Rove blatantly misrepresents Obama's comments about tea party participants
In his Wall Street Journal column, Karl Rove claimed that President Obama "dismisses" tea party participants "as an extremist 'strain [that] has existed in politics for a long time.' " In fact, in the interview Rove quoted, Obama explicitly said that tea party participants are not "on the fringe," and the movement includes people with "legitimate concerns."
Rove: Obama "dismisses" tea party as "an extremist 'strain [that] has existed in politics for a long time' "
Asserting that "Democrats are taking aim at the tea party movement," Rove wrote, "Democratic leaders routinely denigrate tea party participants and President Barack Obama dismisses them as an extremist 'strain [that] has existed in politics for a long time.'" [The Wall Street Journal, 4/1/10]
Obama explicitly rejected notion that all tea partiers are "on the fringe"
Obama said there are "folks who have legitimate concerns" within tea party. Asked about the tea party during an interview with Matt Lauer on NBC's Today, Obama stated, "I think that it is a still loose amalgam of forces," and "[t]here are some folks who just weren't sure whether I was born in the United States, whether I was a socialist, right? So there's that segment of it which I think is just dug in ideologically, and that strain has existed in American politics for a long time." Obama added, "Then I think that there's a broader circle around that core group of people who are legitimately concerned about the deficit, who are legitimately concerned that the federal government may be taking on too much." He further stated: "I think those are folks who have legitimate concerns. And so I wouldn't paint in broad brush and say that, you know, everybody who's involved or have gone to a tea party rally or a meeting are somehow on the fringe. Some of them, I think, have some mainstream, legitimate concerns."
From the March 30 edition of NBC's Today:
LAUER: Let me ask you about the tea party. This is a -- this is a movement, this is an organization that didn't exist before you were president, and now they're in the headlines almost every day. Some say they are a legitimate movement, others think they're a fringe group. Where do you fall?
OBAMA: You know, I think that it is a still loose amalgam of forces. There's a part of the tea party movement that actually did exist before I was elected. We saw some of it leading up to my election. There are some folks who just weren't sure whether I was born in the United States, whether I was a socialist, right? So there's that segment of it which I think is just dug in ideologically, and that strain has existed in American politics for a long time. Then I think that there's a broader circle around that core group of people who are legitimately concerned about the deficit, who are legitimately concerned that the federal government may be taking on too much.
And last year a bunch of the emergency measures we had to take in terms of dealing with the bank crisis, you know, bailing out the auto industry, fed that sense that things are out of control. And I think those are folks who have legitimate concerns. And so I wouldn't paint in broad brush and say that, you know, everybody who's involved or have gone to a tea party rally or a meeting are somehow on the fringe. Some of them, I think, have some mainstream, legitimate concerns. And, you know, my hope is, is that as we move forward and we're tackling things like the deficit and imposing a freeze on domestic spending and taking steps that show we're sincere about dealing with our long-term problems, that some of that group will dissipate.
There's still going to be a group at their core that question my legitimacy or question the Democratic Party generally or question people who they consider to be against them in some way, and that group we're probably not going to convince.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601110&sid=a6bQVsZS2_18
Yea, Goldman's CEO Blankfeind does get more in bonuses than they payed in taxes in every year except the year in which he pulled a PR stunt.Goldman clearly made billions more off the government through their AIG backdoor bailout which they never have to pay back for some reason along with their free money at the FED window than they actually ever payed back to it.
How about this doozy from good old JP Morgan?
http://www.americanbankingnews.com/2010/03/26/jp-morgan-chase-may-receive-1-4-billion-tax-refund-nyse-jpm/
1.4 billion tax refund is a bit much no?
Lets switch industries - how much profit did the former not for profit insurance companies who dont actually do anything but steal money by refusing to pay for healthcare services make off Americans getting sick and dying?
http://seminal.firedoglake.com/diary/30417
Here is a hint - they are all a member of the fortune 100. Wellpoint pulled in 2.5 billion in net income. Unitedhealth pulled in a hefty 3.8 billion. Humana raked in 650 million. Cigna income totaled 1.3 billion and Aetna in 2008 pulled in 1.4 billion. Now again, these companies don't actually provide a service outside of taking in money and giving it back out - they should not make a profit outside of their operating cost and salaries. These numbers are absolutely insane.
Of course, cap and trade would dramatically cut the national debt while improving the environment and helping the country transition to alternative energy.
Defense spending remains over a quarter of the US federal budget and is only increasing under obama as it has nearly every single year. We spend more on the military than every other nation in the world combined. Not including the wars, we are spending 762 billion on defense and homeland security this year. Including the wars, we are giving away well over a trillion. And I dont think this includes rebuilding Iraq or afghanistan if we ever get to that part.
And of course, lets not forget the billions we spend on emergency rooms for the uninsured. Well we wont do that as much anymore at least for the next decade but we will give gigantic subsidies to help line the pockets of the insurance companies that have screwed us so terribly these past few decades. God knows how much of these subsidies will go right towards net income from these agencies of evil. And in about ten years, we will have accumulated at least 21 million more uninsured americans who will require taxes once again, to cover ER visits which are ridiculously costly and the worst kind of medicine when it comes to cost-efficiency or effectiveness.
Yes, there are plenty of progressive ways to lower the debt and obama has decided to single out the single worst, most radically right-wing approach for some reason. God help us if this is the future of the democratic party. We seem to have right wing politics and radical right-wing extremist politics or at least are heading in that general direction...
Still better to be a tea-bagger then the tea-bagged!!
Rove, Hannity, Limabaugh, Beck, and now even Dan Quayle are pleading with people in the movement to stay with the Republicans, and support conservative Republicans.
You reap what you sow, Gentlemen.
So proven by Karl Rove to the conservative base!
1) The tea party is named after the Boston tea party
2) TEA stands for "taxed enough already", therefore
3) The tea partiers are most upset about high taxes, not big government or the deficit
4) Most tea partiers got a tax cut, therefore
5) Tea partiers think that politicians are so honest and upright that they're forced to make something up to attack them on, therefore
6) Obama and anyone else has sufficient justification to mock tea partiers mercilessly, should they choose to
7) They should choose to
The one that gave single people $400 extra to spend, spread out in small increments over the year in every paycheck - multiplied by millions of workers, it was a ton of extra money going into the economy every week.
That one?
What a troll, that you think you can get away with a denial of the facts in questioning that there was a tax cut last year. If you don't know this, you shouldn't be even trying to participate in any discussion of this issue here!
Why don't you try being a little more pleasant. All you do all day long is call people names. I would think an educated person, such as you purport to be, would have put away childish name calling years ago.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2009-02-21-obama-saturday_N.htm
It WAS a tax cut. And as I said, if you don't know this, you shouldn't be trying to participate in a conversation with informed and educated adults.
Don't like having your trollish behavior pointed out for all to see? Stop acting that way then. You're NOT a victim here - you're solely responsible for the nonsense you put in your posts and it's not someone else's fault if you get called to account for that nonsense. Just like a convicted criminal is NOT the victim of the DA or the judge, you're not MY victim.
I do NOT 'call people names'. It's not name calling to call Son of Sam a murderer. And it's not name calling to point out that you're ignorant here on this topic and you're guilty of making troll posts!
No, I've done our taxes and the credit definitely increased our refund. The tax cut also increased our take home pay.
-I think that there's a broader circle AROUND THAT CORE GROUP of people, who are legitimately concerned-
So Obama believes, then, that the CORE group of tea party people are not legitimate. And he insinuates that at its heart, the Tea Party movement is BUILT on a fringe group.
The President said -There's still going to be a group AT THEIR CORE that question my legitimacy or question the Democratic Party generally or question people who they consider to be against them in some way, and that group we're probably not going to convince.-
So, Obaba believes AT THEIR CORE, then, we tea partiers are not legitimate, that we question if Obama is legitimate. And based on words from Obama (above), how dare us tea partiers have the audacity to -question the Democratic Party generally or to question people who we consider to be against us in some way.- How dare us!?
Have you attended a tea party? If not, take it from someone who has been to five, that the people who attend are Republicans, Democrats, Libertarians, Independents, and no party affiliation. We are all races and ages. What we want is to be heard. Act like we matter, Mr. President, because it was you that said you were going to be the president of all of us. We don't feel we have a voice in Washington. Our representatives have been bribed and cooerced, and those bribes are paid from tax dollars! When a govt stops listening to its people, they take to the streets. When a govt stops listening to even a segment of its people (like the tea partiers), it is a travesty when (egged on by the Presidents own snide remarks) other segments of the population denigrate, ridicule or otherwise debase the tea partiers for speaking out. And do not deny that when the media made us tea partiers out to be right wing, nut job, racist insurgents, Obama snickered. At every turn, he has mocked the Tea Party movement.
When you're heard, you say "stop raising our taxes" which isn't happening. You say "give us our country back" when elections are still fair and free. You say "socialism" when the government didn't buy up any companies (at least, not any companies that didn't beg for it themselves).
It's like a protest group telling me to stop painting purple triangles on the roads. I'm not going to pay any attention to that, because it's so stupid.
Is it really so hard to find real-life things that politicians are doing wrong?