Randi Rhodes: The Occupation & Bleeding the Poor

It's Friday, ya bastids!

The cleanup scheduled by the corporation that owns the plaza the protestors have been staying in has been postponed. Hey, everybody knows that you can’t rely on corporations to clean up Wall Street. Officials said that they feared that overflowing trash cans would attract rats. Don’t worry—most of the vermin in the area are in the nearby office buildings... working for hedge fund companies.

Conservatives spread the lie that 47 percent of Americans pay no taxes. Hello! There is no way that 47 percent of Americans are billionaires. The people who pay little or no federal income tax do so because they have little or no income. Here’s another shocker—people who don’t own property, pay no property tax. A full 17 percent of those who pay no federal income tax are seniors on Social Security. Now I know that conservatives don’t think that Social Security should be taxed—no, they think Social Security should be eliminated. It seems that conservatives think that we should raise revenue by taxing people who don’t have anything. There’s a pretty obvious flaw in that plan. You might as well run a blood drive to collect blood from turnips. If conservatives don’t like the fact that many people with low incomes don’t pay federal income tax, maybe they should look for ways to get higher incomes for them.

Conservatives like to say that regulations kill jobs—an interesting theory, given that a complete lack of regulation led to the current recession. Regulations don’t kill jobs any more than rules kill the game of football. The thing that’s causing job loss is the lack of consumer demand. And consumer demand will not go up if industries are de-regulated. I don’t think there is a big demand for things like uninspected beef or toothpaste laced with lead.

There is yet another Republican debate next week. I say we should just skip it—not even acknowledge that it’s happening… kind of like what Rick Perry did during the last debate. Perry’s wife, Anita, said her husband had a “rough month.” You know what they say—if you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen. And if you are really, really stupid, by all means, stay away from the stove.

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Elizabeth Warren continues introducing herself to the people of Massachusetts...