Scott Brown doing his best impression of an intellectual dining room table on 31 January 2010 on Barbara Walters:
Federal employees are making twice as much as their private counterparts.
Reality-based Fail, according to non-partisan fact-checker Politifact. Brown was apparently relying on a Cato “Institute” “study” that asserted that “the average wage for 1.9 million federal civilian workers was $79,197, compared to $50,028 for the nation’s 108 million private-sector workers.” He cited the same study on 4 January. (Cato, conveniently, left out all of the federal government’s military employees, because they don’t support its argument, but we can use its made up numbers for purposes of discussion at least).
First problem: $79,197 is not twice as much as $50,028. Get used to more of this Republican Math as Charlie Baker starts to power up his own effort to conga line along after Brown.
Second problem: the 1.9 million federal jobs are not the same as the 108 million private sector jobs. Politifact:
Finally, we found it’s a mixed bag when comparing individual private and public sector occupations — the “private counterparts” he spoke of. Some public jobs pay more, some pay less. And the public ones that pay more are not consistently double as he claimed.So he’s wrong to say it’s double and wrong to suggest that it’s always the case when comparing specific jobs. We rate his claim False.
Scott Brown thinks that two times 50 equals 80. No wonder he also thinks that voting 96 percent of the time with the Republicans means he’s independent, limiting women’s freedom to choose means he is pro-choice, torture is a good way to get reliable information, and being elected by about the same number of Massachusetts voters who cast ballots for John McCain in 2008 constitutes an enormous popular mandate.
Discuss
46 Comments . Comments are closed.I have the feeling
that Brown will be the gift that keeps on giving.
2012 will be a much different electorate than in the special election, even with the elevated turnout last month. Brown hasn't given much of an indication that he understands that as of yet, which will be great resource for Democratic ads right around the summer of '12.
I'm not so sure about that
He is a very stealthy and cagey politician who pulled one over on millions of Massachusetts residents in an impressively Machiavellian way -- far more impressive, let it be noted, than his soul sister Sarah Palin, who bungled her election.
His goal is personal power and all the spoils that go with it, and pushing through an extremely radical agenda, I suspect. He'll fight like crazy to keep what he has got. I don't think anyone should underestimate him.
I'm not convinced...
... that "pushing through an extremely radical agenda" is actually his goal so much as a means to an end. The tightrope walk is finding a way to ride the base but in a way that doesn't compromise oneself in the eyes of the party old guard. He's been good at walking it so far, but it's early yet. The scary thought is that he might be self-aware enough to know that he's walking it.
Smart way to think about him.
Have you contacted his office to ask for clarification on your diary? That sounds like a reasonable idea? Maybe he could explain it.
Are you still venting?
Or do you really hope that your "Senator Teabagger" label catches on? If the latter, I think that one might backfire on you.
I agree
Calling him a teabagger is approximately like calling him a faggot.
You are better than this, Bob.
Unbelievable.
Yeah, right, calling him by the nickname his own supporters had initially thought was cute is now tantamount to hate speech. Again, the vast majority--if not all of you--seem to dwell in JohnD's Land Where All Things Are Equal.
And you guys wonder why you're treated with such disdain at times on this site.
I'd suggest that you are "better than this," but I have to say I've seen no evidence of it.
Who are you
to tell me how I'm supposed to feel when hate speech is directed at me?
It's not hate speech
It's the equivalent of me claiming that
JoeTS is a doodey head.
It's petty name calling. It's on par with the GOP referring to the "Democrat Party". It's simply not hate speech to make a play on words to refer to a bit of food which is also a sideways reference to a body part. It just ain't hate speech, even if it irritates you.
I am not a doodey head!
Probably not, but you do
appear to be rather misguided and ignorant about your, um, "movement."
Hate speech directed at you?
You apparently need to look up the meaning of the term "hate speech."
Your outrage likely makes you feel righteous and all of that, but given that your own party initially chose to employ the teabag as a symbol of its purpose, you look pretty silly decrying it now as hate speech. That your comrades were not savvy enough to foresee the implications is a serious marketing problem for you folks, that's true, but it's not hate speech. Now that you're stuck with the moniker that you yourselves symbolically suggested, I would recommend that you folks figure out a way to either deal with it or change the name of your "party." As snarky humor, however, the term is pure gold and don't look for liberals to give it up any time soon.
There's no aggrieved whining
like wingnut whining.
Being a victim is part of the religion.
It's not just that
they chose the teabag as a symbol; the use of teabag as a verb first appeared on Fox news as "teabag the White House" last March. You know - Fox News, the creators of the whole Tea Party phenomenon. If there's an action - teabagging - there must be an actor - a teabagger. If you don't like having the term applied to you, the best response would seem to be disassociating yourself from those to whom it applies.
hate speech directed at you?
Here's a picture of Dale Roberston, "President and Founder of the Tea Party" and owner/operator of teaparty.org
"Funny" that you're all up in arms about "tea bagger" but are a proud member of an organization whose founder uses the word "niggar."
and can't even spell it!
For the Record
I've only heard this nickname applied to Scott Brown here, which is why I mentioned it. Most political activists know what the term means at this point - so I really doubt that any Brown supporters call him a "teabagger."
And I do think it's a slur. If you had to explain to MA voters what it meant, I think it would be taken as a bit more ugly than childish name calling.
You must be new.
We've been talking about teabaggers for quite some time, long before anyone outside of Wrentham knew much about Scott Brown.
you're wrong
The nickname was invented by leftists and spread by your idiots on MSNBC and the left blogosphere, and it refers to.. well, if you don't know by now then you'll never know.
"his own supporters initially thought was cute" -- ridiculous
this may help
No, you are wrong.
Your facts are simply incorrect. Back in February of 2009, the now-defunct website "ReTeaparty.com," which was tea
baggerpartier central back then, launched the move to mail tea bags to the White house with this post (hurray for Google cache!):Get it? "Tea Bag the fools" in D.C.? They started it. It totally backfired, but they started it. That's why it's funny.
Another example
of early teabaggers unwittingly ridiculing themselves.
Wow. You don't even know the roots
of your own political "organization."
Were it not outweighed by the pure entertainment value of this exchange, your ignorance would be rather pathetic and sad. Instead, it's just funny.
Yea sure iris
You guys point to something that says "send a tea bag" and one sign from one person that uses "tea bag" as a verb, and all of the sudden this is the "roots" of "my" movement?
You have nothing - not even one nutcase - calling themselves a "teabagger" but yet that was invented by the movement? No, that slur was invented by you and your ilk.
Now, you're anti war right? Let me show you the roots of your movement:
http://www.zombietime.com/hall...
Take a good long look. What, are you so ignorant that you don't know the roots of your own movement?
Could you be any more facile?
On the other hand, I welcome you and all liberals to keep calling people tea baggers and keep pushing for your socialist paradise, your ever increasing government that can fix all of our ills. And watch you get wiped out of the majorities this fall. I really can't wait.
Well, your decision to avoid history is not surprising.
I'm entirely positive not a single member of your group will call themselves a teabagger. That's irrelevant, however. They chose the symbol, they chose the phrasing, and as has been pointed out to you, it's only one tiny step until there's an actual "er" on the end of the person using the teabag.
Grow a thicker skin and take this advice: co-opt the word. It's been done in the past successfully. Learn from history. Stop whining. Man up! ;)
$quot;You are better than this, Bob.$quot;
But you, obviously, are not. A schoolyard taunt is "approximately like" a hateful slur against someone's sexual orientation? No. It's not. Full stop.
As with many comments like yours, I thought about deleting it. But I'm leaving it up to show just how embarrassingly idiotic it is.
He's our Colmes, David
Leave his posts. They really are very amusing.
Why delete his post?
Because you disagree with him?
Respectfully, I think you guys are clueless about how you sound here. I'm all for calling a "Teabagger" when I see one (to paraphrase Chris Rock: There's Tea Party activists... and then there's Teabaggers). But much as you dislike Scott Brown, this is over the line and offensive. It's quite different from a racial or homophobic slur, but it is being used as a political slur in this case.
And when you say "they call themselves that", you only sound like those racists who aren't even allowed on talk radio. No one in this campaign actually called themselves or Scott Brown a "teabagger" except you guys.
I'm not a Scott Brown fan and if you guys were poking at him in a clever or funny way (which does sometimes happen here!), I'd be laughing right along with you. But this is just vitriol.
so you think this diary is offensive...
...but "faggot" is not?
Interesting.
Huh?
I said nothing of the sort. Of course "faggot" is a slur. To be more specific, I think racist and anti-gay language is significantly worse than what we're talking about here.
Still, when you use a foul word to describe a whole group of people, I'd say that qualifies the term as a slur. And to then apply that term to a US Senator is an act of political stupidity.
What's the slur? Teabagger?
Are you for real? Did you even read the rest of this thread? The teabaggers themselves chose the symbol, and they will henceforth be known by the symbol they've chosen. Unfortunately for them, however, they own the gaffe, "foul word" and all. Sheesh.
I did read it..
And if you really think this is what Tea Party activists call themselves, then you are just misinformed. Besides, as I said, there are Teabaggers out there - but Scott Brown's not one of them.
You are missing the point.
To the extent that no one in the "party" calls themselves a teabagger, that distinction isn't terribly valuable. You assiduously refuse to acknowledge the complicity of the teabaggers in crafting their own identity, albeit inadvertently. Why is that?
I don't really care about Scott Brown, candidly. He used the teabaggers when it was convenient for him, but now that he senses they may be a liability, he's trying to distance himself from them. Well, sorry. He owes his election to these people, so it's only natural that he should be forever associated with them. He doesn't get to rewrite history, despite his willingness to play fast and loose with the facts.
None of that
changes the fact that the term is an insult.
And I don't think anybody is
claiming it isn't. What is question is whether or not he in some way a) deserves it or b) earned it.
well, that's what the editors found offensive
David is explicitly talking about deleting this comment from demolisher
As is so often the case here, it's not the politics, it's the presentation.
To echo lightiris: did you even read the rest of the thread?
It is what it is.
As with all things, this forum may not be your cup of tea, but the place is what it is. If you find the tone or the rhetoric "offensive," perhaps your sensibilities are a tad too delicate for this place. Just sayin'.
Say what you want
But I'll return to my original question: Do you really hope that your "Senator Teabagger" label catches on? I'm only pointing out that the reality-based community is missing how offensive this would be to the wider Massachusetts community. Use at your own risk.
I don't care about whether the Senator Teabagger
label catches on. Why on earth would I care about that? People on a liberal/progressive blog are as apt to behave as boorishly from time to time as their conservative counterparts. So what? and the wider Massachusetts community is not the issue here at all. You make it sound like millions of people look to BMG as their political compass, sort of "as goes BMG, so goes the Commonwealth." Hardly.
I say it again: political rhetoric on partisan sites can be brutal. That's life on the internet tubes.
You might care because...
Scott Brown would use it to his advantage. At the very least, he could use it to whip up his Tea Party base (which, otherwise, I think will be become disappointed in him and just lose interest).
To his advantage?
Okay. That's a good challenge. He should go for it. I won't lose any sleep over it, though.
you'd prefer $quot;Senator Victory Lap$quot; or $quot;Senator Photo Shot?$quot;
It's "fun" to hear the party who coughed up "Cadillac Deval" whining about petty name calling.
It makes you seem, well... never mind.
I bet
you'll think of something good :)
One more thing...
that's not my party. I'm not a Scott Brown guy, I'm just trying to bring "reality" back to your community. :)
delete it then
wimp.
What a bunch of sore losers.
You put up a horseshit candidate and you lose the race. Who's to blame but yourselves?
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