https://www.democraticunderground.com/100210006538Wed Dec 20, 2017, 01:06 PM
EricMaundry (908 posts)
Is It "Heads On A Stick" Time For Faithless California Republican Congressmembers?
You might recall that not too long ago KFI AM Radio talk show hosts John and Ken had come up with a radical solution for the problem of sitting Republican politicians who vote to raise your taxes. Especially when those pols had run for office as opponents of doing just that very thing.
What John and Ken proposed to their vast mob of angry listeners is that they should place the freshly severed heads of these faithless pols "on a stick." It was a ratings hit and brought KFI lots of listeners. Here is how all of this was explained in a 2011 article titled "John and Ken spread fear and loathing in Capitol" that ran in the San Francisco Chronicle:
Niceties and nuance are nowhere to be found in John and Ken's four-hour cauldron of drive-time rage. The kings of Los Angeles talk radio have an unapologetically binary view of the world.
Taxes = bad. Illegal immigration = bad.
Anyone who disagrees with them, especially a politician within their sphere of Southern California influence, is spared no mercy. They name names, and they call names. "Whoremasters," "teacher goons, "union thugs," "bastards," "business slobs," "morons," "crafty, stinky politicians," "bozos," "rapacious prison guards" and "greasy journalists" were just a few of the names KFI's John Kobylt and Ken Chiampou used in the past week to describe those who have drawn their ire.
The worst offenders, the Republican "weenies" who have dared to even talk with Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown about a budget solution that might include an extension of temporary tax increases beyond July, are featured with their severed heads on a stick (along with phone numbers) on John and Ken's KFI website.
That's AM Talk Radio for you. You either love it or you hate it.
How is this whole "heads in a stick" shtick working now? Especially when you consider that practically every sitting California Republican Congress creature cast a vote yesterday to raise middle class taxes in California? You know they did that, right? Here is how New York Magazine describes all this rhythm:
As the details of the House version of the long-awaited Trump tax bill roll out, all sorts of putative “winners” and “losers” are being identified. Without question, some of the biggest losers will be the New Yorkers and Californians who would no longer be able to deduct interest on high-end mortgages, or deduct their state and local sales and income taxes.
The draft bill halves the cap on the mortgage interest deduction. Now the deduction will be limited to interest on the first $500,000 of a mortgage, as opposed to the current $1 million cap. And it entirely eliminates all but the property-tax portion of the state and local tax deduction.
So who are these unhappy Republican Congresscritters who voted yesterday to raise the taxes of their own constituents, people who this tax legislation singled out for such unkind treatment?
The roll call of shame reads as follows:
Doug LaMalfa - Yes
Tom McClintock - No
Paul Cook - Yes
Jeffrey Denham - Yes (R-Turlock)
David Valadao - Yes (R-Hanford)
Devin Nunes - Yes
Kevin McCarthy - Yes
Steve Knight - Yes (R-Palmdale)
Edward Royce - Yes (R-Fullerton)
Ken Calvert - Yes
Mimi Walters - Yes (R-Irvine)
Dana Rohrabacher - No (R-Costa Mesa)
Darrell Issa - No (R-Vista)
Duncan Hunter - Yes
As you can see, only 3 out of the 14 California House Republicans went against Trump on this unfair tax bill, with the rest slavishly voting yes.
Recent polls showed that only 20% of Californians said they thought this $1.5-trillion tax cut plan would have a positive effect on their lives. And getting their taxes raised while Trump's billionaire golf buddies will get to save millions? Not what I'd care to call a positive effect.
So is it "heads on a stick" time for these 11 faithless Republican Congressional tax betrayers? Those who stuck it to their very own people so that others living elsewhere can pocket millions?
I vote yes.
http://sierramadretattler.blogspot.com/2017/12/is-it-heads-on-stick-time-for-faithless.html
Hey, Eric. If the people of CA don't like it do you know how they can fix it? They don't need the rest of us to help them. You seem to have a problem with other people "pocketing millions", yet you have no problem with the people of CA who have been doing that for YEARS off the backs of the rest of the nation through our subsidies to your people.
Here's what you need to do; FIRE your politicians. All of them. Then you start over with some people who can look at a budget and understand what a number means when it looks like this <$1,758,459,975.00> Once you do that you're people will have a tax cut just like the rest of us who live within our means as a state. Yeah, it's not pretty sometimes. Sometimes you have to drive the 1970 hooptie for a few years and eat Ramen Noodles for a while, but it's possible to live within your means. Then you get to upgrade the hooptie a little and start buying some hamburger from time to time.
YOUR tax increase is not OUR fault. It is the state of CA that is screwing you. Once you figure that out, the rest is up to you and your California buddies.
Good luck.
KC
