Rep. Lou Barletta, Republican from Pennsylvania, got an earful at a recent town hall meeting in his district. The meeting seems to have devolved into a shouting match between a lady who challenged the congressman’s recent vote for the Ryan budget and some baggers who screamed at her to shut up. You can watch the video and read a partial transcript here.
The Congressman got a word in occasionally. At one point (and this is not in the transcript) he said that jobs were going overseas because U.S. businesses paid the highest taxes in the world. That’s a lie in so many ways it’s pitiful. The U.S. has among the lowest taxes of industrialized democracies, Taxes are at a historic low, in fact. And some corporations are barely paying taxes at all.
I guess the Congressman didn’t mean that to be a factual statement.
It’s well established that Barletta is quite sleazy, but it’s less well known that he’s also dangerously stupid. I know someone who attended college with him and he often talks about how stunningly stupid Barletta was. I mean, to the point where the man couldn’t even handle basic math or grasp even the most simple and rudimentary concepts involved in the classes. It’s amazing how people like him always seem to rise to the top of Republican politics just by being willing to mindlessly parrot all of the right talking points and hate all of the right people.
Seeing those baggers applauding when intelligence and foresight gets bounced out of the meeting reminds me of the story of wealthy Dutch Jews who were facing deportation, but managed to secure before their departure the finest living accommodations their money could buy in the pastoral setting of lovely Auschwitz Poland. Little did they understand exactly what they bargained for…just like the baggers don’t fully understand what they are clapping for. Their vouchers will have a similarity to the historical expression.. ” ain’t worth a continental “
Just to clarify something everyone probably knows: The US corporate tax rate is indeed one of the highest in the world. The problem is that our corporations don’t pay anything near that statutory rate because of various loopholes in the tax code. We could drastically lower the rate and still gain revenue if the loopholes were closed. It is a measure of Barletta’s dishonesty that he tries to make his case on this confusion.
Interestingly, you can see here and in the Ryan video, people who are liberal calmly and rationally explaining their side. Now, compare this to the Town Halls over the last two years where righties went ballistic!
And here, it’s not the grumpy, no, angry, guy(s) who were yelling “Sit down!” and “Shut up!” to a women speaking in her turn who were escorted out, but the guy in the blue shirt who was expelled from the meeting. And then the Congressman comes back with his talking point lies.
There is an unimistakable thug mentality on the right.
I missed an opportunity when I lived down South. I wish I’d opened up an apparel store for conservatives – “Rightie World Fashions,” where all of the clothing items sold would be designed to match brown and black shirts. I could have make a mint opening up these stores by looking at the Congressional districts in states and picking the reddest one. Oh, and some of the shirt collars, and some of the pants seat bottoms could offer a red option – for the neck and for the ass.
Slightly OT – on the subject of Birthers. This was footage from a rally in SC a few days ago:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=77rtyQf6Hwk&feature=player_embedded
You can smell the inbreeding.
And what is it with these people wearing their hats almost over the eyes? Is that some SC genetic trait?
c u n d gulag — inbreeding, indeed. I liked the guy who wanted to have a society with no government — isn’t that classical Marxism?
Yeah, he wanted no government.
And here was my favorite part – he served in some capacity for the “REPUBLICAN PARTY,” which, last I looked was a political organization trying to get or maintain GOVERMENTAL power, and not some drunken gathering of oldsters where you could secretly record a “Senior’s Gone Wild!” video, with Grandma shaking her ta-ta’s, and Gramps is flashing his disfunction, all while doing tequila shooters.
I also wish the guy who recorded this asked some of the old people if they were on SS/Medicare, and the really obese woman if she was on Medicaid. My guess would be yes. 100% yes.