Oops. Please excuse the typo.

I meant to say "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on ME!

This character is an embarrasment to the whole of Italy and how we can allow him to declare war and be a serious world leader is beyond my comprehension. Maybe its because the current crop of world leaders leave much to be desired. I despair of what we can hope for!

All I can say is everytime I hear one of those old brilliant, passionate FDR clips I just want to cry...my heart is just breaking....What has happened to this country? Can we seriosuly even hope to ever get it back? I can't pretend I am hopeful....I wish I could but I can't.

MaryMary: I am not paid to post. I think you are replying to the wrong post--I'm hardly wordy.

Elioflight

Time to KICK ASS !! Go Obama Go !!

I get $300 per post, obviously, you are paid by the word. Ch-ching

.

I can hardley listen or read about this anymore. What will we do if they get elected? It seems there are so many people who think these guys are right. What is going on in this country? HELP!

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Ok, Ursel, here we go:

Yes, it does sound seductively reasonable to force billionaires to pay their fair share of taxes. It also sounds eminently reasonable. And it sounds quite reasonable. And now I will say it in Brit-speak: it also sounds ever so reasonable, terribly reasonable, and bloody well reasonable, too.

And yes, it also sounds like justice. In fact, it IS justice.

The completely transparent thing about republicans is that whenever they accuse liberals of engaging in, say, class warfare, for instance, you know that that is what the republicans are doing. And so you are, Ursel. But thanks for the sound byte because it's very useful, because what we have here is someone- you- who is trying to aid and abet America's enemy, by continuing the unfair tax breaks that hyper-wealthy republicans have been getting for decades. I didn't hear you calling it class warfare when your rich employer (yes, we all know you are paid to post republican lies and half-truths on Thom's website) got his tax breaks that did not include any tax breaks for the average person. No, you are always strangley silent when it comes to rich people getting more than their share of the pie. But now that average people realize that rich people have been getting a far better deal than they have, they're upset. Not that I would expect you to understand or sympathize with that, Ursel, because your job depends on you posting right wing fascist dogma. You are not required to make sense or in fact even sound sane. Just spout the fascist doctrine and you get paid.

You say that saying the rich should pay their fair share of taxes is a "nasty bit of class warfare." Well, you're about half-right: there is class warfare going on, but it's a war that your republican employer and his rich friends started against America's middle class, to turn America into a third world country by degrading our education system, destroying our health care system, stealing peoples' retirements, stealing social security, stealing medicare money, stealing peoples' houses, and pretty much stealing every other thing that isn't nailed down. And yes, more and more people are realizing it, so your lies are convincing fewer and fewer people.

You say that if the rich have to pay their fair share of taxes, it will destroy jobs. Huh? Listen, Bubba, you might want to pinch yourself or something and wake up, because your rich employer and his friends have ALREADY OUTSOURCED MOST OF OUR JOBS TO CHINA, INDIA, AND OTHER SLAVE-LABOR COUNTRIES. What world do you live in, that you haven't noticed that virtually all of our manufacturing jobs have already gone overseas?

You say that if the rich have to pay their fair share of taxes, it will drive investment out of the country. Here again, Bubba, I'm sorry to burst your repubican bubble, but investment HAS ALREADY BEEN DRIVEN OUT OF THIS COUNTRY, by your rich employer and his rich friends. You have one of the relatively few safe jobs, spouting lies for republican fascists.

You say that if the rich have to pay their fair share of taxes, it will harm the middle class. I guess haven't noticed that the middle class has already been harmed, by your rich republican employer and his friends, who are tax-dodging and outsourcing our jobs. Job creators, my lilly white ass. They are job-destroyers.

You say that if rich people are forced to pay their fair share of taxes, it won't raise as much revenue as predicted. That's another lie, but even if it were true, you are saying the rich should be allowed to dodge their fair share of taxes "because it's not that much money." So, would you mind if I steal some money from you? It's ok, because I won't steal much. Just a little. A few hundred billion per year. You'll never miss it, I promise.

You say that the rich are "extremely productive." Personally, I don't call it productive when a man sits on his butt and invests and re-invests his billions of dollars. All he's doing is shuffling computer bytes around on the internet, and making decisions that put honest, decent, hard-working Americans out of work and out of their houses. Most billionaires got that way AT THE EXPENSE OF THE MIDDLE CLASS, by insider trading, ponzi schemes, and other thievery. I suppose you could call them highly "productive" thieves, liars and frauds. Yes, you could call them productive in that sense.

You say that once a person has stolen so much money that he doesn't have to work anymore, his income should be taxed at a lower rate. I disagree. You're saying that because he didn't earn the money by working at a real job, he shouldn't have to pay taxes on the wealth that he sits on while the children of his former employees go without food and have no place to live. Tell me, would you like to be one of those super-rich people who sits on billions of dollars while poor people starve to death? And would you sleep well in that situation? If so, you are a sociopath, just like the guy who is paying you to post nonsense on Thom's blog.

You say, "inflation has been causing illusory capital gains to be reported." Well, if inflation bothers you all that much, why don't you tell your republican boss and his friends to stop manipulating our economy and thus causing inflation. Frankly, we'd do just fine without all of those freeloading, lazy, shiftless, lying, good-for-nothing corporate welfare frauds. (So, tell me, how do you republicans like it when someone insults you the way you insult other people? Is it ok, or is it only ok when you insult other people? I'm just asking.)

Unlike you, I will stand up and cheer if Obama's proposal amount to a massive increase in taxes on capital gains and other similar sources of "sit there and cash the checks" income.

You're right: people who steal hundreds of billions of dollars every year from our middle class, do tend to have a lot of control over how and when they are paid. What's your point? They should still pay taxes on it, however and whenever they get it. It's called TAXATION for a reason. Let me explain to you how taxation works: when you make money, you give some of it to the government, to keep our infrastructure going. Because if you don't spend money on infrastructure, all of the roads get huge potholes and become impossible to drive on, the bridges fall down, and so on. But I get that this is an impossible-to-understand principle for republicans who just want to steal money and make other people foot the entire bill for everything, because they prefer bribing congress to create tax loopholes for them. And you think that anyone who can bribe congress shouldn't have to pay any taxes. Ever. No matter how much money they steal, and no matter how much money they force the middle class and the poor to give the government to make up for the taxes that the rich refuse to pay. Good strategy. Works really well. Except, of course, for the depression our country is in. But why would you care about that? You're getting paid to post nonsense on progressive blogs.

But you are right that it is bad to have a tax that's unfair and economically destructive, WHICH IS WHY THE RICH SHOULD START PAYING THEIR FAIR SHARE OF TAXES- because the middle class and the poor are tired of footing the entire bill. And if you think there should be no government spending, why don't you demonstrate your committment to that cause, by not using the roads, bridges, airports, courts, and military that are paid for by taxes and government spending? Well? Or are you just saying things that you don't believe in. And if you are just saying things that you don't really believe in, you fit in very well with the republican party, they're always doing that.

What do you think your rich republican boss will do to you the moment he starts thinking he would make more money if you weren't around? (Hint: he'll fire you without blinking an eye, and won't care if getting fired means you lose your house. If you don't believe me, ask him, and look in his eyes when he's answering. You should know what kind of people you're working for.)

You say that taxing the rich won't work. How do you know? We've never tried it. Well, actually, we have and it worked very well. But you republicans have never been very big on history, because it gets in the way of your lies. And we can't have that, can we? So, when you finish your job posting nonsense on Thom's blog, are you going to go down to Texas and help re-write the history and economics books?

You say that taxing the rich would hurt our economy. But the truth is that when we taxed rich people our economy did well. Extremely well, in fact. And the instant we stopped taxing rich people, our ecomomy started going into the toilet. The more people lose their jobs and houses because of republican lies and inhuman dehumanizing republican policies, the more people will see right through your lies. And there's nothing you can to do stop it.

You say it will "haunt" the middle class if the rich are taxed. So, are you thinking it will haunt them more than our present situation, where the rich pay no taxes, outsource our jobs, overcharge us for banking services, cheat us out of our houses, trick us into wars based on lies, get trillion-dollar bailouts and then refuse to let any of that trillion dollars "trickle-down" to the middle class and the poor, and then try to blame everything they have done to us, on... ourselves? Oh yes, I'm just simply haunted by the possibility that the rich might be taxed. I lay awake at night worrying that the rich might have to pay their fair share of taxes.

You say, "... almost all taxes that initially target only the rich... typically trickle down to target the middle class." Really? And how do you know that? Really, I want to know how you know that. Because America has never, in our entire history, first taxed the rich and then taxed the middle class after that. So you must be talking about some other country. Which country is it? Bulgaria? Sudan? Mexico? You shouldn't put such lies out there, because someone- like me, for instance- might ask you exactly what you mean.

You say that if the rich were taxed, they would engage in tax-avoidance. Wow, we sure wouldn't want that. We have never had rich people avoiding taxes. No, wait, actually we do have rich people who avoid taxes. Maybe you're saying that if the rich are taxed, they will engage in MORE tax avoidance than they are engaging in now? But that's impossible, they couldn't possibly engage in more tax avoidance. And anyway, that is like saying, "I'm stealing money from you. If you complain, I'll steal more money from you."

You say "We often underestimate the distorting effects that high taxes have on the economy and society as a whole." Well, to quote George Bush, I sure wouldn't want to misunderestimate the distorting effect that high taxes have on the rich. Maybe you're saying that if the rich had to pay their fair share of taxes, middle class people would lose their jobs and lose their homes. Boy, we sure wouldn't want that to happen, would we? But wait- MILLIONS OF MIDDLE CLASS PEOPLE HAVE ALREADY LOST THEIR JOBS AND LOST THEIR HOMES, AS A DIRECT RESULT OF REPUBLICAN LIES AND THIEVERY AND TAX-AVOIDANCE. Maybe you have underestimated the distorting effect that rich people dodging taxes, has on the economy and on society as a whole. Yes, that's probably it. Perfectly understandable, don't feel bad about it, no one expects you to understand what's going on all around you and all over the country.

You say that private health insurance is a "quirk that came to be as a result of extremely high taxes during the Second World War." Ok, now let's tell the truth: private health insurance is a direct result of a republican scam, a way of stealing money from the middle class, on the pretext of "helping people be prepared" for accidents and illnesses. In all other industrialized countries, everyone has health care whether they have money or not. But you republicans don't like it when patriotic Americans find out just how badly you've been shafting us, do you? But you should be careful telling lies like that, though, because there's always a chance that some pesky person will come along and tell the truth.

You say that the suspension of one man's dividends means the suspension of another man's pay envelope. Huh, And here I was thinking that when rich people get dividends, they just sit on that money and hoard it, while they watch the little people suffering. You know, like your boss's boss sits on his money, and wouldn't spend a penny of it to save your life or anyone else's life. And I was also thinking that the suspension of another man's pay envelope was caused by republicans outsourcing America's entire heavy manufacturing base. And I was also thinking that the suspension of another man's pay envelope is made worse when his republican-controlled credit card company hikes his interest rate to 29%, compounded daily. And I was thinking that the suspension of another man's pay envelope is made worse when a bank fraudulently forecloses on his house even though they have no legal right to because they have NEVER held title to many of the houses they foreclose on.

You say, "We are in the preliminary stages of one of the greatest public policy battles in our history." Right you are. Except for the fact that it's not really the preliminary stages at all; your republican boss and his fascist friends have been trying to do this to America for decades. Ursel- or whatever your name really is- before you say things like that, you should open a history book. And do you really think that any of the people who read and post on this blog- many of whom have read Thom's books- will believe your lies? You know what? Your republican boss is wasting his money paying you to post nonsense on Thom's blog, because no one here believes you. You really might need to move to Texas and help re-write their history, science, and economics textbooks. So, in the spirit of friendly cooperation, I'm going to give you some stuff you can put in those books. God created the world a few thousand years ago. It took six days, then he laid around and rested. (That one is for both the history and science books.) It doesn't matter what you have to do to get resources out of the ground, including killing the people who have lived there since God created the world a few thousand years ago, and it doesn't matter how much you pollute the planet in manufacturing stuff from those resources, because God wants you to dominate the universe and stomp all over it. (That one is for the economics books.) Feel free to use these quotes, no charge.

You talk about the "odious promises made on our behalf." Boy, I sure know what you mean there. You're talking about the two wars that George Bush started on the basis of lies, aren't you? You know, the wars that Bush refused to put into the budget because he wanted his budget to look better than it really was, and he wanted the war bills to come due when a democrat got into office so you republicans could blame the bills on the democrats. You know which wars I'm talking about, don't you? The wars in which our military has murdered hundreds of thousands of innocent people and illegally occupied two sovereign nations against the will of their people. You know, the wars during which we started becoming world class war criminals, torturing people who had committed no crimes and who had not even been accused of any crimes. We hanged people after world war two for doing the very things that we are now doing to other people. But it's ok when we torture people, because God wants us to, right? God does talk with you about these things, doesn't She? Maybe you didn't notice those wars. Look them up, they're called the Iraq War, and the Afghanistan War.

You say that if we "give in" to the demand that the rich pay their fair share of taxes, there will be another demand, and another and it will just snowball. Yeah, you're probably right. We will probably demand that the illegal wars in Iraq and Afghanistan be stopped. And then we'll probably demand that our government stop sending innocent people overseas to countries there they will be tortured. Yes, we are very likely to make those demands. Count on it, in fact.

You say we should "stand firm." Another good idea, it's what progressives are doing in demanding that for once the rich start paying their fair share of taxes. Yessir, stand firm. I like that.

You say, "As conservatives, we believe in equality before the law and, just as it is wrong that the law should treat anyone with special favoritism, it is equally wrong to write laws that target a specific group for special mistreatment." Great! So the rich will be paying their fair share of taxes now? That is what you meant, isn't it?

You call yourself a conservative. Can you tell me what, exactly, it is that you are conserving? You're not conserving money, because you spend money on wars like a drunken sailor spends money on hookers. You know what a hooker is, don't you? Those women that so many republican congressmen spend so much money on. Ask them, they'll tell you all about it. Or maybe they'll lie to you. You know what a lie is, don't you? It's when you don't tell the truth. Anyway, we have established that you "conservatives" do not conserve money. At least you don't conserve government money. You do, however, conserve the money you have stolen from America's middle class. Now, what else do you conserve? You certainly don't conserve Christian values, because you like killing people. Foreign people in our illegal wars- you like killing them. Like torturing them, too. And you think it's funny when Rick Perry says he couldn't care less about the fact that he has executed innocent prisoners in Texas, so it's sort of difficult for me to believe that you want to conserve life. And as far as being Christian goes, well, there's that pesky part of the Bible where Jesus says, "As you have done unto the least of these my children, you have done unto me." But maybe you're thinking that the people you like killing are not God's children. Maybe God told you so?

More on eavesdropping/wiretapping:

The cases of Fanon and Adrian Parteet, arrested for recording their own traffic stop in DeKalb, Illinois, and Chris Drew, arrested for recording his own arrest while challenging a Chicago city ordinance are telling in that the original reasons for police intervention were ignored once the defendants were found to have recorded the police without permission. They were only charged with the crime of eavesdropping, a Class 1 Felony in IL that can bring up to 15 years in prison. By contrast, aggravated criminal sexual assault is a Class 2 Felony, punishable by up to 7 years in prison.

"The richest of the rich will pay at least the same tax rate as average middle class taxpayers." Without a doubt this statement represents the will of the vast majority or "We The People" and seems absurd that it's even an issue. However this said we all know the "Buffett Rule" will be greeted with disdain by the republicans with little chance of passage, against majority will . In my opinion this makes the matter not only class warfare, but in the bigger picture, it's war on our DEMOCRACY and FREEDOM. As history has shown people are willing to die for these principles, lets hope in 2012 voting for them will be enough.

The fighting Bob Fest speeches were great...Thom, Bernie, good job!

Freedom for all is DEMOCRATIC SOCIALISM!

Republicans like to declare war. They declared war against terror as if it were possible to wage war against an idea. The War againt Terror has been a disaster for this nation as well as for Iraq and Afghanistan. It is time to stop declaring war whenever there is a problem. Now they are accusing President Obama of waging war against rich people because he wants them to pay their fair share of taxes. War is the only word Republicans understand, because they know that waging war will help them get richer. Waging war makes their base of support feel fear, they love to frighten their base.

This is not a surprise. However, this time it will not work. Americans will not believe this lie. Taxing billionariers and millionaires whose wealth is only possible because of America is only right and fair.

Philip Henderson, ethical magician