I just spent the last three plus hours in right wing Hell.

[Cleita]

It was also weirdly fascinating. To get to the point we had a power outage around three thirty this afternoon, which left me without access to my usual media feeds. I have a battery powered radio but it's pretty much been off since our only progressive station changed formats.

I looked for a station that carried news to update me on the power situation and came across a radio host that was touted as a left wing host, we'll as left wing as a Premier Radio show could be. I will say that they gave a fairly accurate assessment of what was going on in Congress except stopped short of putting the blame where it belonged with Boner and the tea baggers.

The one political guest claimed to be a former Republican and claimed to have left the party when they stopped caring about governing, Okay, fair enough. Then the callers came in, all former Republicans but left because they haven't got their taxes cut like promised. I wanted to yell at them that they did give tax cuts just not to them but the 1%. They thought the government spent too much money and they left the Repub party because they were spending like Democrats.



Idiots! They voted in all those people who are taking away their lives piece by piece and yet they don't see it. They have joined the Tea Party because the Republicans failed them. Our "left wing" host did nothing to correct their delusions and he could have told them that the Tea Party message is being financed by the same billionaire snakes that are sending their jobs overseas and keeping their wages low.

Like I said it was weirdly fascinating. I wonder what happens to the republicans now since there seems to be so much discontent in the ranks?

[Scootaloo]

1. It makes sense when you realize their driving force is mostly hatred of liberals.

Seriously, it trumps even reasonable self-interest. I'll bet seven out of ten Republicans would shoot themselves in the head if you told them the bullet would pass through their skull and hit a liberal.

[Fumesucker]

3. DUer Davis X Machina said this, but he didn't say it on DU he said it somewhere else

The salient fact of American politics is that there are fifty to seventy million voters each of who will *volunteer* to live, with his family, in a cardboard box under an overpass, and cook sparrows on an old curtain rod, if someone would only guarantee that the black, gay, Hispanic, liberal, whatever, in the next box over doesn’t even have a curtain rod, or a sparrow to put on it.

[Cleita]

5. Wow. That is pretty ugly. n/t

[Cleita]

6. I find this irrational hater very toxic.

It's killing our nation.

[hfojvt]

15. except that the driving force here

often seems to be hatred of conservatives.

Some of the hatred is perhaps self feeding. Like which came first, the liberal hatred of conservatives or the conservative hatred of liberals? Either way the chicken produces another egg, which produces another chicken, which produces another egg ... Doesn't really matter which came first.

Of course, the other question is, if we stop producing chickens, will that stop the cycle or will we just get bombarded with eggs until a few of them manage to hatch?

[doc03]

2. You don't know right wing hell. Try living in the eastern Ohio, West Virginia panhandle

and western Pennsylvania tri-state area.

[Cleita]

4. You have my sympathy if that's where you live.

[TeamPooka]

8. Ive been spending the week visiting my inlaws in Lycoming county PA

Like going over the rainbow to Oz for this Hollywood CA guy.
My I laws are great but most of the folks I have met here are shocking me with their misinformation fear and hate.
Education is derided
They believe every GOP lie on the TV or radio
Teachers and all government workers make too much money
Obamacare is going ruin the country
Yadda Yadda Yadda......

Then talked with one of my wife friends from high school who worksfull time as clerk in a grocery store for 8.25 an hour and supports her son doing doing it.
She was complaining about ACA...sorry "that damn Obamacare" so I asked about her insurance situation
She complained about costs of course so I asked what she made etc and then went on he ACA website and it showed her what she could save - $75 a month
When we left their house she was saying she was going to tell all her friends about the truth and what she is saving etc and thank you etc

Education will solve most of our problems in this world.
Can't wait to go home on Sat for the sanity
Plus I miss my dog

[doc03]

9. You got it, besides that most of the people around here are racists.

Today I was in a McDonalds about 400pm when I read about a nut in Wheeling WV shooting up the Federal building with an assult rifle an hour before. I asked the older lady that was cleaning up if she heard about the shooting in Wheeling. Her first and only question question "What color was he?" Just why would someone ask that question? Anyway the guy was white and a x Wheeling Police officer. He shot 20 to 25 rounds at the Federal building with a military style rifle and a large capacity magazine. The report said he was shot dead by a Wheeling COP while he was reloading his rifle. Good thing he didn't have a 100 round magazine.
I assume since he was an x cop he obtained the gun by leagal means. Wouldn't he be considered one of the good guys with a gun according to the NRA? I don't think I go through a day without hearing the "N" word.

[TeamPooka]

14. Yeah I've heard a bunch or racist comments and white people using the word

"colored"
The words black or African American don't seem to get used here
I'm shocked by all this but it is an eye opener

[JHB]

10. I know the feeling...

"Do you have to swallow every pile of horseshit that makes the rounds? If you let one or two of them slip by, are you going to lose a contest or something?"

[xfundy]

7. There are lots of false fronts in wartime.

Which we are in, and have been for awhile.

Recall, please, Tokyo Rose.

[Jamaal510]

11. They're mad because they didn't get tax cuts

like the Republicans promised?

This is why it is important to read the fine print before voting for somebody. For example, when a RW-nut tells you that they want to cut taxes, do they mean just for the wealthy or for everybody? When they mention "freedom", do they mean freedom for you and me, or freedom just for a select few business heads to pollute and do whatever they want?
I honestly can't believe this--to hear these people LITERALLY voting like they're rich, only to realize that they got nothing out of the deal. Wow.

[hfojvt]

12. unfortunately the Tea Party solved their discontent

by taking over the Republican Party.

And while the Republican moderates might not like the Tea Party types all that much, they seem to dislike Democrats even more.

Be interesting to find out why.

[Volaris]

18. Your answers you seek are below..

http://www.democracycorps.com/attachments/article/954/dcor%20rpp%20fg%20memo%20100313%20final.pdf

Great, INSIDE read into the rational of various Republicans.

[FarCenter]

13. Seems pretty typical of AM radio fare

If you drive the interstates out of range of FM radio stations, that's pretty much what's on. Right wing talk shows, sports talk radio, or evangelical preachers.

[Recursion]

16. People are surprisingly oblivious to the taxes they do and don't pay.

Then the callers came in, all former Republicans but left because they haven't got their taxes cut like promised.



While a lot of the Bush tax cuts went to the very rich, because the child tax credit was expanded and made fully refundable, (upper-) middle class families with children actually did pretty well. Single people and DINKs didn't see much. This is part of why repealing the cut for those making over $250k only reclaimed about 800 billion of the 2.5 trillion: the rest was going to middle class families with kids. (As irritating as this fact is, it's actually the middle class tax cuts we can't afford...)

But nobody notices that. They just notice the payroll tax changes.

[Volaris]

17. well, then lets repeal the damn middle class tax cuts, and

offset the loss with a corresponding increase in the Federal Minimum Wage.

There a lot of ways to skin this cat, and I would rather claim that cash on the front end anyway, that way you don't have to check an extra box on a form later on to actually get it deposited.

Just sayin' =)

[Recursion]

19. Hey, I'm with you there

Straight-up taxation is the most efficient way to do most of these things.

[hfojvt]

20. that depends on how you define middle class

I would say that very little of the tax cuts were going to middle class families either with or without kids.

The reason the repeal of Bush tax cuts over $250,000 only returned $800 billion of the $4.5 trillion was:

1. because the final result was not $250,000 it was $450,000
2. people making over $450,000 got much bigger tax cuts (got to keep them, that is) than people making under $45,000.
3. the estate tax was cut
4. the tax rate on dividends stayed cut - even for incomes well over $450,000. I estimate that Mitt Romney saves almost $1,000,000 and Alice Walton saves $100,000,000 a year in taxes from this provision alone.
5. of the $3.7 trillion (cost over the next decade) in permanent tax cuts $600 billion went to the top 1%, $700 billion to the next 4%, and $1.1 trillon to the next 15%. That's $2.4 trillion of the $3.7 trillion, about 65% going to the TOP 20%. Not to the middle - to the top.