Tea Parties...........WDYT??

[LysaC]

i think the tea parties were great!

any gathering of american people to voice their opinion about something is great! as long as the gatherings stay peaceful...

whether you agree with the tea party or not (although i can't quite figure out why someone wouldn't protest the amount of taxes we have been giving away for corporate bonuses), one of the best things about america is that we CAN protest and that we CAN have different opinions and that we CAN question authority without being jailed or shot or worse.

go america!

[cypressgirl]

Margo, while I have strong political opinions, I don't like mixing politics and friendship-I shouldn't have even teased about it. I usually don't even read the political threads here. Sorry.

You have nothing to be sorry about! I didn't take any offense at all. I'm in the middle like Cid and I find positives and negatives about both parties. I just didn't understand what was scarier about California, that's all!

Margo gets to hear my rants all the time and I THINK we're still friends. ..........or are you just too nice to tell me to shut up?

[djmom]

I just cant even talk politics with anyone except my husband or I EXPLODE

My parents were visiting. They are HUGE liberals and we have fought before. I had decided since they "won" I would take the high road and not criticize Obama anymore (at least for a while)!!

I did great over Christmas, and then while they were here politics hadn't come up and I was totally not thinking and had had a glass of wine (or two) so my guard was down, and my mom made a comment about thank God for Obama "fixing everything".

This was like, last week. And while I have taken the public position that his record will now have to speak for him and there is no reason for me to say anything (he gets a little honeymoon period as a gift from me ) you have to admit the last month hasn't been great... OK, it wasn't great with Bush EITHER.

So I completely forget about my pledge and throw a completely gigantic s*** fit. Especially since my parents can say NOTHING except for things like "George Bush has beady eyes" and stuff like that.

No facts!

Anyways. THAT is why I try to stay away from this!

[cypressgirl]

A few glasses of wine gets me in trouble too.

[DaveS007]

Margo, while I have strong political opinions, I don't like mixing politics and friendship-I shouldn't have even teased about it. I usually don't even read the political threads here. Sorry.

You have nothing to be sorry about! I didn't take any offense at all. I'm in the middle like Cid and I find positives and negatives about both parties. I just didn't understand what was scarier about California, that's all!

Maybe the poster was referring to the fact that your taxes are a bit higher than mine in NY. Now thats scary!

[djmom]

come to think of it Margo, some of those housewives in Orange County are kindof scary....

[loria]

Margo, while I have strong political opinions, I don't like mixing politics and friendship-I shouldn't have even teased about it. I usually don't even read the political threads here. Sorry.

You have nothing to be sorry about! I didn't take any offense at all. I'm in the middle like Cid and I find positives and negatives about both parties. I just didn't understand what was scarier about California, that's all!

Maybe the poster was referring to the fact that your taxes are a bit higher than mine in NY. Now thats scary!

Not so fast Dave!
nassau and westchester rank 4th and 5th in the nation for porpety taxesa s a 5 of income (1-3 are all NJ counties
Marin in CA is the first CA county on the list and comes in at 77 --but maybe you live in teh city---where property taxes are pretty negligible (compared to the rest of the state!

[California Girl]

come to think of it Margo, some of those housewives in Orange County are kindof scary....

Not "kind of scary".... REAL scary!!

[California Girl]

Margo gets to hear my rants all the time and I THINK we're still friends. ..........or are you just too nice to tell me to shut up?

BFFs Cyp!! BFFs!

[jmq]

loria -
Don’t get me started on the property taxes in NJ – they are obscene and the result of the way schools are funded, of entrenched NIMBY attitudes, and local fiefdoms run amok, all greased by a pay to play culture at every level. No ideology involved at all – just power and money. Sorta like that HBO series that was based in NJ...

[soxfan22]

I'm truly an independent in the middle. Here's what I have observed over the years. Both parties play the victim role after they lose and a ton of people buy into it. I have to say that the Republicans are the sorer winners and losers. Sorry Republicans, but your party took a balanced budget and ran up a ginourmous deficit. Sure we had two wars, but it didn't stop all your rich buddies from getting huge payouts. Now we're supposed to listen to you when you say the government is spending too much? Didn't the biggest financial boondoggle in history happen on your watch? I'm not taking advice from former Enron execs either....Although the Dems have made a lot of changes, I haven't heard them try to ram any phony "Contract with America" crap down my throat yet. I'll give them some more time to thoroughly disgust me, but until then, I'll hold on to my teabags and ignore the Chicken Little "the sky is falling rhetoric" from the critics.

Cid - no offense but I've been reading your posts for some time now, and you have never struck me as being "in the middle". I guess it depends on what you would consider middle...Maybe you think Bill Clinton is in the middle - he used to be on the far left...That is until Obama and Pelosi cam along and redefined "liberal".

As for the tea parties...The thing that struck me was the peaceful, respectful dissent. Nobody was burning anybody in effigy - which was a nice change from what we had been subjected to for the last 6 or 8 years. Not bad for people that Napolotano and Obama have now called domestic terrorist (right wing extremists).

The other thing that struck me was the response from the "media". You had goofy Anderson Cooper saying things like "it's tough to talk when you're teabagging"...Which has purely a sexual connotation...I actually thought Olberdork was going to have an aneurysm last night about these tea parties.

I thought dissent was patriotic?

[augie]

I thought dissent was patriotic?

Now it is? When folks dissented against Bush's policies Sean Hannity asked "why do you hate America?".

There's plenty of blame to go around, and as long as both parties put smearing the other one ahead of fixing the problems, things aren't likely to get better any time soon.

[soxfan22]

Although the Dems have made a lot of changes, I haven't heard them try to ram any phony "Contract with America" crap down my throat yet. I'll give them some more time to thoroughly disgust me, but until then, I'll hold on to my teabags and ignore the Chicken Little "the sky is falling rhetoric" from the critics.

Two other things:

1. You discount Newt's Contract With America, and neglect to even entertain the thought that that Contract is actually what balanced the budget under Clinton. Billy likes to take credit, but the Republican Congress balanced the budget by doing things like Welfare Reform...Which sadly, Obama has all but repealed by incentivizing states to actually put MORE people on welfare.

2. As for Chicken Little...I thought in electing Obama, we were going to put an end to "Politics of Fear". For his first two months, Obama did NOTHING but talk down the economy...In one 30 minute speech, he mentioned the word "crisis" 26 times. All to created a fear that would help to justify his $1.3 trillion "stimulus".

Now of course, after that boondoggle disgrace is signed, sealed, and delivered - and $4 billion is on its way to ACORN - now we see "glimmers of hope". That stimulus hasn't even kicked in yet! Money's were only delivered a couple of weeks ago to these states.

That's right, the end of the politics of fear.

[djmom]

I do agree with Soxfan that the "teabagging" comments were extremely juvenile. I heard it a whole bunch last night on the news from several left leaning commentators and guests. It was really really offensive- extreme and pornographic really-it made them look small--and actually I think hurt their cause (the left). There was no reason for that.

They (employees of the network- I believe I was watching CNBC at the time) actually should be reprimanded for that. And that term should be bleeped out. That is like saying "BJ" on the air.

I can accept lively political commentary (even though it highly annoys me when it is from the other side ) But the childish, sexual angle really diminishes a news organization.

And for the record, if there are similar prior extreme offenses from the right, I find that offensive as well.

[soxfan22]

I thought dissent was patriotic?

Now it is? When folks dissented against Bush's policies Sean Hannity asked "why do you hate America?".

There's plenty of blame to go around, and as long as both parties put smearing the other one ahead of fixing the problems, things aren't likely to get better any time soon.

Augie - that's a fair point. I just wonder though...Why are Hannity and Rush always the people who, in the eyes of the liberal, give us conservatives our talking points? I've said this before, but for some reason, conservatives always seem to be referred to as nothing more than unintelligent rubes who are incapable of any independent thought. Hannity has annoyed my for two years now...He repeats the same, tired mantra night after night. Many of his points are valid...But can we move on already from the preacher and the terrorist (Wright and Ayers). We know Obama hobknobbed with these people...We know he draws much of his ideology from these types. Fine. Like djmom said, now his record will be the judge - and voting 'present' is no longer an option.

I really don't remember Hannity asking anyone why they hate America. Maybe during the good old Cindy Sheehan days? BTW, the media never minded convering her! We went two freakin' years of being inundated with As the Sheehan World Turns. Why? Because her craziness fit the agenda of the media.

Yesterdays activities clearly do NOT fall in line with that agenda - and that's why I loved it.