, where two friends got permission to table there tomorrow to represent the Special Olympics and pass out applications.

It’s a terrible joke, but these teabaggers bring out my inner idiot. WE ARE TOMORROW going to don robes and false beards and circulate like multi-gendered Jesuses, through the throngs of angry Christians, passing out business cards on which we printed the passage from Matthew, what you did for the least of your brothers…

But I’d really like to recruit an intrepid African American male to help me with a hypothesis. I’m pretty sure that at the height of the crowd’s passions tomorrow, a single black voice raised against them, without his appearing to have allies nearby, will result in a spontaneous lunge to try to lynch him. Then we’ll pounce, with the on-duty portion of the CSPD who aren’t attending the event, and arrest the bigots. There won’t be anybody left in the park.

No Teabagger, Glenn Beck is a Teabag

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GolemWe’ve been calling them teabaggers, the impulsive naysayers to reform and a rededicated social conscience; so named because they decry “taxation without representation.” Having lost the election of 2008, their idiocy is no longer represented in Washington by someone they feel they can share a beer with. So they hold “tea parties,” minus the jettisoning of capitalist goods. They protest all government spending, question Barack Obama’s birth certificate, and rail against immigrants, socialism, and the decline of White America. We call them “Teabaggers,” but the term conjures an unmerited sexual act. We should call them “Teabags” instead. I’d like a dittohead wingnut nickname that sounds more like scumbag.

Act Blue is not going to stop Joe Wilson

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Republican representative in the HouseProgressive websites are raising money to defeat GOP Tourette’s poster child Joe Wilson in the next election. Is it going to work? No. You can’t stop populist assholes like Wilson, or Vitter, or Delay, or Gingrich, or Lieberman, can you? Incumbent embarrassments have legions of loyal constituents. That’s who you have to stop. If you want to stop Wilson you have to insist the South Carolina prosecutor’s office isn’t dropping charges of domestic violence, disorderly conduct, child truancy, poaching, littering, lying about sales use tax, and loitering at nursing homes trying to register voters. Shroud that crowd in red tape and Joe Wilson’s base will head for the hills.

Which Republicans are not assholes?

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Joe Wilson yelled YOU LIE during Obama speechThis Republican has apologized for yelling “YOU LIE” during President Obama’s speech to Congress tonight. Does sorry mean anything if he’s expecting endless slaps on the back from the Glenn Beck fans? Joe Wilson, Asshole Party house representative from South Carolina is one of the DC hosts of the Teabaggers 9/12 anti-health reform tour. Not one of these honorable gentlemen had the temerity to call George Bush on his obvious lies.

At most, President Obama was voicing a difference of opinion. What gave the plantation owner’s son from South Carolina a sense that he had an opening to accuse his president of being a liar?

Let Representative Wilson make his case. If it turns out President Obama wasn’t lying, let them call for a duel. Wilson’s confederate sword against the Chief Executive’s navy. I’m all for speaking out, but let there be respect for consequences. Maybe the best we can hope for it that Joe Wilson has earned himself a new moniker YOU LIE!

Barack Obama is your president

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Does the presidential plane say NIGGER?COLORADO SPRINGS- The superintendent of District 12 schools announced Friday that Barack Obama’s address to schoolchildren on Tuesday will not be shown in his district’s schools. I’m no defender of this president, but I have to ask, what possible rationale could excuse such disrespect? It’s probably too easy to decry racism, so what’s left?

Personally, of course, I could imagine steering schoolchildren clear of George W. Bush. Old President Bush had a 13% or so approval rating. Foreign leaders dismissed him as a moron. It was whispered that he’d resumed drinking, and it was common knowledge that he’d been a cocaine user until his forties. George Bush was no example for impressionable youth. What parent could hold him up as a role model, other than the town drunk or village idiot who was not to be emulated? But I’m certain the same schools just a year ago would never have crossed that president.

Setting aside his surprising political turns, Barack Obama projects inspiring leadership qualities. He speaks intelligently with attentiveness and compassion. His message to children is to be one of encouragement in the hard times ahead, dealing with the increased imperative of higher education. Recent generations have been growing successively nihilistic. Perhaps the economy’s turn is an appropriate occasion for a president to address our nation’s kids. We like to call them our future.

Bush gave our schools the disastrous NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND ACT which completely degraded public schools and ushered the calls for privatization of education under the guise of Charter Schools. In Colorado, Bush’s measure prompted the CSAPs, which hobble teachers by requiring classes to focus on passing standardized tests, instead of teaching broader lessons. Bush’s act also guarantees that military recruiters have access to the personal records of our children at their most vulnerable, to more easily prey upon them when they are rebellious teens. Bush was no friend of schoolchildren.

Election button 2008Obama on the other hand won a decisive victory in November, and no small number of his supporters were young children. Many teachers were pushing for Obama and his promise of hope, in the midst of a culture of pessimism sowed by George W. and his destructive agendas. Bush waged war against everything schoolchildren are fostered to care about. Obama’s campaign represented salvation for our planet. How now are school administrators prepared to extricate the students from their own personal rapport with the new president?

To quote a favorite Twit, Badbanana:

Obama is going to address the nation’s schoolchildren? One good fart joke and the Democrats control Congress for 60 years.

We know of course the high pitched extremists groups whom the superintendent thinks he is placating. They are the Teabaggers and Birthers who reject Obama as president. “He’s not my president” they say. They learned the phrase from their adversaries who protested the stolen elections of 2000 and 2004, but never understood its meaning. Obviously they have nothing to teach children about the workings of democracy.

At the recent health care town hall hosted by Congressman Doug Lamborn, I had a chance to witness these Birthers, so named because they reject Barack Obama’s birth certificate. They are so certain that Obama will be discovered to be foreign born and will thus be stripped of the presidency. “Three More Months, Three More Months” they countered, while progressive citizens were chanting for health care reform.

Ed Bircham of Bircham Office ProductsLocal wing nut business owner Ed Bircham was dancing a jig singing “Ho Ho, Obama’s Got To Go, Ho Ho.” Egged on by KVOR djs and unabashed gay-bashers, Ed Bircham repeated his calls for Obama’s removal from office.

Incredible. Obama hasn’t done anything yet –which is my complaint– so what have the teabaggers against him? It’s patently absurd, if it wasn’t so obviously bigoted. “No Country For Old Bigots” I yelled.

Actually I joined local NAACP leader James Tucker in interjecting “Obama Is Your President” between Bircham’s call for his ouster. “Respect Your President” we found ourselves saying, even as I knew that I would not hold myself to such restraint. On the other hand, my opposition to President Obama has nothing to do with his skin color. On what principles do these white men disagree with Barack Obama, except that they’re not about to show deference to a nigger?

Michele Bachmann urges anti-health teabaggers to slit their wrists, so do it

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I may not be not an expert on blood pacts, but I’ve seen them on TV. You cut your palm or finger with a knife or other sharp edge of opportunity, and let your blood mix with that of your newly-resolved comrade. The Colorado Independent reports that US Representative Michelle Bachmann is calling for a blood covenant from her fellow anti-health reformists, and she wants them to be so determined that they “slit their wrists.” We’d like to go the Minnesota congresswoman one further. If the private-insurance-death-panel advocates feel they must defeat health reform because Obama’s measures “have the strength to destroy this country forever,” they could prove their resolve by slitting their throats to really commingle their blood!

Tea Party Express bypasses Colorado

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tea party express 2009
COLORADO lost some of its square state stature today when the national teabaggers tour bus took a turn in Albuquerque and went south. The Tea Party Express is headed to DC to protest health care reform, but its two week schedule is going to exclude Rocky Mountain crackers. Coloradans feel the mouth-breathers down our necks everyday, but this marks an evolutionary shift, as ideological cul-de-sac becomes dead end.

Lamborn’s NO HEALTHCARE teabaggers want to hear from YOU

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According to CSAction, snively congressman Doug Lamborn has sent out 70,000 mailers, billed to the taxpayer, to disseminate the insurance biz wingnut falsehoods about health care reform. He’s hoping to reconstitute a teabagger assembly at a public meeting on Thursday evening, August 27, at the Valley Hi Golf Course on Colorado Springs’ Southeast side. Get there early with YOUR message. 5PM, Chelton and Airport. The anti-tax teabaggers hate standing next to signs that don’t represent them, so think of some slogans that do. How about: DO UNTO OTHERS, or
FAITH HOPE CHARITY, or “as you did to the least of My brethren,
you did it to Me.” -Matt 25:40

CSAction has posted talking points and updates. Here are Mark’s arguments:

Representative Doug Lamborn has just sent out an estimated 70,000 mailers “prepared, published and mailed at taxpayer expense” that are full of LIES and disinformation about the healthcare reform bills. It’s only estimated to be 70,000 because, when asked about the total number mailed, LAMEborn’s Communications Director Catherine Mortensen, “I have the figures, but I don’t have the authority to give them to you.”

Actually they don’t have the authority to withhold that information because it’s public record, given that this pack of LIES was “prepared, published and mailed at taxpayer expense.”

The mailer says “114 million could lose their current health care coverage under the bill”. This is a LIE!

This absurd figure comes from “The Impact of the House Health Reform Legislation Coverage and Provider Incomes,” by the Lewin Group. The Lewin Group is a “research” and management consulting (lobbyist) firm owned entirely by the second largest health insurer in the nation, UnitedHealth Group.

Furthermore, the “research” does NOT show 114 million LOOSING healthcare but CHANGING insurers, AND an additional 9.4 million being insured that are not now. It’s a total guess as to how many would change over to the public plan, if offered. The 114 million was a figure the Lewin Group published in June, which they revised DOWN to 88.1 million in July, so it’s not even their most current LIE.

The Congressional Budget Office came to a different conclusion, saying that enrollment in the House Democrats’ proposed public plan would total 11 million to 12 million people.

The Lewin Group is part of Ingenix, a wholly-owned UnitedHealth subsidiary that was accused by the New York attorney general and the American Medical Association of helping insurers shift medical expenses to consumers by distributing skewed data. Ingenix supplied UnitedHealth and other insurers with data that allegedly understated the “reasonable and customary” doctor fees that insurers use to determine how much they will reimburse consumers for out-of-network care.

In January, United Health agreed to a $350 million settlement with the AMA, and a $50 million settlement with the New York attorney general, covering conduct going back as far as 1994, when they were distributing skewed information to fight President Clinton’s healthcare reforms.

Next LIE in this mailer: “4.7 million jobs that could be lost as a result of tax hikes on small businesses”.

This absurd figure comes from an op-ed piece written by House minority leader John Boehner, who admitted to distributing bribes from Big Tobacco on the floor of the House. He says got the figures according to the methodology developed by Christina Romer, the chair of the Council of Economic Advisers in the Obama administration. She NEVER said such a thing, and he obviously he doesn’t understand her methodology.

What did she really say?

“The current healthcare system does not work well for small businesses.”

“They pay about 18% more for comparable coverage than a big firm, and that puts them at a competitive disadvantage.”

“Healthcare reform is ABSOLUTELY aimed at easing those burdens.”

“The plan has a tax credit for small businesses.”

Watch her entire statement here.

Lewin Group Vice President John Sheils admits 114 million would NOT lose their employer-sponsored coverage AND they wouldn’t be forced into a government-run health plan. Rather, they would be able to choose between the government plan and other private options, through the exchange, and “they might very well be better off,” he said.

But not all of the firm’s corrupt reports see the light of day. For example, a study for the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association was never released, Sheils said.

“Let’s just say, sometimes studies come out that don’t show exactly what the client wants to see. And in those instances, they have [the] option to bury the study — to not release it, rather,” Sheils said.

CSaction reminds everyone present to be peaceful in word and action and not behave like the industry stooges disrupting town halls and shouting down citizens.

Right-wing KVOR radio goon tries to intimidate city council

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Talk radio goonI snapped this photo at Monday’s city council meeting: A stringer for right-wing KVOR radio holds his microphone up to the chamber’s amplification system. Curiously, he only assumed this conspicuous stance when the council members were explaining their votes, and then, ONLY for those anticipated to speak against TABOR and its proponents.

As the councilmen vied to straddle the fence on the issue, this gentleman would slowly stand whenever someone’s reasoning appeared to vacillate against the interests of the anti-tax wingnuts, Local Liberty Action, and teabagger Sean Paige.

Weiss TABOR reform has votes to pass!

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larry small john weissCOLORADO SPRINGS- I attended a COS city council meeting today, lured by the prospect that Vice Mayor Larry Small was going to call the CS Independent publisher a liar to his face.

I’m always excited at the prospect of differences of opinion reaching a level of incivility. Do we care about these issues? Or is it all about liking each other, regardless who’s oppressing whom? We gentlemen debaters, after all, are never those affected by the injustices in question.

To the city’s credit, Small made it a point at the very start of the meeting to make a public apology. He and John Weiss shook hands and that was that. What’s more, he cast his vote with Weiss’s proposal, a deciding vote, to put repeal of the city’s TABOR restrictions on the next ballot.

Small is not saying he’s for it, simply considering that it might be germane to consult the voters. Where it stands, the city council members declared their intentions on how they will vote tomorrow, and 5-4, they intend to back the proposal.

Without any name calling.

That said, some pyrotechnics can very easily be a bore. For example, there were grunts from the peanut gallery at this meeting, in particular from ex-editorial page tyrant Sean Paige. The silver-locked loudmouth, now shilling for Local Liberty Action, sat in the back and harrumphed as Weiss gave his reasons for reforming TABOR. Although Paige is no longer with the Gazette, I’ve seen him gesticulating at local Teaparty rallies. Like his Norquesque mentors, the editorial bully is set on strangling the baby in the bathwater.

How satisfying then to see Paige grovel before city council to urge them “not to throw [his TABOR] baby out with the bath water.”

Paige spoke as if “TABOR proponents” need to be consulted in any ongoing discussions about reforming it. Just because those idiots got the law passed, and doomed municipalities to impoverished services, who is to say their voice should have a grandfather clause? Here’s a chance for city council to hear the cries of outrage from Colorado Springs residents who want the damn thing repealed. They want their public services back.

TABOR was an initiative which asserted that a citizen couldn’t trust their representatives with tax dollars. What does it mean to have councilmen say they “believe in TABOR.” They know they shouldn’t be trusted? Did they run for election on that slogan?

Here’s a chance for the city pols to grab the reins. What else are they supposed to be deciding at their jobs?

And they took it, with four dissenting opinions. First, Bernie Herpin, who doesn’t see any reason to rush to address TABOR’s ratchet lunacy.

Another no vote comes from Jerry Heimlicher. The meeting’s highlight was Councilman Jerry Heimlicher’s kiss-fest with Sean Paige. Let Westside voters who rejected Democrat Dave Gardner as an alternative, note what Heimlicher can be very obstinate when he’s decided he’d rather give in to the Teabaggers.

Two more NOs came from Glen and Purvis. Purvis took the chance to compare proponent Richard Skorman’s voice to the sound of a belt sander. He explained how Skorman had interrupted his weekend of fixing his deck.

Tom Gallagher was the councilman who brought the issue for his colleagues to decide. He spoke about how incredulous it was that he was siding with Weiss on an issue, and hesitated greatly to defy his conservative friends. “I live on their side of the playing field.” But he lead the support. With Hente, Small, Martin and Rivera joining him.

Did I say Rivera? Yes.

We all looked at each other in surprise, but there it was, Mayor Lionel Rivera saying he thought it was a capital idea to give the citizens of the city the last word on whether to reform TABOR.

Scott Hente made the day’s most noteworthy remark. He thanked the assembled crowd for having upheld a civil discourse. He was impressed that it was unlike the many town hall meetings he’s been seeing on the news. I took this to be acknowledgment that he recognized the sawdust floor populism emanating from Sean Paige’s back corner.