Doonesbury by Garry Trudeau for January 05, 2011

I believe Mike is on the Right…

It’s a mystery she took to her grave, Clark …

Now THAT was a funny one… perfect, GT!

I don’t recall Mike as being too overtly political in either direction, although he and Kim met at a rally for Steve Forbes’ presidential campaign.

Mike has been a conservative for years, though not rabid. Certainly less so than B.D. Kim, I believe, is more liberal.

My company closed my office and downsized me 6 months ago. Where do I go to sign on as one of Clark’s “raging pawns of the überrich”?

Baslim, Ravenswing: you make it sound as if there’s something inconsistent about not wanting to pay taxes and grabbing every available penny of government handouts. Sounds perfectly consistent to me: “mine! mine! MINE!!”

Clark: wasn’t the phrase “leftist liberal” originated by the Department of Redundancy Department?

Balim & Ravenswing,,,,,,,, Sounds exactly like my father-in-law, May he rest in peace.

For the record, Mike started out as a flaming liberal and moved right during the early 90s.

I’m not a right wing nut Nazi and you are not a lunatic liberal commie. It was nice to see Congress make a small effort at compromising and moving toward the center. Call me a right leaning moderate and I might respond by saying you are slightly to the left of central. Let’s work together and give everyone a tax break. In the Corps, it didn’t matter if the man in the firefight in Vietnam of the bar fight in Norfolk was right, left, black, white, Democrat. or Republican, He was a Marine and we wold get out of our trouble together. Some Esprits de Corps is needed among us AMERICANS.

Lew, you’re absolutely right. As long as they agree with me. (wink)

right on, lew

Just so long as he wasn’t Army, right, Lew? ;-)

Mike’s touching on the fact the heated-up rage kills you.

TPers are dedicated to splitting the country and splitting thevote and living like it 1959. Only TV 1959, not the real one. We’ve had a couple generations now who have had TV for their baby sitter and think what they saw there in their youth is real. A young model marries a way older Brady. 60’s folks look for Robert Young to vote for.

we make a half-baked Western actor President then don’t even look at his real record of disaster.

Any kid will do anything to get on a TV show, including having rampant sex so the media can tape it and say it’;s a great idea. It’s hard to say those facts and not SOUND outraged even though I merely look at it as something we’ve blithely fallen into while our lives were going on.

GT put mom in the tea party as a way for him to stereotype tea partiers as ignorant & selfish oldster hicks. He continues to twist that knife even after she’s dead, as illustrated in Monday’s and today’s strip. With the new tea-party supported Congress taking office today, methinks that strategy hasn’t worked very well.

Ravenswing, having been forced to pay into Social Security and Medicare all my life, you bet that I’m going to demand full benefit from them (if there’s any benefits left to demand). But as you know, the point is not being legally able to opt out of the government’s poor return monopoly. Had I been able to put away all my and my employers SS payments into a conservative (sic) investment all these years, I’d be a millionaire by now, instead of hoping that the government’s Madoff-ish ponzi scheme will not have collapsed at the time I’m going to need it most.

OK, children. It’s time to stop using the term “tea-baggers”. It was funny once. Now it’s just a stupid excuse to use a pseudo-obscenity online.

hancel, I have no issue with mandatory retirement savings. I do have an issue with entrusting those savings to the care of the government, which has demonstrated that, regardless of party, it will not act responsibly with them but will piss them away for personal political gain.

It doesn’t matter if the Tea Party goes away or not. What does matter is that our political representatives of both parties begin to understand that they will be held accountible for reckless spending and reckless taxes on all levels. The people who pay Federal income taxes (now less than 50% of the population) simply won’t take that any more.

That should not take a popular uprising to send the message, but if that uprising is needed again, the politiicans now all know that it will indeed happen. If you believe that the people will allow Congress to go back to its irresponsible spending pattern under either party, then you are mistaken.

WaitingMan, you are correct. It is a vulgarity.

Well said Lewreader. Semper Fi!

“Where do I go to sign on as one of Clark’s “raging pawns of the überrich”?”

Try a Tea party rally.

How many of you complainers have ever been to a Taxed Enough Already (TEA) Party meeting? Do you even know what that loosely-combined group believes in, or are you just aping what you hear on MSNBC? Do a little true research, and attend a TEA meeting before you start hurling insults.

Mom’s dead and you’re talking politics. How very sad.

Mike’s socially liberal, but fiscally conservative. He votes his pocketbook and, since he’s clearly one of the “haves”, that leans him towards the Republicans. I don’t know that he identifies himself as a Republican, though; he may consider himself “independent.”

All politics aside, did you notice that both guys are straightening their hair between panels?

My mom is 98, on Medicare and Medicaid, has always been so “right wing” she things McConnell and Boehner are still just “commies”. Perfect “Tea Partier”. (Which, until they found out the “other meaning”- MANY of them were calling THEMSELVES “teabaggers”- so “waiting” and others upset should “get over it”.)

May the dead RIP, well until their karma catches up.

dtroutma,

Seems like your mom is just trying to get her money’s worth, which is all that the Tea Partiers are looking for. She deserves to take the benefits that she was forced to pay for.

There are many slurs that mean different things when applied as an insult by people outside the group. Try yelling the “N—r” word out the train window at 125th St. in Harlem, or the “F—-t” word during a Gay Pride parade and see what happens. The folks who used to call themselves “t—-rs” were too innocent to look it up in the Urban Dictionary, but you do know better.

I don’t understand the “Mom thinks Boehner is a commie” comment, but what do I know.

Doug Dash asked: “How many of you complainers have ever been to a Taxed Enough Already (TEA) Party meeting?”

First, under no circumstances should they be called “tea party”. It implies that they have something in common with the Sons of Liberty when they are the exact opposite. I call them baggies because of all the baggage they carry. They espouse the same beliefs as the Tories who fought against the revolution.

Second, I would not go to a baggie gathering. Here is how it would play out. A baggie would say something stupid, I would respond with something logically correct, they would attack me, I would defend myself, they would die, I would have to go to court to justify beating them to death with their firearm. Who needs the expense?

Third, what I know about that group is based on 1) what people who I actually know who claim they are baggies TELL me they believe, 2) what is typically espoused on line by people who claim they are baggies. All of that is fairly uniform stuff and generally follows from their COMPLETE lack of education in logic, econ, science, poly sci, history, statistics, and just about everything above the 2nd grade level.

Fourth, I follow the money. It is EXTREMELY easy to see where the propaganda is coming from , who pays to have that propaganda CREATED, and the motives behind every little piece of the propaganda created.

Fifth, there is absolutely NOTHING loosely knit about baggies. They are as homogeneous as it is possible to be. That is why they will rip each other to shreds. Even the slightest deviation from dictated world view will cause fracture.

frizoid, not everyone who doesn’t listen to Howard Stern is “out of touch”, but I really don’t think they had any idea that hateful people would make that kind of association and that national networks such as MSNBC would propagate its usage as a vulgar slur. You are correct in that they should have known better at the time, but that has nothing to do with how it is being used now.

Besides, you never know what a word can mean. For example, Clark Kent posts in this forum, but do think he actually knows what getting a “Superman” means? I would never accuse Clark of being naive or out of touch.

misterwhite, the more that you rave about how much you know about Tea Partiers, the more you prove how little you actually do. Quit while you’re behind.

Well, since they’re so committed to combatting the Democrat agenda, maybe they could call themselves the Donkey-Punchers. Nothing objectionable about THAT.

You have SOME choice in the matter. You can choose to go EARLY.

The money’s gotta come from somewhere. You want the farm subsidies & Medicare, you pay the taxes. Garry wasn’t as blunt when she went to Teacaucus, so he killed her to get it said.

By the way, Nemesys, I’ve never listened to or watched a Howard Stern broadcast in my life (I used to see him as a periodic guest on Letterman, though). But surely SOMEONE at Fox News, when they decided to use teabags as a symbol, would have had some familiarity with the connotations, or should have at least thought to research it. What, they don’t have Google?

If some Madison Avenue copywriter talked a client into adopting this sort of trademark with this little research, and was hit by this much ridicule for a marketing campaign, he’d be out on the sidewalk so fast his head would spin.

gee1a, The Tea Party Hates marxist pimps!!!

A Marxist Pimp would be a contradiction in terms. Under Marxism, prostitutes would control their own…umm…means of production.

“contradiction in terms” is redundant. Nah nah na nah nah.

Nix the tax cuts for the überrich and fund a globally-competitive level of education for every American citizen.

!@#$% bunch of idiots.

The fifth day of the new decade, and still no homicides or bickering. Way to go people!

Only need to wait a couple more days – homicide (assassination) attempt in Arizona – no real surprise.