Wednesday 15 April '09 show

• Article: FreedomWorks Orchestrates ‘Grassroots’ Movements To Serve Dick Armey’s Corporate Clients.
• Clip:
  "For most Americans, Wednesday, April 15th will be Tax Day. But in our fourth story tonight: It‘s going to be teabagging day for the right-wing and they‘re going nuts for it. Thousands of them whipped out the festivities early this past weekend, and while the parties are officially toothless, the teabaggers are full-throated about their goals.

  They want to give President Obama a strong tongue-lashing and lick government spending—spending they did not oppose when they were under presidents Bush and Reagan. They oppose Mr. Obama‘s tax rates—which will be lower for most of them—and they oppose the tax increases Mr. Obama is imposing on the rich, whose taxes will skyrocket to a rate about 10 percent less than it was under Reagan. That‘s teabagging in a nut shell.

  "
  David Shuster, guest host, 'Countdown with Keith Olbermann' for Monday, April 13.
• Tax day. Teabagging day - sad, funny. FreedomWorks orchestrating. David Shuster's "teabagging in a nut shell". Obama just lowered tax rates on 95% of American, and people are being played for puppets on a string by Dick Armey, etc, on behalf of the very rich. Turn up at parties and tell them what is it about.
• Article: Tax Day: You Pay Your Taxes -- Why Don't the Rich Pay Their Share?, Chuck Collins and Sam Pizzigati.
  "In 1955, the year April 15 became the IRS tax-filing deadline, America's top 400 taxpayers paid three times more of their income in taxes than the top 400 of 2006, the most recent year with IRS data available.

  According to a new Tax Day report that we co-authored, if the top 400 of 2006 had paid taxes at 1955 rates, the federal treasury would have collected -- from these 400 taxpayers alone -- an additional $35.9 billion more in revenue in 2006.

  The 139,000 U.S. taxpayers who made over $2 million in 2006, our report also notes, averaged $5.9 million in income. They paid 23.2 percent of their total incomes in federal income tax. The comparable rate for equivalent high-income Americans in 1955: 49 percent.

  If the over-$2 million set in 2006 had paid taxes at the same rate as their 1955 counterparts, the federal treasury would have collected $202 billion.

  "

  Recommendations:

  - Tax income from capital gains and dividends at the same rates as wage income.
  - Create a new top tax rate for incomes over $2 million.
  - Levy a progressive estate tax on large fortunes.

• Article: Taxing, a Ritual to Save the Species, Natalie Angier.
• Bumper Music: Revolution, Beatles (video).
• Article: Debt is Not Money – and Must Be Regulated, Thom Hartmann.
• Article: Trump livid over proposed ‘millionaires tax’ in New York.
  "Donald Trump, the celebrated New York billionaire, has expressed fury over his state’s planned “millionaires’ tax” on residents earning over $500,000 (€377,250) per annum, according to a report in Newsmax.

  “Rich people are going to leave this state. Why should they pay New York State taxes on money they made out of state?,” Trump told New York Post columnist Linda Stasi after placing an angry phone call to New York Governor David Paterson over the issue.

  "
• Guest: Donald Trump, real estate mega mogul; socialite; star of "The Apprentice" tv show; best selling author of several books including "The Art of The Deal". His new book "Think Like a Champion: How to Succeed in Business and in Life". Dale Carrnegie. Norman Vincent Peale. Tony Robbins. As you think you shall create. Great opportunities, many ways to be a champion. New York Taxes. He said New York expenses have gone up. Unions.
• Bumper Music: Piggies, George Harrison, Beatles (video).
• Article: Offshore Tax Havens: A State-By-State Breakdown Of The Cost To Taxpayers. "A Senate report estimated in 2008 that the United States loses up to $100 billion a year in tax revenue to offshore tax havens".
• Article: The Real Boston Tea Party was an Anti-Corporate Revolt, Thom Hartmann.
• Article: Bankrupt Lehman Brothers Sitting On Enough Uranium Cake To Make A Bomb.
• Social Security surplus. Pensions vs, 401(k).
• Article: Obama’s Remarks on the Economy.
  "Of course, there are some who argue that the government should stand back and simply let these banks fail – especially since in many cases it was their bad decisions that helped create the crisis in the first place. But whether we like it or not, history has repeatedly shown that when nations do not take early and aggressive action to get credit flowing again, they have crises that last years and years instead of months and months – years of low growth, low job creation, and low investment that cost those nations far more than a course of bold, upfront action. And although there are a lot of Americans who understandably think that government money would be better spent going directly to families and businesses instead of banks – "where's our bailout?," they ask – the truth is that a dollar of capital in a bank can actually result in eight or ten dollars of loans to families and businesses, a multiplier effect that can ultimately lead to a faster pace of economic growth."
• Bumper Music: Come On In, Brad Paisley (video).
• Bumper Music: Piggies, George Harrison, Beatles (video).
• Guest: Simulcast with radio host, author and documentary film maker Alex Jones, infowars.com, Prison Planet. His new DVD "The Obama Deception". Obama is not quite what people voted for, for example moving prisoners to Bagram. Thom said the conspiracy is out in the open, not secret. The Federalist society right wing took over the courts. Dick Armey, Freedom Watch pushing tea parties. The parties are not serving people, Thom says infiltrate them, buying media too expensive. "Screwed". Activists who showed up. Army checkpoints, the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878, the John Warner National Defense Authorization Act in 2006. The Constitution is being eviscerated.

  Global warming is a hoax. Bush, Americom. He says it is all expanding under Obama, people knew Bush was disingenuous, seedy. Obama is charismatic. Military training. Faith-based initiatives. Why Thom is glad to pay tax. Both agreed a lot goes to corporate welfare. Ron Paul tea parties. Alex visited Willie Nelson, and Willie had Thom's show on. Population conspiracies. 1944 - 1949 British Royal Commission Report said stop birth control in the third world so they will use up their resources and die. Taxes are rent on infrastructure. Alex says they do not go to infrastructure. In 1955 the top 400 paid 3 times as much as today. Statistics. Have copies of Alex's DVD to hand out at tea parties.

  Thom said go a tea party and take his piece about the original Boston Tea Party, "The Real Boston Tea Party was an Anti-Corporate Revolt", or populist signs. Chemtrails being ignored. Get corporations out of big government. Santa Clara County vs. Southern Pacific Railroad, 1886 - corporate personhood. "Unequal Protection". Where is Rush on the bailout? Thom disagrees strongly without about one third of Alex's DVD.

• Guests: “Everything You Know is Wrong” Members of the Firesign Theater: Phil Austin, Peter Bergman, David Ossman, Phil Proctor. Box of Danger: The Complete Nick Danger Casebook, and what it what it means to move “Forward Into the Past”. They answered as several of their characters. Live performance April 24, 2009 In Monterey.
• Article: As Fox Host Denies Tea Parties Are 'A Right-Wing Conspiracy,' Fox Chyron Touts AmericanSolutions.Com.
• Article: DC Tea Party Protesters Agree: 'Chairman Maobama' Is Leading The Country On A Path To Socialism.
• Socialist Police. Fire departments. Posse Comitatus. National Guard.
• Bumper Music: Crazy, Gnarls Barkley.
• Article: Cash stash in bra stops bullet from piercing heart.
• Limbaugh's contract is for $400 million, Hannity's for $200 million. How did Rupert Murdoch get so much power? Fox News lost $100 million a year for the first five years.
• National Guard were not trained with ammunition. Kent State. Still questions not answered.
• Obama saying banks providing a 8x multiplier. But the banks are sitting on it. A paradox, which is why they blew up the mark to market accounting rules. Banks are being subject to so-called liquidity tests or stress tests where they have to prove they have enough assets to be viable, so they have to hoard cash, yet we are told we are giving them lots of money so they can pass it out. You can't do both at the same time. AIG profit. They are not talking about the fundamentals. Obama mentioned demand yesterday, but by making more money available. The way is to raise wages. "Screwed".
• "Labour, therefore, is the real measure of the exchangeable value of all commodities." Adam Smith. Turning wood into an axe handle.
• Bumper Music: Talkin' Bout A Revolution, Tracy Chapman.
• Article: Consumer Prices Decline On Lower Education Costs.
• Ellen Ratner of Talk Radio News. Consumer price index decreased, first since 1955. Fed elections said Oprah Winfrey inviting Obama was not a donation. United States Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano about the document about right wing extremism, struck a nerve because she was involved in Tim McVeigh case, not focusing on one group, American legion. Taxpayers, offshore accounts. President spoke about tax cuts. Tomorrow he is going to Mexico, will unveil his speed rail plans - the US does not have any.