This Land's Not Your Land - Cult of Con Teabagnorance in OUR Rotunda

Photo by Jenna Pope

The photo above taken by Jenna Pope of lyrics used by about 40 The We've Got a Permit Singers in our rotunda on July 19, 2013 (while a couple hundred sang in solidarity outside) exemplifies much of what is sick, twisted and disgusting about Tea Party Cult of Con.

For starters the TPs are always spouting about freedom and oppressive government, until that is Da Gubmint is the Double Authoritarian Scott Walker. Then their worship of authority kicks in and they willingly subjugate themselves to their Ruler's Order to get permission (aka a permit) from the Gubmint to peaceably assemble and exert their right to freedom of speech. That is either cognitive dissonance, the ability to hold two conflicting beliefs and fail to recognize the incongruity, or it is hypocrisy, the willingness to hold two conflicting beliefs and fail give a crap. Both are at epidemic levels in the Cult of Con which of course rests on faith and not reasoning.

To hell with your Fitzwalkerstani permission slip, here are your "permits" boys!
Wisconsin Consitution - Article 1 - Declaration of Rights - SECTION 4. [Right to assemble and petition] The right of the people peaceably to assemble, to consult for the common good, and to petition the government, or any department thereof, shall never be abridged.

Constitution of the United States of America - Bill of Rights - Amendment I: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Teabaggers Endorse Social Welfare!

IN HAWAII !

I concur with President Obama. The IRS should definitely NOT be political. I mean why would they question Tea Party creds as tax exempt social welfare groups? Everyone knows the TPs are socialistic and all about promoting the general welfare, right? Hell, welfare is practically their middle name! And they loves them some socialists, ya'll! Kenyan, Kansasan, Muslim, Hawaiian, Gnomish, Yeti, any kind.

I mean it's not as if the white, the old and the red of neck sprang up like locusts out of nowhere in 2009 over any particularly dark political event, campaign or election that preceded their emergence! Clearly the sincerity of the teatotaler's social conscience is beyond question. And I'm sure they're hurt and deeply regretful over the current discourteous misunderstanding with their dear friends at the IRS and that they bear no ill will. So don't be TEA'd. Simply smile, sip and point your pinky!

Swillingly Yours,

Seanyanna

Another Flawed TP Swipe at Public Education

Last week's Standard Press once again included a vindictive and venomous letter attacking on our public servants by a cohort of the local TP brigade. This time it was Wayne Raisleger, who derided the Burlington Area School District Board of Education and the Citizens that came forward on August 27th to vote their community conscience and support to zero tax levy increase approved by the Board. As if further cutting would have made any difference with regard to Mr. Raisleger's compaints about student standardized test multiple choicing!

We all know that the number one indicator of student success is parental involvement. Yet Mr. Raisleger blames the supposedly sub-par WKCE test scores on the school board and the teachers instead of those who actually took the test (some students) and their key supporters (parents). This of course ignores the fact that Burlington High School's ACT test scores continue year after year to be above the state average, (Standard Press - 9/6/12, page 6)  in a state, which along with its neighbors Iowa and Minnesota, lead the nation in ACT Scores. This result is characterized by Wayne as "poor student achievement". If Wayne likes other district's results better, then maybe he can get their students to take BASD's testing instead. I hear that the students from inner city areas in Wisconsin with high poverty, unemployment, hopelessness and all the social ills that accompany those conditions can be had for testing on the cheap. And Mississippi students? Why they're as free of charge for testing as they are from quality inculcation!

Raisleger called a school board member a "union shill", derided members for executing their constitutuional right as citizens to sign petitions and went on to claim that "it is generally acknowledged that K-12 systems are failing in America." Based on the above, Mr. Raisleger is probably completely unaware that the only places were this is "generally acknowledged" are the self-indoctrinated minds of those who consume FuxSnooze and AM radio GOPropaganda.

But what is really misguided and off the mark is Mr. Raisleger's pronouncement that "These divergent trends (teacher pay/student test scores) were perptuated in the tax levy passed Aug 27 and would only be accepted in a public sector organization." A claim he esentially repeated with "The ugly truth is that, given their job performance, all five (non-TP Board Members) would have been sacked if they held similar positions in the private sector". Seriously? Any casual observer of the private sector in recent, greedy and deregulated times would immediatly recognize the falacy of this Cult of Con profession of faith. This study of CEO pay versus corprorate performance by Forbes adeptly documents the failure of the god of free market forces in America today: http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2012/0423/ceo-compensation-12-company-earnings-highest-gravity-defying-pay.html

FORBES EXCERPT: Our report on executive compensation will only fuel the outrage over corporate greed. In 2011 the chief executives of the 500 biggest companies in the U.S. got a collective pay raise of 16% last year, to $5.2 billion. This compares with a 3% pay raise for the average American worker. Go the link above Mr. Raisleger and you will see a graph illustrating an inverse relationship to private sector CEO pay and coporate earnings. So much for the sanctified purity of the private sector.

What is especially disturbing about this three decade long redistribution of wealth from the stagnating/declining American middle class to the ruling political/corporate class, is that these outrageously disgusting and often undeserved tributes to the CEO elitists are subsidized by America's citizens through their tax contributions as documented here: http://www.ips-dc.org/reports/executive_excess_2012

EXCERPT - Among the findings:
•Of last year’s 100 highest-paid U.S. corporate chief executives, 25 took home more in CEO pay than their companies paid in federal income taxes.
•The CEOs of these 25 firms received $20.6 million in average total compensation last year. That’s a 24 percent increase over the average for last year’s list of 2010’s tax dodging executives.
•The four most direct tax subsidies for excessive executive pay cost taxpayers an estimated $14.4 billion per year—$46 for every American man, woman, and child. That amount could also cover the annual cost of hiring 211,732 elementary-school teachers or creating 241,593 clean-energy jobs.
•CEOs have benefited enormously from the Bush tax cuts for upper-income taxpayers. Last year, 57 CEOs saved more than $1 million on their personal income tax bills, thanks to these Bush-era cuts.

In recognition of the derisive nature of his pontifications, and the baseless nature of his Cult of Con professions of faith, Mr Raisleger has earned BAP's covetous Forked Tongue & Fangs Award.
Way to go Wayne!

Barbarians at the School House Door!

Greetings citizens
and friends of the Burlington Area School District, the barbarians are again at
our gates! Our public schools are under a second round of attack by the Tea
Party (TP) group WeVoteBurlington. Four TP candidates are challenging the
incumbents John Anderson and Susan Kessler in the primary election for school
board on Tuesday February 21st.

These candidates are intent
on inflicting the TP agenda on our schools, an agenda crafted by the corporately
run feudal American Legislative Exchange Council (fALEC) with their local
vassal Robin of Vos who is tasked with enacting the agenda of his corporate
lords in their province of Wisconsin. It is an agenda disseminated to the TPs by
Americans for Plutocracy (they say “Prosperity”, but we know better than that).
The agenda of these special interests includes defunding, dismantling and
privatizing our public schools to make them profit centers and turn our
children and grandchildren into perpetual revenue streams for educational profiteers.
For information about fALEC’s private designs on public education go here: http://alecexposed.org/wiki/ALEC_Exposed

These TP candidates
think of themselves as “taxpayers” and they want you to think of yourself as a
taxpayer too. Personally, I find the term “taxpayer” to be an insulting
epithet. Taxpayers are passive, hapless victims from whom money is extracted. I
am not a “Taxpayer”, I am not a victim, I am a citizen. And as a citizen, one
of the things I do is to pay my dues for living in a civilized society, taxes.
I am very fortunate to have done well enough so that I can and do pay taxes. By
virtue of the public school education that was provided for me by my forbearers,
I have succeeded and therefore pay taxes. By virtue of the people of goodwill
who built this country and established public institutions, public roads,
courts and a system of laws that facilitate an organized and prosperous society,
I have succeeded and therefore, proudly pay my dues. My story is by no means
unique, none of us succeeds on our own, we all benefit from the achievements of
those that came and built before us. It seems that those who gave us so much
would have but one requirement of us, pass it on!

John
Adams said, “Laws for the liberal education of the youth, especially of the
lower class of the people, are so extremely wise and useful, that, to a humane
and generous mind, no expense for this purpose would be thought extravagant”.

Thomas Jefferson said, "I have indeed two great
measures at heart, without which no republic can maintain itself in strength:
1. That of general education, to enable every man to judge for himself what
will secure or endanger his freedom. 2. To divide every county into hundreds,
of such size that all the children of each will be within reach of a central
school in it."

James Madison wrote,
"The liberal appropriations made by the Legislature of Kentucky for a
general system of Education cannot be too much applauded. A popular Government,
without popular information, or the means of acquiring it, is but a Prologue to
a Farce or a Tragedy; or, perhaps both. Knowledge will forever govern
ignorance: And a people who mean to be their own Governors, must arm themselves
with the power which knowledge gives."

But a vibrant and
interdependent society, buoyed by public institutions and progressing over time
is not the TP vision. They believe in a country of everyman for himself. To
them “public” and “taxes” are dirty words. They want to sack these public institutions
because they don’t want to pay for them. These TP candidates for the Board are
focused on only one aspect of our schools, taxes, money and the “greedy
teachers” who victimize them by taking their beloved money. One of them even
believes that it is appropriate to compare the compensation of educators with
advanced degrees to that of average Wisconsinites with high school diplomas.
These self-centered values and myopic outlook are not what is needed on our
school board. We need rationalism and balance, not extremism and selfishness.

Ask yourself, are you
a citizen or a taxpayer? Do you believe in local control and self-governance or
would you act as a feudal serf and help advance an agenda that comes from your
corporatist lords far beyond Burlington, far beyond Wisconsin? Citizens I
implore you, behave in a manner becoming of humble freemen on February 21st,
vote and repulse the barbarians at our gates!

Palin to Attend TP Rally in Madison this Saturday!

More cowbell, less Palin! http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/gop-presidential-primary/156099-palin-to-attend-wis-tax-day-rally

Wingnut Watch - Blaming Dems for Threats Against Dems

"As Mankind becomes more liberal, they will be more apt to allow that all those who conduct themselves as worthy members of the community are equally entitled to the protections of civil government. I hope ever to see America among the foremost nations of justice and liberality." - George Washington

A voice from our liberal founding in response to the Hatriots, the Teabaggers, Rush Glenn and the threst of those lashing out like frightened children with bigotry, threats and violence.

A number GOPster leaders have condemned these acts and threats they incited while making excuses for them out of the other side of their mouths and some are actually blaming Democrats for the Rightwing threats and violence, including Eric Cantor (GOPSter - VA) “Democrat lawmakers are feeding the public’s frenzy over the threats by discussing them so openly in the media.”

He also brought up a bullet hole in his office windo and intimated that the Left is doing this too . . . so there! Not so.

For the two wrongs make a right excuse makers: Richmond police say the bullet that hit a window of Republican Virginia Congressman Eric Cantor's office had been randomly fired skyward.

In a news release, Richmond police said that the bullet had been fired into the air early Tuesday. It hit the front window of a building that houses Cantor's campaign office as it fell to back earth at a sharp angle.

I'm sure Mr. Cantor will be issuing a retraction today.

Wingnut Watch - Kristallnacht

Windows were shattered at four Democratic offices in New York, Arizona and Kansas and at least 10 members of Congress have reported some sort of threats: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100325/ap_on_re_us/us_health_care_threats

Wingnut Watch

Severed Gas Line Found at Home of Rep. Perriello Brother After Tea Party Activists Post Address Online: http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2010/03/24-9

They can't even get the right address. Activist, malicious and stupid, they've hit the trifecta.