Digby's Hullabaloo Posts

Funnymen

by digby

Side-Splitters at CPAC

Speaking to the conservative conference just now, Pawlenty went for an unusual metaphor to incite rebellion against government overreach.

I think we can learn a lot from this situation. Not from Tiger — but from his wife. She said, “I’ve had enough!” She said, “No more!” I think we should take a page out of her playbook, and take a 9-iron and smash the window out of big government in this country.

Good stuff. And then there’s this:

Introducing Grover Norquist, the rabidly anti-tax conservative activist, Human Events editor Jed Babbin cracked a joke about the incident. “I’m really happy to see Grover today,” Babbin said. “He was getting a little testy in the past couple of weeks. And I was just really, really glad that it was not him identified as flying that airplane into the IRS building.”

Just don’t call them retards.

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Anti-taxation Representation

by digby

Here’s an interesting piece speculating about Joseph Stack’s issues with the IRS:

“The IRS is toughest on people who reject the whole concept and authority of the system, who are not accepting that we do have income tax laws that we are all subject to,” said Philip J. Holthouse, partner at the Santa Monica tax law and accounting firm of Holthouse, Carlin & Van Trigt. “If the anger expressed in this posting is consistent with how he interacted with the government representatives, it would not have enhanced their compassion.”

Stack’s note refers to meeting with “a group” in the early 1980s who were holding “tax readings and discussions” that zeroed in on tax exemptions that make “the vulgar, corrupt Catholic Church so incredibly wealthy.” He said in the post that he then began to do “exactly what the ‘big boys’ were doing.”

“We took a great deal of care to make it all visible, following all of the rules, exactly the way the law said it was to be done.”

Since Stack wasn’t a church, this is like waving a red flag at a bull. The IRS apparently considered this foray into tax avoidance the real corruption. Stack’s letter says: “That little lesson in patriotism cost me $40,000.”

Incidentally, the notion that anyone (other than a legitimate charity) doesn’t need to pay income taxes is one that’s well familiar–and refuted–by not only the IRS but every legitimate tax preparer in the country. So-called tax protestors or “tax defiers” take bits and pieces of the law, string them together in incomprehensible ways to come up with arguments that they say exempt them from tax. They can sound convincing, so the IRS publishes a long list of “frivolous” tax arguments on its web site, explaining when and where each argument was refuted, in an effort to keep innocent taxpayers from drinking the tax protest KoolAid.

But that wasn’t all. Stack also says in his letter that he drained a retirement account and didn’t pay tax on any of that money–didn’t even file a return. The penalties for not filing a tax return are roughly 10 times worse than for not paying your taxes. That’s one of the reasons that accountants tell their clients to file returns, even when they don’t have the money to pay, said Holthouse.

Finally, Stack rails about independent contractor rules.

Experts said the only way this rant could make sense is if Stack started a company that employed other people, who he maintained were independent contractors rather than employees. If an employer maintains he’s hired only independent contractors, he doesn’t need to pay Social Security and Medicare taxes on their wages. But the IRS audits these claims carefully. When an employee is improperly classified as an independent contractor so that the employer can avoid these taxes, the IRS prosecutes aggressively because it considers it tantamount to stealing from workers Social Security and Medicare accounts.

And then these anti-tax zealots are reinforced in their belief that the IRS is a bunch of illegitimate jackbooted thugs who are out to get them.

This particular belief system is fairly common on the wingnut fringe here in California, where Stack’s radicalism was spawned. I’ve known a few of these guys and they are, simply, far right extremists who object to government with the same fervor as any gun nut or militia member. (It sometimes couches itself in “libertarianism,” which may be how this soft wear engineer got into it.) But these guys really just believe that government is illegitimate, period, and they target taxation as their tool to prove it.

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One More Push

by digby

The Progressive Congress Action Fund along with HCAN, Move On and a bunch of other groups are gearing up for a major push to get HCR over the line. They have organized a virtual march on Washington, hoping to flood the congress with calls demanding that they get this thing done.

If you have some energy left to try to get this over the finish line, you can sign up here for details. (I can guarantee that this is a legitimate action and they are not doing this simply to fish for your email address.)

Here’s more from DKos:

Procedures and what can you expect on February 24th. We need All Hands on February 24th. Can we all put aside our differences and join together in one common purpose, because our lives depend on it, to make healthcare a reality? The 1,000,000 Voices campaign will be rolled out to the media starting on Monday. We’ll keep you advised of all developments as they happen.On the MoveOn 1,000,000 Voices Virtual March on Washington web site, which will go live early in the morning of February 24th, you’ll be able to use their incredible tools to contact Congress and the Senate and to take the action of your choice–call, email, fax or write.…

Some of you have asked about what message to deliver. The overall message is very, very simple. PASS HEALTHCARE REFORM. Each organization will ask it’s members to call, email, fax, or write a letter. If you decide to call, you’ll be offered talking points. You’re free to use them or not, whatever moves you. Just take an action–call, email, fax, letter–it’s all about 1,000,000 contacts on February 24th. Since the Public Option may be gaining life again, if this is something you support, then please demand a public option. If you would prefer not to make that demand, that’s also fine. These are the talking points which resonate with us. You’re free to use them or not, it’s your choice.

The call-in effort will be to ask for these items below in the reconciliation fix, and directing these calls at the House and the Senate. * Inclusion of the public option
* The Medicare buy-in
* Fixing the excise tax
* Getting rid of the Nebraska Cornhusker Kickback deal
* National exchange
* Drug re-importation
* Drug price negotiation in Medicare Part D
* Increasing subsidies. Why are we aiming high? Because we need to do our best, and always fight to the end in making this Senate bill better.

On the other hand, if you believe the best route to getting a bill passed is for the House to simply vote to pass the Senate Bill, you are free to make that your “ask”. And we thank you too, for participating. All we ask, is that you take an action.

It’s worth trying, for sure. The Democrats in congress are going to get hammered no matter what they do, so there’s no point in not passing it. And, as Krugman points out in his column this morning, the situation is getting worse. The private insurance market is in a death spiral as healthy, unemployed people are dropping their insurance because they can’t afford it. This is going to get worse and worse, especially if the economy stays flat. They have nothing to lose by passing this and it’s just possible that it may ameliorate at least some of the problems.

(My biggest fear is that health care will be passed in exchange for gutting social security. But hey, I’m sure all of us baby boomers can find work when we’re 80, right? One problem at a time…)

Update: You can also join the PCCC’s campaign to get the Senate to agree to pass the public option in reconciliation, which is gaining some momentum.

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Weaponized Morons

by digby

Little Andy puts on his big boy pants:

Breitbart asserted “there is more video that is going to come out” and predicted “the media that tried to defeat James O’Keefe and to destroy him, in their attempts to do that, they weaponized him and made him a bigger figure than he otherwise would become, and so the next videos that come from him and his cohorts [are] going to be that much more devastating.”

… and then swaggers around kicking over the legos:

“My business model is I want to be a talent scout. I want to be an American idol for weaponized freedom fighters,” said Breitbart. “And that’s one of the reasons I love coming here.”

I can’t help but be reminded of an earlier Breitbart battle for freedom:

Late last month, my wife, Susie, and I took a day trip to Shutters, an elegant, white-veneered hotel along the ritzy Santa Monica shoreline. It’s a special-occasion place, and we went there to take in a rare parental reprieve.

We went to the hotel’s second-floor veranda overlooking the Pacific and ordered spinach-and-artichoke dip and two margaritas. Except for a mild wind, the day was perfect for checking out seagulls and passers-by on the boardwalk below.

Santa Monica is an upscale part of Los Angeles, and Shutters is a pricey joint. But the nearby pier-cum-amusement-park and its spacious public beach is a multifaceted, people-watching experience.

Soon after our drinks arrived, a group of mostly-college-age kids began walking by in large bunches, many in tandem holding large rope segments in groups of 20 or so. They clearly were marching for something they considered important.

As they passed, the protesters stared sourly at the second story where we sat. Fellow patrons wondered aloud what this now massive conga line was all about. About 300 people into the procession, I spotted a sign that had “war” written in it. One T-shirt read, “Stop forcing our children to be your soldiers.”

It’s a voluntary army, you stupid kids!

A thousand marchers into the protest, the sour looks aimed at the hotel’s clientele began to wear on us. The marchers’ defiant smugness started to make an enemy of me.

“Oh, no,” I thought. The antiwar movement that I saw growing only days after Sept. 11, 2001, was at it again. I thought: Even with a new president – and one who mostly shares their point of view – the I-love-a-protest-parade political left couldn’t help itself. It likes ruining nice sunny days. Protesting is what these people do. Sneering at their fellow citizens is their chief skill. Projecting arrogance is their birthright.

So with the antiwar sign, the T-shirt and the thousand-strong parade right under our noses, I began to seethe. These anti-warriors were trying to destroy the peaceful seaside vibe and our pleasant Jose Cuervo buzz.

Knowing that Susie considers a true escape a day when politics isn’t on the menu, I kept my observations to myself. I even restrained my natural impulse to run down to the sand to go mano a mano with the rabble-rousers.

But when one dude raised his fist like runners Tommie Smith and John Carlos did at the 1968 Mexico City Olympics, I could not hold myself back. I jumped from my seat and bolted to the center of the balcony, where the American flag waved furiously in a now-harsh wind. Positioned next to Old Glory, I countered the young punk and reached out my right arm directing my middle finger in his direction.

As soon as my finger was raised, a phalanx of photographers began snapping away at the white middle-aged man wearing a white LaCoste shirt next to the old red, white and blue. Cognizant of the power of imagery, I owned the moment and refused to back down. The fist wielder immediately dropped his arm. I clearly had won and envisioned photos of the anti-antiwar protester making the front pages of the Los Angeles Times.

Satisfied by the small victory, I sat down to finish my cocktail. With my wife pretending not to be embarrassed, we went back to enjoying our midday excursion. But instead of waking up Sunday or Monday morning to see my face in the paper, I instead received an e-mail from a journalism student at a local university who recognized me from a recent debate on campus.

The e-mail began like this:

“On 4/25/09 an event hosted by the Invisible Children called ‘The Rescue’ took place in Santa Monica. I shot the event. 4,000 youth marched in solidarity for the children abducted and forced to fight for the LRA in Northern Uganda and more recently in the Congo. I had felt a sense of hope in my generation’s methods of activism at the event.”

Oh, no. It only got worse.

“I believe most people in America are in agreement that human slavery, genocide and child soldiers are a terrible thing. This event was hardly controversial. The protest marched by ‘Shutters on the Beach.’ After reviewing the photographs I was taking for the event and confirming the facts (you were in Santa Monica at the date and time) I realized you were flipping the protesters off. I am curious to why this is the case.”

Unfortunately, these “weaponized freedom fighters” just aren’t very bright. That’s dangerous.

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Bad Dog

by digby

I love the Westminster Dog Show. And this year’s winner was very adorable. But the runner-up was just awful — a rabid, out-of-control, barking Northwestern Wingnut:

I think they American Kennel Association needs to rescind this breed’s accreditation. It could easily eat your baby.

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TerraSymps

by digby

For a bunch of fearsome lawnorder terrorist scourges, these Republicans sure have a hard time condemning Americans who attack government workers:

CAVUTO: We have a guy who is just ranting at the system, ranting at the IRS, ranting at big government, the need for health care, not the need for unions – I mean really crazy stuff. I would just be curious of your reaction to all that.

SCOTT BROWN: Well It’ s certainly tragic and I feel for the families obviously that are being effected by it. And I don’t know if its related but I can just sense not only in my election but since being here in Washington people are frustrated. They want transparency. They want their elected officials to be accountable and open and talk about the things effecting their daily lives. So I am not sure if there is a connection, I certainly hope not, but we need to do things better.

I guess he’s saying that the people who voted for him are likely to be domestic terrorists? It sounds like it. (He also added that nobody like paying taxes …)

But Brown isn’t the only one to express similar sentiments. Recall this one from Senator John Cornyn, in response to a spate of murders?

“I don’t know if there is a cause-and-effect connection, but we have seen some recent episodes of courthouse violence in this country. … And I wonder whether there may be some connection between the perception in some quarters, on some occasions, where judges are making political decisions yet are unaccountable to the public, that it builds up and builds up and builds up to the point where some people engage in, engage in violence…No one, including those judges, including the judges on the U.S. Supreme Court, should be surprised if one of us stands up and objects.”

Nobody should be surprised that the right wing doesn’t see anything wrong with nice white, anti-government lunatics try to kill people, that’s for sure. Their leaders certainly aren’t.

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Scams

by digby

The TV is obsessed with the anti-tax nut who flew his plane into a building because he didn’t know how to account for a piano on his tax returns. Or something. from the looks of it, he’s a fairly typical anti-government crank whose incoherent combination of grievances sounds as if it would be perfectly at home at your average tea party.

But I was intrigued by his reference to an early affiliation with a group that held “tax code readings” in California because I had a vague recollection of some scam a friend of mine had been involved with. Here’s what this man wrote in his “manifesto”:

My introduction to the real American nightmare starts back in the early ‘80s. Unfortunately after more than 16 years of school, somewhere along the line I picked up the absurd, pompous notion that I could read and understand plain English. Some friends introduced me to a group of people who were having ‘tax code’ readings and discussions. In particular, zeroed in on a section relating to the wonderful “exemptions” that make institutions like the vulgar, corrupt Catholic Church so incredibly wealthy. We carefully studied the law (with the help of some of the “best”, high-paid, experienced tax lawyers in the business), and then began to do exactly what the “big boys” were doing (except that we weren’t steeling from our congregation or lying to the government about our massive profits in the name of God). We took a great deal of care to make it all visible, following all of the rules, exactly the way the law said it was to be done.

The intent of this exercise and our efforts was to bring about a much-needed re-evaluation of the laws that allow the monsters of organized religion to make such a mockery of people who earn an honest living. However, this is where I learned that there are two “interpretations” for every law; one for the very rich, and one for the rest of us… Oh, and the monsters are the very ones making and enforcing the laws; the inquisition is still alive and well today in this country.

That little lesson in patriotism cost me $40,000+, 10 years of my life, and set my retirement plans back to 0. It made me realize for the first time that I live in a country with an ideology that is based on a total and complete lie. It also made me realize, not only how naive I had been, but also the incredible stupidity of the American public; that they buy, hook, line, and sinker, the crap about their “freedom”… and that they continue to do so with eyes closed in the face of overwhelming evidence and all that keeps happening in front of them.

A little googling brought it back:

Tax protesters usually evade taxes and sometimes commit acts of violence, but a number of people involved in the tax protest movement have also engaged in a variety of scams and frauds designed to capitalize on the beliefs of other tax protesters and the greed of ordinary citizens. Though they generally believe in the anti-tax rhetoric they preach, a variety of groups and individuals have worked actively to defraud others through the marketing of bogus trusts, “untax” kits or other devices that would ostensibly allow people to avoid paying income taxes.

Perhaps the most famous such tax protest organization was the California-based Your Heritage Protection Association, which, at one point in the early 1980s, could boast nearly 19,000 members. Its leader, Armen Condo, taught followers how to file papers claiming they were exempt from income taxes and urged them to pay a portion of those taxes to his organization as dues. Condo collected around $2 million before being arrested and convicted of mail and tax fraud in 1982, after which YHPA gradually died off. However, the YHPA was followed by the Pilot Connection Society, founded by Phillip and Marlene Marsh of Fresno, California. The Society sold “untax” kits to members from all 50 states, collecting more than $10 million in fees and dues before the Marshes and five associates were arrested on a variety of charges in 1993 — with members in other states arrested subsequently

IIRC, this group was one of those “common law” groups that set up mirror governments and declared that the “sovereign” state of wherever didn’t have to abide by the US Constitution. They are also loosely affiliated with the Posse Comitatus white supremacists, militias and other garden variety Anti-government fringers. It’s all part of that great American wingnut tapestry.

Obviously, I’m just guessing that one or both of these scams are what this guy was referring to, but it fits. If it was, then this fellow was not only an anti-tax loon, he was a victim of anti-tax loons, which makes him a double dupe.

Update: A little bit more about the “Your Heritage Protection Association” scam.

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So Cheney told CPAC today that Obama is a one term president.

I couldn’t help but be reminded of my Dad, who smugly insisted from June of 1993 to November 1996 that Clinton was “a one-termer.” He was very, very sure that the country was coming around to the fact that Clinton was illegitimate and that liberalism had been finally proven to be un-American. And subsequently he was excessively frustrated when Clinton won a second term. These folks tend to work themselves up into a frenzy of expectations that turn them rabidly angry when thwarted.

Not that it changes anything. But I’m just saying — if you think they are already out of their minds, just wait. It can get worse.

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The Public Option Gambit

by digby

It’s looking more and more as if the Senate really is going to have a reconciliation vote on the Public Option. Whether this means they can get to 50 (and whether Biden would actually cast the deciding vote for it if necessary) remains to be seen. I’m guessing that at the very least they want to show good intentions, which means that base demoralization is on their minds. This is good. It should be on their minds. The mid-term depends upon it.

But I would warn them that if they think that building up the base’s hopes on this again only to fail to even get 50 out of 58 Democrats it isn’t going to work. If they are serious about rallying the base they need to deliver, period. No excuses. They have a majority. If they hold a vote that only requires 51, they need to win it.

I’m just praying they aren’t going to have a spirited losing debate on the floor and then go the Evan Bayh route yesterday when he was on TV, righteously blaming the Republicans for being obstructionists (good) but also blaming Democrats for making the “perfect the enemy of the good”. One more lecture about this and I’m going to put my foot through the TV. The truth of the matter is that liberals have been accommodating every damned step of the way, forced to eat dirt from backstabbers like Joe Lieberman and have been far more compromising than jackasses like Bart Stupak and Ben Nelson. It pays to remember that if liberals had their way we would be talking about a national, cradle to grave universal health care plan (Medicare for all) instead of this Rube Goldberg contraption that’s been put together with toothpicks and ear wax. So lectures about demanding perfection really need to be aimed at the vaunted “centrists” and the conservatives, who made this mess a necessary requirement for passage.

The activists at the PCCC who are working on this deserve a lot of credit for plugging away and getting it back on the reconciliation agenda long after everyone else had pretty much thrown in the towel. It makes sense both politically and fiscally to do it and there’s really no good reason that they can’t muster a majority. It’s even possible that the congress has finally realized this.

But if they are running the same game they ran before I can’t imagine how much worse they are making it for themselves. They need to be very, very serious about passing it. This Charlie Brown with the football routine is what’s killing them with the base. They just can’t afford to do it again.

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Whose Constitution Is It Anyway?

by digby

I wonder how these bold new “constitutional conservatives” are going to handle questions like this:

Can a U.S. senator be removed from office by popular vote — through the procedure known as recall? That question is now being hotly debated in New Jersey, where the Sussex County Tea Party is pushing a recall of Sen. Robert Menendez, a Democrat and head of the Democrats’ Senate political arm, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, or DSCC. “He has voted for unconstitutional bills, including health care and cap and trade,” the group says. “He also has consistently voted for legislation favoring illegal immigration and irresponsible fiscal spending.”

But do a state’s residents have the power to vote a senator out of office? Yes, New Jersey law explicitly says. “The people of this state shall have the power to recall … any United States senator or representative elected from this state,” a state law provides, written to conform with a similar provision in New Jersey’s constitution. But throughout U.S. history, no U.S. senator or representative has ever been recalled, and many legal scholars believe such an effort would be unconstitutional. They note that the U.S. Constitution provides for removing a senator or congressman only by vote of a member’s peers — through expulsion. “The recall of members was considered at the time of the drafting of the federal constitution in 1787, but no such provisions were included in the final version,” says a 2003 report by the Congressional Research Service. It’s that very silence that the Sussex County Tea Party believes provides an opening. Powers not specifically spelled out in the U.S. Constitution for the federal government are reserved to the states, including the recall authority, they argue. The U.S. Supreme Court has never squarely decided the question, but has suggested in other rulings that states have no power over positions created by the federal government, such as senators and congressmen. For now, the group is fighting in state court over a more fundamental issue — the legal right to gather signatures on a petition seeking the recall vote. Last month, New Jersey’s secretary of state said any such petition could not be accepted because a recall effort would violate the federal Constitution. “This is a matter of free speech,” says Dan Silberstein, a lawyer for the Tea Party group. “Gathering signatures on a petition is core political expression.” On Feb. 26th, a state appeals court will hear oral arguments on the petition issue. If the courts allow the Sussex County Tea Party to gather signatures, the group would then face the bigger legal battle, testing whether the voters actually have the power, under the U.S. Constitution, to recall a U.S. senator.

How about this:

Is there a right to secede from the Union, or did the Civil War settle that? Certain Tea Partiers have raised the possibility .. Enter a New York personal injury lawyer, and Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. The lawyer, Eric Turkewitz, says his brother Dan, a screenwriter, put just such a question to all of the Supreme Court justices in 2006 — he was working on an idea about Maine leaving the U.S.and a big showdown at the Supreme Court — and Scalia responded. His answer was no: “I am afraid I cannot be of much help with your problem, principally because I cannot imagine that such a question could ever reach the Supreme Court. To begin with, the answer is clear. If there was any constitutional issue resolved by the Civil War, it is that there is no right to secede. (Hence, in the Pledge of Allegiance, “one Nation, indivisible.”) Secondly, I find it difficult to envision who the parties to this lawsuit might be. Is the State suing the United States for a declaratory judgment? But the United States cannot be sued without its consent, and it has not consented to this sort of suit.

That’s not likely to sit well with Wolf Blitzer’s BFF, Eric Erickkson, who, while explaining the Mt Vernon manifesto, said this:

BLITZER: But the point that I’m trying to make is, isn’t the — the Supreme Court the final decision maker when it comes to whether or not the legislative branch or the executive branch goes too far?

ERICKSON: No. I don’t think the Supreme Court is. And I don’t think the founders of the Constitution did. We live in a day where we think when the Supreme Court says something is so, that’s the case. But the Supreme Court changes its mind. It’s not infallible.

Now, Antonin Scalia may think that as a Supreme Court justice he is the designated channeler of the founders’ original intent, but Eric Erickson begs to disagree. I guess that he believes the founders intended that right wing bloggers and ancient conservative movement functionaries to be the one’s to do it. I keep looking for that clause in the constitution and I can’t find it. Anybody?

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