Here’s a weird, confusing little shovel’s worth of right-wing hater dirt from some oppressed American Spectator columnist tired of the scavenging poor eating up all his garden tomatoes or whatever: “Registering [the poor] to vote is like handing out burglary tools to criminals. It is profoundly antisocial and un-American to empower the nonproductive segments of the population to destroy the country.” Woah! Who are these terrible subhuman gremlins sleeping on carpets of welfare rubies in their exurban hovels while dump trucks leave piles of cash by the door? We want their money! Just kidding, we want to hunt them down, where are they?
If he can’t find them in line waiting for food stamps, probably our cranky columnist, Matthew Vadum, could find the lazy poor in one of their usual haunts cleaning hotel rooms or emptying bed pans or flipping anusburgers for $7-per-wealth-destroying hour. Quick, get their votes away from them! They are plotting with educators and Russians to overthrow the kleptomaniac government…through democracy…which is insane, and terrible!
In an infamous 1966 Nation magazine article, the radical university professors urged that the welfare apparatus be used to destroy the American system.  Borrowing a phrase the ultra-leftist Leon Trotsky used in one of his many anti-Stalin tracts, The Platform of the Joint Opposition (1927), they titled their blueprint for radical change “The Weight of the Poor.”
By “weight,” Cloward, Piven, and Trotsky meant power or influence. Â All three wanted to use the poor as a battering ram against the systems they sought to overthrow.
Trotsky thought too many bureaucrats and middle-class people were involved in the Soviet Communist Party and that it was moving too slowly in its efforts to change that society. Â He wanted more poor people in the party in order to overthrow Stalin’s obstructionist bureaucracy and clear the way for “true” communism.
Stateside, Cloward and Piven wanted to use the “weight” of the poor to bring down American capitalism and democracy.
IT WAS ALWAYS THE RUSSIANS ALL ALONG. [American Spectator via TPM]
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Too bad the Democrats are too spineless to not throw this crap back into the conservative's collective face.
That would not be very bipartisan.
Conservatives don't have collectives. That a Commie thingie.
Insert fat, corn-syrup guzzling, Jazzy-riding poor joke here.
Take a load off Fanny…
Fat-bottomed voters, you keep the rockin' capitalists oppressed?
Vadum is the fat, corn-syrup guzzler.
Wow, I always suspected that think tanks employed internet trolls. Looks like they actually hire the real under-the-bridge kind too!
There is a company called "Advantage Consultants" that does publicly hire folks to troll. McCain's campaign also had a page on their site to get folks to troll political blogs during the 2008 elections.
About 50 of their employees work the Huffington Post daily.
There's the face of a person who has to hire rent boys to get any sort of companionship. And pay extra for them to let him touch them.
Dear god. Men as fat and horrible with facial hair like that remind me of fat women wearing black. I always want to walk up to people like that and say, "It isn't working."
You know who he looks like?
A charming fellow by the name of Gerhard Rose
What a horrible little man.
Vadum needs to go back to France where all he is good for is crushing grapes with his toes.
I'm sure he'd be much happier crushing the poorz underfoot.
He looks like a shit sandwich served at a K Street cafe.
White, redneck poors voting–good
Black, brown poors voting–bad
At least that's what they want them to believe. The truth, poor in general voting–bad.
He's right. "(E)mpowering the non-productive members of society…." is a terrible idea. We need to move to tax Trust Funds at 100% starting immediately! Because the the Idle Rich are as evil as the Idle Poor.
AS evil? You know how much society has to work to support the idle rich? I'd much rather support a dozen idle poor. Much less work.
Matthew Vadum, step right up! You're the next contestant on The Pike Is Right!
Let's help him get a head of the game.
Not if you ax me.
He's ready for a round of Beat the Reaper.
BÖC doesn't quite cut it. Something more like, I dunno, Iron Maiden?
I'd love to see him on the Catherine Wheel of Fortune.
I'd love to see him on Double Jeopardy.
Oh fuck. I love this.
This mirrors the latest right wing nutz' rant about how half the folks in America don't pay Federal income taxes – often reduced to "don't pay taxes" period.
Well, since the top 10% grabs such a significant portion of the income, what are the poor supposed to pay with?
The obvious extrapolation is "Don't let the poor vote." Watch – coming to a neighorhood near you!
Is Rudy Ray Moore in that?
WI Wingnutz have already said students don't have the right to vote because they don't pay taxes.
I dug into that "50% don't pay taxes".
It's true that about 50% of households do not pay federal income tax. But if the so-called "payroll tax" (Social Security, Medicare) is counted, it's more like 20% do not pay. Of the 20%, about 10% are elderly who are living on savings and social security. The remainders are students, the disabled, the unemployed.
The implication of the "50% don't pay" is that they should pay income tax. In other words, a tax increase on people at the lower end of the income scale. That would be OK if it was offset by reduction in the regressive payroll tax. Ha ha, like TP'er will do that.
Toss in sales/gas taxes, and the tax rate for poor people spikes up another 5-10%. (You could factor in cigarette/liquor taxes for another 3% or so, but the wingnutz will jump all over that and ignore your actual point.)
BZB: Don't forget property taxes – either paid directly or as part of apartment rent.
Those are a bit more evenly distributed — which is why the zillionaires are always bitching about 'em. They take some of the fun out of owning a $125,000,000 home.
JustPixelz:
Well-played! The dog whistle sub-text, of course, is that those who file to collect the Earned Income Tax Credit are ripping off the hard-working citizens.
There's a similar lie about food stamps – the high number of people "on" food stamps. Of course, dependent children are counted in that number – but the right wing nutz never get around to mentioning that!
[Insert Scrooge quote here.]
JP:
From The Tax Foundation:
The top 1% collected 20% of the Adjusted Gross Income and paid 38.02% of the collected taxes – average tax rate 23.27%. So much for Sheer InSannity's "45% tax rate."
The top 10% collected 45.71% of the AGI, and paid 69.94% (average rate: 18.71%).
The bottom 50% collected 12.75% of the AGI and paid 2.70% (average rate: 2.59%).
The cut-off for the bottom 50% was about $34,000 per year. The cut-off for the top 1% was $380,354 and above – and obviously the highest AGI was many, many millions.
The 400 richest Americans pay an 18% tax rate, per Forbes. At the beginning of the 21st Century it was approximately 30%.
This is over-taxed America? Half the corporations pay $0 in Federal income tax (per the GAO). And the fiction about Small Businesses earning $250,000 per year or less – many of those "small businesses" are doctors and lawyers and such. Basically independent practioners – not the source of many new jobs.
"many, many" indeed. The higest AGI was about 4,000 million.
Funny how the half of the population paying "0%" are lazy socialist moochers, while the half of businesses paying 0% are the job-creating elite. I guess the're not "people too" in ALL respects.
The last one I heard was actually something I read here from that fuckface Rick Warren. Or maybe another one of them. They're all the same. Anyway, whatever fuck face it was that 10% of the people pay 46% of the taxes. They always fail to add, "And own 90% of the wealth."
This photo image keeps rotating through the slide-showy thing at the top of teh wonkett page. I'd like that photoshop'd Odd Couple pic of Condi & Q'Daffy up there to help fight off these sadz, plz.
Hmmm. When Hopey hands out all the burglary tools, I sure hope they come with some pliers. It will make it so much easier to slowly pull Vadum's teeth out after breaking into his house.
Can't we just have some corn-syrup-and-anusburger-fattened Obese Poorz sit on his face till he stops breathing?
It's nice to see that someone is reading Trotsky.
I'm sure someone is, but not anybody at American Spectator.
Probably a quote of a quote of a quote.
Matthew Vadum, that little ball of nearsighted fermenting Crisco, used to make his monies
blowingtutoring that egregious huckster Glenn Beck. Next Iowa State Fair they should deep fat fry his intellectually and physically flabby ass.Well, fuck yeah! [spit!] If you let the wrong people vote, then there will be voting by the wrong people, DOH! Then the mooselimbs and illegals will take our guns, and the Kenyan Nigger Communist will give our economy to China. Face it, to be allowed to vote in America you have to have some white skin in the game. FREEDOM!!!
In the '50s and early '60s William B. Fuckley was quite insistent that The Blacks should not have their right to vote recognized because he knew he wouldn't approve of the way they'd exercise it. I wish people would remember this before waxing sentimental about what a "principled" conservative the old stuffed shirt was.
Amen. He was a dick. Just a dick who wouldn't want to dirty himself by being in the same room with the likes of the Teabaggers.
Yes, but that was because he would have found them gauche, not because he'd have disagreed with them.
Teatards are Buckley's useful idiots.
Dear Mr. Vadum,
FUCK YOU, FUCK YOU, FUCK YOU, FUCK YOU, FUCK YOU, FUCK YOU, FUCK YOU, FUCK YOU, FUCK YOU, FUCK YOU, FUCK YOU, FUCK YOU, FUCK YOU, FUCK YOU,
FUCK YOU, FUCK YOU, FUCK YOU, FUCK YOU, FUCK YOU,
FUCK YOU, FUCK YOU, FUCK YOU, FUCK YOU, FUCK YOU, FUCK YOU, FUCK YOU, FUCK YOU, FUCK YOU, FUCK YOU, FUCK YOU, FUCK YOU, FUCK YOU, FUCK YOU, FUCK YOU, FUCK YOU, FUCK YOU, FUCK YOU,
In closing FUCK YOU.
15% of the american people!
Baconz, don't be shy, tell us how you really feel.
More like about 40%, but yeah Fuck Mr. Vadum with a rusty chainsaw, right in the arse.
I'll bet Jane Fonda's really sorry she ever married him!
Bacon, thank you for saying my initial reaction. However, I've chosen to respond as written below. Thank you for your support.
You know, that piece could've used a few more FUCK YOUs.
Could hardly have said it better myself.
So eloquent! Thank you, Bacon.
Right! The poor should not vote because being rich and privileged automatically means you are smart, moral and just…
…in a pig's eye.
Baconz is right. FUCK YOU.
No one should be allowed to vote unless they pass a test proving that they are "literate". And everyone should have to pay a tax in order to go to the poll. They can call it a "vote" tax. And the people can't be trusted to vote for senators directly. It should be left up to the state legislatures, as our founding foreskins intended. And chicks? Forget about it..
3/5, here we come!
And please, take away my capacity to enter into contracts and buy and sell property. Please.
3/5 was the compromise between the north, who believed southerners should not count slaves in their population for purposes of proportional representation when the slaves couldn't vote. The south wanted 100% the north 0% and 3/5 was the compromise for what they called "particular property." They didn't even use slave.
Shit, I've had a horrible wasted day so indulge me: Delaware's convention delegate John Dickinson, who didn't speak much during the 3/5 debate, wrote in his diary the night the deal was made: "What will be said of this new principle of founding a Right to govern Freemen on the power derived from Slaves . . ." Then he goes on, and I think this is the most powerful part: "Omitting the WORD will be regarded as an Endeavour to conceal a principle of which we are ashamed."
Three lessons from the above: 1) None of them were heroes on the issue of slavery (the enlightened founders wanted to send them back to Africa) 2) The founding fathers spelled like limeys do 3) Random caps were very popular in the 1700s.
You're welcome.
There are moments of despair when I think the "send them back to Africa" line was a good idea – not because the enslaved shouldn't simply be set free but because of the idiocy of the white people in America. Maybe the back to Africa folks understood humanity better than we think.
You forgot Teh Culludz.
The teatards may not be too keen on the "literate" test. (I'm in favor of an "awareness of reality' test, but they'd be even less thrilled with that.)
They could get everything they want with a simple poll tax. Did anyone point that out to them yet?
See also: Wisconsin's New Voter ID Law
You mean, the way our "founding fathers" and Jebus intended? Honestly, Vadum is a tool.
See, this is where the whole money equals speech thing comes into play: If you don't have money, you're the logical equivalent of a mute and should just shut the fuck up and do the rich folks bidding as Gawd Awmahhty intended. See, corporations have more money which should basically give them the right to determine how we live and are governed. Thus ends the fascist economics and politics lesson for the day. Happy Labor Day SUCKAS!!!11!!!!!!
Bottle of Lafite Rothschild 2000 Price in USD: $3,336, up 21.9% from 2010.
Chanel quilted bag. Price: $4,185, up 17.5%
Steinway Grand Piano. Price: $201,021, up 16.7%
Ladies Classic Louboutin pumps. Price: $1,868, up 10.8%
Tiffany 2 ct diamond ring. Price $96,479, up 10.3%
Oyster Rolex watch. $32,201, up 9.1%
Cohiba siglo VI cigar, $760, up 5%
Scupltra liquid facelift. $6,578, up 4.3%
POOR PEOPLE HAVE NO IDEA HOW EXPENSIVE IT IS TO BE RICH!!!!!
That's Vadum's shopping list, the one he expects to fill after he is finished sucking off the veddy, veddy rich via his bullshit diatribe. Such whores as Vadim expect to receive good pay, after all.
Oh, and you left off the four-door Ferrari. I'm sure the price has risen since I last looked.
If your poor, we will keep you around because someone has to fight our wars. We love wars and the military-industrial complex. Because war makes our stock go up. When the war is over we'll then cut the Veterans Affairs because health care is fucking expensive and you've served our desired function. And if your dead, well, there will always be more poors because we want you to breed like rabbits because we're cutting Planned Parenthood.
I wonder if Canada has an on-line citizenship application.
If a corp has 20,000 times more money than a poor person, it's obvious they should have 20,000 more votes than that person. IT'S BASIC MATH, PEOPLE!
And if we allow women to vote, then they will just vote their interests! The same with minorities! Nobody should be allowed to vote unless they vote for things that they don't actually want.
Better yet, screw voting. Let this pudgy Douthat-wannabe decide what is best for you.
For Freedom! Fake-Douthat could even have a special name, like "Freedom Navigator" or "Rights Officer." At this point, why not go all out?
To quote Bruce Wayne/Batman/Michael Keaton, "You wanna get nuts? Come on! Let's get nuts!"
I think taking a basic freedom (the right to vote) from 43+ million people is kinda Un-American myself. I think I read that in 5th grade Civics Class.
You got to 5th grade? ELITIST! LEARNING LIBEL!!!
If I would have dropped out at 3rd I'd be a writer for American Spectator. But then how could I sleep with myself at night?
Those text books have been rewritten to reflect prevailing freedums.
1. Take their $
2. Take their right to vote
3. Use them for fertilizer, they are too smelly to eat.
Whatever happened to "eat the rich?"
My doctor warned me to stay away from fatty foods.
The rich tend to be surprisingly lean, as a rule. Ess, ess, mein kind!
Soylent Green is made of People!
Well you know, when the revolution comes, it's not going to be by the rich.
Uh, there's an app for that?
No longer available in London.
The revolution will not be streamable on the iTunes Store.
What is the sound of one Sad Keanu Reeves Directing, glasshopper?
How did you miss it? The revolution already happened and the rich won.
Throughout the late 1960s and early 1970s, political support grew for a guaranteed annual income plan. President Nixon supported the proposal and it came within a hair's breadth of passing Congress in 1972.
Nixon, you fucking commie, now I know why you went to China in 1972. It was to get commie tips from their lardbutt overlard Mousey Tongue! And I thought I was a conservative when I voted for you [*embarrassed red face*] in 1972! Thanks for making me the commonist I am today, Dickie!
Wow, I read some of the comments over there and there are some nasty people in this world. Some suggest that you should only be allowed to vote if you own property. That rules out most of the men and women in the armed services. Why should those slackers get to vote? Do they have a rumpus room that they can call their own? We shouldn't have to show ID to vote, just a Lowe's or Home Depot credit card.
..or a pack of Newports?
Would you like a Little Debbie?
No takers, huh?
P.S. Happy anniversary.
Thank you! That's very sweet of you.
No, I can't give my year-old snack cake away.
Yes, yes I would.
Still haven't gotten rid of it, eh?
A pack of Newports? I think a place in Newport is where they're headed with this.
They loves themselves that 18th and 19th century America. No immigrants (except the damned Irish with the Catholicism. No vote for women. No income tax (except briefly during the Civil War). You could own other people. What's not to like?
Now that's what I call taking America back!
God, what if the ultra-elite rich really were Brietard-level trolls? I mean, what if they really were writing these barely-literate screeds against the poorz and blax from their solid gold iPhones? Somehow I doubt it.
Somehow I get the sinking feeling that a corn-syrup based diet causes the brain damage responsible for voting against ones' own interests and having the delusion that one is somehow rich simply because they own a dealership or a TGIFridays and happen to be white.
Hey, I own property in 3 states, including yours. Can I vote 3 times?
"Wayward Son 09/01/2011 10:55 AM
I've said all along we need LESS people voting. The conservatives should push for poll taxes (if you're not willing or able to pay, then you probably are not willing or able to be informed enough to vote), increase the voting age to 21, no voting for anyone who has received government assistance in the past year, and no sufferage for anyone who cannot read. One person one vote is a recipe for political suicide and the Communist's dream. "
There you have it: their manifesto in a nutshell. Gawd, I can't believe I share a Constitution with these buttholes!
Matthew Vadum?
There is a fine history on the innert00bz of kicking this scumbag to the curb.
Here's a good one, and here's another.
~
He looks like a Vadum.
That's how your hardcore commie works.
fluoridation. biggest. commie plot. ever.
Ha ha, nice try, Layne, hacking the American Spectator site and putting up a parody article by "Matthew Vadum."
Fucking poor people! Them, them with their…nothing.
If you think it's tough being Rich in America, you should try being rich in Asia: http://blogs.wsj.com/chinarealtime/2011/09/02/bei...
I'll bet it's even tougher being rich in South America or Africa, where I understand the Poorz periodically kidnap Richez in the interest of, you know, earning money 'n stuff.
If you want an idea of how awful it's become there, you need go no further than Beijing's National Museum, which is currently featuring an exhibit of…Louis Vuitton.
I bet half of 'em are fakes.
"Everything is fake except your mother" — Beijing proverb
Is he saying that compared to the guy who never had much power in the USSR that Stalin really wasn't a bad guy? Is that what he's saying? Cause that's what I'm hearing and I can't really be hearing that right can I?
It could be. Some of today's prominent neocons came from families that had Trotskyite leanings back in the 20's, and they might be embarrassed about it after the fact.
I know, I haz a confuzed about that too.
Haha, your mistake was to attempt to understand what he is saying. Because it's all part of a neocon plot to drive thinking people mad, haha.
"Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she
With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!
But remember, no representation for these schmucks will there be,
As freedom is about lower corporate taxes, not Democracy."
Added the Goddess Liberty, "Seriously, fuck these stupid poor people. Fuck them with a rusted dildo."
They will pry my SNAP benefits, lack of access to adequate healthcare, hobo beans, ever-shrinking political voice, perpetual underemployment, and my bottom shelf gut rot vodka out of my cold, dead hands. For reals, because I think these disgusting pricks would actually loot the graves of unknown indigents, for spite.
They've already looted the graves of any wealthy of past centuries. You don't expect them to *stop* before every grave is looted, do you?
For spite? Maybe. But mostly for unadulterated greed and gluttony.
Really, why do we let the poor vote? After what they did to us, with their subprime mortgages and collateralized debt obligations and shady hedge fund deals that ruined this economy, they hardly deserve it. We won't even talk about all the no-bid contracts the poors got after they talked us into invading Iraq for no reason. Sheeesh.
In Vadum’s itty-bitty pecker world there are no working poors.
The Anusburger flippers in Vadum’s neighborhood are millionaires.
Vadum da dumb.
Once again Mr.Vadum, capitalism does not equal democracy.
The only sensible thing to do is have voting machines do the voting for us.
Sooooo, giving the disenfranchised the ability to alter thier situation through the democratic process is un american….Nope, sorry you lost me there.
"Give me your hungry, your tired, your poor / I'll piss on 'em…" ♫
— Lou Reed, paraphrasing someone like Vadum
Republicans will put in in their party platform never accept a vote from anyone making less than $250,000 a year.
please, please, please….
I wish they would. They would fall from power right quick, then.
"Aspirational xenophobia" is the name I've given to these ofay mofos who think hating blax is enough to get them into the country club.
Someone else at the Wonketz pointed out that they see being white as their only saving grace. "Well, I might be poor, and uneducated, and unemployed, and unemployable, and on welfare like those goddamned n******, but at least I ain't a goddamned n*****."
It's been that way since forever. A good chunk of what kept Slavery going on as trenchantly as it did was that the non-slaveholding poor southern whites were actually pretty enthusiastic about the very institution that kept them in poverty, as well. Because it meant that as crappy as their lot was, there was still someone who was lower and more degraded.
Never let somebody get away with claiming that slavery was a strictly economic system and that there weren't people who wanted it, and even advocated for its existence and expansion, on the basis that the racist social hierarchy it created was something good, in their minds.
Mark Twain called that one:
-Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, chapter five
Doubtful, corporations can divide themselves into millions and millions of "shares" thus providing enough votes to equal "we the people" +1. Nice try Lucky Ducky!
Why accept what you can legally steal or have already stolen from them?
I read about this on another website {STAGE GASP} and thought, this better be on Wonkette lickety-split.
Is this really the country we want to have? I shall slink off to feel despondent over my holiday weekend. Where's the booze??!??!!!!!!
Sorry, I bought out the
storebottom shelf with mygununemployment check."Matthew Vadum, that little ball of nearsighted fermenting Crisco, used to make his monies blowing tutoring that egregious huckster Glenn Beck. Next Iowa State Fair they should deep fat fry his intellectually and physically flabby ass."
–but the Iowa State Fair happened already.
The Texas State Fair begins September 30. That should give just enough time to brine and marinate his flavorless ass. Also, it's time Texas stood up for something other than bringing dumbfuckery to the rest of the US.
I urge you to ACT NOW before this priceless opportunity slips out of your grasp! And remember, jalapenos really add to the flavour. He'll stop screaming eventually.
I bet the right for these 'poors' to vote is in the fucking Constitution. Sometimes I just HATE that thing!
Didn't our religious Founders think only male property owners should be able to vote?
Free, white, 21 — and rich!
Everyone on that comment board seems to agree, if you don't pay taxes you shouldn't vote. Did you buy a pack of gum last year? Pay the sales tax on it? Go right ahead, then, and vote with their blessing.
How are wingtards going to allow corporations to vote? They are people, too, but the really big, rich ones don't pay any federal income taxes!
This is why Rick Perry wants to repeal the direct election of Senators. Evil Poors.
Instead of religion, maybe it's just ignorance that keeps we poor from murdering the rich.
I'm beginning to wonder if it's bone-deep apathy.
Hopelessness, in many cases.
Exhaustion from the three jobs and the long bus commute.
Well, huddled masses will huddle while they yearn to be free.
Someone needs to inform Mr. Vadim how in most flyover states and even rural places on the coasts that certain poors love to vote against their own interests all the time. If that wasn't the case there would be no redstates. So maybe he should shut his trap and quit while he is ahead they already get all the dumb poor vote, he should specify he wants to take the educated poor vote away.
A more direct approach than Perry's, which takes the education away.
And furthermore,
this is all just yet more evidence of the true thinking of many right-wing "intellectuals:"
Money is an outward sign of inward and visible grace.
Calvin was wrong; John Hagee and the other prosperity theologians have the cant for their demographic.
Besides, what's he worried about? The poor only come out to vote every 20 or 30 years, barely ever vote in local elections, and have already been anesthetized by the real opiate of the masses: Television and constant electronic entertainment. The only thing I can think of is that he is afraid of the slumbering political potential of the poor rising up, and voting his inherited entitled privileged ass right back to whatever dismal place he's from, but with a tax bill this time.
Now the petty bourgeoisie, on the other hand, who have been made the newly poor or the newly poor-afraid, them folks he needs to be worried about.
Let's not forget booze, meth, pot, etc. "Life's a terrible thing and everyone needs some kind of drug to get through." — Graham Greene, _The Honorary Consul_
Excellent article, but I don't think it goes far enough. We should not only purge welfare slackers and other un-Americans from the voter rolls — including anyone who is unemployed and therefore not a producer, but voting should be proportional depending on net worth or taxes paid. No one could argue that someone making, say, $50,000 per year contributes to the well-being of the country as much as someone making millions and creating jobs. It's not even close. To argue that there is any sort of equality between workers and a job creators is pure marxism. Why not have votes apportioned based on income, wealth, or taxes paid, to make it more proportional to one's actual contribution to the country? For example, if you don't pay any taxes, you have no vote, as everyone here heartily endorses. If you pay $10,000 in taxes, you get one vote. If you pay $1,000,000 in taxes you get 100 votes. It's only fair.
But the REALLY productive rich people pay less in taxes. You don't want a super-productive hedge fund manager making 4 billion dollars a year to get fewer votes than he's entitled to, just because he pays a 15% tax rate!
Number of votes will not be based on amount of taxes paid. That would be unfair. Number of votes based on amount of cash (euros) stashed away in the Cayman Islands. Problem solved.
Ha ha! I saw what you did there, you used "super-productive" and "hedge fund manager" in the same sentence. Funny!
Did you read the comments on that article? Some fucktard actually recommended exactly what you are proposing here…and he meant it.
Trotsky opposed Stalin and wanted to give the poor a greater voice in government? KILL HIM
And since when do RW nutjobs at the Scabtator go after someone because he OPPOSED STALIN? I mean, WTF? I thought Stalin was the bogeyman par excellence for these assholes? Now they want to protect Stalin's legacy of filling the ranks of government with corrupt, rich, citizen-hating…oh.
I guess when Cheney's in your party, Stalin doesn't seem like such a bad guy.
From now on I'm going to carry some rotten vegetables. I don't want to be caught without anything to wail at this guy if I happen to see him walking down the street.
You've got SHOES, haven't you?
So, all men are created equal, but some are more equal than others?
Well depending on how much assets you have, we no longer judge a person on the basis of their character but the size of their portfolio in the 21st century.
Well, there was a donkey, Benjamin, in "Animal Farm", and Vadum is an ass …
O-iiiiiiink!!
Or while I'm stealing lines, there's one I like from BioShock:
We all come down here, figured we'd all be part of Ryan's Great Chain. Turns out Ryan's chain is made of gold, and ours are the sort with the big iron ball around your ankle. He's up in Fort Frolic banging fashion models… we're down in this dump yanking guts outta fish.
That the supposedly brightest luminaries of conservative thought continue to mistakenly conflate "rich" with "productive" is pretty much all you need to know about conservatives.
They're "job creators." Clearly, the chairman of GE creates more jobs if you pay him an extra $10 million. This works better than leaving GE with the $10 mil, because, um, something something free enterprise something something founding fathers. AMIRITE?
Because the CEO being a bigger drain on a company's resources is a good thing.
Far preferable to actually paying the job performers.
Not so fast there, Satan. Giving the chairman of GE 10 million more would have the inverse effect of that, he would simply lay off another 50,000 so called "productive employees", so he could take home 20 million.
Party of Paris Hilton.
Actually, now that I think about it, that fits a little too well, since the GOP is also the party of vapid racists.
Honestly, I'm all for the South not voting but I would've phrased it a little differently.
Here, here. I'll give up my vote if all my neighbors lose theirs.
You have won the week.
Wouldn't it be funny if he got his wish, the poor red states lost their representation, and most of the votes were concentrated in NYC and SF?
Not THOSE poor, you ninny! It's the ones who vote against the rich who are the problem.
When people like Vadum say "poor", they really mean "brown".
Uh-oh. Now they know you've broken the code.
Fortunately, I did not post it to their echo chamber, so we're safe.
SEPTEMBER 2, 2011
Labor Day Officially Moved to China
First U.S. Holiday to be Outsourced
Labor Day, one of America’s most beloved and longest-celebrated holidays, has been officially moved to China, U.S. officials confirmed today….
Chinese Labor Day, is 1 May, International Labor Day. It commemorates the Haymarket Riot in Chicago, I believe.
" Borrowing a phrase the ultra-leftist Leon Trotsky used in one of his many anti-Stalin tracts", these people are anti-Stalinist,". Why I oughta…
Now the comments for that article are worth reading! (if you need a reason to drink)
Wasn't this Vadum guy married to Jane Fonda and Brigitte Bardot? And banged Catherine Deneuve when she was like 17 years old? Jane was pretty hot back then. Hell, she's pretty hot right now.
Well, he may know good pussy, but otherwise he doesn't seem very smart.
"Dim" and "Dumb" are sort of the same, but no.
Goodpussy was my favorite Bond girl.
Naw, this is a different guy. But an understandable mistake, since Vadum is the subject of "…et Dieu créa la douchebag"
I think that was Roger Vadim. I would hope that Jane Fonda, Brigitte Bardot, and Catherine Deneuve wouldn't let Matthew Vadum within 1000 yards of them.
Don't worry. Soon the poor will be too busy filling beer bottles with gasoline and stuffing them with rags to vote….if they're smart.
And suddenly, the GOPtards will come around to the notion that that Assad fellow really does have the right idea.
Instead of this complicated "the more money you have the more votes you get" scheme, just have Bill Gates and Warren Buffett pick the President every 4 years. They'll just outvote everyone else anyway.
It's not often that I think the ends justify the means, but…
Isn't there a character in Catch 22, a Texan, who thinks there should be two votes for "decent folk"?
See, I checked and I couldn't find one single literary reference in the AS comment board. This is why I come to wonkette.
The Texan, actually. he was affable and talkative and everyone hated him right away. he might've killed the Soldier in White because, "he found out he was a Nigger."
That's the one! I was too lazy to go look it up. If memory serves, he drove all the devoted malingerers out of the infirmary, and back into combat. God, I love that book. The original bible of snark.
funny you should say that because i do think of it as my Bible. i mean, if any book was.
Do you ever wonder if these people became wingnuts over the emotional scarring of having weird names? Vadum…Ablow. Or are they just assholes?
I'm voting for "just assholes," myself.
Just ass-holes.
Look guys can we all just agree to keep reminding the poors it's all the muslins' fault. Anything else is just misleading manipulative class warfare that skews the vote.
I'm not surprised he's blaming Russians. It's hard to find truly enjoyable villains anymore. Today's bogeymen are just so goddamn depressing.
During my conservative wingtard website trolling the other day, someone insisted that I wanted the Soviet Union to take over the United States.
I figure that most of these people are like those mythical Japanese soldiers found alone on Pacific Islands long after WWII ended, who weren't aware that Japan has surrendered.
China, soon.
I was sort of wondering how the GOP was planning to raise taxes on the poor and still manage to get themselves elected.
I should have known they'd have it figured out.
yay! Randroids! seriously, fuck these people. i hardly view Darth Vadum's type of journalism as productive. what does he produce? he manufactures articles? tell that to somebody who has a real job and see how far that gets you.
Why can't those smelly The Poors just have the good sense to die? How selfish and greedy do The Poors have to be to keep living in their low income housing when the good, honest, rich people need to bulldoze them to build their golf course?
Hey, don't get too upset by this guy shitting all over the poor and suggesting democracy doesn't apply to them or else he'll be calling you all a bunch of class warriors.
I suppose if there were fewer poor people, Mr Vadum's would be happy. Let's solve that problem instead of changing the Constitution.
Bootstraps for everyone.
If Vadum were one of the poor, he wouldn't resent them so much. I see a viable and very satisfing resolution here.
Shall we wager the usual amount, Mortimer?
It was you handling that Job account, wasn't it, Biely?
In those days, Job didn't have a vote that I could take away.
I may ask for a do-over.
Jesus H. Christ, the comments section of the story makes you want to vomit all over the floor. Damn, the poors must be buttfucking some mighty rich people to get all that hate thrown at 'em.
I'll bet it's mostly from people who are deeply afraid they'll be poor themselves, sometime soon. Whistling in the dark.
“Registering [the poor] to vote is like handing out burglary tools to criminals. It is profoundly antisocial and un-American …"
Most people who use the word "profoundly" to support their point are totally full of bullshit. Case in point.
Wh…what's…I mean, the conservative media is openly calling for poor people being barred from voting now…what are we waiting for, exactly? I have all these torches and pitchforks here, and I'm itching to use them, and the Jameson's isn't helping…
The poor don't need voting when they've got guns and guillotines.
First, they came for the poors…
Wait until Mr. Vadum finds out that American Spectator columnists are well inside the nonproductive segment of the population.
Sighing and reaching for the Black Flag albums…that's a week.
I this roach Vadumb crawls into my sight, I have a can of Black Flag waiting.
Why so surprised? Poor-hatin' is an official plank in the Republican Party platform.
Personally, It makes it all the more fun to go register people to vote when you realize you are part of a Trotskyite conspiracy.
I can't wait. First order of business is to pass a law banning chubby right wing bitches named Matthew Vadum.
Seriously, people wonder why revolutions are so violent? That's because sick freaks like this are the opposition. Wow, to think Nixon was a positive lefty compared to Obama, much less this right wing psychopath.
Just shows where we're headed. There is no reconciling with a scumbag like this.
It's a good thing rich people never subvert the political process to enrich themselves further. Only poor people are capable of such greed.
Citizens United, unlike merely allowing the peasants to exercise their right to vote, is absolutely nothing like handing a burglar a set of tools and a map to Fort Knox and telling them to get crackin'.
OT
Seems Barry's Labor Day Friday night surprise is dropping
a bucket of shita passel of law suits on 17 financial firms, including the biggest & baddest banks, for doing the Ponzi on Freddie Mac and hiz kissin' cousin Fannie Mae. Well that is a nice Labor Day Weekend present.Wishing a very happy Commie, Socialist, Pinko Labor Day Weekend for all the Wonkette family.
And S&P's Labor Day Friday night surprise is that a bunch of subprime mortgage bonds have had their ratings returned to AAA. S&P has decided that the soverign debt of the United States is a less safe bet than subprime mortgages. Well, I'm sure S&P's right about these things, this time, right?
The defendants will cover their asses by inpleading the ratings agencies — and then the rats will start squealing on one another in earnest. I just hope the DOJ doesn't cut more deals with these pricks than the absolute minimum necessary.
I think we've heard the end of this story.
I made the mistake of reading the comments on the original article and have had all the snark whipped out of me. now I just want to throw up.
Borrowing a phrase the ultra-leftist Leon Trotsky used in one of his many anti-Stalin tracts
Trotsky was a leftist! Who knew?
So many idiotic, repulsive comments to that equally idiotic, repulsive troll/flame-bait column.
Don't Vadum and the commenters realize that banning the poor and people who don't own property from voting would arguably keep the Democrats in charge forever?
Evidently there are some truths that Matthew Vadum doesn't hold to be self-evident.
We should train the poor in making Molotovs with Tito, the Texan vodka.
MolotovTito.com?
I think Clampett's Old Tyme Texas Tea will do just fine.
Fortunately, though, some of the recent comments have good. There are even a couple from righties pointing out that what Vadum is proposing would ultimately produce the opposite effect of what he intended.
The reason we give the poors the illusion of democratic participation is precisely so that they don't go Nat Turner on, among others, the sacks of shit who write these kinds of things.
So many here are awash in jealousy and bitterness. No wonder they're failures; they spend so much time and energy vilifying those who are successful that they leave themselves no opportunity to accomplish anything else. What moral right do any of you have to the fruits of another's labor? Because someone is successful doesn't mean it came at your expense. Should the poor vote? No, not so long as there's a progressive income tax. Folks who don't pay taxes can vote for politicians who steal from the taxpayer and redistribute the wealth. One man, one vote? Each person should have one vote for every dollar he pays in income tax. No tax, no vote.
Isn't that basically what happens now?
Wouldn't blindly and adamantly defending the rights of the batshit crazy (who like to shoot at cops and congressman they don't like because of taxes and TEA PARTY!!!) to own guns be antisocial and anti-American and like giving safe-cracking tools to thieves, or whatever?
America's great myth that the rich have pounded into everyone's brain is that in this country, we are all free to be as great as we aspire to be, if we just work hard enough and are smart enough.
The poors do neither, so it's their own fault. They buy into the Big Lie and get taken to the cleaners' every time. The lie has grown exponentially so that the rich no longer to bother concealing their disdain for the lower classes. If the poors had worked hard enough, the could've inherited a few million like the rest of the right wing douches did.
That's it for me folks. Let myself screw around wasting time with one thread on the wonket and it looks like I picked a good one. (Except, time with the great minds of liberal thinking is never really wasted. Or so I tell the old man when he wants to boot me out and surf porn.)
'Later, losers.
This nasty doughboy proves to stand out among wingnuts in 2011, you really need to go the extra mile. Next week: using the poor as a new food source.
American Spectator, eh? More like American Specter.
He's right about one thing. I do want to use our collective weight to crush back the folks that have been crushing us with their money. Up 'till now, the great class war has been a one-way war. They came for our jobs, then our wages, now the right to organize. If they keep screaming about the monster of communism, they might just make it true…
This is the kind reasoned analysis that stimulates the reader and informs, ever so subtly, the national discourse. I will be citing this sparkling rain of brain mana with every jaunty step.
Why do the rich get to vote if they keep avoiding military service?
Vadum's recent post on this on his blog is even more pathetic and hilarious. He cravenly tries to back away from what he wrote in his own column and says that those eeeevil leftists and Marxists took his words out of context.
Darth Vadum?
If weight can brake down the kleptockracy, we need to join together, pick up Chris Christy and start battering away, while we (collectivly) can still lift him. It may already be too late!
This could work out pretty well, as it would disenfranchise the Republican base of pork-rind eating poor white trash, leaving them only the top 1% to vote GOP.
Today we are all poors with a lock pick.
Memo From America's Poors:
Wanna take away our votes?
We have literally nothing left to lose. We know where you live. We have guns.
Your call, fuckheads.
Maybe we could shoot them from helicopters. $500 bucks for unlimited bag limit. I know where to find a heard of em……..standing in line for handouts (bait), in the welfare line or un-employment line, orrrrrr……….waiting outside a townhall meeting of a republican who charges to ask a question. Kill the voter/poor person is a win-win for them in Tejas…..It compliments the Execution of Criminals. Somehow I lost the snark of an incoherent thought.
I guess it's true, EVERBODY associated with the American Spectator is a seriously closeted butt-pirate. Only self-loathing little hypocrites can produce this level of venom against humanity and reason.
Seems like lot of people are full of shit in this country. Why is that? We have the highest income/capita in the world, together with Switzerland, $50,000, the best army, all the toys you want. So? Money doesn't make them happy. Why some much hate and fear? I know it hurts to have a black president, but hey, it can be worse!
too bad the spineless Dems will never rise to the occasion of using this in their election campaign!
One of the comments wanted to weight each vote according to how much taxes each person paid. Does that mean people who (1) work for the government or (2) get government contracts or subcontracts, have negative votes? Because I'm kind of OK with Bechtel or Halliburton employees/contractors, not to mention all soldiers, getting billions and billions of negative votes, because those people usually vote Republican, which would be transmogrified into billions and billions of votes for the Communist Party. Fidel Castro 2012!
Darth Vadum's Death Star is his anus.
Vadum? I barely knew 'um.
What a charming disenfranchisement tactic…
Matthew Vadum
and Ricky Perry
A girl a couple of years ahead of me in high school was a chum of mine in Latin class. She was supposed to do a poll about the Johnson/Goldwater election and asked me to go with her. We went to Community Camp on the Arkansas River in downtown OKC–it was the remnant of Hooverville, and went door to door asking how the would vote. Most were voting for Goldwater (except I doubt any of these people managed to vote) because "Johnson wants our kids to go to school with niggers." One man had the tidiest little shanty and asked us in. He had a newspaper photo of RFK on his wall and another liberal icon, but I can't remember who. He said "I'm voting for Johnson [this man I believe actually voted] because he's for he poor, and I'm a poor man." I wish I had been older and spent more time talking to him. I got the impression that, for sure, he was a man who had worked hard but fallen into hard times. As is clear, he has haunted me to this day.
How do you tell them apart from the regular posters there?
/snicker
Most of the regular posters have reasonable spelling skills. When you see a comment in all UPPERCASE with lots of BANGS and ZOMG WTH and "poo-poo" instead of "s&%~!," it's probably a paid troll. Oh, yes, and the day's dosage of Pox Ooze talking points. It used to be a fairly lefty site when I first joined, and many of the early posters (who haven't been there in at least a year) were very intelligent, erudite lefties, on the whole.
Given that the site hosts Breitbart, I just figure it is not worth my time (or clicks).
agreed. I usually have HuffPo and Wonkette on the 'puter simultaneously and have 'commentated' on both sites…I can see the difference on the posts over the years and especially the responses to my own comments, and I don't have much faith in their *moderators* either…basically I consider it to be equal to RedState nowadays except the HuffPo comments are slightly less hateful
They started hosting Breitbart about a year ago, which is when all the best commenters started leaving. It definitely isn't worth the time these days. I drop in periodically to chat with old friends there, but I suspect it won't stay afloat much longer.
It really went downhill the past 12 months. All the longtime commenters, with more than 2500 fans, have pretty much left the site. The noobs on the site are all AOL junkies. Stupider than dirt, and fond of teh ELEBENTY BAZILLION EXCLAMATION POINTS. It gets awfully tiresome.
However, it's one place where you can really tear into someone teatarduhd if you're smart and careful and missing your weekly S&M flogging session with your bottom(s).
I was moderated off Crooks and Liars for suggesting that someone was out of line for telling someone to fuck a dog. Seriously.
ROTFLMAO! Could you imagine if we had someone of his singular wit alive today that was as popular as he was? Ole Clemens was the original Wonkette; yes he was.
Kidnapping free people and selling them down the river was relatively common. They didn't have to be all that dark to be black enough. Check out _Mulatto America: At the Crossroads of Black and White Culture: A Social History_, Stephan Talty
I know my history; in fact, this is kind of primary school-level history, not to mention it's from a popular book. I don't need a reading list for the history of my people.
Now,say something funny or snarky, for once in your life.
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