Quickie: Big Oil Requests Government Help edition

By GottaLaff

Today's Quickie:

This just came via e-mail. See if you can spot the irony:

NEW ORLEANS (AP) BP official says company has asked for government help with oil in Gulf

If I recall, Big Oil pals around with FreedomWorks, who in turn pals around with Tea Baggers who in turn refuse to pal around with "Big Government".... unless they're in trouble. Then suddenly everyone wants to pal around with the evil D.C. socialist Marxist commie fascists.

All that indoctrination must have worked.

That was today's Quickie. Will you still respect me in the morning?

VIDEO: Tea-bagged Geico man fires back

By GottaLaff

Yesterday, Paddy posted about the Geico spokesman who got fired over an insulting telephone message he left for the Tea Baggers' little astroturf extended family, FreedomWorks.

FreedomWorks' Matt Kibbe then posted Douglas' cell number on biggovernment.com, which caused Douglas to get harassed and ultimately sacked.

None of this hubbub prevented Douglas from making light of the situation in his own riveting little video...

Su. Perb:




H/t: ZenShadow

VIDEO: Rep. Steve King grabs Think Progress blogger's arm in anger

By GottaLaff

Via Think Progress:

Today, King spoke at FreedomWorks‘ Tax Day Tea Party Rally in Washington, D.C. I caught up with him to get further clarification about his remarks, asking, “Do you regret what you said when you justified the attack against the IRS building?”

Which is the Party of Violence again?

Asked about his comments in February justifying the IRS attacks, Rep. Steve King (R-IA) grabbed a Think Progress blogger's arm in anger, and inexplicably accused the blogger of calling him a murderer.

This from the same rational anti-ACORN, anti-health care reform, bigoted, talking points-spewing guy who accused the Humane Society of taking meat off our tables.

This is the polar opposite of how any elected representative should behave, especially in this horribly volatile day and age. King should be setting an example of calm and reason, but instead, he is the perfect role model for the more violent "protesters" who are all of a hair's breadth away from snapping entirely.

The Party of No Mental Equilibrium.

Be afraid... It's a FreedomWorks SURGE!

By GottaLaff

Will the "surge" work? None of the others did:

(click on image to enlarge)

There message is "simple", because, well, so are they:

We will be storming the three House Office Buildings: Cannon, Longworth and Rayburn. Our message is simple: VOTE NO on Obamacare 2.0. [...]

... pick up an area map, office locations, talking points and lobbying tips [...]

Buses can drop off passengers...

How adorable... they're training their TeaPeas to be lobbyists. That's about as folksy as you can get.

Don'tcha just love how grassrootsy that gigantic hugely enormous, wealthy, powerful, Dickle Me Armey-run FreedomWorks is?

The Tea Tantrumers must have oodles of gratitude for those grassy-rooty buses, huh?

What would they ever do without their rich ol' corporate lobbyist sugar daddies....

"I don't recall when a poor country actually provided the U.S with anything when disaster struck the U.S"

By GottaLaff

Edeline B. Clermont weeps in the Little Haiti area of Miami as she talks to her sister after both were unable to contact relatives in Haiti, which has been devastated by Tuesday's earthquake. (Alan Diaz/Associated Press)

The following comments were responses to my post of yesterday, "U.S. Should Not Help Haiti Earthquake Victims".

Ignorance is even more widespread than I previously thought:

Anonymous said...

I pay taxes to run my government, not to "AID" other countries.

And I don't recall when a poor country actually provided the U.S with anything when disaster struck the U.S

January 14, 2010 2:45 PM

And there's this, by either the same or a different "Anonymous". If only they weren't so afraid to post a name or pseudonym, we'd know for sure:

Anonymous said... [in part]

You hippies gotta learn the Federal and State governments are NOT charities and shouldn't operate as such, they are there to GOVERN. The money is the taxpayers, and they have no right to use it for charity. If you think money should be sent to Haiti, YOU send it. Communists.

January 14, 2010 2:54 PM

And then there are commenters that should become regulars:

David D. said...

Dear "I don't recall":

Countries and organizations that offered to send aid in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, mentioned by the State Department, included Afghanistan, Argentina, Armenia, Australia, Austria, Azerbaijan, the Bahamas, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Belarus, Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Cuba, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Dominica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, the European Union, Finland, France, Georgia, Germany, Greece, Guatemala, Guyana, Honduras, Hungary, Iceland, India, Indonesia, International Energy Agency, International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, Iran, Iraq, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Jamaica, Japan, Jordan, Kosovo, Kuwait, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Mexico, NATO, Nepal, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Nigeria, Norway, Organization of American States, Oman, OPEC, Pakistan, Paraguay, the Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Qatar, Romania, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Korea, Spain, Sri Lanka, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Thailand, Tunisia, Turkey, UAE, United Kingdom, the United Nations, United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Venezuela and the World Health Organization.

January 14, 2010 2:55 PM

UPDATE, YesBiscuit tweeted:

Haiti offered $36k aid to US after Katrina

T1 adds Mexico to the list:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexican_response_to_Hurricane_Katrina they stepped in to help out along with a ton of others

"U.S. Should Not Help Haiti Earthquake Victims"

By GottaLaff

UPDATE: Question... Is this just a hoax, a spoof from our side? Could be. If it is, it's a rather tasteless one.

Original post:

So much for loving your fellow man.

Here's a screen shot of quite the little maladjusted not-grassrootsy organization. Check out the fine print under the black graphic (click on image to enlarge):


Here's the entire text, brought to you by.... ta da...

... yes, FreedomWorks:

To: U.S. Congress, President Obama

The recent earthquake in Haiti is a tragic situation that has touched America's heart. However, America must be careful to avoid losing its head and making a bad situation even worse.

The National Alliance for Liberty and Freedom, a coalition of national libertarian, tea party, objectivist, and Ayn Rand groups hereby demands that no public funds should be spent on any disaster relief.

Certainly, if private citizens want to donate money that is an individual decision that they will freely make, and we cannot - nor would we seek to - prevent those citizens from deciding where to spend their money.

However, public funds are entirely different and should not be spent in this matter.

The main reason is simple: those funds are not the U.S. government's to begin with. Any money that the U.S. government would give would have been stolen - under threat of force - from U.S. citizens.

Further, any donations to Haiti will only serve as a "moral hazard", in effect underwriting their bad choices. Haiti had some of the highest tax rates in the Western Hemisphere, hampering the natural innovation of its citizens and making it difficult for corporations - today's engine of prosperity - to operate in that country. Their rules and regulations were among the most onerous as well, preventing true innovation to occur. Without such onerous rules and high taxation, Haiti could have been a thriving commercial center able to better withstand the earthquake and its aftermath.

By giving money, we will prevent Haitian citizens from rising up in their own Tea Party Revolution and taking their country back from the Marxists.

Once again, if private citizens want to donate their own money, that is their choice. However, the U.S. government should not give one dime: it isn't their money to give and it will only reward failed choices.

Sincerely,

[...]

The U.S. Should Not Help Haiti Earthquake Victims Petition to U.S. Congress, President Obama was created by National Alliance for Liberty and Freedom, a coalition of national libertarian, tea party, objectivist, and Ayn Rand groups and written by Glenn Adamson (glennadamson78@yahoo.com). This petition is hosted here at www.PetitionOnline.com as a public service. There is no endorsement of this petition, express or implied, by Artifice, Inc. or our sponsors.

Bolding was mine.

Appalling lack of compassion, utter derangement, and questionable sanity is theirs.

H/t: Musiccitygal, Litzz11

UPDATE: They got a whopping 26 signatures... if you want to call them that (click on image to enlarge)

Adding: I guess I wasn't obvious enough when I said, "if you want to call them that"... meaning, I'm well aware that the signatures are fake. That's why I took a screen grab of them. This whole thing could very well be some lefty mischief.

VIDEO- Freedomworks activist: "It's not a grassroots event. They're all paid." American flags not welcome.

By GottaLaff

Oh my, the deception... How does it feel to be squashed by the Enormous Corporate Foot, Freedomworks flag wavers? Will you believe us now? Silly question.

This is one of those videos you have to watch all the way through:



Big Oil barred Freedomworks recruits/activists from their astroturf event. Can you say, "Schadenfreude"?

Disguising a company picnic as a citizen's energy rally, private security and police barred interested citizens from entering the "astroturf" event. Even though they advertised the event as a public, grassroots rally, and even had emails sent out encouraging people to attend, not even staunch supporters of the industry's stance on climate legislation were allowed in. The only people allowed through the doors were those with petroleum company employee badges and yellow "Energy Citizen" t-shirts that were handed out amongst the employees.

Any converts to liberal fascism? Hands?

Health Care Watch- Dick Armey quits firm over controversy: "It is a sacrifice I must make"

By GottaLaff

You can bet Rachel Maddow will be all over this astroturf poster boy Dickle Me Armey news:

Former House Majority Leader Dick Armey (R-Texas) is resigning from DLA Piper law firm amid a wave of negative attention his grassroots organization, Freedom Works, has drawn for helping to organize protesters at health care town hall meetings with members of Congress.

[...] Armey said that he was concerned about the media scrutiny the health care protests were drawing to the firm he has been associated with since retiring from Congress.

As he should be.

“The firm is busy with its business, and shouldn’t be asked to take time out from their work, to defend themselves of spurious allegations,” Armey said. “No client of this firm is going to be free to mind its own business without harassment as long as I’m associated with it.”

He has a real flair for stating the obvious, doesn't he?

In a statement Armey said, “It is painful and frustrating to see a good, decent, able and effective partnership of honorable men and women and their clients attacked for things in which they are not involved simply because of their association with me. One would expect a higher degree of competence and professionalism from members of the media than spurious attacks on innocent bystanders.”

1. Somehow juxtaposing the words "innocent" and "Armey" doesn't cut it.

2. They weren't involved with astroturfing? Really? See: Show, The Rachel Maddow.

To that end, Armey, who had been with the law firm for six years, said that he intends to devote his full attention to FreedomWorks.

I wouldn't exactly characterize that as an upgrade.

“It is imperative for me, within the context of my life’s work in the defense of personal liberty against the encroachments of big government, to give my undivided attention to the work we do at FreedomWorks. In short, the threat to personal liberty in America is so serious and imminent at this time that it requires the full commitment of my efforts. While I consider it a personal sacrifice to leave DLA Piper, it is a sacrifice I must make in light of the important work I am committed to at FreedomWorks.”

What would we do with out Dickle Me to save us from Big Bad Obama? Without Dickle's selfless sacrifice, our very lives could be at stake! Democracy as we know it would die! In fact, we'd all die! We owe him our souls! God bless Dickle Me Armey! ::sniffle, snuffle, schmerfuggle, slobbergibble::

I'm sorry. I need a moment. I'm overwhelmed. I must go to my Quiet Place.

Armey told POLITICO he intends to counter misinformation about FreedomWorks’ role in the health care protests and said there have been no disruptions of any town hall meetings where his group has helped organize participants.

“That’s simply not true. We have always emphasized making a civil presentation. There’s been nobody at a town hall meeting who has been bused in, at least not by FreedomWorks.”

Take it away, Rachel! After all, he'll be on Meet the Press with you this Sunday.

Rather, he said, opposition over the prospect of government-run health care is organic.

As organic as say, astroturf? Of course, all that "organic" opposition has nothing to do with the promos, lists of emotionally charged talking points, and instructions fed to them.

This is one Armey that has nothing to do with intelligence, military or otherwise.

Video- Hardball: Chris Matthews destroys FreedomWorks shill

Lots of firestorms on our side today. Nice. Via FDL.