The Obama Timeline

Complaints against Anderson Cooper, CNN, and MSNBC are filed with the Federal Communications Commission for their on-air vulgarity and violation of broadcast standards. [2538]

Reporter Roesgen also confronts a protestor who is equating Obama with fascism, asking him “Why do you say he’s a fascist? He’s the President of the United States. Do you realize how offensive that is?” In a 2006 report covering New Orleans residents who demanded even more federal assistance after hurricane Katrina, Roesgen noted someone with a George W. Bush mask that made him look like a combination of Hitler and the devil. She remarked that “…while a look-alike showed up with a wad of (phony) cash, Mr. Bush did not.” Roesgen did not suggest the Bush/Hitler/devil costume was offensive. [2457]

At a tax protest rally in Austin, Texas several in the crowd yell “Secede!” while Governor Rick Perry speaks. When reporters later ask Perry about secession, he responds, “There’s [sic] a lot of different scenarios. We’ve got a great union. There’s absolutely no reason to dissolve it. But if Washington continues to thumb their nose at the American people… who knows what might come out of that. But Texas is a very unique place, and we’re a pretty independent lot to boot.” One protestor says the forced resignation of General Motors CEO Rick Wagoner was what pushed her over the edge. “When a president can fire the head of a company, that’s too much.” One protester in Florida, who was attending her first political rally, states, “I have never in my entire life demonstrated, and I’m in my mid-sixties,” and complains that legislators are “signing these bills giving out money. They haven’t even read them.” Another says that Obama has no “…knowledge of running businesses to appreciate what it’s like to be able to pay your taxes, pay your employees, pay all your bills,” and “He thinks that he’s got an endless pot of money that he can continue to spend, and he’s mistaken. He does not. People are just at the tipping point right now, and if they don’t change their ways in Washington, people are going to stop… maybe they just stop paying taxes. If everyone stopped paying their taxes, I think that would really impact what’s going on.” [2357, 2378]

Despite media criticism of Perry’s comment and its ridicule of even the thought of secession, Obama’s favorite president, Abraham Lincoln, famously stated, “Any people anywhere… have the right to rise up and shake off the existing government and to form one that suits them better.” In his first inaugural, address Lincoln said revolution is justified “…if a majority deprives a minority of a clearly written constitutional right.”

In Chicago and its suburbs, thousands of protesters demonstrate at several locations. Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky (D-IL) says the tea parties are “despicable” and a “shameful political stunt.” In contrast, Illinois State Representative Darlene Senger (R-Naperville) blasts Governor Pat Quinn’s proposal to increase the Illinois state income tax by a whopping 50 per cent. “How many of you have had an increase of 50 per cent in revenue this year?” Senger asks. (Quinn’s increase would not be limited to those earning $250,000 or more.) [2382]

The mainstream media reluctantly covers the tax protests, but does its best to discredit the demonstrators, ridicule them, and call them angry, ill-informed, extremists. ABC’s Dan Harris charges that the tax protests are “…not a real grassroots phenomenon at all, that it’s actually largely orchestrated by people fronting for corporate interests,” but he offers no evidence. (Nor is there any mention that typical left-wing protests are funded by liberal political action groups, like ACORN and MoveOn.org, and boost attendance by unions pushing members to attend.) Dean Reynolds of CBS is eager to point out that a recent Gallup poll shows “61 per cent of Americans see their federal income taxes as fair,” but neglects to mention that the tens of millions who pay no income taxes at all would obviously consider the situation “fair.” (A proper poll would only count people who actually pay income taxes. A 2006 Tax Foundation study estimated that 121 million Americans pay no federal income taxes, with many of them not even filing tax returns; those 121 million no doubt consider the arrangement “fair.”) The media reports focus primarily on the issue of taxes, ignoring the fact that most of the protesters are more angry about the government’s massive deficit spending that will add trillions to the national debt. More tax protests are scheduled for May 30 and July 4. [2359, 2360, 2365]

Many reporters and commentators are clearly confounded by the demonstrators—possibly because their experience with past protests leaves it unprepared for throngs of friendly, polite, and fully clothed people who shaved and showered before arriving. Looking for a way to discredit the protesters, the media attempts to portray them as racists opposed to a “progressive” black president, but fails to note that big-spending Republicans did not escape the wrath of the demonstrators. Columnist Michelle Malkin points out “…a crowd of 2,000 repeatedly booed GOP Senators Orrin Hatch and Bob Bennett, who both supported the $700 billion TARP bailout, and protested GOP Governor Jon Huntsman’s decision to accept $1.6 billion in porky stimulus funds.” Malkin notes that California Republican party chairman Ron Nehring and Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger got their share of boos and catcalls, and in Greenville, South Carolina Republican Congressman Gresham Barrett was “practically booed and heckled off the stage at a Tea Party… for supporting the trillion-dollar TARP and embracing the pork-laden stimulus law.” Liberal Republicans who have fallen for the global warming line were also less than favorites with the crowds, which consisted mostly of people fed up with high taxes and wasteful government spending by legislators—regardless of their party affiliation. [2407, 2470]