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What Is This Tea Party Thing And Why Is It Stupid?

Brian Fairbanks — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 14:45:00 GMT

The Billionaires For Bush celebrate tax day with a pimp, April 2005.

First of all, Happy Tax Day everyone. However, if you're one of our more conservative readers, you're probably mighty whipped up about it, thanks to Fox News and their endless attempts to convince you the government doesn't need your money and it would be better to run up incredible deficits so Glenn Beck can stay wealthy.

Then you heard about these right-wing tea parties, which have nothing to do with the Founding Fathers and their fiestas in Boston and everything to do with total idiocy...

This morning, we spoke with Chuck Collins, the famed lefty activist and senior scholar at the Institute For Policy Studies, about these confusing protests. Here is an explanation:

What do you think of the tea party protests?

Protests are healthy in a democracy, but these Tea Parties are a phony grassroots “Astroturf” campaign, orchestrated by anti-tax, anti-government groups.

They are trying to channel the public’s anger toward Wall Street greed toward taxes and the Obama economic plan.

The problem is the Big Disconnect. Most Americans are getting a tax cut this April 15th. People aren’t complaining about their taxes –they are fearful for the economy. They are rooting for President Obama to fix the economy –and dig us out of the horrific mess that he inherited.

Who is behind this?

It's a stunt organized by Freedom Works, a right-wing organization funded by the Koch family, an oil billionaire business. Their agenda is to shrink government, and cut taxes. They are not AGAINST Wall Street greed – they ARE Wall Street Greed. They are pretending to be patriots on tax day –but they are doing the King’s bidding and Wall Street’s program.

Without the Koch millions –and Fox News infomercials, these demonstrations would not gain much ground.

Is there a cause to protest?

Something to protest is the fact that we have two tax codes in this country –one for the wealthy and another for the rest of us. The effective tax rate on the richest 1 percent has declined by 50 percent since 1955. The “great tax shift” has reduced taxes on the wealthy.

For more, see “Reversing the Great Tax Shift: Seven Steps to Finance Recovery Fairly” at IPS.

Media Matters for America President Eric Burns also weighs in on Fox News’ tea party hysteria:

“It is absurd that a news network that claims to be ‘fair and balanced’ is actively encouraging its viewers to engage in anti-Obama political activism. However, this is par for the course for Fox News. The network has been seized by the culture of conservative paranoia that has run rampant since President Obama’s inauguration, with its hosts accusing the president of every ‘-ism’ in the book and making increasingly dire and irresponsible predictions about the consequences that Obama’s policies will have for the country.”

Check out a rundown of background information on Fox News' promotion of these suspicious "tea parties." This site is also chockful of stories about how right-wing fronts are practically bribing people to show up and keep the manufactured momentum going.

Related:

Rachel Maddow Talks Teabagging (Video)

Top 5 Sexiest Daily Show Moments

What We Learned About on Wikipedia Today: Teabagging

Billionaires For Bush Say Goodbye... For Now...

Brian Fairbanks — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 14:45:00 GMT

Unless Jeb Bush runs for Senate in Florida, wins, and mounts a stunning Bush Family-styled comeback for the White House in 2012, it's fairly likely that the Billionaires For Bush will be no more. We counter-protested a 10,000-person strong peace movement rally and march on the RNC last year under the name "Lobbyists For McCain," with slogans like "Loyal to Big Oil," "Proud Bush-McCain Republican," and, of course, "Four More Years."

Well, it ~~worked~~ failed. The unwashed masses voted for Obama, even though our revered corporations and special interests didn't endorse him. And so we begin a new era-- one without Hummers, without tax cuts directed toward the top 1%-- even without gigantic corporate fountains urinating pure Stolichnaya vodka.

With this in mind, the New York Times interviewed the Lobbyists For McCain, i.e. Billionaires For Bush, in Tuesday's paper...

They were getting along just fine, these Billionaires were, when a terrible thing happened.
George W. Bush left office.
It’s hard to be a Billionaire for Bush when there is no Bush. The group might have recast itself as Billionaires for Obama. But that would have required “irony we can believe in,” said Andrew Boyd, who sometimes goes by his Billionaire name, Phil T. Rich.

“Here’s the conundrum,” Mr. Boyd said. “Can you point out that the emperor has no clothes when you like the emperor — and his clothes?”

Not really, although the Daily Show has had plenty of ammunition lately without specifically attacking President Changey Pants.

“I think we were serious about having our brand lose its brand identity,” said Elissa Jiji or, if you prefer, Meg A. Bucks. Mr. Bartlett observed that “it’s not the time for ostentatious wealth.” Even though there are still plenty of potential targets — Bernard L. Madoff and bonus-hungry Wall Street executives, for example — there seems little point going after them when others are, too.

“They’re no longer held in such esteem that they need to be knocked down,” Mr. Boyd said.

For now, the Billionaires have chosen to put away their gowns, toss aside their top hats and leave their badminton rackets in the closet. Soon after the Obama inauguration, a few dozen of them met at a Greenwich Village bar for what Ms. Jiji described as “a last huzzah.” She had “thought we’d be sad,” she said, “but it was very festive.” Mr. Boyd called it a “farewell to arms contracts.”

But bear in mind that “Billionaires never die,” he said. “We just refinance.”

Have no fear about the end of satire in America, though: Plutocrats For Palin does have a certain ring to it for 2012...

Tax Day with an actual pimp, April 2005.

Jolly Robber Barons: the Billionaire Yacht Club during the Coney Island Mermaid Parade, circa June 2005...

Via the New York Times.

Video of Darin Barry, Andrew Boyd (background), and the author from Minnesota Independent Media.

Related:

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George W. Bush May Get in Bed With Sleaze, but at Least It's Got a Pretty Face

New York Times: Iraq War Ends

Brian Fairbanks — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 14:07:00 GMT

Did you enjoy our little prank?

Well, we didn't come up with it, but we knew about it and were part of it on our own undisclosed way... and if you don't know what we're talking about, you will now.

And hey, if Lili Taylor thought it was awesome, it was worth getting up at the crack of dawn to pass these out in Union Square:

New York Times Special Edition Video News Release - Nov. 12, 2008

For those of you who don't live in New York City, here's a rundown from our friends Beka and Andy:

Hundreds of independent writers, artists, and activists are claiming
credit for an elaborate project, 6 months in the making, in which 1.2
million copies of a "special edition" of the New York Times were
distributed in cities across the U.S. by thousands of volunteers.

The papers, dated July 4th of next year, were headlined with
long-awaited news: "IRAQ WAR ENDS". The edition, which bears the same
look and feel as the real deal, includes stories describing what the
future could hold: national health care, the abolition of corporate
lobbying, a maximum wage for CEOs, etc. There was also a spoof site, at
http://www.nytimes-se.com/.

"Is this true? I wish it were true!" said one reader. "It can be true,
if we demand it."

"We wanted to experience what it would look like, and feel like, to
read headlines we really want to read. It's about what's possible, if
we think big and act collectively," said Steve Lambert, one of the
project's organizers and an editor of the paper.

"This election was a massive referendum on change. There's a lot of
hope in the air, but there's a lot of uncertainty too. It's up to all
of us now to make these headlines come true," said Beka Economopoulos,
one of the project's organizers.

"It doesn't stop here. We gave Obama a mandate, but he'll need mandate
after mandate after mandate to do what we elected him to do. He'll need
a lot of support, and yes, a lot of pressure," said Andy Bichlbaum,
another project organizer and editor of the paper.

The people behind the project are involved in a diverse range of
groups, including The Yes Men, the Anti-Advertising Agency, CODEPINK,
United for Peace and Justice, Not An Alternative, May First/People
Link, Improv Everywhere, Evil Twin, and Cultures of Resistance.

In response to the spoof, the New York Times said only, "We are looking
into it." Alex S. Jones, former Times reporter who is an authority on
the history of the paper, says: "I would say if you've got one, hold on
to it. It will probably be a collector's item."

UPDATE: Our lawyer just let us know that some of the 1.2 million copies are "already on sale on E-bay at prices from $30-40 to $200."

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While You Were Sleeping: The Naked Mannequin Orgy

A History of MIT Pranks, In Glorious Pictures...

Drunk Man Has Sex With A Toyota (Hey, At Least It Wasn't A Hummer)

RNC Day One: Total Anarchy

Brian Fairbanks — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 15:21:00 GMT

We'll be embedded most of this week with the Lobbyists For McCain, who claim to be the real power behind ~~George Bush's~~ John McCain's campaign. Of course, it's a satirical group of people that don't support McCain and think lobbyists-- and money-- have too much influence in our government. They are technically nonpartisan.

While thousands of protesters either stabbed cops, broke windows, or more likely walked peacefully, the L4M mainly stood off to the sidelines and kept everybody laughing and generally calming the atmosphere made all the more tense by the presence of Darth Vader dudes with batons...

At first, almost everyone got the point-- it's clearly a joke (see above sign)... then, the Democrats-- the scary, scary ones who have megaphones and think if you scream chants, interesting or not, you will somehow change minds-- got wind of what the Lobbyists For McCain were up to. At that point, the anti-RNC march we were "counterprotesting" had made a loop in front of the Convention Center and headed back toward the Capitol area. At this point, as far as we know, few arrests had been made. (We just heard, at 1:17am Minnesota time Tuesday, that more than 200 arrests have been made, mainly cases of anarchists breaking things and allegedly attacking cops.)

Among the highlights:

-getting screamed at by smelly-- and by that mean that we could actually smell them and it was painful-- anarchists who didn't get the joke... and even when they were informed it was satirical, they continued to scream

-the older woman who shouted: "Why don't you get a decent job?"

-doing a song and dance in front of the literally-crumbling ice sculpture of democracy

-the huge piles of unused counter-protest posters made by the pro-war people

-standing above the parade in a skywalk and the silent reactions (middle fingers, applause, laughs) to the Lobbyists For McCain posters ("Four More Years!") from the thousands passing below

-we had set up in front of a group of totally silent pro-war Republicans with identical posters and were holding our signs (including "Don't Change Horsemen Mid-Apocalypse") up among theirs to make it appear as if we were in agreement with them. A woman affiliated with one of the anti-war march's organizing groups got right in front of us and tried to yell over us. When she said, "Yes, we can" we shouted, "No, you can't" right over her. Finally, as it became clear to us that she was the only person who remained clueless about the real point of Lobbyists For McCain, with the Republicans literally patting us on the back and the protesters laughing as they went by, we finally walked up directly behind her and started chanting:

"You don't get it... you don't get it... you don't get it..." to the applause and cheers of the crowd until she finally went away...

Among the lowlights:

-Toby Keith played the State Fair, which had nothing to do with why the Fair kind of sucked.

There were political people out by the tens of thousands... one guy called me a "cocksucker" for "deceiving him" by claiming the L4M are McCain "supporters." Meanwhile, the guy running the McCain booth, which we were "coincidentally" standing in front of, raced out of into the walkway to shout, "Hey, you're infringing on my right to free speech!"

Of course, this was hilarious since we were a good eight to ten feet into the pedestrian walkway in front of his booth. Johnny: "Yeah, meanwhile a hundred thousand people are getting sealed up in protest pens and you're worried about your booth." "Yeah, yeah, yeah."

There are sure to be more ridiculous stories from today's (Tuesday's) events, especially with the RNC presumably moving into full swing.

Lobbyists For McCain Take On The Minnesota State Fair.

Meanwhile, the real lobbyists were ignoring the hurricane and partying it up, supposedly off the radar, with the band Hookers and Blow. Classy!

Related:

Against Our Better Judgment, We're Reporting From The RNC This Week

Top photo by Mike McGregor. Others via Flickr.

Man Sells His Soul To Hell (Pizza)

Brian Fairbanks — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 14:59:00 GMT

We're not making this up (although CNN and the AP might be): a man named (Sir?) Walter Scott of Wellington, New Zealand, has sold his soul for $3,800... to a pizza place... named "Hell Pizza."

We hope Walter was joking when he shrugged off the country's collective moral outrage and noted in the auction listing

"I can't see it, touch it or feel it, but I can sell it, so I'm going to palm it off to the highest bidder."

After the sellouts at TradeMe (some sort of e-bay ripoff in Kiwiland) pulled the auction, the owners of the local Hell Pizza stepped in like Robert De Niro in "Angel Heart."

"The soul belongs to Hell, there is simply no better place for it," Allison told The Associated Press. "He was pretty delighted."
O'Donnell had said on Wednesday that Scott's auction complied with TradeMe's rules because a physical object -- the deed of ownership -- would change hands.
Allison said she would fly to Scott's home town of Wanganui on North Island Friday "to pick up the soul -- or at least the deed of ownership."

A kid tried this once on ebay, but it was pulled for the same reason-- the soul was not considered tangible by the site's management. (Back in '05, the Billionaires For Bush auctioned off social security to the highest Wall Street bidder for almost one billion dollars, but unfortunately that program remains in the hands of the unwashed masses.)

Via CNN.

Video of the Day: No You Can't

Emily Farris — Fri, 15 Feb 2008 20:41:00 GMT

In response to the now-famous "Yes We Can" Barack Obama video, the people formerly known as the Billionaires for Bush have released "No You Can't." We bet you didn't know that our senior national political correspondent Brian Fairbanks was a Billionaire for Bush. And he's too shy to tell you that he was a co-creator of this video.