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Deborah's Reply to the TEA Flyer
 

Knowing that I am surely the only "non-Republican" in all of the county (well, that's not exactly true, there are five: my husband and my parents, and of course Juanita with the big blue butt), I first thought I'd just delete it. After all, I am pretty much used to receiving endless amounts of e-mail about how the change in President in just the last nine weeks is why we are in the toilet, all the way around from economics to drought. And for some reason, the people forwarding these e-mails assume that no one would ever take offense to them. But after thinking about it, and knowing how many people have probably forwarded the flyer, I felt compelled to try to counter these types of allegations.

Please, regardless of your political persuasion, check out allegations in e-mails before blindly forwarding them on to others. In keeping with that, I urge to you research my rebuttals before you forward to others. If you go to "Snopes" website, and just check how many allegations/stories have been passed around about Barack Obama, you will see that investigation into these stories reflect that the vast majority are false. (By the way, this not only goes for politics but also for a variety of other e-mail subjects as well.)

And I'm seriously considering showing up for this little pow-wow on 15APR to show there's another opinion out there. There is no perfect politician, and I'm pretty much disgusted all the way around with all of them, but this flyer takes the cake.

Below are the bullets in the flyer (in blue font) and the black font shown are my comments to each of the allegations.


Voted for a $500 billion tax bill without reading it?
How could anyone even prove that? How do we know how many in congress read it? I would love to know how many actually read it. Do you have any idea how many pages that tax bill is? What's really surprising is that it's less pages than the TARP bill. And let's talk about the TARP that Bush and congress pushed through in March 2008... it was $700 billion!!! And more than half that money evaporated and we have no idea where it went because Bush and the congress did not set up any kind of audit trail for it. (Was that by design or stupidity?)

Are spending trillions of borrowed dollars, leaving a debt our great-grandchildren will be paying?
Trillions of borrowed dollars happened on Bush's watch. We had a surplus when he took office, where did it go? The budget game he played was not putting the Iraq war cost into the budget. At least Obama is showing it for what it is; a WHOPPING expenditure that we're all paying for.

Consistently give special interest groups billions of dollars in earmarks to help get themselves reelected?
That is the K-Street Republicans at work. If you think earmarks are bad now, look at how many got pushed through when Bush was in office. Remember the 'bridge to nowhere'? Look at how many Republicans are now lobbyists. Including our "beloved" Tom DeLay.

Want to take your wealth and redistribute it to others?
Whose wealth? I'm not wealthy. Never was. When the GOP machine pumps the 'wealth' issue, know that they are talking about the equivalent of lawyers, doctors, and upwards. Not us working-for-a-paycheck peons. Bernie Madoff, the AIG execs, the car industry execs, they all made the majority of their wealth...when Republicans ran the White House and congress, not the latest round of 'bonus bonanza'. (Besides, we middle-class have had our 'wealth' taken from us and redistributed to others for years now. The 'others' being the wealthy. That's the real rub: the redistribution is to redirect it away
from the wealthy, and they don't like their gravy train pulling into the station.)

 Punish those who practice responsible financial behavior and reward those who do not?
This has been going on since the dawn of time. Think back to the S&L scandal in the early 1990's. Charles Keating, John McCain, and...yes, even Neil Bush....all of whom were Republicans that got away with the money which predominantly came from small investors and never had to pay a penny of it back. Look at Enron, how much money did those crooks get away with, and didn't pay it back? Poor Mrs. Lay, I'll never forget her going on t.v. and lamenting that she was so poor they had to sell their Colorado home. The golden parachutes for bad top execs have been going on since free enterprise began.

Admit to using the financial hurt of millions as an opportunity to push their political agenda?
Who admitted to that? I keep up very closely with politics and I have not heard anything to this nature. Even if it were true, this would mean that it's a fact that millions were financially hurt...while Bush was in office. So thank you, Republicans, for the opportunity. (Besides, not any worse than using God to push the political agenda, which is exactly the drum that was beat in 2004: If you don't vote for Bush, you're not Christian.)

Run up trillions of dollars of debt and then sell that debt to countries such as China?
Bush took more money from China than any other President in history. And Bill Clinton deserves an honorable mention in this arena, too. But let us not forget: we needed their money to continue to operate our economy, and what G-20 country would have been willing, or even able, to lend us the
amount of money we needed? NONE. (By the way, take a look at the top countries that import American products...see China? YES, and they've been in the top five since 2005...when BUSH was in office...) Take a lesson in World Economics to really understand why and how this happens, and what the alternative is to not borrowing money at all. I truly wish we did not have to borrow money to operate, but that's not reality.

Want government controlled health care?
As opposed to the crappy system we have now? It's sure not working for me, I'll tell you that. A man can get a penile implant surgery approved in 5 minutes, and it's taken a year and a half to get my kid's skull surgery approved. Besides, the program laid out currently does not reflect "government controlled". It offers a government option. People can still get privatized health care if they choose to. Talk to someone that cannot eat right now because they cannot afford their prescriptions and food at the same time. And while we're talking about health care, stem cell research. Had this been allowed in the Bush years, my daughter may have already had gene therapy available to her so that she doesn't have to live with the 50% chance she'll pass her syndrome along to her kids. Of all the people I know that oppose this have families with no health issues, perfect, healthy kids. Had Barbara Bush been diagnosed with Parkinsons in 1992, I'll bet G.W. would have had a different take on this.

Want to take away the right to vote with a secret ballot in union elections?
This is an extremely complicated subject, and I doubt many have taken the time to really think through it. Both my parents were union workers, and I can tell you the secret votes they were involved in were not secret at all. Everyone pretty much knew who was on board and who wasn't. I see the flip side of being nonunion myself in all jobs I've had and realize I've been lucky to not have been unfairly treated.  By the way, this secret ballot abolishment issue has come, and gone, for decades now. This is just the umpteenth resurrection of it. It was not just 'dreamed up' in the last two months. It was brushed off and tweaked.

Refuse to stop the flow of millions of illegal immigrants into our country?
No President or congress throughout our history has been able to stop this. Even the Dept. of Homeland Security, which Bush and Karl Rove dreamed up, could not stop it. Read through the unbelievable cluster-f*** of events between the FBI and CIA in 1999-2001 that allowed the terrorists in and setup their success in carrying out the worst attack since Pearl Harbor and that will tell you just how dysfunctional the system is. Obama is the one that is actually DOING something about the border, he just gave orders to send reinforcements to the Mexican border to help our border patrol. Again,
immigration is a complex issue and it will not be solved overnight and certainly there will be some, no matter what action is taken, that will be unhappy.

Appoint a defender of child pornography to the Number 2 position in the Justice Department?
He's not defending child pornography. This whole thing came up when he defended the constitution; of which even pornography is protected. Not CHILD pornography; ADULT pornography. Personally, I find pornography one of the most disgusting facets of our society but it is a right afforded to people under jurisprudence. (And how many of you out there even know who the person is in the Number 2 position? Or can name a time in history when the person holding that position actually had the authority to push laws and legislation of their liking either through the Supreme Court (if case-based) or through congress (if law-based)?


Want to force doctors and other medical workers to perform abortions against their will?
You cannot force doctors and other medical workers to perform abortions. That's just flat-out false. I don't even know who dreamed that up.

 Want to impose a carbon tax on your electricity, gas and home heating fuels?
Yes, that's right. Take a look at your power bills now. How many taxes are already on there? What's one more? And take a guess at how much the tax is proposed to be. .72 cents per kWh. That's less than 1 cent per kWh. Look at your light bill and figure it out for yourself. Look at what carbons are doing to the air. The real drive behind this is to actually reduce the carbon emissions, which is a good thing. The main opposition to this are the biggest offenders of carbon emissions excess.

Want to reduce your tax deductibility for charitable gifts?
Really read through that plan. It's the wealthy that will not be able to use this as a loophole for paying taxes. If you, as an "average" taxpayer gave $1,000 in charitable gifts last year, you will STILL have the SAME deductions allowed this year.

 Take money from your family budget to pay for their federal budget?
I just got our tax filing back from the CPA last week, and GUESS WHAT. I'M PAYING THE EXACT SAME RATE THIS YEAR AS LAST YEAR!!! And the income is almost exactly the same. Every person I've challenged, so far, that had told me they were going to have to pay more taxes had not actually even done the math to see if it was really true. Pure conjecture. And think about it. Federal income taxes, coming from our "family budget" have paid for the federal budget since Federal Income Tax was introduced! That's the point of federal taxes, to pay for the federal budget.

ALMOST ALL OF THIS PROPAGANDA APPEARS TO BE FUELED FROM THE HERITAGE FOUNDATION. TAKE A LOOK AT THEIR AUDITED FINANCIAL STATEMENT. (THE LATEST YOU'LL FIND ONLINE IS 2006.) OVER $150,000,000.00 IN  BLACK INK! AND OF THAT, THE BOARD HAS COMPLETE CONTROL OVER $101,000,000.00 OF THAT! TAKE A LOOK AT THEIR MAJOR CONTRIBUTORS AND SUPPORTERS. IT'S NOT HARD TO FIGURE OUT WHY THEY'D BE ATTACKING THE NEW ADMINISTRATION; THEY'VE BEEN GETTING
FATTER THAN RUSH LIMBAUGH OVER THE LAST EIGHT YEARS, THANKS TO THE AUTHORITARIANS THAT TOUT THEIR AGENDA THROUGH THE LIKES OF ENTITIES LIKE HERITAGE. AND IT'S VEILED UNDER THE DISGUISE OF 'YOU'RE NOT A CHRISTIAN IF YOU DON'T SUPPORT THIS'.
            HERE'S THE REAL NEWS: YOU CAN'T LEGISLATE MORALITY

   GOD BLESS AMERICA, I'M GLAD TO BE HERE

My name is Susan DuQuesnay Bankston.
I live in Richmond, Texas, in heart of Tom DeLay's old district.  It's crazy here.  No, seriously, it's triple z crazzzy.

I used to be an independent voter, but that all changed when I got to know a few local Republicans.  They are meaner than 10 acres of snakes and have the ethical compass of a bank robber. 

So, I decided that they could just Kiss My Big Blue Butt.

A lot of what I post here has to do with local politics, but you probably have the same folks in your local government.

This ain't a blog.  Blogs are way too trendy for me.  I've been doing this since 1992, so I'm used to it even if you ain't. 

Email me and I'll find a place to put it if I like it.